Russian people are tattooing cats

Still dazed after being anaesthetised for three hours, a pedigree pet is hauled upright to show off its new tattoo.

The controversial “body enhancement” was carried out on Mickey – a rare Canadian Hairless breed also known as a Sphynx cat.

His female owner was said to be delighted with the Tutankhamun design inked on to his chest at a tattoo parlour. She said: “I wanted something new and different for the times we live in.”



But horrified animal rights campaigners have slammed the sick fad in Moscow as barbaric – and fear it could catch on among wealthy pet owners in the West.

An RSPCA spokesman said: “We are totally against using animals for purely cosmetic reasons just on the owner’s whim. Clearly the animal has no say in the matter.

“We do not believe in using pets as fashion accessories. It shows no respect for the animal whatsoever. So far we have only heard about this practice happening overseas – and we hope it doesn’t spread.”

Mistresses can claim maintenance under new Australian laws

Cheating husbands will be open to divorce-style litigation from their mistresses under new laws.

Mistresses can now claim income maintenance, property and even superannuation funds under the Family Law Amendment (De Facto Financial Matters and Other Measures), dubbed the "mistress laws", which were passed by the Senate last November and came into effect on March 1.

The main objective is to remove same-sex discrimination from the Family Court system, but they have left the door open for a raft of de facto relationship claims.

The laws declare that de facto couples who satisfy basic criteria - such as being in the relationship for at least two years - will be treated in the Family Court in the same way as a married couple. It also applies to same-sex couples.

The laws will change the way property is divided by enabling the court to consider the "future needs" of partners, as it does for married couples.

Men or women who have a second relationship outside a marriage are now liable to legal action in the Family Court should the second partner decide he or she deserves income support or a share of assets. This is particularly the case if a child is involved.

Kitten found stuffed inside marijuana bong

A kitten is recovering after allegedly being stuffed in a bong while its owner smoked marijuana at the same time. Lincoln investigators said that 20-year-old Acea Schomaker is accused of animal cruelty for the act.

The kitten - 6-month-old Shadow - is being treated at a Lincoln animal shelter.



Deputies said they witnessed the animal being trapped inside the homemade bong as it was being smoked. “I have never seen anything like this before,” Lancaster County Chief Deputy Bill Jarrett said.

The bong is made of Plexiglas and is about the size of shoebox. “[It was] taped shut so the cat was exposed to large amounts of marijuana smoke,” Jarrett said.



Schomaker was wanted on a warrant for possession of marijuana. Deputies found him in his home south of Lincoln. They said he was smoking the bong when they arrived. Shoemaker allegedly told deputies the kitten was high strung and needed to be put in the bong to keep it calm.

Capital Humane Society officials said they have taken X-rays and done other tests to see if the kitten has any long-term affects from the alleged abuse. “The individual stated he had done this several times,” agent Bob Downey said.

With news video.

Girl has 13 celebrity autographs tattooed on her body

When Zoe Wade meets one of her idols, they always leave a lasting impression on her… in thick black ink.

For, rather than asking them to sign a book, the autograph hunter gets her favourite celebs to sign her body in marker pen. She then heads to the tattooist to make sure the souvenir scribbles are with her for eternity.

Zoe’s arms and back are now covered with her growing collection, which includes Angelina Jolie, Celine Dion, Ronnie Wood and Kylie Minogue. And her 12-hour wait in the rain outside the recent Brit Awards landed her two more – Lionel Richie and U2’s The Edge.



So far no one has turned her down. But Zoe says she has to be choosy about who she lets sign her body.

“It has to be someone who’s an icon. Otherwise I would be covered from head to toe,” the 27-year-old student adds.

Zoe, who has 13 names etched on her skin, admits she can get carried away in her excitement at meeting a big celeb. “I’m quite slim so unless I put on a few stone I’ll soon run out of places to put them all.”

With news video and slideshow.

Laptop shouts 'Stop, thief' when stolen

“Get your hands off me, I have been stolen,” the laptop shouted. That is a new solution to laptop computer theft: a program that lets owners give their property a voice when it has been taken.

The program allows users to display alerts on the missing computer's screen and even to set a spoken message. Tracking software for stolen laptops has been on the market for some time, but this is thought to be the first that allows owners to give the thief a piece of their mind.

Owners must report their laptop missing by logging on to a website, which sends a message to the model: a red and yellow “lost or stolen” banner pops up on its screen when it is started. Under the latest version of the software, users can also send a spoken message.



The theft-busting program, Retriever, has been produced by Front Door Software Corporation, a small company based in Evergreen, Colorado. Carrie Hafeman, its chief executive, said that if owners tick a box indicating that their computer has gone, when it is started up, “a big red and yellow banner pops up, saying 'This laptop is lost or stolen'.”

The message can be set to reappear every 30 seconds, no matter how many times the thief closes it. “One customer sent a message saying, 'You are being tracked. I am right at your door',” Ms Hafeman said.

In the latest version, people can add a spoken message. The default through the computer's speakers is: “Help, this laptop is reported lost or stolen. If you are not my owner, please report me now.” Others have introduced more direct alerts. “You can record your own. You can say, ‘Get your hands off me, you S.O.B.',” Ms Hafeman said.

Fat people cost more to bury

Fat people will cost more to bury than those who are thinner, it has emerged after a British council said it would charge an extra £75 to bury the obese because they take up more space in a cemetery.

Relatives of those with bigger bodies will have to pay £194 instead of the usual £129 fee in Houghton Regis, Beds.

Chairman of the council's burial committee Cllr Linda Walmsley described the charge as "unfortunate".



She said: "There was a request from the funeral directors who asked what the charge would be for a larger person. I think it is unfortunate. I couldn't say everybody would be willing to pay."

It is the first area in the country to vary burial fees according to the dead person's weight.

Deputy town clerk Stuart Oliver said: "I think the action is probably being taken because of limited space in the cemetery."

Man has fear of speed cameras

They have been dubbed the yellow peril and provoked outcry among many motorists - but few could claim a genuine debilitating fear of speed cameras. But over a period of four years Colin Gant has developed a deep-seated phobia of the roadside boxes which led to panic attacks.

At its peak the condition meant the management worker, who often drives 500-plus miles a week, had to take huge detours simply to avoid speed traps. All this despite the fact the 41-year-old is a qualified advanced driver who has never had a speeding ticket in his life.

Now Norfolk Safety Camera Partnership has stepped in to help. After hearing of Mr Gant's condition, bosses invited him behind the scenes in an attempt to remove the mystery and apparent threat posed by the yellow boxes. And Anxiety UK, which deals with phobias and other disorders, said that though such conditions often remain hidden from the public eye, Mr Gant is far from unique. The charity's own chief executive has the very same phobia.



Mr Gant, a married father-of-two from Lowestoft, said: “I don't think there was any one moment when I suddenly realised it was becoming a problem. There was a growing realisation something was wrong. It started playing on my mind all the time. It was difficult to explain. If you're scared of spiders, people can understand that, but nobody understands this.”

Mr Gant described his phobia as “completely irrational”, saying he found it difficult to pinpoint the precise cause of his anxiety. Only his closest family know about it - he is yet to tell friends and colleagues. Part of the condition was a fear of the unknown and concerns that the cameras could be accidentally triggered, exposing him to an unjust prosecution. He found himself constantly anticipating the next box and often driving several miles on back streets to avoid camera sites.

Insp Marcus Rowe, from the camera partnership, said when he heard about Mr Gant's condition his first reaction was “is this a wind up”. But it soon became clear the problem was genuine. He said: “We basically just explained how we work and tried to remove the mystery. One of his concerns was that he could be unfairly prosecuted, so we explained we work to threshholds designed to eliminate room for error. Prosecution is not our only focus."

Mugshot

Ping pong cat

Amy's song

From Amy: UNBELIEVABLE!!!! This is my Man of Honor's speech from my wedding on April 28, 2007 in Sanibel and Captiva Islands, Florida. In this magical moment, I seriously felt like my heart was going to explode! It is time to share this unbelievable brilliance with the world! It is a true testament to love, friendship, and catapulting life to new levels of amazing brilliance! Enjoy!



This video is almost nine minutes long, must have taken an enormous amount of organisation and made a young lady very happy on her wedding day.

Monkey walks like a human

Man gets probation for killing and eating cat

A western Pennsylvania man who killed and ate a woman's cat has been sentenced to probation for 23 months.

Thirty-eight-year-old Stanley Sebetich, of Eighty Four, was sentenced Friday in Washington County court after he pleaded guilty to cruelty to animals.

He was also ordered not to live with any pets for two years and fined $2,500.

According to court records, Sebetich cut the cat's throat in a bathtub, skinned it, cut it up and cooked it in May 2007.

How many camels fit in a Subaru?

A Bedouin resident of the Negev managed to stuff two camels into his car in order to transport them to the West Bank.

Dog cull shocks Australians in Bali

Australians have been shocked to see stray dogs shot to death on a popular Bali beach as authorities try to contain a rabies outbreak blamed for at least eight human deaths.

More than 2,000 stray dogs have been culled since the rabies outbreak in early September, with Bali's governor Made Mangku Pastika ordering animal husbandry officials to rid the resort island of all street dogs. He has called on villagers to join in by exterminating strays themselves.

The culling program has used strychnine-laced meatballs as bait, angering animal rights activists and residents whose pet dogs have been inadvertently poisoned. Reports are also emerging of some officials using unsanctioned methods. Australian Simon Blaby, a chef in Bali, said he saw a man shoot a dog in broad daylight on Seminyak beach last Friday, just metres from a Balinese Hindu ceremony.



"One of the guys from the public health department was walking up and down the beach with a small calibre gun and shot a dog that they deemed dangerous", Blaby said. It had really bad skin and looked fairly liable to bite, so the guy made the judgment call and shot it and dragged the body by the hind leg into the bushes." Blaby said he later saw a second dog corpse in the bushes.

Animal rights activists were outraged. "They are nuts," said Janice Girardi, founder of the Australian-funded Bali Animal Welfare Association (BAWA), which runs a clinic and sterilisation program in Ubud. "Actually, if they shoot straight it's more humane than strychnine, but if they miss, the dogs can be in pain for a long time." Sydney woman Paula Hodgson, who founded the Australian-based Bali Street Dog Fund in 1999 to raise money for BAWA, was boycotting Bali. "I won't be returning to Bali until they stop this killing," she said.

Activists said pet dogs in Bali were often allowed to roam the streets and many had fallen victim to the culling program. Australian Kirsten McGrath said her dog died in early December after eating a poisoned bait near her Sanur home. "We found her dead surrounded by vomit and faeces in our garage, where the gate was open, and the little meatball was next to her body," McGrath said.

Girls being force-fed for marriage as junta revives fattening farms

Fears are growing for the fate of thousands of young girls in rural Mauritania, where campaigners say the cruel practice of force-feeding young girls for marriage is making a significant comeback since a military junta took over the West African country.

Aminetou Mint Ely, a women's rights campaigner, said girls as young as five were still being subjected to the tradition of leblouh every year. The practice sees them tortured into swallowing gargantuan amounts of food and liquid - and consuming their vomit if they reject it.

"In Mauritania, a woman's size indicates the amount of space she occupies in her husband's heart," said Mint Ely, head of the Association of Women Heads of Households. ''We have gone backwards. We had a Ministry of Women's Affairs. We had achieved a parliamentary quota of 20% of seats. We had female diplomats and governors. The military have set us back by decades, sending us back to our traditional roles. We no longer even have a ministry to talk to." Mauritania has suffered a series of coups since independence from France in 1960. The latest, in August last year, saw General Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz seize power after the elected president tried to sack him.



A children's rights lawyer, Fatimata M'baye, echoed Ely's pessimism. "I have never managed to bring a case in defence of a force-fed child. The politicians are scared of questioning their own traditions. Rural marriages usually take place under customary law or are overseen by a marabou (a Muslim preacher). No state official gets involved, so there is no arbiter to check on the age of the bride." Yet, she said, Mauritania had signed both international and African treaties protecting the rights of the child.

Leblouh is intimately linked to early marriage and often involves a girl of five, seven or nine being obliged to eat excessively to achieve female roundness and corpulence, so that she can be married off as young as possible. Girls from rural families are taken for leblouh at special "fattening farms" where older women, or the children's aunts or grandmothers, will administer pounded millet, camel's milk and water in quantities that make them ill. A typical daily diet for a six-year-old will include two kilos of pounded millet, mixed with two cups of butter, as well as 20 litres of camel's milk. "The fattening is done during the school holidays or in the rainy season when milk is plentiful," said M'baye. "The girl is sent away from home without understanding why. She suffers but is told that being fat will bring her happiness. Matrons use sticks which they roll on the girl's thighs, to break down tissue and hasten the process."

Other leblouh practices include a subtle form of torture - zayar - using two sticks inserted each side of a toe. When a child refuses to drink or eat, the matron squeezes the sticks together, causing great pain. A successful fattening process will see a 12-year-old weigh 80kg. "If she vomits she must drink it. By the age of 15 she will look 30," said M'baye.

Full story here.

Surgeons perform open-heart surgery on woman while delivering her baby at the same time

Surgeons performed life-saving open-heart surgery on a pregnant woman - while delivering her baby at the same time. When Rachael Joy, 36, first went to hospital suffering from chest pains, doctors believed she was suffering the after-effects of a bad cough and sent her home.

But hours later, she started coughing up blood and returned to hospital. It was only then doctors discovered she had a rare and dangerous heart condition, aortic dissection. Left untreated, they say Rachael - who was 36 weeks pregnant at the time - would have died from heart failure within 24 to 48 hours.



"Suddenly I had an oxygen mask on my face and there were eight consultants in my room," said Rachael. "I knew it wasn't good. They explained they needed to do an operation."

Doctors warned her she had a 25 per cent chance of dying on the operating table. Rachael said: "When they told me this was probably the only child I would have it freaked me out. I realise in hindsight that was the least of my worries." Doctors first performed a Caesarean section on Rachael, and her son Charlie was born, weighing 5lbs 4oz. Then, while the obstetricians were stitching Rachael up, surgeons started on open-heart surgery.



During the six-hour operation, a team of 10 doctors took out her damaged aortic valve and part of the ruptured aorta and replaced it with a synthetic valve and tube. "As soon as I woke up, the nurses in intensive care told me I'd had a boy and that he was fine," said Rachael. She saw her son for the first time on Christmas Eve, three days after the life-saving op. "It was lovely to meet him finally," she said.

Rachael's doctor David Lefroy, a consultant cardiologist at Hammersmith Hospital in London, said: "This is the first case I have ever seen occurring during pregnancy."

Gordon Ramsay admits claims about his Rangers career may be inaccurate

Chef Gordon Ramsay has been forced to admit that boasts he has made about his footballing past playing for Glasgow Rangers may be "inaccurate".

Ramsay, 42, has said on a number of occasions that he was a member of the first team squad at the Ibrox club playing three games, before injury cut short his career.



But after historians and former players at the club dismissed the claims, Ramsey embarrassingly confessed that his memories may be hazy.

A spokesman said that the television star had always "down-played" his career in football and added: "Any inaccuracies regarding the details of this period can be explained by the fact that all this occurred nearly 25 years ago."

Or as the News of the World delicately put it, Ramsay is an F-ing liar!

Earl threatened with prosecution after a million tyres dumped on his property

The Earl of Iveagh had one million tyres and a thousand tonnes of shredded rubber dumped on his land almost a decade ago.

His estate is now facing a bill of up to £400,000 to solve a problem that was not of his making, and to add insult to injury he has been threatened with prosecution over the mess.



The earl's local council is concerned that the tyres have not been removed quickly enough, and has launched proceedings against Elveden estate in Suffolk. Estate managers have so far found a use for two thirds of the tyres, but still have more than 350,000 to deal with.

In preparation for their removal they have been made into 3,300 bales covering an area the size of a football pitch and are visible on Google Earth. Although the material was dumped illegally by a crooked businessman, it is up to the landowner to clear up the mess.



Around 600,000 tyres have been baled and used elsewhere on the East Anglia estate as a noise-deading "bund" on land near RAF Lakenheath.

But St Edmundsbury Council is unhappy that hundreds of thousands of tyres still remain on land next to the East of England Military Museum at Barnham. It has issued proceedings against the 23,000-acre estate, which stretches into Norfolk, alleging that it is in breach of an enforcement order issued in 2004.

Schoolboy argues earring rule is sexist

A boy told he cannot wear earrings in school says the rule is sexist because girls can.

Connor Langdown has been pulled out of lessons several times at St Edmund's Catholic School in Portsmouth because he has worn stud earrings to school for the past eight weeks.

School rules had said jewellery was not allowed apart from watches and a crucifix worn under shirts. But parents were told in a school newsletter this month that girls would now be allowed to wear stud earrings.



Connor, 14, said the school's girls-only policy discriminated against him as a boy.

The Year 9 pupil said: 'It's an old-fashioned view that only girls wear earrings. I know many boys who do. It's sexist. It's unfair boys can't wear earrings when girls can.'

His mum Debra Langdown, of Dunn Close, Eastney, agreed and said: 'It's sex discrimination. When I spoke to the headteacher about this she said these rules have been in school for 20 years. But the world has moved on from 20 years ago.'

Alcoholic hand gels removed from hospitals after patients use them to get drunk

Two hospitals in Staffordshire have decided to remove the dispensers from their wards, with the NHS so concerned about the thefts they have issued a Patient Safety Alert to all hospitals and clinics across the UK.

The cleanser, which has been in the NHS for more than four years and is used to tackle hospital-acquired infections such as MRSA, contains 75 per cent proof alcohol, nearly twice the strength of whisky.

The gel is supposedly undrinkable thanks to the foul tasting chemical additive bitrex but paramedics who have treated patients found with the dispensers say addicts will simply "drink through" the taste.



Last year reports suggested patients were stealing the £10-a-litre gel and mixing it with orange juice or cola to create powerful cocktails.

The National Patient Safety Agency's cleanyourhands initiative suggested the handrub should only be used "within the immediate contact area that a patient is being treated."

Despite an increased warning by the NPSA, patients are still stealing and drinking the dispensers, and there have been serious incidents, including deaths.