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Bizarro Earth

Bangladesh: Girl, 14, Lashed to Death after Rape by 40-year-old Cousin


The Daily Star
Thu, 03 Feb 2011 00:00 UTC
HC gives Shariatpur admin 15 days to tell why it could not save life of 14-year-old rape victim

The High Court yesterday ordered district officials in Shariatpur to explain why they failed to protect 14-year-old rape victim Hena from being whipped to death as per a fatwa on Monday.

The deputy commissioner, the superintendent of police of Shariatpur and the thana nirbahi officer of Naria upazila -- where the incident took place--will have to report to the HC in 15 days how it happened although the court (HC) had eight months ago declared fatwa illegal and a punishable offence.

In a suo moto rule, the HC directed them also to report what steps they have taken in this regard.

An HC bench comprised of Justice AHM Shamsuddin Chowdhury Manik and Justice Sheikh Md Zakir Hossain issued the rule following press reports on the killing of Hena.

The reports said Hena was raped by her 40-year-old relative Mahbub on Sunday. Next day, a fatwa was announced at a village arbitration that she must be given 100 lashes. She fell unconscious after nearly 80 lashes.

Fatally injured Hena was rushed to Naria health complex where she succumbed to her injuries.

Supreme Court lawyer Seema Zahur yesterday placed before the HC bench a press report on the incident on behalf of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association.
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Attention

US: 85,000 Chickens Killed After Snow Causes Roof Collapse


CBS News
Thu, 03 Feb 2011 06:32 UTC
chicken
© unknown
Connecticut's agriculture commissioner says the collapse of a chicken coop due to heavy snow has killed 85,000 chickens.

Commissioner Steven Reviczky said Thursday the incident at Kofkoff Egg Farm in Bozrah occurred Jan. 27 and the number of chickens killed was reported to the state recently. He says the dead birds were incinerated.

It was not immediately clear how much KofKoff farm lost from the incident. Its officials did not immediately return a call for comment.
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Bandaid

At least 6 people injured when ice, snow fall from Cowboys Stadium roof

Schuyler Dixon
The Associated Press
Fri, 04 Feb 2011 20:17 UTC
Cowboys Stadium
© Associated Press /Charlie RiedelSnow falls off the roof of Cowboys Stadium, the site of NFL football Super Bowl XLV Feb. 4, 2011, in Arlington, Texas. Earlier 6 people were hurt from ice falling off the roof.
Hard ice and heavy snow slid off Cowboys Stadium's domed roof Friday, injuring at least six private contractors hired to prepare the venue for the Super Bowl, authorities said.

One man was struck in the head and another was hit in the shoulder, said Arlington Fire Department spokesman Pete Arevalo. They were in stable condition Friday afternoon. The other four injuries were considered minor.

Emergency personnel responded about 1 p.m. to reports of snow and ice sliding off the southern end of the sprawling stadium where the group was working, Arevalo said.

Food service worker Doug McCracken said he and a friend pulled up to the area just in time to see what looked like snow flurries blowing off the building. Wonder turned to shock when he realized someone had been hit.

"What we saw was hard ice. It shattered, it was everywhere," McCracken said. "We thought maybe it was snow at first but it was ice. Hard ice."

The United States National Weather Service had issued a winter storm warning Friday for Arlington, home of the US$1.3 billion stadium where the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers will play this weekend for the NFL title.
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Penis Pump

Berlusconi: Mubarak is a wise man


Al Jazeera
Fri, 04 Feb 2011 15:45 UTC
Image
Wise Guys
Italy's PM says he hopes there can be a transition to democracy in Egypt without a "break" from the president.

Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, has described Egypt's president as a "wise man" and called for continuity in the country's government.

"I hope that in Egypt there can be a transition toward a more democratic system without a break from president [Hosni] Mubarak, who in the West, above all in the United States, is considered the wisest of men and a precise reference point," he said.

"I hope there can be continuity in government," he told reporters on Friday.

His comments came as hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy protesters continued to rally in Tahrir Square, central Cairo, and in Alexandria, Egypt's second city, calling for Mubarak to stand down.

However, the Italian leader's aides said Berlusconi did not mean Mubarak should remain in office, rather that he "would like to see someone like Mubarak at the head of the country".
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Pills

Man claims Glaxo drug made him 'gay sex addict'


Agence France-Presse
Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:20 UTC
glaxo smith kline
© AFP

Nantes, France - A French father-of-two is to take GlaxoSmithKline to court on Tuesday, alleging the British firm's drug to treat Parkinson's disease turned him into a gay sex and gambling addict.

The 51-year-old's lawyers say their client's behaviour changed radically after he was first administered the drug in 2003 for the illness, which causes tremors, slows movement and disrupts speech.

Didier Jambart, a married father-of-two who says he has attempted suicide three times, claims he became addicted to Internet gambling, losing the family's savings and stealing to feed his habit.

He also became a compulsive gay sex addict and began exposing himself on the Internet and cross-dressing. His risky sexual encounters led to him being raped, his lawyers said.
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Cow

Unsinkable Molly B - Cow That Escaped Slaughterhouse Has New Adventure

Matthew Brown
Associated Press
Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:56 UTC
molly b
© AP Photo/Great Falls Tribune, Rion SandersThis Jan. 9, 2006 photo shows Famous bovine Molly B. at Mickey's Packing Plant after escaping the slaughter house and leading authorities on a chase through Great Falls, Mont. Five years after a cow dubbed the 'Unsinkable Molly B' leapt a slaughterhouse gate and swam across the Missouri River in an escape that brought international acclaim, the heifer has again eluded fate, surviving the collapse of the animal sanctuary where she was meant to retire.

Billings, Montana - Five years after a cow dubbed the "Unsinkable Molly B" leapt a slaughterhouse gate and swam across the Missouri River in an escape that drew international attention, the heifer has again eluded fate, surviving the collapse of the animal sanctuary where she was meant to retire.

Molly B was among an estimated 1,200 animals removed from the Montana Large Animal Sanctuary and Rescue in recent weeks as part of a massive effort to bail out its overwhelmed owners.

Animal welfare groups said they were forced to euthanize dozens of starving and ill cattle, horses and llamas found on the 400-acre sanctuary in rural Sanders County.

Comment: Cow Escapes Meat Plant, Dodges Cars, Train (Molly B)

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Igloo

Boston Toxic Snow Party: Cities Struggle to Clear Snow Piles

Jay Lindsay
Salon / Associated Press
Fri, 04 Feb 2011 13:31 UTC
snow NYC
© APA man helps an elderly woman cross a snow-covered street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Imagine the East Coast's largest cities mixing a brew of salt, motor oil, trash and grocery carts and dumping it into rivers and harbors.

It's allowed in emergency situations, and some officials staring at massive snow mountains in densely populated areas of the winter-walloped Northeast say that time is now, even as others warn dumping snow in water comes with big problems.

"There's a lot of stuff in this snow that if I isolated it and threw it in the river, you'd have me arrested," said John Lipscomb of the New York-based environmental group Riverkeeper.

Snow from the East Coast's insistent winter is being plowed into banks that are narrowing up roads and highway ramps like hardening arteries, blocking drivers' sight lines, and forcing schoolchildren to break paths like cattle down buried sidewalks. In a normal winter, the snow melts on a good day or is carted off to designated dumps where it eventually filters its pollutants through the earth or is treated before ending up in sewers.

This is not a normal winter. Many East Coast cities, including Boston, Hartford, Conn., and New York are on their way to setting seasonal snowfall records, and the extra snow means extra road salt and human refuse that gets swept up by plows.
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Family

We Are All Egyptians Now

Dennis Rahkonen
Dissident Voice
Fri, 04 Feb 2011 12:17 UTC
Egypt protest
© unknown
The powerfully inspirational uprising of impassioned, freedom-seeking masses in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, Port Said and other Egyptian locales has captured the world's imagination, and hearts, to a historically unprecedented degree.

Is there a decent, fair-minded person on this planet who doesn't extend immense solidarity toward those brave souls standing their ground in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, in the face of the most cruelly brutal violence that dictator Hosni Mubarak's mercenary thugs can sadistically muster?

As of this writing, Egypt's titanic battle between the forces of rectitude and evil, light and darkness, liberty and despotism - between a wretched past and bright possibilities tomorrow - is still very much in doubt.

We would like to believe, of course, that the good guys (plus women and children) will soon win.

But humanity's annals are stained with the blood of countless causes, plainly righteous and so seemingly certain of quick victory, that were cut to shreds by monarchs, tyrants, imperialists, pious believers in this religion or that, etc., who unleashed decimating barbarism to crush challenges to their diabolical rule.
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Red Flag

World Food Crisis Looms as Prices Soar to Record High

Philip Haddon
Citywire, UK
Fri, 04 Feb 2011 12:05 UTC
crop
© n/a
World food prices surged to an all time high last month on the back of extreme weather conditions and unrest in the Middle East.

The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Food Price index rose for the seventh month in a row. It now stands at 231, well above the last record high of 224.1 in June 2008 and the highest since records began in 1990.

And there was a stark warning from the FAO that these high prices will remain high for some time.

Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist at the organisation, said: 'The new figures clearly show that the upward pressure on world food prices is not abating. These high prices are likely to persist in the months to come.'

Meanwhile, in an interview with Reuters, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said: 'We are going to be facing a broader trend of increasing commodity prices, including food commodity prices.'
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War Whore

Drugs cloud US troops judgment


Press TV
Fri, 04 Feb 2011 09:35 UTC
Image
Experts believe the growing variety of antipsychotic drugs prescribed for the US combat forces impair the troops' ability to make correct judgments.

The United States Central Command allows troops struggling with sleep deprivation to receive a 6-month supply of Seroquel - a drug first developed to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, mania and depression, according to a report published by AllGov on Sunday.

At least two US troops have died while asleep after having taken large amounts of the medication.

A June 2010 report released by the Defense Department's Pharmacoeconomic Center at Fort Sam Houston revealed that some 20% of the troops on active-duty are taking psychotropic drugs, ranging from antidepressants to antipsychotics to sedative hypnotics.

The consumption of these drugs by active troops can cause "loss of judgment and self-control and lead to increased violence and suicidal impulses" while on the field, experts say.
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