Miss Universe Body Paint Photos Stir Up ControversyIndiaVision News - Is it possible for a beauty pageant to be too sexy? That's the question directed at Miss Universe these days, as the organization has posed most of its 2010 contestants in almost nothing but body paint for a new set of promotional images.
This year, the Miss Universe pageant is using photos of contestants, including Miss USA 2010 Rima Fakih, in nothing but body paint to promote the August 23 event, and it has one former pageant organizer crying foul.
Miss Universe Body Paint Photos Stir Up ControversyAngie Meyer, described as a "former pageant-organization worker," expressed her dismay with the photos to Fox News: "It's alarming that this has been turned into a Playboy-esque masquerade, she said. "By implementing topless photos as part of the pageant process, they're putting applicants in an extremely compromising position."
The Miss Universe organization, which is co-run by the Trump Organization and NBC, says they arranged the Las Vegas photo shoot to celebrate the diversity of this year's contestants. In a statement to Yahoo!, Lark-Marie Anton, vice president of marketing and public relations for pageant, defended the promotion: "The contestants who compete at Miss Universe are diverse, as they represent more than 82 countries around the globe. Many of their cultures embrace nudity," she said.Pointing out that each contestant chose how much skin to show, and calling the photos "a form of artistic expression," the final word from the organization was: "We feel the images captured are fashionable and cutting edge!"
The Miss USA pageant, also co-run by the Trump Organization and NBC, did a similar stunt and faced similar scrutiny for their "Waking Up in Vegas" promotion for that pageant in May, which featured black-and-white photos of the Miss USA contestants wearing lingerie. Ratings for the event were slightly up from the previous year.
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A slimmed down Lea Michele could go from glee club to the Grotto!” claims In Touch.
And what exactly does that mean?
The tab, citing a Michele “friend,” says the “Glee” star has “been offered more than $500,000 to show off her new body in Playboy.”
After all, the mag points out, “Lea has had plenty of experience with nudity: She did a topless scene live for more than a year in Spring Awakening on Broadway.”
Okay, but doing a topless scene in a theatrical show is a lot different than stripping down naked for a ”nudie mag.”
Still, the so-called source alleges, “Lea looks gorgeous, and obviously, Playboy noticed. She loves her new look, and she might do it if she thought it would boost her career.”
Or she might not do it, regardless of her career.
Michele’s rep tells Gossip Cop that “it’s not true at all” that she’s considering a Playboy pictorial.
And what exactly does that mean?
The tab, citing a Michele “friend,” says the “Glee” star has “been offered more than $500,000 to show off her new body in Playboy.”
After all, the mag points out, “Lea has had plenty of experience with nudity: She did a topless scene live for more than a year in Spring Awakening on Broadway.”
Okay, but doing a topless scene in a theatrical show is a lot different than stripping down naked for a ”nudie mag.”
Still, the so-called source alleges, “Lea looks gorgeous, and obviously, Playboy noticed. She loves her new look, and she might do it if she thought it would boost her career.”
Or she might not do it, regardless of her career.
Michele’s rep tells Gossip Cop that “it’s not true at all” that she’s considering a Playboy pictorial.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan should stick to an IMF reform programme in order to secure enough financial support to rebuild after devastating summer floods and stabilise its economy, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said.
Pakistan is reeling from floods, which made more than 10 million people homeless, ripped apart infrastructure and damaged or destroyed crops over an area of 2.4 million hectares. More than 1,750 people were killed.
Heavy financial support was critical for Pakistan long before one of the country's worst natural disasters struck. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) reform package agreed in 2008 had helped keep the economy afloat.
Although pressure on Pakistan eased after the IMF approved a $451 million emergency fund to help it rebuild after the floods, the ADB said delaying reforms would only hurt the country.
"What Pakistan should not have a problem with is continuing with the reform agenda. I am sure actually (this would) underpin a lot of donor support for not only the floods but for the stabilisation of the economy," said Juan Miranda, ADB's director general for its Central and West Asia department.
"We must continue with the reforms. This is our position. That's the way in which you can help people in the longer run.”
"We still have a programme with the IMF, and that is not something that you stop and then you start again. The economy will benefit by a continuation of the reforms. It's not a question of just money," Miranda said in a telephone interview.
"My biggest worry is that the reform agenda gets derailed. That we lose momentum."
The World Bank and Asian Development Bank are completing a damage assessment for Pakistan, which will give the government and donors an estimate of how much rebuilding will cost.
The floods could knock Pakistan's economic growth this year to as low as 2 percent because of heavy damage to crops, said Miranda, lowering his forecast from 3 percent in late August.
Pakistan's official target was 4.5 percent.
Pakistan's central bank said this week economic growth for fiscal 2010/11 could fall to 2.5 percent.
Agriculture is Pakistan's second-largest sector, accounting for over 21 percent of gross domestic product. Nearly 62 percent of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods.
Reconstruction could cost tens of billions of dollars. The World Bank said on Thursday it had approved over $400 million in credit to help Pakistan rebuild from massive flooding. It said the funds were part of the Bank's $1 billion commitment to Pakistan in this fiscal year.
The World Bank and the United States have urged Pakistan to take steps to reassure donor countries it is capable of using aid responsibly and that it can enact reforms.
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LAHORE: The provincial capital of Punjab is once again witnessing the clashes between the lawyers and police, as these clashes entered the second day today, Geo News reported Saturday.
A lawyer and a police were injured in the clash.
The lawyers convened a protest sitting against the arrests made yesterday, followed by a protest rally at Lower Mall, where lawyers and police got locked in clash with police resorting to aerial firing.
Later on, the two sides began pelting stones on one another, causing harm to police mobile van.
Meantime, heavy police is present outside the Aiwan-e-Adl.
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Up to 22 people were killed Saturday when a passenger train smashed into the back of another train on Indonesia's Java island, an official said. Police said a traffic management error was to blame for the accident, which occurred in the early morning at the station in Petarukan Pemalang, Central Java province.
Officers at the scene said a train headed to Surabaya slammed into the back of a Semarang-bound train that was sitting idle at the platform.
"Up to 33 people were killed," railway company spokesman Sapto Hartoyo said. Hartoyo said rescuers were still at the scene working to get people out.
"The suspected cause of the accident was a mistake in the traffic management system," national police spokesman Iskandar Hasan said.
Many of the dead and injured were trapped in three carriages, which had derailed and flipped over, officials said.
"The number of victims could still increase because the evacuation is ongoing," transport ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan told Antara.
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Astronomers have discovered a new planet in a so-called "Goldilocks zone" -- an area that's not too hot and not too cold.
Just right for life, in other words.
The planet is a rarity, existing in what appear to be the conditions required to sustain plants and human life. Its surface temperatures likely range from 160 degrees to 25 degrees below zero, and it orbits the star Gliese 581 -- its sun -- every 37 days.
The planet is roughly three times the size of Earth and about 20 light years away.
In universal terms, that's the same neighborhood.
The discovery is making scientists think habitable planets might not be as rare as they once thought.
The communist country is one of the world's most tightly-controlled societies and bans unauthorised mobile phones as part of a crackdown on information from outside the country.
Visitors landing at Pyongyang's airport find there is no cellular phone signal. But it does not matter because polite and efficient customs officials confiscate foreigners' phones and put them in a green cloth bag.
They are returned when the visitor leaves.
Laptops are allowed after a customs check to ensure they do not carry a mobile communication device.
While foreigners are left incommunicado at the terminal, North Koreans chat on their own mobiles.
The country in December 2008 introduced a 3G network in a joint venture with Cairo-based Orascom Telecom.
Chosun Sinbo, a pro-North Korean newspaper published in Tokyo, reported in April that there were only 120,000 mobile subscribers in North Korea, a country of 24 million people.
Tour guides and officials are among those with mobiles although, unusually for Pyongyang, two girls were also seen intently focused on their handsets as they sat in a park.
Anywhere else in Asia the scene would have been routine but it was a rare sight in the run-down capital which seems stuck in a time decades past.
The regime is expanding its wireless network to accommodate about 600,000 subscribers before the end of this year, the Chosun Sinbo paper said.
Mobiles used in Pyongyang are made in neighbouring China.
Tour guides said the poverty-stricken country has a "local" Internet service and they thought that an outside link to the real Internet existed, perhaps at a library or university.
The Yanggakdo International Hotel, one of two "deluxe" hotels catering to foreigners in the capital, has a telephone kiosk in the lobby.
International calls are crystal clear and a computer in the corner offers email, the clerk says.
"But no Internet," she adds.
While the world's high-tech revolution has passed the country by, visitors assume it is up-to-date in one area: surveillance.
In an elevator of the Yanggakdo, one loud foreigner was cautioned by another who expressed concern about listening devices.
"Hotel rooms, telephones, and fax machines may be monitored," the United States State Department advises travellers.
North Koreans are bombarded with propaganda from childhood, leaving them in ignorance of the wider world. One tour guide had never heard of the late pop star Michael Jackson.
The tuning controls of radios and televisions are fixed to official stations.
In Pyongyang, an evening of local television likely involves a movie about North Korea's past wars.
The BBC, Japan's NHK, CCTV from China, and a Russian channel are, however, available in rooms at the Yanggakdo.
Heidi Blair Montag (born September 15, 1986) is an American reality television personality and singer. She is known for starring on the former MTV reality series The Hills. At one point, the series, which aired from May 2006 through July 2010, followed the life of her former friend and housemate, Lauren Conrad, then later followed Kristin Cavallari, another friend to Montag.
Heidi's first studio album, Superficial, was independently released on January 11, 2010. She is currently working on her second album.
During The Hills, Montag began dating then-cast member Spencer Pratt. In November 2008, the couple eloped in Mexico, though they later married in the United States in April 2009. In July 2010, Montag filed for divorce, after fifteen months of marriage to Pratt.
A New Jersey college student has leapt to his death a day after authorities said two students secretly filmed him having sex with a man and broadcast it over the internet.
Tyler Clementi's wallet was found on the George Washington Bridge on 22 September after two witnesses saw someone jump from the structure, authorities told the AP news agency.
Mr Clementi's body has been found.
Two students have been charged with illegally filming the 18-year-old.
"Tyler was a fine young man, and a distinguished musician. The family is heartbroken beyond words," Paul Mainardi, a lawyer for Mr Clementi's family, said in a statement confirming the suicide.
The teenage violinist's body was identified on Thursday after his body was found in the Hudson River a day earlier.
Room-mate charged
The footage was allegedly taken using a web camera in Mr Clementi's dorm room at Rutgers University and broadcast live over the internet.The two charged with filming and broadcasting the images are Mr Clementi's room-mate, Dharun Ravi, and Molly Wei.
If convicted, the two students face up to five years in prison.
An account belonging to Mr Ravi on the microblogging website Twitter has recently been deleted. But in a recovered snapshot of the account obtained from Google, Mr Ravi wrote about an experience involving his room-mate.
"Room-mate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay," Mr Ravi wrote on Twitter on 19 September.
Two days later Mr Ravi wrote: "Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again."
Gay rights organisations say Mr Clementi's suicide is an example of a nationwide problem - young people killing themselves after being bullied over their sexuality.
SOURCE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11446034
Aafia Siddiqui (born March 2, 1972) is an American-educated Pakistani criminal who was convicted after a jury trial in a U.S. federal court of assault with intent to murder her U.S. interrogators in Afghanistan. The charges carried a maximum sentence of life in prison. In September 2010, she was sentenced by the U.S. judge to 86 years in prison.
A devout Muslim who had engaged in Islamic charity work and proselytizing in the U.S., Siddiqui moved back to Pakistan in 2002. She disappeared with her three young children in March 2003, shortly after the arrest of her second husband's uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged chief planner of the September 11 attacks It was reported that Khalid Mohammed mentioned Siddiqui's name while he was being interrogated.Siddiqui was added to the FBI Seeking Information – War on Terrorism list in 2003. In May 2004, the FBI named Siddiqui as one of its seven Most Wanted Terrorists. Her whereabouts remained unknown for more than five years, until she was arrested in July 2008 in Afghanistan.The Afghan police said she was carrying in her purse handwritten notes and a computer thumb drive containing recipes for conventional bombs and weapons of mass destruction, instructions on how to make machines to shoot down U.S. drones, descriptions of New York City landmarks with references to a mass casualty attack, and two pounds of sodium cyanide in a glass jar.
Siddiqui was shot and severely wounded at the police compound the following day when she grabbed the unattended rifle of one of her American interrogators and began shooting at them. She got medical attention for her wounds at Bagram Air Base and was flown to the U.S. to be charged in a New York City federal court with attempted murder, and armed assault on U.S. officers and employees.She denied the charges and said the interrogators had fired on her when she had attempted to flee.After receiving psychological evaluations and therapy, the judge declared her mentally fit to stand trial. Amnesty International monitored the trial for fairness.Siddiqui interrupted the trial proceedings with vocal outbursts and was ejected from the courtroom several times.The jury convicted her of all the charges in February 2010. The prosecution argued for "terrorism enhancement" of the charges that would require a life term; Siddiqui's lawyers requested a 12-year sentence, arguing that she was mentally ill. The charges against her stemmed solely from the shooting, and Siddiqui was not charged with, or prosecuted for, any terrorism-related offenses.
Many of Siddiqui's supporters, including international human rights organizations, have claimed that Siddiqui was not an extremist and that she and her young children were illegally detained, interrogated and tortured by Pakistani intelligence or U.S. authorities or both during her five-year disappearance. The U.S. and Pakistan governments have denied all such claims.
Los Angeles, Alta California - August 14, 2008 - (ACN) It appear that the Bush Administration may have another "Abu Ghraib Prison" type torture scandal in its hands that it is desperately attempting to cover up. The disturbing human rights case involves a Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University educated Pakistani national that mysteriously disappeared, along with her three children, in Afghanistan in 2003. This past week the seriously injured, bleeding, frail, traumatized and confused Dr. Siddiqui re-appeared in a wheel chair in a New York federal court accused of terrorism and to face charges that she attempted to kill FBI and US soldiers in Afghanistan.
No one would have known about what some Pakistanis are calling "one of the most deplorable crimes against womanhood" if it had not been for human rights organizations speaking out against the rape and torture of "Prisoner 650" that was being held at the US Bagram Theater Internment Facility, a miserable prison that was previously utilized as air base hangers by the Russians during their occupation of Afghanistan. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) just recently picked up the story and the Bush Administration seems to be acting quickly to cover up what many consider to be a war crime.
On Tuesday, they chose their front man, Brian Ross of ABC News, to begin propagandizing against Dr. Aafia Siddiqui in order to justify to the American people the gruesome treatment of the Pakistani neuroscientist at the hands of US authorities in Afghanistan and their lackey Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. Many of you may remember that Brian Ross was also the Neocon front man in the national news concerning the Anthrax Terrorist Attacks in 2001. He was reporting that the anthrax sent to U.S. political and media figures was linked to Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program. That was a lie. No tests ever revealed any such thing. Like Colin Powell, he was attempting to create the perception in the public's mind that Iraq was behind the anthrax attacks and that it possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Tortured Dr. Siddique at US courtThe FBI has accused Dr. Siddiqui of being an al-Qaida terrorist. Her father was educated as a doctor in Britain. Her brother is an architect from Houston and her sister is a Harvard University-trained neurologist. Because Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a Muslim, the FBI started investigating her as far back as 2001when she lived in Boston.
The FBI harassment of Dr. Siddiqui and her family prompted her to return to Pakistan around 2002. Soon after, the FBI issued a "Wanted Poster" on Dr. Siddiqui and alerted the Pakistani Pervez Musharraf's regime. After her picture appeared on the FBI "Wanted Poster", Dr. Siddiqui was picked up by alleged US/Musharraf operatives in 2003 while she was visiting, along with her three children, in Afghanistan and imprisoned in the notorious Bagram prison. Dr. Siddiqui, according to human rights organizations became "Prisoner 650" and for 5 years suffered repeated rapes, water boarding and other forms of torture.
Soon after the horrific story surfaced in the international media, it appears that the alleged torturers moved quickly to cover up their crime. There are serious allegations that Dr. Siddiqui was "framed" in order to justify the abominable human rights violations against her. Credible human rights sources, including her US attorneys, are claiming that the Bagram prison torturers, temporarily released the traumatized and confused victim, planted evidence on her and re-arrested her on charges of terrorism in July of this year. They then set up a situation inside the prison to accuse her of attempting to kill FBI agents and US soldiers. The alleged torturers are saying that as she was about to be questioned by the FBI and US soldiers in a room in the Afghan prison, that she picked up an M4 rifle and fired at a US soldier. Another soldier fired at her with a pistol and wounded her in the abdomen. An Amnesty International official said "It seems extraordinary to imagine that four U.S. agents who'd gone to pick her up — two military, two FBI — along with at least two Afghan translators, were somehow surprised by this woman, who overpowered them, grabbed a gun, flipped the safety, fired off a couple of shots, and then could only be subdued by shots to the torso."
There is no information about what may have occurred to Dr. Aafia Siddiqui's three children. Dr. Siddiqui is scheduled to appear again before a well known anti-Muslim United States Magistrate Judge of the Southern District of New York on September 3, 2008.
No one would have known about what some Pakistanis are calling "one of the most deplorable crimes against womanhood" if it had not been for human rights organizations speaking out against the rape and torture of "Prisoner 650" that was being held at the US Bagram Theater Internment Facility, a miserable prison that was previously utilized as air base hangers by the Russians during their occupation of Afghanistan. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) just recently picked up the story and the Bush Administration seems to be acting quickly to cover up what many consider to be a war crime.
Tortured Dr. Siddique at US courtThe FBI has accused Dr. Siddiqui of being an al-Qaida terrorist. Her father was educated as a doctor in Britain. Her brother is an architect from Houston and her sister is a Harvard University-trained neurologist. Because Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a Muslim, the FBI started investigating her as far back as 2001when she lived in Boston.
The FBI harassment of Dr. Siddiqui and her family prompted her to return to Pakistan around 2002. Soon after, the FBI issued a "Wanted Poster" on Dr. Siddiqui and alerted the Pakistani Pervez Musharraf's regime. After her picture appeared on the FBI "Wanted Poster", Dr. Siddiqui was picked up by alleged US/Musharraf operatives in 2003 while she was visiting, along with her three children, in Afghanistan and imprisoned in the notorious Bagram prison. Dr. Siddiqui, according to human rights organizations became "Prisoner 650" and for 5 years suffered repeated rapes, water boarding and other forms of torture.
Soon after the horrific story surfaced in the international media, it appears that the alleged torturers moved quickly to cover up their crime. There are serious allegations that Dr. Siddiqui was "framed" in order to justify the abominable human rights violations against her. Credible human rights sources, including her US attorneys, are claiming that the Bagram prison torturers, temporarily released the traumatized and confused victim, planted evidence on her and re-arrested her on charges of terrorism in July of this year. They then set up a situation inside the prison to accuse her of attempting to kill FBI agents and US soldiers. The alleged torturers are saying that as she was about to be questioned by the FBI and US soldiers in a room in the Afghan prison, that she picked up an M4 rifle and fired at a US soldier. Another soldier fired at her with a pistol and wounded her in the abdomen. An Amnesty International official said "It seems extraordinary to imagine that four U.S. agents who'd gone to pick her up — two military, two FBI — along with at least two Afghan translators, were somehow surprised by this woman, who overpowered them, grabbed a gun, flipped the safety, fired off a couple of shots, and then could only be subdued by shots to the torso."
There is no information about what may have occurred to Dr. Aafia Siddiqui's three children. Dr. Siddiqui is scheduled to appear again before a well known anti-Muslim United States Magistrate Judge of the Southern District of New York on September 3, 2008.
