<B>OSLO. Even erotic food has to follow the rules</B>

Norway?s largest erotic chain store was forced to change the labelling on products such as penis pasta, candy cuffs and chocolate body painting, to comply with Norwegian food regulations. The Norwegian food safety authority, whose goal it is to make sure consumers have healthy and safe food, conducted a surprise inspection at one of the chain?s stores and found that several products violated food labelling regulations, top-selling tabloid VG reported on the day before. ?We were a bit surprised to have the food safety authority on inspection. Food is not really our core product,? Kjersti Antonsen, a sexual adviser in the store, told VG. Products containing food must be marked with a Norwegian label, listing all ingredients. ?We have panties, bras, handcuffs and suspender belts made out of candy,? Antonsen said, adding that the store will comply with the regulations and label all its food products.

<B>CANBERRA. One dead, one injured in pet rescue </B>

One man was killed and another was then seriously injured when they tried to climb a tree at night to recapture a pet cockatoo in Australia. The bird?s 72-year-old owner fell as he tried to recover the pet in the country town of Bendigo in southern Victoria state. He was taken to hospital for treatment, police said. The injured man?s neighbour, 58, then took over the rescue, but he also fell and died instantly when he hit the ground. ?This was just an unfortunate accident,? Bendigo Police Sergeant Peter Gilmore told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.

<B> USA. Former pilots, officials call for UFO probe </B>

Democratic US presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich may have been ridiculed for saying he had seen a UFO, but for some former military pilots and other observers, unidentified flying objects are no laughing matter. An international panel of two dozen former pilots and government officials called on the US government Monday to reopen its generation-old UFO investigation as a matter of safety and security given continuing reports about flying discs, glowing spheres and other strange sightings. ?Especially after the attacks of 9/11, it is no longer satisfactory to ignore radar returns ... which cannot be associated with performances of existing aircraft and helicopters,? they said in a statement released at a news conference. The panelists from seven countries, including former senior military officers, said they had each seen a UFO or conducted an official investigation into UFO phenomena. The subject of UFOs grabbed the spotlight in the US presidential race last month when Kucinich, a member of Congress from Ohio, said during a televised debate with other Democratic candidates that he had seen one.

<B>WASHINGTON. Chocolate began as beer-like brew 3,100 years ago? </B>

The chocolate enjoyed around the world today had its origins at least 3,100 years ago in Central America not as the sweet treat people now crave but as a celebratory beer-like beverage and status symbol, scientists said recently. Researchers identified residue of a chemical compound that comes exclusively from the cacao plant ? the source of chocolate ? in pottery vessels dating from about 1100 BC in Puerto Escondido, Honduras. This pushed back by at least 500 years the earliest documented use of cacao, an important luxury commodity in Mesoamerica before European invaders arrived and now the basis of the modern chocolate industry. Cacao (pronounced cah-COW) seeds were used to make ceremonial beverages consumed by elites of the Aztecs and other civilizations, while also being used as a form of currency. The Spanish conquistadors who shattered the Aztec empire in the 16th century were smitten with a chocolate beverage made from cacao seeds served in the palace of the emperor. However, this was not the form in which cacao had its beginnings.