Would you crave for taking the last piece of sweet!

Participants take sweets served on a naked woman, known as Nyotaimori or female body presentation, during a fetish fashion event titled “Night of The Body,” organized by Libido M&J, in Tokyo, on Sunday. Hundreds of people gathered at the event, targeted at fetish fashion enthusiasts, which is a mixture of live performances by pole dancers, a fetish fashion show and other events as a showcase, the organizer said.

Theme country: JAPAN

This week we will travel to the country, known for its perfect amalgamation of technology and culture, Japan. They are arguably the most advanced nation technology wise today, and they are leaving behind others fast with terrific aggression. They are agile, they are talented, they are cultured, they are Japanese.

SAs strongest union COSATU will not oppose MTN-Bharti deal..

* Deal different from Telkom-Vodafone deal

* Labour federation anxious about foreign ownership

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's powerful trade union federation COSATU said it was unlikely to try to block a possible multi-billion dollar merger involving MTN (MTNJ.J) and India's Bharti Airtel (BRTI.BO).

COSATU spokesman Patrick Craven said on Wednesday the MTN deal was fundamentally different from the recent deal involving state telecoms operator Telkom which handed control of South African mobile provider Vodacom to Britain's Vodafone (VOD.L).

The labour grouping, which says it has 1.8 million paid-up members, came close to scuppering that deal.

"Telkom has always been 50 percent owned by the public and the move was part of our policy agenda against privatisation. MTN has always been a private company," said Craven.

"We remain concerned that another foreign company may take control of another key South African telecoms company (but) we haven't taken a decision on blocking the deal," Craven said.

Bharti and MTN Group have revived merger talks to create a $61 billion telecoms giant spanning Africa, Asia and the Middle East a year after their previous attempt foundered over who would control the combined entity. [ID:nLP34850]

In the Vodacom deal, the trade union body said it feared job losses.

The deal enriched businessmen close to the former government of Thabo Mbeki, angering leftists, and intensified investor fears of resurgent union clout under new president Jacob Zuma. (Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; Editing by David Cowell)
News courtesy Reuters

South African Crocs are in danger..

Johannesburg - South Africa's leading researchers, scientists, conservationists and wildlife pathologists have united to save crocodiles after a massive die-off in the Kruger National Park's Olifants gorge, SANParks said on Monday.

Head of the department for scientific services at the Kruger National Park Danie Pienaar said that the initiative, known as the Consortium for the Restoration of the Olifants Catchment, was dedicated to answering questions surrounding the deaths of over 160 crocodiles and the growing environmental problem in the Olifants River system.

"The river has been used and abused for the past five decades, and pollution is getting progressively worse," said aquatic ecologist Peter Ashton of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.

The river had been subjected to prolonged and cumulative ecosystem stress as a result of human activities in the catchment.

"We suspected that the ongoing pollution of the Olifants River system would eventually result in some kind of ecological disaster. The large number of crocodile mortalities, however, caught us by surprise," said Pienaar.

While clues were increasingly pointing to pollution from industrial, mining and agricultural sources, the exact trigger that started the process of crocodile deaths remained elusive.

Post-mortem results showed that the crocodiles died of pansteatitis, a disease which results in the general hardening of the body fat, mostly as a result of inadequate antioxidant levels.

"One of the important outcomes of this programme will be to put in place a rapid response management mechanism should something of this nature ever happen again," said Pienaar.

As posted in www.wildlifesouthafrica.com

SOUTH AFRICA WEEK...

This week I have chosen South Africa as my "country of the week". After the hectic election week spent in India, I needed some place to relax. And which place would serve better in this cause than RSA. The sheer nature power must take over to prove that all the human invented politics are immaterial. Specially when the country is cooling down after stunningly and surprisingly successful IPL heat wave. The tourist flow has gone low and its the best time to enjoy the wild nature to the fullest lying in her lap. The vacant beaches have become more sensuas, the jungles have become more fierce, the mountains have become more alluring, the rivers are flowing with more thurst than ever.......
Welcome to South Africa.....where nature writes her poetry...

what a shock!!

Results are out... laughter and tears are floating in the air side by side.. as expected..is'n it?
But like all other Indians I too could not escape this heat., and to be honest I'm not really happy with the result overall. Please don't consider me a jealous NDA or third front supporter who faced a complete white wash, but rather I'm a bit disappointed with some individual results that were really very shocking to me. Specially some of the results from West bengal really surprised me to my wits end. Lefts not just faced their worst defeat in last 32 years, but the abusuement they recieved from the opposition was just a bit too much for many. It was almost a complete white wash. Many MPs won their first stint. But I have more than enough doubt how will they perform in their service tenure. I think the whole West Bengal will be looking toward their perfomance.

india votes....

Braving summer heat, an estimated 15 to 20 per cent of the voters turned up during the first four hours of polling on Wednesday for the fifth and final phase of Lok Sabha elections which was by and large peaceful.

Two scribes of private TV channels were injured when they were allegedly attacked by activists of ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) at Duneke village on the outskirts of Moga town when they recorded footage of party workers carrying weapons in vehicles, police sources said.

One person was killed early this morning in a clash between Trinamool Congress activists and CPM cadre at Baliguri on the outskirts of kolkata  before the polling began.

While Tamil Nadu recorded 22 per cent of voting till 11:00 am, Uttar Pradesh registered 21 per cent, Puducherry 25 per cent, Punjab, West Bengal and Uttarakhand 15-20 per cent each, Himachal Pradesh 12 -15 per cent, Chandigarh 18 per cent and Jammu and Kashmir six per cent.

Prominent candidates in the fray include Home Minister P Chidambaram, DMK's T R Baalu, Dayanidhi Maran and M K Azhagiri, Congress' Md Azharuddin, BJP's Maneka and Varun Gandhi and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, MDMK's Vaiko and SP's Jayaprada.

Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, CPM leader Brinda Karat, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa were some of the early voters.

as posted in www.NDTV.com

pics courtesy http://photos.cleveland.com