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[Black Widow]

Teen dies in dad's arms after Amazon ordeal
Lost in rain forest for 6 weeks, student survives until father finds him


RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - A Brazilian student lost in the Amazon rain forest for six weeks was found by his father, only to die in his arms a short time later, rescue officials said on Tuesday.

Jonathan dos Santos Alves, 18, had been lost in the forest since mid-May, when he became separated from two friends he was hunting with in an area 72 miles north of the city of Manaus.

Fire and rescue department chief Antonio Dias dos Santos told Reuters he had been missing for 42 days.

The official search was called off a month ago but his father, Edilson, continued looking with his brother and two other men. On Saturday, they found Jonathan lying next to a river, dehydrated, emaciated and covered in insect bites.

'Gritted his teeth and died'
"I held him in my arms and got the insects away from his mouth," his father, a 40-year-old farmer, was quoted as saying by the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper. "When I tried to revive him, he gritted his teeth and died."

The son was found about 27 miles from where he went missing. Pictures from the scene showed rescuers using a helicopter to lift his body from a tree, where his father had placed it during the weekend to keep it from being eaten by animals.


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[JohnCenaFan28]

Those people who do those things are really stupid lol.

[JohnCenaFan28]

I'm glad they picked it back up.

[JohnCenaFan28]

Wow, that's a very sad read...

[JohnCenaFan28]

A man has been arrested after tearing the head off a wax figure of Adolf Hitler at a newly opened branch of Madame Tussauds in Berlin.



The 41-year-old man was held after attacking the waxwork, only hours after the attraction opened on Saturday.

The inclusion of Hitler in the exhibition has aroused controversy in a country where Nazi symbols are banned.

But the exhibition's organisers said they could hardly depict German history without portraying Hitler.

They said the waxwork depicted Hitler in the hours before his suicide, a defeated figure slumped in his bunker as the Red Army reached Berlin.

The Fuhrer was positioned behind a table, which was supposed to prevent visitors posing with the statue - or damaging it.

'Showing reality'

Police spokesman Bernhard Schodrowski said a security guard had been shoved aside by the attacker.

Visitors to Madame Tussauds give their reaction to the attack

"He tried to prevent the man from acting but failed. The suspect, from the Kreuzberg district, pushed the man aside and lunged at the Adolf Hitler figure and ripped the head off."

Another visitor, who was not named, said the man went straight to the Hitler figure and stepped behind the desk.

"I heard a rumbling and then he tore the figure down off the chair. The security was immediately there and tried to control him but it wasn't easy, he defended himself. Additional security staff took him away then and I had to leave the place," he said.

The attacker was only the second visitor to enter the exhibition, according to one report.

The decision to include a figure of Hitler has been controversial from the start.

Natalie Ruoss, of Madame Tussauds, said: "We did surveys while we were planning the exhibition on the street with Berliners and with tourists, and the result was quite clear that Hitler is one of the figures that they want to see.

"Seeing as we are portraying the history of Germany we could hardly have left him out... we want to show the reality."

Despite some criticism in the media, Stephen Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said he did not object to Hitler being shown, as long as it was done properly.

"Hitler should not become a tourist attraction but if this exhibition helps to some extent normalise the way of dealing with Hitler, as a kind of a demystification, let's try it," Mr Kramer told the AFP news agency.

"Erasing him from history is not going to bring the perished ones back, it's not going to heal the damage that he did, the crimes that he did. That would be counter-productive," he said.

The waxwork museum also includes other German historical figures like Otto von Bismarck, Karl Marx, Beethoven, Bach and Einstein.

Foreigners featured include Winston Churchill, Mikhail Gorbachev and Tom Cruise.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Religious leaders in Venezuela have criticised a recently formed church that openly backs President Hugo Chavez's socialist politics.



The Reformed Catholic Church was set up by a group of Anglicans and Catholics who wanted to put more emphasis on helping the poor.

But the ruling body of the Catholic Church says its members are criminals who are trying to divide the Church.

The Church and the government have been in frequent conflict in Venezuela.

Catholicism is practised widely in Venezuela, but the new group's open support for President Chavez's socialist policies is deepening those divisions.

Feathers ruffled

The Reformed Catholic Church was set up by a group of priests from a mixed background.

It has a small following - several thousand people in the west the country.

But despite its size, its philosophy has ruffled a few feathers.

The Venezuelan Episcopal Conference, the ruling council of the Catholic Church, has described the founders as delinquents.

Its vice president, Archbishop Roberto Luckert, has accused the new organisation of taking government money and mixing politics with religion.

But Enrique Albornoz, who was appointed as the Reformed Church's first bishop last week, denies the allegations.

"We support the work the government is doing for the poor," he told the BBC, "but we don't take any political line."

The breakaway organisation is unusual in supporting Mr Chavez.

The Catholic Church has often clashed with the president, accusing him in the past of taking Venezuela down a path to dictatorship.

He in return has criticised the Church for being elitist and ignoring the country's poor.

BBC News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Clashes between guards and prisoners at a jail in Syria have resulted in many deaths, human-rights groups have said.



At least 25 people were killed after military police fired live bullets at Islamist inmates, the groups said.

The Syrian authorities have so far not commented on the situation. Prisoners said the clashes were sparked by raids in which guards beat inmates.

One inmate told the BBC he believed the death toll was higher. The prisoners are reportedly holding hostages.

Several prisoners have managed to contact Syrian human rights group, as well as the BBC, by telephone.

They said the guards had also desecrated copies of the Koran.

The inmates said the early-morning raids were in response to a protest by detainees several weeks ago about conditions at Saydnaya Prison near Damascus, which houses chiefly Islamist and political prisoners.

One inmate told the BBC the guards had roughly treated the prisoners during the raid.

"They shackled our hands behind us, confiscated our clothes and possessions, and beat us. And they insulted the Koran, they trod on the Koran," he told the BBC's Arabic service.

Billowing smoke

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights quoted a political prisoner reached by mobile phone inside the jail as saying that the riot had been started by Islamist inmates.

A number of prisoners had climbed on to the roof of the prison to escape continued shooting with live ammunition by guards, the group said on its website.

"The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights demands that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad intervenes immediately to stop this massacre," it said.

The group told the AFP news agency that several hundred soldiers were being held hostage in the jail in order to put pressure on the Syrian authorities.

Ammar al-Qurabi, of Syria's National Organisation for Human Rights (NOHR), told al-Arabiya TV, a Dubai-based channel, that it was too early to get a clear figure of how many had been killed or injured.

He said the authorities had viewed disobedience by the prisoners as rioting and so had responded with live ammunition.

The NOHR hoped the incident would push Syrian officials to listen to detainees' complaints over conditions, he said, rather than using force.

Muhammad al-Hassani, also from the NOHR, told the Associated Press news agency he could see smoke billowing from the building and prisoners standing on the roof.

He said ambulances were carrying the injured to hospital. Meanwhile, Syrian troops had closed roads around the prison, he said, and phone lines in the area had been cut off.

BBC News

[Black Widow]

why make a wax work of a wanker anyway

[Black Widow]

At least 10 Pakistani police officers have been killed after a suicide attacker set off explosives near a police station in the capital Islamabad.

Witnesses reported a horrific scene after the blast, with the road left covered in broken glass and splattered with blood.

A senior government official, said more than 10 people were killed and two or three others wounded.

"All are police officials. It was targeted to the forces by the suicider," he said.

The blast came as thousands of Islamic hardliners were gathered not far away to mark the one-year anniversary of a deadly military crackdown on the radical Red Mosque.

It was not clear whether the events were linked.

The explosion also came following recent threats of revenge from militants in Pakistan angered by a paramilitary operation against insurgents in the tribal northwest.

Violence levels have fallen in Pakistan since last year, but attacks still occur.

A new government that came to power following February elections has sought to end militancy in the country primarily through peace deals with extremists.


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[Black Widow]

An American man who was born a woman is reported to have given birth to a baby girl.

Thomas Beatie, who lives as a male after undergoing surgery and hormone treatment, gave birth at a hospital in Oregon on June 29, according to People magazine.

Both he and the baby are said to be "healthy and doing well".

Beatie, 34, kept female reproductive organs when he legally became a man 10 years ago.

The baby was conceived through artificial insemination using donor sperm and Beatie's own eggs.

"The only thing different about me is that I can't breast-feed my baby. But a lot of mothers don't," People quoted Beatie as saying.

He has had his breasts surgically removed.

He said that the baby was not delivered by Caesarean section, but no other details about the birth have been confirmed.

Earlier this year, Beatie caused controversy when his pregnancy was revealed and he appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

His wife Nancy, 46, whom he married five years ago, was unable to conceive because she had already had a hysterectomy.

The couple, who operate a T-shirt printing business in Bend, Oregon, are legally married and he is recognised under state law as a man.


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