New Delhi, August 08: China and India, which went to war in 1962 over their boundaries, begin two days of intensive talks in New Delhi on their unresolved border issues.
Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo, before the beginning of the talks with the Indian National Security Advisor M. K. Narayanan, expressed optimism on Friday over the outcome of their talks. This is while it was not certain the discussions would achieve any major breakthroughs.
London, August 08: NATO needs more troops in Afghanistan if the mission is to succeed, the alliance’s new secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Friday.
Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told the BBC that NATO has made progress fighting Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan, partly because the number of soldiers there was increased.
Washington, August 08: A devastating US military strike against Iran’s nuclear and military facilities “is a technically feasible and credible option,” a retired general asserted in an article published on Friday.
Retired air force general Charles Wald, a former deputy commander of US forces in Europe, said US policy makers must prepare for a “Plan B,” including the military’s role, should diplomacy fail.
New Delhi, August 08: In a decision that brought relief to thousands of parents, the Supreme Court on Friday held that private unaided schools do not have the right to hike fees.
Deciding on the review petitions filed by the Action Committee for Unaided Private Schools in the Capital, which sought a re-examination of its earlier 2004 verdict, the three-member bench led by Justice S B Sinha said only the government can regulate the fees of private schools.
Unaided private schools need to take permission of the Director Education before hiking fees, the apex court maintained.
New York, August 08: A retired state Supreme Court judge who procured Asian prostitutes for his social club, including one woman who had appeared before him in court and another who was in America illegally, was sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison.
Ronald Tills, who also served in the state Assembly and was a Court of Claims judge, was given the prison term and fined $25,000 after telling the sentencing judge he was embarrassed by his behavior and prays for the women he victimized.
Washington, August 08: President Barack Obama said on Friday he expects Congress to overhaul the country’s immigration system, an issue that fires up emotions on both sides of the political divide, by “early next year.”
Speaking to Hispanic reporters at the White House, Obama said he hopes a bill for comprehensive immigration reform will be drafted by the end of this year.
Obama tapped Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on June 25 to work with Congress to speed up immigration reform as senators warned another failed effort could doom chances for a generation.
Mumbai, August 08: Fans in India and Pakistan react in the extreme and cricket does not remain merely a sport when the arch-rivals lock horns, said Sachin Tendulkar.
Indian players are either garlanded like ‘kings’ or treated like ‘criminals’, depending on the outcome of an Indo-Pak series, and the feeling is not different on the other side of the border, Tendulkar said at the launch of ‘Shadows Across the Playing Field’, a book authored by Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor and former Pakistan Cricket Control Board chief Shaharyar Khan.
Mumbai, August 08: Kareena Kapoor has secret plans. And they are grand, naturally. What might seem great for lesser mortals is not good enough for Bollywood’s reining diva.
She wrinkles her shapely nose and says, “By the year-end, I hope I can buy my own house in Switzerland.’’ The actress is distressed that Mumbai offers little privacy to beau Saif Ali Khan and her. “We find it hard to go out clubbing or even for dinner because there is hardly any place that is truly private,’’ she regrets.
Nuku, August 08: At least 87 people are now feared dead in this week’s Tonga ferry disaster, police said Saturday, describing the sinking as a “tragedy of huge proportions” for the tiny Pacific island nation.
The number on board the Princess Ashika, which sank just before midnight on Wednesday, has been revised upwards to 141 following interviews with survivors. The original manifest showed only 79 on board.
Gaza, August 08: The Palestinian Authority security forces have detained at least 16 members of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the occupied West Bank.
Hamas, in a statement issued on Friday morning, announced that the men were taken from their homes in al-khalil (Hebron), Tubas as well as Ramallah.
The opponent Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, have long been wrangling with each other over substantial discords which have caused major obstacles to resolving internal Palestinian divisions.
Oregon, August 08: A mouse found inside an automatic teller machine — along with a nest it had built with chewed-up $20 bills — gave an Oregon gas station employee the surprise of her life.
The mouse, discovered Thursday, had thoroughly torn up two bills and damaged another 14 to line his nest. Employee Millie Taylor says she screamed and slammed the machine’s door shut.
The bank replaced all the money that wasn’t extensively damaged, and the ATM has continued to work just fine. The mouse also got a reprieve: He was evicted from his nest but set free outside the station.
New Delhi, August 08: The ruling, by one of the country’s senior judges, has provoked a wave of anxiety throughout India’s secular establishment which has until now been content to let its 150 million Muslims live according to its own system of “personal law”.
While bigamy has also been practiced by Hindus, it is more common among Muslims who believed they are justified in taking upto four wives.
Indonesia, August 08: An armed standoff outside the suspected rural hideout of a Malaysian-born fugitive militant, Noordin Mohammed Top, entered its second day Saturday.
In a running live report, TV One channel showed police explosive- detection robots entering the house where up to four suspected Islamist militants were believed holed up in the isolated village of Temnaggung district in Central Java.
Mumbai, August 08: Shahid Kapoor is a total method actor; keeping up with the theme of his film, he has even become a pucca kamina! Well if you don’t believe us then keep reading- the darling heartthrob did not leave any stones unturned to make fun of the debutants on the sets of Kaminey.
Confirms with us the newcomer Chandan Roy Sanyal who plays a character-oriented role named Mikhail in Kaminey.
“Shahid is a big time prankster. He would take me on the sets saying I was called for the shoot. As soon as I would reach on the sets, no one would be there,” exclaims Chandan.
Jeddah, August 08: Saudi Arabia has launched cultural days in Argentina with the inauguration of an event jointly by Argentine Cultural Secretary Jorge Coscia and Culture and Information Minister Abdul Aziz Khoja in Buenos Aires, according to Argentine Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Enrique Pareja.
Hyderabad, August 08: The World Badminton Championships scheduled to begin here on Monday has been enveloped in a security blanket following specific
information that terror operatives are plotting to target it.
The information that was relayed by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to the state authorities was that terror elements would attempt to strike at the international players as they did against Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan recently.
Jeddah, August 08: Saudi Arabia is enforcing visa regulations to ensure Umrah pilgrims visiting the Kingdom during the holy month of Ramadan do not stay on for Haj, the main annual pilgrimage, and to contain the spread of swine flu.
The move follows stepped up surveillance for flu cases after the death of a Saudi physically challenged girl from the virus, pushing the Kingdom’s flu death toll up to seven. H1NI cases are nearing 600 and the government is taking no chances ahead of the busy season.
Baghdad, August 08: A bomb hidden in a motorcycle killed six people and wounded 35 in a market in western Baghdad on Friday, police said.
The attack took place in the mostly Sunni Muslim district of al-Khadhraa, they said.
Earlier on Friday, a series of bombs in Baghdad killed six Shi’ite pilgrims. In Mosul, a suicide car bomber also killed 38 people as they left a Shi’ite Muslim mosque near the restive city of Mosul, police said.
New Delhi, August 08: PSU bank employees are expected to call off their strike, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha.
“The bank strike is expected to be called off today. I am being told that talks are on between the bank associations and worker unions,” he said replying to supplementaries during the Question Hour.
Banking operations across the country have been impacted severely with employees of public sector banks going on a two-day strike yesterday demanding wage revision.
–Agencies
New Delhi, August 08: Priyanka Chopra has got as many as 21,770 followers on social networking site Twitter within a month, overtaking Mallika Sherawat and Gul Panag. And the credit goes to her regular updates.
The 27-year-old actress, who is currently down with fever, catches up with her ‘Tweeps’ (Twitter friends) while in the car, on a shoot or when she is lounging around. The list of her 21,770 followers exceeds those of Mallika Sherawat and Gul Panag, who are equally in love with the site, said a source close to the actress.
Scotland, August 08: A racist who threatened to blow up a mosque and “execute” Muslims walked free from court yesterday.
Neil MacGregor, 36, sent emails to police saying he would murder a Muslim a DAY unless all Scots mosques were shut.
One email, sent from a flat in Glasgow, read: “I’m a proud racist and National Front member. Our demands are very small.
“Close all mosques in Scotland. If our demands aren’t met, we’ll kidnap one Muslim and execute him or her on the internet.”
MacGregor then followed up the email with a call threatening to blow up Glasgow’s Central Mosque.
Pune, August 08: With the arrest of five persons, the Crime Branch of Pune police on Friday claimed to have busted a milk adulteration racket in the city operating from five small rooms in Kondhwa.
Police said the five persons were selling about 5,000 litres of adulterated milk daily for last six months in 15 residential colonies of Kondhwa. Of this, about 700 litres of the milk was supplied to the Corinthian club everyday.
New York, August 08: An ailing Yemeni cleric once sentenced to 75 years in prison in a high-profile U.S. terrorism prosecution quietly won his freedom Friday in a plea deal in federal court.
Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan Al-Moayad and his assistant pleaded guilty to conspiring to support violence by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. In exchange, they were sentenced to time served — more than six years — and will be sent back to Yemen within a few days.
Bethlehem, August 08: Fatah members were set to hold Saturday their first leadership election for 20 years, hoping to breathe new life into the secular Palestinian party weakened by infighting, mismanagement and a trouncing by the Islamist Hamas movement.
Delegates to the party’s congress in the West Bank city of Bethlehem will vote to renew the 21-strong Central Committee and the 120-member Revolutionary Council, Fatah’s governing bodies.
Voting was initially scheduled for Friday but was postponed by a day because of the large number of party members registering as candidates.
Abu Dhabi, August 08: Haj operators will have until November 3 (Zul Haj 15) to submit the list of pilgrims in CDs along with photographs to the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment (GAIAA).
Mohammed Obaid Al Mazrouei, chairman of the Haj mission and executive director of GAIAA, urged the pilgrims to register early as procedures could take up to 15 days.
“A copy of the pilgrim’s passport will be sent to Saudi Arabia to get security clearance,” he said.