2011 Special: Odd PHOTOS of the year - II

Participants cross a mud obstacle during the Wild Boar Dirt Run (Wild Sau Dirt Run) in Laaben, 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Vienna, October 22. Some one thousand competitors take part in the annual event, which consists of a cross country run followed by an assault course over a distance of either 10 or 20 kilometres ( 6.2 – 12.3 miles).

2011 Special: Odd PHOTOS of the year - II

Model Kate is painted by artist Emma Hack in central London October 6, 2011. Hack, a leading skin illustrator, is painting naked models in front of visitors to the Art London fair, camouflaging them against a wallpaper background designed by Australian interior designer, Florence Broadhurst.

2011 Special: Odd PHOTOS of the year - II

A man carries in a shopping bag ducks to be sacrificed at a livestock market in Kathmandu October 3, 2011. The Hindu festival of Navaratri, also known as the Dasain festival, celebrates the triumph of good over evil. Hindus will also offer sacrificial animals during the festival.

2011 Special: Odd PHOTOS of the year - II

A dog rides a wave at a surf dog contest in Huntington Beach, California September 25, 2011

2011 Special: Odd PHOTOS of the year - II

An abandoned VIP stairway is seen on a road at the airport in Sirte, which is now under the control of anti- Gaddafi fighters, September 29, 2011. Forces of Libya’s interim government have captured the airport in Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, one of two main remaining bastions of support for the deposed leader, Reuters journalists at the scene said.

2011 Special: Odd PHOTOS of the year - II

A visitor looks at foetus specimens at the “Mysterious Life” museum of Dalian Hoffen Bio-Technique Co. Ltd. in Dalian, Liaoning province September 13, 2011. Founded by Dr. Sui Hongjin in 2004, Dalian Hoffen Bio-Technique Co. Ltd. produces, preserves and exhibits plastinated biotic specimens of human and animals. The specimens, including whole bodies as well as individual organs and transparent body slices, each requires four employees to work on it for 8 to 12 months. The exhibits have been meticulously dissected and preserved to allow visitors to view muscular, nervous, circulatory, respiratory and digestive systems. According to Sui, the bodies are legally collected from medical universities. Picture taken September 13, 2011.

2011 Special: Odd PHOTOS of the year - II

George Schrhamm walks outside the Lincoln Center, the venue for New York Fashion Week September 13, 2011.

2011 Special: Odd PHOTOS of the year - II

Zoo owner and artist Aleksandr Pylyshenko sits inside a cage with female African lion Katya at a private zoo situated in his yard in the city of Vasilyevka, southeastern Ukraine August 3, 2011. Pylyshenko decided to spend five weeks in a cage with a pair of African lions, Katya and Samson, to get money for improving the lions’ living conditions, according to local media. He is broadcasting it on internet to attract the public’s attention to plight of wild animals in private Ukrainian zoos, which do not get enough fundings.

2011 Special: Odd PHOTOS of the year - II

Brown bear (Ursus arctos) cub Medo plays with the Logar family dog in Podvrh village, central Slovenia June 1, 2011. The Slovenian Logar family has adopted the three-and-half-month-old bear cub that strolled into their yard about 30 days ago. Although the family would like to prepare a fenced enclosure for it, veterinary authorities would prefer to move it into a shelter for wild animals.

2011 Special: Odd PHOTOS of the year - II

A 22-year-old woman in a wedding gown is grabbed by Guo Zhongfan, a local community officer, as she attempts to kill herself by jumping out of a seven-storey residential building in Changchun, Jilin province May 17, 2011. According to local media, the woman tried to commit suicide after her boyfriend of four years broke up with her, just as they were making plans to get married. The woman did not sustain any injuries during the incident. Picture taken May 17, 2011.

EXTREME Weather PHOTOS

A man is drenched by a large wave during high tide as he cycles past at a fishing harbour in Chennai, on December 28, 2011. The coastal districts in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry were ravaged by Cyclone Thane during the yearend

EXTREME Weather PHOTOS 1

A child is draped in a blanket on a cold morning at a roadside in Noida on the outskirts of New Delhi December 31, 2011

EXTREME Weather PHOTOS 2

A motorcycle rickshaw tows construction equipment in the fog in Lahore January 1, 2012

EXTREME Weather PHOTOS 3

The four rings of the logo of German car manufacturer Audi are seen at the radiator grill of a snow covered car after heavy snowfalls in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos December 31

EXTREME Weather PHOTOS 4

Water from a fountain is seen frozen around the branches of a tree at the Chunggaechun stream in Seoul.

EXTREME Weather PHOTOS 5

People relax in a public swimming pool during heavy snowfalls in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos

EXTREME Weather PHOTOS 6

A boy shovels mud as he cleans his house swamped with mud from flash floods in Iligan city, southern Philippines

EXTREME Weather PHOTOS 7

A resident cleans a television swept away by flash floods caused by Typhoon Washi in a subdivision in Iligan city, southern Philippines

EXTREME Weather PHOTOS 8

A member of a local winter swimming club takes a bathe in the Yenisei River, with the air temperature at about minus 20 degrees Celcius (minus four degrees Fahrenheit) in Russia’s Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk

How the world ushered in 2012 1

A couple kiss as fireworks light the sky during New Year celebrations in Sarajevo January 1, 2012.

How the world ushered in 2012 2

Fireworks explode during a pyrotechnic show to celebrate the New Year in the coastal city of Vina del Mar, about 121 km northwest of Santiago.

How the world ushered in 2012 3

People look at fireworks explode above Copacabana beach during the New Year celebrations in Babilonia slum in Rio de Janeiro.

Fireworks explode beside Vienna’s Giant Ferris Wheel (Wiener Riesenrad) at Prater park during New Year’s celebrations in Vienna

Singer Justin Bieber (R) performs with Mexican rock guitarist Carlos Santana (L) at Times Square during a celebration to mark the start of the new year in New York.

The New Year’s fireworks display lights up around the London Eye in central London.

How the world ushered in 2012 7

A man dressed up as Jesus Christ participates in the annual San Silvestre race in Guatemala City December 31, 2011. Thousands of people, some of them in costumes, participated in the event to celebrate the coming of a new year.

Fireworks explode over downtown Beirut during New Year celebrations.

New Year revellers in Princes Street during the Hogmanay street party celebrations in Edinburgh, Scotland.

How the world ushered in 2012 10

Fireworks explode near a bronze sculpture of Alexander the Great on his horse Bucephalus, in Skopje’s central square during New Year celebrations, in Macedonia.

Revellers at the Gateway of India, Mumbai, on the New Year’s Eve.

Fireworks explode from Taiwan’s tallest skyscraper Taipei 101 during New Year celebrations in Taipei.

How the world ushered in 2012 13

Fireworks explode during New Year celebrations in Colombo.

Thousands of people watch fireworks during New Year’s Day celebration on Red Square in Moscow.

Policemen stand guard during celebrations for the New Year on the Bund near the Huangpu River in Shanghai.

How the world ushered in 2012 16

Fireworks explode over Marina Bay during New Year celebrations in Singapore.

How the world ushered in 2012 17

People release balloons as the Tokyo Tower is illuminated to celebrate the New Year at a countdown event at the Zojo-ji Buddhist temple in Tokyo.

Fireworks explode over the Sydney Opera House during a pyrotechnic show to celebrate the New Year.

Rostam Ghasemi

11. Rostam Ghasemi (Rank 32)
Age: 47 years

Rostam Ghasemi is the President of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Rostam Ghasemi is Iran’s Minister of Petroleum since 3 August 2011.

 

Lou Jiwei

12. Lou Jiwei (Rank 33)
Age: 60 years

Lou Jiwei is the chairman and chief executive officer of CIC.

Previously, he served as executive deputy Minister of Finance, Deputy Governor of Guizhou Province, and Director General of the Macroeconomic Control Department of the State Commission for Restructuring the Economic Systems.

 

Mukesh Ambani

13. Mukesh Ambani (Rank 35)

Age: 54 years

India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani is the chairman and managing director of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries.

 

Masaaki Shirakawa

 

14. Masaaki Shirakawa (Rank 36)
Age: 62 years

Masaaki Shirakawa is the Governor of Bank of Japan. He is also a director and vice-chairman of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Shirakawa joined the Bank of Japan in 1972.

 

Christine Lagarde

15. Christine Lagarde (Rank 39)
Age: 55 years

Christine Madeleine Odette is a French lawyer and the managing director of the International Monetary Fund since 5 July 2011.

Earlier, she held various ministerial posts in the French government. Lagarde was the first woman ever to become minister of Economic Affairs of a G8 economy and is the first woman to ever head the IMF.

 

Jeff Bezos

 

16. Jeff Bezos (Rank 40)
Age: 47 years

Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994. Amazon made him one of the most prominent dot-com entrepreneurs and a billionaire. In 2004, he founded a human spaceflight startup company called Blue Origin.

 

Jamie Dimon

 

17. Jamie Dimon (Rank 41)
Age: 55 years

James Dimon is the CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Dimon was named to Time magazine’s 2006, 2008, 2009, and 2011 lists of the world’s 100 most influential people.

He was also named to Institutional Investor’s Best CEOs list in the All-America Executive Team Survey from 2008 through 2011.

 

Robin Li

 

18. Robin Li (Rank 42)
Age: 42 years

Robin Li is a Chinese entrepreneur and co-founder of China’s most popular search engine Baidu. In 2000, he founded Baidu with Eric Xu.

He has been the CEO of Baidu since January 2004, which was listed on Nasdaq in August 2005.

 

Lloyd Blankfein

19. Lloyd Blankfein (Rank 43)
Age: 57 years

Lloyd Craig Blankfein is the chief executive officer and chairman of Goldman Sachs.

Li Ka-shing

 

20. Li Ka-shing (Rank 44)
Age: 83 years

Chinese business tycoon, Li Ka-shing is also the chairman of Hutchison Whampoa.

He is the eleventh richest person in the world.

 

 

Other Part Of This Posting

World’s 20 most powerful business people 1
World’s 20 most powerful business people 2

Carlos Slim

6. Carlos Slim (Rank 23)
Age: 71 years

Carlos Slim Helu, the world’s richest man is a Mexican business tycoon.

He is the chairman and chief executive of telecommunications companies Telmex and America Movil and has extensive holdings in other Mexican companies through his conglomerate, Grupo Carso SAB.

Rupert Murdoch

7. Rupert Murdoch (Rank 24)
Age: 80 years

Rupert Murdoch is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, the world’s second-largest media conglomerate.

Michael Duke

8. Michael Duke (Rank 27)
Age: 61 years

Michael Terry Duke is an American businessman, and currently the fourth chief executive officer of Wal-Mart.

Duke joined Wal-Mart in 1995, and most recently served as the executive in charge of the company’s international operations. He became the CEO of Wal-Mart in February 2009.

Jeffery Immelett

9. Jeffery Immelett (Rank 28)
Age: 55 years

Jeffrey Immelt is the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the US-based conglomerate General Electric.

He was selected by GE’s Board of Directors in 2000 to replace Jack Welch following his retirement.

Previously, Immelt had headed up GE’s Medical Systems division (now known as GE Healthcare) as its President and CEO.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page

10. Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Rank 30)
Age: 38 years

Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched internet giant Google in September 1998.

He co-founded Google with Sergey Brin in 1998 while pursuing a PhD at Stanford University, and was the first CEO until 2001-growing the company to more than 200 employees and profitability. Sergey Brin co-founded Google Inc in 1998.
 
Other Part Of This Posting

World’s 20 most powerful business people 1
World’s 20 most powerful business people 3

Bill Gates

They are the world’s most powerful people in the corporate world. They lead big companies or world’s leading financial institutions.

Meet the people who matter in the world of business according to the Forbes magazine.

1. Bill Gates (Rank 5)
Age: 56 years

Bill Gates is the chairman of Microsoft, a company he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world’s richest people.

He was the world’s richest man from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third.

Ben Bernanke

2. Ben Bernanke (Rank
Age: 57 years

Ben Shalom Bernanke is an American economist and the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States.

During his tenure as chairman, Bernanke has overseen the response of the Federal Reserve to late-2000s financial crisis.

Bernanke was a professor at Princeton University and was chair of the Department of Economics there from 1996 to September 2002.

Mark Zuckerberg

3. Mark Zuckerberg (Rank 9)
Age: 27 years

Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest in the Forbes’list of most powerful people in business.

He is the founder and chief executive officer of social networking site Facebook.
In 2010, Zuckerberg was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year.

Mario Draghi

4. Mario Draghi (Rank 12)

Age: 64 years

An Italian banker and economist, he succeeded Jean-Claude Trichet as President of the European Central Bank on 1 November 2011.

He was previously the governor of the Bank of Italy from January 2006 till October 2011.

Warren Buffett

5. Warren Buffett (Rank 20)
Age: 81 years

One of the most successful investors in the world, Warren Buffett is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and consistently ranked among the world’s richest people.

Other Part Of This Posting

World’s 20 most powerful business people 2
World’s 20 most powerful business people 3

PHOTO feature: A World of 7 Billion

While labour shortages threaten to stymie the economies of some industrialised countries, unemployed would-be migrants in developing countries are finding more and more national borders closed to them and the expertise they may have to offer.

And while progress is being made in reducing extreme poverty, gaps between rich and poor are widening almost everywhere

PHOTO feature: A World of 7 Billion

PHOTO feature: A World of 7 Billion

PHOTO feature: A World of 7 Billion

PHOTO feature: A World of 7 Billion

PHOTO feature: A World of 7 Billion

PHOTO feature: A World of 7 Billion

Anonymous to attack Fox Facebook banks and drug cartel on November 5

If you haven’t made it a point to remember the fifth of November before, hacktivists belonging to the group Anonymous are looking to change all of that this weekend.

According to various tweets, blog posts and message across the Web, November 5 will host a series of attacks on various institutions waged by members of the online collective Anonymous. Among the rumored targets this weekend include Fox News, Facebook and a notorious Mexican drug cartel.

Additionally, November 5 is scheduled to be the day that customers of big banks across America have vowed to close down their accounts and transfer their money to smaller institutions in alignment with the growing Occupy movement. Across the Internet and in Occupy encampments across the country, November 5 is being dubbed as Bank Transfer Day, Move Your Money Day and other monikers as part of the Operation Cashback movement.

Internationally, November 5 is recognized as Guy Fawkes Day, named in remembrance of the radical Englishman who attempted to overthrow parliament in 1605. His plight was idolized in the major motion picture V For Vendetta, and the Guy Fawkes mask from the film has since become the calling card for members of Anonymous.

On Saturday, those members are expected to open up battlefronts across the Web and in banks across the country.

Aside from the Operation Cashback initiative, Anonymous has previously vowed that it will take on the website for Fox News on November 5, swearing to shut down their servers under the umbrella of an agenda called Operation Fox Hunt. According to a YouTube video posted on October 22, the assault on Fox will come as a response to the cable news network’s lack of serious coverage aimed at the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Now in its second month, Fox was late to devote any coverage to the movement and, once it did, took a light-hearted and laughable approach at what polls show that many Americans feel is a serious issue.

“Since they will not stop ridiculing the occupiers, we will simply shut them down,” says a digitzed voice in the recent YouTube clip. “Fox News, your time has come . . . Operation Fox Hunt. November 5th. May the hunt begin,” the narrator adds.

In the past Anonymous has been mostly successfully with planned attacks of similar scales, running infiltrations on the computers of SONY, Bank of America, Mastercard and other major corporations and institutions. As RT reported yesterday, last week Anonymous successfully hacked into the computers of nearly 200 patrons of child pornography websites, exposing their IP addresses and computer histories and passing them along to international authorities.

Anonymous has also vowed that unless an affiliated hacker is received from the custody of the Zetas, a violent Mexican drug cartel, they will information relating to persons affiliated with the gang on November 5. Anonymous claims they have illegally obtained around 25,000 emails relating to the Zetas by infiltrating the computer network of the Mexican government and can out dozens of officials and authorities with ties to the Zetas. Should they follow through with their threat, this maneuver will surely open Anonymous up to not just legal ramifications this time, but as a security expert with the company Stratfor warns them, “abduction, injury and death.”

Rumors have also begun to circulate across the Web in recent days that November 5 will be the day that Anonymous will launch an attack on Facebook in an attempt to shut down the popular social networking site for its infringement on the privacy of its patrons. According to one video uploaded to YouTube by a user believed to be affiliated with the group, “Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world.”

Hackers pledging allegiance to Anonymous have openly discussed an attack on Facebook on other online sites, though others have publically denied that an infiltration has been agreed upon or authorized. Matt Peckham, a tech writer for TIME, writes that an attack on Mark Zuckerberg’s brainchild seems unlikely given the advance notice, writing, “When you’re planning to hack someone, don’t tell them in advance. More importantly, don’t tell them exactly when you’re planning to rock their universe.”

On the contrary, Operation Fox Hunt has been acknowledged by members of Anonymous and is still believed to be carried out on November 5 with warning having already been extended to the organization.

An attack on Facebook could stand to be the assault with the largest impact on the worldwide web before but could still be in scope for Anonymous. Earlier this year hackers in the offshoot Lulzsec successfully impacted the websites for the CIA, the US Senate and the Sun newspaper.

Regardless of what attacks are carried out on Guy Fawkes Day, the scale of the threat that Anonymous poses across the board is impressive. Small scale bank transfers in the weeks since the Occupy Wall Street movement began has led to dozens of arrests across the country, and as the United States gets heated over the ongoing police attack on Occupy demonstrators, this weekend’s festivities, no matter which threats are indeed carried out, are sure to escalate not just the Occupy movement but the awareness of Anonymous.

In a press release today from the ListenLogic Social Listening Intelligence Centex, the social business intelligence company writes that the there is a “high” threat advisory level for large US corporations for November 5. The company notes that threats against corporations have skyrocketed in the recent weeks, and that the majority of Occupy-related videos viewed on YouTube in the last month have included acts of violence.

The SLIC predicts violent action, flash mob and vandalism will be widespread on November 5, despite organizers with the Occupy movement condoning such acts.

“As ListenLogic continues to monitor this situation with a real-time SLIC for its clients, we feel it is necessary to elevate the threat level so that the public and all of corporate America are aware of the alarming social activity we are witnessing,” says ListenLogic co-founder & chairman Vincent Schiavone in today’s press release.

Schiavone adds that between Bank Transfer Day, Operation Fox Hunt and other initiatives, November 5 has the potential to create a “perfect storm . . . that could escalate into further hostility.”

RT caught up with legendary Queen guitarist Brian May, who also happens to be an astrophysicist, after a symposium of astronomers in the Canary Islands to talk about links between music and science, God, the universe and the mystery of death.

May says being both a musician and a scientist gives him an interesting observation point to view both.

“I love pure science and I love pure music. They are not the same for sure, but certainly throughout the centuries there have been people, who were immersed in both of them, from Leonardo da Vinci to Patrick Moore. Maybe it’s an abstraction thing, maybe people who like those things, don’t like the clutter of the world we live in. They just like to find the essence of life,” he told RT.

As a man of art, May has insights into life, which he has to put under question as a man of science, he says.

“If you say ‘there is no God,’ where is evidence there is no God? You can say ‘I don’t know.’ Being an agnostic to me is a scientific point of view, which is supportable. In my experience, I felt at times that there is a God of some kind. I don’t subscribe to any organized religion – that’s a different matter. But if there is a God, we have very little idea of what that God may be. That’s inherent in what we are,” he said.

Such limits of perception actually give hope at certain points of life, for instance, when you think of what come after it is over, May said.

“I’m inclined to think that out view of the universe is very simplified. A beetle crawling over a piece of paper has a very limited view of the universe. I think we also have a limited view. So this existence that we know may be just a very small part of the whole picture. I’m not counting on it, because maybe at the end of your life – that’s it. I don’t know. One thing is certain: you can’t use it as an excuse. You can’t say: ‘this life is very bad, but the next one will be OK.’ You have to make the best of what you are,” he said.

May, who contemplated suicide at one point in his life, says taking your life is very self-centered and thinking of people who love you and count on you helps in beating such thoughts.

“In a sense it’s a very selfish thing to kill yourself, because you make so much mess. You do terrible things to the people around you. I did check myself into a depression clinic, which was actually the best thing I ever did, because it was a new start. It was like re-starting your car. I had to ditch my preconceptions, and that work certainly gave me new energy. I realized that if I did not deal with the depression, I was of no use to anybody. It’s the same kind of logic as not killing yourself,” he said.

In an extreme world of ice and cold, it is one for all and all for one. Every human sent there to work is a vital link in the chain of survival. RT’s Sean Thomas went to Antarctica to see international relations at their best.

In the icy waters of the Antarctic, the Moano Wave research vessel was damaged in some very rough seas.

“Going to sea is never easy. It always involves risk,” says Christian, a crewmember on Moano Wave. “We ran into a storm and had some trouble with our rudder. So we came into the Frey Base here, where we are having the Chileans fly in parts and where the Russian base has offered help and other bases around have offered any help. That’s the kind of international help we get in the Antarctic which we might not get in other places, because of its remoteness and because all the countries that are here recognize the importance of all the work that we all do here.”

Working together is vital for the survival of those at the different international stations as well. In winter, medical evacuations are impossible because of the weather conditions.

“In light of this it is very important to co-operate with other stations,” says Pyotr, a doctor at Bellingshausen Station. “We are different doctors with different specialties so we complement each other. For example, my main specialty is orthopedic trauma. I am the only one here. As you can imagine, my specialty is in high demand here, therefore our neighbors get in touch with me quite often. We also ask our neighbors to help us with diagnostics devices we don’t have.”

One of the areas where co-operation between countries is strongly evident is in the realm of scientific research, where ideas and information are shared regularly so that multiple projects can benefit.

“For example we are working right now with the Germans, who are working a bit farther down the peninsula doing a krill survey, and we will combine our data with their data at the Kamlar meetings,” said Christian Reiss, a research fishery biologist at NOAA. “We also work closely with the British and provide any other help with scientific investigators that come aboard our ship to conduct their studies as well.”

In the lab, two different dive teams discuss how they can share information and samples between Russia and Germany.

And beyond the lab, different countries keep an eye on each other to make sure that all activities are in line with the Antarctic treaty system – an international monitoring program that helps protect the Earth’s southernmost land.

“I mean we have seen that just today visiting these bases, they all co-operate very closely. We have been treated very well by…the Russians, the Chileans and Chinese,” says Stuart Doubleday from British Antarctic Survey. “Fantastic facilities! The Antarctic treaty I think is one of the unique treaties in world history in terms of that kind of co-operation.”

This special bond of working together in such an extreme environment creates many lasting friendships.

“Back 30 years ago, when I came to this station for the first time, one Chilean said it very well,” remembers Viktor Mikhailovich. “He said ‘Leave the conflict to politicians, we the Pole People have to live in peace. Because if not for us, who should we rely on for help?’”