“Comedian and activist Zarganar, whose birth name is Maung Thura, was among at least 100 people to receive sentences of two to 65 years since early November. Many of the trials were held in closed sessions, sometimes without defense lawyers or family present. The military government’s wave of harsh sentences has been condemned worldwide by Western governments and human rights groups. They contend that the sentences make a mockery of the ruling junta’s professed plan to restore democracy with a 2010 election.” [Link]
“‘We can confirm the ship is anchoring off the Somali coast at Haradheere,’ said Lt. Nathan Christensen, spokesman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Haradheere is situated roughly in the center of Somalia’s coastline. ‘All 25 crew members on board are believed to be safe,’ Vela International, the shipping arm of state oil giant Saudi Aramco, said in an earlier statement.” [Link]
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“Esha Momeni, a student at California State University, Northridge, was driving on a highway in Tehran when she was stopped by authorities who said they were traffic police, the London-based Amnesty said. Iranian officials said Momeni was arrested Oct. 15 for a traffic offense. But Amnesty said in a statement Tuesday she was taken to her family’s home where her computer and other materials related to her research on the Iranian women’s movement were confiscated.” [Link]
“News that world leaders will hold a crisis summit shortly after the US presidential election next month did little to stem apparent panic selling, spurred by worries that the worldwide economic slowdown will only get worse.” [Link]
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“A church minister from Strängnäs, Sweden, has walked the plank after his local church’s computer network contracted a nasty case of the clap as a result of his porn surfing, The Local reports. The Church of Sweden clergyman admitted to ’spending a lot of time at work viewing pornographic websites’, but his lust for smut would probably have remained known only to him and his God had it not ‘given rise to a lethal computer virus’ which smote the parish’s IT systems.” [Link]
“Japanese newspapers reported over the weekend that the communist nation had ordered its diplomats abroad to be on standby and planned to ban foreigners from entering the country ahead of an ‘important announcement.’ The autocratic North Korean leader has been the focus of intense speculation since he disappeared from public view in mid August.” [Link]
“Tokyo’s Nikkei index briefly tumbled more than five percent, dropping below the key 10,000 points level for the first time in more than four years on fears that government efforts to end the crisis may be too little, too late. Across the region dealers’ screens were awash with red as markets suffered heavy losses in the wake of steep falls in the United States and Europe.” [Link]
“More than 370 penguins that mysteriously washed up on Brazil’s equatorial beaches were flown south on a huge air force cargo plane and released closer to the frigid waters they call home, animal advocates said Monday. Onlookers cheered as the young Magellanic penguins were set free on a beach in southern Brazil and scampered into the ocean, the International Fund for Animal Welfare said in a statement.” [Link]
“Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev will join forces with Russian tycoon Alexander Lebedev to launch a new political party independent of the Kremlin, the billionaire businessman said on Tuesday. ” [Link]
“The recall of four batches of Lipton’s 3-in-1 milk tea powder came after the company’s internal quality check found melamine, used to make plastics and fertilizers, in the products, Unilever Hong Kong Ltd. said in a statement. ” [Link]
“A total of 183 parliamentary seats were up for grabs. If preliminary results are confirmed, the right-wing Freedom Party will have 35 seats, up from 21 after the last elections in 2006. The Alliance for the Future of Austria, led by Joerg Haider, will have 21, up from seven. The center-left Social Democrats and the conservative People’s Party, which formed the governing alliance that collapsed in July, both made their worst showing since the end of World War II.” [Link]
“The red granite bust, which formed part of a colossal statue of the king, was found during routine excavations in the Tell Basta area, 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Cairo in the Nile Delta, Hosni said in a statement.” [Link]
500 Carat Lesotho Diamond picture
“The diamond was discovered in the Letseng Mine on September 8, the company said in a statement. It has been analyzed by experts in Antwerp and found to weigh 478 carats, with very few inclusions and of outstanding color and clarity.” [Link]
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“The poll, conducted for the Web site PoliticsHome.com and reported by The Sunday Observer, was described as the largest ever taken looking at marginal parliamentary seats, with nearly 35,000 voters polled across 238 seats, the newspaper said. Its results suggested a defeat of historic proportions for Labor, almost as bad as the shellacking endured by the Conservative Party in 1997.” [Link]
“A minister in Uganda has said that women wearing miniskirts in the street are essentially walking around naked and that they are responsible in part for distracting drivers and causing traffic accidents. Nsaba Buturo is blaming some male drivers in his country for being ‘weak mentally.’ He is trying to get skirts declared ‘indecent’ under Ugandan law, which would allow authorities to fine or otherwise punish offenders.” [Link]
“South Korean officials are keeping a close eye on Kim Ok amid some intelligence reports that she’s not only nursing the ailing leader but also is signing official documents on his behalf.” [Link]
“‘It looks very much as if this matter will … be sent to the WTO at the end of the commission’s investigation,’ Lode Van Den Hende, outside counsel for the Remote Gambling Association, told reporters as EU officials were in Washington to probe U.S. Justice Department enforcement actions.” [Link]
“Israel’s foreign minister declared victory Thursday in a tight race to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as the head of the governing party, getting a chance to be the country’s first female leader in 34 years.” [Link]
“Madame Tussaud’s said Saturday it had returned a wax figure of the Nazi dictator to its newly opened Berlin branch weeks after the statue was beheaded by a 41-year-old German. Hitler’s figure can be viewed sitting at a desk in a replica of his bunker, Madame Tussaud’s, the British waxworks maker, said.” [Link]
“Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says that his country must be prepared to respond to an emerging arms race across the Asia-Pacific region.The Australian military would be built up to meet the challenge, he said.” [Link]
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“With more goals than minutes in the game, Slovakia’s women’s ice hockey team claimed an amazing 82-0 victory over Bulgaria in Olympic qualifying. Slovakia outshot the Bulgarians 139-0 during the 60-minute game, played in Latvia. The margin of victory is a record for a women’s International Ice Hockey Federation-sanctioned event.” [Link]
Samak Sundaravej picture
“Thailand’s prime minister was forced out of office Tuesday along with his Cabinet after a court ruled that he had broken a conflict-of-interest law by hosting TV cooking shows. Samak Sundaravej’s party later unanimously agreed to re-nominate him as a candidate for prime minister, indicating that Thailand is still not free from its deep political crisis that has virtually paralyzed the government, spooked the financial markets and scared away tourists.” [Link]
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“North Korea unexpectedly failed to stage a massive military parade for its 60th anniversary on Tuesday, and its top leader, Kim Jong-il, did not to attend the scaled-down celebration held instead, feeding reports that he might be seriously ill. Mr. Kim has not missed any of the 10 previous military or militia parades staged for major party, military and state anniversaries” [Link]
“John Morgan, a 51-year-old surf shop owner from the east coast tourist town of Byron Bay, compared his terrifying 170-foot ride off a local beach to being towed by a jet ski. He said he was about 330 yards from shore and paddling out when the 10-foot shark swelled up from underneath him Sunday afternoon. ‘It freaked me out,’ Morgan said. ‘It bumped my leg rope and next thing it tangled itself in the leg rope and started charging out to sea with me in tow.’” [Link]
“Naomi Campbell has finally hit it big with her Russian billionaire, Vladimir Doronin. The two were just in her favorite country, Brazil, where he dropped a cool $18.5 million on a penthouse apartment for Campbell in Jardins, the Upper East Side of Sao Paolo, after Campbell told him how much she loved the country” [Link]
“Chiu Yu kit, a former journalist at Asia Television (ATV), admitted in court to the act while he was alone on the top tier of a double-decker bus on July 31, The Standard and other newspapers reported. An off-duty officer made the arrest after he jogged past the bus and saw Chiu standing on a seat naked and facing a window, the court was told. Chiu, 31, pleaded guilty to one count of indecency in public, but added that he committed the offence only to release his stress. ” [Link]
“Prosecutors in Russia want to ban the award-winning satirical U.S. cartoon South Park, calling the series ‘extremist’ after receiving viewer complaints, a spokeswoman said Monday. South Park, a cartoon aimed at adults and featuring a group of nine-year olds in a Colorado ski town, has courted controversy from its 1997 debut, parodying celebrities, politicians, religion, gay marriage and Saddam Hussein.” [Link]
“Russia said Monday it will send a naval squadron and long-range patrol planes to Venezuela this year for a joint military exercise in the Caribbean, an announcement made at a time of increasingly tense relations with the United States. The apparently retaliatory move follows the U.S. deployment of warships to deliver aid to the former Soviet nation of Georgia, barely a month after Russian armor and aircraft crushed the Georgian military in a five-day war.” [Link]
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