Chinese police have detained a Nigerian who nervously left a suitcase packed with 87 kilograms of marijuana at the airport, only to get caught trying to recover it the next day, Chinese media said yesterday.
After arriving in Beijing from Lagos, the man left the suitcase, stuffed with 72 bricks of marijuana wrapped in black plastic bags, "fearing tight security," the China Daily said.
The man was detained the next day when he returned to claim the suitcase, the paper said, the biggest drugs bust this year.
A picture carried in the paper showed a police officer appearing to scold a handcuffed man while pointing to dozens of tightly-bound bags piled on the floor. (Reuters)
Anti-capitalist 'Robin Hood' detained
Spanish police last Tuesday detained a man who fooled dozens of banks into lending him nearly half a million euros which he then used to fund an anti-capitalism magazine that was distributed for free last year.
Enric Duran, dubbed the "Robin Hood of the Banks" by the media, was detained on suspicion of faking documents and fraud at a Barcelona university. The 33-year-old had been on the run in South America since September last year when 200,000 copies of the single-issue magazine called La Crise which his swindle financed were distributed in the city.
In the magazine Mr Duran explained in an article how he created fake pay slips which he then used to take out 68 personal loans from 39 banks totalling €492,000 in an act of "financial civil disobedience".
"I stole €492,000 from those who steal the most from us to denounce and build an alternative society," he wrote in the magazine, which offered advice on how to deal with the economic slowdown. He said he had given banks various fake reasons for seeking loans, from purchasing a car to renovating an apartment or buying audiovisual equipment for a non-existent firm. (AFP)
Stimulus money going to dogs
The Australian government will have to give cash handouts to cats and dogs as part of a stimulus package designed to kick start the economy, the opposition said yesterday.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's government has begun giving 900 dollar (€455) cash bonuses to eligible taxpayers as part of a 42 billion dollar (€21 billion) stimulus package passed last month. But the conservative opposition said cats and dogs would benefit because of the way the handouts were structured - every eligible person who lodged a tax return last year receives the money regardless of their circumstances.
"It's now emerging that dogs and cats may well be in receipt of this money, because if a deceased person's estate was bequeathed to the family pet, then they may well receive this money," opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey told ABC television.
"This is the absurdity of the Rudd government. Literally hundreds of people die each year and bequeath their estates to pets or related activities. (AFP)
Dylan's toilet 'blowing in the wind'
Bob Dylan has sung about wind many times - winds of change, the "Idiot Wind," and the winds that hit heavy on the borderline. But some of his California neighbours last Tuesday were singing a new tune about what is blowin' in the wind from his Malibu toilet.
A family living near the 67-year-old folk and rock icon's house in the posh California beachside community of Malibu have complained to city officials about an outdoor portable toilet, which is apparently used by guards on Mr Dylan's compound.
Cindy and David Emminger say the toilet wafts fumes from waste treatment chemicals, and that the smell carried by breezes from the Pacific Ocean makes their family feel ill.
"It's a scandal - 'Mr Civil Rights' is killing our civil rights," David Emminger told the Los Angeles Times.
But Malibu Mayor Andy Stern said other neighbours report smelling nothing from the toilet, and that he has left the matter to the enforcers of the city's code on objectionable odours. (Reuters)
Reinventing the wheel
China is planning to build the world's highest ferris wheel in the southern city of Guangzhou to give tourism in the city a lift, state media said yesterday.
The wheel, the highest if not the largest in the world, will be built on the sloping roof of the 450-metre Guangzhou TV tower and will open before October 1, 2010, when the city, capital of the once booming province of Guangdong, hosts the 16th Asian Games.
"The ferris wheel will withstand an earthquake of up to magnitude 8, owing to its quake-resistant design," the China Daily said. "Lightning arresters will form part of the design to make sure there is little damage during storm and lightning."
The newspaper said the wheel would be the world's highest, but did not specify dimensions.
Beijing is already planning a giant ferris wheel, higher than both the London Eye and the Singapore Flyer.
Standing at a height of 165 metres, the Flyer is 30 metres taller than the London Eye.
More than 100 passengers were stranded for six hours on the Singapore Flyer last December after a short circuit in one of the wheel's motor drivers. (Reuters)