■Travel
Nudists fly in birthday suits
A travel agency in Texas is offering what it claims are the world's first-ever flights for nudists, the firm said Thursday. Castaway Travel in Houston is offering a round-trip flight to Cancun, Mexico, on a chartered, 170-seat Boeing 727 for US$499. The offer is being marketed as "Naked-Air." Passengers must remain clothed through security, boarding and takeoff but may disrobe when the plane reaches cruising altitude. Each nudist will receive a towel on board, said travel agency head James Bailey. "Nude etiquette always requests you take a towel -- you always have a towel between you and the seat," he told the Miami Herald. Flight and cabin crews will remain fully clothed. "We have no regulations pertaining to nudity on board an aircraft," said Federal Aviation Administration spokes-woman Kathleen Bergen. "It's not a safety issue." Castaway Travel has reserved an entire hotel in Cancun where nudists will have the run of the place for an entire week.
■ Online games
HK's youngsters addicted
More than one in seven Hong Kong youngsters are addicted to the Internet and play online computer games for up to 12 hours a day, a news report said yesterday. A study has found the territory with a population of 6.8 million has more than 400,000 online game players aged 10 to 29 who spend an average of 10 hours a week playing, the South China Morning Post reported. Of those, 14.7 percent -- more than one in seven -- are classified by a psychologist as being addicted to the Internet, spending more than four hours a day logged on. Some spend up to 12 hours a day playing online games. More than 1,000 people with an average age of 18 were interviewed for the survey by psychologist Andrew Tang for Hong Kong youth welfare group Breakthrough. Two computer-game addicts have dropped dead at their terminals in Hong Kong in the past year.
■ National debt
Argentina to defer on debt
Argentina and the IMF agreed on a plan enabling the country to defer payment on US$6.6 billion in debt coming due through August and safeguard its access to IMF aid. The short-term agreement also lets Argentina avoid falling further into arrears by restructuring US$4.4 billion in payments to the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. The refinancing of late and future debt payments will restore the availability of credit from those two government-backed lenders, Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna and Central Bank President Alfonso Prat-Gay said in a statement.
■ Online sales
UK's Christmas sales rose
British shoppers ordered goods worth UK Pound 949 million (US$1.53 billion) via the Internet in the three weeks before Christmas, an increase of 79 percent on the year-earlier period, the BBC reported, citing an Internet retailers' association. During the same period, spending at traditional retail outlets rose 4.9 percent, the BBC said, citing the British Retail Consortium. Internet trade accounted for 4 percent of Britain's total December retail sales, the BBC said, citing the Interactive Media in Retail Group. "The Internet really came of age this Christmas as a place to buy wines," Rowan Gormley, the chief executive officer of Virgin Wines, told the BBC. "We sold nearly 400,000 bottles of wine in December alone -- a bottle a second on some days."
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