World Briefs

Polish customs officers have intercepted a package posted from Hong Kong containing 39 scorpions - 32 of them still alive - addressed to a student in Poland's south-west city of Wroclaw.

The scorpions were in a small package purportedly containing toys valued at €12, spokesperson for Customs Poland, Aldona Wegrzynowicz said.

"We usually check packages we have doubts about, for example ones where the declared value does not correspond with the declared content.

This time we had a hunch," she said. A vet called in by customs officials identified the creatures as Mesobuthus martensii-type scorpions, a moderately dangerous variety. Those which survived the long journey will be placed in a zoo.

Police questioned the 24-year-old student to whom the package was addressed. He admitted to an interest in exotic animals and wanted to add the scorpions to his collection.

He could face a fine of up to €11,300 for having violated customs laws protecting animals. (AFP)

Scales chimney in protest

A sacked Polish steelworker whose crisis-hit mill faces closure following an EU subsidy battle held a desperate protest, sparking a police operation when he climbed a chimney at the site. The man, who is losing his job along with some 50 fellow workers, scaled the 40-metre chimney early Tuesday at the Buczek mill in Sosnowiec in southern Poland.

He remained aloft for seven hours before police counsellors were able to coax him down.

The 40-year-old, identified only at Rafal S., explained that he felt betrayed by the steel-mill's management. He said that the workers had been axed despite agreeing to take pay cuts and accept other belt-tightening measures in an effort to keep their jobs. (AFP)

'Say no to vodka'

President Dmitry Medvedev has told Russians they must kick the alcohol habit.

"We drink more now than in the 1990s, although those were difficult times," the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Mr Medvedev as saying.

Health Minister Tatyana Golikova has been ordered to devise an anti-alcohol strategy.

A report by The Lancet medical journal last week said alcohol-related diseases caused around half of all deaths of Russians between the ages of 15 and 54.

Vodka is enshrined in Russian culture despite efforts by previous leaders to break the macho drinking culture and a 1986 anti-alcohol campaign by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev led to a boom in illegal production of low-quality alcohol as Russians learned to drink perfumes and other household liquids made from alcohol. (Reuters)

Pensioner batters burglar

A British pensioner and former boxing champion beat up a knife-wielding burglar who broke into his home, leaving him battered and bruised, newspapers said yesterday.

Frank Corti, 72, said he felt compelled to defend himself after the drunken man threatened him and his wife at their home in Botley near Oxford, England.

"As I saw it, it was a matter of do or die. Fortunately the element of surprise was with me, so I adjusted my position and hit him with my right hand," Mr Corti said.

Gregory McCalium, who had been at an all-night party, forced his way into the pensioner's home last August armed with a knife after a row between the neighbours about noise levels. But he was left with a black eye and bloodied lip, and ended up sentenced to four and a half years in jail after the Oxford Crown Court found him guilty of aggravated burglary. (AFP)

Ukrainians want village named Jackson

Residents of a Ukrainian village want to rename it after the late pop superstar Michael Jackson.

Oleg Kislitsyn, a deputy in the regional Parliament, said villagers in Oktyabrskoye, had approached him with a proposal to rename the village Jackson.

"There are many fans of Michael Jackson there. They want to immortalise him," said Mr Kislitsyn, adding that he was in favour of the proposal.

"They want to create a house-museum and collect his records there. This is a depressed region, all the factories are closed. They hope this will attract tourists," he added.

Mr Kislitsyn added: "I am not a fan but I respect his work. He had an iron-clad will for victory." (AFP)