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■ CHINA

Abducted children freed

Police freed nine boys ranging in age from two to eight after breaking up a family gang suspected of abducting children and selling them to couples in other parts of the country, state media reported on Thursday. The official Xinhua news agency said police in Henan Province's Nanyang city detained 10 suspects. Police found all of the children by late Wednesday. The family gang was used a 12-year-old boy to lure other children out of their parents' sight with toys or food. Eight of the nine children had been sold to families who wanted boys, while the other was awaiting a buyer.



■ CHINA

N Korea delay `natural'

Beijing, host of six-party talks aimed at reining in North Korea's nuclear program, on Thursday described North Korea's failure to meet a deadline to account for its nuclear activities as a natural delay. North Korea failed to meet a year-end deadline to make a full declaration of its nuclear programs under a disarmament-for-aid deal. "The pace is faster in some areas and slower in some areas. This is natural," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu (姜瑜) told a news conference. "We believe the comprehensive implementation of actions will open broader prospects for the six-party talks."



■ EAST TIMOR

Foreign nationals arrested

UN and domestic police have arrested 28 foreign nationals as part of investigations into illegal immigration and possible human trafficking, the UN mission said on Thursday. Officers raided bars in Dili on Wednesday, the mission said. At one place, eight females suspected of involvement in sex work were arrested "for identification purposes, in connection with investigations into illegal immigration and possible human trafficking," it said. At a second bar, 13 women and seven men, all foreign nationals, were arrested "for identification purposes related to investigations into the trafficking of women."



■ CAMBODIA

Dengue death toll hits high

The country suffered its worst ever outbreak of dengue fever last year, killing 407 people, mostly children. The death toll was the highest in nearly a decade. Dengue, which causes fever, headaches and muscle and joint pain, infected nearly 40,000 people since the first outbreaks last May, Ngan Chantha, director of the Health Ministry's anti-dengue program, said yesterday. "It is the worst number of infectious cases ever," he said. Thousands of sick children sought treatment last year, but there were not enough resources to treat everyone.



■ SOUTH AFRICA

Man eaten by lions

A man was killed and eaten by lions at the game lodge where he worked, police said on Thursday. Police Superintendent Lesego Metsi said Samuel Boosen died when he was attacked by lions at the Aloe Ridge Lodge in the North West Province on Tuesday. "The incident occurred at around 4:30pm when he -- together with two others -- went to the enclosure of about eight or nine lions. He went inside the enclosure and was eaten. Only his spine and skull remained," Metsi told the South African Press Association. Metsi said that Boosen, 36, had been working at the lodge for about four years.



■ CROATIA

Navy seizes Italian trawler

Croatia's navy seized an Italian trawler in Croatian territorial waters on Thursday, in the first such incident since Zagreb enforced a protected fishing zone in the Adriatic despite opposition from the EU."According to my information, a Croatian military ship caught an Italian trawler illegally present in [Croatia's] territorial waters. The trawler has been taken to a port on the [southern Adriatic] island of Vis for an investigation," a Transport and Maritime Ministry official said. Croatia said it created the zone to preserve fish stocks and limit pollution.



■ RUSSIA

Ship sinks in Black Sea

Four sailors died on Thursday and another six were feared lost at sea as a Bulgarian cargo ship carrying steel sank in a brutal storm off the south coast of Russia, an emergency services official said. A fifth seaman was rescued suffering from frostbite, but the search for the boat's remaining crew had to be suspended as night fell over a lethal Black Sea and temperatures hit minus 9oC. A spokeswoman for the emergency situations ministry said that fierce icy wind and waves had forced search helicopters to abandon efforts for the night near Novorossiysk.



■ FRANCE

Farmer on hunger strike

He helped wreck a McDonald's restaurant, campaigned for the French presidency and now is refusing food to protest genetically modified corn. Jose Bove, France's most famously militant farmer, and about 15 supporters launched a hunger strike to pressure the government to ban cultivation of genetically modified corn. "We will hold out for as long as it takes," the mustachioed sheep farmer, an unsuccessful presidential candidate last April, said on Thursday. Bove, 54, ate only vegetable soup for eight days before the fast to accustom his body to the lack of food, the newspaper Midi Libre reported. His protest is focused against MON810, the seed for the only type of genetically modified corn currently allowed in France.



■ UNITED KINGDOM

Dentists win Lacoste case

Two dentists have won a second legal battle with French fashion giant Lacoste over the right to use a toothy crocodile on the sign outside their surgery, the government trademark body said on Thursday. Dentists Simon Moore and Tim Rumney said they chose a crocodile for their logo because the reptile is famous for having a mouth full of teeth. But Lacoste argued that the dentists' sign was too similar to their own emblem, a green crocodile that adorns millions of polo shirts around the world. London's UK Intellectual Property Office said consumers were unlikely to confuse the dental practice and the clothing company.



■ UNITED STATES

FDA may allow cloned meat

The FDA is expected to declare as early as next week that meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring is safe to eat, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The FDA had previously asked producers of cloned livestock not to sell food products from such animals pending its ruling on their safety, the daily said on its Web site. The decision would come after more than six years of wrestling with the question and would be a milestone for a small cadre of biotech companies that want to make a business out of producing cloned farm animals.



■ HONDURAS

Foreign minister resigns

Foreign Minister Milton Jimenez resigned on Thursday after local TV aired a video that caught him punching police after he was arrested for drunk driving. Jimenez, a close aide of President Manuel Zelaya, was arrested on Dec. 30 and taken to a police station, where he ended up in a fist fight with police officers. A local TV channel broadcast the cellphone-taped video on Wednesday. "I made the mistake of driving while drunk," a black-eyed and heavily bruised Jimenez told a news conference on Thursday as he announced his resignation. Jimenez is the seventh cabinet member to quit since Zelaya took office in January 2006.



■ UNITED STATES

Space labs' launch delayed

Fixing what may be a design problem on the space shuttles will keep European and Japanese laboratory modules destined for the International Space Station grounded for weeks, NASA said on Thursday. NASA rescheduled its first flight of the year for no earlier than Jan. 24 but said a more realistic date for launching Europe's Columbus laboratory aboard the shuttle Atlantis will be around Feb. 2, John Shannon, the deputy shuttle program manager, told reporters on a conference call. The first part of Japan's Kibo complex would then fly on shuttle Endeavour about five weeks later. It originally was set for launch on Feb. 14, a date that is no longer possible. Launch attempts of Atlantis were postponed on Dec. 6 and Dec. 9 due to erratic sensor readings in the spacecraft's hydrogen fuel tank.



■ BRAZIL

Prison fire kills eight

A fire that ripped through a holding cell in a local prison killed eight inmates, local police said on Wednesday. The fire late on Tuesday at the small Rio Piracicaba prison in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais may have been caused by a candle or failed electrical wiring, authorities said. The inmates sought protection in a bathroom together but died apparently of smoke inhalation, police said.



■ NITED STATES

Doberman kills baby

An eight-month-old Brooklyn boy was mauled to death by his family's Doberman pinscher on Thursday as the boy played on the floor of his apartment, police said. The boy, Andrew Stein, was bitten on the head, New York City investigators said. It was unclear what -- if anything -- provoked the dog. In an interview, Andrew's grandmother said the baby had apparently touched the dog's paw, which may have led to the attack. Emergency Services personnel who responded to a 911 call for help from neighbors shot the dog with a tranquilizer dart and took him to a shelter operated by New York City Animal Care and Control. It had not yet been determined whether he would be euthanized.
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