Month: April 2010

Sexual abuse tainted priest working in India

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St Paul, April 06: Top officials at the Vatican were warned more than four years ago about a Catholic priest later charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Minnesota, according to newly released Vatican correspondence, but to this day he continues to work in his home diocese in India.

Prosecutors in Minnesota yesterday said they were trying to extradite the Rev Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul. Jeyapaul denied the abuse allegations and said he has no plans to return to the United States to face the courts.

SRK: US losing its image because of racial profiling

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Mumbai, April 06: Shah Rukh Khan on Monday said that the way in which the US does racial profiling is actually bad for it. This is casting a negative impact about the country the world over.

The Bollywood super star had to wait for hours at the US airport last year and was subjected to racial profiling. This had created a lot of controversies and it continued to be in the media for a long time.

Shah Rukh was answering questions during an interview with CNN. During the interview, he was asked whether racial profiling had an impact on the brand image of US.

Lover shot woman

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New Delhi, April 06: Heena had little hope of survival after her spurned lover shot at her in a fit of rage. Three bullets pierce her in the brain, heart and hand. But today, a week later, the 24- year- old is recovering from the trauma thanks to doctors.

The young woman is an arts graduate from Delhi University and a resident of Daryaganj.

The police said she was attacked when she rejected a marriage offer.

One of the three bullets entered her left middle ear and broke her ear bone before getting embedded in the brain. The other two cut into her right arm and heart.

India, Pak armies prepare for major wargames

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New Delhi, April 06: In a move that has the potential to stoke fresh tension between the two nations, India and Pakistan armies have begun preparations to conduct wargames, practically within shouting range of each other.

According to a report published in a leading English daily on Tuesday, the military wargames, to be held later this month, will involve thousands of troops, aiming to test offensive strategies in the event of an armed conflict with the other side and will have active participation of their respective air forces.

7 killed, 19 missing in southern W. Va. mine blast

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Montcoal, April 06: An explosion rocked a remote coal mine with a history of safety problems Monday, killing seven workers and trapping 19 others thousands of feet underground.

Rescuers converged on Massey Energy Co.’s sprawling Upper Big Branch mine where the blast occurred around 3 p.m. Though the cause of the blast was not known, the operation has a history of violations for not properly ventilating highly combustible methane gas, safety officials said.

Krishna in Beijing; boundary, stapled visas on agenda

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Beijing, April 06: External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna arrived in Beijing Monday on a four-day visit, during which India is expected to raise its key concerns over the issuing of stapled visas to Indians from Jammu and Kashmir and Chinese activities in that state.

Krishna was received at the Beijing airport by Chinese officials and Indian Ambassador to China S. Jaishankar and other senior Indian diplomats.

Hawking honoured with auditorium at Texas university

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Texas, April 06: A new auditorium in Texas A&M university’s two new physics buildings has been named for renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking.

Mr. Hawking attended a Monday dedication ceremony at the school about 160 km northwest of Houston. Mr. Hawking first came to A&M in 1995 and has visited regularly since 2003.

He lent his name to the new auditorium, while Texas oilman George Mitchell donated $35 million of the nearly $83 million price tag for the physics buildings.

Sex guru to be Hero of Varma

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Mumbai, April 06: Call it the hero or the central character, Ram Gopal Verma is going to make movie on the life of Godman Swami Nityananda. The story will revolve around his life till now and would also cover his alleged sex scandal.

Ramu wants to name his new film God and Sex. His latest movies in the market are Phoonk2 and Rakta Charitra.

Ramu’s movies are mostly inspired by real-life incidents and characters. Talking about his new venture he said that God and Sex is an attempt to show the black side of the world of Godmen.

US pressure on India to normalise ties with Pak

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New Delhi, April 06: The US is reportedly pushing India to normalise ties with Pakistan, without which it feels the latter’s cooperation over Afghanistan would suffer.

The Wall Street Journal on Monday claimed that President Barack Obama had issued a secret directive in December to intensify American diplomacy aimed at easing tensions between India and Pakistan.

The Obama administration’s assertion is that without a détente between the two rivals, its efforts to win Pakistani cooperation in Afghanistan would suffer, the daily reported.

1 killed, 24 injured in two road accidents

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Kancheepuram, April 06: One person was killed and 24 others were injured in two different road accidents that took place in Kancheepuram district on Monday.

According to police, the first accident took place at 5.30 a.m. on East Coast Road near Koovathur. An omnibus proceeding from Kumbakonam to Chennai fell into a roadside ditch, after the driver lost control of the vehicle while negotiating a sharp curve near Paramankeni on ECR.

Strokes can be common in thyroid patients

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London, April 06: Thyroid-ScanThyroids can be normal and overactive and young adults suffering from overactive thyroids face 44% increased risk of strokes.

Herng-Ching Lin, senior study author and professor at the School of Health Care Administration, College of Medicine in Taipei, Taiwan, said that most of the ischemic strokes in young people are undetermined.

Ischemic stroke happen when artery stop supplying blood to the brain due to some blockage and the brain cells unable to make energy and consequently die. This condition demands immediate medical treatment.

Surgery separates Bihar’s Sita & Gita

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New Delhi, April 06: Subhash Mukhiya and his wife Nirmala Devi began Monday with hope and a prayer. Their daughters, conjoined twins Sita and Gita, were undergoing a crucial operation to separate the two at the Batra Hospital and Medical Research Centre in the Capital.

The 18- month- old twins were born

with congenital structural abnormalities. They were joined at the hip and had a common genito- urinary and intestinal system.

The operation started at around 7 am and went on for close to 13 hours at the end of which the doctors and parents were a happy lot.

Biometric security features in ration cards soon

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Chennai, April 06: The Civil Supplies Department will soon embark on incorporating biometric security features in all ration cards.

Since repeated drives against bogus cards have proved inadequate, the Department is pinning its hopes on systemic intervention. It would be later integrated with the Unique Identification Number (UID) database.

Hope for Indians facing death in UAE

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New Delhi, April 06: There is hope for the 17 Indians facing death for allegedly killing a Pakistani in the UAE. A leading local law firm in Sharjah — that has been hired with assistance from the Indian Consulate in Dubai — is expected to file an appeal in a higher court later this week.

On Monday, sources said lawyers from Md Suleman Advocate & Legal Consultants would meet the 17 Indians lodged in a Sharjah jail in a couple of days and subsequently file an appeal.

Obama’s directive for easing India-Pakistan tensions

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Washington, April 06: In a secret directive, United States President Barack Obama has asked his administration to intensify efforts to make India resolve its tensions with Pakistan, a priority for the progress of the “U.S. goals in the region.”

He also asked his officials to intensify American diplomacy, aimed at easing tensions between the two countries, asserting that without detente between them, the administration’s efforts to win Pakistani cooperation in Afghanistan would suffer, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Taliban strike at US mission in Peshawar

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Islamabad, April 06: Serial suicide blasts rocked different parts of Pakistan on Monday, killing 46 people.

While 43 people died and over 100 were injured after a suicide bomber blew himself up at Timergara in lower Dir, three were killed when Taliban militants attempted to storm the US consulate in Peshawar. The Taliban militants carried out the attacks with car bombs and grenades.

Epilepsy risk to baby, drinking alcohol during pregnancy

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London, April 06: Pregnant women who drink alcohol are exposing their babies to the risk of epilepsy, a study has shown.

Researchers found that children born with a condition caused by exposure to alcohol in the womb are more likely to suffer from debilitating seizures.

They looked at 425 people aged between two and 49 who had foetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

Fewer than 1 per cent of people develop epilepsy, but 6 per cent of those with FASD had it and 12 per cent had experienced at least one seizure.

Second Russia metro suicide bomber was a teacher

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Moscow, April 06: A resident of Dagestan, Russia, has gone on record saying one of the two alleged Moscow metro suicide bombers was his daughter, a schoolteacher.

Rasul Magomedov told Russian weekly Novaya Gazeta that the woman who blew up the Lubyanko metro station was his daughter Mariam Sharipova.

Magomedov, a resident of Dagestan in the troubled North Caucasus, said he and his wife had recognised Mariam in a photograph which was being circulated on the internet, supposedly that of the second bomber.

Sania-Shoaib wedding may be postponed?

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Hyderabad, April 06: In a late night development, V. Chamundeswaranath, former secretary of the Andhra Cricket Association and close friend of the Sania Mirza family, hinted that it was contemplating postponing the wedding between the tennis star and Pakistan cricketer Shoaib Malik.

“Let me make it clear that they have not decided to postpone officially but are keeping the options open,” he said.

BSF takes up custody death case in Kashmir

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Srinagar, April 06: In March, the Border Security Force ( BSF) was forced to hand over commandant A. K. Birdi to the police in connection with the February 5 killing of teenager Zahid Farooq.

About two months before that the BSF had moved the chief judicial magistrate’s ( CJM) court in Srinagar seeking permission to try another BSF officer deputy commandant Kuldeep Singh, against whom the police had registered a case of “ custodial death of a civilian” in 1991.

Sources said BSF deputy inspector general Wajid Ali filed an application before the court in December.

A new drug development process begins to cure cancer

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London, April 06: Cancer-CellsBritish scientists have found a new group of molecules which will prevent the deadly tumors of cancer from spreading. This is a remarkable breakthrough to fight against cancer.

Scientist, Dr Gerd Wagner , the team leader of University of East Angila claim that they have discovered a synthetic version of a molecule in cancer cells which can block an enzyme, that affects how cells attach and force other cells to spread around the body.

Love, allegations of sex, and dhoka

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Move over, Tiger Woods. India has its own sports-star scandal, and yes, it involves the repeated use of phones. Unlike Tiger, though, the role of the phone has been considerably more chaste in the Shoaib-Sania-Ayesha controversy. In the golfer’s case, cellphones and SMSes may have served to initiate – or remind – his Tigresses of their close encounters of a third kind. In Shoaib Malik’s case, if the cricketer is to be believed, the phone was the nearest he got to a woman he married.

Zardari: we are for peaceful settlement with India

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Islamabad, April 06: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday asserted that his country did not want an arms race in the region, but added that “a disproportionate increase in military budget by the largest democracy does not help the cause of arms reduction.”

Mr. Zardari said this while addressing the joint session of Parliament.

Taliban attack Pak US office

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Miranshah, April 06: Pakistan’s main Taliban faction on Monday claimed responsibility for an attack on the US consulate in the city of Peshawar and threatened to carry out further assaults on Americans.

“We accept the attacks on the American consulate. This is revenge for drone attacks,” Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Azam Tariq said over telephone from an undisclosed location.

“We have already told you that we have 2,800 to 3,000 fidayeen (suicide bombers). We will carry out more such attacks. We will target any place where there are Americans,” he said.