Former South African President Nelson Mandela is recovering at home after spending two nights in hospital with a respiratory infection.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Russian investigators uncover identity of Moscow bomber that kills 35 people
Russian investigators have said they now know the identity of the suicide bomber who claimed the lives of 35 people in an attack on Moscow's busiest airport last Monday.
Mubarak's dictatorship must end now
Days of rage in Egypt signify the end of days for Hosni Mubarak's repressive and bankrupt regime. For 30 years, the president has held his country down through fear, secret police, emergency laws, American cash subsidies and a lamentable absence of ...
Bindi: Women will turn against ‘sultan’ Berlusconi
One of Italy’s most senior woman politicians has condemned Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as a “sultan” who degrades women, and predicted many of those who voted for him will abandon him in the next election.
Rosy Bindi, president of the opposition Democratic Party and deputy speaker of the lower house of parliament, said in an interview that sex scandals were likely to cost Berlusconi power.
“Italian women are paying the highest price for this scandal, with an image being spread of women whose value is reduced to their bodies and who become tradeable goods at the disposal of the sultan, the emperor,” she told Reuters.
“Berlusconi has based an important part of his electoral success on women . . . but undoubtedly his approval ratings are now falling . . . women will represent a key element in putting an end to Berlusconi’s honeymoon in our country,” she said in her office in the lower house yesterday evening.
Italy’s next elections are not scheduled until 2013 but most commentators say either Berlusconi’s sex scandals or the fracturing of the centre right will lead to the collapse of his government and early national polls, perhaps this year.
Facebook denies it’s to launch branded phones with HTC
Of the estimated more than 350 million people who log on to Facebook each month, the social network provider says 250 million use mobile devices.
Facebook has no plans to launch Facebook-branded phones with Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC, it said today, following reports that it planned to launch an official tie-up next month.
“This is really just another example of a manufacturer who has taken our public APIs (application programming interfaces) and integrated them into their device in an interesting way,” said Dan Rose, head of business development at Facebook.
UK police arrest WikiLeaks backers for Web attacks
British police arrested five young men yesterday as they and US authorities conducted searches as part of a probe into Internet activists who carried out cyber attacks against groups they viewed as enemies of the WikiLeaks website.
“The arrests were related to recent ‘distributed denial of service’ (DDoS) attacks by an online group calling themselves Anonymous,” London police said in a statement.
In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that agents executed more than 40 search warrants as part of its investigation and that the attacks were facilitated by software the group made available for free on the Internet.
Egypt unrest rages; web shut ahead of big protest
Egyptian demonstrators fought security forces into the early hours of today in the city of Suez, and the Internet was blocked ahead of the biggest protests yet planned against President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.
Emboldened by this month’s revolt that toppled the authoritarian leader of Tunisia, Egyptians have staged mass protests since Tuesday. The biggest demonstrations yet are planned for this afternoon after weekly prayers.
“This is a revolution,” one 16-year-old protester said in Suez late yesterday. “Every day we’re coming back here.”
Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, who returned to Egypt from Vienna yesterday, has called for Mubarak to resign and said he would join the protests today.
Internet access was shut down across the country shortly after midnight. Mobile phone text messaging services also appeared to be partially disabled, working only sporadically.
Activists have relied on the Internet, especially social media services such as Twitter and Facebook, to organise.
Taliban claims deputy governor's assassination
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the assassination of the deputy governor of Afghanistan's Kandahar province. As Abdul Latif Ashna was leaving home to head to work, a suicide bomber riding a motorbike ...
American political activist who idolised Gandhi dies after setting fire to himself in India
American political activist Jeff Knaebel has committed suicide by setting himself on fire in northern India.
The 71-year-old was found by villagers on Wednesday at an ancient Buddhist chapel in Virat Nagar, a town 90 miles north of Jaipur, police said.
Knaebel, who idolised Gandhi, left a suicide note blaming cruel incidents in both the United States and India.
Suicide: The remains of political activist Jeff Knaebel have been found at an ancient Buddhist chapel in northern India
The 71-year-old was found by villagers on Wednesday at an ancient Buddhist chapel in Virat Nagar, a town 90 miles north of Jaipur, police said.
Knaebel, who idolised Gandhi, left a suicide note blaming cruel incidents in both the United States and India.
Nelson Mandela leaves hospital after treatment
Nelson Mandela leaving for home in a military ambulance, where he will continue to receive treatment.
Former South African president Nelson Mandela left hospital today after treatment for an acute respiratory infection, officials said.
Mandela, 92, was admitted on Wednesday, prompting fears for the anti-apartheid icon who led South Africa as its first black president and is revered at home and abroad as a symbol of reconciliation and hope.
“Madiba is well,” Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe said, using Mandela’s clan name.
“He is fine. He’s O.K. He is in good spirits. He was joking with us,” said Motlanthe.
South Africa’s surgeon general told the same news conference Mandela was stable and was discharged after treatment for an acute respiratory infection.
“There is no need to panic or to try to see more in what we are saying. For a 92-year-old, he surprises us on a daily basis on his power of recovery,” Vejayanand Ramlakan said.
Mandela arrived at his home in Johannesburg’s leafy Houghton suburb in a military ambulance, escorted by several police vehicles, Reuters witnesses said.
Ramlakan said Mandela would continue to get medical treatment at home, giving no further details of his illness. A source close to Mandela told Reuters yesterday that he was recovering from a collapsed lung.
Charlie Sheen enters Rehabs for drug and alcohol abuse with pornstar in orgies.
For fans of Two and a Half Men, the news that Charlie Sheen would voluntarily enter a rehabilitation center was no doubt bittersweet: The 45-year-old actor could get the help that he needs even though his ...
WikiLeaks founder says enjoys making banks squirm
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says he enjoys making banks squirm thinking they might be the next targets of his website which has published US diplomatic and military secrets.
“I think it’s great. We have all these banks squirming, thinking maybe it’s them,” Assange told the CBS television programme “60 Minutes” in an interview.
CBS released a partial transcript yesterday ahead of Sunday’s broadcast of the full segment.
Bank of America Corp shares fell more than 3 per cent on November 30 on investor fears that the largest US bank by assets would be the subject of a document release.
Interviewer Steve Kroft asked Assange whether he had acquired a five-gigabyte hard drive belonging to one of the bank’s executives, as Assange had previously asserted.
Egypt wakes to devastation, Mubarak refuses to quit
Mubarak addresses the nation on Egyptian state TV in Cairo yesterday, January 28, 2011 where he called for dialogue and said he would name a new government today.
Egyptian president Mubarak names his deputy and new PM - widespread violent protests.
Protests continue as Egyptian president appoints former spy chief as his vice-president for the first time. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has appointed the country's head of intelligence to the post of vice-president, in a move said to be a reaction ...
New clashes erupt as Egyptians spurn Mubarak speech
Thousands of anti-government protesters clashed with police in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria today after President Hosni Mubarak spurned demands that he end his 30-year authoritarian rule.
A Reuters witness said police used teargas and live ammunition against demonstrators in Alexandria. Protesters also gathered on a main square in the capital Cairo in defiance of military orders for them to disperse.
The fresh unrest broke out as Mubarak clung to power, replacing his Cabinet in an effort to appease angry Egyptians, complaining about poverty, corruption and unemployment.
The president ordered troops and tanks into Cairo and other cities overnight and imposed a curfew in an attempt to quell the protests that have shaken the Arab world’s most populous nation, a key US ally, to the core.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Australia floods cover area size of France/Germany
Flood waters rose across Australia’s northeast today, covering an area bigger than France and Germany combined, inundating 22 towns and stranding 200,000 people, and closing one of the country’s major sugar export ports.
Flooding has already shut major coal mines in Queensland state and its biggest coal export port, forcing a long list of miners such as Anglo American and Rio Tinto to slow or halt operations.
The worst flooding in about 50 years has been caused by a La Nina weather pattern that has resulted in torrential rain over the past two weeks across northeast Australia.
“This disaster is a long way from over,” Queensland state premier Anna Bligh told reporters today.
“We now have 22 towns or cities that are either substantially flooded or isolated. That represents some 200,000 people spanning an area that’s bigger than the size of France and Germany combined.”
Prime Minister Julia Gillard toured the flood-hit sugar city of Bundaberg, which closed its port today after flood debris was washed downstream into shipping channels and damaged navigation beacons.
“This is a natural disaster across Queensland,” said Gillard in announcing a A$1 million (RM3.1 million) government contribution to a flood aid appeal that now totals A$6 million.
Shipments of sugar from Australia, one the world’s leading exporters of the sweetener, have been disrupted because of the closure of Bundaberg’s port. The port normally ships about 400,000 tonnes of raw sugar a year, with three 30,000-tonne vessels due to arrive in the next few days.
Female Chinese students resort to eating roundworm eggs to ensure they look thin for job interviews
Female students in China have been eating roundworm eggs to lose weight for job interviews - because employment is so hard to come by.
They hatch in the stomach, allowing those who take them to shed pounds without exercising or dieting in the Xiamen, China.
But swallowing the worms is extremely dangerous - and definitely not to be recommended for those wanting to shed the pounds in the New Year.
With jobs shortages across the country, women in China are under pressure to appear thin if they are to have any chance of landing a role.
Employment stands at 22 per cent - and the size of the labour pool has grown by 112 million people over the last decade to more than one billion people.
Other students are staring at pictures for hours on end to suppress their appetite so they can shed excess weight.
France braces for annual New Year’s car torchings
Flames engulf a burning car outside council housing flats on New Year’s Eve in Strasbourg’s western suburb of Hautepierre on December 31, 2008
France will deploy extra police and keep vandalism statistics under wraps on New Year’s Eve to fight what authorities say has become an annual “sweepstakes” of disaffected youths competing to see who can burn the most cars.
Youths in depressed suburbs of French cities have been torching hundreds of vehicles on New Year’s Eve and Bastille Day since the early 1990s. Police say the annual rite has turned competitive, with youths tracking the news in the first days of the new year to see which neighbourhood did the most damage.
“I have decided to put an end to the competition, the sweepstakes, and will longer publish the number of burnt vehicles,” Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said this week, adding that publishing statistics encouraged vandalism.
Opposition politicians described the move as an attempt by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative government to cover up the violence.
The jail has seen staff cuts of up to 20 per cent in two years
Only two guards were on duty as balaclava-clad inmates caused at least £2million of damage by burning down buildings at an open jail yesterday.
Israel’s ex-president Moshe Katsav guilty of rape
Israel’s former President, Moshe Katsav, (centre) is seen inside the Tel Aviv District Court as the verdict on rape and other charges of sexual misconduct against him is handed down on December 30, 2010
Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav was found guilty of rape and other sex crimes yesterday, in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a sad day for the Jewish state.
Katsav, who could now face years in prison, had denied charges he twice raped an aide when he was a cabinet minister in the late 1990s, and molested or sexually harassed two other women who worked for him during his 2000-2007 term as president.
But a three-judge panel said his testimony had been “riddled with lies.”
The four inch gadget that helps British soldiers to pinpoint Taliban snipers
British soldiers are to test a revolutionary new device which can pinpoint the exact position of enemy snipers 1,000 yards away.
The tiny computerised ‘sniper spotter’, which has been developed by Army scientists at the top-secret Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in Wiltshire, identifies the shooter’s location in an instant, enabling British troops to fire back immediately and accurately.
The new high-tech gadget – just 4in square and weighing 11oz – is worn on a soldier’s arm. It is connected to a shoulder sensor which pinpoints the location.
British ambassador in 1980 said Israel ready to use bomb
A British ambassador to Israel warned as early as 1980 that Israel would detonate a nuclear bomb in case of a new war with the Arabs, according to previously secret state documents released yesterday.
“If they (Israelis) are to be destroyed, they will go down fighting this time. They will be ready to use their atomic weapon,” ambassador John Robinson wrote in a cable to the Foreign Office on May 4, 1980.
Israel has never confirmed or denied having atom bombs under a policy of ambiguity to deter numerically superior foes.
Robinson’s message, published under a rule that allows official British papers to be released after 30 years, voiced concern that US-hosted negotiations would not lead to a comprehensive agreement on the Middle East conflict.
“As long as there is no agreement on the West Bank and Jerusalem which satisfies the Palestinians, they will be driven increasingly to extremism; moderate governments in the area and Western interest will be increasingly threatened; opportunities for Soviet influence and intervention will increase; and so will the danger of a new war,” the cable said.
“If they (Israelis) are to be destroyed, they will go down fighting this time. They will be ready to use their atomic weapon,” ambassador John Robinson wrote in a cable to the Foreign Office on May 4, 1980.
Israel has never confirmed or denied having atom bombs under a policy of ambiguity to deter numerically superior foes.
Robinson’s message, published under a rule that allows official British papers to be released after 30 years, voiced concern that US-hosted negotiations would not lead to a comprehensive agreement on the Middle East conflict.
“As long as there is no agreement on the West Bank and Jerusalem which satisfies the Palestinians, they will be driven increasingly to extremism; moderate governments in the area and Western interest will be increasingly threatened; opportunities for Soviet influence and intervention will increase; and so will the danger of a new war,” the cable said.
Russia’s Khodorkovsky sentenced, West concerned
Former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s jail term was extended until 2017 yesterday when he was convicted of theft and money-laundering in a trial condemned in the West as politically motivated.
With Khodorkovsky and co-defendant Platon Lebedev watching from a glass-walled courtroom cage at the close of their trial, the judge said there was no way they could be reformed without “isolation from society.”
Albino boy killed in Burundi, witchcraft suspected
A twelve-year old albino boy was killed late yesterday by armed men in the central
Burundi district of Kiganda in what authorities suspect could be linked to witchcraft.
Albino hunters kill their victims and use their blood and body parts for potions. Witchdoctors tell their clients that the body parts will bring them luck in love, life and business.
“The twelve-year-old albino was killed by four men with guns and knives. They cut off his left hand and fled away with it,” Kiganda administrator Joseph Ntahuga, told Reuters today.
Ntahuga, a government official in the district 80 km from the capital Bujumbura, said the victim had two other albino siblings.
The murder brings to 14 the number of albinos killed in the tiny central African country since 2008.
The coffee producing nation of 8 million people has around 500 albinos, who lack pigment in their skin, eyes and hair.
Burundian authorities believe the killings are carried out local residents who work with witchdoctors in neighbouring Tanzania, where 53 albinos have been killed since 2007 for their body parts, which are sold for use in witchcraft. There are around 170,000 albinos living in Tanzania.
Pamela Anderson advert too racy for HK airport
Undated screen grab released by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) on December 29, 2010 shows actress Pamela Anderson in a security guard outfit playing a role in the animal rights advertisment ‘Cruelty Doesn’t Fly.
An animal rights commercial starring former Playboy centrefold Pamela Anderson, which is banned at some US airports, has been deemed too racy for Hong Kong, one of Asia’s busiest aviation hubs.
The advertisement, titled “Cruelty Doesn’t Fly”, features the scantily-clad former “Baywatch” star as an airport security guard who strips passengers of leather, fur and other skins.
A couple, seen nude from behind, also appears in the video commercial created by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
North Korea again calls for end to confrontation with South
South Korean Army soldiers patrol along a seashore at sunset during a photo opportunity in Dangjin, southwest of Seoul.
North Korea called for end to confrontation and emphasised the need for dialogue with the South in a joint editorial published today by official newspapers, repeating the line from a year ago in the wake of clashes in 2010.
“Confrontation between north and south should be defused as early as possible,” said the joint editorial by three main official newspapers, carried by the KCNA news agency.
“Active efforts should be made to create an atmosphere of dialogue and cooperation between north and south by placing the common interests of the nation above anything else.”
But North Korea failed to make any detailed offer for talks and the rhetoric was largely along the line from a year ago, when the editorial said: “National reconciliation and cooperation should be promoted actively.”
Car bomb hits church in Egypt, 21 killed
The aftermath of a bomb blast in Egypt's northern city of Alexandria
A car bombing outside a church killed 21 people in Egypt’s northern city of Alexandria as worshippers gathered to mark the New Year, security and medical sources said today.
The Interior Ministry earlier said 24 people were also wounded in the bombing, which prompted hundreds of Christians to take to the streets in protest. Some Christians and Muslims pelted each other with rocks, a witness said. Cars were torched.
Christians in Muslim-majority Egypt make up about 10 per cent of the nation’s 79 million people.
Egypt, due to hold a presidential election in September, has stepped up security around churches, restricting cars from parking directly outside them, after an al Qaeda-linked group in Iraq issued a threat against the church in Egypt in November.
The al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq, which claimed an attack on a church in Baghdad in November, threatened the Egyptian church over its treatment of women the group said the church was holding after they had converted to Islam.
“This is a scene from Baghdad,” a witness said by telephone.
Police used teargas to disperse the crowd on the streets. Ambulances were also at the scene where medical personnel gathered body parts that were scattered over the area.
“We sacrifice our souls and blood for the cross,” shouted protesting Christians near the Coptic Orthodox church where the blast struck, a witness said.
Pope to hold peace summit with religious heads
Pope Benedict leads his first mass of the New Year in St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican today, January 1, 2011. Benedict will host a summit of world religious leaders in Assisi in October to discuss how they can promote world peace
Pope Benedict, worried over increasing inter-religious violence, will host a summit of world religious leaders in Assisi in October to discuss how they can better promote peace, he announced today.
Benedict told pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square the aim of the meeting would be to “solemnly renew the commitment of believers of every religion to live their own religious faith in the service of the cause for peace”.
He made the announcement hours after a bomb killed at least 17 people in a church in Egypt in the latest attack on Christians in the Middle East and Africa.
The Assisi meeting will take place on the 25th anniversary of a similar encounter hosted by the late Pope John Paul in 1986 in the birthplace of St Francis.
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