shameen

Swine flu scare spreads as toll mounts to six

by

Pune/Chennai, August 10: The death toll from Influenza A(H1N1) or swine flu rose to six on Monday with the death of a 35-year-old ayurvedic doctor and a four-year-old boy in Pune and Chennai, respectively.

The medic, Babasahib Mane, died in the Sassoon General Hospital in Pune this morning, becoming the third person in the worst-hit Maharashtra city to succumb to swine flu, a senior health official said.

Mane was ailing for sometime and blood had been found in his sputum in the last couple of days, he said.

Aussie media glee at Test team’s ‘Pommelling’

by

Sydney, August 10: Australia`s media today gleefully celebrated the dramatic turnaround in their team`s Ashes fortunes following their comprehensive innings triumph over England in the fourth Headingley Test.

“Pommelling, Australia humiliate old enemy,” The Daily Telegraph crowed, headlining Australia`s victory inside three days to level the series at 1-1 and take it to a decider at The Oval on August 20.

Vast expanses of Arctic ice melt in summer heat

by

Tuktoyaktuk, August 10: The Arctic Ocean has given up tens of thousands more square miles (square kilometres) of ice on Sunday in a relentless summer of melt, with scientists watching through satellite eyes for a possible record low polar ice cap.

From the barren Arctic shore of this village in Canada’s far northwest, 1,500 miles (2,414 kilometers) north of Seattle, veteran observer Eddie Gruben has seen the summer ice retreating more each decade as the world has warmed. By this weekend the ice edge lay some 80 miles (128 kilometers) at sea.

Changing rainfall pattern may deprive billion people of water

by

Washington, August 10: A changing rainfall pattern may deprive a billion people of fresh water in the tropics and subtropics in the coming decades, according to the latest research.

The rain band near the equator that determines the supply of such fresh water has been creeping northwards for more than 300 years.

Now, a global rainfall atlas!

by

Washington, August 10: Scientists have created the first comprehensive visual atlas of global rainfall, which they claim shows the projections of downpour around the world over the next century.

An international team, led by the Australian National University, has created the Atlas of the Global Water Cycle based on all of the models used by India’s RK Pauchuri-headed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its report.

Female supervisors likely to be sexually harassed at workplace

by

Washington, August 10: Women who hold supervisory positions are more susceptible to workplace sexual harassment, according to a new study.

During the study, nearly 50 percent of women supervisors, but only one-third of women who do not supervise others, reported sexual harassment in the workplace.

In more conservative models with stringent statistical controls, women supervisors were 137 percent more likely to be sexually harassed than women who did not hold managerial roles.

Pune doc, Chennai boy succumb to swine flu; toll rises to six

by

Pune/Chennai, August 10: India on Monday reported two swine flu deaths, with a 35-year-old ayurvedic doctor in Pune and a four-year-old boy in Chennai succumbing to the virus this morning.

The death toll from the fast spreading influenza A(H1N1) pandemic has now risen to six in India.

Ayurvedic doctor Babasahib Mane was admitted to Pune’s Sassoon General Hospital five days ago and had been on the ventilator since the last three days. He died at 7:15 am today, Maharashtra’s swine flu control room head Pradip Awate said.

Nagasaki mayor urges worldwide nuclear arms ban

by

Tokyo, August 10: The mayor of Nagasaki called for a global ban on nuclear arms at a ceremony marking the 64th anniversary of the devastating U.S. attack on the Japanese city that killed about 74,000 people.

In a speech given just after 11:02 a.m. — the time when a plutonium American bomb flattened Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945 — Mayor Tomihisa Taue said some progress had been made toward eliminating nuclear weaponry but more needed to be done.

After a decade in power, Putin not ready to quit

by

Moscow, August 10: Vladimir Putin has celebrated a decade in power, and it appears the former KGB strongman may maintain his grip on Russia’s government for years to come.

Supporters credit him with rescuing the economy from the post-Soviet doldrums and restoring national pride. Critics say the price — rolling back democratic reforms and stifling dissent — has been too high.

North Korean leader appears in ‘full control’: US

by

Washington, August 10: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il appears to be in “full control” of his government and Pyongyang has indicated it wants a better relationship with the United States, the US national security adviser said Sunday.

But in interviews on morning television talks shows, retired general Jim Jones said it was up to North Korea to make the next move following Kim’s lengthy talks Tuesday in Pyongyang with former president Bill Clinton.

Top US acting school scouts for new Indian talent

by

Mumbai, August 10: The United States’ most prestigious acting school is to open branches in India, with hopes that they can help discover new generations of talent and make them household names across the world.

The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute India is due to open in the country’s entertainment capital Mumbai next June, providing aspiring actors and even established names with “world class” tuition, its backers here said.

50 suspected Afghan drug lords targeted by US

by

Washington, August 10: Fifty alleged Afghan drug traffickers with suspected ties to the Taliban have been placed on a Pentagon list of people targeted for elimination, The New York Times reported late Sunday.

Citing a congressional study due to be released this week, the newspaper said the targeting reflected a major shift in US counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan.

According to the report, US military commanders have told Congress that they are convinced that the policy is legal under the military’s rules of engagement and international law.

Afghan police fast-tracked for elections

by

Kabul, August 10: Afghan police recruits clutch their guns and leopard crawl across gravel under the noon sun. A teddy bear nearby is rigged up as a fake improvised explosive device — the favoured weapon of the Taliban.

In a brown tent to the side, a young man asks a First Aid instructor if police should help all the wounded at the site of an explosion when there is every chance one could be an attacker.

Obama, Calderon tackle flu, drugs war

by

Mexico, August 10: US President Barack Obama expressed “strong support” for Mexico’s raging battle against drug cartels in talks with Mexican President Felipe Calderon here on Sunday, a US official said.

But Obama stressed the importance of upholding human rights in the crackdown against the murderous wave of narcotics-related violence, the senior official said on condition of anonymity.

5 dead, 10 missing as typhoon hits Japan

by

Tokyo, August 10: Public broadcaster NHK says a typhoon has slammed into Japan leaving five people dead and 10 others missing.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency says Typhoon Etau has caused torrential rain to hit the region. The agency has warned of heavy precipitation and landslides in eastern Japan.

NHK’s Monday report says the five people were killed in floods and landslides triggered by heavy rainfall in western Japan’s Hyogo and Okayama prefectures.

Police in Hyogo and Okayama could not confirm the report.

–Agencies

43 people killed in landslides in northern India

by

Lucknow, August 10: Landslides triggered by heavy rains killed at least 43 people in three remote villages in northern India, a police official said.

Twenty bodies were pulled from the debris Sunday after the landslide buried the villages in Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand state a day earlier, said S.M. Shamim, a paramilitary force commander.

He said 43 people “were buried alive under the debris.”

Police and volunteers were digging through mud and rocks Sunday to recover the bodies of 23 others, he said.

Palestinian Fatah seeks renewal, rejuvenation

by

Gaza, August 10: The congress of the leading Palestinian party, Fatah, voted Sunday for a new executive body and assembly filled with fresh faces to regain the lost trust of the Palestinian people.

The movement led by the late Yasser Arafat for 40 years wants to shed a reputation for corruption and cronyism that led in 2006 to a stunning election loss to its Islamist rival Hamas, which opposes peace with Israel.

Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in a civil war a year later, splitting the Palestinian independence movement.

Opposition chiefs should face trial: Iran military

by

Tehran, August 10: A top official with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards called on Sunday for the main opposition leaders to be put on trial for trying to orchestrate a “velvet coup”.

Yadollah Javani said former president Mohammad Khatami and defeated challengers Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi should be prosecuted over the crisis that has gripped Iran since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election in June.

Javani, head of the Revolutionary Guards’ political bureau, said a plot to topple the 30-year-old Islamic regime through a “velvet coup” has been exposed.

Iran judiciary looks to calm prison abuse outrage

by

Tehran, August 10: Police and judiciary officials sought on Sunday to calm public outrage in Iran over the deaths of detained protesters in prison, acknowledging abuses and calling for those responsible to be punished.

A senior commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard, which led the crackdown against the protesters, meanwhile, said that the three top opposition figures are the ones who should be put on trial, striking a harder line that suggests tensions at the highest levels of Iran’s power structure.

British, Australian security contractors shot dead in Iraq

by

Baghdad, August 10: Two security contractors, one British and the other Australian, were killed in an alcohol-fueled shooting inside the Iraqi capital’s secure “Green Zone” on Sunday, officials said.

The men, employees of UK-based firm ArmorGroup, were allegedly shot dead by a British colleague after a bout of drinking in the early hours of the morning in the heavily fortified area, Baghdad military spokesman Qassem Atta said.

Iran Guard wants former president, moderates tried

by

London, August 10: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said on Sunday that two defeated presidential contenders should be tried for inciting unrest after the disputed poll.

The June 12 election plunged Iran into its biggest internal crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution, exposed deepening divisions in its ruling elite and set off a wave of protests that left 26 people dead.

Israel bombs Gaza tunnel near Egypt

by

Gaza, August 10: Israeli warplanes bombed a tunnel along the Gaza Strip border with Egypt on Monday, the Israeli military, Hamas officials and witnesses said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from the pre-dawn raid in the Palestinian coastal territory, ruled by the Islamist Hamas movement.

The raid was launched in response to recent mortar and rocket attacks from Gaza against Israel, an Israeli military spokeswoman said.

Rice denounces Iran ‘show trials’

by

Washington, August 10: US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice on Sunday condemned what she described as “show trials” for demonstrators in Iran who protested the results of June’s disputed presidential election.

“These are show trials and they are clearly a demonstration of the fact that the Iranian leadership is not reconciled to the concerns of its people regarding the validity of the elections,” Rice told CNN.

Israel summons U.S. envoy over settlement dispute

by

Jerusalem, August 10: Israel summoned one of its diplomats from the United States on Sunday after he circulated a memorandum accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of doing “strategic damage” to ties with Washington.

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said a disciplinary measure was being taken with the Israeli consul in Boston, Nadav Tamir, after publication last week of his “very regrettable” memorandum.

Laws Aimed at Protecting Welfare of Fishermen

by

Al Gharbia, August 10: The Environment Authority – Abu Dhabi (EAD) has always been keen on protecting the welfare of fishermen by enacting legislation to streamline fishing, curb excessive fishing and to ensure that fishing resources are not depleted, according to Sabah Abdullah, EAD fish expert.

Unorganised fishing in the past was among the reasons of depletion of fish resources and disappearance of certain species, he pointed out, adding that the authority had made enormous efforts to promote fish aquaculture.