Global Oddities

A restaurant owner in southwest Turkey was shot dead after he tried to prevent his customers from smoking to comply with a new law on the use of tobacco indoors, Hurriyet daily said on Thursday.

A fight broke out after Hidir Karayigit, 46, ordered a group of customers to extinguish their cigarettes when they began smoking at his “meyhane,” a traditional restaurant that serves alcohol, in the town of Saruhanli, Hurriyet said.

One of the customers shot Karayigit four times after he took away the group’s cigarettes, said witness Hamza Havutcu, Karayigit’s business partner who was also shot and wounded.

Turkey’s government on July 19 introduced a nationwide ban on indoor smoking, including bars and restaurants, despite the fact that half of Turks aged between the ages of 15 and 49 smoke; one of the highest rates in the world.

“I’m deeply saddened that the first smoking-ban murder occurred in our town,” Saruhanli Mayor Veli Yalcin told Hurriyet. “They either shouldn’t have outlawed smoking or they should have outlawed alcohol along with smoking.”

Source: Reuters, July 31, 2009

California – A man who robbed a San Francisco Bay area bank apparently felt guilty enough to confess his sins and hand over $1,200, but not enough to turn himself in.

Police say a man went to a church Sunday night to confess that he robbed the Walnut Creek branch of the Patelco Credit Union last week. After expressing remorse, the man handed the priest $1,200 and left. The priest then called police.

Walnut Creek police Lt. Shelly James says authorities don’t know the man’s name or if the money he turned over was the entire amount lost in the robbery. The money will be returned to the bank.

Police say the man entered the credit union Thursday afternoon and gave a bank teller a note demanding money. He claimed he had a gun.

James says police are still looking for the robber and will arrest him when he’s found.

Source: AP, July 28, 2009.

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A Sudanese woman facing 40 lashes for wearing trousers in public made her first appearance in a court packed with supporters Wednesday, in what her lawyer described as a test case in Sudan’s decency laws.

There were chaotic scenes as Lubna Hussein, a former journalist who works for the United Nations, attended the hearing wearing the same green slacks that got her arrested for immodest dress.

Indecency cases are not uncommon in Sudan. But Hussein has attracted attention by publicising her case, inviting journalists to hearings and using it to campaign against dress codes sporadically imposed in the capital.

The case was adjourned Wednesday as lawyers discussed whether her status as a U.N. employee gave her legal immunity.

After the hearing, defense lawyer Nabil Adib Abdalla said Hussein had agreed to resign from the United Nations in time for the next session on August 4 to make sure the case continued.

“First of all she wants to show she is totally innocent, and using her immunity will not prove that,” Abdalla told reporters. “Second she wants to fight the law. The law is too wide. It needs to be reformed … This is turning into a test case. Human rights groups will be watching this closely.”

He said Hussein was ready to face the maximum penalty for the criminal offence of wearing indecent dress in public which was 40 lashes and an unlimited fine.

Before the hearing Hussein told Reuters she was arrested in early July when police raided a party she was attending at a restaurant in Khartoum’s Riyadh district.

“Thousands of women are punished with lashes in Sudan but they stay silent,” she said. “The law is being used to harass women and I want to expose this.”

She said a number of other women arrested with her received lashes. But her case was sent for trial when she called in a lawyer.

Journalists scuffled with police armed with batons outside the court room Wednesday and some reporters, who were briefly detained, had tapes and equipment confiscated.

Scores of women, some wearing slacks and jeans, attended the case. Some waved small placards with the slogan “Lashing people is against human rights.”

The trial was also attended by representatives of the embassies of France, Canada, Sweden and Spain, alongside politicians and members of the Sudanese Women’s Union.

Source: Reuters, July 29, 2009

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vo.china.referee.attack.cctv
Tianjin football players chased and physically attacked a referee after a match in Beijing. The incident occurred after the referee gave a red card to one of the players after what he considered a dangerous player. However, the players were infuriated with the decision and decided to take the laws into their hands. Not even the presence and intervention of the police could save the referee. In the end, the referee had to run away for his life.
Watch the video attached.
Source: CNN news online, July 28, 2009
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A Saudi Arabian man was arrested after bragging about his sex life on television, local media reported.
Mazen Abdul Jawad appeared last week on a show on Lebanese channel LBC, where he went into “graphic details about his sexual conquests,” according to Arab News, an English daily.
A segment of the show “Red Line” posted on YouTube shows the 32-year-old talking about sex and foreplay. He also discusses losing his virginity to a neighbor while he was 14.
In deeply conservative Saudi Arabia, pre-marital sex is illegal and unrelated men and women are not allowed to mingle.
A government official told the newspaper that discussing sex in public is a punishable offense that may affect anyone involved in the broadcast.
“It is wrong to host people on television to speak publicly about vice and issues against our religion,” said Ahmad Qasim Al-Ghamdi, director of Mecca’s branch of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, also known as the religious police.
“The program presents anomalies and deviancy in society that are unacceptable and immoral, and should be punished according to Shariah.”
About 100 people have filed a complaint against Abdul Jawad, alleging among other things, that he violated a principle of Shariah law by “publicizing his sinful behavior,” the daily said.
It is unclear what punishment, if any, Abdul Jawad faces.
CNN has been unable to reach Abdul Jawad or the Saudi Ministry of Justice for comment
Source: CNN news online, July 25, 2009

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Scammers have targeted a town on the Uganda-Kenya border with an elaborate fraud – setting up a fake bank and taking deposits, before fleeing.

The bank opened an office in Malaba town, advertised on radio and took $100,000 in deposits over two months.
But when investors turned up to reclaim their money, all they found was a note saying: “Sorry the bank operations have been moved to a new place.”

The scammers had paid for food, rent and advertising with fake cheques.

Richard Ojore, the landlord of the building where the fraudsters set up shop, said he had believed they were “genuine people”.
“We signed an agreement, and they even issued me a cheque for the duration of a year,” he told the BBC’s Network Africa programme.

“That’s when I went to the bank and presented the cheque for confirmation. The bankers confirmed to me that the thing is a fake.
“By the time I reported back to Malaba, they had already fled.”
The BBC’s Abraham Odeke in Malaba says crowds of people gathered outside the bank’s offices as the story spread.

He says most of them are retail traders and the small-scale farmers from the villages surrounding Malaba.
But he says all that is left inside the office of Visa Finance Bank are empty chairs – the cashiers, fans and even the carpets have all gone.

Source: BBC news online, July 24, 2009

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Farmers in an eastern Indian state have asked their unmarried daughters to plow parched fields naked in a bid to embarrass the weather gods to bring some badly needed monsoon rain, officials said on Thursday.

Witnesses said the naked girls in Bihar state plowed the fields and chanted ancient hymns after sunset to invoke the gods. They said elderly village women helped the girls drag the plows.

“They (villagers) believe their acts would get the weather gods badly embarrassed, who in turn would ensure bumper crops by sending rains,” Upendra Kumar, a village council official, said from Bihar’s remote Banke Bazaar town.

“This is the most trusted social custom in the area and the villagers have vowed to continue this practice until it rains very heavily.”

India this year suffered its worst start to the vital monsoon rains in eight decades, causing drought in some states.

Source: Reuters, July 23, 2009

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Detectives searched the Houston, Texas, medical office of one of Michael Jackson’s doctors on Wednesday for “evidence of the offense of manslaughter,” the doctor’s lawyer said.
The search warrant at Dr. Conrad Murray’s office “services part of the ongoing investigation into the death of Michael Jackson,” Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Gus Villanueva said.
Murray was the doctor who was at Jackson’s home when the pop star died on June 25.
Ed Chernoff, a Houston lawyer hired by Murray soon after Jackson’s death, confirmed that Los Angeles Police detectives and federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents used a search warrant to enter Murray’s office in northeast Houston on Wednesday morning,
“The search warrant authorized law enforcement to search for and seize items, including documents, they believed constituted evidence of the offense of manslaughter,” Chernoff said in a written statement Wednesday.
Chernoff said members of Murray’s legal team were at the medical office during the search, which he said was conducted by members of the DEA, two robbery-homicide detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department and Houston police officers.
“Law enforcement concluded their search around 12:30 p.m., and left with a forensic image of a business computer hard drive and 21 documents. None of the documents taken had previously been requested by law enforcement or the L.A. coroner’s office,” Chernoff said.
Tammy Kidd, a spokeswoman at Chernoff’s office, told CNN the raid “was absolutely a surprise to us, because we’ve had open lines of communication this whole time.”
“Based on Dr. Murray’s minute-by-minute and item-by-item description of Michael Jackson’s last days, he should not be a target of criminal charges,” Chernoff said Tuesday. “Dr. Murray was the last doctor standing when Michael Jackson died and it seems all the fury is directed toward him.”
Los Angeles investigators have interviewed Murray twice, Chernoff said. A third interview has not been scheduled, he said.
Source: CNN news online, July 22, 2009

Florida’s governor is asking wildlife officials to begin trapping pythons right away, just as the state handles nuisance alligators.
He issued the call two weeks after a central Florida youngster was strangled in her bed by a pet python.

“I was distressed to see the death that occurred recently,” he said. He added “It is important that we take action now to ensure a safe and healthy future for Florida’s native wildlife and habitats in the Everglades.”

A pet Burmese python measuring more than 8 feet long broke out of a terrarium and strangled a 2-year-old girl, Shaiunna Hare, in the bedroom of her central Florida home on July 1.

A spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Pat Behnke, said about 10 hunters would be permitted initially. They will be allowed to begin hunting the snakes Friday, initially focusing on state lands south of Lake Okeechobee.

Source: AP July 20, 2009

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Japanese marathon runner Keizo Yamada has hung up his sneakers at the grand old age of 81 — although he could be tempted back to run the odd half marathon.

Yamada, who represented Japan at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and won the Boston Marathon the following year, said the time was right for him to “scale back” on his running.

“I’m not getting any younger so I won’t run any more 42-kilometre races,” he told Sunday’s Sports Hochi newspaper, adding that he still jogs 20km daily.

“I will carry on running for fun to stay in shape.”

Dubbed “Iron Man,” Yamada ran three marathons this year, including his 19th appearance in Boston, and completed the Tokyo Marathon in a time of five hours, 34 minutes and 50 seconds.

He was one of the pioneers of Japanese marathon running, along with Shigeki Tanaka and Hideo Hamamura, who also won in Boston in 1951 and 1955 respectively.

Kokichi Tsuburaya put the sport on map in the Japan by taking bronze in the men’s marathon at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Japan’s women have had more success than their male counterparts in recent years, Naoko Takahashi capturing gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and Mizuki Noguchi winning the 2004 title in Athens.

Source: Reuters, July 19, 2009

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