Top News Stories –

Britain’s sexiest female farmer crowned –
Blonde Anna Simpson has been voted Britain’s sexiest female farmer. Miss Simpson, 25, beat hundreds of rivals to be crowned the most attractive female farmer in the country. Miss Simpson, of Hutton Rudby, Yorkshire, spends her working life on Windy Hill Farm training sheep dogs, driving tractors and encouraging animals to mate. But she has now been crowned Britain’s sexiest female farmer in a poll by Farmer’s Weekly magazine. Pete Mortimore, 25, has been voted Britain’s sexiest male farmer and the pair win £250 each – and a pair of wellies. [Daily Telegraph]

Geri Halliwell makes boyfriend Henry Beckwith feel like Duke of Edinburgh –
Living with the former Spice Girls singer Geri Halliwell can be a challenge, finds her boyfriend Henry Beckwith. The Spice Girls provoked adulation from their fans and inspired a forthcoming musical from the producer of Mamma Mia!, but living with a former member of the pop group can be challenging. Henry Beckwith, 31, an Old Harrovian, has been courting Geri Halliwell for almost a year, but his father informs Mandrake that being with Ginger Spice does have its drawbacks. “It’s very hard being with someone who gets the red-carpet treatment all around the world,” Sir John Beckwith, 62, a property developer, told Mandrake at a fundraising party for the Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund, at the shop Few & Far, in South Kensington, London. “It’s like being Prince Philip.” [Daily Telegraph]
Geri Halliwell

What on Earth was that? Mystery space object whizzes past our planet –
It made its closest pass at 12.46pm (GMT) streaking past just 76,000 miles away, which is a third of the distance to the Moon. Amateur astronomers were able to track it in the United States. The object was discovered by MIT’s Linear survey on January 10 and astronomers are divided about what it is. A spokesman from Nasa said: ‘The object’s orbit reaches the orbit of Venus at its closest point to the Sun and nearly out to the orbit of Mars at its furthest point. ‘It crosses the Earth’s orbit at a very steep angle and this means it is unlikely to be a rocket stage.’ The space agency spokesman added that the trajectory would not fit with any recent rocket launch. ‘It seems more likely that this is a near-Earth asteroid about 10-15 metres across,’ he concluded. The rock has now been labelled 2010 AL30. There are two million such objects streaking around near-Earth space, with one passing near our world about once a week. [Daily Mail]

Video of the Day –

Geometric from Gwen Vanhee on Vimeo.

Other News Stories –

• U Tin Oo, the Vice-Chairman of the National League for Democracy was released today in Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar, after the expiration of his term of house arrest. (UN)
• Cyclone Rene approaches Manu’a at full force winds of 150 kilometres an hour. (Radio New Zealand International)
• A suspected terrorist attack in the western Indian city of Pune kills 9 people and injures more than 45 others. BBC news (The Times of India)(The Hindu) (The Times)
• Burma releases vice-chairman of the National League for Democracy (NLD), Tin Oo at the age of 82, after he has spent more than a decade in prison or under house arrest. (BBC)
• The Côte d’Ivoire government is dissolved with President Laurent Gbagbo saying on state television that the peace process has broken down. (Al Jazeera) (The Sydney Morning Herald) (Reuters)
• 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver:
  • The men’s downhill skiing is postponed due to “slushy conditions”, with the women’s super-combined event having already been postponed.(BBC) (Sky Sports)
  • The luge event goes ahead at the Whistler Sliding Centre a day after the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili. (BBC) (The Times) (ABC)
• Year of the Tiger:
  • China prepares to celebrate New Year holidays with tens of millions of people travelling and fireworks anticipated. (The Daily Telegraph)
  • Wen Jiabao delivers his New Year message in state newspapers. (Reuters)
• Clashes erupt in Dresden 65 years after the city was bombed at the end of World War II. (Al Jazeera) (CBC) (Press TV) (The Washington Post) (BBC)
• Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki demands eight senior officials to resign due to corruption scandals in the education ministry and a maize scandal.(BBC)
• NATO forces in Afghanistan launch Operation Moshtarak against the Taliban-controlled village of Marja in Helmand Province. (The New York Times)
• At least 10 people are electrocuted to death when a power cable collapses onto a bus in Port Harcourt. (BBC)
• Three people die and others are seriously injured after a Danish bus en route from Berlin to Munich hits a barrier and flips over on theBundesautobahn 9 near Dessau, Saxony-Anhalt. The Autobahn is closed in both directions. (The Local) (IOL) (RTÉ)

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