Silvio Berlusconi loses a PINT of blood after attacker breaks his nose and knocks out two teeth

Silvio Berlusconi lost nearly a pint of blood after he was punched to the ground by an attacker yesterday.

The 73-year-old Italian prime minister is facing a second night in hospital after doctors admitted his injuries were worse than they had thought.

Mr Berlusconi also suffered a broken nose and lost two teeth during the assault as he signed autographs at the end of a stormy political rally in Milan yesterday.

He spent a quiet, if painful, night in hospital last night and is having trouble eating, his personal doctor said today.

He is also suffering from a severe headache.

However his friends are rallying around him - a spokesman said French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Vladimir Putin have both already phoned to commiserate with Mr Berlusconi.

His doctor, Alberto Zangrillo, said the premier's injuries would take at least 15 days to heal.

Berlusconi, a popular but divisive figure, said 'I'm fine, I'm fine' as he arrived at the hospital yesterday.

He reportedly asked to be brought newspapers upon waking up, no doubt wanting to read coverage of the assault on the front pages.

Berlusconi was attacked when a man stepped from the crowd, dodging bodyguards, before smashing the politician in the face - apparently while clutching a model of the city's Duomo cathedral in his clenched fist.

The prime minister told an Italian TV presenter visiting him in hospital that he considered it ‘miraculous’ not to have lost an eye in the attack.

‘This is truly a bad day for Italy, and it's the duty of all the political forces to ensure that Italy does not go back to the years of violence,’ Gianfranco Fini, Berlusconi's top conservative ally, said.

The incident triggered an outpouring of solidarity for Berlusconi from allies and critics, just as the prime minister seeks to regain political momentum after a bruising year battling mounting legal troubles and sex scandals.

Allies blamed the assault on an atmosphere of hatred swirling around the billionaire businessman.
‘What they've done to Berlusconi is an act of terrorism,’ Umberto Bossi, head of the far-right Northern League and a close Berlusconi ally, said.

‘An oppressive climate has been felt for some time and what's happened today is a worrying sign.’

The attacker, named last night as Massimo Tartaglia, was arrested by police and taken away.
Just hours after the attack, Facebook groups had sprung up hailing or attacking Tartaglia, including one fan site with more than 32,000 fans that labelled him a man with "lots of courage".

Television footage showed a stunned Mr Berlusconi with blood around his mouth as he was lifted to his feet by aides.

He was bundled into his official car but immediately got out, apparently in an effort to show he was not badly injured. After looking out into the crowd, the aides pulled him back into the vehicle.

As police officers swamped the rally, Mr Berlusconi was driven to a nearby hospital where he was given a CAT scan.

Doctors said that as he was being treated on a stretcher, he had told them: 'I'm fine, I'm fine, don't worry about me.'

There was no immediate suggestion of a motive for the attack. Police sources said that 42-year-old Tartaglia, from Milan, was not known as a political activist and had no criminal convictions apart from minor driving offences.

They added, however, that he had been 'receiving medical attention for mental problems' for ten years.

Before the attack, Mr Berlusconi had delivered a fiery speech to supporters of his People of Freedom party in the square in front of the cathedral. Scores of opponents had also gathered to try to drown out his speech.

Defence minister Ignazio La Russa who witnessed the attack said: 'I saw blood coming from the premier's nose and mouth. He was then pushed into the car by his bodyguards and driven away.

'He was actually trying to step on the edge of the door so that he could stand and wave to the crowds but his bodyguards would not let him do it, they pushed him inside.
The attacker was held immediately by the police and it's a good job he was because he risked being lynched by the crowd. There would have been just pieces of him left.'

The attack came after a speech that had been billed as politically significant but revealed no big policy shift.

Berlusconi launched a familiar tirade against the left and rattled off a list of government achievements, in a characteristically feisty performance aimed at shoring up his standing and ratings.

It is the second time that Mr Berlusconi has been attacked in public. In 2004 he was hit over the head with a camera tripod while strolling in Rome.

Last night's incident came despite reports in November security had been tightened-around him following fears that he was being targeted by Left-wing terrorists.

Mr Berlusconi has been at the centre of controversy for much of the year. In April it emerged that he had attended the 18th birthday party of a lingerie model, giving her a £5,400 gold and diamond necklace.

It prompted his long-suffering wife Veronica Lario, 53, to announce she was divorcing him because she could no longer be with a man who ' associated with minors and was ill'.

In June it emerged that escort girls had been among women invited to parties at his official residences. One claimed to have slept with him.

He has also been at the centre of a political storm after an immunity law his government introduced was overturned, meaning he could be put on trail for corruption.

In recent weeks there have been claims he was in the Mafia, allegations he has dismissed as lies.

An opinion poll published on Saturday indicated his popularity had fallen four percentage points to just over 50 percent as Italians fretted that his legal entanglements could distract him from government duties.

Stunned onlookers watch as mysterious orange UFOs swoop across Britain's skies

Darting silently in formation, the mysterious glowing orbs light up the night sky.

Some say these orange lights even weave in between each other with the precision of a synchronised flying team from some far corner of the universe.

Clusters of more than 100 have been spotted across Britain and even Holland, leaving onlookers with an eerie sense that, for all the mystifying beauty of the strange objects, they may have just witnessed an armada of invading UFOs.

The most recent sighting was on Sunday when they were seen in two locations, Merseyside and Lincoln. Days earlier a similar phenomenon was spotted over Cambridgeshire, where one witness claims each was as big as a house.

The sightings have prompted defence officials to check their logs and sent UFO fans into orbits of excitement. Engineer Paul Slight, 54, took photos on his mobile phone of the strange objects hovering over Lincoln at 10.30pm while he was cycling home after a day out with friends.

'There were 26 of them at first, dodging and darting in between each other like they were playing a game,' he said.


'After that, seven more arrived and weaved through the crowd of lights like strange kinds of aircraft. After five minutes of moving around, they hung in the air for a second then shot off into the sky and disappeared.'

A spokesman for nearby RAF Cranwell said the base was closed at the weekend so the lights could not be attributed to its aircraft. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence is examining claims that the Merseyside lights were connected to an exercise involving HMS Daring, docked in Liverpool.

An ex-military source claimed the lights were dropped by jets to simulate the path of a missile in order to test the warship's radar systems.

In Cambridgeshire, banker Scott Boswell, 37, said he saw more than 100 lights flying less than two miles above his home in Hinchingbrooke. The former soldier and experienced pilot said: 'I know they weren't aircraft – they were silent.

'And I was a soldier for a decade so I could immediately rule out flares or weather balloons. I really have no idea what they were.'

On the same night, May 27, at around 11.30pm guesthouse owner Auberon Hedgecoe, 40, of nearby Huntingdon, also saw the lights. 'There was no sound,' he said.

'They were travelling 15 at a time and every six minutes more seemed to be coming over the horizon. They were not planes. They were not balloons.

Each one was the size of a building.' Last night it emerged a woman has contacted her local newspaper to claim that the lights over Lincoln were Chinese lanterns – mini hot air balloons – set off at her wedding reception.

'They looked amazing, hope you all enjoyed the spectacle,' she said.

Nick Pope, the former head of the MoD's UFO Project, supported the Chinese lantern theory.

'I'm not disparaging the whole UFO phenomenon, but I'd say 99 per cent of UFO reports involving orange lights in the sky these days are attributable to these lanterns.'

Next 9/11 will be in Britain, warn banned Muslim extremists at meeting with exiled cleric

The next 9/11 will take place in Britain, members of a banned Muslim extremist group warned on the anniversary of the terror attacks.

The claim was made at a hate-filled meeting addressed via video link by exiled cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed.

Leaders of the Al Muhajiroun sect said Osama bin Laden had taught the Americans a ‘lesson’ seven years ago, but the ‘crusaders’ had not learned and the next ‘9/11 will take place in Britain, the next 7/7 [London bombings] could take place locally’.

Radical preacher Bakri told a 100-strong audience of supporters in Walthamstow, east London, last night that he believed the British government was trying to assassinate him and claimed to have foiled a bomb plot.

Technical difficulties meant much of his speech was inaudible, but his appearance was greeted by cheers of ‘faith’ and ‘god is great’ at the community centre.

Bakri’s right-hand man, Anjem Choudary, led the proceedings in person, under the auspices of a group called Association for Islamic Research.

The most incendiary speech was delivered by Saiful Islam, who lauded Bin Laden and al Qaeda for their ‘courage’ in retaliating against the ‘dictatorship and oppression’ of the West.
He said: ‘The blame of 9/11 belongs to no one but the American government. They are the terrorists.

'Sheikh Osama warned America numerous times, it was because of their own arrogance, because they thought they are a superpower and nobody could match them, that Sheikh Osama taught them a lesson - a lesson they still haven’t learned.’
Mr Islam, who is linked to an organisation called Salafi Youth for Islamic Propagation, warned that unless British and American troops were withdrawn from ‘Muslim lands’ they would be to blame for the consequences, saying the West would ‘never achieve security until our own [Muslim] lands achieve security’.

‘Wake up. Withdraw. Listen to the warnings. Muslims will stand side to side, not just al Qaeda. The actions of the British and Americans have given prominence to al Qaeda.

'All of us have a part to play in stopping the violence or the next 9/11 will take place in Britain, the next 7/7 could take place locally,’ he added.

Mr Choudary was the last speaker and was more guarded in his address to the young Muslim men that made up most of the audience.


But he criticised the Government for persecuting ‘innocent Muslims’, naming Bakri, Abu Hamza, Abu Qatada and Omar Brooks along with the defendants in the airliner bomb plot trial.

He said: ‘They [the Government] say they are civilised. But they don’t act very civilised. They jailed Sheikh Abu Qatada in Belmarsh prison. Is that the way you treat your guests?’

Mr Choudary then referred to Bakri’s notorious aim of flying the ‘flag of Sharia’ over Downing Street, claiming that this would happen by 2020 as 500 people a day were converting to Islam and laughing that Muslim families in places like Whitechapel and Bethnal Green in east London were having ‘10 or 12 children each’.

He ranted against mainstream bodies like the Muslim Council of Britain, who condemned 9/11 and 7/7, accusing them of ‘selling their souls to the devil’.

British journalism student gang-raped by asylum seekers in Calais squatter camp they call 'The Jungle'

More than a hundred asylum seekers are being held tonight after a British student was gang-raped by illegal immigrants in Calais.

The woman was writing a story on asylum seekers for her journalism course when she was attacked, police said.

Up to 100 men have been rounded up as potential witnesses to the crime, which is alleged to have taken place in a notorious squatter camp nicknamed 'The Jungle'.

Police said the attack was of a particularly 'brutal nature'. The victim is still in Calais.

The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was described as 'a London student who had travelled to France to highlight problems surrounding clandestine immigration'.

Police confirmed tonight she was born in Vancouver and also carried a Canadian passport.

A police spokesman added: 'She appeared to be working alone, which was clearly a very dangerous thing to do.

'We fear that the men she was reporting on attacked her in the wood where they were staying.'

The woman, who is thought to be in her twenties or early thirties, told locals she wanted to spend time with would-be illegal immigrants who were attempting to reach Britain by stowing away on lorries.

The squatter camp is in a disused industrial zone called 'The Dunes' and is a short walk from the ferry port.

Up to 500 men live there, supported by local charities.

Father Jean-Pierre Boutoille, of the refugee charity C’Sur, said: 'There are lots of journalists, including students, who come here to get to the heart of what’s going on, to write reports and produce films.
'When reporters contact us, we always ask to accompany them. We know the refugees as we see them every day.

'We would never allow a young female adventurer in this wood, especially not at night.

'On Tuesday we did not receive any requests for assistance, and nor did any other charities.

Yesterday, some 100 would-be immigrants to Britain were rounded up by a force of French riot police.

Most of the men claimed to be from Iraq, Afghanistan or the Middle East, although police believe many were from eastern Europe and the Balkans.

One, who asked not to be named, said: 'Yes, I saw a young journalist with a camera. Lots come this way.

'I don’t know who she was exactly, but she was young, perhaps 30, and a student from London.

'The word is that something happened to her in the woods.'

In 2005 a gang of immigrants was implicated in the rape of a resident of Oye-Plage, near Calais.

Calais became a magnet for immigrants in the late 90s following the opening of the Sangatte Cross Centre, which housed 67,000 immigrants over three years.

Before its closure in 2002 following an agreement between the French and British governments, many tried to jump on to slow-moving trains at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel, or hide inside lorries crossing to Britain on ferries.

The election of a new Right Wing council in Calais saw plans to open a Sangatte II abandoned, but would-be immigrants to Britain still arrive by the day.

The Home Office said the number of refugees caught entering Britain illegally from Calais has fallen to around 1,500 a year from 10,000 in 2002, when Sangatte closed.

Yew must be kidding! Lord spends £5,000 to trim his hedge...which is 40ft high

Even the most ardent gardener can find trimming the hedge a bit of a chore. But next time you pick up the shears with a heavy heart, count yourself lucky you don't have this giant to contend with.

Towering 40ft into the sky, it is the tallest yew hedge in Britain. And however unkempt your borders look, tidying them up is a doddle in comparison with the mammoth job involved in maintaining it.

For it takes no less than a pair of workers, a cherry-picker and two days of solid hard work, costing more than £5,000, to give the 300 year old hedge on Lord Allen Apsley's Bathurst Estate in the Cotswolds its annual trim.

All the graft does not just result in an immaculate looking garden, either. The cutting back of six inches of new growth this year produced more than a ton of clippings, which are then used to produce a life-saving cancer drug.

Yews produce compounds called taxanes which can stop the creation of new cells, and are thus invaluable to halt the growth of tumours.

The Bathurst clippings are collected by an agency which then sells them on to pharmaceutical companies who chemically extract the taxane from the clippings, purify it, and convert it into the chemotherapy drug docetaxel.

The drug has helped thousands of women in Britain overcome breast and ovarian cancer, and is also used to treat cancers of the lung and head.

The hedge is 33ft wide and stretches for 150 yards along the side of Lord Apsley's historic mansion near Cirencester.

As this year's trim was under way, he said: 'It runs right along the front of the house. You can actually see it from the town as it's taller than the wall.

'It's difficult to know exactly how old it is, but we think it was planted in about 1710.'

The 47-year-old father-of-two described how the hedge has pride of place in his garden, running in a semi-circle around the house.

He said: 'Cutting it isn't too dangerous but you do have to be careful. Luckily a man called Tim Day has been cutting it for 35 years so I think he knows what he's doing.'

Before cherry pickers were used in recent years, teams of staff at the estate used to climb up onto rickety ladders leaned together in an A-shape to trim the bush with garden shears.

Lord Apsley said: 'It must have been a very dangerous operation which took many people a long time to complete.'

The Apsley family have been on the estate since 1695 and use most of its 14,500 acres to grow crops.

According to the Guinness Book of Records, the world's tallest hedge of any type is the beech hedge at Meikleour in Perthshire, which ranges from 80ft to 120ft.

Pictured: The orphan deer adopted by a pack of bloodthirsty fox hounds

The heaving mass of fox hounds would intimidate even the biggest stag.

But tiny orphan deer Bam Bam isn't scared.

Like his namesake Bambi the 10-week-old is a friendly creature and trots along with huntsman Adrian Thompson, 42, and his pack of 60 hounds.

The pack immediately accepted the lost fallow deer when they found him shivering by the Thompsons' front gate just an hour after he had been born.

Rather than being overwhelmed by the attention of such a large pack of dogs, from the Chiddingfold, Leconfield and Cowdray hunt, the confused little fawn thought he'd found his family.

A surprised Mr Thompson said: 'Now Bam Bam thinks he's a Fox Hound because they all treat him like one of their own.

'He won't be going on any hunts though - he doesn't have the stamina for it. It's a fantastic sight to see although we know it's a strange one and Bam Bam certainly gets a lot of funny looks from passers-by.

'People shake their heads in astonishment when they spot Bam Bam in among all the hounds as if they can't believe what they're seeing.'

The friendly fawn is happiest among his fellow hounds on their daily walk.

Mr Thompson's wife, Karen, 41, said: 'Bam Bam seems most content when he's ambling along with the hounds. He's about the same size as them now so he fits in perfectly and walks along with the pack like they're his brothers and sisters.'

Although the Fox Hounds have come to accept Bam Bam as one of their own, Mr Thompson's other dogs are rather less tolerant.

He said: 'A pack of domestic dogs would most certainly kill a deer that came across it's path - I also have two terriers and they would certainly kill anything that came into the garden. They're only just starting to accept little Bam Bam but I still wouldn't leave them alone with him.

'My Fox Hounds are very different though - the image of them as savage killers is completely wrong. They can be very placid animals and are very accepting of other animals - especially deer.'

After Bam Bam was discovered by the dogs earlier this summer he was brought into the family home in Petworth Park, West Sussex by Mr Thompson's 12-year-old son, Tommy.

When Karen came down for breakfast that morning she was stunned to see the pair sitting happily on the living room floor.

She said: 'It was such a surprise, the deer wasn't afraid at all. He seemed to think that Tommy was his mum because he followed him around the room, and would hide behind the furniture if Tommy ever left.'

It was uncertain whether Bam Bam would survive without the care and attention of his mother who had deserted him just yards from the Thompsons' home, possibly scared off by the dogs.

Karen said: 'It was touch and go for the first few days. We had to feed him half an ounce of lamb's milk every hour - this had to be done 24 hours a day and was quite draining.'

Bam Bam is now regarded by the Thompsons as a member of the family.

Karen said: 'He wanders around the garden and comes to play with us. We've had a few garden parties and he is such a favourite with the guests - he's so friendly and is adored by everyone who meets him.'

Bam Bam, who will grow into a 177 pound adult, will stay with the family until they feel he can be safely released into the wild.

Karen said: 'We can't release him into the park here because there are too many people about. Bam Bam is not afraid of humans and we're worried that this may make him dangerous.

'He already gives us a nudge when he wants to eat and it's not so bad because he's only little but imagine what a nudge could do when he's got a fine pair of antlers.'

The Thompsons will be sad to lose such a treasured member of the family but they know they can't keep him forever and plan to set him free once he's fully grown.

Next year they intend to rehome Bam Bam in a private park where he will be able to join a herd and finally learn how to be a deer.

Traditionally, deer hunting involves chasing the animal with a pack of dogs until it surrenders to exhaustion and can be shot.

This practice was banned under the Hunting Act 2004.

Deer stalking, where the hunter is close enough to kill the animal with a clean shot, is still permitted but with no more than two dogs.

Why beaming messages to aliens in space could destroy our planet

Thanks to the foolish antics of a downmarket TV company and a website favoured by self-obsessed teenagers, planet Earth could be in for a nasty shock towards the end of this century.

For if, in the decades to come, a fleet of flying saucers arrives with malicious intent, they will be the culprits.

This week it was announced that documentary-maker RDF and Bebo, a 'social networking site' for dippy youngsters, are to use a big radio telescope in Ukraine to send a powerful focused beam of information - 500 messages from the public in the form of radiowaves - to a nearby star called Gliese 581.

A 'mere' 20 light years (120 trillion miles) away, Gliese not only lies in our cosmic backyard but astronomers think it is also home to one or possibly two Earth-like planets which could be home to life.

The Gliese 581 solar system is, in other words, probably the likeliest home for our cosmic next-door neighbours.

Surely this is a harmless piece of nonsense? What danger could there possibly be from sending a big 'Hello' from Earth to a nearby star system?

After all, aliens are probably just a myth and if they are out there they will come in peace. That's the idea anyway.

Let's get one thing straight: I am not part of the UFO brigade. I have seen no convincing evidence whatsoever that aliens have yet visited the Earth in person.

I know The X Files is a work of fiction, not a documentary, and I accept that those who claim to have seen flying saucers and even to have been abducted by strange little aliens are either sincerely mistaken, mendacious or mad.

I have no truck with crop circle mystics and those who believe the pyramids were built by little green men from the Planet Tharg.

We have been looking for alien life for several decades now, sending probes to Mars and Venus, and listening out for radio messages from the stars.

And, so far, we have found nothing. Not even a microbe.

And yet, I also accept that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We have been looking for extraterrestrials for only a very short time.

We have really considered the possibility of their existence for a few centuries at most - a tiny proportion of the time that we humans have been around.

Most of all, I accept that although we have not found aliens yet, the statistical probability that there are intelligent lifeforms somewhere out there must be very high.

There are, after all, a hundred thousand million stars in our galaxy - and more than a hundred billion galaxies besides.

Astronomers now think that most of these stars - more stars than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of Earth - have retinues of planets around them.

So far, they have discovered only about 250 of these potentially life-bearing worlds or 'exoplanets' but there are many hundreds of thousands of millions more out there.

Not all of them will be habitable, but many millions will probably be 'Goldilocks worlds' - not too cold, not too hot, not too big and not too small, but just right, in theory, for life to have evolved.

Indeed at least one of the planets orbiting Gliese 581 is maybe such a Goldilocks world.

And even if we accept that life will not evolve everywhere it can, we must also accept that on the one world we know life has emerged - our own - it did so with startling rapidity.


Life on Earth is very nearly as old as Earth itself, and this suggests that if conditions are right then biology of some form will come into being.

Of course 'life' is not the same as 'intelligent life'. The galaxy could be swarming with microbes and algae, shrubs and lichen, even rabbits, lizards and fish (or their alien equivalents).

Discovering that this is so would be interesting and marvellous, but it would not be the same as discovering fellow intelligent beings out there.

And even intelligent life does not mean 'spacefaring life'; it took us thousands of years to get from the invention of the wheel to the first space rockets and radio telescopes.

But the sheer size and age of our galaxy suggests that at least some other worlds should be inhabited by creatures at least as bright as us - creatures able to build radio telescopes and pick up messages and think about doing something about it when they do.

And herein lies the problem. One of the most plausible reasons that we have seen of no signs of aliens may be simply that they haven't found us yet.



Which brings us to the fact that the most likely means of our discovery by alien life is by sending radio waves announcing our presence through space.

Indeed, there are those who point out that radio and TV signals from Planet Earth have been leaking inadvertently into space since the dawn of the radio age 86 years ago.

Surely intelligent alien lifeforms - if they are out there - would have detected these Earthly signals by now, they argue.

After all, the signals travel on through space at the speed of light, so all star systems closer than about 80 light years away could, in theory, have picked up hints of our transmissions by now.

But in reality, picking up these signals will be hard, even for the most advanced civilisation.

Weak and undirected, ordinary television and radio transmissions become almost undetectable at cosmic distances. Yet powerful, focused signals such as the one to be sent by RDF/Bebo are different - they are far easier to detect.

So far, just a handful of such signals have been sent, the first message fired out by the Arecibo radio telescope in 1974. And these have generated immense controversy.

Some scientists, notably the physicist and writer David Brin, have pointed out the danger of shouting 'we are here' to a potentially hostile cosmos.

The fact is that if a civilisation even a few centuries in advance of ours (in technological terms) were to get wind of our existence then the results could be catastrophic.

For what if Gliese is home to a belligerent lifeform with infinitely superior technology to ours? After all, the history of Earth tells us that when advanced civilisations meet technologically backward ones, the results have been, almost without exception, disastrous for the people with bows and arrows.

If we are unlucky, the inhabitants of Gliese could send an invasion fleet. Since they are 20 light years away, the signal will not reach them until 2028 and it will be some decades after that before the fleet arrives here.

It is important to remember that any aliens capable of flying across the great voids between the stars will be in possession of technology so advanced that fighting them would be like taking on a modern army with spears.

We would have no chance. So the best thing may be to keep shtum.

Or to hope that the inevitable self-obsessed triviality that is bound to comprise any message sent by the Bebo community will be enough to convince any purple-tentacled aliens who are on Gliese 581 that there is no intelligent life on Earth whatsoever - and to leave us well alone.

He's been named the ugliest dog in the world, but after battling skin cancer Gus shows why he is a REAL winner

He's got a face only an adopted mother could love - and far more problems besides.

With only one eye, a withered ear, three legs and skin ravaged by cancer, nine-year-old Gus has been crowned the world's ugliest dog.

The nine-year-old Chinese Crested dog has spent the last eight years, since being rescued by owner Jeanenne Teed from a crate in a garage, battling all manner of illnesses.

Despite a series of operations costing Jeanenne more than £2,500, Gus is still battling cancer, but his loving family claim he is "so ugly he's cute".



Gus scooped the title of World's Ugliest Dog at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in California.

Jeanenne, 46, said: "We have had Gus for the last eight years.

"He had been kept in a crate inside a garage for a year when we found him. He wasn't socialised and his nails had grown to the point where he couldn't walk.

"When we got him he was four-legged, two-eyed and his ears stood up straight but he was in a bad way.

"He quickly developed hematoma in one ear and when that was stitched down his ear crinkled over.




"He had no hair. Most Chinese Crests can be beautiful dogs, but Gus was so hairless he was hideous.

"That was the beginning of the end for his ugliness factor."

In December 2006 Gus was diagnosed with skin cancer after patches of dry skin developed on his body and his legs became ulcerated.

The condition deteriorated so much he had to have his back left leg removed and he was given just six- to nine months to live.

Jeanenne and her children Janey, 16, and Tommy, 14, decided to act and opted for doggy chemotherapy.


"We had to decide: Do we put him through the treatment?," said Jeanenne.

"Was it fair to him, was it fair to the family? We were talking radical surgery, amputating the one leg and then taking quite a bit of the other leg to remove as much tumour as possible.

"That was the hardest decision to make and it turned out to be the right decision because after the treatment he was up and walking and he didn't miss his leg at all.

"Then we followed that up with some chemotherapy for three months."

Despite being an accountant, Jeanenne admits that her financial common sense went out of the window when she paid for Gus' treatment.

"The financial implications were radical, I am an accountant by trade so I am supposed to be very rational when it comes to finances but I became very irrational and common sense went out of the window.

"In total it cost the family $5,000.

"I went from driving a 1997 Mercedes Benz to driving a 1997 Ford Escort Wagon. Its a jump in the wrong direction if you know what I mean."

Due to his condition Gus receives extra special treatment in the household, which includes seven-year-old Chihuahua Buttons, cats Princess and Tiger, both aged seven, and two-year-old cat Slinky.

Poor Gus lost his eye thanks to a tiff with Slinky, who lashed out and scratched him, possibly in a fit of jealousy.

Now he is facing a second cancer battle, following the return of the cancer. Radiation treatment could cost Jeanenne a further £2,500.

However, for Jeanenne and her children, winning the ugliest dog award was just deserts for brave Gus.

"Gus is pretty ugly and he certainly has an ugly side where he has no leg or eye," she said.

"And even though Gus is still ill, we are hopeful he will be able to defend his title in a year's time.

"We are hoping he will stay healthy enough to do radiation in a few months and in that case we are back next year to defend our crown at the ugliest dog in the world competition."

Meet the tree with a face

Is it a demon? A new Doctor Who monster? A bit of rubbish art? No, it's a section of an oak tree branch that looks like a human face। Sort of.



The face-tree was brought into the Daily Times newspaper in Maryville, Tennessee on Monday, by Ernest Ward, a groundskeeper at the local Magnolia Cemetery.

Ward said it was found on Monday as he and co-workers cleaned up debris from a weekend storm.

According to him, a former worker at the cemetery believes the face is a spirit.

Thomas Beatie Gives Birth

Pregnant man Thomas Beatie gave birth to a baby girl on Friday.

Beatie - who received national attention when he appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in April - was born a female, but had his breasts surgically removed and legally changed his gender to male.

Due to the appearance of such a masculine-looking individual with a baby bump, Beatie has been the talk of tabloids for months. In reality, it’s not particularly astounding:

He kept his female sex organs, making this pregnancy far from ground-breaking.

“It doesn’t make me want to go and shave my legs or something,” he told Winfrey. “I’m a man, I just happen to be a pregnant man.”

On the contrary, Thomas Beatie, what differentiates a man and a woman is their sex organs. You’re a woman who takes testosterone.

Pictured: Monster crab with claws the size of a man's hand captured off the British coast

A monster crab - three times the size of average - and with claws bigger than a man’s hands - has been hauled from the deep.

The whopping 17lb crustacean measures an unbelievable width of more than two feet when fully extended, as well as having an impressive shell width of 12 inches.

It has an incredible a claw span of nine inches - big enough to break bones.

The enormous crab was captured by Paul Worsley, 39, on a recent diving trip to Lyme Regis, Dorset.

The shelled creature was so large that he was barely able to carry it to the surface.

Mr Worsley, from Aylesbury, said: ‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. I’ve seen and caught crabs before but never one as big as this.

‘It must be at least three times the size of an average crab, if not more.’ Mr Worsley has since returned to Aylesbury with his impressive capture.

‘Now it sits next to me in my office but we’re going to eat it in the next few days.

‘It’s going to provide a lot of meat - enough to feed at least 10 people’.

It’s not just Paul who was shocked by the size of the crab. Local fishermen have also expressed their disbelief at its giant proportions.

Douglas Lanfear, who was captain of the boat Mr Worsley was using in his dive, believes it to be one of the biggest crabs ever seen in the region.

Pictured: The puppy born without front legs who's now using model aeroplane wheels to get around

This tiny puppy may have been born without front legs but there's no way that is holding her back.

Hope, the appropriately named two-legged Maltese puppy gets around by using a specially-designed device which features wheels from a model aeroplane.

The energetic pup uses her hind legs to boost her body forward onto her chest and operate the wheeled prosthetic limbs.

The beloved pooch was born with only two legs and has small wriggling nubs where her front legs should be.

At first Hope moved around by hopping but experts said her her natural mode of moving eventually would damage her bones and spine.

The wheeled device was created by orthotist David Turnbill free of charge with makeshift shoulder joints connected to model airplane wheels.

Each of the device's 'arms' can move up or down independently of the other, allowing Hope to pivot and turn.

The spring-loaded prosthetic arms hook to a custom-fitted chest plate to allow Hope to lay down or sit up without removing the prosthetic.

The wheels she uses as front legs took some getting used to and at first the tiny lap dog would tip over to one side.

However practice made perfect and now the persistent puppy has mastered the art of wheeling herself around, there is no stopping her.

In fact she can bound across a room at a surprisingly break-neck pace.

'She gets around fine,' said the puppy's rehabilitation specialist Cassy Englert.

'She never knew anything other than hopping like she did. The hardest thing is teaching her a new way to get around that's going to actually be better for her,' he added.

Hope was taken in by Southern Comfort Maltese Rescue in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA when she was six weeks old.

When the puppy grows bigger she will need to have another device made for her.

Heinz mayonnaise advert with two men kissing set to become most complained of the year

A TV advert for Heinz mayonnaise showing two men sharing a kiss has sparked outrage from viewers.

After less than a week on the air, the commercial is facing claims of being 'offensive' and 'inappropriate' as well as unsuitable for children.

Some parents are annoyed the advert has forced them to have to explain same sex relationships to their children and it is already on track to become one of the most complained about of the year.

The commercial, which is set to run for five weeks, shows a family scene with a young boy and girl getting ready to go to school.

In the kitchen, there is a man preparing sandwiches who the children refer to as 'Mum.'

Their father, dressed in a suit, then enters the kitchen,grabs a sandwich and says to the other man: "See you tonight, love".

The 'mum' then shouts back 'Hey, ain't you forgetting something?,' before the two men engage in a kiss.

He then tells the other man: 'Love you. Straight home from work, sweet cheeks.'

The Advertising Standards Authority is still fielding complaints over the commercial after receiving 200 so far, but has yet to confirm if it will launch an investigation.

Heinz's advert is restricted from being shown in or around children's programmes as a result of rules around promoting products high in salt, fat and sugar.

But it is screened at all other times of the day, including between soaps and TV talent contests.

The BBC also came under fire after media watchdog Ofcom censured the broadcaster over two episodes of EastEnders.

Ofcom received 116 complaints over the portrayal of character Max Branning being buried alive by his estranged wife Tanya in March this year.

The first episode included the man's sedated body being dragged through a dark wood and dumped in a shallow grave. He is then aware as the coffin lid closes on him.

Opening scenes of the second episode portrayed him sobbing as the audience heard sounds of earth being shovelled on top of him.

Ofcom said both programmes had a 'seriously disturbing element to them' at a time when many children were likely to be watching.

It said information provided at the start of the programmes did not prepare viewers for the extent of the 'distressing scenes'.

The regulator said programme makers had not sufficiently respected their audience with the portrayal in a pre-watershed soap.

British mother arrested in Spain after 'leaving young son to burn on beach for 12 hours'

A British mother has been arrested in Spain after she allegedly left her five-year-old son to burn on a baking hot beach for 12 hours while she went to work. The boy's mother, aged 19, reportedly left him playing in the sand at the popular resort of Benalmadena, in the Costa del Sol, where he suffered serious sunburn and had to be later admitted to hospital. According to locals, at around 10am the woman went to work at the top of the beach for five hours, but failed to collect her child when she finished her shift. The boy is said to have later made his way to the stall, reportedly covered in blisters. A local source told the News of the World: 'He looked desperate for a drink and was crying his heart out. 'The stallholder managed to get the girl on the phone at around 8pm. 'But it was nearly 10pm before she turned up, claiming she couldn’t find anyone to give her a lift. 'She started screaming and threatening people who had helped out.' Police arrested the woman at the scene, having being called earlier in a bid to find her. A local police spokesman refused to comment except to confirm: 'It’s being dealt with by National Police.' It is believed the woman is from Scotland and moved to Spain after meeting a man on holiday there. A police source added: 'The burns were serious enough to warrant hospitalisation. 'She could be charged with abandonment and child neglect.'

Is this the car of the future? BMW builds roadster made from cloth

A car covered with cloth is something you would associate with the Flintstones, not the cutting edge of 21st century automotive design.

But BMW's latest concept car is exactly that - and it can change shape at the touch of a button.

The Gina - which at first glance looks like any other flashy sports car - is encased in fabric instead of metal panels.

Open the door and the slinky fabric creases and wrinkles like skin.

Turn on the headlights and the covers peel up like giant eyelids - designed to make the sporty roadster more aerodynamic.

And its seamless skin - a single piece of durable fabric - can be morphed at the flick of a switch to suit its owner's mood, offering an aggressive or classic look.

BMW's Christopher Bangle said: 'This revolutionary solution opens up new design and production potential.

'The outer skin can move and do things a metal skin couldn't do.'

The German car maker's pioneering vehicle is based on the chassis of a BMW Z8.

Its skin is made of a silver expansion-resistant textile which stretches across movable metal wires controlled by hydraulics. The Gina (Geometry and Functions In Adaptions) has no bonnet, roof or boot.

Instead, a single sheet of cloth is layered over its frame, cocooning the driver in the ultra-modern cabin.

Movable parts are controlled by hydraulics operated from a driver's console

'The high-precision fit of the material to the metal mesh also allows surface changes without slackening the tension,' a spokesman said.

'It has a major impact on the interaction between driver and car and enhances it by offering a variety of entirely new options.'

There is no need to lift the bonnet to get a look at the engine of this flexible motor - it opens from the centre like Hulk Hogan tearing off his T-shirt.

Opening and closing is similar to the mechanism on a doctor’s traditional medical bag, where clip-lock fasteners are held together in the middle by a rail.

That is until it rips.

Gina won't be coming to showrooms anytime soon, but BMW hopes the overall design philosophy will rub off on some of its future models.

In the meantime, you can see the car in the flesh at the BMW museum in Munich.