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Teenager scripts kidnapping drama to get motorbike

DEHRA DUN, INDIA: A student of class nine scripted a story of his own kidnapping when his father refused to buy him a motorcycle.
     
Akshay Arora, aged 14 involved his close friend Rajkumar, who made the extortion call to his father. Posing as a kidnapper, Rajkumar demanded INR 2 lakh (about Dh18,000) to save the life of his son, Indian news channel NDTV revealed.
     
Pramod Arora received a call on his mobile that Akshay has been abducted and he would have to cough up the ransom money to save his son's life.
     
Arora informed the police who found out the truth through electronic surveillance. When the police interrogated Rajkumar, he told them that Akshay made the plan after his father refused to buy  a motorbike for him.
    
The two boys were fined Dh20 each. 
 
Passengers bid to be kicked off flights

(AGENCY)

US: An airline has come up with a novel way of solving an overbooked plane dilemma - asking passengers to bid to be removed from their flight.

US airline Delta wants passengers to name their price at airport kiosks now, in case a flight is oversold.

While there is no minimum bid, the airline will choose the lowest offers.

The move is an attempt to avoid the “crowded and chaotic” scenes that often ensues at the gate when a flight is overbooked, Delta spokesman Paul Skrbec said.

Previously the airline would offer vouchers of between $250 and $500 for travellers who are willing to wait at the airport.

Now Delta is turning the tables on fliers with the auctioning process, hoping that the system will help drive down the amount of compensation it pays out on oversold flights.
 
Wife of Tunisian president fled country with 1.5 TONNES of gold

The wife of Tunisia’s ousted president fled the chaos-stricken country with one-and-a-half tons of gold worth more than £35million, Daily Mail reported.

Dubbed ‘the Imelda Marcos of the Arab world’ because of her lavish lifestyle and love of designer clothes, Leila Trabelsi is said to have demanded the gold last week as President Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali’s regime collapsed.

The chief of Tunisia’s central bank initially refused but Ben Ali, 74, personally intervened, and she flew out with the bullion as she joined him in exile in Saudi Arabia.

The source of the claim, leading Tunisian economist Moncef Cheikhrouhou,  told the daily that the militia men had tried to take more gold.

The clan of the former first lady is widely despised as the ultimate ­symbol of corruption and excess.

A former hairdresser, Mrs Ben Ali, 53, is known for her love of fast cars – the family had more than 50 – luxury homes and frequent shopping trips to Dubai, during which she is said to have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Mogul makes princess his Swede-heart

(AGENCY)
 
NEW YORK: Forget William and Kate - New York has its own royal romance.

An affair between downtown moneyman Christopher O'Neill and his uptown girl - the gorgeous Princess Madeleine of Sweden - has become the hottest gossip of Stockholm's long, cold winter, reports The New York Post.

O'Neill, a 36-year-old millionaire who dispenses financial advice to super-wealthy clients, is "in a love affair" with his 28-year-old Swedish dish, a source close to the couple told The Post.

A Spanish tourist armed with a cellphone took a video of the lovebirds at the Central Park Boathouse that has become an Internet sensation in the Nordic nation. Madeleine, the height of style in a white fur vest, is seen affectionately rubbing O'Neill's arm.

Madeleine, a k a the duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland, is the daughter of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia.

O'Neill's family also has a regal connection - his mother, Eva, has dated Prince Charles, according the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet.

Madeleine made headlines in April by calling off her wedding to lawyer Jonas Bergstrom after he reportedly cheated on her with a 21-year-old co-ed at a ski resort. 
 
Mother-of-two enrols in class 1 with her kids 

PAKISTAN: A 25-year-old woman in Pakistan enrolled in class 1 with her two children - in fulfillment of her lifelong dream to be educated.

Asma, a resident of Daudkhel in Pakistan's Punjab province, enrolled in the primary class with her two children in a government-run School for girls.

When the school teacher asked Asma why was she enrolling herself, she said she always wanted to go to school but her parents had forbidden it.

"I always fought with them to let me go to school but they never let me. Then I got married and had children and I thought I had lost my chance," the Express Tribune quoted Asma as saying.

Asma initially went to the school to register her daughters.

"I initially came here to register my daughters a few days ago, but when I went home I told my husband how much I regretted never having been to school myself," she was reported as saying.

"He told me that I should enrol also...I am very lucky, most men would forbid such a thing," she said.

Asma had her first class in December 2010 clad in a burqa as she sat along her children.

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