News Extra
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Tuesday, April 24, 2007
By Rachel Ogbu
Shooting Spree on a U.S Varsity Campus
In the early hours of Monday, April 16 at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, a young gunman opened fire killing 32 people in what officials say is the deadliest shooting incident in United States history. Identified as Cho Seung-Hui, the 23-year-old senior, majoring in English who arrived the United States from South Korea in 1992 also pulled the trigger at his head as police officials began closing in on him.
According to CNN, the gunman first entered a residence hall, West Ambler Johnston, where he shot and killed two students. Over a two-hour span Cho crossed the 2,600-acre campus where he continued his shooting rampage at the engineering building, Norris Hall. "Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportion. The university is shocked and indeed horrified," Charles Steger, Virginia Tech president said.
Two hand guns; a 9 mm and a 22-caliber were found in the classroom building. According to law enforcement sources, Cho died with the words "Ismail Ax" in red ink on one of his arms, but they are yet to find the actual meaning of those words.
Cho was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., where his parents worked at a dry cleaner shop. He left a note which was found after the bloodbath. A law enforcement official who read Cho's note described it on Tuesday as a typed, eight-page rage against rich children and religion. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media. "You caused me to do this," the official quoted the note as saying. Cho indicated in his letter that the end was near and that there was a deed to be done, the official said. He also expressed disappointment in his own religion.
His backpack was found in the hallway of the classroom building where the shootings happened, and contained several rounds of ammunition.
Through e-mail and text-messaging students and school officials communicated the horrific events and police instructions. Several classrooms were in "lock down" with the lights off, blinds closed and students under desks during the attack. Other students captured vivid video on cell phones during the rampage and called into news programmes to report the events. Apart from the 32 reported dead, at least 17 others were wounded.
Bollywood's hottest Couple Tie the Knot
Bollywood hottest stars Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan got married recently. The ceremony took place with hundreds of police on standby to keep media and fans away.
Two seaside residences in Mumbai's upscale northern suburbs were turned into fortresses for the marriage of the 33-year-old Rai, a former Miss World, and Bachchan, the 32-year-old son of screen legend Amitabh Bachchan. Hundreds of private security guards were brought to watch the gates of both homes, with entry opened only to workers and personnel who have been given bar-coded passes and must go through metal detectors.
Only 100 guests were invited to the wedding, and more than 500 police stood by to keep out gatecrashers. Huge efforts were made to shut out the media, with the Bachchans requesting owners of neighbouring buildings not to allow photographers and television crews to shoot from roofs and balconies.
The festivities started on Wednesday with the traditional sangeet or music ceremony, during which relatives of the couple sang and danced. After that, the henna ceremony; during which the bride's hands are painted followed the next day at Rai's house. The wedding ended on Friday with a Hindu ceremony and a traditional parting of the bride from her parents.
Bollywood movies enjoy a huge following around the world, especially in countries with large Indian diasporas such as Britain, Malaysia, Singapore, Nigeria and South Africa. Rai has starred in films such as Devdas, the story of a hopeless alcoholic and his love for two women, while Bachchan has played roles such as a young criminal on the run with a girlfriend in Bunty aur Bubbly (Bunty and Bubbly).
Self-styled Antichrist Banned
El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, the three Central American governments have banned a man called Jose de Jesus Miranda claiming to be the Antichrist from entering their countries. The authorities were outraged by his inflammatory preaching against the Catholic Church and organised religion.
Miranda, who heads a cult-like movement with sermons televised from Miami to dozens of mostly Latin American nations, wants to join followers at a rally next week in Guatemala. A former heroin addict who was briefly imprisoned as a youth in his native Puerto Rico, Miranda, 60, talks openly in a video on his Website about how he loved cocaine and dreamed of working in a Colombian drug lab.
He has the number 666 identifying the Antichrist tattooed on his arm but says he is Jesus Christ reborn on Earth, arguing that Saint Paul's teachings show what Antichrist means. He says other priests are "faggots," and make fun of Holy Week customs in Latin America, calling heavy statues of Jesus that Catholics parade through the streets as "little dolls." He said the Pope should be ashamed. "He should wear pants like a man. He should tell the truth and stop teaching nonsense," shouts Miranda in Spanish into a microphone.
Tony Saca, the president of strongly Catholic El Salvador, barred Miranda from entering the country in March, describing him as "a danger to mental health." Miranda said the country would suffer an earthquake because of the decision.
Cynics say Miranda is not God resurrected but a dangerous cult leader. One evangelical preacher in El Salvador called him a "megalomaniac" and likened him to Jim Jones, who led 900 followers into a mass suicide-murder in 1978. Despite the controversies, Miranda's devotees plan to attend the rally in Guatemala on April 21 and 22, coinciding with his 61st birthday.
Bullet in His Heart for 40 Years
Le Dinh Hung, 60 who was shot in the heart by United States troops during the Vietnam War has had the bullet removed after 40 years.
Hung, speaking from his bed in the Hanoi Heart Hospital said he felt much better now. "The chest pain has eased," he told friends.
He thanked God for sparing his life saying he was fortunate to be alive. According to him fate had smiled on him and made him stay active till the bullet came out. Despite being in constant pain, Hung, whose home is in the Ha Tay province, went on to work at a medical school and had three children and a wife.
When he was shot in 1968, the bullet tore through his stomach, hit his cardiac valve and lodged at the back of his heart. Surgeons carried out a three hour operation to finally remove it after he went to hospital complaining of unbearable chest pains.
Dr Nguyen Sinh Hien, who also replaced his damaged heart valve with an artificial one, said that it was the strangest case that he had have ever seen.
"Normally a person with a bullet in the heart would die immediately if they didn't have surgery right away," he said.
Hung was shot fighting for the communist North in Quang Tri province, near the former demilitarised zone that separated North and South Vietnam.
Surgeons tried to remove the blood caked bullet in 1969 but failed.
World's Tallest Man Finds Wife
Bao Xishun, the world's tallest man from Inner Mongolia, married saleswoman Xia Shujian, who was 5 feet 6 inches tall, few weeks ago. Xishun, a 7-feet-9-inches herdsman married a lady half his age and half his size.
Xishun's 28-year-old bride hailed from his hometown of Chifeng, even though marriage advertisements were sent around the world in search for a perfect and fitting bride. "After a long and careful selection, the effort finally paid off," the agents said.
Xishun was confirmed last year by the Guinness World Records as the world's tallest Story Highlightsperson. He was in the news in December after he used his long arms to save two dolphins by pulling out plastic from their stomachs after attempts to use surgical instruments to remove the plastic failed because the dolphins' stomachs contracted in response to the instruments, Chinese media reported.
His bride was more than happy to finally get married, and she said she would not have wished for anyone else other than Xishun.
One Kiss Too Many
Mobs in several Indian cities burned images of Richard Gere, Hollywood star actor, last Monday after he swept Shilpa Shetty, a popular Indian actress into his arms and kissed her several times during an AIDS-awareness event in New Delhi.
Photographs of the 57-year-old actor embracing Shetty and kissing her on the cheek at an HIV/AIDS awareness event were splashed across Monday's front pages and repeatedly aired on news channels in India - a country where sex and public displays of affection are largely taboo.
In Mumbai, members of the right-wing Hindu nationalist group, Shiv Sena, beat burning effigies of Gere with sticks and set fire on glamorous shots of Shetty. Similar protests broke out in other cities, including Varanasi, Hinduism's holiest city, and in the northern town of Meerut, where crowds chanted "Down with Shilpa Shetty!" Some even called for the actors' deaths. Others wanted public apologies.
The two appeared at a press conference in New Delhi on Sunday to highlight the HIV/AIDS epidemic among India's truck drivers. In front of a cheering crowd, Gere who acted in the blockbuster movie Pretty Woman, kissed Shetty on the hand, and then kissed her on both cheeks before bending her in a full embrace to kiss her cheek again. "This is a bit too much," Shetty said after the embrace.
A sober Shetty on Monday, tried to stamp out the controversy. "I understand this is his culture, not ours. But this was not such a big thing or so obscene for people to overreact in such manner," she told the Press Trust of India News Agency. "I understand people's sentiments, but I don't want a foreigner to take bad memories from here," PTI quoted her as saying.
Despite her plea, the spokesman for Hindu nationalist party, Bharatiya Janata, condemned the kiss. He said such a public display was not part of Indian tradition. Shetty, already well-known in India, became an international star after her appearance on the British reality show Celebrity Big Brother which was another controversial public appearance.
The Pope's Travel Companion
Pope Benedict, The German pontiff, who marks the second anniversary of his election this week, was on Monday evening feted with a classical concert by an orchestra from Stuttgart. An accomplished pianist himself, the Pope was treated to works by Mozart, Dvorak and 16th century Italian composer Giovanni Gabrieli.
In a brief address after the concert in the Vatican's vast audience hall, the pope called music the "universal language of beauty" and gave thanks that music had been a "travel companion" of his life since he was a child. The Pope, who turned 80 last Monday, was interceded for. Hundreds of people held prayers before dawn into the small Bavarian house where Benedict was born at 4:15 a.m. 80 years ago. Later they paraded through the village east of Munich to a special early mass in the St. Oswald church where Joseph Ratzinger was baptised. The house where Benedict was born, built in 1701, was turned into a museum to cope with the surge of visitors, and town leaders want to rename the town square "Papst-Benedikt-Platz.
However, the Animal rights activist group in Italy has asked Pope Benedict to stop wearing fur as a sign of respect for the "sacredness of all living species. "The Pope has been seen over the past winter donning a red velvet hat trimmed with white ermine fur, known as "Camauro." On special occasions, such as official audiences with heads of state, Pope Benedict also wears a red cape trimmed with white fur.
The Anti-Vivisection League, LAV, made its appeal ahead of an April 22 visit by Benedict to Pavia, a northern town where Italy's best-known fur makers are based. "We call on the Holy Father to make a choice of high religious and ethical significance by not wearing fur on this occasion, or in the future," the LAV said in a statement.
Sent Packing
The Idols West Africa, a musical talent hunt reality show that started four months ago has evicted its third contestant in the top ten category of the competition.
The 24, year, old Ume was eliminated after Joan Ekpai and Omodele Fatoki. Speaking at the weekly Idols West Africa press conference held at Planet One on Tuesday April17. Ume, the ritzy contestant revealed, "I will be one of the best stars you (Idols West Africa) have produced."
The contestant disclosed to pressmen that Idols West Africa is a dream come true and a life changing experience for him. He thanked organisers of the show for creating such a great opportunity for young people in West Africa. Ume also told pressmen that he was poised to take up music and entertainment as a career and that Idols West Africa has prepared him to face the world.
On Monday, 16 April, during the results show broadcast, a shocked Ume repeated, "Oh no!" several times, clearly indicating his complete surprise. "It was such a shock; I didn't know what to say. I didn't know I would be leaving so soon. Even when I heard that I was 'not safe,' I didn't think I was leaving," he said.
Elvina Ibru of Pan Africa Entertainment, PAE, said all was not lost for Ume. "Ume has been offered a couple of things by other people," she said. Ibru also said that even though the eventual winner of the show would take the ultimate prize, the other nine contestants would be taken care of and protected by PAE.
Ume would be going home to Asaba which is about six hours away from Lagos to see his mother and five siblings, but he assures everyone that he would be back in Lagos, where the Idols competition is taking place, as soon as possible so he can stay in touch with goings-on.
Still battling for survival on the show and soliciting viewer votes are Temitayo George, Mercy Nwankwo, Jerrilyn Mulbah, Timi Dakolo, Jodie Odiete, Eric Arubayi and Omawumi Megbele. The judges, Daniel Foster, Nana, and Dede will not be making it any easier for them.
Preacher's Wife Accused of Killing Husband
A preacher's wife accused of murdering her husband told a psychologist that he often threatened her with a shotgun and forced her to have sex, the psychologist testified last week.
Doctor Lynne Zager said Mary Winkler; the preacher's wife also told her that, on the day of the fatal shooting, her husband tried to stop their one-year-old daughter from crying by placing his hands over the baby's nose and mouth. Although the prosecution witnesses described Matthew Winkler, a 31-year-old preacher at the Fourth Street Church of Christ in West Tennessee town, as a good father and husband, the defence said he terrorised his family and criticised his wife's every move.
Matthew Winkler was found fatally shot in the parsonage where the family lived in March 2006. A day later, Mary Winkler was arrested on the Alabama coast 340 miles away, driving in the family minivan with her three young daughters. The psychologist said Mary Winkler suffered from mild depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, which started at age 13 when her sister died and got worse because her husband abused her. She could not have formed the intent to commit a crime because of her compromised mental condition, Zager said.
Her attorney, Leslie Ballin, said the defence would wrap up its case Wednesday, and that Mary Winkler was going to decide overnight if she would testify. Several witnesses for the prosecution said they never saw any sign that Matthew Winkler was abusing his wife. The couple's nine-year-old daughter, Patricia, testified Monday that she had a good father and she never saw him mistreat her mother. But Mary Winkler told the psychologist that her husband criticised her for putting on weight and regularly pinched and shoved her, Zager said. "The summer when she was out of jail was the first time she could wear shorts because of all the bruising," Zager said. Mary Winkler, 33, could be sentenced to up to 60 years in prison if convicted of first-degree murder.
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