Are these the bones of a legendary Persian army lost in the Sahara 2,500 years ago?

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 12:16 PM on 10th November 2009

The remains of a legendary 50,000-strong army which was swallowed up in a cataclysmic sandstorm in the Sahara Desert 2,500 years ago are believed to have been found.

Italian archaeologists Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni, twin brothers, have discovered bronze weapons and hundreds of human bones which they reckon are the remains of the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II.

According to the Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BC), Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, sent the soldiers from Thebes to attack the Oasis of Siwa in 525BC.

Their mission was to destroy the oracle at the Temple of Amun after the priests there refused to legitimise his claim to Egypt.

The mass grave of hundreds of bleached bones and skulls is believed to be remains of Cambyses' legendary 50,000-strong army which was swallowed up in a cataclysmic sandstorm

 

This artist's impression depicts the devastating sandstorm bearing down on the doomed army

 

Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, sent the soldiers from Thebes to attack the Oasis of Siwa in 525BC

Oracles were places where divine advice or prophecy was sought and the ancient Egyptians held them to be manifestations of the gods that could see into the future. They were often consulted before big decisions.

Two centuries after the soldiers disappeared, Alexander the Great made his own pilgrimage there in 332BC before he began his conquest of Persia. His historians claimed that the oracle then confirmed he was the divine son of Zeus, the Greek god equated with Amun, and the legitimate pharaoh of Egypt.

 

Because of the lack of any archaeological evidence historians had come to dismiss the tale of Cambyses' lost army as legend.

Among those to have searched for the army is Count László Almásy (on whom the novel The English Patient was based).

After walking for seven days in the desert, the army was said to have arrived at an 'oasis', which historians believe was El-Kharga, 120 miles west of the Nile in the Libyan Desert. After they left, a great sandstorm sprung up and they were never seen again.

Herodotus (484-425BC) wrote 'a wind arose from the south, strong and deadly, bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand, which entirely covered up the troops and caused them wholly to disappear'.

Dario Del Bufalo, a member of the Castiglioni expedition from the University of Lecce in Italy, told Discovery News: ‘We have found the first archaeological evidence of a story reported by the Greek historian Herodotus.’

 

Hundreds of broken water pots were found by the Italian archaeologists

 

Two centuries after Cambyses' soldiers had set out to destroy the temple, Alexander the Great made his own pilgrimage there before he began his conquest of Persia

The Castiglioni brothers are already famous for their discovery 20 years ago of the city of pharaohs the 'city of gold' Berenike Panchrysos which was quoted by Pliny the Elder in his 'Naturalis Historia'.

Alfredo Castiglioni told Discovery News that the discovery was the result of 13 years of research and five expeditions to the desert.

While working close to Siwa the team of researchers noticed a half-buried pot and some human remains.

Then the brothers spotted a rock 114ft long and 6ft in height which could have been used as a shelter by the army. Such rock formations occur in the desert, but this was the only one in a large area.

'Its size and shape made it the perfect refuge in a sandstorm,' Mr Castiglioni said.

It was there that a bronze dagger and several arrow tips were found.

'We are talking of small items, but they are extremely important as they are the first Achaemenid objects, thus dating to Cambyses' time, which have emerged from the desert sands in a location quite close to Siwa.'

The brothers studied ancient maps and came to the conclusion that the army did not take the caravan route most archaeologists believe they used.

'Since the 19th century, many archaeologists and explorers have searched for the lost army along that route. They found nothing. We hypothesised a different itinerary, coming from south,' added Mr Castiglioni.

 

Voyage of discovery: Twin brothers Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni at work in the Sahara Desert

 

This bronze dagger dating from King Cambyses' time is one of the stunning finds made by the researchers

 

The Temple of Amun which Cambyses' army had set out to destroy because priests there refused to legitimise his claim to Egypt

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Cat hung from bridge, court told

 

By Norrie Ross

Herald Sun

November 10, 2009 04:41pm

TWO teenagers kidnapped an elderly half-blind cat, put a noose around its neck and hung it from a bridge, a magistrate heard today.

Police prosecutor Graham Muscat, told the Childrens' Court that the cat was a much-loved family pet and its horrific death had caused its owners a great deal of grief, the Herald Sun reports.

Mr Muscat said the youths, who cannot be named, were part of a group of young people who had met at a Craigieburn shopping centre on April 18 last year and walked to the bridge at nearby Kirkbride Way.

The accused went looking for a cat and found one nearby that was around 20 years old.

One of the youths took a length of rope from his anorak and tied it round the cat's neck and held it up before tying it to handrail and leaving it hanging from the bridge.

"The cat was meowing and urinating during these actions,'' said Mr Muscat.

The youths were aged 16 and 14 at the time and the magistrate told one of them he was considering sentencing him to youth detention.

"I have a job to do and I'm going to do it,'' he said.

The magistrate expressed sympathy to the cat's owner, who was in court and presented a victim impact statement.

"Those of us who love animals and have lost animals understand the pain he feels about the loss of this cat,’’ said the magistrate.

Both teenagers had previously pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated animal cruelty and the magistrate adjourned their sentencing until next February until he has received further reports.

Outside court Edwin Townsend-Booth, 72, the cat's owner, said his family was still grieving over the loss of Alice.

"I hope some action is taken. This shouldn't happen to anybody else,'' he said.

"We had this cat for over 20 years. The cat was missing and one morning someone called one of my grandchildren and said there was a cat in the creek with a rope around its neck.

"It was very distressing, particularly for my grandchildren.''

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Teenager forced to shoot polar bear dead after being stranded on iceberg with mother and her cubs for two days

 

By Mail Foreign Service

Last updated at 12:08 PM on 10th November 2009

A teenager had to fight off hypothermia as he was stranded alone on a chunk of ice floating out into the Arctic.

But that was not all he had to fight off - as he then had to shoot a prowling polar bear who threatened to attack.

The seventeen-year-old had become separated from his uncle after their snowmobile broke down on the ice planes north of Hudson Bay in Canada on Saturday.

 

The 17-year-old, who has not been named, was pictured by Canadian Forces as they attempted to make a rescue

The pair, who were polar bear hunting, were trapped 11 miles from Coral Harbour, a tiny community on Nunavut's Southampton Island.

As they walked toward the community to get help, they became separated - and then a large chunk of ice broke off, setting the teen adrift.

The uncle was picked up Sunday morning by searchers on snowmobiles. His nephew, however, remained lost.

The teen, who was armed with a rifle, encountered three bears, an adult and two older cubs, on the same large ice pan.

Ed Zebedee, director of the Government of Nunavut's protection services branch, said: 'He did have to shoot the polar bear to protect himself.

'There were two other bears on the ice pan but they stayed away from him so he didn't shoot at them at all.'

 

The 17-year-old has to shoot a polar bear, which was also on the same chunk of ice with two cubs

The two cubs remained with the adult carcass and the teen managed to position himself as far away as he could from the remaining animals.

A pilot on a small plane chartered by a government search-and-rescue agency spotted the teen on Sunday afternoon and also saw the carcass of a bear down below.

Zebedee said the crew on board dropped a plastic container of chocolate bars and candy to the stranded boy.

A Hercules aircraft also spotted the boy, but lost sight of him as the plane circled back to take another look and darkness set in.

The crew continued to search for the teen through the night, dropping flares to illuminate the snowy landscape, but couldn't find him.

On Monday morning, the crew on board the military search-and-rescue aircraft again spotted the youth, who had drifted about 20 miles from where the snowmobile had broken down,.

Two search-and-rescue technicians parachuted to a larger ice floe a short distance away to mount their rescue attempt.

The two remaining bears were still in the area when the rescuers arrived, Zebedee said.

The teen, whose name was not released, was taken to hospital in Churchill, Manitoba, to be treated for hypothermia

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CCTV captures the moment a drunk woman falls into the path of an oncoming train... and walks away uninjured

 

By Mail Foreign Service

Last updated at 12:06 PM on 10th November 2009

This is the chilling video that captures a drunk woman's brush with death after she fell on to the tracks of an underground station into the path of an oncoming train.

CCTV images capture the woman falling off the platform onto the tracks before horrified bystanders at Boston's North Station shortly before 11pm on Friday night.

As the lights of a train can be seen approaching, the bystanders can be seen frantically waving to the driver in a desperate attempt to get her to stop.

 

Please stop: Bystanders wave frantically as the drunk woman lies on the tracks, illuminated by the lights of an oncoming train

 

Brush with death: The woman's body can be seen underneath the train as the driver comes to a sickening halt

The woman lies motionless on the tracks, apparently having temporarily passed out.

But the female driver of the train reacts instinctively, wrenching her emergency hand brake.

The train comes to a sickening halt - partly over the motionless body of the drunk woman. 

Half a second later she leaps out from underneath the train and clambers up the side of the platform.

   

CCTV captures the woman stumbling from the platform onto the track

 

A different camera shows the woman tumbling onto the tracks from another angle

 

Quick-thinking: Train driver Charice Lewis laughs as she recounts the incident to reporters in Boston yesterday

Train driver Charice Lewis, 27, said that, incredibly, the woman was smiling.

'I'm like, Oh my God, you really scared me,' she said as she recounted the chilling moments for reporters.

'It was so close, I thought it was not good.'

Somehow the woman escaped with just scraped knees.

Not only did she narrowly escape being run over, she also narrowly escaped being electrocuted, as CCTV footage showed her foot coming dangerously close to the electrified third rail of the tracks.

The woman, who has not been identified, told police she had been drinking for several hours before. She was taken to hospital for evaluation.

Ms Lewis was honoured for her quick thinking in the drama yesterday, receiving an award from Boston transport officials and a congratulatory phone call from the governor.

One bystander told the Boston Globe she had locked eyes with the woman as she fell onto the tracks.

'It looked like it was not going to end well,' she said.

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Macedonian Man Arrested in Ax Murders of 4 Elderly Women

 

Monday, November 09, 2009

SKOPJE, Macedonia —  Macedonian police say they have arrested a man suspected in ax murders of four elderly women.

Interior Minister Gordana Jankulovska says the 28-year-old drug addict allegedly tried to kill another three women before his arrest on Saturday.

Jankulovska said Monday the authorities see this as a serial killer case.

She identified the suspect as Viktor Karamarkov, who apparently picked elderly victims at random. Karamarkov would show up at the victim's door begging for money for his supposedly ill mother, and then hit them on the head with a foil-wrapped ax before taking their jewelry.

Police said Karamarkov's alleged victims, aged between 69 and 83-years-old, were killed between March and October

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Wife of Washington sniper reveals the chilling reasons why her husband gunned down 13 strangers

 

By David Jones

Last updated at 12:04 PM on 10th November 2009

Face of a killer: John Muhammad

For 18 unforgettable days, he struck fear into the heart of every man, woman and child living in Washington DC, effectively paralysing the U.S. capital.

All outdoor sporting events were cancelled; shoppers ran zigzag from their vehicles to the supermarkets; motorists cowered behind their cars as they pumped petrol, never knowing whether they might be next in the telescopic sights of his high-powered rifle.

In all, 13 seemingly random victims were picked off in those grim autumn days of 2002, only three of whom survived.

But for the warped former U.S. Army marksman who staged this act of mass slaughter, the so-called Washington Sniper, today is pay-back time after his final appeal was refused by the Supreme Court yesterday. 

Barring some last-minute stay of execution, at 9.30pm, John Allen Muhammad will be killed by lethal injection at a prison in Virginia, closing the book on one of the most nightmarish and perplexing episodes in American criminal history. 

Every spectator seat in the death chamber will be filled, for many of his victims' relatives have declared their determination to stare into the sniper's eyes as he dies.

Yet one question remains unanswered: why did Muhammad do it? 

His legal team argues that he was mentally ill at the time of his murderous rampage, a condition exacerbated by Gulf War syndrome.

It's an intriguing defence, all the more so at a time when America is reeling from the killing spree of another hardline Muslim serviceman at Fort Hood army base in Texas. 

But as his final hours approach, the sniper's former wife, Mildred Muhammad, has advanced a different and altogether more extraordinary theory about his motivation.

 In a sensational new book, she claims her ex-husband shot all those people simply to lay the ground for another murder  -  her own  -  so that he could regain custody of their three children. 

After their bitter divorce, some three years before the shootings, Mrs Muhammad was awarded custody of their son, John, now 19, and daughters Salena, 17, and Taalibah, 16.

It was in his determination to get them back once and for all, she says, that he hatched his twisted plot.

 

John and Mildred Muhammad on her birthday in December 1989, before they split

By murdering a great number of people all around her home, just outside Washington, he would make the authorities believe that a serial killer was on the loose.

'He was trying to place me in the middle of all these killings, so that when he finally took me out, the police would think I was just another sniper victim,' Mrs Muhammad told me. 

'It might sound bizarre and far-fetched, but not if you knew John Muhammad. 

'You have to remember that he was trained in psychological warfare in the army, and he was prepared to do anything to get what he wanted. 

'That means all those innocent people were killed just because he was trying to kill me. I still have a hard time living with that. I constantly blank out of my mind the number of people who died in my name.'

 

An example of a death chamber used for lethal injections, in this instance in Texas (file picture)

Seven years on, Mrs Muhammad is embittered that American society refuses to regard her as one of her ex-husband's victims.

She has therefore set up a self-styled help group for the families of abusive men, called After The Trauma, and spends her time travelling the country on speaking engagements. 

It is a non-profit organisation, but provides her with an income and a dubious kudos as 'the DC sniper's ex-wife'. (Imagine the reaction in Britain if the Yorkshire Ripper's wife, for example, behaved in this fashion.) 

But what of her story? Can it really be true? To fully examine the truth we must turn the clock back more than 25 years to the early Eighties, when Mildred Green, as she was called, fell for Muhammad  -  then known as John Williams  -  after being introduced to him by a friend in their home town of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 

Though old photos show her as a radiantly beautiful young woman, she says she was deeply shy and naive, and still lived at home with her mother.

ATF agent Walter A. Dandridge Junior holds the bushmaster rifle used in the sniper shootings at the Virginia Beach Circuit Court in 2003

Having narrowly escaped being raped at 16, she was also very wary of men. 

Muhammad, by contrast, was an outwardly confident National Guardsman with the ability to sweet-talk any girl who caught his eye. 

They had been dating for several weeks before she learned that he was married to his childhood sweetheart, Carol Williams, by whom he had two sons, now in their 20s.

But he assured her they were on the verge of splitting up and, when he was posted to Washington State  -  3,000 miles from the U.S. capital, she agreed to wait for his divorce to come through and then travel north to join him. 

They were married in March 1988 and at first it seemed they would live happily together.

But as the months and years passed, she discovered her husband was not the contented, self-assured man she thought him to be.

For one thing, he was illiterate, so she had to teach him to read and help him bluff his way through military exams. 

One of six children, he was also emotionally scarred by his wretched upbringing. His father had abandoned the family when he was a small boy, and when he was five years old his mother died of breast cancer.

Muhammad was then sent to live with relatives, and during the murder trial his lawyers claimed that one uncle often beat him. 

Perhaps as a result, he developed a callous streak and set out to manipulate and control his wife in bizarre ways. 

'I would buy things I really liked and they would mysteriously go missing,' she told me.

'And once, when I bought a beautiful Sony clock, I came home to find that John had taken it to pieces. He said he just wanted to see how it worked, but he knew he wouldn't be able to put it back together.'

 

Officers surround John Muhammad's car found parked off route 70 in Maryland. Muhammad and accomplice Lee Malvo were arrested at the scene

Convicted sniper John Muhammad was sentenced to death in 2004

Muhammad also began staying out until the early hours and she learned he was conducting a string of affairs.

Asked why she didn't leave this overbearing, adulterous oddball far sooner, she says she was simply playing the role to which most Deep South black girls were raised: that of the dutiful wife. 

As an army sergeant, Muhammad was posted to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War.

A combat engineer, he specialised in explosives and demolition. During his tour of duty, however, he was accused of deliberately setting off an explosive device in his tent, in what appeared to be an attempt to murder his colleagues and commit suicide.

Quite why he might have done this remains unclear, but it seems to have been connected with his insistence that black soldiers were suffering discrimination in the Gulf.

Muhammad was disciplined, but after he returned home his behaviour rapidly spiralled downwards. 

Moody and depressed, he developed a bitter hatred for authority, and behaved in a bizarre manner.

One day he announced the family would be taking in a homeless lodger, called Steven. 

Muhammad and his new friend acquired matching black bicycles and went out on mysterious 'missions' at dead of night, refusing to explain to Mildred what they had been doing. 

While they were on one of these strange nocturnal bike rides, she learned that someone had been shot in the neck, and mentioned this to her husband.

 

Police investigators work at the scene of the shootings in Washington DC in 2002

'Don't ask,' he said flatly, ending the conversation before it had begun. She now wonders whether it was then that the sniper claimed his first victim. 

Whatever the truth, Muhammad left the army in 1994 and started a mobile mechanic firm.

It was successful at first, and his wife  -  who did the bookwork  -  harboured dreams of a wealthy life at the head of a booming business. 

But her husband did not share her ambitions. He was more interested in having sex with women clients, offering to mend their cars for free in return.

Mrs Muhammad tolerated him for five more years before demanding a divorce. By then, the couple had become followers of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. 

While Mildred Muhammad saw religion as a means for peaceful social change, her husband was convinced that America's injustices could be overcome only by subversion and violence. 

However, after they parted, in 1999, and she was awarded custody of the children, she became the prime target for his anger. 

Muhammad would break into the house in the night, she recalls, and she would awake to find him looming over her, like some ghostly apparition, beside the bed.

He repeatedly made sinister threats. 'You have become my enemy and as my enemy I will have to kill you,' he once warned her, his eyes glazed with fury. 

'John is a man of his word,' Mrs Muhammad told me. 'I have no doubt that he intended to do exactly what he said.' 

In March 2000, Muhammad kidnapped the children and fled with them to Antigua, where his parents were born. 

There they lived in a hovel without running water and Muhammad eked out a living by fixing documents for islanders who wanted to migrate illegally to the U.S.

 

Police arrive to search for clues at the petrol station where 13 people were shot in Manassas

He also began a relationship with the mother of Lee Malvo, the boy who later accompanied him on the shooting spree, and who is said to have been his brainwashed disciple. 

(In many of the shootings, Malvo is believed to have pulled the trigger  -  hiding in the boot of Muhammad's battered old saloon car and pointing the gun through a hole drilled in the boot. Too young to be sentenced to death for his part in the killings, he received a life sentence without parole). 

Meanwhile, distraught at losing her family and terrified that he would 'take me out with a head shot,' Mrs Muhammad hid in a women's refuge while fighting to find her children and win them back. 

It would be 18 months before the U.S. authorities traced the ragged, bewildered youngsters, after Muhammad attempted to claim child welfare, and reunited them with their mother. 

She is still angry at the way the authorities handled her case. And because Muhammad did not physically assault her, she claims the police did not take her seriously enough when she told them that he was planning to kill her in order to snatch them back. 

Had they done so, she maintains, at least some of the sniper's killings might have been averted, because they would have made him a suspect much sooner. 

Desperate to start a new life with her family, Mrs Muhammad fled across the country with her children in September 2001. She settled near her sister in the Maryland suburbs, just outside Washington DC. 

But Muhammad would not give up that easily, and after tricking a father's advocacy group into believing he was the children's rightful custodian, he tracked the family down. 

Then, with Malvo at his side, he travelled 3,000 miles to the East Coast, towards Washington. Soon afterwards, the bloodbath started. 

I was in Washington DC at the height of the mayhem, and the apprehension one felt, simply when walking in the open, was almost overwhelming. Mrs Muhammad recalls that she felt even more terrified than everyone else.

 

A memorial honouring the victims of the 2002 sniper shootings at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Virginia

'You have to remember I thought I was looking over my shoulder for two maniacs  -  the Washington Sniper and my husband,' she says. 

She insists she had no idea they were one and the same person until the police knocked on her door and told her they were about to name Muhammad as America's most wanted man. 

He had been identified after his accomplice, Malvo, dropped a weapons magazine with his fingerprints on it near the scene of one of their crimes and a link between the pair was established on the police database.

This was on October 23, 2002, four days after the final shooting. Soon afterwards, Muhammad's car was spotted at a service station by a keen-eyed trucker, and the biggest U.S. manhunt of modern times was over. 

There seems no reason to doubt any of this, yet today Mrs Muhammad is the target for a different kind of sniping. 

For in Washington some people still point an accusing finger at her, suggesting she ought to have made the connection between her husband  -  whom she knew to be a trained marksman with a grudge  -  and the sniper much sooner. 

'Others tell me I should have stayed married to him,' she shrugs. 'That way, I would have been the only one to die.' 

Mrs Muhammad no longer pays heed to such criticism, for she has totally reinvented herself and, through her victims' rights group, she says she has found her true vocation.

Two years ago, she also remarried, to Reuben Muhammad, a drug abuse counsellor whom she met through a website for single U.S. Muslims.

The extended the family still live in the Washington suburbs, close to the scene of several shootings, and despite all they have been through, she says her children are doing remarkably well.

 

Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose holds a news conference during the sniper shootings in 2002

Her son is studying engineering and computer science at a leading university, and her two daughters are budding opera singers. They have not seen Muhammad in the seven years since his arrest. 

However, they remain loyal to their father, and 19-year-old John Muhammad even applied to visit him on death row to say his goodbyes. His request was denied  -  unfairly, his mother says. 

So, this evening, the children will gather around the TV with their mother and await confirmation of their father's death. 

And when it is all over, Mildred Muhammad will go back on her travels, explaining to anyone who will listen why she ought to be considered as the sniper's 14th victim, even though the bullet with her name on it was never fired.

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Not so cute after all, then! Fierce leopard seal displays its two-inch teeth as it hunts down a penguin

 

By Mail Foreign Service

Last updated at 12:15 PM on 10th November 2009

These two-inch long razor sharp teeth look like they belong in the jaws of a shark rather than a sleek, cute seal.

The leopard seal is no docile creature, however, as these pictures of one hunting down a penguin show.

Taken in the shallows of Antarctica's freezing Southern Ocean by photographer Amos Nachoun, the 12-foot long creature is anything but cute.

 

Roar: The leopard seal's two-inch teeth look like they are about to take the lens off the camera in this image taken by Amos Nachoun and his team in Antarctica

 

The seal takes another run at the camera - whose operator must have nerves of steel

Captured in its full glory in February of this year, the agile leopard seal of Pleneau Island near Port Lockroy is part of a group that congregate each year on the Antarctic Peninsula to feed.

'These are sleek and violent hunters,' said ex-special forces member Amos.

'The leopard seal is a canny operator. He will ambush his prey in a skilful manner by waiting in silence at the bottom of the shallow channels that run along Pleneau Island.

'They will then launch themselves at the unsuspecting penguin and grab hold of its feet.

'Using their immense grip the seal will then hold the penguin under the water until it has drowned.

'In one of the most visceral acts that I have seen in wildlife photography the leopard seal will then take the penguin to the surface and shake its body to a pulp before eating it.

 

Gotcha: The leopard seal clamps a penguin in its fearsome jaws as it glares into the camera

'They do not like to eat the penguin's feathers.'

Photographing one of Mother Nature's most brutal scenes is not an easy task.

'We travelled for four days from Ushuaia on the southern coast of Argentina in a sail boat at the height of the Antarctic summer to get to Pleneau Island,' said Amos.

'The air temperature can peak at around 10 degrees and the water temperature can fall as low as minus one.

'As such we must use dry-suits with thermal insulating layers to ensure that we can enter the water.

'Using these we can stay for up to one hour in the sea with the seals.'

Because of the dangers of diving in the icy Antarctic, experienced Amos has a serious respect for this type of photographic expedition.

'Antarctica is a final frontier,' he said.

 

The seal snaps the penguin in its jaws before taking it to the surface and shaking its body to a pulp

'Only very experienced divers who have excellent buoyancy could be prepared for this type of dive.

'They must understand that they face not only the danger from the seal, but from the water and climate too.'

For Amos diving with any leopard seal is always daunting.

'In the water, most associate sharks with danger,' he said.

'But when divers with me see the intelligence, agility and size of the leopard seal they can become nervous.

'I explain that they must not encroach on the seals space and not to provoke it into any unwanted action.'

Even though Amos has dived with Great Whites and photographed polar bears from three feet away, he is always in awe of the leopard seal.

'They are impressive hunters,' he said.

'They are the only seal that is capable of attacking a human and as such need to be treated with due respect.

'I have seen them throw themselves onto rocks during a hunt into the middle of a group of sitting penguins. They ignore all the others around them and chase the one penguin that they are targeting.

'They are single minded, decisive and want the particular prey that they have chosen.'

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Australian Fisherman Fights off Shark Attack

Monday, November 09, 2009

An Australian spear fisherman spoke of his ordeal, after being attacked by a shark.

The 25-year-old Dean Brougham has deep cuts to his leg and hand after punching what he thinks was a White Pointer shark on Sunday. With predictions of up to 140 shark sightings off the metropolitan coastline this summer, Aussies worry over an unusually high number for this time of year.

A further three sharks were spotted later as novice spearfisherman Dean Brougham told of his remarkable survival from a shark attack. Surf Life Saving South Australia state manager Shane Daw said there had been "a spate on the weekend, with the 20 sightings on the one day."

"Last year, we had a similar thing, with 30 in one hit in December, and the year before, nearly 60," he said.

Yesterday, 25-year-old Brougham was adamant that the shark that attacked him on Sunday should not be hunted and killed.

"No way . . . that's the risk you take when you go out there, don't be scared off because it's their territory, but make sure you've got the proper protection," he said from his hospital bed at Flinders Medical Center. The Birkenhead gardener was testing his new wetsuit in the crystal-clear waters of the Fleurieu Peninsula on Sunday when he was mauled by what he believes was a 9-foot white pointer.

He was about 60 feet from shore when he felt a tug on his ankle and thought it was one of his mates fooling around.

"My first thought was that someone's playing a trick, tugging at my leg — until I turned around and saw the face," he said. "Then (I) just started punching it and pushing it off as soon as I could . . . I think I punched him in the mouth.

"I cut my hand up while I was trying to get him off. It didn't feel like my ankle was being hacked into, it just felt like it was getting grabbed."

As soon as he was free, Brougham knew he had just one option to save himself — to swim away as fast as possible.

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Deer Jumps Into Lion Cage At DC Zoo  Animal Escapes, But Is Put Down

(VIDEO):click for video

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First Posted: 11- 8-09 10:23 PM   |   Updated: 11- 8-09 11:01 PM

A wild deer jumped into the lion enclosure at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. on Sunday and inspired onlookers as it fought to escape from the big cats. However, despite breaking free, the Washington Post reports that the animal had to be euthanized. The deer had a serious wound on its belly.

According to the zoo's spokeswoman, the young female deer jumped a 3 1/2- to 4-foot retaining wall and landed in a moat surrounding the enclosure. It was then attacked by two female lions. Video of the encounter that has been posted to YouTube shows the deer escaping from one of the cats and jumping back into the moat.

The Washington Post reports that more than 100 zoo guests were at the enclosure at the time of the attack and a witness said people were shouting "Go! Go! Go!" and that "everyone was rooting for the deer."

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Two boys, aged six and seven, killed crossing a busy motorway on scooters after getting lost

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 12:15 PM on 10th November 2009

 

Lost boy: Kieran Coupe, seven, was knocked down and killed trying to cross the M56 in Cheshire

Two little boys were killed trying to cross a busy motorway on scooters at night after getting lost, an inquest heard.

Kieran Coupe, seven, and his six-year-old friend Guy Davies spent 21 minutes walking along an unlit section of the M56 in Cheshire before attempting to cross it, eye-witnesses said.

Passing drivers dialled 999 but were unable to stop to rescue the boys because the hard shoulder was sealed-off in a section of road works.

Kieran and Guy were hit by two cars on the busy motorway close to their homes in Runcorn, just after 7pm on October 24, 2007.

North Cheshire Coroner Nicholas Rheinberg was told that the pair were trying to get to their homes on the Murdishaw Estate near the road.

A series of witnesses told how traffic swerved to avoid the the youngsters as they crossed three lanes of the west-bound carriageway to the central reservation.

Within five minutes they decided to turn round and it was while they attempted to retrace their steps that they were hit by two vehicles  travelling at around 70 mph.

The boys had strayed on to the road after they became lost in woods where they had been playing.

Guy Davies' mother and father, and Kieran Coupe's father Colin Lambert, were present for the first day of a two-day inquest at Warrington Coroner's Court.

The court heard that the first 999 call about the boys was received at 7.01pm and the fatal impacts happened at 7.22pm.

Motorist Paul Wheeler, of Elton near Chester, told how he was heading home along the west-bound carriageway when he spotted the boys.

Telephone operator Mr Wheeler told how he suddenly saw the front wheel of a scooter on the rumble strip next to the inside lane where he travelling in heavy traffic.

Mr Wheeler said: 'I couldn't change lanes because there was a car to my right, but I moved wide as far as possible. If I hadn't taken evasive action I would definitely have hit him.

'I was so lucky not to hit him. I tried to pull-in immediately but couldn't due to the road works.

'I stopped as soon as I could, shortly after. I noticed three other vehicles in the hard shoulder doing the same thing.'  

Mr Wheeler said he dialled 999 and the emergency operator said she had already received several calls and police were on their way.

He added: 'I offered to get out of my car and try to help them but was told not to and to continue on my journey.'  

The court heard that many drivers who called 999 were given the same advice - not to attempt a rescue.

 

The boys became disorientated while playing in woods near their homes and wandered off in the wrong direction towards the busy M56 motorway

Illuminated 'matrix warning signs' approaching the scene were flashing with a reduced speed limit set at 50mph.

The court heard that two women drivers hit the youngsters.

Pc Simon Jordan who was the first police patrol on the scene at 7.22pm - seconds after the impact - said both boys had suffered horrific injuries.

PC Jordan said: 'I raced to the scene at 120mph and arrived just seconds after the collision.   

'I saw two bodies. One on the central lane and one on the hard shoulder. It was immediately clear that the boy in lane two was dead.

 

Kieran, above, was killed with friend Guy Davies

'I headed to the other boy and turned him over but it was obvious from his horrendous injuries that he was also dead.

'A number of motorists were out of their cars and screaming hysterically.'  

Asked by the coroner what he had expected to find when he answered the call PC Jordan said: 'It was only when I arrived at the scene that I realised that these were just young boys.

'The transmission had described 'young males' at the side of the motorway with scooters and I had expected teenagers with powered scooters which may have run out of petrol.'  

He added that if he had know they were children there was 'nothing more' he could have done.

Drivers earlier told how they had spotted the boys in grave danger.

Pensioner Bernard Heaton earlier told how he saw the pair scramble onto the central reservation as he headed towards Chester in his Nissan Pathfinder.

Mr Heaton said: 'The car in front of me pulled aside to reveal a silver scooter in the road, thirty to forty feet ahead.  

'I took evasive action, braked and swerved to avoid the scooter and a young child emerging from the central reservation to retrieve it.

'I was shocked and in my mirror caught sight of the lad's face. I used my hands-free kit to phone 999.

'I offered to stop but the police said two units has been dispatched and it was too dangerous for me to try to help.

 

A general view of the stretch of motorway where Kieran, seven, died with his friend Guy, six, after they tried to cross the busy carriageway

'I wonder now if I could have made all the difference by stopping to help them.' 

Joanne Clark, from Runcorn, was a front-seat passenger in a car driven by her husband Paul when they saw the boys. She said: 'When I realised what must have happened I held my head in my hands aghast and screamed at Paul to get out which he did.

'I just feel like we should have done something and if we had we might've been able to save the lives of those children.

'I can't help feeling so guilty.' 

The inquest was adjourned until this morning.

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