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odd news delivered 2 u @ 2:30am.. ok i'm bored
Teen Burglar Caught Napping
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A security guard caught a teenaged burglar napping in an armchair just before dawn at a medical college in central Malaysia, local newspapers reported on Tuesday.
Police in the city of Ipoh were called after the man, a factory worker, was discovered sound asleep, his loot beside him.
Police official Ahmed Tejuddin Abdul Majeed said the burglar's haul was about $530 worth of audio-visual equipment.
~lol.. of all things to be bad at.. ~
Green Group Urges Canadians to Adopt a Polar Bear
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadians can give the environment a big bear hug this winter if they adopt a polar bear in a program sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund.
The symbolic adoption program is designed to raise funds to be used for ongoing research by World Wildlife Fund Canada to stem the decline of polar bear populations in the Arctic.
Currently, there are fewer than 25,000 polar bears roaming the Canadian Arctic, and some populations, such as those along Hudson Bay, could become extinct within a century, according to the WWF.
Researchers are currently working on projects that include examining the effects of global warming on the bears' diet, as well as monitoring the effects of industrial pollution on the general Arctic environment.
Adoption kits include a personalized adoption certificate, a photograph of a polar bear, and a report outlining research by WWF-Canada in the Arctic.
The kits range between $16 and $63 -- depending on how many bears are adopted.
~hehe. at first i thought they meant adopt the bears into everyones homes.. lord.. now that would be interesting.. they aren't that bored in canada ffs!~
Police Say Dog Attacks Part of Training
PRETORIA (Reuters) - South African police trained their attack dogs on immigrants and criminals knowing it was wrong, but justified their brutal actions as a way to fight crime, former dog handlers told a court Thursday.
They were giving evidence ahead of the sentencing of four South African policemen who were captured on videotape ordering their dogs to attack three Mozambicans.
"In all my years of being a policeman, it was in the back of the minds of dog handlers that what we were doing was wrong and one day someone would get caught out," Johannes Brits, a former member of a Johannesburg dog unit, said in evidence.
"We saw crime as a justification of our actions," he said.
Brits was testifying in mitigation after the four policemen pleaded guilty to setting their dogs on the Mozambican immigrants in January 1998. They could be sentenced next week.
"It was remarkable the shock they (the guilty policemen) showed when they first saw the video. Disbelief. They wished it was someone else in the video," criminologist Irma Labuschagne told the court in mitigation.
"They are not hard men now," she said, saying they had been caught up in a sub-culture of violence that pervaded parts of the South African Police Service.
The brutality shows the legacy of apartheid, which condoned extreme violence against blacks, remained entrenched in some police elements seven years after the end of white-minority rule.
Labuschagne, who interviewed three of the policemen, said they had used immigrants as live bait because they were considered criminals and this dehumanized their victims.
"It was generally known among dog handlers that this method was used, even the senior officers knew of it because they were dog handlers once," Johannes Niemand, another former dog handler, told the Pretoria court.
PLEAS FOR MERCY
The video, which shows the police laughing as the Mozambicans plead for mercy during the attack in a field near Johannesburg, shocked South Africa after it was screened by the state-owned SABC last year.
Robert Henzen, 32, Eugene Truter, 28, Jacobus Smith, 31 and Lodewyk Koch, 32, have pleaded guilty to three charges of assault with intent to do bodily harm. Henzen and Truter have also admitted attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Two other officers, Nicolaas Loubser, 27, and Dino Guitto, 27, have pleaded not guilty and will stand trial on June 3.
The three Mozambicans, Alexandre Timane, 23, his brother Gabriel 24, and friend Sebastiao Cossa, 25, sat near the front of the court and watched the proceedings impassively.
Brits said policemen became used to using brutal methods and admitted once helping torture a prisoner.
The four policemen said in court papers that the 1998 attack was an "exercise" aimed mainly at curing Guitto's dog's reluctance to bite.
But Niemand told the court the matter had been blown out of proportion. "It was a pity that the video was taken. Because of that video the whole matter has been blown out of perspective," he said.
"The only practical way to be absolutely sure the dog would bite a person was to use this method."
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A security guard caught a teenaged burglar napping in an armchair just before dawn at a medical college in central Malaysia, local newspapers reported on Tuesday.
Police in the city of Ipoh were called after the man, a factory worker, was discovered sound asleep, his loot beside him.
Police official Ahmed Tejuddin Abdul Majeed said the burglar's haul was about $530 worth of audio-visual equipment.
~lol.. of all things to be bad at.. ~
Green Group Urges Canadians to Adopt a Polar Bear
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadians can give the environment a big bear hug this winter if they adopt a polar bear in a program sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund.
The symbolic adoption program is designed to raise funds to be used for ongoing research by World Wildlife Fund Canada to stem the decline of polar bear populations in the Arctic.
Currently, there are fewer than 25,000 polar bears roaming the Canadian Arctic, and some populations, such as those along Hudson Bay, could become extinct within a century, according to the WWF.
Researchers are currently working on projects that include examining the effects of global warming on the bears' diet, as well as monitoring the effects of industrial pollution on the general Arctic environment.
Adoption kits include a personalized adoption certificate, a photograph of a polar bear, and a report outlining research by WWF-Canada in the Arctic.
The kits range between $16 and $63 -- depending on how many bears are adopted.
~hehe. at first i thought they meant adopt the bears into everyones homes.. lord.. now that would be interesting.. they aren't that bored in canada ffs!~
Police Say Dog Attacks Part of Training
PRETORIA (Reuters) - South African police trained their attack dogs on immigrants and criminals knowing it was wrong, but justified their brutal actions as a way to fight crime, former dog handlers told a court Thursday.
They were giving evidence ahead of the sentencing of four South African policemen who were captured on videotape ordering their dogs to attack three Mozambicans.
"In all my years of being a policeman, it was in the back of the minds of dog handlers that what we were doing was wrong and one day someone would get caught out," Johannes Brits, a former member of a Johannesburg dog unit, said in evidence.
"We saw crime as a justification of our actions," he said.
Brits was testifying in mitigation after the four policemen pleaded guilty to setting their dogs on the Mozambican immigrants in January 1998. They could be sentenced next week.
"It was remarkable the shock they (the guilty policemen) showed when they first saw the video. Disbelief. They wished it was someone else in the video," criminologist Irma Labuschagne told the court in mitigation.
"They are not hard men now," she said, saying they had been caught up in a sub-culture of violence that pervaded parts of the South African Police Service.
The brutality shows the legacy of apartheid, which condoned extreme violence against blacks, remained entrenched in some police elements seven years after the end of white-minority rule.
Labuschagne, who interviewed three of the policemen, said they had used immigrants as live bait because they were considered criminals and this dehumanized their victims.
"It was generally known among dog handlers that this method was used, even the senior officers knew of it because they were dog handlers once," Johannes Niemand, another former dog handler, told the Pretoria court.
PLEAS FOR MERCY
The video, which shows the police laughing as the Mozambicans plead for mercy during the attack in a field near Johannesburg, shocked South Africa after it was screened by the state-owned SABC last year.
Robert Henzen, 32, Eugene Truter, 28, Jacobus Smith, 31 and Lodewyk Koch, 32, have pleaded guilty to three charges of assault with intent to do bodily harm. Henzen and Truter have also admitted attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Two other officers, Nicolaas Loubser, 27, and Dino Guitto, 27, have pleaded not guilty and will stand trial on June 3.
The three Mozambicans, Alexandre Timane, 23, his brother Gabriel 24, and friend Sebastiao Cossa, 25, sat near the front of the court and watched the proceedings impassively.
Brits said policemen became used to using brutal methods and admitted once helping torture a prisoner.
The four policemen said in court papers that the 1998 attack was an "exercise" aimed mainly at curing Guitto's dog's reluctance to bite.
But Niemand told the court the matter had been blown out of proportion. "It was a pity that the video was taken. Because of that video the whole matter has been blown out of perspective," he said.
"The only practical way to be absolutely sure the dog would bite a person was to use this method."
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