"Gift rage" lands worker in court?

A disgruntled Japanese worker smashed up his employer's office in a fit of pique after his boss ignored his gift of jelly desserts, a national paper said on Thursday. An Osaka court heard that the 31-year-old man, who worked for an online clothing sales company, had given the company president a box of jellies in the summer as a mark of gratitude after landing the job, the English-language Asahi Shimbun said. Many Japanese maintain a tradition of sending gifts to important business contacts in summer and winter. When the employee realized that his boss had left the box of jellies unopened under his desk, he smashed 22 computers in the office with a truncheon, the paper said. No one was injured in the incident. The man pleaded guilty to charges of obstructing business with force, the paper said. "I wish the company president had cared a little more," the paper quoted the employee's lawyer as saying. Prosecutors said the employer had been too busy to open the gift, the paper said.

Cops go out on a limb for ampu

A man whose amputated, embalmed leg was sold at a North Carolina auction will get the limb back over the objections of the buyer, who wanted to include it in a macabre, money-making Halloween display, police said on Thursday. The dispute over the leg John Wood lost in an airplane crash three years ago was apparently resolved when police decided the buyer, Shannon Whisnant, had given up ownership by calling authorities and asking them to take it away. "The simple fact is that he said he didn't want it," said Capt. Tracy Ledford of the Maiden Police Department, who chuckled his way through an interview about the case that has made for lively gossip in the small North Carolina town. "The guy don't have a leg to stand on," Ledford said. "He's not getting the leg back." Wood, 42, kept the embalmed leg because he wanted it to be cremated with him when he dies. He stored it in a small barbecue smoker in a Maiden storage unit, but failed to keep up the unit's rent, police said. The storage company auctioned the smoker on September 25 and Whisnant was the buyer. When he found the leg, he called police and said he "wanted to get rid of it," but later decided to make some money from it, Ledford said. "He wanted to show this thing at Halloween and charge money to see it," he said. Whisnant told local media he was willing to go to court to keep the leg and planned to charge admission to see it -- $3 for adults and $1 for children. "It's a hell of a conversation piece," he told the Greenville News. "I bought it. It's mine."

Bar gossip leads to nasty surprise for couple

A Czech couple who decided to take a DNA test to squash persistent pub gossip and prove that their 10-month-old baby was their own got a nasty surprise. The couple, from the southeastern town of Trebic, had some doubts about the child as her hair was blonde and they both had dark hair. Fellow drinkers' suspicions got on their nerves. But the test showed neither of the parents had the same DNA as the baby, Czech news agency CTK reported Wednesday, suggesting a mix-up at the hospital. Authorities were looking into the case.

Witchdoctor caught at poll tribunal

Nigerian police have arrested a witchdoctor employed by a politician to perform rituals at an election tribunal, local media reported Thursday. Officers caught Oluwole Abiodun Wednesday at the court building in southwestern Ondo state with charms and copies of the Bible and Koran in a black plastic bag. A pot containing a rabbit, seven eggs, cowrie shells and palm oil was found nearby, the state News Agency of Nigeria said. "Abiodun said that he was sent by one of the principal officers of the state House of Assembly to perform some rituals in the court premises," the agency said. Hundreds of cases are being heard across Nigeria to resolve disputes arising from April elections that were so heavily rigged they were deemed not credible by international observers. The witchdoctor's rituals would have been intended to ensure that the challenge to the election of the legislator failed.

Oktoberfest reveler stuck in chimney for 12 hours

German man who had been drinking heavily at Munich's Oktoberfest beer festival got stuck in a chimney for 12 hours while trying to climb into a friend's apartment, police said Friday. After finding his friend was not at home, the 27-year-old climbed on to the roof of a neighboring building at about 2 a.m. Thursday and headed for what he thought was a gap in the wall between the two houses. He found himself sliding almost 30 meters (98 feet) head first into a chimney, a spokesman for Munich police said. An 82-year-old janitor from the hotel next door eventually heard the man's calls for help and he was rescued at around 2 p.m. by fire brigade officers who knocked a hole into the side of the chimney to liberate him, the spokesman said. He had managed to turn around and had removed his clothes to try to help him squeeze back up. "Miraculously, he was only slightly injured in the fall, sustaining just grazes and bruising," police said. The man was taken by helicopter to the hospital, where he is being treated for hypothermia, they added.

Lover to die for kiss-and-kill pill

A Chinese woman who killed her lover with a rat poison-laced kiss when she suspected him of being unfaithful has been sentenced to death, a newspaper said Thursday. Xia Xinfeng, from Maolou in the central province of Henan, passed a capsule with rat poison from her mouth to her long-time lover, Mao Ansheng, during a kiss, the Shanghai Daily said. Mao swallowed the capsule and died soon afterwards. "The couple had said that if either one of them cheated on the other, he or she would have to die," the paper said in explaining the mouth-to-mouth assault. Xia found Mao had been "talking" with another woman and deemed that he had broken their promise.

Leader rails at teen breast implants gift fad

President Hugo Chavez railed against a new trend in beauty-conscious Venezuela, giving girls breast implants for their 15th birthday. "Now some people think, 'My daughter's turning 15, let's give her breast enlargements.' That's horrible. It's the ultimate degeneration," Chavez said late on Sunday on his weekly TV show that lasted a record eight hours. Venezuela is well known for its beauty queens, who have regularly won world crowns, and many women have plastic surgery in the oil-rich country where there is widespread spending on consumer items that would be considered luxuries elsewhere. But Chavez, the anti-U.S., self-styled revolutionary who came to office in 1999, is seeking to change those attitudes to create what he calls the "new man" to build a socialist society in this South American nation. Chavez complained about the new fad of giving the plastic surgery operation at 15 -- when Latin Americans celebrate a girl's coming-of-age -- during a diatribe against what he says are Western-imposed consumerist icons such as Barbie dolls. While breast implants are advertised on TV and banks offer special credit lines for such operations, if girls do get the enlargements they are not expected to become sexually active afterward. Venezuelans' have a habit of avid consumerism since the 1970s oil boom in the OPEC nation. They have won the nickname of the "Give-Me-Twos" in the tourist destination of Florida for buying double the amount of typical consumers. Breast implants cost thousands of dollars in Venezuela.

Chavez's answer? He has told his supporters to give away any extra goods they do not need, urging them to leave out in town squares items such as fans or refrigerators. "I am calling on your conscience, fathers of this country, mothers of this country, they are our sons, they are our daughters," Chavez said. Still, Chavez, who happily describes himself as ugly, may struggle to change Venezuelans' mind-set to spending on plastic surgery. In elevators, at huge, jam-packed shopping malls, women can be overheard openly boasting about their recent, conspicuous operations.