■ IRAN
G7 fights money laundering
Group of Seven finance leaders on Friday praised the Financial Action Task Force for its role in uncovering alleged money laundering and other illicit finance related to Iran. "In the wake of two unanimous UN Security Council Resolutions addressing Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and the FATF's actions identifying the risks of illicit finance associated with Iran, financial institutions are advised to take into account these risks," the G7 said in a statement after a one-day meeting.
■ RUSSIA
Beheading video fabricated
A video posted on the Internet that shows Russian neo-Nazis beheading one man and shooting another was a fabrication, the Rossiskaya Gazeta reported yesterday, citing police. Citing a senior police official in the southern Adygea republic, where a student has been charged with inciting racial hatred for spreading the video, it reported that Russian interior ministry experts had determined the video was not genuine. The video, which surfaced in August in online diaries on livejournal.com, appears to show a pair of masked men executing a Tajik national and an ethnic Dagestani man in a forest with a Nazi flag in the background.
■ NETHERLANDS
Museum wants pubic lice
A museum said on Friday it is having trouble getting its hands on a parasite that just about everybody else is anxious to avoid: crabs. The Rotterdam Natural History Museum has appealed for somebody -- anybody -- to give it a single crab louse for its collection, amid fears they may be dying out. The donor's anonymity, said curator Kees Moeliker, is guaranteed. An article published by British doctors in the Journal of Sexually Transmitted Infections titled "Did the Brazilian Kill the Pubic Louse?" found that crabs rates were falling and hypothesized that the bikini wax known as "The Brazilian" that removes most pubic hair, was to blame. Moeliker said that in essence, the lice's habitat is being threatened. "When the bamboo forests that the Giant Panda lives in were cut down, the bear became threatened with extinction. Pubic lice can't live without pubic hair."
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