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SINGAPORE - It's the stuff of dreams. Growing up and watching colourful, larger-than-life wrestlers like The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Chris Jericho beat up their opponents on television was a ritual for many kids in Singapore. Now for three Singaporeans, this could soon be reality. Andruew Tang, Sean "Trexxus" Tan and Lee Xin Yi were recently invited by WWE for tryouts in Shanghai. The trio are mainstays from home-grown wrestling promotion Singapore Pro Wrestling (SPW). They were among the 40 athletes handpicked from Asian countries including China, Thailand, the Philippines and Japan to attend the four-day trial. Those selected will win a coveted WWE developmental contract. Tang, 30, who helped co-found SPW in 2012, has been wrestling for seven years. Better known by his in-ring moniker "The Statement", Tang said, "It was crazy. It was very surreal to see head coach Matt Bloom (better known to fans as A-Train) in the ring giving advice to trainees. There were so many things to learn during the tryouts." With an opportunity of a lifetime at stake, there was little room for error. Attendees were put through multiple exercise drills, both indoors and outdoors, and were also shown the ropes in the ring. Tan, 23, who stands at 1.83m tall, said, "It was really fun. It really gave us the chance to understand what it's like to be a WWE superstar. For me, I enjoyed it very much because being in the ring is my passion." FIRST LOCAL FEMALE WRESTLER Dubbed Singapore's first female pro-wrestler, Lee, 24, is better known as Alexis Lee in the squared circle. Overcoming parental objections was something she had to deal with since she started wrestling in 2013. "My parents still object to it. Sadly, they did not want me to do it. But now they have new found respect for Andruew, Trexxus and I," said Lee, who's just completed her degree in international business management. Tang, who has wrestled in 11 countries to date, is optimistic about his chances of making the cut. "I did my best. I think I stand a pretty good chance." Tan is more modest. "I don't want to keep my hopes up too high. I would rather not think about it," he said.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqMjvVaMsE4 A man who was filmed throwing a kitten at a wall has been jailed for a year. Farid Ghilas, 24, sparked outrage in France after a video appeared online of him picking up the cat and hurling it towards a block of flats. Remarkably, five-month-old Oscar survived the attack. He suffered a broken leg but is expected to make a full recovery. More than 260,000 people signed a petition calling for Ghilas, who is of North African descent, to face "exemplary punishment" for his actions. He was charged with animal cruelty and faced up to two years in jail and a 30,000 euro fine. “He acted with a singular perversity and sadism that has shocked the entire planet,” said Emmanuel Merlin, the prosecutor. Ghilas, who has been subjected to racist insults and death threats since the video came to light, was jailed for a year and banned from owning an animal. Source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/farid-ghilas-case-man-who-3110400#.UvD34_mSzh4

Another scary news... Chopsticks picked up in new China scare Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:44 AM ET BEIJING (Reuters) - A Beijing factory sold up to 100,000 pairs of disposable chopsticks a day without any form of disinfection, a newspaper said on Wednesday, the latest in a string of food and product safety scares. Counterfeit, shoddy and dangerous products are widespread in China, whose exports have been rocked in recent months by a spate of safety scandals, ranging from pet food to medicine, tires, toothpaste and toys. Officials raided the factory and seized about half a million pairs of disposable bamboo chopsticks and a packaging machine, the Beijing News said in a story headlined "Dirty Chopsticks." The owner, identified only by his surname Wu, said he had sold the chopsticks for 0.04 yuan a pair and made an average of about 1,000 yuan ($130) a day. Wu, who had no license to sell the goods, said he had sold 100,000 pairs a day when business was good. China lacks the manpower to enforce food and drug safety regulations at home or for export. Imports are generally carefully scrutinized. Shao Mingli, the country's food and drug watchdog chief, conceded that in recent years the safety situation had "indeed been relatively grim." But in a posting on the central government's Web site (www.gov.cn), Shao vowed it would take "about five years of hard work" to realize an "obvious turnaround" in management order and food and drug safety across the country. "The number of cases of fake food and drug products and criminal activities will be effectively curbed," Shao said. A lack of business ethics and a spiritual vacuum after China embraced economic reforms in the late 1970s have been blamed for unscrupulous business practices and corruption. In Guangzhou, capital of booming Guangdong province in south China, Mayor Zhang Guangning vowed to bankrupt serious violators of food and product safety. The Hong Kong owner of a Guangdong manufacturer at the centre of a recall of millions of Chinese-made toys by U.S. giant Mattel had committed suicide, according to Hong Kong media. China has said the world should have faith in the "made-in-China" label and that a spate of product recalls has been unfair, biased and politically motivated. "No country can guarantee their food to be 100 percent safe, but if one in 100 or even in 1,000 of our products has quality problems, we will deal with it seriously," Commerce Minister Bo Xilai said on Tuesday. "China strongly opposes (some countries) extending individual economic and trade problems, and thus conducting trade protection," Bo said in a report on the ministry's Web site (www.mofcom.gov.cn). In the latest in a series of tit-for-tat measures, China has accused the United States of exporting substandard soybean shipments to China and requested "effective measures" be taken.