London, October 30: Security officials in Britain and Dubai intercepted two parcel bombs being sent from Yemen to the United States in a “credible terrorist threat,” President Barack Obama said.
The parcels were bound for “two places of Jewish worship in Chicago,” Obama said. The Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish organization, earlier warned of a danger to US Jewish institutions from packages mailed from Britain, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
Rome, October 30: Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi said he loved life and women and would not apologise for enjoying himself after new reports of girls and parties at his home were splashed across front pages.
Italian newspapers have reported that a 17 year-old Moroccan known as “Ruby” told Milan magistrates she had attended parties at Berlusconi’s residence in Arcore, triggering a fresh scandal over the prime minister’s private life.
Hyderabad, October 30: Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) chief K Chandrasekhara Rao on Friday warned of “war” if Telangana is not delivered after December 31.
Addressing the centenary celebrations of the erstwhile Hyderabad State Electricity Department organised by Telangana Electricity Employees Joint Action Committee here, the TRS chief said: “I am forewarning the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister. We want Telangana with Hyderabad. If they try to separate Hyderabad from Telangana, they would have to face the wrath of the Telangana people,” he said.
Mumbai, October 30: Tight security arrangements have been made on the arrival of Imam-e- Haram Kaba Al Sheikh Saud al Shuraim. Al Sheikh Saud al Shuraim inspected various stalls of ongoing international peace conference exhibition set up on the 25 acre land ahead of Friday prayer.
Hyderabad, October 30: Chief Minister Dr. K Rosaiah bode farewell by flagging off the 14 batch of Hajj aspirants. Addressing the intending Hajj pilgrims Chief minister asserted that Islam is the religion of peace and brotherhood.
He said ‘State government is implementing fee reimbursement and scholarship schemes for Muslim community. The government is providing facilities to the Hajj aspirants at airport.’
London, October 30: Obama Administration’s point man for Afghanistan and Pakistan has said that the next week’s India visit of the U.S. president is not only important for strengthening the bilateral ties but also for the peace in South Asia.
Kolkata, October 30: Railways Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee Friday accused West Bengal’s ruling Marxists of perpetrating unprecedented terror on the people in order to stay in power and claimed she would have controlled the situation “in a minute” had she been at the helm.
Kolkata, October 30: The railways will reward passengers and others if they give tip offs on sabotage attempts, Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee said here Friday.
Banerjee also blamed West Bengal’s ruling Marxists for the recent snags in Kolkata Metro.
“I would like to appeal to the passengers and common people that if they give railways tip offs on sabotage attempts targeting the railways or the Kolkata metro, they will be rewarded,” Banerjee said in an interview to a private Bengali news channel.
New Delhi, October 30: Four youth in Delhi were arrested for burglary, which they turned to recover their heavy betting losses, police said Friday.
“Anil Verma, 25, the gang leader, Vikas Jain, 22, Danish Ahmad, 24 and Sumit Sharma, 23 were arrested in five cases of burglary amounting to more than Rs. 55,000 in cash and 100 gms of gold jewellery from Chirag Delhi area of south Delhi Wednesday,” said a senior police official.
Jain is a BCA (Bachelor of Computer Applications) graduate from I.P. University.
London, October 30: Supermodel Kate Moss has reportedly designed her own jewellery line for British high street chain Topshop.
Topshop, owned by Kate’s close friend Sir Philip Green, said that this would be the first of regular seasonal vintage-inspired jewellery ranges designed by Moss, with semi-precious stones being used.
The 36-year-old model who shares a comfort with the ramp started designing clothes for Green five years ago and would wrap up her work with the billionaire businessman when her autumn/winter collection comes out next month, reports femalefirst.co.uk.
Abuja, October 30: An Indian principal of a school run by an oil company, who was kidnapped in Nigeria Oct 13, has been released, Xinhua reported.
Lakshmi Tombush, a principal of Exxon Mobil Pegasus Schools in Eket city in southeast Nigeria’s Akwa Ibom state, was freed Thursday night, security sources said.
She was abducted from her car by unidentified gunmen in Eket, the report said.
Tombush manages Pegasus Schools, funded by Mobil Producing Nigeria, for staff children and some members of its host community.
–IANS–
London, October 30: Country singer Taylor Swift has fuelled rumours that she is dating Hollywood actor Jake Gyllenhaal after talk show host Ellen DeGeneres grilled the young star about her “handsome” new “boyfriend”.
The singer sparked rumours of a new romance when she was spotted holding hands with Gyllenhaal during a stroll through Brooklyn, New York Sunday and DeGeneres took the opportunity to ask the 20-year-old about her relationship with the actor, reports contactmusic.com.
London, October 30: Singer Celine Dion has revealed she was initially expecting triplets, but lost one of the babies at the beginning of her pregnancy.
The singer and her husband Rene Angelil welcomed twin boys, Nelson and Eddy, at a hospital in Florida Oct 23 after months of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatments.
The 42-year-old star revealed that she was initially pregnant with three babies, reports contactmusic.com.
But just five days after doctors told her the happy news, the third baby’s heart stopped beating.
Mumbai, October 30: Sohail Sen, who has composed music for “Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey” (KHJJS), says he referred to various genres of Bengali music for the soundtrack of the period film by Ashutosh Gowariker.
“A lot of people asked me whether or not I was inspired by Rabindra Sangeet for this film? Rabindra Sangeet is compositions of Rabindranath Tagore and in Bengal there are many other genres too. So you can’t select one genre and make songs on that. I took the basic vibes from every genre and then started composing,” Sohail told IANS.
Washington, October 30: US President Barack Obama called the discovery of some suspicious packages with “explosive material” as “a credible threat against our country,” but officials considered it unlikely to affect his trip to India next week.
“Whenever the President travels, we take a very careful look at what the threat environment might be and look at what the terrorist environment is,” White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan told reporters Friday.
Agra, October 30: Three people have been arrested in Agra on charges of selling fake marksheets, driving licences, bank statements and passports for just a few hundred rupees, police said Saturday.
A team of Special Operations Group arrested the three people late Friday from a shop here and seized rubber stamps, letter heads and mobile SIM cards from them.
The gang of Avinash, Piyush and Vishnu operated from an office in the busy Sanjay Place commercial complex, a police official said.
–IANS–
Washington, October 30: As President Barack Obama travels to India next week, two leading economists have strongly backed India’s case for a permanent seat of the UN Security Council and stronger trade relations.
Obama’s “goal is to strengthen India-US cooperation, but standing between the recent heady past and a future full of promise is a highly problematic present,” wrote C. Fred Bergsten and Arvind Subramanian, director and senior fellow, respectively, at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Mumbai, October 30: After working with Ashutosh Gowariker in film “What’s Your Raashee?” composer Sohail Sen teamed up with the filmmaker in period film “Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey”. Packed with high energy and soft soothing melodious songs, the album is high on patriotic sentiment.
It boasts of five originals. The film is based on Manini Chatterjee’s book “Do and Die: The Chittagong Uprising 1930-34″, and the composer has tried to stick to the theme of the movie in his songs.
Mumbai, October 30: Ace designer Manish Arora kickstarted the new Aamby Valley India Bridal Week here and his unconventional collection had lots of colour – right from the clothes, hairdo and make-up.
Very unlike a bridal show, Arora’s line was a compilation of his designs from 2008-10. A spin down memory lane with ensembles from his past collections, the themes of the garments varied from Pop Art to Circus and Space age to Art Deco.
Hyderabad, October 29: The state government on Thursday constituted four committees for effective implementation of micro finance institutions (MFIs) ordinance promulgated recently.
It is also aimed to deal with many queries from both the MFIs and the district-level registering authorities about the provisions in the ordinance.
The committees will work to improve credit flows to self-help groups (SHGs) and to put the Information Technology system in place.
Roorkee, October 29: A competition during IIT-Roorkee’s annual festival whereby boys holding lipsticks in their mouth applied them on girls has sparked a controversy with saffron groups staging a protest and the BJP government in Uttarakhand ordering an inquiry.
The competition was held yesterday during the festival named “Thomso 10”.
Demanding action against the engineering institute for holding the “obscene competition”, activists of Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), Hindu Jagran Manch and their friendly organisations today staged a protest in its campus.
Hyderabad, October 29: It was almost like a ‘holiday’ for deities and hardship for devotees at various temples across the state on Thursday as temple employees, including archakas, went on a one-day strike demanding higher wages.
The priests boycotted Arjita Sevas but performed daily pujas and offered Naivedyam to the deities.
Without the Arjita Sevas there were just one or two regular pujas and it was rest time for the deities for the whole day.
A large number of devotees looked disappointed and left the temples without performing pujas in their names.
Bangalore, October 29: Hindi film actor Vivek Oberoi married Priyanka Alva, daughter of late Karnataka political leader Jeevraj Alva, here on Friday.
The 28-year-old Priyanka is a Business Management graduate from Britain. Her mother Nandini is a well known classical dancer.
Jeevraj Alva, a Janata Dal-United leader and a minister in the Ramakrishna Hegde ministry in Karnataka, passed away in 2001.
The wedding, both in Karnataka and Punjabi style, took place at the sprawling farm house of Alvas in north Bangalore.
Hyderabad, October 29: Chief Minister K Rosaiah on Thursday assured CPM politburo member and MP Brinda Karat that the state government will take into consideration her demands on micro finance institutions when the bill on the ordinance promulgated recently is brought before the Assembly.
Karat called on the chief minister at his camp office and represented to him, on behalf of the AIDWA, issues concerning MFIs in the state.
Hyderabad, October 29: As per the new catering policy formulated by the Railway Board, the South Central Railway has taken over catering service on trains from the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to improve the quality of food served on trains and platforms.
The new system is being experimented on AP Express in the zone. The SCR has taken several initiatives to monitor the on-board catering services.
MS Jayanth, general manager,SCR, inspected the pantry car, on-board catering services for passengers and various passenger amenities in the AP Express.