World View

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		What an idea Sirji! Postcard from Pakistan.


UFO experts fear full-scale alien invasion Down Under Melbourne (ANI): Experts in Australia have expressed their fears that a full-scale alien invasion of the Northern Territory is about to take place. Though astronomers and police say the flares seen across a 360km-long stretch of the Top End coast were probably caused by a meteor shower. But highly qualified UFO-ologists said they believed the bright lights were space ships on a pre-attack scouting mission, and Darwin-based UFO expert Alan Ferguson said the flares were obviously aliens. "This all sounds like UFO activity," the Daily Telegraph quoted him as saying. "Meteors usually just flash across the sky and leave a tail. But UFOs will stay in the same spot and wobble up and down and side to side. Fast movements. "That's how they work," he explained. Ferguson said UFOs nearly always came to the Top End during the dry season. "It may be just that there are less clouds and we can see better. Or it maybe that we're outside more during the Dry," he said. "Or maybe the UFOs are interested in our military activity. There are always more of them about during (Operation) Pitch Black," he stated. Superintendent Bruce Porter said police received many calls about the flares at about 9pm on May 25, and even launched a search when they feared a boat was in distress. "We took this seriously, but the indications are that nobody is missing," they said. Just last month the NT News reported on how one Territory town's invasion by UFOs had been recorded in the world's most famous museum for extraterrestrial life. But Superintendent Porter believes the flares were probably a meteor shower. (ANI) The Dubai Nobody Tells You About. -by Kim Macedo Dubai is the land of the biggest, tallest, longest, widest, richest, fanciest, fastest...everythingist...in the world. They have the tallest residential towers in the world, the tallest restaurant in the world, the largest number of Malbaris in the world, the highest crane operator in the world. If it does not grow in Dubai, they’ll make it artificially - artificial ski slopes, artificial islands, artificial oasis, coconut trees and lawns, artificial beaches, artificial economy. Indians especially love it here because of the dirham-to-rupee value. The Filipinos come here because they have no choice; there’s nothing back home, not even dogs - they’ve been eaten up. The Egyptians come here because there is nothing to do in Egypt. No more pyramids to build either. The Lebanese come here to buy cars, dress to kill, wear Peter Pan shoes 10 sizes bigger than their feet, put 1 kg of gel on their heads and give everyone balltalk. They'll buy a 1980’s Merc or BMW for 10k dirhams and drive the car like they’re sitting in the rear passenger seat, stretching their arms all the way to the steering wheel, giving you the piercing bald eagle look. The Russian girls come here as hookers. The Bangladeshis come here to build the tallest buildings in the world. Now according to the government Dubai is tax free. Of course, that is true. Only, there is a Pay and Park scheme with 5000 parking lots, and 500,000 cars in the city, so where the hell do you park? And you’re fined for wrong parking. Toll has been introduced on many roads. You can avoid the toll tax by using alternative routes, but you’ll end up in a traffic jam because everyone is trying to avoid the toll tax. If you have any government related work like medicals for visa or immigration, you have 2 options - Standard and Urgent Procedure. Standard takes 15 days and Urgent takes 2 days. The difference is 30 to 40-odd dirhams. Everyone goes for the urgent option and the Dubai government makes money, urgently. If you switch jobs you get a work ban and to lift the ban you pay a huge penalty. In Dubai, without a car you’re paralyzed (you don’t even get jobs if you don’t have a car). But you’ll get your license in attempts ranging from 2 to 20. Each time you fail you have paid fees for Driving Classes & Driving Tests, which are 1000-odd dirhams. Imagine the money RTA makes. Most of the expats live alone with families back home. So they spend much on phone calls. And call charges from Dubai are high. Another odd thing about Dubai - no matter where you go or who you meet, you take down phone numbers. Everybody has everybody’s number in Dubai. And everyone has a Visiting Card, whether you’re a bootlegger, a masseuse, a hooker, a car cleaner, a watchman or a pizza delivery boy. Everyone knocks around with lots of cards in his or her wallet and one card in the palm. So whenever you shake hands with anyone in Dubai and let go, you end up with a visiting card in your palm. If you’re walking on the road and you ask someone the time, he’ll tell you “10:30”, give you his card and say, “I have new and second-hand watches”. At a restaurant when you’re leaving they’ll say “Here’s my card, call us for home delivery.” If you’re below your building, you’ll meet those Chinese chicks giving you their cards, saying, “Call us if you want DVDs”. If you’re standing at a bus stop, a Malbari will pull over in his 1980 Toyota Corolla, give you his card and say, “If you want Pick-up & Drop Service, call me”. Dubai has amusing-looking buildings. Some have holes in them, some have giant balls on them, some look like aeroplanes, some look like sail boats, and, all of them reach into space with your window right in front of the moon. Everyone in Dubai goes to malls. Not necessarily to shop. To beat the heat, go to a mall; business meeting, go to a mall; getting bored, go to a mall; want to take a leak or dump, go to a mall; want to do lukhagiri (little in your pocket, little in your mind), go to a mall. If you want to go for a picnic go to a mall. (Courtesy:Rita Rao, UAE)

Pictures say it all, much more than words
Saddam Hussain's gold

Doesn't it look like gold?	Have you seen so much?		Inside the tanker


Checking the tanker	Rifle made of gold		His name inscribed on it
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A British dog underwent a surgery after x-rays revealed it had eaten 12 bras. Sick pup Molly was seized from her owners weighing half the weight of a Rottweiler and suffering a swollen stomach. When doctors carried out an x-ray they were stunned to discover the dog's belly was full of underwear, including a wiring from a comedy bra.

A French 'Spiderman' was arrested after he scaled a 57-stroey Sydney building, without ropes or a harness to raise awareness about climate change. Alain Robert,48,popularly known as Spiderman, climbed the 150-metre Lumiere twin-tower apartment with his bare hands in Sydney.

If you are connoisseur of fine whisky, here is an exciting new concoction you might be interested in - whisky made from urine of diabetic patients. Not surprisingly, the creator of London-based designer James Gilpin isn't planning to market the pee whisky commercially.

Bejing: A Chinese man is struggling to piece together thousands of rotted bank notes his father had buried. The cash, believed to be worth £20,000 was stashed in the family garden in Jiekeng by Ban Jing's during the 1980s. But he didn't tell anyone until he revealed his location to his son on his death bed.

A Saudi family has allegedly hammered 23 nails into a Sri Lankan maids body, a media report said. 'I had to work continously when I wanted to take rest due to tiredness, they inserted the nails as a punishment.' The 50-year-old has told a Sri Lankan news channel. The woman said he was overworked, beaten and threatened with death.

As if the Rubic's cube wasn't hard enough, Ludwig Fichte completed the puzzle while sky diving in a rubber dinghy.

Britain's biggest independent private health company has opened the countries plushest-ever hospital, which has 17 luxury room with designer ensuite bathroom, original artwork a surrounded sound Hi-Fi. There's even a chef who'll cook to order from lamb shanks to beluga caviar.

Surgeon have removed a giant tumor weighing 22 kg from a woman which has been growing inside her body for 18 months. The huge growth was taken out of the 54-year-old's womb during a four-hour operation at a hospital near Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Not only does the 50-year-old Londonor Brenda Allison, accounts Manager from Holloway, North London, say that metal item including coins, keys, even tinlids attached themselves to her, she also claims she in advertently sets off car alarms, blows light bulbs and interferes with TV signals. She claims she has the powerful personal magnetic field that makes metal object stick to her skin.

Sydney : An electric pole had a miraculous escape after being hit by a power search of 12,700-volts. The 35-year-old on identify man suffered 20 per cent burns and was shifted to a hospital in Brisbane.

A company based in Bristol has modified a beetle convertable car used human waste has fuel. The car gets powered by methane gas generated by the sewage treatment process. The bio bug can run for a year from the waste acquire from 70 house holds.

A couple, Paloma Werner, sailing in Table Bay, South Africa with partner Ralph got more than they had bargained for when they set out in their yacht to spot whales. A 33-ft monster weighing 40 tons lunged on to the deck, bringing the mast crashing down.

Swede sets new world record for running down the side of a building. Tony Berglund,47, is in talks with Guinness World records officials after clocking up a time of just 34.76 seconds over the 100-meter course in vasteraas, Sweden.

A Chinese man is said to apply for a new Guinness world record for his 22-year-old hen- the equivalent of 400 years in human age. Yang Shaofu, 77 of Sidazhuang village, Baoshan, Yunnan Province, said the hen was brought by his daughter-in-law in 1988 along with 4 other chickens.

Its never too late to fall in love - a couple in Britain age 97 and 87 are said to have scripted history by becoming the oldest to get married. According to Daily Express, Henry Kerr, who is just 3 years shy of his 100th birthday and his bride Valerie Berkowitz, are now UK's oldest newly weds, with a combined age of 184.

An Air France flight attendant has been arrested after she confessed to stealing jewellery and cash from hand luggage of passengers while they were sleeping. The 47-year-old stewardess refered to as Lucy R was arrested at Paris' Charles De Gaulle Airport after 6-months long investigation..

An Italian man has opened up a museum exhibiting manhole covers across the world. Stefano Bottom believes the manhole to be under rated art form and subsequently opened The International Manhole Museum in Farrarra, Italy

A post card that a Japanese mailed from South East Asian battle front during World war II reached a recipient in Japan 64-years later, a university whose student helped deliver it said, Shizuo Nagano an 80-year-old retiree in Japan's South Western prefecture of Kochi, received the card. Nagano's fellow former soldier Nobuchika Yamashita mailed the card in 1943 from Burma, now called Myanmar, a year before Yamashita died at war at the age of 23.

A Hungarian dog has been reunited with his owners after being sucked into the sky still in his kennel by the wind from a huge storm. Lucky was eventually found 20 miles away after local radio reported an appeal for him to be traced.

Vienna: Swimmers in Austria are been asked to keep their mouth shut at public pools to save money. About 5,000 litres of water a day is thought to be swallowed by visitors to Vienna's 18 baths.

Wellington: A man in New Zealand was shot in the butt when his pet dog jumped on a loaded rifle. The incident took place in the Northland region when the dog accidentally stepped on the trigger of the .22 rifle and ended up firing at his 40-year-old owner.

A Lancastrian milkman has learned to speak Gujarati while dealing with his Asian customers who can't talk in English. Joh Jimmy Mather, 69, first delivered pints in 1960 and soon made friends with the immigrants from India and Bangladesh on his round.

A man has made stunning Guinness world record of driving across two rows of upright beer bottles for over 60 meters in Wenzhou. Lee Guiwen, an army driver from Beijing, steered along 1,798 bottles for 60.19 m in a time of 8 mins and 28 secs in eastern China's Zhejiang province

An experimental solar-powered plain landed safely after completing its first 24-hour test flight, proving that the aircraft can collect enough energy from the sun during the day to stay aloft all night. Pilot Andre Borschberg eased the Solar Impulse on to the runaway at Payerm airfield about 50 km southwest of the Swiss capital Bern at exactly 9 am on 8th June 2010.

A team of Dutch scientists are planning to make an island entirely from 44 million kilos of plastic waste. The proposal aims to clean the ocean while creating new land.

The skates ramp at the foot of Eiffel Tower on which Taig Kris set a world record for the longest jump with roller blades. He set a world freefall record of 12.5 metres (41 feet) in France.

Michael Jackson left $ 33m each for his 3 children in his will. However the late singer's kids-Prince,13, Paris,12 and Blanket, 8- will not be able to avail of the sum until they are 30.

China: Chained to a metal post the fear-stricken boy of 8 was being sold by his despicable dad in a modern version of slave auction.

Los Angeles: The strapless pink gown Marilyn Monroe wore while performing 'Diamonds are a girl's are best friend' will be up for grabs at an auction here next month.

US daredevil Jonathan Trappe crossed the channel in a chair slung under a cluster of 55 helium balloons, travelling around hundred km from England and landing in a field in France. Jonnathan airborne after taking of from Ashford in Kent and landed on a farmland in Moeres, France

Connecticut: Police said a naked man yelling that he was Jesus was the catalyst for 5-vehicle accident on Interstate 95 North in Darien. This mishap also injured three people and slowed traffic for nearly 6 hours.

They were born on same day, in the same hospital and their mothers even a shared the same room in the maternity ward. Now 24, Americans Amy Singley and Steven Smith are all set to do another thing together- tie the knot. They married on June 12.

A history teacher, Anri Suzuki, 24 with the doctorate in Sino-Japanese history, has offered to have sex with Chinese students at her college in Japan to apologise for her country's invasion of China in 1937 and was ashamed by what her countrymen had done.

London: A family dream suffered £300,000 of damage after a £4 paperweight, kept near the window , magnified the suns rays to cause a devastating blaze. Martin and Ruth Ball stood helplessly by as 20 fire fighters battled five hours to extinguish the ferocious fire.

SYdney: Restaurateur , fed up with the waste left by dinners , has ordered her customer to eat everything on their plates or pay a penalty and not return. On the contaray , Chef Yukako I Chikawa has introduced a thirty percent discount for dinner who eat all the food they have ordered at WAFU , thirty seats restaurant in Sydney.

Japan is to launch a space yacht propelled by solar particles that bounce of its kite-shaped sails, the country's space agency said. A rocket carrying the Ikaros - or Interplanetory Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun - will blast of from the Tanegashima Space Centre in Japan.

A former bodyguard of Osama Bin Laden has reportedly revealed that the Al-Qaida leader sought and wanted to use nuclear weapons. He also said that he was 'proud to have worked as a guard for a great personality. Nassar al-Bahri further revealed that he was instructed to kill Laden if that was the only way to avoid his capture.

A sheet from the flight plan of the first moon landing signed by astronaut Neil Armstrong and inscribed with the words 'one small step for a man - one giant leap for mankind' sold for $152,000 at an auction.

An Indonesian man cut off his own penis and threw it into a well after his girlfriend decided to marry someone else. The 19-year-old man arrived in hospital in critical condition from blood loss but medical personnel managed to save his life. The sliced-off penis has not been found.

The city dates from between 6000 and 4000 BC, predating the discovery of the wheel and writing. It also shows evidence of social classes, agriculture, copper processing and trade in obsidian. It is one of the largest site of the Ubaid culture in Mesopotamia.

The Vatican has claimed it secretly hid the Shroud of Turin believed to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, in a Benedictive Abbey during World war II as it feared Adolf Hitler wanted to steal the sacred relic, as Hitler was obsessed with the Shroud.

A man charged with making a naked dash through a mall told police he was 'bored and didn't have anything else to do'. Employees say the man entered wearing nothing but a face mask and ran around the aisles. He asked if anyone could lend him clothes, and a staffer gave him shorts.

A102-year-old grandmother has become the world's oldest primary pupil after going back to school in China. Ma Xiuxian from Jinan, Shandong province, started work in a cotton mill at the age of 13. But she always longed for a chance of a proper education and has now gone back to school to fulfill her ambition.

Palaeontologists have discovered the oldest known example of man-made structure within a prehistoric cave in central Greece, the Greek culture ministry has said. The structure is a strong wall which has stood at the entrance of the Theopetra cave for the last 23000 years, probably as a barrier to cold winds.

4 police officers have been fined after one of them ran naked from returning from a bachelor party. The off-duty police officers, who were returning from the party, stripped off in their mini-van and at least one of them did a naked lap of the van at an intersection in Australia's Brisbane city in full view of passing motorists, Herald Sun reported. The four officers were each slapped with Aus $300 fines.

The appearance of huge spiral of light over Norway in December has left experts stunned and bewildered as to its origins. Thousands of awe-struck Norwegians bombarded the Meteorological Institute with questions about the incredible light which could be seen in the pre-dawn sky for hundreds of miles. Experts believe the space spectacle which has been dubbed 'Star-Gate' is an entirely new astral phenomenon, though the world's top scientists and the military have admitted the are baffled. Theories about the light been a misfired Russian missile, meteor fire ball, never-before-seem type of Nothern life 'Black Hole' and even alien activity where all proposed. Witnesses across Norway who first glimpsed the space show at 8.45 am all described seeing a spinning 'Catherine wheel-style' spiral of white light, centered around a bright moon-light-star. A blue 'streaming tail' appeared to anchor the spiral to earth, before the light exploded into a rotating ring of white fire. The spiral spectacle, which lasted for 2 minutes was seen by vast number of people of the Scandinavian country's all most 5 million population with sightings as far North as Finnmark to Trondelag in the South. Totto Eriksen, from Tromso, in Northen Norway was the one of the thousands who bombarded Norwegian newspapers with sightings after nearly crashing his car on spotting the spiral overhead. "I was driving my daughter to school when this light spun and exploded in the sky," the Sun quoted him as saying.

Norway's most celebrated astronomer, Knut Jorgen Roed Odegaard, said he had never seen anything like spiral before. "The spiral suggest the object came of course and balanced and entered the spiral movement. Leaking rocket fuel could account the blue light. But I know the military have denied this explanation. So we could be looking at an entirely new natural phenomenon" added Dr Tandberg. Meanwhile Nick Pope, former UFO analyst for the Ministry of Defence, added that the Norwegian sighting was a real mystery. " This is completely different from any image of the Northen lights that I have ever seen. Its ironic that something like this should happen the very week after the MoD terminated its UFO project. It just goes to show how wrong that decision was," he added. (ANI)

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Today celebrity knickknacks command a fortune. And even cast-offs rake in healthy returns.

In 1979, Sid Luft, third husband of the late Judy Garland, held an auction of filmstar's personal possessions. A pair of Garland's false eyelashes was sold to a fan for $125.

In Dallas, Texas, a two page letter written more than 100 years ago by artist Vincent van Gogh sold for $500,000 in February 1996. A collector bought it as a Valentine's Day present.

Rosebud, the child's sled which played an enigmatic part in the 1941 Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane, was purchased by director Steven Spielberg for $55,000.

At a 1994 auction at Sotheby's. U2's Bono paid nearly $56,000 for the Hitler-like suit worn by Charlie Chaplin in the 1940 film The Great Dictator.

Joan Crawford's only Oscar, won for her performance in the 1945 film Mildred Pierce, was sold to a private collector at a private collector at a New York auction in 1993. The Oscar sold for $68,500, many times over Christie's $8,000-$12,000 pre-sale estimate.

A batch of 40 letters written by Greta Garbo to a Swedish friend were sold at auction in 1993 for $32,650.

The bullwhip used by Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones films brought in $24,300 at an auction.

The marriage certificate of Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller fetched $13,700 at an auction.

At a 1994 auction of Barbra Streisand's discarded household goods, her used toaster was purchased by a fan for $90.

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Dear world, I am leaving you because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool --good luck...........British actor George Sanders, April 25, 1972.

To Harald, may God forgive you and forgive me too but I prefer to take my life away and our baby's before I bring him up with shame or kill him, Lupe..........Actress Lupe Velez, December 13, 1944.

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