Bangladesh blogger hacked to death for atheist views. The 4th to be killed in the country this year

Popular blogger Niloy Chakrabarti, who used the pen-name Niloy Neel, 40, was killed yesterday Friday August 7th after a gang armed with machetes broke into his home in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He was well known for his atheist views and anti-Islamic writings.

"They entered his room in the fifth floor and shoved his friend aside and then hacked him to death. He was a listed target of the Islamist militants," Imran H. Sarker, head of Bangladesh Blogger and Activist Network told AFP

'Fantastic Four' director blames studio for the movie's horrid reviews

20th Century FoxJosh Trank.

"Fantastic Four" director Josh Trank took to Twitter on Thursday night and blamed the film's studio, 20th Century Fox, for the film's disappointing reviews.

Trank quickly deleted the tweet, but Variety took a screengrab of it while it was still online:

12 things you shouldn't do when visiting Hawaii

There may not be one single best way to vacation in Hawaii, but there are plenty of ways to do it wrong.

To have a great trip in the Aloha State, avoid these 12 pitfalls.

Then again, if nothing says vacation like speeding tickets, painful stings, and bland food, by all means ignore this advice.

Don't Automatically Opt for a Beachside Hotel

When imagining a perfect Hawaii vacation, many people envision a beachfront hotel with an ocean view.

But staying off the beach has its advantages, too.

Thai man sentenced to 30yrs in prison for Facebook posts insulting monarchy

A 48-year-old man named Pongsak Sriboonpeng was today Friday August 7th handed the lengthy prison sentence by the military court, having been prosecuted under Thailand’s royal defamation law.

His lawyer Sasinan Thamnithinan told AFP that his sentence was 60 years - a decade for each six Facebook posts he made but this was halved as he had pleaded guilty.


"It's broken the record," she said about the severe jail term. She further added that because Pongsak was arrested while Thailand was still under martial law there was no right to appeal the sentence passed by the military court.

Under Section 112 of the Criminal Code, anyone convicted of insulting the king, queen, heir or regent faces up to 15 years in prison on each count.

(Photo of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit)

Inside Asia's largest red light district with hundreds of multi-storey brothels home to prostitutes - from 72-year-old women who can't bring themselves to leave, to wives fleeing violent husbands

The pictures of women applying their make-up, waiting in their rooms and playing with their children offer a rare glimpse into the lives of the sex workers who ply their trade in Asia's largest red light district.

They are the residents of Sonagachi, in the western city of Kolkata, an area swamped with hundreds of multi-storey brothels, housing roughly 14,000 prostitutes from all over India.

It is thought as many as 1,000 women arrive every year to work in the brothels, and each of them have their own tale of how they came to live in the sprawling red light district.

Decades after meeting in Nigeria, student and teacher reunite in Charlotte

Because of his name and accent, it’s not unusual for Dr. Yele Aluko’s patients to ask where he’s from.

But in the early 1990s, when he got the question from this new patient – a retired Charlotte principal and Johnson C. Smith University professor – Aluko asked one of his own: Where do you think?

Spencer Durante guessed correctly that his new heart specialist was from Nigeria, in west Africa.

Commercial plane's engine catches fire at US airport

The engine of a Delta airline plane heading to Cincinnati from Nashville caught fire at a Nashville airport in the US this morning. The fire started when the pilot turned on the engine. The passengers were immediately evacuated from the plane with no one injured or any casualties.

One of the passengers, Phil Cobucci when recounting what happened said "No one heard anything. The plane really just stopped in the middle of the tarmac. The captain said, 'We had a misfire,' which didn't really make it sound like the picture I saw (later) when they started popping up on Twitter. There wasn't any drama. Everyone is fine. It was more like an inconvenience, really,"