DAR ES SALAAM — A Kenyan man has been sentenced to nine years in prison for trying to sell an albino man to witchdoctors in Tanzania, local media reported Thursday.

A magistrate’s court in northwest Tanzania sentenced 28-year old Nathan Mutei on Wednesday, after he pleaded guilty to charges of human trafficking and abduction with intention to sell an albino man, also Kenyan, for 400 million Tanzanian shillings ($263,000).

At least 53 albinos have been killed since 2007 in the east African nation and their body parts sold for use in witchcraft, especially in the remote northwest regions of Mwanza and Shinyanga, both gold-mining regions where superstition is rife.

The victims’ blood and body parts are used for potions. Witchdoctors tell their clients that the body parts will bring them luck in love, life and business.

There are around 170,000 albino people, who lack pigment in their skin, eyes and hair, living in Tanzania.

“For the offence of human trafficking, you will go prison for nine years, or pay a fine of 80 million shillings. For the second offence, you will go to prison for eight years,” Mwanza resident magistrate Angelous Rumisha was quoted as saying by the privately owned Mwananchi newspaper.

Mutei’s sentences will run simultaneously for each count, meaning that he will spend only nine years in a Tanzanian prison after he failed to pay the fine.

Mwananchi reported that Mutei was arrested on Aug. 16.

A Tanzanian albino group applauded the court’s judgment, but called for tougher punishment for offenders.

“We are happy with the quick conclusion of the trial, because these cases have been dragging on for too long,” Zihada Ali Msembo, secretary general of the Tanzania Albino Society, told Reuters.
Story: Albinos in East Africa fear for lives after killings

“However, we feel that nine years in jail is such a lenient sentence. This man should have been sentenced to life in prison because he knew very well that this poor albino he was trying to sell would have been butchered,” he said.

Tanzania is due to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in October. The Tanzania Albino Society fears there could be a new wave of killings in east Africa’s second largest economy ahead of the vote.

It is common for some politicians to visit witchdoctors during elections in belief that their powers will boost their chances of victory.

“There is talk around the country that the entire albino population could be wiped out by the time the general election is over. We don’t know whether or not to believe these stories, but albinos are now certainly living in fear,” Msembo said.

The killings have soiled Tanzania’s reputation for relative calm in the region and have been condemned by the United Nations and European Union.

In neighboring Burundi, at least 11 albino people have been killed since last year. So far 13 people have been convicted, including one who received a life sentence.

1. World Cup.  Alright, everyone’s got their vuvuzula stuff out of their system by now right?  I mean, this thing has been underway for a while and the competition is heating up.  There are bad ref calls and whatever.  What I just learned is that the United States wants to host the Cup in the future.  Why?  While the US Team is doing fine and dandy, people don’t really care.  They may pretend to care just like they pretend to like classic films like Casablanca when they haven’t ever really seen it.  I’m more than okay letting the world enjoy their World Cup without America feeling like she has to get all into it.

2. Oil Spill. OMFG, is that shit still going on? You know, when I made my first Facebook post about that, it was already two weeks old. Now it’s more than two MONTHS old. Beaches are getting trashed, lives are being devastated, and it’s become quite the nightmare environmental scenario. Worse, the relief wells are still not due to be complete for over another month and you know, I am not all that confident that’ll fix things either. This situation cannot be minimized. It really is THE most important thing in America right now. It practically screams what’s wrong with our government, our industry, and our energy policy what with all the corruption and inaction across the board.

3. Afghan War. A big time general got kicked out because he said lots of negative things about those in charge in an article published in Rolling Stone. First, Rolling Stone still exists? Secondly, I want to know why we’re still in Afghanistan. It ain’t to fight Al Qeada like was originally planned. They’ve moved on to Pakistan. Is it to fight the Taliban? Is it to fight people that only fight us because we’re there fighting them fighting us? I thought I elected Obama to get us out of these wars. Wait, that brings me to…

4. President Obama. He hasn’t closed down Gitmo. He hasn’t brought home our troops. He hasn’t really done a very good job at bringing our economy back. He kept many of the Bush era policies of warrant-less wiretapping and secret prisons. He’s half-assed the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. He’s half-assed nominated liberalish people to the Supreme Court. I’m going to say what many of my liberal friends won’t… he’s not been an effective leader. Yes, I know it’s only been such and such many months. Yes, I know he inherited many problems. But he’s had plenty of time to suck on his own. He completely has bungled the Oil Spill. He continues to not be a good leader in economic policies that reform the way things are done. Handing out cash isn’t a solution. His one big win of Health Care isn’t even really that impressive considering it lacks a Public Option and the implementation of the effects are all way diluted with time. He has squandered a majority in the house and senate and now with mid-term elections looming, under his leadership or lack thereof, there are overwhelming predictions that Republicans (and even more terrifying Tea Party members) are going to be roaring back. Son, I am disappoint.

5. “Later, Skater: On Tour!” Buy your copy for summer reading today. Sales haven’t been great, which is confusing me. I mean, I sold and gave away lots and lots of copies of the original “Later, Skater” The sequel is bigger and better and downloadable for instant gratification for only 5 dollars. FIVE DOLLARS! Get it today to help keep me encouraged about my writing.

One man said he had clients who had captured children and taken their blood and body parts to his shrine, while another confessed to killing at least 70 people including his own son.

The latter has now given up the ritual and is campaigning to stamp it out, according to BBC News.

The African country’s government claimed human sacrifice was on the increase.

According to officials trying to tackle it, the crime is directly linked to rising levels of development and prosperity – and an increasing belief that witchcraft can help people get rich quickly.

During its investigation, to be broadcast on Thursday on Radio 4 and Newsnight, the BBC team witnessed anti-sacrifice campaigners torching the shrine of a witch-doctor in northern Uganda, who agreed to give up the practice.

He said clients came to him in search of wealth.

“They go and capture other people’s children. They bring the heart and the blood directly here to take to the spirits,” he said.

“They bring them in small tins and they place these objects under the tree from which the voices of the spirits are coming.”

The witch doctor, who said he was paid 500,000 Ugandan shillings (around £160) for a consultation, denied any direct involvement in murder or incitement to murder, saying his spirits spoke directly to clients.

Moses Binoga, the assistant police commissioner who is head of the Ugandan anti-human sacrifice and trafficking task force, said there were 26 murders thought to be part of ritual sacrifice last year compared with three cases in 2007.

“We also have about 120 children and adults reported missing whose fate we have not traced,” he added. “From the experience of those whom we recovered, we cannot rule out that they may be victims of human sacrifice.”

Sitting cross-legged on the cushioned floor of a family friend’s house, Mohammed Jawad furrowed his brow and fidgeted nervously as he struggled to explain his extraordinary ordeal over the past seven years.

In December 2002, when he says he was only 12, he was arrested on suspicion of throwing a grenade into a Jeep carrying US special forces soldiers through Kabul, wounding two of them and an interpreter. He was taken first to an airbase north of Kabul, then to the US prison in Guantánamo Bay, where he remained until his release a few days ago after a ruling by a US judge that his confession had been obtained by force.

One of the youngest and most controversial prisoners in Guantánamo, Mr Jawad is now finally a free man after being flown back to Kabul on Monday and reunited with his family and friends.

But after seven years in custody — six of them in Guantánamo — he faces a long struggle to pick up the pieces of his lost childhood and teenage years, and to build a future for himself in a country still at war with the Taleban.

“This is one of the happiest moments in my life — to be back in Afghanistan after all this time,” he told The Times.

“I hadn’t done anything — they took me for nothing. All I could do was hope that one day I’d be free and back home in Afghanistan with my mother.”

When he was reunited with her, she refused initially to believe he was her son because he had changed so much, and fainted in a fit of hysterics, according to a family friend. Only when she came round and checked for a distinctive bump on the back of his head, did she embrace him as her offspring, said Sher Khan Jalalkhil, a close friend of Mr Jawad’s father.

Mr Jawad is not the first Afghan prisoner to be released from the Guantánamo prison. But he is believed to be the youngest — although the Pentagon says that bone scans indicated that he was 18 when sent to Guantánamo in 2003.

He has thus become a cause célèbre for human rights activists … and something of a celebrity in Afghanistan. President Karzai even offered to give him a house in Kabul when he met him on Monday night. The Defence Minister, Abdul Rakhim Wardak, offered to pay for him to study overseas.

When Mr Jawad was arrested, he was living with his mother in Kabul — his father having been killed fighting the Soviets in the 1980s.

“We searched for him for nine months,” said Mr Jalalkhil. “We didn’t know if he had been killed, or kidnapped, or got lost. His mother went crazy.” Finally, a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross visited their house to show them documents proving that Mr Jawad was in Guantánamo.

They were relieved at first to hear he was alive, but then they started to hear reports about conditions there.

Since returning, Mr Jawad has accused his captors of torturing prisoners, depriving them of food and sleep, and insulting Islam and the Koran.

He has described having his hands bound and stretched behind his back, and being forced to eat by bending over and putting his mouth into a plate of food.

Yesterday he was reluctant to go into details, saying that he would describe everything in full at a press conference in Kabul today. “It was a jail and I wasn’t happy there — I didn’t feel very good,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “They threatened me a little. I will tell all of this tomorrow.” Human rights activists say that he was moved around often, and in one seven-day period was subjected to 152 episodes of mistreatment.

Eric Montalzo, his lawyer, says that he was treated like an adult despite his young age. “He has been in a cage for seven years. So it’s very difficult for him,” Mr Montalzo said. “He is a fragile human being and we need to protect him and his interests.”

Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that there should be compensation for prisoners such as Mr Jawad, and no immunity from prosecution for the torture of terror suspects.

Some human rights activists accept the Pentagon’s assertion that Mr Jawad was 16 or 17 when arrested. But they also say that it could take years for him to recover from the trauma of being detained in such a way for so many of his formative years.

Mr Jawad, meanwhile, is making plans to resume his studies — first in Afghanistan, then maybe overseas — and train to become a doctor.

Asked if he would consider studying in the United States, he hesitated and looked to the assembled elders for advice, before answering: “I have not made any plans yet.” As the interview began, the elders had asked him teasingly whether he learnt English in Guantánamo. He said no and spoke only in his native Pashto during the interview.

But when thanked at the end, he smiled shyly and said, with only a slight accent: “No problem.”

A Greek woman set fire to a British man’s genitals at a club after he allegedly made sexual advances on her.

The unidentified woman is being praised by her hometown in Crete for what she did and for also turning herself in to police immediately after the alleged incident. She has been charged with causing bodily injury and endangering private property, according to the Telegraph .

Police said that the incident took place at a club in the Greek resort town of Malia. The British man, who police have also not yet identified, allegedly took off his pants there and waved his genitals at a number of girls. He is then said to have “forcefully fondled” the Greek woman and asked her to hold his genitals.

The woman asked the man to stop harassing her, police said, and when he didn’t, she poured Sabucco, a liquor that resembles Greek ouzo, on his private area.

When the man continued his advances, police said that’s when the woman set fire to his genitals using a lighter.

The man is currently at in a Heraklion, Crete, clinic being treated for second-degree burns to his testicles and penis.

The judge and prosecutor in the case have agreed to set the woman free pending trial, which is an indication that they agreed with her argument of self-defense.

KODINJI, India, Aug X (Reuters Life!) – Walk around Kodinji village and you’ll think that you have double vision.

The village is home to as many as 230 sets of twins. Nobody knows why there are so many twins in the village of 15,000 people, although one local doctor suspects it might be due to the water.

In fact with about 35-45 twins per live birth, this village in North Kerala, India, has four times more twins than normal. Not surprisingly, the village has been dubbed “the twin village.”

The latest official estimates by the Kodinji’s Twins and Kins Association (TAKA), which conducted door-to-door surveys at the start of the year, found that there were 204 sets of twins.

Based on births since the survey was conducted, there are probably now around 230 sets of twins in the village, locals said. That number is set to rise as there are five women pregnant with twins.

“It’s an amazing phenomenon to see a medical marvel occurring in such a localized place where the people are not exposed to any kinds of harmful drugs or harmful chemicals. It’s a virgin village,” said Dr Sribiju, a researcher.

Pathummakutty and Kunhipathutty, 65, are the oldest surviving twins in the village. The youngest are Rifa Ayesha and Ritha Ayesha, born on June 10. Their proud parents already see a slight difference between them as one lies fast asleep, while the other kicks away with a mischievous grin on her face.

Being a twin is not always easy. Pathummakutty, who like many in the village have a single name, recalls how her family struggled financially when she was a child. But she also remember good times such as laughter after yet another mix up with her twin sister.

It is not uncommon to run into an identical twin while walking down the hilly roads of Kodinji and there are many tales of teachers getting mixed up between twin students.

At the local school, 15-year-old Salmabi said teachers often confused her for her twin sister and she was once reprimanded for something that her twin did.

“It happens all the time,” the students pipe in a chorus.

Scientists are still trying to uncover the mystery of why there are so many twins in the village.

“Based on scientific facts, we feel something in the environment is causing this. It could be something in the water,” said a local doctor, M.K. Sribiju.

“All the world over the cause of twins is mainly because of drugs. Everywhere in the Western world, people are exposed to fertility drugs, their food habits, they consume more dairy products. Everywhere the age of marriage is increasing. There are late marriages predisposed to occurrence of twins,” he said.

However in Kodinji, most marriages are between people aged 18 to 20 years old.

“All the factors leading to the occurrence of twinning world wide, we cannot see it here. There is something unknown that is causing this phenomenon,” he said.

The locals also believe it is to do with the water. Kodinji is surrounded by water in the fields and during the monsoon season it becomes inaccessible from heavy rains.

As scientists try to find the reason for the large numbers of twins in the village, the parents are busy trying to tell their children apart. It doesn’t help that many of the twins have similar names and often wear similar clothes.

While parents light-heartedly point out that their twins even seem to fall sick together, not all traits are shared. Identical twins Anu and Abhi prefer different film stars and one of the boys likes to play cricket, while the other prefers kicking a soccer ball.

With all the attention being showered on the twins of Kodinji, Ajmer, a 12-year-old school boy, feels like the odd one out in a village where being a twin is trendy.

A Southern California teenager has serious bragging rights: After docking back in his home state late Thursday morning, Zac Sunderland, 17, can claim to be the youngest person to sail around the world alone.

Sunderland was greeted with thunderous applause and congratulations as he arrived at Marina del Rey in his 36-foot sailboat.

“It’s kind of crazy to have it done now because, I mean, for the past year I’ve been just fighting for the next ocean, fighting to get back. And now I’m back so it’s amazing,” he said.

The teen acknowledged the 27,500-mile voyage wasn’t easy. He told CNN that pirates off the coast of Indonesia gave him quite a scare.

“[I] had a boat circle in and ended up calling in the coast watch and they chased them off but, yeah, [I] lucked out there! About an hour and a half of hell.”

Severe storms also were a problem, he said.

Sunderland’s Web site says he bought the boat with his own money.

His parents had hoped he would find something that would spark a fire in him, a passion that would direct him away from all the negative and harmful influences that are so prevalent in society, but even they were stunned by the scope of his dreams and desires, it says. Video Watch Sunderland give advice to fellow teens »

He was 16 when he left Marina del Rey on June 14, 2008, aboard his boat, Intrepid. Solitude and exhaustion were just a couple of factors that faced him each day.

“The hardest constantly was the tiredness,” he said. “I mean, you get over the loneliness, but tiredness, it’s an ongoing thing. Half the time I haven’t slept in 48 hours and it’s just hard to get enough rest.”

Sunderland said he made some good contacts along the way.

“It’s interesting just thinking back to the different places in the world because I have so many friends in different parts of the world that are like family, you know, and all these different experiences,” he said.
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“It’s an amazing year. It seems like yesterday that I was here but in other ways it seems like a hundred years.”

So what’s next? “Yeah, I don’t know, just go chill with my friends,” he said. “Go skate. Go do something normal for a change, you know.”

JERUSALEM — An Israeli woman mistakenly threw out a mattress she said had almost $1 million inside, setting off a frantic search through tons of garbage at a number of landfill sites on Wednesday. The woman told The Associated Press that she bought her elderly mother a new mattress as a surprise present on Monday — and threw out the old one.

The next day, she said, she remembered that she had hidden her life savings inside the old mattress. “I woke up in the morning screaming, when it hit me what happened,” said the Tel Aviv woman, who asked not to be identified.

She went to look for the mattress, but it had already been hauled away by garbage collectors, she said. Searches at three different landfill sites turned up nothing.

She said the money was in U.S. dollars and Israeli shekels. She refused to say how she acquired such a large sum. “It was all my money in the world,” she said. There was no way to verify her claims, and she refused to disclose key details.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said he was not familiar with the case and no report had been filed.

The Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot published a picture of the woman searching through garbage at a dump in southern Israel. The picture shows the woman, dressed in a white top and black pants with her back to the camera, picking through a huge pile of trash that fills the frame about 10 feet (3 meters) in all directions.

Yitzhak Borba, the dump manager, told Army Radio that his staff was helping the woman, saying she appeared “totally desperate.” He said the mattress was hard to find among the 2,500 tons of garbage that arrives at the site every day.

He said he increased security at the site to keep would-be treasure hunters away.

The woman said the money had been stashed in a mattress because she had had “traumatic experiences with banks” in the past. She would not elaborate.

HAVANA — Cuba will reinstate sex-change operations previously banned on the island, President Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela said Wednesday.

The Health Ministry authorized the operations last year, but none has been performed since. It was unclear when the surgeries would begin.

Mariela Castro, a sexologist and gay-rights advocate, announced the return of sex-change procedures in comments aired on state television. She runs the Center for Sex Education, which prepares transsexuals for sex-change operations and has identified 19 transsexuals it deems ready to undergo the procedure.

Castro also said she backs efforts to allow lesbians to be artificially inseminated, a procedure currently barred.

The first successful sex-change operation was performed on the island in 1988, but subsequent procedures were prohibited, Mariela Castro told an international congress on assisted reproduction meeting in Havana.

Some Cubans protested the decision last year to allow the operations, either because of general opposition to the procedure or for its high costs for a developing country with economic problems.

The government would bear the cost of the operations because Cuba has a universal health care system.

Well here we are: 2009. The subject I think on everyone’s mind is okane. Known to us Americans as “The Shit We Don’t Have Right Now.”

As the United States helped lead the Entire Fucking World into a global recession, I think it’s time to refocus on our budgets and start piling up the cash. I know personally I’m not that great on the subject, but I’ll try and whip it into shape.

Other New Year’s resolutions for myself are as follows:

Lessen my smoking habit. Note: I’ve made quitting attempts before and I’m not asking that of myself this time. But returning to less and less is a favorable option at this juncture.

Dance more, drink less. Alot of my money goes to having a good time at Heretic. Why not go back to the way it used to be and still go and have a good time but dance more. This will not only help my money situation, but also my health as I’ll be moving my groove thing. I may also find this helps me jiggy in other situations as I used to. Read: Have some fucking sex.

Not cut my hair. This one is kind of the easiest, of course. But other than trims, I’m going to strive to not cut my already lengthy hair in 2009. Just call me Sampson.

Feel free to post your New Years Resolutions on this post, or boast about how you achieved your goals from last year. Happy New Year.

After weeks of preparations for the largest sex event of its kind in Israel, organizers were forced to cancel it this week due to public pressure and threats exerted on the owner of the venue where the sex fest was to take place.

The event in question, which was scheduled to take place on “International Orgasm Day,” aimed to bring together some 250 participants seeking to promote world peace through multiple orgasms reached by masturbation or sex.

The orgy was organized by the Raelian movement, a UFO religion whose followers believe humankind was created by aliens. The group’s spokesman, Kobi Drori, said that the orgy was meant to include straights, gays, lesbians and bisexuals, all of them over 18.

“The purpose of the event was to try and bring world peace through mass orgasm, this by experiencing consensual sex and natural, uninterrupted pleasure. It was important to make love without feeling guilty or shy,” he explained.

Drori protested the fact that nowadays the words “war,” “violence” and “murder” have become more legitimate than “sex,” “orgasm” and “pleasure.”

“It should be the other way around. Several years ago an Iraqi boy whose limbs were amputated was shown on TV and everybody treated this as if it was okay, but when Janet Jackson exposed her breast during the Superbowl the American nation was appalled.

“We wanted to put into practice the saying ‘make love, not war’.”

‘Society based on self-fulfillment’
According to Drori, the orgy was just the first in a series of events dedicated to promoting this objective. On January 22 the movement will hold a conference on sexuality and masturbation with experts and writers in the field.

He also vowed that the cancelation of this year’s orgy would not deter the Raelians from setting up another sex fest next year.

The Raelian movement has several hundreds followers in Israel and some 70,000 members worldwide.

“We don’t believe in demons, ghosts and gods,” said Drori. “The group’s primary goal is to inform humanity, without attempting to persuade, regarding scientific messages that deal with the origins of life on earth.

“The second goal is to expedite the establishment of a society based on the principles of non-violence, solidarity, self-fulfillment and pleasure. To establish one global currency, one global government and harness science to the service of humanity, and not against humanity,” he concluded.

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict said Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

The Church “should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed,” the pontiff said in a holiday address to the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration.

“The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less.”

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality “a deviation, an irregularity, a wound.”

The pope said humanity needed to “listen to the language of creation” to understand the intended roles of man and woman. He compared behavior beyond traditional heterosexual relations as “a destruction of God’s work.”

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. General Assembly split over the issue of gay rights on Thursday after a European-drafted statement calling for decriminalization of homosexuality prompted an Arab-backed one opposing it.

Diplomats said a joint statement initiated by France and the Netherlands gathered 66 signatures in the 192-nation assembly after it was read out by Argentina at a plenary session. A rival statement, read out by Syria, gathered some 60.

The two statements remained open for further signatures, the diplomats said. No resolution was drafted on the issue and there was no voting, they added.

The division in the General Assembly reflected conflicting laws in the world at large. According to sponsors of the Franco-Dutch text, homosexuality is illegal in 77 countries, seven of which punish it by death.

The European Union-backed document, noting that the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was marked this month, said those rights applied equally to all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

It urged states “to take all the necessary measures, in particular legislative or administrative, to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention.”

But the opposing document said the statement “delves into matters which fall essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of states” and could lead to “the social normalization, and possibly the legitimization, of many deplorable acts including pedophilia.”

“We note with concern the attempts to create ‘new rights’ or ‘new standards,’ by misinterpreting the Universal Declaration and international treaties to include such notions that were never articulated nor agreed by the general membership,” it added.

This, it said, could “seriously jeopardize the entire international human rights framework.”

Muslim countries have for years opposed international attempts to legalize homosexuality.

U.S. officials said the United States had not signed either document. They said the broad framing of the language in the statement supporting decriminalization created conflicts with U.S. law, but gave no further details.

But Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen told reporters it was a “very special day at the U.N.”

“For the first time in history a large group of member states speaks out in the General Assembly against discrimination based on sexual orientation,” he said. “With today’s statement, this is no longer a taboo within the U.N.”

Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari told reporters sponsors of the statement had “cornered” other members by springing the declaration on them.

I was gonna snap some pix of me showing how to put on a condom, but then I realized then everyone would see something they may not wanna see. So instead, I’m just gonna tell all you bitches and hoes out there who are having sex all the fucking time (you know who you are) to wear a goddamn condom so that the people like me who only have sex a few times every coupla months who also should wear a goddamn condom won’t feel so damn bad.

And you know, all you people in relationships… you should contemplate doing it as well. The whole goddamn condom part, I mean. Cause you never know. I mean, while I’m all for trust and crap, I’m definately more for having a clean bill of health no matter what.

So there you go, you got your lecture on wearing condoms. Now go out there and put it into action.

PATNA, India – A teenage Indian boy was thrashed, paraded through the streets with his head shaved and then thrown under a train for daring to write a love letter to a girl from a different caste, police said Thursday.

Manish Kumar, 15, was kidnapped by members of the rival caste on his way to school and was killed as his mother begged for mercy, police in the impoverished eastern state of Bihar said.

One man has been arrested and a policeman suspended.

The victim’s mother, Lalit Devi, told police she had watched “helplessly” as the wheels of the train passed over her son.

“The accused persons killed the boy for writing a love letter to the girl of the same village,” superintendent of police in Kaimur district, Rajesh Kumar, told Reuters by telephone.

Police said the girl belonged to a washerman community, considered a lower caste, whereas the boy came from the slightly higher dairymen Yadav community.

Love across caste lines is often violently opposed, especially in rural northern India, and it is not uncommon for outraged families to kill to “save the family honor.”

CANBERRA (Reuters) – An Australian holiday resort will hold a month-long, nude “anything goes” party to combat an expected economic downturn, media reports said on Thursday.

“Tough economic times call for stiff measures,” Tony Fox, the owner of the White Cockatoo resort in Mossman, in tropical Queensland state, told the Courier-Mail newspaper.

“It will be a hedonism resort, where anything goes for a month. It doesn’t take rocket science to work out what it means,” Fox said, naming March as the risque party month.

The controversial “clothes optional” resort made headlines three years ago when police were called to end partner-swapping parties after a swathe of public complaints.

“You’ve got to wonder what sort of people go and why. Where is the moral code of behavior and how do you stop jealousies and fights?” Cairns Catholic Bishop James Foley said after Fox’s announcement.

But local regional Mayor Val Schier said she was not opposed to the event as long as no laws were broken.

“People in tropical north Queensland are extraordinarily creative,” Schier said. “It is tough economic times and as long as it is with consenting adults, then there is no problem.”

Australia’s tourism in industry is being hit hard by global economic turmoil with official figures showing a 7.6 percent decline in overseas visitors in September.

Industry leaders expect holiday bookings may drop by up to a third in early 2009 and are planning a new international advertising campaign to coincide with the movie “Australia” starring Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman.

Fox said his resort was almost fully booked for the month-long rainforest party.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – The death toll in the collapse of a ramshackle school in Haiti rose above 90 on Saturday after rescue workers uncovered a room full of dead, many of them children, officials said.

Civil protection service head Alta Jean-Baptiste said there were 84 people confirmed dead and 150 injured as of noon. Another civil protection official, Michel Joseph Jr., said he had seen eight more bodies, bringing the count to 92.

“We haven’t been able to get them out yet,” Joseph said as rescue workers arrived from the United States and the French Caribbean island of Martinique to help the ill-equipped and impoverished country and U.N. peacekeepers posted there search for survivors.

Officials said 700 children were enrolled at the three-story La Promesse school, but it was not known how many were in the building when it caved in on Friday while class was in session.

Rescuers worked frantically at the school site on the outskirts of Port-of Prince, the Haitian capital, bringing in a crane to lift blocks of concrete. Firefighters from Virginia and rescue workers from Martinique brought sniffer dogs. The search was set to continue for a second night.

President Rene Preval said the church school had been built with hardly any structural steel or cement to hold its concrete blocks together. Debris crushed neighboring residences in the Nerettes community.

The owner of the school and church, Protestant minister Fortin Augustin, was arrested.

“He told me he built the building all by himself. He said he didn’t need an engineer because he had good knowledge of construction,” said prosecutor Joseph Manes Louis, adding that Augustin stated he had once worked on construction sites as a foreman.

Preval, who was at the scene on Saturday, said searchers dropped water and biscuits through gaps in the rubble overnight to children and focused their efforts on reaching them.

“Last night we were sure there were still seven children alive. We got one of them but we have lost all signs of the other six being alive,” Preval said. “Some say they might be sleeping. Others believe they have died.”

As Preval spoke, a rescue worker told him a room full of new victims, mostly students, had been discovered. Officials later said at least 21 bodies were in the room.

At least 35 students, 13 girls and 22 boys, were pulled from the rubble alive overnight.

Two of Chimene Rene’s children were found alive, but two sons, Stevenson Casamajor, 13, and Jeff Casamajor, 15, were still missing.

“We’ve been everywhere. We’ve been to the hospital, we’ve been everywhere looking for them,” she said. “It seems there is no more hope now because it seems that nobody will come out alive from the rubble.”

Crowds of screaming and crying parents searched for their children in the ruins, and roads around the school were so jammed with people that some rescuers had to be brought in by helicopter.

A rescue worker said the dead included an entire philosophy class with the exception of one girl who was alive because she had asked for permission to leave to use the bathroom just before the collapse.

“It is a tragedy, particularly when it involves children,” U.N. mission chief Hedi Annabi said. “I share their sorrow and express my profound sympathy to the relatives of the victims.”

THE Muslim wedding of a seven-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl has been raided by police.

Cops arrested the Muslim cleric conducting the sick ceremony and the children’s parents in Pakistan’s largest city.

The cleric had not yet begun the ceremony of Mohammad Waseem, seven, and his bride Nishain Karachi, five – which was attended by 100 guests.

Pakistan law forbids marriage below the age of 18 – but some Muslim scholars say it is permissible if the bride and groom have reached puberty.

TV footage showed both children in traditional wedding clothes in the laps of policemen after the raid – the girl with tears running down her cheeks.

The parents said the wedding had been arranged to end an eight-year feud between the two families, according to a report on Express News TV.

Mr Mazhar said he had heard about similar cases in rural areas but “it is shocking to have this right in the centre of the city.”

The parents are due to appear in court tomorrow.

A Pakistan Human Rights Commission official Hina Gillani said the maximum possible punishment for the parents was one month in jail and fine of just over $10

HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam is considering banning small-chested drivers from its roads — a proposal that has provoked widespread disbelief in this nation of slight people.

The Ministry of Health recently recommended that people whose chests measure fewer than 28 inches would be prohibited from driving motorbikes — as would those who are too short or too thin.

The proposal is part of an exhaustive list of new criteria the ministry has come up with to ensure that Vietnam’s drivers are in good health. As news of the plan hit the media this week, Vietnamese expressed incredulity.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Tran Thi Phuong, 38, a Hanoi insurance agent. “It’s absurd.”

“The new proposals are very funny, but many Vietnamese people could become the victim of this joke,” said Le Quang Minh, 31, a Hanoi stockbroker. “Many Vietnamese women have small chests. I have many friends who won’t meet these criteria.”

It was unclear how the ministry established its size guidelines or why it believes that small people make bad drivers. An official there declined to comment.

The average Vietnamese man is 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 121 pounds. The average Vietnamese woman is 5 feet, 1 inch tall and weighs 103 pounds.

Statistics on average chest size were unavailable.

The draft, which must be approved by the central government to become law, would also prohibit people from driving motorbikes if they suffer from array of health conditions like enlarged livers or sinusitis. The rules would cover the vast majority of Vietnam’s 20 million motorbikes. It would not apply to drivers of cars or trucks.

Motorbikes account for more than 90 percent of the vehicles on Vietnam’s chaotic roads, which are among the world’s most dangerous.

Nearly 13,000 road deaths were recorded last year, and Vietnam has one of the world’s highest rates per 100,000, according to the World Health Organization. The majority of accidents involve motorbikes, which many workers in the nation of 85 million need to do their jobs.

When Nguyen Van Tai, a motorbike taxi driver, heard about the proposal, he immediately had his chest measured. Much to his relief, Tai beat the chest limit by 3 inches.

“A lot of people in my home village are small,” said Tai, 46. “Many in my generation were poor and suffered from malnutrition. And now the Ministry of Health wants to stop us from driving to work.”

Vietnamese bloggers have been poking fun at the plan, envisioning traffic police with tape measures eagerly pulling over female drivers to measure their chests.

“From now on, padded bras will be best-sellers,” said Bo Cu Hung, a popular Ho Chi Minh City blogger.

Newspapers were inundated with letters on Tuesday from concerned readers who worried that they wouldn’t measure up.

“I’m not heavy enough, what am I going to do?” Le Thu Huong asked in a letter to the Tuoi Tre newspaper. “And what about people whose chests are small? Most of them are too poor to afford breast implants!”

KAUHAJOKI, Finland (AP) – A masked gunman whose violent YouTube postings prompted police to question him a day ago opened fire Tuesday at his trade school in western Finland, killing ten people before shooting himself in the head.

Witnesses said panic broke out as the gunman, dressed in black and carrying a large bag, entered the school in Kauhajoki and started firing in a classroom where students were taking an exam. The shootings began just before 11 a.m. local time (0800GMT), as about 150 students were at the Kauhajoki School of Hospitality, 180 miles (300 kilometers) northwest of Helsinki.

“I heard several dozen rounds of shots, in other words it was an automatic pistol,” school janitor Jukka Forsberg told Finnish broadcaster YLE. “I saw some female students who were wailing and moaning and one managed to escape out the back door.”

The gunman had been questioned only Monday by police about YouTube postings in which he is seen firing a handgun, but he was released because there was no legal reason to hold him, Interior Minister Anne Holmlund said.

Police spokesman Jari Neulaniemi said the attacker walked into the school armed with a .22-caliber pistol and some kind of explosive devices that were used to start a fire. He killed 10 people, some of whom were burned beyond recognition, Neulaniemi said. The big bag apparently contained the explosives.

It was Finland’s second school massacre in less than a year and the two attacks had eerie similarities. Both gunmen posted violent clips on YouTube prior to the massacres, both were fascinated by the 1999 Columbine school shootings in Colorado, both attacked their own schools and both died after shooting themselves in the head.

Harry Potter maker Warner Bros is suing an Indian film company over the title of upcoming film Hari Puttar – A Comedy Of Terrors, according to reports.

Warner Bros feels the name is too similar to that of its world famous young wizard, according to trade paper The Hollywood Reporter.

A spokesman confirmed the lawsuit against Mumbai-based Mirchi Movies.

The case is reportedly due to be heard in Bombay High Court later. The film is due to open in India on 12 September.

“We have recently commenced proceedings against parties involved in the production and distribution of a movie entitled Hari Puttar,” Warner Bros spokeswoman Deborah Lincoln told The Hollywood Reporter.

“Warner Bros values and protects intellectual property rights.

“However, it is our policy not to discuss publicly the details of any ongoing litigation.”

Hari is a popular Indian name while Puttar means son in Punjabi.

Hari Puttar, directed by Rajesh Bajaj and Lucky Kohli, stars Zain Khan as Hari alongside veteran Bollywood actor Jackie Shroff.

It tells the story of a 10-year-old boy who moves to England with his parents and becomes embroiled in a battle over a secret microchip.

Munish Purii, of Mirchi Movies, told The Hollywood Reporter: “We registered the Hari Puttar title in 2005 and it’s unfortunate that Warner has chosen to file a case so close to our film’s release.

“In my opinion, I don’t think our title has any similarity or links with Harry Potter.”

A cellphone ringtone that chants “condom, condom!” has been launched in India to promote safe sex and tackle the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The “condom a cappella” has been designed to break down Indians’ reluctance to discuss condom use and to make wearing a condom more acceptable.

Organisers of the campaign, funded by the foundation set up by Microsoft mogul Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, hope the ringtone will become a craze among young Indians.

About 2.5 million people live with HIV in India, said the BBC World Service Trust, the charity behind the ringtone, which was released this month. It can be downloaded at condomcondom.org.

“Ringtones have become such personal statements that a specially created condom ringtone seemed just the right way of combining a practical message with a fun approach,” said Radharani Mitra, creative director of the BBC World Service Trust.

“The idea is to tackle the inhibitions and taboos that can be associated with condoms.”

India is the world’s fastest-growing mobile telephone market with 270 million users according to the latest official figures, up 57 percent in just one year.

* Today is the last day you can vote in the current Pretty Boy Poll

* Related perhaps, please keep the *chan conversations off the tagboard. I don’t want to gain notoriety with those folks. It would only end poorly for my sites, I’m sure.

* Boku No Sexual Harassment OAV 3 is now available over on shotalicious.org

* Any donations you’d like to make to help me get to DragonCon and/or Anime Weekend Atlanta this year would be much appreciated. Buying a book gets you a book and me 4 bucks so maybe it’s time to finally get your copy?

* Stupid sexy Randy Orton got into a motorcycle accident just after he was cleared medically to return to the WWE and now is out -another- 3-6 months. Damn you Orton!

* I really thought the Opening Ceremony for Beijing’s Olympics were the most beautiful thing ever televised.

* In Soviet Russia, Georgia will become part of you. (By force if necessary, apparently.)

* Happy (belated) Birthday Elf.

* Over on the secret Pico x Chico x Coco Hype site, the AMV for Boku No Pico has been fixed to where it now includes sound. Yeah, it kinda helps to have sound in an anime MUSIC video.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — At least 38 Warao Indians have died in remote villages in Venezuela, and medical experts suspect an outbreak of rabies spread by bites from vampire bats.

Laboratory investigations have yet to confirm the cause, but the symptoms point to rabies, according to two researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and other medical experts.

The two UC Berkeley researchers — the husband-and-wife team of anthropologist Charles Briggs and public health specialist Dr. Clara Mantini-Briggs — said the symptoms include fever, body pains, tingling in the feet followed by progressive paralysis, and an extreme fear of water. Victims tend to have convulsions and grow rigid before death.

Dr. Charles Rupprecht, chief of the rabies program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, agreed with their preliminary diagnosis.

“The history and clinical signs are compatible with rabies,” Rupprecht told The Associated Press on Friday. “Prevention is straightforward: Prevent bites and vaccinate those at risk of bites.”

Venezuelan health officials are investigating the outbreak and plan to distribute mosquito nets to prevent bat bites and send a medical boat to provide treatment in remote villages on the Orinoco River delta, Indigenous Peoples Minister Nicia Maldonado said Thursday, according to the state-run Bolivarian News Agency.

Outbreaks of rabies spread by vampire bats are a problem in various tropical areas of South America, including Brazil and Peru, Rupprecht said.

He said researchers suspect that in some cases environmental degradation — including mining, logging or dam construction projects — may also be contributing to rabies outbreaks.

“Vampire bats are very adaptable,” Rupprecht said. And when their roosts are disrupted or their normal prey grow scarce, “Homo sapiens is a pretty easy meal.”

More study is needed to confirm through blood or other samples from victims that it is the rabies virus in Venezuela, researchers say.

At least 38 Warao Indians have died since June 2007, and at least 16 have died in the past two months, according to a report the Berkeley researchers and indigenous leaders provided to Venezuelan officials this week.

One village, Mukuboina, lost eight of its roughly 80 inhabitants — all of them children, Briggs said. All victims throughout the area died within two to seven days from the onset of symptoms, he said.

During a study trip Briggs and Mantini-Briggs made through 30 villages in the river delta, relatives said the victims had been bitten by bats. The couple have worked among the Warao in Delta Amacuro state for years and were invited by indigenous leaders to study the outbreak.

“It’s a monster illness,” said Tirso Gomez, a Warao traditional healer who said the indigenous group of more than 35,000 people has never experienced anything similar.

Mantini-Briggs, a Venezuelan former health official, said she was surprised to find many Warao villages now have cats — a new development. “The Waraos told us it was because there were too many bats that were biting the children,” she said.

Another tropical medicine expert, Dr. Daniel Bausch of Tulane University in New Orleans, agreed the symptoms and accounts suggest rabies transmitted by bats, and if confirmed, “probably a vaccination campaign would be in order.”

The researchers have begun taking precautions. Mantini-Briggs said she started to wonder about her own health Friday while talking with biologist Omar Linares, a bat expert at Simon Bolivar University.

She remembered there was blood on her sheet after sleeping in a hammock in a Warao village two weeks ago. Initially she had dismissed it as an unimportant insect bite or something else, but she remembered her finger hurting that morning and that she saw two small red dots there.

Confirming it must have been a bat bite, Linares suggested she get rabies shots immediately.

“I’m sure a bat bit me,” she said. “I remembered and said ‘I’m going to get vaccinated.’ “

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – One of the last shipments to a U.S. research base in Antarctica before the onset of winter darkness was a year’s supply of condoms, a New Zealand newspaper reported Monday.

Bill Henriksen, the manager of the McMurdo base station, said nearly 16,500 condoms were delivered last month and would be made available, free of charge, to staff throughout the year to avoid the potential embarrassment of having to buy them.

The base only has a skeleton staff through the long winter.

“Since everybody knows everyone, it becomes a little bit uncomfortable,” Henriksen told the Southland Times newspaper.

About 125 scientists and staff are stationed at McMurdo base, the largest community in Antarctica, during the winter months when there is constant darkness.

The first sunrise will occur on August 20 and McMurdo’s population will start to increase again in September when supply flights resume, peaking at more than 1,000 during the summer period.

MTV Networks Europe has been fined a total of £255,000 ($484,500) by U.K. media regulator Ofcom for “widespread and persistent” breaches of its broadcasting code by four of its channels.

The Viacom-owned operator will have to pay the following penalties: TMF £80,000 ($152,000), MTV France £35,000 ($66,500), MTV UK £80,000 ($152,000) and MTV Hits £60,000 ($114,000).

The “highly offensive language and material” was broadcast before the 9pm family-viewing watershed.

Auds complained about a number of shows. They included: repeated use of the words “motherfucker”, “fuck you” and “fuck” in a music video by Aphex Twin for the song “Windowlicker” on TMF, and racist and homophobic text messages aired by MTV France in “Belge Chat.”

Additionally TMF screened a trailer for the reality skein “Totally Jodie Marsh” on seven occasions between 9.48am and 3.15pm on July 24 last year containing the sentence: “I just don’t want you settling down with some fucking wanker from a modeling agency.”

Other breaches identified by Ofcom included a 4.30pm broadcast of MTV UK show “Totally Boyband” in 2006 featuring “extensive offensive language.”

In a statement the regulator said: “Ofcom concluded that this material was not justified by the context of broadcasts that were likely to appeal to children and that the likely audience would have expected to have been protected from the most offensive language and material in such programming.”

A spokesman for MTV said: “MTV Networks Europe takes this sanction and fine very seriously and has taken a series of steps to minimize as much as possible any breaches in the future.

“These include strengthening procedures regarding programs for pre-watershed broadcast, reviewing MTV’s archive programming, increasing the number of staff involved in compliance and investing in a new channel management system.”

PARIS (AP) — Police say the last section of the Olympic torch relay through Paris will not be run because of chaotic protests.

Security officials snuffed out the torch and rushed it onto a bus at least five times because of the raucous protests against China’s human rights record.

A police spokeswoman says a vehicle now will carry the torch for the entire last part of the route, to a sports stadium in the south of Paris. The French Olympic Committee says it hopes that runners still might be able to carry the torch at the very end.

A Paris police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media, says at least 28 people have been taken into custody at the protests.

Despite massive security, at least two activists got within almost an arm’s length of the flame before they were grabbed by police. Officers tackled many protesters and carried off some of them. A protester threw water at the torch but failed to extinguish it and was also taken away.

At the start of the relay, a man identified as a Green Party activist was grabbed by security officers as he headed for 1997 400-meter world champion Stephane Diagana, the president of France’s national athletics league, who was carrying the torch from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. The man was tackled before he got close to Diagana.

The procession continued but, soon after, a crowd of activists waving Tibetan flags interrupted it for the first time by confronting the torchbearer on a road along the Seine River. The demonstrators did not appear to get close to the torch, but its flame was put out by security officers and brought on board a bus to continue along the route.

Less than an hour later, the flame was being carried out of a Paris traffic tunnel by an athlete in a wheelchair when the procession was halted by activists who booed and chanted “Tibet.” Once again, the torch was temporarily extinguished and put on a bus despite protesters’ apparent failure to get close.

Some 3,000 officers were deployed on motorcycles, in jogging gear and using inline roller skates. Still, police barely stopped the second rush at the torch, and the attempt to extinguish it with water. Other demonstrators scaled the Eiffel Tower and hung a banner depicting the Olympic rings as handcuffs.

The torch was extinguished for the third time when police interrupted the procession as a precaution because they spotted a crowd of demonstrators on a bridge they were approaching.

Police said they did not immediately have a count of the number of arrests. Mireille Ferri, a Green Party official, said she was held by police for two hours because she approached the Eiffel Tower area with a fire extinguisher. In various locations throughout the city, activists angry about China’s human rights record and repression Tibet carried Tibetan flags and waved signs reading “the flame of shame.”

Riot police squirted tear gas to break up a sit-in protest by about 300 pro-Tibet demonstrators who blocked the torch route.

France’s former sports minister, Jean-Francois Lamour, said that though the torch had been put out, the Olympic flame itself still burned in the lantern where it is kept overnight and on airplane flights.

“The torch has been extinguished but the flame is still there,” he told France Info radio.

Police had hoped to prevent the chaos that marred the relay in London a day earlier. There, police had repeatedly scuffled with activists angry about China’s human rights record leading up to the Beijing Olympics Aug. 8-24. One protester tried to grab the torch; another tried to snuff out the flame with what appeared to be a fire extinguisher. Thirty-seven people were arrested.

In Paris, police had drawn up an elaborate plan to try to keep the torch in a safe “bubble.” Torchbearers were encircled by several hundred officers, some in riot police vehicles and on motorcycles, others on skates or on foot. Boats patrolled the Seine River that slices through the French capital, and a helicopter flew overhead.

About 80 athletes had been slated to carry the torch over the 17.4-mile route that started at the Eiffel Tower, heading down the Champs-Elysees avenue toward City Hall, then crosses over the Seine before ending at the Charlety track and field stadium.

Across town, City Hall draped its building with a banner reading, “Paris defends human rights around the world.”

One torch bearer, two-time French judo gold medalist David Douillet, told RTL radio that he regretted the choice of China, “because it isn’t up to snuff on freedom of expression, on total liberty, and of course, on Olympic values.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has left open the possibility of boycotting the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing depending on how the situation evolves in Tibet. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Monday that was still the case.

Activists have been protesting along the torch route since the flame embarked on its 85,000-mile journey from Ancient Olympia in Greece to Beijing.

The torch’s round-the-world trip is the longest in Olympic history, and it is meant to shine a spotlight on China’s economic and political power. Activists have seized upon it as a backdrop for their causes, angering Beijing.

Beijing organizers criticized London’s protesters, saying their actions were a “disgusting” form of sabotage by Tibetan separatists.

“The act of defiance from this small group of people is not popular,” said Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic organizing committee. “It will definitely be criticized by people who love peace and adore the Olympic spirit. Their attempt is doomed to failure.”

The torch relay also is expected to face demonstrations in San Francisco, New Delhi and possibly elsewhere on its 21-stop, six-continent tour before arriving in mainland China May 4.

(Ed note: I’m all for people having an opinion on Tibet and Human Rights in China. They should protest and protest loudly. But to continue to dog the Olympic Torch as it tours through the world is a pathetic display in and of itself. The fact that it turns violent is counter-productive at best and downright shameful and hypocritical at worst. The Olympics is about World Unity. There are much better ways for governments and their people to show disdain for China, like via trade policy. The most peculiar part of all this is, do they really think the Dahli Lama would approve of such actions. Of course not.)

LONDON, Feb. 28 — Prince Harry has been fighting on the front lines in Afghanistan for 10 weeks, his presence there kept secret until Thursday in a remarkable deal between the British military and news media.

British military officials confirmed that Harry, 23, third in line to the British throne, deployed to Afghanistan on Dec. 14 and has been fighting Taliban forces from a forward operating base in southern Helmand province.

News of Harry’s deployment immediately became sensational news here and rekindled an emotional debate about whether the red-haired second son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana should be risking his life in war.

When the news was posted Thursday on the Drudge Report Web site, British newspapers and television stations instantly rolled out extensive special reports on the first British royal to see combat since the Falklands War more than 25 years ago.

Those reports included lengthy taped interviews with Harry just before his deployment in December and last week at his Afghan base. Photos and video showed Harry firing a machine gun, patrolling on foot in full combat gear in an Afghan village and washing his socks in a camp sink.

“All my wishes have come true,” Harry told reporters in last week’s camp interview, wearing a brown military T-shirt and camouflage pants and noting that he had not showered in four days.

“It’s very nice to be sort of a normal person for once; I think it’s about as normal as I’m going to get,” said Harry, now addressed with his rank as Cornet Wales. “It’s much better being here experiencing it rather than hearing all the stories of people coming back.”

Cuban revolutionary icon Fidel Castro announced Tuesday he was stepping aside, ending five decades of ironclad rule marked by his brash defiance of the United States.

Citing poor health, Fidel Castro, 81, said he would not retain the presidency when the national assembly meets later this week, in a message published by the online version of the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma.

“I neither will aspire to, nor will I accept, the position of president of the Council of State and commander-in-chief,” Castro wrote, almost 19 months after undergoing intestinal surgery and handing power temporarily to his brother Raul Castro.

“It would betray my conscience to take up a responsibility that requires mobility and total commitment that I am not in physical condition to offer,” he said.

Castro did not say who he thought should be his successor. Any member of his inner circle is arguably a contender, although many Cuba-watchers believe Raul Castro, who has been serving as interim president, is the leading choice.

However, the elder Castro’s reference in his on-line letter to a “middle generation” suggests that younger leaders such as Vice President Carlos Lage, 56, should not be ruled out.

US President George W. Bush said Tuesday that Fidel Castro’s decision to step down should begin a “democratic transition” in Cuba, eventually culminating with free and fair elections.

“I believe that the change from Fidel Castro ought to begin a period of democratic transition,” said Bush, who signaled no change in a half-century of tough US policies towards America’s one-party neighbor.

In Washington, the US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said there were no plans to end the decades-old US trade embargo on Cuba.

Asked if Washington planned to lift sanctions, he stated: “I don’t imagine that happening anytime soon.”

A Prague brothel has introduced for the first time “reality porn” after unveiling a business model which is making the owners a profitable return.

Anyone can go into the smartly-named “Big Sister” brothel and have sex for free, against one condition… they have to be taped.

Clients enter the brothel and choose which woman they’d like, varying from Asians to redheads, from a touchscreen menu.

The idea is to have clients have free sex and do what they please with the women, taping everything and upload the videos on the internet, which will then be viewed by members-only users who pay monthly fees for access.

Bloomberg news agency interviewed one of the customers of the Prague brothel, 36 year old bank-security technician ‘Nick’.

He told Bloomberg he drove for over eight hours to enjoy the ‘priceless’ fun.

“Sex is no taboo,” Nick says, though he asked that his last name not be used. “You have to free your mind.”

The Czech brothel is simply marrying the latest internet technology with what many view as the oldest profession.

The owners of the business say the innovative idea is becoming more and more popular.

“Our goal is to attract as many people as possible to catch the first reality sex TV,” says marketing manager Carl Borowitz, who goes by the name Carlos. “This is National Geographic for adults. Everyone’s curious to watch their neighbor.”

Visitors to Big Sister start at the electronic menu, which provides each woman’s age, height, working name and the languages she speaks. After a customer makes his selection, a manager makes sure the client signs broadcast release forms, and then the intimate details are arranged with the partner for the evening, Bloomberg reported.

Every move is recorded by more than 50 video cameras mounted everywhere from the toilets to the bed posts.

“It does seem people like all extremes of reality TV,” says Paul Levinson, chairman of communications and media studies at Fordham University in New York, who wasn’t aware of Big Sister.

“As media gets more advanced it gets more real. As much as high-definition has replaced black-and-white, this advancement has also been seen in terms of content.”

A court in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

The 19-year-old woman — whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms — was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for “being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape,” the Arab News reported.

But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia’s Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.

A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.”

Saudi Arabia enforces a strict Islamic doctrine known as Wahhabism and forbids unrelated men and women from associating with each other, bans women from driving and forces them to cover head-to-toe in public.

Last year, the court sentenced six Saudi men to between one and five years in jail for the rape as well as ordering lashes for the victim, a member of the minority Shiite community.

But the woman’s lawyer Abdul Rahman al-Lahem appealed, arguing that the punishments were too lenient in a country where the offence can carry the death penalty.

In the new verdict issued on Wednesday, the Al-Qatif court also toughened the sentences against the six men to between two and nine years in prison.

The case has angered members of Saudi Arabia’s Shiite community. The convicted men are Sunni Muslims, the dominant community in the oil-rich Gulf state.

Lahem, also a human rights activist, told AFP on Wednesday that the court had banned him from handling the rape case and withdrew his licence to practise law because he challenged the verdict.

He said he has also been summoned by the ministry of justice to appear before a disciplinary committee in December.

Lahem said the move might be due to his criticism of some judicial institutions, and “contradicts King Abdullah’s quest to introduce reform, especially in the justice system.”

King Abdullah last month approved a new body of laws regulating the judicial system in Saudi Arabia, which rules on the basis of sharia, or Islamic law.

The A380 may have the world’s first airborne double bed, but it won’t be put to the obvious use if Singapore Airlines has its way: “If couples used our double beds to engage in inappropriate activity, we would politely ask them to desist,” said the company’s Stephen Forshaw. “There are things that are acceptable on an aircraft and things that aren’t, and the rules for behaviour in our double beds are the same ones that apply throughout the aircraft.”

In any case, the plane is as yet unchristened: Tony and Julie Elwood from Perth, Australia had booked the first A380 double suite, but hardly had a moment of privacy for a romantic kiss, let alone anything raunchier, as a parade of journalists came knocking on their door. Even so, they weren’t too impressed with Singapore’s strait-laced attitude. “So they’ll sell you a double bed, and give you privacy and endless champagne — and then say you can’t do what comes naturally?” asked Tony, a vigorous 76. “Seems a bit strange.”

“They seem to have done everything they can to make it romantic, short of bringing round oysters,” said Julie, 51. “I’d say they shouldn’t really complain, should they? Though I don’t think they’ll have anything to worry about from us — the flight is so busy with people coming to see the suites, we wouldn’t have the opportunity.”

Singapore on Tuesday legalised oral and anal sex between heterosexual couples but retained a law which criminalises intercourse between gay men.

In the city-state’s first major penal code amendments in 22 years, parliament repealed a section criminalising “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.”

Parliament however kept the penal code’s section 377A, which makes sex between men a criminal offence, rejecting a petition by gay-rights activists and their non-homosexual supporters to abolish the law as well.

Opponents of the law say it is a relic of British colonial rule. The law punishes offenders with up to two years in jail, although it has rarely been enforced.

Under the just-approved amendments, new offences were enacted to tackle child prostitution and sex tourism as well as cover crimes committed with the use of technology such as the Internet and mobile phone text messaging.

But a rare petition read in parliament to abolish the law banning sex between men sparked the most passionate debates in the normally staid legislature dominated by the ruling People’s Action Party.

Legislators supporting the law’s retention centred their arguments on the need to maintain family and moral values in the conservative Asian society, while proponents appealed for equal treatment of minorities guaranteed by the constitution.

Member of parliament Siew Kum Hong, who supported the petition, said legalising sexual acts between two consenting heterosexual adults while refusing to decriminalise the same acts between homosexual men was discriminatory.

But Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong weighed in for the retention of the law, saying that Singapore remains a conservative society — with the traditional family as its main building bloc — and homosexuals cannot set the tone for the mainstream.

Abolishing the law could “send the wrong signal” and push gay activists to ask for more concessions, such as same-sex marriage and parenting, Lee said.

Gays “are free to lead their lives and pursue their social activities,” the prime minister said, citing the existence of gay websites and gay bars.

“But there are restraints, and we do not approve of them setting the tone of mainstream society,” he said.

“They live their lives, that’s their personal space. But the tone of the overall society, I think, it remains conventional, it remains straight and we want it to remain so.”

Lee said keeping the statute unchanged while not aggressively enforcing it remained the best option.

Singapore would adapt to global economic changes in order to stay competitive, but must take a more cautious approach when it comes to moral values, Lee said.

“We were right to uphold the family unit when Western countries went for experimental lifestyles in the 1960s — the hippies, free love,” he said.

“But I’m glad we did that because today if you look at Western Europe, the marriage as an institution is dead, families have broken down, the majority of children are born out of wedlock and live in families where the father and the mother are not husband and wife living together bringing them up.”

Gay rights activists say the law against homosexual sex affects about 200,000 people in the wealthy island-republic of more than four million.

BERLIN, Oct 17 (Reuters) – Internet users in Egypt, India and Turkey are the world’s most frequent searchers for Web sites using the keyword “sex” on Google search engines, according to statistics provided by Google Inc.

Germany, Mexico and Austria were world’s top three searchers of the word “Hitler” while “Nazi” scored the most hits in Chile, Australia and the United Kingdom, data from 2004 to the present retrievable on the “Google Trends” Web site showed.

Chile also came in first place searching for the word “gay”, followed by Mexico and Colombia.

The top searchers for other keywords were as follows (in order from first to third place):

“Jihad” – Morocco, Indonesia, Pakistan

“Terrorism” – Pakistan, Philippines, Australia

“Hangover” – Ireland, United Kingdom, United States

“Burrito” – United States, Argentina, Canada

“Iraq” – United States, Australia, Canada

“Taliban” – Pakistan, Australia, Canada

“Tom Cruise” – Canada, United States, Australia

“Britney Spears” – Mexico, Venezuela, Canada

“Homosexual” – Philippines, Chile, Venezuela

“Love” – Philippines, Australia, United States

“Botox” – Australia, United States, United Kingdom

“Viagra” – Italy, United Kingdom, Germany

“David Beckham” – Venezuela, United Kingdom, Mexico

“Kate Moss” – Ireland, United Kingdom, Sweden

“Dolly Buster” – Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia

“Car bomb” – Australia, United States, Canada

“Marijuana” – Canada, United States, Australia

“IAEA” – Austria, Pakistan, Iran

Belfast, Ireland — An Ulster father yesterday called for a video Scrabble game to be recalled after discovering the slang word “lesbo” in its anagram section.

Zachary McAdam, from Co Down, was shocked to find the term, which he considers homophobic, included in the Nintendo DS console Junior Scrabble 2007 game.

Mr McAdam, an IT project manager from Holywood, was playing the game with his seven-year-old daughter Ellen, but was forced to stop when the word appeared.

He said: “We were stuck trying to find the last five-letter anagram so I hit the give-up option and the term ‘lesbo’ appeared on the screen. I nearly fell off my chair.

“The term ‘lesbo’ is a slang name intentionally meant to cause offence. I looked it up on the website dictionary.com just to make sure I wasn’t over- reacting and it described the word as a noun, slang, disparaging and offensive.”

Scrabble 2007 is manufactured by French software giant Ubisoft and uses words listed in the Chambers Official Scrabble Dictionary. A Chambers definition for ‘lesbo’ reads: “Derogatory slang short form of lesbian. Although lesbo did not become current until 1940s: previously used by heterosexuals as derisive insults to gay women, though it seems that gay women are now using the words to describe themselves in positive terms.”

In a statement, Ubisoft apologised for any offence caused to Mr McAdam.

It read: “We are sorry if Scrabble 2007 for the DS has caused concern to any of our customers. Ubisoft develops games for entertainment, with the goal of bringing enjoyment to the players, and it is of course never our intention to upset them.

“In the case of Scrabble 2007, the game uses a word list based on the Chambers Official Scrabble Dictionary and all approved words contained in this dictionary are playable in the game. There are over 277,000 approved words in the dictionary.

“The dictionary includes words used in the English language, but that may be considered unusual or offensive. It is for this reason that the game includes a ‘junior’ option which will prevent the player and computer using these ‘unusual’ or ‘offensive’ words in playing. However, ‘lesbo’ is not considered as offensive by the official dictionary and therefore is playable in both options.”

Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association spokesman PA MagLochlainn said: ” I would never use the word. The correct term is lesbian. I am not in the least bit surprised it is included because the young men who design these games are not taught by schools that these words can be used as a form of homophobic bullying.”

(Ed note: Oh lookie, another case where a gay rights group is being over reactionary and stupid.)

Melbourne, Australia — The Education Department has investigated claims a six-year-old student ran a “sex club” at an eastern suburban primary school, involving up to up to half a dozen grade 1 students.

One mother said her son, also six, was asked to perform a sex act, and that the alleged perpetrator also exposed his genitals to students.

Following an investigation, the department has admitted that the student exposed students to sexual conversations and proposed activities, but denied the existence of a “sex club”. The alleged perpetrator received counselling.

The mother has been unable to make a police report because the law states sexual assault by a child under 10 cannot be prosecuted.

“Victims of a perpetrator who is under the age of 10 should still have the same rights as any other victim of a sexual crime,” she said.

The case puts the Brumby Government under pressure to address the problem, barely two months after releasing new procedures guiding parents, teachers and schools on how to respond to allegations of student sexual assault.

The woman is critical of the department’s investigation of sexual assault and bullying in schools and has united with parents from four other state schools to form SWAG, the Student Welfare Action Group.

The group will lobby to have the department’s Student Critical Incident Advisory Unit removed from the department and established as an independent body, such as the ombudsman’s office.

Parents Victoria executive officer Gail McHardy said the case raised concerns about the ability of the current legislation to protect young children. “There’s a whole lot of questions around the children who are under 10. If the police can’t take a statement, then how can they report their incident and then who takes carriage of it?”

Shadow education minister Martin Dixon, who will meet SWAG next month, said that, while he did not think the critical incident unit should be removed from the department, any investigation should be fair and open.

“The culture (in the department) seems to be one of hiding the problem instead of fixing the problem,” he said. There was a “gaping hole” in the regulations, which needed to be re-written.

But consulting psychologist John Cheetham said six-year-olds did not have a developed sense of right and wrong. “They are too young to put themselves into someone else’s shoes,” he said. “We’ve got to be very careful about putting an adult take on it, it’s all about context.”

A department spokeswoman said the school acted appropriately, and “counselling had been offered to the students”.

Jamaica opened shelters nationwide on Saturday and Cuba declared a “state of alert” as the Caribbean’s warm waters fueled a strengthening Hurricane Dean, with forecasters predicting the storm could grow to a powerful Category 5.

Now a Category 4 storm with sustained winds at 150 mph, Dean was expected to pass south of Hispaniola but dump as much as five inches of rain to the two countries on the island — Haiti and the Dominican Republic — which are both prone to devastating floods and mudslides.

As dark clouds rolled in from the south and a light rain began to fall, residents of the Dominican capital, Santo Domingo, calmly ran errands at stores with fully stocked shelves, despite government advisories about heavy rains and possible flooding.

“Nothing’s going to happen here — a lot of water of nothing else,” said Pedro Alvajar, 61, as he sat in a doorway selling lottery tickets.

Dean killed three people and devastated banana and sugar crops a day earlier as it crossed small eastern Caribbean islands. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said its winds could surpass 155 mph as it approaches the Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico on Monday.

By Thursday, there is a chance Dean could threaten the U.S., though it is expected to lose some strength as it travels over the Yucatan.

NASA shortened the last spacewalk for astronauts aboard the shuttle Endeavour and scaled back the mission, to allow the spacecraft to return to Earth on Tuesday — a day early — if the storm appeared to threaten the Houston home of Mission Control.

In Jamaica, which expected to take a direct hit Sunday, tourists including Shante Morgan of Moor Park, Calif., began lining up outside the Montego Bay airport before dawn to book flights out ahead of the storm.

Japan is launching its first study into so-called “Net cafe refugees,” young people who live in all-night lounges and are feared to become a new class of working poor, an official said Wednesday.

Japan’s omnipresent net cafes — equipped with sofas, drinks, computers and comic books — are designed for businessmen who want to slack off for a few hours or for commuters who missed their last trains home.

But Japan has been alarmed by growing reports of young day labourers who are staying in round-the-clock cafes rather than renting and living in apartments.

In the first nationwide study, the government is questioning operators and customers at 3,000 Internet cafes nationwide, said a labour ministry official in charge of employment security.

“Inquiries are being made in cooperation with non-profit organisations to find out their rough number and what their lives are like,” said the official, who declined to be named.

A five-hour stay at an Internet cafe in Tokyo costs about 3,000 yen (25 dollars) with a meal served. Showers are available at 200 yen for 30 minutes and underwear is on sale.

The emergence of such “refugees” has set off alarm bells in a society which used to boast of equality but is now feared to be experiencing a wider rich-poor gap.

Sleeping in net cafes can be problematic “in terms of employment security, hygiene and development of job ability,” said the labour ministry official.

Findings of the investigation are expected to be publicised later this year and used to hammer out assistance measures.

Japan’s opposition, which won a landmark election victory last month, has accused the government of encouraging the rich-poor gap through free-market reforms meant to revive the economy after recession in the 1990s.

Moscow – A Russian region of Ulyanovsk has found a novel way to fight the nation’s birth-rate crisis: It has declared Sept. 12 the Day of Conception and for the third year running is giving couples time off from work to procreate.

The hope is for a brood of babies exactly nine months later on Russia’s national day. Couples who “give birth to a patriot” during the June 12 festivities win money, cars, refrigerators and other prizes.

Ulyanovsk, about 550 miles east of Moscow, has held similar contests since 2005. Since then, the number of competitors, and the number of babies born to them, has been on the rise.

Russia, with one-seventh of Earth’s land surface, has just 141.4 million citizens, making it one of the most sparsely settled countries in the world. With a low birth rate and a high death rate, the population has been shrinking since the early 1990s.

In his state-of-the-nation address last year, President Vladimir Putin called the demographic crisis the most acute problem facing Russia and announced a broad effort to boost Russia’s birth rate, including cash incentives to families that have more than one child.

Ulyanovsk Gov. Sergei Morozov has added an element of fun to the national campaign.

The 2007 grand prize went to Irina and Andrei Kartuzov, who received a UAZ-Patriot, a sport utility vehicle. Other contestants won video cameras, TVs, refrigerators and washing machines.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China is launching an experimental summer camp for 40 youngsters to try to wean them off their Internet addiction, state media said on Tuesday.

The 10-day program would accept youngsters aged between 14 and 22 once they had undergone a psychological test and evaluation, the China Daily said.

About 2.6 million — or 13 percent — of China’s 20 million Internet users under 18 are classed as addicts, state media have reported.

The youngsters at the summer camp would be treated for depression, fear, unwillingness to interact with others, panic and agitation.

It would appear to be offering a softer option than the Internet Addiction Treatment Centre near Beijing which uses a blend of therapy and military drills to treat children addicted to online games, Internet pornography and cybersex.

Concerned by a number of high-profile Internet-related deaths and juvenile crime, the government is now taking steps to stem Internet addictions by banning new Internet cafes and mulling restrictions on violent computer games.

According to government figures, there are currently 113,000 Internet cafes and bars in China.

The newspaper cited the case of one student accepted to East China University of Science and Technology with high marks.

“He could not adjust to Shanghai campus life without burying himself in computer games,” the China Daily said. “He would play day and night, skipping classes and avoiding friends, until he was pulled out of the Internet cafe by a supervisor.”

In a joint effort with the camp, Shanghai’s education commission has organized a volunteer group to patrol the city streets and stop minors entering Internet cafes.

(Ed note: I’m totally an addict to the internet. Maybe I should sign up to go to this Chinese internet addiction camp. Of course, this will do nothing for my other addiction: teenage Chinese boys.)