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It might be called 'Chandi Chowk to China'. But interestingly Nikhil Advani's 'Chandni Chowk to China' hasn't really been fully filmed in China.Actually it so happened that after a major part of the shooting, the director and his entire crew had to hastily leave China and look for an alternative place to shoot the rest of the film. It has been shot in Bangkok which according to the director has a similar topography to China and is a very Bollywood-friendly country. Nikhil has explained why. He's said, "It was the year of the Olympics in China and it became impossible beyond a point to shoot in the country where our film is based. Maybe a quieter less flamboyant film, but not the kind of action that Akshay has shot."Reportedly the Olympic authorities found Akshay Kumar's athletic exertions to be a bit of an intrusion in the preparations for the grand international event. Quite surprising to believe though!Akshay Kumar has been pitted against th...

Mikaal Zulfikar, the young Pakistani actor who played a terrorist in Jagmohan Mundhra's Shoot On Sight is determined to shift base to India and buy property in collaboration with two other leading entertainers singer Atif Aslam and Ali Zafar.Says Mikaal, "When I come to Mumbai I'll be searching for a place to stay. Yes, Atif Aslam, Ali Zafar and I are planning to get one big place to stay in. All three of us are from Lahore and have known each other for years. So it makes sense to stay together. I love Mumbai. That's where the action is."Mikaal admits the situation for Pakistanis in Mumbai is grim at the moment. " I've heard Pakistan entertainers are being asked to leave Mumbai after what happened. That's really unfair. Bollywood is a global entertainment headquarter.We shouldn't be stopped from coming to Mumbai. India is a global market and terrorist attacks shouldn't deter that target. I've spoken to some Pakistani entertainers in Mumba...

Ram Gopal Varma won't admit it. But Irrfan Khan lets it out that Ramu's recently-announced terror film Agyaat was inspired by the special effects Ramu saw on the sets of Jennifer Lynch's Hisss. Irrfan Khan can't wait to be devoured by Mallika Sherawat."She plays a man-eating creature.She swallows men in the film. And I'm just dying to be swallowed her. Watching her devour men is a very very sensuous processs. Unfortunately I don't get eaten by her. I'm the investigative officer trying to find out who's devouring all these humanbeings."Chuckles Irrfan, "I'm working in Hisss with two very different and interesting kind of women, Mallika Sherawat and Jennifer Lynch. Hisss would've been like any other snakewomen story. But the way Jennifer has treated thes tory has taken the film to another level. The special effects will shock our audiences. I think Ramu is inspired to make his next film (Agyaat) by Jennifer's film. High-time we ...

NEW DELHI: He may have made many bowlers lose their sleep by his explosive batting but Sachin Tendulkar could not close his eyes on the night the terror struck Mumbai, so disturbed was he. " I have been disturbed. I have been tracking the horrific images of mayhem on television. It saddened me to see my countrymen being targeted. I couldn't sleep all this time. I am numb, the images keep playing in my head," Tendulkar said. "This was just not an attack on Mumbai; it is an attack on India," he added. Tendulkar saluted the security persons who risked their lives to save the people of Mumbai.

LOS ANGELES: International Hockey Federation (FIH) has deferred appointments in its various committees until the next Board meeting in February next year. The newly elected President of FIH Leandro Negre announced that the existing committees, therefore, continue to operate as usual until then. "During the FIH Executive Board meeting in Los Angeles, USA on Sunday, Executive Board announced venues and dates of various FIH world level scheduled events”, said a spokesman of Pakistan Hockey Federation. The Executive Board has awarded the following tournaments: The BDO Men's Champions Challenge I 2009 allocated to Quilmes, Argentina from 6-13 December 2009.The BDO Women's Champions Challenge I 2009 allocated to Cape Town, South Africa from 1-8 November 2009.The Men's Champions Challenge II 2009/2010 allocated to Dublin, Ireland from 5-11 July 2009.The Women's Champions Challenge II 2009/2010 is allocated to Kazan, Russia from 21-27 June 2009.The Men's World Cup Qual...

MANCHESTER: Carlos Tevez scored four times to lead Manchester United into the Carling Cup semi-finals. Tevez headed in from close-range and then set up Nani to fire home, before Benni McCarthy's shot pulled one back. Tevez struck next from the spot after he was fouled by Martin Olsson, before tapping in another to seal his treble. McCarthy set up Matt Derbyshire to slot in and McCarthy struck himself from four yards out, before Tevez hammered in a cracker to seal it in injury time. Tevez's magnificent display is sure to cause selection problems for boss Sir Alex Ferguson, who has left him on the bench for much of the season in the league. As for Blackburn, their poor performance will not ease the pressure on under-fire manager Paul Ince, who has seen his sideslip into the Premier League drop zone in recent weeks. United were rampant and Tevez completed his first hat trick in a United shirt with a quite wonderful team goal after 53 minutes. Giggs was the architect of the move w...

ISLAMABAD: Hae Sung Kim of South Korea bagged the doubles title in company with compatriot Jung Yoon Shin and also reached singles final of the 2nd Leg of ITF Pakistan Women Futures Tennis Tournament at PTF Tennis Complex on Thursday. Hae Sung Kim and Jung Yoon Shin beat India pair Poojashree Venkatesha and Parul Goswami 6-4, 7-6(1) in the doubles final. In the two singles semi-finals, Hae Sung Kim knocked out Indian girl Poojashree Venkatasha 6-1, 6-2 while in an all-Indian affair Kumari Sweta Solanki disposed of top seed Parul Goswami 6-2, 6-2.In the doubles final, Korean pair of Kim and Shin broke first game of Goswami to take a 2-0 lead and eventually win the first set at 6-4 by hitting number of winners down the lines.Indians were making lots of unforced errors at the net. In the second set Kim and Shin again built up the winning lead 5-2 by breaking 1st and 3rd game of Goswami and Venkatesha.Goswami and Venkatesha fought back to level the score 5 all by playing consistant game fr...

KARACHI: Pakistan will figure in next years Hockey Champions Challenge-II in Ireland in a bid to qualify for the Champions Trophy, Secretary Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) Asif Bajwa said Thursday.PHF Secretary, who returned here from Los Angeles (USA) on Wednesday night after attending the International Hockey Federation (FIH) Congress with chief Qasim Zia, said international hockey fraternity was fully supportive to the cause of Pakistan hockey. He said PHF was not awarded any event because the previous regime of the federation never entered into any bid for holding any international event in Pakistan.Bajwa said the newly elected head of FIH Leonardo Negre has assured his full and all out support for the revival of international hockey in Pakistan.He said Spanish Sports Administrator Leonardo Negre had assured Pakistan delegation that his first official visit after his election as FIH Chief will be to Pakistan, just to show his solidarity for the contribution Pakistan had made for ...

COLOMBO: The Asian Cricket Council (ACC) has urged India to go ahead with its tour of Pakistan next year, saying that cancelling the series would be disastrous for the game in the sub-continent. The ACC, which met in Colombo on Thursday, also scrapped the Asian Test Championship claiming that it was a loss-making exercise.The ACC is holding its finance and development committee meeting on Friday in which the Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Ejaz Butt will be elected President.ACC chief executive Syed Ashraful Haque said the council wants to see India touring Pakistan but admitted that it can't get involved in the issue as it was a matter between the two governments."The uncertainty surrounding India's tour to Pakistan is a matter of great concern for ACC," Haque told 'Geo News'."But the ACC is helpless as matter is not in hands of cricket boards it is to be decided by both governments. As far as we know, both boards are willing to play the series," Ha...

SYDNEY: Australia’s skipper Ricky Ponting hoped that his team would continue to maintain its number one ranking in the cricket world next year too. Ponting said South Africa will not deserve to be called the world's best team even if it wins the forthcoming three-Test series starting in Perth this month.Australia is 13 points ahead of the second-placed Proteas on the International Cricket Council's Test rankings.Ponting says it takes a long period of domination for a team to become world champion."It has taken us a long time and a lot of great wins in different conditions around the world to get us to that number one spot," he said."If South Africa beat us 3-0, I don't know if that gives them enough points to get over us."But if they won the series 1-0 or 2-1, I don't think that would mean that they deserve to take over that mantle."Ponting said he had been assured that his wrist problem would not force him to scale back his workload.

NEW DELHI: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived in India on Thursday for a visit aimed at bolstering ties in defence and nuclear energy, a Kremlin spokeswoman said.Medvedev was due to have dinner with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh before holding a full day of high level meetings on Friday. He is scheduled to leave on Saturday morning.

WASHINGTON: The White House on Thursday called on Pakistan to "act with resolve, urgency" in cooperating with India on the probe into attacks in Mumbai that stoked tension between the nuclear rivals."Pakistan needs to act with resolve, urgency. They need to cooperate fully and transparently and they need to keep the line of communication open between their country and India," said spokeswoman Dana Perino.

OTTAWA: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was Thursday to call for the two-week old parliament to be suspended to block an opposition bid to topple his government and take over without fresh elections.Harper was meeting with Governor General Michaelle Jean, the country's acting head of state as the representative of Queen Elizabeth II, to ask her to end the current session to buy him time to resolve the political turmoil. The unprecedented move comes after a week of political turmoil, which has rocked the country and sharply divided public opinion.The Liberal opposition led by Stephane Dion has spearheaded moves to oust the minority Conservative government, accusing Harper of failing to address the plunging economy in the Group of Eight nation.As a parliamentary vote of no-confidence looms on Monday, Harper is fighting for his survival just seven weeks after being re-elected at the head of a minority government in snap elections.Dion has called on Jean to dissolve the current ...

WARSAW: Poland has welcomed NATO's support for Warsaw's plan to host part of a planned U.S. missile defense shield.Defense Minister Bogdan Klich said that Warsaw negotiated its missile defense deal with Washington with the knowledge that “allies in NATO accept our bilateral agreement”.He said Thursday that NATO first backed the plan during a summit in April. NATO foreign ministers reaffirmed their support this week. The U.S. says the system would include 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic to help protect Europe against potential threats from the Middle East. Russia is opposed to the plans and has threatened to deploy short-range missiles to its westernmost region of Kaliningrad, near Poland.

LONDON: The UK plans to unveil tougher citizenship rules under which immigrants will have to "earn" their right to stay by integrating themselves fully to the British society, including acquiring a sound knowledge of English.Under the proposed changes to rules, immigrants will have to "earn" the right to a passport rather than simply achieving it through five years' residence. The measure will end the automatic right to stay and replace it with a new system of "earned citizenship" and temporary residence.The latest measure announced by the Home office proposes that immigrants making little effort to integrate into the British society will have to wait longer for citizenship. Immigrants convicted of serious criminal offences could be barred from citizenship and those found guilty of minor crimes may face delays in having their applications processed. Those seeking citizenship will have to demonstrate a good ability in English and a knowledge of life in ...

ALEXANDRIA: Egyptian police on Thursday arrested 64 members of the opposition party Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen for organising protests against the siege of the Gaza Strip.The arrests were made during dawn raids in the northern city of Alexandria, the Suez Canal town of Ismailya and other governorates in the Nile Delta, the website of Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen said. It was not immediately possible to confirm the number of arrests with security officials.Earlier this week, police arrested 28 Brothers "for membership of an illegal organisation and possession of banned literature," a security official said.The Muslim Brotherhood (Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen), which calls for an Islamic state in Egypt through peaceful means, is officially banned by the government but fields independent candidates in parliamentary and municipal elections.The movement won a fifth of seats in the 2005 parliamentary election, which observers said was marred by police intervention and fraud.Police have arrested dozens of t...

WASHINGTON: US President George W. Bush thanked Turkish President Abdullah Gul by telephone Friday for his efforts to promote greater cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the White House said."President Bush thanked President Gul for his commitment to a stable and secure Iraq as well as his ongoing work to promote cooperation between the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan," said spokesman Gordon Johndroe.The conversation came one day before Gul was to host a second round of talks aimed at easing tensions between Kabul and Islamabad, and shortly after Iraq's presidential council gave its blessing to a US-Iraq agreement on the future of US forces there.Bush and Gul also "discussed the strong relationship between the United States and Turkey," said Johndroe.On Friday, Gul was to host Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari.The first summit was held in April last year which enabled Karzai and then Pakistani president Pervez M...

WELLINGTON: A Japanese climber died just hours before a helicopter came to rescue him and a companion trapped for six days by a fierce storm near the summit of New Zealand's highest mountain, police said. Mountain guide Kiyoshi Ikenouchi, 49, died on the 3,754 meter (12,316 feet) high Mount Cook early Friday, while his client Hideaki Nara, 51, was rescued several hours later. Police Inspector Dave Gaskin said rescuers had brought Nara and the body of Ikenouchi out when weather improved enough to allow a helicopter to reach the peak of the mountain, also known as Aoraki.

MUMBAI: Indian intelligence agencies have started a blame game against each other in the wake of Mumbai terror attacks as it has exposed the country’s inability to act against the terrorism.Various intelligence agencies of India, which have long denied contacts with each other, are now engaged in a struggle to avoid the blame.Just one week after the Mumbai attacks, there are reports that Indian intelligence agencies were aware of the threats in the country’s financial capital. These reports have attracted a huge public fury about the agencies.“There are over a dozen intelligence agencies in India, however, they lack the ability to integrate the information. They are also not answerable to any central command. These agencies have links with police, army and national security secretariat,” an analyst said.“The non-cooperation between these agencies has sent a message to the terrorists that they can cause a split among them and may easily come and ago as per their will,” said the analyst...