Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry sent a note to Iran regarding the arrest in Tehran of the Azerbaijani writer, Khalida Khalid.
As the press service of the Foreign Ministry, the note was transferred to the Iranian side by the consulate of Azerbaijan in Tabriz.
Khalida was arrested on April 30 by intelligence agencies in the house of the writer
Mohammed Rashid (ethnic Azerbaijani.) Several otrher people were rrested together with them.
It is notcreported of what Khalid is accused. -03D-
A man has told how he is addicted to eating bugs and has consumed over 5,000 species in the past 11 years.
To satisfy his cravings David Gracer, 47, from Providence, Rhode Island, keeps a constant stock of his favorite treats, which include fly pupa, cockroaches and scorpions, in his basement freezer.
In a preview for tonight’s episode of TLC’s My Crazy Obsession, the married father-of-one demonstrates how he uses a net to hunt for creepy crawlies in the undergrowth and ‘painlessly’ kills them via a freezing method.
Mr Gracer, who works as an English teacher, admits that his diet is unconventional.
But defending his bizarre eating habit, he explains that it is just like people eating marine crustaceans – which are also considerably more expensive.
‘Bugs, as long as they’re in the ocean – crabs, shrimp and lobster – are just fine to eat and people can spend quite a bit of money for them. But whereas bugs on the land, suddenly it’s all ewww.’
However his wife, Kim Jason, seems unenthused by his fondness for foraging, which has gradually turned into a full-blown obsession.
‘David’s interest in eating insects just kept getting bigger, bigger and bigger,’ she describes.
The couple’s basement freezer contains over 12,000 insects, including 20 different species.
It is estimated that more than half the world’s population eat a variety of flying, crawling, and biting bugs.
(CNN) — A Kentucky mother stepped outside of her home just for a few minutes, but it was long enough for her 5-year-old son to accidentally shoot and kill his 2-year-old sister with the .22-caliber rifle he got for his birthday, state officials said.
The shooting in southern Kentucky has been ruled an accident, Kentucky State Police Trooper Billy Gregory said.
“It’s just one of those nightmares,” he said, “a quick thing that happens when you turn your back.”
Young children in the area are often introduced to guns at an early age, Gregory said.
“In this part of the country, it’s not uncommon for a 5-year-old to have a gun or for a parent to pass one down to their kid,” he said.
On Wednesday, state police were still investigating toddler Caroline Sparks’ death, CNN affiliate WLEX reported.
Her family kept the Crickett rifle in what they considered to be a safe spot, Cumberland County Coroner Gary White told the CNN affiliate.
The boy was playing with it Tuesday when it accidentally went off and killed his sister, White said.
“The little Crickett rifle is a single-shot rifle, and it has a child safety,” White told CNN. “It’s just a tragic situation.”
Kids and guns: ‘These are not isolated tragedies’
The Crickett website features three .22-caliber rifle models for kids, with shoulder stock colors ranging from pink to red, white and blue swirls. “My first rifle” is the company’s slogan.
Family members Wednesday described the shooting as an accident.
“He just picked (the gun) up before he realized it,” grandmother Linda Riddle told WLEX.
Riddle said her granddaughter enjoyed singing and playing outdoors, and she loved her brother.
“It’s just tragic,” uncle David Mann told the CNN affiliate. “It’s something that you can’t prepare for.”
Riddle said she is devastated, but comforted knowing that her granddaughter is in a better place.
“It was God’s will. It was her time to go, I guess,” she told WLEX. “I just know she’s in heaven right now and I know she’s in good hands with the Lord.”
Caroline Sparks’ death comes after two other incidents in recent months involving young children shooting others. In early April, a 4-year-old boy in Tennessee shot and killed a 48-year-old woman, and just days later, 6-year-old Brandon Holt was killed in New Jersey after being shot in the head by his 4-year-old playmate.
Before the play date, the gun talk
How young is too young for kids to have guns? Weigh in with your opinion in the comments below.
CNN’s Catherine E. Shoichet, Laura Batchelor, Julia Talanova, Alanne Orjoux and Julie In contributed to this report.
(CNN) — The winter of 1609 to 1610 was treacherous for early American settlers. Some 240 of the 300 colonists at Jamestown, in Virginia, died during this period, called the “Starving Time,” when they were under siege and had no way to get food.
Desperate times led to desperate measures. New evidence suggests that includes eating the flesh of fellow colonists who had already died.
Archaeologists revealed Wednesday their analysis of 17th century skeletal remains suggesting that settlers practiced cannibalism to survive.
Researchers unearthed an incomplete human skull and tibia (shin bone) in 2012 that contain several features suggesting that this particular person had been cannibalized. The remains come from a 14-year-old girl of English origin, whom historians are calling “Jane.”
Scholar: Settlers ate each other
There are about half a dozen accounts that mention cannibalistic behaviors at that time, although the record is limited, said Douglas Owsley, division head of physical anthropology at the Smithsonian National Museum of National History.
The newly analyzed remains support these accounts, providing the first forensic evidence of cannibalism in the American colonies.
What we know from the bones
Jane’s remains were found in a 17th-century trash deposit at the former site of James Fort. William Kelso, chief archaeologist at the Jamestown Rediscovery Project said at a briefing Wednesday that the fort was built in 1607, but has been washed away. Kelso and colleagues began digging in 1994 and have been excavating the site on Jamestown Island ever since.
Owsley and colleagues can tell quite a bit about what happened to Jane when at least one starving settler in the fort apparently tried to feed off of her.
If it’s any consolation, it appears that she was already dead at the time.
Researchers say it looks like someone had tried, but failed to open the skull with four shallow chops to the forehead.
The back of the skull contains markings that could have been made by a small hatchet or cleaver striking it. The cranium cracked open from the last hit. Forensic experts say it appears the person striking the skull was right-handed.
The skull’s mandible contains cuts all over it and inside, which experts say reflect an attempt to take tissue off of the face and throat with a tool such as a knife. The cheek area reflects a “sawing action” of a tool going back and forth, Owsley said. There are also sharp passages of a knife.
At some point in the process, the head was removed, Owsley said.
The damage done to these remains indicates that whoever inflicted it was not a skilled butcher, he said.
“Instead, what we see is hesitancy, trial, tentativeness and an absolute total lack of experience.”
The shin bone that archaeologists recovered also appeared to have been chopped, but in a way that more resembles classic butchering techniques, Owsley said.
“The person doing this was clearly interested in, based on what would have been accepted cuisine in the 17th century, in cheek meat, muscles of the face — that area — and tongue, and also in terms of 17th century traditional cuts, would also include the brain,” he said.
It is possible that more than one person was involved in this, given the disparity in butchering practices seen in the head compared to the shin bone.
What we know about the colonists
In the summer of 1609, the settlers experienced two significant setbacks, said James Horn, vice president of research and historical interpretation at Colonial Williamsburg.
The first was that a large fleet bringing supplies and settlers to Virginia was scattered. It had been carrying 500 settlers from Plymouth along with provisions.
“The fleet represented a new beginning for Jamestown, which had struggled over the previous two years,” Horn said.
A hurricane scattered the ships a week before they were supposed to arrive. The flagship with the leaders of this pack ended up in Bermuda. Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest” takes its inspiration from this event.
Six ships reached Jamestown in August 1609, with spoiled or depleted food, and many settlers in poor health. “On one of those ships was Jane,” Horn said.
At the same time, the relationship between the Jamestown colonists and the native Powhatan Indians had broken down. The existing settlers were already experiencing disease and a shortage of food, and the demands they made on the Powhatans strained their relations.
That was the environment into which 300 additional settlers arrived at the James Fort.
One of the leaders of the group, Captain John Smith — the same one who was famously friends with Pocahontas — returned to England in October 1609 because he was injured, Owsley said, leaving a leadership vacuum.
In the fall, the Powhatans waged war against these colonists, and launched a siege against the fort.
With no way to get food from the outside, the colonists resorted to eating horses, dogs, cats, rats, mice and snakes, Horn said, according to the accounts of George Percy, who was the president of Jamestown during this time. There are even accounts of people eating their shoes and any other leather that could be found. Anyone who left to try to scrounge for roots in the woods was killed by the Powhatans.
Percy wrote, according to the Smithsonian, “thatt notheinge was Spared to mainteyne Lyfe and to doe those things which seame incredible, as to digge upp deade corpes outt of graves and to eate them. And some have Licked upp the Bloode which hathe fallen from their weake fellowes.” In other words, cannibalism.
It’s not clear how many deceased colonists were cannibalized. Only 60 of 300 of the original colonists survived, described as “looking like skeletons,” Horn said.
In May of 1610, the settlers finally arrived who had been shipwrecked in Bermuda, effectively saving the colony. Lord Delaware brought even more colonists and enough provisions to last a year.
There are still more pits at the fort to be excavated, and only 10% of Jane’s body has been recovered, Owsley said.
“I think there’s going to be other examples,” Owsley said. “Whether that will be found — with archeology you never know what’s going to be under the next shovel.”
A special exhibition will begin at the Smithsonian about Jamestown and Jane’s story on Friday.
Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon had a double feast at Disneyland Tuesday night, April 30. The couple celebrated their twins’ 2nd birthday, which happened to be on their fifth wedding anniversary, and marked it by renewing their wedding vows.
In a number of pictures posted on Twitter, Mariah is seen wearing a strapless white gown with tiered skirt with long train. She arrived in a white carriage with her toddler daughter, Monroe, who looked adorable in a white ruffled dress to match her mom’s bridal look.
The mother/daughter duo was welcomed by Cannon and their son, Moroccan, in front of the famous Sleeping Beauty castle. The father/son duo looked cute in matching outfits. The foursome walked down the aisle hand-in-hand as the guests cheered on them.
Prior to the wedding-vow renewal, she posted an intimate picture of them with caption, “Happy 5th(!!!!!!) Anniversary to the Best Husband in All The Land & 2 years ago pon de delivery room=luckiest Mommy in The WORLD! #HappyBirthdayDemBabies! #iluvroc&roe!!!! Just felt like tweeting you before sunset on #4:30.”
Granite City, IL — The Armenian National Committee of America expanded its presence in the Midwest this week, with the formation of the ANCA Missouri, which was announced at the St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church Armenian Genocide commemorative observance held on Sunday, April 28, the ANCA Eastern Region reported.
The new committee is the second in the metropolitan St. Louis area, joining the ANCA of Southern Illinois that has been active for many years.
“We’re thrilled to introduce a new local ANCA in the Midwest. Being from Granite City, I’ve always known there is a strong Hai Tahd presence there and this announcement is a major step in expanding our efforts in that area. The new committee has already been proactive on a range of concerns and we look forward to reporting on their accomplishments soon,” said Michelle Hagopian, ANCA Eastern Region Executive Director.
The ANCA Missouri will be led by brothers John and Jake Varadian, as well as John Donjoian, all three of whom have a long track record of serving the local community, as members of the St. Gregory Church Board of Trustees and alumni of the Armenian Youth Federation.
The announcement came on April 28th, following an Armenian Genocide commemoration program at the St. Gregory Armenian Community Center. Hagopian addressed Azeri and Turkish aggression and recommitting to the Armenian Cause during her remarks to a crowd of more than 85 people. Boris Abajyan, a Webster University international relations student and long-time St. Louis Armenian community member, also spoke in the program. The event was wrapped up by ANCA of Southern Illinois activist Steve Hagopian with additional remarks by Rev. Fr. Stephan Baljian.
Following the program, Hagopian was interviewed on NBC affiliate KSDK, which covered the local Armenian Genocide commemoration, video of which is available here: http://www.ksdk.com/
Pope Francis on Wednesday condemned as “slave labour” the work conditions of victims of a factory collapse in Bangladesh in which more than 400 people have been found dead, Vatican radio reported.
“A headline that really struck me on the day of the tragedy in Bangladesh was ‘Living on 38 euros a month’. That is what the people who died were being paid. This is called slave labour,” the pope was quoted as saying at a private mass.
“Today in the world this slavery is being committed against something beautiful that God has given us — the capacity to create, to work, to have dignity. How many brothers and sisters find themselves in this situation!” he said.
“Not paying fairly, not giving a job because you are only looking at balance sheets, only looking at how to make a profit. That goes against God!” he was quoted as saying.
A series of official White House photographs brought together by Vanity Fair show the ‘lean-back’ nature of Barack Obama’s presidency.
The pictures reveal that Mr Obama often exhibits relaxed body language in stressful situations, with legs crossed and a knee raised.
Most noticeable of all, the president often has his feet up on his desk. But this is not just any desk – the Resolute desk was given to President Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria in 1880.
In the pictures President Obama can be seen discussing affairs of the state with his advisers and counselors.
Yet whether they are debating tragic events or vital economic policy, the president is often more reclined than those around him.
When talking about the Newtown shootings, foreign policy in Egypt or Libya, or in deficit-reduction talks Obama can be seen with his legs crossed or his head in his hands.
But most frequently the president has his feet on the famous Resolute desk in the Oval Office.
This incredible classic car was used by Sir Winston Churchill during World War Two.
So it is no surprise that it has just fetched almost half-a-million pounds following an online auction.
However, what perhaps is a surprise is that the former favourite of Britain’s celebrated war-time leader was sold from Germany.
The beautifully restored, silver and black 1939 Daimler DB18 Drophead Coupi sparked a bidding frenzy on eBay.
Bidding began at just one euro but soared up to 470,050 euros (£397,000) after 114 offers in all during the ten-day auction.
The final price was around 16 times what most DB18 Dropheads cost.
While today’s MPs rely on private jets and coaches for electioneering, Churchill used his Daimler to hit the campaign trail from 1944 to 1949.
Daimler had intended to build 23 of the cars but only eight were completed before war ended production at its Coventry plant.
The historic motor boasts a 2.5-litre engine, does 0-60mph in 17.9 seconds and has a top speed of 76mph.
The car was sold on eBay by German dealer Fahrwerk Classics after a £170,000 restoration.
The Daimler DB18 Drophead Coupi was one of the most advanced cars of its day.
It was sold by the German dealer after its owner, who intended selling it at an Historics auction at Brooklands Museum in Surrey, died unexpectedly.
Reinforced police prevented the youth activists to commemorate the victims of the massacre in the Oil Academy on the occasion of the 4th anniversary of the tragedy.
Police cordoned off the building of the Oil Academy, where the bloody drama was played out, and no one was allowed there. The police forced out young people with flowers in their hands, and detained Abulfaz Gurbanly, the head of the Youth Committee of Popular Front.
Later, a member of the NIDA Movement, Turgut Gambar, was detained near the Library named after Akhundov. It happened when the police began to disperse approximately 50 young people who gathered to make a rally.
Another group of young people managed to lay flowers on the boulevard, where the concert will take place today. In this way, young people protested against the concert on the day of the victims of terror.
Neither the government nor the leadership of the Oil Academy conduct activities commemorating the victims of the tragedy.
* On April 30, 2009 a native of Georgia, Farda Gadirov, entered the building of the Oil Academy, opened fire with a pistol, killing 12 and wounding 13 people. Four fellows of Gadirova were convicted on the case – three to life imprisonment, and one – to 11 years in prison. –16C06-
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has released its annual report on abuses to religious freedom worldwide on Tuesday, April 30.
The 364-page report takes a new two-tier approach at the worst religious freedom offenders, detailing the plight of persecuted religious peoples around the globe.
Azerbaijan has been placed on Tier 2 for the first time in 2013, TURAN’s Washington DC correspondent reports.
The report criticized Baku on a number of issues, including accepting repressive religion law adopted in 2009 that curtails a range of religious activities.
Despite official claims of tolerance, religious freedom conditions in Azerbaijan “have deteriorated over the past few years,” reads the reports. “Religious organizations were closed and people’s non-violent religious activity has been punished with detentions, fines and other penalties.”
Muslims are subject to additional restrictions: all Muslim religious leaders are appointed by the state – backed Caucasus Muslim Board and must be Azeri citizens educated in Azerbaijan; all mosques must belong to the Caucasus Muslim Board; and only Azeri citizens can establish Islamic religious communities.
Under a 2008 government order, prayer is not allowed outside of mosques, and police have enforced this ban. The Ministry of Education introduced a school uniform in 2010, resulting in a campaign against the Islamic headscarf ban; there were 72 arrests in October 2012. After the reporting period, the headscarf ban was extended to Azeri university students.
The Tier 2 category replaces the Watch List designation the USCIRF previously used. Besides Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos and Russia are also in this category.
Last week the USCIRF chair Katrina Lantos Swett sent a letter to the Secretary of State Kerry to urge the administration to raise questions about violations of religious freedom and related human rights in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Russia, Azerbaijan, and Bangladesh in front of the UN.
Among the recommendations for US Policy in order to promote freedom of religion or belief in Azerbaijan, are pressuring Baku to allow religious groups to operate freely without registration;
— Encourage public scrutiny of Azerbaijan’s record on religious freedom and related human rights in appropriate international fora, such as the UN, OSCE and other multilateral venues, and highlight cases of prosecution of Azeri citizens that violate these international norms in comments at such fora;
— Urge the Azeri government to agree to visits by UN Special Rapporteurs on Freedom of Religion or Belief, the Independence of the Judiciary, and Torture, set specific visit dates, and provide the full and necessary conditions for such a visit;
— Ensure that the US Embassy in Baku maintains active contacts with Azeri human rights activists and press the Azeri government to ensure that every prisoner has greater access to his or her family, human rights monitors, adequate medical care, and a lawyer, as specified in international human rights instruments;
— Specify freedom of religion as a grants category and area of activity in the Democracy and Conflict Mitigation program of the USAID and other programs;
— and Increase radio, Internet, and other broadcasting, particularly in the Azeri language, of objective news and information on relevant issues, including specific religious freedom concerns in the country and explaining why religious freedom is an important element of US foreign policy.
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
The bizarre circumstances and dubious names in the Boston Marathon bombings have raised many questions that have yet to be answered by government officials and journalists.
The most mysterious character is ‘Misha’ whom Ruslan Tsarni, uncle of the Boston bombers, described as an Armenian convert to Islam who had supposedly brainwashed and radicalized Tamerlan, the elder of the suspected Tsarnaev brothers. Ruslan described ‘Misha’ as a heavy-set bald exorcist with a long reddish beard!
Initially, no one could find ‘Misha.’ While his alleged affiliation with Tamerlan and Armenian origin was prominently and repeatedly mentioned in the media, it took the authorities 10 days to announce that they knew who ‘Misha’ was and that he had no connection to the terrorist acts!
Last Sunday, Christian Caryl of the New York Review of Books, was finally able to locate and interview the elusive ‘Misha’ in his Rhode Island home. Even though Caryl disclosed that ‘Misha,’ a native of Baku, Azerbaijan, is the son of an Armenian father and a Ukrainian mother, and that his last name is Allakhverdov, the media continues to refer to him as an ‘Armenian.’ Notably, neither Caryl nor anyone else mentions the fact that ‘Misha’ or ‘Mikayel’ — a common Christian name — cannot be the name of a Muslim! Moreover, after the break up of the Soviet Union, many Muslim Azerbaijanis applied for asylum in Europe and the United States, under the pretext that they were persecuted Christian Armenians! It is odd that ‘Misha,’ supposedly a Christian, would flee from Islamic persecution in Baku, only to convert to Islam in America!
Interestingly, Caryl reports that ‘Misha’ had nothing to do with the Boston bombings, which is exactly what government investigators had earlier announced. Could it be that US officials had put Caryl in contact with ‘Misha’ in order to confirm their declaration of his innocence, leading some analysts to speculate that ‘Misha’ may have been an FBI informant whose cover is now being meticulously protected!
The next suspicious character is Uncle Ruslan who has accused ‘Misha the Armenian’ of having a powerful influence over Tamerlan. Ruslan himself has had a checkered past, having worked for USAID and several Caspian Sea energy companies, while married to Samantha Ankara Fuller, daughter of Graham Fuller, a retired top CIA official. Because of Ruslan’s close relationship to the bombers’ family, his employment with Central Asian oil companies including Halliburton, and marriage to the daughter of a high-ranking CIA official, some analysts have suggested that the enigmatic uncle warrants a closer look.
Last week, prominent Armenian-American attorney Mark Geragos blasted Ruslan Tsarni on CNN, suggesting that “somebody needs to give this uncle a field sobriety test, because I think this guy is under the influence of something.” Geragos was furious that Ruslan had linked the Boston bombers to the ‘Armenian Misha,’ while Armenians worldwide were commemorating the 98th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide! Ruslan then tried to reach Geragos by telephone, seeking “to clarify” his earlier statement. Geragos refused to take his call.
Some analysts suggest that Tamerlan may have been recruited by the Russian secret services (FSB) to spy on Chechen extremists during his six-month stay in Chechnya and Dagestan last year. Having informed the FBI and CIA of Tamerlan’s links to radical Islamist groups, and not receiving a satisfactory response from US officials, it could be that the FSB took matters into its own hands and recruited the unemployed and penniless young Chechen during his lengthy stay in Russia.
Other analysts speculate that Tamerlan may have been an informant for the US government. Such a supposition is much more credible than assuming that the FBI and CIA were too incompetent or too busy to conduct a thorough investigation of Tamerlan’s background after the Russian FSB brought his name to their attention. It could be that US authorities knew Tamerlan only too well and may have even encouraged him to travel to Russia as their mole in Jihadist circles.
Finally, there are those who believe that Tamerlan ended up betraying both the Russian and American intelligence services, deciding instead to support radical Islamic groups, “out of anger over US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” according to his younger brother Dzhokhar’s jailhouse confession.
Of course, these speculations are advanced by various analysts based on preliminary information, pending a thorough Congressional investigation to uncover the true facts. Americans killed and maimed in the Boston bombings deserve an honest answer!
Seven crew members of a U.S.-run cargo plane were killed yesterday when the plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Bagram air base near the Afghan capital of Kabul.
The jet, filmed by what appears to be a vehicle’s dashcam, appeared to take off normally as it gained altitude in the beginning of the video.
But suddenly, the plane, described as a Boeing 747 cargo flight, appears to stall, twisting and dropping rapidly before crashing to the ground in a fireball.
In a statement, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the crash, but NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said there were no reports of insurgent activity in or around the base, which is one of the largest in the country and located about 25 miles north of Kabul.
National Airlines President Glen Joerger said in a statement: ‘Safety is always our top priority at National Airlines. This is a devastating loss for our family and we’ll work diligently with authorities to find the cause.
‘Most importantly, our thoughts and prayers are with our crewmembers and their families.’
The identities of the crew members were not immediately clear, but CNN reported that all seven were American.
Coalition forces said that the official cause of the crash is under investigation.
A side-splitting video of a woman who spent 30 minutes trying to parallel park her vehicle on a road in the Holyland area of Belfast, Northern Ireland, has gone viral on YouTube.
The clip, which was filmed on a mobile phone from a house window nearby and has now been viewed 1.1million times, was captured by a group of students who watched the drama unfold.
Hilarious commentary was provided by Ciaran Doherty and Ciaran Shannon along with some of their friends, and the video was uploaded until the title of ‘World’s Worst Attempt at Parallel Parking’.
Ciaran Doherty told BBC News: ‘One of the boys in the house was looking out the window having a wee bit of fresh air and saw it. The next thing we were all at the window and looking out.
‘We were looking at it for a good 15 minutes before we started videoing it. I offered to park the car for her. I can’t believe she couldn’t get it in. It could easily have fitted a big people carrier.’
Mr Shannon said his friends thought the parallel park was funny and he decided to share it with them on Facebook as a joke – before there were 30,000 views by the next day.
Mr Doherty added that the students would love to meet the woman and ‘see her view of the story’.
The godfather of Michael Jackson’s children has come forward to say that the King Of Pop drank six bottles of wine a day in the weeks leading up to his death.
His friend Mark Lester has claimed that the troubled star, who died of acute Propofol intoxication in 2009, used to get him to smuggle the alcohol into hotels past his strict security team in a desperate attempt to beat his insomnia.
Mark, who is godfather to the star’s three children, Prince, 16, Paris,15, and 10-year-old Blanket, told The Sun newspaper: ‘Michael passed out on the hotel bed. His doctor said he’d drunk two-thirds of a bottle of whisky and was paralytic.
Mark, 54, who was a close friend of Michael’s right up until this death, gave an interview to the News of the World in August 2009 claiming that he could be the biological father of Paris Katherine Jackson, the late singer’s daughter.
Lester claimed to have been a sperm donor for Jackson in 1996, and announced that he was willing to take a paternity test to determine whether he was the father.
In the same interview he claimed he had not been allowed contact with them since Jackson’s death: ‘It’s very, very upsetting not being able to see all those children; they’re my godchildren, and I love them dearly.’
Joao Havelange has resigned as honorary FIFA president over claims that he had accepted bribes, world football’s governing body announced on Tuesday.
Wines from the French presidential cellar will be auctioned off in Paris next month with 1,200 bottles on offer, auctioneers Drouot said on Tuesday.
The estimated value of the various wines up for auction ranges from a modest 15 euros to 2,200 euros ($2,800) for a Petrus 1990, Drouot said in a statement.
The Elysee Palace’s cellar is selling the wines in order to raise funds for a refurbishment, it said.
All those on offer, largely Burgundy and Bordeaux, but also including wines from the Loire and Alsace, have been served at the table of the French president at one time or another.
The bottles, due to be auctioned on May 30 and 31, will be replaced through the purchase of other less pricey wines, the auction house added.
Forget global warming – the Earth may soon be plunged into a 250-year cooling period, scientists have claimed.
Russian climate experts believe that every 200 years the Sun’s activity temporarily wanes and it emits less heat.
They believe this ‘cooling period’ could cause the earth’s average temperature to fall by several degrees.
The last time this occurred was between 1650 and 1850 – a period known as the ‘Little Ice Age’.
At the time, most of Britain’s rivers would freeze over during the bitter winters.
Contemporary paintings show people could even cross the Thames using ice skates.
The next ‘cooling period’ is scheduled to start between 2030 and 2040.
But scientists from Pulkovo Observatory in St Petersburg think the cold period is unlikely to be as harsh as the last one.
And Vladimir Kotlyakov, from the Russian Academy of Sciences, said: ‘There are no grounds to claim that global warming will continue till the end of this century.
‘Climate moves in natural cycles of warmer and colder, as well as drier and more humid times.
‘Early signs of cooling are already there and the trend may pick up in coming years.
‘Human activity and industrial discharges do have a great impact on the environment, but forces of nature are far more powerful.’
The world’s first web page will be dragged out of cyberspace and restored for today’s Internet browsers as part of a project to celebrate 20 years of the Web, organisers said on Tuesday.
Gun ownership laws are once again at the heart of political debate in the United States after the horrific shooting in December in Newtown, Connecticut which left 20 young children and six educators dead.