A China Airlines jet exploded into flames at an airport in Okinawa after arriving from Taiwan. None of the 157 passengers were injuried.

All 157 passengers disembarked from the Boeing 737 before the fire began.The two pilots and all six flight attendants made it off the plane alive.

Flight CI120 burst into flames after all the passengers had disembarked. It took firefighters an hour to extinguish the flames. They had doused the plane with extinguishers as flames and clouds of black smoke billowed from the fuselage.

What a lucky escape!

Heinz Barth, a former Nazi SS lieutenant who was convicted of involvement in a massacre of French villagers in 1944 has died of cancer in Germany at the age of 86. Barth, who lost a leg in the war, suffered from diabetes, high blood pressure and other ailments.

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The world’s oldest person has died of old age in a nursing home in Fukuchi, Japan at the age of 114.

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A stone bridge being built in China collapsed killing at least 14 people and injuring 22. 65 people were also believed to be missing.

Between 200 and 300 workers were removing scaffolding from the 320 metre long stone bridge spanning the Jiantuo River when it suddenly collapsed.

The bridge in Hunan province’s Fenghuang county had decorative stone arches and was designed to be a tourist attraction.

Fidel Castro turned 81 today. Fireworks exploded over Havana Bay in celebration. Hundreds of people stood on the Malecon sea front just after midnight to watch the fireworks marking Castro’s birthday and the end of Havana’s annual summer carnival.

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An eight-year-old Israeli boy was found alive after he spent six hours floating at night in the Dead Sea.

The boy went missing on a family trip to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth and one of Israel’s most popular tourist attractions, where an abnormally high salt concentration allows swimmers to float on the water’s surface.

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Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader is to appear in an ad campaign for Louis Vuitton, along with tennis stars Steffi Graf, Andre Agassi and French actress Catherine Deneuve.

Shot by photographer Annie Liebovitz, the ads will focus on travel – a “core value” for the company which started in 1854 as a trunk-maker.

Gorbachev will be featured in a car, a Vuitton bag at his side and the Berlin Wall in the background. Graf and her husband Agassi will be shown snuggling a hotel room bed. Deneuve will sit on a Vuitton suitcase in a foggy train station.

Vuitton said it was making a donation to two charities, former US vice president Al Gore’s The Climate Project to fight global warming and Green Cross International, founded by Gorbachev to promote sustained development.

The campaign is to appear in magazines in September.

Good man Gorby!

Apparently, the Italian Political Class are living a life of luxury and it isn’t pleasing the Italian masses.

Italy’s President has ordered the presidential palace to make sweeping budget cuts in a bid to appease public opinion.

The Palazzo del Quirinale costs €235m a year to run – twice as much as the White House and four times as much as Buckingham Palace – this is mainly salaries for more than 2,000 civilian and police employees.

The Italian parliament voted to cut their pension privileges and cancelled an annual grant of €3,100 for “travel and research abroad”, an amount paid to all Member of Parliament whether they travelled or not!

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I guess at 51 years of age Bill has finally decided to enjoy some of his immense wealth.

We get one chance to live life so I guess he’s taking the chance to live it now.

What motivates a man who is so wealthy that he can never want for anything?

The man has the ability to do some good in the world with his money and his influence. I hope he’ll  do some good and not end up as another fat cat sailing around the Mediterranean in his overly sized yacht.

Britain’s Prince Charles gave his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, an unusual gift on her 60th birthday — two sheep!

“Camilla is absolutely chuffed to bits.”

Good man Charlie! Hope you have lots of lambs together!!