Pig farts spark Australia gas scare

AFP - A flatulent pig sparked a gas emergency in southern Australia when a farmer mistook its odours for a leaking pipe, according to officials.

Fifteen firefighters and two trucks were called to a property at Axedale in central Victoria state after reports of a gas leak, the Country Fire Service said.

"When we got there, as we drove up the driveway, there was this huge sow, about a 120-odd kilo (265-pound) sow, and it was very obvious where the gas was coming from," said fire captain Peter Harkins.

"We could not only smell it, but we heard it and it was quite funny."

Harkins said the pig's owner was "a little bit embarrassed to say the least," and it took fire crews a little while to compose themselves.

"It was fairly obvious what it was. I think we dealt with it fairly professionally and had a bit of a giggle when we got back to the station," he told public broadcaster ABC.

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Airline crew face jail over sexy texts

DUBAI (Reuters) – Two Emirates airlines cabin crew have been ordered jailed for three months in Dubai over sexually explicit text messages, the latest in a string of indecency cases against foreigners, a newspaper reported Wednesday.

The pair, an Indian flight attendant and her cabin services supervisor, were convicted of "coercion to commit sin" over the messages and initially sentenced to six months in jail, The National newspaper said on its website, citing court documents.

The sentence was reduced on appeal last week to three months and deportation orders against the pair were lifted, it added. It did not reveal the content of the messages.

Dubai's foreign population has expanded rapidly in recent years as expatriates flocked to the Gulf Arab trade and tourism hub for its tax-free earnings and year-round sunshine.

The changes have challenged the Emirati population, which is now vastly outnumbered by foreigners, raising concern that their emirate's rapid pace of growth is a threat to their social and religious identity in what remains a deeply conservative region.

An Emirates spokeswoman declined to comment on the case as it was still ongoing.

The paper said the case emerged after the flight attendant's husband filed a lawsuit against his wife a year ago accusing her of being in an illicit relationship with her supervisor. It said the couple had been embroiled in a divorce battle since 2007.

The case is the latest decency case against foreigners accused of not respecting local mores.

In a separate case, a British pair caught kissing in public in Dubai is appealing a month-long jail sentence handed down after an Emirati mother complained her child had seen their indiscretion.

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Arms merchants rake in the Moolah

There are few things that make my blood boil more than reports issued by a certain group.

The organization, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, is actually a favorite of mine, and the work it does on tracking global arms spending is extremely important. But reading its research gets me all upset.

Its latest study is having the same effect. In a report issued this week, the think tank reveals that weapons peddlers were merrily unaffected by the Great Recession. Quite to the contrary. While governments around the world were cutting essential services to their people by offering up the economic crisis as an excuse, they were simultaneously gobbling up arms on the international bazaar. The result: At a time when people have been hurting everywhere, weapons purchases increased globally by a whopping 22 percent in the past five years (2005-2009) as compared to the previous five-year period.

The United States is the biggest merchant of death, accounting for almost one-third of the sales, with Russia close behind, having nearly one-fourth of the total.

“The USA delivered weapons to seventy countries and to NATO in the period 2005–2009, more than any other supplier,” says the report. “Asia and Oceania accounted for most U.S. deliveries (39 per cent), followed by the Middle East (36 percent) and Europe (18 per cent). Combat aircraft and associated weapons and components accounted for 48 per cent of the volume of U.S. deliveries of major conventional weapons during this period.”

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For example, see Indian helicopter deal saves 4,000 Westland jobs

North Korea said to execute official over currency

North Korea reportedly executed former finance official Pak Nam-gi, who was held responsible for the failed currency reform late last year amid growing public unrest over the faltering economy.

The former director of financial planning under the Workers' Party was executed by a firing squad in Pyongyang last week on charges of treason for "intentionally ruining the national economy," but most North Koreans believed he was made a scapegoat, Yonhap News said citing multiple sources.

South Korea's Unification Ministry said it was unable to officially confirm the report. Seoul customarily refrains from confirming anything concerning the Pyongyang government unless the North makes an official announcement.

"The failure of the currency reform caused social unrest and had a negative impact on Kim Jong-il regime's father-to-son succession, so Pyongyang blamed it all on Pak," an unnamed source was quoted as saying by Yonhap News.

"Pak's case is reminiscent of Suh Gwan-hui, former Workers' Party secretary of agriculture, who was executed during the severe famine in the 1990s."

The North charged him of espionage and had him shot to death in front of tens of thousands of people in 1997 when the nation was suffering a murderous famine often referred to as the "arduous march."

The North reportedly described Pak as "a landlord's son who snuck into the revolutionary ranks to intentionally wreck the economy."

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Sex-crazed bugs unleashed in Israel

One of the great challenges of modern agriculture is how to use technology to mass produce crops while sparing consumers from the harmful chemicals and byproducts of the agricultural process. Though meant to kill harmful insects, pesticides carry a very serious risk to the environment.

While studies have shown that mankind is developing cancer and other diseases at a higher rate due to exposure to pesticides, the crop-killing vermin are only becoming more immune to its effects. At the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, researchers have discovered a way to safely eliminate insects without the need for harmful chemicals.

Professor Boaz Yuval at the university’s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Food, Agriculture and the Environment believes that sex is the key.

If you can sterilize male insects before they copulate with females, these females will be unable to lay eggs. The problem, however, is that males who are sterilized also lose their sex drive, leaving the females to mate with male insects who are not sterilized.

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have created a special, high protein, bacteria-enhanced “breakfast of champions” to sterilize males. By greatly increasing their sex drive and sexual performance, females spend all of their time with these Casanova sex-crazed males and never are able to lay eggs of their own.

While original applications of this research will be for plant and animal pests, many are looking to see how this work can be applied to stop the spread of organisms carrying human diseases.

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