German Government Flag Swaps Parliament for Brothel
BERLIN (Reuters) - A German flag that once adorned the heights of the country's Reichstag parliament building will soon fly from a street corner brothel where rooms are rented by the day to prostitutes.
Christine Schmittroth, manager of the X-Carree bordello in the eastern city of Halle, acquired the national symbol after outbidding competitors for it in the first ever online auction of its sort, organized by Germany's cash-strapped government.
"I want to hoist the flag on my roof," said Schmittroth on Friday. "The guests think it's a great idea. It's obviously an honor to have this kind of flag."
She said that apart from raising the standing of her 12-room establishment, her purchase could also help to ease Germany's fiscal burden.
"I know that the country is massively in debt," said Schmittroth. "It's obviously a way of helping the state back on its feet, even if it's just a drop in the ocean."
The news of the flag's sale has provoked a storm of protest from enraged politicians who accuse the government of dishonoring Germany's familiar black, red and gold stripes.
Schmittroth said the reaction showed that hypocritical attitudes to prostitution, which was decriminalized in Germany by a law passed in 2001, were still rampant.
TWW'S CRAZY NEWS STORIES
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AussieMark
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AussieMark
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Iraqi Boy Thanks Wife of Slain Japanese Benefactor
TOKYO (Reuters) - A partially blinded Iraqi boy brought to Japan for treatment as one of the last deeds of a Japanese freelance journalist slain in Iraq met the man's widow Monday to offer his thanks.
Mohamad Haytham Saleh, a 10-year-old boy from the Iraqi city of Falluja, underwent surgery last Friday to restore sight in his left eye, which was cut by broken glass during a battle. Doctors believe he is likely to recover his eyesight.
Arrangements for his visit to Japan were made by Shinsuke Hashida, 61, before he was killed by gunmen south of Baghdad on May 27 along with his 33-year-old nephew and fellow journalist, Kotaro Ogawa.
Hashida had returned to Iraq partly to bring Mohamad -- who lost most of the sight in his left eye due to an injury suffered during fighting between U.S. forces and insurgents -- to Japan for treatment.
Yukiko Hashida hugged a smiling Mohamad when the two met, stroking his head and closing her eyes before kissing him several times on each cheek.
"Is your eye better?" she asked.
"I thank you," Mohamad said in halting Japanese and with an elfin smile. "I really, really thank you."
Later, at a news conference, Mohamad said that his left eye no longer pained him and its general condition had improved.
Asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, Mohamad said: "I want to be an eye doctor and heal people."
Released from hospital earlier Monday wearing dark glasses against the bright summer sun, Mohamad smiled and waved at around 50 people gathered at the entrance to the hospital in Shizuoka, west of Tokyo, where he was treated.
Since arriving in Japan early this month, the boy has become a familiar figure, his every move followed by media.
He seems to have taken the fuss in stride, waving and grinning for cameras, whether while wading in the ocean with his father, Haytham, or walking along hospital corridors in pajamas with a drip in his arm.
The deaths of Hashida and Ogawa took to four the number of Japanese killed in Iraq since the start of the U.S.-led war.
Two diplomats were killed in November near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.
Japan, a close U.S. ally, has about 550 troops around the southern city of Samawa on a mission designed to help with reconstruction work. The non-combat mission is its riskiest since World War II and worries many voters.
TOKYO (Reuters) - A partially blinded Iraqi boy brought to Japan for treatment as one of the last deeds of a Japanese freelance journalist slain in Iraq met the man's widow Monday to offer his thanks.
Mohamad Haytham Saleh, a 10-year-old boy from the Iraqi city of Falluja, underwent surgery last Friday to restore sight in his left eye, which was cut by broken glass during a battle. Doctors believe he is likely to recover his eyesight.
Arrangements for his visit to Japan were made by Shinsuke Hashida, 61, before he was killed by gunmen south of Baghdad on May 27 along with his 33-year-old nephew and fellow journalist, Kotaro Ogawa.
Hashida had returned to Iraq partly to bring Mohamad -- who lost most of the sight in his left eye due to an injury suffered during fighting between U.S. forces and insurgents -- to Japan for treatment.
Yukiko Hashida hugged a smiling Mohamad when the two met, stroking his head and closing her eyes before kissing him several times on each cheek.
"Is your eye better?" she asked.
"I thank you," Mohamad said in halting Japanese and with an elfin smile. "I really, really thank you."
Later, at a news conference, Mohamad said that his left eye no longer pained him and its general condition had improved.
Asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, Mohamad said: "I want to be an eye doctor and heal people."
Released from hospital earlier Monday wearing dark glasses against the bright summer sun, Mohamad smiled and waved at around 50 people gathered at the entrance to the hospital in Shizuoka, west of Tokyo, where he was treated.
Since arriving in Japan early this month, the boy has become a familiar figure, his every move followed by media.
He seems to have taken the fuss in stride, waving and grinning for cameras, whether while wading in the ocean with his father, Haytham, or walking along hospital corridors in pajamas with a drip in his arm.
The deaths of Hashida and Ogawa took to four the number of Japanese killed in Iraq since the start of the U.S.-led war.
Two diplomats were killed in November near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.
Japan, a close U.S. ally, has about 550 troops around the southern city of Samawa on a mission designed to help with reconstruction work. The non-combat mission is its riskiest since World War II and worries many voters.
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AussieMark
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Bride and Groom Make a Splash in Zurich Lake
ZURICH (Reuters) - Police fished a newly married couple out a Zurich lake after a wave capsized their boat, tossing them and their 18 guests into the water.
"A wave tipped the boat over. Everyone fell into the water," a Zurich police spokesman said on Sunday.
Some members of the wedding party swam the 500 yards to the shore and others were also rescued by the coastguard after the accident on Saturday night.
No one was hurt in the incident, which failed to dampen celebrations as the wedding party resumed once everyone was on dry land.
ZURICH (Reuters) - Police fished a newly married couple out a Zurich lake after a wave capsized their boat, tossing them and their 18 guests into the water.
"A wave tipped the boat over. Everyone fell into the water," a Zurich police spokesman said on Sunday.
Some members of the wedding party swam the 500 yards to the shore and others were also rescued by the coastguard after the accident on Saturday night.
No one was hurt in the incident, which failed to dampen celebrations as the wedding party resumed once everyone was on dry land.
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AussieMark
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Saddam's Earless Victims Find Hope in Plastic Surgery
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - In a stiflingly hot and crowded corridor of Baghdad's al-Wasati hospital, Nofal Dawoud is waiting nervously to be made whole again.
Ten years ago, shortly after defecting from Saddam Hussein's army, Dawoud was captured by members of the Baath party and hauled into a state hospital in the southern city of Basra.
His hands were bound behind his back, he was blindfolded, injected with almost enough anesthetic to cover the pain and had his left ear cut off by a surgeon acting on the dictator's latest whim. But that wasn't the end of it.
Realizing that they should have removed his right ear and not the left, the doctors promptly turned Dawoud over and had the surgeon slice off the other ear, too.
"I was taken to the hospital in the morning, and in the afternoon I woke up to find that I had had both ears cut off," said the 29-year-old, as if not quite believing his own hideous misfortune.
"After that, I just wanted to die. I was depressed, I didn't care about life. I wanted them to kill me, but they wouldn't."
For years he was kept in the army, where he was beaten, ridiculed and tormented by other soldiers and officers. Eventually, in 2001, he was demobilized under an amnesty.
He spent the next few years living at home, too depressed to venture out. People in the street would avoid him, knowing from his mutilation that he was a deserter. No one would employ him, no woman would marry him. He was as good as a social outcast.
He took to wearing a traditional keffiyah scarf bound tightly around his head, pulling it low to cover the place where his ears once were and every day longing for Saddam to go.
And then one day Saddam was gone.
NAZI-STYLE MUTILATION
In all, an estimated 3,500 Iraqi soldiers had the whole or part of their ears cut off following Saddam's 1994 edict, an effort at using fear to clamp down on increasing army desertion.
The first 500 or so deserters caught had the whole of their ear removed, but the measure drew so much wrath, inside and outside the country, with many surgeons refusing to perform the operation, that it was soon reduced to a part of the ear. Later it was rescinded altogether and lashes administered instead.
Ten years on, and in the wake of Saddam's fall, the victims of mutilation are gradually emerging from their pariah existence, looking for jobs and a normal life, while holding out the hope that their deformity might one day be corrected.
Six weeks ago, that hope became a reality.
A group of Iraqi surgeons, backed by the Health Ministry, announced that they would perform free reconstructive surgery on victims of Saddam's 1994 mutilation spree, as well as operations they're already performing on bomb and bullet victims.
Dr. Ridha Ali, a plastic surgeon at al-Wasati hospital who has performed hundreds of aural reconstruction operations in his lifetime, was one of the pioneers of that decision.
So far about 50 amputees have come forward seeking an operation to reconstruct their ears, including Dawoud, who journeyed from Basra to Baghdad, six hours in a bus, immediately after reading about the offer in a local newspaper.
"These are people who are desperate to feel normal again," Ali said of Dawoud, who in early June underwent the first of several operations over many weeks.
"Giving them back their ears is part of that process -- it's something that can change their lives."
RECREATING AN EAR
Another of Ali's patients is 29-year-old Ali Waheed, who deserted from the army in 1994 because, he said: "I was fed up with one war after another." He was soon caught, taken to Kindi hospital in Baghdad and in the same chilling routine was bound, blindfolded, anesthetized and mutilated.
The anger and humiliation pushed Waheed over the brink; he says he all but lost his mind. He began to slash himself with razor blades. Pulling up his shirt, he reveals his scarred arms and chest, marked with hundreds of cuts that have healed poorly and disfigured him further.
Since Saddam's fall, Waheed's life has already changed. Unable to work for years because of his mark of shame, after the war he got a job as a driver for a human rights organization.
Then he heard on the radio about the plastic surgery offer.
"I came right away, I was just desperate to have something done, to try to be made normal again," he said.
Waheed has had one operation, which involved slicing into the cavity behind his missing right ear and inserting a plastic, crescent-shaped base on which the surgeon will build a new ear using skin and cartilage grafted from the patient's body.
He has a large red swollen lump where his ear once was, but is pleased with the progress. He comes to al-Wasati almost every day to ask doctors when they can perform the next stage.
He still hides the deformity, however, brushing his hair down over the grisly mound on the side of his head and wearing a baseball cap with the peak cocked to the right like a rapper.
"Before people would discriminate against me and treat me badly, but now that's changed," said Waheed, showing off the cap he says he's worn every day since 1994. "I'm so glad I didn't kill myself. I nearly died, but I thank God for keeping me alive. Life is normal now and it's such a relief."
Waheed and Dawoud say they frequently have flashbacks to the day when surgeons sliced off their ears, but they are overcoming their anxiety.
As Dawoud waited in al-Wasati's sweltering corridor earlier this month ahead of his first operation, he professed to no nerves. No matter what came out of the operation he said he'd be happy -- it couldn't be worse than having no ears at all.
"I'm still not married because of what happened to me, but after the operation I will propose."
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - In a stiflingly hot and crowded corridor of Baghdad's al-Wasati hospital, Nofal Dawoud is waiting nervously to be made whole again.
Ten years ago, shortly after defecting from Saddam Hussein's army, Dawoud was captured by members of the Baath party and hauled into a state hospital in the southern city of Basra.
His hands were bound behind his back, he was blindfolded, injected with almost enough anesthetic to cover the pain and had his left ear cut off by a surgeon acting on the dictator's latest whim. But that wasn't the end of it.
Realizing that they should have removed his right ear and not the left, the doctors promptly turned Dawoud over and had the surgeon slice off the other ear, too.
"I was taken to the hospital in the morning, and in the afternoon I woke up to find that I had had both ears cut off," said the 29-year-old, as if not quite believing his own hideous misfortune.
"After that, I just wanted to die. I was depressed, I didn't care about life. I wanted them to kill me, but they wouldn't."
For years he was kept in the army, where he was beaten, ridiculed and tormented by other soldiers and officers. Eventually, in 2001, he was demobilized under an amnesty.
He spent the next few years living at home, too depressed to venture out. People in the street would avoid him, knowing from his mutilation that he was a deserter. No one would employ him, no woman would marry him. He was as good as a social outcast.
He took to wearing a traditional keffiyah scarf bound tightly around his head, pulling it low to cover the place where his ears once were and every day longing for Saddam to go.
And then one day Saddam was gone.
NAZI-STYLE MUTILATION
In all, an estimated 3,500 Iraqi soldiers had the whole or part of their ears cut off following Saddam's 1994 edict, an effort at using fear to clamp down on increasing army desertion.
The first 500 or so deserters caught had the whole of their ear removed, but the measure drew so much wrath, inside and outside the country, with many surgeons refusing to perform the operation, that it was soon reduced to a part of the ear. Later it was rescinded altogether and lashes administered instead.
Ten years on, and in the wake of Saddam's fall, the victims of mutilation are gradually emerging from their pariah existence, looking for jobs and a normal life, while holding out the hope that their deformity might one day be corrected.
Six weeks ago, that hope became a reality.
A group of Iraqi surgeons, backed by the Health Ministry, announced that they would perform free reconstructive surgery on victims of Saddam's 1994 mutilation spree, as well as operations they're already performing on bomb and bullet victims.
Dr. Ridha Ali, a plastic surgeon at al-Wasati hospital who has performed hundreds of aural reconstruction operations in his lifetime, was one of the pioneers of that decision.
So far about 50 amputees have come forward seeking an operation to reconstruct their ears, including Dawoud, who journeyed from Basra to Baghdad, six hours in a bus, immediately after reading about the offer in a local newspaper.
"These are people who are desperate to feel normal again," Ali said of Dawoud, who in early June underwent the first of several operations over many weeks.
"Giving them back their ears is part of that process -- it's something that can change their lives."
RECREATING AN EAR
Another of Ali's patients is 29-year-old Ali Waheed, who deserted from the army in 1994 because, he said: "I was fed up with one war after another." He was soon caught, taken to Kindi hospital in Baghdad and in the same chilling routine was bound, blindfolded, anesthetized and mutilated.
The anger and humiliation pushed Waheed over the brink; he says he all but lost his mind. He began to slash himself with razor blades. Pulling up his shirt, he reveals his scarred arms and chest, marked with hundreds of cuts that have healed poorly and disfigured him further.
Since Saddam's fall, Waheed's life has already changed. Unable to work for years because of his mark of shame, after the war he got a job as a driver for a human rights organization.
Then he heard on the radio about the plastic surgery offer.
"I came right away, I was just desperate to have something done, to try to be made normal again," he said.
Waheed has had one operation, which involved slicing into the cavity behind his missing right ear and inserting a plastic, crescent-shaped base on which the surgeon will build a new ear using skin and cartilage grafted from the patient's body.
He has a large red swollen lump where his ear once was, but is pleased with the progress. He comes to al-Wasati almost every day to ask doctors when they can perform the next stage.
He still hides the deformity, however, brushing his hair down over the grisly mound on the side of his head and wearing a baseball cap with the peak cocked to the right like a rapper.
"Before people would discriminate against me and treat me badly, but now that's changed," said Waheed, showing off the cap he says he's worn every day since 1994. "I'm so glad I didn't kill myself. I nearly died, but I thank God for keeping me alive. Life is normal now and it's such a relief."
Waheed and Dawoud say they frequently have flashbacks to the day when surgeons sliced off their ears, but they are overcoming their anxiety.
As Dawoud waited in al-Wasati's sweltering corridor earlier this month ahead of his first operation, he professed to no nerves. No matter what came out of the operation he said he'd be happy -- it couldn't be worse than having no ears at all.
"I'm still not married because of what happened to me, but after the operation I will propose."
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AussieMark
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Marathon Man Beats Horse
LONDON (Reuters) - Huw Lobb made history when he became the first man to win Britain's annual man vs. horse marathon.
The previous 24 runnings around the 35-km course raced over countryside and moorland round the small mid-Wales town of Llanwrtyd Wells had all been won by a horse.
But South Londoner Lobb, 27, a regular marathon runner, broke through Saturday to triumph in two hours, five minutes and 19 seconds and pick up the $45,500 winner's check.
The first horse home in 2:07:36 was Kay Bee Jay, ridden by Zoe White. Two years ago a runner came within a few seconds of victory but bookmakers William Hill still offered 16-1 against a man winning Saturday's race.
A record 566 runners from Britain and other parts of Europe took part, challenging 47 horses and their riders.
The result completed a sad double for the equine species. Earlier this month, a greyhound beat a racehorse in a special match race over 400 meters at Kempton Park, near London.
The greyhound, called Simply Fabulous, scorched home seven (horse) lengths clear in 23 seconds.
LONDON (Reuters) - Huw Lobb made history when he became the first man to win Britain's annual man vs. horse marathon.
The previous 24 runnings around the 35-km course raced over countryside and moorland round the small mid-Wales town of Llanwrtyd Wells had all been won by a horse.
But South Londoner Lobb, 27, a regular marathon runner, broke through Saturday to triumph in two hours, five minutes and 19 seconds and pick up the $45,500 winner's check.
The first horse home in 2:07:36 was Kay Bee Jay, ridden by Zoe White. Two years ago a runner came within a few seconds of victory but bookmakers William Hill still offered 16-1 against a man winning Saturday's race.
A record 566 runners from Britain and other parts of Europe took part, challenging 47 horses and their riders.
The result completed a sad double for the equine species. Earlier this month, a greyhound beat a racehorse in a special match race over 400 meters at Kempton Park, near London.
The greyhound, called Simply Fabulous, scorched home seven (horse) lengths clear in 23 seconds.
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TexasStooge
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tropicalweatherwatcher wrote:Marathon Man Beats Horse
LONDON (Reuters) - Huw Lobb made history when he became the first man to win Britain's annual man vs. horse marathon.
The previous 24 runnings around the 35-km course raced over countryside and moorland round the small mid-Wales town of Llanwrtyd Wells had all been won by a horse.
But South Londoner Lobb, 27, a regular marathon runner, broke through Saturday to triumph in two hours, five minutes and 19 seconds and pick up the $45,500 winner's check.
The first horse home in 2:07:36 was Kay Bee Jay, ridden by Zoe White. Two years ago a runner came within a few seconds of victory but bookmakers William Hill still offered 16-1 against a man winning Saturday's race.
A record 566 runners from Britain and other parts of Europe took part, challenging 47 horses and their riders.
The result completed a sad double for the equine species. Earlier this month, a greyhound beat a racehorse in a special match race over 400 meters at Kempton Park, near London.
The greyhound, called Simply Fabulous, scorched home seven (horse) lengths clear in 23 seconds.
It must be the Gatorade!
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AussieMark
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Mobs Attack Indian Theaters Over Lesbian Film
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Hard-line Hindus hurled stones and damaged movie theaters in India Monday to stop the screening of a film about a relationship between two women, saying it violated Indian culture.
Nearly 100 activists of the student's wing of the Shiv Sena group smashed window panes, ripped up posters and burned effigies at a hall screening the Hindi film "Girlfriend" in Bombay, capital of India's prolific movie industry, witnesses said.
The film show was stopped after the attack.
Shiv Sena members also attacked a hall screening the film in the northern Hindu holy city of Varanasi, police said. There were no reports of any injuries in either incident.
"The film has some lesbian scenes and we got many complaints from the public, especially women, so we decided to take action," Nitin Amberkar, a member of Shiv Sena's student wing, said in Bombay, minutes before tearing up posters of the film.
About 20 Shiv Sena activists were detained in Varanasi after the incident. The cinema proceeded to screen the film under tight security, police said.
Arun Pathak, the Varanasi unit chief of the hard-line Hindu group, said the film violated Indian traditions.
"This film is out to degrade Indian culture. We will not allow anyone to do this," he told Reuters. The director of "Girlfriend" said his film did not violate Indian culture but merely reflected a slice of society that has long been brushed under the carpet.
"If my film doesn't not offend any religious or spiritual sentiments, then why the breakage?" Karan Razdan told Zee News television. "I'm just trying to show what's happening in society."
The box office response to the film, which opened on Friday, has been poor.
India turns out 1,000 movies a year -- the most in the world -- many of them three-hour boy-meets-girl candyfloss extravaganzas with lavish sets and song-and-dance routines.
In recent years, some Bollywood film-makers have stepped off the beaten track and made movies on themes considered unorthodox by old-school producers. However, strict censorship still prevents on-screen nudity and profanity.
"Fire," a 1998 Bollywood film that portrayed an intimate relationship between two women, provoked the wrath of hard-line Hindus who said it promoted what they called the alien practice of lesbianism and hurt Indian culture.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Hard-line Hindus hurled stones and damaged movie theaters in India Monday to stop the screening of a film about a relationship between two women, saying it violated Indian culture.
Nearly 100 activists of the student's wing of the Shiv Sena group smashed window panes, ripped up posters and burned effigies at a hall screening the Hindi film "Girlfriend" in Bombay, capital of India's prolific movie industry, witnesses said.
The film show was stopped after the attack.
Shiv Sena members also attacked a hall screening the film in the northern Hindu holy city of Varanasi, police said. There were no reports of any injuries in either incident.
"The film has some lesbian scenes and we got many complaints from the public, especially women, so we decided to take action," Nitin Amberkar, a member of Shiv Sena's student wing, said in Bombay, minutes before tearing up posters of the film.
About 20 Shiv Sena activists were detained in Varanasi after the incident. The cinema proceeded to screen the film under tight security, police said.
Arun Pathak, the Varanasi unit chief of the hard-line Hindu group, said the film violated Indian traditions.
"This film is out to degrade Indian culture. We will not allow anyone to do this," he told Reuters. The director of "Girlfriend" said his film did not violate Indian culture but merely reflected a slice of society that has long been brushed under the carpet.
"If my film doesn't not offend any religious or spiritual sentiments, then why the breakage?" Karan Razdan told Zee News television. "I'm just trying to show what's happening in society."
The box office response to the film, which opened on Friday, has been poor.
India turns out 1,000 movies a year -- the most in the world -- many of them three-hour boy-meets-girl candyfloss extravaganzas with lavish sets and song-and-dance routines.
In recent years, some Bollywood film-makers have stepped off the beaten track and made movies on themes considered unorthodox by old-school producers. However, strict censorship still prevents on-screen nudity and profanity.
"Fire," a 1998 Bollywood film that portrayed an intimate relationship between two women, provoked the wrath of hard-line Hindus who said it promoted what they called the alien practice of lesbianism and hurt Indian culture.
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rainstorm
tropicalweatherwatcher wrote:Iraqi Boy Thanks Wife of Slain Japanese Benefactor
TOKYO (Reuters) - A partially blinded Iraqi boy brought to Japan for treatment as one of the last deeds of a Japanese freelance journalist slain in Iraq met the man's widow Monday to offer his thanks.
Mohamad Haytham Saleh, a 10-year-old boy from the Iraqi city of Falluja, underwent surgery last Friday to restore sight in his left eye, which was cut by broken glass during a battle. Doctors believe he is likely to recover his eyesight.
Arrangements for his visit to Japan were made by Shinsuke Hashida, 61, before he was killed by gunmen south of Baghdad on May 27 along with his 33-year-old nephew and fellow journalist, Kotaro Ogawa.
Hashida had returned to Iraq partly to bring Mohamad -- who lost most of the sight in his left eye due to an injury suffered during fighting between U.S. forces and insurgents -- to Japan for treatment.
Yukiko Hashida hugged a smiling Mohamad when the two met, stroking his head and closing her eyes before kissing him several times on each cheek.
"Is your eye better?" she asked.
"I thank you," Mohamad said in halting Japanese and with an elfin smile. "I really, really thank you."
Later, at a news conference, Mohamad said that his left eye no longer pained him and its general condition had improved.
Asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, Mohamad said: "I want to be an eye doctor and heal people."
Released from hospital earlier Monday wearing dark glasses against the bright summer sun, Mohamad smiled and waved at around 50 people gathered at the entrance to the hospital in Shizuoka, west of Tokyo, where he was treated.
Since arriving in Japan early this month, the boy has become a familiar figure, his every move followed by media.
He seems to have taken the fuss in stride, waving and grinning for cameras, whether while wading in the ocean with his father, Haytham, or walking along hospital corridors in pajamas with a drip in his arm.
The deaths of Hashida and Ogawa took to four the number of Japanese killed in Iraq since the start of the U.S.-led war.
Two diplomats were killed in November near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.
Japan, a close U.S. ally, has about 550 troops around the southern city of Samawa on a mission designed to help with reconstruction work. The non-combat mission is its riskiest since World War II and worries many voters.
these kinds of stories should be in the press much more often
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AussieMark
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Dead Teenager Kept in Home 36 Years
HANOI (Reuters) - The family of a 17-year-old Vietnamese boy who died 36 years ago kept his body in their home after a fortune teller told relatives they had buried the teenager alive by mistake.
The boy's family thought he had died in 1968 of illness, but a herbal medicine man said told the father his son was still alive after the burial, the Ho Chi Minh City Police newspaper said on Tuesday.
Stricken with remorse, the father dug up the body and displayed it in a glass-covered coffin, keeping it in the family home in southern An Giang until he recently confessed the macabre secret to a police news reporter.
The newspaper ran a photo of the dead boy's brother posing with his arms folded next to the coffin of his sibling. The body of the boy had not decomposed, the report said.
HANOI (Reuters) - The family of a 17-year-old Vietnamese boy who died 36 years ago kept his body in their home after a fortune teller told relatives they had buried the teenager alive by mistake.
The boy's family thought he had died in 1968 of illness, but a herbal medicine man said told the father his son was still alive after the burial, the Ho Chi Minh City Police newspaper said on Tuesday.
Stricken with remorse, the father dug up the body and displayed it in a glass-covered coffin, keeping it in the family home in southern An Giang until he recently confessed the macabre secret to a police news reporter.
The newspaper ran a photo of the dead boy's brother posing with his arms folded next to the coffin of his sibling. The body of the boy had not decomposed, the report said.
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AussieMark
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Locusts Invade 'Passion of Christ' Town
ROME (Reuters) - It seemed like an invasion of Biblical proportions in the Italian town of Matera, the outdoor setting for Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of The Christ."
Millions of locusts swarmed into the ancient stone city, scaring tourists off outdoor patios, and evoking some playful comparisons to Old Testament plagues.
The town Gibson used to depict Christ's final hours was still shuddering about the bugs on Tuesday, even though the worst seemed to be over.
"I'd never seen anything like it," said Rosalia Guira Longo, who runs the Albergo Italia, where Gibson stayed while shooting the controversial film.
"At night, the ground was carpeted by locusts ... they were huge," she told Reuters.
Matera, in the southern Basilicata region, is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site for its preserved ancient cave and stone dwellings.
Locusts are not uncommon in southern Italy.
ROME (Reuters) - It seemed like an invasion of Biblical proportions in the Italian town of Matera, the outdoor setting for Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of The Christ."
Millions of locusts swarmed into the ancient stone city, scaring tourists off outdoor patios, and evoking some playful comparisons to Old Testament plagues.
The town Gibson used to depict Christ's final hours was still shuddering about the bugs on Tuesday, even though the worst seemed to be over.
"I'd never seen anything like it," said Rosalia Guira Longo, who runs the Albergo Italia, where Gibson stayed while shooting the controversial film.
"At night, the ground was carpeted by locusts ... they were huge," she told Reuters.
Matera, in the southern Basilicata region, is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site for its preserved ancient cave and stone dwellings.
Locusts are not uncommon in southern Italy.
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AussieMark
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Israel Makes 'Skunk Bomb' for Palestinian Protests
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's army has developed a pungent new weapon for driving back Palestinian protesters -- the skunk bomb.
The stink bomb, containing a synthetic version of the odor skunks release to deter predators, has been developed for breaking up protests and stone-throwing confrontations without causing casualties, security officials said on Wednesday.
The foul-smelling weapon was invented as part of efforts to replace rubber bullets, which have killed scores of Palestinians during a nearly four-year-old uprising.
The new device, which is not yet operational, releases a cloud so pungent that according to initial tests it permeates clothes for five years, the officials said.
Palestinians said such a weapon could be particularly unpleasant for devout Muslims since they cannot pray with clothes that smell and would have to throw them away.
Israel's army has often been accused of using excessive force in fighting the Palestinian uprising and security officials said it was trying to work with foreign and local firms to develop non-lethal measures.
Another weapon which is close to being operational is a fiberglass tank shell that disintegrates in the air, causing an enormous explosion but no casualties.
At least eight Palestinians were killed in May when a tank fired a shell too close to a crowd in the Gaza Strip that the army was trying to disperse.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's army has developed a pungent new weapon for driving back Palestinian protesters -- the skunk bomb.
The stink bomb, containing a synthetic version of the odor skunks release to deter predators, has been developed for breaking up protests and stone-throwing confrontations without causing casualties, security officials said on Wednesday.
The foul-smelling weapon was invented as part of efforts to replace rubber bullets, which have killed scores of Palestinians during a nearly four-year-old uprising.
The new device, which is not yet operational, releases a cloud so pungent that according to initial tests it permeates clothes for five years, the officials said.
Palestinians said such a weapon could be particularly unpleasant for devout Muslims since they cannot pray with clothes that smell and would have to throw them away.
Israel's army has often been accused of using excessive force in fighting the Palestinian uprising and security officials said it was trying to work with foreign and local firms to develop non-lethal measures.
Another weapon which is close to being operational is a fiberglass tank shell that disintegrates in the air, causing an enormous explosion but no casualties.
At least eight Palestinians were killed in May when a tank fired a shell too close to a crowd in the Gaza Strip that the army was trying to disperse.
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AussieMark
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Olympics-And the Winner Is ... World Metal Prices
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Greece waited 108 years to host another Olympic Games. Unfortunately it came just as a boom in world metal prices has sent the cost of winners' medals through the stadium roof.
At approximately $400,000 for the metal content of the 3,000 Athens medals alone, it may be just a drop in the Aegean Sea compared to an estimated $8.6 billion total Games cost.
But cost-conscious organizers can hardly have expected that the price of gold would increase approximately 45 percent since the summer Games in Sydney four years ago, or that silver would go up 35 percent and copper -- the key metal in bronze -- would cost 42 percent higher than in 2000. Considering that the medals struck for the Athens Games used 13 kilos (417 ounces) of gold and approximately one ton each of silver and bronze -- an alloy of 90 percent copper and 10 percent zinc -- that's a hefty increase in four years. By unofficial reckoning, it means the Athens Games needed over $166,000 worth of gold and $234,000 of silver for its medals.
The price of gold has risen dramatically since August 2000, when it was approximately $275 an ounce. It was hovering around $400 an ounce on Tuesday. Similarly, silver has risen from $4.90 an ounce when the Sydney Games were held, to $6.65 currently. Copper, which is around $2,700 a ton, was selling for $1,900 four years ago.
Not counting labor, the metal content alone for the Athens medals comes to more than $400,000, and the gold medals are not even pure gold. Not that the International Olympic Committee was considering solid gold medals -- the last medals of pure gold were awarded in Stockholm in 1912.
"That would be extremely heavy and extremely expensive," said Adrian Gostick of O.C. Tanner, a company that designs employee recognition awards and struck the medals for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Nowadays, gold medals are actually made of silver, with a coating of six grams (about one-fifth of an ounce) of gold -- about $83 worth at current prices.
The Salt Lake medals weighed 1-1/4 pounds (20 ounces) "They were the heaviest ever made," Gostick told Reuters. "When calculating the value, don't forget that each took 40 hours to make, plus the R&D (research and development) time to create."
Precious metals analyst Jeff Stanley, of BMO Financial Group in New York, said gold and silver prices are closely related to the economy. Recent weakness of the dollar, plus higher oil prices have driven up the gold price, while silver tends to move in unison with gold, he said.
His colleague Victor Lazarovici, who follows base metals, said the copper price had virtually doubled over the past year as a result of strong demand in the West and demand growth for China's industrial expansion.
But world economics aside, the value of an Olympics medal is really incalculable. "It's not just a hunk of metal, it's something priceless for the winners," said Gostick.
Stanley agreed: "I think the winners would be quite happy to buy a medal if they had to."
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Greece waited 108 years to host another Olympic Games. Unfortunately it came just as a boom in world metal prices has sent the cost of winners' medals through the stadium roof.
At approximately $400,000 for the metal content of the 3,000 Athens medals alone, it may be just a drop in the Aegean Sea compared to an estimated $8.6 billion total Games cost.
But cost-conscious organizers can hardly have expected that the price of gold would increase approximately 45 percent since the summer Games in Sydney four years ago, or that silver would go up 35 percent and copper -- the key metal in bronze -- would cost 42 percent higher than in 2000. Considering that the medals struck for the Athens Games used 13 kilos (417 ounces) of gold and approximately one ton each of silver and bronze -- an alloy of 90 percent copper and 10 percent zinc -- that's a hefty increase in four years. By unofficial reckoning, it means the Athens Games needed over $166,000 worth of gold and $234,000 of silver for its medals.
The price of gold has risen dramatically since August 2000, when it was approximately $275 an ounce. It was hovering around $400 an ounce on Tuesday. Similarly, silver has risen from $4.90 an ounce when the Sydney Games were held, to $6.65 currently. Copper, which is around $2,700 a ton, was selling for $1,900 four years ago.
Not counting labor, the metal content alone for the Athens medals comes to more than $400,000, and the gold medals are not even pure gold. Not that the International Olympic Committee was considering solid gold medals -- the last medals of pure gold were awarded in Stockholm in 1912.
"That would be extremely heavy and extremely expensive," said Adrian Gostick of O.C. Tanner, a company that designs employee recognition awards and struck the medals for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Nowadays, gold medals are actually made of silver, with a coating of six grams (about one-fifth of an ounce) of gold -- about $83 worth at current prices.
The Salt Lake medals weighed 1-1/4 pounds (20 ounces) "They were the heaviest ever made," Gostick told Reuters. "When calculating the value, don't forget that each took 40 hours to make, plus the R&D (research and development) time to create."
Precious metals analyst Jeff Stanley, of BMO Financial Group in New York, said gold and silver prices are closely related to the economy. Recent weakness of the dollar, plus higher oil prices have driven up the gold price, while silver tends to move in unison with gold, he said.
His colleague Victor Lazarovici, who follows base metals, said the copper price had virtually doubled over the past year as a result of strong demand in the West and demand growth for China's industrial expansion.
But world economics aside, the value of an Olympics medal is really incalculable. "It's not just a hunk of metal, it's something priceless for the winners," said Gostick.
Stanley agreed: "I think the winners would be quite happy to buy a medal if they had to."
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AussieMark
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Dragons, Skulls Thrill Iraq's Teenage Tattoo Fans
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Need a skull, a dragon or a naked woman? Descend a flight of steps to a dingy corridor and step into Baghdad's only tattoo parlor.
In a city better known for bombs than body art, a self-taught Iraqi tattoo artist is pioneering a new style of designs forbidden under ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
Working with a home-made needle and architect's ink, Sarmad Shamael says his Celtic crosses, screaming eagles and death's heads are catching on among a small circle of youths.
"Now people have more freedom, people have a choice about what they do, there's no laws to restrict them," he said, speaking in his shop where pin-ups of bikini-clad models adorn the pastel pink walls.
"A lot of people ask me, why are you so strange? Why are you so Westernized? I tell them: because I like it," said Shamael, a softly-spoken 29-year-old who began painting as a child.
For Iraqi teenagers, the almost guilty pleasure of tattoos provide a moment's respite from life in Baghdad where car bombs can explode at any moment, militiamen run riot in the slums and the chances of finding a job are slim.
Advertised by word of mouth, Shamael's parlor has had about 100 clients since it opened after Saddam's fall in April last year, with dragons proving the most popular of the designs he copies from a well-thumbed book imported from abroad.
Himself a walking advert for his art, Shamael has drawn a lion and a dragon on his forearm, while a friend helped print the motto "I want kiss you" in English on his upper arm.
He says there's no need to worry about health risks -- he always dips his needle in antiseptic.
Costing anything from about $15 upwards, the quality of his tattoos has some way to go to match the intricate designs shown in pictures from foreign magazines pasted on his walls, but Shamael is building on a rich tradition.
Iraq's tribes have long pricked their skin with designs to cure disease, work as love charms or ward off the evil eye, although city teenagers who dare break what is still a taboo for many people are risking their parents' wrath.
"BURN THEM OFF"
Mohammed Jasim, 19, said he had no regrets about the scorpion and native Indian chief emblazoned on his upper arms a couple of months ago -- despite his father's reaction when he realized they would not wash off with soap and water.
"He told me to burn them off and brought me some acid," he said, speaking in the shop where Shamael inscribed them.
"I got into a fight with him, then my mother and brother got involved and said the damage had been done, and that if he poured acid it would just disfigure me."
It's not just the risk of parental outrage that may make some Iraqis think twice about depicting a serpent on their calf or scribbling their lover's name on their forearm.
Many Iraqis associate tattoos with prison, where convicts would give each other crude designs like heart shapes to while away the years. Others simply regard them as vulgar.
Iraq's tiny community of heavy metal fans are big customers at Shamael's shop and some policemen are also keen. Three officers came in the other day to have the same winged skull design tattooed on their arms.
In tribal areas, women are the guardians of arcane tattoo lore, sometimes using the breast milk of a mother nursing a baby girl to mix the pigment for medicinal patterns.
Women, though, are a rarity in the parlor -- not because they don't want tattoos, Shamael says, but because they are too scared to venture out amid Baghdad's surge in crime.
Speaking in his guitar studio a few doors down the corridor, Shamael's cousin Saad Sada, 35, believes his relative's work could one day win much wider acceptance.
"I think tattoos are going to become more popular," he said. "Now it's turning into an art form."
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Need a skull, a dragon or a naked woman? Descend a flight of steps to a dingy corridor and step into Baghdad's only tattoo parlor.
In a city better known for bombs than body art, a self-taught Iraqi tattoo artist is pioneering a new style of designs forbidden under ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
Working with a home-made needle and architect's ink, Sarmad Shamael says his Celtic crosses, screaming eagles and death's heads are catching on among a small circle of youths.
"Now people have more freedom, people have a choice about what they do, there's no laws to restrict them," he said, speaking in his shop where pin-ups of bikini-clad models adorn the pastel pink walls.
"A lot of people ask me, why are you so strange? Why are you so Westernized? I tell them: because I like it," said Shamael, a softly-spoken 29-year-old who began painting as a child.
For Iraqi teenagers, the almost guilty pleasure of tattoos provide a moment's respite from life in Baghdad where car bombs can explode at any moment, militiamen run riot in the slums and the chances of finding a job are slim.
Advertised by word of mouth, Shamael's parlor has had about 100 clients since it opened after Saddam's fall in April last year, with dragons proving the most popular of the designs he copies from a well-thumbed book imported from abroad.
Himself a walking advert for his art, Shamael has drawn a lion and a dragon on his forearm, while a friend helped print the motto "I want kiss you" in English on his upper arm.
He says there's no need to worry about health risks -- he always dips his needle in antiseptic.
Costing anything from about $15 upwards, the quality of his tattoos has some way to go to match the intricate designs shown in pictures from foreign magazines pasted on his walls, but Shamael is building on a rich tradition.
Iraq's tribes have long pricked their skin with designs to cure disease, work as love charms or ward off the evil eye, although city teenagers who dare break what is still a taboo for many people are risking their parents' wrath.
"BURN THEM OFF"
Mohammed Jasim, 19, said he had no regrets about the scorpion and native Indian chief emblazoned on his upper arms a couple of months ago -- despite his father's reaction when he realized they would not wash off with soap and water.
"He told me to burn them off and brought me some acid," he said, speaking in the shop where Shamael inscribed them.
"I got into a fight with him, then my mother and brother got involved and said the damage had been done, and that if he poured acid it would just disfigure me."
It's not just the risk of parental outrage that may make some Iraqis think twice about depicting a serpent on their calf or scribbling their lover's name on their forearm.
Many Iraqis associate tattoos with prison, where convicts would give each other crude designs like heart shapes to while away the years. Others simply regard them as vulgar.
Iraq's tiny community of heavy metal fans are big customers at Shamael's shop and some policemen are also keen. Three officers came in the other day to have the same winged skull design tattooed on their arms.
In tribal areas, women are the guardians of arcane tattoo lore, sometimes using the breast milk of a mother nursing a baby girl to mix the pigment for medicinal patterns.
Women, though, are a rarity in the parlor -- not because they don't want tattoos, Shamael says, but because they are too scared to venture out amid Baghdad's surge in crime.
Speaking in his guitar studio a few doors down the corridor, Shamael's cousin Saad Sada, 35, believes his relative's work could one day win much wider acceptance.
"I think tattoos are going to become more popular," he said. "Now it's turning into an art form."
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AussieMark
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Relaxing a Taboo with Intimate Sex Survey
BEIJING (Reuters) - China is relaxing strict taboos to conduct its first nationwide female sex survey, asking intimate questions about women's sex lives.
The 2004 China Female Sex Survey is being organized by the Chinese Institute of Sexology and the Chinese Medical Association via the popular Internet site Sina.com, Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.
Women aged 21 and over can log on to the site to respond to 34 questions such as "How often do you have sex per month and how many times to you expect to have sex in a month?," "Do you get pleasure in sex?" and "Have you ever had extramarital affairs?."
"The aim of the survey is to find out the status of Chinese women's sex life, analyze their sexual behavior and psychology and provide sexual knowledge and advice," Ma Xiaonian, a sexology expert with the institute, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
Ma conducted a smaller survey a decade ago and concluded that 50 percent of Chinese women did not experience orgasm during sex, it said.
Attitudes toward sex relaxed after China began Western-style market reforms in 1978, unleashing a boom in adolescent dating, adultery, prostitution and other kinds of promiscuity which the Communist Party has blamed on liberal bourgeois mores imported from the West.
In a separate survey, it was found that 91 percent of women say sex discrimination is present in the workplace, Xinhua said.
An online survey conducted by China91.com found that about 40 percent of more than 2,000 men and women surveyed believed that women had an inferior status in work life, it said.
"The most common type of discrimination listed was employers' interference in marriage, pregnancy and maternity leave of female employees," Xinhua said.
It is widely accepted in China that attractive women land better jobs, and women have been known to send revealing pictures of themselves to prospective bosses, even highlighting singing, dancing and drinking skills.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China is relaxing strict taboos to conduct its first nationwide female sex survey, asking intimate questions about women's sex lives.
The 2004 China Female Sex Survey is being organized by the Chinese Institute of Sexology and the Chinese Medical Association via the popular Internet site Sina.com, Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.
Women aged 21 and over can log on to the site to respond to 34 questions such as "How often do you have sex per month and how many times to you expect to have sex in a month?," "Do you get pleasure in sex?" and "Have you ever had extramarital affairs?."
"The aim of the survey is to find out the status of Chinese women's sex life, analyze their sexual behavior and psychology and provide sexual knowledge and advice," Ma Xiaonian, a sexology expert with the institute, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
Ma conducted a smaller survey a decade ago and concluded that 50 percent of Chinese women did not experience orgasm during sex, it said.
Attitudes toward sex relaxed after China began Western-style market reforms in 1978, unleashing a boom in adolescent dating, adultery, prostitution and other kinds of promiscuity which the Communist Party has blamed on liberal bourgeois mores imported from the West.
In a separate survey, it was found that 91 percent of women say sex discrimination is present in the workplace, Xinhua said.
An online survey conducted by China91.com found that about 40 percent of more than 2,000 men and women surveyed believed that women had an inferior status in work life, it said.
"The most common type of discrimination listed was employers' interference in marriage, pregnancy and maternity leave of female employees," Xinhua said.
It is widely accepted in China that attractive women land better jobs, and women have been known to send revealing pictures of themselves to prospective bosses, even highlighting singing, dancing and drinking skills.
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AussieMark
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Two Children Die Imitating Rare Execution
BOMBAY (Reuters) - India's first execution in 13 years has claimed an additional toll of at least two children dead in mishaps as they re-enacted the highly publicized hanging of a man convicted of raping and murdering a schoolgirl.
Two weeks ago, 41-year-old Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged in the eastern city of Calcutta after 13 years on death row.
On Sunday, 14-year-old Prem Gaekwad died when he tied one end of a rope around his neck and swung the other end on a ceiling fan in his Bombay home, in an apparent re-enactment.
"The boy's father told us Prem was a very bright but curious kid and kept asking questions about how Dhananjoy would be hanged," said assistant police inspector Dilip Suryawanshi.
"Dhananjoy was the top news on all TV channels for so many days and Prem would watch very closely."
Last week, a 12-year-old girl died in the eastern state of West Bengal, when she tried to demonstrate for her younger brother how Chatterjee was executed, newspapers said.
And a 10-year-old boy in the same state almost died last week when he and his friends acted out the execution, taking the roles of Chatterjee, the hangman, a doctor and the prison warden.
"Children have a natural curiosity about anything out of the ordinary," psychiatrist Anjali Chhabria told Reuters. "Also, several newspapers and TV channels had given detailed sketches of execution by hanging, making it easier for kids to imitate."
BOMBAY (Reuters) - India's first execution in 13 years has claimed an additional toll of at least two children dead in mishaps as they re-enacted the highly publicized hanging of a man convicted of raping and murdering a schoolgirl.
Two weeks ago, 41-year-old Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged in the eastern city of Calcutta after 13 years on death row.
On Sunday, 14-year-old Prem Gaekwad died when he tied one end of a rope around his neck and swung the other end on a ceiling fan in his Bombay home, in an apparent re-enactment.
"The boy's father told us Prem was a very bright but curious kid and kept asking questions about how Dhananjoy would be hanged," said assistant police inspector Dilip Suryawanshi.
"Dhananjoy was the top news on all TV channels for so many days and Prem would watch very closely."
Last week, a 12-year-old girl died in the eastern state of West Bengal, when she tried to demonstrate for her younger brother how Chatterjee was executed, newspapers said.
And a 10-year-old boy in the same state almost died last week when he and his friends acted out the execution, taking the roles of Chatterjee, the hangman, a doctor and the prison warden.
"Children have a natural curiosity about anything out of the ordinary," psychiatrist Anjali Chhabria told Reuters. "Also, several newspapers and TV channels had given detailed sketches of execution by hanging, making it easier for kids to imitate."
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AussieMark
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Court Reprieve for Prince Charles Lookalike
LONDON (Reuters) - A British man who faced a driving ban after being caught speeding was allowed to keep his license so he could keep his job -- impersonating heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles.
Appearing in court wearing a dark double-breasted suit -- a look often sported by the prince -- and mimicking Charles's habit of fiddling with his cufflinks, Charles Haslett, 48, persuaded magistrates not to give him an expected driving ban.
Haslett, who has spent 10 years impersonating the prince and was an official double at his 50th birthday party in 1998, said he needed his vehicle to carry clothes and props to functions all over the country, British newspapers reported on Wednesday.
"It would have been a hell of a shame if the country wouldn't have been able to see me anymore," said Haslett, who also impersonates "Inspector Clouseau" and hapless waiter Manuel from the cult BBC TV show "Fawlty Towers."
LONDON (Reuters) - A British man who faced a driving ban after being caught speeding was allowed to keep his license so he could keep his job -- impersonating heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles.
Appearing in court wearing a dark double-breasted suit -- a look often sported by the prince -- and mimicking Charles's habit of fiddling with his cufflinks, Charles Haslett, 48, persuaded magistrates not to give him an expected driving ban.
Haslett, who has spent 10 years impersonating the prince and was an official double at his 50th birthday party in 1998, said he needed his vehicle to carry clothes and props to functions all over the country, British newspapers reported on Wednesday.
"It would have been a hell of a shame if the country wouldn't have been able to see me anymore," said Haslett, who also impersonates "Inspector Clouseau" and hapless waiter Manuel from the cult BBC TV show "Fawlty Towers."
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AussieMark
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'Let's Just Cuddle'
BERLIN (Reuters) - A leading German dictionary publisher plans to launch a guide it says will help men translate the subtext of female conversation.
The Langenscheidt publishing group, best known for its well-respected yellow foreign language dictionaries, will launch sales of a 128-page book to translate such baffling female banter as: "Let's just cuddle" into "No sex tonight please!."
"Each themed chapter offers men behavioral tips and exposes hidden messages transmitted by women in everyday situations, such as on holiday or during shopping trips," said Silke Exius, chief editor at Langenscheidt.
Other examples in the "German-Woman/Woman-German" edition due out in October include explaining why a woman asks a man to take interest in the pair of shoes she may be trying on.
She wants him to look because he's about to pay for them.
BERLIN (Reuters) - A leading German dictionary publisher plans to launch a guide it says will help men translate the subtext of female conversation.
The Langenscheidt publishing group, best known for its well-respected yellow foreign language dictionaries, will launch sales of a 128-page book to translate such baffling female banter as: "Let's just cuddle" into "No sex tonight please!."
"Each themed chapter offers men behavioral tips and exposes hidden messages transmitted by women in everyday situations, such as on holiday or during shopping trips," said Silke Exius, chief editor at Langenscheidt.
Other examples in the "German-Woman/Woman-German" edition due out in October include explaining why a woman asks a man to take interest in the pair of shoes she may be trying on.
She wants him to look because he's about to pay for them.
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TexasStooge
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tropicalweatherwatcher wrote:Two Children Die Imitating Rare Execution
BOMBAY (Reuters) - India's first execution in 13 years has claimed an additional toll of at least two children dead in mishaps as they re-enacted the highly publicized hanging of a man convicted of raping and murdering a schoolgirl.
Two weeks ago, 41-year-old Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged in the eastern city of Calcutta after 13 years on death row.
On Sunday, 14-year-old Prem Gaekwad died when he tied one end of a rope around his neck and swung the other end on a ceiling fan in his Bombay home, in an apparent re-enactment.
"The boy's father told us Prem was a very bright but curious kid and kept asking questions about how Dhananjoy would be hanged," said assistant police inspector Dilip Suryawanshi.
"Dhananjoy was the top news on all TV channels for so many days and Prem would watch very closely."
Last week, a 12-year-old girl died in the eastern state of West Bengal, when she tried to demonstrate for her younger brother how Chatterjee was executed, newspapers said.
And a 10-year-old boy in the same state almost died last week when he and his friends acted out the execution, taking the roles of Chatterjee, the hangman, a doctor and the prison warden.
"Children have a natural curiosity about anything out of the ordinary," psychiatrist Anjali Chhabria told Reuters. "Also, several newspapers and TV channels had given detailed sketches of execution by hanging, making it easier for kids to imitate."
TV violence + Children & Teens = Tragic results
There was one person in Dallas, TX who mimicked a stunt from MTV's "Jacka**" show. He jumped off a ledge and into the pool, unfortunately, half his body hit the concrete floor. OW!!
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AussieMark
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Band's Driver Sullied Tour Boat?
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A bus driver working for the ecologically minded Dave Matthews Band could face prosecution on charges of dumping the vehicle's load of human waste off a Chicago bridge onto a tour boat, police said on Wednesday.
The effluent splattered passengers on an architectural boat cruise passing underneath the bridge the afternoon of Aug. 8, sending the boat back to its dock and some of the disgusted passengers to the hospital for tests.
The possible criminal charges against the bus driver follow a civil suit brought on Tuesday against the band and its tour bus operator by the Illinois attorney general.
Police at a news conference showed an image of the bus taken from a security camera trained on the bridge spanning the north branch of the Chicago River near downtown, and said it was the only bus to cross at the time of the incident. It is illegal to dump waste into the already polluted river.
No members of the band, which was in Chicago as part of a tour, were on board the bus at the time.
The bus driver has denied responsibility, saying his bus had been parked at the time of the mishap.
The Dave Matthews Band is known for its support of "green" causes, touting its efforts as a way to offset the air pollution produced by its tour buses.
A publicist for the band did not have an immediate comment.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A bus driver working for the ecologically minded Dave Matthews Band could face prosecution on charges of dumping the vehicle's load of human waste off a Chicago bridge onto a tour boat, police said on Wednesday.
The effluent splattered passengers on an architectural boat cruise passing underneath the bridge the afternoon of Aug. 8, sending the boat back to its dock and some of the disgusted passengers to the hospital for tests.
The possible criminal charges against the bus driver follow a civil suit brought on Tuesday against the band and its tour bus operator by the Illinois attorney general.
Police at a news conference showed an image of the bus taken from a security camera trained on the bridge spanning the north branch of the Chicago River near downtown, and said it was the only bus to cross at the time of the incident. It is illegal to dump waste into the already polluted river.
No members of the band, which was in Chicago as part of a tour, were on board the bus at the time.
The bus driver has denied responsibility, saying his bus had been parked at the time of the mishap.
The Dave Matthews Band is known for its support of "green" causes, touting its efforts as a way to offset the air pollution produced by its tour buses.
A publicist for the band did not have an immediate comment.
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AussieMark
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Sex, Flies and Videotape on Sinai Smuggling Routes
MOUNT HARIF BORDER OUTPOST, Israel (Reuters) - At a signal from their guide, the women halt, hunched uncertainly in the dark no-man's-land.
He lays down towels in a row. The human caravan proceeds, treading gingerly to prevent telltale tracks.
Were it not for the infra-red cameras of a roving Israeli police helicopter, they might have made it from the Sinai desert to Tel Aviv, whose streets are seen by thousands of foreign workers as a promised land of quick cash and no questions asked.
Keen to curb the trafficking of sex workers and drugs and wary of infiltrations by Palestinian gunmen fighting a nearly 4-year-old revolt, Israel is cracking down on Bedouin Arab smugglers who ply its sprawling frontier with Egypt.
"It's a bit of a competition," said Captain Amichai Cohen of the Israeli border police outpost at Mount Harif. "They do what they can to get through, and we do our best to keep up."
Fences of razor wire, watch towers, and minefields separate Israel from its other neighbors Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
But most of the 320 km (200 mile) border with Egypt is literally just a line in the sand.
The border police compensate with around-the-clock aerial surveillance and a network of informers among local crime rings.
Tipped off about an impending infiltration, commandos -- some of them riding camels -- set up ambushes on the fly-blown smuggling routes from Sinai into Israel's southern Negev desert.
PRICE OF PEACE
Israeli officials are reluctant to complain about the frontier, seeing it as the price of peace with Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab state to recognize Israel.
While Egyptian border personnel may at times turn a blind eye to smugglers, they say, the government in Cairo cooperates completely with its own swoops on Sinai narcotics plantations.
"We have worked on this (smuggling) and have stopped a lot of things," said an Egyptian official who asked not to be named.
At Har Harif, Cohen and his comrades keep a video library of successful "busts."
The women seized in no-man's-land, believed to be Asian prostitutes, were deported. There is also footage aplenty of U.S.-supplied police vehicles tearing across vast desert vistas after smugglers in pick-up trucks.
A kilo (2.2 lb) of hashish commands 10,000 shekels ($2,200) in Israel, tempting poor Sinai Bedouin to pack the wild-grown resin on the back of trucks or camels and head for the border, risking a 4.5-year prison term if caught.
BARELY HALF GET CAUGHT
Israel puts the interception rate at only 54 percent -- a nuisance for vice squads, but a big concern for security forces fighting a Palestinian uprising since September 2000.
At least seven militants from the Gaza Strip have slipped into Israel by way of Sinai.
Three gunmen, and an Israeli army patrolman, were killed in ensuing clashes -- prompting Israel to set up an airborne special forces unit that is always on standby. The other militants were arrested.
Security still falls far short of the measures Israel takes on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, though.
Clashes there between Israelis and militants smuggling weapons through tunnels have made it one of the bloodiest battlegrounds of the conflict.
Cohen said some smugglers tried to bring guns through Sinai for Palestinian militants in the West Bank. Israeli criminals were also among their customers.
A team of Eastern European men in Israeli custody are suspected of being members of a hit squad who were brought in from Egypt to put a bloody end to a local gangland feud.
Another surprise was the arrival from Sinai this summer of eight Sudanese who claimed to be fleeing the fighting in Darfur.
Israeli authorities said the Interior Ministry was examining their case.
"It may look quiet here, but we keep busy," Cohen said.
MOUNT HARIF BORDER OUTPOST, Israel (Reuters) - At a signal from their guide, the women halt, hunched uncertainly in the dark no-man's-land.
He lays down towels in a row. The human caravan proceeds, treading gingerly to prevent telltale tracks.
Were it not for the infra-red cameras of a roving Israeli police helicopter, they might have made it from the Sinai desert to Tel Aviv, whose streets are seen by thousands of foreign workers as a promised land of quick cash and no questions asked.
Keen to curb the trafficking of sex workers and drugs and wary of infiltrations by Palestinian gunmen fighting a nearly 4-year-old revolt, Israel is cracking down on Bedouin Arab smugglers who ply its sprawling frontier with Egypt.
"It's a bit of a competition," said Captain Amichai Cohen of the Israeli border police outpost at Mount Harif. "They do what they can to get through, and we do our best to keep up."
Fences of razor wire, watch towers, and minefields separate Israel from its other neighbors Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
But most of the 320 km (200 mile) border with Egypt is literally just a line in the sand.
The border police compensate with around-the-clock aerial surveillance and a network of informers among local crime rings.
Tipped off about an impending infiltration, commandos -- some of them riding camels -- set up ambushes on the fly-blown smuggling routes from Sinai into Israel's southern Negev desert.
PRICE OF PEACE
Israeli officials are reluctant to complain about the frontier, seeing it as the price of peace with Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab state to recognize Israel.
While Egyptian border personnel may at times turn a blind eye to smugglers, they say, the government in Cairo cooperates completely with its own swoops on Sinai narcotics plantations.
"We have worked on this (smuggling) and have stopped a lot of things," said an Egyptian official who asked not to be named.
At Har Harif, Cohen and his comrades keep a video library of successful "busts."
The women seized in no-man's-land, believed to be Asian prostitutes, were deported. There is also footage aplenty of U.S.-supplied police vehicles tearing across vast desert vistas after smugglers in pick-up trucks.
A kilo (2.2 lb) of hashish commands 10,000 shekels ($2,200) in Israel, tempting poor Sinai Bedouin to pack the wild-grown resin on the back of trucks or camels and head for the border, risking a 4.5-year prison term if caught.
BARELY HALF GET CAUGHT
Israel puts the interception rate at only 54 percent -- a nuisance for vice squads, but a big concern for security forces fighting a Palestinian uprising since September 2000.
At least seven militants from the Gaza Strip have slipped into Israel by way of Sinai.
Three gunmen, and an Israeli army patrolman, were killed in ensuing clashes -- prompting Israel to set up an airborne special forces unit that is always on standby. The other militants were arrested.
Security still falls far short of the measures Israel takes on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, though.
Clashes there between Israelis and militants smuggling weapons through tunnels have made it one of the bloodiest battlegrounds of the conflict.
Cohen said some smugglers tried to bring guns through Sinai for Palestinian militants in the West Bank. Israeli criminals were also among their customers.
A team of Eastern European men in Israeli custody are suspected of being members of a hit squad who were brought in from Egypt to put a bloody end to a local gangland feud.
Another surprise was the arrival from Sinai this summer of eight Sudanese who claimed to be fleeing the fighting in Darfur.
Israeli authorities said the Interior Ministry was examining their case.
"It may look quiet here, but we keep busy," Cohen said.
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