Negative Blogs

Brazilian authorities on Thursday ruled the death of former world boxing champion Arturo Gatti a suicide, according to local media reports.

Gatti’s death initially had been investigated as a murder.

The boxer’s widow, Amanda Carina Barbosa Rodrigues, who had been arrested as a suspect, was released from jail Thursday, the newspaper O Diario de Pernambuco reported.

Her lawyer, Celio Avelino, argued that it “would have been impossible for her to suspend and hang a man of that size”.

Gatti was found dead on July 11 in a rented condo in Brazil, where he was taking a vacation with Rodrigues and their young child.

Police found strangulation marks on Gatti’s neck and a blood-stained purse strap at the scene.

The public safety ministry of the northeastern Pernambuco state said investigators determined that Gatti hanged himself in a stairwell, the newspaper O Globo reported.

Police official Paulo Alberes said Gatti used the purse strap to end his life, O Diario de Pernambuco reported.

An American who says he went to fight U.S. forces in Afghanistan told interrogators that about the time he became an al Qaeda member he came across several Belgian and French militants.

Belgian counter-terrorism sources said the group traveled to Pakistan’s tribal areas at the beginning of 2008, also intent on fighting in Afghanistan.

The Europeans — four Belgians and two French citizens, all of North African descent — were recruited, Belgian police say, by Malika el Aroud and Moez Garsallaoui, a married couple who had long enjoyed a notorious reputation among European counter-terrorism services.

El Aroud’s previous husband, Abdessattar Dahmane, had assassinated Ahmed Shah Massoud, the head of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, in a suicide bombing attack ordered by Osama bin Laden two days before 9/11.

When CNN interviewed the couple in 2006, El Aroud showed how she administered a pro-al Qaeda Web forum called Minbar SOS, which included pro-al Qaeda postings and propagand.

A 127-character tweet about a moldy apartment in Chicago could end up costing @abonnen $50,000.

On May 12th Amanda Bonnen, who has since deleted her Twitter account, responded to a friend with the tweet, “@JessB123You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.”

@abonnen only had about 20 followers that directly received the message, but her profile was set to public, and Chicago-based Horizon Group Management discovered the tweet.

Chicago Now reports the company then filed a defamation lawsuit alleging Bonnen, “maliciously and wrongfully published the false and defamatory Tweet on Twitter, thereby allowing the Tweet to be distributed throughout the world.”

Horizon is seeking $50,000 in damages.

If @abonnen’s statement is determined to be false and tweets are considered a legitimate form of publishing, she could be held liable for damages to Horizon’s reputation. But it isn’t quite that simple.

A British multiple sclerosis sufferer who hopes to die one day by assisted suicide will learn Thursday whether she can die with her husband by her side.

Debbie Purdy, 46, has been waging a lengthy legal battle to clarify Britain’s ambiguous laws on assisted suicide.

Her battle reaches its end Thursday afternoon when Britain’s highest court, the Law Lords, issues a ruling on her appeal.

Purdy’s condition is getting worse. She has primary progressive multiple sclerosis, which means her symptoms deteriorate over time.

She has said she wants the option to travel abroad to have an assisted death should her condition one day become unbearable.

Britain’s current law makes it illegal to help someone commit suicide, and anyone found guilty faces up to 14 years in prison. But it doesn’t make clear at what point that person would face prosecution — whether that includes sitting with that person on the plane to the clinic, opening the door of the car to the airport, or even helping them arrange the trip. What’s your view? When is assisted suicide acceptable?

Purdy has said she wants to die next to her husband, Omar Puente. If she gets no clarity on the law, Purdy has said she will choose to die while her condition is still bearable, because that way she can make the trip unaided.

She would leave Puente behind so he would avoid prosecution, she has said. But that would mean Purdy would die alone.

The Chinese economy may be roaring back to life, but concern is growing that record lending rates are feeding a speculation bubble.

While the U.S. and Western economies have faced a credit crisis, there is a credit feeding frenzy happening in China. China state banks have lent nearly $1.1 trillion in the first half of the year — more than the $800 billion U.S. stimulus or the $586 billion the Chinese government is spending to bolster its economy.

The record lending spree — equal to one-quarter of the nation’s total economic output — is helping China’s economy grow close to 8 percent the last quarter.

While boosting domestic consumption is seen as crucial to help reduce China’s reliance on exports, economists see signs of trouble ahead.

“China has a $4 trillion economy and has (public and private) loans out of $1 trillion,” Jerry Lou, China strategist for Morgan Stanley, told CNN recently. “Its loan book is out of balance.”

“Somewhere between a fifth and a third of total new lending may have ended up in such things as stock market speculation, real estate speculation and even a measurable amount may be showing up in the casinos in Macau,” said Michael Pettis of Peking University. The National Hard Money Association (NHMA)

There were 100,000 new cases of swine flu in England last week, nearly double the number from the previous seven days, authorities announced Friday.

Children 14 or younger were those predominantly affected, with those older than 65 showing much lower rates, the Department of Health said in its weekly swine flu update.

Most cases continue to be mild, the department said, but a small minority are severe.

The last weekly update showed 55,000 new cases. There is no figure for the week before that, but for the week ended July 3, there were 2,798 new cases. There were 1,442 new cases the week before that, according to department figures.

The Department of Health obtained the data from doctor’s offices that report their consultations for flu-like or other acute respiratory illnesses. It said consultation rates at doctor’s offices had risen sharply in the past week.

There are 840 patients hospitalized with swine flu in England, the department said.

NASA has released new pictures of the Earth showing the vast extent of Wednesday’s spectacular solar eclipse.

The longest solar eclipse of the century cast a wide shadow for several minutes over Asia and the Pacific Ocean, luring millions outside to watch the spectacle.

Day turned into night, temperatures turned cooler in cities and villages teemed with amateur stargazers.

The total eclipse started in India on Wednesday morning and moved eastward across Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Vietnam, China and parts of the Pacific.

NASA said the two images, left, were taken from a Japanese satellite.

The first showed the Earth at 8.30 a.m. local time in Taiwan and the second, an hour later, when the moon completely overlapped the sun (called totality) casting a huge shadow over the area.

A full-on brawl erupted yesterday in South Korean Parliament. The South Korean National Assembly turned into a bar brawl from a Jackie Chan film as members of Parliament voted on a media reform bill.

The ruling Grand National Party eventually passed the bill, which called to privatize South Korean media. The opposition Democratic Party felt that the bill was an attempt to rein in local media, and let their fists do the talking.

“As the votes proceeded, the assembly’s police encircled the deputy speaker, while members of minority parties repeatedly tried to jump onto the dais to halt the proceedings. One woman lawmaker from the main opposition Democratic Party screamed loudly in front of the podium and fought with other women who tried to quiet her.”

The longest solar eclipse of the century cast a wide shadow for several minutes over Asia and the Pacific Ocean Wednesday, luring throngs of people outside to watch the spectacle.

Day turned into night, temperatures turned cooler in cities and villages teemed with amateur stargazers.

The total eclipse started in India on Wednesday morning and moved eastward across Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Vietnam, China and parts of the Pacific. Millions cast their eyes towards the heavens to catch a rare view of the sun’s corona.

Cloud cover in some areas prevented people from fully savoring the phenomenon. Still, many were awed.

Tim O’Rourke, a 45-year-old freelance photographer from Detroit, Michigan, lives in Hong Kong but traveled up to Shanghai — touted as one of the best spots to watch the eclipse.

Chinese factory that makes iPhones said Wednesday that it has suspended several staffers after an employee committed suicide, apparently under duress when a prototype went missing.

Sun Danyong, 25, jumped off the 12th floor of the Foxconn Science and Technology Group in the southern city of Shenzhen last week.

The recent engineering school graduate sent 16 model phones to phone manufacturer, Apple, but only 15 were received, said the state-run newspaper New Beijing Post.

Because of the missing phone, Sun was questioned by company officials and — according to posts on online forums by his friends — detained, searched and beaten.

Apple China said it was awaiting the results of an investigation into Sun’s death.

“We require that our suppliers treat all workers with dignity and respect,” Apple said in a statement.