Top News Stories –

Mel Gibson swears at television reporter –
Mel Gibson swore at a television reporter who questioned him about his controversial past, referring to him as an ——–. The actor and director snapped while being interviewed on Chicago-based station WGN about his alcohol addiction and anti-Semitic rant towards a police officers four years ago. Gibson, 54, aimed his comment at entertainment reporter Dean Richards, thinking that his microphone had been switched off. [Daily Telegraph]
Mel Gibson

James Cracknell and Ben Fogle to cross Australia on foot –
James Cracknell and Ben Fogle are to embark on their latest risky adventure, retracing a Victorian expedition to cross Australia which ended in death. After rowing the Atlantic and walking to the South Pole, this time they are planning on walking 4,000 miles across the heart of Australia in the height of summer. They will be following in the footsteps of Irishman Robert Burke and Englishman William Wills, who set out in August 1860 to cross from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north. The pair made the 2,000 mile south-north leg across what was called the “ghastly blank” without too much trouble, heading an entourage that comprised 19 men, 23 horses, 26 camels and 12 tons of equipment, which included four enema kits and 12 dandruff brushes. But on the way back they perished as their support team deserted them. [Daily Telegraph]
Ben Fogle and James Cracknell just before the start of the Atlantic Rowing Race 2005

Video of the Day –

MK12 // Swiss International Air: LX Forty English from MK12 on Vimeo.

Other News Stories –

• L’Homme Qui Marche I by Alberto Giacometti, a bronze sculpture sells in London for £65,001,250, a new world record auction price. (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph)
• A major fireball is reported in the skies over Ireland, lighting up “the whole country”. (RTÉ) (The Irish Times)
• Avatar becomes the highest grossing film in the U.S. and Canada while surpassing the 2 billion dollars mark in worldwide sales. (Reuters)(BoxOfficeMojo)
• Judges at the International Criminal Court rule that Sudan‘s president Omar al-Bashir could face charges of genocide over the War in Darfur. (The Guardian) (CNN)
• Pirates off the coast of Somalia seize a North Korean-flagged cargo ship south of Yemen. (AFP) (CNN)
• NASA and Cornell University have given up attempting to move the Spirit rover, currently stuck in sand near Home Plate, Gusev crater on the planet Mars, and are converting it into a stationary outpost. Its twin rover, Opportunity, remains mobile on Mars. (Space.com)
• Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim goes on trial in Kuala Lumpur, accused of sodomy. (Bernama) (BBC) (AFP)
• A man detonates a homemade bomb outside a shopping mall in Darwin, Australia, wounding 15 people. (Sydney Morning Herald) (The Australian)
• A bombing near a girls’ school in Lower Dir, Pakistan kills seven, including three U.S. Marines, marking the first time U.S. soldiers are killed in that country. (CNN) (Al Jazeera)

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