World Briefs

Liesel Weiser, a 94-year-old gymnastics instructor and the grandmother of British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, teaches her students at their retirement home in the Israeli coastal town of Bat Yam. Mrs Weiser, a former ballet dancer, exercises daily and teaches gymnastics for her retirement home comrades three times a week. Sacha Baron Cohen's new comedy Bruno, in which he interprets a gay Austrian fashionista, is making headlines around the world.

Israeli daily Haaretz reported Mr Baron Cohen sends weekly a bouquet of flowers to his grandmother. (AFP)

Torched home over lunch snub

An Australian court has jailed a man who set fire to his own house in a fit of anger after his wife failed to make him lunch, a report said yesterday.

Rajah Theivendradas, 54, was jailed for four years over the incident in which he poured petrol on a staircase and set it alight, AAP news agency reported.

His wife and daughters, aged 21 and 16, suffered superficial burns as they escaped through the flames, the report said.

"It was an inexcusable, senseless, destructive and dangerous criminal act on your part," Victorian County Court Judge John Nixon was quoted as saying.

The court heard Mr Theivendradas had been drinking heavily the day before the incident in May last year and had also had a heated row with one of his daughters. (AFP)

Women lawyers told to cover hair

The Hamas-appointed Chief Justice in the Gaza Strip has ordered female lawyers to wear a head scarf in court, drawing criticism from human rights groups in the territory controlled by the Islamist group.

Hamdi Shaqoura of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said yesterday Chief Justice Abdel-Raouf al-Halabi's edict "violated personal freedoms" and that it raised fears that Hamas intended to impose Islamic religious law.

Hamas, which wrested control of the Gaza Strip from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction in fighting in 2007, has denied such allegations. (Reuters)

Pretending to be Israeli soldiers

Police in the West Bank yesterday detained five Palestinian teenagers who tried to break into a house by pretending to be Israeli soldiers, security sources said yesterday.

The youths, aged 15 to 17, donned military uniforms and tried to block off a street as part of their burglary bid on Sunday, but suspicious neighbours called police.

The five were held for questioning following the burglary attempt in Beit Fajjar village near the West Bank city of Bethlehem, police said. (AFP)

Teen escapes jail over bomb hoax

A British teenager who phoned the White House and claimed as part of a "drunken prank" that there was a bomb in the centre of New York, escaped jail yesterday.

Thomas Hutchinson, 19, from Sheffield, northern England, made a "giggling" call to the White House switchboard after drinking with friends at a barbecue last May, and claimed there was a bomb in Madison Square Garden.

The operator pressed a malicious call trace button and it was found to have been made in Britain.

Prosecutor Stephen Acaster said there was great concern when the call was first received but it was soon realised it was a hoax and Madison Square Garden was not evacuated.

Mr Hutchinson was tracked down following an investigation involving the American secret service, the FBI, the NY City Police department and British counter-terrorism police.

At Sheffield Magistrates Court yesterday, he was given a six-month jail sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work. (Reuters)

Drunk driversmashes into store

Four people were killed when a drunk driver ploughed into a store in the Russian city of Perm, the Interfax news agency reported yesterday.

"On Sunday evening the driver of a Mitsubishi car, in a state of alcoholic intoxication, lost control and collided with a store in Perm," a spokesman for traffic police in the Ural Mountains city was quoted as saying.

The car hit three women and two six-month-old babies standing at the scene, the spokesman said. One of the babies, one of the women and two passengers from the vehicle died, while the other victims as well as the driver were admitted to hospital with injuries, Interfax reported.

Fatal traffic accidents are frequent in Russia and are often linked to dilapidated roads, poor adherence to safety rules and drunk driving.

Last Friday more than 20 people were killed when a truck collided head-on with a bus in Russia's southern Rostov region, a tragedy that led President Dmitry Medvedev to condemn the "criminal laxity" of the country's drivers. (AFP)