■ United Kingdom
Brits find love at work
Whether it's a frisson by the filing cabinet, a gaze over bar graphs or hot flushes at
the water-cooler, romance blossoms in the workplace for nearly two-thirds of British employees, a survey said. Yet office love reduces productivity, with half
of coupled-up colleagues admitting their work suffers as a result, the survey said. Rather than focusing on the photocopying, three in
10 people said they had "enjoyed physical intimacy" in their workplace, citing the elevator and stairwell as the most expedient locations. Despite the naughty nurse stereotype, health care and medical workers are the least likely to indulge in work romances, while the leisure and tourism industry is a libidinous hotbed, ensnaring eight out of 10 employees, the survey found.
■ Finland
Speedster cops record fine
One of Finland's richest
men has been fined a record 170,000 euros (US$217,000) for speeding through the center of the capital, police said on Tuesday. Jussi Salonoja, 27, heir to his family's sausage business, was caught driving 80kph in a 40kph zone on Thursday last week, the police said. Finnish traffic fines vary according to the offender's income and, according to tax office data, Salonoja's 2002 earnings were close to
7 million euros. The final penalty could still change, depending on Salonoja's income, when the case is eventually heard.
■ Nigeria
Men mutilate boy
Four Nigerian men were charged with plucking out the eyes of a 13-year-old schoolboy for use in witchcraft, the state news agency reported on Tuesday. They face charges ranging from criminal conspiracy to grievous bodily harm and permanent disfigurement for the attack on the boy, who was taken to hospital in the northeastern state of Bauchi. Police suspect the attack was commissioned by one
of the defendants to make
a charm believed to make people invisible. If found guilty, the defendants could have their own eyes removed under the Islamic sharia code, the agency added.
■ United Nations
Human rights boss named
Former UN chief war crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour is Secretary-General Kofi Annan's top choice to be the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, diplomats said late on Tuesday. Arbour, currently a Supreme Court justice in her native Canada, would replace Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was one of 22 people killed in the Aug. 19 bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad. She gained prominence as the second chief prosecutor of the tribunals trying the main perpetrators of the 1994 Rwanda genocide and human rights crimes in
the former Yugoslavia
during the 1990s.
RSS