02:25
Marbella Times
A British grandmother has been sentenced to death by firing squad for smuggling almost 5kg of cocaine into Bali.Lindsay Sandiford was arrested in May last year after she tried to enter the Indonesian holiday island with illegal drugs worth £1.6 million hidden in her suitcase.Local prosecutors had called for the 56-year-old housewife to be jailed for 15 years. But today there were gasps in the Bali courtroom when a panel of judges announced Ms Sandiford would be executed for drug trafficking.As the shock verdict was announced, Ms Sandiford, from Gloucestershire, slumped back in her chair in tears before hiding her face with a brown sarong as she was led out of the courtro...
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Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Thursday, 6 September 2012
experts believe we can actually become "addicted" to stress.
Stress can be physical,And then there’s the kind that’s in our heads — that OMG I’m so overwhelmed right now feeling. While psychological stress has some definite downsides (chronic freak-outs may increase our risk for cancer and other diseases), take a moment to exhale. In moderate amounts, stress can boost our focus, energy, and even our powers of intuition.Still, in some cases, stress does more than light a productivity-boosting fire under our butts. Both emotional and physical stress activate our central nervous system, causing a “natural high,” says Concordia University neuroscientist and addiction specialist Jim Pfaus. “By activating our arousal and attention systems,” Pfaus says, “stressors can also wake up the neural circuitry...
For those red wine drinkers who’ve been feeling morally superior about all the health benefits of the relaxing glass or two sipped during dinner, there’s some bad news on the horizon.
Turns out, those glasses of wine would be a lot healthier if they were non-alcoholic, a new study shows. Spanish researchers led by Gemma Chiva-Blanch of the University of Barcelona found that non-alcoholic red wine reduced blood pressure in men at high risk for heart disease better than standard red wine or gin, according to the study published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation Research. Although the reduction in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure was modest, decreases of just 4 and 2 mm Hg have been associated with a 14 to 20 percent reduction in heart disease and stroke, the researchers pointed out. “The daily consumption of dealcoholized red wine could be useful for the prevention of low to moderate hypertension,” they concluded. Although there...
Saturday, 25 August 2012
During experiments on the axons of the Woods Hole squid (loligo pealei), we tested our cockroach leg stimulus protocol on the squid's chromatophores.
The results were both interesting and beautiful. The video is a view through an 8x microscope zoomed in on the dorsal side of the caudal fin of the squid. We used a suction electrode to stimulate the fin nerve. Chromatophores are pigmeted cells that come in 3 colors: Brown, Red, and Yellow. Each chromatophore is lined with up to 16 muscles that contract to reveal their color.Paloma T. Gonzalez-Bellido of Roger Hanlon's Lab in the Marine Resource Center of the Marine Biological Labs helped us with the preparation. You can read their latest paper at:http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/08/13/rspb.2012.1...
Friday, 17 August 2012
ADDICTION charity Focus12 has received a huge financial boost after a codumentary about Russell Brand was shown last night.
The documentary Russell Brand: Addiction to Recovery resulted in an immediate boost in donations and inspired the managing director of Bury St Edmunds based Chevington Finance and Leasing to offer the charity £106,000 over three years.Russell Brand attended Focus12, the Bury St Edmunds abstinence-based alcohol and drug rehabilitation centre, in 2003 and is now a patron of the charity, describing it as ‘a really excellent example of a small cost effective rehab that can help people change in dramatic ways’.Chip Somers, Focus12’s chief executive, said: “Russell’s documentary and his work this year to raise the profile of abstinence based recovery has got people talking about addiction in a different way, and made them realise that there is a viable alternative to simply giving...
Monday, 13 August 2012
London's secret music venue and their livestream act
With an invite-only door policy and super secret location, Boiler Room is London's most exclusive music venue. But elitism isn't the premise for its clandestine nature—in fact, anyone with an Internet connection can easily join in the fun. Using a simple webcam, the crew behind Boiler Room livestreams each set for the world to see free of charge, and each month more than a million viewers tune in to see performances by artists like James Blake, The xx, Roots Manuva, Neon Indian, Juan Maclean and more.We recently chilled out to the smooth sounds of Brooklyn's How To Dress Well before rocking out to revered musician Matthew...
Breaking Free of the Co-dependency Trap presents a groundbreaking developmental road map to guide readers away from their co-dependent behaviors and toward a life of wholeness and fulfillment.
Breaking Free of the Co-dependency Trap presents a groundbreaking developmental road map to guide readers away from their co-dependent behaviors and toward a life of wholeness and fulfillment.UK CitizensThis is the book that offers a different perspective on codependency and is strongly recommended by Dream Warrior Recovery as part of a solution based recovery. This bestselling book, now in a revised edition, radically challenges the prevailing medical definition of co-dependency as a permanent, progressive, and incurable addiction. Rather, the authors identify it as the result of developmental traumas that interfered with the infant-parent bonding relationship during the first year of life.US CitizensDrawing on decades of clinical experience, Barry and Janae Weinhold correlate the developmental...
Saturday, 11 August 2012
Vintage Ads Most Disturbing Household Products
All of the following ads are real and unaltered, so don't blame us. We weren't there when they were made, and in some cases the entire insane thought process that went into creating them has been lost to history. Maybe they made perfect sense at the time?Maybe. But it's really hard to see how even our parents and grandparents didn't get nightmares from ...#13. Three-Legged Dingo Bootsvintageadbrowser.comThe Message:Here are some boots that you should buy, because famous people wear them. Three of them.The Horror:Wait, what?Yes, amazingly, the fact that this ad stars a pre-murder O.J. Simpson is the second-creepiest thing about it....
Tuesday, 7 August 2012
Jessica Harper admits £2.4m Lloyds Bank fraud
A former Lloyds Bank worker in charge of online security has admitted carrying out a fraud worth more than £2.4m. Jessica Harper, 50, had been accused of submitting false invoices to claim payments between 2007 and 2011. At the time she was working as head of fraud and security for digital banking and made false claims totalling £2,463,750. Harper, of South Croydon, south London, will be sentenced on 21 September. At Southwark Crown Court, Harper admitted a single charge of fraud by abuse of position by submitting false invoices to claim payments. 'A very simple fraud' She also admitted a single charge of transferring criminal property, the money, which she had defrauded from her employers. Harper was arrested on 21 December before being charged in May. Continue reading the main story...
Shares in Standard Chartered dive after Iran allegations
Shares in Standard Chartered PLC dropped sharply today as investors reacted to US charges that the bank was involved in laundering money for Iran. The charges against Standard Chartered were a shock for a bank which proudly described itself recently as “boring.” Shares were down nearly 20 percent at 1,187 pence at one point in early trading Tuesday on the London Stock Exchange. In Hong Kong, they were down 16.6 percent near the end of the session. New York State Department of Financial Services alleged on Monday that Standard Chartered schemed with the Iranian government to launder $250 billion from 2001 to 2007, leaving the United States' financial system “vulnerable to terrorists.” Standard Chartered said it “strongly rejects” the allegations. In a statement, the bank said “well over...
Sunday, 5 August 2012
Pigs worship God of Materialism
If ever there was a god to prevent you from worshiping material things, it would be this one.The hideous pig-like thing is the masterpiece by Chinese artist Chen Wenling called God Of Materialism.Ugly pig with green eye darting at thier masterLooking chuffed, the huge greedy pig has minions of other tiny, and just as unattractive and scary, pigs worshiping in awe at its heels.The group stare up at their master, adorned with a plethora of jewels and necklaces representing the grotesque love of material things.The sculpture, which looks like a bad dream, can be found at the Asia Art Centre in Beijing.And if you're brave enough to go and see it,...
Brad Pitt is reportedly utilising his free time to plan his wedding with Angelina Jolie.
The 48-year-old has taken charge of preparations for the wedding that is expected to take place end of September. He has flown in a team of builders to renovate the home he shares with Jolie in southern France."Angelina isn`t so bothered about when they tie the knot, it`s Brad who is piling on the pressure," a website has quoted a source as saying."He wants the main house to be finished when the event takes place, even though the close friends and relatives who are invited aren`t the types to care. He wants everything to be absolutely perfect," the source add...
Thursday, 26 July 2012
A million Britons live with the hell of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Nadine Stewart was convinced she was going to die. Just ten minutes after setting off for a pop concert with her sister, she felt a tingling sensation in her arms and pain in her chest.‘I knew I was having a heart attack,’ says Nadine, 41, a customer services adviser from Morecambe, Lancashire. ‘I begged my sister to take me to A&E: I ran in and screamed that I was having a heart attack.‘They put me on a monitor and my heart was fine — what I had suffered was a panic attack. I have no idea to this day what caused it, but it terrified the life out of me.’ Nadine Stewart has to do everything nine times or fears her husband will dieBut...
Monday, 16 April 2012
British terror supergrass sentence cut by two years
jailed British terrorist has had his sentence cut by two years in a supergrass deal after giving evidence about an al Qaeda-linked “martyrdom” plot in New York, it was revealed today. Former teacher Saajid Badat was jailed for 13 years in 2005 for plotting with shoe bomber Richard Reid to blow up a transatlantic airliner in 2001 in what an Old Bailey judge said was a “wicked and inhuman” plot. He has now had his term reduced by two years under the first “supergrass” deal involving a terror convict, after providing intelligence to US prosecutors investigating an alleged plot to blow up the New York subway on the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attack. Details of the deal — kept secret for more than two years — were revealed today by the Crown Prosecution Service as a trial of the alleged...
Sunday, 15 April 2012
Western embassies targeted in Afghanistan attacks
Gunmen have launched multiple attacks across the Afghan capital Kabul. Western embassies in the heavily-guarded, central diplomatic area are understood to be among the targets as well as the parliament building in the west. There are reports that up to seven different locations have been hit. The Taliban has admitted responsibility, saying their main targets were the British and German embassies. There is no word at this stage on any casualti...
Taliban free hundreds from Pakistan prison
Hundreds of prisoners are believed to have escaped from a jail in northwest Pakistan after it was attacked by anti-government fighters armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Some of those who escaped from the facility in the town of Bannu, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, early on Sunday morning were "militants", an intelligence official told the Reuters news agency. "Dozens of militants attacked Bannu's Central Jail in the early hours of the morning, and more 300 prisoners have escaped," Mir Sahib Jan, the official, said. In Depth Profile: Pakistani Taliban "There was intense gunfire, and rocket-propelled grenades were also used." Many of those who escaped following the raid were convicted Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) fighters,...
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
New info about statin safety affects millions
U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued new safety information about these cholesterol-lowering drugs that are prescribed to millions of Americans to lower the risk of heart disease. If you're among them, you should understand what the FDA's new guidance means for your health. "Before anyone gets too concerned, you should know that statins are so widely used because they have a long track record of safety and effectiveness," says Dr. Mark Taber, a cardiologist with SSM Heart Institute at St. Joseph Health Center. "All in all, statins have a very high benefit to risk ratio. The widespread use of the drugs, when indicated, probably accounts to a significant degree for the improvement in life expectancy in this country." The FDA called attention to the threat of liver damage as a rare...
Why don't GPS warn you that statins can harm your memory?
John Holliday had been on a higher 40mg dose of cholesterol pills for only a few weeks when he started to lose his concentration. ‘I’d be watching TV and suddenly find myself unable to follow the plot of a drama,’ says John, 52, a telecoms project manager who lives in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, with his wife Jill, 51, and their two children Adam, 20, and Emma, 16. ‘I’d have to read the same page of a book over and over because I couldn’t take any information in. ‘I’d always been known for my amazing memory — I was great on trivia and had total recall of events that happened 20 years ago, but suddenly I couldn’t remember things and my brain felt fuzzy.’ Just like up to seven million other people in Britain, John had been prescribed a statin to lower his blood cholesterol levels. The drugs...
James Murdoch to resign as BSkyB chairman
James Murdoch is to step down as chairman of UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB, but will remain on the board. He is the son of News Corporation founder Rupert, whose company had to drop its bid for BSkyB after the phone-hacking scandal. In February, James Murdoch stepped down as chairman of News International, which publishes the Sun and the Times in the UK. He said then he had moved to New York to work on News Corp's pay-TV business. News Corp owns almost 40% of BSkyB and had wanted to buy the whole of the firm. But it withdrew its bid as political pressure mounted due to allegations of improper conduct at News International's News of the World Sunday title, which was shut down last July. Sources told Robert Peston, the BBC's business editor, that it was James Murdoch's decision to leave...
Canadian man detained in Spain 'extremely thin and weak,'
Philip Halliday, the Nova Scotia man who has been detained in Spain for more than two years on drug-trafficking charges without a trial date, is extremely weak and thin but in good spirits, his family said Monday, hours after returning home from their first visit to him in jail. "It was pretty emotional. It's hard to describe. Definitely a lot of hugs, some tears," Halliday's son, Daren, told Postmedia News. Philip Halliday, 55, was arrested in December 2009 about 300 kilometres off the coast of Spain aboard a converted Canadian Coast Guard research vessel, the Destiny Empress. Inside a hidden compartment, authorities found more than 1,000 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated street value of $600 million. Halliday, an ex-fisherman who spent more than 30 years dragging scallops off the...
$10 mln bounty on LeT founder Hafiz Saeed
The United States has put up a $10 million reward to help arrest Pakistani Islamist leader Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, suspected of masterminding two spectacular attacks on Mumbai and the parliament building in New Delhi. The offer comes at a time of heightened tension between Washington and Pakistan and increases pressure on Pakistan to take action against the former Arabic scholar, who has recently addressed rallies despite an Interpol warrant against him. India has long called for Saeed's arrest and said the bounty - one of the highest on offer - was a sign the United States understood its security concerns. Only last week Saeed evaded police to address an anti-U.S. rally in Islamabad. "India welcomes this new initiative of the government of the United States," External Affairs Minister...
Monday, 2 April 2012
Salou, the northern Spanish town where thousands of British students flock every spring for four nights of drunken debauchery.
It was a case of deja vu last night for the long-suffering residents of Salou, the northern Spanish town where thousands of British students flock every spring for four nights of drunken debauchery.For the twelfth time, the Costa Dorada resort has been overrun by Saloufest, the notorious annual sports tour returning for another round of hard drinking, half-naked partying - and the odd day of volleyball or hockey.The first pictures released from this year's event paint a familiar picture: packs of fresh-faced revellers in proudly ridiculous fancy dress, their flesh largely bare and arms aloft as they stagger and bellow through the streets.On the...
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Saudi deputy consul abducted in Yemen
Gunmen have abducted Saudi Arabia's deputy consul from outside his residence in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden, a Yemeni security official has said. Police in the city's Mansoura district said on Wednesday that armed men abducted Abdallah al-Khalidi as he was about to get into his car, and sped off with him in another vehicle. "Abdullah al-Khalidi was kidnapped while leaving his home in the Mansoura neighbourhood of Aden," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He has some personal conflicts with people in Aden" - Yemeni police official He said police had launched an investigation into the kidnapping. "He was taken to an unknown location and we are searching from him," he said. Saudi officials have confirmed the attack. "It happened...
Sunday, 25 March 2012
Whitney Houston full autopsy report to offer more details
Whitney Houston’s full autopsy report may offer more clues about whether the singer suffered a heart attack before her drowning death, officials said Friday. The full report, which is expected to be released in a few weeks, may include test results and physical descriptions of the singer’s heart that will show whether she suffered a heart attack, Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said. The report is being compiled and Winter said he did not have access to its findings, which might show whether there were any obvious signs such as discoloration of her heart that would suggest Houston had a heart attack before slipping underwater in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Feb. 11. Houston’s death has been ruled an accidental drowning, with heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing...
Pakistani Taliban training Frenchmen
Pakistani intelligence officials say dozens of French Muslims have been training with the Taliban in northwest Pakistan. The officials said on Saturday they were investigating whether Mohamed Merah, a Frenchman of Algerian descent suspected of killing seven people in southern France, had been part of this group. Merah traveled to Pakistan in 2011 and said he trained with al-Qaida in Waziristan. He was killed in a gunfight with police Thursday in the French city of Toulouse. The officials said 85 Frenchmen have been training with the Pakistani Taliban in the North Waziristan tribal area for the past three years. Most have dual nationality with France and North African countries. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the med...
Saturday, 24 March 2012
Sex is a multibillion-dollar industry in Spain, with colorfully lit brothels staffed mainly by poor immigrant women from Latin America, Africa and eastern Europe lining highways throughout the country
Pimps Arrested in Spain for 'Barcoding' WomenPolice in Spain arrested 22 alleged pimps who purportedly tattooed women with bar codes as a sign of ownership and used violence to force them into prostitution. Police are calling the gang the "bar code pimps." Officers freed one 19-year-old woman who had been beaten, held against her will and tattooed with a bar code and an amount of money — €2,000 ($2,650) — which investigators believe was the debt the gang wished to extort before releasing her. The woman had also been whipped, chained to a radiator and had her hair and eyebrows shaved off, according to an Interior Ministry statement.All those arrested were of Romanian nationality and had forced the women to hand over part of their earnings, the statement said. The women were tattooed...
Syrian army lays siege to northwestern town
Syrian troops shelled rebellious areas in central and northern Syria on Saturday in the latest push to quash the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, but faced fierce resistance from army defectors, activists said. Much of the day's fighting focused on the northeastern town of Saraqeb, which activists said regime troops and tanks entered from the north amid heavy shelling. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighting reached the central market district where army defectors damaged a tank and three armoured personnel carriers. Late Saturday, it said 2 rebel fighters and 9 government troops had been killed in the clashes. "Large numbers of residents are fleeing the town," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, which has a network of activists inside...
Russian banker shot six times had testified over murder plot
The banker was left for dead by a lone gunman as he returned to his home in Canary Wharf on Tuesday evening. Scotland Yard detectives are investigating the attempted assassination, which Mr Gorbuntsov’s lawyer believes was a retaliation attack after the banker gave evidence in a 2009 attempted murder case. Mr Gorbuntsov, who fled to London because of his fear of reprisals, had recently submitted new evidence to Russian police about the attempted murder of Alexander Antonov, another Russian banker. The case was closed three years ago when three Chechen men were jailed for attempted murder. But police have never discovered who organised the attempted hit. Officers re-opened the case on March 2 this year after Mr Gorbuntsov submitted his new testimo...
Friday, 23 March 2012
Serbian mafia 'put gangster in mincer and ate him for lunch'
Gang that assassinated Serbian prime minister admits making 'face mask' out of member's skinA GANGSTER who helped orchestrate the Serbian prime minister's assassination in 2003 was allegedly made into a stew and eaten by his associates after falling out with his gang leader. Police believe Milan Jurisic (above) was beaten to death with a hammer, skinned and boned with a sharp knife and then put through a meat grinder at a flat in Madrid in 2009. The Zemun clan, a notorious faction of the Serbian mafia that once had connections with the Serbian government, police and media, allegedly made a face mask from Jurisic's skin before turning...
Russian banker shooting: 'It looks like a contract hit'
A former Russian banker is in a critical condition in hospital after he was shot several times in east London. German Gorbuntsov was shot by a man armed with a sub-machine gun as he entered a block of flats in Byng Street, Isle of Dogs, on Tuesday. Aleksander Nekrassov, a former Kremlin advisor, told the BBC that Mr Gorbuntsov was a "key witness" in the case of a murder attempt on another Russian banker, Alexander Antonov, in Moscow in 2009. He said: "It looks like a contract hit to be honest because a sub-machine gun is not really a weapon that would be used by some amate...
Mafia Bosses 'Turn Cannibal': Serbian Gangsters 'Ate Milan Jurisic In A Flat In Madrid' Say Police
A mafia traitor was beaten to death and then eaten by Serbian gangsters, police believe. Milan Jurisic, 37, was killed with a hammer by a gang of criminals from the Zemun Clan, a mafia group from Belgrade, in Madrid. His remains were then ground up with a meat grinder, cooked, and eaten, according to a confession by another Zemun Clan member, Sretko Kalinic, nicknamed "The Butcher". Later the gang reportedly threw the bones into the River Manzanares in the Spanish capital. This week, police found bones in the river and the apartment where the killing apparently took place in 2009. Jurisic is thought to have betrayed his fellow gang members by stealing money from them. He was on the run after being convicted in his absence of assassinating Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003. Kalinic...
Saturday, 10 December 2011
We're so busy that we don't allow ourselves to be in the present
"We're so busy that we don't allow ourselves to be in the present," she said, noting that being present for others is a great gift to them. "Being there for the other person without a better story is being a good listener," stated a slide she showed during her talk. And she said silence and meditation also are important for developing a relationship with God or a higher power. "We have to ask ourselves, 'Are we human beings or are we human doings?" She noted that the creation was not completed until God declared a day of rest. "The Lord said, 'Learn from me and you will find rest,'" she said. Mongeon said living by spiritual principles will provide new energy and new hope. She said what the world needs more than ever is people of hope. "You and I are the ones who can provide...
A grateful heart is never sad
living by eight spiritual values: positive attitude, friendship, simplicity and ordinariness, humor, forgiveness, gratitude, mindfulness and spiritual freedom. "People say to me, 'Why do you smile so much?' I say I need it," she said in her talk about positive attitudes. "We must esteem ourselves before we can esteem others." She also discussed the need to develop a loving eye with which to view the world. While discussing friendship, she said "Learning to be a powerful presence in another's life is just so, so beautiful." And she said people make themselves rich by making their wants fewer. "May I live simply that others simply can live," Mongeon said, quoting Gandhi. To achieve the value of humor, Mongeon suggested learning from children. "Children laugh 60 times a day, but...
Key Concepts from the 1940's
1. Put no block between the newcomer and Step Twelve.Get the newcomer to Step Twelve as quickly as possible, so he or she can experience the life-changing spiritual awakening that occurs as the direct result of taking the Steps. Assure the newcomer that our program of recovery will relieve his or her alcoholism/addiction. Show the newcomer that the process is simple, straightforward and that it really works.2. Call the newcomer!Demonstrate that you are there for the newcomer by checking in with him or her on a regular basis. Remember, the newcomer is very ill and needs your encouragement and support.3. Read the appropriate parts of the "Big Book" to the newcomer.The newcomer is in no physical or emotional condition to read, let alone comprehend, the "Big Book" by him or herself. Therefore,...
