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Cow Skull

Letters show Mussolini's daughter love for Communist

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© REUTERS/Vincenzo PintoPosters bearing the profile of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini are plastered on walls in central Rome April 28, 2002.
Thirty-six passionate letters discovered on the Italian island of Lipari have revealed an illicit love affair between the daughter of former Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and a prominent Communist partisan.

Written in French, English and Italian, the secret correspondence has inspired a new book: "Edda Ciano and the Communist. The unspeakable passion of the Duce's Daughter."

"There is no novelistic embellishment," said author Marcello Sorgi, who describes his book as a "journalistic reconstruction" of the romance.

Shoe

Leaders cower from 'shoe-cide' attacks

Shoe Throwing
© REUTERS/ANI TV
India's politicians contesting in the general election, fearful of shoes hurled at them by disgruntled voters, have asked for more security and are erecting metal nets at rallies.

Lal Krishna Advani, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) prime ministerial candidate was the latest politician to be at the receiving end Thursday, as an angry party worker threw a slipper at him during an election meeting in a central state.

The slipper missed Advani, but was enough for authorities to step up security for all leaders across the country.

Recycle

Tasmania's Wombat Poo Paper a Hit

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Nowadays the wombat is found in the wild only in the far south of Australia
Wombat droppings are helping an industrial city in Australia fight the effects of the global financial crisis.

Burnie, in the north-west of the state of Tasmania, has been hit by repeated rounds of job cuts.

But despite the gloom, one local industry is thriving by producing handmade paper out of a material no-one else wants - wombat poo.

Heart

South Korean city plays Cupid with mass blind date to boost birthrate

Officials in a South Korean city are so concerned about the country's plummeting birthrate that they have decided to play matchmaker at a government-sponsored mass blind date.

Mass blind dates are common in South Korea, but the city of Asan is believed to be the first city government to play Cupid.

"Matchmaking is no longer a personal business, it's the duty of the nation," Yu Yang-Sun, a municipal official organising the recent event, told AFP in the city 50 miles south of Seoul.

Yoda

Mussolini hometown bans Fascist symbols

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Benito Mussolini
The hometown of World War II-era Italian dictator Benito Mussolini has banned public display of Fascist symbols and slogans as a tourism-boosting measure.

The Predappio town council voted unanimously Wednesday to ban stores from displaying swastikas, cudgels and Fascist slogans in their windows or other places visible from the street, ANSA reported Thursday.

The council voted to fine violators $660 per offense.

Heart

Susan Boyle singing "Cry Me a River" unearthed by Daily Record

It is hard, after the millions of YouTube views and hundreds of thousands of Technically Incorrect hits accorded to the story of Susan Boyle, not to add a snippet or two as the days take us, her, and the world into the muddied waters of fame and fantasy.

So here is the latest little Susan tweet for the weekend.

The Scottish newspaper the Daily Record has unearthed a recording from 1999 of Ms. Boyle singing the Ella Fitzgerald classic "Cry Me a River."

Heart

Piers Morgan offers to kiss singing sensation

Talent show judge Piers Morgan offered Friday to kiss Scottish charity worker Susan Boyle, who said she had never been kissed before becoming an international YouTube sensation this week.

Boyle, whose stunning singing performance has so far been viewed over 19 million times on YouTube, lived on her own with a cat called Pebbles before her appearance on the Britain's Got Talent television show last weekend.

The dowdy-looking, plump 47-year-old said in a pre-performance interview that she had never been kissed.

But in a video on his website, Morgan -- the former tabloid newspaper editor who has become a star in his own right as a talent show judge at home and the United States -- said he was ready to change that.

Heart

Kansas couple married for 67 years die hours apart

Troy - Residents of a northeast Kansas town are mourning the deaths just hours apart of an elderly couple who were married 67 years. Arnita Yingling died in her sleep early Saturday at the family's home in Troy. She was 93. Six hours later her 95-year-old husband, Lyle, died at a nursing home in the nearby town of Wathena.

Compass

SOTT Focus: Agent Penn Guinn's Adventures in Divided Nicosia

PG in Nicosia 1
© SOTT.netThe ever stylish Mr PG arrives in Cyprus
My name is Guinn. Penn Guinn. Upon leaving my familiar environment of ice-cold Antarctica, I was determined to travel around the Earth in search of clues of the miraculous: that, as yet unidentifiable but eternally present spirit of the creative universe that resides above and below, within and without, permeates and penetrates all, but alas! is invisible to the untrained eye. But such a task is not difficult for one of Aptenodytes Forsteri genus such as I, who in the aforementioned inhospitable surroundings learned to distinguish, from an early age, the thousand different shades of white.

And so my seeking has led me to awareness enhancing journeys through the coastal Tel Aviv, the Italian Apennines, the French Riviera and Hendaye, the English Countryside. It was while spending some time with elderly British folks in my last travels that I heard about the island of Cyprus: a small troubled place shrouded in mystery, intimately connected with the birth of the Greek Goddess of Love and the birth of the Christian Orthodox church. Following some preliminary research, it dawned on me that both Aphrodite and graceful Mary would need to be dressed à la mode in order to fit in in modern day Cyprus. Not that I care too much for appearances you see. But wishing to blend in with the crowds, I spent the winter at my chilly home awaiting the unappealing molting of my pelage to take its course before setting off for the sunny island. Come springtime, all dapper in my new velvety plumage, I was ready for my next adventure!

Footprints

Perry Mason accused of soliciting legal clients

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A Perry Mason in Houston who's not an attorney is accused of trying to attract clients for one who is. A man with the same legal name as the lead character in the 1960s TV law show "Perry Mason" is charged with barratry, soliciting for a licensed attorney.

The Harris County District Attorney's Office said Thursday that a tip led to 44-year-old Perry Mason. He allegedly tried to solicit former jail inmates for legal services.

DA's spokeswoman Donna Hawkins told The Associated Press that Mason, who is not an attorney, was arrested Tuesday.