It is a vast brothel, where 800 women and girls lead painful and degrading lives, in the otherwise pleasant town of Tangail, a place of flowering trees and atmospheric old bazaars, a couple of hours drive from the capital Dhaka.
At first glance the brothel does not look any different to countless other slums in this country, which is one of Asia's poorest and most congested. More + video...
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The plans by Indian firm Vivo BioTech to set up a lab in Malacca has come under fire from activists who say test subjects could be abused because Malaysia has no regulations on animal research. More...
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If we needed any evidence of the degree to which Western TV journalists are simply stenographers to power, the BBC, CNN and others are amply proving it. Mark Regev, Israel’s propagandist-in-chief, has the airwaves largely to himself. More...
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According to delayed reports reaching the state capital, some women in the town helped deliver the baby after the pregnant woman collapsed by the roadside. More...
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A woman left locked alone in a plane asleep for about four hours after landing at Philadelphia International Airport is suing United Airlines.
Ginger McGuire, 36, is suing for false imprisonment, infliction of emotional distress and negligence, her attorney Geoffrey Fieger told the U.S. newspaper Detroit Free Press.
McGuire fell asleep on a late-night United Express flight from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia. She failed to wake up after the 50-passenger plane touched down at 12:27 a.m. local time and everyone else disembarked. More...
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If I had been Lauren Rosenberg, however, I would have turned right at that very moment, hit the tree, suffered some cuts and minor brain damage, and then turned around and sued Verizon for the glitch in its GPS service. More...
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Around 10,000 Turks marched in protest from the Israeli consulate in Istanbul to a main square, chanting, "Murderous Israel you will drown in the blood you shed." The protesters earlier Monday tried to storm the Consulate building but were blocked by police. The flotilla of six ships, carrying some 700 activists, was sponsored in part by a Turkish organization. More...
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Mr. Köhler, who was less than a year into his second term as president, shocked Germans when he said that the country’s soldiers serving in Afghanistan or other peacekeeping missions were deployed to protect German economic interests. More...
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Quelques jours plus tard, accompagnée de sa soeur, Deepanjali porte plainte contre les deux officiers de police. S'en suivent plusieurs appels téléphoniques d'intimidation et des menaces pour qu'elle retire sa plainte. Mercredi 26, l'un des agresseurs accompagné de son frère se rend aux domicile de Deepanjali la menaçant de divulguer les photos de son strip tease si elle ne retire pas sa plainte. Deux jours plus tard, les deux soeurs décident de se suicider. Suite...
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Salle comble et ambiance survoltée à La Mutualité, où l'intellectuel américain, âgé de 81 ans, a échangé avec son public français.
et pas seulement par les scientifiques : de passage à Paris, Noam Chomsky a pu mesurer son aura dans la gauche radicale française. Entre crise financière et enlisement américain en Irak, sa critique de tous les pouvoirs porte désormais au-delà du cercle des convaincus.
Les 1 600 billets pour sa conférence de samedi à La Mutualité, vendus 18 euros, sont partis rapidement.
A la tribune, Daniel Mermet, animateur de l'émission Là-bas si j'y suis sur France Inter, jubile : « Seuls le dalaï lama et Soeur Emmanuelle ont fait mieux. » Suite...
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Les six navires de la flottille arraisonnée ont été dirigés vers le port israélien d'Ashdod. Les informations sur l'assaut sont rares, du fait de la censure militaire israélienne et du brouillage des ondes.
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Les six bateaux de la flottille, qui avaient appareillé dimanche soir de Chypre, entendaient livrer 10.000 tonnes d'aide humanitaire aux 1,5 million de Gazaouis en brisant l'embargo naval mis en place par Israël le long du territoire palestinien. Article complet...Ne pas manquer:
Les habitants d'une petite ville canadienne ont été désarçonnés par l'apparence d'une créature bizarre tirée d'un lac. L'animal au long corps poilu et à la peau lisse au niveau de la tête et des pieds a suscité un vive réaction sur internet où l'on spécule qu'il s'agit d'une version plus évoluée du fameux « monstre de Montauk ».
La créature a été découverte par deux infirmières dans la ville de Kitchenuhmaykoosib en Ontario au Canada, alors qu'elles se promenaient avec leur chien. Quand le chien a commencé à flairer dans le lac, les deux femmes se sont mises à fouiller avant que le chien ne sorte la carcasse de l'animal. Suite...
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For the first 149 days of the year, every penny earned by workers leaves their pay packet to support the state.
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Israeli commandos killed up to 19 pro-Palestinian activists after storming Gaza-bound aid ships this morning.
The assault unleashed a diplomatic crisis and charges of a 'massacre' from the Palestinian president.
The violent end to a Turkish-backed attempt to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip by six ships carrying some 600 people and relief supplies raised a storm of protest across the Middle East and far beyond. More + images...
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Indications are that the Minister of Transport and Communications, Nicholas Goche, also MP for Shamva North, is behind this. If so, then the minister clearly sees himself as above the law. Mrs Sharp was kidnapped/abducted by the Police – kidnapping is a serious crime anywhere in the world except, it seems, in Zimbabwe. More...
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"This collective resignation is not motivated just by the growing pressure on the presenters concerning their dress code, which was evoked by the media," said the journalist, who asked not to be identified.
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The Al-Hayat daily reported on Sunday that they had resigned in the past few days after petitioning management in January over repeated criticism from a top company official for allegedly not being conservative enough in their dress. Full story...
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His comments appeared in the latest book on Lee written by an internationally syndicated veteran American journalist and columnist Tom Plate.
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Commenting further on Lee, Mahathir said: "He is a big frog in a small pond. He had ambitions to become Prime Minister of all Malaysia."
"He tries to lecture people but people dislike that. People do regard him as an intellectual, as something more than just an ordinary politician," he added. More...
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Francisco was arrested in Cuiaba in western Brazil on Wednesday. Agencia Estado said police learned of the murder plot during monitoring of phone conversations between the two men accused of working as guns-for-hire. Source...
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The new-and-improved privacy settings which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday have landed in my Facebook account. When I read Zuckerberg's description of them, I was cautiously optimistic. Having spent a bit of time exploring them, I'm way less enthusiastic.
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Making privacy easy while providing lots of control is a fundamentally thorny challenge. If Facebook has failed to nail it, it's not because the company is stupid, evil, or careless -- it's because this stuff is hard. Its response seems to be based in part on the philosophy that privacy is to a great extent about what you want shared with which types of people.
So the centerpiece of the new settings is a grid that shows three kinds of people ("Everyone," Friends of Friends," and "Friends Only") and a bunch of types of information you store on Facebook, from your status to your snail-mail address. But there's no explanation of what the grid is showing you. It's just not that obvious whether it indicates your current settings, or ones you might want, or what. Full story...
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If only real life for the child stars of “Diff'rent Strokes” was anything like the fictional Park Avenue life of luxury they inhabited on television.
The death of pint-sized star Gary Coleman on Friday at age 42 underscored the troubled lives of the sitcom's stars after the television lights went out in 1986 after eight seasons. Some have even talked about the “curse of 'Diff'rent Strokes.'”
Two of the young stars, Coleman and Dana Plato, are dead. The third, Todd Bridges, went through years of drug abuse and was tried and acquitted of murder in 1988. The actor who played their dad, Conrad Bain, is alive at 87, out of show business and living quietly in the Los Angeles area. More...
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Most urban Malaysians spend their time indoors, but there is one place they will brave the heat and humidity for - the mamak stall.
These open-air food stalls located at most street corners sometimes operate 24 hours a day. Cheap food and drinks draw in crowds at all hours. More + video...
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No official announcement was made yet on the decision but the Daily Star newspaper quoted an unnamed Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission official as saying that "part of the reason (of blocking the network) is the posting of some anti-religious and porn links by users across the globe". More...
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The student alleges a violation of her constitutional rights, in a civil suit filed last week that could serve as a cautionary tale to other officials considering punishing students over risque self-portraits.
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The complaint alleges that officials had no probable cause to seize and search her phone, and violated her privacy and her right to free expression by punishing her for storing nude and semi-nude photos of herself on her phone.
The plaintiff, now 19 years old, was a student at Tunkhannock Area High School in January 2009 when school officials, who discovered that male students had been trading photos of female students showing them in various states of undress, confiscated and searched the phones of her and several other students. Officials then turned the phones over to the district attorney’s office, which began a criminal investigation. Full story...
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The private venture came after a Pakistani court ordered a block on Facebook until May 31, following deep offence over an "Everyone Draw Mohammed Day" page considered "blasphemous" and "sacrilegious". More...
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The pigeon had a ring around its foot and a Pakistani phone number and address stamped on its body in red ink. More...
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Cambodia's "jungle woman", who spent 18 years living in a dense forest, has fled back to the wild after struggling to adapt to society.
Rochom P'ngieng, now 29-years-old, first disappeared into thick hilly jungle in 1989 when she was a little girl. She was "discovered" in early 2007 and reunited with her family.
However, attempts to reintegrate her have failed. She has not learnt either of the local languages, Khmer or Phnang, prefers to crawl rather than walk, refuses to wear clothes and has made several attempts to return to the forest where she grew up. More...
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Officers had been carrying out checks at the ferry terminal on Anglesey. More...
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Latvia has been hit badly by recession. Its economy shrank by 18% in 2009 and it has Europe's highest unemployment. More...
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Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were sentenced to 14 years hard labour earlier this month for gross indecency and unnatural acts. At one point it was feared they could be sentenced to death. More...
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He wrote in a community newspaper that women must only be heard through their husbands. More...
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He also massaged a naked female patient's nipples after telling her he needed to do so to "stimulate hormones". More...
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On June 15, when Nagarani Kathirvel leaves the squalor of a Chennai slum for the first time and appears in a court hall in Zwolle-Lelystad in the Netherlands, she would still be a long way from the end of her bitter, traumatic struggle. But it would be a beginning — to establish in a foreign court of law that she is the mother of a 12-year-old Dutch boy. About 10 years ago, Rohit Shivam Bissesar was Satheesh Kumar, a toddler living in the Pulianthope slums, that is, until he was kidnapped and given away in adoption to a Dutch couple. Earlier this month, a court in the town of Lelystad in the Netherlands summoned her to appear before it. More...
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Former Diff'rent Strokes child actor Gary Coleman has died after suffering a brain haemorrhage, US broadcaster Fox News reports.
The 42-year-old, who was beset by personal problems in recent years, was being treated for the serious head injury in hospital in Utah, America.
He had apparently suffered the injury after a fall.
Earlier in the day, Coleman's manager John Alcanter said the actor was in a critical condition and was unconscious on life support. More...
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But a harsh new light has been cast on these problems in recent months by a spate of suicides and allegations of murder. More...
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In the last 20 years this salutary decline has accelerated, with the number of deaths among newborns, infants and one-to-four year olds falling from 11.9 million to an estimated 7.7 million in 2010, the new figures show. More...
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It also pleads for understanding of those who "live out in secrecy those few moments the priest manages to grant [us] and experience on a daily basis the doubts, fears and insecurities of our men". More...
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The director, sub-director and an administrator at the Alcala Meco penetentiary in Madrid were fired while two prison employees were suspended, the spokeswoman told AFP.
"This decision was taken following the discovery of unacceptable individual behaviour," she said, adding there was no exchage of drugs between inmates and prison staff. More...
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Canton Appenzell has become a popular destination for those who like to hike without clothes. More...
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It's been 37 days since BP's offshore oil rig, Deepwater Horizon, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, crude oil has been hemorrhaging into ocean waters and wreaking unknown havoc on our ecosystem -- unknown because there is no accurate estimate of how many barrels of oil are contaminating the Gulf.
Though BP officially admits to only a few thousand barrels spilled each day, expert estimates peg the damage at 60,000 barrels or over 2.5 million gallons daily. (Perhaps we'd know more if BP hadn't barred independent engineers from inspecting the breach.) Measures to quell the gusher have proved lackluster at best, and unlike the country's last big oil spill -- Exxon-Valdez in 1989 -- the oil is coming from the ground, not a tanker, so we have no idea how much more oil could continue to pollute the Gulf's waters. More...
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A woman who fell asleep during a 15-hour flight from Hong Kong to New York was sexually assaulted by the passenger sitting next to her.
Federal authorities arrested Ramesh Advani, 63, for allegedly reaching under the unnamed woman's blanket and sexually abusing her as she slept on the Continental Airlines flight that landed at Newark Liberty International Airport last Friday.
Two passengers sitting behind the woman and Advani witnessed him, among other things, allegedly touching her around her inner thigh, according to court documents. The passengers, looking between the seats, said that the touching lasted for "a period of time," according to a FBI affidavit. More...
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A Montreal study finds heterotrophic bacteria counts, in more than 70 percent of bottled water samples, exceed the recommended limits specified by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP). Researchers from Ccrest laboratories report their results May 25 at the 110th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego.
"Despite having the cleanest tap water a large number of urban Canadians are switching over to bottled water for their daily hydration requirements. Unsurprisingly, the consumer assumes that since bottled water carries a price tag, it is purer and safer than most tap water," says Sonish Azam, a researcher on the study. More...
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Tungstene, a kind of anti-Photoshop, can highlight retouching and the degree of change in a photo, software programmer Roger Cozien said. The French Defence Ministry and other customers are already testing the software. More...
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During raids Thursday, Islamic police caught 18 women traveling on motorbikes who were wearing traditional headscarves but were also dressed in jeans. Each woman was given a long skirt and her pants were confiscated. They were released from police custody after giving their identities and receiving advice from Islamic preachers. More...
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Le groupe taïwanais Foxconn Technology, fournisseur de composants d'Apple, confronté à une vague de suicides dans son usine du sud de la Chine, a pris mercredi des mesures radicales, demandant notamment à ses employés de s'engager par écrit à ne pas se suicider. Un nouvel employé du groupe qui fournit de grandes multinationales s'est tué mardi en se jetant d'un immeuble de Foxconn à Shenzhen, 10e suicide en Chine depuis janvier au sein du premier fabricant de composants électroniques au monde et 9e à Shenzhen même, une ville aux portes de Hong Kong. Au total 12 employés chinois de Hon Hai Precision Industry, connu sous le nom commercial de Foxconn, se sont jetés dans le vide depuis le début de l'année. Deux ont été grièvement blessés. Suite...
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Face au tollé suscité ces derniers temps par plusieurs de ses initiatives, Facebook a décidé, mercredi 26 mai, de simplifier les paramètres de confidentialité pour les informations mises en ligne par ses utilisateurs. Des changements qui seront opérationnels dans les prochains jours.
"Facebook a répondu ce jour aux commentaires et inquiétudes des utilisateurs sur la confidentialité en lançant des modes de contrôles des informations personnelles plus simples et plus forts", indique le site de socialisation. Suite...
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Il y a une vie après la politique. Tony Blair n'a jamais été aussi occupé que depuis qu'il a quitté le 10, Downing Street, en juin 2007. Côté public, il joue les diplomates de haut vol, en tant que représentant du « Quartet » pour le Proche-Orient, un poste ronflant où il est censé faire parler d'une seule voix l'ONU, les Etats-Unis, la Russie et l'Union européenne sur le conflit israélo-palestinien.
En coulisse, Tony Blair est devenu un redoutable homme d'affaires. Mémoires, conférences, consulting, tous les prétextes sont bons pour gagner de l'argent. Beaucoup d'argent.
Son dernier trophée, l'ex-Premier ministre l'a décroché en Californie. Il a été nommé mardi 25 mai conseiller de Khosla Ventures, une société de capital-risque de la Silicon Valley spécialisée dans les technologies vertes. Suite...
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According to the Hamburg-based insurance firm Gaede & Glauerdt, who underwrite apiarists, the number of bee thefts reported nationwide rose by over 85 percent, from 2007 to 2008, to over 300 incidents. More...
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