Cockroach Burrows Into Sleeping Man's Ear

A man in Australia had to be rushed to hospital in terrible pain after a large cockroach crawled into his ear as he slept, and an attempt to suck it out with a vacuum cleaner failed.

Medical treatment initially only caused the inch-long insect to burrow further into the head of Hendrik Helmer.

The unwelcome invader was eventually extracted by a doctor with forceps, but only after Mr Helmer had endured the unpleasant sensation of it being in the "throes of death-twitching".

His ordeal began in the early hours of Wednesday morning when he was woken by a sharp pain in his right ear, according to Australian TV.

He said: "I was hoping it was not a poisonous spider ... I was hoping it didn't bite me."

As the pain got worse, Mr Helmer said he tried to suck the insect out with a vacuum cleaner before squirting water in his ear.

"Whatever was in my ear didn't like it at all," he told the broadcaster.

With the pain now excruciating, his flatmate rushed him to hospital where a doctor put oil down the ear canal.

Friends of Mr Helmer, from Darwin, are now going to bed with headphones on

But this only forced the two centimetre cockroach to crawl in deeper.

Mr Helmer, from Darwin, said: "Near the 10 minute mark ... somewhere about there, he started to stop burrowing but he was still in the throes of death twitching."

The doctor then pulled the insect out of his ear.

"She (the doctor) said, 'You know how I said a little cockroach, that may have been an underestimate'," he said.

"They said they had never pulled an insect this large out of someone's ear."

Mr Helmer said he would not be taking any added precautions when sleeping, although friends of his said they were so concerned over his experience that they had begun going to bed with headphones on.

Cockroaches are among the hardiest insects on the planet.

They are capable of surviving for long periods on little food and can even tolerate high doses of radiation.

They will eat almost anything, and some species can produce over 20,000 young in their lifetime.

Famous for their hissing, cockroaches can reach nine centimetres in length, although most species are much smaller.

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Indian Diplomat's Family Slam 'Inhuman' US

The family of an Indian envoy whose arrest in the US has sparked a diplomatic crisis have slammed her "inhuman" treatment.

Uttam Khobragade, father of Devyani Khobragade, hit out after his daughter was strip-searched when arrested over allegations that she lied about how much she paid her maid.

He told a news conference in Delhi: "As a family, we would not like to touch the soil of the country which treats human beings in such an inhuman way, in an utter violation of human rights, an utter violation of the Geneva Convention."

Mr Khobragade said he expected his daughter to arrive in India with her husband and children "very soon" after she was ordered to leave the US, where she could not be prosecuted because of her diplomatic immunity status.

Ms Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, was held in December on charges of visa fraud and underpaying a maid.

Delhi said it was "shocked and appalled" and demanded an apology after she was handcuffed and strip-searched at the time of her arrest.

Uttam Khobragade attacked the handling of his daughter's case as 'inhuman'

She left New York on a flight from JFK airport on Thursday night hours after she was indicted on criminal charges and India refused to waive her immunity.

Indian foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said: "At the time of her departure to India, Counsellor Khobragade reiterated her innocence of charges filed against her.

"She affirmed her gratitude to the government of India, in particular to the external affairs minister, and the people of India, as also the media, for their strong and sustained support during this period."

Ms Khobragade could be arrested and forced to answer the charges if she returned to the US without diplomatic immunity.

The row began when Ms Khobragade was arrested following a complaint by her maid Sangeeta Richard.

Ms Khobragade's arrest sparked street protests in India

She in turn accused her employee of theft and attempted blackmail.

The circumstances of her arrest prompted protests on the streets of India and diplomatic reprisals from Delhi.

Senior Indian politicians and officials snubbed a US delegation on a recent visit and security barricades around the American embassy in Delhi were removed.

On Wednesday, the US embassy was ordered to stop "commercial activities on its premises" and a club with a pool restaurant and tennis court was reportedly told to shut down.

The Indian government also said drivers of US diplomatic cars could be charged with traffic offences.

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Costa Concordia May Be Towed To Middlesbrough

The team leading the Costa Concordia salvage operation has revealed they will begin removing the stricken cruise liner from near the Italian island of Giglio in June - before it is demolished later this year.

Exactly where the wreck will be towed to and destroyed has not yet been decided, but some 12 ports are in contention including ABLE Middlesbrough Port on the River Tees, among others in Italy, Norway, Turkey, France and the Netherlands.

The job of dismantling and recycling the vessel has been put out to tender which is being overseen by London Offshore Consultants.

It is hoped the salvage team will have made a decision on the ship's final destination by early March.

Italian environment minister Andrea Orlando and experts disclosed the details of the next phase of the mammoth operation at a news conference in Rome.

A technique known as parbuckling was used to right the ship

The 114,000-ton ship was hauled upright from its partially submerged position in September last year in a complicated 19-hour operation.

More than 1,000 concrete stacks and six underwater platforms are being used to keep the vessel stable.

It is expected to be towed away from the Mediterranean holiday island by the summer and eventually broken up for scrap.

Franco Porcellacchia, who is in charge of removing the wreck, said: "We will start fitting in the systems and equipment that are needed to enable us to remove the ship from mid-April. It is a very complicated operation.

"If there are no unexpected events the whole operation will be completed by the end of June, probably by the middle of June.

"Then we will have to make the wreck float again, and this will take about seven to 10 days, so our reasonable goal is to refloat the wreck by the end of June."

Costa Concordia raised from the depths

Michael Thamm, chief executive officer of Costa Cruises, said: "We are very confident that we can remove this ship within the month of June. This is not very far away - and then a great job will be done."

He said the company would maintain ownership of the vessel "until the very last moment", until the wreck is demolished later this year.

The full cost of the completed salvage operation was expected to reach around €600m (£497m), he added.

Cabin owners of the safes recovered from the wreck are to be contacted soon and their contents returned to them.

The seven-day Mediterranean cruise turned to tragedy just hours after the vessel, packed with more than 4,000 passengers and crew had left the port of Civitavecchia in January 2012.

The Concordia's captain, Francesco Schettino, is on trial for alleged manslaughter, causing the shipwreck and abandoning ship during a confused and delayed evacuation.

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CAR President And Prime Minister Resign

The president of the Central African Republic has resigned over violence that has killed more than 1,000 people in the country.

Michel Djotodia agreed to step down alongside his prime minister, Nicolas Tiengaye.

The country has seen spiralling violence between the mainly Muslim rebels who brought him to power last year, and Christian militias.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in the last month alone.

The resignations came as the two men met African leaders in Chad to try to find a solution to the crisis.

Thousands of protesters in the CAR capital, Bangui, took to the streets on Friday calling for Mr Djotodia to resign.

More follows...

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Brazil: Girl Dies After Bus Fire Attack

By Karine Mayer, Senior News Editor in Rio de Janeiro

Inmates of Brazil's most notorious jail are being blamed by police after a six-year-old girl was killed by a gang who torched a packed bus.

Ana Clara Santos Souza died three days after suffering 95% burns when armed men set fire to the vehicle while passengers were still on board.

Hundreds of people attended her funeral, demanding an end to a wave of gang-led terror that has swept the region since December.

Authorities in the northeastern city of Sao Luis believe the attack was ordered by gang leaders in revenge for a crackdown on violence in Pedrinhas prison.

CCTV footage shows a man board the bus and pull a handgun from his trousers.

As he orders people out of the vehicle, other armed gang members appear in the road and train their weapons on the terrified passengers.

The bus suddenly bursts into flames with people still on board, although at least one passenger manages to jump off.

But Ana appears to fall in the footwell of the bus before scrambling off engulfed in flames, which she desperately tries to put out.

Riot police have been deployed to control violence in the Pedrinhas jail

Her family said the gang had ignored her mother's pleas for mercy.

A relative told Brazil's O Globo newspaper: "Her mother asked the criminals not to harm the children, but they showed no mercy and set fire to the girl."

Four other people - including Ana's mother and older sister - were injured as four buses were set alight and a police station targeted in a drive-by shooting in the city on January 3.

The Maranhao state government says the attacks were ordered by criminals at the notorious Pedrinhas jail, where at least 62 inmates died last year.

Officials said in a statement: "The attacks are in reaction to recent measures to curb jail violence."

Brazil, which has the world's fourth-largest prison population, has been shocked by footage of the beheading of three Pedrinhas prisoners - apparently filmed on a mobile phone by other inmates.

The gruesome film is narrated by the killers, who gleefully display their victim's heads like trophies as they stand over pools of blood.

In October Maranhao asked for government help after several outbreaks of violence between rival gangs and military police were deployed after the beheadings in December.

Eight suspects have been arrested over the violence in Sao Luis and extra troops have been deployed across the city, state security secretary Aluisio Mendes said.

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Ex-SS Soldier, 88, Charged Over Nazi Massacre

An 88-year-old former member of Hitler's SS has been charged with taking part in a massacre of hundreds of French villagers.

It is nearly 70 years since one of the most infamous Nazi atrocities, in which Waffen-SS men took the small French village of Oradour-sur-Glane by surprise and killed nearly all of its inhabitants.

The death toll from the methodical slaughter in 1944 was 642 men, women and children.

The men were herded into barns and shot dead, while the women and children were burned alive in the village church.

Achim Hengstenberg, court spokesman for Cologne, said: "The prosecution charges an 88-year-old pensioner from Cologne with (joining in) the destruction of Oradour-sur-Glane in France.

French president Francois Hollande at the site with a survivor (C) in 2013

"He and another shooter are said to have killed 25 men in a barn with his machine gun. He is also said to have aided the burning down of the village church."

The accused denies the charges, saying he did not fire a single shot in Oradour, according to his lawyer Rainer Pohlen.

He said he even tried to save the lives of some of the victims.

Mr Pohlen said: "He could have fired. He says, however, 'I had the great luck of being deployed for something else'.

"He said 'I heard shots, I saw people shouting, I saw the village burning. It was terrible. It was absolutely awful. But I was not myself involved in any of the action'."

A memorial at Oradour-sur-Glane

Mr Hengstenberg said the charge lay with the young offenders chamber of the Cologne court because the suspect was only 19 years old at the time of the crime.

He was not named in the statement. The young offenders chamber will decide whether or not to open proceedings against the accused.

The SS massacre was meant to be an example to French Resistance guerrillas after a vehicle carrying an SS doctor was ambushed on a road leading to the village and its occupants abducted.

Among those killed were 207 children, the youngest eight weeks old. Only five men and a woman survived the massacre.

Robert Hebras, one of the survivors, said: "It's important that we find someone even if it's 70 years afterwards."

More than 600 people died in the massacre

Oradour is an example of a post-war failure to punish the perpetrators.

Heinz Lammerding, the Waffen-SS general in command of the unit that committed the massacre, was captured by Allied forces, but never extradited to France and was sentenced to death in absentia by a Bordeaux military court in 1951. He died in his bed in Bavaria in 1971.

Mr Hengstenberg said the new charge resulted from a fresh look at a previous investigation into the events.

In 1953, 12 Alsatian soldiers who took part in the massacre while serving in the SS unit were sentenced to life in prison and one to death, but France's parliament immediately pardoned them in the name of "national reconciliation".

Their province of Alsace had been annexed by Germany in 1940 and Alsatians were deemed to have been forced to join the German forces, even though some clearly enlisted voluntarily.

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Japan Chemical Plant Blast Kills Five

At least five people have been killed in an explosion at a chemical factory in central Japan, according to reports.

Twelve others were injured in the blast at the Mitsubishi Materials complex in Yokkaichi City, police said.

Ranko Hirai, a spokeswoman at Mitsubishi Materials, said: "We confirmed that there was an explosion at our plant in Yokkaichi, where we produce silicon materials." 

Maintenance crews were said to have triggered the suspected hydrogen blast shortly before 2pm local time while working on heat exchange equipment used in the production of silicon products. 

Television footage showed stretchers laid out for victims and a pipe and machinery parts on the ground.

Yokkaichi City lies roughly 220 miles (350 km) west of Tokyo

A worker at a nearby plant said: "I heard a boom and saw white smoke rising from the plant ... I don't remember there ever being such a serious accident in Yokkaichi before."

Authorities said the situation at the plant is now under control, although a detailed investigation into the cause of the accident could not begin while a danger of secondary explosions remained.

Meanwhile a Tokyo-based spokesman for the plant has confirmed reports that the factory was closed for several months in 2010 after inspectors found it had been generating high-pressure gas without the necessary authorisation.

Mitsubishi Materials makes a wide range of products including car parts, silicon wafers for memory chips used in consumer electronics and cement for road and bridge construction.

Thursday's explosion was the most deadly industrial accident in Japan since February 2012 when an undersea tunnel collapsed at an oil refinery, trapping five people.

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Man-Eating Tiger Hunted In India After Deaths

A search is on for a tiger who is believed to have killed four villagers in northern India over the past 12 days.

The beast attacked and killed a 40-year-old woman on Wednesday in a village in the state of Uttar Pradesh, its fourth victim since it is thought to have strayed from a tiger reserve, an official said.

State forest officials and police - with the help of two elephants - have been searching for the tiger in Moradabad district in the hope of driving it back to the Jim Corbett National Park, an area that is popular with tourists.

"We have identified four bodies that were killed by the tiger as they bore teeth and claw marks," a senior official from the district said.

"We have launched a thorough search and hope it will go back to its natural habitat."

The state government has also started "a process to declare the animal a man-eater as soon as possible" which means the protected tiger can be killed, the official said.

Frightened villagers have been protesting against the authorities' failure to capture the animal since the first death was reported at the end of last month.

Officials suspect the tiger has come from the Jim Corbett National Park - home to some 200 tigers - although the boundary is about 110km (68 miles) from Moradabad district.

India has around 1,700 tigers - half of the world's rapidly shrinking wild tiger population - but has been struggling to halt the big cat's decline in the face of poachers, international smuggling networks and loss of habitat.

The country's tiger population has plunged from the estimated 40,000 it had when it gained independence in 1947.

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Former New York City Cops Held Over 9/11 Fraud

Former New York police officers and firefighters, who falsely claimed they were disabled as a result of the September 11 attacks, have been arrested in a sweeping fraud investigation.

They are among more than 100 people charged over the "massive" social security fraud worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The accused allegedly collected tens of thousands of dollars a year in social security disability benefits by claiming they were completely incapacitated by serious psychiatric disorders and other ailments.

But, according to court documents, they were in fact living normal lives; one of the accused flew a helicopter while another played blackjack in Las Vegas.

One of the accused taught and performed mixed martial arts but was still claiming benefits of typically between $30,000 (£18,000) and $50,000 (£30,400) a year. In some instances, the total amount fraudulently obtained was nearly $500,000 (£305,000) per applicant.

More than 2,700 people were killed in the attacks in New York

Of the 106 charged in the decades-long scam, 80 were retired New York police officers or firefighters.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said: "Many participants cynically manufactured claims of mental illness as a result of September 11, dishonouring the first responders who did serve their city at the expense of their own health and safety."

As far back as 1988, the four main defendants - Raymond Lavallee, 83, Thomas Hale, 89, Joseph Esposito, 64, and John Minerva, 61 - conspired to help or make hundreds of applicants falsely claim disabilities in order to collect benefit payments in addition to their public pensions, court documents say.

Prosecutors said the applicants claimed they suffered from a psychiatric condition that prevented them from working, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety or depression.

Mr Vance said: "This alleged scam further depleted the already limited resources available for battling the real and complex conditions of PTSD and depression."

William Bratton called the alleged crimes were "disgraceful"

New York City Police Department commissioner William Bratton said: "The retired members of the NYPD indicted in this case have disgraced all first responders who perished during the search and rescue efforts on September 11, 2001, and those who subsequently died from 9/11 related illness, by exploiting their involvements that tragic day for personal gain."

Hale and Esposito, the latter a retired member of the NYPD, allegedly coached benefit applicants to falsely describe symptoms of depression and anxiety to doctors they had recruited.

They instructed applicants on how to fail memory tests with plausibility, how to dress, and on their demeanour.

For example, almost every claim included phrases such as "I nap on and off during the day" and "I have the TV on to keep me company".

More than 2,700 people were killed in New York on September 11, 2001, when two passenger planes, hijacked by Islamist militants, slammed into the World Trade Center.

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Polar Vortex: Deep Freeze Strikes East And South

The record-breaking polar air blast affecting more than half the US population has spread to the East and South, sending the mercury plunging into the single digits.

The polar vortex that started in the Midwest over the weekend covered about half of the country by Tuesday.

In New York City, the temperature fell to -12C (11F), slightly cooler than Boston's -8C (18F).

Across the South, records were shattered.

Freezing passengers wait for trains in Chicago

Birmingham, Alabama, dipped to a low of -14C, breaking the record of -12C set in 1970.

Atlanta saw a record low of -14C and Nashville, Tennessee, got down to -17C.

It was just -17C at Washington Dulles International airport, eclipsing the 1988 mark of -13C.

The crippling cold continued to impact the Midwest as well, with the mercury dipping to -24C overnight in the Chicago area.

More than 500 Amtrak passengers were stranded overnight on three Chicago-bound trains that were stopped by blowing and drifting snow in Illinois.

The waterfall frozen oustide a museum in Washington

In Kentucky, a fugitive who escaped a minimum security facility on Sunday, surrendered to authorities on Monday because of the cold when temperatures plunged to -29C with the wind chill.

The weather also has been blamed for a number of deaths across Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

They included a 48-year-old Chicago man who had a heart attack while shovelling snow on Sunday and an elderly woman who was found outside her Indianapolis home early on Monday.

The worst of the big freeze should be over in the next day or two.

A satellite image shows the polar vortex sweeping across the US. Pic: Nasa

Warmer weather - at least, near or above freezing - is in the forecast for much of the stricken part of the country.

On Tuesday, many schools and day care centres across the eastern half of the US were closed.

Officials opened shelters for the homeless and anyone else who needed a warm place.

With the bitter cold slowing baggage handling and aircraft refuelling, airlines cancelled more than 2,000 flights, bringing the four-day total to more than 11,000.

Pensacola, Florida - a Gulf Coast city better known for its white sand beaches than frost - saw its streets deserted as temperatures plummeted.

Nearly half of the US has been impacted by the freezing temperatures

Monica Anderson and Tommy Howard jumped up and down and blew on their hands while they waited for a bus.

"I'm not used to it. It is best just to stay inside until it gets better," said Ms Anderson, who added she could not recall it ever being so cold.

PJM Interconnection, which operates the power grid that serves more than 61 million people in the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and South, asked users to conserve electricity because of the cold.

Across the South, the Tennessee Valley Authority said power demand in the morning reached the second-highest winter peak in the history of the Depression-era utility.

Temperatures averaged -15C across the utility's seven-state region.

In Chicago, it was too cold even for the polar bear at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

Although polar bears can handle sub-zero temperatures in the wild, the zoo said Anana was kept inside on Monday because she does not have the thick layer of fat that bears typically get from feeding on seals and whale carcasses.

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