Thousands of stroller-pushing Hong Kong parents and activists yesterday protested a plan to introduce national education lessons, slamming it as a bid to brainwash children with Chinese propaganda.

The government says the subject is important to foster a sense of national pride and belonging, although its bid to start introducing the subject in September and make it compulsory in 2015 has sparked a public outcry.

Organisers said 90,000 demonstrators took part in the noisy protest, which was led by parents and young students.

Police put the figure much lower at 32,000.

“As a parent, I’m very angry, this is a blatant brainwashing,” mother-of-three Sandra Wong said as she marched in the sweltering heat accompanied by her husband and pushing her two-year-old daughter in a stroller.

Controversial Down’s test given Swiss green light

Switzerland has given the green light for prenatal testing for Down’s Syndrome, Swiss media reported yesterday.

The controversial test will be available in the country from mid-August following the decision by Swissmedic, the national agency for therapeutic products, Neue Zuercher Zeitung Sonntag reported.

The test, developed by life science specialists Life Codexx, involves screening pregnant women’s blood samples to either rule out or confirm the presence of foetal Down’s Syndrome, which is also known as trisomy 21.

The German-based firm describes the procedure, marketed as Prena Test, as a “risk-free alternative to common invasive examination methods such as amniocentesis”.

Demand is high in Switzerland from doctors and expectant mothers, the company said.

Corrie actor Hughes dies aged 68

Coronation Street and Keeping Up Appearances actor Geoffrey Hughes has died aged 68, his agent said.

The star, famed for his role as Coronation Street binman Eddie Yates, died on Friday night “peacefully in his sleep” after a “long courageous battle” with prostate cancer, according to his family.

Mr Hughes also played Twiggy in TV comedy The Royle Family and Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances.

Mr Hughes, known to millions as binman Eddie in the soap during the 1970s and 1980s, was rushed to hospital for intense radiotherapy in 2010 after collapsing at his Isle of Wight home.

The actor thought he had beaten prostate cancer the previous year, but the star and his wife Sue were given the news the disease had returned.

14 dead in Ebola outbreak

The deadly Ebola virus has killed 14 people in western Uganda this month, health officials said, ending weeks of speculation about the cause of a strange disease that had people fleeing their homes.

The officials and a World Health Organisation (WHO)representative told a news conference in Kampala on Saturday that there is “an outbreak of Ebola” in the country.

“Laboratory investigations done at the Uganda Virus Research Institute... have confirmed that the strange disease is indeed Ebola haemorrhagic fever.