Monday, August 2, 2010

Mid Day International News

Mid Day International News

Man travels across the globe for free using Twitter

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A British man has travelled across the globe free of cost using only Twitter as he got his journey sponsored from fellow users.

Paul Smith, a freelance writer, came up with the idea while suffering post-holiday blues after his honeymoon in New York.

He decided he wanted to try to get to Campbell Island, 200 miles off New Zealand's coast, within 30 days.

He posted his aims on Twitter 28 days before he wanted to leave but at first, no one noticed.

But later, Stephen Fry found out about him and mentioned Smith to his many followers.

Tweeters from France, Germany, Zurich, Washington etc sponsored his trip from one place to another.

This proved how kind and spontaneous people could be to total strangers.

Smith also managed to be interviewed for the 'Good Morning America' television breakfast show and partied with actresses Liv Tyler, Eva Mendes and Jessica Alba in Hollywood.

After returning to his wife and nine-year-old twin sons Sam and Jack - courtesy of another free flight from Air New Zealand - he said: "I was almost there, but not quite.

"But my main aim was to get as far around the world as I could in 30 days. When I gazed across the sea towards Campbell Island I didn't feel like a beaten man," the Telegraph quoted him as saying.

"People were bending over backwards to help me and the trip proved to me there is a lot of good in the world," he added.

Smith has written a book called "Twitchhiker," which is out now.

'Killer massage' is 108-yr-old Malay woman's key to keeping 38-yr-old hubby

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A woman in Malaysia has revealed that she holds on to her husband, who is 70-years younger than her, by giving him a "killer massage" that she learned from her ancestors.

Wook Kundor, 108, from Kampung Bukit Tok Bat in Kuala Berang, says her traditional massage is what is keeping her 23rd husband Mohd Noor Che Musa (38) glued to her side.

"I will massage him when he starts to talk about younger women. This will dissuade him from thinking about them," the Star Online quoted her as saying.

But when asked about the technique of the massage, Wook refused to share her secret, though she did say that the focal point of the massage was to concentrate on rubbing the sensitive parts of the body.

She also revealed that she used the same massage on all her previous 22 husbands, and they remained true to her until their death.

Wook also revealed that one of the golden rules in the traditional massage was to first effleurage (stroking movement in massage) the masseur before doing the same on the partner.

"It will usually take about an hour to complete the massage that will totally relax your partner. This will create a closer bond between husband and wife," she said.

Wook also said that she always made it a point to keep herself clean at all times and never failed to perform her daily prayers as that also helped to strengthen a marriage.

Batman weds Wonder Woman with Robin as the best man!

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Talk about wild weddings -- a couple decided to have some fun and dress up as their comic idols Batman and Wonder Woman -- for their wedding.

While Neil Vaughn decked up as the caped crusader, wife Sharon was Wonder Woman.

The guests followed in their footsteps too -- Best man was Robin, and the Joker was the master of ceremonies.

And the bridesmaids dressed up as Powerpuff girls.

"We''re not particularly traditional, and we wanted to have a fun day with our friends," The Sun quoted Vaughn as saying.

Among the guests in Paignton, Devon, were Superman, the Incredibles, Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk and Captain America.

Female bank employees urging criminals in jail to open accounts

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A bank is sending its female employees to jails so that they can urge sex offenders and paedophiles to open a bank account.

High Street giant Barclays has sent out its female customer services workers inside 17 jails, including Parkhurst and Albany on the Isle of Wight.

One of the staff at a prison alleged that the scheme was a scandal.

"The bank has a captive market of accounts by cashing in on prison inmates," the Sun quoted a source at HMP Isle of Wight as saying.

"And remember they are sending in young women and men to deal with hardened criminals. It doesn't seem right," he added.

Barclays bank said that it was committed to the financial inclusion of people who have no accounts, and that the scheme helped prisoners learn to manage their money, reports The Sun.

"Engaging the expertise of independent organisations like businesses and charities is vital to changing people''s lives and stopping the revolving door of crime," said the Prison Service

Tibetan rag picker 'most beautiful girl' on internet

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A 15-year-old Tibetan girl became popular among netizens after a Chinese internet forum referred to her as "the most beautiful girl" for putting trash into the bin at the Shanghai Expo Garden.

The website "Who is the Most Beautiful Girl at the Expo?", which rated the status of the teenager, was showered with comments after a visitor to the Expo posted on Sina.com the video footage featuring the girl picking up a discarded bottle of soft drink which was kicked around by several visitors, China Daily reported Monday.

The girl, Drolma Chutso, from quake-hit Yushu county in Qinghai province, was among 300 underprivileged teenagers on a free trip to Shanghai and the Expo.

"Look how this young girl from a disaster area makes our urban life better. Better City, Better Life' shouldn't be just a slogan," heiguozi123 commented on the forum.

Others were more measured in their responses: "As a matter of fact, there are disaster areas in Shanghai," responded mobilewolf. "The state of emptiness and the sense of cold detachment is our moral disaster area."

According to a sanitation worker, surnamed Chen, one of the 7,000 workers responsible for cleaning the Expo Garden, he often asks visitors to throw trash in nearby waste bins, but is ignored and people discard empty food and drink packaging on the ground.

"They tell me that a trashcan 5 or 10 metres from them is too far away and they were too lazy to go," Chen said. "It would make our work much easier if visitors could lift a finger."

Rare Batman comic to fetch more than $40,000

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A longtime Alaska comic book buff is selling one of the gems in his vast collection, a rare copy of Batman No 1 published 70 years ago.

Mike Wheat of Fairbanks has put the 1940 comic book on the auction block through Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries, where it's expected to fetch more than USD 40,000.

Online bids already have climbed to USD 35,000 for the book, believed to be one of fewer than 300 still in existence.

Online bids will compete with a live auction set for Thursday. The second and fourth Batman issues also will be part of Thursday's auction.

They are expected to bring more than USD 5,000 combined.

MJ's unheard songs set for November release

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A posthumous album featuring 10 never-before-heard songs from the King of Pop Michael Jackson is set for a November release.

At the time of his death, Jackson had reportedly left hard drives filled with previously unreleased music.

His former manager Frank DiLeo estimates Jackson's vaults contain more than 100 completed and unreleased songs, including collaborations with Akon, will.i.am and Ne-Yo.

The tracks are expected to be included in the forthcoming release, alongside songs Jackson recorded at the peak of his career in the 1980s, reports torontosun.com.

"There are a couple of songs we recorded for the 'Bad' album that we had to cut that are just sensational," said DiLeo.


WikiLeaks expose: US sleuths bribed suspect

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US investigators probing leaks of defence secrets by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks tried to bribe a suspect to "infiltrate" its data and prevent further revealations, a media report said Sunday.

Investigators interviewed Boston-area acquaintances of Bradley E. Manning, a military analyst charged with providing documents related to Afghanistan war to the website, in an effort to prevent additional leaks, The Washington Post reported citing a person questioned in the probe.

The investigators from the army and the State Department seemed to be "looking for classified documents that they thought to be in the Boston area", the acquaintance said on condition of anonymity. "I got the impression that we're still in the process of containing a leak."

The man, a computer expert who met Manning in January, said he told the investigators in mid-June that he knew of no such documents. The computer expert also said the army offered him cash to "infiltrate" WikiLeaks.

"I turned them down. I don't want anything to do with this cloak-and-dagger stuff," he was quoted as saying.

The interview was among at least two investigations conducted in the Boston area after Manning was accused of giving WikiLeaks State Department cables and a video of a helicopter attack in which unarmed civilians were killed in Baghdad, The Post said.

Officials said they were investigating whether Manning leaked the Afghanistan documents made public last week, a disclosure that prompted condemnation from the Obama administration.

Army Criminal Investigation Division spokesman Chris Grey, however, declined to comment on the claim. "We've got an ongoing investigation," he said. "We don't discuss our techniques and tactics."

Another Manning acquaintance who was questioned said investigators "assumed that he was the one who did it and were trying to understand why, what was going on with him psychologically, to either make it so nobody gets to this point in the future or spot people who've gotten to this point and make sure they didn't do any damage."

This acquaintance, also a computer expert who spoke on the condition of anonymity, is affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He said he was interviewed twice in June in Cambridge, Massachusetts, shortly after Manning was detained. Manning was charged in July.

Meanwhile, friends and family are raising money for Manning's defence, including a private lawyer to augment the army-provided defence lawyer.

The San Francisco-based war resisters' group Courage to Resist has raised $11,418 and is aiming for $100,000, assuming a "sizable contribution from WikiLeaks", said Jeff Paterson, project director.

Manning has been transferred from Kuwait, where he had been detained, to Quantico. He was charged in military court in July and will have a preliminary hearing to determine if he should face a court martial.

White House officials are concerned that more potentially damaging information could be released by the group in the coming weeks.

A senior military official balked at a suggestion by Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates that the WikiLeaks disclosure could cause the Pentagon to limit the distribution of classified information to combat field units, where it is harder to monitor what analysts are downloading.

"Limiting intelligence to troops in combat is a non-starter," said the official. "It doesn't make sense to use WikiLeaks as a reason to limit information to the troops who need it." Such limits could "get soldiers killed", the official said.

The classified computer systems in Iraq and Afghanistan don't have the same safeguards that exist in the United States. "In the States, there are rack and scoring servers that watch where analysts go," the official said.


Twitter blows past 20-billionth tweet

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The ominous tweet came at 12:44 am Sunday from user GGGGGGo_Lets_Go in Japan, where Twitter has exploded in popularity over the last year.

The San Francisco-based company estimates the Japanese send nearly 8 million tweets a day, about 12 per cent of the global total and second only to the United States.

The tweet itself is hard to decipher, since it appears to be part of a longer conversation between two users.

"So that means the barrage might come back later all at once," wrote the graphic designer and avid fan of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows baseball team in Japanese.

It didn't take long before GGGGGGo_Lets_Go was inundated with congratulatory messages from around the world for hitting the social networking milestone. The user bio changed shortly thereafter.

"I'm grateful and humbled by those who are visiting because of my 20 billionth tweet. Be warned, I tweet a lot about baseball."

While it took Twitter four years to reach tweet number 10 billion earlier this year in March, it took less than five months to double the figure thanks to its increasing popularity worldwide.

Twitter Chief Executive Evan Williams travelled to Tokyo earlier this month to celebrate its success in Japan.

"We've come a long way in two years especially in Japan," he told an enthusiastic crowd of about 500.

Japanese Twitter users set a world record when the whistle blew in the World Cup game, in which Japan beat Denmark at 3,283 tweets per second, mostly believed to have been Japanese.

About 16 per cent of Japanese Internet users tweet, surpassing the 9.8 per cent of online Americans.

The company launched a Japanese language version in 2008 and released a mobile site in October.

Twitter down
However, the micro-blogging site was down for planned maintenance. The message on the site read that they did not know how long it will be down for, but it would be back in a few hours.

Lohan heads to rehab, again!

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Lilo to be treated for Meth addiction and bipolar disorder during her 90-day rehab

Troubles star Lindsay Lohan is to be treated for addiction to methamphetamine and bipolar disorder during her court-ordered 90 days in rehab, it is claimed.

The 24-year old actress is currently in jail serving a 90-day sentence for a probation violation stemming from a 2007 DUI charge.

But with time off for good behaviour and because of overcrowding at the jail, she could be out soon.
A source close to the case said that meth along with opiates were Lindsay's drugs of choice.

Crystal Meth as it is more widely known, is a highly addictive stimulant drug, which increases alertness and energy levels as well as increasing the levels of dopamine and serotonin in the brain.

Lohan is due to check into Morningside Recovery rehab centre in Orange County, California, as soon as she is released from the Lynwood Regional Detention Facility where she is currently being held. Morningside, which was hand-selected by Marsha Revel, the judge handling the star's case, lists detoxification from methamphetamines and opiates as one of its specialities.

Lohan will be pleased to learn that the establishment where she will begin her 90-day in-patient treatment is far from bleak.

Billed as an 'exclusive addiction and dual diagnosis facility providing drug and alcohol rehab, and mental health and dual diagnosis services,' the rooms at Morningside look more in keeping with a summer camp than a rehab centre.

The building is divided into separate houses and decorated in muted beige tones with simple, yet comfortable furnishings.

Outside there is a large wooden deck, lush green gardens, a patio table, chairs and umbrella.

Indoors there are lounges with comfy couches, fireplaces and television sets. However, there are two beds to each room.

It's unclear whether Lohan will be housed in her own room or if she'll have a room mate. However, each room has two beds.


Boy (7), dubbed mini 'Monet'

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Artistic genius makes Rs 2 crore in half hour by selling his paintings

His paintings fetch thousands and attract buyers from all over the world.

But while his watercolours, pastels and oil paintings hint at a talent honed through decades of practice Kieron Williamson is barely half-way through primary school.

The seven-year-old prodigy sold his latest collection of paintings for �150,000 (Rs 2 crore) at the weekend, with all 33 works sold within just half-an-hour.

Far and wide
The astonishing sale attracted buyers from as far as Arizona, New York and South Africa, with others bidding by telephone from around the world in the hope of securing an original.

One couple from Philadelphia camped for two days outside the gallery in Kieron's home town of Holt, Norfolk, to make sure they did not miss out when the third exhibition of his work opened on Friday morning.

The pictures included an oil painting of Norwich Cathedral, a pastel of ducks on a marsh and a watercolour of fishermen unloading their catch.

Watercolours
Many of his paintings feature Norfolk landscapes or coastal scenes.

But the latest exhibition also included views of City Temple in Holborn, central London, and even a painting of Hong Kong.

The biggest sellers were a 20inch by 30inch oil painting called Sunrise at Morston, which sold for �7,995
(Rs 6 lakh), and a 19inch by 25inch pastel called Marsh at Sunset, which fetched �6,750 (Rs 5 lakh).

Kieron said, "I normally paint in the morning and I am up at 6 am and then after school -- but with the school holidays at the moment, I am painting all the time. I like landscapes as they've got the big Norfolk skies in them and not too many hills or mountains."

Until two years ago, Kieron's artistic talents stretched only to colouring in dinosaurs drawn for him by parents Keith, 44, and Michelle, 37.

But on a family holiday to Cornwall he was inspired by visits to harbours and ports and began producing 'mind-blowing' images of the boats in the water.

Art class
When they returned home, the Williamsons sought the opinion of local artists and gallery owners who
confirmed Kieron's extraordinary ability to mix colours.

He began having weekly hour-long art classes with a local artist who was also a family friend and last summer, aged six, he held his first exhibition of 19 paintings, which were sold for �14,000 (Rs 10 lakh) in a sealed bid auction.

The following November, another 16 of his paintings were up snapped in just 14 minutes in his second exhibition at the Picturecraft gallery.

Gallery owner Adrian Hill said, "Kieron has probably become one of the most collectable artists currently exhibiting worldwide. He has a very realistic form of painting. People can see what his pictures are and understand them. He's impressionist without being too abstract."

Kieron, who also has a sister, Billy-Jo (6), grew up surrounded by paintings in the family's small flat. His father, a former electrician, collected art as a hobby until three years ago, when a serious accident forced him to stop work and turn his hobby into an occupation.

The mother, a nutritionist, has said she believes the family's home, with 'no garden or outside space' may helped drive Kieron to create his own scenery through his art.

He now paints up to six paintings a week and up to 700 people have registered on a waiting list for an original.
They plan to buy Kieron a house with his earnings and invest the rest for him.

Williamson said, "We were shocked that all the paintings sold so quickly. Kieron is really pleased that it went so well. He is also a normal lad who is passionate about football."


Posted by Harshad at 7:22 AM

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