Battle-weary British troops find comfort in Buddhism
Buddhism is experiencing an extraordinary upswing in popularity in the armed forces. Since 2005, the number of servicemen and women practising the religion has risen from 200 to 3,800. Around 2,800 are Gurkhas, whose home nation Nepal has pockets of Buddhism. But the other 1,000 are British, with many converting since they joined the military.According [...]
Soldier Rohan and dog Spartacus win international award
Sri Lanka Army Sapper D.K.N Rohan and mine detection dog (MDD) Spartacus were honoured with the “Mine Detection Dog Team of the Year” award by U.S.-based international humanitarian organisation Marshall Legacy Institute (MLI). “In the last six months, this incredible team has searched more land than any of the other teams in their unit, finding [...]
Pakistani schoolgirl Malala able to stand
LONDON, Oct 19 (AFP) – Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai has stood up with help for the first time since she was shot in the head by the Taliban but remains seriously ill, doctors treating her at a British hospital said Friday. Malala is unable to talk due to the breathing tube inserted into her windpipe [...]
Iran condemns Lebanon bombing, blames Israel
TEHRAN, Oct 20 (AFP) – Iran condemned a car bombing in Beirut that killed eight people, including a top Lebanese security official, blaming it on arch foe Israel. Tehran condemned “the terrorist blast which was carried out by those who aim to create division between different Lebanese groups that never serves the interests of Lebanon,” [...]
Myanmar state media to change tune
YANGON, Oct 20 (AFP) -Myanmar’s state newspapers, long mouthpieces of the country’s former junta and army hardliners, signalled a historic change in focus on Saturday, announcing a plan to transform into “public service media”. Three state-owned dailies — the English language New Light of Myanmar, its Burmese edition Myanma Alin and Kyemon (The Mirror) — [...]
Rolling Stones reach golden milestone
LONDON (AFP) – The Rolling Stones will rock the stage once again with four gigs in Britain and the United States to mark their 50th anniversary, the legendary British band confirmed Monday. In a video released on the Stones’ website and their Facebook page, frontman Mick Jagger, 69, and his three bandmates announced four dates [...]
How to party like a Goldman trader
Goldman Sachs executives partied in Las Vegas by sharing a hot tub with a topless woman they dubbed ‘Ms Silicone,’ the executive who publicly quit the firm has claimed. Greg Smith said that during a bachelor weekend with colleagues they stayed at the five star Mandalay Bay Hotel where they drank themselves senseless and gambled at [...]
Dalai Lama’s accent turns ‘forget’ into profanity
It is a phrase you would not associate with one of the holiest men alive. Indeed, it must have caused the stenographer a little consternation when the Dalai Lama apparently finished his speech with a very frank ‘f*** it’ to an audience of students at Brown University in Rhode Island. Still, the stenographer had to transcribe [...]
A false hijack alert causes high drama on Air India Express flight
A “false” hijack alert sent by the pilot of an Air India Express flight resulted in high drama at the Thiruvananthapuram international airport on Friday morning. The Abu Dhabi-Kochi flight was diverted to the Kerala capital due to heavy fog at Kochi. Airport sources said when the airplane did not take off for hours, agitated [...]
Gaddafi was killed on orders of Nicolas Sarkozy, sources claim
A French secret serviceman acting on the express orders of Nicolas Sarkozy is suspected of murdering Colonel Gaddafi, it was sensationally claimed today. He is said to have infiltrated a violent mob mutilating the captured Libyan dictator last year and shot him in the head. The motive, according to well-placed sources in the North African country, [...]
Mitt Romney sparks internet craze with his ‘binders full of women’ quip during debate
Mitt Romney’s debate performances are 2-0 — when it comes to creating instant internet memes. His ‘binders full of women’ remark became a trending topic on Twitter within minutes of him uttering the words while telling a story about his search for women to fill cabinet positions when he was Massachusetts governor. Before the debate [...]
Posing half-naked ‘to feel sexy’
Girls as young as 12 who are posting images of themselves online wearing lingerie, because they want to ‘feel sexy – like Megan Fox,’ have become the subject of an award-winning new documentary. Sexy Baby: A Documentary About Sexiness and The Cyber Age, opening in U.S. movie theaters tomorrow, reveals how a generation of children [...]
Newsweek to end print edition after 80 years
Newsweek has announced that it is going digital only, bringing an end to the magazine’s 79 year history in print. The magazine’s editor Tina Brown said that due to the ‘challenging economics of print publishing’ it has decided to become an Internet only publication. She admitted that saying goodbye to the ‘romance’ of the printed [...]
Website names ancient African King ‘richest man to ever live’
An obscure king who ruled West Africa in the 14th century has been named the richest person in history in a new inflation-adjusted list of the world’s 25 wealthiest people of all time. Spanning 1,000 years and with a combined fortune of $4.317trillion, only three of the list’s 25 are alive today; none of them [...]
Pioneering firm create petrol out of thin air
A British firm has produced the first ‘petrol from air’, it emerged today – in a pioneering scientific breakthrough that could end mankind’s reliance on declining fossil fuels. Air Fuel Synthesis in Stockton-on-Tees, Teesside, claims to have made five litres of petrol since August using a small refinery that synthesises the fuel from carbon dioxide and [...]
India’s feckless elite
Its political class may not be up to the task of leading India toward prosperity. Just the other day, it seemed as if India could hardly put a foot wrong. Annual economic growth averaged above eight percent between 2003 and ’08, and the country was one of the world’s few major economies to escape more [...]
Olive trees of Gethsemane among oldest in world
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Olive trees in the Jerusalem garden revered by Christians as the place where Jesus Christ prayed before he was crucified have been dated to at least 900 years old, a study released on Friday showed. The results of tests on trees in the Garden of Gethsemane have not settled the question [...]
Israel and Palestine: Whiter Oslo deal
RAMALLAH – On September 13, 1993, Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas met on the South Lawn of the White House to sign the Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles, or the Oslo Accords. PLO leader Yasir Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin then sealed the agreement with a historic handshake. The Oslo Accords — the result [...]
Erotic and tragic, Sylvia Kristel dies
THE HAGUE, Oct 18 (AFP) - Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel, whose iconic “Emmanuelle” role symbolised the sexual revolution of the 1970s and who spent years fighting drug addiction, has died aged 60 after a battle with cancer. “She died during the night in her sleep,” agent Marieke Verharen of Features Creative Management told AFP of the [...]
