Jacques Agency

South African chef 'too fat' to live in New Zealand Authorities in New Zealand have told a South African chef he is too fat to be allowed to live in the country. Immigration officials said Albert Buitenhuis, who weighs 130kg (286 pounds), did not have "an acceptable standard of health". He now faces expulsion despite shedding 30kg since he moved to the city of Christchurch six years ago. New Zealand has one of the highest obesity rates in the developed world, with nearly 30% of people overweight. Mr. Buitenhuis and his wife, Marthie, moved from South Africa to Christchurch in 2007. At the time, the chef weighed 160kg. Until now, their annual work visas had been renewed with "very little problem", his wife said. "We applied year after year and there were no issues," she said. "They never mentioned Albert's weight or his health once and he was a lot heavier then." But in early May, the couple was told their work visas had been declin...

A gunman holding hostages in a building near Miami in the US state of Florida killed six people before being shot dead by police, officials say. Officers stormed the block of flats in Hialeah, north of Miami, on Saturday morning after a stand-off lasting several hours. Two hostages were freed unharmed, police said. Five of the victims were found inside the complex. Another man was killed while walking across a street outside. 'Screaming' Police were called after shots were fired on Friday evening. They said gunman Pedro Vargas, 43, set his apartment on fire. When the building manager and his wife noticed the smoke and ran to his apartment, he shot them dead. The couple's daughter Shamira Piscotti said: "I heard about 15 to 20 shots and so I went outside. "My neighbors were screaming that my parents had been shot. I guess there was an altercation and the person opened fire on both of them." The attacker went on to kill a man walking in the street and a famil...

The mother of Trayvon Martin has described her shock and "disgust" after a neighborhood watch member was cleared of killing her unarmed son. Sybrina Fulton was giving her first televised interview since the verdict, alongside her ex-husband Tracy Martin. "I really didn't believe that he was not guilty," she told ABC's Good Morning America. George Zimmerman, 29, said he opened fire in self-defense on the 17-year-old in Sanford, Florida, in February 2012. Saturday's not-guilty verdict from the all-female jury of six prompted nationwide protests, with further demonstrations planned for this weekend. "As parents, understanding how they reached the verdict, I'll never grasp that concept," said Mr. Martin, Trayvon's father. "We just continue to pray that whatever was in their heart was what they intended to do. But we didn't feel it was fair and, of course, it was devastating." 'Justice for Trayvon' The couple reit...

President Barack Obama has said that "Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago", in his first comments on the case since last week's verdict. The unarmed black 17-year-old was shot and killed in Florida in February 2012. George Zimmerman, 29, said he opened fire on the teenager in self-defence and was acquitted of murder by a Florida court last week. In an unexpected press call, Mr Obama said very few black men in the US had not experienced racial profiling. Mr Obama said the pain that African-Americans felt around the case came from the fact that they viewed it through "a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away". He said African Americans were also keenly aware of racial disparities in the application of criminal laws. "That all contributes to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different," Mr Obama said. He shared his experiences of...

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France's foreign intelligence service intercepts computer and telephone data on a vast scale, like the controversial US Prism programme, according to the French daily Le Monde. The data is stored on a supercomputer at the headquarters of the DGSE intelligence service, the paper says. The operation is "outside the law, and beyond any proper supervision", Le Monde says. Other French intelligence agencies allegedly access the data secretly. It is not clear however whether the DGSE surveillance goes as far as Prism. So far French officials have not commented on Le Monde's allegations. The DGSE allegedly analyses the "metadata" - not the contents of e-mails and other communications, but the data revealing who is speaking to whom, when and where. Connections inside France and between France and other countries are all monitored, Le Monde reports. The paper alleges the data is being stored on three basement floors of the DGSE building in Paris. The secret service ...