Mid Day International News

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• Will and Kate's romance penned
• 15 million mile man
• New Zealand mine hit by third explosion
• Granny turns into superhero
• Palin defends N Korea gaffe

Will and Kate's romance penned Posted: First came the royal engagement. Now 10 days later the first book. William and Kate: A Royal Love Story, by The Sun newspaper's royal reporter James Clench was published yesterday in Britain, the first in a slew of new titles about the relationship between Prince William and fiancee Kate Middleton. Published by Harper Collins and The Sun both owned by Rupert Murdoch the book is scattered with photos by Arthur Edwards, the paper's long-serving royal photographer. It is one of several books on the royal romance in the works ahead of the April 29 wedding at Westminster Abbey. They include one by celebrity journalist Andrew Morton, whose 1992 book Diana: Her True Story rocked the royal family and punctured the image of Princess Diana's fairy-tale romance with Prince Charles with its details of bulimia, depression and infidelity. William and Kate: A Royal Love Story due to be published in the US on December 17 is a more reverent affair. It charts the romance between "the boy who would one day be king" and "the middle-class girl who had harbored a crush on him since her school days." The book traces "the greatest love story of the century" from the couple's first meeting at a university in Scotland. It claims that William's nickname for Kate was Babykins, while she called him Big Willie. Did you know? William's nickname for Kate is Babykins, while she calls him Big Willie

15 million mile man Posted: After travelling 15 million miles and taking 718 Concorde flights to 139 countries, a Brit tourist has become the world's most travelled man. Wealthy Fred Finn holds the official record for the most miles travelled by a passenger after visiting an incredible 70 per cent of the world's 196 nations. Fred has spent 52 years travelling the globe, during which he has covered 15 million miles " the equivalent of travelling to the moon and back 31 times. He has kept a detailed log of every flight and train journey he has taken, which he had counter-signed by each driver and pilot to verify his achievement. Fred said, "I have no desire to visit any new counties now. I've been to more places than I could ever dream of and don't really want to visit the remaining ones." Fred has estimated he has flown across the Atlantic over 2,000 times.

New Zealand mine hit by third explosion Posted: A third explosion yesterday rocked a New Zealand mine where 29 workers perished in an earlier blast, authorities said. Emergency services teams were at the mine site when the 20-second explosion occurred, but no one was injured, New Zealand Police said in a statement. "This will not impede the recovery work we are doing at the site and we are continuing with our forward planning as scheduled," said Gary Knowles, superintendent of Tasman Police. The explosion occurred a week after the first blast at the coal mine left 29 workers trapped inside. Authorities said dangerous gas levels in the mine were too high for rescuers to enter.

Granny turns into superhero Posted: A 91-year-old grandmother has donned a cape and spandex to become her superhero alter-ego Super Mamika. Sacha Goldberger, a 41-year-old French photographer, had the idea four years ago after his Hungarian-born grandmother Frederika became lonely and started to show signs of depression. "It started as a way for us to spend time together", he said. "We have always been very close and she would often stay with me. I was wondering how to find a way to make her happy." "The first pictures were of her wearing a red helmet with a white star on it. I asked her to put it on and she started to pose," he said. She has been photographed scaling buildings, and speeding around town in her Grandma Mobile.

Palin defends N Korea gaffe Posted: Ex-Alaska governor criticises media on Facebook; calls latest mistake a slip of the tongue Sarah Palin would like you to know that she's not the only high-profile person who's suffered from slips of the tongue the president has too. In response to her latest verbal gaffe mistakenly calling North Korea an American ally the ex-vice presidential candidate took a swipe at critics with a Thanksgiving message blasting the media and pointing out Obama's previous misstatements. The message, posted on her Facebook page, is addressed to "all 57 states," a poke at President Obama who mistakenly told an audience in 2008 that he has been to more states than the actual number. And Palin didn't stop there: Obama's bungles are highlighted in a series of links to YouTube clips. They include the President calling Europe a country, the US fighting to halt the rise of privacy" (he meant piracy) in Somalia and Israel being a "strong friend of Israel's." Palin wrote, "If you can't remember hearing about them, that's because for the most part the media didn't consider them newsworthy. I have no complaint about that. Everybody makes the occasional verbal gaffe." Under pressure The former, half-term Alaska governor has been criticised for several verbal slips since she took the national stage. Palin was slammed in July for using the made-up word "refudiate" and in August for using the phrase "cackle of rads." In 2008, she infamously declared Alaska is "right over the border" from Russia in explaining why her home state's proximity to the country gives her foreign policy experience. In the latest slip, Palin said "we gotta stand with our North Korean allies" during a live interview on a radio show on Wednesday. The conservative radio host pointed out the error, to which Palin said, "Yeah" and corrected herself, referencing South Korea in her following remarks. The former Alaska governor chastised the media for exaggerating the incident. Palinisms "Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate." A tweet by Sarah Palin, which she quickly removed after being ridiculed for inventing the word refudiate, July 18, 2010 "Refudiate, misunderestimate,' wee-wee'd up. English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!" A follow-up tweet by Sarah Palin, proudly mistaking her illiteracy for literary genius, July 18, 2010

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