The price of rat meat has quadrupled in Cambodia this year as inflation has put other meat beyond the reach of poor people, officials said on Wednesday.With consumer price inflation at 37 percent according to the latest central bank estimate, demand has pushed a kilogram of rat meat up to around 5,000 riel (69 pence) from 1,200 riel last year.
Spicy field rat dishes with garlic thrown in have become particularly popular at a time when beef costs 20,000 riel a kg.
Terrified passengers on a Greyhound Canada bus travelling on the
Trans-Canada Highway stood by helpless Thursday as a man repeatedly stabbed and then beheaded a young fellow passenger.The attack shocked the other 35
passengers on board, some of which were children, including one just six years
old, as it appeared to spring from nowhere.The man responsible appeared normal
and had been sharing a cup of tea at a stop prior to going into a stabbing
frenzy. He had boarded the bus about an hour before the attack.The youth
attacked, who appeared to witnesses to be about 19, was sleeping at the time. It
is not known if the two knew each other, but first indications are that it was a
random attack.The Greyhound bus was driving west of Portage la Prairie, in
Manitoba on Wednesday night when the attack occurred.'There was a bloodcurdling
scream. I was just reading my book, and all of a sudden, I heard it,' Garnet
Caton, who was sitting in front of the two men, told Canadian TV network, CBC.
'It was like something between a dog howling and a baby crying, I guess you
could say,' Caton said. 'I don't think it will leave me for a while.'The bus jerked to a halt when the stabbing commenced. Passengers then fled the bus before returning to block the exit of the attacker. A truck driver stopped and
lent assistance.Caton, the bus driver, and the trucker re-boarded the bus to
check on the victim."When we came back on the bus, it was visible at the end of
the bus he was cutting the guy's head off and pretty much gutting him up," Caton
told CBC.The attacker ran at them, Caton said, and they ran out of the bus,
holding the door shut as he tried to slash at the trio.When the attacker tried
to drive the bus away, the driver disabled the vehicle, he said."While we were
watching the door, he calmly walks up to the front with the head in his hand and
the knife and just calmly stares at us and drops the head right in front of us,"
said Caton.Royal Canadian Mounted Police crisis teams, including negotiators,
negotiated with the suspect, believed to be a 40-year-old man, for several hours
while he was on the bus. Around 1:30am he attempted to jump from a bus window
and was subdued and arrested, the RCMP said.The man is now in the custody of the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Manitoba, an RCNP spokesman said. The spokesman
said he had yet to be charged.The bus was travelling from Edmonton, Alberta, to
Winnipeg, Manitoba, and was about 45 minutes from its destination when the
attack occurred, Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh in Dallas, Texas
said.Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said that like most
Canadians, he was horrified to hear witness accounts of the homicide."The
horrific nature of it is probably one of a kind in Canadian history," he told
reporters late Thursday morning in Levis, Que.Greyhound Canada is the largest
provider of intercity bus transportation in Canada, serving nearly 700
communities and facilitating 1,000 daily departures across the country.
A native of India who became a prominent businessman in the United States
was found guilty of murder last week for hiring hit-men to kill his
daughter-in-law because she was Black.
A jury in Fulton County, Georgia was
convinced by prosecution arguments that 69-year-old Chiman Rai was so angered by
his son marrying an African American woman that he hired hit-men to kill her.
Twenty-two year-old Sparkle Michelle Rai was found strangled and stabbed
more than a dozen times eight years ago. The senior Rai immigrated to the United
States in 1970 and for a while taught math at Mississippi’s predominantly Black
Alcorn State University.
The prosecutors said they would seek the death
penalty in the case and the jury rendered a death sentence the day after finding
Rai guilty.
The case was broken when a young woman was arrested on another
charge and tried to improve her situation by helping police solve a crime she
said she witnessed several years before. The crime was the stabbing of Sparkle
Michelle Rai.
Officials at Lake Tawakoni State Park say the massive mosquito trap is a big attraction for some visitors, while others won't go anywhere near it.
"At first, it was so white it looked like fairyland," said Donna Garde, superintendent of the park about 45 miles east of Dallas. "Now it's filled with so many mosquitoes that it's turned a little brown. There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs."
Spider experts say the web may have been constructed by social cobweb spiders, which work together, or could be the result of a mass dispersal in which the arachnids spin webs to spread out from one another.
The moment their teenage son or daughter dyes their hair black and starts getting creative with eyeliner can be a nightmare for parents. But a report suggests it should be a time for celebration.
Goths are likely to grow up to be doctors, lawyers or architects, the study by Sussex University says.
They are refined and sensitive, keen on poetry and books, not big on drugs or anti-social behaviour. They are also likely to carry on being goths into their adult life.
They have an ability to express their feelings and are believers in romance rather than one-night stands, it says. In fact, the only things dark about them are their clothing and their sarcastic sense of humour.
