Three of the five American Muslims being monitored discreetly by the U.S. intelligence agencies are of Pakistan origin, revealed a report.
According to the Dawn, an online magazine named The Intercept has received documents from Edward J. Snowden revealing the names of the three Muslims: Asim Ghafoor, Faisal Gill and Agha Saeed. While the first two are lawyers, the last one heads a thinktank in the U.S.
CPI(M) today condemned the Israeli attacks on Gaza and urged the Narendra Modi government to raise the issue at international fora and demand immediate cessation of the strikes.
Terming the excuses given by the Israeli government for the attack “tenuous”, the CPI(M)’s Politburo said there can be no justification for the “blatant” aggression in contravention of established international laws.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday said the law would take its own course after the court summons Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi for his comment against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
A court in Bhiwandi has asked Rahul to be present during the hearing of the case on October 07 for claiming that the RSS assassinated Mahatma Gandhi.
“Law will take its own course in this matter. His statement regarding the RSS was definitely objectionable,” said BJP spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.
The RSS moved court after the Rahul’s during election campaign in March.
Homegrown auto major Mahindra & Mahindra is wooing bank employees across India with a special scheme offering Rs 25,000 discount on purchase of its passenger vehicle.
The scheme is applicable to employees of all banks across the country and will be in effect for two months starting July till August 31, 2014, the company said in a statement.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will leave on July 13 on a four-day visit of Brazil, where he is scheduled to take part in the VIth BRICS Summit.
The summit, which will be the Indian Prime Minister’s first multilateral interaction abroad, will held in Fortaleza and Brasilia from July 14 to 16.
During his visit, Modi will be interacting with the heads of Brazil, China, Russia and South Africa. He is also scheduled to have important bilateral meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 14.
Already retired from Tests and ODIs, veteran Australian opener Simon Katich today called time of his Twenty20 career as well ruling himself out from the Champions League T20 in India.
The 38-year-old, who quit first-class cricket in 2012, had captained Perth Scorchers to KFC Twenty20 Big Bash League title earlier this year, making the team eligible to play in the CLT20, scheduled from September 8 to 30 in India.
Katich played 118 T20 games and scored 2483 runs at an average of 30.28 and a strike-rate of 126.61. Of these, only three appearances came for Australia.
A new research has revealed that women consider bearded men to be very attractive and masculine, and believe that they would be better parents than clean shaven men.
The study, conducted by Professor Rob C Brooks and Dr. Barnaby Dixson of the University of NSW, also pointed out that beards help a man’s self esteem, and mark him as someone who is bold and self-assured.
However, researchers noted that women find men attractive only when they have about 10 days worth of stubble and not beyond that, News.com.au reported.
Researchers studied the effects of caesarean section births on the immune system of baby mice.
The study shows that pups delivered by caesarean section had developed a lower number of cells that strengthen the immune system, said Camilla Hansen from University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
Newborns delivered by natural birth are exposed to more bacteria from the mother than those delivered by caesarean section.
Are you living in the vicinity of a busy highway or an airport or even a hospital? Constant noise emanating from heavy city traffic, industrial machinery, aeroplanes and loud music may leave one at a higher risk of obesity and cardiovascular diseases.
In a four-year project, researchers from Karolinska University in Sweden found that the louder the traffic noise, the greater the increase in people’s waist size.
“There was nearly a centimetre increase for every 10-decibel rise in the noise levels,” the study authors noted. {mosimage}
Vowing not to bow under international pressures, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel “will act with all power” in its offensive to stop rocket attacks on its land from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu’s statement comes even as US President Barack Obama called the Israeli Prime Minister on Friday and offered to broker a ceasefire with Hamas, saying there was a risk of further escalation of the crisis.
“No international pressure will prevent us from acting with all power,” he told reporters.
The United States today hinted at clear displeasure with Germany over its handling of a spying row, which saw the CIA chief in Berlin thrown out of the country.
The White House also rejected suggestions the showdown over apparent US recruiting of double agents could damage broader ties with the Berlin government and cooperation on issues like Ukraine.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest, who has all week declined to go into detail about the row because it touches on intelligence matters, did offer a window into US thinking.
The United States today said that it was ready to leverage its relationships in the Middle East to try to bring about a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
The US offer came a day after President Barack Obama called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to offer to facilitate an end to Hamas rocket fire and Israeli aerial assaults that have killed 100 Palestinians in Gaza.
In a move to make travelling quick and easy, Malaysia Airlines has said that its economy class passengers flying out of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport will now be required to use self-service check-in facilities.
“Passengers have three options, they can check-in through web or mobile at home, or they can come to the airport and check-in through the kiosk,” Malaysia Airlines (MAS) airport services senior manager Mohd Mazlan Md Noor said.
Seven people, including a six-year-old boy, were seriously injured in a bomb blast carried out by suspected militants in Manipur’s Imphal West district today.
Police said the explosion took place at Langthanbal, about 10-km from state capital Imphal, and was targeted at security personnel passing through the area.
Security forces rushed to the spot immediately after the blast but no arrests have been made yet, police added.
Official sources said that all the seven injured have been rushed to a local hospital. PTI
0ne person was killed after a two-storeyed building collapsed in South Mumbai today, fire officials said.
The building was located in Ganesh Murti Nagar at Colaba, they said. The incident took place apparently after the roof of the building caved in. PTI
The body of a 15-year-old who died while trying to migrate illegally into the United States was repatriated to Guatemala today, amid a raging US debate over how to stem a flood of similar cases.
The remains of Gilberto Francisco Ramos Juarez, who perished in the Texas desert, were claimed in Guatemala City by his father, Francisco Ramos.
“I am sad,” the somber and black-clad Ramos told reporters at the airport, after traveling six hours from the western department of Huehuetenango, near Guatemala’s border with Mexico.
The US is not co-ordinating military exercises or missions with Iran or Russia to help Iraq in its fight against Islamic militants, but it is assisting the Iraqi security forces in the combat, a top American diplomat has said.
“We are aware of the Iranian and Russian efforts to help the Iraqis, but we are not involved in coordinating any missions,” Defense Secretary, Chuck Hagel told reporters.
The United States, he said, is not co-ordinating military efforts or exercises or missions with Iran or Russia.
The Nasiha, an Islamic Urdu website will soon launch a television
channel here in India and United Arab Emirates (UAE) with an aim to propagate Islam, its teachings to the masses and aspires to promote peace and security for mankind.
“The objective of the channel is to educate about Islamic values and system in the truest, authentic form and guide them to lead a better life filled with ethics of Sunnah,” told its business development and strategic planning Manager, Mr. Mohammed Mubeen Mallick to the Karnataka Muslims.
Having engineered an England collapse in the first cricket Test with one of his best spells in recent times, lanky Indian speedster Ishant Sharma said that he felt like having got his rhythm back.
“I struggled with my rhythm in the two practice matches. These things happen when you haven’t been playing cricket for too long. I didn’t play much cricket before that and even in IPL, I played a very few games,” Ishant said at the post-match press conference.
The passage of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2014 in the Lok Sabha this week, will eventually see the transfer of 136 villages, 211 hamlets and seven mandals of Khammam District in Telangana to the successor state of Andhra Pradesh.
According to news reports, the villages in Khammam District in Telangana have been merged with the East Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh for the construction of the Polavaram irrigation project.
The project involves the linking of the Krishna and Godavari Rivers.
Opposition leaders have said that President Barack Obama’s invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be only seen as a regular diplomatic issue.
Nawab Malik of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) told ANI, “Prime Ministers of countries get invitation from other countries. It is a diplomatic issue. He (Modi) got an invitation as a Prime Minister and not as Modi.”
Reality TV star Kim Kardashian feels pregnant women should stay indoors as much as possible.
Kardashian, 33, who is mother of a one-year-old North West, said it is good to go hiding when a woman is expecting, reported Us magazine.
“I recommend hiding for a good year and having no pregnancy style,” she said, adding, “That’s what I recommend. If you can do it, hide. Never leave the house. That’s really my recommendation. Wear a huge blanket,” she said.
President Vladimir Putin made a surprise stop in Nicaragua after visiting Russia’s Cold War ally Cuba, part of a tour to increase Moscow’s influence in Latin America amid frayed ties with the West.
Putin’s six-day trip will also take him to Argentina and Brazil, where he will take part in a summit of the BRICS group of emerging countries — an agenda that neatly aligns with his push for a multipolar world at a time when the Ukraine crisis has brought Moscow-Washington relations to a post-Cold War low.
Militants have reportedly attacked a security checkpost, killing three personnel near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border the Bajuar Tribal Agency.
According to sources, the militants were from Afghanistan’s Kunar Province, which lies just across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
The Dawn reports that at least two other persons were also killed in the attack.
However, the Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR) has not confirmed the attack or casualties as yet.
Larsen & Toubro, the firm behind the Hyderabad Metro Rail, has now pinned its hopes on the Centre to get to the bottom of its dispute with the Telangana government over realignment of the Metro route to circumvent passing close to the heritage structures in the city.
The firm is not in favor of any modification to the project at this stage, and the issue is learnt to have taken up with the Union finance ministry and the Union urban development ministry.