World Briefs

Divers wearing Santa Claus outfits perform during a photo call for a promotional event for the Christmas holiday season at an aquarium in Seoul wishing onlookers merry Christmas.

Chinese arrested for fake uniforms, starch scam

China has added police uniforms to a long list of fake products discovered by the authorities, who have also broken up a scam involving potato starch, state media said yesterday.

Police in the northern city of Taiyuan in Shanxi province raided an underground workshop and seized the fake uniforms, including trousers, hats, belts and badges, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The man running the workshop and his wife confessed to their crime after being detained by police, it added.

The report did not say who had bought the fake uniforms, nor what they had been used for. The issue has proved a major irritant in Sino-US and Sino-EU relations.

But Chinese consumers are also being hurt by fake products, with a series of scandals involving everything from car parts to eggs.

Seven thousand violent incidents in schools

Police were called to deal with violence in schools more than 7,000 times last year, the Conservative Party said yesterday.

Officers responded to 7,311 attempted or actual violent crimes at schools, according to findings from 25 out of the 39 police forces in England. Conservative children's spokesman Michael Gove said the figures were worrying and teachers needed greater authority to tackle disruptive and violent youngsters.

"There will always be the odd occasion when teacher need to call on the police for support with a serious incident but at the moment they do not have sufficient powers to nip discipline problems in the bud," he said.

But teaching unions described the statistics as scaremongering and said schools were safe places.

Fear of violence among teenagers has been exacerbated by numerous high-profile stabbings and similar gang-related crimes.

So far this year, almost 30 teenagers have died violently on the streets of London alone.

The Conservatives said their findings reflected the concerns about security expressed by teachers and parents.

Animal rights activists guilty of blackmail

Four animal rights activists were found guilty yesterday of blackmailing companies which supplied Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), a firm that conducts tests on animals.

Gerrah Selby, 20, Daniel Wadham, 21, Gavin Medd-Hall, 45, and Heather Nicholson, 41, were accused of orchestrating a campaign of blackmail against the Cambridgeshire-based company between 2001 and last year, the Press Association reported.

Mr Selby, Mr Wadham, Mr Medd-Hall and Ms Nicholson denied the charges but were found guilty at Winchester Crown Court.

Three others - Gregg Avery, Natasha Avery and Daniel Amos - pleaded guilty to conspiracy to blackmail. Trevor Holmes, 51, was cleared.

The activists were part of a group called Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty.

Tombs from court of Pharaoh Unas

Egyptian archaeologists have found the tombs of two court officials, in charge of music and pyramid building, in a 4,000-year-old cemetery from the reign of Pharaoh Unas.

The tombs were found buried in the sands south of Cairo and could shed light on the fifth and the sixth dynasties of the Old Kingdom, said Zahi Hawass, Egypt's antiquities chief.

"We announce today a major important discovery at Saqqara, the discovery of two new tombs dating back to 4,300 years ago," he told reporters at the site on Monday.

One of the tombs belonged to Iya Maat, the supervisor of pyramid-building under the reign of Unas, remarked Mr Hawass.

Iya Maat organised the acquisition of granite and limestone from Aswan and other materials from the western Desert.

The second tomb housed the remains of Thanah, who was in charge of singers in the court of Unas.

Both tombs feature hieroglyphics at their entrances but the contents of the tombs have long since been stolen, said Mr Hawass.