Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Mid Day International News

Mid Day International News

Customer leaves suitcase with 1 million cash at Sydney cafe

Posted:

A customer had a pleasant shock for staff at a pizzeria in an uptown restaurant here when he left a suitcase with a whopping 1 million Australian dollars (USD 1 million) after enjoying a hearty meal.

The 30-year-old man, wearing surfing shorts, walked into the Cafe Marco, an Italian restaurant, but staff said the customer apparently got spooked and walked out of the joint leaving the suitcase stuffed with cash.

City police, who were informed, said they were on a lookout for the customer who left the money, but described the contents of the suitcase as a "significant amount of cash."

However, Ten Television and other Australian media said that the suitcase contained 1 million Australian dollars stuffed with 50 dollar notes.

Man jailed for looting women after one-night stands

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A man in China has been jailed for about three years for stealing money and mobile phones from 11 women he had one-night stands with over a period of two years.

He stole 15,000 yuan ($2,360) in cash besides cellphones from them, the Global Times reported.

The man, identified as Han, turned a drug-addict in 2007. By the summer of 2009, he was so addicted that he became desperate to find a way to support his habit, the Hongkou district people's court heard.

Taking advantage of his handsome looks, Han would use internet to find women for dating. He used to entice them with stories of his rich family background.

He would bring the women to a hotel room to spend a night with them, but before it was morning would take off with their cash and sometimes their mobile phones.

Suu Kyi set to run in Burmese elections

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Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi intends to run for parliament in upcoming by-elections, a decision that was expected after her party decided last week to rejoin mainstream politics in long-isolated Burma.

Nyan Win, the spokesman of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, said she has not yet decided which district she will seek to represent. But she "has the intention to stand for the elections," he said.


Run for office: Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi speaks at
the opening of a funfair event in Yangon. Suu Kyi plans to run in upcoming
by-elections. pic/afp

In a landmark development, the NLD decided on Friday to rejoin politics and register for future elections, signalling its confidence in recent reforms by the nominally civilian government that took power earlier this year.

The military-aligned ruling party won the November 2010 parliamentary elections held by the junta as part of its promise to introduce democracy and relinquish power after nearly five decades of military rule.

The NLD boycotted the elections because of a law that had prevented Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi from running. The new government, however, later scrapped the law, allowing the NLD to take part in the political reforms now under way.

Suu Kyi had hinted on Friday that she would run for a parliamentary seat in the special elections, saying, "If one is engaged in politics, one has to do what is necessary. If I feel that I should take part in elections, I will participate."

"Some people are worried that taking part could harm my dignity," she said. "Frankly, if you do politics, you should not be thinking about your dignity."

She, however, cautioned that "the road ahead is full of difficulties and the road to democracy is endless."

Bringing Suu Kyi's party back into the fold would give the government greater legitimacy at home and abroad. It has already won cautious praise from international observers and critics, including the United States, for introducing reforms.

President Thein Sein, a former army officer, has shown a willingness to talk to Suu Kyi, lifted some restrictions on the media and the Internet, legalised unions and scrapped an unpopular dam project. Still, hundreds of political prisoners remain in jails.

Thein Sein has welcomed the NLD's decision to rejoin politics, saying it was "a positive signal."


'Lone Wolf' terrorist an hour away from bomb

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A New York man, inspired by late al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, was just an hour away from finishing construction on a bomb meant to assassinate US servicemen returning from war and policemen when he was arrested, investigators said.

Jose Pimentel of Washington Heights was granted no bail after he appeared in court late Sunday as details emerged about how investigators say Pimentel became a self-radicalised jihadist.


In the nick of time: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg attends a City
Hall news conference about alleged lone wolf terrorist Jose Pimente.
pic/afp

Pimentel spent much of his time on the Internet, according to sources, and maintained a radical website called TrueIslam1.

The website allegedly maintained by Pimentel features videos and articles justifying attacks on US army bases, police stations and any building "where money is being made to help fund the war," investigators said. "Before returning to Washington Heights last year, he lived in Schenectady [in New York] for about five years where he made even some like-minded friends nervous by his extremism," NYPD police commissioner Ray Kelly said.

"He talked about changing his name to Osama Hussein to celebrate his heroes Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein."

Using instructions from an infamous article called 'How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom' from the al Qaeda-produced magazine Pimentel planned to use common household items to construct three bombs, investigators said.

"We had to act quickly," Kelly said, because he was in fact putting this bomb together."


Swaziland king kicks out 12th wife over affair

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The queen was asked to leave after she cheated on her husband with the justice minister

The polygamous king of Swaziland has kicked his twelfth wife out of his royal palace following claims she cheated on him with his justice minister.


Evicted: Inkhosikati LaDube claims that she was banned from leaving
the palace or seeing her husband as punishment for the alleged betrayal.
file pic/getty images

Inkhosikati LaDube (23), who married King Mswati III at the age of 16, says she has been kept under virtual house arrest in her official residence since she and Ndumiso Mamba were caught in a hotel in Mbabane, the capital, last year.

In captivity
She said that after more than a year in captivity, she was ordered "immediately to leave the palace" on November 12.

It followed a row with a security guard who blocked her from taking the youngest of her three children, a two-year-old boy, to hospital after he injured himself while playing, she said.

"He threatened to hit me, saying I am not going anywhere with my child, who was bleeding from a deep wound," she said.

An altercation ensued, she said and she was "physically prevented" from leaving the palace. "I had to protect myself, so I pepper-sprayed him in the eyes," she added.

The matter was reported to the Queen Mother, who shares power with her son and is known as the Indlovukazi, or Great She-Elephant. She is said to have decided that LaDube had been disrespectful and should be evicted from the royal household.

'Mistreated'
LaDube said she was forced to leave behind her children and her belongings.

The King has not seen LaDube for a year and, she alleges, knows almost nothing about the couple's children.

Swaziland Solidarity Network, a South Africa-based umbrella organisation of pro-democracy organisations, lambasted the king for his wife's "brutal eviction".

"The ill-treatment that she has endured is a very inhumane act," Lucky Lukhele, a spokesman, said. He said the king had "never forgiven" LaDube for embarrassing him with her alleged affair.

"Mswati has never again set foot in her house after the scandal. He further instructed her bodyguards to deliberately frustrate her to the point where she could no longer take it and then leave," he said. He added that without their mother, LaDube's children were at risk of being "terribly neglected".

23
The number of children the King has with his 13 wives

Did you know?
According to the Forbes 2009 list of the World's Richest Royals, King Mswati is worth a reported $200 million (Rs 1,045 crore)


Death toll jumps to 24 in 3 days of Cairo protests

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Clashes between Egyptian police and protesters erupted for a third straight day yesterday as the official death toll from the violence that has spread across the country rose to 24.

Egypt's health ministry said 24 people died in the clashes, while morgue officials -- who had earlier put the death toll at 33 -- confirmed this.

"Eleven of the people died in unrelated circumstances, not in the ... clashes," said a morgue official.


Take cover: Egyptian protesters run on the third day of clashes with
security forces at Tahrir Square in Cairo. Fresh clashes erupted in Cairo
between police and protesters demanding the end of military rule. pic/afp

Hundreds were also injured during the protests that broke out in Cairo, Alexandria and the canal city of Suez.

Police used tear gas against the swelling crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square -- the centre of the protest that brought down former president Hosni Mubarak in February. Protesters responded with rocks.

On Sunday, police and military forces used batons, tear gas and birdshot to clear the square of thousands of protesters demanding the ruling military cede power and return to barracks.

The clashes had an impact within Egypt's interim government, with culture minister Emad Abu Ghazi resigning in protest.

Meanwhile, Arab League chief Nabil al Arabi expressed his "grave concern" over the deadly clashes and called for calm. Arabi urged all political forces "to work for calm and return to the political process and move forward with the process of democratic change based on the principles of freedom, dignity and social justice on which the January 25 revolution was founded."


'Hacking made us think Milly was alive'

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Parents of murdered UK schoolgirl tell Leveson inquiry that deletion of voicemails gave false hope, and they believe their own phones were hacked

The mother of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler yesterday told the Leveson Inquiry of the moment she was given false hope her daughter was alive after a News of the World (NOTW) phone hacker deleted some of her voicemails.

Sally Dowler described her euphoria after calling the schoolgirl's number and being patched through to her answer phone.


Ordeal: The Dowlers told the court that they had spent three sleepless
nights after finding out her murdered daughter's voicemail had been hacked

The mail box had previously been so full that she would only get an automated message.

"I rang her phone," she said. "It clicked through onto her voicemail, so I heard her voice."

Dowler described shrieking at her husband, "She's picked up her voicemails Bob! She's alive!"

But she was only able to access her daughter's voicemail because News of the World investigator Glenn Mulcaire had hacked into the phone and deleted some messages to make room for more recordings.

Dowler was not to discover the truth until July this year after police reopened the investigation into the News of the World hacking scandal.


Hugh Grant also gave evidence in the hearing yesterday.
pics/ Getty Images

They confirmed that Milly's phone had been targeted. Dowler told Lord Leveson that she did not sleep for three nights after being told what had happened.

She said the revelation was 'terribly difficult to process.'

"You replay everything in your mind and just think, 'oh, that makes sense now, that makes sense,'" she said.

Shock and anger
The Dowlers were the first in a string of witnesses, including actor Hugh Grant, actress Sienna Miller and author JK Rowling, who will testify to the inquiry set up by UK Prime Minister David Cameron that they were followed, photographed, entrapped and harassed by journalists.

The Dowlers described their shock and anger when a private walk to retrace Milly's steps was secretly photographed by the tabloid.

Dowler said she and her husband Bob had no idea they were being observed as they walked near their home in May 2002, but days later saw the pictures in the NOTW.

"It just felt like such an intrusion into a really, really private grief moment," she said.

The couple later realised that their own phone, as well as their daughter's, had been hacked.

Celebsay
Grant is due to testify in the Royal Courts of Justice about the harassment suffered by his ex, Tinglan Hong, since she became pregnant with the couple's child.

He was to be followed by Rowling, comedian Steve Coogan, Miller and former Formula 1 boss Max Mosley -- whose taste for sadomasochism was revealed to the world in a NOTW sting.

Cameron set up the inquiry in the wake of a still-evolving scandal over phone hacking at the tabloid.

Owner Rupert Murdoch shut down the paper in July after evidence emerged that it had routinely eavesdropped on voice mails in the search for scoops.

More than a dozen journalists and editors have been arrested, and several senior Murdoch executives have resigned over the still-evolving scandal.

'Hacked by non-Murdoch tabloid'
Actor Hugh Grant said that he believes his phone was hacked by Britain's Mail on Sunday tabloid -- the first time he has implicated a newspaper not owned by Rupert Murdoch in the wrongdoing.


Posted by Harshad at 7:25 AM

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