World Briefs

A buffalo about to be slaughtered at a restaurant escaped and rampaged through the streets of Vietnam’s capital, injuring one man and throwing traffic into chaos, police said yesterday.

Policeman Nguyen Dang Hau said the owners of the Loc Vung restaurant in Hanoi told him they were trying to kill the animal when it broke free of its tether and ran off down the road on Thursday. The animal galloped into oncoming lunchtime traffic and injured one man in the head and the body.

The policeman and three other men, including the buffalo’s owner, spent 30 minutes capturing the animal, eventually surrounding it and tying it up with a rope still attached to its nose. The owner then killed it with a knife.

Buffalo meat is popular in Vietnam, where the animals are still used for farm work. (AFP)

Benefit scam

An Italian woman claiming a disability allowance for blindness was remanded in custody yesterday for benefit fraud after police filmed her working as a hairdresser and cycling about town on her bicycle.

The 62-year old woman, who owns a hair salon in Lugo, in northern Italy, began claiming benefit in 1986 because her vision was degenerating and by 2011 she claimed to be “totally blind”.

By 1997 her doctor said she had to be accompanied when she left the house, and by 2008 she could only count the number of fingers held up in front of her if the hand was held a few centimetres away from her face.

In double-checking a list of professions of those registered as blind, police stumbled across the salon and filmed the woman cutting clients’ hair, shopping for clothes and food and walking and cycling about the town. Her benefit – €43,000 so far – has been suspended. (AFP)

Starry son

Russian President Dmitry Medve­dev’s teenage son, who is now shielded from the public and never photographed, starred just four years ago in a children’s TV show before his father become Kremlin chief, the programme’s makers said.

Ilya Medvedev, now believed to be 16, starred in two sketches in long-running national TV child-ren’s series Yeralash, or Jumble, the Echo of Moscow radio station reported.

“He went through normal casting. It was later that we found out who he was. He was a great boy, we liked him,” the show’s artistic director Boris Grachevsky told Echo of Moscow. The name Ilya Medvedev ­– a common one – appears in the credits of the sketches.

Several photographs allegedly showing Ilya Medvedev have been leaked on the internet and the actor bears a clear resemblance to his father. (AFP)

Cat alert

An Austrian man was saved from tragedy early yesterday morning after his cats woke him up by repeatedly walking over his face as he slept.

When the 37-year-old from Hohenems in Vorarlberg finally came to, he smelled burning and discovered a blaze in his flat.

After failing to put out the flames with an extinguisher he called the fire brigade at 3.30 a.m. The man was unharmed but his living room furniture was almost completely destroyed. (AFP)

No streakers

Spectators who dare to bare in the name of publicity at the London Olympic Games in 2012 could face a hefty fine and even a jail sentence under strict rules being discussed in the British Parliament.

The severe sanctions proposed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are part of a clampdown on the choreographed marketing stunts that have become a feature of high-profile sporting events in recent years.

Under the rules, “advertising on the human body could lead to a fine of €22,800,” a ministry spokesman said. (AFP)

Foolish barber

A barber is facing jail after shaving the word “fool” in inch-high letters on the back of the head of a man with severe learning difficulties.

Michael Campbell, 35, who has no formal qualifications in hairdressing, had been working at Jam Cuts in Stapleton Road, Bristol, for three weeks when Michael Ricketts walked into the salon on February 11.

Mr Campbell, who was found guilty of common assault by Bristol magistrates, was told to return to the court on November 4 following the production of pre-sentence reports. (PA)