Sarah Palin believed the Queen, not the prime minister, was responsible for the decision to keep British forces in Iraq, according to research for a new film chronicling her political rise. The former Alaskan governor reportedly made the comment during the 2008 presidential campaign as aides to John McCain, the Republican candidate, tried to bring his surprise choice as running mate up to speed on... 

The US Marine Corps is once again in damage control after a photograph surfaced of a sniper team in Afghanistan posing in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS – a special unit that murdered millions of Jews, gypsies and others. The Corps said in a statement that using the symbol was not acceptable, but the marines in the photograph taken in September 2010 would... 

A woman who stole a cigarette vending machine in Chino, Nagano Prefecture, didn’t get very far after her getaway truck skidded off the road due to heavy snow, sending the vending machine onto the pavement. According to police, the suspect, identified as Kesami Ikegami, 34, stole the vending machine at about 4:50 a.m. last Thursday, NTV reported. The vending machine had about 10,000 in cash and 100... 

South Korean customs officials say they have arrested eight men over a scheme to allegedly smuggle gold out of the country by hiding it in their rectums. The Korea Customs Service said Monday the men allegedly transformed $260,000 in gold bars into small beads and smuggled them in their rectums to Japan two times in 2010 to avoid import taxes. South Korea says Japanese custom officials caught the men... 

BOLIVIAN drug-smugglers seem to be running low on ingenious ways to hide their masses of cocaine. Disguising the stash as flour or washing-up powder appears to be a little too old school for South American drug-runners – with the new method of choice being to wrap their blocks in Swastikas. A van carrying 204kg of cocaine in brick-type moulds plastered with the Nazi stamp is the latest bust, as authorities... 

A British crematorium wants to install turbines in two of its burners which would use the heat generated during cremation to provide enough electricity to power 1500 televisions. A third burner is to be used to heat the site’s chapel and offices. The scheme in Durham would be the first of its kind in Britain, but experts say it could be followed by similar projects. Many crematoria are currently... 

A survey conducted by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research revealed that 61.4% of single men aged 18-34 do not have a girlfriend and that 49% of single women in the same age range do not have a boyfriend. The institute, which is part of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, conducts the survey every five years. It released the results of its latest survey, conducted... 

Imagine a town where playing rock music is under a curfew and police crack down on unlicensed late-night dancing. Are you thinking of the town from the film “Footloose”? Or are you thinking of Fukuoka? Kumamoto? Yokohama? This unbelievable scenario is the result of a 1984 addition to the 1948 Fūzoku Eigyō Torishimari Hō (Entertainment Business Control Law), which was originally designed... 

A US woman who wanted to work at a nightclub started searching for someone who could perform plastic surgery at a cheap price to give her a more curvaceous body. What she found was a woman posing as a doctor who filled her buttocks with cement, mineral oil and flat-tyre sealant, Florida police say. The suspect – who police say was born a man and identifies as a woman – apparently performed... 

A Kemas kindergarten in Alor Setar, Kedah, was found to have stored dry food in a toilet, an audit of the Community Development Department’s Additional Food Plan showed. The auditor-general, in his 2010 report, notes that this as one of several examples of poor sanitation. “Dry food was also found to have been stored for too long until (the shelf-life) expired. (The items were) exposed to pests...