Mobile mourner

Tokyo, Feb. 16 (Reuters): Japan’s obsession with camera-equipped mobile phones has taken a bizarre twist, with mourners at funerals now using the devices to capture a final picture of the deceased.

“I get the sense that people no longer respect the dead. It’s disturbing,” a funeral director told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.

At one ceremony several people gathered round the coffin and took out their phones to photograph the corpse as preparations were made to begin a cremation, she was quoted as saying.

Wall watch

Beijing (Reuters): Beijing has called up a team of dedicated Great Wall monitors to protect it from damage from tourists, the China Daily said on Thursday. The Great Wall receives an estimated 10 million visitors a year. All that traffic has taken a heavy toll on the structure, prompting the move to employ local villagers to keep watch.

Dodgy box

London (Reuters): Lifeboats and a helicopter scoured the sea to track down an electronic distress signal ? only for coastguards to discover it came from a British pensioner’s faulty digital television box on dry land.