World Briefs

Dreaming of an advanced degree? Try a doctorate in dreams, something which could soon become a reality in a new Saudi academy offering undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Yusuf al-Harthy, a well-known Saudi dream interpreter, plans to start up an institute offering bachelors and masters degrees as well as even a PhD in explaining dreams and visions, Al-Hayat newspaper reported yesterday.

"Dream interpretation is by nature a way of counselling a person," said Mr Harthy, who already runs an instructional website on deciphering the meaning of dreams.

His academy will be linked to an unnamed Arab university, he said.

Mr Harthy, who discusses dreams on radio and television shows, disagrees with the Saudi Islamic Affair's Ministry view that dream interpretation is not a teachable science but something born of inspiration, Al-Hayat reported. (AFP)

The 'Bourne-like' identity

Los Angeles police are hunting a mystery man who fled as they raided his apartment, leaving behind piles of bogus cash, high-tech counterfeiting equipment and weapons.

Police officers said that the 33-year-old suspect escaped from his high-rise apartment via a back window and via escape in a scene reminiscent of the Bourne Identity action films.

"He escaped like Jason Bourne," Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief Mike Downing of the Counter-Terrorism Bureau, said. Detectives discovered stacks of counterfeit $100 bills totalling $15,000, sophisticated counterfeiting equipment, a camera tripod and a cache of weapons including an AK-47 assault rifle. They also discovered multiple identification documents including passports under different aliases which has left them wondering who exactly they are hunting.

The $3,400-a-month penthouse's balcony was also directly opposite the US Federal Reserve Building in Los Angeles. (AFP)

Ale house rock

An Elvis Presley impersonator is hoping to shake up the record books with a three-day ale house rock.

Simon Goldsmith, 36, of Little Bealings, Suffolk, will opt for a little less conversation and a lot more singing as he takes on the marathon stint for charity.

The delivery driver is hoping to sing Elvis songs non-stop for more than 43 hours, 11 minutes and 11 seconds to secure the Guinness World Record at the White Lion pub, in Lower Ufford, Suffolk. (PA)

Welcoming summer

Britiish revellers leapt from a bridge in a historic university city as part of a May Day tradition to welcome in the summer.

Men and women in various states of undress could be seen plunging into the shallow waters of the River Cherwell in Oxford as dawn broke over the city's spires.

Jumping off Magdalen Bridge on May 1 is treated as an ancient custom by many students, alongside a Latin Mass sung at daybreak outside Magdalen College. (PA)

Mobster buried in golden coffin

Notorious Australian mobster Carl Williams was buried in a golden coffin last Friday after a lavish funeral which drew a large crowd of mourners and blanket media coverage after his savage jailhouse murder.

The plump Mr Williams, known as the baby-faced killer, was killed in Victoria state's highest security prison earlier this month by a fellow inmate who attacked him with part of an exercise bike.

The 39-year-old was a key figure in Melbourne's brutal underworld war of the 1990s and immortalised in the popular TV series Underbelly.

The dead mobster's casket, reportedly a gold-plated coffin which cost €21,000 and based on the model used for Michael Jackson, was carried out of the church under grey skies.

Mr Williams was serving a life sentence with a 35-year non-parole period for ordering the murders of several rivals. (AFP)

Visitor payback scheme

Japanese tourists are being asked to donate £5 for visiting the Lake District this summer.

Every year more than 70,000 visitors from Japan flock to the Lakes, many coming due to its links with Beatrix Potter, creator of The Tales Of Peter Rabbit, which are enormously popular in the Far East.

From this year, in a scheme believed to be the first of its kind to specifically target a single nationality, tourists from the country are being asked to contribute to a "visitor payback" scheme to help sustainable tourism in the Lakes. (PA)

Ancient navigation skills revived

A Marshall Islands outrigger canoe has arrived in an outlying atoll after finishing the first long-distance voyage in the country using ancient navigation skills for 60 years.

The 9.1 metre outrigger canoe left on Thursday from Majuro for Aur Atoll - a distance of about 145 kilometres and arrived 21 hours later on Friday after an overnight journey.

The voyage is the first since World War II in which a voyaging canoe has attempted to sail between atolls in the Marshall Islands without modern navigational aids. (AFP)

Calls for EU burqa ban

A senior German member of the European Parliament and ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel called yesterday for all of Europe to follow Belgium's lead and ban the full Islamic veil or burqa in public.

"I wish that Germany - and all of Europe - would also outlaw the wearing of the burqa in all its forms," said Silvana Koch-Mehrin, European Parliament vice-president and a member of Germany's Free Democrats (FDP), Mrs Merkel's junior coalition partners since 2009.

Belgian MPs in the lower house of Parliament last week voted in favour of a Bill banning clothes or veils that do not allow the wearer to be fully identified, including the full-face niqab and burqa. The ban was widely criticised by rights groups and Muslims. (AFP)