Is there nothing Aussie pop queen Kylie Minogue can't do? In the last couple of months, the singing superwoman has received the Order of Arts and Letters in France and the OBE in England and brought her infectious dance-pop to audiences across Europe on a sold-out tour, and now she's apparently halted a suicide!

A radical protester who calls himself The Ninja Ant was arrested in London for illegal possession of a knife, and in court yesterday he declared that he was about to stab himself to death as a protest against the war in Iraq. According to the Ant, though, his suicidal plan was unexpectedly foiled when a Kylie tune came on his MP3 player and he was rendered incapable of following through. "How can anyone be violent when they hear Kylie's music?" was the crazed campaigner's rhetorical question to the court. The court declined to pursue theories about whether the outcome would have been different if the Ninja Ant had heard a song from the new Madonna album instead.