Lightning kills boy, horse in Mexico
San Cristobal de las Casas (Mexico): An eight-year-old boy and the horse he was riding were struck by lightning and killed in an ecological park in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, authorities said.
The lightning bolt also injured two of the boy’s female cousins, ages eight and 16, officials said Thursday.
The three children on a visit from Mexico City were horseback-riding together, but the injuries to the two girls were so slight they required no hospitalisation. (IANS)
Meet the Brit kitten who resembles Hitler!
London: A kitten in Britain has been compared to Germany’s Nazi leader Adolf Hitler all because she has a moustache that resembles his.
The resemblance between the six-week-old kitten and Hitler is so prominent that staff at Wood Green animal shelter in Godmanchester near Cambridge, could not help but name her Kitler.
The kitten, which was found abandoned at a roadside in Bedfordshire, UK, has a loving and sweet personality, but because of the unusual markings, people are wary of adopting her.
“We rehome five-and-a-half thousand animals every year but we cannot find a loving owner for Kitler,” the Daily Express quoted spokeswoman Tara Dundon as saying.
“We think her unusual markings are putting people off. Kitler is an adorable little girl who will make a wonderful addition to the right family. She is really playful and a typical sweet kitten.
“She is not a specific breed and we don’t know where her black and white patches came from because we have no idea who her parents are.
“We think Kitler was either dumped by someone who didn’t want her or couldn’t look after her. Or she could have been a wild cat who was left by her mother.
“Sadly, Kitler is just one of hundreds of stray cats we take in every year. Last year we took in 1,294 cats and kittens, of which 422 were strays,” she added. (ANI)
British schools send off 900 violent pupils each day
London: Schools across Britain temporarily send off around 900 violent and foul-mouthed students every day, while 65 are permanently expelled every week, says a new official report.
The report for 2009-10 – published by the Department of Education – says school children were suspended on 166,900 occasions for assault or abuse – which is equivalent to 878 pupils a day.
Pupils were expelled on 2,460 occasions, the Daily Express reported.
The students were sent off for physical assaults against other pupils and adults, verbal abuse and threatening behaviour and racist abuse.
Children aged four and under were suspended from school 1,210 times in total, and were expelled 20 times. Five-year-olds faced 3,020 suspensions and 40 expulsions.
Across all of England’s primary, secondary and special schools, boys were four times more likely to be expelled than girls, the report said. Boys accounting for 78 percent of permanent exclusions.The suspension rate was also three times higher for boys than for girls, with 75 percent.
In primary schools alone, 120 pupils were suspended every day, in secondaries 713 students, while in special schools, 45 pupils a day were suspended.
On 80,400 occasions, pupils were charged with physically assaulting an adult – including teachers, teaching assistants and others in the school – or a classmate.
There were 82,600 suspensions for verbal abuse or threatening behaviour against a pupil or adult, and 3,900 for racist abuse.
Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: “With thousands of pupils being excluded for persistent disruption and violent or abusive behaviour, we remain concerned that weak discipline remains a significant problem in too many of our schools and classrooms.” (IANS)
China bans ‘misleading’ healthcare books
Beijing: China has stopped the publication of over 100 healthcare books suspecting them to be misleading and having been written by fake doctors and experts.
China’s General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) has halted the publication of 104 healthcare books as many self-proclaimed experts spread their pseudoscientific methods for longevity, Xinhua reported.
“Through a variety of means, some phony doctors and experts have been writing books and misleading the public by spreading their unscientific healthcare methods for quite some time,” said GAPP head Liu Binjie.
Last year, Zhang Wuben, author of a popular healthcare book entitled “Eat Out the Disease You Have Eaten”, claimed mung bean can cure nearly every disease. His theory convinced so many people that the price of mung bean was driven up in Beijing.
However, Zhang’s self-proclaimed title of a senior nutritionist was later denied by the Ministry of Health.
His healthcare theory is refuted by medical experts and his food therapy-oriented clinic, which demands a registration fee as high as 2,000 yuan ($310), was shut down.
Last October, the GAPP issued a circular urging various publication administrative departments to check their healthcare books and set up a certification system for publishing books in the category.
During a spot check of 50 healthcare books, the GAPP found 24 with substandard editing. (IANS)