World Briefs

A man caught breaking into a German supermarket late at night escaped despite being handcuffed to railings - only to be arrested after he ran to a nearby police station to get the cuffs removed. "It was stupid of him," said a police spokesman in Frankfurt yesterday. "They took the cuffs off, but they kept him."

A security guard had cuffed the man and held three others after spotting the break-in. But by the time officers arrived, the man had managed to escape, police said. Arriving at the police station, the 19-year-old told officers he had been locked up by a friend as a joke, and asked for their help. The officers at first went along with the ruse, "also laughing at the man's apparent misfortune," police said.

However, suspecting he was the missing man from the break-in, they pressed him for details after removing the cuffs. The man then confessed his role and was promptly reunited with his three accomplices in the station's prison cell.

Kidnaps ex-girlfriend to get ironing done

An Italian man was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping his ex-girlfriend from a pub, taking her home and forcing her to iron his clothes and wash the dishes, police said yesterday.

The 43-year-old man dragged the woman out of a pub in the port city of Genoa, shoved her into a car and took her to his home where he made her iron and wash dishes after threatening her, they said.

Police arrived at his house after being tipped off by a friend of the woman who watched the scene at the pub.

The man, who was apparently furious at his ex-girlfriend for leaving him, was arrested on charges of kidnapping, police said.

Fighting crows halt trains

Train services were disrupted in parts of eastern India for three hours after flocks of agitated crows snapped overhead power lines when railway workers tried to clear their nests, officials said yesterday.

They said crows and ravens often flapped their wings so hard while fighting that they tripped railway power lines in eastern Bihar state. To solve the problem, rail staff tried to clear nests built on overhead wires on Sunday. But this agitated the birds so much and they flapped their wings so furiously that it caused a short-circuit.

At least a dozen passenger trains were stranded while the nest clearing operation went on.

Novelist breaks own book-signing record

British thriller-writer Ken Follett, Spain's most popular author, beat his own record by signing more than 2,000 copies of his latest work at Madrid's book fair, Spanish media said yesterday.

His newest novel World Without End has already sold 1.5 million copies since its launch at the end of 2007 in Spain, out of a total four million sold worldwide.

Mr Follett said he is working on a new project, a trilogy entitled The Century, which will begin with the Sarajevo shooting that set off World War I and will end with the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, El Mundo newspaper said.

With 2,050 copies of his works signed in three and a half hours, Mr Follett beat his previous record of 1,600 signatures signed in one sitting in Italy, according to the daily El Mundo. The multi-millionaire author has written nearly 20 novels in as many years.

Detergent served as wine

A restaurant in New Zealand's tourist hub of Queenstown was convicted yesterday for accidentally serving dishwashing liquid as mulled wine. A customer and a barmaid were hospitalised after drinking the liquid in July last year.

The barmaid may suffer health problems after the inside of her throat was scarred by the liquid containing sodium hydroxide, the court was told.

The court ordered the restaurant pay USD 1,000 (€485) to both women for emotional harm caused by the poisoning.

The customer had asked the barmaid for a sample of mulled wine, but spat it out immediately after feeling her lips and mouth burn. Then the barmaid tried some, suffering scarring to her throat after swallowing some of the detergent.

A worker at the restaurant had filled an empty mulled wine container with detergent - which was the same colour - leading to the accident, the court was told.

Twins born six weeks apart

Twins born in eastern India almost six weeks apart and of the opposite sex are doing well despite low birth weights, doctors said yesterday.

Twenty-five-year-old Babina Patra gave birth to the babies at a hospital in Phulbani in the poverty-hit coastal state of Orissa, the Press Trust of India reported.

The first, a boy, who weighed 1.3 kilogrammes at the time of delivery, was born on April 27. The second, a girl weighing two kilogrammes, was born on June 7, the report said.

The mother had developed a rare twin pregnancy, said gynaecologist S.K. Mohanty, in which the babies developed from two separate eggs that had become implanted in the womb.

Both babies were healthy and progressing normally, the doctors said.

Man, 92, banned from marrying teenager

Egyptian authorities have banned a 92-year-old Saudi man from marrying a poor teenage girl 75 years his junior, a judicial source said yesterday.

The Justice Ministry made its ruling under a law designed to prevent wealthy Arabs from the Gulf from snapping up young Egyptian girls and which forbids marriage when there is an age gap of 25 years or more.

The unidentified Saudi holidaymaker proposed marriage to a 17-year-old village girl and offered a dowry of about €18,000 as well as gold jewellery, the source said. But the Justice Ministry refused to register to marriage, citing the legislation brought in during the Gulf oil boom.