Cops are helpless to stop a gruesome crime in Papua New Guinea;  A court upholds the death sentence for a drug-smuggling British Granny;  Beware of polecats (sort of) posing as poodles;  And farewell to an actress who personified that era before the baby boomers lost their innocence.

WTH, Papua New Guinea?  For the second time this year, a mob ran down and murdered a woman accused of “sorcery”.  This time the mob beheaded the victim in South Bougainville.  Police say they tried to stop it but were outnumbered by the mob.  Last month, a 20-year-old woman was burned alive in full view of children after she was accused of sorcery.  That gruesome crime was caught on mobile camera (Warning, graphic and NSFW) and leaked to the Internet.

Zambia arrested a prominent Gay Rights activist as he left a TV studio where he just called for same-sex relationships to be decriminalized.  Cops tried to stop the interview with Paul Kasonkomona but station management refused.  Penalties for same-sex relations in Zambia run from 15 years to life in prison.

Pakistan’s former military ruler might wind up regretting his return from self-exile.  The Supreme Court has summoned Pervez Musharraf to appear to be charged under the High Treason Act. Musharraf seized power in a military coup and ruled until 2008.  He returned last month to campaign in upcoming elections, and found his power base is pretty much gone.

A former US Soldier might face the death penalty for fighting alongside a Syrian rebel group that is aligned with al Qaida, but ironically, also aligned with US Policy that seeks the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.  30-year old Eric Harroun from Arizona allegedly told the FBI that he shot 10 people in the Syrian conflict.  He had previously uploaded a bunch of videos of his exploits to YouTube.  Harroun did not serve in combat while he was in the US military.

An Indonesian court has upheld the death sentence for 56-year old British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford.  Authorities found A$2.4 Million worth of cocaine in her luggage as she entered the country from Thailand last May.  The death sentence came as a shock, since prosecutors only wanted her to serve 15 years in prison.  She still has three more steps of appeal to try and avoid the executioner.

Vladimir Putin is shrugging off the protests that greeted him in Germany and the Netherlands.  Gay Rights activists booed his arrival in Amsterdam, because of Russia’s drive towards anti-Gay laws.  Earlier, Human Rights advocates in Germany blasted Putin for the police raids on Human Rights Watch and hundreds of other NGOs in Moscow.  The German trip was also interrupted by topless protesters from the Ukraine group Femen, upset about Russia’s detention of the feminist Punk Rock band Pussy Riot. 

American actress Annette Funicello died at age 70 after a long and difficult struggle with Multiple Sclerosis.  She shot to fame in American households in the 1950s as one of the original cast members on Walt Disney’s “The Mickey Mouse Show”, and several Disney movies such as “The Shaggy Dog”.  Funicello matured before the baby boomers’ eyes in the Beach Party series of movies in the 1960s. 

AND an Argentine man thought he bought a pair of poodle puppies at an open-air market in Buenos Aires, for $150 each.  He took them to the vet, who informed him they were actually ferrets.  Steroid-enhanced ferrets, to make them as big as puppies.  With teased hair that would make 1980s heavy metal band jealous.  Seriously, do these look like poodle puppies?