Xiao Yao, a 29-year-old magazine editor in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, divorced her gay husband in 2008.“Most gay men’s wives I’ve known are silently suffering at the hands of husbands who could never love them, and like me, some even got abused by husbands who were also under great pressure,” she said.

Xiao now runs a website called “Homeland of gays’ wives”, which has 1,200 registered users and provides support and advice.Zhang said that getting their voice heard was the first step to raising public awareness.

However, some within the gay community think otherwise.Xiao Dong, a 36-year-old gay man, who heads a civil organization in HIV/AIDS prevention and control, said: “Zhang’s estimation is unsubstantiated and I even feel it’s pointless to research the issue.”

[Source]

Ukraine has suffered the heaviest toll of 122 deaths, including many people who froze to death in the streets, as temperatures plunged to as low as minus 38.1 degrees Celsius (minus 36.5 Fahrenheit) in parts of the continent.

Some airports were shut, flights and trains were delayed, and highways gridlocked as emergency services raced to clear the falling snow.But as Europe huddled indoors for warmth, Russian gas giant Gazprom said it could not satisfy western Europe’s demand for more energy.

 In Italy, the Shardon ferry ran aground shortly after setting off from Civitavecchia port near Rome, causing panic among the 262 passengers who feared a repeat of a cruise ship tragedy in the area last month which killed 32 people.Coastguard spokesman Carnine Albano said the accident, which tore a 25-metre hole in the ship’s side above the waterline, was caused after the vessel was buffeted by a violent snow storm from the north-east.All passengers were evacuated to safety and no injuries were reported. Heavy snowfalls in Rome caused the capital better known for its warm sunshine to grind to a halt. Parts of the Venice lagoon also froze over.

In Poland, the death toll rose to 45 as temperatures reached minus 27 Celsius in the north-east.Snow fell in Bosnia for the second straight day, paralysing traffic, with one patient dying as the ambulance was unable to reach his village in the south of the country.Public transport was disrupted in Sarajevo, with several tramlines blocked by snow since Friday evening.

Even Croatian and Serbian Presidents Ivo Josipovic and Boris Tadic were forced to postpone their departure from Friday’s regional meeting, as they were blocked in the ski centre Jahorina, near Sarajevo.”I can only leave the house if I dig a tunnel with a showel, my car has become a mountain of snow,” IT worker Eldar Hajdarevic told AFP by phone.

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The news came during a proceeding in Woolwich Crown Court, when four persons, who along with five other suspects earlier were declared not guilty, admitted their involvement with al-Qaeda.

According to the confession made by the four Britishers, they had planned a plot to blow up London Stock Exchange.

Meanwhile, the prosecutor claimed that the accused persons had planned several terror attacks on many prominent buildings in London. However, the sentence on the accused will be pronounced in next week, media reports said on Wednesday, Feb 1.

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A 29-year-old woman, Irina Yanshitova, gave birth to the baby on Sunday, January 22. The boy is her first child. Both the mother and the baby are feeling well.”We wish the mother and the boy good health and will keep an eye on your family and the boy,” Mayor of Sochi Anatoly Pakhomov said yesterday, visiting the woman at the local perinatal center.

Medics of the Sochi perinatal centre say the city has been seeing a baby boom for the past several years.

As many as 500 newborns, including six pairs of twins, have been delivered since the beginning of the year. According to medics, newborns weighing more than five kilograms are classified as ‘giant babies’.

The world’s heaviest baby was born in 1879 in Ohio and weighed 10.8 kilograms, but the baby died 11 hours later, according to Guinness World Records.

The heaviest baby to survive was a boy born in 1955 in Italy’s Aversa. He weighed 10.2 kilograms.

[Source]

]]> http://www.garlicchop.com/news/world-news/russian-gives-birth-to-giant-baby/feed/ 0 http://www.garlicchop.com/news/world-news/weird-news/meet-the-man-with-two-hearts-who-lived-after-double-heart-attack/ http://www.garlicchop.com/news/world-news/weird-news/meet-the-man-with-two-hearts-who-lived-after-double-heart-attack/#comments Sun, 22 Jan 2012 07:25:07 +0000 Lilac http://www.garlicchop.com/?p=19588 New York: A 71-year-old man who turned up at an Italian hospital with symptoms of cardiac trouble surprised doctors when it was discovered that he had two hearts.

He had undergone a rare heart transplant seven years earlier in which a new organ was paired with the diseased one. The two hearts had developed independent rhythms and doctors attempted drug therapy to correct the problem.

While he was under the doctors’ watch, both of the man’s hearts stopped beating and he lost consciousness. After a jolt with a heart defibrillator miraculously brought him back to life doctors replaced his pacemaker but left both hearts intact, capping one of the most bizarre medical cases in recent memory.

“We haven’t ever seen anything similar to this case before,” the New York Daily News quoted Dr Giacomo Mugnai as saying in an email to MSNBC.com.

The double-heart attack took place in 2010 and the man is still reportedly in a good condition and no further arrhythmias have since been reported. This incident was reported in the latest issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

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London:

A new study by Upstate Medical University, part of the State University of New York, has blamed Christmas trees for triggering a range of health complaints — from wheezing and coughing to lethargy and insomnia.

The condition — `Christmas Tree Syndrome` — is caused by mould growing on the trees, whose spores lead to problems when breathed in, the researchers have explained in `Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology` journal.

They analysed clippings from 28 Christmas trees including needles and bark, from a range of species, and found 53 cases of mould. Of these, 70 per cent can cause symptoms including itchy noses, watery eyes, coughing, shortness of breath, chest pains, feelings of fatigue and problems sleeping.Some of the mould identified can even lead to long term lung problems and conditions such as bronchitis and pneumonia.

The mould occurs on the trees naturally, but thrives in the warm conditions of a well-heated home at Christmas.The researchers have also reported another study which found that after a Christmas tree has been on display for a fortnight, the number of airborne mould spores increases from800 per 35 cubic feet to 5,000.

Dr Lawrence Kurlandsky, who led the research, said he had treated patients where there was a clear link between their illness and their Christmas tree.”I have had patients where the association between illness and the presence of a Christmas tree seem to be pretty clear cut.”I explain that there are nicer places to be on Christmas Eve than seeing the doctor and to perhaps just not have a tree or have an artificial one,” he was quoted by `The Daily Telegraph` as saying.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-il

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il died Saturday during a train journey “from a great mental and physical strain”. He was 69, the country’s official KCNA news agency reported Monday.

 Kim died “from a great mental and physical strain at 08.30 Dec 17, 2011, on train during a field guidance tour”, said the report.

Kim, who had received medical treatment for his cardiac diseases for a long period, suffered “an advanced acute myocardial infarction, complicated with a serious heart shock”, on the train, reported Xinhua.

The report said that every possible first-aid measure was taken immediately, which failed to save Kim’s life, adding that an autopsy Sunday “fully confirmed the diagnosis of his diseases”.

Kim’s death was announced in an emotional statement read out on national television. The announcer, wearing black, said he died Saturday of physical and mental over-work, the BBC reported. .

Kim is believed to have suffered ill health for many years.

In April 2009, North Korea’s constitution was amended and now implicitly refers to him as the “Supreme Leader”.

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The number of swans on the river and waterways near the nine billion pound park in East London is also dropping, The Sun reports.Mike believes it is the same creature seen dragging a goose beneath the Lea in 2005.“It must be the same creature. Some people I’ve spoken to think it could be a very large pike and I’ve seen some turtles about a foot across, but they’re not really big enough to take a goose,” he said.

At that time, wildlife experts suspected it was an alligator or a giant turtle after finding 8-feet long holes burrowed in the bank.A spokesman for British Waterways said the creature might be a “giant pike” or mink, a mammal known to attack ducks or small geese.“The other possibility is a terrapin, but they’re more likely to go for ducks,” he added.

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Mahatma Gandhi

Doha: Mahatma Gandhi’s message that no culture can blossom without people connecting to other cultures was recalled at the UN Alliance of Civilisations Forum which is being attended by world leaders here.

Brazilian Vice President of Brazil Michel Temer, in his address to the inaugural session of the meet yesterday, said Gandhi’s ideals and vision hold well even today. He specially referred to Gandhi’s remarks that no culture will blossom if people could not connect to others cultures and appreciate them.

Temer said his government would follow the principles of the Mahatma in reaching out to people of different faith and ideology.On his part, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon underlined the role of Alliance of Civilisations in implementing empowerment of women and youth; promoting dialogue and mutual understanding to solve conflicts; and helping nations in transition and maintaining sustainable development.”When terrorists kill innocent people, when politicians stir hatred and exploit stereotypes to win votes, when moderate voices are struggling to be heard in the politics of polarisation, the Alliance’s global efforts become very important,” he said.”We must bring peace and tolerance in places that only know division and discord,” he said.

The priority, Ban said, is helping nations in transition, particularly across the Middle East and North Africa, emphasising on the considerable role of Alliance to assist these countries in shaping their future.

He said no sustainable development could be achieved without boosting human rights and strong bonds among all people.”When you leave Doha please do your utmost to involve people in your churches, mosques and synagogues. Engage students, families, activists. Have a dialogue far and wide and have concrete action to make this world a better place for all,” Ban told the four-day conference, which was previously held in Madrid, Istanbul and Rio de Janeiro.

Around 2,500 participants representing the world governments and civil society have gathered here to discuss Inter-cultural Dialogue to Boost Development.

India was represented by Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamad and its Ambassador to Qatar Dheepa Wadhwa.

Among other leaders attending the meet are the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani; President of Spain Manuel Chavez, Austrian President Heinz Fischer; and German President Christian Wulff.

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Speeding was fingered as a possible cause  of what is believed to be Japan’s most expensive ever road accident when up to $4 million-worth of supercars ended up in a crumpled heap on a highway.

Eight Ferraris and a Lamborghini — plus a Toyota Prius were among thevehicles involved in the crash, which witnesses said happened when a speeding car slid across a wet road surface.

Television footage showed mangled Ferraris — many of them racing red — and debris spread over some 400 metres (yards) of the east-bound side of the Chugoku Expressway, the main trunk road in southern Honshu.A pack of about 20 supercars was travelling in convoy on Sunday morning on a stretch of wet highway when the leading Ferrari slid into a guardrail, police said.Those behind slammed on their brakes, but for many of them it was apparently too late.”I’ve never seen such a thing,” highway patrol lieutenant Eiichiro Kamitani told AFP by telephone. “Ferraris rarely travel in such large numbers.”Kamitani said 10 people — five men and five women — sustained slight injuries, in the accident. “It is highly possible that they were driving in couples.”"Many of them were probably on their way to Hiroshima,” some 130 kilometres (80 miles) to the east, for a gathering of supercars there, said Kamitani.”Speeding was possible but we have yet to determine the exact cause,” he added.

The Prius and a second Toyota also caught up in the 14-car smash were not thought to be part of the supercar pack. The three other vehicles involved in the accident were all Mercedes-Benz.An unidentified male eyewitness told the TBS network: “A group of cars was doing 140-160 kilometres (85-100 miles) per hour. One of them spun and they all ended up in this great mess.”The speed limit on that section of the highway was 80 kilometres per hour.”The front car crashed into the left embankment and bounced off toward me,” another man told public broadcaster NHK.One of the Ferraris was reported to be a F430 Scuderia, a model with a top speed of 320 kilometres per hour.

Kamitani said the lead Ferrari was being driven by a 60-year-old self-employed man from Chikushino, near Fukuoka, on the southern island of Kyushu.Japanese media said the total cost of the pile-up could run to 300 million yen ($3.8 million), with new Ferraris retailing at more than 20 million yen each and Lamborghinis costing anything up to 30 million yen.

Supercars are not necessarily owned by the super-rich in Japan. Many owners are young people who save up their earnings to satisfy their dream, according to media.

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