Mexicans enjoy cake weighing almost 10 tons

MEXICO CITY: Thousands of Mexicans tasted a piece of a nearly 10-ton "rosca de Reyes" cake that the authorities of this capital shared with the public to close out the Christmas festivities for 2011.

Early Wednesday morning, the huge ring-shaped cake was placed on the Zocalo, Mexico City's giant central square, where pieces of it were passed out free to anyone who came to the spot.

Mayor Marcelo Ebrard was in charge of cutting the cake, which was 720 meters (2,340 feet) long and cost more than 1 million pesos ($71,400) to make.

"This traditional cutting of the rosca, the largest in the world, is aimed at fostering healthy family coexistence but, above all, it allows us to strengthen the city's economy and promote the preservation of more than 35,000 jobs in the baking industry," said Ebrard during the event.

Children, women and elderly citizens were the first to receive a piece of the traditional cake, along with a glass of milk.

The president of the Canainpa baking industry association, Francisco Galindo, told Efe that more than 2,000 people worked to prepare the gigantic cake.

The project required 5,405 kilograms (about 11,900 pounds) of flour, 3,000 kg (6,600 lb.) of butter, 240 kg (528 lb.) of yeast, 2,600 kg (5,720 lb.) of sugar, 659 kg (1,450 lb.) of powdered sugar, 33 kg (73 lb.) of baking flour and 70 kg (154 lb.) of salt.

'Sun Drop' diamond fetches record $10.9 million at auction

(batkhela-movies) GENEVA: A 110-carat yellow jewel called the Sun Drop Diamond, thought the biggest of its kind in the world, sold for a record 10 million Swiss francs ($10.9 million) at auction in Geneva, Sotheby's announced Tuesday.

"Ten million francs (8.06 million euros). Sold!", Sotheby's David Bennett said before about 150 people gathered for the sale at a luxurious Geneva hotel.

"It's an absolute record for a yellow diamond," Bennett told journalists after the sale. "It is a spectacular, unique stone."

He said the buyer was an "anonymous individual" who made the winning bid over the telephone.

The sale price was slightly less than the estimations of experts who had valued the yellow diamond at between 11 and 15 million dollars.

Gemologists have certified the pear-shaped jewel as "Fancy Vivid Yellow", the rarest and most desirable colour for a yellow diamond, Sotheby's said.

The gem was discovered in South Africa in 2010 and wowed visitors to London's Natural History Museum where it was displayed earlier this year, and also in Hong Kong.

The yellow diamond, about the size of a woman's thumb, takes its colour from traces of nitrogen in its carbon makeup.

"Every time we've shown it around the world, people have gone 'oh my god'," Bennett, head of jewellery for Europe and the Middle East, told AFP last week.

"It has never been owned so the buyer will be the first person to wear it," he added.

The sale price did not include commissions. (AFP)

Polish transsexual makes history as lawmaker

 WARSAW: Anna Grodzka sits with poise in her leafy suburban home, flicks her hair and gently shoos away her cat.

The 57-year-old is still coming to terms with being elected Poland's first-ever transsexual lawmaker for an anti-clerical party that is locking horns with conservatives in overwhelmingly Catholic Poland.

"I'm not a single-issue politician," said left-winger Grodzka, who only recently completed what she calls her identity correction.

"Going into politics isn't just about representing transsexuals, but about social issues," the long-time left-winger told.

Grodzka will take up her parliamentary seat on November 8, along with Poland's 459 other newly elected deputies.

In the October 9 polls, the declared atheist was voted in with almost 20,000 votes in the southern city of Krakow, which has a conservative reputation but is also home to a large student and artist community.

Grodzka will be the world's only openly transgender lawmaker -- a broader term than transsexual including those who have not had a sex-change but plan to, or simply opt to live under a different gender.

The first recorded transsexual politician was New Zealander Georgina Beyer, elected as a mayor in 1995 before sitting in parliament from 1999-2007.

Transgender Italian Vladimir Luxuria -- still legally male but living wholeheartedly as a woman -- followed in 2006-2008.

"I could not be more proud of and pleased for Anna's success," Beyer told.

Grodzka ran for parliament for the new opposition Palikot Movement, led by flamboyant tycoon-turned-politician Janusz Palikot. (AFP)

Future planes could travel five times speed of sound

 LONDON: The passenger plane of the future could travel at five times the speed of sound, according to a report published in British newspaper.

According to the British daily, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) in its report said state-of-the-art technology will allow airlines to travel in a V-shaped group formation similar to migrating geese by the end of the century.

The report adds that, regardless of the aircraft type, passenger jets could save on fuel by flying in formation and following in each others' slipstream. A "blended wing" shape, where the wing and fuselage meld into one, will also make the planes more fuel-efficient and aerodynamic, the IME claims.