Bonjour Planet Earth: October 2009

Saturday, October 31, 2009

US soldier talks about her rape by fellow-soldiers in Iraq...

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Obama is related to most of the US presidents...

A seventh-grader and her 80-year-old grandfather are allegedly the first people to discover that President Barack Obama is related to all other U.S. presidents except one.

BridgeAnne d'Avignon, who attends Monte Vista Christian School in Watsonville, traced that Obama, and all other U.S. presidents except Martin Van Buren, are related to John "Lackland" Plantagenet, a king of England and signer of the Magna Carta.

The student and her grandfather, who is a genealogist, spent this past summer designing the first known family tree chart in history that shows the presidents' direct relationship. BridgeAnne's grandfather has researched president genealogy for 60 years. More...

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Indian yoga guru snubs Madonna!!!

For once, the Queen of Pop is not getting what she wants and she is not happy about it.

Madonna was left fuming recently after Indian yoga guru Bikram Choudhury refused to give her private lessons.

According to entertainment website www.contactmusic.com, Madonna recently parted ways with her long-term fitness instructor Tracy Anderson. The Material Girl had said then that she wanted to “try a new method of working out”. More...

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Footage of mental patient in Sri Lanka forced to drown...

The Colombo Crimes Division (CCD) has begun an investigation over an incident where a man was “forced” to drown in Bambalapitiya this morning in front of several onlookers.

Police spokesman senior DIG Nimal Madiwaka said that the victim was believed to be mentally retarded and used to throw stones towards trains and vehicles passing by. More...

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Pay the "appalling underclass" not to breed, says New Zealand mayor!!!

AN outspoken Kiwi politician has proposed a new solution to the country's child abuse problem - pay the "appalling underclass" not to breed.

Michael Laws - who stirred up controversy by calling the late Tongan King a "bloated brown slug'' - has again hit the headlines.

"That there is a group within our society who give their children no hope nor opportunity from the moment that they are born," the regional mayor wrote on the New Zealand radio website where he broadcasts as a talkback DJ.

"That these ‘parents’ are known to authorities ... and yet the authorities can only intervene after children have been harmed." More...

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Flight tax nothing to do with global warming; it's to bail out bankers!!!

Flight taxes are being raised to help bail out the banks, Alistair Darling admitted yesterday.

In an extraordinary intervention, the Chancellor said the higher air passenger duty being introduced tomorrow was needed to plug gaps in the national finances.

He made no attempt to justify the move - which will add £340 to the ticket for a family of four flying long haul - on environmental grounds, the official reason for the tax.

Airlines warned yesterday that the tax would cost thousands of jobs and do nothing to combat global warming. More...

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25 years ago, Indira Ghandi...

Indira Gandhi was gunned down by her bodyguards on this day 25 years ago. Ramachandra Guha looks at the legacy of India's most controversial and best-known politician.

In the summer of 1965, Indira Gandhi was thinking of shifting base from Delhi to London.

She was then serving as a junior minister in the cabinet of Lal Bahadur Shastri, who had succeeded her father Jawaharlal Nehru as prime minister of India.

With her political prospects fairly bleak, she was attracted to England for personal reasons. Her sons Rajiv and Sanjay were both studying in the United Kingdom; besides, living in London would allow her to further her interest in culture and the arts. More...

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Friday, October 30, 2009

Or the porn guy gets it!!!

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China website campaign reunites kidnapped child with father...

On Thursday a father walked into an Chinese orphanage and promptly burst into tears - before him stood the son that had been stolen from him as a baby two years earlier.

Confused, the toddler started to cry. Wang Bangyin gathered the child into his arms, aware that his son was probably weeping from fear rather than from any sense of familiarity but also of how lucky he was to have recovered the child from China's baby-traffickers.

His son had been found by police in May along with 15 others. But with no original identity documents there was little hope of reuniting him with his family. More...

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Britain is sick of the American cult of Halloween!!!

This is the only time of year when I become seriously anti-American. Our national media, retailers and brainwashed children have all been sucked in to the American cult of Halloween, which demands that shops deck out their windows with feeble pumpkin displays – and your doorbell is rung every five minutes by infants dressed as vampires, demanding presents.

I can live with with “the commercialisation of Christmas”, because at least the cult of Xmas wasn’t foisted on us by another country, and as I recall it was even tackier 30 years ago than it is now. But the modern Halloween, although it marks a perfectly respectable (and depressing) event in the Christian calendar, was created by Americans. More...

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Too good to be true? Beatles for sale online...

Rumors have swirled countless times that the Beatles' music would finally go on sale at online music stores, and it has finally happened — albeit in a strange way. BlueBeat.com is selling the entire Beatles catalog, including recently-released remastered albums, for the low price of 25 cents per MP3. Oh, and it also streams the Beatles and every other song on the site for free, an unlimited number of times.

The idea that the various stakeholders involved with the Beatles would license an unheard-of music store to sell the band's music at such a steep discount seems highly unlikely. After being tipped off by MusicAlly (subscription required), we're looking into this.

So far, neither BlueBeat, BlueBeat's "partner" BaseBeat, or Media Rights Technologies, which actually owns both BlueBeat and BaseBeat, has responded. The company is located in Santa Cruz, California. More...

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"Rape in the Ranks (of the US army): The Enemy Within"

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Five deaths and side-effects after swine flu jab in Sweden...

Little is known about the side effects of the brand new swine flu vaccine. Here in North America, vaccinations have only recently gotten underway. Many Europeans, however, have already received the vaccine, because the approval process for the vaccine was speedier in many European countries compared to Canada and the US. So one must look to the Europeans to see what potential side effects one can expect if one is considering the vaccination.

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There have been 5 deaths linked to the swine flu vaccine in Sweden, according to the Swedish paper The Local. The first deaths were first reported by Swedish paper the Aftonbladet on October 22nd: a 50-year old man with serious heart problems and a 65-year-old woman died shortly after receiving the swine flu vaccination. Further deaths were reported by a few Swedish news sources..

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Canadians may be thinking “that’s unfortunate for the Swedes but our swine flu vaccine is safe.” Wrong. GlaxoSmithKline is the manufacturer of both the Swedish and the Canadian swine flu vaccines. The Swedish swine flu vaccine is called Pandemrix and the Canadian one is called Arepanrix, but they are actually the same vaccine with different names. Pandemrix aka Arepanrix contains squalene, thimerosal (mercury) and aluminum salts (among other goodies). As far as I know, the vaccine in Hungary, made by drug company Omnivest, is not being distributed outside of Hungary. Full story...

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Global warming: Australians may be banned from coastal living, could face forced evacuations!!! WTF!

Australians could be banned from living on the coast under a radical environmental plan to protect the population from rising sea levels.

The National Sea Change Taskforce, a parliamentary committee, spent 18 months examining the effect that changing climate could have on coastal Australia and concluded that urgent action was needed to safeguard the coast from seas that are expected to rise more than 31 inches this century.

Among the panel's recommendations were forced evacuations from coastal areas and a ban on new homes in regions considered to be at risk from flooding and rising seas. More...

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Benedictine monk publishes 'Christian reading' of Harry Potter...

Harry Potter may seem like an unlikely read for a Benedictine monk, but Father Luke Bell has turned his attention to the young wizard to write a book of his own.

Fr Luke, of Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight has spent the last 12 months writing Baptising Harry Potter: A Christian Reading of Harry Potter, due to be published internationally next year.

Some Christians have condemned JK Rowling's Harry Potter books, accusing them of promoting witchcraft and paganism, but Fr Luke said his studies highlighted their strong references to Christian principles. More...

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Mass swine flu vaccination begins in Quebec...

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Asian pupils who attacked white schoolboy sentenced. Teachers did not react for fear of being branded racists?

He gave his name as Henry Webster when he stepped into the witness box at the High Court in London last week. But he wasn't the Henry Webster his family and friends remember.

The real Henry Webster was a strapping 6ft 2in rugby player, not someone who struggled to string sentences together and had to be given painkillers to complete his evidence.

Instead of preparing for college or university, he has been left with learning difficulties, short-term memory loss, and epilepsy. Henry will settle for that because the alternative would have meant not being here at all.

This is the only upside of being attacked with a claw hammer that left an inch-deep impression on his skull.

One claw hammer and 12 teenage thugs versus one young man. Those were the odds when a gang of Asian youths ambushed him. More...

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Sydney satanist used Myspace to lure teen girls...

A SATANIST obsessed with teenage schoolgirls invented a fake gothic society online to groom them for sex in the grounds of Sydney's Rookwood Cemetery.

Daniel William Peckham, 24, lured at least three girls, aged from 13 to 17, into the cemetery on his MySpace blog, "Rookwood Gothic Society".

A message on the site read: "If you have hang-ups about getting naked ... you are not welcome."

Peckham pleaded guilty yesterday to the aggravated sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl and to using the internet to solicit and transmit naked pictures of young girls between 2005 and 2007. More...

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"Spam King" ordered to pay Facebook 711 million dollars...

A US judge has ordered a self-crowned "Spam King" to pay Facebook 711 million dollars for slipping uninvited into people's accounts to send bogus marketing messages.

Facebook on Friday acknowledged that Sanford Wallace is unlikely to pay the money awarded by the court but proclaimed the ruling a blow in an ongoing battle against spam at the leading online social-networking service.

"While we don't expect to receive the vast majority of the award, we hope that this will act as a continued deterrent against these criminals," Sam O'Rourke of the Facebook legal team said in a blog post announcing the ruling.

"This is another important victory in our fight against spam. We will continue to pursue damages against other spammers. More...

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Thursday, October 29, 2009

The never-ending war in Somalia...

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44 years ago, what happened to Morocco's Mehdi Ben Barka?

Tonight, as twilight descended on Boulevard Saint-Germain, a group of people gathered to pay their respects to a man who went missing 44 years ago.

Holding placards bearing the words "truth and justice" they stood in silence outside the Brasserie Lipp, where at about 6.30pm on 29 October 1965, Morocco's leading revolutionary was bundled off the pavement and into a nearby Peugeot.

Then aged 45, and at the peak of his campaign of against King Hassan II, Mehdi Ben Barka was never seen again. What happened to him is a mystery that has outlived three French presidents, one Moroccan king and several lawyers: a tale of abduction, presumed murder and alleged government connivance described as the murkiest affair of the Fifth Republic. More...

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Vicar to face child porn charges...

A Staffordshire vicar has been charged with 16 counts of making indecent photographs of a child.

The Diocese of Lichfield said Rev Dominic Stone, of Marchington, Staffordshire, had been suspended from duty earlier this year.

Mr Stone was the team vicar of Marchington, Marchington Woodlands, Kingstone and Leigh.

Staffordshire Police said a 46-year-old man had been charged and would appear in court on 10 November.

Mr Stone has been released on bail and will appear at Burton-on-Tent Magistrates' Court.

Source

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Swiss cosmetic product contains tissues of an aborted baby?

A pro-life organization is blasting a Switzerland-based cosmetics manufacturer whose website openly admits some of its products were developed from the tissues of an aborted baby.

Children of God for Life is a non-profit organization focused on the bioethics of embryonic tissue use in medicine and manufacturing. One of its current campaigns includes petitioning pharmaceutical companies to produce safe, effective alternatives to vaccines derived or cultivated from aborted fetal tissue.

But the organization's attention has now turned Neocutis, a company with offices in San Francisco which has developed a line of anti-aging products that include an ingredient the company has trademarked as Processed Skin Cell Protein, or PSP, developed from skin cells harvested from an abortion. More...

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Man covered by 500,000 bees for a world record...

500.000 abeilles pour un record du monde!!!

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In South Africa, beating one's partner is a sign of ... love???

Research has revealed most South Africans feel it is okay to beat or be beaten by your partner as it is a sign of love.

The six-month research project by the KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape Networks on Violence Against Women revealed the deep-seated attitudes and beliefs held by men and women in South Africa that are “keeping violence against women alive”. More...

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Curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, say researchers...

An extract found in the bright yellow curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, scientists have shown.

The chemical - curcumin - has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.

Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.

Cancer experts said the findings in the British Journal of Cancer could help doctors find new treatments. More...

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Un septième pied retrouvé en Colombie-Britannique...

Un autre pied humain, le septième depuis août 2007, a été retrouvé en Colombie-Britannique.

Deux promeneurs, qui déambulaient sur les rives du fleuve Fraser à Richmond, sont tombés sur les macabres restes humains mardi.

Les deux hommes ont aperçu ce qui semblait être un pied droit chaussé d'un soulier de course blanc de marque Nike, et de taille 8,5. Suite...

Lesbiennes suédoises pour médias chinois...

C’est une ville suédoise qui fascine la Chine. Une ville peuplée de lesbiennes où les hommes sont interdits de cité. Deux sentinelles blondes gardent l’entrée de cette enclave de 25 000 habitantes, rapporte la très sérieuse Xinhua*. Les mâles qui voudraient forcer l’entrée risquent d’être sauvagement passés à tabac par la police. Nombre d’habitantes se tournent vers l’homosexualité “parce qu’elles ne peuvent refréner leurs désirs”, précise l’agence de presse Harbin News. Celles qui décident de quitter la ville pour répondre à l’appel de la chair ne peuvent revenir que si elles acceptent de se laver et de se livrer à d’autres rituels afin que leurs ébats n’aient pas d’impact négatif sur l’état mental des autres habitantes. Chako Paul (ou Shakebao, selon les articles) est nichée au cœur des forêts du nord du pays. Suite...

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Séguin alimente la polémique sur le coût de la présidence française de l'UE...

"Dérives", "épisode pas très glorieux": le premier président de la Cour des comptes, Philippe Séguin, a durement critiqué jeudi les dépenses de la présidence française de l'Union européenne au second semestre 2008, alimentant une polémique lancée par l'opposition.

"Il y a eu un certain nombre de dérives et un certain nombre d'erreurs", a déclaré M. Séguin sur Europe 1, commentant le rapport sur la présidence française de l'UE publié la semaine dernière par la Cour des comptes, chargée de contrôler les dépenses de l'Etat français.

L'opposition et une partie de la droite, se sont emparé de ce rapport, dans le sillage du député apparenté PS René Dosière. Le parlementaire, déjà à l'origine d'une charge contre l'augmentation des dépenses de l'Elysée depuis l'arrivée de Nicolas Sarkozy en 2007, avait lancé mardi la polémique sur des dépenses jugées "insupportables et inacceptables". Un débat largement repris par la presse britannique. Suite...

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Lorsque Sarkozy fait du copier coller!!!

Un Somalien de 112 ans avec 18 enfants marie une femme de 17 ans!!!

Un mariage plutôt particulier a été récemment célébré en Somalie, dans la région de Galguduud.

C'est qu'un homme qui dit avoir 112 ans a uni sa destinée à celle d'une jeune femme de 17 ans. Ahmed Muhamed Dore, qui a déjà eu 18 enfants de cinq épouses différentes, soutient qu'il aimerait en avoir d'autres avec sa nouvelle femme, Safia Abdulleh.

Le nouveau marié soutient n'avoir aucunement usé de la force pour réaliser cette union, mais avoir plutôt usé de son expérience pour convaincre la jeune femme de l'épouser.

La famille de la nouvelle mariée soutient pour sa part que cette dernière est heureuse avec son nouvel époux.

Source

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Inde: un cadavre laissé sur le toit d'un poste de police pendant deux ans!!!

Le cadavre d'un homme a été découvert sur le toit d'un commissariat de police dans le nord de l'Inde, après y avoir été déposé il y a plus de deux ans au cours d'une enquête, a rapporté mercredi le quotidien Mail Today.

Le corps de Chukkan Nishad, un homme de 22 ans disparu en juillet 2007, devait être soumis à un test ADN mais avait été placé dans un sac mortuaire sur le toit du bâtiment.

Selon le quotidien, qui cite le père du défunt et des autorités locales, la famille ne cessait de réclamer le corps au poste de police mais s'entendait toujours répondre que l'enquête était en cours. Suite...

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New Zealand minister sculpted in dung! It's just crap art, he says!!!

A NEW Zealand artist has sculpted the head of the government's environment minister out of cow dung in a conservation protest.

Sculptor Sam Mahon from Canterbury in the South Island usually works in bronze but he adapted his technique to fill a cast with cow dung, finishing with a bronze-like bust of minister Nick Smith.

The artist said on Thursday he was upset about plans to dam a local river and the pollution of waterways by effluent from dairy farms. More...

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Another severed foot, the seventh, found on B.C. beach...

A human right foot in a running shoe has been found on a beach in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond -- the seventh such discovery on B.C. shores since 2007.

Two men walking on the beach on Tuesday found what appeared to be a foot inside a size 8½ white Nike running shoe.
Members of the Richmond RCMP seized the shoe and its contents and turned them over to the B.C. Coroners Service, where a forensic autopsy confirmed the remains were human, police said. More...

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Tracy Chapman's double version of Give me one reason...

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112-year-old Somali with 18 kids marries 17-year-old girl!!!

Hundreds of people have attended a wedding in central Somalia between a man who says he is 112 years old, and his teenage wife.

Ahmed Muhamed Dore - who already has 18 children by five wives - said he would like to have more with his new wife, Safia Abdulleh, who is 17 years old.

"Today God helped me realise my dream," Mr Dore said, after the wedding in the region of Galguduud. More...

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Switzerland aims to stop 'suicide tourism'

The Swiss government has laid out plans to tighten rules on assisted suicide in a bid to prevent abuse by organisations offering euthanasia.

In one of two options suggested, it tabled an outright ban on organisations offering assisted suicide, although it made clear that it preferred a second option of imposing more stringent rules on such organisations.

"Essentially, the Federal Council does not wish to take anything away from the current, liberal legislation, which permits someone to assist a suicide provided they are not motivated by their own interests," it said in a statement. More...

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

India swamped by 420,000 tonnes of e-waste...

India faces a mounting challenge to dispose of an estimated 420,000 tonnes of electronic waste a year that it generates domestically and imports from abroad, a green lobby group said Tuesday.

Priti Mahesh, senior programme officer with New Delhi-based Toxic Link, said there were no separate figures for e-waste generated by Indians and the amount imported, but the scale of the problem was growing.

"It is a major problem and growing at the rate of 10 to 15 percent annually. We think by 2010, the e-waste in India will go up to 800,000 tonnes," Mahesh told a conference on the subject in New Delhi. More...

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Global warming is a sham...

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U.S. forcibly deported Diego Garcia islanders and gassed their dogs to make way for military base...

In order to convert the sleepy, Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia into a dominating military base, the U.S. forcibly transported its 2,000 Chagossian inhabitants into exile and gassed their dogs.

By banning journalists from the area, the U.S. Navy was able to perpetrate this with virtually no press coverage, says David Vine, an assistant professor of anthropology at American University and author of “Island of Shame: the Secret History of the U.S. Military on Diego Garcia(Princeton University Press).”

“The Chagossians were put on a boat and taken to Mauritius and the Seychelles, 1,200 miles away, where they were left on the docks, with no money and no housing, to fend for themselves,” Vine said on the interview show “Books Of Our Time,” sponsored by the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover.

“They were promised jobs that never materialized. They had been living on an island with schools, hospitals, and full employment, sort of like a French coastal village, and they were consigned to a life of abject poverty in exile, unemployment, health problems, and were the poorest of the poor,” Vine told interview host Lawrence Velvel, dean of the law school. More...

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Urinating on Jesus...

Comedian Larry David is under attack from critics who say he pushed the mocking of religion and Christian belief in miracles over the edge in the latest episode of his HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm," which the cable network defended as "playful."

On the show's most recent installment, which aired Sunday, David urinates on a painting of Jesus Christ, causing a woman to believe the painting depicts Jesus crying.

Deal Hudson, author and publisher of InsideCatholic.com, said he doesn't find any humor in the episode.

"I don't think it's funny," Hudson told Foxnews.com. "Why is it that people are allowed to publicly show that level of disrespect for Christian symbols? If the same thing was done to a symbol of any other religions -- Jewish or Muslim -- there'd be a huge outcry. It's simply not a level playing field." More...

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Bible teacher's "secret society" that lured teenage girls for sex...

A 37-year-old teacher accused of creating a “secret society” to lure teenage girls into having sex with him was arrested Monday evening after a girl he allegedly wanted to recruit into the group complained to police, authorities said.

Robert Louis Rosseau taught Bible classes — among other subjects — to eighth-graders at Christian Academy of San Antonio, a private school on the West Side.

Rosseau, who isn't certified by the state to teach, remained in Bexar County Jail on Tuesday on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child. He was being held on $100,000 bail. More...

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A very beautiful cat called Magic...

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Britons fight back Big Brother...

It is the instinct of politicians and bureaucrats to expand their power base but British citizens are becoming increasingly concerned about the way in which the state accumulates and retains personal information on their lives.

Under the present government, the number of CCTV cameras, the number of laws allowing the state to enter your home, and the number of people being placed under surveillance have all risen considerably.

The country's security context has of course changed significantly, but the government's response has been to create a surveillance state; hitting the law-abiding British citizen hardest rather than fighting the real problem it was intended to deter. More...

Big Brother Watch...

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Warning to Canadians: Toxic ingredients in the Arepanrix H1N1 vaccine harm your health...

Health Canada has authorized the sale of Arepanrix™ H1N1 vaccine based on no conclusive clinical testing. The authorization is based on the Health Canada review of available data on the quality, safety and immunogenicity of similar vaccines, which established the benefit/risk profile in favour of inoculating the Canadian population.

Read the Notice of Decision issued by Health Canada. The decision by the Health Minister was based on a belief (not qualified or informed) that immediate action is required to deal with the H1N1 risk. The assertion that the decision is based on limited clinical testing is being misapplied. There has been NO conclusive results from any clinical trials on the Arepanrix H1N1 vaccine.

This report is designed to inform you how the risks outweigh the benefits of the vaccine. It will demonstrate how the Health Canada assessment is flawed and contradictory to established research on the detrimental health effects of the vaccine ingredients contained in Arepanrix. More...

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Women in Indonesia's Aceh banned from wearing jeans and trousers!!!

Women wearing jeans and other trousers in West Aceh will now face sharia police, as will clothes vendors selling slacks for women.

West Aceh Regent Ramli M.S. issued the controversial regulation on Tuesday.

Those found wearing tight trousers, such as jeans, will have them cut by sharia police, and will be forced to wear loose-fitting attire.

"We have issued the regulation to further enforce Islamic sharia granted by the central government," Ramli told The Jakarta Post by phone on Tuesday.

To anticipate the huge number of slacks to be cut by police during raids, the West Aceh regency administration has prepared around 7,000 long skirts, which will be provided for free to those caught wearing trousers. More...

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Porn industry hit by recession and file piracy...

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McDonald's manager in Japan 'dies of overwork...'

A STORE manager with hamburger chain McDonald's in Japan who died of a brain haemorrhage was a victim of "karoshi" or death by overwork, a regional labour office said.

The woman, employed at an outlet in Yokohama near Tokyo and reportedly aged 41, had done more than 80 hours of overtime per month before she collapsed in October 2007 during a training program at a different store.

She died in hospital three days later, said an official at the Kanagawa Labour Bureau today, which oversees the Yokohama region.

"We determined her work caused the illness,'' said the official in charge of work-related compensation, a decision that makes her dependent family members eligible to receive a public pension. More...

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When bras and women are sinners in the eyes of Islamic extremists...

The Shabaab movement in Somalia controls large parts of the south and centre of the country, and because officials in this movement embrace the Wahabi ideology they have imposed their views on Somalis by force and have issued strict decrees banning films, plays, dancing at weddings, football matches and all forms of music, even the ring tones on mobile phones.

Some days ago these extremists carried out a strange operation: they arrested a Somali woman and whipped her in public because she was wearing a bra. They announced clearly that wearing these bras was unIslamic because it is a form of fraud and deception.

We may well ask what wearing bras has to do with religion, why they would consider them to be a form of fraud and deception, and how they managed to arrest the woman wearing the bra when all Somali women go around with their bodies completely covered. Did they appoint a special female officer to inspect the breasts of women passing by in the street? One Somali woman called Halima told the Reuters news agency: "Al Shabaab forced us to wear their type of veil and now they order us to shake our breasts... They first banned the former veil and introduced a hard fabric which stands stiffly on women's chests. They are now saying that breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat." More...

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Roche et Novartis font pression sur la réforme de santé d'Obama...

Roche et Novartis figurent parmi les compagnies pharmaceutiques qui font le plus pression sur le Congrès et la Maison Blanche pour influer sur le projet de réforme du système de santé. Depuis le début de l'année, les géants suisses y ont consacré plus de 7 millions de dollars.

Roche, Novartis et les autres groupes de pression ont déjà consacré près de 400 millions de dollars pour influencer le contenu de la réforme de la santé, la plus grande priorité intérieure du président Barack Obama et qui est actuellement en discussion au Congrès.

«2009 sera une année record dans l'histoire du lobbying», prédit David Levinthal, porte-parole du Center for Responsive Politics, observatoire des relations financières entre les groupes de pression et les pouvoirs publics américains. Suite...

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Deux millions d’accros à Internet en France?

Pas d'ordinateur, pas de wi-fi. Pas la moindre chance d’envoyer ne serait-ce qu’un e-mail. Juste une belle bâtisse en bois brun au milieu d’une clairière bucolique, des biches et des ratons laveurs gambadant en liberté… Ça s’appelle ReStart et c’est le premier centre de désintoxication à Internet qui vient d’ouvrir à Fall City, dans la banlieue de Seattle (Etats-Unis).

Des Américains souffrant d’un besoin permanent d’envoyer des e-mails, de consulter des sites comme Facebook, Twitter, MSN ou de jouer en réseau, sont prêts à débourser 14 000 $ (10 000 €) pour passer quarante-cinq jours dans cet îlot numériquement désert et pourtant situé à proximité du berceau mythique de Microsoft. Suite...

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Une douche de 245.572 d’euros pour Sarkozy!!!

Un rapport de la Cour des comptes remis au Sénat et révélé par Mediapart, fustige les 171 millions d’euros dépensés par la France pour sa présidence de l’Union dans le second semestre 2008, l’une des plus coûteuses de l’histoire. Sous le titre “la folie des grandeurs”, Mediapart a également publié une lettre au ton très critique envoyée par le président Philippe Séguin le 9 octobre au Sénat.

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Last but not least, la douche présidentielle ! Une douche (photo ci-dessus) avait été installée à l’attention de Nicolas Sarkozy : « Luxueuse et dernier cri, elle possédait une radio, des fonctions «jets» variées (…) Elle n’aurait jamais servi. » Coût : 245.572 d’euros… Article complet...

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Le gospel dans le métro!!! Oh happy day...

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Censure, contrefaçon : en Chine, Facebook n'est pas le bienvenu...

Contrairement à une idée reçue, la Chine est loin d'être le paradis rêvé pour les entreprises étrangères. Contrefaçon, flou législatif, protectionnisme et barrière de la langue rendent l'opération complexe et risquée. Illustration avec une entreprise américaine en plein boom : Facebook.

L'un des premiers écueils à affronter, c'est le non-respect, dans les faits, de la propriété intellectuelle. Le retard technologique et l'intérêt prononcé du consommateur chinois pour les marques étrangères ont poussé certaines entreprises chinoises à singer leurs homologues occidentaux.

Dans le sportswear, la virgule de l'américain Nike a fait des petits et, sur Internet, Google s'est découvert un clone avec Baidu. Facebook a connu le même sort : un an après son lancement, en 2005, Xiaonei.com (« le campus ») voit le jour. Suite...

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André Agassi avoue s'être drogué pendant sa carrière...

Trois ans après la fin de sa carrière, André Agassi fait de nouveau parler de lui. Dans son autobiographie, "Open : An Autobiography" dont la sortie est programmée le 9 novembre aux Etats-Unis, l'Américain avoue avoir été, durant l'année 1997, un consommateur régulier d'une drogue dure, la méthamphétamine, et même avoir subi un contrôle antidopage positif qu'il avait su garder secret grâce à un mensonge plutôt grossier.

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Dans son livre, le Kids de Las Vegas avoue également avoir subi cette même année un contrôle antidopage positif, sans être pour autant suspendu. "J'ai écris une lettre à l'ATP pour les informer que Slim était un consommateur régulier de drogues et qu'il mélangeait souvent la « meth » avec des sodas, ce qui était vrai. Mais j'ai ajouté que j'en avais bu un par accident." Une explication suffisante pour l'association des joueurs professionnels qui décida de classer l'affaire ! Voilà comment Agassi n'a jamais été inquiété durant ses 21 ans de carrière. "J'ai eu honte évidemment et me suis promis que ce mensonge marquait la fin de tout ça", rajoute t'il dans son autobriographie. Article complet...

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Kelantan in Malaysia may reward men who marry single mothers as 2nd.wife!!!

Kelantan Women, Family and Health committee chairman Wan Ubaidah Omar suggested that awards be given to assemblymen for marrying single mothers should they decide to take another wife.

Her suggestion drew support from backbenchers -- all of them men -- who started thumping their palms on the table at the Kelantan State Assembly on Wednesday.

She said the assemblymen could increase their quota to help single mothers with young children and it would help greatly if the assemblymen assisted by marrying them.

Her statement prompted house speaker Nassuruddin Daud to ask Wan Ubaidah to explain the word “quota.” More...

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Dalits allowed into Tamil Nadu temple for first time in 100 years!!!

For the first time in a hundred years, dalits of Chettipulam village stepped inside the local Shivatemple on Tuesday, in a historic moment brought about by government and political intervention.

Escorted by revenue and police officers, nearly 70 dalits of the village situated near Vedaranyam in Nagapattinam district entered the century-old Kamatchi Amman Sametha Ekambareswarar Temple at around 11 am and offered prayers for 25 minutes. Dressed in their best, women had brought flowers and other offerings. A group of non-dalits, including panchayat president V Manimaran, also accompanied the dalits. District collector C Munianathan himself distributed prasadam' to the dalits after the prayers. More...

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French marines face the Taliban in Kapisa, Afghanistan...

Les soldats français en action en Afghanistan...

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Andre Agassi admits to using dope...

Tennis legend Andre Agassi used crystal meth in 1997, failed a drug test and boldly lied in a letter to tennis officials in order to successfully dodge a competition ban, according to selections from a book published online Tuesday night by an Australian newspaper.

The forthcoming autobiography, entitled "Open," is due out Nov. 9. Excerpts are scheduled to appear this week in two American magazines, Sports Illustrated and People. According to a publicist for publishing house Knopf, Agassi worked closely with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer J.R. Moehringer, author of "The Tender Bar." More...

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Why millions of the world’s poor still choose to go private and avoid the State's free services...

Imagine that your daily earnings were less than the price of this newspaper. Would you consider buying private education and private healthcare?

Before you make up your mind, here are a few considerations: government healthcare and primary education are free; the private-sector doctors are ignorant quacks and the teachers are poorly qualified; the private schools are cramped and often illegal. It doesn’t sound like a tough decision. Yet millions of very poor people around the world are taking the private-sector option. And, when you look a little closer at the choice, it’s not so hard to see why. More...

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Fish in Chinese aquarium being bottle-fed ... with milk!!!

THESE Koi Carp are more at home with a baby's bottle than a sprinkling of fish food in their tank.

The fish have been brought up on a diet of powdered milk by their owner in an effort to keep them strong.

Ding Feng, 47, owns the Hanzhou Aquarium in eastern China and he's focused on making sure his fish grow quickly so they are worth more to customers.

Koi Carp that are the right colours can end up selling for more than £10,000 in the country. More...

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