Torched: late train

Buenos Aires, Sept. 7 (Reuters): Furious rail commuters in Argentina set fire to a train recently in anger over delays during the morning rush hour.

Television images showed black smoke and flames engulfing the train at the station of Merlo, in the western suburbs of the capital, Buenos Aires. At nearby Castelar, passengers hurled stones at the ticket office and blocked the rails. Many passengers said the delays, caused by a broken down train, had cost them a day’s work. Argentina’s dilapidated rail services are plagued by delays and travellers’ anger sometimes erupts into violence.

Hood-lums

Athens (Reuters): Greek anarchists recently stormed a supermarket and handed out food for free in the latest of a wave of raids provoked by soaring consumer prices. About 20 unarmed people, mostly wearing black hoods, carried out the midday robbery in the northern city of Thesaaloniki. Local media have labelled the raiders “Robin Hoods” following previous raids. They take only packets of pasta, rice and cartons of milk which they drop in the middle of the street for people to collect, a police officer said.

Audacious

London: A businessman has hit out at an Audi garage after he discovered that his car had been taken for 27 joyrides while there for a service, reports The Sunday Telegraph. Mark Reece had taken his £50,000 estate car into a registered Audi garage in Bexley, south east London, for a routine service. But when he got it back a tiny security device attached to his car, which records every journey it takes, revealed that it had been driven 27 times since he took it in. The tracker also showed that on several of these occasions the car had been driven at twice the speed limit.