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 News from Around the Americas | May 2007 
It's an Odd World!
 Newswire
| | I TOLD YOU WE SHOULD HAVE TAKEN A LEFT: The fuselage of a Boeing 737 is parked on a road in Mumbai May 3. The trailer carrying the fuselage got stuck on the narrow road in Mumbai three days earlier while being taken to New Delhi. (Reuters) |
A regular collection of weird and wonderful events taking place in our world: Body beautiful; Added-value carwash; Who do you call? Ghostbusters!
No license required
ROME: Palermo's city hall has hired 110 new bus drivers - none of whom have a license to drive a bus, sources said Friday. The hirings have come ahead of May 13 and 14 local elections in the Sicilian city. Election season in Sicily often brings revelations of questionable municipal hirings, a practice denounced by critics as a vote-winning tactic.
Italian paper Corriere della Sera reported the bus driver hirings Friday and sources close to the public transport president confirmed them. "For the moment, we cannot do anything with them," the source said. "As long as they have not earned their permits, they are paid but must wait to be assigned."
Malaysian state call in 'ghostbusters'
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's conservative northern Kelantan state is to deploy "ghostbusters" to perform exorcisms on followers of illicit Islamic cults, reports said Friday.
Kelantan's Islamic Affairs Department director, Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahman, said the exorcists were well-versed in the Koran and would drive out evil spirits from cult followers who follow "deviant" teachings, the Star reported. The exorcists will also tackle Islamic enforcement officers who had investigated cultists and been converted, it said.
Mainly Muslim Malaysia is always on the lookout for Islamic cults it says deviate from traditional teachings and practice. Abdul Aziz said authorities had identified 16 cults in the state in the past decade and had jailed, whipped, or fined members found guilty of spreading irregular teachings.
"It is not easy to catch these deviationists as they use all kinds of tactics to hide their activities which include black magic," he was quoted as saying by the state Bernama news agency.
Drought drives Aussies to nude carwash
SYDNEY: Australia's worst drought in memory has had many weird side-effects - but a nude carwash has to be one of the oddest. In Brisbane, capital of the "Sunshine State" of Queensland on the east coast, it led to water restrictions, including a ban on residents washing their own cars. The result was a boom in professional carwash services, a phenomenon which caught the eye of strip club entrepreneur Warren Armstrong.
He set up "Bubbles 'n Babes," where customers can have their cars washed by a topless woman for 55 Australian dollars ($45), or a nude woman for $100 dollars.
Armstrong told the City News newspaper this week the operation was above board. "I am just trying to make an honest dollar - simple as that," he said. Police said no complaints had been received and, as the washing took place out of public view, no criminal offence was being committed.
Acting state premier Anna Bligh said the operation was running on recycled water and therefore did not break water restrictions - but neither she nor the government fleet would be using it. "It seems to me a pretty weird and wacky way to get your car washed," she said.
On the toss of a coin
ABERDEEN: An English municipal councillor held on to his seat after the election was decided by the toss of a coin, the BBC reported Friday. Christopher Underwood-Frost tied with Liberal Democrat John Birkenshaw after each polled 781 votes for the Scotter ward of West Lindsey district in Lincolnshire, eastern England.
Despite winning, the Conservative Party candidate said he did not think an election should be decided on the toss of a coin. "We did ask whether we, between ourselves, could agree to disagree with the toss of a coin ... but the law's the law, and the law needs to be changed in my view," he was quoted as saying. "Here I am re-selected by a way that I do not think anybody would agree with, but that is the law."
Dinner for 1,800
VIENNA: An Austrian group declared Saturday that it had set a record for the world's longest restaurant table with place settings for 1,800. The table, set up along a shopping street, stretched 1.2 kilometers (three-quarters of a mile), organizers said.
It actually included 600 tables, with 30 culture specialists setting up 1,800 place settings with decorations. The total weight was five tons. Organizers said their table was long enough to beat the previous Guinness world record of 1.036 kilometers set in the Austrian city of Scharding last year.
Body art
MEXICO CITY: About 18,000 people posed nude Sunday for US photographer Spencer Tunick in Mexico City's Zocalo Square, a new record for the American artist known for snapping his subjects in the buff. Thousands of naked volunteers formed a giant mosaic of flesh for Tunick, who far exceeded his own previous record of 7,000 nude models set in Barcelona.
He told reporters: "All eyes are looking south, from the US to Mexico City, to see how a country can be free and treat the human body with happiness and not as pornography or as a crime."
Tunick had the throng of volunteers, which included a broad sample of ages and backgrounds, pose in the fetal position and give a salute to an imaginary flag within sight of the capital's main cathedral and National Palace. It took Tunick's associates five years to secure permission for the shoot in which the Roman Catholic cathedral on the square and the Mexican flag will not appear.
Tunick has carried out similar photo sessions in Belgium, France, Australia, the UK, Canada, and the US. In 1994 he was arrested in Manhattan after a nude model posed for him in broad daylight.
Birds on the roof? Try lion dung
LONDON: Homeowners near a safari park in the UK have come up with a novel product for scaring away unwanted birds that are nesting on their roofs: the pungent-smelling feces of lions and tigers.
"We get many requests for people to come in and take lion or tiger dung to help scare away predators, birds, and other pests," said Gary Gilmour, manager of Blair Drummond Safari Park near the southern Scottish city of Stirling.
Gilmour said homeowners are resorting to the measure because animal protection laws forbid them from removing or damaging nests. "It might seem unusual but it seems to get results," the park manager added.
Kwik-Fit Insurance said claims for damage caused by bird nesting were common among its customers. "Many homes suffer from structural deterioration each year from nesting birds which can lead to million of pounds of damage," Kwik-Fit managing director Martin Oliver said.
Oliver said he had never heard of a customer using lion or tiger dung as a solution "but I do not think we would give them a discount for it. We might offer them nose plugs to block the smell when they are spreading it though." |
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