Lahore, PAKISTAN (AFP)

A Pakistani woman chopped off her lover's (thing that shall not be mentioned on TownHall) after he wedded his cousin in a marriage arranged by his parents, police and hospital officials said Monday.

The man, 24-year-old Muhammad Shehzad, began a relationship with a 30-year-old married woman named Jamila after they met at a zoo in the eastern city of Lahore two years ago, police officer Asghar Bhatti said.

"Shehzad had promised he would marry Jamila if she got a divorce from her husband, but he married his cousin two weeks ago," Bhatti said, adding that this "infuriated her and she decided to take revenge."

"She invited him to her house last Wednesday and after serving some intoxicant cut off his sexual organ."

Police arrested the woman and she remains in custody, Bhatti said.

Doctor Sanaullah, who treated Shehzad at Lahore General Hospital, said they have been unable to reattach the (thing that shall not be mentioned on TownHall) .

"He has become impotent for the rest of his life and will be unable to perform his conjugal duties. He can never become a father," the doctor said.

WASHINGTON (AFP)

Outspoken documentary film-maker Michael Moore Monday endorsed Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama, decrying the "downright disgusting" campaign tactics of Hillary Clinton.

Moore, whose latest movie "Captain Mike Across America" tracks John Kerry's doomed 2004 bid for the presidency, said he had not given a "rat's a**" who won the nomination this year as long as a Democrat triumphs in November.

But having criticized Clinton for her 2002 vote in support of the Iraq war, the Oscar-winning writer and director now accused the New York senator of "stoking the fears of white America" against the mixed-race Obama.

Writing on his website on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary, Moore said that in recent weeks, "the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting."

He cited Clinton's mention of radical US Islamic leader Louis Farrakhan during a televised debate last week, in connection with Obama's controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright.

That, according to Moore, was an attempt to "smear the black man" (Obama) so as to sway Democratic grandees known as super delegates who look set to decide the presidential nomination.

"You have devoted your life to good causes and good deeds," Moore said in addressing Clinton, but now she was like "a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity."

The director of "Sicko" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" said he was endorsing the movement for change represented by the "exceptional" Obama, in order to end the war in Iraq and to hold corporate America to account.

And Moore said the Democrats could yet lose to Republican John McCain in November.

"We know there are still many Americans who will never vote for a black man. Hillary knows it, too. She's counting on it."

Congressmen Ron Paul of Texas and Barney Frank of Massachusetts have sponsored legislation that would undo a federal ban on Internet gambling — a law that took family groups nearly a decade to put in place.

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 gives financial institutions a government go-ahead to block payments to off-shore Internet gambling interests. The Frank-Paul bill, backed by the Poker Players Alliance, would cancel that blockade.

Dr. Valerie Lorenz, president and founder of the Forensic Center on Compulsive Gambling, says the Internet gambling industry feeds on anonymity.

“It is so readily available — in anyone’s home, at school, at work — without any kind of limitations or constraints,” she said. “You can gamble in the middle of the night at home when your family thinks you’re sleeping. Gambling is a profitable, greedy, private industry and government must protect citizens.”

Computer buff Will Wright created a multi-billion-dollar franchise with The Sims video games that let people play at real life affairs such as dating, working and raising children.

Now from September, Wright will let people play god with his latest brainchild Spore.

"The big hook with Spore is that practically the entire game is user created," said Shane Satterfield, editor-in-chief at GameTrailers website. "Spore is really the first game that pretty much puts all the power in the hands of the player."

Players start as microscopic life forms competing for survival in primordial ooze and work their way onto land, where they evolve into creatures that build civilisations and rocket into space.

"It is still probably the most interesting question for scientists and five-year-olds: What is life?" Wright said, giving AFP an advance peek at the game, which hits US and European markets in September.

"It starts out as single-cell organisms and then you are eventually flying around the galaxy exploring new worlds, meeting other creatures and creating federations."

Spore is marked by Wright's loves for biology, learning, science, and science fiction.

A microscope, a moon rover model and a necklace of magnetic nuggets are among the knickknacks in his office at Electronic Arts-owned Maxis in Emeryville, California.

"I see a lot of games with a science fiction back story, but that is different than having science as their DNA," Wright said.

Players dictate how their animated characters evolve. Creatures can have scales, fins, wings, claws, extra appendages, additional eyes, or body parts in unexpected places.

The online game's programming gives characters artificial intelligence and figures out how they should walk, laugh, dance, fight or do other things based on what they look like.

For example, a creature given fangs will be more hostile than one with teeth for grazing.

"How they play the game has a lot to do with how they evolve their character," Write said. "My engineers have the tough job of figuring out how something will move before they get to see what it is."

Creatures pass on virtual genes to their progeny and build civilizations with cities, governments and economies.

"It is more of a social experiment," Wright said. "Science, economics, sociology, things like that are very fun to simulate in the computer."

In order to avoid what Wright sees as "inconsistencies" in online games in which characters interact in common virtual worlds, Spore provides players personal universes with copies of planets and creatures made by others.

The game culminates with what Wright describes as a "toy galaxy" for players to explore.

"We want players excited about creative, free-form play," Wright said. "Anyone can make the creative process part of the fun, much the way Lego is."

With the release of the original Sims title in early 2000, Wright lured women and other "casual gamers" into a video game market long considered a bastion of "hardcore gamers," mainly young men.

Electronic Arts announced this month it has sold more than 100 million copies of The Sims, the world's best selling computer game. - Sapa-AFP

Minister calls for longer hours, less holiday

Friday 18 April 2008

There must be a return to a 40-hour working week and holiday entitlements should be cut, says economic affairs minister Maria van der Hoeven in an interview with Friday’s NRC Handelsblad.

The minister wants both issues to be put high on the agenda of the traditional spring discussions between employers, trade unions and the cabinet which are due to start next Wednesday, the paper says.

Higher pay for working longer hours is ‘the best remedy’ for maintaining spending power and for tackling the shortage of job applicants, the minister tells the paper.

Van der Hoeven has calculated that a full-time worker is entitled to 22 weeks paid leave a year - if he makes use of all the possibilities for days off.

The minister warns against higher salaries without increased productivity saying this will accelerate inflation.

But the unions are using the higher fuel and food prices to demand bigger pay rises, says the paper. Agnes Jongerius, chairwoman of the country’s biggest union federation, FNV, has threatened to call for pay rises of over 3.5% unless the cabinet backs down on its plan to up VAT stax from 19% to 20% next year.

She wants buying power to rise by at least 1% in 2008. ‘The economy is running, companies’ tax and premiums have gone down, but people’s spending power is going down. We think it’s clear what needs to be done,’ she told the NRC.

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