[World Affairs Overview]

Anti-Thatcher song on UK charts

UK: "Ding Dong! The witch is dead", as sung by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, on Tuesday raced to the top of the Amazon download chart in Britain, a day after the death of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Another version sung by jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald placed at number 4 and also topped the iTunes UK vocal chart as record-buyers passed their judgement on the legacy of Thatcher, who died of a stroke on Monday aged 87.

The records' success comes on the back of a Facebook campaign celebrating the death of the divisive leader.

AFP

Four-year-old boy shoots friend in head

US: A four-year-old American boy shot and wounded a six-year-old friend in the head Tuesday, police said, the second such accident involving children in a day.

Police in the New Jersey town of Toms River said the young boy took a .22 caliber rifle and shot his friend at a distance of about 14 meters (45 feet). It was unclear why the weapon discharged. "The young boys were playing," Police Chief Michael Mastronardy told a press conference. "The four-year-old went into the house, retrieved the rifle from within the house: a .22 caliber rifle." "A shot went out, and the six-year-old was struck in the head," he said.

The victim was in hospital in "serious" condition.

AFP

US college student stabs 14 in Texas

US: A US college student stabbed 14 people, leaving two victims critically wounded, Tuesday in a rampage that ended when he was wrestled to the ground and taken into custody, police said.

Television images showed a red-headed white youth with a goatee being led off in handcuffs after the incident at the sprawling Lone Star College's Cyfair campus, about 60 miles north of Houston. Authorities said 14 people were stabbed in the attack, which appeared to have occurred in and around the college's Health Science Center.

AFP

John Lennon died from divine ire: Brazilian pastor

BRAZIL: John Lennon died because he offended God by suggesting that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, according to the embattled head of the Brazilian Congress' human rights panel.

"The Bible says God does not let this type of offense go unpunished," evangelical pastor Marco Feliciano said in remarks published by local media Tuesday and gleaned from a video of a sermon he made at his church in 2005. Feliciano, who is facing growing calls to resign from the rights panel over his disparaging comments about gays, women and blacks, also said he would have liked to see the body of Lennon when the English pop star was shot dead in December 1980.

AFP