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New Delhi, June 25: Muslim leaders slammed French President Nicolas Sarkozy for describing burqa as a sign of “subservience”, saying it was a “direct attack” on Islamic identity and meant to “provoke” the community.

“Sarkozy’s statement on burqa is a direct attack on Islamic identity and shows the level of hatred he has towards Islam and Muslims,” Shahi Imam of Delhi-based Jama Masjid Ahmed Bukhari said.

The French President had told a special session of Parliament that “the burqa is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience.”

Washington, June 25: “North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days,” the Associated Press reports.

“If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will … wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all,” the official Korean Central News Agency said.

Cairo, June 24: Germany has more Muslims than it originally thought, with nearly half of them holding German citizenship and thus able to vote in elections, according to a government survey released Tuesday, which found Muslims were religious but tended to be less socially integrated.

Muslims make up five percent of Germany’s 80 million population, two percent more than most common estimates, according to the first survey of German Muslims.

Hyderabad, June 24: The news of a racist attack on yet another city student in Australia has left Hyderabad shocked and saddened.

A large number of people have gathered at the home of Kazim Ali Khan, 20, in the old city to expressed support and solidarity with the family.

Khan, a student of hospitality management at the Victoria Institute of Technology, was attacked by two hooded men in an eastern suburb of Melbourne.

Washington, June 23: Taliban fighters in war-torn Afghanistan have managed to escape US and NATO attacks and carry out painful assaults against foreign forces, thanks to an American state-of-the-art military technology that reached their hands.

Department of Defense told “terrorists have used US uniforms and the infrared patches to get close to US and allied forces on the battlefield and at bases,” Jonathan Meyer, of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), told. “This is more of a potential suicide-bomber risk.”

Toronto, June 22: In a major breakthrough for AIDS cure, Canadian scientists have finally found where the HIV virus hides in the human body to become impervious to medical treatment.

This breakthrough could pave the way for a total cure of the deadly disease, claim the scientists who carried out the study with researchers from the US.

The current anti-viral treatment for HIV patients can only subdue, not eliminate, the virus as it hides somewhere to lie low and then attack the system again.

Ahmedabad, June 22: Motherhood makes a woman complete. Now, single men too are staking claim to complete manhood by becoming a parent. Now-a-days single men are hiring wombs in gujarat to become fathers.

Surrogate capital Anand, where infertility specialist Dr Naina Patel has helped hundreds of childless couples from all over the world, is also seeing single men queuing up to father a child with the help of donated eggs and a surrogate mother.

Lords, June 21:Who would have wrote this script that would unfold on 21st day of June in 2009 at London’s Lord’s cricket ground? Pakistan who were rated as the team capable of hardly beating any gully team in Lahore or Peshawar or Rawalpindi were crowned the Badshah of T20 cricket after they chased down the 139-run target set by Sri Lanka.

Courtesy a sparkling innings of 54 runs from Shahid Afridi, Pakistan successfully chased down the target with 8 wickets in hand and set off wild celebrations way back in the streets and gullies Karachi to Peshawar.

Mumbai, June 21: Two-month-old Zoya gets dragged into a dowry harassment case filed by her father’s first wife. Legal experts, child rights activists react in shock at her having to get anticipatory bail to avoid arrest

In a case straight out of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, the Mumbai Sessions court last Wednesday (June 17, 2009) granted anticipatory bail for what must have been their youngest applicant ever a two-month-old baby: Zoya aka Mehak Shamshuddin Khan. Lucky for her, or Zoya could have ended up behind bars.

Mumbai, June 20: SRK clarifies that he has never said anything against the Prophet in an interview.. It is really unfortunate that a section of people are reacting to some interview of mine in the way that is best describeable as an unfounded overreaction.

To clarify…there is a mistake either in the way my statement is printed or misinterpretation on behalf of the writer of the piece.

Quote and misquote: Shah Rukh Khan.

Jerusalem, June 20: Israeli border guards have posted videos online in which they humiliate Palestinians, including ordering a young man to sing and slap himself, reported.

In one video clip posted on YouTube the man is ordered to repeatedly slap himself in the face while chanting “I love the border police” as off-screen border guards laugh and cheer him on.

Rome, June 20: A record one billion people are undernourished around the world, the UN food agency said, blaming the global financial crisis for a surge of more than 100 million hungry since last year.

Deploring “the biggest ever year-on-year increase” in world hunger, Jacques Diouf, the head of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told a news conference: “One in six human beings does not have access to food.”

The FAO chief called for a “new world food order” enshrining the “right to food and thus the right to exist,” urging stepped-up investment in agriculture.

Hyderabad, June 19: TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday quit his post saying he was sad over personal attacks made against him by rebel leaders in the wake of the party’s electoral defeat.

In a three-page letter addressed to the party’s state executive committee, Rao said he was sad over the personal attack mounted against him and his family members by the rebel leaders, who, have “joined hands with those trying to defeat the Telangana movement”.

Washington, June 19: Japanese newspaper the Yomiuri Shimbun is citing officials in the Japanese Defense Ministry as saying North Korea is preparing a launch in early July of a new Taepodong-2 missile over the Japanese prefecture of Aomori, and toward the US state of Hawaii.

Officials believe the missile would have roughly the same range as the rocket used in April’s failed satellite launch by the North Korean government. As such, it is not expected to have sufficient range to hit the Hawaiian islands.

The Dabeerpura police today rescued the one and a half year old girl syeda Rabbab Madani from the maid servant who kidnapped her yesterday.

Inspector Dabeerpura Mr. Prassana Kumar told that the maid servant Parveen
after kidnapping the girl Rabbab Madani from her residence yerterday evening was hiding at her relatives place at shamshabad.

Washington, June 17: After declaring that the United States “cannot afford” the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq “financially or spiritually,” Ohio’s Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a staunch anti-war crusader, took aim at Congress for not taking a more active role in any of the war on terror fronts.

Kucinich: ‘Another $106 billion and all we get is a lousy war’

Mumbai, June 17: For Saif Ali Khan getting conversant with the holy Quran to play the jehadi in Rensil D’Silva’s Kurbaan was relatively easier.

But John Abraham belonging to an entirely different religion and culture, learning the tenets of the Quran from the scratch to play the NRI Muslim in Kabir Khan’s New York.

Not knowing a syllable of the Quran John had to study the holy book in translation.

Islamabad, June 16: The Taliban is buying children for 500,000 to 2.5 million rupees to convert them into suicide bombers, and execute barbarous terrorist activities, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik has revealed.

Speaking at an award distribution ceremony, Malik said Pakistan is determined to continue the war against terrorism till the Taliban are flushed out of the country.

“We had two options either to surrender before the terrorists or fight with them and now terrorists were bound to run from Swat, Dir and Buner,” The News quoted Malik, as saying.

Moscow, June 16: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has arrived in Russia to attend a regional security summit.

Mr. Ahmadinejad had been expected to arrive Monday and meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The Iranian leader postponed the trip for one day amid street protests in Iran following his re-election in a bitterly disputed vote. No reason was given for the postponement.

Mr. Ahmadinejad attended Tuesday’s session of the regional security summit in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg.

Mumbai, June 16: All those women who admire Shiney Ahuja’s dove-eyed looks have never been this disgusted.

For it isn’t everyday that a Bollywood actor gets disgraced to this level.

Shiney, a rising star in Bollywood with much critical acclaim to boast about has unfortunately created news for all the wrong reasons. The actor, who was arrested here late Sunday night for allegedly raping his maid, has been sent to a three day police remand but looks the story has just begun.

Pakistan’s foreign minister called for more international aid to combat extremists, saying that the Taliban could otherwise move into neighboring India and as far as the Gulf, as Pakistani forces killed dozens more suspected militants in tribal areas on Monday.

“They (militants) have a global agenda, they have a regional agenda, they are not confined to Pakistan. They could go into the Gulf, they could go into India, they can go anywhere,” Shah Mehmoud Qureshi said in an interview published Monday by the Financial Times.

Hyderabad, June 14: A woman constable was allegedly murdered by her husband here on Sunday at city outskirts and he remained untraceable emerged as the prime suspect in the case, police said.

Kusum Kumari (38) attached to Charminar police here was found dead in her house at Kukatpally area here this morning with blunt injuries on her face even as her husband Bikshapati, an autodriver who is suspected to have “killed” her is absconding after the incident, Kukatpally police said.

Hyderabad, June 14: Tennis star Sania Mirza may be a millionaire but her face appears on a ration card belonging to a below poverty line (BPL) family in Andhra Pradesh.

The white ration card, which makes a family eligible to get rice at a highly-subsidised price of Rs 2-a-kg and social security benefits health insurance and a permanent housing, has been issued to one Laxmi of Vizianagaram district with a photograph of Sania.

Hyderabad, June 14: Tennis star Sania Mirza may be a millionaire but her face appears on a ration card belonging to a below poverty line (BPL) family in Andhra Pradesh.

The white ration card, which makes a family eligible to get rice at a highly-subsidised price of Rs 2-a-kg and social security benefits health insurance and a permanent housing, has been issued to one Laxmi of Vizianagaram district with a photograph of Sania.

Hyderabad, June 13, (By S.M.Bilal): “I Thought that Sameera would die after falling from Charminar, but her statement before the police had landed me in trouble” the arrested financer Arshad reportedly told his interrogators. The financer who pushed off 18 year old girl Sameera of Talalbkatta from Historic Charminar had yesterday surrendered before the Charminar police.