World's oldest pair of twin sisters turn 101

Marie (L) and Gabrielle (R) Vaudremer, a pair of 101-year-old Belgian twins, celebrate their birthday at the Chateau Sous-Bois retirement home in Spa October 2, 2011. Marie and Gabrielle were born in 1910 and are the world's oldest pair of twin sisters, according to the Guinness World Records. Picture taken October 2, 2011.

'Sperm Donor' Tells His Fiance He May Have 70 Biological Children (VIDEO)

A Style Network special called 'Sperm Donor' that follows the life of 'Ben,' an unassuming guy who's been a sperm donor for years, premiered Wednesday night.


He's recently been contacted by 15-20 of his biological children, and in this clip reveals to his fiance that his sperm may be responsible for fathering as many as 70 offspring.

To her credit, Ben's fiance manages to contain her reaction, but the shock, and possibly horror, in her face is evident.

Ben's fiance tells him she sees his actions as selfish, and the gravity of his decision seems to hit him in a way it hadn't before. "I guess I was dumb. Maybe I'm being dumb now, I don't know," he says.

Man In Stands Drops Child While Attempting To Catch Ball At Taiwanese Baseball Game

A baseball fan in Taiwan dropped his toddler daughter while trying to catch a foul ball.

Cameras at the televised game between the Taipei Brother Elephants and Taoyuan's Lamigo Monkeys, also caught the fan's wife shouting at him afterwards.

Mr Bai later said "I was going to catch the ball using one hand but ended up lifting both hands and dropped my daughter."

The girl said she slightly hurt one leg but was otherwise unhurt.

Nigeria Rape Video: Footage Of Brutal Attack On Woman Outrages Nation

LAGOS, Nigeria -- In the grainy video, a Nigerian woman repeatedly asks her attackers to kill her as they take turns raping her at a university dormitory. The five men only promise to drive her home, pushing her back down each time she starts to stand up.

Local authorities have dismissed the 10-minute video, which has ricocheted around the Internet in recent days. But Nigeria's youth minister is calling for police to prosecute the men. Some Internet users disturbed by it are even offering rewards for information.

Activists in Nigeria say the video exposes an underreported epidemic of rape in Africa's most populous nation, and they plan to march in the coming days to draw attention to the case.

"The perpetrators go further to record it and circulate it. It shows for me that they're daring society to take action on it," said Josephine Effah-Chukwuma, the executive director of a Nigerian women's rights group called Project Alert. "It shows that there's a high level of impunity."

The video had circulated for weeks around the campus of Abia State University near Nigeria's southern oil-rich delta before being posted on the Internet. It appears to take place in a single-room dormitory or student hostel.

The men taking turns raping the woman who repeatedly asks to go home. "Please just kill me," the woman cries several times. The men laugh.

Nigeria's Youth Minister Bolaji Abdullahi has issued a statement calling for the university and police to arrest and prosecute the men shown in the video, as well as offering assistance to the woman.

"The attitude of these men, if indeed they are young Nigerians, does not represent the character and nature of the Nigerian youth," the minister said.

However, the university and state government officials have denied the video's authenticity and that it took place near or on school grounds, Effah-Chukwuma said.

Abia state police spokesman Geoffrey Ogbonna told The Associated Press on Tuesday that no one reported the rape to university officials or to any of the state's police precincts. He said he searched for the video on the Internet only after hearing about it.

"From the look of things, I don't think such a thing happened," Ogbonna said. "All I know is that state command is not aware of such an incident."

Rape is rarely reported to authorities in Nigeria – only 1,952 cases in 2009, according to federal police statistics posted on a website called Nigeria Police Watch. However, a 2006 Amnesty International report said those numbers are believed to "be sporadic, piecemeal and inconsistent" in a nation of 150 million people.

Nigeria's federal police force also remains largely incapable of investigating crimes, as its officers routinely harass motorists for bribes at checkpoints and arrest citizens randomly to collect so-called "bail money."

Activists say they fear for the woman shown being attacked in the video, who now may be shunned by those who can identify her face.

"Why should I come out and speak of my victimization when I'm going to receive secondary victimization?" Effah-Chukwuma asked. "The whole society blames (the victim). 

AP.

SERBIAN folk music queen Ceca Raznatovic

SERBIAN folk music queen Ceca Raznatovic pleaded guilty to embezzling millions in exchange for a lenient sentence, prosecutors said Tuesday, bringing to an end a legal soap opera that has transfixed the country.

The singer — real name Svetlana Raznatovic — struck a plea bargain with state prosecutors by pleading guilty in a sale of soccer players from her late husband’s club. In return, she will spend one year under house arrest and pay a $2.2 million fine, the largest ever imposed in Serbia

The star was charged with embezzling about $5.8 million during player sales to foreign clubs and faced up to 15 years in prison if convicted. A Belgrade court still has to formally approve the plea bargain.

Ceca has for years evaded legal prosecution thanks to the support of current and former Serbian political leaders who consider her untouchable because of her huge popularity.

Prosecution spokesman Tomo Zoric defended the bargain, saying the fine will be the largest ever paid in Serbia.

“We are talking about cash, not real estate, which will benefit all the Serbs and will be used for (building) hospitals and schools,” Zoric said.

$10 Million Buried

$10 million was found buried in a garlic field in the South Korean village of Gimje, police say.

11 billion won, or approximately $10 million, was discovered by a laborer named Ahn who had been hired to dig up an apricot tree.

According to the police, a 53-year-old man (who has only been identified as Lee) had buried the cash for his brothers-in-law, who were under investigation for operating an illegal gambling operation on the Internet.

Police are currently investigating the cash and another $5 million that is reportedly missing. There have been accusations that Ahn stole some of the missing cash, although ABC News reports that this is possibly just be a tactic by the owner of the land, hoping to protect himself from the gangsters whose money he'd hidden.

Ahn, 52, was apparently hired this February, after the land was sold. Lee bought the land, and the former owner wanted his old apricot tree. (News reports do not identify any of the men's first names.) As Ahn was digging, he uncovered a plastic box. He thought it was junk and got rid of it, unaware that it was actually filled with $270,000 in cash.

Two months later, Lee claimed that Ahn had stolen $620,000, and told Ahn that the money belonged to gangsters. Ahn then hurried to the police, declaring his innocence and seeking protection.

Police were dispatched to the garlic field in Gimje, about 160 miles south of Seoul, and began digging. On Monday they unearthed 27 plastic boxes, stuffed with Korean currency totaling $10 million.

When Lee was confronted by the police, he confessed to burying the cash for his in-laws.

Between January of 2008 and November of 2009, Lee's brothers-in-law, who are also both named Lee, ran an illegal gambling website with a server based in Hong Kong. Eventually the police tracked down the site, and put the Lee brothers out of business. The younger Lee is now in jail, while the elder Lee is on the run from the law.

According to local reports, Lee the field owner recently dug up some of the money for his own use and he was in a panic about how to explain the missing cash to the younger Lee brother, who is due for release next month.

Source: ABC News

A380 hit

Video footage has emerged from the moment an A380 jumbo jet collided with a smaller passenger plane at JFK airport, causing it to spin violently.

The amateur recording captures the moment the wing of the 525-seat Ai France plane smashed into the tail fin of the Comair CRJ carrying 6 passengers forcing it to turn by 90 degrees.

Eye witnesses said they saw damage to one of the wings of the A380 which has been taken in for inspection.

No passengers or crew were reported to have been injured in the crash.

Man dies while reading newspaper in office

A young Saudi military man dropped dead while reading a newspaper in his office just two months before his wedding, a newspaper in the Gulf Kingdom reported on Thursday.

Colleagues said the 23-year-old corporal was in his office reading his morning newspaper when he suddenly knelt down and collapsed.

“They rushed him to the hospital but he was already dead….doctors said it was a natural death caused by a heart and blood circulation failure,” the Arabic language daily Okaz said in a report from the western town of Madina.

“But his father is still insisting on carrying out an anatomy on his son to determine the real cause of the death, which occurred two months before his son’s wedding.”

Ten dead! Mass crash in a Sandstorm

Rostock - horror accident on the highway 19 in Rostock! In a sandstorm crashed more than 40 vehicles each. Some began to move rapidly, many from burning. After image information, ten people killed, 97 injured.

The mass collision happened at Kavelstorf near Rostock (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). Within seconds, the sand had covered the highway. In both directions the cars collided.

Of the injured had been 25-30 admitted because of the severity of their injuries in hospitals. The others were confused with their identity card around his neck, just helpless in the parking bay only a few hundred meters from the accident.

"They are completely shocked, all their belongings, money, luggage are still in the car," said Evelyn Russ Deutschle. She had on the way from work heard by the accident and offered their critical care training to help. "Earlier, a man ran around crying and looking for his family, I do not know if you could help him," said the woman before she is dedicated to an elderly couple who stands trembling and pale, with blankets around their shoulders in front of a rescue tent.

THE SAND STORM TOOK ALL THE VISION

Enlarge

The horror accident occurred at Kavelstorf, 28 south of Rostock (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern)

Photo: AFP

"I've seen this when I'm down from the mountain," says truck drivers Ralf Schulz. "Then, the first has probably slowed down and several cars are back up. Some have turned over. "Schulz came to a halt just yet.A colleague of him but not his gravel truck tipped over and burned.

He now sits at Schulz and his dog Charlie in the cab and can hardly speak. "We still have a woman from a burning car pulled, which was screaming. The other people have run out of their cars and have saved on the median strip, "Schulz says.

The cars are crashing into each other with such force that some are up to 50 meters away from the road on the field. At this point, the highway speed is released. "You see the sand has come, however, might have been slow," says truck drivers Schulz.

May not speculate about highway policeman Norbert Holldorf. For 20 years he sees accidents, many serious on this highway section. "So what I'm here but never seen one knows not even know how many dead we have to do it." His work begins when the vehicles may not be cleared from the road.

In the direction of Rostock, according to police fell 17 cars and three trucks on fire, including a vehicle carrying dangerous goods. In the opposite direction to Berlin 23 cars were involved in the accident.

In the dangerous goods involved in the accident, it should be a tanker truck. That probably came from hydrocarbon.


http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/1307522/Massenkarambolage-auf-A-19  : VIDEO

Armenia lost Internet access.

TBILISI—Georgia has arrested a 75-year-old woman who, with her shovel, left all of Armenia without access to the Internet for half a day, according to Georgian police.

Aishtan Shakarian, who lives in a small village near Georgian capital Tbilisi, was scavenging for scrap metal on March 28 when she damaged an international fiber-optic backbone cable that connects much of the southern Caucasus to Europe, a police spokesman said.

The damage sent almost all of Armenia offline for about 12 hours. It also triggered a partial shutdown in Georgia and service interruptions in Azerbaijan, according to Georgian police and telecommunications companies.

The damage Ms. Shakarian caused to the line with her shovel sent alarm signals to the control rooms in Tbilisi, the operators said. She was caught digging in the village of Ksani, some 60 kilometers, or 37 miles, from the capital, said police spokesman Zurab Gvenetadze.

"The woman was hunting for some copper lines that she was hoping she could to sell," Mr. Gvenetadze said.

Scrap metal is a staple export for Georgia and scavengers have been known to steal the lids from communications wells, and to strip electricity lines in the search for metal they can sell to exporters.

Some Armenian telecommunications operators switched to alternative supply lines from Iran, but others were down for the full 12 hours of the interruption, according to Novosti Armenia, an Armenian news agency.

The Georgia section of the international cable, commonly called the country's West-East fiber-optic backbone, is laid underground along railway tracks and operated by Georgia's state railway company and its partners. The line comes to Georgia from Bulgaria, crossing the Black Sea to the Georgian port of Poti. It later forks into Armenia and Azerbaijan.

"This is not the first time someone has been digging potatoes or searching for copper in Georgia and damaged our cable," one Armenian information security expert, Samvel Martirosian said to the Armenian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The same cable was damaged last year, although the cause of that outage wasn't specified at the time.

Police said Mrs. Shakarian didn't resist arrest and admitted her guilt. She was acting alone and was released pending trial, Mr. Gvenetadze said. Ms. Shakarian faces a fine, community service or one year in prison.

"Her age is a mitigating factor. I am not expecting the prosecution to push for a strict punishment," the police spokesman said.

Armenian and Georgian companies are still gauging losses from the outage. Georgian Railway Telecom, which operates a section of the line, says damage to the company was limited and its corporate clients in Armenia haven't requested compensation at this stage. Armenia's major telecommunications company ArmenTel didn't respond to a request for comment.

http://online.wsj.com

Twitter finds a missing child in 3 hours (via @BradMcCarty)

Power to the people! A great story came out of Saudi Arabia recently.

Twitter finds a missing child in 3 hours


We Internet folks are a funny bunch. While there’s a lot of venom that gets spewed across the Web, there’s an amazing amount of good that comes from it, too. Chalk this story up to the latter, and expect to see it in a promotional piece for Twitter at some point in the future.
Roughly 24 hours ago, 16 year old Faisal Fri went missing from his family’s home in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The news reached Twitter and the #FaisalDH hashtag was born. An image of Faisal, with contact information for his family was tweeted with the tag and only 3 hours later, he was found.
What’s also highly impressive about the effort is that the initial tweet from Twitter user Mohammed Al Modhayan appears to have made it to a Top Tweet position, no doubt due to the engagement that it spawned via retweets and mentions.

So our kudos go out to those of you who were involved. Our congratulations go out to Faisal and his family. It’s heart-warming to see the good of people come out, especially so for us when social media is involved.

Apple iPod touch 32 GB (4th Generation) NEWEST MODEL

Utility's actions in Japan nuclear crisis 'unforgivable'

(CNN) -- Japanese fishermen have taken the offensive in their fight against the owner of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant, angrily calling the utility's actions insulting, incompetent and "unforgivable" over the course of the weeks-long nuclear crisis.
The National Fishery Corporative Joint Association, a trade group for Japan's fishing industry, issued a scathing statement on Wednesday just hours after meeting with officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the crippled plant.
In it, the group demanded that the utility and Japanese government "compensate all parties (that have) indirectly or directly suffered" as a result of the situation.
"Tokyo Electric has not been capable of understanding the damage at the plant and (contaminated) water. That led to this serious situation," the group said in the statement.
"Tokyo Electric and the government (share) responsibility for this situation. It is unforgivable," the message continues. "All those who are living and sustaining their lives on the sea are feeling strong rage against (the utility and the government's) irresponsible behavior."
Members of the fishing group said they are particularly angry about the decision made and enacted Monday to dump 11,500 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. This happened just hours after the group specifically requested it not be done -- leaving its members feeling ignored.
Besides that complaint, fishery association representatives blasted Tokyo Electric's claim that nuclear power plants were safe and that such accidents would never happen.
An official from the utility company said Tokyo Electric officials offered apologies and vowed to improve the situation. This was shortly after they confirmed, early Wednesday, that one leak outside the No. 2 reactor, through which water that had radiation levels millions of times the legal limit, was rushing into the sea.
Mincing no words, the fishing industry demanded as much -- saying that stopping leaks of contaminated water into the sea was needed "to prevent the death of the fishing industry."
"We demand that Tokyo Electric and the government react to all the problems provoked by this outrageous decision (to dump radioactive water in the sea) and flush out highly contaminated water" now in the ocean, the association said in its statement said.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano on Wednesday apologized for how the government had communicated why the dump of radioactive water was necessary.
He explained that it contained 1/200,000ths the level of radiation as that in and around the No. 2 reactor, one of six at the nuclear plant, and that authorities decided to clear out the less radioactive liquid in order to make room in a waste water treatment facility.
"So it was a measure to prevent more serious marine contamination," the Japanese official said. "But we needed to explain the reasoning better to the people (impacted by it)."
Whatever the radiation level, Timothy Jorgensen, chair of the radiation safety committee at Georgetown University Medical Center, explained that this dumped water should quickly dilute considering it is equivalent to dumping five swimming pools worth of water into a Pacific Ocean that has roughly "300 trillion swimming pools full of water."
Still, Japanese authorities have noted higher-than-normal radiation levels in some young eels. And in addition to its impact on aquatic life directly, some fear the mere possibility of radiation in seafood may deter consumers domestically and abroad from eating products that originated in waters off Japan.
Citing such "rumors," Edano said Tuesday that authorities will step up the monitoring of radiation in seafood, partly in a bid to assure the public that whatever gets on the market is safe.
The new Japanese government standards will rely upon enforcement by city and town health inspectors, not those with the prefectures, according to Edano. As with milk and vegetables, certain fish can be removed from the restricted list if levels of radiation come in below the legal limits for three weeks in a row.
As to the fishermen themselves, the Cabinet minister said Wednesday that, in addition to a larger compensation package to be decided upon later, the government is considering a preemptive payout.
Similar payments will likely go to farmers, who have been explicitly affected by the nuclear crisis much longer than those in the fishing industry.
Japan first imposed restrictions on the sale and distribution of milk and certain vegetables, like spinach, on March 20 -- more than two weeks before Edano announced Tuesday that radiation levels would similarly be regulated in seafood.
One scientist, whose institute will start conducting research next month tracking radiation off Japan, said it's likely that such levels in fish will increase for six months -- as the contamination gets in the food supply -- then gradually go down over two or more years.
Still, given the standards now being set, he thinks people should feel comfortable eating seafood from Japan.

"The current regulations are quite reasonable," said Jin Misonou, a research fellow for the Tokyo-based Marine Ecology Research Institute. "So, of course, please eat fish. It is good to revive the fishing industry."

CNN's Kyung Lah and journalists Hiroo Saso and Gen Shimada contributed to this report.

Tsunami Dog Found After Drifting In Ocean For 3 Weeks

A dog believed to have survived the massive earthquake and tsunami of March 11 and, also three weeks at sea, is rescued by Japan Coast Guard members off Kesennuma, northern Japan April 1, 2011. Photo Credit: Handout, Japan Coast Guard/Reuters

It appears almost too good to be true, but this little dog has been found alive and well adrift at sea, an astonishing three weeks after the tsunami that devastated Japan.

Members of the Japan Coast Guard came across the dog on Friday as they were conducting an aerial search of the area.

Against all the odds, the dog appears to have survived by living in a partially submerged house that had been swept out to sea.

A fishy tale: It seems almost too good to be true, but this little dog seems to have survived against all odds and was discovered by coastguards floating on a raft at sea

Against all odds: The dog appears to have survived by clinging to a house that had been swept away by the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11

Local television showed showed pictures of the dog scampering around the roof of the house before it disappeared inside through a hole in the roof.

Rescuers had hoped to find more tsunami survivors living inside the house but after tearing the roof open, it was found to be empty apart from the dog.

Despite its three weeks at sea, the medium-sized brown dog seemed to be in reasonably good condition considering its ordeal.

Safe and hound: A member of the Japan Coast Guard comforts the dog that seems to have survived an amazing three weeks at sea following the devastating tsunami

The discovery of the dog is a rare glimmer of hope in Japan where thousands of people are believed to have perished in the disaster.

The nation is now gripped by the ongoing nuclear threat posed by the unstable Fukushima plant as workers continue to battle to restore vital cooling systems damaged by the quake.

 

 

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1372506/Safe-hound-Dog-alive-Japan-THREE-WEEKS-tsunami.html#ixzz1IJLTojDe

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Euro coin smuggling ring worth $8.4 million busted

(CBS) - It can be tough lugging heavy bags through the airport. It can be even tougher when those bags are weighed down with thousands of euro coins, as was the case in early 2010 when a flight attendant was stopped by customs and allegedly discovered with contraband currency. The incident sparked an international investigation that unveiled a multimillion dollar coin fraud ring.
The investigation has led to six arrests, four in China and has potentially implicated employees of German airline Lufthansa, according to Reuters.
Prosecutors in Frankfurt believe the coin ring operated by taking damaged Euro coins - sent to China to be used as scrap metal - and smuggling them into Germany. Coins sent to scrap are often broken in to pieces, which the suspects allegedly put back together. These coins were then exchanged at Bundesbank, the central bank of Germany, eventually amassing 6 million euros ($8.4 million.)
In a statement republished by Reuters, prosecutors emphasized that airline crewmembers do not have weight limits on their luggage. They also added that they had no reason to suspect anyone associated with Bundesbank at this time. Germany's central bank is the only institute in Europe that exchanges damaged euro coins for free.
In addition to the arrests, investigators say they discovered 3 metric tons of coin pieces as well as machinery for putting them back together.
      

http://www.cbsnews.com