Beijing

U.S.-born panda heads to China preserve

American-born panda Hua Mei on Thursday came home to China, the first of the rare creatures born overseas to return to its ancestral homeland.

The 4-year-old, whose name means “China-America,” landed at Beijing airport after a 10-hour flight from her former home in San Diego.

Hua Mei travels today to the Wolong Giant Panda Protection Research Center in southwestern China. After one month of quarantine, she’ll join the population of about 50 pandas there, including her father Shi Shi, who returned last January.

All panda offspring lent overseas are considered Chinese property and must be sent home by age 3. Hua Mei’s trip was delayed for more than a year by the outbreak of the SARS virus in China and other complications.

Three other giant pandas still reside at the San Diego Zoo: Hua Mei’s mother Bai Yun, her mate Gao Gao and their son Mei Sheng, or “American Born,” who was born last year.

London

Security fears cancel more British flights

A much-disrupted British Airways flight from London to Washington, D.C., has been canceled again because of security fears, the airline said Thursday.

British Airways said Flight 223 from Heathrow to Washington’s Dulles Airport would not fly on the coming Sunday. Monday’s Flight 263 from London to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, also was scrapped.

The airline said the decision “follows government advice to cancel those flights for security reasons.” The 184 people booked on the Washington flight and 149 Riyadh passengers will be rebooked on other flights or given a refund, the airline said.

BA said the return flights to London would operate as scheduled.

Flight 223 has been delayed or canceled eight other times this year because of U.S. security alerts. Saudi flights also have been canceled several times.

Jerusalem

Israel to bypass West Bank hearings

Israel won’t attend world court hearings on the West Bank separation barrier, saying Thursday the judges don’t have the authority to rule on this case.

Palestinian officials said Israel’s decision was an admission that the barrier was illegal and indefensible.

Israel won’t remain entirely on the sidelines in the closely watched case, which begins Feb. 23 at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. The Foreign Ministry is dispatching representatives, hundreds of Israeli demonstrators plan to fly in and an Israeli rescue service is sending the skeleton of a Jerusalem bus mangled in a Palestinian suicide bombing.

Israel says it needs the barrier — fences, trenches and walls that could run for up to 440 miles — to keep out Palestinian attackers.

The Palestinians say the barrier constitutes a land grab, since it cuts deep into the West Bank at points to include several Jewish settlements on the “Israeli” side, and it disrupts the lives of thousands of Palestinians who can’t reach jobs, schools and farmland.

Moscow

Putin laments demise of Soviet Union

President Vladimir Putin used a campaign speech Thursday to declare the demise of the Soviet Union a “national tragedy on an enormous scale,” in what appeared to be his strongest-ever lament of the collapse of the Soviet empire.

Putin, a former agent of the Soviet KGB spy agency, has praised aspects of the Soviet Union in the past but never so robustly nor in such an important political setting.

Across town, meanwhile, Putin challengers in the election next month refused to debate among themselves in a television program called for that purpose. The candidates said a debate was meaningless without Putin.

Thailand

Three new human cases of bird flu announced

Thailand confirmed three new human bird flu cases Thursday as health officials warned it could take two years to conquer Asia’s outbreak.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said the latest tests showed no sign of a killer hybrid virus that could easily pass between people.

Tests on a cluster of bird flu cases in a Vietnamese family showed there was no mixing of genes between the bird flu strain and human flu, according to WHO.

In the United States, a strain of bird flu was found at four live chicken markets in northern New Jersey, just days after outbreaks at two farms in Delaware led to the destruction of thousands of birds.

WHO has said the best way to control the spread of the disease is by culling the birds. In Asia, millions of chickens have been killed by infections or slaughtered in containment efforts.

Venezuela

Signatures questioned on recall petition

Halfway through verifying a petition for a recall of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, election officials suddenly began questioning more than half the signatures, causing a bottleneck critics say is designed to derail the vote.

“There were apparently problems with the collection of signatures,” elections board member Jorge Rodriguez said Thursday, adding that authorities have increased personnel to speed what he admitted was a drawn-out process.

The verification already has been hit by delays that threaten to put off any recall vote until after August — when under law a defeat for Chavez would lead to his replacement by the appointed and loyal vice president. Although he acknowledged that today’s deadline would pass without results, Rodriguez promised the nation would know before March whether the opposition collected enough signatures to force the recall.