Australian police released yesterday a shocking x-ray photo showing the skull of a murdered Chinese immigrant shot 34 times in the head and neck with a high-power nail gun.
The body of Chen Liu, 27, was found by two children last year in marshland in south Sydney, wrapped in a carpet and bound with electrical wire.
Detectives said the weapon used was a standard gas nail gun widely available and used in construction, firing nails up to 85mm long.
"In 36 years, I've never seen a murder of this nature," Homicide Squad Superintendent Geoff Beresford told reporters. Mr Liu arrived in Australia in 2000 and was reported missing last year.
Quake nixes snake festival
An Italian snake festival that attracts thousands of tourists will not be held this year for the first time in 300 years because of the deadly earthquake this month that damaged the town where it is held, police said.
Live snakes are draped over a wooden statue of St Domenico on the first Thursday of May each year in the Rito dei Serpari or snake charmers' procession in the mediaeval mountain village of Cocullo, one of at least 49 towns hit by the April 6 quake.
Cocullo was spared any deaths from the quake, but the popular event had to be cancelled because several buildings including the St Domenico church and other religious sites were badly damaged.
The earthquake in Abruzzo was Italy's worst natural disaster in three decades, killing 296 people and reducing large swathes of towns to rubble.
Mobile coverage for Mt Everest
A Nepali telecom firm plans to expand its mobile phone services to the top of Mount Everest, benefitting climbers on the world's highest mountain.
Hundreds of climbers, who go to the 8,850-metre Mount Everest every year, depend on expensive satellite phones to speak with their families as the remote Himalayan region does not have communication facilities.
"We are going to set up mobile towers in Thakdin, Manjo, Pheriche and Gorak Shep, which will bring the summit of Mount Everest within the network coverage," Anoop Ranjan Bhattarai, director of the satellite service wing of Nepal Telecom, said.
Gorak Shep is located near the base camp of Mount Everest. "A mobile tower at Gorak Shep will provide connectivity to climbers at the top," Mr Bhattarai said, adding the firm hoped to finish the work by mid-June.
Votes-in-socks scandal
France's highest court annulled the 2008 election of a mayor in the southern town of Perpignan on Thursday, after the head of a polling station tried to change the result by smuggling ballots in his socks.
When the votes for the election were counted in March last year, polling station head Georges Garcia was caught with ballots supporting Jean-Paul Alduy, a member of France's ruling UMP party, in his pockets and socks.
Mr Garcia was then caught again trying to get rid of envelopes containing ballots.
The Council of State, France's highest court, confirmed a lower court ruling that annulled the vote. The election will be held again at a date to be fixed.
Faked kidnapping sparks police hunt
A lovesick Dutch woman who made up a story about being kidnapped sparked an eight-hour police hunt across Germany that ended with her capture by a special forces unit.
Worried relatives alerted Dutch police about the supposed abduction around midday on Thursday after the 35-year-old sent an SMS text message telling them two East European men had taken her captive in her car. Reports soon came in that the woman's vehicle had entered Germany, where squad cars and police helicopters fanned out in a search which spread out over three federal states.
By evening, police in Bavaria had tracked down the black Seat to a traffic jam near Wuerzburg, and shut down the motorway. A Special forces team stormed the car - and found her alone inside.
"During questioning she said she was having a relationship crisis," a local police spokesman said, adding that the hunt had cost "tens of thousands of euros" in Bavaria alone. The woman is now likely to face charges in The Netherlands for faking a crime.