Walking around on the beach is usually only dangerous if a giant wave attacks or a shark decides to walk on land, but in slightly scary North Korea things can be a bit different.
Tourists from South Korea are allowed to travel to two tightly guarded spots in North Korea, one of them being the mountain resort of Mount Keumgang. Over the weekend a 53-year-old South Korean woman was shot dead there by a North Korean soldier because she crossed the boundary line of the resort during a walk on the beach.
Some sources say she ran towards her hotel once the guards approached her, while others say she was walking deep into the prohibited zone. Whatever the case, it's a reminder that although they can do some incredible crowd choreography, those North Koreans can be a really sinister bunch.
National Park travel is one of our favorite topics around here, but unfortunately the most recent news isn't about a new park, secret location or exciting tour. It's about those looking to return to nature in the parks by taking their own lives.
This year alone, 18 people have wandered into parks across America with no intention of going home. The Everglades, Cape Cod and Olympic National Parks have all been home to recent suicides.
Although it's a little morbid to say, there's really no place better to once again join the earth. Al Nash, a spokesman for Yellowstone, agrees:
There are some individuals who feel it's important to have that kind of connection in those final moments.
Some suicides are more violent than others, but some people simply wander off into the wilderness. Many park rangers have been trained in suicide prevention and are even instructed to look for notes taped to steering wheels as clues. The most popular place for suicides? Grand Canyon National Park, where 10 people have killed themselves since 2004.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has reached a settlement with the company behind the gruesome "Bodies" exhibition at the South Street Seaport in NYC, requiring them to disclose to visitors that the dead people they have on display could be
Chinese prisoners who may have been victims of torture and execution.
The settlement also requires Premiere Exhibitions--the company behind the show--to issue refunds to anyone who can prove that they paid to see the "Bodies" exhibit in New York and would've skipped it if they knew the people they were ogling might not have consented to being put on display.
Al Gore never warned us about this: The scary rise in shark attacks--there have already been four fatal ones this year, compared to 1 in all of 2007--is due to global warming, scientists say.
It's not that the sharks get ornery when they have to put the A/C on. But as temperatures rise, more people head to the water, and thus put themselves at risk of being attacked by a shark. Dr. George Burgess of the University of Florida tells the Guardian:
As long as we have an increase in human hours in the water, we will have an increase in shark bites.
Other pressures on sharks include overfishing (which drives the predators to seek prey outside their normal hunting areas) and seal overpopulation.
Find out if your favorite beach is about to become the next "Jaws" movie with our Killer Beaches 2008 map.
Have your summer beach trip all lined up? Hope you're not headed to one of this year's Killer Beaches, where for one reason or another, you're in danger the second you set foot on the sand.
From shark attacks to rip currents, the beaches that follow aren't necessarily deadly--but they can be. We've mapped 'em out so if you're still planning your getaway, you'll know which spots to avoid.
In "Rainman," Dustin Hoffman famously said that Australia's national carrier Qantas was his preferred airline because he considered it the safest: "Qantas never crashed." Not 100 percent true but certainly in the last 57 years, no passenger has died as a result of a crash involving the carrier.
Unfortunately, the same can't be said of Qantas staff. A catering employee involved in loading meals onto a Qantas aircraft in Brisbane yesterday fell through a gap in the airbridge and died after hitting the tarmac.
The victim was a 63-year-old woman and nobody's sure if she was wearing the safety harness that's usually required up there. In any case, it doesn't make Qantas's record look so pretty, and it was just another reason for delayed flights out of Brisbane yesterday.
We've always thought that if we died on vacation we'd at least have had our last moments doing something we loved--that's much better than keeling over after a hard day at the office. But after the recent death of a passenger on an American Airlines flight, we've been reading a lot about that rather icky situation of a dead body being on a plane.
Most airlines keep their procedures for such situations secret. Keeping bodies in a confined space like the bathroom is a no-no, so finding a spot where the least amount of passengers are affected is key. That's tricky on a plane, of course, where every bit of space is utilized in the most efficient way.
But don't worry too much. Experts say that we have just a 1 in 7,600,000 chance of dying on board a plane, so there are also long odds of being on a plane when it happens. We have warned you before to travel prepared, with a note stating what you want done with your remains, so perhaps before your next flight you can write down your request to be moved into first class. For some of us, that might be the only time we get to fly there.
When it comes to haunted travel, maybe the traditional sights are best. If only Joerg Reichter had read up on our recommendations before passing out on a train ride between Bad Segeberg and Hamburg.
Feeling the effects of a booze-fueled Halloween party, Reichter nodded off on the train, which normally wouldn't be a problem--except he was still decked out in his fake-blood-soaked zombie costume. Some passengers took him for dead and called the cops. A police spokesperson explained:
His costume made him look like the victim of a serious assault as he appeared to be bleeding from the face and hands, and worried passengers called us up. Our officers realized what had happened and woke him up. They got him to take the fake blood and wounds off so there would be no more misunderstandings.
At least Reichter's fellow passengers were looking out for him. In Italy, no one on the trains bats an eye even if you're actually dead.
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by amandak
