World Briefs

Officials in a Siberian region yesterday announced plans to open a scientific institute for researchers to study yetis.

The region will announce its final decision after hosting an international conference on yetis later this year, the statement said, citing the regional government’s education and science department.

Yetis, or Abominable Snowmen, are hairy ape-like creatures of popular myth, that are generally held to inhabit the Himalayas. But some believe Russia also holds a population of yetis, which it calls Snow Men, in remote areas of Siberia such as the mountains in the southern part of Kemerovo around Tashtagol. (AFP)

DJ Medvedev

President Dmitry Medvedev, who has made much of his penchant for rock, shared memories of his Soviet-era youth with Deep Purple and let his teenage son play guitar with the legendary British band.

Meeting the band at his Gorky residence outside Moscow on Tuesday night, Mr Medvedev, 45, gushed about his love for rock and said he used to spin rock music at school parties where he was a deejay.

“It was an unusual discotheque because hard rock was the main music there,” Mr Medvedev said in televised comments yesterday.

The President said that before playing rock at his Soviet-era school his playlists had to be approved by the Communist-party youth wing known as Komsomol. (AFP)

Census excuses

The Office for National Statistics is warning that “the dog ate my homework” will not wash as a reason for failing to fill in the census form.

A helpline for the census has reported that requests for new questionnaires because of tea and coffee spills and even dogs chewing forms rank among the most common inquiries in England and Wales from people filling in the 2011 Census.

More than 360,000 people have either called or sought help online for filling in the form in advance of Census Day on Sunday. (PA)

For ‘bravery’

A policeman in India was recovering in hospital yesterday after he shot himself in a misguided attempt to win a bravery award.

Mahesh Rajguru claimed that six unidentified men opened fire when he was on personal protection duty at a house of a former politician in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. He claimed the men sped away in a car after the supposed attack on Sunday night but when senior officials rushed to the spot, they found his statements and crime scene suspicious. Additional Commissioner of Police Arun Macya told PTI: “He confessed no such incident that he had narrated took place and he shot himself just to claim a gallantry award by showing bravery.” (AFP)

Automatic delivery

A working World War II machine gun has been found in a package at Vilnius airport in Lithuania.

The German-made MG-42 was discovered after scanning a suspicious box bound for Germany.

More than 65 years after the war, Lithuania and other East European countries continue to uncover large amounts of weaponry and unexploded ordnance. (PA)

Veteran shootist

A 92-year-old Florida woman is in custody after police said she fired shots at a neighbour who refused to give in to her demands for a kiss.

Police said Helen Staudinger, of Fort McCoy, went next door to visit her neighbour, 53-year-old Dwight Bettner, and grew angry when he would not give her a kiss.

She then allegedly fired four rounds into Mr Bettner’s house from a semi-automatic pistol, shattering a window. No one was hurt in the incident. Mr Bettner told police he had ongoing issues with his neighbour, who he said had grown enamoured with him and threatened to shoot him when he told her he had a girlfriend.

Ms Staudinger is in Marion County Jail, charged with aggravated assault and shooting into a dwelling. (AP)

‘Longest film’

A Helsinki modern art festival was presenting a film yesterday it says is the longest ever screened.

The 240-hour film titled Modern Times Forever (Stora Enso building, Helsinki) was created by a Danish art group called Superflex.

“According to our information, this is the world’s longest movie,” Paula Toppila, executive director of the IHME art festival, said.

The film shows the Stora Enso headquarters in Helsinki fall into a dilapitated state as time speeds into the future and past the extinction of the human race, leaving the building to be battered by time and the elements. The building was chosen “because it is a symbol of power, and it is in a central, almost monumental place”, said Ms Toppila. (AFP)