Cock Fighting Suspended Over Bird Flu

[matcom]

NO SEX THREADS! :D

<snip>

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai fans of cock fighting, a sport popular in both town and countryside, will have to wait to place their next bet until the bird flu epidemic is over, the government said Tuesday.

Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphana said cock fighting had been banned temporarily because of fears the birds were often taken long distances to their sand-pit arenas and might spread the avian influenza which has now hit 10 Asian countries.

The bird flu, which has killed at least 12 people in Vietnam and Thailand, had been spread to southern Thailand by fighting cocks transported there from areas with major outbreaks in the north and center of the country, she told reporters.

"Outbreaks in some areas, which should not have caught the disease, were caused by movements of fighting cocks," Sudarat said. "Therefore the cabinet decided today to ban cock fighting until the epidemic is over."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=573&e=4&u=/nm/20040203/od_nm/fighting_dc

[Loonman]

1. They need to put those cocks away

Cockfighting is nasty.

[jean]

2. Cocks in the news! Where's Michael Powell on this one?

[paulk]

3. One time when I was in Thailand

my wife and I went to the Chatuchak (Bangkok) weekend market - the taxi pulled up to a concrete block building attached to a row of open air metal sheds. The concrete building had a sign in English announcing it as the "Bangkok Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals". In the metal shed attached to it there were about thirty men in a circle watching a cock fight.

It was such a "Thai" moment - the juxtaposition of two opposites. You're left wondering if you should laugh or scream...

[ohiosmith]

4. No sex threads!