Mickeys

A student in China has confessed to stabbing to death a room-mate because of his snoring.

Snorer was stabbed in the chest and back in the middle of the night

“I told Zhao about it and he became angry. He verbally abused me several times, prompting me to kill him,” 23-year-old Guo Liwei was quoted as saying.

Zhao Yan, 22, was stabbed in the chest and back in the middle of the night.

The pair shared accommodation at Jilin agricultural university in the north-eastern province of Jilin, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Guo had previously complained to Zhao about his snoring and posted video of him snoring on a university website, which created more tension between the two, Xinhua reported.

Guo is currently awaiting sentencing by the Changchun Intermediate People’s Court.

Violent crimes have been on the rise in China, especially as the country’s rapid economic development has created a growing rich-poor gap.

story from SkyNews

The deadly dangers of rail crossings should be part of the theory test for learner drivers, rail bosses have said.

The proposal came as newly released figures showed the extent of recklessness on Britain’s level-crossings.

Last year, there were 3,242 incidents of people either dodging round the barriers or racing through the red lights.

Some 13 people were killed, and there were 140 near-misses – an average of three a week.

Network Rail chief executive Iain Coucher said: “Motorists are too often playing Russian Roulette with a 200-ton train, and tragically some of them lose their lives.”

He added: “Lives will be saved if motorists learn how to use level crossings safely from the day they pass their test.”

In the last year, Network Rail has been stepping up its safety campaign, with graphic adverts on TV and radio.

Slogans like ‘Don’t Run The Risk’, and ‘Would It Kill You To Wait?’, have been accompanied by footage of hair-raising narrow escapes, showing how close some people come to being killed.

In one incident, a woman is seen pushing a pram across the path of an oncoming train.

In another, a motorist ignores the red flashing lights and drives over the crossing just seconds before the train comes through.

Even if the police catch the culprits, many are let off with nothing more than a verbal warning.

The Office Of Rail Regulation wants a much tougher regime, with drivers being given nine points on their licence if found guilty. But as yet, that is still just a proposal.

story from SkyNews

Outraged parents have hit out at a school in Birmingham after pupils discovered CCTV cameras in the school’s toilets.

Grace Academy in Chelmsley Wood

Youngsters at Grace Academy in Chelmsley Wood claim they returned from half-term to find staff had installed the cameras without notifying them or their parents.

Some parents are furious at what they say is a “total invasion of privacy” and claim some pupils are so anxious about being watched they are refusing to use the facilities.

One mother whose teenage daughter attends the school is concerned the footage could fall into the wrong hands.

She told the Sunday Mercury: “She came home from school and told me security cameras had been installed in the girl’s toilets but we didn’t know anything about it.

“You would expect the school to have consulted parents first yet we received no information and no letters have been sent home explaining this decision.”

Grace Academy claims the cameras only cover the sink areas and have not yet been activated.

Privacy campaigners warn of the psychological effects of overuse of CCTV

School principal Terry Wales told Sky News: “It’s to safeguard our youngsters, many schools are using cameras now.

“We had a parents’ forum last night, we explained the arrangements and the parents were satisfied.

“We’ve found that when it comes to health and safety, children want to feel secure.”

But privacy campaigners warned about the psychological effects of the feeling of being watched, even if cameras are not switched on.

Dylan Sharpe from Big Brother Watch told Sky News: “Children are entitled to privacy like anyone else.

“We’re raising a generation of children accustomed to being constantly watched and monitored, whether cameras are switched on or not.”

Grace Academy already has 26 CCTV cameras watching other parts of the school.

The incident is the latest row to erupt between schools and parents who are concerned about safeguarding their children’s privacy.

Last year police were called to a school in Salford after parents were horrified to discover children had been filmed changing into their PE kit.

Although the footage was not misused, police seized the film after negotiating with the school.

In 2007 it was revealed schools had fingerprinted thousands of primary school children without their parent’s consent.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families later ruled that if schools want to obtain and store biometric data from children, consent is not required from parents.

story from SkyNews

A motorcycle gang has done a smash and grab on a London jeweller, making off with fistfuls of gems and watches in the middle of the day.

A motorcycle gang smashes the window of a West End jewellers in broad daylight and makes off with gems worth £50,000 each.

Five bikers mounted the pavement and screeched to a halt outside Mappin & Webb’s Piccadilly store in the West End.

They boldly spent five minutes beating through the reinforced glass windows with a sledgehammer and helping themselves to the goods, worth at least £50,000.

And when astonished passers-by stopped to look, the gang members drove their bikes at them to ward them off.

When the glass broke, it set off the store’s alarm system and poured anti-theft smoke out of the shop.

Amazingly, one man walked right past the robbers as if nothing was happening just as one of the group was leaning into the window and swiping jewels from the display.

The gang then sped off. They have not yet been traced by police.

Forensic officers and police examining the scene have cordoned off a large section of Old Bond Street, famed for its expensive jewellers.

The small holes demonstrate the strength of the reinforced glass

The same jeweller’s Regent Street store was raided at least three times in 2008. In one attack a Vauxhall Vectra was driven through the front doors and security gates.

In 2006 two teenagers were jailed after stealing goods worth about £26,000 from Mappin & Webb in Fenchurch Street.

The business holds two royal warrants and acts as silversmith to the Queen and Prince Charles.

The groups of thieves previously responsible have been dubbed “Fagin’s Kitchen” gangs after police discovered some members were aged in their early teens.

story from SkyNews

Manie Potgieter from Lydenburg, who allegedly shot and killed Litasha van der Walt and wounded his wife, Daleen in a shooting incident on Saturday night, wrote a letter in which he accused his wife of having an extra-marital affair.

“Lord forgive me!” were the opening words of the letter.

Family friends of the Potgieters told Beeld on Tuesday that he was so jealous of his wife that he kept track of her from Iraq by means of a web camera. He was doing maintenance work in Iraq.

“She had to be home at a certain time every day and switch on the computer so he could watch her. There would be hell to pay if she was late,” said a good friend.

Potgieter, 51, reportedly walked into the Trout Inn restaurant in Lydenburg on Saturday night with a .32 revolver and first shot his 37-year-old wife, wounding her, and then shot and killed Van der Walt, 25.

This happened during the 18th birthday party of his stepson, Wimpie.

Potgieter fled after the shooting. He was arrested 24 hours later at a guesthouse outside White River.

According to the investigating officer, Thomas Motau, the letter clearly shows that Potgieter was extremely jealous of his wife.

In the letter he also accuses her of having a lesbian affair.

The murder weapon was found near Van der Walt’s body shortly after the murder. It is not registered in Potgieter’s name.

Police have since seized several firearms which were hidden in the roof of Potgieter’s house in Schoeman Street.

A rare Striker shotgun (with a drum magazine which holds 12-gauge shot), a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and a .22 rifle were found, among others. Potgieter only has a licence for the Striker.

They also seized two swords, a hunting knife, a panga and a large amount of ammunition.

Potgieter told police that he had served as a mercenary in Iraq, but Beeld has established that he was working as a maintenance technician for an international company, RMS, in 2007.

He did maintenance work on buildings in the city of Tadji, where there is a large American military base. He was also responsible for the maintenance of the base’s electricity network and generators.

Daleen Potgieter is still being treated in the Eugène Marais hospital in Pretoria. Her condition is stable.

Her husband appeared briefly in court in Lydenburg on Tuesday. He will appear again on Wednesday and remains behind bars.

taken from News24

Pretoria – With only 93 days to go before the start of the 2010 World Cup, residents of Mamelodi-East near Pretoria during violent protests on Tuesday threatened to disrupt the tournament.

They are demanding that the government immediately supply them with houses, electricity, running water and flushing toilets.

“If the government could spend millions of rands and prepare for the World Cup so quickly, it’s a disgrace that people are still living in squalor in squatter camps,” Vusi Nkosi, a resident, said on Tuesday.

A schoolgirl armed with stones walks towards a police vehicle in Tsamayaweg, Mamelodi-East.

“The soccer means nothing to us because we won’t be able to watch it anyway, since we don’t have electricity.

“This time we will fight and toyi-toyi like the ANC taught us.”

Over 6 000 people live in seven squatter camps in close proximity to each other in Mamelodi-East.

Riotous residents have been blockading Tsamaya Road, Hector Peterson Street and Hans Strijdom Avenue with burning tyres and rubbish since 20:00 on Monday.

On Tuesday the police repeatedly tried to disperse the crowd by firing rubber bullets at them and firing live rounds in the air.

Several people were hit by rubber bullets.

Johannes Maheso, police spokesperson, said four men were arrested.

This protest followed similar demonstrations in Hammanskraal, Soshanguve and Brits.

Veronica Mphahlele, a community leader, said the government promised in 2000 that they would be given permanent houses and land of their own.

“It’s 10 years later and we’re still in the same position. All they do is send police to come and shoot at us.”

The residents are accusing council members, the police and the metro police of illegally selling land and houses intended for the poor to enrich themselves.

(continue reading…)

An American man is claiming R12.6m from the Monateng Safari Lodge outside Pretoria after he fell on a wet stoep.

US citizen Michael Francis Klesh walks with a stick to the North Gauteng Court in Pretoria.

Michael Francis Klesh, 55, a marketing specialist, says in his court documents that he fractured a vertebra and broke his left wrist. He was supposedly in shock for three to four months.

He is claiming R12 627 650 from Monateng after he fell outside his accommodation unit on the afternoon of January 19 2008.

Klesh alleges there wasn’t sufficient protection from rain water on the stoep and that there was no warning that the tiles might be slippery or dangerous when they’re wet.

Morris Baslian, Klesh’s legal representative, said Klesh and the defendant reached a verbal agreement when Klesh booked his accommodation by phone on January 10 2008.

When he arrived on January 14, he was given a piece of paper to sign “which is at best an offer and not a contract”.

The receptionist said the document was a “mere formality”.

Baslian said the defendant is relying on the indemnity clause in that document, which was not a condition of the original agreement (when Klesh made his booking).

The indemnity clause is also “hidden” in the document.

At the bottom of the document the signatory agrees to abide by Monateng’s rules and regulations, and gives consent for their vehicle to be searched.

Baslian said the indemnity clause should have been pointed out to the signatory.

Since the receptionist said the document is merely a formality, Klesh had no reason to suspect or believe that it would contain any conditions.

(continue reading…)

At least 11 people have been killed and more than 60 injured – including women and children on their way to school – in a suicide car bombing in Pakistan.

The target was a police building in the eastern city of Lahore where “important” suspects are interrogated.

No-one has yet claimed responsibility for the blast, although it is thought to have been the work of the Taliban or an allied miltant group.

More than 600 people have died in a wave of terrorist attacks in Pakistan that began last October.

The latest attack comes amid reports of a crackdown on the Taliban and al Qaeda in the country.

TV footage showed a huge crater in front of the police building where the bomb went off.

“This place was used to interrogate important suspects. Presently there was none such suspect, but more then 40 staff were manning the place,” said Lahore police chief Pervez Rathore.

Noorul Huda, a student at a nearby religious school who suffered a head wound in the explosion, told reporters: “Blocks and pieces of the roof fell upon us and six of us were injured.

“It was total chaos outside and people were running and crying for help.”

A Lahore government official said 11 people had died and a number of those injured were in critical condition.

A hospital spokesman said the dead included at least one woman and a young girl, apparently part of a group heading to a school.

“People are coming with multiple wounds, many with head injuries and broken limbs,” he said.

Other nearby buildings, including a mosque, also were damaged by the blast.

story from SkyNews

Two women paramedics were attacked in Durban Deep, west of Johannesburg, while attending to a toddler who had suffered burn wounds, reports said on Monday.

Senior Superintendent Noxolo Kweza said the two women were called out to Durban Deep in Roodepoort on Friday night after receiving a call from a desperate mother that her 2-year-old son had been burnt.

The Star newspaper reported that the two paramedics drove to a pick-up point along Main Reed road where residents are often asked to bring their patients.

The mother, her son and two men, who are family friends, waited for the paramedics there. At one stage, the mother returned home to get a jersey for her son.

“While they [the paramedics] were busy with the child in the ambulance, three armed men appeared from the bushes, threatened the two men and told them to run away, otherwise they were going to shoot them,” said Kweza.

“The two men ran down the road and the suspects took the women into the bushes.

“They raped one woman and attempted to rape the other one.”

The two men, who ran away, alerted the police and accompanied them to the scene to search for the women.

The assailants fled when the police arrived on the scene.

Beeld newspaper said the three men fled in the ambulance, which was later found abandoned in the area.

The two women had not yet made statements to the police because they had been too traumatised.

Both women were admitted to the Life Flora Clinic.

The boy was not injured in the attack and was admitted to hospital for treatment to the burn wounds.

taken from News24

South Africa is in danger of becoming a major hub for drug trafficking, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said on Thursday.

The office’s Jonathan Lucas said at the release of the International Narcotics Control Board’s annual report: “West African syndicates had recently become major drug traffickers after Central American cartels began using them due to difficulty with their traditional routes.

“Increased surveillance on traditional routes had made them become unprofitable.”

He said if these new routes through West Africa were successfully dealt with by the authorities, Central American cartels would again look for other alternatives.

“When they are diverted, will they come to South Africa? Maybe.”

There was also a danger the 2010 World Cup would worsen drug trafficking.

Law enforcement and customs officials would be under pressure due to massive tourist inflows during the tournament.

Central Drug Authority deputy chairperson David Bayever said: “We are aware it is going to be a big problem for us.”

He described trafficking cartels as “well-researched guys that know where the loopholes are”.

Despite these threats, SA’s drug problem remained primarily a domestic one, with alcohol and dagga use being well above global averages.

“Cannabis use was three times the global average in South Africa and its alcohol consumption put it in the top 10 of countries.”

Bayever said drugs and substance abuse problems were the underlying causes of such ills as HIV/Aids, violence and crime.

“It is not the result of these problems, but the cause of them. In order to deal with these problems we need to handle substance abuse.”

Most of South Africa’s cannabis was grown in Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa, said the office’s national co-ordinator Johan Kruger. The region was actually a net exporter of cannabis to other countries.

Bayever said an additional problem would be the extension of school holidays during the World Cup. In addition to being at risk for substance abuse, children may also be lured into prostitution.

“Our youth are going to be on holiday and they are going to be targeted to become prostitutes,” said Bayever.

taken from News24

A swimming coach who faces charges of sexual assault has been released on R5 000 bail after appearing at the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday.

The 59-year-old man was arrested after a private investigator was hired when several children at his swimming school – which he ran with his wife – started showing signs of sexual abuse, The Times reported on Sunday.

He is alleged to have attempted suicide after the story of his arrest broke.

At the bail hearing on Wednesday, his lawyer is said to have told the court that the case had been pending for 18 months and he was no longer a threat to any of the children, Angie Chislett, a teacher from a Durban, school told News24.

“He was taken to hospital, and suffered from diabetes and stress,” she said. “His lawyer said he was too sick to be in jail.”

Chislett said they were yet to be informed of further court dates.

KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Jay Naicker confirmed to News24 that the man appeared at the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, and was released on R5 000 bail.

“The case has been remanded for April,” he said.

taken from News24

A total of 55% of private business owners in South Africa were affected by contact crime in the past year – almost 10% down from last year, a report showed on Wednesday.

This is according to Grant Thornton’s 2010 International Business Report (IBR) released on Wednesday.

In addition, the report found that the percentage of business owners considering emigration was down 1% since last year – with 18% responding that they had given serious consideration to leaving the country.

The two main reasons cited for this were a high crime rate (69%) and political uncertainty (42%).

More than 300 South African privately held business owners were asked if they, any of their employees or immediate family, had been directly affected by contact crimes (road rage, hijackings, personal security threat, violent crime or housebreakings) in the past year and 55% said yes.

However, this figure was 9% lower than a year ago, when it was 64%, the report found.

This indicated “a significant improvement” in just 12 months.

“It’s still unacceptably high,” said Leonard Brehm, national chairperson of Grant Thornton SA.

“More than half of the survey population has been affected by crime in the past year.

“The sad conclusion is that crime is still a major problem.”

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Three Google executives have been convicted of privacy violations for allowing a video of an autistic boy being abused to be posted online.

An Italian judge handed the three men a suspended six-month sentence in a case that has been closely monitored for its implications on internet freedom.

Judge Oscar Magi absolved the three of defamation and acquitted a fourth defendant altogether.

Google reacted furiously to the ruling, which it feared could end up forcing providers to attempt the “impossible” task of pre-screening the thousands of hours of footage uploaded every day onto sites like YouTube.

Google spokesman Bill Echikson said: “We will appeal this astonishing decision.

“It attacks the principles of freedom on which the internet was built.”

The charges were sought by Vivi Down, an advocacy group for people with Down’s syndrome.

The group alerted prosecutors to the 2006 video showing an autistic student in Turin being beaten and insulted by bullies at school.

Google Italy eventually took down the video, though the two sides disagree on how quickly the company reacted to complaints.

The perpetrators of the abuse were identified and sentenced by to community service by a juvenile court because of the footage and Google’s cooperation.

The convicted men were Google’s senior vice president and chief legal officer David Drummond, former chief financial officer George Reyes and global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer.

Senior product marketing manager Arvind Desikan was acquitted.

All four executives denied wrongdoing.

None was in any way involved with the production or uploading of the video but prosecutors argued it shot to the top of a most-viewed list and should have been noticed.

story from SkyNews

A 4-year-old girl and her 18-month-old brother drowned in Florida, Roodepoort, on Sunday morning, as she was presumably trying to save him.

Pool safety

The boy was first to fall into the swimming pool and his sister apparently also fell in when she tried to pull him out.

The children’s mother was visiting a tenant on the property. The swimming pool was not fenced in or covered.

Johannesburg emergency services spokesperson Nana Radebe said it was not clear what had happened exactly and the mother was too traumatised to provide details.

“We tried to revive the children but they were declared dead on the scene.”

Radebe pleaded with people to cover and fence their pools and also to keep the gate locked.

When Beeld arrived at the house on Sunday afternoon, only the owner of the house was at home. Ameenah Thomas, 34, said she was not at home when the children drowned.

“We came back from Cape Town and saw all the emergency services vehicles standing here. I at first thought there had been a burglary,” she said.

The bodies of the children were already in body bags when Thomas arrived. “The mother was devastated,” she said.

“The tenant’s husband said he heard screaming. One of the children was floating in the swimming pool. They pulled out the child and the neighbours helped to pull out the other one,” said Thomas.

taken from News24

Mossel Bay – The owner of a Mossel Bay surfing school has described how he and two other surfers rushed into the sea to help three boys and a man who were in trouble in the sea at Diaz Beach on Saturday.

“We aren’t heroes,” said Llewellyn Whittaker, about himself and two other surfers, Michael Sheppard and Heinrich Engelbrecht.

Another two boys drowned in the incident. Only one of the two boys has been identified. He is 11-year-old Nkululeko Xaka from Kwanonqaba, according to Bernadine Steyn, Southern Cape police spokesperson.

At about 13:45 on Saturday, a group of boys went swimming at the beach. Whittaker described how he had started a surfing lesson on Saturday shortly after a development competition for juniors had finished at Diaz beach.

“I had barely started explaining to my student – a medical doctor whom I only know as Janine – how sea currents work, when I first spotted three people in the waves. It looked like they were in trouble.”

Whittaker dashed into the sea with the surfboard he was using for the lesson.

Initially he only saw a man and two boys in the ocean.

He pulled the man onto his surfboard and swam to the beach with one of the boys. “The boy wasn’t breathing.”

According to him, an unknown youth tried to pull another boy from the water, but the victim kept pulling the youth under.

“It was very bad – the youth (who tried to save the boy) was yelling ‘I can’t go on, I can’t go on’.”

Sheppard rushed into the surf after he heard Whittaker whistling and saw him waving his arms. He and Engelbrecht brought two more boys, who were lying face down in the water by that time, to the beach.

Steyn confirmed on Sunday that two boys (one who went swimming and one who presumably tried to save him) were still in hospital.

According to the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI), the adult man was also taken to hospital. His condition was stable.

taken from News24