Tuesday, 29 October 2013
US spying prompts reversal by anti-terror lawmaker
James Sensenbrenner says he was appalled to come to know that the act was being misused.
WASHINGTON (AP) A senior Republican lawmaker who was the chief congressional architect of the anti-terror 2001 USA Patriot Act now wants to scale back some f the counterterror laws he once championed, citing an overreach by the National Security Agency that has proven him wrong.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner says he was "appalled and angry" to learn this year that the NSA was sweeping up millions of Americans phone records each day. He says that goes far beyond the intent of the 2001 USA Patriot Act, which was enacted weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Both at home and abroad, anger over the surveillance programs that NSA leaker Edward Snowden revealed in June has given rise to a new round of plans to limit U.S. snooping.
But the government is sharply divided over how to assure Americans and the world at large that their private lives are not being invaded while still protecting against terrorist attacks.
It s likely that lawmakers who oversee competing interests of justice and intelligence issues will end up with a compromise that limits some domestic surveillance.
Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, planned to offer as early as Tuesday legislation to overhaul the NSA that mirrors a bill by Democrats on House and Senate judiciary committees and is gaining support from the extreme wings of both parties.
Meanwhile, top U.S. intelligence officials were expected to defend the surveillance programs Tuesday in front of a House Intelligence panel that is considering far more modest changes.
"We have to make a balance between security and civil liberties," Sensenbrenner said in an interview last week. "And the reason the intelligence community has gotten itself into such trouble is they apparently do not see why civil liberties have got to be protected."
That s a turnabout of sorts for Sensenbrenner, who once accused privacy advocates of "exaggeration and hyperbole" for raising alarms of government spying when the Patriot Act was re-authorized in 2006.
"He was really convinced, I think unfortunately at this point, that the intelligence community was not going to misuse this authority," said Caroline Fredrickson, president of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, who during the 2006 debate was Washington director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "And I think perhaps some of his temper now can be explained by the fact that they really proved him wrong."
Two NSA programs that aim to intercept terrorist messages are at the heart of the push for an overhaul of U.S. surveillance, which has revealed a split between two congressional committees that oversee either judiciary issues or the intelligence community.
The first program collects telephone records and the other sweeps up Internet traffic and email by the millions, if not the billions. Both target only foreign suspects outside the United States and are not supposed to look at the content of conversations or messages by American citizens.
But both programs have raised sharp concerns about whether the U.S. is improperly or even illegally snooping on people at home and abroad.
Last month, documents released as part of a civil liberties lawsuit showed that NSA analysts for nearly three years accessed data on thousands of U.S. phone numbers they shouldn t have, and then misrepresented their actions to a secret spy court to reauthorize the government s surveillance program. Separately, the NSA s inspector general reported 12 cases in which officers and analysts with access to the spying systems intentionally abused them, usually to monitor their lovers phone calls.
It s unclear whether the telephone surveillance program has detected many, if any, terror threats. In Senate testimony earlier this month, the NSA director, Gen. Keith Alexander, said the phone surveillance has stopped only one or two cases of terror activity out of about a dozen threats directed at the U.S.
With such limited evidence showing why the telephone surveillance is important, congressional aides in both the House and Senate predict that lawmakers ultimately will eliminate it but continue sweeping up Internet traffic and email. That could be a politically attractive compromise for both Congress and the Obama administration as each seeks to soothe outrage over the phone spying both at home and abroad.
But it also would leave in place a powerful anti-terror tool that critics say could be even more intrusive than the telephone program. And congressional intelligence officials are almost certain to fight most limits to telephone data-gathering.
"Our intelligence services are designed to collect information that allow the United States to protect itself in all cases," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers told CNN on Sunday.
Last week, European allies expressed outrage over the latest revelations from Snowden that the NSA was eavesdropping on the cellphones of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and up to 34 other world leaders. The news about friendly spying has threatened trade talks and other European-U.S. cooperation.
On Monday, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said she was unaware of the scope of the surveillance of allies and called for a thorough intelligence review.
Late Monday, a senior administration official said the Obama administration is considering ending spying on allied head of states. The official said that a final decision had not been made and an internal review was still under way.
The Obama administration is waiting to see what Congress does before it offers its own overhaul plans, although it is reviewing U.S. intelligence programs in the wake of the NSA controversy. White House spokesman Jay Carney on Monday said President Barack Obama also was open to revamping the telephone records sweep and "that there are steps that can be taken to give the American people confidence that there are additional safeguards against abuse of these programs."
The overhaul bill that Sensenbrenner is now pushing would improve oversight of the surveillance, in part by allowing a privacy watchdog to appeal orders to spy by a secret court, and also require the Justice Department to report more details about what the programs are doing.
But, most significantly, the legislation would end the bulk collection of millions of telephone records and force the government to only seek those of foreigners who are targets of terrorist investigations.
"This is the difference between using a rifle shot to get the phone records of somebody that we have great suspicion is involved in terrorist activity rather than using a blunderbuss to grab the whole haystack and to try to find the needle in it," Sensenbrenner said.
Sensenbrenner said the government only broadened its surveillance after the Patriot Act was re-authorized in 2006, months before he stepped down as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He said he was unaware of the changes because he skipped classified intelligence briefings to lawmakers that he said would have barred him from discussing them.
Monday, 28 October 2013
Researchers Draw Romantic Insights From Maps of Facebook Networks
It’s not in the stars after all. Instead, it seems, the shape of a person’s social network is a powerful signal that can identify one’s spouse or romantic partner — and even if a relationship is likely to break up.
So says a new research paper written by Jon Kleinberg, a computer scientist at Cornell University, and Lars Backstrom, a senior engineer at Facebook. The paper, posted online on Sunday, will be presented at a conference on social computing in February.
The pair used a hefty data set from Facebook as their lab: 1.3 million Facebook users, selected randomly from among all users who are at least 20 years old, with from 50 to 2,000 friends, who list a spouse or relationship partner in their profile. That makes for a lot of social connections to analyze, roughly 379 million nodes and 8.6 billion links. The data was used anonymously.
Their key finding was that the total number of mutual friends two people share — embeddedness, in social networking terms — is actually a fairly weak indicator of romantic relationships. Far better, they found, was a network measure that they call dispersion.
This yardstick measures mutual friends, but also friends from the further-flung reaches of a person’s network neighborhood. High dispersion occurs when a couple’s mutual friends are not well connected to one another.
In the graphic of one person’s network neighborhood (above), the cluster at the top is the individual’s co-workers. The cluster at the right is old college friends. The node (friend) in the lower left quadrant of the graphic, with links to the two dense clusters — but at a distance from those clusters — is the user’s spouse.
“A spouse or romantic partner is a bridge between a person’s different social worlds,” Mr. Kleinberg explained in an interview on Sunday.
Their dispersion algorithm was able to correctly identify a user’s spouse 60 percent of the time, or better than a 1-in-2 chance. Since everyone in the sample had at least 50 friends, merely guessing would have at best produced a 1 in 50 chance. The algorithm also did pretty well with people who declare themselves to be “in a relationship,” correctly identifying them a third of the time — a 1 in 3 chance compared with the 1 in 50 for guesswork.
Particularly intriguing is that when the algorithm fails, it looks as if the relationship is in trouble. A couple in a declared relationship and without a high dispersion on the site are 50 percent more likely to break up over the next two months than a couple with a high dispersion, the researchers found. (Their research tracked the users every two months for two years.)
For Facebook, the research is part of its automated efforts to look more closely at the relationships among its users to tailor content and ads. Mr. Backstrom is the engineering manager in charge of Facebook’s News Feed, which delivers content from a user’s friends.
The more Facebook knows about a user’s relationships, the more appropriately tailored the News Feed can be. Do you want to see pictures of a child’s swimming lesson yesterday? Probably yes, if it’s from a family member or close co-worker, but probably not from someone on the fringes of your network of 2,000 “friends.”
So much of social-network analysis confirms what we already know. Relationships that last are ones in which the other person widens our world? Well, yes. Still, it’s kind of nice to have it confirmed with lots of data and algorithms. “We hadn’t had this view of it before,” Mr. Kleinberg observed.
France: Baby girl living in car boot
Car mechanic discovered of a dehydrated baby girl forced to live in a car boot since birth.
TERRASSON (AFP) - France was in shock Monday after the discovery of an underfed and dehydrated baby girl who had been forced to live in a car boot, apparently since birth.
The little girl, aged between 15 and 23 months, was found by mechanics on Friday when her mother brought the car to a garage in Terrasson, in central France.
Police said one of the mechanics heard "bizarre noises, like moans" coming from the car boot and opened it to discover the girl, who was naked, lying in her own excrement, dehydrated and feverish.
The girl was taken to hospital where doctors said she was suffering from delayed growth and mental problems.
The girl "was hidden, it seems since birth, and more seriously, she is suffering from significant (developmental) delays," local prosecutor Jean-Pierre Laffite told AFP. The situation "defies belief," he said.
The girl s mother, 45, and her 40-year-old partner were arrested and charged on Sunday with child abuse and endangering a minor. The two are facing up to 10 years in prison.
The mother told police that she had given birth in secret and hidden the baby s existence from everyone, including her partner, the girl s father.
The couple had three other children -- a four-year-old girl and two boys aged nine and 10 -- who were handed over to social services following their parents arrest.
The couple were both of Portuguese origin and both unemployed.
The mechanic who found the girl, Guillaume Iguacel, told AFP on Monday that he was still reeling from the discovery.
"I m still having trouble sleeping, it was a horrifying sight, seeing this little girl in her own excrement, not able to hold up her head, white as a sheet," he said.
Iguacel said the girl s mother appeared to have little concern for her daughter.
"We were deeply shocked because she didn t find this abnormal. We told her to remove the little girl (from the boot) and give her something to drink right away," he said.
Chris Brown, companion threw punches: US police
Washington police say singer Chris Brown punched a man who tried to take a picture with him.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Brown, who is due in court Monday afternoon on a felony assault charge, was arrested Sunday outside the W Hotel.
A police report says a man attempted to get into a picture with Brown and two other people. Police say Brown told the man "I feel like boxing."
The man told police Brown punched him in the face. Police say another man stepped between them and also punched the man, identified as 20-year-old Isaac Parker of Maryland. Parker was released Sunday from a hospital.
Neither Brown s publicists nor his attorney have responded to messages seeking comment.
Austrian police seek grass thief
Seeks witnesses to an unusual theft of huge amounts of grass, mowed from a farmer's field.
VIENNA (AP) - Austrian police are seeking witnesses to an unusual theft of huge amounts of grass, mowed secretly from a farmer s field.
A police statement says the theft occurred around Liebenfels, a village about 200 kilometers (120 miles) southwest of Vienna. It says a farmer reported his field mowed and the grass gone on Monday.
Police say the grass went missing sometime in the last three weeks but the farmer noticed it only Monday because the field is at some distance from the rest of his property.
They say the owner estimates its worth at around 3,000 euros (more than $4,000) as fodder
Syrian civil war a stain on world's conscience
European Commission says pain and suffering of Syrian people is beyond what we can tolerate.
GENEVA (AFP) - The suffering of millions of Syrians caught up in their homeland s civil war is a "stain" on the world s conscience, European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso said Monday.
"The pain and suffering of the Syrian people is beyond what we can tolerate. It is a stain on the world s conscience," Barroso told reporters after talks with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
His comments came as the European Commission said it would provide 85 million euros ($120 million) in humanitarian aid for people affected by Syria s civil war.
The funds are part of a 400-million-euro pledge from Europe following a United Nations appeal made in June, which has proved difficult to finance amid problems with a budget over-run for the 28-nation bloc.
Some 6.8 million Syrians, around a third of the pre-war population, now rely on humanitarian aid. Close to half are children. "This is unacceptable," said Barroso.
More than 115,000 people are estimated to have been killed since the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad broke out in March 2011, and over two million have fled abroad.
Most refugees are in neighbouring Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan -- who Barroso praised for their assistance -- where there are rising concerns about tensions with overburdened local communities.
"Humanitarian crises have no borders. That s why we need to pay special attention to preventing the spread of conflict, and reduce tensions between host communities and refugees. That s also a reason why we need a political solution," said Barroso.
The UN has asked rich countries to provide a haven for some 12,000 of the most vulnerable refugees, and some have begun doing so.
Beyond those, around 21,000 Syrians have claimed asylum in Europe so far this year, up from 24,000 in 2012, according to UN figures.
European governments say aid efforts must focus on Syria s immediate region and have spent two billion euros ($2.7 billion) on crisis operations.
UN investigators have accused both sides in Syria of breaking the laws of war and hampering aid, and Barroso echoed those concerns.
"Attacks against civilians, including humanitarian workers, are unacceptable," he said.
The risks were made starkly clear by the October 13 kidnapping of six Red Cross staff and a Syrian Red Crescent employee, allegedly by an Al-Qaeda linked group.
Three ICRC staff and the Red Crescent volunteer were released a day later, but three are still in captivity.
"We re still hoping for, and working towards, as early as possible a release," ICRC head Peter Maurer told reporters Monday.
‘Dawood Ibrahim visited Indian dressing room in Sharjah’
Kapil, Vengsarkar say Dawood offered a Toyota car each to Indian players if they win series.
ISLAMABAD (Online) - Two former Indian captains have admitted that underworld don Dawood Ibrahim visited the Indian dressing room in 1987 in Sharjah.
After the results were declared most team members were not in tears, but that man was!" he wrote.
ISLAMABAD (Online) - Two former Indian captains have admitted that underworld don Dawood Ibrahim visited the Indian dressing room in 1987 in Sharjah.
While, 1983 World Cup winning skipper Kapil Dev said a Dubai-based businessman entered the dressing room, Dilip Vengsarkar has said the team was offered Toyota cars if they beat England, Australia and Pakistan in the 4-nation Sharjah Cup series in April 1987.
Vengsarkar said in function that Dawood offered to give a Toyota car each to all Indian players if they win the series. "Dawood had said: If you guys win the tournament, I will give all of you a Toyota car each," Vengsarkar said in Jalgaon.
Vengsarkar went on to add that the offer was rejected, "The offer was rejected by the team," Vengsarkar said.
Meanwhile, media reports quoting a Hindi TV channel say that Kapil corroborated the fact that dawood did visit the Indian dressing room. "Yes, I remember a gentleman walking into our dressing room in a game in Sharjah and wanting to talk to the players," Kapil said.
Incidentally, former BCCI secretary Jaywant Lele, who died last month in Baroda, had also mentioned the incident in his book, I was There -- Memoirs of a Cricket Administrator .
In one of the chapters in his book, he had written: "If the Indian team becomes champion here, I shall present a Toyota car to each team member, including officials, at their doorsteps in India."
Dawood, reportedly, had told Lele and the then India team manager Dyaneshwar Agashe to meet the wealthy industrialist in Sharjah.
"As bad luck would have it, India lost the tournament. Australia were declared champions on the basis of a higher run rate, as Australia, England and India earned equal points!
After the results were declared most team members were not in tears, but that man was!" he wrote.
"After a long gap, we came to know that the man who met us in Sharjah in 1987 was Dawood Ibrahim, the alleged mastermind of the dastardly Mumbai blasts in 1993," Lele wrote.
Sharjah s cricket charm began to wane in the 1990s when match fixing scandals broke out, and although nothing was ever proved, sides started to move away.
In 2001 the Indian government banned the national side from playing there. Between April 2003 and February 2010, the venue hosted no international games.
Sunday, 27 October 2013
French disabled person skydive over Mount Everest
It is the first disabled person to skydive over Mount Everest, successfully completing his landing.
KATHMANDU (AFP) - A French multiple sclerosis sufferer Sunday became the first disabled person to skydive over Mount Everest, successfully completing his landing before being taken to hospital as a precaution.
"I feel very happy. I am exhausted but very happy," Marc Kopp said from a hospital bed in Kathmandu where doctors examined him for any injuries sustained during the jump.
The 55-year-old Kopp, who lives in Longwy northeast of Paris, has suffered for more than a decade from multiple sclerosis, the degenerative disease of the nervous system which disrupts the brain s ability to communicate with the body.
Muscles weaken, lesions emerge on the brain and spinal cord and in the worst cases, patients can lose the ability to speak or walk.
The tandem skydive saw Kopp jump out of a helicopter hovering 10,000 metres (32,800 feet) above the mountain, accompanied by his friend, champion skydiver Mario Gervasi.
"I hope my action will inspire others living with this illness. I hope many more will follow in my footsteps," Kopp told AFP.
He said preparation for the jump was "very painful" and left his whole body hurting.
Although he usually uses a wheelchair, the trek through the Himalayas meant he had to spend several hours a day riding a horse, which was hard on his spine, to reach the airstrip for the jump.
"There were many times in the last few days when I thought I wouldn t be able to realise my dream," he said.
Kopp raised 26,000 euros ($35,885) for the trip from friends and well-wishers.
After completing the jump Sunday morning, he returned to Kathmandu by helicopter, where doctors advised him to rest for a day.
Kopp was diagnosed in 2001 with primary progressive multiple sclerosis, a form of the disease with almost no prospect of remission.
He currently volunteers and runs a support group for fellow sufferers.
President says his country has nothing to do with spying on other countries.
President says his country has nothing to do with spying on other countries.
GENEVA (AFP) - Switzerland will soon roll out a new technology to better shield communications within the government from prying eyes, President Ueli Maurer said in an interview published Sunday.
"We will introduce a new technology in the coming days or weeks, (which) will improve security in the government," Maurer told the Schweiz am Sonntag weekly.
Refusing to provide more details on what the new technology consisted of and how it would work, Maurer said the decision to deploy it was made before the latest reports of US spying on world leaders.
Those reports, including allegations that Washington has been tapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel s mobile phone, made clear "what intelligence agencies are capable of today, and that apparently anyone who is interesting must expect eavesdropping," he said.
In a separate interview in the SonntagsZeitung weekly, Maurer warned that the scandal risked "undermining confidence between states".
"We don t know if we re only seeing the tip of the iceberg or if other governments are acting in the same ruthless manner," he said.
Maurer said that Swiss ministers have always been cautious about their communications and mobile phones are banned from all government meetings.
For sensitive calls, "I do it on a landline, which is considered less risky," he told Schweiz am Sonntag, adding that ministers try as far as possible to discuss sensitive issues in person and not over the phone.
Maurer said he rarely uses his mobile phone, and only for personal calls.
The Swiss president said there was so far was no evidence of US spying on him or other members of the government, and acknowledged they were likely far less interesting to spy on than Merkel.
But he added, "I wouldn t rule anything out today."
Switzerland, spy, US, allegation, new technology
Love Stories "Letter of the week"
Hello My Dear, Indeed i feel very glad reading your responding mail. I'm delighted and honored writing this letter to you having received your prompt reply as i contacted you for a sincere relationship, and I hope and pray that you be the honest person that will bring meaning into my life because I believe that is going to mark the beginning of our never-ending relationship. i am bored since my living in this bad environment, i am using Reverend Father Theodore Andrew office computer in a church in this Red cross center. i am living under United Nations Refugee Authority as a refugee after my late father's funeral. For the time being, i want to tell you more details about me. i am Miss Farida Usman 25 years old, it is very painful in my soul to tell you that i am an orphan, i don't know my biological father or my mother but Dr. Mamdooh Usman from SOMALIA picked me from motherless babies home and brought me up, but unfortunately, he died 2006 after brief illness, now, i am wandering without any helper after his death, truly, the life has been so difficult to me because of the hatred from their family, the misfortune made me to ran away out of the country to take asylum here in Senegal living under United Nations Refugee Authority as a refugee because their family pushed me out of their home and conspired to kill me because of Dr. Mamdooh Usman Will on his property but God said that iwill be alive today. Meanwhile, after my late father's death precisely memorial service, his lawyer called me and gave me a Will which Dr. Mamdooh Usman wrote to my name, according to his Will he deposited $7.5m Dollars at one of the international banks out side the country. so, when their family discovered such amount of money in my name by their brother, they were angry and conspired together to kill me and to destroy my life so that they will take back their brother's inheritance but God said no. secondly, the country SOMALIA is attacked by rebels, the rebels are killing people every day and raping young beautiful ladies every where, so, their is very big problem in the country by the rebels. so i decided to ran way to here in Senegal to stay as a refugee with the documents because i don't have any where else to go and i don't want to lose my life. Truly, my life has been so ridiculous, there is no food to eat, no good water to drink, the oxygen we are breathing is polluted because of bad environment. so, I have made the Bank to be aware of Dr. Mamdooh Usman's death and my plans to recover the inheritance, but the bank refused because of my refugee status saying that it is against their bank law to deal business with some one in captivity like refugee. so the bank advised me to find a free person, husband or business partner that will stand as my trustee with them in other for them to transfer the money to his account for the person to help me, base on the above explanations, i will like you to stand on my behalf as my trustee at the bank to enable the bank transfer the $7.5m Dollars to your account so that you can withdraw some money from it and send to me to pay my refugee freedom dues, gather my traveling documents to come and meet you or you can come down here to see me face to face and then i go back with you or you finance or sponsor my coming to meet you at your country on your own expense so that we can stay together before we start the transaction. Nevertheless,it is my solemn pleasure to tell you all these secret, do not say i don't know you or you don't know me,our relationship is a divine connection and if God touches your heart to consider my bad condition despite the inheritance involve, then you can help me with all your heart because you are doing it for God and not human been, so,i gave you this offer out of faith and trust from the deep of my heart hoping that you will not betray me and my ambition is that when the money gets to your account, you will help me to invest in all kinds of business in your country according to your recommendation. if you marry me you will be in control of all our investments but if you refuse to marry me, i will map out 50% for the good work and trust confounded in you after the transaction. therefore, make sure that you keep this secret to yourself only, i don't want to loose my life and the money because this place i am living with my documents is not safe. all the same, if you wish to speak with me you can call through the Reverend Father's phone number 00221776690860) so that we can speak to each other because i have no private phone. Here are my pictures! I shall stop here, make sure you take good care of yourself while waiting to hear a positive news from you soon. kiss and hugs!!! With all my love,
Farida Usman
Thursday, 17 October 2013
KPK cabinet approves establishment of anti-terrorism task force
The decision to establish anti-terrorism task force was taken at a special KPK cabinet meeting.
Wednesday, 16 October 2013
Pakistan all set to capture international halal food products market
ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) is all set to take steps to foster halal industry of Pakistan and to capture the international Halal products market worth US$ 3 trillion.
An inter-ministerial meeting would soon be convened in this regard, to expedite the progress on Halal food and making the industry compliant to international standards.
“There is strong need of developing standards and enacting a law to advertise our Halal products, and will boost our export especially in Middle East and Europe”, a Ministry official told APP.
He said Pakistan needs Halal professionals because globalization of food trade and increased consumer awareness regarding food safety standards contribute towards new demands for halal, healthy and hygienic food.
“We possess all imperative elements for Halal products’ production and have to streamline them at par, the demand of the target community”, he added.
He said creation of Punjab Halal Development Agency (PHDA) is a step toward making Pakistan, Halal hub by opening new vistas for entering the global Halal market while serving the domestic consumer market.
The demand for healthy and safe agro-livestock food products is increasing rapidly with increasing population growth rate and socio-economic conditions.
This will also open up new economic opportunities and employment for the youth and traders. PHDA, being a leading entity of government of the Punjab is established to prescribe standards and processes for Halal Certification of food and non-food sector in line with research and advanced laboratory testing facilities.
Official said the Ministry of S&T will promote Halal Industry of Pakistan worldwide by maintaining International standards, adding Halal Standards for Livestock, Beverages, By-products, Cosmetics and other edibles will also be introduced, which will build trust on Pakistani products and enhance export volume.
Sacrificial bull kills owner in Hafizabad
HAFIZABAD: A sacrificial bull has killed his owner, while trying to feed fodder, with a powerful head-hit in Hafizabad on Tuesday, media reports.
Deceased owner, Baba Shah Zeb, bought this dangerous bull few days ago and tied it outside the house for sacrifice on Eid day.
The bull used to attack on every passerby and hit him with head in the street. Owing to the dangerous attitude and attacks of the bull, people turned frightened of getting near.
Baba Shah Zeb continued facing the danger and remained safe during all these days while feeding fodder to the bull but today he failed to save himself and turned victim of a powerful head-hit of the bull and died on the spot.
Deceased Baba Zeb’s body was moved to hospital and doctors told, after the postmortem, that he received a deep wound in the chest, from hit of the bull, and that caused his death.
Body of the deceased was handed over to his heirs for burial, after the postmortem
Four terror suspects including Pakistani held in London
LONDON: British police were questioning four men on suspicion of terrorism after a string of arrests that included armed officers shooting out the tyres of a car near the Tower of London.
Reports in British media said the men had been arrested in coordinated raids across London on Sunday night that were aimed at preventing an alleged terror plot involving the use of guns.
Police said they were still searching six premises and two vehicles on Monday.
Armed officers arrested two 25-year-old men — one a British national of Turkish origin and the other a Briton of Algerian origin — in a street in east London.
A 28-year-old British national of Azerbaijani origin was arrested at a house in Notting Hill, west London, and a 29-year-old Briton of Pakistani origin was arrested in a street in Peckham, southeast London.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said so-called Hatton rounds — special shotgun ammunition used to breach doors and tyres — were “specifically used to disable a car” in the arrests in east London.
“They were used to shoot at tyres. No one was injured,” the spokesman told AFP.
The arrest took place in a street about 200 metres from the Tower of London, one of London’s busiest tourist attractions.
Armed officers were involved in all of the arrests.
All four men were being held at a police station in south London on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.
Under British counter-terror laws the suspects can be held for 48 hours and police can then apply for warrants to hold them for up to 14 days from the time of arrest.
Police said the raids were the result of a “pre-planned intelligence operation” and added that “public safety remains our overriding concern”.
The BBC quoted government officials as saying that a decision to act was taken on Sunday to dismantle the “potentially very serious” plot, although it was not on the scale of previous large-scale bomb plots.
A witness to the arrest in Notting Hill, in an upmarket street lined with boutiques and restaurants, said the arrested man “didn’t look like a terrorist”.
Ramin Massodi, a worker at a Persian restaurant, said specialist officers in several cars pushed the suspect up against the glass of the restaurant.
“I heard shouting then I looked outside and saw four cars… and they grabbed him,” he said.
AFP
44 killed in Laos plane crash
Laos officials say the plane was carrying 39 passengers and five crew.
World Bank cuts India’s growth forecast to 4.7 percent
New Delhi : The World Bank Wednesday sharply lowered its projection for India’s economic growth to 4.7 percent for the current financial year from its earlier estimate of 6.1 percent.
In its latest India Development Update report, the World Bank said the country’s real gross domestic product (GDP) was expected to expand by 4.7 percent this fiscal and accelerate to 6.2 percent in 2014-15.
“India’s growth potential remains high but its macroeconomic vulnerabilities – high headline inflation, an elevated current account deficit and rising pressure on fiscal balances from the depreciation of the rupee – could impact the speed of economic recovery,”
Denis Medvedev, senior country economist, World Bank, India, said in the report.
“While market sentiment improved in the last few weeks, the underlying challenges remain, underscoring the importance of prudent macroeconomic policies and continued progress on reforms to set strong foundations for accelerated growth in the future,” Medvedev said.
Although output growth in the first quarter of the current fiscal year fell to 4.4 percent, growth was expected to rebound strongly in the second half of 2013-14 with core inflation trending down, a bumper crop expected in agriculture, and exports were likely to benefit substantially from the rupee’s depreciation, the report said.
Farm sector growth was estimated to accelerate to 3.4 percent this fiscal from 1.9 percent in the previous year on the back of 5 percent increase in area sown.
“Growth is expected to improve further in the medium-term as strengthening exports support a recovery in industrial activity and new investment projects come on stream,” it said.
Six powers 'carefully' examining Iranian regime's nuclear plan
GENEVA (Reuters) - World powers are "carefully" examining Iran's proposal which aims to resolve the dispute over its nuclear program, ahead of a new round of talks on November 7-8, the European Union's foreign policy chief said on Wednesday.
Catherine Ashton, who is leading talks with Iran on behalf of six world powers, said the two sides had agreed that nuclear and sanctions experts would meet before the next high-level meeting.
She told a news conference the discussions had been more detailed than at earlier meetings, calling them: "the most detailed (discussions) we have ever had, by, I would say, a long way. Our positions have been set out on a number of issues already."
Shakargarh: Indian forces open unprovoked fire,
Indian guns fell silent as Chenab Rangers retaliated strongly.
SHAKARGARH (Dunya News) – In another LoC ceasefire violation, Indian forces resort to unprovoked firing on Bhopal Pur post in Shakargarh today (Wednesday).
According to sources, no injuries have been reported so far.
On the other hand, Indian forces also fired mortar shells at Turkandi and Datot in Nakyal Sector. No one was hurt in the incidents.
Fear and panic grip the area after the incident.
The latest incident came almost two weeks after the prime ministers of the two countries pledged to restore calm on their disputed border in Kashmir, at a meeting in New York.
A deadly flare-up along the LoC in January brought a halt to peace talks that had only just resumed following a three-year hiatus sparked by the 2008 attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people.
Pakistan and India each control part of Kashmir but claim it in full. The scenic Himalayan territory has been the trigger for two of the three wars between them.US Senate reaches deal to avoid default, end shutdown
The agreement calls for reopening the federal government with a temporary budget.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday that a deal had been reached with Republican leaders to end a fiscal impasse that has threatened the United States with default.
Reid, speaking from the Senate floor, said the agreement called for reopening the federal government with a temporary budget until January 15 and to extend US borrowing authority until February 7.
"The compromise we reached will provide our economy with the stability it desperately needs," Reid said.
Senator Mitch McConnel, the top Republican, followed, confirming the agreement, which has to be approved by both the Senate and the Republican-controlled House.
US borrowing authority is on track to expire at midnight, and without an agreement the United States runs the risk of a default with potentially devastating consequences.
Ranbir fails to pull of ‘Besharam’s’ slapstick genre
NEW DELHI: Ranbir Kapoor is often hailed as the next big thing in Bollywood — a young star who knows what he is doing, chooses his scripts with care and delivers top-notch performances nearly all the time. If that is the case, Kapoor must have had a very bad day at work to say yes to “Besharam” (Shameless).
Abhinav Kashyap’s second film as director is crude, packed with toilet humour, and has no semblance of a plot. “Besharam” is a case study in lazy filmmaking, one that lowers the bar on good taste just to make money at the Bollywood box office. It insults the viewer’s intelligence and is an example of the Hindi film industry’s reluctance to let go of hackneyed storylines that were all the rage two decades ago.
Kapoor plays Babli, the protagonist in this Indian version of Robin Hood. He is a thief who steals swanky cars, sells them and donates the proceeds to the orphanage where he was raised. His talent catches the attention of a gangster (Jaaved Jaffrey) who hires him.
But one day, Babli unwittingly steals and delivers the car of the girl he loves. Once he realizes this, there is only one thing to be done. Steal the car right back. Tara (Pallavi Sharda), who spends half the time delivering holier-than-thou speeches about how Babli should give up a life of crime, agrees and accompanies him on this mission.
There is also a subplot about a squabbling couple (Ranbir’s real-life parents Rishi and Neetu Kapoor), who are in the police, and have made unsuccessful attempts at catching Babli during his earlier capers. Even this does not work, mainly because Kashyap saddles them with vulgar dialogue and a series of gross-out sequences involving actor Rishi Kapoor — including a defecation scene.
Kashyap doesn’t even attempt to inject any creativity into this flimsy plotline, relying on toilet humour and mediocre songs to stretch the running time to two-and-a-half hours. The dialogue is pedestrian, as are the performances.
Ranbir Kapoor does not look too convinced himself about the film or its outrageous plot. He’s no Salman Khan or Akshay Kumar. Those two actors could have pulled off “Besharam’s” slapstick genre but Kapoor can’t and that’s the film’s main failing. Unless you like the feeling of being hit on the head repeatedly with a hammer, avoid this one.
Adnan Sami asked to leave India by Mumbai police
MUMBAI: Renowned Pakistani musician Adnan Sami, who had adopted India as his second home, was given notice by the Mumbai police to leave India as his visa had expired, media reported on Tuesday.
Earlier, on October 12 Adnan Sami was asked to leave the country following expiry of his visa by the film wing of the extremist Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Chitrapat Karmachari Sena (MNS), Press Trust of India had reported.
“Sami met us at our office here today, seeking our cooperation. We told him to leave the country as his visa has expired,” MNS film wing president Amey Khopkar had said.
“We told Sami that our priority would be our artistes,” Khopkar had told PTI.
Sami had reportedly told a family court that he had a Pakistani passport and was residing in India on the basis of visa granted to him from time to time. His visa was reportedly valid from September 26, 2012 till October 6, 2013.
Dollar down as debt default looms
The dollar weakened in Asian trade Monday as lawmakers in Washington struggle to agree a budget deal that will avoid a damaging debt default.
In Singapore morning trade, the greenback slipped to 98.28 yen from 98.59 yen in New York late Friday.
The euro rose to $1.3564 from $1.3546 but dipped to 133.30 yen from 133.55 yen. Japanese markets are closed for a public holiday.
Republicans and Democrats were unable to find a compromise after a rare Sunday session to hammer out a deal to reopen the federal government and raise the country’s borrowing limit before a October 17 deadline.
The government partially shut down on October 1 after lawmakers failed to agree a new budget.
Harry Reid, the Democratic Leader in the Senate, painted an optimistic picture of the dialogue late Sunday with Republicans, though nothing concrete was disclosed.
Failure to lift the debt limit by Thursday would leave the government unable to pay its bills or service its debts, leading to a devastating default that analysts warn will tip the global economy back into recession.
AFP
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