World Briefs

Rescuers evacuated around 600 tourists and crew from a German cruise ship docked in a Norwegian fjord yesterday after its engine room caught fire.

When the fire broke out at around noon (1000 GMT), 607 people were onboard including 364 passengers, 334 of them German, 241 crew members and two Norwegian pilots.

Other passengers included citizens of Australia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel and Japan.

The German cruise ship was docked deep in the picturesque Hardanger Fjord, at the port of the small town of Eidfjord, not far from Norway's second largest city Bergen on the west coast. (AFP)

Italy's first female priest

Italy's first woman priest was ordained last Saturday at a church in central Rome, a stone's throw from the Vatican.

Maria Vittoria Longhitano, who is 35 and married, belongs to the Italian Old Catholic Church, a small congregation that exited Roman Catholicism in the 19th century. Bishop Fritz-Rene Muller of the Union of Utrecht ordained her at Rome's Anglican All Saints' Church. She was not ordained as an Anglican.

The Vatican fiercely opposes the ordination of women and has welcomed several conservative Anglican priests defecting to Catholicism after the Anglican Church began allowing women to become priests in 1984. Roman Catholic clergy are all male, which the Church believes obeys the directives of Jesus Christ, whose 12 apostles were all men. (AFP)

Emo Saudi girls

Saudi Arabia's religious police have arrested 10 "emo" women for allegedly causing a disturbance in a coffee shop.

The coffee shop owner in Dammam called the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to complain after the young women, dressed and made up in the "emo" fashion, apparently began disturbing other clients. The religious police then called their parents to come for the women and to sign pledges that the girls would not repeat their ostensibly offensive un-Islamic behaviour and dress.

Growing numbers of urban young Saudi women are latching on to the emo fashion which is characterised by wearing skinny black jeans, tennis shoes, colourful T-shirts bearing the names of emo bands, heavy make-up and sharply chopped and sometimes radically coloured hair-dos. (AFP)

Custard pie throwing competition

Almost 50 competitors have slugged it out to be crowned World Custard Pie Throwing Champions. Teams from as far afield as Germany and South Africa took part in the contest in Maidstone, Kent in UK.

The competition, which involved 12 teams, has a strict set of rules which entrants must adhere to. Competitors working in teams of four are awarded points for the parts of their rivals' bodies they manage to hit, with the maximum of six points being given for getting them squarely in the face. (PA)

Fastest lawnmower

A British lawnmower has cut the world land speed record to ribbons with a trail blazing new top speed of more than 86mph.

The unique petrol driven mower raced into the record books in front of an ecstatic crowd at Pendine Sands, in west Wales.

Rider Don Wales smashed the previous 80.792mph lawnmower land speed record with an impressive 86.069mph.

Challengers for the record must drive over a measured mile in one direction and return within an hour.

The record attempt using the motorised grass cutter also has to ensure it is built primarily from lawnmower parts.

Mr Wales went on to streak across the one-mile section at the seven-mile stretch of sand, proving that speed is in the blood. (PA)

Chickens cannot vote

Voters dressed in chicken costumes won't be allowed inside Nevada polling places this year.

State election officials added chicken suits to the list of banned items after weeks of ridicule directed at Republican Senate candidate Sue Lowden who suggested that people barter with doctors for medical care, like when "our grandparents would bring a chicken to the doctor".

Democrats responded by setting up a website, Chickens for Checkups, and by sending volunteers in chicken suits to her campaign events in a 12-way primary race to decide Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's Republican opponent. (PA)

Straight to jail

A drunken driver who crashed his Mercedes through the gates of a California jail will spend some serious time behind bars.

Matthew Van McDaniel, 25, of Los Alamitos, was given a nine-year prison sentence for driving recklessly while under the influence of alcohol and assaulting an officer, the Orange County District Attorney's office said.

Mr McDaniel lost control and crashed through the gates of the James Musick Correctional Facility in Irvine, then punched and broke the nose of a sheriff's deputy. Sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said it was "the first time somebody tried to break into the jail". (PA)