Mid Day International News |
- Indian-origin man uses Da Vinci Code to fleece Grammy winner
- Indonesian minister says he was "forced" to shake Michelle Obama's hand
- Google to give 10 pc salary hike to employees worldwide
- Fritzl's 'house of horrors' in Austria to be demolished
- Bush was lost in 'Laura's stunning blue eyes' when they met!
- Sculptures dubbed 'degenerate art' by Hitler's regime to go on display
- Iran brands Carla Bruni 'adulteress'
- Nearly 100 arrested in US child prostitution racket
- Pastor arrested for multiple child abuse in El Salvador
- Facebook helps save woman from sex-slavery in Italy
- German man named Ottovordemgentschenfelde gets into record book!
- Josef Fritzl's 'dungeon' house to be demolished
- Brit woman finds diamond ring flushed down the toilet two yrs ago!
- Goldfish joins G20 security team
| Indian-origin man uses Da Vinci Code to fleece Grammy winner Posted: The secret cult Opus Dei in Dan Brown's epic novel 'The Da Vinci Code' was invoked by an Indian-origin computer repairman in the US to defraud a Latin Grammy-winning pianist and oil-family heir to the tune of $20 million. Vickram Bedi, 36, and his girlfriend Helga Invarsdottir, 39, of small town of Chappaqua in New York State were arrested last week and have been charged with grand larceny for duping Grammy-winning pianist and jazz composer Roger Davidson. Their scam began in 2004 when Davidson took his virus-infected laptop computer to Bedi's computer shop at Mount Kisco in Westchester County in New York State. Soon Bedi and his girlfriend came to know that their high-profile client is actually the great grandson of the founder of Schlumberger oil company in Houston which reported revenue of $23 billion last year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. When Davidson asked Bedi to remove the virus from his laptop, the Indian American began the game of brainwashing by telling Davidson that his computer had actually been attacked with a virus so strong that it even damaged Bedi's Datalink's computers, the paper quoted the prosecutors as saying. Bedi tricked Davidson into believing that he had tracked the virus to a remote village in Honduras and that Bedi's uncle, purportedly an officer in the Indian military, had travelled in a military aircraft to Honduras and retrieved the suspicious hard drive, the journal said. Then Bedi told Davidson that his uncle had also uncovered an assassination plot against him (Davidson) by Polish priests linked to the murderous cult Opus Dei - made famous by Dan Brown in his novel 'The Da Vinci Code'. After charging thousands of dollars from Davidson to secure his computer, Bedi and his girlfriend went on to charge about $160,000 per month for providing 24-hour bogus protection for Davidson and his family, the journal quoted the police as saying. Police found $6 million in Bedi's bank account and $1.6 million in his girlfriend's account. They also seized several cars, commercial properties and $150,000 in cash hidden under Bedi's bed. "They did it very systematically and infiltrated every aspect of his life. It was almost a brainwashing technique," the area police chief said. The scam came to light when the couple were investigated in connection with another criminal complaint against them. "The systematic method with which they continued the larceny over a period of more than six years is nothing short of heartless," the report quoted Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore as saying. Bedi and his girlfriend are being held on a $3 million bail.
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| Indonesian minister says he was "forced" to shake Michelle Obama's hand Posted: An Indonesian politician, who is a staunch Muslim, has taken to Twitter to claim that he was "forced" to shake hands with US First Lady Michelle Obama. Tifatul Sembiring, 49, who is the country's information minister, had earlier claimed that as a Muslim he avoids touching women who are not related to him. And so when photos of him shaking hands with Michelle emerged, and he came under attack, he took to Twitter to announce that it had been a forced contact and that it was all her fault. "I tried to prevent being touched with my hands but Mrs. Michelle held her hands too far toward me so we touched," the Daily Mail quoted Sembiring as tweeting. But clippings on YouTube show otherwise, and it has sparked a huge Internet debate. In footage of the official welcome, Sembiring appeared to share his countrymen's enthusiasm. He smiled broadly as he shook the president's hand and then reached with both hands to grasp Michelle's. When Indonesians noted the handshake and questioned his long-standing claims that, as a good Muslim, he restricts his contact with women, Sembiring had no other choice but to blame it on the First Lady.
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| Google to give 10 pc salary hike to employees worldwide Posted: Internet search titan Google Inc is planning to give a 10 per cent salary hike to all of its 23,000 employees across the world starting next year, says a media report. The pay hike comes as Google ramps up its battle with competitors, especially neighbouring Facebook Inc, in a fight to secure talented staff. About 10 per cent of Facebook's employees are Google veterans. Attributing the development to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google Inc is giving a 10 per cent raise to all of its 23,000 employees. "The raise, which will be given to executives and staff across the globe, is effective in January," the report noted. Citing an email written by Chief Executive Eric Schmidt to employees, the report said: "We want to make sure that you feel rewarded for your hard work. We want to continue to attract the best people to Google." Schmidt further wrote that company surveys indicated salary was more important to Google employees than any other component of pay, such as bonuses or equity. He added the company was moving a portion of employees' bonuses into their base salaries, so they would receive some of it in every paycheck. Over the past year several former Google executives who helped run the company's advertising business, and Google product managers and engineers involved in Chrome and Android software projects, joined Facebook. According to the publication, the raise is not the first time Google has taken steps to retain employees. In 2009, it repriced millions of employee stock options whose value had been wiped out as Google's share price fell between 2007 and 2009.
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| Fritzl's 'house of horrors' in Austria to be demolished Posted: The 'house of horrors' where Austrian dad Josef Fritzl imprisoned his daughter and fathered seven children with her is to be demolished, a report said. The 73-year-old, who is serving a life sentence, held daughter Elisabeth captive in a secret dungeon for nearly 24 years, raping her 3,000 times and fathering seven children with her, one of whom he admitted having murdered by neglect. A judge has now ordered the destruction of Number 4 Ybbsstrasse, in Amstetten, putting an end to speculation over what will happen to the house, The Sun reported. Judge Markus Sonnleitner said that he was looking for a way to pull it down without attracting "too much attention". "There seems to be lots of interest in seeing it disappear. This seems to be the sensible course as there is little chance of ever selling the property for a profit. It should be done as quickly as possible," the judge said. Locals have welcomed the decision after concerns an entrepreneur might buy the property and turn it into a museum. Sick horror fans still come by to photograph the house, the doors of which have been welded shut to prevent souvenir hunters trying to break into the cellar. Fritzl had built the dungeon under the house for his daughter and their children, while he lived a seemingly normal life with his wife upstairs. Three of the incest children were brought up by the couple after he convinced authorities that Elisabeth, now 43, ran away to join a cult and left the babies on his doorstep. Fritzl was sentenced to life last year, for rape, enslavement, imprisonment, and the murder of the child who died.
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| Bush was lost in 'Laura's stunning blue eyes' when they met! Posted: Former US President George W. Bush has revealed in his memoirs that he fell in love with wife, Laura when he saw her stunning blue eyes. "She was gorgeous. She had stunning blue eyes and moved so gracefully," The Daily Mail quoted him as talking of a party at a friend's barbecue in Midland, Texas, in July 1977. "She was intelligent and dignified, with a warm and easy laugh. If there is love at first sight, this was it," he added. Within a few weeks he had even met her parents. "We were a perfect match,' he writes. 'I'm a talker; Laura is a listener. I am restless; she is calm; I can get a little carried away; she is practical and down-to-earth," Bush said. "Above all she is genuine and natural. There is no phoniness about her. Her appeal was immediate and constant," he said. Just two months later he proposed and she immediately accepted. "While I couldn't pinpoint it at the time, I believe there is a reason Laura and I never met all those years before. God brought her into my life at just the right time, when I was ready to settle down and was open to having a partner at my side," he said. "Thankfully, I had the good sense to recognise it. It was the best decision of my life."
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| Sculptures dubbed 'degenerate art' by Hitler's regime to go on display Posted: A collection of sculptures that was captured by Hitler's Nazis and declared 'degenerate art' is set to go on display. The 11 pieces of art, which date back from the early 20th Century, were discovered on a building site in the city centre last year. Now, they are to be exhibited at Berlin''s Neues Museum, reports the BBC. They belonged to a collection of 15,000 works, which Hitler''s regime criticised for containing "deviant" sexual elements and anti-nationalistic themes. The statues were found during a dig to lay down a new underground train line. Berlin''s Mayor Klaus Wowereit said that finding the sculptures is a "small miracle" that "shows a lot about the dark times of the city".
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| Iran brands Carla Bruni 'adulteress' Posted: Iran has launched a second scathing attack on French First Lady Carla Bruni, branding her 'an adulteress' for supporting a woman facing death by stoning. The hardline newspaper Kayhan - the mouthpiece of the extremist Islamic regime - also accused Bruni of leading a 'vastly immoral lifestyle', reports the Sun. "Sarkozy, after having cheated on and divorced his first two wives, then married the Italian Bruni who has surpassed even him in the area of infidelity," the article in Kayhan read. The verbal onslaught came after both Bruni and her husband President Nicolas Sarkozy pleaded with Iran not to stone to death 43-year-old Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, accused of cheating on her husband and then helping to kill him. Sarkozy had earlier warned Iran that diplomatic relations would be frozen if the death sentence on Sakineh were carried out. The paper is directly under the supervision of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad''s regime.
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| Nearly 100 arrested in US child prostitution racket Posted: A total of 99 people have been arrested and at least 69 minors were rescued in an anti-child prostitution operation in the US, a media report said.
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| Pastor arrested for multiple child abuse in El Salvador Posted: An evangelical pastor has been arrested for having sexually abused at least 15 children in El Salvador, Salvadorian police said.
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| Facebook helps save woman from sex-slavery in Italy Posted: A message posted to the social networking site Facebook helped save a young woman from sex slavery in southern Italy and led to the arrests of three men.
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| German man named Ottovordemgentschenfelde gets into record book! Posted: Bernd Ottovordemgentschenfelde is reportedly said to have got into Germany's record books for having the longest last name. The 45-year-old floor tiler from the Rhineland said his name barely fits on the side of his van and official forms, reports the Telegraph. "My father wanted to give me a second first name. But my mother successfully stopped that," he said. He has even had to shorten his name for credit cards, while his wife Sylvia and daughter Nadine have both shortened their last name to Gentschenfelde. Judth Schwanke, a name expert from the University of Leipzig in Germany, confirmed he currently has the longest name on record, at 24 letters.
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| Josef Fritzl's 'dungeon' house to be demolished Posted: It has emerged that the ''dungeon' house of Josef Fritzl, the man who was imprisoned for raping his daughter for 24 years, is to be demolished. A judge who was dealing with Fritzl''s bankruptcy told the Kurier newspaper that given the home''s gruesome history, doubted that it would ever be sold, much less for a profit. "This house should be torn down. There is much interest in it completely disappearing," News.com.au quoted him as saying. The 75-year-old converted the basement of the family home into a dungeon for 24-yr-old Elisabeth and three of the seven children he fathered with her. Fritzl was convicted of murdering one of the children, along with enslavement and rape, and jailed for life in 2009.
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| Brit woman finds diamond ring flushed down the toilet two yrs ago! Posted: A British woman has got back a diamond ring two years after it was accidentally flushed down a hotel toilet after hiring a waste firm to sift through 54,500 litres of sewage. Joan Spiers, leader of Surrey's Reigate and Banstead Council in England, lost her antique gold ring, set with a certified diamond and a dozen smaller diamonds, while at a hotel. Joan then hired a waste disposal company, who agreed to help her find the ring. The company put a camera into the cesspit tank, filtered the waste and even sent a worker into the tank with a metal detector. "She (Joan Spiers) was understandably distraught. The ring was worth a significant amount of money but it was also of great emotional value because it was given to her by her late husband," the Daily Telegraph quoted Julie French, of Clear Master, as saying. "We did everything we could. We emptied the sewage tank and put a camera into it to see if the ring had got lodged anywhere. We got permission to empty the tank at a Thames Water site and put it through the sewage works, hoping that would filter it out, but we still didn''t find it," she added. It was sheer coincidence that an employee from the same firm stumbled upon the ring two-and-a-half years later at a sewage works and it has now been returned to its owner. "He took it in the shower with him to rinse it off and brought it into the office," said French after worker Lloyd Hampshire saw the gem glinting through the muck. "My husband was the only person who had seen the original photo of the lost ring and recognised it immediately. Two of the smaller diamonds had fallen out but apart from that, it was just in need of a good clean," she said.
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| Goldfish joins G20 security team Posted:
The Convention and Exhibition Centre in Seoul which is hosting the event will use the fish to check the purity of the water supply to restrooms, an official said. "The fish also symbolise an eco-friendly water policy, which recycles used water for the restrooms," said Oh Su-Young, PR manager at the centre, adding that they were just part of the inspection process. The centre shares its water supply with a neighbouring shopping mall and trade centre.
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