Spy watch doctor filmed himself molesting patients

A doctor pleaded guilty in the UK to using a secret camera hidden in his wristwatch to film himself sexually assaulting female patients.

Davinderjit Bains, 45, admitted that he assaulted 30 women at his practice in the south of the UK. The Indian-trained doctor filmed the attacks on his high-definition Tieex Spy Watch, which has been compared to a gadget from the James Bond films.

He admitted a total of 39 charges—13 charges of assault by penetration, 13 charges of voyeurism, 11 charges of sexual assault, and two charges of sexual activity with a child. He asked for a further 65 offences to be taken into account when the judge passes sentence.

Police branded Bains a "sexual predator" and said he had covertly filmed more than 100 women. The offences were committed against females aged between 14 and 51, from July 2010 until May 2012.

The doctor came under investigation when one woman told police she thought he had filmed her as she showered and said he had sexually assaulted her. Detectives found the wristwatch when they arrested Bains at his surgery and later recovered 361 video clips from the gadget and his computer.

Detective inspector Mark Garrett, who led the investigation, said Bains had used his position as a family doctor to abuse women. "They put their trust in their doctor and Dr Bains breached that trust massively—compromising his professional position—and breached that trust to the highest order," he said.

"Today he stands exposed as someone who has utterly betrayed that trust for his own sexual gratification. He is a sexual predator, simple as that. And he was allowed to abuse his position of trust and offend for two years."

Bains qualified as a doctor at Mangalore University, on India's western coast, in 1993 and became a family doctor in Britain in 2007. He's currently suspended from practising. His surgery said it was "appalled" by his crimes, stating, "This has been a shocking and distressing case for all concerned."

Source: AFP

Thursday, March 21, 2013 | 1 comments | Read More

Luxury retailers eye more airports as terminal shopping booms

Who would have thought that rich jet-setters are doing their shopping at airports.

But according to Reuters, sales at airports and other travel venues are increasing faster than those at regular stores for many chains.
Swedish data firm Generation Research found that the worldwide, duty-free and travel sales of perfumes, cosmetics and luxury goods leaped 28.3 percent between 2008 and 2011. These sales are expected to increase 25 percent to $44.5 billion by 2014, based on the firm’s projection for 2012.
This is prompting some brands to take their businesses to more terminals large and small.  

Tiffany & Co. is scheduled to open a second store in Singapore's Changi Airport this year along with a store in the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport next year. Swiss luxury watchmaker Hublot, which is part of LVMH, is reported to be eyeing Frankfurt's airport.

Estée Lauder Cos Inc, where travel retail sales growth has outpaced its overall growth, is planning to expand to domestic airports in smaller cities in China and Brazil. The company, whose brands include M.A.C and Coach, already has nearly 1,000 airport stores.

"The Chinese love buying when they travel-- it's a culture," said Hublot chairman Jean-Claude Biver.

Monday, July 09, 2012 | 3 comments | Read More

Stolen Tyrannosaurus bones fetches US$1m

The President of Mongolia is demanding America returns a 70-million year old Tyrannosaurus Bataar—an eight-foot-tall, 24-foot-long cousin of the T-Rex—that he believes was smuggled out from the Gobi desert.

-Bataar is the Asian cousin of the North American T-Rex.

President Elbegdorj Tsakhia wants the skeleton back after it was auctioned off for US$1.05 million by Dallas-based Heritage Auctions. The buyer was never disclosed, but the man who acquired the fossil and offered it to Heritage said he's been unfairly labelled as a smuggler.

"I'm just a guy in Gainesville, Florida trying to support my family, not some international bone smuggler," commercial palaeontologist Eric Prokopi said in a statement. "It's been claimed that I misrepresented what was being imported and didn’t properly declare its value. I can wholeheartedly say the import documents are not fraudulent."

A US government lawsuit filed on behalf of Mongolia said the customs forms filed when the skeleton was imported incorrectly stated the country of origin was Great Britain, its value was only US$15,000, and mentioned reptiles not dinosaurs. Prokopi didn't say in his statement where or from whom he acquired the skeleton.

He said that when he received the T-Bataar, it was a collection of loose, mostly broken bones and rocks with embedded bones. He said he and his wife spent thousands of hours preparing and mounting the skeleton, which increased its value, before it was sold.

US Attorney Preet Bharara has filed a lawsuit seeking the forfeiture of the skeleton to the Mongolian government, and an order to seize the fossil has been issued. Robert Painter, the lawyer representing Mongolia, said that the dinosaur will be held by the US government while legal proceedings continue.

Anyone who comes forward to claim ownership of the skeleton will have to prove they are the rightful owner or the US will repatriate the skeleton to Mongolia.

"Today we send a message to looters all over the world: We will not turn a blind eye to the marketplace of looted fossils," President Tsakhia said in a statement.

The skeleton was discovered in 1946 during a joint Soviet-Mongolian expedition to the Gobi Desert, Bharara said. Heritage Auctions and the Mongolian government agreed in May to jointly investigate the ownership of the skeleton. Several palaeontologists examined the bones and determined they were removed from the western Gobi Desert between 1995 and 2005.

Source: Reuters

Tuesday, July 03, 2012 | 1 comments | Read More

Man jailed over police chase in stolen ambulance

Daniel Glover handed nine-month sentence after admitting taking emergency vehicle, drink-driving and obstructing police

Daniel Glover told the court he didn't know he had taken an ambulance vehicle, despite there being blue lights on top of the car.

Daniel Glover told the court he didn't know he had taken an ambulance vehicle, despite there being blue lights on top of the car. Photograph: Murdo Macleod
A man who led police on a high-speed chase after stealing an ambulance response car to get home after a New Year's Eve party has been jailed for nine months.

Daniel Glover, 26, from Mile End, east London, admitted aggravated vehicle taking, drink-driving, driving without insurance and obstructing a police officer, when he appeared at Chelmsford crown court on Tuesday.

Prosecutor Michael Fraser told the court Glover had driven at up to 120mph with flashing blue lights on after stealing the car from Clacton in Essex.

Glover claimed he did not realise it was an ambulance vehicle when he took it, despite it being marked up and having blue lights on top.

He was only stopped when police deployed a stinger device to puncture the tyres. He then threatened to break an officer's nose.

Fraser told the court a police officer on patrol spotted the vehicle pulling on to the A12 at the Witham turning heading towards London.

A message had been sent alerting officers after the Honda Accord was reported stolen.

He said: "He took up the chase just after 4am and a helicopter was scrambled. He drove at speeds of up to 120mph and consistently over 100mph. At intervals the blue lights were flashing and he straddled the lanes in a careless manner.

"A police stinger was deployed, puncturing the tyres, and he came to a gradual halt."

When he was stopped, Glover smelt of alcohol and told an officer "I'm going to break your nose", Fraser said. He was found to be twice the legal drink-drive limit.

In a statement read to the court, Steven Keating, deputy operations manager for the east of England ambulance service, said the theft came at the same time as a fatal incident in Clacton.

While paramedics attended that incident in good time, it meant a less well-equipped vehicle had to be deployed to other emergencies.

In an interview, Glover told police he had drunk two pints of lager and had fallen out with the people he was with.

In his statement, he said: "I didn't know it was an ambulance. I was just playing with the equipment and couldn't work out how to turn it off so just kept pressing buttons."

Peter Barlex, mitigating, said Glover had a job delivering taxis.

"It was very dark and he wasn't sure it was an ambulance. He had fallen out with his friend and was in an unfamiliar town without any money, no credit on his phone and no idea where he was."

Jailing Glover, Judge Anthony Goldstaub said: "You stole this vehicle on a night of the year when the need for it to preserve life and help the ill and injured was at its greatest."

Glover was also disqualified from driving for 18 months.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Wikipedia begins blackout

English version of website goes offline for 24 hours as part of 'day of darkness' in protest at US anti-piracy laws

Visitors to Wikipedia's English site have been met with a blacked out page in protest against proposed US laws to stop online piracy.

Wikipedia has taken its English-language content offline as part of a "day of darkness" in protest at US anti-piracy laws that it says could "fatally damage the free and open internet" and "severely limit people's access to online information".

As of 5am on Wednesday, anyone trying to access the online encyclopedia will have been greeted with a blackened screen and a message exhorting them to "imagine a world without free knowledge".

"For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history," reads the message, adding that the website will still be available on smartphones and mobile devices. "Right now, the US Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia."

The legislation that has prompted Wikipedia - along with other sites such as the blog Boing Boing and user-generated news site Reddit, which will go down at 8am EST – to take such drastic action is the House of Representatives bill to stop online piracy - known as Sopa - and its Senate equivalent, the protect intellectual property act known as Pipa.

The bills, which have been hailed by the media, film and music industries as a big step towards helping the fight against piracy, have been denounced by Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, as "destructive legislation" that would "set a frightening precedent of internet censorship".

The message on the blacked-out Wikipedia site continues: "Wikipedians have chosen to black out the English Wikipedia for the first time ever, because we are concerned that Sopa and Pipa will severely inhibit people's access to online information. This is not a problem that will solely affect people in the United States: it will affect everyone around the world."

Boing Boing is even more direct, warning the proposed legislation "would certainly kill us forever". Google, which is functioning as usual, carries a message reading "please don't censor the web!" and links to a site warning the bills will do just that, as well as "impose harmful regulations on American business".

Sopa and Pipa propose that anyone found guilty of streaming copyrighted content without permission 10 or more times within six months should go to jail. Any site accused of "enabling or facilitating piracy" could be shut down. The bills have many heavyweight supporters in the entertainment industries, which has characterised the issue as a battle between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Among the backers is Rupert Murdoch, who has lambasted the White House for indicating it would not support the most extreme elements of Sopa and, on Tuesday tweeted: "Don't care about people not buying movies, programs or newspapers, just stealing them."

On its site, Wikipedia says the bills will not be effective tools for fighting copyright infringement.

"They put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won't have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn't being infringed.

'Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won't show up in major search engines. And, Sopa and Pipa build a framework for future restrictions and suppression."

Wednesday, January 18, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Cruise liner runs aground off Italy's coast

Three dead and dozens missing in ship accident, as thousands are ferried to the mainland at Santo Stefano port.

At least three people have died after a luxury cruise ship ran aground off the Italian coast in an accident which forced the coast guard to evacuate more than 4,000 people to safety, media reports say.

The 114,500-tonne Costa Concordia was on a trip around the Mediterranean when it "hit an obstacle" near the island of Giglio off the coast of Tuscany late on Friday, a coast guard official told the Associated Press news agency.

But the exact circumstances of the accident remained unclear and dozens of people remain missing.

"At around 8:00pm (19:00 GMT) the 290-metre-long Costa Concordia cruise ship ... began taking on water and tilting over by around 20 degrees," the coast guard said in a statement, after most of those aboard were rescued with lifeboats.

"There are three certified dead," Guiseppe Linardi, the top official in Grossetto told Italian media, saying that difficulties in mounting the passenger rescue effort had led to earlier confusion over the death toll. Authorities fear the casualty figure could rise.


Sonia Gallego reports from Italy

One of the victims was a man in his 70s who died of a heart attack caused by the shock to his system when he jumped into the icy waters, reports said.

Dozens were also injured in the accident, at least two of them seriously.

Most of the 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members had already been evacuated to safety on Saturday, as the search continued to see if anyone remained trapped inside the ship.

Helicopters were being used to help rescuers, while hundreds of others were transferred by ferry to the mainland at the Santo Stefano port.

"It's a very complex operation because some of the passengers may have jumped into the sea and not been picked up
by rescuers, while others may have been sheltered in private houses and therefore not been identified yet," said Giuseppe Linardi, police chief in Grosseto.

"The ship is a pretty formidable sight to say the least and you can clearly see the enormous gash, as rescue operations are still taking place," said Al Jazeera's Sonia Gallego, reporting from a firefighting boat nearby.

"At this moment, it looks like it could have been a technical error, but that still needs to be verified," our correspond said, adding that a probe into the accident had already begun.

Passengers 'hysterical'

Some passengers heard a large bang and were initially told the ship had shuddered to a halt for electrical reasons, before being told to put on their life-jackets, a passenger from the boat told the ANSA news agency by telephone.

"We were having supper when the lights suddenly went out. We heard a boom and a groaning noise, and all the cutlery fell on the floor," passenger Luciano Castro said.


Emily Lau, another passenger, told Al Jazeera on Saturday that people were afraid as the ship began to tilt.

She said that crew members tried to reassure the passengers, but that they had trouble handling the situation.

"When we got to the deck, people were just utterly hysterical, mostly not because something was scary, but because there was no control.

"It was just utter madness. People were falling because the ship was actually sinking quite fast. And the next thing we heard was 'abandon ship'," Lau said.

"We had to embark onto our lifeboats, and people were rushing onto the lifeboats and there was no order of any sort. No one told us what to do," she added.

'Like the Titanic'

Some passengers jumped into the sea in a hurry to get off the sinking ship, according to reports.

"It was like a scene from the Titanic," said passenger Mara Parmegiani.

The local mayor said they were trying to find room to accommodate the rescued passengers, including pregnant women and children.

"We are trying to accommodate them anywhere we can - in schools, nurseries, hotels, anywhere that has a roof," said mayor Sergio Ortelli, who added that some passengers were bedding down for the night in a church.

The Costa Crociera company, which owns the vessel, said that it was not yet possible to say what caused the problem, but that the evacuation had been fast.

"The ship was on a cruise in the Mediterranean, leaving from Savona with planned stops in Civitavecchia, Palermo, Cagliari, Palma, Barcelona and Marseille," the company said.

"There were around 1,000 Italian passengers on board, as well as 500 Germans and around 160 French people," it added, without giving details about the rest.

The cruise ship - which boasts 58 suites with balconies, five restaurants, 13 bars, five Jacuzzis and four swimming pools - had set off from the Civitavecchia port near Rome earlier on Friday when it ran into difficulties.

On Saturday, the cruise liner was taking in water through a 50m hole in its hull, and the condition of the vessel appeared to be worsening.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Sunday, January 15, 2012 | 1 comments | Read More

Human Barbie sends 7 year old daughter to plastic surgery

Sarah Burge, who self-proclaimed herself “Human Barbie” and had over 100 plastic surgeries to embody the doll icon of all times, is sending her 7-year-old daughter to plastic surgery. According to Closer magazine, the live plastic mother has given daughter Poppy a 7,000 pounds voucher for breast implants, as a birthday present.

On her seventh birthday, Human Barbie’s daughter got a breast implants voucher. The mother, Sarah Burge, says that her 7,000 pounds (about 10,000 dollars)-worth gift was not for now, but for when the girl will be 16. “Poppy begged me for a boob job, so I gave her the voucher so she can have it after she's 16, when it's legal”, Burge explains, adding that if her daughter will develop the bra size she wants, she can use the voucher for other plastic surgeries.  Poppy seems to be fascinated by her mother’s bust size. “I can't wait to be like Mummy with big boobs. They're pretty”, she said. “Girls don't want Snow White and Cinderella any more....I'm just supporting her and making her dreams come true”, her mother explained.

Among the other gift received from her 50-year-old Barbie-mother, Poppy got a computer a pink Swarovski jewelry set including a ring and a necklace and a weekend at the spa, for her and her mom.

Monday, January 09, 2012 | 2 comments | Read More

Cargo ship Rena breaks up off New Zealand

Wreck described as New Zealand's worst maritime disaster ever before rear section broke away overnight

The container ship Rena sits on a reef after it broke in two after being battered by waves the previous night off the coast of New Zealand

A cargo ship grounded off the New Zealand coast since October has split in two, spilling sea containers and debris and sparking fears of a fresh oil spill, maritime officials have said.

The wreck of the Greek-owned Rena was described as New Zealand's worst maritime environmental disaster even before the rear section of the ship broke away overnight. The ship previously spilled heavy fuel oil that fouled pristine North Island beaches and killed up to 20,000 seabirds, and despite salvage efforts nearly 400 tons of oil remain on board.

Maritime officials said the front section of the wreck remains stuck in its original position, but the stern section slipped at least 100ft away from the bow and is "moving significantly," pounded by 19ft swells.

The storm that split the vessel will continue for another three to four days, Maritime New Zealand spokesman Ross Henderson said.

Officials said up to 300 of the roughly 880 containers that had been on board were lost when the ship broke apart. Of those, about 30% had been fitted with monitoring devices and some 30 containers had already been located.

Oil has been seen leaking from the broken ship. Alex van Wijngaarden, on-scene commander for the national response team, said oil from the vessel could come ashore around midnight on Sunday.

"While reports at this stage indicate there has not been a significant release of oil, with the Rena in its current fragile state, a further release is likely," he said. "While it is unknown at this stage exactly how much oil may be released, teams have been mobilised and will be ready to respond to anything that may come ashore."

Environment minister Nick Smith told reporters that the "risks for the environment are a fraction of what they were in October," though the roughly 385 tons of oil still aboard the ship is about the same amount that leaked from the vessel soon after it ran aground. Salvage crews previously removed 1,100 tons of oil from the ship.

Most of the oil is in tanks in the stern section, which could end up sinking. Some of that oil could end up dissipating in the ocean rather than washing up on beaches.

The containers, meanwhile, spilled goods including timber, wool, bales of recycled plastic and bags of milk powder. The debris could begin washing ashore later on Sunday.

Some containers have been sighted floating up to 20 miles northwest of the stricken ship, Port of Tauranga chief executive Mark Cairns said.

"They have been caught in a strong coastal current" fuelled by the storm, he said.

The Rena ran aground on Astrolabe Reef 14 miles from Tauranga Harbor on North Island on 5 October.

Salvage crews have plucked 389 of the ship's 1,370 loaded cargo containers from its decks since it ran aground, while some 98 have been washed overboard in the past three months.

One witness, Warwick Roberts, said the rear section was sliding along the reef.

The "stern has reared up and centre section is not visible. Large breaking waves observed on bow," he told the New Zealand Herald website.

A two-mile no-go zone is in force around the wreck.

Investigations by The Associated Press last month revealed that Australian authorities impounded the vessel, but released it the next day after Liberian maritime authorities intervened, essentially saying the ship was safe to sail and the problems could be fixed later. The Rena, like many ships, is registered in Liberia.

Some 10 weeks later, the Rena ran full-steam into a well-marked reef off the coast of New Zealand. It is not clear whether the previously identified problems played any role.

The captain and Rena's navigating officer face criminal charges of operating a ship in a dangerous or risky manner, polluting the environment and altering the ship's documents after the crash.

Sunday, January 08, 2012 | 2 comments | Read More

Bluefin tuna fish sells for record £473,000 at Tokyo auction

The 269-kg fish, bought by restaurant owner Kiyoshi Kimura, carries enough flesh for an estimated 10,000 pieces of sushi

Kiyoshi Kimura, left, cuts the bluefin tuna outside his Sushi Zanmai restaurant in Tokyo. Photograph: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP

A Japanese restaurateur has parted with almost half a million pounds for a single bluefin tuna at the first auction of the year at Tokyo's Tsukiji market.

Kiyoshi Kimura, who runs a chain of sushi restaurants, paid 56.5m yen (£473,000) for the 269-kg fish, which carries enough flesh for an estimated 10,000 pieces of sushi.

The sum is almost twice the 32.49m yen paid at last year's opening auction, a largely symbolic affair and not – diners will be relieved to hear – an accurate reflection of wholesale fish prices.

Japan has come under pressure to decrease its catch of Pacific and Atlantic bluefin, whose stocks have reached dangerously low levels, according to campaigners.

Kimura, however, said he has made his record-breaking bid in an attempt to "liven up Japan" as it attempts to recover from last year's tsunami.

"Japan has been through a lot the last year due to the disaster," he said. "It needs to stay strong. That's what I tried to do and I ended up buying the most expensive one."

The businessman, who runs the Sushi-Zanmai chain of 46 restaurants, also claimed he was acting on behalf of homegrown sushi lovers, who for the past three years have seen the first big fish of the season snapped up by overseas bidders.

Last year, the Hong Kong restaurateur Ricky Cheng joined forces with an upmarket sushi restaurant in Tokyo to produce the winning bid.

But this year Kimura said his restaurants would slice up and serve the entire fish – caught in Oma off the northernmost tip of the main island of Honshu – in Japan, rather than let it go overseas.

Although the restaurant needs to sell each piece of sushi for more than 6,000 yen to break even, Kimura is already selling prized slices of fatty otoro for a far more affordable 418 yen each, with the cheaper akami cuts going for about 130 yen apiece.

"It's unbelievable, Kosuke Shimogawara, a diner, told Associated Press. "President Kimura is so generous. All I can say is thank you."

Japan consumes about 80% of Pacific and Atlantic bluefin tuna, and has been accused of stifling international attempts to dramatically reduce fishing quotas or ban the trade altogether.

by - Justin McCurry

Friday, January 06, 2012 | 1 comments | Read More

Facebook helps find matching organ donors

Facebook is now one of the allies in finding matching organ donors all over the world. The most popular social network played a crucial role in the lives of the Browns, a family looking for a kidney donor for dad Damon Brown. And according to United Network for Organ Sharing reps, it was not the only case, the Associated Press reports.
Lately, Facebook has become a reliable source of matching organ donors. April Paschke, a spokeswoman for the United Network for Organ Sharing says that there are “more and more people matched up by social media”.

The latest organ donation request was made in late 2011, by a man named Damon Brown, living in Seattle. The 38-year-old husband and father created a Facebook page where he shared his story. Only a few weeks later, a woman that he knew, but wasn’t actually friends with, was found compatible with Damon and agreed to give him the kidney he so much needs. The surgery will take place on January 3.

Brown admits that at first it was a little embarrassing for him to present his problem to such a numerous public and ask for help. But facing a somber perspective of waiting for years until a donor is found, he saw the Facebook opportunity as the best he could ever get. He also noticed that people cared about him and his condition, as his page managed to gather 1,400 friends who shared his story around. After finding the donor, Damon posted the good news on Facebook and got no less than 300 messages of congrats.
In 2011, the social networks helped several people finding matching donors. Among them ,there was a woman from Michigan who managed to find a kidney donor on Facebook and a woman in Florida, with the same problem, who found a donor using Craiglist.

Thursday, January 05, 2012 | 0 comments | Read More

Man tried to sneak 247 animals into plane

On Monday, the Associated Press reported that a few days ago a man at the Ezeiza Airport was caught trying to sneak no less than 247 exotic animals into the plane heading to the Madrid, Spain.  He was caught by the Argentinian airport security after an X-ray scan of his bags.

Karel Abelovsky had finalized a trip to Argentina with a real treasure. He was planning on sneaking into the plane back home hundreds of exotic animals. The 51-year-old man of Czech origin was boarding on a plane for Madrid when an odd activity detected in his luggage postponed his boarding. The staff at the Iberia Airlines desk noticed “organic substances moving inside”, as described in the local media. When they opened the man’s bags, the staff members were shocked. There were no less than 247 reptiles and mollusks inside. Of them, there were nine species of poisonous snakes, 15 venomous vipers and some baby boas.
The animals were held in plastic bags, with no source of oxygen. As a result, two of them were already dead when the staff discovered them. The species found are very rare and some of them are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

It is believed that Abelovsky was part of an exotic species smuggling ring. He was charged with attempted smuggling and is now facing a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

Friday, December 30, 2011 | 0 comments | Read More

Passenger plane crashed in Russia

A Russian airliner crashed in heavy fog and burst into flames just short of a runway in northwestern Russia, killing 44 people, officials said. Eight people survived, dragged from the burning wreckage by locals.

The RusAir Tu-134 plane had taken off from Moscow and was moments from landing at the Petrozavodsk airport when it slammed into a nearby highway just before midnight Monday, Emergencies Ministry spokeswoman Oksana Semyonova told The Associated Press.

Russia's top investigative agency said bad weather, human error or a technical malfunction might have contributed to the crash. There were no suspicions of a foul play.

Thursday, June 23, 2011 | 0 comments | Read More