The island nation of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean has put its international airport on high alert after confirmation of the first case of H1N1 swine flu.
Xinhua cited reports as saying that two other H1N1 flu cases have been diagnosed after the first hospitalisation, while the health ministry said 30 other cases have been reported.
A vast disinfection and clean-up operation was organised at the company where the infected peson was working.
Al Qaeda gunmen have shot dead a bodyguard of the Saudi consul in the Yemeni capital city of Sana’a, an interior ministry official said.
Sergeant Khaled al-Enizy, a Saudi national who was the main escort of the Saudi consul, was gunned down Thursday night by masked gunmen in Sana’a a few metres from his home, the official told Xinhua.
A spokesman of the Al Qaeda confirmed the attack.
Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has been holding the Saudi deputy consul for nearly one year after kidnapping him from Yemen’s southern port city of Aden.
British comedian Russell Brand says he considered becoming a monk following his divorce from singer Katy Perry.
The 38-year-old, who was married to Perry for 14 months, revealed that he seriously considered becoming a monk so that he wouldn’t have to have sex with any other women, reports femalefirst.co.uk.
“When I got divorced, I considered becoming a monk. When you’re a monk, you’re not allowed to have sex with anyone,” he said at the Soho Theatre here.
Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri accused the US of “plotting” with the Egyptian military, secularists and Christians to overthrow Egypt’s Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, in an audio recording posted on militant Islamist forums.
Speaking of the July 3 military coup, Zawahiri, himself an Egyptian, said: “Crusaders and secularists and the Americanised army have converged … With Gulf money and American plotting to topple Mohamed Morsi’s government.”
Singer Miley Cyrus wants to leak the latest songs from her untitled fourth studio album because she cannot wait for her fans to listen to them.
The 20-year-old singer’s new album is a follow up of her 2010 album “Can’t Be Tamed”.
She keeps scaring her record label officials about slipping out a few songs, reports contactmusic.com.
“We could just leak it. That’s what I’m always trying to do,” Cyrus said.
“I scare my label all the time, because I just want my whole record out right now. I’m ready for people to hear it,” she added.
Pop star Lady Gaga has been accused of breaking immigration laws in Russia. She had staged performances in St. Petersburg and Moscow as part of her Monster Ball World Tour last year, and that too on a tourist visa.
St. Petersburg lawmaker Vitaly Milonov has filed a request with the Prosecutor General’s office to assess whether Gaga has violated Russia’s immigration or tax laws, reports aceshowbiz.com.
Milonov reported that Gaga received $1.1 million for the St. Petersburg show.
Forty Indonesians believed to be illegal immigrants seeking to return home were missing today after a boat carrying them sank off the coast of Malaysia, a maritime official said.
The boat, thought to be carrying 44 people, sank Thursday night off southern Johor state, said Amran Daud, an official with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), adding four were rescued yesterday.
The boat was heading to Indonesia’s Batam island when it sank in rough seas about three hours after it left shore, Amran said.
A bipartisan group of six US lawmakers has introduced legislation in the Congress that would make it tough for companies to outsource their call centers overseas including India.
Introduced by Congressman Tim Bishop, the “US Call Center and Consumer Protection Act of 2013,” bars corporations that send US call-center jobs overseas from receiving federal grants and loans.
Among other co-sponsors of the bill are Dave McKinley, Chris Gibson, Gene Green, Mike Grimm, and Mike Michaud.
In an extraordinary step, bipartisan group of powerful US lawmakers from both the Senate and the House of Representatives have sought a “fact-finding investigation” into India’s trade and industrial policies.
Noting in a letter that American exports to India are low given the size of its market, congressional leaders asked the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to detail policies India has in place that restrict trade and violate intellectual property rights, as well as the effect they have on US exports, businesses and jobs.
A group of Indians and Indian Americans held a protest in front of the Indian Embassy here opposing the proposed amendment in the RTI Act that excludes six political parties from its purview.
“We as citizens of India are empowered by the RTI Act demand that it not be amended,” the protestors said in a letter memorandum submitted to the Embassy which was addressed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Singer Justin Bieber has added another ‘art’ to his body – a rose shaped inking. It has filled up the only space, which t was empty on his left arm.
The 19-year-old has the new tattoo placed right above an inking of an owl. This has brought the total number of tattoos on his body to 17, reports dailymail.co.uk.
The singer shared the image of the rose tattoo on Instagram, with the caption: “‘Art”, reports dailymail.co.uk.
Bieber got the tattoo made from the Bang Bang Tattoo Parlour here, where several celebrities like Rihanna, Cara Delevingne and Adele, have got themselves inked.
Pop star Rihanna has donated cash to a sanctuary in the US to save wolves.
The 25-year-old star has become obsessed with the predators, and so she has donated a large portion of her 30 million pounds-fortune to Wolf Haven Sanctuary, reports femalefirst.co.uk.
“Rihanna loves animals, and she has become particularly fascinated with wolves recently. She has earned a huge amount since she burst on to the scene in her teens,” Daily Mirror newspaper quoted a source as saying.
Britain’s embassy in the Yemeni capital Sanaa will be shut this weekend, the Foreign Office said, after the United States announced the temporary closure of two dozen embassies over fears of an Al-Qaeda attack.
Several British embassy staff have been withdrawn from Sanaa over the security fears, a spokesman for the Foreign Office in London said.
“The embassy will be closed on the 4th and 5th of August,” the spokesman said.
“We have withdrawn a number of staff from Sanaa, due to increased security concerns.”
The lawyer of Zakia Jafri, who has accused Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi of complicity in conspiracy behind the 2002 communal riots, on Friday said the special investigation team which probed her complaint was obsessed with discrediting former IPS officers Sanjeev Bhatt and RB Sreekumar.
The two officers have accused the Modi government of failing to act to prevent the violence at the time.
Assam’s Karbi Anglong continued to burn over the statehood demand for the third consecutive day Friday while a rail blockade by several Bodo organizations demanding separate Bodoland state disrupted rail traffic across the state.
The indefinite curfew, imposed in the district headquarter Diphu and its adjoining areas, continued Friday. Four people where injured at Dongkamokam in Hamren subdivision when police opened fire to disperse a mob surrounding the police station.
BJP President Rajnath Singh today appeared to bat for Gujrat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the party’s Prime Ministerial candidate and said it is now Congress’ turn to make clear its choice of its candidate for the top post.
“Our choice of Prime Ministerial candidate is obvious and it is now the turn of Congress to make its choice clear”, he said without naming Modi during a brief chat with mediapersons.
Three unidentified men looted Rs 39 lakh from the employees of a cash delivery van at gunpoint when they were refilling an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) in the capital on Friday, police said.
The incident was reported from Delhi’s Mansarovar Park area around 11.30 am.
“The accused were chasing the cash van in a Maruti Wagon R car. When the van reached a Union Bank ATM they stopped the car at a distance,” a police officer said.
A study has found a large number of Britons living on the edge when it comes to finance, with an approximately nine million more adults increasingly struggling to manage their money now in comparison to seven years ago.
Over half (52 per cent) of those surveyed are living on the edge financially, equating to 26 million people across Britain, the Money Advice Service (MAS), an organisation that provides money advice for consumers in Britain, The Independent reported Friday.
Pakistan Friday said the visit of US Secretary of State John Kerry has “contributed to bringing back on track” bilasteral relations but it categorically conveyed its concern over drone strikes to Washington.
Describing Kerry’s visit as a successful one, Pakistani foreign ministry spokesperson Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry, while replying to reporters on resumption of strategic dialogue between Pakistan and the US, said five working groups would meet in the next two months, Xinhua reported.
Years before he became India’s most wanted fugitive in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, underworld don Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar was deeply involved in the cricket betting business and used to control the Mumbai betting market. After he fled to Pakistan, his lieutenants have been running his syndicate, says the Delhi Police charge- sheet in the IPL-6 spot-fixing scandal.
A friend with dogged determination to show that the BJP is a lesser culprit of communal violence and that Congress is the major party to be blamed, listed the major communal riots in India and showed that most of the time when violence took place, it was Congress which has been the ruling party. He asks, so why get stuck with one episode of Gujarat violence and put it as a major point against Narendra Modi or BJP for that matter?
Hyderabad: TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao’s comments on employees from non-Telangana regions have stirred up a row, with TDP and some other parties taking exception to the remarks.
“Definitely, they (employees from non-Telangana regions) have to go to Andhra government. There are no options here. The government must run in Andhra too. The employees from that region…They have to work in that government and our Telangana employees would work in our government,” he told a gathering of pro-Telangana employees.
Bruna Abdullah, who is playing a lead in “Grand Masti”, says she waited to learn Hindi before signing up for prominent roles in Bollywood.
The 26-year-old Arab Brazilian actress made her debut with a small role in “I Hate Luv Storys” but she bacame famous with her item number ‘Subha Hone Na De’ opposite John Abraham and Akshay Kumar in “Desi Boyz”.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Friday asked suspended Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Durga Shakti Nagpal to join the party and contest polls against Samajwadi party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav from Uttar Pradesh’s Mainpuri parliamentary constituency.
“It is ironical that Durga Shakti Nagpal is seeking justice from the system which is opposed to her. We appeal to her to contest elections against Mulayam Singh Yadav from the Mainpuri constituency,” AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal told reporters here.
Actor Arshad Warsi helped model turned actress Tahira Kochhar to get her act right in ‘Rabba Main Kya Karoon’.
Tahira, a Miss India 2010 finalist, is making her foray in Bollywood with Moti Sagar’s ‘Rabba Main Kya Karoon’.
Since she does not coming from a filmy background, Tahira did not know much about acting and was nervous while shooting her first scene.
It was Arshad who came to her rescue by not only making her comfortable during the shot, but also training her on how to face the camera.