DAILY NEWS:

[MIKA27]

French Parliament votes to ban wearing Islamic veil in public

Source: thedailytelegraph.com.au

THE French parliament has today voted overwhelmingly in favor of a ban on wearing veils over the face in public, a move which could make the Muslim burqa illegal.

There were 336 votes for the bill and just one against at the National Assembly.

Most members of the main opposition group, the Socialist Party, refused to participate in the vote.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has pushed for the law, saying the full veil "hurts the dignity of women, and is not acceptable in French society."

But government advisers warned the proposed ban could be unconstitutional.

Face-covering veils, like the burqa and niqab, are worn by Muslim women out of choice and are not required by Islamic law.

Although France has the largest Muslim population in Europe - an estimated five million people - the veil ban is thought to affect fewer than 2000 women.

The new legislation would forbid face-covering Muslim veils in all public places in France, including on the country's streets.

Anyone caught flouting the ban would face a €149 ($215) fine, or citizenship classes, or both.

Those convicted of forcing someone else to wear a full veil would be hit with a fine of €29,900 ($41,000) and a one-year jail sentence.

If the ban is approved by parliament, the law could come into force by September.

A similar law was passed in Belgium in April.

[rusty]

Community voices concern for oil plans

Source- Margaret River Mail

SHADOW Environment Minister Greg Hunt has told Margaret River residents he will take their concerns about oil exploration to Canberra.

About 70 people attended Thursday’s public meeting at the Australis Convention Centre hosted by Mr Hunt and Member for Forrest Nola Marino.

While the crowd got a chance to air their views, Mr Hunt declined to deliver what they were all hoping for – an election promise to stop the oil exploration going ahead.

“I’m not going to make a commitment when I haven’t got all the information,” he said.

“Let me talk with my colleagues.

“I have deep reservations about the oil proposal as it stands.”

The meeting was also told that of the 31 new oil acreages released by the government in May, the Mentelle Basin was the only one not requested by industry.

The news gave those in attendance some hope that the chance of companies applying for the lease may be less likely given they hadn’t requested it.

Local business identity Barbara Maidment expressed her concern for oil exploration in the South West, having witnessed first hand the devastation caused by the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska.

“It was a monumental environmental disaster. It took years to clean up,” she said.

“While most people in this room know I am not a rabid environmentalist, I’m not happy.”

Rob Alder, of No Oil for South West Beaches, said he was pleased residents had been given the opportunity to be heard.

“We will continue to raise awareness of the issue and lobby to have the oil acreage removed and a marine sanctuary established,” he said.

Mr Hunt said he had three points to follow up on his return to the eastern states.

“I will approach the Prime Minister, Environment Minister and Resources Minister about the need to release the Montara oil spill report,” he said.

“I will ask why the Mentelle Basin was released for oil exploration when it was the only one of 31 prospective areas not recommended by the industry.

“I will also ask my opposition, Peter Garrett, to come here before the election.”

Mr Hunt also encouraged residents to investigate options for making the Margaret River coastline a World Heritage area.

[rusty]

Cows move on to greener pastures

Source- Margaret river Mail

A CATTLE auction of a different sort will be held this weekend with some of the region’s most beautiful bovines going under the hammer.

Residents will have the chance to bid for their favourite CowParade exhibit with proceeds going to charity.

The Augusta-Margaret River Tourism Association has faced criticism over the event this week from people questioning the financial benefits of the project.

AMRTA chief executive officer Simon Ambrose said they would be completing a full evaluation of the event after it concludes this weekend.

“The 27% increase in visitation to the Margaret River region is an outstanding result and we are extremely happy with visitor and sponsor feedback to date,” he said.

“There is no doubt that this would have resulted in substantial economic benefit for the region.”

The cows have been herded up and will be auctioned off at Signal Park, Busselton, on Saturday, July 10.

AMRTA marketing and communications co-ordinator Cory Gale said it was difficult to predict how much each cow would sell for.

“CowParade events around the world, in the past decade, have raised over $25 million for charity, which is a phenomenal achievement for a public art exhibition,” he said.

“Prices will depend on who the artist is, but cows have fetched up to $146,000 (CowParade Dublin).

“Ten cows have already found homes through sponsorship agreements, a total of 53 will be auctioned at the Live Cow Charity Auction in Busselton and a further 22 cows will be auctioned online at www.tradeaway.com.au to bidders from around the world.”

Charities to benefit from the cow sales include Telethon, Give me 5 for Kids, The Starlight Foundation, The McGrath Foundation, the WA Asthma Foundation and many other not-for-profit associations.

[MIKA27]

Full moon eclipsed as accessory to crime

Source: usatoday.com

There's a bad moon on the rise? Werewolves, lunatics and criminals, we all know, famously respond to the light of the full moon.

But Creedence Clearwater Revival lyrics aside, an upcoming crime study reinforces findings that the full moon's malign influence is, well, moonshine.

"Western lore has long suggested a relationship between the phases of the moon and various forms of aberrant, antisocial, deviant, and criminal human conduct," begins the Journal of Criminal Justicestudy led by criminologist Joseph Schafer of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. "Policing, crime, and criminal justice have not been immune from speculation concerning the lunar-crime relationship."

Cops frequently have complained about crime's rising during a full moon, the study authors note. So have scholars, such as in a 1972 American Journal of Psychiatryreport that found murders peaked around Miami over a 15-year period during the full moon. The same report looked at 13 years of murders in an Ohio county, finding no significant effect.

So it has gone for full moon malice, with a few studies finding a mixed effect on crimes. Overall in the last four decades, most found no lunar link to suicides and homicides, as well as "prison escapes," "hospital admissions for dog bite injuries," and "aggression among ice hockey players," according to the study.

Still, "research has shown that belief in lunar effects continued to be strong, including among police officers and tended to be associated with beliefs in other paranormal phenomena," write Schafer and colleagues. Many of the past studies finding weak or no effects suffered from defects ranging from limited data, weak statistics and even disagreement on lunar phases, raising the possibility the cops are just more observant than criminologists give them credit for. "Officers have the benefit of directly observing the aftermath of criminal incidents; their experiences may provide them with unique insights into lunar effects," says the study, "or police culture may simply perpetuate false beliefs about lunar effects."

So, to find out, the study team looked at San Antonio, Tex., from 2001 to 2005, a city of more than a million people for which exhaustive crime data is available. The team crunched nightly crime data, noting rain, daylight, indoor vs. outdoor locations and other environmental effects unaccounted for in past efforts. Murder happens too rarely in San Antonio to give a statistical signal, so the team looked at assaults, burglary, theft, drugs and vice crimes, traffic crimes, and "other disturbances," totaling about 130,000 incidents a year.

"It is the very error of the moon," wrote Shakespeare in Othello. "She comes more near the earth than she was wont, And makes men mad."

Maybe in Venice, but not in San Antonio, the study concludes. "Substantive lunar effects on crime were not found in the data analyzed here," say the report. "Although popular culture, folk lore, and even certain occupational lore suggested the 'freaks' come out during full moons, this phenomenon was not reflected in San Antonio police data as used here."

Instead, weekends and warm weather were linked to crime, as you might expect. Winter and rain decreased crimes, except in the city's Riverwalk entertainment district, home to bars, hotels, convention facilities, shops, and theaters, where the level of crime was the same regardless of conditions. The only slight effects of a full moon were a small increase in burglaries citywide, and a drop in vice arrests in the Riverwalk center, at the same time. Neither was statistically convincing, compared to weather or time of day.

But while the crime data don't show any lunar effects, that doesn't mean people aren't weirder during a full moon, the study authors acknowledge, something unlikely to come across in the dry language of a police report.

After all, the belief that the moon affects human behavior is "deeply entrenched in popular belief," write Robert Bartholomew and Hilary Evans in the "Lunar Influences" entry of Outbreak, the Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior. The Roman physician Galen, one of the "fathers of medicine," claimed that epileptic fits were trigged by the moon in the 2nd Century. Disturbed patients in London were flogged during the full moon in the 18th century to halt their expected violence.

"Whether or not the lunar effect has any biological basis, the belief in it may be associated with popular practices," concludes the encyclopedia. "The Moon's phases could thus be a contributing or enabling factor in extraordinary social behavior, whether directly, by affecting people en masse, or indirectly, by affecting especially susceptible individuals."

[MIKA27]

Egypt unveils discovery of 4,300-year-old double tomb

SAQQARA, Egypt — Egyptian archaeologists on Thursday unveiled a newly-unearthed double tomb with vivid wall paintings in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara near Cairo, saying it could be the start for uncovering a vast cemetery in the area.

The tomb includes two false doors with colorful paintings depicting the two people buried there, a father and a son who served as heads of the royal scribes, said Abdel-Hakim Karar, a top archaeologist at Saqqara.

"The colors of the false door are fresh as if it was painted yesterday," Karar told reporters.

Humidity had destroyed the sarcophagus of the father, Shendwas, while the tomb of the son, Khonsu, was robbed in antiquity, he said.

Also inscribed on the father's false door was the name of Pepi II, whose 90-year reign is believed to be the longest of the pharaohs.

The inscription dates the double tomb to the 6th dynasty, which marked the beginning of the decline of the Old Kingdom, also known as the age of pyramids.

Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, said the new finds were "the most distinguished tombs ever found from the Old Kingdom," because of their "amazing colors." He said the area, if excavated, could unveil the largest cemetery of ancient Egypt.

The paintings on the false doors identified Shendwas and Khonsu as royal scribes and "supervisors of the mission," meaning they were in charge of delegations overseeing the supply of materials used for pyramid construction.

A single shaft from the surface led down to the father's tomb, from which a side passage led to that of the son, with the false door with paintings of Khonsu in front of an offering table.

Hawass pointed to a handful of duck-shaped artifacts and a small obelisk made of limestone. Such obelisks were often buried with the dead in the 5th and 6th dynasties to show their veneration for the sun god, Ra.

"These artifacts were found at the end of the burial shaft, at 18 meters depth, but we covered it up," Hawass told reporters.

Karar said that so far six tombs dating back to the end of the Old Kingdom have been unearthed since digging in the area began three years ago. Work started on the double tomb five weeks ago.

The tombs lie just west of Saqqara's most famed pyramid, the Step Pyramid of King Djoser, which is surrounded by a large burial ground and contains tombs from Egypt's earliest history up through Roman times.

MIKA: What is it about Egypt that still to this day brings more news and discoveries of a very ancient civilization often bringing fourth new discoveries but leaving researchers baffled and amazed?

How does a tomb, burial chamber etc survive such large lengths of time and often looking as fresh as the day it was created?

Really amazing stuff IMO.

[Fuzz]

How does a tomb, burial chamber etc survive such large lengths of time and often looking as fresh as the day it was created?

Perfect environmental conditions for preservation and being buried in sand helps.

[winelover]

French Parliament votes to ban wearing Islamic veil in public

I am very pleased to hear this. The more you learn about Islam the more scary it is. Sharia law, public beheadings / floggings / stonings / amputations all for things like being a Christian (apostate), being accused of adultery (even though they have to have 4 male witnesses - when would that ever happen - a travesty that women are found guilty under such a charge) and the men are free to have multiple wives and basically keep the women locked up inside. Now I didn't naturally think I was a womens rights sympathiser!

Hats off to the French.

P.S. If you ever see people wearing the full Burka, it is actually very scary and I've heard small children scream.

[MIKA27]

British scientists crack riddle and say chicken came before the egg

Source: thedailytelegraph.com.au

BRITISH scientists believe they have cracked the answer to the age-old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Researchers have found that a protein called ovocleidin (OC-17) is crucial in the formulation of eggshells, and it is produced in the pregnant hen's ovaries, the Daily Express reports.

Therefore, the answer to the conundrum must be that the chicken came first.

Using a high-tech computer to look at the molecular structure of a shell, the team of scientists from the Universities of Sheffield and Warwick found that OC-17 acts as a catalyst, kick-starting the conversion of calcium carbonate in the chicken's body into calcite crystals.

They make up the hard shell that houses the yolk and its protective fluids while the chick develops.

"It had long been suspected that the egg came first but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first," said Dr Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University.

"The protein had been identified before and it was linked to egg formation but by examining it closely we have been able to see how it controls the process."

But the researchers have not yet managed to answer how the protein-producing chicken existed in the first place.

[MIKA27]

It's true - women really have better memories than men, say scientists

WOMEN'S brains function better at remembering information than men's, researchers have confirmed.

A Cambridge University study of 4407 men and women from East Anglia, southeastern England, discovered gender plays a clear difference in memory function.

In tests on participants aged between 48 to 90 years, women made an average of 5.9 fewer errors than men, regardless of age.

Education was also found to play a significant part in memory function.

Participants who left education after the age of 18 were found to make an average of 20 fewer total errors than those who left education before the age of 16.

“Although the links between sex and education and cognitive function have been explored before, this very large dataset provides striking evidence that these factors play a major role in determining how good our memory function is as we age," Dr Andrew Blackwell, Chief Scientific Officer at Cambridge University's Department of Psychiatry, said.

“Using these data, we can determine whether or not an individual’s memory function is normal or not for people of their age, sex and education level.

“A body of scientific literature has demonstrated that women typically outperform men on test of verbal function, whereas men tend to outperform women on tasks of spatial function.

"However, in this study, we used a measure of memory that is spatial and women consistently outperformed men.

“There are many possible explanations for this, including both neurobiological and environmental differences.”

Researchers hoped the findings may help scientists further understand the causes of Alzheimer’s disease.

Further research was planned and it was estimated that the final study will reach approximately 10,000 participants.

MIKA: Perhaps those scientists should have used my wife in their research as it would have blown their theory out of the water! My wife has 'THE WORST' memory of anyone I have ever known.

[MIKA27]

Tiny toxic mushrooms kill 400

Source: thedailytelegraph.com.au

EVERY summer during the height of the rainy season, villagers of all ages in a corner of southwestern China would suddenly die of cardiac arrest.

No one knew what caused Yunnan Sudden Death Syndrome, blamed for an estimated 400 deaths in the past three decades.

Now, after a five-year investigation, an elite investigative unit from China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention believes it has pinpointed the cause: an innocuous-looking small mushroom known as Little White.

The search for the culprit began in 2005 and took investigators to remote villages spread over the rural highlands of Yunnan province, said Robert Fontaine, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There was "this very obvious clustering of deaths in villages in very short periods of time in the summer," said Fontaine, who helped in the investigation. "It appears that there was something a little different going on."

Local health officials had noted the deaths for years. In 2004, they appealed to Beijing for assistance. The government gave the task to the China Field Epidemiology Training Program, a unit of medical investigators at China's CDC assigned some of the country's toughest health mysteries.

The medical teams encountered obstacles. Many villagers didn't speak standard Chinese, instead communicating in their own dialect. Villages were scattered in often remote areas. Rapid burials made it difficult to conduct autopsies. Torrential rain and mudslides hampered travel.

But that first year, investigators were able to narrow down the list of possibilities: most victims had drunk surface water, they had emotional stress and they ate mushrooms.

The investigators zeroed in on mushrooms, because the deaths were closely aligned with the harvesting season. More than 90 percent of the deaths occurred in July or August. By the end of 2005, investigators began issuing warnings to some villages to avoid eating unfamiliar mushrooms.

That was a difficult order to follow. Yunnan province is legendary for its wide variety of wild mushrooms, many of which are exported at high prices. Entire families go out to hunt for them during the summer months.

By 2008, investigators had discovered a relatively unknown mushroom in a number of homes where people had died. The mushroom is not usually sold in the markets, because it's too small.

"We repeatedly found it at all these sites," Fontaine said.

A public information campaign to warn against eating the mushrooms has dramatically reduced the number of deaths. Only a handful have been reported in the last couple of years, and none so far this year.

However, the mystery has not yet been definitively solved.

Testing found the mushroom contained some toxins, though not enough to be deadly. Chinese scientists need to isolate the toxin and test whether it triggers cardiac arrests.

Researchers have hypothesized that there is a second agent. Many of the victims showed high levels of barium, a heavy metal in the soil that seeps into mushrooms.

"There is a lot of work left to do," Fontaine said. "We really need additional lab investigations."

Problems with poisonous mushrooms are common throughout Asia, said Diderik De Vleeschauwer, a spokesman for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization regional office in Thailand.

"Normally we expect people to have knowledge of what they can and can't eat. One would think there is indigenous knowledge available about what they can forage," he said. "But these are accidents that can happen."

[MIKA27]

Boy, 4, dies during exorcism of evil spirits

Source: thedailytelegraph.com.au

A 4-year-old boy sickened with pneumonia died in the Primorye region after being made to participate in an exorcism by a Korean shaman.

The parents of the child asked shaman So Dyavor, 59, and her husband, Kim Sende, 62, to perform a ritual to exorcise “evil spirits” that they believed were plaguing him, the local news web site Primamedia.ru reported.

The child stopped breathing during the ritual in the local village of Sergeyevka on Saturday.

No traces of violence were found on the boy's body, and forensic pathologists on Wednesday had not established what killed him.

It remains possible that the boy's pneumonia was the cause of his death, a police spokesman told RIA-Novosti.

The tabloid Tvoi Den identified the boy as Dmitry Kazachuk and said he arrived in Sergeyevka with a delegation of relatives that included his mother, aunt, uncle and grandmother.

The family intended to request help for the grandmother, who has diabetes, but So Dyavor told them that the entire family was jinxed and the boy had put a curse on them, the report said.

Nobody was present in the room when the shaman performed the exorcism on the boy, it said, without commenting on the role of So Dyavor's husband in the incident.

The local branch of the Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case into suspected negligent homicide, which is punishable with up to three years in prison, but has not charged anyone, Interfax said.

[MIKA27]

Revellers row across cognac-filled pool

A SELF-STYLED lord is embroiled in a court battle over claims he threw hedonistic parties at a STG20 million ($34.5 million) London mansion, with revellers rowing across a swimming pool filled with cognac.

"Lord" Edward Davenport, who has hosted parties for Cher and Boy George with celebrity guests such as Kate Moss, Gisele Bundchen and Naomi Campbell, is accused of breaching council planning rules, The Evening Standard reported overnight.

Mr Davenport is alleged to have hired out the mansion at 33 Portland Place for a masked ball, pole-dancing lessons, and a party for Brandy maker Courvoisier featuring a "giant punchbowl" - a pool filled with 1000 litres of alcohol "so big you can row across it".

Westminster council said the property should not be used for commercial purposes and is seeking a permanent injunction from the High Court to enforce this.

The mansion, which is owned by Portland Place (Historic House) Ltd, boasts eight reception rooms, a billiard room, a club room with a large jacuzzi, a ballroom, 24 bedrooms and London's only hydraulic wall.

Mr Davenport, 44, co-founded Gatecrashers, which organises parties at stately homes and reportedly turned over STG250,000 ($431,000) a year at its height.

He denies the alleged breaches and argues the house's current use is "not unauthorised".

MIKA: Whats so wrong having a party, especially one so cool as to have a pool filled with cognac! I wonder what kind of cigars they may have been smoking?

[groza]

a pool filled with 1000 litres of alcohol

That's actually not that much, considering it's a "lord" - a cube of 1 meter.

[Kangaroo495]

Boy, 4, dies during exorcism of evil spirits

Source: thedailytelegraph.com.au

A 4-year-old boy sickened with pneumonia died in the Primorye region after being made to participate in an exorcism by a Korean shaman.

The parents of the child asked shaman So Dyavor, 59, and her husband, Kim Sende, 62, to perform a ritual to exorcise “evil spirits” that they believed were plaguing him, the local news web site Primamedia.ru reported.

The child stopped breathing during the ritual in the local village of Sergeyevka on Saturday.

No traces of violence were found on the boy's body, and forensic pathologists on Wednesday had not established what killed him.

It remains possible that the boy's pneumonia was the cause of his death, a police spokesman told RIA-Novosti.

The tabloid Tvoi Den identified the boy as Dmitry Kazachuk and said he arrived in Sergeyevka with a delegation of relatives that included his mother, aunt, uncle and grandmother.

The family intended to request help for the grandmother, who has diabetes, but So Dyavor told them that the entire family was jinxed and the boy had put a curse on them, the report said.

Nobody was present in the room when the shaman performed the exorcism on the boy, it said, without commenting on the role of So Dyavor's husband in the incident.

The local branch of the Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case into suspected negligent homicide, which is punishable with up to three years in prison, but has not charged anyone, Interfax said.

Why does all the weirdest **** come from this neck of the woods?

[Kangaroo495]

Medvedev Orders Review of Wobbly Bridge

24 May 2010

By Alex Anishyuk

President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a construction investigation Friday after a new bridge over the Volga River gave a bizarre performance, sending cars swirling and bouncing in gale-force winds

[laficion]

I wonder what kind of cigars they may have been smoking?[/color]

I'm sure that they must have been "White Owls" or at best " King Edwards ".

When you have such bad taste as to go and fill a pool with Cognac,

the rest follows naturally.

[MIKA27]

Residential patient had 'eyes ripped out' by roommate in New York

Source: thedailynews.com.au

A MAN being treated for depression at a group residence in America was blinded when his racist roommate gouged his eyes out.

Jason Wallace used his bare hands to rip out Latchman Ramnarine's eyes, according to a lawsuit quoted in the New York Post.

Prior to the attack, he reportedly made continued threats to kill Mr Ramnarine in the apartment they shared in the New York borough of Queens, under the supervision of the Promoting Specialised Care And Health agency.

"Wallace became unstable and aggressive," said Mr Ramnarine's lawyer, Michael Grossman.

"He repeatedly threatened my client with words like 'I am going to kill you' and 'I'll break your bones because I hate Indian people.'"

Wallace pleaded not guilty to assault with intent to disfigure.

[MIKA27]

Man abandons son on German autobahn to 'teach him lesson'

A GERMAN father abandoned his 14-year-old son on a highway 450 kilometres from home after an argument, saying he wanted to teach him a lesson.

The man from the Rhineland in western Germany threw his son out of the car at a rest stop in the southern state of Bavaria on Sunday during a cross-country drive, giving him €5 ($7.50) to make his own way home.

When motorists saw the teenager walking on the side of the road at dusk, they called the police.

Officers picked up the boy and called his father, who was already north of Frankfurt, about 130 kilometres away.

"The man said he wanted to teach his son a lesson," police said in a statement, adding that he recommended the child be kept for a night at the police station.

Officers finally convinced the man to return to collect his son in Bavaria.

"After father and son had hugged and promised each other to get along again, they started off together on the 400 kilometer (249 mile) journey home," the statement said.

Police informed child welfare authorities of the case.

[MIKA27]

Why does all the weirdest **** come from this neck of the woods?

I wouldn't know Roger, you live there, how do the people come accross to you?

[Kangaroo495]

I wouldn't know Roger, you live there, how do the people come accross to you?

There is certainly a lot of absurd stuff happening here. I could probably add something quirky to this thread every day. Saw a funny article a while - A bloke accidentally killed himself when a grenade detonated in his hand, while he was trying to throw it at his ex-wife. Lol!!

Here's a funny one, I've just copied in the first few lines of the article:

Gazprom (Russian gas company) seals $2.5bn Nigeria deal

Gazprom could increase its power over European gas supplies

Russia's energy giant Gazprom has signed a $2.5bn (£1.53bn) deal with Nigeria's state operated NNPC, to invest in a new joint venture.

The new firm, to be called Nigaz, is set to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8118721.stm

What were they thinking??!?!

[Ryan]

I really like this one. I also like the second bit about jockey ambassadors, it's how international disputes should be decided.

In a momentous shift from Ireland's cultural heritage..

Siblings banned from hay roll contest

Friday June 18 2010

Ireland's only roll in the hay contest this weekend has banned siblings from entering after a brother and sister won the inaugural challenge.

Organisers said legitimate lovers only will be allowed to take part in Sunday's quest in Trim, Co Meath, to find the country's greatest field fumblers.

Last year's contest raised eyebrows amid crowds of up to 7,000 people when a local brother and sister team picked up the top prize of a romantic getaway in a plush hotel.

"That's not allowed any more, the county will be getting a bad name," said chief organiser Pat Farrelly.

"It's strictly romance from now on."

The sweethearts' showdown takes place on the banks of the Boyne under the shadow of Trim Castle - the setting for the Mel Gibson blockbuster Braveheart - as part of the Trim Haymaking Festival.

In another unique feature of this year's event, more than 10 ambassadors to Ireland will take part in a donkey derby.

The top diplomats - from Belgium, Canada, China, Egypt, Greece, Kenya, Morocco, Portugal, South Africa and Sweden - will swap their robes of office for jockeys' silks, in the colours of their country.

Commentator Michael Slevin will provide live coverage while a bookmaker in period costume will take bets on the international chase.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/si...st-2226963.html

[MIKA27]

Russia's energy giant Gazprom has signed a $2.5bn (£1.53bn) deal with Nigeria's state operated NNPC, to invest in a new joint venture.

The new firm, to be called Nigaz, is set to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria.

What were they thinking??!?!

That's just hilarious!!!!

[MIKA27]

Parachuting donkey advertisers face jail

Source: thedailytelegraph.com.au

POLICE are investigating several Russian entrepreneurs who attached a "screaming" donkey to a parachute as part of a promotional stunt.

The animal could be heard braying in fear as it circled over the heads of holidaymakers sunbathing on a beach in Golubitskaya, in the Krasnodar region last week.

A regional police spokeswoman said the donkey ended up in the skies as a result of an impromptu advertising campaign by businessmen to attract beachgoers to their private beach.

Instead, they attracted the attention of police who learned of the flying donkey earlier this week and launched an investigation.

"The donkey screamed and children cried," regional police spokeswoman Larisa Tuchkova said.

"No one had the brains to call police."

Instead, she said, people reached for their cameras and bombarded a local newspaper with phone calls.

"It was put up so high into the sky that the children on the beach cried and asked their parents: 'Why did they tie a doggy to a parachute?'" the newspaper, Taman, reported.

"The donkey landed in an atrocious manner: It was dragged several meters along the water, after which the animal was pulled out half-alive onto the shore."

The businessmen responsible may face criminal charges for animal cruelty which could land them behind bars for up to two years, according to news agency RIA-Novosti.

MIKA: You know what, Roger has a point... WTF is going on in Russia with all these stories mainly comming from there!?

[MIKA27]

Black British couple shocked by 'miracle' blonde, white baby

Source: thedailytelegraph.com.au

A BLACK British couple have spoken of their amazement after their baby girl was born white, with blue eyes and blonde hair.

Doctors say baby Nmachi Ihegboro is not an albino and attribute her appearance to an unknown genetic mutation.

Nmachi, whose name means "Beauty of God" in the Nigerian couple's homeland, has confused genetics experts because neither of her parents has any mixed-race family history.

Dad Ben Ihegboro said: "The first thing I said was 'What the flip?' We both just sat there after the birth staring at her for ages - not saying anything.

"She doesn't look like an albino child anyway - not like the ones I've seen back in Nigeria or in books. She just looks like a healthy white baby."

He added, "My mum is a black Nigerian, although she has a bit fairer skin than mine. But we don't know of any white ancestry. We wondered if it was a genetic twist. But even then, what is with the long curly blonde hair?"

Mr Ihegboro was quick to quell any murmurings of infedility, saying: "My wife is true to me. Even if she hadn't been, the baby still wouldn't look like that.”

Mum Angelaadmitted that she was "speechless" when she first saw her baby girl, who was delivered by C-section.

"I thought, 'What is this little doll?' She's beautiful, and I love her. Her color doesn't matter. She's a miracle baby. But still, what on earth happened here?" she said.

Nmachi is now at home in Woolwich, southeastern London, with siblings Chisom and Dumebi.

MIKA: One doesn't need to be a genetiscist to work out how this has occurred...

[MIKA27]

Policeman skips beat to see dwarf porn star

Source: thedailytelegraph.com.au

A POLICE officer resigned from the force after leaving his beat to see a dwarf porn star.

Officer Richard Bennett, 28, deserted his late night patrol to visit a gentleman's club where adult film star Bridget "The Midget" Powers - billed as "the world’s smallest porn star" - was performing last month.

The officer, who was serving in the Stoughton, Massachusetts patrol, resigned after leaving his beat to see the porn star, The Patriot Ledger reported.

He was in uniform at the time and was reported to authorities by at least five other officers, said Stoughton Police Chief Paul Shastany.

He then reportedly lied about the visit during an internal investigation into the incident.

“Mama told me there would be days like this,” Shastany said, on confirming Bennett's resignation. “We are not red-faced. In fact, I am pretty proud [other officers] stepped up.”

Bennett, who last month received a commendation for his work in a March murder case, resigned on June 30 rather than face disciplinary action, Mr Shastany said.