Bonjour Planet Earth: May 2009

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Every Scot is to be vaccinated against swine flu...

Every person in Scotland is to be vaccinated against swine flu, the government has announced - at a total cost of more than £100m.

The updated pledge from Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon came as another two Glasgow schoolchildren were confirmed yesterday as the latest victims of the virus.

One new patient is the 13-year-old son of a critically-ill man undergoing treatment at the Victoria Infirmary, and the other is a five year old who came in contact with another of the man's children.

(...)

The vaccine is still in development, with the first doses due to be manufactured by September.

Health workers will be first in line to receive the vaccination, followed by children, the elderly, then the rest of the Scottish population. Full story...

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Australian cops bashing up drunken driver...

Des policiers australiens tabassent un conducteur ivre...

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My childhood in the North Korean paradise...

I was nine when I saw my first execution. The man had been condemned to death for stealing copper wire to sell in China, crossing the border under the cover of darkness. He was dragged to the foot of the mountain near a railway track. A train that happened to pass stopped to let passengers watch the scene.

Executions were a frequent occurrence in our small city, but the inhabitants never tired of them. Primary and secondary school pupils skipped classes to join the audience, which always consisted of hundreds, even thousands, of people. Posters went up in the city several days before. When the time came, the condemned man was displayed in the streets before being led to the place of execution, where he was made to sit on the ground, head bowed, so everyone could get a good look at him. He was dressed in a garment designed by army scientists for public executions, a greyish one-piece suit made of very thick, fleece-lined cotton. That way, when the bullets are fired, the blood doesn't spurt out but is absorbed by this fabric, which turns red. The body is thrown on a cart and then abandoned in the mountains for the dogs to eat. More...

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67-year-old Indian fails board exam for 44th. time!!!

When the Uttar Pradesh Board’s High School examination results were declared on Saturday, 67-year-old Jabbar Hussain was anxiously searching his roll number in the pass list. But this time again he returned a disappointed man.

For the 44th consecutive year, Hussain could not clear his board examination.

A student of Dayanand Inter College, Bindki, Fatehpur for High School, the lanky sexagenarian has not given up. More...

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The Queen of the Mountains, the snow leopard of the Himalayas...

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Britain's Got Talent serves up the latest "upset" that wasn't...

Shocking! Upset!

Yes, that's right: Susan Boyle, who became instantly beloved, and almost as instantly overexposed, after singing "I Dreamed A Dream" on Britain's Got Talent, didn't win the final, which is being treated as a massive shock in most corners.

It isn't. Remember the backlash tracker? Susan Boyle was always going to lose this show. Always, always, always. More...

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Berlusconi défend son "droit à la vie privée" après de nouvelles révélations...

Le chef du gouvernement italien Silvio Berlusconi a défendu dimanche son "droit à la vie privée" après la publication d'une interview affirmant que son épouse avait un "compagnon", et au lendemain de la saisie par le parquet de photos prises dans les jardins d'une de ses villas.

"Je voudrais ne pas répondre, nous avons vraiment touché le fond avec cette intrusion dans la vie privée de tout un chacun", a déclaré M. Berlusconi au cours d'une conférence de presse à Bari (sud).

Le chef du gouvernement était interrogé sur l'interview dimanche d'une femme politique de droite, Daniela Santanche, au quotidien Libero (droite), qui affirme que son épouse Veronica Lario - qui a demandé le divorce il y a quelques semaines - a un "compagnon", et qui révèle même son identité. Suite...

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Paris: rixe entre pro et anti-Dieudonné...

Une violente bagarre a opposé ce matin dans le XXe arrondissement de Paris des militants de la liste antisioniste de l'humoriste Dieudonné à plusieurs individus non encore identifiés pour l'instant, rapporte Leparisien.fr.

"Dieudonné était présent au moment des incidents mais n'y aurait pas pris part", précise le site internet du quotidien, selon qui trois personnes ont été blessées et cinq autres interpellées. Source...

India fields first women's rugby team!!! Cool...

India's first women's rugby team is preparing to take part in an international tournament.

At their first press conference, the players are curious and amused with all the media attention, but also excited about leaving for Thailand.

Sangeeta Minz smiles shyly if you ask her about how she started playing.

It's been only a month since she played her first game and she has already made it to India's first women's rugby team. More+photos...

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Where are the humans?

Où sont les humains...

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Blondes march in Latvia to create positive energy!!! Wow!

Several hundred blonde women marched through the Latvian capital Riga yesterday in a bid to cheer up the crisis-hit Baltic nation, suffering the worst recession of all 27 EU member states.

Led by an orchestra, the first-ever blonde parade featured women dressed in pink and white, some accompanied by lapdogs, in a charity fund-raising event that organisers hope will become an annual event.

"I'm not stupid. I'm beautiful and I'll prove it," Ilona Zigure, a participant, said. More...

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Egyptian cuts off his penis in protest against parents' bride choice...

An Egyptian cut off his own penis on Sunday in protest at his parents' choice of bride, a police official said.

The 25-year-old laborer from the village of Sheikh Eissa in southern Egypt was taken to hospital in stable condition, the official said, adding that the man had also mutilated his testicles.

"He was in love with a woman but his parents rejected her and told him to marry another woman he didn't want. He took a knife and cut off his penis in his room."

Doctors were unable to reattach the severed member, the official said.

Source

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The Legend of Xanadu...

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Un enfant de 8 ans auditionné à la gendarmerie pour s'être battu à l'école...

Un enfant de 8 ans a été auditionné, avec son père, samedi à la gendarmerie de Courdimanche (Val-d'Oise) pour s'être battu à l'école avec un autre garçon, a-t-on appris dimanche auprès de la gendarmerie, confirmant une information du Parisien.

Cette procédure est la conséquence logique d'un dépôt de plainte de la mère de l'enfant ayant reçu des coups, a-t-on précisé de même source. Suite...

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$3.8 million to deflower a virgin? No way, says wife of deflowerer!!!

She won't be taking her golden chastity belt off anytime soon.

The 22-year-old California virgin who auctioned off her virtue online for $3.8 million has yet to meet her winning bidder in the flesh - because his wife won't let him.

Natalie Dylan (not her real name) admitted the deal had fallen through. More...

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Gujarat in India, and the great carbon credit con...

The farmers, faces wizened and browned from hours in the harsh Gujarati sun, lower a bucket into a well. It’s a solid-brick cylinder 100ft deep. The sun is high in the sky, beating down on the scorched earth. In the baked fields, maize and cotton have been planted. But none of the crops look very healthy. Leaves are wilted and tinged brown. Nothing has been watered for months.

Radha, a tough, sinewy widow and the only female farmer here, says that the well, which draws from deep groundwater, used to adequately supply the village and surrounding farms.

‘We have plenty of water – but water is the problem,’ she says. More...

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Cuba authorises sex change operations...

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Paris buys 100 million doses of anti-viral vaccine...

France in preparations for a possible increase in swine flu cases in the coming winter has purchased 100 million doses of vaccines against the A(H1N1) virus, the French weekly Journal du Dimanche reported Sunday. It is unclear whether the national health care system or the treasury would be picking up the tab.

So far around 100 people have died worldwide from the new influenza, also known as swine flu. According to experts, the spread of the disease has been slowed by warmer weather, and a wave of infections is expected come winter.

France has seen 24 cases out of the worldwide total of more than 15,500.

Source

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Obama doublespeak on North Korea...

"Obama Calls on World to ‘Stand Up To’ North Korea” read the headline. The United States, Obama said, was determined to protect “the peace and security of the world.”

Shades of doublespeak, doublethink, 1984.

North Korea is a small place. China alone could snuff it out in a few minutes. Yet, the president of the US thinks that nothing less than the entire world is a match for North Korea.

We are witnessing the Washington gangsters construct yet another threat like Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, John Walker Lindh, Hamdi, Padilla, Sami Al-Arian, Hamas, Mahkmoud Ahmadinejad, and the hapless detainees demonized by the US Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld as “the 700 most dangerous terrorists on the face of the earth,” who were tortured for six years at Gitmo only to be quietly released. Just another mistake, sorry. More...

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How to rescue an elephant that falls into a ditch...

Comment sauver un éléphant qui est tombé dans un trou...

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800 Britons on Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas waiting list...

the waiting list for assisted suicide at Swiss clinic Diginitas.

Nearly 800 have become members of the controversial clinic, and 34 Britons are ready to go to Zurich for a lethal overdose of drugs, it was revealed today.

This represents a tenfold increase on the number of Britons who have joined since 2002.

According to Dignitas figures, 15 Britons died there in 2003, 26 in 2006, eight in the first five months of 2008 and 23 in the last 12 months, the Observer reports. More...

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Indians march to protest racism in Australia...

Melbourne's Indian community was out in force Sunday to protest violent assaults that have left one student with severe burns and another fighting for his life in hospital. More than 1,000 marched through the centre of Australia's second-biggest city.

Sravan Kumar Theerthala, 25, was stabbed with a screwdriver a week ago. On Thursday, another Indian student, Rajesh Kumar, suffered burns in what police suspect was a petrol bomb attack on his Sydney home. More...

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Toujours s'occuper de ses affaires et fermer sa gueule!!!

A la ferme, le cheval est malade.
Le vétérinaire dit au paysan : "Je lui injecte un remède, si dans trois jours il n'est pas remis, il faudra l'abattre."
Le cochon qui a tout entendu, dit au cheval: "Lève toi !" Mais le cheval est trop fatigué.
Le deuxième jour le cochon dit: "Lève toi vite !" Le cheval est toujours aussi fatigué.
Le troisième jour le cochon dit: "Lève toi sinon il vont t'abattre !"
Alors dans un dernier effort, le cheval se lève.
Heureux, le paysan dit: "Faut fêter ça: on tue le cochon !"

Moralité :

Toujours s'occuper de ses affaires et fermer sa gueule.

This dog exercises with its master!!!

Voici un chien qui imite bien son maitre !!!

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4ème conférence annuelle eLearning Africa...

Du 27 au 29 mai 2009 s’est tenue la quatrième conférence annuelle eLearning Africa à Dakar (Sénégal). Cet événement international est l’occasion, chaque année, de mieux réfléchir à l’intégration des nouvelles technologies comme soutien capital à l’enseignement sur le continent africain.

Microsoft ainsi que de nombreuses multinationales du secteur sont venus plaider pour des solutions technologiques accessibles. On peut notamment citer à ce titre l’initiative d’Unlimited Potential qui vise à apporter les bénéfices économiques et sociaux des nouvelles technologies à 5 milliards de personnes supplémentaires. Suite...

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Un garçon chinois accusé de meurtre et de nécrophilie sur une fillette de 3 ans…

Dans un cas bien bizarre de meurtre et de nécrophilie, un garçon chinois de 13ans a été arrêté en Chine pour avoir tué un enfant de 3ans et d’avoir ensuite violenté le cadavre. Selon la police, l’autopsie a confirmé que la fille était d’abord tuée et violentée par la suite.

Le garçon est sous détention et la police enquête sur ses motives. Elle n’a pas révélé le nom du couple étant donné qu’il est mineur. Le crime s’est produit dans le district de Haizhu dans la province de Guangzhou au sud de la Chine.

D’après la police, l’accusé a avoué le crime et qu’il a agi seul sans complice. En voyant la fille seule devant sa maison, le garçon l’avait emmenée chez lui où, apparemment, il avait ligoté ses bras et ses jambes avant de la noyer dans un bassin plein d’eau, selon les journaux locaux.

Le média local, citant les psychologues, pense que le garçon a pu être influencé par la pornographie disponible sur internet. D’après les avocats, la famille de la victime pourrait être récompensée mais le coupable ne sera pas poursuivi car il est mineur. Le garçon vit avec sa mère, une serveuse, tandis que le père, un cuisinier, vit dans une autre ville.

Source (en anglais)

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Pirates of Somalia? No. Citizens protecting their land...

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Saturday, May 30, 2009

1984, George Orwell's dying legacy...

Nineteen Eighty-Four was published in London on Wednesday June 8, 1949 and in New York five days later. The world was eager for it. Within 12 months it had sold around 50,000 hardbacks in the UK; in the US sales were more than one-third of a million. It became a phenomenon.

Sixty years later no one can say how many millions of copies are in print, both in legitimate editions and samizdat versions. It has been adapted for radio, stage, television and cinema, has been studied, copied and parodied and, above all, ransacked for its ideas and images.

As I write, the Daily Mail is reporting that “town halls are routinely using controversial ‘Big Brother’ surveillance laws to spy on their own employees”; the Los Angeles Times is describing a Republican party consultant as “a master of the black art of political newspeak”; The Village Voice is citing “a ripe example of doublethink”; and The Guardian is profiling a community leader “attacked as part of the PC thought police”. More...

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Pakistanis rising up against Taliban...

THE first thing Sadaffe Abid did when she heard Wednesday’s massive bomb rattling the windows in her office four miles away was, like most residents of Lahore, to telephone to check on family and friends. However, what she did next was more surprising.

“I told them we should come out on to the streets to protest against these militants,” she said. “This bomb was meant to turn public opinion against the army operation to clear the Taliban from Swat, and we shouldn’t give in.”

The stylishly dressed Abid, 35, is chief executive of a foundation providing microfinance for rural women, and says until recently she never thought the Taliban were anything to do with her. More...

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Teachers are people...(1952 cartoon)

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13-year-old boy in China kills 3-year-old girl and has sex with the corpse...

In a bizarre case, a 13-year old boy has been arrested for killing a three-yearold infant girl and then having sex with the corpse.The postmortem has confirmed thatthe girl was first killed and then sexually assaulted, the police said.

"We have arrested the boy and are interrogating him to determine the motive of the murder,” the police in Haizhu district of South China’s Guangzhou province said about the May 19 incident in the district. The arrest took place two days after the incident but the police are holding back the name of the accused because he is a minor. More...

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Illiterate Indians in Malaysia victims of slavery...

Many illiterate ethnic Indians in Malaysia are falling prey to scams by organized syndicates who lure them with well-paying jobs and later treat them like slaves, a leading daily here reported on Saturday.

Wanting a better life for their family and eager to escape the grip of poverty, many ethnic Indians fall victim to the scam which has been kept under close wraps by syndicates, the New Straits Times said in a report from Malacca.

One of the victims, M Nadarajah, 47, said the syndicate members were like "thugs, who exerted force to instil fear so that we dare not go against them." He alleged that he and some others victims were abused verbally and physically.

Nadarajah said his captor had also threatened to sell his children, especially his two girls, if he escaped, the paper reported.

The newspaper, however, did not give any details of how many victims were lured by the syndicate. There was also no mention of any action by the police.

Source

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Human rights in a woeful state...

A Japanese firm has no chairs and alarms go off if you don't walk fast enough!!!

Can you imagine working in a place where the boss got rid of all the chairs and put in alarms which go off when you don't walk fast enough?
Well some of the folks who work at Canon don't need to imagine - its a reality for them.

The president of Canon Electronics Hisashi Sakamaki is also the author of a book called "A company will do well if you get rid of the chairs and computers."

According to his book, employees can concentrate on the meeting at hand without chairs and they have been able to half the number of meetings each year. More...

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UN under fire for selling-out to Sri Lanka...

The United Nations has been accused of failing in its duties to speak out against abuses in Sri Lanka and release credible information in its possession.

The UN European headquarters in Geneva on Friday denied there had been a cover-up.

Le Monde newspaper accused the UN of covering up the "severity of the massacres" in Sri Lanka for fear of compromising its humanitarian operations and of being expelled from the island.

The French newspaper cited UN figures putting the death toll in the Sri Lanka government's final onslaught against Tamil Tiger rebels at 7,720, including 678 children, between January 20 and May 13, while 18,465 people were injured, 2,384 of them children. More...

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The Power of the Penis!!! Poor vagina...

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Berlusconi blocks compromising photos showing topless babes at his villa...

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has succeeded in blocking the publication of potentially embarrassing photos of young women at his new year's party.

Mr Berlusconi, 72, is under pressure to explain his relationship with 18-year-old Noemi Letizia, who was among the guests. He denies having an affair.

Local media say some of the photographs show young women in bikinis or topless. More...

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Don't come to Australia, attack victim tells Indians...

After surviving a murderous attack, a 25-year-old Indian student on Saturday appealed to fellow countrymen aspiring to pursue education in Australia that they should not come here.

"My advice to every Indian student now who wants to come to Australia is please don't come and there's no life here," said Baljinder Singh, who was attacked by two youths here recently.

Singh also expressed concern over the condition of another Indian student Shravan Kumar, who was attacked by a screwdriver by a group of teens in a separate incident. Kumar remained "very, very serious," he said. More...

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Lennon: God is a concept by which we measure our pain...

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Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan snubs Australia after wave of attacks on Indian students...

Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan has reacted to racial attacks on Indian students in Australia by rejecting an honorary doctorate offered to him by an Australian university.

The Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane had offered the 66-year-old veteran a doctorate for his contribution to the world of entertainment and Bachchan had earlier accepted the title.

The honour was to be conferred on the star in July as a part of celebrations to commemorate a retrospective of his films to be inaugurated in the city. More...

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If they knew the truth, they'd hate us even more...

We Americans like to think of ourselves as civilized people. Historically, we have supported our government in war under the belief that our government and our soldiers are honorable and that we do not engage in unjust wars. Ugly things like genocide, torture, naked aggression, raping, pillaging, and scorched earth policies are things that others do, not us. Since we are so good and virginal in every sense, we reason that others hate us only because of our goodness and purity. If they knew the truth about us, we think, they would love us.

Yet, if this is so, why is it that we need to hide from the world the activities of our soldiers and intelligence agents over seas? Why cannot we, the “liberators” of Iraq, show the world the lovely photos of our soldiers at work Abu Ghraib? Why must the CIA consider destroying the records of American conduct in the prisons at Guantanamo? We are so pure, clean, honorable, and all, aren't we? What have we got to worry about? More...

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Plus de 20.000 civils auraient été tués au Sri Lanka...

Plus de 20.000 civils tamouls ont été tués dans les derniers jours de l'offensive de l'armée sri-lankaise qui a permis de vaincre la guérilla séparatiste des Tigres de libération de l'Eelam tamoul (LTTE), rapporte le quotidien britannique Times. Suite...

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Situation des droits humains dans le monde...

La justice saisit des photos prises chez Silvio Berlusconi...

Le parquet de Rome a ordonné la saisie de «plusieurs centaines» de photos prises lors de fêtes dans une villa du chef du gouvernement Silvio Berlusconi, actuellement empêtré dans l'affaire Noemi. Il a pris cette décision après une plainte pour violation de la vie privée, a indiqué l'Ansa samedi.

L'avocat de M. Berlusconi, Niccolo Ghedini, avait déposé plainte à l'encontre d'un photographe qui serait en possession de quelque 700 clichés pris lors de réceptions privées dans la villa que possède le chef du gouvernement en Sardaigne, selon l'Ansa. Suite...

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Cigarettes : des images chocs pour dégoûter les fumeurs...

Les images chocs qui devraient bientôt transfigurer les paquets de tabacs ont de quoi répugner les plus récalcitrants des fumeurs. Un malade sous assistance respiratoire, d'horribles dents cariées, une autopsie de poumons, une cigarette molle évoquant l'impuissance… Ce relooking « gore » des paquets de cigarettes, décidé en janvier dernier par la ministre de la Santé Roselyne Bachelot, devrait remplacer, avant la fin de l'année, les simples messages sanitaires écrits. Suite...

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Sri Lanka's hidden massacre...

More than 20,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the final throes of the Sri Lankan civil war, most as a result of government shelling, an investigation by The Times has revealed.

The number of casualties is three times the official figure.

The Sri Lankan authorities have insisted that their forces stopped using heavy weapons on April 27 and observed the no-fire zone where 100,000 Tamil men, women and children were sheltering. They have blamed all civilian casualties on Tamil Tiger rebels concealed among the civilians. More + video...

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The war in Somalia, in pictures...

While Somalia recently has been in the news for its notorious pirates, back on-shore the country continues to struggle through a years-long war that has intensified lately, and to seek some sort of functional unifying government. Back in January, the Transitional Federal Parliament of Somalia elected moderate Islamist Sharif Sheikh Ahmed as President. Ahmed has gained international backing in his efforts to bring an end to 18 years of civil conflict. However, hard-line Islamist groups such as al Shabaab, Hezb al-Islamiya and others continue to reject the government and have been attacking its forces and civilians for years now, most of the fighting taking place in the capital city of Mogadishu. The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) provides over 3,000 troops to maintain security where it can. Since the start of this insurgency in December 2006, nearly 17,000 civilians have lost their lives. See images...

Literature is illegal in Palestine...

i went to the last night of the palestine festival of literature expecting that it would be shut down yet again. a friend of mine in the old city had bumped into one of the actors in al hakawati (the palestinian national theatre) and she told him that they were already planning to move it somewhere else. but when i went there to meet him everything was getting set up so it seemed that this was just a rumor. i arrived an hour early because my friends are in a book discussion group every thursday night so i went to join them as i sometimes do. but five minutes after they got started israeli terrorist soldiers invaded al hakawati. they came in and posted a court order in hebrew and arabic on the door and asked everyone to leave the theatre. More + video + images...

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Poverty-stricken Britons in Zimbabwe pack up their bags...

More than 60 British passport holders, reduced to poverty in Zimbabwe, are to be repatriated to Britain over the next few weeks.

They are the first successful applicants to a UK government scheme to resettle elderly and vulnerable people unable to afford the move themselves.

All their savings were lost in years of hyper-inflation in Zimbabwe. More...

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Zager and Evans: In the year 2525...

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Friday, May 29, 2009

Indian chick wins US spelling bee...

After months of training, in the end it took Kavya Shivashankar, 13, just nine correct letters to be crowned the new US spelling champion.

She correctly spelt Laodicean, meaning to be lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics, to claim victory in the 2009 Scripps Spelling Bee.

A record 293 spellers, including 28 from countries outside the US, had made it to the final stages of the contest.

Among the 9-15 year olds were 33 who speak English as their second language. More + video...

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Grande rencontre "Le Sari Dévoilé" les 27 et 28 juin à Paris...

"L'Inde au féminin". C'est ainsi que l'association "le Sari Dévoilé" décrit le futur salon du même nom qui doit avoir lieu à l'espace Reully, à Paris, les 27 et 28 juin. Là où les salons sur l'Inde mettent trop souvent en avant les mêmes aspects du sous-continent, "le Sari Dévoilé" n'est consacré qu'à la femme indienne pour aborder, à travers elle, à la fois l'Inde qui brille, l'Inde éternelle et les contrastes actuels du pays. Suite...

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Deux semaines sans eau à l’Hôpital central à Yaoundé...

Les principales structures sanitaires de la ville n`ont pas le précieux liquide, la Cde dégage ses responsabilités.

Comment parvient-on à travailler sans eau dans un hôpital ? La question revient, depuis quelques jours sur toutes les lèvres et c`est avec appréhension que les malades se rendent dans les différentes structures sanitaires de la ville de Yaoundé confrontées à ce problème. Parmi celles-ci, l`hôpital général de Yaoundé. Il a passé toute la journée du mardi et une partie de la journée de mercredi sans eau. Pour cause, la bobine de la pompe à eau de ladite institution a lâché. Une situation qui n`a pas été facile à gérer par les gardes malades et les infirmiers : "Il a fallu sortir tôt pour trouver de l`eau et revenir avant que le malade ne se réveille, puisqu`il faut l`assister dans la prise de ses médicaments", raconte un garde-malade. Suite...

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If you like Kentucky Fried Chicken, maybe you should watch this...

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Indian passengers refuse Air France compensation for "racial profiling" and demand more...

A group of 53 Indian passengers, who were allegedly subjected to racial profiling by Air France at Paris Airport on May 10, have threatened to move court if the airlines did not provide compensation in accordance with law.

Air France has offered €350 per passenger to settle the matter. But the aggrieved passengers have said they cannot accept anything less than €650 as compensation.

"Air France has offered us €350 to settle the matter. This is a violation of the European Union law on such matters," Sachin Gupta, an aggrieved passenger, told PTI here. More...

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Indian students being attacked in Australia...

In a fresh incident of racial attack on Indians in Australia, a 25-year old student was stabbed here, even as another youth from Andhra Pradesh was battling for life after an assault by local teenagers.

Baljinder Singh, 25, was attacked on Monday night when two men carrying weapons approached, the 'Herald Sun' reported.

The attackers demanded money and as Singh was searching through his bag to hand over his wallet he was stabbed in the abdomen. Singh screamed for his life, his attackers laughed and fled the scene, the report said. More...

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Yin and Yang crop circle in Wiltshire...

Is this an amazing work of art, or of something from science-fiction?

The neat, intricate pattern does pose the question - how on earth was it made?

The huge crop circle sculpted in a sea of barley seems to be based on the Yin and Yang theme, and appeared near an ancient British burial mound beneath Windmill Hill near Devizes, Wiltshire on 25 May.

The ancient area of Wiltshire close to Silbury Hill, Windmill Hill and the Sanctuary is a hot spot for crop circles. More...

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'Crazy Turtle Woman' in Trinidad is a true friend of nature...

With its white sand and clear, blue water, Trinidad's Matura Beach looks like a postcard. It's a far cry from its recent past, when leatherback sea turtle carcasses littered the ground and kept tourists away.

"Twenty years ago, this was a graveyard," Suzan Lakhan Baptiste said of the six-mile stretch of beach near her home.

"The stench was horrendous. You could smell it for miles," she said. More...

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Russian serial-killer used home-made electric chair on his victims...

A Russian man killed at least six people with a home-made electric chair, police have revealed.

The power station worker, identified only as Dmitry K, is also accused of designing an electric carpet which would kill anyone who stepped on it.

The 30-year-old lured his victims by posting an advert on an internet website claiming he wanted to buy computer parts, detectives said. More...

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Best of the 60's music compilation! Cool!

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Emmaüs commercialise les ordinateurs et téléphones reconditionnés...

consoGlobe.com, le leader des sites écolo sur le net en France, et les Ateliers du Bocage d’Emmaüs ouvrent un partenariat visant à :

Collecter des ordinateurs et téléphones auprès des entreprises et à les reconditionner pour les remettre « à neuf »

Les commercialiser auprès du grand public via la boutique de consoGlobe parmi les autres gammes de produits verts (cosmétique, économies d’énergie, entretien, textile, …) Suite...

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Un blogueur égyptien condamné à près de 6 000 euros pour avoir dénoncé la pollution industrielle...

Reporters sans frontières est scandalisée par la lourde amende à laquelle le blogueur Tamer Mabrouk a été condamné en appel, le 26 mai 2009, par la Cour d’Al Zohor à Port Saïd (est du Caire). Accusé de “diffamation” et d“outrage” par l’entreprise Trust Chemical Company, accusée de pollution dans l’un de ses articles, le blogueur a été condamné à verser 45 000 livres égyptiennes (environ 5 759 euros). Lors de son premier jugement, le 20 janvier, le juge l’avait déjà condamné à 340 euros d’amende.

“L’attitude de la justice est inacceptable. Le jugement en appel de Tamer Mabrouk a été conclu à la hâte et son cas n’a pas été réexaminé. L’amende qui lui est infligée est une insulte à la liberté d’expression. Il s’agit d’un clair moyen de le ruiner et de décourager toute prise de parole ou de position de sa part. Nous demandons l’abandon des charges à l’encontre du blogueur”, a déclaré l’organisation. Suite...

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Child labour, a necessity in Bangladesh...

As one of the world's leading suppliers of ready made garments , Bangladesh frequently encounters hostile criticism over the use of child labour in its textile industry.

Western retailers have rushed to assure conscience-stricken consumers that steps are taken to eradicate the practice, and in 2006 the Bangladeshi government passed a new labour law.

It enshrines the rights of young workers to receive a fixed salary, compensation in case of accident, proper holidays and to have access to education.

But that law is only designed to help children in the textile sector, so it does nothing to ease the problem of child labour in one of the poorest countries in the world. More...

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Life of a 14-year-old in the Congo...

The most popular leader in the Middle East? Hugo Chavez...

The results of the new survey of 'Arab opinion' conducted by Zogby International show that Barack Obama has a much more favourable rating than did his predecessor as US president. But when asked to name the world leaders whom they most admire, the participants put the President of Venezuela at the top of the poll.

The survey, which was conducted in April and May 2009, sampled the views of 4,087 people in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Lebanon, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. According to the respected Zogby polling organisation, the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.6%. One of the questions put to the participants was "which two world leaders (outside your own country) do you admire most?" The most frequently named leader is Hugo Chavez, at 36%. Following Chavez in order of admiration are Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and former President of France Jacques Chirac (both at 18%), Osama bin Laden (16%), Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi (15%) and the current French president Nicolas Sarkozy (14%). More...

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Thursday, May 28, 2009

Were the US moon missions faked as many believe?

There is something wrong with US mission to the Moon. The legendary space mission is still shrouded in mystery. Mankind still has a number of reasons to cast doubt on the miracle of inter-planetary flights. Many people still say that US astronauts have never landed on the Moon.

Japan’s Kaguya lunar orbiter took several pictures of the site, where Apollo 15 and Apollo 17 supposedly landed in 1971 and 1972. If the astronauts had ever landed there, they should have left a lot of equipment on the site, including the rovers, on which they traveled on the surface of the Earth’s satellite. The pictures, which the Japanese rover took, showed not even the slightest hint of the US presence on the Moon. More...

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Corrupt and lying Euro deputies come under fire...

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A man in China had a leech in his nose for 5 years!!!

A man who was suffering from nose bleeding for several years is feeling a lot better since doctors extracted from his nose a 10-inch leech that had been living there for five years, reports a daily from South China.

According to the Canton Daily, as quoted by the China Daily, the 73-year-old man, called Fu, a bare-foot doctor in a village in the South, decided to consult a doctor after his nose kept bleeding for 10 consecutive days.

Fu thinks the leech got into his nose about five years ago, the time when his hemorrhagic symptoms and nasal congestions started, probably at a moment when he was drinking some spring water in the mountains as he was collecting herbs.

Source (in French)

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Un homme en Chine avait une sangsue dans son nez depuis 5 ans!!!

Un Chinois qui souffrait de saignements depuis des années va nettement mieux depuis que les médecins lui ont extrait du nez une sangsue de dix centimètres qui vivait là depuis cinq ans, a rapporté un quotidien du Sud.

Selon le Quotidien de Canton, cité par le China Daily, cet homme de 73 ans, nommé Fu, un médecin aux pieds nus d'un village du Sud, s'est décidé à consulter après avoir souffert de saignements de nez pendant dix jours consécutifs.

Fu pense que la sangsue s'est introduite dans son nez il y a cinq ans, début de ses symptômes d'hémorragies et de congestion nasale, peut-être à un moment où il buvait de l'eau dans une source, en montagne, alors qu'il ramassait des herbes.

Source

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Orange condamné pour le mot de passe "salearabe"

On se souvient de l'affaire. En 2007, un garagiste de Pessac, dans la région bordelaise, décide de s'abonner à Internet. Il se rend à son agence France Telecom, signe un contrat, tout va bien. Puis un jour, il a des problèmes de connexion. D'origine marocaine, l'homme contacte alors la hotline d'Orange par téléphone, et donne son nom : Mohamed Zaïdi. Le technicien lui indique alors qu'il recevra un nouveau mot de passe par courrier. Suite...

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A visit to North Korea and its nuclear facility...

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The UN sells its soul to Sri Lanka! (War victims everywhere take heed; no one cares about you...)

Sri Lanka last night scored a major propaganda coup when the UN human rights council praised its victory over the Tamil Tigers and refused calls to investigate allegations of war crimes by both sides in the final chapter of a bloody 25-year conflict.

In a shock move, which dismayed western nations critical of Sri Lanka's approach, the island's diplomats succeeded in lobbying enough of its south Asian allies to pass a resolution describing the conflict as a "domestic matter that doesn't warrant outside interference". More...

Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape'

Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube. More...

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Microsoft launches its Bing search engine...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today drew back the curtain on the new incarnation of Live Search: Bing.

Speaking at the D7 Conference in San Diego, Ballmer launched Microsoft's new Search brand, formerly code-named "Kumo." Bing will begin rolling out in the coming days and will be fully available on 6/3.

More than just a rebranding of Live Search, Microsoft is repositioning Bing as a "decision engine," with a goal "to provide customers with intelligent search tools to help them simplify tasks and make more informed decisions," according to a Microsoft spokesperson. More...

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Yes, this happens even in Switzerland...

Oui, ça arrive même en Suisse...

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Man in India beaten to death for stealing cell-phone...

A youth was tied to a tree and beaten to death for allegedly stealing a cellphone at Bachepally village in Kalheru mandal of Medak district late on Tuesday night.

The body of the accused, Vadla Kistaiah (28), was found tied to a neem tree close to his house early on Wednesday by some passers-by, who immediately alerted the police.

Sources said three women and three men went to Kistaiah’s house when he was asleep, dragged him out and tied him to the tree. They then launched a brutal attack on him, beating him up with sticks. Even as he was writhing in pain, the women threw chilli powder into his eyes. A police official said the attackers were in an inebriated state. More...

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Religious female rockers cater to women-only audiences in Israel...

On a fog-filled stage, as the six women of the Ashira band rocked before their die-hard fans, a man entered the auditorium - and was promptly asked to leave.

The band has been playing together for three years and the crowds have grown steadily in numbers. But the band has held fast to one golden rule: No men are allowed.

The band's members are all Orthodox Jewish women and, guided by a rabbinical injunction that says it is immodest for a man to listen to a woman's voice in song, they perform only before other women. More...

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Microsoft lance son nouveau moteur de recherche, Bing, pour contrer Google...

Le géant américain des logiciels Microsoft a dévoilé jeudi son nouveau moteur de recherche, baptisé "Bing", qui remplacera dès la semaine prochaine Live Search, avec pour ambition de rattraper son retard sur le leader mondial Google.

Disponible à partir de lundi aux Etats-Unis (www.bing.com), le service qui avait pour nom de code Kumo sera proposé en version provisoire dans les autres pays, a indiqué à l'AFP Olivier Marcheteau, directeur de la division grand public du groupe en France. Suite...

Voir aussi:

Two girls and a giant piano! Wow!

Deux filles et un piano géant ! Cool…

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Amnesty International dénonce "l’impunité" des bavures policières...

Dans son rapport 2009, l’ONG estime notamment que les procédures d’enquête pour mauvais traitements ne sont pas menées "de façon conforme" aux normes internationales.

"Une impunité de fait" dénonce donc Amnesty International, qui constate à travers son rapport 2009 la "non-conformité" des procédures françaises d’enquête, après des mauvais traitements par les forces de l’ordre, avec les règles internationales. Suite...

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Un fan de Manchester tue quatre supporters du Barça au Nigeria...

Un supporter de Manchester United au Nigeria a tué quatre personnes en précipitant son minibus dans un groupe de partisans de Barcelone après la défaite du club anglais en finale de la Ligue des champions, rapporte la police jeudi.

L'incident s'est produit dans la ville d'Ogbo mercredi soir après le succès 2-0 du Barça. Dix personnes ont été blessées et le conducteur du minibus a été arrêté.

"Le conducteur était passé à côté du groupe puis il a effectué un demi-tour et il a précipité son véhicule sur eux", a dit une porte-parole de la police.

Manchester United et Barcelone comptent de nombreux supporters en Afrique.

(Le foot européen déchaine une véritable passion en Afrique. Il y a quelques semaines, un fan d’Arsenal au Kenya s’est suicidé après la défaite de son équipe contre Man Utd dans le Champions’ League.)

Source

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Faroe Islanders and the red sea of whale slaughter...

The coastline scarlet with blood, Faroe Island locals take part in a brutal annual whaling event.

A tradition that dates as far back as the 10th century, locals in the autonomous province of Denmark slaughter and eat indigenous pilot whales every year.

More than 180 of the animals were slaughtered in the town of Hvalvik's annual event this year, called 'grindadráp', which translates literally as 'grind', locally as 'pilot whale kill'. More...

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In Malaysia there's a Temple of Lucky Pigs!!!

Come dusk, a flurry of excitement can be felt at a tiny and usually quiet Hindu temple as hundreds of people gather to greet the site’s most-honored guests — rough-skinned, hairy and hungry wild boars.

The Jeda Munisvarar Temple, nestled within a forest clearing in the sleepy town of Taiping in Malaysia’s northern state of Perak, is fast gaining the attention of devotees and the not-so-faithful, since word got round that the temple was a gathering site for good-luck wild boars.

“About a year back, some pilgrims rubbed pieces of paper with numbers on the backs of the wild boars,” senior temple volunteer N Morgan said. More...

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Amnesty accuses leaders of losing focus on human rights abuse...

Disaster is brewing and could lead to a humanitarian crisis of poverty, repression and unrest as human rights take a back seat to the global economic downturn, Amnesty International warns in its annual report.

In its annual report, released on Thursday, Amnesty International details human rights abuses from China to the United States and Sri Lanka to Russia and says the ongoing economic crisis is partly to blame for deteriorating rights.

"Underlying the economic crisis is an explosive human rights crisis. The economic downturn has aggravated abuses, distracted attention from them and created new problems," Amnesty chief Irene Khan said. "In other words: we are sitting on a powder keg of inequality, injustice and insecurity, and it is about to explode." More...

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The child "witches" of Africa...

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Man Utd fan kills 4 Barcelona fans in Nigeria after Red Devils' Champions League defeat...

A Manchester United fan in Nigeria killed four people when he drove his minibus into a crowd of Barcelona supporters after his team lost the Champions League final, police said today.

The crowd in the town of Ogbo were celebrating Barcelona's victory after last night's match when the bus drove into them. A police spokeswoman said 10 people were injured and the driver was arrested.

"The driver had passed the crowd then made a U-turn and ran into them," she said.

Barcelona beat Manchester United 2-0 in what was hailed as a "dream final" between two of Europe's best clubs. Both teams have large fan bases in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation.

Source

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Iraqi teenager in Sweden cracks centuries old maths puzzle...

A 16-year-old Iraqi immigrant living in central Sweden has figured out a formula that has challenged great mathematicial minds for 300 hundred years, earning him praise from professors at prestigious Uppsala University.

Mohamed Altoumaimi, who moved with his family to Sweden six years ago, is a first year student at the Falu Frigymnasium high school in Falun in central Sweden.

Long interested in mathematics, Altoumaimi has spent the last four months toiling over his notebook in an attempt to write a formula to explain the calculation of Bernoulli numbers. More...

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Encore un chat en Chine qui pousse des ailes !!!

Les oiseaux ont intérêt de se méfier ; les chats en Chine poussent des ailes !!!

Voici le cas de ce chat dans la ville de Chongqing.

Les experts sont perplexes, car ce chat était normale jusqu'à l’âge d’un an lorsqu’il a commencé à pousser des ailes dans chaque coté de sa colonne vertébrale.

Selon ces experts, il pourrait s’agir d’un jumeau siamois a l’intérieur du corps du chat ou bien une mutation génétique causé par des produits chimiques avalés par la mère du chat pendant sa grossesse.

Toujours est-il que ce chat n’a pas de problèmes avec ses ailes et parait plutôt content de tout se tohu-bohu autour de lui! Source + images...

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Le Sri Lanka se transforme en valse politique entre pays du Nord et du Sud. Tant pis pour les 300'000 déplacés tamouls...

La session spéciale du Conseil des droits de l'homme consacrée à la situation au Sri Lanka a tourné en valse politique entre pays du Nord et du Sud. La crédibilité de l'ONU est compromise. Pendant ce temps, 300'000 civils continuent de souffrir dans des camps.

Pas d'enquête sur les violations des droits de l'homme au Sri Lanka. Colombo a pu imposer le principe de non ingérence lors de la session spéciale consacrée au Sri Lanka mardi et mercredi au Conseil des droits de l'homme de l'ONU à Genève.

Les Etats ont voté à une majorité de 29 contre 12 - dont la Suisse - et 6 abstentions une résolution extrêmement complaisante à l'égard de ce pays. Suite...

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Horny monkeys perform for tourists!!!

Des singes qui font un spectacle pour des touristes!!!

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Fluorescent comme un singe...

Il y avait des cochons, des rongeurs et des plantes génétiquement modifiés pour devenir fluorescents sous l'effet d'ultra-violets.

Le singe s'ajoute à cette liste des êtres vivants auxquels on a introduit la protéine fluorescente verte observée pour la première fois en 1962 chez la méduse.

La chercheuse japonaise Erika Sasaki et ses collègues de l'Institut central d'expérimentation animale de l'Université Keio ont introduit la protéine dans des embryons de ouistitis à pinceaux blancs (Callithrix jacchus) à l'aide d'un virus inoffensif. Suite...

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The staggering cost of the Sri Lanka war. And yet, the State called it a "victory..."

For the first time last week, Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse revealed the staggering level of casualties suffered by government soldiers in the last phase of the war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Speaking on the state-owned ITN television channel, Rajapakse acknowledged that 6,261 members of the security forces had died and another 29,551 had been injured since the government resumed the communal war in July 2006. Of the injured, 2,556 had been permanently disabled. More...

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Man Utd lose Champions League final...

Manchester United football fans are drowning their sorrows after their team was beaten in the Champions League final.

Sir Alex Ferguson's team lost 2-0 to Barcelona at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.

Police said the crowd was good natured and generally well behaved, though one United fan was stabbed near his hotel in the Italian capital in the early hours of Wednesday.

The 54-year-old man, who received stab wounds to the left leg after being set upon by for thugs, was later discharged from hospital.

Source

Damien Walters, gymnast or stuntman? Wow!

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Saudi Arabia's religious police want cameras to monitor youth...

Saudi Arabia's religious police want to install surveillance cameras in shopping centres throughout the country in order to watch young people. "We will place surveillance cameras in all shopping centres and public places to monitor the behaviour of young people," said General Abdel Aziz al-Hamin, chief of the committee for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice, quoted by Saudi daily Okaz on Wednesday.

"Our objective is to correct the mistakes made by some youths, in order to protect their moral integrity," said al-Hamin. More...

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Another Chinese cat with wings...

Someone should tell the birds to look out - now cats are growing wings.

At least, this cat in the Chinese city of Chongqing in China appears to be.

Animal experts have been left baffled by the fluffy white moggy, who was born normal - but began growing wing-shaped appendages on either side of his spine when he was just a year old.

Some experts believe the bony 'wings' are in fact a freak mutation - a Siamese twin growing inside the kitty. More + pictures...

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Little River Band - Reminiscing...

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Could a teenage girl topple Berlusconi?

Italians are always scornful about the obsession of the "Anglo-Saxon" media with the private lives of the rich and famous, but for the past month the Italian newspapers have been preoccupied with one subject and one subject only: the relationship between Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and a young woman from Naples called Noemi Letizia.

Mr Berlusconi has been caught out telling numerous lies about the relationship and refuses to explain them. And with important elections pending, his popularity, at an all-time high only six weeks ago, may be eroding. More...

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Woman who killed an official after rape threat becomes an internet heroine in China...

Until a few weeks ago, Deng Yujiao was an unknown 21-year-old worker in a Chinese provincial town: one of millions quietly scraping a living. Now she is an unwilling hero to tens of thousands of compatriots after stabbing to death an official who she says tried to rape her when she rejected his advances.

Comments on the killing have inundated blogs and bulletin boards. Deng's case – and its handling – has become emblematic of the struggle of ordinary people against abusive officials.

The message was spelled out in a protest at a Beijing university this week in which a gagged female student bound in sheets was shown surrounded by the words: "Anyone could become a Deng Yujiao." More...

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Moroccan gay writer takes on the Muslim world...

A soft-spoken slip of a young man, Abdellah Taia hardly looks the part of an iconoclast. But as Morocco's first high-profile, openly gay man, Taia has made it his mission to win acceptance for homosexuals throughout the Muslim world.

Taia has defied Moroccan society's don't-ask, don't-tell attitude toward homosexuality - and prison sentences that are still on the books in the North African kingdom - to write five autobiographical novels about growing up poor and gay in the northern coastal city of Sale.

The novels, peppered with sexually explicit passages, have catapulted him to fame in his native country and made him the de-facto poster child of its budding gay rights movement. More...

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The pygmy gerboa, a very strange mammal...

La gerboise naine, un mammifère bien étrange…

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A "wild" child found in Siberia...

STUNNED cops have discovered a five-year-old "Mowgli" girl who barks like a dog, laps up her food and walks on all fours.

Feral Natasha cannot speak and experts fear her family treated her like one of their pets.

She lived in filthy conditions in the same home as her parents and grandparents in the Siberian city of Chita, Russia.

One neighbour said: "They never let her out, we didn't know she existed. More...

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Internet "installé au coeur de la vie des Français" en 10 ans...

En 10 ans, le média Internet "s'est installé au coeur de la vie des Français", selon une étude de l'Observatoire des Usages Internet (OUI) de Médiamétrie publiée aujourd'hui après une décennie d'observations.

Ainsi, le nombre d'internautes connectés au cours du dernier mois chez les 18 ans et plus passe de 3 millions en 1999 à 29 millions en 2009, soit quasiment dix fois plus.

L'écart entre hommes et femmes s'est considérablement réduit en dix ans. En 1989, il y avait 60,8% d'hommes utilisant le web contre 39,2% de femmes. Suite...

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Une "enfant sauvage" découverte dans une ville de Sibérie...

Une fillette russe de cinq ans, qui n'a apparemment vécu qu'avec des chiens et des chats depuis sa naissance, a été découverte dans un appartement de Tchita, dans l'est de la Sibérie, annonce mercredi la police.

"Pendant cinq ans, elle a été 'élevée' par des chiens et des chats et n'est jamais sortie de l'appartement", a précisé la police de cette ville à 6.000 km à l'est de Moscou. Suite...

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Pit-bull gets excited over fire!!!

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La France détient le record de l'euthanasie animale...

Attachés à un arbre sur les aires d'autoroutes, jetés vivants dans des poubelles ou sur les routes à travers la vitre d'une voiture… L'abandon d'un animal se fait parfois de bien lâches manières. Pour ceux qui en réchappent commence le parcours du combattant : récupérés par les fourrières, ils sont ensuite menés dans une cage à part des refuges de la SPA.

Le compte à rebours commence alors : le propriétaire dispose de huit jours pour récupérer son animal. Au-delà, chiens et chats sont proposés à l'adoption, sans grande chance pour les gros chiens ou les plus vieux animaux. Mais là encore, pas question de finir sa vie dans un refuge bondé. À ceux qui l'ignoraient, 50 000 chiens et chats sont euthanasiés en France chaque année, selon les chiffres du ministère de l'agriculture et de la pêche. Un record en Europe !

Source

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Iran arrests 104 in raid on 'Satanist' party...

Iran has arrested more than 100 "Satan-worshippers" in a raid on a concert in the southern city of Shiraz where people were "sucking blood", a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

"One hundred and four members of a Satan-worshipping group were arrested at a party and immoral concert in Shiraz (on Sunday)," local Revolutionary Guards chief Abbas Hamidi was quoted as saying by Jam-e Jam newspaper.

"The session was held in a garden outside Shiraz and the Satanist ceremony was broadcast live to the world via the Internet," he said, adding the arrest was made by members of the Basij linked to the Guards. More...

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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Andrew Krasnow, the artist whose material is the human skin...

Some will find it shocking, macabre, echoing the worst allegations of Nazi atrocities. An American artist has spent the past 20 years making sculptures out of human skin, and is to exhibit his work in public in the UK for the first time later this year.

Welcome to the world of Andrew Krasnow, who has tackled one of the great taboos in art. Günther von Hagens may have caused controversy with his Body Worlds exhibition of human corpses, but Krasnow goes a step further.

His works include human skin lampshades – a direct response to the belief that similar items made from the skin of Holocaust victims were found at Buchenwald concentration camp. More...

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George Carlin and "freedom" of choice...

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NY man convicted for running "zoo from hell..."

A farm-animal breeder who ran what a prosecutor called "the zoo from hell" was convicted Tuesday of animal cruelty.

A jury in West Haverstraw deliberated less than two hours before convicting Robert Everle of all 13 charges of torturing, injuring and starving animals.

State police raided Everle's property, 30 miles north of New York City, in July, and witnesses testified that they found several animals dead, many malnourished and dozens living in unsanitary conditions. The animals included ducks, chickens, guinea hens, rabbits, sheep, dogs and cats. More...

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Iran lifts Facebook ban...

Iran lifted its ban on Facebook on Tuesday, a few days after blocking the social networking site.

It was not immediately clear who filtered the site and who took the decision to allow access again.

The ban was widely covered by the international media. Domestic commentators claimed it was a government attempt to limit the ability of young supporters of Mir-Hossein Moussavi, leading presidential hopeful, to use the internet for campaigning ahead of the June 12 election. More...

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Windows Vista SP2 is now available...

AFTER A FEW months of BETA testing, Microsoft has finally released the next official first aid kit for Windows Vista - Service Pack 2.

If you've been running the BETA of Service Pack 2 that was released last year, then you'll need to uninstall that before installing the official service pack. Plus, you'll also need to have Service Pack 1 installed first.

Although the Service Pack hasn't made it to Windows Update yet, you can now grab the official downloads from Microsoft's Download Center. The installer includes Service Pack 2 for both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, resulting in a 348.3MB file for 32-bit version - and a 577.4MB file for 64-bit version.

Despite the massive file size, however, there's not much to get excited about. The update mainly includes all of the bits and bobs that have been released since Service Pack 1, although this doesn't include Internet Explorer 8. More...

Sikh shooting in Austria provokes riots in the Punjab...

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Windows Vista : le SP2 est disponible en téléchargement...

La version finale et en français de Windows Vista Service Pack 2 est en ligne depuis ce mardi 26 mai. La nouvelle était imminente depuis l'annonce de la disponibilité de la version RTM (Release to manufacturer) à la fin du mois d'avril. Il s'agit de la deuxième mise à jour importante pour le système d'exploitation de Microsoft, après la sortie du SP1 au printemps 2008. Suite...

Windows Vista Service Pack 2

Windows Vista 64 Service Pack 2

Drame de jalousie: deux étudiants de l’Esstic brûlés à Yaoundé...

Il est presque 15 heures au centre hospitalier universitaire (Chu) de Yaoundé. Devant les salles des services de chirurgie, deux étudiants de l’Ecole supérieure des sciences et techniques de l’information et de la Communication (Esstic), se battent contre la mort. Le garçon (étudiant en 3ème année, filière publicité) s’appelle Nganansou a le visage est défiguré, l’abdomen et une partie du sexe serait aussi touchés. Suite...

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L’escalade sécuritaire...

"Puisqu’il faut des moyens, mais des moyens bien utilisés, je veux mettre en débat la possibilité de créer, auprès des recteurs, une force mobile d’agents qui pourront intervenir dans les établissements sur des missions de prévention et de contrôle", a déclaré Xavier Darcos mardi dernier, qui propose de créer une "police des écoles". En ce même jour, deux enfants de 6 et 10 ans ont été arrêtés devant leur école à Floirac (Gironde). Suite...

Voir aussi:

Surinder Kumar, the Indian dude who eats ... nails!!!

Voici Surinder Kumar, l'Indien qui mange des clous!!!

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Les internautes chinois soutiennent une jeune chinoise qui a poignardé un officiel...

L'affaire Deng Yujiao aurait pu rester un simple fait divers parmi d'autres si elle n'avait suscité l'attention de millions d'internautes chinois. Deng Yujiao, pédicure de l'hôtel Xiongfeng à Yesanguan, dans la province du Hubei, aurait poignardé à mort un officiel et blessé un autre le 10 mai dernier. Les deux hommes auraient demandé à la jeune femme de 21 ans un "service spécial", un euphémisme pour lui demander de se prostituer, alors qu'elle était en train de faire la lessive. Après qu'elle ait refusé, l'un des deux hommes, Deng Guida, chef du bureau du gouvernement de la commune de Yesanguan, aurait frappé la jeune femme sur la tête avec une poignée de billets avant de la pousser sur un canapé. La pédicure lui aurait alors porté des coups de couteau lui ayant perforé le poumon. Couteau de pédicure selon une version des faits, couteau à fruits qui prouverait que l'acte avait été prémédité selon une autre. Suite...

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"Jungle Laxmi," the Indian woman who lived in the wilds for 22 years, comes home...

In the hospital ward in the western suburbs where Laxmi Baraskar is being treated, the staff call her "Jungle Laxmi" — an apt moniker for the wiry woman who spent the last two decades in the jungle near Guhagar taluka in Ratnagiri.

Laxmi left her home in Katale village 22 years ago to ‘‘settle down’’ in the wild, about an hour’s walk from her old home. What prompted her decision was a beating by her husband and his relatives. The underlying reason — schizophrenia, a serious mental disorder — was not diagnosed until last fortnight, when her son brought her to Mumbai. More...

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The lost children of East Timor...

The road to Joachim's house lies through East Timor's eastern mountains. An eight-hour drive down rutted jungle tracks littered with the ghosts of Indonesia's occupation.

Here, a decade ago, East Timor's guerrillas fought their long battle for independence. Now, the Jurassic plants stand tangled in the sunlight. Clumps of bamboo, the height of several men, creak and sway under the wide blue sky.

This is still one of the world's wild places. No phones here, no e-mail. Here, if you have a message to deliver, you deliver it in person. More...

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Soccer riot in Peru!

Des émeutes après un match de foot au Pérou…

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Why all the fuss about N.Korea's nukes when it's the US that paid for them?

Amidst the cacophony of condemnation from all sides following North Korea’s second nuclear bomb test, there has been no mention whatsoever of how the secretive Stalinist state got its weapons in the first place - they were paid for by the U.S. government.

Both the Clinton and Bush administrations played a key role in helping Kim Jong-Il develop North Korea’s nuclear prowess from the mid 1990’s onwards.

The hypocrisy being spewed forth from all sides in reaction to today’s news that North Korea tested an underground nuclear device equivalent to 10 times the power of their first test in October 2006 is akin to when the U.S. cited Iraq’s possession of chemical and biological weapons as a reason to invade in 2003, having first checked the receipt of course, since it was Donald Rumsfeld who brokered the deal to supply Saddam with those weapons in the first place. More...

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Tamil ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka?

The Sri Lankan government has been accused of launching a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" following its victory over the Tamil Tigers in the country's 26 year civil war.

Aid officials, human rights campaigners and politicians claim Tamils have been driven out of areas in the north-east of the country by killings and kidnappings carried out by pro-government militias.

They say the government has simultaneously encouraged members of the Sinhalese majority in the south to relocate to the vacated villages. More...

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Cell-phones to be banned in French primary schools...

Mobile telephones are to be banned from French primary schools and operators must offer handsets that allow only text messages under new government measures to limit the health risk for children.

Companies will also be required to supply telephones that work only with head-sets in order to limit the danger to the brain from electromagnetic radiation, Roselyne Bachelot, the Health Minister, said.

The measures, which emerged from a six-week review of mobile phone and wi-fi radiation, have been attacked as inadequate by campaigners who accuse the state of playing down dangers from phones and transmitter masts. More...

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How they reap wheat in India!!!

Comment on récolte du blé en Inde!!!

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Anna Sam, la caissière devenue star en bloguant sur Internet...

Depuis qu'elle a raconté sur un blog ses sept années passées derrière la caisse d'un hypermarché de Rennes, Anna Sam n'a plus une minute à elle. Le blog a donné naissance à un livre et à une BD ; un second livre est en gestation ainsi qu'un film et une pièce de théâtre. Excusez du peu…

Tout démarre par cet emploi de caissière qui de job d'étudiant deviendra, faute de mieux, travail à plein-temps pour cette titulaire d'un DEA de littérature. L'expérience lui inspire des réflexions piquantes qu'elle consigne dans un blog et c'est le succès. Suite...

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Scientologie : le procès de la manipulation...

Les disciples français de l'Église de Scientologie ne s'y trompent pas : le procès qui s'est ouvert hier après-midi devant le tribunal correctionnel de Paris est « d'une importance vitale » pour le mouvement fondé en 1954 aux USA par l'écrivain de science-fiction Ron Hubbard. Jugée en tant que personne morale aux côtés de sept de ses responsables et, pour la première fois pour « escroquerie en bande organisée » et « exercice illégal de la pharmacie », si elle est condamnée, l'Association spirituelle de l'Église de Scientologie (ASEC), considérée comme une secte dans notre pays, risque la dissolution en France. Suite...

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Worried about money when you reincarnate? No worries! Here's the Reincarnation Bank for you...

We all have some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing, having been said and done before, in a remote time - of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago by the same faces, objects and circumstances.

Throughout time, reincarnation has played a pivotal role for the world's famous and powerful, believing in the philosophy that knowledge, success and wealth is borne through a multitude of life experiences, gaining and increasing through every life cycle. More...

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Monday, May 25, 2009

Do you hear the people sing?

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The murky world of Gabon's Omar Bongo...

Mr Bongo is one of three African leaders accused of embezzlement by the French arm of the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International - also under investigation are Denis Sassou-Nguesso of Republic of Congo and Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea.

It is alleged that the volume of real estate owned by Mr Bongo's family in France could not have been purchased with official salaries alone. In recent weeks this has been followed by the freezing of Mr Bongo's bank accounts in France following bribery allegations. More...

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Manchester United fans choose home over Rome for Champions League final...

With official advice not to travel without a ticket, gloomy economic news and warnings about potentially violent trouble–spots ringing in their ears, thousands of Manchester United supporters are staying at home to watch Wednesday's Champions League final on big screens.

Supporters' groups expect the numbers travelling speculatively to Rome in the hope of getting a ticket to be well down on the number that went to Barcelona to watch the 1999 final, the last comparable trip to continental Europe.

While going abroad to follow your team used to be the ultimate badge of honour among fans, supporters' groups and academics believe the expense of watching modern football combined with efforts to discourage ticketless fans from attending have caused a cultural shift. More...

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Berluconi on cell-phone, keeps Merkel waiting...

Berlusconi au téléphone, fait poireauter Merkel…

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Boy in Thailand banned from video games; commits suicide; govt. closes 72 web-sites...

Following the suicide of a 12-year-old boy on Thursday, Thailand's Criminal Court has ordered the closure of 72 websites.

The Bangkok Post reports that Pongsathorn Wattanabenjasopha leaped to his death from the sixth floor of his school building, after being banned from playing video games by his father.

Oddly enough, the 72 sites shuttered by the Thai government include both online game and gambling venues. The Post reports comments by a government official who said that game-addicted children were more likely to commit suicide: More...

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Jehovah Witnesses preparing for the end of the world!!! Wait! It's not yet 2012...

It's the start of the Jehovah Witnesses' convention season, and this year they'll be preparing for the end of the world.

Starting Friday, the Witnesses will host 14 consecutive weeks of conventions at the Christian Convention Center on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard.

This year's theme, "Keep on the Watch!" is designed to discuss world events and how they relate to the Bible's prophecy of the apocalypse.

While all conventions are open to the public, the Witnesses are specifically inviting the public to a discussion with the provocative title, "How to Survive the End of the World," which will be at 11 a.m. Sunday. More...

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Why do so few people know about 9/11 Teardrop, Russia's gift to the USA?

Etrangement, très peu de gens savent que la Russie a érigé un beau monument qui s’appelle 9/11 Teardrop (Larme 9/11) à Bayonne aux USA pour les victimes de 9/11…

The "angelic face" that's embarrassing Berlusconi...

Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi faced new questions yesterday about his relationship with Noemi Letizia, 18, after claims that he flew the aspiring model to his Sardinian villa for New Year's Eve after seeing her modelling portfolio.

Berlusconi has previously said that he knows Letizia through her parents, who he has described as old friends.

But Letizia's former boyfriend, Gino Flaminio, 22, told La Repubblica newspaper yesterday that "Noemi's parents have nothing to do with this, the link was just with her". Letizia's father challenged his version of events as "gravely defamatory, because it attributes to Noemi things that have never been done, said or thought," and said he would take legal action. More...

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Dis Tonton, tu vas pas nous lâcher en plein génocide ?!

Il y a 15 ans, l’État français supervisait et participait au génocide d’1 million de Tutsi.

En une centaine de jours, l’État français et les autorités extrémistes rwandaises de l’époque accomplirent l’extermination d’une partie de la population rwandaise désignée comme ennemi intérieur.

Le 22 mai 1994, le président du gouvernement intérimaire qui assure l’exécution du génocide, Sindikubwabo, adresse à François Mitterrand une lettre. Suite...

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Dati : « Pas d'élément empêchant Dieudonné de se présenter »

Claude Guéant, secrétaire général de l'Elysée, avait déclaré début mai qu'une étude était en cours pour interdire la liste déposée par Dieudonné en Ile-de-France. La tentative a échoué.

« On a regardé, on n'a pas trouvé d'élément qui pouvaient l'empêcher de se présenter aux élections européennes », a déploré Rachida Dati, ministre de la Justice, dimanche soir, lors du « Grand Jury » RTL-Le Figaro-LCI

La loi garantit en effet la liberté de candidature aux élections aux citoyens français bénéficiant de leurs droits civiques et respectant le code électoral, dont les dispositions sont rappelées dans un « Mémento à l'usage des candidats ». Suite...

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Hilarious Indian glue commercial!!!

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I'm not a racist says Clare, the Sydney "wog" shooting witness...

Superstar bogan Clare Werbeloff has hit back at claims she is a racist, saying "wog" is no longer an offensive word in Australia.

Speaking for the first since she became an internet phenomenon, Ms Werbeloff expressed disbelief at the attention she has received after her made-up account of a Kings Cross shooting. More...

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Scientology trial due in France...

The Church of Scientology is set to go on trial in France, accused of organised fraud.

The case centres on a complaint by a woman who says she was pressured into paying large sums of money after being offered a free personality test.

A lawyer for the church says it will fight the charges and deny that any mental manipulation took place. More...

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Cricket can be a dangerous game, not for pussies!!!

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Riots in Punjab after Sikh shooting in Austria...

Riots have broken out in almost all towns and cities in the Indian state of Punjab after a Sikh guru was killed by a rival group in a temple in Austria.
Thousands of angry protesters have taken to streets, damaging public property and setting trains on fire.

At least four people were injured when police opened fire at protesters who attacked a police station in Jalandhar. More...

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After British Airways, Qantas cuts down on first-class flights...

Australia's Qantas Airways has scrapped first class on some routes, as the global economic downturn grounds many travelers and makes others think twice about paying for a little in-flight luxury.

Qantas said it had temporarily taken first class off the San Francisco, Buenos Aires and Melbourne-Hong Kong-London routes, offering business, premium economy and economy classes only.

"As a result of the economic downturn Qantas, like many other international airlines, has experienced reduced demand in premium cabins," Rob Gurney, Qantas Commercial's executive manager, said in a statement. More...

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Importante manifestation anti-corrida à Madrid...

Plusieurs centaines d'opposants aux corridas, a demi-nus et le corps recouvert de peinture rouge figurant du sang, ont réclamé aujourd'hui l'abolition de la corrida devant les grandes arènes de Las Ventas à Madrid.

Il s'agissait de la plus grande manifestation anti-tauromachie jamais organisée devant cette place emblématique, où se déroule actuellement la Feria de San Isidro, selon ses organisateurs, l'association espagnole Equanimal et le Comité Anti-taurin (CAS), basé aux Pays-Bas.

La corrida "ce n'est ni de l'art, ni de la culture, c'est de la torture", ont affirmé les manifestants. Environ 250 hommes et femmes, encouragés par un nombre équivalent de sympathisants, se sont couchés à demi-nus devant les arènes pendant plus d'une heure en milieu de journée. Suite...

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A UFO over Singapore...

Un OVNI à Singapour...

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