Lightning kills 2 after graduation ball in Russia`s Far East

(STUDENTS, GRADUATION, LIGHTNING, POLICE, PRIMORYE, OFFICER)

VLADIVOSTOK, June 27 (RIA Novosti) - Two students celebrating their high school graduation died early on Saturday morning in Russia`s Far East when they were struck by lightning, local police said.
One boy and one girl were killed in the lightning strike in the village of Zarubino in the Primorye Territory`s Khasansky region, while another girl and a policeman suffered burns and were taken to a local hospital.
"The tragedy occurred on Saturday at 5 a.m. Vladivostok time [19:00 GMT on Friday]. After a graduation ball 15 students went to the beach to watch the sun rise. They were accompanied by a police officer, who was keeping order," a Primorye police source told RIA Novosti.
"A loud rumble of thunder was heard, and lightning flashed. Two students - a boy and a girl - died at the scene. Another girl and the police officer were hospitalized with burns," he added.
The source said the lightning struck as the group passed near overhead electric power lines.
He added that several other graduation balls in area passed without incident, and all had police officers present to ensure order.
 
Original article

Portugal village worth its salt with the tourists

By Andrei Khalip
SALINAS, Portugal (Reuters Life!) - Shoveling drying salt in a pit under scorching sun while tourists and fellow villagers drink beer and look on from above may sound like a miserable experience, but not in Salinas, Portugal.
The presence of tourists in the cafes on the ancient wall above the salt pit in this tiny Portuguese village some 100 km (62.14 miles) north of Portugal`s capital Lisbon is more than welcome and causes no consternation.
"One thing works with the other. Without tourism, the salt business would probably collapse, and vice versa," said Casimiro Froes Ferreira, 82, and the head of the Salinas cooperative.
The village has been extracting salt since at least 1170, when the local ruler sold part of the pit to the Knights Templar -- the first known record of Salinas.
In the middle of a pool in the salt pit lies a deep well of water heavily laden with salt -- Portugal`s only natural saltworks. The water is pumped to shallow cells in the pool where it dries up over a few days, leaving a layer of salt.
"We work seven days a week between May and October when the weather is good and when salt needs to be dried and removed -- practically the same way our ancestors did. After work everyone just joins the crowd in the bars overhead," Froes Ferreira said.
Most of the village`s old salt depots and stores -- made entirely of wood, including door locks to avoid corrosion from salt -- have been transformed into souvenir shops and bars, where one can try a local cheese baked in salt.
Even the local bikers club is headquartered in such a hut.
"It`s really cool, it`s kind of like one of those medieval fairs, but you know it`s for real, and the people are real," said Eliza Castro from Lisbon, who stopped in Salinas with her two children for a meal and some sightseeing after visiting the ancient castle of Obidos nearby.
Some larger, newer depots are also made of wood, as cement and metals are easily corroded by the mineral.
Maria Luisa Santos Dias, 74, who like most workers here is a member of the cooperative and owns a plot in the huge 28,000 square meter (301,400 sq ft) pit, swaps periods of work in the sun with rest in the diner. Here she grabs a snack, chats to neighbors and helpfully provides directions to visitors.
"I feel good here in the pit, I started at seven in the morning today, before anyone got here," said the woman, who is wearing heavy rubber shoes to protect her feet from salt. "I married a salter many years back and got to liking this work." Her son, Jose Antonio, 37, and 16-year-old granddaughter Ines often work alongside her.
"When I was six I started coming here and played with a wooden shovel. I`m no longer a little girl, but I still like coming here to work," said Ines, who is a student.
The cooperative was formed in 1979 after a crisis caused by growing imports, which nearly killed off the salt industry in Salinas and put an end to small private salt depots.
Although hardly prospering, it now makes ends meet thanks to its "all-natural" salt production, including manual collection and cleaning, which have attracted eco-conscious consumers in Germany. Only a small part of the work is done with the help of machinery, mainly lifting the salt from the pit.  Continued...
Original article

World mourns Michael Jackson, hails "heir to Elvis"

By Bob Tourtellotte and Mike Collett-White
LOS ANGELES/LONDON (Reuters) - Michael Jackson`s death dominated news bulletins, radio airwaves and social networking sites the world over on Friday as tributes poured in for a man called the "King of Pop" and "natural heir to Elvis."
The 50-year-old, whose towering musical legacy was tarnished by often bizarre behavior and sex scandals, was pronounced dead at 2:26 p.m. PDT (2126 GMT) on Thursday after arriving at a Los Angeles hospital in full cardiac arrest.
"King of pop is dead. Black day for music," was the simple message left by "johnyvergosa" on the Twitter messaging site, where Jackson accounted for four of the five top topics. Actress Farrah Fawcett, who also died on Thursday, was the fifth.
Other online contributors expressed disbelief at the suddenness of Jackson`s death, less than three weeks before he was due to launch a series of comeback concerts in London.
The singer`s lasting appeal, despite life as a virtual recluse since his acquittal of child abuse charges at a 2005 trial, was underlined when 750,000 fans of all ages snapped up tickets for the sellout gigs.
From "Thriller" to "Billie Jean" and "Rock With You" to "The Way You Make Me Feel," Jackson`s hits filled the airwaves.
Local politics and global affairs were bumped off the front pages of newspapers, trading rooms were abuzz with the news and entertainment websites saw a surge in traffic.
"The King of Pop is Dead" read the main headline of Britain`s Independent newspaper, below a full-page portrait.
Rina Masaoka, a 21-year-old college student in Japan, said: "This will probably be as shocking as Princess Diana`s death."
Ray Cordeiro, an octogenarian radio disc jockey in Hong Kong who has been on air for around half a century, called Jackson "a genius" and a "legend in our lifetime."
Former Beatle Paul McCartney said in a statement: "It`s so sad and shocking. I feel privileged to have hung out and worked with Michael. He was a massively talented boy man with a gentle soul. His music will be remembered forever."
FLAWED GENIUS
Commentators reflecting on Jackson`s life focused on his flaws as well as his global fame and musical flair.
"Broken and broke: the child star haunted by fame and scandal" read a profile in the Guardian newspaper, which called him "the natural successor to Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley."
Jackson sold an estimated 750 million records, a figure that is likely to rise with the expected posthumous re-release of his hits. "Thriller," which came out in 1982, remains the best-selling album of all time.  Continued...
Original article

Monkey business hard to sustain in slump, Goodall says

By Candida Ng
SINGAPORE (Reuters Life!) - Chimpanzees, long under threat from humans encroaching on their habitat, are now facing another risk caused by that same member of the Great Ape family: the global economic crisis, says primatologist Jane Goodall.
Funding to the Jane Goodall Institute, a nonprofit organization that aims to conserve primate habitats and increase awareness of animal welfare activities, has declined by about 10 percent since the financial crisis hit.
"Money that came in last year was less than we had expected," Goodall told Reuters in Singapore while visiting for events related to World Environment Day. "The private donors and some of the foundations pulled back."
The institute, which has an annual budget of $10-11 million which funds its activities in Africa, has had to dig into its endowment fund to keep some of its programs running. Some projects were cut and staff laid off.
Goodall, who rose to fame in the 1960s through her ground-breaking study of chimpanzees in East Africa, said the root cause of most problems was overpopulation and the materialism of most human societies.
"Underlying everything is the sheer number of people on the planet," said 75-year-old Goodall. "We take far, far, far, far more than our fair share of these precious natural resources."
"We have to help people understand that enough is enough. We have so much more than we need, we have a throwaway society."
Such strident demands on the environment have seen previously forested areas being taken over by humans for housing, agriculture and business, leading to a dwindling population of chimpanzees and other animals in the wild.
Goodall estimates there are currently there are about 300,000 chimpanzees spread across 21 nations in Africa, down from the 1-2 million in 1960.
The animal rights activist, who fulfilled her childhood dream to live in the wild and write books, spends 300 days a year on the road using her personal story and fame to inspire youth to become more environmentally responsible.
"Root & Shoots," a youth organization she started with 12 high-school students in Tanzania in 1991, now involves people from pre-schoolers to university students and prisoners across 111 countries. It aims to raise awareness about the planet.
"People understand a lot more, but it doesn't mean they always change their behavior though," Goodall said. "The last hurdle is to get people not only to understand, but take action. The bigger problem is that again, again and again that people honestly cannot believe that what they do makes a difference."
(Editing by Miral Fahmy)

Source: Reuters

Belgrade's vast underground world a mystery to most

By Aleksandar Vasovic
BELGRADE (Reuters Life!) - Only a few patrons enjoying drinks at Belgrade's Underground club know that a Medieval mass grave lies just beyond the bar's walls.
To repel Turkish invaders in 1440, Christian defenders of the city used a giant gunpowder mine to blow up hundreds of attackers digging tunnels beneath the city. Turkish bodies remained in the rubble that sealed one of the tunnels, meters (yards) away from the club's bar.
"I know this place is old and sometimes eerie, but I only recently read a history book about what happened here," said student Ivana Jovanovic, 23.
Over the centuries, attackers and defenders have carved a vast network of underground tunnels, fortifications, storage areas, command posts and bunkers. Today, only the occasional tourist, archaeologist or historian knows about the hidden world below Serbia's sprawling capital.
"We explored and mapped about 15 km (9 miles) and have only scratched the surface," said Vidoje Golubovic, a Belgrade-based historian who occasionally hosts guided tours for enthusiasts.
The city's tumultuous history accounts for the unusually rich honeycomb of tunnels below.
It was just a decade ago that Belgraders most recently went into underground basements and bunkers, this time to avoid NATO bombs during the war involving Kosovo.
In Belgrade's more than 1,000-year history, Celts, Romans, Huns, Slavic tribes, Byzantines, Hungarians, Ottoman Turks, Serbs, Austro-Hungarians and Germans have tried to dominate the strategically important confluence of rivers Sava and Danube, considered the gateway to Europe.
Underground Belgrade usually comes to light only during construction when heavy machinery breaks through the brick walls or limestone caverns, sometimes even exposing waterways dating back to Roman domination of the Balkans.
"Wherever one digs, there's a probability of hitting a tunnel of sort. Belgrade's hollow like Swiss cheese," Golubovic said.
WARTIME MENACE
Most of the tunnels, wine cellars, underground bakeries, wells, and a World War Two German command outpost in the Kosutnjak neighborhood overlooking the city are now abandoned and closed to the general public.
Pushing open a rusty door, just steps from modern apartment blocks in the Kosutnjak neighborhood, Golubovic lowered himself down rusty ladders to a dark hallway where steel bed frames were still attached to walls.
"From this vantage point, Germans had perfect command of the area," he said.
A few World War Two veterans still remember the menace of Belgrade's underground world. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Youth may be challenge for Ahmadinejad in poll

By Zahra Hosseinian
TEHRAN (Reuters) - The young Iranians cruising noisily around upscale northern Tehran in cars plastered with election posters have only one thing on their minds: denying President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term.
Millions of reform-minded Iranians stayed away from the polls in 2005, disillusioned by how hardliners had stymied former President Mohammad Khatami's liberal initiatives.
Ahmadinejad's political fate may well hang on how many of those jaded voters turn out on June 12 -- if only to thwart him.
"I will vote, but only because I want to see anyone but Ahmadinejad win. He has ruined the country," said Mina Sedaqati, a 25-year-old sociology student at Tehran University, over coffee and doughnuts with friends in northern Tehran.
More than two-thirds of Iran's 70 million people are aged under 30, making them too young to remember life before the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah.
All four presidential candidates are wooing youthful voters in speeches and campaign messages and have used popular networking and content-sharing sites such as Facebook to target young people.
More than 150,000 Iranians are Facebook members, and young voters make up a huge bloc which helped Khatami win elections in 1997 and 2001. Access to Facebook was blocked for a few days last month, suggesting government concern at its influence.
But analysts say the anti-Ahmadinejad vote is likely to be split between the radical president's two moderate rivals, ex-Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi and former parliament speaker Mehdi Karoubi.
Karoubi, the only cleric in the race, has even met one of Iran's best-known underground rap singers, Sasy Mankan.
Mousavi and Karoubi's posters adorn the cars of the middle-class youngsters eager to stop Ahmadinejad out of fear he will lead Iran on a collision course with the West and further erode social freedom.
Ahmadinejad also faces a conservative challenger in Mohsen Rezai, a former Revolutionary Guard chief, but the president has his own support base among young people who admire his defiant nuclear rhetoric, simple lifestyle and devotion to Islam, as well as his pledges of social justice.
"I will vote for Ahmadinejad because his policies in the past four years have been a return to the fundamental values of the Islamic revolution," said Mohammad Reza Baqeri, 24, a member of the Basij, a religious militia group, who criticized previous governments for neglecting the poor.
"Ahmadinejad is a hero. He stood against those who were Iran's enemies for years, but in return he befriended other nations," said the religious studies graduate, referring to ties the president has forged with U.S. adversaries such as Venezuela and Bolivia.
An Iranian political analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of Iranian politics, described the election as a referendum on Ahmadinejad. "Some people, especially among the young, are for him and some are only voting to prevent his re-election," he said.
POST-REVOLUTIONARY GENERATION Continued...
Source: Reuters

Henry VIII's armor shows he dressed to impress

By Josie Cox
LONDON (Reuters Life!) - The armor made for England's King Henry VIII to inspire fear, awe and make room for his expanding girth has been gathered for a show at the Tower of London marking the 500th anniversary of his coronation.
The "Dressed to Kill" exhibition displays the largest collection of Henry's surviving armors just a stone's throw away from where he had his second wife Anne Boleyn beheaded.
"Henry is one of the most famous Kings in British history," curator Bridget Clifford told Reuters. "His image has been burned into so many people's psyches. That's why this exhibition is exceptional."
As well as a ruthless ruler famed for executing two of his six wives, the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty was also an avid sportsman, warrior and a political operator who knew the importance of dressing to impress.
The exhibition was stuffed with knives, swords, guns, shields, lances, riding gear and hunting equipment, in display cabinets affixed to the Tower's ancient stone walls and cradled by some of the free-standing suits of armor.
"Henry liked experimenting with firearms and was rather innovative," said Clifford, adding that the weapons and technology he used during his reign from 1509 until his death in 1547 were considered "cutting edge at the time."
Designed by some of the finest craftsmen in Europe, Henry's personal armor was made to protect him in war -- he led three campaigns against France -- and for sports such as jousting and foot combat.
One "tonlet" or suit of foot combat armor on display, was worn by Henry at one of the greatest tournaments of his reign, "The Field of the Cloth of Gold."
The armor on show also illustrates Henry's physical progression from suits for a svelte young prince to more portly pieces designed to fit the much larger king, whose search for a wife who could produce a male heir came to define his rule for many students of history.
Visitors to the exhibit will find free-standing suits, some on white mannequin horses, some decorated with Tudor symbols such as the rose and portcullis as well as one fearsome helmet with enormous ram-like horns and brass-colored spectacles.
"The exhibition aims to convey Henry's power, majesty and psychology," Clifford said, "and give him a human face."
Museums from around the world, such as New York's Metropolitan Museum, have loaned items to the show, which runs until January 10 next year.
A video gives a succinct overview of how the monarch has recently been portrayed on stage and screen -- in renditions of Shakespeare's "Henry VIII" and in Hollywood films -- with his power and influence, even over life and death, being an underlying theme.
"The story of Henry -- the Merry Monarch -- is romantic, dramatic, mysterious and powerful. And that's why an exhibition like this appeals to so many people" Clifford said.
(Editing by Paul Casciato)

Source: Reuters