A post mortem performed on Bob Woolmer, the Pakistani cricket coach who was murdered in Jamaica on March 18th, revealed that he was drugged before being strangled. A toxicology report identified a drug in his system that was meant to incapacitate him.
“Those tests will show there was a drug in his system that would have incapacitated Mr Woolmer,” Panorama’s Adam Parsons says.
“It now seems certain that as he was being strangled, he’d already been rendered helpless – leaving him unable to fight back.
“The specific details of that poison are now very likely to offer a significant lead to finding his murderer.”
The specific drug was not identified pending a complete report to be released by the Jamaican authorities. In the meantime his body has been released and was flown to South Africa where he resided with his wife, Gill and his two children Russell and Dale. Mark Shields, the Deputy Police Commissioner in Jamaica plans to fly to South Africa to update the family on the investigation. The funeral will be a private family ceremony.
Both Shilpa Shetty and Richard Gere violated Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code according to warrants issued by a court in Jaipur, signed by judge Dinesh Gupta. The pertinent section of the IPC reads:
Whoever to the annoyance of others does any obscene act in any public place or sings, recites or utters any obscene song, ballad or words, in or near any public place will be punished with imprisonment of up to three months or fined.
IBN TV takes a look at the reaction in India
Richard Gere finally responded to the incident and blamed the entire episode on a “small right-wing conservative political party” who are the “moral police” in India.
Anderson Cooper 360 takes a look at the case against Gere and Shetty and discusses the implications with TIME magazine correspondent Bobby Ghosh of India.
An Indian court issued arrest warrantsfor both Shilpa Shetty and Richard Gere. The warrants were issued in the north-western city of Jaipur after a local citizen filed a complaint charging that the public display of affection offended local sensibilities. Judge Dinesh Gupta issued the warrants after viewing a video clip of the incident. According to the judge, the kiss was “highly sexually erotic” and violated India’s strict public obscenity laws.
The warrants issued because of a kiss at a public event promoting AIDS awareness, claimed that the pair “transgressed all limits of vulgarity”. A spokesman for Shilpa Shetty, Dale Bhagwagar, said the actress was upset by the news:
“She does hurt, she does feel low. She feels she is being constantly targeted, but anyone who knows her well knows she can’t be put down.
“Shilpa wishes that people would focus on the real issue , Aids awareness, and not three pecks on her cheek,” he said, adding that she had not yet received any court summons.
Shilpa, who is on a pilgrimage in the south of India, has been hounded by reporters anxious for a response from her. She had to scold them asking if such questions were appropriate in a temple. A police official in Jaipur said that if found guilty of the charges both Shetty and Gere could be sent to prison for six years. In response Shetty’s spokesman said it was amateur and frivolous on the part of a government official to state that someone can get jailed for pecks on the cheeks.
“If that is the case, more than half the country will have to be jailed”
In case you missed it, here is the incident that got both Gere and Shetty in trouble;
If you are reading this, then I assume you have an interest in sex. But how much do we really know about this subject? Well to start off here is a little test. Click on the link below but please come back here for some interesting stories. Good luck!!
The 14-year-old Internet enthusiast recently lost his cyber-girlfriend and computer soulmate, LUV_U2, and he’s not sure how to deal with the confusing new emotions that have begun to stir inside him. “I don’t understand,” moped Joey. “I gave her my love, my devotion, and the IP’s of some private FTP sites. I thought we had something special,” continued Joey. “I would send her e-cards, and links to special poems that were written for people like us. I even photoshopped our avatars together on a Martian landscape–way romantic. But then that one evening, she came into the IRC channel and was really quiet. I knew something was wrong.
“Joey has been unable to talk about his break-up with family members and even considered selling his computer, and joining the school volleyball team, just to get away from the pain. At fourteen, break-ups are awkward to deal with. This was Joey’s first romance and he believes his few friends at school would only laugh at him if he mentioned it to any of them. “Those guys at school would only want to know how far I got, like did she send pictures of her tits, or something like that,” said an angry Joey. “They wouldn’t understand it was so much more than that.” “I posted a message on a message board for heartbroken individuals who were recently dumped,” said Joey, sobbing quietly, “but the only response was from some joker who asked how I knew it wasn’t a man I was dating. How cruel can you get?”.
Joey isn’t sure he can trust cyberwomen anymore, and is afraid to reveal his true self online to another. He may find escape by interacting only with girls he knows from school, church, and his neighbourhood. But that would mean meeting them and Joey isn’t ready for social encounters yet.
Nigerians and South Africans are the most sexually satisfied people in the world, according to a survey by condom manufacturer Durex released Tuesday. “Two-thirds of South Africans claim to orgasm regularly, compared to 48 per cent of people globally,” SAPA news agency quoted Durex as saying in a statement coinciding with the release of its annual Global Sex Survey.
Nigerians were found to be the most sexually satisfied nation, with 67 per cent expressing satisfaction, ahead of Mexico, India and Poland. The Japanese were the least satisfied, with only 15 per cent declaring themselves fulfilled.The survey was conducted among more than 26,000 respondents in 26 countries.
On average the respondents had sex 103 times a year. Greeks had the most sex at 164 times a year, with the luckless Japanese again bottoming out the table with just 48 times.Nigerians took the longest time over sex, at 24 minutes per session, while Indians had the quickest sex, at 13 minutes, the survey showed.
A Bentonville, Ark., man is seeking $20,000 from the city
after his two teenage sons found a book on lesbian sex on a public library bookshelf. He also wants the library director fired. Earl Adams said his 14- and 16-year-old sons were “greatly disturbed” after finding the book, titled “The Whole Lesbian Sex Book.” Adams said the book caused “many sleepless nights in our house.”
Adams said the book is “patently offensive and lacks any artistic, literary or scientific value,” according to a letter he faxed to Mayor Bob McCaslin. He said the teenagers found it while browsing for material on military academies.Adams wants the city to pay $10,000 to each of his sons. That’s the maximum allowed under the Arkansas obscenity law. However, the city’s attorney dismissed Adams’ claim as baseless. She said the book is not pornographic. “There is not a valid legal concern here,” Camille Thompson said. “In fact, (the request for money) made me question his motivation.
“The book, by Felice Newman, is a sex guide deemed suitable for all public libraries, according to the Library Journal, which the Bentonville library uses to decide what to place on its shelves. Suter said the library aims to have books and other materials to serve a diverse group of library users.
The LA Times published an op-ed piece by cultural critic David Ehrenstein, entitled Obama the Magic Negro. He first uses the wikipedia definition to explain his use of the phrase:
The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. “He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist,” reads the description on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro .
He likens Barack to this “Magic Negro” who is the savior for “most white Americans, whose desire for a noble, healing Negro hasn’t faded.”
Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes. If he were real, white America couldn’t project all its fantasies of curative black benevolence on him.
Whether or not you agree with David Ehrenstein’s characterization of Barack Obama is not what this article is about, it just serves as background material for the way that Rush Limbaugh used it to make “fun” of both the article and a video parody by Paul Shanklin pretending to be Al Sharpton entitled “Barack the Magic Negro”, sung to the tune Puff the Magic Dragon. See the clip below:
Rush used the article by Ehrenstein to make the point that the white supporters of Barack Obama are racists:
So those of you white people out there who are supporting Barack Obama, you are racists. That is the point that David Ehrenstein’s made. So your attempt to assuage all of your white guilt by supporting Obama is worthless because you’re just — you’re just exhibiting racism because you know he’s not a real black.
When Don Imus was fired for calling the Rutger’s Women Basketball team “Nappy-headed hos”, there was a huge national outcry against this type of “racism” and “sexism” on the airwaves. However, when Rush Limbaugh plays what to some people is an overtly racist rendition of an old classic song, there is no such protest. Is there some fine line between being offensive and entertaining that Rush did not cross? 27 times during his broadcast he referred to Barack Omaba as the “Magic Negro”, claiming that “I’m going to keep referring to him as that because I want to make a bet that by the end of this week I will own that term” he continued by saying “If I refer to Obama the rest of the day as the ‘Magic Negro,’ there will be a number of people in the drive-by media and on left-wing blogs who will credit me for coming up with it and ignore the L.A. Times did it, simply because they can’t be critical of the L.A. Times, but they can, obviously, be critical of talk radio.” He ended his broadcast with the following words:
I mean, don’t start telling me to shy away from this stuff. That’s why I’m where I am, that’s why I’m who I am, and for which I make no apologies. I’m very proud and happy.
Shilpa Shetty is no stranger to the limelight nor to controversy. She is a re-known Bollywood actress and the most recent winner of the British version of Celebrity Big Brother 2007, in which she was reduced to tears, made fun of, and was the object of racial remarks. She handled herself with the dignity and poise befitting a queen. Through it all she was supported by her fans in India and all over the world.
Shilpa Shetty has now found herself embroilled in another controversy. This time with the actor Richard Gere. Both celebrities were in New Delhi, India at an AIDS awareness event when Richard Gere kissed Shilpa Shetty multiple times on both her cheeks on stage. See the video below.
This incident enraged many people in India and protests broke out all over the country against both Shetty and Gere. Their effigies were burned and Gere was told to apologise to Shilpa Shetty and the country.
Shilpa Shetty was shocked by the reaction. “If protecting Indian culture and tradition means burning our effigies, please go ahead and carry on with your protests. But, our culture also teaches us to imbibe ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’ (the guest is god).”
“I was completely taken aback. My work was disrupted. The set was damaged. I know it is blown out of proportion. I feel people are overreacting. Don’t misuse the freedom of expression in a democracy,” she told media persons.
Defending Gere, she said: “He was just trying to strike a dancing pose. In India entertainment means song and dance, so he was trying to do something entertaining. That’s it. He didn’t try to kiss me on my lips. He was just giving me a peck on my cheeks. “I don’t understand why are we making an idiot of ourselves by blowing it up. We will look like an idiot on British media. Whatever has happened is wrong,” said Shilpa
“I know it is a trivial issue. Somebody is trying to do something for your country and you are treating him so badly.”
Members of the Hindu rightwing group Shiv Shena attacked a press conference Monday being addressed by Shilpa in Mumbai and protests were organised in New Delhi, Kanpur, Jaipur, Varanasi, Meerut and Indore. According to one protester at Indore: “This is an intolerable and obscene act. It is against the values, culture and traditions of the nation. Gere must apologise”
Richard Gere has had no comment and left India for Nepal. He is scheduled to visit the Tibetan Refugee Reception Centre in Kathmandu, where Tibetans, fleeing from China-controlled Tibet, stay under the supervision of the UN High Commission for Refugees till their onward journey to India is arranged. Gere, one of the most high-profile followers of the Dalai Lama is known for his humanitarian work. He was also involved in AIDS awareness campaigns, and was in India earlier to take part in an event to promote safe sex and raise AIDS awareness among truck drivers, a high-risk group in India.
However the protesters did not stop at street protests. In two different courts lawyers filed complaints against both Shilpa and Gere accusing them of: “An obscene act” in a public place, which India’s conservative society cannot tolerate and also included private television channels for showing videos of the kissing incident.
“Today the Department of Justice is experiencing a crisis of leadership perhaps unrivaled during its 137-year history. There’s a growing scandal swirling around the dismissal of prosecutors.”
So said Sen. Patrick Leahy, Democrat from Vermont, before whose committee Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, began his testimony into the firings of 8 District Attorneys. Before the day was over Gonzalez would repeat more than 70 times the phrase: “I do not recall” in response to questions leveled at him by the committee. Many of the Senators from both parties were less than satisfied with the answers that Gonzalez gave.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R) Alabama: “Your ability to lead the Department of Justice is in question, I wish that were not so but I think it certainly is”
Sen Chuck Schumer (D) New York: “If the Attorney General cannot answer a straightforward, factual question from a Senator about recent events, how can he possibly run the Department”
Alberto Gonzalez Attorney General: “It would be improper to remove a US attorney, to interfere with or influence a particular prosecution for partisan political gain, I did not do that, I would never do that”
Below is the video tape of Gonzalez’ testimony before the Senate
“The best way to put this behind us is your resignation,” Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, told Mr. Gonzales during the five-hour hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I believe there’s consequences to mistakes,” Mr. Coburn said. “The reputation of the attorney general’s office has been tarnished and brought into question.”
Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, said Mr. Gonzales’ “credibility has been impaired” but that he would not call for the attorney general’s resignation. “The issue of whether he stays or goes belongs to the president and to the attorney general,” he said. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said President Bush “was pleased with the attorney general’s testimony” and continues to have “full confidence” in Mr. Gonzales.
Cho Seung-Hui was born in South Korea. His mother, Kim Hyang-im and his father, Sung-tae were from two different backgrounds. She was from a well-educated family of North Korean landowners, who had been forced to flee without possessions during the Korean war; he was from a poor family in the south, but had made enough money to marry by working in Saudi Arabia for 10 years on construction sites and oil fields. He was 10 years her senior. Cho’s mother was forced into an arranged marriage with his father.
As Hyang-im was 29 – a late age for a woman to find a husband in South Korea – Her father told her she had to accept the proposal. “She didn’t want to marry, but she gave in,” said Yong-soon (her Aunt). “Her husband was not fit for her. But she always followed and obeyed him. She never fought him, though sometimes I wish she had done.” No one in the family recalls any violent behaviour from Cho or his parents that might have hinted at the carnage to come.
Cho’s maternal grandfather said even as a young child Cho was not like other grandchildren and would never come running to him. “The boy was so different from his super-intelligent older sister. His extreme shyness worried his parents. I thought he might be deaf and dumb.” Cho “didn’t talk much when he was young. He was very quiet, but he didn’t display any peculiarities to suggest he may have problems,” Kim(An Uncle) said. “We were concerned about him being too quiet and encouraged him to talk more.” Soon after they got to America, Cho was diagnosed as being clinically withdrawn. It amazes me that he ever made it into university. I guess he must have had some mental problems from birth.” Even though his parents worried about him because he was shy and withdrawn Cho was always well behaved.
His reluctance to talk and socialize ostracized Cho in High school and he was often ridiculed. Chris Davids, who graduated with Cho from Westfield in 2003 recalled once when they were in English class:
The teacher had the students read aloud and, when it was Cho’s turn, he looked down in silence before being threatened with failing to complete the year if he did not speak. He then read in an odd, deep voice “like he had something in his mouth”, Mr Davids said. “As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and saying, ‘Go back to China’.”
Stephanie Roberts, 22, who was also in Cho’s year at Westfield, said she would occasionally greet him in school, but he did not respond. “There were just some people who were really mean to him and they would push him down and laugh at him,” she said. “He didn’t speak English really well and they would really make fun of him.”
When Cho started college, at Virginia Tech, his mother took his dormitory mates to one side to explain about her son’s unusual character and implored them to help. She was worried that he spent all his time in his room, lost in a world of video games.
Christina Lilick, another former Westfield pupil studying at Virginia Tech, told friends that she had been stalked on campus and a question mark had been scrawled on the notice board on her door. Cho was known as “the question mark kid” by fellow English students after he insisted he be called “question mark” in classes and on his page on the Facebook website.
Back in Seoul, the family are worried that they had not heard from Cho’s parents since the killings. They have wondered if things might have been different had they been able to bring the boy out of his shell. “I just wish he would have talked,” says Yong-soon. “There is an old saying in Korea that people who won’t talk will end up killing themselves. That is what happens when the resentment builds up.”
The resentment that built up in Cho Seung-Hui caused the deaths of 32 people whose hopes, dreams and future will never be realised. MSNBC has a profile of each person murdered by Cho. These are people that have been taken from this life prematurely. No-one knows how much potential has been lost and unless these people happen to be your family members or friends, no-one knows how much sadness and despair Cho has caused so many people. Profiles of the Victims in Virginia Tech Massacre
Below is a video compilation of Cho Seung-Hui and his victims
Cho Seung-Hui did something interesting after killing his first two victims and before continuing the massacre at Virginia Tech. He stopped at the Post Office and mailed to NBC studios a “multi-media manifesto” containing photos and videos and a lengthy document in an attempt to justify his actions. NBC issued a caveat before revealing part of what was in the envelope:
“We are sensitive to how all of this will be seen by those affected and we know we are in effect airing the words of a murderer here tonight”
In the mostly incoherent video Cho Seung-Hui claims he was forced into doing what he did.
“You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option,” Cho says emotionally in the video clip. “The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off.”
It was also evident the Cho Seung-Hui also had psychological problems. Cho was accused of stalking two women in November and December 2005. After the second stalking complaint, the university obtained a temporary detention order and took Cho away because an acquaintance reported he might be suicidal, authorities said. Police did not identify the acquaintance.
On Dec. 13, 2005, a magistrate ordered Cho to undergo an evaluation at Carilion St. Albans, a private psychiatric hospital. The magistrate signed the order after an initial evaluation found probable cause that Cho was a danger to himself or others as a result of mental illness. The next day, according to court records, doctors at Carilion conducted further examination and a special justice, Paul M. Barnett, approved outpatient treatment.
Other evidence of Cho’s mental instability appeared in two of his plays written in a play-writing class. One play was about a step father who raped his step son, laced with obscenity and violence. The other was about fantasizing how to kill a teacher who was a pedophile. Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university’s English department, said Cho’s writing was so disturbing that he had been referred to the university’s counseling service.
“Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it’s creative or if they’re describing things, if they’re imagining things or just how real it might be,” Rude said. “But we’re all alert to not ignore things like this.”
Lucinda Roy, professor of English at Virginia Tech, said that she, too, relayed her concerns to campus police and various other college units after Cho displayed antisocial behavior in her class and handed in disturbing writing assignments. But she said authorities “hit a wall” in terms of what they could do “with a student on campus unless he’d made a very overt threat to himself or others.” Cho resisted her repeated suggestion that he undergo counseling, Roy said. “I wish I could have lifted him up bodily and taken him. I would have done it if I could,” she said.
Two of Cho’s roommates gave an interview on CNN about what it was like living in the same dorm with him.
Below is part 1 of the interview.
To see the rest of the interview, broken up into three more parts, click on the links provided:
Cho Seung-Hui is the killer responsible for 32 deaths at Virginia Tech. Cho, a 23-year-old senior majoring in English, graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., in 2003. He arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., where his parents worked at a dry cleaners.
The following is a quick recap of the events and aftermath of the worst school shooting in US history:
The Timeline
Cho Seung-Hui Identified
He was a loner who may have been taking medication for depression and was becoming increasingly violent and erratic. A student who attended Virginia Tech last fall provided obscenity- and violence-laced screenplays that he said Cho wrote as part of a playwriting class they both took. One was about a fight between a stepson and his stepfather, and involved throwing of hammers and attacks with a chainsaw. Another was about students fantasizing about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.
`When we read Cho’s plays, it was like something out of a nightmare. The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn’t have even thought of,” former classmate Ian McFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web site.
He left a note behind: The Chicago Tribune reported on its Web site that the note railed against “rich kids,” “debauchery” and “deceitful charlatans” on campus. ABC, citing law enforcement sources, said that the note, several pages long, explains Cho’s actions and says, “You caused me to do this.”
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