Month: May 2009

Iran’s Ahmadinejad wants to debate Obama at UN

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Tehran, May 26: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed on Monday a face-to-face debate with President Barack Obama at the United Nations if he is re-elected next month as Iran’s president.

But he balanced the offer with a sharp rebuke to Washington and its allies over Iran’s nuclear program. He reiterated that Iran would never abandon its advances in uranium enrichment in exchange for offers of easing sanctions or other economic incentives.

The nuclear issue “is closed,” he told a news conference.

Muslim nations link better ties with Israel to peace

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Damascus, May 26: Amid reports of an American plan offering Israel ties with Arab and Muslim countries in exchange for talks on all peace tracks, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) stressed, that relations with Israel would come after solving the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“(Any normalization) will come after the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict,” OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told a press conference following a three-day meeting of the OIC foreign ministers.

India, Pakistan on the side of Sri Lanka in rights battle with West

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New Delhi, May 25 : India and Pakistan find themselves on the same side with Sri Lanka as Europe accuses Colombo of ‘war crimes’ against the Tamils.

A special session of the UN Human Rights Council is due Tuesday in Geneva where Denmark and Britain are leading a vocal and sustained drive to pin down Sri Lanka. The deliberations could extend to Wednesday. The meeting became possible after Denmark got together 17 of the UN body’s 47 member countries to press for the special session to probe charges that Colombo violated human rights and committed “war crimes”.

GM borrows $4 bln more, prepares for bankruptcy

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New York, May 25: General Motors Corp on Friday borrowed another $4 billion from the U.S. Treasury and won a cost-cutting deal from Canadian auto workers as a showdown with bondholders set the stage for a bankruptcy filing by the end of the month.

The latest emergency funds extended by the Obama administration take the total government funding to keep GM afloat since the start of the year to $19.4 billion.

Sena warns Cong leader against insulting Thackeray

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Mumbai, May 25: Irked over Mumbai Congress leader and former state minister Kripashankar Singh’s criticism of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, the Sena has warned that it would “paint the map of Maharashtra beneath Singh’s ears”.

“If Kripashankar continues to insult the Sena chief, we will paint the map of Maharashtra beneath his ears,” Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut said after Singh yesterday attributed Thackeray’s outburst against him to ‘frustration over loss of all six Lok Sabha seats in Mumbai’.

Mufti blames curricula for deviancy

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Riyadh, May 25: Shaikh Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah Al Shaikh, Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, has described the curricula in the Muslim world as the main reason for the spread of deviant thoughts and called for immediate action from relevant authorities to correct the “unacceptable situation”.

“Shortcomings in some of the curricula in the Islamic world lead to the promotion of intellectual deviations in the mind of the public, which requires an immediate intervention to find out crucial solutions and correct the confusions caused by these shortcomings,” he said.

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IIT results today

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Hyderabad, May 25: The much-awaited results of the Joint Entrance Examinations for admission into various Indian Institutes of Technology and other allied institutes would be announced on May 25.

Counselling for the candidates would commence from June 13 and the final allotment of seats and courses would be made by June 24, according to JEE officials.

Compared to last year, the competition for the seats has increased dramatically despite the introduction of two new IITs at Indore and Himachal Pradesh. “The students-seats ratio has increased from 44:1 to 49:1.

Islamic Idol: Music spreading message of faith

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Cairo, May 25: Flames burst from the stage for a grand entrance, and fake fog swirls around a young man in a white robe.

He clutches the microphone, gazes seriously into the camera and then, accompanied only by drums, he sings.

“I accept Allah as my God, His religion as my religion, and His Messenger as my Messenger,” he intones, as the audience, divided into men’s and women’s sections, claps along with the rhythm.

Structures around mosque to be razed

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Hyderabad, May 25: Archaeology and museums department officials have asked Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to pull down 20 structures around
the Hayat Bakshi Begum mosque in Hayatnagar, a protected monument.

Throwing heritage norms to the wind, GHMC officials had allowed nearly 20 buildings in the buffer zone of the mosque. According to the department of archaeology, buildings have come up in survey number 260 of Hayat Bakshi Begum mosque.

Rahul Gandhi becomes the new gay icon

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Mumbai, May 25: Rahul Gandhi emerged as a youth icon during the General Elections with even Prime Minster Manmohan Singh acknowledging his contribution to the Congress’ thumping victory.

But it isn’t only the youth that are looking to him for a voice. The country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gender (LGBT) community voted overwhelmingly for the Congress hoping that young Rahul would take up their cause.

Parents beware of kids’ Wikiporn risk

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Sydney, May 25: Parents are being urged not to allow their kids to use website Wikipedia without supervision after an entry on a famous children’s book was edited to contain pornographic material.

Last week, sexual and violent acts between characters were added to the online plot summary for Mrs Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, which is recommended for students in years 5 to 9.

The edited page for the book, on the list for the Premier’s Reading Challenge, was visible for about an hour before it was changed to the original text.

‘Bloody intersection’ secured by Pakistani troops

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Islamabad, May 25: The Taliban left so many mutilated bodies at the crossing some hanging from trees with threatening notes that Pakistanis in the Swat Valley’s main town took to calling it “bloody intersection.”

On Sunday, the army said that spot and seven other major crossings in Mingora were secured, part of street-by-street urban fighting whose success is considered critical to flushing out the militants from the valley as a whole.

New York Terror Plot “Cooked”: Experts

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Some American experts are accusing the FBI of “cooking” an alleged plot to attack Jewish synagogues and military planes in New York by implanting an informant in a mosque to induce people into terror intrigues. “This whole operation was a foolish waste of time and money,” Terence Kindlon, a New York-based lawyer, told.

“It is almost as if the FBI cooked up the plot and found four idiots to install as defendants.”
Police arrested four people last week on charges of plotting to attack two Jewish synagogues and a military base in New York.

Symonds leads Deccan Chargers to IPL title

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Johannesburg, May 25: Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds led the Deccan Chargers to a six-run victory over the Bangalore Royal Challengers in the Indian Premier League Twenty20 final at the Wanderers.

Symonds, who has not been included in the Australia team to defend the Ashes in England this year, boosted the Chargers’ innings with 33 from 21 balls.

South Africa one-day opener Herschelle Gibbs batted through the innings to score 53 not out in the Chargers’ 143 for six.

Al-aqsa facing “real, immediate” danger

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Occupied Al-Quds, May 25: Palestinians are sounding the alarm that Israel’s continuing excavation works beneath the Haram al-Sharif (Noble sanctuary) in Al-Quds (occupied East Jerusalem) is posing a “real and immediate” danger to its Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest shrine.

“Israeli excavations and continuing digging right beneath the Haram al Sharif’s esplanade have already caused irreparable damage to the stability of Al-Aqsa Mosque’s foundations,” Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement, told.

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Soon, ‘hands-free’ video games

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London, May 24: The ultimate computer game that banishes handheld controls and allows players’ gestures to dictate the action on screen is to be launched by Microsoft.

The Microsoft Xbox 360 uses 3-D camera technology, and is aimed at challenging the dominance of the Nintendo Wii, reports The Times.

Allowing users to kick a virtual football, drive a car or practise dance moves with a computer-generated partner simply by monitoring an individual’s movements, the entertainment system will become a must-have for any child or even a youngster.

Iran’s says he can stop Israel with ‘one strike’

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Tehran, May 24: Iran’s former Revolutionary Guards chief Mohsen Rezai warned on Sunday he could stop Israel with “one strike” and said it would not dare to threaten the Islamic republic if he is elected President.

“My government understands missiles and tanks as well as foreign policy and knows exactly where Israel’s sensitive spots are. It could stop them forever with one strike,” Rezai told a news conference.

Neither our bodies were touching, nor are we kissing

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Mumbai, May 24: After facing the wrath of political affiliates while doing a bold and scandalous bikini photo shoot for a men’s magazine, actress Neetu Chandra has now developed cold feet.

Recently, while the actress was shooting for The Man magazine at a 3-star hotel with model Krishikka Gupta, a group of regular male customers started shouting “Jai Maharashtra’ slogans and threatened action from Raj Thackeray’s Maharashrtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). They even tried to confiscate the camera, resulting in the shoot having to be abruptly called off.

Civilians trapped in Pakistan’s Swat Valley town

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Islamabad,May 24: Gunshots pierced the air as Pakistani troops battled Taliban extremists in the Swat Valley’s main city, a trapped civilian said, while helicopter gunships pounded alleged militant hide-outs in a nearby tribal region Sunday, killing at least 18 people.

Elsewhere in the northwest, police said they had captured an important militant commander and six other Taliban fighters.

Nandita Das files divorce from second husband

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New Delhi,May: The Bollywood actor and director Nandita Das filed for a divorce from her second husband Saumya Sen in the Patiala House Court on
Saturday.The two were married in Delhi on December 22, 2002.

Das, known for her offbeat roles in award winning movies, approached the court seeking divorce from her second husband Sen, a Kolkata based advertisement professional.

Kids bring mom home after 20-yr jungle stay

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Mumbai,May 24: In the hospital ward in the western suburbs where Laxmi Baraskar is being treated, the staff call her “Jungle Laxmi” — an apt moniker for the wiry woman who spent the last two decades in the jungle near Guhagar taluka in Ratnagiri.

Thackeray family feud now out in the open

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Mumbai, May 24: The Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena have both been electorally routed in Mumbai and in parts of Maharashtra in the recent General Elections, but this has not stopped the Thackeray family from bringing its internal bickering out into the open.

Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray has blamed his cousin and MNS chief Raj Thackeray for the Shiv Sena’s poll debacle. But Raj has wasted no time in hitting back at Uddhav.

China bigger threat than Pakistan

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New Delhi, May 24: India faces a greater threat from China than Pakistan because New Delhi knows little about Beijing’s combat capabilities, Air Force Chief told a newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

The world’s two most populous nations fought a brief but brutal war over their 3,500 km (2,200 mile) Himalayan border in 1962, and both sides claim the other is occupying big but largely uninhabited chunks of their territory.

India has also been pursuing closer relations with the United States, something that worries China.

Deccan, Challengers turn jeers to cheers

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Durban, May 24: After 36 days of scintillating action and 58 dazzling encounters, the penultimate stage of the Indian Premier League (IPL) could not have been more exciting as the two bottom-placed teams of the inaugural edition Deccan Chargers and Bangalore Royal Challengers made it to Sunday’s title clash.

Bangalore Royal Challengers and Deccan Chargers have risen like a phoenix from the ashes of the inaugural season, where they respectively finished seventh and eighth in the tournament, and have been a revelation in South Africa.

Assembly to meet on June 1

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Hyderabad, May 24: The newly-formed 13th State Legislative Assembly will meet for its first session for five days from June 1.

All the 294 elected members will take oath on the first day.

The election of the new Speaker will take place on June 2 and governor N D Tiwari will address the joint session of assembly and the council on the same day.

Later, from June 3 to June 5, the House will take up the debate on the motion of thanks to the governor. The budget session of the assembly is expected to begin at the end of the month.