World Briefs

The king of South Africa's Zulus wants to revive the practice of circumcision among his people to help fight the spread of AIDS, the Sapa news agency reported yesterday.

A number of studies have shown that circumcising men can halve their chances of contracting the HIV virus and the WHO has recommended including circumcision among anti-AIDS strategies since 2007.

"In the context of the fight against HIV and AIDS I should announce my intention to revive the practice of circumcision amongst young men," King Goodwill Zwelithini said on Saturday during a traditional festival.

Zulus practised ritual circumcision until the start of the 19th century, when the legendary King Shaka put a stop to it because it deprived him of young warriors for months at a time. (AFP)

Mid-flight delivery

A pregnant woman aboard a Southwest Airlines jet went into labour at about 30,000 feet over Colorado last Friday, and gave birth to a boy in a rare, mid-flight delivery cheered by other passengers.

The birth, assisted by two doctors who happened to be aboard, went without a hitch, and the Boeing 737 landed soon afterward in Denver, where mother and baby were met by medical personnel and taken to a hospital, airline spokesman Chris Mainz said.

"My understanding is that everything was very smooth, and they're doing well," Mr Mainz said.

"She rang her call button and notified the flight attendants that she was going into labour, and they situated her in the back of the airplane, in the aft galley, and that's where the baby was born," he said, adding the other passengers greeted the news with a round of applause. (Reuters)

Nobel prizes in the red

The Nobel Foundation might have to reduce the money it awards winners of its prestigious prizes due to the effects of the global financial crisis, its director has said.

The foundation will give 10 million Swedish crowns (€1 million) for each prize this year as it has done for most of the last decade. But the downturn could strain resources for future prizes.

"It might be in the future we would be forced to lower the prize," Michael Sohlman, executive director for the Nobel Foundation, told a press briefing.

Mr Sohlman said the value of the foundation's assets had only recovered somewhat in 2009 after it lost nearly one-fifth of its invested capital last year due to the financial crisis. Prizes for the sciences and for peace were established in the will of 19th century dynamite tycoon Alfred Nobel and have been handed out since 1901.

Mr Nobel stipulated that 31 million crowns (€3.3 million) should be invested in safe securities, the income from which would be distributed annually in the form of prizes. The value of the invested capital at the end of December last year was 2.8 billion crowns (€274 million). (Reuters)

UN climate summit offer

Prostitutes of a Danish sex workers association will offer their services for free to delegates of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, an association official said.

Susanne Moeller said the move was meant to protest an anti-prostitution initiative undertaken by Copenhagen city hall.

The city, host of the December 7-18 UN climate summit, distributed postcards in Copenhagen's hotels that said "Be sustainable: Don't buy sex." It also sent letters to hotel managers inviting them to take measures to avoid prostitutes meeting clients in their establishments. The prostitutes, whose work is not illegal in Denmark, promptly reacted to the move.

"All delegates who come to Copenhagen for the world climate summit will be able to use the postcards for payment after making a request on our website," Ms Moeller, of the Danish association for the defence of sex workers, said.

"We do not expect many delegates (to make use of the offer), but we want to protest what we consider discrimination," Ms Moeller said, adding the offer was good for the duration of the climate talks. (AFP)

China pays web surfers to find porn

Chinese authorities have offered rewards of up to 10,000 yuan (€1,614) to internet users who report websites that feature pornography, state media reported yesterday.

However, the censors' latest campaign against content that harms public morality appears to have encouraged internet users to look for porn online.

Within the first 24 hours, a hotline set up on Friday by Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre was flooded with more than 500 phone calls and 13,000 online tips, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Rewards ranging from 1,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan will go to the first person to report each website, the centre said in a notice, adding a committee would review the tipoffs to determine what award was appropriate, Xinhua said.

Earlier this year China threatened to sanction major websites, including search engine giants Google and Baidu, alleging that pornography and other material that could corrupt young people was turning up in search results. (AFP)

Sharia in Spain?

Spanish police have arrested nine men suspected of seeking to have a woman killed after they accused her of adultery, claiming they were following Islamic law, authorities said yesterday. The men were arrested on November 14 and seven have been held in jail, a police spokesman said.

According to police, the woman had been taken in March and held in an isolated house in Valls in northeastern Catalonia.

Authorities say the men set up a court there to judge her for adultery.

"These men had formed a kind of court to apply (Islamic) sharia law," the spokesman said, adding the woman told authorities she was tried and sentenced to death.

She was later able to escape and report what happened to police. (AFP)