Centro de Operaciones Especiales

A soldier from the Centro de Operaciones Especiales (special force unit), also known as the "COE", takes part in a military training exercise at a military base near Managua, Nicaragua, October 20, 2007.

annual buffalo races

Two boys, their bodies painted in silver, sit on top of a water buffalo during a parade before the start of Chonburi's annual buffalo races festival, nearly 75 kilometers (47 miles) southeast of Bangkok, October 24, 2007. The event, which also celebrates the rice harvest, originates back to the buffalo trade in Chonburi, once the trade center of Thailand's East.

Serial jailbreaker escapes for fourth time

A Belgian inmate made a dramatic escape from jail for the fourth time Sunday evening after his armed accomplices landed in the prison grounds in a hijacked helicopter, prosecutors said Monday. Nordin Benallal, self-styled "escape king" with several convictions for armed robbery and carjacking, has previously run from a prison van, walked out of jail wearing a wig and sunglasses and scaled a prison wall with a rope ladder. Sunday, Benallal's accomplices hijacked a helicopter near the prison in Ittre, some 30 km (19 miles) south of Brussels. On landing, the helicopter was crowded by other prisoners, making takeoff impossible and causing it to crash. The pilot and a prisoner were slightly injured. Benallal and his cohorts then briefly seized two prison warders as hostages and fled in a car parked nearby. It marked the second time this year that a prisoner has escaped from a Belgian jail using a helicopter. In April, two men posing as tourists hijacked a helicopter and flew into the yard of a prison near Liege, in the east of the country, to pick up an inmate.

Give us your money, this is a ketchup

Two thieves armed only with ketchup ambushed a supermarket employee as he was taking cash to the bank, Greek police said Tuesday. "The thieves jumped out of the bushes and threw two big bags of ketchup on the front window to stop the car," said a police official who requested anonymity. The man fought with his attackers who managed to flee on a motorcycle with only 400 euros of the 140,000 euros he was carrying.

Teenager escapes prison in suitcase

A 19-year-old German woman has escaped from prison by hiding in a friend's suitcase. The fugitive hid inside the large case when her 17-year-old fellow inmate was released from the youth prison in northwest Germany on Friday, Lower Saxony ministry spokesman Dennis Weilmann said on Monday. The girl simply walked out of the building with her friend concealed in her luggage, Weilmann said. "Our staff are going to make sure they inspect big suitcases more carefully in the future," Weilmann said. Neither of the teenagers has since been caught. Both had been jailed for theft. The escaped prisoner had less than two weeks left to serve.