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“Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” won Best Picture at the 87th annual Academy Awards on Sunday, besting “American Sniper,” “Boyhood,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “The Imitation Game,” “Selma,” “The Theory of Everything” and “Whiplash” for the honor.
Oscars 2015 predictions: space for Interstellar? – Telegraph
“Birdman” won three other Oscars: Best Director for Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Best Cinematography for Emmanuel Lubezki (his second Oscars win in a row after last year’s “Gravity”) and Best Original Screenplay.
Bill Gates has drunk a glass of water made from human faeces, to showcase technology he said could provide clean water in the developing world.
The Microsoft founder said he wanted to begin sending processing plants around the world after tests later this year.
The project was welcomed by WaterAid, which said that it could particularly help in urban areas.
According to the charity, some 748 million people worldwide lack clean drinking water.
In a video posted on his blog, Mr Gates watched as the human waste was fed into the processor, before drinking the end product from a glass. Read the rest of this entry »
Running up Lantau Peak from sea level in less than 50 minutes is a tall order, but to the diminutive Mira Rai, it’s all relative. “Hong Kong is very modern, but the mountains are not very high,” says the 23-year-old Nepali, who was in the city last month to compete in the Vertical Kilometre race to the summit.
Rai claimed victory in the women’s category in a time of 48 minutes, 32 seconds. Two days later, she defended her MSIG Lantau 50 ultramarathon title, won two months earlier. This time she was defeated only by the world champion in the class, Stevie Kremer.
Rai’s sporting achievements have been sudden and impressive. She took part in her first ultramarathon in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, just last March, after being encouraged by a friend. She finished first and went on to win a second race in April. In September, she left Nepal for the first time to compete in two races in Italy. Against a global line-up of top long-distance runners, she was crowned champion in both events. Rai is now on track to become her country’s first professional female elite athlete in the fast-growing sport.
It’s been a meteoric rise for Rai, but equally remarkable is the path she took to get where she is today. It was a trajectory that began when she ran off to become a child soldier in Nepal’s Maoist rebel army.
Rai wields an assault rifle as a 15-year-old Maoist rebel in Nepal.
The second of five siblings from a poor village near the town of Bhojpur, eastern Nepal, Rai pined to free herself from the yoke of subsistence farming. “In the rainy season we could grow crops, but if the weather was not good it was hard to grow anything. It was a very difficult life,” she says through a translator.
So at the age of 14, when she heard of a possibility to change her circumstances, Rai packed her bag and told her parents she was going camping for a few weeks. Instead, she spent the next two years living in a bamboo fortress with up to 600 rebel recruits.
“I wasn’t aware of the politics when I joined. At school, the student union used to organise activities like camping and sports, which I was interested in joining. I didn’t know it was really a Maoist campaign,” she says. “My family situation was not good and I was just looking for an opportunity to do something else with my life.”
Police named the armed man who held 17 people hostage in a central Sydney café as “Sheikh” Man Haron Monis, a self-styled preacher of Islamic State on bail for accessory to murder.
Monis, 50, died at the end of a 16-hour siege at the Lindt cafe in Sydney’s Martin Place early on Tuesday morning.
But he was no stranger to Australian authorities.
Monis was born in Iran but moved to Australia in 1996 and was reportedly granted political asylum in 2001.
He first came to public notice in 2010 when he faced charges for sending offensive letters between 2007 and 2009 to the families of two Australian soldiers who died in Afghanistan – and the family of a trade official, Craig Senger, who died in the 2009 Jakarta bombing.
Coming up with a list of the richest women in the world can be a tricky affair because there are very many rich women, and parameters of measuring wealth may differ greatly. That’s why you may end up with slightly different lists, depending on who has compiled it. Again, whether a given list presents the actual picture is not easily determinable because some women are not keen on disclosing their wealth. Experts mainly rely on publicly available information and what the woman in question is willing to disclose.
Holly Branson
She is the daughter of famous Sir Richard Branson. Holly has a medical degree which she received in 2007; she worked for a year in the neurology department of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Today her medical career is a thing of the past. She is involved in many of her father’s business activities around the world such as listening to South African kids pitch their startup ideas at the Branson Center of Entrepreneurship in Johannesburg, South Africa. Officially, Holly is listed as the special projects manager at Virgin. She is also on the board of Virgin Unite, an incubator for the many nonprofit startups. Holly has reported on Richard’s site that she’s expecting twins soon, and therefore you will probably not see her as much at charitable events in this upcoming year.
A small shared Bankstown apartment, an old sedan, a job as a waiter and dole payments – such was the meagre world of Vietnamese refugee Pete Tan Hoang.
Except for as much as $1 billion that he gambled at Australia’s biggest casino, Crown Melbourne, in a little over a decade.
Hoang, 36, was shot in the face in September while waiting on a darkened street in suburban Sydney.
His murder has left police perplexed, but has also shined a light on massive laundering on behalf of a global crime syndicate with links across Asia and the Americas, and highlighted the scale of the narco money laundering problem in Australia.
Hoang’s story, his rise from a Vietnamese-born orphan living on a refugee visa to one of Australia’s biggest gamblers and money launderers, also raises concerns about how he was able to rort the system for so long and for so much money – particularly at Australia’s biggest casino.
Court documents from a recent case reveal Hoang ran as much as $1 billion in black cash through Crown between 2000 and 2012. Read the rest of this entry »
Zhou’s suspected rapsheet is extensive, according to Xinhua, the Chinese state newswire:
“The [party’s] investigation found that Zhou seriously violated the Party’s political, organizational and confidentiality discipline. He took advantage of his posts to seek profits for others and accepted huge bribes personally and through his family, the statement said. He abused his power to help relatives, mistresses and friends make huge profits from operating businesses, resulting in serious losses of state-owned assets. Zhou leaked the Party’s and country’s secrets. He seriously violated self-disciplinary regulations and accepted a large amount of money and properties personally and through his family. Zhou committed adultery with a number of women and traded his power for sex and money.”
Figures show the Chinese economy is worth $17.6 trillion, compared to America’s $17.4 trillion
The IMF estimates China’s economy will be worth a whopping $27 trillion in 2019
The US has been the global economic performance leader since it overtook Britain in 1872
White House seemed oblivious on Wednesday, crowing that ‘the economic policies that this president put in place are the envy of the world’
China has toppled America to become the biggest economy in the world, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund.
The White House seemed caught flat-footed by the news, crowing on Wednesday about America’s relative economic strength in comparison with the rest of the world.
The US has been the global leader since it overtook Britain in 1872, but has now lost its status as top dog.
The latest IMF figures show the Chinese economy is worth $17.61 trillion compared with $17.4 trillion for the U.S.
Economic battle:The International Monetary Fund has indicated that China, and not the US, is now the biggest economy in the world
Out of the loop? US President Barack Obama touted America’s manufacturing economy during an Oct. 3 speech at an Indiana steel company, claiming that jobs and work orders were no longer ‘moving to China or other countries’
Priyanka Chopra is in trouble over a property in Versova, which she has leased to a spa owner.
Recently, th Mumbai police raided the premises for allegedly being used to run a sex racket.
“This property belongs to Priyanka Chopra and her mother’s clinic is situated just next to this place. The entire floor (measuring 3,000 sq ft) belongs to Chopra. In the beginning of this month, the police had raided this place after they got to know that it was being used for sex trade.” a source told Mid Day.
As per reports Priyanka’s mother’s clinic too is situated on the same floor as the spa. Earlier this month, the Versova police received information that the spa was involved in flesh trade, following which a someone was planted at the Spa to verify it. The person who visited the spa then alerted cops since the info was true and arrested a man and rescued three women who now have been sent to rehab.
Earlier this month, the police receivedinformation regarding the flesh trade being run in the Charisma Spa and Beauty Centre, based on which they busted the spa.
The investigators were successful in arresting Dinesh Chandrakant, the manager of the spa and rescuing three women, they, however, could not arrest the owner Manik Soni.
Soni is very popular with the Bollywood crowd.
“We are searching for Soni who is still at large. Once he is arrested we would get to know the details of the agreement between him and the actor.” reveals the investigating officer.
“The owner of the spa, Manik Soni, is on the run. He was a regular at many Bollywood parties and knows many television and film personalities. The investigation is on, and once the accused is arrested we will verify the agreement and then take action.” a police source told the daily.
Monika Tu calls herself a “property concierge” and says she can’t get enough Australian real estate for her cashed-up Chinese clients.
“Business is going extremely well and Australia becomes more and more popular for the Chinese,” she told 7.30.
Last year the head of Sydney-based company Black Diamondz set herself an ambitious sales target.
“My target was $100 million I remember, and I have reached now about $120 million,” Ms Tu said.
Her clients are wealthy Chinese businesspeople interested in high-end properties.
As she shows a potential client through a lavish $13 million home on Sydney’s lower north shore, she explains her business:
“I am dealing with high net worth foreign buyers and we specialise in luxury properties. Almost 100 per cent are established properties.”
Under Australian rules, all foreigners can buy new property but there are restrictions on the sale of established properties.
Real estate agent Robert Simeon believes some investors are using loopholes to get around the rules, especially those for temporary residents who are supposed to sell their properties within three months of leaving Australia. Read the rest of this entry »
Who needs Justin Bieber? Selena Gomez looked as happy as ever at the 2014 American Music Awards. She hoped others would relate to her emotional AMAs performance of “The Heart Wants What It Wants.”
Selena Gomez’s performance of “The Heart Wants What It Wants” was one of the most emotional moments of the 2014 American Music Awards. Gomez has openly admitted that the hit song is about her tumultuous relationship with Justin Bieber.
Liberal Party of Australia Victoria Division/AAP Image Nitin Gursahani was the candidate for the seat of Thomastown but a Liberal Party spokesman has confirmed he is no longer endorsed.
Sunny Leone – an Indo-Canadian adult film star and model
Nitin Gursahani, a Victorian Liberal Party candidate who reportedly planned to bring a Bollywood adult film star to Melbourne before the state election has been sacked. News Corp Australia reports Mr Gursahani’s family’s company Kiren Australia, of which Mr Gursahani is marketing manager, is sponsoring an event at Toorak featuring Sunny Leone on the night before the November 29 election. Ms Leone is an Indo-Canadian adult film star and model.
A Victorian Liberal Party candidate who reportedly planned to bring a Bollywood adult film star to Melbourne before the state election has been sacked.
Nitin Gursahani was the candidate for the seat of Thomastown but a Liberal Party spokesman has confirmed he is no longer endorsed.
News Corp Australia reports Mr Gursahani’s family’s company Kiren Australia, of which Mr Gursahani is marketing manager, is sponsoring an event at Toorak featuring Sunny Leone on the night before the November 29 election.
Ms Leone is an Indo-Canadian adult film star and model.
Mr Gursahani’s phone number was listed with online advertisements for one of her Melbourne events, News Corp says.
The report said 211,275 people qualify as “ultra-high net worth” (UHNW) – those with assets above US$30 million.
A bare 0.004 per cent of the world’s adult population controls nearly US$30 trillion in assets, 13 per cent of the world’s total wealth
For illustration: A teller counts US dollars and Chinese 100-yuan notes at a bank. (Photo: AFP/File)
WASHINGTON: A bare 0.004 per cent of the world’s adult population controls nearly US$30 trillion in assets, 13 per cent of the world’s total wealth, according to a new study released on Thursday (Nov 21). And perhaps unsurprisingly, the study by the Swiss bank UBS and luxury industry consultant Wealth-X said the concentration of money in the hands of the ultra-rich is growing.
The report said 211,275 people qualify as “ultra-high net worth” (UHNW) – those with assets above US$30 million. Of them, 2,325 have more than US$1 billion. Their numbers grew 6 per cent over the past year, but their wealth grew 7 per cent, as asset markets like stocks and property soared in many places around the world.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (RIA Novosti / Mikhail Klimentiev
Ukraine’s decision to sever economic ties with rebel-held areas and stop funding local public services is a big mistake which does not help the locals gain trust in Kiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin told journalists at the G20 summit.
“I don’t understand why Kiev authorities are cutting off those territories with their own hands. Well one can understand – to save money. But it’s not the time or the case to save money on,” he said.
Putin compared Kiev’s debacle with the Donetsk and Lugansk regions to Russia’s own armed conflict in the Chechen Republic that erupted several times since the early 1990s and officially ended in April 2009. But even at the worst moments, Moscow did not stop paying pensions and other social benefits to the Chechen people, he said.
“At moments that appeared to be stupid, because the people who were in control there not only embezzled that money but also could use them for obviously less-than-noble goals. But we did it due to our moral obligations to the common people. And in the end it turned out to be the right decision, as Chechens appreciated what Russia did to support the common people,” Putin said.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin attends a news conference at the end of the G20 summit in Brisbane November 16, 2014. (Reuters/Mikhail Klimentyev)
Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Reuters / Gero Breloer / Pool)
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has given a chilling assessment of a new geopolitical situation taking shape amid the Ukrainian crisis, warning of a possible new Cold War and calling the West’s approach to the crisis a “fatal mistake.”
The 91-year-old diplomat characterized the tense relations as exhibiting the danger of “another Cold War.”
“This danger does exist and we can’t ignore it,” Kissinger said. He warned that ignoring this danger any further may result in a “tragedy,” he told Germany’s Der Spiegel.
