- PARIS (AFP) - A selection
of some of
the news items that may have been overlooked in the year 2000.
-
- - Razor blades, nails
and more than half a kilogramme
of metallic objects were surgically
removed from the stomach of an Iranian
teenager, who claimed she had
swallowed them "to calm my nerves".
Unsurprisingly, the
girl's crippling stomach pains cleared up after the
operation.
-
- - Saving a friend's
life cost Norwegian Per Einar Arvasli
7,000 kroner (900 euros) - the
amount he was fined for driving his snow
scooter in a prohibited area
while searching for a missing colleague, whom
he found unconscious with
head injuries after falling off his machine.
-
- - Animal-lover Alan Pinto saw
his luxury car reduced
to a pile of rubble after he allowed mechanics
in Liverpool, England, to
take it apart to resuce a pet hamster which
had crawled into the engine.
But even after the 24,000-pound (40,000
euros, 38,000 dollars) Mercedes
was dismantled at a local garage and
food left in the empty shell of the
vehicle, the rodent refused to
budge and it was only when a female hamster
was sent in that Hammy
emerged unscathed. "It just goes to show, you
can try everything
but it is the scent of a woman which can trap the most
elusive of
men," commented the garage's sales manager, Belinda Diamond.
-
- - A Nigerian woman
was stripped and beaten by a mob of
around 100 people in a Lagos street
after a man accused her of 'stealing'
his penis. The crowd believed
that woman was a witch who had magically
made the penis of a man in the
crowd disappear. No-one had actually seen
any evidence (the man was
holding tightly on to his trousers) but all appeared
to believe his
story. Belief in the power of women to 'steal' mens' private
parts by
an incantation or simple handshake are widespread across much
of west
Africa.
-
- -
A beauty contest in Canada can justifiably claim to
be the most
politically-correct event of its kind ever staged. The organizers
of
the Miss Alberta contest bowed to pressure form feminists by including
a blind man, 51-year-old Harold Grace, as one of the judges.
-
- - The world champion
nail-bender met his match in a piece
of metal tubing and dislocated his
previously infallible jaws. Slovenian
Zdenek Chobot, aged 40 but with
only two dental fillings, had just got
himself into the Guinness Book
of Records for a fourth time after bending
10 nails in his mouth in the
space of a minute when the piece of tubing
reportedly proved too
resistant and dislocated his jaw.
-
- - When mail deliveries in the
provincial Iran town of
Qom became spasmodic, no-one suspected the
postman, but when police called
on him, they discovered that he had
been systematically burning the letters
and pacakages he was entrusted
with, because he could not afford to heat
his home.
-
- - A 55-year-old man
who had been driving without a licence
for 35 years, was jailed for the
29th time by a court in the eastern French
town of Epinal, despite his
lawyer's claim that he was a victim rather
than a criminal. As a scrap
metal dealer, the man was obliged to drive
a van to ply his trade, the
lawyer argued, and each time he was released
from prison he found
himself penniless and was forced to drive in order
to earn money, only
to be stopped by local police and charged again. The
man has spent a
total of 10 years in prison for the same offence and can
add a futher
eight months to the total for his latest conviction.
-
- - A teenager was charged with
possessing cannabis after
he unwisely wandered into a supermarket in
the French town of Belfort and
weighed his five-gramme stash on the
scales in the fruit and vegetable
department. The youth had bought the
drug outside the shop and was curious
to make sure he had not been
short-changed by the dealer, he told police,
who were called to the
scene by a suspicious shop assistant.
-
- - A young Hungarian sent
himself through the post from
Budapest to his home in Miskolic, 250km
away. Istvan Beki packed himself
in a perforated box and presented
himself at the post office counter where
he was dispatched by surface
mail. He arrived safe and sound at his home
and, as the addressee, duly
signed the receipt for the parcel.
-
- - Children were crying in the
street as they watched
police arrest Father Christmas and haul him off
in handcuffs in the English
seaside town of Great Yarmouth, believing
that he would not be delivering
presents on December 25. Things got out
of hand during the town carnaval
and the Father Christmas came to blows
with a youth who had started insulting
him, which was when the police
intervened and charged both protagonists
with public order
offences.
-
- - It is supposed to be elephants who never forget, but
a troop
of baboons in Saudi Arabia showed remarkable powers of memory when
they
waited by the roadside for three days to avenge a dead brother. The
animal was run over and killed by a driver on the road from Mecca to Taef
and when the car made the return trip, the primates bombarded it with
rocks,
smashing the windscreen and causing damage to the
bodywork.
-
- - A 72-year-old Colombian woman suffering from chronic
stomach
pains went to hospital in Tolima where an X-Ray showed that she
had
been living for the past 40 years with a mummified foetus in her body.
The woman had apparently undergone an ectopic pregnancy, of which she had
been unaware, and the unborn child had died at around 28 to 30 weeks,
doctors
discovered.
-
- - A bank robber in San Diego, California, was quickly
arrested - because he smelt so bad. The bank clerk held up gunpoint told
police that the man's single most distinguishing feature was a severe
attack
of body odour and once the description had been circulated it
was only
a matter of hours before a motel owner not far from the bank
heard a radio
news report and called police to denounce the 24-year-old
thief.
-
- - A
park bench in the English city of Bristol has been
given its own
postcode - so that the six down-and-outs who share it can
receive free
medical treatment. The men, who do not have a permanent address,
had
been denied health care beacuse they were considered homeless but are
now properly registered in the system. For the record, they can be reached
at Park Bench, Portland Square, Bristol BS2 8QD, England.
-
- - After the many
heartwarming stories of how animals
have saved the lives of their
masters and mistresses comes a chilling tale
of the too-loyal dog from
Turkey, who probably cost his owner his life.
Muammer Guney, 46,
collpased with a heart attack in a park in Denizli as
he took his boxer
dog for a walk and the animal stood fierce guard over
his master,
keeping would-be helpers at bay. By the time relatives had
been called
to pull the dog off, doctors pronounced Guney dead.
-
- - Italian footballer Paolo di
Canio built up a solid
reputation as a hard man with a killer instinct.
He was, after all, the
first player in Britain to be suspended for 11
games for knocking over
a referee whose decision he disagreed with. But
that reputation now lies
in tatters after his all-too-human sporting
gesture in his club West Ham's
match with Everton. With the scores
level at 1-1 and approaching the final
moments, di Canio had the
perfect opportunity to grab maximum points for
his side as he stood
unmarked in front of goal with the ball crossed to
him and opposing
goalkeeper Paul Gerrard suddenly immoblised with a painful
knee injury.
But instead of hammering the ball into the net, di Canio caught
it and
pointed to the prostrate figure of Gerrard. Modestly di Canio, who
earned the respect of his opponents and the wrath of his team-mates, said:
"It seemed like the right thing to do."
-
- - No-one is allowed to die in
the French seaside town
of Le Lavandou unless they already own a family
vault in which to be buried
-- by mayoral decree. Mayor Gil Bernardi
issued the edict because the town
cemetery was full and there were
already 19 requsts for burial pending
bas the town awaits a decision on
the site of a new graveyard.
-
- - A seven-year-old boy whose mother took away his ice
cream called local police to complain. The spoilt brat told officers on
the phone in Spire, Germany, that he had nothing to eat, but when they
called round at the house, the mother explained that her son had stolen
the ice cream from the freezer without her permission after refusing to
eat a plate of French fries, which he threw out the kitchen window. The
boy escaped with a reprimand.
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