Witchcraft training gets tax break

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch tax authorities have allowed a woman to deduct the 2,210 euros it cost her to take a one-year course in witchcraft, an inland revenue official said Wednesday.

The 39-year actress and artist learned how to use crystal balls and prepare herbs, and also spells and other witchcraft skills at the course held in the country's northwest.

"The woman used the training in order to start ... giving workshops, so she used it to extend her professional knowledge," the tax official told Reuters.

Margarita Roland, who gave the course and whose Web site (http://www.heksehoeve.nl/) shows her with a broomstick and pointed hat, said she teaches apprentices all they need to know to become a witch, using magic as a force for good.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

UFO landing strip gets mayor's support

LAJAS, Puerto Rico (AP) -- People in this sleepy hamlet are so sure they have been receiving other-worldly visitors, they want to build a UFO landing strip to welcome them.

A bright green sign along a lonely country road in southwestern Puerto Rico proudly displays a silhouette of a flying saucer and two words: "Extraterrestrial Route."

Most Puerto Ricans laughed when a horse farmer installed the sign on his property at the request of Reynaldo Rios, a local elementary school teacher who says he's been communicating with alien visitors to this U.S. territory since he was a child.

Rios, a 39-year-old with a goatee and a shock of dark hair, won't be ignored. With the blessing of a local government desperate for tourist dollars, he's dedicated himself to building the UFO landing strip.

"I can't say exactly when they will come, but I know it will happen," Rios said. "I want to keep believing in my dreams."

Lajas Mayor Marcos Irizarry's support for the idea has provoked outrage among islanders who complained it would be a waste of money at a time when the government is encouraging thousands of employees to shorten their work week to cope with a staggering fiscal deficit.

Read the complete article at CNN.com

Billion-dollar pirate treasure trove found

TREASURE hunters believe they have found a legendary trove of 18th century jewels and gold coins worth billions of dollars on Chile's Robinson Crusoe island.

The island in the Juan Fernandez archipelago, 700km west of Chile was a refuge for corsairs crossing the Pacific Ocean.

Legend has it Spanish navigator Juan Esteban Ubilla y Echeverria stashed a fortune on the island in 1715.

Read the complete article at News.com.au

Recruits Sought for Porn Squad

The FBI is joining the Bush administration's War on Porn. And it's looking for a few good agents.

Early last month, the bureau's Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.

Mischievous commentary began propagating around the water coolers at 601 Fourth St. NW and its satellites, where the FBI's second-largest field office concentrates on national security, high-technology crimes and public corruption.

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."

Read the complete article at washingtonpost.com

Doctor sues over sex charges involving his twin

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A U.S. doctor has sued a Seattle-area newspaper for defamation after it reported he posed as his twin, a gynecologist, to have sex with his brother's patients.

Dennis Momah said the King County Journal defamed him in 2003 when it published an article that said: "Two twin brothers were taking turns having sex with patients on a regular basis without the patients' knowledge that they were two different people."

Momah, who filed the lawsuit in King County Superior Court this week, also sued Harish Bharti, an attorney quoted in the paper who represents six female patients of Charles Momah, Dennis Momah's twin and a gynecologist.

Charles Momah is being sued by some of his former patients, who say that he switched places with Dennis, giving him access to his gynecological patients.

In February, six patients said in a lawsuit that they were sometimes deceived into being seen, examined, operated on and sexually fondled by Dennis Momah, a general practitioner who is not certified in obstetrics and gynecology.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Dutch Reporter To Use Heroin, Pot On TV

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands A field reporter for a new Dutch television talk show plans to use heroin and other illegal drugs on the air during the weekly program on issues that concern young people, producers said Wednesday.

The announcement of "Shoot Up and Swallow," scheduled to premiere as a late-night show Oct. 10, sparked an outcry. Even in the liberal Netherlands, where marijuana is sold and used openly, the proposed drug use by reporter Filemon Wesselink is illegal.

"This is dangerous and it sets a bad example," said Pieter Heerma, spokesman for the governing center-right Christian Democrat party. "We're going to ask the justice minister for his view on what the law says about this, and his view on the dangers and risks involved."

Justice Ministry spokesman Ivo Hommes said it was not immediately clear whether Wesselink could be prosecuted. Possession of any amount of heroin is illegal, but in practice police usually do not arrest anyone with less than a half gram of the highly addictive narcotic.

Read the complete article at WCCO

Japan noodle maker to film TV ad in space

TOKYO (AP) - The makers of Japan's favorite instant ramen noodles will soon be airing a commercial that's truly out of this world.

Starting next month, Nissin Food Products Co. will film a promotional spot on the International Space Station for Cup Noodle, featuring a sales pitch by a hungry Russian cosmonaut.

The commercial will air in Japan in November as part of Nissin's "Cup Noodle No Border" campaign, according to a statement Wednesday by Japan's space program, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.

Read the complete article at CNews

Nurse arrested for beer festival porn movie

A nurse and two cameramen were arrested at the Munich beer festival for filming a porn movie on the city's famous big wheel.

The 21-year-old registered nurse, unnamed due to German privacy laws, and her two acquaintances were spotted 'filming sexual acts' by three Italian tourists in another carriage of the ride.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Mega-Brothel To Open Near 2006 World Cup Site

Germany Brothel To Open Before World Cup.

Brothel Can Accommodate Up To 650 Men, 100 Women.

Not all the action at the 2006 World Cup of soccer will be on the field.

Owners of Germany's largest brothel are showing off their new house of ill-repute.

It's set to open in time for the World Cup next July.

The Artemis brothel is near the Olympic Stadium in Berlin where the soccer matches will be held.

The owners boast their mega-brothel will accommodate up to 650 men and 100 women at any one time.

There's a pool, sauna and even a movie theater.

Prostitutes will also have access to free food and a gym, to work out between customers.

Read the complete article at NBC 4

Condoms Are Named for Clinton, Lewinsky

BEIJING (AP) - A rubber company in China has begun marketing condoms under the brand names Clinton and Lewinsky, apparently seeking to exploit the White House affair that led to the impeachment of America's 42nd president.

Spokesman Liu Wenhua of the Guangzhou Rubber Group said the company was handing out 100,000 free Clinton and Lewinsky condoms as part of a promotion to raise consumer awareness of its new products.

He said that after the promotion ends, the Clinton condoms will go on sale in southern China for 29.8 Yuan ($3.72) for a box of 12, while the Lewinsky model will be priced at 18.8 Yuan ($2.35) for the same quantity.

"The Clinton condom will be the top of our line," he said. "The Lewinsky condom is not quite as good."

Liu said the company had chosen to use the Clinton name because consumers viewed the former president as a responsible person, who would want to stress safe sex as an effective way to prevent the spread of the HIV virus.

"The names we chose are symbols of people who are responsible and dedicated to their jobs," he said. "I believe Bill Clinton cannot be unhappy about this because he's a very generous man."

Liu said the company did not believe using the Clinton and Lewinsky names constituted a violation of copyright or other laws.

"We have received full approval from the local Industrial and Commercial Bureau to start production," he said.

Clinton has campaigned aggressively for heightened AIDS awareness in China, where the disease is spreading rapidly.

Read the complete article at My Way News

Sex line conman duped residents

A German man pretended his car had broken down to dupe local residents into letting him use their phones to call sex hotlines.

At least four women have complained to police in Bad Urach after the man, said to be in his early 40s, used their phones.

They thought he was calling out breakdown services when he was actually calling premium rate kinky sex lines for up to 20 minutes at a time.

One victim, who asked not to be named, told police: "It was raining and I felt bad that his car had broken down and so let him in to call the breakdown services.

"But after 15 minutes he still hadn't come off the phone and when I went to look he was red in the face and was obviously excited about something."

She added the man then hung up, ran out of her house and sped away in his car.

"When I pressed redial someone called Jasmine answered and asked what she could do for me and on my next phone bill I found he's run up almost £40 on the call," she said.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Amorous cat burglar

A suspected cat burglar who was arrested in Holland turned out to be after nothing but love.

Lex Van de Krupp, 20, was caught red-handed trying to scale the wall of a house in Tilburg.

Police thought he was a burglar and arrested him - but it turned out he was the boyfriend of a girl living at the house.

He had been hoping to sneak into the 17-year-old's bedroom without her parents finding out.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Man to sell kidney to buy home

A 38-year-old unemployed man from Vienna has offered to sell one of his kidneys for 150,000 euros ($246,507) to fund the purchase of an apartment, a report said overnight.

"Special offer. Who needs my kidney? Healthy, non-smoker. Fixed price: 150,000 euros," read the advertisement he posted in the city's underground railway network, Heute newspaper reported.
The man named only as Josef V told the newspaper he hoped to buy an apartment in Vienna, lease it to someone else and live off the proceeds so he would not have to seek work.

A television program about kidney donors gave him the idea, he said.

Read the complete article at News.com.au

Danes provide prostitutes for the disabled

The Danish government is under attack for paying for its disabled citizens to have sex with prostitutes.

The official 'Sex, irrespective of disability' campaign pays sex workers to provide sex once a month for disabled people.

The legal guidelines advise: "It could be of great importance that the carer speaks to the prostitute together with the person in their care, to help them express their wishes."

But opposition parties have attacked the regulations, claiming it is an immoral way of spending tax-payers' money.

Social-Democrat spokesperson Kristen Brosboel said: "We spend a large proportion of our taxes rescuing women from prostitution. But at the same time we officially encourage carers to help contact with prostitutes."

Read the complete article at Ananova

Pssst...Where the devil is the exorcist convention?

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Orthodontists have national conventions, as do lawyers and computer salespeople. So why not exorcists? At the end of his weekly general audience Wednesday Pope Benedict greeted Italian exorcists who, he disclosed, are currently holding their national convention.

The Pope encouraged them to "carry on their important work in the service of the Church."

Problem was that until the Pope spoke few people outside the inner circle knew that a convention of Beelzebub-busters was going on, presumably in Rome.

And where were they holding it? In a church, a hotel, a graveyard?

"They try to keep these things quiet," said a Catholic professor who has dealings with exorcists.

The Roman Catholic Church has shown growing interest in exorcism in Italy.

In 1999, the Vatican issued its first updated ritual for exorcism since 1614 and warned that the devil is still at work.

The official Roman Catholic exorcism starts with prayers, a blessing and sprinkling of holy water, the laying on of hands on the possessed, and the making of the sign of the cross.

It ends with an "imperative formula" in which the devil is ordered to leave the possessed.

The formula begins: "I order you, Satan..." It goes on to denounce Satan as "prince of the world" and "enemy of human salvation." It ends: "Go back, Satan."

COURSE ON EXORCISM

A Vatican university announced last Thursday that for the second year running it will hold a course on exorcism and Satanism for Roman Catholic priests.

The course starts next month at the Regina Apostolorum, one of Rome's most prestigious pontifical universities, and this year participants can take it not only in person at the Rome campus but via videoconference from other Italian cities.

This, a university statement said, was because of great interest after last year's course, which was attended by nearly 130 people.

The four-month course, which begins in October, is what the university calls inter-disciplinary. It includes medical, psychological and religious aspects of Satanism and exorcism.

According to some estimates, as many as 5,000 people are thought to be members of Satanic cults in Italy with 17-to 25-year-olds making up three quarters of them.

Read the complete article at My Way News

German inventor: I never used dead cats for fuel

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German inventor said he has developed a method to produce crude oil products from waste that he believes can be an answer to the soaring costs of fuel, but denied a German newspaper story implying he also used dead cats.

Christian Koch, an inventor and patent holder of the "KDV 500" that he said produces high quality fuel, said he can transform waste products such as paper, rubbish and plastic materials into fuel.

But Koch, 55, said there was no truth to stories published in Bild newspaper on Tuesday and Wednesday that suggested he used dead cats as part of the mix for his organic diesel fuel.

"I use paper, plastics, textiles and rubbish," Koch told Reuters.

"It's an alternative fuel that is friendly for the environment. But it's complete nonsense to suggest dead cats. I've never used cats and would never think of that. At most the odd toad may have jumped in."

Bild on Tuesday wrote a headline: "German inventor can turn cats into fuel -- for a tank he needs 20 cats." The paper on Wednesday followed up with a story entitled: "Can you really make fuel out of cats?"

A spokesman for Bild told Reuters the story was meant to show that cat remains could "in theory" be used to make fuel with Koch's patented method.

The author of the story said Koch had never told him directly that he had used dead cats as the story implied.

The Web site of Koch's firm, "Alphakat GmbH," says his patented "KDV 500" machine can produce what he calls the "bio-diesel" fuel at about 23 euro cents (30 cents) a liter, which is about one-fifth the price at petrol stations now.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Phone dealer arrested in sex videos case

ATHENS, Greece (AP) - An Athens mobile phone dealer has been arrested for allegedly selling thousands of amateur sex videos he had downloaded from cellular phones brought to his shop for repairs, police said Tuesday.

The arrest followed a sting operation on Monday in which the suspect - only identified as a 44-year-old Greek - allegedly transferred 183 pornographic videos to the cellular phones of undercover electronic crime squad officers for a total fee of euro15 ($18.41), police said in an announcement.

The footage had all been recorded by the dealer's clients for private use on their mobile phones, and stored in the devices. The files were allegedly transferred to the cellular phones of the arresting police officers via bluetooth wireless connections.

Read the complete article at islandpacket.com

Football Player Plans to Amputate Finger

SYDNEY, Australia - An Australian professional football player said Tuesday he plans to have one of his fingers amputated in an attempt to improve his game.

Brett Backwell, who plays Australian rules football for Glenelg, a suburb of the city of Adelaide in South Australia state, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. he has suffered from pain and restricted movement since he broke his left ring finger three years ago.

Doctors had suggested fusing the bones in the finger, but Backwell rejected the proposal.

He said he believed that amputating the finger was the only way to stop the pain and allow him to keep playing.

"To chop a finger off, that's a bit drastic," Backwell told the ABC. "But I love my footy (football), and love playing sport, and if that's going to help me to succeed at this level then it's something you've just got to do."

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Hardware shop offers brothel vouchers

A POLISH do-it-yourself and hardware shop has offered an hour in a brothel to customers who spend more than 10,000 zlotys ($4065) on construction material, the company said.

"It's a case, if you like, of different strokes for different folks, in terms of doing business," said Roman Myszko, boss of the Bepol shop in Elblag, in northern Poland.
"Nearby, there is a house of leisure, which is where the idea for this special offer came from," he said.

The owner of the brothel "came to our shop to buy some paintbrushes and paint. I knew immediately what her line of business was, and I talked with her (about proposing the special offer) and she agreed," Myszko told the Zycie Warszawy daily.

Read the complete article at News.com.au

Buddhist monks start MBA degrees

IN Buddhist teachings making money is an unlikely path to Nirvana but in increasingly inconoclastic China it just may well be a leap of faith.

Taking a page from their Communist Party brethren, a group of 18 monks in Shanghai have signed up for MBA classes in hopes of better managing their temple, Xinhua news agency reported.
"Through this program, we want to learn how the secular world is managed," Xinhua quoted Chang Chun, a Zen Buddhist monk and general manager of the city's century-old Jade Buddha Temple, as saying.

Shanghai's Jiaotong University has just launched a special half-year MBA course for monks running Buddhist temples.

The course offers basic economics and accounting but also temple management and philosophy and religious product marketing.

Read the complete article at News.com.au

Weatherman Claims Japanese Mafia Behind Hurricane Katrina

POCATELLO, Idaho (Wireless Flash) – Here’s a theory that’s sure to cause a storm of controversy: A meteorologist in Pocatello, Idaho, claims Japanese gangsters known as the Yakuza caused Hurricane Katrina.
Scott Stevens says after looking at NASA satellite photos of the hurricane, he’s is convinced it was caused by electromagnetic generators from ground-based microwave transmitters.

The generators emit a soundwave between three and 30 megahertz and Stevens claims the Russians invented the storm-creating technology back in 1976 and sold it to others in the late 1980s.

Stevens says the clouds formed by the generators are different than normal clouds and are able to appear out of nowhere and says Katrina had many rotation points that are unusual for hurricanes.

At least ten nations and organizations possess the technology but Stevens suspects the Japanese Yakuza created Katrina in order to make a fortune in the futures market and to get even with the U.S. for the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima.

Read the complete article at Wireless Flash

Thief nabbed after online sale to victim

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German thief stole a man's in-car navigation system and unwittingly auctioned it online back to his victim, who had police arrest him, authorities said Wednesday.

Police in Berlin said the 26-year-old victim spotted the device on an Internet auction site and quickly re-acquired what he had reported stolen from his car some two weeks previously.

He informed police, who went to the thief's house posing as the buyers and then arrested the 21-year-old.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Woman got pregnant after rollercoaster ride

A woman thought she could not have children is now a mother - thanks to a white knuckle rollercoaster ride.

Nayade Elbing, 28, and her husband Arnold had been trying to have children for several years without success and believed she was sterile.

But, after making love in their home, the young couple visited their local entertainment park at Hassloch in Germany where Nayade went on the Expedition GeForce, one of the world's fastest rollercoasters.

One week later her gynaecologist, Dr Thomas Gent, told her she was pregnant.

He said: "We believe that she conceived due to the G force of the rollercoaster ride."

Read the complete article at Ananova

Ex-millionaire sells his body

A Chinese ex-millionaire is selling off parts of his body as advertising space.

Che Hongwei, 37, from Dunhua, is displaying adverts written all over his face and upper body.

He has 'Big Lazy Bug' - the Chinese equivalent of 'Lazybones' - written across his face.

Two years of gambling were enough to wipe out the former millionaire's fortune and reduce him to bankruptcy.

Read the complete article at Ananova

Landlord Sues Restaurateurs Over Ghosts

(AP) ORLANDO, Fla. The owners of a Japanese restaurant who claim their newly renovated building is haunted are being sued by their landlord for refusing to move in.

An offer to hold an exorcism was refused, according to the 2.6 million dollar lawsuit filed by the owners of the Church Street Station entertainment complex last month in Orange County Circuit Court.

The lawsuit also asks a judge to decide whether the building is haunted and, if so, whether the ghosts would interfere with the restaurant's business.

Christopher and Yoko Chung had planned to move their Amura Japanese Restaurant into the building in October 2004, but backed out of the lease.

The Chungs' attorney says subcontractors gave several documented reports of having seen ghosts or apparitions in the restaurant at night. The attorney also says Christopher Chung's religious beliefs require him to "avoid encountering or having any association with spirits or demons."

Read the complete article at WCCO

Oktoberfest bans alcopops

The Munich Beer Festival has banned alcopops and pop music to stop the event turning into a 'drunken orgy'.

Scenes of drunken girls dancing semi naked on the backs of male party goers or on tables were flashed around the world last year.

Oktoberfest organisers now want to return to the festival's roots by concentrating on beer steins and traditional brass bands.

Head of the festival Gabriele Weishaeupl said: "It has begun to turn into an orgy for party animals. The tents are not supposed to be discos, but should remain traditional Bavarian beer tents.

"Last year was one of the bawdiest years ever, with many an exposed nipple as well as the huge quantities of alcohol consumed."

Read the complete article at Ananova

Sales up in Japan of cheese insulted by politician

TOKYO (Reuters) - The popularity of a certain type of French cheese has soared in Japan after a leading ruling party politician called it "hard and dry" last month.

The incident took place in early August when Yoshiro Mori, a former prime minister, met with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in a last-ditch effort to persuade him not to dissolve parliament and call snap elections.

Following the evening meeting at Koizumi's official residence, Mori told reporters that Koizumi had given him only beer and simple snacks while they talked, disregarding long-standing Japanese customs of political hospitality that mandated a more lavish welcome.

"He gave me foreign beer and some dried out cheese, so hard you couldn't bite into it," an obviously miffed Mori said in widely televised remarks, displaying a crumpled beer can and thin slice of orange-brown cheese.

Cheese cognoscenti, however, recognized Mimolette, a firm French cheese whose flavor increases as it ages and hardens. Aficionados say that the harder it gets, the tastier it is, with older cheeses commanding a higher price.

Now the scorned cheese is enjoying brisk sales at Japanese gourmet food and department stores, with sales three times as strong as usual. Some more aged varieties have even sold out.

"Sales of Mimolette have really taken off," said a spokeswoman at a downtown Tokyo branch of Takashimaya, a major department store. "We did not expect this at all."

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Man Fired For Eating Pizza Wins Contest

SAN FRANCISCO A computer engineer who lost his job because he ate two pieces of pepperoni pizza left over from a company meeting has been named the winner of an offbeat Internet contest that solicited stories about outrageous firings.

A panel of Silicon Valley judges assembled by Simply Hired, a Mountain View startup that sponsored the contest, picked Jim Garrison's strange tale from more than 1,000 entries submitted during the past month.

The reward: a free Caribbean cruise that will include passengers famously fired by Donald Trump on his popular television show, "The Apprentice."

Garrison, 39, prevailed over some tough competition.

The runners-up included these bizarre stories: a furniture mover who got fired after he and a co-worker were caught fencing with some adult sex toys that they found in a customer's bedroom; a worker who misunderstood a manager's instructions to send some sensitive data to microfilm and e-mailed it to a "Michael Finn" instead; and a warehouse worker found doing perverse things with the prosthetics made by his employer.

It made for such fascinating reading that one woman posted an account about how she got fired for spending too much company time scrolling through all the postings on Simplyfired.com.

Garrison, who lives in Highlands Ranch, Colo., said he never thought he would be rewarded for getting fired. Then again, he never dreamed he would be fired after he ate two of the six pieces of pepperoni pizza left over from a company meeting.

Although he didn't work in the department that held the meeting where the pizza was served, Garrison figured it was fair game since the company had bought it and it looked like it was going to be wasted if it wasn't eaten. What he didn't know is that several other employees had already worked out a plan to take the leftover pizza home with them.

When they discovered one-third of the leftover pizza pie had been eaten, the employees reported Garrison to management, ultimately leading to his firing last November — a month after he ate the food.

Read the complete article at WCCO

Some antique U.S. gas stations can't raise prices

BOSTON (Reuters) - As gasoline prices vault to well over $3 a gallon in many parts of the United States, some gas retailers are turning customers away because their pumps can't be set above $3.

About 200 gas sellers in rural Vermont own pumps too old to compute the higher prices, state authorities said on Friday, causing some to shut their pumps when prices spiked above $3 after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

"I knew my pump was old but I didn't expect prices to rise this fast," said Bill MacDonald, owner of central Vermont's Waits River General Store, whose 25-year-old pumps can't display any price above $2.99 a gallon (4.5 litres).

MacDonald kept selling below $3 until his pumps ran dry on Thursday and then briefly closed until authorities could find a solution. Another operator, Elmore Store, shut its antique pumps after facing the same problem.

Officials decided late on Thursday to allow retailers like MacDonald to cover up all price information and only display the number of gallons pumped.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News

Man 'gang-raped' by 3 women

Johannesburg - A 30-year-old man was off to play pool when three women asked him to direct them to a hotel and he claims they raped him in turn after they had had drinks.

The man, from Roodepoort on the West Rand, was walking from his flat to an entertainment centre shortly after 17:00 on Sunday night when three women in a maroon BMW stopped him.

Captain Paula Nothnagel of the police said the women, aged between 20 and 30, asked him how to get to the Savoy Hotel.

"He explained, but they apparently insisted he should go with them to show them the way.

"He got into the car with them," she said.

On arriving at the hotel the women invited him for a drink.

After drinks and a chat, they asked him to show them where the Station Hotel was.

"On the way to the hotel, the driver suddenly changed direction and drove to an open piece of veld near the Durban Roodepoort Deep mine.

Kept gun on him all the time

"One of the women pulled out a gun and held up the man while the other two undressed.

"Then all three of them raped him in turn, with one of them keeping the gun pointed at him," said Nothnagel.

When they had finished, they forced the man back into the car and dropped him off in Main Ridge Road shortly before 02:00. He walked home and contacted the police on Monday.

Read the complete article at News24.com

50,000 topless virgins

LUDZIDZINI ROYAL VILLAGE, Swaziland - More than 50,000 bare-breasted virgins vied to become the King of Swaziland’s 13th wife on Monday in a ceremony which critics say ill befits a country with the world’s highest HIV/AIDS rate.

King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, arrived dressed in a leopard-skin loincloth to watch the Reed Dance ceremony, which he has used since 1999 to pluck new brides from the girls dressed in little more than beaded mini-skirts.

Wielding machetes and singing tributes to the king and queen mother, also known as the Great She-Elephant, the girls danced around the royal stadium in the hope of catching the eye of the 37-year-old monarch.

“I want to live a nice life, have money, be rich, have a BMW and cellphone,” said one dancer, 16-year-old Zodwa Mamba, who wore a traditional brightly colored tasseled scarf.

Critics say Mswati, who has courted controversy for his lavish lifestyle while two thirds of his subjects live in abject poverty, sets a bad example by encouraging polygamy and teenage sex in a country where 40 percent of adults live with HIV.

Some say the Reed Dance, traditionally meant to celebrate womanhood and virginity, has become little more than a showcase for the king’s young would-be brides.

“The Reed Dance has been abused for one man’s personal satisfaction,” Mario Masuku, leader of the banned opposition party, told Reuters. “The king has a passion for young women and opulence.”

But many Swazis say the young monarch has a right to do as he pleases, defending his penchant for young brides as Swazi tradition and arguing that ceremonies like the Reed Dance, which this year drew a record 50,000 maidens, cement national identity.

“The king takes a wife whenever he wants and that’s the way it is. This is our culture and we will never change,” said Tsandzile Ndluva, 21, another dancer.

Ticket to wealth
Many maidens, who come from villages across the country, dream of joining the king’s wives who each have their own palace and BMW car. But others were scared catching the royal eye could curtail their freedom and force them into a polygamous marriage.

“Marriage is about love, not money,” said trainee police officer Patience Dlamini, who jazzed up her traditional outfit with a fake diamond necklace. “This thing of many wives is not good, how does he satisfy them all?”

The king has also drawn censure from rights groups and the international community for entrenching a ban on political parties in the nation of 1 million people squashed between South Africa and Mozambique.

Read the complete article at MSNBC

South Africa anti-rape condom aims to stop attacks

"Nothing has ever been done to help a woman so that she does not get raped and I thought it was high time," Sonette Ehlers, 57, said of the "rapex", a device worn like a tampon that has sparked controversy in a country used to daily reports of violent crime.
KLEINMOND, South Africa (Reuters) - A South African inventor unveiled a new anti-rape female condom on Wednesday that hooks onto an attacker's penis and aims to cut one of the highest rates of sexual assault in the world.

Police statistics show more than 50,000 rapes are reported every year, while experts say the real figure could be four times that as they say most rapes of acquaintances or children are never reported.

Ehlers said the "rapex" hooks onto the rapist's skin, allowing the victim time to escape and helping to identify perpetrators.

"He will obviously be too pre-occupied at this stage," she told reporters in Kleinmond, a small holiday village about 100km (60 miles) east of Cape Town. "I promise you he is going to be too sore. He will go straight to hospital."

The device, made of latex and held firm by shafts of sharp barbs, can only be removed from the man through surgery which will alert hospital staff, and ultimately, the police, she said.

Read the complete article at Yahoo!News