Thursday, January 28, 2016

Headhunter Rumors (Borneo, 2016)




The Borneo Post
27 January 2016


BINTULU: Police have opened two investigation papers in connection with the fake ‘apai nyamun’ postings which went viral in the social media recently.

The postings claimed that a few longhouse residents in Bintulu, Tatau and Mukah had been snatched in two separate incidents for their heads and organs which would be sold. […]


The Borneo Post
28 January 2016


MARUDI: Following rumours spread through the social media, two primary school teachers lodge two police reports that a stranger, feared to be a ‘penyamun’ (head hunter, had entered Rumah Man, a longhouse in Sg Bakas, Beluru, in which they rented a house. […]


The Borneo Post
29 January 2016


Jacqueline Raphael

MIRI: Miri police chief DSP Junaidi Bujang warns Mirians to stop spreading rumours that can cause unnecessary panic and chaos among members of the public here.

The warning came after two car thieves who were mistaken for ‘headhunters’ were badly beaten up by over 50 villagers in an incident which took place at Batu Niah several days ago.

“The men were badly beaten up and badly injured in the incident because the villagers thought they were head and organ hunters. But they were just car thieves who had just stolen a Kancil.

“They caught up with a group of villagers while running away from the police, and this group beat them up. They managed to escape from the group and ran back to the police who immediately arrested them,” he said. […]

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Taxi Drivers Report Ghost Passengers in Area Devasted by Tsunami (Japan)




Asahi Shimbun [Japan]
21 January 2016


By HIDEAKI ISHIBASHI/ Senior Staff Writer

SENDAI--In early summer 2011, a taxi driver working in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, which had been devastated by the tsunami a few months earlier, had a mysterious encounter.

A woman who was wearing a coat climbed in his cab near Ishinomaki Station. The woman directed him, “Please go to the Minamihama (district).” The driver, in his 50s, asked her, “The area is almost empty. Is it OK?” Then, the woman said in a shivering voice, “Have I died?”

Surprised at the question, the driver looked back at the rear seat. No one was there.

A Tohoku Gakuin University senior majoring in sociology included the encounter in her graduation thesis, in which seven taxi drivers reported carrying "ghost passengers" following the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. […]

The seven drivers' accounts cannot be easily dismissed as simple illusions. That is because if a passenger climbed in their taxi, the driver started the meter, which is recorded.

If the passengers were indeed "ghosts," they were still counted as riders. As a result, the drivers were forced to pay their fares.

Some of the seven drivers jotted down their experiences in their logs. One showed his driver’s report, which noted that there was a fare that went unpaid.

As the "ghosts" the drivers encountered were all youthful, it is believed they could be the spirits of victims of the 2011 disaster. […]

Hamburgers Don't Rot After 15 Weeks (Dubai)




Emirates 24/7
20 January 2016

No truth in ‘100-day burger’ rumours on social media

By Staff

Dubai Municipality’s Food Safety Department has clarified that social media rumours about burgers, allegedly sold at a popular fast food chain, that don’t rot after 15 weeks is not accurate. […]