Man cut off finger to protest overdue wages

2 hours, 17 minutes ago

BELGRADE (Reuters) - A Serbian union official who chopped off his finger and ate it in a protest over wages that in some cases have not been paid in years, said Monday he did it to show how desperate he and other workers were.

"We, the workers have nothing to eat, we had to seek some sort of alternative food and I gave them an example," Zoran Bulatovic told Reuters. "It hurt like hell."

Bulatovic, a union leader at the Raska Holding textile factory in Novi Pazar in southwest Serbia, used a hacksaw to cut off most of his left-hand little finger Friday.

Bulatovic said he decided to act after his deputy, "a single mother of three, was the first to say she would cut off her finger. I could not allow her to do that," he said.

State-owned Raska Holding was a major textile producer in the late 1980s with a workforce of 4,000. It suffered during the collapse of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and a loss of markets and mismanagement during a decade of wars and sanctions led to massive job cuts, leaving the company with just 100 workers.

Some employees have not been paid for years, only collecting social benefits, like free medical care.

About two dozen workers went on a 19-day hunger strike last year. They want the company's debt to be swapped for state-held equity and a welfare program for those nearing retirement.

Bulatovic said his comrades will not back down from their demands, but they will postpone planned self-mutilations at least until talks with government officials in Belgrade expected Tuesday.

(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Gordana Filipovic and Matthew Jones)

RIP JG Ballard

Writer JG Ballard dies age 78

35 minutes ago

LONDON (AFP) - Writer JG Ballard, famous for his book "Empire of the Sun" about his childhood struggle to survive in a Japanese internment camp, died Sunday after a long illness, his agent said. He was 78.

Margaret Hanbury announced his death with "great sadness", saying he had been ill "for several years".

Hanbury, who had been Ballard's agent for more than 25 years, described his "acute and visionary" observation of the world, which led him to produce disquieting novels and won him a cult following.

Despite regularly being referred to as a science fiction writer, Ballard said what he was really doing was "picturing the psychology of the future."

Although he began writing relatively conventional science fiction short stories, he moved to a more adventurous, "new wave" style, which focused less on the other-earthly and more on the society around him.

Ballard honed his experimental writing in stories published in the ground-breaking magazine "New Worlds" over more than a decade.

In a series of early apocalyptic novels written in the early 1960s -- "The Drowned World", "The Wind from Nowhere", "The Drought" -- he imagined the world after it had been hit by different kinds of disasters.

Ballard's imagination and the quality of his writing -- in a genre where ideas often triumph over style -- made him a commercial success.

But it was the autobiographical "Empire of the Sun", published in 1984, that brought him a wider audience.

It is a fictional account of his childhood in colonial Shanghai, where he was born to English parents on November 15, 1930, and where he was when Japanese forces swept in after the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941.

He was interned with his family in a prison camp, and the book is a tale of devastation and survival that catapaulted him to worldwide fame when it was adapted into a film by US director Steven Spielberg in 1987.

"I have -- I won't say happy -- not unpleasant memories of the camp," he once said of his childhood.

"I remember a lot of the casual brutality and beatings-up that went on, but at the same time we children were playing 101 games all the time!"

Ballard also won acclaim for "Crash" (1973), which described what he called "the perverse eroticism of the car crash" and which was brought to the big screen by Canadian film-maker David Cronenberg in 1996.

He questioned what would happen if people's desires or habits are taken to the limit, a theme he returned to in "Cocaine Nights" (1996) and "Super-Cannes" (2001) which describe ordinary people whose lives are liberated by violence.

"JG Ballard has been a giant on the world literary scene for more than 50 years," said Hanbury.

She added: "His acute and visionary observation of contemporary life was distilled into a number of brilliant, powerful novels which have been published all over the world and saw Ballard gain cult status."

James Graham Ballard returned to Britain from China in 1946 and remained here ever since, living in the same house in Shepperton, in the county of Surrey, southwest of London, for much of the past half a century.

Leaders cower from "shoe-cide" attacks

1 hour, 11 minutes ago

By Bappa Majumdar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's politicians contesting in the general election, fearful of shoes hurled at them by disgruntled voters, have asked for more security and are erecting metal nets at rallies.

Lal Krishna Advani, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) prime ministerial candidate was the latest politician to be at the receiving end Thursday, as an angry party worker threw a slipper at him during an election meeting in a central state.

The slipper missed Advani, but was enough for authorities to step up security for all leaders across the country.

The incident was the latest episode of shoe-throwing as a mark of protest against political leaders, including former U.S. President George W. Bush and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

Throwing a shoe at someone is considered an insult in India.

Indian politicians have asked party workers to remove shoes at meetings and alerted police and their security staff to keep a tab on people, including journalists in news conferences.

"The security is extremely tight for politicians, and we are keeping a close watch on everyone," a Delhi Police spokesman said.

Last week, a Sikh journalist hurled a shoe at India's home minister during a news conference after getting angry with the minister's reply to a question about 1984 riots in which hundreds of Sikhs were killed.

Three days later, a retired school teacher threw a shoe at popular Congress lawmaker Naveen Jindal, during an election rally in Haryana state.

Authorities in Gujarat state built an iron safety net to keep flying shoes away, as Narendra Modi, the chief minister of the BJP-ruled state began his speech at a rally this week.

"These are acts of insanity, there is no scope for such acts in India's political system," Rajiv Pratap Rudy, the BJP's candidate in Bihar state where election was held Thursday said.

India's politicians have not taken the shoe attacks personally and not initiated legal action so far.

"Flying footwear are now the weapons of mass distraction," was the headline in one such report carried by the Mail Today newspaper Friday.

(Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Valerie Lee)

Buddhist Hell
Via

Skeleton found in tree 29 years after suicide

Mon Apr 6, 1:50 PM

BERLIN (Reuters) - The skeleton of a German retiree who tied himself to the top of a tree and shot himself to death nearly 30 years ago has been found by a hiker.

German police in the southern town of Landshut said on Monday the 69-year-old man disappeared in 1980 and had been classified as missing.

An 18-year-old hiker discovered a bone in the forest last week and brought it to police. They searched the area and spotted the skeleton hanging about 11 meters up, near the top of the spruce tree.

"After searching the area we found the skeleton up in the tree with the pistol hanging on a rope next to it," police spokesman Leonard Mayer said. Police were able to identify the man through DNA testing and an artificial hip.

(Reporting by Franziska Scheven; Editing by Farah Master)

Iraq plans to open Saddam museum

Sat Apr 4, 4:32 PM

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq plans to open a museum filled with toppled dictator Saddam Hussein's weapons, statues, paintings, furniture and artefacts, officials told AFP on Saturday.

The items collected and catalogued in the six years since the US-led invasion are being handed back to the Iraqi government, which will consider a site for what would undoubtedly become a major attraction.

"These possessions are for the Iraqi people," said Abdul Zahraa al-Talqani, a tourism and antiquities ministry spokesman, adding that a committee would be formed to find a site for the museum.

"We will look for a big building. I think one of the presidential palaces in Baghdad probably will be the place of the museum," said Talqani, noting that clothes, documents and various gifts given to Saddam by foreign leaders were among the possessions.

"This is what was found after the invasion," he added.

Some undisplayed Saddam memorabilia are currently stored in the National Museum in Baghdad, which only reopened in February after having been looted in the days that followed the dictator's ouster.

The US military said on Saturday the return of "commemorative weapons, paintings, furniture and statues" once belonging to Saddam "signifies the improvement of the security of Iraq."

The possessions, including the weapons, had been stored at a depot in Taji, 35 kilometres (22 miles) north of Baghdad, but have been transferred to an Iraqi warehouse at Abu Ghraib, nearer the capital, the statement said.

"The final goal is for these weapons to be displayed at a special museum with Saddam Hussein's artefacts," said Major Franco Nieves.

"They will be displayed for all the people of Iraq, future generations and visitors from of all over the world to admire."