I guess it worked. He's not smoking anymore...
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Two Malaysians died and one was severely injured in a ritual designed to help a man overcome his chain-smoking habit and to rid his wife of her asthma and liver diseases. Ah, what the hell. The patch didn't work.
State news agency Bernama reported that four close relatives smashed the couple's heads on a table and beat them with crash helmets and brooms as part of a ritual to help them overcome their health problems. STILL WANT A SMOKE!
WHAM
WELL DO YA!
WHAM
Kuala Lumpur CID chief Ku Chin Wah said the ritual was suggested by the relatives who the couple visited as part of celebrations to mark the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, where they complained of their ill-health. Ah, Ramadan. That answers a few questions.
"Following this, a 23-year-old male relative suggested that the couple undergo a ritual which involved all family members joining forces to beat up the couple to rid them of their ailments," Ku told reporters on Thursday, according to Bernama. Tonight on "Malaysian Intervention"...
The 15-year-old daughter of one of the four assailants walked in on the ritual, was severely beaten and was admitted to hospital, Ku said. I wonder what she was cured of?
#3
The 15-year-old daughter of one of the four assailants walked in on the ritual, was severely beaten and was admitted to hospital, Ku said.
I wonder what she was cured of?
JEDDAH Two smugglers were arrested by Border Guards after a gunbattle in a foiled attempt to smuggle 1,205 kilogrammes of hashish into the kingdom in the southern region of Najran on Friday.
That's a big stash for a supposedly drug-free country ...
Maj. Gen. Mohammed Al Zahrani, commander of the Border Guard in the region, said the two men in a car opened fire on his officers when they stopped them at a roadblock. Police returned fire and caught one of the men while the second escaped into a mountainous area but was caught within an hour, he said.
He said that police confiscated a number of guns and live ammunition from the car. Zahrani also stated that the smugglers were wearing military uniforms to mislead security officers at checkpoints.
According to Border Guard sources at the Yemen border, security officials have made it very difficult for smugglers to operate in the area. In order to effectively counter smugglers the authorities have constructed a 450km border road.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/07/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
And so today, Allah's Paradise on earth is a little sadder.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
10/07/2008 8:41 Comments ||
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#2
price of hash just went up on Riyahd streets. Oh nevermind they don't care.
#3
Two smugglers were arrested by Border Guards after a gunbattle in a foiled attempt to smuggle 1,205 kilogrammes of hashish into the kingdom in the southern region of Najran on Friday.
At least eight "Barack Obamas" who borrowed the Democratic presidential candidate's name to run in Brazilian local elections lost.
The defeat of the so-called Obamas came in municipal elections on Sunday that selected mayors and council members in more than 5,000 cities across the nation -- and saw the ruling Workers Party and allies of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva make gains across the nation.
Brazilian electoral law allows candidates to put any name on the ballot as long as it isn't offensive. Some used the name Bin Laden, and others resorted to French soccer player Zinedine Zidane. No one was known to use the name of McCain, the Republican presidential candidate.
"The name Obama definitely helped," said Claudio Henrique dos Anjos, who used it to run for mayor of Belford Roxo on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. "It opened the doors for me to talk about projects. It brought a positive result."
But official results show he didn't get a single vote, though he disputes the count.
"I'll still keep the political name Obama," Dos Anjos said. "Not only because of the admiration I have for him, but also because it is the nickname the people gave to me. It's how they know me."
Some Brazilian candidates mistakenly think they can attract more voters by using the quirk in the ballot law, said political scientist David Fleischer said.
"They are opportunists trying to use popular figures to their advantage," Fleischer said. "It doesn't work."
A SPANISH tourist in Tokyo has caused havoc as he swam naked in the moat around the Imperial Palace, one of Japan's most sacrosanct sites. Police seized the bald and portly man after a nearly two-hour chase in which he hurled rocks at police and scaled the moat's walls as shocked onlookers snapped photos from their mobile phones.
The 40-year-old toured the sprawling palace in central Tokyo with five other Spanish tourists and afterwards said his bag fell into the moat, Fuji Television reported. While the group was speaking with police to help, the man reportedly threw his belongings out of his pockets, stripped naked and dived straight into the water.
"I'm lucky I don't have very good eyesight,'' an elderly woman told Fuji Television. "I can't believe he did this here, but he probably didn't know the significance of this area,'' she said.
Police initially approached the Spaniard in a small rowboat and tried to throw him a float. But he suddenly began beating the water in a threatening way and then threw stones at the officers, barely missing them, footage showed.
After he climbed out of the moat, he took a nearby pole and - his pinkish body still completely uncovered - charged at the police officers who pushed him back into the water. Police seized him as he got out of the water a second time.
Police say more than 50 passengers may have been injured in an emergency landing at an airport in Western Australia's north.
West Australian Police say a Qantas airbus carrying up to 300 passengers landed safely at Learmonth Airport in Exmouth this afternoon. The pilot had put out a mayday call prior to the incident.
#1
Interesting that Qantas has been in the news of late: recently there was an inspector with them that went to jail for knowingly forging maintenance records (put selant and paint over a crackin a froged fitting) and also falsifying his resume. As a result, IIRC, there has been an AD issued to check a bunch of Boeing aircraft for cracks.
This is probably unrelated, but will be interesting to track.
#6
Qantas never crashed? Remember the Thai golf tour that delivered right to the destination - the golf course. The aircraft apparently was technically a write off but Qantas had it repaired so they could claim they hadn't written one off in an accident. The accident was caused by poor crew coordination with one trying to land the other to go around. Ran off the end of the runway at a fair clip and ended up in a golf course and the pax sat in the dark for 20 minutes before they decided to evacuate the aircraft. Can't have been any private or military pilots among the passengers.
Posted by: Aussie Mike ||
10/07/2008 18:29 Comments ||
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Disaffected yout or pending 'sudden jihadi syndrome'? You decide ...
Authorities busting a suspected ID thief in Brooklyn stumbled upon a possible terrorist nest full of al Qaeda news clippings, chemical manuals and weapons literature, sources told The Post yesterday. Cops made the disturbing find Thursday evening after a landlord found the photocopied IDs inside the apartment of a former tenant on Classon Avenue in Prospect Heights and dialed 311.
The tenant, Hisham Khaleel, 35, had been evicted.
Responding officers found 13 copied licenses, all of which appeared to belong to customers from the Vanderbilt YMCA on East 47th Street in Manhattan, where Khaleel worked briefly as an unarmed security guard. They also found news clippings about al Qaeda, literature on chemical purchasing and processing, an owner's manual for a Beretta handgun, a reference guide for modern airplanes, a video on rifle-shooting fundamentals and a sniper's manual.
Cops also uncovered lab glassware catalogs and a book, "Hostile Planet: The Essential Guide to Surviving Natural Disasters, Pandemics and Terrorist Attacks."
Khaleel's former co-worker Pierre Andre Leonard, 35, said the suspect worked for six months on the 3-11 p.m. shift. "He didn't hang with the crew," he said, adding that Khaleel seemed to disappear one day.
Khaleel was awaiting arraignment last night in Brooklyn Supreme Court on charges of criminal possession of stolen property and unlawful possession of personal identification. However, sources said the materials found in the apartment had piqued probers' interest, and a full-scale investigation was under way.
According to federal court filings, Khaleel has been a frequent - if unsuccessful - litigant. A 2005 lawsuit against the staffing company Metro One Loss Prevention Services alleged that he had been discriminated against on the basis of his Egyptian background when he was let go. The suit was dismissed, as was a nearly identical claim against the US Postal Service, where Khaleel worked from 2001 to 2004.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/07/2008 00:00 ||
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Probably just a harmless hobby.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
10/07/2008 8:43 Comments ||
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#2
Great - a wanna be terrorist and a postal worker. Two great things that go great together. Think he boosted a few pieces of mail in 3 years?
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
10/07/2008 16:25 Comments ||
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Police used helicopters to spot armed mobs attacking Muslims in troubled Assam on Tuesday, where clashes between indigenous tribesmen and settlers have left 47 people dead and tens of thousands homeless.
Police said four people died from their wounds overnight. More than 85,000 people have lost their homes and are being sheltered in government camps after the clashes broke out last week between mainly Hindu tribesmen and Muslim Bangladeshi settlers in the oil and tea-rich state.
"At least 47 people had lost their lives so far," said R.N. Mathur, Assam's police chief. Muslims have responded with some violence as well, he said.
The clashes have reignited a long-simmering conflict as local Assam tribes, mainly Hindu but with some Christians, fear being overrun by Muslim immigrants. More than 40 percent of Assam is now Muslim, mainly immigrant settlers.
The violence is some of the worst since 1983, when more than 2,000 people, mainly Bangladeshi immigrants, were killed in clashes with tribal peoples in central Assam.
The current conflict was sparked by an increasingly strong student movement that has been campaigning against immigrants, analysts say.
Police said fresh clashes were being reported from southern Assam where at least 25 rubber plantation workers were attacked by Muslim settlers in Goalpara district.
Mathur said an additional 500 federal police had been deployed in the state where hundreds of security forces were already trying to control the situation.
He said helicopters were being used to spot movement of mobs in remote areas.
"It is not possible to have static security posts in each and every village, so we have intensified patrolling in remote areas," said Himanta Biswa Sarma, a minister supervising security and relief measures.
These clashes are the latest bout of violence to hit India. In Orissa, clashes between Hindus and Christians over conversions have killed at least 36 people.
In Assam, officials have blamed the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), a tribal separatist group, for being behind the violence. Security forces have caught four NDFB militants with weapons in the violence-hit area.
The NDFB, a largely Christian group, has held to a ceasefire with New Delhi over the past few years and has denied the charge. Tribal groups blame New Delhi for neglecting their welfare, ignoring development of the region and flooding the area with outsiders.
Ringed by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan, India's northeast is home to more than 200 tribes and has been racked by separatist revolts since India gained independence from Britain in 1947.
Posted by: john frum ||
10/07/2008 15:47 ||
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BANGALORE: After repeated delays, India's first unmanned mission to the Moon - Chandrayaan-1 - will be launched on October 22 from the spaceport at Sriharikota, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) sources said on Monday. The sources said weather conditions permitting the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C11) carrying the Chandrayaan-1 satellite will blast off at 6.20 AM, the sources said. The Rs 386-crore lunar mission was cleared by the Government five years back but the historic launch faced several delays.
The space odyssey moved one more step closer to fruition when the satellite was transported from here to Sriharikota in a special vehicle last week and has since reached the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in the coastal town, about 100 km from Chennai. The spacecraft is expected to be mated with ISRO's work-horse rocket, PSLV-C11 later this week, the sources said.
The spacecraft would carry 11 payloads -- five from India and six from the US, Europe and Bulgaria. It would orbit the Moon at an altitude of 100 km mapping the topography and the mineralogical content of the lunar soil.
Chandrayaan-1 would also carry a Moon Impact Probe payload for demonstrating the technology needed towards landing on the Moon's surface.
India believes the lunar mission is a step towards its quest for exploration of outer space and inter-planetary missions.
Posted by: john frum ||
10/07/2008 15:32 ||
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#2
Never, ever, bet against the Hindu guys in the lab coats.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/07/2008 17:00 Comments ||
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#3
In all fairness the father of the Indian missile/nuclear wapons program, and future president, is a Muslim (APJ Abdul Kalam). Then again, he was an indophile Muslim, not one of the crazies. Muslims who don't cause problems over there and actually contribute to society are probably appreciated over there
#5
Actually the 'father' of the Indian nuclear program was Homi Bhabha - a Zoarastrian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homi_J._Bhabha
The 'father' of the space program was Vikram Sarabhai
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Sarabhai
Abdul Kalam worked for Sarabhai. He played no role in the nuclear programme being a rocket scientist. He designed the first Indian launch vehicles.
Posted by: john frum ||
10/07/2008 17:53 Comments ||
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#6
From the early 1960s...
Abdul Kalam is the one on the right.
Assembling a sounding rocket payload
transporting the payload to the launch pad
Posted by: john frum ||
10/07/2008 18:11 Comments ||
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#7
The Satellite Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, India's first moon mission craft is seen from behind glass at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) center in Bangalore
Posted by: john frum ||
10/07/2008 19:05 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
JEDDAH Two smugglers were arrested by Border Guards after a gunbattle in a foiled attempt to smuggle 1,205 kilogrammes of hashish into the kingdom in the southern region of Najran on Friday.
Maybe they should have tried "John McCain."
A SPANISH tourist in Tokyo has caused havoc as he swam naked in the moat around the Imperial Palace, one of Japan's most sacrosanct sites. Police seized the bald and portly man after a nearly two-hour chase in which he hurled rocks at police and scaled the moat's walls as shocked onlookers snapped photos from their mobile phones.
Police say more than 50 passengers may have been injured in an emergency landing at an airport in Western Australia's north.
