 | Perspective Volume IX 
Sunday Oct 6, 2002
Perspective is a weekly features of unorthodox news reports from around the globe. Some of the reports serve to prove the point that we Nigerians are not as unique as we may be thinking. To put any news report in Perspective please send a note to
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Headlines
Man survives being 'compacted' in trash Back To TopAUBURN, Indiana (AP) -- Northeastern Indiana police say a 24-year-old man is lucky to be alive after being compacted inside a garbage truck.Chad Dillon was rescued yesterday after witnesses heard him screaming from within the back of the Waste Management truck as its driver picked up trash at the DeKalb County Fairgrounds. Police say the truck compacted Dillon into loads of trash not once, but twice. He was released yesterday afternoon from a Fort Wayne Hospital after being treated for head, chest and arm injuries. Auburn Police Chief Martin McCoy says Dillon apparently fell asleep in a trash bin somewhere in the downtown Auburn area, where a fall festival was held this week. He says Dillon had been out drinking Thursday night at an Auburn bar. Source:http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/Midwest/09/28/offbeat.compacted.man.ap/index.html
Letter finds its way home -- 47 years late Back To TopSIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) -- A letter stamped "Return to Sender" has arrived back in Sioux City. It only took 47 years. The letter, postmarked June 20, 1955, landed in Janet Nejedly's business mailbox last Friday. The envelope is addressed to Mr. Gilbert Kelly of Omaha, Nebraska.The return address lists no name, only the address -- 2030 S. St. Aubin, Sioux City -- the same address as Nejedly's business, Ray Stallons Hearing Aids. "I thought, 'Oh my God, 1955, where has this been hiding?"' Janet asked. Nejedly and her 10-year-old daughter, Kayla, are on a mission to find out. The envelope has a purple 3-cent stamp of the Statue of Liberty with the words "In God We Trust." The only other marking is a red stamp saying "Return to Sender" and a list of options for why the letter was returned. A mail deliverer marked the box "no such street number" as the reason for the letter's return. The letter inside is signed "Jan," and addressed "Dear Gil," with a date the same as the postmark. Whether Jan and Gil were pen pals or relatives remains a mystery. Nejedly checked with information, but there is no Gilbert Kelly listed in Omaha. Source:http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/Midwest/09/25/offbeat.letter.returned.ap/index.html
Three Iranians to Be Lashed for Filming Women Back To TopTEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) - An Iranian court has sentenced three Iranian men resident in Germany to 64 lashes each for filming and harassing women in the streets, the official Iran newspaper said Thursday.It said the three men from Hamburg, aged between 18 and 24, came to Tehran on holiday and attempted to make what they said was a documentary film on social life in the Islamic Republic. "We started to shoot films of every woman we made friends with from the time we met them until the time we left them," the newspaper quoted one of the men as saying. According to Iran's strict Islamic law, social contact between unmarried members of the opposite sex is officially illegal, although enforcement of these laws has been more relaxed in the last five years. The men were also sentenced to pay $1,200 and banned from leaving the country until "the necessary investigations have been completed," the newspaper said. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=1513632
Pakistani man denies having sex with Taliban American Back To TopBANNU, Pakistan (CNN) -- A Pakistani businessman denied Monday a report in Time magazine that implies he had a homosexual affair with John Walker Lindh, the American who joined the Taliban.Khizar Hayat said he did not tell Time his relationship with Walker Lindh was sexual. Their relationship, he told CNN, was "the kind of relationship any good Muslim should have with another." Hayat, who said Walker Lindh stayed with him about a month, denied having sexual relations with the young American. "That's nonsense," he said. "We never had any such relationship." The Time article, which explores how a young man from suburban America ended up with the Taliban, contains the following passage: "Hayat met Lindh and took him on a tour of various madrasahs, searching for the perfect one from Karachi in the south to Peshawar in the northwest. The young American rejected them all and preferred remaining at Hayat's side. He helped Hayat at his store, a prosperous business dealing in powdered milk. Hayat, who has a wife and four children, says he had sex with Lindh. "'He was liking me very much. All the time he wants to be with me,' says Hayat, who has a good though not colloquial command of English. 'I was loving him. Because love begets love, you know.'" Lindh's lawyers deny that their client engaged in any homosexual relationships. Source:http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/09/30/walker.lindh.time/index.html
Indonesia soldiers attack police, kill four Back To TopMedan, Indonesia — Around 100 Indonesian soldiers attacked a police post on Sumatra on Monday using rifles and grenades, killing at least four police officers in a raid police described as "horrific.""The situation is out of control. Four were killed including three mobile brigade personnel and one police officer. They were shot mostly in the chest," Amrin Karim, a police spokesman in the nearby North Sumatra provincial capital, Medan, told Reuters. Mr. Karim said 15 police were wounded in the early morning attack at Binjai town, near the troubled province of Aceh and around 1,500 km (900 miles) northwest of the capital, Jakarta. "They used rifles, grenades and the compound was burned to the ground. It's horrific," he said, adding police were now searching for the attackers. Mr. Karim gave no reason for the attack but one local reporter said it was sparked by the police arresting a soldier for suspected drug offences. The reporter said seven police were killed. Indonesia's military condemned the incident. "This is a disgraceful act. I've informed the armed forces in Jakarta to fire soldiers who acted beyond their authority," regional military chief Idris Gassing told reporters in Medan, 30 kilometres from Binjai. Residents in Binjai told Reuters the town was tense on Monday with most residents staying off the streets and many shops closed. The incident underscores poor discipline among the branches of Indonesia's security forces in the field. In conflict zones, there are occasional armed clashes between police and soldiers, often over petty disputes. Karim said one of the wounded was the mobile brigade chief for North Sumatra, who was shot in the back and leg. The mobile brigade is an elite unit of police, generally used for civil disturbances and for dispatch to conflict areas. There was an earlier, less severe, attack on the police post on Saturday night. It was unclear when the soldier was arrested. Source:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/front /RTGAM/20020930/wpolice0930/Front/homeBN/breakingnews
Canadian Man Tries to Bungee on to Ship - Misses Back To TopVANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - A man was charged with criminal mischief on Monday after he attempted, unsuccessfully, to bungee jump from a Vancouver bridge to the deck of a passing cruise ship.William Dean Sullivan miscalculated the ship's speed and suffered minor head injuries on Sunday when he bounced off its tennis court, volleyball net and a deck railing, before being left dangling in mid-air as the ship sailed away, Vancouver Police said. Police said Sullivan has planned to bungee jump from the Lions Gate Bridge, which spans the entrance to Vancouver harbor, stopping just above the passing ship so he could then lower himself a short distance to the deck. "There were shrieks of horror from down below. I guess the people saw him coming, you know, on the ship. I guess he missed," witness Kate Hill told the Vancouver Sun newspaper. After failing to land on the ship, Sullivan, of Nanaimo, British Columbia, rappelled himself down to the water where he was rescued by a passing water taxi, which turned him over for arrest, according to police. Sullivan's motive remained unknown, although his friends told local media he was an aspiring stunt man. Sullivan was released on bail on Monday on the condition he promise not to attempt any more jumps pending a trial. A police spokesman said they were taking the incident seriously because of the danger it posed. "The individual himself could have been killed," Det. Scott Driemel said. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=1519128
Hungry Attic Rats Save Swedish Tax Fraud Suspect from Jail Back To TopSTOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish woman suspected of tax fraud has been found not guilty by a district court after it proved impossible to produce evidence against her, the Swedish TT news agency reported Tuesday.The woman told the court that rats in her attic had eaten up the cashier records she stashed there after her restaurant, which was under investigation for tax fraud, went bankrupt, TT quoted the local Orebro-Kuriren as saying. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=1519018
Peru Finds 200 Fishermen Sacrificed to Sea God Back To TopBy NORIMITSU ONISHI for New York Times HUARMEY, Peru (Reuters) - The Pacific Ocean had always been the fishermen's lifeblood -- until the day they knelt blindfolded before its blue waters and the knife pierced their hearts, making them offerings to Ni, the god of the sea.In the biggest find of human sacrifices in South America to date, archeologists have uncovered the remains of 200 fishermen savagely stabbed on a beach in central Peru 650 years ago. "This is the first time that human sacrifices on this scale have been documented," said Hector Walde, chief archeologist for the Punta Lobos project, holding a discolored skull recovered from a beach some 170 miles north of Lima. Archeologists say the fishermen were knifed through the collarbone -- straight into the heart -- in a giant human sacrifice ceremony by members of the powerful Chimu people as a sign of gratitude to their revered sea god Ni after they conquered the fishermen's fertile seaside valley in 1350 A.D. The remains of the 107 intact bodies were found lying on their stomachs, their heads toward the water and their hands tied behind their backs. Unwrapping a leg bone with cracked, blackened flesh at the end, Walde said the discovery was important because it confirmed a long-standing theory, based on testimonies and etchings on stone temples or ceramics, that some cultures in this archeology-rich nation practiced large ritual killings. "It's impressive to think that even though 600 years have gone by, the pain and anguish these people went through when they died can be seen in the cadavers and even the outlines they left in the sand," he said. Many of the fishermen, believed to be between 18 and 35 years old, were found arched backward as if in their death throes. Despite the passage of time, they were found in varying states of decay -- some just bones and rags, others complete with muscle tissue, hair, even fingernails. The fishermen were blindfolded with the turban they used to control their flowing black hair and wore only a loincloth. Their bodies, left unburied by the Chimu and later covered up by wind-driven sand, were not accompanied by the kind of ornate offerings often found with high-caste or sacred burials. Peru is known for a wealth of highly developed now-extinct cultures like the Inca, who built the famed citadel Machu Picchu -- now a major attraction for tourists from all over the world -- and whose legendary gold treasures spurred a frenzied invasion from Spanish conquistadors. Or the Nazca culture, who 1,500 years ago etched giant figures of birds and spiders in the sand. Only visible from the air, some say the etchings were meant as greetings to aliens. But little was known about how the Chimu, who were eventually defeated by the Inca decades before the Spanish invasion in the 1530s, treated the other cultures they conquered during the height of their 150 years in power. At their peak, the Chimu -- known as the finest metalworkers of pre-Hispanic Peru and whose leaders wore emerald-encrusted gold nose rings -- controlled some 600 miles of Pacific coast. "This confirms that the Chimu were part of a long religious tradition that included human sacrifices in their ceremonies," Walde said, adding that as the Chimu empire grew, the frequency and scale of human sacrifices increased as well. Walde and his team of experts stumbled across the find in 1998 when they were performing obligatory archeology impact studies for a port project for copper-zinc mine Antamina. Their discovery was made public only recently. At first they thought the partially decomposed bodies they found on the beach some 170 miles north of Lima were part of an ordinary cemetery like the thousands of other nearby graves. But as they examined the remains, they realized they were looking at something unprecedented. "The position that the fishermen were in -- face down, their hands tied and faces covered -- made us think that this was no ordinary (death)," he said. "It was very dramatic." According to Walde, the fishermen's feet, some of which were also bound, are the best preserved parts of their bodies. The bodies were all found with knees bent and feet upward, he said, to drain out organic liquids that can decay flesh. Of the 200 fishermen found near one another on the beach, 107 were recovered intact. The others had been mutilated by invaders and thrown into a mass grave nearby, or were destroyed over the years by grave robbers. Archeologists say that those who survived the invasion -- the wives and children of the sacrificed fishermen, or older people -- made a giant offering nearby of everyday items the fishermen could use in the next life, including simple jugs filled with grains or liquor, even a fishing net. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=1519150
Robber shot self, hit by van, fled Back To TopNORTH MIAMI BEACH, Florida (AP) -- A bank robber may have accidentally shot himself before being struck by a van as he fled with a bag of cash Monday, officials said.The man received help getting out from under the van, then hopped into a getaway car and escaped, said FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela. No one else was injured. The suspect, who has not been identified, went up to a teller at Wachovia Bank and pulled out a semiautomatic pistol, Orihuela said. He handed the teller a bag and told her to fill it with cash. He took the bag and was putting his gun back into his pocket when it fired, Orihuela said. Agents did not know if he was injured; no blood was found in the bank. The man ran outside and was crossing the street when the van hit him. It wasn't immediately clear how much money was stolen. Source:http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/South/09/30/offbeat.bungled.bank.rob.ap/index.html
$7 million palace to pamper pets Back To TopRICHMOND, Virginia (AP) -- Spacious living accommodations with modern European-style furnishings. Classical music piped into every room. A spa area with professional groomers.Richmond's latest $7 million facility would be a wonderful destination for any stressed-out office-worker. But it's not for them: It's for man's furry friends. The new shelter for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is set to open October 19, offering fur blow-dryers and music digitally altered to remove the ultrahigh and low notes that are so stressful to canine ears. "We're removing the barriers that have traditionally kept people from coming in -- that animal shelters are smelly, sad and noisy," said Robin Robertson Starr, the society's executive director. "The point was to create a place that people find positive and upbeat, a place where people want to come and spend time with the animals." And adopt. Two years ago, the Richmond area had one of the highest rates of homeless dogs and cats in the country -- more than 18,000 animals were in the city's animal control system. Around half were destroyed. San Francisco, a city four times the size of Richmond, has about 6,000 animals in its pounds. "Nothing was being done about it for years and years," said Denise Deisler, chief operating officer of the Richmond SPCA. "There was just no focused effort at all." Deisler expects the center to make an immediate impact. The shelter can house up to 150 dogs and 150 cats at a time, increasing current capacity by 50 percent. Deisler estimates that anywhere from 6,000 to 8,000 animals will be adopted out of the new center each year, up from the current 3,500. The goal is to completely eradicate the homeless pet population within the next six years, she said. According to Starr, the idea behind the shelter is two-pronged. First, the plush, cheerful surroundings act as gift wrapping, making the animals more attractive to visitors and hopefully more adoptable. It also serves to acclimate the animals to living in a home. Then there's the strict attention paid to keep the animals healthy. A sophisticated air control system flushes odors and airborne bacteria out of each room every six minutes. The furnished dog and cat visiting rooms are soundproofed to reduce noise, and natural light pours in through skylights. There's a spay-and-neuter operating room with gleaming metal tables and up-to-date equipment. On the second floor of the 64,000-square-foot old tobacco warehouse is a giant indoor track for dog walking, along with a private pooch potty area. Richmond's adoption palace was modeled after San Francisco's, which is generally credited with pioneering the livable adoption idea. When San Francisco opened its $7 million SPCA shelter in 1998, few people had seen animals living in their own "apartments," with art on the walls and television sets playing videos of foraging songbirds and "101 Dalmatians." It was also one of the first "no-kill" facilities in the country, meaning it stopped euthanizing unwanted animals. Source:http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/South/09/30/offbeat.animal.resort.ap/index.html
Atomic memory developed Back To TopImagine a CD with a storage capacity not of 650 MB but 650 million MB. Such a storage capacity is theoretically possible because of experiments using individual atoms to store data. But don't expect it soon, the gap between theory and practice is wide.In 1959 physicist Richard Feynman pointed out that all the words written in the history of the world could be contained in a cube of material one tenth of a millimetre wide - provided those words were written with atoms. Now scientists have done just that, creating an atomic-scale memory by using atoms of silicon in place of the 1s and 0s that computers use to store data. The research is reported in the journal Nanotechnology. Scientists say it represents a first crude step toward a practical storage device in which atoms represent bits of information. "This is proof of concept of what Feynman was saying 40 years ago," says Franz Himpsel of the University of Wisconsin. The memory created by Himpsel provides a storage density a million times greater than a CD-ROM. Atoms may be among the smallest physical things that can be used to store binary data. Their small size provided the awesome storage capacity, for example a grain of sand contains about 10 million billion atoms. The new memory was made on a silicon surface by lifting out single silicon atoms with the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope, gaps that represent the bits of data storage were created. Conventional data storage uses millions of atoms per bit. But while theoretically it is possible to use single atoms as storage bits in practice it may take decades to make a practical version of atomic memory. This is because of the problems of working with individual atoms at room temperatures and the data rate at which information is put into the atomic memory, and subsequently read out again, is far too slow to be of any use at the moment. Researchers say that an intriguing aspect of the latest work is that memory density is comparable to the way nature stores data in Dna molecules. The Wisconsin atomic-scale silicon memory uses 20 atoms to store one bit of information, including the space around the single atom bits. Dna uses 32 atoms to store information in one half of the chemical base pair that is the fundamental unit that makes up genetic information. "Compared to conventional storage media, both Dna and the silicon surface excel by their storage density," says Himpsel. Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2290707.stm
Fleeing Miami Robber Leaves Behind His Gold Teeth Back To TopMIAMI (Reuters) - A man dubbed by authorities as the "bumbling bank robber" had his two gold teeth knocked out as he ran into traffic and was hit by a van while fleeing a heist, FBI agents in Miami said on Tuesday.The suspect, who also may have shot himself accidentally, escaped in a waiting get-away car but police recovered his teeth from the street and held them as evidence, the FBI said. The suspect walked into a Wachovia Bank branch in North Miami Beach on Monday, pulled a gun from his pocket as he approached a teller and demanded that she fill a bag with money, the FBI said. The teller gave him an undisclosed sum of money and he turned to flee, discharging the gun as he stuffed it back into his pocket, the FBI said. "It is unknown at this time if the robber shot himself when the gun discharged," the FBI said in a statement headlined "update on bumbling bank robber." The suspect ran out of the bank into the street and was hit by a white van and dragged under it, authorities said. He managed to get up and run to a waiting car that sped away, leaving his teeth behind, the investigators said. Police and the FBI were looking for him at hospital emergency rooms and medical centers. The suspect was described as a tall, thin black man in his late 20s to early 30s. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=1525365
Study reveals that Clever wives are good for husbands' health Back To TopBeing married to a clever woman is good for men's hearts, researchers have found. Having a well-educated spouse reduces men's risk factors for heart disease, such as leading a sedentary lifestyle and being overweight.The Norwegian researchers suggest well-educated women may have a calming effect on their husbands, and may have a positive influence on dietary and lifestyle habits. Researchers looked at the health of 20,000 married men aged 35 to 56 who were part of a national survey looking at cardiovascular disease and risk factors. They monitored them from 1977 to 1992. They took information about their blood pressure and cholesterol levels, weight, smoking and exercise habits. The men were also asked if they had a history of heart attacks or angina, and if they were taking medication to reduce blood pressure. In just over 6,000 men, wives were less well educated than their husbands, while in 5,000 cases, the wives were better educated. The rest had similar levels of education. Dr Haakon Meyer of the Institute of Nutrition Research at the University of Oslo, one of the researchers on the study, told BBC News Online: "This paper suggests that educated men married to educated women do better. "This may be because the women make decisions about nutrition and lifestyle." In an editorial in the journal, psychiatrist Dr Karen Matthews of the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, said the contrast between the findings of this study and previous studies meant there was no clear answer about whether a clever wife helped a man's health. "At present, the answer is sometimes an educated wife is health damaging and sometimes she is health promoting." She added that increasing education of women was likely to lead to their families having more access to resources and higher prestige, and therefore to better health for both husbands and wives. Belinda Linden, of the British Heart Foundation, said: "This large long-term study confirms already existing strong evidence that socio-economic status affects peoples risk of developing coronary heart disease. "It is not surprising that people in higher socio-economic groupings are less likely to develop CHD as they often have a better standard of health education. "Partners are often influenced by each other and share many patterns of lifestyle, such as diet, smoking and physical inactivity." She added: "The results from this study are interesting, and confirm what we already have found regarding socio-economic status. "However, the research does not tell us anything about the husband's background and how that may influence his risk of developing CHD." See also: Source:http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2291737.stm
Research found that Penis size 'not linked to feet' Back To TopMen with big feet do not necessarily have a large manhood, a study suggests. Researchers at University College London say there is no evidence linking a man's shoe size to the length of his penis.After measuring the vital parts of more than 100 men, they concluded that the theory has no scientific basis. It has long been suggested that various parts of a man's body - his nose, hands or feet - could indicate penis size. But Dr Jyoti Shah and colleagues at UCL and St Mary's Hospital London say their findings dispel the theory around feet, at least. They examined 104 men attending a London urology clinic. They included teenagers and pensioners and the average age was 54. The researchers measured the men's penises when soft and gently stretched. Writing in the British Journal of Urology International, they said: "All lengths were measured by two urologists and recorded to the nearest 0.5cm. The age and shoe size was documented." While the true size of the penis can only be determined when erect, the researchers said that their method provided a good indication of length. The researchers found that the average penis was 13cm when soft and gently stretched. This figure ranged from 6cm at the lower end of the scale to 18cm at the higher end. The men had an average British shoe size of 9 or 43 in European measurements. However, they found no correlation between shoe size and penis length. The researchers said: "Many believe that the size of a man's penis can be estimated by assessing various other parts of his body, notoriously his shoe size." But they added: ""The ability to predict the size of a man's penis by observing his shoe size is a common misconception. "The present study shows that there is no scientific support for the relationship." Source:http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2292143.stm
Men and Women Get Mental Boost from Marriage Back To TopLONDON (Reuters) - Women, as well as men, benefit from marriage and get a mental health boost from being a couple, new study findings suggest.Research from Australia, which shows that about 13% of married men and women suffer from stress, contradicts the findings of a 1972 study by sociologist Jessie Bernard. Her study, which looked at anxiety, depression and neurosis in married and unmarried people, found that men reaped the benefits of marriage at the expense of women. "The idea that men benefit from being part of a couple while women suffer all the stress has taken a blow," New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday. Psychologist David de Vaus, from LaTrobe University in Melbourne, said the difference between his findings and Bernard's could be due to the definition of stress and mental disorder, which can manifest itself in men as drug and alcohol abuse. When he studied data from a mental health poll of more than 10,000 adults from a 1996 national survey of mental health in Australia that included substance abuse as an indicator of stress, he found that 25% of single men and women were miserable. In the female sample, married women with children had the fewest mental health problems. "Psychologists are now debating whether Bernard's conclusions have always been flawed, or whether women have become genuinely happier inside marriage over the past 30 years," the magazine added. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=healthnews&StoryID=1527164
Stop Those Presses! Blonds, It Seems, Will Survive After All Back To TopLast Friday, several British newspapers reported that the World Health Organization had found in a study that blonds would become extinct within 200 years, because blondness was caused by a recessive gene that was dying out. The reports were repeated on Friday by anchors for the ABC News program "Good Morning America," and on Saturday by CNN.There was only one problem, the health organization said in a statement yesterday that it never reported that blonds would become extinct, and it had never done a study on the subject. "W.H.O. has no knowledge of how these news reports originated," said the organization, an agency of the United Nations based in Geneva, "but would like to stress that we have no opinion of the future existence of blonds." All the news reports, in Britain and the United States, cited a study from the World Health Organization — "a blonde-shell study," as The Daily Star of London put it. But none reported any scientific details from the study or the names of the scientists who conducted it. On "Good Morning America," Charles Gibson began a conversation with his co-anchor, Diane Sawyer, by saying: "There's a study from the World Health Organization, this is for real, that blonds are an endangered species. Women and men with blond hair, eyebrows and blue eyes, natural blonds, they say will vanish from the face of the earth within 200 years, because it is not as strong a gene as brunets." Ms. Sawyer said she was "somewhat of a natural blonde." Jeffrey Schneider, a spokesman for ABC News, said the anchors got the information from an ABC producer in London who said he had read it in a British newspaper. In London, The Sun and The Express both reported that unnamed scientists said blonds would survive longest in Scandinavia, where they are most concentrated, and expected the last true blond to hail from Finland. The British accounts were replete with the views of bleached blonds who said hairdressers would never allow blondness to become extinct, and doctors who said that rare genes would pop up to keep natural blonds from becoming an endangered species. Journalists in London said last night that the source of the reports was probably one of several European news agencies that are used by the British press, but it remained unclear which one. Tim Hall, a night news editor at The Daily Mail, said the report was probably distributed by The Press Association, Britain's domestic news agency. "Several papers picked it up," he said. But Charlotte Gapper, night editor at The Press Association, said that although it had considered running the report on Sept. 27, it had decided not to after talking to the World Health Organization. "We didn't do that story because we made an inquiry to the World Health Organization first," she said. "They told us that report was two years old, and had been covered at the time. They said it had been picked up again that day by a German news agency." She added that she did not know which agency the organization was referring to. Dr. Ray White, a geneticist at the University of California at San Francisco, said that the disappearance of a gene for blond hair "sounds patently incorrect." Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/02/health/02BLON.html Editor's Note:This serve as a reminder to those of us who tend to believe anything that comes from "reliable sources". Blondes Headed For Extinction was enthusiastically reported in previous issue of Perpective.
American Duped Dads Fighting Back their Cheating Wives Back To Top"Is it yours? If not, you still have to pay!" That statement, plastered on a New Jersey billboard above a picture of a visibly pregnant woman, is enough to make many male motorists slow down in rush hour traffic. Patrick McCarthy, president of New Jersey Citizens Against Paternity Fraud, the group sponsoring nine of these billboards across the state, says he's just trying to prevent the victimization of other men. Three years ago, McCarthy found out he was not the biological father of his then-15-year-old daughter. Though divorced from her mother for well over a decade and not intimately involved in her life, McCarthy paid child support for the girl.When McCarthy, remarried with two other children, petitioned the courts for relief from his financial obligations, he discovered he had little recourse. The DNA test McCarthy paid for could not be presented in court. As far as the state of New Jersey was concerned, McCarthy still bore financial obligations to a child who was not his. McCarthy testified this week before a New Jersey legislative committee in support of a "paternity fraud" bill, which would allow a man to challenge paternity at any time. "Some people say 'If you had doubts you should have asked for a DNA test.' I had no reason to ever think my wife slept with someone outside of our marriage. She committed adultery," he said. Angry men calling themselves "duped dads" are waging a state-by-state battle to change centuries-old laws they say are biased against them. Bills are pending in seven states — Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Vermont — that would relieve some men of paternity obligations based on DNA testing. Twelve states already have such laws. Last week, California Gov. Gray Davis vetoed a "paternity fraud" bill, saying the measure would only delay child support collection and let some biological fathers wriggle out of parental responsibilities. The paternity debate is heating up in the courts, too. Two men recently attempted and failed to get the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their cases after lower courts ruled they must continue paying support for children who turned out not to be theirs. One, Carnell Smith of Decatur, Ga., is trying to recoup more than $40,000 from his ex-girlfriend after learning three years ago that her 13-year-old daughter is not his. Statistics on paternity are understandably difficult to come by. Usually DNA testing for the purpose of proving paternity are only performed in cases where there is a reason to doubt a biological family connection. Supporters of paternity identification bills point to a 1999 study by the American Association of Blood Banks that found that in 30 percent of 280,000 blood tests performed to determine paternity, the man tested was not the biological father. The presumption of paternity regardless of biology goes back centuries. Most state laws are based on Medieval English common law, which assumed that a married woman's husband fathered all of her children. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld this presumption in 1989 when it gave a custodial father rights over a noncustodial biological father. Despite the courts' leanings, advocates of "paternity fraud" bills say forcing a man to support a child who is not his is fundamentally unfair. Opponents of such legislation, who oppose the phrase "paternity fraud" because it assumes deception was involved, say they're aware of the public relations struggle ahead of them. "I think on the surface there is this 'poor guy' reaction," said Paula Roberts, senior staff attorney for the non-profit Center for Law and Social Policy. "Then when you start thinking about it on a deeper level and think about the child, you have a different take on it." Parental relationships are more than just a genetic connection, Roberts said. "This goes to the fundamental question of what it means to be a father," Roberts said. "Is a father just a sperm donor? If that's all there is, I suppose you would opt for a system in which you discover you weren't the sperm donor so you should be able to get out." In truth, when a father and child develop a relationship over the years, even if their DNA does not match, they are still family, she said. The truth about the child's identity is in the child's best interest, advocates of paternity fraud laws counter. "You just can't lie to kids," Lowell Jaks, president of the Internet-based Alliance for Non-Custodial Parents Rights. "The truth is that this or that man is or is not his or her biological father, period. It is a basic part of your identity." Like it or not, says California State Sen. Sheila Kuehl, who opposed her state's proposal, government has historically regulated familial relationships. "There's no such thing as a legal parent except through the state as there is no such thing as a legal marriage. The state is called upon to regulate relationships by law, otherwise benefits that flow from marriage would not flow," Kuehl said. "It's an ancient practice going back thousands of years for the government or king or chieftain to make a rule about who is the child's parent. And it really was a way of organizing society." Using that argument, men could justify many socially unacceptable practices by relying on centuries-old law, say fathers' rights advocates. "Well, fine, if you want to bring back common law, then I own children and even a woman as chattel. If I catch the woman in an adulterous relationship, I can kill her. Do you want to bring that back?" Jaks said. Just as criminal courts are using DNA evidence to exonerate the innocent and condemn the guilty, family courts should take advantage of scientific progress to find the truth, say father's rights supporters. "DNA really equals truth and honesty," McCarthy said. "To not use DNA and continue to let paternity fraud happen only allows lies, deceptions and false paternity to occur in our court system right now." Men hoping to use DNA to escape child support obligations should consider the ramifications of their efforts, Roberts said. What if mothers and biological fathers could use DNA tests to interrupt life-long relationships between men and children they love who happen not to be theirs? "If you have a rule that allows the father to say 'not my sperm I want out,' you also have to allow the mother to do the same thing and the [biological father] to do the same thing. It's not just about the man who isn't the father who has rights here," she said. "You can't have one rule for one set of people and one rule for others." Source:http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/paternity021002.html Editor's Note: A wife cheats on her husband and the husband is forced to reward the cheater every month for 18 years?!!! This probably explains why too many American men take laws into their hands out of desperation. Where is Sharia when you need it? Some Americans are suggesting that violation of the 6th Commandment (Exodus 20:14) should be made a felony while others suggest that DNA test be a standard procedure of establishing paternity for all Birth Registrations.
Kiss Lands Iranian Actress and Director in Court Back To TopTEHRAN (Reuters) - A kiss planted on the forehead of a young Iranian director by a well-known actress has landed the pair in court and sparked heated protests in the Islamic Republic over physical contact between the sexes.Under Iran's strict Islamic laws, implemented after the 1979 revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, touching between unrelated men and women, even a handshake, is forbidden. So there was stunned silence at a film awards ceremony in the central city of Yazd last Friday when respected actress Gohar Kheirandish kissed the forehead of Ali Zamani and shook his hand when presenting the prize for top director. "I was chosen as the best film maker in the festival, I was a student of Kheirandish's late husband, and she became emotional and kissed my forehead," Zamani was quoted by the Etemad daily as saying on Thursday. The pair apologized for their actions and insisted it was a spontaneous gesture not intended to cause offence. "She kissed me like a mother kisses her child," he said. But conservative authorities present at the ceremony saw it differently. The local justice department chief ordered their arrest for disturbing public morality. Zamani, who is in his 20s, appeared in court on Wednesday and was released on bail of $2,500. Kheirandish, who is in her 50s, was reported to be returning to Yazd to face the charges. On Monday, Mohsen Talebpour, representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Yazd, organized a protest to condemn the kiss, the official IRNA news agency reported. "Today the enemy has targeted our Islamic beliefs," he said. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=1530509
Study Reveals The World's Funniest Joke Back To TopLONDON (Reuters) - After a year of painstaking scientific research, the world's funniest joke was revealed on Thursday.In a project described as the largest-ever scientific study into humor, the British Association for the Advancement of Science asked Internet users around the world to submit their favorite jokes and rate the funniness of other people's offerings. More than 40,000 jokes from 70 countries and two million critiques later, this is it: "Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other man pulls out his phone and calls emergency services. He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator in a calm, soothing voice replies: "Take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the hunter says, "Ok, now what?" Researchers found significant differences between nations in the types of jokes they found funny. People from the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Australia and New Zealand preferred gags involving word play, such as: PATIENT: "Doctor, I've got a strawberry stuck up my bum." DOCTOR: "I've got some cream for that." Americans and Canadians favored jokes where people were made to look stupid. TEXAN: "Where are you from?" HARVARD GRAD: "I come from a place where we do not end our sentences with prepositions." TEXAN: "OK -- where are you from, jackass?" Meanwhile, many Europeans liked gags that were surreal or made light of serious subjects such as illness, death and marriage: A patient says, "Doctor, last night I made a Freudian slip, I was having dinner with my mother-in-law and wanted to say: 'Could you please pass the butter?' "But instead I said: 'You silly cow, you have completely ruined my life.'" Marriage-mocking also featured in the top American joke: "A man and a friend are playing golf one day. One of the guys is about to chip onto the green when he sees a long funeral procession on the road next to the course. "He stops in mid-swing, takes off his golf cap, closes his eyes, and bows down in prayer. His friend says: 'Wow that is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You are truly a kind man.' "The man then replies: 'Yeah, well, we were married 35 years.'" Death earned big laughs in Scotland: "I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather. Not screaming in terror like his passengers." And animals figured prominently. Take the number one joke in England: "Two weasels are sitting on a bar stool. One starts to insult the other one. He screams, 'I slept with your mother!' "The bar gets quiet as everyone listens to see what the other weasel will do. "The first again yells, 'I SLEPT WITH YOUR MOTHER!' "The other says: 'Go home dad, you're drunk.'" The survey revealed other fun facts: -- Of the countries rating the highest number of jokes, Germans, perhaps surprisingly, laughed the most. Canadians laughed least. -- If you want to tell a funny animal joke, make it a duck. -- The most frequently submitted joke, at 300 times, was: "What's brown and sticky? A stick." Researchers said no one ever found it funny. The findings can be read at www.laughlab.co.uk Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=1530576 The Globe And Mail Editorial Note: The deep thinkers at the British Association for the Advancement of Science have too much time on their hands. In what must rate as a first-class example of how to turn water-cooler chatter into a major research project, they've scoured the globe -- with the help of the Internet -- for the world's funniest joke. (It's all at http://www.laughlab.co.uk.) And for their next trick? These scientists might consider using their expertise in linguistics to translate CNN Headline News into English. In its latest attempt to reach a younger audience, the cable channel plans to use more slang in its newscasts -- words like "whack" and "ill" and "fly." No, we don't know what they mean beyond their dictionary use either. But we're sure the members of the BAAS could help -- they seem very in tune with wordplay.
Alcohol Good for Your Heart - Study Finds Back To TopA new study has linked the moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages with a reduced risk of heart disease or death attributed to it among women aged 40 or older.Released by Statistics Canada on Thursday, the study says women who reported consuming two to nine drinks in the week before they were interviewed in 1994/95 had less than half the odds of being diagnosed with heart disease or dying from it over the next four years than did women who were lifetime abstainers. Among women aged 40 or older, 11 per cent of lifetime abstainers and 14 per cent of former drinkers were newly diagnosed with heart disease or died from it from 1994 to 19999. Over the same period, only 4 per cent of light drinkers and about 3 per cent of moderate drinkers were diagnosed with heart disease or died from it. Although previous studies have indicated a positive effect of moderate drinking for both sexes, Statistics Canada says the National Population Health Survey (NPHS) data showed no such association for men. Alcohol consumption reported to the NPHS differed substantially by sex. In 1994/95, 13 per cent of women were lifetime abstainers, compared with only 6 per cent of men. A higher proportion of women than men reported drinking occasionally, but men were more likely than women to report moderate or heavy consumption. A number of other factors were significantly associated with heart disease. Men and women aged 55 to 69 or aged 70 or older had higher odds of being diagnosed with heart disease or dying from it, than those aged 40 to 54. A family history of heart disease was strongly predictive of the condition for both sexes. On the other hand, physical activity was protective against it. Men who reported having diabetes in 1994/95 had more than twice the chance of being diagnosed with heart disease or of dying from it than men who were not diabetic. Men who were overweight or obese in 1994/95 had higher odds of a subsequent diagnosis of, or death attributed to, heart disease than did men whose weight was in the acceptable range. Women classified as overweight, however, had lower odds of a new diagnosis of heart disease, compared with women whose weight was classified as acceptable. There was no clear link between obesity and heart disease for women. Source:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/front/RTGAM/ 20021003/wheart1003/Front/homeBN/breakingnews
Implant may help blind to see Back To TopUS scientists are developing a light-sensitive chip that will be implanted into the eyes of blind people to restore some of their vision. The goal is to allow people suffering from certain forms of blindness, such as age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, to see 1,000 points of light through 1,000 tiny electrodes positioned on their retinas.US scientists are developing a light-sensitive chip that will be implanted into the eyes of blind people to restore some of their vision. The goal is to allow people suffering from certain forms of blindness, such as age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, to see 1,000 points of light through 1,000 tiny electrodes positioned on their retinas. The idea is to use a tiny camera and radio-frequency transmitter in the frame of a pair of spectacles to transmit information and power to chips placed within the eyeball. The chips will be linked to retinal nerves that will send electrical impulses to the brain for processing. Dean Cole of the US Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research in Washington, DC, said: "We felt that blindness is a devastating problem and that the modern conjunction of materials science with micro- and nanotechnologies in our multidisciplinary national labs offers possibilities for advances where before people had hit brick walls." The electronic chip will be attached to the retina and will be able to stimulate nerve endings that will produce images good enough to read large print and to distinguish between objects in a room. "Compared to the elegance of the original biological design, what we're doing is extremely crude," said Wessendorf. "We'll use a crude, shotgun approach that fires groups of nerves. In the long run, of course, we'd like to stimulate each individual nerve," said Sandia researcher Mike Daily. A 10-by-10 electrode array is currently being developed; a 33-by-33 array will be constructed next year. "Integrating microdevices into the human eye is incredibly challenging because of the need for high-reliability operation over decades in a saline environment," said Mike Daily. Over a five-year period, said Dean Cole, the project would begin with goggles and move in the direction of corneal implants, aiming if all goes well to prepare five patients for the procedure before the project's end. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2292443.stm
Violence claims 1.6m a year Back To TopMore than 1.6 million people are killed by violence around the world each year, a major report reveals. The World Health Organization said that millions of others are left injured as a result of attacks. Violence is now the leading cause of death among people aged between 15 and 44.The WHO has called on governments across the globe to take urgent action to cut murder rates, domestic violence and armed conflict. The report shows that violence accounts for 14% of deaths in men and 7% of deaths in women. This accounts for a person dying somewhere in the world as a result of an attack every minute of every day. It is estimated that one person commits suicide every 40 seconds. Thirty-five people are killed every hour as a result of armed conflict. According to the report, a total of 191m people lost their lives during the last century as a result of armed conflict. But it adds that for every person killed by violence as many as another 40 need treatment for serious injuries. The WHO added that half of all women murdered are killed by their current or former husband or boyfriend. In some countries, that figure is as high as 70%. One in four women across the globe will experience sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. But violence against the elderly is also a growing problem. Up to 6% of older people have reported being abused. Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, director-general of WHO, said: "The report challenges us in many respects. "It forces us to reach beyond our notions of what is acceptable and comfortable - to challenge notions that acts of violence are simply matters of family privacy, individual choice, or inevitable facets of life." Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2293991.stm Editor's Note: It is hard to imagine some people sleep at night knowing that what they do for a living is profit from the blood of these 1.6m victims. There are not too many countries in the world whose export of weapons, other tools of violence, destruction and self destruction exceeds export of food
Bush challenged to 'duel' with Saddam Back To TopAn Iraqi vice-president has proposed that Saddam Hussein and George W Bush should fight a duel to settle their differences.Taha Yassin Ramadan suggested that United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan should referee the duel on neutral territory. Mr Ramadan, who is not noted for a sense of humour but occasionally resorts to sarcasm, made the proposal in an interview with the Associated Press. Mr Bush's spokesman Ari Fleischer rejected the idea saying, "there can be no serious response to an irresponsible statement like that". His remarks came as the UN Security Council discussed the Iraqi offer for arms inspectors to return to Baghdad - the more straightforward route to avert war. "Bush wants to attack the whole [of] Iraq, the army and the infrastructure," the Iraqi vice-president said. "The American president should specify a group, and we will specify a group and choose neutral ground with Kofi Annan as referee and use one weapon with a president against a president, a vice-president against a vice-president, and a minister against a minister in a duel." Mr Fleischer poured scorn on the proposal saying: "In the past when Iraq had disputes, it invaded its neighbours. There were no duels; there were invasions. There was use of weapons of mass destruction and military. That's how Iraq settles its disputes." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2297371.stm Editor's Note: Duel between the two will probaly be a good idea. On Sep. 26, 2002 in Houston, Texas, Bush clearly indicated his problem with Sadam is personal when he said Sadam needs to be attacked because "After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad at one time."
Tumor Victim Says Mother Teresa Miracle Saved Her Back To TopDANOGRAM, India (Reuters) - Monica Bersa says she could have died but for Mother Teresa.The 34-year-old Indian woman had a large stomach tumor that she says disappeared after she prayed to the Nobel Peace Prize winning nun. Earlier this week, the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints agreed with her. It approved the disappearance of Bersa's tumor as a miracle and attributed it to Mother Teresa, who died in 1997. This means Mother Teresa, known as the "saint of the gutters," will likely be beatified, or declared blessed of the church, next year. Beatification is a key step toward sainthood. "I am fine now. It is all due to the blessings of Mother Teresa," Bersa told Reuters in Danogram, some 220 miles north of Calcutta, headquarters of the global order of the Missionaries of Charity, founded by the Catholic nun in 1950. Bersa was 30 in September 1998 when she held an aluminum medal blessed by Mother Teresa to her stomach and prayed to the nun. "The next day, my tumor was gone. Mother Teresa's blessings cured me," said Bersa, a tribal woman dressed in a yellow sari with a red border. The miracle was discussed at a closed-door meeting at the Vatican Tuesday in which doctors explained it to cardinals, bishops and priests. At such meetings, doctors tell members of the congregation they have no medical explanation for the cure. The head bishop of the Catholic Church in West Bengal state, under which Danogram falls, told Reuters by phone the disappearance of the tumor "was indeed a miracle." "We took Bersa to doctors all over the state. But after she prayed holding the medal Mother Teresa used to give out, the approximately five-kilogram (11-pound) tumor disappeared. Doctors had no explanation for its sudden disappearance," Bishop Alphonse D'Souza S.J. told Reuters. After her death at the age of 87, devotees of Albanian-born Mother Teresa asked the Vatican to hasten the process to canonize her. Normally, under Church rules, five years must pass after a person's death before the process toward sainthood starts. In 1999, the pope granted a dispensation so the procedure for her sainthood could start less than two years after her death. If the pope signs the decree approving the miracle, probably in December, a beatification ceremony can be held next year. A second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa would be needed after the beatification for her to be declared a saint. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=1535380
Indiana Teen Saved After Online Suicide Bid Back To TopSEATTLE (Reuters) - In what may be the Internet's first attempt at a public suicide, a young Indiana man posted his efforts to kill himself with drugs on a Web discussion board, sparking a flurry of sympathy and taunts before he was located and saved by police.The teen survived after a Seattle woman reading the discussion board intervened and alerted authorities. As more people flock to the Internet in search of communities and companionship, it was inevitable that an online suicide attempt would occur, psychologists said. After tracking down the identity of the suicidal teen, Jennifer Martini of Seattle, who works as a moderator of an online game, said she was able to call police in Highland, Indiana, where he lives, and alert them. Pete Nelson, of the Highland Police Department, confirmed that a suicide incident involving a minor had happened, but declined to provide further details. The incident began on Monday night with postings by "Vegas (Cats)," the teen's "handle," or screen name on a gaming discussion board for the fantasy world game Ultima that involves online role-playing gamers. "I'm not scared anymore. Tears and sweat are joining my face which is completely soaked." "I have said all my goodbyes...the only thing I am sorry for is the person that has to walk in and see me....cold....and dead. 16 pills down the drain........" ".........miss ya guys," he wrote. The posting sparked a flurry of replies, similar to a crowd gathering underneath a suicidal jumper, with responses ranging from sympathy to encouragement to the Internet cries of "Jump." "There really is no point man, no point at all," wrote one online participant., "Whatever problems you have, like all others, are only temporary." Another wrote: "Kill yourself in the forest so you decompose. Really the way to go." Others were more clinical. "Obviously you want someone to talk you out of it because you are posting about this here," someone else wrote. "Don't be so selfish as to kill yourself and ruin the lives of those around you." Another posting consisted merely of a smiley face graphic waving goodbye. "I didn't know what to do," Martini said, "I was aware that it might be a potential hoax but I decided to try and risk making a fool out of myself because someone could have died." Other online participants also suspected a hoax, as they made their own investigations into the real identities of those involved. But Martini said she was later contacted by a Highland police officer who found the teen still alive and able to talk. He was taken to the hospital and treated for a drug overdose. After returning home, the young man immediately reconnected with his online community to track down his rescuer, according to Web postings. "We've recognized that teens have a degree of intimacy of communicating over the Internet that is astounding," said Eric Trupin, a juvenile and adolescent psychology professor at the University of Washington. "It doesn't totally surprise me that this youth was having this kind of interaction," he said. Trupin agreed that the public Web posting was very similar to a plea for help, very much like a suicidal person standing on a bridge or high-rise building. The online incident, and the reaction it got from the community, was reminiscent of a suicide attempt in Seattle in August of last year. A young woman leapt off a 160-foot-high bridge after passing motorists, tangled up in the traffic snarls she created, yelled things like, "Jump, bitch, jump!." The woman lived, but ignited remorse in a city that once prided itself on being free from big-city woes. "People view the Internet as faceless, and it is really easy to dismiss people and dehumanize them, but there is a caring community there," Martini said. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=1535385
World's Best and Worst Cities. Surprise, Lagos is neither Back To TopIf you want to live abroad, Vancouver and Melbourne are the places to do it, a survey has revealed.The cities came top of 130 surveyed by the Economist Intelligence Unit for the level of hardship they pose to expatriates. And Australian cities overall scored particularly highly in the survey, with all five the country's urban centres surveyed ranked near the top of the table. Europe was also well represented among the top 10 places. The best... 1=: Melbourne, Vancouver 3: Perth 4=: Geneva, Toronto, Vienna, Zurich 8=: Adelaide, Brisbane, Copenhagen, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Oslo, Montreal ...and the worst 130: Port Moresby 129: Karachi 127=: Dhaka, Lagos 126: Phnom Penh 125: Algiers 124: Mumbai 123: Abidjan 122: Dakar 121: New Delhi The top US city, Honolulu, ranked 21st, with Boston, at 28th, the highest ranked city on the US mainland. Canada, in contrast, sneaked three cities into the top ten. The UK cities of London, 44th, and Manchester, 50th, gained only a mid-table rating, with Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea bottom of the list. Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2299119.stm | ||||||