A group of U.S. tourists, including a former Marine from a cruise ship got into a bit of trouble whilst ashore at the Caribbean port of Limon. ON being held up at gun point by one Wagner Segura, 20, the cruise ship passengers somehow snapped the neck of one of their attackers. Regional police director Luis Hernandez said, “One of the tourists was a former Marine and he was probably the one who broke (Segura’s) neck,” Hernandez said. “His neck was completely snapped.” Strangely, two other unidentified thieves, one of whom was armed with a knife, fled the scene. No charges will be filed against the tourists because police viewed the incident as an act of self-defence. Police questioned and released the group, which rejoined the cruise and left Cost Rica.

Fewer planes crashed worldwide in 2006 than in any year since 1963, but the 1,292 death toll was in line with the average of the past 10 years, reported a Geneva-based monitoring agency. In 2006, there were 156 plane crashes, 22 fewer than in 2005, while the number of people killed in accidents fell 11 percent compared with the previous year, the Aircraft Crashes Record Office (BAAA) said in a statement. North America saw the most crashes, with 32 percent of the total, followed by Africa with 18 percent and Asia with 17 percent. The worst accident occurred in Ukraine, where 170 people were killed when a Tupolev-154 crashed on August 22 2006. The agency included only planes capable of carrying at least six people.

For the fourth year in a row, the United Nations has ranked Norway as having the highest standard of living in the world. Sweden, Australia and Canada are next in line, while the United States is further down the scale. The annual ranking is based largely on average levels of education and income, combined with expected length of lifetime.

The report measured standards of living in 177 countries around the world. Other Nordic countries also ranked high, with Iceland in 7th place, Finland 13th and Denmark 17th.

Did you know that it is the Chinese year of the pig which is supposed to bring good luck and prosperity. But this time it is a golden pig year, which happens once every 60 years. Some soothsayers warn that the pig can bring turbulence, and warn of a rise in natural disasters and conflict in 2007.

Ivad, a small village in the north east of Hungary is offering people – anyone – the opportunity to have a street named after them. If you are interested, the cost is 100,000 forints ($511) per metre. The eight streets of Ivad are up for grabs. And the village’s website says that the name will not be altered for 300 years.

“If, for example Barbra Streisand, whom I like a lot, has no street named after her, she may decide to have one in our village,” said Gabor Ivady, mayor of Ivad where most of the 400-strong population are related. There is one catch – the law in Hungary states that roads cannot be named after the living, so your street won’t be named after you until you are long gone and dead. Ah yes, and the website goes on to say, “The person must be or have been prominent in their sphere of life.”

Northern Ireland has been tipped by a top travel guide as one of the “must-see” countries to visit in 2007.

The Lonely Planet Bluelist featured NI in the “Go List” section of its guide – a chapter dedicated to detailing the hot destinations for the coming year.

In another section of the book, Belfast was listed as one of the top 10 “cities on the rise”.

A US travel warning was recently issued to American nationals visiting Kenya advising them to evaluate their personal safety situation in light of terrorist threats and increasing incidents of violent crime. In a response similar to that issued recently in South Africa concerning spiralling levels of crime and violence, Kenyan Tourism Minister Morris Dzoro and Government Spokesman Dr. Alfred Mutua said the advisories would not affect tourism or any other sector of the economy. “What we know as a government is that there is no place in the world that is secure. There are worse things that happen in American and European cities than what is happening in Kenya now, so it has not mattered before and doesn’t matter now and it will not matter.”

He went on, “When you consider the number of criminal attacks that are in cities such as New York or Los Angeles where people are killed in gang warfare, now that is another thing,” said Mutua in his weekly briefing. “It does not mean that Kenya is a place where there is rampant insecurity and nobody is safe. Issuing travel advisories in terms of a few acts of thuggery in our country is totally unfair.”

What do you think?

BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese man has been sentenced to death for conning people out of 3 billion yuan ($387 million) in a giant scam to breed ants, local media said Thursday. Wang Zhendong, from the north-eastern province of Liaoning, fabricated a business purported to be making wine, tea and medical elixirs using mature ants, the Beijing News said.

In parts of China, black ants are sold by the bagful to be steeped in tea or soaked in liquor as a natural remedy for ailments such as arthritis. Wang sold packages of ants to the investors for up to as much as 10,000 yuan ($1,290) when they were only worth 200 yuan, China Central Television reported.

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