Bonjour Planet Earth: October 2008

Friday, October 31, 2008

Pakistan: police stop wedding of 7 year-old-boy to 5 year-old-girl...

THE Muslim wedding of a seven-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl has been raided by police.

Cops arrested the Muslim cleric conducting the sick ceremony and the children’s parents in Pakistan’s largest city.

The cleric had not yet begun the ceremony of Mohammad Waseem, seven, and his bride Nishain Karachi, five – which was attended by 100 guests.

Pakistan law forbids marriage below the age of 18 – but some Muslim scholars say it is permissible if the bride and groom have reached puberty.

TV footage showed both children in traditional wedding clothes in the laps of policemen after the raid – the girl with tears running down her cheeks. More...

See also:

The world watches as the Congo bleeds...

DR Congo: all hell breaks loose... Where's the U.N.? Where's Bono? Where's the bailout?

The UN refugee agency says it has credible reports camps sheltering 50,000 refugees in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have been destroyed.

Reports suggest the camps were forcibly emptied and looted before being burned.

Aid groups say they are struggling to reach an estimated 250,000 people in the region fleeing fierce fighting between government and rebel forces.

(...)

Food and water are terribly scarce, and aid agencies have all but stopped work.

The BBC's Orla Guerin witnessed scenes of chaos at a refugee camp in Kibati on the outskirts as Goma, as desperately hungry people stampeded.

Children were trampled underfoot and panicked aid staff were forced to beat back the heaving crowd. More +video...

See also:

Better protection for airline passengers against ticketing agents?

Airline passengers will no longer face hidden extras when booking flights online as new rules come into force.

They will benefit from new rules compelling carriers to quote fully inclusive ticket prices - including taxes and charges - on their websites and newspaper advertising.

The regulations have been introduced by the European Union amid complaints that some carriers have tried to lure passengers with low headline prices, before adding extras to the cost of the ticket during the booking process.

Now all unavoidable charges - from airport fees and local taxes - will be the first figure a passenger sees.

These changes follow a 15-country study carried out by the European Commission into what it regarded as misleading advertising and unfair practices on airline websites. More...

See also:

"Who killed our children?" asks Chinese director in Sichuan quake documentary...

A Chinese director hopes his documentary about the deaths of hundreds of children in the collapse of a shoddily built school during the Sichuan earthquake will provoke answers, but he doesn't expect any soon.

The devastating May tremor in southwest China killed 80,000 people. Many were children who had been napping or were at their desks in schools that crumbled while other buildings stood firm.

China vowed to punish those responsible after aggrieved parents blamed their children's deaths on substandard construction stemming from corruption and greed. No prosecutions have been reported yet and families have been pressured into dropping their complaints against local officials. More...

See also:

Clinton is helping Obama; why isn't Bush helping McCain?

Iraqis need clean water badly...

Millions of people in Iraq are at risk of disease because of inadequate health care, water and sanitation services, the international Red Cross warned Wednesday.

"Far too many Iraqis still have no choice but to drink dirty water and live in insalubrious conditions," said Juan-Pedro Schaerer, the head of delegation for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Iraq.

"This leads to more sick people seeking treatment in a health-care system already stretched to the limit," he said in a statement.

The ICRC noted that around 40 percent of Iraqis, mostly people living in suburbs and rural areas, are not connected to a water network, and must thus either buy water at a cost of around 50 US cents (40 euro cents) for 10 litres, or collect it from often polluted rivers or wells if they cannot afford it. More... Watch the video here...

See also:

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Israel's "modesty patrols" and the law...

The young woman exudes strength and independence. But she bears the sign of a head fracture and scars on her face. One night, a few months ago, men broke into her apartment through the front door. They beat her up and humiliated her, knocking her head against the floor. They threatened to tear gas her if she tried to interfere with their rummaging through her possessions. And they left her bleeding on the floor.

To whom could she go for help? Her family turned its back on her when she chose to divorce her ultra-Orthodox husband; her children were taken away from her; and the neighbors in her building cold shoulder her. Now it transpires that the authorities can't help either. The investigation that began with a great deal of media fuss, has ended in failure. That, of course, took place far from the public eye. More...

See also:

When Hollywood makes you feel guilty for not voting...

Sarkozy and his voodoo doll!! Hilarious!

There is never any respite with Nicolas Sarkozy. When France's president is not touring the world to save it, he's threatening to sue journalists or publishers for lèse majesté. Unlike any French president before him, he hasn't understood that universal suffrage has elevated him above all parties and trite bickering. In fact, Nicolas Sarkozy remains what he always was: a business lawyer. Little did he expect though, when he sued a publisher for commercialising a voodoo doll representing him, that a judge would rebuke his demand.

A French judge decided that "this unauthorised representation of Nicolas Sarkozy's image does not degrade his human dignity and cannot be considered as a personal attack. Nor does it represent a violation of his rights over his image." Described by the judge as "une oeuvre de l'esprit", the voodoo doll "is in line with what is allowed under the freedom of speech and the rights to humour … Nobody can fail to see that this doll doesn't promote voodooism as practised in the West Indies. A judge doesn't have to appreciate of the good or bad taste of such concept."More...

See also:

Pakistan on the brink of bankruptcy...

President Asif Ali Zardari's government needs about £3 billion to avoid defaulting on outstanding debts. So far, a tour of friendly capitals by Shaukat Tareen, the country's senior finance official, has failed to raise this sum.

Although Mr Tareen has visited both America and China - Pakistan's two key allies - a bail-out on a sufficient scale has not yet been agreed. Moody's, the international ratings agency, has downgraded Pakistan's standing.

The country's allies, including Britain, will be joining a "friends of Pakistan" meeting in Abu Dhabi next month when more aid might be agreed. In the meantime, Mr Tareen is believed to be seeking immediate help from the IMF. More...

See also:

What happened to the bailout(taxpayer) money given to the banks?

According to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the chief proponent of the big bank bailout, flooding the banks with taxpayers’ money was supposed to get them to start lending freely again. And that, in turn, was supposed to stabilize the markets and prevent the downturn from being worse than it otherwise would be.

It was not entirely clear from the start exactly how Mr. Paulson would ensure that things would go that way. Indeed, earlier this month, shortly after the bailout was enacted, The Times’s Mark Landler reported that Treasury officials also wanted to steer the bailout billions to banks that would use the money to buy up other banks.

Now, lo and behold, with $250 billion in bailout funds committed to dozens of large and regional banks, it turns out that many of the recipients of this investment from taxpayers are not all that interested in making loans. And it appears that Mr. Paulson is not so bothered by their reluctance. More...

See also:

There goes my hero...

As the DR of Congo crashes into chaos...

Congolese government forces are fleeing the eastern capital of Goma as Rwandan-backed rebels press towards the town, threatening a lethal confrontation with United Nations peacekeepers and the prospect of all out regional war.

Western aid workers in Goma, with a population of 600,000, described scenes of mayhem in the streets as columns of government tanks and military vehicles streamed out of the city and panicking civilians fled for cover, fearing an imminent rebel onslaught.

“There is absolute panic,” Karl Steinacker, an official with the UN refugee agency told The Times by telephone this afternoon. “As of ten minutes ago, the war has arrived in the streets. There are columns of army running away. They are basically abandoning the city.” More...

See also:

Spanish racists target Lewis Hamilton with voodoo-style attacks...

Lewis Hamilton has again been targeted by Spanish racists in the build-up to this weekend’s title-deciding Brazilian Grand Prix.

World governing body the FIA and Hamilton’s McLaren team have been quick to condemn a mindless "voodoo-style" website aimed at wrecking Hamilton’s championship dreams.

The 23-year-old goes into Sunday’s showdown needing only to finish in the top five at Interlagos to become the youngest champion in Formula One history.

But ahead of the race, racism is again threatening to overshadow the event as hundreds of abusive messages have been posted on a website in Spain.

The website carries the name "Pincha la Rueda de Hamilton", which translates as "Burst Hamilton’s Tyre".

Visitors to the site - 20,000 to date - are encouraged to drop imaginary nails, pins or porcupines on a mock-up of the Interlagos circuit. More...

See also:

Beatles become alive again in new video game...

SURVIVING members of The Beatles announced today that their songs will take on new lives in a videogame that lets people pretend to be the world-changing 1960s British rockers.

MTV Games is having the game developed by US studio Harmonix, the maker of the hot-selling Rock Band videogame in which players using mock instruments as controllers win by keeping in tune with music and on-screen note cues.

MTV Games didn't reveal details of the yet-to-be-completed Beatles game but says it will be "an unprecedented, experiential progression through" the band's music.

"The project is a fun idea which broadens the appeal of The Beatles and their music," Sir Paul McCartney said. "I like people having the opportunity to get to know the music from the inside out."

The game will mark the first time the iconic band's music is featured in a videogame. More...

See also:

America catches a cold and everyone else shivers...

The US economy slipped into the early stages of a recession, official figures showed, adding to growing fears of a global recession over the next year.

The figures, however, failed to deter another day of modest recoveries in stock markets and commodity prices around the world – many of which were buoyed by Wednesday's cut in interest rates by the US central bank, the Federal Reserve.

Economic growth in America fell by 0.3 per cent between June and September – after rising by 2.8 per cent during the previous three months.

Consumer spending, which makes up two-thirds of the US economy, shrank by 3.1 per cent, the first contraction since 1991.

The US does not use the common definition of a recession as two quarters of negative GDP growth but relies upon a body called the National Bureau of Economic Research to rule on the extent of any downturn.

The deteriorating economic situation is having a profound effect on the Presidential race – with John McCain's dwindling popularity in states such as Michigan and Indiana blamed on his lacklustre response to the financial crisis. More...

See also:

Eunoia, the book that uses only one-vowel chapters! Wow!

Eunoia is the shortest word in English containing all five vowels - and it means "beautiful thinking". It is also the title of Canadian poet Christian Bok's book of fiction in which each chapter uses only one vowel.

Mr Bok believes his book proves that each vowel has its own personality, and demonstrates the flexibility of the English language. Below are extracts from each chapter. More...

See also:

You can vote however you like...

Indonesia passes anti-porn bill...

Indonesia's parliament has passed an anti-pornography law despite furious opposition to it.

Islamic parties said the law was needed to protect women and children against exploitation and to curb increasing immorality in Indonesian society.

The law would ban images, gestures or talk deemed to be pornographic.

Artists, women's groups and non-Muslim minorities said they could be victimised under the law and that traditional practices could be banned.

The law has prompted protests across Indonesia, but particularly on the predominantly Hindu island of Bali - a favourite destination for tourists. More...

See also:

Josef Fritzl: I bricked up my mother in a sealed room...

Incest dad Josef Fritzl has admitted he kept his own mother bricked up in a sealed room until she died to extract revenge for the years of abuse he claims he received at her hands.

He made the astonishing revelations in one of a series of meetings he had with a woman psychologist preparing an expert report in advance of his trial set to take place in February.

He told Adelheid Kastner that he had tried very hard to love his mother but as he grew older that love had turned to hatred and he had extracted revenge.

He said: 'She raised me unknown but I never had any love from her. She used to beat me, hit me until I was lying in a pool of blood on the floor. It left me feeling totally humiliated and weak.' More...

See also:

If voting is a civic duty, how about NOT voting?

Web giants to combat Internet censorship abroad?

Should U.S. businesses involved in Internet commerce do business in nations governed by oppressive regimes? This is a question that many libertarians—including some of us on TLF—have grappled with for some time.

Now Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft have signed on to a set of principles for conducting business in countries that disregard human rights. Today’s Wall Street Journal reports:

Under the new principles, which were crafted over two years, the technology titans promise to protect the personal information of their users wherever they do business and to “narrowly interpret and implement government demands that compromise privacy,” according to the code.

It’s welcome news for defenders of liberty that U.S. Web giants plan to play hardball with foreign governments who would use information gleaned from Internet firms to violate their citizens’ human rights. Several troubling reports have surfaced in the past few years about American companies abetting egregious actions by oppressive governments. More...

See also:

La presse US vote Obama ...

Depuis le début de la bataille John McCain-Barack Obama, de nombreux médias américains ont fait preuve d'un véritable engouement pour Barack Obama. A quelques jours de l'élection, le magazine Editor Publisher recense pas moins de 134 quotidiens ayant pris parti pour le candidat démocrate, contre 52 pour son rival républicain. Si certains soutiens étaient attendus - celui du New York Times, par exemple - d'autres sont plus surprenants. Ainsi, le Chicago Tribune n'avait jamais préféré un démocrate depuis sa création en 1847.

(...)

Barack Obama a également profité de ses talents d'orateur. Considéré par certains comme le meilleur dans cet exercice depuis John Kennedy, et parfois comparé à Martin Luther King, le candidat métis a su passionner les foules et ranimer l'espoir. Le progressiste Los Angeles Time a notamment marqué sa préférence "sans retenue" pour un homme qu'il juge "cultivé, éloquent, sobre et excitant, constant et mature". Un argument repris par le Britannique et néanmoins très respecté Financial Times, qui a officialisé lundi son soutien au sénateur de l'Illinois, "le meilleur orateur politique que le pays ait connu depuis des décennies". Le quotidien économique a également été séduit par une campagne "superbement menée". Suite...

Voir aussi:

Goldman Sachs ready to hand out £7bn salary and bonus package... after its £6bn bail-out!!!

Goldman Sachs is on course to pay its top City bankers multimillion-pound bonuses - despite asking the U.S. government for an emergency bail-out.

The struggling Wall Street bank has set aside £7billion for salaries and 2008 year-end bonuses, it emerged yesterday.

Each of the firm's 443 partners is on course to pocket an average Christmas bonus of more than £3million.

The size of the pay pool comfortably dwarfs the £6.1billion lifeline which the U.S. government is throwing to Goldman as part of its £430billion bail-out.

As Washington pours money into the bank, the cash will immediately be channelled to Goldman's already well-heeled employees.

News of the firm's largesse will revive the anger over the 'rewards for failure' culture endemic in the world of high finance. More...

See also:

Against Me! and "Baby I'm An Anarchist"

Censure : un code de conduite pour les géants du Web???

Les multinationales de la technologie et d'Internet contre la censure ! L'affiche est belle puisqu'elle associe Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, à des organisations de défense des droits de l'homme comme Human Rights Watch et des universitaires. Elle mérite qu'on s'y arrête, même si une bonne dose de scepticisme reste de mise.

(...)

L'affaire Shi Tao avait suscité un tollé considérable aux Etats-Unis, y compris au Congrès américain devant laquelle le fondateur de Yahoo, Jerry Yang, avait dû s'expliquer. Le président de la Commission avait alors lancé aux dirigeants de Yahoo :

"Vous êtes sans doute des géants technologiques, mais vous êtes de pygmées sur le plan moral."

(...)

"Cette initiative est basée sur le fait qu'il n'existe pas un seul pays au monde -y compris les Etats-Unis- où les gouvernements ne font pas pression sur les sociétés de télécom ou Internet, afin de les amener à faire des choses qui violent leur droit à la protection de leurs données ou à leur liberté d'expression." Article complet...

Voir aussi:

Syria: outrage over US raids...

Souad Khousaim lay very still on her hospital bed and in a quiet voice wracked with pain told me she was one of the innocent victims of Sunday's raid by US special forces.

"I went outside to get my son and the Americans shot me," she says. "They were very close, five metres away. I was screaming, terrified."

Her husband was among the seven Syrian men who died, but hospital officials have not told her this yet.

The US military sent troops 8km (five miles) into Syria, to the village of Sukkiraya, to take action which they hope will help shut down al-Qaeda's secret pipeline into Iraq for men, weapons and money.

The mission was to capture or kill, Abu Ghadiya, an Iraqi-born al-Qaeda cell leader the US says has helped to bring thousands of jihadist fighters across the border. More...

See also:

China: after melamine milk, it's now melamine eggs...

Three more Chinese brands of chicken's eggs have been found to contain high levels of the chemical melamine.

Tests in Hong Kong first revealed dangerously high levels of the substance in eggs from a mainland supplier earlier this week.

Officials were reportedly aware of the contamination a month earlier.

The growing scandal follows the discovery of melamine in Chinese milk, which has killed four children, and triggered product recalls across Asia.

Like the milk scandal before it, the contamination of China's egg supply appears to be far more widespread than first realised.

And as before, it seems that local officials on the mainland attempted to cover up news of the contamination. More...

See also:

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Clever cat stealing peanuts!!!

Voici un chat bien malin!!!

Indian call centre dude takes revenge after being criticised!!!

Telephoning a bank's call centre can be a frustrating experience.

And after he was finally put through to a 'rude' and 'arrogant' operator, George Bates felt justified in making a complaint.

Taking part in a follow-up survey to monitor customer satisfaction, the 23-year-old made clear his opinion of the call centre employee - who took revenge by putting all of Mr Bates' finances on hold.

When he contacted the bank later that day, the self-employed carpenter was unable to access his account for 'security reasons'.

He then visited his local branch and was horrified to discover his identity had been swapped to that of a Ugandan divorcee ten years his senior.

Mr Bates also discovered his overdraft facility had been withdrawn and several direct debits had been cancelled - landing him with £60 in charges. More...

See also:

The slaves the world forgot. No, not the African slaves...

They came as slaves; vast human cargo transported on tall British ships bound for the Americas. They were shipped by the hundreds of thousands and included men, women, and even the youngest of children.

Whenever they rebelled or even disobeyed an order, they were punished in the harshest ways. Slave owners would hang their human property by their hands and set their hands or feet on fire as one form of punishment. They were burned alive and had their heads placed on pikes in the marketplace as a warning to other captives.

We don’t really need to go through all of the gory details, do we? After all, we know all too well the atrocities of the African slave trade. But, are we talking about African slavery?

King James II and Charles I led a continued effort to enslave the Irish. Britain’s famed Oliver Cromwell furthered this practice of dehumanizing one’s next door neighbor. More...

See also:

The world would vote overwhelmingly for Barack Obama...

Le monde voterait largement pour Barack Obama...

“Georgian soldiers were doped to kill civilians”

Many of the Georgian soldiers who took part in the attack on South Ossetia in August were drugged before going into combat, according to a Moscow-based human rights group.

On Monday in New York the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights (MBHR) presented a book of photos and testimonies from the war.

MBHR Director Aleksandr Brod said Ossetian witnesses reported many of the captured Georgians had numerous injection markings on their arms.

He suggested they “would not dare to burn women and children alive locked in churches or throw grenades into basements where people were hiding unless they were drugged.” More...

See also:

FC Barcelona comes to the aid of a Moroccan teen jailed for insulting the king...

The father of an 18-year-old Moroccan student who was sentenced to 18 months in jail for insulting the country's king is seeking a royal pardon on his son's behalf.

Yassine Belassal began his prison sentence for "breach of due respect to the king" on Monday. He has the opportunity to appeal the sentence on Wednesday.

Belassal was asked by his teacher to write Morocco's motto, "God, country, king," on his classroom's blackboard in September.

Belassal substituted his allegiance to King Mohamed VI with "Barca," a reference to his favourite soccer team, Spanish squad FC Barcelona.

The switch of words angered his teacher and school director, who called the police and had the teenager arrested. He was later sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Morocco's media have heavily criticized Belassal's imprisonment.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information has also denounced the decision to sentence Belassal. More...

See also:

The fish that was operated for ... hernia!!!

Carla the fish has had a life-saving operation after developing a hernia.

The 10-inch-long angelfish was laid out on an operating table while a vet and two assistants carried out the unusual surgery.

After being anaesthatised the exotic fish had a tube placed in her mouth and water pumped through her body and out her gills to enable her to breathe.

Vet Sue Thornton repaired the stomach condition using a scalpel, a needle and forceps during the £500 operation.

After being stitched up and brought round the plucky fish was kept under close observation before she went on to make a full recovery. More...

See also:

La poupée vaudou de Nicolas Sarkozy reste en vente...

La poupée vaudou de Nicolas Sarkozy n'est finalement pas retirée de la vente. La justice a tranché aujourd’hui en faveur des Editions K&B qui commercialisent depuis le 9 octobre le Manuel Vaudou de Nicolas Sarkozy. Malgré la plainte déposée par le Président pour violation de son droit à l’image, la poupée vaudou restera en rayon.

La figurine satirique du Président reste en vente! Le tribunal de grande instance de Paris a rendu son verdict cette après-midi après la plainte déposée par Nicolas Sarkozy pour atteinte à son droit à l'image. La justice s'oppose ainsi au retrait du Manuel Vaudou.

Proposant un grand nombre de sortilèges magiques, une biographie, et une poupée que l’on peut piquer de 12 aiguilles pour les «empêcher de causer davantage de dommages», les poupées vaudou des deux candidats aux présidentielles de 2007 ont fait fureur. Suite...

Voir aussi:

If you don't like a book, don't read it; why get it banned so others can't read it?

John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men is on high school reading lists across the country. But the classic novel occasionally appears on another list as well — of books that some parents want pulled from shelves because of vulgar language, sexual content or some other reason.

Every year, public libraries and schools across the country collectively field hundreds of requests from parents, public officials and activists pressing for the removal of books they deem inappropriate. That includes literary classics, human sexuality manuals and, occasionally, even the dictionary, according to the American Library Association.

The American Library Association has logged more than 9,600 requests to remove books from library shelves, summer reading lists and school classrooms since 1990. The actual number is considerably higher, association officials say, because most challenges are handled quietly. More...

See also:

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights...

British woman loses challenge over assisted suicide...

A British woman who suffers from multiple sclerosis lost a legal challenge over whether her husband could be prosecuted if he helps her to commit suicide.

Wheelchair-bound Debbie Purdy, 45, launched the case earlier this month, asking the High Court in London to clarify the law on assisted suicide as her health is rapidly deteriorating.

But Lord Justice Scott Baker said overnight that the law was clear, and while he had sympathy for Ms Purdy only parliament could change the law.

"We cannot leave this case without expressing great sympathy for Ms Purdy, her husband and others in a similar position who wish to know in advance whether they will face prosecution," said Justice Baker. More...

See also:

Somalia: woman stoned to death for adultery. And the man she slept with?

A woman of 23 accused of adultery has been stoned to death by Somali Islamists.

She was placed in a hole up to her neck for the execution in front of hundreds of people in the port of Kismayu, which Islamist insurgents captured in August. When a relative and others surged forward, guards opened fire, killing a child.

Stones were hurled at her head, and she was brought out of the hole three times to see if she had died.

'A woman in green veil and black mask was brought in a car as we waited to watch the merciless act of stoning,' one local resident, Abdullahi Aden, told Reuters.

'We were told she submitted herself to be punished, yet we could see her screaming as she was forcefully bound, legs and hands. A relative of hers ran towards her, but the Islamists opened fire and killed a child.' More...

See also:

Le FC Barcelone demande la grâce royale pour un lycéen marocain...

Le club de football catalan se propose ainsi comme médiateur dans cette affaire, pour tâcher de faire sortir le lycéen de prison. Rappel des faits : L'incident est arrivé dans la localité marocaine d'Aït Ourir, où le jeune Yassine, 18 ans, a écrit sur le tableau de son école « Dieu, la Patrie, le Barça ». Une transgression du « symbole » national, qui n'a pas été du goût du directeur de l'école. Ce dernier s'est empressé de le dénoncer à la gendarmerie.

Associations de droits de l'homme et société civile dénoncent l'abus et la disproportion du verdict. Le FC Barcelone, indirectement impliqué par le cas, « travaille sur l'affaire depuis quelques jours avec l'idée de réunir toute information possible pour intercéder en faveur de la libération du jeune homme marocain », rapporte El Mundo, suite à une déclaration de Juan Laporta, président du club de football catalan. Suite...

Voir aussi:

Cirque du Soleil - La Nouba acrobatics. Wow!

The top 10 internet-censoring countries. Shame on you...

When the World Wide Web was created in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee (not to be confused with the Internet itself, which is the core network developed many years earlier), its main objective was to enable the free exchange of information via interlinked hypertext documents.

Almost 20 years later, that objective has been accomplished on most parts of the world, but not in all of them. Some countries are trying hard to keep an iron hand over the flow of information that takes place on the Web. Below you will find the most controversial ones.

(...)

Discovering that countries like Iran or Yemen are censoring the web is not a big surprise. Most forms of independent media are already restricted there, and their levels of human rights are among the lowest in the world.

But what if we told you that Australia, one of the richest countries in the world, is also trying to censor websites inside its borders? Now that is scary! Full story...

See also:

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Windows 7 borrows from OS X, avoids Vista...

When it comes to Windows 7, Microsoft hasn't just learned from the mistakes of Windows Vista. It has picked-up a thing or two from Apple's OS X, judging by first impressions.

The executive leading Windows 7 said Tuesday that Microsoft realized it shouldn't forge ahead on Windows 7 and deliver an operating system unsupported by partners' hardware or software.

Also, Microsoft has heard that Windows Vista was a resource hog. The company is scaling down the code base and tickling up performance to run on netbooks and existing PCs - so you need to buy a replacement machine.

Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president for the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, promised we'd start to see this with the first Windows 7 beta "early next year." More...

See also:

The Pitbull, the Cat and the Chicks!!! Cool!

Le Pitbull, le Chat et les poussins!!! Wow!

Microsoft distribue une version test de Windows 7...

Les choses sérieuses commencent pour Windows 7. Le successeur de Vista a fait sa première sortie en public ce 28 octobre 2008, à l'occasion de la conférence PDC 2008 (Professional Developpers Conference), organisée par Microsoft à Los Angeles. L'éditeur en a fait une démonstration devant un parterre de développeurs et de journalistes.

Il a également annoncé que le futur Windows serait finalisé au plus tôt à la fin de l'année 2009 ou au début de 2010. Ceci étant, il a mis à disposition des participants de la PDC une « version pré-bêta technique » du système d'exploitation. La première bêta arrivera, elle, en début d'année prochaine et sera réservée aux développeurs.

Sur l'aspect graphique de Windows 7, on ne sait encore que peu de choses. La version de démonstration s'appuie pour l'essentiel sur l'interface de Vista. En revanche, Microsoft a été un peu plus disert sur les nouveautés du système. Ou du moins, sur les erreurs à ne pas reproduire, après le demi-échec de Vista. Suite...

Voir aussi:

Switzerland: teenage prostituition on the rise...

Teenage girls in Switzerland are increasingly turning to prostitution to be able to afford expensive designer goods, according to media reports.

The Swiss Child Protection Association has called for the age of consent in Switzerland to be raised from 16 to 18 in the case of prostitutes.

It warned that because the legal age for prostitution in neighbouring Germany was 21 and in France and Italy 18, Switzerland risked becoming a "paradise for tourists seeking teenage sex".

(...)

In what has become known as "label sex", more and more teenage girls in Switzerland are turning to part-time prostitution as a source of "pocket money" for designer dresses or expensive accessories.

Girls advertise online or visit upmarket clubs. One Zurich nightclub even organised a theme event – including 16-year-old guests. Full story...

See also:

Une Suissesse en Inde...

Frédérique est suisse, son mari Vinay indien. Ils se sont connus il y a un an et demi à New Delhi. Depuis quelques mois, le couple s'est installé en Inde. Pour en arriver là, ils ont dû affronter les galères administratives suisses, puis indiennes. Maintenant, leur nouvelle vie peut commencer.

Sur le bureau de Frédérique, un trousseau de clefs: on y voit accrochés un mini Taj Mahal et un ruban rouge à croix blanche. Ses deux vies, l'indienne et la suisse, qu'elle a réunies... sans y penser.

Avant d'arriver là, cette Genevoise d'origine belge a vadrouillé pendant dix ans dans des pays peu fréquentés: en Afghanistan, au Rwanda, en Erythrée, au Sri Lanka... Des missions allant de quelques mois à un an et demi comme déléguée du CICR. Mais cette fois-ci, c'est différent: elle s'installe. Suite...

Voir aussi:

Next Tuesday, Nov. the 4th., don't vote, says Lew Rockwell...

The critical problem we face today is the same one all mankind has faced: the state, those monopolists who claim the right to break the laws that they make and enforce. How to restrain them is the critical problem of all sound political thinking. Making matters worse, this gang now has a monopoly on the money and the ability to print it, and they are abusing that power at our expense.

How does voting change the situation? Neither of the candidates for president wants to do anything about the problem. On the contrary, they want to make it worse. This is for a reason. The state owns the “democratic process” as surely as it owns the Departments of Labor and Defense and uses it in ways that benefit the state and no one else.

On the other hand, we do have the freedom not to vote. No one has yet drafted us into the voting booth. I suggest that we exercise this right not to participate. It is one of the few rights we have left. Nonparticipation sends a message that we no longer believe in the racket they have cooked up for us, and we want no part of it. More...

See also:

Want to be attractive? Try wearing red...

Women who don a little red dress before going out with a man may find their date more attentive and generous, according to scientists.

The University of Rochester study, published in a psychology journal, supports other evidence linking the colour to attractiveness.

Men said they would spend more money on a woman pictured in red, compared with the same woman wearing a blue shirt.

Experts say that red signals ovulation or attractiveness in other species. More...

See also:

Sex Olympics to be held in Australia!!!

Queensland Australia (18th &19th August 2009), we are now seeking sexual athletes from all over the world to join the festivities. Medals are waiting to be claimed in various sexual disciplines. In the course of competition, we shall conclusively find out who are the best fuckers in the world! More...

See also:

Press freedom around the world: why is Iceland first and Eritrea last?

It is not economic prosperity but peace that guarantees press freedom. That is the main lesson to be drawn from the world press freedom index that Reporters Without Borders compiles every year and from the 2008 edition, released today. Another conclusion from the index - in which the bottom three rungs are again occupied by the “infernal trio” of Turkmenistan (171st), North Korea (172nd) and Eritrea (173rd) - is that the international community’s conduct towards authoritarian regimes such as Cuba (169th) and China (167th) is not effective enough to yield results.

“The post-9/11 world is now clearly drawn,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Destabilised and on the defensive, the leading democracies are gradually eroding the space for freedoms. The economically most powerful dictatorships arrogantly proclaim their authoritarianism, exploiting the international community’s divisions and the ravages of the wars carried out in the name of the fight against terrorism. Religious and political taboos are taking greater hold by the year in countries that used to be advancing down the road of freedom.” More + country index...

See also:

Chinese paper accuses U.S. of plundering world's wealth and calls for a new financial order...

The United States has plundered global wealth by exploiting the dollar's dominance, and the world urgently needs other currencies to take its place, a leading Chinese state newspaper said on Friday.

The front-page commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily said that Asian and European countries should banish the U.S. dollar from their direct trade relations for a start, relying only on their own currencies.

A meeting between Asian and European leaders, starting on Friday in Beijing, presented the perfect opportunity to begin building a new international financial order, the newspaper said.

The People's Daily is the official newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party. The Chinese-language overseas edition is a small circulation offshoot of the main paper.

Its pronouncements do not necessarily directly voice leadership views. But the commentary, as well as recent comments, amount to a growing chorus of Chinese disdain for Washington's economic policies and global financial dominance in the wake of the credit crisis. More...

See also:

Monday, October 27, 2008

Palestine soccer team plays at home before ecstatic fans...

Normally, a friendly soccer match between teams ranked 112th and 180th in the world wouldn't be much occasion for excitement.

But Sunday's face-off between the Jordanian and Palestinian national teams was far more than a soccer match. It was the first time the Palestinian side had played in the West Bank -- in effect its first actual home game after years of playing as the home team in Jordan and other neighboring Arab countries.

For the players and fans who packed into a newly built stadium, the match was a passionate display of nationalism and a welcome relief from the daily rigors of four decades of occupation.

"We're representing a nation. We're representing a flag," Palestinian coach Izzat Hamza said. "We have to defend our flag."

The outcome of the match (a 1-1 tie) seemed secondary to the mere fact that it was taking place -- and where. The stadium, which isn't finished, stands within 200 yards of a massive concrete barrier built by Israel. More...

See also:

Syria hits out at 'terrorist' US...

Syria's foreign minister has accused the US of an act of "criminal and terrorist aggression" over what it says was a helicopter raid on its territory.

Walid Muallem said Sunday's attack saw four US aircraft travel eight miles inside Syrian airspace from Iraq and kill eight unarmed civilians on a farm.

He said those who died were a father and his three children, a farm guard and his wife, and a fisherman.

The US has not confirmed or denied the alleged raid.

However, a unnamed US official was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying that its forces had mounted a "successful" raid against foreign fighters threatening US forces in Iraq.

The US has previously accused Syria of allowing militants into Iraq, but Mr Muallem insisted his country was trying to tighten border controls. More...

See also:

Oh boy! That's one awesome paw job!!!

Skinhead plot to kill Obama?

The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said Monday that it broke up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree.

In court records unsealed Monday, agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target an unnamed but predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads.

Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Nashville field office for the ATF, said the two men planned to shoot 88 black people and decapitate another 14.

The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

The men also sought to go on a national killing spree, with Obama as its final target, Cavanaugh told The Associated Press.

"They said that would be their last, final act -- that they would attempt to kill Sen. Obama," Cavanaugh said. "They didn't believe they would be able to do it, but that they would get killed trying."

Source

See also:

Celebrating Diwali away from India...

The nearest thing she could compare it to, aesthetically, was Christmas because of its theme of darkness being dispersed by light.

It’s called Diwali, but if you’re not a Hindu or of Indian descent, it probably won’t mean a thing to you, unless you live in Sharon, in which case by now you might even know its music.

That’s what Sunita Sanan, this year’s president of the Indian American Association of Sharon, was hoping to encourage in overseeing Saturday night’s 26th annual celebration of this holiday that will be officially celebrated in her homeland tomorrow.

“All of India will look like Christmas over here,” she said. “Businessmen will close their accounts to begin a new year, and diyas (small lamps) will be shining everywhere.”

They call it the festival of lights. More...

See also:

Here's one marriage that looks promising!!!

Voici un mariage qui commence bien!!!

Are phone masts causing cancer?

RESIDENTS of a West Dublin housing estate, which lies next to a phone mast, are calling on the HSE to conduct a full health assessment in the area after an apparently large number of cancer diagnoses.

Neighbours in St Ronan's Gardens, Neilstown, and leaders of Mast Action Clondalkin (MAC) are continuing to voice their concerns about the mobile phone mast which stands in their local garda station.

"We did a survey of 150 houses and 38 people in those houses had cancer," says Gino Kelly, a member of MAC. "It's a very preliminary study but we went around and asked questions."

"Now we're asking the HSE to do a proper health study. The amount of people here with cancer cannot be normal."

Earlier this month, the group expressed their outrage to the Herald when it was discovered that An Garda Siochana failed to investigate the link between the mast and the fact that nine officers in the area have suffered brain cancer.

Residents are now calling for an investigation by the health authorities into the matter. More...

See also:

Manuel Uribe,l'ex-plus gros homme de la planète s'est marié...

Le Mexicain Manuel Uribe, considéré en 2007 par le livre Guiness des records comme l'homme le plus gros de la planète, s'est marié civilement dimanche à Monterrey. La cérémonie s'est déroulée en présence de seulement deux médias qui avaient payé pour détenir l'exclusivité de l'événement.

Les portes du Club des Lions, établissement luxueux de cette ville du nord-est du Mexique, s'étaient refermées à 17h45 locales sur Manuel, sa fiancée Claudia et les équipes de la télévision américaine Discovery Channel, détentrice des droits exclusifs des images, et de la revue mexicaine TV Notas, qui a acheté le droit d'assister à la cérémonie.

Les invités avaient eu le droit d'entrer eux aussi, mais après une fouille soigneuse, pour vérifier que personne n'était porteur de caméra, appareil photo ou téléphone portable, a indiqué le porte-parole officiel d'un des témoins. Le mariage a été annoncé à l'issue de la cérémonie aux autres médias tenus à l'extérieur.

"Je n'ai jamais imaginé dans ma vie que j'allais avoir un mariage pareil", avait déclaré auparavant Manuel Uribe, qui a multiplié les interviews ces derniers jours en vue de ce qu'il appelait lui-même des "noces de poids".

Souffrant d'une "obésité morbide" depuis 1992, cet homme de 43 ans, qui a longtemps été au bord du suicide, a pesé jusqu'à 590 kilos, avant d'en perdre 230 grâce à un régime draconien.

Source

Voir des images ici...

Voir aussi:

Wedding bells for Manuel Uribe!!!

The world's heaviest male - known as Half-Tonne Man - has got married, after being taken to the ceremony in his custom-made bed on the back of a flatbed truck.

Mexican Manuel Uribe, 43, wore a white satin shirt and had a sheet wrapped round his legs as he wed his longtime girlfriend, Claudia Solis, in front of 400 guests in a civil ceremony in Monterrey, northern Mexico.

The bed - which Uribe hasn't left in six years - was decorated with a canopy, flowers and gold-trimmed bows.

Two police patrol cars escorted him ahead of a long line of traffic.

Uribe tipped the scales in 2006 at 1,230 pounds (560 kilograms), earning him the Guinness Book of World Records' title for the world's heaviest man.

He has since shed about 550 pounds (250 kilograms) with the help of Claudia, whom he met four years ago. More...

See also:

Un restaurant espagnol propose son "menu anti-crise" à ... un euro!!!

Un repas complet au restaurant pour un euro: c'est la formule de la cidrerie Dario's à Gijon, dans le nord de l'Espagne, qui propose une fois par semaine un "menu anti-crise", a constaté un photographe de l'AFP.

Après des offres tests d'un jour les deux semaines écoulées, l'établissement propose dorénavant chaque jeudi son menu qui se compose d'une soupe de fruits de mer, suivie de côtelettes accompagnées de riz, puis de poulet ou d'anchois avec de la salade.

Comme tous les menus en Espagne, il comprend également le pain, la boisson et le dessert. Dans la région des Asturies, les restaurants proposent souvent des menus avec trois plats.

Près de 200 convives avaient profité jeudi dernier de l'offre de ce restaurant de 49 places, qui avait connu une très importante file d'attente.

L'établissement a lancé son opération pour tenter d'attirer de la clientèle, alors qu'il ressent les effets de la crise économique. Suite...

Voir aussi:

« Au Zimbabwe, on souffre en silence »

«Bons taux de change aujourd’hui ! Taux de change intéressants ! » Les vendeurs de devises étrangères se pressent sur les trottoirs de Harare, la capitale du Zimbabwe, soufflant leurs prix à l’oreille des passants.

Ils négocient des dollars américains ou des rands sud-africains à des taux qu’ils fixent à leur gré, échangent les billets comme du pain frais.

La monnaie nationale n’a plus aucune valeur, elle ne s’indexe sur rien, et les prix s’établissent pratiquement au hasard. Un milliard et demi de dollars zimbabwéens peut équivaloir à 20 dollars américains dans une rue, 40 dans la suivante, 60 le lendemain. « Même le dollar, la monnaie de référence, a perdu de sa valeur ici ! Ca coûte plus cher de vivre au Zimbabwe qu’aux États-Unis ! », plaisante-t-on. On rit. Puis le silence se fait.

L’argent, les taux de change, on ne parle plus que de ça à Harare. Les négociations bloquées entre Robert Mugabe et Morgan Tsvangirai, leader du Mouvement pour le changement démocratique (MDC), sont loin dans les esprits. L’opposition est muette sur les avancées, le gouvernement déploie sa propagande et, de toute façon, plus personne n’ose vraiment y croire. Suite...

Voir aussi:

China's baiju or White Lightning!!!

Zimbabwe: shops stop accepting local currency, or how the State destroyed a people...

While millions of Zimbabweans are already going hungry, the move by supermarket owners, who have few goods available for customers to buy, has added to the hardship experienced by the urban population.

Most do not have access to foreign currency, such as US dollars or the South African rand, now demanded by shopkeepers for payment.

A sign outside a supermarket in Harare's wealthy northern suburbs informed the public on Sunday that, like many other shops, it would not accept cheques or debit cards, because they take too long to clear while the Zimbabwe dollar plunges hourly.

Weeping with frustration, a well-dressed woman fled the shop in tears as she was left unable to buy anything, despite having amassed Z$14 billion for her weekly shop. But even cash was useless, and the shop manager told her he was only accepting US dollars. More...

See also:

Blackwater to go after Somali pirates...

Blackwater Worldwide and other private security firms—some with a reputation for being quick on the trigger in Iraq—are joining the battle against pirates plaguing one of the world’s most important shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia.

The growing interest among merchant fleets to hire their own firepower is encouraged by the U.S. Navy and represents a new and potential lucrative market for security firms scaling back operations in Iraq.

But some maritime organizations told The Associated Press that armed guards may increase the danger to ships’ crews or that overzealous contractors might accidentally fire on fishermen.

The record in Iraq of security companies like Blackwater, which is being investigated for its role in the fatal shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007, raises concerns about unregulated activity and possible legal wrangles.

“Security companies haven’t always had the lightest of touches in Iraq, and I think Somalia is a pretty delicate situation,” said Roger Middleton, who wrote a recent report on piracy in Somalia for Chatham House, a think tank in London. More...

See also:

Oh boy! Oh boy! Bollywood Superman and Spiderwoman!!! What the...

Guantanamo: most of the detainees were never criminals in the first place...

When a federal judge ordered the release of 17 Guantánamo Bay detainees earlier this month, it was the first real chance in the seven-year history of the prison camp that any of the prisoners might be transferred to the United States. In making his ruling, the judge categorically rejected the Bush administration’s claim that any of the released prisoners, who are all Chinese Muslims, were “enemy combatants” or posed a risk to U.S. security. The decision was temporarily suspended by the appeals court, but the judge was on solid ground.

Controversy over the Bush administration’s policy to detain enemy combatants at Guantánamo has raged since the facility opened in 2002—fueled primarily by the lack of legal protections afforded the detainees and allegations of their mistreatment. Often overlooked, however, is the fact that most of these detainees have never posed any real risk to America, for the simple reason that the vast majority of them were never “enemy combatants” in the first place. Indeed, striking new data we have obtained show that, if anything, the 17 innocent Chinese men are far from exceptional. More...

See also:

France: Edvige, c'est fini? Vraiment?

Edvige, c'est bel et bien fini. Comme l'a indiqué l'Agence France Presse, le ministère de l'Intérieur a suspendu le 17 octobre l'utilisation du très décrié fichier. Le Conseil d'Etat examinera d'ailleurs ce mardi le projet de décret officialisant son retrait définitif. En cas d'avis favorable - l'hypothèse la plus probable - Michèle Alliot-Marie signera le décret proclamant l'arrêt de mort officiel d'Edvige et, dans la foulée, fera publier la décision au Journal officiel.

Le successeur d'Edvige est dans les cartons. Le 19 septembre, le nouveau fichier, baptisé d'un nom imprononçable, Edvirsp (pour "Exploitation documentation et valorisation de l'information relative à la sécurité publique"), a été transmis pour avis à la Cnil, qui dispose de deux mois pour l'examiner. Un préalable à un examen en Conseil d'Etat. Suite...

Voir aussi:

Sunday, October 26, 2008

The Tree of Life, or The Story of Hemp...

Stop the world ?? I want to get off...

AFTER reading Wang Yong's story titled "Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily merrily merrily" on October 14, I saw peaceful sunshine in the heart of Xiao Chen, a middle-aged man who has been rowing his one-oar boat for tourists on the West Lake in Hangzhou for 20 years.

However, in this bustle and hustle world, it is not easy for a person to do something he really likes, because he has to meet his own needs, live up to parents' expectations and make a better life.

A variety of pressures leads one to give up his favorite career, be a workaholic and live for others.

Many people are yearning for the life Xiao Chen has, but they choose to follow the money like a herd of sheep.

My friend once admired me because I was born in Shanghai, a city brimming with opportunities. I said I preferred an idyllic town where the pace is slower.

What I feel now is endless fatigue, accompanied by loneliness as well as various illnesses.

Looking around, I see standing here and there skyscrapers which always shadow me.

What I want is just a little more personal time and private space, which seem a sort of luxury in a modern metropolis.

Zhu Yanling

See also:

Say NO to aggression against women...

Torture widespread all over the planet...

The independent U.N. expert on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, says torture is practiced frequently in many countries, and that prison conditions are often so poor they can be considered cruel and inhuman treatment.

Special Rapporteur Manfred Nowak said that while many individual countries have improved the treatment of detainees and prisoners over the years, torture and ill treatment continue to be widespread.

"On a global level I still come to the conclusion on the basis of many fact-finding missions and other evidence, that torture and ill-treatment is still practiced on a widespread, partly even systematic and routine level, in many countries of the world," he said.

He said the conditions of detention are appalling in many countries, with prisoners living in overcrowded jails, lacking access to food, healthcare, fresh air and hygiene. More...

See also:

Okay, times are hard but, stealing 120 tons of ... salt???

A storage facility in Aurora, Ill., says thieves in the last few weeks have stolen 120 tons of road salt -- enough to fill six semi-trucks.

The thieves had to move concrete barricades and bring in heavy equipment to haul off the $32,000 worth of salt from storage at Tovar Snow Professionals, which clears and salts properties during the winter, the Chicago Tribune reported Sunday, noting police have not ruled out an inside job.

Enough salt was stolen to last a suburban village through the winter and the crime occurred at a time of shortages and rising salt costs, said Richard Hanneman, president of the Salt Institute, an industry group based in Virginia.

"With the salt price being three to four times what it was last year, it's turning good honest business people into opportune criminals," Hanneman said.

Source

See also:

What crisis is Colin Powell "predicting" for 21st.or 22nd. Jan, 2009?

Colin Powell "predicting" a major crisis (around 2:40 in the video) for the 21st. or the 22nd.of Jan. 2009, not unlike Joe Biden here. What is this all about? Nothing but conspiracy theories? Creating more fear? Is something really BIG coming? Hmmm...

If you are the Pope's brother, you can celebrate your birthday with a Mozart mass at the Sixtine Chapel...

Plans for a costly mass in Rome to celebrate the birthday of Pope Benedict's elder brother have been criticized by a Catholic lay group in Germany, the weekly news magazine Focus reported Sunday.

Georg Ratzinger, a retired priest and the former music director of the world-famous Regensburg Cathedral Boys Choir, will celebrate his 85th birthday on Jan.15. He still lives in Regensburg.

The Catholic Diocese of Regensburg plans to spend 100,000 euros ($126,000) flying 90 boy choristers and 37 musicians to Rome to perform a Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart mass in the Sixtine Chapel in the Vatican especially for him. Ratzinger reportedly chose the Mozart mass when asked what he would like for this birthday. More...

See also:

The cat, the dog, and the raccoon...

Le chat, le chien, et le raton laveur...

Zimbabwe: the sad demise of a nation...

In October - at the start of summer here - Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, looks at its very best.

The lilac-flowered jacarandas are in full bloom. So too are the purple bougainvillea and the red flamboyants.

The tree-lined avenues are a riot of colour. There is no finer sight anywhere in southern Africa right now.

It all seems idyllic. The suburbs laid out by the British more than half a century ago are spacious.

On the well-watered playing fields of the city's private schools, young boys play games of cricket, while the nearby golf course is also beautifully maintained, and here, too, the sprinklers are turning.

But it is all rather incongruous because as I drive around Harare, probing the city's facade, I can see the decay and degradation.

Some houses have not had water for many months. More...

See also:

Lait frelaté: la Chine fait son mea culpa...

L'affaire, étouffée pendant des mois, est rapidement devenue un scandale à l'échelle de toute la Chine, avant de se propager sur la scène internationale, avec des conséquences grandement préjudiciables aux exportations chinoises : quatre nourrissons sont morts en Chine après avoir consommé du lait frelaté à la mélamine et des dizaines de milliers d'autres sont tombés malades. La substance chimique, utilisée dans la fabrication de résines synthétiques et de plastique, avait été adjointe à du lait coupé par des trafiquants pour simuler un bon apport en protéines. Mais la mélamine est toxique : elle peut provoquer des calculs rénaux, voire le blocage des fonctions rénales. Depuis que le scandale a éclaté, la chasse aux produits dérivés de lait chinois potentiellement contaminés à la mélamine a été lancée dans de nombreux pays importateurs. Suite...

Voir aussi:

Kid and dog playing at "I-open-you-close!" Hilarious!

Enfant et chien qui jouent au "J'ouvre-tu-ferme!" Mort de rire!

Butchering a deer in your restaurant kitchen is not a very good idea!!!

A Chinese restaurant in the Town of Hamburg was shut down by the Erie County Health Department Friday after an inspector found employees butchering a deer inside.

Officials don’t know whether the dead deer at China King, 5999 South Park Ave., had been hunted or if it was road kill.

“From our standpoint, it doesn’t matter,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Anthony J. Billittier IV. “They can’t do what we think they did.”

Billittier said that there is no reason to believe that the deer meat made its way into any of the dishes served at China King.

“I don’t think they were far enough along,” Billittier said. “They were in the butchering process. They didn’t get to the meat yet.”

Butchering an animal inside a restaurant is against the law in New York State for sanitary reasons. Diseases such as E. coli can be spread through unsafe butchering. More...

See also:

IMF director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, gets to keep job despite affair...

The head of the International Monetary Fund will keep his job despite having an affair with a married subordinate, the agency's executive board concluded.

The IMF board issued a statement late Saturday saying that the actions of IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn were "regrettable and reflected a serious error of judgment."

However, the 24-member board of directors decided that Strauss-Kahn's relationship with the former IMF employee was consensual and did not involve any type of sexual harassment, favoritism or any abuse of authority.

The board, which represents all 185 member-nations of the lending institution, reached its conclusions at the end of a daylong meeting at IMF headquarters in Washington.

In a statement, the board said that based on the findings of an outside law firm hired to investigate the matter and discussions Saturday with Strauss-Kahn, that they now consider the incident closed. More...

See also:

Kristen Ashburn and AIDS in Zimbabwe...

Kristen Ashburn et les images déchirantes du Sida au Zimbabwe...

La Lega dei Ticinesi appelle à la grève d'impôts...

La Lega dei Ticinesi invite la population à faire la grève d'impôts. Le parti tessinois veut ainsi protester contre le plan de sauvetage de l'UBS par la Confédération devisé à 68 milliards de francs.

Il est temps que le Conseil fédéral délie enfin les cordons de sa bourse pour les simples citoyens, écrit le président de la Lega, Giuliano Bignasca, dans le journal dominical du parti "Il Mattino". Concrètement, il exige des subsides pour les primes maladie et un abaissement de l'âge de la retraite AVS à 62 ans.

Pour soutenir son propos, l'entrepreneur et éditeur lance un appel à la grève d'impôts. Les citoyens doivent cesser de verser l'impôt fédéral direct aux "baillis de Berne". Les entreprises doivent également rétrocéder la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée, exige M. Bignasca.
Le président entend joindre le geste à la parole. Il annonce qu'il ne versera plus un centime d'impôt à la Confédération. Ceux qui l'imiteront pourront compter sur le soutien de la Lega, assure-t-il.

Source

Voir aussi:

Family in Sydney hotel 'served human faeces in ice cream!!!'

EASTERN suburbs drinking hole the Coogee Bay Hotel is at the centre of a scandal involving the serving of human faecal matter in a bowl of ice cream.

Queens Park builder Steve Whyte has conducted an independent laboratory test on a dessert spoon-sized amount of brown substance that was served in a bowl of ice cream to his wife and three children at the Coogee Bay's brasserie during a grand-final lunch on Sunday, October 5.

The family alleges hotel staff served them a large bowl of ice cream covering what looked like "compacted chocolate''.

The laboratory report by the Federal Government's National Measurement Institute confirms that the matter served to the Whyte family - and partly consumed by Mr Whyte's wife, Jessica - "has an offensive odour and physical properties similar to human excreta ... and to contain fragments of a variety of plant matter typical of excreta''. More...

See also:

L'Argent Dette de Paul Grignon ...

Dominique Strauss-Kahn blanchi par le FMI, mais...

Le bureau exécutif du FMI a blanchi son directeur, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, des accusations de favoritisme, selon un communiqué de l'organisme rendu public samedi 25 octobre au soir.
Le comité de 24 membres n'a pas trouvé d'éléments permettant d'établir un manquement incompatible avec ses fonctions à la tête du FMI, même s'il relève des actes "regrettables et reflétant une sérieuse erreur de jugement", pour lesquels Dominique Strauss-Khan s'est excusé. Il reste donc à son poste. Plusieurs responsables socialistes français ont fait part de leur satisfaction face à "cette excellente nouvelle". Suite...

Voir aussi:

Suisse: des requérants logés dans les containers!!!

Face à l'afflux massif de demandeurs d'asile, les Grisons relogent des requérants déboutés dans des containers. La mesure, destinée à libérer des places pour de nouveaux arrivants, pourrait inspirer d'autres cantons alarmés par la hausse des demandes. Reportage à Landquart.

D'ici la fin de l'année, quelques 13'000 à 14'000 demandeurs d'asile pourraient arriver en Suisse, estimait Eduard Gnesa, directeur de l'Office fédéral des migrations (ODM), le mois dernier. De janvier à fin septembre, 10'351 nouvelles demandes d'asile ont été déposées, ce qui représente une augmentation de 29,4% par rapport à la même période de 2007.

Les cantons tirent la sonnette d'alarme. Plusieurs d'entre eux estiment ne pas être en mesure de répondre à cette hausse et craignent de manquer de lits en cas d'urgence. Mais dans les Grisons, les autorités ne veulent pas entendre parler de l'aménagement de nouveaux foyers. Suite...

Voir aussi:

Saturday, October 25, 2008

What on earth is this Iraqi woman trying to do?

A quoi rime cet étrange comportement de cette femme in Irak ?

Switzerland: asylum seekers housed in ... containers!!!

Containers are being used as emergency accommodation for asylum seekers as Switzerland experiences an influx of new applicants.

The eastern canton of Graubünden has adopted this solution and has set up three containers on a patch of waste ground in the industrial area of Waldau/Landquart, not far from the cantonal capital, Chur.

The first eight occupants have already been in Switzerland for some time, and their request for asylum has been turned down.

The men, four Algerians, three Iranians and an Afghan, all aged between 30 and 40, are waiting to be sent back to their own countries. More...

See also:

Elections USA: What's the big deal, anyway? More of the same, nothing changes...

Legions of people opt out of voting in the U.S. But they are not civic slackers. They’re on to something. Whether disinterested or disgusted, they are casting a vote of no confidence in the electoral system. And it is entirely justified.

The real point of elections is to get enough people voting to legitimize the authority of politicians. Then, they can drag us into wars, bail out bankers in the middle of an economic meltdown, and “earmark” tax dollars to their biggest donors. It happens at every level of government, from City Hall to the White House.

Just as riot is the language of the unheard, abstention has become the vote of the unrepresented. In a debate on voter apathy, blogger Bud Wood put it this way: “It just doesn’t make much difference who or what gets into office. The results are more of the same.” More...

See also:

Ralph Nader: Obama and McCain are guilty of anti-semitism against the Arab people...

OMG! A bishop in India adopts a 26-year-old woman!!! The Vatican is not amused!

The Vatican has suspended a Roman Catholic bishop in southern India after he adopted a 26-year-old woman, a senior church official said Saturday.

Bishop John Thattungal, 58, will be barred from performing any religious or administrative duties until a formal inquiry into his conduct is completed, said the Rev. Stephen Alathara, a spokesman for the Kerala Catholic Bishops' Council, in a telephone interview from the southern Indian city of Kochi.

Alathara said the bishop's adoption of the woman earlier this year had upset other priests in the Kochi diocese.

"The majority of the priests were unhappy and asked for his resignation," he said, adding that the Vatican ordered the suspension on Thursday.

He said there are questions surrounding the legality of the adoption because the woman is not a minor. More...

See also:

Strange: the guy who hasn't slept for ... 37years???

When someone tells me they've had a bad night's sleep, I find it hard to sympathise. I can't believe anyone sleeps as badly as me. On a good night I get three hours of restless catnapping, waking every 15 minutes and then dropping off again. I regularly go for two or three nights with no sleep at all.

I can't remember any one night when I lost that ability to drift off, but by the age of seven I would regularly be pacing my room until dawn. I wasn't a particularly anxious child - there's no history of insomnia in my family and my mother said I slept well as a baby - so there was no obvious explanation. And no obvious solution: my mother tried everything, but nothing worked.

At school I was short-tempered with exhaustion and would bang my fists on my desk and kick walls. By eight, I was so frustrated and desperate to sleep that I hit my head against the wall in the middle of the night; if I couldn't fall asleep, I thought, I'd knock myself out. The years went by with no improvement - I could barely cope and grew into an irritable teenager, a loner always on the periphery of groups. Yet it felt normal to me because I was so used to being by myself at night. More...

See also:

Indonesia: do you drown a cow because some horny dude had sex with it?

Villagers from Julah in Tejakula, Buleleng, tow (see photo) a pregnant cow behind a boat into open sea as part of a local traditional ritual.

The cow, which is five months pregnant, was thrown out to the sea about 3 kilometers from land Monday. The villagers believe the animal was impregnated by a village elder.

During the ritual the man, who was caught red-handed having sexual intercourse with the cow two months ago, joined the boat trip in order to throw away his clothes to to symbolize him discarding his sins.

Julah customary village head Ketut Sidemen said the ritual, called gamya gamana, or freak weeding, and had been conducted there for generations. The decision to perform the ritual was made a local residents meeting. More...

See also:

Suisse: La folle ruée sur les «petites» banques...

La crise financière fait réagir les petits épargnants, qui changent de banque par dizaines de milliers. Cet afflux de fonds frais dans les banques cantonales et les établissements plus petits n'est pas sans poser quelques problèmes.

La confiance s'est effritée, voire effondrée, chez de nombreux petits actionnaires et clients des grandes banques suisses, surtout de la chancelante - bien que désormais soutenue par l'Etat - UBS. Les transferts de comptes atteignent des montants record.

(...)

La plupart des banques cantonales et Postfinance bénéficient d'une garantie de l'Etat. Les avoirs des clients sont garantis à 100% et non à hauteur de 30'000 francs comme dans les autres banques. Article complet...

Voir aussi:

Friday, October 24, 2008

Vivisection: do animals have to be tortured, mutilated and murdered for our well-being?

We live with an inescapable dilemma. With each passing year we become more vulnerable to heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Animal researchers believe that the solution lies somewhere within the boundaries of their profession just waiting to be discovered. The media follows their lead jumping on every little report they put out telling us about the latest “exciting” research project that surely gets us closer to a cure for these killer diseases. But animal researchers have been saying this for as long as anyone can remember. Moreover, the public is growing ever more disenchanted with their research for a variety of reasons. One reason is that animal research is unreliable. The metabolism of animals is and will always be completely different than that of human beings. Tylenol, for example, kills cats. Countless, flawed drugs that passed animal tests have caused health problems for human beings, one of the most notorious being the infamous Thalidomide that caused babies to be born with deformities. Other examples include Methoxyflurane, an anesthesia that caused kidney malfunction; Flosint, an arthritis medication that proved fatal to humans; Opren, a cough medication that killed 61 people; Zelmid, an antidepressant that caused severe neurological problems for humans; and Practolol, a drug for emergency cardiac arrhythmias, which killed 23 people and blinded 78 others. Yet medical researchers continue to experiment upon animals knowing that this research often leads to dangerous applications and can at best provide only inconclusive theories since it cannot directly translate to human beings. More...

See also:

Google acquires its very own fighter jet!!!

A company controlled by Google’s top executives, including its billionaire founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, appears to have added a new plane to its well-equipped fleet: a fighter jet, or more precisely a Dornier Alpha Jet. According to Wikipedia, the Alpha Jet is a a light jet attack and advanced trainer aircraft manufactured by Dornier of Germany and Dassault-Breguet of France.

The last time we checked on H211 L.L.C., the company that operates the private jets owned and used by Mr. Page, Mr. Brin and the chief executive, Eric Schmidt, was in October 2007. The company had just added a Boeing 757 to a fleet that already included a refurbished Boeing 767 and two Gulfstream V’s. All four planes had landing rights at Moffett Field, the NASA operated airfield that is a stone’s throw from the Google campus.

On Thursday, The Mountain View Voice reported the existence of the fighter jet, which it said had been spotted at Moffett Field. Federal aviation records confirm that H211 L.L.C. has registered a Dornier Alpha Jet made in 1982.

(...)

Presumably no attacks on Microsoft are planned at this time. Full story...

See also:

Palin: God will do the right thing! Boy, He sure did the right thing when Bush was elected...

In an interview posted online Wednesday, Sarah Palin told Dr. James Dobson of “Focus on the Family” that she is confident God will do “the right thing for America” on Nov. 4.

Dobson asked the vice presidential hopeful if she is concerned about John McCain’s sagging poll numbers, but Palin stressed that she was “not discouraged at all.”

“To me, it motivates us, makes us work that much harder,” she told the influential Christian leader, whose radio show reaches millions of listeners daily. “And it also strengthens my faith because I know at the end of the day putting this in God’s hands, the right thing for America will be done, at the end of the day on Nov. 4.” More...

See also:

If you find a donkey's head in your home, it's probably a threat from the Mafia!!!

A small-time mafia gang have been branded "idiots" after sending a donkey's head to a shopkeeper in an ill-conceived stunt apparently lifted from The Godfather.

The gang's target, a local bread shop owner who had refused to pay protection money, was so puzzled by the confused threat that he presumed it was a practical joke.

In Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 film, mafia boss Don Corleone uses the "gift" of a severed horse's head to intimate film producer Jack Woltz into giving his godson a part.

Woltz woke up one morning to find the bloody head lying next to him in his bed, and immediately consented to the request made by the Don, played by Marlon Brando.

But while that threat made sense – the head was of Woltz's prized thoroughbred stallion - there was no such context for the donkey. More...

See also:

The Dark Knight meets Superman!

Cannibals? In this, the 21st. century?

A cannibal cult mother who tortured her son in a locked cellar while relatives skinned him and forced him to eat his own flesh has been jailed for nine years.

Klara Mauerova, 31 - a member of a sinister religious cult and her sister Katerina led the sickening torture of her eight-year-old son Ondrej and his ten year-old brother Jakub.

A court in Brno in Czech Republic heard how relatives partially skinned Ondrej and forced him to eat his own flesh.

The judge also jailed Katerina, 35, for ten years for her role in the sickening abuse.

The two boys had told judges how their mother and relatives had stubbed cigarettes out on their bare skin, whipped them with belts, and tried to drown them. They were also sexually abused and forced to cut themselves with knives.

The terrified youngsters said they were kept in cages or handcuffed to tables and made to stand in their own urine for days. More + pictures...

See also:

Découvrez le Mc Do à la sauce indienne !!!

A peine le portier a-t-il entrouvert la porte que le lourd et gras fumet des frites assaille les narines. Dans ce Mc Do de New Delhi, tout rappelle l'atmosphère des célèbres fast-foods. Même décor, mêmes serveurs en uniforme, mêmes clips sur les écrans-plats. Au mur, le tableau du "meilleur employé du mois" côtoie une pub vantant le jouet Star Wars vendu avec le menu pour enfants. Pas de doute, nous sommes bien chez Mc Donald's.

Pourtant, dès 1996 et l'ouverture du premier restaurant dans le sous-continent, le fast-food a dû s'indianiser. "Pas de boeuf vendu ici" rappelle une grosse plaque dorée en dessous des menus. Du Mc Aloo Tikki Burger, du nom de ces galettes salées aux pommes de terre, au Paneer Salsa Wrap, en référence au paneer, ce fromage très répandu en Inde, sans oublier café froid et thé, les produits proposés ont tous une consonance indienne. Suite...

Voir aussi:

Donna Jones, Britain's biggest boobs: My life is hell...

Raped Indian nun denounces police...

A Roman Catholic nun raped in the Indian state of Orissa, allegedly during a riot by Hindus, has publicly denounced local police.

The nun held a news conference in the Indian capital, Delhi, in which she demanded that national police take over the investigation.

The Orissa police have been heavily criticised for delays in the case.

More than 30 people have been killed in anti-Christian violence in Orissa's Kandhamal district in recent months.

Thousands of Christians have been made homeless.

The 29-year-old nun lodged a complaint on 25 August alleging rape by a member of a Hindu mob. The first arrests in the case were on 3 October. More...

See also:

In India, if you're of a lower caste, it can be dangerous holding a girl's hands...

In a shocking incident, a 13-year-old Dalit boy was chained to a tractor and
dragged around Basaura village under the Shrinagarpolice station in Mahoba district for allegedly holding a minor girl’s hand on Wednesday.

According to reports, the boy, identified as Nandu (name changed), son of Dasaiya Ahirwar, suffered serious injuries and was admitted to a hospital where doctors stated his condition to be stable.

The incident took place on Wednesday when Nandu and an 11-year-old girl, daughter of one Sukhlal Rajput of the same village, were bathing near a village well.

The victim’s father, narrating the incident to TOI on phone, said the girl’s father, along with his relatives, arrived there and after mercilessly assaulting Nandu with sticks, forcibly confined him to his place for several hours. They accused Nandu of teasing the girl. The boy’s family, however, claimed that he had just held her hands. More...

See also:

Oh boy! They have created a cat that glows in the dark!!!

By day he is just a normal tabby but when the lights go out this ginger cat glows in the dark.

Scientists have genetically modified a cat as part of an experiement that could lead to treatments for conditions like cystic fibrosis.

Named Mr Green Genes, he look likes a six-month-old cat but, under ultraviolet light, his eyes, gums and tongue glow a vivid lime green, the result of a genetic experiment at the Audubon Centre for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans.

Mr. Green Genes is the first fluorescent cat in the United States and probably the world, said Betsy Dresser, the centre's director.

The researchers made him so they could learn whether a gene could be introduced harmlessly into the feline's genetic sequence to create what is formally known as a transgenic cat.

If so, it would be the first step in a process that could lead to the development of ways to combat diseases via gene therapy. More...

See also:

Woman tries to smuggle bananas ... in her underwear!!!

BANANAS in pyjamas may be OK, but in undies they are not - as a woman discovered at Sydney Airport.

Customs officers stopped the 56-year-old from the Czech Republic when she arrived from Samoa on Wednesday.

Suspecting she was concealing something on her body, a female officer frisked her and found she was concealing three banana plants in her underpants.

Quarantine officers seized the plants, which Customs say are a threat to Australia's banana industry because they can carry black sigatoka disease, fusarium wilt, or moko disease.

The woman was likely to be issued a court attendance notice when investigations were completed, a Customs spokesman said today.

Penalties for breaching quarantine laws can result in fines of more than $66,000 or 10 years' jail.

Source

See also:

Sexy chick does strange keyboard solo...

Suicide: la scientologie accusée ...

Le 21 décembre 2006, au petit matin, Gloria Lopez, se poste sur une voie de chemin à la gare de Colombes dans les Hauts-de-Seine. A 47 ans, elle met fin à ses jours, happée par un train. Ses enfants, sous le choc, ne comprennent pas cet acte désespéré. Ils décident alors d'éplucher la correspondance de leur mère et découvrent de nombreuses lettres montrant qu'elle avait dépensé des sommes faramineuses au profit de l'Eglise de Scientologie, au moins 200 000 euros.

Gloria était endettée auprès des banques et avait dilapidé son héritage pour acheter des cours de Scientologie et évoluer dans la hiérarchie du mouvement appartenant à la liste des organisations sectaires établie en 1995 par le Parlement. Suite...

Voir aussi:

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Packs of robots to hunt down uncooperative humans???

The latest request from the Pentagon jars the senses. At least, it did mine. They are looking for contractors to provide a "Multi-Robot Pursuit System" that will let packs of robots "search for and detect a non-cooperative human".

One thing that really bugs defence chiefs is having their troops diverted from other duties to control robots. So having a pack of them controlled by one person makes logistical sense. But I'm concerned about where this technology will end up.

Given that iRobot last year struck a deal with Taser International to mount stun weapons on its military robots, how long before we see packs of droids hunting down pesky demonstrators with paralysing weapons? Or could the packs even be lethally armed? More...

See also:

Zimbabwe is dying...

This year's harvest in Zimbabwe has been the worst in the country's modern history.

In Mashonaland West province, some people are trying to survive by eating wild fruit and digging for roots.

"It's very, very bad. I've got 12 children and it's hard to find anything to give them," says a local village chief.

"The whole of my village is struggling. No-one has food.

"There's nothing left here. So there's nothing I can do."

Driving deep into Mashonaland West is a reminder that most Zimbabweans live in rural areas.

The area around Karoi - 200km (124 miles) north of the capital, Harare - provides an illustration of the suffering currently being experienced in the countryside.

Farmers are without seeds, fertiliser and fuel. Next year's harvest is already being written off as a disaster as well. More...

See also:

Haitian Kompa Breakdance by Robot Scorpion! Cool!

Switzerland: Protestors target UBS and the "bank billion rip-off..."

About 400 people gathered in Zurich and 70 people in Geneva on Thursday evening to demonstrate against UBS and what they call the "bank billion rip-off."

In a chorus of whistling and catcalls in front of UBS buildings, protestors expressed their anger over the federal government's SFr68 billion ($58.6 billion) rescue package for the country's largest bank.

Million-franc bonuses for bankers also came under fire.

Protestors demanded transparency in setting bank salaries and that no one be paid more than SFr500,000.

Both demonstrations were peaceful. The centre-left Social Democratic Party, the Green Party, and the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions organised the Zurich demonstration. In Geneva, the Communist party was also involved.

Source

See also:

Feeling down? Take a dose of Nature's Prozac...

Financial struggles are the latest worry for a generation that is already overburdened with stress. Rising divorce rates, long working hours, relationship problems and a lack of time to relax are all contributing to a rise in mood problems. One person in five now suffers a mental health problem at some point in his or her life, says Mind, the mental health charity.

(...)

On bright, sunny autumn and winter days, make sure that you go outside. Warm or sunny, but not hot, weather has a positive impact on mental health, according to researchers at the University of Michigan. Dr Paul Keller, a social psychologist, found that the optimal temperature for a good mood was about 22C (72F) - about room temperature - with the good feeling decreasing if temperatures became significantly higher or lower. Full story...

See also:

Times are getting tough, so, how about some cheap wine?

Earlier this year, scientists at Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology made headlines for an unusual wine experiment: They used a brain scanner to show that people derived greater pleasure from drinking brands they thought were more expensive, even when the samples were in fact from identical bottles.

The subjects experienced heightened neurological activity in the area of the brain responsible for pleasure.

The implication: Raising the price of a wine actually improves the flavour.

But there were two problems with the methodology, I think. The lucky subjects didn't actually have to pay for the wines; and the research was conducted before The Crash.

I'd bet if I had access to one of those brain scanners today, I could prove just the opposite. When budgets are tight and net worth is disappearing like the contents of a leaky bag-in-box, the bigger thrill comes from plunking down $10 on a bottle that tastes like $20. More...

See also:

Celtic Woman and Ave Maria...

Joe Biden makes a chilling remark about an Obama presidency. What are they preparing?

In remarks made over the weekend in Seattle, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Biden warned that Barack Obama, if elected president, would be compelled to take deeply unpopular actions in both domestic and foreign policy within months of taking office.

In closed-door gatherings with two audiences of Democratic Party insiders and fundraisers, Biden forecast a major international crisis in the first six months of an Obama administration.

He compared Obama to John F. Kennedy, the last senator to be elected president. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy," Biden said. "The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Watch. We're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy." More...

See also:

Paul McCartney wrote "Michelle" to attract girls??? Wasn't his fame attraction enough?

SIR PAUL MCCARTNEY wrote the BEATLES' Grammy-winning hit song MICHELLE so he could pick up girls, according to a new book on British pop music.
Author Gordon Thompson claims the singer composed the song while at the Liverpool Institute, and included French lyrics to impress potential girlfriends.
He writes in Please Please Me, "His musical goal was to 'write something with a melody and a bass line,' while his social goal was to evoke 'that French existential thing' as a way to attract girls."
The track, which features on the Fab Four album Rubber Soul, was named Song of Year award at the 1966 Grammy Awards.

Source

See also:

South African MP has a great fall....

La chaise d’un parlementaire sud africain n’a pas tenue…

Le Prix Sakharov honore le dissident Hu Jia malgré les menaces de Pékin...

Le Parlement européen a décerné jeudi son Prix Sakharov pour la liberté de pensée au dissident chinois Hu Jia, à la veille d'un sommet Asie-Europe à Pékin, qui a exprimé son "fort mécontentement" après avoir exercé en vain de fortes pressions diplomatiques.

Le Prix est décerné à "Hu Jia au nom de tous les sans-voix de Chine et du Tibet", a souligné à Strasbourg le président du Parlement, Hans-Gert Pöttering.

Hu, 35 ans, a été condamné en avril, à l'issue d'une journée de procès, à trois ans et demi de prison pour tentative de subversion pour des propos publiés sur internet et des entretiens accordés à la presse étrangère.

Il avait été arrêté peu après avoir participé en novembre 2007, via une téléconférence depuis sa résidence surveillée, à une réunion du Parlement sur les droits de l'Homme en Chine en amont des Jeux Olympiques de Pékin, a précisé à l'AFP l'eurodéputée écologiste Hélène Flautre, qui l'avait présidée.

L'organisation Human Rights Watch a réagi en appelant Pékin à libérer immédiatement le dissident et à mettre un terme au "harcèlement et à la surveillance de sa femme Zeng Jinyan et de leur fille Qianci". Suite...

Voir aussi:

India's only gorilla can't find a mate! Bollywood, where are you?

India's only gorilla is lonely. Even though Polo is 6 feet tall, dark-haired, bilingual and good-natured, the 36-year-old silverback gorilla is still single after a fruitless eight-year search.

"We have written to all major zoos in the world. We have tried everything," said Vijay Ranjan Singh, the director of the zoo in Mysore, a city in southern India about 525 miles southeast of Mumbai.

Polo, who was sent to Mysore from Ireland's Dublin Zoo in 1995, has been alone since 2000 when his mate, 46-year-old Sumathi, died.

Singh said that because gorillas are considered highly endangered, other zoos are reluctant to part with theirs. The Mysore zoo doesn't want to send Polo abroad to find a friend because he is India's only gorilla. Also, animal transfers are usually done within the framework of breeding programs that are often regional. More...

See also:

Naked man screaming about Satan; police called at 5:55 a.m. Thank God there's no 6:66 a.m.!!!

A naked man yelling about Satan and otherwise behaving erratically this morning shocked bystanders and led several police officers on a foot chase.

Sgt. Troy Kelsay said it took seven patrol officers to subdue an 18-year-old man who at least six witnesses say was running around naked in the 800 block of Iowa Avenue. Kelsay declined to identify the man.

The first report came to officers at 5:55 a.m. today. The caller said a man was in the median of Iowa Avenue screaming obscenities. Kelsay said that caller gave a description of the man's clothing. However, subsequent calls and in-person reports to the police station indicated the man had shed his clothes.

Among the multiple witnesses was a woman who said he yelled at her as she walked down Iowa Avenue. Another caller said the man was lying down in the median of the street. Kelsay said the man was showing, “very erratic, bizarre behavior.” More...

See also:

The Obama-McCain dance off!!! Hilarious!

India: suicides increase as money crisis worsens...

He would have been a father in a few days, but ended up killing his nine-month pregnant wife and himself.

Parag Tanna, 34, had suffered huge losses in the market, was thrown out of the private stock broking company he worked for and creditors were asking their money back. Unable to find a way out, he smothered his wife and then hanged himself at his Kandivali home on Tuesday night.

“I will not be able to support my family and give a good life to my child,” the three-page suicide note, written in Gujarati, read. It also had the details of his accounts and bank passwords.

Tanna, who earlier earlier worked in an electrical appliance shop, had asked many of his friends to invest in stocks and after the recent market crash, his clients were asking the money back, Surendra Jaiswal, senior police inspector at Kandivali police station, said. A month ago, Tanna’s company, Inventure, fired him and he was not able to find another job. More...

See also:

India: the no-smoking police doing its rounds...

At New Delhi railway station, signboards now announce that it's a smoke-free zone.

"Smoking and spitting are strictly prohibited in this area," the boards say.

This is one of India's biggest railway stations and is used by nearly half a million people daily. Thousands of people crowd the platforms.

I'm here with a team of anti-tobacco enforcers from the Delhi authorities who are looking for people violating the ban on smoking in public places which came into effect on 2 October.

It covers an exhaustive list of places which are defined as public. More + video...

See also:

Nicolas Sarkozy veut le retrait de sa poupée vaudou!!!

Depuis plusieurs jours, les Editions K&B proposent sur leur site Internet le Manuel vaudou de Nicolas Sarkozy accompagné d’une poupée vaudou et de 12 aiguilles. Sur la poupée à l’image du Président de la République, ont peut lire les inscriptions « 170% », « casse toi pov’con » ou encore « racaille » et « textos ».

Une version identique existe également pour Ségolène Royal avec les inscriptions « vive le Québec libre » et « Justice chinois ».

« Grâce aux sortilèges concoctés par le spécialiste en sorcellerie Yaël Rolognese, vous pouvez conjurer le mauvais œil et empêcher Nicolas Sarkozy de causer davantage de dommages. » explique sur son site Internet les Editions K&B dans un ton humoristique.

Mais cette poupée n’est pas au gout de Nicolas Sarkozy qui vient d’assigner en référé les Editions K&B afin d’obtenir le retrait des poupées vaudou. Le juge des référés Isabelle Nicolle tiendra une audience à 15h00 à ce sujet.

Le chef de l’Etat à déjà demandé le retrait de la vente des poupées par courrier envoyé à la société Tear Prod, maison-mère des éditions K&B. Lettre qui est resté sans réponse de la part de l’entreprise.

Pour la société qui commercialise les poupées, la réaction de Nicolas Sarkozy est « totalement disproportionnée ».

Source

Voir aussi:

If your boss has a Facebook account, don't brag about your pseudo sick-leave...

A Sydney call centre worker who "chucked a sickie" only to be caught out on Facebook is now the subject of a formal investigation by his employer.

Kyle Doyle, a 21-year-old resolutions expert for telecommunications firm AAPT, bragged about his day off on the social networking site while telling his employer he was away for "medical reasons".

But he was found out when his boss spotted this Facebook profile update on the day in question, August 21: "Kyle Doyle is not going to work, f*** it I'm still trashed. SICKIE WOO!"

A spokeswoman for AAPT today said the company was aware of the issue and had launched a formal investigation. More...

See also:

Swiss anger at blacklist call...

The Swiss government has reacted angrily to suggestions by the German finance minister that Switzerland ought to be put on a blacklist of tax havens.

During a meeting of European finance ministers in Paris, Peer Steinbrueck said Switzerland was helping German citizens to commit tax evasion.

He said this was depriving his own government of much-needed cash.

The Swiss foreign minister has summoned Germany's ambassador to Bern to explain his government's stance. More...

See also:

Dogs, cats, monkeys; just friends...

Des chiens, des chats, des singes: simplement des amis...

UBS: Les critiques pleuvent toujours contre les méga-bonus

Le choc provoqué la semaine dernière par la situation dramatique de la première banque suisse a fait place à une vague d'indignation contre sa politique d'entreprise. Avec, en point de mire, les millions de bonus accordés aux managers.

Après avoir évité la débâcle grâce à un emprunt considérable auprès de la Confédération (6 milliards de francs) et de la Banque nationale suisse (62 milliards), UBS ne semble pas avoir l'intention de revoir sa politique de gratifications faramineuses à ses dirigeants et brookers.

Jeudi dernier, quelques heures après l'annonce du plan d'urgence lancé par les autorités, le président du conseil d'administration de la grande banque, Peter Kurer, déclarait que certains hauts dirigeants d'UBS recevront encore des bonus à six ou sept chiffres. Suite...

Voir aussi:

Greece comes to a halt as demonstrators protest bank bailout...

Air, rail and ferry traffic ground to a halt throughout Greece on Tuesday and public offices shut down as workers walked off the job in a general strike to protest the conservative government's economic policies.

Riot police officers fired tear gas to disperse a small group of rock-throwing youths as thousands of demonstrators marched through central Athens. Many shops along the demonstration route rolled down their shutters, and only minor damage was reported.

Throughout the country, state hospitals functioned with emergency staff and state schools, universities, post offices and tax offices were closed, as were many banks. About 200 domestic and international flights were canceled, while all ferries were confined to port and the state rail company canceled most train services. Lawyers, journalists and civil engineers were also on strike.

"The country has effectively come to a halt," said Efstathios Anestis, a spokesman for the largest umbrella union, GSEE. "Participation is very high. In many sectors it exceeds 90 percent of the work force." More...

See also:

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Le dernier gorille de l’Inde cherche âme-sœur désespérément !!!

Le dernier gorille d'Inde en captivité, le mâle Polo, a besoin d'une partenaire après huit années de solitude, mais la recherche d'une femelle dans le monde entier a échoué, a indiqué mercredi le responsable d'un zoo du sud du pays.

Polo est un gorille occidental de plaine âgé de 36 ans, pensionnaire depuis 1995 du parc zoologique Chamarajendra de la ville méridionale de Mysore. Il est célibataire depuis la mort de sa partenaire Sumathi en 2000.

D'après le directeur du zoo, Siddappa Shivanna, les appels lancés partout dans le monde pour lui trouver une seconde femelle n'ont rien donné et le vieux singe s'ennuie.

"Nous avons essayé de déposer des jouets dans son enclos pour que Polo s'active, mais rien ne remplace un compagnon", a-t-il dit à l'AFP par téléphone.

"Nous préfèrerions qu'il ait une partenaire sexuelle, mais si c'est impossible, un congénère serait déjà une bonne chose. Il est le dernier gorille du pays", a poursuivi M. Shivanna, qui redoute une disparition de l'espèce en Inde.

Polo avait été envoyé à Mysore par le zoo irlandais de Dublin pour s'accoupler avec Sumathi. Sans succès car la gorille avait déjà 46 ans.

Les gorilles occidentaux de plaine vivent les forêts d'Afrique centrale, surtout au Gabon. Leur espèce est menacée en raison du braconnage et de la destruction de l'habitat naturel.

Source

Voir aussi:

Crisis: the man who sleeps in Hotel Honda...

Bruce Richall is an IT consultant based in the affluent Connecticut suburb of Westport. He describes how the loss of his job at a multinational bank triggered a rapid spiral into poverty. Having depleted his savings and unable to afford rent, he now sleeps in the back of his car.

"In the back of my mind, I hoped it wouldn't happen to me.
I saw bank workers being escorted off the property, clutching their boxes. It was very chilling to witness departing co-workers. The bank where I worked had already undergone a series of lay-offs in the previous months.

I really liked my job and wanted to keep it. I joined in February, and having worked for many years as an IT contractor - with its inherent instability - this position offered the potential of a full-time position. It could become a "secure" job.

But when security guards made simple, routine rounds through the cubes and offices, people would look up from their desks.

There would be a sigh of relief as the guards kept going.

But it didn't happen this time." More...

See also:

Josef Fritzl: I was born to rape...

The Austrian father who allegedly imprisoned and abused his daughter for 24 years has said he was "born to rape", according to a leaked report.

The report by psychiatrist Adelheid Kastner says Joseph Fritzl's mother humiliated him in childhood, creating his need to "possess a human being".

Mr Fritzl said he had an "evil streak" and that he "could have behaved a lot worse than locking up my daughter".

Mr Fritzl fathered seven children with his daughter in a cellar he built.

Dr Kastner says in her 130-page report that Mr Fritzl is fit for trial and would be "highly" likely to reoffend if he had the opportunity. A trial could begin in the next few months. More...

See also: