The XO Directory

In China, Jin Chang's small two-storey home is holding down a £300 million development scheme by refusing to abandon his home. His house the last one standing in the area in the center of a construction site. Jin Chang is asking more compensation before agreeing to demolish his house.

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If you think you are safe with all this gadgetries in you position, watch this video and see how a GPS can leave you vulnerable to break-in to you house.

A Korean woman named Cha has failed the driving test for 771 times. Since 2005, she has been taking the preliminary written section of the driving test but has never passed, averaging only 30-50, while the passing mark is 60 out of 100. It is estimated that, Cha has spent more or less five million won for all the exams. If she pass, she plans to buy a car for her door-to-door food selling business.

"I feel sorry every time I see Cha fail. When she passes, I'll make a commemorative tablet myself and give it to her," one officer was quoted as saying.

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Warning to burglar, this could also happen to you. A burglar in Malaysia was caught by authorities after being stucked in a haunted house for three days. He claimed a ghost kept him from leaving the house.

Police official Abdul Marlik Hakim Johar told The Star newspaper the house's owners found the 36-year-old man fatigued and dehydrated when they returned from vacation Thursday.

The man told police that every time he tried to escape, a "supernatural figure" shoved him to the ground.

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Stipe Cavlovic couldn't believe when he caught a bullet fired at them, with his false teeth. Stipe Cavlovic and his wife Mirna, got caught up in a row between two men, one them fire. The bullet ricocheted off Mirna's cheek and got stuck in Stipe's false teeth. Surprised, Stipe then spat out the hot bullet terrifying his attacker and fled.

I thought I was dead for sure," he told police. "I didn't even see the bullet hit my wife. I just saw the flash of the gun's barrel.

"The next thing I knew was something hit my false tooth and I spat out the hot lead. It hurt like hell but we're both still alive."

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Jim Litz should consider himself very lucky to just suffer bruises, or else he might be one of the recipient of a successful face transplant.

While traveling 25 mph on his bike going to work, Jim, a middle school teacher, had a collision course with a black bear. He and the bear went cartwheeling down the road.

Lucky for him that the bear was not in the revengeful mood and just walk out of the scene. He was brought to a hospital by his wife who drove by shortly after the crash.

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This maybe a Guinness World record. A Lebanese couple, Raymond Salha and his wife, found 26 pearls in their oyster lunch.

Believing it was valuable, they called their city's maritime museum and took the oysters with the pearls inside it. They later told the couple that they counted only 25 pearls.

The oyster was preserved and the couple display it in their restaurant.

At the museum, Salha said officials later told him they counted "only" 25 pearls. He insisted however, that he and his wife Amal counted a total of 26 pearls of varying sizes inside the oyster, some very small.

A few days later, the oyster was preserved and returned by the museum, along with the pearls. Salha, who insists the oyster still contains 26 pearls, plans to keep it on display at his restaurant.

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In Cambodia and it's neighboring country Vietnam, rat meat is in high demand. Officials blame the economy as the reason why Cambodians are preferring it over livestock and poultry meat. Rat meat is also in demand in Vietnam and is eaten in Thailand and India to combat high prizes of meat prize in the market.

Officials said rats were fleeing to higher ground from flooded areas of the lower Mekong Delta, making it easier for villagers to catch them.

"Many children are happy making some money from selling the animals to the markets, but they keep some for their family," Ly Marong, an agriculture official, said by telephone from the Koh Thom district on the border with Vietnam.

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John Pearce maybe one of the world's dumbest burglar. He was caught dangling upside down when his shoelaces was caught by the window of his victim after smashing it. He was in that position of about an hour as a crowd of 30 neighbours and passers-by gathered to ridicule him before the house owner and police arrived.

Mr Ives, 44, an air conditioning engineer who recently moved into the house, said: 'The man must be the world's dumbest thief.

'He was hanging upside down. His body was inside the house and he was stuck in the window with his foot outside.

'The more he struggled, the more he got jammed. When I got home, he still had the hammer in his hand which he had used to smash the main window and get some leverage.

'He was screaming to get him down and we were all saying, "I don't think so".

'He kept saying, "I haven't done anything. I was stopping the burglars".'

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A barbie fishing rod made a record catfish catch in backyard pond. The catfish, which weighed 21 pounds and 1 ounce, was caught by David Hayes when his granddaughter asked him to hold the rod and reel for her. The next thing he know, he have a state record catch.

Alyssa's father had bought the pink Barbie fishing rod for Christmas and she had caught a few bluegill before her grandfather hauled in the catfish.

The Winston-Salem Journal reported the catch Aug. 5 in eastern Wilkes County has been certified as a record by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

Hayes and his granddaughter have been fishing in the pond behind his house since she was big enough to hold a pole.

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A Bigfoot that was found in North Georgia is gaining so much attention since yesterday when the two Bigfoot hunters who claims to have discovered the body made a press conference about their latest discovery. The two hunters presented photos and DNA samples of the Bigfoot but many wants to see the real body which is, according to the hunters, in a freezer somewhere. Many are speculating this is another big hoax but the two hunters are claiming otherwise.

"We were not looking for Bigfoot. ... We wouldn't know what we were doing if we did," said Whitton, a police officer on leave after being shot in the hand while making an arrest. "I didn't believe in Bigfoot at the time. ... But you've got to come to terms with it and realize you've got something special. And that's what it was."

The men say they were hiking in early June when they discovered the body of a 7-foot-7, 500-pound half-ape, half-human creature near a stream. They also claim to have spotted about three similar living creatures -- and showed reporters video stills of what they say is one of those creatures shadowing them through the woods.

The announcement, which the men first made on the Internet radio show "Squatch Detective" several weeks ago, has been greeted with healthy skepticism, even among some Bigfoot enthusiasts.

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Once considered the world's heaviest living man, Manuel Uribe finally got his first outing in five years. He was forklifted in his specially designed bed to a platform truck to a lake in Mexico. He now weighs 700 pounds after losing more than 500 pounds through dieting and bed exercise.

Once considered the world's fattest man when his weight hit over half a ton, more than two years of steady dieting had helped Uribe drop to about 700 pounds as of June - 550 pounds less than his former Guinness record weight of 1,235 pounds. He did not say what his current weight is.

While somewhat bothered by the summer heat, Uribe appeared to enjoy Sunday's outing. He is still unable to walk, and his last planned outing in March was aborted after the platform carrying his bed got stuck under an overpass.

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In this video, 'The Pregnant Man', Thomas Beatie, the first legally transgender male to give birth, and his three-week-old baby are shown for the first time. The baby girl, named Susan Juliette, was 9 pounds, 5 oz. at birth.



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Now this one's pretty much a tough 11 year old Brazilian boy. He fend off a attack from a bull dog who bit his left arm by biting back it's neck.

Almeida grabbed the dog by the neck and bit back — biting so hard that he lost a canine tooth.

Almeida tells the O Globo newspaper: "It is better to lose a tooth than one's life."

Stonemasons working nearby chased the dog away before it could attack again.

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This one's called a horny competition.

Nine British women faced prostitution charges after being caught taking part in an oral sex competition in Zakynthos in Greece. Another six British men, six Greek men and two bar owner were also arrested.

The women, who came to the popular resort on holiday, had been paid to take part in the competition, which was video recorded and was to be posted on the Internet, police said.

The men were charged with encouraging obscene behavior.

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How would you like to bath in a pool with a shark? Try this one.

A one-metre shark was found in a rock pool in Sydney. It end up in the pool when it was swept by a freak wave during the evening. The shark was released unharmed back to the sea and there were no harmed bathers.

"It was quite calm, just swimming happily up and down at one end of the pool," she told AFP.

"It's funny, though, because we have swimmers who come here at 06:00 every morning to do laps. It's still dark then and they mustn't have even noticed it was there."

Cole said the shark must have been swept into the pool overnight by a large wave.

"It's the first time we've had a shark in the pool," she said.

"We've had seals sunbaking there before, and get dolphins at the beach all the time, but I've never heard of a shark getting caught in a pool before."

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Juan Manuel Alvarez caused a train crash after he attempts to commit suicide three years ago by parking his car in a train track. He later change his mind but failed to get his car off track. The crash leaved 11 fatalities and more than 180 people were injured. He was convicted of murder on June 27, 2008 and faces the death penalty.

Prosecutors said Alvarez caused the accident on the Metrolink commuter line on January 26, 2005 deliberately to get attention.

His lawyers claimed however that Alvarez had parked his car on the tracks to commit suicide but was unable to remove it after he changed his mind at the last minute.

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A police helicopter, with a three-man crew, had a close encounter with a UFO. They are forced to swerve sharply to avoid being hit by it. It would have been a direct hit, the crew said. This extraordinary incident which took place near an RAF base outside Cardiff, South Wales, was said to be the first sightings of its kind.

“They are convinced it was a UFO. It sounds far-fetched, but they know what they saw.

“These guys are hardened professionals and know people will take the mickey, but they are certain they saw a UFO.”

The source added to The Sun: “After the near-collision they decided to follow it to find out what the hell it was.

"They belted across the Bristol Channel in pursuit, but it was too quick. They got to the North Devon coast and had to turn back because they were running low on fuel.”

The police Eurocopter, an EC135T21, was hovering in the sky above RAF St Athan late at night, waiting to land, a police spokeswoman confirmed.

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If you think Friday the 13ths is the unluckiest days, think again. Study shows that Friday the 13ths is luckier than other Fridays.

"I find it hard to believe that it is because people are preventatively more careful or just stay home, but statistically speaking, driving is a little bit safer on Friday 13th," CVS statistician Alex Hoen told the Verzekerd insurance magazine.

In the last two years, Dutch insurers received reports of an average 7,800 traffic accidents each Friday, the CVS study said. But the average figure when the 13th fell on a Friday was just 7,500.

There were also fewer incidents of fire and theft, although the average value of losses on Fridays 13th was slightly higher.

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11 year old Tyler Hemmert survived after a butter knife was stuck in his head when another boy became angry with him and his friend and hurled the knife. He was lucky that the knife only grazed his skull. Doctors was able to remove and he was left with a five stitches and a story to tell.

“The CAT scan showed that indeed it was just under his scalp,” Dr. Andy Reed told NBC News reporter John Larson. “There were no fractures obvious to the skull.” Tyler, who equated the pain to a bee sting, left the hospital with just five stitches. “I’m feeling fine right now,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt right now at all.” With the scar has also come some notoriety for Tyler. Some friends, he says, have even called him “Butterhead.”

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