April Fool's Day Archive, Contents:

The Taipei Times reported that pandemonium broke out at the Taipei Zoo when it was discovered that the zoo's two panda bears were in fact "Wenzhou brown forest bears that had been dyed to create the panda’s distinctive black-and-white appearance." Suspicions were first raised when it was observed that the bears were spending almost their full waking hours having sex. (Pandas are notorious for their low libido.) This behavior caused chaos among zoo crowds. "Children screamed and parents became irate." The pandas had been received as a gift from the Chinese government. "Some angrily compared the subterfuge to last year’s contaminated milk scandal, when melamine that had been added to watered-down milk sickened 300,000 victims across China and led to a recall of diary products in countries including Taiwan." Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang was said to have issued a statement: "We understand that our compatriots in Taiwan are very upset. We wish to assure them that we have taken steps to address their concerns. We hope that our Taiwanese friends enjoy the gift of two extremely rare Wenzhou brown forest bears."

The zoo later received a number of complaints about the prank, prompting the zoo director to urge the Taipei Times to "correct this improper story." However, the Taipei Times defended the story, stating that, "April Fools' Day jokes highlight an important aspect of the consumption of media: that readers and viewers should keep a critical mind when they read stories or watch TV."

The Democracy Center, an organization founded to advance global social justice, posted on its website that Bolivian President Evo Morales had accused the United States of engaging in a clandestine effort to force Bolivia to adopt Daylight Savings Time. The article quoted Morales as saying, "We have seen the government of the U.S. try to undermine our democracy, block us from the lawful export of coca products, and smuggle in munitions. But now we see that these conspirators also have their sights set on changing our clocks. We denounce this before the world community." The news was initially reposted as fact by a few blogs, including the Huffington Post, before it was identified as an April Fool's Day joke.

The Chamber of Commerce of Ely, Minnesota announced that Canada had expressed interest in buying the town and moving it north of the US/Canada border. In response to the offer, the town launched a "Keep Ely in Minnesota" campaign. Other buyers said to be interested in the town were Kansas, Oklahoma, Uzbekistan and a private party who wanted to move Ely to the South Pacific. The Ely Tourism Board subsequently said it dreamed up the hoax as a way to remind tourists that "we're still here." Reportedly, one woman phoned up the Chamber of Commerce in a panic, worried about what would happen to her property once the town moved to Canada.

Sweden's English-language paper, The Local, reported that in the interests of globalization and technological competitiveness Sweden's government was considering banning "complex letters" such as Å, Ä and Ö. Å would be replaced by AA, Ä by AE and Ö by OE. The Centre Party's Åsa Bäckström was quoted as saying, "Language is constantly changing and we must be prepared to meet the linguistic challenges of the modern world. Communication barriers are a hindrance to competitiveness, so we should do whatever we can - within reason - to eliminate them." However, the move was resisted by many, including the town council of Båstad, whose spokesman said, "We already have enough trouble with English-speakers who think the name of our town is amusing. If the Å becomes a regular A it will just make things worse. We might as well go the whole hog and include an R."

The Tokyo Shimbun reported that the Japanese government was planning to send robots modelled on the 1960s cartoon character Astro Boy to assist with post-war reconstruction in Iraq. They noted: "It is partly aimed at showing the world the right way to use science technology following the loss of confidence in US high-tech weapons."

The Tokyo Shimbun reported the discovery of a huge oil field (over 110 billion barrels, about the size of Iraqi reserves) in the Tokyo Gulf. It was predicted that this would tip the balance of power with Washington in Japan's favour.

Kenya's East African Standard reported that the US forces in Iraq were actively recruiting reinforcements from Kenya, Ethiopia, and Sudan. Troops from these regions were supposedly better adapted to desert conditions which were giving the US forces a "rough time."

Germany's Tageszeitung claimed that the US had decided to move its Berlin embassy. The problem with the current location of the embassy was two-fold. First it stood directly opposite the French embassy, which was awkward because of French resistance to Washington's war in Iraq. Second, the embassy was located on Pariser Platz (meaning Parisian Square). The newspaper noted that Washington might reconsider the move, "but only if the name of the square is changed."

South Africa's Afrikaans-language Beeld newspaper scooped its rivals by reporting that, in a last minute deal to avoid war, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had accepted an offer of exile in South Africa. In exchange he would run South Africa's oil industry. Details of the arrangement included: Hussein would be given a game farm on which to live, and he would travel in a jet outfitted with a missile defense system. The US was said to be happy about the deal because it would make Hussein "somebody else's problem."

Michael Enright, host of the Sunday Edition of the Canadian Broadcasting Corpation's radio program This Morning, interviewed former President Jimmy Carter on the air. The interview was about softwood lumber, since Carter had recently written an editorial piece in the New York Times criticizing Canada's heavily subsidized lumber industry. However, the interview took a turn for the worse when Enright began telling Carter to speed up his answers. Then Enright asked, "I think the question on everyone's mind is, how did a washed-up peanut farmer from Hicksville such as yourself get involved in such a sophisticated bilateral trade argument?"

Carter seemed stunned by the insult. Finally he replied, "Excuse me? A washed-up pig farmer? You're one to talk, sir. Didn't you used to be on the air five times a week?" The tone of the interview did not improve from there. Carter ended up calling Enright a "rude person" before he hung up. Enright then revealed that the interview had been fake. The Toronto comedian Ray Landry had been impersonating Carter's voice.

The interview generated a number of angry calls from listeners who did not find the joke funny. But the next day the controversy reached even larger proportions when the Globe and Mail reported the interview as fact on its front page under the headline "Wood chips fly over lumber." The editor of the Globe and Mail later admitted he hadn't realized the interview was a hoax because it was "a fairly strange issue and a strange person to choose as a spoof."

The Today program on BBC Radio 4 announced that the British National anthem ("God Save the Queen") was to be replaced by a Euro Anthem sung in German. The new anthem, which Today played for their listeners, used extracts from Beethoven's music and was sung by pupils of a German school in London. Reportedly, Prince Charles's office telephoned Radio 4 to ask them for a copy of the new anthem. St. James Palace later insisted that it had been playing along with the prank and had not been taken in by it.

The Irish Times reported that the Disney Corporation was negotiating with the Russian government to purchase the embalmed body of communist leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, which had been kept on display in Red Square since the leader's death. Disney wanted to move the body and the mausoleum to the new Euro Disney, where it would be given the "full Disney treatment." This would include displaying the body "under stroboscopic lights which will tone up the pallid face while excerpts from President Reagan's 'evil empire' speech will be played in quadrophonic sound." Lenin t-shirts would also be sold.

Disney anticipated that this attraction would bring more visitors to the theme park, significantly boosting profits which had been weak since the park's opening. The Russians, for their part, were agreeable to the sale of Lenin's body. However, a controversy had erupted about the sale of the mausoleum. Liberal groups wanted to keep the mausoleum empty "to symbolize the 'emptiness of the Communist system,'" whereas Russian nationalists wanted to transform it into a memorial to Tsar Nicholas II.

The London Times reported that formal negotiations were underway for the purpose of dividing Belgium in half. The Dutch-speaking north would join the Netherlands and the French-speaking south would join France. An editorial in the paper lamented, "The fun will go from that favorite parlor game: Name five famous Belgians." The report apparently fooled the British foreign office minister Tristan Garel-Jones who almost went on a TV interview prepared to discuss this "important" story. The Belgian embassy also received numerous calls from journalists and expatriate Belgians seeking to confirm the news. A rival paper later criticized the prank, declaring, "The Times's effort could only be defined as funny if you find the very notion of Belgium hilarious."

L'Humanite, the French Communist Party newspaper, reported that because Germans had no speed limit on their own motorways, the European Commission had therefore decided to allow German drivers to drive as fast as they wanted throughout other EC countries.

The News of the World reported that the two halves of the Channel Tunnel, being built simultaneously from the coasts of France and England, would miss each other by 14 feet, the reason being that French engineers had used metric specifications, whereas the British had used imperial feet and inches. The error would cost $14 billion to fix.