| Gill Charlton: on the case
Travel expert Gill Charlton tackles your travel conundrums. This week: timeshare points, speed sight-seeing in Hong Kong, and using British credit cards in the US. Travel directory Previous On the Case article Contact Gill Making the most of your unwanted timeshare points Name and address supplied My wife and I purchased a timeshare apartment in Marbella in 2001 from Timeshare Supermarket for £1,000. When we spent our first holiday there the following October, we were persuaded to deposit our week with the timeshare exchange company, RCI, in return for 46,000 points that we could spend in other resorts. In 2003, we were given a free week's holiday at another resort and while there we were persuaded to purchase an additional 30,000 RCI points for £2,000.
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Trader shot at, robbed of Rs 3.60 lakh
The law and order situation in the city has come under a scanner with four armed robbers shooting a trader in the abdomen and snatching Rs 3.60 lakh from him near the grain market, on a bylane of the Gill Road at noon today. The ADGP (Law and Order), Mr Chander Shekhar, rushed to the city in the afternoon to take stock of the situation. Already IG, Jalandhar Zone, Hardeep Singh Dhillon is camping in the city to trace a kidnapped youth, Vikramjit Singh. Even the DIG, Ludhiana Range, Mr Parag Jain, immediately reached the spot. The police said the trader, Balwinder Singh, a 30-year-old resident of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, was riding a scooter when the four assailants came from behind on two different two-wheelers, pumped a bullet in his stomach and sped away with the money stacked in the scooter dickey.
Italy stands out at party for 25,000
Nero d'Avola, a rising star of Italy's rising south, led the Italian invasion, or at least played important second fiddle to Italy's most popular native variety, sangiovese, of Chianti fame. And few reds at the show were as crowd-pleasing as the aforementioned $22 Pinocchio, made in Sicily by Tuscan producer Dievole, with its fruity richness and, not least, text-free label displaying a black-and-white sketch of the storybook character. Though not available in Canada, it is sold in other foreign markets by Wineoclock, a sort of indie record label of Italian wine, which discovers and exports family-produced, handcrafted gems pressed from indigenous, heritage grapes. "We believe that small is better than big," Mr. Costantini said. If nero d'Avola is the trendy Berkshire pork of the wine world, Italy also is a hotbed of lesser-known varieties, many in danger of being confused here with Pinocchio's woodcarver creator Geppetto, like gaglioppo, grillo, catarrato, bombino, magliocco or zibibbo.
October 2005 Archives
The Tour de France winner even came onstage to bring Sheryl her guitar. Too much! Too much! Too much! I give Gwyneth Paltrow a lot of crap because she refuses to walk the red carpet with hubby Chris Martin. But she's actually smart. Now, any little nugget she does share about her marriage makes headlines. And if they split, she really hasn't revealed anything and there aren't a billion pictures of them sucking face on the press line. She learned from bitter bust-ups with Brad and Ben. And you'd think that Lance would know better. After all, he's the one who gushed about his first wife, Kristin: "If you ever hope to meet someone and fall in love, it should happen just as it did for us -- blissfully, perfectly." Or not. It's hard for celebrities to find the right balance when it comes to talking about their relationships.
Fidel Castro, Exit Stage Left
We thought the dictatorship would end with a bang, not a whimper.</p><p>After taking note of numerous efforts to bring down Fidel Castro through violent means, we expected that he would get his head blown off from another exploding cigar.</p><p>Word is that the CIA tried that tactic. It failed.</p><p>Then Fidel gave up smoking.</p><p>There was another story -- unsubstantiated, as are most of these plots. According to this one, the CIA tried to put itching powder in his famous beard. The idea was to drive him mad thus rendering him incapacitated and incapable of running the Communist country. He then could be overthrown from within, prison doors would be thrust open, the presses would resume, and democracy would flourish.</p><p>Close but no cigar.</p><p>That's what you get when you send a bunch of high school pranksters to overthrow a government and kill its unelected leader.
Updated Friday 3:25 P.M.
A mentally disabled woman who had been missing for two days has been found in pretty good shape in Novato. Her relieved family says she is being treated at Novato Community hospital but should be fine. Teresa Valencia's nieces tell us they were particularly worried because their 28-year-old aunt functions as a 4-year-old. She speaks little English and broken Spanish. Police say a tip from a caller who thought they'd seen the woman described in news reports helped direct searchers. A bloodhound then found Teresa Valencia's scent in about 10 minutes. She was on a hillside about 2-and-a-half miles from the home she's been living in while visiting from Mexico. Fantasy Politics Posted by Mike Luery at 10 a.m.
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REFILE-DEALTALK-Trade buyers line up for Dairy Farmers
(Refiles to fix typo in headline) (For more Reuters columns on deals, click [DEALTALK/]) By Victoria Thieberger MELBOURNE, March 7 (Reuters) - Australian milk and cheese producer Dairy Farmers, which put itself up for sale last month, could run into competition concerns because some widely touted trade buyers have overlapping dairy interests. Dairy Farmers says it has had substantial interest in a deal that could be worth up to A$1.0 billion ($930 million). Top Japanese brewer Kirin Holdings' (2503.T: Quote, Profile, Research) Australian dairy and juice producer National Foods is interested in bidding, a source told Reuters this week. Other potential buyers include New Zealand unlisted dairy giant Fonterra, Italy's Parmalat (PLT.MI: Quote, Profile, Research), Australian food group Goodman Fielder (GFF.AX: Quote, Profile, Research) and Singapore's Olam International (OLAM.SI: Quote, Profile, Research).
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