Wedding Dress Made From Human Hair Wins At Miss Liverpool Pageant

A wedding dress made from human hair has been made by a Liverpool dress designer. The costume, with a price tag of about £50,000, includes 1,500 crystals and 12 underskirts.

The unique hair wedding dress was created from 250 meters of hair extensions, tens of thousands of individual hair wefts and diverse pieces of hair, 1,500 crystals and 12 underskirts. A panel of eight people put in around 300 hours of work, over a period of 12 days, to complete the dress, but all the effort paid off when their creation was lastly finished. “This was a chance for us to show our creatively and originality and it’s a fantastic feeling to see the finished product. It’s fair to say we’ll probably not see another dress like it for a very long time,” Ryan Edwards said. The hair wedding dress weighs just over 75 kilograms and is a size six.

The design was declared the winner at the annual Alternative Miss Liverpool pageant.

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Artist Creates Intricate Architectural Models from Paper

US-based artist Christina Lihan uses her skill as an architect to produce detailed models of famous buildings and urban spaces, from paper.

Ms. Lihan received a Bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Virginia and went on to get her Master’s in architecture, from Columbia University, in New York. She has done internships in England, France and Italy, but it was the recurring, tedious rhythm of hundreds of soviet-built housing cities she saw in Czechoslovakia that most influenced the way she looked at building facades. After completing her studies, she decided to use all of the acquired knowledge in the name of art, by creating inspiring architectural models from paper.


Christina Lihan first decided to dedicate her life to art during the time she spent living in Florida, scheming hospitals for another architect. She was really bored, and realized she needed an imaginative outlet so she just started cutting paper, playing with it and trying to turn it into building models. It grew from there and eventually became her passion. Her extraordinary creations are made from unpainted, 300lb, watercolor paper. She carves cuts and folds every little piece by hand awaiting she assembles them into a completed composition. Ms. Lihan starts by photographing the site she wants to replicate, then moves on to sketching with charcoal, and lastly enlarges the drawing to the preferred size of the finished piece. She usually places the detailed pieces of paper directly over the drawing.

As you can imagine, creating such complicated models from paper can be quite time consuming. According to Christina Lihan, a little 18-by-24 piece can take up to 50 hours to complete.

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Georgian President's Son Claims Guinness World Record

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's 15-year-old son has joined his father as a global leader - by acquiring the world record for speed typing on an iPad.

Eduard Saakashvili achieved a world record for typing the English alphabet on an iPad in 5.26 seconds - an development of 1.05 seconds on the earlier record set by British teenager Charlie Joseph McDonnell in 2010.

The remarkable feat was documented by an observer from Guinness World Records in the former Soviet republic's Black Sea resort of Batumi.


'I am very happy,' Eduard said in comments broadcast by Georgian television after the finger-busting workout, explaining that he had spent months getting ready for the strange event.

'Our whole family has been anxious. I am a very proud mummy today,' said President Saakashvili's Dutch wife, Sandra Roelofs.

In March, the Georgian leader's younger son, five-year-old Nikoloz, also fascinated media attention when he and his father donned military fatigues for a training assembly at a military base in an unusual attempt to endorse the country's armed forces.

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Artist Creates Sweetest And Largest Sugar Cube Sculpture In The World

Brendan Jamison is a young modern artist who creates possibly the sweetest sculptures in the world, literally. His designs are top notch, but it’s the sugar cubes he uses as building material that make his works appealing.

31-year-old Jamison, from Belfast Northern Ireland, first started using sugar cubes as building blocks for large scale buildings in 2004, when he formed a series of 9-foot-tall minaret-style buildings. They caused quite a stir in the art world, and even caught the eyes of building developers, many of which bespoke him to create sweet models of their architectural projects.

Although he has worked with a range of materials throughout his artistic career, including bronze, wood and wool, it’s safe to say it was his sugar-cube creations that brought him worldwide recognition. “Sugar is a beautiful material to work with, it can be cut and carved into organic shapes, and the sugar crystals can give a sparkling surface in natural light”, Jamison says about his favorite medium.


So far, the artist has sculpted and glued sugar cubes into intricate structural models like the replica of the Tate Modern (71,908 cubes), the Sugar Walk development (11,256) and the giant sugar tower created for Eastborne’s Towner Museum and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. The final is his greatest work yet, numbering a staggering 250,000 sugar cubes and weighing 506 kilograms. Standing 180 cm high, and with a perimeter of 100 cm, it is the largest sugar cube sculpture in the world.

Brendan Jamison’s sugar cube tower is at present on display at the Towner Museum, where it will stay until September 2011. From December 2011 and until February 2012, the monumental sculpture will be showcased at the Ormeau Baths Gallery, in Belfast.

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White House, Egypt discuss sketch for Mubarak's exit

The Obama government is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately, turning over power to a midway government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats said on Thursday.

Even though Mr. Mubarak has balked, so far, at leaving now, officials from both governments are enduring talks about a plan in which, Mr. Suleiman, backed by Sami Enan, chief of the Egyptian armed forces, and Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, the Defense Minister, would instantly begin a process of legitimate reform.

The proposal also calls for the transitional government to invite members from a broad range of opposition groups, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood, to begin work to open up the country's electoral system in an attempt to bring about free and fair elections in September, the officials said.

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Disastrous Cyclone makes landfall in Australia

With winds crying at up to 185 miles per hour, a vast cyclone made landfall in the predawn hours on Thursday along the shore of the already storm-battered state of Queensland, with extensive reports of property damage and power failures.

Thousands of citizens crowded into crisis shelters along the northeast coast on Wednesday looking for refuge from a storm that the National Weather Bureau had warned could be larger and "more life-threatening than any in Australian history. Witnesses told local news outlets of roofs being blown off and trees flattened as the cyclone moved inland. Power was out in more than 170,000 homes, according to Ergon Energy, the region's main function.

More than 400,000 citizens live in communities along the storm's 370-mile-long front, including in the cities of Cairns and Townsville, popular jumping-off sites for the Great Barrier Reef. As the storm approached on Wednesday, residents in low-lying coastal areas were urged to flee for higher ground.

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Jihad Jane pleads culpable to terror charges

A US woman who called herself 'Jihad Jane' has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to offer material support to terrorists and intrigues to wage violent jihad overseas.

A Pennsylvanian Colleen LaRose, 47, pleaded guilty to all counts of an overriding condemnation charging her with conspiracy to provide stuff support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in an overseas country, making fake statements and attempted identity theft.

LaRose, who had earlier pleaded not guilty in March 2010, faces utmost possible sentence of life in prison and a USD one million fine when she is sentenced on March 3. The guilty plea was entered before US District Court Judge Petrese Tucker in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

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US Directs for fair elections in Egypt in September

The United States is asking overwhelmed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to lift the emergency police powers that have protected his iron rule while focusing behind the scenes on elections later this year that could be a chance to attain a lawful democracy without Mubarak in control, administration officials said.

Two American officials supposed the US government would favor that Mubarak not run for re-election in presidential election scheduled for September.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of diplomacy and the difficult situation the Obama administration finds itself in.In public, the administration would say only that voting should be open and fair.

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Opposition rallies to ElBaradei as Armed reinforces in Cairo

Egypt's influential Muslim Brotherhood and the secular opposition banded together Sunday around a famous government critic to confer for forces seeking the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, as the military struggled to hold a capital seized by fears of chaos and buoyed by euphoria that three decades of Mr. Mubarak's rule may be coming to an end.

The declaration that the critic, Mohamed ElBaradei, would symbolize a loosely unified opposition reconfigured the struggle between Mr. Mubarak's government and a six-day-old rebellion bent on driving him and his party from power.

Though missing deep support on his own, Dr. ElBaradei, a Nobel laureate and diplomat could serve up a consensus figure for a movement that has struggled to articulate a program for a potential transition. It suggested, too, that the opposition was aware of the uprising's image overseas, putting forth a candidate who might be more satisfactory to the West than beloved in Egypt.

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Police fight Mammoth protests across Egypt

As night chop and the government announced a curfew, protesters showed no signs of letting up in Cairo and other Egyptian cities on Friday as tens of thousands intensified their campaign to oust President Hosni Mubarak, pouring from mosques after noon prayers and conflicting with police who fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons.

The curfew went into outcome at 6 p.m. safety officials said, and CNN said that President Mubarak was likely to deliver a televised address. The protests came after weeks of chaos across the Arab world that toppled one leader in Tunisia and confident protesters to trounce deep-rooted fears of their autocratic privileged and take to the streets.

But Egypt is a special case -- a heavyweight in Middle East negotiation, in part because of its peace treaty with Israel, and a key ally of the United States. The country, often the fulcrum on which currents in the region turn, also has one of the largest and most sophisticated security forces in the Middle East.

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Global Muslim population to rush, says a Survey

In a study that its creators are calling merely demographic, and not political, the Pew Research Centre's forum on religion and public existence in the United States has estimated the global Muslim population will raise by about 35 per cent in the next 20 years, from 1.6 billion worldwide, to approximately 2.2 billion people by 2030.

The report says a bulk will continue to live in the Asia Pacific region (about 60 percent). The best increase is likely in western and northern European countries like Sweden, France, Belgium, Austria and the UK, driven mainly by migration.

Pakistan will beat Indonesia as the largest Muslim country in the world. And India will continue to be home to the third largest Muslim population globally. This may be the first survey of its sort and while it does not reflect dramatic demographic shifts, it is already proving to be controversial for stoking Islamophobia.

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US shooter Learned assassins on Internet before Firing

The 22-year-old man, accused of shooting US Congress woman Gabrielle Giffordsm, learned about several assassins and legal consequences on internet before opening fire at a shop in Arizona, an official has said.

Jared L. Loughner, who pleaded not guilty Monday to three counts of attempted murder in connection with shooting at a Tucson supermarket, researched famous assassins, death penalty and lonely confinement on internet, the New York Times reported quoting an official close to the investigation. The Jan 8 shooting left six people dead and 13 injured.

Giffords, Democrat delegate from Arizona, was shot in the head but survived. Additional charges, including murder, are expected. The official did not say which assassins Loughner looked up. The websites were tracked by searching the browser history of his computer

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Why giant airports are hard to secure

How do you completely secure something as large and rambling as an international airport against a terrorist violence like the one on Monday at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow? You cannot, security experts I spoke with on Monday say.

Airports are by definition public places requiring comparatively free access. The experts have long contended that serious holes in security at airports have been ignored while most of the endeavor and money goes into looking for weapons on passengers at checkpoints. But they have also warned that an amazing event in one place can direct to widespread overreaction and demands for quick fixes.

Douglas R Laird, a past Secret Service agent and onetime head of security for Northwest Airlines who now operates an aviation security consulting firm, Laird & Associates, made much the same case.

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Tunisia: A scorn funeral and protests against Administration

Protesters staged a ridicule funeral in the centre of Tunis on Sunday in honour of the man whose suicide triggered the popular rebellion that overthrew Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Mohamed Bouazizi, 26, died after he set himself on fire in the central city of Sidi Bouzid last month to objection against official harassment under Ben Ali's regime.

His self-immolation triggered the protests that forced the autocratic leader from power. Protesters carried a makeshift coffin that was draped in a Tunisian flag as a symbol of those who died while taking part in the uprising.

The mock funeral was part of a day of protests in which more than 200 people from around Tunisia descended on the capital to join stress to rid the temporary government of members of the old regime.

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Larry Page to be the Next Google CEO

Eric Schmidt, a technology expert brought in as Google Inc.'s "adult supervision" a decade ago, is relinquishing the CEO job to Larry Page, one of the prodigies who co-founded the company behind the Internet's dominant gateway.

The surprise shake-up declared Thursday appears to be driven by Schmidt's desire to tackle other challenges as much as Page's personal ambition. "Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed!" Schmidt wrote on his Twitter account moments after Google dropped the bombshell that upstaged its fourth-quarter earnings. Schmidt, 55, will become executive chairman and remain available to advise Page, 37, and Google's other 37-year-old founder, Sergey Brin.

Under the new pecking order effective April 4, Page will regain the CEO job that he held for three years before the two business enterprise capitalist firms backing Google in its early days insisted that a more grown-up leader be brought aboard.

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