Staggering moment Chinese baby is rescued ALIVE from toilet pipe after being flushed away by the parents who didn't want him

Firefighters in eastern China have rescued an abandoned newborn baby boy lodged in a sewage pipe.

The infant was stuck in a pipe directly beneath a toilet commode, state television reported, in a case which has sparked anger on social media sites.

There are frequent reports in Chinese media of babies being abandoned, often shortly after birth. 

The problem is attributed variously to young mothers unaware they were pregnant, the birth of an unwanted girl in a society which puts greater value on boys or China's strict family planning rules.

In the latest case the infant was found in the sewage pipe in a residential building in Jinhua in the wealthy coastal province of Zhejiang on Saturday afternoon after residents reported the sound of a baby crying, state television said late on Monday.

Firefighters had to remove the pipe and take it to a nearby hospital, where doctors carefully cut around it to rescue the baby boy inside, the report said.

The child is in a stable condition and the police are looking for his parents, state television added.

The case has been widely discussed on China's Twitter-like service Sina Weibo due to the graphic nature of the footage, with calls for the parents to be severely punished.

'The parents who did this have hearts even filthier than that sewage pipe,' wrote one user.

Obese father who tipped the scales at 24 stone loses HALF his body weight after joining daughter’s slimming class

A 24 stone father who lived on on pies and doughnuts has lost an amazing eleven and a half stone.
Alwyn Beckles, 44, used to tip the scales at almost 25st and had a life-threatening 54in waist.
But now he is half the man he used to be after he was 'volunteered' for slimming classes with his stepdaughter.

Alwyn, of Burton Gardens, Brierfield, Lancashire, started Slimming World classes in February 2012.
Mr Beckles, a father-of-two and stepfather of six, said: 'My stepdaughter Sophie said she wanted to start the classes to lose weight before a holiday but she wanted someone to go with her.
'My wife said she hadn't got the time but I know someone who has - and I was volunteered for it! I knew it was time to do something about my weight if I wanted to see my children grow up so it was good timing really.       Scroll down for more:

'I eat healthily now. I used to eat crisps, cakes and doughnuts as well as pies, now it is a lot of fruit and veg.
'At first I thought I'll be thin but I'll be miserable without the cakes, but after I started to lose weight I didn't feel hungry and I thought 'this is great'.
Mr Beckles, whose wife Amanda, 38, has also lost a lot of weight, weighed in last week at 13st 3oz and now has a 34in waist. he was named Man of the Year at the Slimming World group in Nelson.
Mr Beckles, a service engineer for Herbert Retail, said: 'I feel more confident now and more energetic. I never thought I could lose this much weight.'

Aboriginal Aussie Rules footballer confronted racist girl, 13, who called him an 'ape' and had her escorted from the stands

An Australian Rules footballer has been praised for his uncompromising reaction after a 13-year-old girl shouted out a racist remark to him during a game on Friday night.

Sydney Swans forward Adam Goodes - who is an Aboriginal Australian - was called an 'ape' by the girl as he ran past her and responded by turning around and pointing out the girl to security who escorted her from the Melbourne stadium.

Goodes, 33, is the star player for the Sydney Swans but said that the racial abuse he received at the hands of the girl rendered his sides win 'meaningless' - such was his disappointment.

'To come to the boundary line and hear a 13 year old girl call me an 'ape', and it's not the first time on a footy field that I've been referred to as a 'monkey' or an 'ape', it was shattering,' he told the ABC.

Goodes and the Sydney Swans were playing Collingwood, at their home of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The 13-year-old girl was a Collingwood fan.

Police in Melbourne said that a 13-year-old girl had been interviewed over the incident, but had been released after two hours pending further inquiries.

In the aftermath of the racial abuse that was directed his way, Goodes told the Melbourne Herald Sun that, 'Racism had a face...and it was a 13-year-old girl. - but it's not her fault,' said Goodes.

'That's what hurt me so bad...when I turned around, I just saw this young face and...it was just sad.

'That's why I had to leave the arena, it just broke my heart.'

Early on Saturday morning, Goodes took to his Twitter feed to announce that the girl had been in touch with him, apologizing for her actions.

Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Goodes explained just how damaging it was for him as an Aboriginal Australian to hear her words.

'I've had fantastic support over the past 24 hours,' Goodes said.

'I just hope that people give the 13 year old girl the same sort of support because she needs it, her family needs it, and the people around them need it,' said Goodes to the ABC.

'It's not a witch-hunt, I don't want people to go after this young girl.

'We've just got to help educate society better so it doesn't happen again.'

Goodes added that the police in Melbourne had asked him if he wanted to press charges, but that he did not want to - preferring the girl instead undergoes an education program instead.

'It's not her fault, she's 13, she's still so innocent, I don't put any blame on her,' he said.

'Unfortunately it's what she hears, in the environment she's grown up in that has made her think that it's OK to call people names.

'I guarantee she has no idea right now how it makes people feel to call them an ape.'

Prime Minister Julia Gillard described Goodes as 'someone we can all look up to'.

'His words and actions today displayed the highest levels of respect and fairness - qualities he carries on and off the field,' she said.

'Adam is a credit to his club, his code and the entire community.'

The girl who is not being identified told Channel 10 news she was sorry.

'I didn't mean it in a racist way and I'm sorry to the club and the AFL,' she said.

Houston police shut down Kanye West's screening for racially-charged music video New Slaves

A public screening for Kanye West's music video New Slaves was shut down by police Friday night.
The rapper, who has been promoting screenings of the clip around the world via Twitter, was scheduled to unveil the visual for his controversial track at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas at 9:45pm.
According to the Houston Chronicle, local authorities broke up a crowd that had gathered to see the video, threatening to arrest anyone who failed to comply for trespassing.


The outlet described the crowd as 'upbeat' and 'respectful' before authorities intervened.
Some fans reportedly thought police presence was part of the show as cop cars pulled up with sirens flashing.

Confused viewers are said to have left the scene when authorities threatened to make arrests.
Friday's screening marked Kanye's third in the Texas city, none of which went as planned

An earlier show at the Central Library was shut down due to technical difficulties, according to the Chronicle.
Another at the Bush Memorial was cancelled.
According to attendee Janet Quiroa, the scene there was also chaotic.
'All we saw were the sprinklers come on and obnoxious people screaming Kanye threats,' Quiroa said.
Calls to Houston Police have not been returned.
West has courted controversy with his new track, featured on his forthcoming album, Yeezus, since its release earlier this month.


Lyrics to New Slaves make several references to slavery in the US.
'My momma was raised in an era when/Clean water was only served to the fairer skin/Doing clothes you would have thought I had help/But they wasn't satisfied unless I picked the cotton myself,' West raps in the first verse.
The rapper performed the track and another called Black Skinhead on Saturday Night Live on May 18, screaming his way through the performance as images of barking dobermans and slogans including 'Not for sale', 'New Slaves' and images of black hoods resembling those worn by members of the Klu Klux Klan flashed behind him.
Projection locations for West's music video are being promoted on a map featured on the rapper's website.
His new album, Yeezus, is scheduled for release June 18

 Video below:

David Cameron has been condemned for flying out of the country on a week's family holiday

Culled from Dailymail.

David Cameron has been condemned for flying out of the country on a week's family holiday as Britain faced its biggest terror crisis since the 7/7 bombings in 2005.

MPs are said to be outraged as it emerged the Prime Minister has taken a 'few days break' over the Bank Holiday on the Spanish island of Ibiza.

But Downing Street hit back at the criticism and said Mr Cameron 'remains in charge'.

He went on a mid-morning flight yesterday with his wife Samantha and their children Nancy, Elwen and Florence.

The trip came just two days after he chaired a meeting of the Cabinet emergency committee Cobra to discuss the murder of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, south-east London, and the arrest of two suspected Islamic extremists.

Labour MP Sarah Champion said Mr Cameron’s decision to take a break showed he was 'utterly out of touch.'

She told the Sun: 'While the country struggles to come to terms with the vile crime in Woolwich this week and investigations continue, he has swanned off to Ibiza.

'The public deserve better from their Prime Minister.'

There was also a negative reaction to the holiday on Twitter.

One critic said: 'Head of new Task Force to deal with extremism is running operations from a beach in Ibiza, #DavidCameron's "urgent approach"!!'

Another wrote: 'Britain on terror alert. David Cameron on holiday in ibiza. About right then.'

Mrs Cameron is known to value private holidays with the family and the Prime Minister has admitted in the past that she insists they get away together.

Mr Cameron has been accompanied by a small team of key staff and is being kept up to date over developments in the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby.

Amid suggestions he should have remained in the country, Mr Cameron won support from an unlikely source.

Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries, a well-known critic of her party's leader, said it was 'ridiculous' to criticise him for having a few days away'

She told Murnaghan on Sky News: "We have got the internet, we've got mobile phones. I think Cameron could actually get back from Ibiza to London quicker than if he was in Cornwall.

'I think he is entitled to a holiday, he's entitled to be with his family. I actually want the Prime Minister to be refreshed, feeling happy because he's had holiday time with his kids and his wife and come back and be a refreshed Prime Minister.'

Looking relaxed and casual, the couple sipped coffee against a picturesque beachside backdrop.

Mr Cameron, in a dark shirt and open-toed sandals, and his wife, who was sporting a sun dress, were left undisturbed by nearby customers, including fellow Brits.

A No10 spokesman said: 'The PM is on holiday with his family for the week. As always, whilst away, he remains in charge, and has office support with him.'

In the past 24 hours, three men, aged 21, 24, and 28 were arrested in swoops by anti-terror police across London on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder.

Two of the suspects were Tasered before they surrendered in Charlton.

Officers searched four other addresses in Greenwich. Three people have been held for for making racial comments on Facebook and Twitter.

Two men arrested on suspicion of murder at the scene where drummer Rigby was killed on Wednesday remain in custody in hospital in a stable condition.

Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, were shot and wounded by police.

A 29-year-old man, arrested on Thursday on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, has been bailed to return pending further inquiries.

A poll last week showed the public were 42.5 per cent in favour of calling MPs back from their Whitsun break to discuss the security crisis.

But voters surveyed in today's Mail On Sunday backed the Prime Minister's response to the incident in Woolwich.

He was awarded a plus 19 rating for his handling of the situation, Labour leader Ed Miliband received a plus six rating, while Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was awarded zero.

Almost two thirds of people in the UK believe we need more stringent terrorism laws and would support the death penalty for terrorists, according to the online Survation poll.

Meanwhile, in Paris a French soldier was stabbed in the throat in what was feared to be a copycat of the attack on Mr Rigby.

Police described the assailant  as being 'bearded, of North African origin and wearing a light coloured jihab' under a jacket. He fled after the assault.

There has been a large increase in anti-Muslim incidents since Wednesday's murder, an inter-faith charity has said.

At Westminster, Mr Cameron is facing a revolt on two fronts, according to the Sunday Times.

Party donors are threatening to join UKIP and backbenchers have warned he may have to break up the coalition to remain leader.

Multimillionaire Lord Kalms, the former Conservative party treasurer, has said he is 'willing to pack my bags' and join the UK Independence party unless the PM adopts a bolder approach to Europe.

He told the paper: 'If UKIP has the right policies, that's where we'll go. I am very, very disenchanted and won't tolerate being dragged down into Europe without some fight.'

A growing number of the 2010 intake of Tory MPs, believe their party should withdraw from the coalition at least a year before the next general election in 2015 to save seats.

The moment a woman gave birth on a sidewalk OUTSIDE the hospital

She must have been very eager to meet her parents! 

Amy Beth Cavaretta was en route to a Boca Raton, Florida hospital for the birth of her second child, but 'Sienna' just couldn't wait very long. 

The amazing photos that show Cavaretta using a wheelchair to steady herself outside the hospital as she gave birth were captured by photographer Emily Robinson who shared the story on her personal blog.

Knowing that Cavaretta had previously delivered a child in a relative short amount of time, Robinson felt she would be an ideal candidate for a birth shoot and opted to travel with the couple from their home to the hospital.

But before Cavaretta and her husband Joe, both photojournalists with the South Florida Sun Sentinel, could actually enter the hosptial the time had come. 

Their midwife Laurie Ross-Berke was conveniently outside the hospital to meet the expectant parents when Cavaretta realized 'the baby is coming out.'

Joe located a wheelchair for his wife to use as a prop as the baby was delivered on the sidewalk into Ross-Berkle's hands.

One photo that Robinson took shows the emotion over Joe's face in the moments after his daughter's birth.

The photographer, who is also a mother, recognized that this particular set of photos is unique. 

On her blog she wrote, 'It was the first time I ever saw a mother be wheeled INTO the hospital holding her new baby.' 

According to Robinson it was 'no more than a minute' between Cavaretta holding onto a wall and then birthing her daughter, which she and Joe named Sienna.

Also sharing the photos on her Facebook page, Robinson received numerous comments from shocked friends. 

Beneath the photo which shows Cavaretta using the wheelchair as her baby is being delivered one user wrote, 'WOW, that baby was READY!!' 

Robinson also seems to note that Sienna's birth might be the only time all the action takes place just before the hospital. 

'It was the fastest, most incredible, beautiful, wild birth I’ve ever had the pleasure to document.'

'I watched a man stabbed in a London street - and felt nothing'

Most people find it hard to imagine stabbing another human being, let alone almost decapitating someone with a meat cleaver. To do so in broad daylight and in the middle of the road, while asking passers-by to take pictures, simply beggars belief.

Few can understand how the British jihadists Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale could be filled with such hate. I’m ashamed to say I can. For I was similar to them once.

I spent 13 years inside Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), the global Islamist organisation that first spawned  al-Muhajiroun, the banned Islamist terrorist organisation founded by Omar Bakri Mohammed and Anjem Choudary.

Bakri and Choudary both knew Adebolajo, a 28-year-old who was raised as a Christian. Like Adebolajo, I was raised in Essex in  an educated, middle-class and well integrated family.

Again, like Adebolajo, I went on to further education, although he dropped out while I gained a law and Arabic degree from The School of African and Oriental Studies and a Masters in political theory from the London School of Economics.

(The belief that all radicalised young Muslims must lack jobs or are socially awkward loners is a dangerous misconception. I did not lack career opportunities, nor did I lack friends or girlfriends.)

And I, too, was caught up in the aftermath of a Jihadist street murder in which a man was killed with a machete. It was 1995 and I was president of the Student Union at Newham College in East Ham. The union was nothing but a front for HT. We syphoned off money to our cause, giving lectures and preaching anywhere and everywhere – the street, the yard, the canteen where I would stand on the tables and spout hate.

We were encouraged by Omar Bakri to operate like street gangs and we did, prowling London, fighting Indian Sikhs in the west and African Christians in the east.  We intimidated Muslim women until they wore the hijab and we thought we were invincible.

And when an acquaintance of mine, Saeed Nur, slashed a Nigerian student, Ayotunde Obanubi, shouting the same battle cry as the Woolwich attackers, ‘Allahu Akbar’ – God is Great – I watched him die and felt nothing. I did not incite the murder but I did nothing to stop it.

So how did it reach that point? And what turns a tiny minority of ordinary, young, Muslim men into fanatical, cold-blooded killers?

For my own part, once I became a teenager I experienced severe and violent racism. The neo-Nazi para-military group Combat 18 began to target me and my friends. On a few occasions I was forced to watch as white friends were stabbed merely for being associated with me.

At 15, I was falsely arrested at gunpoint for playing with a plastic gun. This was the early 1990s, genocide was unfolding in Bosnia, while the international community failed to act. Add this to my own internal identity crisis – I didn’t know if I was British or Pakistani, Muslim or agnostic – and my disenfranchisement from mainstream society was complete.

However, it’s what happened next that sealed my fate. I needed someone who could guide a broken and confused 16-year-old. Instead, I came across a charismatic recruiter espousing HT’s cause who sold me the ideology of Islamism in the name of Islam.

But Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society. To achieve this, Islamism uses political grievances, such as mine, to alienate and then provide an alternative sense of belonging to vulnerable young Muslims.Preying on the grievances of disaffected young men is the bedrock of Islamism.

Like all bigoted ideologies, it plays on the identity politics game, creating a ‘them and us’, in order to provide a home for the ‘us’ against the alien ‘other’ and control the community by acting as the sole ‘representative’ of Muslims.

One of the Woolwich Jihaidsts ranted to onlookers, ‘you’ have occupied ‘our’ lands. Spreading this sense of exclusive Muslim victimhood is crucial to the radicalisation process. I continued to spread hate for many years after Obanubi’s murder, co-founding branches in Denmark and Pakistan where we targeted army officers in order to incite military coups.

I was aiming to do the same thing in Egypt in 2001, when I was arrested and tortured. Eventually I was convicted of ‘membership of a banned organisation’ and sentenced to serve five years in Mazra Tora prison where deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak is now held.

It was then I began to sift through my layers of hatred and ignorance. I also encountered the kindness of strangers, especially Amnesty International whose campaign to win my release was led by an octogenarian in England I’d never met.

After much soul searching I was able to renounce my past Islamist ideology, challenging everything I was once prepared to die for.

De-radicalisation begins by breaking down the logic which once seemed unassailable and rethinking what you are fighting for and why. That is hard to do when Islamists and Islamophobes feed off each other’s hateful cliches.

We must not blame the security services for what happened. As long as a man can pick up a knife, these murders will be impossible to predict. The only way to try and prevent it happening again is to give those angry young Muslims another outlet. I have founded Khudi, in Pakistan, a youth movement which tries to counter extremist ideology through healthy discussion and debate.

I believe we need a similar grassroots movement in Britain. The only way we can challenge Islamism is to engage with one another. We need to make it as abhorrent as racism has become today. Only then will we stem the tide of angry young Muslims who turn to hate.

Only then will they stop listening to people like Omar Bakri Mohammed and Anjem Choudary.

lMaajid Nawaz is author  of Radical: My Journey From Islamist Extremism To A Democratic Awakening.

Mugabe blasts Mandela....

SABC talk show host Dali Tambo has lashed at accusations that he was sprucing up Robert Mugabe’s image in a rare interview with the Zimbabwean leader who took a swipe at Nelson Mandela’s reconciliation policies.

In the interview, Mugabe insists that Zimbabwe’s people still need him and that Mandela was “too much of a saint”.

Mugabe, 89, said: “Mandela has gone a bit too far in doing good to the non-black communities, really in some cases at the expense of (blacks)… That’s being too saintly, too good, too much of a saint.”

Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory chief executive Sello Hatang said he would comment only after watching the interview.

The interview will be shown on Tambo’s revived series, People of the South, on SABC next Sunday.

It includes footage of the Mugabe family at lunch and interviews with Grace Mugabe at the dairy farm she took from a white farmer in 2003. Tambo filmed in Zimbabwe before Christmas and showed the family the final edit last weekend in Harare.

Soon after he finished filming, Tambo told The Sunday Independent that he didn’t mind who was angry with him for interviewing Mugabe.

“I interviewed Rhodesian leader Ian Smith in Cape Town in a previous series. This programme is not HARDtalk. It isn’t a political programme. “We all have a nice lunch together,” he said. “Mugabe is an icon.”

Mugabe talked briefly to Tambo and his wife, Rachel, about the land reform programme, which began in 2000 and caused the economy’s collapse.

The octogenarian also spoke about the pleasure his family have given him and said he couldn’t retire from politics because Zimbabweans still needed him.

“My people still need me,” Mugabe told Tambo. “And when people still need you to lead them, it’s not time, sir, it doesn’t matter how old you are, to say goodbye.”

Mugabe is slowing down and leaving some key state duties, such as the cabinet, to his deputy, Joyce Mujuru.

On the UK, Mugabe said the former colonial power “will praise you only if you are doing things that please them”.

Mugabe said he trusted late former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who organised the peace talks that led to Zimbabwe’s first democratic elections in 1980.

“Mrs Thatcher, you could trust her. But of course what happened later was a different story with the Labour Party and (Tony) Blair, who you could never trust. You couldn’t compare them to Thatcher and the others… Who can ever believe what Mr Blair says? Here we call him Bliar.”

While kissing and cuddling his second wife, Grace, 47, Mugabe admitted he cheated on first wife, Sally, because he needed a child before his mother, Bona, died.

“It was not just the fact that one was attracted (to Grace). After Sally was gone it was necessary for me to look for someone and, even as Sally was still going through her last few days, although it might have appeared to some as cruel, I said to myself ‘well, it’s not just myself needing children, my mother has all the time said, ah, am I going to die without seeing grandchildren’.”

Sally’s only child with Mugabe, Nhamodzenyika, died of malaria in Ghana while Mugabe was in detention in Rhodesia. He was not allowed out of prison to attend his five-year-old son’s funeral.

When the couple returned to Rhodesia after the 1979 ceasefire, Sally was already ailing with the kidney disease that would later kill her. After he began his affair with Grace, who was herself married with a child, Sally told some Zanu-PF women she was close to that she was unhappy but that there was nothing she could do as she was dying.

Asked if he had told Sally about the affair with Grace, Mugabe said: “I did tell her and she just kept quiet and said ‘fine’, but she did ask: ‘Do you still love me?’ I said yes. And she said: ‘Oh, fine.’”

Mugabe kept his first two children secret until a Zimbabwean magazine, Horizon, broke the story with a photo of Bona on her way to attend the Dominican Convent in Harare. The story was written by veteran journalist and author Ray Choto, who was later to be arrested and tortured with editor Mark Chavunduka, over a story The Standard newspaper carried about an alleged coup plot hatched by the army. Choto now lives in exile in the US. Chavunduka is dead.

A third child, Chatunga, was born after the couple married.

Chatunga was expelled from a Catholic school last year for bad behaviour and is being home-schooled. Mugabe told Tambo he had been faithful to Grace.

Tambo said he believed Mugabe had been misjudged and that he was “warm, charismatic and very humorous”. - Sunday Independent

Woolwich suspect was held in Kenya and deported HERE

‘He complained that they [MI5] kept wanting to talk to him and his family. They kept coming round his family home and wanted to meet him regularly. We said if he wanted to deal with it properly, he should give us the number they [MI5] had given him and we would call them. 

‘He was very paranoid about the whole thing. But he didn’t come back so we didn’t do anything else with him.’

It is understood that soon afterwards the contact with intelligence officers suddenly ceased.

Adebolajo’s links to the security services were first revealed on Friday on Twitter by one of his closest friends, Abu Nusaybah. Hours later, Nusaybah was arrested under the Terrorism Act just as he was finishing a pre-recorded interview for BBC Newsnight.

Earlier that day, Nusaybah, whose real name is Ibrahim Hassan, gave an interview to a Mail on Sunday reporter in which he made further claims about MI5 and Adebolajo.  

‘They wanted him to spy on a group of Muslims who have links to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula [AQAP]. They wanted information about them.’

AQAP, based in Yemen, has been called ‘the most active operational franchise’ of Al Qaeda beyond Pakistan and Afghanistan.

‘They offered him [Adebolajo] money and they gave him a special mobile phone to use when calling them,’ said Hassan. ‘They even took him in for interviews, just to intimidate him to work for them. But he refused.’

By the time Adebolajo arrived in Kenya in 2010, he was already deeply immersed in radical Islam and espousing extremist views.

Along with five Kenyan youths, he was picked up by local police on November 23 after spending the night in a guesthouse on Faza Island, part of the Lamu archipelago in the Indian Ocean close to the Somali border.

Principal magistrate Richard Kirui was told that all six men had been recruited to Al-Shabaab and intended to fight with them to bring down the country’s transitional government.

Al-Shabaab has imposed a strict version of Sharia law in the areas it controls, including stoning to death women accused of adultery.

At this time he was living on a council estate in Greenwich, South East London, with girlfriend Rikki Thomas and her two children from a previous relationship.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that Thomas – arrested last week in a police raid on her Greenwich house and later released without charge – gave birth to the terror suspect’s son last year.

Neighbours yesterday recalled how 29-year-old Thomas wore mini-skirts and was a ‘bright lovely woman’ before meeting him six years ago and turning into someone who hardly left the house.

Odette Hamilton said: ‘Rikki began to dress more and more like a Muslim. Eventually she wore the whole burka. 

‘When they walked down the street, he used to make her follow behind him, in subordination.’

Soda addiction as bad for your teeth as meth or crack: study

Bad news, diet coke junkies: gulping down excessive amounts of soda is no longer just bad for your teeth, now it's as bad for your teeth as crystal meth or crack.

That's according to one study, anyway, which found that excessive consumption of soda - even diet soda - can rot your choppers as badly as ingesting two of the most dangerous narcotics on earth.

The good news is it likely takes far more soda than the amount consumed by a normal human being to achieve the same dental devastation as crack or meth.

The study - conducted by Dr. Mohamed Bassiouny, a professor of restorative dentistry at the Temple University School of Dentistry in Philadelphia - references a woman in her 30s who drank two liters of soda a day for nearly five years. According to Bassiouny, she had the same amount of dental damage as a 29-year-old meth user and a 51-year-old crack addict. 

The meth user, however, also consumed two or three cans of regular soda a day because the drugs made his mouth  dry, and the crack addict has been a regular crack user for 18 years, nearly four times as long as the soda drinker had been consuming excessive amounts of soda. Additionally, the soda drinker admitted that she has not seen a dentist in many years.

"None of the teeth affected by erosion were salvageable," Bassiouny tells U.S. News and World Report, noting that all of the study participants had to have all of their teeth removed.

The study also finds that sugar-free soda is just as damaging to teeth as regular soda if they are consumed in the same quantity because of their acidic content - a high acidity level also is what makes crack and meth so bad for teeth.

But soda advocates say the study is flawed, and that comparing soda to illegal drugs is unfair and 'irresponsible.'

'The woman referenced in this article did not receive dental health services for more than 20 years -- two-thirds of her life,' the American Beverage Association said in a statement. 'To single out diet soda consumption as the unique factor in her tooth decay and erosion -- and to compare it to that from illicit drug use -- is irresponsible.

'The body of available science does not support that beverages are a unique factor in causing tooth decay or erosion,' the group said. 'However, we do know that brushing and flossing our teeth, along with making regular visits to the dentist, play a very important role in preventing them.' 

Pope Francis says atheists who do good are SAVED

Pope Francis has said atheists who are good are redeemed by Jesus in a homily urging that people of differing beliefs work together.
The leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics made his comments at the morning Mass in his residence - a daily event where he speaks without prepared comments.
He told the story of a Catholic who asked a priest if even atheists had been redeemed by Jesus.
'Even them, everyone,' the Pope answered, according to Vatican Radio. 'We all have the duty to do good,' he said.
'Just do good and we'll find a meeting point,' the Pope said in a hypothetical conversation in which someone told a priest: 'But I don't believe. I'm an atheist.'
Francis's reaching out to atheists on Wednesday and people who belong to no religion is a marked contrast to the attitude of former Pope Benedict.
He sometimes left non-Catholics feeling that he saw them as second-class believers.
Speaking to the Huffington Post, Father James Martin explained Pope Francis' homily.
He said: 'Pope Francis is saying, more clearly than ever before, that Christ offered himself as a sacrifice for everyone....  rarely do you hear it said by Catholics so forcefully, and with such evident joy.

'And in this era of religious controversies, it's a timely reminder that God cannot be confined to our narrow categories.'
On Sunday, the Pope was captured on film performing an apparent exorcism.

Footage taken in St Peter's Square purported to show Pope Francis carrying out a ritual to liberate a young man from demons.
The disabled man went into a frenzy of convulsions and shook, then slumped as Francis prayed over him.
The Pontiff was introduced to two men in wheelchairs after Pentecostal mass on Sunday. When a priest leaned across to tell Francis something, the Pope's expression took on a serious tone.

A Lebanese man arrested for kidnapping in Lagos

A 23 year old Lebanese man has been arrested by police in Lagos for kidnapping his 61 year old aunt, Alhaja Essa Dannawi. Mohammed Dannawi (pictured above) conspired with a former employee of his aunt, Obi Kwentua, (pictured above) to kidnap the woman on May 2nd at her home in Ebute Meta, Lagos.

Mohammed, who later confessed to the crime, told police during interrogation that he didn't kidnap his aunt because of money but to punish her because she offended him and his wife. He said:
“My aunty did something very bad to my wife and I and so I decided to punish her. I met with Obi (Kwentua) and told him that I wanted my aunty kidnapped. I gave him the spare key to her house and he in turn hired some boys to do the work. On the day of the operation, I left the house and five guys stormed the place and took my aunty away. The plan was not to demand money from her, it was just punishment.”

After the kidnapping, the kidnappers demanded N100m ransom from the woman's family but later agreed to collect N4m. It was during negotiations with the kidnappers that Mohammed confessed to being behind the kidnap and with his co-operation the police were able to arrest one of the suspects, Obi Kwentua when he came to collect the N4million ransom from relatives of the victim at Rita Lori Hotel in Surulere.

Essa Dannawi was later released while Mohammed and Kwentua were arrested.

The Psy imposter who tricked the Cannes Film Festival with his copycat Gangnam Style

Imposter! A Psy impersonator duped organisers and celebrities at Cannes Film Festival. The look alike waved as he left the Hotel Martinez on Tuesday

A Psy impersonator duped organisers and celebrities at Cannes Film Festival.

A man posing as the Gangnam Style hitmaker managed to sneak into several A-list parties and other exclusive venues over the course of two days earlier this week until finally being discovered yesterday when the real Psy appeared on US talk show Live with Michael and Kelly, which is filmed in New York City.

The impersonator reportedly scammed free drinks and bottle service while lunching at the Torch Beach Club, a hotspot which has been frequented by Justin Timberlake and Mark Ronson during their time in Cannes, and was even surrounded by three security guards, according to the New York Post newspaper.

Later, the man partied at an A-list bash hosted by socialite Goga Ashkenazi at Château Garibondy, where the guest list included Trance actress Rosario Dawson and supermodel Karolina Kurkova.

While the fake Psy was enjoying the luxury on offer in Cannes, the real Gangnam Style star attended the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday and later jetted to New York City to film a TV appearance.

Acknowledging his trouble-making doppelganger, Psy wrote on Twitter: 'Seems like there's another ME at cannes...say Hi to him.'

Among the celebrities duped by the impostor were Skyfall actress Naomie Harris, who thought she had met Psy at a party thrown by Chopard on Tuesday, and tweeted a snap of them together.

He had her fooled! Skyfall actress Naomie Harris, who thought she had met Psy at a party thrown by Chopard on Tuesday, tweeted this picture

Police investigate 'hate crime' after Michael Clarke Duncan's grave is vandalized with racist graffiti

Police have been called after Michael Clarke Duncan's grave was vandalised with racist graffiti, it has been revealed.

A member of the late actor's family told TMZ.com that when she visited her relative at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, she noticed that an offensive cariacture of a black man had been etched on the centre of the tomb. 

The woman believes that the image was intended to be an illustration of 'S*****o' - a derogatory term previously used as an offensive description of a black person.

After discovering the vandalism, the woman filed a police report with the LAPD. According to TMZ.com, police are considering the vandalism a 'hate crime'. 

Meanwhile, the cemetery have removed the image, but are doing their utmost to find out who committed the crime.

Oscar-nominated actor Clarke Duncan, most famous for his role in The Green Mile, died in September last year aged 54.

His death followed a heart attack on July 13 from which he never recovered, resulting in a severe lack of oxygen to the brain.

Following the actor's tragic passing, his fiancée Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth said: 'I'm devastated. He was the love of my life.'

The 6ft 5in, 300 pound star appeared in dozens of films, including box office hits Armageddon, Planet Of The Apes and Kung Fu Panda.

Duncan had a handful of minor roles before The Green Mile brought him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 1999, but unfortunately he lost out to Michael Caine after the British legend won his second Oscar to The Cider House Rules.

The film, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, starred Tom Hanks as a corrections officer at a penitentiary in the 1930s. Duncan played John Coffey, a convicted murderer.

Two years after spending £15k on hair transplant, Wayne needs ANOTHER operation to hide baldness

He and his wife Coleen have just welcomed their second son Klay into the world, but maybe football star Wayne Rooney should set aside any hopes of retiring and becoming a stay-at-home father for a little while longer.

Just two years after spending £15,000 on hair transplant to hide his thinning locks, the England striker needs a second booster operation to conceal bald patches forming on the top of his head, according to a hair-loss expert.

The Manchester United player's follicular flaws were clear to see as he left Liverpool Women's Hospital after Coleen gave birth to Kai's brother Klay this week. And now Asim Shahmalak, hair transplant surgeon on Channel 4's Embarrassing Bodies, said the 27-year-old star would need further work to cover his new bald spots.

Dr Shahmalak from the Crown Clinic in Manchester said: 'It's very clear from the pictures that Wayne has kept hold of the hair from his first transplant at the front of his head.

'But he has continued to lose his hair further back on his head and on his crown. It has given him two noticeable bald patches.The best way to remedy this is with a second hair transplant.

'He also needs to start using the drug Propecia, which footballers can take quite legally without failing any drug tests. This won't help him to grow any new hair but should stop him from losing any more natural hair.'

Rooney spent £15,000 on his first transplant at a London clinic two years ago. Hair was taken from the back of his head in individual follicles and replanted at the front.

Dr Shahmalak said that the Manchester United star inspired thousands of men to seek help with their hair - and bookings at the Crown Clinic shot up by 25 per cent.

He said: 'Wayne was really brave in being so open about his transplant. He happily tweeted pictures and told the world that he'd had it done.

'Before Wayne, men could be a bit embarrassed about admitting they'd had a transplant - but he showed there was nothing to be ashamed of.

'Wayne was very young when he had his first transplant. There is always a risk if you have a transplant before a firm pattern of baldness has been established.

'Any transplanted hair will stay for life, but you will continue to lose your natural hair - creating some inconsistencies on the scalp. It can be easily remedied with a second transplant.'

Dr Shahmalak recently carried out a second £5,500 transplant on Dr Christian Jessen, star of the medical show Embarrassing Bodies.

Dr Jessen had his first transplant in 2009 but continued to lose his natural hair because hair loss is a continual process.

Previously, he had faced Twitter taunts about his hairstyle with wounding comments such as: 'Great body, shame about the hair.'

Dr Jessen said: 'I am very pleased I had it done for a second time - it has been empowering for me.'

Wayne Rooney wrote about his hair loss in his autobiography. He admitted staring at himself in the mirror and thinking: 'Bloody hell, you're going bald and you're only a young lad.'

Coleen tweeted after his first transplant: 'Yes waynes (sic) had his hair done! His own decision not me asking him, like a lot are saying!! Pleased for him and it will look great x.'