Crazy world: Potter star assaulted...

Brother beat Potter actor for dating non Muslim

(SUPPLIED)

The brother of an actress who appeared in the Harry Potter movies has pleaded guilty to assaulting her, allegedly after she met a man who was not Muslim.

The 22-year old Afshan Azad plays Padma Patil, a classmate of the teenage wizard, in the movie series.

Prosecutor Richard Vardon told Manchester Crown Court that Azad's elder brother, 28-year-old Ashraf, assaulted her apparently over her association with a Hindu man. She fled her home after her brother and father threatened to kill her, Vardon said.

Ashraf Azad pleaded guilty for assault and was granted bailed on condition he not contact his sister. Sentencing is scheduled for January 21.

A judge ruled both men were not guilty of threatening to kill the actress.

Madonna does yoga on board stranded airplane

(SUPPLIED)

'Queen of Pop' Madonna enraged her first class co-passengers when she was let off their snow-stranded plane two hours before the others and added to the trouble when she started doing yoga in the aisles.

Passengers on board a flight from New York became stranded on the snow-blanketed tarmac of Heathrow airport over the weekend, and were furious when the Vogue hitmaker was allowed off the plane two hours before everyone else, reported Daily Mail online.

As blizzards brought UK's transport system to a near standstill, Madonna and her entourage were whisked away by bus to the terminal before everyone else.

But not before she handed out some impromptu in-flight entertainment.

"It was bad enough having to wait, but then she started doing her yoga in the aisles. After about an hour, a bus came along and took her and her party of about 15 off the plane. The rest of us all had to wait for another two hours," said a passenger on the plane.

The 52-year-old flew in from New York so that she could spend Christmas with her ex-husband Guy Ritchie and their children.

The 42-year-old British filmmaker and Madonna will get together at their former marital home in Wiltshire, with their children Rocco, 10, and David, 6, Lourdes, 14, and 5-year-old Mercy.
 

Sewage stink blamed for UN Security Council alert

(SUPPLIED)

Sewage from an unusually high tide caused a stink that forced the emergency evacuation of the UN Security Council on Tuesday, a UN spokesman said.

The Security Council chamber in a basement of the UN headquarters in New York, which overlooks the East River, was hurriedly emptied as a mounting sulfurous smell engulfed the area, diplomats said.

"We were about to start the debate but there was a very strong smell of gas," one diplomat who had been in the chamber said.

Ambassadors and other top diplomats were all ushered out and 150 children who were to take part in the special debate were taken to the US mission across the street.

After a hurried investigation, a UN spokesman, Farhan Haq, said an unusually high tide in the East River had caused the stink.
"The tides create a problem with the sewage system inside the building, and that was a problem around the Security Council," Haq told a briefing.

"It caused some form of gas that was determined to be non-harmful," Haq said.

He would not comment on questions that a lunar eclipse on Monday night had caused the high tide but quipped that in general "this place smells like a rose."

The 60-year-old UN headquarters is undergoing a two-billion-dollar renovation which has entailed major work in the basement. Several of the upper floors have also been cleared for the changes.

Parts of a nearby building, which houses the UN General Assembly and the office of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, were also evacuated for a few minutes because of the alert.

The youth debate eventually went ahead in a chamber in the General Assembly building.

Man kills bride, best man, self at wedding

Picture used for illustrative purpose only. (SUPPLIED)

A bridegroom fatally shot his new wife, his best man and then himself after announcing to horrified guests that he had a "surprise" for them, authorities have said.

Witnesses reported that 29-year-old Rogerio Damascena, a sales manager in Camaragibe, outside the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife, did not give any previous indication that anything was wrong at his wedding reception, police investigator Joao Brito said.

Brito would not speculate on a possible motive, saying family members were in shock and he had not interviewed them yet.

Brito did say the killings are believed to be premeditated because of the groom's announcement and because he had hidden a gun in his father's pickup truck.

Twenty-five-year old bride Renata Alexandre Costa Coelho and best man Marcelo Guimaraes were both killed in Saturday's murder-suicide.

A brother of the bride was treated at a hospital and released.

The website Globo.com quoted a sister of the bride who left before the shootings as saying she didn't believe it was a crime of passion.

"My sister was a wonderful person who loved and wanted to be loved," Lucia Helena Coelho was quoted as saying.

"He was happy, she was happy, the party was beautiful. His family adored her and doesn't understand this," Coelho told Globo.com.

"He revealed himself as a sociopath who fooled the entire family and killed his best friend, who was ... the best man."

Computer game addict accused of killing son

Picture used for illustrative purpose only. (SUPPLIED)

A South Korean mother has been arrested for allegedly killing her three-year-old son while she was tired from Internet game-playing, police said Wednesday.
 
The death is the latest of several cases related to computer game addiction in one of the world's most wired societies.
Kim, 27, played online games for about 10 hours a day, police said, adding her neighbours described her house as "like a trash site" where her two children were left crying for hours.

Police in the midwestern city of Cheonan said Kim, who also has a one-year-old son, beat the three-year-old and strangled him after he disturbed her by urinating on the floor and crying.

"She said she was so mad at him because she was about to take some rest after playing online games for four hours in the morning," a city police spokesman told AFP, describing the woman as addicted to game-playing.

Kim left the boy's body in the house for three days and her in-laws reported the death to police.

She mostly played online card games and those involving the raising of virtual pets, the spokesman said, adding she had no history of mental disorder.

The government estimates the number of web addicts at about two million in a nation of about 50 million. From next year, it will offer free software to people at risk, to limit the time they spend on the web.

Last month a 15-year-old boy committed suicide after killing his mother for scolding him over excessive playing of computer games.
In May a 41-year-old man was sentenced to two years in jail after he and his wife left their baby daughter to die of malnutrition while raising a "virtual child" on the Internet.

In February, a 32-year-old man died after reportedly playing games for five days with few breaks.

Lindsay Lohan investigated for rehab attack

(SUPPLIED)

Even in rehab, trouble seems to find Lindsay Lohan.

The actress, whose promising career has been buried by legal and drug problems, is now under criminal investigation as a result of a late-night confrontation at the Betty Ford rehab center in southern California, an official said on Tuesday.

Riverside County Deputy Sheriff Herlinda Valenzuela said police were called to the facility in the early hours of Dec. 12 and conducted a misdemeanor battery investigation involving Lohan and an unidentified member of the center's staff.

"The victim desires prosecution," Valenzuela said, but she added that detectives have not yet completed their investigation. No further details were available.

Lohan, 24, voluntarily checked into the Rancho Mirage, Calif.-based clinic in October, after failing a random drug test linked to her probation on a 2007 drunk driving charge. She has already spent about two weeks in jail and three weeks in another rehab center this year.

TMZ.com identified the alleged victim as a chemical technician who told the celebrity news site that she was asked to perform a breath test on Lohan for alcohol.

The actress pushed her, the woman claimed, and later pulled a telephone from her hand, resulting in a sprain. TMZ said the woman was called in by Betty Ford security after Lohan and her two roommates returned from a night of partying past curfew.

But Lohan's estranged father, Michael Lohan, told rival outlet X17 that her daughter returned late from a hair appointment, and that the woman grabbed her arm.
 

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.