'Most Expensive Christmas Tree Ever'

Christmas came in extravagant fashion to the Muslim desert emirate of Abu Dhabi as a glitzy hotel unveiled a bejewelled Christmas tree valued at more than 11 million dollars on Wednesday. It is the "most expensive Christmas tree ever," with a "value of over 11 million dollars," said Hans Olbertz, general manager of Emirates Palace hotel, at its inauguration.

The 13-metre (40-foot) faux evergreen, located in the gold leaf-bedecked rotunda of the hotel, is decorated with silver and gold bows, ball-shaped ornaments and small white lights. But the necklaces, earrings and other jewellery draped around the tree's branches are what give it a record value. It holds a total of 181 diamonds, pearls, emeralds, sapphires and other precious stones, said Khalifa Khouri, owner of Style Gallery, which provided the jewellery.

"The tree itself is about 10,000 dollars," Olbertz said. "The jewellery has a value of over 11 million dollars -- I think 11.4, 11.5."

Asked if the tree might offend religious sensibilities in the United Arab Emirates, where the vast majority of the local population is Muslim, Olbertz said he did not think it would. "It's a very liberal country," he said.

Like other hotels in the United Arab Emirates, it has had a Christmas tree up in previous years. But this year, "we said we have to do something different," and the hotel's marketing team hatched the plan, said Olbertz.

SOURCE: "UAE hotel erects 11-million-dollar Christmas tree", December 15, 2010.

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'Storm in Israel unearths Roman statue'

ASHKELON, Israel, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- The massive storms that hit Israel earlier this week unearthed a white marble Roman statue of a woman in Ashkelon, officials said.

The 4-foot statue of a woman with her head missing, thought to be 1,650- to 1,800-years-old, was discovered when a cliff crumbled at an archaeological dig in Ashkelon, Dr. Yigal Israel of the Israel Antiquities Authority told Haaretz.

"It is a lovely white statue that is missing its head and part of a hand. It was apparently imported from Italy, Greece or Asia Minor and may have represented the goddess Aphrodite," he said.

"The woman depicted in the statue is wearing a toga and leaning on a square stone column. Her clothing was chiseled meticulously -- her toes are delicate. We see her sandals and her small emphasized bosom. Simply a stunningly beautiful statue," he said.

A passerby alerted the authorities after spotting the statue in seawater, he said, noting it was in remarkably good condition despite the fall.

© 2010 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Illinois man dies in crash; wife leaves car, vanishes

(CNN) -- An Illinois woman walked away from a car crash that killed her husband, authorities believe, but they have found no trace of her other than footprints in the snow leading to a road.

Shannon was last seen along with her husband Dale Shannon, 41, at a Christmas party Saturday night in Streator, about 17 miles west of Ransom.

"They were dancing together, really cutting up a rug," Dale Shannon's sister Donna Baker, who was at the party, told the Tribune. She said the couple -- married 20 years with four daughters ages 4 to 15 -- left the party arm in arm.

Her brother was sober, she told the newspaper, and was driving his wife's car.

About 1:45 a.m. Sunday, a deputy on patrol in a rural area of Brookfield Township found a one-car traffic accident, the sheriff's office said in a statement. "The deputy found a male occupant of the vehicle in the driver's seat deceased," the statement said. "Evidence at the scene indicated that a second person was also in the vehicle at the time of the accident. Further investigation revealed that the second person was possibly the wife of the deceased driver."

The car slid backwards into a pole, Templeton said, with enough force to break the backs of both the front seats. A relative told the Tribune Dale Shannon's back was broken.

Footprints were reportedly found leading from the car to a nearby road. But there, Tanya Shannon's trail ends.

The crash site was remote. A nuclear power plant lies to the north, but the area is surrounded by farmland.

By the CNN Wire Staff, December 7, 2010.

Napoleon's soldiers buried again after 200 years

The remains of 18 soldiers of the Grand Army of Napoleon Bonaparte were buried again in Lithuania on Monday. Nearly 200 years after the failure of the siege of Moscow, the men were obliged to flee to the west in the midst of extreme cold. The remains were found last year outside the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. Experts are of a view that the soldiers were members of the infantry, hussar and dragoon units.

A small group of representatives, diplomats, French military and Lithuanians attended the burial of the remains in a cemetery in the Lithuanian capital. A mass re-burial of 3,500 Napoleon's soldiers was held in 2003, but the remains of these soldiers were found elsewhere.

"These men were soldiers of Napoleon's army who participated in the Russian campaign and were returning to Moscow. They died of hunger and cold here in Lithuania," Michael Bourlet told Reuters, a military historian of the French military school of St. Cyr.

On June 24, 1812, ignoring the advice of his closest advisors, Napoleon invaded Russia. Never in living memory had so large an army been assembled, more than 600,000 men from every corner of his empire. Napoleon prophesied the war would be over in twenty days. Beware of false prophets!

When Napoleon's attempt to defeat Czarist Russia collapsed in the winter of 1812, the soldiers of his army retreated, covering 1,100 kilometers under freezing temperatures.

"Between 20,000 and 30,000 soldiers died in the Vilnius region in early December 1812. It's hard to make a more accurate estimate, because the Army was so disorganized," Bourlet said. The men were dropping off all along the path of retreat.

The French emperor, who would suffer his final defeat at Waterloo only three years later, left for Vilnius on December 5, leaving his soldiers just days before the arrival of Russian forces.

Pravda; November 30, 2010.

Mystery surrounds man in publicist killing

LOS ANGELES (AP) - He was named a "person of interest" in the killing of a Hollywood publicist, and he shot himself to death as detectives tried to question him - but police say it's still not clear if he played any role in the murder.
What is certain about Harold Martin Smith is that he was an armed career criminal possibly looking at another stretch in prison.

Documents obtained Friday by The Associated Press reveal that Smith, who acquaintances say had boasted of killing Ronni Chasen for money, was a convicted, two-strikes felon with a long criminal history.

Smith, 43, had most recently been released from prison in 2007 after a robbery conviction. He was discharged from parole last year and had told neighbors at the seedy Los Angeles apartment building where he lived that he would never return to prison.

Beverly Hills police detectives, armed with a search warrant, approached him Wednesday in the shabby lobby of the Harvey Apartments, told him to take his hands out of his pockets and said they were there to talk about Chasen's killing.
Smith pulled a gun from one of those pockets and shot himself in the head.
Police say it's possible Smith had no connection to the murder.

"Here's Harold talking all this (expletive). Cops are standing there looking at him, he's thinking, I didn't kill Ronni but I'm standing here with a gun in my pocket," speculated private investigator John Nazarian, a former sheriff's deputy who has investigated homicide cases. "He's going to go back to prison, for life probably. So he just decided to check out."

A third felony conviction could have brought a life sentence for Smith under California's three-strikes law.

By JOHN ROGERS and THOMAS WATKINS; December 4, 2010.