Topic: NEWS english - on April 15, 2007 at 5:38:00 PM CEST
Man who could become richest on the planet
A modestly dressed Mexican with a taste for expensive cigars, baseball memorabilia and bonsai trees has overtaken the American investor Warren Buffett as the world's second richest man and is quietly closing in on Bill Gates as the richest man on the planet.
Carlos Slim, a magnate whose empire supplies Mexicans with everything from cheap flights to cigarettes, has seen his fortune soar by more than $4 billion (£2.02 billion) in two months to $53.1 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
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Topic: NEWS english - on April 12, 2007 at 2:22:00 PM CEST
Thai king pardons spray-painting Swiss man
Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej has pardoned the Swiss man sentenced to 10 years' jail for defacing images of the revered monarch, the BBC reports.
Oliver Jufer was recently sentenced to a lengthy spell in chokey for spray-painting over images of Adulyadej in the city of Chiang Mai last December. He'd apparently been refused alcohol on the king's 79th birthday and took out his sobriety on portraits of Adulyadej.
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Topic: NEWS english - on April 12, 2007 at 11:50:00 AM CEST
Kurt Vonnegut - RIP
American author Kurt Vonnegut combines satiric social commentary and black comedy with surrealist and science fictional elements. His best known works are Player Piano (1952), Cat's Cradle (1963), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969; film, 1972), and Breakfast of Champions (1973). Known for his outspoken political opinions, Vonnegut has also produced a host of essays, articles, and short stories. A number of his works have been translated into television or film, and he has graced a few of these with cameo appearances. Vonnegut is also a graphic artist, and has illustrated a number of his works himself.
nndb.com bbc.co.uk guardian.co.uk yahoo.comnytimes.comKurt_Vonnegut [wikipedia]
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Topic: NEWS english - on April 11, 2007 at 12:08:00 PM CEST
The 'New' Father Speaks
The custody dispute over Anna Nicole Smith's baby enters its next round Friday when a judge plans to discuss who will raise the infant after DNA tests showed Larry Birkhead is her biological father.
Howard K. Stern, who has been caring for baby Dannielynn since Smith's sudden death in February, said Tuesday he wouldn't fight for custody, but a lawyer for Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, indicated she might.
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Topic: NEWS english - on March 29, 2007 at 12:01:00 PM CEST
Swiss man jailed for Thai insult
A Swiss man has been jailed for 10 years after pleading guilty to charges of insulting the Thai king.
Oliver Jufer, 57, was arrested last December after drunkenly spray-painting posters of King Bhumibol Adulyadej in the northern city of Chiang Mai.
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Topic: NEWS english - on March 28, 2007 at 12:22:00 PM CEST
Burma's new capital city unveiled
Burma's military rulers have been showing off their new capital for the first time to the outside world.
The new city, called Naypyidaw, or Abode of Kings, is being built about 460km (300 miles) north of the old capital, Rangoon.
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Topic: NEWS english - on March 25, 2007 at 11:01:00 AM CEST
Will Houdini escape from the grave?
A descendant of Harry Houdini wants his body exhumed to test a theory that the famed escape artist was murdered 81 years ago, a spokesman for the family's lawyer said.
Houdini, who was famed for freeing himself from chains, straitjackets and sealed containers, died in 1926 in Detroit, Michigan but was buried in Machpelah Cemetery in Queens, New York.
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Topic: NEWS english - on March 20, 2007 at 1:00:00 PM CET
Free land in Alaska
Anderson, a little town in Alaska's interior, has no gas station, no grocery store and no traffic lights, but it does have plenty of woodsy land -- and it's free to anyone willing to put down roots in the often-frozen ground.
In a modern twist on the homesteading movement that populated the Plains in the 1800s, the community of 300 people is offering 26 large lots on spruce-covered land in a part of Alaska that has spectacular views of the Northern lights and Mount McKinley, North America's highest peak.
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Topic: NEWS english - on March 16, 2007 at 12:44:00 PM CET
Wet wine dress grows as 'cave woman' fashion
An Australian scientist has grown a dress from cellulose woven by bacteria in a vat of fermenting wine, saying it is art but could be the future of fashion.
The "cave woman" design dress must be kept wet because the cellulose fibers are not long enough to be flexible and, as it dries, they become brittle and break.
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Topic: NEWS english - on March 15, 2007 at 1:02:00 PM CET
Model plane: Down in flames
A MODEL-maker saw the plane that cost him a wife, £15,000 and two years of his life crash in flames on a test flight.
Simon Steggall spent all his spare time building the 16ft replica of a nuclear bomber.
His wife got so fed-up with the project they DIVORCED.
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Topic: NEWS english - on March 15, 2007 at 12:58:00 PM CET
Austrian hunter makes a pig mistake
This little piggy should have gone to market instead of staying home. A housebroken pet pig with an unusual black hide was mistaken for a wild boar and shot by a hunter in woods near its owner's farm in northwestern Austria, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
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Topic: NEWS english - on March 9, 2007 at 1:22:00 PM CET
Prisoner freed after first hearing in 19 years
Jose Garcia, 39, was held in the psychiatric wing of the Tacumbu prison in the capital Asuncion, but at his first court hearing in nearly two decades he was cleared of wrongdoing and immediately released, a witness at the hearing told Reuters.
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