Demetris Christofias, the Communist candidate in Cypriot presidential elections, has fallen victim to "cybersquatters", with a website in his name being offered for sale by its registered owner.

The site's domain name, www.xristofias.com, is a transliteration of the veteran politician's name. Visitors are advised it can be bought for 10,000, but no currency is given.

"It obviously expects comrades will take the bait and buy it to avoid any misunderstandings," electronic newspaper Offsite reported in yesterday's edition.

Marx had skin disease

Karl Marx, who complained of excruciating boils, actually suffered from a chronic skin disease with known psychological effects that may well have influenced his writings, a British expert said yesterday.

Sam Shuster, professor of dermatology at the University of East Anglia, believes the revolutionary thinker had hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) in which the apocrine sweat glands - found mainly in the armpits and groin - become blocked and inflamed.

"In addition to reducing his ability to work, which contributed to his depressing poverty, hidradenitis greatly reduced his self-esteem," said Prof. Shuster, who published his findings in the British Journal of Dermatology.

Armed hold-up with ketchup

Two thieves, armed only with ketchup, ambushed a supermarket employee as he was taking cash to the bank, Greek police said yesterday.

"The thieves jumped out of the bushes and threw two big bags of ketchup on the front window to stop the car," said a police official who requested anonymity.

The man fought with his attackers who managed to flee on a motorcycle with only €400 of the €140,000 he was carrying.

Dog meat sold as lamb

A Chinese restaurant in Moscow is being investigated for butchering stray dogs and selling the meat to diners as lamb, Russian police said yesterday.

"A woman reported to the police that sacks containing something alive, that was moving and whining, were being loaded into the restaurant at night," a police spokesman said.

"We went to the restaurant to check the meat... and carried out tests," the spokesman said. "We found it was of poor quality, dangerous for your health, and from an unusual animal - that it was dog meat."

Shark netted 200 km from sea

A two-metre shark has been caught in a river in southern Iraq more than 200 kilometres from the sea.

Karim Hasan Thamir said he was fishing with his sons last week when they spotted a large fish thrashing about in his net. "I recognised the fish as a shark because I have seen one on a television programme," he said.

The shark was pulled from the mouth of an irrigation canal that joins the Euphrates River. The Euphrates joins the Tigris River further east to form the Shatt al-Arab waterway which flows south past Basra into the Gulf.

Crackdown on rush for jade

Authorities in northwestern China have ordered a crackdown on private mining of a precious jade whose soaring value in local markets has lured thousands of people to a remote river to extract it.

The value of white Hotan jade, a rare nephrite jade found in alluvial deposits along the Yurungkax river in the Xinjiang region and prized in China for centuries, has exploded in recent years, fuelled by speculators and its increasing scarcity.

Trading at about 40 times the value of gold, the jade had drawn about 100,000 people and thousands of earth-moving vehicles to the Yurungkax, the Beijing News reported yesterday.

Airport to get rid of cats

Authorities at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport have begun rounding up wild cats and kittens as part of a plan to get rid of them, despite an outcry by animal rights groups.

Professional animal handlers started to trap cats living near the airport's cargo area, said the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport. The cats will then be handed over to Animal Care & Control, a city agency that put to sleep nearly 12,000 unwanted cats in the past year.

An estimated 75 cats live at the airport, feeding mainly on rats and scraps of food provided by airport workers. The food in turn attracts a variety of animals including birds, which especially create a hazard for jet engines, the Port Authority says.

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