■THAILAND
Officials seize ivory
Customs officials seized more than 2 tonnes of ivory being stored at Bangkok’s main international airport en route from Dubai to Laos, a customs department statement said on Thursday. The officials, acting on a tip-off, searched a transit cargo warehouse at Suvarnabhumi airport on Wednesday evening and found 239 African elephant tusks, the statement said. The haul was valued at 120 million baht (US$3.6 million), it said. The shipment flown on an Emirates flight from Dubai had been declared as telecommunications equipment. Thailand is a commonly used transit point for the illegal trafficking of animal parts, with African ivory often bound for China.
■UZBEKISTAN
AIDS activist jailed
An AIDS activist has been sentenced to seven years in prison for writing a brochure that authorities said would promote antisocial behavior, activists said on Thursday. Maxim Popov was convicted last September, his colleagues said, but his case only came to light this week after US-based watchdog Human Rights Watch asked local activists to investigate his situation. “Maxim Popov was convicted for writing a brochure which was funded by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS and UNICEF as an effort by international donor organizations to raise awareness about the disease in the country,” an AIDS activist who worked with Popov said. Prosecutors argued that the brochure, which called for the use of condoms during sex and sterile needles when injecting drugs, was promoting immoral behavior.
■BANGLADESH
Factory fire kills 21
A fire raced through a sweater factory near Dhaka overnight, killing at least 21 people and injuring dozens more, police said yesterday. All the victims died of suffocation while being treated in hospitals or on the way there, after they were pulled from the Garib & Garib Sweater Factory in Gazipur, a police spokesman said.
■CHINA
Call for humane slaughter
A city in Henan Province is advocating a more humane way of killing pigs to improve the taste of the pork, ordering they get up to a day of rest and relaxation before they go to the slaughterhouse. “After long-distance transport, the rest can help pigs get rid of tiredness,” an official at the commerce commission in Zhengzhou said on Thursday. “The rest will ensure the pork has the best taste and will prevent water-logged pork entering the market,” said the official, who refused to be named. A report in the Shanghai Daily said officials have suggested slaughterhouse employees play music to the pigs and pat them to help them relax before they are killed.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Tale of debauchery revealed
A tale of debauchery on a ship taking settlers to Australia in the 1830s has been revealed in a journal to be auctioned next month. The detailed account kept by James Bell, a junior officer on the Planter, reveals the ship’s captain shared his bed with two daughters of a preacher and that a gang of prostitutes also made the voyage. “Our Capt of course could not want a mistress till he returned to his own in England, but made love to 2 of McGowans daughters,” Bell wrote, in extracts released by Bonhams auction house. While not engaging in amorous conquests, the captain frequently clashed with other crew members in alcohol-fueled fights, the journal records. The volume, bought for a few pounds at a book stall, is expected to fetch up to £4,000 (US$6,200).
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