■AUSTRALIA
Xmas gifts set for bin
Generosity doesn’t always pay during the festive season, with a survey showing more than 825,000 gifts will go straight into the garbage bin this Christmas because their recipients hate them. The survey, commissioned by an online self-publishing Web site, revealed a third of all respondents either refund gifts or give them away, especially off-the-shelf offerings. “An estimated 6.4 million presents will be given away, refunded, re-gifted or binned in 2009,” Jo Sabin from Web site Blurb Australia said. “That’s a lot of wasted effort and money. The top tip for making sure that your gift is kept and valued this Christmas is to personalize it.” The survey also highlighted that more than 55 percent of women re-gift unwanted presents and one in five will return the gift directly to the store.
■UNITED KINGDOM
‘Manger chic’ on the rise
Gone are the days of shepherds in tea towels and tinsel-clad angels. Competitive parents are forking out on luxury pashmina shawls and velour dressing gowns to make their child the star of the annual nativity play. The rise in so-called “manger chic” has seen parents spend up to £150 (US$250) on arctic fur throws for children cast as sheep and ivory bridesmaid dresses for angels, department stores group Debenhams said. “The amount of money that some parents want to spend on their child’s nativity play appearance would enable Baby Jesus to leave the stable and check into a five star hotel,” spokesman Ed Watson said.
■AUSTRIA
Furry photographer wins fans
A furry photographer is winning fans on social networking Web site Facebook for pictures of her daily life in a Vienna zoo. Orangutan Nonja’s photos, taken with a camera that dispenses raisins as she snaps, have won more than 500 fans on Facebook since the zoo launched an online photo album on Tuesday. Although the slightly blurry images of Nonja’s climbing rope, food and companion’s shaggy red-brown fur have won lots of admiring comments from fans, the photographer herself is not so interested. “Of course the apes don’t care about the pictures, they are just an accidental side product,” zoo spokesman Gerhard Kasbauer said. “They just know that when they press the button, a raisin pops out.” The Vienna Tiergarten set up the project to help keep Nonja and her three ape friends entertained. The album is online at: http://bit.ly/51O6pF.
■VATICAN
Pope meets Medvedev
Pope Benedict XVI and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed on Thursday to upgrade Vatican-Kremlin relations to full diplomatic ties, the Vatican said. The meeting followed improvements in relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican. A Vatican statement said the two men agreed that Russia will upgrade its representation at the Vatican from a special mission to embassy level and that the Vatican will reciprocate in Moscow. Medvedev met with the pope for 30 minutes at the Vatican.
■UNITED STATES
Cowboy rescues cows
Two cows escaped from a trailer onto a busy Massachusetts highway, but a cowboy stuck in the traffic jam came to the rescue. State police say a man wearing a Western hat and boots lassoed the 225kg heifers on Tuesday morning as they wandered on Interstate 91 South in Springfield. Troopers shut down the highway for about 30 minutes as the man helped load the animals back into a trailer that was carrying them. The cows had escaped after a latch on the trailer opened.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number