Oddly News Around The World

Car loses all wheels on highway

Reporting by Sam Cage

ZURICH (Reuters) - A car traveling on a motorway in Switzerland lost all four wheels simultaneously, coming to an immediate halt in the middle of the highway, police said on Saturday.

The car had just stopped and the passengers had changed from winter to summer wheels themselves, a common task in Switzerland where there is plenty of snow in winter, but used the wrong nuts when mounting the new set.

"When they then drove back on to the motorway, all of the wheels disconnected," St Gallen cantonal police said in a statement. "Luckily, no one was injured and no other vehicle was damaged."

China puts a stop to snake-bitten cock-in-a-pot

Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Nick Macfie

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese health authorities are putting a stop to restaurants serving chickens which have been bitten to death by poisonous snakes and cooked up for a supposedly detoxing meal.

The dish, served by a small number of eateries in the southern province of Guangdong and the southwestern city of Chongqing, has generated a storm of publicity and controversy in the Chinese media and amongst bloggers.

A video showing a cook holding a snake and forcing it to bite a live chicken until it dies has been widely circulated online, (http:/you.video.sina.com.cn/b/21145091-1405053100.html) generating mainly angry comments.

"It's disgusting and really cruel," wrote one poster on the popular portal sina.com.cn.

"Not only is it cruel and blood-thirsty, but totally amoral," the Chongqing Business Daily cited a neighbor to one of the restaurants as saying.

Health authorities in Guangdong have already told restaurants to stop serving "poisonous snake-bitten chicken" and now those in Chongqing have joined in.

"Although nobody has been poisoned, this at the very least is an irregular way of slaughtering poultry," the business newspaper quoted a local health official as saying.

One dish, prized among some in Guangdong, is monkey brains scooped from a live animal, which has regularly upset animal rights campaigners in the West.

Canada minister staying despite nuclear file slip

Reporting by David Ljunggren and Randall Palmer

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper refused the resignation of Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt on Wednesday after a binder containing confidential nuclear documents was left in a television studio.

The documents were left in a CTV studio after a visit by Raitt and at least one other official. CTV said it had kept the documents for six days to see if anybody would try to retrieve them, and no one did.

Government officials would not name the political attache who had accompanied Raitt to the television studio.

The opposition said the incident showed incompetence on the part of the minority Conservative government, already under fire for its handling of the economic crisis.

A Liberal colleague was heard muttering, during the exchange between Ignatieff and Raitt, that the government was making a scapegoat of the political aide.

Ignatieff said on Tuesday he would likely decide next week whether to try to bring down the government. The Conservatives won the October election a strengthened minority, but still need the support of at least one of the three opposition parties to stay in power.

Modern Romeos and Juliets can tie knot in Verona

Reporting by Eleanor Biles

VERONA, Italy (Reuters) - A modern-day Romeo finally got his girl Monday when the northern Italian city of Verona opened up the balcony where Juliet pined for her lover as a venue for weddings.

The 13th century mansion of the Cappello family -- believed to be the Capulets of William Shakespeare's tragic play "Romeo and Juliet" -- has for years been a place of pilgrimage for lovers worldwide, who have scrawled love messages on its walls.

Now, Verona's town council is offering couples the chance to follow in the footsteps of Shakespeare's "star-crossed lovers" and see for themselves "what light from yonder window breaks."

The first Romeo to take advantage of the offer was soccer player star Luca Ceccarelli, who plays for local team Verona.

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