Coffin Conversations - by dementia

Hoping to send the message that pets are life-long partners not disposable accessories, a Japanese maker of medicines for animals has begun giving employees who own dogs or cats a monthly "family allowance" for their pets.

The number of pets in Japan has grown with greater affluence and a falling birth rate and there are now more pet cats and dogs than children under age 15, but about 310,000 cats and dogs are put down annually, said Tokyo-based Kyoritsu Seiyaku Corp.

"Everyone has the right to own a pet, but they also have the obligation to raise the pet for its whole life," the company said, explaining why it had decided to offer employees who own dogs and cats a "family allowance" of 1,000 yen ($9) per month.


"In the future, it is our dream that this system will spread not just in the pet business but to other Japanese firms," the company said in a statement.

Kyoritsu Seiyaku does not yet allow its employees to take paid leave to grieve when their pets pass away, as does one Japanese pet food maker, but may do so eventually.

"For now, we have introduced only the allowances, but we want to consider the condolence holiday system in future," a company spokeswoman said.

Some AIDS victims are being buried alive in Papua New Guinea by relatives who cannot look after them and fear becoming infected themselves, a health worker said Monday.

Margaret Marabe, who spent five months carrying out an AIDS awareness campaign in the remote Southern Highlands of the South Pacific nation, said she had seen five people buried while still breathing.

One was calling out "Mama, Mama" as the soil was shoveled over his head, said Marabe, who works for a volunteer organisation called Igat Hope, Pidgin English for I've Got Hope.

"One of them was my cousin, who was buried alive," she told reporters.


"I said, 'Why are they doing that?' And they said, 'If we let them live, stay in the same house, eat together and use or share utensils, we will contract the disease and we too might die.'"

Villagers had told her it was common for people to bury AIDS victims alive.

Marabe appealed to the government and aid agencies to ensure the HIV/AIDS awareness programme carried out in cities and towns was extended to the rural areas, where ignorance about the disease is widespread.

Women accused of being witches have been tortured and murdered by mobs holding them responsible for the apparently inexplicable deaths of young people stricken by the epidemic, officials and researchers say.

A recent United Nations report said PNG was facing an AIDS catastrophe, accounting for 90 percent of HIV infections in the Oceania region.

HIV diagnoses had risen by around 30 percent a year since 1997, leaving an estimated 60,000 people living with the disease in 2005.

At least 30 assistant government ministers in Kenya have written their president, griping that they have no work to do.

"I just go to the office and read newspapers," said Abu Ciaba, an assistant fisheries minister.

He and his fellow ministers wrote that "we owe it to the taxpayer that what we are paid is commensurate with what we do."

Kenya spends more than $9 million annually on the salaries and expenses of assistant ministers.

A radio listener helped save a disc jockey who suffered an on-air seizure and pleaded for help before passing out in his studio.

WOHS DJ Tim Biggerstaff, who has suffered from diabetes since childhood, has always been candid about his health. When he felt a seizure about to strike, he called out to his listeners.

Gerald Weathers heard the plea and raced to the nearby studio. Since Biggerstaff was the only person working — it was the Memorial Day holiday — officials contacted another WOHS radio employee to unlock the door. Biggerstaff was found unconscious inside.

“It’s quite frankly a bloody miracle that I am here at all,” said Biggerstaff, 46.

This isn’t the first time a listener has saved the DJ’s life. Three years ago, a listener donated a kidney to him when he needed a transplant.

Crime doesn't pay, but being antisocial does.

A dungeon-themed tourist attraction in Britain is offering free admission to anyone who has been issued an "antisocial-behavior order" for having committed a misdemeanor.

A PSYCHIATRIST who called Michael Neal the "most evil man" he had met in 20 years urged authorities to lock him up two years ago but was ignored.

A Dutch primary school teacher who is dying of cancer is overseeing one last project among her beloved pupils - they are making a coffin for her.

Eri van den Biggelaar, 40, has just a few weeks left to live after being diagnosed last year with an aggressive form of cervical cancer. Always popular at school, she asked the arts and crafts teacher to build a casket for her.

The CEO of NextMedium, which has launched a product placement marketplace called Embed, states that, “To date, product placement has been opportunistic and Rolodex based. Our goal is to establish brand integration as an ad category.” To meet that goal, a product could be written--that is, entrenched--into a story line.

Along those lines, in order to give a particular scene a certain organic feel, where product placement must be integral to the plot, a porn director arranged for a couple to use a sex machine built for two, with the male playing the role of an activist salesman. “This the Televibe 8100,” he explains to her as they proceed to undress. “It can be operated remotely either by telephone or over the Internet.” She asks, “How does it work?”