(CNN) – Tropical Cyclone Tomas battered Fiji’s northern islands on Monday evening with gusts of up to 275 km/h (170 mph) and heavy rain, but weather officials had not received immediate reports of damage.

The Category 4 storm is the second-most destructive on a five-point scale. As it heads southeast, it is expected to sideswipe the main island, Viti Levu. The South Pacific nation’s capital, Suva, is on that island.

“The closest it will come is 200 km (124 miles) to the east of Suva,” said Alipate Waqaicelua, forecaster for the Nadi Tropical Cyclone Center.

Still, the storm inundated the capital with heavy rain and strong winds. Authorities imposed a nighttime curfew. Schools have been ordered closed till Thursday, and banks were shuttered till Tuesday, said resident Moses Waqavonovono.

“Squatter houses have been blown away in the gusting winds,” he said. “The stronger structures will take a hard hitting tomorrow.”

11. march – These five women protested in the Mexican parliament against president Felipe Calderon.They ask for his resignation.

To make sure they get attention, these activists took off their clothes and attracted more than just one camera lense

Its been 1 year since the School shooting in Winnenden in Germany ….

lets remember !

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Flags in Germany are flying at half-mast on Thursday as the entire country tries to come to grips with what happened in the small town of Winnenden on Wednesday. Church services are being held across the country in memory of the 15 victims of the massacre, including one planned for Thursday in far-away Berlin.

But in the small town itself, just outside of Stuttgart in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg, police have been busy. As pupils from the Albertville secondary school — scene of much of the violence — and residents of Winnenden mourned the loss of friends and family, investigators spent the night looking for clues hinting why Tim K.* would take his father’s Beretta and try to kill as many people as he possibly could.

At a midday press conference on Thursday, Baden-Württemberg Interior Minister Heribert Rech reported that at 2:46 a.m. in the night before the shooting, a message was posted in an Internet forum that was believed to have been written by Tim K. Later in the evening**, police officials corrected this statement. There were no clues that the message in the forum really was written by Tim K.

Tim K., who has a younger sister, was by all accounts a quiet but friendly boy, say those who knew him. He enjoyed playing table tennis and lifting weights. There was little indication that he was capable of the violence that he visited upon the Albertville school on Wednesday. Indeed, police said on Thursday, he had a room in the basement of the house where he often entertained his friends, with his parents providing snacks.

Police said K. spent a lot of time in his room, much of it spent in front of his computer. In addition to violent video games, police also found pornography on his computer, but “nothing out of the ordinary,” a police spokesman said. He was, however, very interested in guns and had a number of air guns mounted on the walls of his room. His father was a member at the local gun club and possessed 15 weapons. K. would periodically accompany him to the club for shooting practice.

All of the weapons were locked in a safe except for the Beretta Tim K. used in the massacre. That gun was hidden in his parents’ bedroom along with hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

But behind K.’s outward normality, there is also evidence that he was far from satisfied with his life. He may have felt bullied by others at the school, according to reports from pupils at Albertville secondary school, which K. attended until he graduated last year. In 2008, he also received treatment for depression at a psychological clinic, making five visits. He stopped going to treatment soon afterwards, however.

One of those killed on Wednesday was a gardener on the grounds of the Winnenden psychological clinic. The clinic was right next to the school and police declined to connect the shooting with K.’s earlier treatment.

In total, K. shot and killed nine pupils at the school — seven of them girls — and three female teachers. After shooting the gardener, he hijacked a car and forced its driver to take him to the town of Wendlingen, some 40 kilometers away.

In Wendlingen, police said on Thursday, he walked into a car dealership and demanded a vehicle. He then shot and killed a sales representative and a customer in the dealership. Two other people managed to escape out the back, but K. shot repeatedly at police as they approached the building. Two officers were seriously wounded and both remain in intensive care on Thursday. After leaving the dealership, K. turned the weapon on himself.

In all, says Interior Minister Rech, the shooter fired 112 shots, 60 of them at the school. He was found with around 110 rounds that he hadn’t yet used. Officials say that police arrived at the school just two minutes after the first emergency call and that the quick response likely prevented an even bigger blood bath. The school’s principal likewise warned teachers with a pre-arranged code message over the intercom suggesting an attack was tacking place.

Police say that they have not opened a formal investigation into K.’s father, who had licenses for the guns at his home. K.’s family, police said on Thursday, have left their home and are now staying at an undisclosed location.

Albertville secondary school is now deserted, save for the white boiler-suited police officers who can be seen examining empty classrooms.

They are looking for clues that will help them piece together the terrible events that unfolded here this morning.

It was around 0830 GMT that a 17-year-old former pupil, named locally as Tim Kretschmer, entered the school and started firing indiscriminately.

Police say he moved from room to room re-loading his weapon, shooting his victims in the head as he went.

Students leapt from windows of the school in a desperate bid to escape.

Nine pupils and three teachers, one of whom had only just joined the school, did not make it.

Brutal assault

The gunman then made his escape in a car, shooting dead a passer-by as he did so.

In a town 40 km (25 miles) away he was cornered by police inside a car dealership.

A gun-fight ensued, two more passers-by were shot and killed and two policemen injured.

The 17-year-old gunman was also shot and killed but it is not yet clear whether it was by police or his own hand.

Back at the school, terrified parents were being reunited with their traumatised children.

The horror of a brutal assault in a quiet residential street in a small town in a relatively rural suburb of Stuttgart was sinking in.

The school, which should be full of vibrant, noisy children, is now empty.

Text-books and pens lie abandoned on desks, a solitary shoe is marked in chalk then collected in an evidence bag by a police officer.

Bicycles are left chained to the bike rack where children left them. How many of them will remain unclaimed?

This is not the first shooting in a German school.

In 2006, a masked man wearing explosives and brandishing rifles opened fire at a school in the western German town of Emsdetten, wounding 11 people before killing himself.

In 2002, a gunman killed 16 people and himself at a high school in Erfurt – the previous worst such attack in Germany.

Chancellor Angela Merkel says this is a time of grief for Germany, but inevitably there will be a fresh debate about firearms, school security and what led a young man to carry out such terrible and violent acts at his former school.

The magnitude-8.8 earthquake that rocked the west coast of Chile last month was violent enough to move the city of Concepcion at least 10 feet to the west and the capital, Santiago, about 11 inches to the west-southwest, researchers said.

The quake also shifted other parts of South America, as far apart as the Falkland Islands and Fortaleza, Brazil.

The results were reached via global positioning satellite measurements taken before and after the February 27 quake by teams from The Ohio State University, the University of Hawaii, the University of Memphis and the California Institute of Technology, as well as agencies across South America.

NASA scientists have also credited the quake with shifting the Earth's axis enough to create shorter days. The change is negligible, but still worth noting: Each day should be 1.26 microseconds shorter, according to preliminary calculations. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.

A large quake — like the one that hit Chile's Maule region — shifts massive amounts of rock and alters the distribution of mass on the planet.

When that distribution changes, it changes the rate at which the planet rotates. And the rotation rate determines the length of a day.

“Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation,” Benjamin Fong Chao, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said while explaining the phenomenon in 2005.

Despite the tragedy of the earthquake, which killed hundreds of Chileans, scientists see opportunities to gain valuable information in the aftermath.

“The Maule earthquake will arguably become one of the, if not the most important, great earthquakes yet studied,” said Ben Brooks of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii.

“We now have modern, precise instruments to evaluate this event.”

via Chile quake moves city more than 10 feet – CNN.com.

Facts About Child Abuse

84 percent of prison inmates were abused as children.

One in three girls and one in five boys are sexually abused by an adult at some time during childhood. (Most sexual abusers are someone in the family or someone the child knows, not the proverbial stranger with a lollipop.)

Families with four or more children have higher rates of abuse and neglect, especially if their living conditions are crowded or they live in isolated areas.

More than 80 percent of abusers are a parent or someone close to a child. Child abuse is far more likely to occur in the child’s home than in a day care center.

One in thirteen kids with a parent on drugs is physically abused regularly. (Drug and alcohol abuse in the family makes child abuse about twice as likely.)

One out of ten babies born today are born to mothers who are abusing drugs. Drinking and smoking heavily during pregnancy also endangers the health of unborn children.

What Kids Can Do:

Know your rights. Nobody, including your parents, can:

Hit you hard enough to cause an injury.

Leave you by yourself for a long time.

Force you or tell you to have any kind of sex with anyone.

Anyone who does any of these things has a problem. They need help.

Don't be afraid to ask for help. Don't believe anybody who says something bad will happen if you talk. Things can only get better than they are.

If you know a kid who is being hurt physically or sexually, call 1-800-4-A-CHILD and talk about it. A counselor will tell you just what to do.

Some Signs of Child Abuse

Emotional:

A child who is apathetic (just doesn't care).

A child who suffers from depression.

A child who won't take part in play or school activities.

A child who is often hostile or aggressive.

A child with a loss of appetite.

A child who compulsively overeats

Neglect:

Any of the signs above.

A child who is hungry much of the time.

A child wandering outdoors unsupervised.

A child unsuitably dressed for the weather.

A child who is continually dirty or wearing the same soiled clothes.

A child who shows up early or stays late at school.

Physical:

Bruises or welts shaped like an object (belt buckle or electric cord).

Bruises in unusual places (back, eyes, mouth, buttocks, genital areas, thighs, calves).

Layers of different colored bruises in the same general area.

“Sock” or “glove” burns on feet or hands or doughnut shaped burns on buttocks (from forcing the child into hot water).

Small round burns from cigarettes.

Burns in the shape of an object (iron, fireplace tool, or heater).

Rope burns on ankles, wrists, or torso.

Adult sized bite marks.

Suspicious fractures (doctors and nurses are trained to recognize these).

Sexual:

Withdrawal or anti-social attitude.

Refusal to undress for physical education or sports.

Exaggerated interest in sex or “acting out” sex with other children.

Unusually seductive behavior.

Fear of intimate contact (hugging or sports)

Torn, stained, or bloodied clothing.

Things To Do Instead of Hurting a Child:

Take a deep breath. Take a few more. Remember, you are the adult.

Close your eyes and imagine you are hearing what your child is about to hear, or receiving the same punishment.

Press your lips together and count to 20.

Put the child in a “time-out” chair for a number of minutes. The rule is one minute for each year of age.

Put yourself in a “time-out” chair. Are you really angry at the child or is it something else.

Call a friend to talk about it. If you need to, dial 1-800-4-A-CHILD (National Child Abuse Hotline).

If someone can watch the children, go out for a walk.

Take a hot bath or splash cold water on your face.

Turn on some music. Sing along if you want.

Pick up a pencil and write down a list of helpful words, not words that will hurt. Save the list. Use these words.

via Facts About Child Abuse.

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Paris, France (CNN) — Western Europe was dealing with the aftermath of violent weather Monday after a winter storm dubbed “Xynthia” battered at least six countries, leaving at least 58 people dead, authorities said.

Hardest hit was France, where at least 47 people were killed, according to the Interior Ministry.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited the departments of Charente-Maritime and Vendee on the nation's west coast Monday, where the extra-tropical cyclone hit.

“It's a national catastrophe,” French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Sunday. “Many people drowned, surprised by the rapid rise of the water.”

The combination of hurricane-force winds and high tide inundated parts of the coastal region.

Video: Xynthia batters Europe Video: 'Xynthia' batters France Video: Storms take toll on Europe

“It was rushing in, it broke down the walls around the garden and the gate,” a resident of Aiguillon-Sur-Mer, in the department of Vendee, told CNN affiliate BFM-TV.

Hundreds of people had to be rescued from their rooftops overnight.

Were you affected? Send your pics, videos to iReport.

“The water was up to the gutters,” said one woman, who spent the night on the roof with her children.

By Monday rescuers in boats and helicopters continued to search to find the missing in homes overrun by flooding, Agence France-Press said.

Residents of the village of Aytre, in Charente-Maritime, saw a wave of water measuring one-meter high come into the center of town.

“It was unreal,” Aytre Mayor Suzanne Tallard told BFM-TV.

At least 500,00 households were without power Monday morning, said Electricite de France. The utility said all power should be restored by Wednesday.

President Sarkozy said he was making €3 million ($4 million) of emergency funds available for the victims and promised that electricity would be restored by Tuesday, AFP reported. The agency added that the European Union was ready to offer support for the countries affected.

French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux told the affiliate that 350 soldiers and 3,250 firefighters have been mobilized to assist in the aftermath.

The high winds — at times spiking to 200 km/h (124 mph) — reached inland as far as Paris. Gusts of up to 175 km/h (108 mph) were measured at the top of the Eiffel Tower on Saturday, said Eboni Deon, CNN meteorologist .

As many as 100 flights were canceled at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle International Airport on Sunday because of the blustery conditions, the affiliate reported. All major French airports were back to normal schedules Monday.

A the storm's peak, Hurricane-strength winds stretched from Portugal northeast to the Netherlands.

The storm killed five people in Germany, officials said. Four of them died after being hit by falling trees. A fifth, a 2-year-old boy near the town of Biblis, drowned when he was blown into a river.

Train service was slowly returning to normal in Germany on Monday after massive disruptions and a partial shutdown of services in the states of North Rhine-Westfalia, Baden-Wuerttemberg, and Hesse a day earlier, railway Deutsche Bahn reported.

Crews spent the overnight hours clearing tracks of debris.

In Spain, at least three people were killed by the storm, Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said Sunday. Two children died in a car accident and one more person was killed in northwestern Spain, the minister said in a news conference on CNN sister station CNN+.

A 10-year-old child was killed by a falling tree in the high winds in Portugal, said Patricia Gaspar, national operations assistant with the Portuguese National Authority for Civil Protection.

There are also some power outages in the country, Gaspar said. Some residents have reported roofs blown off and smaller houses collapsing, she added.

A man was killed by a falling tree in Belgium, Peter Mertens, a spokesman for Belgium's Interior Ministry, said.

Eastern Belgium saw the worst of the storm, Mertens said.

“They've had problems with fallen trees, roofs blown off and electricity cables not working. But it seems the worst part has passed now,” he added.

The storm also reached England, where one woman was reported dead when the vehicle she was driving became submerged and washed down a swollen creek in the northeastern part of the country.

The body of the 53-year-old woman was recovered downstream, North Yorkshire Police said in a phone message to the media.

Concepcion, Chile (CNN) — As Sunday night fell on Chile, heavily populated parts of the country were without water and electricity, and reports of looting raised fears about security in some areas.

The nation’s hardest-hit major city declared an overnight curfew.

Calling Saturday’s early morning 8.8-magnitude quake an “unthinkable disaster,” Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said a “state of catastrophe” in the worst-hit regions would continue, allowing for the restoration of order and speedy distribution of aid. The death count doubled on Sunday from a day earlier, to 708 deaths.

Death toll rises to 147 in Chile

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(CNN) — An magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck central Chile early Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake’s epicenter was located near the city of Concepcion, 212 miles (341 kilometers) from the capital of Santiago. It struck at 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. ET).

Concepcion is Chile’s second largest city with a population of 200,000.



The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for Chile and Peru. The center recorded a tsunami wave as high as 9 feet.

“An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines near the epicenter within minutes and more distant coastlines within hours,” the National Weather Service said in a statement.

The extent of damage or casualties was not immediately known.

Alessandro Perez, who is staying at the Santiago Marriott Hotel, reported shattered windows, but there was no structural damage. No one at the hotel was injured, he said.

Anita Herrera, who works at the Hotel Kennedy in Santiago, said electricity was knocked out at that hotel and guests were nervous.

“Our hotel is built for this,” she said. “In Chile, this happens many times.”

Chile holds the record for the largest earthquake in the world, according to the USGS. A magnitude 9.5 quake struck the South American country in May 1960 and killed 1,655 people.

Inventor unveils $7,000 talking sex robot – CNN.com.

Las Vegas, Nevada (CNN) — To some men, she might seem like the perfect woman: She’s a willowy 5 feet 7 and 120 pounds. She’ll chat with you endlessly about your interests. And she’ll have sex whenever you please — as long as her battery doesn’t run out.

Meet Roxxxy, who may be the world’s most sophisticated talking female sex robot. For $7,000, she’s all yours.

“She doesn’t vacuum or cook, but she does almost everything else,” said her inventor, Douglas Hines, who unveiled Roxxxy last month at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Lifelike dolls, artificial sex organs and sex-chat phone lines have been keeping the lonely company for decades. But Roxxxy takes virtual companionship to a new level.

Powered by a computer under her soft silicone “skin,” she employs voice-recognition and speech-synthesis software to answer questions and carry on conversations. She even comes loaded with five distinct “personalities,” from Frigid Farrah to Wild Wendy, that can be programmed to suit customers’ preferences.

“There’s a tremendous need for this kind of product,” said Hines, a computer scientist and former Bell Labs engineer.

Roxxxy won’t be available for delivery for several months, but Hines is taking pre-orders through his Web site, TrueCompanion.com, where thousands of men have signed up.

“They’re like, ‘I can’t wait to meet her,’ ” Hines said. “It’s almost like the anticipation of a first date.”

Women have inquired about ordering a sex robot, too. Hines says a female sex therapist even contacted him about buying one for her patients.

Roxxxy has been like catnip to talk-show hosts since her debut at AEE, the largest porn-industry convention in the country. In a recent monologue, Jay Leno expressed amazement that a sex robot could carry on lifelike conversations and express realistic emotions.

“Luckily, guys,” he joked, “there’s a button that turns that off.”

Curious conventioneers packed Hines’ AEE booth last month in Las Vegas, asking questions and stroking Roxxxy’s skin as she sat on a couch in a black negligee.

“Roxxxy generated a lot of buzz at AEE,” said Grace Lee, spokeswoman for the porn-industry convention. “The prevailing sentiment of everyone I talked to about Roxxxy is ‘version 1.0,’ but people were fascinated by the concept, and it caused them to rethink the possibilities of ’sex toys.’ ”

Hines, a self-professed happily married man from Lincoln Park, New Jersey, says he spent more than three years developing the robot after trying to find a marketable application for his artificial-intelligence technology.

Roxxxy’s body is made from hypoallergenic silicone — the kind of stuff in prosthetic limbs — molded over a rigid skeleton. She cannot move on her own but can be contorted into almost any natural position. To create her shape, a female model spent a week posing for a series of molds.

The robot runs on a self-contained battery that lasts about three hours on one charge, Hines says. Customers can recharge Roxxxy with an electrical cord that plugs into her back.

A motor in her chest pumps heated air through a tube that winds through the robot’s body, which Hines says keeps her warm to the touch. Roxxxy also has sensors in her hands and genital areas — yes, she is anatomically correct — that will trigger vocal responses from her when touched. She even shudders to simulate orgasm.

When someone speaks to Roxxxy, her computer converts the words to text and then uses pattern-recognition software to match them against a database containing hundreds of appropriate responses. The robot then answers aloud — her prerecorded “voice” is supplied by an unnamed radio host — through a loudspeaker hidden under her wig.

“Everything you say to her is processed. It’s very near real time, almost without delay,” Hines said of the dynamics of human-Roxxxy conversation. “To make it as realistic as possible, she has different dialogue at different times. She talks in her sleep. She even snores.” (The snoring feature can be turned off, he says.)

Roxxxy understands and speaks only English for now, but Hines’ True Companion company is developing Japanese and Spanish versions. For an extra fee, he’ll also record customizable dialogue and phrases for each client, which means Roxxxy could talk to you about NASCAR, say, or the intricacies of politics in the Middle East.

Hines believes that Roxxxy is a step above other love dolls — the similar but mute RealDoll costs about $5,500 — because her conversational abilities provide something close to emotional companionship. His customer base? Shy, awkward or older men who “have trouble meeting girls,” he says.

In an industry known for pushing the technological envelope, observers are curious about how Roxxxy will fare in the marketplace.

“Is this a viable product? Yes,” said Sherri Shaulis, an editor at Adult Video News, a trade magazine for the pornographic industry. “There’s a market for it. Granted, it’s a very small market.”

Maybe not. TrueCompanion claims that more than 4,000 men have placed pre-orders for Roxxxy robots, and another 20,000 or so have requested information about the product. TrueCompanion also is developing a male sex robot, named Rocky.

“There’s really nothing like this on the market,” said Hines, who speaks of his unique creation with what seems like genuine affection. “Whenever she’s out in public, everyone wants to talk to her and pose for pictures. It’s so cute.”

37238, TITANYEN, HAITI – Thursday January 28, 2010. This mass grave just short of the settlement of Titanyen, north of Port-au-Prince, is one of many sites that the Haitian government claims up to 150,000 bodies from the January 12th earthquake have already been buried. Diggers sit on top of huge areas of freshly-filled land with trenches prepared to receive more bodies and floodlights to enable work to continue throughout the night. Titanyen already had the dubious reputation from locals as the place of angry souls due to its use as a burial site for political rivals of Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. At one location, bodies have simply been dumped from the backs of trucks after collecting them. Most of these unidentified bodies are lacking even a basic burial, their distorted remains left to decompose in the hot Caribbean sunshine. Photograph: James Breeden PacificCoastNews.com