PO BAG 1: destroy

22 June 2018

In India, rats have a $19,000 meal

In this Nov. 13, 2016 file photo, an Indian holds 2000 rupee currency notes in Jammu, India. Police say at least one rat slipped through a hole in the back of an ATM in northeastern India and ate more than $19,000 in currency.

It was a cash machine heist with a difference: The attackers were hungry rodents.

At least one rat slipped through a hole in the back of an ATM in northeastern India and started eating. By the time it was finished, police say more than $19,000 in bills were shredded.

When technicians arrived June 11 to fix a broken State Bank of India cash machine in the town of Tinsukia they found a dead rat inside it and Indian currency notes worth nearly 1.3 million rupees, or a little over $19,000, chewed to shreds. The rat had entered the ATM through a small hole for cables, police superintendent Mugdha Jyoti Mahanta said Friday. The notes were in 500-rupee and 2,000-rupee denominations.

21 January 2016

Only on AP: Islamic State razing of Iraq monastery condemned

In this Nov. 7, 2008 file photo, U.S. Army chaplain Geoffrey Bailey leads soldiers on a tour of St. Elijah's Monastery on Forward Operating Base Marez on the outskirts of Mosul, 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq. The oldest Christian monastery in Iraq, St. Elijah’s stood as a place of worship for 1,400 years. Satellite photos obtained by The Associated Press confirm that the monastery in Iraq has been reduced to a field of rubble, yet another victim of the Islamic State's relentless destruction.

The Obama Administration and the Vatican condemned the Islamic State group Wednesday for razing Iraq's oldest Christian monastery, a 1400-year-old structure that survived assaults by nature and man for centuries before it was deliberately destroyed by extremists.

At the United Nations, UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova said reducing St. Elijah's monastery in Mosul to a field of rubble was malicious and misguided. The Associated Press confirmed the news with exclusive satellite images published early Wednesday.