Prince Charles, a well-known advocate for environmental causes, told ITV’s “This Morning” that he doesn’t want his unborn grandchild to wonder why he didn’t do more to tackle issues like climate change.

“I’ve gone on for years about the importance of thinking about the long-term in relation to the environmental damage, climate change and everything else,” the prince, 64, said in the interview.  “We don’t, in a sensible world, want to hand on an increasingly dysfunctional world to our grandchildren, to leave them with the real problem. I don’t want to be confronted by my future grandchild and (have) them say: ‘Why didn’t you do something?’”

Since Prince William and Kate Middleton, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, are expecting their first child early this summer, Prince Charles is especially outspoken about sharing his thoughts on the environment’s future.

All the Details: Kate Middleton’s Pregnancy

“So clearly now that we will have a grandchild, it makes it even more obvious to try and make sure we leave them something that isn’t a total poisoned chalice,” he added.

Also in the ITV interview, Charles shared his fears about the safety of his youngest son, Prince Harry, who is serving in Afghanistan.

READ ALSO: Prince Harry Reportedly ‘Risking His Life’ in Afghanistan

“If you are a parent or relation to a loved one and that person is away in these incredibly dangerous and challenging circumstances, I know you worry all the time,” said the Prince of Wales. “Certainly every night I worry. But he [Prince Harry] loves doing what he’s doing and he’s brilliant at it. I constantly meet the families of those who have lost their sons, husbands, brothers or sisters… and I have some understanding at least of what they go through.”

Prince Charles spoke with ITV’s Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby at the Clarence House, his official London residence, in support of the program’s You Can Be Heroes Week, which highlights the success of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and aims to gain new volunteers across the UK.

For Complete Coverage of the Royal Baby, Please Visit Our Special Section – Click Here

Michael Franchi/Newspix/Rex

In what seems like a precision strike, a lightning bolt crashed down from the skies over Australia into a voluptuous Venus de Milo statue, with the breasts the only part of the torso surviving intact.

On Jan. 4 Tom Finlay, the stonemasonry head at Finlay’s Stonemasonry in Yarrawonga, Australia, was standing in the courtyard when the white flash came from the sky, striking the nearly 5-foot-tall statue he had hand-carved.

“There was a clap of thunder and the sculpture blew up like a rocket-launcher had hit it,” he told the NT News. “The lightning looked like a serpent. Everything disintegrated but the breasts –all that’s left is what’s under her hips.”

The statue’s 66-pound stone breasts fell over 26 feet from the steel column it was perched atop, but miraculously did not shatter. The NT News reported that only one nipple was damaged.

Finlay said that he isn’t sure what to do with the surviving bosom.

“It’s still a bit raw,” he said. “I’ll leave the statue the way it is to show the force of nature … I might mount [the breasts] and hang them in my office.”

AFP/Getty Images/Newscom

TOKYO — Boredom led Toshifumi Fujimoto to one of the world’s most dangerous countries.

Now the Japanese truck driver’s daring adventure across Syria as a “war tourist” is garnering headlines all around the world, except in Japan, where he has been criticized for his “reckless” behavior.

Agence France Press first interviewed Fujimoto, 45, about his expedition last week as he was wrapping up a week-long tour of the northern city of Aleppo, one of the hottest spots in a conflict that has cost more than 60,000 lives, according to the UN.

Dressed in Japanese army fatigue and armed with two cameras and a video camera, according to the AFP, Fujimoto bought a $2,500 ticket to Turkey, and made his way to the frontlines in the battle for Aleppo without a helmet and flak jacket, saying they were too heavy and “not necessary for me.” He has documented his daily adventures on Facebook.

“It’s very exciting and the adrenaline rush is like no other,” he told the AFP.

From smiling photos of young children, to graphic images of rebel fighters injured in battle, Fujimoto’s posts offer a rare, unfiltered look into the Syrian fight, often only seen by journalists.

But, his go-it-alone approach has been panned back home, where a translated version of the article has been circulated online, despite little domestic media coverage of his actual journey.

Critics have taken to blogs to call Fujimoto’s actions “stupid and shameless,”  while others have called him “nothing more than human waste” on popular internet bulletin boards. Few have lauded his efforts to “show the reality of the front lines to the world.”

Now back home in the city of Itami, Fujimoto responded on Facebook, writing “Japanese people like to bash news stories like this, right away.”

Fujimoto has a point.

Eight years ago, when 24-year-old backpacker Shosei Koda was beheaded in Iraq after traveling there as a tourist, the Japanese victim was largely condemned for being naïve and irresponsible. His family was inundated with calls criticizing Koda for causing trouble back home.

The same year, the release of young Japanese citizens taken hostage in Iraq, wasn’t met with backlash instead of relief. The group was treated like criminals, criticized for acting selfishly by ignoring a government advisory against travel to Iraq. Those kidnapped may have gone with good intentions – one of the hostages started her own non-profit group to help Iraqi street children – but their actions,  which caused an entire nation to worry, was considered unforgivable.

“They may have gone on their own, but they must consider how many people they caused trouble to because of their action,” government spokesman Yasuo Fukuda said at the time, according to the New York Times.

Fujimoto’s actions haven’t garnered much attention from the government yet, in part, because he has managed to escape war zones unscathed. He spent two weeks in Syria in 2011, flew to Yemen during demonstrations at the U.S. embassy, and joined demonstrators at Tahrir Square in Cairo as they demanded the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak.

His tours aren’t only driven by thrill-seeking, but loneliness. Fujimoto is divorced, and told the AFP he has “no family, no friends, no girlfriend.”

“People may hate me in Japan, but I am welcomed in Syria,” he wrote on Facebook.

Fujimoto did not respond to an ABC News request for an interview.

ABC

A cunning feline was detained by Brazilian police after it was busted smuggling escape tools taped to its body into a prison.

On New Year’s Eve the cat was spotted by a guard at a medium security Prison Judge Luiz de Oliveira Souza in Arapiraca, in the northeast of Brazil.

Taped to its body were two saws, two drills for concrete, a headset, a memory card, a cell phone, three batteries and a mobile phone charger, according to a police statement. Officials said the material would serve to saw bars and dig tunnels.

According to officers at the prison, the cat would often be seen tiptoeing in and out of the prison gate, and they said that it may have been raised by inmates held at the prison.

After the items were removed, the cat was taken to a local animal center.

Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

BEIJING–At noon on Monday, Brad Pitt joined China’s massive microblogging service Sina Weibo and issued a short missive as open to interpretation as his Chanel No. 5 ads.

“It is the truth. Yup, I’m coming…” Pitt posted in his verified account.

The words sent his Chinese fans into a tizzy. Within hours, his profile gained over 101,000 followers, over 30,000 retweets and more than 13,000 comments on the service that has 400 million registered users.

With China’s rapidly growing movie market, a Hollywood celebrity popping up in Beijing or Shanghai has become a common sight. Keanu Reeves was seen wandering the old hutong alleyways of Beijing last year.  Months earlier, Gwyneth Paltrow jumped onstage and started singing at a Beijing nightclub.  Even Louis C.K. showed up to do his routine for packed crowd at a Peking Opera theater back in June.

But Pitt has never been seen in China.  Pitt has been effectively barred from entering the country since he starred in the 1997 film “Seven Years in Tibet,” where he portrayed the young Dalai Lama’s Austrian tutor. At the time the Chinese Foreign Ministry took issue with the film’s sympathetic portrayal of the now exiled 14^th Dalai Lama and the negative depictions of Chinese soldiers in Tibet.

The “Banned From China” distinction is one Pitt has shared with the likes of Richard Gere, Martin Scorsese and Harrison Ford, all big Dalai Lama supporters.

One excited user named “chrinore” wrote back in English to Pitt’s post, “Oh my god! It is really a big surprise. and welcome!! hope u use (Weibo) frequently.”

It’s not yet known whether Pitt is actually coming to China, but there is speculation that if he does it might have to do with the fact that Pitt is a brand ambassador for the French fashion house Chanel.

The tech blog TechinAsia.com points out that “lots of celebrities from around the globe have joined Sina Weibo – mostly for social marketing purposes.”

The fact is not lost on some Weibo users like “SuperBusyEveryday” who sarcastically wrote: “I see Brad Pitt’s coming to China to do business…”

China, after all, is the fastest growing luxury market in the world.

It is worth noting that Pitt’s “Seven Years in Tibet” director Jean-Jacques Annaud, who was previously banned from China as well, was welcomed last year to chair the jury at the Shanghai International Film Festival.

                                                                    (Image Credit: Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)

Rescuers searched by air and sea today off the coast of Venezuela for the plane carrying Italian fashion mogul Vittorio Missoni, the man credited with turning his father’s fashion house into a global empire that includes hotels, housewares and bicycles.

The 58-year-old left the remote Los Roques archipelago Friday on a twin-engine plane bound for Caracas, Venezuela. On board were his wife, two friends and two pilots.

Thirty minutes after takeoff, the plane vanished into the Caribbean, leaving the tight-knit Missoni clan anxiously waiting for answers.

Luca Missoni, Vittorio’s brother, is reportedly en route to Venezuela to monitor the search effort, while 91-year-old patriarch Ottavio Missoni remains in Italy with family.

Vittorio, who runs the family business with his siblings, Luca and Angela, has been instrumental in bringing the brand to luxury consumers in Asia.

“It’s quite a family business and we have also a new generation who’s been involved,” Missoni said on a video that was posted on YouTube earlier this year.

The Missoni brand was born in 1953 at a workshop in Gallarte, Italy, when Ottavio Missoni and his wife, Rosita, began creating knitwear.

Known for the trademark Missoni zig-zag pattern, the brand has become a favorite of fashionistas, including Kate Moss and Kate Middleton.

The Missonis used their flair for design and business savvy to move beyond knitwear, starting a hotel chain and a line of housewares.

In 2011, the fashion house partnered with Target to create a low cost, 400-piece line, including a bicycle that sported the trademark Missoni zig-zag.

The collection sold out in minutes at Target stores, while online shoppers managed to crash the big-box retailer’s website.

The fashion house has not yet said whether the Missoni fall 2013 menswear show, which is scheduled for next Sunday in Milan, will go on as planned.

Annuals sales of the Milan-based company are estimated to be between $75 million and $100 million.

Oleg Nikishin/Epsilon/Getty Images

MOSCOW – French actor Gerard Depardieu, intent on fleeing France’s new steep taxes on its richest citizens, said today he was delighted to hear that President Putin approved his request for a Russian passport because “I love your country” and called Russia a “great democracy.”

On Thursday, Putin signed a decree granting the actor Russian citizenship. That will allow him to enjoy Russia’s 13 percent flat tax rate, which is substantially lower than the 75 percent rate introduced by France’s new socialist government for income above 1 million Euros. Though a French court has struck down the tax hike, French President Francois Hollande has vowed to push ahead with the measure.

In a letter sent to Russia’s state-owned Channel 1 television, and addressed to Russia’s journalists, Depardieu welcomed the news, professed his love for Putin (which he claimed was mutual), and said he wanted to move to a village and learn Russian.

“Yes, I made a request for a passport, and I am pleased that my request has been accepted. I love your country, Russia, your people, your history, your writers,” he reportedly wrote.

“My father was once a communist and listened Radio Moscow, this is also a part of my culture,” Depardieu wrote. He called Russia “a great democracy.”

Depardieu is perhaps the most recognizable of a group of wealthy French citizens who have declared they will renounce their French citizenship to protest the take increase. He has already reportedly taken up residency in a tiny hamlet in neighboring Belgium and earlier this month expressed interest in moving to Russia. In order to give up his French passport, however, he needed to claim citizenship elsewhere. Today’s announcement would appear to meet that requirement.

Asked about those reports at a year-end news conference, Putin said that if  Depardieu wanted to move to Russia, he would welcome him with open arms.

“If he’d like to have a Russian passport, consider it settled,” he said.

Putin and Depardieu have reportedly maintained a warm relationship and the actor has appeared at film events in Russia.

Putin’s spokesman said Depardieu was receiving citizenship for his contributions to Russian culture.

“The thing is that Depardieu has been a part of large film projects and has acted many parts,” Dmitri Peskov said, citing his portrayal of the famous Russian historical figure Grigory Rasputin in a 2011 television movie.

On Twitter, Deputy Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin wrote that he expects more wealthy foreigners to move to Russia once they learn about the low tax rates there.

Putin wasn’t the only one offering Depardieu refuge from the taxman. Chechyan leader Ramzan Kadyrov also offered him residency in his region.

                                                                                                 (Image Credit: Associated Press)

Sydney’s famous harbor, most recently grand central for New Year’s Eve celebrations, will this weekend be turned into a “giant bathtub” courtesy of a giant floating duck.

The five-story, yellow duck took a test run through the harbor’s waters today in preparation for its grand unveiling Saturday at the opening of the Sydney Festival, a nearly month-long arts and music celebration.

The duck is the work of Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, 35, who says the piece of art, titled “Rubber Duck” and made from PVC material, has “healing properties.”

RELATED:  Giant Rubber Duck Floats Down the River Thames

“The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers, it doesn’t discriminate people and doesn’t have a political connotation,” he writes on his website.

The Sydney harbor duck was made in New Zealand and is one of several versions of Hofman’s “Rubber Duck.”  The art has also made appearances in Japan, Brazil and throughout Hofman’s native Netherlands.

The duck, according to local media reports, took three weeks to construct and takes about 30 minutes to inflate, using four blowers.  It sits atop a 10-ton barge that both prevents it from blowing away and moves it forward.

“We’re using these beautiful heritage-restored tugs … [that are] going to be completely dwarfed by the duck,” Sydney Festival production manager Mick Jessop told Sydney’s Telegraph.  “It’s going to look like a huge bathtub.”

The duck will remain in the harbor through the end of January.

Yonhap News

SEOUL, South Korea – Experts on North Korea have long studied photos of  the country’s leaders trying to interpret the significance in the slightest change of body language, pose or position of hierarchy.

That intense scrutiny has now been turned on the wife of Kim Jong-Un in a celebrity-like guessing game about whether she had been pregnant and may have given birth. Or whether she simply gained weight and lost it again.

North Korea’s first lady Ri Sul-Ju is believed to already have one child.

The secretive North Korean government has not confirmed any of these speculations.

The rumor mill started when North Korea’s Central News Agency released photos taken on Oct. 29 at a musical performance. Ri was wearing a long yellow knit jacket with a feminine bow on her stomach and the little tummy bump has raised questions: did she gain weight or is she pregnant?

It was difficult to tell but taking into account her fashion statement during the summer and fall of last year sporting vivid colored fit dresses and high-heel pumps, the loose cut jacket caught the eyes of North Korea watchers.

The next appearance by the first lady was on Dec. 17 at a memorial ceremony for Kim’s late-father Kim Jong-Il who died of a heart attack on 2011. She was wearing the Korean traditional black funeral costume. The form of the dress itself is supposed to be wide below the chest, but her swollen face and what looked like a tummy bump got the rumor swirling.

Then came the recent photo taken on New Year’s Day, back to her signature Chanel-style round -neck pink jacket and skirt and a visibly slimmer waistline.

The buzz in Seoul is still split: birth, weight problem, or could have been just the form of the dresses.

(KCNA/EPA)

The new year came with all the fanfare that North Koreans have come to expect — but in a rare speech, the country’s young leader had a dramatically different message from what he had said before.

“This year the entire Korean nation should turn out in nationwide patriotic struggle for reunification in unity so as to usher in a new phase in the reunification movement,” Kim Jong Un said. “We will, in the future, strive to develop relations of friendship and cooperation with countries that are friendly to our country.”

It was a message of peace, stability and a commitment to unify the Korean peninsula. Analysts said the speech was directed toward the U.S. and South Korea’s new leader, Park Guen Hye, who has said she’s open to direct talks with Kim’s government.

On the streets of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, residents predictably praised the first New Year’s address in nearly 20 years. Kim’s grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, had started the tradition. Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, though, shunned the public. He spoke publicly just once in the 17 years he ruled.

“I think he has sent various signals that he’s going to move his country in a new and different direction,” said Donald Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea. “I think this New Year’s speech was the first step in that direction.”

Kim Jong Un has been secretive since he took over a year ago. But Pyongyang has gone to great lengths to project a modern, more outgoing image of the leader. He’s been seen visiting an amusement park, with his wife by his side.

“I mean, he knows far more about the outside world than his grandfather or his father because of the time he spent in Switzerland and that brings a completely new dimension to North Korean leadership,” Gregg said.

But Kim Jong Un has shown the same defiance of other countries as his father. He successfully launched a long-range rocket last month — a direct violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions — and he’s shown no intention of abandoning Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.