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ISSUE - 597, 13 JAN. - 20 JAN. 2015 PH: (905) 671 - 4761

Defiant Charlie Hebdo Releases First Cover Since Paris Attack

Censor board ‘cuts’ that made headlines

* Cover depicts the central figure of Islam weeping and holding a placard * Cartoonist, Luz, is the same man who drew controversial cover in 2011 * Magazine’s lawyer previously said it would ‘of course’ depict the Prophet PARIS French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo defied the attackers in last week’s bloodbath by putting a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammed on its next cover, as the government on Monday announced the deployment of 10,000 soldiers to boost security. The weekly released the front page of what it called the “survivors’ issue”, due out Wednesday, featuring a

The frontpage of the upcoming “survivors” edition of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. We have purposely omitted prophet Muhammad’s picture.

crying Muhammed in a white

This photo provided on January 10, 2015 shows people at the headquarters of French newspaper Liberation in Paris as editorial staff of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo & Liberation gather.

turban and holding a sign that reads “Je suis Charlie” under the words: “Tout est pardonné,” which translates to “All is forgiven.” The issue will be the first since two Islamist gunmen stormed Charlie Hebdo’s Paris office on January 7 and massacred 12 people, saying they were taking revenge for previous publications of Muhammed cartoons considered deeply offensive to many Muslims. In a further show of defiance, the magazine announced it would print three million copies - not the Continued on Page 2

According to a report in Mumbai Mirror, the CBFC revising committee has denied the release of MSG: The Messenger of God citing the reason that it might create law and order issues.

Featuring a ‘rockstar baba,’ the film’s trailer received over a million hits on video sharing websites but the Central Board of Film

Certification (CBFC) has refused to clear the film. Confirming the news, CBFC member Nandini Sardesai told Mirror, “All seven members agreed that in its entirety, this film cannot be shown as it not only promotes blind faith and superstition, but also hurts religious sentiments and could cause communal problems.

U.S. Central Command Twitter YouTube Ramdev business poised Accounts Suspended After Apparent ISIS Hack to touch Rs 2,000cr

NEW DELHI It may be an unlikely combination - yoga for inner peace and FMCG for external beauty - but Baba Ramdev appears to have struck the right pose in both. The guru whose ‘easy yoga’ has won him a mass following is also cornering the FMCG market with daily use products ranging from soaps

and mustard oil to cornflakes.

Baba Ramdev’s brands seem to have scaled up quite rapidly. For fiscal 2014, Patanjali Ayurved, the company that manufactures the products, clocked a turnover of about Rs 1,200 crore, up from about Rs 850 crore a year earlier and Rs 450 crore in fiscal 2012, company filings and Continued on Page 2

WASHINGTON appropriate steps to ensure any statement that it was working US Central Command said on individuals potentially affected with the defense department “in Monday that operational military are notified as quickly as order to determine the nature and networks were not compromised and there was “no operational impact” from a hacking incident carried out by people claiming to be sympathizers of the Islamic State militant group.

Central Command said its Twitter and YouTube sites were compromised for about 30 minutes but that “our initial assessment” is that no classified This screen grab made Monday shows the front page of the U.S. Central information was Command Twitter account after is was hacked. posted by the hackers. possible,” the command said in scope of this incident.” The hack “Additionally, we are notifying a statement. The FBI said that it on US Central Command was appropriate DoD (Department of was investigating the hacking of carried out by people claiming to Defense) and law enforcement the Twitter and YouTube accounts be sympathetic toward the authorities about the potential of the US military command that Islamic State militant group being release of personally identifiable oversees operations in the targeted in American bombing information and will take Middle East. The FBI said in a raids.

Issue - 597 (2)

13 Jan. - 20 Jan. 2015

Continued From Page 1

Ramdev business poised to touch...

”industry sources said.

And in the current fiscal, Patanjali is expected to clock a turnover of Rs 2,000 crore, according to Aditya Pittie, CEO, Pittie Group. This marks a 67%

jump from the previous fiscal. Pittie is the Mumbai distributor for Patanjali’s general trade business and a pan-India distributor for its modern trade segment.

Sikh doctor cut into pieces in Pakistan murder

Pakistan A man suspected of murdering a Sikh hakeem in Rawalpindi is in police custody on a fourdayremand. Manmohan Singh, who ran a herbal medicine clinic at Haroon Chowk in Shakrial, went missing on January 3 and his father lodged a case with Sadiqabad police the same day. Police said he was kidnapped while on his way to the clinic on January 3. Taking clue from the victim’s telephone record, the police on Friday raided a house in Wazeer Colony on the outskirts of Gulzar-eQuaid area and arrested a suspect, named Waheed.

The case’s investigation officer Mehar Mumtaz told The Express Tribune on Saturday that the suspect during the interrogation confessed to murdering

Singh in his house.

Police said that the suspect invited Manmohan Singh to his house and offered him a contaminated drink due to which Singh fell unconscious.

The suspect then dragged Singh into the washroom, chopped him with an axe and a dagger and threw the body pieces into a nearby nullah. The police official said that they had recovered six body pieces from the nullah and also confiscated a dagger, an axe, and some other tools from the suspect’s house.

The suspect told the police that he had some “personal issues” with the victim, the investigation officer said. Mumtaz said that investigation was under way and the mystery would be solved soon.

Defiant Charlie Hebdo Releases....

Continued From Page 1 usual 60,000 - when it reappears on newsstands this week. Charlie Hebo has become an international symbol of free speech since the massacre and a second attack two days later at a Jewish supermarket. A total of 17 people were killed in the twin rampages. Nearly four million people - including 1.5 million in Paris in the biggest rally in French history - demonstrated across France on Sunday to denounce the killings.

Many carried signs with the now internationally familiar slogan “Je suis Charlie” (I am Charlie). Seeking to reassure a jittery nation in the wake of the attacks, French officials announced the unprecedented deployment of thousands of soldiers to boost security, including at Jewish schools.

“We have decided... to mobilise 10,000 men to protect sensitive sites in the whole country from tomorrow (Tuesday) evening,” defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said after an emergency security meeting. “This is the first time that our troops have been mobilised to such an extent on our own soil,” he added. Another 5,000 security officers were also part of the reinforcements.

As investigators looked into possible intelligence failures that allowed the attacks to happen, a debate gathered pace over whether France’s security bodies need greater powers to combat home-grown terrorism and the flow of jihadists back and forth from Syria.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said one of the Islamists responsible for last week’s attacks that rocked France - Amedy Coulibaly who gunned down

a policewoman and four Jewish shoppers at a kosher supermarket - likely received help from others.

“We think there are in fact probably accomplices,” Valls told French radio.

“The hunt will go on.” But Le Monde newspaper warned against the “temptation” of enacting a French version of the US

supermarket where Coulibaly, who said he was working in concert with the two Charlie Hebdo killers, briefly took hostages on Friday before being killed in a police assault. A woman who survived the siege told Europe 1 radio that she watched as a fellow hostage tried to snatch the weapon wielded by

Patriot Act, rushed in after the September 11 2001 attacks to give security agencies sweeping new surveillance powers over US citizens.

Such was the secrecy around the US law that only the revelations of whistleblowing intelligence agent Edward Snowden 12 years later laid bare the extraordinary scope of government snooping.

Meanwhile, Washington acknowledged it made a diplomatic misstep when it failed to send a highranking official to join world leaders attending Sunday’s mass march in Paris. Only the ambassador to Paris was sent, a decision that provoked ire in France. “We should have sent someone with a higher profile to be there,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.

New details emerged of the scene inside the Jewish

Coulibaly. “A young man took the assault rifle and wanted to shoot him,” but Coulibaly “was faster and he shot him in the throat.

The poor young man just fell,” said the woman, who gave her name only as Sophie.

She said Coulibaly dealt ruthlessly with another hostage. “Someone wanted to leave - he shot him in the back,” she said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the scene of the hostage drama at the kosher supermarket in eastern Paris on Friday.

To cries of “Bibi, Bibi” - his nickname - and under extensive security protection, Netanyahu paid tribute to the four Jewish men who died at the store.

They were to be buried in Israel on Tuesday. Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said he was putting in place a “powerful and durable” system of

protection for France’s Jewish community, the largest in Europe.

Muslims are also coming under attack, with community leaders reporting more than 50 incidents recorded since the assault on Charlie Hebdo, including apparent arson at a mosque in Poitiers on Sunday. In German cities on Monday, about 100,000 people demonstrated in support of the country’s strongly held multicultural values and against an anti-Islamic movement that is gathering pace across an increasingly immigrationsceptic Europe. At the same time, a record 25,000 people joined an antiIslamic PEGIDA march in the eastern city of Dresden, claiming their stance was vindicated by last week’s Paris jihadist attacks.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was set to attend a rally backing an “open and tolerant Germany” on Tuesday in Berlin, alongside the foreign minister and other top officials. “Germany wants peaceful coexistence of Muslims and members of other religions,” Merkel said Monday. As well as Coulibaly, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, who carried out the Charlie Hebdo murders, were known to French intelligence for their extremist leanings. Valls admitted there were “clear failings” after it emerged that the Kouachis had been on a US terror watch list “for years”.

He told French radio on Monday he wanted to see an “improved” system of tapping phones. Valls also said 1,400 people were known to have left to fight in Syria and Iraq, or were planning to do so, up from the 1,200 stated last month.

NRIs can now vote in Indian elections without going there

NEW DELHI Non-resident Indians (NRIs) will soon be able to cast their vote through electronic-ballots or through their nominees residing in India but will not be able to exercise their franchise through the novel method during the coming Delhi assembly polls.

The Union government on Monday informed the Supreme Court that it had accepted Election Commission’s recommendation to allow NRIs to vote through eballot system or through proxy. The EC discarded other possibilities - postal ballot and internet voting terming them fraught with the danger of manipulation.

After the Centre conveyed its acceptance of the EC recommendations on NRI voting, a bench of Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justice A K Sikri gave the Centre eight weeks to effect necessary amendments in the law to implement the EC suggestion. NCP had proposed postal ballot for NRIs while BJP, BSP and CPI had opined that postal ballot might not be a viable option for NRIs. Congress was not in favour of e-ballot for NRIs. Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for petitioner Shamsheer V P, pushed another plea voting rights for migrant labourers who constituted nearly 30% of the total population and facilities to

enable armed forces suggestions to enable NRIs option until appropriate personnel posted in remote to cast their vote and technology/information technology applications and all other vulnerabilities are addressed,” the EC said. Postal ballot was also ruled out. A high-level EC committee said, “E-postal ballot, where blank postal ballot paper is transferred electronically to NRI and returned by post by NRI can be considered to be employed after proofing, validation of the process and pilot implementation in one or two constituencies in elections to the and forward areas to cast rejected the idea of allowing legislative assemblies and their votes. The bench them to cast their votes at then scale up to more sought the Centre’s diplomatic missions assembly elections and parliamentary response on the abroad. “The committee is finally application. The EC also of the view that internet elections if found feasible, examined several voting is also not a feasible practicable and meeting the

objectives of free and fair election. “The committee recommends that the option of voting through proxy appointed by the overseas electors can be considered to be provided to NRIs. In order to cater to needs of all categories of NRIs, additional options of e-postal ballot and proxy voting can be made available depending upon the preference exercised by the NRI voter. In case NRI voter does not exercise any of these additional two options, then by default it will be deemed that overseas elector will cast his vote as per existing legal provisions and procedures at the polling station in India.”

Issue - 597 (3)

13 Jan. - 20 Jan. 2015

To be Charlie or not to be!

Am I Charlie? Nobody cares but since you ask, no. I once read a journalistic principle somewhere which goes like this: ‘write whatever you want about any subject, but never make fun of religion’. Let’s clear out all confusion first: Any killing as a form of revenge is utterly reprehensible. Whatever the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists have done or said in the name of free speech, they didn’t deserve to be shot and killed. But the slaying of the cartoonists in Paris last week has opened up a hotly-debated yet never crystal clear argument about the issue of free speech. Interestingly, there has been a rather disquieting trend within the international media to swiftly change the topic whenever there is an effort to dissect the topic of free speech, and where there should be a line asking it to make a

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considerate stop. If you ask me, free speech does not mean one can just have a free run at everything at the expense of creating social havoc. Okay, I know many will counter this by saying that if so much fun can be made of other faiths like Juadism and Christianity, then why should Islam be spared? The obvious reason is that taking a humorous look at other faiths had been around for a long time, with God and paradise-related jokes finding a firm footing in almost all western cultures.

The fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie on account of The Satanic Verses and the very real violence done to people involved in publishing, translating and selling that novel, made it clear that blasphemy against Islam invited scary, implacable retribution. The book’s Norwegian publisher was shot (he survived), its Italian translator was stabbed and seriously wounded, its Japanese translator was stabbed and killed. The importance of The Satanic Verses in laying the groundwork for the enormous rally in Paris this last Sunday in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo and in affirmation of the right to free expression can’t be overestimated. The storm over the novel and the violence that followed its publication threatened publishers, translators and booksellers in the great cities of the West. Having won their right to blaspheme against Christianity through a long historical struggle that helped define the secular realm, Western intellectuals were both outraged and frightened by the prospect of a re-run of that struggle with Islam as their interlocutor.

This is evident in the support that JyllandsPosten, the Danish newspaper that published the deliberately offensive caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed,

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received from writers, journalists and newspaper establishments all over the Western world. There was criticism too.

Critics argued that the cartoons were unfunny, that they mocked the faith of a vulnerable Muslim minority in Denmark and Europe and that they fed an Islamophobia given malevolent life by 9/ 11 and its aftermath, but this criticism did little to shake the consensus that the violent response to Rushdie’s blasphemy made it necessary to affirm and protect blasphemy as a sub-set of free expression. Charlie Hebdo republished the Danish cartoons in solidarity with JyllandsPosten and their offices were firebombed.

This time round the weekly published its own Mohammed cartoons and eight of its staff, including three cartoonists, were murdered.

The critical issue here is that on three separate occasions, publishing books and pictures deemed blasphemous by some Muslims led to the murder or attempted murder of people associated with the publication of those words and images.

The hundreds of thousands, possibly

By: SUNNY BAINS

millions of people who gathered in Paris on Sunday might have been moved to solidarity by a number of motives, but the determination to affirm the right to be profanely mocking of faith without laying yourself open to murder was certainly one of them. Is this perverse? Given the history of France and its commitment to laicite (secularism), no. Joe Sacco, an American cartoonist and novelist, both mourned the death of his fellow cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo and criticized the magazine for its coarseness and bigotry, its enthusiasm for winding up Muslims at a time when being Muslim in the West was hard enough to start with and for being inconsistent: it had recently fired a cartoonist for his antiSemitism but would accept no restraint on other forms of bigotry. Sacco also asked if the right to be offensive did anything to help us understand “how we fit in each other’s world”.

Charlie Hebdo’s supporters lose me, though, when they insist that true solidarity with the magazine requires that other magazines and newspapers republish the cartoons that instigated the murders, that merely deploring the murders is a kind of cowardice. American writers Jonathan Chait and Ross Douthat have argued that even if you disagreed with the cartoons, once they had become the proximate cause for murder, you, as a journalist or editor, were honor-bound to support their republication. Any other position was just a form of equivocation or intellectual shiftiness because what mattered now was not the content of the cartoons but the right to publish them. The Guardian disagreed. It gave the cashstrapped Charlie Hebdo a hundred thousand pounds but didn’t republish the cartoons because it disagreed with them, and it wouldn’t have published them in the first place. So it supported the magazine’s right to publish the cartoons without endorsing them. Is this a sustainable position? I think it is.

Imagine that an anti-Semitic Muslim publisher put out a new edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This shouldn’t be hard to do. It is an antiSemitic hoax purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. It was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages and disseminated internationally in the early part of the 20th century. Henry Ford funded printing of 500,000 copies that were distributed throughout the US in the 1920s.

Adolf Hitler and the Nazis publicized the text as though it were a valid document although it had already been exposed as fraudulent. After the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, it ordered the text to be studied in German classrooms. The historian Norman Cohn suggested that Hitler used the Protocols as his primary justification for initiating the Holocaust his “warrant for genocide”. The Protocols purports to document the minutes of a late 19th-century meeting of Jewish leaders

discussing their goal of global Jewish hegemony by subverting the morals of Gentiles, and by controlling the press and the world’s economies. It is still widely

available today and even now sometimes presented as a genuine document, whether on the Internet or in print in numerous languages.

If this publisher were to be assassinated by a Jewish fanatic, would anyone argue that solidarity with him and his right to publish, necessarily meant lining up behind him to republish his vile book? I don’t think so. Solidarity in the name of freedom of expression would extend to pressing for the punishment of the man who murdered him and supporting his right to publish his list without necessarily endorsing the books he published. So I’m not Charlie by Chait and Douthat’s definition. But we don’t have to be Charlie to stand in solidarity with the writers and artists attacked for what they draw and write. We have to be ourselves and write and draw the lines we set out to without looking over our shoulders and support the right of others to do the same.

There’s a perfectly good reason not to republish the cartoons, and it has nothing to do with cowardice or caution. I refuse to republish them because I think they’re racist and offensive. I can support your right to publish something, and still condemn what you publish. I can defend what you say, and still say it’s wrong. I can hold that governments shouldn’t imprison Holocaust deniers, but that doesn’t oblige me to deny the Holocaust myself. It’s true, as Salman Rushdie says, that “Nobody has the right to not be offended.” But, manhandled by the moments of mass outrage, this truism also morphs into a different kind of claim: That nobody has the right to be offended at all. I am offended when those already oppressed in a society are deliberately insulted. I don’t want to participate in it.

This crime in Paris does not suspend my political or ethical judgment, or persuade me that scatologically smearing a marginal minority’s identity and beliefs is a reasonable thing to do. Yet this means rejecting the only authorized reaction to the atrocity. Oddly, this peer pressure seems to gear up exclusively where Islam’s involved. Only cowards or traitors turn down membership in the Charlie club. The demand to join, endorse, agree is all about crowding us into a herd where no one is permitted to cavil or condemn: an indifferent mob, where differing from one another is thought crime, while indifference to the pain of others beyond the pale is compulsory.

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13 Jan. - 20 Jan. 2015

Men are idiots, claims new study!

Washington In a new study, scientists have found evidence supporting the theory that men are idiots. Because there was not much known about sex differences in idiotic risk taking behaviour, the researchers in north east England decided to test “male idiot theory” (MIT), that many of the differences in risk seeking behaviour may be explained by the observation that men are idiots and idiots do stupid things. They reviewed data on idiotic behaviours demonstrated by winners of the Darwin Award over

a 20 year period (1995 to 2014), noting the sex of the

race using astonishingly stupid methods. Worthy

winner. To qualify, nominees must improve the gene pool by eliminating themselves from the human

candidates included a man stealing a ride home by hitching a shopping trolley to the back of a train, only

to be dragged two miles to his death before the train was able to stop; and the terrorist who had posted a letter bomb with insufficient postage stamps and who, on its return, unthinkingly opened his own letter. Of the 413 Darwin Award nominations, 332 were independently verified and confirmed by the Darwin Awards Committee. Of these, 14 were shared by male and female nominees - usually overly adventurous couples in compromising positions - leaving 318 valid cases for statistical testing.

Of these 318 cases, 282 Darwin Awards were awarded to males, and just

Man goes under knife several times to look like Ricky Martin!

Washington An Argentina-based man has undergone more than half a dozen surgeries on his face to look like his idol Ricky Martin. The man Fran Mariano, who is known for participating in the show ‘Cuestion de Peso,’ said that he operated his nose for the fourth time, had liposuction on his cheeks and with that same fat had lipo-transference in the cheekbones, the Fox News reported. Mariano, who also got a touch-up on the chin for the third time for poor scarring, added that then he took

off the nasolabial folds from his face and they were filled with methacrylate as well as

in the forehead. Mariano, who said it was the fourth time he went under the knife to look like Martin

Girl in China got HIV through blood transfusion

BEIJING A five-year-old girl in China contracted HIV through a blood transfusion, state media reported, the latest case to shine a light on an issue that has long

bedevilled the country.

According to the official news agency Xinhua, the girl, nicknamed Maomao, was infected during an operation for congenital heart disease in 2010 in the eastern province of Fujian.

She tested positive for HIV last year after she had

come down with a fever for 17 days, Xinhua said. A Fujian government official told the news agency that one of eight donors whose blood was used during the operation was in a ‘window

period’ during which the virus was undetectable. The donor was later found to have HIV. Nearly half a million people are living with HIV/AIDS in China, according to figures released last month by the National Health and Family Planning Commission. In

the 1990s, rural parts of China - particularly the central province of Henan - were hit by the country’s most debilitating AIDS epidemic. It stemmed from a tainted governmentbacked blood donation programme and infected tens of thousands of people, including entire villages. Currently, sexual transmission accounts for more than 90 percent of infections, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDCP). But transmission through blood transfusions remains an issue. Wu Zunyou, the head of the National Center for AIDS/ STD Control and Prevention, told Monday’s China Daily newspaper that about 10 people in China annually are infected with HIV through blood transfusions.

and is satisfied with the results, added that he was operated (last Saturday) with Anibal Lotocki and he is really happy with the changes that he is having. He continued that the reality is that every time he submits himself for surgery, he deposits many hopes and a lot of pain as well, for all the time that he felt different, however, no surgery fills the void he has. Mariano, who has spent all day crying, said that he thinks that he seek perfection in him, but cannot find someone to love him.

36 awards given to females. Males thus made up 88.7 percent of Darwin Award winners, and this sex difference was highly statistically significant, say the authors. The finding is entirely consistent with male idiot theory (MIT) and supports the hypothesis that men are idiots and idiots do stupid things, and the authors said that it was puzzling that males were willing to take such unnecessary risks - simply as a rite of passage, in pursuit of male social esteem, or solely in exchange for “bragging rights.”

Chimpanzees use drum solos to tell where they are New york Chimpanzees bash out distinctive drum solos on the roots of trees as a form of ‘signature’ and to tell others in their group where they are.

Biologists studying the primates have found over the years that male chimps grip the buttresses of tree roots with their hands and beat them with their feet.

The noises produced which is normally accompanied with loud hooting - are known as pant calls, and can be heard more than half a mile (1km) away, even in the dense jungle.

Metrolink riders at American state encouraged to commute pantless

St Louis It is exactly what it sounds like. The No Pants Metrolink ride began at 5.30 pm yesterday in the St Louis area.

The St Louis PostDispatch reported that STL Improv Anywhere, Missouri-based

performance collective, orchestrated the no-pants ride that began last year when commuters were encouraged to meet at a coffee shop near Forest Park. This year, they could board any stop before taking the train to the Pi restaurant downtown.

MS hits out at Google over bug report

New York Google has been criticised

by Microsoft after the search giant publicised a security flaw in Windows which some said put users at risk. Microsoft reacted angrily when Google posted details of the bug online before a patch to fix the issue was released.

The disclosure was part of Google’s Project Zero initiative that seeks to pressure firms into dealing with security problems more quickly. Several security researchers disagreed with Google’s actions. ‘I feel sorry for the users, who could be impacted by Google’s schoolyard antics,’ tweeted expert Graham Cluley, who noted the company had been criticised for similar behaviour in the past.

Discussion on Google’s bug reporting site was divided on the matter.

‘Google was wrong with what they did,’ wrote one developer. ‘They don’t have all of the OS code so they have no idea how much

and then give the manufacturers responsible 90 days to fix the problem.

This bug, which affects Windows 8.1, was

other code would have to be rewritten to correct the problem. ‘That extra coding takes time to ensure that something else doesn’t get broken in the process.’

But another said: ‘Google is not evil. Microsoft just slept and did not fix the vulnerability in time. Good job Google.’ Google has not yet responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

Google’s Project Zero seeks to find bugs in popular software

revealed by Google to Microsoft on 13 October 2014. On 11 January, Google publicised the flaw.

Microsoft said it had requested that Google wait until it released a patch on 13 January. ‘We asked Google to work with us to protect customers by withholding details until Tuesday, January 13, when we will be releasing a fix,’ Microsoft’s senior director of research Chris Betz said in a blog post.

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13 Jan. - 20 Jan. 2015

There are billions of people on this planet. Are they all your friends? Are they all your enemies? Most are neither. They don’t know you, you don’t know them and for the time being, at least, all is fine. It is only when you start to get to know people that tensions and attractions arise. Even if you don’t actually know them, but you just know of them, you can form opinions and develop feelings. In anonymity there is safety, but there is also boredom.

The new doors are opening, and you’ll like what lies behind them. !!!

Some folk feel sure that there can be no such thing as natural justice. ‘If there were,’ they argue, ‘those who are guilty of serious crimes would just drop on the spot. The Creator would take away their breath - or their power to move. We would not need law courts and judges. We’d know, in an instant, who was innocent.’ It’s an interesting idea, but thankfully the

universe doesn’t work that way. Wrongs do get righted, but only over a period of time. An old imbalance in your world, though, is now being slowly corrected. !!!

When is a conversation not a conversation? When is it an argument? Actually, even an argument can be constructive, as long as it does not involve automatic nay-saying and the reiteration of entrenched positions. The secret of success, in any exchange, is to listen to the other person. Indeed, better yet, it is not just to listen but to show that you are listening.

If you demonstrate this, then the person you are listening to will find themselves unable to resist listening in return. That may make a big difference. !!!

If you go out to buy a fridge you may encounter a sales person who tells you about the reliability of the brand.

After they have made their sale, they will start to sell breakdown cover. The very

item that they described as durable, moments ago, is now frail and in need of protection. Imagine if they said, ‘Listen, about that insurance I’ve just sold you.

You need insurance on the insurance.’ There comes a point, when dealing with an issue that gives rise to an emotional anxiety, where you must say, ‘enough is enough.’ !!!

Have you ever been wrong about something or someone? What does that tell you? It tells you that you are capable of error.

Does it also tell you that you have made nothing but mistakes and will always, be wrong in the future? Of course not! How can you even contemplate such a warped idea? The ability to be wrong does not preclude the ability to be right. And the ability to admit being wrong positively enhances the ability to be right. You have every good reason to trust your judgement in your emotional life now. !!!

Once upon a time there was a tortoise who was challenged to a race by a hare. He lost, of course. It was no contest. To preserve his pride the tortoise made up a tale, which to this day is still in circulation. The hare allegedly got distracted. He ran round in circles while the tortoise just slowly plodded on. But he still won that race.

Stories suggesting otherwise, are spin. While there is, of course, merit in consistency, stability and determination, there’s also much to be said for moving at speed. Don’t fear going too fast. !!!

In 1887, John Boyd Dunlop, a vet by trade, came up with the idea of creating an inflatable tire for his son’s tricycle. Arguments rage about whether he was the first to think of this, but one thing is for sure: Dunlop is still a leading name in tires.

Was that success attained by reinventing the wheel?

Not quite. A wheel is still a wheel, but a tire makes that

wheel capable of a whole lot more. There is a wheel in your life that does not need reinventing. But there is still a very intelligent modification that you can make. !!!

Can mind-readers really tell what other people are thinking? Of course not. No matter how perceptive they may be, they are at a disadvantage, because most people, most of the time, are in ‘two minds’. Our attitudes alter according to our circumstances. We imagine we want something, but when push comes to shove - we often discover that we actually want another. Don’t prejudge someone’s opinion. Wait to see what they actually say and do. Be open-minded too, about what’s in your own mind and heart. !!!

Think back to a day when something significant changed. Remember the person you were before a certain event took place or a particular piece of news

arrived. You were, of course, still you. But you were different, too. Imagine trying to communicate now, with that previous version of yourself. The ‘old you’ would find it hard to accept some of what the ‘new you’ had to say. Another, even wiser and happier, ‘new you’ is trying to make contact now - from a point that’s not actually so far into the future. Try to hear it! !!!

You can’t think straight if you are too hungry, in pain or feeling too emotionally bereft. First, you have to address the outstanding issues and find some way, if only temporarily, to improve matters. Then, you can engage your critical and creative faculties more productively.

You are now trying so hard to solve a particular problem, but you are in danger of creating a new and unnecessary difficulty in the process. First, you must do whatever it takes to get yourself some precious perspective.

Sydney A remarkable photograph of the live birth of a thresher shark has cast light on the lives of these elusive, vulnerable fish.

The image, taken during

most exciting moments in his career. ‘We were doing a standard survey out every day, making observations, ‘ Dr Oliver recalled.

‘One of [our team] is a

a research dive in 2013 and now published in the journal Coral Reefs, is believed to be the first record of a birth in this species.

Lead researcher Dr Simon Oliver from the University of Chester told BBC News that this was also ‘the first record of any oceanic species giving birth’. He added that seeing the image was one of the

photographer - Attila Kaszo. He took the picture of the shark, and when he processed the image and showed it to me, I freaked out.’ Dr Simon Thorrold, a senior scientist from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, US, described the photograph, which has now been published in the journal Coral Reefs, as ‘amazing’.

‘I have never seen a comparable image for any other pelagic shark,’ he told BBC News. ‘It may well be, or at least the first time that the event has been photographed, but this is always difficult to say definitively.’

He added, though, that he thought the image was of ‘limited importance’ in terms of shark conservation. Dr Oliver, who studies the thresher sharks at a seamount undersea mountain in the Philippines, says it shows how important the study site to this vulnerable species.

This particular seamount is a shark ‘cleaning station’ - the sharks go there to have parasites nibbled away by smaller fish called cleaner wrasse.

Dr Oliver explained: ‘It looks like this area is not just a cleaning station, which is already massively essential, it’s also serving as a pupping ground.

LONDON Millions more students worldwide could train as doctors and nurses using electronic learning, which is just as effective as traditional medical training, a review commissioned by the World Health Organization has found. Researchers at Imperial College London who conducted the review said on Monday that wider use of e-learning might help make up for a global shortfall of 7.2 million health workers identified in a recent WHO the use of electronic media report. Josip Car said that and devices in education -

already used by many universities and workplaces to allow ‘distance learning‘ to support campus- or officebased teaching - could enable greater access to education, especially in poorer countries where the need for health professionals is greatest.

He said the barriers were mostly in access to computers and Internet connections.

Car’s team carried out a systematic review of 108 existing studies to assess the effectiveness of elearning for undergraduate health professional education.

They also conducted separate analyses looking at online learning, requiring an internet connection, and offline learning, delivered using CD-ROMs or USB sticks, for example. They found that students gain knowledge and skills through online and offline eLearning as well as or better than they do through traditional teaching.

Rare shark birth E-learning matches traditional training for doctors captured on camera

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13 Jan. - 20 Jan. 2015

Won’t let ISI use Lanka for anti-India operations: Sarath Fonseka CHENNAI Tipped to be the new defence minister in the Sirisena cabinet, former Sri Lankan army chief Sarath Fonseka said the new regime will never allow the Pakistani spy agency ISI to use Lankan soil to mount attacks on southern India. In an exclusive and wide ranging interview to TOI, Fonseka said he was prepared to face any international inquiry into

his role as the army chief during the operations against the LTTE. Rajapaksa was largely ignorant of ground operations conducted by the army against the LTTE and in his election manifesto in 2005 had even proposed peace talks with Prabhakaran.

Q: How do you see the election results?

Fonseka: Rajapaksa was politicizing the military, judiciary, police, g o v e r n m e n t administration and everything. There was never good governance at all. His family members were largely involved in the administration.

Corruption was very high.

All cross sections of people in the country thought he should be sent away from the government. So people have thrown him out from power.

Q: What will be your role in the new government?

What kind of

responsibility do you expect?

Fonseka: I will play a major in the security aspect. I like to work with the President on the national security. Though I am not a parliamentarian right now I am expecting a political post. (Indicating defense ministry) Q: Rajapaksa was looking as an unbeatable leader.

When did the opposition started believing he couldn’t be defeated?

Fonseka: When I came out the prison in 2012, I made a public statement that we will chase him before 2015. The main opposition parties decided to join together and fight against Rajapaksa.

Senior leaders like Chandrika Kumaratuge, Ranil Wikramasinge and I expressed desire for a stronger opposition and Maithripala Sirisena left Rajapaksa. We strongly believed the united opposition can defeat him.

The support of Tamil National Alliance and Sri Lanka Muslim Congress was crucial. The minorities played a very important role.

Q: There have been reports that the international community helped the formation of united opposition against Rajapaksa. Is that so?

Fonseka: Nobody from the international community gave me directions or encouraged me. We did it on our own.

If international community really wanted to end Rajapaksa’s government then they would have done it even before since this man antagonized many countries. He was only friendly with China and ignored the rest of the world. His relationships

with other countries were not correct. His foreign policy was not correct.

There were no human rights in the country during his regime.

Q: You are talking about human rights. But many international organizations including UN want internal probe on war crimes in Sri Lanka. Will the new government cooperate for the probe?

Fonseka: We have not signed any agreement with any country for any probe.

If there are any allegations of human rights violations or war crimes then the rest of the international community will be interested to probe. We can’t accommodate everyone. We can’t permit everyone. But our military court would conduct inquiries. Whenever there was mass killing our military did inquire into it.

The government can take action against the military.

Q: But there were thousands of innocent people killed during the war. When forums like the UN demanded a probe why were you hesitating to face it if there were no violations?

Fonseka: If there is a legitimate inquiry then as a member of the country we have to face it. As far as the military is concerned I have to face it.

If there is a legitimate inquiry then I am ready to face it since I was doing the ground operations.

Rajapaksa was trying to get political mileage by saying I will not allow war heroes to face inquiry and all that. He made many nonsensical statements like this. But he knew only little about the war and what happened in the war field.

Q: Rajapaksa has been projected that he has decimated LTTE and ended the decades long war...

Fonseka: He gave only

orders as a President which is what the previous Presidents did. But operations were not successful. He doesn’t know tactical and strategical operations.

Every President wanted to finish the war. But in the 2005 election manifesto, Rajapaksa said he will have peace talks with Prabhakaran. When the army was chasing the LTTE, he didn’t even know what was happening on the ground in 2007. He did not even allocate money for ammunitions. I was recruiting additional 85,000 army men. When I became commander I recruited 4,000 men in a month.

Earlier only 3,000 people joined the army for a year. I planned the entire operation and I was communicating with all levels of army persons.

Q: Still a section of leaders in India have been claiming that Prabhakaran is alive.

What is the fact?

Fonseka: Everybody saw the dead body. We found the bodies of Prabhakaran and his elder son Charles Antony. We never found bodies of his wife Mathivathani and daughter.

I saw one of the interviews of Kumaran Padmanapan who had said both of them were front liners in the war.

We believe they were in the war field. Prabhakaran’s wife helped the militants with logistics support and his daughter was a female cadre of LTTE. No body would have escaped from the war field.

Q: What happened to his younger son Balachandran? He was a child. Why did the army killed him?

Fonseka: We don’t know.

We never captured him alive. I have seen the pictures of his body only through media. If the army had killed him, I would have been informed.

Q: According to you, the

army killed only Prabhakaran and his elder son?

Fonseka: We only found their bodies after the war was over.

Q: what will happen to LTTE leaders Kumaran Padmanapan and Karuna who later joined with Rajapaksa?

Fonseka: They have to face the legal action. They were hardcore terrorists.

Q: What happened to the seized assets of LTTE? Fonseka: Kumaran Padmanapan (KP) has the large part of the money and gold. That is why he has been spared by the Rajapaksa government.

Tons and tons of gold have been taken by Rajapaksa family through KP. There will be an inquiry in this regard.

Q: There has been a demand in the Tamils dominant North province for demilitarization? What is your view?

Fonseka: We have to maintain the army there.

Not only for internal security, but also in the view of security threat externally.

Q: Do you think there may be a resurgence of the

One km-long complaint chart for Narendra Modi A group of students in Allahabad and Varanasi have been preparing a kilometrelong complaint chart about the problems facing Varanasi which would be sent to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They have claimed that about 400 metre of the chart is ready; they hope to cover another 600 metre in the next six months.

“Since Prime Minister Modi is the MP from Varanasi, we will hand it over to his local office.

In case they refuse to accept it then we will send it to the Prime Minister’s Office in New Delhi,” said Kushagra Srivastava, a B.Tech student in Allahabad.

He told newspersons that the initiative was launched four months ago by social organisation Shuruat (Beginning). Most of the members of the organisation are students.

“The students are writing about the problems of

Varanasi which are making life difficult. Majority of the problems are related to sewer lines, traffic, street lights, and law and order. Every complainant is supposed to write his name, an introduction and mobile number with his message to Prime Minister Modi. We have planned to organise a total of 50 camps across the city and hope that the complaint sheet would be of one-km length,” he said.

So far, the students have organised 20 camps at the Banaras Hindu University and Sigra area. Over 50 B.Tech students from Allahabad spend one or two days every week in Varanasi to help in organising the camps.

One of the complainants, Ashok Mishra, has written that traffic jam was a major problem in Varanasi. “It is a big problem.

The developmental work is going on in a haphazard manner.

militant group in Sri Lanka?

Fonseka: As long as we are in power, we would not allow it to happen.

Q: Then what is the need for keeping larger number of military in Northern Province?

Fonseka: The military has far been positioned in the country. If people in North say you can’t keep the military in their area then people in South will repeat the same.

Q: What will be the foreign policy of the new government?

Fonseka: We will follow a non-aligned policy. We will not be friendly with only one country. We will maintain good relations with all.

Q: In the recent past, Pakistan’s ISI carried out anti- India operations from Colombo through their diplomats...

Fonseka: If it is happening we can’t allow any such kind of terror activities in a country which is a sovereign nation. We will not permit any kind of terror activities.

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13 Jan. - 20 Jan. 2015

Al Qaeda planning Paris-style attack in UK, warns spy chief He al Qaeda network is plotting a terrorist strike in Britain to inflict mass casualties similar to the newsroom massacre at a satirical French weekly that killed 12 people, Britain’s spy chief has warned.

Andrew Parker, the Director General of MI5 Security Service, warned that the threat of a “mass casualty attack” was growing and that intelligence pointed to the existence of specific plots.

He said while British police and MI5 had “stopped three UK terrorist plots” in recent months, the threat of a terror attack in the UK is increasing and the security services cannot be

expected to stop every plot.

“We cannot be complacent.

Although we and our partners try our utmost we know that we cannot hope to stop everything,” he said. “The going is getting tougher but there are good

reasons for confidence in our enduring ability to respond. It’s well-understood that we can’t guarantee to stop everything, but we continue to strive to get as near to that as we can.”

Security has been stepped up at British ports and armed police are on patrol at the Eurostar terminal at London’s St Pancras station after 12 people were slaughtered by al Qaeda gunmen at ‘Charlie Hebdo’

magazine’s office in Paris on Wednesday. MI5 officers have increased surveillance of British fanatics who they fear may launch copycat attacks.

Intelligence has shown that the Syrian arm of a resurgent alQaeda is planning similar outrages against the UK, possibly by British jihadists who have already returned from fighting in Syria or Iraq.

They include plans to blow up a passenger jet; Mumbaistyle shootings in crowded places; or even hit-and-run attacks using vehicles. A “significant proportion” of the 600 Britons now believed to have travelled to Syria have joined Islamic State (IS) militants.

Parker warned that despite its “medieval tactics”, IS was a “terrorist phenomenon of the modern age”, making “full use of the modern social media and communications methods through which many of us now live our lives”.

“Wherever we lose visibility of what they are saying to each other, so our ability to understand and mitigate the threat that they pose is reduced,” he added.

Paedophile school principal executed in China China executed a paedophile deputy school principal for kidnapping and killing a six-yearold girl and then molesting her body.Yang Haijun, 47, deputy head of Wang’an Township Central Primary School of Laiyuan County in Hebei Province was convicted for kidnapping the girl on July 27, 2013 to demand ransom from her parents.He took the girl back to his home and suffocated her after she cried and shouted.

The paedophile head then abused her body and buried it near the border between Laiyuan and Yuxian counties on the same day, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.Police detained him on August 2, 2013 on suspicion of intentional homicide. He was sentenced to death in December, but appealed against it.The Higher People’s Court of Hebei Province

rejected Yang Haijun’s appeal and upheld the death penalty last

Province sentenced a school teacher to death for raping five

A US judge on Friday sentenced British hate preacher Abu Hamza to life behind bars for the deadly kidnapping of Western tourists in Yemen and terrorism, calling him “evil” and his crimes “barbaric.” The hook-handed imam, blind in one eye and a double-hand amputee, was a tabloid bogeyman in Britain after the 9/11 attacks for preaching vitriolic, antiAmerican sermons at the Finsbury Park mosque in north London. The 56-year-old stared impassively at the table and pursed his lips as Judge Katherine Forrest jailed him for life, eight months after he was convicted by a jury after a fourweek New York trial. Saying he will never be released, Forrest told the court the world could not be safe with such a man at liberty exhorting others to acts of violence in the name of religion. Abu Hamza, whose

hands were blown off by an explosives experiment in Pakistan, had alarmed the jury for professing to love al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Forrest said she had thought long and hard about the severity of the sentence, for a complicated man who was a loved father of nine but who showed no remorse.

“Evil comes in many forms but doesn’t always show itself immediately in all its darkness,” Forrest said. There is “a side of you that this court views as evil.”

She said he played a leadership role in the 1998 kidnapping of 16 Western tourists in Yemen, four of whom were killed, and in trying to set up a terror training camp in Oregon in 1999.

His crimes were “barbaric” and “unacceptable in a civilized society,” she added.

Defiant to the end year.China has had a string of child molestation cases involving teachers in recent years.In September, a 61-year-old primary school teacher was detained for raping several girls in central China’s Hubei Province.In April, a court in east China’s Anhui

schoolgirls and molesting six others.In a move to intensify the crackdown on such crimes, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate announced in May that China charged a total of 8,069 people with child molestation from 2010 to 2013.

2 brothers face terror charges in Canada Ottawa :Royal Canadian Mounted Police say two brothers have been arrested and charged with terrorism related offences.

In a statement police said that Ashton Carleton Larmond and Carlos Larmond, both 25, were planning to leave Canada to engage in terrorist activities abroad.Police say Ashton Larmond is charged with facilitating terrorist activity among other charges.

Carlos Larmond faces charges of participation in the activity of a terrorist group and attempting to leave Canada to participate in terrorist activity

‘Evil’ British preacher Abu Hamza jailed for life in US

abroad.The news release says the arrests were made yesterday Ashton Larmond was arrested in Ottawa while Carlos Larmond was arrested at

Montreal’s Trudeau international airport.

Police declined to comment further because the case is before the courts.

Real name Mustafa Kemal Mustafa, Abu Hamza provided material support to Al-Qaeda, assisted the Taliban, sent terror recruits to Afghanistan and perjured himself at trial, Forrest said.

Although he was not on the ground in Yemen, he provided the kidnappers with an “indispensable” satellite phone, she added.

Forrest sentenced him to two life sentences over the kidnapping, and a combined total of 100 years on the nine other counts, all to be served concurrently.

Dressed in navy scrubs, pale behind spectacles and sporting a trimmed gray and white beard, Abu Hamza sat in court chatting to his female

lawyer and occasionally put on a prosthetic limb to take notes. He insisted he was innocent and demanded to be sent to a prison hospital, saying he had suffered “torture” as a double amputee suffering from diabetes in a detention facility in New York.

“With all honesty I do maintain my innocence,” he told Forrest. He claimed to have been bullied, subjected to small but repeated injuries.

He also complained of missing teeth and in-growing toe nails.

Abu Hamza’s lawyer Sam Schmidt had asked for a lesser sentence that would give his client “a chance to spend some of the last few years of his life with his family.”

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13 Jan. - 20 Jan. 2015

Woman suspect left France days before paris attack

Paris A woman hunted by the French police as a suspect in the attacks on a satirical paper and Jewish supermarket in Paris left France several day before the killings and is believed to be in Syria, Turkish and French sources said on Saturday.

After killing the gunmen behind the worst assault in France for decades, French police launched an intensive search for Hayat Boumeddiene, the 26-year-old partner of one of the attackers, describing her as “armed and dangerous”.

But a source familiar with the situation said that Boumeddiene left France last week and travelled to Syria via Turkey. A senior Turkish official corroborated that account.

“On January 2, a woman corresponding to her profile and presenting a piece of identity took a flight from Madrid to Istanbul,” a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.

The source said she was accompanied by a man and had a return ticket for January 9, but never took the flight.

A senior Turkish security

An official police photograph of Boumeddiene shows a young woman with long dark hair hitched back over her ears. French media,

official said Paris and Ankara were now cooperating in trying to trace her, but said she arrived in Istanbul without any warning from France.

“After they informed us about her ... we identified her mobile phone signal on January 8,” the source said. “We think she is in Syria at the moment but we do not have any evidence about that ... She is most probably not in Turkey,” the source said, adding the last signal from her phone was detected on Thursday.

however, released photos purporting to be of a fullyveiled Boumeddiene, posing with a cross-bow, in what they said was a 2010 training session in the mountainous Cantal region.

French media described her as one of seven children whose mother died when she was young and whose delivery-man father struggled to keep working while looking after the family. As an adult, she lost her job as a cashier when she converted to Islam and started wearing

Arson attack at German paper that ran Charlie Hebdo cartoons: Cops

the niqab. Le Monde said Boumeddiene wed Amedy Coulibaly in a religious ceremony not recognised by French civil authorities in 2009. The two were questioned by police in 2010 and Coulibaly jailed for his involvement in a botched plot to spring from jail the author of a deadly 1995 attack on the Paris transport system.

Security forces remained on high alert before a march on Sunday which will bring together European leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel, Britain’s David Cameron and Italy’s Matteo Renzi in a show of solidarity for the 17 victims killed in three days of violence that began with an attack on the Charlie Hebdo weekly on Wednesday and ended with Friday’s dual sieges at a print works outside Paris and a kosher supermarket in the city.

Arab league representatives and some Muslim African leaders are also expected to attend.

BERLIN Police in Germany say they have detained two men suspected of an arson attack against a newspaper that republished the cartoons of French weekly Charlie Hebdo. The newspaper Hamburger Morgenpost said on its website the overnight arson attack destroyed several files in its archive, but didn’t injure anyone. Hamburg police said it had detained the two young men near the newspaper building.

Spokeswoman Karina Sadowsky didn’t give any details about the men and said police were still investigating the incident.

The Hamburg tabloid newspaper published the Charlie Hebdo cartoons the day after the attack against the newspaper in Paris to express its solidarity with the slain journalists.

Several other national and local German newspapers also published the cartoons. They are now getting police protection.

Yemen to be trained by AQAP, the report said.

Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a US drone strike in 2011, founded AQAP’s online magazine, Inspire. It has featured in seven out of 10 terror plots against British targets since 2010,

according to Britain’s internal spy agency MI5.

Published in English every quarter, the magazine can be accessed by tens of thousands of supporters through online jihadist forums.

Previous issues of the

magazine have included instructions on building a “pressure cooker bomb”, similar to the devices used by the Boston marathon bombers in 2013. Their attack killed three people and injured more than 260.

Al-Qaeda posts ‘bomb recipe’ to target passenger jets London Al-Qaeda has provided its followers with a new “bomb recipe” with which an explosive device can be made using household goods avoiding metal components intended to evade airport security and blow up a passenger jet.

The terror group’s branch in Yemen, which directed Wednesday’s attack against the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, has also told operatives that Britain is a higher

priority target than France.

Outlining the bomb “recipe” in the latest issue of its online magazine ‘Inspire’, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) states: “We have spared no effort in simplifying the idea.”

The instructions for the “hidden bomb” are outlined in the latest issue of Inspire, which was published on Christmas Eve and features a civilian airliner on its cover.

The device, that can purportedly be made from household goods and

avoids using metal components, is intended to evade airport security and blow up a passenger jet, The Sunday Times reported.

After explaining how to make the device from “simple materials that are readily available around the globe,” the magazine advises where to detonate the bomb on a plane to cause maximum damage.

Cherif and Said Kouachi, the Charlie Hebdo magazine killers, are thought to have travelled to

Al-Qaeda in Yemen threatens Another suspected IM operative held at Mangaluru airport France with new attacks Washington A top official from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) threatened France with fresh attacks following those at the Charlie Hebdo magazine and at a Jewish supermarket, SITE monitoring group has said.

“If you refuse but to wage war, then wait for the glad tiding,” Harith al-Nadhari was quoted saying in a video yesterday. He stopped short of claiming responsibility for the three days of Islamist bloodshed in France that left 17 people dead. But one of the suspects in the Charlie Hebdo attack studied in Yemen, where he attended Al-Qaeda training camps, Yemeni security sources and a classmate have said.

Mangaluru Another suspected Indian Mujahideen (IM) operative has been arrested at the Mangaluru international airport here before he was to board a Dubaibound flight. Riyaz (32), who was residing at Bhatkal in Uttara Kannada district, was picked up last night by Bengaluru Police with the help of their counterpart

here, police said on Sunday. He was held based

on information provided by three suspected IM operatives who were

arrested on January 8 at Bhatkal and Bengaluru.

Riyaz had been taken to Bengaluru for interrogation, police said. Bengaluru Police had claimed to have unearthed a suspected terror module of banned IM with the arrest of its three alleged operatives and seizure of a huge cache of explosives during their raids at Bhatkal and Bengaluru.

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13 Jan. - 20 Jan. 2015

More attacks if you don’t stop abusing Muslims!

A top leader of the Yemenbased Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) praised the attacks at the Charlie Hebdo magazine and at a Jewish supermarket in Paris, threatening France with more attacks “if they did not stop abusing Muslims”, according to a video posted on Saturday.

In the five-minute online video, the AQAP Sharia official, Harith al-Nadhari, praised the two brothers, Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, who were killed by the French police on Friday after a hostage standoff. He warned French people “to stop aggression against Muslims or to face more attacks as a punishment.”

France hunts suspect Meanwhile, France’s government urged the nation to remain vigilant on Saturday, as thousands of security forces try to thwart new attacks and hunt down a suspect in a rampage

by terrorists that left 20 dead.

Three attackers were killed after three days of bloodshed at the

capital, guarding places of worship and tourist sites, and preparing for a huge

offices of a satirical newspaper, a kosher supermarket and other sites around Paris. Security forces were deployed around the

demonstration on Sunday to show unity against extremists.

World leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel and

Jackie Chan’s son sentenced to 6 months for drug offense The son of actor Jackie Chan pleaded guilty in a Beijing court Friday to providing a venue for drug users and was sentenced to six months in prison, following a major crackdown on illegal drugs

in the Chinese capital.

Jaycee Chan, 32, also was ordered to pay 2,000 yuan, or about $320, the Dongcheng District People’s Court said on its microblog account.

Police detained Chan, Taiwanese movie star Ko Kai and several others in August in

Chan’s Beijing apartment. Chan and Ko tested positive for marijuana, and police seized more than 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of marijuana from Chan’s home, the official Xinhua News

Britain’s David Cameron are expected to join the event.

French Interior Minister Bernard said investigators are focusing on determining whether the attackers were part of a larger extremist network. Five people are in custody as part of the investigation, and family members of the attackers are among several given preliminary charges so far. Al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen said it directed Wednesday’s attack against the publication Charlie Hebdo to avenge the honour of the Prophet Muhammad, a frequent target of the weekly’s satire. Said and Cherif Kouachi, were known to the authorities - one had a terrorism-related conviction for ties to a network sending fighters to battle American forces in Iraq, and were on the US no-fly list.

A French radio released an audio of the attacker who seized hostages in the kosher

China bans private cars on ride-hailing apps such as Uber

Agency said.

“I violated the law. I deserve to be punished. When I return to society, I won’t do it again,” Chan said in courtroom footage aired on state broadcaster China Central Television.

The maximum sentence for the charge against Chan was

three years in prison. The court said it showed leniency in the sentencing because Chan voluntarily confessed.

Police said it arrested more than 7,800 people last summer in Beijing over illegal drug use.

Other celebrities, including actor Gao Hu, were also among those detained in what was described as the biggest such crackdown in two decades.

Illegal drug use has ballooned in China in recent decades, after being virtually eradicated following the 1949 Communist revolution.

The trial and sentence were especially sensitive for Jackie Chan, who was named an antidrug ambassador in 2009, and sits on China’s top national political advisory panel the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. The actor has said that he did not use his connections to interfere with the case and hopes his singeractor son will eventually become an anti-drug ambassador.

China has banned drivers of private cars from offering services through ride-hailing apps, throwing up a new hurdle to Uber Technologies Ltd.’s global expansion.Only licensed taxis may use ride-hailing apps, the Ministry of Transport announced Friday. Such apps are hugely popular in China, and the ministry said it needed to protect users.The ruling could be a setback for Uber, which faces legal challenges in South Korea, India, Europe, California and

Pakistani flag was found swaying on terrace of his home on Friday. After receiving a tip off, a team of Palitana police

reached residence of Akbar Mohhamed Tank (42) in Talav area of the town and found the Pakistani flag hoisted on terrace.

Tank, a dailywager, was arrested by police and the flag was seized.

“The accused is telling that his brother buys scrap from ship recycling yard of Alang on Bhavnagar coast. He had brought the flag along with a consignment of scrap but the accused did not know that it

was National Flag of Pakistan.

Son of the accused hoisted the flag on the terrace believing it was decorative flag for Eid,” Palitana police inspector Manjibhai Chauhan told The Indian Express. On the basis of a complaint filed by Chauhan, Palitana police have booked Tank under IPS Section 153 (C) for his act of attempting to disturb harmony between religious groups. Police said Tank will be produced in a court on Saturday with an application to seek his police custody.

Incidentally, a resident of Bhavnagar city was arrested by police for insulting the National Flag of India by using it as a piece of cloth to cover vehicles.

Palitana man held for hoisting Pak flag

Rajkot A daily-wager of Palitana town in Bhavnagar district was arrested by police after a

supermarket, Amedy Coulibaly, in which he lashes out over Western military campaigns against extremists in Syria and Mali. He describes Osama bin Laden as an inspiration. Coulibaly’s wife, Hayat Boumeddiene, left France last week and travelled to Syria via Turkey, a source said. Police have named her as an accomplice and think she is armed.

Honorary citizen Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo granted the status of “honorary citizen” to Charlie Hebdo. “Our city shows a heroic newspaper the respect due to heroes,” she said. Meanwhile, Fictional cartoon Tintin, on turning 86 on Saturday, expressed his solidarity with the victims of the attack on its website: “His anniversary is marked by the most horrible recent attacks against employees of Charlie Hebdo.”

other markets for using drivers who lack taxi licenses.“While we encourage innovation, we prohibit private cars from using platforms to participate in the ‘hired car’ business,” said a ministry announcement.

It said companies that operate ridehailing apps will be required to make sure no unlicensed drivers use them.In a statement, Uber said its “business is running as usual,” though it gave no indication how many of its drivers might lack taxi licenses. It said the company welcomed the Ministry of Transport’s support for innovation.“Uber respects the key role the government plays in ensuring that its citizens have access to safe, affordable and efficient transportation options,” the company said. “We appreciate our ongoing conversations with Chinese authorities and believe that consumers and communities will continue to benefit from the progress we have seen.”China’s ride-hailing market is dominated by domestic competitors Didi Dache, backed by Internet giant Tencent, and Kuaidi Dache, backed by rival Alibaba Group.

Those services are used mostly by taxi companies.A third Chinese Internet giant, search engine operator Baidu Inc., jumped into the market in December by investing in Uber.

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Jat Sikh family seek a suitable match for their daughter born 1989. Both Canadian and American citizen. Parents well settled in Vancouver, BC. Final year Nursing in Seattle, Wa. 5ft 1', beautiful and fair. Born and raised in Canada, family oriented with a balance of eastern and western values. Looking for boy born and raised in Canada or USA. Age 25-30 years old,professionally educated and well qualified. Send recent photograph & bi- data to: hk_leen@yahoo.com or call: 1-604-553-1140 *** 597 *** Jat Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their handsome son, 29 yrs. old,6’ tall, born & raised in Canada, university graduate, professionally employed as a consultant. The girl should be well educated, professionally employed, born & raised in Canada. Please send your biodata & recent picture to: gs2101@gmail.com or call: 416568-1464 (Week days after 6 PM) *** 597 *** Beautiful match for Handsome Kamboj Sikh, USA Citizen , 1969 born , 5' 9" . Send latest photographs and details of the girl at: leosingh2015@gmail.com *** 597 *** Well settled Jat Sikh Gill family seek a suitable match for their only handsome, divorced son, 39 yrs. old,6’-2" tall, business degree holder, running his own well established business in Canada & US.The girl should be tall, beautiful, educated with good family values. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: gill001951@hotmail.com or call: 1-604-500-6461 *** 597 *** Seeking match for Amritdhari Jat Sikh educated son, living in USA, 5’-10" tall, 34 yrs. old. The girl should be American citizen or green card holder, Gursikh, educated, family oriented.

Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: sonyaulakh78@yahoo.com or call: 1-408-557-9391 *** 597 *** Ramgariha Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their son, 25 yrs. old, 5’-8" tall, now on visitor visa in America, dental surgeon in India. The girl should be beautiful, Canadian/American immigrant or citizen. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: sohalsp@gmail.com or call: 416-247-8865 or 647-8295872 *** 597 *** Jatt Sikh family seeking a suitable match for their Canadian born daughter, 33 yrs, 5’5" tall, slim & beautiful, professionally employed as a dentist. Boy should be from greater Vancouver area, good family background, professionally employed age between 33 to 38 yrs, and born in Canada. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to:

13 Jan. - 20 Jan. 2015

jkvancouver@outlook.com or call: 1-778-233-8897 *** 597 *** Jat sikh Deol family seek a suitable match for their sobber, handsome boy, 27 yrs. old, 5’11" tall, mechanical engineering degree, master’s from University of Toronto, working in his own field as a project manager. The girl should be from Canada, equally qualified, professionally settled, cultured, spiritual.

Students can be considered.

Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: goldydhaliwal@gmail.com or call: 905-455-6328 *** 597 *** Jat Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their Gursikh son, 29 yrs. old, 5’-9" tall,medical professional. The girl should be gursikh, well educated, having good family values.

Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: amrit_channu@yahoo.com *** 597 **** Panjabi Sikh parents looking a suitable match for their Canadian born daughter, 31 yrs. old, 5’-5" tall, never married, university graduate, professionally employed, well versed in both cultures. The boy should be Canadian born & raised, professionally employed, having good family values. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: mikki1950@hotmail.com *** 597 *** A business family from GTA invites matrimonial alliance for their Canadian citizen boy, divorced (no issues), 40, 5’-8” tall, Canadian graduate, well versed in both cultures, handsome, down to earth, family oriented.

Preference will be given to family oriented, simple and less fortunate down to earth girl.

Visitors, students, divorcees (with or without issues) may also be considered. Girl’s qualities will be the only consideration. Caste, status & religion no bar. Please send your basic info. and pictures to email: matrimonialalliance@live.ca *** 597*** Ravidasia Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their daughter, 32 yrs. old, 5’-3” tall, Canadian citizen and professionally employed. The boy should be well educated, professionally settled, between 32-35 yrs. of age, with good family values. Please email recent picture and bio data to email: san1622002@yahoo.com ***597*** Jat Sikh family seek a suitable match for their daughter, Canadian and American dual citizenship holder, born 1989.

Both Parents well settled in Vancouver, BC. Final year Nursing in Seattle, Wa., 5'-1" tall, beautiful and fair. Born and raised in Canada, family oriented with a balance of eastern and western values. Looking for a boy born and raised in Canada or USA. Age 25-30 years old, professionally

educated and well qualified. Send recent photograph & bi- data to: hk_leen@yahoo.com or call: 1604-553-1140 *** 597*** Jat Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their handsome son, 29 yrs. old, 6' tall, born & raised in Canada, university graduate, professionally employed as a consultant. The girl should be well educated, professionally employed, born & raised in Canada. Please send your biodata & recent picture to: gs2101@gmail.com or call: 416568-1464 (Week days after 6 PM) *** 597*** Beautiful match for handsome Kamboj Sikh, USA Citizen, 1969 born, 5'-9". Send latest photographs and details of the girl at: leosingh2015@gmail.com *** 597*** Well settled Jat Sikh Gill family seek a suitable match for their only handsome, divorced son, 39 yrs. old,6’-2” tall, business degree holder, running his own well established business in Canada & US. The girl should be tall, beautiful, educated with good family values. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: gill001951@hotmail.com or call: 1-604-500-6461 *** 597*** Seeking match for Amritdhari Jat Sikh educated son, living in USA, 5’-10” tall, 34 yrs. old. The girl should be American citizen or green card holder, Gursikh, educated, family oriented. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: sonyaulakh78@yahoo.com or call: 1-408-557-9391 *** 597*** Ramgariha Sikh parents seek a suitable match for their son, 25 yrs. old, 5’-8” tall, now on visitor visa in America, dental surgeon in India. The girl should be beautiful, Canadian/ American immigrant or citizen. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: sohalsp@gmail.com or call: 416247-8865 or 647-829-5872 *** 597*** Jatt Sikh family seeking a suitable match for their Canadian born daughter, 33 yrs., 5'-5" tall, slim & beautiful, professionally employed as a dentist. Boy should be from greater Vancouver area, good family background, professionally employed age between 33 to 38 yrs., and born in Canada. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: jkvancouver@outlook.com or call: 1-778-233-8897 *** 597*** Jat Sikh Deol family seek a suitable match for their sober, handsome boy, 27 yrs. old, 5’-11” tall, mechanical engineering degree, master’s from University of Toronto, working in his own field as a project manager. The girl should be from Canada, equally qualified, professionally settled, cultured, spiritual. Students can be considered. Please send your biodata & recent picture to: goldydhaliwal@gmail.com or call: 905-455-6328

*** 597*** Jat Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their Gursikh son, 29 yrs. old, 5’-9” tall,medical professional. The girl should be Gursikh, well educated, having good family values. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: amrit_channu@yahoo.com *** 597**** Panjabi Sikh parents looking a suitable match for their Canadian born daughter, 31 yrs. old, 5’-5” tall, never married, university graduate, professionally employed, well versed in both cultures. The boy should be Canadian born & raised, professionally employed, having good family values. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: mikki1950@hotmail.com *** 597*** Wanted a suitable match for Kashypa Rajput, BAMS doctor girl, 9 Aug.,1984 born, 5’-2” tall, working as a doctor in India. All family settled in New York. The boy should be Canadian/ American immigrant or citizen. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: roopj56@yahoo.com or Call: 301527-0824 *** 597*** Well settled Jat Sikh Gill family seek a suitable match for their daughter, 32 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, college graduate with diploma in business administration and accounting. The boy should be 3037 yrs. of age, well qualified & raised in Canada.

Call: 905-874-0721 *** 597*** Ramgariha Sikh parents seeking a suitable match for their son, 28 yrs. old, 6’ tall, M.B.A. from England, currently in Canada. The girl should be well educated, Canadian immigrant/ citizen.

Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: r2ravisingh@gmail.com or call: 647-461-7129 *** 597*** Hindu Vaishno family seek a suitable match for their son, born in 1982, 5’-7” tall, handsome, graduate, working in USA. The girl should be American citizen or Green Card holder, family oriented, well versed in both cultures. Caste no bar. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: gargusa483@yahoo.com or call: 1-623-698-7707 *** 597*** Jat Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their son, born & raised in Canada, 31 yrs. old, 5’-11” tall, well educated, running his own successful business. The girl should be born or raised in

Canada, well educated, beautiful & from Jat Sikh family. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: jaspalv@hotmail.com or call: 778-241-3623 *** 597*** Jat Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their son, Canadian citizen, 25 yrs. old, 6’ tall, nonsmoker, non-drinker, vegetarian, working with Alberta Govt. and belongs to a good family. The girl should be Canadian immigrant / citizen, well educated, beautiful, tall & family oriented. The family is well settled in Canada. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: bhullar_jatinder@hotmail.com or call: 647-898-7280 *** 597*** Jat Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their daughter, born & raised in Canada, 29 yrs. old, 5’4” tall, university graduate, working as human resources consultant. The boy should be from Canada/ America, equally qualified, professionally employed, having good family values. Serious inquiries only.

Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: usekhon@gmail.com or call: 416-526-8254 *** 597*** Saini Sikh family, well settled in Canada seeking a suitable match for their educated, cultured, spiritual & beautiful daughter, 76 Born, 5’-5” tall, Canadian Citizen. Match from Canada & US preferred. Respond to: skylightk@ hotmail.com *** 597*** Jat Sikh parents invite matrimonial alliance for their daughter, 32 yrs. old, 5’-6” tall, Canadian citizen, university graduate, professionally employed in her own field. The boy should be from Jat Sikh family, well educated, professionally employed. Boys on student visa/ work permit can be considered. Please send your bio-data & recent picture to: sikhmat14@gmail.com or Call: 905-654-7687 *** 597*** Jat Sikh Family seeks a matrimonial alliance for their Canadian born daughter, annulled, 34 yrs, B.Com., currently working as an accountant. Looking for Jatt Sikh Male, under 40 years, educated, in Canada. Please email bio data and photograph to: hmanjitk@gmail.com or call: 1- 780-690-2831 *** 597***

Help Wanted Busy Salon in Mississauga looking for experienced aesthetician full time or part time (threading must). EXCELLENT PAY. Call: 416-845-0524 or text your name and phone number. *** 597 ***

AZ and DZ Drivers Required AZ and DZ Drivers RequiredDays, Afternoons and Night Shifts Available AZ - $18-$22/hr, DZ - $16-$22/hr Call 905-677-9767 for more details *** 597 ***

Issue - 597 (11)

13 Jan. - 20 Jan. 2015

Hopes of new treatment for breast cancer London Scientists have discovered what triggers one of the most deadly

the gold-standard treatment tamoxifen to ‘wonder drug’ Herceptin are useless against it and

tumours. Women with the gene had cancer that was more advanced. And extra copies of the gene cut a

types of breast cancer, raising hopes of new treatments for it. They have pinpointed a gene that drives triple-negative breast cancer - an especially fast-growing and hard-to-treat form of the disease. It accounts for up to one in five cases of breast cancer and is particularly likely to strike women when they are still in their 20s and 30s.

Breast cancer drugs from

it has a worse prognosis than other forms of the disease.

The breakthrough, spearheaded by researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge, brings hope of new treatments.The study of breast cancers from almost 3,000 women revealed a gene called BCL11A to be particularly active in triple-negative

woman’s survival chances, the journal Nature Communications reports. Experiments on mice confirmed the gene’s importance.

For instance, animals destined to develop breast cancer remained free of the disease when the gene was inactivated. And ‘turning down’ the gene in cells made them less cancerous. Triple-negative breast cancer tends to be

According to reports, Mamta and her drug kingpin husband Vicky Goswami were arrested following an investigation by the US DEA and Mombasa Police department for drug trafficking Mamta Kulkarni, who was part of several Bollywood films in the 1990s and her husband Vijay aka Vicky Goswami are reportedly arrested in Kenya for drug trafficking. According to reports, the couple was arrested following an investigation by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Mombasa Police department. Earlier reports about Mamta suggested that she had shifted to Dubai

with her boyfriend and international drug kingpin ‘Vicky’ Goswami. In 1997, Vicky was arrested in Dubai for trafficking 11.5 tonne of mandrax and was sentenced for life for 25 years, as per Dubai laws.

The 52-year-old kingpin’s sentence was reduced to 15 years owing to his good conduct, and Vicky was released 15 November 2013.

The couple then shifted to Nairobi.

Mamta Kulkarni made her debut through the Tamil film Nanbargal which was directed by Shoba Chandrasekar. She made her Bollywood debut with the 1992 movie Tirangaa. In 1993 she starred in Aashiq

Awara, which won her a Filmfare Lux New Face Award. She went on to appear in many popular films such as Waqt Hamara Hai (1993), Krantiveer (1994), Karan Arjun (1995), Sabse Bada Khiladi (1995) and Baazi (1995).In the blockbuster ‘Karan Arjun’ (1995), directed by Rakesh Roshan, Mamta Kulkarni starred alongside Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan. She had a ‘knack’ of landing into controversies, which started with her posing topless for the cover of Indian magazine Stardust in 1993. She quit Bollywood after her appearance in the film Kabhie Tum Kabhie Hum.

Mamta Kulkarni, her husband Vicky Goswami arrested in Kenya for drug trafficking?

more aggressive than other types of breast cancer. Studies have shown it is more likely to spread beyond the breast and more likely to recur after treatment.

These risks appear to be greatest in the first few years after treatment.

Researcher Professor Carlos Caldas said: ‘This exciting result identifies a novel breast cancer gene in some of the more difficult-to-treat cases.’ Dr Emma Smith, of Cancer Research UK, said: ‘Figuring out the genes that play a role in triple negative breast cancer could lead to new ways to tackle the disease. ‘This study is a promising step forward.‘But these results are from cells grown in the lab and studies in mice, so they’re still at an early stage. ‘The next steps will be finding out if the gene plays the same role in causing breast cancer in women, and whether drugs can be developed to target the faulty molecules.

‘Triplenegative breast cancer can be challenging to treat, so research into the biology of the disease is vital to help scientists come up with new treatments.’

Astrologer says Imran Khan’s marriage won’t last

A prominent Pakistani astrologist has said that Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan’s marriage to Reham Khan will not be successful because the names and nature of both do not match.

The astrologist, Sajid Chaudhry, was of the view that Mr Khan is bossy by nature, as well as emotional, however, Ms Khan’s nature is based on justices, sincerity and it seems like she hates to lie.He said that the cricketer-turned-politician will face defeat in politics because of his marriage.

Mr Khan will commit one blunder after another and the world will soon know that marrying

Reham Khan was a mistake, said the astrologist.

Differences between the family members of both sides surfaced immediately after marriage, which is evidence enough that the marriage will not be successful, he added. He stated that gradually Mr Khan’s sources of income will also run out.

He said that Reham Khan’s first marriage also didn’t work because of the clash between her nature and that of her exhusband.Mr Khan formally married Reham Khan, a television anchor, on Thursday. This is the second marriage for both of them.

Issue - 597 (12)

13 Jan. - 20 Jan. 2015

A Pakistani extremist wanted me dead, says Mark Zuckerberg

WASHINGTON Facebook honcho Mark Zuckerberg triggered off an online avalanche of protests, and a war of words between Pakistani trolls and Indian baiters, after revealing in the midst of the Charlie Hedbo imbroglio that a Pakistani extremist had sought to have him sentenced to death because Facebook refused to ban content about Mohammed that offended him.

Zuckerberg did not identify the extremist but the mere mention of Pakistan brought that country’s online defenders into the fray. ‘‘You can’t just blame the whole nation on the basis of one person’s act,’’ one Pakistani follower contested on Zuckerberg’s Facebook page.

Even as the Facebook CEO reeled back to acknowledge, ‘‘You’re right. I am friends with several Pakistanis.

NIA approaches US firm to ‘preserve data’ related to alleged ISIS recruit Majeed New Delhi The NIA which is probing the activities of Areeb Majeed, an alleged recruit of the dreaded terror group ISIS, has approached a US company providing free call services with a request from an Indian court to ‘preserve data’ related to the accused.

The US firm, which provides free calling and video chatting, was initially approached by a senior officer of the National Investigation Agency(NIA) with a request to “preserve the data” but the company in its response said the same could be done only under instructions from a court, official sources said.

NIA swiftly moved a court in Mumbai and sought “Data Preservation Request” and sent it to the company through proper channels, the sources said.

In the US and Europe, social networking sites

like ‘Whatsapp’, ‘Tango’ and ‘Kick’, which provide Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), preserve data on their server for a limited

used ‘Skype’ video chatting to be in touch with his family and relatives, the sources said. Two other LRs for Iraq and Turkey,

Majeed and three of his friends in Mumbai’s Kalyan area. In May last year, four youths from the area including

time. The NIA believes that Majeed had been interacting on such a particular social site with his family and girlfriend while he was allegedly fighting alongside with cadres of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Besides this, NIA has also sent Letters Rogatory(LR) for legal vetting for Luxembourg as Majeed had

his port of embarking and exit respectively, had also been sent for legal vetting after which it will be sent to Home Ministry for clearance.

A request under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) was also being sent to Kuwait for handing over details of the person who had transferred money to

Majeed, had left the country to visit holy places in West Asia but apparently disappeared thereafter. They were suspected to have joined the ISIS. According to police, the four engineering students had flown to Baghdad on May 23 as part of a group of 22 pilgrims to visit religious shrines in Iraq.

Indian priest held for possessing child pornography A 47-year-old Indian priest has been arrested in the US state of Florida on charges of possessing child pornography, with authorities saying he asked a 14-year old boy to help him delete about 40 pornographic images of young boys from his phone.

Jose Palimattom, a visiting priest from India, was

arrested on Monday on

charges of possession of pornography and distributing it to a minor.

He is being held at the Palm Beach County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bail.

Palimottom is a priest of the Franciscan Province of St Thomas the Apostle in India and began serving a two-year residency in December 2014 at Holy Name of Jesus Parish in West Palm Beach, a parish of the Diocese of Palm Beach. The priest has allegedly told

authorities that he had been reprimanded at his church in India for being “involved with a minor male,” but the incident was not reported to police. The head pastor at Holy Name Catholic Church told deputies that when Palimattom joined, he was told to have no contact with minors without another adult present.

Bluefin tuna sold for $37,000 in Tokyo new year auction A giant bluefin tuna sold for more than $37,000 in the first auction of the year at a Tokyo fish market on Monday, as Japan faces growing pressure to cut back on consumption of the threatened fish. The 180.4-kilogram (380 pound) tuna, caught off Japan’s northern region of Aomori, fetched a winning bid of 4.51 million yen ($37,480), said an official at the Tsukiji fish market.

The bid marked the second consecutive decline at the annual new year sales, after a record 155.4 million yen was paid in 2013 -- driven by a bidding war led by a Hong Kong restaurant chain -- for a slightly larger fish of similar quality. Monday’s winner, Kiyoshi Kimura, president

of the firm behind the popular Sushi-Zanmai restaurant chain, said he was “surprised to win the bid at such a low price.”

“But it’s the best quality,”

fat.” The price decline was due to a “lack of rival bids” and a higher number of bluefins in the waters off Japan’s northern coast, a prime spot for tuna fishing,

he told local media.

“I’m satisfied with buying the best one -- it has a good shape and great

reports said.

Bluefin is usually the most expensive fish available at Tsukiji, the

biggest fish and wholesale seafood market in the world. A piece of “otoro”, or the fish’s fatty underbelly, can cost up to several thousand yen at high-end Tokyo restaurants. The growing popularity of Japanese sushi worldwide has also stoked demand.

The auction came as Japan, the world’s largest bluefin tuna consumer, faces growing calls for a trade ban on the fish, which environmentalists warn is on its way to extinction.

In November, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature updated its “red list” of threatened species, warning that surging global demand for the fish was placing “unsustainable pressure” on the species.

Thiruvananthapuram residents’ association to restrict soap operas

Thiruvananthapuram A city-based residents’ association is planning to impose an informal restriction on viewing television programmes especially tear-jerking soap operas by its members during the peak evening hours. Pothujanam Road Residents Association at Kumarapuram here, which comprise over 200 families, came up with the idea after a recent survey found that majority of families under them were addicted to various TV programmes especially tele serials during the evening hours.

If TVs are turned off during the peak hours, families can utilise the time for quality activities like reading, interacting with family members or taking care of the studies of children, office bearers of the Association said. On an experimental basis, over 30 families in the colony already started the

unique experiment since last week.

“A recent survey, conducted by us, found that majority of our family members are glued to TV sets during the peak evening hours. All main channels air tele searials during the time. It creates a kind of addiction among viewers,” Association general secretary Ashwa Kumar told PTI. He said the Assocition set up a library, comprising over 1500 titles, to engage family members, who turn off tv, during the time.

Though some of the families objected to the plan, majority of the members expressed their support to the initiative, he said. “The Association’s general body meeting will be held later this month to take forward the initiative.

We will discuss this in detail and seek the support and opinion of all member families,” he said.

Issue - 597 (13)

13 Jan. - 20 Jan. 2015

Special Sale 50% off For More Detail Please Contact : 416-992-5489

Issue - 597 (14)

13 Jan. - 20 Jan. 2015

Nepal bureaucrat clinches ‘Integrity Idol’ crown

Nepalese civil servant Gyan Mani Nepal doesn’t sing, dance or perform magic tricks - but all eyes were on the bespectacled bureaucrat on Sunday when he became the country’s first Integrity Idol.

The online contest, which eschewed the glitz of popular television talent shows, saw nearly 10,000 people cast their votes via text message and Facebook in a bid to encourage honesty in the corruption-ridden Himalayan nation. An education official in eastern Panchthar district, Nepal won praise for his efforts to increase teacher attendance and boost student pass rates from 14 percent to 60 percent during his 15 years in the job.‘I am very happy,’ Nepal said after clinching the title, which does not come with any prizes. ‘I haven’t done

anything big... I just try to provide education to children who need it.’ In a country where teachers at state schools often don’t turn up, Nepal’s initiative to share his mobile number with students and parents so they could inform him about absent tutors helped to raise attendance to 90 percent.He beat four other finalists - a social worker, a health supervisor and two school principals - who were shortlisted after nonprofit group Accountability Lab Nepal launched a nationwide campaign last April. ’This initiative aims to reward honest individuals and inspire others to join the civil service,’ the charity’s Nepal representative Narayan Adhikari told AFP. Nepal is ranked 126th out of 175 countries in anti-graft watchdog Transparency International’s global corruption perception index.

First black female Republican joins US Congress

Mia Love of Utah on Tuesday became the first black female Republican in Congress as she was sworn in along with 57 other freshmen members of the US house.

Love, 39, a former mayor of Saratoga Springs, was elected in November in Utah’s 4th district.

She already has started making appearances on cable news channels and on Sunday talk shows, most recently as a guest on ABC’s “This Week.”

Love acknowledged the attention in a statement on Tuesday but added, “I assure the voters of Utah, I’m not going to forget where I live.”

She also said Tuesday was a thrilling day for her and her family.

“I’m excited to get started,” Love said. “I feel Utah’s delegation is in the strongest position yet to represent Utah.” The new congresswoman also said she’s honored be serving on the House Financial Services Committee.

Love didn’t emphasize her race during her campaign in 2014 and an unsuccessful bid in 2012, but she acknowledged the significance of her election after her victory in November.Love said her win defied naysayers who

Police may quiz Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar in Sunanda case The Delhi police are soon likely to question Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar in connection with the murder of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.

Tarar had recently, in a TV interview, said that she was ready to help in the probe into the mysterious death of Sunanda. “If they want to ask me anything...If they want to ask me any question...I can answer,” Tarar had told a news channel. Sunanda, 52, was found dead in mysterious circumstances at a posh south Delhi hotel on January 17, 2014, a day after her Twitter spat with Tarar over an alleged affair with Tharoor. Police sources said since being a Pakistani they cannot summon Tarar, they have prepared a detailed questionnaire to be sent to her through formal channels. “Tarar being a foreign national can’t be summoned to India.

However, through the intervention of court and ministry of external affairs, we will ask her to

participate in the proceedings for clarity in the case,” said a senior police official. Senior officials in the Delhi police claimed that Tarar ’s

he told Mehr everything about my ex-husband),” says the statement. A copy of the statement is with HT.In his statement, Singh had also mentioned

version will help them establish the sequence of events in the run-up to Sunanda’s death. In his recorded statement, Tharoor’s domestic help Narayan Singh told police that on January 15, 2014, when Sunanda was unwell, Tharoor left without saying anything, which agitated her. “Madam gusse se boli ki sahib ko chhodungi nahi, unhone Mehr ko mere pichle pati ke bare mein sab bata diya hai (Madam angrily said, I will not spare him,

that the couple had a similar argument on the morning of January 17, the day Sunanda was found dead. Singh has claimed that the duo had a long argument that continued between 12:30am and 4:30am.Investigating officials while speaking with HT claimed the identity of Katty is also being ascertained. Days before Sunanda died, the couple had an argument over a woman named ‘Katty’.

suggested a black, Republican, Mormon woman could not be elected to Congress from Utah. Love has joined the Congressional Black

Caucus and is part of a small group of black Republicans in the new Congress.

In addition to being sworn in Tuesday with

other new House members, Love participated in an individual ceremonial swearing-in with House Speaker John Boehner later in the day.

Hillary Clinton’s history as first lady

Powerful, but not always deft

As a young lawyer for the Watergate committee in the 1970s, Hillary Rodham caught a ride home one night with her boss, Bernard Nussbaum. Sitting in the car before going inside, she told him she wanted to introduce him to her boyfriend. “Bernie,” she said, “he’s going to be president of the United States.” Mr Nussbaum, stressed by the pressure of that tumultuous period, blew up at her audacious

naivete. “Hillary, that’s the most idiotic” thing, he

screamed. She screamed back. “You don’t know a goddamn thing you’re talking about!” she said, and then called him a curse

word. “God, she started bawling me out,” he recalled. “She walks out and slammed the door on me, and she storms into the building.”

It turned out she was right and he was wrong. Ms Rodham, who later married that ambitious boyfriend, Bill Clinton, believed even then that life would take her to the White House and now may seek to return not as a spouse and partner, but on her own terms.

Issue 597 (15)

13 Jan. - 19 Jan. 2015

Tevar is outdated

by Rohit Khilnani Cast: Arjun Kapoor, Sonakshi Sinha, Manoj Bajpayee Director: Amit Sharma Arjun Kapoor and Sonakshi Sinha promoted their film Tevar at an IIT college festival in Mumbai. Take a look.

Going by the lyrics of one of the songs in Tevar one understands that Pintu (Arjun Kapoor) is Salman ka fan and in the rest of the film he tries to do what Salman does best, herogiri. Pintu says he is a combination of Terminator,

Rambo and Salman Khan and the Kapoor khandaan may believe that too but others would disagree, Arjun is still not actor enough to pull off what Salman Khan does. Pintu stays in Agra with his family. His cop father (Raj Babbar) keeps telling him to stay away from trouble but that doesn’t happen. He gets into some serious trouble after he beats up Bahubali Gajender Singh (Manoj Bajpayee) to protect damsel in distress, Radhika (Sonakshi Sinha) who is leaving for Delhi then for US

Taken 3 A retired CIA operative who comes out of hibernation

because she doesn’t want to marry Gajender Singh. Amit Sharma’s remake of the Telugu hit Okkadu (2003) comes too late to Bollywood. Times have changed and so have Bollywood movies. The era of small town politicians and goon films is almost over. Even Ajay Devgn has moved on from that genre now.

Arjun Kapoor does try but is too young to pull this off and definitely not ready to hold a solid hero oriented like this.

Cast: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Forest Whitaker Director: Olivier Megaton A retired CIA operative who comes out of hibernation only when his family is threatened was the starting point of Taken. By the third film, the daughter Kim (Grace) is still holding strong despite the beating she has taken, which is more than can be said about this film.

In Taken 3, Bryan Mills’s (Neeson) ex-wife Lenore is found murdered with him holding the murder weapon. So, as the cops decide to go for him, Bryan does what he does best go under.

It’s all very unclear as to why he doesn’t give the cops the benefit of the

Another film where Sonakshi Sinha plays an inconsequential role and you forget she is in the film as soon as you walk out of the theatre. The real actor among the non-actors in Tevar is Manoj Bajpayee, a seasoned actor who delivers a terrific performance. Apart from one song Salman Ka Fan rest of the music by Sajid - Wajid and Imran Khan is way below the mark, which only stretches the film, which ends up being two hours and forty minutes long.

doubt to find the real killers, except that, as is true of films such as this, detective Dotzler (Whitaker) doesn’t inspire any confidence. And that is despite all the food he thoughtfully munches left behind by the victims or the witnesses concerned out of even trash cans if you please and an elastic band he twirls and snaps around his wrist. So off-key are

these film’s priorities that all the cops of the city Mills’s own backyard rather than an exotic European location appear to be involved in chasing one man wanted for one murder even as Bryan himself unleashes mayhem completely disproportionate to even his grieving, including setting off panic at his daughter’s college.

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13 Jan. - 19 Jan. 2015

15 Bollywood Movie Posters COPIED From Hollywood Inspiration is a misguided term for Bollywood! From filmmakers, music composers to choreographers, Bollywood has a reputation of turning to Hollywood for quick references and examples. The below compilation of 19 Bollywood movie posters will help you understand the difference between inspiration and plagiarism. Keep reading and be surprised!

1. Portuguese musician Quim Barreiros’ 1973 music album - Aamir Khan’s PK (Uncanny resemblance, no?)

2. Lords Of Dogtown - Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (only the props are different, of course!)

‘til Death - Ugly Aur Pagli (99 Slaps for the blatant copying too!)

Batman Begins - RA.One (No rules for superheroes!)

Jennifer's Body - Murder 3 (A thorn branch to fill in the gap between lips? Innovation at its best!)

My Big Fat Greek Wedding - Hulchul (Guests at Indian weddings are more in number, obviously!)

Titanic - Mausam ( A fighter jet replaces the ship.

Now, that's called imagination!)

King Arthur - Hiss (From swords to snakes, a seamless transition!)

An Education - Anjaana Anjaani (Copied without knowledge, 'anjaane' designers!)

License To Wed - Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge? (Licensed to steal!)

The Emancipation of Mimi - Heroine (The difference- Our heroine reads the Bombay Times!)

The Chaser - Phoonk 2 ('The First was a Warning', Second is a COPY)

The Replacement Killers - Rowdy Rathore (Who 'replaced' what!)

Johnny English - Agent Vinod (Agent Johnny, errmm... Vinod Gaddaar!)

This needs no explanation!

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13 Jan. - 19 Jan. 2015

Carey signing multimillion dollar Vegas deal

New york Mariah Carey is said to be in the process of signing a lucrative concert contract with a Las Vegas casino.

The Grammy-winning We Belong Together songstress has sold millions of albums worldwide and her net worth is an estimated $500 million. According to

Page Six, her fortune is about to expand even more as she allegedly negotiates a concert contract potentially worth over $30 million with Las Vegas Strip hotel, Caesar’s Palace. The Vegas residency would be a welcome addition to Mariah, who has been recently criticised for her live performances.

I am single, says Lopez

Hawaii Jennifer Lopez has denied rumours she and Casper Smart have reignited their romance. The 45-year-old singer-andactress ended her nearly three-year relationship with backup dancer Casper Smart in June 2014. Speculation is rife the pair recently reunited, but Jennifer has denied these rumours. ‘I’m single right now,’ she told Us Weekly magazine. The First Love songstress is perfectly happy with her relationship status. However, the star admits she’s more open to dating now than she was a few months ago. ‘I think being on my own has been really great for me,’ Jennifer said. ‘There was a time where I was just like ‘Ehhh, I’m just not going to deal with anybody, I just want to be on my own.’ Now I’m getting back into the mix. For right now, I just have no announcements to make.’ The superstar is back in front of the camera with new flick The Boy Next Door. The feature is a thriller about a divorcee falling for her mysterious neighbour.

The role required Jennifer to get intimate with co-star Ryan Guzman, something that proved awkward at times. ‘It was intense,’ Jennifer admitted to E! previously. ‘Those scenes are embarrassing. They are

uncomfortable, but your job as an actress or an actor is to make it believable and this movie in particular… hinges on if that was believable, that it was enough to make this guy go insane.’

Madonna hits back at Mandela, Amal disputes Egypt King ‘bondage’ images arrest warning story

LOS ANGELES Pop diva Madonna has hit back at criticism of images posted on her Facebook page showing iconic figures such as Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King in bondage to mirror her

latest album cover. Photoshopped portraits of King and Mandela were posted on Madonna’s Facebook page on Friday to resemble artwork on the singer’s upcoming album, “Rebel Heart”, which shows Madonna’s face crisscrossed with black bands.

But the association of the famously risque singer with anti-apartheid warrior Mandela and civil rights hero King appalled

many commenters on Madonna’s page. “Lower and lower on the scale of bad taste,” one unimpressed commenter remarked. “Going too far.

Your bondage mask works for you since you sell sex but take it off the men of integrity,” added another.

Madonna remained defiant in the face of the criticism, pointing out the images were submitted by fans, and denying she was comparing herself to Mandela, King or any of the other personalities on her page given similar treatment. “I’m sorry, I’m not comparing my self to anyone...I’m admiring and acknowledging there Rebel Hearts...This is niether a crime or an insult or racist!”

Madonna wrote in a post full of misspellings. “I also did it with Michael jaclson and frida khalo and marilyn monroe...am I saying I am them..NO..I’m saying they are Rebel Hearts too. “And I didn’t do it my fans did...And I just re posted those photos...my fans aren’t racist either..if they put me in the same category as these other people Thank You. “I hope one day to live up to 1 100th of what those people accomplished.”

LONDON British human rights lawyer Amal Clooney has disputed a story reporting how Egyptian officials warned her she risked arrest last year if she released a report in Cairo critical of the judiciary. In an article for the Huffington Post, Clooney said it was ‘experts in Egyptian affairs’ who issued the warning over a February 2014 report for the International Bar Association, not the authorities, as was reported in The Guardian.

The Guardian has not changed its story, however, which was based on an interview with Clooney last week following an appeal hearing for one of her clients, one of three AlJazeera journalists detained in Cairo. Clooney, a leading barrister who married Hollywood actor George Clooney last year, is on the defence team for Egyptian-Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy. The Huffington Post article, written with her co-counsel Mark Wassouf, said the warning delivered over the IBA report was ‘entirely unrelated’ to the AlJazeera case. ‘This incident arose before Mrs Clooney’s involvement in the Fahmy case, before the current (Egyptian) president was in office and

in a context entirely unrelated to this case,’ they wrote. The Guardian story reported how Clooney helped compile a report that

‘They said: ‘Does the report criticise the army, the judiciary, or the government?’ We said: ‘Well, yes.’ They said:

raised questions about the independence of judges and prosecutors in Egypt.

‘When I went to launch the report, first of all they stopped us from doing it in Cairo,’ she was quoted as telling the newspaper.

‘Well then, you’re risking arrest.’‘ The newspaper said the warnings were from the Egyptian authorities, but interior ministry spokesman Hani Abdel Latif had challenged this assertion.

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13 Jan. - 19 Jan. 2015

Gunman’s video raises questions of affiliations Did al-Qaida and IS coordinate Paris attacks?

PARIS Two days after his death, a video emerged on Sunday of one of the Paris gunmen pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group, while his two fellow militants have claimed to be from al-Qaida - a fiercely rival extremist organization. That seeming contradiction has raised questions about the connections among the three French attackers, whether they acted with the direct involvement or knowledge of the networks, and whether their friendship allowed them to put aside the rift between the groups. The Islamic State group does not cooperate with alQaida’s militants and actually fights them for territory in a side conflict of Syria’s civil war.

In video verified by the SITE Intelligence Group, Amedy Coulibaly said he had worked in

coordination with Said and Cherif Kouachi, the “brothers from our team,”

who carried out the massacre at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday. “We did things a bit together and a bit apart, so that it’d have more impact,” he said in fluent French, adding that he had helped the brothers financially with “a few thousand euros” for the operation. The video also showed him doing pushups, and featured

automatic rifles, pistols and ammunition. He spoke beneath the black-and-

white flag used by many Islamic militants. Coulibaly explained why the publication and his target - the kosher supermarket - were selected. “What we are doing is completely legitimate, given what they are doing,” he said. The video appeared on Sunday on militant websites, and two men who dealt drugs with Coulibaly confirmed his identify to The

Associated Press. Police said they were investigating the conditions under which the video was posted.

Prosecutors said Coulibaly killed four hostages on Friday in the supermarket, killed a policewoman, and shot and wounded a jogger. He died when police stormed the market, just minutes after security forces killed the Kouachi brothers.

Survivors say the Charlie Hebdo attackers claimed they were from al-Qaida in Yemen, the group the US considers the most dangerous offshoot of that network. But experts cast doubt over whether the attacks could have been coordinated by the rival groups. While Cherif Kouachi was convicted on terrorism charges in 2008, and his brother Said is believed to have trained and fought with al-Qaida forces while in Yemen.

Paris holds ‘largest rally’ in French history to honour terror-attack victims

PARIS Masses of people joined with world leaders to fill Paris streets on Sunday in a rally for unity that officials said was the largest demonstration in French history. Hundreds of thousands more marched in cities around the country and the world to repudiate a three-day terror spree around the French capital that killed 17 people and left the three gunmen dead.

Their arms linked, more than 40 world leaders headed the somber procession - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud

Abbas; Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov - setting aside their differences for a demonstration that French President Francois Hollande said turned the city into “the capital of the world.” Millions of people streamed through the streets behind them to mourn the victims of deadly attacks on a satirical newspaper, a kosher supermarket and police officers - violence that tore deep into France’s sense of wellbeing in a way some compared to Sept. 11 in the United States.

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13 Jan. - 19 Jan. 2015

Pak PM Nawaz Sharif among Hindu man’s second marriage to Muslim takes communal turn richest Pak lawmakers at Rs 2bn

Islamabad Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is among the richest lawmakers in Pakistan with net assets exceeding Rs 2 billion in a country where millions of people live below the poverty line.

According to Sharif’s statement to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for 2014-15, the total value of assets in his name and that of his wife jumped to Rs 2.36 billion from Rs 1.71 billion.

His shares in Hudaibiya

engineering company, Hudaibiya Paper Mills, Muhammad Bakhsh Textile Mills and Ramzan Spinning Mills remained the same.

But the investment in Chaudhry Sugar Mills saw a phenomenal rise of 600 per cent, reaching Rs 120 million from the Rs 20 million last year.

Sharif also received foreign remittances of Rs 238.9 million and owns owns four vehicles, including a 2010 Land Cruiser worth Rs 10 million.

The ECP said Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan’s assets amounted to Rs 33.3 million.

He owns 14 properties in Pakistan, including a gifted residence in Islamabad’s Bani Gala and is spread over 300 kanals (one kanal is equivalent to 5445 square feet).

Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the amaat-e-Islaam-Fazl (JUIF), who moves around in bulletproof land crusiers with an army of bodyguards “owns no car,” according to his statement.

In what appears to be a clear case of clash of interests, Water and Power Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif owns thousands of shares in K-Electric, a Karachi-based power generation company.

The minister, who also holds the defence portfolio, owns two houses in the Defence Housing Authority, Lahore.

Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions retired Lt Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch owns 170 acres of agriculture land that he bought for Rs 65.9 million, according to his statement.

The land has a market value of Rs 200 million.

The minister holds 10 per cent shares in Gulf Minerals (Pvt) Limited and Delta Resources (mineral company).

Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed from Rawalpindi and a fierce critic of India has weapons worth Rs 630,000. He has a car worth Rs 1.86 million and properties worth Rs 22.42 million.

Pak rages against India as US denies Islamabad its millions Washington Pakistan is blaming India for the Obama administration

at extracting $380 million from the world community to rehabilitate Pakistan’s

holding back aid to Islamabad, amid calls in the US for a re-evaluation of Washington’s munificent policy towards a country that continues to foster terrorists.

A donor conference in Islamabad on Friday , aimed

internally displaced people (IDP), effectively collapsed after the US reportedly didn’t come through with its commitment to pledge $250 mil lion -a part of the $532 million under the Kerry-Lugar assistance package that the

US ambassador to Pakistan Richard Olson had reportedly assured the Pakistani finance minister the US would disburse.

“In recent days, however, the US has come under sustained diplomatic pressure from India over its financial assistance to Pakistan. New Delhi wants the US to stop all aid to Pakistan until terrorists it accuses of having masterminded attacks on Indian soil are caught and punished,” the Express Tribune newspaper re ported on the weekend even as US officials in Washington said the Obama regime had not notified Congress for any aid to Pakistan but “obviously there’ll be additional funding”.

Varanasi The marriage of a Hindu man Vinod with a widowed Muslim woman has taken a dramatic turn in Jagadishpur area of Varanasi.

When it was discovered that this was Vinod’s second marriage, the local panchayat in the woman’s neighbourhood directed him to either convert to Islam or pay Rs 25,000. He refused to accept either demands and has reportedly been missing.

Now, an outfit called Hindu Yuva Vahini has intervened. It reached Jagdishpur and submitted a memorandum in favour of Vinod at Cholapur police station, alleging that he was pressured to convert to Islam.The move has alerted the police to the possibility of communal tension.

Reports said Vinod Ram, 45, married and a father of three children, lives in Jagdishpur village under Cholapur PS and works as a handpump mechanic. In 2013, he came in contact with Nasrin (name changed), a widow living in Katari village. On July 27, 2013, Vinod and Nasrin went to a local temple where they got married as per Hindu rituals. In August 2013, they registered their marriage in the court.

Cholapur SO Pawan Upadhyaya declined to accept that he is on the run. “Vinod is in contact with us. I summoned Vinod and the woman and they made it clear that they were not interested in staying together.Vinod has sought time till Monday to get the marriage cancelled.”

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13 Jan. - 19 Jan. 2015 -DQ -DQ

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13 Jan. - 19 Jan. 2015

The $975 Million Divorce Cheque Has Been Deposited New York Sue Ann Arnall, the exwife of Oklahoma oil magnate Harold Hamm, has deposited a handwritten $975 million divorce cheque, Hamm’s lawyer said on Thursday, in a move that may end an epic divorce battle over a fortune worth billions.

Arnall, 58, deposited the cheque after earlier this week declining the payment and pledging to pursue her appeal of a divorce ruling she viewed as unfair. In the November ruling by an Oklahoma County Court judge, Hamm, the chief executive of Continental

about $1 billion in cash and assets from the marital estate. The cheque represents the entire remaining balance of what Hamm owes Arnall based on the November ruling, including interest. The oilman’s divorce lawyer, Craig Box, said he believes Arnall’s deposit of the cheque will end her efforts to appeal the case and that Hamm also wants the case resolved. “We have received confirmation that the cheque was deposited in an Oklahoma City bank,” Box said. “We feel this is the end of the case from her

Resources was allowed to keep his 68 percent stake in the firm, now worth about $9 billion, while Arnall was awarded

perspective. It means she’s done and should dismiss her appeal.” A person familiar with Arnall’s case confirmed the deposit, which

represents one of the largest divorce awards in US history. Arnall could not

shares in recent months.

During a trial last year, the shares had been worth as

be reached directly for comment. It was not clear whether she intends to pursue an appeal after the cheque clears. “If she’s cashing the cheque, I would think the reasonable conclusion is that they both will accept the trial court’s decision, dismiss their appeals and put an end to the case,” said Oklahoma family law expert Carolyn Thompson. Earlier, Hamm had filed his own appeal, seeking to have Oklahoma’s Supreme Court reduce what he owes Arnall, after a plunge in oil prices shaved billions from the value of his Continental

much as $19 billion. The Hamm case, initially filed in 2012, has pitted Oklahoma’s most successful oil wildcatter against his former wife of 26 years, an attorney and longtime executive at Continental. The firm, a leading oil driller in North Dakota, was dragged into the case but has said it did not affect business. In an appeal document, Arnall contended a trial judge wrongly allowed Hamm to keep more than 90 percent of the wealth the couple accrued during their marriage.

Palin’s Facebook picture shows son using dog as a stool

Facebook photos posted

by Sarah Palin showing her son Trig using the family dog as a step-stool unleashed online fury reminiscent of the public reaction to the disclosure that Mitt Romney had once driven with his dog strapped on the car’s roof. Trig, 6, who has Down Syndrome, is shown stepping on the family’s black Labrador while it lies on the kitchen floor in order to reach the sink. The dog appears

unruffled. The post by Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 2008, drew over 12,000 comments by midday Friday, ranging from cries of animal abuse to those seconding Palin’s praise for the youngest of her five children. “May 2015 see every stumbling block turned into a stepping stone on the path forward,” Palin posted and earned 50,000 “likes” from her followers.

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13 Jan. - 19 Jan. 2015

And the award for WORST dressed goes to: The Hollywood stars who got it spectacularly wrong on the Golden Globes red carpet

It is the ultimate star-studded event that is just as much about the fashion on the red carpet as it is the awards.And while many celebrities, including Kate Hudson and Amal Clooney, got the look right at Sunday night's Golden Globes - dazzling in sophisticated designer gowns and stunning heels - others didn't quite make the impression they were hoping for.

From the A-listers hoping to

play it safe, wearing trusted strapless or fishtail styles in nude and jewel tones, to those daring to take a risk in out-there never-seen-before designs, the red carpet was awash with stars suffering serious fashion faux pas.Failing to impress was songstress Lana Del Rey, who wore a vintage Travilla dress, vintage shoes, a Ferragamo clutch, and XIV Karats diamonds.

Rita Ora gets VERY touchy feely with ‘wifey’ Cara Delevingne as she indulges in a cheeky bottom grab at Golden Globes party

The 29-year-old, who loves to experiment with her style, has been compared to Elvis’ ex-wife, Priscilla Presley, and some even hailed her a ‘Seventies mermaid’.

The turquoise gown did nothing to complement the pregnant star’s porcelain skin and the ruched waistline was far from flattering.

Girls star Zosia Mamet was reminiscent of a layered cake in her strapless Andrew Gn grey and blush silk faille ball gown from the resort 2015 collection.

While Jessica Alba and Olivia Palermo have previously worn statement pieces by the designer - who often incorporates graphic influences from his heritage Asia - with aplomb, unfortunately Zosia didn’t quite

manage to do the same. She’s known for her daring performances in physical comedies and Melissa McCarthy certainly didn't shy away from making a bold sartorial statement with her outfit.

In a somewhat refreshing move, the 44-year-old eschewed any high-end fashion designers and instead wore a black and white ensemble sewn together from ‘pieces in my closet.’

Melissa had a conservative Pilgrim aesthetic in a white shirt adorned with a shimmering black bow around the neck and attached to a long pleated black skirt.While speaking to E!’s Giuliana Rancic, the Tammy star described the look by saying, ‘It’s like a chop shop,’ after

assembling ‘the weird project’ from other pieces in her closet.

But in the end, she said she was pleased with the final product adding: ‘It’s a little odd but I like it.’

Melissa teamed the daring frock with red open-toe heels, a Carla Amorim ring and earrings

by Doron Paloma.

With husband Ben Falcone at her side, the talented star wore her hair in a low chignon with soft pink makeup, dark lashings of mascara and a slick of plumb lipstick.

She did get some assistance putting everything together as she disclosed former Fashion Police co-host George Kotsiopoulos helped style the entire getup.

UK student raises $68174 for homeless man who offered help

Rita Ora was reunited with her ‘wifey’ Cara Delevingne on Sunday night at the Golden Globes, and it looked like the singer was rather happy to see her.Rita copped a feel of the model’s derriere in a cheeky photo taken at the Weinstein

Company and Netflix after-party in Los Angeles.

It’s no surprise the singer was in a good mood though, as her debut as a judge on The Voice UK secured a 36 per cent share of Saturday night’s audience figures.

LONDON In an act of gratitude that is warming hearts across Britain, a fashion student from Lancashire has slept rough to raise money for a homeless man who tried to give her his last £3 last month. The student, Dominique Harrison-Bentzen, has raised £45,000 (about Rs 45 lakh).

Robbie, who has been homeless for seven months in the town of Preston in northern England, had offered 22-year-old Harrison-Bentzen all his loose change so that she could get home after she lost her bank card on December 4. “After losing my bank card and having no money in the early hours, a homeless man approached me with his only change of three pounds and insisted I took it to pay for a taxi,” she said. “I didn’t take the money but I was touched by such a kind gesture from a man who faces ignorance every day.” The student decided to show her gratitude to him by raising thousands of pounds. She started a campaign to raise money for Robbie and asked everyone to give three pounds, the same amount that Robbie

had offered, for her fundraiser, which involved spending the night on the city streets with people who had heard about her story.

“Together our small act of kindness can change someone’s life this Christmas and finally get him off the streets safe and warm,” wrote Harrison-Bentzen.

Donations started pouring in after the online fundraising campaign went viral. When TOI tried to open the page, it said: “We are experiencing unusually heavy traffic. Please come back later.”

About the donations, Harrison-Bentzen said: “Robbie is overwhelmed and emotional about it all. He was so grateful.”

She said the money will be spent on securing him a flat, his first month’s rent, a food shop and furniture. The student said she is not the only person Robbie has helped. He appears to have come to the aid of many in Preston city centre, returning wallets to pedestrians and offering his scarf to keep people warm.

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You’ll start this week feeling passionate about your goals and plans for the future.

And this kind of energy coursing through you gives you the right attitude to make a success of things. In addition, knowing the right people and connecting with the right groups can help your cause immeasurably. Put some time and effort into networking regularly.

You might be more conscious of money matters, especially where shared resources and joint finances are concerned. This week’s lineup encourages some serious thought about how you can cut back on waste, increase your savings, or use any spare money to pay off debts. Meanwhile, this is as good a time as any to consider your career.

A financial decision may be needed early in the month, or at least a chance to talk things through with someone who can set you on the right path. Your mind is also on the adventures you can have.

You’re eager to expand your horizons and get involved in opportunities that are a bit of a stretch. You’ll welcome challenges that bring new experiences.

Saturn’s move into Sagittarius suggests you’re going to have a busy time ahead. Part of this may be your desire to get ahead, so you may be putting a lot of pressure on yourself to succeed. Knowing how to pace yourself so you don’t burn out too quickly could be a lesson worth learning.

When it comes to joint finances and banking issues.

Let yourself be guided by the wisdom of others. A few quick questions to the right person could put you on track to success in no time. Relationships in general are good, with an opportunity to expand your social circle and network with folks on your wavelength. However, you may be more circumspect when it comes to dating and creative expression.

Romance looks fairly intense, with opportunities to take a new relationship to the next level of commitment. However, don’t be tempted to manipulate a situation to suit you. It’s important to give your love interest the space and time to make a decision. If you do, you may find things move along swimmingly.

The presence of Saturn in your communication sector suggests that writing, speaking, and marketing could be a big part of your life for the foreseeable future. This could be an exciting time when you develop a writing or Internet business with serious clout. Lay the foundation now and the future could be very sunny. Meanwhile, romantic opportunities look excellent.

You may be relieved that Saturn has left your sign. However, its presence in your personal finance zone suggests it’s time to get down to business. This can be an ideal time to increase your income by starting an enterprise that could blossom over the weeks and months ahead. You’ll need to work hard to get it off the ground.

You may feel anchored to certain responsibilities as Saturn moves more deeply into your sign, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you’ve been dreaming about goals and plans, you now have the motivation to bring them to life. On another note, a lively energy in your communication sector makes this a great time to expand your social circle.

The current alignment encourages you to take a detached look at your life to see what’s working and what isn’t. The things you’re enthusiastic about and motivated to do are the ones to focus on. If any part of your life seems like drudgery, it may have passed its “sell by” date. Perhaps you’ve extracted as much from this experience as you can.

You’re still in a natural phase in which it’s time to recharge your batteries. However, you’re also eager to start new plans and projects.

For the time being, try to find balance between the two so you can make the most of promising opportunities. Your social life continues to look lively, although you may be targeting certain likeminded people or groups.

If you’re undecided about a job or the direction your career is taking, the presence of Saturn in Sagittarius will help focus your attention. It’s time to think seriously about where you’re going and what you want to achieve. It’s best to have a plan in place even if you do change aspects of it further down the line.

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Technology A technology to ward off hackers when internet is disabled

Washington Do you know that even if you had your internet connection disabled, you could still be emanating information that somebody could use to attack your computer or smartphone?

The hackers may be able to view what you are doing by just analysing the lowpower electronic signals your laptop emits even when it is not connected to internet, researchers reported, adding that smartphones may be even more vulnerable to such spying. By studying

emissions from multiple computers, the team from the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US has developed a matrix for measuring the strength of the leaks - known technically as “sidechannel signal” - to help prioritise security efforts.

“Side-channel” emissions can be measured several feet away from an operating computer using a variety of spying methods. Each computer operation has a different potential for leaking information. The processor

Whatsapp mobile app hits 700 million active users every month

Washington There’s no stopping Whatsapp! Rapidly rising in popularity, mobile messenger service WhatsApp’s user base has touched 700 million people every month, up from 600 million in August. This information was conveyed through a Facebook post by the company’s CEO Jan Koum who wrote that users are sending 30 billion messages per day.

The ever growing numbers make this messaging app one of the world’s largest social networks, bigger than Twitter’s 284 million or even the photo-sharing service Instagram, which

counted 300 million users last month. Facebook itself, however, is still bigger, and tallies 1.3 billion users signing in every month. “We’re grateful that so many of you are using WhatsApp to stay in touch with your friends and family, business colleagues and classmates,” Koum wrote. The latest numbers could help Facebook placate investors’ fears about its acquisition strategy, despite the 19 billion dollar purchase price being one of the largest deals in the history of Silicon Valley.

draws different amounts of current depending on the operation, creating fluctuations that can be measured. Saving data to memory also requires a large amount of current, creating a “loud” operation.

“When you are executing instructions in the processor, you generate a different type of waveform than if you are doing things in memory. And there is interaction between the two,” said Alenka Zajic, assistant professor at Georgia Tech. To measure the vulnerability, Zajic and the team developed a metric known as “signal

available to attacker” (SAVAT), which is a measure of the strength of the signal emitted. They measured the level of SAVAT for 11 different instructions executed on three different laptops and found the largest signals when the processors accessed off-chip memory. It is not really possible to eliminate all “side-channel signal”.

“The trick is to make those signals weak so potential attackers would have to use larger antennas and utilise timeconsuming signal analyses,” Zajic added.

The researchers are also now studying smartphones, whose compact design and large differential between idle and in-use power may make them more vulnerable. The research was presented at the 47th annual IEEE/ACM international symposium on micro-architecture in Cambridge recently.

Synthetic molecules that mimic human antibodies

Washington Researchers from Yale University have crafted the first synthetic molecules that have both the targeting and response functions of human antibodies. The new molecules called synthetic antibody mimics (SyAMs) attach themselves simultaneously to disease cells and disease-fighting cells.

The result is a highly targeted immune response, similar to the action of natural human antibodies.

“Unlike antibodies, however, our molecules are synthetic organic compounds that are approximately one20th the size of antibodies,”

said David A. Spiegel, professor of chemistry at Yale University. They are unlikely to cause unwanted immune reactions due to their structure, are thermally stable, and have the potential to be administered orally, just like traditional, smallmolecule drugs, he said.

Beyond their potential for treating prostate cancer, SyAMs may have applications for treating other forms of cancer, HIV and various bacterial diseases. “It is also noteworthy that molecules of such a small size can bring together two objects as enormous as cells.

Google Glass to help mothers monitor newborns Washington A US hospital is set to use Google Glass to enable mothers stay in contact with their newborns even after the infants are shifted to the intensive care unit (ICU). The experiment is to be conducted at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston next week, Glass Almanac, the leading website for Google Glass

enthusiasts, reported. The suggestion for the test was mooted by the hospital’s nurse Stephanie Shine, whose baby remained in newborn ICU for 101 days.

Hundreds of babies have to be separated from their mothers after birth because one or both of them need immediate care. As per the experiment, a participant visiting the ICU will wear

Google Glass and the images they see will stream live to a tablet computer in the mother’s hands. It will allow the mothers to hear the nurses talking about her baby and ask questions, as if she were in the room. The experiment aims to find out if using Glass can help

Washington Social networking site Facebook has reportedly acquired QuickFire Networks, a TC Disrupt 2014 Battlefield contestant.

The QuickFire’s have developed a custom hardware and software platform for decreasing video file sizes. Its platform speeds up the encoding

videos with different profiles for frame rate, resolution,

colour and audio settings.

Facebook decided to

relieve the stress that a mother feels when she is separated from her kid.

Facebook to cut down buffer time for videos, acquires QuickFire Networks

integrate the technology to cut down the buffer time for videos without compromising on the quality, as reported by Tech Crunch. To accommodate 11 high-end Intel Core i7 processors, the technology relies on custom motherboards. The custom software makes the processors work together.

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2,000 killed in Nigeria, but world failed to react One of Africa’s most senior church leaders has accused the west of ignoring the threat of the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, days after the reported slaughter of up to 2,000 people by the group. Ignatius Kaigama, the Catholic Archbishop of Jos and president of the Nigerian Bishops Conference, spoke as bodies lay strewn on the ground in Baga, in northeast Nigeria, after a surge by Boko Haram fighters who took over the border town earlier this month. He highlighted the stark difference between the west’s willingness to act when 17 people were

toll in Baga and surrounding villages, which were razed by fire, have been put at up to 2,000.

Most of the dead were women, children and the elderly who could not flee in time, said Amnesty International, which labelled it the group’s deadliest massacre yet.

A further 30,000 people are thought to have fled their homes, 7,500 seeking sanctuary in Chad and the rest adding to Nigeria’s tens of thousands of displaced people. This screenshot of a video released by Boko Haram shows their leader Abubakar Shekau (with papers in hands) issuing a

Jonathan Goodluck with his family

killed by militants in France and the approach to the slaughter in Africa.

Estimates of the death

that while the Nigerian government was “dilly dallying” and needed to improve its effectiveness against Boko Haram, the West must also act before the militants’ power grew to stretch far beyond Nigeria’s borders.

The government’s military response to Boko Haram’s advance in the north has been described as chaotic and ineffective. Soldiers often claim their allowances aren’t paid and there are repeated reports of desertion and mutiny, weakening the army’s ability to take on a wellorganized and determined foe. President Goodluck Jonathan has promised to

February there will be the political will necessary to support the military against the Islamist fighters. However, Boko

Ignatius Kaigama, the Catholic Archbishop of Jos and president of the Nigerian Bishops Conference.

warning to the Nigerian government. Archbishop Kaigama told The Independent on Sunday

re-equip the army to improve its effectiveness and there are hopes that after the election in

Haram, which regards democracy as blasphemous, is expected to do all it can

to disrupt the elections.

But, Archbishop Kaigama said the west should recognize that the problem is not simply a Nigerian one.

Nigerian Army “I can smell a lot more trouble. It’s not going to be confined to this region. It’s going to expand. It will get

to Europe and elsewhere,” he warned.

When it comes to the international community, they express their solidarity but it isn’t really concrete help.

We have always said that there should be concern expressed more concretely by the west beyond just expressing their solidarity. They should do more than that,” he said. “We believe there is a lot we can share in terms of security information. I would have thought by now they would be able to help Nigeria.

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Japan recalls baby food over cricket contamination

TOKYO A Japanese firm said it was recalling tens of thousands of pouches of baby food after an insect was discovered in one package, the latest food scare to rock consumers.Asahi Holdings said its subsidiary would be calling back an estimated 120,000 bags of the meat-and-potatoes mix after one was found to contain a cricket, a small grasshopperlike insect. Baby brand Wakodo received the complaint last month from a customer who bought the pack in Tochigi, northeast of Tokyo, and reported it included a 7.4millimetre (0.3-inch) insect, the two companies said.The firms said they did not know if the contamination ocurred in the

manufacturing process, but had decided to recall the batch. ‘We deeply apologise to our customers for causing trouble and worry,’ Wakodo said in a statement.

Separately, supermarket chain operator Sendo in Chiba, southeast of Tokyo, said Thursday it was recalling minced meat after a customer found a tiny piece of metal in the product.The firm concluded that the piece was part of its mincer, a company spokesman said, adding that it has so far received no reports of injuries. The incidents come after the Japanese arm of McDonald’s said Wednesday a human tooth had been found in french fries sold at one of its outlets.

‘Dental material’ found in Japan McDonald’s burger TOKYO A Japanese woman got more than a mouthful when she claimed to have discovered fragments later identified as “dental material” in a McDonald’s hamburger, marking the fast-food chain’s latest food quality embarrassment.

The discovery of the objects, confirmed by McDonald’s to be dental on Friday, comes two days after the company admitted several foreign objects had been found in food at Japanese outlets, including a human tooth in a container of french fries at an outlet in Osaka.

An unidentified woman told the Asahi television network she had found three tiny fragments of what looked like teeth in a burger she bought at a McDonald’s outlet in northern Kushiro city in September.

“I took a bite and there was a crunch,” the woman said in footage aired Friday, adding that she initially thought it was a piece of sand or stone. “I can’t help thinking that it was (already) in the meat.” A third-party examination determined the opaque white fragments were “dental material”, according to company spokeswoman Miwa Yamamoto, saying the

‘Selfie sticks’ give new

perspective at tech show LAS VEGAS “Selfie sticks” - the lightweight monopods which hold smartphones to get a better angle for self portraits - are making the tech community look at things from a new perspective.

These devices became a hot item at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where dozens of manufacturers and distributors were fielding orders to meet consumer demand. Priced as low as $5, the selfie sticks took some of the limelight in a show that features $10,000 television sets and other pricey hardware. “They’re flying off the shelves, they are one of our hottest items,” said Katie Kunsman with the New Jerseybased manufacturer and wholesaler Motion Systems, at her booth at the Las Vegas tech gathering. Kunsman said the trend has taken off in the past few months, led by enthusiasts of extreme sports like rock climbing. “If you go rock climbing you can get a picture from a good angle hanging off a cliff,” she said.The origins of the selfie stick are unclear. Some say the trend began in Asia, others point to the extreme sports community and similar devices made for the GoPro camera. “When I go to a music event, everyone has one,” said Aaron Sanchez at the stand for Mybat, a wholesaler of wireless accessories.

“You can take pictures from different angles that you wouldn’t be able to get otherwise, you can

take group selfies. You can get everyone in the picture and you don’t have to ask someone to take it.” The selfie sticks extend the smartphone camera away from the user by up to about 1.5 meters (60 inches), providing a better angle than is possible by

simply extending the device at arm’s length.Some of the gadgets are sold at a very low price, but adding a wireless Bluetooth button to snap pictures can boost the cost to $30 to $40 or more.

Sometimes called “narcissticks” because they promote the self-centered picture trend, the devices have faced a ban in South Korea if they use unauthorized radio frequencies.

On the CES show floor, Christina Hutchinson offered visitors a chance to snap a picture to promote “The Selfie Stick” sold by New York-based LOTP Marketing.

substance is commonly used to fill cavities or in other dental work.

McDonald’s, however, would not confirm the woman’s claim that the fragments were inside

piece of hard plastic in a sundae.

Japanese media reported several other cases of contamination, including a piece of metal in a pancake.

her burger. Yamamoto said the customer was told that there was an “extremely low chance” it could have fallen into raw material, given the highlymechanised process.

None of the employees at the outlet had issues with their teeth at the time and the customer denied it could have come from her, Yamamoto said.

On Wednesday, McDonald’s acknowledged a human tooth had been found in fries sold by another outlet last year, while it has also been hit by incidents in which pieces of vinyl were found in chicken nuggets and a tiny

The incidents mark another public relations setback for the firm, which is struggling to recover from a battering to its reputation this summer when a Chinese supplier was found to be mixing out-of-date meat with fresh produce.Then, late last year, the company had to airlift an emergency supply of french fries from the US after a chip shortage had resulted in rationing at its 3,000 restaurants across Japan.

Labour disputes on the US West Coast had bunged up the export chain, leaving Japanese firms scrambling to secure fresh supplies.

Philippine traffic officers to wear nappies for papal visit

LOTP’s Robert Rickheeram said his firm began manufacturing and selling the sticks last year, after his parents bought one in Greece at the same time he found one in China.

“We were one of the first, although I can’t confirm we were

the first” to start manufacturing and selling in the United States.

“We recognized the trend and we were able to get the website theselfiestick.com.”

Rickheeram said it’s not clear if any single company can be dominant in the emerging stick sector. “Anyone can make these,” he said. “There are no patents, although we have a patent pending.”

He said his device was designed with a strong clamp that holds the smartphone securely in place. “It has a little more bulk, but we don’t want anyone breaking their $500 smartphone,” he said.

MANILA Philippine traffic officers and crowd control personnel are to wear adult diapers on the job during next week’s visit of Pope Francis, when they will spend long hours marshalling crowds expected to run into the millions, authorities said Thursday.

The nappies will ensure that about a thousand of the personnel can stay at their posts without diverting for the call of nature during the papal tour, Metro Manila Development Authority official Emerson Carlos told AFP. He said the diapers will get a trial run during the procession of the Black Nazarene, an annual parade of a wooden image of Jesus Christ which will also draw enormous crowds in the capital on Friday. ‘We will be giving them these diapers because we don’t know when the crowds may rush in,’ said

Carlos, the agency’s deputy general manager for operations. The government expects millions from Asia’s biggest Catholic population to turn out for the much-admired pope, especially for an early evening mass in Manila on January 18.

The diaper plan has attracted some ridicule in Philippine media, but Carlos was undaunted. ‘It just requires a shift in outlook if it is really necessary,’ he said, adding ‘there have been no complaints’ from the traffic constables themselves.

National police spokesman Chief Superintendent Wilben Mayor said the 25,000 regular police officers on papal security detail would not be following the lead of the Metro Manila Authority. ‘We are trained for these situations and as of now, we have not considered (diapers),’ he said.

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Zuckerberg vows not to bow to extremists’ demands New York As events continue to unfold in the days following the horrific terrorist attack on Paris-based satirical mag Charlie Hebdo, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has vowed to reject all attempts by extremists to censor content on the social network. Zuckerberg posted this message to his Page earlier on Friday, where he says he was once the target of a Pakistanbased extremist who “fought to have me sentenced to death,” after Facebook didn’t remove blasphemous content deemed offensive.

“We stood up for this because different voices - even if they’re sometimes offensive - can make the world a better and more interesting place,” says Zuckerberg.Facebook has been criticized in the past for failing to remove other content deemed offensive, including decapitation videos, however it has u-turned on some of these policies. But Zuckerberg is adamant Facebook won’t let extremists influence what content is shared across the world.

He says: “Facebook has

always been a place where people across the world share their views and ideas. We follow the laws in each country, but we never let one country or group of people dictate what people can share across the world.Yet as I reflect on yesterday’s attack and my own experience with extremism, this is what we all need to reject - a group of extremists trying to silence the voices and opinions of everyone else around the world. I won’t let that happen on Facebook. I’m committed to building a service where you can speak freely without fear of violence.”

Facebook often finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place in terms of pulling down content.

On the one hand, if it does remove a specific video or perceived “offensive” item, it may be accused of censorship.

But on the other hand, if it doesn’t remove it, it may be accused of facilitating the sharing of deeply sinister material.In the past, Facebook has issued “enhanced” standards for its takedown policy, where it differentiates between offensive content shared responsibly, and content shared to glorify a particular issue.

In search of goddess, man reaches hospital

A man in China couldn’t control his emotions and landed up at the hospital to meet his ‘goddess’. Well, this fan went crazy after an actress posted her pictures from the hospital ward.

The man who is her huge fan traced the hospiatl and reached there to meet her. The actress has about 400,000 followers on Sina Weibo.After reaching the hospital, the man explained how he traced the actress through social media.

But the actress was not very happy to hear that immediately and called the police. Ultimately, he had to promise that he will never repeat this again.The wife along with their eldest son left the house

to go and stay with her parents.

With the pair out of the way, Leghari was able to carry out his

plan to sedate the remaining five children and then used a rope to strangle them, the report said.

Hillary Clinton ‘upset’ with hubby over his part in ex-pal Jeffrey Epstein’s sex scandal

Hillary Clinton is “furious” at husband Bill Clinton after his name was involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex scandal Sources revealed that, at the funeral of Mario Cuomo, the 67-year-old angrily “storm” past the former president after he dutifully waited for her by the door of St. Ignatius Loyola Church, the New York Post reported.

The68-year-old politician’s name has popped up in 2011 court documents relating to Epstein after a woman said to be Virginia Roberts filed a bombshell suit alleging she was Epstein’s teen “sex slave” and paid 15,000 dollars to bed Epstein’s pal, Britain’s Prince

Andrew.The 2011 court docs reveal that 21 e-mail addresses and phone numbers for Bill and an aide were found in Epstein’s electronic black book, and that Bill “frequently flew” with Epstein on his private plane from 2002 to 2005.

But the papers stated that he then suddenly stopped, raising the suspicion that the friendship abruptly ended, perhaps because of events related to Epstein’s sexual abuse of children.The 2011 court records also revealed that lawyers for two of Epstein’s alleged victims were considering subpoenaing Bill in a civil case against Epstein.

But he was not deposed.

Don’t try this at home: Fireworks explodes in man’s buttocks as plan to amuse guests backfires Weddings guests can be foolishly bad behaved. This man thought it was a good idea to shoot the firework out of his bottom while at a wedding, but his plan soon backfired.

The man, who was drunk, obviously didn’t think through his firework-in-bum wedding celebration after it went horribly wrong. His plan backfired when it launched the wrong way.But the stunt clearly amused him and his

pals, the mirror.co.uk reported.

Video shows the firework being lodged in his backside at

a wedding reception before being lit.But instead of shooting into the sky it explodes in the man’s pants.As one of his pals helpfully points out: “Don’t try this at home!”

Homes becoming mindful members of the family

LAS VEGAS From door bells that scrutinize visitors to washing machines that know when you’re home and lights that click off when you get in bed, houses are getting smarter. The trend of once-dumb fixtures and appliances being given the

brains to respond to, or even anticipate people’s needs was on display at the Consumer Electronics Show that ends Friday in Las Vegas.

US home improvement shop chain Lowe’s built a mock house on the cavernous show floor to demonstrate Iris, a globe-shaped

device that acts as a hub for using smartphones to control lights, thermostats, outlets and more.CES was rife with Internetlinked smart light bulbs, door locks, wall outlets for smart homes. Hubs used as command centers for gadgets in homes plug into the Internet and then connect with compatible fixtures, locks, security cameras, appliances or other objects wirelessly using new technologies such as ZigBee or Z-Wave. Internet connections let hubs exchange information, alerts or messages with applications in smartphones or tablet computers.The system in the Lowe’s smart house could alert parents to the arrival home of their children, thanks to a signal

from a special fob attached to their key rings.Window blinds could be opened or closed on commands, and a sensor affixed to a dog’s collar signaled a doggy door to unlock when a pet neared.

Smart home systems can also synch to surveillance cameras and motion detectors, allowing people to monitor their homes without costly service contracts with security companies. The demo home also featured a box that connected to the water line and sends a message to the home owner if change in flow indicates a leak or burst pipe.

“And everything we have is do-ityourself,” a Lowe’s spokesperson said while guiding AFP through the mock home.German home

appliance titan Bosch showed off its connected home system that uses sensors and cameras for its creations to communicate with one another, even letting people virtually glimpse into refrigerators while shopping to see what they might need.Logbar, which has offices in Japan and Silicon Valley, was catching attention with a Bluetooth-enabled ring that, when worn, allowed people to control smartphones using gestures. Logbar is planning to release a Ring Hub disk that will synch with the rings to allow infra-red enabled televisions, lights, appliances and other things in homes to be controlled with gesture.

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Turkey unveils plan Foie gras back on menu in California for more babies

ISTANBUL Turkey’s Islamic-rooted government on Thursday unveiled a new reform package aimed at realising President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambition for married couples to have more children to counter a slowdown in population growth.

The new welfare programme, announced by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara, includes several financial incentive measures including special commemorative gold coins for first time mothers.

Erdogan has made no secret of his desire for Turkish women to have more children, saying in December that ‘one (child) means loneliness, two means rivalry, three means balance and four means abundance.’ In addition to four months of paid maternity leave, the new measures allow mothers to work part-time - also paid by the government - until their child turns five. After the birth of a child, couples will receive a oneoff payment up to 600 Turkish liras ($260, or 220 euros).

Those with more than one child will be given extra funding.

Davutoglu said the measures were necessary because the country’s economic future will be ‘at risk’ if it fails to properly address the problem of an ageing population. He said that Turkey, a country of 76 million,

needs to maintain its fertility rate of 2.1, or at least two children per woman, for the population to ‘replace itself naturally.’ ‘The economy can be restored after a crisis but if the fabric of the family is damaged, we cannot restore it’ he said in televised comments. Davutoglu, whose wife Sare still works as a gynaecologist, added that mothers should not be forced to choose between motherhood and their professional career.

LOS ANGELES Californians will be able to legally eat foie gras again after a judge Wednesday overturned a ban on sales of the delicacy, outlawed in the US state for the past 18 months.

One restaurateur who has fought the ban said he would begin serving foie gras again immediately. ‘It will be back on the menu tomorrow,’ said Sean Chaney, chef-owner of Hot’s Kitchen in Hermosa Beach, adding: ‘It’s awesome... what a way to start the new year.’

Opponents of foie gras, produced by force-feeding geese or ducks, slammed the ruling by a federal court. ‘Foie gras is French for fat liver. And fathead is the American word for the shameless chefs’ who serve the gourmet food, said animal rights protection group PETA. ‘A line will be drawn in the sand outside any restaurant that goes back to serving this torture in a tin,’ it added in a statement. California lawmakers agreed the ban in 2004, but gave the western US state’s foie gras producers seven-and-a-half-years to comply before it came into effect on July 1, 2012.

Restaurants serving the dish can be fined up to $1,000. The ban has for the last 18 months

Sun may determine

lifespan at birth

PARIS Could the Sun be your lucky - or unlucky - star? In an unusual study published Wednesday, Norwegian scientists said people born during periods of solar calm may live longer, as much as five years on average, than those who enter the world when the Sun is feisty.

The team overlaid demographic data of Norwegians born between 1676 and 1878 with observations of the Sun. The lifespan of those born in periods of solar maximum interludes marked by powerful flares and geomagnetic storms - was ‘5.2 years shorter’ on average than those born during a solar minimum, they found.

‘Solar activity at birth decreased the probability of survival to adulthood,’ thus truncating average lifespan, according to the paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. There was a stronger effect on girls than boys, it said.

The Sun has cycles that last 11 years, give or take, from one period of greatest activity or solar maximum, to the next.

Solar maxima are marked by an increase in sunspots, solar flares and coronal mass ejections that can disrupt radio communications and electrical power on Earth, damage satellites and disturb navigational equipment. Solar activity is also linked to levels

of ultraviolet radiation- an environmental stressor known to affect survival and reproductive performance, possibly by causing cell and DNA damage, according to the study authors.

The team, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, based their study on demographic data from church records of some 8,600 individuals from two different mid-Norwegian populations, one poor and one wealthy. This was matched to maps of historical solar cycles. On top of lifespan, being born in a solar maximum period also ‘significantly reduced’ fertility for women born into the poor category, but not for wealthier women or for men, said the authors.

‘We show for the first time that not only infant survival and thus lifespan but also fertility is statistically associated with

solar activity at birth,’ they wrote. It was not clear whether the same would necessarily hold true for people born in the modern era.

One explanation could be

ultraviolet-induced degradation of the B vitamin folate, a shortage of which before birth has been linked to higher rates of illness and death, the team theorised. ‘Our findings suggest that maternal exposure to solar activity during gestation can affect the fitness of female children,’ the authors wrote.

‘The effect of socio-economic status on the relationship between solar activity and fertility suggests that high-status pregnant women were better able to avoid the adverse effects of high solar activity’ - possibly by staying out of the Sun or because a healthier diet curbed the harm.

outlawed force-feeding ducks or geese to make foie gras within California and bars sales of foie gras produced elsewhere if made by force-feeding a bird to enlarge its liver beyond normal

Hudson Valley Foie Gras, the largest US producer, sued in Los Angeles to overturn the law.

Lawyer Michael Tenenbaum, who filed the civil suit against the state of California, said his

size.

In his ruling Wednesday, US District Judge Stephen Wilson wrote that the law was unconstitutional because it interferes with an existing federal law regulating poultry products. The foie gras ban was ‘a topic impacting gourmands’ stomachs and animal activists’ hearts,’ the judge wrote.

The ruling came after an association of producers who supply Canada’s foie gras imports to the United States and

clients alone are losing at least $15,000 per day as a result of the law. California Attorney General Kamala Harris’s office said it was reviewing the ruling, but had no immediate comment.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Humane Society vowed to appeal the ruling. ‘The state clearly has the right to ban the sale of the products of animal cruelty... We are asking the California Attorney General to file an immediate appeal,’ they said in a joint statement.

$6,000 Lamborghini smartphone offers wow factor

LAS VEGAS For the consumer who wants a smartphone to make an impression, the Lamborghini nameplate can do that - for a cool $6,000, shipping included.

Tonino Lamborghini Mobile on Monday announced the global launch of the stainless steeland-leather handset ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Despite an uncertain economy and declining prices for mobile devices, the Italian-based company says it may be unable to meet demand.

‘Luxury is not a need, but it is a way to stand out,’ said Bob Hatefi, chief executive at Lamborghini Mobile, a company formed by the son of famed auto designer Ferruccio Lamborghini. ‘We provide technology as well as luxury.

We are not after volume.’ The

company is not related to Lamborghini automobiles, which are now produced by a division of Volkswagen, but was created by Tonino Lamborghini, the son of the famed auto designer Ferruccio Lamborghini.

The handset, which sells as an unlocked device accepting dual SIM cards for international travel, has a five-inch highdefinition display, 20 megapixel camera and can connect to mobile networks around the world. The 88 Tauri handset is offered in black, gold and steel silver and is finished with highgrade leather available in five colors.

Each phone is assembled by hand and receives a unique device number. The company also makes headphones and other audio products, and an earlier smartphone selling for around $4,000.

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Skydivers safe after NZ plane crashes

WELLINGTON The pilot of a light aircraft was praised for his quick thinking Wednesday after all 13 people on a skydiving flight leapt to safety moments before the plane plunged into a lake.

On board with the pilot were six parachutists and six thrillseeking holidaymakers heading for a tandem skydive over Lake Taupo in the centre of New Zealand’s North Island. Despite jumping for their lives thousands of feet below the recommended level for a tandem jump, all parachutes opened and they descended safely - some into the water and others on land.

‘A skydiving plane encountered an engine problem

shortly after take-off,’ Roy Clements, chief executive of Skydive Taupo which operated the plane, said in a statement.

‘All parachutes including the pilot exited the plane and landed safely. There were 13 people on board.’ ‘Where the pilot is concerned I can’t praise the guy enough,’ he later told local news service Sun Media.

‘He had to deal with the worst nightmare really for a pilot, what appears to be an engine failure. As a result he’s told everyone to get out of the plane, and he’s followed his own advice.’ The engine failed at about 2,000 feet (609.60 metres) well below the recommended safe level for a

tandem jump and well below the intended jump altitude of about 10,000 feet.

‘It’s a lot lower than we would want to be, the minimum activation for a tandem parachute is 5,000 feet,’ Roy said. A witness told the New Zealand Herald he heard a bang, then the skydivers bailed out and their parachutes opened despite the low altitude. ‘It sounded like an engine blowing up. It would’ve been no longer than 15 seconds between the bang and when the skydivers started jumping out of the plane,’ Rowan Eves said.He said the pilot was the last to jump moments before the aircraft nose-dived straight into the lake. Civil Aviation

‘Alien Earth’ among eight new planets California One of eight new planets spied in distant solar systems has usurped the title of ‘most Earth-like alien world’, astronomers have said. All eight were picked out by Nasa’s Kepler space telescope, taking its tally of such ‘exoplanets’ past 1,000.But only three sit safely within the ‘habitable zone’ of their host star - and one in particular is rocky, like Earth, as well as only slightly warmer. The find was revealed at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The three potentially habitable planets join Kepler’s ‘hall of fame’, which now boasts eight fascinating planetary prospects. And researchers say the most Earth-like of the new arrivals, known as Kepler 438b, is probably even more similar to our home than Kepler 186f - which previously looked to be our most likely twin. At 12 percent larger than Earth, the new claimant is bigger than

186f but it is closer to our temperature, probably receiving just 40% more heat from its sun than we do from ours.So if we could stand on the surface of 438b it may well be warmer than here, according to Dr Doug Caldwell from the Seti Institute in California. ‘And it’s around a cooler [red dwarf] star... so your sky would look redder than ours does to us,’ Dr Caldwell said.

That first-person encounter, however, is unlikely - both because the planet is 475 lightyears away and because we still have essentially no idea what it’s made of. Images from the Kepler telescope, which trails behind the Earth and peers far into the distance as we orbit our own sun, are used to identify far-off planets by observing ‘transits’.

Authority spokesman Mike Richards said it was amazing no one was killed and an investigation is under way. Just an hour before the accident, the

company was reported to have invited New Zealand popstar Lorde (Ella Yelich-O’Connor), who is on holiday in Taupo, to join them for a free skydive.

US museum puts Asian art treasures online

Artistic treasures from Asia’s past have found a place online after the Freer and Sackler galleries in Washington released its entire 40,000-piece collection on the Internet. The museum is the first in the Smithsonian network to digitize and release its entire collection, which also includes a large number of works

by the American painter James Whistler.Dubbed ‘Open F/S,’ the project enables ‘anyone to explore and create with the collections, from anywhere in the world,’ the galleries said in a statement. Most of the works have never been seen by the public, and more than 90 percent carry no copyright restrictions for non-commercial use, it said.

Drones swoop into electronics show Las Vegas On a dusty stretch of Nevada desert, a quadcopter drone kicks up a small cloud as it takes off. It then trails its operator on a drive across the flat terrain, filming the motion from a short distance above. The AirDog drone was designed to capture the intensity of extreme sports that have been difficult to access - surfing, skiing, off-road biking and similar activities. ‘We felt we could change the way video is captured in action sports,’ said Agris Kipurs, co-founder or AirDog, created by a group of Latvian engineers and now based in California, which is starting betatesting on its products later this year. AirDog, one of dozens of drones being shown at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week in Las Vegas, is aiming for ‘an unassisted experience, so all you need is the tracking device on your wrist,’ Kipurs told AFP during a demonstration in the desert outside Las Vegas. Drones are

showing up in a variety of shapes and sizes at the huge electronics fair, which has for the first time a space dedicated to ‘unmanned systems.’ More than a dozen companies are displaying the flying devices, for uses ranging from remote-controlled toys to professional filmmaking to industrial and agricultural applications. The Hexo+ drone from Franco-American Squadrone System is another drone on display that can be preprogrammed to follow and film a person or object from any conceivable angle using a smartphone. In a similar category, the show got a look at the Nixie drone, a flying camera which launches from one’s wrist and won a competition last year sponsored

by Intel for wearable technology.

‘We think drones have a possibility to change our lives in positive ways,’ said Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich at a CES keynote speech where he demonstrated Intel-powered drones from Ascending

Technologies that navigated obstacles on stage.South Korean-based Byrobot is showing its ‘drone fighter,’ which enables its users to simulate aerial combat with infrared signals to fire at enemy aircraft. When one of the drones is hit, its lights flash

and hand controller vibrates, signalling it is downed, according to the company, which offers an optional camera with the device.

With US regulations on drones still uncertain, some developers are looking for ways to avoid being grounded. The Zano drone, a so-

called nano-drone designed for aerial photography and selfies, weighs in at just 55 grams (two ounces) to be under the current limit of 60 grams to be regulated in the United States, said Thomas Dietrich, design director for the British-based Torquing Group. ‘

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Indian official sacked for pulling 24-year sickie NEW DELHI An Indian public official has been sacked for taking leave 24 years ago and never returning to his desk in the country’s notoriously work-shy bureaucracy, the urban development ministry said Thursday.Assistant executive engineer A K Verma went on leave in 1990 after joining India’s central public works department (CPWD) a decade earlier. Verma defied bosses’ orders to return to work after his requests for additional leave were denied, but it took until 2007 for formal dismissal charges to be brought against him, the ministry said in a statement.

Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu ordered his dismissal in order to ‘streamline the functioning of CPWD and to ensure accountability,’ it said.

India’s civil servants have long been notorious for arriving late, taking long lunches or spending parts of their day on the golf course. A 2012 survey by the

Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk consultancy rated India’s bureaucracy as the worst among major Asian countries.Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said he was shocked by what he saw in the corridors of power after moving to New Delhi following his landslide

election victory in May last year.

During his first few months in office, Modi developed a reputation for paying unannounced visits to government offices. Fear of being caught playing truant triggered a rise in attendance levels among civil servants and Delhi’s main golf course has reportedly been largely deserted on week days.

Hubble turns 25 Washington The Hubble Space Telescope, which in 2015 completes 25 years in orbit, has gathered dramatic new views of two well-known celestial objects.Revisiting one of its earliest and most famous photos, a new view of the Eagle Nebula shows its ‘Pillars of Creation’ in more detail than ever before. And a composite of 13,000 shots of our neighbouring Andromeda Galaxy becomes the telescope’s biggest ever image.Both were unveiled in Seattle at an American Astronomical Society meeting.

Showing journalists the Eagle Nebula view, together with another image of infra-red light from the same region, Dr Paul Scowen from Arizona State University described them as ‘new pictures of an old friend’.

The original 1995 view of the star-forming pillars of billowing dust and gas was a sensation, and has since appeared on countless book covers, movie

screens and T-shirts. The new representation, thanks to multiple upgrades to Hubble’s systems, has a wider angle and twice the resolution. It also allows astronomers like Dr

weeks, Dr Scowen noted that, ‘yes, some things have moved’ including the tips of jets bursting from the side of the five light-yeartall pillars.Those jets become ‘signposts, pointing to where

Scowen to see what has changed in 20 years - even though any changes actually took place 7,000 years ago because of the intervening distance. Although he and his colleagues have only been able to look at the pictures for a few

stars were made’ he said. The second impressive new release is known as the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury or PHAT. It depicts the Andromeda Galaxy, our Milky Way’s big neighbour, at a record-breaking level of detail.

Indian scientists at odds on ancient discovery claims NEW DELHI A series of sensational claims, including that ancient Hindu sages were the pioneers of aviation and algebra, have triggered a furious debate in Indian academic circles amid warnings that nationalist breast-beating could undermine the country’s burgeoning scientific reputation.A weekend conclave of experts and researchers, whose guests included new Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was intended to highlight some of the latest achievements by India’s scientific community.

The nation’s scientific prowess received a major boost last year when it became the first Asian country to reach Mars, a breakthrough that academics hoped would make people view India in a different light.

However the headlines from the weekend conference in Mumbai were dominated by the contributions in a session devoted to Vedic science, which appeared in ancient

Hindu scriptures. Former pilot turned author Anand J. Bodas said Maharishi Bhardwaj - a sage of the Vedic period (around 1500 - 500 BC) - had laid down as many as ‘500 guidelines’ on flying in one of the ancient Hindu texts much before Leonardo da Vinci’s 15th century ideas for flying machines and the American Wright Brothers’ first flight in 1903. The Maharishi defined an aeroplane as a vehicle which could even travel

from one planet to other, Bodas said before adding that some of the ‘jumbo’ aeroplanes of ancient India had ‘40 small engines’ and could move not only forward but backward as well.He then raised eyebrows further by claiming aviation technology existed in India as early as 7,000 BC, though he did not explain his evidence for this theory. In the same session, Science and Technology Minister Harsh

Vardhan also caused a stir by claiming that Indians were the first to discover some of the most important mathematic principles. ‘Our scientists discovered the Pythagoras theorem but we very gracefully allowed the Greeks to take the credit,’ said the minister who is a member of Modi’s rightwing Bharatiya Janata Party.

‘We all know we knew ‘beej ganit’ (Hindi term for algebra) long before the Arabs, but very selflessly allowed it to be called algebra.’ The claims did receive some support, including from opposition politician Shashi Tharoor who said ‘the genuine accomplishments of ancient Indian science’ should not be underplayed just because their modern-day champions are Hindu supremacists. But D. Raghunandan, president of the All India People’s Scientific Network, said such claims for Vedic science would only end up heaping ridicule on the country’s scientific community.

Taliban turns down Afghan govt job offers London The Taliban in Afghanistan have reportedly turned down posts offered to them by the country's new government. According to the BBC, the offer came from new President Ashraf Ghani in a bid to end the insurgency that threatens the recovery of the country.However, the president's spokesman has denied that the government had formally offered jobs to members of Taliban.The report quoted a source close to President Ghani as saying that the government should be drawn "not just from the two teams, but from all parties in Afghanistan".It is reported that Ghani had particularly hoped to rope in Mullah Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, living in Kabul for some years, Wakil Muttawakil, the former Taliban foreign minister, and Ghairat Baheer, a close relative of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose forces are allied to the Taliban.

Sony PS4 console sales top 18.5m

LAS VEGAS Sony on Monday said sales of its PlayStation 4 video game

consoles have topped 18.5 million. Slightly more than four million PS4 units were bought

during the year-end holiday season, Sony chief Kazuo Hirai said during a press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show gadget extravaganza taking place here this week.

‘I’m liking those numbers,’ Hirai said. ‘This is a remarkable success for those consoles.’

Game sales for PS4 consoles has remained strong, with more than 81.8 million copies sold as of Monday, according to the Japanese consumer electronics and entertainment titan. Nearly 11 million people subscribe to a PlayStation Plus online network

that delivers films, television shows, music and other digital content to consoles, according to Sony. The PS4 console has been a bright spot for the struggling firm, which launched a sweeping restructuring in a bid to claw its way back to profitability.

The release of the PS4 in the United States and other markets has helped improve Sony’s fortunes after a disappointing response to the console’s predecessor, the PS3.

Nintendo’s Wii U, launched in late 2012, took more than a year

to sell just under six million units. The PS4 is locked in a battle for dominance of the digital home entertainment market with Microsoft’s Xbox One and the Wii U at a time when consoles are under intense pressure to prove their worth in a world where many now play downloadable games on smartphones and tablets.PS4 outsold Xbox One consistently after both consoles launched in November of 2013, but Microsoft resorted to cutting the price of Xbox One and bundling games to boost sales during the recently ended holiday season.

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Sri Lanka prepares SpaceX Successfully Launches Cargo Ship to for Pope’s visit Station and Hard Lands Rocket on “Drone Ship”

Colombo Sri Lanka's new Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe has entrusted his United National Party (UNP) senior parliamentarian John Amaratunga with the task of organizing the visit of Pope Francis to the island-nation from January 13 to 15.Amaratunga told national radio that a special discussion will be held at the Archbishop's house in Colombo today to discuss the arrangements.A meeting with the officials of the Ministry of External Affairs will be held in the afternoon to discuss the issue, reports the Lanka Page web site.The Pope will leave Rome on January 12 and will arrive in Sri

Lanka the next day, reports the Lanka Page web site.He will be given a ceremonial welcome at the Srimavo Bandaranaike Airport before heading into a meeting with the Sri Lankan Council of Catholic Bishops on the same day in Colombo.Thereafter, he will meet President Maithreepala Sirisena at Temple Trees, the official residence of the president at 5 p.m.Pope Francis will then speak at an Inter-religious Meeting at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall in Colombo at 6.15 p.m.On Wednesday, he will deliver a Holy Mass and Canonization of Blessed Joseph Vaz at the Galle Face Green in Colombo.

SpaceX successfully launched their commercial Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo ship on a critical mission for NASA bound for the space station this morning, Jan. 10, while simultaneously accomplishing a hard landing of the boosters first stage on an ocean-floating “drone ship” platform in a very good first step towards the bold company goal of recovery and re-usability in the future.

The spectacular night time launch of the private SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lit up the skies all around the Florida Space Coast and beyond following a flawless on time liftoff at 4:47 a.m. EST from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The nine Merlin 1D engines of the 208 foot-tall Falcon 9 generated 1.3 million pounds of liftoff thrust as the rocket climbed to orbit on the first SpaceX launch of 2015.

The Dragon CRS-5 mission is on its way to a Monday-morning rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS).

It is loaded with more than two tons of supplies and NASA science investigations for the six person crew aboard the massive orbiting outpost.

A secondary goal of SpaceX was to conduct a history-making attempt at recovering the 14 story tall Falcon 9 first stage via a precision landing on an ocean-going landing platform known as the “autonomous spaceport drone ship.”

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk quickly tweeted that good progress was

of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced…”

“Didn’t get good landing/impact video. Pitch dark and foggy. Will piece it together from telemetry and … actual pieces.” Musk’s daring vision is to recover, refurbish and reuse the first stage and dramatically reduce the high cost of access to space,

made, and as expected, more work needs to be done.

This was an experiment involving re-lighting one of the first stage Merlin engines three times to act as a retro rocket to slow the stages descent and aim for the drone ship. “Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho,” Musk tweeted soon after the launch and recovery attempt. “Ship itself is fine. Some

by introducing airline like operational concepts. The ‘autonomous spaceport drone ship’ was positioned some 200 to 250 miles offshore of the launch site in the Atlantic Ocean along the rockets flight path, flying along the US Northeast coast to match that of the ISS. The autonomous spaceport drone ship measure only 300 by 100 feet, with wings that extend its width to 170 feet. That’s tiny compared to the Atlantic Ocean.

Lifespan of children born in yrs with more sun is 5.2 yrs shorter than other kids

Washington A new study has revealed that kids born in years with a lot of sunshine have a higher

probability of dying compared to children who were born in the years with less solar activity, and that means fewer

grandchildren.The study at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) found that on average, the lifespan of children born in years that had a great deal of solar activity was 5.2 years shorter than other children and the largest difference was in the probability of dying during the first two years of life.This finding, which shows that increased UV radiation during years of high solar activity had an effect across generations, also found that children who were born in years with lots of sunshine and who survived were also likelier to have fewer children, who in turn gave birth

to fewer children than others.Researcher Gine Roll Skjaervoe used information on the number of sunspots as an indication of the amount of UV radiation in a given year and found that the number of sunspots reaches a maximum every 11 years on average, which results in more UV radiation on Earth during years with high sunspot and solar activity.

UV radiation can have positive effects on human vitamin D levels, but it can also result in a reduction of vitamin B9 (folate).

It is known that low folate levels during pregnancy are linked to higher child mortality.The study

showed that families from the lowest socio-economic groups were most affected by UV radiation.Both climate change and variability in the ozone layer are expected to increase the amount of UV radiation reaching the Earth in the future. At the same time, there have been many societal changes since the 1900s.Skjaervoe added that there are probably many factors that come into play, but they have measured a long-term effect over generations.

Skjaervoe concluded that one should not sunbathe if she is pregnant and want to have a lot of grandchildren.

Plans afoot to clean India’s offices with cow urine

NEW DELHI Cow urine may soon be used to clean the floors of India’s government offices in a country where bovines are sacred and their bodily waste considered therapeutic and even thirst-quenching. A charity working to care for and protect the cows that freely roam India’s streets has developed a cleaning product with their urine - distilled and spiked with natural perfumes to remove the pungent odour.

“Initially when we tried the product, it had too strong a smell. Nobody would have used it. So we have distilled the urine now and added natural ingredients like pine oil to cover the smell,” said Anuradha Modi from the Holy

Cow Foundation. Modi said she was working on a deal to get the company that supplies housekeeping items to government offices to use the product - which is called “Gaunyle”, with gau the Hindi word for cow. “We have tested the product in labs and we can say that it is much better than the phenyl that you get in the market which is so full of chemicals,” she told AFP. “We want to create a market for cow urine and I can say supply won’t be a problem.”

The product is the latest in a long line of items made from bovine bodily waste, ranging from toiletries such as soap to urinebased medicines and even a soft drink labelled a “healthy” alternative to Coke and Pepsi.

While the sacred status of cows precludes India’s huge Hindu majority from eating beef, their waste falls into the same acceptable category as dairy products.

The cow, also known as “Kamdhenu” - “that which fulfils human needs” - is described in Hindu scriptures as the “mother” of civilisation.Their revered status took on extra significance after

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party won a landslide election victory in May last year.The party’s election manifesto pledged to work to protect cows.

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Chinese city in restive Muslim region bans burqa in public places

China on Saturday banned burqas in public places in the capital of its Muslim-majority Xinjiang region which is often hit by separatist violence, a day after regional authorities

prohibited extremist content on the web to prevent radicalisation of youths, a report stated.

Authorities in the regional capital Urumqi cited France and Belgium, where the Islamic

Stalin killed Netaji: Subramanian Swamy

Kolkata Claiming that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose did not die in a plane crash in 1945 but was killed at the instance of Soviet supremo Joseph Stalin, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy Saturday demanded declassification of secret files on the leader.Seeking declassifciation of files to unravel the mystery behind the legendary nationalist leader and freedom fighter’s death, Swamy blamed Stalin of killing Bose in captivity in Siberia.

Participating in a Merchant Chamber of Commerce and Industry organised event here, Swamy, however, admitted that disclosing the secret files might jeopardise India’s relation with Britain and Russia but assured of taking up the matter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“According to the papers that

exist with us, Bose had faked his death and escaped to Manchuria in China which was under Russian occupation, hoping Russia would look after him. But Stalin put him in a jail in Siberia.

Somewhere around 1953, he hanged or suffocated Bose to death,” said Swamy.

Swamy also claimed that the then Indian prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru was aware about Bose being held captive in Yakutsk Prison in Siberia.“Declassification of Netaji documents in haste and without judging the consequences would be difficult. India’s relations with Britain and Russia may be affected, but I will persuade the prime minister to disclose the documents,” said Swamy.

“The mystery of Bose’s disappearance must be solved and the files must be declassified.

garment worn by Muslim women to cover themselves from head-to-toe, has been banned.

The legislature of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region approved a regulation banning burqas stating that it is not a traditional dress for Uygur women.

Officials of the regional People’s Congress told the official Xinhua news agency that the regulation will go into effect after being amended. It was drafted by municipal legislature of Urumqi last year.

The regulation is seen as an effort to curb increasing extremism that forced Uygur women to abandon their

colourful traditional dress and wear black burqas, the news agency reported.

On Friday, the province banned religious extremist and terror-related content on the Internet. Officials said the ban would be helpful in weeding out Islamist content out of the web and prevent radicalisation of the youth.

The regulation followed increased violent attacks by the banned East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), whose pronounced aim is to fight for a separate Xinjiang, which borders Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Afghanistan.

China has launched massive

crackdown on the ETIM, an Al Qaeda-backed outfit reportedly having bases in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

ETIM has been active in the Xinjiang, a resource-rich region long inhabited by the Turkicspeaking, largely ethnic Muslim Uygurs who number 11 million.

The province witnessed riots for several years following Uygur resentment about increasing settlements of Han Chinese from other provinces.

Critics, including exiled Uygur activists, have attributed the rise of violence in the region to China’s increasingly repressive rule - a claim the government vehemently denies.

Man has sex with neighbour’s ‘obedient’ donkey; gets 4-month jail Mvuto was convicted on his own plea of guilty to a count of bestiality A middle-aged man in Zimbabwe, who had divorced his wife of 10 years in 2006, turned his neighbour’s female donkey into an “obedient lover”.

Sinos Mvuto, who hails from Mwenezi in southern Zimbabwe, has a penchant for bestiality, africanspotlight.com reported.

A local magistrate convicted and sentenced Mvuto to six months in jail, with two months suspension for five years on condition of good behaviour. He, however, will have to spend four months in jail.

Mvuto was convicted on his own plea of guilty to a count of bestiality when he appeared before the magistrate. Mvuto had divorced his wife in 2006, the report said.

“I divorced my wife with whom I had three children years ago. It could be insatiable sexual appetite that drives me to do this because I don’t have a specific reason,” it quoted Mvuto as saying.

The magistrate said Mvuto not only degraded himself through developing intimate feelings for an animal but he

also earned the whole family including his children a bad name.

“What you’ve done is unimaginable. It is weird and the court wonders how you proposed to the donkey. By nature a donkey produces a savage kick on its mate.

“The court also wonders how you survived those kicks.

You’ve done something that shows high degree of cruelty against animals, you deserve to be in solitary confinement,” the report quoted the magistrate as saying.

Prosecutor Fidelicy Nyamukondiwa said that on November 30 at around 12 pm

Mvuto was walking in the bush when he saw three donkeys belonging to his neighbour, Douglas Musara, 46.

“Upon seeing the donkeys, the sex-starved Mvuto approached a jenny which he held on the back before mounting. He had sex with the donkey once but before he could finish the mission, Mvuto was caught red-handed having sex with the animal by Musara and his wife,” Nyamukondiwa said.“Upon realising that he was caught, Mvuto dismounted from the animal and took to his heels but not before leaving behind his jacket which was used as an exhibit in court.

Paedophile school principal executed in China China executed a paedophile deputy school principal for kidnapping and killing a sixyear-old girl and then molesting her body.

Yang Haijun, 47, deputy head of Wang’an Township Central Primary School of Laiyuan County in Hebei Province was convicted for kidnapping the girl on July 27, 2013 to demand ransom from her parents.He took the girl back to his home and suffocated her after she cried and shouted. The paedophile head then abused her body and buried it near the

border between Laiyuan and Yuxian counties on the same day, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Police detained him on August 2, 2013 on suspicion of intentional homicide. He was sentenced to death in December, but appealed against it.The Higher People’s Court of Hebei Province rejected Yang Haijun’s appeal and upheld the death penalty last year.

China has had a string of child molestation cases involving teachers in recent years.

In September, a 61-year-old primary school teacher was detained for raping several girls in central China’s Hubei Province.

In April, a court in east China’s Anhui Province sentenced a school teacher to death for raping five schoolgirls and molesting six others.

In a move to intensify the crackdown on such crimes, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate announced in May that China charged a total of 8,069 people with child molestation from 2010 to 2013.

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Models may be banned from Shanghai auto show BEIJING Scantily clad female models who adorn vehicle displays could be banned from this year’s Shanghai motor show, state media reported Saturday. ‘We haven’t ruled out the possibility of banning auto-show girls,’ the organising committee for the Shanghai Automotive Exhibition said in remarks carried by the Xinhua news agency. ‘We are soliciting public opinion to improve the exhibition,’ the committee said in a statement. Female models have been a mainstay at international auto shows for decades and were featured at last year’s Beijing International

Automotive Exhibition. But Yang Xueliang, director of public relations for Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, wrote in an online post on Friday he had been told that ‘auto show models are to be banned this year’.‘It is best to cancel the performances, so as to let visitors enjoy a quiet exhibition,’ Xinhua quoted him as saying.

No reason has been given for the possible ban, but the media agency said the decision could be down to ‘moral concern’ and security considerations after a deadly stampede in the city on New Year ’s Eve killed 36.

Shanghai’s government has

Canada museum acquires oldest ice hockey stick

OTTAWA A Canadian museum has snapped up the world’s oldestknown ice hockey stick - made out of maple - for $300,000.

The ‘Moffatt stick’ was hewn in the 1830s in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, ‘from a single piece of sugar maple,’ the Canadian Museum of History said Friday. ‘Hockey is Canada’s game - we developed it and we cherish it like no other country in the world,’ said Mark O’Neill, the museum president, who called the stick an example of the facility’s ‘national treasures.’

The stick was owned by one

family - the Moffatts - from its creation until the early 1980s, when it was given to a barbershop owner who then sold it in 2008 to the man the museum bought it from. The museum, located in Ottawa’s suburbs, said that genealogical evidence and oral histories, as well as scientific analysis of the stick’s ‘wood, wear and paint,’ were used to verify its authenticity. Hockey-mad Canadians will not be able to see the stick, however, until 2017, when renovations at the museum - Canada’s busiest with 1.2 million visitors per year - are completed.

since announced tougher registration procedures for large crowd events, which will face

concert or sporting event,’ Antonovich said. Using the sphere makes the viewing an interactive and collaborative

experience, said Geoff Kell of Pufferfish. ‘It will be an addition to the viewing experience, but

clothing worn by models at the event, with some even donning see-through clothing without underwear.

serve as a kind of hostess for the 2020 Olympic Games but the design is aimed for health care, where robots can assist in

autonomously, Yamaguchi said.

It is possible, as Toshiba showed, to develop robots that look like humans. But there

monitoring and diagnoses. But in her own words: ‘In the future, I want to take up the challenge of a wide assignment of tasks: counsellor, newscaster, cheerleader, entertainer and many others!’ The speech was pre-programmed and it will take time to develop the kinds of science fiction robots which can respond to language and move

remains a debate whether robots should be designed as humanoids, like in the film ‘Blade Runner,’ or as mechanical ones like in ‘Star Wars.’ Another vision of the robot, ‘Meccanoid’, from the toymaker Spin Master, has a body of polycarbonate Erector set pieces with large lamps for eyes. It too can speak from a pre-programmed text.

The ‘human’ side of robots at electronics show

LAS VEGAS She stood on the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show, carried on conversations, blinked her eyes and sang a convincing rendition of ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads.’

It would have been unremarkable if Chihira Aico were not a robot. ‘Hello, my name is Chihira Aico.

I am 32 years old, although, technically, I was born in September 2014. Look how expressive I am!’ she said.

Robots like Toshiba’s are becoming so eerily realistic they could be mistaken at first glance for a human. She sings, smiles, raises her hands and has lifelike facial expressions controlled by 15 tiny pneumatic actuators.

These robots are increasingly being developed as personal assistants, companions, hosts and aides for medical situations.

‘We made her like a human being because true communication is also based on facial expressions and gestures,’ said Toshiba’s Taihei Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi said a robot like Chihira Aico could

TV of the future may be a sphere

Las Vegas The TV of the future may not be a rectangle, but a sphere.

Some visitors to the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show got a peek at this new way to view 360-degree video. The new viewing experience was shown as part of a collaboration among several partners including French video s o ft w a r e f i r m A t e m e a n d British-based Pufferfish Displays, which makes the spherical projection module.

Although 360-degree video can be viewed on a standard television or tablet, the spherical module adds a new dimension, said Mike Antonovich, the Ateme general manager for the Americas.

This ‘can augment the experience of viewing a live

cancellation if safety rules are violated. Xinhua also said the committee may be troubled by the increasingly revealing

it also has great value as a data visualization tool’ for research or other purposes, Kell said.Ateme and its partners

recently produced the first live 360-degree broadcasts using the trademark LiveSphere.

Pakistani father kills 5 children ‘to gain magic powers’ The victims, two girls and three boys, were aged between three and 13. A 40-year-old Pakistan man has strangled his five children to death believing the sacrifice would endow him with magical powers.

The victims, two girls and three boys, were aged between three and 13.

The incident took place on Thursday in Saeed Khan village, some 230 km from Karachi.

The incident occurred while Ali Nawaz Leghari was undertaking a 40-day spiritual

journey, known as a ‘Chilla’ prescribed to him by a pir

(living saint) that he hoped would teach him the art of alchemy, the AFP reported.

According to the report, Leghari had attempted to poison the family’s dinner on Tuesday but was spotted by his wife, resulting in a bitter quarrel.

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Full list of final 2015 World Cup squads The 2015 World Cup, to be held in Australia and New Zealand, is just almost a month away. All the teams have submitted their final 15-man squad for the tournament. Scotland was the first team to announce their squad while Australia and West Indies were the last teams to name their

final squad. India, the defending champions, announced their team on January 06. We take a look at the complete list of the 15-man squads from all the 14 teams participating in the competition.

Pool A AUSTRALIA Michael Clarke (capt), George Bailey (vice-capt), Pat Cummins, Xavier Doherty, James Faulkner,

Aaron Finch, Brad Haddin, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, David Warner, Shane Watson.

AFGHANISTAN Afsar Zazai (wk), Aftab Alam, Asghar Stanikzai, Dawlat Zadran, Gulbadin Naib, Hamid Hassan, Javed Ahmadi, Mirwais Ashraf, Mohammad Nabi (capt), Najibullah Zadran, Nasir Jamal, Nawroz Mangal, Samiullah Shinwari, Shapoor Zadran, Usman Ghani.

BANGLADESH Tamim Iqbal, Anamul Haque, Soumya Sarkar, Mominul Haque, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah, Nasir Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Mashrafe Mortaza (capt), Taskin Ahmed, Al-Amin Hossain, Rubel Hossain, Arafat Sunny, Taijul Islam.

ENGLAND Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Gary Ballance, Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Stuart Broad, Jos Buttler (wk), Steven Finn, Alex

India will struggle in 2015 World Cup: Warner Sydney David Warner has made a bold World Cup prediction, stating that 2011 World Cup winners

India will not be able to defend their crown in this edition. Warner, who scored 427 runs at an average of 53.37 in the recent Test series against India, will be playing his first World Cup and

predicts that Australia could meet either South Africa or England in the final. Warner believes that the pitches rolled out during the Test series will be different during the tournament and added the extra pace and bounce on the wickets will benefit Australia immensely.

“I definitely think it’s the venues (that provide an advantage) because you look at the Gabba, the MCG and probably Sydney as well, the grounds’ square (boundaries) are big. So we can use our bounce and pace. When you’re playing in a country like India, the boundaries are quite small, and as a batter I’m loving it there because you can go through with your shots and your top edges will go to the boundary,” Warner said.

Hales, Chris Jordan, Eoin Morgan (capt), Joe Root, James Taylor, James Tredwell, Chris Woakes.

NEW ZEALAND

Brendon McCullum (capt), Corey Anderson, Trent Boult, Grant Elliott, Martin Guptill, Tom Latham, Mitchell McClenaghan, Nathan McCullum, Kyle Mills, Adam Milne, Luke Ronchi, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor, Dan Vettori, Kane Williamson.

SRI LANKA Angelo Mathews (capt), Dimuth Karunaratne, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Kumar Sangakkara (wk), Mahela Jayawardene, Lahiru Thirimanne, Dinesh Chandimal (wk), Thisara Perera, Jeevan Mendis, Suranga Lakmal, Lasith Malinga, Dhammika

Prasad, Nuwan Kulasekara, Rangana Herath, Sachithra Senanayake.

SCOTLAND Preston Mommsen (capt), Kyle Coetzer (vice-capt), Richie Berrington, Freddie Coleman, Matthew Cross (wk), Josh Davey, Alasdair Evans, Hamish Gardiner, Majid Haq, Michael Leask, Matt Machan, Calum MacLeod, Safyaan Sharif, Robert Taylor, Iain Wardlaw.

Pool B INDIA MS Dhoni (capt), Virat Kohli (vice-capt), Ajinkya Rahane,

Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Stuart Binny, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Ambati Rayudu, Axar Patel, R Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar,

Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma.

IRELAND Andrew Balbirnie, Peter Chase, Alex Cusack, George Dockrell, Ed Joyce, Andrew McBrine, John Mooney, Tim Murtagh, Kevin O’Brien, Niall O’Brien (wk), William Porterfield (capt), Paul Stirling, Stuart Thompson, Gary Wilson (wk), Craig Young.

PAKISTAN Ahmed Shehzad, Mohammad Hafeez, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Younis Khan, Harris Sohail, Misbah-ul-Haq (c), Umar Akmal, Shoaib Maqsood, Shahid Afridi, Yasir Shah, Mohammad Irfan, Junaid Khan, Ehsan Adil, Sohail Khan, Wahab Riaz.

SOUTH AFRICA AB de Villiers (capt), Hashim Amla (vice-capt), Kyle Abbott, Farhaan Behardien, Quinton de Kock, JP Duminy, Faf du Plessis, Imran Tahir, David Miller, Morne Morkel, Wayne Parnell, Aaron Phangiso, Vernon Philander, Rilee Rossouw, Dale Steyn.

UAE Mohammad Tauqir (capt), Khurram Khan (vice-capt), Swapnil Patil, Saqlain Haider, Amjad Javed, Shaiman Anwar, Amjad Ali, Nasir Aziz, Rohan Mustafa, Manjula Guruge, Andri Berenger, Fahad Al Hashmi, Muhammad Naveed, Kamran Shahzad, Krishna Karate.

WEST INDIES Jason Holder (capt), Marlon Samuels (vice-capt), Chris Gayle, Darren Bravo, Lendl Simmons, Dwayne Smith, Andre Russell, Darren Sammy, Jonathan Carter, Denesh Ramdin (wk), Sunil Narine, Sheldon Cottrell, Kemar Roach, Jerome Taylor, Sulieman Benn.

ZIMBABWE Elton Chigumbura (capt), Sikandar Raza, Regis Chakabva, Tendai Chatara, Chamu Chibhabha, Craig Ervine, Tafadzwa Kamungozi, Hamilton Masakadza, Stuart Matsikenyeri, Solomon Mire, Tawanda Mupariwa, Tinashe Panyangara, Brendan Taylor (wk), Prosper Utseya, Sean Williams.

Kohli also deserved the ‘Man of the series’ award

NEW DELHI The announcement was expected. Australia’s captain Steve Smith was declared the man of the series in the four-Test

contest that ended on Saturday. But was that the right choice? Wasn’t Virat Kohli, India’s latest Test captain, equally or more deserving?

Statistics marginally favour Smith. The ‘temporary captain’, his own words at the postmatch presentation, piled up 769 runs with four tons at an average of 128.16.

It wasn’t just Bradmanseque but something more -he broke Don’s record for the highest runs in a

series against India.

To add to Smith’s achievements, he also fielded fabulously. One is aware that he dropped two chances in Sydney but his catch of Rohit Sharma in the same game was sensational. Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas

would have been proud of that effort. As a captain too, Smith has the better result to show -1 win, two draws - though he seemed to have missed a trick or two in the last two games.

Kohli smashed 692, also with four centuries, at an average of 86.50.

His groundfielding too was outstanding. The Delhi cricketer often flung himself to stop drives, generally successfully.

The run out of Shaun Marsh on 99 in Melbourne was an outstanding example in accurate throwing and athleticism.

As a captain, Kohli fares worse of the two: 1 loss, 1 draw. But statistics cannot fully bring out the qualitative difference between the two performances. To begin with, Kohli scored those runs away from home. In other words, the conditions were much more familiar to

the Aussie. Smith also batted against far more benign bowlers. Not just Smith, most Australian batsmen scored freely against the wayward Umesh Yadav, Shami Ahmed and Varun Aaron who bowled boundary balls with alarming frequency.

Kohli’s runs came off quality pacemen such as Mitchell Johnson, Ryan Harris and Josh Hazlewood. He had to earn his runs much harder. If he had been facing his own bowlers, he would have probably scored much more. With Dhawan and Pujara failing regularly, Kohli often came out to bat to avoid a crisis or a collapse. Three of Kohli’s knocks (141, 54 and 46) came on the game’s fifth day on worn-out tracks. His aggressive 141 in Adelaide was arguably the best innings of the series. Not just because he dominated the proceedings on a turning track.

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Need to scout new bowlers, admits Virat Kohli SYDNEY Apart from the last day in both Adelaide and Sydney, this series has been all about the flat pitches and the two batting machines leading the sides. More than 5800 runs were scored, a world record in a four-Test series. It was hard work on both sides for the bowlers, who conceded 100-plus runs in an innings more than 23 times.

But the inconsistency of the Indian seamers ensured the team couldn’t bag 20 wickets even once. Apart from Brisbane, Australia won all the tosses. The

Indian batsmen responded to their 500-plus totals with

the 0-2 scoreline. Their performance annoyed new

400-plus every time. The inconsistency of the attack was the primary reason for

captain Virat Kohli enough on Saturday to suggest India should start scouting

for new bowling talent.

Kohli also suggested the fitness of the current lot was suspect, since their second and third spells were not penetrating enough. “The main criteria now will be to scout guys who we feel have potential to play in the future, and groom them and nurture them and monitor their fitness, consistency and skills.

That’s how we want to develop our Test team,” said Kohli. “To win Test matches you need 20 wickets. The reason we do well at home is because we take those wickets.

India down to 7th; Kohli, Smith on the rise India slipped to seventh spot in ICC Test rankings after going down 0-2 to Australia in another overseas series loss. India are 3 rating points behind Sri Lanka who are now 6th in the Test table. Australia are still No 2 in the list which is headed by Test No 1 South Africa.

India’s new Test captain Virat Kohli, thanks to his

692 runs in the four-Test series, jumped three places to be placed at a career-best 12th spot in the batting rankings. His Australian counterpart Steven Smith has reached a career-high fourth after piling up 769 runs in the series at a staggering average of 128.16. The new No 1 in the batting rankings is Kumar Sangakkara, who

hit 203 and 5 in the final Test against New Zealand to displace AB de Villiers from the top. Kane Williamson jumped seven places to a career-best ranking of seventh following his scores of 69 and 242 not out in the final Test at Wellington.

Chris Rogers, after scoring 95 and 56 at the SCG, achieved a career-best ranking of 18th.

Bangladesh bowler gets bail, to stay with World Cup squad

Dhaka Paceman Rubel Hossain will remain part of Bangladesh‘s World Cup squad, the local cricket board said, after he got bail on Sunday in a case filed by an actress alleging the cricketer had failed to carry out his promise of marriage.

Rubel‘s participation in the Feb. 14-March 29 tournament in Australia and New Zealand was in doubt after a Dhaka court denied him bail on Thursday. The actress had filed the complaint with police last month,

alleging the bowler had been in a relationship with her, which included physical intimacy. “We think the merit of the case is not that strong and for that reason he got bail from the court,” Bangladesh Cricket Board president Nazmul Hassan told Reuters. “He will remain in the World Cup squad and will get all the support from the board until the World Cup,” he added. Rubel, 25, has played 22 tests and 53 one-day internationals for Bangladesh.

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Health Easy-to-follow tips for skincare If you’ve resolved to take care of your skin in 2015, adapt some easy-tofollow tips for achieving wonders.

Sangeeta Velaskar, vice president and head (Medical Services and Research and Development) at Kaya Skin Clinic, lays emphasis on proper sleep and drinking water regularly to stay fit and glowing, read a statement.Here’s what Velaskar suggests:Sleep like you mean it: When you are asleep, certain hormones go up in your blood, and those same hormones drive appetite.

Besides, sleeping is the easiest way to reduce those dark circles that take away from your beauty. Become best friends with your pillow in 2015. Load up on healthy foods: While it’s going to be nothing short of painful to turn your back on those delicious pizzas and sumptuous burgers, you’re going to have to do it for the sake of attaining that coveted complexion. Stock up on leafy greens, berries, citrus fruits and other red, green and yellow items for a maximum antioxidant and nutrient boost. Love your skin like it was

your last day on Earth: You can never love your skin enough. While it might not be feasible to indulge in a facial every second day, there are a few remedies you can follow to pamper your skin within the confines of your house. Honey is known as a natural cleanser which exfoliates your skin to bring out a radiant complexion.

The citric acid present in lemon helps keep the skin clear by removing dead cells. Turmeric has excellent antiseptic and skin-lightening properties that help reduce scars.There is a reason 60 per cent of your body is made up of water: There’s nothing better than water to improve your skin overnight. Come morning, your wrinkles will feel less pronounced and your body will work most effectively as the waste and toxins of the previous night are washed away. It will also help keep your weight

in check, as dehydration triggers a false feeling of hunger making it easy to confuse thirst with hunger. Go natural: The year 2015 is going to be all about going back to your roots.

Women have started to embrace the makeup-free look and we are absolutely lapping it up.

While it is alright to deck up once in a while for special occasions, avoid using too much makeup on your skin as it causes the skin to get oily and break out. It also causes blemishes which might end up giving you sleepless nights. Step into your happy bubble more often: We underestimate the effect of positivity on our skin.

Being inwardly happy reflects beautifully on your skin and is the most inexpensive way to look beautiful. Surround yourself with like-minded people, indulge in your favourite hobbies and strike a healthy work-life balance.

Anger could be an indicator of good health! Get spot-free face, silky New York Contrary to popular belief prevalent in Western societies, researchers have found that anger is actually linked with better, not worse health, in certain cultures. Greater anger is associated with better biological health among Japanese people, the findings showed.

“The truism linking anger to ill health may be valid only within the cultural boundary of the ‘West’, where anger functions as an index of frustration, poverty, low status and everything else that potentially compromises health,” said psychological scientist Shinobu Kitayama from University of Michigan.

For the study, the researchers examined survey data drawn from participants in the US and Japan. To measure health, the researchers looked at biomarkers for inflammation and cardiovascular functioning,

both of which have been linked to anger expression in previous research.

The combination of these two factors served as a measure of overall biological health risk. The researchers also looked at measures that gauged various aspects of anger, including how often participants expressed angry feelings

tresses with green tea

through verbally or physically aggressive behaviours. The data revealed that greater anger expression was associated with increased biological health risk among US participants, as

previous studies have shown. But greater anger expression was associated with reduced biological health risk among Japanese participants.

“The association between greater anger and compromised biological health, taken for granted in the current (Western) literature, was completely reversed so

that greater anger was associated with better biological health among Japanese,” Kitayama said. “These findings show how socio-cultural factors go under the skin to influence vital biological processes,” Kitayama said. The study was published in the journal Psychological Science.

From achieving a spotfree look to getting smooth tresses - using green tea in your daily life can help you become healthy and beautiful.Karpagam, national skin trainer at Naturals hair and beauty salon, has shared a few wonders of green tea, read a statement:No-spot look: We all have faced the problem of acne at some point in our life.

Some healed while a few

left their mark behind. Use of umpteen creams, pills and face products unfortunately failed to make the marks fade away.

With no further delay, grab a few bags of green tea and brew it in hot water, strain the water and leave it aside to cool.

Following this regime regularly will gradually aid in removing the marks and preventing acne and sudden outbreaks as well.

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New diet pill tricks body into losing weight

Washington Scientists have developed a new diet pill that could help people lose weight more effectively by tricking the body into thinking it has consumed a meal. The compound effectively stopped weight gain, lowered cholesterol, controlled blood sugar and minimised inflammation in mice, making it an excellent candidate for a rapid transition into human clinical trials. Unlike most diet pills on the market, this new pill, called

fexaramine, does not dissolve into the blood like a p p e t i t e suppressants or caffeinebased diet drugs, but remains in the intestines, causing fewer side effects.

“This pill is like an imaginary meal,” said Ronald Evans, from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

“It sends out the same signals that normally happen when you eat a lot of food, so the body starts clearing out space to store it. But there are no calories and no change in appetite,” said Evans.

Evans and his colleagues developed the fexaramine compound by departing from the drug scaffold that most pharmaceutical companies typically pursue when targeting farensoid X receptor (FXR), a protein that plays a role in how the body releases bile acids from the liver, digests food and stores

fats and sugars. “It turns out that when we administer this orally, it only acts in the gut,” said Michael Downes, a senior staff scientist at Salk and co-corresponding author of the research. Giving one such drug in a daily pill

form that only reaches the intestines - without transporting into the bloodstream that would carry the drug throughout the body - not only curtails side effects but also made the compound better at stopping weight gain.

When the group gave obese mice a daily pill of fexaramine for five weeks, the mice stopped gaining weight, lost fat and had lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels than untreated mice. In addition,

Six lifestyle choices can help women save hearts

the mice had a rise in body temperature which signals metabolism ramping up and some deposits of white fat in their bodies converted into a healthier, energyburning beige form of the tissue.

Even the collection of bacteria in

the guts of mice shifted when they received the drug, although what those changes mean is not clear yet.

Since fexaramine does not reach the bloodstream, it is also likely safer in humans than other FXR-targeting drugs, the researchers said. They are already working to set up human clinical trials to test the effectiveness of fexaramine to treat obesity and metabolic disease.

Three-quarters of heart attacks in young women could be prevented if they closely followed six healthy lifestyle practices, researchers have found.Healthy habits were defined as not smoking, a normal body mass index, physical activity of at least two and half hours per week, watching seven or fewer hours of television a week, consumption of a maximum of one alcoholic drink per day on an average, and a healthy diet.”We wanted to find out what proportion of heart disease cases could be attributed to unhealthy habits,” said lead author Andrea Chomistek, researcher at Indiana

University School of Public Health, Bloomington.For the study, the researchers followed nearly 70,000 women for two decades.

During 20 years of followup, 456 women had heart attacks and 31,691 women were diagnosed with one or more cardiovascular disease risk factors, including type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure or high levels of blood cholesterol.

The researchers found that women who adhered to all six healthy lifestyle practices had a 92 percent lower risk of heart attack and a 66 percent lower risk of developing a risk factor for heart disease.

How depression hampers memory

For sound sleep, choose right mattress Pick a mattress which are lightweight, but give firm support with cosyness and bounce. This helps in eliminating fatigueA sound sleeping pattern can contribute to your health and wellbeing. So, it’s essential to choose a mattress that helps you sleep well, according to your needs and daily work schedules.Ashok Sharma, CEO, SpringAir (India & Middle East), has suggested the various types of mattress that suit different people:For the healthy busy youngster who get basic

required sleep: Pick a medium soft or firm mattress to take care of your daily sleep needs.Overworked youngsters prone to fatigue and lack of sleep: Pick a mattress that is tailored to deal with the body’s pressure points and helps in relieving aches and pains, help in reducing tossing and turning. The always ‘on’ sleepers (movers and sleepers): Pick a mattress with larger surface area for their movements and visco elastic memory foam which reduces pressure

points between shoulders, neck and back. It cradles the head and neck in proper sleep position. Sleepy seniors with a medical condition and who get enough sleep: Pick a mattress which is firm enough for exact support to body contour for maximum comfort to your sleep.Insomniacs who do not get a good night’s sleep: Pick a mattress which are lightweight, but give firm support with cosyness and bounce.

This helps in eliminating fatigue.

The new study found that individuals with depressed mood show as much as a 12 per cent reduction in memory compared to

people with depressed mood are unable to remove their attention from this information, leading to deficits in their memory,”

individuals without depressed moodThe ability to remember information declines when people are in depressive mood, new research shows. Although reported widely, this link between depressed mood and memory deficit was not observed in a laboratory setting earlier, the researchers pointed out.The new study found that individuals with depressed mood show as much as a 12 per cent reduction in memory compared to individuals without depressed mood.”When depressive thoughts are present,

explained the study’s lead author Nicholas Hubbard from University of Texas at Dallas.The study included

157 undergraduate students.

Of them, 60 participants were classified as having depressed mood and 97 as having non-depressed mood.Participants with and without depressed mood were asked to respond ‘True’ or ‘False’ to a sentence featuring either depressive thoughts (e.g., “I am sad,” “People don’t like me”) or neutral information (e.g.

“Most people agree that Monday is the worst day of the week”), and then remember a string of numbers at the end.People with depressed mood forgot more numbers than people without depressed mood when they responded to the sentence featuring negative information.

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spicy roasted edaMaMe

Marinated Pork Roast

Ingredients: 1 1/4 cups frozen shelled edamame (green soybeans), thawed 2 teaspoons olive oil 1/2 teaspoon chili powder 1/4 teaspoon dried basil 1/4 teaspoon onion powder 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin 1/8 teaspoon paprika 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper Directions: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

Place the thawed edamame into a mixing bowl, drizzle with the olive oil, then sprinkle with chili powder, basil, onion powder, cumin, paprika, and pepper. Toss until the edamame are evenly coated with the oil and

Ingredients: 1 (4 pound) pork roast 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce 2 tablespoons honey 2 tablespoons cider vinegar 1/2 teaspoon mustard seed 1/2 teaspoon mustard powder 1 teaspoon lemon pepper 1/2 teaspoon celery salt 1 clove garlic, minced Directions: Prepare grill for indirect heat. In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the Worcestershire sauce, honey, vinegar, mustard seed, mustard powder, lemon pepper, celery salt, and garlic; seal, and mix ingredients. Place the roast in the plastic bag, press air out of bag,

spices. Spread into a 9x13 inch glass baking dish in a single layer.

Bake uncovered in the preheated oven until the beans begin to brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Stir once halfway through cooking.

Ultimate Bran Muffins Ingredients: 1 cup whole wheat flour 1 cup wheat germ 2 3/4 cups wheat bran 2/3 cup oat bran 2 teaspoons baking powder 2 teaspoons baking soda 2 teaspoons ground ginger 1 tablespoon barley malt flour 3 tablespoons vegetable oil 2/3 cup honey 1 1/4 cups reduced-fat milk 1 cup low-fat plain yogurt 2 eggs, beaten 1 cup raisins Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 12 cup muffin pan.

In a medium bowl, mix whole wheat flour, wheat germ, wheat bran, oat bran,

Creamy Asparagus Pasta

baking powder, baking soda, ground ginger, and barley malt flour.

In a separate medium bowl, thoroughly blend oil, honey, milk, yogurt, and eggs.

Gradually fold milk mixture into the whole wheat flour mixture until moistened. Fold in the raisins. Spoon into the prepared muffin pan.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Ingredients: 1 pound fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut into 2 inch pieces 2 tablespoons butter 1 clove garlic, minced 1 pint light cream 1 pound linguine pasta 1 lemon, juiced Directions: Bring a pot of water to a boil. Boil asparagus for 3 to 4 minutes; drain.

In a large saucepan melt butter over medium heat. Saute garlic and asparagus for 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in the cream and simmer for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water and transfer to a serving dish. to a boil. Add linguine and cook for 8 Stir lemon juice into asparagus mixture; to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain pour mixture over pasta.

Pumpkin Curry with Lentils and Apples

fideo

Ingredients: 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 (8 ounce) package fideo pasta 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce 1 tablespoon chili powder 1 1/2 cups water Directions: Heat oil in a saucepan over mediumhigh heat. Add the fideo, and fry until browned.

Pour in half of the can of tomato sauce, and 1 cup of the water. Season with cumin, garlic salt and chili powder, and stir to blend.

Bring to a boil, and cook until the liquid has almost evaporated.

Stir in the remaining tomato sauce and water. Cover, and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until the

and seal. Marinate for 2 hours in the refrigerator, turning the roast occasionally to help coat while marinating. Lightly oil grill grate. Place roast on grill, and discard marinade. Cover, and cook for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until internal temperature is 145 degrees F (63 degrees C).

fideo is tender, and the sauce has thickened.

Ingredients: 1 cup red lentils 1 cup brown lentils 8 cups water, 1/2 teaspoon turmeric 1 tablespoon canola oil 1 large onion, diced, 2 tomatoes, cored and chopped, 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder, or to taste, 2 teaspoons ground cumin 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves 2 cups peeled, cubed (1-inch), seeded pumpkin, 2 potatoes, unpeeled and chopped, 2 carrots, peeled and diced 2 cups packed fresh spinach, chopped 1 Granny Smith apple, unpeeled, cored and diced Directions: Place the red and brown lentils in a pan with the water and turmeric. Cook over

medium-low heat until tender, about 45 minutes. Drain, reserving 2 1/2 cups of the cooking liquid. Meanwhile, heat the canola oil in a large, deep pot over medium heat.

Stir in the onion, and cook until tender and transparent, about 5 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and garlic; cook 5 minutes more, stirring occasionally. Mix in the curry powder, cumin, salt, pepper, and cloves.

Add the cooked lentils, reserved cooking liquid, pumpkin, potatoes, and carrots.

Cover, and cook over medium-low heat until the vegetables are tender, 35 to 45 minutes. Stir in the spinach and apple.

Cook until the pumpkin can be easily pierced with a fork, about 15 minutes more. Adjust seasonings to taste.

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Rainbow-coloured ice sculptures go on display at Chinese festival

It’s among the world’s most breathtaking tourist attractions. But you’ll have to be quick if you want to visit this particular spectacle - it will all be gone in a matter of weeks.These frozen wonders are part of a display at the 31st Harbin International Ice and Snow festival held in Harbin, near the Russian border in northeast China. The palaces and sculptures are made from hollow blocks of ice and illuminated using LED lights to create a multi-coloured skyline on the shores of the nearby

Songhua river. The festival features work by some of the country’s best ice sculptors and attracts thousands of visitors from around the world who marvel at the wondrous creations, enjoy the fireworks over the City of Ice or appeal to their inner child as they take a ride on the ice-slides. According to event organisers, 10,000 people were employed to complete the sculptures.

Some of the pieces measure more than 26 metres tall and 117 metres wide. Overall, the whole site is well over 600,000

sq metres. All in all, about 180,000 sq metres of ice and 150,000 sq metres of snow have been used to complete all the works. Workers spend weeks cutting large ice blocks for the festival from the frozen Songhua river, before dragging the 551lb blocks towards the site.

The theme of this year’s event is ‘Happy Ice Snow, Exciting City’. The festival opened on January 5 and is due to close on 28 February 2015.

It required over 7,000 artists and workers to create the winter wonderland. Over 2012 and

Beach artist robot

Disney is known for animated characters on the stage and screen but now Disney can even create pictures in the sand.Research Disney’s latest creation is BeachBot, an autonomous robot that draws pictures on the beach using state of the art technology. The adorable orange and tan bot was modeled to look like a turtle by the students and a research team at the University of Zurich

and sketches images on the beach by dragging seven pins in the sand a bit like a rake, reports TechCrunch.The BeachBot is 60 cm in length and 40 cm in both width and height. It has a three wheel arrangement with differential drive back wheels and also has a steering wheel in the front.

What seems like it may be complicated drawing process takes just a few minutes to prepare. The artist in charge of

Saturn and its moons may be nearly a billion miles away, but scientists now say they can pinpoint their location to within just two miles (4 km). The discovery was made using ten antennae spread over an area from Hawaii to the Virgin Islands.

The calculation improves astronomers’ knowledge of Saturn’s orbit and could allow Nasa to better navigate its probes through space. Known as the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), the antenna assembly used signals sent by the Cassini probe to exactly monitor the position of the gas giant.They combined this

data with information about Cassini’s orbit from Nasa’s Deep Space Network. The combined observations allowed the scientists to make the most accurate determinations yet of the position of the centre of mass, or barycentre, of Saturn and its numerous moons.Nasa claims the measurement is some 50 times more precise than those provided by ground-based optical telescopes. ‘This work is a great step toward tying together our understanding of the orbits of the outer planets of our solar system and those of the inner planets,’ said Dayton Jones of JPL, who

the robot sets down poles in the sand to tell the robot the space in which it may draw. The robot may either be controlled manually or the artist can send it a file image to replicate.

Stichkingdom reports that the lines the rakes create can be as thin as 2 inches or as wide as 16 inches. Using a mounted laser scanner and the special reflected poles the robot creates a map of its drawing field and then it begins to play.Some previously drawn images are of a fish, a slower, and a variety of geometric shapes. As long as the artist can draw it, BeachBot can draw it too. ‘The BeachBot is not just a lifeless, mechanical being; it is a friendly looking creature with a soul,’ says the robot’s official website. There is currently no information on how to purchase a BeachBot but those interested in finding out more can do so on BeachBot’s Facebook Page.

2013 the temporary man-made ice spectacle drew a combined 28.5 million visitors.3Harbin is called ‘Ice City’ and though winters are bitterly cold, conditions are perfect for the festival. Tourists can also take part in skiing, figure skating and theatre performances at the festival, while there is also an ice bar on site. Harbin’s festival is one of world’s four largest international ice festivals, along with Japan’s Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada’s Quebec Winter Carnival, and Norway’s Ski Festival.

Witness in Asaram Bapu’s Surat rape case shot dead Former aide of Asaram Bapu was shot dead by unidentified assailants on Jansath Road under New Mandi police station area in Muzaffarnagar when he was returning home.35-year-old Akhil Gupta was also a witness

in the Asaram Bapu’s Surat rape case. Asaram Bapu, the proclaimed Godman Police said Gupta was shot at when he was on his way home and was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was declared brought dead.Gupta was cook and personal aide of self-styled Godman Asaram Bapu, who is in jail in connection with another case of sexual assault on a minor girl.Two sisters in Surat have accused Asaram and his son Narayan Sai of raping them.

Gupta was a witness in the case of rape against Asaram and had recorded his statement before a Gandhinagar court.

Meet the woman who gave birth to baby just hour after learning about pregnancy

A woman recently gave birth to a baby girl just an hour after learning about her pregnancy, it has been reported.Katherine Kropas had no idea she was pregnant with a 10-pound baby until an hour before she gave birth, ABC News reported.he 23year-old had few intense back pains, but at first, doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her, so they did an ultrasound and after looking at the report they rushed her off into the

labor.Kropas told WCVB she felt that she’d put on some weight, but figured maybe it was just typical holiday weight gain.

Dr. Jennifer Ashton, a senior medical contributor for ABC News and practicing OB/GYN, said she’s seen cases like Kropas’s in her career and it tends to happen in women who are overweight or obese to start, might have irregular periods and are less aware of their bodies.

refine measurements of the masses of solar system objects.

It will also improve predictions of when Saturn or its rings will

pass in front of background stars - events that provide a variety of research opportunities for astronomers.Previously, the navigators performed their own estimates of the positions of Saturn and its satellites using data gleaned by tracking Cassini’s radio signal during its communications with Earth. The new calculations, enhanced by VLBA data, are about 20 times more accurate. Professor Jones and colleagues plan to continue the joint observations with Cassini and the VLBA through the end of Cassini’s mission in late 2017.

Scientists pinpoint centre of gas planet

led the study.The improved accuracy will help enhance precise navigation of interplanetary spacecraft and help