World's Oldest 'Clicquot Champagne' found on Baltic seabed off the coast of Aaland, Finland

Diver Christian Ekstrom was exploring a shipwreck on the Baltic seabed when he suddenly found the 30 bottles Clicquot Champagne on 16 July 2010

He took one to the surface, where he opened it and tasted it with his colleagues. The diver who retrieved the champagne said it was an honour to drink it.

'Sweet taste' "It was fantastic," he told.

Diver Christian Ekstrom and with his colleagues have found 30 bottles of champagne thought to pre-date the French Revolution on the Baltic seabed.

When they opened one, they found the wine - believed to have been made by Clicquot (now Veuve Clicquot) between 1782 and 1788 - was still in good condition.

The bottle - whose shape indicates it was produced in the 18th Century - has now been sent to France for analysis.

If confirmed, it would be the oldest drinkable champagne in the world.

"It had a very sweet taste, you could taste oak and it had a very strong tobacco smell. And there were very small bubbles."

According to records, Clicquot champagne was first produced in 1772 but was laid down for 10 years. Its production was disrupted after the French Revolution in 1789.

Champagne bottle found on Baltic seabed - 16 July 2010 Experts think the remaining bottles could fetch high prices around 500,000 Swedish kronor (£45,000; $69,000) at auction

The wine found on the seabed was perfectly preserved because of the conditions of dark and cold on the seabed.

If the bottles do come from the 1780s, that would make them around 40 years older than the current record-holder, a bottle of Perrier-Jouet from 1825.

Wine experts estimate each bottle would fetch high price at auction.

Frozen embryos ‘not human’, S. Korean court rule

Frozen embryos ‘not human’, S. Korean court rule

A South Korean court has ruled that frozen embryos are not yet human and thus may be experimented upon and destroyed at will.

The ruling was issued against a suit filed by the parents of the embryos, as well as eleven other individuals, including philosophers, ethicists, and doctors. In addition, the two embryos themselves were listed among the plaintiffs, Lifesite News reports.

Three embryos were created by in vitro fertilization and one was implanted. The other two were to remain available for implantation or to be used for scientific research.

However, the embroyos’ parents had a change of heart and, aided by a team of experts, sought to vindicate the rights of their unborn children.

“Bioethical laws that define artificially inseminated embryos as non-human bundles of cells treats them as tools for research and mandates their disposal at the end of a preservation period, and is a violation of the fundamental right to life,” the plaintiffs wrote.

However, the court ruled that before fourteen days of development, an embryo is not a human being.

“Although we acknowledge the basic rights of fetuses before birth, pre-embryos, which have been fertilized but within which the ‘primitive streak’ has not yet formed, cannot be regarded as humans,” the court wrote.

“Embryos that are less than 14 days from insemination have the potential to become a human being but have no independent humanity. They should not be granted the same constitutional rights as a human being,” said Kang-kook, president of the Constitutional Court.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul’s Life Committee denounced the decision, noting its dehumanizing premises.

“Catholics regret this decision by the Constitutional Court because we are opposed both to the artificial creation of embryos and to their use, once created, as tools for manufacture, as they are entitled to dignity as living beings.”

SOURCE: South Korean Court Rules that Frozen Human Embryos are ‘Not Human’ (Lifesite News)

Dr. Vilas Gayakwad/Wikipedia

Now Bangladesh bans Facebook after Pakistan in outrage over online competition to draw Prophet Mohammed

Protests for Social Networking Site Facebook, being blocked by BTRC Bangladesh. Bangladesh blocks social networking site Facebook By Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) acting Chairman Hasan Mahmud Delwar. The move was ordered after the website “hurt the religious sentiments of the country’s majority Muslim population” by publishing caricatures of Mohammed. Also the Pakistan government blocked the Facebook operation in its country.

 

The Students of Dhaka University protested the move and suggested that particular sites publishing the same, could be blocked not the whole as if cut the head from the body for the reason of headace. Major FaceBook users wants to lift the ban as soon as possible. Protests are raising against the blockage and demands to free the site as soon as possible.

John Travolta's Dogs Killed Tragically at Maine Airport

John Travolta

Tuesday May 18, 2010 10:45 AM EDT Maine: John Travolta's Dogs were struck and killed at Bangor International Airport in Maine on Thursday, shortly after he and members of his family landed there.

The dogs were both on leashes while being walked, and were making their way to some grass when they were hit by an airport service truck.

"At approximately 1 a.m. on Thursday, May 13, 2010, an airplane carrying members of the John Travolta family landed at BIA. While there, two small dogs were taken for a walk by someone who is not a family member. An airport service pickup truck was approaching the airplane to service the airplane and did not see the dogs. Unfortunately, the dogs were struck and killed. The airport is investigating the accident.

Airport Director Rebecca Hupp deeply regretted the incident and told "Clearly, this is an unfortunate accident. Our deepest sympathies are with the family.” 

Travolta and Preston have one other child.

Somali Pirates Sentenced To Death By Yemeni Court

 Somali pirates sit behind bars at the courtroom of

a state security court in Sanaa September 29, 2009

Tue May 18, 9:30 am ET, DUBAI:   For hijacking a Yemeni oil tanker in April 2009, killing one Yemeni crew member and leaving another missing a Yemeni court sentenced six Somali pirates to death, the Defense Ministry informed Tuesday. Six other pirates were also sentenced to 10 years in prison in the hijacking, which also wounded four crew members of the "Qana" ship that was heading to the port of Aden. Six other pirates were sentenced to 10 years in prison in the hijacking, which also wounded four crew members of the "Qana" ship that was heading to the port of Aden. In recent days, heavily armed Somali pirates have made tens of millions of dollars in ransoms by hijacking ships in the Indian Ocean and the strategic Gulf of Aden, through which an estimated 7 percent of world oil consumption passes.

Part of Tuesday's ruling by a criminal court requires the convicted pirates to pay the company that owns the hijacked vessel, Masafi Aden, a sum of 2 million Yemen riyals ($9,200)  (US$ 1=217.00 Yemen Riyal). The Defense Ministry's online newspaper said the court would require Masafi Aden to pay a certain portion of the reparations to the Yemeni victims' families.

Somali piracy attacks have been on the rise in recent months, naval officials say, and their range is widening as pirates adapt to international efforts to thwart them.

Bret Michaels Poison Lead Singer Recovering After Suffering A Massive Brain Haemorrhage

Saturday, 24 April 2010: According to the latest news, the 47-year-old “Rock of Love” and “Celebrity Apprentice” reality star Bret Michaels, the Poison rocker is awake and under a stable condition now.

Amber Lake, the Season 2 winner of “Rock of Love” assured Bret’s friends and relatives that he is conscious and under a stable condition. Michaels was rushed to the hospital on Thursday night due to a massive brain hemorrhage.

The reality TV star was in critical condition after suffering from a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage and was kept in the intensive care unit. Michaels is also diabetic and had an emergency appendectomy on April 12 in San Antonio.

While he was in good spirits, Michaels also revealed just how serious his condition was before the surgery.

“I have played concerts with broken bones, extremely low blood sugars, the flu, colds, and all kinds of things before. I tend to try to perform at all costs. But, I knew I was really sick this time when I started throwing up that morning and didn’t stop all day. I just didn’t realize how bad it was,” he continued. “After the (surgery), they told me that if I had gone onstage like I wanted to, it likely would have ruptured and I could have died. Not good.”

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu withdrawals loyality to USA

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu withdrawals loyality to USA  and made it clear that the Prime Minister should not make concessions to the US for construction of 1600 new apartments for Jewish housing in East Jerusalem. There has been a flurry of diplomatic activity in and around Israel in recent days as part of an attempt to resume the peace talks.

Saint Patrick's Day Clebration on March 17th

 

It is a public holiday on the island of Ireland; including Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, as well as in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Montserrat. It is also widely celebrated by the Irish diaspora, especially in places such as Great Britain, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and Montserrat, among others.

Shamrock was being used by Saint Patrick to explain the Holy Trinity 

 The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit)

 

One of his teaching methods included using the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) to the Irish people. After nearly thirty years of teaching and spreading God's word he died on 17 March, 461 AD, and was buried at Downpatrick,

Saint Patrick is also the patron saint of engineers.

How Saint Patrick's Day Being Observed: Attending mass or service, attending parades, attending céilithe, wearing shamrocks, wearing green.

Parades in Common in USA:

Many parades are held to celebrate the holiday all through USA and other parts of the world. The longest-running of these are:

Boston, Massachusetts, since 1737

New York City, since 1762

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since 1771

Morristown, New Jersey, since 1780

New Orleans, Louisiana, since 1809

Buffalo, New York, since 1811

Savannah, Georgia, since 1813

Carbondale, Pennsylvania, since 1833

New Haven, Connecticut, since 1842

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, since 1843

Chicago, Illinois, since 1843

Saint Paul, Minnesota, since 1851

San Francisco, California, since 1852

Scranton, Pennsylvania, since 1862

Cleveland, Ohio, since 1867

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, since 1869

Kansas City, Missouri, since 1873

Butte, Montana, since 1882

Rolla, Missouri, since 1909

Rarest Flower in the World Blooms

 

 

It's one of the (if not the) rarest flower in the world: the Middlemist's Red exists in only two known locations: a greenhouse in the UK, and a garden in New Zealand. Imported to Britain two hundred years ago from China, back when flowers where a luxury item, it has since been exterminated in its original homeland. And now the Middlemist is blooming again--nice looking flower, right?

It's one of the (if not the) rarest flower in the world: the Middlemist's Red exists in only two known locations: a greenhouse in the UK, and a garden in New Zealand. Imported to Britain two hundred years ago from China, back when flowers where a luxury item, it has since been exterminated in its original homeland. And now the Middlemist is blooming again--nice looking flower, right?

 

The flower is in bloom for the next couple of weeks, and will be the star attraction at the reopening of the Chiswick House, the BBC reports.

The flower gets its name from the gardener John Middlemist, who first brought it back from China in 1804. 

 

And though there are only two known instances of this flower in the world, it's widely believed to be a possibility that there are still some being kept in gardens around the UK, unbeknownst to the gardener--it was once sold directly to the public.

All-black Penguin Exist In Nature

King Penguins are notorious for their prim, tuxedoed appearance -- but a recently discovered all-black penguin on the island of South Georgia near Antarctica seems unafraid to defy convention. In what has been described as a "one in a zillion kind of mutation," biologists say that the animal has lost control of its pigmentation, an occurrence that is extremely rare. Other than the penguin's monochromatic outfit, the animal appears to be perfectly healthy -- and then some. "Look at the size of those legs," said one scientist, "It's an absolute monster."

The under-dressed penguin was photographed by Andrew Evans of National Geographic. As the picture circulated, some biologists were taken aback -- including Dr. Allan Baker of the University of Toronto. His first response was disbelief:

Wow. That looks so bizarre I can't even believe it. Wow.

While multicolored birds will often show some variation, Dr. Baker explains that what makes this all-black King Penguin so rare is that the bird's melanin deposits have occurred where they are typically not present -- enough so that no light feathers even checker the bird's normally white chest.

Melanism is merely the dark pigmentation of skin, fur -- or in this case, feathers. The unique trait derives from increased melanin in the body. Genes may play a role, but so might other factors. While melanism is common in many different animal species (e.g., Washington D.C. is famous for its melanistic squirrels), the trait is extremely rare in penguins. All-black penguins are so rare there is practically no research on the subject -- biologists guess that perhaps one in every quarter million of penguins shows evidence of at least partial melanism, whereas the penguin we saw appears to be almost entirely (if not entirely) melanistic.

Whether or not the all-black look catches on in the penguin fashion world, it's nice to see someone dressing-down for once.

More Active Tornado Due West Coast El Nino Might Whip up

Weather forecasters say the wetter-than-usual El Niño winter that has blasted much of the United States could be followed by an active tornado season.

Greg Forbes, Severe Weather Expert at The Weather Channel, said Tuesday that comparable past winters suggest there could be an above-average number of tornadoes this year. "The average was 9% more tornadoes than a typical year," he said.

El Niño is a seasonal weather pattern in which warm equatorial winds that periodically push toward the West Coast send moist air to the nation's interior.

Tornadoes can happen at any time, but they are most common in the first half of the year in the USA.

Each year, mother nature creates tornadoes that rip across the U.S.  These storms damage homes, destroy crops, and injure and kill people. Scientists continue trying to make sense of the phenomenon we call a tornado.

The 2010 tornado season has had a slow start, with 44 tornadoes reported through Monday, according to the National Weather Service. The average number for this time is 162, according to the weather service.

Only one tornado, in California, was reported in February. On Monday, a strong twister ripped through western Oklahoma. No injuries were reported.

Greg Carbin of the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., told the Associated Press that thunderstorm activity will rev up as southern Plains states warm up.

Forbes said the likelihood of more tornadoes was offset a bit by weather patterns that have made the Gulf of Mexico's temperatures 2 or more degrees lower than usual, causing airflows to be a little cooler and less moist. He said a lack of moisture reduces the likelihood of tornadoes.

The nation experienced a fewer-than-average number of tornadoes in 2009, Forbes said.

Although data are not yet final, The Weather Channel counted 1,145 tornadoes last year, compared with 1,272 in an average year. The federal Storm Prediction Center counted 1,156 tornadoes last year, which killed 21 people.


Courtesy: William M. Welch, USA TODAY

Pope shows solidarity with Chilean earthquake victims

Pope Benedict XVI showed his solidarity with Chile, after the 8.8 earthquake that struck the Latin American country which killed hundreds of people and wounded thousands others. Benedict XVI called...   

 

Nation's Father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's killers executed at Mid night

Bangladesh's Founder, Father Of The Nation 'BANGABONDHU' Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's five killers captured in total, were executed by hanging in the early hours of Thu, Jan 28th, 2010 at the Dhaka Central Jail, located in the old part of Dhaka city.

The five executed killers were: They are Lt Col (dismissed) Syed Faruk Rahman, Lt Col (retd) AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed, ex-lieutenant colonel Syed Faruq Rahman, Ex-lieutenant colonels Shahriar Rashid Khan and AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed (lancer) was executed between 00.30 - 01.30 Thursday. Civil surgeon Dr Mofizur Rahman was present at the gallows to confirm the deaths.

The bodies were handed over to the families and being taken to their ancestral homes at different areas, offering ambulance services and escorts.

Their execution turns the page on a black chapter of brutality, lingering for 34 years for the nation to wait & mourn. President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed with 16 members of his family, when a group of junior army officers stormed his private residence on Dhanmondi Road 32 in a pre-dawn swoop on Aug. 15, 1975

Six other former officers convicted in their absence are still on run and another died in exile.

The long shadow of the August 1975 coup

 

The pregnant wife of one relation who attempted to intercede to save her husband's life was herself killed for her efforts. Mujib's two daughters were abroad and they survived with Sheikh Hasina years later becoming Prime Minister. Yet, only a year ago, she too was nearly assassinated in broad daylight by a hit squad that still "eludes" capture, demonstrating yet again Faulkner's insightthe past is not even past. It is very much present.

The political configuration that exists today is a direct descendant of August 15, 1975. The past Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia, was the wife of the late General Ziaur Rahman, the Deputy Chief of Army Staff in 1975, who played a crucial behind scenes role in the plotting that preceded the coup and in the events which followed.

At the American Embassy that night political and intelligence officers tried to monitor the unfolding events. But, there was one figure at the Embassy in the days that followed the coup who was particularly unsettled. A small knot had settled in his stomach. The events were an echo of what he had feared might happen months earlier and which he had made strenuous efforts to prevent.

I would meet this man in Washington three years later. He became a critical source for me and clearly hoped the information that he provided would one day lead to uncomfortable truths being revealed and those responsible being held accountable. For the first time in nearly thirty years I can identify this individual. I have been freed from a restraint of confidentiality that I have adhered to for almost three decades. But, be patient, with me a bit longer while I explain how and why I came to meet this individual.

I was one among many foreign correspondents covering the coup. Yet, I was the only journalist reporting these events for a major publication who had actually lived in Bangladesh as a journalist. I was the Dhaka correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review (Hong Kong) in 1974. The following year I moved to New Delhi and took up a new position as South Asia Correspondent for the Review. The violent death of Mujib would draw me into an inquiry that I could never have anticipated would, again and again, hold me in its sway at different stages of my life.

My unusual source who worked at the American Embassy that night would encourage me forward by his own honesty and quality of integrity. He was one of those unusual individuals one occasionally finds inhabiting an official bureaucracy. He was deeply distressed about the coup and the subsequent killings. He was a man with a conscience. Unlike the rest of us he knew something others did not and that knowledge tore at his conscience. It was this sense of ethical responsibility that brought us face-to-face in one of the more memorable encounters I had as young reporter. After the coup against Mujib the official story put about by the successor regime and its minions in the Bangladesh press disturbed me. It didn't hold together. Moreover, the cracks began to reveal rather curious links and antecedents.

The version of events which emerged at the time was that six junior officers, with three hundred men under their command, had acted exclusively on their own in overthrowing Mujib. The motives for the coup were attributed to a combination of personal grudges held by certain of the officers against Mujib and his associates, together with a general mood of frustration at the widespread corruption that had come to characterize certain elements of Mujib's regime. In short, according to this view of events the coup was an ad hoc affair not a thought out plan a year or more in the making. The morning Mujib and his family were killed, the figure installed by the young majors as President was Khandakar Mustaque Ahmed, generally considered to be the representative of a rightist faction within Mujib's own party, the Awami League. After the putsch, Mustaque remained impeccably reticent about any part he personally might have played in Mujib's downfall. He neither confirmed nor denied his prior involvement. He simply avoided any public discussion of the question and desperately attempted to stabilize his regime.

A year following the coup, after he had himself been toppled from power and before his own arrest on corruption charges, Mustaque denied to me in an interview at his home in the "Old City" of Dhaka that he had any prior knowledge of the coup plan or piror meetings with the army majors, who carried out the action. However, the majors who staged the military part of the coup and were forced into exile within four months by upheavals within the Bangladesh Army began to tell a different tale.

In interviews with journalists in Bangkok and elsewhere, bitter at their abandonment by their erstwhile sponsors and allies, the majors began to talk out of school. They confirmed prior meetings with Mustaque and his associates. A story began to emerge that Mustaque and his political friends had been involved for more than a year in a web of secret planning that would lead to the overthrow and death of Mujib.

A few months after the coup, a mid-level official at the U.S. Embassy told me that he was aware of serious tensions within the U.S. Embassy over what had happened in August. He said that there were stories circulating inside the Embassy that the CIA's Station Chief, Philip Cherry, had somehow been involved in the coup and that there was specific tension between Cherry and Eugene Boster, the American Ambassador. He had no specific details about the nature of this "tension" only that there were problems. "I understand," he said, "something happened that should not have happened." He urged me to dig further.

American involvement in the coup didn't make sense to me. In the United States, two Congressional Committees were gearing up to investigate illegal covert actions of the Central Intelligence Agency. The so-called Church and Pike Committee hearings in Washington on CIA assassinations of foreign leaders had begun. The committee hearings were having their own impact within the American diplomatic and intelligence bureaucracies creating great nervousness and anxiety. The American press was openly speculating that senior American intelligence officials might face imprisonment for illegal clandestine action in Chile and elsewhere.

It was the summer when citizens of the United States first heard acronyms like MONGOOSE, COINTELPRO, AM/LASH and elaborate details of assassination plots against Lumumba in the Congo, Castro in Cuba and Allende in Chile. The covert hand of American power had touched far and wide. Now the tip of the iceberg was publicly emerging so that for the first time Americans could take a clear look. Yet, all that was happening far away in Washington, in a muggy heat as sultry as any South Asian monsoon.

In India, Indira Gandhi, speaking of the tragedy of Mujib's death, spoke of the sure hand of foreign involvement. As usual, Mrs. Gandhi was graphically lacking in details or specifics. However, her avid supporters during those first nuptial days of India's Emergency, the pro-Moscow Communist Party of India (C.P.I.) were more explicit: the CIA said the CPI was behind the coup. I dismissed this as propaganda based on no specific evidence.

Yet, how had the coup happened? There were still huge gaps in my knowledge of how specific actors had traveled through the various mazes they had constructed to disguise their movements yet which ultimately led to August 15th. I was living in England nearly three years after the coup when I decided to make a trip to Washington to visit a colleague of mine, Kai Bird, who was then an editor with The Nation magazine, published from New York. Today he is a prominent American author.

Courtesy: Lawrence Lifschultz 

Lawrence Lifschultz was South Asia Correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review (Hong Kong). He has written extensively on European and Asian affairs for The Guardian (London), Le Monde Diplomatique, The Nation (New York), and the BBC among numerous other journals and publications. Lifschultz is editor and author of several books including Why Bosnia? (with Rabia Ali) and Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History & The Smithsonian Controversy (with Kai Bird). He is currently at work on a book concerning Kashmir.

Haiti quake: Where disaster follow

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: This is the 15th disaster since 2001 in which the U.S. Agency for International Development has sent money and help to Haiti. Haiti seems to have a bull's-eye on it, when it comes to natural disasters. Some 3,000 people have been killed and millions of people displaced in the disasters that preceded this week's earthquake. Since the turn of this century the U.S. has sent more than $16 million in disaster aid to Haiti.
While the causes of individual disasters are natural, more than anything what makes Haiti a constant site of catastrophe is its heart-tugging social ills, disaster experts say. It starts with poverty, includes deforestation, unstable governments, poor building standards, low literacy rates and then comes back to poverty. This week's devastating quake comes as Haiti is still trying to recover from 2008, when it was hit four times by tropical storms and hurricanes, said Kathleen Tierney, director of the University of Colorado's Natural Hazard Center. The body of Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, 63, was found in the ruins of his office, said the Rev. Pierre Le Beller of the Saint Jacques Missionary Center in Landivisiau, France.




Looting began immediately after the quake, with people seen carrying food from collapsed buildings, but aid workers said disturbances were rare.
100 U.N. staff were trapped in the main U.N. peacekeepers' building, which was destroyed.The U.S. dispatched troops and ships along with aid to Haiti, and other nations were joining the effort to help the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation, where the international Red Cross estimated 3 million people — a third of the population — may need emergency relief.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Louds - Barack Obama Is Doing All He Can To Keep America Safe

WASHINGTON Jan. 10, 2010– The Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says he thinks President Obama "is doing everything that he can to keep America safe from terrorist threats" while talking on NBC's "Meet the Press." Other GOP leaders have been criticizing the White House's terrorism-fighting policies.

Schwarzenegger is defending President Barack Obama's response to terrorist threats. Schwarzenegger agrees with Obama that the Christmas incident when a would-be bomber tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner showed a communications failure within government intelligence agencies. The governor also notes that Democrats "a lot of times get the rap" for not being strong on security.

here are some crazy party video i liked