My tweet was silly, but the police reaction was absurd For one joke on Twitter I’ve had my civil liberties trampled on, and have now got a criminal record Paul Chambers guardian.co.uk Paul Chambers’s tongue-in-cheek tweet about ‘blowing Robin Hood airport sky high’ led to his conviction. Photograph: Ian Townsley/Alamy/Alamy The vast majority of us like to consider ourselves decent people. We pay our taxes, hold doors open for others, stay out of trouble, that kind of thing. I certainly thought of myself this way, a 26-year-old man trying to forge a career and get on with life. So when I was … Continue reading Police State UK – must end!

A hospital worker who rescued 60 fish from their ornamental pond when it was being drained has claimed he is facing prosecution and a £1,000 fine. Clive Roberts saved the fish in an act of mercy by scooping them into a bucket to move them to his own garden pond. The 58-year-old said officials at the Environment Agency told him he needed to go through red tape to get a formal licence to move the goldfish. Rescue: Clive Roberts, who volunteers at the University Hospital of Wales, rescued 60 goldfish from a pond and now faces prosecution Mr Roberts, who … Continue reading Hospital worker who saved 60 fish from drained ornamental pond ‘faces prosecution and £1,000 fine’

France to target super-rich Muslim women who wear burkas to prove ban is not biased against the poor Super-rich Muslim women who shop at luxury boutiques wearing black burkas are to be targeted by the French government in a clampdown on Islamic veils, it emerged today. As parliament adopted a formal motion declaring such dress to be ‘an affront to the nation’s values’, French MPs made it clear that they were not stigmatising the poor. Many have criticised the anti-burka lobby, which includes President Nicolas Sarkozy, for focusing on poor Muslim housewives living on housing estates. Ban: Super-rich Muslim women … Continue reading French preoccupation with womens clothing is worrying

Phantom Ray: Boeing unveils spy plane of the future… that doesn’t need a pilot It may look like a futuristic starfighter, but this sleek gun-metal craft is Boeing’s latest unmanned spy plane. Called the Phantom Ray, the cutting-edge unmanned airborne system (UAS) was unveiled at a ceremony in St Louis yesterday. The sleek craft has a 50ft wingspan, measures 36ft long and has a gross weight of 36,500lbs. It operates at an altitude of 40,000ft, which is 10,000ft higher than the average long-haul commercial airliner. It will cruise comfortably at a speed of 614mph, or 0.8mach, just shy of the … Continue reading Phantom Ray

Stunning image of what our planet looks like from the Red Planet This stunning picture is the first image of Earth ever taken from another planet that shows our home as a planetary disc, with the Moon in the distance. Captured by Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as the spacecraft orbited the Red Planet, both the Earth and the Moon appear as crescents, engulfed in the vast darkness of space. This stunning picture is the first image of Earth ever taken from another planet that shows our home as a planetary disc, with the Moon in the distance Our planet is … Continue reading This is how Earth looks like from the Red Planet!

VIEW: Taliban vis-à-vis the state of Pakistan —Daud Khattak Such is the level of fear among the common people that not a single person from the village, not even the family members of the three abducted whose hands were severed, dared to inform the political administration or any other available state or government agency The Taliban chopped off the hands of three alleged thieves in Orakzai tribal agency last week. Though the horrible episode was reported in the media, the government, as usual, has stayed quiet and apparently ignored this ‘state-within-the-state’ act. Why were these three men amputated and under … Continue reading Taliban vis-à-vis the state of Pakistan

VIEW: Raising the curtain on the burqa —Reem Wasay To impose restrictions and demarcations on the liberal arts is to indirectly avert any attempts at conveying dissent and opposition to the prevailing status quo by the masses, marring the very foundations upon which this nation, any nation for that matter, was created There is a reason there are no go-karts in Afghanistan. Last month’s outlandish Darwin Award goes to a young woman who met quite a bizarre end when her burqa got caught in the wheels of the go-kart she was racing at a recreational park in Sydney, Australia. Death … Continue reading Raising the curtain on the burqa

COMMENT: Iman —Munir Attaullah The details of how we had arrived at this level of intimacy so quickly are not relevant here. Suffice it to say though I am no Richard Gere, years of experience in this field have taught me a trick or two As Shakespeare put it, “There is no art to read the mind’s construction in the face.” Nevertheless, Darwinian Evolution has ensured we are all natural psychologists to some extent. For, as social animals, we both lie and have to be adept at knowing when we are being lied to. Such abilities are an integral part … Continue reading There is no art to read the mind’s construction in the face.