Dumped for being 'poor', Chinese man books movie theatre for $40,000

June 28, 2014

Beijing, Jun 28: A jilted Chinese man spent $40,000 to book four entire IMAX cinemas for first-day showings of the latest "Transformers" movie on Friday to prove his ex-girlfriend was wrong when she dumped him for being poor seven years ago, he said.

"Hu Xiaoyun: I was so poor when we were in our fourth year at college in 2007 that I could not afford just two film tickets," the man said in a posting on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo.

Chinese theatre copy"You said when you left for Beijing that I will always be that way. "I have been working hard for the past seven years because of that sentence and today I spent half my monthly income to book all the seats in Beijing's IMAX cinemas on June 27.

"I just want to say maybe your choice back then was wrong." As evidence he posted the contract with a booking agency and three receipts totalling 250,000 yuan ($40,000). The man has only been identified in Chinese media reports by his surname Wang.

Using the online handle Chicken Run 1234 and a profile image as a Na'vi warrior from the 2009 Hollywood blockbuster Avatar, he called on internet users to spread the message "until she sees it" and promised to reward reposters with free tickets.

They quickly ran out, and his message had been reposted more than 110,000 times by Friday.

Previous "Transformers" movies were box-office hits in China and midnight showings of the fourth instalment "Age of Extinction" took 40 million yuan in the early hours of Friday, a new national record, according to Chinese media reports.

The man said separately that his old flame had contacted him by phone. Both had put the feud behind them, he indicated, but there was no hope of rekindling their relationship.

"I promised her when we first met that if she left one day, I would make the whole world know I was looking for her," he said.

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Agencies
February 23,2020

Google has indexed invite links to private WhatsApp group chats, meaning anyone can join various private chat groups (including several porn-sharing groups) with a simple search.

According to a report in Motherboard, invitations to WhatsApp group chats were being indexed by Google.

The team found private groups using specific Google searches and even joined a group intended for NGOs accredited by the UN and had access to all the participants and their phone numbers.

Journalist Jordan Wildon said on Twitter that he discovered that WhatsApp's "Invite to Group Link" feature lets Google index groups, making them available across the internet since the links are being shared outside of WhatsApp's secure private messaging service.

"Your WhatsApp groups may not be as secure as you think they are," Wildon tweeted on Friday, adding that using particular Google searches, people can discover links to the chats.

According to app reverse-engineer Jane Wong, Google has around 470,000 results for a simple search of "chat.whatsapp.com", part of the URL that makes up invites to WhatsApp groups.

WhatsApp spokesperson Alison Bonny said: "Like all content that is shared in searchable public channels, invite links that are posted publicly on the internet can be found by other WhatsApp users."

"The links that users wish to share privately with people they know and trust should not be posted on a publicly accessible website," Bonny told The Verge.

Danny Sullivan, Google's public search liaison, tweeted: "Search engines like Google & others list pages from the open web. That's what's happening here. It's no different than any case where a site allows URLs to be publicly listed. We do offer tools allowing sites to block content being listed in our results."

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Agencies
March 14,2020

New Delhi, Mar 14: Excise duty on petrol and diesel was on Saturday hiked by ₹3 per litre as the government looked to mop up gains arising from fall in international oil prices.

Special excise duty on petrol was hiked by ₹2 to ₹8 per litre incase of petrol and to Rs 4 incase of diesel, an official notification said.

Additionally, road cess on petrol was raised by ₹1 per litre each on petrol and diesel to ₹10.

The increase in excise duty would in normal course result in a hike in petrol and diesel prices but most of it would be adjusted against the fall in rates that would have necessitated because of slump in international oil prices.

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Agencies
March 8,2020

New Delhi, Mar 8: In order to spread awareness, a special COVID-19 mobile phone caller tune was launched by all telecom operators with basic infection prevention messages played when a caller dials-out, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Saturday.

"In order to spread awareness about COVID-19, a special COVID-19 mobile phone caller tune was launched by all telecom operators. Over 117.2 crore subscribers of BSNL, MTNL Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodafone-Idea are being progressively reached out to through SMSs and Call Backs," Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in a press statement.

"As many as 52 laboratories are now operational across the country for testing the COVID-19 virus. An additional 57 laboratories have been provided with Viral Transport Media and swabs for sample collection," the statement added.

India has 39 confirmed cases of deadly coronavirus so far. The disease has caused deaths of 3200 people globally. 

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