A man in Switzerland miraculously survived a 100-meter fall into a ravine in his pickup truck, the Le Matin paper said on Tuesday.
The man, whose name has not been disclosed, was driving through the high-mountain Fluela Pass when he lost control of his vehicle on an icy road. The truck rolled over the edge of a cliff.
The driver not only survived the fall, but walked away from the twisted wreckage of his vehicle.
MOSCOW, December 8 (RIA Novosti)
A young Chinese couple sold their six-day-old son for 2,500 yuan ($368) to buy a mobile phone in the country's southwest, the Shanghai Daily paper reported.
The paper said the couple, who live in the Chongqing Municipality, are both unemployed. The mother is 19 and the father 21.
"I have no job and cannot support myself, let alone the baby," the paper quoted the father as saying. He added that he didn't want the baby back.
The mother later said she would take the boy back and raise him, but police have said the couple is unable to give the child a good home. The child is currently in hospital.
The baby was sold twice before eyewitnesses alerted police. He was initially bought by a 43-year-old man, who later attempted to resell the baby for 10,000 yuan ($1,470), claiming he was his uncle.
In April, China launched a nationwide anti-kidnapping campaign. According to police statistics over 80 kidnapping gangs have since been uncovered, and over 450 children freed. In late November, China executed two men found guilty of kidnapping 15 children.
Child trafficking is a lucrative trade on the Chinese black market. Children are first stolen from their parents in rural areas, then sold to prosperous childless couples for up to $10,000. The majority of stolen children are boys, preferred for being able to continue the family line.
BEIJING, December 9 (RIA Novosti)
http://en.rian.ru/world/20091209/157173122.html
A chemistry student from the northern Ukrainian city of Konotop was killed when a stick of chewing gum exploded in his mouth, Ukrainian media reported on Tuesday.
The 25-year-old student of Ukraine's Kiev Polytechnic Institute was working at a computer in his parents' house late on Saturday when the incident occurred.
"A loud pop was heard from the student's room," the ukranews.com portal said, citing an aide to the city's police chief. "When his relatives entered the room they saw that the lower part of the young man's face had been blown off."
A forensic examination established that the chewing gum was covered with an unidentified chemical substance, thought to be some type of explosive material.
Police questioning revealed that the student had a bizarre habit of chewing gum after dunking it into citric acid. On his table, police found both citric acid packets and a similar-looking unidentified substance, believed to be some kind of explosive material.
Investigators believe that the student simply confused the packets, and put the gum, covered with explosive material, into his mouth.
Although the local forensic department does not have the necessary equipment to identify the substance, it refused to send it to the capital, Kiev, over fears that it might explode during transportation. Forensic experts from Kiev are expected in Konotop on Wednesday.
Investigators are to decide within a 10-day period whether a criminal case should be launched.
MOSCOW, December 8 (RIA Novosti)
A drunk man in the Perm Territory in Russia's Urals was saved by his cat when his apartment caught fire, regional emergency services said on Friday.
The heavily inebriated man fell asleep with a lit cigarette, which started a fire, an emergencies ministry statement said. He was woken up by his cat scratching his face and immediately called the fire service.
"The firefighters arrived at the scene in three minutes, the apartment was ablaze," the statement said. "No other residents were inside the house at the time of the fire. In 15 minutes the blaze was put out. No one was injured. The neighboring apartments were saved."
Russia's emergency services reported that 15,165 people died in fires in 2008, including 584 children. In the United States, with more than twice the population, there are about 3,400 fire-related deaths a year.
NIZHNY NOVGOROD, December 4 (RIA Novosti)
Villagers in Britain's Westbury-sub-Mendip have turned a decommissioned red telephone booth into the smallest library in the world, Earth Times reported.
Residents of the Somerset village bought a disused booth from British Telecom for $1.65, put up shelves and set up a mini-library with books ranging from cooking to classics and fairy tales.
The library is open 24 hours a day. The library also offers DVDs and CDs.
This is not the first time an old red telephone booth has got a new lease of life. Some booths have been turned into art or design projects and some have even been made into showers or toilets.
MOSCOW, December 1 (RIA Novosti)
Two Chinese doctors have been dismissed after putting a steel plate in an 84-year-old patient's healthy leg, China's central CCTV television has said.
The case happened in central China's Hubei province, in the Tongcheng hospital of traditional medicine.
The patient, one Zhao Rongbin, was in hospital after fracturing his leg. He will now need an operation to remove the steel plate and to fix his other leg.
The family has complained to Chinese health authorities.
BEIJING, December 2 (RIA Novosti)
http://en.rian.ru/video/20091116/156855889.html
Rescuers in the Chinese city of Shanghai have been trying to move the body of a 10 tons beached whale from the shore.
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Ha ha ha
He not eat, he swallows not chewing!
http://en.rian.ru/video/20091112/156807343.html
A Peruvian man who ate nails, coins, and copper wire for months had 1.5 pounds (0.7 kilogrammes) of
metal removed from his stomach in Cajamarca, local television reported on Tuesday.
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Ken, you are charming!!!)))
BEIJING, November 9 (RIA Novosti) - Over 10,000 students in China's central Hubei province set a world record for simultaneous bathing in hot springs, the China Daily reported on Monday. The record-breaking event took place in seven hot springs in the city of Xianning, the paper said. The ceremony started with a show: students from local colleges wearing red swimming hats formed the figure "10,000" amid hot waters. According to the paper, the total number of bathers was 10,012, more than enough for a new Guinness record. Bathing in hot springs, famous for their medicinal properties, is popular in China.
Arnold Schwarzenegger used to compete in body building contest where he excelled in psyching the competition out in posing. So his sense of humor has shown in many ways such as his wife is a Kennedy who's family is democratic. He's republican. One night on a talk show he mentioned he's bi-partisan because because he sleeps with a republican.
WOW, a 112 year old man marrying a 17 year old is something else. I can't even imagine something like that happening. It must be something they put in the water. LOL
MOSCOW, October 29 (RIA Novosti) - California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger showed his sense of humor in a message attached to a bill he recently vetoed, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
The California governor issued a veto statement on Assembly Bill 1176 dealing with the financing of some projects in the port of San Francisco.
Taking the first letter from each line of the message to the California State Assembly, a common two-word obscenity is revealed, the first word beginning with 'f' and the second word being 'you.'
The bill was sponsored by Democrat Assemblyman Tom Ammiano who recently heckled the Republican governor at a San Francisco gala.
Schwarzenegger's spokesman Aaron McLear called the story "a weird coincidence" and said: "I suppose when you do so many vetoes, something like this is bound to happen."
Ammiano's spokesman Quintin Mecke said: "Kudo to the governor for his creative use of coincidence with his veto message," adding that "we will call it even and start with a clean slate with the governor from here on out."
To see Schwarzenegger's veto message, visit http://gov.ca.gov/pdf/press/2009bills/AB1176_Ammiano_Veto_Message.pdf
MOSCOW, October 29 (RIA Novosti) - A 112-year-old Somali man has married a 17-year-old girl, BBC reported on Thursday.
The wedding took place in the village of Guriceel in central Somalia, one of the poorest countries in the world.
Ahmed Muhamed Dore already has 18 children from five wives. He said he would like to have more children with his new teenage wife, Safia Abdulleh, who is young enough to be his great-great-granddaughter.
"Today God helped me realize my dream," Dore said after the wedding ceremony in the region of Galguduud.
"I didn't force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love; and then we agreed to marry," Dore continued, adding that he had waited for his wife to grow up first before proposing to her.
Safia's family said their daughter is "happy with her new husband," a man who survived Italian colonization, British occupation, Siad Barre dictatorship and Somalia's dissolution.
Somali historians say that the wedding was the first of its kind in Somalia for over a century.
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Scenes from that Hollywood action movie - Speed - turned real on the streets of the Central Russian city of Perm.
Out-of-control bus was rampaging through the city and smashing everything in its path.
As CCTV footage shows, some passers-by escaped death under its wheels thanks only to miracle.
This post was modified from its original form on 20 Oct, 11:05
ABU DHABI, October 11 (RIA Novosti) - The administration of the Dubai international airport has returned 10 kilograms of gold to an Iraqi trader who left behind his precious parcel while leaving for home, a UAE-based newspaper reported on Sunday.
The trader was carrying a total of 300 kg of gold but left 10 kg behind, Gulfnews said.
The airport police discovered the gold worth several hundred thousand U.S. dollars, apparently forgotten by the Iraqi trader, along with his passport copy, the paper said.
The police immediately got in touch with the trader, using information on his passport copy, before the plane took off. As a result, the trader was able to take the gold back with him, the paper said.
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MOSCOW, October 9 (RIA Novosti) -Animal control officers and police in California have rescued some 77 cats, which were kept in cages by a couple of pet "hoarders," the Sacramento Bee reported.
When a SWAT team entered a house in south Sacramento on Wednesday morning, they found animal feces caked to the floor. Rescuers soon discovered a separate garage, where cat cages were stacked floor to ceiling and felines of all sizes and colors roamed and cowered, the paper's website said.
The Sacramento Bee added that the hardiest investigators said they had rarely seen, or smelled, anything like it.
A city animal welfare official said it was a classic case of animal "hoarding."
Sacramento animal care services manager Penny Cistaro said the couple's neighbors had filed a number of complaints over the course of at least a year, but the homeowners had refused to allow investigators inside.
When a court finally issued a search order, veterinary specialists, shelter workers, animal control officers and police converged on the home and spent hours rescuing the cats, which were taken temporarily to the county's animal control center, the paper said.
Property inspectors condemned the house as being a health hazard, and police said the owners would be charged with felony animal cruelty and could go to jail.
In answer to the claim, Paul and Kathy Franco insisted that they took care of their animals, most of which appeared healthy and friendly.
"Go pick on someone else! We have the records! We took care of our cats! I'm not abusing them!" the Sacramento Bee quoted Paul Franco as shouting.
Kathy Franco said she was unsure how many cats were in the house and the garage, but said they were like family members to her and her husband, the paper's on-line edition said. She helped round up some of the cats, and when the day ended with 77 cats taken into custody, traps were left for the others.
In accordance with local law, the couple will be allowed to keep only seven of the cats, while the others will be medically evaluated and then potentially be available for adoption, the website said.
According to the Humane Society of the United States, researchers have recently begun looking into compulsive hoarding of animals and objects and the phenomenon's link to psychological problems.
www.rian.ru
http://en.rian.ru/video/20091008/156394752.html
It took Dzhemal Tkeshelashvili a few seconds to tear three hot water bottles, which he had inflated with his nose. The young Georgian judoka hopes that this skill will put him in the Guinness Book of Records.
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MOSCOW, October 5 (RIA Novosti) - It took Ukrainian rescuers three hours to release a man whose arm got stuck in a toilet when he tried to retrieve money he had dropped, the ukranews.com portal said on Monday.
The 47-year-old tried to make a diving catch when his 200 hryvnias ($24) fell into a public toilet in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernigov. In his efforts to rescue his cash, he got his arm hopelessly stuck up to his elbow.
The emergency workers removed tiles, drilled the toilet out of concrete floor and cut the outlet pipe, but the man's arm remained trapped in the chute. Hydraulic shears and a plumber's torch were finally used to cut the man free.
The man was unharmed, although 200 hryvnias poorer, while the toilet was completely destroyed.
Rescuers around the world often have to release people who get stuck while trying to retrieve money, identification papers, mobile phones, jewelry and other valuables from toilets.
A year ago a high-speed TGV train in France was delayed for two hours when a man got his arm stuck down a toilet after dropping a cell phone, and this May a U.S. woman was trapped while trying to retrieve a gold tooth that had fallen into the toilet bowl.
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BERLIN, September 25 (RIA Novosti) - Several lines of Frankfurt's suburban train service were held up early on Friday after a drunk man fell onto the rails, breaking his leg, local TV reported.
The 26-year-old called the emergency services, but was unable to explain his whereabouts. Until the man was found, the S-Bahn was forced to delay around 100 trains, and cancel 52.
The incident is believed to have cost the train service tens of thousands of euros.
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BANGKOK, September 22 (RIA Novosti) - Thais are fighting a crime wave as falling tourist numbers have left monkeys so short of food they are taking whatever they can get from people's homes, local media reported on Tuesday.
As the global economic crisis and political instability has cut visitors to Thailand, wild monkeys, mostly macaques, are attacking villages and even Buddhist monasteries across the country, pilfering everything that can be considered edible.
"They are used to eating human food and understand well the difference between water, Coca-Cola and beer," said a resident of the central Nakhon Pathom province's Sam Phran district, where a recent monkey attack took place.
"They like all that food, but there are fewer tourists this year... and monkeys attack people's houses in order to get food. We cannot explain the difference between us, locals, and tourists," Thong told Thai PBS TV channel.
According to him, some 20 monkeys recently attacked several houses in the village, less than 100 km (60 miles) from Thailand's capital Bangkok. The man said the monkeys only needed a few minutes to take all the food, including Coca-Cola and beer cans, from cupboards and fridges, destroying the furniture.
Thong said local residents had been forced to fortify their houses to keep out the hungry animals.
"We feel sorry for them. It is hunger that made them come here. That is why we neither shoot at them nor beat them," he said, adding that provincial veterinary services had been asked to deal with the problem.
In August, hungry animals attacked a Buddhist monastery in the country's Nakhon Sawan province some 200 km (120 miles) from Bangkok, ransacking the monastery kitchen, destroying furniture and part of the temple's roof, media reports said.
Thailand's monkeys are a big hit with tourists, who often give them food. Once a year, residents give the monkeys a traditional Chinese dinner, consisting of 12 meals, that is usually only laid on for the most important guests.
According to the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the number of tourists in the country has reduced by 20-25% in 2008-2009. The world economic crisis and the seizure of the international airport in Bangkok by the opposition People's Alliance for Democracy in November 2008 are believed to be the main causes of the recession in the country's tourism sector.
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PARIS, September 20 (RIA Novosti) - A lucky lottery player from France's Mediterranean coast beat about 40 million other hopefuls to win 100 million euros ($147.1 million) in a European jackpot, the largest lottery payout ever made in the country, national media said.
Residents of nine European countries (France, Spain, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Austria, Ireland and the U.K.) play the Euro Millions lottery but the French man was the only one to pick the winning combination of numbers.
France's previous lottery jackpot record was 76 million euros.
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MOSCOW, September 22 (RIA Novosti) - Two Australian teenagers out to catch fish to feed their cat hauled in a bag stuffed with around $87,000, the Northern Star newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The teenagers were fishing in their favorite creek near the village of Nimbin in New South Wales in early September when they discovered a black plastic bag with bundles of money inside. The boys took the money home, and counted out 100,000 Australian dollars in 20 and 50 denominations.
Thinking the money may be linked to crime, the boys handed it over to authorities. Police have begun a probe into the origin of the cash, and have launched a search for the owners. So far, police have only had illegitimate claims for the cash.
"We just don't want any trouble. We were sweet before the money and we'll be sweet after it," one of the teenagers was quoted by the Northern Star as saying.
Police have said if no one claims the cash, it will be returned to the teenagers.
Authorities still have no leads as to where the cash came from. The region around Nimbin, with a population of around 350 people, has seen recent flooding, and the cash could have floated downstream from one of several larger villages.
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http://en.rian.ru/video/20090922/156212596.html
The world's tallest man, Turkey's Sultan Kosen, stopped traffic in New York's Times Square.
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http://en.rian.ru/video/20090918/156173221.html
A new record was set in New York on Thursday for the world's biggest pie fight. The pies, some 1500 of them, were coconut custard.
But the record wasn't for the number of pies thrown, it was for the number of participants which amounted to 271 people.
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BUDAPEST, September 16 (RIA Novosti) - A Hungarian fisherman pulled a 75-kg (165-pound) catfish from the Tisza River after dueling with the beast for about an hour, the Hungarian MTI news agency reported on Wednesday.
The giant catfish, which was about 2.5 meters (8 feet) long, towed the fisherman's small boat into the middle of the river, and it took the help of other fishermen to secure the craft and haul the enormous fish from the water.
The Hungarian Hunters and Fishermen's Union has no record of such a large fish being seen - let alone caught - in local rivers.
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SAMARA, September 16 (RIA Novosti) - A baby weighing 6.75 kg (15 lbs) was born on Wednesday in Russia's southwestern city of Samara, breaking all regional records, a spokeswoman for the local government said.
The baby, who was born in Samara's Semashko hospital, is 0.62 m (2.03 ft) long.
"It is a unique case. The last record among newborns was registered in the region about 10 years ago, when a baby weighing 5.8 kg (12.8 lbs) was born," the spokeswoman said.
"The mother and baby are feeling well," she said, adding that the birth was the woman's third.
The record-breaking mother has been under close observation since the 34th week of her pregnancy, the spokeswoman said.
"Our doctors have a lot of experience in treating newborns," she said.
Last year, nine children weighing less than 1 kg (2.2 lbs) were born at the Samara hospital, the spokeswoman added. They all survived, she said.
Another giant baby weighing 7.75 kg (17.1 lbs) was born in Russia in 2007. The girl, called Nadia, was delivered by Caesarean section at a hospital in Siberia's Altai region, joining eight sisters and three brothers.
In January 2005, a 38-year-old woman in Brazil gave birth to a baby weighing 7.73 kg (17.04 pounds).
Among the heaviest babies recorded are a 10.2 kg (22.5 lbs) boy born in Italy in 1955, and a 10.8 kg (23.8 lbs) boy born in the U.S. in 1879, who died 11 hours later, the BBC said.
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http://en.rian.ru/video/20090916/156146898.html
Clyde is found more than 2,000 miles from home after 3yrs missing
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NEW DELHI, September 3 (RIA Novosti) - Indian surgeons have successfully carried out a life saving operation for the first time on a 10-day-old baby boy, diagnosed with a fatal heart defect, a hospital spokesman said on Thursday.
The newborn Indian boy was suffering with a rare defect, ectopia cordis, a condition where the heart beats outside the chest. During the four-hour operation, surgeons created a space for the baby's heart, Yogendra Gupta said.
"As there was no place for the baby's heart in his chest, we had to create it," he said.
Doctors at New Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences are closely monitoring the newborn's progress and will make a decision on whether further surgery is required.
"It would be great if the baby lived for 10 days at least. It would be a record," Gupta said, adding "the success of the surgery demonstrates the high professional level of Indian doctors".
Ectopia cordis is an extremely rare congenital defect that affects approximately 8 in every million births where babies are born with a misplaced heart. However, 90% of babies die before they are born or within three days.
The only person who survived with the condition is Christopher Wall, 34, from the U.S. He holds the Guinness World Record for the oldest living person with such a defect. Wall underwent 15 operations before his heart was successfully placed into his chest.
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http://en.rian.ru/video/20090831/155976246.html
Some 400 people from all over Europe have gathered to take part in the Mud Olympics, ‘the muddiest sports event in the world’, in Germany, which is hosting the event for the sixth time.
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MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) - A bus driver in Argentina's northwestern San Juan province has set an example of honesty by returning a case full of money to an absent-minded passenger, local media reported on Monday.
Alberto Rios found a case containing 1.8 million pesos ($460,000) in his bus at the end of his shift, but decided to return the entire fortune to its owner, reports said.
"My father always told me: what belongs to you is yours, and what does not is not yours," the 39-year-old said in explaining his good deed.
According to local papers, a man identified as Carlos proved to be the owner of the money, which belonged to his company and was to be spent on a plot of land for olive growing.
Rios was quoted by media as saying he found the forgetful passenger at a bus stop looking frightened. He said Carlos was incredibly happy when given the case, and as an expression of gratitude, he gave the bus driver 300 pesos ($80).
Following the incident, the local Infobae web site asked people if they would follow the driver's example. Only 46.81% of respondents to the online poll answered in the affirmative.
The reported incident was not the only one to amaze the country lately. In March this year, a taxi driver returned $35,000 that had been left behind in his vehicle, and the forgetful owner of the cash rewarded him with some $3.000, two dozen tires and other gifts.
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UFOs reported over eastern China
BEIJING, August 24 (RIA Novosti) - UFOs have been reported over China's eastern province of Shandong, the SINA news agency said on Monday.
According to the news agency, unidentified flying objects were sighted on August 20 in five locations, including above the provincial capital of Jinan. One of the UFOs was filmed by a cameraman and posted in the Internet.
A UFO was also seen above the city of Chengdu, the capital of southwestern China's Sichuan province in early September, the news agency said.
Another UFO sensation took place in China in December, when Chinese authorities released a video that had been kept secret for 20 years. The three-minute film was shot by a Chinese pilot above the city of Shanghai on August 27, 1987, and featured a shining object flying high in the sky.
Chinese ufologists claim that a large UFO base is located in China, somewhere on the forbidding heights of Mount Everest.
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