| "Dot-Com" News - 15th July, 2010. | ||||
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(Reuters) - A spate of thefts from gardens and washing lines in a southern English town had been puzzling police. Socks, gloves, ladies underwear -- almost anything left unattended was fair game for the thief, especially the knickers, and the rate of offending was getting worse. But now the culprit has been unmasked as a kleptomaniac cat with a generous nature. Eager to please his new owners, Peter and Birgitt Weismantel, 13-year-old Oscar had been bringing home presents to the family home in Portswood, a suburb of the southern coastal town of Southampton. "He started bringing socks home a few months ago and then gardening gloves which we tracked to our neighbor," his owner Peter Weismantel told the Southern Daily Echo newspaper. "Then we had a situation in which he brought back young women's underwear," said Peter, 72. "It began to escalate and I telephoned the police as people must have been missing clothes -- especially with women's underwear being taken." The couple has been fostering Oscar from Southampton's Cats Protection charity since Christmas. Since then he had also pinched builder's gloves, a knee-pad, a paint roller, rubber gloves, and 10 pairs of children's underpants. On average he commits 10 robberies a day. "He brings them back as presents," Birgitt told the Echo. "We can't give him back now as he makes such an effort with all these gifts. He's got a lovely personality and is a very loving cat. "I think we fell in love with him before he started taking all these things," she added. "It was just so touching to see him come home every day with something for us." Now the couple will adopt Oscar full time but they still have yet to devise a way to curb his criminal instincts. German interior minister's car stolen (Reuters) - A car belonging to Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere was stolen in the eastern city of Dresden, police said Thursday. The Audi, which was being used by de Maiziere's daughter at the time of the theft, and the thief -- a 33-year-old Pole -- were stopped Wednesday on a motorway in eastern Germany a day later, said Dresden police spokesman Thomas Geithner. "The thief could not have possibly known he was stealing a car that belonged to the Interior Minister," Geithner said. "We had a bit of good luck that we could catch the thief." De Maiziere, who is in charge of police in Germany, had complained in May about a rise in car thefts and manufacturers to improve anti-theft measures. Hotel opens in battle-scarred city Rebel insurgency and civil war were not enough to deter Sultan Amin from opening a tourist hotel in the north Yemen city of Saada this week, even as the region teeters on the brink of renewed conflict. "We had to stop every time the war was renewed. But two weeks ago we finally finished," the investor told Reuters of the two-star hotel, which cost nearly $450,000 and took three years to build. "We don't expect foreigners to visit now, but I think that if the situation stays stable, maybe they will come." Yemen's government agreed a truce in February with Shi'ite rebels to halt a war that has raged on-and-off since 2004 and displaced 350,000 people, but analysts say the shaky truce is unlikely to last unless Sanaa better addresses grievances. Another hotel in the city of Saada met an untimely end when it was damaged by shelling after rebels took refuge inside during heavy fighting. A second continues to operate. Amin, whose hotel will cater mainly to Saudi and Yemeni traders, said he was not worried about his hotel, the Jazeera Plaza, whose opening coincided with a flare-up of violence between rebels and government-allied tribes. "I am confident that the war won't start again and that the situation will remain calm," he said. "The rest is up to God." |
| Last Updated ( Thursday, 15 July 2010 11:19 ) |
