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The National Assembly approved new legislation Thursday to disband the investigating unit and incorporate it into the police force. The move came despite widespread objections it would weaken the fight against crime in a country wracked by more than 50 murders a day as well as frequent bank heists, hijackings and violent theft. The Scorpions have a much better track record than the police at solving crime. But they have fallen afoul of the ruling African National Congress party for their corruption probe of ANC leader Jacob Zuma, who is expected to become the country's next president.

Musicians Ozzy Osbourne, Stevie Nicks, Ted Nugent, Steve Winwood, Robert Plant, Kenny Loggins, Glenn Frey, Alice Cooper, Tony Iommi, Chris Squire, James Taylor, Todd Rundgren, Jackson Browne, Olivia Newton-John, Donna Summer, John Bonham (R.I.P.) & Rick James (R.I.P.)

The wonderful things of spring: the scent of a Tombstone rose, the burst of Mexican poppies on Picacho Peak and a cool breeze across an Arizona porch. The not-so-wonderful things of spring: the buzz of the killer bees swarming around those spring flowers, the rattle of a coiled diamondback as you hike the trail to the peak and the welt left behind by the bite of the black widow that's been nesting in your front-porch rocker. Warmer days ahead means it's time to watch out for critters best left undisturbed.

Wildlife Awareness Needed with Summer Heat Servicemembers need to be cautious and alert for animals than can cause serious injury or death. By U.S. Army Spc. Anna-Marie Hizer 133rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment KIRKUK, Iraq, June 2, 2006 — Being aware of one’s surroundings is a skill soldiers constantly maintain and seek to improve. However, one potential hazard for troops in Northern Iraq may be easily missed. And it is right under their feet. "Prevention is the best cure. Use common sense; don’t put your hands in places that could house a snake." U.S. Army Maj. Ken Brooks Temperatures...

<p>I am not a great fan of German achievement. I believe, horrors! horrors!, that a Lexus or a Cadillac is better than a BMW or Mercedes. But I do acknowledge that Germans have a way with words. They created words that other languages simply do not have. Schadenfreude is such a word. In case you are not familiar with it, it takes 7 English words to define it: "malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others". The dictionary also explains it with a quote from the New York Times about historian Peter Gay, who felt Schadenfreude as a Jewish child in Nazi-era Berlin, watching the Germans lose coveted gold medals in the 1936 Olympics; he said that it "can be one of the great joys of life."</p>

A smuggler who filled his trousers with rare snakes was caught when he landed at Prague airport because customs officers spotted them wriggling.The man had pulled his trousers tight tying them with string and tucked the legs into his socks after hiding the snakes inside. But his appearance alerted customs officers who arrested the man when he landed in the Czech capital after a flight from Africa. The 23-year-old man was also found to have scorpions and beetles in his luggage, local media reported.

Agencies in Belgrade Friday June 3, 2005 The Guardian They are the images that have finally, 10 years later, shocked a nation. A man, several men, are unloaded from a truck, marched to a wooded hillside and shot, one by one, in the back. Two prisoners are ordered to carry the bodies to a barn. They too are then executed. The murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica in the summer of 1995 is well documented. But a video that emerged this week during the trial of the former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, has provoked a bout of soul-searching...

A year ago I would have called you stark raving mad if you'd suggested that today I'd have one of these things voluntarily anywhere within a mile let alone perched on my hand: Click here for a much higher resolution (and larger) pic But just after we moved to Texas I found the first live Scorpion I'd ever seen happily crawling around my office at home and rather then killing it I kept it as a pet and eventually was so enamored of the thing that I obtained some MUCH larger Scorp's and here is one of them! What kind...

Twenty months after toppling Saddam Hussein, US troops still battling his followers in the heartland of Iraq's old arms industry are hitting back with a new weapon: ex-members of Hussein's special forces. For five months, Iraqi police commandos calling themselves the Black Scorpions have been based with US marines in the region along the Euphrates south of Baghdad. Roadside bombs, ambushes and kidnaps have turned the area into a no-go zone and earned it the melodramatic description "triangle of death". "All of them were previously officers in the Iraqi army or special forces," said Scorpions commander Colonel Salaam Trad. "But...

Woman Moves in with Scorpions KUALA LUMPUR - Scorpions will be the bedfellows of a 24-year-old Malaysian woman for more than a month, as she tries to set a new world record for living with the venomous animals. Nur Malena Hassan moved into a glass box with 6,000 scorpions at a shopping mall in Kuantan, about 160 miles east of Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, Malaysia's New Sunday Times reported. Nur Malena showed no sign of fear as she entered the box, the paper reported, and scorpions soon began crawling over her body as she was monitored by medical staff...

SCORPIONS rank along with spiders, snakes and crocodiles as a major phobia, but for some wealthy Indians their venom has become the source of a legal high. Rich youths from India’s western states of Gujarat and Maharastra are risking a fatal allergic reaction from the arachnids’ sting for the high it gives them. Men from Gujarat’s nomadic Rabari tribe are offering clients the chance to get their hands or feet stung by scorpions carried in small boxes. According to police, the dealers run their businesses on the Delhi to Bombay highway, operating from a clandestine base in the Gujarat city...

CAMP IWO JIMA: US forces poised to invade Iraq will face snakes and scorpions that might prove just as deadly for some as bullets, bombs or gas. Desert horned vipers, fat-tailed scorpions and hairy spiders the size of an outstretched hand are lurking in the sand, ready to spring a nasty surprise on troops unlucky or foolish enough to disturb them. Navy specialists tasked with warning marines of the dangers say the biggest risk comes from bored soldiers turning to serpents for entertainment -- the cause of 85 per cent of snakebites in the 1991 Gulf War. "They just...