The contact

THE CONTACT WEEKLY NEWSPAPER ISSUE - 665, 3 - 9 MAY 2016 PH: (905) 671 - 4761

We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country says Donald Trump See Page 6

Once a reclusive Maharaja, Amarinder Singh hopes to become ‘the people’s Captain’ in poll-bound Punjab See Page 2

FIVE YEARS AFTER OSAMA’S KILLING, CIA CHIEF EYES ISIS CHIEF BAGHDADI Ahead of the five-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, CIA chief John Brennan has said that taking out the head of the Islamic State group would have a “great impact”.

US special forces killed al-Qaida founder bin Laden in Pakistan on May 2, 2011.

As his agency live-tweeted the events as they unfolded five years ago, the CIA director warned that al-Qaida remained a threat and

that ISIS was not just an organization but a phenomenon.

“We have destroyed a large part of al-Qaida. It’s not completely eliminated. So we have to stay focused on what it can do,” Brennan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” talk show. “Now, with the new phenomenon of (ISIS), this is going to challenge us for years to come,” he added.

Asked if removing ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from action was as important as the Bin

ISIS sex slave was kidnapped by new Jihadi John Siddhartha Dhar

Laden get, Brennan, who does not often do interviews, was direct. “He is important, and we will destroy ISIL; I have no doubt in my mind. We have to remove the leadership that directs the organization to carry out these horrific attacks,” he said, using an alternate acronym for the ISIS group. “If we got Baghdadi, I think

it would have a great impact on the organization. And it will be felt by them,” he added.

“But this is a large ... not just organization, it’s a phenomenon.

We see it not just in Syria in Iraq, we see it in Libya, Nigeria, and other countries. We’re going to have remain very focused on destroying all elements of the

organization. “Using the hashtag #UBLRaid, the CIA live-tweeted the raid on bin Laden as if it were happening Sunday, tweeting updates that included the famous picture of President Barack Obama and other highranking US officials watching matters unfold from the Situation Room.

Blasphemy case for desecrating Sikh man’s turban in Pakistan A Yazidi teenager who was allegedly held as a sex slave

by Islamic State has said she was kidnapped and trafficked by an Indian origin British jihadist and likely masked executioner Siddhartha Dhar.

Nihad Barakat said the man who was widely suspected to be the “new Jihadi John” from IS videos was now one of the most senior commanders among foreign fighters in Mosul, the group’s Iraqi stronghold.

The Independent reported that Dhar, a former British Hindu who preferred to go by the nickname Abu Rumaysah after his conversion to Islam,

skipped police bail to travel to Syria with his wife and young children in 2014.

He has since taken a number of Yazidi sex slaves for himself, and played a key role in the capture and trafficking, according to Barakat.

Barakat was just 16 when she and 27 members of her family were kidnapped by IS militants after the fall of Sinjar province in Iraq two years ago.

Barakat says the first man she was forced to marry was the notorious Australian extremist Abdul Salam Mahmoud -- one and a half months before he was killed in Syria, a fact which Continued on Page 2

Five employees of a transport company and the owner of a bus terminal were booked under blasphemy law for desecrating a Sikh passenger’s turban in Pakistan’s Punjab province, the media reported on Monday.

The complainant, Mahinder Paal Singh (29), a resident of Multan, told Dawn online that he was travelling from Faisalabad to Multan by a bus owned by KohistanFaisal Movers company that broke down near Dijkot. He said though the driver somehow started the bus again but its speed was very slow (around

30km per hour). He said that he and some of his fellow passengers complained to the transport company’s staff about the slow speed of the bus and demanded an alternative vehicle

for the onward journey. The two sides exchanged words, ensuing a free-for-all, during which the six accused manhandled the passengers, including Singh.

Continued on Page 2

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3 May - 9 May 2016

Once a reclusive Maharaja, Amarinder Singh hopes to become ‘the people’s Captain’ in poll-bound Punjab

By JAVED M. ANSARI The kingdom had long vanished, but the mannerisms remain the same. Amarinder Singh lived the life of a maharaja to the hilt.

He had a reputation of waking up late, packing up early, and working very little and his public interactions limited to a few hours.

All this earning him the image of a reclusive maharaja, out of reach of ordinary people and his party workers.

All that is beginning to change, and the maharaja now prodded by Prashant Kishor and his team of election managers, is now making a conscious effort to effect an image makeover.

Through a series of carefully crafted events, they are trying to change his image from that of a maharaja and position him instead as Captain, consciously playing on the rank he held in the Army before retirement.

Punjab goes to the polls later in the year, and it’s a do-or-die battle for both Amarinder Singh and his party.

Its essential for his political career that he leads his party to victory in the state after a hiatus of ten years, or else it could well mean the end of his political career.

Threat There is an added impetus for the image change. This time around the Congress has to contend with the AAP, a party that has successfully positioned itself as the flag bearer of ordinary citizens.

Continuing with the maharaja image would have allowed the AAP to pitch the choice between a maharaja and an aam aadmi.

Gone are the late evenings, spent either hosting friends or high society guests.

Earlier, Amarinder Singh used to emerge from his palace around 11 am to begin his day’s work, and wind up his interactions by 6:30pm and then retire for the day.

Acting on the advice of Prashant Kishor, arguably the country’s ace political strategist, Amarinder Singh is making deliberate effort to make himself more accessible and to rid himself of the maharaja tag.

Amarinder Singh begins his day early, sometimes as early as 7:30 am to interact with his party workers, and the day stretches till late evening .

Steps Prashant Kishor and his team have devised a series of steps to help Amarinder Singh acquire a more people-friendly and accessible image.

One of the criticisms that has always been labelled that he was not available to either his party workers or ordinary members of the public after sundown.

The first few months after he took over as the Punjab PCC chief were a hark back to the Amarinder Singh of the old.

Party workers had limited access. Now, Prashant Kishor and his team have deliberately scheduled his ‘Coffee with captain’ events in a way that it starts from 6.30pm and goes on till past 8pm, well past the time he retires.

Similar interactions with members of the public are scheduled at dhabas and eating

joints late in the evening to underline his accessibility and negate the impression that he is not available after sundown.

The first few months after he took over as the Punjab PCC chief, were a hark back to the Amarinder Singh of the old.

Access was limited as was the time he spent with the party workers. For somebody who was known to campaign only a limited number of hours in a day, it’s not uncommon now to find Captain Amarinder Singh mixing with his party workers till late in the evening. He has even begun touring and addressing the party workers in the different districts -- Abu Rumaysah, he has also of the state. The sessions are gone by the name Saiful Islam freewheeling and sometimes since his conversion in his late teens. He was thought to have replaced Mohammed Emwazi - known as “Jihadi John” before he was killed in a drone strike - as the masked apparent executioner of hostages in IS Continued from Page 1 videos.

He alleged that during the fight a bus terminal hawker, Rashid Gujjar, threw his turban on the ground.

Singh said the turban was considered sacred in the Sikh religious code and throwing it on the ground was tantamount to desecration.

According to some affected passengers, Singh told police, that reached the bus terminal Monday that a plaster cast of the following the brawl, that it was a print was made by the town’s case of desecration and since he council and handed over to the was a Pakistani national the region’s archaeology and attackers should be booked paleontology department “so it under blasphemy law. can be studied and preserved.” A senior police official said five of The statement said the the attackers -- terminal manager “conservation status is Baqir Ali, Rashid Gujar, Faiz exceptional and retains details of Alam, Shakeel and Snawal had been booked . claws and skin.”

ISIS sex slave was kidnapped...

Continued from Page 1 made headlines around the world.

Describing her initial capture to presenter Joseph Hayat, she said: “The ISIS leaders told us we had to convert to Islam or we will be killed.”

“They separated us into three groups, men, married women and single women, then took the

single women and girls to Mosul.”

“Sometimes they would come and take girls for their pleasure.

They did everything to the girls.”

It was difficult to verify that the “Abu Dhar” who kidnapped Barakat was the same man as the most-wanted British jihadi.

As well as Dhar’s legal name and his “kunya” -- or nickname

even chaotic, where workers fearlessly quiz him on his wife’s alleged Swiss bank account and on his habit of getting up late.

Not everybody, however, seems impressed, least of his bitter rivals - the Akalis.

“Nobody will be fooled by these cosmetic changes. He has lived all his life like a maharaja and attempts to change his spots at the 11th hour won’t work,” says Akali Dal MP Naresh Gujaral.

Blasphemy case for desecrating Sikh man’s...

230 million-year-old dinosaur footprint found in north Spain Spain says a footprint of a dinosaur that roamed the area 230 million years ago has been found in northeastern Catalonia, and says it’s the best preserved

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dinosaur print seen so far in the Iberian Peninsula.

The print of a reptile-like creature called an Isochirotherium an ancestor of dinosaurs and crocodiles was discovered in early April by a person out walking in Olesa de Montserrat, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Barcelona. The government said

Police were conducting raids to arrest terminal owner Haji Riyasat.

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Papua New Guinea court declares Australia’s offshore refugee detention center illegal A bombshell Supreme Court ruling is invalidating Australia’s policy for dealing with refugees. However, the bombshell was not from Australia’s Supreme Court.

It was from the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea (PNG). The ruling says that Australia’s refugee detention center on PNG’s Manus Island is inhumane, and must be shut down. In past years, thousands of refugees from Asia have traveled by boat to Australia, often after paying huge sums to human traffickers, hoping to resettle there. Australia has dealt with the situation, starting in 2001, by setting up two “detention centers,” one on PNG’s Manus Island and one on Nauru, under agreements reached with both countries. Australia intercepts the boat people while at sea, and redirects them to the detention centers.

These two detention centers have been enormously controversial, with numerous

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stories of beatings, torture, and sexual abuse at the detention centers. The detention centers were shut down in 2007, but reinstated when the number refugees and asylum seekers surged again into the thousands. There is not yet any timetable for the closing of the Manus Island center, but Australia is just weeks away from a national election. The entire policy for processing refugees and asylum seekers is now in chaos and is sure to be a major campaign issue. Lawyers for 850 asylum seekers held at Manus Island said on Friday they planned to seek potentially billions of Australian dollars in compensation.

Papua New Guinea repudiates refugee agreement after Supreme Court Ruling According to a 2013 memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Australia and PNG: 8. Australia may Transfer and Papua New Guinea will accept Transferees from Australia under this MOU. ...

10. Persons to be transferred to Papua New Guinea are those persons who: have travelled irregularly by sea to Australia; or have been intercepted at sea by the Australian authorities in the course of trying to reach Australia by irregular means; and are authorized by Australian law to be transferred to Papua New Guinea; and have undergone a short health, security and identity check in Australia.

11. Papua New Guinea will host a Processing Centre or Processing Centers in Manus Province and may host other Processing Centers in Papua New Guinea for the purposes of this MOU.” However, the PNG Supreme Court has invalidated the agreement with its bombshell decision: “It was the joint efforts of the Australian and PNG governments that have seen the asylum seekers brought into PNG and kept at the Manus Island Processing Centre against their will. These arrangements were outside the constitutional and legal framework in PNG. ... The forceful bringing into and detention of the asylum seekers on MIPC is unconstitutional and is therefore illegal.”

Peter Dutton, Australia’s Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, issued a statement saying that it’s PNG’s problem, not Australia’s: “This is a decision of the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea. Australia was not a party to the legal proceedings. It does not alter Australia’s border protection policies – they remain unchanged. No one who attempts to travel to Australia illegally by boat will settle in Australia. The Government will not allow a return to the chaos of the years of the Rudd-Gillard Labor Governments when regional processing was initiated to deal with the overwhelming illegal arrivals of more than 50,000 people. The agreement with Papua New Guinea to establish the Manus Island RPC was negotiated by the Labor Government.

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said in a statement, according to the reporters. “We did not anticipate the asylum seekers to be kept as long as they have at the Manus center.” About 850 men, half of whom have been awarded refugee status, are held on the tiny Pacific island north of PNG. On Tuesday, the nation’s Supreme Court found the offshore

processing center unconstitutional, ruling that it violates detainees’ right to personal liberty. Australia’s Immigration SUNNY BAINS Minister Peter Dutton distanced Canberra from the court’s ruling, reiterating that the Manus a fundamental mistake in burning this refugees would not be accepted in ivory because we are poor. For us as Australia. Dutton further said, “Those in Kenyans, Ivory is worthless unless it is the Manus Island Regional Processing on our elephants. ... Let’s do all we can Centre found to be refugees are able to to ensure our elephants are protected. resettle in Papua New Guinea. Those Kenya’s natural heritage can’t be sold for found not to be refugees should return to money. With effective control over the movement of ivory, our elephants will be their country of origin.”

Australia’s hard-line approach to asylum safe.” seekers who arrive by boat - by In case you’re wondering how burning 105 transferring them to detention facilities on tons of ivory is going to protect Kenya’s Manus Island and Nauru - has drawn elephants, it’s because burning the ivory criticism from human-rights groups and “sends a message” to poachers and the U.N. refugee agency. In 2014, a report smugglers that what they’re doing is

from Australian Human Rights Commission found evidence of abuse on Nauru, including allegations of sexual assault of children. A time frame for the camp’s closure still needs to be decided, PNG’s Prime Minister said. However, this announcement by Dutton was unwelcome in PNG, where the PNG prime minister, Peter O’Neill said, “Respecting this ruling, Papua New Guinea will immediately ask the Australian government to make alternative arrangements for the asylum seekers currently held at the regional processing center.”

Kenya’s huge ivory burning event may endanger elephants further Kenya set fire on Saturday to 105 metric tons in 11 separate pyres, the tusks of nearly 7,000 elephants. This is 5% of the world’s entire stock of ivory. In addition, 1.5 tons of rhino horns were set on fire.

Ivory does not readily burn, but the fires are kept going by pumping a combination of kerosene and diesel into the pyres. The fires are expected to burn for several days.

Kenya’s entire stock of ivory is being burned. The ivory was mostly collected from poachers and smugglers who had been responsible for killing thousands of elephants to obtain the ivory.

The spectacular ivory-burning show was accompanied by speeches full of wishful thinking by politicians. Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta said the following before lighting the first pile: “Kenya is poor, but Kenya is a rich country with a heritage given to us by God, and we intend to protect it. I have been told we are making

wrong and must be stopped. This is now the fourth such burning that Kenya has held since 1989, but the poaching has only been increasing. In the 1970s, Africa had about 1.2 million elephants, but now has 400,000 to 450,000. According to one report I heard, smugglers are not selling off their stocks of ivory. Instead, they’re obtaining as much ivory as they can and storing it away, since it will only become more valuable as the number of elephants dwindles. It’s not clear to me that these smugglers will stop what they’re doing because of some “message” delivered by the burning.

In the excerpt above, Kenyatta said that he’s been told that “we are making a fundamental mistake in burning this ivory.” He’s referring what many analysts are saying that by burning off 5% of the marginal supply of the world’s ivory, the price of ivory is going to skyrocket with the result that many more elephants will be killed. In fact, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and other countries with large government stocks of ivory are holding on to it in the expectation of selling it at a much higher price. Many people are saying that instead of burning the ivory, Kenya should have sold it off and given the money to the people whose villages have been attacked by wild elephants as compensation. This would have increased the supply of legal ivory in the world, and would have reduced the price of ivory, thus making poaching much less lucrative.

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Woman Born With Two Vaginas Gives Birth To Babies In Separate Wombs

Sting sang, ‘If you love somebody, set them free.’

The words and music were his own, but the chorus reiterates a much older suggestion. Since time immemorial, wise people have known we can’t keep anyone in our lives by trying to control them, restrict them or make them dependent on us. It takes courage to be trusting and open, but the reward is an emotional connection of the happiest, most durable kind. As pressures increase in your personal life now, these are all points worth remembering.

Is someone asking for more than you feel comfortably able to supply? Are you striving to meet their need because you feel obliged or afraid that if you don’t, they will find fault and turn their attention elsewhere? These are concerns that reflect fear. Fear is never a good ingredient in any interpersonal relationship. What you want is happiness. That’s surely all anyone else wants too! Focus on the positive. Refuse to succumb to even a thought of the negative. Then just watch how things lighten up soon.

We are all, to some extent, ‘haunted’. Ghosts and spirits might not follow us around, but memories certainly pursue us. Often too, we pretend to be less ‘spooked’ by these than we actually are. Though some say the past cannot live in the present unless we let it, many would argue that it is all but impossible to prevent this from happening! When yesterday’s emotional experiences somehow color today’s, it can be especially hard to think or see clearly. Yet now, you can move on. And you should.

We don’t always tell each other the truth. It isn’t that we lie, more that we may sometimes mislead by omission. Through love and sensitivity, we avoid touching on topics that we know are likely to upset our loved ones. Though we have only the finest, highest motives for being so discreet, can we then be surprised if, as a result of this, our nearest and dearest misunderstand things about us? It may be time, soon, for you and someone to hold a deeply honest and rewarding (if briefly, slightly difficult) conversation.

No matter how much we feel for each other, there are some things we cannot ‘feel’ on each other’s behalf. If I stub my toe, you will not dance about in pain. If you get a headache, I won’t relieve your symptoms by taking ibuprofen myself! At a subtle, emotional level there are also always parts of the territory between two people where experience can only be imagined. Even a small effort to empathize with a feeling only someone else can actually have will do much to improve an important bond.

Remember Groucho Marx’s witticism about how he would not want to become a member of any club that would accept someone like himself as a member? Doesn’t that reflect a tendency that we all exhibit in our personal lives from time to time?

Are we unconsciously dismissive of the people who love us because we cannot really see why they love us, and we wouldn’t love ourselves if we were them?

It is so important now, to love yourself ... and then to show due gratitude to those who do love you!

When Faye Wilkins was fourteen years old, she began to experience severe pain during puberty. Her mother took her to a doctor when the symptoms only seemed to get worse.

After extensive testing, doctors dropped the bombshell on Wilkins and her family: she was born with two sets of reproductive organs – two vaginas, two cervixes, and two uteruses. There was very little chance she would ever be able to have a baby.

Wilkins was shocked, she said, because nothing appeared amiss externally, according to Fox News. “‘At the age of 14, I couldn’t believe it when doctors told me I was born with two vaginas, two cervixes and two wombs. I was in complete shock as I’d never noticed the condition before as the difference were only internal. All of my friends had started their periods but I was only suffering from stomach cramps but nothing else. As the pain got worse, my mom Polly took me to the doctors thinking I had an ovarian cyst because a lump had formed, but no one would scan me.”‘ When they finally did, they were shocked at what they found. Just eight months

after diagnosis, one of Wilkins’ uteruses ruptured. “‘I heard a huge pop and knew something inside me had exploded. I was in agony, there was so much

making implantation harder.”‘ As doctors predicted, once Wilkins tried to have children, she was met with loss after loss. She had a total of six

blood and I rushed to the hospital where doctors examined me and finally diagnoses me with UD. The condition had caused a blockage and my menstrual blood to build up, which had reached 12 centimeters (4¾ inches) in size.”‘ Wilkins’ doctors decided the best course of action was to perform a surgical procedure that would combine her two vaginas into one. While the operation was successful, she was told there was almost no chance that she would ever be able to conceive a baby, leaving Wilkins stunned. “‘I was warned after my diagnosis that it would be difficult to conceive due to reproductive organs being half the size they should be,

miscarriages, presumably due to the lack of adequate room and implantation in the womb. But after those miscarriages, she successfully gave birth to Molly, age 7, and George, who is now 2. The babies grew in separate wombs.

After passing the 12- week milestone with her first child, she chose to have a surgical procedure called a cerclage – a procedure that stitches the uterus closed, making premature birth less likely. “‘With Molly, I had a cervical stitch to stop her being born too prematurely as my womb is split in half, it’s half the size, meaning it’s much weaker. Thankfully, she was a little fighter and she held on as long as she could before being delivered

by C-section seven weeks and two days early.”‘ The baby was healthy, but once again Wilkins was told it would likely be her only child. She and Molly’s father separated shortly after, so she didn’t think much of it for a couple years.

When she found and fell in love with her partner, Lee Welch, she soon discovered she was pregnant again – and this time, the baby was growing in her left womb. Molly had grown in her right womb. The pregnancy was difficult because she was worried she would lose the baby. “‘Doctors had warned me it would be difficult to conceive and after the first miscarriage, I didn’t allow myself to get excited.

Unlike most moms, falling pregnant was actually a difficult time for me.”‘ Doctors also gave her steroids to help with the baby’s lung development, in case he was born early.

George was born seven weeks early but is now healthy. Wilkins says she is like any other woman, and she’s always been upfront with those close to her about her condition. She also has only one kidney, which is part of the syndrome, but so far has not caused any problems.

After 16 years, bodies of elite climber, cameraman found in melting glacier in Tibet The bodies of a renowned mountain climber and expedition cameraman who were buried in a Himalayan avalanche 16 years ago have been found.

The widow of Alex Lowe said in a statement Friday that two climbers attempting to ascend the 26,291-foot Shishapangma in Tibet discovered the remains of two people partially melting out of a glacier. The climbers described the clothing and backpacks seen on the bodies to Conrad Anker, who was climbing with Lowe and cameraman David Bridges at the time of the October 1999 avalanche and survived.

Anker concluded that the two were Bridges and Lowe, the statement said. “‘Alex and David vanished, were captured and frozen in time.

Sixteen years of life has been lived and now they are

found. We are thankful,”‘ Jenni Lowe-Anker said.

She married Anker, her husband’s friend and fellow elite climber, in 2001. They live in Bozeman, Montana, and run the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation together.

Anker said the discovery has brought closure and relief to him. He told Outside magazine that although he hasn’t seen photos of the remains, he’s convinced they are those of Lowe and Bridges. “‘They were close to each other.

Blue and red North Face backpacks. Yellow Koflach boots. It was all that gear from that time period. They were pretty much the only two climbers who were there,”‘ Anker said.

Lowe, Anker, Bridges and several others were on an expedition to climb Shishapangma, the 14th highest mountain in the world, then ski down it.

They were scouting out routes at about 19,000 feet when they saw a slab of snow break free 6,000 feet above them.

Lowe was regarded as the world’s greatest mountain climber when he was swept to his death at age 40.

He was known jokingly as “‘Lungs With Legs”‘ for his incredible strength and stamina. He had made difficult climbs all over the world, including Nepal’s Kwangde and Kusum Kanguru, and twice reached the summit of Mount Everest. In Peru, he climbed the southwest buttress of Taulliraju.

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Three planets orbiting dwarf star prime spots to search for life Astronomers searching for life beyond our solar system may need to look no farther than a little, feeble nearby star.

A Belgian-led team reported Monday that it’s discovered three Earthsized planets orbiting an ultra-cool dwarf star less than 40 light-years away.

It’s the first time planets have been found around this type of star â•” and it opens up new, rich territory in the search for extraterrestrial life.

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Because this star is so close and so faint, astronomers can study the atmospheres of these three temperate exoplanets and, eventually, hunt for signs of possible life. They’re already making atmospheric observations, in fact, using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

The Hubble Space Telescope will join in next week.

Altogether, it’s a “winning combination” for seeking chemical traces of life outside our solar system, said Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Julien de Wit, a co-author of the study, released by the journal Nature.

The star in question â•” named Trappist-1 after the Belgian telescope in Chile that made the discovery â•” is barely the size of Jupiter and located in the

constellation Aquarius.

Other exoplanet searches have targeted bigger, brighter stars more like our sun, but the starlight in these cases can be so bright that it washes out the signatures of planets.

By comparison, cool dwarf stars that emit infrared light, like Trappist-1, make it easier to spot potential worlds.

University of Liege astronomers in Belgium â•” lead study authors Michael Gillon and Emmanuel Jehin â•” built the Trappist telescope to observe 60 of the nearest ultra-cool dwarf stars. The risky effort paid off, de Wit noted in an email.

“Systems around these tiny stars are the only places where we can detect life on an Earthsized exoplanet with our current technology,” Gillon said in a statement. “So if we want to find life

elsewhere in the universe, this is where we should start to look.”

The two inner exoplanets take between 1.5 and 2.4 days to orbit the Trappist1 star. The precise orbit time of the third planet is not known, but it falls somewhere between 4.5 days and 73 days. That puts the planets 20 times to 100 times closer to their star than Earth is to our sun, Gillon noted. The setup is more similar in scale to Jupiter’s moons

than to our solar system, he added.

Although the two innermost planets are very close to the star, it showers them with only a few times the amount of energy that Earth receives from our own sun. The third exoplanet farther out may receive significantly less of such radiation than Earth does.

The astronomers speculate the two inner exoplanets may have pockets where life may

exist, while the third exoplanet actually might fall within the habitable zone â•” real estate located at just the right distance from a star in order to harbor water and, possibly, life.

Spitzer and Hubble should answer whether the exoplanets have large and clear atmospheres, according to de Wit. They also might be able to detect water and methane, if molecules are present.

We can’t continue to allow China to US: Ex-priest gets sentenced to rape our country says Donald Trump 20 years for sexual assault

Republican front-runner Donald Trump compared the US’s trade deficit with China, which he regularly laments and vows to tackle as president, to rape.

“We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they’re doing,” Trump said during his second rally on Sunday in Fort Wayne, Indiana, referring to China’s high number of exports relative to the US. Trump has repeatedly accused China of manipulating its currency to make its exports more competitive on the global market and has claimed that China is “killing” the US on trade, CNN reported. Sunday marks the first time this campaign that Trump has used the term “rape” to refer to what he views as China’s dominance in trade with the US. “We’re going to

turn it around. And we have the cards, don’t forget it.

We’re like the piggy bank that’s being robbed. We have the cards. We have a

lot of power with China,” Trump said before referring to China’s relationship with the US as rape.

Trump added that he is not “angry at China”, but with US leaders whom he accused of being “grossly incompetent”.

Trump previously claimed in 2011 that “China is raping this country” as he toured a defense manufacturer in New Hampshire.

Trump’s use of the analogy comes as the business mogul is currently under fire for remarks he made about Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton that critics are calling sexist.

Victims confronted a former Roman Catholic priest in court as he was sentenced to at least 20 years in prison for sexually abusing students at a Michigan high school in the 1980s.

A judge heard more than two hours of testimony from six men who described in detail how James Rapp molested them.

Rapp coerced students into having sexual contact while working as a teacher and wrestling coach at Lumen Christi High School in Jackson (US). “‘His crime and position was a murder on my soul,”‘ Andy Russell said. “‘He’s a monster and his path of destruction extends far

further than it ever should have.”‘ AP doesn’t typically identify victims of sexual abuse, but Russell has talked publicly to the

Jackson Citizen Patriot about what happened at the school.

In February, Rapp, 75, pleaded no contest to criminal sexual conduct.

He was in prison in Oklahoma for similar crimes when he was charged in Michigan in 2015. He worked in

Brussels airport departure hall reopens after deadly bombings Brussels airport is partially reopening its departure hall on Sunday, about six weeks after Islamic State suicide bombers killed 16 people there in blasts that gutted parts of the building.

The two attackers detonated suitcase bombs in the departure hall on March 22, before a third bomber blew himself up on a metro train in the city. In all, they killed

32 people.

From Monday, 111 check-

in counters will be open in the airport departure hall

and another 36 in a temporary buildings, according to the airport management company.

This brings departure passenger capacity to at least 80 percent of that before the attacks, it said. “‘The reopening is an important moment for the entire airport community and Belgium,”‘ said Arnaud Feist, CEO of Brussels Airport Company.

Philadelphia; Salt Lake City; Naperville, Illinois; Duncan, Oklahoma; Jackson, Michigan and Lockport, New York before he was defrocked as a priest.

An investigation in Michigan began in 2013 when victims approached the sheriff’s department.

Some victims said they complained to school officials in the 1980s but no action was taken. Russell said he was kicked out of Lumen Christi “‘the best thing that ever happened to me,”‘ the Citizen Patriot reported.

Rapp will be eligible for parole after 20 years. His maximum prison sentence is 40 years. “‘I think it’s evident that the only way to heal, move forward and to protect others from this same thing is to bring it out into the open,”‘ Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaiti said of the victims. “‘Shed light on it, and expose the truth. And they’ve done that. They are true heroes in a horrible situation.”‘

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3 May - 9 May 2016

ISIS executed over 4,000 in Syria in last two years The Islamic State militant group has executed over 4,000 people within two years, a UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human

2,230 people, including in three large-scale massacres of Sunni and Kurdish citizens.

The civilians, including

Rights (SOHR) said, calling on the UN to stop the crimes and violations committed against the Syrian people by the outfit.

Monitors compiled the list dating back to the declaration of ISIS in June 2014, showing regular beheadings, shootings, stonings and other methods of murder such as throwing people off buildings and setting them on fire.The so-called offences of those executed included sodomy, apostasy and alcohol smuggling, SOHR notes.

It concludes that by the end of the 22nd month of the so-called “caliphate” under ISIS, 4,144 people had been executed.

SOHR said civilians made up the bulk of those executed, estimated at

women and children, are among the number, as are hundreds of ISIS’ own members and enemy fighters from Bashar alAssad’s army and opposition rebel groups, ‘The Independent’ reported.“The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights call again on the UN Security Council to work seriously to stop the crimes and violations committed against the Syrian people by the ‘Islamic State’ and the regime of Bashar alAssad,” a spokesperson said.In the month until March 29 this year, 80 killings were recorded in ISIS territory in the provinces of Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, Damascus, Aleppo, Homs and AlHasakah. A child was

among 37 Syrian civilians executed, while 24 ISIS members, six rebels and fighters and more than a dozen Syrian army and militia members were beheaded and shot, SOHR said.

A former London student who joined ISIS in Syria last year described the reign of terror they enforce in their strongholds in an interview with the newspaper.“I witnessed stonings, beheadings, shootings, hands chopped off and many other things,” said Harry Sarfo, currently in prison in Germany awaiting trial for terror offences after fleeing Syria last July.He added: “I’ve seen child soldiers 13year-old boys with explosive belts and Kalashnikovs. Some boys even driving cars and involved in executions.”

“My worst memory is of the execution of six men shot in the head by Kalashnikovs.

The chopping off of a man’s hand and making him hold it with the other hand,” he said.“The Islamic State is not just un-Islamic, it is inhuman.A blood-related brother killed his own brother on suspicion of being a spy. They gave him the order to kill him. It is friends killing friends,” he added.

ISIS reveals Jihadi John’s route from UK to Syria The Islamic State (ISIS) has released a document detailing how slain British extremist Mohammed Emwazi fled the UK and passed through six

for a migrant route to leave the UK in the summer of 2012 and were smuggled out in the back of lorry to avoid checks and made their way across the

countries to reach Syria and become the dreaded Jihadi John.

The document revealed the details of Mohammed Emwazi’s route from Britain to Syria to join the terrorist group in Raqqa.

Emwazi, dubbed Jihadi John after he murdered Western hostages, posed as a migrant to leave the UK.The Times quotes ISIS’ monthly magazine ‘Dar al-Islam’ as saying that Emwazi and another unnamed individual opted

English Channel.

Emwazi was able to make the journey despite being on terrorism watch-lists.

The 27-year-old was killed in a US-led drone strike last year. His unnamed companion said they travelled through six countries to reach the ISIS stronghold in Raqqa.

He mocked UK intelligence services for not capturing him, and complained about mosquitoes along the way.

The account, which uses

Emwazi’s assumed name Abu Muharib al-Muhajir, runs to almost 8,000 words, the newspaper reports.

As Emwazi was known to British intelligence, he did not want to risk flying out of France.

The duo got to Brussels in Belgium and bought flights to Albania “without fear that British services are alerted”.

The pair travelled on British passports but also carried two fake French passports and 30,000 euros in cash.

They shaved their beards in Brussels, where they had breakfast in a cafe in a Muslim area.

Emwazi went on to appear in a video in August 2014 in which he beheaded US journalist James Foley.

He emerged again in other videos, including those in which the US reporter Steven Sotloff and the British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning were murdered.

He was later identified as a Kuwaiti-born computer programming graduate from London.

ISIS makes Indian terrorist its poster boy to lure youth from the country An Indian ISIS fighter, who was reportedly killed in Afghanistan while fighting for the group in 2014, has become the new poster boy for the terror outfit as it looks to lure more youth from the country.

In a new video released by the ISIS features Indian terrorist Anwar Hussain saying, “Jihad is our duty.

For this we (jihadists) have come from several parts of the world. Despite this, Allah ensured good food for all of us. We got best of best food and friends here.

In this fight Allah has given us all those things, which one cannot get, even being rich.”Intelligence agencies believe the video is a propaganda technique to revive the recruitment drive as the attraction for the global jihadi outfit has been reducing among Indian Muslim youth.Aaj Tak got exclusive video footage, which is being used by ISIS to expand its footprints in India. Hussain (39) a resident of Bhatkal town in Karnataka was a van driver. “No one has provoked me nor did anyone force me. I have come here at my will,” Hussain said in the video.

This happens to be his final message before he was

killed in Afghanistan.

The YouTube video features a man purported to be Hussain speaking on his reasons for migrating

about Hussain who say he was fasting the day he was killed.

The narrator says Hussain told other fighters that “I

from India to Dubai and thereon to Afghanistan for the cause of jihad and carries statements of men said to be his fellow commanders who recall how he died fighting but not before killing seven men of the “enemy”. According to agencies, teams of Indians are undergoing terror training in Afghanistan from where they will be sent to Syria and Iraq.

The narrative of Hussain’s sacrifice in the 14-minute video is that he wanted his family in India to be informed if he was “martyred”. In the beginning of the video, the narrator describes the background of Anwar Husain and the views of other jihadists

will break my fast this evening, God willing, in the house of Allah with the houris (virgins of paradise).”

In the same video, a masked Afghanistani commander is seen narrating Anwar’s struggle to motivate India youth. He says Anwar was a ‘fearless fighter’ and used to observe roza (fast) during fights. After the training Anwar was supposed to go back to India to become a fidayeen.

“Indian Muslim youth are being provoked by showing such propaganda videos.

There are section of people who are also getting influenced by it,” said security expert Sushant Sareen.

Issue - 665 (8)

3 May - 9 May 2016

China intensifies crackdown on websites for spreading porn

In a nationwide crackdown, a group of internet video player service providers have been investigated and punished for allegedly spreading pornography in China, the antiporn authority has said.

The campaign, which runs from February to April was launched

by National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications, in collaboration with the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the ministry of public security among other departments.

The anti-porn authority in Beijing has probed several Internet video player service providers for spreading lewd videos, including Ingkee, Doshow and Huajiao, sate-run Xinhua news agency reported.

In other cases, two popular video sharing mobile applications Xiaokaxiu and Miaopai were placed under investigation for providing porn videos, it said.

The anti-porn office aims at creating a clean cyberspace for young Internet users, it added.

Nissan to recall 3.53 million vehicles: air bags may not deploy Nissan Motor Co Ltd said on Friday it will recall 3.53 million vehicles, most in the United States, citing passenger-side air bags that may not work properly because vehicle sensors may malfunction.

The Japanese automaker said this is the fourth recall since 2013 to address problems with occupant classification systems that may fail to properly identify adult front seat passengers.

The system may improperly classify an adult front seat passenger as a child or as an empty seat, a failure that could lead to an air bag failing to deploy in the event of a crash.

Nissan has reports of three injuries linked to the issue but no fatalities.The new recall includes vehicles from the 20132017 model years, including some Nissan Altima, Leaf, Maxima, Murano, Pathfinder, Sentra, Rogue, NV200, NV Taxi, Infiniti JX35/QX60, and Q50. It also includes the 20152016 Chevrolet City Express, built for General Motors Co by Nissan.

Nearly 3.2 million of the recalled

German nuclear plant infected with viruses A nuclear power plant in Germany has been found to be infected with computer viruses, but they appear not to have

posed a threat to the facility’s operations because it is isolated from the Internet, the station’s operator said on Tuesday.

The Gundremmingen plant, located about 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Munich, is run by the German utility RWE. The viruses, which include “W32.Ramnit” and “Conficker”, were discovered at Gundremmingen’s B unit in a computer system retrofitted in 2008 with data visualisation software associated with equipment for moving nuclear fuel rods, RWE said. Malware was also found on 18 removable data drives, mainly USB sticks, in office computers maintained

separately from the plant’s operating systems. RWE said it had increased cyber-security measures as a result.

W32.Ramnit is designed to steal files from infected computers and targets Microsoft Windows software, according to the security firm Symantec. First discovered in 2010, it is distributed through data sticks, among other methods, and is intended to give an attacker remote control over a system when it is connected to the Internet.Conficker has infected millions of Windows computers worldwide since it first came to light in 2008. It is able to spread through networks and by copying itself onto removable data drives, Symantec said.

RWE has informed Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), which is working

with IT specialists at the group to look into the incident.

The BSI was not immediately available for comment. Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer for Finland-based FSecure, said that infections of critical infrastructure were surprisingly common, but that they were generally not dangerous unless the plant had been targeted specifically.

The most common viruses spread without much awareness of where they are, he said.

As an example, Hypponen said he had recently spoken to a European aircraft maker that said it cleans the cockpits of its planes every week of malware designed for Android phones. The malware spread to the planes only because factory employees were charging their phones with the USB port in the cockpit.

Because the plane runs a different operating system, nothing would befall it. But it would pass the virus on to other devices that plugged into the charger. In 2013, a computer virus attacked a turbine control system at a US power company after a technician inserted an infected USB computer drive into the network, keeping a plant off line for three weeks.

vehicles are in the United States. “The planned remedy varies by vehicle and will include software reprogramming in some models and hardware replacement in other models,” Nissan spokesman David Reuter said. Nissan said it is currently developing its remedy plan and will begin notifying dealers in late May.Only about 20 percent of the U.S. models will need a hardware fix, Nissan said. Nissan said that 622,110 Sentra cars, part of the recall announced on Friday, are also the subject of a second recall, because the front passenger seat belt bracket may become deformed if it is used to secure a child restraint system. Nissan dealers will reinforce the seat belt bracket. The U.S. National

Highway Traffic Safety Administration upgraded an investigation in August 2015 into the air bag deployment issue after reviewing 1,271 complaints and warranty claims to determine whether a prior Nissan recall adequately addressed the problem.

Big Ben to fall silent for months during repairs

Big Ben will fall silent for several months while the iconic London clock tower next to the Houses of Parliament undergoes “desperately” needed repairs next year, officials said on Tuesday. The bell, whose chimes feature on British radio broadcasts, will be silenced as part of the £29 million (37 million euros, $42 million) repairs. The work will repair the clock faces and mechanism, cracks in the tower’s masonry and corrosion in the roof, as well as restoring the edging around the clock faces to their original 19thcentury colour.A lift will also be installed as an alternative to the steps up the tower and the lights illuminating the clock will be replaced by low-energy LEDs.”The clock mechanism will need to be stopped for several months in order to carry out essential maintenance,” a House of

Commons spokeswoman said.

“During this period there will be no chimes,” she said, adding that “striking and tolling” of the bell would continue for marking important occasions. “Big Ben” is the name of the bell, while the 315foot (96-metre) tower holding it is the Elizabeth Tower. It was designed in neo-Gothic style by parliament architect Augustus Pugin and was completed in 1856.

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ISIS sells fish to make up for its battlefield losses and lower oil income Islamic State earns millions of dollars a month running car dealerships and fish farms in Iraq, making up for lower oil income after its battlefield losses, Iraqi judicial authorities said on Thursday.

Security experts once estimated the ultra-radical Islamist group’s annual income at $2.9 billion, much of it coming from oil and gas installations in Iraq and Syria.

The US-led coalition has targeted Islamic State’s financial infrastructure, using air strikes to reduce its ability to extract, refine and transport oil and so forcing fighters to reportedly take significant pay cuts.

Yet the militants, who seized a third of Iraq’s territory and declared a caliphate in 2014, seem to be adapting again to this latest set of constraints, in some cases reviving previous profit-turning ventures like farming.

“The terrorists’ current financing mechanism has changed from what it was before the announcement of the caliphate nearly two years ago,” a report

by Iraq’s central court of investigation said, quoting Judge Jabbar Abid alHuchaimi.

“After the armed forces took control of several oil fields Daesh was using to finance its operations, the organisation devised non-traditional ways of paying its fighters and financing its activities,” the report added, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Fishing in hundreds of lakes

Kenya lights world’s biggest ivory bonfire

north of Baghdad generates millions of dollars a month, according to the report. Some owners fleeing the area abandoned their farms while others agreed to cooperate with Islamic State to avoid being attacked.

“Daesh treats its northern Baghdad province as a financial centre; it is its primary source of financing in the capital in particular,” Huchaimi said.

Islamic State carries ou t frequent bombings in Baghdad against security forces and Shi’ite residents.

SELLING CARS, RUNNING FACTORIES Fish farms have supplied

militants with income since 2007 when Islamic State’s al Qaeda predecessor fought U.S. occupation forces but the mechanism only came to the authorities’ attention this year, the report said. The militants also tax agricultural land and impose a 10 percent levy on poultry and other duties on a range of imports into their territory, it added.“Recently there has been reliance on agricultural lands in areas outside the control of the (Iraqi) security forces through taxes imposed on farmers.”

New revenues are also being generated from car dealerships and factories once run by the

Iraqi government in areas seized by the militants.

Those have helped offset the losses from lower oil income, though perhaps only partially.

The U.S.-based analysis firm IHS said last week that Islamic State revenues had fallen by around a third since last summer to around $56 million a month. “In the recent period, Daesh has gone back to using government factories in the areas it controls - like Mosul for financial returns,” Huchaimi said, but added that oil smuggling from Syrian refineries remains the group’s primary source of international financing.

The Iraqi report, based in part on the confessions of captured Islamic State suspects, described how funds were funnelled to Bayt al-Mal, the group’s finance ministry, in the northern city of Mosul and then distributed to its provinces.

“The organisation distributes money to areas outside its control through hawala (transfer) offices first in Erbil and from there to Iraq’s other provinces,” Huchaimi said.

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Why do we live so badly, youth ask Canada’s PM Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta set fire today to the world’s biggest ivory bonfire, after demanding a total ban on trade in tusks and horns to end “murderous” trafficking and prevent the extinction of elephants in the wild.

“The height of the pile of ivory before us marks the strength of our resolve,” Kenyatta said, before setting fire to the pyres.

“No one, and I repeat no one, has any business in trading in ivory, for this trade means death of our elephants and death of our natural heritage.”

Eleven giant pyres of tusks, and another of rhino horns, are

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arranged in a semi-circle now expected to burn for days in Nairobi’s national park. Huge white clouds of smoke spiralled high into the sky, with thousands of litres of diesel and kerosene injected through steel pipes buried in the ground leading into the heart of the pyramids to fuel the blaze.

President Ali Bongo from Gabon, who lit one of the pyres, spoke of the “massacre” of forest elephants in central Africa, and said he backed moves to close all sale of ivory.

“Unless we take action now, we risk losing this magnificent animal,” Bongo said at the ceremony, telling poachers he was “going to put you out of business, so the best thing you can do is to go into retirement now.” Africa is home to between 450,000 and 500,000 elephants, but more than 30,000 are killed every year in the continent to satisfy demand for ivory in Asia, where raw tusks sell for around USD 1,000 (800 euros) a kilo (2.2 pounds).

The pyres contain some 16,000 tusks and pieces of ivory.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is used to adoring welcomes and requests for selfies, on Wednesday had a tougher public encounter when aboriginal students pressed him on their poor living conditions. Trudeau’s Liberal Party came to power last November promising to rebuild ties with Canada’s 1.4 million aboriginals, or First Nations, many of whom are mired in poverty and crime and suffer from bad health. “Why do you allow the first people of this land to endure and live in Third World conditions?” asked one female student, referring to “the acts of genocide” aboriginals had been subjected to for centuries at the hands of settlers. The question prompted loud applause at the high school for indigenous students in Saskatoon, in the western province of Saskatchewan. The 20-minute question-and-answer session was shown in a live webcast.

Trudeau, who sounded more defensive than he has been in other Q&A sessions across Canada, responded that the

federal government could not fix the problem alone and needed to work with First Nations.

“Quite frankly, this is a stain and a scar upon, not just our sense of who we are and our morality

are the promises you made when you got elected prime minister taking so long?” one student asked. Trudeau replied that the government was like a big ocean liner and turning it

as Canadians, but on the kind of country we need to be building,” he said.Increased militancy and unhappiness among the aboriginal population has prompted protests against a number of pipeline projects that would cross First Nations territory. Some of the students expressed impatience, pressing Trudeau on what improvements they would see this year. “Why

around would take some time.

In a federal budget this March, Ottawa said it would spend an extra C$8.37 billion ($6.64 billion) over five years to help tackle the worst of the problems facing aboriginals. Earlier this month a cabinet minister said Ottawa was working on a plan to help address a wave of suicides in remote indigenous communities.

Issue - 665 (10)

Brahmin parents invite matrimonial alliance for their daughter, 26 yrs. old, 5’-4” tall, Canadian Citizen, pretty, family oriented, university graduate. The boy should be Canadian/ American, Immigrant/Citizen, Professionally qualified, employed from good family background. Boys on student visa for higher studies (university level) may also be considered.

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3 May - 9 May 2016

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The boy should be Canadian/ American, Immigrant/Citizen, Medico/Lawyer/IT professional or successful businessman from a well settled family.

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Issue - 665 (11)

3 May - 9 May 2016

Australian Islamic preacher’s website among three more blocked by state ATS A website publishing preachings of influential Australian Islamic preacher Musa Cerantonio, another propagating the ideology of Al-Qaeda and the third originating from a tiny island country of Nauru are some of the prominent webpages blocked by the Maharashtra A n t i - Te r r o r i s m Squad (ATS) recently. With these three new websites, the total number of sites blocked by ATS has increased to 97.

A website whose domain is registered in Nauru, located in the North-east side of Australia has now been blocked by the state counter terrorism agency for propagating the ideology of the Islamic State (IS) or Daesh as it is now referred by the Western world. Nauru, formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country in Micronesia in the Central Pacific.

“We have blocked the website as it propagated and tried to influence Indian youth into joining

IS. It had some traffic from India because of which we blocked it,” said a senior ATS officer. According to the officer, another link http://en.islamway.net/ scholar/2581/musacerantonio has also been

Robert Cerantonio to an Irish-Catholic family, Cerantonio converted to Islam when he was 17. The third link that has been blocked by the ATS is the 12th issue of Inspire Magazine, a mouthpiece

blocked. Cerantonio, 30, is an Australian Islamist preacher described by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) as one of two English-speaking “spiritual authorities” inspiring foreign fighters in Syria.

While his Twitter and Facebook accounts have been shut down, many of his videos continue to remain on YouTube. He is currently staying under police surveillance in Australia where he was born and raised. Born

of Al-Qaeda. “We try and look after issues of magazines belonging to terror outfits that not only propagate their ideologies but try and lure youth from foreign countries,” said the officer. Magazine Dabiq, the mouthpiece of IS has also met the same fate.

“Dabiq is published using ‘deep web’ (invisible web which are part of the World Wide Web but their content are not indexed by standard search engines) so sometimes monitoring these websites gets

Islamic State hackers publish ‘hitlist’ of 70 US military officers Islamic State (ISIS) hackers have published a “hitlist” of over 70 US military personnel who have been involved in drone strikes against terror targets in Syria and asked their

intelligence” in the future that could identify Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) drone operators. The new hitlist features the ISIS flag above the heading: ’Target — United States Military’

followers to “kill them wherever they are”.

According to ‘The Sunday Times’, the hackers have links with Britain and call themselves ‘Islamic State Hacking Division’ and circulated online the names, home addresses and photographs of more than 70 US staff, including women and urged supporters: “Kill them wherever they are, knock on their doors and behead them, stab them, shoot them in the face or bomb them.” The group also claimed that it might have a mole in the UK’s Ministry of Defence and threatened to publish “secret

and the document, circulated via Twitter and posted on the JustPaste website, states: “You crusaders that can only attack the soldiers of the Islamic State with joysticks and consoles, die in your rage! “Your military has no courage, neither has your president as he still refuses to send troops. So instead you press buttons thousands of miles away in your feeble attempt to fight us. “A nation of cowards that holds no bravery as you resort to sending your remote-controlled unmanned Reaper and Predator drones to attack us from the skies. So this

is for you, America. These 75 crusaders are posted as targets for our brothers and sisters in America and worldwide to hunt down and kill.” The group also warned: “In our next leak we may even disclose secret intelligence the Islamic State has just received from a source the brothers in the UK have spent some time acquiring from the Ministry of Defence in London as we slowly and secretly infiltrate England and the USA online and off.” At the bottom of the ISIS document is an image of the Statue of Liberty with its head cut off. The ISIS hacking division was previously led by Junaid Hussain, a former British Muslim computer hacker from Birmingham who was killed in a US drone strike in Syria last August. His wife, Sally Jones, a Muslim convert from Kent in the UK, is still believed to be involved in the organisation, which in the past has urged “lone wolf” attacks against RAF bases in the UK. Inquiries made by ‘The Sunday Times’ found that the names on the American hitlist are genuine.

difficult. However, we ensure that these issues are not accessed as they are highly radical in nature,” added the official. In the past, the agency had suspended the Twitter handles suspected to have been operated by one of the four Kalyan youth who fled to Iraq in May 2014 to fight alongside the terrorist organisation the IS. The four young men identified as Areeb Majid, Fahad Shaikh, Amaan Tandel and Saheem Tanki hail from Kalyan, a satellite town of Mumbai. On May 25, they left along with 40 others by an Etihad flight to Baghdad on a pilgrimage. On May 31, they called for a private taxi which dropped them at Mosul. Since then they went missing and were believed to have joined the militant group. However, Majeed returned to India in November last year.

Following which the National Investigating Agency (NIA) booked him and the other three under Section 125 of the IPC (waging war with an Asiatic ally) and certain sections (16, 18, 20) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) .

3 Hyderabad youngsters held at Nagpur airport for trying to join IS Three Hyderabad-based cousin brothers were arrested at the Nagpur airport on Saturday following an alert that they were trying to leave the country to join the Islamic State (IS) terrorist outfit.

The Maharashtra antiterrorism squad (ATS) and Telangana police jointly arrested the trio, between 20 and 25 years, months after they were put under watch for being influenced by online IS propaganda.

Later, officials said the three youth identified as Umar Hassan Farooqui, Abdul Wasim and Zamir Farooqui were reportedly planning to board a flight to Srinagar from Nagpur after arriving from Hyderabad on Friday.

“We got information that the youth would be boarding the early morning flight,” an official said. “The youth, who came to Nagpur by cab, were handed over to the Telangana counterintelligence cell.” The trio travelled to Nagpur on state road transport bus and went to the airport to board an Indigo flight to Srinagar from where they had planned to leave for Afghanistan to join IS.Among the three, two were earlier held in

Kolkata in September 2014 where they were allegedly planning to cross over to Bangladesh and proceed to Iraq. The duo, reportedly engineering college dropouts, told investigators that they were lured by IS propaganda on social media.They were released and sent home after detailed counseling because they had not committed any crime.

However, both were under strict police surveillance since then. Officers immediately started a hunt after parents of the three young men informed neighbourhood police stations that the “boys” were missing since Thursday morning and their cell phones switched off.

Before travelling to Nagpur, they had gone to the Nalgonda home of a SIMI activist who had died in a road accident in 2014, officials said.So far, around 20 young men, mostly from Telangana, have been prevented from travelling to Syria, ostensibly to join IS.Indian security establishment suggests that around 20-odd Indians are currently fighting for the banned outfit in Iraq and Syria.

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3 May - 9 May 2016

Salah Abdeslam slapped with terror charges over Paris attacks Paris A French court on Wednesday charged Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam over his role in the November 2015 carnage that left 130 dead, just hours after his extradition from Belgium.

Abdeslam, a French national of Moroccan origin who grew up in Belgium, is believed to be the last surviving member of a terror squad that hit cafes, a concert hall and the national stadium in Paris on November 13.

More than a month after his capture in Belgium, Abdeslam was brought to France by helicopter early on Wednesday where he was formally placed under arrest before being swept off to the main Paris court, where he spent several hours.

His lawyer Frank Berton said that investigating judges charged him with murder, association with a terrorist group, possession of weapons and explosives as well as sequestration over the hostage-taking at the Bataclan concert hall where 90 people were killed.

Berton said his client was not interrogated at length.

“He explained to judges that in light of the hour he was removed from the jail (in Belgium) this morning, he prefers to explain himself later, but insisted that he will explain himself,” Berton said.

Another hearing has been set for May 20, the lawyer said, adding that his client was being held in a cell with video surveillance at the sprawling Fleury-Merogis prison complex outside Paris.

Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas said the suspect would be placed in isolation and monitored by “hardened guards” skilled in handling dangerous detainees.Berton said he would try to ensure that Abdeslam is “tried for what he did” and not for all the crimes committed in several locations by at least 10 assailants over an onslaught lasting four hours.

“Otherwise let’s set up the guillotine and guillotine him...

We aren’t in a totalitarian state,” he said.

‘Justice is on its way’

Jean Reinhart, a lawyer for about 30 families of the attack victims, hailed Abdeslam’s extradition, saying “justice is on its way”.

Another lawyer for the victims’

State group attackers.

His brother Brahim detonated his suicide vest in a bar, and Abdeslam himself said he had been expected to do the same

families, Samia Maktouf, said she hoped Abdeslam would “give elements that would allow the identification of the recruiters and financiers of the terrorist network he belonged to”.

Abdeslam was arrested in Brussels on March 18 after four months on the run as Europe’s most wanted man.

Prosecutors believe he was in charge of logistics for the Paris attacks, as he rented cars and hotel rooms used by the Islamic

outside the national stadium, but had backed out at the last minute.After revealing that nugget of information in his first interrogation, Abdeslam has since clammed up.

His arrest came just days before coordinated attacks on Brussels airport and a metro station that left 32 people dead.

Police have uncovered clear links between Abdeslam and the three Brussels suicide bombers, but he has said through his Belgian lawyer that he knew nothing about the attacks. Last month, Belgian police arrested another key Paris suspect named Mohamed Abrini, who was seen with Abdeslam before the attacks, and who also turned out to be the so-called “man in the hat” seen in CCTV footage with two bombers shortly before they staged the Brussels airport assault.

Turkey journalists jailed for publishing Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoon Ankara An Istanbul court on Thursday sentenced two prominent Turkish journalists to two years behind bars for illustrating their columns with a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed published by French

appeals court,” Utku told AFP following a hearing at Istanbul’s criminal court.

The pair went on trial in January last year on charges of “inciting public hatred” and “insulting religious values” after illustrating

satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

The sentence, which was handed to two columnists from the opposition Cumhuriyet daily, intensified alarm over press freedoms in Turkey under strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has made Islam the cornerstone of his politics.“The two journalists were sentenced to two years each in jail,” said Bulent Utku, lawyer for Hikmet Cetinkaya and Ceyda Karan.

“We will appeal the ruling at the

their columns with the controversial cartoon.

After the verdict, those who initiated the lawsuit shouted “Allahu Akbar” -- Arabic for ‘God is the greatest’ -- Cumhuriyet reported on its website.

On January 14, 2015, Cumhuriyet had published a fourpage Charlie Hebdo pullout translated into Turkish marking the French satirical weekly’s first issue since a deadly attack on its Paris offices by Islamist gunmen earlier that month.

The edition did not include the controversial front cover featuring Prophet Mohammed, but a smaller version of the cartoon was included twice inside the newspaper to illustrate columns on the subject by Karan and Cetinkaya.Most other media in Turkey had refrained from publishing the cover.When the edition was published, the daily received threats and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu condemned the publication of

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cartoons of the Muslim prophet as an “open provocation”.

Days before Cumhuriyet printed its special pullout edition, Davutoglu had joined dozens of other world leaders in a march of solidarity in memory of the 17 victims killed in the Charlie Hebdo attacks and elsewhere in Paris.

Shameful, unbearable’ Cumhuriyet, which staunchly opposes the Islamic-rooted government of Erdogan, has been regularly targeted by prosecutions as concerns grow over freedom of speech in Turkey.

Its editor-in-chief Can Dundar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul are currently on trial on charges of revealing state secrets and could face multiple life sentences if found guilty.

Writing on her Twitter account @ceydak, Karan lashed out at the Turkish government, saying: “Let our two-year sentence be a gift for our liberal fascists #JeSuisCharlie.”

In the contentious cartoon, the prophet sheds a tear and holds a sign with the viral slogan “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”), in a gesture of apparent repentance after the Paris killings.

Most Muslims consider portraying the prophet in images to be blasphemous.

There has been growing concern about the numbers of journalists currently facing legal proceedings in Turkey, many on accusations of insulting Erdogan. Trials for insulting Erdogan have multiplied since his election to the presidency in August 2014, with nearly 2,000 such cases currently open.

Reporters Without Borders slammed the verdict on its official Twitter account as “shameful” and “unbearable.”

‘Little moron from Molenbeek’ Abrini grew up with Abdeslam in the gritty Brussels suburb of Molenbeek along with several other suspects, who all share a similar history of brushes with the law and radicalisation.

His Belgian lawyer Sven Mary gave a lengthy interview to the Liberation newspaper that appeared on Wednesday, describing the difficulty of representing such an infamous client.“There have been moments when I thought of giving up. If I had known about the Brussels attacks, maybe I would never have taken this case,” Mary said.He described his client as a “little moron from Molenbeek, more a follower than a leader. He has the intelligence of an empty ashtray. He is the perfect example of the GTA (Grand Theft Auto video game) generation who thinks he lives in a video game.“I asked him if he had read the Koran, and he replied that he had researched it on the Internet.

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Hindu tailor killed in Bangladesh, IS claims responsibility

Dhaka A day after a Hindu tailor was killed in Bangladesh‘s Tangail district which the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for, three unknown persons have been sued in connection with the killing.

Aratai Joardar, the wife of slain Nikhil Joardar, filed the case with the Gopalpur Police Station last night, reports the Daily Star.

Nikhil, 50, was hacked to death at his shop by unidentified assailants in Dubail area under Gopalpur upazila of Tangail district in broad daylight yesterday.

Though the motive behind the attack was not clear, but the machete attack resembled the recent spate of targeted attacks

on secular bloggers, writers and people of different faiths and ideologieskilled in the country.

According to the police, two to three assailants came on a bike and took part in the killing at around 12:30 p.m. yesterday.

The police also said that Nikhil was jailed for several weeks in 2012 on charges of making derogatory comments about Prophet Muhammad.

Police sources believe that this could be a possible motive behind his murder.

Hours after his murder, US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors terrorist activities globally, in a post said that global terror outfit Islamic State ( IS) claimed responsibility for the killing.

Issue - 665 (13)

3 May - 9 May 2016

US directs cyberweapons at ISIS for the first time The United States has opened a new line of combat against the Islamic State, directing the military’s 6-year-old Cyber Command for the first time to mount computer-network attacks that are now being used alongside more traditional weapons.

The effort reflects President Barack Obama’s desire to bring many of the secret U.S. cyberweapons that had been aimed elsewhere, notably at Iran, into the fight against the Islamic State — which has proved effective in using modern communications and encryption to recruit and carry out operations.

The National Security Agency, which specializes in electronic surveillance, has for years

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listened intensely to the militants of the Islamic State, and those reports are often part of the president’s daily intelligence briefing. But the NSA’s military counterpart, Cyber Command, was focused largely on Russia, China, Iran and North Korea where cyberattacks on the United States most frequently originate and had run virtually no operations against what has become the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world. A review of what should be done to confront the Islamic State is on Obama’s agenda Monday, when he is scheduled to attend a conference in Hanover, Germany, with the leaders of Britain, France, Italy and Germany. Of these efforts, the cybercampaign is the newest. It is also the one discussed in least detail by officials of many countries, and its successes or failures are the most difficult to assess from the outside.

The goal of the new campaign is to disrupt the ability of the Islamic State to spread its message, attract new adherents, circulate orders from commanders and carry out dayto-day functions, like paying its fighters. A benefit of the

Traffic to Wikipedia terrorism entries plunged Internet traffic to Wikipedia pages summarizing knowledge about terror groups and their tools plunged nearly 30 percent after revelations of widespread Web monitoring by the U.S. National Security Agency, suggesting that concerns about government snooping are hurting the ordinary pursuit of information. A forthcoming paper in the

Berkeley Technology Law Journal analyzes the fall in traffic, arguing that it provides the most direct evidence to date of a socalled “chilling effect,” or negative impact on legal conduct, from the intelligence practices disclosed by fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Author Jonathon Penney, a fellow at the University of Toronto’s interdisciplinary Citizen Lab, examined monthly views of Wikipedia articles on 48 topics identified by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as subjects that they track on social media, including Al Qaeda, dirty bombs and jihad.

In the 16 months prior to the first major Snowden stories in June 2013, the articles drew a variable but an increasing audience, with a low point of about 2.2 million per month rising to 3.0 million just before disclosures of the NSA’s Internet spying programs. Views

of the sensitive pages rapidly fell back to 2.2 million a month in the next two months and later dipped under 2.0 million before stabilizing below 2.5 million 14 months later, Penney found. The traffic dropped even more to topics that survey respondents deemed especially privacysensitive. Viewership of a presumably “safer” group of articles about US government security forces decreased much less in the same period.Penney’s results, subjected to peer-review, offer a deeper dive into an issue investigated by previous researchers, including some who found a 5.0 percent drop in Google searches for sensitive terms immediately after June 2013. Other surveys have found sharply increased use of privacyprotecting Web browsers and communications tools. Penney’s work may provide fodder for technology companies and others arguing for greater restraint and disclosure about intelligence-gathering. Chilling effects are notoriously difficult to document and so have limited impact on laws and court rulings.

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administration’s exceedingly rare public discussion of the campaign, officials said, is to rattle the Islamic State’s

declined to discuss the details of their operations, interviews with more than a half-dozen senior and midlevel officials

commanders, who have begun to realize that sophisticated hacking efforts are manipulating their data. Potential recruits might also be deterred if they come to worry about the security of their communications with the militant group.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter is among those who have publicly discussed the new mission, but only in broad terms, and this month the deputy secretary of defense, Robert O. Work, was more colorful in describing the effort.“We are dropping cyberbombs,” Work said. “We have never done that before.”

The campaign has been conducted by a small number of “national mission teams,” newly created cyberunits loosely modeled on Special Operations forces.While officials

indicate that the effort has begun with a series of “implants” in the militants’ networks to learn the online habits of commanders.

Now, the plan is to imitate them or to alter their messages, with the aim of redirecting militants to areas more vulnerable to attack by U.S. drones or local ground forces.

In other cases, officials said, the United States may complement operations to bomb warehouses full of cash by using cyberattacks to interrupt electronic transfers and misdirect payments.

The fact that the administration is beginning to talk of its use of the new weapons is a dramatic change. As recently as four years ago, it would not publicly admit to developing offensive cyberweapons or confirm its

role in any attacks on computer networks.

That is partly because cyberattacks inside another nation raise major questions over invasion of sovereignty. But in the case of the Islamic State, officials say a decision was made that a bit of boasting might degrade the enemy’s trust in its communications, jumbling and even deterring some actions.

“Our cyberoperations are disrupting their command-andcontrol and communications,” Obama said this month, emerging from a meeting at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on countering the Islamic State.

In an interview this month in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she talked to Air Force Academy cadets, Obama’s national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, said the fight against the Islamic State had to be thought of as a multifront war and that computers were just another weapon in the arsenal.

“It should not be taken out of proportion it is not the only tool,” she said when asked about Work’s “cyberbombs” comment. In fact, some of Work’s colleagues acknowledged that they had winced when he used the term, because government lawyers have gone to extraordinary lengths to narrowly limit cyberattacks to highly precise operations with as little collateral damage as possible.

US fears rise of jihadists in moderate Bangladesh The slaying in Bangladesh of a US Agency for International Development employee has intensified US concern that the strategically located South Asian country with traditions of religious tolerance is under threat from Islamic extremists.

Bangladesh’s government denies that transnational jihadist groups have been behind a spate of bloody attacks on secular writers, bloggers, foreigners and religious minorities. But the Bangladeshi branch of al-Qaida on the Indian Subcontinent claimed Monday’s killing of USAID employee and gay rights activist Xulhaz Mannan.

That claim has not been verified, but it adds to fears that local extremists with international aspirations could enable groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State group to gain a foothold in a country wracked by prolonged political turmoil because of a bitter divide between the ruling party and the opposition.

The No 2 US diplomat said yesterday that despite the government blaming the political opposition for the attacks, evidence to date suggests extremist groups, either local or affiliated with IS or al-Qaida, are responsible for the killings. “This gives us concern about the potential for ISIL or Daesh to take

root in Bangladesh,” Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, using alternative

bloggers. While authorities have arrested suspects in some of those cases, none has been prosecuted, and authorities have

acronyms for IS. “That is the last thing we want.” The assaults on minorities and moderates, typically by young men wielding knives or machetes and spewing hateful language, began in 2013 and have increased in frequency in the past year. Among the fatalities was BangladeshiAmerican writer Avijit Roy, who was attacked on a street in the capital, Dhaka, in February 2015.

Human rights groups fear for others facing militant death threats as the Bangladeshi government has appeared unsympathetic to their plight perhaps because it does not want to alienate Muslims offended by the atheistic writings of some

yet to identify the masterminds.

The State Department says the US is considering providing sanctuary to some individuals at risk, although it remains unclear whether that will happen. Human rights groups have been calling for that since December. A broader concern for Washington as it struggles to counter Islamic State worldwide is that Bangladesh could become a hotbed for religious extremists, despite its traditions of secularism, free speech and respect for its Christian and Hindu minorities, and successes in reducing poverty and raising life expectancy among its 160 million.

Issue - 665 (14)

3 May - 9 May 2016

ISIS flags in Kashmir ‘more adventure and mischief than inspiration’ Despite being condemned by the senior most separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, every Friday a bunch of boys display the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) flags near the Jamia Masjid in downtown

interrogation it was found that they were doing it just for adventure and there was no real connection,” says a senior police official on condition of anonymity.

The officer said the Pakistani flags thar are

Srinagar.The youths have been doing it almost every week, ever since the flags first appeared during a protest a year ago, worrying many that the dreaded group should find a stronghold in the Valley.

But the security forces are not worried at all.Top police officials say there is hardly any presence of the IS on the ground in the Valley and that the youths hoist the flags “just to annoy the security forces”. “In the past one year, 9 or 10 boys were arrested for raising the IS flags, but during

being raised have been a common sight ever since militancy began in the Valley in the early ‘90s, and are no longer getting the media attention they used to.“Even those who were detained have no idea what the (IS) ideology is. It is just that the flag has a verse from holy Quran written on it and they think it represents Islam,” the police officer added.

The boys hoisting these flags are mostly students that have been involved in stone pelting in the past as well. The flags are made

Russia’s interests coincide with Taliban’s in fight against IS Russia is exchanging information with the Taliban and sees shared interest with the insurgents when it comes to counteracting the spread of the Islamic State

Erection Problem?

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group, a senior Russian diplomat said on W e d n e s d a y. “ Ta l i b a n interests objectively coincide with ours,” Zamir Kabulov, head of the department at the Russian foreign ministry responsible for Afghanistan who is also a Kremlin special representative in the country, told Interfax news agency.

“I have said before that we have commu-nication channels with the Taliban to exchange information,” he said. “Both the Taliban of Afghanistan and the Taliban of Pakistan have said that they don’t recognise (IS leader Abu Bakr) al-

with cloth purchased from local vendors. The cloth is later cut up “secretly” at home.

“The same cloth used for Pakistani flags is used for IS or (militant group) Lashkar-e-Toiba flags as well,” a source said.The source added that the religious couplets on the flags are stitched either by a trusted tailor or by the boys themselves, with a portable sewing machine hidden in a “quite corner” of their homes.

The sources, who know the youths, admit that the boys have sympathy for the IS, but even they deny that there is any external hand involved in the hoisting of flags.

Among the six Indians, who fought alongside IS and got killed were three Indian Mujahideen terrorists, including Sultan Ajmer Shah and Bada Sajid, who joined its ranks after being in Pakistan, two from Maharashtra and one from Telangana.

On September 15, the UAE deported four Indians for their suspected links with the IS. The UAE also sent back in September a 37-yearold woman, Afsha Jabeen alias Nicky Joseph, who was allegedly involved in IS recruitment drives.

In January, Salman Mohiuddin of Hyderabad was arrested at Hyderabad airport when he was preparing to board a flight to Dubai on way to Syria via Turkey.Last week, a 16year-old college girl, who was allegedly in touch with arrested Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) executive Mohammed Sirajuddin, was put under surveillance for her suspected links with the IS in Pune. The IOC executive was held in Jaipur this month for “working for the Islamic State”.

Karachi begins search for wives of IS affiliates for funding group The Karachi police has started a search for a group of women, whose husbands are suspected to be affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) and have conducted terror attacks in the city. The women are part of a wing that is mainly responsible for generating funds for the terror group, says a report in a local newspaper.

After collecting money for terror operations, reported The Express Tribune, the women would give it to the male members of the group, who then passed it on to their head honchos.

“They (the women) sent darkhwasts [requests] to well-off women, seeking donations for the IS by using the name of (Faith Academy) school,” explained an official of the counter-terrorism department (CTD). “After collecting the money, they used to hand it over to the male wing of the outfit,” he added. “Then Adil Butt, the recently-arrested CEO of a local college, used to hand over the funds to a person who would use the money to buy weapons and explosives.”Earlier this week, Sindh province

counter-terrorism chief Raja Umar Khattab announced the uncovering of a network of women, which was tasked by militants to arrange the marriages of their operatives and raise funds for their operations. Though there are around a dozen women in this group, six of them were particularly active in collecting funds from different parts of the city. Three of them are accused of abetting the Safoora bus carnage in May 2015, in which over 40 members of the Ismaili community were killed.

Perth woman gives birth to 13.2 pound baby at Joondalup hospital Proud new mum Breanna Sykes with the not so little Ziad Kadic who was born a whopping 5.9kgs at Joondalup hospital on Saturday. Picture: Stewart Allen.

WHEN Breanna Sykes went into labour doctors told her the baby would be big, but they had no idea just how big until the 5.9kg infant arrived.

“It was a very big surprise,” the Carramar mum told PerthNow from her hospital bed at Joondalup Health Campus. “The doctor would not induce me (at first) but then measured me on the table said he thought my baby would be about eight or nine pounds.

“My waters broke, and I was fully dilated, but the pain was too much.

“I was having an anxiety attack so they had to put me under anaesthetic.

“When I woke up they told me I had a 13.2 pound (5.9kg) baby.”

Not so little Ziad Kadic was born caesarean section just after 7.15pm on Saturday weighing in at 5.9kgs and measuring 57cms, which is longer than a loaf of bread.

Baby Ziad Kadic was born a whopping 5.9kgs and

measured 57cms which is longer than a loaf of bread.

His size was not just a shock for proud mum Breanna, but also for the medical staff at the hospital. While nothing has been confirmed, Ziad could be the biggest baby born in WA, possibly Australia.

with Jaisal Purewal who weighs 2.8kgs. The infants were born two minutes apart.

So were doctors able to shed light on why he was so big?

“The doctors said it could be genetics,” she said.

“They have done all these

“I have had 15 doctors come visit me when they found out how big he was,” Breanna explained. “Most have said he was the biggest newborn they have ever seen.

“One of the doctors said to me he’s the biggest baby he has seen in his 15 years as a doctor. “(My partner) is very excited, he is out celebrating. And my family are just shell shocked. They just can’t believe how big he is.”

Baby Ziad Kadic who weighs 5.9kgs pictured

tests and all the blood work, he’s perfectly healthy.

“He’s just so chunky, beautiful, very chubby, cuddly and sleepy.”

And what is Breanna planning for Mother’s Day? “I think I might just stay at home.”

A Joondalup Health Campus spokeswoman said the hospital was pleased it was able to successfully deliver baby Ziad.

Originally published as Perth mum’s VERY BIG surprise

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3 May - 9 May 2016

Tiger Shroff and Shraddha Kapoor’s love story is a bore Director: Sabbir Khan Cast: Tiger Shroff, Shraddha Kapoor, Shifuji Shaurya Bharadwaj, Sudheer Babu, Sunil Grover Ratings: 2 Stars In his second film, Tiger Shroff continues to play to his strengths which is be Bollywood’s Bruce Lee. Flying kicks, back flips, splits, punches, gymnastic-like moves, the actor convincingly displays his array of fighting skills in what’s a mash-up of epic Ramayana, cult Indonesian action flick

to train in the ancient style of kalaripayattu. On his way to Kerala he is smitten with a bobble-headed, annoying young woman in Siya (Shraddha Kapoor), an aspiring actress. A poorly scripted, childish love story begins in which the couple spent most time flashing their teeth in rain. The Ravan in this saga is Raghav (Sudheer Babu), another martial arts practitioner who also fancies Siya and wants her at any price. So begins a fight fest which kicks off in Kerala and heads to Thai-

The Raid: Redemption and even a bit of The Karate Kid. Tiger is tailor-made for Ronny, an arrogant martial arts enthusiast, who is sent to Kerala by his sick father

land after Raghav kidnaps Siya and holds on the top floor of a building. The most memorable bits of the film are the ones where Guruswamy (Shifuji

Shaurya Bharadwaj), chief of the kalaripayattu centre, grooms Ronny to be a disciplined fighter and better apply his athletic prowess.

But there is only so much of hand-to-hand combat viewers can see. A speechimpaired child is thrown in to raise the emotional quotient of the film. But the manipulative move backfires as the child, who utters only two words - Ya Ya - throughout the film, irritates until in the second half he is replaced by another aggravating handicapped character -Sanjai Mishra as a visuallyimpaired and totally unfunny taxi driver. Baaghi is a film which suffers from an identity crisis. It wants to emphasise on guru-shishya parampara, celebrate the funny thing called love, fo-

cus on the significance of being a rebel with a cause, be a Kerala tourism commercial, showcase the Indian style of kalaripayattu

and provide some comic relief. But it fails to be any of these well. Unlike its inspiration The Raid, Baaghi doesn’t even evoke a sense

of dread for its hero who is on a one-man mission to beat an army. Here Ronny eases through the floors with ease.

is fairly decent. The computer-generated images of the wild animals are tolerable and far from the fine animated films that today’s audience are used to. The visual impact is

lost due to the various special effects, making the film look gimmicky.

The background score in a few scenes creates an impact, barring which, the music, is average. The

songs, “Zor laga de, zor laga de” and “Sapno se bara piggy bank” fit comfortably into the narration.

But unfortunately, the picturisation of these numbers are sub-standard.

‘Shortcut Safari’ is a shoddy escapade Director: Amitabha Singh Cast: Jimmy Shergill, Manmeet Singh, Sharvil Patel, Aashi Rawal, Mann Patel, Ugam Khetani, Stuti Dwivedi, Deah Tandon, Hardil Kanaba Ratings: 1 Stars Publicised as a children’s film packed with fun-filled adventure, writer-director Amitabha Singh’s “Short-

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cut Safari” is a far cry from the same. In fact it is a parent’s nightmare of an excursion gone awry.

It is the tale of seven unmonitored children travelling back home from a nature trip who urge their irresponsible driver to speed up and take an untrodden path through the jungle, which eventually leads to an accident.

After investigating the damage to the vehicle, the driver ventures alone into the forest to seek help, but not before telling the children that he will be back in fifteen minutes and that the children should stay in the vehicle.

As time passes and with no sign of the driver, how the restless children are forced to fend for themselves in the forest forms the crux of the tale.

The plot is hackneyed.

The gags and dialogues too are cliched, worn-out and unexciting.

With a poorly written script and an equally poor execution, the resultant output of the performance seems forced and theatrically clumsy which does not touch an emotional chord. This notwithstanding, the children are talented, in their own special way and are charming and endearing.

The reactions of the parents are perfunctory and staid. Jimmy Shergill with a comic cape, in a minuscule role, is wasted.

On the technical front, with moderate production values, the film manages to exude a fairly aesthetic look. Mrinal Desai’s cinematography

Issue 665 (16)

3 May - 9 May 2016

Urvashi Rautela learns martial arts and kickboxing for her next film ‘Sanam Re’ actress Urvashi Rautela is learning martial arts besides kickboxing for an upcoming film which is an action flick. The actress has been spotted gymming it out as well.

A source says, “Urvashi will be seen doing lot of high octane action sequences. There have been a lot of changes in her diet and workout regime for the film as well.” Urvashi prefers not to name the film or its makers as she is waiting for the formal announcement.

The actress is now busy designing her dream home. A source close to the actress tells us, “Urvashi wanted to wait for the response in terms of her work before deciding to choose the property in Mumbai.”

The excited actress says, “I’m really happy to shift my base to Mumbai.

I’m satisfied with the kind of work I am getting and look forward to my next release.”

Watch: Urvashi Rautela Hope Ajay Devgan likes my role in ‘Great Grand Masti’

Why Prachi Desai refused to show up at an IPL match for ‘Azhar’ promotions The star cast of Azhar turned up at the Mumbai vs Pune IPL match in Pune yesterday as part of their film’s publicity campaign, but Prachi Desai was nowhere to be seen. It was not a health issue or a conflict with her co-stars or makers that kept her away; it was a conscientious decision for the actress, who plays the first wife of ex cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin in the biopic.

Says a source, “Citing the drought situation in Maharashtra, Prachi told the makers that she won’t promote the film at a venue where a lot of water is used for entertainment.”

Last week, the Supreme Court upheld a Bombay High Court order for shifting of all IPL matches scheduled in Maharashtra today onwards to other states in view of the drought. The film’s marketing team tried to convince her to join the promotions but in vain.

“Prachi put her foot down, saying that she would gladly join other promotional activities but not this one,” adds the source. When contacted,

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Prachi says, “The drought is not the IPL’s fault and solving it is certainly not in the hands of the IPL management. This is mainly due to years of horrible mismanagement of infrastructure by elected representatives; we need a long term sustainable solution. For

people in Marathwada, every drop counts. At such a time, watering lawns with hundreds of thousands of litres of water for entertainment is something I just can’t get myself to accept, and hence, did not participate in the promotion during the IPL match.”

Role in ‘Traffic’ took Horror films genre is still toll on Divya Dutta niche says Sharman Joshi

Bollywood actress Divya Dutta has worked in several intense films, but it was her role in the upcoming movie “Traffic” which drained her emotionally. Directed by late Rajesh Pillai, “Traffic” is the remake of a 2011 Malayalam film of the

same name which features Divya in the role of a mother of a 12-yearold child.

“I was emotionally drained. We were shooting in a real hospital, the whole feeling of being there was... I normally don’t use

glycerin, so to cry all the time and feel the pain of the mother who is losing her child did take its toll on me. I used to go home very exhausted,” Divya told PTI. The dramathriller is inspired from an actual event that happened in Chennai, where a doctor couple donated organs of their 15-yearold son who died in a road accident. The young boy’s heart was transported to another hospital for a girl who required heart transplant. The journey, which would’ve taken close to 45 minutes with traffic, was completed in 11 minutes as the police cleared the way and gave green signal for the ambulance to pass.

The “Bhaag Milkha Bhaag” actress says the remake is “more or less” like the original, which she completely loved.

Bollywood actor Sharman Joshi feels many mainstream actors in the industry stay away from starring in a horror film as it does not have the same pull as a romantic or a comedy movie. The “3 Idiots” star says the genre of horror films in India is still niche with not a very wide audience reach.

“The mainstream actors are staying away from it, may be because the genre is still niche. The audience’s numbers may not be that large as compared to what a romantic or a comedy film will attract. So that might be a reason they stay away,” Sharman told PTI. The actor will be next seen in ‘1920 London’, a horror film directed by Tinu Suresh Desai. Sharman said

when the film’s producer, Vikram Bhatt, approached him for the role, he asked the actor if he would be willing to do a film like this. “Vikram first

asked me if I wanted to do this genre. But here I was getting a chance to be part of a successful franchise, so why wouldn’t I do it.

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3 May - 9 May 2016

Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander to play Lara Croft in the new Tomb Raider film

Julia Roberts made USD 3 million for four days work on ‘Mother’s Day’

Alicia will replace Angelina Jolie, who was widely credited for making the movie adaptation of the video game franchise a huge success when she brought the busty British explorer Lara Croft to life in 2001

The Oscar winning actor has been cast as Lara Croft and will play a younger version of the adventurous archaeologist in the action movie, which is set to tell the iconic video game character’s origin story, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Alicia’s casting comes as a surprise as Star Wars The Force Awak-

ens actor Daisy Ridley previously confirmed she had been in talks about taking on the role.

Speaking in March, she said, “There have been conversations (with the producers and bosses) but I’m waiting for someone to say ‘I want you, let’s do it.’”

In taking on the role of Lara Croft - created by British gaming company

Core Design in 1996 Alicia will replace Angelina Jolie, who was widely credited for making the movie adaptation of the video game franchise a huge success when she brought the busty British explorer Lara Croft to life in 2001 and then again in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life in 2003. Few other details

have been revealed of the film’s plot, however, the last two video games in the series - with the most recent being 2015’s Rise of the Tomb Raider - have focused on Lara at the start of her adventures. Roar Uthaug will direct the movie with Graham King as producer for the MGM and Warner Bros co-production.

I haven’t felt the touch of a man says Jennifer Lawrence Oscar-winning actor Jennifer Lawrence joked about her single status, asking “What dating life?”. Lawrence bemoaned about her relationship status while talking to AJ Calloway, the host of TV show Extra at the premiere of her film A Beautiful Planet in New York earlier this month, reported

dailymail.co.uk. “What dating life?” the 25-year-old joked when asked about her romantic life.

She insisted she was completely single, and even made a joke about exactly how long it had been since she was with someone. When Calloway asked “Are you kidding me?”, Lawrence responded - “No, it’s really sad!”. “I haven’t felt the touch of a man in...” the actor said just before tossing her head back in laughter. Lawrence had an on-and-off relationship with Coldplay singer Chris Martin. She also dated her X-Men co-star Nicholas Hoult onand-off for years.

Julia Roberts earned $3 million for her supporting role in romantic comedy film ‘Mother’s Day’ that required her to shoot for only four days.

That means her rate -- of $750,000 a day -- puts her among the topearning actresses in Hollywood. But it’s nowhere near the record (for a woman) $20 million she received at the peak of her career for the 2000 film ‘Erin Brockovich’, reports variety.com.

‘Mother’s Day’ opened with a disappointing $8.3 million over the weekend.

It’s a reminder that Julia Roberts’ days as an Alist star who could carry a movie on her own could be over -- as evidenced by other recent misfires like ‘The Secrets in Their Eyes’ and ‘Mirror Mirror’.

The ticket sales of the film were hurt by terrible reviews. Directed by Garry Marshall, the film features a sprawling cast from Jennifer Aniston to Kate Hudson that pop up in a series of vignettes.

Roberts plays Miranda, a famous home shopping network star who sports an Anna Wintour-like wig.

Taylor Swift will not do cameo in ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ Taylor Swift’s representative has revealed that the pop star will not make a cameo as the mutant singer Dazzler in upcoming ‘XMen Apocalypse’.

Rumours of the ‘Blank Space’ singer joining the cast of the ninth installment of ‘X-Men’ film series emerged after Simon Kinberg tweeted a photo of himself with Swift, James McAvoy and Sophie Turner last summer. According to Swift’s representative the casting rumours are entirely “not true”, reported Gossip Cop. The singer was in Montreal at the same time the film was shooting there, but she was in Canada for one of her ‘1989’ concerts,

which Simon, James and Sophie attended.

‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ is set to hit US theatres on May 27.

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3 May - 9 May 2016

Father Leaves Baby In Car For 90 Minutes While He Worked Out At Gym, Arrested Solomon Allen, a 25-yearold man from Los Angeles has been arrested on charges of child endangerment after he allegedly left his eight-month-old baby inside his car while he worked out at a north Hollywood gym. According to The Los Angeles Times, Solomon left his infant daughter in an unlocked car, with its engine running. The car was parked inside the parking lot belonging to the gym. The incident happened on Friday morning at around 9 a.m., local time.

According to the Los Angeles Police Department, the unattended baby was spotted inside the car by a maintenance worker who was working inside the parking lot garage. According to reports, the worker, who has not been identified yet heard the cries of a baby. The worker was astonished to find the unattended baby inside the car. It is not clear how long the baby was crying.

According to Jose Rivera,

a supervisor at the parking lot, the maintenance worker went into panic mode upon seeing the baby inside the car. He

said; “He went into panic mode. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A baby. Nobody around in the parking lot, not even walking by. He knew the baby had been in his eyes abandoned inside the vehicle. And the baby just seem really bothered, in the baby seat and just constantly crying.”

After the discovery of the baby inside the car, paramedics were called in who rescued the baby. The child was also transported

to a nearby hospital for a checkup. Doctors there confirmed that the baby was fine. The child was handed over to her mother

on the same day.

Commenting on the incident, LAPD Captain Stephen Carmona told KABC News; “It’s extremely careless and it’s very selfish to leave an infant that’s 8 months old in a car with the motor running, unlocked in a parking structure at a public business,.

Following his arrest Allen is being held on $100,000 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned on May 25th at the Van Nuys Superior

Court. The incident is also being talked about on social media. We have embedded a few tweets below; Father accused of leaving baby girl in car while he worked out at gym for 90 mins. Child into care and him behind bars, 10years.

This is not the first time The Inquisitr has reported about careless parents leaving their children behind in cars. Luckily, in this case, the car wasn’t locked and the child escaped unhurt.

Other children have however been less fortunate. In 2015, we had reported about a father in Florida who forgot to drop his baby at a daycare center while going to office and forgot the baby inside the car. He only discovered the lifeless body of his child when he came home that afternoon. In another incident, a baby boy died in the parking lot of Deltona Middle School in Florida last September when a teacher accidentally left the child in the hot vehicle.

Original Tintin ‘King Ottokar’s Sceptre’ art sells for $1.2m PARIS The orginal artwork for the last two pages of the Tintin comic book “King Ottokar’s Sceptre” sold for a total of 1.046 million euros ($1.2 million) at auction Saturday in Paris. “This is only the second time a Tintin plate has exceeded a million euros,” Eric Leroy, comic book expert at French auction house Artcurial, told AFP. A double page plate also from “King Ottokar’s Sceptre” sold for more than 1.5 million euros at Sotheby’s in Paris in October. Artcurial had estimated Saturday’s lot would fetch between 600,000 and 800,000 euros, before fees.

“Over a million euros, this is an excellent result,” said Leroy.

“Herge’s universe still conquers,” added Leroy, referring to the cartoonist behind the famous comic.

The work in blue water-

color, gouache and ink was bought on the phone “by a European collector, a long-time fan”, said Leroy. Published in 1939, “King Ottokar’s Sceptre” is the eighth instalment of the adventures of the in-

trepid boy reporter by the Belgian artist Herge.

Intended by Herge as criticism of Nazi Germany, Tintin helps thwart a plot to overthrow the king of a fictional Central European country which is threatened by an aggressive neighbour.

Tintin works are becoming increasingly popular with collectors. An ink drawing for the cover pages of the Tintin books published from 1937 to 1958 was sold for 2.65 million euros by Artcurial in 2014, a world record.

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A Tamilian in Chicago, running for Congress Raja Krishnamurthi had left India as a toddler, but 42-years later, still understands Tamil, the language his parents speak.

“Reply, I do in English,” Mr. Krishnamurthi told The Hindu by phone from Chicago.

“There can be confusion, otherwise,” he chortled. “It has always been a one way affair.

But I still understand Tamil extremely well.”

Mr. Krishnamurthi is the Democratic nominee for the 8th Congressional District of Illinois and appears firm on the path to be a member of the U.S. Congress by winning the November general elections.

The U.S. Congress now has only one member of Indian descent Ami Bera, who is seeking re-election from California.

Long name, short time “I have a long name and a short time to introduce myself,” his campaign ad, ‘Meet Raja’, shows him telling, as he meets voters in parking lots, diners and shopping malls. “I am Raja and I am the progressive candidate,” he tells them, and makes a specific commitment to support social security. “My parents are on social security. It is a personal issue.”

Engineer, lawyer and entrepreneur, Mr. Krishnamurthi’s political initiation came through his association with President Barack Obama. “It was in

1998 that I first met him,” he says about Mr. Obama who was then an Illinois State Senator. “In 1999, I worked for his campaign as a low level researcher,” he recalls. Mr. Obama’s 1999 campaign for Congress did not take off.

However, in 2002, Mr. Obama invited Mr. Krishnamurthi to join as the policy director of his Senate election campaign. “‘I have one more race left in me,’ the President told me then. I jumped onboard,” said Mr. Krishnamurthi, who also worked as an adviser to Mr. Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. It was Mr. Obama’s trailblazing political ascent that inspired Mr. Krishnamurthi.

“The President’s Senate victory in 2004 and his subsequent rise was clear proof that if you are hardworking and committed, nothing else matters,” he said. Mr. Krishnamurthi challenged sitting Congresswoman and seasoned Democrat Tammy Duckworth in the last election cycle but could not succeed. Ms. Duckworth is not seeking re-election this time as she is running for the U.S. Senate from Illinois. Mr. Krishnamurthi is to contest against Peter DiCianni of the Republican Party in November. Born in Delhi where his maternal grandfather worked with the Indian Defence Ministry, Mr. Krishnamurthi spent his early childhood in New

York, where his father had come for a Ph.D. He grew up in Peoria, Illinois, where the senior Krishnamurthi taught industrial engineering for 40 years. Mr. Krishnamurthi has an engineering degree from Princeton University and a law degree from Harvard. Having founded a small business organisation that deals in renewable energy products, he believes that the future of American middle class is in small businesses.

He has been endorsed by three biggest newspapers in Chicago, apart from several prominent individuals and groups. His campaign has been a huge success in terms of fund raising as well $1.6 million and counting.

The Obama crowd Though President Obama has not been in direct touch sitting Presidents do not get involved in elections — many from the original Obama crowd have announced support. This includes David Axelrod, the key strategist of his presidential campaigns.

Reviving the American middle class is Mr. Krishnamurthi’s key campaign plank and as a person of Indian origin, he cannot escape the question on H1B visas, a major debate in the ongoing campaign.

“Donald Trump wanted to eliminate the H-1B visas but then someone whispered into his hears that doing so would wipe out the IT and high tech industry. Some of these folks are misinformed. We have to do our part to educate them and at the same time, we also have to cultivate local, indigenous talent in the U.S. These are the jobs of the 21st century and unless they are trained in these jobs, they will not be able to climb the economic ladder,” Mr. Krishnamurthi said.

“There has to be win-win solution. If we have some cool, calm discussions about it, we can address a lot of concerns on both sides. Right now there is a lot of rhetoric around it,” he added.

‘Y’ category security cover for Nita Ambani on paid basis Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani’s wife Nita Ambani is all set to get ‘Y’ category security with an escort vehicle from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) on paid basis. Her husband, who is already a ‘Z’ category central protectee, also pays for his security. As many as 40 personnel from the CRPF guard his residence and office besides protecting him when he moves around in his

armoured custom-made Mercedes.

“Since her (Nita Ambani) residence is already protected by the CRPF as part of her husband’s security, no additional resources will be de-

ployed there. She will get around 20 guards for her round-the-clock protection across the country,” said a home ministry official who spoke on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to media. Officials said though there is no specific threat to Nita Ambani, but being spouse of Mukesh Ambani she may face threats from criminals and other antinational elements.

Chhota Rajan faces death threat from Chhota Shakeel while in Tihar

Underworld don Chhota Rajan, deported to India after being caught from Bali in Indonesia in October last year, continues to face death threat even inside the high security Tihar jail where he has been lodged, Delhi Police sources said.

They said an SMS was purportedly sent from the cell phone of Chhota Shakeel, a close aide of fugutive mob boss Dawood Ibrahim, to a senior Tihar jail official threatening to eliminate Chhota Rajan, prompting the senior officer to seek additional security for him.

The SMS was sent from mobile number 971504265138 to the cell phone of Tihar Law Officer Sunil Gupta, threatening 'The End' of Chhota Rajan very soon, sources said. A call had also been received on Tihar's landline number following the SMS after which Rajan's security has been enhanced.

The police has also been informed about the threat call.

"How long will you save this dead pig from death, very soon I will do his the end," the message by "Haji Chhota Shakeel" said.

A Special Cell officer confirmed the receipt of the message by the Tihar official without disclosing anything else.

Gupta had received the SMS in the morning of November 24 last year after which he brought the matter into the knowledge of higher ups and sought security for himself and his family, sources said. The matter is now being investigated by police.

After being on the run for 27 years, Chhota Rajan was arrested in Bali (Indonesia) on October 25 on a Red Corner notice of Interpol.

He was deported and brought to India on November 6 for facing trial in various criminal cases registered against him in Delhi and Mumbai.

In New Delhi he was sent to 14day judicial custody by a local court and lodged in the high-security Tihar jail on November 19.

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Journalists have come under the scanner after revelat

THE BUYLINE Politicians, officials and agents are not the only ones defending smeared reputations while battling charges of kickbacks in a VVIP helicopter deal.

Even journalists have come under the scanner following revelations that the firm AgustaWestland paid British businessman and alleged middleman Christian Michel Rs 50 crore to manage the Indian media.

The money was allegedly paid to handle bad press on the Rs 3,500-crore deal.

BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi expressed concern in Parliament over the alleged misuse of media.

Little is known about how the money was spent and investigators have a job at hand to unearth the truth. Arms companies, in the hunt for defence contracts, are known to engage journalists and even organise foreign junkets.

Document A document has surfaced showing AgustaWestland paying 6 million Euros to Christian Michel from January 2010 onwards for handling the media. The deal was finalised in 2009.

Keeping the heat on the issue, the government dismissed the offensive launched by the Congress to defend its leader Sonia Gandhi as “trivial technicalities” and claimed it was determined to “bring to justice the corrupt and the wrong-doers in this case”.

Even as the issue was still to come up for discussion in Parliament, BJP president Amit Shah launched a scathing Youth Congress members demand resignations of BJP CMs Raman Singh and Vasundhara Raje. attack on Congress president Sonia Gandhi saying she should clarify who received bribes in the chopper deal.

Constitution “You say you are not scared of anything.

We in the BJP fear the Constitution, rule of law and societal norms,” said Amit Shah taking a dig at the Congress chief for saying she was not afraid of anyone as she sought an inquiry into the allegations.

The government said that contrary to claims made by the Congress, all the procurements from AgustaWestland, its parent company Finmeccanica and AgustaWestland as they sought speeding up of probe. other affiliates were put on hold when NDA The government said that the delay in investigation is came to power. “largely because some of the key perpetrators of this On the allegation that AgustaWestland misdeed are outside the country.” was allowed to do business by entering “It is the present government which through its order dated a joint venture with Tata Sons, the 03 July 2014, put on hold all procurement / acquisition government clarified that the proposal cases in the pipeline of six companies figuring in the FIR was approved in September 2011 and it registered by the CBI, namely: M/s AgustaWestland has already been expired. The International Ltd, UK, M/s Finmeccanica, Italy and its government also noted that the group of companies, including subsidiaries and affiliates, investigating agencies - the CBI and M/s IDS, Tunisia, M/s Infotech Design System (IDS), Enforcement Directore - are probing the Mauritius, M/s IDS Infotech Ltd., Mohali and M/s deal and pursing extradition of Carlo Aeromatrix Info Solution Pvt Ltd, Chandigarh,” said officials.

Gerosa, Guido Haschke Ralph and “On the core issue of corruption, the two concerned Christian Michel James, the three alleged agencies, namely CBI and Enforcement Directorate are middlemen. vigorously pursuing all aspects of the investigation, Defence minister Manohar Parrikar is including the arrests and/or extradition of three foreign expected to reply in Parliament next nationals. week.

Red Corner Notices were issued in December 2015 and The government has countered January 2016 through Interpol under Prevention of Money allegations made by the Congress Laundering Act and Prevention of Corruption Act,” the leaders that no action was taken against government clarified.

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ions that middleman Christian Michel was paid to manage the Indian m

IAF asks govt to acquire specialised copters to ferry VVIPs

Congress president Sonia Gandhi with son and party vice president Rahul Gandhi

Notwithstanding the scuttled acquisition process for VVIP helicopters and the drama surrounding the saga, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has once again asked the government to acquire specialised helicopters to ferry VVIPs. Signalling the end of an ambitious experiment of retrofitting helicopters into VVIP role, top Defence Ministry sources confirmed the IAF’s representation to the government where it has expressed its discomfort over the ‘stop gap’ arrangement it has been forced into.

The matter now lies at the doorstep of the Cabinet Committee of Security (CCS).

Even before the cancellation of the VVIP helicopter deal on January 1, 2014, the IAF kept aside 11 Mi17V5 helicopters for upgrade.

While those upgraded choppers are being tested, the IAF has opined that they can at best be used temporarily. With this, an ambitious attempt to indigenously retrofit the medium lift Russian helicopters has reached a dead end.

“We have mooted a proposal so that this arrangement can end. It can hardly be called healthy,” a source said. A top functionary aware of the development explained, “Converting a medium

lift chopper into a VVIP configuration is not just about putting better seats and better air conditioning. We cannot divulge our exact objections with the retrofitted Mi17V5 given that VVIPs are involved.

However, there is no doubt anymore that this experiment needs to be curtailed as a temporary measure. The government has been made aware.

They have to decide.” IAF’s Chandigarh based 3rd Base Repair Depot (BRD) was entrusted with the task of retrofitting the planes early in 2014 following a detailed study.

“A sizeable team of technicians have worked on it and have sought several certifications again since the task has been modified. Needless to say, there can be no chances taken given that VVIPs will be using these planes,” added a source.

While it was informed that ‘some’ of the retrofitted helicopters were already being used, a source said, “By June, at least five helicopters will be made available to the Communications Squadron which is the one that ferries the VVIPs.” The helicopter wing of the Communication Squadron is manned by a mix of obsolete Mi8 helicopters and Mi17 V5s.

Swamy warned against ‘provoking’ Opposition A Day after a high-decibel war of words between the treasury and Opposition benches over the Agusta Westland deal in Parliament, both Houses were back to normal as part of a truce between the two sides barring uproar by the Congress over nominated member Subramanian Swamy’s provocative remarks.

Just two days old in the Upper House, Swamy’s comments forced the Chair to expunge his remarks for the second day consecutively. Chaos resulted after Chaudhary Munavver Saleem of the SP in a Zero Hour mention referred to Swamy being part of the movement in the 1970s to protect the minority status of Aligarh Muslim University.

Swamy got up to clarify saying he had no objection to minority education institutions but the Constitution prohibits the state from financing them.

While Swamy had incensed Congress members by naming party chief Sonia Gandhi in the

AgustaWestland scam on Wednesday, on Thursday he provoked the opposition party by saying while they may have a good understanding of the Constitution of another country (an indirect reference to Sonia’s country of birth) he knew the Indian Constitution better.

As angry Congress members protested, the Chair immediately ordered expunging of Swamy’s remarks and warned him of action for unnecessarily provoking members on the other side.

“I will take action against you. Subramanian Swamy you are unnecessarily provoking. I will have to take action against you... you are provoking,” Kurien said.

Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad taunted the BJP leader saying Swamy, 76, had not matured with age.

“It is only his second day in Parliament. In two days you have expunged his remarks twice and there are

365 days and how many times you are going to expunge his words? This man has aged but does not know the difference between street words and Parliament words,” said Azad.

Taking a dig at the ruling party, Azad said Swamy was BJP’s gift to the House and would force the Congress to disrupt the House. The Congress has a strong dislike for Swamy who is a known Congress and Gandhi family baiter.

Though he was shouted down by the Congress members on Wednesday, Swamy did not give up and tried to raise the chopper deal issue several times, to be interrupted by the Congress members each time.

“I am not going to mention that lady’s name,” Swamy said in an apparent reference to Sonia Gandhi. As he again stood up to speak, Kurien asked Swamy to sit down and directed him to meet him in his chamber.

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3 May - 9 May 2016

Crisis-hit Venezuela pushes clocks forward to save power CARACAS With their country gripped by an economic crisis, Venezuelans lost half an hour of sleep early Sunday as their clocks were moved forward to save power on President Nicolas Maduro's order. At 2:30 am local time, the oil-dependent South American nation shifted its time ahead by 30 minutes - to four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time.The move, announced in mid-April, is part of a package of measures the OPEC member nation is pursuing to cope with a crippling electricity shortage.

Maduro's socialist government has also allowed rolling blackouts and reduced public sector work weeks to two days a week, and ordered schools to close on Fridays. Maduro has blamed the El Nino weather phenomenon for the lack of rain that has reduced the lakes at Venezuela's hydroelectric dams to oversized puddles. The drought, the most severe in 40

years, has especially affected the El Guri dam, which provides 70 percent of Venezuela's electricity.In announcing the time change, Science

and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza said the nighttime use of lighting and air conditioning was especially draining for the power grid. "It'll be simple to move the clock forward a half hour - this will allow us to enjoy more daylight, and it won't get dark so early," he said. Maduro's late predecessor, Hugo Chavez, added the unusual half-hour time change in December 2007 also with the goal of saving power. Chavez died in 2013.

Speaking in a national

broadcast on the eve of International Workers' Day, Maduro decreed a 30 percent increase in the minimum wage. In the late Saturday presentation he also

called on his followers to join May Day rallies in Caracas. While the wage hike may seem substantial, given Venezuela's tripledigit inflation rate that brings the amount to the equivalent of $40 a month at the official exchange rate, or just $14 a month at the black market rate. The decree, which came into effect on Sunday, includes pay raises for public workers, pensioners and members of the military. Oncebooming Venezuela, which has the world's largest

proven oil reserves, has plunged into economic chaos as global crude prices have collapsed. Its economy has been in recession since 2013. Venezuelans face acute shortages of such basics as toilet paper thanks to the scarcity of dollars needed for imports. The government imposed currency controls in 2003 in an effort to crack down on a bustling black market in dollars. With most of Venezuela's hard currency revenue coming from oil exports, the lower oil prices make dollars even harder to get than before the crisis.

Maduro blames the country's crisis on an "economic war" waged by capitalists, and has vowed to press on with the socialist "revolution" launched by Chavez in 1999. But the president's political opposition emboldened by strong electoral gains in January - says mismanagement is to blame for the power crisis as well as for shortage of food and basic household goods.

Television facing same dwindling fate of print in UK, US

London Beating global trends, print and television continue to grow in India, but new research suggests that television in Britain and the US is facing the same dwindling fortunes of print, which went into decline with the onset of TV. India and China are the only countries where print journalism has been growing while in the west it suffered setbacks, first due to television and more recently due to digital media. But now television too seems to be buckling under digital media.

Titled ‘What is happening to television news?’ the report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford says that in Britain and the US, traditional television viewing is falling as the rapid rise of online video viewing continues.

“If television news providers fail to respond to these profound shifts in how people use media, they risk even-

tually becoming irrelevant”, the report says.

Television viewing figures in the UK and the US have declined by 3 to 4% a year on average since 2012, which the report says is directly comparable to the decline in print readership seen by newspapers during the 2000s – the decline is particularly noted among the young.

The rise of video-sharing sites, video-on-demand services and social mediaintegrated video means that younger audiences watch more and more online video, the report by Rasmus Kleis Nielson and Richard Sambrook says.

“There are no reasons to believe that a generation that has grown up with and enjoys digital, on-demand, social and mobile video viewing across a range of connected devices will come to prefer live, linear, scheduled programming tied to a single device just because they grow older,” says Nielsen.

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3 May - 9 May 2016

How to Shut Down the ‘Jihad Factories’

by Brahma Chellaney The Brussels bombings, as with the Paris terrorist attacks last year, show that jihadi-minded citizens of European Union states can turn into killers by imbibing the insidious ideology of Wahhabism.

This is the mother of fanatical Islamist groups – alQaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab and Islamic State – all of which blend hostility toward nonSunni Muslims and antimodern romanticism into

nihilistic rage.

The key to battling Islamist terrorism is to stem the spread of the ideology that

tant Islamic fundamentalism that targets the West, Israel and India as its enemies.

No country has contributed more than Saudi Arabia to the international spread of Wahhabism, which is gradually snuffing out more liberal Islamic traditions in many countries.

If Saudi Arabia is to be stopped from continuing to export radical Islamist extremism, the United States and Europe will have to adjust their policies to stop the cloistered Saudi royals from continuing to fund Muslim extremist groups and madrassas in other countries.

With Western support, tyrannical oil monarchies in Riyadh, Doha and elsewhere were able to ride out the Arab Spring, emerging virtually unscathed. Saudi Arabia has faced little international pressure, even on human rights.

How the Saudi kingdom buys up world leaders is apparent from the Malaysian attorney-general’s recent disclosure that $681-

has fostered “jihad factories.” The export of Wahhabism by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and some other oil sheikdoms is the source of modern Islamist terror. From Africa to Asia and now Europe, Arabian petrodollars have played a key role in fomenting mili-

million (U.S.) deposited in Prime Minister Najib Razak’s personal bank account was a “personal donation” from the Saudi royals and that $620-million of it was returned.

Saudi Arabia has also given between $10-million and $25-million to the

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Clinton Foundation.

For too long, the rest of the world – in thrall to Saudi money and reliant on Saudi oil – has largely turned a blind eye to the kingdom’s jihadi agenda.

That is slowly beginning to change. As German ViceChancellor Sigmar Gabriel put it: “We must make it clear to the Saudis that the time of looking the other way is over.” After last December’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., U.S. President Barack Obama alluded to Wahhabism as a “perverted interpretation of Islam."

Jihadism and sectarianism are institutionalized in Saudi Arabia, which is named after its founder, commonly known as Ibn Saud. Saud, who ruled for 20 years until his death, brought the central part of the Arabian Peninsula under his control with British assistance in 1932, establishing a desert kingdom hewing to Wahhabism, a messianic radicalism that was considered a fringe form of Islam until oil wealth helped transform the oncebarren Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest country

Iraqi PM orders arrest of protesters who attacked lawmakers, damaged properties Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered authorities to arrest and bring to justice

protesters who attacked security forces, lawmakers and damaged properties of state institutions after breaking into

Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone to protest delays in reform plans.

Al-Abadi's Sunday state-

ment came a day after hundreds of angry anti-government followers of influential Shiite cleric Muqtada alSadr tore down blast walls

and poured into the parliament building, exacerbating a long-simmering political crisis. Late Saturday, al-Abadi toured inside the parliament building, walking past damaged furniture.

Videos on social media showed a group of young men slapping two Iraqi lawmakers as they attempted to flee the crowd, while other protesters mobbed lawmakers' motorcades. The protesters eventually left the parliament Saturday night and rallied at a nearby square.

without a river.

Since the oil-price boom of the 1970s, Saudi Arabia has spent more than $200billion on its global jihad project, including funding Wahhabi madrassas, mosques, clerics and books. Wahhabism legitimizes violent jihad with its call for a war on “infidels.”

Europe’s new terror is a reminder that Wahhabi fanaticism is the root from which Islamist terrorists draw their ideological sustenance. As U.S. VicePresident Joe Biden said in a 2014 speech at Harvard University, Saudi and other “allies’ policies wound up helping to arm and build allies of al-Qaeda and eventually the terrorist [Islamic State].”

Today, with its future more uncertain than ever, the House of Saud is increasingly playing the sectarian card to shore up support among the Sunni majority at home and to rally other Islamist rulers in the region to its side. Having helped to militarily crush the Arab Spring uprising in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia in January executed its own Arab Spring leader, Sheik Nimr al-Nimr, who had led anti-

regime Shia protests in 2011.

Before the execution, the kingdom formed an alliance of Sunni states purportedly to fight terrorism.

The coalition included all the main sponsors of international terror, such as Qatar and Pakistan. It was like arsonists pretending to be fire wardens. According to a United Nations panel of experts, Saudi Arabia is “violating international humanitarian law” in Yemen, where it is waging an air campaign against Iranianbacked Houthi rebels.

The Saudi royals seem to mistakenly believe that widening the sectarian fault lines in the Islamic world will keep them in power.

By drawing legitimacy from jihadism and by being beholden to sectarianism, the royals, however, could be digging their own graves. After all, fuelling jihadism and sectarianism threatens to empower extremists at home and ultimately devour the royalty.

More broadly, the global war on terror cannot be won without closing the wellspring that feeds terrorism: Wahhabi fanaticism.

Wahhabism is the ultimate

source of the hatred that triggered the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, and the recent Paris and Brussels terrorism.

Shutting that wellspring demands that the West hold Saudia Arabia, the world’s chief ideological sponsor of jihadism, to account for spawning the dangerous extremists who are imperilling regional and international security.

The late Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew correctly said in 2003 that winning the war on terror hinges more on controlling the “queen bees” – the “preachers” of the “deviant form of Islam” – than on simply killing the “worker bees” (terrorists).

As long as Wahhabism keeps jihad factories in business, there will be suicide killers. Dismantling the Saudi, Qatari and other Wahhabi religious-industrial complexes exporting jihadism is more imperative than ever.

Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and author, most recently of Water, Peace, and War.

ISIS technicians developing Google-style driverless cars for attacks Islamic State (ISIS) technicians are working to develop a Google-style driverless car that could navigate itself into a crowded area before detonating an explosive device, a NATO security expert has warned.

ISIS' research and development department in the terror group's de facto Syrian capital, Raqqa, is believed to be producing the vehicles at the same time as US Internet giant Google attempts to perfect the same technology. If successful, the invention could prove to be a major headache for security services in Britain and throughout Europe and North America, where selfdriving cars are expected

to become commonplace, Daily Express reported.

Thousands of driverless cars are expected to be on Britain's roads within the next few years and there

is a very real prospect jihadis could prey on the new technology to launch attacks in the UK. Jamie Shea, NATO's deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security threats, said the Islamic extremists were using their bomb making fac-

tory in Raqqa to develop the technology.

He said ISIS was using its "technical expertise" to "play around" with driverless cars in a "worrying" development. Shea said: "We are focusing very much on...Raqqa at the moment, where ISIL [ISIS] has its bomb making factory. "It is not just Google that is producing the autonomous car, ISIS is also trying to do the same." The technology would remove the need for suicide bombers and could help the death cult - also known by its Arabic acronym Daesh - cope with the dramatic drop in its numbers, which has seen its fighting force cut almost in half.

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3 May - 9 May 2016

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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3 May - 9 May 2016

Technology Twitter says sayonara to Magic Recs!

The microblogging site Twitter silently closed ‘MagicRecs’- an effective bot account that used to send users direct messeges (DM) recommending viral accounts or tweets to follow, according to TechCrunch reports.

It was mainly used to inform users via occasional direct messages about the new accounts that people in their twitter network have started following recently.

Along with this it also used to deliver instant personalized recommendations for users and content via direct messages.

However, Twitter said “Magic Recs” would send recommendations through push notifications. “@MagicRecs is no longer regularly sending recommendations through Direct Message. Recommendations that were previously shared via Direct Message are now delivered via push

notification,” a Twitter spokesperson was quoted as saying.

“Magic Recs” was launched in 2013 and the push notifications -- alerts that are not

tweets but appear in the notifications tab on mobile -were first activated some months later.

This could be another blow to the company as at a time when bots are starting to become a thing, “Magic Recs” bot is being retired.

“Magic Recs” was a bot that worked when some have flopped. Magic Recs was accurate in predicting inter-

esting accounts to follow and tweets to watch, the report said.

On Friday, the microblogging website was recategorised under the

“news” section of the App Store rather than “social networking”.

The change was due to the fact that Twitter, which was famous for real time news feeds and events, was preferred less when it came to keeping in touch with friends.

The company reported a sharp fall in shares -about 12 percent -- after

the micro-blogging website, which managed to add 5 million people to take its monthly active user base to 310 million, missed the first quarter revenue estimates this week.

The company posted $595 million revenue in the first quarter ending March 31. It was up 36 percent from $435.9 million in the same quarter last year but missed the $607.9 million expected on average among analysts, Forbes reported.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that “we remain focused on improving our service to make it fast, simple and easy to use”.

Twitter has predicted revenue for the second quarter between $590 million and $610 million -- much lower than the $678 million analysts expected.

Twitter’s stock has fallen over 20 percent this year amid sluggish growth.

Facebook troublemakers can give you tough time online!

If researchers are to be trusted, socially well connected people may become online troublemakers on Facebook only for those who try to avoid them. So, if till now, you were thinking that you cannot unfriend your dearest buddy on the social networking site because he/ she might make your life miserable, you were absolutely right.

Online troublemakers tend to be socially well connected, said a team from Nottingham Trent University in Britain, adding that some Facebook users remain friends online with troublemakers because

they are worried about the repercussions if they “unfriend” them. People are spending more and more time online making them more vulnerable to potentially damaging social tension and disagreements.

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A decade-old Apple turns Twitter into ‘news app’ in App Store Google Translate!

Google Translate-a free translation service offered

by Google, that has been helping us since a long time turned 10 on Friday.

The service, which translates words, web pages and phrases between English and over hundred other languages, currently provides support to 9 of India’s 22 official lan-

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guages. It also features voice search in Hindi and 7 other India languages which came into existence in June 2014. Visual translation from English to Hindi was added in July 2015 and Sindhi language was added to the mix earlier this year.

Google also made it possible to do a bilingual conversation on Translate. In its journey of 10 years, Google Translate has helped people make connections by translation. “Our goal was to break language barriers and to make the world more accessible. Since then, we have grown from supporting two languages to 103 and from hundreds of users to hundreds of millions,” Barak Turovsky, product lead of Google Translate, posted on Google’s official blog.

After reporting dismal results this week, microblogging website Twitter is no longer pitted against social networks like Facebook and is now categorised under the

Endgadget reported.

Twitter is famous for real time news feeds and events and unlike Facebook, it is preferred less when it comes to keeping in touch with

rent events, the report noted.

This is probably the best thing that has happened with Twitter as this change has helped it gain more visibility and it is now the

“news” section in the Apple’s App Store.

“Starting today (Friday), Twitter is categorised under the ‘news’ section of the App Store rather than ‘social networking’. It is a change that makes a lot of sense and fits with both how Twitter has positioned itself as well as how it is being used,” the technology website

friends.

It is more about following people who share things you find interesting and relevant, whether you know them or not.

Twitter Moments was probably the biggest new feature the service launched in the last year and it again shows its focus squarely on curating the best commentary surrounding cur-

number one free app in the news category of the App Store.

Twitter shares fell sharply about 12 percent after the micro-blogging website which managed to add 5 million people to take its monthly active user base to 310 million - missed the first quarter revenue estimates this week.

The company posted $595

million revenue in the first quarter ending March 31.

It was up 36 percent from $435.9 million in the same quarter last year but missed the $607.9 million expected on average among analysts, Forbes reported.

Twitter posted a net loss of $79.7 million compared with a year-earlier loss of $162.4 million.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that “we remain focused on improving our service to make it fast, simple and easy to use”.

Twitter has predicted revenue for the second quarter between $590 million and $610 million -- much lower than the $678 million analysts expected.

“Revenue came in at the low end of our guidance range, as brand marketers did not increase spend as quickly as expected in Q1,” the company tweeted.

According to Dorsey, the engagement on Twitter is growing. Direct messages are up about 50 percent year-over-year and tweets shared via direct message are up more than 75 percent quarter-over-quarter.

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3 May - 9 May 2016

Toddlers have shot at least 23 in U.S. this year The U.S. has witnessed at least 23 toddler-involved shootings since January 1, reporting a spurt in such tragic incidents despite the Obama administration’s efforts to introduce new

gun control measures, compared to 18 over the same period last year, the Washington Post reported.

In the vast majority of cases, the children accidentally shoot themselves.

That has happened 18 times this year, and in nine of those cases the children died of their wounds.

Rate: about one a week Last year, a Washington Post analysis found that toddlers were finding guns and shooting people at a rate of about one a week.

This year, that pace has

accelerated, the report said.

Toddlers have shot other people five times this year.

Two of those cases were fatal: this week’s incident in Milwaukee, and that of

a 3-year-old Alabama boy who fatally shot his 9-yearold brother in February.

Just the tip of the iceberg These numbers represent only a small fraction of gun violence involving children.

For instance, the pro-gun control group ‘Everytown for Gun Safety’ has found at least 77 instances this year in which a child younger than 18 has accidentally shot someone.

And there is a whole different universe of gun violence in which toddlers are

shot, intentionally or not, by adults.

This kid shot his mother This past week, a Milwaukee toddler fatally shot his mother after finding a handgun in the back seat of the

car they were travelling in.

Georgia is home to the highest number of toddler shootings, with at least eight incidents since January 2015.

Texas and Missouri are tied for second place with seven shootings each, while Florida and Michigan are tied for fourth, with six shootings apiece.

Some interesting stats California and New York are two high-population states that have seen only three toddler shootings between them since 2015, the report

said.

And Illinois, home to infamously high rates of gun violence in Chicago, has not seen a single toddler shooting since 2015. This suggests that other factors may be at play in the states that see disproportionately high numbers of shootings by toddlers.

Missouri and Georgia, for instance, have fairly lax laws regulating how guns are stored to prevent child access. On the other hand, New York has no such child access laws in place, yet only one toddler has shot someone there since 2015, the report said.

Cultural factors Perhaps other factors are at play as well. There could be cultural factors norms surrounding gun use and ownership, for instance that may make these shootings more likely in some areas than in others, it added.

In his first weekly address of 2016, President Barack Obama vowed to take executive action to increase background checks on gun buyers to tackle the “epidemic of gun violence.”

New Princess Charlotte photos mark her first birthday LONDON Four new photographs of Britain's Princess Charlotte playing at her family's country home were released by the royal family on Sunday to mark her first birthday.

The photographs were taken by her mother, Kate, last month at Anmer Hall, the secluded house in Norfolk, eastern England, where the family spends much of its time.

Prince William and Kate were "happy to be able to share these family moments ahead of their daughter's first birthday" on Monday, their Kensington Palace office wrote on Twitter. "We hope that everyone enjoys these lovely photos as much as we do," it added. Charlotte is pictured in two different but matching floral patterned dresses - one pink, one blue, with a cardigan on top. In one of the shots, she is pushing a baby walker full of wooden bricks in the garden.

In another, she is holding a children's sound and action book which appears to

be "The Wheels On The Bus" by British author David Ellwand.

William and Kate have been keen to protect the privacy of Charlotte and her brother, two-year-old Prince George. The little girl, who is fourth in line to the throne, has only been seen in a few photographs since her birth, mainly released by royal officials.

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3 May - 9 May 2016

North Korea sends another US citizen to prison North Korea North Korea on Friday sentenced a US citizen of Korean heritage to 10 years in prison after convicting him of espionage and

subversion, the second American it has put behind bars this year.

Kim Dong Chul had been detained in the North on suspicion of engaging in spying and stealing state secrets. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison with hard labour after a brief trial in Pyongyang. North Korea’s Supreme Court found Kim guilty of crimes and espionage and subversion of under Articles 60 and 64 of the North’s criminal code.

Further details were not immediately available. When he was paraded before the media in

Pyongyang last month, Kim said he had collaborated with and spied for South Korean intelligence authorities in a plot to bring down the North’s

leadership and had tried to spread religion among North Koreans before his arrest in the city of Rason last October.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, the country’s main spy agency, has said Kim’s case wasn’t related to the organization in any way.

Kim’s sentencing comes on the heels of a 15-year sentence handed down on Otto Warmbier, an American university student who the North says was engaged in anti-state activities while visiting the country as a tourist earlier this year.

North Korea regularly accuses

No assurance from Pak on release of doctor who helped track Laden: US

Washington Pakistan has not given any assurance on the release of the jailed doctor who helped CIA agents hunt Osama bin Laden despite repeated request, a senior American official has said.

“We believe he’s been unjustly prisoned, and we have clearly and repeatedly communicated our position to Pakistan on the

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Shakeel Afridi case, both in public and private, our opposition to his imprisonment,” State department deputy spokesman Mark Toner told reporters on Friday.“We continue to raise this issue at the highest levels in any discussion we have with the Pakistani leadership. The Pakistani government has assured us that Dr Afridi is being treated humanely and is in good health, but we believe he’s being unjustly imprisoned,” he said.

Pakistan has given no commitment on the release of Afridi, who was jailed in 2012 for 33 years for running a fake vaccination campaign that is believed to have helped the US intelligence agency track down bin Laden in Abbottabad in May 2011.

That sentence was overturned in 2013 and the doctor is now in jail awaiting a new trial.

Washington and Seoul of sending spies to overthrow its government to enable the USbacked South Korean government to control the entire Korean Peninsula. Some foreigners previously arrested have read statements of guilt they later said were coerced.

Most of those who are sentenced to long prison terms are released before serving their full time.

In the past, North Korea has held out until senior US officials or statesmen came to personally bail out detainees, all the way up to former President Bill Clinton, whose visit in 2009 secured the freedom of American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Both had crossed North Korea’s border from China illegally.

It took a visit in November 2014

by U.S. spy chief James Clapper to bring home Mathew Miller, also arrested after entering the country as a tourist, and Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, who had been incarcerated since November 2012.

Jeffrey Fowle, a U.S. tourist detained for six months at about the same time as Miller, was released just before that and sent home on a U.S. government plane. Fowle left a Bible in a local club hoping a North Korean would find it, which is considered a criminal offense in North Korea.

US woman sent to 100 years in prison for cutting baby out from womb

Los Angeles A US court sentenced a 35year-old Colorado woman to 100 years in prison after she convicting of cutting out an unborn baby from its mother’s womb.

Dynel Lane attacked Michelle Wilkins, who was seven months pregnant, when she went to visit Lane in response to her online advertisement about maternity clothes in March last year, CNN reported.

When Wilkins came to Lane’s house in Longmont, she was beaten and stabbed by Lane and her uterus was cut open to removed the foetus, according to prosecutors.Wilkins survived the attack but her unborn baby did not make it.Authorities said Lane had been carrying out a ruse that she was pregnant. Her partner testified he came home early that day to take Lane to a doctor’s appointment and found her covered in blood, saying she had a miscarriage, the report

said.The partner took Lane and the baby to the hospital without knowing that Wilkin was bleeding in the basement.

Wilkins, who was 26 at the time, managed to lock herself in a room and call 911.

Lane was a certified nurse aide and a police report says that doctors who treated Wilkins at the hospital said the incision “appeared to have been well performed” by somebody who has researched C-sections, the report said.

Britain’s queen joins royal Invictus Games challenge to Obamas WASHINGTON When US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama challenged Britain’s Prince Harry on social media on Friday, he responded by bringing in a big gun: the Queen.

The Obamas posted a video of themselves on Twitter promoting the Invictus Games, an international sports event for wounded, disabled and sick military personnel and veterans.

‘Hey, Prince Harry. Remember when you told us to ‘bring it’ at the Invictus Games?’ Michele Obama playfully challenges.

‘Careful what you wish for,’ the president says, as military officers stand behind the first couple with mock menace on their faces. ‘Boom!’ one of the guards said, dropping an imitation bomb to add emphasis to the good-natured taunt. Harry, fifth-in-line to the throne and a patron of the Invictus Games, responded to the US president and his wife in kind.

‘Unfortunately for you, @FLOTUS and @POTUS, I wasn’t alone when you sent me that video,’ the prince tweeted to the Obamas at their Twitter

handles. He added a smiley-face emoticon and a video of his own, showing him chatting amiably with his grandmother Queen Elizabeth while they thumbed through an Invictus Games brochure, just as the Obamas’ challenge lands in his cellphone.

‘Boom?’ the Queen says to her grandson after watching the video. ‘Really, please!’ she adds in amusement. Turning to the camera, Harry smiles triumphantly, and says, ‘Boom!’

The Invictus Games, first held in London in September 2014, will

take place this year in Orlando, Florida from May 8 to 12.

Prince Harry visited the White House in October, when Obama said the games were a way to make sure people see not only the sacrifices wounded warriors have made, ‘but also the incredible contributions, strength and courage that they continue to display.’ During a visit to a Virginia military base the same day, Harry issued a friendly challenge to potential US competitors: ‘You better bring it, USA.’

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3 May - 9 May 2016

Art exhibit to spread awareness about Sikh identity in the US NEW DELHI Even after fifteen years of the 9/ 11 tragedy, Sikhs in the US feel they are more likely to face profiling, bigotry and backlash than the average American because of the two distinct symbols of their identity-the beard and the turban.

To spread better awareness about their religion, a new Sikh art exhibit will be held in New York later this year to showcase the pride taken by the community in their religious and cultural practices.

UK-based photographers Amit and Naroop will click portraits of Sikh Americans under ‘The Sikh Project’ mounted by The Sikh Coalition. These portraits will be unveiled around the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

The Coalition is the largest Sikh American advocacy and community development organisation in the US and works towards the realisation of civil and human rights for all people, particularly Sikhs.

After their critically acclaimed exhibit in the UK, the two photographers, who are proud of their Sikh heritage, said they are “very excited” about their upcoming exhibition.

“We are very excited! In the US, it will serve as an educational piece as well as an art project as the awareness of the Sikh identity is still misunderstood; so we are hoping it will have a wider impact,” the two photographers said in an email interview from

New York.

The photography exhibit, which explores the beauty, style and symbolism of the Sikh articles of faith, will include both turbaned men and women and will feature a combination of

was “appreciated” and “respected” for its message and the way it was executed.

“The content and context resonated with people from different backgrounds as it is not just about Sikhs; it’s about pride

better than it”.“In the UK, we have witnessed how powerful art can be in positively educating the broader public about the Sikh community. We can’t wait to begin photographing the Sikh American experience and

iconic Sikh Americans and a few selected winners.

Speaking about how the idea of ‘The Sikh Project’ came to them, the two photographers said it was in 2013 that it struck them when they “noticed men of different backgrounds and ages growing beards for fashion, as part of their identity”.

“Being Sikh photographers, we wanted to show them that in our culture, the beard has been a part of the Sikh identity for hundreds of years,” they said.

They said their UK exhibition got “overwhelming response” and

for your identity.”

The two want their latest project to “stand up to the UK Singh Project and if anything do even

sharing those stories with the world as well.”Amit and Naroop, in partnership with The Sikh Coalition, are currently casting for additional photography

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US: Sikh man, Pakistani talking in Punjabi arrested as terrorists New Delhi A Sikh man of Indian origin and a Pakistan-American man who were speaking in Punjabi on a bus in the US were arrested at gunpoint and detained for 30

hours after fellow travellers claimed they were discussing a “bomb threat” in Arabic.Daljeet Singh, an asylum-seeker from India, struck up a conversation with Mohammed Chotri after the Pakistani-American approached him while they were travelling on a Greyhound bus from Arizona to Indiana on February 20.

Both men had been released from immigration detention centres and Singh said in a statement that he had been granted parole to live and work in the US pending a decision on his refugee application. Trouble began after the bus made a stop in Texas on February 21 and the

two men were questioned by a white woman and several other passengers. The driver stopped the bus by the side of the road and other travellers restrained Singh and Chotri in their seats

until police came and arrested them at gunpoint. Though the incident occurred in February, it has come to light now because The Sikh Coalition has filed a complaint against the woman who accused the two men of discussing a bomb threat in Arabic and “acting weird”.

Following an investigation, Singh and Chotri were cleared of all criminal wrongdoing by the FBI and the local attorney’s office and released from detention. Singh, who speaks almost no English, has asked Texas law enforcement agencies to file criminal charges against the passengers who accused him of

a bomb threat and restrained him on the bus.“The only crime I committed was wearing a turban, having a beard, and speaking in a different language to another brown man on a bus,” Singh said in a statement.“I still cannot believe that this happened to me in America.”The Sikh Coalition has said Singh was also humiliated and vilified in the medias several TV channels portrayed Singh and Chotri as terrorists and published photos of Singh without his turban, an insult for a Sikh. This resulted in Singh suffering from emotional distress and anxiety, it said.“Whether it’s a Sikh man on a Greyhound bus, or an Arabic speaker on a Southwest airplane, the xenophobic fear and bigotry in our country is out of control,” Gurjot Kaur, senior staff attorney for The Sikh Coalition, told NBC News.

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candidates and are asking turbaned Sikh Americans of all ages and genders to take part in this groundbreaking project.

The deadline for the entry is May 1.According to the Coalition’s Executive Director Sapreet Kaur, “The goal with bringing this project to the United States is the opportunity to combat bigotry by sharing a positive narrative of Sikhs in America through portraits and the incredible stories behind them.”

The Coalition was founded by volunteers on the night of September 11, 2001, in response to a torrent of violent attacks against Sikh Americans in the US. Talking about the response of their subjects, the two photographers said it has been “fantastic”.“The subjects involved have seen the success we have had, so they are excited to be involved. It’s the complete opposite of the UK Singh project as nobody wanted to be involved at first and it took a while for it to build momentum.”

Indian-American couple convicted for H-1B visa fraud WASHINGTON An Indian-American couple has been convicted on charges of H1B visa fraud and will face up to 30 years imprisonment, the Department of Justice has said.Raju Kosuri, 44, and his wife Smriti Jharia, 45, of Ashburn, along with four co-conspirators fraudulently applied for more than 800 illegal immigration benefits under the H1B visa program.The indictment alleges that Kosuri has set up a network of shell companies that he presents to immigration authorities as independent businesses in need of Indian workers, but which he in fact owns and controls.It alleged that Kosuri

and his co-conspirators use these entities to file petitions for nonexistent job vacancies at Kosuri’s data center in Danville.The visa fraud scheme involves the forgery of numerous individuals’ signatures on visa petitions and exhibits without their knowledge.

The indictment alleges that Kosuri has generated gross proceeds of at least $20 million over the life of the scheme, the justice department said.The indictment also alleged that Kosuri and Jharia conspired with a consultant named Raimondo Piluso to defraud the Small Business Administration, by submitting fraudulent HUBZone applications.

Two-year-old son shoots mother dead in Milwaukee

Milwaukee A woman was fatally shot in the back by her 2-year-old son as she drove in Milwaukee, her relatives said.

Antonio Price says investigators told him his sister Patrice was driving with her two sons, ages 1 and 2, riding in the backseat on Tuesday when she was shot.

Price says investigators told him the older boy fired the gun.

He says his mother was in the

passenger seat and was not struck. Milwaukee County sheriff’s officials haven’t identified the victim, but say a 26-year-old woman was shot once in the back while driving on Highway 175. Price says his sister was a great mother and always gave him good advice.

The woman’s father, Andre Price, says his daughter was driving her boyfriend’s car when she was shot.

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Death raises questions: Did Prince die of an overdose?

CHICAGO Prince’s final days and unexpected death at age 57 raise questions among experts familiar with prescription painkiller overdoses. It’s possible the innovative musician’s demise represents one of the most public tragedies in an overdose crisis now gripping America.

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday that investigators are looking into whether Prince died from an overdose and whether a doctor was prescribing him drugs in the

weeks before he was found dead at his home in suburban Minneapolis.

The law enforcement official has been briefed on the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Whether Prince was addicted to painkillers is uncertain, but some are wondering whether the stigma surrounding addiction may have prevented Prince who built a reputation as a sober superstar from seeking help if he was becoming dependent.

US programme ‘The Daily Show’ raises the issue of Sikhs’ harassment New Delhi The Daily Show, an American late-night talk and news satire television programme with Trevor Noah, recently aired a segment called ‘Confused Islamophobes Target American Sikhs’, featuring a humorous interview with New York-based Indian-American designer and actor Waris Ahluwalia while raising a sensitive issue of the lack of awareness in the American population as to who Sikhs are and briefly educating the audience on Sikh history and values.

The show opens with a commentary by anchor Hasan Minhaj, saying: “Islamophobia, in case you have a no risk, it still is a big problem in America.

What about those people who look Muslim but are Sikh American like Waris Ahluwalia.

A turban, which as a Sikh he wears everywhere, but for some reason it makes people uncomfortable.”

Ahluwalia, who is familiar with this type of prejudice, told The Daily Show that he was kept

US?and Indian government most greedy for your account data: Facebook WASHINGTON Facebook said on Thursday that government requests for account data increased by 13 percent in the second half of 2015, with the United States and India topping the list.

Government requests for account data increased to 46,763 from 41,214 in the first half of the year, the company said in a biannual report. The number of requests jumped 18 percent in the first half of the year.Government access to personal data from telephone and internet companies has become a bone of contention since former US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked

classified details of a program to collect bulk telephone metadata in 2013. Governments often request basic subscriber information, IP addresses or account content, including people’s posts online.

Facebook has about 1.65 billion regular users, or about one in every four people in the world. Facebook said about 60 percent of requests in the United States had a nondisclosure order prohibiting the company from notifying the user of the government request.This was the first time Facebook has included details on non-disclosure orders since it started issuing the global requests reports in 2013.

from boarding a plane because he refused to take off his turban, a symbol of his faith.

He said it did not happen to him for the first time. “Almost every time I fly back to the U.S., I get a secondary screening. And it is not just a problem at an airport; it’s not just a problem for me on the streets.”

The show also featured Donald Trump, a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, saying: “Islam hates us.”

Senator Ted Cruz, however, noted: “We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighbourhoods before they become radicalised.”

“The segment emphasises how Sikhs have stood strong with American and Sikh egalitarian values by not turning racial discrimination away from themselves and deflecting it towards Muslims,” noted SikhNet in an article ‘The Daily Show Exposes Laudable Sikh Values’.

Daily Show correspondent asked a panel of Sikhs, “Why don’t you just go, ‘Hey! I’m not Muslim!?”

To which Simran Jeet responded, “It’s just not an option for us to

throw another community under the bus, even if it means things are harder for us, we believe it’s the right thing to do.” “We need to be better than that as Americans and that’s what our Sikh values teach as well,” added Narinder Singh.

Even as there are 2.5 lakh Sikhs in the U.S., the problem is Americans seem to have no idea about Sikhs. When Minhaj asked it to people, they pointed to pictures of binocular, a bird, and children playing hide-andseek than a picture of a man wearing a turban as an example of a Sikh. Instead, when people see a Sikh man wearing a turban, they assume he’s Muslim.

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Sailors rush for tattoos as US Navy bends rules to recruit WASHINGTON An indelible blue drawing of an ornate birdcage, festooned with roses and petals, wraps its way around Navy Corpsman Jessica Bryant’s forearm. The 23-yearold sailor’s tattoo is large, but not big enough to be considered a “sleeve,” the type of design that covers an entire arm. Bryant hopes to remedy that, thanks to new Navy rules kicking in April 30 aimed at attracting recruits among young millennials who have adopted tattoos en masse.

“When they make this really, really legal, I am going to finish the rest of it,” she said during a recent visit to the Champion Tattoo Company in southeast

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Washington, across the road from a Marine barracks. Until now, sleeve tattoos have been barred under military regulations.

The Navy is scrapping the ban and going further still to adopt the most lenient rules on body art of any US military service.

From next month, sailors will also be allowed a tattoo on their neck up to one-inch across and restrictions will be lifted on ink below the knee or elbow, including on the hands.

Additionally, sailors with visible tattoos will be allowed to work as Navy recruiters, a gig that was off-limits to them before.

“Everyone’s really thrilled,” said Navy Corpsman Everette Abney, 28, as he perused tattoo designs to add to the colorful selection already on his forearm. News of the rule change was up on “Facebook for maybe an hour, and it had been shared about 40,000 times,” Abney said. His friend, Navy Corpsman Taylor Hoyte, 20, is getting a tattoo of a pair of interlocking hands as part of a design that will eventually be a sleeve. “I want to keep going until I run out of room, from the neck down,” she said.

Tattoos are a longstanding tradition among sailors the world over think Popeye and his

tattoo. “This policy has increased the pool of candidates we recruit from. Will we get new

anchor reaching back to the 18th century. But in recent decades, as the military sought for troops to project a more uniform and professional image, even the Navy restricted what kind of tattoo sailors can wear. With the practice more popular than ever among millennials and hipsters, the Navy’s latest easing of the policy is aimed at reaching a wider array of potential sailors.

According to a Harris poll, nearly half (47 percent) of Americans born in the 1980s and 1990s have at least one

recruits that wouldn’t have previously applied to the Navy?

I think absolutely, yes,” Navy spokesman Lieutenant Commander Nate Christensen said in a phone interview. “The Navy strives to reflect the nation we serve, to attract, recruit and retain the nation’s best talent,” he added. Offensive, overly vulgar or racist tattoos remain off-limits. Military tattoo restrictions have long stoked ire among rank-and-file troops.

Many grumble that if they can die for their country, they should

be able to express themselves on their skin. “Today’s military needs to understand... that letting service members have tattoos with less restrictions adds to their own esprit de corps. It boosts morale. It allows them to tap into an ancient warrior spirit,” said Butch Johnson, owner of the popular Washington tattoo parlor, which is located next to a hip eatery.

“It is the one personal item that can be taken into a battlefield and give a service member that extra edge, a feeling of power, a reminder of family, patriotism, pride — and a tattoo can’t be taken away.”

Johnson says Marine Corps restrictions on tattoo sleeves when they were implemented locally in 2012 had hurt his bottom line. The bearded artist traced his buzzing tattoo gun over the skin of Tyler McManus, 24, a former Marine who says he wasn’t allowed to re-enlist in part because of his extensive tattoos.“A lot of people that had tattoos were ‘volun-told’ to get out,” said McManus, who is getting a huge Polynesian tribal design inked across his back.

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India cancels visas for Chinese Priyanka Chopra to dine with dissidents Lu Jinguha, Ray Wong US President Barack Obama Beijing India has withdrawn visas granted to two well-known Chinese dissidents, Lu Jinghua and Ray Wong, who were set to attend a China-focussed conference on democracy in Dharamsala. The withdrawals occurred days after New Delhi cancelled the visa granted to Germany-based Uyghur activist Dolkun Isa, who too was set to attend the same conference that will be addressed by the Dalai Lama. China has branded Isa a terrorist and Interpol has issued a red corner notice for him.

Lu, who is best-known for her role in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and figures on a Chinese list of “major criminals”, learnt of the withdrawal of her visa just as she was about to board a New Delhibound flight from New York on April 25.The visa for Hong Kong prodemocracy activist Ray was reportedly withdrawn at about the same time.Speaking to Hindustan Times from New York, Lu, now a US citizen, sounded bitter and angry at the last-minute cancellation.

The 54-year-old activist indicated the cancellation and the way she was made to run from the Indian consulate to a separate visa office after that amounted to harassment.“I had checked in with a copy of my e-visa at the JFK airport and was about to board the flight to New Delhi on April 25. Then, suddenly, an airline official asked me to wait,” she said. She alleged that the official made a few longdistance phone calls and thereafter she was told she could not board

the flight. “I was made to wait.

People were watching me. I felt embarrassed and shocked. I asked why? What was the reason?” But she got no answer.Lu said she was “very disappointed” with India. “In January, I went to Taiwan. There was no problem. Why did India

cancel my visa? If it was China, I would have understood.”

China considers Taiwan a breakaway province.Government sources in New Delhi said Lu’s visa was withdrawn because her documents were “ineligible” and there was an “inconsistency” about the purpose of her visit. In Ray’s case, there was “data inconsistency” in his papers, they said.More than that, an official who didn’t wish to be named said allowing Chinese dissidents to visit India and “indulge in anti-China propaganda” doesn’t fit into New Delhi’s policy for Beijing.

“Both countries have been following this policy for many years … That’s why we don’t allow protests by Tibetans living here in exile,” the official explained, giving an insight into the sensitive nature of relations between the two Asian giants.

In US, man kills daughter, 2, for interrupting his computer game

HOUSTON A 31-year-old US man has been charged with suffocating his twoyear-old daughter to death for distracting him from his computer games, a media report said.

Anthony Michael Sanders was charged with capital murder in the December death of Ellie Sanders at the family’s suburban home in the US state of Texas, Watauga police said. He is accused of suffocating his daughter while caring for her and his five-year-old son.

Investigators believe an enraged Sanders bruised Ellie all over her body, bit her on her back and murdered her by holding her down with his hand over her face,

police officials said.

“He was very involved in computer gaming... That is something he did constantly .

She may have interrupted him somehow. His day may have been interrupted,” police officer Babcock was quoted as saying by the Star-Telegram newspaper.

Tarrant County Medical examiners ruled earlier this month that the infant’s death was a homicide by asphyxiation.

Sanders was asked to take care of Ellie and his son while his wife went to an art show, according to an arrest affidavit cited by the newspaper. The boy discovered his sister in a bedroom and “tried to wake her up and she would not wake up”, Babcock said.

An unknown number of civilians, mostly students, involved in the Tiananmen Square protest for political reform in China were massacred in the army-conducted crackdown. Many protestors, like Lu, slipped out of China in the aftermath. She is now a human rights activist.

China remains very sensitive about incidents and individuals linked to the Tiananmen protests. Around the anniversary of the demonstrations in June every year, there is a tightening of security across the country, especially in Beijing. The conference in Dharamsala, to be held between April 28 and May 1, is being organised by USbased Citizen Power for China.

The group is led by Yang Jianli, who too was involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

The three visa cancellations within a week – apparently at the behest of China – are likely to trigger criticism against the Narendra Modi government.

Beijing had reacted with anger after India issued a visa to Isa earlier this month.

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LOS ANGELES Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra has confirmed that she will be dining with US President Barack Obama at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner this weekend.

She was invited to the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner with US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

Priyanka, who found global recognition with her character Alex Parrish in the American TV series “Quantico”, was earlier “not sure” about attending the dinner due to her work commitments.

Bollywood’s ‘desi girl’ took to Twitter to share the news. The dinner will take place on Saturday.When a social media asked her, “are you going to the White House on April 30?”, she

responded, “Yes, I will be attending”.

The actress also talked about the shooting of her Hollywood debut “Baywatch”.

“Ok, off to set to find my purpose.

Fun scene with Zac Efron and The Rock... Going to wear my high heels and bad girl face,” she wrote.Priyanka will be dining with some of Hollywood’s biggest names like Will Smith, his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, Kerry Washington, Shonda Rhimes, Kim Kardashian’s model sister Kendall Jenner among others.The non-profit White House Correspondents’ Association, whose members include the reporters, producers, camera operators and other journalists regularly covering the White House, traditionally hosts this annual dinner to raise money for journalism scholarships.

Indra Nooyi, Satya Nadella, Bhavesh Patel among highest paid CEOs in the world NEW DELHI As many as three Indian origin persons have been named among 100 highest-paid CEOs globally with PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi and LyondellBasell’s Bhavesh Patel making it to the top ten list compiled by Equilar.

Chemicals company LyondellBasell Industries’ top executive Bhavesh V Patel was ranked sixth on the list with a total compensation of $24.5 million, while Nooyi, the chief executive of PepsiCo was ranked eighth on the list with a total pay of $22.2 million.

Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft was ranked 26th on the list of 100 highest-paid CEOs with a total compensation of $18.3 million.

The overall list was topped by Mark V Hurd and Safra A Catz of Oracle Corp with both boasting a total compensation of $53.2 million.

Others on the top 10 include, Robert A Iger of Walt Disney ($43.5 million), David M Cote of Honeywell International ($33.1 million), General Electric’s Jeffrey R Immelt ($26.4 million), Randall L Stephenson of AT&T ($22.4 million), Rupert Murdoch of Twenty-First Century Fox

($22.2 million) and James P Gorman of Morgan Stanley ($22 million). This list is a snapshot of companies that file annual proxy statements before April 1 and aims to provide an early look at CEO pay trends for 2015.

The report further noted that the median pay for Equilar 100

$22.7 million,” Equilar said.

Catz tied with her colleague Hurd as the highest paid individual CEO in the Equilar 100, was the highest paid female with $53.2 million.

Apple is the largest company by revenue on the list, totalling $233.7 billion in 2015, followed

CEOs was $14.5 million in fiscal year 2015, up 3 per cent from the previous year.

Interestingly, eight CEOs on the list are female, and they far outpace the median pay for the Equilar 100 as a whole.

“Median compensation for these eight women was $20.0 million in 2015, while average pay was

by Berkshire Hathaway with $210.8 billion. “Notably, Tim Cook of Apple was paid below the median ($10.3 million) and Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway was by far the lowestpaid CEO in the Equilar 100, earning $470,244 in total compensation last year,” it added.

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‘IS-linked’ teenagers accept hand in German gurdwara bombing

Berlin Two secondary-school students accused of carrying out a bomb attack on a gurdwara in the German city of Essen almost two weeks ago have admitted to being involved in the incident, claims a minister’s report, adding that the two radical Islamists are sympathisers of Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda terrorist outfits.The two are charged with detonating a fire extinguisher filled with explosives at the entrance of Gurdwara Nanaksar Satsang Sabha on the evening of April 16. Before setting off the blast, the two 16-year-olds tried to break into the Sikh place of worship, North Rhine Westphalia (NRW) interior minister Ralf Jaeger has said in a report presented on Thursday to the home affairs committee of the state parliament in Duesseldorf.

“They have admitted to carrying out the attack but denied that the motive was religious,” the report adds.

The boys are reported to have told their investigators that they

did it “just for the kick of building fireworks”. The two from Essen and the neighbouring town of Gelsenkirchen are known to police as members of the radical Salafist sect of Islam, the report claims. It adds that during police interrogation in connection with his involvement in cases of causing grievous bodily harm and attempted burglary, he expressed his sympathy for the IS and al-Qaeda.His accomplice has been participating in a special programme of the interior ministry for Salafists, who have a tendency to get involved in violence and are in danger of being drawn to IS and other terror organisations. He came under police radar attention after threatening a Jewish fellowstudent and attempting to obtain firearms, the report has said.

They were arrested four days after an explosion at the entrance hall of the gurdwara hosting a wedding ceremony. Most of the wedding guests had left for nearby hall for a reception when the bomb got off.

British Indian MPs rebuff Priti Patel on Brexit London Is Priti Patel, the minister of state for employment and the ‘Indian Diaspora Champion’ in the David Cameron government, out of step with mainstream opinion in the Indian community that Britain should stay in the European Union?

It would appear so, after several Indian-origin MPs and members of the House of Lords declared themselves firmly in the Remain camp. Patel is one of six ministers in the Cameron government campaigning for Britain vote to exit the EU in the June 23 referendum.

According to her, Britain’s ties with India will receive a ‘massive boot’ if Britain leave the EU, on the ground that it would be easier to have a trade deal directly rather than through the EU – contention disputed by the Remain camp and others yet to decide on the referendum.

Called ‘British Indians for IN’, the Indian-origin parliamentarians launched the cross-party group on the grounds of the palaces of Westminster this week, insisting that EU membership helps to enhance and strengthen Britain’s relationship with India.

Nearly 1.2 million people of Indian origin and Indian citizens here for six months or more are eligible to vote in the referendum.

Besides Patel, no other parliamentarian of Indian origin has joined the Brexit camp.

The 15 parliamentarians backing the group signed an open letter on the issue: “We are British Parliamentarians of Indian-origin

Indian students expelled from Chinese university after armed brawl Beijing A Chinese university has expelled three Indian students for reportedly being involved in an armed brawl that left one student with stab wounds.The fight broke out between two groups of Indian students who were said to be armed with sharp-edged weapons.The incident occurred

in the second week of April in the medical faculty of the Three Gorges University at Yichang in central China.

Following the incident, the Indian embassy in Beijing issued a terse advisory that warned Indian students to follow rules and obey the law. It said the Indian missions will follow a “zerotolerance” policy in all such cases.More than 14,000 Indian students currently study in China, with a majority in medical schools across the country.

Violence and ragging among Indian students are on the rise, Hindustan Times has learnt, with the Indian embassy and consulates having to deal with an increasing number of complaints about such incidents almost every day.At least a dozen Indian students were involved in the brawl at Three Gorges University,

which was reportedly the outcome of a running feud between junior and senior Indian students.

Soon after the fight, university authorities identified those who had triggered the fight and expelled them. The injured student is said to have recovered and rejoined classes.

The advisory issued by the Indian embassy said: “Incidents involving any kind of violence or ill behaviour create a negative image about Indians in China.

Although the overwhelming number of students is lawabiding, the actions of a few are detrimental to the interests of all Indians in China.

“It is our common responsibility to ensure that no such act is committed that affects the reputation of the country or the Indian community in China. The embassy and consulates will have zero-tolerance in all such cases.”The students were advised not to “indulge in any form of violence or mental and physical abuse of any nature on or off the university campus.

Such actions will invite severe action by university or police authorities, and is likely to result in suspension by the university, and detention or deportation by Chinese authorities”.

The advisory further said, “Fully respect the university guidelines and regulations. If the university provides proof that an Indian student has violated their regulations, and takes disciplinary action including expulsion, the Indian embassy will not intervene.”

Specifically mentioning ragging, the advisory said: “Ragging is a criminal offence. Any such incident that is brought to the attention of the embassy or consulates will be reported to appropriate authorities in India.”

and whilst we represent different political views, on a whole range of matters, we believe that membership of the EU is an issue which transcends party politics”.

“We are united in our belief that the UK is stronger, safer and

Dholakia, Rajinder Loomba, Seema Malhotra, Dolar Popat, Diljit Rana, Alok Sharma, Virendra Sharma, Ranbir Suri, Bhikhu Parekh, Shailesh Vara, Keith Vaz, Valerie Vaz, Sandip Verma, and Rumi Verjee.

Conservative MP Sharma, who

better off as a member of the EU. Contrary to the argument made by some, that Britain needs to leave the EU in order to strengthen its ties with Commonwealth countries, we believe that our membership of the EU helps to enhance and strengthen the UK’s partnership with countries like India”.

“In the lead up to the EU referendum on 23rd of June we will be encouraging everyone to vote to remain in the European Union, including the 1.2 million British Indians eligible to vote whose votes could prove to be decisive in determining the outcome of the referendum.”

The signatories to the letter include: Karan Bilimoria, Navnit

is helping to co-ordinate the campaign, said: “British Indians are outward looking internationalists which is why so many of us believe that Britain’s place belongs in the EU, where we are leading the agenda for reform”.

“A vote to remain guarantees us continued unfettered access to Europe’s free trade single market of 500 million consumers, meaning lower prices, more jobs, increased investment and financial security. It also means a seat at the table as the EU negotiates some of the biggest trade deals in history – such as the ongoing discussions with the United States, China and India.”

More tigers poached in India so far than in 2015

NEW DELHI More tigers have been killed in India already this year than in the whole of 2015, a census showed Friday, raising doubts about the country’s antipoaching efforts. The Wildlife Protection Society of India, a conservation charity, said 28 of the endangered beasts had been poached by April 26, three more than last year. Tiger meat and bones are used in traditional Chinese medicine and fetch high prices. “The stats are worrying indeed,” said Tito Joseph, programme manager at the group. “Poaching can only be stopped when we have coordinated, intelligence-led enforcement operations,

because citizens of many countries are involved in illegal wildlife trade. It’s a transnational organised crime.” Poachers use guns, poison and even steel traps and electrocution to kill their prey.

India is home to more than half of the world’s tiger population with 2,226 in its reserves according to the last count in 2014. The figures come after a report by the WWF and the Global Tiger Forum said the number of wild tigers in the world had increased for the first time in more than a century to an estimated 3,890. The report cited improved conservation efforts, although its authors cautioned that the rise could be partly attributed to improved data gathering.

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Love triangle: Former prostitute’s Indian fiance shot 10 times in head

Melbourne The Brisbane Supreme Court jury last week found that Melissa Leigh Shaw was guilty of killing Shyam ‘Sam’ Dhody at his Gilston based residence in Gold Coast.

Justice Peter Flanagan said Shaw had been involved in a cowardly act. Shaw will be eligible for parole in 20 years.

The prosecution case had alleged that Shaw procured her on-off lover Adam Gooley to kill Dhody, media reports said adding the crown prosecutor Dennis Kinsella likened her to Helen of Troy, calling Shaw the face that launched the murder.

The court was also informed that Shaw’s relationship with Dhody,

whom she met while working at a Molendinar brothel, was violent and had started to sour in March 2013.

Dhody was shot 10 times in his head while he was lying in his bed at his home in July 2013.

Shaw denied any knowledge of the murder plot.

Shaw, the mother of two, was also convicted of assaulting Dhody for an earlier attack.

Gooley, a mechanic, had pleaded guilty to the shooting and was also sentenced to life in prison.“Clearly she’s disappointed with the result, as anyone would be in her circumstances, and it’s come as a big, big shock to her,” said Shaw’s lawyer Jason Jacobson.

Charges ‘preposterous’, I’m in ‘forced exile’: Mallya London Industrialist Vijay Mallya, at the centre of a controversy in India over alleged loan default of Rs.9,000 crore, has termed the charges against him as “preposterous” and said he was in “forced exile” here from which he would like to return to his country.

“I’m absolutely not guilty of any of the preposterous charges of diverting funds from Kingfisher Airlines and buying properties,” Mallya said in an interview to the Financial Times. “I’m in a forced exile, willing to reach reasonable debt settlement.”

Questioning the amount of Rs.9,000 crore attributed as wilfull debt against him, the 60year-old industrialist said by taking away his passport or arresting him, the Indian government and banks won’t be able to get any money out of him.

“I definitely would like to return to India. Right now things are

Erection Problem?

Just 1% of the Indian population paid taxes in 2012-13: Govt data 416-992-5489

flying at me fast and furious. My passport’s been revoked. I don’t know what the government will

Mallya said “extraordinary pressure” was being exerted on him, but he can’t give preference

do next. I’ve always said I will like to reach out to the bankers of Kingfisher and make a settlement,” he said.

“Notwithstanding the legal proceedings, my offer for settlement stands. The filings before the debt recovery tribunal indicate some 500 million pounds. The rest is toward unapplied interest. I’ve never been able to understand where this Rs.900 million figure came from,” he said.

He said he has issued a sworn affidavit to the Supreme Court and the right position will come to light if a proper probe is conducted. “If the government decides to audit the accounts of Kingfisher airlines, they are not going to find anything because that is the truth.”

just to banks since there were other creditors as well.

“All I can say is that the manner in which my passport was revoked and then suspended was unprecedented and was done in extraordinary haste. I came to know of the facts by email,” he said, adding the notice of suspension of his passport came on holiday and that his reply was ignored.

He further said if he has proposed a settlement offer to the apex court, it had to be serious.

Mallya said he tried all that was possible to save Kingfisher Airlines, but in vain. “But I have currently businesses in India, and I wish to continue with them. They are doing very well.

I’m currently in forced exile.”

India orders panic button on mobiles for women’s safety

New Delhi Taxpayers account for just about one percent of India’s population, but tax outgo was over Rs 1 crore for as many as 5,430 individuals, as per the latest data disclosed by the government for assessment year 2012-13.

As part of a transparency drive, the government has made public direct tax data for last 15 years.

Data for individuals has been published only for 2012-13 assessment year, which shows taxes for income in financial year ended March 31, 2012.

A total of 2.87 crore individuals filed income tax returns for that year, but 1.62 crore of them did not pay any tax -- leaving the number of taxpayers at just about 1.25 crore which was close to one per cent of the country’s total population of about 123 crore at that time.

The tax outgo was less than Rs 1.5 lakh for a vast majority of nearly 89 per cent taxpayers (over 1.11 crore). Their average tax payable was just about Rs

21,000, while the collective amount stood at over Rs 23,000 crore. The three individuals in the top-bracket of Rs 100-500 crore paid a total tax of Rs 437 crore - resulting in an average tax outgo of Rs 145.80 crore.

As many as 5,430 individuals paid income tax of over Rs 1 crore. Out of this, the tax range was Rs 1-5 crore for more than 5,000 individuals, resulting in a total outgo of Rs 8,907 crore.

As per the overall data, total income tax collections rose nine-fold to Rs 2.86 lakh crore in 2015-16, from Rs 31,764 crore in 2000-01. The data further said that the bulk of individuals who filed returns for the assessment year 2012-13 earned an annual salary between Rs 5.5 lakh and Rs 9.5 lakh.Over 20.23 lakh taxpayers earned Rs 5.5-9.5 lakh, while their cumulative salary earnings stood at Rs 1.40 lakh crore in the financial year 2011-12. Further 19.18 lakh individuals earned salary of Rs 2.5-3.5 lakh that year.

MUMBAI All mobile phones sold in India from January 2017 must have a panic button enabling the user to call for help, the government has said, amid concern for women’s safety after a series of violent crimes in recent years. From January 2018, mobile phones must also have a built-in global positioning system (GPS), the ministry of communications and technology said in a statement.

“Technology is solely meant to make human life better and what better (use) than ... for the security of women,” said the statement, released late on Monday. Keeping a finger pressed on number 5 or 9 on the new mobile phones should trigger an emergency call, the ministry said. With smartphones, an emergency call must be triggered when the power button is pressed three times in quick succession, it said. It did not give further details.Concern about women’s safety has risen since the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old student on a bus in Delhi in 2012.

In another high-profile case, an Uber taxi driver was found guilty of raping a female passenger in

Delhi.The 2012 incident sparked nationwide protests and stricter rape legislation. Still, India reported 337,922 crimes against women in 2014, including more

aimed at women’s safety. These include pepper spray, batons, brass knuckles and lipstick stun guns ranging in price from about 200 rupees ($3) to almost 7,000

than 36,000 rapes, a 9 percent increase from the previous year.

Some politicians and police officials have called for women to take self-defence training, to “dress decently” and not to loiter after dark, provoking protests from women’s rights activists. Online retailers including Flipkart, Amazon India and Snapdeal are selling products they say are

rupees. India is the world’s second-biggest market for mobile phones, with more than 1 billion users. But it is men who control their use in rural areas, and in the western state of Gujarat several villages recently banned girls and single women from owning mobile phones, saying the devices distracted them from their studies.

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3 May - 9 May 2016

Kashmiri man reunites with family at Pune mental hospital after 14 years New Delhi Adil, who suffers from schizophrenia, had run away from his home in Srinagar in 2002, while appearing for his Class X examinations. Eight years later, in May 2010, he was found in a poor mental state at the Solapur Railway Station. He was then taken to the Pune mental hospital where he was being treated, until his counsellor Mohan Bansode decided to trace his family. On Friday afternoon, when Khan’s father Rashid Khan (62), mother Hamida (59) and younger sister Nusrat (28) arrived with two police officers from Kashmir, emotions ran high. On seeing his father, Khan broke down. Khan, who was 16 years old when he went missing, was unable to recognise his mother or sister. However, later in the evening, he appeared to be very

happy and refused to let go of his parents’ hand. The family left

make from this business to my father,” he added. Adil’s father

for Mumbai on Saturday afternoon, from where they will be leaving for Srinagar.

Adil now hopes to sell fruits in his hometown. “I love different colours. So when I go back and sell fruits. I will give the money I

Rashid, a painter by profession, recalled the anxious time the family went through after his son’s disappearance.Rashid said, “He was the most loved and pampered at home. When he first went missing, I approached

Pathankot attackers’ bodies rot in mortuary, to be buried soon New Delhi The four suspected Pakistani terrorists killed in the Pathankot airbase attack in January are likely to be buried because it’s becoming a challenge to preserve their rotting bodies in the mortuary.

The bodies have started to decompose as the freezers in a Pathankot hospital mortuary, where they are kept, don’t work efficiently because of frequent power cuts. Besides, it takes 11 policemen to guard the corpses, which Pakistan has not shown any inclination to accept.

“Unbearable stench is emanating from the bodies. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has collected the DNA samples,

fingerprints and other evidence necessary for identification of the

bodies and shared these with the Pakistani joint investigation team (JIT),” a senior official said.

The four alleged members of the Pakistan-based Jaish-eMohammed terrorist group were killed after they attacked the airbase on January 2.

The bodies were not immediately shifted to the freezer, the official said. “For almost five days they

were kept in the open.”

Officials will soon identify a place for the burial.

When the Pakistani probe team visited India in March, Indian authorities offered to take the officials to the mortuary. The JIT members “laughed” at the offer and asked for the DNA samples instead, which were provided to them, home ministry officials said.

The NIA identified the attackers as Nasir Hussain of Mohammad Chak in Vehari, a town 100km from Multan in Pakistani Punjab; Hafiz Abu Bakar of Gujranwala in Punjab province; Umer Farooq of Shahdadpur in Sindh; and Abdul Qayum of Chachar in Sindh.

NIA chief Sharad Kumar refused to comment on the agency’s plan to dispose of the corpses.

the police who abused and manhandled me, and claimed that my son had joined a terror outfit. After all this stigma, I had completely lost hope of him returning home.”

His mother Hamida said she couldn’t thank God enough for reuniting her with her son.

“Despite people claiming that my son had joined a terror outfit, I knew that he would never do such a thing. My upbringing is really good. I am thankful to Allah for having answered my prayers and giving my son back. He still cannot recognise me, but his memory will come back when I feed him his favourite pulav,” said the emotional.

Bansode, who helped bring the family together, said he first met Adil at the hospital. “You need a lot of patience with schizophrenic

Gangster Rocky, who fought Punjab polls, shot dead

New Delhi Gangster-turned-politician Jaswinder Singh aka ‘Rocky,’ 50, was shot dead by unidentified assailants on Panchkula-Shimla national highway Saturday.

Police suspect the incident is the fallout of a gang war.According to preliminary probe, Rocky and his driver were travelling from Himachal Pradesh to Chandigarh. Around 9.45 am, at least two armed men opened fire

Boy shoots self accidently while taking selfie New drone is hybrid of

helicopter and plane

Pathankot A student of Class 10 was injured after he reportedly shot himself in the head accidently with a revolver while clicking a selfie.

The victim, Ramandeep Singh, was rushed to a private hospital, referred him to Ludhiana with the bullet in his head.

The incident took place when Ramandeep was taking a selfie with his sister with the revolver when the trigger was pressed accidently injuring him in the

head.The Pathankot Police have registered a case of accident in this connection.

Bharat Bhushan, Station House Officer of the Division Number 2 Police Station, said the boy was injured when he was trying to take a selfie with a gun.

“Police have registered a case of accident in this connection.

Relevant sections will be added to it once the boy is fit for recording his statement,” said the SHO.

ZURICH It can take off and land like a helicopter but is stable like a plane. A new aerial robot is taking to the Swiss skies in what its developers hope will be a gamechanger for agriculture.

Developed by Wingtra, a spin-off company from the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Zurich university, the Wingtra 1 will be used to help farmers collect data on their land. “We combined the current technologies of drones,

patients, but I was determined to interact with Adil and get him to speak. While talking to him, I learnt that he was from Batamaloo in Srinagar. With the help of Google, I started searching for colonies and areas in the town, and asked him if he was aware of any of the places I had mentioned. He finally reacted positively when I spoke of the New Colony Society,” Bansode said.

The counsellor, with the help of the Maharashtra police, got in touch with the Srinagar control room that finally located Adil’s family. In a telephonic conversation with mid-day, Adil’s eldest sister Rifat who works for a finance company in Kashmir, said, “God is there. He sent some messengers to help us and bring our brother back to us.”

which are quadcopters, and fixed-wings,” said Stephanie Lambert, from Wingtra’s business development team.

Lambert said the aerial robot can start and land vertically and transitions into forward flight, like an airplane, making it more stable. It has a range of 60 kms (37 miles) on a single charge and a cruising speed of 50km per hour. Wingtra now plans to test its drone with farmers with the aim of launching it in 2017.

at his SUV at a traffic signal in Parwanoo, Haryana.While Rocky died on the spot, his driver Parampal Singh suffered serious injuries. Parampal was rushed to PGIMER, Chandigarh, and is stable, said police.Rocky, who was facing several criminal cases, had unsuccessfully contested the 2012 Punjab polls as an Independent candidate from Fazilka.IGP (South), Himachal Pradesh, Zahoor Haider Zaidi told The Sunday Express, “SP (Solan) Anjum Ara visited the spot. We are coordinating with Punjab Police.

The assailants will be nabbed soon.” According to Punjab Intelligence officials, Rocky’s aide and driver Parampal Singh has given them a lead regarding the assailants. “He has said the assailants were gang members of Jaipal and Tirath, who are wanted in several cases,” an intelligence official said, adding that Jaipal allegedly heads a gang of highway robbers and is wanted in many states. “Jaipal, who hails from Ferozepur, is presently at large. He had an old enmity with Rocky. It is a case of gang war.

Palla added that Rocky was under threat to his life from the Jaipal and Tirath gangs,” said a senior Himachal Pradesh police officer. Rocky had been allegedly associated with many senior politicians of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. He had hit the headlines in 2008 when his name cropped up in connection with the alleged murder of another gangster, Prabhjinder Singh Dimpy, outside Lake Club in Chandigarh.

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Hyenas attack hungry women as Somaliland’s drought deepens LONDON Somaliland risks descending into famine amid a severe drought that has killed

thousands of livestock, an international aid agency warned on Friday, adding there were reports of some women being set upon by hyenas after collapsing from hunger. ‘Many people are saying it’s the worst drought in memory,’ said Mary Griffin, spokeswoman for Islamic Relief, who visited the region this month. She said malnourished mothers were unable to breastfeed their babies, and herders were feeding cardboard boxes to their surviving animals because there was no grass left for grazing. Adan Shariff Gabow, Islamic Relief’s manager for Puntland, neighbouring Somaliland, said there were cases in Somaliland of women attacked by starving hyenas.’They fell down, malnourished, and we understand they were then set

on by the animals,’ he said. The United Nations says 1.7 million people - many of them nomadic - need aid in Somaliland and

Puntland, Somalia’s two semiautonomous regions in the north. Griffin said there was a ‘terrible sense of deja vu’ in the Horn of Africa where a 2011 drought in southern Somalia killed more than a quarter of a million people.Aid agencies were criticised then for responding too late to warning signs.

Hany El-Banna, chairman of the Muslim Charities Forum, who also visited the region, called on the world not to repeat the same mistakes. ‘We cannot wait like we did in 2011 when we acted too late,’ he said. ‘We need to deal with this today - if we don’t this drought will turn into a famine.’ The drought has been caused by successive poor rainy seasons made worse by El Nino conditions in the Horn of Africa. Thousands of goats

and cows have perished and even camels - which are more drought-resistant - are dying.

Britain’s shadow development secretary Diane Abbott, who accompanied aid agencies on the trip, plans to raise the issue in parliament next week. ‘I spoke to families who had 500 or more animals three months ago, and now are left with 20 or fewer,’ she said. ‘For people who rely on their animals for meat, milk and trade, it’s the equivalent of losing your entire life savings.’

The United Nations says malnutrition-related deaths have been reported in Awdal region, bordering Ethiopia, where sprawling makeshift camps have sprung up as people wait for aid to arrive. Griffin who visited a camp at Qol Ujeed, in Awdal, said 1,200 people were living there without a single toilet. Many of their dead animals are buried around the camp. Nimo Mohamed Abdi, a mother of three, described how she had lost all her livestock more than 180 animals including camels - in three months.

UK doctors urge promotion of e-cigs to help smokers quit LONDON E-cigarettes are likely to bring benefits for public health and should be widely promoted to smokers to help them quit tobacco, Britain’s Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said on

Thursday. In a report likely to further fuel a debate over electronic cigarettes, the influential British doctors group stressed that tobacco smoking is both addictive and lethal, and concluded that e-cigarettes are “much safer than smoking”. Ecigarettes are not a gateway to smoking, the RCP said, and do not lead to the normalisation of the habit - two issues often cited by critics who fear the devices can lure children and young people into smoking habits.

“None of these products has to

date attracted significant use among adult never-smokers, or demonstrated evidence of significant gateway progression into smoking among young people,” the RCP’s 200-page report said. E-cigarettes, which

heat nicotine-laced liquid into vapour, have rapidly grown into a global market for “vaping” products that was estimated at around $7 billion in 2015.

Tobacco smoking kills half of all smokers, plus at least another 600,000 people a year nonsmokers via second-hand smoke. This makes it the world’s biggest preventable killer, with a predicted death toll of a billion by the end of the century, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).Many public health experts think e-

cigarettes, or vapes, which do not contain tobacco, are a lowerrisk alternative to smoking, but some questions remain about their long-term safety. Linda Bauld, a professor at Stirling University, deputy director of the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies and a co-author of the RCP report, said that unlike tobacco, nicotine does not cause cancer, heart and lung diseases.“The ideal is for people to use nothing,” she said, but when the alternative is smoking, people should be encouraged to use nicotine “delivered in a cleaner form than in deadly cigarettes”. “This is what tobacco harm reduction is - it reduces the harm from tobacco while recognising that some people will still use nicotine in other safer forms.”John Britton, chair of the RCP Tobacco Advisory Group which published the report, acknowledged that e-cigarettes were “a topic of great controversy” but said his group’s analysis “lays to rest almost all of the concerns over these products”. The anti-smoking group ASH UK welcomed the report, saying it showed “that switching to vaping is a positive and sensible life choice” for smokers.

Daredevil crossing 1,640ft jagged mountain on a highline

Laranja da Terra, Brazil This nail-biting footage of a daredevil highlining over a jagged mountain will make your stomach churn. Fearless Reginaldo Gomes was caught on camera by photographer Caio Amador as he tackled the dizzying challenge at the 5 Pontões mountain in Laranja da Terra, Brazil. Brave Gomes tip-toed across the picturesque highline, which was a nerve-wracking 1640ft high with stunning views across the city - and after a few wobbles he managed to make it all the way across. Gomes, 34, said: ‘It was my first time on this highline - it’s very extreme, and it’s scary to be so high up. ‘I was above a massive abyss, which was very daunting. I had a few falls, but after many attempts I managed to cross completely.

The view was fantastic - the trees, plantations, very small houses and huge columns of rocks were right below me. This was my best experience ever doing a highline. I again experienced the fear I felt when I

started in this sport.’ Last year Gomes crossed the Cachoeira da Fumaça - the Waterfall of Smoke - in his native country after two years spent honing his technique. He said the ‘intense noise’ of the water below him made him a ‘bit’ nervous as he was photographed from the bank by his friend Vinicius Cauhy.

Following the heart-stopping high line stunt, the 34-year-old said: ‘It was magic. Because of the smoke from the waterfall and the sun’s reflection, you could see rainbows of various angles and sizes. ‘The sheer volume of water and the intense noise makes you a bit nervous. And at that time you have to stay calm, take a deep breath and walk. I feel very privileged to be able to do this.’ He added: ‘Highlining in the smoke waterfall is very special - you feel very involved by nature. ‘The swallows fly very close to the line pack, the waterfall breeze touches your face and the noise makes you ignore any sound. It really is magical.’

Former Pak senator named accused in Sikh leader murder case

Peshawar A former senator of Pakistan’s Awami National Party (ANP) has been named as one of the suspects in the assassination of prominent Sikh lawmaker Sardar Soran Singh, who was gunned down by contract killers last week.

Former senator Amarjeet Malhotra has been included in the list of suspects involved in the killing of 52-year-old Singh, who was the special assistant to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister with the status of provincial minister.

Senator Amarjeet Malhotra belongs to Tehsil Barikot of Swat district and has political affiliations with the ANP.

Main accused Baldev Kumar, who is in custody, also belongs to Tehsil Barikot.

Singh was shot dead on April 22 by contract killers allegedly hired by his miffed Hindu rival Baldev after he failed to secure a ticket for elections in 2013.

Baldev, a Swat district councillor and minority leader of Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf (PTI), hired contract killers by promising them Rs one million, police had said.

He was miffed at being overlooked for the ticket which was given to Singh who was comparatively new entrant to the PTI. Pakistani Taliban had claimed responsibility for the murder.

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Afridi, Shehzad, Akmal dropped from Pakistan squad The ripples of Pakistan’s disastrous World Twenty20 campaign continues to resonate with star players Shahid Afridi, Ahmed Shehzad and Umar Akmal being excluded from the probables list for the tour of England next month. Former Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq, who recently resigned as Afghanistan coach to head the Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) selection committee, announced a list of 35 players for a training camp in Kakul near Abottabad in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province from May 14 to June 4. Afridi attracted much criticism after Pakistan’s poor performance in the World T20 and Inzamam asserted that the veteran batsman will have to prove himself at the domestic level in order to be considered for the national team.

Shehzad and Akmal meanwhile, were dropped due to a combination of poor performance and in-

discipline. Left-arm pacer Mohammad Irfan was also excluded from the camp due to fitness issues.

“Since we are playing only four Twenty20 matches this year we want to give new players a chance, and

that will also allow Afridi to rest and perform in domestic matches,” Inzamam told the media here on Monday.

“Ahmed Shehzad and Umar Akmal have not been included in the training camp taking into view their past disciplinary record.

Neither is their discipline good nor their recent performances consistent and impressive,” he added.

“We are looking at building a new team for the T20

format but Shahid will be considered later on if necessary.” Pointing out that he had spoken to all the selectors and has also studied the reports of former coach Waqar Younis before deciding to

drop Shehzad and Umar, Inzamam asserted that he will be extremely firm on disciplinary issues. Waqar had held Afridi, Akmal and Shehzad as among those responsible for Pakistan’s poor performance at the World T20. “We now have to ensure there is no compromise on discipline if we are to move forward.

Afridi also backed the selector’s decision on his official Twitter handle and

promised to stage a comeback. “Appreciate the approach by selection committee. Happy that youngsters are getting a chance1/2,” Afridi tweeted.

“I am going to play county cricket this season and will IA try to prove my fitness & form and make a comeback.”

Pakistan will play four Tests, five one-dayers and one T20 match during their England tour. The probables: Mohammad Hafeez, Sami Aslam, Iftikhar Ahmed, Azhar Ali, Sharjeel Khan, Khurram Manzoor, Shan Masood, Younis Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq, Asad Shafiq, Shoaib Malik, Haris Sohail, Babar Azam, Khalid Latif, Fawad Alam, Akbar-urRehman, Asif Zakir, Anwar Ali, Bilawal Bhatti, Mohammad Amir, Rahat Ali, Imran Khan, Sohail Khan, Wahab Riaz, Junaid Khan, Hasan Ali, Sarfraz Ahmed, Mohammad Rizwan, Adnan Akmal, Yasir Shah, Zulfiqar Babar, Mohammad Asgher, Imad Wasim, Bilal Asif, Zohaib Khan.

Shivil Kaushik reprises Paul Adams’ frog-in-blender action

When Paul Adams burst onto the scene with his bizarre way of delivering the ball, many were convinced they would never see anything like it again. Two decades later, India’s Shivil Kaushik has emerged as the proud heir to the South African spinner’s “frog-in-ablender” action.

Heads, including Kaushik’s own, turned at Pune’s Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium when the left-arm chinaman bowler made his Indian Premier League (IPL) debut for Gujarat Lions on Friday. Pressed into attack in the eighth over, the 20-year-old ambled slightly wide of the crease when a spirit seemed to enter his body as he bent his knees,

twisted his torso and sent down the ball rotating his left-arm around his head.

He was not alone. For many, it brought back memories of Adams’ outrageous action which got him a bagful of wickets, especially in his debut home series against England. Adams, now coaching Cape Cobras, himself appeared amused.

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Adam Voges hit on head, hospitalised Anurag Thakur wants 10-year jail term for match-fixers

Australia’s Adam Voges was taken to hospital following a concussion scare after the Middlesex captain collapsed during

Ollie Rayner and missed by wicketkeeper John Simpson after a boundary hit by Hampshire’s Michael Carberry at Southampton.

his side’s County Championship match against Hampshire on Sunday.

Voges was struck on the back of the head by a ball lobbed by sub fielder

The 36-year-old fell straight to the floor before being helped off the pitch by two physios and was subsequently taken to hospital with a suspected concus-

sion as his participation in the game looks to have ended. Middlesex director of cricket Angus Fraser said: “The feeling from the physio Peter Waxman is that it is a concussion but that will be shown up later. “It was a freak injury but you wonder why when a cricket ball which gets thrown around the field as much as it does it doesn’t happen as often. A cricket ball is a hard thing. “It is sad for Adam and disappointing for us as we will have no more use out of him in this match. “He wasn’t feeling very well in the dressing room so we decided to get him to the hospital to get him checked over. He wants to remain here even if he can’t play.”

In a desperate effort to curb malpractices in sports, the BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur has introduced three private member bills, including a significant ‘National Sports Ethics Commission’ bill which recommends 10 years of jail term for sportspersons indulging in match-fixing.

The BCCI has been mired by fixing scandal that rocked the 2013 Indian Premier League, witnessing the arrest of three tainted cricketers, including former India pacer Santhakumaran Sreesanth along with Ajit Chandila and Ankit Chavan.

“It is only fair to bring in accountability to be fair to sports lovers. As such there is no law which is there to curb match-fixing.

It is absolutely mandatory

to have a law that can combat the menace,” Thakur said, when asked as to what made him introduce the bill in Lok Sabha.

wards elimination of doping practices, match fixing and fair play, fraud of age, gender and sexual harassment of women in sports.

According to the bill that has been placed in the Lower House, it’s objective is to establish a national sports ethics body to ensure ethical practices in sports as well as strive to-

The bill further states: “This comes as an aftermath of the recent corruption and match fixing charges that were thrown up in Indian Cricket and other sports by multiple players.

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Indian-American journalist Canadian firm to sell canned air in India at Rs 12.50 per breath receives Edgar A Poe award An Indian-American journalist was felicitated on Sunday by U.S. President Barack Obama and the First Lady Michelle as she and her colleagues were presented with a prestigious award during the annual White House Correspondents Dinner here.

Neela Banerjee and three of her colleagues from Inside Climate News John Cushman Jr, David Hasemyer and Lisa Song were presented with the prestigious Edgar A Poe award. The annual award by the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) honours journalistic work of national or regional significance. A Washington DC based journalist Ms. Banerjee, before joining Inside Climate News, was energy and environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times’ Washington bureau. She covered global energy, the Iraq War and other issues

with The New York Times.

A graduate of Yale University, she also served as a Moscow correspondent with The Wall Street Jour-

nal. The award was shared by Terrence McCoy of the Washington Post, who explored the issue of lead poisoning among poor black children in Baltimore after Freddie Gray died in custody in a high—profile case of alleged police abuse. “As early as 1977, scientists at energy and oil giant Exxon Corporation told top executives that fossil fuel emissions were warming the planet. Over time, however, Exxon became a leader in denying climate change and ar-

gued that the science was inclusive,” the judges wrote. “Reporters Neela Banerjee, John Cushman, Jr David Hasemyer and Lisa Song of Inside Climate News, used documents, interviews and the public record from four decades to reveal a deeply disturbing trail from climate change discovery to denial,” it said. “The story prompted the New York Attorney General to issue a subpoena to force Exxon to disclose records in order to determine if it committed fraud under state law,” the judges said. Misha Euceph, a Pakistani radio journalist from Rawalpindi was among the 18 budding journalists selected for WHCA annual scholarship. She was also felicitated by the US President and the First Lady.

Just how much is a breath of fresh air worth? For people in New Delhi, ranked number one on a WHO list of cities with the foulest air, it may seem priceless.

But a Canadian company thinks the price is about Rs 12.50 per breath.

The start-up Vitality Air, based in Edmonton in the western province of Alberta, plans to start selling canned natural air from the Canadian Rockies to Indian consumers this May. The company made plenty of headlines in Canada in 2015 after it launched its product in China, where smog levels in Beijing and other big cities make for a close parallel to Delhi.

Vitality Air ’s founder Moses Lam said: “It started as a novelty back in the summer of last year.

There were forest fires in Calgary and with all the smoke, people started using our product.” The former mortgage banker wanted to “do something disruptive” and the obvious model was the ubiquitous

bottled mineral water.

Meanwhile, people from China started purchasing the canisters online and many suggested that what worked for smoke could apply to smog. Lam found a distributor in China and now covers seven cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, and has shipped nearly 12,000 pieces to that country. The product consists of compressed air, breathed in through a mask, and comes in two flavours Banff and Lake Louise. Banff in Alberta is a national park and a popular resort. “It’s close to Edmonton to start with, and it’s actually a natural treasure of Canada, it portrays fresh air,” Lam said.

That air is made available

in 3-litre and 8-litre cans, with twin-packs costing between Rs 1,450 and Rs 2,800. How they collect the air is a “trade secret” but it’s a “giant vacuum” process. “We suck up all the air in Banff, about 150,000 litres every time and it takes about 40 hours,” Lam said.

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3 May - 9 May 2016

Health Fatty liver may increase heart disease, mortality A patient suffering from fatty liver disease is prone to an increased risk of heart disease as well as the mortality rates associated with it, a new study has found.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is an increasingly common condition in patients with obesity, type 2 diabetes and arterial hypertension -where high blood pressure in the arteries is persistently elevated.

The findings showed that NAFLD is an independent risk factor for atherosclerosis -- the build-up of fats, cholesterol and other substances in and on the artery walls -- which may lead to the advent of cardiovas-

cular disease (CVD) -heart diseases -- related deaths.

“Evidence indicates that the fatty and inflamed liver expresses several pro-inflammatory and procoagulant factors, as well as genes involved in accelerated atherogenesis,” said led researcher Raluca Pais from Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France.

“This raises the possibility that the link between NAFLD and cardiovascular mortality might not simply be mediated by shared, underlying, common risk factors, but rather that NAFLD independently contributes to increasing this risk,” added one of the re-

searchers Vlad Ratziu, professor. In patients with metabolic syndrome health problems like diabetes and stroke at risk for heart disease events, NAFLD contributes to early atherosclerosis and its progression, independent of traditional cardiovascular risk factors. “This indicates that NAFLD is a precursor of metabolic syndrome. It follows that the diagnosis of fatty liver is extremely important and therefore a thorough cardiovascular and metabolic work-up and strict monitoring of CVD or metabolic complications are needed in the clinical management of NAFLD,” Pais noted in the paper published in Journal of

Hepatology. The team undertook a large retrospective study of close to 6,000 patients between 1995 and 2012 to assess whether NAFLD is incidental to or is the cause of atherosclerosis of the carotid arteries. Using the Fatty Liver Index (FLI) a well-validated biomarker, researchers observed that fatty liver is associated with thickness in the major blood vessels

in the neck -- a pre-atherosclerotic problem that predicts heart disease events.

Thickness in the blood vessels increases proportionally with FLI, and this association is independent of traditional cardiometabolic risk factors -- like diabetes, heart disease or stroke.

Futher, patients with fatty liver were more likely to develop in the plaques resulting in thickness in the

blood vessels over time.

Fatty liver disease at baseline predicted the occurrence of carotid plaques independent of age, sex, type 2 diabetes, tobacco use, and other heart disease risk factors.

Strict monitoring of cardiovascular disease recommended when managing nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, the researchers suggested.

Top five health benefits Chocolate bar a day keeps strokes, diabetes away! of raspberries!

Who doesn’t like to eat raspberries? Well, everyone loves to have this small and sweet in taste

them. Raspberries are not only delicious in taste but they also contains many nutritional benefits which

fruit. Though the fruit comes in a variety of colours ranging from black, purple, red, orange, golden and white. Red raspberries are the most cultivated one among all of

makes them good for health.

Here are some health benefits of the fruit: Prevents cancer Eating of raspberries regularly reduces the risk of developing cancer such as breast, cervical, colon and prostate cancer as the phytonutrients in the fruit play an important role in lowering oxidative stress, reducing inflammation and alters the development and reproduction of cancer cells.

Obesity Raspberries contains Rheosmin,which is rasp-

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berry ketone, that increases the metabolism in fat cells by increasing enzyme activity, oxygen consumption and heat production in certain types of fat cells.

Helps maintain weight Regular consumption of raspberries helps to maintain a healthy weight as tthe fruit contains rich amount of soluble fiber that provides a sense of fullness which halts from over eating.

Controls diabetes Raspberries is good for health as it helps to lower the risk of developing diabetes as it is low glycemic index which results in carbohydrates breaking up slowly and thus slows down the release of sugar in the blood.

Anti-inflammatory properties Raspberry helps to prevent damage to the cell membranes and other components, reducing fungal and bacterial growth in the body.

Now its time to put down apples and grab a box of delicious dark chocolates!

Because chocolates help to curb heart diseases and checks the level of insulin in our body, according to a latest research.

The researchers have found that having a bar of dark chocolate daily not only reduces the risk of developing heart diseases but also prevents diabetes.

The study was conducted on 1,153 people aged 1869 years old who were part of the Observation of Cardiovascular Risk in Luxembourg study.

Published in the British journal of nutrition the study revealed that those who ate 100g of chocolate a day which is equivalent to a bar, had reduced insulin resistance and improved liver enzymes.

Insulin sensitivity is a wellestablished risk factor to cardiovascular disease.

The analysis took into account lifestyle and dietary factors, including the simultaneous consumption of tea and coffee.

This is because both drinks can be high in polyphenol, the substance which may provide chocolate with its beneficial cardiometabolic effects.

“Given the growing body of evidence, including our own study, cocoa-based products may represent an

this knowledge include recommendations by healthcare professionals to encourage individuals to consume a wide range of phytochemical-rich foods, which can include dark chocolate in moderate amounts,” Stranges said.

However, it is important to

additional dietary recommendation to improve cardio-metabolic health; however, observational results need to be supported by robust trial evidence,” said Saverio Stranges, visiting academic at the University of Warwick Medical School in England.

“Potential applications of

differentiate between the natural product cocoa and the processed product chocolate, which is an energy-dense food.

Therefore, physical activity, diet and other lifestyle factors must be carefully balanced to avoid detrimental weight gain over time, the researchers warned.

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Boredom in life triggers unhealthy snacking If you get cravings for chips, sweets and fastfood whenever you are bored, do not blame the situation alone. According to British researchers, people eat more to boost low levels of brain chemical dopamine as they cannot alleviate the boredom in any other way.

The results showed that people were more likely to express a preference for unhealthy foods like crisps, sweets and fast

food after completing the boring task. “This strength-

ens the theory that boredom is related to low lev-

els of the stimulating brain chemical dopamine and people try to boost this by eating fat and sugar if they cannot alleviate their boredom in some other way,” said Dr Sandi Mann from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan). Mann and colleagues Faye Ibbitson and Ben Edwards conducted two studies of boredom and

food choices. In the first study, the team asked 52 participants to complete a questionnaire on their food preferences before and after completing the boredom-inducing task of repeatedly copying the same group of letters. In the second study, they asked 45 participants to watch either a boring or a funny video, during which a range of healthy and unhealthy snacks were available.

They found that the partici-

pants who had watched the boring video ate significantly more unhealthy food. “Health education campaigns can encourage us to make healthier food choices need to take boredom, including boredom in the workplace, into account. Bored people do not eat nuts,” Mann stated.

The study was scheduled to be presented at the annual conference of the British Psychological Society this week.

Want to lose weight? Try Know why grapefruit is good for health! these healthy drinks!

Who doesn’t want to get rid of those excess fats around the waist? Well, everyone wants to lose

weight by burning calories and extra fats. Though it is not an easy task to reduce weight but there are certain ways that can speed up the weight loss. One such way is by drinking healthy weight loss drinks.

So try these fat burning drinks to lose weight:

Black coffee If you want to lose weight, try having black coffee that is prepared without milk

and sugar as it is a potent source of energy and thermogenesis which boosts metabolism.

Vegetable juice Regular consumption of vegetable juice which includes tomatoes and carrots with a hint of ginger helps you get rid of those

extra kilos as it provides a stimulant for weight loss.

The juice also supplies the body with important nutrients and dietary fibre.

Green tea Green tea contains flavonoids that have natural antiinflammatory properties which helps in slimming down your waistline and lose weight.

Ginger and lime water Take a glass of water, add ginger and lime to it.

Drink this ginger and lime water as it is good for weight loss and also induces metabolism.

Dandelion tea Consuming of dandelion tea helps in getting rid of those extra fats as it is specially prepared from the root of the plant which is known to be a powerful stimulant for weight loss.

Grapefruit is often considered good for health as the fruit is packed with many nutrients and Viatmins. It also contains rich amount of valuable bioflavonoids and other anti-cancer agents. So, one should include grapefruit in their daily diet as it gives many health benefits to our body.

Here are some health benefits of the fruit: Reduces cholesterol Grapefruit contains certain compound that helps to reduce the excessive production of cholesterol from the liver.

Treats diabetes Regular consumption of the fruit helps to reduce the starches and sweets in the system. So, if you are prone to diabetes then consume more grapefruit juice to prevent it.

Good for digestion The fruit contains rich amount of fiber and vegeta-

Eat these superfoods for healthy stomach!

Nowadays, most of us suffer from upset stomach or indigestion frequently. But do you know what causes indigestion? Well, stress, poor dietary habits, harmful environmental toxins, viral infections could be the reason as they are not good for digestive system.

One should eat healthy foods if you want to have a healthy digestive system.

Here are some superfoods that helps digestion: Oats Oats is considered good for stomach as it contains rich amount fiber which helps to maintain bowel regularity

and prevent constipation.

Yogurt Yogurt is often considered as one of the best food for digestion because it contains rich amount of ‘good’ bacteria (lactobacilli) that plays a key role in the digestion process and also reduces many stomach

problems like indigestion, diarrhea, and constipation.

Beetroot Beetroot contains rich amount of fiber, potassium and magnesium in it which helps in maintaining a healthy digestive system and prevents constipation and stomach aches.

Apple Many might not know that apples are good for digestion. Well, the fruit contains both soluble and insoluble fiber. The insoluble fiber known as cellulose in apple adds bulk to the stool helps relieve constipation and keep digestive system healthy.

Banana Banana is good digestion as it helps the digestion process by absorbing toxins, bulking up stool matter and stimulating bowel movements because of its rich fiber content.

tive pulp in it which helps to promote digestion by increasing the flow of gastric juices.

sleep and alleviates it.

Helps weight loss If you are trying to lose weight then start having

Insomnia Drink a glass of grapefruit juice before bedtime as it will help you get rid of insomnia as it promotes

the fruit or drink it’s juice as it has a fat-burning enzyme that helps to absorb and reduce the starch and sugar in the body.

One minute of intense exercise can help you stay fit!

Everyone wants to shed those extra kilos but it is not an easy task and one often gets tired thinking about the work out.

Well, science have good news for all those who wants to lose weight as they can be fit and make a difference by doing intense exercise for 60 seconds.

According to researchers at McMaster University, doing intense exercise for one minute produces health benefits similar to longer, traditional endurance training.

“This is a very time-efficient workout strategy,” says lead author Martin Gibala.

“Brief bursts of intense exercise are remarkably effective.”

Scientists set out to determine how sprint interval training (SIT) compared to moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT), as recommended in public health guidelines. They examined key health indicators including cardiorespiratory fitness and insulin

sensitivity, a measure of how the body regulates blood sugar.

“Most people cite ‘lack of time’ as the main reason

for not being active”, according to Gibala. “Our study shows that an interval-based approach can be more efficient, you can get health and fitness benefits comparable to the traditional approach, in less time.”

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Ultimate Bran Muffins

Creamy Asparagus Pasta

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,

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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).

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3 May - 9 May 2016