World Briefs

Sixty per cent of Spaniards do not care for bullfighting, but nearly as many – 57 per cent – oppose its banning in Catalonia, an opinion poll in the El Pais newspaper has suggested.

Fifty-eight per cent thought its prohibition in the semi-auto-nomous region had more to do with bullfighting being “an exclusively Spanish festival”, compared to 36 per cent who thought animal welfare was the driving issue.

To the question, “Do you like bullfights?”, 37 per cent of those polled said yes, but 60 per cent said no.

The survey of 500 adults, with a margin of error of 4.5 per cent, appeared a few days after Catalonia’s Parliament voted to outlaw bullfighting from January 1 in the separatist-minded region that includes Barcelona.

Catalonia becomes the first part of mainland Spain to ban the centuries-old tradition, after it was outlawed on the Canary Islands in 1991. (AFP)

Woman catches four million mosquitoes

A Taiwanese woman has taken a sizeable bite out of Taiwan’s mosquito population, and won a $3,000 cash prize, by catching around four million of the bloodsuckers in just one month.

Huang Yu-yen, from Taiwan’s Yunlin county, beat 72 rivals with a catch weighing in at more than 1.5 kilogrammes, competition organisers Imbictus International, a company that makes insect traps, said. The company has sent an application to Guinness World Records asking that Ms Huang be recognised as the world’s leading killer of the pest.

Mosquitoes have been a major public health hazard in Taiwan, especially as carriers of malaria until its official eradication on the island in 1965. They are still responsible for the spread of dengue fever. (AFP)

Oldest dog remains in Swiss cave

Researchers have found that fragments of a dog’s skull and teeth discovered in a cave in Switzerland date back more than 14,000 years in what could be the oldest known remains of man’s best friend.

The fossils were among a haul of archaeological finds uncovered in 1873 in the Kesslerloch cave in northern Switzerland. But it was only last year that researchers at Germany’s Tuebingen University took a closer look at them.

“During a recent re-analysis of the faunal remains, we identified a cranial fragment and teeth of the domestic dog,” the researchers said, adding, “The large maxillar fragment was directly dated to ...14,100-14,600 BP (Before Present). We argue that the maxilla fragment must now be considered the earliest indisputable directly dated evidence of a domestic dog.” (AFP)

Porn screened in Parliament building

Hardcore porn was broadcast on the Indonesian Parliament’s internal information service yesterday, shocking journalists and bureaucrats who rely on the screens for updates on political events.

Hardcore images apparently taken from the internet filled the screens used by reporters, political staffers and visitors for about 15 minutes before security guards managed to shut it off, reporters said. It was not clear how the images appeared on the screens but House Speaker Marzuki Alie said whoever was responsible would be punished.

The incident is sure to embarrass President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has recently backed calls for stricter controls on the internet following a national scandal over an online celebrity sex clip. (AFP)

Nation of the undecided

The UK is a nation of “indeciders” who are unable to make a decision because they are crippled by too much choice, a study claimed.

The report reveals nearly half of all those quizzed (47 per cent) found even little decisions were hard to make.

This was caused by over-whelming choice hindering the ability to make quick, confident decisions, according to the Confused Nation report by the University of Bristol and website Confused.com. It identified a term for this state, dubbed the “indeciders” – collectively described as “a group of in-dividuals suffering high levels of confusion while displaying an inability to be decisive, leading in some cases to depression”. (PA)