HONG KONG-Independent online

A woman died in southern China after getting her arm stuck in a drain pipe Wednesday. (16 Jul) The 80-year-old woman was stuck outside overnight on her balcony after her dentures went down the drain pipe says the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily. Her son spent more than 20 hours cutting her free, but she died before she arrived at the hospital.

GERMANY-Reuters

One interesting way of keeping people from breaking everything on those nightly burglaries is one German construction worker's method. After numerous times having his home broken into, he left his door unlocked and placed a sign reading "Beer in fridge, please don't damage anything" on the door.

During the weekend nothing was missing or damaged beyond six bottles of beer taken from his fridge. (Jul 12-13)

Independant online and Reuters

A 28-year-old man died after falling 20m from sleeping on his roof police said Wednesday. He decided to sleep there to escape high temperatures in Berlin which neared 30 C. The man's sleeping bag remained hanging off the gutter of his home's tiled roof. Good advice to be learned from this is that never should you sleep on a steep roof even if it is extremely hot outside.

ABC News

Giant Catfish Found Dead: Germany's legendary dog-eating catfish was discovered dead by a gardener this week. "Kuno the Killer" became infamous in 2001 when it sprang from the Volksgarten park lake to swallow a Dachshund puppy whole. He further evaded attempts to capture him. Kuno became such a celebrity that there is a local rock band named "Kuno's Friends" in honour of the fish. While several fishermen identified the corpse as Kuno some doubts linger. Some claim that the fish is 1.8 metres long, not like the 1.5 metre long fish discovered. Just the same, Bremen plans to stuff it for the museum.

AUSTRALIA-Associated Press

A 50-year-old Thai man was stabbed in the neck with a fork over a seating dispute by a 22-year-old Australian Wednesday. They got into an argument over where to sit druing the Thai Airways flight. The victim was treated in Sydney and allowed to return home. The attacker was arrested, but no charges were immediately filed. This is the sixth security incident in the last seven weeks on Australian flights. Late May a wood-be hijacker armed with wooden stakes stabbed two flight attendants as he tried to break into the cockpit. Perhaps he was afraid of a vampire infestation being spread by airline workers?

UNITED STATES-ABC News

Those unexpected mob scenes in New York? They aren't always lately says an ABC News reporter. Five times in the last month have mobs gathered across New York City at the call of Bill and his Mob Project. Don't think this is just a Yankee thing either! The concept has spread worldwide, creating "flash mobs" in Boston, Minneapolis, San Francisco, London, Rome and Vienna. So, what sorts of things do these "flash mobs" do? These mobs show up at a certain place at a predesignated time, perform some certain act and then leave. Things they have done - 200 people on a Central Park ridge tweeted like birds, chanted "Na-ture" and left. A Hyatt Hotel was mobbed by 250 utter strangers, where members spontaneously began clapping. In Macy's over 100 gathered, pretending to shop for a $10,000 "love rug" for their communal home. At a high-end shoe store in Soho, they acted like tourists on a bus-trip from Maryland. (26 Jul)

SINGAPORE-AP

Streaking on a plane is not always ones first choice for a way to suprise your passengers, but one Singapore Airlines flight steward was recently admited to a mental hospital after he stripped naked on a flight from Australia two weeks ago. Halfway into the flight, he tossed red wine onto the other passengers, took off all his clothes and threw his wallet's contents about the cabin. Crew members bundled the shouting, naked fellow into blankets and put his clothes back on. You never know what you'll see. ( 26 Jul)