B4U India

No future alliance with PPP: PML-N

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:39:00 -0400

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Khwaja Asif has told media persons here that there is no possibility of an alliance with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in the immediate future.

Alleging that the PPP Government is destroying the judicial institution, Asif said that Law Minister Farouk Naek is distributing cheques worth millions of rupees for this purpose.

The Daily Times quoted Asif as saying that the PML-N is in touch with the PML-Quaid and hoped to improve such contacts further.

Meetings between the PML-N and the PML-Quaid indicates that the two are inching towards a broader understanding and a possible reconciliation.

The PML-Q is said to be in touch with both the PML-N and the PPP, bargaining a better position. Currently, it appears to be more inclined towards Sharif’s party.

PML-N leader Ghaus Ali Shah, who has earned the respect of both sides, has been tasked with the responsibility of negotiating a possible reconciliation with the PML-Q.

PML-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain is also contacting dissident party members.

He even phoned dissident leader Riaz Fatiana, who claims to have the support of 25 parliamentarians. (ANI)

Killing or burying of women alive for honour, a justified tribal tradition, says Baloch Senator

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:38:00 -0400

Balochistan Senator Israrullah Zehri has said that the killing or burial of women alive for honour, is a tribal tradition.

Responding to Senator Yasmeen Shah’s statement on reports of five women being buried alive in Balochistan in the name of honour, Zehri asked members not to politicise the issue, as it was a matter of safeguarding the tribal traditions.

Senate Kamil Ali Agha, Leader of Opposition, condemned honour killing of women and demanded that the issue be referred to the Standing Committee on Human Rights of the House. (ANI)

The Harris Tweed may sadly, soon be history

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:37:00 -0400

Harris Tweed weavers are facing being wiped out of the market because of the "Primark prices" that are being paid for Scotland''s oldest cloths.

The remaining 130 weavers of the ancient Clo Mhor, meaning ''big cloth'' in Gaelic, depend on the proceeds that they get from sale of the cloth, and they have to survive on an average of just 130 pounds a week.

Harris Tweed is fast dwindling despite the fact that it has a celebrity following that includes Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow, and top designers Vivienne Westwood, Valentino and Donna Karan have featured it in the winter collections.

Aneas Maclean, chairman of the Harris Tweed Weavers'' Association, said that the cottage industry, where weavers still produce the cloth in their own homes, was on the verge of extinction.

"We all knew this year would be hard and traumatic. If we have another year like this, you''ll not have a Harris Tweed industry. There will be no weavers,” Daily Telegraph quoted him as saying.

"They are on the breadline. If the situation is not as serious as it is you would not have the minister coming here to solve the problem.

"I don''t think it is unreasonable to expect a full-time weaver to earn 25,000 pounds-a-year. But the tweed is selling at Primark prices. It is being sold at 16 pounds-a-metre, while it needs to be more like 25 pounds a metre," he said.

With the cloth not being in demand, weavers are paid around 130 pounds for each 50m beam, or barely 2.50 pounds a metre, but many say they have little or no work.

The situation became so bad that in June the owner of the mill, which produced 95 per cent of all Harris Tweed, ceased production for the rest of the year.

The weaving of more cloth has been suspended by mill owner Brian Haggas, as there are thousands of tweed jackets already made at the former Kenneth Mackenzie mill in Stornoway.

The stopping of the production of the cloth has raised doubts about the future of his remaining 40 staff and the 130 weavers who depend on the mill on Lewis for their livelihood.

Less than 30 years ago there were between 1,600 and 2,000 full and part-time weavers in the islands but a collapse in the American market saw many leave the industry.

About one million metres of Harris Tweed is produced annually now, down from seven million a decade ago.

Jim Mather, the Scottish enterprise minister, claimed the industry has a bright future, but refused to promise a rescue package.

"There has been significant investment by Harris Tweed companies in recent years. This points to an industry which already knows it must do all it can to compete in the global textiles market," he said. (ANI)

Meet Britain’s oldest bartender who’s a sprightly 100!

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:37:00 -0400

Jim Christou, who’s in his 100th year, is Britain’s oldest bartender.

The evergreen Christou started working for the Westwood Masonic Centre (WMC) in Welling, Kent, over 20 years ago after a long career as a waiter is still going strong and pulls pints twice a week.

The grandfather-of-two, nicknamed as ‘Chris’ by his customers has even had a new bar there named in his honour.

"I''ll keep going for as long as I can. I love chatting and serving the customers, the club is a second home to me,” the Telegraph quoted her, as saying.

"There''s no secret to how I''m still working. I just do normal things, eat normal food and do the shopping," he added.

Christou, who’s not touched a drink or smoked in nearly 30 years, despite working in a bar, said that working helps him keep fit.

"It certainly helps you keep active, and that''s just what I need at my age," he said.

Club secretary Ken Richardson said: "It''s absolutely incredibly that he still insists on doing work behind the bar.

"He loves serving members when they come in. We had a beer festival recently and he insisted on helping out at the door as well.

"Everyone who comes in loves him. He''s a star behind the car," he added. (ANI)

Christianophobia needs to be countered as much as anti-Semitism or Islamophobia: Vatican

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:36:00 -0400

The Vatican has said that "Christianophobia" must be fought with the same determination as anti-Semitism or Islamophobia.

The Mirror quoted Vatican Foreign Minister Archbishop Dominique Mamberti as saying that the deaths of 13 people in Orissa, India, there is a need for promoting religious freedom as a vital part of international relations and human dignity.

"In order to promote this dignity in an integral way, so-called ''Christianophobia'' should be combated as decisively as ''Islamophobia'' and anti-Semitism," he said.

His comments came as thousands of people, most of them Christians, sought shelter in makeshift government camps, driven from their homes by religious violence. It was alleged that Hindu mobs burnt over a dozen churches and attacked Christians after a Hindu leader was killed.

Mamberti said the events in India made the issue of religious liberty today all the more pressing.

While Hindu groups accuse Christian priests of bribing poor tribes and low-caste Hindus to change their faith, the Christians say lower-caste Hindus convert willingly to escape a complex caste system.

Pope Benedict has also condemned the violence against Christians in Orissa and deplored the killing of the Hindu leader.

Italy''s foreign ministry said it would summon India''s ambassador to demand "incisive action" to prevent further attacks against Christians. (ANI)

How to keep your man always attracted to you

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:36:00 -0400

Can’t figure out what your man wants? Well, stop fretting over it, for all you need to do is wear sexy clothes while cooking and cleaning and obey his orders, that’s what a new bestseller suggests.

The self-help guide, titled ‘The Re-education Of The Female’, by first-time author Dante Moore has already become a hit in the United States where copies are selling just like hot cakes, the media reported.

One piece of advice reads: "Men never really ask for anything. They command. And believe me, what you won''t do, 10 broads around the corner will."

Advising women to stay slim to attract men, Moore also writes: "When you go to the grocery store to shop, do you pick out the nastiest-looking, most rotten, smelliest fruit or meat you can find?

"Oh you don''t? Why not? It''s the same with men when they see in New York baby elephant-sized, out-of-shape women."

Moore, a 33-year-old computer engineer, has never married but has an 11-year-old son from a previous relationship and has had a girlfriend for two years.

However, he says he has never found true love.

He insists he wants to help women and wrote the book to show where they go wrong in relationships. (ANI)

Married Hindu nurses in South Africa win right to wear ‘bindis’ at work

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:35:00 -0400

Married Hindu nurses at Durban''s Addington hospital would soon be allowed to use ‘bindis’ on their forehead.

Peggy Nkonyeni, the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for health, said that Hindu nurses at the Addington hospital should be allowed to use the symbolic red dots after the hospital in a revised dress code had prohibited married Hindu nurses from wearing their traditional red ‘dot’, cultural strings, nose rings and studs.

According to News 24, Nkonyeni was quoted as saying that the government shall respect and protect religious and customary rights at all times, and that she respected the ''dot'' as it symbolised the marital status of a Hindu woman.

The KwaZulu-Natal MEC for health said that it was a serious concern that the management was tolerant of cosmetic powder on the whole face, but intolerant when other women exercised their customary and religious rights by placing a powdered dot on their forehead.

“The revised dress code is an internal matter and the department was not consulted when this dress code was developed,” said Nkonyeni, and added, “As a government institution we cannot be seen to be infringing on constitutional rights of individuals, especially the staff”.

Nkonyeni said, "Just as we respect the right of married women to wear their wedding rings, we also believe that similar treatment and respect must be accorded to Hindu women wearing their dots.”

Meanwhile, the department has instructed the hospital management to discuss the issue with the affected staff members and find a solution. (ANI)

Brutal serial killer Jack the Ripper might lie buried in Brisbane

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:35:00 -0400

One of the world’s most infamous and brutal serial killers, Jack the Ripper, is once again in the headlines, with sleuths thinking that he might have been buried in Brisbane.

The headstone at the end of a grave at the Toowong Cemetery does not mention the man, but many believe it to be the Ripper, convicted killer, rogue impostor, backwater quack and man of a thousand identities Walter Thomas Porriott.

Porriott, whose legally acknowledged name was Andrew John Gibson, was buried amid family shame beneath his ever-faithful last wife Eliza "Bessie" Porriott.

Although people still continue to debate the true identity of Jack the Ripper, there are some who are convinced that there is strong evidence implicating Porriott in the string of five prostitute murders in the dark back streets of industrial-era England about 120 years ago.

He was a habitual bigamist who broke as many hearts as he did bank accounts by the time he died in 1952.

While he was believed to have been in his 80s at the time of his death, he was officially recorded to be 59. Ripper fanatics say that his actual birth name and date of birth are among the secrets he took with him to his grave.

However, records with Brisbane City Council suggest that Porriott''s Sydney-based great-grandson Steve Wilson publicly clained in 1997 that he had had little doubt his late relative was the infamous serial killer.

The records also suggest that Porriott was in England when all five "confirmed" murders were committed, and that the murders stopped when he sailed Australia in November 1888.

Porriott particularly hated prostitutes, and he spent his life marrying women in order to fleece them of their assets before fleeing.

"Porriott was a womanising conman whose modus operandi was unlike that of Jack the Ripper. But this is a fascinating Australian connection to Jack the Ripper which cannot be completely dismissed," news.com.au quoted Ipswich Ripperologist and councillor Paul Tully, who has been researching for his own Ripper book for the past five years, as saying. (ANI)

Pastor’s website shows you how God wanted you to have great sex!

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:31:00 -0400

A website with a name like Puresextucson.com is advertising classes about sex, but in a ‘Godly way’.

Created by a Tucson Baptist pastor, the site claims "God wants you to have great sex."

Pastor Jeremiah McDuffie of The Element Community Church said the Web site is tied in to a series of sermons he plans to deliver on consecutive Sundays starting Sept. 7 on the issue of sex.

Ultimately, he hopes to open up dialogue on a subject he says is too often regarded as taboo in houses of worship. Yet it''s also at the root of so many issues he hears about from worshippers and others who seek him out for pastoral counselling, he said.

“Sex wasn''t invented in a dark alley behind a porn shop. It''s part of God''s design,” The Daily Telegraph quoted McDuffie''s website, as stating.

McDuffie admitted that mailers sent to 35,000 Tucson homes to promote the sermons have generated some complaints.

“The negative calls we''ve had were basically from people saying this was a subject we shouldn''t be dealing with in church, that it''s inappropriate,'''' said McDuffie, who confesses he was once a porn addict.

McDuffie said that he hopes the sermons will help open an honest dialogue on a subject that is often considered taboo in houses of worship. (ANI)

The eleven-month-old boy who’s weight is of an eight-year-old

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:27:00 -0400

Doctors are trying to find out why an 11-month-old Colombian baby is already the weight of an average eight-year-old.

At just 11 months old, the baby weighs nearly over 61 pounds.

The child''s mother, Milena Orosco de Agudelo, said her son''s unusual growth spurt began when he was just two months old.

He has had several medical examinations carried out which suggest he may have a problem with his endocrine system.

"He had some tests done and the results show that he has a thyroid malfunction. Then, he had a cardiogram test done and that test shows that he has the bones of an eight-year-old boy, but they have not told me where that came from,” Telegraph quoted Miss Orosco de Agudelo, as saying.

Doctor David Dias, of the Barranquilla Pediatric Hospital, said more examinations need to be carried out to discover why the child has become so large.

He said: "The baby will have tests done to see if he''s obese or we''re dealing with hyperthyroidism.”

Hypothyroidism is often a result of an autoimmune condition known as Hashimoto''s thyroiditis, in which the body''s own immune cells attack and destroy the thyroid gland.

Symptoms include fatigue and weight gain. (ANI)