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Do you need to have a great vocabulary?

2012-01-24T14:46:00.002+05:00

If you want to be a great communicator, do you need to have a great vocabulary?

You might be surprised to learn that a really big vocabulary is not necessary in order to express yourself clearly and to move others with your words.

Some of the most dramatic messages that have ever been uttered in the English language actually used very simple words to stir the blood, or touch the heart.

Look at any well-known passage in the Bible. Chances are that the passage does not rely on sophisticated words to create its power.

Think of Lincoln's Gettysberg Address. Although President Lincoln spoke in a style that is very different from the way we usually speak today, his words still have the power to move us deeply with their clarity and their deep emotion. During the darkest days of World War II, Winston Churchill's rousing speeches to the British people used very simple, common, powerful words to successfully ignite the courage and determination of his people.

So if it's possible to communicate effectively without using a lot of very big words, why should we bother to try to expand our vocabulary? The reason is that learning new words expands our understanding and improves our "mental muscles". Every new word we learn entices our mind to stretch into new areas.

When we have a larger bank of words to draw on, we improve our ability to think and express ourselves. Our thinking will become more fluid and supple, and we will understand more of the world around us and within us, when we have a larger vocabulary. In the modern world the ability to use words effectively is often highly rewarded.

The English language has an enormous number of words, perhaps more than half a million of them. Most people however, use a vocabulary of just a few thousand common words on a daily basis. It is possible to get by in the English language with a limited number of words, but you expand your options as you expand your vocabulary. When you understand very few words, you are limited in your ability to learn new information.

If you want to increase your vocabulary, there are many approaches you can use. One good way is to read books or articles that are slightly more difficult than what you are accustomed to. When you come across a word you don't know, see if you can figure out its meaning from the context. Look at the way the word is made up, with its letters and syllables. Does it remind you of any words you already know? What parts of it are familiar?

Many words in the English language are made up of common roots they share with other words. You may be able to deduce the meaning of the new word from the way the syllables are put together and the way it is used. You should consult a dictionary to be sure.

If you come across a word you don't understand during the course of a lecture or a conversation, you can ask someone to explain the meaning of the word. Many people are reluctant to do this because they are afraid of exposing their ignorance by asking.

It is occasionally true that other people may choose to look down on you if you confess that you don't understand a certain word. On the other hand, they may be happy to teach you something new. If you decide you don't want to ask anyone else for the meaning of words you don't know, be sure to make a note of those new words and look them up later. Should you try to learn new words directly from a dictionary? It depends on your learning style and your preference. Some people will become bored very quickly while reading a dictionary, while others will find it fascinating.

All dictionaries are not alike, and you may find a certain version far more useful than the rest. Good dictionaries will do more than just give a definition of a word. Some will show you an example of the word used in a sentence. Often they will show you alternate spellings, and give the plural forms of nouns and the past tense of verbs. Most dictionaries will show you correct pronunciation. Some will tell you the historical derivation of the word. Many English words have their roots in ancient Anglo-Saxon, French, or German.

Language is always evolving and new words are being created every day. New words can come from technology, from scientific discoveries, from other languages, from pop culture, and from the streets.

When learning new vocabulary, you can better integrate it into your brain if you actively involve yourself in the learning process.

When you encounter a new word, write out a definition of it in your own words, and write one or more sentences using the new word in context. Visualize the word in its printed form. Say the word out loud, and spell it out loud. Say a sentence out loud that uses the new word. Make up an image in your mind that will help you remember the word. If you make the image funny or bizarre, you will probably remember it better.

To improve your use of language and your ability to think, practice summarizing the theme of an entire article or book using just one or two paragraphs. After you have read an article or book, try writing out two different versions summarizing your ideas. Do one version using very simple, everyday words. Make it as clear and simple as you possibly can while still maintaining accuracy. Do another version that uses very complex sentences and advanced vocabulary, like you imagine a university professor might write.

This will give your brain a good work-out and increase your verbal and mental flexibility.

If you are committed to expanding your vocabulary, how many new words should you try to learn in a day? It's up to you. Just two new words a day will add up to more than 7000 words in ten years. Ten words a day would add 36,000 words in ten years.

Once you have learned a lot of new words, should you work them into your conversation every chance you get? The kind of vocabulary you use should always be appropriate to the context in which you are writing or speaking. For example, if you are speaking to a group of high school dropouts you may want to use different words than if you are speaking to a group of scientists.

Don't use an impressive vocabulary merely as a means of showing off, always using big words when small ones would do. People can often intuitively feel when you are using fancy words merely for effect, and not because you need them to communicate.

But if your new vocabulary really has become a part of you and has a useful place in your writing and conversation, by all means, go ahead and use it!

International Politics in the world

2012-01-17T11:51:00.005+05:00

International politics in the World, these days is totally revolving around the international strategic planning of Super Powers. What they have designed the international road map of future, their policies either economical or political, are carried out with their mutual consents and understandings. They are not reluctant in using military power or economical santions against any country standing aginst them. International relations are based on what benefits one country can get from other despite that country's incorrect stance on a global issue.

STANDING OPPOSITE TO REALITY?

2012-01-17T11:21:00.002+05:00

Today there are various disputes and controversies found in the World, which are not only dangerous to global peace but also dividing the World Community in various blocks. How two nations deal with each other to resolve disputes largely depends upon the specific circumstances prevailing in their region but there are some “global issues” which involve United Nations and World Super Powers against single country hence dragging other “weak” or “dependent” nations to formulate their foreign policies to “fit” the demands and desires of those super powers to corner that victim country. The demands or desires of super powers are usually nothing but the mistrust or fear or confliction of interest or historic brawl or any other future fear from that particular victim nation. How the reality is derived from one dispute or issue is not universal constant but the reflection of super power’s interests. Reality goes that way where absolute power exists. That’s why one oppressed country’s stance (truth) is not listened and recognized by the other nations, as balance of power is not there. We can count number of disputes and controversies around us where “Reality” is the name of the military supremacy or economical viability.
Who will determine the “Reality” within Iran vs. US led Western Block conflict? Will Iran drop atom bomb on Israel or whether Iranian missiles can hit the Europe are only assumptions today but from US led Western powers to curb Iran from nuclear technology is very meaningful as Iran has denied for preparing atom bomb and clearly announced its policy against the any sort of preparations for making atom bomb but despite that, for West, “Reality” is only what they are claiming. Atom bombs are used only when war is on. Iran alone is not in a position to start war in Middle East against Israel or any other country. The only left-power in region is Israel with bad past record. Is it not in the knowledge of USA and European countries that Israel has a secret plan to start war in Middle East to complete US old agenda of forming “New Middle East” and as a precautionary measure Iran is pressed hard to stop Uranium Enrichments? It’s a well-known reality that Israel has the intentions to expand its borders up to Iraq, Jordan and Hijaz (Saudi Arabia) and it is possible only when there is an anarchy in the region and Israel involves in war with neighbor countries. Every country knows that Israel is an un-declared nuclear power and has nuclear warheads in its arsenal.
Apparently USA supports a Palestinian State but its over all ME policies are full of contradictions. It fully supports Israel with economical and military aids and assures its safety and solidarity but on the other hand strictly opposes the any sort of aids for Palestinians particularly in Gaza, which is besieged by Israel since several months. USA does not take notice and talk about nukes of Israel but opposes Iran with full force. USA teaches the lesson of democracy to whole World but opposes Iran’s elected governments and supports Arab monarchies.
India had already signed an agreement with USA for Civil Nuclear Cooperation and recently inked the same sort of agreement with Canada whereas agreements with Russia, France and Japan are under process. Under the blessings of USA, India is enjoying all the nuclear supports and cooperation with Western countries despite the fact that India has not yet signed NPT. India and Canada or USA are independent countries – they can enter into any sort of agreements but the agreements concerning nuclear issues are not ordinary agreements and should be processed under IAEA and should be available to all other countries following the precautionary requisites set by the IAEA. No country asks the clarification either from Canada or India but when the matter comes to other countries, do India or any other country has a right to ask clarification over the nuclear treaty between two proven nuke capable countries?
Nuclear Technology and International Politics are now two sides of the same coin of Super Powers. On Nuclear Technology, Super Powers want to keep their monopoly and do not want to give the right to any other nation for gaining expertise on nuclear technology. All of their efforts are based on the name of non-proliferation of atomic weapons but practically their efforts are biased and do not reflect what they say to the World as Super Powers are only interested in selling arms as a major source of income.

Saeed Ajmal - Pakistan's Top Class Leg Spinner

2012-01-04T14:56:00.002+05:00

Younus Khan - Pakistani Test Cricketer & Former Captain

2011-12-29T15:30:00.002+05:00

Photos of Shahid Khan Afridi - Pakistani Renowned Cricketer

2011-12-22T14:10:00.001+05:00

Mehdi Hassan : Famous Urdu Ghazal Singer

2011-11-16T14:36:00.002+05:00

World's longest passenger aircraft

2011-06-19T18:42:00.002+05:00

Updated On: Sunday, June 19, 2011

LE BOURGET: Boeing Co's (BA.N) 747-8 Intercontinental, the new elongated passenger version of its legendary jumbo jet, made its international debut on Sunday, under cloudy skies after a half-hour delay due to wind.The new model has 467 seats, 51 more than its predecessor, but fewer than the 525-seat A380 made by EADS (EAD.PA) unit Airbus.The high-profile landing of Boeing's new 747 at the Paris Air Show -- three months after its first flight -- marks a show of engineering strength by the world's second-largest plane maker in a competition for control of the wide-body market."We've seen a great deal of interest in the last six to eight months as the market has gotten better," Randy Tinseth, Boeing's vice president of marketing at Boeing's commercial division, told Reuters.The plane features a new red and orange livery to symbolize the importance of the fast-growing Asian aircraft market.Boeing has taken 33 orders for the 747-8 Intercontinental, which will be joined in Paris on Monday by the better-selling freighter version of the plane, which has received 76 orders.Boeing flew its first 747 -- the largest commercial plane it makes -- 42 years ago. Since then, the plane with the distinctive hump has become the world's most recognizable plane.The 747 was the world's largest airplane until 2005, when Airbus unveiled its A380.The 747-8 Intercontinental competes with the A380. The upgraded plane promises to burn less fuel and offers more passenger comfort. The plane also boasts new wings, a new tail, state-of-the-art engines and a new cockpit.The Intercontinental lists at $317.5 million. Germany's Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) has ordered 20 of the planes, and is set to be the first airline to bring the new jumbo into service early next year. Boeing says a VIP customer will take first delivery of an Intercontinental in the fourth quarter of this year.Production of the new 747 has been delayed as has the mid-sized 787 Dreamliner, a carbon-composite plane, which represents a bigger leap in technology than the revamped 747-8.The Paris Air Show is the venue of choice for aerospace and defense companies to strut their stuff, to the delight of aviation enthusiasts around the world.In the market for smaller wide-body aircraft, Airbus took a stab at Boeing when it said it would delay availability of some A350 aircraft to develop a bigger engine. The move was a shot across the bow to Boeing's 777-300ER long-range airliner. (Reuters)

William and Kate to live in Diana palace

2011-06-06T23:52:00.001+05:00

Updated On: Monday, June 06, 2011

LONDON: Prince William and new bride Catherine will within the coming months move into Kensington Palace, the London residence once shared by the prince and his late mother Diana, St James's Palace said Sunday.

The newly-titled Duke of Cambridge and his brother Prince Harry lived in the palace after Diana and Prince Charles divorced in 1996, but the newlywed couple will move into a different property within the grounds.

A spokesman from St James's Palace said: "We can confirm that The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's official London residence will temporarily become a property at Kensington Palace.

"A number of options for longer term solutions are still being considered.

"The couple's main home will continue to be their house on Anglesey, and their Household Office will continue to be based at St James's Palace," he added.

The duke and duchess currently live on the north Wales island of Anglesey, where the prince works as an RAF search and rescue helicopter pilot.

William, 28, is second in line to the throne for the 16 Commonwealth realms, including Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. (AFP)

Identifying bin Laden, unmasking a rapist: DNA at work

2011-05-29T22:43:00.002+05:00

Updated On: Sunday, May 29, 2011

WASHINGTON: From identifying Osama bin Laden to proving someone guilty of rape or murder, DNA analysis has become an essential scientific tool for police and criminal justice.

Unique genetic markers could play a crucial role in the trial of ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid in New York.

Various media reports, citing sources close to the investigation, have said that DNA from Strauss-Kahn -- believed to be traces of semen -- was found on the shirt of the 32-year-old woman, who has alleged that the French political heavyweight tried to rape her in his hotel suite on May 14.

"The DNA technique, the nuclear DNA, is the one and only technique, if properly conducted, that has an extraordinarily high odds against a misidentification," said University of Arizona professor of chemistry and geoscience Bonner Denton.

"It's very close to 100 percent... It's a much better technique than many other forensic identification techniques, even finger prints."

Thanks to DNA analysis and other tests, US officials were able to say they were certain bin Laden was dead, with just a one in 11.8 quadrillion chance of mistaken identity.

CIA specialists first compared photographs of the Al-Qaeda leader's corpse to photographs of bin Laden and then reviewed a DNA sample against a "comprehensive profile" derived from some of his many family members.

As a result, an intelligence official said there was no doubt that a team of US Navy SEALs that raided a compound in Pakistan on May 1 had killed the Al-Qaeda founder.

Denton was part of a National Research Council team that wrote a key report about DNA analysis in 2009 for the US Congress.

"Nuclear DNA analysis has been subjected to more scrutiny than any other forensic discipline, with extensive experimentation and validation performed
prior to its use in investigations," the report said.

It concluded that the US medical-legal system needed to be revamped because forensics labs were backlogged and understaffed.

More than half of the first 250 people released from prison thanks to a DNA test exonerating them had been initially found guilty based on erroneous medical analysis.

DNA analysis entered the US criminal system in 1987 when a serial rapist in Florida became the first person whose guilt was proven using the technique.

Federal authorities, including the US military and all 50 states, now archive DNA samples.

The FBI has developed the powerful Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), which catalogs millions of samples.

Every Monday morning, the FBI launches a CODIS search automatically comparing millions of DNA profiles of people who were arrested or found guilty with samples collected in cold cases.

The methodology has allowed CODIS to confirm the guilt of 140,000 criminals since 1994 and to prove 269 people innocent since 1989, according to University of Virginia School of Law professor Brandon Garrett.

Each year, DNA analysis clears thousands of suspects, even early on in police investigations.

A federal investigation in the 1990s found that 25 percent of principal suspects had been cleared of all suspicion thanks to DNA tests.

The reliability of the technique can also establish the identity of a child's parents at low cost.

And it shed new light on the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and the third US president's black slave Sally Hemings, finding that he likely fathered several children with her. (AFP)

Heart scans tied to ‘evidence-free’ cure

2011-05-24T19:26:00.002+05:00

Updated On: Tuesday, May 24, 2011

NEW YORK: When symptom-free people have heart scans to look for clogged arteries, they can end up with overtreatment and side effects, researchers said Monday.

In a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, they found people who had the scans were much more likely to be put on medications and undergo surgery than those who chose standard health screening.

The scans, called coronary computed tomography angiography or CCTA, produce a detailed image of the heart that reveals cholesterol buildups in the coronary arteries.

If they get big enough, such buildups may cut the blood flow and cause a heart attack. So in theory, treating them early on might help stave off some the more than 1.2 million heart attacks -- a third of them fatal -- that occur every year in the U.S.

Yet there's no evidence that treating people based on heart scan results does any good, said Dr. John McEvoy, of Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease in Baltimore, who led the new study.

By contrast, it's well known that the scans expose patients to a high dose of X-rays, which can increase their likelihood of developing cancer. And the dyes used to enhance the images cause kidney damage in a significant portion of people.

"Testing might lead to more harm than good," McEvoy said, adding that heart scans may cost $600 or more.

His team looked at 1,000 Korean patients who chose to get a heart scan as part of a health screening program at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital.

The researchers compared those patients to closely matched individuals who opted to forgo the scans -- not currently recommended by guidelines -- and just get the standard health checkup.

More than a fifth of the patients who got scanned had cholesterol buildups in their arteries, also called atherosclerosis.

Three months later, these individuals were using cholesterol-lowering statins 34 percent of the time and blood-thinning aspirin 40 percent of the time. In those who tested negative for atherosclerosis or didn't get scanned, less than 10 percent used the medications.

People who got scans also had more additional tests and major heart procedures.

The researchers expected that if the extra drugs and procedures were actually helpful, the treated people would have a lower rate of serious heart problems in the future.

But after another 18 months, there was no such difference. There was just one event in the 1,000 people who had CCTA (one case of hospitalization for chest pain) and one in the 1,000 people who didn't (a heart-related death).

Currently, whether a patient gets statin or aspirin is based on risk factors such as their age, and how much cholesterol is in their blood. Both drugs have side effects, notably joint problems and bleeding ulcers.

Although the study can't prove that getting a scan caused the extra medication use, the gap could not be explained by differences in risk factors for heart disease, such as cholesterol levels or smoking.

In an editorial, Dr. Michael S. Lauer of National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, said the new study serves as a reminder of the downsides of screening.

"Physicians cannot easily ignore diagnoses made with screening tests because it is impossible for them to determine whether their patients have real disease or pseudodisease," Lauer notes. "Therefore, physicians prescribe tests, medications, procedures, or even surgical procedures, all of which carry inherent risks."

McEvoy agrees. "With these new imaging techniques, we are left with the dilemma of what to do with the results," he said.

Even when screening helps predict health problems down the road, Lauer adds, that doesn't mean treatments are necessarily beneficial.

"Overdiagnosis is threatening to become an increasingly important public health problem because of the enthusiasm for and proliferation of unproven screening tests," Lauer writes.

McEvoy said there have been several reports of doctors doing CCTA heart scans in healthy patients, although the practice is currently discouraged by the American Heart Association.

According to McEvoy, doctors should focus on patients' lifestyle and traditional risk factors such as smoking and obesity. (Reuters)

Royal wedding party captures world’s attention

2011-04-29T22:35:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Friday, April 29, 2011

LOS ANGELES: The fairytale wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton captured the imagination of the world Friday, with millions sharing in the celebration of the royal nuptials at parties across the globe.

An estimated two billion people watched on TV when William and Kate exchanged vows at Westminster Abbey, and even in the home to the Hollywood stars royal glamour shined strong.

"We have movie stars, but they're not as good," said Paula Haifley, 30, as she arrived at the Cat and Fiddle British pub on Sunset Boulevard.

Decked out with Union Jack flags and cut-out Kate and Wills models at the entrance, some 300 royal party-goers packed into the bar for the all-night bash to watch the wedding service that started at 3:00 am in LA.

"We came to celebrate. It gave us the opportunity to dress like girls, and celebrate the pomp and circumstance that we don't necessarily get over here," said Katie Christiansen, 24.

"It's a Cinderella story to make Hollywood drool," Andrew Rule from London commented in Sydney's Daily Telegraph tabloid.

"Today the world will see the wedding that proves that fairytales can, and do, happen," he wrote in the newspaper which reserved its first five pages for the wedding.

Hundreds of devoted monarchists gathered for celebratory lunches across the country, joining for a champagne toast, wedding cake and slideshows of the royal family and newlyweds.

And British troops took a rare break from frontline duties in one of Afghanistan's most hostile provinces to watch the pomp and ceremony from London on a big screen while toasting the marriage with alcohol-free beer and hunks of barbecued steak and chicken.

For some at Camp Tombstone in the southern province of Helmand it was a chance to honour the future king and their country, for others it was a great excuse to relax and have some fun.

"If you were going to say the politically correct thing, it would be it's a great thing but if you were to say (the) real thing, it's a cracking day off," said Able Seaman Kieran Glynn, a 22-year-old from Edinburgh, Scotland.

The British embassy in Brussels threw an austerity-based royal wedding reception with food and drink laid on by sponsors.

Ambassador Jonathan Brenton told some 400 guests the British tradition was to bring something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue to a marriage.

"Here we are in a time of austerity in the UK and we have had to borrow an enormous amount -- so thanks to our sponsors," he said, listing backers that offered Freixenet cava sparkling wine from Catalonia, pork pies from an Irish butcher and "North Sea" cod and chips.

Meanwhile in Paris, some well wishers visited the statue by the Pont d'Alma that has become an unofficial memorial to William's mother, the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

A solitary pink rose lies at the foot of the "Flame of Freedom", above the tunnel where Diana's car crashed in 1997. With it is a handwritten message: "Dear Diana, thinking of you on this special day."

Despite France's revolutionary past, the wedding was followed avidly here, where three channels screened it live. Champagne corks flew in southern France where many British expats have settled.

"It's history in the making. The prince is marrying a commoner," said Lise Moloney, who toasted the royal couple from the Cafe de Paris in Eymet, a medieval "bastide town" in the Dordogne region.

In former British colony Kenya, where William proposed to Kate last October, wedding gatherings were held in cafes and restaurants across the capital Nairobi.

Even in the Nairobi slum of Kibera, Africa's biggest, a small group of people gathered around a television set up by a stall owner.

"As he proposed to her in Kenya, I think it is good for Kenyans to watch it," said Zack Aseka, owner of a stall selling electrical equipment.

Across Asia tens of millions tuned in to the event as national channels interspersed wedding coverage with discussion, commentary, and off-beat tributes to British life.

Some British-curriculum schools like the Alice Smith School in Malaysia were festooned in British flags and colourful bunting, as students celebrated by making wedding cards and cupcakes.

"This is a great opportunity for us to celebrate the British character of the school as well as wish the happy couple the best of luck," Steve Caulfied, principal of the school's primary section, told AFP.

Even the Kremlin, which has had frosty relations recently with Britain, extended "heartfelt congratulations" to the newlyweds.

"This day is a great and outstanding event not only for you, but also all the people of the United Kingdom. Let your family always live in harmony, happiness and love," Medvedev wrote to Prince William, the Kremlin said.

But British republicans took the opportunity to throw an anti-monarchy party, venting their annoyance at an occasion they consider to be a waste of time and money.

"The whole country is not in rapture over the royal wedding," Graham Smith, campaign manager of anti-monarchy group Republic, told 200 people gathered in a picturesque London square at the 'Not the Royal Wedding' celebration. (AFP)

Energy saving bulbs can cause cancer

2011-04-26T22:18:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, April 26, 2011

BERLIN: Energy saving bulbs may help cut down electricity bill, but it can take a toll on health.
Fears have been reignited about the safety of energy saving light bulbs after a group of scientists warned that they contain cancer-causing chemicals. Their study has found that these energy saving bulbs emit cancer-causing chemicals when switched on.

Scientists in Germany have claimed that energy saving bulbs should not be left on for long periods of time or placed close to a person's head because they release poisonous materials.

The German study has shown that the chemicals are released as a form of steam. Scientists claimed that several carcinogenic chemicals and toxins were released when the environmentally-friendly compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) were switched on, including phenol, naphthalene and styrene.

Legendary Comedy Icon of Pakistan Moin Akhter passes away

2011-04-22T19:35:00.003+05:00

KARACHI: Veteran television, stage and film artist Moin Akhtar has died here on Friday at the age of 61.

Moin Akhtar was under treatment at Combined Military Hospital (CMH) due to heart disease.

Moin Akhtar was a television, film and stage actor, as well as a comedian, impersonator, and a host. He was also a play writer, singer, film director and a producer.

Moin Akhtar was a highly dynamic and versatile performer from Karachi, the largest city of Pakistan, he made his debut for television on 6 September 1966, in a variety show held on PTV to celebrate the first defense day of Pakistan. Since then, he has performed several roles in TV plays/shows, later making a team with Anwar Maqsood and Bushra Ansari.

Whether on the stage or on the screen, Moin Akhtar is one of the most sought after actors in Pakistani entertainment industry. His apparent attempts to avoid vulgar in his humor has rendered him a favorite amongst family audiences.

He is an inspiration for the generations to come and is one of the few that stands out so distinguishably. Akhtar was fluent in several languages, including English, Bengali, Sindhi, Punjabi, Memon, Pushto, Gujarati and others, while in the Urdu-speaking world, he is beloved for providing humor for people of all ages, and with an etiquette that remains unmatched.

He has a following not only in Pakistan but on the other side of the border, India, too due to the stage shows, Bakra Qiston Pe and Buddha Ghar Pe Hai with Umer Sharif. It would not be wrong to say that his ardent fans are spread all around the globe.

Moin Akhtar rose to the national spotlight and gathered critical acclaim for his performance in the drama Rosy /Rozy, in which he played the role of a female TV artist. Rozy was an Urdu adaptation of Hollywood movie Tootsie starring Dustin Hoffman.

Moreover, in a talk-show namely Loose Talk, which began in 2005 on a private television channel, he has appeared as a different disguised guest who is interviewed by Anwar Maqsood, the writer and the host of the program. Loose Talk ended after over 400 episodes, each seen with Moin disguised as a different personality.

India world's biggest arms importer: SIPRI think tank

2011-03-14T22:50:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Monday, March 14, 2011

STOCKHOLM: India has been the world's biggest weapons importer over the last five years, Swedish think-tank SIPRI reported Monday, naming four Asian countries among the top five arms importers.

The report also highlighted how the world's major arms supplying countries had in recent years competed for trade in Libya, and in other Arab countries gripped by the recent wave of pro-democracy uprisings.

"India is the world's largest arms importer," the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said as it released its latest report on trends in the international arms trade.

"India received nine percent of the volume of international arms transfers during 2006-10, with Russian deliveries accounting for 82 percent of Indian arms imports," it said.

Its arms imports jumped 21 percent from the previous five-year-period with 71 percent of its orders being for aircraft.

India's arms purchases were driven by several factors, said Siemon Wezeman of SIPRI'S Arms Transfers Programme.

"The most often cited relate to rivalries with Pakistan and China as well as internal security challenges," he wrote.

China and South Korea held joint second place on the list of global arms import, each with six percent, followed by Pakistan, on five percent.

Aircraft accounted for 45 percent of Pakistan's arms imports, which had bought warplanes from both China and the United States. Pakistan's arms imports were up 128 percent on the previous five-year period, SIPRI noted.

Greece rounded off the top-five list arms importers, with four percent of global imports.

Since the lifting of a UN arms embargo on Libya in September 2003, Britain, France, Italy and Russia had all competed to win orders from Moamer Kadhafi's regime, said the report.

Kadhafi's forces are currently using tanks, artillery and warplanes to reclaim territory held by the opposition forces.

Egypt had received 60 percent of its major arms imports from the United States between 2006 and 2010, said the SIPRI report.

They included "M-1A1 tanks and M-113 armoured vehicles of the type present during demonstrations in the country in January 2011," it added.

A pro-democracy uprising forced Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to step down on February 11, after nearly three decades of autocratic rule, after pro-democracy uprising.

But the conflict left at least 384 dead and more than 6,000 injured.

Russia, Montenegro, the Netherlands and China had also supplied weapons to the Mubarak regime, said the SIPRI report.

The United States remained the world's largest military equipment exporter, accounting for 30 percent of global arms exports in 2006-10, 44 percent of which went to to Asia and Oceania, SIPRI said.

The rest of the top five arms suppliers were: Russia, with 23 percent of the total market; Germany (11 percent); France (seven percent); and Britain (four percent).

"There is intense competition between suppliers for big-ticket deals in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America," said Dr Paul Holtom, head of the SIPRI Arms Transfers Programme.

He cited the efforts of the Eurofighter consortium to sell their plane across the world against rival warplanes, with competition particuarly fierce for the markets in Brazil and India.

Britain, France, Germany and Italy were also competing for orders for naval equipment from Algeria, noted SIPRI.

The think tank, which specialises in research on conflicts, weapons, arms control and disarmament, was created in 1966 and is 50-percent financed by the Swedish state. (AFP)

Over 180,000 refugees flee to Libya's borders

2011-03-03T19:27:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Thursday, March 03, 2011

GENEVA: Libyan border crossings were overwhelmed by tens of thousands of hungry, fearful people fleeing its burgeoning civil war. Egypt and a handful of European nations launched emergency airlifts and sent ships to handle the chaotic exodus.

U.N. refugee agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said that over 180,000 refugees have reached the border. Over 77,300 people have crossed east from Libya into Egypt, most of them Egyptians, while a similar number have fled west from Libya into Tunisia, she said. Another 30,000 more were still waiting in Libya at the border, trying to get into Tunisia.

She said Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi's forces appear to be targeting Egyptians and Tunisians, apparently thinking they are the main trigger of the uprising against Gadhafi's 42-year-old regime. Authoritarian regimes in both neighboring countries have been toppled in the last two months by a wave of popular protests.

"(There are) many, many terrified refugees" in the Libyan capital of Tripoli who are too afraid to move for fear they will be killed, Fleming said.

Some Somali and Eritreans workers around Benghazi, Libya's second largest city which is now under the control of opposition forces, are also feeling "hunted" as they are being mistaken for mercenaries hired by Gadhafi, she said.

Human Rights Watch warned that fleeing African workers were "particularly under threat due to popular anger" over Gadhafi's mercenaries.

As border crossings were overwhelmed with mostly young men, U.N. experts warned that fast action was needed to protect and feed them before a humanitarian crisis or riots broke out.

Angelina Jolie, a U.N. goodwill ambassador for refugees, appealed Wednesday for all nations to give people safe passage, evacuation if needed, and ensure they have asylum.

"All I'm asking is that civilians be protected, and not targeted or harmed," the actress said. "We don't want to look back and find their deaths are on our hands."(AP)

NATO to deploy AWACS in Afghanistan

2011-01-08T19:01:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, January 08, 2010

KABUL: The US-led military alliance says it will deploy the Airborne Warning and Control System planes (AWACS) to war-ravaged Afghanistan, officials say.

A NATO spokesperson said in Brussels on Friday that the planes would monitor the growing traffic of aerial missions against Taliban militants.

"AWACS [planes are] to begin their operations in Afghanistan in mid-January," media quoted NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu as saying.

She said AWACS are also fitted with long-range radar allowing them to detect other aircraft and prevent mid-air collisions.

Defense analysts say US-led forces do not need AWACS planes and other advanced weapons meant for big wars.

The developments come after Lindsey Graham, senior Republican senator, suggested that the US should devise a plan to permanently keep American troops in the war-torn country.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, decided to send an additional 1,400 marines to Afghanistan, the first series of which could begin arriving on the ground as early as mid-January.

Despite an earlier pledge by US President Barack Obama for a major drawdown of troops from the war-ravaged country by July 2011, American officials recently announced that US soldiers would remain in Afghanistan for at least another four years.

Analysts say the US is looking for an excuse to expand its military operations in the troubled South and central Asian regions to secure bases near Russia and China.

NATO has admitted to the rising power of militants in Afghanistan despite the growing presence of US-led forces in the country, which currently stands at 150,000.

Iran invites world powers to visit nuclear sites

2011-01-04T20:59:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, January 04, 2011

TEHRAN: Iran said on Tuesday it has invited envoys of world powers and European Union states to visit its nuclear facilities ahead of talks in Istanbul on its controversial atomic programme.

The invitation to ambassadors of the countries represented in the UN atomic watchdog comes as Tehran works to garner support for its atomic drive in the run-up to talks with six world powers in Turkey at the end of January.

"The representatives of some European Union countries, NAM (Non-Aligned Movement), and some representatives of the five-plus-one (six world powers) have been invited to visit our nuclear sites," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters.

He said the invitation was part of the Islamic republic's attempt to demonstrate "cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)." The "visit to our nuclear sites once more shows the goodwill of our country and the peaceful and cooperative nature of our (nuclear) activities," Mehmanparast said.

Such visits to Iran's atomic facilities are rare and the last trip which Tehran arranged for members of the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog, dates back to February 2007.

The proposed new visit to nuclear facilities, Mehmanparast said, "will take place before the Istanbul meeting," for which a final date has yet to be determined.

Iran and the six powers -- Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany -- are to meet for another round of talks on Tehran's atomic programme. The previous round of talks, which took place after a hiatus of 14 months, was held in Geneva on December 6 and 7.

But Mehmanparast did not specify whether Iran's arch-foe, the United States, one of the six world powers negotiating with Tehran over its nuclear programme, was among those invited. Asked specifically whether a US representative would be invited, Mehmanparast replied: "The list of the countries invited for the visit will be unveiled when it is finalised."

Washington has been spearheading a campaign of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, which world powers suspect is masking a drive for atomic weapons. It has also not ruled out a military strike to stop the growing nuclear programme under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Tehran has been slapped with four sets of UN sanctions.

The latest UN sanctions were imposed on June 9, followed by unilateral punitive measures by the United States, the EU and several other countries.

Holbrooke final words; ‘Stop war in Afghanistan’

2010-12-14T20:46:00.004+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, December 14, 2010

WASHINGTON: Richard Holbrooke, the late US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, had some stark final words as he was sedated and going in for surgery, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

"You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan," Holbrooke told his Pakistani surgeon, the Post reported, citing unnamed family members.

Holbrooke, one of the most experienced US diplomats, died Monday as the administration of President Barack Obama reviews its strategy in Afghanistan. He was 69.

Holbrooke fell ill at work on Friday, was rushed to a Washington hospital and underwent what the Post described as a 21-hour operation to repair his aorta.

Working along with US military planners in Afghanistan, Holbrooke oversaw a tripling in the number of civilians in the war-ravaged country under a year-old plan to boost the country's agriculture, economy and civilian institutions.

Take anti-cholesterol food

2010-12-13T23:28:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Monday, December 13, 2010

LONDON: Anti-cholesterol food to control high cholesterol is not to be the method of nutritional therapy, i.e. eats anti-cholesterol food that is commonly found in everyday life. You can replace bad fats with healthy fats.

Eating plant foods may increase intake of vegetable protein lowers cholesterol efficacious excess.

Want to know what foods are anti-cholesterol? Check out the tips below is taken from various sources.

1. Mushrooms.
Rich in chromium, a mineral that helps break down fats into simpler compounds, i.e. fatty acids. This activity helps shrink the fat bad (LDL), and increase levels of good fats (HDL). Another source of chromium is nuts, like almonds, peanuts, cashews, and almonds.

2. Fresh pumpkin seeds.
So far, we used pumpkin seeds, whereas abundant copper. Low dietary copper intake is associated with increasing levels of bad LDL cholesterol, and lack of good cholesterol HDL. Often consume watermelon seeds, especially the fresh, good seeds and pumpkin seeds sunflower seeds.

3. Lime.
Among the various types of citrus, lime or lemon is the most contain flavonoids. These compounds can inhibit the excessive production of LDL, thereby reducing the risk of heart attack. Flavonoids can also be found in tea, broccoli, tomato, and soybean, onion like layers of onion and onions and pomegranates.

4. Apple.
A lot of soluble fiber found in apples is a source beta glucan. In the body, contributes beta glucan control of cholesterol absorption and production. Another source of papaya, the fruit was eaten with the skin (apples and pears), carrots, peas and vegetables, legumes in general (bean, Winged bean, and green beans), dried beans (green beans, red beans, and Tolo beans), and red rice.

5. Tuna.
Sources of fatty acids including omega-3 are popular, other than salmon and mackerel. Omega-3 in particular can protect the body against rising levels of bad LDL cholesterol.

6. Local Guava Red.
Just like watermelon red and red tomatoes, red guava locally rich in leucopenia. Leucopenia had a role in controlling the production of cholesterol.

7. Avocado.
Pantothenic acid is the most prominent compounds in avocados that acts reduce blood cholesterol levels.

8. Tofu and Soy Milk
Food is abundant compounds are anti-cholesterol.

9. Peanut
Peanut skin, which is skinned peanuts are roasted in the oven. This abundance of snacks and healthy fats rich in vitamin E, which can ‘lock’ free radicals that damage is not bad LDL cholesterol, so the formation of plaque in blood vessel walls can be avoided and prevent heart attacks.

10. Mango.
Vitamin C is found in many mangos. Other sources: star fruit, papaya, strawberries, and kiwi. Vitamin C prevents oxidized LDL bad cholesterol, so avoid the formation of plaque in blood vessel walls.

All foods the above can be used as anti-cholesterol food.

Climate activists in Egypt use art to send message

2010-11-27T17:40:00.004+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, November 27, 2010

CAIRO: More than 200 students and environmental activists gathered Friday in the desert outside Egypt's capital to form an image of a giant scarab visible from space to raise climate change awareness.

The image of the beetle holding a sun in its pinchers - a symbol of resurrection for the ancient Egyptians - was documented by a satellite and a photographer working atop an onsite crane.Similar photos have been taken or are planned in 12 places around the world in what organizers says is the first international climate art project.

The initiative is named Project 350 for what scientists say is the safest maximum level of carbon units in the atmosphere. The current level is estimated at more than 380 units.Organizers say they aim to reach those world leaders who don't believe climate change is a problem and to push for more aggressive emission cuts.A United Nations climate conference is scheduled for next week in Cancun, Mexico.Other photographed images - all of them using people - have included a giant elephant in New Delhi, an eagle in Los Angeles and a cyclone in Mexico City.Egypt has a lot to lose from effects of climate change such as rising sea levels.

Activists and scientists have warned that much of the Nile Delta, Egypt's agricultural lifeline, could disappear if sea levels rise, in addition to higher temperatures drying up the country's already limited water sources."The Nile Delta is one of the three most vulnerable places to climate change in the world," said Sarah Rafaat, a graphic designer and activist who organized the event."It's a very strong statement, that in a developing country, youth want to do something about this," she said.Among the participants were students Haggar Yasser and Reem Hemida, who heard about the event from their school principal.

They agreed that their generation was going to have to deal with any effects of climate change and said they hoped world leaders would sit up and listen."They should know more about the world," said Yasser. "They should care more."

World’s most expensive bottle unveiled

2010-11-26T22:47:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Friday, November 26, 2010

MEXICO CITY: The Mexican distiller ‘Hacienda La Capilla’ has produced a bottle of tequila that it is expected to fetch £2.2 million at auction, making it the most expensive drink of its kind in the world.

The 1.3 litre bottle is coated in a layer of platinum and studded with more than 4,000 diamonds.

Hacienda La Capilla already holds the Guinness world record for most expensive bottle of tequila, but their previous offering fetched a mere £142,000, a fraction of what the latest bottle is expected to go for.

The bottle will now be going on tour in Europe and the Middle East in the hope of attracting potential buyers.

Pomegranate juice helps reduce tummy

2010-10-22T19:21:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Friday, October 22, 2010

LONDON: Studies earlier revealed that pomegranate can help prevent cancer, is good for your heart and can even boost your sex life.

Now, scientists believe that pomegranate juice has the power to reduce the fat around the stomach - the 'spare tyre' in men or the 'muffin top' in women.

After just one month, volunteers who consumed a bottle of pomegranate juice daily were found to be less likely to develop fatty cells around their abdomen.

They also had much lower blood pressure, therefore reducing the risk of heart attacks, strokes and kidney disease, reports a UK daily.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh believe pomegranate juice may lower the amount of fatty acid in the blood known as non-esterified fatty acid or NEFA.

Previous studies in humans and animals have shown that high NEFA levels are linked to a greater storage of fat around the abdomen as well as an increased risk of heart disease and Type II diabetes.

In the experiment, a group of men and women were given a 500ml bottle of pomegranate juice to drink every day for four weeks.

The researchers found that nearly half of all volunteers had much lower NEFA levels by the end of the trial. They believe that this will make them less likely to store fat around their stomach.

Besides, more than 90 per cent of the men and women had lower blood pressure by the month end.

Emad Aldujaili and Catherine Tsang, lead researchers at Edinburgh University's School of Health Sciences, said: "There is no doubt that pomegranate juice is beneficial in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease because our results showed a significant and consistent lowering of blood pressure."

Time, like others, may come to an end

2010-10-16T19:32:00.003+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, October 16, 2010

WASHINGTON: The end of the world as we know it cannot be avoided, but it can be predicted, according to a group of astrophysicists who see a 50 percent chance of the final countdown ending in 3.7 billion years.

"Time is unlikely to end in our lifetime, but there is a 50 percent chance that time will end within the next 3.7 billion years," according to the team of US and Japanese scientists, who are challenging a long-standing theory of the universe.
While scientists have long concluded that the universe is expanding, and will do so for an infinite period of time, the researchers say the very rules of physics suggest that "an eternally inflating universe" is far from given.

"The point of this paper is to show that certain methods and assumptions that have been widely used by physicists for years -- most prominently, the use of a time cutoff in order to compute probabilities in an eternally inflating universe -- lead to the conclusion that time will end," Raphael Bousso of the University of California, Berkeley said.

"In other words, the time cutoff, which we may have thought was just a calculational tool, actually behaves like a physical event, whether we like it or not," said Bousso, lead author of the study published on arXiv.org

Current theories of the universe begin with the "Big Bang," which cast our living space into being some 13.7 billion years ago in a massive explosion.

Since then, theorists have assumed the universe will simply continue to expand forever, but have also used a theoretical expiration date to help calculate the laws and rules of physics.

But Bousso and his colleagues says the discipline simply cannot have it both ways.

He cautioned however that the complex thought experiment and calculations proposed by the research could not be used to draw definitive conclusions.

"It's very important to understand that we are not saying that we are certain of the conclusion that time will end (though we cannot rule out that it may be correct)," he wrote.

But he said even if the theory was false, discovering why that was the case would help scientists better understand the universe.

"In science, this kind of reasoning is often valuable: you realize that your reasonable-seeming theory predicts something that sounds crazy, so you have to come to grips with that," he said.

"Either you have to abandon the theory, or you have to understand why the crazy-sounding thing may not actually be so crazy."

For astrophysicist Charles Lineweaver, of Australian National University's Mount Stromlo Observatory, Bousso's conclusions are simply incorrect.

"Bousso's average life of a universe is a set time, only because that's what happens when you introduce a cutoff point to get a reasonable probability," he told ABC Television.

"It's a statistical technique being taken probably too seriously," he added.

But Bousso said he and his team had not invented or introduced anything.

"These cutoffs have been used by many leading physicists for years," he said. "We merely pointed out that it's not such an innocent thing to do.

"The cutoff on time is inevitably physical and hence requires a physical justification. It cannot be considered a mere mathematical trick."

Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa wins Nobel Literature Prize

2010-10-07T22:16:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Thursday, October 07, 2010

STOCKHOLM: Peruvian-Spanish author Mario Vargas Llosa won the 2010 Nobel Literature Prize on Thursday, the Swedish Academy said.

The 74-year-old author, a one-time presidential candidate, is best known for works such as "Conversation in the Cathedral" and "The Feast of the Goat" but is also a prolific journalist.

Announcing the award, the academy hailed "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat."

Vargas Llosa has won a string of major literary awards, including the most prestigious of all for a Spanish-language author, the Cervantes Prize, and had often been tipped to win the Nobel prize.

Born in Arequipa, Peru, Vargas Llosa grew up with his mother and grandfather in the city of Cochabama in Bolivia before moving back to Peru in 1946.

He then became a journalist, moving to France in 1959 where he worked as a language teacher and as a journalist for Agence France-Presse as well as for French television before establishing his reputation as an author.

His first major success came with the novel "The Green House" which appeared in English in 1966. He has since continued to produce a string of bestsellers, many of which deal with political themes and the troubled history of Latin America.

He ran for the Peruvian presidency in 1990 on a centre-right ticket, but was badly beaten by Alberto Fujimori, later to be disgraced after a string of political scandals.

Disappointed by his defeat and upset at the dictatorial turn of Fujimori's 1990-2000 regime, Vargas Llosa took on Spanish nationality in 1993 -- a controversial move that angered many Peruvians.

The following year he was elected to the Spain's Royal Academy of Language, the final authority in Spanish-language grammar and vocabulary.

Last year, German author Herta Mueller took the Nobel Literature Prize for her work inspired by her life under Nicolae Ceausescu's dictatorship in Romania, and the year before it went to French author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio.

The Literature Prize is the fourth of six awarded this Nobel season, following the prizes for medicine, physics and chemistry earlier this week.

Next in line is the other big crowd-pleaser, the Peace Prize, which will be announced on Friday, with many observers saying a Chinese dissident might follow in the footsteps of US President Barack Obama, who took the honour last year.

The Economics Prize will wrap up the Nobel season on Monday, October 11.

This year's laureates will receive 10 million Swedish kronor (1.49 million dollars, 1.09 million euros) which can be split between up to three winners per prize.

The Peace Prize will be handed out in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary
of the death in 1896 of the prize's creator, Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel.

The other Nobel laureates will pick up their prizes in Stockholm on the same day.

The prizes were first awarded in 1901.Here follows a list of the 15 most recent winners of the prize:

2010: Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
2009: Herta Mueller (Germany)
2008: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (France)
2007: Doris Lessing (Britain)
2006: Orhan Pamuk (Turkey)
2005: Harold Pinter (Britain)
2004: Elfriede Jelinek (Austria)
2003: J.M. Coetzee (South Africa)
2002: Imre Kertesz (Hungary)
2001: V.S. Naipaul (Britain)
2000: Gao Xingjian (France)
1999: Gunter Grass (Germany)
1998: Jose Saramago (Portugal)
1997: Dario Fo (Italy)
1996: Wislawa Szymborska (Poland)

New US advisory angers UK

2010-10-04T21:07:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Monday, October 04, 2010

LONDON: New US travel advisory for Europe has left UK intelligence officials wondered after increased drone attacks in Pakistan, Geo News reported Monday.

The intel officials were of the view that there was nothing extraordinary in the advisory and level of threat has not been raised, adding that such advisory was also issued after Mumbai attacks.

According to a UK daily, US has not shared any such information with the security agencies. Soon after Mumbai attacks US also issued such warning that the terrorists were planning to attack Europe.

UK has expressed anger over US for leaking the information in public rather than taking up the issue with the authorities.

Meanwhile, a senior UK police officer said that the country was not prepared to face such tragedy.

Help Pakistan!

2010-08-28T18:32:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, August 28, 2010

After the advice about danger from United Nations that 800,000 people in desperate need of aid had been cut off by the deluge across the country and appealed for more helicopters to deliver supplies to those people reachable only by air the Pentagon has announced to double the number of U.S. helicopters to help with relief efforts in Pakistan after epic floods. An additional 18 helicopters would arrive in mid-September as part of an expanded U.S. contribution to deal with the floods.

These would be in addition to 15 helicopters and three C-130 aircraft already taking part in relief activities.

UN spokeswoman Stacey Winston has also told a news conference yesterday that the flood situation is getting worst day by day as about one million more people have been displaced in Sindh over the last 48 hours as devastating floods continue to spread across south Pakistan where as about six million had been forced out of their houses by the floods that began nearly a month ago.

Spokesman of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) put the death toll from the countrywide rains and deluge at 1600 and the total number of affectees at 17 million. He further said that that rains and floods killed 1068 peoples in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa; 183 in Gilgit-Baltistan; 109 in southern areas of Sindh; 103 in Punjab; 71 in Kashmir and; 48 people in Balochistan and the toll is feared to mount further as the water level recedes in flooded areas. The NDMA spokesman further said that about 8 million peoples are in need of food on emergency basis.

Civil Authorities failed to help flood victims in Pakhtunkhawa

2010-08-01T20:48:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Sunday, August 01, 2010

The recent heavy rains and floods have exposed badly the capabilities of local authorities in Pakhtunkhawa Province who have totally failed in providing relief to flood victims

Despite the advance warnings of heavy and unusual rains in monsoon season, local authorities did not make necessary arrangements to face that calamity. Flood level is higher than what was in 1929. Peoples are helpless and quite disappointed as they have almost lost their properties and lives and now seeking help from anywhere. Majority is still surrounded in floodwater and finding no way to go to safer places. No significant presence of civil administration has been noticed except loud claims and announcements in media.

Civil administration has failed in saving not only infrastructure in the province but also the lives of peoples. Poor arrangements and lack of any plan and coordination are severely criticized in media. The innocent peoples of this province are already victims of terrorism from Taliban militants. They are fighting bravely the war imposed onto them by terrorists and this catastrophe is another test of their courage. So far Pak Army is helping them but failure of civil administration is alarming and needs immediate attention of Federal government as floods are now heading to Punjab and Sindh provinces.

War on Terror – a failure is in the way!

2010-07-27T23:35:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, July 27, 2010

From inception, there have always been some elements of mistrust between Pakistan and USA on War on Terror. Pakistan usually complains that Pakistani Army and nation have made more sacrifices than any other nation but USA does not recognize it in its true sprit and always has a policy of suspicion on Pakistani actions against Taliban militants and Al-Qaeda. Moreover USA does not fulfill its obligations in the right way of aiding Pakistan against incurred loses in this war.
US administration although praises Pakistan Army’s successful operation and South Waziristan and Swat but simultaneously puts doubts on the role of ISI in Afghanistan. Pakistan also does not like the Pro-India policy, which USA demonstrates in the region. USA needs badly Pakistan to deal with Al-Qaeda and Taliban phenomena Both USA and India are well aware that they cannot be successful without the help of Pakistan but its is their common viewpoint and agenda that Pakistan should be given due importance despite its incredible role in the war for the stability in region and safety of whole World. From time to time, USA had the policy of pressurizing Pakistan for infamous demand of “do more” but did not bother to think deeply the necessities and requirements of this sort of war. Inside USA, there are sever differences in military command and white house on Afghan war policies. This has also resulted in termination of top US military brass in Afghanistan.
Pakistan also has reservations over USA policies in the region. Despite that Pakistan is US ally in war on terror but all USA blessings are for India. As a policy, USA does not give Pakistan whatever it needs and opposes to whatever Pakistan gets from its friend. Obviously with such sort of mindset with ally, USA cannot win war in Afghanistan. USA foreign policy should fly from Washington to Islamabad directly and not from the route of Delhi. This is the clear message of time, which should be heeded by USA if wants to win war on terror otherwise a failure is in the way.

Why has Russia changed its stance on Iran's Nuclear Program ?

2010-07-24T21:39:00.005+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, July 24, 2010

After 4th round of Russia’s backed sanctions against Iran, the differences are rising between Moscow and Tehran. Russia was considered as a great supporter of Iran against US led alliance campaign for its nuclear program.

How did the Moscow change its stance about Iran’s nuclear program that "….. In a meeting with his ambassadors, Medvedev said we have knowledge that Iran is moving towards the bomb," – the answer may be somewhere in a series of the meetings of Russian President and US President on different occasions and most probably reaching to an understanding and later on “deal” with Washington on various strategic issues regarding Central Asia and Middle East.

Russia is fervently interested in seeking a big share in World Politics likewise in past and Washington-Tehran conflict is giving it that opportunity for the time being. That’s why, Iranian President said in the footage filmed at a gathering in Tehran on July 23, 2010, "We regret that Medvedev has become the mouthpiece for the plans of Iran's enemies,".

Angelina Jolie to shoot film on Bosnian war

2010-07-16T20:09:00.003+05:00

Updated on : Friday, July 16, 2010

LOS ANGELES: Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie is planning to direct her first film in the Balkans. She will also play a leading role in the movie, a love story set in the Bosnian war.
n
Jolie will visit Serbia in August to discuss planning of the film and scout locations, local media reported.

In the film, a Muslim woman is raped by a Serb at the beginning of Bosnia's bloody 1992-1995 war. But they eventually fall in love and go together through horrors of the war in which more than 100,000 people were killed.

Jolie is a goodwill ambassador for the UN refugee agency UNHCR. She and her husband Brad Pitt visited the Balkans in April, taking a short vacation in Montenegro and visiting refugee camps in Bosnia.

Fish talk to each other, researcher finds

2010-07-11T21:14:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Sunday, July 11, 2010

WELLINGTON: The undersea world isn't as quiet as we thought, according to a New Zealand researcher who found fish can "talk" to each other.

Fish communicate with noises including grunts, chirps and pops, University of Auckland marine scientist Shahriman Ghazali has discovered according to newspaper reports Wednesday.

"All fish can hear, but not all can make sound -- pops and other sounds made by vibrating their swim bladder, a muscle they can contract," Ghazali told the New Zealand Herald.

Fish are believed to communicate with each other for different reasons, including attracting mates, scaring off predators or orienting themselves.

The gurnard species has a wide vocal repertoire and keeps up a constant chatter, Ghazali found after studying different species of fish placed into tanks.

On the other hand, cod usually kept silent, except when they were spawning.

"The hyopothesis is that they are using sound as a synchronisation so that the male and female release their eggs at the same time for fertilisation," he said.

Some reef fish, such as the damselfish, made sounds to attempt to scare off threatening fish and even divers, he said.

But anyone hoping to strike up a conversation with their pet goldfish is out of luck.

"Goldfish have excellent hearing, but excellent hearing doesn't associate with vocalisation -- they don't make any sound whatsoever," Ghazali said.

He was to present his findings to the New Zealand Marine Sciences Society conference on Wednesday.

Megan Fox's wedding pictures come online

2010-07-09T19:35:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Friday, July 09, 2010

LONDON: The setting couldn't have been more cinematic. Sunset on one of Hawaii's beautiful beaches. But for Megan Fox, there was only one choice of leading man.

These exclusive pictures bear witness to the 24-year-old actress's biggest role to date - when the blushing bride made a stunning entrance walking barefoot along the beach as she prepared to wed fiancé Brian Austin Green, 36.

Swathed in a strapless white Armani Privé gown complete with a flowing16ft-long train, carrying a bouquet of gardenias and white roses, Megan looked like a textbook bride for her wedding to the former 90210 actor.The groom, former Beverly Hills 90210 star Austin Green also chose all-white Armani for the ceremony.

In these newly released pictures, Megan is seen strolling barefoot along the beach in a wedding, which bore few of the hallmarks of the typical Hollywood nuptials.The couple was married on June 24th in an intimate ceremony, conducted on a deserted beach in Hawaii at sunset, to the tranquil sound of waves lapping on the shore.Megan and Brian who had been dating for six years on and off before tying the knot, were wed at the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai at Historic Ka'upulehu.

Gen Petraeus warns of tough Afghan mission ahead

2010-07-03T21:13:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, July 02, 2010

KABUL: The United States' top field commander, General David Petraeus, warned on Saturday of a tough mission ahead a day after arriving to take command of the 150,000-strong NATO-led foreign force in Afghanistan.

Petraeus told hundreds of guests at a U.S. embassy party held to mark U.S. independence day that it was essential to show unity of purpose to solve Afghanistan's problems.

"This is a tough mission, there is nothing easy about it," he said at the sprawling and heavily fortified U.S. embassy complex in Kabul, Washington's biggest foreign mission anywhere in the world and boasting 5 ambassadors.

Petraeus is charged with not only winning the war against a growing Taliban insurgency, but also with starting a withdrawal of U.S. forces from July next year.

Wearing casual camouflage under a scorching Kabul sun, Petraeus and a besuited U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry on Saturday welcomed scores of guests to an embassy compound liberally decorated with Stars and Stripes flags.

A brass band played as guests munched on burgers, corn-on-the-cob, popcorn and ice-cream cones.

Petraeus's appointment could be a last throw of the dice for Washington to end an increasingly costly conflict that is draining Western budgets as they emerge from one of the worst global recessions in history.

He landed in Kabul on Friday after his appointment was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives approved $33 billion in funding for a troop surge he hopes will turn the tide of the war.

The surge will bring to 150,000 the number of foreign troops in Afghanistan just as a new strategy takes root. It entails tackling the Taliban in their strongholds while relying on the government to simultaneously improve local governance and development.

Petraeus, who is due to formally take command at a ceremony at the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters on Sunday, is credited with turning the tide of the war in Iraq using similar tactics.

ISAF said on Saturday that a service member had died in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in the south.

Nearly 1,900 foreign troops have died in Afghanistan since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001 -- including more than 100 last month, the bloodiest since the war began.

The last two weeks have thrown an especially harsh light on the war effort, with new reports of corruption in President Hamid Karzai's government and the change in command of foreign forces.

Doubts have also been raised over the commitment of the government to push governance and development alongside the military drive, and also the ability of Afghan forces to take over responsibility for security.

At the same time, Karzai has been wooing the Taliban with a series of modest peace overtures, all have which have been rejected by the hardline Islamist movement, which insists all foreign forces must leave before they will end the insurgency.

Pentagon tightens media rules for US military

2010-07-03T21:10:00.003+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, July 02, 2010

WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has tightened rules on media relations for the US military, only days after the top general in Afghanistan was sacked over disparaging comments he and aides made in an interview.

In a three-page memo sent to senior military and civilian Pentagon staff, Gates said he was "concerned that the department has grown lax in how we engage with the media, often in contravention of established rules and procedures."

The former Central Intelligence Agency director said "leaking of classified information is against the law, cannot be tolerated, and will, when proven, lead to the prosecution of those found to be engaged in such activity."

The memo instructs Pentagon officials to notify the Defense Department's assistant secretary for public affairs "prior to interviews or any other means of media and public engagement with possible national or international implications."

UN wants more female police officers for peace missions

2010-06-11T19:27:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Friday, June 11, 2010

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations said Thursday it is trying to boost the number of female police officers in its peacekeeping missions around the world, highlighting that women can play a unique role in certain areas, including responding gender-based violence. The number of female blue helmets is climbing, and the world body is aiming to more than double the proportion of women comprising UN Police (UNPOL) to 20 per cent by 2014, UN Police Adviser Ann-Marie Orler told reporters in New York.

The continuing growth and complexity of our police components underlines the central role of promoting the rule of law in post-conflict environments, she said. Last August, the UN launched a so-called Global Effort to increase the number of female police officers in serving with peace-keeping missions.

Currently, of the 17,407 UNPOL serving in 17 missions, just 8.5 per cent are women. The number of female UNPOL must increase not just because deploying more women reflects natural justice,but because women bring an essential extra dimension to one of our most important tasks bringing peace, stability and development to populations recovering from conflict, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last week at a meeting with female blue helmets. Ms. Orler on Thursday pointed to the need to make the UN selection and training processes more efficient so that more female police officers can be brought on board peacekeeping operations.

The Global Effort also aims to augment the number of female police officers serving with Member States national police forces. The Police Adviser noted that Bangladesh is aiming to recruit 10,000 more female police officers in the coming months, while Liberia has also set the 20 per cent target for 2014. Pakistan is contributing 19 female police officers for the peacekeeping missions, Ms. Orlers said.

The presence of female police officers in Liberia has helped to increase the reporting of cases of sexual and gender-based violence, according to Doreen Malombo, the police gender adviser for the UN peacekeeping mission in the West African nation, known as UNMIL. It is not very easy for a woman to discuss violence issues with a male officer, she said, but they feel free to bring out their cases with female police officers.

Burgers may feed kids' Asthma risk: study

2010-06-07T20:43:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Monday, June 07, 2010

SYDNEY: Children who eat three or more hamburgers a week may raise their odds for asthma, a new study suggests.

However, eating the so-called "Mediterranean diet" rich in fruits, vegetables and fish could cut kids' respiratory risk, the researchers say.

"Our results support previous reports that the adherence to a Mediterranean diet, which is characterized by a high intake of fruit, vegetables and fish and a low intake of meat, burger and fizzy drinks, may provide partial protection against asthma in childhood," said lead researcher Dr. Gabriele Nagel, from the Institute of Epidemiology at Ulm University in Germany.

For the study, Nagel's team collected data on about 50,000 children from 20 rich and poor countries. Parents were asked about their children's typical diet and whether they had asthma or not. In addition, almost 30,000 of the children were tested for allergies.

While diet did not appear to influence allergies, it was associated with the risk of asthma and wheeze, the researchers found.

Children in both rich and poorer countries who ate a lot of fruit had lower rates of wheeze.

Eating lots of fish seemed to protect children in rich countries, and a diet high in cooked green vegetables protected children in less developed countries from wheeze, Nagel's group found.

Fruits and vegetables are rich in antioxidant vitamins and biologically active agents, and the omega 3 fatty acids prevalent in fish have anti-inflammatory properties, which might explain these findings, the researchers said.

On the other hand, children who ate a lot of burgers had a higher lifetime prevalence of asthma and wheeze, the researchers found. The finding was especially true for allergy-free children from more affluent countries.

Israel in eye of storm over Gaza ship raid

2010-05-31T22:28:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Monday, May 31, 2010

ANKARA: Israel's regional allies froze military ties as angry protests erupted over the storming Monday of aid ships bound for Gaza, while Muslim leaders demanded swift UN action to punish the "criminal" assault.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was "shocked" by the navy assault on a convoy carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists, lawmakers and journalists through international waters towards besieged Gaza.

Ban called on Israel to "urgently" explain itself over the raid, reported to have killed up to 19 people, many of them Turks, and a UN diplomat said the Security Council had scrambled to convene emergency talks on the crisis.

Israel's closest ally Washington said it "deeply regrets the loss of life" and was "working to understand" what caused the "tragedy."

The Jewish state's chief regional partner Turkey responded with fury, scrapping plans for joint war games with Israel and recalling its ambassador, as it warned the "flagrant breach of international law" would have "irreparable consequences" for bilateral ties.

Tens of thousands of furious Turks poured into the streets with protestors in Istanbul burning Israeli flags, shouting "Damn Israel!" and demanding "A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, revenge, revenge!"

The Vatican voiced "deep sadness and concern" and Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair expressed his "deep regret and shock," as capitals across Europe summoned Israel's ambassadors to explain the assault.

Greece, which had dozens of nationals in the convoy, also pulled out of joint military exercises with Israel as an aid group claimed that commandos in helicopters had fired on a Greek vessel.

Israel said its troops were attacked after they stormed six ships loaded with thousands of tonnes of aid and with hundreds of activists aboard, and that both sides used live fire.

Israel, which has blockaded Gaza since its bitter foe Hamas was elected to power three years ago, had called the expedition illegal and warned it would act to stop it.

Muslim leaders united in condemning what Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called a "massacre" and Arab League chief Amr Mussa said was a "crime."

Hamas, which rules Gaza urged world Muslims to "rise up" in protest, as Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denounced the raid as "inhuman Zionist regime action."

Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri described the raid as "dangerous and crazy" and called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, chaired by Beirut until midnight in New York.

Across the country Palestinian refugees and activists demonstrated to denounce the raid, chanting slogans like "Give us weapons, give us weapons and send us on to Gaza."

The UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, called for a worldwide boycott and sanctions against Israel, saying "those Israelis responsible for this lawless and murderous behaviour" should be held criminally accountable.

Pakistan also "strongly condemned" the attack on a "peaceful flotilla," as politicians, lawmakers and journalists protested in Islamabad against Israel.

Egypt condemned the "acts of killing" by Israel forces while Kuwait's parliament speaker said the storming of the flotilla, which was carrying 16 Kuwaitis including an MP, was a "heinous Israeli crime."

And Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, said "there was no basis" for Israel's assault.

In Europe, condemnation was equally swift, with the European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton demanding Israel mount a "full inquiry."

Spain -- the current European Union president -- France, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Greece and Cyprus summoned Israel's respective ambassadors, with Madrid slamming the operation as "unacceptable".

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Israel of a "disproportionate use of force."

Germany's Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he was "deeply concerned" about the deaths, while Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini "deplored" the loss of civilian life.

Russia also condemned a "crude violation" of international law.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague deplored the loss of life, saying Israel must "act with restraint" -- but also said London had warned of the risks of defying the Gaza blockade.

A Cyprus MEP, Kyriacos Triantafyllides, who was involved with the mission, said activists had "expected a strong reaction from Israel."

"But nobody believed it would come to this point, where they would face something akin to an invading army," he said.

Facts of deadly raid needed, Obama tells Israeli PM

2010-05-31T22:20:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Monday, May 31, 2010

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu it was important to find out "all the facts" of Monday's deadly flotilla raid as soon as possible, the White House said.

Sex hormone explains higher liver cancer risk in men

2010-05-21T17:28:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Friday, May 21, 2010

HONG KONG: Male sex hormones may explain why men who suffer from the hepatitis B liver disease are more likely to develop liver cancer than women, researchers in Taiwan have found.

In a paper published in Science Translational Medicine, the researchers said hepatitis B viruses attach themselves to receptors of the male sex hormone androgen before going on to damage liver tissue and cause cancer.

"The findings indicate that using drugs to destroy ... androgen receptors could be a new way to battle liver cancer at an early stage," they wrote.

Liver cancer is the fifth most common cancer and the third leading cause of global cancer death.

Hepatitis B virus infection, which is endemic in many Asian countries including China, is a leading cause of liver cancer and accounts for half of liver cancer cases worldwide.

Men are up to seven times more likely than women to develop liver cancer. Among hepatitis B virus carriers, men are up to three times more likely to develop liver cancer than women.

Led by Ming-Heng Wu at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences in National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan, researchers found that hepatitis B viruses have a special DNA sequence which draws it to androgen receptors.

"The androgen receptors in liver cells bind to this sequence and trigger a cascade of damage to liver tissue," they explained.

In their experiment, the researchers created mice that were infected with the hepatitis B virus and could easily develop liver tumors upon exposure to cancer-causing agents.

Some of these were genetically modified to be lacking in androgen receptors in their livers.

By week 22 in the experiment, more than 90 percent of those mice with androgen receptors had developed liver tumors compared to 27 percent of the mice without androgen receptors.

Tinkering with the receptors did not change overall androgen levels or leave any obvious toxic effects in the mice.

"Targeting the androgen receptor rather an androgen could be a promising therapy for liver cancer," the researchers said.

2010 is warmest ever in recorded history: Report

2010-05-18T19:37:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, May 18, 2010

WASHINGTON: The year 2010 is turning out to be the warmest ever in recorded history, with the first four months reporting an average temperature of 13.3 degrees Celsius, which is 0.69 degrees above the 20th century average.

The combined global land and ocean surface temperatures for the period between January and April were the warmest on record, and April was the warmest individual month ever, America's climate agency has said in its latest report.

The combined April global land and ocean average surface temperature was the warmest on record at 14.5 degrees Celsius (58.1 degrees F).

This is 0.76 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average of 13.7 degrees Celsius, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said.

The earth's temperature for January-April at 56.0 degrees Fahrenheit (13.3?C), is 1.24 degrees Fahrenheit or (0.69 degrees Celsius) above the 20th century average, it said.

While the global ocean surface temperature was 0.57 degrees C above the 20th century average of 16 degrees and the warmest on record for April, the global land temperature was 1.29 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average of 8.1, the third warmest on record for April.

The report said the warmth was most pronounced in the equatorial portions of major oceans, especially the Atlantic.

Warmer-than-normal conditions dominated the globe, with the most prominent warmth in Canada, Alaska, eastern US, Australia, South Asia, northern Africa and northern Russia.

Cooler-than-normal places included Mongolia, Argentina, far eastern Russia, the western contiguous United States and most of China, it said.

Clinton: "severe consequences" in case of attack

2010-05-08T18:19:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, May 08, 2010

NEW YORK: The United States has warned of "severe consequences" if a successful extremist attack in America were traced back to Pakistan, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday in an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes."

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a failed bid to bomb New York's Times Square last Saturday. If proven, it would be the group's first act in the United States.

Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad has been charged with driving the crude homemade bomb into Midtown Manhattan and said he acted alone, according to authorities. But investigators have uncovered possible links to the Pakistani Taliban and a Kashmiri Islamist group.

"We've gotten more cooperation. It's been a real sea change in the commitment we have seen from the Pakistani government. We want more, we expect more," Clinton said in the interview to be aired on Sunday. Excerpts were released on Friday.

"We've made it very clear that if -- heaven-forbid -- an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences," she said, without elaborating.

Shahzad, 30, who was born in Pakistan and became a U.S. citizen last year, has admitted to the failed plot and to receiving bomb-making training in a Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan, prosecutors said.

He has been charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and trying to kill and maim people, as well as other counts. Shahzad is yet to appear in court as he has waived his U.S. legal rights and is talking to investigators.

Times Square suspect says he acted alone: official

2010-05-04T20:03:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, May 04, 2010

NEW YORK: A law enforcement official says the man accused of driving a bomb-laden vehicle into Times Square was arrested onboard a flight set to leave a New York airport for Dubai.

The official familiar with the investigation tells a foreign news agency that Faisal Shahzad was taken into custody aboard the flight at Kennedy International Airport.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

The official says investigators still don't have evidence that Shahzad is connected to the Pakistani Taliban or any foreign terror groups.

The official says, “He's claimed to have acted alone, but these are things that have to be investigated."

Times Square cleared as suspected car bomb found

2010-05-02T19:52:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Sunday, May 02, 2010

NEW YORK: Police found a suspected car bomb in a smoking sport utility vehicle Saturday evening in Times Square, then cleared the streets of thousands of tourists milling through the landmark district so they could dismantle the device.

A white robotic police arm broke windows of the black Nissan Pathfinder to remove any explosive materials while heavily armed police and emergency vehicles shut down the city's busiest streets, teeming with taxis and theatergoers on one of the first summer-like days of the year.

Investigators removed bomb-making materials, including propane tanks, explosive powders and a crude timing device, top police spokesman Paul Browne said.

"There were explosive elements, including powder, gasoline, propane and some kind of electrical wires attached to a clock," Browne said early Sunday. "No motive has been identified."

An officer noticed smoke coming from the SUV around 6:30 p.m. and cleared the streets. The area remained closed more than seven hours later.

Police are investigating a report that someone was seen running from the vehicle at some point and are reviewing security videotapes, Browne said. The Nissan Pathfinder's license plates do not match the car's registration, he said.

Police evacuated several residential and commercial buildings and cleared the streets of people. Police were deployed around the area with heavy weapons on empty streets in the heart of busy midtown Manhattan.

Some tourists reported hearing a small explosion hours after the car was first located.

Shelly Carlisle, of Portland, Ore., said police crowded into her Broadway theater after the curtain closed on "Next to Normal," a show on the same block where the SUV was found.

"At the end of the show, the police came in. We were told we had to leave," Carlisle said. "They said there was a bomb scare."

The car was parked on 45th Street, and the block was closed between Seventh and Eighth avenues as a precaution, police said. Times Square lies about four traffic-choked miles north of where terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, then laid waste to it on Sept. 11, 2001.

FBI agents are on the scene with the New York Police Department, and the matter is being taken seriously, said Paul Bresson, head of the FBI's public affairs office at bureau headquarters in Washington.

The Homeland Security Department is aware of the situation, but the NYPD has it under control and is investigating, said a Homeland Security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is in progress.

The block that was closed is one of the prime blocks for Broadway shows, with seven theaters housing such big shows as "Billy Elliot" and "Lend Me a Tenor."

The curtain at "God of Carnage" and "Red" opened a half-hour later than usual, but the shows were not canceled, said spokesman Adrian Bryan-Brown.

Katy Neubauer, 46, and Becca Saunders, 39, of Milwaukee, were shopping for souvenirs two blocks south of the SUV when they saw panicked crowds.

"It was a mass of people running away from the scene," Neubauer said.

Said Saunders: "There were too many people, too many cops. I've never seen anything like it."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg left early from the White House correspondent's dinner Saturday night. A news conference was planned in New York for early Sunday.

President Barack Obama, who attended the annual gala, praised the quick response by the New York Police Department, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said. He has also directed his homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, to advise New York officials that the federal government is prepared to provide support.

Brennan and others will keep Obama up to date on the investigation, Shapiro said.

In December, a van without license plates parked in Times Square led police to block off part of the area for about two hours. A police robot examined the vehicle, and clothes, racks and scarves were found inside.

Clinton urges Arab states to do more for Mideast peace

2010-04-30T18:09:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Friday, April 30, 2010

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday urged Arab states to do more to back Israeli-Palestinian peace moves while warning Syria against arming Lebanon's anti-Israeli Hezbollah.

But Clinton, speaking to a pro-Israel group, said she also expected Israel to halt settlements in occupied land, meet the humanitarian needs of Gazans, and help the Palestinian Authority build institutions needed for statehood.

"We do not expect the Arab states to move forward in a vacuum," the chief US diplomat said in remarks to the American Jewish Committee.

President Barack Obama's administration is trying hard to relaunch indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that were aborted last month when the right-wing Israeli government announced new settlements in east Jerusalem.

Clinton also urged the US-backed Palestinian Authority -- which controls only the West Bank and not the extremist Hamas-run Gaza Strip -- to continue its work to improve security and stop anti-Israeli militancy in the West Bank.

Although she hit familiar themes, Clinton was more explicit than in the past about what steps the Arabs should take for peace after they ignored previous pleas because of what they consider Israel's intransigence.

"They should take specific steps that show Israelis, Palestinians and their own people that peace is possible and that there will be tangible benefits if it is achieved," Clinton said in a speech to a pro-Israel group.

The chief US diplomat urged Arab states to offer more financial support to the Palestinian Authority and its two-year development plan as well as move toward ending Israel's isolation by opening or re-opening trade offices.

"The United States has done our part, becoming the PA's largest bilateral donor, and Europe also has stepped up," she said. "Arab states need to share a greater portion of these responsibilities."

Gulf Arab states like Qatar and Oman closed Israeli trade offices in 2000 when the Oslo the peace process collapsed in violence. Qatar closed the Israeli trade office when Israel launched an offensive in Gaza in December 2008.

Clinton also suggested that Arab states grant Israel the right to fly over their territories as well as allow cultural or educational exchanges between Israelis and Arabs.

The moves involving Israel, the Palestinians and Arab state amounted to a complex choreography.

"As negotiations proceed between the Israelis and Palestinians, and mutual confidence increases, Arab states should reach out to the Israeli public," she said.

They should do so by "demonstrating that Israel's isolation in the region is ending, and all sides should resume multilateral discussions on critical regional issues," she said.

Under the 1993-2000 peace process launched in Oslo, Arab and Israeli delegations had discussed regional issues like sharing water and trade.

She also addressed Israeli allegations that Syria is arming Hezbollah with long-range Scud missiles.

"Transferring weapons to these terrorists -- especially longer-range missiles -- would pose a serious threat to the security of Israel," Clinton said.

"We do not accept such provocative and destabilizing behavior -- and nor should the international community.

"President Assad is making decisions that could mean war or peace for the region. We know he's hearing from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas," the chief US diplomat said.

"It is crucial that he also hear directly from us, so that the potential consequences of his actions are clear."

She also urged states in the region to stop supplying rockets and other weapons to Hamas.

Bush poisoned at G8 summit in 2007: former First Lady

2010-04-29T22:20:00.003+05:00

Updated on : Thursday, April 29, 2010

WASHINGTON: George W Bush's wife Laura has claimed that she and her husband were poisoned during a G8 meeting of world leaders.

Mrs Bush said the couple and several members of their staff fell ill under mysterious circumstances at the summit in Germany in 2007.

Her husband was bedridden for part of the trip but an investigation by the Secret Service was inconclusive and doctors concluded that they could have contracted a virus.

The former First Lady made the poisoning claim in her book Spoken From The Heart, which is due out in the U.S. in May.

She has also used the book to speak in detail for the first time of how she crashed her car at the age of 17, killing a schoolmate.

She tells vividly how the death has haunted her for most of her adult life and caused her to lose her faith in God.

The supposed poisoning took place at the 33rd G8 meeting in Mecklenburg in Germany which included Prime Minister Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who was then still Chancellor, among the attendees.

Other world leaders present were German chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian president Vladimir Putin and French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

The summit's big achievement, a non-binding communique on climate change, was overshadowed by a video of President Sarkozy apparently drunk.

But Mrs Bush's claims point to potentially more serious events going on behind closed doors.

The morning after sharing a laugh and a beer with Mr Blair, the then President was forced to miss a session on Africa because he was ill.

Mrs Bush had noted several high profile staff becoming ill and asked White House security to look into the matter, but investigations did not turn up evidence of a plot.

In her book Mrs Bush writes: 'We never learned if any other delegations became ill, or if ours, mysteriously, was the only one.'

At the time of the incident Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor, said Mr Bush was dressed and ready for the meeting when he began to feel sick and that his condition was likely a 'stomach virus, a light touch of food poisoning or something else'.

Mr Bush carried out a much-anticipated first meeting with Mr Sarkozy, but it was behind closed doors.

Memories of what happened to his father may have been one of the reasons he stayed out of sight.

In 1992 on a visit to Japan, President George HW Bush was filmed by TV crews collapsing and falling off his chair before vomiting.

Mrs Bush also told of her heartache after killing schoolmate Michael Douglas when she was 17.

The popular athlete, who driving another vehicle, died when she ran a stop sign on a small road in Midland, Texas, and smashed into his car in 1963.

She and a girlfriend were hurrying to a drive-in cinema, driving her father's car on a dark country road, when the accident happened.

Nobody was ever charged and there was no evidence that either driver had been drinking.

She concedes she was chatting to her passenger and regrets not trying to contact the victim's parents or going to the funeral.

'I lost my faith that November, lost it for many, many years,' she writes.

'It was the first time that I had prayed to God for something, begged him for something, not the simple childhood wishing on a star but humbly begging for another human life. And it was as if no one heard.

'My begging, to my 17-year- old mind, had made no difference.

'The only answer was the sound of Mrs Douglas's sobs on the other side of that thin emergency room curtain.'

Ahmadinejad says U.N. veto power "satanic"

2010-04-27T20:40:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, April 27, 2010

TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday labeled as "satanic" the U.N. Security Council and the right of veto held by its five permanent members, Iran's news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West, said the power of veto held by the United States, China, Britain, France and Russia was aimed at "oppressing and destroying the true nature of mankind and are satanic tools," agency said.

His comments came amid escalating tension in the Islamic Republic's long-running dispute with the West over Tehran's nuclear program, with the United States pushing for new U.N. sanctions against the major oil producer.

Washington and its allies suspect Iran is seeking to develop nuclear bombs. Tehran denies the charge and says its nuclear work is aimed at generating electricity.

A U.S. draft for a fourth round of U.N. sanctions proposes more curbs on Iranian banking, an arms embargo, tougher measures against Iranian shipping, moves against Revolutionary Guards members and a ban on new investments in Iran's energy sector.

Tehran has remained defiant, saying it is prepared to swap its low-level enriched uranium for higher-grade fuel enriched abroad, a move which would help address fears about Iran's enrichment activities, but insists this happen on Iranian soil.

In October Iran agreed in principle to send low-enriched uranium abroad for more processing, but then said the swap should "take place inside its territory and simultaneously."

US military option against Iran still on table: Pentagon

2010-04-22T18:52:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Thursday, April 22, 2010

WASHINGTON: US military action against Iran has not been ruled out, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday, after a top official said such an option was off the table in the "near term."

The Defense Department faced questions about US policy on Iran after Michele Flournoy, undersecretary of defense for policy, reportedly said during a visit to Singapore that a strike against Iran would be a "last resort."

"It is not on the table in the near term," Flournoy was quoted as saying.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said US strategy over Iran's nuclear program remained unchanged, with Washington focused on diplomatic efforts to persuade Tehran to abandon uranium enrichment.

"I don't think that's anything new," Morrell said of Flournoy's remarks.

"It clearly is not our preference to go to war with Iran, to engage militarily with Iran.

"Nobody wishes to do that, but she also makes it clear it's not off the table."

He said the US preference for diplomacy over military action held true for the current administration as well as former president George W. Bush's White House.

He acknowledged that nearly 200,000 troops deployed in countries bordering Iran -- Afghanistan and Iraq -- could face attacks from Tehran in the event of a possible US strike against Tehran.

"And we have troops in close proximity to Iran that are potentially targets of retaliation should action be taken," he said.

Given Iran's arsenal of short and medium-range missiles, the US military has missile defense systems in the region that "we think will protect our forces against such a threat," he added.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and top military officer Admiral Mike Mullen have warned of the limits and risks of any military action against Iran, saying it would likely only delay Tehran's program by a few years.

Woman with the largest feet in the world

2010-04-20T17:13:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, April 20, 2010

BEIJING: Shen Xiaojing was the woman with the largest feet in the world, she has the world longest foot in the world. Shen Xiaojing hopes that she could enter the Guinness Book of records for her Largest Feet.

Shen Xiaojing, 21, lives in Nong’an County. When she was born, her feet were unusually large. Her right foot is 32 centimetres long and 12 centimetres wide; her left foot is 30 centimetres long and 11 centimetres wide. The big toe of her right foot is as large as a baby’s foot of a baby at 7.5 centimetres long and 4.5 centimetres; her second toe is 9 centimetres long and 3.5 centimetres wide.

What is intriguing is that the big toe of her left foot is completely normal, while the other toes are unusually large. For 21 years, all her shoes were made by her mother. Shen Xiaojing is now 170 centimetres tall and has reached the age to marry. However, most young men have been frightened away by her giant feet. Shen has two wishes: to see the world and to get into the Guinness Book of Records.

Israel on way to collapse: Iran's Ahmadinejad

2010-04-18T19:49:00.003+05:00

Updated on : Sunday, April 18, 2010

TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that Israel, the "main instigator of conflict" in the Middle East, was on its way to collapse and that regional powers wanted it uprooted.

In a speech marking annual Army Day, the president also reiterated his view that the presence of foreign forces is causing conflict in the region.

"The Zionist regime is on its way to collapse," Ahmadinejad, known for his strong anti-Israel rhetoric, said in an address delivered near the shrine of Imam Khomeini, Iran's revolutionary leader.

"This is the will of the regional nations that after 60 odd years, the root of this corrupt microbe and the main reason for insecurity in the region be pulled out."

Ahmadinejad, who previously has angered Israel and Western countries for asserting that the Holocaust is a "myth", said that the "murderess" Jewish state was behind turmoil in the region.

"This regime is the main instigator of sedition and conflict in the region," the hardliner, flanked by Iran's top military brass, said from the podium.

"I want its supporters and creators to stop backing it and allow the regional nations and the Palestinians to settle things with them," he said without elaborating.

Ahmadinejad also demanded foreign forces quit the region.

"The presence of foreign forces is the cause of conflict in our region. They must leave," he said, adding that Iran's military might was enough of a "deterrent" for any "enemy" of the Islamic republic.

Iranian officials, including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have regularly blamed the presence of US forces in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan for instability in the region.

Iran wants 'atomic criminal' US suspended from IAEA

2010-04-17T21:05:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, April 17, 2010

TEHRAN: Top Iranian officials slammed "atomic criminal" the United States on Saturday and called for its suspension from the UN atomic watchdog as Tehran hosted a two-day nuclear disarmament conference.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message to the conference, said the use of nuclear weapons was "haram", meaning religiously prohibited, and branded Washington as the world's "only atomic criminal."

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went a step further and called for Washington's suspension from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) along with all other nations who possess nuclear arms.

"Only the US government has committed an atomic crime. The world's only atomic criminal lies and presents itself as being against nuclear weapons proliferation, while it has not taken any serious measures in this regard," Khamenei said in his message which was read out at the start of the meeting.

Ahmadinejad, under whose presidency Iran has pushed ahead with its controversial nuclear programme, called for a global supervision of nuclear disarmament.

"An independent international group which plans and oversees nuclear disarmament and prevents proliferation should be set up," the hardliner said as he opened the conference attended by several foreign ministers and officials from the United Nations.

He said those who "possess, have used or threatened to use nuclear weapons be suspended from the IAEA and its board of governors, especially the US which has used a weapon made of atomic waste in the Iraq war."

Ahmadinejad did not elaborate on that charge.

Khamenei and Ahmadinejad have been infuriated in recent days with Washington over its new nuclear policy, which limits the countries against which it might use its nuclear arsenal, but singles out Iran and North Korea as exceptions.

Ahmadinejad even called for the review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of which Iran is a member and so considers its right to enrich uranium despite three sets of UN sanctions.

"The review of the NPT must be done by independent countries who do not possess nuclear arms," he said.

The Tehran conference, which comes just days after Washington held its high-profile nuclear summit, aims to "discuss nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and the use of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, which are the bases of the Non-Proliferation Treaty," Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted as saying on Friday.

Salehi has also said in recent days that the conference would serve as preparation for the next NPT review meeting in New York early next month, which Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki plans to attend.

Iran criticised the 47-nation nuclear disarmament summit in Washington hosted by US President Barack Obama, on the grounds that the United States holds one of the world's largest stocks of nuclear weapons.

At the summit, Obama pressed China and other UN Security Council skeptics to back a fourth set of sanctions against Iran for its controversial uranium enrichment programme that Western states say masks a drive for atomic arms.

Foreign ministers from Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, the Central African Republic, Oman, Turkmenistan, Armenia and Swaziland are participating in the Tehran conference, while Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are represented by their deputy foreign ministers, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said.

Mehmanparast said a special aide of the Chinese foreign minister, representatives of the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the chief of Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) will also be present.

"Due to the eruption of the volcano (in Iceland), some foreign ministers from South America and Africa who had connecting flights may come later or tomorrow. Among them are also some experts of weapons of mass destructions and nuclear weapons," he added.

Booming TV formats go global in risky times

2010-04-14T16:53:00.003+05:00

Updated on : Wednesday, April 14, 2010

CANNES: TV formats have come a long way since the early days of "Pop Idol", "Strictly Come Dancing" and "Weakest Link".

Today they can range from a game show such as "Wipeout", to a Big Brother reality show or a focus on how to control kids -- but all are likely to travel the world as countries adapt each to their own culture and taste.

While formats have been rising steadily in popularity over the last 10 years in tandem with reality shows, the economic crisis has propelled the industry to new heights as the sector opts for cheaper programmes and lowered risks.

"What buyers want in an uncertain market is certainty so they're looking for programmes that are tried and tested," Tobi de Graaff, ITV Studio's director of global TV distribution, said during this week's four-day annual MIPTV audiovisual industry show.

Formats are big business, with the sector currently worth some 2.2 million euros, according to a study presented at the Riviera trade show.

And the numbers show no sign of slowing, industry experts say.

ITV's Graff, for example, said format revenues at the influential British-based independent broadcaster are rising 42 percent year-on-year.

"There are fewer risks attached to launching a format compared with producing a whole new programme," said Amandine Cassi of the Paris-based TV research company, Eurodata TV Worldwide.

"TV channels all need proven formats. If the audience ratings are good in one territory then it's twice as likely to be copied," Nathalie Wogue, who heads up international business at Endemol, said.

And when one company decides to invest in making a new format, the only way to get paid for it is to make programmes that can be duplicated, Wogue added.

Selling formats to other countries has become big business with a number of top players dominating the landscape, including Endemol, Freemantle-Media and Banijay.

Hit shows like "Come Dine With Me", for example, have spawned 4,000 episodes in 20 countries, including Slovakia and Croatia as well as Germany and Australia.

Once the concept has been fine-tuned, the big production companies and broadcasters export them to other countries where they very often also have their own local subsidiaries. Endemol and Freemantle, for example, recently opened up branches in Brazil and India where the format business is taking off.

When a company buys a format, it also often purchases the whole production structure, which can also reduce the cost. Endemol, for example, built a giant obstacle course in Argentina to film all the different national versions of the action-packed extreme game show "Wipeout".

The essence of a good format is its ability to work anywhere.

ITV's Tobi de Graaff likens formats to brands such as McDonald's or Starbucks. "You take what's successful about the show without ignoring you're dealing with different cultures. You make the right twists to make it feel home-grown and natural."

The latest twist in the format business is seeing countries which have bought versions of successful formats from market leaders such as Britain now selling their own locally-made versions of the same format back to the country where it originated.

This happened recently to Australia's version of ITV's "Come Dine With Me", which has been sold back to Britain.

To avoid such practices, the producers of one of world's biggest-selling fiction formats, France's "Camera Cafe", obliged companies buying the format to use most of the original scripts although they did allow countries such as China to remove jokes about sex or their boss.

And while coffee machine are ubiquitous worldwide, the Vietnamese asked to swop it for an iced-tea stand.

The number and variety of formats in today's TV market are huge.

Some of the most unlikely recent hit shows include "Popstar to Operastar" that pulled in over five million viewers on a Friday night in Britain to watch eight brave pop stars try to turn themselves into opera sensations.

One of format heavyweight Freemantle Media's brand new shows, "My Name is Michael", is looking for a male singing sensation who embodies the spirit and voice of late pop star Michael Jackson.

Facebook urged to add 'panic button' for children

2010-04-13T17:51:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, April 13, 2010

LONDON: A British child protection agency said it has pressed Facebook to add "panic buttons" to its pages after the murder of a teenager was linked to the site.

Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), said the social networking giant did not agree to his demands outright at a meeting in Washington but he felt they were moving in the right direction.

Speaking after a four-hour meeting Monday, Gamble said Facebook was close to "doing the right thing" but urged the website to turn "words into action."

"I felt that at the end of what were lengthy and at times tense negotiation we are able to move towards a position. They are one small step away from doing the right thing," said Gamble.

"I am more optimistic than when I came. They are not saying no, that is very clear. But they were equally direct and they came with their own agenda.

"There is no doubt they are looking to improve their position around child safety and we recognise that. What I am looking for is turning words into action."

The showdown came after controversy in Britain over Facebook's refusal to include a "panic button" on its pages after the conviction of a serial rapist who used the site to lure and murder a teenage girl.

Peter Chapman posed as a young boy to lure 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall to her death in northeast England.

Calls have since grown for the inclusion of the buttons -- which allow youngsters who feel threatened online to quickly contact a number of sources of help, such as CEOP or anti-bullying helplines.

Politicians, police and anti-bullying groups have voiced outrage that the online giant will not bow to demands to include the system.

Gamble said: "In our view they are experts at creating a fantastic online environment but they are not experts in law enforcement, the power of deterrents and the reassurance it brings for mums and dads."

Iran is world's seventh largest cosmetic consumer

2010-04-12T19:59:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Monday, April 12, 2010

TEHRAN: Iran has emerged as the world's seventh largest consumer of cosmetics, spending 2.1 billion dollars annually on various beauty products, a local newspaper said on Sunday.

The report quoting a survey conducted by TMBA, a private economic research body, said that Iran accounts for 29 percent of the cosmetics market in the Middle East.

Around 14 million Iranian women aged between 15 and 45 years and living in major cities spend around seven dollars a month per capita on cosmetics, the survey said, without giving a complete breakdown on the nation's spending.

The average monthly salary in Iran is around 600 to 700 dollars.

The survey indicates that the high spending is primarily due to the fact that about half of Iran's around 74 million population is under the age of 30.

The survey, however, is based on estimates and not on precise figures of cosmetics purchased in Iran, the report added.

Iran produces cosmetics, but imports a significant portion of its consumption.

'Date Night' dines out atop the box office

2010-04-12T19:56:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Monday, April 12, 2010

LOS ANGELES: Tina Fey comedy "Date Night" scraped past the Greek mythology blockbuster "Clash of the Titans" to lead the North American box office this weekend, early industry figures showed Sunday.

The film, also starring "The Office" actor Steve Carell, follows a jaded married couple embroiled in wacky situations and explosive danger after embarking on a rare romantic evening out without their children.

It took in 27.1 million dollars to take the top spot, Exhibitor Relations reported.

Falling from first to second was "Titans," the critically-panned adventure based on the exploits of Perseus and his battles with the serpent-haired Medusa and a fearsome sea monster, which took in 26.9 million dollars in it's second week.

The animated adventure "How to Train Your Dragon" was in third place, pulling in 25.3 million dollars, while the African-American melodrama "Why Did I Get Married Too?" by writer, director, and actor Tyler Perry, came in a distant fourth with 11 million dollars in receipts.

"The Last Song," a romantic teen-targeted Miley Cyrus flick, fell to fifth place in its second week in theaters with 10 million dollars in ticket sales.

Sixth place went to the live-action version of Lewis Carroll's classic "Alice in Wonderland" starring Johnny Depp, which has earned nearly 319 million total, including 5.6 million dollars this weekend.

The 3-D wizardry kept time-bending jacuzzi users at bay for another week, with the R-rated comedy "Hot Tub Time Machine" earning 5.4 million dollars for seventh place.

That put it ahead of "The Bounty Hunter," a comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, which came in eighth with a 4.3 million-dollar take, and "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," an adaptation of the Jeff Kinney cartoon novels, which slipped a spot to ninth place with 4.1 million dollars.

"Letters to God," which debuted at number 10 with 1.2 million dollars, follows the inspiring story of a young boy battling brain cancer.

Tony Blair's burnt toast triggers fire alert

2010-04-05T19:34:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Monday, April 5, 2010

LONDON: Former prime minister Tony Blair and his wife sparked a fire alert when they were trying to cook breakfast at their country home, sending four fire engines racing to the scene, a spokesman said.

Blair and wife Cherie were attempting to make toast early Saturday at their 17th-century property in Wotton Underwood, southeast England, when the smoke alarm went off.

As the house is on an official list of buildings deemed to be of historic interest, the alarm was automatically connected to the local fire station, said the ex-premier's spokesman Sunday.

"The Blairs were cooking breakfast when the smoke alarm went off," he said.

"In fact it was just smoke without a fire but by the time Mrs Blair rang the fire service to tell them they didn't need to come, they were already on their way.

"All rather embarrassing and she'll certainly be sending them a big thank-you note."

The local fire service said three fire engines arrived, and a fourth was on its way before it became clear the alarm was false.

"When they got there, it was basically some burned toast that had set the alarm off, so it was a smaller incident than was first feared," said a spokesman for the service.

"The smoke was cleared with a fan and the firefighters gave some fire safety advice."

YouTube redesigns website to keep viewers captivated

2010-04-01T17:01:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Thursday, April 01, 2010

SAN BRUNO: Google-owned YouTube rolled out a major redesign aimed at clearing out visual noise and capturing the attention of viewers at the superstar video-sharing website.

"We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter," Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman said as he provided an in-depth look at the revamped YouTube home page to be fully rolled out by late Wednesday.

"Changes are based on how people actually use YouTube."

YouTube engineers said they studied the way people behave at the website and modified the home page accordingly. The number of links on the page have been cut by more than half.

Information about videos is grouped in one place and one side of the page is devoted to viewing recommendations personalized to what visitors are evidently seeking.

There is a cleaned up "actions bar" for sharing, flagging or embedding videos.

Modified playlist tools make it easier to queue up videos for viewing or skip from one to another.

YouTube eliminated a five-star ranking system and replaced it with a simple "likes/dislikes" choice for viewers.

It turned out that the vast bulk of ratings entered are five-stars while a meager percentage of one-star ratings get logged and almost nobody rates videos in between, according to YouTube interface designer Julian Fumar.

Makers of videos will get spotlights in YouTube comment forums and be able to add brand names to titles of their works.

YouTube has been testing the new page design with some users for about two months but the changes will spread across the entire video-sharing service by the end of Wednesday.

The basic objective is to get people spending more time at YouTube, according to Rajaraman. Americans typically spend 15 minutes a day on YouTube compared to about five hours watching television.

"We wanted to refocus on the playback experience and optimize sessions," Rajaraman said while discussing the overhaul with bloggers at YouTube's headquarters in the Northern California city of San Bruno.

"We asked ourselves, 'How do we turn 15 minutes into an hour on YouTube?'"

While the changes don't include direct revenue-generating features, the more time people spend at YouTube the more they will invariably see or click on ads that pull in money for Google.

YouTube boasts being the second most searched website on the Internet, so engineers streamlined and improved ways people can find videos at the website.

"We'd like to make it so we don't force users to hunt for things all the time," Rajaraman said. "We would just like to bring it to them."

YouTube will set up a "war room" of sorts to field feedback from users and orchestrate warranted modifications in the coming weeks.

"Essentially we want to figure out how we get people to find their first video, search for their next video and never get to their last video," said YouTube spokesman Chris Dale.

Earlier this month YouTube said that 24 hours worth of video are being uploaded to the site every minute.

Big Bang collides particles at record

2010-03-30T20:00:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, March 30, 2010

GENEVA: Physicists at the CERN research centre achieved high-power collisions of sub-atomic particles on Tuesday in their attempt to create mini-versions of the Big Bang that led to the birth of the universe 13.7 billion years ago.

The experiment at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN), creating a record for the energy of particle conditions, will allow researchers to examine the nature of matter and the origin of stars and planets.

"This is a major breakthrough. We are going where nobody has been before. We have opened a new territory for physics," Oliver Buchmueller, one of the key figures on the 10 billion Swiss franc ($9.4 billion) project, told Reuters.

The collisions took place at a record total collision energy of 7 billion billion electron volts (eV) and at a nano-fraction of a second slower than the speed of light in CERN's 27 km (16.8 mile) Large Hadron Collider (LHC), about a hundred metres (330 feet) below the Swiss-French border.

The experiment was delayed for a few hours by a couple of technical glitches with the power supply and an over-sensitive magnet safety system. This led the physicists to suspend the mega-power particle collisions, the focus of the world's largest scientific experiment.

After the problems arose as beams were injected into the collider in the early morning, CERN officials were quick to dismiss any suggestion that it was a repeat of a major incident in September 2008 that seriously damaged parts of the experiment and delayed the full launch of the project until now.

During the coming months and years, CERN scientists expect the project to lift the veil on some of the mysteries of the cosmos -- how matter was converted to mass after the fireball of the Big Bang and what is the dark, or invisible, matter that makes up an estimated 25 percent of the universe.

Avatar dominates Britain's Empire Awards

2010-03-29T19:15:00.004+05:00

Updated on : Monday, March 29, 2010

LONDON: James Cameron's Avatar ruled Britain's Empire Film Awards on Sunday night, taking home three of the top trophies.

The sci-fi epic won the coveted Best Film honour and Cameron landed the Best Director award, while Zoe Saldana was named the Best Actress at the ceremony in London.

Inglourious Basterds star Christoph Waltz won the Best Actor award for his role in Quentin Tarantino's movie, while Aaron Johnson won the Best Newcomer honour for his portrayal of a young John Lennon in Nowhere Boy.

Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes landed the Best Thriller film award and Star Trek won Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy film.

British actor Ray Winstone, Jude Law, Andy Serkis and Sir Ian MCKellen all won special awards for their contribution to film, with the X-Men star being named Empire Icon, the evening's top honour.

He says, "I've played iconic parts - I think that's the point. I played Gandalf the Grey and the White and Magneto. So their lustre rubs off on me rather than the other way round."

The list of winners is as follows:

Best Film: Avatar

Best Director: James Cameron (Avatar)

Best Actor: Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)

Best Actress: Zoe Saldana (Avatar)

Best Newcomer: Aaron Johnson (Nowhere Boy)

Best Thriller: Sherlock Holmes

Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film: Star Trek

Best Horror: Let The Right One In

Best Comedy: In The Loop

Best British Film: Harry Brown

Outstanding Contribution To British Film: Ray Winstone

Empire Hero: Jude Law

Inspiration award: Andy Serkis

Empire Icon: Sir Ian MCKellen.

Iran's defensive drones worry Gates

2010-03-27T23:51:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, March 27, 2010

WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has announced his interest in exporting offensive US drones across the world, while expressing concern about Iran's defensive unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

Speaking before a Senate hearing on March 25, Gates claimed that it was in the interests of the United States to export deadly drones to what he termed "friendly" nations, despite limitations placed on such exports by US international treaty obligations, reported Reuters.

"There are other countries that are very interested in this capability and frankly it is, in my view, in our interest to see what we can do to accommodate them," Gates said.

UAVs are used mostly for surveillance purposes. However, in recent years, the US military has fielded a range of armed UAVs - or drones - which can attack designated targets with guided missiles, typically Hellfire.

One of these - the Predator - has been used extensively in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as other areas, for assassinations of those the US describes as hostile elements. The Predators are fairly slow and low flying aircraft, which can be used only against targets that lack any anti-aircraft protection.

Building a museum on Tendulkar announced

2010-03-26T18:44:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Friday, March 26, 2010

NEW DELHI: Indian star batsman Sachin Tendulkar is busy breaking records in cricket field and off the field his achievements are being hailed in the country.

In recognition of his feats, The Maharashtra government has announced building of a museum in his honour. The museum will be based on the life and career of the master cricketer

Tendulkar will be second cricketer after the legendary Sir Donald Bradman that a museum will be built on his cricket achievements.

Tendulkar recently accomplished the milestone of becoming the first ever player to crack a one-day international double ton.

The Little Master holds the records of making the most runs in Test and One-day International cricket besides scoring the highest number of centuries in these forms of cricket.

'I Spy' star Robert Culp dead at 79

2010-03-25T20:28:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Thursday, March 25, 2010

LOS ANGELES: US actor Robert Culp, who starred alongside Bill Cosby in the 1960s television series "I Spy," died in his Hollywood home after collapsing nearby, his spokesman said. He was 79.

"Mr. Culp was walking in a park this morning, outside his home, and fell. We do not know if it could have been a heart attack, and he has died. He was taken to the hospital where was pronounced dead after 11:00 am (1800 GMT) on Wednesday," spokesman Dick Delson said.

Additional details of Culp's death would be made available by investigators, he said.

Culp's acting career began in the late 1950s but only took off when he landed the role of a globe-trotting secret agent -- he played Cosby's tennis trainer in their undercover work -- in the popular 1965-1968 series "I Spy."

Singapore is best city for Asian expats: Survey Report

2010-03-24T22:34:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Wednesday, March 24, 2010

SINGAPORE: Singapore retained its number one spot as the best place to live for Asian expats followed by Sydney, a survey by human resources consultancy ECA International showed Wednesday.

The survey showed Singapore's top ranking was due largely to its infrastructure, health services, low crime rates and better air quality.

Other Asian cities including Hong Kong, Beijing and New Delhi ranked behind Singapore largely because of the poor air quality found in these places, the survey said.

"Air pollution remains a significant problem in a number of Asian locations. New Delhi, Beijing and Hong Kong are amongst the worst locations studied in terms of air quality," ECA International said.

"Health facility provision is also a problem for many parts of the region," it said.

Hong Kong placed eighth in the list of the top 15 best locations, the survey said. Beijing took 100th spot and New Delhi ranked 185th.

Tropical Storm hits Northeast Australia

2010-03-22T17:20:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Monday, March 22, 2010

SYDNEY: A powerful storm lashing across the northeast coast of Australia have torn roofs from buildings, smashed boats into rocks, and cut power and communication lines to tens of thousands of homes and businesses.

No deaths or injuries were reported as the tropical storm whipped across the popular tourist area that borders the Great Barrier Reef, officials said on Monday.

Repair crews struggled to restore power supply and phone lines after Cyclone Ului, a Category 3 storm, left a trail of destruction as it blew over Airlie Beach early on Sunday.

Ului struck with winds of up to 200 kilometers per hour, strong enough to suck the air-conditioning units out of walls.

Hillary Clinton arrives in Moscow for nuclear, ME talks

2010-03-18T17:25:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Thursday, March 18, 2010

MOSCOW: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday arrived in Russia for crucial talks on disarmament and a meeting of the international quartet on the Middle East, a French news agency correspondent reported.

Clinton arrived at a Moscow airport at around 0430 GMT. She was due in the afternoon to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for bilateral talks expected to push forward attempts to agree a new US-Russia disarmament treaty.

Mission Impossible star Peter Graves dies

2010-03-15T18:34:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Monday, March 15, 2010

LOS ANGELES: Peter Graves, who starred in TV's Mission Impossible, and later spoofed his persona in the Airplane comedies, died in Los Angeles on Sunday. He was 83.

Graves died of an apparent heart attack outside his Los Angeles home, publicist Sandy Brokaw said. He had just returned from having brunch with his family when he collapsed, Brokaw said. Although one of his daughters administered CPR, she was not able to revive him.

Graves's most famous role is perhaps that of Jim Phelps, who led a group of special agents who undertook dangerous – and seemingly impossible – missions in the long-running TV series Mission: Impossible. Younger audiences may remember him best as the wacky pilot in the 1980 comedy Airplane and Airplane II: The Sequel.

The actor was born Peter Aurness in Minneapolis and served in the Army Air Forces in 1944-1945, before going to study drama at the University of Minnesota as part if the G.I. Bill of Rights. His older brother, James Arness of Gunsmoke fame, was already working in Hollywood when Graves made the move, too.

Graves, who had classic good looks, was often cast as the hero in movies. However one of his most memorable early roles was a Nazi spy in Billy Wilder's 1953 prisoner-of-war drama Stalag 17.

He is survived by his wife, Joan Graves, who he met in college, and three daughters, Amanda Lee Graves, Claudia King Graves and Kelly Jean Graves.

Decapitated skeletons were Vikings: scientists

2010-03-13T16:57:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, March 13, 2010

LONDON: Dozens of decapitated skeletons which were uncovered during an excavation in Dorset were those of 1,000-year-old Vikings, scientist said Friday.

The macabre discovery in June of a neatly stacked pile of skulls next to a mass of male bones in a Weymouth burial pit sparked speculation about who the victims were.

Scientists from NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory analysed food and drink isotopes from the teeth of 10 of the 51 skulls and found it highly likely that the unfortunate men came from Scandinavia.

It is believed that the raiding Vikings were slaughtered in public by local Anglo-Saxons between AD 910 and AD 1030.

"The isotope data we obtained from the burial pit teeth strongly indicate that the men executed on the Ridgeway originated from a variety of places within the Scandinavian countries," NERC scientist Jane Evans said.

"These results are fantastic, this is the best example we have ever seen of a group of individuals that clearly have their origins outside Britain," she added.

Oxford Archaeology members have been painstakingly uncovered the pit, which was found during investigative excavation work for an £87 million relief road.

"The find of the burial pit on Ridgeway was remarkable and got everyone working on site really excited," Oxford Archaeology project manager David Score said.

"To find out that the young men executed were Vikings is a thrilling development," he added.

"Any mass grave is a relatively rare find, but to find one on this scale, from this period of history, is extremely unusual and presents an incredible opportunity."

Obama Nobel Prize money goes to minority organizations

2010-03-12T21:22:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Friday, March 12, 2010

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama, the Noble laureate for 2010 on Thursday announced the charities that will receive a portion of the $1.4 million award that comes with the Nobel peace prize.

"These organizations do extraordinary work in the United States and abroad helping students, veterans and countless others in need," said President Obama in a statement from the White House, adding, "I'm proud to support their work."

The following is a list of charities that got the cash injection from the president: $250,000 to Fisher House, a national non-profit organization that provides housing for families of patients receiving medical care at major military and VA medical centers.

$200,000 to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, which was created in the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti. $125,000 to College Summit, a national non-profit organization that partners with elementary and middle schools and school districts to strengthen college-going culture and increase college enrollment rates, so that all students graduate from high school career and college-ready.

$125,000 to the Posse Foundation, a national non-profit organization that identifies public high school students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential who may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes.

Posse's college and university partners award Posse Scholars four-year, full-tuition leadership scholarships. The scholars graduate at a rate of 90%. $125,000 to the United Negro College Fund, which plays a critical role in enabling more than 60,000 students each year to attend college through scholarship and internship programs.

$125,000 to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, which is the nation's leading Hispanic scholarship organization, providing the Hispanic community more college scholarships and educational outreach support than any other organization in the country.

In its 34 year history, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund has awarded close to $280 million in scholarships to more than 90,000 students in need. $125,000 to the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation, a non-profit organization funded by foundations and companies, ALEF supports and enables young men and women from Appalachia to pursue higher education though scholarship and leadership curriculum.

$125,000 to the American Indian College Fund, which transforms Indian higher education by funding and creating awareness of the unique, community-based accredited Tribal Colleges and Universities, offering students access to knowledge, skills, and cultural values which enhance their communities and the country as a whole.

The Fund disburses approximately 6,000 scholarships annually for American Indian students seeking to better their lives through higher education. The Fund also provides support for tribal college needs, ranging from capital support to cultural preservation curricula. $100,000 to AfriCare, which was founded in 1970 and has more projects in Africa than any other U.S. based charity, reaching communities in 25 countries, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Its programs address needs in three principal areas: health and HIV/AIDS; food security and agriculture; and water resource development. $100,000 to the Central Asia Institute, which promotes and supports community-based education and literacy, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Institute's co-founder, Greg Mortenson, was also a Nobel Peace Prize nominee this year, whose book, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace, One School at a Time, recounts his attempt to successfully establish dozens of schools and promote girls' education in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan.

YouTube video views up 50pc in January

2010-03-09T17:30:00.003+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, March 09, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO: Industry tracker comScore reported that US online video viewing at YouTube climbed 50 percent in January as compared to the same month a year earlier.

More than 173.3 million US Internet users watched video online in January, tuning into a total of 32.4 billion videos. The duration of the average online video was slightly longer than four minutes.

Google properties were the top online venues, serving up 12.8 billion videos during the month. Google-owned YouTube accounted for 99 percent of that tally, tending to 135.4 million viewers.

Each YouTube visitor watched an average of 94 videos, comScore reported.

Hulu was the second most popular online viewing spot, with visitors watching 903.1 million videos in January, according to comScore.

Websites owned by US technology titan Microsoft ranked third, with 491.8 million videos viewed, followed by Yahoo! which showed 435.5 million videos to online visitors, comScore reported.

Bullock awarded best actress Oscar

2010-03-08T17:09:00.003+05:00

Updated on : Monday, March 08, 2010

LOS ANGELES: Sandra Bullock won the best actress Oscar, and her first Academy Award, on Sunday (March 07) for her role as a suburban mom who takes in a homeless black teen and guides him to a football career in the "The Blind Side."

Bullock's Oscar victory marks the high point in a career that has spanned more than 20 years, during which she became an American sweetheart blessed with a natural comic touch that propelled commercially successful films beginning with "Speed" through to last year's box office hit, "The Proposal."

"Did I really earn this or did I just wear you down?" Bullock, 45, exclaimed as she took the stage to accept her Oscar, before saluting each of her four contenders.

The Washington, D.C.-area native became the queen of romantic comedies with her girl-next-door appeal before a deliberate shift in her career with a small role in the 2005 racial drama "Crash," which she credits as the turning point when she began to take her film career more seriously.

She was an early longshot for an Oscar for "The Blind Side," in which she plays a wealthy, strong-willed Christian woman who takes a black high school player into her family.

But her performance as the blond Memphis mother brought her a slew of awards, including a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award that greatly increased her Oscar chances and won over fans with her heartfelt confessions that she had not thought of herself as a good actress.

The Oscar she won for "Blind Side" was not the only first for Bullock, as the movie also became the first film with only a female lead ever to surpass $200 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales.

Bullock's role in the sports drama is based on a real Tennessee woman, yet the Arlington, Virginia-born actress initially balked at portraying Leigh Anne Tuohy. She only changed her mind after meeting the woman who would eventually help bring her the movie industry's highest honor.

It was a long road to critical acclaim for Bullock, the daughter of a German opera singer and voice coach. She spent some of her early childhood in Germany.

She took some time away from acting a few years ago after the success of "Miss Congeniality," but during that break she met motorcycle maker Jesse James, whom she married in 2005, and started saying "no" to mediocre roles.

Then came "Crash," the drama about bigotry and race in Los Angeles that won the best picture Oscar in 2006 and showed off Bullock's serious side.

Last year was mostly a critical and commercial success for Bullock, although "All About Steve" earned her a Razzie win for the worst actress of 2009.

Chavez mocks Clinton as "blond Condoleezza"

2010-03-06T20:51:00.003+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, March 06, 2010

CARACAS: Venezuela's President Hugo mocked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a "blond" version of her predecessor, and said a row with Spain over alleged links with rebel groups was over.

Visiting Latin America this week, Clinton said the Obama administration's policies toward the region were helping blunt the criticism of the United States by leftist leaders like Chavez.

"To me, she's like Condoleezza Rice ... a blond Condoleezza," said the Venezuelan, referring to former U.S. president George W. Bush's secretary of state, with whom he exchanged frequent harsh words at long-distance.

Citing comments by Clinton in Brazil, Chavez said she was proving to be equally aggressive. "She comes to Brazil to provoke us, to try and divide us from our brothers."

While taking a familiar pop at the United States, Chavez was more conciliatory toward Spain.

President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government stirred Chavez's wrath this week by demanding an explanation of a judge's accusations that Venezuela had helped Basque ETA and Colombian FARC rebels plot possible attacks on Spanish soil.

But Chavez said after a conversation with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, he was satisfied that Madrid was now simply requesting information, not making accusations.

"The response from the Spanish government has been acceptable," he said, praising Zapatero and Moratinos' "maturity" and blaming the affair on Europe's "fascist right".

Car bomb kills 4 Iranian pilgrims before Iraq poll

2010-03-06T20:46:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, March 6, 2010

NAJAF: A car bomb exploded in Iraq's holy city of Najaf on Saturday, killing four Iranian pilgrims a day before a national election, officials said.

The explosion gutted at least two tour buses parked at a garage near the revered Imam Ali shrine, which draws millions of Shi'ite Muslim faithful from Iraq and Iran each year.

Louay al-Yassiri, a member of the local provincial council, said that in addition to the Iranian pilgrims killed, the blast wounded seven people, including three Iraqi police.

At least 45 people have been killed over the past few days as the election campaign drew to a close, some of them members of the security forces who were voting early.

Early voting begins in Iraq general election

2010-03-05T00:40:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Thursday, March 4, 2010

BAGHDAD: Voting began on Thursday in Iraq's general election with security forces, the sick and prisoners casting their ballots ahead of polling day at the weekend.

Election organisers expect around 800,000 people, who will not be able to go to polling stations on Sunday, to take part in the early voting session.

Security was tight in the centre of the capital and security forces closed down streets around polling stations.

Soldiers and policemen, hospital staff and the sick, and prisoners with less than five years left in jail are eligible to vote. The latter three groups are set to vote in their hospitals or prisons.

"I cannot reveal his name, but he is secular," said Nidhal, a nurse at Baghdad's Abid al-Haitham hospital, when asked who she had voted for. Her finger bore an ink stain, indicating she had cast her ballot.

"I hope deep down in my heart that he will win, because Iraq cannot be governed by Islamists and we need a saviour."

Almost 19 million Iraqis, from a population of 30 million, are eligible to vote at 10,000 polling stations around the country, with 6,200 candidates standing for the 325 seats in parliament.

Iraqi expatriates will begin voting in 80 cities across 16 countries on Friday, a process that will continue until Sunday. Iraq's electoral commission says 1.4 million people are eligible to vote abroad.

Russia, US close in on nuclear disarmament deal

2010-03-02T18:27:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, March 02, 2010

PARIS: Russia and the United States are getting close to a deal on reducing their nuclear arsenals through a follow-up to the START treaty; Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev and US officials said Monday.

"We are close to agreeing all issues," Medvedev told reporters in Paris. "We are already agreeing on the nuances of the text. I hope that these talks will be brought to a conclusion in the nearest future."

Negotiations on a replacement to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between Moscow and Washington, which expired December 5, have dragged on for months despite reports that the two sides are near agreement.

In Washington, senior US officials speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed Monday that a deal was in the offing, with one adding that President Barack Obama plans "dramatic reductions" in the country's nuclear arsenal.

"We expect the negotiations will resume in Geneva on March 9," said another, referring to the talks with Russia, explaining that the negotiating teams had headed to their respective capitals for a "last round" of consultations.

The broad outlines of a new START replacement treaty on nuclear weapons have been clear since a summit in July, when Obama and Medvedev agreed to slash the number of warheads on either side to between 1,500 and 1,675.

Hillary Clinton appears to extend timeline for Iran sanctions

2010-03-02T18:23:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, March 02, 2010

BUENOS AIRES: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday it could take months to secure a UN Security Council sanctions resolution on Iran over its nuclear ambitions.

Speaking on the plane to Buenos Aires, the chief US diplomat appeared to back away from her contention before the US Senate last week that a new resolution could be obtained in the "next 30 to 60 days."

"We are moving expeditiously and thoroughly in the Security Council. I can't give you an exact date, but I would assume sometime in the next several months," she said before landing for talks with President Cristina Kirchner.

Clinton told reporters traveling with her that she expected to discuss Iran with Kirchner, whose tough stand on Iran she praised.

Meanwhile, a senior US diplomat in Washington dismissed Iranian reports that a Sunni militant, arrested in Iran, said his group Jundallah had received American help.

"I'm highly skeptical of those claims," the diplomatic source said, asking to remain anonymous, referring to the claims said to be made by Abdolmalek Rigi.

"There was a report over the weekend that he was moving to meet Richard Holbrooke somewhere, that's utter nonsense," the source added.

Thousands of dead fish raise stink at Rio lagoon

2010-03-01T17:05:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Monday, March 01, 2010

RIO DE JANEIRO: Thousands of dead fish washed up on the shores of a popular beachside lagoon in Rio over the weekend, offending joggers' olfactory senses and leading the city to fight the stench with disinfectant.

A local news agency said about 100 city employees working full-time cleared nearly 80 tons of fish as of Sunday. There was no immediate estimate of how many died, but several species were involved.

Rio's environmental secretary speculated that increased levels of a harmful algae may be the immediate cause of the sudden die-off Friday. She told Globo's G1 Web site that authorities were still investigating, but the problem was not affecting the fish anymore.

The smell of rotting fish dampened runners' and cyclists' usual enthusiasm for leisurely jaunts along the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon's paths.

The 2-square-mile (4.5-square-kilometer) body of water is just north of Rio's Ipanema Beach. A canal connects it to the Atlantic.

Clashes erupt at Al-Aqsa mosque after stone attack

2010-02-28T17:11:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Sunday, February 28, 2010

JERUSALEM: Clashes broke out at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Sunday after police entered to arrest Palestinians who had hurled rocks at visitors they believed were Jewish extremists.

At least 13 people were wounded just outside the compound when dozens of Palestinians pelted stones at Israeli police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, according to a French news agency.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said security forces entered the compound after Muslim worshippers threw rocks at the group of unidentified visitors.

"Around 20 young people are holed up inside the mosque, and as a preventive measure we have decided to limit access to the esplanade to men over the age of 50," as well as women and children, he added.

Dozens of police wearing riot gear were deployed throughout the narrow streets of the Old City as loudspeakers on minarets called on Muslims to "save Jerusalem."

An official from Jerusalem's Islamic Supreme Committee said the Palestinians hurled stones at people they believed to be Jewish extremists intending to pray at the site and upset the delicate status quo.

"They threw rocks because (Israeli) settlers have been surrounding the compound for two or three days and had said they intended to enter on Sunday or Monday to pray at Al-Aqsa," Adnan Husseini said.

Jews, who observe the Purim holiday on Sunday and Monday, are allowed into the compound, but authorities prevent them from praying there.

The Al-Aqsa mosque compound is Islam's third-holiest site, after Mecca and Medina. Muslims refer to it as the Al-Haram Al-Sharif and believe it to be the place where the Prophet Mohammed made a night journey to heaven on horseback.

It is the holiest site in the world for Jews, who believe it was the location of the Second Temple, torched by the Romans in 70 AD, and refer to it as the Temple Mount.

The site has been bitterly contested for decades, and the second Palestinian uprising, or intifada, erupted there in September 2000 after a visit by Ariel Sharon, a right-wing politician who went on to become Israeli prime minister.

Violence erupted on several occasions starting last September after Muslim worshippers hurled stones at people they believed to be Jews seeking to pray at the site during major holidays.

Israeli authorities insisted the visitors were French tourists.

The latest disturbances comes after days of clashes in the West Bank town of Hebron over an Israeli plan to renovate the Tomb of the Patriarchs there, another ancient site revered by Jews and Muslims.

Angelina Jolie in Paris

2010-02-26T20:32:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Friday, February 26, 2010

PARIS: Thousands of onlookers stopped in their tracks and hundreds of cell phones clicked photos of Angelina Jolie as filming of The Tourist moved into one of Paris's busiest landmarks.

Traffic at the iconic Gare de Lyon train station came to a halt as Jolie, dressed in her chic costume, navigated crowds, scanned the departures list and hurried to a platform.

Between takes during the 90-minute shoot, the actress, 34, smiled and called "Bonjour!" to the crowd.

Afterward, Jolie proceeded to an apartment for the afternoon shoot and then had lunch with sons Maddox and Pax.

Hillary Clinton hopes for Iran sanctions soon

2010-02-25T18:04:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Thursday, February 25, 2010

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday she hoped the UN Security Council would endorse new sanctions against Iran in the "next 30 to 60 days" over its nuclear program.

"We hope that the next 30 to 60 days will see a sanctions resolution emerge," Clinton told a Senate hearing.

Early this week, White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs said Washington has been pushing for the toughest sanctions in the framework of the UN Security Council since last year's Resolution 1874 targeting the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Accusing Tehran of refusing to live up to its international responsibility, Clinton said "Iran has left the international community little choice but to impose greater costs for its provocative steps."

Similar remarks have been made by the top U.S. diplomat at a previous Senate hearing on Wednesday morning.

She told the lawmakers that the Obama administration has been working actively with partners to "prepare and implement new measures to pressure Iran to change its course."

The international community worries Tehran may obtain the uranium fuel needed for nuclear weapons by the same process to purify uranium, while Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purpose.

The Obama administration, avoiding from sending war threat to Tehran, has been trying the so called dual-track, namely engagement and sanction, to bring the international community together to make Iranian leaders realize the "importance of changing their actions and decisions concerning their nuclear program."

Ahmadinejad vows to cut off hands of Iran attackers

2010-02-23T18:02:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, February 23, 2010

TEHRAN: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned on Tuesday Iran would "cut off the hands" of anyone who attacked the country.

"No power can harm Iran ... The Iranian nation will chop off the hands from the arm of any attacker from any part of the world," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech in eastern Khorasan-e Jonubi province.

The United States and its allies are seeking to intensify U.N. sanctions on Iran over the country's disputed nuclear programme, which the West fears is intended to build nuclear weapons. Iran has denied this.

Iran has repeatedly condemned the military presence of the U.S. and its allies in neighbouring countries. Washington and Israel do not rule out military action against Iran over the nuclear issue.

Iran strike won't be decisive: Mullen

2010-02-23T17:59:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, February 23, 2010

WASHINGTON: The top US military officer warned on Monday that any strike against Iran would not be 'decisive' in countering Teheran's nuclear program.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he supported using diplomatic and economic pressure against Iran and repeated his view that military action could carry 'unintended consequences.' 'No strike, however effective, will be in and of itself decisive,' Adm. Mullen told a press conference after recently returning from a visit to the Middle East.

But he said the US military stood ready with plans for possible action if necessary. 'Let me be clear: We owe the (defense) secretary and the president a range of options for this threat. We owe the American people our readiness.'

Adm. Mullen's comments came as the United States pushed for fresh sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program and before Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak visits Washington this week.

The admiral said he believed Iran was 'on a path to achieve nuclear weaponisation' and that the effort 'further destabilizes the region.' He said there was widespread concern in the Middle East about Iran's role and its nuclear ambitions.

Cave markings believed to be first writings: Study

2010-02-22T18:55:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Monday, February 22, 2010

PARIS: The markings found in caves in France may have been ancient man’s first attempts to write, a new study has suggested.

Until now, it’s believed that our ancestors underwent a “creative explosion” around 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, when they suddenly began to think abstractly and create rock art.

Writing came much later, with the earliest records of a picot-graphic writing system just 5,000 years ago.

Now, a team at Victoria University has claimed that the lines, dots, zig-zags and semicircles indicate prehistoric men in France, as long ago as 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, may have been trying to communicate through symbols rather than pictures, the New Scientist reported.

For their research, the team, led by Genevieve von Petzinger, compiled a comprehensive database of all recorded cave signs from 146 sites in France, covering 25,000 years of prehistory from 35,000 to 10,000 years ago.

What emerged was startling: 26 signs, all drawn in the same style, appeared again and again at numerous sites. Some of the symbols are pretty basic, like straight lines, circles and triangles, but there were other, more complex symbols repeated as well.

“It was a way of communicating information in a concise way. For example, the mammoth tusks may have simply represented a mammoth, or a mammoth hunt, or something that has nothing to do with a literal interpretation of mammoths.

“Other common forms of synecdoche include two concentric circles or triangles (used as eyes in horse and bison paintings), ibex horns and the hump of a mammoth. The claviform figure — which looks somewhat like a numeral 1 — may even be a stylised form of the female figure,” said team member April Nowell.

At one site, Les Trois Freres in the French Pyrenees, there were four different pairings of signs. This sort of grouping is typically seen in pictographic languages and led the researchers to believe the prehistoric Europeans had adopted a similar system.

“The consistency of the pairings indicate that they could really have had a meaning. We are perhaps seeing the first glimpses of a rudimentary language system,” Mr. Nowell said.

Suspecting they were on the verge of a significant discovery, the pair moved on to track where and when the symbols emerged. The line was the most popular symbol — at 70 per cent of the sites and occurring across all time periods from 30,000 to 10,000 years ago.

The next most common were the open angle symbol and dots — both featuring at 42 per cent of sites. The majority of the rest were seen in around a fifth of the French caves.

Most signs seem to have appeared in the Rhone Valley and Lot regions in the south before spreading around the country. None ever emerged in northern France because through large tranches of this time, it was covered in ice.

Intriguingly, more than three-quarters of the symbols were at the very earliest sites which include those over 30,000 years ago.

“I was really surprised to discover this. This incredible diversity and continuity of use suggests that the symbolic revolution may have occurred before the arrival of the first modern humans in Europe,” Mr. Petzinger said.

'My Name Is Khan' to be dubbed in German and Turkish

2010-02-22T18:51:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Monday, February 22, 2010

MUMBAI: There is more good news for MNIK. Inspired by the overwhelming response in the overseas market, the producers of Shah Rukh Khan-starred 'My Name Is Khan' (MNIK), has decided to dub it in German and Turkish.

In addition, the movie will be subtitled in Polish to get a big global audience. The company wants to reach out as many people as possible. It was confirmed by Fox STAR Studios India, which distributes and markets MNIK.

'My Name Is Khan' is already doing great in North America and Britain. It broke the overseas records for any Hindi film released worldwide.

MNIK will be released in Poland in 50 screens. It will be huge, as none other Hindi film was released in more than five screens so far.

Global Swine Flu death toll creeps towards 16,000: WHO

2010-02-20T20:02:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, February 20, 2010

GENEVA: The global death toll from swine flu approached the 16,000 mark as the pandemic waned in much of Europe and Asia, the World Health Organisation said.

"As of 14 February 2010, worldwide more than 212 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including at least 15,921 deaths," the WHO said in its latest update.

The toll recorded since the A(H1N1) pandemic virus was first uncovered in Mexico and the United States last April grew by 629 compared to the previous week.

Several countries in West Africa reported increases in cases after swine flu was recently detected there, but the WHO concluded there was insufficient evidence so far that swine flu was spreading widely in local communities.

"In the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere, overall pandemic influenza activity continued to decline in most countries," despite pockets of activity, the WHO said.

Islam opposes nuclear weapons : Khamenei

2010-02-20T19:57:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, February 20, 2010

TEHRAN: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is reiterating a previous claim that Islam is "opposed to nuclear weapons," insisting that Tehran is not trying to build them. Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is also calling a leaked report that Tehran is working to build a nuclear warhead "baseless."

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei christened a new, Iranian-built warship, as a military band honored him on the ship's deck. Addressing a crowd of military commanders after the ceremony, he told them "Islam is opposed to nuclear weapons and that Tehran is not working to build them."

Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna indicated earlier Friday that Tehran had informed the new IAEA director Yukiya Amano that it had started enriching 20 percent grade uranium for its medical research reactor in Tehran.

"Even if the nuclear agency would continue for ten more years, the result would be the same," he said. "If a new director general comes, again, [he] will report the same, because we are absolutely sure and we have assured the international community that all are activities are exclusively for peaceful purposes."

Ambassador Soltaniyah added that a leaked report claiming Tehran was trying to build a nuclear warhead is "baseless," because the documents have "no confidential or secret stamps." The West, he argued, is trying to distort the nature of Iran's nuclear program for political purposes.

"Our advice is, in fact, to stop [these] political challenges and debates in the IAEA. Let the IAEA begin new director general to focus on their purely technical and professional work," he said.

Facebook tightens privacy on third-party programs

2010-02-19T16:39:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Friday, February 19, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook has given users more control over who gets to see video, virtual cards and other digital content shared using third-party programs at the leading social networking website.

Content sharing tools the site launched for profile pages in December are being extended to applications that outside developers make for the online community, according to Facebook engineer Ray He.

"Maybe you don't want all of your friends to see the humorous greeting card you just posted from an application," He said. "Now, you can set that post to be viewable only by certain friends."

In contrast, someone trying to rally support for a charity using a Causes application will be able to adjust privacy settings to spread posts as widely as possible.

"There are now granular privacy options that enable you to personalize the audience for each piece of content you share through applications," He said in a blog post.

Drop-down menus near lock icons in a Publisher tool on profile pages let people select sharing options ranging from "everyone" to "only friends" and "custom."

"These new controls give you the power to determine who sees the content you post to Facebook through any third-party application," He said.

Content posted through outside applications without specified sharing preferences will default to "Posts by Me" settings designated at the social networking service.

"You may also start to see additional prompts in applications asking if you'd like to set privacy for certain pieces of content that differ from your default setting," He explained. "The choice is yours."

Facebook's more than 400 million members are required to dictate settings with a software tool that lets them specify who gets to be privy to each photo, video, update or other piece of content uploaded to the website.

The tool lets Facebook members determine accessibility to posted content, such as status updates or pictures in categories designated "Friends," "Friends of Friends," "Everyone" and "Customized."

Facebook members can select privacy settings for each post by using lock icons next to "share" buttons on profile pages.

US will maintain minimum nuclear deterrence: official

2010-02-18T20:04:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Thursday, February 18, 2010

WASHINGTON: The US would maintain a minimum nuclear deterrent while working towards the goal of achieving a nuke-free world, a top Obama administration official on nuclear disarmament has said.

"This administration will work toward a world without nuclear weapons and we will continue to maintain a safe, secure, and effective deterrent as we proceed toward that goal," Ellen Tauscher, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, said.

Addressing to the Second Nuclear Deterrence Summit in Virginia, Tauscher said there is nothing contradictory about decreasing the size and role of nuclear weapons and increasing their confidence in the deterrent.

"Our growing knowledge of the reliability of our stockpile, through our stewardship efforts, enables us to safely continue reducing the number of weapons that are the legacy of the Cold War," she said.

"Too many weapons of that era remain even though the Soviet Union no longer exists and even though we're moving from an era of Mutually Assured Destruction to an era of Mutually Assured Stability," she said.

Tauscher said the primary focus today is no longer deterring a large-scale nuclear conflict between two superpowers, but preventing the use of even a single nuclear weapon.

Microsoft eyes mobile comeback with new platform

2010-02-16T19:34:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, February 16, 2010

BARCELONA: Microsoft unveiled a new version of its mobile operating system as the US software giant seeks to regain lost ground in the highly competitive smartphone market.

Chief executive Steve Ballmer presented the Windows Phone 7 Series at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, ending months of speculation about what Microsoft had in store for the industry's biggest trade show.

"We're taking a step, I think a big step," Ballmer said, adding that devices fitted with the new software would be available in time for the winter holiday shopping season. "I'm enthusiastic about the direction that we're heading."

"We hope 7 is our lucky number," he said.

Microsoft has been up against strong competition from Internet giant Google's Android, as both newcomers fight for a share of a market dominated by the Blackberry and Apple's iPhone.

"The primary goal of Windows Mobile 7 is clearly to address Microsoft's shortcomings in the consumer mobile market," said Charles Golvin, analyst at research firm Forrester.

"All plaudits for their persistence aside, in my view this is their final chance to get it right," Golvin said.

Google has made a splash in the mobile phone industry with its Android operating system, launched in 2007, and phone makers have announced that they would release several more smartphones with this platform this year.

Smartphones fitted with Microsoft's operating system had 7.9 percent market share in the third quarter of last year, a drop from 11.1 percent in the same period in 2008, according to research group Gartner.

In the meantime its rivals grew: BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion saw its market share increase to 20.8 percent and Apple's iPhone rose to 17.1 percent, according to Gartner.

And Android phones took 3.5 percent of the market in just a few months of existence.

"There is no doubt that this phone market is A, highly competitive, B, highly dynamic and C, super exciting," Ballmer said.

"And there is no question in our minds as we go back a couple of years that we needed... to do some things that were out of the box, clearly differentiated from our past," he said.

In its upgrade, Microsoft completely changed the platform's interface and installed the capabilities of its Zune MP3 player, which has only been available in the United States.

The system includes six "hubs" that group services by themes, such as a "people" inbox that includes emails, text messages and updates from social network activities, or an Xbox Live icon for online games.

Microsoft-powered touch-screen phones will be rolled out later this year in partnership with several device makers including Qualcomm, Samsung and LG, as well as operators from AT&T to T-Mobile and Vodafone, the company said.

But Nicolas Petit, director of Microsoft's mobile division in France, said the software titan had no intention of following its rivals and creating its own phone.

"It is not in our DNA to build hardware," he said. "We have partners who do that better than us."

Google entered the hardware business last month when it launched its own smartphone, Nexus One, in a challenge against another big rival, Apple, which never attends the Mobile World Congress.

In a signal of Google's ambitions to become a leader in the mobile phone industry, chief executive Eric Schmidt will address the Barcelona event for the first time on Tuesday.

Mobile operating systems are the lifeblood of the increasingly popular smartphones, which allows users to surf the Internet, check and send emails, play music, videos and games, and take pictures.

Global shipments of smartphones surged by 30 percent in the last quarter of 2009, according to Strategy Analytics. By comparison, overall handset sales rose by 10 percent in the same period.

In an indication of the growing use of phones with Internet capabilities, the International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency, said Monday that the number of mobile broadband subscriptions would exceed one billion this year after reaching 600 million in 2009.

Chinese couples climb Sydney Bridge to mark Valentine Day

2010-02-14T17:57:00.003+05:00

Updated on : Sunday, February 14, 2010

SYDNEY: Six Chinese couples from Beijing and Shangai climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge on Sunday morning to welcome the Year of the Tiger and to celebrate Valentine's Day.They had expected to see the sunrise but humid and foggy conditions foiled their hopes and they were only able to wave at passing boats and enjoy the cool morning breeze.

But the couples were still happy with the experience."It's very interesting and it's a very meaningful occasion for us because this is the first time we are spending Valentines Day overseas," said one of the participants in the climb, Louisa.

All the couples were on holiday in Australia and most of their families were still back in China for the lunar new year celebrations."I wish my family all the best in the coming lunar new year and good health and prosperity," said Beijing resident, Zhang HongJun, standing with his wife Wang Ziwing.The lunar new year is celebrated by many countries in Asia as well as the Chinese diaspora.

Love gets stronger with age: Canadian Researchers

2010-02-13T17:42:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, February 13, 2010

MONTREAL: Older couples are more in love than most and continue to have satisfying sex lives, despite some physiological hurdles, according to Canadian researchers.

Persons older than 65 obtained the highest scores of 119 and 120 points on the Spanier Dyadic Adjustment Scale, which measures couples' happiness, compared to the Canadian average of 114.

"It's a significant difference," said Gilles Trudel, a psychology professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM).

The scale takes into account sexual satisfaction, but also how well couples communicate, function together in general, and their cohesion. Researchers questioned 508 couples all from Quebec and all already pensioners, most aged over 65.

The fact that divorced couples were not included in the study could account for its optimistic results, as this left only results from happy older couples, Trudel admits.

Alternately, he theorized that couples after they retire have much more time to spend together and do things couples do, "like a second honeymoon."

In some cases, retirement can have the reverse effect: with more time on their hands, marital problems that remained latent during many years focused on career or child-rearing suddenly surface.

This is accompanied by anxiety or depression twice as often in the elderly as with younger persons.

Finally, researchers noted a recent, albeit still marginal, phenomenon: old people almost never divorced in the past, but nowadays five-six percent of grey-haired couples split up, at age 70 or older, some of them because their partner fell in love at first sight with another.

And retirees' sex lives are no longer taboo.

"There's a myth" surrounding the sex lives of the elderly. But that stems for some from "imagining, for example, their grand-parents making love, provoking uneasiness" among young people, Trudel suggests.

These interviews were conducted with absolute discretion, which increased their reliability: subjects were asked questions and responded by selecting a button on a computer that recorded their answers anonymously.

Through their research, UQAM's psychologists also offered elderly couples in group sessions some relationship tips such as communicating more, never cutting off your spouse, and sharing feelings.

Most important was to never believe that you know already what a person is going to say and so conclude that listening to them is not important.

Google Buzz tweaked amid privacy complaints

2010-02-13T17:36:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, February 13, 2010

WASHINGTON: Facing a slew of privacy complaints, Google has made changes to Google Buzz, the new social networking tool it added this week to its free email service Gmail.

"There's been concern from some people who thought their contacts were being made public without their knowledge," Gmail and Google Buzz product manager Todd Jackson said in a blog post.

"Others felt they had too little control over who could follow them and were upset that they lacked the ability to block people who didn't yet have public profiles from following them," Jackson said.

Among the concerns aired in technology blogs and elsewhere was that Google Buzz was taking a user's Gmail contacts and automatically adding them to their public Buzz social network.

A number of commentators noted that they did not necessarily want their email contacts made public like Facebook friends.

Jackson said Gmail users will now have to create a Google Buzz public profile and will be notified that "lists of people you follow and the people following you will be displayed on your public profile."

"You can view, edit and even hide these lists," Jackson said. "The lists of your followers/people you follow are not made public on your profile until after you go through this profile creation step."

Jackson said Google was also giving users the ability to block anyone following their account.

The Google product manager said "tens of millions" of people have used Buzz since it was launched Tuesday, "creating over nine million posts and comments."

"It's still early, and we have a long list of improvements on the way. We look forward to hearing more suggestions and will continue to improve the Buzz experience, with user transparency and control top of mind," he said.

Google Buzz allows Gmail users to get updates about what friends are doing online and offers ways to share video, photos and other digitized snippets.

Google Buzz has been described by some technology analysts as a direct challenge by Google to social networking stars Facebook and Twitter.

NY Fashion Week opens sad over McQueen death

2010-02-12T16:37:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Friday, February 12, 2010

NEW YORK: Autumn-Winter 2010 Fashion Week opened in New York on Thursday as the fashion world reeled from the apparent suicide of trailblazing British designer Alexander McQueen.

"It's horrible news. It's so sad to be in such a state of despair. Such a great talent, such poetry -- it's horrific," New York fashion doyenne Diane von Furstenberg, head of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, said.

McQueen, found dead at his London home, was not taking part in New York Fashion Week. However, the death of the flamboyant, 40-year-old bad boy overshadowed the show, which comes before shows in London, Milan, then Paris.

The news broke in London shortly after models had begun showing clothes on the runways at Bryant Park in the heart of Manhattan.

"His non-conforming voice of fashion will be greatly missed," said Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman, chair of the Department of Fashion Design at New York's Pratt Institute.

"He has been a major influence on designers and lovers of fashion since the moment he broke onto the scene with his unique point of view, juxtaposing beauty with aggressive, edgy energy in his designs. A huge void will be left in the fashion world at this loss."

Tim Blanks, fashion critic, also paid tribute, calling McQueen "an arch-romantic with a pessimistic streak."

That dark side, Blanks said, "produced some of the most beautiful, shocking images in the history of fashion, but it's a state of mind that can lead to endless disappointments."

This is the last time New York Fashion Week will take place in the tents at Bryant Park, near Times Square, before moving into the far more spacious facilities at the Lincoln Center for the Spring-Summer 2011 collection this September.

Among the designers showing this week are Lebanon's Georges Chakra, Donna Karan, Catherine Malandrino and von Furstenberg. Another highlight will be African designers showing together in a presentation by Arise magazine under the label African Collective.

US designer Marc Jacobs, often seen as a fellow enfant terrible with the late McQueen, was expected to open next week's sessions along with dozens of other designers, some of them veterans and some new on the scene.

The final shows next Thursday will end with collections by Isaac Mizrahi, Ralph Lauren, who has just turned 70, and Calvin Klein.

The traditional New York Fashion Week show featuring celebrities in red dresses was to take place Thursday evening, with the dresses auctioned to raise money for the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in support of women's heart health.

Friday will feature a show dedicated to the victims of the Haitian earthquake sponsored by supermodel Naomi Campbell and the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

T-shirts were on sale at 25 dollars each with proceeds going to the Haitian help fund run by former US presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

UK School bans sending Valentine cards

2010-02-12T16:31:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Friday, February 12, 2010

LONDON: A school has banned its pupils from sending cards on Valentine's Day, saying the youngsters are not mature enough for romance, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

Ashcombe Primary School -- which teaches students aged four to 11 -- has threatened to confiscate any cards found on the premises in Somerset, said the Times.

"Some children and parents encourage a lot of talk about boyfriends and girlfriends," wrote head teacher Peter Turner in a monthly newsletter.

"We believe that such ideas should wait until children are mature enough emotionally and socially to understand the commitment involved in having or being a boyfriend and girlfriend," he said in the letter to parents.

But the head teacher of the school, which has 419 pupils, came under fire for the Valentine card crackdown.

Rajeev Takyar, whose children Jai, 11, and five-year-old Aryan, are pupils there, blasted the ban as "ridiculous."

"Whatever is going to be next?. Banning them stops children from having social skills. How are they going to learn about relationships otherwise?"

US, France join hands for new sanctions against Iran

2010-02-09T19:06:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, February 9, 2010

PARIS: The United States and France are vowing to push for fresh United Nations sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

Iran has announced it is going to enrich uranium to a higher level, which in theory means it is moving closer to being able to produce nuclear weapons.

Western nations have condemned the move, although Iran says it is meant only to provide fuel for its research reactor.

After talks between the US and France, the two countries have announced they will pursue new sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council.

Iran has defied five UN Security Council resolutions and several sets of UN sanctions aimed at freezing its nuclear program.

Haiti aid effort hit by fake coupon scam

2010-02-09T19:03:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Tuesday, February 9, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE: The struggling aid effort in Haiti was hit by another setback Monday as the UN halted deliveries to some 10,000 quake survivors after discovering that fake coupons were in operation.

An agitated crowd of around 100 people continued to wait well into the afternoon at the drop-off site close to the town hall in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville as others clamored to get tickets valid for Tuesday.

"We need food!" one old lady shouted at a guard charged with manning the steel bars blocking the entrance to the town hall offices. Others simply pointed to their mouths and stomachs.

UN World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman David Orr said the suspension would affect around 10,000 survivors of the massive January 12 earthquake that killed over 212,000 people and left an estimated one million people homeless.

The United Nations agency has set up 16 food distribution points across the city, handing out 25-kilogram (55-pound) sacks of rice designed to feed a family for two weeks.

Orr said WFP partners hoped to restart the distributions at the affected site on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Laura Silsby, the leader of a group of 10 American missionaries arrested at the Dominican border for trying to smuggle out a busload of children, appeared in court to answer kidnapping charges.

"I am trusting God to reveal all truths and that we will be released and exonerated of charges, and we are just waiting for the Haitian legal process to complete," Silsby said.

"It went very well," she told reporters as she left the hearing and was taken back to the police station where she and her nine colleagues from the Idaho-based New Life Children's Refuge are being held.

Shuttle Endeavour blasts off for space station

2010-02-08T17:59:00.001+05:00

Updated on : Monday, February 8, 2010

CAPE CANAVERAL: The space shuttle Endeavour blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center on Monday on a tower of flame that turned the dark Florida sky as bright as day.

Endeavour and its six astronauts set off at 4:14 a.m. (0914GMT) on a 13-day trip to install the last two main pieces of the International Space Station. It was expected to be the final launch in darkness for NASA's shuttle fleet, which is scheduled to be retired after completing five missions this year.

NASA fuels Space Shuttle 2nd time

2010-02-08T17:55:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Monday, February 8, 2010

CAPE CANAVERAL: With the weather prospects looking up, astronauts boarded shuttle Endeavour for the second day in a row early Monday in hopes of blasting off on the last big space station construction mission.

The six astronauts looked more optimistic than they did Sunday morning, when the launch site was socked in with clouds. They waved to the crowds and made A-OK gestures with their fingers.

"Welcome aboard," launch controllers told commander George Zamka as he strapped in.

Liftoff was scheduled for 4:14 a.m. Monday. Aboard Endeavour were a new room and observation deck for the International Space Station.

NASA began fueling Endeavour on Sunday evening just as the Super Bowl was kicking off to the south in Miami. Launch director Mike Leinbach told his controllers to be at their computers, ready to support the launch, football or not. He said there would be no distractions in the firing room, scene of all the shuttle monitoring.

Sunday morning's try was spoiled by thick, low clouds. The clouds returned briefly Sunday night, but forecasters said it looked more favorable than the previous night and they put the odds of acceptable conditions at 60 percent.

It was the last scheduled night launch for the space shuttle program, winding down after nearly 30 years. After this one, just four flights remain. The astronauts will work the overnight shift during the two-week mission.

If Endeavour does not make it off the ground Monday, NASA officials said they would probably not try again Tuesday, given the exhausting middle-of-the-night schedule. An unmanned rocket with a solar observatory would have a chance to fly next, on Wednesday, and the shuttle would get in line behind that, later in the week.

"That's space 'biz!" space station commander Jeffrey Williams said in a Twitter update live from orbit. "We on ISS now have some extra prep time."

Endeavour is loaded with two major payloads: the Tranquility living quarters and a seven-windowed dome that will give space station residents sweeping 360-degree views of their orbital home, as well as Earth and outer space.

Both compartments are courtesy of the European Space Agency. They're worth more than $400 million.

The space station will be 98 percent complete once Tranquility and the dome are installed. The Endeavour crew will conduct three spacewalks to hook up everything.

As for the Super Bowl that unfolded 200 miles south of Kennedy Space Center, the coin used in the opening toss flew on the last shuttle mission, in November. A former wide receiver, Leland Melvin, was on that flight. He was picked by the Detroit Lions in the NFL draft in 1986, but injured his hamstring and went on - famously - to science and space-flying careers.

No, the shuttle crew did not watch the Super Bowl, NASA's launch commentator said. But the game was beamed up to the space station in case the five men there wanted to see it.

Katrina Kaif quits from 'The Italian Job'

2010-02-07T17:06:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Sunday, February 7, 2010

MUMBAI: In a much controversy of Priyanka Chopra and Katrina Kaif’s chase over the female lead role in Abbas Mustan’s remake of ‘The Italian Job’, finally it has been heard that after formers dismiss, the later is planning to quit.

What Katrina has to say in this counterpart is that because her character in the film does not have much substance she is planning to quit.

According to the sources report Katrina is going for a second thought whether to play or not. She has initially read the script and agreed at first. But due to her high demand in the film industry she has become quite cautious about her roles and won’t sign on anything that is not relevant to big banners.

Reportedly, it is heard that she chose to do the film because of Saif Ali Khan but after he quit Katrina seems to have lost her interest in the film. However, she may agree to do the film if the script appears more appealing to her after the changeover she demanded.

Katrina seems to be taking every step wisely considering every aspect of it.

Haitians angry over slow aid

2010-02-06T17:47:00.003+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, February 6, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE: PROTESTS over the slow arrival of aid have flared in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince.Former US president Bill Clinton pledged to try to get aid flowing here as he was met by angry Haitians protesting the slow arrival of help since last month's quake. Clinton said he was sorry that the aid efforts had been so slow, adding he also wanted to understand why more than three weeks after the January 12 quake supplies were still not getting through to desperate Haitians. Clinton told reporters as he visited a clinic in the ruined capital of Port-au-Prince. But the former president rejected suggestions he had in effect become governor of this small Caribbean nation. Clinton also visited the government's de facto headquarters in a police building in the city, where about 200 people demonstrated outside to protest the lack of shelter. A similar number gathered in front of the US embassy nearby. Participants said they hoped to meet Clinton, who was designated Wednesday as coordinator of international aid for the impoverished Caribbean nation by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. There have been persistent problems in getting aid to the more than one million Haitians left homeless after the 7.0-magnitude quake which leveled much of central Port-au-Prince and surrounding towns.

Facebook gets more Bing

2010-02-06T17:41:00.002+05:00

Updated on : Saturday, February 6, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft said Friday that Bing will power Internet searches for Facebook's 400 million members in an arrangement that returns control of display advertising to the social-networking service.Bing had previously powered online searches on US Facebook pages.Microsoft will provide Facebook users full access to Bing features as part of an "expanded cooperation in search," according to Bing general manager Jon Tinter."You will start to see the fruits of our expanded relationship show up in the Facebook experience over the weeks and months ahead," Tinter said in a blog post.The companies mutually agreed that Facebook will take over selling display advertising posted at the website because it "just made more sense" given the unique nature of the website, according to Tinter.Microsoft's control of display advertising served up at Facebook stretched back to shortly before the US software giant bought a 1.6-percent stake in Facebook in 2007 for 240 million dollars.That arrangement was inked in a contract that was up for renewal. Microsoft launched its new Bing search engine last year.