Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Mid Day International News

Mid Day International News

Man facing 99 child sex charges gets bail

Posted:

An elderly Australian, charged with 99 child sex offences including obtaining under-age prostitution, has been granted bail.

Richard Paul Baxter,63, of the Brisbane riverside suburb of St. Lucia, was arrested Monday afternoon as part of Queensland Police's Operation Juliet Ostrich, the Perth Now quoted AAP as stating.

Baxter's charges comprise 94 counts of indecent treatment of a child, one count of making child exploitation material and four of obtaining prostitution from a child under 16.

The offences are all alleged to have occurred at Runcorn in Brisbane's southeast between October 2004 and September this year. These involve a single girl female child who was aged under 16 at that time.

Baxter was granted bail by the Brisbane Magistrates Court Tuesday on a number of conditions, including that he have no contact with the alleged victim and her family, that he surrender his passport and that he report to police.

Man burnt alive 'for being gay'

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In a horrific attack, a 28-year-old man in Britain was savagely beaten, burnt alive and then tied to a lamppost "for being gay", a media report said

The charred remains of Stuart Walker, an assistant hotel manager, were found at 5 a.m. Saturday in Cumnock, Ayrshire, Scotland.

Strathclyde Police would not rule out that Walker had been murdered because of his sexuality, according to Daily Mail Sunday.

Detective Inspector John Hogg, said: "Officers are checking CCTV footage and carrying out door to door searches in the area and we would encourage anyone with information to approach them or to call Ayr Police Office."

Britain rioters were from 44 nations

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Robbers, vandals and thugs from 44 countries took part in the riots in August in Britain, a media report said Monday

The sheer number from different corners of the globe is one of the strongest indicators yet that the riots had nothing to do with political protest but was born of greed, the Daily Mail reported.

Prison statistics revealed that 14 percent of those jailed for burglary, robbery, theft, criminal damage and disorder during the riots were born abroad.

Jamaicans represented the largest group of foreign inmates followed by Somali and Polish offenders. The list also included those from Colombia, Iraq, Congo, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.

Countrywide, police made over 4,000 arrests, with 2,952 suspects held in London alone.

The justice ministry has released a breakdown of the nationalities of those jailed for riot-related offences committed between Aug 6, when the trouble exploded in Tottenham, and Aug 9, when disorder spread outside London to Manchester, Wolverhampton and Birmingham.

Girl burnt in 'satanic ritual'

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A teenaged girl was in a coma Monday after being doused with petrol and burnt alive in a "satanic ritual" in Johannesburg, a media report said

Kirsty Theologo, 18, suffered 75 percent burns when she was set alight by her friends in a park, The Star newspaper reported.

One of her friends, who was injured when she tried to help Kirsty after she was engulfed in the fire, said that the boys wanted to sacrifice them in a satanic ritual.

They were part of a group of five boys and three girls when the ritual was being carried out on them.

A third girl told a medical source that while Kirsty was burning, the boys had cut her hand and held it over a Bible so that the blood could soak it.

The teenagers were driven to a hospital by a pastor.

Provincial police spokeswoman Captain Pinky Tsingane said the girls were tied up and there was speculation the attack was a satanic ritual.

Two men, aged 19 and 21, who took part in the incident turned themselves in Sunday, The Star added.


Pakistani who chopped off wife's nose held

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A man who chopped off his wife's nose and lips after she refused to dance at weddings has been been arrested in Pakistan's Punjab province

The victim had refused to be a dancing girl, reported Geo News.

Mohammad Abbas, a resident of Vehari town, used to pester his wife Gulshan Bibi to dance in the wedding functions.

Abbas got angry on her refusal and cut off her nose and lips.

Gulshan Bibi is in a critical condition at a hospital.

Rebels sodomised Gaddafi with combat knife

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The rebels who captured Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi reportedly dragged him from a drainage pipe and tortured him with a knife.

Graphic footage released Monday by GlobalPost.com shows a rebel jabbing a helpless Gaddafi in the backside with what appears to be a U.S.-made combat knife called a BK&T -- and which the Libyans called a "Bicketti."

According to the New York Daily News, Gaddafi, who used rape to terrorise political opponents, appears bloodied and terrified. And screams in Arabic can be heard amid the vengeful cries of the rebels.

The dictator died off-camera from a bullet to the head.

Gaddafi, whose rotting body has been on public display for four days, will be buried Tuesday at an undisclosed location in the desert.

Libya's new leaders, under international pressure, have launched an investigation into who fired the fatal shot.

Interim leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil suggested Monday that Gaddafi was rubbed out by his own supporters to keep him from naming the names of his accomplices.

"Free Libyans wanted to keep Gaddafi in prison and humiliate him as long as possible," Abdul-Jalil said.

He added: "Those who wanted him killed were those who were loyal to him or had played a role under him. His death was in their benefit."

As horrific as the GlobalPost footage is, it's not the most graphic video of Gaddafi's last moments after he was captured Thursday.


Oz man arrested for mooning Queen

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The Queen was mooned yesterday as she arrived in Brisbane. Police arrested 22-year-old Liam Warriner from Sydney and charged him with wilful exposure and public nuisance offences after he allegedly flashed his bottom as the Queen and Duke were en route from Brisbane Airport to a wharf where they began their river journey through the flood-ravaged city.

Speaking after his release on bail, Liam said that he dropped his pants when the Queen waved at him, to reveal an Australian flag between his bare backside. The shipping container worker said that colleagues had dared him to do it.


On the bayou: The Queen and Prince Philip prepare to set off down the
river on Pure Adrenaline, a chartered catamaran, to view areas of
Brisbane left devastated after January's floods. pic/afp

He said, "I mooned the Queen. Everybody's seen someone's butt. You see it on TV all the time, you see it in movies, it's accepted in PG rated programming these days, but yet it's an offence to the Queen."

Despite the bum note, the Queen received a rapturous welcome in Brisbane as she praised the "resilience and courage" of Australians who endured devastating floods earlier this year.

During a speech, the Queen praised Australians. She said, "Today Prince Philip and I have been greeted with great warmth and good humour in the true Australian spirit and I have seen the fortitude, ingenuity and determination of Brisbane to overcome the setbacks of last January."

Buckingham Palace to be a hotel?
Buckingham Palace could be transformed into a museum or a hotel when Prince Charles becomes King, according to a book. The heir to the throne is said to be keen to move the royal family from the palace and out of London when he succeeds his mother.


Girl burnt in 'satanic ritual'

Posted:

A teenaged girl was in a coma Monday after being doused with petrol and burnt alive in a "satanic ritual" in Johannesburg, a media report said.

Kirsty Theologo, 18, suffered 75 per cent burns when she was set alight by her friends in a park, The Star newspaper reported.

One of her friends, who was injured when she tried to help Kirsty after she was engulfed in the fire, said that the boys wanted to sacrifice them in a satanic ritual.

They were part of a group of five boys and three girls when the ritual was being carried out on them.

A third girl told a medical source that while Kirsty was burning, the boys had cut her hand and held it over a Bible so that the blood could soak it.

The teenagers were driven to a hospital by a pastor.

Provincial police spokeswoman Captain Pinky Tsingane said the girls were tied up and there was speculation the attack was a satanic ritual.

Two men, aged 19 and 21, who took part in the incident turned themselves in Sunday, The Star added.


Workers hunt for quake survivors

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Digging continues as death toll of 7.2-magnitude quake rises to over 200

Rescue workers in Turkey continued to hunt for people trapped amid the rubble of collapsed buildings yesterday as the death toll from Sunday's powerful earthquake rose to at least 264.

As aftershocks rocked the region, some 100 others were feared dead and more than 1,000 were wounded after the most powerful quake in a decade struck the southeastern part of the country.


Against all odds: Turkish men risk their own lives and try to save
another man who is trapped under mountains of rubble.

Search teams clawed through piles of debris, and in some cases, the cries of survivors buried alive beneath the ground could be heard.

"Be patient, be patient," rescuers told a boy who was trapped under a slab of concrete, with the hand of a lifeless adult visible in front of his face.

Another survivor, Yalcin Akay, was dug from a collapsed six-storey building after he used his cell phone to call police.


Witnesses and others who managed to remain uninjured sit atop a
damaged roof of a house. Officials say almost 1,000 buildings have
been damaged owing to the quake. pics/afp

The 7.2-magnitude quake struck on Sunday and lasted for 25 thunderous seconds, reducing vast sections of the city of Van and town of Ercis to a wasteland of debris.

The mainly Kurdish area also suffered more than 200 aftershocks between Sunday and last morning, causing further panic in the devastated region.

"I just felt the whole earth moving and I was petrified. It went on for ages. And the noise, you could hear this loud, loud noise," said Hakan Demirtas, a resident.

Aid teams handed out food and blankets to the homeless, who spent a cold night huddling around camp fires in the streets.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan arrived in the area to see the damage first-hand, and Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said the death toll was not expected to be as high as initially feared.

Fiance saves woman buried in rubble
A fiance saved his 25-year-old love Gul Karacoban from being left to die under the rubble of a restaurant she was eating at when the earthquake struck. Brought out alive yesterday, after 18 hours pinned under a mound of concrete, she was stretchered into an ambulance.


Man held for damaging over 100 cars

Posted:

A 27-year-old man has been arrested in the German capital for damaging over 100 luxury cars. He allegedly set 67 cars ablaze, and partially damaged 35 others, officials said.

Most of the cars were of brands like BMW and Mercedes-Benz, Xinhua reported.

Christian Steiof, chief of Berlin's State Office of Criminal Investigations, said Sunday that the arrest itself would not put an end to the problem of arson attacks.

The man damaged the vehicles from June to August this year, particularly in Berlin's three districts -- Mitte, Spandau and Charlottenburg.

Sources said the suspect told investigators that he set the fires due to vexation over being out of job at the time. Since late August, as he had been offered a job as an assistant, he has stopped short of criminal conduct, he said.

At least 625 vehicles were damaged in arson attacks in Berlin this year, according to Berlin police.

At least 138 dead in Turkey earthquake; toll expected to rise

Posted:

At least 138 bodies have been found after a magnitude-7.2 earthquake hit Turkey's southeastern Van province Sunday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said early Monday.

More than 350 people were injured in the quake, he told Turkey's TRT television.

Erdogan, who inspected the disaster area, said 93 bodies were recovered in Van city in Van province and another 45 in the worst-hit town of Ercis, also located in the same province.

Almost all the houses were destroyed in several villages in Van province. Most of the houses there were made of sun-dried mud bricks, Erdogan said.

More than 18 aftershocks, measuring magnitude-4 and above, occurred.

The Turkish earthquake observatory earlier said the toll could reach 1,000.

"The toll from this earthquake could be 500 to 1,000," Mustafa Erdik, head of the Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute in Turkey's largest city of Istanbul, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

The Istanbul-based Kandilli seismology centre originally reported that the earthquake was 6.6 on the Richter scale, but later revised it up to 7.2.

The epicentre was located in the village of Tabanli in Van province, which borders Iran.

TV footage showed residents spilling out into the streets in panic as rescue workers struggled to save people believed to be trapped under collapsed buildings.

"There are so many dead. Several buildings have collapsed. There is so much destruction. We need urgent aid, we need medics," Ercis mayor Zulfikar Arapoglu told NTV television.

Turkish Red Crescent is sending tents, blankets and other aid materials to the quake-hit province, according to Anatolia.

Turkey, lying atop the North Anatolian fault, is plagued by frequent earthquakes. On March 8, 2010, at least 38 people died after a magnitude-6 earthquake hit Elazig province.

On Aug 17, 1999, two powerful earthquakes, measuring 6.7 and 7.4, hit northwestern and western Turkey, killing about 18,000 people.

A major earthquake had hit Van in November 1976, with 5,291 confirmed dead. The province has a population of just over one million.

I'm not sleeping with Prince Harry: Californian waitress

Posted:

Californian cocktail waitress, who was allegedly spotted kissing Prince Harry in a nightclub, has admitted that it was nothing more than flirting, which happened between them.

Jessica Donaldson spoke of her dates with Prince Harry... and revealed, "He's a real-life Prince Charming."

Jessica gave the Royal her phone number after serving him drinks at a plush San Diego hotel.


Dirty harry: Prince Harry met Jessica Donaldson (left) at a bar and they
started to flirt with each other



She and some other girls then went on a beach-side brunch date with Harry... and caused a media storm when she appeared to be spotted smooching him in a nightclub days later.

But Jessica, who lives with her boyfriend, insisted she did nothing more than flirt with him.

She said, "Harry is a real-life Prince Charming. He is so sweet. In fact he was kind of goofy with me. I really like him but I am speaking out now because I want people to know the truth. I am not sleeping with Prince Harry and he has never been anything other than a total gentleman to me. I am very upset that all this has blown up. He is just a regular guy who enjoys a few beers with his buddies."

Jessica, who has a large and ornate tattoo on her midriff, met Harry just hours after he touched down in the US to begin his Apache helicopter training.

Prince Harry to fly solo
Prince Harry is to go on his first solo overseas tour on behalf of the Queen next year. He will be expected to meet the delicate demands of international diplomacy and boosting the monarchy overseas when he tours a Commonwealth realm to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.


Tell the country: Jobs had told Clinton

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The no-holds barred biography of Steve Jobs has revealed that former president Bill Clinton consulted the Apple boss on what to do about his affair with Monica Lewinsky during a late night tete-a-tete.

Jobs reportedly replied, "I don't know if you did it, but if so, you've got to tell the country."

According to his biographer Walter Isaacson, after Jobs delivered his advice, "There was silence on the other end of the line."


Words of wisdom: In 1998 then US President Bill Clinton was alleged
of having an affair with his intern Monica Lewinsky. According to the
biography, Clinton made a late night call to Steve Jobs asking him for
his advice on the issue after which they became close friends. File pics

Shortly after Jobs' death, Clinton spoke about his friendship with the Apple co-founder during an interview.
Clinton said, "When my daughter was at Stanford he got in touch with me, and said, "It's hard to travel to see your child when you're President. I've got a place out in the country. You and Hillary can stay there and bring Chelsea and her friends there anytime you want to.'"

"He gave me a priceless gift: the opportunity to see my child while I was still a very public figure, so I'm highly biased in his favour. Plus, even I can work an iPad."

The biography of Steve Jobs is based on more than forty interviews with him, as well as comments from scores of close family, friends, workmates and rivals.

Music buff
Jobs' love of music was said to be seminal to developing the Apple brand with Bob Dylan being one of his heroes.

However he was less impressed when it came to meeting Mick Jagger, saying, "I think he was on drugs. Either that or he's brain damaged."

Clinton attended a small private memorial ceremony last Sunday for Jobs, who died after a long struggle with a rare form of pancreatic cancer called a neuroendocrine tumour.


Gaddafi was shot in the head: Autopsy

Posted:

Former Libyan leader Moammer Gaddafi died of a gunshot wound to the head, the chief pathologist said after doctors completed the autopsy yesterday.

Othman el-Zentani did not disclose additional findings, such as whether Gaddafi suffered the wound in crossfire or at close-range.

Gaddafi, who ruled Libya for 42 years, was killed on Thursday by National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters near his hometown of Sirte. Zentani said the report would now go to the attorney general's office before being released to the public.

He also informed that doctors performed the autopsy at a Misrata hospital in the presence of officials from the prosecutor's office.

But no foreign or independent officials were present, he added. Autopsies were also conducted on the bodies of Gaddafi's son, Mutassim, and his former defence minister, Abu Baker Yunis.

The three bodies would likely return to a cold storage at a Misrata meat market for public viewing, Zentani stated.


Posted by Harshad at 7:50 AM

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