Hear The Truth Out

World's Billionaires 2010

2010-03-11T05:43:00.001-05:00

The Top 20 Billionaires in the World

1) Carlos Slim Helu
Net Worth: $53.5 billion
Source: Telecom
Residence: Mexico
• Telecom tycoon who pounced on privatization of Mexico's national telephone company in the 1990s becomes world's richest person for first time after coming in third place last year. Net worth up $18.5 billion in a year.
• Recently received regulatory approval to merge his fixed-line assets into American Movil, Latin America's biggest mobile phone company.
• His construction conglomerate, Impulsora del Desarrollo y el Empleo, builds roads and energy infrastructure.
• Son of a Lebanese immigrant also owns stakes in financial group Inbursa, Bronco Drilling, Independent News & Media, Saks and New York Times Co.
• Newspaper outfit's stock popped in early March on talk he might buy a controlling stake; he denies the rumor.
• Donating $65 million to fund a research project in genomic medicine with American billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad.
2) Bill Gates
Net Worth: $53 billion
Source: Microsoft
Residence: U.S.
• Software visionary is now the world's second-richest man. Net worth still up $13 billion in a year as Microsoft shares rose 50% in 12 months, value of investment vehicle Cascade swelled.
• More than 60% of fortune held outside Microsoft; investments include Four Seasons hotels, Televisa, Auto Nation.
• Stepped down from day-to-day duties at Microsoft in 2008 to focus on philanthropy.
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation dedicated to fighting hunger, improving education in America's high schools, developing vaccines against malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS.

3) Warren Buffett
Net Worth: $47 billion
Source: Investments
Residence: U.S.
• America's favorite investor up $10 billion in past 12 months on surging Berkshire Hathaway shares; says U.S. has survived economic "Pearl Harbor," but warns recovery will be slow.
• Shrewdly invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs and $3 billion in General Electric amid 2008 market collapse.
• Recently acquired railroad giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe for $26 billion.
• "We've put a lot of money to work during the chaos of the last two years. When it's raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble."
• Berkshire Hathaway book value was up 19.8% to $21.8 billion in 2009.
• Son of Nebraska stockbroker met value investor Benjamin Graham while studying economics at Columbia.
• Took over textile firm Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, used company as a vehicle to invest in insurance (Geico), food (Dairy Queen), utilities (MidAmerican Energy) and recently green tech (electric-car maker BYD).

4) Mukesh Ambani
Net Worth: $29 billion
Source: Petrochemicals, oil and gas
Residence: India
• Global ambitions: His Reliance Industries, already India's most valuable company, recently bid $2 billion for 65% stake in troubled Canadian oil sands outfit Value Creations.
• Firm's $14.5 billion offer to buy bankrupt petrochemicals maker LyondellBasell was rejected.
• Since September company has sold Treasury shares worth $2 billion to be used for acquisitions.
• Late father, Dhirubhai, founded Reliance and built it into a massive conglomerate. After he died, Mukesh and his brother, Anil, ran the family business together for a brief time. But siblings feuded over control; mother eventually brokered split of assets, with Mukesh getting oil, gas and petrochemicals businesses.
• Still at odds with Anil over gas supply agreement; awaiting Supreme Court's final ruling.
• Owns cricket team Mumbai Indians.

5) Lakshmi Mittal
Net Worth: $28.7 billion
Source: Steel
Residence: India
• London's richest resident oversees ArcelorMittal, world's largest steel maker. Net profits fell 75% in 2009.
• Mittal took 12% pay cut amid slump but improved outlook pushed stock up one-third in past year.
• Looking to expand in his native India; wants to build steel mills in Jharkhad and Orissa but has not received government approval.
• Started in family steel business in India in 1970s; branched out on his own in 1994.
• Initially bought up steel mills on the cheap in Eastern Europe.
• Earned $1.1 billion for selling his interest in a Kazakh refinery in December.
• Sits on the boards of Goldman Sachs, EADS.
• Upped stake in struggling British soccer team QPR in February.
• Funding 400-foot sculpture to be built in London's Olympic Park in time for 2012 Olympics.
• Owns 12-bedroom mansion in London's posh Kensington neighborhood.
• Daughter-in-law Megha recently bought insolvent German fashion house Escada.

6) Lawrence Ellison
Net Worth: $28 billion
Source: Oracle
Residence: U.S.
• Oracle founder's fortune continues to soar; shares up 70% in past 12 months.
• Database giant has bought 57 companies in the past five years.
• Completed $7.4 billion buyout of Sun Microsystems in January; acquired BEA Systems for $8.5 billion in 2008.
• Studied physics at U. of Chicago; didn't graduate.
• Started Oracle 1977; took public a day before Microsoft in 1986.
• Owns 52% stake in business-software company NetSuite; shares worth $480 million.
• Racing junkie owns 453-foot yacht Rising Sun with pal David Geffen. Won America's Cup in February, besting longtime rival billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli.

7) Bernard Arnault
Net Worth: $27.5 billion
Source: Luxury goods
Residence: France
• Bling is back, helping fashion icon grab title of richest European as shares of his luxury goods outfit LVMH--maker of Louis Vuitton, Moet & Chandon--surge 57%.
• LVMH is developing upscale Shanghai commercial property, L'Avenue Shanghai, with Macau billionaire Stanley Ho.
• Renaissance man owns French tour operator Go Voyages, yacht builder Royal Van Lent; has a stake in French retailer Carrefour.
• Built Le Cheval Blanc in ski resort town of Courchevel, France, where he likes to spend New Year's Eve.
• Father, Jean, who died in January, made small fortune in construction; sale of that business later helped fund Arnault's move into real estate and eventually into luxury goods.
• Still a family affair: son Antoine, 32, and daughter Delphine, 34, sit on LVMH's board.
• Wife is a concert pianist; Arnault himself reported to be an excellent piano player.

8) Eike Batista
Net Worth: $27 billion
Source: Mining, oil
Residence: Brazil
• Vowing to become world's richest man--and he may be on his way. This year's biggest gainer added $19.5 billion to his personal balance sheet.
• Son of Brazil's revered former mining minister who presided over mining giant Companhia Vale do Rio Doce got his start in gold trading and mining. Insists Dad didn't help: "All my businesses started from zero. My father was a problem for me because he never let me near Vale."
• Made a pile in resources and other services, but two-thirds of his fortune comes from relatively new source, OGX Petróleo e Gas Participações, the oil-and-gas exploration company he founded in 2007 and took public a year later.
• Police raided his home in 2008, alleging Batista smuggled gold and unfairly influenced the acquisition of a railroad. He denied all wrongdoing, emerged unscathed.
• Onetime champion offshore powerboat racer.
• Formerly married to Playboy cover girl.
• Provided financing to Rio de Janeiro's Olympic committee, helping the city win its bid for 2016 Olympic Games.

9) Amancio Ortega
Net Worth: $25 billion
Source: Fashion retail
Residence: Spain
• Style maven lords over Inditex; fashion firm, which operates under several brand names including Zara, Massimo Dutti and Stradivarius, has 4,500 stores in 73 countries including new spots in Mexico and Syria.
• Set up joint venture with Tata Group subsidiary to enter India in 2010.
• Betting on Florida real estate: bought Coral Gables office tower that is currently home to Bacardi USA.
• Also owns a luxury apartment complex in Miami; properties in Madrid, Paris, London and Lisbon, a horse-jumping circuit, an interest in a soccer league; has investments in gas, tourism and banks.
• Railway worker's son started as a gofer in a shirt store.
• With then-wife Rosalia Mera, also a billionaire, started making dressing gowns and lingerie in living room.
• Shuns neckties and fanfare.
• Daughter Marta works for Inditex; speculation has it she's being groomed to eventually replace her father.

10) Karl Albrecht
Net Worth: $23.5 billion
Source: Supermarkets
Residence: Germany
• Owns discount supermarket giant Aldi Sud, one of Germany's (and Europe's) dominant grocers.
• Has 1,000 stores in U.S. across 29 states.
• Estimated sales: $37 billion.
• Plans to open New York City store this year.
• With younger brother, Theo, transformed mother's corner grocery store into Aldi after World War II. Brothers split ownership in 1961; Karl took the stores in southern Germany, plus the rights to the brand in the U.K., Australia and the U.S. Theo got northern Germany and the rest of Europe.
• Retired from daily operations.
• Fiercely private: little known about him other than that he apparently raises orchids and plays golf.

Meet the new richest person in the world

2010-03-11T05:29:00.001-05:00

Carlos Slim Helu takes No. 1 spot on Forbes World's Billionaires list as a record 164 10-figure titans return to the ranking amid the global economic recovery.
For the third time in three years, the world has a new richest man.
Riding surging prices of his various telecom holdings, including giant mobile outfit America Movil (AMX), Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu has beaten out Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the wealthiest person on earth and nab the top spot on the 2010 Forbes list of the World's Billionaires.
Slim's fortune has swelled to an estimated $53.5 billion, up $18.5 billion in 12 months. Shares of America Movil, of which Slim owns a $23 billion stake, were up 35% in a year.
That massive hoard of scratch puts him ahead of Microsoft (MSFT) cofounder Bill Gates, who had held the title of world's richest 14 of the past 15 years.
Gates, now worth $53 billion, is ranked second in the world. He is up $13 billion from a year ago as shares of Microsoft rose 50% in 12 months. Gates' holdings in his personal investment vehicle Cascade (CAE) also soared with the rest of the markets.
Buffett's fortune jumped $10 billion to $47 billion on rising shares of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK). He ranks third.
The Oracle of Omaha shrewdly invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs (GS) and $3 billion in General Electric (GE) amid the 2008 market collapse. He also recently acquired railroad giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI) for $26 billion.
In his annual shareholder letter Buffett wrote, "We've put a lot of money to work during the chaos of the last two years. When it's raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble."
Many plutocrats did just that. Indeed, last year's wealth wasteland has become a billionaire bonanza. Most of the richest people on the planet have seen their fortunes soar in the past year.
This year the World's Billionaires have an average net worth of $3.5 billion, up $500 million in 12 months. The world has 1,011 10-figure titans, up from 793 a year ago but still shy of the record 1,125 in 2008. Of those billionaires on last year's list, only 12% saw their fortunes decline.
U.S. billionaires still dominate the ranks — but their grip is slipping. Americans account for 40% of the world's billionaires, down from 45% a year ago.
The U.S. commands 38% of the collective $3.6 trillion net worth of the world's richest, down from 44% a year ago.
Of the 97 new members of the list, only 16% are from the U.S. By contrast, Asia made big gains. The region added 104 moguls and now has just 14 fewer than Europe, thanks to several large public offerings and swelling stock markets.
The new billionaires include American Isaac Perlmutter, who flipped Marvel Entertainment (MVL) to Disney (DIS) for $4 billion last December. The Spider-Man mogul netted nearly $900 million in cash and 20 million shares of Disney in the transaction.
Also new to the ranking: 27 billionaires from China, including Li Shufu, whose automaker, Geely, announced plans to buy Swedish brand Volvo from Ford in December. The deal is expected to close in March 2010.
Finland and Pakistan both welcomed their first billionaires.
For the first time China (including Hong Kong) has the most billionaires outside the U.S. with 89.
Russia has 62 billionaires, 28 of them returnees who had fallen off last year's list amid a meltdown in commodities. Total returnees to the list this year: 164.
Eleven countries have at least double the number of billionaires they had a year ago, including China, India, Turkey and South Korea.
Thirty members of last year's list fell out of the billionaire's club. Moguls who couldn't make the cut: Iceland's Thor Bjorgolfsson, Russia's Boris Berezovsky and Saudi Arabia's Maan Al-Sanea.
Another 13 members of last year's list died. Among the deceased: real estate developer Melvin Simon and glass tycoon William Davidson.

Corey Haim Dies At 38

2010-03-10T19:01:00.000-05:00

LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Actor Corey Haim has died, Access Hollywood has confirmed.
The Los Angeles County Coroner's office confirmed the actor died at 2:15 AM on Wednesday at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank, Calif.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: A Look Back: Corey Haim
The Los Angeles Police Department said they received a call from the hospital before 4 AM confirming the actor's death.
He was transported from the home he shared with his mother, Judy, in Toluca Hills, Calif. to the hospital.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Corey Haim Filmography
Ed Winter, LA County Coroner's Office Assistant Chief, told reporters that Haim's mother had called paramedics when her son collapsed in the early morning hours.
"This morning at about 1:30...Corey Haim's mom found him. He got up out of bed and had been feeling ill for the last couple of days. As he got out of bed, he felt a little weak and went down to the floor on his knees. He's had flu-like symptoms. She called paramedics. They responded and transported him to the hospital where he was pronounced [dead] at 2:15 this morning," Winter said.
Authorities found four prescription drug bottles inside the apartment he shared with his mother, but no illegal drugs, according to Winter.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Sudden Endings: Stars Who Died Too Soon
The Canadian-born actor first rose to fame in 1984's "Firstborn," where he starred with Teri Garr, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Robert Downey Jr.
In 1987, the actor the reached the peak of his career in the Joel Schumacher's "Lost Boys," where he hunted vampires with his friend and frequent co-star Corey Feldman. Some of his other box office hits included "Lucas," "License to Drive" and "Dream a Little Dream."
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Celebs In Rehab
Following his rise to fame, the actor battled drug and alcohol addiction, a dramatic weight gain, a slew of medical issues and was in and out of rehab numerous times.
In a 2004 interview with Britain's The Sun, the actor spoke candidly about the history of his drug use.
"I was working on 'Lost Boy's when I smoked my first joint," he told the British tabloid in 2004. "I did cocaine for about a year and a half, then it led to crack."
A stint in rehab led to an addiction of prescription meds, including stimulants and sedatives such as Valium, the actor claimed.
"I started on the downers which were a hell of a lot better than the uppers because I was a nervous wreck," he told the newspaper. "But one led to two, two led to four, four led to eight, until at the end it was about 85 a day."
(CLICK HERE to read Celebrities Tweet Corey Haim Reactions)
In 1997, the actor filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with medical bill debt totalling more than $200,000.
He appeared again with Feldman in 2007 in the A&E reality show, "The Two Coreys," which was cancelled after two seasons. The same year he told Larry King in an interview on "Larry King Live" that he would be a "chronic relapser for the rest of my life."
The actor was poised for a comeback in 2008 when he took out a full-page ad in Variety, saying, "This is not a stunt, I'm back. I'm ready to work. I'm ready to make amends."
In 2009, he appeared with Jason Statham in "Crank: High Voltage."

Haim was 38.

Boy's 911 Call Thwarts Attacker

2010-03-10T18:35:00.001-05:00

Authorities said Wednesday that they are "astounded" by the heroic actions of a 7-year-old boy who hid with his younger sister in a bathroom and called 911 while armed robbers broke into his home and threatened his parents.
"I'm still astounded by his mindset," Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. Douglas Jensen said. "To be able to think about getting his sister, grabbing his phone, locking himself in a bathroom and calling 911. It shows so much."

The assailants held the parents at gunpoint Tuesday while the boy, identified only as Carlos, and his 6-year-old sister hid in a locked bathroom. Carlos told a dispatcher breathlessly that there was "some guy who's going to kill my mom and dad" and begged authorities to "bring cops. A lot of them! ... And bring soldiers, too."
Although he sounds frightened, he keeps his composure and explains what is happening.
"Come really fast, please, please," he said. "They come, they ring the door and they have guns."
About 90 seconds into the call, his sister starts screaming as someone apparently breaks into the bathroom. The line stays connected, and a distraught-sounding dispatcher can be heard telling colleagues what she'd heard.
Deputies were on scene within three minutes, but the assailants had escaped in a green or gray two-door compact car, Jensen said.
The assailants left without taking anything once they realized the boy had called 911, Jensen said.
Detectives were investigating why the family was targeted.

Murder of JonBenét Ramsey

2010-01-10T06:07:00.000-05:00

The first images of JonBenet Ramsey that were broadcast to the world showed a pretty little girl in heavy make-up and flamboyant costumes parading across a stage. At the time, the media described her as "a painted baby, a sexualized toddler beauty queen."
From the day in 1996 when JonBenet was found dead in the basement of her home in Boulder, Colorado, the Boulder police and a large proportion of the world's media believed that her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, were responsible for her death.
Prior to the murder of their daughter, John and Patsy Ramsey's life seemed almost ideal. Patsy, a former beauty queen, was married to a successful businessman. They had moved to Boulder where John ran a computer company that he had started in his garage, in 1991. The Ramseys readily adapted to their new life in Colorado and made many new friends. They built a large house in an elite suburb, and entertained often. Their last party in Boulder, just three days before the murder, was particularly happy. Over a hundred guests were present at a Christmas function. The Ramseys believed that they had good reason to celebrate. Patsy had warded off a recurrance of ovarian cancer and John had been voted Boulder's "businessman of the year."
According to the Ramseys' testimony, they drove home the few blocks from a party at a friend's house on Christmas night. JonBenet had fallen asleep in the car so they carried her up the stairs to her room and put her to bed at 9:30 p.m. Shortly after, Patsy and John went to bed, as they planned to get up early to prepare for a trip to their holiday home on Lake Michigan.
The next day, Patsy woke just after 5:00 a.m. and walked down the stairs to the kitchen. On the staircase, she found a two-and-a-half page note that said that JonBenet had been kidnapped by a "small foreign faction" and was being held for a ransom of $118,000. She was to be exchanged for the money the next day. The letter warned that if the money was not delivered, the child would be executed. Patsy yelled to John as she ran back up the stairs and opened the door to JonBenet's room. Finding she wasn't there, they made the decision to phone the police. The 911 dispatcher recorded Patsy's call at 5:25 a.m. The police arrived at the house seven minutes later.
The uniformed police officers that attended were openly suspicious from The Start. The Ramseys, treating the ransom demand seriously, were already taking steps to raise the ransom money. The note said that the kidnappers would call John Ramsey but no call came.

Egypt-Gaza Clashes

2010-01-06T20:04:00.000-05:00

Hundreds of Palestinians clashed with Egyptian security forces along the Gaza border Wednesday over the delay of an expected aid convoy, leaving dozens of Palestinians wounded and one Egyptian soldier dead, Egyptian and Palestinian sources said.
The convoy, spearheaded by British Parliamentarian George Galloway, had been delayed in the Egyptian port city of Al-Arish Tuesday after being refused entry at another Egyptian port.
The Hamas-organized rally began peacefully but degenerated into violence with hundreds of Palestinians throwing rocks across the border wall.
Sounds of gunfire could be heard from video shot at the scene, but the source of the gunfire was unclear.
An official with the Egyptian Ministry of Health told CNN a 21-year-old soldier had been shot twice in the back and died of his wounds. Egyptian State television reported that the gunfire was believed to have come from Palestinians on the Gaza side of the border.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza, Salah Bardaweel, told CNN that 35 Palestinians were injured in the clashes. Ten of the injured suffered gunshot wounds and two of the victims were in critical condition, Bardaweel said.
By Wednesday evening, Egypt began to allow some vehicles from the "Viva Palestina" aid convoy into Gaza, convoy organizers said. It was not immediately clear how many vehicles would be permitted to cross the border.
Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki told CNN that the problems began when the convoy organizers claimed that 43 sedan cars needed to be allowed into Gaza with the humanitarian aid convoy.
"We didn't block any trucks, what we blocked were 43 sedan cars that came about in this convoy as part of an aid delivery," Zaki said. "We didn't think there was room for sedan cars in a humanitarian convoy."
Bardaweel told CNN he hoped the incident "will not affect the Egyptian-Palestinian relationship," and he expressed surprise at Egypt's delay of the aid convoy.
"There is no need for the use of violence against the people who were welcoming this convoy, and we hope things will return to normal very soon," he said.
The Islamist group Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007. Since then, the coastal strip of 1.5 million people has been subject to a punishing economic embargo by Israel, which has greatly limited goods coming in and out and increased poverty in the war-torn territory.

Israel, the United States and the European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organization.

Heiress dead at 30

2010-01-06T19:20:00.000-05:00

LOS ANGELES -- A spokesman for the family of New York Jets owner Woody Johnson says a daughter of the businessman has died.
Spokesman Jesse Derris said Monday that the family is mourning the tragic loss of Casey Johnson. In a statement, the family asked for privacy "during this very difficult time."
Derris wouldn't say how or when the 30-year-old Johnson died.
Casey Johnson gained celebrity as the girlfriend of Tila Tequila, a reality TV star best known for "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila," which ran for two seasons on MTV.
Tequila's publicist says the two were engaged.

Mother and Baby Trampled by an Elephant (Kenya)

2010-01-06T19:08:00.000-05:00

-- An American woman who was trampled to death by an elephant in Kenya, where she lived with her family, was a librarian who was determined to see that schools and libraries be built in poor villages, a former boss said Wednesday.
Before moving with her husband to the Kenyan capital of Nairobi in 2006, Sharon Brown was a reference librarian at Antioch University New England in Keene, New Hampshire, said library director Marcy Leversee, who hired Brown in 2005.
Brown and her toddler daughter, who also died in the incident, were on a guided forest hike Monday near the Castle Forest Lodge, about 65 miles north of Nairobi, when the incident occurred, said lodge spokeswoman Melia Van Leer.
Van Leer speculated the elephant was in a herd of about 20 that were spotted later in the day with their calves. Elephants can be particularly defensive when they are sheltering their young, she said.
In Nairobi, Brown was a librarian at the International School of Kenya, according to a security guard at the school. Her husband, Jeff, worked there as a fifth-grade teacher, according to the school's Web site.
Sharon Brown only spent a year at Antioch, Leversee said, because when she got the opportunity to work in Kenya, she felt it was a chance that was too good to pass up. At Antioch, she worked with graduate students in environmental sciences and clinical psychology.
"Sharon was a quiet, open person. Very present," Leversee said. "She believed that every exchange was a mutual learning. She opened the exchange by listening.
"She was a cherished colleague," Leversee said. "To me, she was a citizen of the world in the finest sense."
The Browns became passionate about Africa after serving in the Peace Corps, Leversee said. That was where Sharon Brown became committed to promoting education. Leversee said she didn't know where they served, but Sharon Brown "had an affinity for Africa."
Brown had said that while in the Peace Corps, she totally immersed herself in the culture of the villagers, even asking the women to teach her how they washed clothes.
A Peace Corps supervisor told Leversee that Brown provided the women and children with their very first books. Leversee said she didn't know the name of the village.
According to Van Leer, the property around the lodge is full of elephants, but encounters with humans "don't normally end in tragedy." There have been no tragic incidents with elephants in the area since 2001, she said.
"This area has wild animals, and I always warn my clients and everyone else to be aware of the danger," she said. "But from now we won't allow children out anymore. The young child could have been saved."

The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi refused comment Wednesday.

Eunuch Civil Rights

2010-01-06T18:59:00.000-05:00

Transgender rights represent a relatively new frontier in civil liberties activism. In Pakistan, eunuchs have historically been disregarded and marginalised by mainstream issue advocates. The discriminations against eunuchs reveal our petty-bourgeois mentality that is mostly reluctant to recognise gender deviance.
Over the years, the complete isolation of eunuchs from the very fabric of our society has denied them access to education, employment and health care – a direct violation of fundamental rights. Instead, they are forced to beg, dance, and enter prostitution as the only means of livelihood. Forms of discrimination impacting them include housing discrimination, discrimination in public accommodations, and violence, rape and forced prostitution. Discriminatory behaviour has also forced eunuchs to resort to living in isolated colonies, shunned by society.
To demystify the shrouded lives of eunuchs here, we must begin with an understanding of our society. Ours is a society with a blatant male privilege – the patriarchal orientation reigns supreme as an institution that organises much of life, exhibiting a natural preference for sons over daughters. While we battle against gender discrimination, transgendered children have little or no space in the social set-up.
In fact, when it comes to analysing the life of a eunuch, we find ourselves immensely confused owing to gender-role socialisation which is rampant in our society. It’s safe to assume that our understanding of genders is not only discriminatory, but we are also clearly confused about the spectrum of gender. It is this unfortunate condition that has led to the marginalisation of the eunuch community and forced them in to the world of sexual exploitation.
Despite years of discrimination, the eunuch community has survived the taunts, humiliation, and savagery, and continues to fight back. Islamist jurist Dr Mohammad Aslam Khaki joined their struggle as he filed the petition for the welfare of the unfortunate and vulnerable community abandoned by society. Dr Khaki’s activism led to the Supreme Court ruling in favour of the protection of eunuch rights.
Dr.Khaki researched the conditions in which eunuchs live and discovered them to be the most oppressed and deprived segment of society, subjected to humiliation and molestation.
Responding to a query, he told the court that there are about 80,000 eunuchs in Pakistan. Parents give their gender-confused children into the care of gurus (leaders of eunuchs) at a very tender age. They get no opportunity to study and are instead trained to beg, dance or become prostitutes.
The court order thus requires the social welfare authorities to register and research the particulars of the eunuchs, and the circumstances in which parents hand over their children to gurus. The court has further ordered an evaluation of the offence such parents commit as they willingly give their children away to eunuch leaders at the time of birth.
At this point, it is difficult to ascertain the future of the eunuch community in Pakistan. While we laud the stupendous effort of the Supreme Court to ensure every Pakistani citizen’s human rights, we must acknowledge that the issue is far more complex and will take a lot more than surveys and court rulings. No doubt, the survey is a step forward in recognising the existence of the mostly ignored factions of our society. It is also bound to face critical issues, such as how to differentiate between eunuchs, cross-dressers and sexually ambiguous or androgynous people who don’t identify with any gender or sexual orientation.
The fact is, surveys cannot be the only route to justice because they cannot account for the psychological aspect of sexuality and transgender issues. Whether the Pakistani judicial system – and, more importantly, the public at large – is ready to come to terms with the findings of the survey and the complexity of transgender issues remains to be seen.

Witnesses identify six suspects in Karachi arson

2010-01-06T18:51:00.000-05:00

A fireman extinguishes fire on a building which was set ablaze by an angry mob a day earlier in reaction to a bomb attack on a Shia procession in Karachi, December 29, 2009. — Reuters

KARACHI: Witnesses identified at least six suspects in connection with the arson attacks in Karachi.

Following the devastating Ashura blast on Karachi’s Mohammad Ali Jinnah road which claimed the lives of 43 people, police arrested 10 people suspected of being involved in the ensuing arson.

After initial investigations, Karachi police released four of the suspects, but detained the remaining six for further interrogation.

The six were presented before the Anti-Terrorism Court, where they were identified by witnesses of the attack. — DawnNews

Federal air marshals back in spotlight after attempted plane bombing

2009-12-31T09:56:00.000-05:00

(News Taken From WWW.CNN.COM)

-- As a federal air marshal, Robert MacLean typically spent five days a week crisscrossing the country on commercial flights, reading a lot of newspapers and John Grisham novels while keeping an eye out and trying to appear inconspicuous.
"It was a well-paying job with enormous responsibility, yet extremely tedious and mundane," he said. "You did the same thing every day, there was nothing new. You sat in your seat and prayed that nobody would set off an IED or ambush you mid-flight."
Armed with service weapons and usually traveling in pairs, federal air marshals are tasked with detecting, deterring and defeating "hostile acts targeting U.S. air carriers, airports, passengers, and crews," according to the Transportation Security Administration's Web site.
If the air marshals are doing their job properly, the public does not learn about the incidents or potential catastrophes they've prevented, Department of Homeland Security spokesman Nelson Minerly said.
"Federal air marshals are trained to operate covertly and to blend in with the traveling public," he said. "They work in the air and on the ground as a last line of defense, but if they're doing the job right, you don't know they're there."
A federal air marshal was not on Northwest Flight 253 when a passenger allegedly tried to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear. But the agency said the incident prompted it to enhance airport screening procedures and put more air marshals aboard flights.
The Federal Air Marshal Program has been around in one form or another since the early 1960s, when a rash of hijackings of flights to Cuba prompted President Kennedy to order that federal law enforcement officers be placed on high-risk flights.
The Federal Air Marshal Service officially began in 1968 as the Federal Aviation Administration's Sky Marshal Program, and in the 1970s, extortion-type hijackings in the Middle East led to the deployment of some air marshals overseas. In 1985, President Regan expanded the program, increasing the number of air marshals, in response to a series of domestic and international hijackings, including TWA Flight 847, in which a U.S. Navy Seal was killed and his body dumped on the tarmac in Beirut, Lebanon.
The terror attacks of September 11, 2001, represented a turning point in the agency's history, when it grew from less than 50 officers to the several thousand currently employed as federal law enforcement officers in the TSA, Minerly said.
Law enforcement officers and military personnel made up most of the first recruits to join the agency's replenished ranks in October 2001, said Jamie Smith, a former federal air marshal instructor and current CEO of SCG International, a global security firm. Recruits are trained extensively in tactical operations and law enforcement procedure.
"They go through how to go hands-on with somebody in the tight confines of an aircraft, from how to disable an attacker from a seated position, how to fight if you fall down in the aisle, or how to use different items onboard to subdue and restrain attackers," he said. "They learn how to restrain them using seatbelts -- basically fold the person over and strap them down."
Trainees also learn the rules of engagement, laws related to use of force on airplanes and how to look out for suspicious behavior, or behavioral profiling.
"We'd teach them to look for mannerisms: specific styles of dress, whether they're with a group or trying to peel off from a group, or if a uniformed officer approaches and they shy away -- things like that. We'd teach them what to look for," he said.
Applicants with backgrounds in law enforcement and the military are given special preference, but the positions are open to anyone with a college degree or three years of professional experience who proves up to the job, Minerly said.
"Our training program is very comprehensive. We have people applying now with limited law enforcement experience and we provide them with the training to get them up to speed with what we expect of a federal air marshal," he said. "Air Marshals are supposed to look like the rest of the traveling public so it only stands to reason we would want recruits from all walks of life."
In the eight years since the Federal Air Marshal Service has been ramping up, only a handful of incidents have been publicly reported, most involving drunk or unruly passengers.
MacLean says he never had to make an arrest in five years flying missions as an air marshal. Yet his career ended in controversy, when he was fired for leaking information on cutbacks in the program.
Did he ever secretly wish for some action to break up the tedium?

"No way," he said, laughing. "Not when you're 35,000 feet up in the air flying at 500 mph in an aluminum tube with a few hundred people. You really don't want anything to happen."

Rare New Year's Eve 'blue moon' to ring in 2010

2009-12-31T09:30:00.002-05:00

(News Taken From www.yahoo.com)

LOS ANGELES – Once in a blue moon there is one on New Year's Eve. Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month. But don't expect it to be blue — the name has nothing to do with the color of our closest celestial neighbor.
A full moon occurred on Dec. 2. It will appear again on Thursday in time for the New Year's countdown.
"If you're in Times Square, you'll see the full moon right above you. It's going to be that brilliant," said Jack Horkheimer, director emeritus of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium and host of a weekly astronomy TV show.
The New Year's Eve blue moon will be visible in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Africa. For partygoers in Australia and Asia, the full moon does not show up until New Year's Day, making January a blue moon month for them.
However, the Eastern Hemisphere can celebrate with a partial lunar eclipse on New Year's Eve when part of the moon enters the Earth's shadow. The eclipse will not be visible in the Americas.
A full moon occurs every 29.5 days, and most years have 12. On average, an extra full moon in a month — a blue moon — occurs every 2.5 years. The last time there was a lunar double take was in May 2007. New Year's Eve blue moons are rarer, occurring every 19 years. The last time was in 1990; the next one won't come again until 2028.
Blue moons have no astronomical significance, said Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
"`Blue moon' is just a name in the same sense as a `hunter's moon' or a `harvest moon,'" Laughlin said in an e-mail.
The popular definition of blue moon came about after a writer for Sky & Telescope magazine in 1946 misinterpreted the Maine Farmer's Almanac and labeled a blue moon as the second full moon in a month. In fact, the almanac defined a blue moon as the third full moon in a season with four full moons, not the usual three.
Though Sky & Telescope corrected the error decades later, the definition caught on. For purists, however, this New Year's Eve full moon doesn't even qualify as a blue moon. It's just the first full moon of the winter season.
In a tongue-in-cheek essay posted on the magazine's Web site this week, senior contributing editor Kelly Beatty wrote: "If skies are clear when I'm out celebrating, I'll take a peek at that brilliant orb as it rises over the Boston skyline to see if it's an icy shade of blue. Or maybe I'll just howl."

Security ramped up at airports in U.S., UK, Amsterdam

2009-12-27T07:07:00.000-05:00

(FROM CNN)

Passengers flying into the United States from abroad should expect additional security measures at U.S. and international airports after a passenger detonated a device aboard a flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands to Detroit, Michigan, the Transportation Security Administration said Saturday.
Measures will include increased pat-downs and gate screening, as well as having to stow carry-ons and personal items, including pillows.
"We ask that passengers follow the instructions of international security and flight crews," the TSA said.
Security has also been ramped up at U.K. airports and at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, where the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, went through "normal security procedures" before boarding the flight, according to security officials.
Abdulmutallab, 23, was charged in a federal criminal complaint Saturday with attempting to destroy the plane Friday on its final approach to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, and placing a destructive device on the aircraft, the Department of Justice said.
At Schiphol, secondary screenings were boosted Saturday with body searches and bag checks, officials said.
As part of the increased security, passengers on a flight Saturday from Brussels, Belgium, to Dulles Airport in Virginia were not allowed to leave their seats for the last hour of the flight, a traveler told CNN.
Niki Yazzie said the flight crew told the passengers that they had to remain in their seats with their seatbelts fastened and couldn't have any items, such as pillows or blankets, covering their laps; everything was stowed away.
Passenger Johnny McDonald, who was on a U.S. domestic flight, told CNN he saw officials X-ray milk parents had brought for infants and saw many people patted down.
"They X-rayed the milk I don't know how many times," McDonald said. "And then they took the milk out and sampled each and every bottle of the milk. I've never seen that before."
Secondary searches are also being introduced much more widely at airports around the world, CNN's Richard Quest reported.
An official with the TSA told CNN that along with increased security at airports, screening likely will take longer. No details were provided on all the steps being taken.
The official advised travelers to allow for extra time before their flights. There will be no changes in screening requirements and no change in the number of carry-on bags allowed.

A note was released earlier this week by the Office of Intelligence and Analysis that said FBI officials "currently have no specific, credible intelligence indicating plans by al Qaeda or other terrorist groups to conduct attacks in the United States during the 2009 holiday season."

Familial Homicide

2009-12-27T06:53:00.000-05:00

(FROM BBC)

Rebecca Lewis was convicted last week of failing to stop her boyfriend murdering her thirteen month old son under the new offence of 'familial homicide' and could now face a prison sentence of up to fourteen years. Familial homicide was introduced as part of the Domestic Violence Crime and Victims Act in 2004. It closed a legal loophole that had previously allowed those jointly accused of the murder of a child, or vulnerable adult, to escape justice by remaining silent or blaming each other. To discuss the significance of this legal change, Jenni is joined by Helena Kennedy QC and Barbara Esam, child protection lawyer for the NSPCC

City of Ruins

2009-12-27T06:48:00.000-05:00

(FROM DAWN)

A lack of awareness, resources and initiative is precipitating the ruin of Peshawar’s built heritage.

At the heart of Peshawar’s walled city lies Gorgathree, a cluster of antiquated buildings on a raised mound. A vestige of the Mughal era, the monument is said to be the only extant serai in Peshawar Valley. Previously the residence of Ranjit Singh’s governor Avitabile, Gorgathree boasts a unique set-up: a Sikh temple rests amidst a quadrangle building with the remains of the cells of a caravan serai. Gates on the eastern and western sides of the compound flank British barracks dating from 1912. Despite having served as a fire brigade bell tower and station, these barracks are still standing. Moreover, British civil servants established a police station, a kutchery and several other structures in the premises of Gorgathree.

But most of these have been demolished. Excessive pollution has marred the existing structures while the view from Gorgathree on to Peshawar city has been blocked by several homes and high-rises. Worse still, a slew of new construction, including a wedding hall, a mosque and a landscaped garden stand out from the historic building, different as they are in age and architecture. Now, Gorgathree is merely used as a short cut by indifferent locals.

The historic charm of Gorgathree was damaged in the 1990s when structural interventions such as a wedding hall and mosque that did not relate to the Mughal, Sikh or British period marred the original structure of the monument. A year ago, a bastion was removed from the monument during the widening of a road under the direction of the provincial government. An official explains that since Gorgathree was damaged by that action, “an FIR was registered against those involved in the destruction of the bastion. But no action has been taken so far.” Instead of being preserved by the City Development and Municipal Department (CDMD), Gorgathree suffered again when the CDMD took charge of the site and initiated a renovation project that included the launch of a Mughal-style garden at the protected site.

US embassy official found dead in Islamabad

2009-12-27T06:45:00.000-05:00

(FROM DAWN)

ISLAMABAD, Jan 28: A security officer of the US embassy was found dead in his residence on Monday.

The embassy said no “foul play” was involved, but senior police officers thought otherwise.

They said it was too early to determine from the bullet wound in the skull of Mr Keith Ryan whether it was a case of suicide or homicide.

Keith Ryan, 37, was due to return to the US on Monday.

According to hospital and police sources, the embassy stopped the authorities from conducting post-mortem after the body was shifted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.

Doctors there were allowed to carry out an external examination only. The embassy officials said an autopsy would be carried out in Germany.

The incident came to light when the embassy staff arrived at the house of Keith Ryan, on Street 63, Sector F-7/3, to take him to Islamabad airport for a US-bound flight.

As no response came from inside the house, the staff called police at around 9am. When they entered the house with the policemen, they found Mr Ryan lying in a pool of blood in the bathroom, a loaded pistol lying nearby.

The police and the embassy officials collected fingerprints and other evidence before shifting the body to Pims.

Sources at the hospital said Mr Ryan had a bullet wound in the back of his head. The bullet was still lodged in his skull, according to doctors.

Had he committed suicide by shooting himself through the mouth, the bullet would have exited, according to the doctors.

The medico-legal department of the hospital has asked the management to conduct an autopsy.

Mr Ryan, a senior official of the US Department of Homeland Security, was born in 1970. He was posted to Pakistan in Nov 2006. The department was set up after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks to keep an eye on immigrants.

Mr Ryan’s designation was senior special agent.

He leaves behind his wife and three young children.

The Islamabad police, in a report to the federal government, ascribed the death to suicide, but said a final opinion would be given only after an investigation.

Man guns down four before killing self

2009-12-27T06:41:00.000-05:00

(FROM DAWN)

MIAMI, March 15: A man shot four people to death at a family gathering in a Cuban neighbourhood of Miami early on Sunday, then went home and killed himself, police said.

The man may have been upset because his wife had left him, according to a sergeant with the Miami Police Department’s homicide division.

Officers received a call shortly after midnight that numerous shots had been fired and a red pickup truck had been spotted leaving the scene. They arrived and found four bodies.

Juan Sosa, who lives a block away, was out walking his dog early on Sunday when he heard two shots and saw people running towards him, screaming. Then he heard as many as two dozen more shots and ducked behind a large tree to call police.

Soon after, someone called police to say a building about 5km away was on fire and more shots had been fired. That’s where the police found the alleged gunman dead.

Janseen Almodovar, who lives across the street, rushed outside when he heard people screaming and honking. He said the entire building and a truck out front were in flames.

“We thought the truck was going to blow up,” Almodovar said.

Panicked neighbours were not sure if anyone was inside the one-storey ivory stucco building, but they could not knock because the fire was so intense.

A place haunted by Lennon's murder

2009-12-22T03:45:00.001-05:00

(From CNN)

Maybe if you're a New Yorker, you grow accustomed to the sight.
Maybe if you live in the city, it becomes just another part of the Manhattan landscape.
But if you're from somewhere else, visiting, and you're not expecting to encounter it. . . .
Well, you sense that you've been in front of this building before, even though you never have. You feel it before you fully see it.
So it was, early on a recent afternoon, that I was walking east on 72nd Street, approaching Central Park West.
I glanced to my left.
To say the building is spooky is perhaps too easy. Yet everything about it -- the high gables, the balustrades, the gas lanterns burning even in the daytime, the black iron gates leading into the open interior courtyard -- seems purposely designed to give off an aura of portent.
Possibly that impression is merely retrospective -- most likely, when the massive residential building was constructed well over a century ago, the desire was simply to erect a place of urban elegance. And perhaps to the people who live there now, it looks only like home.
When the 1968 movie "Rosemary's Baby" was filmed, and the exterior of this building -- the Dakota -- was chosen as the site of the eerie tale, the die may have been cast. For anyone who ever saw the movie, the temperature drops a few degrees as soon as those walls come into sight.
Yet it is what happened here 29 years ago this week that draws curious visitors still.
I heard a voice behind me.
"Is this where. . .?"
A young woman was asking her friend the question.
"Yes," the friend said, not needing to hear the rest.
Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon to death next to those courtyard gates on the night of December 8, 1980, as Lennon was returning to his home inside the Dakota. Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, had spent the evening at a recording studio known as the Record Plant, working on a song called "Walking on Thin Ice." As they neared the entrance to the Dakota just before 11 p.m., Chapman, who that same afternoon, at the same entrance, had asked for and received an autograph from Lennon, waited with a gun.
Lennon never had a chance. He would be pronounced dead at the St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center. His public life had been somewhat quieter since the breakup of the Beatles; although many of his admirers around the globe were aware that he had become a resident of New York, relatively few knew exactly where in the city he lived. On the night of the murder, though, as the news of his death quickly spread, so, too, did photographs and live television images of the Dakota. The building on that night became synonymous with heartache, with senseless loss, with joy extinguished..
And here -- as in the waning days of 2009 you find yourself standing on this block without having planned it, as you look at the building you have never before seen with your own eyes -- is what strikes you:
To anyone in this city, in this country, in this world, who is younger than 32 or 33 years old, the memory of Lennon is of a man who has always been dead. The murder was past tense by the time people who are now that age first became aware of his name.
The Dakota, in its own way, may be, to them, like Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., or the triple underpass in Dallas. A place where something terrible happened, yes, but something terrible that happened in history, not in the recollected narrative of their daily lives.
I crossed the street called Central Park West and stepped onto the pathway to the park itself. A little girl, around five years old, was coming out of the park with her parents. They obviously had been talking about Lennon, for she said to them:
"Is that where he's buried?"
As if approaching Grant's Tomb. Her father said to her:
"No, he was killed there. I don't know where he is buried."
And they crossed the street, toward the Dakota.
The array of John Lennon merchandise for sale by vendors at the entrance to the park -- photos, drawings, postcards -- is understandable from a purely commercial point of view, but is jarring nonetheless near the shadow of the building where he died. It may not be intended as a sign of disrespect, and maybe the sight of this, too, is something to which people who live in New York have long ago become accustomed.
Just inside the entrance to the park is the famous Strawberry Fields, named in his memory. The main gathering point is the mosaic with, at its center, the single word: "Imagine."
One sign near the mosaic announced that the playing of musical instruments is not permitted, but on this day a man sat on a bench facing the mosaic and strummed a wooden acoustic guitar. As he played the song "In My Life," he sang, with a wavery voice, the words:
"There are places I remember. . . ."
Fans remember Lennon
On Tuesday, as the anniversary of the murder arrives, perhaps the mood will be solemn in Strawberry Fields. But on this day, at least on this hour of this day, it was intermittently lighthearted. People sprawled on their backs on top of the mosaic, grinning and spreading their arms and legs in "Hard Day's Night" or "Help!" quasi-Beatles poses. Friends with cameras knelt near them, trying to angle the lens upward at a severe enough degree to include the looming vision of the Dakota in the shot.
There was a little informal line as people waited their own turn to pose on the "Imagine" mosaic. The man with the guitar sang:
"But of all these friends and lovers. . . ."
Another snap of another camera.
". . .there is no one, compares with you. . . ."
Twenty-nine Decembers ago, a man on 72nd Street wanted only one thing:
To get home for the night.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene.

19.2 Pound Bundle of Joy

2009-12-01T15:40:00.001-05:00

Attention moms! Can we have your attention please? To everyone who likes to brag about giving birth to 8, 9, even 10-lb. babies, we advise you keep quiet around Ani from Indonesia. The woman recently delivered a 19.2-lb. bruiser, the heaviest newborn ever recorded in the country.

Ani's epic delivery scored a lot of attention in the Search box. After the "Today" show ran a segment and Al Roker and Matt Lauer made some lighthearted jokes, lookups on "19 pound baby," "indonesian baby," and "heaviest baby ever" all spiked immediately.

And pictures? Oh my, the baby's pictures were also hugely popular. Queries for "19 pound baby photos" jumped from nil into the thousands, and photos within Yahoo! News are drawing big clicks. Not surprisingly, the baby is said to require "near constant feeding."

For those wondering if this baby boy (as of yet unnamed, but we suggest "Hulk") is the heaviest newborn in history, the answer is no. The record belongs to an American infant born in 1879. He weighed 23 pounds, 12 ounces. Sadly, he died a few hours after being born. An ABC station reports that the heaviest baby to survive weighed 22 lbs., 8 ounces. We sure hope the big guy was always extra-nice to his mother.

Below, check out the segment from "Today."

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visiting Haunted Place in Pakistan

2009-11-25T23:48:00.001-05:00

Kalabagh – Punjab – Here a lady who is very fat and with a small length. Her hair are too long. She attacks if gazed by someone.

Karachi – 39-k block 6 – P.E.C.H.S. – Sometimes you will see a white light glowing at night. Also people have reported seeing a very pale women wearing a white dress walk around for about a minute then disappear at about 3:00 in the morning, it has also been said that this lady had been kidnapped and rapped, after she was rapped she was murdered and buried there.

Karachi – Liari – Witnesses report seeing an apparition of a man badly cut and bleeding, when approached, he vanishes.

Lahore – Defense – T Block – Reports of an apparition of a girl in white clothes.

Lahore – Defense – Z Block – People say that the house is haunted. Thats why its price is also very low.

Lahore – Gulberg – The witness says that a man in white dress is seen there in days of world cup 99. when anyone goes near to him he become vanish but he doesn’t harm anyone.

Lahore – Sector W, Defense Housing Society, 2 story house – Residents have been, chased, thrown and scared away from the house, exorcisms have been performed, but to no avail.

HORRID

2009-11-20T00:29:00.002-05:00

I’ve never been a fan of flying. In fact, I’ve taken every opportunity to drive to a destination rather than save time and fly there.

I know a fear of flying is irrational. I know that flying is a far safer mode of travel than driving. I know I can save a lot of time by flying rather than driving.

Again, my fear is irrational.
I also don’t like flying, and not because I’m scared of it. I don’t like the recycled air. I’ve yet to get off a plane and not come down with some gross cold a few days later. I don’t like to hear the young children scream when the pressure gets to their ears. I certainly don’t like the little brat behind me that feels the need to kick the back of my seat every thirty seconds for three hours. I don’t like being crammed into a small seat (and I’m thin) like cattle and being unable to move around and stretch my legs.

However, interestingly enough, none of these reasons are behind my airline horror story.

No, my horror story takes us back to April 1987. I was on Spring Break during my freshman year of college. I had just spent the week in Aspen skiing up a storm. This trip was also the first time I broke my nose (landed wrong) skiing. It certainly wasn’t the last.

For those of you that don’t know about Aspen, it is famous for a few things. First of all, it is one of the nation’s premier ski areas. Second of all, it is one of the snootiest places on the planet. This is where money talks and everything else walks. I was lucky, I had cousins that invited me to spend the week skiing and were generous enough to pick up the tab.

Anyhow, it started snowing on my last day in Aspen. I had to get back to school, because the end of the quarter was approaching (the University of Denver is on a quarter system) and I had term papers and finals coming up very shortly. I got to Pitkin Airport, which is just outside of Aspen, and my cousins began their long trek home.

If you’ve never been to Pitkin Airport, think back to the NBC sitcom called “Wings.” Pitkin Airport consists of a small room and two gates. Why? There were only two airlines that flew out of Pitkin back then – Rocky Mountain Airways (Continental) and Aspen Airways (United). All the flights for Aspen Airways had left for the night, and I was waiting for my flight on Rocky Mountain Airways.

Suddenly, over the loudspeaker (why they have one in a terminal with two gates I’ll never understand) they announce my flight has been cancelled due to snow.

Due to snow?

I looked outside, and while it was snowing, the ground was just dusted. How could they be canceling my flight because of snow?

I went to the counter and inquired why the flight was being cancelled. I was told by the ticket agent/baggage clerk/security guard/floor sweeper that Rocky Mountain Airways’ planes are not equipped to fly in the snow, because they lack some sort of radar equipment to make that sort of flying safe.

And you are flying these planes, during snow skiing season, in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Utah? They’re not equipped to fly in the snow? Are they joking?

I went to the other counter and was met by the same ticket agent/baggage clerk/security guard/floor sweeper. All the sudden, what came out of this idiot’s mouth was straight out of a bad comedy flick.

“Yes sir, may I help you?”

I could feel my blood pressure rapidly approach the boiling point. I asked if there were any flights going out for Aspen Airways. This person said they would be going out tomorrow, but there were no other scheduled flight that evening.

OK fine. I decided I would just sleep in the terminal until morning and take the first flight out. I checked with the ticket agent/baggage clerk/security guard/floor sweeper and found there was indeed an opening on the 6:30am flight. I got myself booked on the flight. I found a corner and sat down and closed my eyes.

About thirty minutes later, the ticket agent/baggage clerk/security guard/floor sweeper woke me up and said I couldn’t sleep in the terminal. It is against county regulations for anyone to sleep in the terminal.

OK fine. I asked the ticket agent/baggage clerk/security guard/floor sweeper if Continental would be willing to put me up for the night, since it was due to their poor and outdated equipment that I was stuck in Aspen for the night. They said they would if they could, however, there were no openings at any of the local hotels due to it being Spring Break for most colleges.

You can imagine the little ditty I was in. I don’t live in the area. I can’t get to a hotel because they’re all booked. I can’t stay in the terminal because it violates county regulations. I have a suitcase, skis, and no one to call, and no place to go. On top of that, it was snowing outside. The only people I could call were probably still on the road.

I hired a cab back to town. My first attempt to find a warm place to sleep was fruitless. I met the single snootiest human being on the planet I have ever had the displeasure of meeting, I’m sure he was earning minimum wage as the night desk clerk in a hotel. However, walking down the road, I found a nice clerk at the next hotel down the street who took pity on me and allowed me to sleep on the couch in her lobby.

The clerk got off work at 5:00am and offered to drive me back to the airport. Naturally, I agreed and thanked her for her kindness.

I went back into the terminal and walked up to the ticket counter for Rocky Mountain Airways. I showed them my new ticket, handed them my luggage, and waiting for boarding on the plane. After all, I was an hour early, and figured the fiasco was coming to an end.

The flight back to Denver was uneventful. Actually, I didn’t run into any kids kicking the back of my seat. However, I attribute this to being one of about six passengers on the entire plane, and there was room for about 40 passengers.

I went to baggage claim at Stapleton Airport. I waited. I waited some more. Where’s my luggage?

I marched off for the ticket counter in what you could imagine was pure rage at this point. Just how on earth do you lose luggage on a 35 minute flight with six passengers on it that had no previous stops or further stops?

I get to the ticket counter, and have composed myself the best I can. I’m really ticked off, and cannot imagine being this stuck under Murphy’s Law.

I politely – as polite as one could be in my state at the time – asked where my luggage is. They check and see that it was never checked in from Pitkin Airport.

Well that was enough to set me off. I didn’t need any more buttons pushed, because there were no more buttons to push. I asked how on God’s green earth could my baggage not be on the flight? I reminded her that I checked in over an hour early, the flight had six people on it, and was a 35 minute flight.

Two days later, my skis and my luggage came. Apparently it had been sent to the wrong plane, and it took them that long to track down my missing bags.

I got the name and address of the president of Continental Airlines and wrote him a letter about a week later. I explained the situation, and how displeased I was with the whole experience. I was kind of hoping they would return the airfare for that leg of the trip.

Two weeks later, I received a letter from Continental thanking me for my comments and how they were looking forward to having me fly with them again

SAD GIRL

2009-11-20T00:28:00.002-05:00

I was born into a very staunch Muslim family in the US. Learning to read the Quran the moment I could read. I was under the misconception that if I did not do as Allah told me to do, I would be punished severely. I was also told that if I didn't wear modest clothes I was being immoral. Right from a little girl I wore the head scarf. My friends would ask me why, and I would tell them "because God said so'.

Around the age of 14, I realized how much of life I was missing out on. How my father commanded that I do my prayers 5 times a day and never play any sports because they would only lead me to the devil. One night I was talking to my parents about college and my father said that I would never go to college because he had chosen a boy for me and I was about to get married to him as soon as I turned 18. I was shocked....my mother ran out of the room crying. I began to plead with my father to let me go to college. But he said no. When I asked him why, he told me that Muslim women are not supposed to be educated or go to work. They are supposed to be good wives, who never disagree with their husbands and be good honorable women. I couldn't belive my ears. This man was still living in the dark-ages.

The next day after school I went to the mosque to talk with our Maulvi Sahab. When I told him about my father's irrational behavior---he agreed with him. He told me that if all the Muslim men in our community thought like your father, we would be in a really good place right now.

I was stuck and didn't know what to do. I kept thinking about it till late that night. At around 2am my mom came to check up on me and found me crying. That night I came to know what a sick religion Islam was. She told me that she had been a well educated (Doctor) Hindu woman who had fallen in love with my father in India. During their courtship my father had told her that he was very broad-minded and did not want her to convert when they got married. Against my grand-parent's wishes she married him and did the Nikaah just so her mother-in-law would like her. Thats where her nightmare began. Her In-laws would not let her go out of the house. No one could come and visit her. She was confined in a home where everyone would spit on her for being a 'Kafir'. They made her read the Quran and do Namaz. If she didn't they would beat her. My father would come home and force himself on her. When she would ask him not to, he would tell her that it was written in the Quran, and she was nothing more than a slave to him. After about a year of their marriage, they left for the US. My mom was already pregnant with me.

When I was born he was not too happy with my Mom. He said that if he had married someone of his own faith he would have had a boy for sure. Giving him a girl was the way Allah was punishing him for marrying a Hindu.

When I heard all this I began to hate my father and Islam. I promised to get my mom out of this situation and also never ever end up like her. When I turned 18, along with the help of a lawyer, I managed to get my mom and dad divorced. My mom actually went back to school and has a flourishing practice now.

As for me, you mighwt say that I reverted. I am a practising and loving Hindu now. I have changed my name. I live a life full of love and adoration for a God who does not preach hate, who encourages me to think and gain knowledge, who shows me the way without fear and who loves everyone no matter who they are.

Child bride gets divorced after rape, beatings

2009-11-20T00:25:00.002-05:00

(From CNN) Editor's note: CNN does not usually identify children of alleged abuse, but in this case the girl and her family gave CNN permission to tell her story and use her name.

SANAA, Yemen (CNN) -- Nujood Ali is 10 years old, but she already has been married and divorced. It was an arranged marriage in which she said a husband three times her age routinely beat and raped her.

"When I got married, I was afraid. I didn't want to leave home. I wanted to stay with my brothers and sisters and my mom and dad," she said, speaking to CNN with the permission of her parents.

"I didn't want to sleep with him, but he forced me to. He hit me, insulted me."

As she plays marbles with her brothers and sister, Nujood is a portrait of innocence, with a shy smile and a playful nature.

But what happened evokes anger and shame. Asked if what she went through was torture, she nods quietly. Watch Nujod describe what happened »

Nujood's parents married her off in February to a man in his 30s whom she describes as old and ugly.

Her parents said they thought they were putting her in the care of her husband's family, but Nujood said he would often beat her into submission.

Nujood then turned to her family for mercy.

"When I heard, my heart burned for her; he wasn't supposed to sleep with her," said Nujood's mother, who asked not to be identified.

But, initially, she also told her daughter she could not help her -- that she belonged to her husband now.

Nujood's father, Ali Mohammed Ahdal, said he is angry about what happened to his daughter. "He was a criminal, a criminal. He did hateful things to her," he said. "He didn't keep his promise to me that he wouldn't go near her until she was 20."

When contacted by CNN, the girl's former husband declined to comment.

Nujood's parents, like so many others in Yemen, struck a social bargain when they decided to have their daughter wed. More than half of all Yemeni girls are married off before the age of 18, according to Oxfam International, a nonprofit group that fights global poverty and injustice.

Many times girls are forced to marry older men, including some who already have at least one wife, Oxfam said. According to tribal customs, the girls are no longer viewed as a financial or moral burden to their parents.

"There is always a fear that the girl will do something to dishonor the family: She will run away with a guy, she will have relations with a boy. So this is always the phobia that the families have," said Suha Bashren of Oxfam International.

Bashren calls the tradition of child brides in Yemen a national crisis. She works with young girls to protect them from early marriage, abuse and one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

The Yemeni government is holding legal and religious workshops to try to deal with the issue of early marriage. But experts say marrying off a young daughter is generally still seen as the right thing to do.

"A lot of people in the public don't think that this is wrong or that what happened to her was abuse," Bashren said.

In Yemen, there is nothing new or extraordinary about Nujood's story because children have been married off for generations. The country's legal minimum age for marriage was 15 till a decade ago, when the law was changed to allow for children even younger to be wed.

But what is most unusual is that this young girl took such an intensely private dispute and went public with it.

Nujood said she made up her mind to escape from her husband, describing how on a visit to her parents' home she broke free and traveled to the central courthouse across town and demanded to speak to a judge.

"He asked me, 'What do you want?' And I said, 'I want a divorce.' And he said, 'You're married?' And I said, 'Yes,'" she recalled.

What unfolded in those few days in April gripped the country on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.

Nujood got her divorce, but based on the principles of Islamic Sharia law, her husband was compensated, not prosecuted. Nujood was ordered to pay him more than $200. The human rights lawyer who represented her donated the money.

But for this determined spirit, it was still a sweet victory.

"I did this so that people would listen and think about not marrying their daughters off as young as I was," she said with a shy smile.

Now back at the family home, she said she won't go outside to play -- that all the attention bothers her. Some still condemn the young girl for speaking out, believing that she shouldn't have challenged convention.

Wife, Daughter and Niece Killed By A Man In Karachi

2009-11-20T00:24:00.002-05:00

KARACHI: A main slain his wife, daughter and niece in Abdur Rahim Goth of North Karachi on Sunday and escaped from the scene, police said.

Abdur Rasheed, a resident of Abdur Rahim Goth, this morning shot dead his wife Wazeeran 45, daughter Asma 16 and niece Aasia 18, Surjani Town police said.

The incident was result of a family dispute, police claimed.

The dead bodies sent to Civil and Abbasi Shaheed Hospitals of Karachi for autopsy.

Surjani Town police have registered murder case against accused Abdur Rasheed.

Woman’s nose, ear chopped off over ‘honour’

2009-11-20T00:21:00.000-05:00

LAHORE, Sept 8: Two people allegedly chopped off nose and an ear of a woman over ‘honour’ in Marghzar Colony of Hanjarwal on Tuesday.

The victim, (L), wife of Nazir Ahmed, complained to police that Kalay Khan, husband of her sister, along with his accomplice Allah Yar, chopped off her nose and an ear and escaped.

According to initial police investigations, the accused suspected that (L), mother of five, had developed relations with a man of the area.

The accused had a quarrel with (L) over the issue a couple of days back.

The injured was admitted to the Services Hospital.

Police have arrested Allah Yar and were looking for the main accused.

Cutting nose of Ex-wife

2009-11-20T00:20:00.000-05:00

LAHORE, April 3: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Sayed Zahid Husain on Friday sought a complete report on the action taken against the person who chopped off the nose of his former wife in Pakpattan.

The chief minister took a suo motu notice on a newspaper report stating that an elderly man, Muhammad Husain, had chopped off the nose of his former wife, Fatima, after failure to force her into prostitution.

The chief justice summoned Assistant Advocate-General Fawad Malik and directed him to submit the report on the action taken against the man and medical treatment given to the victim on April 10. The Pakpattan district police officer was also directed to appear in person on April 10.

MAN-EATERS OF INDIA

2009-11-20T00:18:00.001-05:00

From as early as 1906 Corbett had started receiving requests to assist where tiger attacks took place.

Both the Indian villagers themselves and the British would petition for his assistance, with a typical villager request reading something like this:

"We, the public, venture to suggest that you very kindly take trouble to come to this place and shoot this tiger and save the public from this calamity. For this act of kindness the public will be highly obliged and will pray for your long life and prosperity."

Habitual killers:

But, no matter how much prayer went into it, Jim Corbett would never kill a tiger where he felt the animal was not a proven habitual killer. One or two attacks did not make it 'proven' and Corbett firmly believed that most tiger attacks were due to misfortune or a tigress protecting her cubs, rather than a true man-eater on the prowl.

Over a thirty-five year period Jim Corbett agreed to hunt and kill another eleven tigers on top of Champawat. Together these animals had killed approximately 1,300 people. He noted that, from his observations, tigers were responsible for daytime human kills only. Kills done at night were normally the result of a leopard attack. At the age of 63 Jim Corbett shot his last tigress. After tracking her for days he finally lured her within shooting range by imitating the call of a male.

The naming of Corbett National Park:

Jim Corbett was instrumental in creating the park which now carries his name. He did this with the help of Sir (later Lord) Malcolm Hailey, Governor of the United Provinces in the early '30s. When the park was ready to open to the public, Hailey had already left India, and the authorities named it 'The Hailey National Park', the first of its kind in India.

Many years after Jim Corbett's death the Indian government made the decision to change the name of its first park to Corbett National Park. In itself this created a source of debate.

Supporters believe the renaming was the best tribute to a great man and that there is no one better qualified to bear that name than Jim Corbett.

Others point out that though he was an ardent conservationist, Corbett was also involved with the Kenyan-based Safariland hunting company. During the period from 1948 to 1951 he was a director of the company in a land which offered some of the best hunting grounds in the world.

Outfitters like Safariland employed dozens of professional hunters and guides. These people looked after the game using rigid and strict standards, but there is some evidence which suggests their practices also helped ensure the future of much wildlife.

The honour girl

2009-11-20T00:17:00.000-05:00

She came to my bank situated in a college premises at least several times in a month. She had an aura of simplicity, grace and dignity about her.

She was not very beautiful, but her mediocre beauty was refined by her fine facial features, wheatish complexion with a tinge of whiteness, big black eyes, long hair that she always covered with a white duppatta.

As she entered, she greeted everyone with Assalam-o-Alaikum in a soft low tone, placed the books in a corner, gracefully walked up to the counter, picked up a savings deposit slip, confidently filled in all the details, submitted it to the cashier, waited quietly and patiently for the return of the counter foil which she placed in her note-book folder and left, bowing her head and muttering Allah Hafiz almost inaudibly.

There was something unusual about her that we all noticed. Like other students, she was neither accompanied by a friend nor by any elderly lady. She never came in with a group of classmates. Though alone, she was not hesitant to approach any male staff if the three female officers were too busy with other clients. Her queries were simple and official. She would ask for the balance in her account or the profit paid by the bank; would the bank remain open if the college was closed? Could she deposit her money on bank holidays? Once, she quite innocently asked if the bank published examination results and, if so, could she get a copy? Though we were amused at what we considered a silly question, yet her serious innocence evoked a simple nod with a meek “No.”

It was for over a year now that she had been coming to the bank. As the conduct of her account was only deposit and withdrawal for payment of college fees, it was just a matter of ordinary book-keeping procedure. However, the cashier had one complaint: she never deposited the amount in round figures and though it was never more than four digits in rupees, yet it was always with some paisas, at times even in odd figures such as Rs1,246.50. As a commercial bank in the private sector dedicated to service, we could not ask her to round up the amount to an even figure for the convenience of our computation.

Everything, of course, was computerized,. Still, the possibility of an error in posting could not be ruled out, and this irked the cashier. Once, he requested her to round up the figure. All she did was add 50 paisas more to make it Rs1,247. The cashier accepted the amount but remained uneasy. After continuing for sometime, he approached me with the problem of this particular account. I asked him to send her to me the next time she came.

Though she came only twice a month, her timings were uncertain. I prayed that she came on a lean day and on one such day, the cashier brought her to me with the cash pay-in slip. She greeted me with Assalam-o-Alaikum. I replied with a nod. As I was busy on the phone, I asked her to take a seat with a wave of my hand. I looked at her while attending the phone and was simply disarmed by the animated but sober innocent look in her eyes, her confident yet humble appearance and her respectful posture with arms folded over her duppatta that she had wrapped around her. When I had finished with the call, I addressed her.

“Beti, for over a year, you have been depositing the amount in odd figures. Can’t you make it, say, like Rs1,250 or Rs1,200?”

She shook her head in negation without uttering a word.

“Can you explain?” I asked in a beseeching tone.

“Uncle,” she said, looking straight at me, “I cannot take out even a single rupee from the amount I put in the account. I can only add a few paisas I save.”

“You are like my daughter. If there is a problem I can help,” I said.

“Thank you, uncle. But we’ve vowed to do it on our own,” she said with a feeling of honour.

“It won’t be any obligation,” I insisted. “I’ll just add a few rupees and even paisas to make it even so that we avoid a posting error.”

“It’s very kind of you, uncle; but myself and no one of our family would like it because it will be charity. My father works hard day and night, and would be hurt and feel degraded. He works hard and saves one-fourth from his daily earnings and without taking a rupee out if it, gives me all of it. He says he wants me to be a doctor.”

“That’s quite noble of him. He is a great man. What does he do?” I asked.

Without hesitation or a second thought, and with an air of praise and pride, she instantly said, “He is a rickshaw driver.”

Stunned by her boldness, I stood up and bowed my head respectfully, without looking into her eyes as she said, “Allah Hafiz,” and confidently walked away.

Witnesses to barbarism

2009-11-20T00:15:00.001-05:00

This special issue includes a number of short stories and poems, each a moving elegy on the Gujarat tragedy. Along these poems and short stories we find an abridged version of a report compiled by a social worker, Pernika Kakodkar. It is a heart-rending account of those young boys and children who fleeing from their burning houses, escaped from the bloodthirsty rioters and somehow reached relief camps. In the camps at Ahmadabad alone, they number more than 30,000. They are terrorized little souls not yet able to forget what they had seen. They have harrowing tales to tell of their kith and kin burnt alive. So many of them were fated to witness their sisters raped and then thrown into the fire. A 14-year-old boy, Javaid Husain, narrated how the rioters ripped the belly of his pregnant cousin and threw the child in the fire. “This horrible scene,” he said, “is fixed in my memory. I can’t sleep.”

Yasmeen Sikander Khan is 12 years old. She said: “At times I feel that my mother is calling me. I see the burnt house and I am reminded that it is the house where my mother was burnt. They did not spare my mother. Along with others they burnt her, too. This camp has also been attacked several times by them. Almost every day there is a bomb blast outside the camp. Also, the police fire at the camp.”

Raishma Bano is an 11-year-old girl now living in the Shah Alam Relief Camp. She says that her mohalla was first raided by the police, who arrested all the male members of the locality. Next morning, the rioters, armed with swords and knives came on trucks. Then she narrated how a 16-year-old girl was raped by 10 rioters. “We saved ourselves by fleeing. Even now I feel terrified. I am afraid that they will attack this camp, too. I don’t talk to any man here. Perhaps they are here in the guise of guards. Who knows?”

Shahid Khan, who is 14 years old, is staying in the Darya Khan Relief Camp. He claims to be an eyewitness to the murder of distinguished Muslim leader, an ex-MLA, Ahsan Jafri. “We lived next to him. He was a well-known leader. A large number of people had taken refuge in his house, considering it as safe. I was peeping from a window of my house. “Kill me,” he was saying to the crowd, “but let these people go.” The crowd asked him to chant Jai Siya Ram. But he did not respond to it. Thereupon, they took a burning tyre and put it around his neck. One rioter drove his sword into his belly. I shuddered and dared not see more.” Then he added. “I just can’t sleep.” Then he felt angry. “They have looted our house. Now, I feel that I should go there and kill them all.”

The magazine includes an article by Majid Husain, who is the son-in-law of Mr Jafri. He tells us that the police commissioner, Mr Panday, had assured Jafri that a guard would be provided to him for safety. But he did not keep his promise. Even Sonia Gandhi’s phone call to him went unheeded. The police did reach there, but only after Jafri and 150 others, mostly women and children who had taken refuge in his house, had been killed.

Lalita Panikar has, in her article, expressed her concern and grief at the active participation of Hindu women in the Gujarat bloodshed. She has traced this female activity to the times of the Babri Masjid’s demolition when Uma Bharati had gone there in the guise of a man. Lalita says that on the basis of this action, the lady won for her a place in Sangh Parivar.

Lalita has expressed her horror on the assertion of a female Karya Sewak, Chandrawati, who declared on the occasion of her arrival in Ayodhya: “We have come her to shed blood. By erecting the temple, we mean that the mullahs will be hanged.”

Syed Mohammad Mehdi, writing on Wali Deccani, has referred to the declaration made by the standard-bearers of the Ram Mandir that there will be a final round between the Hindus and Muslims. He has quoted a doha from Tulsi Das, saying that every thug, thakur and thief chants Ram Ram. But the favour of Ram can only be won by those who believe in love. And Mehdi retorts: “Of course, there will be a final round, but not between Hindus and Muslims. It will be between two other forces. On the one side will be thugs, thakurs and thieves chanting Ram Ram. On the other side will be those believing in love and enjoying the favour of Ram. And that will be the day when the mazar of Wali will be rebuilt.

Shamim Hanafi has talked of a big gathering of writers in Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi and other languages, including Ashok Bajpai, Rajaendra Singh Yadav, Geetanjali and Sudhir Chandra, along with a number of journalists, intellectuals and social workers. They gathered in the Ghalib Academy to protest against Muslims’ killings in Gujarat. Nukkar Natak staged a protest play on the occasion. Then, with candles in their hands, they went to Ghalib’s mazar and paid homage to the poet.

It was all very good. But, asks Shamim Hanafi, which mazar is the next target of Sangh Pariwar? Ghalib’s or Amir Khusrau’s.

And then we see George Fernandes delivering his infamous speech in the parliament: “Why are they referring repeatedly to the ripping of the bellies of pregnant women? Is it something new?” he asks and says, “it has happened so many times in the past.” And Syed Shahnawaz Husain, a minister sitting by him, is smiling.

One more glimpse was presented by Shamim Gopal Menon’s documentary, Genocide in the Land of Gandhi, sub-titled, Hai Ram.

A correspondent from the BBC asks a viewer, “What is your reaction?”

“It was a free play of death. Who can give his reaction to his own death?”

The viewers with ashen faces stand up and get out silently one by one.

Their grief defies description, but will lessons be learnt?

2009-11-20T00:13:00.000-05:00

FOR the parents of Syed Hamza, life will never be the same again.

The grief of losing a child to what is manifestly, a cruel twist of fate, is incomparable. The 11-year-old Hamza died on Tuesday afternoon after he was knocked down by a speeding wagon outside the Islamabad Convent School in Sector F-8.

He appeared in an exam at the school earlier in the day and left for home. But upon reaching there, the student recalled he had left his jacket behind on the premises and made a return trip to fetch it. It was the last time his parents would see him alive although it is unclear if they actually had even this fleeting glimpse.

For the rest of their lives, they will mourn how a small journey to retrieve a flippant piece of clothing would extinguish the flame that was supposed to have warmed their lives.

Hamza got down from his car and as soon as he rushed to cross the road, he was hit by a speeding wagon. The victim was rushed to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) but died of injuries. A pall of gloom descended over the school, where teachers and students broke down in despair.

Should the tragedy be put down to fate — a case perhaps, of Murphy’s Law — or a combination of mitigating factors?

It is important to delve into the accident of life that, no parent should have to cope with, dread as many of them will have come to — alas, only after the episode!

To begin with, the road leading up to the school gate and beyond is virtually in a state of logjam. There is simply no direction as parents or drivers make an often desperate attempt to first wade their way in, and then, out after picking up students when time is called.

While many a road in the capital — even residential lanes — are swarming with speed-breakers, amazingly there is none on the road outside the Convent, which could force motorists to mind their speed and draw some value for precious lives.

But what does one say of the failure to employ traffic police to man what is a very busy area, at least at school opening and closing times, with considerably unruly state of affairs on the road outside? At the time of the tragic accident that took Hamza’s life, there was no personnel from the Islamabad Traffic Police to regulate the flow.

If the city’s traffic management fails to assume responsibility even after this profound tragedy, it would be in the fitness of things for a prestigious and financially well- placed institute like the Islamabad Convent School to take charge, put in place some responsible personnel and see out the rush hour. That’s the least it can and should do.

But even before the school management contemplates any such move, there is no doubt in my mind that it should begin to emphasise road safety among the students with clearly spelt out steps that help achieve that end. In fact, it is something that all schools will do well to replicate. Perhaps, it can take the form of a mandatory school lesson just to inculcate its absolute need — for all times to come.

Our hearts go out to the parents of Hamza even if we can never really begin to comprehend the magnitude of the sheer grief and loss. May Allah Almighty rest their son’s soul in peace and give them the patience to cope with life’s wanton cruelty.

Earlier this year, a still more disturbing incident took place when an 8th grader at one of the city’s high profile schools committed suicide after poor handling of an episode involving misconduct on the part of the student.

Reportedly, after a teacher was tipped off about the student watching a graphic picture on the Internet in the school lab, he was sent by the concerned teacher to the headmistress, who immediately asked to see the student’s father.

Afraid of the reaction at home and probably, out of shame, the student tearfully sought forgiveness for the ‘offence’ but begged the headmistress not to inform his father. In desperation, he even threw himself at her feet. Unmoved, she insisted she would call his father. As a consequence, later that day, the student committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan. Nothing could have been more traumatic for the boy’s family.

Perhaps, the headmistress could have shown a little more sensitivity and if at all, she felt forgiveness was not enough and the ‘offence’ demanded greater punishment, she could have resorted to some other form of reprimand.

It does not require Einstein’s genius to understand that children at the age of the student-in-question can be quite sensitive. Failure to grasp that essential has left a lifetime of agony for the unfortunate parents and even the headmistress, who will be haunted by her mistake — let’s give her the benefit of the doubt (something she didn’t allow the student) and assume it was a mistake — that led the student into taking his own life.

Needless to say, both the teachers (and by extension, the school management) and parents need to be a little more alive to the wellbeing of students/children. In the latter case, had they been discharging their responsibilities with a little more understanding, there might have been just a little less pain in the world.

WIFE MURDER

2009-11-20T00:11:00.002-05:00

Artist Abdul Mohammad Ismail, better known as Gulgee, wife Zareen Gulgee and a maidservant were found murdered in their Clifton residence on Wednesday afternoon.

The information regarding the triple murder was given to police by the couple’s only son, Amin Gulgee, who lives in an adjoining portion of the house.

“Maidservant Aasia’s son had been coming for the past five days, asking why his mother had not returned home, but was being given unsatisfactory answers by the security guards. On Wednesday, Amin came to know that the man had been asking about his mother,” Niaz Khosa, a senior police official, told Dawn.

Amin entered his parents’ house from his portion of the premises and saw that a television in the living room was switched on. Then he broke the glass pane and saw his father’s body, Niaz Khosa added.

Before that, Amin had called a DSP, a friend of his, who advised him that this being his parents’ house, he could break the lock and get inside.

After finding his father’s body, Amin informed the SHO of the Boat Basin police station.

Amin told police that he had been wondering for the past five days why the gate of his parents’ house was locked and their car was not parked inside. He said he then pacified himself with the thought that they were away from home.

However, another police official quoted Amin Gulgee as saying that he had not gone to the parents’ place because of a tiff with them.

The body of Gulgee was found in the living room, that of his wife in the kitchen and the body of their servant was found in a small room adjacent to the kitchen, DIG Investigation Manzoor Ahmed Mughal told Dawn.

He said not a single valuable was missing from the house. “All valuables, including cash, jewelry and all of his paintings, are inside the house.”

The DIG ruled out an armed break-in. Recalling the scene, Mr Mughal said brushes and paints were found scattered all over the place.

The DIG pointed out that instead of rope, the “murderer used a cloth to strangulate the victims”. He said the bodies had decomposed and were sending out an unbearable stench.

Standing on the street outside, this reporter also felt the stench.

Capital City Police Chief Azhar Ali Farooqui told journalists waiting outside the house that three servants were unaccounted for and a car belonging to the couple was missing.

In reply to a question whether the police were treating the couple’s son Amin Gulgee as a suspect, the CCPO replied that at this stage he could make no comment.

POST-MORTEM: The bodies were shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for post-mortem.

Dr Abdul Razzak Shaikh, a medico-legal officer, said he had seen signs of two wounds probably inflicted with a blunt weapon. However, he said, the wounds were not such as could have caused death. He said Gulgee’s tongue was sandwiched between the teeth, suggesting that he might have been strangulated.

However, instead of a rope, a cloth had been used, the doctor said. He estimated that the bodies were three to five days old.

The post-mortem of Zareen Gulgee and Aasia, the maidservant, were carried out by Dr Nasreen, another medico-legal officer.

Dr Nasreen said her conclusion was that the two women had been struck in the back of their head at least thrice in each case. However, she added, as the bodies were in a bad shape, the medico-legal report had been held back.

Fahmi, Gulgee’s sister, reached the house after learning about the incident. She said that three days ago, Gulgee had taken her out for a dinner. But since then he had not been attending phone calls.

The perturbed sister, in her 70s, was at a loss for words when asked as to who might have been behind the murder.

Yacoobali G. Zamindar, a close friend of Gulgee, told Dawn he had been with the artist and his wife last week at a fund-raising dinner.

“The couple also danced on the occasion,” recalled Mr Zamindar. He said his acquaintance with the Gulgees went back 30 years.

“The couple were very devoted to welfare work. Mrs Gulgee was a member of the SOS children’s village of Sindh.”

Apart from Amin, the couple had a daughter settled in London.

Relatives and friends visiting Gulgee’s Clifton residence had a difficult time in getting through the police guards posted at the entrance.

Among visitors to the house was a man cradling his little daughter in his arms. Tayyab, son of the slain servant Aasia, said that he had been coming to the place since Friday in search of his mother.

Miri’s Hunger

2009-11-20T00:10:00.000-05:00

Helen Oyeyemi’s eerie third novel features a young woman who has a strange eating disorder and lives with her twin brother and widowed father in a haunted house across the street from a cemetery full of unmarked graves. On the surface, this setup might appear best suited to the young adult fiction market, but Oyeyemi (who was born in Nigeria and educated in England) knows that ghost stories aren’t just for kids. And “White Is for Witching” turns out to be a delightfully unconventional coming-of-age story.

Miranda — or Miri, as she’s called — suffers from pica, a disorder that compels her to eat foreign objects. “She crammed chalk into her mouth,” her brother explains. “She hid the packaging at the bottom of her bag and threw it away when we got to school. But then there’d be cramps that twisted her body, pushed her off her seat and lay her on the floor, helplessly pedaling her legs.” The novel was published in Britain as “Pie-kah” (the pronunciation of Miri’s affliction), a less sensational title that grounds the narrative in the girl’s sad psychic state rather than in its supernatural elements.

After his wife, who works as a photo journalist, is killed on assignment in Haiti, Miri’s father takes sole control of the family’s ancestral home in the southeastern coastal town of Dover, which the couple have converted into a bed-and-breakfast. But the house — which has its own spirited personality — has other ideas. It frightens off the hired help and even insists on narrating some of the story. (“One evening she pattered around inside me . . . and she dragged all my windows open, putting her glass down to struggle with the stiffer latches. I cried and cried for an hour or so.”) Another spectral presence, known as Goodlady, may be a figment of Miri’s active imagination.

Everything changes when a new housekeeper, a Yoruba woman named Sade who has “tribal marks” scarred on her face and practices juju in the kitchen, isn’t scared off. In fact, she stays even when Miri goes away to college and her brother takes up an internship in South Africa. At Cambridge, Miri befriends an African adoptee named Ore, and at that point the novel begins to lose focus.

For a while, Ore’s story takes center stage. Subplots abound (including attacks against Kosovan refugees and violent happenings at an Immigration Removal Center), but they rarely advance the main plot or refer back to Miri’s life in any meaningful way. Throughout, however, the theme of displacement, both cultural and personal, recurs. Miri’s illness — the “pie-kah” of the British title — provides a clue as to how the apparently disparate story elements relate. Could it be that England, as a body, is systematically rejecting its foreign population? Perhaps a statement is being made about English xenophobia. What’s more likely is that Oyeyemi’s story is suffering ever so slightly under the weight of a political agenda.

As in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” or Chris Abani’s “Song for Night,” the super natural elements of “White Is for Witching” serve to remind the characters — and Oyeyemi’s readers — of horrifying historical circumstances. Although she may rely on some too familiar narrative ploys, Oyeyemi clearly appreciates that some crimes (like slavery or genocide or, in this case, institutional racism) are so heinous that the conventions of realist fiction seem woefully inadequate to describe them. She makes us glad to suspend disbelief.

Andrew Ervin’s first book, “Extraordinary Renditions: 3 Novellas,” will be published next year.

Five of family die in ‘haunted house

2009-11-20T00:08:00.001-05:00

LAHORE: Five persons of a family have died under mysterious circumstances in Dayal village during the last two days in what is said to be a “haunted house”, according to Wagah Police. Sughara Bibi, Police Sub-Inspector Khushi Muhammad’s wife, his servant Saad, nephew Manzoor, Shaheen and Meena were killed during the last two days. Muhammad suffered a heart attack recently and is under treatment for paralysis. Muhammad said that his house was haunted and claimed that his family members heard mysterious voices before their death. A spiritual healer was trying to capture what they called a ‘jinn’. The police have started investigations.

Room with a dead good view

2009-11-20T00:01:00.006-05:00

Few people would choose to spend their nights in a cemetery surrounded by gravestones, tombs and ivy.
But one Sheffield couple have - and they are not goths.
When Sally Rodgers and Martin Bullock saw a house advertised for rent in Sheffield General Cemetery, they jumped at the chance.
The Victorian cemetery which contains the graves of 87,000 people has two entrances - one on Cemetery Road and another near Ecclesall Road.
Sally and Martin live on the Ecclesall Road side, just through the Egyptian Gateway - a massive columned entrance with a big brass gate.
Just through the gateway is a door marked Private. This is Sally and Martin's house.

BBC Radio Sheffield's Howard Pressman visited the couple in their new home in August 2009. They had been looking for a house to rent in Sheffield for a while when they saw this one advertised in the Sheffield Star.

"It just popped up. We never would have thought we would live in a cemetery. We thought we'd just go and have a look out of interest but then we loved it!"

One of the stipulations of the rental agreement was that the tenants also had to take on the role of part-time cemetery warden, but that did not dissuade Martin:

"We had to have an interview to be a warden as part of the deal but it's only seven hours a week - checking the cemetery is ok and keeping it tidy.

"They probably conducted interviews because they didn't want goths or people who were into death. They wanted people who were interested in the cemetery and looking after it. I've done caretaking jobs before, and I'm interested in history and archaeology.

"The building is Grade II listed - it's a little castle. Being the warden is a small price to pay to live here."

As well as the two main rooms the strange little house has a shower and a small kitchen, plus of course gravestones outside the door. The couple were redecorating the small house when Howard Pressman visited. Between coats of sunny yellow paint Sally showed him a particularly interesting part of the house.

"I think the building used to be two different rooms with separate outdoor entrances but to make it habitable they added this little enclosed bridge between the two rooms - it's like a shed stuck out over the river.

"There's a port hole looking on to the River Porter and a lovely tree. That's my favourite bit."

Sally and Martin could have chosen any other house in Sheffield - so why did they choose one which had gravestones outside the door?

"It's Grade II listed, it's Egyptian-esque, it's set in 16 acres of Victorian cemetery," says Martin. "What other chance in life are you going to get to live like that?

"Sheffield cemetery is gorgeous - it's not active as a graveyard at the moment, it's a park. There are two chapels in back garden, all Sheffield's glitterati are buried here and it's off the busy shopping area of Ecclesall Road."

When asked if the idea of dead bodies outside the door puts them off, Martin laughs: "No, that's ok - there are dead people on the streets!"

Sheffield General Cemetery opened in 1836 as one of the first commercial cemeteries in Britain. It contains one of the deepest single grave plots in the UK, holding the bodies of 96 paupers.

In 1978 the Cemetery was closed for burial and half the site was demolished to create a green space. It is now a conservation area, listed on the English Heritage Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

On Edge After Family Murdered

2009-11-19T19:06:00.001-05:00

Raymond and Ruth Gee and 3 Children Killed, Police Tell People to Lock Their Doors
The tiny farming town of Beason in central Illinois is ordinarily quiet. With its perfectly planted trees, sprawling miles of corn fields, and the patches of flowers around the small homes, this quaint town of 250 would seem like a perfect slice of Americana.
But by Tuesday, all the residents were digesting shocking news: A couple and three of their children were found murdered inside their home Monday afternoon.
Logan County Sheriff Steven Nichols called the killings the."brutal homicide of an entire family" . He declined to discuss how the victims were killed or a possible motive today.
But residents have been asked to be on the lookout for a gray pickup truck with chrome exhaust pipes that was seen in the area on Sunday night. , according to ABC affiliate WICS in Springfield,III.

Nichols issued a stern warning to the town.
"Since we don't have the suspect in custody, lock your doors; consider this person armed and dangerous."
Among the deceased family members are Raymond "Rick" Gee, 46; Ruth Gee, 39; Justina Constant, 16, Dillen Constant, 14; and Austin Gee, 11.

A sixth member of the family, 3-year-old Tabitha Gee, survived the attack and was airlifted to a hospital in nearby Peoria. She is listed in stable condition and being cared for by her grandmother.
Police discovered the bodies Monday afternoon after responding to a call about possible shots fired at the Gee's home.

A Murderer on the Loose?

2009-11-19T19:04:00.000-05:00

For two days, neighbors have been anxiously awaiting news of a suspect or arrest, but to no avail. Police blocked off the road leading up to the home, now turned crime scene, and investigators have been spotted searching for evidence as far away as the town of Chestnut, 6 miles away,according tolocal media reports.

The supervisor of the local township, Ken Hutchison, told a TV station that residents who are accustomed to the area's slow pace, are now frightened at the thought of a killer at large. "It's a tiny rural community, and everyone is wondering how it could happen here."
Betty Poston, 76, grew up in Beason and says she never thought she'd live to see something like this in her town. "Everybody always gets along," she told a reporter. "Neighbors helping neighbors. That's just the kind of town we are."
At a news conference Wednesday morning, Nichols said autopsy results had shown that none of the victims had been shot, contrary to previous speculation. But he wouldn't discuss exactly how the victims died.

5 bikini baristas at Everett stand charged with prostitution

2009-11-19T18:55:00.001-05:00

EVERETT, Wash. -- Five baristas of a local bikini coffee stand are accused of engaging in prostitution while on the clock.

Police spokesman Robert Goetz said the five employees of Grab-N-Go Espresso were charged with prostitution and violating the city's adult entertainment ordinance following a two-month undercover investigation

Goetz said no sex was involved; however, the women, ages 18 to 24, engaged in groping and other sexual acts - including exposing their breasts and privates and licking whipped cream off of each other - in exchange for money.

Police launched the investigation after receiving dozens of complaints regarding bikini baristas' allegedly lewd behavior.

The women are expected to be arraigned in municipal court in the upcoming weeks.

On Thursday morning, the stand's owner said the charges are false.

Because the charges are misdemeanors, the women have not been taken into custody and the coffee stand remains open.

Meantime, the Everett City Council is considering a tougher lewd behavior ordinance. Talks began after the city received some 50 complaints in the past six months about some local bikini baristas
"They'll flash you for extra money or they'll let you stick money on their underpants," said resident Kay Gourley.

Mayor Ray Stephanson said the new ordinance will address such lewd behavior.

Five Dead and Town Warned to Lock Its Doors

2009-11-19T18:54:00.001-05:00

Police issued a warning today in a small central Illinois town that whoever slaughtered a family of five was on the loose and extremely dangerous.

"I think people do need to lock their doors and take precautions," Logan County Sheriff Steve Nichols said today at a news conference according to the Bloomington Pantagraph. "Until we find this person, we consider them armed and dangerous."
Found dead in the family massacre were Raymond and Ruth Gee, approximately 46 and 39 years old, and their three children ages 11 to 16. Their youngest, 3-year-old Tabitha, survived the attack in the family's Beason, Ill., home and was taken to a hospital.
Police have called the Gee family murders a "brutal homicide."

Beason Postmaster Jodie Duncan, who knew the older children well, said no one in this tiny town of 300 knows what to think at this point.
"They're on edge," she said of the town's residents. "I think until the community gets more information as to what's going on, they're on edge." Rural mail carrier Harry David Edwards, who has delivered mail to the town's residents for more than 30 years, told ABCNews.com that he had heard it was one of the children's grandfathers who found the bodies Monday afternoon after not being able to reach the family.

"To take out kids and the whole family like that," he said, "I don't know."
Police said the bodies were found around 4:30 p.m. Monday after receiving a 911 call about a possible shooting at their 2150th Avenue home.
The children were identified as Justina Constant, 16, Dillon Constant, 14 and Austin Gee, 11.

"They were all good kids," Edwards said.

Feed Widow OF Marine Suing Feds and D.A.

2009-11-19T18:51:00.001-05:00

NEW YORK, New York – Cynthia Sommer, released from jail last year after a San Diego jury convicted her of first-degree murder, is suing the federal agencies that investigated her and the district attorney who prosecuted her more than two years ago.

On Thursday, Sommer filed a multimillion-dollar suit in federal district court in San Diego, California alleging fraud, false imprisonment, violation of her civil rights and other tortious conduct on the part of the federal and state agencies and individuals involved.
She is seeking $20,000,000 in damages and other relief including a court order that murder charges can never be refiled against her.
Sommer was arrested in November 2005 and charged with poisoning her husband, Todd, 23, an active duty Marine who died at their home on the Miramar base nearly four years earlier. Sommer was tried and convicted in San Diego in January 2007. The district attorney presented evidence at trial that tissues recovered from Todd Sommer at autopsy showed high levels of arsenic in his liver and kidneys.
The trial judge threw out the murder conviction and ordered a new trial in late 2007 after finding that her attorney, Robert Udell, committed tactical errors which deprived her of a fair trial.
Sommer continues to claim that the tissues tested were contaminated in the government lab. While awaiting a new trial, her new attorney, Allen Bloom, requested that the state search for more tissues that may have been recovered from Todd Sommer and never tested for the presence of arsenic. In early 2008, the government did, indeed, find some tissues preserved in paraffin and sent them to an independent lab for testing. When the results came back negative for the presence of arsenic, Sommer was immediately released from the San Diego County jail where she had spent about a two and a half years.
The district attorney dismissed the first-degree murder charge for the time being but wants the right to bring charges in the future should new incriminating evidence arise. The current dismissal is “without prejudice.” Sommer wants the district attorney to dismiss “with prejudice” which means she could never be charged again. Another hearing on that issue is scheduled for this Friday in San Diego state court.
Since April 2008, Sommer has been re-establishing herself. She is now enrolled in college, has custody of her four children, and plans to work with the Innocence Project. Her youngest child, Christian, is the son of Todd Sommer. Christian, now 9 years old, was not quite two when his father died.
Sommer is suing the United States of America, three NCIS Special Agents Rob Terwilliger, Rick Rendon, and Mark Ridley, the Naval Medical Center in San Diego County, the Medical Examiner’s Office of San Diego County, Glenn N. Wagner (chief medical examiner in San Diego), the San Diego District Attorney’s Office, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and Deputy District Attorney Laura Gunn who handled the trial in 2007.

Mom found guilty of murder in 'Baby Grace' case

2009-11-14T19:17:00.000-05:00

(From CNN)

A Texas woman accused of killing her toddler daughter and dumping the body in Galveston Bay has been found guilty of murder by a jury in Galveston, Texas.

Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 20, showed no emotion as the verdict was read late Monday. Trenor had pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence in the case, but pleaded not guilty to the capital murder charge.

She received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

The body of Trenor's daughter, Riley Ann Sawyers, was found in October 2007 in a large blue plastic container on an uninhabited island in Galveston Bay.

Two-year-old Riley Ann's case drew national attention after a fisherman found her body. Authorities didn't know her identity, and police dubbed her "Baby Grace."

After authorities distributed composite sketches of the girl nationwide, Sheryl Sawyers, the girl's paternal grandmother, contacted police from her Ohio home to say the drawing resembled her granddaughter. DNA testing confirmed the child's identity.

According to an affidavit, Trenor told police Riley had been beaten and thrown across a room and that her head was held under water before she died on July 24, 2007.

Another piece of evidence shown to the jury during the trial was a page of Trenor's journal where she talked of beating the child, according to CNN affiliate KTRK.

"I just kept hitting her with the belt again and again. I don't know how long, but I remember her trying to get away and me knocking her back down," the journal said.

Trenor's husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 25, also faces capital murder and evidence tampering charges, but is being tried separately.

A court date has not been set in that case.

Witches House

2009-11-14T19:16:00.003-05:00

Haunted houses are usually described as large, old bungalows inhabited by ghosts but, unlike such haunted houses, I came to know of an apartment which was inhabited by witches. It was located opposite my granny’s house.

The exterior was quite rundown, and according to people, weird noises occasionally come from inside. There was a very tall tree that loomed beside that building which was bent and almost covered the balcony of the flat.

My friends and I were very curious about it. We wanted to explore it to see for ourselves if the stories we had heard were myths or facts. Thus, we planned to go into this haunted house. We carried some necessary things with us: torches, a magnifying glass for inspection of trails and a metal rod each for personal safety.

At midnight, we left our houses while our families were sleeping peacefully. As decided, I met Rashid at midnight. The night was cold and dark. There was a full moon in the sky.

The flat looked quite desolate in the moonlight. The front door’s polish was peeling off and the doorknob was rusty. So it was easy for us to break through. With just a push the door creaked open and we stepped inside.

What we saw amazed us! Unlike other haunted houses, this house was unusually clean. The marble floor was sparkling and the furniture was polished. There were fire brackets built on the walls.

As we stepped on the marble flooring, I felt a surge of excitement in me. I wondered why it was so clean. I was also scared to go further into the house. There were three doors in different directions of the house.

I went towards one while Rashid moved to the other. I turned the doorknob of the first room and the door opened. As soon as I saw the state of the room, a chill ran down my spine. There were cobwebs everywhere. Spiders were crawling on the walls and the paint was peeling off. Oil lamps lit the room. Three rusty cauldrons were set up on logs of burning wood were emitting a smelly gas. All three contained a bubbling green potion. Many unusual herbs and plants were scattered on the dusty floor. Just then, I heard the scream of Rashid. I ran to him in the next room and saw his face white with fear. Bones were scattered everywhere and the smell of rotten flesh pervaded the room.

While Rashid calmed himself, I made my way towards a book lying on the floor. It was ragged, old and torn.

“Come and look at this,” I called Rashid. “I wonder what it says.”

Snatching the book, Rashid opened it. “Rashid, don’t,” I said, but he began to read it aloud, “The witches, supreme of all creatures, the ones with the superb power and the ones who can overpower humans.”

“How dare they,” I protested, but was interrogated by a raspy, frightening voice, “How dare humans step into our sacred place, how dare they! Humans go away, run or you will be doomed forever! Ha! Ha! Ha!” the voice echoed with laughter.

We were so stunned and horrified that before the laughter had ended, we ran out from the room and fumbled over the furniture to get to the main door. We heard someone running after us… at last we made our way out and were on the street. We breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God, we got out of the witches’ house before the witches could have us for dinner,” Rashid said.

“I agree,” I replied and wishing farewell to each other, we made our way towards our homes, to be greeted by cosy beds. Nobody believes that we ever made a trip to the witches’ house but we cannot forget their laughter and threats!

Haunted School Or Not?

2009-11-14T19:16:00.002-05:00

I am now 13. i was 10 when this happened. i went to a school called Sent Marry school everyone one said it was haunted. one day me and my friend was going to get something for the teacher as we were walking past we saw a little door it was really dark i dared my friend to go in there she did. she came out screaming. she was shouting red eyes red eyes. i said what red eyes she fainted. next day i went 2 see her in hospital she couldn't remember anything. a few weeks after we walked passed the same door . she just stood there we heard a really big BANG, she fell she went back up and said she could remember everything we looked inside the door then the door slames shut. then a hospital bed came fliying down the steps then we heard a ambulance going past. 2 days after the head teacher was found dead in the little door we looked in with a needle in his arm.so was it a school or a hospital?

Sara's house by Steve

2009-11-14T19:14:00.004-05:00

ok its not the scariest story here but here goes. my cousin Kuku lived in a house that was claimed to have been the murder place of over 13 people. ok there was a mother of 11-12 and her husband was in the army. about 4 of the kids had died of typhoid i think 1 died from falling down the stairs, and the rest drowned in the creek or was murdered in a massacre from the war. there was a man that Sara (the mother) was having an affair with after all her children died and he was later put to death in all chains because he murdered his wives (Sara & another person) Sara's husband came home to an empty house and dropped to his knees when he saw 12 caskets in the family room. my cousin could see the people and later in the year me and 2 of my cousins (one that lived in the house) crossed the creek and on the other side of the corn field and we found an ancient burial ground and we kinda got scared so we went back and i remember running after thinking i heard "leave my kids alone!!" all of my facts are researched from my cousin and so i can tell you im not lying. after researching we also found that what i heard was real. but instead of it being the mother..it was the father.

Mysterious Mother

2009-11-14T19:14:00.003-05:00

It had rained so heavy last night, she keeps dozing, and the warm bed had kept her sleepy. Suddenly Susan heard the doorbells ring, who could it be? She ponders. By the time, she got to open the door it had been quite a while. She reaches for the door and open it but there was no one around. Her gate was closed, who ever it be, must have left and gone. She could not explain to herself so she though must have been some newspaper’s boy. She was about to close her door when she hears a cry. She nearly have a shock - she try to listen again, yes! She was correct. Someone did cry but whom? She walk towards the gate and to her utter surprise and fear she could not believe, a basket in which lays the most beautiful baby she ever came across. Moments after that, is the busiest time of her life from calling the police to informing her parents. No one could explain about the child appearing in her life, but amazingly among that was the letter that someone had wrote and put near the baby. It was clearly written, in clean handwriting that whoever had put the baby in her gate had done it intentionally not just randomly. The mother’s wish as the police had presumed is someone who had known her and knows for sure that Susan was capable and the right mother for the child. But still, the police are taking all precaution and the right action by searching for the mother. The child as of now been kept in the hospital but sooner or later it had to be taken for adoption if no one show up to claim it, and Susan was being contact by the authority informing her about the situation. She was their first priority as the letter had address to her alone. But Susan had questions and they have to be answered. From the letter to the mysterious mother, everything had happened so sudden. At one point, she wanted to let everything go away from her life but at the same time she gets so trilled as to find the real mother. Who could have been? She searches her mind as to get the result. Her co-workers friend, no! it could not be one of them. She has not seen anyone being pregnant. Her neighbor’s, not them, cannot even guess among the people in the locality in which she was living. She needed help and that too quick before the time limit given by the authority expires for her. She consulted her parents and they were clueless about it, in fact they had their own point of views about her considering the child’s adoption. They present to her that it is not easy to raise a child alone and being a single parents is real hard especially if the child was not your own. Susan wanted to listen to her parents but she cannot brush away the baby’s either. She decides to herself, even if she could not solve the mystery mother she will take the child as her own to care and love. In the district administrator’s office after completing all the necessary papers for adopting the baby, as she hold it in her hand she felt so new inside of her. The arriving of the baby brings so much joy and happiness in her quiet and lonely life. For once, life has a meaning to her after so many years, she felt wanted now. Weeks passed, and she has been busy being a mother. Cannot cope with all the work alone, she hires a maid for helping her caring for her child while she is working. One day, as they were clearing her old room for the maid to move in, she came across her old school diary. Flipping the papers, one page caught her attention; in there she had written about one junior girl she met while returning home from school. As she keeps turning the page one by one, she found she did not note down anything more about that girl. That night, she could not sleep; she was trying to remember the girl name. Yes!! Namlee was her name. She was a rich girl, planning to shift to a new school the next year. But she was having a rough time with her life. Could it be her the mother’s of the child. She never could understand.

Killer Night

2009-11-14T19:13:00.002-05:00

We drove up to the local beach, me and my boyfriend Roy Manson. He stopped his 2003 Night Blue Lexus convertible then Roy and I stepped out. We gently closed the car doors in unison and Roy grabbed the cooler from the truck before we slowly walked down to the beach. I smiled at Roy this was our 7th date so far.

We sat down close to the tide and gazed up at the thousands of stars in the night sky. There weren’t any buildings around here so nothing prevented us from really enjoying the beautiful night sky, and each others company. Roy got out two bottles of beer from the cooler. He cracked both of them open before handing me one.

"You know Roy, This is so romantic!" I said and took a drink of beer. I looked at Roy’s eyes glittering in the moonlight.

"Only the best for you." Roy smiled, "You’re nothing like my old girlfriend. She was always grumpy and demanding and snapped for no reason. She was a killer on my patience. But I handled it." Roy chugged down half his beer.

"Wait wasn’t she murdered? It was in the newspaper a few weeks ago wasn’t it?" I looked at Roy I hoped it wasn’t too emotional for him to remember. I took quite drinks at my beer waiting for him to say something.

"Yeah it’s a shame." Roy finally said with a sigh, "She was annoying but she didn’t deserve that. I hear she was beaten to death, and the police say that by the looks of things it was done by someone she knew. They never did find the killer though"

Now I was a bit creeped out myself. I cuddled a bit closer to Roy. With him here with me it was a lot more comforting. He looked at me with a comforting look and we both finished our beers.

The wind then picked up. Roy and I had left our jackets back in the Lexus. I told Roy that I’d go get them. He nodded saying that he’s a bit cold too. I got up and trekked back over to the Lexus thinking about Roy and how cute he is. He was a great boyfriend. I reached for our coats when a beer bottle smashed into my skull. I fell on the ground and bled to death.

"You’re annoying too. You talk too much!" was the last thing I heard.

The police arrived about an hour later. They looked around for evidence. All they found was the beer bottle with my blood on it and the Lexus still parked there, apparently all the information relating to the owner, including picture id was forged. They questioned Roy but he claims he broke up with me for weeks now.

Roy was at my funeral. He saw me in my casket and get put in the ground. He spoke a few words of grief to my parent. When the funeral was over he drove off in his new fire red Mustang and a new girl in the passenger seat

Murder of newly-wed couple suspected

2009-11-14T19:13:00.001-05:00

The couple found dead in their apartment on Saturday morning after first night of their marriage were buried in the Sakhi Hasan graveyard on Sunday.

Mohammad Azeem, 28, and Beenish, 27, were classmates studying in the NED University. They were to host their valima on Saturday night. Though the postmortem examination report has been sealed and kept secret, SP North Nazimabad Naeem Shaikh told Dawn that according to the initial opinion of the medico legal officer, who conducted the bride’s autopsy, her jaw and nose had fractures and the fists clinched which suggested she posed resistance.

The MLO was confident that it was a murder, said the SP.

Hospital sources said there were no marks of recent injuries on Azeem’s body, nor was there any sign suggesting his death from a serious injury. However, they said, a sample of his nails had been sent for a chemical examination.

The SP said there had been no progress towards a clue to the culprits so far as we did not interview any of the bereaved family members, who were in a state of shock and mourning. “The investigation plan has been kept ready and we will hopefully solve the mystery soon,” he said. The couple had done their graduation and Azeem was employed by the Siemens Pakistan.

Police have registered an FIR against unknown suspects on the complaint of Danish Zaheer, the bride’s brother.

Ninety-seven women killed for ‘honour’ in five months

2009-11-14T19:12:00.000-05:00

( 749 cases of rape, 57 of gang rape and five of incest were reported only in Punjab.—File photo)
ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly was informed on Monday that 90 women had been killed in the name of honour in Punjab and seven in the NWFP during the first five months of the current year.
Figures provided to the assembly in response to a question showed that the number of cases of torture against women in the two provinces stood at 3,183 between January and May, 2009.
During the same period, 299 women were killed in Punjab and 74 in the NWFP in cases of domestic violence. There were 11 cases in which acid was thrown on women in Punjab. Six cases of Vanni were reported in Punjab and three in NWFP.
An astounding number of 749 cases of rape, 57 of gang rape and five of incest were reported in Punjab, while in the NWFP the number of rape cases was 10, gang rape 3 and incest 1.
aIn cases of harassment at the workplace, 57 women were sexually assaulted in Punjab (none in NWFP), while 22 women suffered physical violence in the NWFP but no such cases were reported in Punjab.

Man kills father over land dispute

2009-11-14T19:11:00.000-05:00

A man on Tuesday killed his father over land dispute in Injra village of thesil Jand. Amir Shehzad attacked his father Sattar Ali with a pistol killing him on the spot. On Sunday, a mother was killed by his son in Uchari village.

Meanwhile, a shepherd Ahmad Khan was also killed by some unknown persons. However, the reason for the murder could not be known.

ROAD ACCIDENT: Four persons were injured in a road accident, when their car (LRG-6730) was hit by a damper near Tarbela chowk on main GT road.

In another incident, Qaisar Mehmood resident of Mirza village injured by his uncle Mohammad Riaz, while Nazar Hussain sustained injuries when he was allegedly attacked by three persons Akbar Khan, Muhammad and Karim Khan over house construction dispute.

Such as Mehmood Khan, his son Qazi Ali and wife were also injured by their rivals Ghulam Farid, Nasir and Babar.

10 OUTLAWS HELD: Attock police have arrested 10 outlaws — Muhammad Saleem, Abidur Rehman, Muhammad Yaqoob, Sikandar, Wahid Gull, Awal Khan, Liaqut Ali, Javed Iqbal, Zahid Ali and Nawaz Hussain, and recovered seven pistols, a revolver, 16 bullets and 2.1 kg Hashish from their possession in separate strikes in different areas of the district.—Correspondent

‘Cleric killed student for sodomy’

2009-11-14T19:10:00.000-05:00

A madressah teacher(=Religion Teacher) facing charges of torturing his student to death was remanded in police custody. According to Jamia Haideria Barkatul Quran (Gorra Hashim village) students, accused Qari Maqsood beat Mazhar Iqbal, of Sialkot, and two other students when they refused to sleep with him. Later, Iqbal died from severe injuries.

Sadar police arrested the cleric and his accomplice Muhammad Khalil for the murder.

Accused Maqsood had been teaching religious education to students for the last three years.

On July 10, accused Maqsood informed the family of Mazhar Iqbal in

Addalatgarh, Sialkot, that Mazhar had died of cholera. Muhammad Iqbal, the father of the deceased, received the body from his teacher. When the family bathed the body before burial, they found marks of torture on his body while the coffin had blood stains. They lodged a complaint of murder with Sadar police station.

Syed Aun Muhammad

Shah, Sadar deputy superintendent of police, told Dawn that

Maqsood had tortured Mazhar, Dilawar and Ali. He said Mazhar died from severe beating.

He said Dilawar and Ali, also from Sialkot, ran away from the madressah and reached their houses in Sialkot. Dilawar told his family that Mazhar had been killed by the cleric.

He said the autopsy of Mazhar revealed that his lungs and kidneys had failed; his body carried marks of torture; his backbone was fractured; and he died because of spanking with a wooden rod on his chest which left a hole there.

He said the cleric had confessed to killing the student.

He said according to cleric’s accomplice Muhammad Khalil, the accused asked him to chase the three students who had run away from the school.

The DSP said Dilawar told police accused Maqsood had sodomised him and other students and beat those who refused to sleep with him.

He said even though the plaintiff had not mention that his son had been sodomised by the cleric, police believed so and would try to establish the evidence through the medical report of Dilawar

Young girl gang raped, killed

2009-11-14T19:09:00.000-05:00

The body of a teenage girl, who was killed after being abducted and gang raped, was found near Mohammad Khan Chand village in Mehar taluka on Sunday.

Rahiman alias Guddi, 12, along with her cousin Shabbiran went to a shop in Essa Khan Thebo village to buy toffees four days ago. A group of boys abducted her, her father Ghulam Hussain Birhamani told journalists.

Her relatives found her body lying on a heap of straws near Mohammad Khan Chand village and brought it to taluka hospital Mehar but the hospital staff declined to carry out autopsy and asked them to take it to taluka hospital in Khapirpur Nathan Shah.

Annoyed, the relatives held a brief demonstration outside the hospital before they were told that the hospital could not carry out the autopsy because there was no lady doctor.

Dr Farzana Shaikh at the taluka hospital Khairpur Nathan Shah said that Rahiman was gang raped and severely tortured before being strangulated.

Shabbiran, cousin of Rahiman, said that when they arrived at the shop to buy toffees, four boys wrested Rahiman away and said that they wanted to play with her.

Mehar SPO Akhtar Chandio said that police had arrested Suleman, Shoaib, Sajad and Kambar Chand after conducting raids in Mohammad Khan Chand village where the body was found.

Police were interrogating them, he said.

Bhirai, the victim’s mother, said that if police did not register case of her daughter she would commit suicide.

Police had, however, not lodged any case till the filling of this report.

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Man kills father over land dispute

A harrowing tale of bonded labour, rape

2009-11-14T19:08:00.000-05:00

A three-member bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Lahore district and sessions judge to probe the accusations made by a woman who gave a blow-by-blow account of the ordeal she and her family experienced during 18-year captivity of an influential family in Gujranwala.

The bench comprises Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Muhammad Nawaz Abbasi and Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad.

Punjab Inspector-General Ziaul Hasan was also directed to provide protection to the victim and her family who managed to escape from their captors some time back.

The apex court took suo motu notice of an application filed by Zohra Bibi who alleged that she and her family members had been working in the poultry farms, cattle farms and agricultural lands of a Gujranwala-based powerful family of Faisal Khalid Cheema for the past 18 years in return for only two meals a day.

She said that her daughters, who were often sexually assaulted, worked as maidservants at Cheema’s place or in the houses of his relatives.

She said her 13-year-old daughter, Saadia Gul, was raped by a relative of the Cheema family. She said when she lodged a complaint with the police, the powerful family had her daughter badly beaten up by a local hooligan who also raped the girl.

She said the court could make her daughter undergo a medical check-up to determine if she had been raped.

She alleged Cheema and his brother gang-raped a minor girl, Samina, daughter of her brother-in-law, Faiz Ahmad. She added that another minor girl, Marya, was badly beaten up when she resisted Cheema. She said her other daughter, Nadia, was dragged away in front of her and raped by Cheema’s brother and his cousin in their room.

She recalled that her son was kidnapped nine years ago by Cheema who made the boy work as a servant at the house of his relative in Islamabad.

She said that while some members of her family managed to escape in Ramazan, others were still held in captivity by the Cheema family.

She said that when her brother-in-law lodged a complaint with the Gujranwala district and sessions judge, he was arrested by police on the premises of the court and later tortured by the Cheema family for 16 days in police custody.

She said that he was later arrested on theft charges and his bail petition was still pending with a local magistrate.

She said that her family member, Shaukat, told her outside the courtroom that he was under tremendous pressure from the Cheema family who still held in captivity his son, daughter-in-law and son-in-law.

However, Asif Khalid Cheema, son of Faisal Khalid Cheema, denied Zohra’s allegations.

The Supreme Court bench directed the Lahore district and sessions judge to complete the probe by Dec 11. They also directed the Gujranwala magistrate to decide Faiz’s bail application without being influenced by the Supreme Court proceedings.