Mid Day International News |
- Mario Vargas Llosa wins Nobel literature prize
- Teenager jailed for not giving computer password
- Record numbers to marry on 10/10/10
- US woman jailed for posing as teen boy so she could date teen girl
- ''Delusional'' man who accused wife of Becks affair submits cheating emails
- Woman's gallbladder removed through her vagina
- Facebook says iPhone app doesn't leak users' phone numbers
- US very bullish on India: Hillary Clinton
- Chinese farmer grows biggest ever cucumber
- Woman sexually assaults baby, boyfriend takes photos
- Lincoln document that freed slaves now on sale
- Naked 'cowboy' to run for US President
- Lady Gaga, a hit in the skies
- Happy birthday Prime Minister!
| Mario Vargas Llosa wins Nobel literature prize Posted: Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Spanish-speaking world, won the 2010 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday. The Swedish Academy said it honoured the 74-year-old author "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt and defeat." Vargas Llosa has written more than 30 novels, plays and essays, including Conversation in the Cathedral and The Green House. In 1995, he was awarded the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's most distinguished literary honour. His international breakthrough came with the 1960s novel The Time of The Hero. Vargas Llosa is the first South American winner of the prestigious Nobel Prize in literature since it was awarded to Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1982.
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| Teenager jailed for not giving computer password Posted: A teenager in Britain has been jailed for four months after he refused to give his computer password to child protection police, a media report said. Oliver Drage's computer was seized by officers tackling child sexual exploitation. But they could not access the material stored in it as it was protected by a 50-character encryption password, the Daily Mail reported on Wednesday. The 19-year-old, who worked in a fast food shop, was originally arrested in May last year. He was then formally requested to disclose the password but failed to do so. He was convicted after a trial last month for failing to disclose an encryption key, an offence covered by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. On Tuesday, at Preston Crown Court Drage of Freckleton, he was sentenced to 16 weeks in a Young Offenders Institution. Detective Sergeant Neil Fowler, of Lancashire Police, said: "Drage was previously of good character. So the immediate custodial sentence handed down by the judge in this case shows just how seriously the courts take this kind of offence." Police are still trying to crack the code on Drage's computer to find out its contents 17 months after they seized it.
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| Record numbers to marry on 10/10/10 Posted: More than 100 loved-up couples are flocking to get married on the 10th day of the 10th month 2010, a date that comes around only every 100 years. A record-breaking 106 couples will tie the knot at registry offices in NSW this Sunday. The couples will marry in civil ceremonies at Registry of Birth, Deaths and Marriages offices in Sydney, Newcastle and Parramatta. "Only once in a hundred years can couples tie the knot on the special date 10/10/10," NSW Attorney General John Hatzistergos said yesterday in a statement. It will be the busiest day for registry weddings in NSW since the office was set up in 1856, he said. "The date has been so popular with couples the registry has been taking bookings since over a year ago." According to numerology websites, the date represents new beginnings, freedom and self-expression. The NSW registry has not seen such demand since 96 couples got married on 08/08/08 and staff are working hard to accommodate the couples by hiring extra venues and booking as many celebrants and ushers as possible. Thirty-five couples will marry at Parramatta, 65 at Chippendale and six at Newcastle. The registry has also extended opening hours so it can hold ceremonies right through from early morning to sunset. Some of the more highly sought after times to wed include 9.50 am (10 minutes to 10 am), 10 am and 10.10 am (AEDT). Hatzistergos said brides and grooms were increasingly opting to get married in civil ceremonies. Figures show civil ceremonies are now almost twice as popular as church weddings. Traditionally the most popular time of year for a registry wedding was the October holiday weekend, followed by St Valentine's Day.
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| US woman jailed for posing as teen boy so she could date teen girl Posted: A woman in the US has been sentenced to six months in jail after she posed as a teenage boy so she could date a teenage girl.
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| ''Delusional'' man who accused wife of Becks affair submits cheating emails Posted: The man who accused his wife of having an affair with David Beckham has claimed that he has evidence of ''emails and texts'' to prove she was cheating on him. In a court deposition, multi-millionaire lawyer Kambiz Shabani, 43, has responded to his wife Shery Shabani's bid for a restraining order by insisting she has been having an affair. Both Beckham and Shery have categorically denied any sort of sexual relationship and there is no suggestion the emails and texts involve Beckham. In a separate declaration to the court, Kambiz Shabani's brother Kamyar - also a lawyer - insisted his brother had evidence of 'emails and texts' to prove Shery, 33, had committed adultery and was ''lying'' to her family, reports the Daily Mail. However, Kambiz did not say who he believed his wife was having an affair with. And there is no suggestion these emails have anything to do with former England captain Beckham. A spokesman for Beckham said last week the initial claims were 'full of fantasy.' Now, in the deposition filed at Los Angeles Superior Court, Kambiz has said he and his wife 'have been experiencing marital troubles for many months due to my belief that petitioner [Shery] has had an affair.' In her deposition to the court, made public last week, Shery had claimed her husband had falsely accused her of having an affair with Beckham. In his response, Kambiz made no mention of the footballer. However, following a closed-door hearing on Monday in front of Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Amy Pellman, six emails said to have been presented by Kambiz's lawyer Manley Freid to the judge have also been kept confidential. There is no evidence the messages had anything to do with Beckham. However, a representative for Mrs Shabani is reported to have told entertainment website RadarOnline there have been emails between Shery and Beckham although she said they were 'purely business' related. Shery also submitted four text messages and six of her own emails into evidence. ()
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| Woman's gallbladder removed through her vagina Posted: A 42- year-old woman has had her gallbladder removed through her vagina in a rare procedure. The procedure was done in August by a surgical team at Ohio State University Medical Center and was part of a pilot program comparing laparoscopic and transvaginal natural orifice surgery. The surgery took less than 90 minutes and involved surgeons punching a small hole in the vaginal muscle. A tiny instrument was then fed into the woman's abdomen where doctors were able to remove the gallbladder. Dr. Vimal Narula, the surgeon who performed the procedure, said there are many advantages to this minimally-invasive surgery. "Because the incision used to extract the gallbladder is located inside the body where there are no nerve endings, there is no sensation of pain," Fox News quoted Narula as saying in a news release. "The only discomfort may come from a small incision at the naval where a small endoscopic camera is inserted to provide visibility to the surgeon while he uses the laparoscopic instruments." Other perks include no visible scarring and a shorter stay in the hospital. The patient in this case went home just hours after the surgery was performed. The pilot program is sponsored by the Natural Orifice Surgery Consortium for Assessment and Research.
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| Facebook says iPhone app doesn't leak users' phone numbers Posted: Amid increasing allegations over users' privacy, Facebook has denied claims that private phone numbers could be seen by anyone thanks to its iPhone app. Bloggers said that the social networking giant''s iPhone application to ''sync'' information might have inadvertently handed over friends'' contact details to the site. However, Facebook has issued a disclaimer that you have to agree to or decline before you can use the ''contact sync'' feature. "If you enable this feature, all contacts from your device (name, email address, phone number) will be sent to Facebook and be subject to Facebook's Privacy Policy, and your friends' profile photos and other info from Facebook will be added to your iPhone address book. Please make sure your friends are comfortable with any use you make of their information," the Daily Mail quoted the disclaimer as reading. But there are concerns that phone numbers are inadvertantly being shared by Facebook users. "Despite the reassuring phrase there - 'Facebook Phonebook displays contacts you have imported from your phone, as well as your Facebook friends' - it''s absolutely not true," said Charles Arthur, a Guardian blogger. "I know because there are numbers there which I don''t have. OK, perhaps the people who own them added them; but that''s not clear either. "So how did they get there? Because it only takes one person to upload another person''s number, and the implication is that it''s going to be shared around everywhere," he added. However, Facebook today insisted that an individual iPhone user''s list of phone numbers could not be seen by anyone on the web, regardless of the different privacy settings it offers. But they admitted that details could be leaked if someone hacked into your account. "Only you can see your Phonebook on Facebook; it can't be seen by anyone else," said a spokeswoman. "This is the same as online phonebooks or email contact lists many people already have. "As with any service, users do need to invest some time in order to use it properly and we encourage people to use their privacy settings to do this," she added.
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| US very bullish on India: Hillary Clinton Posted: As India assumes a more global leadership role, the United States is "very bullish" on India, says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton describing President Barack Obama's upcoming visit as "yet another very clear statement" of US support.
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| Chinese farmer grows biggest ever cucumber Posted: A Chinese farmer has broken the world record for growing the biggest ever cucumber - using house dung. Akele Hi grew the monster veg, which is 5ft 7ins long and weighs 154lbs, on his vegetable patch in Hefei, southern China. He took the record from a Brit - Frank Dimmock, from Thame, Oxfordshire - whose cucumber reached a length of 3ft 5ins. Akele says he did nothing but water the plant and put the odd shovelful of horse dung on it. "All the other cucumbers from the same packet grew to a normal size. But right in the middle of them this monster wouldn''t stop growing," the Sun quoted him as saying.
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| Woman sexually assaults baby, boyfriend takes photos Posted: A woman in Britain sexually assaulted a five-month-old baby and allowed her paedophile boyfriend to take photographs from his mobile phone, a media report said Thursday. Tracy Dawber, 44, allegedly let Colin Blanchard take the indecent images as she sat the youngster on her lap at her home in Southport, Merseyside, Daily Mail reported on its website. Dawber admits it was her holding the baby in the photographs but denies one count of sexually assaulting the child and five counts of permitting indecent photographs to be taken. The jury at Winchester Crown Court was told that IT businessman Blanchard, 40, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, had admitted the "extremely serious offences, for which he will be punished", Simon Morgan, prosecutor, said. In interview Dawber told police she could not remember the pictures being taken, but Morgan told the jury the Nokia phone always flashed when it took the pictures. He explained that some had been taken from only about nine inches away Aug 20, 2008. "The Crown says the defendant was able to see the phone being used. That Blanchard must have been on his knees or stood and leaning very far forward." Morgan said the pair had met in 2007 and had a sexual relationship and that she had become "deeply involved" with Blanchard's "unacceptable activities". She described him as a sociable person but said she had been "disgusted when she heard on the news what he had been involved with". Blanchard was caught in June 2009 when a work colleague discovered child pornography on his computer, the court heard. He was arrested at Manchester airport and a connection via a Facebook account was made with Dawber. Officers also uncovered the mobile phone from Blanchard's Volvo which contained the images of the baby, which were shown to the jury. It also showed Dawber in explicit poses. When arrested in November 2009 Dawber would not confirm it was her holding the baby but she later admitted it. Officers found child pornography on her computer the same as that discovered on Blanchard's and search words on her machine linked to child porn such as 'Lolita'. A PDF file containing stories about incest was also found. The trial is expected to last seven days.
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| Lincoln document that freed slaves now on sale Posted: One of the most important documents in US history - a proclamation that freed slaves in the secessionist South - will go under the hammer with a targeted sales range of $1-1.5 million, Sotheby's of New York said Wednesday. The copy of the Emancipation Proclamation being sold Dec 10 was signed by president Abraham Lincoln Jan 1, 1863, in the midst of the Civil War - part of a series of actions that eventually freed all US slaves. The document, one of 19 known surviving copies, is being sold by the family of the late Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated during his presidential bid in 1968. Kennedy, whose brother president John F. Kennedy was also assassinated, helped push through civil-rights legislation in the 1960s as a US senator from New York. At least 14 of the copies are held by institutions. On its way to the auction block, the Kennedy copy will be exhibited in Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Lincoln took office in 1861, just as the Civil War began. He was determined to prevent the spread of slavery beyond the US South and to force the rebellious Confederate states back into the union. In 1863, Lincoln issued what is known as the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the 10 Confederate states that were still in rebellion. Six other states practicing slavery that had remained in the union or been recaptured were omitted from the proclamation. Slavery was not permanently abolished throughout the US until the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution was adopted in December 1865. Lincoln had already been assassinated by a Confederate sympathiser in April 1865, days before the end of the war. It would take another 100 years, including the civil rights movement and another set of legislative reforms to dismantle the apartheid system that was re-established in the South in the late 1800s. The 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act helped guarantee African-Americans equal protection under the law and full rights in US society.
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| Naked 'cowboy' to run for US President Posted: Watch out, Sarah Palin. There's a new conservative in town, and he's (nearly) naked and gunning for the White House. The Naked Cowboy, a strapping guitar player and Times Square fixture known for busking in his briefs, 10-gallon hat and boots, says he will be donning a normal outfit on his next adventure: a run for the White House. Robert John Burck, on his website nakedcowboy.com, has put the word out that he will be jumping in to the 2012 US presidential race. "America needs a president who believes in America. (...) America, I will fight to give the power back to the people," Burck, a 40-year-old conservative, says on his website. "America needs a president who will stand up for America and protect its language, its borders, and most importantly, its culture. What American's need is a president who seeks to empower the people and to allow the free market to determine value, not a president intent on empowering government and misappropriating the resources of the productive class." The cowboy unsuccessfully ran for mayor of New York in 2009. His news conference attracted a throng of media, as well as curious onlookers. When it came time for questions, he was asked about his underwear choices and whether he was being dishonest because he wasn't actually naked when performing.
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| Posted: Filipino Stewards dancing to pop star's hit song for in-flight safety demo a YouTube hit A unique way to keep bored and tired eyes locked on an airline's cabin crew during an in-flight safety demo has become the latest YouTube sensation from the Philippines. Passengers travelling with budget carrier Cebu Pacific will soon be given safety instructions via flight safety dance routine to the Lady Gaga tune Just Dance. A test flight for the new safety demo, filmed by a stunned passenger, has gone viral on YouTube with over seven million hits in a week. At the end of the two minute clip, passengers give the orange-clad cabin crew a round of applause. Candice Iyog, the airline's vice president for marketing, said it will roll out the dance on selected domestic and international flights later this month. "We have always been a fun and very family-oriented company," she said. "The passengers did pay attention." But the Cebu Pacific dance moves have not gone down well. Several legislators and the union for the country's flag carrier Philippine Airlines reacted in fury to the safety demo, saying it is demeaning to women. The women's political party Gabriela said the routine is "a cheap promotional gimmick."
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| Happy birthday Prime Minister! Posted: Group of journalism students pose in an erotic calendar proclaiming their love for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin What do you get the politician who has everything? A group of journalism students decided to offer Russia's prime minister an erotic calendar starring themselves. Lingerie-clad students from Moscow's most renowned university have posed in an erotic calendar proclaiming their love for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who turns 58 today. The calendar, called Vladimir Vladimirovich, We love you. Happy Birthday Mr Putin, features 12 women wearing only underwear and pouting at the camera with saucy slogans. The women are all named as journalism students at the Moscow State University and a spokeswoman for the faculty confirmed that the models study there. Risque The tone is set by the front cover, where a plunging neckline and copious cleavage is captioned "We love you!" (My vas lyubim). Clad in a black lace negligee, Miss March, Lena Gornostayeva, wishes Putin a happy birthday with the message, "You put out the forest fires, but I'm still burning." Journalism faculty spokeswoman Larisa Bakulina slammed the calendar as a "work of erotic tastelessness." "We are not happy that they used the brand of the journalism faculty,"she said. One of the creators of the calendar, Maxim Perlin (22), a producer at a patriotic Internet television channel, said that he put it together with a publisher, Vladimir Tabak. The models posed for free, he said claiming the calendar had an empowering message. "The idea of the calendar was to show girls who are not simply models who turn up for 100 dollars, but girls who have some political opinion, who have already achieved some success," he said. Asked why the models were in underwear, he said, "In my opinion it's more beautiful and more interesting." Fast selling 50,000 copies of the calendar went on sale on Tuesday at Auchan hypermarkets, Perlin said. "We hope it will have some commercial success." Yesterday, a stack of the calendars, costing 260 rubles each (Rs 400) was on sale at a hypermarket on Leninsky Prospekt in southern Moscow. Designer Antonina Shapovalova, a leader of Nashi pro-Kremlin youth movement, in 2008 created a line of girls' thong knickers with the slogan "Vova, I'm with you," using a nickname for Vladimir Putin. Past love Such displays of affection by beautiful women for male political leaders have come from the Hollywood set. Marilyn Monroe had sung Happy Birthday, Mr President for JFK. The second was the image of Lauren Bacall atop President Truman's piano.
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