Weekly World News

A prison fire in Honduras killed 359 people, making it the deadliest such fire on record. An inmate was reported to have started the fire after phoning the state governor's office and saying he was going to burn down the prison, then lighting his bedding on fire. The facility was being supervised by 12 guards, who prevented firefighters from entering while the fire spread. "The guards first thought they had a prison break," said the director of Honduras's prison system, "so they followed the law saying no one could enter to prevent unnecessary deaths." 

Icelandic musicians protested the State Alcohol and Tobacco Company of Iceland's ban on Motorhead-brand shiraz, named after the English heavy metal band. "It is a violation of human rights," said Solstafir lead singer Athalbjorn Tryggvason, "to not be able to buy yourself red wine."

Dave Mustaine, lead singer of the heavy metal band Megadeth, announced, then denied, his endorsement of G.O.P. presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

Two F-16s intercepted a Cessna carrying 40 pounds of marijuana over Los Angeles after it entered the airspace of Marine One, which was transporting President Barack Obama on a fundraising trip. 

Six weeks after signing the Shark Conservation Act into law, Obama ate lunch at one of the few California restaurants still serving shark-fin soup. The president "ordered a lot of dim sum takeout," said White House press secretary Jay Carney. "No soup." 

The Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University declared the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, which burned through the latex gloves of the researchers assigned to pick it, to be the hottest pepper on earth. "There will be a run on seeds and plants," predicted grower Jim Duffy. "Like Cabbage Patch dolls right before Christmas."

Adventurer John Fairfax, who lived as a trapper in the Argentine jungle as a teenager and as a pirate-ship captain in his twenties, and who crossed the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in a rowboat, died at 74. 

A man reportedly suffered a heart attack while eating a Triple Bypass burger at the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas.
Calcutta prepared to be painted blue. 

German academics voted "shitstorm" the most useful English loanword in the German language.

A British Airways flight attendant was arrested for writing "The bomb on board will explode at 16.00 GMT unless our demands are met" on a bathroom door during a flight from Tokyo to London. 

Journalists documented the rise of rabbit-petting cafes in Tokyo.

An increasing trend is the spread of decaf "babyccino" coffees from Australia to Brooklyn. "My child has been going to cafes since he was a newborn," said one Brooklyn mother. Babyccinos, said the Australian inventor of the instant babyccino, "interrupt workflow, create milk wastage, and can be served at a dangerous temperature to a vulnerable consumer."

Weekly World News

....and here's a wrap-up of the Weekly World News :)

Greece's parliament approved an austerity bill, cutting 15,000 government jobs and reducing the minimum wage by 22 percent in exchange for $170 billion in bailout funds from the European Union and the I.M.F.

More than 80,000 protesters marched in Athens on Sunday, some of them looting and vandalizing local stores. At least 34 buildings burned, including a Starbucks and an underground movie theater once used as a torture chamber by the Gestapo. "This is worse than the Forties," said an elderly woman. "This time the government is following the Germans' orders." 

While striking in Brussels against an increase in their retirement age, hundreds of firefighters broke through barricades outside the prime minister's office and soaked riot police in water and fire retardant. 

A man was arrested in The Hague after trying to throw a marijuana snowball over a prison wall.

Dutch ice skaters expressed hope that the extreme cold in Europe, which has killed more than 500 people, would allow them to hold the traditional 124-mile Elfstedentocht speed-skating race for the first time in 15 years. 

Anonymous hacked into the servers of the Syrian Ministry of Presidential Affairs, gaining access to staffers' email accounts, many of which had the password "12345." 

Following complaints from Catholic officials, President Barack Obama amended a recently issued mandate requiring employers to provide free contraception to employees. "Thanks to President Obama," said Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, "we are all Catholics now." 

Florence Green, the last known veteran of World War I, died at age 110 in England.

singer Whitney Houston died at age 48 in Los Angeles.

A Wisconsin company was reported to have granted a four-year-old's Christmas wish for a $380 "Persuade" dual-flush toilet. "'Mom, wouldn't that be great if I could have this?" the boy said during a visit to the company's showroom. "Could you imagine all of the things I could do?"

New York City hotels announced plans to issue panic buttons to their maids.

British mathematicians used the Rapunzel Number to solve the Ponytail Shape Equation. "We all have likely wondered about the fluffiness of hair," said Raymond Goldstein, Schlumberger Professor of Complex Physical Systems at the University of Cambridge. 

Following incidents in four other states, the notorious Piggyback Bandit was spotted in Minnesota, where officials feared he would again rub the necks of high school athletes and jump onto their backs. "It's the creepiness of the behavior that alarms most people," said a North Dakota activities director. "It's a little creepy." 

Filmmakers raised money to release a movie about Osama bin Laden and an "army of zombie terrorists." 

In the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth formally rededicated herself to England.

English gardeners dug up a bed of blue centaurea growing in the shape of a swastika in Weston-super-Mare.

The Newtown Creek sewage-treatment plant in Brooklyn planned a Valentine's Day tour package including gifts of Hershey's Kisses and views of its stainless steel "digester eggs," which process millions of gallons of gas and sludge each day.

Wrap up of weekly world news

Here's the pick of the world news for the past week:

Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Syria for its campaign to suppress dissent and backing an Arab League plan for Bashar al-Assad to step down as Syrian leader. The vote came as the Assad regime was launching a major offensive on the city of Homs, whose residents were under mortar attack over the weekend and into Monday morning. "A couple members of this council remain steadfast in their willingness to sell out the Syrian people and shield a craven tyrant," said the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice. 

In Damascus, one of the Syrian cities previously least affected by civil strife, residents were stockpiling food and water and enduring rolling blackouts. "Nobody is comfortable anymore," said one socialite, adding that she had curtailed her weekly visits to the nail salon. "And I paint my nails black when I come, just like the situation." 

At least 70 people died in a riot at a soccer stadium in Port Said, Egypt, and in Moscow, tens of thousands of activists rallied in Bolotnaya Square to oppose Vladimir Putin's presidential candidacy, while tens of thousands of Putin supporters rallied at Poklonnaya Gora, calling the antigovernment activists "Orange trash". Putin's detractors turned out in spite of below-freezing temperatures. "We are not revolutionaries in mink coats!" shouted one speaker. "I am!" replied a woman in a mink coat. 

A fifth of dogs and a quarter of cats in America were classified as obese. "I didn't notice the weight creeping on," said an Atlanta woman of her dog, Dodger. "All of a sudden he was just this fat dog." 

Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign deployed robo-calls falsely accusing Mitt Romney of having deprived Holocaust survivors in nursing homes of kosher meals during his tenure as Massachusetts governor, and New Jersey governor Chris Christie refused to apologize for calling a gay state assemblyman "numbnuts." 

Mitt Romney said on CNN that he wasn't "concerned about the very poor," and the Dutch bedding company Snurk angered Swedish homeless-advocacy groups by selling luxury duvet covers resembling cardboard boxes.
Residents of Isafjorour, a town in northwestern Iceland, celebrated the return of the sun, which arrived several days late.

American monkey-lovers continued to evade wildlife-control agents. "It's not what I fought for, to be treated like this," said Jim Clark, a disabled Vietnam veteran who lives in a motor home on the Texas-Louisiana border with his wife, Donita, and their four capuchins, Tina Marie, Meeko Mae, Sara Jo, and Hayley Suzanne. "So many of us want to disappear," said Ann Newman, president of the Simian Society of America, "and have our own community where we can safely keep our monkeys."

Pass the Post

I've been posting all my blogs here on "Point & Shoot", whether they be about aspects of photography, previews of my classical music radio show, or whatever is fizzling through my brain at the time. And now it's time to give my followers of classical music a dedicated blog!

Each week I will be posting news and previews of "Roll Over Beethoven" on www.classical991.blogspot.com with write-ups of the composers being featured, and a heads-up on the Goon Show of the week.

You will be able to check out beforehand what will be happening on my Thursday evening radio show, and tune in to hear it from 9 pm to midnight only on Yarra Valley FM 99.1


The blog will also allow you to leave comments, click a 'quick tick' box, and even share it on your facebook page or twitter it to your friends.

Thanks too to my readers who encourage and support me in bringing some great classical music and news to them. Keep the comments coming and let me know what you are thinking.