generalspeaking

Strange, Dangerous World

A family in Saudi Arabia has filed suit in a religious court against an unnamed genie, or jinn, who steals cellphones, whispers threats and occasionally flings stones. "At first we did not take it seriously, but then stranger things started to happen, and the children got particularly scared when the genie started throwing stones", a family member who requested anonymity told the Saudi daily Al Watan. Sheikh Amr Al Salmi, head of the local Sharia court, said he will investigate the family's claims that it has been harassed for two years. "We have to look into this case and verify its truthfulness despite the difficulty of its consideration", he told the Saudi daily.

Nationalist rioters in Northern Ireland attacked police with bricks, bottles and other missiles in several places on Monday, wounding at least seven officers on a day of parades by the pro-British Orange Order, police said. Police responded to the rioting by hundreds of nationalist youths in the mainly Roman Catholic Ardoyne area of North Belfast with water cannon and plastic bullets. At least one gunshot was fired at police.

Eight people were believed to have been involved in the shooting deaths of Byrd and Melanie Billings, a Florida couple who were parents of a dozen adopted children, police said Monday. Robbery was the motive for the deaths. The sheriff declined to discuss what was taken in the robbery. He described the deaths as 'chilling' and 'shocking', but declined to elaborate. The sheriff said three of the men were dressed like ninjas, wore black clothing and masks. Three of the nine children who were at home saw the intruders. Byrd and Melanie Billings had four biological children, but were known in their community for adopting children with special needs, some of them with Down syndrome, or otherwise disabled.

Human rights activists accused Russia's Defence Ministry of using repressive methods in this year's military conscription, which could derail official plans for a professional army. Ella Polyakova, a senior member of the Soldiers' Mothers pressure group, told a news conference that police had raided student hostels, looking for "draft dodgers". In some instances, students were detained on their way to sit exams, even though they qualified for deferment of military service.

A Saudi women's group blamed the country's religious police in the 'honour' killing of two sisters shot dead by their brother after they were arrested for mixing with unrelated men. The Society for Defending Women's rights in Saudi Arabia said the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue & Prevention of Vice, also known as the Muttawa or religious police, were responsible for the deaths of 21-year-old Reem and 19-year-old Nouf whose brother shot them in front of their father who, according to newspaper reports quickly forgave him, for defending the family honour.

A three-year-old boy drove his toy truck into the Peace river in northeastern B.C. and floated 12 kilometres downstream, before he was rescued. Fort St.John RCMP Constable Greg Nardi said the boy went missing from a site where his parents were camping around 7:30 a.m. local time on Sunday. A search was mounted as campers from the Peace Island municipal park joined in the hunt. "He was on a battery-powered children's toy truck", Constable Nardi said. Around 10 a.m., the boy's parents were told a boater had found the boy 12 kilometres away floating on the miniature truck. "I was surprised that the truck was floating at all", Constable Nardi said, adding the boy was in good shape when he was rescued.

A British girl who had a donor heart grafted onto her own after suffering cardiac failure as a baby has had the transplant removed and is living a healthy life with her own heart, doctors said Tuesday. The case of Hannah Clark is thought to be the only one in the world where a child's failing heart recovered enough for the donor organ to be removed, the British surgeons told reporters ahead of their report in The Lancet journal. Hannah, now 16, suffered a type of cancer known as EBV PTLD. She was treated with chemotherapy and other drugs, but the cancer kept returning. Doctors reduced her dosage of immunosuppression drugs to steam the disease, but as a result her transplanted heart began to fail. Her own heart recovered. She has completely recovered from cancer and her heart is functioning normally.

Labels: World News

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, July 14, 2009