More than 160,000 devotees who chanted hymns in honour of a Hindu deity in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad have set a new record for the world's largest choir, officials said.
The vast ranks of singers gathered on Sunday for more than an hour to perform hymns penned by 15th century saint and poet Tallapaka Annamacharya.
Their mass singalong in Telugu, the language of Andhra Pradesh state, broke the previous 72-year-old record of a 60,000-strong German choir, the United News of India news agency reported.
A Guinness World Records representative was present to confirm the achievement and award a certificate. The event was organised by a local cultural body and a temple authority to mark the 601st anniversary of Annamacharya's birth. (AFP)
Fined for wax Hitler attack
A German man was fined €900 yesterday for ripping off the head of a wax figure of Adolf Hitler in the new Berlin branch of Madame Tussauds last year.
The 42-year-old Berlin man, named only as Frank L., screamed "no more war!" as he decapitated the likeness of the Nazi dictator on the opening day of the Berlin waxworks museum last July.
Describing himself as a "political person," the unemployed man told the Berlin court that he strongly objected to the Fuehrer being on display just 500 metres away from the German capital's Holocaust memorial.
According to a court statement, he told the court that he wanted "to destroy Hitler," who in the museum was seated behind a desk in a mock-up of his bunker in the final days of World War II.
The court said the man had to pay €15 every day for the next 60 days and that the fine had been halved because of his financial circumstances.
The figure, which reportedly cost more than €6,000 to repair, was put back on display in September, this time behind a glass screen. (AFP)
Dad avoids washing for 35 years
An Indian man who fathered seven daughters has not washed for 35 years in an apparent attempt to ensure his next child is a boy, newspapers reported.
Kailash "Kalau" Singh replaces bathing and brushing his teeth with a "fire bath" every evening when he stands on one leg beside a bonfire, smokes marijuana and says prayers to Lord Shiva, according to the Hindustan Times.
"It's just like using water to take a bath," Mr Kalau was reported as saying. "A fire bath helps kill germs and infection in the body."
Mr Kalau, 63, from a village outside the holy city of Varanasi, outraged his family by refusing to take a ritual dip in the river Ganges even after his brother died five years ago.
Mr Kalau's hygiene regime has taken its toll on his professional life. The grocery store that he used to own closed when customers stopped shopping there due to his "unhealthy personality" and he now tills fields near Varanasi airport. (AFP)
Prisoner flees as guard forgets to lock cell
A suspect in a German jewellery heist who was being held in a Bosnian prison sauntered to freedom after his jailers forget to lock his cell, officials said yesterday.
"Branko Simic left his cell through unlocked doors and walked out from the detention unit totally unseen," a spokesman for the Justice Ministry said.
The guard responsible for the incident that occurred in the early morning hours of Monday was immediately suspended and an investigation was launched..
Mr Simic, a Serbian national, was arrested earlier this month on the border with Serbia upon an Interpol arrest warrant. The 22-year-old is sought by Germany under suspicion for taking in the jewellery robbery, a court official said without providing further details on the crime. (AFP)
Aircraft engine sucks up object
A Japan Airlines jetliner preparing to depart Los Angeles was grounded after one of the plane's jet engines apparently sucked up a cargo container, officials said.
Television footage showed the large object wedged into an engine as the plane sat on the tarmac at Los Angeles International Airport.
JAL Flight 61 had been leaving the gate at around 1:30 p.m. (2030 GMT) when the unidentified object blocked one of the engines, according to Los Angeles World Airports, the agency which operates the airport. The 245 passengers on board were transported back to the airport's Tom Bradley International Terminal. No one was injured. An investigation was under way. (AFP)
Controversial artwork removed from EU headquarters
Workmen dismantled a large sculpture mocking European Union member states on Monday after its Czech artist demanded its removal from the EU's headquarters. The 16-metre-high "Entropa" sculpture portrays Bulgaria as a squat toilet, Italy as a football ground with players making gestures that resemble masturbation, and The Netherlands as entirely flooded, with only a few minarets sticking out.
It caused outrage when it was unveiled in January, but has attracted many visitors to see it in the entrance of an EU building that is often used for summits. It had been due to remain on display in Brussels until the Czech Republic's EU presidency ends in June, after six months. But the artist, David Cerny, said he no longer wanted to be associated with the Czech Republic because its new government involves former communists.
Mr Cerny originally told his government that the parts of the sculpture, which resembles a frame holding pieces from a toy model kit, had been made by artists from each of the 27 member states. Later he said he had made it all with two friends.
The sculpture also has Romania as a Dracula theme park, France with an "On strike" banner, and Britain, one of the EU's most sceptical members, missing altogether. It is expected to be displayed in a Prague gallery and later offered for sale. (Reuters)