Raid

Police captured the feared leader of a pirate gang during a raid on his hideout in the Indonesian city of Cirebon.

"The 37-year-old suspect had attacked and looted many vessels in the Malacca Strait," a police official said. "He was on the police wanted list for the last three years."

Cops shot the freebooter in the thigh.

Mountain Women

Jasmine Scott penned a piece about female guides in the Himalayas.

Thugs

The original Thugs strangled travelers in India.

I seldom worry about bandits during my trips. Under my shirt I wear a pyramid-shaped pendant. According to the inscription on the back of the pendant, I travel under the protective eyes of ancient Egyptian pharaohs. Any modern-day thug who tries to harm me can expect to spend the rest of his life with an abusive mummy on his trail.

Chimp

Zookeepers gunned down a runaway chimpanzee near London.

Che's Killer

At a Bolivian hospital, Cuban doctors performed free cataract surgery on former Bolivian army sergeant Mario Terán, the executioner of Argentine-born Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.

Shark

A shark killed a 23-year-old female swimmer off the Loyalty Islands archipelago in French New Caledonia.

Java

Indonesian scientists increased the alert level for a volcano on Java.

Afghanistan

Afghan President Hamid Karzai offered to meet with Taliban leader Mullah Omar and another top insurgent for peace talks. Karzai also expressed a willingness to give government positions to insurgent leaders.

An old Pennsylvania Dutch saying seems to fit President Bush's War on Terror: "The harder I work, the behinder I get."

Update: A Taliban spokesman rejected the offer.

Bull

A trapped bull survived under a mound of straw for two months.

Falcons

Police detained 24 foreigners for poaching falcons in China. Most of the suspects are from India or Pakistan.

Train

An express train killed a 12-year-old elephant in the Indian state of Kerala. The locomotive dragged the animal more than a quarter of a mile.

Angelica

Carrying a rifle and a machete, a female guerilla hijacked an airplane to escape her tortuous life in the Colombian mountains.

Huts

Conservationists spotted a little-known nomadic Indian tribe in Peru's Amazon rain forest.

Togo

The BBC has the latest news about the headless bodies in Togo.

Previous: Headless in Africa

Troublemakers

Cambodian cops put a bounty on the heads of several monkeys.

Parrots

The island of Atiu has a breeding colony of Rimatara lorikeets for the first time since the early 19th century.

Frogs

Japanese researchers created see-through frogs.

Lone Raider

In northeastern India a bull elephant entered a village and killed three female residents.

"One victim was a 13-year-old girl," a trader said.

Stones

A wild bear injured several people at a village in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Men stoned the hostile animal to death.

Gorilla

Rangers found a dead mountain gorilla during a sting operation at Virunga National Park.

Skulls

Thieves stole 56 human skulls from graves in Uganda.

Business

For the second year in a row, Singapore topped the World Bank's list of the easiest places to do business.

Rats

Armies of rats ravaged rice fields at 177 villages in the Indian state of Mizoram.

"Seventy villages have nothing to harvest," a trader said in an email.

Fisherman

A crocodile killed a 29-year-old Ugandan fisherman on an island in Lake Victoria. Police found the legless corpse yesterday.

Vietnam

Scientists discovered new species of plants and animals in Vietnam.

Guinean Pirates

Sierra Leone reportedly foiled a raid by ocean pirates from Guinea.

Tanker

Sea pirates hijacked a tanker off the coast of Sumatra last weekend. Indonesian patrol boats searched in vain for the missing vessel.

New Zealand Volcano

New Zealand's Mount Ruapehu erupted without warning.

Update: The volcano injured a 22-year-old climber.

Another update: Doctors amputated the victim's right leg below the knee.

Swamp Ghost

John Darnton wrote about a controversy over a World War II bomber in Papua New Guinea. Smithsonian magazine has the story.

No Smoking

A security guard shot a man in the leg for smoking in a South African grocery store.

Wrath

Never compare wives.

Backpack

An orangutan tried to snatch a backpack from a female French tourist at a Malaysian wildlife sanctuary in Sarawak. The woman suffered a few minor injuries during the scuffle.

Dead Shepherd in India

Last weekend a bear killed an Indian shepherd in a remote Himachal Pradesh valley.

Final Days

According to an international team of scientists, one or more objects from outer space probably slammed into the earth or exploded over the planet roughly 12,900 years ago, bringing about the extinction of the woolly mammoth and other giant prehistoric beasts.

King Tut

Egyptian archaeologists found more stuff in King Tut's tomb.

Rescue

A leopard mauled a boy in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Villagers saved the child when they heard his bloodcurdling screams. The boy is in critical condition at a hospital.

Mahout School

In Thailand the Mahout and Elephant Training School of the National Elephant Institute offers mahout training courses.

Fear of Foxes

Phil Mercer of BBC News: "Tasmania is intensifying its controversial war against an invisible yet potentially destructive foe—the European red fox."

Restaurateur

Villagers killed a 55-year-old restaurateur in India's Maharashtra state.

"The male victim allegedly tried to molest a 35-year-old woman at her home," a source said. "Neighbors responded to her cries for help."

Scorpion

Earlier today a scorpion stung an airline passenger on an Iberia flight from Costa Rica to Spain.

Ancient Quarry

The Israel Antiquities Authority announced a major discovery.

Marauder

A rogue elephant killed a 2-year-old girl and injured a 12-year-old boy at a Sri Lankan village.

Crappy Neighbors

At a village in the Indian state of Jharkhand, four neighbors shoved human feces down the throat of a 40-year-old woman to punish her for practicing witchcraft.

Bear Trouble

Two farmers suffered life-threatening injuries during a bear attack in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Update: A bear mauled a woodcutter in the same area.

On the Trail of Genghis Khan

An Australian adventurer completed his horseback trip from Mongolia to Hungary.

Giraffe

Cops saved a giraffe from hungry Zimbabweans.

Bootleggers

Saudi authorities arrested a bootlegger in Jeddah. Lawmen seized 25 barrels and 1,000 bottles of illegal liquor during the raid.

In Pakistan 40 people died from bad booze in the port city of Karachi.

Robbers

Angry villagers beat three robbers to death in Bangladesh.

Trading Center

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is becoming a major trading center in China.

Bridge

A project to build a shipping canal threatens a sacred bridge of the Hindu god Rama and his army of monkeys.

Blanket

Hudson's Bay Company introduced its famous point blanket into the Canadian fur trade during the 18th century. The company still sells the product.

Botswana

Wild elephants killed a 75-year-old woman at a farm in Botswana.

Invaders

In India's state of West Bengal, a troop of monkeys invaded a village and bit 50 people. Residents hid in their homes until the arrival of wildlife rangers.

Trawlers

More than 100 trawlers are missing after a storm in the Bay of Bengal.

Suspected Thieves

Last night an irate mob killed three suspected thieves in the Indian state of Jharkhand.

"Villagers beat the suspects and slit their throats," a trader reported.

Update: This evening a mob of vigilantes lynched two thieves in the Indian state of Bihar.

Thin Man

A wild elephant crushed a 42-year-old forest ranger in India's state of Kerala. The dead man's body looked like a giant flatworm.

Baby Dinosaurs

Scientists found a fossilized herd of baby Psittacosaurus dinosaurs in China.

Burmese Pythons

Burmese pythons are a growing threat to indigenous animals in the Florida Everglades.

Rattlesnake

In Oregon a rattlesnake bit a 23-year-old man on the tongue.

Velociraptors

Velociraptors probably had feathers in real life.

Little People

The Hobbit may be an extinct species.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam intends to close one-third of the brothels in its 700-year-old red-light district.

Egyptian Mosque

Within the walls of a mosque, Egyptian restorers discovered pillars, lintels, and reliefs from the reign of Ramses II.

Old Copper

Archaeologists reported the discovery of 4,000-year-old copper tools and jewelry in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

"A traveling acrobat stumbled upon a few metallic objects in a field," one archaeologist stated. "Curiosity made him dig in the spot."

Eyes of a Crocodile

A 36-year-old man jabbed a crocodile in the eyes to escape from the jaws of the reptile at a river in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

"The crocodile bit man's stomach, left ear, and left arm during the fight," a hospital spokesman said.

Wife Killer

Two hundred villagers used spears and knives to murder a wife killer in Uganda. Leaders of the mob set the corpse on fire.

Chachapoyas

Peruvian archaeologists found 40 mummies at the fortress of Kuélap.

It Came from Outer Space

China Daily has the latest dope on the meteorite crash in Peru.

Rape

Thirty armed tribesmen raped a schoolgirl in the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea.

"Police have not lifted a finger to arrest the suspects," a gold trader claimed.

Iraq

The American debate about Iraq prompted me to remember an old story.

Pig

A pig reportedly ran off with the newborn baby of a village woman in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. No one found the child.

Crickets

Cambodian crickets: One man's plague is another man's dinner.

Green Turtles

Scientists came up with the answer to a long-standing question about baby green turtles.

Home Breakers

Wild elephants demolished 26 houses in Nepal.

Train Accident

A train killed two female elephants in the Indian state of Orissa. An injured elephant calf ran away from the scene of the accident.

Belize

In Belize a crocodile took the life of a 23-year-old bartender.

Bengal Tiger

Recent sightings of a Bengal tiger worried residents at three villages in India's state of Maharashtra. This morning the cat attacked and seriously injured a man in the area.

Stolen Statues

Angry about the theft of idols from a temple, a mob bludgeoned a 28-year-old man to death in the Indian state of Bihar.

"The victim probably had nothing to do with the theft," a local trader said.

Pirate Raids

Pirates stole supplies from an anchored cargo ship off the Haitian coast and an anchored chemical tanker in Nigeria's Bonny River.

Plastic Bag

Workers found a bra, nightgown, human head, and two human arms in a plastic bag near a hospital in Namibia.

"The body parts were from a female person," a policeman said.

Previous: Jack in Namibia

Coral Sea

WWF wants the Australian government to declare the entire Coral Sea region a marine protected area.

Ankara

Cops captured a 27-year-old cannibal in Ankara, Turkey.

"The man killed a 55-year-old municipal employee to eat his flesh," a businessman reported. "Police found pieces of the victim's body in the murderer's refrigerator."

Bounty

Radical Islamists placed a bounty on the head of a Swedish artist for drawing a blasphemous cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.

Baboon

A chickenhearted baboon found a friend at a Lithuanian zoo.

Lizard

At Blackpool International Airport in the UK, an iguana popped out of a woman's bra.

Dinner

A villager blew up his dinner guests at a Chinese restaurant.

Ritual Murder

In Uganda a father slit the throat of his 12-year-old son in a ritual murder to achieve wealth and happiness.

Soldiers

Mozambique's government authorized soldiers to gun down dangerous wild animals.

Lions on the Run

Lions escaped from Kruger National Park in South Africa.

Headless in Africa

Members of the illegal Mungiki sect beheaded a policeman in Kenya.

Meanwhile, cops found six decapitated bodies in Togo. The attackers apparently drained the blood of the victims.

Machu Picchu

Yale University agreed to return thousands of Machu Picchu relics to Peru.

Passenger

When an Austrian motorist opened the trunk of his car in Vienna, he found a stowaway in the vehicle: a 10-foot boa constrictor.

Flying Fox

Scientists discovered a new breed of flying fox in the Philippines.

Human Sacrifices

In the Indian state of Orissa, a man sacrificed two kidnapped boys to appease a Hindu goddess.

"Villagers found the headless bodies in a jungle," a trader said. "The victims were brothers. One was 5 years old. The other was 4 years old."

Police arrested the killer.

Python

A Hong Kong woman fought a 15-foot python to save a dog.

Cheetahs

At least one wildlife trader smuggled a large number of cheetah cubs into Saudi Arabia this year.

"The trader bought the cheetahs in Ethiopia," a source said. "He used poultry trucks to smuggle the cats into Saudi Arabia. He sold the cubs to individuals for more than USD 3,000 each."

Many of the young cheetahs suffered from diseases or other health problems. Approximately 100 cubs died in Jeddah and Riyadh during the past six months.

Roughly 12,000 cheetahs live the wild.

Fire

Ten Ugandan families lost their homes to fire at a village near Lake Victoria.

"A mob of local residents burned the houses to punish the families for practicing witchcraft," a safari guide said. "The families ran for their lives."

Submarines

Akemi Nakamura of the Japan Times wrote a feature article about three unlikely friends.

Global Warming

The Northwest Passage is open. Pretty soon I can sell refrigerators to Eskimos.

Living Dead

A supposedly dead man woke up during the autopsy on his body at a Venezuelan morgue.

Update: "Interesting entry," a reader writes. "My Dad tells the story of when many years ago he was performing an autopsy only to discover the heart was still beating. The guy didn’t wake up though."

Big Birds

Cambodia's government set up a 20,000-acre sanctuary to protect eastern sarus cranes.

Poacher's Trap

In India a team of rangers and veterinarians released a leopard from a poacher's trap in a Himachal Pradesh forest.

Women in Red

Surendra Phuyal of the BBC reports from Kathmandu: "Hindu women in Nepal have been fasting and praying for their husbands' well-being and longevity."

Cheap Chopsticks

The paint on a pair of inexpensive chopsticks permanently discolored two front teeth of a Chinese woman in Shenyang.

"In a similar situation my Chinese girlfriend probably would want to kill the CEO of the manufacturer," my American friend Tom told me.

I made a mental note to reject all sales orders from Tom's girlfriend.

Human Flesh

Police arrested a cannibal in Mozambique.

"The 24-year-old male suspect ate the head of a corpse from a local cemetery," a missionary said.

Flying Objects

A family in Shanghai has a poltergeist problem.

Game Ranger

Gill Gifford via IOL in South Africa:

As game ranger Eugene le Roux lay in the dust and waited for the charging elephant cow to deliver her final blow, they made eye contact—and the animal stopped and turned away.

Read the whole article.

Lake

IRIN reports from Kenya:

The water hyacinth, a free-floating perennial aquatic plant native to tropical South America, is suffocating Lake Victoria, the second-largest freshwater lake in the world.

Diamond

Miners found a 494-carat diamond in Lesotho.

Welcome to Hell

Villagers beat 10 suspected thieves to death in India. The BBC has the story.

Update: Two days after the murders, a few residents said they had seen the ghosts of the slain men in the village. Women spread red flowers and yellow mustard seeds near homes to ward off the spirits.

Neanderthals

University of Leeds:

The mystery of what killed the Neanderthals has moved a step closer to resolution after an international study led by the University of Leeds has ruled out one of the competing theories—catastrophic climate change—as the most likely cause.

Arson

In the Solomon Islands an enraged mob burned down nine houses at Guadalcanal village.

"A sorcerer started the trouble," a local trader explained. "He used his powers to strike down a man from another tribe. In retaliation, men from the victim's tribe torched the homes of the sorcerer and his relatives."

Tombs

Archaeologists excavated nine 1,700-year-old brick tombs in China.

Beast

A Canadian man found the remains of a steppe bison.

Pakistan

Suspected pro-Taliban militants tried to blow up an ancient statue of Buddha in Pakistan.

Extinction Crisis

The number of species facing extinction is escalating.

Forbidden Fruit

University of Stirling: "Researchers studying wild chimps in West Africa have discovered that males pinch desirable fruits from local farms and orchards as a means of attracting female mates."

Cane Fields

Police found the bodies of three slain women at sugar plantations in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal. According to detectives, the same person probably committed all three murders.

"The killer hacked off the head of one victim," a South African trader told me. "Last week somebody saw a dog with a human head in its mouth."

Update: Area residents discovered the bodies of two more women in sugarcane fields.

Monkeys

In Taiwan five villages asked for government help to capture devilish monkeys.

"The monkeys kill piglets and frighten children," a villager said.

Splish Splash

A crocodile killed a 17-year-old bather in a Sri Lankan river. No one found the body of the male teenager.

Dead Namibians

Wild elephants snuffed four Namibians during the past six weeks.

Hit Man

A South African hit man received a stiff prison sentence for shooting a suspected witch.

Tongue

In Botswana a 27-year-old woman bit an alleged would-be rapist.

"When I let go, he ran away and inside my mouth there was this large chunk of meat, his tongue," she told a local newspaper.

Granite Statue

Via IOL:

A 70-ton granite statue of Buddha which toppled over face-down 1,300 years ago in South Korea has been unearthed with its features intact.

Bird

Alex the Parrot died. He was a good egg.

Tsavo Lions

Kenya wants an American museum to return the remains of the Ghost and the Darkness.

Background: Man-eaters at the Field Museum

Cobra

A cobra killed a 12-year-old girl at village in India's state of Andhra Pradesh.

Kokoda Track

On the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea, one man died and several other people suffered injuries during a clash between two groups of people from rival clans.

Sea Battle

Archaeologists hope to find shipwrecks from an ancient naval battle near Cyprus. The scientists will conduct a sea survey next year.

Ascending Dragon

Vietnam plans to restore the seventh-century imperial city of Thang Long (Ascending Dragon) in Hanoi. Construction laborers discovered the ruins during excavation work for a new government building.

Viking Vessel

British archaeologists may have found a 1,000-year-old Viking vessel under the parking lot of a pub.

Big Buddha

Peasants are angry about a plan to build the world's largest Buddha statue near their village in India. The farmers don't want to leave their fertile land to make way for the 500-foot bronze symbol of love of compassion. Daniel Pepper of the Christian Science Monitor has the details.

Web site: Maitreya Project

Tiger Snake

A tiger snake attacked a 15-year-old male hiker at Austalia's Kinglake National Park. The venomous reptile bit the Melbourne youth twice. Prompt medical treatment saved the teenager's life.

Leopard Skin

Lawmen caught a Nepalese smuggler with a leopard skin in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Under interrogation the smuggler admitted he had sold 30 illegal animal skins to Indian traders this year.

Tunnel

Israeli archaeologists found an ancient escape tunnel in Jerusalem.

Whale Hunt

On Saturday members of the Makah tribe killed a gray whale off the western tip of Washington state. Today tribal leaders denounced the illegal hunt.

Wrong Target

A lone gunman tried to rob a karate school in Colombia. He left on a stretcher.

Going Bananas

Village vigilantes are looking for a serial rapist in southern Thailand.

"The criminal raped dogs, pigs, women, and banana trees," a Thai merchant said.

I asked about the attacks on the banana trees.

"The man cut holes in 10 banana trees," the merchant said. "He used the holes to pleasure himself."

Möng La

Möng La in northern Myanmar is a center for trade in exotic animals such as cobras. Shoppers also can buy tiger skins and elephant tusks in the border town.

Head Case

In the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, a 50-year-old man beheaded his insolent daughter-in-law. He went to a police station, carrying the severed head in a sack.

Workboat

Sea pirates robbed the crew of a workboat off the southeastern coast of Papua New Guinea. During the raid the cuthroats knifed two men. The workboat captain drowned when he fell into the water.

Kiss and Tell

Eleven former mistresses of a leading Chinese official jointly accused their ex-lover of corruption.

Spirit and Guardian

Naomi Schwarz at Voice of America:

In southern Senegal and the Gambia, home to the Mandinka ethnic group, the rainy season also brings the appearance of the Kankuran, a man who takes on the role of an age-old spirit and guardian of the Mandinka people.

On Thin Ice

USGS: Future reduction of sea ice in the Arctic could result in a loss of two-thirds of the world's polar bear population within 50 years.

Night of the Leopard

Another person fell prey to a wild beast in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. On Thursday night a stray leopard killed a teenage girl.

"The girl died outside her home," a traveler said. "Villagers staged a protest demonstration against wildlife authorities. The residents demanded more protection from wild animals."

Police arrived to break up the protest. Turning violent, the villagers injured five policemen and damaged a police ambulance.

Bad Weather

Four Bangladeshi fishing trawlers capsized during a storm in the Bay of Bengal. Rescuers found 25 of the 50 crew members.

Hospital

A venomous snake killed a cancer patient on a gurney at a hospital in Thailand.

Demons

In central Uganda a group of local leaders hired an exorcist to expel evil spirits from a government health center.

"The officials had no choice if they wanted to reopen the center," a trader said. "Before the exorcism, invisible spirits allegedly raped nurses at facility. The medical staff fled and vowed never to return."

Uganda

Business reporter Lucy Hooker of the BBC. "Indians make up less than one percent of Uganda's population. But they control some 40 percent of the economy."

Singapore Sales

If you want to sell products or services to Singapore's government, you need to know about GeBIZ, the one-stop e-procurement portal.

Economic Freedom

Cato Institute: "Hong Kong remains first in economic freedom; U.S. ties for fifth place."

Pursuit

Nearly a dozen armed pirates in a speedboat chased a containership in the Malacca Strait.

"The big ship outran the pirate boat," a mariner said.

Revenge

Three brothers murdered a 79-year-old man and a 31-year-old man in South Africa.

"Revenge was the motive," a friend told me. "The victims allegedly used witchcraft to kill the parents of the brothers."

Repairman

A tiger attacked a repairman at a wildlife park in China.

Hong Kong

Police evacuated 800 people from a densely populated area of Hong Kong after the discovery of a buried World War II bomb. Cops blew up the 400-pound explosive device.

Unlucky Day

A village mob killed an armed robber in Tanzania. At the time of the attack, the highwayman was on a quest to find an amulet to protect himself from police arrest.

Trout

Trying to save Colorado's greenback cutthroat trout from extinction, biologists inadvertently stocked lakes and streams with the wrong fish.

Church

Lightning struck a village church in Kenya, killing six people. Among the lifeless bodies was an uninjured 10-year-old girl.

School Spirits

A mob of students and adults burned two suspected witches to death in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal.

"The students wanted to rid their high school of evil spirits," a trader said.

Cold Cats

Vietnamese lawmen found frozen tigers at an apartment in Hanoi.

Goat Killers

The BBC: "Nepal's state-run airline has confirmed that it sacrificed two goats to appease a Hindu god, following technical problems with one of its aircraft."

Getting a Head

At a Nigerian farm a man murdered a woman with a hoe because he wanted her skull for a ritual. Cops arrested five suspected ritualists in the case.

Update: Police arrested two other men for taking a human skull from a graveyard in Nigeria.

Rebels

Rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo control large parts of Virunga National Park.

The park is home to more than 150 rare mountain gorillas.

"If anything happens to the mountain gorillas now, there is nothing we can do," said Norbert Mushenzi of the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature.

Lost Daughter

A crocodile grabbed an 8-year-old girl from a riverbank at a village in Papua New Guinea.

"The child's mother struggled to pull her screaming daughter from the jaws of the 10-foot crocodile," a gold trader said. "The reptile won the tug-of-war. A search party found a few pieces of the girl's body the next day."

Update: Another crocodile devoured a 43-year-old swimmer in Sri Lanka. The victim was the father of two children.

Village of Snakes

In India a village has one snake for every two residents. Most of the 3,000 snakes are cobras.

Wasps

Angry wasps attacked tourists at the rock fortess of Sigiriya in Sri Lanka.

"Some people believe the wasps are the reincarnation of troops of King Kasyapa, who built the fortress in the year 475 AD," the BBC reported.

Arrests

Cops nabbed six Bushmen for hunting on ancestral land in Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve. This follows twenty-one arrests for hunting in June and July.

Last December the High Court of Botswana affirmed the right of the Bushmen to live inside the reserve.

Previous: Bushmen

Rising Tensions

Millicent Mutuli in the Democratic Republic of the Congo:

Petronilla Nsiya watched in horror early last week when armed men entered her village, Sake, frogmarched her neighbour from his hut, tied him to a tree and then butchered him. The man's wife was shot in the stomach.

Cattle Thieves

Cattle rustlers killed a herdsman and injured dozens of other people during a raid in Kenya.

River Goddess

In Nigeria large crowds offered sacrifices to a river goddess, Osun. The goddess has the power to grant wishes.

Inspection

Approximately 40,000 bare-breasted virgins lined up for inspection by Swaziland's King Mswati III.

Previous: Dancers

Sons of Witches

Two teenage boys murdered their mothers in India's state of Orissa.

"Both women practiced witchcraft," a traveler said. "The boys were afraid of them."

Crazy

A mentally ill man beheaded five women in a series of knife attacks at a Nigerian village. Police gunned down the murderer.

Tiger Widows

Few people worry about the tiger widows of the Sundarbans.

"Tigers killed the husbands of the women," a trader said. "In the eyes of most villagers in the region, the widows are bad luck. The women end up living in isolation."

Harvey

I heard this story at lunch:

About 10 years ago, Harvey, an American entrepreneur in his early 40s, dated an exotic dancer in the United States. The 27-year-old woman was an occasional cocaine user.

Harvey decided to take the dancer with him on a quick business trip to Asia and the Middle East. "Some countries can give you the death penalty for drug-related crimes," he told her. "Don't put any illegal drugs in your suitcases."

"I won't put any drugs in my suitcases," the dancer promised.

The woman kept her promise. She hid her cocaine in one of Harvey's suitcases.

Harvey discovered the stash in his luggage when he returned home from the trip.

Serial Rapist

A male chimpanzee that liked to rape human females died in Nigeria's Ekiti state.

According to a Nigerian news report, the chimpanzee allegedly raped at least four village women over the years. Hunters killed the ape in the bush.

An adult chimpanzee can overpower almost any unarmed person.

Jerusalem

Robert Berger at Voice of America: "Ancient artifacts are at the heart of a fresh dispute between Jews and Arabs at a hotly contested holy place in Jerusalem."

Hyena

In Botswana a hyena bit off the left ear of a sleeping 8-year-old girl.

Snake Man

Dispatch from western Ghana:

A farmer saw a fight between two snakes. One snake crawled behind a bush, and the other snake turned into an old man.

With machete in hand, the frightened farmer took the old man to a village chief. Soon thousands of people flocked to see the shape-shifter.

One rabble-rouser shouted: "The snake man is an evil wizard. He deserves to die."

To avert serious trouble, police spirited the shape-shifter out of the area. Officers released him at an undisclosed location.

Polar Bear

Once again a polar bear headed south. The animal seems to enjoy warm weather.