Month: May 2010

AIADMK uproar in LS on 2G spectrum allocation

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New Delhi, May 05: The Lok Sabha was today adjourned as AIADMK members created uproar waving newspapers carrying reports of an alleged scam in allocation of 2G spectrum and demanded the resignation of Communications Minister A Raja.

The AIADMK members rushed to the well displaying copies of the newspaper soon after Speaker Meira Kumar called for Question Hour.

Left members also joined the members in the well and started demanding an apology from Trinamool Congress member Sudip Bandopadhyay for his remarks against CPI(M) member Basudeb Acharia.

1st Arab female bodybuilder

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Amman, May 05: Her highly muscled body is smothered in tattoos, she is constantly criticized by her fellow Jordanians and she suffers deep inner torment.

No matter what it takes, however, 26-year-old Farah Malhass is determined to become the first Arab woman to enter an international bodybuilding competition.

“Everyone is against me. No one understands why I want to become an international star in figure body-building,” she said.

 

Hakimullah writes to Aafia’s sis; vows attack on US

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Islamabad, May 05: Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud has written a letter to the sister of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani convicted for attempted murder by an American court, saying he would carry out a “memorable” attack against the US.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief “threatened a memorable response against the United States” in the letter he wrote to Fouzia Siddiqui nearly two months ago, Dawn News channel reported.

Bollywood stars unlucky in love

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Mumbai, May 05: They appear to have it all – beauty, money, fame, public ka pyaar but when it comes to love our Bolly stars are the most unlucky ones!

Here’s looking at some of the hottest celebs from tinsel Ville, who weren’t as lucky in case of their love lives as compared to their career.

——-Agencies

Staged cop gunfights, Aiyar remarks stall Rajya Sabha

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New Delhi, May 05: Alleged fake police gunbattles in Gujarat and other parts of India and an intemperate remark by Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyar stalled Rajya Sabha proceedings Wednesday, forcing two adjournments of the house.

The house was first adjourned at 11.40 for 20 minutes following noisy protests by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against alleged fake gunbattles and then till 2 p.m. as party MPs demanded an apology from Aiyar.

Salman Khan volunteers to donate his bone marrow

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Mumbai, May 05: The man is not much of a talker, but still manages to be in the good books of all. We are talking about Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, who recently volunteered to donate his bone marrow.

The actor is up against a malady, which inflicts several people and is the cause of many deaths every year. The actor has decided to support bone marrow donation and is voicing his concerns to promote the cause.

Messi double puts Barca within reach of title

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Milan, May 05: Barcelona took another big stride towards a second-straight La Liga triumph when top scorer Lionel Messi struck twice in the leaders’ 4-1 home win over relegation battling Tenerife.

Carles Puyol’s howler gifted the visitors an equaliser after Argentina forward Messi had put Barca ahead in the 17th minute before Bojan Krkic and substitute Pedro netted with clinical second-half strikes.

Second wife cannot get maintenance in Hindu marriage

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Mumbai, May 05: A Hindu woman, who marries an already-married man, cannot claim maintenance later, the Bombay High Court has ruled.

A division bench of Justices AP Deshpande and R P Sondurbaldota held that such a woman cannot claim maintenance under the Hindu Marriage Act, or even the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act (HAMA).

A second marriage (when the first spouse is alive) is null and void in Hindu law, the High Court emphasised.

Pak produces 10,000 extremists a year

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Washington, May 05: Pakistan is still producing an estimated 10,000 potential jihadis a year despite claims made by Islamabad of taking strong action against terrorists in the country.

“Pakistan is still producing an estimated 10,000 potential jihadis a year out of 500,000 graduates from Pakistan’s 11,000 madrassas – young gung-ho boys, mostly 16-year-olds…” wrote Arnaud de Borchgrave, foreign affairs columnist and editor-at-large at The Washington Times.

BJP accuses government of misusing CBI

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New Delhi, May 05: Accusing the government of misusing the CBI in the disproportionate assets cases against politicians, BJP said its members would stage a dharna in Parliament premises on Thursday.

At the weekly meeting of BJP Parliamentary Party, senior leader L.K. Advani commended his party MPs for working as an effective opposition and raising contentious issues like IPL, phone tapping and misuse of CBI by the government.

12-year-old sister of Britain’s youngest mom pregnant

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London, May 05: The younger sister of Britain’s youngest mother has fallen pregnant at age 12 and nobody it seems is very surprised.

The schoolgirl told her shocked friends that she was pregnant, but later said she had suffered a miscarriage,reported Wednesday.

The girl, now 13, shared the news with her friends on a social networking site.

She is the younger sister of the girl who became the country’s youngest mother after she became pregnant when she was just 11.

Philippine poll body to push ahead with May 10 vote

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Manila, May 05: The Philippines’ Commission on Elections said it would do everything to ensure national elections were held as planned on May 10, after faults with vote counting machines prompted some calls for a delay.

“Now is the time to work together as a people and as a nation,” Comelec commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said in a televised briefing.

“Those who are liable will be held liable, those who are negligent will be held accountable, but for now, let us work together to ensure that the elections will work on May 10, 2010.”

Now, strawberries can be grown in space

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Washington, May 05: Astronauts may now be able to satisfy their sweet tooth as researchers have found a strawberry that can grow in space with little maintenance and energy.

Cary Mitchell, professor of horticulture, and Gioia Massa, a horticulture research scientist at Purdue University in the US, tested several cultivars of strawberries and found one variety named Seascape, which seems to meet the requirements for becoming a space crop.

China, Russia to discuss Iran

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Beijing, May 05: Amid a US-led drive to impose fresh sanctions on Iran, two veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council, China and Russia, will discuss Iran’s nuclear issue.

Chinese President Hu Jintao is set to hold talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during a two-day visit to Moscow scheduled to take place on May 8.

Abducted Somali journalist shot dead

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Mogadishu, May 05: Gunmen have killed a Somali journalist working for the country’s state-run radio station after abducting him on his way back home from work in Mogadishu.

According to his co-workers, Sheik Mohamed Abkey was kidnapped earlier on Tuesday.

“He came to work as usual this morning and left to see his family when gunmen took him, torturing him before they shot him dead,” AFP quoted the station’s political correspondent Abdolaziz Mohamed Guled as saying.

Pak welcomes ‘revival of composite dialogue’

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Islamabad, May 05: Pakistan Tuesday welcomed what it termed the revival of the “composite dialogue” with India, a formulation New Delhi has avoided after the talks in Thimphu asking Islamabad to move beyond nomenclature to “chart the way forward”.

“The revival of the composite dialogue between Pakistan and India was the result of our successful foreign policy,” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, in Islamabad.

Pakistan unearths graft of Rs 6.98 trillion

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Islamabad, May 05: Pakistan’s auditor general has exposed the claims of good governance and better fiscal policies of the government by unearthing widespread financial irregularities of a whopping Rs.6.98 trillion in 2008-09, the first fiscal year of the ruling coalition.

Irregularities of over Rs.2.5 billion were detected in the accounts of the defence services, including the army, the navy and the air force, Online news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad: Age of nukes is over

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Tehran, May 05: Iran’s president says Tehran rejects nuclear weapons, as both immoral and unpractical tools that powers build, stockpile and use to threaten others.

“The age of the nuclear bomb, the worst and ugliest weapon known to man is over. We reject atomic weapons both in moral and practical terms,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a press conference in New York on Tuesday afternoon.

“We believe those who build, store and use nuclear weapons to threaten others are committing the ugliest deed of all,” he added.

Picasso painting sets auction record of $106.4 mn

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New York, May 05: A 1932 painting by Pablo Picasso sold Tuesday night in New York for $106.5 million, a new world record auction price for a work of art, the Christie’s auction house announced.

The oil painting, Nu au Plateau de Sculpteur (Nude, Green Leaves and Bust), has Marie-Therese Walter, the artist’s mistress in reclining and also in a bust. Picasso included his own profile in the blue background.

The winning bid came by telephone from an anonymous buyer. The price had been estimated at $70 million to $90 million before the sale, and bidding began at $58 million.

Democracy icons’ son poised to lead Philippines

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Philippines, May 05: Returning to the Manila highway where 1986 “people power” protests led by his mother ousted a dictator and swept her to power, Benigno Aquino III asked a huge, yellow-clad crowd to seize the moment and help him win next week’s presidential election.

“My parents were my role models,” he told some 10,000 supporters at Sunday’s rally. “They could have chosen to live a life of luxury, shut their eyes, played deaf, sealed their lips and forget that multitudes of Filipinos have been neglected. But no, they chose the thorny path and made painful sacrifices.”

Sting voices opposition to Amazon dam in Brazil

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Caracas, May 05: Sting is speaking out against Brazil’s renewed plan for a huge dam in the Amazon that he helped halt two decades ago, saying the project would destroy a river and the lives of thousands who depend on it.

The British music star voiced opposition to the Belo Monte dam at a news conference Tuesday, saying: “I stand in solidarity with the indigenous people who are trying to stop it.”

Rana seeks details of terror charges against him

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Chicago, May 05: Citing the need to be better prepared for trial, Pakistani-Canadian terror suspect Tahawwur Rana has asked the US government to provide him “specific” details of the kind of “material support” he provided to terror acts, saying so far the prosecution’s allegations in the superseding indictment have been “vague”.

In a 10-page motion filed in a court here, Rana’s lawyer Patrick Blegen said given the “complexity of the case”, his client should be entitled to know “with specificity what material support he is alleged to have provided” to terrorism.

‘Investigators looking into how Faisal boarded flight’

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Washington, May 05: Federal investigating authorities are looking into how Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomb suspect, managed to board a Dubai-bound plane at the JFK airport before he was nabbed minutes before it took off, the White House has said.

“That’s part of the investigation we’re looking at,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters in response to questions as to how Shahzad was able to go so far despite that he was put on the no-fly list.

BCCI requests CA to replace four ODIS with two Tests

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Melbourne, May 05: Desperate to play more Tests, the Indian cricket board has requested Cricket Australia (CA) to replaced its scheduled seven one-day matches in India in October with two Tests and three one-dayers.

CA said they had received an official request from the Board of Control for Cricket (BCCI) in India and were considering it.

“We’ve got an open mind on it but it’s being discussed and that could be the road down which we will go,” a CA spokesman was quoted as saying by The Australian.