News Around World

Wedding Dress Made From Human Hair Wins At Miss Liverpool Pageant

2011-11-23T21:01:00.000-08:00

A wedding dress made from human hair has been made by a Liverpool dress designer. The costume, with a price tag of about £50,000, includes 1,500 crystals and 12 underskirts.

The unique hair wedding dress was created from 250 meters of hair extensions, tens of thousands of individual hair wefts and diverse pieces of hair, 1,500 crystals and 12 underskirts. A panel of eight people put in around 300 hours of work, over a period of 12 days, to complete the dress, but all the effort paid off when their creation was lastly finished. “This was a chance for us to show our creatively and originality and it’s a fantastic feeling to see the finished product. It’s fair to say we’ll probably not see another dress like it for a very long time,” Ryan Edwards said. The hair wedding dress weighs just over 75 kilograms and is a size six.

The design was declared the winner at the annual Alternative Miss Liverpool pageant.

Artist Creates Intricate Architectural Models from Paper

2011-08-10T21:54:00.001-07:00

US-based artist Christina Lihan uses her skill as an architect to produce detailed models of famous buildings and urban spaces, from paper.

Ms. Lihan received a Bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Virginia and went on to get her Master’s in architecture, from Columbia University, in New York. She has done internships in England, France and Italy, but it was the recurring, tedious rhythm of hundreds of soviet-built housing cities she saw in Czechoslovakia that most influenced the way she looked at building facades. After completing her studies, she decided to use all of the acquired knowledge in the name of art, by creating inspiring architectural models from paper.

Christina Lihan first decided to dedicate her life to art during the time she spent living in Florida, scheming hospitals for another architect. She was really bored, and realized she needed an imaginative outlet so she just started cutting paper, playing with it and trying to turn it into building models. It grew from there and eventually became her passion. Her extraordinary creations are made from unpainted, 300lb, watercolor paper. She carves cuts and folds every little piece by hand awaiting she assembles them into a completed composition. Ms. Lihan starts by photographing the site she wants to replicate, then moves on to sketching with charcoal, and lastly enlarges the drawing to the preferred size of the finished piece. She usually places the detailed pieces of paper directly over the drawing.

As you can imagine, creating such complicated models from paper can be quite time consuming. According to Christina Lihan, a little 18-by-24 piece can take up to 50 hours to complete.

Georgian President's Son Claims Guinness World Record

2011-07-07T22:33:00.000-07:00

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's 15-year-old son has joined his father as a global leader - by acquiring the world record for speed typing on an iPad.

Eduard Saakashvili achieved a world record for typing the English alphabet on an iPad in 5.26 seconds - an development of 1.05 seconds on the earlier record set by British teenager Charlie Joseph McDonnell in 2010.

The remarkable feat was documented by an observer from Guinness World Records in the former Soviet republic's Black Sea resort of Batumi.

'I am very happy,' Eduard said in comments broadcast by Georgian television after the finger-busting workout, explaining that he had spent months getting ready for the strange event.

'Our whole family has been anxious. I am a very proud mummy today,' said President Saakashvili's Dutch wife, Sandra Roelofs.

In March, the Georgian leader's younger son, five-year-old Nikoloz, also fascinated media attention when he and his father donned military fatigues for a training assembly at a military base in an unusual attempt to endorse the country's armed forces.

Artist Creates Sweetest And Largest Sugar Cube Sculpture In The World

2011-07-07T05:46:00.000-07:00

Brendan Jamison is a young modern artist who creates possibly the sweetest sculptures in the world, literally. His designs are top notch, but it’s the sugar cubes he uses as building material that make his works appealing.

31-year-old Jamison, from Belfast Northern Ireland, first started using sugar cubes as building blocks for large scale buildings in 2004, when he formed a series of 9-foot-tall minaret-style buildings. They caused quite a stir in the art world, and even caught the eyes of building developers, many of which bespoke him to create sweet models of their architectural projects.

Although he has worked with a range of materials throughout his artistic career, including bronze, wood and wool, it’s safe to say it was his sugar-cube creations that brought him worldwide recognition. “Sugar is a beautiful material to work with, it can be cut and carved into organic shapes, and the sugar crystals can give a sparkling surface in natural light”, Jamison says about his favorite medium.

So far, the artist has sculpted and glued sugar cubes into intricate structural models like the replica of the Tate Modern (71,908 cubes), the Sugar Walk development (11,256) and the giant sugar tower created for Eastborne’s Towner Museum and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. The final is his greatest work yet, numbering a staggering 250,000 sugar cubes and weighing 506 kilograms. Standing 180 cm high, and with a perimeter of 100 cm, it is the largest sugar cube sculpture in the world.

Brendan Jamison’s sugar cube tower is at present on display at the Towner Museum, where it will stay until September 2011. From December 2011 and until February 2012, the monumental sculpture will be showcased at the Ormeau Baths Gallery, in Belfast.

White House, Egypt discuss sketch for Mubarak's exit

2011-02-03T20:32:00.000-08:00

The Obama government is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately, turning over power to a midway government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats said on Thursday.

Even though Mr. Mubarak has balked, so far, at leaving now, officials from both governments are enduring talks about a plan in which, Mr. Suleiman, backed by Sami Enan, chief of the Egyptian armed forces, and Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, the Defense Minister, would instantly begin a process of legitimate reform.

The proposal also calls for the transitional government to invite members from a broad range of opposition groups, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood, to begin work to open up the country's electoral system in an attempt to bring about free and fair elections in September, the officials said.

Disastrous Cyclone makes landfall in Australia

2011-02-02T20:55:00.000-08:00

With winds crying at up to 185 miles per hour, a vast cyclone made landfall in the predawn hours on Thursday along the shore of the already storm-battered state of Queensland, with extensive reports of property damage and power failures.

Thousands of citizens crowded into crisis shelters along the northeast coast on Wednesday looking for refuge from a storm that the National Weather Bureau had warned could be larger and "more life-threatening than any in Australian history. Witnesses told local news outlets of roofs being blown off and trees flattened as the cyclone moved inland. Power was out in more than 170,000 homes, according to Ergon Energy, the region's main function.

More than 400,000 citizens live in communities along the storm's 370-mile-long front, including in the cities of Cairns and Townsville, popular jumping-off sites for the Great Barrier Reef. As the storm approached on Wednesday, residents in low-lying coastal areas were urged to flee for higher ground.

Jihad Jane pleads culpable to terror charges

2011-02-01T20:38:00.000-08:00

A US woman who called herself 'Jihad Jane' has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to offer material support to terrorists and intrigues to wage violent jihad overseas.

A Pennsylvanian Colleen LaRose, 47, pleaded guilty to all counts of an overriding condemnation charging her with conspiracy to provide stuff support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in an overseas country, making fake statements and attempted identity theft.

LaRose, who had earlier pleaded not guilty in March 2010, faces utmost possible sentence of life in prison and a USD one million fine when she is sentenced on March 3. The guilty plea was entered before US District Court Judge Petrese Tucker in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

US Directs for fair elections in Egypt in September

2011-01-31T20:47:00.000-08:00

The United States is asking overwhelmed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to lift the emergency police powers that have protected his iron rule while focusing behind the scenes on elections later this year that could be a chance to attain a lawful democracy without Mubarak in control, administration officials said.

Two American officials supposed the US government would favor that Mubarak not run for re-election in presidential election scheduled for September.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of diplomacy and the difficult situation the Obama administration finds itself in.In public, the administration would say only that voting should be open and fair.

Opposition rallies to ElBaradei as Armed reinforces in Cairo

2011-01-30T20:40:00.000-08:00

Egypt's influential Muslim Brotherhood and the secular opposition banded together Sunday around a famous government critic to confer for forces seeking the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, as the military struggled to hold a capital seized by fears of chaos and buoyed by euphoria that three decades of Mr. Mubarak's rule may be coming to an end.

The declaration that the critic, Mohamed ElBaradei, would symbolize a loosely unified opposition reconfigured the struggle between Mr. Mubarak's government and a six-day-old rebellion bent on driving him and his party from power.

Though missing deep support on his own, Dr. ElBaradei, a Nobel laureate and diplomat could serve up a consensus figure for a movement that has struggled to articulate a program for a potential transition. It suggested, too, that the opposition was aware of the uprising's image overseas, putting forth a candidate who might be more satisfactory to the West than beloved in Egypt.

Police fight Mammoth protests across Egypt

2011-01-28T20:40:00.000-08:00

As night chop and the government announced a curfew, protesters showed no signs of letting up in Cairo and other Egyptian cities on Friday as tens of thousands intensified their campaign to oust President Hosni Mubarak, pouring from mosques after noon prayers and conflicting with police who fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons.

The curfew went into outcome at 6 p.m. safety officials said, and CNN said that President Mubarak was likely to deliver a televised address. The protests came after weeks of chaos across the Arab world that toppled one leader in Tunisia and confident protesters to trounce deep-rooted fears of their autocratic privileged and take to the streets.

But Egypt is a special case -- a heavyweight in Middle East negotiation, in part because of its peace treaty with Israel, and a key ally of the United States. The country, often the fulcrum on which currents in the region turn, also has one of the largest and most sophisticated security forces in the Middle East.

Global Muslim population to rush, says a Survey

2011-01-27T20:46:00.000-08:00

In a study that its creators are calling merely demographic, and not political, the Pew Research Centre's forum on religion and public existence in the United States has estimated the global Muslim population will raise by about 35 per cent in the next 20 years, from 1.6 billion worldwide, to approximately 2.2 billion people by 2030.

The report says a bulk will continue to live in the Asia Pacific region (about 60 percent). The best increase is likely in western and northern European countries like Sweden, France, Belgium, Austria and the UK, driven mainly by migration.

Pakistan will beat Indonesia as the largest Muslim country in the world. And India will continue to be home to the third largest Muslim population globally. This may be the first survey of its sort and while it does not reflect dramatic demographic shifts, it is already proving to be controversial for stoking Islamophobia.

US shooter Learned assassins on Internet before Firing

2011-01-26T20:51:00.000-08:00

The 22-year-old man, accused of shooting US Congress woman Gabrielle Giffordsm, learned about several assassins and legal consequences on internet before opening fire at a shop in Arizona, an official has said.

Jared L. Loughner, who pleaded not guilty Monday to three counts of attempted murder in connection with shooting at a Tucson supermarket, researched famous assassins, death penalty and lonely confinement on internet, the New York Times reported quoting an official close to the investigation. The Jan 8 shooting left six people dead and 13 injured.

Giffords, Democrat delegate from Arizona, was shot in the head but survived. Additional charges, including murder, are expected. The official did not say which assassins Loughner looked up. The websites were tracked by searching the browser history of his computer

Why giant airports are hard to secure

2011-01-24T20:28:00.000-08:00

How do you completely secure something as large and rambling as an international airport against a terrorist violence like the one on Monday at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow? You cannot, security experts I spoke with on Monday say.

Airports are by definition public places requiring comparatively free access. The experts have long contended that serious holes in security at airports have been ignored while most of the endeavor and money goes into looking for weapons on passengers at checkpoints. But they have also warned that an amazing event in one place can direct to widespread overreaction and demands for quick fixes.

Douglas R Laird, a past Secret Service agent and onetime head of security for Northwest Airlines who now operates an aviation security consulting firm, Laird & Associates, made much the same case.

Tunisia: A scorn funeral and protests against Administration

2011-01-23T20:50:00.000-08:00

Protesters staged a ridicule funeral in the centre of Tunis on Sunday in honour of the man whose suicide triggered the popular rebellion that overthrew Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Mohamed Bouazizi, 26, died after he set himself on fire in the central city of Sidi Bouzid last month to objection against official harassment under Ben Ali's regime.

His self-immolation triggered the protests that forced the autocratic leader from power. Protesters carried a makeshift coffin that was draped in a Tunisian flag as a symbol of those who died while taking part in the uprising.

The mock funeral was part of a day of protests in which more than 200 people from around Tunisia descended on the capital to join stress to rid the temporary government of members of the old regime.

Larry Page to be the Next Google CEO

2011-01-20T20:51:00.000-08:00

Eric Schmidt, a technology expert brought in as Google Inc.'s "adult supervision" a decade ago, is relinquishing the CEO job to Larry Page, one of the prodigies who co-founded the company behind the Internet's dominant gateway.

The surprise shake-up declared Thursday appears to be driven by Schmidt's desire to tackle other challenges as much as Page's personal ambition. "Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed!" Schmidt wrote on his Twitter account moments after Google dropped the bombshell that upstaged its fourth-quarter earnings. Schmidt, 55, will become executive chairman and remain available to advise Page, 37, and Google's other 37-year-old founder, Sergey Brin.

Under the new pecking order effective April 4, Page will regain the CEO job that he held for three years before the two business enterprise capitalist firms backing Google in its early days insisted that a more grown-up leader be brought aboard.

Hu Jintao Visits Obama and seeks Robust Relationship

2011-01-19T20:30:00.000-08:00

In a unusual compromise on a highly sensitive issue, Chinese President Hu Jintao used his White House visit on Wednesday to admit "a lot still needs to be done" to advance human rights in his nation accused of repressing its people. President Barack Obama pushed China to accept fundamental freedoms but assured Hu the US considers the communist nation a friend and fundamental economic partner.

Hu's remarks met with instant cynicism from human rights advocates, who dismissed them as words backed by no real history of action. Hu contended his country has "made enormous progress" but provided no specifics.

Still, his comments seemed to inspire and surprise US officials, coming during an detailed visit that centered on boosting trade and trust between the world's two largest economies. More broadly, Hu and Obama sought to show off a more mature and polite relationship, not the one regularly defined by disputes over currency, sovereignty and freedoms. Hu said he wanted even closer contact with Obama; Obama sought again to embrace China's rise, and the two men shared some unpredicted laughs.

Wonder? Nun says she recovered from Parkinson's after praying to Pope

2011-01-17T20:41:00.000-08:00

A French nun says she feels new inner strength and energy as her Parkinson's disease suddenly disappeared in 2005, a recovery the Vatican attributes to the amazing intercession of Pope John Paul II. Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, who works at a Paris maternity clinic, told the media in a rare appearance Monday that she felt "reborn" on waking June 3, 2005 after she had prayed for healing to John Paul.

"There was a fresh strength inside me, and my body was rediscovering its vitality and volatility," Simon-Pierre, appearing in good health, told reporters in the southern French city of Aix-en-Provence.

The 49 year old nun who has largely been shielded from the media said she still sometimes talks to John Paul. Church establishment have studied Simon-Pierre's cure and determined it was inexplicable and due to the intercession of John Paul, who also suffered from Parkinson's. Benedict approved the miracle last week, paving the way for the beatification.

Rescue operations go on in flood-Affected Brazil

2011-01-16T20:49:00.000-08:00

Days after mudslides wiped out whole neighborhoods, many people sustained to live in homes in endangered areas, unwilling to unite the thousands crowded into shelters despite the ever-present danger to their lives.

Rali Oliveira da Silva, 36, spent numerous years building a home for his family in Cascata do Imbui, saving little by little for the cement, the bricks, the paint. The house was still footing Sunday, but its cement patio now hung insecurely over a deep precipice, the empty space left by a slide that killed most of his downhill neighbours.

Oliveira da Silva knows his home could be next. But he said he has no money to rent another place, much less buy land elsewhere and start over, so he's staying put for now.

Survivors who lost all and those clinging to homes on unhinged ground face an uncertain future as they try to rebuild lives torn apart by the landslides that struck mountain towns outside Rio de Janeiro and killed at least 626 a death toll that rises every day as more bodies are pulled from the mud.

Geo Press reporter Wali Babar shot dead in Karachi

2011-01-13T20:49:00.000-08:00

A reporter of Geo news channel was gunned down by unknown persons on Thursday as aggression and target killings returned to the city once again claiming as many as eight lives.

Wali Babar was habitual home from work when he was intercepted by some people in a car and gunned down from close range in the Liaquatabad region of the city.

"We are looking into the reason behind the killing and it is hasty to say if this was also a target killing," a senior police official said.

But Geo News channel described the incident as another aim killing which has claimed eight lives since Wednesday.

Police arrested 12 people on Thursday from the Pehlwan Goth area of Gulistan-e-Jauhar following a search operation after violence started from the area on Tuesday night.

Pehlwan Goth has been in the grip of violence for the past four days after three people with biased affiliations were killed rousing unrest in the area.

Australian floods fury through Brisbane

2011-01-12T20:22:00.000-08:00

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses were busy on Wednesday by raging waters that converged on Brisbane, Australia's third-largest city, and the adjacent townships, creating a vast flood zone that officials said could remain under water for days.

At least 12 people have been killed this week in the latest flooding to hit the northeastern state of Queensland since November. Five children were among the latest victims, caught up in a freak flood that ripped through the highland city of Toowoomba, 80 miles west of Brisbane, and other parts of the Lockyer Valley on Monday.

What some have called an "inland tsunami" slammed into Brisbane, a city of 2 million people, and other densely populated coastal areas on Wednesday, causing two major river systems to burst their banks, flooding roads and displacing thousands.

Nikki Haley to be on oath as South Carolina Governor

2011-01-11T23:04:00.000-08:00

Indo-US Namrata 'Nikki' Randhawa Haley, a daughter of Sikh immigrants from Punjab, is all set to be sworn in as the South Carolina Governor at a simple-but-inspiring ceremony in Columbia, despite heavy blizzard and forecasts of failing weather.

A State of Emergency has been stated in South Carolina as many as nine inches of snow has dropped in parts of the state and more that 2,000 car crashes were reported. Because of the established situation and massive power cuts, Haley delayed Tuesday night's planned "Family Fun Night" for Saturday. The inaugural ceremony, to be held Wednesday morning would be attended by several Congressmen.

It would be the first major function in the State after the weekend's murder bid at Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who is in a critical condition at an Arizona hospital. Haley would not only be the first non-white, but also the first woman governor of South Carolina. Further, she would be only the second Indian American and the first Indian American woman to be sworn in as the governor of an American State.

TV reporter found murdered in US

2011-01-09T20:19:00.000-08:00

A male model who had lately been a contender on a Portuguese reality TV show was taken into police custody hours after his companion, a superstar Portuguese television journalist, was found castrated and bludgeoned to death in a New York City hotel.

The journalist, 64-year-old Carlos Castro, had arrived in the US in late December in the company of his young boyfriend, the model Renato Seabra, to see some Broadway shows and spend New Year's Eve in Times Square, according to a family friend.

There had been some friction between the two men toward the end of the journey, but nothing to propose that anything was about to happen, said the friend, Luis Pires, the editor of the Portuguese language newspaper Luso-Americano. The couple saw the musical "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" and took in the movie "The Black Swan." But when it was time to meet Pires' daughter for dinner Friday night, Seabra rapidly emerged in the lobby of the InterContinental New York Times Square hotel acting oddly, Pires said.

Sufism – Pakistan’s most accepted brand of Islam

2011-01-06T20:24:00.000-08:00

In Pakistan's heartland, holy men with doorbell joined to their feet close their eyes and bend to the music. Nearby, rose petals are tossed on tombstones. Free food is distributed to devotees.

This peaceful tableau is part of Sufism, Pakistan's most admired brand of Islam, which attracts millions of worshipers at about a dozen major festivals throughout the year. Each day, thousands visit shrines dedicated to Sufi saints.

But the rituals came under serious attack in 2010, as alternative hard-line militants took liability for five holy place attacks that killed 64 citizens, a noticeable bigger compared with 2005 to 2009, when nine attacks killed 81 people. Attacks in earlier years occurred in the middle of the night or when worshipers were not present, apparently in an attempt to avoid causalities. But in 2010, terrorists approved out suicide bombings when thousands of worshipers were present, and in the nation's largest cities, like Karachi and Lahore.

Pak Governor Salman Taseer's murderer garlanded

2011-01-05T20:33:00.000-08:00

Lawyers showered the alleged killer of a prominent Pakistani governor with rose petals when he arrived at court on Wednesday and a dominant Muslim scholars' group praised the murder of the outspoken opponent of laws that order death for those who insult Islam.

Mumtaz Qadri, 26, made his first look in an Islamabad court, where a judge remanded him in detention a day after he allegedly sprayed automatic gunfire at the back of Punjab province Governor Salman Taseer while he was supposed to be protecting him as a bodyguard.

A rowdy crowd slapped him on the back and kissed his cheek as he was escorted inside.

The lawyers who tossed handfuls of rose petals over him were not involved in the case.

The suspect stood at the back door of an armoured police van with a flower necklace given to him by an admirer and repeatedly yelled "God is great."

More than 500 clerics and scholars from the group Jamat Ahle Sunnat said no one should pray or convey regret for the killing of Taseer.

UK Police release CCTV video of Royal car Assault

2011-01-04T20:13:00.000-08:00

Metropolitan police released new footage on Tuesday of the moments Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall's vehicle was attacked by annoyed students during protests in London in December 2010.

The couple was heading to a theatre for a charity variety performance when their Rolls Royce crossed paths with an explosive gang of demonstrators. The attackers, up to 20 of them, enclosed the limousine and crushed it with fists and bottles, smashing a window, and splashed the gleaming car with paint amid chants of "Off with their heads" and "Tory scum." After several chaotic minutes, the car managed to force its way through the crowd and drive Charles' office, Clarence House, said the couple was uninjured.

But Camilla, 63, looked shaken and Charles was sombre as the couple arrived at the London Palladium a few minutes after the attack. Police released CCTV footage of the incident on Tuesday with tinted images of persons of interest, in a mission to identify those involved in the assaults.