 | PerspectiveVolume LIII | 
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Sunday August 10, 2003 |
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| Perspective is a weekly features of unorthodox news reports from around the globe. Some of the reports serve to prove the point that we as Nigerians are not as unique as we may think. To put any news report in Perspective please send a note to perpective@ekiti.com | ||
Headlines
Woman Pleads for Son to Stay in Guantanamo A number of governments, including Russia's, are in talks with the United States to extradite their nationals from the prison camp in Cuba, which was set up to house Taliban and al Qaeda suspects after the war in Afghanistan. "I am terribly scared of a Russian prison or Russian court for my son," Amina Khasanova was quoted as saying by Gazeta newspaper on Friday. "At Guantanamo they treat him humanely, the conditions are fine." Her son Andrei Bakhitov is one of eight Russian detainees, and the newspaper quoted a letter he wrote to his mother. "I think that there is not even a health resort in Russia on the level of this place," the letter said.
Man tries to ditch taxi driver after $915 cab ride Police say 23-year-old Jeremy Hartman got out of the cab in the village of Wellsville, where he has relatives, and fled. Police say they found him holed up in a nearby apartment. Hartman, who is from Illinois, was arrested after the long cab ride Tuesday. He was charged with theft of services. Wellsville is about 70 miles southeast of Buffalo.
Woman opens yard for UFO convention So four years ago she asked the Saguache County commissioners to allow her to build a UFO watchtower and campground so she could cash in on people who were already using her land to camp as they tried to spot aliens. The San Luis Valley has long been considered a fertile ground for such searches, especially after claims of alien abductions, UFO landings and a wave of cattle mutilations. Since opening the UFO Watchtower in May 2000, Messoline has become a local celebrity. Last year she decided to hold a UFO conference and this year she has added a rock garden celebrating three vortexes that several psychics say are in her front yard. The conference is going to be held August 9 and 10. Speakers will include a woman who claims she was taken aboard a UFO, and a video of what is described as UFO will be shown. The conference also includes the "Watch" for the unexplained, Messoline said.
Saudi man in 'briefest' marriage The man became angry after the bride's brother took a photograph of the newly-weds to keep as a souvenir, the paper reported. After being dissuaded from hitting his brother-in-law, the man simply divorced his wife.
Doctor held hostage by knife man during surgery School Lane was sealed off at about 1000 BST on Tuesday and a specialist police negotiator was called to the scene. Other buildings nearby were not evacuated but police told employees to stay inside. Chief Superintendent John Feavyour apologised for the inconvenience and asked local people to be patient. He added: "We are in touch with this man through trained negotiators and our concern now is for the safety of both men inside the centre. "People should be assured that we are working to resolve this situation as quickly as possible to bring it to a safe conclusion." Eight doctors - seven men and a woman - are listed as working at the medical centre. The practice comes under the control of the Northamptonshire Heartlands Primary Care Trust. A Trust spokeswoman said police had been in contact about the incident but declined to comment further
Bank Robber Races Away in Police Car "We noticed one of our police cruisers was missing just before we got the call about the bank robbery, where witnesses said they saw one of our cars speeding away with the lights flashing," said Sgt. Mark Fowke, a spokesman for the Manchester, New Hampshire, police department. The robber held up a Fleet Bank branch around noon on Wednesday, Fowke said. Police have not named any suspects but have not ruled out the chance that the robber was someone on the force who would know how to turn on the cruiser's lights and speed away. Manchester is a city of 100,000 north of Boston and its police force owns more than two dozen cars to patrol the community, Fowke said.
Man pays damages for breaking up marriage Harry Stevens was ordered by a jury to pay $175,000 for breaking up a marriage. Holcombe claimed Stevens had an affair with and destroyed his marriage to his now ex-wife, Andrea Holcombe. Stevens argued in county court documents that there was no love lost between the couple. According to court records, the couple were married in 1980 and had three children. They separated in 1998 and were divorced in 1999. Andrea Holcombe said in an affidavit that by late 1996 and early 1997, the marriage was nonexistent. Tyson Graham, Eddie Holcombe's lawyer, said such cases are usually settled out of court. Stevens' attorney declined comment. According to the court record, Andrea Holcombe was an accountant at the same firm where Stevens was a senior partner. She has since left the firm.
Man prefers jail to living with own mother and sister
Michael McAllister, of Kitchener, Ont., has been on bail for two years since being arrested on a methadone trafficking charge in July 2001. His lawyer, John Lang, said McAllister just couldn't take the "house rules." "The pressure's been too much for him," Lang said. "He's decided he can't live, at this time, under their rules. In his opinion, the pressures he's under are worse than the pressures in jail." He couldn't be any more specific. In Ontario Court today, Justice of the Peace Bridget Forster expressed surprise at the prisoner in the box in front of her. "Frankly, I've never had this situation come up before where someone is indicating they're not willing to comply with terms of their recognizance." Lang, a veteran criminal lawyer, said he's never seen anyone choose jail over obeying a bail condition, either. But he said it was the right thing for McAllister to do since he isn't getting along with his sureties, the people legally responsible for him while on bail. If McAllister had been caught breaching his bail term, he or one of his sureties could have lost $10,000 in bail, and he could have been charged, Lang said. Lang will try to get McAllister out on bail with new sureties or under the supervision of Youth in Conflict With the Law. McAllister is in the Maplehurst Detention Centre in Milton, Ont. No date has been set for the trafficking charge
Locusts Plunge Town Into Darkness Residents of the Chinese border town of Erenhot are maintaining a blackout at night as electric lighting tends to attract the insects. The Yangcheng Evening News reported Tuesday that the locusts -- which arrived in the region in June -- were "like snow falling from the sky." Crushed insects blanketed the roads of the remote town, the newspaper said, and the swarm had already engulfed more than 11 million hectares of Inner Mongolia's grasslands. "Locusts like well-lit places and people turned off their lights so the bugs won't fly into their homes," Zhang Zhuoran, section chief of Inner Mongolia Grassland Plant Protection Station, told Reuters Wednesday. "The affected area is almost all grassland. The locusts have hit about 10 percent of Inner Mongolia's grassland but the situation is under control," he added.
Speeders pay £60 fine or get an option to watch video as purnishment The two-week pilot project, Operation Slowdown, is aimed at stopping drivers speeding through the county's towns and villages. Last year, one person a week died on Cornwall's roads. Police say research proves that drivers are less likely to re-offend if they are pulled over and shown a video of the effects of road accidents on victims of speeding and then allowed to talk through their actions. East Cornwall's road safety officer, Pc Andy Daniel, said: "This is not an easy option. "The video shows the devastating effects that speeding can have."
HONOLULU (AP) -- A package with a cryptic message sent to Mayor Jeremy Harris has opened an ancient mystery.
Vicki Borges, Harris' executive assistant, was shocked Wednesday to find a human skull wrapped in newspaper inside the package addressed to her boss. "This is the strangest thing we've ever received," she said. The package also contained a note from the anonymous sender, apparently a former Marine who had been stationed in Hawaii in the early 1950s, Borges said. The man said in the note that he had taken the skull and now wanted to return it, she said. The sender wasn't sure where the skull came from, but he believed it was from the Bellows area of Windward Oahu, Borges said. Police took the skull to the city medical examiner's office, where it was determined to be ancient. More tests were to be conducted.
Priest uses wrestling moves to nab burglar But try to steal from his St. Peter's Catholic Church, and the plucky priest might slap a mean double-chicken-wing wrestling hold on you. The 39-year-old reverend — and former college wrestler — used some of his old moves to subdue one of the four teens suspected of pilfering the parish earlier this month, police said. The reverend told police he entered the church to retrieve a book when he spotted the four teen suspects, whose names have not been released. O'Hara yelled at the boys, and three ran off, but O'Hara managed to nab one knife-wielding 14-year-old. O'Hara was "basically using a variety of wrestling holds to keep the subject on the ground until the police arrived," according to the police report. The suspect wasn't down for the count yet. While O'Hara was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher, the teen reportedly broke free and punched O'Hara in the face, breaking his glasses. O'Hara then employed further mat maneuvers to pin the teen again. Within two hours of the incident, officers rounded up the three remaining suspects. Two were 13-year-olds and the third was 15. All four were questioned and released to their parents, according to Stevens Point Police Capt. Jim Dowling. He noted that because of the ages of the suspects, the case would likely be handled by the county's Department of Human Services
Japan seeks a global marketplace for its $4,000 toilet The company far outsells its domestic competitors in selling bathroom furniture, and the Toto logo can be seen on lavatories up and down the country. But now, it says, the outside world is ready for its brand of lavatorial luxury. China is first on the list, and could receive its first shipment within a week, with the US to follow in September. "There are people in Shanghai and Beijing who can easily afford such items," a Toto spokeswoman told Agence France-Presse. Japan's lavatories are already a step ahead of the rest of the world. Heated seats are routine, while some toilets come festooned with buttons and control panels. Foreigners have been known to become rather confused with the plethora of Japanese characters explaining the different functions, and some have on occasion been caught by surprise when a hidden bidet operates instead of the expected flushing. As a result, cartoon pictures replacing characters on cisterns are likely to be in use by non-Japanese. But in this case, Toto's big selling point is that there is no cistern. The upscale toilets - the Neorest - will sell for about 330,000 yen ($2,770;£1,700) apiece in China, and the company hopes to move about 200 units a month. Although initial sales will be supplied from Japan, production could start in China too. In the US, though, they will be more expensive - about $4,000 to cover the increased shipping costs - although sales are predicted to be about 1,000 a month.
Oops-Bank Hands Woman $48.7 Million Check Letha Schmitt of Pensacola walked around for three days with the check, unaware of the error, until the bank called on Wednesday to tell her of the mistake, the Pensacola News Journal reported on Thursday. "I just thought it was a hoot," Schmitt, 50, told the newspaper. The Bank of Pensacola said the teller entered the check number in the space for the check amount. The check could not have been cashed, officials said. Schmitt said she wouldn't have tried. "I believe in karma. What you sow, you reap."
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