Global Oddities

Broadcast veteran Larry King announced on Tuesday that he would be ending his nightly “Larry King Live” show on CNN this coming autumn after 25 years on television. Skip related content
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Enlarge photo .King, 76, said in a statement he would still host specials for CNN on major events, but wanted to spend more time with his wife and young children.

Known for his non-confrontational style and for wearing coloured suspenders, King has interviewed a broad array of guests from Hollywood stars to politicians and athletes.

“With this chapter closing I’m looking forward to the future and what my next chapter will bring, but for now it’s time to hang up my nightly suspenders,” King told viewers on Tuesday night’s show.

“Larry King Live” recently made the Guinness Book of World Records for having the longest running show with the same host in the same time slot.

King and his seventh wife, Shawn Southwick, called off their plans to divorce in May and reunited.

Source: Reuters, June 28, 2010

China’s military officers have added matchmaking to their duties, after the government banned troops from online dating over fears that lonely hearts might let sensitive information slip, state media said on Monday.

Commanders of the 2.3 million strong People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are studying how to help single service members find love, the official China Daily said in a report on new rules governing what troops can and can’t do online.
Blogs are out, along with internet dating, online job hunts, and even making friends in the virtual world under the Internal Affairs Regulation, which came into effect on June 15, the report said, citing a military newspaper.
“People with ulterior motives may make use of the soldiers’ personal information and pose a threat to the safety of the army,” Yang Jigui, an officer in Tibet, was quoted by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Daily as saying.
His team in the town of Shigatse is seeking matchmaking help from local government offices and the Communist Party’s women’s federation, the report said.
The China Daily said an internet search had turned up personal sites with information about single soldiers and articles containing sensitive military information.
Thousands of kilometers away, in the southern island province of Hainan, a paramilitary police officer has organized a party for older unmarried cadres to meet women working at the local China Mobile branch, the PLA Daily said in a separate report.
Source: Reuters, June 28, 2010

South Africa’s police are investigating after thieves stripped a police station of all its contents, down to the kitchen sink.
The office was under renovations and ready for re-occupation when the thieves hit, reports South Africa’s Times Newspaper.
The robbers helped themselves to everything of value – including doors, cupboards, basins, cutlery, tiles, furniture, electrical equipment and mortuary fridges.
Officers from the Carletonville police station, west of Johannesburg, have had to cram into three small rooms.
How bizarre, that the police will now have to investigate a crime committed at a police station
Diane Kohler Barnard DA police spokesperson
The space is inadequate, and there with no holding cells or parking spaces. The rent costs the police about 127,000 rand ($17,000; £11,430) each month, reports The Times.
It is not clear how the burglars managed to clean out the office without being detected by the security company contracted by the Department of Public Works to guard the premises.
Democratic Alliance police spokesperson Dianne Kohler Barnard said that the Department of Public Works had “failed taxpayers”.
“How bizarre, that the police will now have to investigate a crime committed at a police station,” she said.
“It’s absolutely terrible, but typical of Public Works. For them to allow that place to be stripped is outrageous.”
Public Works spokesperson Thami Mchunu said he was still gathering information about the incident.
“I will give you the full details as soon as possible,” he said, reports the newspaper.

Source: BBC news online, June 26, 2010

France’s “Hannibal Lecter” said Wednesday a sexual urge drove him to kill his cellmate and “curiosity” about the taste of human flesh led him to cook and eat a lung he ripped out of the corpse.

Nicolas Cocaign, whose case has sparked comparisons with the fictional cannibalistic serial killer, gave a blow by blow account of how and why he killed Thierry Baudry at his murder trial in the northern city of Rouen.
He said he flew into an “uncontrollable” rage after his victim gave him a “dirty look” on January 2, 2007 after he ordered him to wash his hands after using the toilet in the tiny cell they shared with a third inmate in Rouen.
“I had a sexual urge, an adrenaline rush,” Cocaign, whose bearded face is tattooed with bloody tears and a skull, told the court on the third day of a trial whose verdict was due Thursday.
He said that after pummelling his victim, he took a pair of scissors and plunged it into his back, neck and chest a dozen times before holding a plastic bag over his head “for five minutes” to make sure he was dead.
Then he decided to eat Baudry’s heart for his evening meal.
“I take a razor blade and I open his chest. I plunge my hand in and I take out what I think is the heart but which in fact is a piece of lung, which I put into a Tupperware container,” he told a transfixed courtroom.
Cocaign, who was in jail for armed robbery and was awaiting trial for attempted rape at the time, said he proceeded to eat part of the lung raw before frying the rest with onions on a camping stove and dining on the dish.
“I did it out of curiosity to see what it was like to eat human flesh,” said Cocaign, whose trial has put France’s troubled and overcrowded prison system under fresh scrutiny.
Baudry was in jail for sexual assault at the time of his death. The third cellmate was probed over Baudry’s death but cleared of any wrong-doing. He later committed suicide.
The court heard testimony from psychologist Lucien Venon, who read out a report he wrote after interviewing the accused in June 2007.
“What is terrible is that it (the lung) was good,” Cocaign told him, according to his testimony. “It has the taste of venison. It is tender. What I did I liked doing.”
Cocaign told the court on Monday he had a long history of mental problems and that the murder might have been avoided if prison authorities had not ignored his repeated appeals for psychological help.
“No one was listening to me,” the detainee said. “I took action, and then they took me seriously.”
Cocaign, whose victim’s mutilated body was not discovered by prison warders until the day after his death, stressed his troubled background and mental instability in his testimony.
He was abandoned by his 21-year-old homeless mother and cared for by the state until he was adopted aged three. From the age of six he was already under the care of a psychologist.
Reports from his childhood suggest he had difficulty telling right from wrong and his mental difficulties worsened when he was allegedly raped, aged 13. After this he developed “violent sexual compulsions.”
He was convicted of drug possession at age 22 and was later hospitalised on several occasions with mental illness. He complained to the court that he was not given drug treatment after release, despite asking for it.
Mental health experts have been asked to testify as to whether Cocaign was sufficiently sane to be responsible for his acts.
With one of the highest suicide rates in Europe, French prisons are regularly criticised by the European Court of Human Rights for failing to provide basic needs.
The Rouen court heard findings from a report into a string of “failures” at the jail in the city where Cocaign was behind bars at the time of the killing.

Source, AFP, June 23, 2010

Thieves in Beijing set up a fake ATM machine that recorded the bank details of unsuspecting users whose accounts were later robbed, in the first such scam discovered in China, state press said Wednesday.
Having duped bank customers into revealing their account details, the thieves forged duplicate bank cards to drain their accounts, China Central Television said.
The machine was bought from a legitimate manufacturer, but was not affiliated to any bank, it added.
The ATM was placed on a busy corner in central Beijing and advertised that it could accept many major credit and bank cards, but all transactions resulted in an error message, the official China Daily reported.
According to the paper, one man who used the machine was robbed of 5,000 yuan (735 dollars), while another person had his bank account “drained” of an unspecified amount. No arrests have yet been made.
Source: AFP June 23, 2010

It is anything but a dog’s life for Conchita, a beloved Chihuahua whose eccentric owner bequeathed her a three-million-dollar trust fund — a move now being contested by the late heiress’ only son, local media reported.
Heiress Gail Posner left her pooch (which she often decked out in a diamond necklace) a trust fund, and another 27 million dollars to the staff of her Miami beach mansion so that they can get by (rent-free) while caring for her pets until they die.
In contrast, Posner tossed a bone to her estranged son Bret Carr: a one million dollar inheritance.
A Miami court will now decide whether his late mother was manipulated into giving away her cash, as he contends, or if she spent it the way she wanted.
“She never would have done that unless she was under extreme influence,” Carr was quoted as telling The Miami Herald.
Her staff “exacerbated her paranoia and tendency to be in a delusional world,” he told the daily.
Source: AFP, June 21, 2010

Sani Kaita after his blunder

Nigeria midfielder Sani Kaita has had more than 1,000 death threats since being sent off during Thursday’s 2-1 loss to Greece at the World Cup.

“Kaita has received more than 1,000 threats to his e-mail from Nigeria,” said team spokesman Peterside Idah.

“We are taking these threats very seriously. We’ve spoken to the Nigerian government and also written to Fifa.”

Nigeria were leading 1-0 when Kaita saw red for kicking out at Greece’s Vassillis Torosidis in the 33rd minute.

The Super Eagles went on to concede two goals, seriously damaging their chances of reaching the knockout stages in South Africa.

“We consider it a very serious matter because this is a young man who is putting his best at the service of his country and football,” stated Idah.

“That is why the team received the news of the threat to his life with shock and disappointment and is urging the authorities in Nigeria to take measures to protect him.”

Idah added that the 24-year-old midfielder was “terribly shaken, but, fortunately, he is receiving great support from his team-mates and team officials”.

Nigeria take on South Korea at the Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban on Tuesday and must win to stand any chance of qualifying for the last 16.

Source: BBC news online, June 20, 2010

Cyclists stripped naked and braved the elements in Brussels Saturday for the annual two-wheel nude demonstration “cyclonudista” against car traffic in cities.

Wind and rain battered down on some 50 bare-bottomed Belgians, and police stopped two stark naked protesters for infringement of decency before quickly releasing them after friends circled the police vehicle.
“The nudity has allowed the protest to gain visibility in the media,” one of the organisers Jerome Nature said. “You need to be seen to be heard.”
But, he stressed, stripping off was a means to an end.
“Please do not reduce us to it,” he said.
The cyclists were protesting over “public space being monopolised by cars, which impose their law on us: aggression, speed, danger and pollution, transforming cities into hostile places,” he said.
The “cyclonudista” manifesto instead called for free, ecological public transport, car-free cities open to cyclists and pedestrians only, and a clampdown on car and air travel advertising.
The first “cyclonudista” protest took place in Saragossa in Spain 10 years ago has since become an annual ritual.
The European Commission will discuss on Wednesday a carbon tax that could also support the development of renewable forms of energy.

Source: AFP, June 19, 2010

A British woman who went to a Thai nature resort to conquer her fear of monkeys has been savaged by a pack of macaques.
Dee Darwell, 56, lost consciousness after the monkeys surrounded her and sank their teeth into her arms and body.
Many of the primates remained hanging from her limbs as she lay collapsed with blood spurting from a “deep, deep hole” in her arm.
She was eventually rescued by Thai boatmen and was taken to Bangkok Phuket Hospital.
The horrific attack happened on Monkey Island near to the popular holiday island of Phuket in southern Thailand.
“I thought I was heading for safety under this rock in the shade, only to cool down,” Mrs Darwell, from Peterborough, said.
“I laid the towel down and there were no monkeys in sight.
“The next thing I noticed, this monkey walked up next to me and I thought, oh dear, and I began to stand up to move away.
“Then, the monkey took my wrist and pounced on my right arm, sinking his teeth in and hung off it.
“He wouldn’t let go; he was locked on. I was absolutely petrified.”
Thai fishermen ran to the rescue after spotting more monkeys joining the assault and began prising them off.
Mrs Darwell said she had agreed to go on the Siam Sea Canoe tour with a friend to confront her fear of monkeys.
Her phobia had been triggered by her father bringing up a chimpanzee which she described as “positively evil”.
She said: “I thought, this is it, I’m going to die, I’m going to be savaged by these monkeys – then I went into shock.”
Mrs Darwell added: “I wouldn’t have got off that bloody boat if the tour guide would have said at all that there was any danger, any risk, even the slightest risk.”
Tour leader Mr Yongyut Buasod said: “We can’t control the monkeys if they decide to bite someone, that’s why we always warn the tourists.
“That day some people were teasing the monkeys. They don’t necessarily attack the specific person teasing them.”
Source: Skynews online, June 18, 2010

A Mozambican prisoner who had been released on parole broke back into jail after discovering he didn’t like life on the outside, state media reported Wednesday.

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Camilo Antonio, 28, was released from the Manica Agricultural Penitentiary in central Mozambique after serving half the 10-year prison sentence he had received for the 2004 murder of his stepfather, Noticias newspaper said.

But Antonio had trouble finding work and feared his stepfather’s family would try to kill him. So he broke back into jail by tearing down part of the prison wall.

He was then arrested for destruction of property and received a one-year sentence.

“To me, prison is the safest place,” Antonio told Noticias.

“I don’t want to live in jail, but at this stage in my life it’s the best place I’ve found.”

Source: AFP June 15, 2010