Weird News Files

Protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square use improvised protective gear to ward off the violent attacks of paid Mubarak supporters. Amazing photos from Der Spiegel.

The management at a factory producing Kalashnikov guns in Russia’s Kirov Oblast is paying its workers in food in place of their regular salaries.

A politician in the Philippines who was shot dead while taking a photograph of his family on New Year’s Day captured his killer on camera just seconds before the assassin fired the fatal shots.

Uninspired by the men she’s met but facing social pressure to get married, a 30-year-old Taipei office worker will marry herself.

The British Ministry of Defence is investigating the death of a young Afghan girl who died after being hit by a box of leaflets dropped by the RAF.

A man in China has died after his mobile phone exploded, severing a major artery in his neck.

It has been called the Betty Ford clinic for jihadists, where inmates have access to swimming pools, table tennis and PlayStations. More like an exclusive boarding school than a Saudi jail.

Two Myanmar fishermen have survived for almost a month in shark-infested waters by floating in a large ice box after their boat sank.

Police in Nigeria are holding a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery.

Thousands of people end up in the emergency room every Christmas. Here’s a list of the Ten most common Christmas accidents.

Argentine police say a destitute 1-year-old boy was kept alive by a colony of stray cats who shared food scraps and kept him warm in the city of Misiones.

A manhunt is under way in western Germany for a convicted drug dealer who escaped by mailing himself out of jail.

Women in Papua New Guinea’s Highland region are killing their male babies to end a tribal war that has gone on for more than 20 years.

Hiroshi Nohara is on a layover at the Mexico City airport. It has lasted almost three months, and he has no plans to leave.

A teenager has legally changed his birth name to incorporate several comic book superheroes.

A Polish man drove his Mercedes mini-van into a lake after following the instructions of a satellite navigation system.

The infamous Leopard Man of Skye, Scotland has given up his remote hermit lifestyle to live in a retirement home.

A German man has re-purposed a GPS tracking device to follow the neighborhood wanderings of his cat, Mr Lee. The device called CatTrack is also offered for sale online.

AC/DC’s Highway to Hell is one of the most requested funeral tunes in Australia.

A Malaysian couple have been beaten to death by four close family members in a ritual intended to help one of them stop smoking.