World Briefs

Burglars broke into the home of US presidential hopeful Barack Obama's grandmother in a Kenyan village but were quickly caught, police said yesterday.

"These are just people... who think that Obama has been sending me a lot of money," said Sarah Obama, the Illinois senator's 85-year-old step-grandmother. Nothing was stolen during the raid on Wednesday, but police arrested four suspects after a chase by local residents in Kogelo village, west Kenya.

"The thieves were local boys. They broke a door, climbed on the roof and were attempting to steal the solar panel when the alarm was raised," Kenyan police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said. "They were pursued by the whole village, so it was easy to catch them. The community is very sympathetic to 'Mama' Obama."

Comic risks trial for attack on Pope

An Italian comic who said Pope Benedict would be punished in hell for the Church's treatment of homosexuals could be tried for dishonouring him, a jailable crime under a 1929 treaty with the Vatican, judicial sources said. Sabina Guzzanti, one of Italy's most pungent political satirists, made the remarks before a cheering crowd of thousands gathered at Rome's Piazza Navona in July.

Her explicit comments were widely published by Italian media and posted on the internet. The church, at the time, expressed its "profound displeasure with the offensive words about the Holy Father".

A Rome prosecutor has decided the comments may go beyond satire and break a law protecting the honour and dignity of the leader of 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, under a treaty signed by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, the judicial sources said.

Butcher rapped for naked woman advert

Germany's national advertising council has admonished a butcher for putting on its adverts and delivery trucks pictures of a naked woman with the slogan "Meat Products, Fresh Service" stamped across her body. The council said yesterday that the adverts by G&M Fleischwaren Frischdienst (www.gm-fleisch.de) were degrading and anti-woman.

The council said in a statement, "Equating a woman with fresh meat is degrading and highly misogynist."

Bee swarm causes smash and stings

Three people were stung to death after a truck carrying dozens of bees hives overturned in northeast China and three more were killed on the road as they tried to steer clear of the swarm, newspapers said yesterday. The bee-hive truck collided with a farm vehicle on Wednesday and overturned near Changchun, the capital of Jilin province, the China Daily said.

Pictures showed thousands of bees swarming around the accident site as workers, wearing protective clothing, cleared the debris.

Baby's body found in air passenger's bag

Vietnamese airport security officers found the body of a newborn girl stuffed into the suitcase of a passenger boarding a domestic flight, a state-run newspaper reported yesterday.

The body of the one-day-old girl was detected by a security scanner at Tan Son Nhat airport in baggage belonging to a Vietnamese man who was en route to Hanoi from Ho Chi Minh City, the Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper said.

The 20-year-old passenger told police the girl was a daughter of his relative who asked him to take the body back to his home in the northern region for burial.

Chief condemned for bin Laden costume

A senior British policeman is in trouble after he dressed as Osama bin Laden at a carnival days before the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Chief Superintendent Colin Terry, who has trained police in Afghanistan, was photographed wearing a bin Laden mask, robes and traditional Arab scarf. He wore the costume at a carnival in the village of Grampound, Cornwall, on Saturday.

Devon and Cornwall police said in a statement it took the incident very seriously and had referred Mr Terry to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. "While we believe his actions were misguided rather than malicious, they were clearly inappropriate," it said.

Aussie minister quits over dirty dance

The Police Minister in Australia's most populous state was forced to quit yesterday over reports he "dirty danced" in underwear over the chest of a female colleague in a drunken late-night office party.

Matt Brown resigned just three days after being sworn in as Police Minister of New South Wales state, which includes Sydney. "I'm a human being and I made a mistake and I am going to cop the consequences," Mr Brown told reporters.

Witnesses said Mr Brown stripped down to his underpants and danced to loud techno music on a green leather Chesterfield lounge before he "mounted the chest" of a female politician and simulated a sex act.

Little girl found?

Greek police may have found an eight-year-old Italian girl reported missing in Sicily four years ago. On a tip off from Interpol after a family friend spotted the child on the Aegean island of Kos, police seized the girl and arrested a 34-year-old Roma woman she was with.

"The girl has the same birthmark as the missing girl. She also only speaks Italian," said a police official.

Denise Pipitone disappeared on September 1, 2004 while she was playing with her cousins in the street of her hometown Mazara del Vallo, near Trapani.

Her mother, Piera Maggio, has always insisted she was alive and often appealed on TV for help in finding her.