Other world stories in brief
Full face transplants get go-ahead
LONDON - The world's first full face transplant is possible within months after British surgeons got the go- ahead yesterday to perform an operation regarded as the holy grail of plastic surgery. The face transplantation team at the Royal Free Hospital in London received permission for four transplants from the hospital's research ethics committee. "We can now begin to evaluate patients and draw up a shortlist of four people who want to undergo this procedure," said Peter Butler, the plastic and reconstruction surgeon who will head the team.
People whose faces have been destroyed by fire, accident and infection could be among those to benefit.
Surgeons in France performed the first partial transplant in a 15-hour operation last year on Isabelle Dinoire who received a new nose, lips and chin after being mauled by her dog. - (Reuters)
Pinochet gold in Hong Kong
SANTIAGO - Chilean investigators were examining reports yesterday that nine tonnes of gold had been found in a Hong Kong bank under the name of Augusto Pinochet.
The gold, valued at €127 million, was found during an ongoing investigation into tax-evasion and money- laundering by the former dictator. "The information that has been given to us is, at the very least, to be taken seriously by the courts," said Alexandro Foxley, the Chilean foreign minister. He said the information was being analysed swiftly to have embargo orders issued "very quickly". - (Guardian service)
Israel denies air attack on Germans
JERUSALEM - Israel has denied a German newspaper report that two of its air- force planes had fired twice as they flew over a German navy vessel patrolling the Lebanon coast.
Germany's defence ministry said yesterday that an incident had occurred, without giving details. - (Reuters)
New Jersey rules on gay rights
TRENTON - New Jersey's supreme court has granted same-sex couples the same civil rights afforded by heterosexual marriage and has ordered legislators to decide within six months if they want to change the state's definition of marriage.
Yesterday's nuanced 90-page ruling was neither a definitive victory nor a defeat for gay marriage, which has faced legal and political roadblocks in much of the US and is legal only in Massachusetts. - (Reuters)
Prodi government stutters again
ROME - The centre-left coalition of Italian prime minister Romano Prodi suffered an embarrassment yesterday when it lost a vote in the senate, highlighting the fragility of its majority before a parliamentary vote on Italy's 2007 budget.
The government was defeated in the upper house, where it enjoys only a one-seat majority, on a bill meant to freeze evictions.
The senate defeat is not the first one for Mr Prodi's nine-party government since it came into power in May. - (Reuters)