Mid Day International News |
- Rs 1.3 crore bridge to help mice cross road
- Saudi hammers 23 nails into Sri Lankan maid's body
- Monroe voted greatest blonde of all time
- Indian national jailed for rape
- Colombian teens get death threats on Facebook
- US freezes assets of Osama son-in-law
- S African Indian organises 'Gay Oscars'
- 43 feared dead in China plane crash
- Bookies lay bets on UK PM's new baby
- Govt criticised for bad management
| Rs 1.3 crore bridge to help mice cross road Posted: A bridge costing 190,000 pounds (Rs 1.3 crore) has been made in Britain to help dormice cross a busy road, a media report said on Wednesday. The Welsh assembly funded three high-wire walkways across a busy new road in the Rhondda Valley in Wales. The bypass runs through two important mice habitats, the Daily Express reported. However, the construction was Tuesday slammed as a waste of taxpayers' money. "Many taxpayers will think the Welsh assembly are taking the mickey. In these straitened times they should've explored less expensive ways of protecting these creatures," Fiona McEvoy, from the TaxPayers' Alliance, said. A local resident from Llantrisant said: "I find it absurd that they have spent such an obscene amount." "It's an eyesore and it's ludicrous. It's crazy," another resident said. Dormice, an endangered species, like to move around in trees.
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| Saudi hammers 23 nails into Sri Lankan maid's body Posted: A maid from Sri Lanka was being treated in hospital after her employer in Saudi Arabia allegedly hammered 23 nails into her body, Arab News daily reported Wednesday. "I had to work continuously since I had to do the chores of all the occupants and when I wanted to take rest due to tiredness, they inserted the nail in my body as a punishment," the 50-year-old woman told a Sri Lankan television station. The woman, who has returned to Colombo, said she was overworked, threatened with death, and beaten. The Sri Lankan embassy in Riyadh said it was looking into the case.
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| Monroe voted greatest blonde of all time Posted: Actress Marilyn Monroe has been voted the greatest blonde of all time by OnePoll.com, an online market research company. The legend has beaten a host of modern beauties, including Cameron Diaz, Madonna and Scarlett Johansson. "Marilyn Monroe has always been known for her iconic blonde hair," contactmusic.com quoted a spokesperson from the company as saying. "But it's amazing to think that even now, almost half a century after her death, she has still beaten modern blondes to the top spot. "Her hair is synonymous with 1950s glamour but it has stood the test of time against hair styles and colours which have come and gone over the years," he added. Monroe became an icon after her tragic death in 1962 and had relationships with a string of famous men during her life, including playwright Arthur Miller and she allegedly dated US President John F Kennedy. The top 20 Greatest Blondes of all time are:
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| Indian national jailed for rape Posted: A court in Australia on Wednesday jailed an Indian national for 13 years, for allegedly raping a young university student in Melbourne last year. Twenty-seven-year-old Harjot Hundal Singh dragged the woman into his van, tied her hands and told her to stop shouting or he would kill her, according to AAP report today. Singh also punched the woman who was 19 years old and had been walking home from Springvale station in Melbourne's east in June last year, and grabbed her around the throat before pulling her pants and underwear off. He drove the van for a few minutes before stopping and raping the student. Singh was arrested at Melbourne Airport a few days later with a one-way ticket to Dubai with a connecting ticket to India. Victorian County Court Judge Marilyn Harbison jailed Singh for 13 years and ordered he serve nine years before being eligible for parole. "You abducted your victim, a soft target, on a suburban street. You ignored your victim's pleas," she said adding, "In my view your offending makes it plain that unless rehabilitated, you are a danger to the sexual safety of women". Singh, formerly of Springvale, who has already served 425 days in custody, is expected to be deported at the end of his sentence.
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| Colombian teens get death threats on Facebook Posted: Around 90 teenagers in Puerto Asis town in Colombia have received death threats on social networking website Facebook, which has prompted several families to flee, officials said. The first death list appeared after the August 15 murders of two of the young people threatened, Andres Gerardo Verdugo, a local official said. Two more lists have followed, he said, with the latest appearing Monday. "The worried parents have begun to take their children out of the town," he said, adding that authorities have boosted security in Puerto Asis and are investigating the threats. Besides the deaths lists, posters threatening members of the municipal police force also began circulating during the weekend, he said. The national police have launched "a great operation to give protection" to the targets of the threats, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, a senior official, said Tuesday. Police is also probing threats against some 60 other people in Putumayo, Nari �o, Antioquia and Cundinamarca, the general said. The threats, which have prompted some residents to leave, are part of a strategy by new drug trafficking gangs to gain control of key territories, officials said.
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| US freezes assets of Osama son-in-law Posted: In a continuing campaign to target Al Qaeda's sources of funds, the United States has frozen the assets of Muhammad Abdallah Hasan Abu-al-Khayr, a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden. The assets of al-Khayr, who is considered a possible replacement for the terror group's chief financial officer, would be frozen in US jurisdictions under new sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department on Tuesday. Mustafa al-Yazid, the former No 3 Al Qaeda leader and financier, was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan earlier this year. The Treasury's designation also prohibits Americans from engaging in any transactions with him. The UN took a similar action, which extends the sanctions against him to all member nations. The Treasury Department says al-Khayr has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for a specific terrorist attack against US interests. He appears on a 2009 list of 85 persons wanted by the government of Saudi Arabia, in part because of his role as an Al Qaeda financial facilitator. Al-Khayr also acts for Al Qaeda in a leadership role on the media committee, and has on at least one occasion recruited a member for Al Qaeda, it said. His relationship with Al Qaeda began with military training the terrorist group provided him in the mid-1990s. Al-Khayr has also provided services to bin Laden as a bodyguard. "After the death in May of Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, who essentially served as Al Qaeda 's chief financial officer, we will continue to work with our allies to target those like al-Khayr who could step into al-Yazid's shoes," said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey. "Today's designation of al-Khayr by the United States and the United Nations will help to ensure that that Al Qaeda remains in severe financial straits."
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| S African Indian organises 'Gay Oscars' Posted: South African Indian bridal consultant Daniel Chettiar is finalising the country's first 'gay Oscars' to fulfill a vow made six years ago when his friend Calvin Pillay was murdered for being a gay. Chettiar, who also uses the name Daniela Keisha, said he and Pillay had first mooted the idea a decade ago when they watched the annual Oscars hosted in Hollywood and envisaged a similar platform where gay men could walk the red carpet and then receive awards in various categories. Finalists were selected by a panel of judges before their details were placed on Chettiar's website, www.gayaccolades.co.za for public voting to decide the winners in 21 categories, including for the political party most supportive of gays and even a Lifetime Achievement Award for furthering the cause of gay people. The event will be held in the coastal town of Umhlanga on Saturday, with profits going towards funding an orphanage in memory of Pillay.
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| 43 feared dead in China plane crash Posted: 53 others in hospital after plane shoots runway at Yichun airport A Chinese passenger plane overshot a runway and burst into flames while attempting to land yesterday in China's northeast, killing 43 people on board, state media reported. The plane crashed while trying to touch down in the city of Yichun in remote Heilongjiang province. Hua Jingwei, an Communist Party official in Yichun, said that 43 bodies had been recovered from the wreckage and 53 survivors were taken to hospital for treatment. The plane had 91 passengers, including five children, and five crew on board, reports said, citing a source at the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). The aircraft was an E-190 jet, a passenger aircraft manufactured by Brazilian aerospace conglomerate Embraer, operated by Henan Airlines, a carrier based in the northern Chinese province of the same name. The crash occurred shortly after 9:30 pm (1330 GMT) near Yichun's Lindu airport, less than an hour after the plane took off from Harbin, the provincial capital. The vice mayor of Yichun told media that most of those taken to hospital did not have life-threatening injuries, Xinhua said. A 20-strong group of CAAC technicians and officials was sent to the crash site and Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang is to lead a team of transport, safety and security officials to deal with the aftermath, Xinhua said.
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| Bookies lay bets on UK PM's new baby Posted: Bookmakers are offering odds of 12 to one on the prime minister choosing Lucy which was ranked twelfth on a list of the top baby names of 2009 or Daisy, which came in at seventeenth. Other possible names include Elizabeth at 16 to one and Juliet at 20 to one. More daring gamblers could place a bet on the baby being named Beyonc �, after the American singer, at 500:1, or Cammy Cameron, at 1000:1. Staunch believers in the strength of the coalition government were offered odds of 25:1 on the child being called Nicky. However, the couple wants to reflect the child's Cornish birthplace with her middle name. Tamara was suggested to the Prime Minister by reporters as a possible name -- a reference to the River Tamar, which forms Cornwall's border with Devon. "Well obviously. We're the right side of the Tamar," he said.
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| Govt criticised for bad management Posted: Where was President Benigno Aquino III during the hostage crisis? This was the question raised by Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang, who was calling him up in vain at the height of the crisis on Monday night. It was also one of the many questions posed to Aquino by his "friends" on his Facebook account since Monday. Even Elena Bautista-Horn, spokesperson of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, raised the same question. Aquino emerged to face the nation and speak about the hostage drama only around midnight of Monday, more than three hours after the hostage crisis ended with the killing of former Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza and eight of his hostages from Hong Kong. Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said Aquino was "not aware" that Tsang was trying to contact him. Carandang said this was the reason the President did not immediately speak before the media because he wanted to first "determine what exactly were the facts on the ground."
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