BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese man has been sentenced to death for conning people out of 3 billion yuan ($387 million) in a giant scam to breed ants, local media said Thursday. At least it wasn't a scam to breed GIANT ants!
Wang Zhendong, from the northeastern province of Liaoning, fabricated a business purported to be making wine, tea and medical elixirs using mature ants, the Beijing News said. Gross.
In parts of China, black ants are sold by the bagful to be steeped in tea or soaked in liquor as a natural remedy for ailments such as arthritis. REALLY gross.
Wang sold packages of ants to the investors for up to as much as 10,000 yuan ($1,290) when they were only worth 200 yuan, China Central Television reported. Ants: the Chinese version of Dutch Tulip Bulbs.
More than 10,000 people, lured by the promise of returns of up to 60 percent, signed 100,000 contracts with Wang's bogus company before the case came under investigation in June 2005. Investigators could only recover 10 million yuan of the money raised by Wang, the Beijing News said. One investor was so distraught at losing his money he killed himself, the newspaper said.
Fifteen managers of the company were jailed for between five and 10 years and fined between 100,000 and 500,000 yuan, Xinhua news agency said.
In his defense, Wang said he did not know the first thing about raising ants and was "quite unclear" about the costs, the Beijing News said. Wang spent 798 million yuan on himself, paying off personal debts and lending money to other people, it added. Errrr... so where did the rest of the money go, eh Wang?
Protester in chicken garb falls foul of Cairo police PETA head falls heartbreakingly short of a global Darwin award.
CAIRO (Reuters) - An American animal rights activist dressed as a crippled chicken fell foul of Egyptian police on Saturday after staging a protest in front of the central Cairo branch of the fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). The activist, Jason Baker of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), was protesting against KFC's chicken production practices as part of a global campaign against the U.S.-based company.
Police intervened after Baker, bandaged and carrying a crutch, fell over in a melee. "But we do this in Berkeley and people cheer!"
His chicken head fell off and KFC staff jubilantly told onlookers that he was not Egyptian. He's lucky it was just the costume head that came off, probably because KFC patrons would be at least somewhat pro-American and might therefore mistake him for somebody we would not want to see beheaded and dragged through the streets.
Local PETA activist Nadia Montasser said police released Baker, a U.S. citizen, after several hours of questioning. I encourage all PETA activists to continue bringing their message of moral authority and leading edge street theatre to the benighted carnivores of the third world.
Next up: Saoodi Arabia. Protest the consumption of 'blunt-nosed beef'. I dare you.
Daniel Maldonado, a slender young man in his early 20s with tattoos and dreadlocks, entered the Selimiye Mosque in a densely populated neighborhood of central Methuen with a humble request for help converting to Islam. But as his commitment to ever purer, more intense religious observance deepened over the next several years, he became critical of other Muslims observance of the faith, until the imam who helped him convert told him to refrain from judging others or to leave the mosque. Maldonado, on the road to Islamic fundamentalism, which would ultimately lead him to Somalia, decided to leave.
Soner Uguz knew Maldonado from the beginning of his journey into Islam. I met Danny the week he converted, about seven years ago, said Uguz, whom mosque members yesterday called Maldonados best friend. He was cool. He dressed in T-shirts and jeans and didnt hide any of his tattoos. His hair was in dreadlocks. He was eager, and he had a lot of questions. All that changed radically.
Last week in a federal court in Houston, where he had been living for a while before he went overseas, he became the first US citizen to be charged with participating in terrorist activities in Somalia.
Maldonado, who grew up in Pelham, N.H., and later lived in Methuen, became immersed in Islam and attended prayer sessions regularly at Selimiye Mosque. He began wearing traditional Arab clothing, including the galabeyah, an ankle-length gown with long sleeves that covered the tattoos on his arms. He struggled to grow the beard of a religious Muslim. When he could not, he blamed his Puerto Rican heritage, and began chastising fellow Muslims who could grow a full beard and chose not to. His wife dressed in a burkah exposing only her eyes and wore gloves in public. The couples daughter, a toddler at the time, wore the hijab headcovering, though under most interpretations of Muslim law this practice is required only after a girl reaches puberty. They renamed their son, Anthony, as Mohammed.
He was no longer the eager and humble young man he had been when he entered the mosque for the first time around 2000 or 2001. He was arrogant, he knew the book [the Koran] better than anyone, Uguz said at the mosque yesterday afternoon after prayers. He went from loving rap to hating poetry.
Another worshiper at the mosque, Matthew Yusuf Trombly who like Maldonado is 28 and a convert to Islam from Christianity said Maldonado fell victim to the zeal of the convert. Within the congregation, Trombly said, the general attitude was that he was just learning Islam, and maybe trying to do too much too fast, and got confused.
Still, said Trombly, he was friendly. He came across as a street kid, and that was charming in a way. You dont run into kids like Danny Maldonado every day. He had a lot of charisma. People say that when he first came he loved music and would talk about how much he loved rap, Trombly said. But by the time I really got to know him, in 2004, you would never mention music to him. You knew what you were going to get a lecture on sin.
Opinionated, outspoken, and charismatic also are the words chosen to describe Maldonado in his high school days by Dorothy Mohr, principal of Pelham High School in Pelham, N.H., where Maldonado dropped out in February 1997, during his junior year. Danny was always an outspoken student though I use the word student lightly, Mohr said. Hed show up late for class, without the materials or homework, but he would know what we were talking about. Then he would go off on a tangent, and get adamant about it.
Maldonados intensity then was directed at political subjects, not religion, she said. He was not a member of a group and had no involvement in school activities that Mohr could recall. But, she said, kids would willingly listen to him. Theyd never say to him be quiet, you dont know what youre talking about. He had charisma.
Maldonado also had brushes with the local police, but there was nothing serious, or suggestive of his alleged turn toward terrorism. It was traffic violations and typical high school things, loud house parties and things like that, said Captain Joseph Roark of the Pelham Police Department.
Still, Roark said, he wonders now what was going on in Maldonados head as he made his way through adolescence. He was a bit detached, kind of distant, Roark said.
Friends at the mosque also saw a dreamer in Maldonado. He used to tell me he wanted to get a visa and live in Yemen because they spoke the purest Arabic there, Uguz said. We told him to cut it out we never thought hed do it, for the sake of the kids.
Maldonado did not go to Yemen to live. But in August 2005 he left Massachusetts and moved to Houston, then in November of that year he moved to Egypt with his wife and three children. A year later, according to an affidavit from the FBI agent who filed the terrorism charges against Maldonado in Houston last week, he moved to Somalia, where he underwent military training and studied bomb-making.
He is scheduled to appear in federal court to face those charges on Tuesday. Conviction could mean life imprisonment. He said he would have no problem killing Americans because he was angry with the United States, according to an affidavit filed in US District Court, Southern District of Texas, and he had no problem with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The Houston Chronicle and Houston station KHOU-TV said in a teamed report yesterday that Maldonados wife, Tamekia Cunningham, died of a high fever probably caused by malaria during the couples time in East Africa. The newspaper, which did not identify its sources of information, said that the couples children have been brought by US officials to their grandparents in New England. Relatives of Maldonado who live in Londonderry, N.H., declined to comment about him yesterday.
The Muslims who gathered to talk about Maldonado after prayers in the Methuen mosque yesterday afternoon said they were worried that what Maldonado is alleged to have done would reflect badly, and unfairly, on Islam and on their mosque in particular. We saw him as a person who was into studying, rather than physical jihad, Trombly said. But everything about him changed, so I cant say I am completely surprised.
A Pakistani man sold his 10-year old daughter for the equivalent of US $500 to pay for his eye operation, a police official in Sindh said on Friday.
Abdul Hadi, District Police Officer (DPO) for Badin, approximately 250 kilometres east of Karachi, said that the man Gul Mohammad Kalohi had agreed to hand over his daughter to a fellow villager once she reached puberty.
It is a shameful incident and has taken place, Hadi confirmed, adding that a relative of Kalohi had alerted police to the deal. While police have completed their investigation of the case, they have yet to press charges since they were still determining which police district had jurisdiction over Kolai village, near Tando Bagho town, given that it lay on a boundary. Zia Awan, a noted rights lawyer, said that under Sindhs child protection laws, the father could face a one-year jail term.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/17/2007 00:00 ||
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A respected Malaysian Muslim religious adviser has suggested that women wear chastity belts to thwart sex maniacs who rape and commit incest, according to a report on Friday. Abu Hassan Din Al-Hafiz said cases of rape and incest were rampant and that chastity belts would help reduce sex-related crimes, the Star daily reported. We have even come across a number of unusual sex cases, where even senior citizens and children were not spared. The best way to avert sex perpetrators is to wear protection, he was quoted as saying in the newspaper. My intention is not to offend women but to safeguard them from sex maniacs, he said. Elaborating on his idea, he said there would be other positives to donning the belts. Husbands could also feel more secure, if you know what I mean, he said, adding chastity belts were worn as recently as the mid-1960s. Abu Hassan has served as a religious adviser to Malaysias king and written books on Islamic studies.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/17/2007 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/17/2007 2:31 Comments ||
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#3
If that doesn't float the "religious adviser's" boat, I've got another idea.
Issue all women "chastity belts" made by Smith & Wesson.
Bet that would blow his skirts up.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/17/2007 2:34 Comments ||
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#4
Barbara, I'm not sure I'd trust a 9-year-old with a Smith and Wesson. Also, considering the types of attacks some gangs make so they can humiliate the women they want to humiliate, but leave them ‘intact’, chastity belts would be completely ineffective.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
02/17/2007 9:16 Comments ||
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#5
More practically, create a "knife culture" among women and girls, so they always carry one or more small knives concealed on their person. Damn few sex maniacs are going to continue with a 3" gash, 1" deep to their belly.
#6
I like that knife culture idea. After a few dozen of these guys get their junk shortened, this type of behavior will almost stop. Of course, maybe I understimate the wrath of an angry inch, but I doubt it.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/17/2007 11:24 Comments ||
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ok, so imagine you live in portugal and your moving house. you find a lovely farm house set in a decent plot of land. the place has been empty for 15 years!
whilst exploring your new property you find a large barn in the trees. the door is padlocked shut and its all rusted solid. so you grind the padlock open.........
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Protester in chicken garb falls foul of Cairo police
