NEW YORK (Reuters Health):

Some toys emit noise at a high enough level to cause permanent hearing damage if they are held too close to the ear, new research from the United Kingdom shows.

"With most toys, your child will only damage their hearing if they use them for too long a duration, or if they stick them in their ear," Dr. Brad Backus, a research fellow at University College London's Ear Institute who performed the study, said in a press release. "Our advice is pretty simple: Don't let your child hold noisy toys too close to their ear, and don't let them play with them for more than an hour a day."

In a study commissioned by Deafness Research U.K., Backus tested the noise levels of 15 popular toys for children aged three months to 15 years. The recommended top noise limit for toys is 85 decibels. Prolonged exposure to noise above this level can cause permanent hearing damage.

GENEVA (Reuters):

United Nations aid agencies warned yesterday of an impending food crisis in North Korea, where summer flooding destroyed crops and worsened a chronic shortage of grain.

"The situation is indeed critical," Simon Pluess, spokesman of the U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP), told a news briefing.

"About a third of the population never eats enough and half of the population goes for periods in the year when they have an insufficient food intake."

North Korea has still not recovered from famine in the 1990s that experts say killed about 2.5 million people, or 10 per cent of the population. Major storms in July damaged grain-producing areas and triggered a new round of scarcities.

SAO PAULO (Reuters):

Brazil's government ordered the country's largest airline to stop selling tickets for flights leaving yesterday after it unexpectedly grounded six planes for maintenance, causing travel chaos days before Christmas.

The emergency repair work by TAM Linhas Aereas left it unable to honour all tickets it had sold. TAM tried to get passengers onto planes flown by other carriers, but there were too few seats to go around. Tropical storms added to delays and cancellations. Over 100 frustrated fliers were stranded in airports for up to 24 hours.

IPSWICH, England (Reuters):

A man appeared in court yesterday accused of murdering five prostitutes during an unprecedented serial killing spree in eastern England which terrified locals and gripped Britain.

Steven Wright is accused of killing Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls, whose naked bodies were found dumped at rural locations around the town of Ipswich in the county of Suffolk.

The bodies were discovered in the space of 11 days and the speed of the murders was said by the local police chief to be unrivalled in British criminal history.

LONDON (Reuters):

Travellers struggling to get home for Christmas faced another day of chaos yesterday, with some 350 flights cancelled at London's Heathrow Airport for a second day due to a thick blanket of fog.

But some relief was in sight, with British Airways, which has suffered most cancellations, saying it aimed to fly 95 per cent of customers in and out of Heathrow as planned today.

The airline said it planned extra flights with bigger planes to try to ease disruption as the fog begins to clear.

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters):

A Colombian rebel suspected of involvement in dozens of murders and running a drugs-for-arms operation has been extradited to Colombia from Costa Rica, a court spokeswoman in Costa Rica said yesterday.

Hector Orlando Martinez, believed to be a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was turned over to Colombian authorities on Thursday, four months after his arrest in the Costa Rican port of Puntarenas.

Court spokeswoman Maria Isabel Hernandez said Martinez was handed over on the Colombian island of San Andres, east of Costa Rica.

PARIS (Reuters):

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said yesterday he had been the victim of "calumny and lies", as he emerged from 17 hours of questioning by magistrates over an apparent smear campaign against a political rival.

Villepin was heard as a witness, not a suspect, in the so-called Clearstream affair which revolves around faked bank accounts and hushed-up government probes. But commentators said the Prime Minister's image had suffered.

The marathon session, interrupted only by lunch and a break in which media said Villepin did some push-ups, ended at 3 a.m. (0200 GMT) yesterday.

Abbas

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters):

Gunmen loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah opened fire on Hamas members in the occupied West Bank yesterday, wounding at least nine civilians, hospital officials and witnesses said. They said gunmen opened fire as thousands of Hamas activists and militants attended a rally in the city of Nablus.

It was the worst violence in the West Bank since Abbas last week threw down the gauntlet to the Hamas government by calling for fresh parliamentary and presidential elections. Days of violence earlier this week in the Gaza Strip killed 10 people.

A senior security source said Abbas had deployed Palestinian security forces loyal to him to try to calm tensions in Nablus.

A Fatah official told Reuters the Hamas Islamists chose to hold the rally despite what he said was an earlier agreement to delay it.

BAIDOA, Somalia (Reuters):

Ethiopian tanks rolled to the battlefront yesterday as Somali Islamists and Somalia's pro-government troops pounded each other with artillery and rockets in a fourth day of clashes.

In its first detailed response to the fighting that has killed dozens and wounded hundreds, Addis Ababa said its patience was running out and it demanded that the Islamists stop all "hostile anti-Ethiopian activities".

"The situation in Somalia has turned from bad to worse," said a statement from Ethiopia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "Ethiopia has been patient so far. There is a limit to this."

KIEV (Reuters):

The presidents of Ukraine and Russia, resolved to put a rough patch in ties behind them, pledged yesterday to consult more closely on outstanding issues and work to ensure safe energy supplies throughout Europe.

Ties hit rock bottom when President Viktor Yushchenko took office in 2005 after 'Orange Revolution' protests against a rigged presidential election in which Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovich was initially declared the winner.