US House leader Boehner says Weiner should resign

A man holds a sign out of their car calling for representative Anthony Weiner to resign, outside Weiner's residency at the Queens borough of New York on June 12, 2011.


US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said today he thought Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner, who has been snared in an Internet sex scandal, should resign.

Boehner, a Republican, simply said “yes” when asked by reporters if he thought Weiner should step down.

The House granted Weiner, who has admitted to sending lewd photos and messages to half a dozen women, a two week leave of absence for treatment. The lawmaker has refused calls by Democrats and Republicans to resign but instead said he wanted to get medical treatment to get back on track.

Rep. Anthony Weiner's Sexting Bombshell

Rep. Anthony Weiner encouraged a porn star to lie about their on-line relationship and offered her the help of his public relations team, according to a report on Tuesday. Weiner sent emails to former X-rated ...

FIFA bribes

Two of football's biggest corporate sponsors have voiced concern over allegations of bribery at Fifa, saying the storm is bad for football.

World Cup sponsor Coca-Cola and German sportswear company Adidas, which have both ploughed millions into the sport, fear the corruption allegations could harm the game.

Last night, Coca-Cola said in a statement: 'The current allegations being raised are distressing and bad for the sport. We have every expectation that Fifa will resolve this situation in an expedient and thorough manner

 Handed back: The cash which fell out of an envelope marked 'Bahamas'

 Fifa: Mohamed Bin Hammam (left) and Jack Warner (right)

Uncontested: Fifa President Sepp Blatter will stand unopposed at tomorrow's election for his role

WWF takes images of rare tigers in logging forest

A Sumatran tiger plays with its cub in the Bukit Tigapuluh forest in central Sumatra in this image captured using camera traps on April 14, 2011, and released today, May 9, 2011.


The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has recorded images of 12 endangered Sumatran tigers, including a mother playing with cubs, in an Indonesian forest that it said is about to be cleared by loggers.

WWF, which estimates that there are only 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild, captured the images on camera traps in the Bukit Tigapuluh forest on central Sumatra island, which has seen rampant deforestation for palm oil and paper plantations.

Karmila Parakkasi, leader of WWF’s tiger research team in Sumatra, said the number of big cats seen in two months of observation was impressive.

Are U.S. government microwave mind-control tests causing TV presenters' brains to melt down?

A bizarre spate of television presenters dissolving into on-air gibberish has sparked claims that the U.S. military could be to blame.

In four high-profile cases, the latest involving fast-talking Judge Judy, the presenters have started off speaking properly but have then descended into undecipherable nonsense - looking confused and unstable.

The frequency of the 'attacks' - and the fact that recorded examples of the mental meltdowns have been popular on websites - has led to conspiracy theorists pointing the finger at shadowy government experiments.

 Over the border: Mark McAllister, of Canadian Global Toronto News, soldiered on with his report on Libya, despite his words being unintelligible

 Latest victim: Judge Judy Sheindlin had to stop her courtroom TV show on Wednesday after descending into nonsensical language

Targeted? Serene Branson's garbled Grammys report became an internet sensation, while WISCTV's Sarah Carlson suffered a similar meltdown in January

Bangladesh court upholds removal of Nobel winner as bank head

Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and managing director for Grameen Bank

A Bangladeshi court today upheld an order removing Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus as head of the microlending bank he founded, a move seen as part of the government’s vendetta with him over his political ambitions.

Yunus, 70, had been removed as head of Grameen Bank last week by the central bank at the government’s behest on grounds that he had stayed on past the legal retirement age of 60.

In 2007, while Bangladesh was ruled by an interim military government, Yunus tried to set up a political party, but later stepped back from the idea, saying it would not sit well with Bangladesh’s traditional politics and cycles of unrest.

Chirac corruption trial suspended

Paris judge delays long-awaited trial of former French president following a constitutional challenge by the defence. A Paris judge has suspended the long-awaited corruption trial of Jacques Chirac, France's former president, after a constitutional ...

S. Korea spies break into Indonesians’ hotel room: ReportS. Korea spies break into Indonesians’ hotel room: Report

Three agents for South Korea’s spy agency broke into a downtown Seoul hotel room occupied by a delegation of Indonesian presidential envoys last week, apparently seeking secrets about bids for a defence contract, a newspaper said today.

The three left after being confronted by a member of the Indonesian delegation, led by a senior Cabinet minister. They had been discovered looking at files on a laptop computer, South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper said.

“National Intelligence Service employees were looking to identify the Indonesian delegation’s negotiating strategy with a view on our national interest,” a senior South Korean official was quoted as saying by the Chosun Ilbo.

The National Intelligence Service denied the report.

Chinese demand ban on goldfish magic trick watched by hundreds of millions on TV amid claims of animal abuse

A magic trick with goldfish that was watched by hundreds of millions of Chinese on TV during the Lunar New Year celebrations may have involved abuse including implanted magnets and should be banned, according to animal rights activists.

The trick was performed during a China Central Television gala on January 30, eve of the Lunar New Year festival. The gala is China's most watched broadcast of the year.

Goldfish are a symbol of wealth in China, but the image of six of them swimming in perfect synchronisation under magician Fu Yandong's direction alarmed many Chinese, who worried that magnets were implanted in the fish or that they were controlled by electric current.

Eco-warriors' £4m supership claims first victory as Japan suspends whaling after chase in Antarctic Ocean

A new four million pounds anti-whaling super-ship has claimed its first victory after clashing with Japanese whalers in the Antarctic Ocean.

Activists chased Japanese Whalers across the icy seas for several weeks in a desperate bid to prevent their annual hunt of the enormous mammals.

The high tech Gojira ship is understood to have blocked the Japanese fleet on the sea forcing the ships to flee.

Menacing: The 35-meter long Gojira ship roars out on to the open ocean to join the rest of the Sea Shepherd fleet in its fight against whaling

Ready, aim, fire: An anti-whaling protester prepares to release thick red paint aimed at the Nisshin Maru

Catch: Another Japanese hunting ship,Yushin Maru No.2, hauls aboard a whale in the Southern Ocean on a previous mission

Berlusconi’s woes likely to lead to early elections

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is likely to dig in his heels after being ordered to stand trial but ultimately he will not be able to stem the tide heading toward early elections, commentators said today.

“Objectively speaking, Berlusconi is worn down and gasping for breath,” wrote Massimo Franco, a leading political commentator for the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

In perhaps the hardest blow in a string of judicial problems, a judge ordered Berlusconi (picture) to stand trial in April on charges of paying an underage girl for sex and abuse of office for intervening with police to get her freed from custody.

He has so far not commented on the indictment but his lieutenants have blasted the trial order as what they call another calculated move by leftist magistrates to destroy his political career.

India’s cornered PM vows to press on despite scandals

School students shout slogans during a protest against a corruption case in Jammu February 12, 2011.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh vowed today to stay in office to press ahead with reforms, denying a series of massive corruption scandals had made him a lame duck leader.

Allegations the government may have lost up to US$39 billion (RM119 billion) in revenues after firms were awarded telecoms deals at rock-bottom prices in return for kickbacks have caused months of parliamentary paralysis, rocked the ruling coalition, and rattled India’s markets.

Berlusconi refuses to resign, dismisses protest

Protesters gather in Rome’s Piazza del Popolo to demonstrate against Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on February 13, 2011


Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said today he had no intention of stepping down and dismissed a weekend demonstration by thousands of women across Italy over his involvement in a sex scandal.

Hundreds of thousands of women took part in rallies yesterday to defend their dignity and protest over the underage prostitution scandal that has rocked the 74 year-old prime minister’s centre-right government.

The billionaire media entrepreneur told his Canale 5 network the protests were the work of his political opponents and denied that he disrespects women.

“I saw the usual factional forces mobilised against me by a certain section of the left which uses any pretext to beat an adversary whom they can’t manage to beat at the polls,” he told a morning programme.

“All women who have had the opportunity to get to know me, know how much I respect them. I have always behaved and I always behave with great care and great respect, both in my companies and in my government.”

“I have always tried to act in such a way that every woman feels special,” he said.

Sunday’s protests included several leading figures from the opposition centre-left and many conservative middle-aged women, a group which has traditionally supported him.

Berlusconi said the government would not resign over the affair, potentially opening the way for new elections.

‘Naked chef’ to debut on Hong Kong adult channel

Floria Cheung Ching-sze wants to get men interested (in cooking): “(The apron) covers pretty much everything but hides nothing.


A Hong Kong adult channel is set to debut a cooking show headlined by a nude host who will prepare Cantonese dishes wearing a transparent apron — an apparent bid to encourage more men to cook.

Host Flora Cheung will start each 30-minute show shopping for fresh ingredients in the city’s famous wet markets, undressing once she is back in the privacy of her studio kitchen, the South China Morning Post reported.

Bindi: Women will turn against ‘sultan’ Berlusconi

Karima El Mahroug appearing as a guest on the Italian television show “Kalispera” near Milan January 19, 2011.

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.

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 holds up CD’s containing data on offshore bank account holders, which he received from former Swiss private banker Rudolf Elmer at the Frontline club in London on January 17, 2011.


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.

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).

Julian Assanger founder of Wikileaks alleged leads wild promiscuous lifestyle

The two women who say they were sexually assaulted by the WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange would never have complained to police if he had agreed to take an HIV test, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

WikiLeaks’s Swedish co-ordinator, who worked closely with Mr Assange for months, said in an exclusive interview that he repeatedly begged his boss to have the test, both to head off the possible police investigation and for Mr Assange’s own peace of mind, given his promiscuous sex life.

Allegations: Julian Assange is accused of rape by two women in Sweden

WikiLeaks' Assange complains he's victim of leaks

It has come to this: Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is complaining that someone leaked a Swedish police report on his alleged sexual offenses.

In an interview with the British newspaper The Times, Assange complained about reporting in the rival newspaper The Guardian, which is one of several publications that has been helping WikiLeaks edit its trove of secret U.S. diplomatic files in exchange for an early look at them.

The Guardian published details Saturday of the Swedish police report in which two women accuse Assange of rape, based on what it described as "unauthorized access" to prosecutors' files. Assange claimed the newspaper was "selectively publishing" parts of it, and questioned the timing of the leak, saying it was given to the paper a day before his bail hearing last week.