Cop suspended for accusing 9-month old baby of attempted murder
Islamabad: A policeman in Pakistan has been reportedly suspended for taking a nine-month old baby boy to court, accusing him of attempted murder.
Baby Mohammad Musa, along with other members of his family, was booked for throwing rocks at gas company officials carrying out an anti-theft inspection in the low-income Ahata Thanedaran neighbourhood of Lahore on Feb 1, THE Dawn reported.
The crying baby was presented in the court along with 30 others accused in the case. The baby’s 50 year old grandfather, Muhammad Yasin, also an accused in the case said that everyone in the court was saying how can such a small child be implicated in any case? Judge Rafaqat Ali Qamar ordered for the suspension of the inspector and granted the child bail, though he will have to appear at the next hearing on April 12.
The family’s lawyer said the charges against the child should have been dropped. Sadiq said that the court should have simply referred the minor”s case to high court for dropping of the charges against the innocent child and acquit him from the case as the minimum criminal responsibility age is seven. (ANI)
Refugees allowed to vote in Afghan elections
Islamabad: The Afghanistan government has allowed refugees living in Chaman and other border areas to vote in Saturday’s presidential and provincial elections.
The Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan has established a polling station mainly for the refugees in Vesh Mandi, the first Afghan town across the Chaman border, Dawn online reported.
The Pakistan-Afghanistan border would remain shut Saturday and Afghan refugees who wants to cast their votes would be allowed to cross the border through the Friendship Gate near Chaman.
Refugees and tribesman living on both sides of the border are allowed to cast their votes.
The refugees would have to come on foot and not use their vehicles to cross the border and also would have to provide valid documents to prove their identity, a commander of Afghan border force said.
The refugees and other Afghan nationals living in Pakistan would return to their camps and houses after casting their votes.
In the previous two presidential elections, polling stations were also established in Pakistani territory.
The Pakistan-Afghanistan border at Friendship Gate in Chaman was Friday completely closed by the border forces of the two countries to avert any unwanted incident on the eve of the Afghan polls. (IANS)
Now, beer made from yeast of 35-million-year old whale fossil
Washington: A Virginia beer maker has created a beer which is made from the yeast on a 35-million-year old whale fossil.
The creation, called Bone Dusters Paleo Ale, is said to taste sweet like Belgium beer and it has a 4-to-5-percent alcohol by volume (ABV) –slightly lower than regular beer, Fox News reported.
Jason Osborne, co-founder of Paleo Quest, a non-profit dedicated to advancing paleontology and geology, teamed up with Jason Akerboom from the Lost Rhino Brewing Company to create this vintage brew.
The two headed down to the fossil archives of the Calvert Marine Museum in Maryland to swab old bones for cells of a beer-making yeast.
Their hope was to find an untapped strain of yeast. Yet after several attempts, they eventually found a variant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a yeast used by breweries everywhere.
The new variant is called Saccharomyces cerevisiae var protocetus after the protocetid whale fossil from which they took the swabs. (ANI)
10 pc of Brit kids don’t know which planet they live on!
London: A new study has found that 10 percent of kids in Britain are so dumb that they do not know answers to simple questions like what planet they live on.
However, kids are able to recognize faces of famous people like David Beckham, Prince William and Simon Cowell, the survey conducted at CBeebies Land found, the Daily Star reported.
The findings of the study showed that many believe they live on Mars, Saturn or Planet England and think their kidneys are in their heads. (ANI)
Now, a pork burger that contains both caffeine and booze
London: A café-bar has in Scotland has brought out a burger, whose chiefingredient pork has been soaked in Buckfast wine – a controversial mix of caffeine and alcohol.
The wine is so strong that Devon monks have blamed it for the increase in youth crime.
However, the chef Jass McNeil, 29, who created this burger insists that pork and Buckfast combo is a good one, despite the drink being nicknamed the ‘commotion lotion,’ it was reported.
He said that Buckfast goes really well with pork because it’s sweet, adding that the burgers have been doing really well and are selling better than the beef burger. (ANI)
US woman gets 20 years in breast feeding overdose
Spartanburg (US): A judge sentenced a woman to 20 years in prison on Saturday for killing her 6-week-old daughter with what prosecutors say was an overdose of morphine delivered through her breast milk.
Stephanie Greene, 39, said nothing as the minimum sentence was handed down. A jury found the former nurse guilty of homicide by child abuse the day before and she could have faced up to life behind bars.
Her lawyer said she will appeal and it’s likely the case will be tied up for years to come. Both the prosecutor and Greene’s lawyer agree no mother has ever been prosecuted in the United States for killing her child through a substance transmitted in breast milk. Greene’s daughter Alexis was born healthy, but was found dead in her parents’ bed just 46 days after she was born in November 2010.
An autopsy found a level of morphine in the baby’s body that a pathologist testified could have been lethal for an adult. With no needle marks on the child’s body, authorities decided the drugs must have gotten into the infant through her mother’s milk, prosecutor Barry Barnette said. A review of her medical records showed Greene carefully hid her pregnancy from her primary doctor. After a home pregnancy test showed she was pregnant, she told her primary doctor she needed to go to a gynaecologist for a birth control. She then got prenatal care from that doctor while not telling her all the painkillers she was taking. (AP)
Bibles to be handed out on St Peter’s Square
Vatican City: The pilgrims and tourists who flock to St Peter’s Square every week to see Pope Francis are in for a surprise this Sunday – pocket bibles handed out following a reprimand from the Roman pontiff himself.
Volunteers on the famous Vatican piazza will hand out thousands of Italian copies of the New Testament and the Acts of the Apostles before Francis delivers his weekly Angelus prayer and address from a balcony.
“Pope Francis has already encouraged the faithful several times to bring a mini-Bible with them to re-read and meditate the words and actions of Jesus,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told reporters.
“The pocket Bibles will be handed out for free to the faithful on the square – a gift from the Holy Father,” Lombardi said, adding that it would be a special edition just for Sunday with an epigraph from Francis. At one of his Angelus prayers last month, the pope asked how many in the crowd read the Bible every day.
Faced with a less than enthusiastic response, Francis told them: “It’s good to have a little Bible that you carry with you in your pocket or in your bag. “Always carry a Bible with you, even on the bus!” (AFP)