SAN FRANCISCO: A group of Irish Americans has called for a boycott of Bushmills Irish Whiskey, accusing the company of discriminating against Roman Catholics at its Northern Ireland facility.

Mayor Willie Brown poured a bottle into the gutter. ``As of now, Bushmills is no more,'' he said, pledging support for the John Maher Irish-American Democratic Club ban. A Bushmills spokesman denied the charge, saying that in the past five years 27% of the distillery's employees had been Catholic.

Falcon secret

NEW YORK: The Maltese Falcon, one of the most famous film props of all time, has been sold to a secret buyer for a price that cannot be revealed, its former owner says. However Ronald Winston did disclose that he sold one of two 45lb statues used in the 1941 thriller starring Humphrey Bogart for considerably more than the #265,666 paid for it at auction in 1994.

Bid to curb Net

PARIS: France will this month urge the EU to set out international rules controlling global computer networks like the Internet, which at present carry information across borders in a legal vacuum. The move follows the recent posting on the Internet of a book banned in France about the late President Francois Mitterrand's battle with cancer.

Leader chosen

WARSAW: Poland's ruling coalition of the left has agreed that Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, of the ex-communist Democratic Left Alliance, should become the new Prime Minister following the resignation of Jozef Oleksy over claims that he spied for Moscow.

Venus come home

CAPE TOWN: South Africa is calling for the remains of Saartjie Baartman, a Khoi-Khoi tribeswoman paraded around 19th-century freak shows as the ``Hottentot Venus'', to be sent home from France. Baartman died an alcoholic and prostitute in Paris, where her remains were on display in a museum until placed in storage 10 years ago.

Aids sentence

MADRID: A Spanish army sergeant was jailed for a year in Tenerife yesterday for having sex with a woman without telling her he carried the Aids virus and not wearing a contraceptive. He was also ordered to pay the victim #5000 for giving her the virus.

Grave found

VIENNA: A Nazi mass grave containing the remains of Hungarian Jews has been discovered near the site of a former concentration camp in northern Austria. The remains of 10 young men have been found so far. Veteran Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal said the victims probably died on a death march from the overcrowded extermination camp at Mauthausen to one of its 40 satellite camps.

Balloon crashes

BERNE: At least eight people, including four Germans and two Dutch, died in separate air crashes in Switzerland yesterday. Four people died and a fifth was missing after a hot-air balloon crashed near Lauterbrunnen. Later four others were killed in a helicopter crash in Saint Gall.

Navy to rescue

BRINDISI: A Royal Navy frigate has rescued 30 Albanian refugees from a sinking inflatable while on Nato patrol in the Adriatic. HMS Brazen found the craft 35 miles from Brindisi, Italy, after it had been adrift for 18 hours in poor weather. Three Albanians drowned before the vessel arrived.

Second windfall

MELBOURNE: Police thoroughly searched an Australian railway station yesterday after two sums of #98,000 were found in rubbish within a week. A man who read about the discovery of the first cache went to the place and within 15 minutes found a similar sum inside two sports bags. He also took the money to a police station and may keep it if it is not claimed within three months.