Epaper 29 august 2013

THURSDAY,

AUGUST 29, 2013 HYDERABAD

WEATHER: HAZE; 27°C

WWW.POSTNOON.COM

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FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE

SHINING BRIGHT Beauties and hunks from the film fraternity made their presence felt at Lakme Fashion Week that was held from August 23 to August 27 at the Grand Hyatt, Mumbai. Here are some of the most mesmerising moments from the show.

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No publicity is bad publicity or so...that’s what our celebrities seem to believe wholeheartedly. Hannah Montana sweetheart Miley Cyrus is itching to get rid of that ‘innocent’ tag and so she chose her performance at the MTV Video Music Awards recently, to show it to the world by dressing and gesturing provocatively. Miley isn’t alone. We take a look at some others who ‘bared’ themselves to the world.

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HYDERABAD’S FIRST COMPACT AFTERNOON NEWSPAPER

TERRORISTS

TESTING PREPAREDNESS?

A series of hoax bomb calls in the City give the police a feeling that terrorists could be raising a false alarm to make them complacent before striking hard as had happened before the Dilsukhnagar blasts.

REPORT ON P3 INDIAN MUJAHIDEEN CHIEF YASIN BHATKAL ARRESTED FROM INDO-NEPAL BORDER Yasin Bhatkal, the co-founder of top home-grown militant group the Indian Mujahideen, was arrested from India-Nepal border near Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh. He has been blamed for a string of attacks in recent years in Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

P7

MICHEAL AND CATHERINE TAKE A ‘BREAK’

Hollywood A-listers Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, one of Tinseltown’s most high-profile couples, have decided to take a break from their 13-year marriage, representatives for the pair said Wednesday. The 68-year-old US actor and his 43-year-old British wife have had a rough few years health-wise.

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

city events

FLAVOURS TO SAVOUR

Unique flavours of Pondicherry.

Where: Dakshin, ITC Kakatiya, Begumpet When: August 30 Contact: 789301 3000

Weather for Hyderabad Morning

Afternoon

22°C

27°C

32°C

New Delhi Max 33 Min 27

A mix of cloudy and clear skies.

A mix of cloud and sun

Cloudy with showers.

Cloudy with chances of rain

Evening

Overnight

26°C A mix of cloudy and clear skies

Mumbai Max 31 Min 26 Thunderstorms likely

Chennai Max 33 Min 28

Bangalore Max 29 Min 21

Cloudy with chances of storm

Cloudy with chances of showers

AROUND THE CITY: YOUR GUIDE TO THE TWIN CITIES Where: Zodiac Hall, Golkonda Hotel.

When: 12 noon, Till August 31.

SHOWS

Fish fest To showcase a slice of Indian culinary heritage, Taj Krishna is hosting the Simply Fish Festival.

Where: Firdaus, Taj Krishna When: Lunch and dinner, Till August 31 Contact: +91 9246 21 5332

Art show A group show titled Krishnastuti is on.

Where: Aalankritha Art Gallery, Jubilee Hills When: Till September 6 Contact: +91-40-23113709; 40207171

IN FULL GLORY: An artist was spotted putting finishing touches to Lord Ganesha’s idol at Dhoolpet on Wednesday.

N SHIVA KUMAR

parents will be held.

Where: Our Sacred Space, Secunderabad When: August 29 and 30, 10 am to 1 pm Contact: 90300-13344

Album tour Lost Stories album launch tour will be held.

Where: Hard Rock Cafe, Banjara Hills When: August 30, 9 pm Contact: 6463-6375 Gigs in town Alter Egoz – Tribute to Pink Floyd will be performing.

Where: Hard Rock Cafe, Banjara Hills When: August 29, 9 pm Contact: + 91 88864 80007 Play time Barbareekudu will be staged.

Where: NTR Auditorium, Nampally When: August 31, 7 pm Contact: 2323-0641 / 2323-0435 Live performance The Last Bridge will perform live.

WORKSHOPS Workshop for parents Handwork & Brain Development Of Kids, a workshop for teachers and

Commissioner & Spl Officer

Helpline GAS BOOKING IVRS NO HP 9666023456 Indane 9848824365 BSNL Complaints HMWS & SB Complaints

198 155313

POLICE CONTROL ROOM Hyderabad 27852435 Traffic Control Room 27852482 DCP Traffic 23234065, 23243499F Pollution Control Board 23887500 ELECTRICITY General Complaints Breakdown Section

Where: Lamakaan, Banjara Hills When: August 31, 7 pm Contact: 96427-31329

155333 23431178 23431179

MUNICIPAL CORPORATION

23262266 24166666R ENC 23225267 Engineering 23220418 MCH Tankbund 23225397 Emergency MCH Circle I&II 24525842 MCH Circle III 24736912 MCH Circle IV 23326975 MCH Circle V 23326976 MCH Circle VI MCH Complaints 1100 Head Office 23225397 IVRS CUM MANUAL ENQUIRY PHONE NUMBERS (TRAIN & RESERVATION) RAILWAYS Rail Nilayam 27833169, 27824216 Railway Information 131 Reservations 135 Recorded Information 1345 Enquiry (IVRS) 1331, 1332, 1333

Story-telling workshop Creative story-telling workshop by Deepa Kiran will be held.

Where: Shwaas - Centre for Inspired Learning, Jubilee Hills When: August 30, 10 am to 1 pm Contact: Salil, at 94405-00277 or Anita, at 99593-83947 Robot talk Robotics In The 21st Century by Dr Ayanna Howard will be held.

Where: Vidyaranya High School, Saifabad.

When: August 31, 6.15 pm

WATER SUPPLY Complaint Cell Sewerage Complaint Hyd. Water Supply HOSPITAL General Hospital, Sec-bad Niloufer Hospital, Red Hills NIMS, Director, Punjagutta Osmania General Hospital Railway Hospital, Lalaguda Apollo, Jubilee Hills Care Hospital, Banjara Hills Care Hospital, Nampally Care Hospital, Musheerabad Care Hospital, Sec-bad Kamineni Hospital, LB Nagar

155313 23307328 23313163

27505566 23314095 23390933 24600146 27001134 23607777 30418888 30417777 30419000 30416666 39879999

BLOOD BANKS Blood Bank,Narayanguda Chiranjeevi Blood Bank Blood Bank Mediton Goal Red Cross, Vidyanagar ADRM Blood Bank Mythri Charitable Trust NTR Memorial Trust Care Banjara Hills

Contact: Manthan, at 6636-0000

DINING Delectable fare Oriental food festival is on.

27567892 23559555 23226624 27633087 27035588 27550238 30799999 30418296 30417445

AMBULANCES Apollo 23548888, 23607777 Kamineni 24022222 Medwin 23202902, 23204616 Smile Line Dental Hospital 23747979 Red Cross 27627973 Niloufer Hospital 23314095 Gandhi 23320332 AIRLINES

Tea flavours Try the tea flavours of Budlabeta, Hapjan, Khobong and Sessa. A portion of the proceeds will be contributed to WWF India's one-horned Rhino Conservation project in Assam.

Where: Oxford Bookstore, The Park, 22 Rajbhavan Road When: Ongoing Contact: 8790432354 Sizzling South This food festival will focus on South Indian specialties and gourmet delicacies from interiors of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.

Where: Chill Restaurant and Terrace, Radisson Blue When: Till August 30 Contact: 7799917999 India on a Platter A culinary journey across the country at The Square.

Where: The Square, Novotel When: August 31 Contact: 8686080577

Airport Director 27903785, 27906001 For Air India Flight Information Toll free (from any network) for IC Flights 18001801407 And for All Flights: 1800227722 Air India has revised its flight timings.

For more information call (Toll free) 18001801407, 1800227722 from BSNL/MTNL 04023430334 from other lines and mobile Website; www.airindia.in TOURISM OFFICES AP Tourism, Hyd 23262152/53/54 Sec-bad 27893100 Dept of Tourism 23453110 India Tourism 23261360 AP Tourism information Centre (24x7) 23450444, 23455999 UK VISA OFFICE VFS India Pvt Ltd Building, 8-2-542/A, Sunil Chamber, Road No. 7

Beside Meridian School, Banjara Hills34. Working hours are from 8 AM to 1 PM And 2 PM to 3PM. MUSEUMS Salar Jung Museum AP State Museum Nizams Museum

24523211 232431300/7641 24521029

Readers’ views

We invite you to write to us comments, suggestions, viewpoint or just about anything to feedback@postnoon.com or # Plot no.550-A1,3rd floor, Road no-92, Jubilee hills, Hyderabad-500033 or even by way of a call on 4067 2222

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

news

TODAY’S QUESTION

YESTERDAY’S QUESTION

WILL PM’S STANCE ON T DISSUADE SEEMANDHRA AGITATORS?

WITH THE CENTRE DECIDED ON T, WILL JAGAN’S FAST MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE?

YES (A) NO (B)

63% 37%

A)

YES

B)

NO

To vote visit www.postnoon.com

SECURITY

PAYBACK TIME

Terror testing City waters?

A series of hoax bomb calls in the City gives the police a feeling that terrorists could be raising a false alarm to give the police a sense of complacence before striking hard. This had happened in the Dilsukhnagar blasts where hoax calls preceded the real blasts.

ALEENA ALICE aleena.t@postnoon.com HYDERABAD: City railway stations, several schools and various other public places have witnessed teams of Bomb Disposal Squad and packs of sniffer dogs scurrying around in these premises as somebody decided to play a prank and engage the city police in a wild chase.

Hyderabad has always been a soft target for terror attacks, thus keeping the police always on their toes. However, the growing number of hoax bomb calls especially in the past few days has alarmed the city police.

The city police have received seven such calls this week, and the latest was the call from Nampally railway station on Tuesday morning.

The city police are taking no chance as similar hoax calls were made before the Dilshuknagar blast incident this year. The callers used to call up the control room and inform that bombs were planted in different areas of the state capital.

Most of the times calls are made from public booths where there are no records of the caller.

Though police officials are unwilling to go on record, sources in the police department say that this sort of prank calls is one of a modus operandi by terrorist. “There is a possibility that terrorist could be using this to check the alertness of the city police and other intelligence agencies before their major

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Fort Hood shooter to be executed FORT HOOD: A military jury sentenced a US Army officer to death Wednesday for carrying out an Al-Qaeda inspired mass shooting on the Fort Hood base in Texas that left 13 dead.

After a short deliberation, the forewoman of a jury of military officers said it was their unanimous verdict that 42-year-old Major Nidal Hasan should be executed.

Hasan, who elected to conduct his own defense during the trial but who called no witnesses and gave no testimony, sat in his wheelchair staring ahead of himself the verdict was read.

Under US military justice, death penalty verdicts are automatically reviewed under an appeals procedure that could take years. It can then be appealed through the civilians courts, and any execution would have to be approved by the US AROUND THE

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plot,” said an official. According to the Bomb disposal squad officials so far they have received 25 hoax calls so far this year.

The police officials, however, said that once they receive such calls, their duty just does not end by inspecting the place but till they trace out the caller.

“Every call is taken with complete seriousness by the police department. Some miscreants call and try to play pranks for random reasons. However we track down the numbers and the miscreants are severely punished,” said Anjani Kumar additional police commissioner (law and order).

A city police control room official said that some of such calls are particularly targeted at delaying some activity.

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“Sometimes passengers who could be missing the train, flight or bus could make such random calls. Because when such calls come immediately we spring into action for hour long security checks and drills. However, those miscreants playing such pranks will not be spared once they are tracked down,” said the official.

After the twin blasts at Dilsukhnagar, the city police received several hoax bomb calls keeping the police on alert and beefing up the security in sensitive areas. Most of the calls

that came to the control room, were about bombs planted in places like movie theatres, reputed schools, engineering colleges, temples, railway and bus stations and even the Shamshabad International airport.

“There is tight security 24/7 at sensitive places, as and when we receive any sort of information we go as per our plan of action to make sure that the city is safe and terror free. Citizens on the other hand should also make sure that they are safe and inform us about a person or thing they find suspicious,” said Anjani Kumar. He also urged the citizens not to indulge in such activity and make prank calls as it employs precious time of the city police.

president. Death penalty verdicts are often overturned, and no soldier has been executed since 1961.

Hasan has nevertheless made no attempt to deny the charges and court appointed defense attorneys had expressed concern that he is seeking execution.

The US-born Muslim of Palestinian descent is the first member of the army to receive a death sentence since the 2005 conviction of Hasan Akbar, who killed two in an attack on fellow soldiers in Kuwait in 2003.

On November 5, 2009, Hasan opened fire at a medical facility in the sprawling Fort Hood base in Texas killing 12 and wounding 30.

AFP

CITY BRIEFS Awareness programme for unemployed youths

Jagan’s jail fast enters fourth day

LSP round-table meets on State’s future

Prohibitory orders in place till Sept 4

SHRC tells cops to book Ram Charan for assault

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he Andhra Pradesh State Minorities Finance Corporation in collaboration with Hyderabad City Police is arranging an awareness program for the unemployed youths on Saturday at Falaknuma in Nabeel Function Hall. Officials from Minorities Corporation and Minorities Welfare Department will participate.

SR Congress president YS Jaganmohan Reddy continued his fast in Chanchalguda Central Jail for the fourth day today. Jail officials said the Kadapa MP’s condition was stable. Police arrested dozens of YSR Congress activists who tried to advance towards the jail to show solidarity with their leader, who is fasting for a united state.

he Lok Satta Party is organising non-partisan round-table conferences at Kakinada and Vizag today and tomorrow to discuss the future of the State. A round-table meeting was organised at Vijayawada today. The LSP organised the first State-level conference in Hyderabad on August 10 and discussed the T decision aftermath.

ity Police Commissioner has issued prohibitory orders from 6am on August 29 to 6am on September 4.

Order prohibits carrying of weapons such as swords, spears, knives, sticks with or without flags bludgeons, guns, explosives, and other weapons. It disallows gathering in the public places disturbing peace and order or causing inconvenience.

he State Human Rights Commission on Wednesday directed the Banjara Hills Police to file a case against cine hero Ram Charan Teja in connection with an attack on two software engineers. Bodyguards of Ram Charan Teja allegedly attacked two software engineers in Banjara Hills when the duo picked up argument with the cine hero.

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News THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013 LAST YEAR... HERE We all fall down

L

ast year we had reported how the GHMC was on a drive to demolish about 100 buildings which they felt needed to be demolished and that did not meet the standard requirements.

Now after the Hotel falling down, it seems the GHMC might have just left out a few buildings awho deserve to be demolished because they are unfit for human habitation.

AUGUST 29, 2012

NUMEROLOGY

86

People were killed in Baghdad as sectarian violence spread. Around 263 more were wounded in a series of car bombings, extending the worst wave of bloodshed in Iraq for at least five years.

On any given day during the pilgrimage about 30,000 people, emitting radiation at 37 degrees Celsius, are in the vicinity hastening the melting of these glaciers.

Shakil Ramshoo, professor Univ of Kashmir, See pg 12

THINGS WE 5LEARNT TODAY The column that teaches everyone something new about the way the world functions.

1

City police troubled with the growing number hoax calls

The growing number of hoax bomb calls especially in the past few days has alarmed the city police.

2

Cops nab two cloth merchants for pornography The police task force warn that accepting drinks from unsuspection shopkeepers/strangers could land them in trouble.

3

Young women drinkers are at a risk of breast cancer Each alcoholic drink a woman takes daily from when her menstrual periods start until her first full-term pregnancy ups her lifetime risk of breast cancer by 13 per cent.

4

Chandrayaan-1 helps NASA find water on moon Using data from instruments aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists have found evidence of water locked in mineral grains on the surface of the moon.

5

Pilgrimage threatens pristine ecology of Himalayas By the end of the 55-day pilgrimage season, rubbish, as well as human waste, can be found there.

CRIME

AUSTRALIA

2 held for sexual assault, porn 5 held in Oz for helping asylum seekers

Two cloth merchants whose real job seems to have been trapping women customers by spiking their drinks, sexually assaulting them and filming the act using a hidden webcam are in prison.

Mohd SUBHAN mohd.s@postnoon.com HYDERABAD: The City police’s task force team has arrested and arraigned two cloth merchants who had been trapping girls, sedating them, and after having sex blackmailing them to come for sex again.

One is Amjad Hussain alias Sohail, 45, resident of Khilwat, he runs a saree store in Pathargatti and his friend Faheem Zaki, a resident of the same locality, too is a cloth merchant and the two began this racket of trapping girls who visited their shop.

Their modus operandi was to treat them with excess courtesy and once the unsuspecting girls accepted soft drinks offered to them, they would

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What proved their nemesis was that one of the victims happened to be from a reputed family and they immediately swung into action. become unconscious and the two would molest them under a hidden spycam, explained Additional DCP (Task Force) P Rameshaiah. The DCP said that Amjad, a married man with kids, had no qualms doing this to a few girls.

Recently, the duo uploaded some of these girls’ pictures on

the Internet when their blackmail failed.

Parents of one of the girls mustered courage and went to the police and lodged a complaint against the two. The City Commissioner of Police Anurag Sharma asked the Task Force to take up the case on priority and make an example of the culprits.

Apart from sexual assault, the suspects are charged with blackmailing the girls for money too. They are being charged on various counts and the two might land a jail term ranging from 10 to 15 years.

What proved their nemesis was that one of the victims happened to be from a reputed family and they immediately swung into action when they learned of the dark deeds of the two men.

SYDNEY: Five men from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan have been arrested and accused of facilitating the passage of up to 132 asylum-seekers boats in Australia’s largest-ever peoplesmuggling sting, police said Thursday.

The men — an Iranian, 21, a Pakistan national, 46, and three Afghans aged 40, 34 and 33 — were detained in a major nationwide operation bringing together 12 months of work and seven separate probes into 132 voyages.

Four of the men, described by police as “key” syndicate memAROUND THE

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bers, came to Australia on smuggling boats themselves between May 2012 and July 2013.

Three are in immigration detention, and stand accused of orchestrating activities from Indonesia prior to their arrival.

Police said it was Australia’s largest ever people-smuggling strike, relying on evidence from more than 200 witnesses.

Assistant Commissioner Steve Lancaster promised further arrests, warning other smugglers they ought not “sleep well tonight” with investigations ongoing both domestically and abroad.

AFP

BREAST CANCER

Women drinkers at high risk WASHINGTON: Young women who drink alcohol every day may be raising significantly their risk of breast cancer, according to US research published Wednesday.

Each alcoholic drink a woman takes daily from when her menstrual periods start until her first full-term pregnancy ups her lifetime risk of breast cancer by 13 per cent, said the study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The findings were based on a survey of 91,005 mothers in a major US health study from 1989 to 2009. The researchers also found that each additional daily drink — whether beer, wine or hard liquor — raised the risk of proliferative benign breast disease by 15 per cent.

Breast tissue cells are particularly susceptible to cancer-causing changes in youth because they grow rapidly and proliferate during adolescence and beyond, researchers said.

Another factor is the lengthening time period between the first menstrual period and the first childbirth, a AROUND THE trend which is WORLD likely to continue. “Reducing drinking to less than one drink per day, especially during this time period, is a key strategy to reducing lifetime risk of breast cancer," said study author Graham Colditz.

AFP

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News THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

ROLEMODEL

NGO blazes a trail in public work Why should citizens who must earn their livelihood waste time making rounds to government offices for voter id card, asks M Sai Sudhakar who organises camps to help people get their cards. He suggests door-to-door canvassing for this purpose. voter id application forms in a span of two days, which is a record," MSR revealed.

GOVT SHOULD ACT

Md INKESHAF AHMED ahmed.m@postnoon.com HYDERABAD: Non-governmental organisations (NGO) stepping into fill the governmental vacuum is rare. Usually, many NGOs are in the news more for wrong reasons than right.

But City- based MSR Trust is doing what the government ought to have done. The Trust has been organising special camps to help the common masses get the valuable Electronic Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) to all the eligible voters of the city. This followed a frustrated public plea to the Trust to help them.

“These voters, have approached us after getting fed up with the government authorities,” admitted a functionary of the Trust. “Yes, the residents who came to us are the victims of bureaucracy’s lackadaisical

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attitude and political inaction,” said the Trust founder and politician, M Sai Sudhakar.

“They did the rounds of the government offices for over a year to get their voter Id cards but failed to get one. Local political leaders too could not help them. Vexed with the situation, they approached us with a plea to help them get the voter Id cards.”

The Trust organised camps in various localities and bastis of Kukatpally Assembly seat with the help of local youth.

The camps proved to be a tremendous success.

“We gave no wide publicity but our camps were a huge hit with the news spreading by word of mouth. In a single spot alone we collected over 1,300

According to the chairman of the trust, the government officials lack commitment in serving the people. The State which disconnects the electricity connection of a consumer without any delay in case of his default should also do the same with officials who debunk on their commitments,” leader M Sai Sudhakar said.

He has a formula for the government to follow. He says that if the government undertake a door- to- door campaign to register new voters, it would succeed in issuing the cards.

“In a democracy, it is very important to have a voters id.

The state can do it with the help of its employees like electricity bill payment collectors," he notes. “Why should citizens who must earn their livelihood everyday waste their time making rounds to government offices for voter ID?” he asks.

The trust has set up special teams to undertake the drive of voter’s registration. These special teams not only collect the applications of the eligible voters but they would also ensure the delivery of the EPIC Cards to the respective voters.

The team will also coordinate and liase with election commission authorities to speed up the process of issuance of delivery of the cards in a time bound manner.

TECH MILESTONE

Chandrayaan-1 helps Nasa find water on moon

WASHINGTON: Using data from instruments aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists have found evidence of water locked in mineral grains on the surface of the moon from an unknown source deep beneath the surface.

Using Nasa’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument on the Isro spacecraft, scientists remotely detected magmatic water, or water that originates from deep within the moon’s interior, on the surface of the moon.

The findings of the Nasafunded research, published in Nature Geoscience, represent the first detection of this form of water from lunar orbit, the agency said. Earlier studies had shown the existence of magmatic water in lunar samples returned during the Apollo programme, Nasa said in a media release.

M3 imaged the lunar impact crater Bullialdus, which lies near the lunar equator. Its central peak is made up of a type of rock that forms deep within the lunar crust and mantle when magma is trapped underground.

“This rock, which normally resides deep beneath the surface, was excavated from the lunar depths by the impact that formed Bullialdus crater," said Rachel Klima, a planetary geologist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.

“Compared to its surroundings, we found that the central portion of this crater contains a significant amount of hydroxyl — a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom — which is evidence that the rocks in this crater contain water that originated beneath the lunar surface," Klima said.

In 2009, M3 provided the first mineralogical map of the lunar surface and discovered water molecules in the polar regions of the moon.

This water is thought to be a thin layer formed from solar wind hitting the moon’s surface.

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Bullialdus crater is in a region with an unfavourable environment for solar wind to produce significant amounts of water on the surface.

The detection of internal water from orbit means scientists can begin to test some of the findings from sample studies in a broader context, including in regions that are far from where the Apollo sites are clustered on the near side of the moon, Nasa said.

For many years, researchers believed that the rocks from the moon were bone-dry and any water detected in the Apollo samples had to be contamination from Earth, it said.

IANS

NATION BRIEFS 12 IEDs recovered after search operation

Odisha BJP leader ends fast after five days

Bomb found in Jalpaiguri district

‘Government’s priority is populism, not prudence’

Two injured while defusing bomb in Alipurduar

BOKARO : Security forces today recovered 12 Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) during a search operation in the Maoist-affected Bokaro district, police said. The IEDs, each weighing 10kg, were found buried at a site near Jamnijora village, CRPF Commandant Sanjay Kumar said.

The explosives had not been connected with fuse wire, he added.

BHUBANESWAR: Senior BJP leader Ashok Sahu, who went on a hunger strike demanding action in the murder of a Hindu leader in Odisha five years ago, Thursday broke his fiveday fast. The 60-year-old leader, had launched the protest at Phulbani town in Kandhamal district. After a cardiac problem, he was shifted to the Sriram Chandra Bhanja medical college.

KOLKATA: An explosive device along with timers was Thursday recovered from West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district, just days after seven people were injured in a blast, police said.

The explosive device kept on a cycle was recovered by police from Chowpothi in Alipurduar sub-division early Thursday.

NEW DELHI: Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley Thursday slammed the government over the country’s economic situation. “The growth rate is slackening, inflation is rising, will be importing further inflation because of the oil prices and the rupee-dollar parity being disturbed. The currency is completely disturbed and I think their priority still remains populism and not prudence.”

ALIPURDUAR : Two bomb-squad personnel were today injured when they tried to defuse a bomb here, police said. The bomb was found in a bag tied with a cycle here this morning.

As locals informed police, a bombsquad team from Siliguri reached the spot and took the bag to a local club premises, Jalpaiguri Superintendent of Police Amit Javalgi said.

6

News THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

RELATIONSHIP BREAK

Douglas, Zeta-Jones to spend time apart LOS ANGELES: Hollywood Alisters Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, one of Tinseltown’s most high-profile couples, have decided to take a break from their 13-year marriage, representatives for the pair said Wednesday.

The 68-year-old US actor and his 43-year-old British wife have had a rough few years healthwise, while cancer survivor Douglas made headlines earlier this year with comments to a British newspaper about oral sex.

The couple — who have two children, Dylan, 13, and 10-yearold Carys— decided to live apart after Douglas returned from the Cannes Film Festival in May, shortly after his wife checked in for a second round of treatment for bipolar disorder, People magazine reported.

“Michael and Catherine are taking some time apart to evaluate and work on their marriage.

There is no further comment,” Douglas spokesman Allen Burry

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told AFP, confirming the cover story in the latest issue of People.

A spokeswoman for ZetaJones, Cece Yorke, issued an almost identical statement, also without elaborating.

Neither star has filed for

divorce or legal separation, according to People, which featured the couple of its cover with the headline: “Their Marriage Crumbles.”

“Michael and Catherine love each other very much, (but) they’re taking a break,” a close confidant told the magazine, adding: “No legal people are involved whatsoever.”

AFP

RELIEF

28 years on, betel nut pulled out of man’s lung

PATNA: Seventy-fiveyear-old Krishna Kant Jha is now a relaxed man.

After 28 years of suffering from chronic cough and regular bouts of fits, a piece of betel nut was found to be cause of his problems and was finally extricated from his lungs.

Jha, an advocate in Samastipur district, said he suffered for more than two and half decades.

Dozens of doctors treated him but failed to discover the betel nut in his lungs.

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“It was a betel nut that was embedded in my lung, and used to obstruct my airway. It was like life in hell but now I am happy and healthy,” Jha said.

Jha said he consulted several doctors in and outside Bihar since 1985.

“But all of them treated me for different ailments, including chest infection to pneumonia

and tuberculosis and also for epilepsy. They failed to trace the betel nut, and never diagnosed it,” he said.

Finally, chest specialist Sudhir Kumar discovered the betel nut lodged in Jha’s lungs.

Sudhir Kumar along with anaesthetic Subhash Kumar, both based in Patna, successfully performed bronchoscopy on Jha to extricate the betel nut.

Bronchoscopy is a non-surgical procedure in which an illuminated fibre optic cable is inserted into the wind pipe of the lungs.

Jha no longer suffers from severe cough and bouts of unconsciousness that he suffered threefour times a day.

Jha said he was a habitual betel-nut chewer and had swallowed the nut over two-and-a-half decades back that proved painful for him for so many years.

IANS

Woman in $230 mn scandal surrenders A Philippinian businesswoman turned herself in to Aquino and asked for his protection.

MANILA: A Philippine businesswoman who allegedly connived with legislators to embezzle 10 billion pesos ($230 million) in funds intended for development projects has surrendered directly to President Benigno Aquino, officials said Thursday.

Janet Napoles turned herself in to Aquino late Wednesday and asked for the president’s protection.

“The president turned her over to the custody of Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas and Philippine National Police director general Alan Purisima for processing and booking,” Aquino’s office said in a statement.

Roxas said Napoles, who had previously denied the allegations, had asked for protection from the president.

“She asked the president

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for assurance about her safety, so that not anyone can approach her or do what they want to her,” Roxas said. The nature of the threat was not specified, and Aquino’s office did not say who facilitated her surrender.

Her surrender comes three days after tens of thousands of Filipinos held a mass protest demanding her arrest and the abolition of legislators’ controversial Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).

The fund is supposed to finance lawmakers’ pet development schemes but critics charge they are “pork barrel” projects which have traditionally been a source of corruption.

AFP

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News THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013 RAPE ALLEGATION

‘No more waiting for Asaram’ JAIPUR: Rajasthan Police is unlikely to give more time to spiritual guru Asaram Bapu to appear for questioning in connection with a sexual assault case filed against him by a 16-year-old girl, an official said Thursday.

Asaram Bapu was Tuesday served notice at his ashram in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, asking him to appear before police in Jodhpur for questioning before or on Aug 30.

The girl had made a complaint at a police station in Delhi Aug 20, accusing Asaram Bapu of sexually assaulting her at his ashram in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur city.

AROUND THE

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A first information report (FIR) was registered against Asaram Bapu in Jodhpur after receiving a copy of the complaint from Delhi Police Aug 21.

A police official told IANS that the seer has sought time till Sep 20, saying he will participate in several spiritual functions and give discourses over this period.

“Asaram gave a letter to the Jodhpur police team which had served him notice at Indore. In the letter, he has sought extension of the date for questioning," the police officer said.

Police, however, have decided to turn down the request, the official added.

“The reprieve cannot be granted on the reasons cited

by Asaram. He is facing serious charge of sexual assault on a minor girl," said the official.

A notice was also served Monday at Asaram Bapu’s ashram in Ahmedabad.

IANS

RESPECT SANS BORDERS

Traditional Maori dancers from Destiny Church, New Zealand perform during the Let Freedom Ring Commemoration and Call to Action to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedrom at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on Wednesday.

AFP/ SAUL LOEB

BREAKTHROUGH

IM chief Yasin Bhatkal held This is the second major arrest from Indo-Nepal border in a short span after top Lashkar bomb-maker Abdul Karim Tunda was nabbed earlier this month.

NEW DELHI: Police have arrested the alleged co-founder of top home-grown militant group the Indian Mujahideen, blamed for a string of attacks in recent years in Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad, reports said Thursday.

Yasin Bhatkal was arrested on the India-Nepal border near the town of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.

The banned Indian Mujahideen came to public attention in November 2007 following serial blasts in Uttar Pradesh and is blamed for multiple attacks since in cities across the country in which hundreds of people have been killed.

The group is thought to head a network of home-grown Islamic militant groups, with some analysts believing it has links with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaishe-Mohammed militant organisa-

Terror trail n

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tions.

If confirmed it would be another success for the Indian security forces following the arrest earlier this month of another alleged top militant, Abdul Karim Tunda, who is

Bhatkal is wanted in several bomb blast cases in India, including the explosion outside the Delhi High Court on September 7, 2011 in which 12 people were killed.

Bhatkal is also wanted in the German Bakery blast case of February 2010, in which 17 persons - including five foreigners - were killed and 56 others injured.

He is believed to be one of the chief conspirators in the Jangli Maharaj Road lowintensity blasts in Pune. The blasts took place on August 1, 2012 in which one person was

thought to be a senior member of the LeT. It is not known if the two arrests are linked but Tunda, who was also arrested near the Nepal border, has been cooperating with police, according to

n

n

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injured.

Bhatkal’s name also figures in the list of conspirators behind the 2010 Chinnaswamy blasts in Bangalore.

He is also believed to have played a crucial role in the planning and execution of the July 13, 2006 Mumbai train blasts.

The IM terrorist is also believed to have had hand in blasts in Delhi in 2008, Ahmedabad (2008), Surat (2008), Jaipur (2008), Dashashwamedh Ghat in Varanasi (2010), and Mumbai (2011).

newspaper reports.

He is accused of helping mastermind serial blasts in Mumbai in 1993 in which 250 people died, as well as more than 40 other deadly bomb attacks across the country.

AFP

WORLD BRIEFS Migrant woman gives birth at sea

S. Korea leftist party furious over charges

Abe vows greater govt role at Fukushima

Colombian court nod for ex-rebels in politics

37 dead in Kenya bus disaster, say police

ROME: A woman migrant gave birth to a baby girl during a fourday voyage across the Mediterranean Sea, when she and close to 200 other mostly Syrian migrants travelled to Italy, doctors said. Among the 191 migrants rescued by the Italian coastguard, 48 were women and 51 were minors.

SEOUL: A far-left South Korean party reacted angrily Thursday to a “fabricated” effort by the national spy agency to charge some of its leading members with plotting to overthrow the government. The United Progress Party described raids on its offices by National Intelligence Service officers as a “mad crackdown".

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has promised to the world his government will play a greater role in stopping leaks of highly radioactive water at Fukushima. His industry minister and Japan’s head nuclear regulator have been tasked with finding the cause of the leaks and drafting steps to counter the problem.

BOGOTA: Colombia’s constitutional court on Wednesday approved a reform that will enable rebels who lay down their arms after a peace process to take part in political life, it said. The constitutional amendment, approved by lawmakers in 2012, was given the green light by seven of the court’s nine justices.

NAIROBI: At least 37 people have been killed in a bus crash west of the Kenya capital Nairobi, police said Thursday. “It is a horrible scene.

Bodies are strewn all over," traffic police official Samuel Kimaru said by telephone from the scene near the town of Narok. “Of the dead, 33 are adults while four are children,” Kimaru said.

8

News THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

SYRIAN CONFLICT

Obama yet to decide on Syria strike But he warned that US action would be designed to send a ‘shot across the bow’ to convince Syria it had ‘better not do it again’.

STEPHEN COLLINSON Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama said Wednesday he had not yet signed off on a plan to strike Syria, but action appeared likely after Washington abandoned the hunt for a lastminute UN mandate.

Political uproar in London, meanwhile, cast doubt on whether Britain will join American military action to punish President Bashar al-Assad’s regime for a chemical weapons attack, should the response take place before next week.

And a team of UN inspectors pressed on with its hazardous work in Damascus, testing victims of the alleged poison gas attack, which killed hundreds of people last week and threatens to draw reluctant Western states into a vicious civil war.

Obama, who has warned that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would cross a US “red line,” said Washington had definitively concluded that the Assad regime was to blame for last week’s attack.

A senior White House official told AFP that the administration will brief senior US lawmakers on Thursday about classified intelligence about the chemical attack. Asked how close he was to ordering a US strike, expected to start with cruise missile raids, Obama told PBS NewsHour: “I have not made a decision.”

But he warned that US action would be designed to send a “shot across the bow” to convince Syria it had “better not do it again.”

He admitted that the limited strikes envisioned by the White House would not stop the killing of civilians in Syria but said he had decided that getting involved in a civil war that has already killed 100,000 people would not help the situation.

The US leader, who wants to seal a legacy of ending foreign wars, not getting into new ones, argued that it was vital to send a clear message not just to Syria, but around the world.

“We do have to make sure that when countries break international norms on weapons like chemical weapons that could threaten us, that they are held accountable.”

Earlier, Washington bluntly signaled that a UN Security Council resolution proposed by Britain that could have given a legal basis for an assault was going nowhere, owing to

An Israeli soldier walks next to Merkava tanks stationed in a deployment training area in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights near the border with Syria on August 28, 2013. Israel will strike back “fiercely” if Syria attacks the Jewish state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, as the US mulled military action against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

AFP/MENAHEM KAHANA

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Tutu for human intervention

n Nobel peace laureate

Desmond Tutu on Wednesday warned against military action in Syria calling instead for “human intervention” and the need for more time for UN inspectors to conclude investigations. n The top Republican in

Congress on Wednesday demanded an “unambiguous” explanation from President Barack Obama of his objectives in Syria ahead of any US military strike. n British lawmakers were on

Thursday set to vote on Britain’s response to chemical weapons attacks in Syria — but any military action will require a second parliamentary vote.

Russian opposition.

“We see no avenue forward, given continued Russian opposition to any meaningful Council action on Syria,” State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said. “We cannot be held up in responding by Russia’s continued intransigence at the United Nations, and quite frankly the situation is so serious that it demands a response,” Harf said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron was meanwhile slowed by a parliamentary revolt and was forced to pledge he would not order military action until the report by UN inspectors has been published.

Cameron plans to put his case to lawmakers on Thursday, but with a majority in doubt on the issue a second vote, possibly early next week, will now have to take place before British forces can join the fray.

White House officials would not immediately say whether Washington would wait for Britain before launching any military action. Syria’s nervous neighbors meanwhile stepped up their preparations for conflict as a strike appeared imminent.

Israel authorized a partial call-up of army reservists, Turkey said its forces were on heightened “vigilance,” and New York oil hit the highest level — $112.24 per barrel — for more than two years. “The region is like a gunpowder depot,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned in a condemnation of the West’s reported mil-

itary plans. The United Nations says its inspection team needs two more days to finish their work. But it has given no deadline for reporting on whether chemical weapons have been used. The inspectors went to the Ghouta district east of Damascus on Wednesday to collect blood, urine and hair samples from victims of the August 21 attack.

The United States, Britain and France blame Assad’s forces for the attack using chemical weapons, which are banned under an international convention.

The Syrian government has blamed the attack on “terrorist” rebels. Its UN ambassador, Bashar Jaafari, said Wednesday that Syrian soldiers had been gassed in three new incidents near Damascus since last week.

Russia, which has vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions aiming to increase pressure on Assad, has maintained its support for his government.

But it also evacuated more than 100 people from the Syrian city of Latakia on Wednesday.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague that the international community must wait for the UN inquiry to be completed before taking any further steps, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

In another conversation with UN Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, Lavrov said Western military strikes against Assad would destabilize the entire Middle East.

Obama at the Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at the Lincoln Memorial.

We do have to make sure that when countries break international norms on weapons like chemical weapons that could threaten us, that they are held accountable.

Barack Obama

‘West must intervene’ PARIS: The West must rid Syria of President Bashar alAssad and bring him to trial before the International Criminal Court, the leader of the country’s main opposition group, Ahmad alJarba, said in an interview Thursday.

Jarba told the daily Le Parisien he will tell French President Francois Hollande in talks Thursday morning: “Chemical Bashar has massacred our people on August 21. He must not escape the punishment he deserves.”

AFP

9

News THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

Little krishnas looking adorable in yellow and tiny gopis with matkas were spotted at a fancy dress competition that was held at Shilparamam on the occasion of Krishna Jayanti in the City.

WHITE HOUSE HONOUR

PIO doc gets top fellowship WASHINGTON: Kapil Parakh, an Indian-origin cardiologist working in Washington area, is among a dozen people chosen by the White House for its prestigious fellowship programme for 2013-14.

A Zambia University graduate, AROUND THE

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Parakh is the director of heart failure at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Centre and assistant professor in the Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Behaviour and Society.

He edged out two other IndianAmericans among the finalists —

Shilpen Patel, associate professor of radiation oncology at the University of Washington, and Jay Bhatt, geriatric medicine fellow at the University of Michigan Health System.

Starting with Indian-American neurosurgeon and CNN's chief med-

The contenders

H

e edged out two other Indian-Americans among the finalists — Shilpen Patel, associate professor of radiation oncology at the University of Washington, and Jay Bhatt, geriatric medicine fellow at the University of Michigan Health System.

ical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, who was a 1997-98 fellow, Parakh is the latest person of Indian origin to join the White House Fellows Programme created in 1964 by then president Lyndon Johnson.

The programme is designed to give promising American leaders "first hand, high-level experience with the workings of the federal government, and to increase their sense of participation in national affairs", according to the White House. Parakh leads heart failure quality improvements in collaboration with the Joint Commission's Centre for Transforming Healthcare, using entrepreneurial techniques to cost-effectively improve outcomes, the announcement said.

IANS

PICK YOUR

@

Across Stores

ities Twin C

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News THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

CONSERVATION

Stork: A Pole’s best friend

More than 15,000 White Stork couples flock to the lake-rich northern region of Masuria every summer, according to local officials. Poland as a whole sees an average of 50,000 storks a year, or 20 per cent of the world’s population.

STANISLAW WASZAK Agence France Presse ZYWKOWO: It is a success story of happy coexistence: outnumbered by storks, residents of the Polish hamlet of Zywkowo welcome the birds on their roofs in exchange for good luck and, if you believe legend, newborns.

Kept afloat by EU and nonprofit funding, the northern hamlet — a stone’s throw from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad — depends on storks for the tourism it needs to survive.

“In the 1960s, we had 120 residents and 20 storks. Today it is the opposite,” says retired farmer Wladyslaw Andrejew.

While too poor to keep the younger generation from leaving, this part of the country is paradise on earth for the large, red-legged birds.

More than 15,000 White Stork couples flock to the lake-rich northern region of Masuria every summer, according to local officials.

Poland as a whole sees an average of 50,000 storks a year, or 20 percent of the world’s population.

Since he was little, 64-yearold Andrejew has been passionate about storks, building and fixing massive nests for his animal pals on roofs, in trees and on poles around the farm.

He has counted them, gawked at them, fed them and protected them. In 2004, a record year, he counted 27 stork couples on his farm, plus 38 babies.

“Storks are like nature in general: you have to put your heart into it. Then they’ll bring good luck,” he says.

“We’ve always lived under the protective wing of the stork and have never known misery.”

Every April he impatiently awaits the sound of the storks’ noisy bill-clattering — akin to machine gun fire — as they fly in from Africa.

“In winter, when the storks are gone, the silence is awful,” Andrejew says.

‘WE CRY TO SEE THEM GO’

“Come spring, the back of our necks wrinkle as we lift our heads towards the sky to scan for the first arrivals. In autumn, we cry to see them go.”

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When he retired, Andrejew sold his farm to the bird protection society PTOP, a non-profit organisation based in the northeastern city of Bialystok.

Using the farm as a local base has allowed PTOP to launch a series of projects aimed at welcoming storks into the area.

“We harvest hay, dig ponds, put up new platforms for their nests, fix the old platforms, insulate the electric lines for the birds’ safety,” says farm manager Adam Lopuszynski.

“We bought these aerial lifts

firemen use, which help us reach and repair the big nests up high.”

A stork’s nest generally weighs around 500 kilogrammes (1,100 pounds) but can reach up to quadruple that, or two tonnes.

PTOP acquired a total of 75 hectares (185 acres) of land around Zywkowo and planted a mishmash of crops as that’s what the bird prefers.

“Storks set up camp wherever there’s a mosaic of plots of land,” Lopuszynski says.

“We want to show that if we take care of nature, we can live side by side with the stork,” adds the former sociologist turned bird-watcher.

Zywkowo’s three-year stork protection programme, which was cofunded by the European Union and ends this year, cost around 1.5 million euros ($2 million), according to PTOP official Sebastian Menderski.

“We do everything with the stork in mind. It’s all for the bird,” he says.

“The area’s future depends on the stork. If all the young people leave, our hamlet will disap-

A stork’s nest generally weighs around 500 kilogrammes but can reach up to quadruple that, or two tonnes. pear,” adds mayor Stefan Hryszko.

“Thanks to the stork, there’s investment, there are jobs and there’s construction. That will keep us around.” Plus, “it’s the storks who bring newborns!” jokes Andrejew, father of five, citing an ancient legend still used in

advertising, storybooks and popular imagery today.

“Some even say it’s enough for a woman to look at a stork to get pregnant.”

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News THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

MAN-ANIMAL CONFLICT

The wild side of London

To some they are a nuisance, even a danger. To others, London’s 10,000 foxes are a delightful reminder that this concrete wilderness is teeming with wildlife.

JACQUES KLOPP Agence France Presse LONDON: To some they are a nuisance, even a danger. To others, London’s 10,000 foxes are a delightful reminder that this concrete wilderness is teeming with wildlife.

The ruddy brown creatures seem out of place on the streets of the British capital — but they are now so common that 70 percent of Londoners will have seen one slinking around in the last week, according to a recent survey.

For some city-dwellers, the red fox is the ultimate nightmare neighbour.

Many a Londoner will have had a night’s sleep ruined by a fox’s eerie screeching, only to wake and find their rubbish bins have been upturned. To add insult to injury, the scavenging fox will have left a stench of musk behind.

With their flashing eyes and razor-sharp teeth, the foxes have even been characterised as a menace.

There have been a spate of reports of babies attacked in their cots by foxes in recent years, though animal rights campaigners say the dangers are wildly exaggerated.

In June, London’s mayor Boris Johnson reignited a longrunning debate over whether the animals should be culled — by jokingly suggesting that the traditional sport of fox hunting, outlawed in Britain since 2005, should be legalised in the capital.

“This will cause massive unpopularity and I don’t care,”

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Fox facts n

Some 86 percent of people like the animals, according to a poll for Channel 4 TV.

n

Another survey by Bristol University found that 10 percent of Londoners regularly feed them.

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The rate of ‘fox attacks’ is nothing compared to the 250,000 people bitten by pet dogs each year in Britain.

Living dangerously n

The average life expectancy of an urban fox is only two years, compared to four years in captivity.

n

Cars are responsible for 60 percent of their deaths.

The rest die from illness or are killed by around 100 marksmen authorised to shoot foxes in London.

said the colourful mayor, who said he was driven to speak out after his cat was apparently attacked by one of London’s foxes.

“If people want to get together to form the fox hounds of Islington (a leafy north London borough), I’m all for it.”

There are some 33,000 urban foxes in Britain and a third reside in the capital, according to

research by Bristol University. A further 250,000 live in rural areas.

“They are adaptable animals which can eat many kinds of food and are by nature opportunists,” said Calie Rydings of the animal charity Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

“So it is not surprising that they can be found in some towns and cities.”

FOX LOVERS DISMISS ‘ATTACK’ TALES With its large parks as well as thousands of houses with private gardens, London is a paradise for foxes.

They have been a part of the city landscape since the 1930s, when the urban sprawl began to encroach on their rural territory.

Despite the complaints, the foxes have mostly cohabited happily with their human neighbours.

Some 86 percent of people like the animals, according to a poll for Channel 4 TV. Another survey by Bristol University found that 10 percent of Londoners regularly feed them.

Britain has some of the highest-density fox populations in the world, according to Stephen Harris, professor of environmental sciences at Bristol.

“Despite this, they cause remarkably few problems and the vast majority of householders like to see the foxes in their garden,” he told AFP. Yet every few years, a case hits the headlines that sparks an outcry against the foxes and a slew of calls for the animals to be

culled or moved to the countryside.

In 2010, an east London mother spoke of her “living nightmare” after her ninemonth-old twin girls were mauled by a fox as they slept in their cots.

In February, a one-month-old baby boy had his finger ripped off.

But animal charities say such attacks are extremely rare — and in some case, foxes are not even the culprits.

Trevor Williams, director of the Fox Project charity, said he knew of three reported ‘attacks’ by foxes on babies in eleven years — but claims one was actually carried out by the family’s own dog.

“According to neighbours, the second also involved a dog.

The third story was so full of contradictions, few people believe it,” he told AFP. Even if the stories are true, Williams claimed, the rate of attacks is nothing compared to the 250,000 people bitten by pet dogs each year in Britain.

The biggest threat, according to the RSPCA, is to the foxes themselves.

The average life expectancy of an urban fox is only two years, compared to four years in captivity.

Cars are responsible for 60 percent of their deaths. The rest die from illness or are killed by around 100 marksmen authorised to shoot foxes in London.

Three years ago, there was an uproar after a video emerged showing four masked men bludgeoning a fox to death with a

In 2010, an east London mother spoke of her “living nightmare” after her ninemonth-old twin girls were mauled by a fox.

cricket bat in a London park.

But it turned out to be a hoax.

The perpetrators, film directors Chris Atkins and Johnny Howorth, had faked the killing in a bid to highlight the “ludicrous media coverage” of fox attacks.

12

News THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

AMARNATH YATRA

Pilgrimage threatens pristine ecology of Himalayas

Surrounded by clouds and 3,800 metres (12,800 feet) above sea level, the Amarnath shrine is one of Hinduism’s most revered sites. But the debris left behind is anything but sacred.

PARVAIZ BUKHARI Agence France Presse SRINAGAR: Every summer for two months, hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus, some chanting hymns, trek high into the Himalayas in Indian Kashmir in a gruelling pilgrimage to a cave shrine. Surrounded by clouds and 3,800 metres (12,800 feet) above sea level, the Amarnath shrine is one of Hinduism’s most revered sites.

But the debris left behind is anything but sacred.

By the end of the 55-day pilgrimage season, rubbish, including plastic bottles and bags, as well as human waste, can be found strewn across the mountain trails that wind through the fragile Himalayan environment.

Some of the rubbish falls into melted glaciers rushing through the valleys, threatening a vital source of drinking water for thousands of people who live downstream, experts said.

“There are more than 53 glaciers in that area,” said Professor Shakil Ramshoo, who heads the earth sciences department at the University of Kashmir. “Huge quantities of fecal matter and waste generated from the many eateries directly finds its way into the water bodies, deteriorating the water quality,” he added. The government

and pilgrimage organisers insist they continuously improve measures to protect and preserve the environment. Sewage systems have been installed at the start of the mountain paths and a number of composting toilets have been set up -- on a trial basis -along the way.

But management of the area is a source of tension in the Muslim-majority region.

In 2008, the transfer of a parcel of land to shrine administrators, partly to build better facilities, sparked separatist claims of a Hindu takeover and triggered anti-India protests in the region.

The transfer was later rescinded.

“We have to fine-tune it further,” Navin Choudhary, head of pilgrimage administration, conceded of current facilities for the trekkers. “(However) we are committed... The environment of the area is extremely important,” said Choudhary, chief executive officer of the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board.

He added: “We have to preserve it while providing any facilities for the yatris (pilgrims).”

Pilgrims from across the globe visit the Amarnath shrine to view its remarkable natural ice formation, worshipped as a symbol of Shiva, the god of destruction. Hindus believe it was in the

55 days

B

y the end of the 55-day pilgrimage season, rubbish, including plastic bottles and bags, as well as human waste, can be found strewn across the mountain trails that wind through the fragile Himalayan environment.

cave that Shiva revealed the secrets of life and immortality to his divine consort Parvati.

The sacred stalagmite appears each year in the cave -although it often melts away before the annual pilgrimage ends.

“All difficulties and worries vanish by visiting this place.

That is why everyone comes here,” said Shopinder Achariya,

a pilgrim from the Indian city of Lucknow who has trekked to the shrine every year since 2001.

“This place is special because here Lord Shiva narrated the eternal story to Mother Parvati,” Achariya said.

Devotees come in large numbers even though the pilgrimage has been attacked in the past by Muslim rebels opposed to Indian rule of the region.

At least 32 pilgrims were killed in 2000 when militants attacked pilgrims. Ten more were killed the following year and there have been minor attacks since then. More than 350,000 pilgrims hiked to the cave this season, which ended on August 21, down from a record number of 620,000 last year.

Rainy weather and a security clampdown following communal clashes were partially responsible for the drop in this year’s visitors, officials said.

Despite the fall, environmentalists say a cap should be placed on the annual number of pilgrims and the season shortened to limit any environmental damage, said Arjimand Hussain Talib, a consultant on international development and conservation in the region.

“Any visits to Amarnath cave have to be strictly controlled as per the carrying capacity of the area,” Talib said.

Some of the pilgrims, who can afford it, take a helicopter from the twin base camps in Sonmarg and Pahalgam -- two popular tourist destinations in the region.

But the chopper rides, along with the body heat of thousands of pilgrims, are adding to environmental concerns. Both are blamed for speeding up melting of the nearby glaciers in the ecologically sensitive area.

“On any given day during the pilgrimage about 30,000 people, emitting radiation at 37 degrees Celsius, are in the vicinity hastening the melting of these glaciers,” Ramshoo said.

Many pilgrims also defecate in the open near the glacier-fed streams whilst temporary food shacks generate mounds more waste, he said.

Authorities say hundreds of temporary pre-fabricated toilets are set up every year all along the two tracks leading to the shrine, but only a few are biodegradable ones, that can ensure waste does not reach the streams.

Frequent rains in the valleys also wash away some of the rubbish, making it difficult to collect for disposal, environmentalists say.

Pilgrimage administrators counter that the clean-up operation is extensive, lasting two months after the season ends.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

Business

DAMAGE CONTROL

SETTLEMENT CHARGES

RBI helps ` recover

Merrill Lynch to pay $160 mn for racial bias

NEW YORK CITY: Brokerage Merrill Lynch and its parent Bank of America will pay $160 million to settle charges it discriminated against AfricanAmerican employees. The payout would settle an eight-yearold lawsuit involving 1,200 black brokers who worked at the firm, and would be the largest amount won against a company in a US racial discrimination lawsuit.

The final settlement has not been signed, but a hearing on it has been scheduled for September 3.

The case, originally filed on behalf of 700 black Merrill brokers but finally addressing the complaints of 1,200, argued that because the company’s clients were overwhelmingly white, Merrill unfairly denied promotions and valuable accounts to black brokers.

Ironically, Merrill’s chairman and CEO between 2003 and 2007 was an African-American, E Stanley O’Neal, a veteran of Wall Street finance. But Bush pointed out that O’Neal climbed the ranks in a different side of the business, investment banking, where blacks did not face the same challenges.

AFP

TOYOTA FOR MORE SALES IN BRAZIL, MEXICO Toyota said Wednesday that it plans a new push to boost its market share in Latin America, saying it underperforms in Brazil and Mexico, the region’s largest economies.

13

PROPERTY TAX SCRAPPED

The battered rupee —which has lost nearly nine per cent in the past week —strengthened to 66.88 to the dollar.

MUMBAI: India’s rupee gained against the dollar on Thursday, coming off its record low struck the day before, after the central bank announced yet another measure to try to stabilise the currency.

The battered rupee — which has lost nearly nine percent in the past week — strengthened to 66.88 to the dollar, pulling back 2.8 percent, from a record closing low of 68.80 on Wednesday.

The rupee plunged 3.86 per cent on Wednesday, its biggest one-day fall in nearly two decades.

Indian shares opened 0.61 percent up at 18,106.29 points on Thursday.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced late Wednesday that it will provide dollars directly to oil companies, through a separate bank, a move aimed at easing sharp volatility in the forex market.

State-run oil firms are the main buyers of dollars in the market and providing a separate window for them is an attempt at reducing pressure

on the rupee, analysts said.

The measures are the latest undertaken by the RBI in recent months to try to halt the fall of the rupee, Asia’s worstperforming currency this year, which has lost around a fifth of its value against the dollar since the start of 2013.

India’s rupee crashed on Wednesday on worries about a US-led military strike against Syria and surging crude oil

prices fanned fears of a financial crisis.

Analysts fear the sharp rise in global crude oil prices will worsen energy-import dependent India’s already record current account deficit — the broadest measure of trade.

The deficit hit a record $88 billion last year but the government has said it will cut it to $70 billion this year.

AFP

AVIATION

ROME: Italy’s bickering coalition clinched a deal on Wednesday to scrap an unpopular property tax, staving off the prospect of a government collapse under pressure from Silvio Berlusconi. The billionaire tycoon’s People of Freedom party had promised to cancel the tax and had threatened to pull out from the government if Prime Minister Enrico Letta and his centre-left Democratic Party did not go along. Letta said at a press conference later that the IMU tax, which was introduced by the previous government of Mario Monti, was being cancelled for primary residences, farmland and farm buildings.

“This whole operation is being done without changing our public account balance. We will maintain our commitment to Brussels” to keep the public deficit under 3.0 per cent of gross domestic product, he said.

NUMEROLOGY

1,500

GW

will be China’s power production capacity by 2030, or the equivalent of Britain’s existing capacity every year, a study showed on Wednesday.

LLOYDS UNDER PROBE

Air New Zealand annual profit soars to five-year high

Qantas back into black with modest profit

Bombardier to build turboprop in Russia, lands $3.4 bn in orders

WELLINGTON: Air New Zealand posted a 156 percent jump in annual net profit Thursday, the flag carrier’s best result in five years. The airline said net profit for the 12 months to June 30 was NZ$182 million ($142 million), up from NZ$71 million in the previous year. The airline’s revenues were up three percent at NZ$4.6 billion, while operating cash flow was a record NZ$750 million.

Chairman John Palmer said the result placed Air New Zealand among the bestperforming airlines in the world and the outlook for the current financial year was “encouraging". Palmer also announced he will step down in September.

AFP

SYDNEY: Australian flag carrier Qantas has bounced back into the black, the airline announced Thursday, with a modest annual net profit boosted by cost-cutting and its alliance with Emirates.

The airline posted a profit of Aus$5 million (US$4.5 million) in the 12 months to June 30, a major improvement on the historic Aus$245 million loss the previous year, when high fuel costs and industrial action hammered the bottom line.

Its underlying profit before tax — the airline’s preferred measure of financial performance — was Aus$192 million, up from Aus$95 million.

MOSCOW: Canada’s Bombardier on Wednesday partnered with a Russian state holding company to assemble its Q400 NextGen regional turboprop in Russia and immediately landed orders for 100 of the aircraft worth $3.4 billion at list prices.

Bombardier signed a letter of intent for an assembly facility to be located in the Ulyanovsk region in central Russia with Rostec, which promotes the production and export of hi-tech and defence equipment. The facility, with a maximum capacity of 24 aircraft per year, will be built by a 50-50 joint venture and represents an investment of $100 million. AFP

AFP

GOLD`33,650 10g SILVER `55,842 1kg

24C

for

for

DOLLAR `67.82 POUND `105.14

NEW YORK CITY: New York’s financial regulator is investigating insurer Lloyds of London for suspected violations of US sanctions forbidding dealings with Iran, a source told AFP Wednesday. The state’s Department of Financial Services is seeking information on Lloyds’ own internal probe into whether it issued insurance contracts for companies trading commodities with Iran. The source said it had issued a number of requests for information in the matter to “a broad range” of reinsurers, but that they were “enhancing” the probe of Lloyds in particular. The case involves insurance contracts for commodities traders Glencore Xstrata and Trafigura Beheer. The Wall Street Journal reported that the case is focused on possible shipments of alumina to Iran by the two companies.

BSE NSE

18,260.46 264.31

5,358.20 73.20

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

Comment Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

Winston Churchill Former British PM

Who needs Slim?

VICTOR RUIZ Agence France-Presse

L

eft out by telecom firms like the one owned by billionaire Carlos Slim, a remote Mexican mountain village now runs its own mobile phone network to communicate with the outside world.

Tucked away in a lush forest in the southern state of Oaxaca, the indigenous village of Villa Talea de Castro, population 2,500, was not seen as a profitable market for companies such as Slim's America Movil.

So the village, under an initiative launched by indigenous groups, civil organizations and universities, put up a perch-like antenna on a rooftop, installed radio and computer equipment, and created its own micro provider called Red Celular de Talea (RCT) this year.

Now, restaurant manager Ramiro Perez can call his children and receive food orders on his cellphone at a cheap price in this village dotted by small homes painted in pink and yellow. The local service costs 15 pesos ($1.2) per month -- 13 times cheaper than a big firm's basic plan in Mexico City -- while calls to the United States, where many of the indigenous Zapoteco resident have migrated, charge a few pennies per minute. "I have two children who live outside the village and I communicate with them at least two or three times per week," Perez, 60, told AFP. Before, Perez had to use telephone booths where he paid up to 10 pesos ($0.75) per minute.

The village installed the network with the help of Rhizomatica, a non-profit with US, and experts who aim to increase access to mobile network in communities that lack affordable service.

HIGH-FLYING THOUGHTS

Ever thought about the eternal chic to running? Running is one of the few sports at which you can progress to become really good despite only taking it up in your 30s. Proof? Jack Foster. He began running when he was 32. By 40, he had won a silver at CWG in 1974.

CONVERSATION

14

GO ON…TALK TO ME! BUT... SERIOUSLY Ajay Hotchandani

“C

an you hear me? What a b o u t now?” In the past these questions were posed to someone with a hearing impediment, today it’s often observed being asked by a person contorting their body in hopes of improving their cell phone reception in order to communicate with another party (cause talking to yourself on a cell phone in public is rather disturbing).

Communication is defined as the activity of conveying information through the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behavior. Back in the day forms of communication were rather limited – phone, written letter/card, personal conversation or messages on cakes. I remember back when I was in university I was writing letters home as we didn’t have email as yet and long distance calls were very expensive, so you called when it was a special occasion or to ask for money(which you spent most of it on making future calls). Today, with the tap of some keys you can send an image with a personalized message to just about anywhere in the world within seconds. I’m not sure if you can send messages to people in North Korea;

either they aren’t receiving them or just partying too hard to reply.

These days you can communicate via traditional methods plus cell phones, hundreds of apps on those phones, tablet, computers, and even over Xbox (though most of my communication over Xbox is rather brutal).

While it’s nice to be able to communicate with friends and family worldwide, it also makes you think how much of it is necessary. I decided to go through my text messages, FB messages, Whatsapp messages and Viber to see how much of those communications are necessary.

WHATSAPP: n

n

I’m in a group chat with three other guys (Vietnamese) and our conversations for today include: Toilets – Ball Cock vs.

Connective Valve. The importance of getting off the toilet fast enough before water splashes up your bum.

Zombies. Howler monkey.

Narcolepsy, and its ability to be a good defense against zombies.

Family chat: My nephew in England’s birthday (this is important). My next nephew turning six weeks old (he’s very cute so it is definitely worth it). The rupee being at 67.98 (hey can someone email me and let me know if it’s a good time to open an NRI account, as that seems to be all the rave right now).

The proper amount of curry to add to rice.

TEXT MESSAGES: n

I am never going to under-

n

stand why people do this, they send me a message asking me if it is ok to take a medication AFTER they have already taken it, that’s like me asking you if I can take a sip of your drink after I already drank it (which my sister does, the one who stuck the bean up my nose – see last week’s article).

I have a text message saved from 18 months ago. I lent someone money and this is the only proof I have (definitely an important message and lesson learned – don’t lend money).

FACEBOOK:

n

Almost nothing on facebook is as important as you make it appear to be. I do not need to know that you kid had his first bowel movement in the potty.

Please promise to break my computer if I ever become one of those parents that post crap like that.

The good people of Hyderabad, what I communicate to you today is of the utmost importance regarding communication. Because if you read it in Postnoon, its good stuff! Oh, please don’t forget to communicate with me about investing in Rupees and not bowel movements.

EDITORIALS A mad, mad world

N

uclear war is aptly named MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). Today with eight countries possessing nuclear warheads and one more, Iran, said to be on the way, the world is more vulnerable than 1945 when the first nuclear bomb was detonated. Today—the international Day against Nuclear Tests—the world remains clueless as how to save the human race from perpetual destruction. UN has officially recorded 2000 nuclear tests since the first bomb was tested 68 years ago. Apart from the threat it provides, nuclear tests is ecologically disastrous. Despite knowing all these, countries are still glamour-struck with it and unfortunately, Asian countries are in the race too that includes India and Pakistan. The change of perception of nuclear weapons itself is revealing.

READERS’ VIEWS

From the chilling quote of Albert Einstein, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones,” to Margaret Thatcher’s complacent stance that nuclear weapons are a deterrent, we see a lack of sensitivity on such a perilous cause. World should take a pledge today that MAD will kill not only human race but the only planet that nurtures life in the solar system

We invite you to write to us comments, suggestions, viewpoint or just about anything to feedback@postnoon.com or # Plot no.550-A1,3rd floor, Road no-92, Jubilee hills, Hyderabad-500033 Landmark - Volkswagen showroom or even by way of a call on 4067 2222. Editor: Dean Williams

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

music

LYNDA CARTER JOINS TWO AND A HALF MEN

Lynda Carter is to appear on Two and a Half Men. The actress — best known for playing Wonder Woman in the classic '70s series — will play herself on the sitcom, Entertainment Weekly reports..

NEW AVATAR

GAUHAR KHAN

to be locked in Bigg Boss house?

I f sources are to be believed, Bollywood actress Gauhar Khan will be one among the 14 contestants to be locked in the Bigg Boss house for the seventh season of the reality show.

Gauhar, who has acted in two big projects of Yash Raj banner — Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year and Ishaqzaade, has also won accolades for her scintillating dance moves in item numbers like Parda and Hua chokra jawan re.

This won't be her first stint with a reality show. She was a contestant in the celebrity dance show Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 3 and appeared on The Khan Sisters, the

Indian version of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, along with her sister, actress Nigaar Khan.

Hosted by actor Salman Khan, for the fourth time in a row, Bigg Boss — Saath 7 is based on the theme of heaven and hell.

Though the list of contestants for the new season is yet to be announced, some names that have come up are of TV actors like Pratyusha Banerjee, Gurdeep Kohli, Kushal Tandon and Vatsal Seth.

Bigg Boss — Saath 7 will go on air September 15 on Colors.

Arrested

IANS

B

all fast. The best part is that people play teenpatti. Earlier, I didn't get to play and now I don't get time to play. This Janmashtami, I was shooting

The Parents Television Council has criticised MTV and branded the recent VMAs "unacceptable". The advocacy group singled out performances from Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga in a public statement attacking Sunday night's awards.

Cyrus's father Billy Ray Cyrus is currently listed as a member of the advisory board on the Parents Television Council's website.

DID YOU KNOW

Work keeps TV actors away from Janmashtami celebrations

e it any festival, small screen actors hardly get time to celebrate it with their family and friends, because of a hectic schedule.

Janmashtami, which was celebrated on Wednesday, saw actresses Esha Kansara and Shrenu Parikh spending time facing camera.

Esha, who plays Kittu in Ek Nanad Ki Khushiyon Ki Chaabi...Meri Bhabhi, said: Being a Gujarati, Janmashtami is a grand festival for me. Also I was born on this day, so I always celebrate the festival with my family. But this time due to my hectic work schedule, I won't be able to go to my hometown.

Shrenu, seen as Astha in Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon...Ek Baar Phir, said: “In my city (Vadodara) on Janmashtami we

MTV UNDER FIRE

and therefore, couldn’t participate in the rituals that were performed at home.”

Meanwhile, Kanchi Kaul, seen as Shraddha in ...Meri Bhabhi, is hoping to take time out to enjoy her favourite festival.

"When I was in college, breaking dahi handi was awesome. Going out on the streets, breaking the handi with my friends and even falling down from the pyramid was the fun part. It is one of my favourite festivals. This time too if I get some free time from my shooting schedule, I will make it a point to go and watch the dahi handi festival with my friends," she said.

IANS

Development creator Mitch Hurwitz has revealed that he is hoping to make a feature film based on the show "as soon as possible".

Unlike the recent Netflix revival of the show, which focused on an individual character in each episode, the movie will reunite the entire Bluth ensemble on screen. The writer/director also noted that the movie will be followed by a fifth season of the criticallyacclaimed TV show.

TRENDING...

Demi Lovato has revealed that she has started filming her role on Glee. The X Factor USA judge recently signed up for a multiepisode arc on the show, while Naya Rivera has revealed that Lovato will be playing a love interest for her character Santana.

Lovato tweeted, "Gllllleeeeeeeeeee e," adding the hashtags "#1stDay" and "#LOVEthiscast!!!".

Jake Gyllenhaal will appear on an upcoming episode of Inside the Actors Studio. The Wrap confirms that Gyllenhaal will be interviewed by host James Lipton on an instalment airing Thursday, September 19 in the US. Gyllenhaal will also discuss his parents, his sister and his memories of late co-star Heath Ledger.

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

spotlight ALL THE FUN

Plenty to celebrate

Silver jubilee celebrations of Apollo Hospitals held at HICC was an entertaining affair. Spotted were Ram Charan Teja, Upasana Kamineni and others.

MUSICAL MELANGE Ram Charan Teja, Venkatesh and Mahi Gill were in attendance at the audio launch function of Thoofan. The event was held at Shilpakala Vedika.

FOR A NOBLE CAUSE

On the occasion of the sixth anniversary of Incredible India, the company donated funds to ood victims in Uttarakhand. Actress Madhavi Latha was also present at the do.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

health

BROCCOLI MAY SLOW, PREVENT OSTEOARTHRITIS

New research from the UK suggests that sulforaphane, a compound found in broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage and Brussels sprouts, could help fight osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis.

THE COST OF LIFE

19

Counterfeit medicine trade targets Africa’s poor The market is saturated with counterfeit anti-malaria drugs, painkillers, antibiotics and even rehydration serum. Traders in counterfeit drugs do a thriving business, sometimes at the cost of human lives.

REINNIER KAZE Agence France-Presse

Safe vs. cheap: the cost factor

T

he outstanding exception on the continent in fighting the illicit drug trade is South Africa, which has a strictly enforced licencing system, according to Griffith Molewa, head of law enforcement at the Medicines Control Council. “We have dedicated ports of entry for medicines, restricted to Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg,” Molewa said. “We also have a vertically integrated system, meaning only manufacturers can sell to the wholesalers, and then the wholesaler to the retail outlets, and then the pharmacies can only serve the patients.”

“Any product found on the street is seized and given to the police for prosecution.

The penalty is a fine or up to 10 years of imprisonment or both.” In most other countries, measures against the

counterfeit drug trade are limited to police raids on public markets to seize fake or adulterated products, along with public information and awareness campaigns, which appear to have little effect on consumers.

For in countries where medical expenses — from drugs to hospitalisation — are not even partly reimbursed by the state, the relatively cheap price of street medication trumps the risk factor for many. “I’m here to buy a worm treatment and something to protect my children from malaria,” customer Nadine Mefo told AFP at Yaounde’s central market. “It costs less than in the pharmacy and it soothes the children.

“Doctors say that street market medicines are dangerous, but since I’ve been coming, I’ve not yet had a problem,” she adds, clutching two packs of pills.

YAOUNDÉ: From Cameroon to Ivory Coast, Kenya to the DR Congo, traders in counterfeit drugs do a thriving business, sometimes at the cost of human lives.

“Street medication kills. The street is killing (safe) medication," declares a banner outside a pharmacy in the Cameroonian capital Yaounde, where the dangerous trade is rampant.

The market is saturated with counterfeit anti-malaria drugs, painkillers, antibiotics and even rehydration serum.

No domain of the pharmaceutical industry is spared by illicit manufacturers and traffickers, according to reports gathered

by AFP offices across Africa.

“That’s powerful Diclofenac (an anti-inflammatory), which is the bestseller," says Blaise Djomo, a street vendor at Yaounde’s central market. “And this is Viagra, which Cameroonians are really wild about.”

About 100 traders like Djomo are set up under parasols in full view of everyone, their boxes heaped with medicines. Bubble-pack strips of pills are lined up in the wooden stalls.

People can even buy single pills at this market or even at some grocery stores. Vendors often mix fake medication with the real thing, which has either been legally acquired or stolen from supplies meant for hospitals and clinics.

At best, fake prescription drugs have no effect, acting like placebos, but at their worst, they are highly toxic. Either way they bring in vast sums of money for those behind the illicit traffic.

The UN Office on Drugs

and Crime (UNODC) warned at a conference last February that counterfeit drugs are a multibillion dollar business accounting for 30 percent of the pharmaceutical market in parts of Africa.

“Fraudulent medicines have proven to be harmful and at times fatal, as well as an increasingly lucrative area for organised criminal networks," the agency said in a press release.

“The supply routes are of two kinds. Alongside the smallscale smugglers, there are international criminal networks that

undertake the supply of drugs from distant manufacturers in China and India," said Parfait Kouassi, who chaired the National Order of Pharmacists in Ivory Coast from 2005 to 2012.

Kouassi, who made a priority of fighting the dangerous trade in fake medicines, escaped two murder bids at the headquarters of the Order of Pharmacists. “That’s a sign that major interests are in play and that it’s not just a matter of small-scale local traffickers," he said.

The phenomenon is spreading and represents between 20 and 25 percent of the drug market in Ivory Coast, adds Kouassi. In Kenya, 30 percent of drugs sold in 2012 were either fake or counterfeit, according to the Pharmacy and Poisons Board of Kenya. Cameroon health officials give a similar figure.

However, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as in many other African countries, there are no national statistics, just records of frequent drugs seizures.

In Nigeria — once known as a major source of counterfeit medicines — phony drugs and real ones that had passed their expiry date made up 70 per cent of sales in 2002, according to the World Health Organisation.

Since then, in the continent’s biggest market with some 160 million people, officials say that high-profile efforts have greatly reduced the number of fake or adulterated drugs, but reliable figures are hard to obtain.

“Most of these fake and adulterated drugs come from China and India, from where we import more than 50 percent of the drugs we use in Nigeria.

We don’t import much drugs from the US,” says Abubakar Jimoh, spokesman of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).

“They no longer bring ... illicit drugs in large containers but in small packs. They also change the labels of the drugs from outside the country to make them look original," Jimoh said.

Health authorities have set up a service to enable consumers to check the authenticity of drugs by verifying the PIN serial number on the product label via an SMS message.

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

Technology COMMUNICATION

SKYPE MARKS

10 years of shrinking the world PETER HARMSEN Agence France Presse STOCKHOLM: If David Huang had left his native Taiwan for Sweden a generation ago, he would have taken a giant leap into the unknown.

Now, with the help of Skype, the 35-year-old businessman is able to reach relatives from his Stockholm home as easily as if they lived around the corner, and not half a world away.

“Skype has made work easier, but more important than that, it has enabled me to talk to my family whenever I feel like it,” he said.

Internet messaging service Skype, which celebrates its 10th anniversary on Thursday, has shrunk the world in profound ways that few could have foreseen in 2003.

A total of 300 million users make two billion minutes of online video calls a day. And in the surest sign of success, the brand name has been turned into a verb - a rare distinction shared by the likes of Xerox and Google.

In another sign of success, Skype has spawned competitors with a host of similar technologies, most importantly Apple’s FaceTime.

But revolutionary as Skype’s technology may seem, it didn’t start completely from scratch but built on existing communication technologies.

“We already had cheap international calling using the Internet,” said Martin Geddes, a leading Britain-based telecommunications consultant.

“The significance of Skype was and is the ‘Wow!’ experience of high definition voice, and the sense of ‘being there’ with your distant friends and family in a way not possible before.”

Skype was launched in late August 2003 by two Scandinavian technology entrepreneurs, Niklas Zennstroem of Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark, who expanded on existing peer-to-peer networking technologies.

Skype, which allows its online users to make high-quality calls to each other anywhere in the world for free, quickly

TWITTER BUYS TRENDRR A start-up specializing in tuning into online banter by TV viewers said Wednesday that it has been bought by Twitter. Trendrr chief executive Mark Ghuneim announced in a blog post that the New York-based firm is becoming part of the globally popular messaging service.

Trendrr software tracks and analyzes in real-time social network exchanges about television shows or ads to provide insights into what viewers think of programming. Internet lifestyle trends include people using "second screens" such as smartphones or tablets to share thoughts on Facebook, Twitter and other online venues.

TROUBLE FOR APPLE?

took off, bringing the world closer together in an age when globalisation and intercontinental travel pulled more families apart than at perhaps any other time in history.

“I’m touched by the ways people use Skype, from an active duty soldier meeting his baby girl for the first time... to just the simple, extraordinarily

Skype was launched in late August 2003 by two Scandinavian technology entrepreneurs, Niklas Zennstroem of Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark, who expanded on existing peer-to-peer networking technologies. ordinary instances,” said Elisa Steele, Skype chief marketing officer.

These simple instances, she said, include “a mum and daughter being able to see and talk to one another in a way that feels like they’re just sitting

across the kitchen table from each other. Our greatest achievement lies in these moments.”

While Skype helps people to stay in touch with those they already know, it also enables new connections to be formed.

One example was early this year, when students aged between 11 and 15 from Woodham Academy in Britain and Merton Intermediate School in Wisconsin carried out a crossAtlantic dance contest.

“For a lot of them, I think they’d been in a small-town mentality where they hadn’t really gone out as far as they might have wanted to into travelling,” said Woodham assistant head teacher Jon Tait.

“They had seen films from abroad, but to actually physically speak to these kids in America was absolutely brilliant. It was amazing.”

Skype isn’t for humans only.

At Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, Texas, orangutans Mei and Mukah are rewarded for completing tasks by being allowed to communicate via Skype with orangutans in other zoos.

The question many ask however is: Is it possible to make

money on a business offering free calls? US software maker Microsoft thought so, paying $8.5 billion for Skype in 2011.

In the 12 months ended on June 30, Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, which includes Skype, reported operating income of $848 million, up from $380 million the year before.

Within just a decade, Skype moved from being nowhere to being everywhere. Could the reverse also be true? In an era of rapid transformation, could it be gone again in another decade?

It’s hard to imagine, according to observers.

“It’s not going to go away.

It’s going to be utilised and put into more and more devices, videophones, devices for your kitchen, tablets as we mount them on cabinets,” said Michael Gough, author of the book “Skype Me!” “I can see for example a home automation scenario, where you have a tablet in your kitchen, an Xbox connect in your living room, and you can literally be on a video call and it will follow you around the house. I can actually see that occurring.”

A US federal court is close to imposing an antitrust remedy on Apple that narrows the scope to the company's e-book business.

She Cote struck language proposed by the Justice Department in the draft injunction that would have allowed scrutiny of Apple's sale of movies, music, television shows and other retail products. The injunction will only cover e-books, she said.

She hopes to finalise the injunction in the next week.

WII U PRICE CUT Nintendo on Wednesday cut the price of its Wii U video game console and introduced an entry-level version of its DS handheld gaming device in moves aimed at boosting sales. Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One are to make their global debuts in time for the coveted year-end holiday shopping season. Nintendo said the price of its top-of-the-line Wii U Deluxe set will drop to $300 after a $50 price cut takes effect on September 20. A Nintendo 2DS handheld device will be priced at $130 when it is released on October 12, the same day as a compatible pair of Pokemon games. The Nintendo 2DS will handle play of Nintendo 3DS games, but in 2-D graphics instead of the 3-D imagery on its more sophisticated predecessor.

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THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

Entertainment STRIKING GOLD

CINE BYTES

SHRUTI HAASAN

TO REPLACE TAMANNAH

IN AAGADU?

Nikita Thukral in Hindi remake of Traffic

K

annada actress Nikita Thukral, known for films like Prince and Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna has been roped in to be a part of yet untitled Hindi remake of Malayalam super hit Traffic, a story about organ donation narrated in a hyperlink format. The director is still to finalise the remaining cast for the remake. IANS

Hamsa Nandini is NTR’s dance partner

A

A

ctress Shruti Haasan has reportedly been approached for the role which was originally offered to Tamannah Bhatia in upcoming Telugu action-drama Aagadu featuring Superstar Mahesh Babu, says a source from the industry. "Shruti's name has come up for the lead role in Aagadu. However, nothing has been confirmed yet as Srinu Vaitla (director) has to take the final call.

We should have some clarity in a couple of weeks," a source close to the director said. Tamannah was finalised for the role a few months ago, but since Shruti is the most sought after actress in Telugu industry, she is being considered for the role. While Tamannah's last four Telugu films failed to rake in the moolah at the box-office, Shruti struck gold with her films such as Gabbar Singh and Balupu. Aagadu, which is expected to go on floors by November, will bring together Srinu Vaitla and Mahesh Babu for the second time after Telugu blockbuster Dookudu. Meanwhile, Shruti is awaiting the release of Telugu romantic-drama Ramayya Vasthavayya.

IANS

fter her sizzling performance in Prabhas' Mirchi, Hamsa Nandini has scored gold. She was roped in for Pawan Kalyan's Atharintiki dharedhi and now if sources are to be believed, her next venture is Ramaiya vastavaiya in which she will be shaking a leg with NTR Jr.

Venky, Anjali off to Japan

V

enkatesh and Anjali are back with Masala after entertaining the audience with the hit Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu. According to sources, the actors will be flying to Japan to shoot for a song in Masala. The shoot is supposed to begin in Japan from September 3rd. Ram, Shazahn Padamsee are stars of the movie. Vijay Bhaskar is directing the film.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

fashion A

LULU & CO GOES GLOBAL

LULU & CO is available to buy globally for the first time today as it launches its on Net-a-Porter. Creative director Lulu Kennedy described the collaboration with the online store as like "entering into a partnership" — one which allows her autumn/winter 2013 collection to be presented worldwide.

STRIKING A POSE

ctress Prachi Desai, who walked the ramp for Sonam and Paras Modi said she is a fan of their work, especially since one of their outfits that she once wore still fetches her compliments.

Dressed in a cream lehenga with a sea green and blue border, and teamed with a choli embedded with beads in brown and green, Prachi looked beautiful as she took to the runway for the designer duo on day five of the fashion extravaganza. Prachi was floored by the collection. "Sonam and Paras are more of friends to me. But today I walked not just because they asked me to, but I really love their collection,� she said.

THE LADY IN BLACK

B

ollywood actress Priyanka Chopra gave a flying kiss as she walked the ramp for International designer Michelle Bohbot's brand, Bisou Bisou .

The actress revealed that she was asked to do so by the designer as this is a tradition which she follows.

"This is a standard for all of Michelle's shows.

She had told me that it is their signature statement to blow a flying kiss to the audience," Priyanka said.

TRADITIONALLY YOURS

D

esigner Manish Malhotra showcased his ethnic Indian collections at the curtain-raiser for the Lakme Fashion Week. He showcased the traditional Indian outfits that include saris, ghaghra cholis, skirts among others. The designer had used lots of pastel greens, pink, and cream along with mirror works.

Beauties and hunks from the film fraternity made their presence felt at Lakme Fashion Week that was held from August 23 - August 27 at the Grand Hyatt, Mumbai. Here are some of the most mesmerizing moments from the show.

SHINING

OPENING CEREMONY TO HOST FIRST SOLO SHOW

OPENING CEREMONY will host its first New York Fashion Week show next month. Although the brand has previously shown its Chloe Sevigny for Opening Ceremony collections on schedule, this will be its inaugural solo show.

T

BRIDAL FINERY

DAZZLE IN GOLD

D

he wedding of actress Kalki Koechlin and filmmaker Anurag Kashyap was the inspiration for designer Anushree Reddy's collection at the Lakme "It's really beautiful and I was really touched because she said she was inspired by my own wedding, when she saw such a easy-going bride," the actress said.

azzling in a gold gown with a heavily embroidered top, Bollywood actress Karisma Kapoor on Sunday walked the ramp for ace designer Vikram Phadnis.

Phadnis' line showcased a wide variety of long flowy gowns, short dresses, blingy jackets, gold pants. The colour palette included many shades of gold like ivory, copper and beige to a bright golden in some outfits.

B

ALL GLAMMED UP

ollywood actress Nargis Fakhri took on a desi appearance as she walked the ramp for designer Ritu Kumar on Monday.

The actress looked ravishing in a white floor-length anarkali with a thick green and gold border hemline and heavy embroidery on the neck and sleeves. A beautiful maang tika and neck piece added to her elegance on the ramp.

22&23

FLOWY AND FEMININE

B

ollywood actress Aditi Rao Hydari looked stunning as she walked the ramp on Sunday for designer Anita Dongre showcasing her brands "AND" and "Global Desi" in her new fabric "Liva".

Aditi was wearing an ethnic printed spaghetti top and a multi-coloured long skirt.

"The outfit breathes and gives you this sense of freedom.

It also accentuates your body. It is flowy and is the perfect fabric of today," she said.

BRIGHT

Entertainment THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

24

Entertainment THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

25

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

Chai Time

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

If there is anything in the world that can really be called a man’s property, it is surely that which is the result of his mental activity.

Arthur Schopenhauer

KAKURO

QUICK CROSSWORD

26

SUDOKU How to play kakuro Kakuro is a popular game similar to sudoku in some ways. But is also suitably different. The key question: ‘How do you play kakuro?’, well here are the rules of kakuro. The answer: The kakuro grid, unlike in sudoku, can be of any size. It has rows and columns, and dark cells like in a crossword. And, just like in a crossword, some of the dark cells will contain numbers. Some cells will contain two numbers.

However, in a crossword the numbers reference clues. In a kakuro, the numbers are all you get! They denote the total of the digits in the row or column referenced by the number.

Within each collection of cells — called a run — any of the numbers 1 to 9 may be used but, like sudoku, each number may only be used once.

Let’s have an example to explain this concept more clearly: In the image above, which shows a section of a kakuro puzzle, you will see the numbers ‘26’ and ‘14’ in the top row. Look at the 14. This means that the total of the three cells underneath must sum to 14. Therefore 9, 4, 1 could be the answer, or perhaps 7, 4, 3 and so on...

So, how do you work out the actual combination? Well, this is done through elimination and cross-referencing. For instance, as you work out the answers for other kakuro clues, this will naturally limit the valid combinations, and hence the answer for this particular run.

Note the second cell in row two — it contains two numbers, 30 and 11. The 30 refers to the vertical run underneath the number 30 and the 11 refers to the two cells to the right, horizontally, of the number 11.

ACROSS

PREVIOUS PUZZLE ANSWER

SCRIBBLING PAD

1 Fodder housing 5 Acct. ledger entries 9 Delicate pancake 14 Cut the fat 15 All dried out 16 Expands one's staff 17 "The Godfather" composer Nino 18 "... with a banjo on my ___" 19 White heron 20 Start of a sage thought 23 Part of F.D.R. 24 Performed badly 28 Preposition in poetry 29 Lacking brightness or color 32 AFC Central player 33 High-end hotel offerings 35 He played Ponch 36 Second part of a sage thought 40 Piano chanteuse Amos 41 Dumbbells 42 Having star quality?

45 Average golf scores 46 Oft-mispunctuated possessive 49 Furthermore 51 Unpopped popcorn 53 Third part of a sage thought 56 Magazine installment 59 The embryo of an invention 60 Source of an artist's inspiration 61 Kind of common stock 62 Baltimore's McHenry, for one 63 Winning cards 64 No longer novel 65 Arctic Ocean floater 66 Cozy spot

DOWN

1 Take giant steps 2 One with pressing issues?

3 "Stuart ___" 4 Biggest city in Nebraska 5 Invite punishment 6 Choice of courses 7 Allowance after tare 8 No-___ (gnat) 9 Romano or Swiss 10 Physical property of inflexibility 11 Commit a faux pas 12 The Carolinas' ___ Dee River 13 Wintertime in D.C. 21 Endow, as with a quality 22 BBQ serving 25 Fairy-tale baddie 26 Depilatory brand 27 Fraternal fellow 30 Basic unit for the elements 31 Jazz genre 33 Concerned with sacred matters 34 Lyric sung by Doris Day 36 Women hate it when they run 37 Dinner crumbs 38 Associate on the job 39 Enlarged area on a map 40 Can opener 43 Stick 44 Pasture 46 Bring about 47 Acts the coquette 48 Most like a fox 50 Take a whiff of 52 Circus Maximus attendee 54 Pedestal percher 55 Prefix for "sol" or "space" 56 Elected ones 57 AA candidate 58 Whirlpool site

Chai Time THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013 Thiruvaikumar

STAR POWER for 30-8-2013

27

As per Hindu panchang thiruvaikumar@yahoo. co. in, 040-27177230 / 9177596118

ARIES

TAURUS

GEMINI

CANCER

LEO

VIRGO

LIBRA

SCORPIO

SAGITTARIUS

CAPRICORN

AQUARIUS

PISCES

Employees need to work very hard to achieve recognition at workplace. Though you might face hurdles in certain works undertaken you have the capacity to face them and go ahead with determination. You are likely to succeed in tasks.

STRIP TEASE AGNES

You will express your opinions without any hesitation.

Difficulties that you were facing will be over. Dull period existed for businessmen will be over and they will march ahead in the victory path. Works undertaken will be completed soon.

Though minor setbacks are likely, there will be a happy atmosphere at home. All the worries and confusions existed in the family will disappear. You will be more courageous in completing the works undertaken.

A happy situation is likely to prevail at home. You will act wisely and complete the works in a clear cut way and get appreciation from all. Minor tensions and disputes likely but you will be able to come out of the same soon.

All your new and innovative efforts will become successful.

Avoid giving commitments to any one as there are chances of faltering at your end. Good effects are likely to take place to a maximum extent. You will be proud of your kids.

Financial position looks more comfortable. You will give due respect to others’ feelings and suggestions. All the works undertaken will be successfully accomplished. Comforts are likely to improve. Your influence is set to rise.

Minor financial losses and hurdles are likely for some.

Businessmen will achieve greater heights in their business and all their innovative efforts will be successful. Your administrative capabilities will get sharpened.

Minor misunderstanding with spouse is likely but will be resolved in no time. Financial situation is likely to be very strong. Debts will be cleared and you will feel relaxed.

However, a bit of caution is advisable.

Blood relative will get closer and extend their help. Happy events are to take place without any disturbances. Employees will be entrusted with additional responsibilities. Financial position will become very much comfortable.

TAROT READ

Sumaa Tekur

tarotreadhyd@gmail. com

ARIES:

GEMINI:

The Devil – You’re in the mood for some retail therapy.

Before you head out, take stock of your finances and make sure you’re not overstepping your limit.

LEO:

Queen of Pentacles – You’re likely to bump into an old friend at a supermarket or at the movies. It will trigger some old emotions.

LIBRA:

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE

Six of Pentacles – Be open to new ideas at the work place and don’t reject anything anyone has to say. It may also be a fresher in the industry.

SAGITTARIUS:

Two of Pentacles – You’ve been managing the juggling act rather well and it’s working out fantastically. You’re becoming more aware of the possibilities.

TAURUS:

Seven of Cups – Don’t believe everything you hear or even see. There are many stories and rumours floating about. You may even be the subject of a few of these.

CANCER:

King of Wands – Spending time with friends at a coffee shop with no plan in particular, and talking about this and that, is a good de-stressor. Do it more often.

VIRGO:

The High Priestess – Someone not that close to you will approach you with their problems. It may leave you wondering why. Just listen and don’t go out of your way.

SCORPIO:

Eight of Cups – A good friendship gone sour is not a very nice experience to remember in the later years. You always wonder what you should have done for it to be different.

CAPRICORN:

Queen of Cups – You’re feeling very emotional about a person very close to you. It can be a parent or a sibling. Distance yourself.

PREVIOUS SOLUTIONS

PISCES:

Ace of Wands – Creativity needs some outlet. It can be as simple as posting something on Facebook and getting people to notice how you think.

NUMBER GAME

This is a lucky phase and you’re in for a good run with both career and relationships. A word of caution: Don’t get too attached to anything.

SCRABBLE

AQUARIUS: Ace of Cups –

POOCH CAFE

Chances of minor misunderstanding are likely with friends and relatives. Try and avoid.

Only by working hard and on continuous basis you will be able to taste success. However you will do it with ease and earn a good name.

for 30-8-2013

The Hanged Man – Spiritual awareness is the need of the hour. Try something new. How about power yoga or the emotional freedom technique?

NON SEQUITUR

Those who were staying away from the family on deputation are likely to join them back.

Marriage talks will progress well and finalised soon.

Businessmen will flourish and expend their horizon. Your stock is set to pile up.

SUDUKO

Hurdles will disappear and works will get completed successfully. Avoid unwanted arguments which might land you in trouble. You will fulfill the needs and wishes of the family members. Expect good turn in fortune.

Boggle MAY JUNE MARCH JANUARY OCTOBER Vol: 3, No 39 RNI No: APENG/2011/39337 Published for the proprietors, Scribble Media and Entertainment Pvt Ltd, by V Harshavardhan Reddy, at # Plot no.550-A1,3rd floor, Road no-92, Jubilee hills, Hyderabad-500033 Landmark - Volkswagen showroom and printed by him at Jagati Publications Ltd, Plot No D-75&E-52, APIE Industrial Estate, Balanagar, Ranga Reddy Dist, Hyderabad – 500037, Editor: Dean Williams – Responsible for selection of news under the PRB Act All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. For feedback, please write to: feedback@postnoon. com and for subscription, please call 040-4067 2222, Fax: 040-4067 2211

28

Entertainment THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013 CINE BYTES

GOING SEPERATE WAYS

Joshua Jackson joins ‘The Affair’ team

U

S-Canadian actor Joshua Jackson has landed a role in TV series The Affair. The 35-yearold will play Cole, a tough cowboy who manages a ranch in Long Island that has been in the family for many generations, reports eonline.com. This will mark Jackson’s first role on TV since his science fiction TV series Fringe went off air in January. IANS

Adam Lambert defends Miley Cyrus

S

inger Adam Lambert has defended pop star Miley Cyrus’ racy performance on the track Blurred lines with Robin Thicke at a recent music awards show. “And listen if it wasn’t your cup of tea — all good but why is everyone spazzing?

Hey — she’s doing something right. We all talking," he tweeted.

IANS

Aaron Paul Joins Christian Bale in ‘Exodus’

B

reaking Bad star Aaron Paul, Sigourney Weaver and John Turturro have been tapped to join the cast of Fox’s Moses pic Exodus, starring Christian Bale.

Paul is still in negotiations while Weaver and Turturro’s deals are closed. Ridley Scott is directing the epic drama with Peter Chernin producing for his Chernin Entertainment banner.

E

uropean film stars Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel have separated “by mutual agreement” after 14 years of marriage, according to reports.

The Italian actress, 48, and the French actor, 46, met in 1996 while filming the French film The Apartment. They married three years later and have two daughters — Deva, 8, and Léonie, 3.

Bellucci, a former model, starred in the Matrix sequels and also played Mary Magdalene in The Passion of the Christ. Cassel is best known in the US for his work in Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen, and in Black Swan.

Both of their reps confirmed the split, with Cassel’s saying the separation is “by mutual agreement."

MONICA BELLUCCI AND VINCENT CASSEL SEPARATE

sports

29

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

INDIAN BADMINTON LEAGUE

Hotshots too hot for Pistons Hyderabad Hotshots qualified for the final of the Indian Badminton League after they defeated Pune Pistons 3-0, at the GMC Balayogi stadium in Hyderabad.

G. APARNA SAI aparna.s@postnoon.com HYDERABAD: Hyderabad Hotshots qualified for the final of the Indian Badminton League after they defeated Pune Pistons 3-0 in the first semifinal at the GMC Balayogi stadium, here on Wednesday.

Hyderabad began their campaign on a winning note with Ajay Jayram defeating Tien Minh Nyugen 21-17, 21-11 in the men’s singles encounter.

Jayram was on fire right from the word go and there was no stopping the Hotshots’ player.

With this victory, Jayram gave his side a 1-0 lead.

After winning the match, Jayram said, “it was not a miracle. I was suffering from an injury yesterday and I rested the entire day which really worked well and I won the match. I also changed my strategy a little bit to

OLYMPICS Washington explores bid for 2024 Games

WASHINGTON: Washington is actively looking into making a fresh pitch to host the Olympic Games, this time in 2024, says the head of DC2024, which has officially launched online.

If all the pieces fall in place, it will go before the US Olympic Committee in September 2015 in hopes of becoming the US candidate to host the world’s greatest sporting event.

“Quite honestly, we’re the only major capital in the world that hasn’t hosted an Olympic Games yet,” DC2024 president Bob Sweeney said Tuesday.

Washington was among 35 cities that got letters from the US Olympic Committee in February inviting them to consider making an Olympic pitch.

AFP

Ajay Jayram seen in action during his IBL match against Tien Minh Nyugen at the GMC Balayogi stadium in Hyderabad on Wednesday.

play against Tien Minh Nyugen.”

In the next match, which happened to be the women’s singles

clash, local girl Saina Nehwal defeated arch-rival Juliane Schenk 21-10, 19-21, 11-8.

Nehwal dominated the first

set displaying an immense amount of grit. She was leading 16-4 and sealed the match 21-10.

The world number four won the match with ease and gave enough reasons for the crowd to cheer.

But world number two, Schenk, was not going to take this defeat lightly, she began the second set on a positive note but Nehwal soon came back to lead 15-8. The German who needed a victory to stay alive in the match made a dramatic comeback to win the set 21-19.

With the match now evenly poised, both the players did all they could to emerge victorious.

Finally, to the delight of the spectators, Nehwal won the match with the score reading 11-8.

“I lost my focus in the second game and was unable to retrieve few shots. Schenk also changed her shots little bit which became quite dangerous. But I just

thought about winning for a few seconds and got myself back in action to win the match.” (sic).

With Hyderabad Hotshots’ leading 2-0, the tourists needed to win the next game to stand a chance of making it to the final.

But as fate had it, they went on to lose the next match also, which happened to be the men’s doubles.

The pair of V Shem Goh and Wah Kim Lin finished off the contest in favour of the Hotshots as they beat Joachim Fischer and Sanave Thomas 21-10, 19-21, 11-8.

The hosts were clueless in the first set of the match but once they regained their composure, they fought back hard and saw their team through to the final.

Hyderabad Hotshots will now meet the winner of the second semifinal between Mumbai Master and Awadhe Warriors in the final which is scheduled to be held on Sunday.

TOUR OF SPAIN

LEAGUE CRICKET

Matthews claims fifth stage LAGO DE SANABRIA: Australian Michael Matthews (right) (Orica-GreenEdge) won the fifth stage of the Tour of Spain on Wednesday, edging out Maximiliano Ariel Recheze (Lampre) and Gianni Meersman (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) in a sprint finish. It was his first stage win in a major Tour.

Giro d’Italia winner Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) retained his lead in the overall classification from American veteran Chris Horner (RadioShack) and Irishman Nicolas Roche (Saxo) as all the contenders registered the same time in the 174-km ride from Sober to Lago de Sanabria.

“This is what I have been aiming for all year is to get to this level and the team has been awesome throughout to help me get here,” said Matthews who arrived in Spain in fine form having won two stages at the Tour of Utah earlier this month.

Matthews was also on the podium on Tuesday as he was just pipped to the stage victory

by Daniel Moreno (Katusha) and Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack) and he was relieved to have rewarded his teammates efforts with the victory.

“They put all their effort into today and I am just glad to finish it off. It didn’t quite work out as I

A DIVISION TWO DAYS

Day 2 Budding Star 191 lost Balaji Colts 192/3 (Navdeep Singh 65, Ratan Sharma 55, Akshat Mahajan 54no) Saleemnagar 154 bt New Blues 127 (Poojith Vamshi 44, Vailabh 32no, S Asim 6/19) Gemini Friends 478 bt CCOB 437/9 (Akbar Khan 132, Altamash 64, Shahbaaz 38, Md Siddiq Afsar 76, Mirza Maqbool Baig 49, Chandrasekhar 3/89)

A DIVISION ONE DAY Orica-GreenEdge’s Australian rider Michael Matthews (R) celebrates his victory on the podium during the tour of Spain on Wednesday.

AFP/JOSE JORDAN

had hoped yesterday, but I knew today we had more of a chance so we put all our eggs in the basket.”

It was a fairly uneventful day for the leaders in the general classification as Nibali maintained his three second advantage and the leader’s red jersey.

With the first flat finish of the race favouring the sprinters in the peloton, Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) was again amongst the early pace setters as he and Antonio Piedra (Caja Rural), Jurgen Van De Walle (Lotto Belisol), Arnaud Courteille (FDJ)

and Winner Anacona (Lampre) built up a ten minute advantage before the first climb of the day up the Alto do Covelo.

That breakaway group continued to lead for the majority of the day with Van De Walle and Courtielle attacking on their own inside the final 10km.

They were eventually caught by the peloton with just over a kilometre to go and as the sprinters positioned themselves for the line it was Matthews who always looked the strongest and he powered into the lead with 500 metres remaining.

AFP

Manchester 139 (Raghu 47, Chandu 32, Ashwin 3/21) lost to Tirumala 140/3 (Saradhi 61, Ashwin 35no) Vijay CC 103 (Anirudh 30, Karthik 3/23, Durgesh 4/26) lost to Deccan Colts 104/3 (Santhosh 68) Hyderabad Panthers 149 (M Khan 64, Ankit Singh Malik 6/44) lost to Team Kun 153/1 (Charan 64no, Varun 64no)

INTER DISTRICT TWO DAYS

Day 2 Karimnagar 217 and 137 (Azhar 37, Majeed 5/28) bt Nalgonda 187 and 160/9 (Anil 37, Shashi 4/22)

sports

30

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

ASHES

Broad hits back at Vaughan LONDON: England’s Stuart Broad (in pic) has accused former skipper Michael Vaughan of being “disrespectful” for criticising the decision to rest several leading players from the upcoming ODIs against Australia.

Alastair Cook, Ian Bell, James Anderson, Graeme Swann and Broad himself, who all featured in the recent 3-0 Ashes series win, were all left out of the squads announced Tuesday for the lone one-dayer against Ireland and the five-match ODI campaign against Australia.

Australia too have made wholesale changes — only seven of their 18-man ODI squad played in the Test series — and it’s clear both countries are already looking ahead to the return Ashes in Australia in November.

“I would have only rested Captain Cook.. Plenty of time to rest from Sept 16th - Nov 21st!!!?

Can’t sell tickets then rest 5 star names!!!!,” Vaughan wrote on Twitter.

that’s it.”

Meanwhile, Broad said he was looking forward to returning to Australia despite comments from Australia coach Darren Lehmann to a Melbourne radio station that he hoped the hosts’ fans would “send Broad home crying” after calling him a cheat for not walking when he was caught during the first Test at Trent Bridge.

Lehmann was fined by the International Cricket Council for his remarks and apologised to Broad during the Oval Test.

But there have since been suggestions bowler Broad may need additional security in Australia in order to protect him from over-zealous home fans looking to act on Lehmann’s comments.

“I’ll feel like a rock star with some big heavies behind me. I’m not concerned at all,” he said.

“I’ve toured Australia a couple of times. I’ve always loved Australia, it’s a fantastic place to go with great restaurants and good bars,” he added.

AFP

“No problems resting players but I think Supporters who have paid good money to watch the best should get a small refund.”

However, England Twenty20 captain Broad, who will lead his side in the first T20 international against Australia in Southampton on Thursday, said Wednesday: “I think they’re (Vaughan’s comments) disrespectful to the side that’s going to go out on the field. “There’s guys who have performed throughout the county season to get a chance at the international level.

“As an ODI team, we’re building towards that 2015 World Cup (where) you need to have a big group of players going into that World Cup with experience of international caps.

“They wouldn’t be in the squad if they’re not good enough to play and that ODI squad will be very focused on beating Australia.

“I know if I was paying to go and watch, I’d want to go and watch England beat Australia,

Bailey backs Johnson for return

LONDON: Australia Twenty20 captain George Bailey has backed Mitchell Johnson (in pic) to return to Test duty when Ashes hostilities are resumed ‘Down Under’ in November.

Johnson did not feature in the Australia side that suffered a 3-0 Ashes series defeat in England but has been selected in the squad for the forthcoming limited-overs series, starting with the first Twenty20 international at Southampton on Thursday.

Johnson became a figure of fun among England fans in recent Ashes because of his often wayward deliveries but Bailey

much fun to face in the nets so hopefully he brings that aggression.

“There’s no doubt someone like him who can bowl as quick as he can and swing the ball at the top of the order can break a game open,” Bailey added.

“That’s what we are after with our Twenty20 cricket — we want match winners.”

Johnson’s status as the man the England fans love to pick on has been usurped by batsman David Warner in recent months following his Birmingham barroom attack on England’s Joe Root in June.

AFP

insisted the his raw pace, which has helped him take 205 Test wickets, meant he could yet return to the five-day format.

“Absolutely. I’ve no doubt they (the selectors) would have Mitch in their sights for a couple of those (Ashes) games particularly given the grounds and his record at some of those grounds,” Bailey said. “I don’t think he’d ever be too far from the selectors’ minds. I don’t think he’s got anything to prove and his form has been really great.

“I thought he bowled really well in his last couple of oneday games for us. He’s not too

SAFEWAY CLASSIC PREVIEW

Miyazato returns to defend title

PORTLAND: Japan’s Mika Miyazato will try to kickstart her 2013 LPGA campaign as she defends her only tour title to date at the Safeway Classic starting on Thursday.

Miyazato notched a wireto-wire victory, holding off current world number one Park In-Bee and Brittany Lincicome in the final round at Pumpkin Ridge last year.

The 23-year-old will try to defend the title at Columbia

Edgewater Country Club, which is hosting the tournament again this year for the first time since 2008.

She said the change means she doesn’t benefit as much from her good memories of last year, but she likes the venue.

“It’s a new golf course, new challenge,” said Miyazato, who is also pleased that the tournament will be over 72 holes rather than 54.

“I like 72-hole play,” she

said, adding that the extra round allows more opportunity to recover from an error.

Many in the field are returning to familiar territory, since Edgewater hosted the tournament for more than 25 years. Norway’s Suzann Pettersen, still enjoying the glow of Europe’s historic Solheim Cup victory over the United States in Colorado earlier this month, is among the players who remember the course.

AFP

England’s apology after celebrations LONDON: England’s cricketers have issued an apology for any offence caused during their celebrations of their Ashes series win over Australia at the Oval on Sunday.

The statement, released on the England and Wales Cricket Board’s website, followed allegations that England players urinated on the pitch hours after the series had ended on Sunday night in a 3-0 win for the home side.

“The England cricket team would like to state that during our celebrations after winning the Ashes at no time was there any intention to disrespect Surrey CCC, the Oval or anyone else involved in the game we love,” the statement on www.ecb.co.uk read.

“As a team we pride ourselves on respecting all things cricket including the opposition and the grounds we play at. We got carried away amongst the euphoria of winning such a prestigious series and accept that some of our behaviour was inappropriate.

“If that has caused any offence to anyone we apologise for that and want to reassure people that it was a simple error of judgement more than anything else.”

AFP

MEADOW

MAGIC

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

Murray races to victory DAVE JAMES Agence France-Presse NEW YORK: Defending champion Andy Murray put on a US Open late Wednesday night special, taking out his frustrations with the chaos-causing rain and event schedulers but two-time winner Venus Williams slipped to defeat.

Third-seeded Murray, who snapped Britain’s 76-year wait for a men’s Grand Slam champion when he triumphed in New York last year, needed just 98 minutes to get past 33-year-old Frenchman Michael Llodra, 6-2, 6-4, 6-3.

But his match only got underway at 9:55 p.m. (0155GMT) — the third-latest start for a US Open night session — after a four-hour rain suspension earlier in the day.

That delay was compounded when 2009 champion Juan Martin del Potro and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez battled out a fourhour, 13-minute dogfight on the same Arthur Ashe Stadium, which the Argentine sixth seed won 6-7 (5/7), 6-4, 7-6 (9/7).

“I think playing at that time for your first round is not ideal," said Murray, who hit 34 winners

Andy Murray of Great Britain plays a backhand during his men’s singles first round match against Michael Llodra of France during the US Open at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Wednesday.

AFP/ELSA

against just five unforced errors to book a match with Argentina’s Leonardo Mayer for a place in the last 32.

“It’s not whether it’s me, it’s anyone. Just because I won last year, it’s nothing to do with that.

It’s just more for the guys that have to play this evening, and you have guys that have two days off between matches."

It’s curtains for Blake’s career JIM SLATER Agence France-Presse

NEW YORK: Former world number four James Blake’s tennis career came to an emotional end after 14 years on Thursday morning at the US Open with a standing ovation after a first-round loss to Ivo Karlovic. “That ovation makes me realize everything I did, every bit of hard work was worth it," Blake said.

The 33-year-old American, who announced Monday this would be his farewell event, had fallen to 100th in the rankings and was far from the level that saw him reach the last eight on the Flushing Meadows hardcourts in 2005 and 2006.

But having defied the odds by overcoming scoliosis as a child and Zoster, a condition that attacked his hearing and eyesight and nearly paralyzed his face, Blake called it quits on his own terms before homeland fans who inspired him.

“I don’t know when it’s going to hit me," Blake told the crowd at Louis Armstrong Stadium after the 79th-ranked Croatian beat him 6-7 (2/7), 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7/2), 7-6 (7/2).

“It’s after midnight and you stayed to watch.

I’m never going to have this again in my life and I need to appreciate every single one of you for being here. It will never be forgotten. I’ll take in every memory I’ve ever had here."

AFP

Amongst Murray’s leading rivals for the title, Rafael Nadal completed his first round match on Monday, 48 hours earlier, while top seed Novak Djokovic and five-time winner Roger Federer both wrapped up their openers on Tuesday.

Del Potro and Garcia-Lopez had provided the earlier spice for the Murray headliner when they

exchanged angry words over the number of injury timeouts that the Spaniard was taking.

“I just asked about the medical timeout because I didn’t know how many or how long.

He explained to me then the chair umpire also, and that’s it," said Del Potro diplomatically.

Del Potro, beaten by Djokovic in the longest Wimbledon semifinal of all time last month, goes on to face 2001 champion Lleyton Hewitt, who saw off Brian Baker 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

As a result of Wednesday’s downpours, organizers postponed eight women’s secondround singles matches and 20 doubles matches until Thursday.

One of those held over was the second-round clash between reigning women’s champion Serena Williams, chasing a fifth US Open title, and Galina Voskoboeva of Kazakhstan.

The rain meant that some matches that started at 11a.m. were being completed as darkness fell with Somdev Devvarman defeating Lukas Lacko of Slovakia, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 in a tie spread out over eight hours.

Agnieszka Radwanska and Li Na managed to beat the rain to reach the third round.

31 Venus sent packing by Zheng NEW YORK: Venus Williams is going to have a lot more time to prepare for her upcoming tournaments in Asia than she really wanted, thanks to one of Asia’s top players.

China’s Zheng Jie advanced to the third round of the US Open on Wednesday by outlasting seven-time Grand Slam champion Williams 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (7/5) after three hours and two minutes.

“Today is tough match for me," Zheng said.

“Unbelievable I can beat her."

Deadlocked 5-5 in the tie-breaker, 60th-ranked Williams sent a backhand volley into the net to give 56th-ranked Zheng her first match-point chance. When Williams sent a backhand wide, Zheng jumped for joy in triumph. “It was amazing. I still feel tight," Zheng said. “The tie-breaker was so close. Exciting for me of course." Williams was still ruefully recalling the missed volley more than an hour later.

AFP

Hewitt, Del Potro on collision course

NEW YORK: Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt likes his chances in a US Open second-round showdown with fellow former champion Juan Martin Del Potro because he can attack the Argentine powerhouse’s game with quickness.

Hewitt says he has seen that his style is capable of causing some discomfort at times for Del Potro.

Hewitt, the 32-year-old former world number one from Adelaide who won the 2001 US Open and 2002 Wimbledon crowns, defeated US wildcard Brian Baker 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in his first-round match Wednesday.

Sixth seed Del Potro, ranked 60 places ahead of the Aussie, ousted Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-3, 67 (5/7), 6-4, 7-6 (9/7). The 2009 US Open winner lost the longest semifinal in Wimbledon history in his prior

Grand slam match.

“Another step up. But that’s why I’m here, to have a crack at the best guys," Hewitt said. “You have the opportunity to play the best guys out here at slams and at Slams this year he is one of them.

“It’s going to be a big test and I’m looking forward to it."

Hewitt says he has seen that his style is able to cause some discomfort at times for Del Potro, whose massive frame works against matching Hewitt’s smaller court-covering prowess.

“I feel I can hurt him in some areas some other guys can’t," Hewitt said.

“But the guy has such brute power out there. He can blow anyone off the court. And for his size he moves pretty well."

Del Potro, called Hewitt “maybe the toughest opponent without seeding” in the field” and added, “He’s going to be really difficult for me."

Hewitt and Del Potro have split four prior career meetings, the South American winning on hard courts in

Lleyton Hewitt of Australia celebrates after his men’s singles first round match against Brian Baker of US at the US Open at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Wednesday.

AFP/MATTHEW STOCKMAN

Washington’s third round in 2009 and a 2011 San Jose quarter-final.

Hewitt took their first meeting, in the second round at Wimbledon in 2009, and their most recent match, also on grass, at a Queen’s quarter-final two months ago — a 6-2, 2-6, 6-2 win in what he called “three exceptional sets."

AFP

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013

sports

SUAREZ COULD ADD BITE TO UNITED-LIVERPOOL TIE

Luis Suarez is in line to make his return from a 10-match ban in Liverpool’s League Cup third round tie at arch-rivals Manchester United following Wednesday’s draw. He has been pressing for a move away from Anfield, with Arsenal interested in signing the Uruguay forward.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GROUP STAGE

SPANISH SUPER CUP

Celtic win, join big guns

Barça claim title on away goals

A dramatic stoppage time strike from James Forrest secured Celtic's place in the group phase as they defeated Shakhter Karagandy 3-0.

ANDY SCOTT Agence France-Presse PARIS: Celtic produced a superb comeback to beat Shakhter Karagandy and qualify for the Champions League group stage on Wednesday, while AC Milan, Zenit St Petersburg and Real Sociedad also booked their place at European football’s top table.

The Scottish champions had given themselves everything to do after losing 2-0 to Shakhter in Kazakhstan in the first leg last week, but a terrific strike from Kris Commons gave them hope just before half-time in front of a typically raucous Parkhead crowd.

Giorgos Samaras then levelled the tie on aggregate three minutes into the second period, but it was not all plain sailing for Neil Lennon’s side.

Anthony Stokes hit the bar for the hosts before Sergei Khizhnichenko struck the woodwork at the other end.

But it was to be Celtic’s night, with Stokes doing bril-

liantly to set up James Forrest to make it 3-0 on the night and 3-2 on aggregate with virtually the last kick of the game.

In contrast to Celtic, Lyon never really threatened to overturn a two-goal first-leg deficit against Real Sociedad as the French club missed out on reaching the group stage for the second season running.

Remi Garde’s side were

TRANSFER WOES

Villas-Boas accepts Bale exit LONDON: Tottenham Hotspur manager Andre Villas-Boas was resigned Wednesday to seeing star forward Gareth Bale leave for Real Madrid as the Welshman’s replacement, Erik Lamela, headed towards White Hart Lane.

But Villas-Boas said Spurs would still consider fining Bale after he didn’t turn up at the north London club’s training ground on either Tuesday or Wednesday. “He is involved in a big transfer move to Real Madrid and in the end if it happens, we wish him all the best, but the fact that he hasn’t turned up is not the correct behaviour...,” Villas-Boas said.

“That is the position they chose to take and it’s up to the club to decide if it’s a fineable offence,” the Portuguese added.

Villas-Boas confirmed Bale was on the brink of joining Spanish giants Real. “It could happen very, very soon,” he said.

Villas-Boas added he did not expect to see Bale at Tottenham’s training ground again.

AFP

looking to do what no team had ever done before by overturning a 2-0 first-leg defeat at home to win a European Cup tie.

It proved too great a task as Mexican forward Carlos Vela scored a second-half brace to take the Liga club through 2-0 on the night, 4-0 on aggregate.

France will only have two clubs - Paris Saint-Germain and Marseille - in Thursday’s group-

32

stage draw in Monaco, but there will be three Italian clubs after AC Milan eased to a 4-1 aggregate win against PSV Eindhoven.

The seven-time European champions had a brace by Kevin-Prince Boateng and a second-half Mario Balotelli strike to thank for taking them past PSV, the 1988 European Cup winners who have not graced the Champions League proper since 2008-09.

In other games, Zenit St Petersburg eased past Portuguese minnows Pacos Ferreira with a 4-2 win in Russia to advance 8-3 on aggregate.

Portuguese international Danny scored twice for Zenit against his countrymen, including a spectacular solo effort for his second of the night, with Aleksandr Bukharov and Andrey Arshavin also netting, the latter from the penalty spot.

Manuel Jose and Carlao scored consolation goals for tiny Pacos, who finished third in their domestic league last season.

BARCELONA: Barcelona lifted the first silverware of the Spanish season on away goals after a 0-0 draw with Atletico Madrid in the second-leg of the Spanish Super Cup on Wednesday night.

Following the 1-1 draw in the first-leg, the Catalans were left to thank goalkeeper Victor Valdes for preserving their advantage as he pulled off incredible saves from Arda Turan and David Villa either side of half-time.

Barca should have then sealed victory on the night themselves as after Filipe Luis was sent off for Atleti, Lionel Messi fired a late penalty off the bar.

“Victor has always had this characteristic which makes a goalkeeper for a big team,” Barca boss Gerardo Martino told a press conference afterwards.

“They had two shots on goal and he made the saves.”

Martino had handed a first start to Neymar as the Brazilian and Lionel Messi lined up for the first time in a competitive match since the former’s switch from Santos. And he admitted that the South American duo have plenty to work on as a partnership.

“Separately they have played quite well. It is true that they didn’t combine a lot and they didn’t find each other.”

AFP

EUROPEAN SUPER CUP

Bayern, Chelsea in grudge match RYLAND JAMES Agence France-Presse PRAGUE: Champions League winners Bayern Munich and Europa League holders Chelsea meet in the European Super Cup on Friday with the usually relaxed atmosphere surrounding the match spiced up as there are several scores to be settled.

Bayern still feel they should have won the Champions League a year earlier only to be beaten by Chelsea on penalties — even worse for the Germans was it came at their stadium, the Allianz Arena.

Chelsea’s manager at the time Roberto di Matteo is no longer there - he was sacked only a few months later and his replacement Rafael Benitez salvaged something from the season in landing the Europa League.

The present incumbent Jose Mourinho - Benitez’ spell as caretaker manager ended at the end of last season will be eager to put one over Bayern’s coach Pep Guardiola, his nemesis from his days in Spain.

Barcelona under Guardiola outshone Mourinho’s Real Madrid, and the latter’s largely unhappy reign there came to an end at the end of last season.

That left the self-anointed ‘Special One’ needing to prove he has not lost his touch at delivering trophies, and where better to start than by beating his old rival in the process.

Guardiola for his part took a year out - stepping aside after Real ended

Barcelona’s reign as champions in 2012 and returned refreshed to take over a Bayern side that last season under Jupp Heynckes became the first German club to win the domestic double and the Champions League.

Guardiola, though, can deliver something that Bayern coaches have not managed and win the Super Cup after the club failed to do so on three previous occasions.