Mumbai, September 29: Air India on Tuesday said that it would pay productivity-linked incentive (PLI) to all sections of employees on October 7.
“Air India will pay the August PLI payable in September on October 7,” Air India’s executive director, Jitendra Bhargava, said.
September salaries have already been paid to the employees’ respective bank accounts, he said.
The PLI will be paid in full, Bhargava added.
London, September 29: Oil prices fell slightly on Tuesday amid tensions between key crude exporter Iran over its atomic programme.
New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November, slipped 27 cents to 66.57 dollars a barrel.
London’s Brent North Sea crude for November lost 34 cents to 65.20 dollars a barrel.
Kuwait City, September 29: Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), the Gulf state sovereign wealth fund, on Tuesday denied a United Nations claim its assets slumped by 94 billion dollars due to the global financial crisis.
KIA acting managing director Othman Ibrahim al-Issa said in a statement cited by the official KUNA news agency that the authority has asked the UN agency which reported the losses to rectify the mistake.
Mogadishu, September 29: Somali government forces recaptured a key western town on the border with Ethiopia during a brief battle Monday with insurgents that left one dead, officials and witnesses said.
Government forces fought with militias from the Hezb al-Islam group and Shebab in the town of Beledweyn, residents said.
Several witnesses said at least one person was killed and five others wounded in the morning clash. It was not immediately clear if the victims were civilians or combatants.
Sanaa, September 29: Yemen security forces have clashed with activists in the south of the country, where separatist sentiments run deep, while troops have killed 29 Shiite rebels in the north amid a raging offensive, officials said on Tuesday.
In Jinzibar, capital of the southern Abyan province, “wanted criminals” opened fire on security forces prompting the troops to retaliate, the official Saba news agency said quoting a government official.
In the exchange, a woman was shot and wounded by the activists, the official said.
Tehran, September 29: Iran will not freeze uranium enrichment work as it is its “sovereign” right, nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi told a group of journalists working for international media on Tuesday.
“If we have the right to enrich uranium, if we have the right to convert uranium, if we have the right for fuel production … we will do this. We will not freeze them. This is our sovereign right, ” Salehi said.
“We will not bargain about our sovereign rights,” he added.
Geneva, September 29: The UN refugee agency said Tuesday that Saudi Arabia had given it permission to transport much-needed aid across the kingdom’s border to people displaced by fighting in northern Yemen.
But despite receiving the green light to help tens of thousands of civilians affected by the Yemeni government offensive against a rebel group, the agency said it was still too dangerous to begin the operation.
Baghdad, September 29: Milad Jassim hobbles into the family sitting room, her legs dragging behind her and her slumped shoulders propped up by the arms of her sister and father, who sets out the young woman’s predicament.
“These documents prove the wounds my daughter suffered,” Jassim Mohammed Jassim says with a sigh, thumbing through a dossier of police, hospital and doctors’ reports, “but I do not think it will result in anything being done.”
Milad was at home in the family’s Baghdad apartment when a massive explosion 200 metres (yards) away killed dozens.
Geneva, September 29: Morocco on Monday called for the United Nations refugee agency to propose to Western Sahara refugees living in Algerian camps relocation to a third country.
Morocco’s UN ambassador in Geneva, Omar Hilale, said Algeria is blocking solutions for “voluntary repatriation” to the part of Western Sahara controlled by Morocco as well as “local integration” in Algerian territory.
Hilale said Algeria’s position amounted to condemning the refugees to “collective exile in perpetuity.”
Porlamar, September 29: Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Libya’s Moamer Gathafi called on Monday for a new global definition of terrorism.
Meeting a day after the end of a summit of African and South American leaders in Venezuela, the two men signed a declaration urging a global conference be held to sketch out new terms defining terrorism.
The document rejects “attempts to link the legitimate struggle of the people for liberty and self-determination” with terrorism, according to a Venezuelan government website.
Russia, September 29: RUSSIA’S industries and trade ministry has proposed drastic limits on beer sales.
A document obtained by Reuters outlined the proposal and industry experts said it could affect over 25 per cent of sales in Russia.
The ministry said in its documents it was proposing changes to legislation that would ban sales of beer via kiosks and in markets without affecting big shops and supermarkets.
It has also asked to set strict time limits on alcohol sales and introduce minimum wholesale and retail selling prices for all alcoholic beverages, including beer.
Washington, September 29: Former US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s memoirs will be released on November 17 under the title Going Rogue: An American Life, her publisher said.
Publishing house HarperCollins said the ex-Alaska governor finished her book weeks earlier than anticipated, allowing it to get into bookstores ahead of the Christmas holiday shopping season.
France, September 29: The French Government’s backing for Roman Polanski has triggered unease as dissenting voices said the convicted fugitive sex offender should answer for his crime.
Government ministers and much of the France’s cultural elite have rushed to defend Polanski, who was arrested on Saturday in Zurich three decades after pleading guilty to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.
Champagne, September 29: bubbles are not just the photogenic companion to a bottle’s opening pop, they also enhance the drink’s flavour, scientists say.
A group of European researchers say they have proven champagne’s fizz – actually scores of chemical eruptions – help unleash the drink’s distinctive taste.
According to the team, a bottle, when poured, leads to the formation of scores of carbon dioxide bubbles, aroma-rich compounds that travel upward toward the top of the glass, exploding on the surface into a burst of aerosol borne flavour.
Pakistan, September 29: Officials say two suspected U.S. missile strikes in northwest Pakistan have killed 13 militants.
The first attack Tuesday killed six militants and wounded six others in South Waziristan.
Three intelligence officials and one government official said a second missile later Tuesday hit a house owned by a known Afghan militant in North Waziristan. Seven insurgents died in the attack.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity citing policy.
Malaysia, September 29: A Muslim woman sentenced to caning for drinking beer wants to get the punishment over with now that it has been confirmed by an Islamic appeals court judge, her father said Tuesday.
If the punishment is carried out, Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a 32-year-old mother of two, would become the first Muslim woman to be caned in Malaysia, where about 60 percent of the 28 million people are Muslims.
Geneva, September 29: A U.N. investigator defended a report Tuesday that accuses Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes during their conflict in Gaza, an allegation Israel condemns and claims is the result of bias against the Jewish state.
Former South African Judge Richard Goldstone said he and his fellow investigators rejected criticism by Israel that the 575-page report was politically motivated.
Washington, September 29: Matt Latimer, a former speechwriter for Bush, writes in his book, “Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor,” that administration officials politicized the award and decided not to give it to the Harry Potter author because of her repeated references to witchcraft — despite the Bushes’ vocal praise for her books.
Obama Song Videotaped Without Authorization, N.J. School Official Says
Tokyo, September 29: Russian big-hitter Maria Sharapova on Tuesday overwhelmed Samantha Stosur of Australia in a swift 6-0, 6-1 victory as other top players Sharapova suffered early exits at the Pan Pacific Open.
Former world number one Sharapova fired seven aces and hit a first-serve percentage of 71, in addition to a barrage of sizzling shots that ended the match in 57 minutes at the Ariake Colosseum.
“So far, I feel like I have been serving really, really well,” she said.
Phillipine, September 29: flood survivors have crowded into the presidential palace, gymnasiums and hundreds of other makeshift evacuation centres as the death toll from the disaster soared to 240.
The humanitarian crisis facing the Government deepened significantly today after it reported hundreds of thousands of people had poured into the centres, where food, medicine and other relief supplies were in dire shortage.
Georgia, September 29: A GROUP of sex offenders have been sent to live in the woods after being freed from prison.
The group of nine men were asked to live in the woods in Georgia, in the US south, after failing to find housing far enough away from schools and playgrounds, the Associated Press reports.
William Hawkins, who was directed to the make-shift camp by a probation officer two weeks after his release from prison, said the living situation was unusual.
“It’s kind of like a mind-game, it’s like Survivor,” the 34-year-old said.
Washington, September 29: A US man who shot and decapitated his father after years of sexual abuse has been jailed for manslaughter.
Jeremiah Raymond Berry, 22, shot his father, Jack, in the back of the head after he had been raped, before dismembering his dad’s carcass and feeding it to coyotes, the Cortez Journal reports.
Parts of what is thought to be Jack Berry’s body, including his skull, hands and feet, were found by detectives in buckets hardened with cement at a local dog kennel in Colorado.
Australia, September 29: A Terroristwho helped plan July’s attacks on two Jakarta hotels calls for the destruction of Australia in a video that shows the suicide bombers enjoying a picnic outside one of their targets.
The video, recorded less than three weeks before the attacks that killed seven, including three Australians, was recovered from a laptop seized in the police raid that killed terrorist mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top earlier this month.
Florida, September 29: A mother with a rare genetic disorder causing her to go blind has been forced to refuse treatment so her children, also affected, can continue to get expensive medical care.
Monique Zimmerman-Stein, 48, lost her right eye at age 16 to Stickler’s syndrome. She can now only see enough light through her left eye to tell night from day, the St Petersburg Times reported.
Ms Zimmerman-Stein will no longer get treatment to preserve her last slice of light. The injections that might help cost $US380 after insurance, and she needs one every six weeks.
California, September 29: Roman Polanski’s lawyers may have provoked the director’s arrest by claiming that Los Angeles prosecutors had never sought to extradite him in 30 years, a report says.
The Los Angeles Times today cited two unidentified sources familiar with Polanski’s case as saying that court motions filed in July by defence attorneys had suggested prosecutors were not serious about capturing the film-maker.
The filings in California’s Court of Appeal had sought to dismiss the 32-year-old child sex case that prompted Polanski to flee the US in 1978 prior to his sentencing.