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    Showing posts with label World News. Show all posts

    Ferguson, Missouri Community Furious After Teen Shot Dead By Police

    Following the shooting of 18-year-old man by a police officer in the city of Ferguson, Missouri, an outraged community gathered to demand answers. Michael Brown, a black teen and recent high school graduate, was shot dead in the city north of St. Louis on Saturday. The victim's grandmother said she found her grandson's body in the street, shortly after seeing him walking near her home, the Associated Press reports. A spokesman for the St. Louis County Police Department confirmed that a Ferguson police officer shot the man, but provided no further details on why the shooting occurred. Witnesses said that Brown was unarmed, KMOV reports.

    A crowd quickly gathered at the scene, as did 100 police cars from 15 departments, according to KSDK. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that protesters came face-to-face with police at the site of the shooting, raising their arms and saying "Please don't shoot me." A dumpster was reportedly lit on fire. As tempers cooled, mourners participated in a prayer circle and vigil.

    A man identified as the victim's stepfather held a sign that said, "Ferguson police just executed my unarmed son!!!" Lesley McSpadden, a woman the Post-Dispatch identifies as the victim's mother said, "I know they killed my son," and, "This was wrong and it was cold-hearted."

    Images of the crime scene and following demonstrations were posted to social media.

    CDC Activates High-Level Emergency Operation Center For Ebola Outbreak

    The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday he has activated the agency's emergency operation center at the highest response level to help respond to the worst Ebola outbreak in history.

    In testimony at a special congressional hearing on Ebola, CDC Director Dr Thomas Frieden said the CDC has more than 200 staff members in Atlanta working on the outbreak, and will soon have more than 50 disease experts in West Africa to try to contain the outbreak.

    Although Frieden said it is possible that people who have traveled to West Africa might bring the virus back home with them, and even spread it to some healthcare workers and family members, he said, he is "confident there will not be a large Ebola outbreak in the United States."

    Frieden said it is not clear whether experimental treatments that were given to the two infected U.S. aid workers now in the United States who are being cared for at Emory University in Georgia will ultimately be effective, and he emphasized that the best approach to this threat is to contain it.

    "In terms of the promising drugs, I can assure you that the U.S. government is looking into this very carefully," Frieden said. "But I don't want there to be false hope out there. Right now, we don't know if they work," he said.

    Frieden said from what he has heard, there are only a handful of doses of the drugs given to the U.S. patients at the moment. And he said that the experiences of the two patients who got those drugs would not be sufficient to determine whether the treatment worked. (Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by James Dalgleish)

    "Drop Your Pants and Dance for Underwareness"

    Pier 97 in New York was the setting for a free concert by Capital Cities and “Drop Your Pants and Dance for Underwareness.”The event was created to show support for people experiencing bladder leakage. According to Depend Underwear’s website “For each of our photos or videos shared, and every tweet or Instagram post tagged #Underwareness or #DropYourPants, Depend® will donate $1 to charity — up to $3 million over 3 years.” The charity will do research and education about bladder leakage.
    People arrive at Pier 97 in New York August 6, 2014 for the “Drop Your Pants and Dance for Underwareness” to help support the 65 million Americans who experience bladder leakage by bringing the condition and Depend Underwear out of hiding. For every pants drop, photo and video shared using #Underwareness and #DropYourPants, Depend Underwear will donate $1, up to $3 million over the next three years to charitable organizations that advance the research and education of bladder leakage

    Gaza conflict: New exchanges amid Israeli soldier hunt

    Palestinian officials said 55 people had died in Israeli strikes on Saturday, most in Rafah, where the soldier, Hadar Goldin, went missing.

    A series of rocket attacks into Israel was reported on Saturday morning.

    Later Israel sent messages to Palestinians in northern Gaza saying that they could return home.

    "We have told Beit Lahia residents that they may return to their homes. We advised them to avoid explosives placed by Hamas across the area", the Israel Defence Forces tweeted.

    Some 1,655 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 65 Israelis, all but two soldiers, have died in the conflict.

    A Thai worker was also killed in Israel. Some 8,900 Palestinians have also been injured, the health ministry in Gaza says.

    A 72-hour ceasefire had been agreed, starting from Friday morning, but collapsed hours later.

    Hamas accused Israel of breaking the ceasefire but the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had been forced to respond to militant rocket fire.

    On Saturday, Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi insisted an Egyptian ceasefire plan offered a "real chance" to end the bloodshed.
    'Time is decisive'

    Palestinian officials said that there had been a series of Israeli air strikes around Rafah since midnight, killing at least 35 people.

    The BBC's Bethany Bell in Israel says there is an "enormous sense of solidarity" with soldiers on the front line as the hunt for Lt Goldin continues
    line

    Even if the peace talks do finally get going in Cairo, they will be complicated by a host of conflicting sympathies and regional tensions. Egypt, the traditional mediator between the Israelis and Palestinians, is no longer on an equal footing with the warring parties.

    Since the Muslim Brotherhood was overthrown and Mohammed Morsi deposed last year, the government of Abdul Fattah al-Sisi sees Hamas, an offshoot of the Brotherhood, as a terrorist organisation. Turkey and Qatar, the two regional negotiators, now have poor relations with Egypt due to their support for the Brotherhood.

    The Turkish prime minister recently called President Sisi an "illegitimate tyrant" and three journalists from the Qatari-based TV channel Al-Jazeera remain in prison for what Cairo calls "aiding" the Islamists.

    And of course the US and Israel refuse to talk directly to Hamas. Amidst this complex atmosphere full of animosity, it's unsurprising that there's little optimism here about a genuine breakthrough.

    The Most Traffic-Congested Cities on the Planet

     Go anywhere, in any parts of the world, traffic is a major problem faced in today’s era. Therefore, TomTom, a maker of navigation and GPS systems, gathers data from users around the world to create a traffic index that shows congestion in urban areas.

    The index measures travel times throughout the day and during peak periods and compares them with non-congested periods. In this study, local roads, arterials and highways are taken into account. All data is based on actual GPS based measurements and for each city, the sample size is expressed in total number of measured kilometers for the period.

    Here are the 7 cities in the world with the most congested traffic.

    The Polish capital, Warsaw over the past few years has seen major infrastructural changes amidst increased foreign investment and economic growth.

    The city has a much-improved infrastructure with new roads, flyovers and bridges. Public transport in Warsaw is ubiquitous, serving the city with buses, tramways, and metro.

    Although many streets were widened, and new ones are built, the city is presently plagued with traffic problems and as such is listed as the 7th most traffic congested city.

    Since the past 15 years, car ownership in this city has roughly doubled. It is in a way a reflection of the country's economic success. However, road-building programs have failed to keep pace. Today, for drivers in this city, the average commute time takes 44 percent longer compared to quiet times.

    A chilling echo of Nazi death trains as HM17 victims begin the grimmest journey

    The stench of death is thick in the air as onlookers peer inside a freight train containing the bodies of some 200 victims of the MH17 massacre.

    The scene, a grim echo of the mechanised slaughter of millions in the Second World War, has been created by Russian separatists who have collected piles of corpses from the plane crash and put them in refrigerated rail carriages.

    There was international outrage over the undignified scene last night – with swarms of flies buzzing around the train – although defiant local militia men insisted they were doing what they could for the dead.

    The international investigators, who are wearing body armour, were allowed to photograph some of the victims who had been removed nine miles from the crash site

    The international investigators, who are wearing body armour, were allowed to photograph some of the victims who had been removed nine miles from the crash site

    The bodies had been lying spread out over fields for two days in the summer heat, before being removed from a large swathe of the crash site by yesterday.

    Workers from local mines were bussed in to clear the corpses.Once the bodies had gone, only bloodstained military stretchers were left along the side of the road.

    Controversy is now raging over not only the conditions in which the corpses are being kept, but also fears that vital evidence of exactly what caused the tragedy is being lost.

    It risks becoming a gruesome tussle over the dead.

    Ukrainian sources said they feared the piles of corpses might be moved to Russia or used as a bargaining tool by rebel leaders.

    The bodies, each inside individual body bags, were last night still on the stationary train at Torez station nine miles from the crash site.

    Ukrainian officials in the city of Kharkiv, about four hours’ drive away, said there had been an agreement with rebel leaders for the bodies to next be taken there so they could be visited by grieving families.

    Moment black box recorder from flight MH17 is recovered

    But there was last night no sign of that happening.

    A spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is monitoring the operation, said rebels had told the team that 167 bodies were in the train, and added that the monitors had checked three of the refrigerator wagons.

    Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, meanwhile, told a news conference 192 bodies and eight fragments of bodies had been placed in the train.

    But he said the local rebels had yet to give permission for the train to set off.

    The rebels responded by suggesting the pro-Western Ukrainian government was delaying the train’s departure, and arguing they could do nothing until the arrival of the international experts pledged by several countries to help determine what and who caused the crash.

    Immigration Rallies Wait For Buses Of Immigrants In Murrieta

    Rumors had swirled among anti-immigration activists near a U.S. Border Patrol station in Southern California that the agency would try again to bus in some of the immigrants who have flooded across the U.S.-Mexico border.

    Instead, they got dueling anti- and pro-immigration rallies Friday.

    The crowd of 200 outside the station in Murrieta waved signs and sometimes shouted at each other. One banner read: "Proud LEGAL American. It doesn't work any other way." Another countered: "Against illegal immigration? Great! Go back to Europe!"

    Law enforcement officers separated the two sides and contained them on one approach to the station, leaving open an approach from the opposite direction.

    It was not certain, however, that any buses would arrive on Friday. Because of security concerns, federal authorities have said they will not publicize immigrant transfers among border patrol facilities. By late afternoon many demonstrators were leaving.

    Six people were arrested, five for interfering with police who were investigating a fight and one for disorderly conduct, police said. One of the five was a woman who jumped on an officer's back, but police did not give details on the actions of the rest.

    Earlier this week, the city became the latest flashpoint in the intensifying immigration debate when a crowd of protesters waving American flags blocked buses carrying women and children who were flown from overwhelmed Texas facilities.

    Federal authorities had hoped to process them at the station in Murrieta, about 55 miles north of downtown San Diego.

    "This is a way of making our voices heard," said Steve Prime, a resident of nearby Lake Elsinore. "The government's main job is to secure our borders and protect us — and they're doing neither."

    Immigration supporters said the immigrants need to be treated as humans and that migrating to survive is not a crime.

    "We're celebrating the 4th of July and what a melting pot America is," said Raquel Alvarado, a high school history teacher and Murrieta resident who chalked up the fear of migrants in the city of roughly 106,000 to discrimination.

    Once a Militant Stronghold in Iraq, Now a Battleground Again

     At one house, Iraq’s national flag fluttered atop a building that Iraqi soldiers had captured from militants two days before.

    At another, smashed household goods and furniture were scattered on the floor.

    Outside a third, hosting a meeting of Iraqi security force commanders, a captain from Iraq’s national intelligence service pointed to the far side of a murky irrigation canal.

    “Here it is safe now,” he said of Al-Daira. “But over there are more terrorists. That is where we will fight them next.”

    The village of Al-Daira lies about 30 miles south of Baghdad and within sight of Iraq’s main highway, in an area the American military called the Triangle of Death.

    A former militant stronghold, the area is a battleground again. The Qaeda splinter group now known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, has resumed a campaign that its predecessors started — and had appeared to lose — before the United States withdrew its troops in 2011.

    The group’s tactics — a hybrid guerrilla-and-terrorist campaign of ambushes, bombings and sniper and mortar attacks, organized by fighters who blend among civilians — show that the militants are much more than a juggernaut, as lately portrayed. They are adaptive and alert to the lessons of Iraq’s insurgent past, and select different tactics for different places and situations.

    While establishing themselves in Anbar, in the west, they methodically resumed the campaign south of Baghdad started by Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni militant group that formed after the American invasion and swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

    Netanyahu Says Hamas Carried Out Kidnapping of Three Israelis

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Islamic Hamas movement, the Palestinian government’s new partner, of kidnapping three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank last week.

     “This morning I can say what I refrained from saying yesterday before the extensive wave of arrests” in the West Bank, Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting today in Jerusalem. “Those who carried out the kidnapping of our youths are members of Hamas,” the prime minister said, according to a text message from his office.

    Israeli security forces arrested about 80 Hamas operatives and officials in the West Bank overnight, the army said. Netanyahu’s remarks are “stupid,” Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said in an e-mailed statement. He didn’t confirm or deny the allegations.

    Hamas held Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit captive in the Gaza Strip for five years before freeing him in 2011 in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

    Netanyahu has ordered the military to “prepare forces for any scenario.” Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon spoke of “broad intelligence and operational efforts” in the West Bank and Channel Two said a division of paratroopers was sent to the area.

    The benchmark TA-25 index dropped as much as 0.5 percent today, the most since April 23, and was down 0.4 percent to 1,391.68 at 11:53 a.m. in Tel Aviv.

    Yaniv Pagot, chief strategist at Ramat Gan, Israel-based Ayalon Group Ltd., attributed the decline to “a gut reaction” by investors and said that as long there was no escalation, the kidnapping wasn’t likely to have a long-term impact on the market. The yield on the benchmark government 2024 bond slipped 2 basis points to 2.86 at 12:07 p.m. in Tel Aviv.

    Netanyahu has linked the abduction of the teens to Hamas’ entry into the Palestinian government earlier this month.

    “What’s happening on the ground since Hamas entered the Palestinian Authority is a disaster,” Netanyahu said yesterday. “This is the result of allowing a murderous terror organization into the government.”

    Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, teamed up June 2 in a government with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, which rules over parts of the West Bank, after peace talks with Israel collapsed in April.

    Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S. and European Union, and Netanyahu has shunned the new Palestinian government.

    Without confirming a kidnapping, Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official in Lebanon, told Al-Quds television yesterday that the disappearance of the teens “proved that resistance to Israel hasn’t been stifled.” He urged the kidnappers, “if there indeed were kidnappers,” to demand the “highest price” for the teens’ return.
    Story: Huawei Says It Can Beat Xiaomi in the Race to Be China's Top Smartphone Brand

    Israel traded more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in 2011 for the return of Shalit, who was captured outside Gaza. Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, who opposed the Shalit deal, said he would oppose any agreement that would release Palestinian security prisoners.

    “There will be no more freeing of Palestinian terrorists sitting in Israeli prisons, not in the form of a gesture, or in any other way,” Liberman said on Army Radio today.

    The teens disappeared at a time when Palestinians have been holding rallies across the West Bank in support of more than 100 Palestinians staging hunger strikes in Israeli prisons.
    Story: The No-Tech Tactics of North Korea's Most Wanted Defector

    Netanyahu said he holds the Palestinian Authority responsible for the abduction because the kidnappers came from territory under its control. Abbas’s office has said the Palestinian Authority wasn’t responsible for the disappearance of Israelis in an area of the West Bank Israel controls.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. The territory is home to 2.3 million Palestinians who claim it as part of a future independent state.

    Deadly attacks mar high turnout at Afghan vote

     Millions of Afghans turned out to vote Saturday in a presidential run-off election despite Taliban threats and violence that killed nearly 50 people ahead of the withdrawal of NATO troops later this year.

    Afghan officials said more than seven million people voted, a higher than expected turnout of 52 percent based on an estimated electorate of 13.5 million voters. But fraud allegations were likely from both campaign teams after the election, and a close count could lead to a contested result as the country undergoes its first democratic transfer of power.

    The election will decide whether former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah or ex-World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani leads the country into a new era of declining international military and civilian assistance. On the campaign trail, both candidates had offered similar pledges to tackle rampant corruption, build much-needed infrastructure and protect citizens from violence. Polling day saw no major attacks in cities, but at least 150 other incidents including a Taliban rocket that hit a house near a polling station in the eastern province of Khost, killing five members of the same family.
    “Eleven police, 15 ANA (Afghanistan National Army) and 20 civilians were martyred,” Interior Minister Omar Daudzai told reporters, adding that about 60 militants were also killed in fighting.
    “Election security was better than the first round despite level of threats being higher,” he said. “People voted to reject the militants. There were some casualties on our side, but the enemy has failed.”

    Independent Election Commission chief Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani admitted there had been problems with ballot paper shortages, as in the first round election in April. President Hamid Karzai is due to step down after ruling Afghanistan since 2001, when a US-led offensive ousted the austere Taliban regime for sheltering Al-Qaeda militants behind the 9/11 attacks.
    “We are very proud to be choosing our favourite candidate,” he said after voting. “Today Afghanistan goes from a transition period towards long-lasting peace.”

    A smooth handover would be a major achievement for the international effort to establish a functioning state after the depredations of the Taliban era.

    Afghan officials said the day was proof that the security forces, who have been trained by the US-led military coalition, will be able to protect the country when all NATO-lead combat troops exit Afghanistan this year.

    Both candidates cast their ballots in Kabul, dipping a finger in ink to register that they had voted. “We do not want even one fraudulent vote for us,” Abdullah told reporters, while Ghani said via Twitter: “We ask everyone to prevent, avoid and discourage people from rigging.”

    On the eve of the run-off, UN head of mission Jan Kubis had issued a stark warning to candidates’ supporters not to resort to the ballot-box stuffing that marred the 2009 election when Karzai retained power.
    The two candidates came top of an eight-man field in the April election, triggering the run-off as neither reached the 50 percent threshold needed for outright victory. Abdullah secured 45 percent of the vote with Ghani on 31.6 percent, after investigations into fraud claims from both sides.

    Police arrest suspect in Belgian Jewish Museum shooting

    Police have arrested a man in Marseille, France, who is suspected of killing three people last week in the Jewish Museum in Brussels, Belgium, Belgian federal magistrate Wenke Roggen said Sunday.

    The suspect is identified as 29-year-old Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche, who recently spent a year in Syria and is a radicalized Islamist, the chief prosecutor of Paris said at a news conference Sunday.

    Francois Molins said Nemmouche, who has a criminal history that included a five-year prison stint, was detained with a bag that contained several weapons.

    Nemmouche has been silent during his detention, Molins said. The prosecutor said that authorities suspect Nemmouche was influenced by Islamist teachings while in prison and left for Syria three months after being released in September 2012.
    Belgium's Jewish community security fears

    French officials lost contact with Nemmouche when he left the country, Molins said.

    The suspect's bag also contained clothes similar to the ones worn during the attack and a GoPro video camera. There was also a Nikon digital camera that contained a hidden folder with a 40-second recording related to the shooting.

    Nemmouche was arrested at a train station just after he returned to France, the prosecutor said.

    Two of the people who died in the attack were Israelis, a couple in their 50's from Tel Aviv,, Israel's Foreign Ministry has said. The third victim was a French woman.

    A fourth person, a Belgian national who works at the museum, was shot and injured.

    Images from the museum in Brussels showed the gunman behind last week's deadly attack approaching the building, opening fire, and walking away.

    He used an AK-47 assault rifle to carry out the shooting, police have said.

    Photographs and video released by Belgian police showed the man wearing a cap and blue shirt, carrying two bags over his shoulder. The images do not show his face clearly.

    The shooter left on foot after the attack and headed toward a different part of downtown Brussels before he disappeared, according to police.

    Attack on Indian consulate in Afghanistan : All gunmen killed, Modi talks to Karzai

    Gunmen armed with heavy weapons including rocket propelled grenades on Friday attacked the Indian Consulate in Afghanistan's Herat province during which three attackers were killed, top Indian officials said.

    However, TV reports further claimed that the fourth gunman has also been killed by the security forces.

    All the diplomatic staff were safe.

    Three gunmen were killed, one by ITBP (Indo-Tibetan Border Police) and two by Afghan police, out of four attackers who struck the Consulate which houses two buildings, Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan Amar Sinha said.

    PM-designate Narendra Modi spoke to Amar Sinha and assured all help.

    Modi also spoke to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and thanked him for the efforts of Afghan forces in thwarting the attack.

    "President Karzai & I talked about Consulate attack in Herat.

    He assured me he will do everything to protect India's Missions in Afghanistan," Modi tweeted later.

    He also praised the consulate staff in Herat and thanked the security forces for thwarting the terror attack.
    Afghan security forces watch a house burn at the site of a clash between insurgents and security forces at the Indian Consulate in Herat
    Afghan security forces watch a house burn at the site of a clash between insurgents and security forces at the Indian Consulate in Herat

    Karzai is among the leaders expected to attend Modi's swearing in as prime minister on Monday, May 26 .

    In a pre-dawn assault, the gunmen attacked the building which houses the residence of Consulate General, Sinha said, adding that there were nine Indians in the mission apart from local Afghans.

    One attacker was killed while climbing the wall to enter the premises of the consulate, Sinha said.

    Meanwhile, a spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi said, "India's Consulate in Herat, Afghanistan attacked.

     Afghanistan has experienced a rise in the Taliban attacks as foreign troops plan to withdraw from the war-torn country by the end of the year.

     In August last year, a failed bombing against the Indian Consulate in Jalalabad city near the border with Pakistan killed nine people, including six children.

    Psychiatrist Testifying for Defense Says Pistorius Has ‘Anxiety Disorder’

    A forensic psychiatrist testifying for the defense told the Oscar Pistorius murder trial on Monday that the double amputee track star suffered from an “anxiety disorder” after growing up with a mostly absent father and a mother so afraid of intruders that she slept with a firearm under her pillow.

    The testimony by the psychiatrist, Merryll Vorster, offered an uneasy echo of Mr. Pistorius’s own account of events in his bedroom in the early hours of Feb. 14, 2013, when he has admitted taking a handgun and firing four shots through a locked bathroom door, killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and law graduate.

    Under cross-examination by prosecutor Gerrie Nel, Ms. Vorster said Mr. Pistorius’s perceived disorder did not constitute a mental illness that would require the judge to order a psychiatric examination. But Mr. Nel said the runner should be sent for psychological observation and evaluation to assess whether his mental state was a factor in the killing.

    Oscar Pistorius in court in Pretoria on Monday. Testimony is set to end in mid-May, followed by closing arguments and weeks of deliberation before a verdict is issued.Witnesses Tell of Pistorius’s Anguish After Shooting GirlfriendMAY 5, 2014
    The prosecution says Mr. Pistorius, 27, murdered Ms. Steenkamp, but the runner says he shot her by accident, believing at least one intruder had entered his comfortable villa in a gated complex in Pretoria, the South African capital, where he is now on trial. The case is being broadcast around the world.
    The portrait she offered of Mr. Pistorius’s troubled upbringing and deepening anxieties recalled some of his own behavior during the trial since it opened in early March. On occasions he has wept, wailed, retched and sobbed when confronted with graphic evidence relating to the events surrounding Ms. Steenkamp’s death.

    Ms. Vorster, the psychiatrist, said she had interviewed the athlete and some of his family members and friends.

    Her testimony seemed designed to bolster the defense’s argument that Mr. Pistorius felt vulnerable because of his disability and had an usually high level of anxiety about intruders. It also seemed intended to rebut earlier prosecution testimony that he was self-centered, trigger-happy, quick-tempered and jealous.

    The psychiatrist traced her analysis of Mr. Pistorius’s personality to his birth without fibula bones in his lower legs. At the age of 11 months, both legs were amputated below the knee. The procedure constituted a “traumatic assault” that he would not have comprehended at the time, Ms. Vorster said.

    The runner grew up with a mother who was “very anxious,” abused alcohol intermittently and “slept with a firearm under the pillow.” His father was “irresponsible and mostly absent.”

    Hindujas Top United Kingdom's 'Super Rich' List

    The Hinduja brothers have emerged as the richest persons in the UK, which boasts of 102 billionaires, including Lord Swraj Paul and four others of Indian-origin.

    The London-based Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja, who have a fortune of 11.9 billion pounds - "up by an astonishing 1.3 billion pounds in the past year", edged out steel tycoon Lakshmi N Mittal and Russian magnate Alisher Usmanov, according to the 'Sunday Times Super-Rich List' made public today.

    The Hinduja brothers, who run the multinational Hinduja Group conglomerate with interests across automotive, real estate and oil, moved up from third position last year to top the UK's billionaire charts this year.

    The list - a full version of which will be released next Sunday - also includes NRI industrialists such as Lakshmi Mittal and family, Prakash Lohia, Lord Swraj Paul and family, Anil Agarwal and Ajay Kalsi and family among the city's 72 billionaires.

    Mittal also edged one position upwards to the third rank with 10.25 billion pounds even as Arsenal shareholder and Russian business chief Usmanov, who topped the list till last year, fell to the second place after his estimated fortune dropped to 10.65 billion pounds.

    "Last year, the Hindujas sold a 49 per cent stake in a Saudi Arabian lubricants maker, Petromin, for more than 200 million pounds. Property investments in India have added 200 million pounds. The family's IndusInd bank is capitalised at about 2.7 billion pounds. In Britain, Hinduja Automotive turned over about 1.5 billion pounds in 2012-13," the newspaper said.

    In reference to the Kolkata-based Mittal, the newspaper highlighted a final bounce in fortunes after a few years of dip.

    "After a tough few years in the steel industry, Mittal is seeing a glimmer of light. Arcelor Mittal shares have recovered, making his stake worth 6.65 billion pounds - up 700 million pounds in a year," it said.
    Mittal's brother-in-law India-born textiles and plastics tycoon Lohia is ranked as Britain's 46th richest man with around 2.11 billion pounds.

    Leading NRI industrialist and Caparo chief Lord Swraj Paul is ranked Britain's 48th richest, with an estimated wealth worth around 2 billion pounds.

    "The 83-year-old came to Britain from India in 1966 to seek treatment for his daughter's leukaemia. He stayed after her death and founded steel manufacturer Caparo, which made more than 62 million pounds profit in 2013. The company has been restructured, with its American and Indian businesses worth 1.6 billion pounds," the newspaper said.

    "Paul is chancellor of Westminster and Wolverhampton universities. In memory of his daughter he set up the Ambika Paul Foundation, which supports children's charities," the newspaper said.

    Vedanta Resources chief Agarwal at 50th rank and Indus Gas supremo Kalsi at 102nd complete the Indian presence among the London-based billionaires.

    China spots new possible plane debris in southern Indian Ocean

    China said on Saturday it had a new satellite image of what could be wreckage from a missing Malaysian airliner, as more planes and ships headed to join an international search operation scouring some of the remotest seas on Earth.
    The latest possible lead came as the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 entered its third week, with still no confirmed trace found of the Boeing 777 or the 239 people on board.

    The new potential sighting was dramatically announced by Malaysia's acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, after he was handed a note with details during a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, scooping the official announcement from China.

    "Chinese ships have been dispatched to the area," Hishammuddin told reporters. China said the object was 74 feet long and 43 feet wide, and spotted around 75 miles "south by west" of potential debris reported by Australia off its west coast in the forbidding waters of the southern Indian Ocean.

    The image was captured by the high-definition Earth observation satellite "Gaofen-1" early on March 18, two days after the Australian satellite picture was taken, China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) said on its website.

    It could not easily be determined from the blurred images whether the objects were the same, but the Chinese photograph could depict a cluster of smaller objects, a senior military officer from one of the 26 nations involved in the search for the plane said.
    The wing of a Boeing 777-200ER is approximately 27 metres long and 14 metres wide at its base, according to estimates derived from publicly available scale drawings. Its fuselage is 63.7 meters long by 6.2 meters wide.

    Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens early on March 8, less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on a scheduled flight to Beijing.

    Investigators believe someone on board shut off the plane's communications systems, and partial military radar tracking showed it turning west and re-crossing the Malay Peninsula, apparently under the control of a skilled pilot.

    That has led them to focus on hijacking or sabotage, but they have not ruled out technical problems.

    Since Australia announced the first image of what could be parts of the aircraft on Thursday, the international search for the plane has focused on an expanse of ocean more than 2,000 km (1,200 miles) southwest of Perth.

    The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said one of its aircraft reported sighting a number of "small objects" with the naked eye, including a wooden pallet, within a radius of 5 km.

    A Royal New Zealand Air Force P-3 Orion aircraft took a closer look but only reported seeing clumps of seaweed. It dropped a marker buoy to track the movement.

    "A merchant ship in the area has been tasked to relocate and seek to identify the material," AMSA said in a statement.

    The search area experienced good weather conditions on Saturday with visibility of around 10 km and moderate seas.

    Australia, which is coordinating the rescue, has cautioned the objects in the satellite image might be a lost shipping container or other debris, and may have sunk since the picture was taken.

    "Even though this is not a definite lead, it is probably more solid than any other lead around the world and that is why so much effort and interest is being put into this search," Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss told reporters, before latest Chinese image was reported.

    Flight 370: China sees limits to power as Malaysia struggles over jet

    China has not held back in forcing the pace of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. It has deployed 21 satellites and a flotilla of naval ships. It has dispatched investigators to Malaysia, run background checks on the Chinese passengers, and scoured radar images of its vast western regions. Every day it has cajoled, chided and criticized Malaysian officials.

    And still it has come up empty-handed. Two weeks after the plane vanished on an overnight flight to Beijing, no trace of the Boeing 777 jet or the 239 people on board, two-thirds of whom are Chinese, has been found.

    The painful process of working with Malaysia in searching for the airplane and investigating what went wrong in the early hours of March 8 has revealed the limits of China's power, influence and technological and military might in the region, despite its rapid rise as a rival to the United States and American strategic dominance of the Western Pacific.

    Within China, anguished relatives and friends of the passengers and their many sympathizers are pressing hard for answers, but the government finds itself helpless as Malaysia takes the lead in the search and investigation efforts, which is consistent with international norms on air disasters.
    Malaysia has been keeping other nations, including China, at a distance, to the frustration of officials here, according to political observers. That tension is reflected in the frequent condemnations of Malaysia that have appeared in the Chinese state news media. China is out of its comfort zone, no longer in the position of strength from which it usually deals with smaller Asian nations, including Malaysia.

    The two countries have for decades maintained strong economic ties, and Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, promised closer economic and military cooperation on a visit to Malaysia in October. At the same time, China has not been shy about pressing Malaysia on a range of delicate issues - in January, it sent a naval patrol to a reef in the South China Sea that is claimed by Malaysia; in 2012, it welcomed Malaysia's deportation of six ethnic Uighurs who had fled from China.

    Now, Chinese officials find themselves desperately prodding Malaysia to share information, to allow China a hand in the investigation and to placate the irate Chinese families who demand answers daily.

    "If you don't push them, they won't move," Zhu Zhenming, a scholar of Southeast Asia at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, said about the Malaysian authorities. "It's mostly to do with their administrative management capabilities, but also their culture."

    He added that Malaysia was "too lacking" when it came to "dealing with disaster management" - "not because they don't want to do it, but because they cannot."

    That sense of frustration, and perhaps condescension, has come through even in official Chinese remarks that were intended to be diplomatic. On Tuesday, Huang Huikang, the Chinese ambassador to Malaysia, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, that "the Malaysian government has insufficient capabilities, technologies and experience in responding to the MH370 incident, but they did their best." 

    Thai constitutional court voids February election

    Thailand's constitutional court on Friday ruled that a general election held last month was invalid, deepening a political stalemate following weeks of opposition protests.

    The February 2 polls, called by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in an unsuccessful attempt to ease a months-old political crisis, have not yet been completed because of disruption by demonstrators.

    A court spokesman told reporters that the 6:3 ruling was reached on the grounds that voting was not held for the entire country on the same day.

    Opposition protesters blocked candidate registrations in 28 constituencies, and also caused the closure of about 10 per cent of polling stations.

    The main opposition Democrat Party boycotted the vote, saying it would not end years of political turmoil.

    The case was one of a slew of legal hurdles facing Yingluck, who has withstood calls to resign despite months of political street protests.

    A spokesman for her Puea Thai Party described the outcome as "regrettable", and said the annulment of the vote would "set a bad precedent".
    The petition was filed by a Bangkok law lecturer. A similar bid, submitted by the opposition on the grounds that the failure to hold the entire election on the same day was an attempt to grab power unconstitutionally, was rejected by the constitutional court last month.

    Yingluck's government, in a caretaker role following the incomplete election, faces a series of legal challenges that could lead to her removal from office, including negligence charges linked to a rice subsidy scheme.

    She has faced more than four months of street demonstrations seeking to force her from office and install an unelected government to oversee reforms and curb the dominance of her billionaire family.

    Twenty-three people have been killed in recent weeks in gun and grenade attacks, mostly targeting protesters.

    It is the latest chapter in a political crisis stretching back to a military coup in 2006 that ousted Yingluck's brother Thaksin Shinawatra, a divisive tycoon-turned-politician who lives in Dubai to avoid prison for a corruption conviction.

    Moscow wins overwhelming Crimea vote, West readies sanctions

    Crimea's Moscow-backed leaders declared a 96% vote in favour of quitting Ukraine and annexation by Russia in a referendum Western powers said was illegal and will bring immediate sanctions.
    As state media in Russia carried a startling reminder of its power to turn the United States to "radioactive ash", US President Barack Obama spoke to Vladimir Putin, telling the Russian president that he and his European allies were ready to impose "additional costs" on Moscow for violating Ukraine's territory.
    The Kremlin and the White House issued statements saying Obama and Putin saw diplomatic options to resolve what is the gravest crisis in East-West relations since the Cold War.

    A pro-Russian protester celebrates in Simferopol's Lenin Square on March 16, 2014 after exit polls showed that about 95% of voters in Ukraine's Crimea region supported union with Russia (AFP photo)

    But Obama said Russian forces must first end "incursions" into its ex-Soviet neighbour while Putin renewed his accusation that the new leadership in Kiev, brought to power by an uprising last month against his elected Ukrainian ally, were failing to protect Russian-speakers from violent Ukrainian nationalists.
    Moscow defended a military takeover of the majority ethnic Russian Crimea by citing a right to protect "peaceful citizens". Ukraine's interim government has mobilised troops to defend against an invasion of its eastern mainland, where pro-Russian protesters have been involved in deadly clashes in recent days.
    With three-quarters of Sunday's votes counted in Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula that is home to 2 million people, 95.7% had supported annexation by Russia, chief electoral official Mikhail Malyshev, was quoted as saying by local media.
    Turnout was 83 percent, he added - a high figure given that many who opposed the move had said they would boycott the vote. Russia's lower house of parliament will pass legislation allowing Crimea to join Russia "in the very near future", news agency Interfax cited its deputy speaker as saying on Monday.
    "Results of the referendum in Crimea clearly showed that residents of Crimea see their future only as part of Russia," Sergei Neverov was quoted as saying. Japan on Monday echoed Western nations in rejecting the referendum and called on Russia not to annex Crimea. US and European officials say military action is unlikely over Crimea, which Soviet rulers handed to Ukraine 60 years ago.

    But the risk of a wider Russian incursion, as Putin probes Western weakness and tries to restore Moscow's influence over its old Soviet empire, leaves NATO calculating how to help Kiev without triggering what some Ukrainians call "World War Three".
    "We hope all parties can calmly maintain restraint to prevent the situation from further escalating and worsening.
    Political resolution and dialogue is the only way out," Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong told reporters on Monday, ahead of a visit to Europe by President Xi Jinping later this month. China avoided making a comment on the Crimea referendum and has said it does not back sanctions on Moscow - a close diplomatic ally and key economic partner.

    Highlighting the stakes, journalist Dmitry Kiselyov, who is close to the Kremlin, stood before an image of a mushroom cloud on his weekly TV show to issue a stark warning. He said: "Russia is the only country in the world that is realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash."
    On Lenin Square in the centre of the Crimean capital Simferopol, a band struck up even before polls closed as the crowd waved Russian flags. Regional premier Sergei Aksyonov, a businessman nicknamed "Goblin" who took power when Russian forces moved in two weeks ago, thanked Moscow for its support.
    The regional assembly is expected to rubber-stamp a plan to transfer allegiance to Russia on Monday before Aksyonov travels to Moscow, although the timing of any final annexation is in doubt. Putin may choose to hold off a formal move as diplomatic bargaining continues over economic and diplomatic sanctions that many EU states fear could hurt them as much as they do Russia.

    Sama attack Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood political dance

    Entered the Egyptian dancer Sama, which knew her marriage to former Attorney Salafi Anwar Albulkima, the world of politics and joined the opposition a lyrical dancer paragraph attacking President Mohamed Morsy and mockery of the Renaissance project, which was promised in his election campaign.

    Contained this dance on the sharp criticism of the president's policy Mursi, arguing that the Renaissance project "pollen Venkoh", meaning that the project and the placebo, and that Mercy did not achieve anything except in "manga", in reference to the president's statement to the famous Egyptian in the first 100 days of his reign on the decline price mango, a statement that was met with ridicule from some activists and Egyptian revolutionary coalitions and a number of media.

    As used in the song accompanying the dance political words related persons of the Muslim Brotherhood, such as the word "hell" that became famous by guiding the former Mahdi Akef in a dialogues when he was quoted as saying: "hell in Egypt", which raised a storm of attack angry against him, and used some Implications verbal referring to others like Dr. Essam el-Erian.
    Dance and song to قيتا strong echo on social networking sites between critic strongly welcome the
    way that you used in attacking the president Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood, and sarcastic comments someone say: "the opposition and many faces."
    Confirmed Sama Egyptian at the beginning of her speech she did not know anything about politics, not far nor near, defender video that does not carry any words offensive to any particular person, and citing that artists do not insult anyone by contrast members of some Islamic groups who Lisbon actors and actresses verbally inappropriate.

    It indicated before the video display consulted a lawyer presented the possibility that this work to any legal liability, he stressed that the work does not insult any particular person.
    She explained Sama Egyptian that the lyrics are words circulating in the Egyptian street has photographed in her home during her spare time without the benefit of team work, explaining it during their presence in demonstrations Friday "Egypt not manor" and found a group of young people chanting slogans that she said in the clip on some melodies arose her performance songs on the way "satirical comedy."
    Sama said the Egyptian It's not worried about this video because it does not carry any abuse to Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, pointing out that Dr. Morsi must respect for his position as Egypt.
    At the end of her speech Sama said that if she happened to her any harm in the coming days will be by Islamic groups.

    And jumped name Sama Egyptian into the spotlight following the publication of the newspaper "The Republic", the semi-official, news in March / March last as married deputy of Parliament for the Nour Party Salafi (formerly) Anwar Albulkima, known then as Vice cosmetic or vice nose; due conducting surgery and his claim that he was subjected to the assault incident resulted in serious injuries and steal 100 thousand pounds, then returned and admitted that it was not real and that he was under the influence of the anesthetic.
    The newspaper published a statement accounted for Sama Egyptian Albulkima threatens to kill and maim her face with water fire after attempts to uncover their secret marriage.

    'Female Baby Having Two Heads' Born In India

    Conjoined twins were born at a hospital in northern India on Wednesday morning.

    "Yes this report is perfectly true that we have delivered a female baby having two heads,” Dr. Ashish Sehgal, the CEO of Cygnus JK Hindu Hospital, told ABCNews.com in an email. “She is presently alive and healthy.”

    The New York Daily News reports that the babies' mom, Urmila Sharma, couldn't afford an ultrasound and didn't know she was delivering conjoined twins.

    "We only came to know she was carrying conjoined twins after an ultrasound two weeks ago but it was too late to do anything by then," Dr Shikha Malik, who delivered the baby, said.

    According to the Daily Mail, the twins have "two heads, two necks and two spines," but just one body and their chances for survival are slim.

    Sehgal told the Daily News that a “meticulous and challenging” surgery could be the key to saving the twins' life, but the procedure can't take place until they are in stable condition.

    Indian woman gave birth in the 28-year-old girl with two heads and Rqptin and one body, in a hospital in northern India, has been to prevent the extreme poverty of the parent to remedy such a situation or treatment during pregnancy.

     The subject of the girl child, which was born after a caesarean section, to monitor the health and medical minutes in the intensive care unit because of the condition. The doctor overseeing the birth, the owner of an old man, according to a newspaper the "Daily Mail" the British, that the parents are going through difficult circumstances, with the medical staff trying their support as much as possible.

     The surprised couple, who have another child, the status of the newborn, or more precisely conjoined or Siamese twins, having prevented their condition of poverty and social hardship of an image ultrasound Ultrasound, which reveal the state of the early embryo.

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