Kolkata, April 28: Two years after the railways first planned to implement the improved technical security system, the project has not yet taken off.
There was a change of guard in the railway ministry during these two years, but both the former and the current bosses could not get the system implemented.
London, April 28: In addition to the domino effect of joy and amusement, laughter is the best medicine, for a new study has found that it can be as healthy as exercise.
Scientists have found that laughter affects the body in a similar way to exercise, say a jog around the park —— in fact, it lifts the mood, decreases stress hormones, enhances immune activity, lowers blood pressure and bad cholesterol.
New Delhi, April 28: After keeping the government on tenterhooks over cut motions for days, the opposition ended up cutting a sorry figure on the day it mattered most.
The much talked about opposition unity was in tatters on Tuesday as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came up trumps in the numbers game in Parliament.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Left parties, the chief sponsors of the cut motions, stood isolated in the Lok Sabha as the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) broke ranks with the opposition.
Tehran, April 28: Visiting Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim Tuesday called for diplomacy to resolve the dispute over Iranian nuclear programme, Iranian state-run Press reported.
‘Brazil is interested in settling the (Iranian nuclear) issue in an appropriate way,’ Amorim said in a joint press conference here with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki.
The Brazilian minister said his country will continue diplomatic efforts to resolve the issue.
Amorim’s two-day visit is to facilitate Brazilian president’s tour to the country next month.
—-IANS
Sanaa, April 28: A school student carried out Monday’s failed assassination attempt on the British ambassador to Yemen, officials said Tuesday.
Omar Ali al-Salawi, 20, a high school student who hails from Taiz town, carried out the suicide bombing, which bore the hallmarks of an Al Qaeda attack, al-Masdar website quoted the interior ministry as saying.
The website also published a photo of the bomber’s head, which was retrieved from the roof of a house some 20 metres away from the scene of the attack.
Jeddah, April 27: As 37,000 teachers begin knocking on doors today to gather data on the kingdom’s population boom, there are signs that the Arab World’s largest economy will not be able to handle the strain of more people, analysts say.
The teachers, who were employed by the statistics bureau, will be counting people over the next two weeks for the kingdom’s census, which is taken every five years. With every head counted, the fears of a shortage of jobs, especially for the huge number of young people, grow.
Washington, April 27: New videos produced by Al-Qaeda in Yemen show accused bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and others in firing practice, ABC television reported Monday.
The footage, aired on ABC’s US evening news, “also includes an apparent martyrdom statement in Arabic from the 23-year-old Nigerian justifying his actions,” the network said in a statement.
The young Nigerian allegedly tried to blow up a Detroit-bound plane in an Al-Qaeda plot on December 25.
Kuwait City, April 27: The emir of Kuwait has launched an unprecedented attack on parliament, accusing it of stalling development and blaming the constitution for lingering political turmoil.
“Parliament has disappointed the aspirations of the Kuwaiti people,” Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview published on Monday and cited by the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA.
The emir is in Germany at the start of a European tour that will also include Italy and the Vatican.
Oran, April 27: The countries of the western Mediterranean Monday called for a comprehensive plan for combatting environmental blight and climate change in the region.
The meeting of the so-called 5+5 countries on the western Mediterranean rim brought together the environment ministers of Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania from Africa, and from Europe, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal. Malta is also a member of the informal group but was not in attendance.
Ankara, April 27: Former Iraqi premier Iyad Allawi said Monday that his bloc would appeal against a judicial panel’s decision to disqualify 52 candidates from last month’s general election.
“We will take action against this dangerous situation,” Allawi told a joint news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara.
“We have instructed a group of lawyers to object to this decision at the appeals court. I am sure we will be successful,” he said through an interpreter.
Baghdad, April 27: Iraq’s political future was thrown into disarray on Monday after two winning candidates in a general election were disqualified, prompting the United States to admit that progress was “lagging.”
A judicial panel disqualified the winning candidates along with 50 others who failed to secure parliamentary seats, further complicating troubled efforts to forge a new ruling coalition in a country that remains beset by violence.
Washington, April 27: US President Barack Obama Monday announced a string of new educational and entrepreneurial exchanges with Muslim nations, in a bid to honor his promise to forge a new beginning with Muslims.
Obama delivered a keynote speech at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship, hosted by the United States after being announced in his landmark speech to the Muslim world in Egypt last June.
He also thanked Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for offering to host the next such summit in his country next year.
Abu Dhabi, April 27: As part of its cultural program the Al Ain Centre for Music in the World of Islam, which was established less than a year ago by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), is hosting a workshop held by violinist, distinguished researcher and music academic Dr. Nidaa Abu Mrad.
Abu Dhabi, April 27: The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) is organizing an art exhibition for Singaporean artist Dr. Leon K. L. Chew starting Tuesday 27 April 2010 at the National Theatre in Abu Dhabi.
With a first degree in Science, Dr. Leon K. L. Chew extraordinarily became the first recipient of an earned Ph.D. in Fine Art (Research) from Goldsmiths College, awarded by the University of London.
New York, April 27: The Committee to Protect Journalists urged the Pentagon Monday to investigate the death of journalists in Iraq at the hands of US forces in that country.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, CPJ executive director Joel Simon said that a total of 16 journalists and three assistants were killed by US troops in Iraq.
Among the dead were reporters with Reuters news agency, killed in 2007 in an incident broadcast by Wikileaks, an Internet site that releases censored or classified information.
Riyadh, April 28: They cruise the streets in huge Chevrolet Suburbans, staking out cafes for possibly unmarried couples on illicit liaisons.
The religious police, Saudi Arabia’s front-line defenders of controls on public behaviour, are now in reformers’ headlights.
The sacking and then apparent reinstatement this week of the outspoken progressive in the Commission to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice underscored the tensions behind the battle.
Gaza City, April 27: Senior Hamas leader Mahmud al-Zahar said Tuesday a cartoon on the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit did not express the “official position” of the movement.
The cartoon suggested Shalit might die before Israel agrees to a deal to release him.
Another Hamas official clarified that there was no “contradiction” between Zahar’s remarks and the three-minute, three-dimensional cartoon, which he said clearly blamed Shalit’s possible death on Israel delaying a prisoner swap.
London, April 27: Amnesty International accused five European countries Tuesday of breaching UN rules by forcibly repatriating Iraqis to dangerous parts of the war-scarred country.
The rights group also warned that the continuing political uncertainty after elections last month risks fuelling further violence in the country, seven years after a US-led invasion.
“Despite the ongoing violence in Iraq, several European governments continue to forcibly return rejected Iraqi asylum-seekers to Iraq,” it said in a report entitled “Iraq — Civilians under fire”.
Khartoum, April 27: A day after controversial polls returned President Omar al-Beshir to power, Sudan Tuesday turned its attention to its next challenge — forging unity in Africa’s largest country before it implodes.
Beshir, who was declared winner on Monday after the country’s first multi-party general elections since 1986, wasted no time in sketching out his plans for the months to come.
“Our next battle will be the unity of Sudan,” Beshir told supporters of his National Congress Party at a celebratory rally in Khartoum late on Monday.
Khartoum, April 27: The key challenger to Salva Kiir, who was returned to power as leader of south Sudan, rejected on Tuesday the election results, saying the former rebels had rigged the vote.
“The elections were rigged and the percentage of the votes obtained by the president of south Sudan shows this,” said Lam Akol, who broke away from Kiir’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement last year to form the SPLM- Democratic Change (SPLM-DC).
Kiir was declared winner on Monday with 92.99 percent of the votes. Akol, a former foreign minister, was a distant second at 7.01 percent.
Beirut, April 27: Israeli charges that Syria is sending Scud missiles to its Lebanese ally Hezbollah aims to divert attention from stalled Middle East peace talks, a senior Lebanese official said on Monday.
The allegations are “an attempt to divert attention from the main issue which is Israel’s refusal to resume peace efforts, either through its settlement projects in East Jerusalem or through the Scuds issue,” the official, who is close to Prime Minister Saad Hariri, said.
Doha, April 27: Israel is seeking to justify a new war on Lebanon by alleging that Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah has obtained Scud missiles, Prime Minister Saad Hariri said in remarks to a Qatari newspaper.
“We reject the allegations … (Israel) is trying to justify a war against Lebanon that it could launch when it wishes,” Hariri said in an interview with Al-Watan to be published on Thursday.
“Where is the proof that Hezbollah has these missiles,” Hariri asked, adding that “Israel possesses nuclear weapons.”
New Delhi, April 27: Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Tuesday set a precedent by permitting cut motions on demands that were to be guillotined.
“The practice followed so far in the house has been that the cut motions in respect of demands for grants which are to be guillotined are not circulated and thus not allowed to be moved. But I did not find any rule which bars the moving of cut motions on demands which are not discussed in the house,” the speaker observed before allowing the opposition cut motions.
Kolkata, April 27: People in Kolkata stood divided on the utility of strikes as a form of protest on Tuesday, the day such an agitation by the ruling Left parties against price rise paralysed the state.
Kurush Grant, chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry Eastern Region, said such agitations lead to significant losses not only for the organised industry, but also for thousands of micro-entrepreneurs.
Patna, April 27: Accusing Lalu Prasad of “being hand-in-glove” with Centre on the issue of price rise, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said the RJD chief’s support to ‘Bharat bandh’ was “nothing but an eyewash”.
“In fact, Prasad is not honest on the issue of price rise. On one hand, he is continuing support to UPA at Centre and on the other he is engaged in high political drama by launching an agitation against Centre on the issue of price rise,” Kumar told reporters here.