World briefs

Swiss citizens are to vote in a referendum on a controversial proposal to automatically deport foreign criminals.

The right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) said yesterday it had gathered 210,770 signatures in favour of the proposal, the subject of a controversial poster campaign that showed three white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag, easily beating the 100,000 names needed for a national referendum.

The SVP initiative calls for the automatic deportation of foreigners who commit "intentional homicide, rape and other serious sexual crimes, violent crimes including robbery, human trafficking, drug trafficking or break-ins".

Foreigners who abuse the country's social welfare system will also be deported, if voters back the proposal.

Arts centre employs eagle

A giant eagle has been employed by Australian arts officials to protect a showcase building against marauding flocks of native cockatoo parrots causing thousands of dollars in damage to its spire.

A wedge-tailed eagle named Zorro, named after the legendary swordsman, was tethered yesterday to the 163-metre roof spire of the Melbourne Arts Centre after cockatoos took a liking to its thimble-size lights, chewing up $63,000 worth of bulbs. Wedge-tails, which have a 2.5-metre wingspan, are one of the world's largest eagles and are a natural predator of cockatoos, which are notorious for chewing their way through everything from crops to satellite dish cables.

Senators housed with fossils

Ireland's senators will have to share a museum building with the remains of prehistoric woolly mammoths and spotted hyenas during repairs to the Georgian mansion that normally houses Parliament's Upper Chamber. Much of Leinster House, built in the 1740s and used by Ireland's houses of Parliament since the 1920s, will close for urgent repairs and the 60-seat Upper Chamber is to be housed in the natural history museum next door, Irish media reported.

One senator said he could live with dinosaur jokes stemming from their temporary lodgings but that he was sad he would be working in a place with the makeshift feel of a Portakabin.

Taj Mahal gets face-lift

Indian archaeologists have started giving a face-lift to the centuries-old Taj Mahal by applying a mud pack to the marble exteriors of the country's most famous monument. The aim of the mud pack is to restore the gleam to the 17th-century architectural wonder in the northern city of Agra, about 200 kilometres from the capital.

"The first phase of the mud packing will take about five months," N.K. Samadia, an Archaeological Survey of India official, said by telephone from Agra. He said work started on the exterior on Wednesday. After that, the mausoleum's interiors will be treated.

Subway ad angers passengers

An advertisement on Beijing's subway proclaiming "Squeezed in?! Go and buy a car then!" has angered passengers who said it only encourages traffic jams, a state newspaper said yesterday.

The advertisement, written in large white letters on a red background, is also contrary to the Beijing city government's aim of getting more people to take public transport, the official Beijing Daily said.

"Isn't this out of tune with environmental protection?" it quoted a subway passenger as saying.

"The company sees subway passengers as potential customers, but the scornful tone of the advertising language exposes a lack of interest in human feelings behind a meticulous design," a female passenger added.

Wrong Super Bowl shirts

Shirts and caps proclaiming the victory of the New England Patriots - when the American football team actually lost the latest Super Bowl - have ended up in the hands of poor Nicaraguan children.

Hundreds of shirts and caps, which had been manufactured in advance to celebrate the Patriots' expected victory over the New York Giants, were handed over to children in the southern city of Diriamba.

"The children are the winners," said Miriam Diaz, of World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organisation.

The Giants stunned the previously undefeated Patriots 17-14 in this year's Super Bowl.

Migrants hold mass wedding

Nearly 600 Mexican couples tied the knot in a mass Valentine's Day wedding by the US border on Thursday, many of them undocumented migrants who met while working illegally in the US.

As a live band blasted out sugary Mexican love songs in the border city of Tijuana, a short walk from the busy San Ysidro crossing into California, a judge simultaneously married a crowd of couples whose ages ranged from 16 to 65. More than three-quarters were migrants returning from, or trying to get into, the US.