The Hangover News

Chemical Weapons
THE US SAY THEY HAVE EVIDENCE THAT SARIN GAS WAS USED IN SYRIA
It's not from the UN inspectors, but that doesn't seem to matter 

John Kerry. (Photo via)

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US Secretary of State John Kerry says America has evidence that the chemical nerve agent sarin was used in an attack in Damascus last month.

The evidence, however, reportedly comes from the American government's own sources rather than the UN inspectors currently carrying out an investigation into chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

Washington has said that only the Syrian government have the resources to launch such an attack, however there is still no finite proof that the chemical attack didn't come from the rebels.

Since the UK pulled out of intervening in Syria, President Obama announced that Congress would vote on America's involvement before any decision was made, but – since their sarin evidence emerged – Kerry has said that he is confident that Congress will give its approval to the US solving the Syrian crisis by dropping bombs on the troubled country.

Undesirable Titles
THE UK IS THE EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF ADDICTION
Apparently northerners love boozing and everyone loves legal highs

Cornelius and Amy from Swansea Love Story, our documentary about heroin addiction in south Wales.

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A think tank has warned that the UK has become the drug and alcohol "addictions capital of Europe".

Which obviously isn't the best of news.

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) said that drink and drug abuse cost the UK £36 billion a year, and that one in 12 young people admitted to taking legal highs – the highest figure in the continent.

The report found that 52 people in England and Wales died after taking legal highs, up from 28 last year, and that there are now more than 130 UK-registered websites selling the products cheaply by mail order.

On to alcohol, and you'll be happy to hear that alcohol dependence among women is higher in the UK than anywhere else in Europe, and that 26 of the 30 local authorities with the highest rate of alcohol-related admissions are in the north of the country.

Noreen Oliver, chairwoman of the CSJ review, said, "Despite some slow progress in this last three years, much more needs to be done to tackle the root causes of addiction so that people have a better chance of breaking free."

More Depressing Stuff
FUKUSHIMA RADIATION LEVELS ARE WAY WORSE THAN EVERYONE THOUGHT
Eighteen times worse, in fact

Fukushima. (Photo by Toshiya Watanabe)

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Japanese authorities have announced that radiation levels around Fukushima nuclear plant are 18 times higher than previously thought.

The plant was damaged by the 2011 earthquake – and subsequent tsunami – that hit northeastern Japan, knocking out cooling systems to the reactors, three of which melted down entirely.

Since then, water has had to be pumped in constantly to cool the reactors, and it was some of this radioactive water that leaked out into the ground around the plant.

This is believed to be the fourth major leak from storage tanks at Fukushima since the earthquake, and the worst so far in terms of volume.

Egyptian Espionage
THE FRENCH "SPY SWAN" DETAINED IN EGYPT IS NEITHER A SPY NOR A SWAN
Which is one of the more shocking revelations to come out of the crisis in Egypt

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In an astounding scoop straight out of a le Carré novel, it has been revealed that the French "spy swan" apprehended by Egyptian authorities is, in fact, neither of things it was accused of being.

Suspicions were first aroused when a man in Egypt’s Qena governorate – around 280 miles from Cairo – spotted the bird, which had a piece of electronic equipment attached to its leg.

After being detained behind bars in a human prison for an unspecified amount of time, Egyptian authorities announced that the device attached to "the swan" was actually a tracker used by French scientists to follow the movement of migratory birds.

A picture was then released of the swan, looking a lot more like a stork than a swan.

And this isn't the first time this year that an animal has been accused of aiding a foreign country with espionage; in July, a kestrel detained by Turkish villagers on suspicion of being a non-human Israeli spy was cleared and released back into the wild.

Criminal Fetishes
LUKE CHRISCO GOT SENTENCED TO THREE YEARS FOR HIDING IN PORTALOOS AT A YOGA FESTIVAL
A woman spotted the faeces-stained 31-year-old emerge from below her and run away 

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Remember our story about finding a piss dungeon inside a London pub?

Luke Chrisco, a 31-year-old resident of Boulder, Colorado, clearly had a similar idea, but wanted to step his operation up a notch.

So, instead of settling for a toilet cubicle in a pub, he worked his way under a bunch of portaloos at a yoga festival and watched women use the toilet from there.

Police were alerted to Chrisco's behaviour after a woman saw something moving in the tank of the portable toilet, before spotting a faeces-covered man emerge and run away.

The Evel Knievel of the peeping Tom world was arrested in 2011 and, this weekend, sentenced to three years in jail and ten years of probation.