POLICE are trying to defuse a bomb strapped to a teenage girl at a multimillion dollar house at Burrawong Avenue in Mosman, Sydney.
The drama unfolded at 2.40pm this afternoon when an 18-year-old girl called police to the mansion "following discovery of a suspicious device", The Daily Telegraph reported.
It was not clear how the device came to be strapped to the girl but it is understood she did not place it there herself.
A senior police poice officer described the device as an unusual "collar bomb" which has never been seen before in Australia.
He said they believed it was an extortion attempt and that the initial details of the situation were being conveyed to police via the girl's father.
The girl, who is part of one of Sydney's wealthiest families is understood to be "absolutely petrified".
Police believe the ransom note is attached to her neck but bomb experts have been unable at this point to read its contents.
The street is home to racing identity Gai Waterhouse, ex-Wallaby Phil Kearns and John Eales.
Police have cordoned off the house and a command post has been set-up on the corner of Burrawong Ave and David Street.
Police Bomb Squad officers are currently examining the device, while other emergency services are in support at the scene with the teen's parents.
A third police rescue vehicle has entered the crime scene, as well as a number of detectives.
The girl is only in Year 12 and is believed to be studying her HSC this year. She celebrated her 18th birthday three weeks ago.
Her parents are outside the home comforting each other.
Police said they could not elaborate except to say a 'delicate operation' was in progress.
Australian police have freed a young woman after 10 hours of tense efforts to deal with a suspected bomb that was reportedly strapped to her body.
Madeleine Pulver, 18, called police from her home in a wealthy Sydney suburb at 14:30 (04:30 GMT).
The police said the device was "very elaborate, very sophisticated" but would not comment on media reports that it was part of an extortion attempt.
Ms Pulver was finally reunited with her parents just after midnight.
The BBC's Nick Bryant, in Sydney, says she had been studying for her exams when an intruder, wearing a balaclava, reportedly entered the house and placed a potentially explosive device around her neck.
There were also reports that the intruder had left behind a note.
Police said the process to remove the device was a delicate and painstaking operation and that they had sought the help of British bomb-disposal experts.
Wealthy suburb
New South Wales Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch said they were investigating who might have placed the device in the house, and their motive.
"You'd hardly think that someone would go to this much trouble if there wasn't a motive behind it. What that motive is, we are still not aware," he said. "We want to get our hands on who's done this."
He said the woman had had previous contact with the person who planted the device.
Bomb experts were still examining the device, he said, but it was still not clear if it was a viable bomb.
The police confirmed in a statement that the woman had been freed, adding that she would be taken to hospital for a check-up before being interviewed by officers.
Emergency crews had earlier evacuated nearby houses in Mosman, one of Sydney's wealthiest suburbs on the city's lower north shore.
Several streets were cordoned off, and ambulances and fire crews rushed to the area. Police said a forensic examination of the house would now begin "in earnest".
A DISTRAUGHT mother listened on a mobile phone as her teenage daughter was eaten alive by a brown bear and its three cubs.
Olga Moskalyova, 19, gave an horrific hour-long running commentary on her own death in three separate calls as the wild animals mauled her.
She screamed: 'Mum, the bear is eating me! Mum, it’s such agony. Mum, help!'
Her mother Tatiana said that at first she thought she was joking.
'But then I heard the real horror and pain in Olga’s voice, and the sounds of a bear growling and chewing,' she added. 'I could have died then and there from shock.'
Unknown to Tatiana, the bear had already killed her husband Igor Tsyganenkov - Olga’s stepfather - by overpowering him, breaking his neck and smashing his skull.
Olga, a trainee psychologist, saw the *attack on her stepfather in tall grass and reeds by a river in Russia and fled for 70 yards before the mother bear grabbed her leg.
As the creature toyed with her, she managed to call Tatiana several times during the prolonged attack.Tatiana rang her husband - not knowing he was *already dead - but got no answer.
She alerted the police and relatives in the village of Termalniy, near Petropavlovsk Kamchatskiy, in the extreme east of Siberia.
She begged them to rush to the river where the pair had gone to retrieve a fishing rod that Igor had left.
In a second call, a weak Olga gasped: 'Mum, the bears are back. She came back and brought her three babies. They’re... eating me.'
Finally, in her last call - almost an hour after the first - Olga sensed she was on the verge of death.
With the bears having apparently left her to die, she said: 'Mum, it’s not hurting any more. I don’t feel the pain. Forgive me for everything, I love you so much.'
Half an hour later, Igor’s brother Andrei arrived with police to find the mother bear still devouring his body.
Badly mauled Olga was also dead.
Six hunters were sent in by the emergency services to kill the mother bear and her three cubs.
The double killing is the latest in a spate of bear attacks across *Russia, as the hungry animals seek food in areas where people have *encroached and settled on their former habitat.
A weeping Tatiana said that Olga had everything to look forward to, and was happy with her life and boyfriend Stepan.
'My daughter was such fun. She was so cheerful, friendly, and warm,' said Tatiana.
'She had graduated from music school, and just days before the bear attack she got her driving *licence.'
Her husband and daughter are due to be buried today.
I still doubt the truth of this story, if you have a working arm while you're being eaten by a bear, you aren't going to make a phone call. You're going to be trying to get the bear off you by any means necessary, like say, poking it in the eye.
That's... really disturbing.... I agree that calling someone would not by my top priority while being eaten by bears, but I really hope that no one would be messed up enough to just make this up for kicks and giggles....
I got the impression that it wasn't a continuous attack and she had brief interludes where she able to call for help and the beers returned while she was already on the phone with her mom.
Yeah, the internet is a cool and useful tool, spambot. And search engines ARE super important to it's success... but I'm pretty sure everyone already knows about Google, what with it being a Verb now and all.
I hardly think a new search engine is "Effed-Up News".
(Pssstt... Azrodal... you don't have to reply to all of the spambots... just about every one of their posts are going to be deleted at some point)
How did I miss that Rick Perry article before? I REALLY REALLY hope he doesn't get the Republican nomination, because CHRIST. I'm wondering if he will though... I think the worst idea for me is knowing that, if he does get the nomination, my vote isn't going to do shit for the state of Texas. I've voted against him for governor every year I've been able to vote, and for some reason he keeps getting re-elected without too much difficulty.
You know he's been governor ever since Bush left to be President? I mean... really! Didn't Republicans have their fill of Texas governors with Bush? Do we reeeally think we need to go back to that? Scary stuff.
Police in Yorktown, Virginia responded to a domestic dispute call around 10:00 a.m. on Thursday that resulted in a man decapitating himself. Yes, that's right. He decapitated himself.
The couple was divorced, and had two children, both of whom were at school at the time of the incident. The father, unidentified by police save for the fact that he was 46 and from Chicago, had relocated to Yorktown to be closer to his kids. The fight was over access to them.
While a deputy took his ex-wife's statement, another noticed a white Ford Explorer driving by, pulling along a utility trailer that was on fire. The car was being driven by the ex-husband, who had a cable — the kind used to "hoist an automobile engine" — tied around his neck. The other end was tied to a nearby tree. This is the part of the post when you might want to send young children elsewhere, perhaps to the comparatively comforting story of the man with gardening shears in his face.
The deputies asked the man to exit the Ford Explorer. Instead, he accelerated. The cable yanked him out of the SUV, and pulled his head off. The SUV kept traveling for about 150 yards, according to the local NBC affiliate.
"Nobody has ever heard of anything like this," [York-Poquoson Sheriff Danny] Diggs said. "It's a really bizarre incident."
Saw this on the internet somewhere. He should have superglued his hands to his head just before the cable took it off. Then it would look like he pulled his own head off.
Georgia's Supreme Court has sentenced an Atlanta couple to life in prison for starving its infant son, rejecting claims by the defense that vegan rules were to blame.
Six-week-old Crown Shakur weighed 3½ pounds when he died in 2004 from extreme malnourishment or starvation. His parents, Jade Sanders and Lamont Thomas, were convicted Monday of malice murder, felony murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children.
"No matter how many times they want to say, 'We're vegans, we're vegetarians,' that's not the issue in this case," prosecutor Chuck Boring told the court. "The child died because he was not fed. Period."
Bottles of soy milk -- not formula -- and apple juice as well as a dirty, rancid baby bottle were found during a police search of the couple's Buckhead apartment.
"This was not a well-nourished child on any level, but it sounds like this had more to do with not getting enough calories or protein overall than a vegan diet," said Keith Ayoob, director of the Rose R. Kennedy Center Nutrition Clinic at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. "Veganism does not starve an infant."
Babies need at least 10 ounces of liquid food per day, with the healthy range spanning from 16 to 30 ounces, according to Dr. Ira Rubin, a private practice pediatrician in Naperville, Ill.
"Since the baby lost around half of its weight, it sounds like they certainly did not feed the infant enough volume," Rubin said.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies breastfeed for the first six months -- a practice that, if manageable, conforms to vegan ideals. And for vegan women who can't or choose not to breastfeed, soy milk-based formulas are available. Soy milk, however, is not a substitute for fortified formula, Rubin said.
The prosecutors also argued the couple neglected their child by not seeking medical attention as his body wasted away.
"To me, even if the parents did not understand what to feed the baby, all they needed to do is ask the nurses or doctors at the hospital they delivered at, or even go back to their doctor's office to ask why the baby is losing so much weight," Rubin said.
As more adults adopt the vegan diet, more babies and children are inheriting it. Alicia Silverstone's 3-month-old baby, Blu, is reportedly vegan. Natalie Portman dropped her vegan diet during pregnancy in favor of a more flexible vegetarian diet.
Experts say the vegan diet can be complete and nutritious for the whole family, as long as it contains enough protein, calcium and vitamins D and B12. But fussy young eaters can complicate things.
"Any time you remove a food you place a bigger burden on the remaining foods to pick up the slack," said Ayoob. "I recommend that vegan parents, in the early years, remain flexible. Let philosophy take second string to the child's nutritional needs at least until they're older and can make decisions for themselves."
Education is key here. They didn't kill their kid out of malice, they were just complete dumbasses. Not once did they ever think their hipster moral diet could possibly be the key problem here.
A barman who was tied to a lamppost, burned and brutally murdered could have been targeted because he was gay, police believe.
Stuart Walker, 28, was found with "horrific injuries" on an industrial estate just two and a half hours after leaving a house party in the early hours of the morning.
There were scorch marks on his body from being set alight and he had been severely beaten.
Strathclyde police said of the attack, near Mr Walker's home town of Cumnock, Ayrshire: "We can't rule out that he was targeted because he was gay."
Heartbroken cousin John Mullen said last night: "Stuart was the best guy ever."
His body was discovered at 5am on Saturday. He was due to attend his gran's 80th birthday party that day.
Yesterday, she left flowers near the scene with the note: "Love you always. Sleep tight." Police are trying to trace his final movements.
The local MSP said the attack has shaken the community.
Adam Ingram told BBC Radio Scotland: "People are shocked and horrified.
"Stuart was a very nice young man, very popular and well-known within the Cumnock community, and their thoughts and hearts are going out to the family at the moment.
"It's shocking and horrifying, and it's come completely out of the blue. It's clearly shaken the local community."
Mr Ingram, the SNP MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, said he understood that vigils have been taking place in the area.
He told the Good Morning Scotland programme: "Stuart was very well-known and popular in the area, and I understand there have been many visits to the family home."
Mr Ingram said he would not speculate on the motive for the attack, saying police were not releasing many details about the case at this stage.
He added: "Clearly they're looking for local people who might know anything at all about what happened late on Friday night/Saturday morning to come forward and help them with their inquiries."
Detectives are also checking CCTV footage and making door-to-door inquiries in a bid to trace his last movements.
Detective Inspector John Hogg, of Strathclyde Police, said Mr Walker was last seen alive about two hours before he was killed.
He said: "Stuart had been out with friends in the Cumnock area earlier during the night and was last seen alive by a family friend near to the fire station in Glaisnock Street around 2.30am on Saturday morning - nearly two-and-a-half hours before he was found.
"It is imperative that we find out where he was between 2.30am and 4.50am, who he was with and why this happened to him.
"From our inquiries so far, we understand that there may have been a number of house parties in the nearby Netherthird housing estate in the early hours of the morning.
"At this time we do not know if these parties are linked to our investigation or not, so, again, any information on that is important."
Hundreds of tributes were left on Facebook pages set up to honour the former Royal Hotel worker.
A post from Karen Nicol on a page called RIP Stuart Walker, which almost 4,500 people joined, read: "Life is so unfair. A genuine guy who always had a smile, a wave or a big cheery hello for everyone. Cumnock an emptier place without you for lots of people."
Anne Dunnachie wrote: "Every once in a while we are lucky enough to have known someone like you Stuart. A very special person...the world lost a wonderful person yesterday."
AFP - A Japanese artist cooked his own genitals and served them to five paying diners in Tokyo to cover the medical costs, in a bizarre act to raise awareness about sexual minorities.
Mao Sugiyama had his penis and testicles surgically removed in March and kept them frozen for two months before dishing them out -- seasoned and braised -- to customers at an event hall on May 13, according to postings on his Twitter account and local police.
Diners paid 20,000 yen ($250) for the plate with a portion of genitals. Pictures published on a website appeared to show the meal came complete with mushrooms and a parsley garnish.
The painter, who is reportedly 22, said on Twitter the organ had been removed by a physician and certified to be free of infections.
The meal was prepared under the supervision of a certified cook and diners were required to sign a waiver indemnifying Sugiyama and event organisers.
In May 18 tweets, the artist said steps were taken so the act met all relevant laws, including a ban on organ sales, processing of medical waste and even food sanitation requirements.
"I receive questions from some women and men... asking 'Will there be a next time? Please host it again.' But there is only one set of male organ," he tweeted on May 16.
"Unfortunately, I have no plan for the next time."
Sugiyama, who considers himself "asexual", that is without gender, initially thought about eating the genitals himself, but decided to solicit paying customers to help pay his hospital bills for the surgery.
In an email to AFP, he confirmed the event had taken place and said it was organised to raise awareness about "sexual minorities, x-gender, asexual people". He said he was readying to publish an official account of the day.
Police in Tokyo said they knew of the episode, but added that it had not broken the law as cannibalism was not illegal in Japan.
"We are aware of the case. There was nothing (criminal) to it. It does not violate any detailed rules. There is nothing to take action about," an officer at Suginami police station told AFP.
Comments
Bomb straped to teenage girl
Australian woman freed after bomb drama
I hardly think a new search engine is "Effed-Up News".
How did I miss that Rick Perry article before? I REALLY REALLY hope he doesn't get the Republican nomination, because CHRIST. I'm wondering if he will though... I think the worst idea for me is knowing that, if he does get the nomination, my vote isn't going to do shit for the state of Texas. I've voted against him for governor every year I've been able to vote, and for some reason he keeps getting re-elected without too much difficulty.
You know he's been governor ever since Bush left to be President? I mean... really! Didn't Republicans have their fill of Texas governors with Bush? Do we reeeally think we need to go back to that? Scary stuff.
Yeah, sorry about that, I've been trying to do that less. But that one was just really dumb.
http://gawker.com/5836067/man-beheads-self-in-domestic-dispute
That's really depressing...
Furthermore, why don't people realize that authorities can track you over the internet, and ESPECIALLY over Facebook?