World Briefs

A Sicilian builder transferred from prison to house arrest tried to get himself locked up again to escape arguments with his wife at home, Italian media reported on Thursday.

Santo Gambino, 30, did time for dumping hazardous waste before being moved to house arrest in Villabate, outside the Sicilian capital, Palermo. He went to the police station and asked to be put away again to avoid arguing with his wife, who accused him of failing to pay for the upkeep of their two children.

Police charged him with violating the conditions of his sentence and made him go home and patch things up with his wife.

Taiwan students eat fire, step on glass

Authorities in Taiwan said they would investigate a private training centre after receiving testimony and videos showing that children were made to swallow fire and step on glass to build up their courage.

Given videos and testimony from parents of the Mai-teh International Intelligence Research Institute, the city of Tainan in south Taiwan said it would probe the training centre for possible violations of laws governing minors.

The centre, licensed as a consultancy and about two years old, admitted more than 100 people of varied ages to build up their courage via what parents said amounted to corporal punishment, a city government news official said.

A Tainan city councillor and several parents brought the case to local media, prompting the probe.

Three-minute showers

Leftist President Hugo Chavez has called on Venezuelans to stop singing in the shower and to wash in three minutes because the oil-exporting nation is having problems supplying water and electricity.

Venezuela has suffered several serious blackouts in the past year because of rapidly-growing demand and under-investment, which has been aggravated by a drop in water levels in hydroelectric dams that provide most of its energy.

Mr Chavez announced energy-saving measures and said he would create a ministry to deal with the electricity shortages, which have affected the image of his socialist revolution before legislative elections due in 2010.

Calling for water conservation, he said low rainfall caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon meant water levels were critically low in the El Guri reservoir, one of the world’s largest dams.

Mr Chavez mentioned using airplanes to try to force rain from clouds and said the government would soon publish a decree prohibiting imports of low-efficiency electrical appliances.

He called on ministries and state-run companies to cut energy consumption by 20 per cent immediately.

Last Trafalgar flag sells for $636,300

The last known surviving Union Jack to have been flown at the Battle of Trafalgar has sold to an American flag collector for $636,300, more than 20 times its estimated price, media reported on Thursday.

The flag, riddled with holes and with a faint scent of gunpowder, was sold by an Australia-based descendant of Lt. James Clepham, who was presented with the flag by the crew of the HMS Spartiate that fought in the 1805 battle.

The flag, which spent years in a drawer in a Sydney house, was auctioned in London on Trafalgar Day, the anniversary of the battle when Admiral Horatio Nelson’s warships destroyed the French fleet off the Spanish coast.

The American collector who won the bid said he was working on a plan with the British government to keep the 3.5 metre by 2.1 metre flag in England.

The flag was believed to have been sewn on board the ship, made from 31 pieces of bunting.

Fossils of tiny dinosaur on display

Fossils from the smallest dinosaur found in North America, a fleet-footed species only 71 cm long and weighing less than a rabbit, have gone on public display for the first time at a Los Angeles museum.

The bones were discovered in western Colorado in the late 1970s but only recently identified and named Fruitadens haagarorum by an international team of scientists.

The fossils represent the skulls, vertebrae, arms and legs of four individual dinosaurs and are housed at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

“We’re really testing the limits of body size among dinosaurs,” said Luis Chiappe, director of the museum’s Dinosaur Institute. “Here’s an animal that is estimated to have weighed about 0.91 kg when it was fully grown. It is the smallest known dinosaur from North America and one of the smallest dinosaurs ever.”

Scientists say Fruitadens haagarorum lived about 150 million years ago.

Madoff assets up for auction

A Mercedes-Benz car once belonging to epic swindler Bernard Madoff will be sold at auction today, US authorities have said. The 2001 Mercedes E320 black station wagon will be offered with dozens of other vehicles to be auctioned by the US Marshals Service, which announced earlier that Madoff’s New York City penthouse will also go on sale.

Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence for a $65 billion fraud. Proceeds from auctions of his possessions, including the recent $9.41 million sale of a beach house with sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean, will go toward reimbursing his victims.

The black Mercedes has a suggested value of $14,000.

Madoff’s penthouse, a seven-room duplex with wrap-around terrace on Manhattan’s affluent east side, is expected to fetch $8 to $10 million.