World Briefs

Arsonists torched cars in Berlin for the third night running as part of a wave of attacks that police suggested yesterday were more likely due to vandals rather than politically-motivated activists.

Nine cars, including two BMWs and an Audi, were set on fire overnight in the upscale district of Charlottenburg, in the west of the city, police said on Thursday.

This followed similar attacks on the two previous nights which resulted in 26 cars going up in flames and police offering a $7,200 reward for information leading to the arrest of the arsonists.

The total number of cars torched this year stands at 147, 63 of them this month alone.

“We don’t rightly know the reason for it,” said police chief inspector Guido Busch.

“But we believe it is mostly the work of a single person, or a single group of people, and that it is vandalism with no political motive,” he added.

Starved and chained

A 62-year old Croatian woman was arrested for having kept her 27-year-old son isolated in their flat in the western town of Pula, a police source said yesterday. “Police acted on an alert from a family member,” a police source from Pula said. It was unclear how long the son was kept in the flat.

The woman, whose identity was not revealed, is suspected of illegal imprisonment and “violent family behaviour”, the source said.

“She kept her son in the apartment, isolated from the whole world,” the source added.

The unnamed woman will remain in detention for a month.

Local daily Glas Istre quoted the young man’s sister as saying that her brother was “starved” while being “chained” in the apartment.

Pitbull kills girl

A four-year-old Australian was mauled to death by a neighbour’s pitbull-mastiff cross after being ripped from her mother in a ferocious attack, sparking calls yesterday for a ban on dangerous dogs.

Ayen Chol, whose family is from Sudan, died at the scene after the dog chased another family member into a Melbourne home where she was watching television with other children on Wednesday evening, police said.

One cousin fought to fend off the vicious animal, suffering bites to her arms and hands in the struggle, during which she tried to beat the dog away with a table, local reports said.

Another, aged five, was bitten on the face. Both were rushed to hospital in a stable condition. Daniel Atem, a cousin of the victim, said a family member was outside the house when the dog chased her inside.

Atem said the dog initially attacked the five-year-old and as Ayen’s mother intervened, the dog then attacked Ayen.

Man-eating shark

A shark yesterday mauled a 16-year-old boy on Russia’s Pacific coast, a day after a young man lost his forearms defending his wife in a similar attack that stunned the country. Scientists thought a white shark measuring some four metres might be responsible for at least one of the attacks, which they said were unprecedented for the far eastern Primorye region.

The authorities extended a local ban imposed after Wednesday’s incident to the coast of the entire region, known for its clear waters and luscious scenery.

“Swimming in the Sea of Japan along the shores of the Primorye region is not currently safe,” the emergencies ministry said.

The 16-year-old yesterday survived the attack but received serious injuries, including a tear wound to his thigh and damaged arteries.

Chinese delicacy

US Vice President Joe Biden took time out from official talks in China yesterday to have lunch at a local restaurant, but his courage failed when it came to the house speciality – pig intestines in soup.

The 68-year-old opted instead for pork buns, noodles and cucumbers when he stopped off at the small, family-run eatery in downtown Beijing with his granddaughter and daughter-in-law and the travelling media.

Bees on plane

An airport official smuggled a hive of bees on to a plane, panicking passengers when they escaped mid-flight in one of a series of lapses at the provincial Blagoveshchensk facility, news reports said yesterday.

The bees made a break for freedom during a flight to Moscow from the far eastern city after they were illegally stashed in a box in a coat locker in business class, a spokesman for the airline said.