PARIS -- France's government said yesterday it will soon allow vintners to flavor their wine with wood shavings -- a moneysaving shortcut intended to help face off tough international competition and a reform likely to anger purists. It was a sharp break in tradition: Wine flavored with wood chips was, until recently, something France's vintners were proud to have nothing to do with. But many vineyard owners, whose fortunes have flagged in recent years, have come to support such plans. Wood chips can be added to wines to give them an oak flavor without using expensive wooden barrels. Such cost-cutting tactics are already common across the rest of the winemaking world, including Australia and the Americas. ''The use of wood shavings is already authorized by the European Community and will soon be entered into national regulation," the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement after a meeting with representatives of winemaking regions. (AP)
Union leaders, students call for more protests
PARIS -- French unions and students yesterday ordered a fresh round of strikes and demonstrations next week to pressure President Jacques Chirac to scrap a new youth labor law, adding momentum to their nationwide protest movement. Union and student leaders met a day after more than 1 million demonstrators took to the streets and strikes disrupted air, rail, and bus travel -- even shutting down the Eiffel Tower -- in the largest nationwide protest against a law that would make it easier to fire young workers. They called for new strikes on Tuesday and appealed to Chirac to withdraw the contract, which is championed by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. (AP)
Mexico
Security is ramped up in advance of Bush visit
CANCUN -- Mexican police in full body armor and presidential guards with bomb-sniffing dogs mingled with tourists in bikinis in Cancun yesterday in a security operation for visiting President Bush. Ships were forbidden from coming within a nautical mile of the shores of Cancun's luxury hotel zone, where Bush will meet Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper today and tomorrow. Bush and Fox will discuss the US Senate's attempts to reform immigration laws, an issue closely watched in Mexico, where many have relatives and friends living in the United States. (Reuters)
Denmark
Little Mermaid seeks a safer spot offshore
COPENHAGEN -- This city's famous Little Mermaid statue may be moved out of the reach of vandals and tourists, a city official said yesterday. The bronze sculpture, based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale of the same name, may be relocated a few yards offshore, said Jon Pape, a spokesman for the city's roads and parks department. A decision will be made later this year, he said. The statue has been sitting on a rock at the edge of the harbor since 1913. It can easily be reached by stepping on a concrete platform and rocks that surround it. Over the years the statue, which draws about 1 million visitors a year, has been beheaded, had its arms removed, and been doused in paint. Three years ago vandals used explosives to blow it off its perch. (AP)
Thailand
Four Americans found bound, slain in jungle
BANGKOK -- The remains of four Hmong Americans are believed to be among seven decomposed bodies found yesterday in a jungle near Thailand's border with Burma, police said. Regional police chief Lieutenant General Panupong Singara na Ayuthaya said the seven men were bound and suffocated. ''The assailants covered their heads with plastic bags to suffocate them and tied their hands and legs," Panupong said. The bodies were wrapped in rice sacks. Eight men, including four Hmong with US citizenship, were reported missing March 16. (AP)
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