Fri, Dec 23, 2011 page7

• World News Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  NETHERLANDS

  TV hosts eat each other

  Two TV presenters were to cook and eat a small piece of human flesh surgically removed from the other’s body in a show being aired on Wednesday, the channel said. “It’s not a hoax,” BNN television spokesman Thijs Verheij said ahead of the weekly show Guinea-pigs that was broadcast at 9:40pm after being pre-recorded in a studio. BNN, which is aimed at an audience of teenagers and young adults, in 2007 broadcast a show in which participants in need of an organ transplant competed to win a kidney from a dying woman. It turned out to be a hoax. “The show in 2007 was held to raise awareness about the need for organ donors,” Verheij said. He said Guinea-pigs aimed to tackle off-the-wall issues, such as “what a small piece of human flesh tastes like.” Verheij said two pieces of flesh were surgically removed from the men’s bodies, one from one presenter’s abdomen, the other taken from his colleague’s buttocks.

  NETHERLANDS

  Editor fired for Rihanna slur

  The editor of a fashion magazine has been fired after the publication used a racial slur to refer to Barbados-born Rihanna, setting off a social media furor and prompting an outraged response from the singer. Eva Hoeke, editor of Jackie, and the magazine’s publisher said in a joint statement on Facebook that the misuse of a racial slur — “although without malicious intentions” — was the cause for Hoeke’s departure after eight years on the job. The slur was used in an article about how to dress your daughter like a pop star. Responding to criticism, Hoeke said at first that her use of the term was meant as a joke. She then put out a Twitter item with a more explicit apology. On Tuesday, Rihanna responded herself via Twitter: “Your magazine is a poor representation of the evolution of human rights! I find you disrespectful, and rather desperate!!” Hoeke said she was unaware the word she used was so loaded because “you hear it all the time on radio and TV.”

  PORTUGAL

  Cop suspended for e-mail

  The city of Coimbra suspended its police chief for sending a Christmas e-mail greeting to its entire municipal workforce which contained images of scantily clad women and seasonal wishes for a great sex life. Euclides Santos accidentally e-mailed his colleagues a powerpoint presentation that wished them a merry Christmas and then displayed several women wearing lingerie and bikinis. “Enough with insincere and useless words. What I wish you from the bottom of my heart, is that you have incredible sexual relations, live a merry and happy life, work hard and get well paid,” read one of the final slides of the presentation shown on Portuguese television. Moments later, Euclides e-mailed his colleagues again, apologizing and warning that “there was an error in the attachment,” but it was too late.

  ITALY

  Busty Spanish model busted

  Airport police eyeing up a busty Spanish model’s curves made a startling discovery on Wednesday — 2.5kg of pure cocaine stashed as implants in her bust and backside. The 33-year-old arriving in Rome from Sao Paulo, Brazil, was wearing tight-fitting clothes to enhance her voluptuousness, hoping that her looks might distract the attention of border police, ANSA news agency reported. The woman drew suspicion after giving unclear answers to questions about the reasons for her trip. The discovery was made when female investigators conducted a strip search.

  UNITED STATES

  ‘Ticket prostitute’ cleared

  An appeals court has overturned the attempted prostitution conviction of a Philadelphia woman who was accused of offering sexual favors for tickets to the World Series baseball championship. Authorities had alleged that Susan Finkelstein posted a racy online ad, then met with an undercover Bensalem police officer in October 2009 and offered to perform sexual acts in exchange for tickets to see the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees. Finkelstein acknowledged placing a “goofy” ad on Craigslist and hoping to use her “feminine wiles” to get tickets, but denied offering favors and said she was not a prostitute. At trial last year, Finkelstein was acquitted of prostitution, but convicted of attempted prostitution. The state Superior Court ruled on Tuesday that since Finkelstein was cleared of prostitution, she could not be convicted of attempt.

  UNITED STATES

  Nude Germans sought

  A west Florida community is spending US$3,800 in tax dollars to entice naked Germans to spend their summer vacations there. The advertising grant was awarded on Tuesday by the Pasco County commission to Pandabare, a local nudist organization representing 16 resorts, campgrounds and clubs located in the largely rural county north of Tampa. The ads, to be placed in European publications, will promote the county’s longstanding reputation as the nudist capital of the US. The first target market for the ad campaign will be Germany, “a large and lucrative market whose millions of nudists are among the world’s most prolific travelers.”

  UNITED STATES

  Amish charged with assaults

  A federal grand jury has indicted 12 members of a breakaway Amish group over a rash of bizarre beard--cutting incidents against fellow Amish in Ohio, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. In a statement, it linked the accused — including the leader of the group and two women — to what it called five “religiously motivated assaults” between September and last month. “In each assault, defendants forcibly removed beard and head hair from the victims with whom they had ongoing religious disputes,” it said. “As set forth in the indictment, the manner in which Amish men wear their beards and Amish women wear their hair are symbols of their faith.” Named in the seven-count indictment are Samuel Mullet, the bishop of the Amish community in the village of Bergholz, Ohio, and 11 of his followers, many of them members of his own family.

  UNITED STATES

  Obama takes dog shopping

  With his wife and daughters already in Hawaii for the holidays, President Barack Obama took his dog Bo shopping on Wednesday as he waited for congressional leaders to mop up a payroll tax mess that has kept him in Washington. Obama traveled with Bo and an entourage of aides, Secret Service agents, doctors and reporters, to a Northern Virginia strip mall to buy treats for the three-year-old Portuguese Water Dog featured on the White House holiday cards this year. Bo accompanied him to PetSmart, where the dog made friends with a brown poodle named Cinnamon. “Okay, Bo, don’t get too personal here,” Obama told the dog. He deposited Bo in the car before stopping by Best Buy for Apple gift cards and Nintendo Wii video games for his daughters, including The Sims 3: Pets and Just Dance 3. “The girls beat me every time on these dance games,” he told reporters, joking that he would never let his picture get taken while dancing.
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