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Court martial for Calgary reservist begins after fatal training accident in Afghanistan

Bill Graveland
Yahoo! Canada News
Sun, 11 Nov 2012 00:00 UTC
Darryl Watts
© The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward
Capt. Darryl Watts speaks during a interview with The Canadian Press in Calgary Wednesday, Dec 8, 2010.
The lawyer for a Canadian soldier charged after a landmine explosion killed a colleague on a training range in Afghanistan says his client isn't guilty of a crime.

But the prosecution contends that Maj. Darryl Watts's supervision of the range on the day in question was negligent to the point that criminal charges are justified.

Watts, a Calgary reservist, faces a court martial this week on a charge of manslaughter and five other offences.

Cpl. Joshua Baker, 24, died on Feb. 12, 2010 at a range four kilometres northeast of Kandahar city when an explosive Claymore mine packed with 700 steel balls raked a Canadian Forces platoon. Four other soldiers were wounded.

Watts is also charged with one count of negligent performance of a military duty and four counts of unlawfully causing bodily harm.
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Treasure Chest

Kuwait spends £10million to put on the biggest firework display of all time for golden jubilee celebrations

Phil Vinter
Daily Mail, UK
Sun, 11 Nov 2012 00:00 UTC
For the paltry sum of just £10million Kuwait earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records last night as it celebrated the golden jubilee anniversary of its constitution in style by laying on the biggest fireworks display of all time.

A dazzling array of colours illuminated the skies above the country's capital of Kuwait City as a staggering 77,282 fireworks were launched over the period of an hour.
Image

Exploding fireworks illuminate the sky over Kuwait City, Kuwait, last night, during celebrations on the occasion of the 50th Constitution Day jubilee
A representative of Guinness World Records announced the achievement on Kuwait television at the end of the display which had been watched by tens of thousands of Kuwaitis and expatriates on the Arabian Gulf Road by the sea.

The visual presentation marked 50 years to the day since the late emir Sheikh Abdullah al-Salem al-Sabah announced that Kuwait had become the first Arab state in the Gulf to issue a constitution and have a parliament.

Before the festivities Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah pledged the government's continuing commitment to democracy and made a plea for national unity as the wealthy Gulf state struggles with a political crisis.
Image
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People

Pack of teens grope jogger in Central Park


MyFox New York
Sun, 11 Nov 2012 06:37 UTC
New York - Police say a woman jogging in New York City's Central Park was confronted by a group of teenagers who asked her for a kiss, and 1 of them groped her when she rebuffed them.

Police were seeking the accused groper Saturday. He's believed to be about 14.

Police say the 24-year-old woman was running near the northern edge of the park around 8:30 p.m. Friday when five teens approached her seeking a kiss. Officers say one teen then touched her groin and ran off.

Women's safety in the iconic park has been a hot-button subject since an investment banker was raped while running there in 1989. Her ordeal became known as the "Central Park jogger" case.

This September, a man was charged with raping a 73-year-old birdwatcher in the park.
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Coffee

Starbucks, Amazon and Google to face UK lawmakers over tax

Tom Bergin
Reuters
Sun, 11 Nov 2012 06:10 UTC
Starbucks
© The Associated Press
London - UK lawmakers will quiz executives of Starbucks (SBUX.O), Google (GOOG.O) and Amazon (AMZN.O) on Monday about how they have managed to pay only small amounts of tax in Britain while racking up billions of dollars worth of sales here.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is charged with monitoring government financial affairs, has invited the companies to give evidence amid mounting public and political concern about tax avoidance by big international companies.

"It is hard for the ordinary person to believe it's fair," said Margaret Hodge, a member of parliament for the opposition Labour party and chairman of PAC.

"It makes people incredibly angry in the current fiscal climate," she added, in reference to the austerity measures which large budget deficits have forced on the UK, and other countries.

Britain and Germany last week announced plans to push the Group of 20 economic powers to make multinational companies pay their "fair share" of taxes following reports of large firms exploiting loopholes to avoid taxes.

A Reuters report last month showed that Starbucks had paid no corporation, or income, tax in the UK in the past three years.

The world's biggest coffee chain paid only 8.6 million pounds ($13.74 million) in total UK tax over 13 years during which it recorded sales of 3.1 billion pounds.
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Heart - Black

Jury convicts Toronto man who slashed throat, stabbed wife


Yahoo! Canada News
Sun, 11 Nov 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© CBC News/Alex Tavshunsky

A jury has found Peer Khairi guilty of second-degree murder in the death of his wife.
Canada - A Toronto man who stabbed his wife and slashed her throat four years ago was found guilty of second-degree murder on Sunday.

Peer Khairi, 65, sobbed quietly with his head down when the verdict was read in court, days after the jury first began its deliberations last Thursday.

His wife, Randjida Khairi, died in March 2008. She was 53 years old.

Assistant Crown Attorney Robert Kenny said the jury heard four weeks of evidence during the trial, including three days of testimony from Khairi himself.

"We're very happy with all the hard work that the jury went through and with the way the evidence came out," he told reporters outside court on Sunday.

Kenny credited the investigative work that police did in bringing the case to court.
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Ambulance

Two killed, homes destroyed in huge Indianapolis explosion


NBC News
Sun, 11 Nov 2012 01:07 UTC
Image
© Matt Kryger/AP
Authorities say a loud explosion has leveled a home in Indianapolis and set four others ablaze in a neighborhood, causing several injuries.
At least two people were killed and 18 homes damaged by a thunderous explosion in a south Indianapolis neighborhood late Saturday night, NBC affiliate WTHR reported.

Dramatic images from the scene showed large fires and destroyed homes. Among the pictures were some posted to Twitter by Indianapolis Star photographer Matt Kryger.

Local fire officials confirmed to WTHR early Sunday that at least two people died in the explosion.

The blast was reported shortly after 11 p.m. near South Sherman Drive and Stop 11 Road on the south side of Indianapolis, WTHR said.

"Multiple houses engulfed in flames. Even the police officers that got to the scene before I did were not sure what happened. Kind of a surreal scene, even for police officers," Marion County Sheriff John Layton told the station.

Comment: A potential impact event?

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Eye 1

Human Condition: Picture of drug-addled Ukrainian prostitute among the most startling press photographs of 2012

Sam Adams
The Daily Mail
Fri, 09 Nov 2012 03:05 UTC
From the disturbing image of a drugs-addicted prostitute smoking a cigarette, to a haunting picture of a desperate mother standing alone amidst the devastation of the Japanese Tsunami - the World Press Photo contest offers a vivid reflection of the world we live in.

An exhibition of the winning entries, which went on show at the Southbank Centre in London today showcases the best in photojournalism from across the globe and features startling pictures from the world in 2011.

This year's top prize was awarded to Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda for his image of a mother cradling her son in her hands after he has been overcome by tear gas during an anti-government demonstration in Yemen.

Image
© World Press Photo 2012 Exhibition
Tragic: This work by Brent Stirton won first prize in the Contemporary Issues Singles category. it shows Maria, a drug-addicted sex worker, resting between clients in the room she rents in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine. The country has the highest incidence of HIV/Aids in Europe, according to UNICEF
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Question

India's secret shame: Owl sacrifice mars Hinduism's biggest holiday

Jason Overdorf
The Global Post
Sat, 10 Nov 2012 06:00 UTC
Eagle Owl
© Diptendu Dutta/AFP/Getty Images
An Indian man holds a rare Eagle owl after it was rescued from an house in Siliguri on July 15, 2011.
New Delhi - As the rest of India celebrates Hinduism's festival of lights on Tuesday, unscrupulous witch doctors known as "tantriks" will sneak into the country's dark corners to kill some of its rarest and most majestic birds of prey.

It's India's secret shame - unknown even to most devout Hindus. But the religion's most important holiday, Diwali, marks a supposedly auspicious time for the sacrifices of threatened and even critically endangered owls - a rite that some believe can win favor from the goddess of wealth, Lakshmi.

"You take the leading newspapers of today itself, there will be 50, 20, 30 ads from tantriks advertising remedies of almost all kinds," said Abrar Ahmed, an expert on the trafficking of birds.

"When people can be milked out, these tantriks will prescribe something which is difficult to get - they'll say an owl of 5 kgs or a certain weight or certain size. There is where they make money.... They are the ones creating a demand."

India is home to 32 species of owls, 13 of which Ahmed discovered being sold as part of the illegal trade in wild birds. Most, if not all, are included on International Union for Conservation of Nature's "Red List" of threatened species, while at least one, the forest owlet, is critically endangered, according to "Imperilled Custodians of the Night," a report Abrar wrote for Traffic in 2010.
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Arrow Up

California teen steps into rattlesnake nest, survives

Cynthia Johnston & Todd Eastham
Reuters
Fri, 09 Nov 2012 19:26 UTC
Rattlesnakes Nest
© RupertRay/Flickr
A teenage California girl searching for a cell phone signal to call her mother in a rural area outside San Diego inadvertently stepped into a nest of rattlesnakes and was bitten six times, but survived.

The 16-year-old, Vera Oliphant, spent four days in the intensive care unit of Sharp Grossmont Hospital, and doctors gave her 24 vials of antivenom after she was bitten by an adult rattlesnake and five young rattlers outside her uncle's home.

"I was trying to find a signal to call my mom and text my boyfriend," Oliphant said on Friday, a day after she was released from the hospital following the October 27 incident.

"I didn't see them until I already stepped on their nest and I felt them biting me."

"My vision started to go right away. First it looked like the snakes blended into the leaves and then I started seeing black spots around the edges and I started blacking out."

She returned to her uncle's home in Jamul, outside San Diego, and he immediately packed her into the car and rushed her to the emergency room, she said.
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People

Sandy refugees say life in tent city feels like prison

Michelle Conlin
Reuters
Sat, 10 Nov 2012 12:40 UTC
Oceanport, New Jersey
© Michelle Conlin/Reuters
Oceanport, New Jersey - It is hard to sleep at night inside the tent city at Oceanport, New Jersey. A few hundred Superstorm Sandy refugees have been living here since Wednesday - a muddy camp that is a sprawling anomaly amidst Mercedes Benz dealerships and country clubs in this town near the state's devastated coastal region.

Inside the giant billowy white tents, the massive klieg lights glare down from the ceiling all night long. The air is loud with the buzz of generators pumping out power. The post-storm housing - a refugee camp on the grounds of the Monmouth Park racetrack - is in lockdown, with security guards at every door, including the showers.

No one is allowed to go anywhere without showing their I.D. Even to use the bathroom, "you have to show your badge," said Amber Decamp, a 22-year-old whose rental was washed away in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

The mini city has no cigarettes, no books, no magazines, no board games, no TVs, and no newspapers or radios. On Friday night, in front of the mess hall, which was serving fried chicken and out-of-the-box, just-add-water potatoes, a child was dancing and dancing - to nothing. "We're starting to lose it," said Decamp. "But we have nowhere else to go."
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