Mid Day International News |
- Chinese dissident Liu wins Nobel Peace Prize
- Man confesses to killing and then raping his niece
- Oz mum sends teenage daughter to brothel to fund business
- Female student's private sex life thesis makes waves in cyber space
- Weight can influence salaries
- Woman jailed for killing pregnant woman, unborn baby
- Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore have threesomes?
- Buzz Lightyear was the first man on moon
- How boring says Queen Elizabeth
| Chinese dissident Liu wins Nobel Peace Prize Posted: Imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China" - a prize likely to enrage the Chinese government, which warned the Nobel committee not to honour him. The Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said Liu Xiaobo (LEE-o SHAo-boh) was a symbol for the fight for human rights in China. "China has become a big power in economic terms as well as political terms, and it is normal that big powers should be under criticism," Jagland said. It was the first Nobel for the Chinese dissident community since it resurfaced after the country's communist leadership launched economic, but not political reforms three decades ago. The win could jolt a current debate among the leadership and the elite over whether China should begin democratic reforms and if so how quickly. Unlike some in China's highly fractured and persecuted dissident community, the 54-year-old Liu has been an ardent advocate for peaceful, gradual political change, rather than a violent confrontation with the government. The document he co-authored, Charter 08, called for greater freedoms and an end to the Communist Party's political dominance. It was an intentional echo of Charter 77, the famous call for human rights in then-Czechoslovakia that led to the 1989 Velvet Revolution that swept away communist rule. "The democratisation of Chinese politics can be put off no longer," Charter 08 says. Thousands of Chinese signed Charter 08, and the Communist Party took the document as a direct challenge. Police arrested Liu hours before Charter 08 was due to be released in December 2008. Given a brief trial last Christmas Day, Liu was convicted of subversion for writing Charter 08 and other political tracts and sentenced to 11 years in prison. In a year with a record 237 nominations for the peace prize, Liu had been considered a favourite, with open support from winners Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and others.
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| Man confesses to killing and then raping his niece Posted: A 15-year-old girl in Italy was strangled to death and then raped by her uncle before he threw the corpse into a well to hide the crime, media reports said. Michele Misseri admitted to killing his niece Sarah Scazzi 41 days after she disappeared in the Puglia region. Misseri, 53, on Wednesday broke down during a 15-hour interrogation and confessed to killing his niece who went missing on August 26. An autopsy on her 'unrecognisable' decomposed body showed signs of rape after her death, according to investigators in the city of Taranto. "I strangled her with a cord while I was behind her and I raped her after she was dead," he told investigators, according to unnamed sources close to the probe, who said the crime occurred in Misseri's garage. Misseri has been detained for kidnapping, murder and concealment of a body. "This person confessed to killing the girl and he told us where to find her," said Taranto investigator Franco Sebastio, during a press conference on Thursday. The victim's mother Concetta Serrano Spagnolo was appearing on a live national television show that aims to solve missing people and murder cases when she learned late Wednesday that police had located her daughter's body. Investigators' suspicion that a family member could be involved in her disappearance was heightened when Misseri last month contacted authorities to say that he found his niece's burned mobile phone not far from where she lived in the town of Avetrana. "The finding of the mobile phone was virtually a way of saying 'come and get me'," Scazzi family lawyer Walter Biscotti, said on Thursday. "It was done in a manner of a person who doesn't know how to keep a secret," he added.
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| Oz mum sends teenage daughter to brothel to fund business Posted: A 16-year-old Australian girl was sent to brothel by her mother so they could earn enough money to start a clothing business. The victim, whose identity has been kept confidential, said that she is heartbroken by the actions of her mother. She has also described how her mother's betrayal left her incapable of trusting anyone and caused her to self-harm. The girl, then 16, was put on a train from Wollongong and sent to work at Edgecliff, close to Sydney, brothel liaisons, described by Judge Paul Conlon as 'a high class agency, however frequented by low class individuals'. The mother has pleaded guilty to inducing her daughter to participate in child prostitution and financially benefiting from those acts. She has admitted to helping forge the girl's birth certificate to say that she was 18. "It has made me scared, honestly, scared that if my own mother can betray my trust to this extent, what will other people do to me?," the Daily Telegraph quoted victim as she wrote in a statement tendered to the Wollongong District Court. The 42-year-old mother will be sentenced later this month.
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| Female student's private sex life thesis makes waves in cyber space Posted: A female student in the US has been left devastated after a sex list, in which she ranked the university men she had slept with, became an Internet sensation. Karen Owen had created the "unofficial senior thesis" on her sex life with athletes at Duke University in North Carolina and originally emailed it to three of her friends. But the project spread across the university's entire 14,000-student body and from there on to websites across the globe. According to the News Of Today, Owen was very distraught when the list was made public. "I regret it with all my heart. I would never intentionally hurt the people that are mentioned on that," the Daily Mail quoted her as saying. In the list, written in the form of a 42-slide PowerPoint presentation, Owen rates 13 of the men she slept with, mainly from the university lacrosse team, out of 10 and created a bar graph charting their sexual prowess. "In my blackout state, still managed to crawl into bed with a Duke athlete," was one of the entries on the list. Owen called her presentation 'An education beyond the classroom: Excelling in the realm of horizontal academics' and also includes intimate details of her lovers. The list has since been taken down from Internet sites and Owen has deleted her profiles from social networking sites.
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| Posted: Slim women are treated with higher pay at work than their over-weight counterparts, however, thin men tend to get paid less than male workers of average weight, found a new study. In fact, men earn more as they pack on the pounds - all the way to the point where they become obese, when the pay trend reverses, reports the Wall Street Journal. The study is the first look at the effects of being very thin on men vs. women. Separate studies of 11,253 Germans and 12,686 U.S. residents led by Timothy A. Judge of the University of Florida found very thin women, weighing 25 pounds less than the group norm, earned an average 15,572 dollars a year more than women of normal weight. Women continued to experience a pay penalty as their weight increased above average levels, although a smaller one " presumably because they had already violated social norms for the ideal female appearance. A woman who gained 25 pounds above the average weight earned an average 13,847 dollars less than an average-weight female. Men were also penalized for violating stereotypes about ideal male appearance, but in a different way. Thin guys earned 8,437 dollars less than average-weight men. But they were consistently rewarded for getting heavier, a trend that tapered off only when their weight hit the obese level. In one study, the highest pay point, on average, was reached for guys who weighed a strapping 207 pounds. The study suggests employers should examine their assumptions about employees' weight, because they may be rooted in prejudice. However, there also may be a logical explanation, the study points out " People who conform to others' ideas about the ideal body image may actually perform better on the job, because they can wield more influence over other people and get more things accomplished. Meanwhile, in separate research, economists at George Washington University tabulated the cost of obesity and found that it's more expensive for a woman to be obese than for a man, according to the New York Times. While a man racks up 2,646 dollars annually in extra expenses if he is obese, a woman's obesity costs her 4,879 dollars, almost twice as much, reported the Times.
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| Woman jailed for killing pregnant woman, unborn baby Posted: A woman in the US who murdered a pregnant woman and cut her unborn child from her womb has been sentenced to life in prison, a media report said. Korena Roberts, 27, battered eight months pregnant Heather Snively with a collapsible police baton after luring her to her home in Oregon, Daily Mail reported on Thursday. She then used a sharp instrument to cut the unborn baby from Snively's abdomen. An autopsy showed that the baby boy, who did not survive, had been torn from Snively's womb. Her body was found stuffed into the crawlspace in the kitchen of Roberts' home in Portland, Oregon, in June 2009. Police were alerted to the murder after paramedics were called to the home and discovered Roberts' boyfriend Yan Shubin desperately trying to revive a newborn baby and large amounts of blood on the floor. Roberts, who has two children under 10, told paramedics she was the mother of the baby and was rushed to hospital, where an examination revealed she had not given birth. For months before the killing, Roberts told neighbours that she was pregnant, going as far as buying a stroller, baby formula and parenting magazines. Weeks before her death, Snively moved to Oregon from Maryland to be with her fiance. Detectives said they believe Roberts and her victim met online through the Craiglist website where both women were looking for baby clothes. During a bail hearing, Roberts' lawyer said she had given birth to a stillborn child in 2007 and was obsessed with babies, repeatedly watching videos of births on YouTube, sewing baby clothes and telling people she was pregnant. Neighbours said they often saw Roberts walking with Snively. Detectives said they believed Roberts deliberately lured Snively to her home with the intention of killing her and stealing her unborn baby. Snively's mother Heidi Kidd said Roberts told her daughter she was pregnant and wanted to exchange baby clothes. Kidd, who earlier revealed the baby boy would have been called John Steven, said: "I guess they decided to meet and I guess that was the wrong thing to do."
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| Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore have threesomes? Posted: The alleged mistress of Ashton Kutcher has claimed the actor and his wife Demi Moore have an open relationship and often engage in threesomes. Brittney Jones told RadarOnline that the actor shared intimate details about his marriage to the aging actress. "Ashton said he and Demi have an open relationship and have threesomes often," the Daily Telegraph quoted her as saying. "I didn t feel at all like he had just cheated on his wife. It felt normal and OK. "He said they share women, but he isn't supposed to go off and sleep with women on his own. "He explained that he and Demi had a deal where they had to share lovers. He felt bad that he had been with me and didn't share," she added.
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| Buzz Lightyear was the first man on moon Posted: One in twenty British children believe Christopher Columbus discovered liposuction, not America London: The worrying stats emerged from a study of 2,000 schoolchildren. It shows most of them are clueless about key events in history although they are much more knowledgeable about celebrities instead. One in five kids believe Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear was the first person to set foot on the moon rather than Neil Armstrong.  And one in twenty youngsters thought Counter Terrorist Jack Bauer was the brains behind the Gunpowder plot. But two thirds of the 6-12 year olds correctly identified malaria as Cheryl Cole's illness and David Beckham as being the most recent player to be dropped by Fabio Capello. The research was carried out to mark the launch of the What on Earth? Wallbook which details and illustrates historical events from the big bang to the present day. The survey also found a third did not know Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, with nine cent reckoning it was Deal or No Deal's Noel Edmonds while one in five thought it was Charles Darwin. The research found kids' science and space knowledge isn't tip top either - with 11 per cent thinking Isaac Newton discovered fire and Albert Einstein was Frankenstein's brother. One in six think Darth Vader's Deathstar from Star Wars is the furthest planet from Earth. It also emerged one in twenty thought Christopher Columbus discovered liposuction, NOT America, while one in ten wrongly believe Rolf Harris painted the Mona Lisa. Another 12 per cent of kids reckon the battle of Britain took place in space and one in six said The Daleks from Dr Who occupied Britain. One in six even failed to identify US President Barrack Obama, claiming he was Mr T from the A-Team, F1 Lewis Hamilton and even Nelson Mandela. But while children were found to be clueless about historical happenings, they faired much better when it came to celebrities and showbiz. More than half knew Joe McElderry won last year's X Factor and nearly two thirds correctly identified Cheryl Cole's recent illness as malaria. A whopping 65 per cent knew Britney Spears shaved her head, and 55 per cent correctly said model Jordan has been married twice. Christopher Lloyd, the author of The What on Earth Wallbook, said: ''There seems to be a lot of confusion when it comes to children and historical events. ''Neil Armstrong would not be happy to learn a plastic action figure is getting the credit for first man to step on the moon. ''Young people have little or no context when it comes to knowledge about the past. "Often they know a great deal about a few topics, but seldom do they have any idea of the big picture - especially when it comes to events of the past that connect the story of human history with evolution and the natural world. ''By picking up a book, exploring the UK and learning a bit more about the history which surrounds different towns and cities, children can become much more clued up. ''It's worrying to see so many youngsters are more aware of celeb culture than influential figures, key battles and events that changed the world. ''We hope our timeline will make it clearer for kids and adults to understand what happened between the Big Bang and the current day.''
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| How boring says Queen Elizabeth Posted: French President Nicolas Sarkozy has revealed that Britain's Queen Elizabeth gets "bored" being the monarch.
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