Free Republic

A New Zealand couple said they found a cloth bundle containing a severed head while strolling along a popular Fiji beach in what has become the latest gruesome discovery in a murder case that has captivated the picturesque South Pacific island nation. Similar tied bundles that washed ashore in late June at Natadola Beach contained two pairs of feet, according to local news reports. Fiji police believe the victims in the unsolved murder case were Russian couple Yuri and Natalia Shipulin, who went missing from their farm on the main island of Viti Levu last month.

Fiji' Mineral Resources Department has issued a tsunami warning for coastal areas near Labasa and the north west coast of Viti Levu. Fiji TV reports that this follows an undersea earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale 160km north west of Labasa this afternoon. No reports of damage have been received yet. But a spokesman for the Mineral Resources Department, Lasarusa Vuetibau, says an undersea earthquake of this type which occurred 29km below the sea can generate tsunamis. He says people living along coastal areas should be on alert night and be ready to evacuate.