Sunday 14 November 2021
Friday 14 October 2011
28 dead in Papua New Guinea plane crash
Twenty-eight people are dead while four have survived a plane crash in the wilds of Papua New Guinea, according to Australian authorities.
The survivors include an Australian pilot and a New Zealand pilot, according to Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The Airlines PNG Dash 8 aircraft crashed yesterday while flying from Lae to Madang on the South Pacific island nation's north coast, Accident Investigation Commission spokesman Sid O'Toole said.
The twin-propellor plane crashed 20 kilometres south of Madang, he said.
Australian consular officials are planning to travel to Madang today.
"Initial indications are that there are no Australians amongst those killed," the department said in a statement.
Local villagers told the government-owned National Broadcasting Commission there were four survivors.
Police and ambulances had reached the crash site and investigators would travel there today, O'Toole said.
Australian Broadcasting Corp television cited Madang residents as saying there was a violent storm in the area at the time of the crash.
Most of the passengers were parents travelling to attend their children's university graduation ceremony in Madang this weekend, according to the Australian Associated Press news agency.
Rajaratnam handed 11-year jail sentence
Raj Rajaratnam (54), the billionaire hedge fund manager convicted in May on 14 counts of securities fraud and conspiracy, was handed a 11-year jail term by a Manhattan court on Thursday, said to be the longest sentence imposed for insider trading in New York in twenty years.
Although the prosecution in the two-year case had pushed for a maximum jail term of over 24 years, the Sri- Lankan born boss of the Galleon Group had pleaded for a lenient sentence arguing that given his health problems a long prison term would amount to a “death sentence.”
Apple’s latest gadget on sale
Apple’s latest gadget the iPhone 4s officially goes on sale in the U.S. and in six other countries on Friday, but stronger than expected demand means that customers who failed to pre-order one of the devices may have difficulty finding any available for purchase.
Apple said it has sold over 1 million units of the iPhone 4S since it went on sale a week ago, just a day after the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs stoked massive attention on the company.
Initial reactions to the phone, which was unveiled two days earlier, had been tinged with disappointment since it represents an upgrade to the existing iPhone 4 rather than a completely newly designed iPhone 5.
Though it looks the same as Apple’s current model, it does feature a sharper screen, faster processor and better camera among other key upgrades.
The new device also runs Apple’s latest operating system iOS5 which was launched on Wednesday together with the company’s online file system iCloud. Demand for those services was so strong that it overwhelmed Apple servers causing many customers to get error messages.
In the U.S. the 16-GB model costs $ 199, the 32-GB model costs $ 299, and the 64-GB model costs $399. The phones are also on sale in France, Germany, Japan, the U.K, Australia and Canada.
Transport strikes hit Greek capital
Buses, metro trains, trams and taxis were not running in the Greek capital on Friday, snarling traffic as public transport workers striked for a second day in an unrelenting barrage of protests against government austerity measures.
Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos criticized the repeated strikes and protests, which have included the take-over of government buildings and risk slowing reforms the country needs to qualify for bailout loans.
Wednesday 12 October 2011
Seven killed in bomb attacks in Baghdad
Iraqi officials say seven people have been killed in a string of attacks targeting security forces in Baghdad.
Two police officials say a suicide attacker blew himself up near a police station in western Baghdad while another targeted a police station in a northern Shiite neighbourhood. Six people were killed in the two bombingsIndians among pirate hostages freed after message in bottle
British and U.S. forces freed an Italian cargo ship hijacked by Somali pirates in a dramatic rescue on Tuesday after retrieving a message in a bottle tossed by hostages from a porthole alerting ships nearby the crew was safely sealed inside an armoured area.All 23 crew members of the Montecristo cargo ship were brought to safety, the Italian Foreign Ministry said. The 11 pirates were taken into custody. The crew, seven Italians, six Ukrainians and 10 Indians, locked themselves inside an armoured area of the vessel when the pirates boarded the ship on Monday, Italian Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa said.
PSLV-C18 puts four satellites in orbit
India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C18) demonstrated its reliability once again when it put successfully four satellites in orbit on Wednesday. The satellites were: Megha-Tropiques, an Indo-French satellite to study the weather and climate in the tropical region of the world; SRMSat built by the students of SRM university, near Chennai; Jugnu, built by the students of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur; and Vesselsat from Luxembourg. This was the 19th consecutively successful mission of the PSLV out of 20 launches from 1993.
It was a flawless a mission with the PSLV-C18 rising from the first launch pad at the spaceport at Sriharikota at the scheduled time of 11 a.m. As the vehicle sped up from the launch pad, it disappeared briefly into the clouds to knife out into the sky again. Applause broke out in the Mission Control Centre as the four stages of the vehicle ignited on time and fell into the Bay of Bengal. At the end of more than 21 minutes of flight, the PSLV-C18 first catapulted the 1,000 kg Megha-Tropiques satellite into a precise orbit at an altitude of 867 km. The satellite was slung into orbit at a velocity of more than 26,000 km an hour. A few seconds later, SRMSat flew out, followed by VesselSat and Jugnu.
Tuesday 11 October 2011
Myanmar grants amnesty to 6,300 prisoners
Myanmar state radio and television announced on Tuesday that the country’s president has granted amnesty to more than 6,300 prisoners in what appears to be the biggest step so far in a series of reform actions undertaken by the new elected government.
The broadcasts said the releases would begin Wednesday a religious holiday but did not specify how many political detainees were among the 6,359 receiving an amnesty from President Thein Sein.
The release of at least some of the country’s estimated 2,000 political prisoners has been hotly anticipated as a crucial step in liberalising measures implemented by the military-backed but elected government that took power in March.
Most prominent political prisoners are held in facilities far from the country’s main city of Yangon, a policy implemented under the previous military regime apparently to limit their ability to communicate through visiting family members and lawyers.
Rajaratnam faces 25-year jail sentence
Raj Rajaratnam (54), the billionaire hedge fund manager convicted in May on 14 counts of securities fraud and conspiracy, this week faces a range of possible jail terms from 19 years and seven months to 24 years and six months as per recommendations of prosecutors in the case against him in New York.
Prior to sentencing, which will occur on October 13, prosecutors pressed for a longer jail term given current federal sentencing guidelines and the “historic nature of his crimes,” from which they alleged Mr. Rajaratnam made in excess of $70 million.
Italian ship with 10 Indians attacked off Somalia
State TV in Italy says pirates have attacked an Italian cargo ship carrying 23 crew members in the waters off Somalia.
The ship’s owner, D’Alessio Group, said five armed men conducted the attack on Monday morning. But to protect the crew, the company said it would not provide any other details.
Therefore, it was not known if the pirates had boarded the ship or taken hostages.
Pirates flourish off largely lawless Somalia by attacking passing ships, taking hostages and demanding ransoms to free them and the vessels.
D’Allesio’s statement said the attack on its Montecristo ship occurred 620 miles off Somalia as the crew seven Italians, six Ukranians and 10 Indians was hauling scrap iron to Vietnam on a journey that began Sept. 20 in Liverpool, England.
Two Americans share Economics Nobel
American economists Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims, both 68 years of age, were awarded the Nobel Prize on Monday for their path-breaking work on developing tools that policymakers are probably using frenetically today in their bid to extricate the economy from the persistent global economic downturn. Recognising the two economists’ “empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that it decided to award the so-called Economics Nobel to Professors Sargent and Sims for their seminal research during the 1970s and 1980s that resulted in “essential tools in macroeconomic analysis.”
Although Professor Sargent, from New York University, and Professor Sims, from Princeton University, carried out their research independently, their contributions were complementary in several ways, the Academy said, in presenting them with the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2011.
Professor Sargent demonstrated how structural macroeconometrics could be used to analyse permanent changes in economic policy – including the complex modelling of reactive changes in the behaviour and expectations of households and firms. He examined, for example, the post-World War II era of high-inflation policies and the eventual introduction of systematic changes in economic policy that allowed a reversion to a lower inflation rate.
Professor Sims on the other hand used the advanced econometric technique of vector autoregression to study the impact of temporary changes in economic policy on the economy.
A common application of this scenario, and one that is likely used across the developed and eveloping world today, is the study of effects of an interest rate hike by a central bank.
A classic case that Professor Sim’s data tools could be applied to include the scenario where inflation decreases over several years as a result of lower money supply, but economic growth declines in the short run due to lower aggregate investment demand and does not revert to its normal development until after a couple of years.
The two economists’ tools are in vogue in mainstream macroeconometric analysis today and would probably resonate strongly with the tools used by the United States Federal Reserve. The Fed is facing an acute shortage of instruments to rev up the economy’s growth rate in the face of an already near-zero interest rate and a stubbornly high rate of unemployment.
Source : THE HINDU
String of blasts in Iraqi capital kills 10
Iraqi officials say a string of explosions targeting security officials has killed at least 10 people in western Baghdad.
A police official says the first explosion was caused by a roadside bomb in a Shiite neighbourhood today evening.
Minutes later, a second bomb exploded nearby, targeting a passing police patrol.
The official says a third blast then struck as fire-fighters arrived on the scene of the first blast.
He says 19 people were wounded. A hospital official confirmed the casualties.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
SFI protest turns violent in Kannur
A protest organised by the Students Federation of India (SFI) in Kannur on Tuesday against the police action on students in Kozhikode on October 10 turned violent. The traffic police station here and vehicles of the Kannur municipality were pelted with stones.
The SFI activists who blocked the highway around noon turned their ire at the traffic police station. The police said that nearly 10 windowpanes of the station were smashed in stone-pelting. The protestors hurled stones at a nearby camp office of the Director-General of Police. Stones were also hurled at nearby camp offices of the Superintendent of Police and the District Collector.
The irate SFI activists smashed the windscreen of a jeep of the municipality that passed through the area. Several street lamps were also damaged, the police said.
Mediapersons also came under attack allegedly from the protesting activists. Cameramen of the Indiavision and the Reporter Channel suffered injuries while capturing the incidents on their cameras.
At Taliparamba, SFI activists damaged a police aid post at the municipal bus stand. The attack followed a protest march taken out by SFI workers in the town. The protesting students reportedly forced educational institutions in the town to close. They reached the bus stand in procession and vandalised the police aid post, the police said.
Facebook releases iPad app
One of the enduring questions of the technology world: “When will iPad users get their very own Facebook app?”
That questioned was answered Monday as Facebook said it was set to release an updated version of its iPhone application, one that’s also designed to fill out the iPad’s larger screen.
The lack of an iPad app for the world’s most popular social network has confounded users ever since Apple launched its tablet computer a year and a half ago. Third—party developers have made money selling their own apps that show Facebook pages.
“We’re releasing it now because it’s done,” Bret Taylor, Facebook’s chief technology officer, said in an interview Monday.
Two weeks ago, Facebook engineer Jeff Verkoeyen announced on his personal blog that he was leaving to take a job with Google and that the iPad app he had worked on was nearly complete in May. It was then “repeatedly delayed through the summer,” he said, without saying why.
Rumours have swirled that Apple and Facebook were in talks about deepening the integration of the social network into the system software of the iPhone and iPad. But Apple’s updated system software, announced this summer, will feature integration with Twitter, another social networking service, rather than Facebook. That will make it easier to “tweet” from other applications besides Twitter’s.
Like the previous Facebook app for the iPhone, the new “universal” iPhone and iPad app is free.
The updated Facebook app deals with one shortcoming of the old iPhone app, which didn’t play well with apps developed for Facebook’s website. They simply weren’t available.
In the new iPhone and iPad app, some applications developed for Facebook will work.
Lunar spectacle on Wednesday
Stargazers will witness the smallest and faintest full moon of this year as the celestial body reaches the farthest position from the earth on Wednesday.
Wednesday’s full moon will appear around 12.5 per cent smaller and its light intensity 20 per cent lesser as compared to a ‘supermoon’ (the biggest full moon).
“The moon will be farthest from the earth tomorrow and, therefore will appear smallest,” Director of Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) C B Devgun said.
“The moon will be 4,06,434 km away from earth, an event known as apogee. In astronomy, the two extremes of an ellipse are called ‘apogee’ (far away) and ‘perigee’ (nearby),” Devgun said.
Popularly known as Hunter moon, the earth’s satellite will be best seen just after moon rise.
The biggest and brightest full moon of the year was a special phenomenon this year as it came closest to the earth in 18 years. The supermoon was around 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter as compared to other full moons.
“Wednesday night we will have the astronomical opposite of the supermoon. The supermoon was 3,56,577 km from earth but tomorrow’s moon will be almost 50,000 km more farther away from us as compared to its closest approach in March,” Devgun said.
Ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh passes away
Ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh was bid a tearful adieu by family, friends and admirers on Tuesday.
The mortal remains of the 70-year-old legend were brought from Leelavati Hospital to his Pedder Road residence in South Mumbai, where people paid their last respects.
The funeral took place at the Chandanwadi electric crematorium in Marine Lines. The last rites were conducted by Singh’s brother Kartar Singh Dhiman in the presence of his grandsons —— Armaan and Umer Chowdhary.
Lyricist-composer Gulzar, Javed Akthar, actor-politician Raj Babbar, singer Roopkumar Rathod, Sonu Nigam, filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar were prominent among those who attended the funeral.
A Padma Bhushan recipient, Singh was admitted to the hospital on September 23 and was in the ICU since then. His condition had deteriorated in the last few days and he was on life support. The veteran singer breathed his last on Monday at 8.10 am.
Thursday 15 September 2011
Strong earthquake hits northeast Japan, no tsunami
A strong earthquake registering magnitude 6.2 has struck off Japan’s northeastern coast, but there was is risk of a tsunami. There were no immediate report of injuries or damage from the temblor.
Japan’s Meteorological Agency says Thursday’s quake was centered off the coast of Ibaraki, about 140 miles (220 kilometers) east of Tokyo. It had a depth of 6 miles (10 kilometers).
The agency says there is no danger of a tsunami from the quake.
Nearly 20,000 people died or were left missing across Japan’s northeastern coast after a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11. The disaster damaged a nuclear power plant, forcing another 100,000 people to leave their homes because of a radiation threat.
UBS ‘rogue trader’ arrested in London
Police in London’s financial district have arrested a 31-year-old man in connection with a massive loss reported by Swiss bank UBS.
City of London police said the man was arrested at 3.30 a.m. on Thursday on suspicion of fraud by abuse of position. His name was not released.
UBS said earlier Thursday that a rogue trader caused it an estimated loss of $2 billion, and warned that it could report a loss for the entire third quarter as a result.
UBS said it discovered that unauthorised trading by one of its staff has caused an estimated loss of $2 billion, and warned it could result in a loss for the entire third quarter
Rupee gains 9 paise against dollar
Overcoming its initial weakness, the rupee on Thursday broke its eight-session-long losing streak closing higher by 9 paise at 47.55/56 against the U.S. currency following firm equity markets and a weak dollar overseas.
Fresh dollar selling by exporters and some banks as well as slowdown in capital outflows too supported the rupee rise.
In an active trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, the domestic unit opened a tad lower at 47.65/66 per dollar from previous close of 47.64/65.
It touched a low of 47.95 in late morning trade following some weakness in local stocks after opening firm.
Later, the rupee bounced back in line with smart rebound in equities and concluded at 47.55/56.
In last eight sessions, the rupee had lost 185 paise or 4.04 per cent.
“Yesterday RBI had intervened into the market thus appreciating the rupee from its opening. The same scenario is seen today and possibility of RBI’s intrusion at near 48-mark cannot be ruled out completely,” India Forex Advisors CEO Abhishek Goenka said
Petrol price hiked by Rs. 3.14 a litre
State-owned oil companies on Thursday hiked petrol price by Rs. 3.14 per litre as a fall in rupee increased the cost of importing the raw material (crude oil).
Petrol price in Delhi will be hiked by Rs. 3.14 a litre to Rs. 66.84 per litre with effect from Thursday midnight , a top official at a state-run fuel retailer said.
The current price of Rs. 63.70 per litre corresponds to crude oil price of about $103 per barrel. But crude today is at $110-111 per barrel. This difference coupled with rupee declining to two-year low of 48 to the U.S. dollar necessitated an increase in retail price, he said.
This is the second hike in four months. Oil companies had last hiked petrol price by Rs. 5 per litre on May 15.
Wednesday 14 September 2011
New York flight diverted after ‘suspicious’ behaviour of three
A flight from New York to Phoenix was diverted to Missouri on Wednesday after three passengers on board behaved in a “suspicious” manner.
The three passengers were taken off the U.S. Airways flight after it landed in St Louis, Missouri where the police took them in, the Transportation Security Administration said.
“U.S. Airways Flight 457 from John F Kennedy International Airport to Phoenix Sky Harbour International Airport diverted to Lambert - St Louis International Airport at the request of the flight crew, due to suspicious behaviour exhibited by three passengers,” the TSA said in a statement.
The plane was swept and cleared for flight, it added.
The incident comes a couple of days after F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to escort two U.S. flights after their crew were unnerved by two of its passengers spending a long time in the plane’s lavatory on September 11.
The planes landed without incident in Detroit and New York and the six passengers who exhibited “suspicious behaviour” were released without charge after being questioned.
Kabul attack over, assailants killed
The Afghanistan government says the two-day insurgent assault in the heart of Kabul has ended and all the attackers have been killed.
The Interior Ministry says the area around the building where attackers had been holed up is now safe.
The head of the police unit overseeing the operation says that the last six attackers were killed inside the building at a major traffic circle in the Afghan capital.
Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada says there are no remaining insurgents alive in the structure.
He says Afghan security forces are now on the roof of the building after a slow clearing operation that lasted into early morning on Wednesday.
Intel plans smartphone foray with Google
With an aim to expand its presence in the computing world, technology giant Intel on Wednesday announced that it has partnered with Google for accelerating its foray into the smartphone market by the first half of 2012.
It has also promised to bring power-efficient and affordable ‘Ultrabooks’, a sleeker and lighter version of laptops, to the market this holiday season.
Announcing a new partnership with Google for accelerating its smartphone business foray, Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini said he was hopeful of Intel’s technology-based smartphones being launched in the market by the first half of 2012.
One in six Americans living below poverty line: Census
One in six Americans are now living below poverty line, the Census Bureau said in a report, reflecting the adverse impact of economic crisis on common man.
“The nation’s official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 per cent, up from 14.3 per cent in 2009 — the third consecutive annual increase in the poverty rate,” Census Bureau said in its report.
“There were 46.2 million people in poverty in 2010, up from 43.6 million in 2009 — the fourth consecutive annual increase and the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published,” it said.
These findings are contained in the report ‘Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010.’
The government defines the poverty line as income of $22,314 (about Rs. 10 lakh) a year for a family of four and USD 11,139 (about Rs. 5 lakh) for individual
Car bomb kills 13 outside Iraqi restaurant
A car bombing on Wednesday morning killed 13 people and wounded scores of others in southern Iraq as the blast went off outside a restaurant where local police were having breakfast, officials said.
It was not immediately clear how many police were among the dead.
The blast, shortly before 8 a.m., also wounded 41 people, said Dr. Zuhair al-Khafaji of the Hillah hospital, where the wounded and dead were taken. The explosion happened just south of Hillah, in the town of al-Shumali, about 90 kilometres south of Baghdad.
A police official at the scene put the death toll at 11 and confirmed 41 were wounded. Meanwhile, a roadside bomb targeting a security patrol in western Iraq killed two soldiers and wounded nine others, two officials said. That blast took place near the town of Habbaniyah, 80 kilometres west of Baghdad.
Train collision: Chitheri wakes up to tragedy
Nine persons were killed and 100 others injured when a speeding passenger train rammed into a stationary train here, leading to derailment of five coaches.
The Chennai Beach-Vellore Cantonment Mainline Electrical Multiple Unit (MEMU) train rammed into the Arakkonam-Katpadi passenger from behind as it was waiting for a signal at Chitheri station, about 90 km from Chennai, around 9:40 p.m. on Tuesday night, police and railway officials said.
Tuesday 13 September 2011
Wayward penguin Happy Feet missing in action
The wayward penguin known as “Happy Feet” has gone missing in the ocean south of New Zealand. There’s a slight chance scientists tracking the bird may hear from him again — if he’s still alive — but it could take years.
The emperor penguin’s satellite transmitter went silent on Friday, just five days after experts released the aquatic bird into the Southern Ocean about a quarter of the way down to Antarctica.
NATO airstrikes pound pro-Qadhafi targets
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) warplanes have pounded targets in a number of key strongholds of support for fugitive dictator Muammar Qadhafi.
The alliance said on Tuesday that airstrikes struck one radar system, eight surface-to-air missile systems, five surface-to-air missile trailers, one armed vehicle and two command vehicles a day earlier near Qadhafi’s hometown of Sirte.
The NATO also said it struck six tanks and two armoured fighting vehicles in Sabha in the southern desert.
Those two cities, along with Bani Walid, are the primary bastions of Qadhafi loyalists remaining in the country more than three weeks after revolutionary forces captured Tripoli.
Libyan fighters launched an assault on Friday on Bani Walid, but the offensive has stalled in the face of fierce resistance.
NATO airstrikes pound pro-Qadhafi targets
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) warplanes have pounded targets in a number of key strongholds of support for fugitive dictator Muammar Qadhafi.
The alliance said on Tuesday that airstrikes struck one radar system, eight surface-to-air missile systems, five surface-to-air missile trailers, one armed vehicle and two command vehicles a day earlier near Qadhafi’s hometown of Sirte.
The NATO also said it struck six tanks and two armoured fighting vehicles in Sabha in the southern desert.
Those two cities, along with Bani Walid, are the primary bastions of Qadhafi loyalists remaining in the country more than three weeks after revolutionary forces captured Tripoli.
Libyan fighters launched an assault on Friday on Bani Walid, but the offensive has stalled in the face of fierce resistance.
Taliban attack U.S. embassy, NATO in Kabul
Explosions and gunshots were heard in the centre of the Afghan capital on Tuesday, a police official said.
“A series of explosions have been heard followed by gunshots. We are looking into the incident,” Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai said.
The explosions and shots were heard near the US embassy and headquarters of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
“Our comrades have attacked several government, diplomatic, intelligence and US embassy buildings in Kabul,” Zabiullah Mujahid said by phone from an undisclosed location.
“They are using different types of weapons, including suicide vests, machine guns, a new weapon called “82” which is shot like an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade).” Witnesses said the attackers had taken over a 13-storey building under construction in the Abdul Haq Square, next to ISAF and the embassy.
Dhoni gets Spirit of Cricket Award, Tendulkar misses out
Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the Spirit of Cricket Award while iconic batsman Sachin Tendulkar missed out the Cricketer of the Year honour at a glittering ICC Awards function on Monday night.
Dhoni was chosen for the ICC Spirit of Cricket Award for his fine gesture of recalling Ian Bell after the England batsman was run out under controversial circumstances during the second Test at Trent Bridge in July.
Tendulkar, who was named Cricketer of the Year in 2010 when the awards function was held in Bangalore, missed out this time.
England’s Jonathan Trott won the top award after beating competition from his national team-mate Alastair Cook and South Africa’s Hashim Amla, besides that of Tendulkar.
India’s opening batsman Gautam Gambhir also missed out the ODI Player of the Year Award which was won by Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara.
Acute coal shortage looms large on power sector
At a time when the Power Ministry is struggling to achieve revised capacity addition target for the XI Plan, a report has warned that continued coal shortages and environment hurdles could lead to ‘major default' in loans by private power producers to the tune of Rs.1.35-lakh crore.
According to a report prepared by Britain-based International Energy Consultancy, Mercados Energy Markets India for Association of Power Producers (APP), the banking sector has an exposure of about Rs.2,92,342 crore to the power sector. The APP includes big time companies such as Reliance Power, Tata Power, Essar Power and Adani Power.
Monday 12 September 2011
U.S. fighter jets escort two flights after alerts
U.S. Air Force fighters were scrambled and escorted two civilian flights one to New York and other bound for Detroit after passengers spent “an extraordinary time in the bathroom”, mirroring the heightened precautions in force following a terror alert.
Two F-16 fighters escorted and shadowed the flights until they landed safely at New York’s Kennedy Airport and Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport after the crew of the two flights sounded an alarm, reporting suspicious activity on board, CNN reported.
Three passengers were taken off in handcuffs from the Frontier Airline’s flight from Denver as it landed in Detroit, but no charges were filed, the channel reported quoting airport spokesman Scott Winter.
Death toll in Syria unrest at least 2,600: U.N.
The United Nations’ top human rights official says the death toll from six months of unrest in Syria has reached at least 2,600.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says the figure is based on “reliable sources on the ground.”
Ms. Pillay spoke on Monday at the opening of a three-week meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The council last month held an urgent meeting on Syria at which it voted overwhelmingly to demand that Syria end its bloody crackdown against anti-government protesters.
TN Govt’s laptop scheme to be implemented this week
The ambitious free laptop scheme of the Tamil Nadu government, under which 68 lakh laptops are to be distributed to government-aided higher secondary school and college students, is all set to roll this week.
Under the scheme, a poll promise of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa that will be launched on September 15, the government will distribute 9.12 lakh laptops this year and the balance in the next four years
NASA launches twin satellites bound for moon
The Grail spacecraft launch at 9.08 am aboard a Delta II rocket from an Air Force base adjacent to NASA’s facilities at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The blastoff had been postponed twice due to bad weather on Thursday and Friday.
The two small Grail spacecraft - which are about the size of washing machines - will fly in formation above the moon’s surface to map its gravity.
Palaeontologists aim to resolve riddle of dinosaur playground
The find in Germany of the tracks of the 1.4-metre-tall dinosaur from the Troodontidae family is the first of its kind in Europe. A highly realistic model of the dinosaur will soon be on show in the museum in Hanover, the capital of the state of Lower Saxony, where they were found some four years ago.
Torsten van der Lubbe has grown particularly fond of the birdlike creature. When weather allows he is on his knees in the sandstone quarries of Obernkirchen looking for tracks, which he then photographs using a special procedure that creates three-dimensional models
Paramakudi police firing: toll rises to seven
With two more persons succumbing to injuries at a hospital, the death toll in the police firing on a stone-pelting mob of Dalits, who indulged in violence following detention of their leader John Pandian, has risen to seven, police said on Monday.Two persons identified as Teerpukani and Vellaichamy succumbed to injuries late on Sunday night.
Officials have suspended bus services to the rural areas in the sensitive districts, including Ramanathapuram, Madurai, Sivaganga and Virudhunagar as a precautionary step.
Jayalalithaa directed to appear before Karnataka court on October 20
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa was on Monday asked by the Supreme Court to appear personally on October 20 before a Karnataka trial court, adjudicating a disproportionate assets case against her.
A bench of justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma, however, left it to the trial court judge to decide on her plea for being examined at a separate building, other than the regular court, in view of security considerations.
Saturday 10 September 2011
U.S. launches massive manhunt for three terror suspects
U.S. intelligence agencies and security forces are currently on a massive manhunt for three men believed to be planning massive terror attacks in America to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
The manhunt was launched following “credible and specific” information that the trio would be carrying out terrorist attacks with explosive laden vehicles in cities like New York and Washington, which has forces authorities to elevate the threat level nationwide.
U.S. intelligence agencies and security forces are currently on a massive manhunt for three men believed to be planning massive terror attacks in America to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
The manhunt was launched following “credible and specific” information that the trio would be carrying out terrorist attacks with explosive laden vehicles in cities like New York and Washington, which has forces authorities to elevate the threat level nationwide
Actor Kanthimathi dead
Actor Kanthimathi, an artist known for her powerful performances in Tamil films, passed away here on Friday after a prolonged illness. She was 65.
Wednesday 7 September 2011
Tyres burst as plane lands in Goa
One hundred and eight passengers and seven crew members on board an Air India flight from Kuwait had a miraculous escape when both nose wheel tyres burst as the aircraft landed at the Dabolim Naval airport in south Goa on Tuesday morning.
Sources at the airport said the incident happened at 7.53 a.m. when the Airbus 320 headed for the end point of the runway after landing. The pilot diverted the aircraft to a nearby taxiway. No passenger on board flight AI 937 was hurt, nor did the aircraft suffer any damage
Texas fires kill 4, destroy more than 1,000 homes
One of the most devastating wildfire outbreaks in Texas history left more than 1,000 homes in ruins Tuesday and stretched the state’s firefighting ranks to the limit, confronting Gov. Rick Perry with a major disaster at home just as the Republican presidential contest heats up.
More than 180 fires have erupted in the past week across the rain—starved Lone Star State, and nearly 600 of the homes destroyed since then were lost in one catastrophic blaze in and around Bastrop, near Austin, that raged out of control Tuesday for a third day.
China will help further mankind's welfare: White paper
China's peaceful development will manifest its global impact over time, says the white paper on China's development issued on Tuesday by the Information Office of the State Council.
The path of peaceful development is a new path of development which China, the biggest developing country in the world has embarked upon. Its success calls for both the untiring efforts of the Chinese people and understanding and support from the international community, “China' s peaceful development has broken away from the traditional pattern where a rising power was bound to seek hegemony,” says the white paper.
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Twin suicide bombing in Pakistan kills 19 people
A pair of suicide bombers attacked the house of a top military officer in the southwestern city of Quetta on Wednesday, killing his wife and 18 other people, at least eight of them soldiers, authorities said.
Police said they were investigating whether the strike was revenge for the recent arrests of three top al-Qaida suspects in the city, an operation that was assisted by the CIA.
Nine killed, 50 injured in blast outside Delhi High Court
Terror struck Delhi when a powerful bomb blast ripped through a crowded reception area at the entrance to the High Court this morning killing nine people and injuring atleast 50.
The explosive device was suspected to kept in a briefcase outside the High Court compound between Gate No. 4 and 5 and went off at around 10.15 a.m. when 100 to 200 litigants were waiting to get passes to enter the premises.
Tuesday 6 September 2011
Syrian city under siege as U.N. urges action
Syrian soldiers opened fire in the restive city of Homs on Tuesday and armoured vehicles rolled through its streets, activists said, as the United Nations Secretary-General urged the world community to take action on Syria.
Ban Ki-moon delivered some of his strongest statements yet condemning the violence, saying President Bashar Assad must take “bold and decisive measures before it’s too late.”
“It’s already too late, in fact,” Mr. Ban said in New Zealand, where he was attending a meeting of Pacific leaders. “If it takes more and more days, then more people will be killed.”
The U.N. says 2,200 people have been killed since the Syrian uprising began in March, inspired by the revolutions sweeping the Arab world. But nearly six months later, the unrest in Syria has descended into a bloody stalemate with neither side willing to back down.
Strong quake rattles west Indonesia, one killed
A powerful earthquake jolted western Indonesia early Tuesday, killing a boy and sending panicked residents fleeing from homes, hotels and even a hospital. The magnitude-6.6 quake hit about 1 a.m. (1800 GMT Monday), waking people in towns and villages across Sumatra island’s northern tip. It was centered 100 kilometres southwest of the city of Medan and 110 kilometres beneath the earth’s crust, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was too far inland to generate a tsunami.
Manmohan Singh arrives in Dhaka
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday arrived here on a two-day visit aimed at further strengthening India’s relations with Bangladesh. Dr. Singh, his wife Gursharan Kaur and a high-level delegation were accorded red-carpet welcome when their special aircraft landed at the Shahjalal International Airport.
Cash-for-vote scam: Amar Singh, two ex-BJP MPs sent to jail
Monday 5 September 2011
Sreeramulu resigns
Sulking over the denial of a Cabinet berth, B. Sreeramulu, a former Minister and close aide of the Reddy brothers, announced his resignation from the Karnataka Assembly on Sunday
Bomb hoax call delays flight
A Bahrain-bound Jet Airways flight from here was delayed by over two hours on Sunday following a bomb threat call received by the airlines' call centre.
Jet Airways flight 9W 592, which was to take off at 7-20 pm, was rescheduled after completion of all the necessary security checks, the company said in a statement here
Illegal gun factory unearthed
Police have unearthed an illegal mini-gun factory and seized weapons from near the Koda ground area here.
Acting on a tip-off, police raided the house of Md Islam Andhera and unearthed the illegal gun factory on Saturday night, police said.
One pistol and 90 semi-processed pistols were seized after the raid.
The owner of the factory has fled
Elephant kills 3 in tea estate
Three persons were killed by an elephant in Itakhuli Basti of the Monabari Tea Estate in Sonitpur district of Assam on Sunday, official sources said.
It is the second such incident in the tea estate in the last two months.
The elephant was separated from a herd that came down from Arunachal Pradesh.
The animal brought down the tin-roof of a house and trampled to death its owner Rajkumar Bag and his neighbours Lakhinder Keot and his wife Bela Keot.
A similar incident took place in July last in the tea estate, claiming the lives of five people
Arrested Janardhana Reddy brought to Hyderabad
Mumbai airport runway reopens after four days
After remaining shut for four days, the main runway of the Mumbai airport was on Monday reopened after a team of engineers towed away a Turkish Airways’ Airbus 340 aircraft, which got stuck in the mud when it skidded off the tarmac, airport officials said.“The Turkish Airways’ plane TK-740 was towed away at 1:17 am,” the airport spokesperson told PTI, adding that the runway has been “handed over” to ATC at 6:51 am for operation.
McDonald’s begins showing calories on menus in U.K.
About 1,200 McDonald’s restaurants in the U.K. will this week begin displaying the calorie count of each food and drink item on their wall-mounted menu boards, as part of a government-led program to fight obesity and promote healthier eating, the chain said Sunday.McDonald’s already puts calorie information on its Web site and the back of its tray liners, but this is the first time the figures will be displayed prominently in its restaurants outside the U.S.
Airstrike in Yemen kills seven
Witnesses say a Yemeni warplane has bombed a mosque in a southern town overrun by militants, killing seven people. Fighters with suspected links to Yemen’s al-Qaeda offshoot took over Jaar in April and another nearby town a month later. The militants have taken advantage of the turmoil that grew out of massive anti-government demonstrations this year to expand their reach.
Typhoon Talas brings more misery to Japan
2G scam: Supreme Court to go through TRAI report
The Supreme Court on Monday said that it would like to go through the TRAI report which said that there was no loss to public exchequer in the allotment to 2G spectrum during the tenure of former Telecom Minister A Raja.
A bench of justices G S Singhvi and H L Dattu made a query in this regard with the CBI which said it was an inter-departmental communication and would place that report before it in a sealed envelope.
Tendulkar out for four weeks, to miss ODI series
The absence of batsman Sachin Tendulkar from the ODI series will come as a huge blow for the struggling Indian team. Sunday 4 September 2011
Bolt leads Jamaica to 4x100 world record
Jamaica's Usain Bolt throws the baton into the air as he celebrates winning the Men's 4x100 Relay final and setting a world record at the World Athletics Championships in Daegu, South Korea on Sunday.
In one whirlwind week, Usain Bolt turned the biggest disappointment of his career into another golden show capped with a world record that even he long believed was not within him this year.
Friday 2 September 2011
Artist Jehangir Sabavala passes away
Monday 29 August 2011
AGNI-2 LIKELY TO BE TESTED TODAY
The nuclear-tipped Agni-2 in intermediate range ballistic missile, with a range of 2,000 km, is likely to be test-fired as a part of the user trial by the Army.
IRENE LEAVES U.S.
Irene leaves having cut a path of destruction that stretched from the outer banks of north carolina to the eastern tip of long island in 24hr period that killed at least nine people.
Tony Tan is Singapore's President
The ruling party's de-facto candidate in Singapore's presidential election scraped to victory after a democratic recount on Sunday.Tony Tan was elected with 7,269 votes out of 2.1 million ballots castBHATTARAI NEW NEPAL PRIME MINISTER
Nepal's legislature-parliament on sunday elected Baburam bhattarai,vice chairman of the unified communist party of nepal[maoist],new prime minister.
Sunday 28 August 2011
IRENE HITS U.S. COAST
A horrifing irene struck U.S. coast last day. More than 2 million people were told to flee and the New York city transit system was shuting down for the first time because of the natural disaster.
ANNA HAZARE CALL OFF HIS 12 DAY OLD FAST.
Hazare agreed to break his fast after parliament Saturday broadly agreed to three key demands of his civil society group to battle corruption.The nation, particularly the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, heaved a collective sigh of relief at the resolution of a major national cris as the 74-year-old activist ended his fast at around 10.20 a.m. He began his fast Aug 16 morning and completed 288 hours of fasting Sunday
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