Month: May 2011

French Civil service minister accused of sexual harassment resigns: PM

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Paris, May 29: A French minister accused of sexual harassment resigned on Sunday, officials said, two weeks after former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York on sex crime charges.

Civil service minister Georges Tron, accused of sexually harassing staff at the town hall where he is mayor, said he will fight to prove his innocence.

Prosecutors said Wednesday they had launched a preliminary investigation after a lawyer for two former municipal employees in the Paris suburb of Draveil accused Tron of harassment.

Badminton, chats with new friends: Raja at home in Tihar Jail

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New Delhi, May 29: Former telecom minister A Raja lodged in Tihar Jail in connection with 2G spectrum scamNEW DELHI: It has been over three months since former telecom minister Andimuthu Raja has been cooling his heels in the capital’s Tihar Jail for his suspected involvement in the 2G corruption scam. And in place of the sullenness and shock of the initial days are friendly chats with fellow inmates, morning walks and evening sessions of badminton, jail sources say.

KCR has sold out to Congress, no tie with him or BJP: Errabelli

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Hyderabad, May 29: Alleging that Telangana Rashtra Samithi president K Chandrasekhar Rao has entered into a secret understanding with the Congress to ‘water down’ the separate Telangana statehood demand, senior Telugu Desam Party MLA Errabelli Dayakar Rao on Sunday stated that the TDP will never again enter into electoral alliance with either the TRS or the Bharatiya Janata Party. He also accused KCR of selling his party MLAs to the Congress in the Legislative Council polls.

Jennifer Lopez sex tape to be released

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New York, May 29: Hollywood actress and singer Jennifer Lopez has lost a legal battle against her first husband Ojani Noa over the release of a home sex video.

Ojani Noa has won the lengthy legal battle, allowing the intimate home video of J.Lo to be released.

The footage, which may or may not contain nudity, was allegedly shot during the pop singer’s short marriage to the former waiter. The two tied the knot in 1997 before splitting months later. Noa was J.Lo’s first husband.

Rs.1,500 for three kids? Court hikes maintenance

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New Delhi, May 29: Is Rs.1,500 per month enough as maintenance for three children? No, said the Delhi High Court, which has pulled up a man for giving this paltry amount to his divorced wife for bringing up their three children. He has now been ordered to cough up a monthly maintenance of Rs.7,500 – or Rs.2,500 for each kid.

Sabir Hussain, who divorced his wife Mumtaz Begum in 2006, was told that he was “equally responsible for bringing up the three children”.

Saudi Arabia is ‘world’s largest women’s prison’

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London, May 29: The Obama administration has been quietly putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to allow women to drive, according to leaked US embassy cables.

The Guardian reports that the cables, part of the trove allegedly given to WikiLeaks by the US soldier Bradley Manning, reveal previously unreported clashes over women’s rights.

Dispatches from Riyadh describe Saudi Arabia as “the world’s largest women’s prison”.

Those words are a quote from one female campaigner US diplomats have been in contact with, Wajeha Al Huwaider.

‘Hero’ was never missing from Bollywood: Ajay

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Mumbai, May 29: About three years back Aamir Khan’s Ghajini brought the larger than life hero back to screen. After the stupendous success of Wanted and Dabangg, Salman Khan today swears by action with a good dose of emotion as entertainment. Action stars like Sunny Deol and Ajay Devgn would like to revisit kicks and punches with Ghayal 2 and Singham respectively. Seema Sinha chats up with Ajay Devgn on the resurrection of the hero in Bollywood.

What do you have to say on ‘Bringing Back the Hero to Hindi Cinema’?

Nagma refuses Big Boss season 5

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Mumbai, May 29: NagmaActor Nagma has refused to be part of reality show Big Boss season 5.

According to sources this was the fifth time she was offered to participate in show but she has shown her disinterest though it is likely to be hosted by co-star of her first Bollywood film, Salman Khan. Both the actors had acted together in film Baaghi.

The sources claim that the actor wants to keep away from the controversy which this reality show normally generates as she has had her share of it.

Woman sentenced to life for killing husband

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New Delhi, May 29: A court here has awarded a life term to a woman for killing her husband.

The incident took place in mid-2010 when Guddi thrashed her husband Raju to death at their Palam Extension residence in Delhi.

“Guddi wrapped her husband’s body in a plastic mat, which was later recovered from the house,” said the court in its order Saturday.

“The act has been committed in utter frustration”, Additional Sessions Judge N.K. Kaushik said, adding that during the investigations and trial, the court was unable to unearth the motive for the murder.

Dogs beneficial to families of autistic children

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London, May 29: Dogs can help reduce stress in parents of children with autism, a new study has suggested.

Researchers at thee University of Lincoln compared 20 families with dogs with 20 without. They found the canines had helped the families in many ways, from developing language and establishing a routine to using the pet to request action in a non-confrontational way.

Lead researcher Daniel Mills told a Royal Society of Medicine conference that early results suggested any breed of dogs could improve communication and relationships.

JP Dutta to make a sequel of 1997 blockbuster ‘Border’

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Mumbai, May 29: After having failed in his desperate attempts to recreate the ‘Border’ magic in films like ‘Refugee’ and ‘LOC Kargil’, JP Dutta is all set to make yet another film on India and Pakistan’s estranged political relationship.

Dutta has sought permission from the Defence Ministry to re-erect the Indo-Pak war of 1971, which will apparently be a sequel to ‘Border’.

30 corporate honchos get Rs 1 crore-plus salary

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New Delhi, May 29: Mukesh Ambani has got company of at least 29 fellow corporate executives, including four from his own group Reliance Industries, in terms of annual salaries running into crores of rupees for the latest fiscal.

These include JSW Energy’s Sajjan Jindal, Hindustan Construction’s Ajit Gulabchand, Raymond’s Gautam Hari Singhania, ICICI Bank’s Chanda Kochhar, Axis Bank’s Shikha Sharma, as also Infosys’ S Gopalakrishnan and S D Shibulal.

Honda website hacking exposes 283000 customers

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Toronto, May 29: The personal information of more than 283,000 customers at Honda Canada has been breached, the company confirmed.

Honda Canada said the stolen data included names, addresses, vehicle identification numbers and in some cases financing account numbers.

It said the data was not the type that would typically be used for identity theft or fraud, such as birth dates, telephone numbers, email addresses, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, driver’s license numbers, social insurance numbers, or dollar amounts of financing or payments.

Salman: ‘Politically incorrect’

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Mumbai, May 29: At home, when I give interviews, I make sure that I don’t say anything that is rude or offensive; I run it according to what the sense of humour (acceptable) in the family is. They shouldn’t get offended, shouldn’t think yeh badtameez hai, I run it that way. My father could not whistle in front of his father. Today my father gives me the right to have a drink with him. These are the guidelines I follow in interviews or in other things.

Pak PM attended funeral of Headley’s father in 2010

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Chicago, May 29: Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had attended the funeral of Mumbai attacks accused David Headley’s father in 2010.

This was disclosed by 50-year-old Headley at a Chicago court during the trial of co-accused Tahawwur Rana (50) in the 26/11 attacks case.

He told jury during the course of questioning on Thursday that Prime Minister Gilani attended the funeral of his father Syed Saleem Gilani and also offered condolences to the bereaved family.

Saudi force ‘trained by UK’

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Bahrain, May 29: The Saudi Arabian National Guard sent into Bahrain to crush a popular uprising receives training from the British military, it was reported today.

The training including weapons and public order are organised by the British Military Mission to the Saudi Arabian National Guard, according to documents obtained by The Observer under the Freedom of Information Act.

The secretive group is said to consist of 11 British army staff under the command of a brigadier.

19-yr-old arrested for having sex with teen girls

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Torquay, May 29: In a bizarre incident, a 19-year old British man has been charged for having sex with girls as young as 13 whom he groomed on Facebook.

Jake Ormerod, from Torquay in Devon, admitted 13 charges related to eight girls when he appeared at a local court.

Ormerod was part of a paedophile gang that used Facebook to groom schoolgirls before meeting them, plying them with drink and drugs and sexually abusing them, The Sun reported.

The group hung around schools and preyed on young, vulnerable, missing children, police said.

Minorities ignored in AP: Naidu

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Hyderabad, May 29: Naidu is keen on son ‘rise’May 28: The Telugu Desam president, Mr Chandrababu Naidu, said on Saturday that the Congress had ignored the welfare of minorities. For the sake of elections, the party had promised five per cent reservations in employment and education but the High Court had struck down the reservations thrice, he said.

2,125 schools ignore fire norms, face GHMC ire

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Hyderabad, May 29: Managements of private schools have been told to provide fire safety equipment before they re-open in June or shut down the schools. The fire prevention wing of GHMC, additional director, Mr C. Lakshmi Prasad, told representatives of schools on Saturday that there is no alternative to providing safety measures. “We have given you eight months to instal fire safety equipment. Only 129 schools of the 2,154 institutions that were served with notices have installed fire safety measures,” he said.

Desam plans to move no trust against Kiran

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Hyderabad, May 29: The Telugu Desam has decided to move a no confidence motion against the Kiran Kumar Reddy government on the farmers’ issue in the next session of the Assembly.

Talking on the sidelines of Mahanadu, the Telugu Desam MP, Dr M.V. Mysoora Reddy, said on Saturday that the party would move the motion since it had 90 MLAs whereas the YSR Congress, led by Mr Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, who had been threatening to topple the government, had only one.

Third Saudi Woman arrested for driving car

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Riyadh, May 29: Saudi police arrested another woman for defying a ban on female driving in the conservative Gulf Kingdom although she told them she badly needed to shop, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

Traffic police chased and stopped the woman as she drove her car through the streets of the southern town of Bisha.

“They arrested her and took her to the police station…she told them that she drove the car because she needed to shop and that her driver was away in his country for a holiday,” Sabq Arabic language daily said.

5 minutes to nuclear Jihad?

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‘Curb terror outfits’It is a wonder that in 26/11, the jihadis after successfully breaching three layers of Indian maritime defence, inactive in all but name – the outer zone manned by the Indian Navy, the coastal zone patrolled by the Coast Guard, and the inner-most defensive line policed by Harbour patrols — merely shot up a couple of hotels when they could have done something really spectacular — a “Pearl Harbour” by sinking a good part of the Western Fleet anchored at the time in the Mumbai naval base, only a few hundred meters from where they landed.

Al Qaeda takes over Yemeni city

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Yenen, May 29: Al Qaeda and militants have taken over the Yemni coastal town of Zinjibar, residents said on Sunday.

“About 300 millitants and Al Qaeda men came into Zinjibar and took over everything on Friday,” said one resident.

Zinjibar is the capital of Abyan province in south central Yemen. The impoverished state has been wracked by violence amid protests to end President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s near 33-year rule.

HC fixes Kerala private medical education fee

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New Delhi, May 29: The Kerala High Court allowed the private colleges to collect this fee while staying the fee structure fixed by the Fee Regulatory Committee headed by Justice P A Mohammed. The fee fixed by the panel for the next three years ranged from Rs.254, 000 to Rs.273, 000.

The order in this regard was passed by an interim bench headed by Justice Ramachandran on a petition filed by six medical college managements, which had signed agreement with the government regarding the fees.

Revolution and change

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The Palestinian security officer at the Rafah border was overly polite. He wore a black uniform and walked around self-assuredly, as he instructed weary travelers on their next moves before being allowed back into Gaza. On the other side of the border, in Egypt, there was much anxiety, fear and anticipation.