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<B>BANGKOK. Cosmetic castration banned</B>
Thailand?s health chiefs barred hospitals and clinics on the day before from castrating would-be ?ladyboys? amid growing concern about the operation being seen as a cheap and quick alternative to a full sex-change. In a letter to 16,000 private health units, the Public Health Ministry said doctors performing the operation outside formal sex-change therapy ? which requires rigorous physical and mental evaluation of the patient ? faced up to six months in jail. However, senior health official Tara Chinakarn admitted that policing the temporary ban might be difficult as cosmetic removal of the testicles was such a quick operation and easy to conduct in secret. ?It?s hard to track them down as it takes only 15-20 minutes to have the surgery,? Tara told Reuters. Thailand is home to a large number of ?ladyboys,? or ?katoey? in Thai, a term that covers anything from a transvestite to a man who has undergone a full sex change.
BERLIN. Man crowded out of home by collecting passion </B>
A German man was such an avid collector of weapons and other paraphernalia that he ran out of space at home and had to sleep in a hotel, neighbors said following the 71-year-old?s death. Executors found an arsenal of weaponry and assorted goods at the man?s two-story home in the western city of Aachen, police said on the day before. ?There were 71 guns ? one for each year of his life,? said police spokesman Paul Kemen. ?He also had 41 cases of ammunition and five walking sticks fitted with retractable blades.? Heiner Hautermans, a reporter at the Aachener Nachrichten paper, said neighbors related how the man, who lived alone, collected everything from clothing to garden tools and watches. ?The house was stuffed to the rafters,? he said. ?By the end, the neighbors said he had to sleep in a hotel sometimes because there was no more room.?
ATLANTA. Nine-year-olds plotted to tie up, hurt teacher</B>
Nine-year-olds at a school in the US state of Georgia brought a broken steak knife, handcuffs and electrical tape to school in a plot to injure their teacher, authorities said recently. Teachers at Center Elementary School in Waycross, Georgia, uncovered the plot recently when a pupil reported that a child in the third grade had brought a weapon into the school. ?The plan was to handcuff the teacher, put tape over her mouth and hit her over the head with the paperweight and possibly cut her,? said Lt. Duane Caswell of Waycross police, adding that some students said the knife was simply there to cut the tape. ?It was a rather elaborate scheme for children of that age,? he said. The students spent a week planning the attack and planned to carry it out on the day they were caught, Caswell said.
<B>HANOVER. Professor jailed over sex and money scandal</B>
A court in Germany sentenced a law professor to three years in prison for giving students better marks in exchange for sex and money. The 53-year-old from the central city of Hanover admitted accepting 156,000 euros ($244,000) in total for awarding doctorates to students who failed to make the grade. The man also told the court in nearby Hildesheim he had given female students better marks in return for sex. The academic, whom the court on Wednesday convicted on 68 counts of corruption, said he had resorted to taking bribes because he was having financial difficulties. His net monthly salary of nearly 5,000 euros had not been sufficient to pay off his debts, the court heard.
LONDON. Another severed hand found on Scottish beach</B>
Police investigating the discovery of a woman?s severed head and a hand on a Scottish beach said yesterday said they had recovered a second hand. The gruesome find was first made by two young children playing on the foreshore at Arbroath on Tuesday. The head had been concealed in a plastic bag and the first hand was found shortly after by police. A wider search of the area will continue on Wednesday. Tayside Police said the dead woman did not match anyone reported missing in its area.
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