Spain

Via Australian Broadcasting Corp.: "Spanish police are investigating the mysterious death of a British man who was found at his home with an arrow in his chest and his body partially eaten by his dog."

Marilyn Monroe

Pauline Torin of the Japan Times:

Once asked by a reporter what she wore in bed, the late actress Marilyn Monroe was said to have replied, "Why, Chanel No. 5, of course."

Last week a bottle of Chanel perfume believed to have been owned by Hollywood's famous blonde bombshell was found during repair work in the basement of Tokyo's Imperial Hotel.

Related:
Imperial Hotel, Tokyo
Imperial History

Big Lions

Oxford University:

The giant cats that roamed the British Isles, as well as Europe and North America, as recently as 13,000 years ago were lions rather than giant jaguars or tigers, a team led by Oxford University scientists has proved.

One for the Road

Doug Stanglin, USA Today: "An Ohio man has been charged by police with operating a home-made, mechanized bar stool on wheels while intoxicated, the Associated Press reports."

Bust of Nefertiti

Researchers discovered a "hidden face" inside the world-famous bust of Nefertiti.

Previous: Nefertiti

Brazil

IOL: "To smuggle mobile phones into prison, Brazilian inmates have turned to a much older form of communication: carrier pigeons."

Somalia

Time: "Despite naval patrols, Somalia's pirates are busier than ever."

South Korea

Choe Sang-Hun of the New York Times put together an article about South Korean bullfighting.

"Unlike Spanish bullfighting, there is no matador," he says. "In South Korea, bull fights bull."

France

A French pole-vault champion ran naked through the streets of Paris.

Nudist Hotel

Germany's first hotel for nudists will open soon.

When I worked as a newspaperman, I went to a nudist convention. I undressed at the entrance. I never figured out where to pin my name tag.

Aviatrix

Author Anne Cherian:

Ask Americans to name the pioneers of transatlantic flight, and many will come up with Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. But there were others who dared to fly that great distance, and I think the most intriguing member of those early record holders was Beryl Markham.

Piracy

"European naval forces have detained seven suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia," Voice of America reports.

Indochina

Thomas Fuller of the New York Times:

The spring water that drips from massive slabs of rock high above the floodplains of the Mekong River is a rarity in Asia today, so remote and pristine that you don’t hesitate to cup your hands and gulp it down.

This was the reward for the vertiginous climb up 1,000-year-old steps, the only access to the spring and the well-shaded, ancient Khmer ruins of Wat Phu, where a panorama of rice fields and jungle helped transport me back in time.

Continue reading "100 Years on, Tracing an Engineer’s Legacy."

Partners in Crime

Via ABC Online, Australia: "An Israeli and a group of Palestinians last week set aside their differences in order to carry out an armed bank robbery, Palestinian police said."

Hummers

"Iraqis Snap Up Hummers, Seeing Them as Icons of Power"

Play Mystic for Me

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: "A hypnotist who made his name on TV in the rocky years surrounding the Soviet collapse is promising a return to Russia's airwaves."

China

Anthony Kuhn of NPR visited the birdmen of Beijing.

Malaysia

A wild elephant killed a rubber grower in Malaysia's state of Perak.

Village Girl

On Friday night a leopard dragged a screaming 10-year-old girl from a residential compound in India's state of Jammu and Kashmir. The cat carried the girl deep into a forest. Villagers found the child's headless body this morning.

Asia

"Generations in China"

Related: "Generational Differences Between India and the U.S."

Cyprus

Interpol:

An identity check against Interpol’s databases by Cyprus police on a man arrested for attempting to travel on a forged passport revealed him to be a suspected member of the "Pink Panthers" gang, a transnational crime group responsible for a series of high-value jewelery robberies worldwide.

Loch Ness

Nick Watt: "The first recorded sighting of a 'monster' in Loch Ness was nearly 1,500 years ago. Apparently, a huge, ferocious beast leaped out of a lake near Iverness, Scotland, and ate a local farmer."

Gordo

In California a birdnapper snatched Gordo the skateboarding parrot.

Two Frogs

Via ABC Online, Australia:

More than 250 people in northern Bangladesh have attended a wedding ceremony between two frogs as part of a ritual to bring rain to the parched region, according to local newspaper Bengali.

Vampires

"The legend of the vampire actually goes back centuries and exists in some form or another in almost every culture," Claire Shipman says.

Grand Canyon State

A bobcat wandered into a bar.

Somali Pirates

BBC News: "Pirates have seized two European-owned tankers off the coast of Somalia in the past day, officials have said."

Colombian Bird

London's Natural History Museum: "After almost 120 years in the Natural History Museum collections, a new Colombian bird has been discovered, and proclaimed extinct."

Arthur West

At the Times of London, Simon de Bruxelles tells the story of a brave father on the Titantic.

Fall Guy

Via ABC Online, Australia: "A fighter pilot who survived the crash of his training jet has plunged to his death with a rescuer after a cord broke as they were being pulled up to a helicopter, an Ecuadoran military official said."

Gerbils

BBC News: "Chinese authorities are using contraceptive pills to cut down the number of gerbils in a northwestern province."

Mrs. Nutt

Squirrels invaded Oonagh Nutt's home.

Bermuda Triangle

In December 1967 one of my acquaintances, Danny Burack, vanished with his cabin cruiser in the Bermuda Triangle. The name of the boat was Witchcraft.

Related: "Six Mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle"

Bathhouse

Diggers uncovered a Byzantine bathhouse in Israel.

Discoveries

Conservation International:

Jumping spiders, a tiny chirping frog and an elegant striped gecko are among more than 50 species believed new to science discovered during a Conservation International (CI) Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) expedition to Papua New Guinea’s highlands wilderness.

Yacht

Sea rovers hijacked a yacht in the Indian Ocean.

Finial

Press release from Bonhams:

A gem-encrusted gold finial from the octagonal golden throne of Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore, will be sold at Bonhams New Bond Street on 2nd April. This is one of the most important Tipu items ever to appear for sale. It had lain in an English castle, for at least 100 years and then in a bank vault, unknown to Tipu enthusiasts and scholars. It was discovered by Bonhams’ Islamic Department on a routine valuation.

Tipu Sultan was the East India Company’s most tenacious enemy. A fanatical and relentless warrior, he vowed not to mount his elaborate throne until he had vanquished the British. Tipu is considered to be one of the most accomplished and daring rulers of pre-colonial India, devising campaigns which inflicted humiliating defeats on the British and reversing Western weapons and techniques against their inventors. It is believed that he introduced the military rocket to attack enemy infantry, a tactic that helped him win a number of victories over British armies, undercutting the view that they were invincible.

In Tipu’s own words, he said: “I would rather live one day as a tiger than a lifetime as a sheep.” He customized objects of art and instruments of warfare with tiger-stripe motifs, from his throne to canons and blunderbusses. When traveling away from his kingdom, he even wore a coat with the motif.

Bonhams Magazine contributor William Dalrymple recounts the moment of the emperor’s final defeat at the hands of the British: "When the British finally captured Tipu’s capital city of Seringapatam in 1799, the conquerors were astonished at the magnificence of the jewels and art objects that Tipu had collected. According to Major Price, who was responsible for collecting and dividing the booty: 'The wealth of the palace, which was sufficiently dazzling to the eyes of many who were much more habituated to the sight of horded treasure than we were, seemed, at that moment, in specie, jewels and bullion, and bales of costly stuff, to surpass all estimates.' ”

The remarkable gem-set object on sale at Bonhams is one of three surviving tiger head finials that adorned Tipu’s elaborate throne. It had lain at Featherstone Castle, Northumberland, where it was listed in an 1843 inventory of the late Baron Wallace of Knarsdale (1768-1844), who oversaw the East India Company, and afterwards was hidden away in a bank. Although some of the most important items were reserved for the British Royal Family, the famous golden throne was broken up so that the elements could be shared, much to the disapproval of the Governor-General, Lord Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington).

The throne was broken up so quickly following the fall of Seringapatam that little is known about the fate of the remaining throne relics; however, a large gold tiger head from the front of the throne platform now resides at Windsor Castle along with a jewelled bird which was presented to Queen Charlotte the wife of George III. Another surviving finial can be found at Powis Castle, acquired by the second Lady Clive in India.

Claire Penhallurick of Bonhams Indian and Islamic Department comments: “It is an extraordinary privilege to be selling this wonderful finial from Tipu Sultan’s throne. It is, without a doubt, of the greatest historical significance as it belongs to the most important symbolic object in Tipu Sultan’s kingdom, his throne, which he refused to mount until he had defeated the British. It holds huge fascination for both India and Britain as it is part of our shared history, and as Tipu Sultan was such an extraordinary man and certainly one of the most creative, innovative and capable rulers of the pre-colonial period, it is an important discovery for this field.”

The gem-set gold finial will form part of the Islamic and Indian Art Sale at Bonhams New Bond Street on Thursday 2nd April at 10:30 a.m.

(Photo credit: © Bonhams)

A-Bombs

Via the New York Times: "Tsutomu Yamaguchi, 93, has become the first person certified as a survivor of both atomic bombings by the United States, officials said Tuesday."

(Hat tip: Jules Crittenden)

Empty Ships

Paul Watson, Los Angeles Times: "The slump in global trade has left a growing armada of empty cargo ships and tankers cruising the seas in search of the cheapest places to drop anchor while they ride out the economic storm."

One Hundred Camels

Via Independent Online: "An Islamic court in southern Somalia on Tuesday sentenced a man found guilty of murdering a UN aid worker to paying the victim's family 100 female camels in compensation."

War Photographer

The late lensman Eddie Adams snapped one of history's most famous news pictures.

Indonesia

ABC Online, Australia: "An Indonesian fisherman was mauled to death by a komodo dragon after he ventured into a remote island sanctuary for the giant killer lizards, police said Tuesday."

Man-Eater in India

Headline at the Times of India:

"Kaziranga tiger shot dead while feeding on forest dweller"

Maize

Temple University:

Maize was domesticated from its wild ancestor more than 8,700 years according to biological evidence uncovered by researchers in the Mexico’s Central Balsas River Valley. This is the earliest dated evidence — by 1,200 years — for the presence and use of domesticated maize.

Crocodile

In Vietnam a crocodile tried to eat a toddler.

Shipping News

Pirates fired on a Japanese ship off the coast of Somalia.

Trade Barriers

Mark Landler, New York Times:

A surge in protectionism is provoking nasty trade disputes and undermining efforts to plot a coordinated response to the global economic downturn.

Drug Cartels

Randal C. Archibald of the New York Times: "Tucson is coping with a wave of drug crime the police suspect is tied to the battles between Mexico’s drug cartels."

Papua New Guinea

Liam Fox, ABC Online, Australia: "A land dispute is believed to have sparked tribal violence that has left three people dead and hundreds homeless in Papua New Guinea."

Ancient Coffin

Steven McElroy, New York Times:

Egypt is expected to make an official request to the United States this week for the return of a Pharaonic coffin smuggled out of the country 125 years ago, the Associated Press reported.

Leopard

This afternoon a leopard killed a 40-year-old woman in India's state of Uttar Pradesh.

United Kingdom

"A boomerang-shaped object seen from an airport control tower and a woman's encounter with an 'alien' are among the secrets revealed in official UFO files," the BBC says.

Run for Your Life

Michael Powell of the New York Times:

The Bernie Madoffs of the world — not just the Ponzi schemer himself but the rogue accountants, lawyers and hedge funders — walk meekly into federal courts with their rictus faces and ashen complexions and the expectation of long prison sentences, and a bystander can’t help but wonder:

Why not take the ill-gotten money and run?

Continue reading "Tips for the Sophisticated Fugitive."

Egypt

"The posh old Mena House offers a nine-hole golf course alongside one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World," Gerald Eskenazi notes.

I occasionally eat dinner at the hotel.

Tristan da Cunha

From BBC News: "Journalist Simon Winchester reflects on the price he is still paying for betraying the trust of a group of islanders in the South Atlantic Ocean nearly a quarter of a century ago."

Web site: Tristan da Cunha

Gulf of Aden

U.S. sailors detained and released six suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden yesterday.

Smithsonian Magazine

The April issue of Smithsonian magazine is up!

Spanish Skies

Air & Space magazine: "In the skies over Spain, pilots and airplanes rehearsed for World War II."

First World War

John Hayes Fisher, BBC: "The air aces of World War I — like the Red Baron — left a rich mythology that persists to the present day. But the man who was, perhaps, Britain's best pilot, remains little known."

Dangerous Road

A leopard attacked two male motorcyclists on a narrow road in India's state of Uttar Pradesh. The men escaped on their bikes. Neither rider suffered serious injuries.

Spies and Lovers

Angus Crawford of BBC News:

During the Cold War, the Stasi — East Germany's secret police — sent "Romeo" spies to the West.

They seduced secretaries working in Bonn and tricked them into handing over secrets.

Ashanti

BBC: "The head of a Ghanaian king executed by Dutch colonists in the 1830s is to be returned to its homeland for burial, say authorities in the Netherlands."

Pink Elephant

A wildlife cameraman photographed a pink elephant.

Pirates

Somali pirates captured a Greek-owned vessel.

Domestic Violence

RIA Novosti:

A woman has been detained in central Ukraine on suspicion of cutting off her husband's arms, legs and head, the Kriminal.tv crime Web site reported on Friday.

Passersby discovered the headless and limbless torso of the former Soviet special forces serviceman on the ice at a reservoir in the city of Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk Region, the Web site reported, citing local police chief Vitaly Kodiya.

Around the same time as the grisly discovery was made, police in another part of the city discovered a bloody head, legs and arms in a garbage container. The victim was soon identified, and officers determined that the man had been killed by his wife.

Investigators established that the woman, who was not named, had killed her husband after he had drunkenly begun to practice combat sambo moves on her, including throwing knives around her. Sambo is a Soviet-developed martial art.

The woman grabbed a hammer in self-defense and hit her husband on the head with it, knocking him out.

She then dragged the body to the couple's shed, and without knowing if he was dead or alive, cut off her spouse's legs, arms, and finally his head. She then dumped his limbs and head in a nearby trash container and threw his torso into the reservoir.

Cuban Boxers

Spiegel Online has an article about Cuban boxers.

Nanjing

From BBC News: "A film about a member of the Nazi party who saved thousands of Chinese during the massacre in Nanjing recently opened in Germany."

Suicide Forest

"Aokigahara Forest is known for two things in Japan: breathtaking views of Mount Fuji and suicides." — Kyung Lah, CNN.

Nazi Guard

Karen Ann Cullotta of the New York Times: "An 83-year-old former concentration camp guard, who was living in Wisconsin, admitted taking part in a two-day killing spree in which 42,000 people were killed."

Embalming Bed

Via IOL:

Egyptian antiquities authorities on Thursday revealed an ancient pharaonic embalming bed unearthed from a mysterious tomb near Luxor used to prepare bodies for mummification more than 3,000 years ago.

Hispaniola

UW–Madison:

In a study that promises fresh and perhaps personal insight into the earliest European visitors to the New World, a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison is extracting the chemical details of life history from the teeth of crew members Christopher Columbus left on the island of Hispaniola after his second voyage to America in 1493-94.

Heart

RIA Novosti:

A group of scientists from the Indian city of Kharagpur have created a unique artificial human heart similar to the heart of a cockroach, the supervisor of the project told RIA Novosti.

Unlike humans, who die of cardiac arrest when one of their four heart chambers fails, cockroaches easily survive in a similar situation because their hearts have 13 chambers, Sujoy Guha said.

Robbers

Angry residents killed 12 robbers at a remote village in eastern India.

Houston

Kate Murphy of the New York Times reports from Houston, Texas: "A young couple are out on bail of $5,000 each after being accused of running a prostitution ring that catered to businessmen, doctors and sports figures."

Witch Hunt

Amnesty International:

Up to 1,000 people in The Gambia have been taken from their villages by “witch doctors,” taken to secret detention centers and forced to drink hallucinogenic concoctions.

The liquid they are forced to drink has led many to have serious kidney problems. Two people are known to have died of kidney failure after having been subjected to the ordeal.

The incidents are part of a “witch hunting campaign” spreading terror throughout the country.

Eyewitnesses and victims told Amnesty International that the “witch doctors,” who they say are from neighboring Guinea, are accompanied by police, army and national intelligence agents. They are also accompanied by "green boys" — Gambian President Yahya Jammeh’s personal protection guards.

The rest is here.

Space Bat

A bat tried to hitch a ride on the space shuttle Discovery.

Baby Seals

A.G. Sulzberger, New York Times: "Russia announced on Wednesday that it would ban the hunting of baby seals, effectively shutting one of the world’s largest hunting grounds in the controversial trade in seal fur."

Lioness

Yesterday morning a zookeeper shot and killed an escaped lioness to protect visitors at Australia's Mogo Zoo.

Pingyao

Edward Wong, New York Times: "With the global economy reeling from the banking crisis, and as the explosive economic growth of China begins to slow, the rise and fall of Pingyao could be read as a cautionary tale."

Roppongi

Minoru Matsutani of the Japan Times:

The U.S. Embassy informed Americans in Japan on Tuesday that it has recommended that its employees avoid frequenting bars and clubs in Tokyo's Roppongi entertainment district because of a significant increase in drink-spiking incidents.

D.B. Cooper

FBI: "Electron microscopes, dollar bills on a fishing pole, and a French Canadian comic book hero are providing tantalizing new insights into one of our greatest unsolved mysteries — the D.B. Cooper case."

Barker Gang

Cops put out an APB for a pack of deadly dogs in Sicily.

Snakes

In Colorado a man removed 41 snakes from the crawl space under a home.

Ernest Hemingway

Michael Voss of BBC News:

An important collection of papers belonging to the American writer Ernest Hemingway has been saved for posterity, thanks to a unique joint rescue mission involving Communist Cuba and the United States.

Fishing Cat

Photo credit: Jessie Cohen, NZP

Fact Sheet: Fishing Cat

Mosquito Blaster

Anouk Lorie (CNN): "Scientists in the U.S. are developing a laser gun that could kill millions of mosquitoes in minutes."

Jurassic Seas

John Noble Wilford, New York Times: "A difficult excavation yields a marine reptile new to science."

Pint-Sized Predator

University of Calgary:

Massive predators like Albertosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex may have been at the top of the food chain, but they were not the only meat-eating dinosaurs to roam North America, according to researchers who have discovered the smallest dinosaur species on the continent to date.

Siberian Cannibal

Via IOL: "A woman from Russia's Siberian region of Irkutsk has been arrested for killing a friend and then eating part of her corpse."

Perfume

RIA Novosti: "Researchers at Bonn University's Egyptian Museum aim to recreate a perfume used by Egypt's best-known female pharaoh, by analyzing residue from a well-preserved flacon, the museum said in a statement."

My reaction: An entrepreneur should try to get the marketing rights. Unfortunately, I have no interest in starting or managing a perfume company.

Dead Sea Scrolls

"A scholar has rocked the world of Biblical study with her claim that the Essenes, long attributed as authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, never existed," Time magazine says.

Australia

ABC Online, Australia: "Human remains have been found near a creek where an 11-year-old girl was taken by a crocodile yesterday."

Brothel in Berlin

"These are hard times even for the oldest trade in the world," Spiegel Online reports. "A Berlin brothel has responded to the economic crisis by launching a flat-rate service to woo customers."

Burundi

"At least eight people have been arrested in Burundi in connection with a trade in human body parts from people with albinism," the BBC says.

Young Dinosaurs

University of Chicago:

A herd of young birdlike dinosaurs met their death on the muddy margins of a lake some 90 million years ago, according to a team of Chinese and American paleontologists that excavated the site in the Gobi Desert in western Inner Mongolia.

The sudden death of the herd in a mud trap provides a rare snapshot of social behavior. Composed entirely of juveniles of a single species of ornithomimid dinosaur (Sinornithomimus dongi), the herd suggests that immature individuals were left to fend for themselves when adults were preoccupied with nesting or brooding.

Hollywood and Vines

Now playing at the Jungle Film Festival:

Abbott and Costello in Africa Screams (1949)

Free admission (humans only)

Monaco

"Monaco is the latest country to adopt international standards for banking openness and information-sharing," reports David Jolly of the New York Times.

Coyotes

Dan Frosch of the New York Times: "An affluent suburb in Denver, Colorado, is paying a man $65 an hour to kill any coyote he thinks may be a threat to people or pets."

Cleopatra

"Found: the sister Cleopatra killed" — Daniel Foggo, London's Sunday Times

Ranger

A wild elephant trampled a forest ranger to death in Sri Lanka.

Aid

Former World Bank worker Dambisa Moyo opposes unfettered aid to Africa.

Web site: Dambisa Moyo

Jungle Film Festival

Now playing:

Clyde Beatty in The Lost Jungle (1934)

Free admission

Looking for Osama

New York Daily News: "Where's Osama? The U.S. won't say officially, but a Daily News investigation has zeroed in on a trekker's paradise."

Previous: Osama bin Laden

Hostile Horse

In Indonesia a horse bit off a man's left testicle.

Robin Hood

Scotland's University of St. Andrews:

A freshly discovered document highlighting negative attitudes towards Robin Hood has been deciphered by an academic at the University of St Andrews.

Victory at Sea

Victory at Sea was a TV series about naval combat during the Second World War. The documentary series won an Emmy in 1954.

Here are all 26 episodes:

1. Design For War


2. The Pacific Boils Over


3. Sealing The Breach


4. Midway Is East


5. Mediterranean Mosaic


6. Guadalcanal


7. Rings Around Rabaul


8. Mare Nostrum


9. Sea And Sand


10. Beneath The Southern Cross


11. The Magnetic North


12. Conquest Of Micronesia


13. Melanesian Nightmare


14. Roman Renaissance


15. D-Day


16. Killers And The Kill


17. The Turkey Shoot


18. Two If By Sea


19. The Battle For Leyte Gulf


20. Return Of The Allies


21. Full Fathom Five


22. The Fate Of Europe


23. Target Suribachi


24. The Road To Mandalay


25. Suicide For Glory


26. Design For Peace

Mole Hunt

CIA:

Jeanne Vertefeuille is a quiet, gray-haired woman. She is a far cry from the spy hunters portrayed in movies. But appearances can be deceiving. Vertefeuille was part of the small team who toiled for eight years to reveal Aldrich Ames for what he truly was: a spy for Moscow.

Giant Dirigible

Los Angeles Times: "The Pentagon plans to build a blimp that could track the movement of planes, tanks and troops from an altitude of 65,000 feet."

Business Heritage

Bill Wilson of BBC News:

Enraged investors, phantom profits, weak auditing, and a clamour for tighter regulatory control — it all sounds like the case of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff.

However, the year in question is 1932, not 2009, and the man sending shock waves through the financial world was Swedish business genius and swindler Ivar Kreuger.

Read more.

Swiss Bank Accounts

Matthew Saltmarsh of the New York Times: "The Swiss government bowed to pressure on Friday and agreed to exchange information on suspected cases of tax evasion, but it maintained that its principle of banking secrecy was intact."

Italy

Italian scientists found the remains of a female "vampire" in Venice.

Panjshir Valley

Max Becherer of the New York Times:

While other Afghan communities have turned to opium poppies and cannabis to scrape a living, people in the Panjshir Valley try to blast their way out of poverty by prising emeralds from mountain rock.

Pony

From RIA Novosti: "An unusually short pony has prompted numerous attempts to rescue the horse in Hampshire, England, because people thought it was knee deep in mud, English media reported."

Iran

RIA Novosti: "Russia and the West would be making a big mistake if they ignored or underestimated the potential missile and nuclear threat coming from Iran, a Russian military expert said on Thursday."

Russian Mathematician

RIA Novosti:

A prominent mathematician, known for his accurate predictions on Russia's 1998 financial crisis and the breakup of the USSR, calculated the current credit crunch and prepared for it, Russia's government daily said on Thursday.

Viktor Maslov, a member of Russia's Academy of Sciences, who helped make calculations for a protective shelter over the Chernobyl nuclear power plant reactor after the 1986 disaster, said the processes now taking place in economics are similar to certain phenomena in physics, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported.

"I am referring to what is known as phase shifts, when a situation worsens abruptly, not gradually, and transforms into a different state, like an avalanche," Maslov told the daily. "Such processes are well known in physics, and are laid out in formulas of mathematical physics. They can also be applied to economics."

"Whether a crisis will break out or not, and even when this will happen, can be predicted," he told the paper.

Maslov said he had sold his apartment and country house in the summer, and sent the money to his children living abroad, advising them on how to invest it to survive the crisis.

Asked what advice he has for the administration of the United States, where the crisis originated, Maslov said they should not rescue large banks whose debts have long exceeded the "critical level," but focus on helping smaller banks that service individuals.

However, he was short on recommendations for Russia: "Our economy is too closed, and a large share of it is a shadow economy. It is therefore impossible to calculate critical figures and have a clear picture."

Liechtenstein

Matthew Saltmarsh, New York Times: "Liechtenstein said it would adopt global standards on transparency and information exchange in tax matters, turning up the heat on other tax havens to follow suit."

Panels

Via IOL:

Archeologists have uncovered carved stucco panels depicting cosmic monsters, gods and serpents in Guatemala's northern jungle that are the oldest known depictions of a famous Mayan creation myth.

Decapitation

A crocodile bit off the head of a girl in the Philippines.

Aqueduct

Matthias Schulz, Der Spiegel: "Roman engineers chipped an aqueduct through more than 100 kilometers of stone to connect water to cities in the ancient province of Syria."

Fried Chicken

A German company hopes to boost sales with a new product: Obama Fingers.

Mysticism

Ju-min Park of the Los Angeles Times:

In South Korea, a modernized nation that nonetheless keeps in touch with an ancient culture of mysticism, young job seekers hope to peer into the future with a little help from the past.

Human Heads

Cops discovered five severed heads inside ice coolers by the side of a road in Mexico.

Lincoln's Watch

Smithsonian Institution:

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History announced it has found a “secret” message engraved in President Abraham Lincoln’s watch by a watchmaker who was repairing it in 1861 when news of the attack on Fort Sumter reached Washington, D.C.

Gold Jewelry

Voice of America:

Egypt says archaeologists have found ancient golden jewelry in the tomb of a senior official who died about 3,500 years ago.

Culture and antiquities officials say an excavation team found five golden earrings and two rings in the tomb of the state treasurer who served during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut.

Sandal

Via IOL: "German archeologists have uncovered an amazingly well-preserved 5,000-year-old sandal in mud under Lake Constance, close to the Swiss border, authorities said Tuesday."

Berries and Mushrooms

RIA Novosti:

The governor of the Sverdlovsk Region in Russia's Urals has called on residents to pick mushrooms and berries and restore ruined pig farms to get through the financial crisis.

Eduard Rossel's anti-crisis concept says agriculture could save one of Russia's most industrialized regions.

"We need to resume picking berries and mushrooms. One businessman picked 180 tons of mushrooms, processed them and sold them abroad. We can gather them and feed ourselves and others," Rossel said.

Burglars

Thieves mistakenly drilled their way into an empty office next door to a bank.

Cambodia

Seth Mydans, New York Times: "The trials of senior Khmer Rouge figures raise questions about the guilt of lower-ranking cadres who say they carried out the regime’s killings under the threat of death."

Violins

Greg Flakus, Voice of America: "A scientist in Texas believes he has found the secret of the Stradivarius and other highly prized violins made about 300 years ago in northern Italy."

Whale Shark

WWF: "The shock discovery in the Philippines of a tiny whale shark — possibly the smallest of its kind ever recorded — has given scientists new insight into the breeding behavior of these mysterious fish."

Beyond the Pyramids

FSU: "Ancient Egyptians may be best known for building pyramids, but internationally renowned maritime archaeologist Cheryl Ward wants the world to know that they were pretty good sailors, too."

Planning Ahead

Cell Press: "Researchers have found what they say is some of the first unambiguous evidence that an animal other than humans can make spontaneous plans for future events."

Barbarian of Hollywood

Thom Patterson of CNN talked to John Milius.

Kangaroo

BBC: "A man in Australia suffered scratched buttocks and shredded underpants wrestling with a kangaroo after it smashed through his bedroom window."

Angry Rhinoceros

In India's state of Assam a rhino killed a guard at Kaziranga National Park.

No Trespassing: Violators Will Be Eaten

Via IOL:

A 20-year-old Chinese migrant farmer visiting the Great Wall was mauled to death by a Siberian tiger after trying to take a shortcut through a wildlife reserve, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

Mobsters

Stephanie Cohen of the New York Post: "New York's mob is going out like The Sopranos — not with a bang but a whimper."

Eliot Spitzer

New York Daily News:

"Spitzer Choked Me, Says Call Girl"

Escapee

BBC News:

Jail guards in the U.S. state of Georgia searching for an escaped inmate did not have to look very far — the fugitive was caught sneaking back into prison.

Guards spotted Harry Jackson, 25, trying to creep back in with 14 packs of cigarettes allegedly stolen from a nearby store.

Israel

RIA Novosti:

The Israeli police announced on Sunday it had crushed an international criminal network involved in recruiting thousands of women from former Soviet republics for prostitution abroad.

The operation, code-named Octopus Tentacles, was the concluding stage of measures carried out in the past two years by the police from Israel, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Similar arrests were earlier made in former Soviet republics.

According to Israeli investigators, the criminal group members frequently acted with the help of corrupted officials, recruiting women in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Moldavia and Uzbekistan and largely sending them to work in illegal brothels in Israel.

The criminal group members arrested in Israel face at least 20 years of imprisonment.

Iran

RIA Novosti:

Iranian police have killed six drug traffickers and seized five tons of opium in armed clashes in the country's east, the Iranian media reported on Sunday.

The police operation in the Sistan-Baluchestan province on the border with Pakistan was launched on Saturday afternoon and lasted several hours. There have been no reports of casualties among the police, the media reported.

Drug traffickers use the territory of Iran for the smuggling of drugs largely produced in Afghanistan.

According to Iranian police, about 30 percent of narcotic drugs produced in Afghanistan and Pakistan are smuggled into Iran, of which 50 percent remain in the country and the remaining part is brought to other countries.

From April 2008 to January 2009, Iranian police killed 120 drug traffickers and drug dealers and seized over 30,000 tons of drugs. A total of 19 Iranian police and border guards were killed in armed clashes with drug traffickers and drug dealers over that period.

Philippines

Pirates attacked a fishing boat near the southern Philippine island of Basilan.

Adolf Hitler

Thomas Vinciguerra of the New York Times:

More than 60 years after Adolf Hitler died, the details of his private life still grip the public imagination. Some additional glimpses emerged from a British intelligence report sold last week by the English auction house Mullock’s.

Indian Ocean

Sea rovers opened fire on a merchant vessel off the coast of Kenya.

Jim Bellows

Jim Bellows, the last editor of the New York Herald Tribune, kicked the bucket yesterday.

Rattlers

"Eric Carl Timaeus has compiled nine consecutive titles in the length competition at the Sweetwater Jaycees Rattlesnake Roundup, held each March in West Texas," reports Michael Brick of the New York Times.

Business Heritage

During the best of times and the worst of times, entrepreneurs need to remember two of Gordon Gekko's statements in the 1987 movie Wall Street.

Gekko: "The most valuable commodity I know of is information."

Gekko: "I don't throw darts at a board. I bet on sure things. Read Sun Tzu, The Art of War. Every battle is won before it is ever fought."

Ursula

Searching for an old article in the New York Times, I noticed the 1996 obituary of Minnesota Fats.

I talked to Fats a few times over the years. On one occasion he was near Ursula in the lobby of the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas.

Ursula was high-priced hooker, a sexy, twenty-something blonde with a mink coat and a late-model Cadillac. Seeing me, she asked, "Can I take a nap in your room for a few hours?"

"Sure," I said, handing her the key to my suite.

"Do you want to join me?" she asked.

"No," I replied. "Drop off the key at the front desk when you leave."

"Thanks," she said.

I looked at her questioningly. "Why don't you go home and take a nap?" I asked. "You don't live far from here."

"I don't feel like driving," she explained. "I'm the laziest hooker in Las Vegas."

Mafia Cops

Sewell Chan of the New York Times:

Two highly decorated former detectives who were convicted of serving as assassins for the mob, helping to kill at least eight men in one of the most spectacular police corruption scandals in New York City’s history, were sentenced on Friday to life in prison — for the second time.

Submersible

Steve Almasy, CNN: "What better toy to have on the end of your 200-foot yacht than a submarine capable of diving to 1,500 feet below the sea's surface?"

Last Chinese Eunuch

From the Los Angeles Times: "Castrated at 8, Sun Yaoting hoped for an imperial life of riches. Instead, he experienced palace intrigue, war, revolution, scorn and, finally, recognition."

Circus Performers

"Britain's Clown Shortage: New Visa Rules Hit the Circus"

Swiss Gigolo

A gigolo who allegedly blackmailed Germany's richest woman will go on trial next week.

More: Here is an update.

Missing in Mexico

Monica Ortiz Uribe at NPR:

Drug warfare is a plague in Ciudad Juárez in Mexico — since January 2008, the death toll has reached an unprecedented 2,000 people.

But between daily executions, kidnappings and extortions, another horribly familiar terror has been rekindled in the city.

Read more.

Lenin's Women

RIA Novosti:

A St. Petersburg-based communist group has called for money to be raised to build public statues of communist leader Vladimir Lenin's wife and mistress, the group said on its Web site on Friday.

"Statutes of the two beautiful muses of the great revolutionary and founder of the Soviet state should be erected in St. Petersburg, on Lenin Square," the Communists of Petersburg and the Leningrad Region said in a statement.

The group, notorious for its bizarre initiatives, said a statue of Lenin's wife Nadezhda Krupskaya should be placed to the right of his statue, and one of his mistress, Inessa Armand, should go on his left.

Crazy Sickness

Yesterday Pete Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote a blog post about a mysterious illness in Nicaragua.

Trading Centers

"Small, globalized trading centers like Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan are proving to be particularly vulnerable to the wave of global economic troubles," notes Keith Bradsher of the New York Times.

Horses

Via News24, South Africa:

Horses were first domesticated on the plains of northern Kazakhstan some 5,500 years ago — 1 000 years earlier than thought — by people who rode them and drank their milk, researchers said on Thursday.

Two Statues

Archaeologists found two ancient statues in Egypt.

Pirates

Somali pirates released an Egyptian ship.

Mahmoud Karzai

James Risen of the New York Times:

Eight years ago, Mahmoud Karzai was running a handful of modest restaurants in San Francisco, Boston and Baltimore. Today, Mr. Karzai, an immigrant waiter-turned-restaurant owner, is one of Afghanistan’s most prosperous businessmen.

Continue reading "For a Karzai Sibling, an Afghan Business Empire."

Cobra

In South Africa a Mozambican spitting cobra crawled into a car.

Costa Rica

Red-eyed tree frog (Agalychnis callidryas)

Photo credit: Carey James Balboa

Sumatra

A herd of wild elephants crushed an old man to death on Indonesia's Sumatra island.

Last night a tiger killed an illegal logger on the island, the ninth such death in recent weeks.

Business Heritage

Robert Kuhn and Thomas Thiel at Spiegel Online:

During World War II, industries big and small all over Germany became part of Hitler's massive war machine. The change even affected the predecessor of footwear legends Adidas and Puma, which — oddly enough — manufactured Germany's version of the bazooka.

Human Body Parts

IOL has an article about the trafficking of body parts in Mozambique and South Africa:

Young men are attacked and their genitals cut off while they are still alive; children's throats are slit and their organs removed; and border crossers are caught with bags containing human heads and sexual organs.

Kanina Foss wrote the piece.

Potatoes

RIA Novosti:

A woman in central Russia's Penza Region has been sentenced to 15 months behind bars after stabbing her husband in the eye when he refused to peel potatoes, the pnz.ru news website said on Wednesday.

The woman, from the outskirts of the city of Penza, stabbed her husband in the left eye with a kitchen knife. She had earlier served time for murder, and had met her future partner immediately after her release from jail, according to assistant to the regional prosecutor Irina Alekseyenko.

The victim waited three days before going to see a doctor. He initially claimed he had injured himself, but then admitted the truth. The man is now almost completely blind in the left eye.

"The victim begged the court to be lenient with his wife," Alekseyenko said.

Pancakes

RIA Novosti:

A pancake-eating contest in Russia's westernmost region of Kaliningrad ended in tragedy when the winner died, a popular daily said on Tuesday.

The incident occurred in the town of Chernyakhovsk during open-air celebrations for the last day of Maslenitsa, or Pancake Week, on Sunday. The event, which attracted thousands of people, also involved a theatrical show and horse riding, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.

Boris Isayev, 48, fell to his knees and died on stage while receiving first prize in the pancake-eating competition, an eyewitness told the daily.

"It was so unexpected," Yelena said. "He started gasping for breath and foam came out of his mouth.

"We have seen people fainting [during such contests] before," she added.

Doctors were unsuccessful in their attempts to resuscitate the man.

"He must have choked," Yelena suggested. "We probably shouldn't eat so much, even during Maslenitsa. Everybody in the town is talking about this."

Maslenitsa is of both pagan and Christian origin. It is celebrated both as a sun festival marking the end of the winter, and as the last week before Lent.

The celebrations continued after Isayev's body was taken away in an ambulance, and a winter dummy was burnt in a symbolic farewell to the coldest months of the year, the paper said.

Mike Royko

In 1997 Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko died at the age of 64. You can read four of his old columns here.

Bear

A bear killed a teenage boy in a forest. The attack occurred in India's state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Hawaiian Goose

Nene (Hawaiian goose)

Photographer: John J. Mosesso

Chimps

Rebecca Morelle, BBC News: "Scientists believe they have solved the mystery of why some chimpanzees are so good at catching termites."

India

A leopard injured four people at a village in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Meanwhile, a rhino killed a woman and injured a man near Gorumara National Park in West Bengal.

Frederick Forsyth

BBC News: "Author Frederick Forsyth has told the BBC of his surprise to find himself in Guinea-Bissau on the day the president and army chief were assassinated."

Boxer

Via IOL:

In a turn of events worthy of Hollywood, a 17-year-old illegal immigrant from Afghanistan will receive his French residency permit after winning the national amateur boxing championship, French media reported on Tuesday.

German Navy

The German Navy foiled a pirate attack off the coast of Somalia.

Lizards

"A team of South African and Australian researchers has discovered that some young male lizards protect themselves from older males by pretending to be members of the fairer sex," the Australian National University says.

Egypt

"Japanese archaeologists unearthed an ancient tomb in Egypt.

Thailand

Photographer: John J. Mosesso

Nazi Spy

A Nazi spy almost changed the course of the Second World War. The Times of London has the details.

Tanzania

From BBC News: "Tanzania is launching a nationwide exercise urging the public to identify those behind dozens of murders of people with albinism."

Extraterrestrials

A man in Germany reported a close encounter with Russian-speaking extraterrestrials.

Lynn Tilton

The Los Angeles Times has a profile of business exec Lynn Tilton.

Web site: MD Helicopters

Out for Blood

"Nicaragua's Vampire Problem"

Sinaloa

Marc Lacey of the New York Times reports from Mazatlán: "With public outrage over drug violence tinged by fascination, some taxi drivers are giving 'narco-tours' of sites associated the notorious drug cartels."

Behind Bars

BBC News: "Convicted drug trafficker David McMillan, who spent two years plotting his escape from a Bangkok jail in 1996, told the BBC how much planning this kind of operation takes."

Lost Tomb

Via ABC Online, Australia: "Belgian archaeologists have rediscovered an ancient Egyptian tomb that had been lost for decades under sand, Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni says."

American Alligator

Photographer: Bruce Avera Hunter

Kenya

Via News24, South Africa: "Five elderly people suspected of practicing witchcraft were burnt to death in western Kenya, police said."

Australia

A shark attacked an Australian teenager.