■ Greece
Asian immigrants arrested
Police arrested 92 illegal immigrants from different Asian states overnight yesterday after they were discovered in a truck during a routine check at at toll near Larissa. Bodies were packed together and the truck stank, a police spokesman told Greek Radio. The Greek driver of the truck was arrested and is believed to be a member of an international smuggling gang that moves illegal immigrants from Turkey to Greece and then on to Western Europe. In the past four days 191 illegal immigrants and three smugglers have been arrested in Greece.
■ United States
Cops nab roaming buffalo
A herd of buffalo somehow got loose and wandered around an upscale neighborhood, disrupting traffic and alarming homeowners before officers managed to corral them in a tennis court. More than a dozen police cars and a police helicopter were used to herd the roughly 10 beasts on Tuesday. The officers used lounge chairs beside the tennis court as shields and formed a human chain to corral the wayward buffalo. One buffalo was seen leaping over one of the tennis nets in an effort to evade capture. The animals came from a farm nearly 5km away, police said. They were returned to the farm later in the day.
■ Germany
Corpse exhibitor fined
Gunther von Hagens, who has toured Asian, European and US cities with an exhibition of flayed and dissected human corpses, was fined US$140,000 by a court in Germany on Tuesday for falsely claiming to have a doctoral degree from a Chinese university. The court in Heidelberg said von Hagens had no right to call himself a professor in Germany, where such academic titles are strictly regulated. The court said he had no evidence to show he had more than an honorary PhD from a university near Harbin, China. More than 60 million people worldwide have seen von Hagens' Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies over the past decade.
■ Germany
Smoking cardinal ruffled
Cardinal Georg Sterzinsky of Berlin confessed on Tuesday that a ban on smoking in the Sistine Chapel had made him restless during last week's conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI. "I hadn't realized beforehand it was going to be so incredibly tense," said Sterzinsky on his return to Berlin. "Dammit, we weren't even allowed to smoke." The rule was imposed because all the windows had to remain shut for the sake of secrecy. Sterzinsky said Joseph Ratzinger, 78, was a fitter pope than John Paul II had been at a comparable age. "Compared to frail John Paul, he seems downright perky," Sterzinsky said. "He doesn't use the elevator, but runs up the Vatican stairs like someone who goes jogging."
■ United States
Sea lion trapped at plant
A 136kg sea lion has been living in a water intake tank at a power plant, dodging rescue attempts since last week. The male sea lion squeezed through an opening of the tank at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's (DWP) plant in Playa del Rey and became trapped on April 18. "He's pretty comfortable" and able to feed on shrimp and fish in the tank, an official said. Water in the tank is used to cool the plant's generators. A rescue team has lowered a boat containing a cargo net into the tank, but the sea lion has avoided it.
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