FORMER ENGLAND BOSS ERIKSSON MOVING TO MEXICO?

Report from channelnewsasia

MEXICO CITY: Manchester City coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, facing the sack from the English Premiership side, can count Mexico's national side as his next possible destination, Mexican media reported on Sunday.

Reports quoted Mexican football agent Juan Carlos Padilla as saying former England boss Eriksson was on the verge of accepting a two-year deal to lead Mexico to the 2010 World Cup.

"We already know what the Mexican FA are looking for and we would accept their terms if they call us again," Mexican newspaper La Jornada quoted Padilla as saying from Manchester.

"If the Mexican FA decide to take him on, he will be their coach and the Mexican national team will be his top choice.

Eriksson, who is on a post-season tour with City, expects to be dismissed by club owner and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, despite leading the club into Europe in his first season with a top half Premiership finish.

Should he indeed leave Eastlands, then one name in the frame to replace him could be Avram Grant, whom Chelsea unceremoniously dumped Saturday after finishing runners-up in both the Premiership and the Champions League.

IMAGES FROM THE RED PLANET

From reuters:

One of the first images from the Phoenix Mars Lander shows the surface of Mars after the Phoenix Mars Lander spacecraft landed successfully in the first-ever touchdown near Mars' north pole May 25, 2008.

job well done!

EUROPES BIGGEST PHONE COMPANY ROCKED BY SCANDAL

Report from channelnewsasisa

BERLIN: Former telecoms monopoly Deutsche Telekom over the weekend became the latest German firm to be rocked by revelations of spying on its employees.

Deutsche Telekom, Europe's biggest phone company, confirmed on Saturday allegations in Spiegel magazine that it hired an outside firm to track hundreds of thousands of phone calls by senior executives and journalists in 2005-6.

It denied that the Berlin consultancy firm listened to the conversations, instead merely logging details on who phoned whom as well as the time and duration of the calls.

Spiegel said that "Operation Clipper" and "Operation Rheingold" were set up in order to identify the source of leaks of sensitive financial information to financial journalists.

Chief executive Rene Obermann, who was not in charge when the spying took place, said that state prosecutors and a law firm in Cologne were investigating the affair.

Less than 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Stasi secret police in communist East Germany, Germans are particularly sensitive about infringements into their privacy.

Other firms have also been accused of spying on their own workers.

The biggest such scandal involved Lidl, one of German's biggest budget supermarket chains, which reportedly violated labour laws by installing hidden cameras in its stores to systematically keep tabs on staff.

Lidl even recorded employees when they used the toilet, their conversations while on break, and kept track on who their friends outside work were, reports said in March.

MOTHER WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD!

Report from dailymail

A mother of two has stunned doctors by apparently coming back from the dead.

Velma Thomas's heart stopped beating three times and she was clinically brain dead for 17 hours. Her son had left the hospital to make funeral arrangements, having been told she would not survive.

But ten minutes after her life support system was shut down and doctors were preparing to take her organs for donation, the 59-year-old woke up.

Heart specialist Kevin Eggleston said: 'There are things that as physicians and nurses we can't always explain. I think this is one of those cases.'

He said Mrs Thomas had no pulse, no heartbeat or brain activity after her admission to hospital. She had been found unconscious after suffering a heart attack at her home in West Virginia.

While at the Charleston Area Medical Centre she suffered two further heart attacks and was placed on a life support system.

About 25 family members and friends gathered inside the hospital waiting room. 'We just prayed and prayed and prayed,' said her son Tim, 36. 'And I came to the conclusion she wasn't going to make it.

'I was given confirmation from God to take her off the ventilator and my pastor said the same thing. I felt a sense of peace that I made the right decision. Her skin had already started hardening, her hands and toes were curling up. There was no life there.'

He said after he left the hospital he was called and told she had shown signs of life.

By the time he got to her hospital room, Mrs Thomas was alert and talking. 'She had already asked, "Where's my son?",' he said.

Dr Eggleston added: 'It's a miracle.'

IT’S HARD BEING A WOMAN IN TEHRAN!

Report from reuters:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Wearing a brightly colored headscarf and high-heeled boots, the woman refused to be bundled into the police van without a fight.

Protesting loudly and even trying to escape, her standoff with Iranian police cracking down on women violating the Islamic dress code lasted several minutes.

But the outcome of the drama shortly after dusk on a cold winter's day on Tehran's most famous boulevard was never in doubt.

The dark-haired woman, who appeared to be in her 30s, argued in a high-pitched voice with a burly, bearded male police officer towering over her in his green uniform.

When his female colleague put a hand on the woman's shoulder to lead her into the van, she angrily pushed it away and shouted. Then suddenly she turned and tried to run away.

She did not get far. The two female officers grabbed her and shoved her into the police vehicle. The door was slammed shut and the van disappeared into Tehran's evening rush hour.

"Hijab problem," one male onlooker said, referring to the clothes women must wear in Iran to cover their hair and disguise the shape of their bodies to conform with Iran's Islamic laws.

Under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, dress codes for woman are strictly enforced.

Thousands of women have been hauled in or warned by police in the 10 months since the authorities launched one of the strictest campaigns in recent years.

SPACE STATION CREW IN DANGER

Report from reuters:

File photo:

Smoke can be seen rising after the Soyuz capsule, carrying the International Space Station (ISS) crew , landed in northern Kazakhstan April 19, 2008.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) could have a rough return to Earth because their re-entry capsule has the same glitch that caused problems on the last two landings, a Russian space industry source said.

Concerns have been raised about the safety of the Soyuz because the last two re-entries have not gone to plan: they were so-called "ballistic" landings where the entry into the atmosphere was steeper than usual.

In the last landing in April, the crew of U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson, South Korean Yi So-yeon and Russia's Yuri Malenchenko landed about 420 km (260 miles) off course and they were subjected to twice the expected gravitational forces.

The space industry source, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters faulty bolts were suspected of causing the last two "ballistic landings" and they are also fitted on the re-entry capsule now docked at the ISS.

"There are explosive bolts which keep two modules attached to Soyuz capsules," the source said. "They are supposed to go off right before the entry into the Earth's atmosphere."

"For some reason this didn't work (on the previous two re-entries), although the unseparated modules fell off eventually. What is bad is that another Soyuz-TMA is believed to have this faulty device and is docked at the ISS for the return trip," he said.

WORLD RICHEST MAN SAYS USA IS IN RECESSION

Report from CNA:

While economists quibble, the world's richest man has decided: the United States is already in recession. So Warren Buffett tells German magazine Der Spiegel in an interview to be published on Monday.

"It is perhaps not a recession in the way that economists would understand it... but people are already feeling the effects and it will be deeper and longer than people think," Buffett said on a visit to Frankfurt.

US economic growth has slowed dramatically in recent months and a growing number of economists believe the world's largest economy will experience a recession during 2008 amid a housing slump and related credit crunch.

Buffett, who overtook Bill Gates this year as the world's richest man, said he believed the financial markets should be more tightly regulated.

According to the Forbes annual billionaire's list published in March, Buffett saw his wealth jump from 52 billion dollars last year to 62 billion, pushing Microsoft co-founder Gates into third position after 13 years at the top.

UNITY IN ADVERSITY: CHINA QUAKE

It’s really heart warming to see the unity among the people, government, army, ngo, volunteers, private sector and freelance helpers to join forces to rally to help the victims of the quake, that has left more then 60,000 thousand dead , 2 million homeless, and thousands still missing.

The number of volunteers involved in the relief effort in the Sichuan earthquake zone has climbed above 100,000; about 70,000 of them are formally registered, while the others are casual freelance helpers.

This almost rivals the number of PLA soldiers in the region, which peaked at 140,000 and is now declining.

Middle-class members of the Beijing SUV Club collected funds to pack their vehicles with supplies of medicines, clothes and food. They obtained leave from their offices and drove 1600km to the quake area. The journey took them 23 hours.

With the emergence of a new wealthy class, philanthropy has been developing apace in China during the past few years. It is helping to fill the yawning chasm in welfare that exists despite the Communist Party's rule.

The country now has about 400 private foundations, 70 of them with a national scope, the rest provincially based.

Non-government organisations don't have an easy time in China.

Like religions, they are barely tolerated by a ruling party that remains intensely jealous and suspicious of any organisation that does not owe it direct loyalty.

People have greater freedom than before to create their own lifestyles, to consume as they wish. But there is no right of free association. It is possible to gain government approval to register a group activity, but only if the Government agrees with what the group does.

So this independent flood of volunteers into Sichuan following the quake has taken everyone by surprise: the Government, the NGOs and the volunteers.

No one co-ordinated it. It has been a spontaneous response, mainly by people in their 20s, who are widely criticised for their lack of values and their commitment to making money and having fun.

Each day the roads from the Sichuan capital, Chengdu, up to the mountainous areas at the epicentre of the quake are lined with volunteers' vehicles with their bright solidarity banners: "Sichuan people, hold on; China, let's go." They are waved through the toll gates. Corporate China is getting behind them, which is good for image and for business, with many of the volunteers being among the better educated and higher earning members of the vast population.

As soon as one of the country's major banks detects ATM use in Chengdu, it sends a message to the mobile phone of the account holder offering free insurance, presuming the customer is volunteering.

Once China Mobile discerns that its phone user is making calls from Chengdu, it sends a text message saying no roaming charges will be payable while the user is in Sichuan.

In the gardens at the front of the modern city government offices at Mianyang, the administrative centre of the county where the quake damage has been most severe - and now the HQ for the local relief effort - tables are spread under tent roofs.

China Unicom is providing 20 free phone lines for victims, their relatives and volunteers, to call anywhere.

One woman called a friend in another city to say she was now all alone, everyone she knew had been killed, and her house had collapsed. The woman behind her in the queue for the phone invited her to stay at her home as long as she liked.

The Jiuzhou sports stadium on the edge of Mianyang is the biggest refugee camp in the region, with about 30,000 people. It is a heart-breaking scene. People of all ages are sleeping on concrete under the stands. Those who have lost everything have palpable material needs. It's more difficult to fill the void in their lives created by the loss of family members, friends, lovers and workmates.

MAN BEHEADED FOR RAPE

A SAUDI man convicted of rape and armed robbery was beheaded by the sword in Riyadh today, the interior ministry announced.

Mohammed bin Hamad bin Saud al-Dusri was convicted of several armed robberies in the capital and of rape, the ministry was quoted by state news agency Spa as saying.

Dusri's execution brought to 60 the number announced by Saudi Arabia this year.

Last year, a record 153 people were executed in the Gulf kingdom, which applies a strict version of sharia, or Islamic law. This figure compared with 37 beheaded in 2006, and the previous record number of 113 executions in 2000.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty in the ultra-conservative country, where executions are usually carried out in public.

SAUDI FACTS:

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the largest country on the Arabian Peninsula.

It has an estimated population of 27.5 million, and its size is approximately 2,150,000 square km (830,000 square miles)

The Kingdom is sometimes called "The Land of The Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest places in Islam.

The Kingdom was founded by Abdul-Aziz bin Saud, whose efforts began in 1902 when he captured the Al-Saud’s ancestral home of Riyadh, and culminated in 1932 with the proclamation, and recognition of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is the world's leading petroleum exporter and petroleum exports fuel the Saudi economy. Oil accounts for more than 90 percent of exports and nearly 75 percent of government revenues, facilitating the creation of a welfare state.

THE WOMAN WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE BOSS OF F1

Report for dailymail.

This is the wife that an MI5 agent kept secret from his Security Service bosses until she was involved in an S&M orgy with motor racing chief Max Mosley.

The spy was forced to resign after confessing he had concealed his marriage to the ‘professional dominatrix’ when it emerged she had sold details of a sadomasochistic sex session with the F1 boss to a newspaper.

MI5 officers are supposed to disclose full details of their personal lives to their bosses.

But the £30,000-a-year mobile surveillance officer – whose job involved tracking suspected terrorists – had told them nothing about his relationship.

The former Royal Marine married ‘Mistress Abi’ last August. The couple had already lived together for several years.

However, the Security Service’s vetting procedures – which regularly update the personnel files of all officers, looking for potential security breaches – failed to uncover details of the relationship.

Mistress Abi as the woman is known, actually runs a sex for sale website, that has since been removed from the internet.

Many of the images on the site are too obscene to describe in a family newspaper.
The site’s front page says: ‘Mistress Abi caters for males, females, tv’s (transvestites) and couples in her discreet, private dungeon facility in the Birmingham, Milton Keynes, Northampton and Oxford areas.

The photos at her site include images of the 38-year-old woman in a military uniform similar to those she and four other prostitutes wore during their five-hour session with Mr Mosley, the 68-year-old, F1 boss Mosley.

Mistress Abi’s services include: domination, bondage, humiliation, pain and torture at all levels and most fetish fantasies. Mistress Abi has clothing in rubber, pvc, leather, and thigh-high/knee boots.’

The next page adds: ‘I am a tall, beautiful, strict, demanding, bisexual Dominatrix, the kind you have always dreamt about. I expect total obedience and discretion from those who wish to serve me...’

The site lists ‘approved activities’ including caning or flogging (light to severe), face-slapping and even ‘blackmail’.

She reveals that most of her sessions take place in a converted garage in a private house on the outskirts of Milton Keynes and that she charges clients a ‘tribute’ of £120 an hour.

Security sources have dismissed any suggestion that the surveillance officer was involved in the secret filming of Mr Mosley in a ‘torture dungeon’ at a £2million flat in Chelsea.

They said the officer was unaware of it until after the story appeared in the papers.
But the fall-out caused acute embarrassment after MI5 chief Jonathan Evans had to tell the Prime Minister one of his agents was caught up in the affair.

He also gave a categorical assurance that MI5 was not involved in an operation to entrap Mr Mosley, who is not considered a security threat.