5 Kuwaiti detainees returned home

Five Kuwaitis who had been held in U.S. custody at Guantánamo Bay prison camp, including one who had been on a three-month hunger strike, returned home early today.

Khaled al-Odah, who heads a private group that rallies for the release or trial of Kuwaiti prisoners at Guantánamo, said the men would be taken first to a hospital for medical check-ups before meeting with officials for questioning.

Among the five was a hunger striker and father of six, Mohammed Daihani, 39, who spurned an $11 extra-cheese, vegetarian pizza brought by his attorney to the prison in September.

"The American justice system is like this pizza box," he told attorney Thomas Wilner, according to a court affidavit. "It looks very good on the outside but is empty on the inside. It is nothing but air."

U.N. calls for truce during Olympics

The U.N. General Assembly urged all 191 U.N. member states Thursday to observe a truce during the winter Olympics in Italy and promote peace through sports.

The resolution calling for the traditional "Olympic Truce" during the games in Turin from Feb. 10-26 and the Paralympic Winter Games that follow in the Italian city from March 10-19 was adopted by consensus.

Italy's deputy U.N. Ambassador Aldo Mantovani, who introduced the Olympic Truce resolution, said "since ancient times the idea of the Olympic Games has been closely associated with that of peace."

Bird-flu outbreaks in China, Vietnam

China and Vietnam each confirmed new bird-flu outbreaks that killed thousands of birds, despite increased efforts to fight the disease.

The latest Chinese outbreak, discovered Oct. 26, killed 8,940 chickens and prompted officials to destroy 369,900 other birds in Badaohao, a village in Liaoning province, east of Beijing, the Agriculture Ministry said Thursday.

In Vietnam, more than 3,000 poultry died or were culled this week in three villages in Bac Giang province, 35 miles northeast of Hanoi, a local official said.

Report: Illegal logging in Honduras

Protected pine and mahogany forests in Honduras are being cut down by unscrupulous loggers who bribe officials, threaten environmental activists and enjoy the protection of high-level politicians, according to a report issued by two nongovernmental organizations Thursday.

At a news conference in Washington, the report's authors showed a video of activists, posing as investors and carrying hidden cameras, chatting with Honduran company officials who admitted to paying off government officials to get around restrictions.

The 44-page report was jointly produced by the Center for International Policy, an advocacy organization, and the Environmental Investigation Agency, a London-based group that uncovers environment abuse. It urges Home Depot and other U.S. retailers to stop buying Honduran timber and wood products until the government stops the abuse.

Also

Polish archaeologists believe they have located the grave of 16th-century astronomer and solar-system proponent Nicolaus Copernicus in a Polish church, one of the scientists announced Thursday. Copernicus, who died in 1543 at 70 after challenging the ancient belief that the sun revolved around the Earth, was buried at the Roman Catholic cathedral in the city of Frombork, 180 miles north of the capital, Warsaw.

Compiled from The Associated Press and Knight Ridder Newspapers