Rare baby illness

Eight prematurely born babies have come down with necrotizing enterocolitis - inflamation of the intestines - in Queen Mary Hospital over the past five days.

One 25-week old baby died, while the others are in stable condition in the intensive care unit.

The hospital is investigating the outbreak.

The condition is more often seen in premature babies, than full-term ones.

Still, it is a rare condition that affects only about one in three thousand babies on average.

'Pro-democracy' plan

The "pro-democracy" camp yesterday unveiled a list of 32 candidates to contest the September Legislative Council election. Twenty-five of the entrants, including Martin Lee, Yeung Sum, Audrey Eu and Lau Chin-shek, will run for seats in geographical constituencies and the rest will stand for functional constituencies.

46 held over cigarettes

Customs officers arrested 46 people in a five-day operation across Hong Kong this week to crack down on illegal cigarette sales.

The operation uncovered about 1.5 million illicit cigarettes hidden in flowerbeds, hose reels and drains, and underneath the wooden platform of food stalls.

The cigarettes were worth about HK$2.15 million and have a duty potential of about HK$1.2 million.

Cannabis seizure

About 26 kilograms of suspected herbal cannabis, with a street value of HK$310,000, was seized in an anti-drug operation in West Kowloon yesterday.

Customs officers first found 23 kilograms of cannabis in a truck at Mei Foo at around 4:00 pm.

The 27-year-old driver was arrested.

Later, another three kilograms of marijuana was found in the man's flat.

Frozen meat seizure

Some 50,000 kilograms of frozen chicken wings and feet, worth HK$860,000 in the market, were confiscated from a fishing ship on Thursday evening.

Two men on board the ship were arrested.

This is the sixth frozen meat smuggling case uncovered this year.

(HK Edition 06/19/2004 page2)