A learning support teacher from north London has resigned from his job to become the deputy prime minister of Somalia.
Mohamed Ibrahim, 64, was working at Newman Catholic College when he received the call during the summer holidays to take up the appointment.
Mr Ibrahim has also been asked to act as the minister for foreign affairs in the new UN-supported government, which controls Mogadishu but very little else of the country.
Wishing his member of staff "good fortune", Richard Kolka, the headmaster of the school, said he was "awestruck" by the appointment.
Now he's Tasty Feet
A penguin named Happy Feet after he washed up on a New Zealand beach is feared to have been eaten after being returned to the wild in the Antarctic.
A tracking device attached to the bird has stopped transmitting, with a hungry killer whale or shark the mostly likely suspect.
Happy Feet was nursed back to health after he was found starving thousands of kilometres from home this year.
A decision was made to send the Emperor penguin home rather than keep him at Wellington Zoo. The tracking device had been working perfectly and was due to detach itself in January.
Scientists say there is a slight chance the monitor may have come off by accident but fear the worst.
Supersize my seat
After reaching a weight of 132kg, a man in New York is suing a hamburger chain for damages because he says its seats are too small for someone of his weight.
Martin Kessman, 64, says his local branch of White Castle has gone back on a promise to cater for larger customers.
He claims the small seats violate both his civil rights and disability laws. Mr Kessman added: "I just want to sit down like a normal person."
I, the jury
Days before he was due to appear in court on a charge of murder, a New York man received an official jury summons to his own trial.
Derrick Smith told a judge at Schenectady County court that he would be happy to serve as a juror on his trial for the killing of a man in a bar fight, and insisted that he would be fair and impartial.
He was not, however, invited to serve.
Pick up, pick up, pick up …
After calling her ex-boyfriend 65,000 times in a year, a 42-year-old woman from Amsterdam is to be charged with stalking.
Dutch police raided the woman's home and recovered a number of mobile phones and computers.
She told a court that given the nature of her relationship with the 62-year-old man, calling him on average 170 times a day was not excessive.
The court disagreed and ordered her not to contact him again.
