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Thursday, March 27, 2008

Down syndrome girl has cosmetic surgery to ’fit in’

THE parents of a Down syndrome girl have caused an outcry by subjecting their daughter to cosmetic surgery to improve her appearance.The girl had "radical and painful" cosmetic surgery three times by the time she was five so she could "fit in" with her peers, the Daily Mail newspaper in Britain reported yesterday. Parents of another girl told the paper that they were also considering altering her appearance in the future so she could be more "accepted". Critics in the UK criticised the parents, with some even saying the procedures were tantamount to child abuse. However the family hit back, saying that no one complained when "normal" children had their ears pinned back. "Why should it be any different for a Downs child?" asked Kim Bussey, the mother of Georgia. President of the Queensland Down Syndrome Association Sandra Mayberry said the topic was often raised in local circles but she was not aware of any Queensland children having such surgery. "We don't have a policy statement for this," she said. "If parents are going to do something like that it would be their own personal choice." Mrs Bussey said she and her husband David were motivated by love for their child and deliberated for a year before putting her through the ordeal. In the first procedure, Georgia's tongue was reduced to stop it protruding, according to the paper. Then folds of skin were removed from the inner corners of her eyes to take away the "slantiness characteristic" of Down syndrome. Finally she had surgery to stop her ears sticking out. Mrs Bussey said that society often judged people on the way they looked. "Society is not going to change overnight - so Georgia has to fit into society, rather than society fitting into the way she is," she said. Another couple, Laurence and Chelsea Kirwan, told the newspaper they were considering surgical procedures for their two-year-old Down syndrome daughter Ophelia. Dr Kirwan, a world-renowned plastic surgeon, said they would make that decision if Ophelia reached the age of 18 and was being unfairly judged on how she looked. Mrs Kirwan said: "It just isn't right that Ophelia and others like her should be judged on how they look – particularly if they are turned down for a good job that they could handle. It's a matter of self-esteem: if you're not happy with yourself then why shouldn't you fix something? All I want is for Ophelia to be happy." The UK Down's Syndrome Association refrained from criticising the families but said no one should have to have an operation to make them more visually acceptable to society.

Woman jailed after killing partner over Springsteen

A WOMAN has been jailed after she stabbed her de facto husband to death when he stopped her playing her favourite Bruce Springsteen album.Karen Lee Cooper told arresting police: "I couldn’t even play Bruce Springsteen on my stereo - can you believe that? Can you believe that?" She later again told police: "I mean, who doesn’t like Bruce Springsteen?" "I’m 49 years old and I want to play my own music."In the Supreme Court in Brisbane today, Cooper, 50, was jailed for eight years. She pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Kevin Lee Watson on July 8, 2006. She was originally charged with murder but the Crown accepted a manslaughter plea on the basis she had no intention to kill. The court heard Cooper stabbed Watson through the aorta after they had been drinking at their Cedar Grove home, south of Brisbane

Kids see mum raped on YouTube

FOOTAGE of a mother repeatedly raped in front of her screaming children posted on YouTube has sparked calls for the video sharing website to be moderated.
The 25-year-old woman, who said her glass of champagne was spiked by three teenage boys when they visited her London home in November, said the three-minute mobile phone footage of of her horrific ordeal was watched by 600 people. The woman said she was unable to move, but fully aware during the hours-long attack. "They just hurt me the whole way through. They had no respect," she told Sky News. "Afterwards one p****** on me, like I was nothing. "I felt dirtly, humiliated, ashamed. I did not want to tell anyone, did not want to do anything, I just wanted to forget."
The mother decided to report the gang-rape to the police after hearing rumours of the YouTube footage, which was taken off the site after a local reporter complained about its graphic nature. "Putting (the video) on the internet was an abomination," the mother said. "I was raped on film and you could hear my daughter and four-year-old son crying. I cannot understand how any website could show such a thing." A YouTube spokesman told The Times that the site's rules prohibited content such as pornography and gratuitous violence from being uploaded. If YouTube staff saw content they thought was inappropriate, they could raise their concerns and the content would be reviewed. "If the content breaks our terms then we remove it, and if a user repeatedly breaks the rules we disable their account," the spokesman said. A technology lawyer with UK firm Pinsent Masons told The Times it was "extremely difficult" for trained staff at YouTube to control videos showing graphic images, with 10 hours of content uploaded every minute. "In this instance - where you have a video that may depict a crime - there's no technical measure the site can apply that will prevent it being posted in the first place," Struan Robertson said. "The only option would be for them to review every video before it is posted and that is unrealistic. What sites like YouTube need is a good reporting mechanism which enables content to be flagged to the site once it has been posted, and YouTube operates well in this sense." Three teenagers - two aged 16 and one aged 14 - have been questioned by police over the attack.

Wake-up call for Thai society

There's a lot to be worried about - quality of education, drug abuse, nicotine and alcohol addiction, and pollution are all getting worse
Published on March 11, 2008
Thai society is creaking with health, environmental, crime and drug-addiction problems, while its education system is still inferior to that of neighbouring countries.
Ampon Kittiampon, permanent secretary of the National Economic and Social Development Board, yesterday made public the worrying report on the state of Thai society during the fourth quarter of 2007 (October to December).
The positives were just a few. The employment situation was healthier with an average of 36.25 million working people - 1.6 per cent up from the same period the previous year, he said.
Educational opportunities also increased at all levels. However, the quality of education continued to fall in the key areas of reading, mathematics and science.
Crisis in education
The results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), slumped to below average, while other Asian countries obtained higher scores, Ampon said.
Thai education institutes still lack quality personnel as can be seen from the fact that 30,000 teachers do not teach the subjects they graduated in and teachers give less importance to normal classes as compared to tutoring classes.
Health situation
With regards to health, there was a 9.6-per-cent increase in people put on watch for 11 harmful diseases.
At top of the list was hand, foot and mouth disease - with 8,381 patients on watch, compared to 1,368 people in the same period the previous year.
This was followed by dengue fever and cholera.
Thais had less access to social security, or public safety or protection for their property.
Drug abuse was on the rise, especially among children and youths. The number of drug-related cases jumped sharply from 26,790 last year to 39,106, a 46-per-cent increase
Crime saw a 10.6-per-cent increase.
Addictions also witnessed increased spending with 2.9 per cent more Thais spending on cigarettes.
About Bt44 billion were spent on alcohol, a 4.1-per-cent increase.
Those aged 15 to 24 drank alcohol more frequently, especially university students, with 21.1 per cent saying they had increased their alcohol consumption.
The environmental scene also saw a decline with Bangkok and other cities suffering more from noise, garbage and water pollution.
Daily Xpress

SORRY, ................................finally some one has the guts to say it

WHAT Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told Parliament after delivering the apology to indigenous Australians:Mr Rudd told the story of an elderly indigenous woman, part of the stolen generation, who he visited a few days ago. "An elegant, eloquent and wonderful woman in her 80s full of life, full of funny stories despite what has happened in her life's journey,'' the Prime Minister said. Mr Rudd said his friend told him of the love and warmth she felt while growing up with her family in an Aboriginal community just outside Tennant Creek. In the early 1930s, at the age of four, she remembers being taken away by "the welfare men''. "Her family had feared that day and had dug holes in the creek bank where the children could run and hide,'' Mr Rudd said. They brought a truck, two white men and an Aboriginal stockman who found the hiding children and herded them into the truck. She remembered her mother clinging onto the side of the truck, with tears flowing down her cheeks as it drove off. She never saw her mother again. After living in Alice Springs for a "few years'', government policy changed and the young girl was handed over to the missions. "The kids were simply told to line up in three lines ... those on the left were told they had become Catholics, those in the middle, Methodist and those on the right, Church of England,'' Mr Rudd said. "That's how the complex questions of post-reformation theology were resolved in the Australian outback in the 1930s. "It was as crude as that.'' She didn't leave the island mission until she was 16 when she went to Darwin to work as a "domestic''. When the Prime Minister asked his friend what of her story she wanted told she answered: "All mothers are important.'' "Families, keeping them together is very important, it's a good thing that you are surrounded by love and that love is passed down the generations - that's what gives you happiness.'' This was just one of tens of thousands of stories of forced separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, Mr Rudd said. There is something terribly primal about these first-hand accounts, the pain is searing, it screams from the pages, the hurt the humiliation, the degradation and the sheer brutality of the act of physically separating a mother from her children is a deep assault on our senses and on our most elemental humanity,'' he said. Mr Rudd said the stories "cry out'' to be heard and "cry out'' for an apology. "Instead from the nation's Parliament there has been a stony and stubborn and deafening silence for more than a decade. "A view that somehow we the Parliament should suspend our most basic instincts of what is right and what is wrong, a view that instead we should look for any pretext to push this great wrong to one side to leave it languishing with the historians, the academics and the cultural warriors as if the stolen generations are little more than an interesting sociological phenomenon. "The stolen generations are not intellectual curiosities, they are human beings, human beings who have been damaged deeply by the decisions of parliaments and governments. "As of today the time for denial, the time for delay, has at last come to an end.''Mr Rudd said the stolen generation were human beings, not an intellectual curiosity - human beings deeply damaged by the decision of parliaments and governments. "As of today the time for denial, the time for delay has at last come to an end,'' he said. "The nation is demanding of its political leadership to take us forward. Decency, human decency, universal human decency demands that the nation now steps forward to right an historical wrong.''Mr Rudd said should there still be doubts, the historical record showed that between 1910 and 1970, between 10 and 30 per cent of indigenous children were forcibly taken from their mothers and fathers. "As a result up to 50,000 children were forcibly taken from their families,'' he said. "This was a product of the deliberate, calculated policies of the states, as reflected in the explicit powers given to them under statute,'' he said. This policy was taken to such extremes by some in administrative authority, that the forced extractions of children of so-called mixed lineage, was seen as a part of a broader policy of dealing with, quote, the problem of the Aboriginal population, unquote.'' Mr Rudd said one of the most notorious examples of this approach came from the Northern Territory Protector of Natives, who had stated: "'Generally by the fifth and invariably by the sixth generation all native characteristics of the Australian Aborigine are eradicated. The problem of our half castes... will quickly be eliminated by the complete disappearance of the black race and the swift submergence of their progeny in the white.'''Mr Rudd said the WA Protector of Natives had expressed similar views. While today's formal apology said "sorry'' three times, Mr Rudd's speech also offered his own apologies to the stolen generations. "As Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry,'' he said. "On behalf of the Government of Australia, I am sorry. "On behalf of the Parliament of Australia, I am sorry. "I offer you this apology without qualification.''Mr Rudd said the forced removal of Aboriginal children was happening as late as the early 1970s."The 1970s is not exactly a point in remote antiquity,'' he said. "There are still serving members in this Parliament who were first elected to this place in the early 1970s. "It is well within the adult memory span of many of us.'' He said the parliaments of the nation at the time made the forced removal of children on racial grounds fully lawful, and that the parliaments are responsible for the laws themselves. "For this reason the governments and parliaments of this nation must make this apology.'' He said reconciliation was in fact an expression of a "core value of our nation''. "That value is a fair go for all,'' he said. "There is a deep and abiding belief in the Australian community that for the stolen generations there was no fair go at all. "There is a pretty basic Aussie belief that it is time to put right this most outrageous of wrongs.''Mr Rudd addressed members of the stolen generation and their families, while admitting he knew the apology would not remove their suffering. "We apologise for the hurt, the pain and suffering we the Parliament have caused you by the laws that previous parliaments have enacted,'' Mr Rudd said. "We apologise for the indignity, the degradation and the humiliation these laws embodied. "We offer this apology to the mothers, the fathers, the brothers, the sisters, the families and the communities whose lives were ripped apart by the actions of successive governments under successive parliaments.'' He added: "I know that in offering this apology on behalf of the Government and the Parliament, there is nothing I can say today that can take away the pain you have suffered personally. "Whatever words I speak today, I cannot undo that. Words alone are not that powerful, grief is a very personal thing.'' The Prime Minister also urged non-indigenous people who "might not fully understand'' the need for an apology, to put themselves in the shoes of the stolen generation. "I ask those non-indigenous Australians to imagine for a moment if this had happened to you,'' he said. "I say to honourable members here present, imagine if that had happened to us. "Imagine the crippling effect. Imagine how hard it would be to forgive. "My proposal is this: if the apology we extend today is expected in the spirit of reconciliation in which it is offered, we can today resolve together that there be a new beginning for Australia. "And it is to such a new beginning that I believe the nation is now calling us.''Mr Rudd called for the Opposition join the Government in forming the equivalent a war cabinet to tackled indigenous issues. "I therefore propose a joint policy commission to be led by the leader of the Opposition and myself,'' he said. The Prime Minister said the commission would first develop and implement an effective housing strategy for remote communities during the next five years. If that was successful the commission would then work on the constitutional recognition of first Australians. "The nation is calling on us the politicians to move beyond our infantile bickering, our point scoring, our mindlessly partisan politics and elevate this one, at least this one, area of national responsibility to a rare position beyond the partisan divide.''Mr Rudd said unless the symbolism of the apology was accompanied by greater substance it was little more than a clanging gong. "It's not sentiment that makes history, it's actions,'' he said. Today's apology, however inadequate, was aimed at righting past wrongs. "It is also aimed at building a bridge between indigenous and and non-indigenous Australians, a bridge based upon a real respect rather than a thinly veiled contempt,'' he said. "Our challenge for the future is now to pass that bridge and, in so doing, embrace a new partnership between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.'' Part of the partnership would be an expanded link-up and other services to help the stolen generation find their families. However the core of the partnership was closing the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians on life expectancy, education and employment opportunities, Mr Rudd said. This new partnership would set concrete targets - within a decade to halve the gap in literacy, numeracy and employment outcomes and to halve the appalling record in infant mortality; and within a generation to close the equally appalling 17-year life expectancy gap. "The truth is a business as usual approach to indigenous Australians is not working,'' Mr Rudd said. "Most old approaches are not working. We need a new beginning.'' He said new policies needed the flexibility to allow tailored local approaches to achieve commonly agreed national objective. "However, unless we set a destination for the nation we have no clear point to guide our policies,'' Mr Rudd said.Mr Rudd said the Parliament had come together to "right a great wrong''. "We have come together to deal with the past so that we may fully embrace the future,'' he said. "We have had sufficient audacity of faith to advance a pathway to that future with arms extended rather than with fists still clenched.'' "Let us seize the day.'' Mr Rudd said he hoped today would not be just a moment of sentimental reflection. "Let us take it with both hands and allow this day...become one of those rare moments in which we may transform the way in which the nation thinks about itself. "Where by the injustice causes all of us to reappraise the real possibility of reconciliation.'' Mr Rudd called for reconciliation that would open up "whole new possibilities for the future.'' "Reconciliation across all indigenous Australia, reconciliation across the entire history of the often bloody encounter between those who emerged from the dream time a thousand generations ago and those, who like me, came across the seas only yesterday.''Mr Rudd said indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, Government and Opposition, Commonwealth and State needed to turn a new page and write a new chapter in our nation's story together. "First Australians, first fleeters, and those who first took the oath of allegiance a few weeks ago, let's grasp this opportunity to craft a new future for this great land Australia,'' he said. Mr Rudd's speech was greeted by a prolonged standing ovation from fellow Labor MPs, the opposition and those in the packed public galleries. Mr Rudd directed his applause towards the many indigenous people in the public galleries.

just cause u have elections dont mean S*%T Thai democracy a sham

New York (dpa) - For the sake of political expediency, Western democracies increasingly have accepted elections conducted in countries that have no respect for human rights, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.
States that claim the mantle of democracy, include Kenya and Pakistan, while others like Bahrain, Jordan, Nigeria, Russia and Thailand have taken on the belief that elections are equal to democracy, the New York-based rights group said in an annual report.
It said Washington, Brussels and European capitals "play along" with the notion that a country can have democracy simply by holding elections.
"It's now easy for autocrats to get away with mounting a sham democracy," said Kenneth Roth, the group's executive director. "That's because too many Western governments insist on elections and leave it at that."
"They don't press governments on the key human rights issues that make democracy function - a free press, peaceful assembly, and a functioning civil society that can really challenge power," Roth said.
The report said grave human rights abuses have fueled humanitarian crises in Somalia and the Ogaden region in Eastern Ethiopia, where millions of people are suffering.
The report documented manipulations of elections. It said Chad, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and Uzbekistan committed "outright fraud," while governments controlled the electorial machinery in Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Malaysia, Thailand and Zimbabwe.
Belarus, Egypt, Cuba, Iran and Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories blocked or discouraged opposition candidates. Russia and Tunisia were cited for stifling the media, and China and Pakistan undermined the rule of law, the report said.
"Many of these tactics are illegal under domestic and international law, but rarely do outside powers call governments to account for it," the report said. "Established democracies are often unwilling to do so for fear of losing access to resources or commercial opportunities, or because of the perceived requirements of fighting terrorism."
"It seems Washington and European governments will accept even the most dubious election so long as the 'victor' is a strategic or commercial ally," it said.
The report said China has clamped down on the media as it is preparing to hold the Summer Olympics Games in August. Foreign journalists who were given the right to interview Chinese have been harassed, detained or intimidated to prevent them from doing reports on the country's poor human rights records.
It said the construction boom to prepare for the Olympic Games has involved an estimated 1 million construction workers under harsh and unsafe labour conditions

Valentines day is a SCAM people wake up????

I think its sad that so many people rely on a day to show love, what happen to the othe 300 odd days of the year no love, or just lazy, why do people need an excuse to buy things say some words and go out and waste billions or rubbish, i think its just a hoax and only goes to show how afraid people are of there emotions, and how little they really know about love, but to all who are out there
i luv u

Gary Glitter in Vietnamese hospital

Hanoi (dpa) - Former glam-rock star Gary Glitter, currently serving a prison term in Vietnam for child molestation, is being treated for heart problems in a local hospital, Vietnamese officials confirmed Monday.
"Glitter was admitted to our hospital with acute diarrhaea," said Nguyen Huu Quang, the director of the hospital in Binh Thuan province, near the prison where the 63-year-old British singer is serving out his sentence. "While we were treating him, we found out that he also has a cardiovascular disorder."
Glitter was initially admitted to the hospital on January 4, according to a hospital official. Quang said Glitter was under police guard in his hospital room, and that it was unclear when he would be healthy enough to release.
But the director of the prison where Glitter has been held said he expected the singer to return to jail soon.
Glitter was convicted in 2006 of molesting two Vietnamese girls, ages 12 and 13, while they visited his rented home in the seaside resort town of Vung Tau, 50 kilometres east of Ho Chi Minh City.
The Vietnamese girls, who were 11 at the time of the crime, said that Glitter lured them into taking baths with him and that he fondled and licked them.
Glitter's sentence of two years and nine months will end in August.
The singer, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, made his name with such 1970s hits as Rock and Roll (Part 2) and Do You Wanna Touch.
He has denied he is a paedophile and said his conviction was orchestrated by the media.
Once known for his bouffant wigs and outrageous stage persona, the singer began his long fall from grace with a 1999 child pornography conviction in Britain after a computer repairman discovered a large collection of photos on his laptop computer.
After serving several months in prison, he left Britain and lived in both Cuba and Cambodia before he was forced to leave both countries under a cloud of media suspicion and child-sex rumours.
There has been speculation that Glitter might be released as part of the annual prisoner amnesty preceding Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, in early February.
"We are working on a list of prisoners who will have their sentences reduced on the occasion of the Tet holidays," said Tran Huu Thong, director of the Thu Duc Detention Center, where Glitter had been jailed. "I am not sure whether he is on the list or not."

Heath Ledger found dead in New York apartment

ACTOR Heath Ledger was sick with pneumonia when he died, TMZ.com has reported. The 28-year-old was found dead this morning in a New York apartment.
The Perth-born actor was discovered naked and surrounded by pills about 3.30pm Tuesday local time (7.30am Melbourne time). His body has been removed from his New York apartment and wheeled into the back of a medical examiner's van. A huge crowd of news photographers gathered outside the apartment in the Soho building lit up the scene with flashes as authorities wheeled his body on a trolley from the complex into the van. New York police officer Martin Brown said investigators will likely not know the cause of death until an autopsy is held on the 28-year-old's body. Asked if foul play had been ruled out, Officer Brown said it had not. "That's what needs to be investigated," Brown said. "It takes a while.
Leave your tributes below
"The medical examiner will do an autopsy and they will determine the cause of death." ..pe Ledger's body was discovered by his housekeeper, who came to tell him his masseuse had arrived for an appointment. They entered his room and found him unconscious. "It's all preliminary at this stage," Brown said. "We had a call for an unconscious male at 421 Broome St. "At 15.26 (New York time) we got to the scene and there was an unconscious male. "We called EMS (ambulance) to the scene and EMS pronounced the unconscious male dead."Police officers today stood guard at the Soho apartment building as a crowd of photographers gathered outside. Asked about reports of the pills in Ledger's apartment, Brown said: "I can't confirm that but I've heard the same thing.'' Police initially said they believed the apartment to belong to American actress Mary-Kate Olsen, 21, who is believed to be in Los Angeles. A US website more recently reported that a "source close to Ledger" had denied the apartment belonged to Olsen. It is not yet clear why Ledger was staying in the apartment or how long he had been there.When the masseuse arrived, the apartment housekeeper knocked at Ledger's door to tell him but there was no response. The housekeeper and masseuse went into Ledger's bedroom and found him naked and unconscious in bed. They tried to revive him but with no success, and immediately called the authorities.
When paramedics responded, the actor was in full cardiac arrest. They attempted to perform CPR on him but were unsuccessful.
Ledger was pronounced dead at the scene.
Ledger was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Brokeback Mountain and had numerous other screen credits.
He stars in the coming The Dark Knight Batman movie as the Joker, and also in the Oscar-nominated biopic I'm Not There, taking one of the roles of Bob Dylan.His death comes during the making of his latest movie The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, directed by Terry Gilliam and in which he was to star alongside Christopher Plummer and Tom Waits.One of Ledger's most criticallyacclaimed roles was as a heroin addict in the 2006 Australian movie Candy, in which he starred with Australian Abbie Cornish. He split from his partner, Michelle Williams, with whom he has a daughter, in September 2007.

Cop 'executed my best friend'

Officer 'hit me, shot Leo twice, then fired at me'
Published on January 8, 2008
A young Canadian woman told yesterday how a Thai policeman shot dead her best friend in Pai in the North, then shot another bullet into his heart as he lay on the ground.
Carly Reisig, 24, said the policeman had no grounds at all for the attack - and that after he shot fellow Canadian John Leo del Pinto, the officer turned his gun on her and shot her in the chest.
Speaking from her bed in hospital in Chiang Mai, Reisig, from Chilliwack, British Columbia, rejected a police statement that suggested Sgt-Major Uthai Dechawiwat, 37, had intervened to break up a fight and his gun had discharged in a struggle.
She pointed to her chest where the bullet was lodged close to her own heart.
"There never was a fight. That is not true," she said. "John was my ex-boyfriend, but still my best friend. We had nothing to argue about. We had been drinking in the Be-Bop Bar in Pai and were heading for a last drink at the Bamboo Bar near the bridge.
"We were walking together. My Thai boyfriend Fuen was walking slightly behind.
"A man came up to me on
the road near Pee Dang's Restaurant and hit me for no reason.
"My face was painted with face paint, for fun, but I don't know why he hit me. We had never met him before, never seen him before. We were unarmed and walking down the road after a good night out.
"He was dressed in plain clothes, a white T-shirt. Leo shouted at him, 'You can't hit her!' and pushed him away from us. Then the man went to his motorbike and got his gun, and Leo tried to get it away from him.
"They had a struggle for the gun, then the man got control of the gun and stepped back and shot Leo directly in the face.
"Leo fell to the ground and the man pointed the gun at his heart and fired a second shot. Then he turned around to me and aimed for my heart and shot me in the chest.
"I blacked out and when I came to I saw Leo lying dead on the road beside me. My lungs filled up with blood and I couldn't breathe.
"I went to Pai Hospital and then to a hospital in Chiang Mai. They had to put a tube into my lungs to drain the blood so that I could breathe again.
"I can't believe that my best friend is dead and I've got a bullet right beside my heart.
"I have never been married, I am not pregnant. Leo was my ex-boyfriend from Canada. He had arrived in Pai a few days before to see me."
Sitting by her bed was her boyfriend Rattaporn Vara-wadee, an artist nicknamed Fuen.
He said: "Nothing we did gave this man the right to take lives. We are angry now and we need help and a good lawyer. We are shocked to hear that the policeman is already out on bail."
Asked again if they had been fighting, she replied: "Not at all, he was my best friend." She had spoken to del Pinto's family and said: "They are not doing well."
Suchart Pantai, the owner of Be-Bop Bar, said he saw the couple and Fuen leave his bar at about 1am. "There was no fighting. But I heard from other sources that they were play-fighting as they walked."
Reisig has been in Thailand for a year, leaving occasionally on visa runs. She has worked in Canada with physically and mentally handicapped people.
John Leo del Pinto, also 24, from Calgary in Alberta in west Canada, was a former music student who earned a living as a promoter and concert organiser.
Uthai Dechawiwat has been charged with murder, manslaughter and attempted murder, but the version of events issued by police in Pai is at total variance with Miss Reisig's story.
Case investigator Pol Lt-Colonel Sombat Panya said the couple had been drinking in a local pub and had become involved in a drunken brawl after del Pinto, who recently arrived in Thailand, found that Reisig was pregnant to a Thai man known as Fuen.
The couple continued arguing after they left the pub when Uthai arrived at the scene, near a bridge, on personal business. Uthai approached them and asked them to be calm but both foreigners turned to attack him.
The officer said Uthai was beaten to the ground by the couple. After managing to get up, Uthai pointed his service pistol to threaten away both foreigners, but del Pinto tried to snatch the pistol from him. After a scuffle, shots were fired and the couple went down.
Last night Graham Arscott, the father of Vanessa Arscott, 23, who was gunned down in Kanchanaburi with her boyfriend Adam Lloyd, 24, by Police Sgt-Major Wisetsingh said: "So sad. I feel so terribly sorry for this young man's family."
In the River Kwai case, Wisetsingh shot the couple dead in a fit of rage after being beaten to the ground by Lloyd, who it is believed thought the policeman was trying to hit on his girlfriend.
Like the Kanchanaburi case, the killing in the idyllic tourist village of Pai has the semblance of another police "loss of face" execution.
Andrew Drummond
Special to The Nation

only cause i have to put in a subject but there is no subject so just move along nothing to see

now this is something i havent done for a while is just crap on, which is how i started in this game in the first place, but then people i didnt know actuallys tarted to read it so i kinda changed it a bit to be a bit more informative, and educational, but lately ive just been thinkin bout the last few years since i moved to this country, and you wouldnt believe how much ive actually learnt about myself, ive also been able to slow in my head a lot more, and have been able to reflect upon how i have done some things, i just keep saying man that was stupid, but then ive been able to learn from them, but very slowly, and im coming up to the ned of a contract i dont wish to continue, so i will therefor have to look for a new job soon, but thats cool, but i was also think bout what i read on somelses blog about anger and how useless and stupid is, but how powerful it can be, it is really one of those useless emotions which drains so much energy, when in the end it gives you nothing, but i am actually quite happy at the moment theres nothing i want and im happy just doin what im doin,

has Australian cricket finally gone down the toilet??? or do they just hate Indians

Now an Indian man has been banned for 3 matches for calling an Australian a "monkey", now come on what is going on in that country, are Australians becoming racist, egotistical children, Ive never seen such idiotic behaviour, and most of it stems from the fact that the young Indian is so damn good at bowling, Australians have been trying to beat and bully him, hoping he will quite or stay home, for years, it seems that Australia only wants to play them, if they know they will win, what happened to just playing cricket, and leaving everything that happens on the pitch, on the bloody pitch. Have Australians serioulsy become so childish, cause I know for a fact that Australians have been using far worse language than that, and if u really want to get down to it arent we all just monkeys any way, i mean there isnt much difference between us them any wa, or has the game so much about buisness that all they are thinking about is the money and their reputation. what is going in that country, just let the guy play, he's one of the best bowlers cricket has seen for decades all Australia want to do is kick him out, and its disgusting that none of the Australians players have not come out and condemned this ban from the start, which only goes to prove what I have already said.

its so sad seeing how much parents drain their own children, but is it really there fault???

So much stress and pain is bought down upon children because of their parents of lack of success, and a childs inability acknowledge or even understand what parents have to go thoru and do to raise children. But this should never be the case how can any child understand what their parents had to do, its never gonna happen. What happen to unconditional love, parents are suppossed to love and take care of their children, not abuse and srain them for their own gain and lack of self esteem, but they are just products of their environment, can you really blame any one these days, what happened to the simples things like love your enemy, forgiveness, throwing stones, and just simple compassion for living beings, we are all just trying to get along, we all bleed, we all cry, we all laugh, so why do we always have to hurt each other???

A SERIAL killer did not understand why people would be so outraged at his execution of a child.

Paul Steven Haigh, 49, was jailed for life with no minimum term after murdering seven people, starting in the late 1970s.
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His victims included a nine-year-old boy and his mother executed in their car.

Haigh is applying in the Supreme Court to have a minimum term set so he can one day apply for parole.

Haigh told his psychiatrist he had to kill the boy because he could identify him.

He also claimed the mother had used the boy as a shield.

Haigh said he couldn't see why that crime was seen as more heinous than the others and he hadn't liked the boy.

"You see I have never had children," he said.

But the court heard he did admit the boy had done nothing to merit dying by his hand.

Haigh has also written a book called "A house of blue light" which analyses his crimes and the character of his victims.

The Sentencing Act says a non-parole period must be set by the court unless it considers that the offending is so serious a minimum term would be inappropriate.

Prisoners sentenced to the maximum term can apply for a minimum, and other lifers, including Frankston triple murderer Paul Charles Denyer, have made successful applications.

But notorious sex fiend Raymond ``Mr Stinky'' Edmunds and ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Russell St bomber Stanley Taylor were refused.

The hearing before Justice Betty King continues.

US Justice Department has charged a Los Angeles couple with bribing a Thai official

The US Justice Department has charged a Los Angeles businessman and his wife with paying a bribe of $1.7 million to the former governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand for the rights to manage the Bangkok International Film Festival.
Gerald Green, 75, and his wife Patricia, 52, were arrested after a criminal complaint was filed in Los Angeles on December 7.
The charges allege that the couple conspired to pay more than $1.7 million dollars in bribes -- about 60 million baht at the time.
They claim the money was paid to a woman identified as the governor of the TAT in order to win the film festival contract and other deals worth more than $10 million.
The complaint did not directly name Thai official allegedly involved but said "she" was president of the Bangkok International Film Festival and governor of the TAT.
The only person apparently meeting that description is Juthamas Siriwan. She is currently contesting the December 23 parliamentary election with the Puea Pandin party.
Ms Juthamas denied any involvement in the scandal.
She said she would sue the US Justice Department if it attempted to tie her to the case. Her statement was difficult to reconcile since the US authorities have already directly tied her to the case.
Ms Juthamas said the bid to organise the Bangkok International Film Festival in 2003 had been implemented according to rules and regulations.
"All the procedures involving the case had been done according to the regulations and with fairness and transparence to all agencies concerned," she told a press conference Wednesday. She did not address the alleged payments by the Greens.
A press release by the US Justice Department released early Wednesday (Thailand time) said the indictment:
"... alleges that from 2003 and continuing into 2007, the Greens conspired with others to bribe a senior Thai government official who was, at the time, the President of the BKKIFF and the Governor of the TAT. As a result of her position at the TAT, the Governor was able to influence the awarding of the BKKIFF contracts as well as other TAT contracts. More than $1.7 million in payments were allegedly made for the benefit of the Governor."
Click here to view the US Department of Justice press release in PDF format.
Click here for the FBI's full affadavit of charges, also in PDF format.
The statement by the Justice Department said the Greens set up a company - Film Festival Management - in 2003 to bid for the rights to stage the Bangkok International Film Festival.
Between 2003 and 2007, the Greens allegedly funneled cash to the Thai tourism official, who used the money to influence the awarding of the contracts for the film festival, which is run by the TAT.
The recipient of the alleged bribes was not identified in the Justice Department statement.
The Greens face up to 10 years in prison if convicted on all charges, the statement said.
The Bangkok International Film Festival has been held annually since 2002. (BangkokPost.com, from Agency reports)

A date with a princess, ..................................................and i mean a real one

Yes arent i lucky, now for those who arent in the know the king of thailand and his family are still quite active in the country, and now it might not even happen, but one of daughters of HM the king is coming in about a week to open a building that we have already been using for the last year, the buildings are getting painted again, gardens are being made, and even the road outside of the school is getting a makeover, its all gotta be beautifullllllllllllllllllllllllll, for the lady, a once in a life time oppurtunity to be sick and miss the whole thing Im not really looking forward to it but we will see how things go

UK has left behind murder and chaos, says Basra police chief

Blunt assessment delivered as British hand over security to Iraqis (Warning: The film below contains graphic images which some viewers may find distressing) Mona Mahmoud, Maggie O'Kane and Ian BlackMonday December 17, 2007The Guardian
The full scale of the chaos left behind by British forces in Basra was revealed yesterday as the city's police chief described a province in the grip of well-armed militias strong enough to overpower security forces and brutal enough to behead women considered not sufficiently Islamic.
As British forces finally handed over security in Basra province, marking the end of 4½ years of control in southern Iraq, Major General Jalil Khalaf, the new police commander, said the occupation had left him with a situation close to mayhem. "They left me militia, they left me gangsters, and they left me all the troubles in the world," he said in an interview for Guardian Films and ITV.
.. This site/section combo is not set up to show MPU's -->Khalaf painted a very different picture from that of British officials who, while acknowledging problems in southern Iraq, said yesterday's handover at Basra airbase was timely and appropriate.
Major General Graham Binns, who led British troops into the city in 2003, said the province had "begun to regain its strength". He added: "I came to rid Basra of its enemies and I now formally hand Basra back to its friends."
But in the film, to be broadcast on the Guardian Unlimited website and ITV News, Khalaf lists a catalogue of failings, saying:
· Basra has become so lawless that in the last three months 45 women have been killed for being "immoral" because they were not fully covered or because they may have given birth outside wedlock;
· The British unintentionally rearmed Shia militias by failing to recognise that Iraqi troops were loyal to more than one authority;
· Shia militia are better armed than his men and control Iraq's main port.
In the interview he said the main problem the Iraqi security forces now faced was the struggle to wrest control back from the militia. He appealed for the British to help him do that: "We need the British to help us to watch our borders - both sea and land and we need their intelligence and air support and to keep training the Iraqi police."
David Miliband, the foreign secretary, who attended the handover ceremony, acknowledged that the territory was not "a land of milk and honey" and promised Britain would remain a "committed friend" of Iraq.
But he insisted it was the right time to hand back control. "The key conditions for the transfer of security responsibility to the Iraqi security forces are whether they are up to it: do they have the numbers? Do they have the leadership and training to provide leadership for this province? And the answer to those three questions is yes," he said.
After the handover Des Browne, the defence secretary, praised British forces - 174 of whom have died since the start of the war in March 2003. "Their contribution has been outstanding and their courage inspiring," he said. A scaled-down UK force will remain in a single base at Basra airport, with a small training mission and a rapid reaction team on "overwatch".
Britain now has 4,500 troops in Iraq. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, has said numbers would shrink to 2,500 by mid-2008 though those released may be redeployed to Afghanistan.
Khalaf, who has survived 20 assassination attempts since he became police chief six months ago, said Britain's intentions had been good but misguided. "I don't think the British meant for this mess to happen. When they disbanded the Iraqi police and military after Saddam fell the people they put in their place were not loyal to the Iraqi government. The British trained and armed these people in the extremist groups and now we are faced with a situation where these police are loyal to their parties not their country."
He said the most shocking aspect of the breakdown of law and order in Basra was the murder of women for being unIslamic. "They are being killed because they are accused of behaving in an immoral way. When they kill them they put underwear and indecent clothes on them."
In his office Khalaf showed the Guardian a computer holding the files of 48 unidentified women. "Some of them have even been killed with their children because their killer says that they come out of an adulterous relationship," he said.
Vince Cable, the acting Lib Dem leader, called for a timetable to bring all British troops home from Iraq, adding: "If we are handing power back to the Iraqis, why are 4,500 British troops needed for what is essentially a training mission?"
· The General's Last Stand: a Guardianfilms/ITV News investigation can be seen now on the Guardian website and later tonight on ITV News at 6.30pm and 10.30pm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2228690,00.html

I can already tell why u suffer, why u r in pain and why our world is dying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FEAR, there isnt a person that doesnt suffer from it, and its the only thing that will destroy us all, the "how" may vary, and the time could be short or long, but in the end its fear that will end us, and its what drives us to fill our lives with rubbish that means nothing, spending our lives working and making money for nothing, the only way to beat fear is to loose everything and have nothing, but hey a lot of people will loose even more amounts of money, so they arent gonna tell how the shits going down, but they only need it cause they are afraid, if people werent afraid they would never need jobs or homes, because they would know that there is nothing u can obtain that will take away your fear, its what causes addicts and each of the seven sins, it just comes down to FEAR. and the sooner u deal with it the sooner u will know happiness u have known before, and true freedom, u think u live in the land of the free, yet u have never even known what freedom is, just cause u think u can vote ha ha ha oh my god the fools

Can Thailand survive the death of King Bhumihol, or will it crumble???

Now regardless of whether u like the man or even the monarchy, u cant deny that the current king of thailand, is the only string that holds this whole country together. So when he moves on, what will happen to Thailand. Some are worried that there are many different factions which will go for gold, those who are for the prince, and those that are for the princess, also even those who are just plain greedy and want to rule the whole country on their own. Now to be honest neither of the first two have shown real leadership qualites, the princess is intelligent, calm and carin but can not command, and the prince is neither of those three things but can command. Also what will happen to the politicians there will be no longer any one for them to obey or listen to, when ever the shit has gone down, everyone turns to the king for guidence. Now to be honest I am a little worried, because i can promise that there will be another coup no matter on the political situation, and i fear that there will never be peace, unless of course the government are able to be more transparent and honest, but hey im not expecting pigs to fly, or money to freakin grow on trees

What kind of parents would manipulate another child over the internet??? who in the end died!!!

It has just come to my attention how another family have manipulated another child, by creating a hoax account on the internet, to try to manipulate, and then later abuse a child. What is going on in this world, are people becoming so self-obsessed that parents have to manipulate children, to get what they want. It really makes me feel quite ill, and whats even worse is that a young child has died from all of this disgusting behaviour, none of which had any benefit for society. Sometimes people really need to think about what they are doing, ask yourself
Is this going to hurt any one? How can I help? How am I improving society?
instead of thinking what can i get from this? how can i hurt somebody?
These parents deserve to be in jail, with some time alone to really think about how low they have gone!!!