World Briefs

A luggage handler flew from New York to Boston after falling asleep in the cargo hold of a JetBlue airliner but was unharmed and not charged with any crime, media reports and officials said. Massachusetts state police said the 21-year-old man was discovered in the cargo hold when the plane landed at Boston's Logan Airport on Saturday but provided no further details.

JetBlue would only say it was investigating the incident.

Channel 7 News in Boston reported the man fell asleep with the luggage in New York and that baggage handlers in Boston were shocked to discover him when they opened the cargo door. (Reuters)

Wanted: Mayor for accident-prone city

China's practice of firing officials after major accidents is scaring away candidates for official posts, with the top two seats in one coal-producing city vacant for six months and counting. The last mayor of the city of Linfen, regularly designated the most polluted city in China, was sacked in September after the collapse of a mine's tailings dam killed more than 50 people.

The position of party secretary, the most powerful at every level of Chinese government, is also empty, after the last one was also fired.

"Party and administration positions in Linfen have become hot potatoes," the official Xinhua News Agency said in a report. When the provincial government recruited candidates in other cities, many people declined to be considered for a position in Linfen, Xinhua added.

Officials who are merely fired can consider themselves lucky. The former director of the State Food and Drug Administration was sentenced to death in the summer of 2007, after being convicted for taking bribes from pharmaceutical companies. (Reuters)

Singapore wants a kinder nation

Singapore has launched campaigns to promote everything from more romance to better English. Now, the city-state wants its citizens to just be... nicer.

"Kindness. Bring It On!" - to be launched this weekend - is a government-backed initiative aimed at encouraging Singaporeans to be openly gracious to their relatives, colleagues, classmates and neighbours.

The Singapore Kindness Movement (SKM), a partly government-funded charity, plans to recruit "kindness troopers" to deliver its message, and draft movie stars to do public appearances. Teachers will give lessons about graciousness.

A recent survey commissioned by the SKM showed that less than half of Singaporeans were pleased with the overall graciousness of their compatriots.

"We are actually quite a kind, gracious society... (but) there are Singaporeans who feel shy about showing spontaneous consideration and acts of kindness," SKM chairman Koh Poh Tiong said yesterday. "I want Singaporeans to, one day, be like the Japanese - very gracious, very polite, very friendly." (AFP)

Lemon cola becomes baptismal holy water

A Norwegian church used lemon-flavoured cola instead of water in a baptism ceremony after its taps were temporarily turned off because of freezing temperatures, daily Vaart Land said yesterday.

Priest Paal Dale from the town of Stord, about 240 kilometres west of the capital Oslo, improvised during a recent cold-spell by dabbing the lemon fizzy water on a baby during a baptism ceremony, it said.

"It had gone flat," Fr Dale was quoted as saying by the newspaper. "Only the lemon smell made this unusual."

Fr Dale said the child's family were informed about the switch only after the ceremony because the priest "had a need to inform" them about the lingering lemon scent".

"They didn't say much, but I assumed they smelled the aroma as well," Fr Dale told Vaart Land. (Reuters)

Carrier pigeons fly phones to prisoners

To smuggle cellphones into prison, Brazilian inmates have turned to a much older form of communication: carrier pigeons. Guards have intercepted two carrier pigeons carrying cellphones to detainees at a prison in Sorocaba, some 100 kilometres from Sao Paolo, a spokesman for the state penitentiary system told AFP. "Penitentiary agents found the pigeons outside the Danilo Pinheiro prison but, fortunately, the birds did not have time to enter the prison building with the material," said Rosana Alberto.

Each pigeon was carrying a small bag containing a cellphone and charger, she said. They were caught in two successive days, last Wednesday and Thursday. The pigeons are a new twist to an old story. Criminal organisations like Red Commando in Rio de Janeiro or the First Commando of the Capital in Sao Paulo, which are well established in the prisons, have extensive supply networks. They use accomplices, from lawyers to corrupt prison guards, to smuggle in drugs, weapons and cellphones to the detainees, according to the police. (AFP)

Polevaulter gets down to bare essentials

World polevault vice-champion Romain Mesnil has unleashed an unabashed stunt to raise his profile and attract sponsorship by posting a video of himself running nude through Paris on the Youtube website. The 46-second video shows the burly 31-year-old clutching his pole and running through some of the capital's most famous streets including tourist spots such as Montmartre and the Pont des Arts across the River Seine.

Although he runs along in his birthday suit, a black square has been superimposed over the footage to cover his private parts.

Mr Mesnil's nude run has certainly whipped up interest with some 300,000 views by yesterday afternoon. "In times of crisis you have to come up with a novel approach," explained Mr Mesnil, who has also in recent weeks worn a black kit with a big white question mark where normally the sponsor's logo would be. (AFP)