Mumbai, May 04: An independent co-production between the USA and India, directed by Jennifer Chambers Lynch, film HISSS, which has already been in news for its hot and bold promos featuring Mallika Sherawat has something more to offer than just being a freaking horror journey. The film which also casts Indian actress Divya Dutta in one of the most important roles has let Divya and Mallika find sensuality in their own styles.
Mumbai, May 04: HOUSEFULL has taken a huge opening all over and early indications are that at the least, the film would be tagged a HIT status. The film has benefited everyone, especially its leading ladies Deepika Padukone, Lara Dutta and Jiah Khan.
Ghaziabad, May 04: A special court on Tuesday held domestic help Surender Koli guilty of the rape and murder of seven-year-old Arti, one of the 19 young women and children from Noida’s Nithari village whose body parts were found in a drain.
In the second case of the sensational Nithari murders, which shocked the nation with the brutality and hints of cannibalism, the special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court convicted Koli. Arguments for the quantum of sentencing will be held Wednesday.
New York, May 04: A US national of Pakistani- origin has been arrested in connection with a failed terror plot to explode a car bomb in the heart of New York’s busy Times Square, media reports said on Tuesday.
The 30-year-old man identified as Pakistan-American Shahzad Faisal, who is a naturalised US citizen and a resident of Connecticut, was arrested on Monday night, reports said.
Cairo, May 04: Mervat Rifai, a 34-year-old mother of three, has like dozens of other civil servants and labourers been camping outside Egypt’s parliament building for weeks demanding better working conditions.
She, like her fellow campers who have made the pavement their home, is determined not to leave until her voice is heard.
Rifai left her children with family and neighbours in her small town in the Nile Delta governorate of Beheira to join the sit-in.
Dubai, May 04: Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu hit out at Israeli policy in the Middle East in comments published on Tuesday, in the latest tirade between the longtime regional allies.
“If it (Israel) adopts aggressive policies, then Turkey will respond to this,” the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat quoted Davutoglu as saying.
“We will not remain silent on Israel’s attacks on innocent Palestinian people,” he added.
“What counts for us is the motive and not the relationship itself. If the aim is peace, then we will preserve good relations with any side,” he said.
Tehran, May 04: Beggars in the Iranian capital earn the equivalent of 1,500 dollars a month — five times the official minimum wage — the Mehr news agency reported on Tuesday.
Many Iranians strongly believe in giving alms and other charitable acts promoted by Islam.
“Tehran beggars make at least 500,000 rials (50 dollars) a day or 15 million rials a month,” the agency quoted Sadegh Avvali, the official in charge of social services at Tehran municipality, as saying.
London, May 04: A British court rejected Tuesday a government attempt to use secret evidence to defend alleged conspiracy in torture, in a ruling welcomed by former Guantanamo Bay inmates.
Three Court of Appeal judges ruled that secret evidence cannot be used in civil proceedings brought by six ex-detainees of the notorious US prison camp, including high-profile former British resident Binyam Mohamed.
Ramallah, May 04: Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas on Tuesday blamed Jewish extremist settlers for a fire that gutted a West Bank mosque, saying it threatened US-brokered efforts to revive the peace process.
“President Abbas condemns the burning of the mosque in Lubban ash-Sharqiya by extremist settlers and said the responsibility for this criminal attack lies with the Israeli government because the Israeli army protects the settlers,” his office said in a statement.
“This criminal attack threatens efforts to revive the peace process.”
Ahmedabad, May 04: The Gujarat police has accepted as fake the encounter in which Tulsi Prajapati, a key witness in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh murder case, was killed, top state CID officials said.
“We believed that his (Prajapati) encounter was fake. So, we investigated the case and found involvement of some police officers,” CID crime chief V V Rabari told PTI.
District Superintendent of Police (DSP) of Dahod and IPS officer Vipul Agarwal was arrested last night for his involvement in Parajapati’s encounter killing.
Berlin, May 04: Germany’s interior minister hit out at moves in Belgium and France to ban the wearing of the full Islamic veil or burqa in public, saying even a debate would be “unnecessary.”
Such a move is “inappropriate and therefore not required,” Thomas de Maiziere said, according to excerpts of an interview published by the Leipziger Volkszeitung local daily.
President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government is drafting a bill that would make it illegal to wear the face-covering veil, making France the second European country after Belgium to move toward a ban.
New Delhi, May 04: An e-court here today sentenced two men to life term for murder and rape of a minor girl seven years ago.
Additional Sessions Judge Sanjay Garg, presiding over the first paperless e-court of Delhi, handed down the life term to Amzad and Sagir, with a fine of Rs 3,000 each holding them guilty under various provisions of the IPC.
“It is a case of rape and murder of 8-year-old. The victim was subjected to sexual assault by both the convicts,” the Judge said.
Ranchi, May 04: Opposition Congress today criticised Jharkhand Chief Minister Shibu Soren for chairing a cabinet meeting saying it was “unethical” with the BJP yet to rule out withdrawing support from his government and also flayed the saffron party for putting its decision to pull out on hold.
“It is unethical on the part of Shibu Soren to chair a cabinet meeting and make inspections of road work yesterday,” Jharkhand PCC President Pradeep Kumar Balmachu told PTI on phone.
Rome, May 04: Italian police fined a Muslim woman for wearing a full veil in a street in the northern city of Novara, possibly the first such incident in Italy, city officials said Tuesday.
“City police ticketed her last night and she will have to pay a 500-euro (650-dollar) fine,” Mauro Franzinelli of the Novara municipal police said.
“As far as I know this is a first in Italy,” he said adding that the woman could appeal.
Mumbai, May 04: People going abroad have reasons to cheer as now they will be entitled to get foreign exchange up to USD 3,000 as against the existing limit of USD 2,000.
Following changes in the forex rules, travellers going abroad can get up to USD3,000 or its equivalent amount in other currencies from forex dealers without prior permission of the Reserve Bank.
“The existing limits have been reviewed and it has been decided to increase this ceiling, with immediate effect,” RBI said in a notification today.
Brussels, May 04: Over 260,000 asylum seekers registered in EU nations last year, with the highest number in France and the applicants coming notably from Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Russia,, official statistics showed Tuesday.
The total marked a rise of 20,000 from 2008.
Almost 230,000 claims were considered last year and 73 percent of those were rejected, the official statistics showed, though these cases included people who applied for asylum in previous years.
Jaffa, May 04: Job interviews for the position of imam at mosques in Israel are conducted not by senior clerics but by the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, a labour tribunal has revealed.
Sheikh Ahmed Abu Ajwa, 36, is fighting the Shin Bet’s refusal to approve his appointment as an imam in a case that has lifted the lid on Israel’s secret surveillance of the country’s Islamic leaders.
Mogadishu, May 04: An insurgent group vowed Monday to end piracy in Somalia by imposing sharia law, after seizing control of a notorious nest of pirates and forcing them to flee.
The pirates abandoned the port of Harardhere and sailed three recently-captured vessels off towards another base, a day after the Hezb al-Islam militia took over the town in northern Somalia.
“From now on Harardhere is one of the Somali towns where Islamic sharia will be implemented,” Sheik Ahmed Abu Yahya, a senior Hezb al-Islam commander, said.
United Nations, May 04: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blasted the United States at a UN conference here Monday for threatening to use nuclear arms, triggering a sharp American response and a walkout by several delegations.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissed the Iranian leader’s charges as “wild accusations” in her speech to the opening session of the three-week review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Ahmadinejad said having nuclear weapons was “disgusting and shameful, and even more shameful is the threat to use, or to use, such weapons.”
Baghdad, May 04: Iraqi troops on Monday arrested the head of the Ansar al-Islam insurgent group in Baghdad, US forces said in a statement.
“Iraqi Security Forces arrested the alleged leader of Ansar al-Islam and seven criminal associates during a series of joint security operations conducted in Mansour and Adhamiyah,” it said, referring to areas of Baghdad.
The man, Abu Abdullah Al Shafil, “is believed to have served the terrorist organisation since its inception” and “held association with Osama Bin Laden.”
Washington, May 04: President Barack Obama Monday renewed US sanctions on Syria for a year, accusing Damascus of supporting “terrorist” groups and pursuing missile programs and weapons of mass destruction.
There had been no expectation that Obama would lift the measures, but the renewal came at an especially sensitive time in often tense US-Syria relations, despite efforts by the administration to return an ambassador to Damascus.
The United States has also recently accused Syria and Iran of arming Hezbollah with increasingly sophisticated rockets and missiles.
New Delhi, May 04: A Delhi court today ordered start of criminal proceedings against college teacher S A R Geelani, who was acquitted in 2002 Parliament attack case, on the charge of giving false evidence in a judicial proceedings.
Additional Sessions Judge Nivedita Anil Sharma ordered start of the proceedings for perjury against Geelani for giving wrong address while standing surety for an accused.
Sharma took a serious view of Geelani’s giving wrong address in the affidavit filed before it saying he wasted time of the court as well as of the police.
Dubai, May 04: Dubai’s second airport, designed to be the world’s largest when completed, will open in June for cargo only, with plans to receive passengers in spring next year, Dubai Airports chief said Tuesday.
“Dubai will no longer be a single airport city,” chief executive officer, Paul Griffiths, told a press conference on the sidelines of the annual Arabian Travel Market held in Dubai.
He set June 27 as the date for the start of operations at Al-Maktoum International Airport.
Bangalore, May 04: Cases were registered against a bishop of the Church of South India (CSI) and his family after a court directed police to look into a complaint of alleged misappropriation of fund by the religious leader.
A metropolitan magistrate court had yesterday instructed the police to investigate allegations against S Vasanth Kumar, his wife, daughter and private secretary on the basis of a complaint filed by a member of St Peter’s Church in Kolar Gold Fields, police told PTI.
Dubai, May 04: Qatar inaugurated on Tuesday an ethylene plant at a cost of 1.37 billion dollars and with an annual production capacity of 1.3 million tonnes in the northern city of Ras Laffan.
“The total cost of the project … has reached 1.37 billion dollars (1.05 billion euros),” Energy Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiya told reporters during the inauguration ceremony.
Ras Laffan Olefins Company Limited (RLOC), the owner of the plant, plans to increase its production capacity to 1.6 million tonnes per year, organisers said.