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19. august 2006
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Hollywood celebrity chocolatier Martucci Angiano claims to have discovered chocolate drippings that look like the Virgin Mary.
Kitchen worker Cruz Jacinto was the first to spot the lump of melted chocolate when she began her shift Monday cleaning up drippings that had accumulated under a large vat of dark chocolate.
Chocolate drippings usually harden in thin, flat strips on wax paper, but Jacinto said she froze when she noticed the unusual shape of this cast-off: It looked just like the Virgin Mary on the prayer card she always carries in her right pocket.
"When I come in, the first thing I do is look at the clock, but this time I didn't look at the clock. My eyes went directly to the chocolate," said Jacinto, dressed in a hair net and apron as she paused from her work. "I thought, 'Am I the only one who can see this? I picked it up and I felt emotion just come over me. For me, it was a sign."
It sure is sweeter than the Virgin Mary toast. My favourite is still the Allah sheep, though.
I made a plate of spaghetti the other day that looked like the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It must be a sign!
11:38:05 PM 
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No signs that the sex-for-food scandal among UN peacekeepers in Congo is behind us:
The United Nations is investigating a suspected child prostitution ring involving its peacekeepers and government soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the U.N. mission said on Thursday.
Among accusations being investigated is that pimps are using the presence of U.N. peacekeepers to lure vulnerable girls to go and work as prostitutes in areas of South Kivu where they are deployed, the mission said in a statement.
The U.N.'s 17,000-strong Congo mission, which is known as MONUC and is in the vast African nation backing a string of peace deals and supporting elections following a 1998-2003 war, has been hit by a series of sex scandals. "Although the majority of their patrons are Congolese soldiers and civilians, some of the girls involved mentioned that elements of MONUC contingents based in the region were also among their clients," the statement said.
This is a tragedy that has gone on for more than a decade. Perpatrators, immune from prosecution in the host country, have typically been suspended and sent home. Few countries providing soldiers have shown any interest in persecuting the abusers.
Maybe a warning here for Lebanon.
5:00:12 PM
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The good news is that Lebanon's 225 kilometers of coastline is probably going to be the best patrolled waters on the planet. As I wrote, Norway (which has a somewhat longer coastline) has decided, but not yet pledged to the United Nations, to send four of our soon-outdated MTB patrol boats to the Unifil peacekeeping force. Germany and Denmark have also decided that a naval force is a better option than risking ground forces in Lebanon.
When France, initially expected to lead the UN force, decided to only send a token 200 soldiers because the mandate is very unclear on rules of engagement, the whole beefed up Unifil force appeared to be in shambles before it even got started. Now Italy has indicated it will provide the bulk of the force with possibly 3,000 men, but the details are not yet clear. In the rest of Europe, governments are saying their small armies are already over-committed elsewhere.
Indonesia and Malaysia, countries that do not recognise Israel, are feared to make up the largest part of the Unifil force. Exactly what loyalties and qualities these forces will bring are also pretty unclear.
Today Israeli commandos raided deep inside Lebanon to disrupt arms smuggling to Hezbollah. Israel said one officer was killed and two wounded in the fighting. Three Hezbollah fighters were killed. If a serious UN force is not in place soon, this will not be the last disruption of a very fragile ceasefire.
1:45:14 PM
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The two suitcase bombs found on German trains last month were an actual attempted terrorist attack, German police says.
"It's more likely than unlikely that there was a terrorist background," Ziercke told a news conference in Wiesbaden. If the around 25-kilo (55-lb.) suitcase bombs had exploded they would have lead to "a fireball" in the train carriages and an "indeterminate number of injured and possible deaths," he said.
Speaking in Berlin Friday, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble also warned that Germany should brace itself for similar attempts. "Unfortunately, we must assume that the danger of a repeat of these attempted attacks." [...]
The investigators released images obtained from surveillance cameras of two suspects in the possible plot and announced that there would be a reward of 50,000 ($64,195) euros for any information which would lead to the capture of the two young men in the grainy photos, who were both described as being from "southern countries."
Ah, those Italians.
10:50:56 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.09.2006; 05:00:22.
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