Global Oddities

Tanzania’s police authorities say 26 albinos have so far been killed in the country this year for ritual purposes. The latest victim had his right foot and genitalia removed by unknown assailants. His wife was also injured in the attack.
Police report says the body parts removed from the albinos are used by witchdoctors to produce potent charms which are believed to make people wealthy.
Other parts of the body that are of interest to the witchdoctors include hairs, arms, legs and blood.
Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete has since ordered full police crackdown on the witchdoctors who are suspected to be behind the ritual killings, as well as their accomplices.
Albinos have pigmentation problems which make them appear very light-skinned.
Source: Vicky Ntetema, BBC News online, July 29, 2008

A dog has appeared in court in the eastern Indian state of Bihar accused of breaching the peace.
Police demanded severe action against the dog for biting people. Its owner says it has only attacked burglars.
The dog, named Chhotu, has been in trouble with the law before. In 2003, a magistrate sentenced Chhotu to death.
Neighbours complained he had gone mad and bitten several people. But animal rights activists managed to get the decision reversed.
Chhotu made his latest appearance in a crowded court last Thursday in the town of Purnea.
“The court was compelled to issue a summons to the dog since the police found that it was a threat to peace and feared that it might create a law and order problem,” district official Rajiv Ranjan said.
In court Chhotu appeared to have been on best behaviour.
“Despite the presence of so many people in the courtroom the dog did not bite or bark at anyone,” the canine’s lawyer Dilip Kumar Deepak said in defence of his client.
The case continues and Chhotu has been ordered to appear in court again on 5 August, together with his owner, childless widow, Rajkumari Devi.
Seven-year-old Chhotu was picked up off the streets by Rajkumari Devi’s mother, Janaki Devi.
Janaki Devi died six months ago and since then Rajkumari Devi has kept the dog as her pet in her one-room thatched house.
“Chhotu is my sole protector and I’ve brought him up as if he was my own child,” says Rajkumari Devi who says the dog has only bitten those who have tried to break into her house.
Her lawyer says Rajkumari Devi’s jealous neighbours are trying to get their hands on her property.
“They want to steal the land papers which is why they have tried to break into her house in the night. But they had to give up after being bitten by Chhotu,” he said.

Source: Amarnath Tewary, BBC News online, July 28, 2008

A British couple who staged the husband’s death in a $500,000 insurance scam will now spend quite some time in jail, a London judge ruled on July 23. The man, John Darwin, got six years, three months jail sentence while his wife, Anne, is to serve for six and half years.
The Darwins faked John’s death in an alleged canoe mishap in 2002 in order to collect insurance and pension payments. However, last December, John reappeared, walked into a police station claiming amnesia.
As their trial went on, photographs of the couple holidaying in Panama surfaced to convince the jury that both of them had faked the death for monetary gain.

A New Jersey man trying to exterminate insects in his apartment blew it up instead, the New York Daily News reported on Monday.
Isias Vidal Maceda was unhurt in the incident, but 80 percent of his apartment was destroyed, Eatontown, New Jersey police told the newspaper.
The accident occurred as Maceda was spraying for pests in his kitchen. Somehow the bug spray ignited a blast that blew out the apartment’s front windows and triggered a fire that quickly spread, the newspaper said.
Police told the newspaper that the Saturday blaze also caused smoke damage to the apartment above.
Source: Reuters, July 21, 2008

Pittsburgh police in the USA are now investigating the case of a woman who allegedly ripped open a pregnant lady’s uterus and stole her baby.

The accused, 38-year-old Andrea Curry-Demus, is said to have taken the baby boy to a nearby hospital, claiming him to be her child. She is now charged with homicide, unlawful restraint and kidnapping. Her victim was 18-year-old Kia Johnson.

According to police reports, Curry-Demus had been jailed in 1990 for stabbing another woman in an attempt to steal her baby. Three days later, she was at a hospital where she stole a 3-week-old baby, after her real mother had gone home.

Curry-Demus initially told the police she bought the baby boy but later changed her story when the body of the boy’s real mother was discovered.

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) – An Indian man who took an impersonator to court to get a divorce faces legal action after his real wife found out, lawyers said Friday.
Sanjib Saha presented a woman as his wife in a lower court in the eastern city of Kolkata this month. Both said they sought a mutual divorce, something the court granted immediately.
Saha’s real wife was then asked to leave the marital home. She has since appealed the ruling at a higher court, charged her husband with cheating and the original divorce was suspended.
“The case exposed the legal loopholes in our system,” Kaushik Chanda, lawyer of Saha’s real wife, said.
Source: Reuters, July 18, 2008

Zimbabwe’s annual rate of inflation has surged to 2,200,000%, official figures have shown.

The figure is the first official assessment of prices in the troubled African nation since February, when the rate of inflation stood at 165,000%.

Zimbabwe, once one of the richest countries in Africa, has descended into economic chaos largely blamed on the policies of President Robert Mugabe.

Mr Mugabe was re-elected last month in a controversial one-man race.

The opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), pulled out of the run-off election, saying its supporters were being attacked and killed.

Source: BBC news online, July 16, 2008

An Australian man convicted of his seventh drink-driving charge was spending about A$1,000 ($972) a week on beer — enough to buy more than 2,500 small bottles a month, a newspaper said Tuesday.
The heartbroken construction worker began drowning his sorrows after breaking up with his partner five years ago, the Northern Territory News said, quoting his defense lawyer as telling a court in Australia’s remote, tropical north.
The magistrate declined to jail the father of four, Michael Leary, noting he had quit drinking since his latest arrest, but he banned Leary from buying or even holding a beer for 12 months.
The magistrate also poked fun at Leary’s favorite beer, Melbourne Bitter, in a part of the country where drinkers can be as loyal to beer brands as they are to football teams.
”(That is) poor judgment on two counts there — drinking that much and drinking Melbourne Bitter,” magistrate Vince Luppino was quoted as saying.
Source: Reuters, July 15, 2008

An American couple expecting the birth of their baby boy has decided to use the event to solve part of their increasing gas bill: They have opted to trade the child’s name for a $100 gas card.
The couple, David Partin and expectant girlfriend Samantha Bailey were at an Orland radio station where they pledged to trade the name for a gas card.
Reports say that two morning show hosts have taken advantage of the situation to name the unborn boy “Dixon and Willoughby” – after themselves!

Source: AOL “weird news” July 14, 2008

SYDNEY, Australia (July 14) – A 108-year-old Australian woman who was promoted as the world’s oldest blogger has died two weeks after making her last post about “singing a happy song,” her great-grand son and her online forum said.
Olive Riley wrote 74 entries in her blogs, firstly www.allaboutolive.com.au and later http://worldsoldestblogger.blogspot.com. A friend introduced Riley to blogging early in 2007, and was hooked.

Riley “passed away peacefully on Saturday, July 12,” a posting on her Web site said. No cause of death was given. “She will be mourned by thousands of Internet friends and hundreds of descendants and other relatives.”

She entered a nursing home in Woy Woy, 50 miles north of Sydney, last month, from where she blogged about having a bad cough and feeling weak.

In her last entry, on June 26, Riley thanked supporters for “a whole swag of e-mails and comments from my Internet friends” and described meeting a new friend in the bed next to her.
Source: AP, July 14, 2008