London, Oct 30 : Austrian incest fiend Josef Fritzl has confessed that he locked up his own mother in a bricked-up room till the time she died in revenge for allegedly abusing him.

The room was in the same house where Josef later incarcerated his daughter and grandchildren.

He made the astonishing revelations to a psychologist preparing a report for his trial for imprisoning and sexually abusing his daughter Elisabeth.

His mother could have been locked away for more than 20 years in the house in Amstetten, according to an Austrian tabloid.

London, Oct 30 : Blondes might make men’s hearts flutter, but when it comes to marrying, blokes would rather prefer a brunette, a new research has shown.

According to the study, men think blondes are preferable as girlfriends, while brunettes are best for settling down with.

In all, 52 per cent of men said they would rather marry a dark-haired woman because they are more dependable and sensible - whereas only 18 per cent think blondes would make good wives.

In the poll of 3,000 men, 36 per cent said blondes were the sexiest women, while 31 per cent thought brunettes were sexier.

A mere 18 per cent of the men thought a blonde would make a good wife, reports the Daily Express.

London, Oct 30: A repair plan for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s most powerful particle accelerator located at CERN, near Geneva in Switzerland, is close to being finalized by physicists.

After an electrical fault destroyed part of the LHC and caused several tonnes of liquid helium to leak into the tunnel on September 19, the machine has been out of commission.

The incident damaged up to 29 of the LHC’s superconducting magnets and contaminated the ‘beam pipe’ that carries protons around the collider’s ring.

Recently, the developers were invited by Web portal major Yahoo Inc. to access in their tools and data and thus construct social network applications.

During the month of April, the Sunnyvale Company had committed to open some parts of its code for developers to contribute applications for their platform.

Jay Rossiter, Senior Vice President at Yahoo, wrote in a company blog entry, "The business hopes you'll enjoy some incredibly unique and creative new experiences that we would never have thought of."

Taipei - Taiwan stocks surged more than 6 per cent Thursday after the central bank cut interest rates and on positive signs in Taiwan-China ties.

The benchmark TAIEX rose 277.12 points, or 6.29 per cent, to close at 4,683.64 after the central bank cut interest rates by 0.25 per cent, and due to positive signs in Taiwan-China ties.

Bangkok - Hundreds of protestors descended on the British embassy in Bangkok Thursday to demand the extradition of convicted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra from London to face a two-year jail term in Thailand.

An estimated 1,500 followers of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which has been staging anti-government protests since May, marched Thursday after Thaksin was sentenced October 21 on an abuse-of-power conviction.