Month: October 2009

Israel’s nukes most serious threat to Middle East: ElBaradei

by

Tehran, October 05: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei has said Israel’s nuclear arsenal is the most serious threat to the region, Mehr news agency reported.

Tel Aviv has not granted IAEA inspectors access to its nuclear facilities for the past 30 years. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that possesses nuclear weapons, ElBaradei said at a joint press conference with Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation director Ali-Akbar Salehi here Sunday.

Why Neil’s dad did not speak to him for six months

by

Mumbai, October 05: Bollywood actor Neil Nitin Mukesh has revealed that his singer father Nitin Mukesh was upset with him for having debuted with a negative role in “Johnny Gaddaar”.

“My dad did not speak to me for six months because I signed ‘Johnny Gaddaar’. He was so mad at me that he wouldn’t even speak to me when eating meals, ” Neil told Farah Khan on STAR Plus’ chat show “Tere Mere Beach Mein”.

SRK parties in Delhi

by

Mumbai, October 05: SRK was in town on Saturday for the engagement of Pradeep Dhoot’s son Sourav Dhoot with Radhika, daughter of Sanjay Singhal, from the Bhusan Steel family.

Nine killed in Colombia bus accident

by

Bogota, October 05: Nine people were killed when the passenger bus in which they were travelling rammed into a stationary truck in southeastern Colombia, police said.

The accident took place on the road linking the Colombian towns of Puerto Lopez and Puerto Gaitan Sunday. The victims include four women and five men.

–Agencies

Panamanian freighter sends out SOS near Taiwan during typhoon

by

Taipei, October 05: Taiwan’s coast guard are searching for a Panamanian freighter which sent out an SOS near Taiwan during Typhoon Parma, the Taipei Rescue and Coordination Centre said Monday.

“The search for the Panamanian freighter is still going on,” a duty officer at the rescue centre said by phone without giving details because he was not authorised to speak to the press.

MS EUFONIA sent out the SOS at about 5.46 p.m. Sunday, when it was about 74 nautical miles southwest of the Penghu Islands in the Taiwan Strait, according to newspaper reports.

Typhoon Ketsana kills over 160 in Vietnam

by

Hanoi, October 05: At least 163 people have been killed in typhoon Ketsana in Vietnam, a media report said Sunday.

Seventeen people were missing and 616 people were injured after the storm that hit the country’s highlands and central provinces last Tuesday, the Vietnam News Agency reported.

The Kon Tum province was the worst hit with 48 deaths, while Quang Ngai and Quang Nam provinces reported 35 and 26 deaths respectively, Vietnam’s central steering committee on flood and storm prevention said. The heavy rains caused by the typhoon flooded many areas, it said.

3 varsities on wakf land

by

New Delhi, October 05: Three proposed universities for minorities are set to come up but on land owned by wakf boards to pre-empt controversy over their status and avoid another legal wrangle like the one that has embroiled AMU.

“We are already in touch with the wakf boards and have got a positive response. We took this decision as it would save these universities from controversies regarding their minority status,” said an official with the minority affairs ministry.

Probes Test Trust That Authorities Strove to Win From U.S. Muslims

by

New York, October 05: Investigators seeking to uncover terrorist plots for years have walked a fine line between keeping tabs on the Muslim community and alienating the same people who could serve as an early warning signal.

That tenuous balance has been tested again in what law enforcement authorities say is one of the most worrisome terrorism investigations in decades, the unfolding case against Denver shuttle bus driver Najibullah Zazi, who has been charged with conspiracy to unleash weapons of mass destruction in the form of hydrogen peroxide bombs.

Scientists develop rice that requires no cooking

by

Bhubaneswar, October 05: Indian scientists claim to have developed a rice variety that requires no cooking, only soaking in water.

The rice variety developed at the government-run Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) at Cuttack in Orissa is characterized by low amylase content and becomes soft on soaking in water, institute director Tapan Kumar Adhya told IANS in an interview.

Fresh clashes at Jerusalem shrine

by

Tel Aviv, October 05: Palestinians have clashed with Israeli police in Jerusalem after police closed a compound with sites sacred to Jews and Muslims, citing security concerns.

The protesters threw stones and bottles at the police, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades.

Several Palestinians are reported to have been detained, including a former minister, Hatem Abdulqader.

The Israeli police said they had closed the compound because Palestinians had planned a mass gathering there.

Typhoon Ketsana kills over 160 in Vietnam

by

Hanoi, October 05: At least 163 people have been killed in typhoon Ketsana in Vietnam, a media report said.

Seventeen people were missing and 616 people were injured after the storm that hit the country’s highlands and central provinces last Tuesday, the Vietnam News Agency reported.

The Kon Tum province was the worst hit with 48 deaths, while Quang Ngai and Quang Nam provinces reported 35 and 26 deaths respectively, Vietnam’s central steering committee on flood and storm prevention said. The heavy rains caused by the typhoon flooded many areas, it said.

To be a Muslim today is to be encounterable: Experts

by

New Delhi, October 05: To be a Muslim in India today is to be ‘encounterable’ in the name of counter-terrorism exercise, feels Manisha Sethi, a Jamia Milia Islamia University lecturer. She was speaking at a national meet by NGO Anhad to discuss “what it means to be a Muslim in India today”.

Sethi wondered how the National Human Rights Commission ignored glaring inconsistencies in the Delhi police’s account of the controversial Batla House encounter in which two suspected terrorists were gunned down “only because a ‘decorated’ encounter specialist lost his life in the gunbattle.”

Kuwait to get massive order of H1N1 vaccines

by

Kuwait, October 05: Swine flu vaccines will arrive in Kuwait this month, according to the Kuwait Ministry of Health.

Global Arab Network reports that over 300,000 anti-seasonal flu vaccines, including 145,000 anti-swine flu vaccines, will be made available.

The head of the ministry’s Public Health Program, Dr. Rashid Al Owaish, said that the ministry ordered the flu vaccine to better protect people from seasonal flu and the H1N1 virus.

Al Owaish said that the vaccines will be distributed in health centres and hospitals by the end of next week.

Convention on Status of Muslims in Contemporary India begins

by

What it means to be a Muslim in India today? In different words by different people the answer was same: it means to be vulnerable to state terrorism, to be fit to be treated as second-class citizen, said family members of some of the terror blasts accused from across the country. They were sharing a dais provided by ANHAD in the three-day national convention on Status of Muslims in Contemporary India in New Delhi on October 3.

Prices of veggies send customers into a tizzy

by

Hyderabad, October 05: Sunday trip to the market literally turned out to be a ‘costly’ affair for the citizens who made their way to buy the weekly stock of vegetables. Exorbitant prices greeted the customers who had expected regular rates for commodities instead of the doubled or tripled rate they were forced to shell out. The reason, floods in Kurnool, Mahaboobnagar and other parts of the state had sent the prices sky-rocketing.

Train derails in Thailand, killing 7

by

Bangkok, October 05: A train from southern province Trang to Bangkok derailed on Monday morning in Hua Hin, killing at least seven passengers and injuring more than 60, Thai media reported.

The accident happened at about 4:45 a.m. at Khao Tao station in Hua Hin district, a resort city about 200 kilometers south of Bangkok, with ten of the train’s 15 compartments derailing, said The Nation online.

Many Saudi hospitals refuse to treat ill infant: report

by

Taif, October 05: Many hospitals in the Makkah region, including King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Taif, have allegedly refused to treat an infant suffering from kidney failure, the Saudi Gazette reported.

“The hospitals said that Ziyad’s health was deteriorating, but that they were unable to treat him,” said Saleh Al-Nifaie, the infant’s father.

The King Abdulaziz University Hospital in Jeddah has also refused to receive the case, the father said, adding that he hoped that the Armed Forces Hospital in Jeddah would be able to treat his son.

Floods hamper road traffic in AP

by

Vijayawada, October 05: Road traffic between Vijayawada and Hyderabad has been disrupted as flood water started flowing on the National Highway-9 at Ibrahimpatnam and Kanchikacharla villages in Krishna district late tonight.

Following this, authorities have started diverting vehicles including passenger buses from Suryapet towards Khammam.

Similarly, vehicles from Visakhapatnam going towards Hyderabad have been diverted via Jangareddigudem and Wyra, police said.

Bahrain trial of three men who raped teenager adjourned

by

Bahrain, October 05: Three men arrested in connection with the kidnap and rape of a teenage boy appeared in court Sunday.

They are among four people standing trial in connection with the incident, in which the 16-year-old is said to have repeatedly been raped during an ordeal lasting several hours.

Three of the men – a Bahraini, a Jordanian and a Sudanese all aged in their early 20s – allegedly kidnapped him in November as he walked to a cold store with his younger brother in West Riffa.

Qaeda suicide bombers carrying explosives in stomach

by

London, October 05: Al Qaeda has developed new explosive devices that enable suicide bombers carry them hidden in stomach to breach airline security measures, media reported.

An al Qaeda militant passed through several airline security checks with a bomb hidden in his intestine and made an abortive bid to assassinate a prominent Saudi prince reported.

“While not wanting to be alarmist, I admit this is alarming,” Richard Barrett, head of the United Nations’ al Qaeda and Taliban monitoring group was quoted as saying.

Samoans join in prayer after tsunami

by

Lalomanu, October 05: Grief-stricken Samoans have poured into churches to mourn the victims of the devastating tsunami that killed more than 170 people in their nation and surrounding Pacific islands.

About 600 people packed into the Congregational Christian Church in Lalomanu on Sunday, one of the worst-hit villages on the south coast of Upolu, the more heavily populated of the country’s two main islands.

Move over DU, BHU: Hyderabad Univ is No. 1

by

Hyderabad, October 05: Just a handful of Indian universities manage to be included in the various international ranking systems that exist today which not only consider the quality but also the quantity of scientific research.

In this fortnight’s issue of Current Science, Gangan Prathap and colleagues propose a new system of ranking for Indian universities based on the data from SCOPUS.

Krishna inundates 400 villages in 3 districts

by

Hyderabad, October 05: The massive flood in the Krishna wreaked havoc in Krishna, Guntur and Nalgonda districts as enormous quantities of water were released from Nagarjunasagar dam and Vijayawada’s Prakasam Barrage inundating about 400 villages, including all island habitations, and rendering over 4 lakh people homeless.

Nandyal town in Kurnool district was engulfed by the swollen Kundu river on its outskirts which overflowed into the town and over 40 villages around as water from the Krishna joined it.

Slight dip in water level at H’Sagar

by

Hyderabad, October 05: The water level in the Hussainsagar, which gave anxious moments to officials of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and Hyderabad district administration, came down by 5 cm on Sunday.

While the water level on Saturday night was 513.72 metres, it came down to 513.67 mt on Sunday evening as there was no rain since Saturday night.

GHMC officials claim the current water level was still above the full tank level (FTL) of Hussainsagar. The FTL of the lake is 513.41 metres and the current water level is 26 cms above the FTL.