A 7-meter-long (23-foot-long) python has swallowed a woman in central Indonesia, a village official said Saturday.

The victim, 54-year-old Wa Tiba, went missing while checking her vegetable garden near her village on Muna island in Southeast Sulawesi province on Thursday evening, according to the village chief, Faris.

On Friday, her family went to look for her at the garden but found only her belongings, including sandals and a flashlight, said Faris, who uses a single name.

The family and villagers launched a search for the woman, and found the snake with a bloated belly about 50 meters (yards) from where her belongings were found.

The villagers killed the snake and carried it to the village.

“When they cut open the snake’s belly they found Tiba’s body still intact with all her clothes,” Faris said. “She was swallowed first from her head.”

Videos posted on some websites showed villagers slicing open the python’s carcass to reveal the woman’s body.

Faris said the victim’s garden, about 1 kilometer (half a mile) from her house, is located in a rocky area with caves and cliffs believed to contain many snakes.

Reticulated pythons, which are widespread in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, grab onto their prey with dozens of sharp curved teeth and then squeeze it to death before swallowing it whole.

Reports of humans being killed by pythons are extremely rare. In the wild they are known to eat monkeys, pigs and other mammals.

It was the second python attack on a human in Indonesia since March last year, when a 25-year-old man was swallowed whole by a python…

A couple in eastern Germany have gotten married in a swing dangling from a motorcycle atop a tightrope, 14 meters (46 feet) above the ground.

The German news agency dpa reported that a pastor standing in a cage atop a fire service ladder presided over the wedding of Nicole Backhaus and Jens Knorr in the town of Stassfurt on Saturday. The couple exchanged rings in the air but, for safety’s sake, waited until they were back on the ground to kiss.

More than 3,000 people watched the wedding in the sky, which took place during a local festival.

The tightrope was stretched between the town wall and a tower, and the motorbike was ridden by Falko Traber, a member of a family of artists.

Source: Associated Press

Related

A suicide bomber blew himself up in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday as mostly Taliban fighters gathered to celebrate a three-day cease fire marking the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr, killing 21 people and wounding another 41, said the Nangarhar provincial Police Chief Ghulam Sanayee Stanikzai. Most of the dead and wounded were believed to be Taliban, he said.

The devastating explosion came as previously unthinkable scenes of unarmed Taliban fighters celebrating Eid, often alongside Afghan security forces, played out in cities throughout the war-shattered country on Friday and again on Saturday.

Within hours of the explosion President Ashraf Ghani announced he would extend a nine-day cease-fire that was to expire on Sunday and which he had unilaterally announced last week. The cease-fire was to end at the conclusion of the Eid holiday, which follows the monthlong fasting month of Ramadan.

Ghani offered no details of the extension, including how long it would be in effect. The Taliban’s leader, Haibatullah Akhunzada, on Monday separately announced a three-day truce to mark the Eid holiday. The Taliban cease-fire took effect at midnight on Thursday.

Ghani in his statement announcing the extension called on the Taliban to reply in kind. He also said that a cease-fire could be accompanied with visits to their prisoners and treatment for their fighters at hospitals in Afghanistan.

Ghani also repeated his promise that everything could be on the negotiation table, including the presence of foreign forces.

Earlier this week Taliban leader Akhundzada said he wanted direct talks with the…

France allegedly has special forces on the ground in Yemen, according to the French daily Le Figaro.

Saturday’s article, written by Middle East specialist Georges Malbrunot, quoted two unnamed military sources as saying special forces were present in the war-torn country. It didn’t provide details except to say that they are “beside United Arab Emirates” forces in Yemen.

Defense Ministry officials couldn’t be reached for comment on the report, though any information concerning special forces is most always kept under wraps.

However, a Defense Ministry statement on Friday to the newspaper Ouest-France said Paris is studying sending minesweepers to clear the entrance of the Hodeida port “after the end of military operations.” The aim would be to help humanitarian aid get to the city.

The Saudi-backed coalition backing Yemen’s government-in-exile is fighting to retake Hodeida from the Shiite Houthi rebels.

Source: Associated Press

Related

Greece’s main opposition leader urged lawmakers Saturday to support his no-confidence vote against the government over a deal to end a decades-old dispute with neighboring Macedonia over the latter’s name.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ left-led coalition government is expected to survive the vote, set for later Saturday. His government controls 154 of parliament’s 300 seats. The nationalist party that is a junior coalition partner says it will reject the motion despite vehemently opposing the name deal that Tsipras reached with his Macedonian counterpart.

“Today you are all mortgaging the future of the country,” said conservative New Democracy party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who brought the no-confidence motion.

Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, who heads the junior coalition partner, the Independent Greeks party, stressed that Saturday’s vote was not on the Macedonia name deal itself, which his party opposes.

“Today we are not voting on the deal,” he said.

Tsipras and Macedonia’s Zoran Zaev settled on a deal Tuesday that would rename Greece’s northern neighbor North Macedonia, while Athens would drop its objections to the country joining NATO and the European Union.

The agreement aimed to end a bitter dispute that has roiled the two countries’ relations since shortly after the small country declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Greece argued that the name “Macedonia” implied territorial claims on its province of the same name, which is the birthplace of the ancient warrior king Alexander the Great, and usurped its ancient Greek heritage…

The British government changed course Saturday in a case concerning cannabis oil, saying an epileptic boy can be treated with it after his mother said he needed it to survive severe seizures.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said he has agreed to urgently issue a license to allow Billy Caldwell, a 12-year-old from Northern Ireland, to be treated with the oil. He said his decision was based on advice from senior doctors who say that Caldwell, who was hospitalized overnight in London, faces a medical emergency.

Javid said the British government’s immediate priority was to make sure Caldwell receives “the most effective treatment possible in a safe way.”

The case has revived the debate over medical marijuana use in Britain.

Cannabis oil is banned in Britain. Border Force agents seized it from Charlotte Caldwell, the boy’s mother, when she tried to bring it into London’s Heathrow Airport on Monday from Canada, where she obtained it legally.

She said Billy suffered two severe seizures overnight and that the cannabis oil is the only substance that can prevent life-threatening seizures for him. He began the treatment in the United States legally two years ago.

Charlotte Caldwell says the oil has kept Billy seizure-free for more than 300 days.

He became the first person in the U.K. with a prescription for cannabis oil when it was recommended to him by a local doctor in Northern Ireland. But the doctor stopped prescribing cannabis oil after being warned by the Home Office.

After the government agreed to permit the treatment, Charlotte Caldwell said Saturday that she and her supporters…