Tattle | Beyonce is a protest target in Ethiopia

WE HAD a feeling

Beyonce

's skimpy outfits would lead to an international incident . . .

Students at Ethiopia's top religious college have stopped eating in protest of the close ties between the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the government, alleged restrictions on their speech AND Beyonce's recent meeting with their patriarch.

Beyonce met with patriarch Abune Paulos before performing in short, short sequined outfits as part of celebrations of the Ethiopian millennium (according to the church's calendar).

Daniel Techale, a Theological College of the Holy Trinity alumnus who lives at the college, said about 30 of his friends had been hospitalized after a hunger strike they began Sunday.

He said students were upset by the closeness of the church to the ruling party and restrictions on speech, but were also upset over the Beyonce-Paulos meeting.

"She provoked the whole situation," he said, accusing the patriarch of "practically a nonreligious act. It's unacceptable, or inappropriate, to say the least."

Not all the student protesters, however, saw Beyonce as a provocateur. Kinetibebeu Assefa joined the protest for a more basic hunger-related issue.

"There is no problem with Beyonce," he said. "But the [cafeteria] food is poisoned."

Tattle infirmary

* Rosanne Cash is facing brain surgery for a rare but benign condition and must cancel the last four dates on her "Black Cadillac" tour.

"She does want everyone to know that it's a benign condition, and it's not life-threatening," said her manager, Danny Kahn.

Kahn said Cash has been diagnosed with chiari I malformation - which, ironically, was the rare malady of the week on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," a few Sundays ago.

According to the American Syringomyelia Alliance Project, the disorder is a congenital malformation of the skull that affects the brain and spinal cord.

Symptoms, which include severe head and neck pain worsened by coughing, sneezing or straining, often don't show up until adulthood, the organization said.

* Meat Loaf, mean-

while, has canceled his European tour after developing a cyst on his vocal cords.

The 56-year-old rocker will have four to six weeks of therapy before doctors decide whether he needs surgery, said a statement on his Web site yesterday.

"Let me dispel any rumors before they start - I will be back," he said.

Like a bat out of hellllllll . . .

Wanted: old ideas

We'd like to blame Hollywood brain fog on the writers strike, but the studios have been in remake mode for ages now. Sometimes, however . . .

The Hollywood Reporter says the rights to the 1952 Gary Cooper-Grace Kelly classic "High Noon" have been purchased from the widow of producer Stanley Kramer with the hope of getting a new version before cameras early next year.

They're looking for a director (Fred Zinneman, like Cooper and Kelly, is unavailable) and a star. And unless they're using the same script they may also be looking for a writer.

Do we really need another "High Noon"? Is there any way we could improve on the first one?

* The Hollywood Reporter also says

that Robert Wise's iconic 1951 sci-fi film "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is going to be remade with Jennifer Connelly and Keanu Reeves.

Connelly will play the scientist who makes first contact with the "Live in peace or be destroyed" alien Klaatu (Reeves).

Scott Derrickson ("The Exorcism of Emily Rose") will start shooting next month in Vancouver from an already written script by David Scarpa.

Tattbits

* Paris Hilton 2.0, the more

serious, post-incarceration upgrade, is off to Japan with sister Nicky to be a judge in the Miss Universe Japan contest.

"I love Tokyo," Hilton said yesterday. "The shopping is great."

Meet the new model, same as the old model.

* Russell Crowe is planning to be

baptized.

"I'd like to do it this year," the Oscar-winning actor tells Men's Journal. "My mom and dad decided to let my brother and me make our own decisions about God when we got to the right age. I started thinking recently, 'If I believe it is important to baptize my kids, why not me?' "

Crowe says the baptism will take place in the Byzantine chapel he built at his country ranch in Australia for his wedding to Danielle Spencer in 2003.

"It is consecrated and everything," Crowe says.

"I do believe there are more important things than what is in the mind of a man," he adds. "There is something much bigger that drives us all. I'm willing to take that leap of faith."

* According to David

Kronke in the Los Angeles Daily News, what goes around comes around.

Just as ABC borrowed the telenovela concept for "Ugly Betty," Univision will now turn ABC's "Desperate Housewives" into a Spanish-language tele-novela to be shot in Argentina.

"Amas de Casa Desesperadas" will turn Wisteria Lane into Calle Manzanares and turn Susan Mayer into Susana Martinez, Mary Alice Young into Alicia Arizmendi, Lynette Scavo into Leonor Guerrero, Bree Van de Kamp, into Regina Sotomayor and Edie Britt into Roxana Guzman.

Gabriela Solis gets to keep her name, but creator Marc Cherry will become Marcos Cereza.

* Ang Lee's sexually explicit spy

thriller "Lust, Caution" raked in $5.4 million in its first four days of release in China, despite cuts by Chinese censors who forbid nudity, profanity and behavior viewed as immoral or politically subversive - basically the whole film.

Maybe in China they should call it "Like, Caution." *

Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

Send e-mail to gensleh@phillynews.com