■ New Zealand
Student killer jailed
A Chinese student who murdered his ex-girlfriend and her new partner then drove for five days with the dead girl's body strapped into the back seat of his car was yesterday jailed for a minimum of 20-years. Jun Jie Ying, 22, was convicted in February of the murder last May of Jia Ye, 20, and new partner Webin Sun who had been stabbed 37 times in an attack that left one arm severed. Justice Judith Potter said Jun had kept his victim's body in his car for five days. She was propped seat belted on the back seat on to make out she was alive, but when her body began to decompose he moved her to the boot. The murders were uncovered after he confessed to police who stopped him for a traffic violation.
■ Indonesia
Doomsayer put behind bars
The leader of an Indonesian Christian sect has been jailed for two years for persuading hundreds of followers that the world was about to end, media reports said yesterday. They said the Reverend Mangapin Sibuea, leader of the Prophet Hut sect, was jailed in the Javanese city of Bandung for "misusing and besmirching" Christianity. Followers expecting Doomsday on Nov. 10 last year had gathered at a church near Bandung. Police dispersed them and arrested sect leaders. The Jakarta Post quoted judges as saying Sibuea, 59, had also spread hatred by telling followers that other religious ministers were false prophets who would go to hell.
■ Australia
Ex-croc hunter saves girl
A retired Australian crocodile hunter saved a young girl from the jaws of a 3m crocodile when he jumped on top of man-eating reptile and gouged its eyes, local media said on Tuesday. Eleven-year-old Hannah Thompson was swimming with other children in shallow water behind Ray Turner's charter boat in Margaret Bay in tropical Queensland state on Monday when the crocodile grabbed her by the arm. Turner threw himself into the water the moment he heard screams and the shout "Crocodile!" from other passengers. "I landed fair on its back and I got a finger in its left eye -- I missed the right eye -- but he got a fright and let go," Turner said.
■ Australia
Pestered thief returns car
A distraught woman used cellphone text messages to persuade a repentant thief to return her stolen car, a newspaper reported yesterday. Lee Alaban, 34, of Port Macquarie had her Holden Commodore sedan stolen while she was at work on March 30, The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported. Her 13-year-old son's cellphone was in the car, so Alaban sent text messages to the thief. She explained that the car was a gift from her father shortly before he died and that presents for her son's birthday, which was on the following day, were in its trunk. "We exchanged a number of text messages," Alaban told the newspaper. "He started apologizing and I felt I was getting through. Next thing, I got this text saying he will return the car." The thief wrote another text message telling her where to find the car, which he abandoned in a parking lot _ but not before stealing the cellphone and the birthday presents.
■ China
Naked sushi appalls officials
A restaurant in China's southwest has been ordered to take its newest dish off the menu: sushi served on the naked bodies of two young women. The Japanese restaurant in Kunming held a trial banquet of its "feast on a beauty's body" on Friday, prompting a public outcry, the Xinhua News Agency and newspapers reported.
■ Norway
Cool! A snow cinema!
Be sure to wrap up warm and take a good supply of dried reindeer meat if you fancy a night out in Kautokeino, in northern Norway. For a cinema which opened there this week extends the meaning of cool: Not only is it made completely from snow, you can drive in to it on your snowmobile. "We always wanted to create a different film experience," said Anne Lajla Utsi, organizer of this year's Kautokeino Sami film festival, 10 days of big screen entertainment focused on talent indigenous to Finnmark, the home of the nomadic Sami people. "We've built a snow amphitheater, with reindeer skins to sit on, and the actual screen is also made from snow," she said.
■ Germany
Piranha in petting pool
Berlin aquarium staff were startled to find that a carnivorous piranha fish was recently released in the facility's petting pool for children, the Bild newspaper reported yesterday. The piranha, whose teeth can grow up to 2cm long, had already begun taking bites out of other fish when it was found and transferred to another aquarium, curator Rainer Kaiser said. Kaiser was puzzled about how the piranha came to be there, but said tortoises and other exotic marine life had been found in the past left "by people wanting to get rid of them but who didn't dare flush them down the toilet."
■ United Kingdom
Crimean vet dies at 160
He served in the Crimean war before retiring to a life in the countryside. Now, at the ripe old age of around 160, Britain's likely oldest resident -- Timothy the tortoise -- has died. The pet of several Earls of Devon, the tortoise would hibernate during the winter in the gardens of Powderham Castle in Devon, bearing the written tag: "My name is Timothy. I am very old -- please do not pick me up." However, before joining the family in 1892, Timothy had led a particularly active life for a tortoise. He was a mascot on British naval ship HMS Queen, which bombarded Sebastopolin in 1854 during the siege of the city as part of the Crimean War. Timothy later saw active service in both the East Indies and China, naval historian Captain George Cardew told the Daily Telegraph.
■ Slovenia
Training pays off for teen
A British junior gymnastics team member fell from the fourth floor of a Ljubljana hotel but suffered only a broken ankle after putting his gymnastics skills into practice, the Slovenian press reported on Tuesday. "There was a big window that could be opened. I leaned out over a metal bar, but the bar suddenly broke. I couldn't do anything. I fell," said 17-year-old Steven Jehu. He did a somersault while falling from the window, which was more than 11m from the ground, and braced himself for a regular gymnastic landing.
■ Turkmenistan
Gold teeth out, white in
Turkmenistan President Saparmurat Niyazov has told his people to shun traditional false gold teeth in favor of white ones, the latest eccentric command after moves to ban beards, ballet and circuses. Niyazov set his eyes on Monday on a student with a full set of gold teeth as she was reading an address in his honor at a local university. "Sebildzhan, don't be offended. You look great with gold teeth, but you would look far better with white ones," television showed Niyazov as telling her.
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