A priest was yesterday on the verge of realising his dream of installing the world’s largest statue of Jesus Christ in a small town in western Poland.
Attempts were made yesterday to complete the massive statue – which will rise a few metres higher than the iconic Christ the Redeemer monument in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
But heavy winds prevented cranes from lifting the torso, arms and head on to the lower half of the robed white figure in the town of Swiebodzin. Workers were planning to try again at dawn today.
Swiebodzin mayor Dariusz Bekisz predicts the imposing statue will soon start drawing in hordes of pilgrims, and their money, to his town. (AP)
No armada for Obama
President Barack Obama will not be protected by a vast armada of 34 US warships when he visits Mumbai this weekend, officials have said, calling reports from India on security preparations “comical”.
The claim that many of the 288-ship US naval fleet would be deployed to waters off Mumbai was “absolutely absurd”, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters.
US officials usually decline to discuss details about security precautions for the President, but the media accounts circulating out of India were so off the mark that press officers at the Pentagon and the White House said they felt compelled to speak up. (AFP)
Rocket man
Swiss adventurer Yves Rossy completed two aerial loops using a custom-made jet-propelled wingsuit.
Mr Rossy jumped from a hot-air balloon above Lake Geneva and performed the daredevil stunt before landing safely with a parachute.
The 51-year-old former fighter pilot and extreme sports enthusiast said he was “very happy and satisfied” with the stunt, which comes two years after his first successful flights over the nearby Swiss Alps. (PA)
Application alert
A package which sparked a security alert at a German embassy due to its “suspicious” contents turned out to be nothing more sinister than a mammoth application for a scholarship.
Officials said the book-sized package delivered to the embassy in Copenhagen appeared to contain “something metallic”.
Copenhagen police spokesman Lars-Christian Borg said authorities were alerted after the embassy’s mail scanner raised the alarm, but the package was found to contain CDs as part of the application for a German scholarship programme. (PA)
Police lose drugs
Law enforcement officials had to put a plea out to the public after a deputy lost a stash of drugs used to train police dogs.
Sergeant Lloyd Funk said the deputy accidentally left a black box, with white lettering which says “Meth”, on the bumper of a car after a canine training exercise. It contained nearly an ounce of methamphetamine.
The deputy drove off with the drugs perched on the vehicle, and the box vanished. (PA)
Stowaway cat disrupts rail services
A stowaway cat on a New Zealand train injured the driver so badly that a replacement driver had to be called in, disrupting rail services in the capital, Wellington.
KiwiRail said the driver discovered the cat after pulling into Wellington station late last week and was scratched so badly when he tried to capture the animal that he needed medical attention.
A replacement driver had to be summoned as emergency cover for the injured driver, KiwiRail spokesman Nigel Parry said.
“It’s very unusual... when I spoke to the train manager after his hand had been bandaged up he said he had been working in trains for four decades and it was the first time he has been attacked by a cat,” Mr Parry said. (AFP)
Monkeys imported in UK for research
Thousands of monkeys have been imported into the UK for use in laboratory research despite a legal ban, campaigners claimed yesterday.
The trade in primates continues because the ban, introduced in 1997, does not include the offspring of wild-caught parents.
Since 2009, more than 2,000 monkeys were imported into the UK because of the loophole, said the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV). Between 2008 and 2009 almost 5,000 non-human primates were brought into the UK to be used in experiments. (PA)