Global Oddities

About 5,200 naked people have embraced each other on the steps of Sydney’s iconic Opera House for a photo shoot by Spencer Tunick.

Tunick, who is known for his nude group photos in public spaces, posed participants for more than an hour in a variety of positions Monday.

“It was difficult to get the straight participants to embrace the gay participants and vice versa,” Tunick said. “So I was very happy that that last set up finally got done and everyone came together (in a) united, friendly kiss, a loving kiss in front of this great structure.”

Nineteen-year-old student Art Rush said he was thrilled to participate.

“I’ll never get a chance to do this again, it’s not worth being inhibited,” Rush said. “It doesn’t feel sexual, it just feels tribal, a gathering of humanity.”

Source: AP, February 28, 2010

Police Boss Ali Tounsi

The chief of Algeria’s national police force, Ali Tounsi, has been shot dead in the capital, Algiers, officials say.

He was killed by a colleague during a regular morning meeting in the police headquarters in front of several witnesses, the interior ministry said.

The alleged killer was seized with what the ministry called an attack of madness and shot Col Tounsi before turning the gun on himself.

He was now in hospital with severe injuries, the ministry said.

A judicial inquiry into the circumstances of the shooting has been opened. There has been no indication of a link to Islamist militants, who have periodically attacked government targets.

Col Tounsi was one of Algeria’s most powerful security officials and was closely involved in the country’s fight against militants, analysts say.

He had devoted himself to serving the nation, a statement from the interior ministry said, and to the modernisation of the national police force which he had been head of for more than 10 years.

Algeria was riven with violence after the 1992 general election, won by an Islamist party, was annulled.

More than 150,000 people died, but an amnesty in 1999 led many rebels to lay down their arms.

Political violence in Algeria has declined since then, but a group calling itself Al-Qaeda in the Land of Islamic Maghreb (AQLIM) has continued to carry out attacks.

Source: BBC news online, February 25, 2010

The head of Germany’s Protestant church has admitted drink-driving, after she was charged with passing a red light while three times over the legal limit.

Bishop Margot Kaessmann, appointed the church’s first female leader last year, was arrested in Hanover at the weekend.

She told Germany’s Bild newspaper: “I am shocked at myself that I could have made such a grave error.”

Leaders of the 25 million-strong church are discussing how the incident affects the 51-year-old’s official position.

Ms Kaessmann, who became the first bishop in Germany to divorce in 2007, allegedly drove her VW Phaeton through a red light in central Hanover on Saturday night while “completely unfit to drive”.

The mother of four daughters told Bild: “I know how dangerous and irresponsible drink-driving is. I will of course assume the legal consequences.”

Courted controversy

Ms Kaessmann faces a fine of a month’s salary and a one-year driving ban.

The breast cancer survivor, who leads the Evangelical Church in Germany, became her country’s youngest bishop in 1999.

This is not the first time Ms Kaessmann has made the headlines.

She irritated senior politicians by calling for the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan, in a sermon on New Year’s Day.

The Lutheran bishop has also criticised Catholic teachings on homosexuality, the ordination of women and celibacy.

The BBC’s Oana Lungescu in Berlin says it is not just the Protestant church in Germany that faces controversy.

On Monday, the head of Germany’s Catholic Church apologised for the growing number of sexual abuse cases that are coming to light at Jesuit high schools across the country.

Source: BBC news online, February 23, 2010

Czech medical staff are being disciplined after a foot-long surgical instrument was found in the abdomen of a woman who was operated on five months ago.

The patient, 66-year-old Zdenka Kopeckova, repeatedly complained of severe abdominal pain following a gynaecological operation at a hospital in the southeastern town of Ivancice.

“I said that nobody helps me and I cannot live like this till the end of my life. I’ll get pills, have a glass of an alcohol and hang myself,” she said after the spatula-like instrument was discovered a week ago and successfully removed.

Kopeckova is seeking compensation over the error, claiming staff initially tried to cover up the mistake by saying there was nothing they could do but recommend pain killers.

“I told the head surgeon that if I had no pain I would not be complaining. I’m not a hypochondriac,” she said, adding she had requested an x-ray but was told this would needlessly expose her to radiation.

Jaromir Hrubes, Ivancice hospital director, said strict operation procedures should have been followed by medical staff and an unnamed hospital official told Reuters Television that those concerned would be disciplined.

“The medical procedures at Ivancice seem perfect at the first sight, there is documentation and list of instruments used, but the person who did the evaluation did not report the missing object,” said Hrubes.

Source: Reuters, February 22, 2010

A man who is only 22 inches (56 centimetres) tall left his home country of Nepal on Sunday in a quest to be recognized as the world’s shortest man.

Khagendra Thapa Magar is travelling to Europe to campaign for the Guinness World Record title. He applied to London-based group for a place in the record book in October, soon after turning 18, but said he has not received any response.

Magar’s family initially filed a claim when he was 14, but it was rejected because he was not an adult and there was a chance he might grow.

They say doctors in Nepal have not been able to explain why Magar is so small.

“We are going to Italy to try to record his name in the Guinness Book of World Records,” his father, Rup Bahadur Thapa Magar, told reporters in Kathmandu. They plan to appear on an Italian television show to talk about his bid for the title.

Once in Italy, Magar, his father and a supporter will decide on their next destination.

His supporters saw him off from the Nepalese capital on Sunday, offering flower bouquets and garlands.

The current record is held by He Pingping of China, who is 29 inches (73 centimetres) tall.

Source: AP February 20, 2010

Sir Elton John

Sir Elton John has claimed Jesus was a “super-intelligent gay man” in an interview with a US magazine.

The singer also told Parade Jesus was “compassionate”, forgiving and “understood human problems”.

A spokesman for the Church of England said: “Sir Elton’s reflection that Jesus calls us all to love and forgive is one shared by all Christians.”

“But insights into aspects of the historic person of Jesus are perhaps best left to the academics,” he added.

Sir Elton said in the interview: “On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving.

“I don’t know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East – you’re as good as dead,” he added.

In the interview, the singer also said he did not like being a celebrity any more because “fame attracts lunatics”.

“Princess Diana, Gianni Versace, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, all dead. Two of them shot outside their houses. None of this would have happened if they hadn’t been famous. I never had a bodyguard, ever, until Gianni died,” he said.

The full interview will be published on Parade’s website on Friday.

Source: BBC news online, February 19, 2010

IRS office on fire in suicide attempt

An Austin, Texas, resident with an apparent grudge against the Internal Revenue Service set his house on fire Thursday and then crashed a small plane into a building housing an IRS office with nearly 200 employees, officials said.
Federal authorities identified the pilot of the Piper Cherokee PA-28 as Joseph Andrew Stack, 53.
Two people were injured and one person was missing, local officials said. There were no reported deaths.
A message on a Web site registered to Stack appears to be a suicide note.
“If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, ‘Why did this have to happen?’ ” the message says. “The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time.”
In the lengthy, rambling message, the writer rails against the government and, particularly, the IRS.
“I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different,” the online message says. “I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.”
Two people were transported to University Medical Center Brackenridge, said hospital spokeswoman Matilda Sanchez. She could not provide additional information.
University Medical Center Brackenridge is the only Level 1 trauma center for adults in Austin.
St. David’s Medical Center, the other major hospital in the area, said it had not received any patients.
Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell said one person remained unaccounted for Thursday afternoon.
He tried to calm any concerns residents could have about the crash and the huge fire, which he said was mostly contained.
The FAA said preliminary information indicated the plane departed Georgetown Municipal Airport north of Austin about 9:40 a.m. CT.
The pilot evidently did not file a flight plan, the FAA said. No flight plan was required because flights Thursday morning were under visual flight rules, or VFR, because of clear weather.
Two F-16 fighter jets were sent from Houston as a precaution, but federal authorities said preliminary information did not indicate any terrorist connection to the crash.
“We do not yet know the cause of the plane crash,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a release. “At this time, we have no reason to believe there is a nexus to terrorist activity. We continue to gather more information, and are aware there is additional information about the pilot’s history.”

Source:CNN news online, february 18, 2010

Funeral home workers in the Colombian city of Cali got the shock of a lifetime when an apparently dead 45-year-old woman suddenly started breathing and moving as they prepared her for burial.

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Local media said the women had been declared clinically dead at a medical facility Tuesday after having been hospitalized in serious condition with a neurological condition a day earlier.

“The instruments the patient was connected to gave no blood pressure or heart rate readings,” said Miguel Angel Saavedra, a doctor at the clinic where the woman was treated.

Medical staff at the facility signed the women’s death certificate and her body was transferred to a funeral home to be prepared for burial.

But, in a case of what physicians call “Lazarus Syndrome,” the woman was not actually dead.

“When they were going to apply formaldehyde, the patient began to breathe again and make movements,” Saavedra told a local news station.

The woman, whose name has not been released, was readmitted to hospital and was in a coma, doctors said.

Source:AFP, February 17, 2010

73-year-old Florida man who was arrested for robbing three banks — unarmed and taking $600 in each heist — said he needed the money to pay his home mortgage, police said on Friday.

James Bruce of Tampa was arrested on Thursday. He admitted robbing the banks but said he planned to pay back the money, Tampa Police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.
“He called it a repayable loan,” she added.
Bruce was unarmed in each of the three robberies. At all three banks, he handed a note to a teller which said he was carrying out a robbery and demanded six $100 bills.
Police said they believed the tellers gave up the money because it was bank policy not to have staff resist robbers in case they were armed. The robberies took place on January 15, February 1 and February 10 in Tampa.
Bruce owns a garden store in Tampa, where he sells pots.
Source: Reuters, February 15, 2010

A week before Valentine’s Day, a consignment of cocaine was found hidden among 20,000 roses from Latin America at Amsterdam airport, Dutch authorities said Wednesday.

The roses, a popular February 14 Valentine’s Day gift, arrived last Sunday on a flight from Bogota, Colombia, which stopped over in Puerto Rico, the public prosecutors’ office said in a statement. The drug was found in cellophane packets hidden in boxes containing the roses.

Three people in the Netherlands were arrested and police found a total of 9 kg (20 lb) of cocaine in their possession, including the seized shipment, with a street value of about 1.3 million euros.

The Netherlands is a major flower trading hub, home to the world’s biggest flower auction house and is the source of 60 percent of the world’s flower exports.

Source: Reuters, February 15, 2010