Whacky interesting news from the world

 

Hannibal the killer swan

A swan in a quiet rural pond in the United Kingdom has killed 15 other swans in just a few months.

The killer swan - which has been dubbed Hannibal, a serial killer in the film Hannibal  - attacked the other birds by beating them with its beak, wings and feet.

It would attack the swans until they drowned in the pond in Pembroke Castle, West Wales.

Hannibal will undergo blood tests to find the reason for its aggression.

Maria Evans, an animal worker at Pembroke Castle's pond, said: "I've never come across such an aggressive bird.

"It is an absolutely horrible swan and people really don't like it. I've lost count of the times I've been to pick up dead and injured swans.”

Ruth Harrison, 25, said: "I've seen Hannibal attacking other swans and it is quite unpleasant.

"After the killing, it swims around the pond with its wings up, looking so proud of what it has done.

"And if its victims are injured on the bank, it just won't let them back in the water."

Hannibal carried out its first attack in February.

Evans said: "The water in the pond is very brackish, salty, polluted and lack of nutrients can be responsible for nasty behaviour in swans.

"Once we have the results of the tests, we can decide Hannibal's future. But I know that people wouldn't be sorry to see it go."
Source: The Telegraph, UK

Octomom gets a porn movie offer

Desperate situation calls for desperate measures.
Octomom Nadya Suleman, who's reportedly having financial woes, has been offered US$500,000 (RM1.5 million) to appear in a porn video.
In documents obtained exclusively by TMZ, Vivid Entertainment revealed that it would pay the large sum to the mother of 14 if she agreed to appear in "one scene for one hour" in one of their adult films.
Read their offer to her: "[We can] arrange for [payment] to happen quickly so that you will get paid in advance of your October 9th deadline."
Suleman is reportedly having trouble providing for her family after failing to secure a book or TV deal, and that she will soon be forced to apply for welfare aid as well as vacate her home by next month.
Vivid Entertainment has previously offered Suleman US$1 million (RM3.1 million) for a similar tape in 2009. But she turned it down.
Source: www.tmz.com
Published Sept 20 2010

Man forced wife to wear only panties

The stairs Ding was forced to climb by her husband

A Taiwan court has granted a 35-year-old woman a writ of habeas corpus against her violent and abusive husband.
Not long after their marriage in March, the husband had started to abuse and assault the woman, surnamed Ding, of Taipei.
He forced her to wear only panties at home.
The husband, identified only as Zhang, also woke her up in the middle of the night and forced her to ascend and descend the flights of stairs at Baikuo Shan Park for hours.
According to the woman, she needed to get permission from Zhang, also 35, even to go to the bathroom.
"He would not allow me to leave his sight."
Ding - a married woman with an eight-year-old child - met Zhang over the Internet in September last year.
She fell in love with him and left home to live with Zhang in Changhua, some 200km away.
Ding married Zhang in March after divorcing her husband of 10 years.
She said Zhang treated her very well at first, but his attitude changed soon after they got married.
Zhang began to abuse her – forcing her to stay under the hot sun while wearing thick clothing and assaulted her.
He also disallowed her to contact her family and friends.
On Friday night, Ding – who could not stand the abuse anymore - sought help from the Yuanlin domestic violence prevention team.
A team member sent Ding to the police station and she immediately applied for a writ of habeas corpus from the court.
Due to the seriousness of the case, Changhua court granted Ding the writ right away at pre-dawn on Saturday.

Source: United Daily News, Taiwan

Body-shaping suit saves woman from being raped

 An insurance agent, who was almost raped by her client, was saved by her body-shaping undergarment in Taiwan.

The 30-year-old victim had visited her client in Chiayi in May.

At the man's house, he suddenly dragged her to a room on the second floor and attempted to rape her.

The married women pretended that she wanted to use the toilet and was then dragged to the toilet downstairs.

The 45-year-old man pushed her onto the floor, tore off her jacket and skirt, and then molested her.

But after a while, the man let her go when he failed to unhook her body-shaping suit.

The furious man then ordered the woman to write an IOU for a sum of NT$200,000 (RM19,580).

He let her go after she promised to bank in the money at once.

The woman ran out of the house and telephoned her husband for help. She lodged a police report later.

She suffered injuries on her hands, chest and thighs.

The man has been charged in court.

Source: United Daily News

Man detained for chaining up his adopted daughters

Police have detained a man in East China's Jiangxi province in Beijing for abusing four adopted daughters and chaining two of them up for nearly a week in an empty building.
The 38-year-old father, identified only by his surname Yang, was detained for child abuse, the Nanchang-based New Legal Report said on Friday.
The two four-year-old girls, nicknamed Baobao and Beibei, were found by a security guard on Tuesday in ragged clothes and covered with mosquito bites, the report said.
They were each shackled at their wrists by a 1.5-m chain attached to a water pipe in a bare room in the building, it added.

Above: Two girls are locked up by iron chains in a room in Jiujiang, Jiangxi province on Sept 14. Below: The two girls are dressed in clean clothes after they were rescued by local police on Sept 14. Image source: Gu Weidong / for China Daily

The girls said their father came back every night to feed them and they even urged the security guard not to unlock them out of fear of facing worse punishment, it said.
"On Tuesday afternoon, some workers found a child craning her neck and looking out from a window on the fifth floor. They were surprised because the building had only been completed a few days before and no one had moved in," Lei Cunquan, the director of a local property management company, was quoted as saying by the report.
"We were shocked to see such a terrible scene when we opened the door. The two girls were terrified and curled up in a corner when they were touched," he said.
The two girls refused to be set free after workers cut the iron chains, Lei said.
"We will be beaten to death if you release us," Lei quoted one of the girls as saying. "My father locked us up here and brings us food every night. We can only be unchained when we have meals."
But both of them denied Yang was their natural father.
After local police caught Yang, they also rescued another two girls nicknamed Sisi and Lele, who are three and six years old  respectively, in a house where Yang's mother was living.
Sisi and Lele told police that Yang frequently beat them.
After being contacted by local police, Baobao and Beibei's natural parents said Yang had adopted the two girls, the New Legal Report said.
Further investigation was underway, local police said on Friday.
Yang could be sentenced for up to seven years in prison if convicted of abusing the girls.
At present, the four girls are being cared for by the city's orphanage.
"Although their bodies have gradually recovered and all of them play happily with other children, the event was very damaging to them psychologically and the scars will last for a long time," said Wu Jie, director of the orphanage.
"If they can't return to their homes, we will take them into the orphanage and help them find suitable foster families in the future."

Source: China Daily

Tongue Boy' licks world record

An Australian man has earned himself a place in the newly-released 2011 Guinness Book of World Records after his tongue was declared the widest in the world.
Jay Sloot, 25, who is known as "Tongue Boy" to his friends, can lift 375ml cans of soft drink with his tongue, which has been measured at 7.9cm wide.

Jay Sloot's tongue has been measured at 7.9cm wide

Sloot, who works at his family-owned business at the WA Water Ski Park in Perth's southern outskirts, said he realised he was a little different five years ago.
But he has taken to his new status, especially since he got to enjoy a free trip to Rome earlier this year for the filming of a television show for the famous record book.
Where his record is concerned, Sloot feels he's got it covered after being five years on top.
"I reckon I have them covered for a few more years," News.com.au quoted him as saying.
Source: ANI