Washington, June 02: Former US president Bill Clinton’s foundation Tuesday pledged $1 million towards disaster preparedness and hurricane safety in Haiti ahead of a conference to discuss the earthquake-shattered country’s future.
Clinton announced the pledge in Leogane, Haiti, and it is the first financial commitment made to the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC) that was officially launched Tuesday.
London, June 02: Teenagers get distracted easily because their brains are similar to those of younger children, making them less organised and susceptible to distraction than older people, a study has found.
“It is not always easy for adolescents to pay attention in class without letting their minds wander or to ignore distractions from their younger sibling when trying to solve a maths problem,” telegraph.co.uk reported quoting Iroise Dumontheil, one of the researchers from University College London’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.
Canada, June 02: The Montreal study showed that heterotrophic bacteria counts, in more than 70 per cent of bottled water samples, exceed the recommended limits specified by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP).
Researchers from Ccrest laboratories report their results today at the 110th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego.
Jerusalem, June 02: Israel will immediately release 620 activists from the Gaza aid flotilla who were arrested on Monday, Ynet Prime Minister Netanyahu’s spokesperson said on Tuesday.
PM Netanyahu ordered the release following a National Security Cabinet meeting, as well after consultations with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Justice Minister Yaakov Ne’eman and Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who said the process will begin overnight and is expected to be completed within 48 hours, Israeli media reported.
Karachi, June 02: The Pakistan Navy has inducted two upgraded US P3-C aircraft in its fleet, a media report said.
Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Noman Bashir Tuesday attended the induction ceremony at the Naval Aviation Base in Karachi, the Online news agency reported.
Bashir said this is the first batch of upgraded P3-C aircraft from the US. The remaining aircraft will be brought to the country after necessary upgradation.
He said the induction would further boost the navy’s capability to fight terrorism, drug smuggling and other illegal activities on the high seas.
Washington, June 02: US stocks fell Tuesday after oil giant BP declared that its most promising effort yet to cap an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico had failed.
Shares of energy companies fell more than any other group as trading resumed after a long holiday weekend. BP declared Saturday that its “top-kill” procedure, aimed at sealing a ruptured wellhead on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, was unsuccessful.
Stockholm, June 02: The global economic crisis had little impact on world military spending in 2009 where the United States remained the world’s largest military spender, a Swedish-based peace research institute reported Wednesday.
Last year, global military expenditures totalled $1.5 trillion – or $224 per capita – up six percent in real terms on 2008 and a 49-percent increase since 2000, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said.
New Delhi, June 02: Design and fashion are being reinvented as potent tools of communication to intervene in social sectors. They are coming closer to the roots, unlike a few years ago when they went over the top to stand out as works of phenomenal aesthetics.
Washington, June 02: The United States has stopped short of supporting India’s permanent membership of the UN Security Council saying India would play a central part in its reforms, but US wants it done preserving its effectiveness.
“India’s evolving role in global affairs underscores the fact that India is going to have a very important part to play in any consideration of reform of the UN Security Council,” US Undersecretary of State William Burns said Tuesday ahead of the India-US strategic dialogue starting Wednesday.
Germany, June 02: Three members of a bomb disposal team were killed and six people wounded in the central German city of Goettingen when a World War II bomb exploded during attempts to disarm the weapon.
Among the wounded Tuesday night, two people had serious injuries but were expected to survive.
Uncovered at a depth of seven metres, the bomb went off during preparatory work by bomb squad members, apparently prior to the beginning of their planned attempt to disarm the device.
Goettingen is famous as a university town in the northern German state of Lower Saxony.
Chennai, June 02: Murugan (34), an autorickshaw driver from T.R.R Avenue in Kattupakkam, was found dead at Kattupakkam near Poonamallee on Tuesday.
Poonamallee police sources said that Murugan was an accused in various cases, including murder.
Consuming alcohol
On Monday night, he was last seen consuming alcohol with three of his friends. On Tuesday morning, his body was found with cut wounds on the throat and chest, sources said. The Poonamallee police are investigating.
—-Agencies
Washington, June 01: India and the United States begin their first strategic dialogue Wednesday with an assurance that the US is committed to India’s emergence as a global power and does not see it either through the prism of Pakistan or the lens of an emerging China.
“Never has there been a moment when India and America mattered more to each other,” said US Undersecretary of State William Burns Tuesday ahead of foreign policy dialogue with Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao Wednesday.
Chennai, June 02: C.V. Krishnamurthy, 89, retired Railway official and journalist, died after a prolonged illness in Bangalore on Tuesday.
He had been suffering from dementia for over a year and died of pneumonia.
He joined the Bengal Nagpur Railways in Kolkata in 1940 and rose to become a senior official in the public relations department of the Northern Railway.
He was a frequent contributor to many publications, including Delhi Recorder, Caravan, Udayam, and Andhra Patrika.
Kolkata, June 02: “Her greatest enemy is her own tongue,” a veteran Congress politician once said of Mamata Banerjee. He was right.
At a time when her political career in West Bengal is at its brightest point, an untimely derogatory remark about a dead social worker, who was a CPI(M) member, has again left the Trinamool Congress chief and railway minister at the receiving end of criticism.
Aurobindo Dhar alias Bapi was hit in “unprovoked” firing by a Tripura State Rifles constable when he was standing in queue to cast his vote during Sunday’s civic polls in Kolkata.
Mumbai, June 02: As the UPA government at the Centre celebrated the first anniversary of its second term in office, Congress MP from Pune Suresh Kalmadi took pot-shots at NCP president Sharad Pawar, without naming him, and the Board of Control for Cricket in India for not sending a team to the Asian Games.
The sixteenth edition of the Asian Games are to be held in Guangzhou, China, later this year and will be the first to feature cricket among its various disciplines, albeit in the Twenty20 format.
New Delhi, June 02: Asserting that the UPA government was committed to cleaning up the Ganga, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday said no untreated waste and industrial effluents would flow into the river by 2020.
“Under ‘Mission Clean Ganga’, it would be ensured that by 2020 no untreated municipal sewage and industrial effluents flow into the Ganga,” Dr. Singh said, in the Report to the People on completion of one year of the UPA’s second term in office.
Kolkata, June 02: A worker of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) who was injured in firing by a policeman during the May 30 civic elections died early on Tuesday, even as Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee continued to defend her remark that the victim was a “notorious criminal.”
Ms. Banerjee’s comments drew sharp criticism not only from the CPI(M), but from leaders of other political parties.
Singapore, June 02: A 41-year-old Indian resident was killed, while two others were seriously injured in a series of knife-attacks here,reported on Tuesday.
Shanmuganathan Dillidurai from Chennai and a father of two, who has been working in the construction sector here for the past two years, was found dead with knife wounds in suburban Singapore.
Dhaka, June 02: Bangladesh has signed an accord to finalise transhipment deal with India to allow Indian goods to be transported to its northeastern Tripura State.
Bangladesh Shipping Secretary Abdul Mannan Hawladar confirmed the signing of the accord on Monday. “I have just signed the agreement declaring Ashuganj as a new port of call,” he told the official news agency BSS. Through this accord, heavy Indian consignments for the Palatana power Project in Tripura will be transported through Bangladesh.
Bangalore, June 02: Minister for information technology and biotechnology, Katta Subramanya Naidu, on Tuesday said that the state expects to ink memoranda of understanding relating to investment to the tune of Rs11,000 crore in IT projects, and Rs1,353 crore in biotechnology projects at the two-day Global Investors’ Meet (GIM) beginning on June 3. These projects are expected to create 50,000 jobs in the state.
Tokyo,June 02: Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama announced Wednesday at a general assembly of his Democratic Party of Japan that he would step down as premier.
Mr. Hatoyama also asked Ichiro Ozawa, the powerful secretary general of the party, to resign over his funding scandals. Mr. Hatoyama said Mr. Ozawa accepted his request.
Mr. Hatoyama’s resignation comes amid a steady decline in approval ratings for his cabinet and mounting calls for him to step down within the Democratic Party of Japan, especially those members who are to contest an upcoming upper house election in July.
Washington, June 02: Praising India’s strong track record in the field of nuclear proliferation, a top US diplomat has said that India has a very important role to play in achieving the goals of US president Barack Obama in this regard.
“I think the best thing that we and India could continue to do is follow through on the agreement and then look for other opportunities to demonstrate our shared commitment to curbing the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction and improving the safety and security of existing nuclear material sites,” the under secretary of state for
Tokyo, June 02: Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama announced Wednesday at a general assembly of his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) that he would step down as premier.
Hatoyama said he will resign because of his own political funding scandal and the departure of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), a junior coalition partner, over the issue of the US military presence on Okinawa.
Hatoyama also asked Ichiro Ozawa, the powerful secretary general of the party, to resign over his funding scandals. Hatoyama said Ozawa accepted his request.
As expected by many, the serial terrorist Israeli army attacked on May 31st 2010, the “Freedom Flotilla” ships with gas bombs and live fire, murdering at least 19 humanitarian international activists, 16 of them Turks including one MP, and injuring 29 others. The Israeli navy, then, kidnapped the 700 humanitarian activists and their ships to Israel.
London, June 02: Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris 13 years ago, may have been killed for her plan to expose the nexus of Britain’s arms traders and landmine manufacturers, a leading lawyer has claimed.
The Princess of Wales may have been killed because she was preparing to expose landmine dealers, said Michael Mansfield, lawyer of Mohamed Fayed, father of Diana’s boyfriend Dido who was also killed in the accident.
Mansfield said that he believed the car crash in 1997 was ‘more than a mere accident’ as soon as he heard about it.