Leader rails at teen breast implants gift fad

President Hugo Chavez railed against a new trend in beauty-conscious Venezuela, giving girls breast implants for their 15th birthday. "Now some people think, 'My daughter's turning 15, let's give her breast enlargements.' That's horrible. It's the ultimate degeneration," Chavez said late on Sunday on his weekly TV show that lasted a record eight hours. Venezuela is well known for its beauty queens, who have regularly won world crowns, and many women have plastic surgery in the oil-rich country where there is widespread spending on consumer items that would be considered luxuries elsewhere. But Chavez, the anti-U.S., self-styled revolutionary who came to office in 1999, is seeking to change those attitudes to create what he calls the "new man" to build a socialist society in this South American nation. Chavez complained about the new fad of giving the plastic surgery operation at 15 -- when Latin Americans celebrate a girl's coming-of-age -- during a diatribe against what he says are Western-imposed consumerist icons such as Barbie dolls. While breast implants are advertised on TV and banks offer special credit lines for such operations, if girls do get the enlargements they are not expected to become sexually active afterward. Venezuelans' have a habit of avid consumerism since the 1970s oil boom in the OPEC nation. They have won the nickname of the "Give-Me-Twos" in the tourist destination of Florida for buying double the amount of typical consumers. Breast implants cost thousands of dollars in Venezuela.

Chavez's answer? He has told his supporters to give away any extra goods they do not need, urging them to leave out in town squares items such as fans or refrigerators. "I am calling on your conscience, fathers of this country, mothers of this country, they are our sons, they are our daughters," Chavez said. Still, Chavez, who happily describes himself as ugly, may struggle to change Venezuelans' mind-set to spending on plastic surgery. In elevators, at huge, jam-packed shopping malls, women can be overheard openly boasting about their recent, conspicuous operations.

China bans "sexual sounds" on airwaves

China has banned "sexually provocative sounds" on television and pulled the plug on a show reconstructing infamous crimes by women ahead of a major Communist Party meeting next month. The order, issued by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, is the latest in a raft of measures which have included axing reality shows featuring sex changes and plastic surgery and banning talent contests during prime-time. "Sexually suggestive advertisements and scenes showing how women are influenced into a life of crime are detrimental to society," it said in a statement posted on its Web site on Wednesday, referring to its decision to axe "Red Question Mark," a crime documentary. "Commercials containing sexually provocative sounds or tantalizing language as well as vulgar advertisements for breast enhancement and female underwear are banned, effective immediately," said the SARFT notice. The watchdog also ordered an end to programs with titles including the names of "sex-related drugs, products or medical institutions." A total of 1,466 advertisements worth 2 billion yuan ($246 million) in revenues had been stripped from China's airways since August, SARFT said, citing department statistics. Since launching a campaign to purify China's state-controlled airways earlier in the year, the media watchdog's edicts have gained fever pitch in recent weeks, ahead of a meeting of the 17th Party congress, a sensitive five-yearly meeting at which key government leaders are appointed and national policy set for the next few years. It earlier urged the country's increasingly freewheeling broadcasters to forgo vulgarity and bad taste in the pursuit of ratings in favor of providing "inspiring" content for the masses imbued with "socialist" values.

Handcuffed kids steal U.S. border agent car

Three Mexican minors detained in California on suspicion of smuggling drugs stole a U.S. Border Patrol car while still wearing handcuffs and drove it back across the border to Mexico. Police in the Mexican border city of Mexicali said on Tuesday the three boys had been driving a pick-up truck on a remote Californian highway when a Border Patrol agent stopped them. Suspicious they were carrying marijuana, he handcuffed them and put them in his patrol car while he searched their truck. "As the agent was doing his search, he left the vehicle running and the keys in the ignition, so one of the lads, still wearing handcuffs, grabbed the steering wheel and they headed back to Mexico," a police spokesman said. The Border Patrol, which plays cat and mouse around the clock with illegal Mexican migrants and drug traffickers, confirmed the vehicle was stolen in southern California on Sunday and driven over the border near Mexicali. Mexican police used a helicopter to locate the patrol vehicle in a remote agricultural area near the border.