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DUBAI: Venus Williams moved to within one win of a possible semi-final against her younger sister Serena after beating one of the tour's most spectac ularly rising players in Dubai on Wednesday. The Wimbledon champion scored an impressively solid win over Alize Cornet, a 19-year-old from Nice who has risen more than 50 places in little more than a year to within one slot of the world's top ten. After an absorbing first set, Venus made light of the threat, imposed her forceful game upon the tactical patterns which Cornet tried to create, and made many more forays to the net than she used to, eventually winning by a slightly misleading 6-3, 6-1. If she gets past Elena Dementieva, the Russian fourth seed who ousted Spanish 14th seed Anabel Medina Garrigues 6-1, 6-3, Venus will go toe to toe with her sister, the world number one. The key moments came after Venus had broken Cornet's service for 4-2 - causing the French player to launch a ball angrily up into the air - and Cornet...

Irrfan Khan and Divya Dutta have shot for one of the boldest and longest love-making scene in Jennifer Lynch’s Hiss. The scene has a long passionate lip-lock between the two actors. Our source from the unit says, “Irrfan and Divya had to shoot for a scene which required them to be lip-locked for a long time. The scene was shot in Kerala sometime ago. Initially both Irrfan and Divya had reservations about shooting the scene as it was very long and passionate, and had to be shot in front of the entire unit. The director Jennifer Lynch instructed them to remain in that position and not to break the lip-lock until she asked them to do so. We called Divya Dutta, who confirmed the news but did not wish to give any details. However, Irrfan Khan was more forthcoming, he said, Yes, we do have a very lengthy and passionate kiss, but it was the requirement of the script. In the film we both go through some crisis and the love-making scene happens after that. When asked if the scene was shot in fr...

The actress who’s on a film-signing spree at the moment seems to be sharing that success rate even when it comes to signing brands. And the latest buzz on the Kapoor babe is that she has now been signed on by an international clothing brand. An insider revealed, “The company had considered several of the top actresses of Bollywood, but zeroed in on Kareena.” Seems like Kareena’s popularity is already reaching out across the seven seas. So, will we see her shining on the Hollywood billboards next?

WASHINGTON: The United States State Department had no specific comment to offer on the Swat peace agreement, saying it is in contact with the Pakistani government to learn about the full strategy.“We are in touch with the government in Pakistan, we are discussing the issue, but that is all I have for you at the moment,” a State Department spokesman said at the daily briefing in his cautious response to questions on the development that Pakistan said would help bring peace to its restive valley in the northwestern province, bordering Afghanistan. Spokesman Gordon K. Duguid, asked to comment on enforcement of Shariat-based justice system in Swat said, “As I understand that Islamic law is within the constitutional framework of Pakistan, so I don’t know that is particularly an issue for anyone outside of Pakistan to discuss.” Pressed if Washington saw the agreement as a good or bad development, he said “We have seen these sorts of actions before, what is important is that we are all workin...

TOKYO: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is hoping to revitalize U.S. economic and development ties with Southeast Asia as she visits Indonesia during her first overseas trip as America's top diplomat. In Jakarta on Wednesday and Thursday in the second leg of her trip, Clinton intends to announce plans to step up Washington's engagement with a region that often felt slighted by the Bush administration.Clinton also plans to use the stop to continue the Obama administration's efforts to rehabilitate America's image abroad, particularly among Muslims. Indonesia is the world's most populous Islamic nation, and it has personal ties for President Barack Obama,who spent part of his childhood living there.Clinton will visit the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) secretariat in Jakarta and is likely to signal U.S. intent to sign the regional bloc's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. Clinton will also pledge to attend the group annual foreign ministers m...

OTTAWA: U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he still wants to reopen the North American Free Trade Agreement, despite a warning from Canada that this would be a mistake, but he said he did not want to end up curbing trade.In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp, shortly before his visit to Ottawa on Thursday, Obama also declined to characterize oil from Canada's vast oil sands region as "dirty oil" which should somehow be curtailed.Obama had alarmed Canada during the Democratic primaries last year when he advocated renegotiating NAFTA, and he reiterated this goal on Tuesday while recognizing these were sensitive economic times."As I've said before, NAFTA, the basic framework of the agreement, has environmental and labor protections as side agreements. My argument has always been that we might as well incorporate them into the full agreement so that they're fully enforceable," he said.However, he also said: "I think there are a lo...

HEARAT: Afghan police said Wednesday that a US-led air strike killed six women and two children in western Afghanistan, but the US military said up to 15 militants died. The bodies of eight men were found after Monday's strike on the outskirts of the city of Herat, the police chief for western Afghanistan, Ikramuddin Yawar, told. Three of the men appeared to belong to the "armed opposition" but the identities of the other five were unclear, the police officer said. Those five bodies were found near the dead women and children, who were from a nomad tribe and killed close to their tents, he said."We sent a police and army team to investigate the incident. They reported back to me that six women and two children as well as eight men -- three of them in one location and five in another -- were killed," he told. "The women and children no doubt were civilians. Three of the men could be from the armed opposition, but we are not sure about who the other five were...

KABUL: Presidents Hamid Karzai and Barack Obama have spoken on the phone for the first time since Obama's inauguration. Karzai's office says the two presidents talked about security issues and the Afghan presidential elections in August.Karzai admitted last week that almost four weeks after Obama's inauguration he still had not spoken with the U.S. leader. Karzai spoke with former President George W. Bush regularly; fueling speculation that Obama was sending a clear signal that Karzai's standing with him was much lower.

NEW DELHI: India has warned of the "danger to humanity" posed by the Taliban, days after Pakistan struck a deal with Islamic militants allowing Taliban-style sharia law in a region bordering Afghanistan.When asked to comment late Tuesday on Islamabad's pact with pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan's Swat region, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee insisted the Taliban was nothing short of a "terrorist organisation." "Taliban believes in nothing but destruction and violence. In my assessment, Taliban is a danger to humanity and civilisation." The controversial accord on Monday, widely seen as a Pakistani concession to militants, followed talks between ministers in the troubled North West Frontier Province and a local militant leader, Soofi Mohammad, on formalising the implementation of Islamic law.

KABUL: At least sixteen persons including women and children were killed in US Army air strikes in Afghanistan.Afghan police officials said that the US fighter planes bombed the outskirts of Heart, which resulted in the death of 16 persons including six women and to children. Police said that three among the dead apparently look like militants, but the others were civilians.However, US Army claimed that the militants’ commander Ghulam Yahya Akbari was targeted in air strike killing 15 militants including Ghulam Yahya. Police said that Commander Ghulam Yahya was not included among those killed.

KABUL: At least sixteen persons including women and children were killed in US Army air strikes in Afghanistan.Afghan police officials said that the US fighter planes bombed the outskirts of Heart, which resulted in the death of 16 persons including six women and to children. Police said that three among the dead apparently look like militants, but the others were civilians.However, US Army claimed that the militants’ commander Ghulam Yahya Akbari was targeted in air strike killing 15 militants including Ghulam Yahya. Police said that Commander Ghulam Yahya was not included among those killed.

NEW DELHI: Indian Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta has warned of a potential nuclear threat from the sea route. Nuclear weapons may be smuggled into India in a cargo container, said Admiral Mehta. The statement comes after sources revealed that the Taliban have plans to attack western cultural centres in Indian cities. However, no specific intelligence inputs on the nature of the threat, the specific target, the timing or the group have been received

BOGOTA: Six people died and 14 were missing after a rain-swollen river flooded Tumaco and other towns on Colombia's Pacific coast, leaving 2,500 families homeless, authorities said.Pacific Naval Force commander Jesus Bejarano said the drowned and missing were all from the port city of Tumaco, 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) southwest of Bogota. "Initial reports speak of six dead and 14 missing," the government's Emergency Prevention Service director Luz Amanda Pulido told reporters. The two towns of Barbacoas and Ricaurte were also flooded by the Mira river after rains soaked the region, leaving at least 2,500 families without a home, Bejarano added. The number of evacuations was likely to rise because "nearly all riverside inhabitants were affected" by the floods, Pulido noted after having flown over the stricken area.

KABUL: Afghan officials Wednesday welcomed US President Barack Obama's decision to send 17,000 more soldiers to fight a Taliban-led insurgency here, but ordinary people feared more troops would mean more attacks.In his first major military decision since taking office in January, Obama on Tuesday agreed to the deployment "to stabilise a deteriorating situation" in Afghanistan. "It's a positive move," Afghan defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Is'haq Payman told. "But we have our own conditions. We want these troops to be deployed in areas where they could play a positive role in suppressing terrorists," he said. "We want them to be deployed along the border, in eastern, southeastern and southern parts of the country." Many of the attacks in Afghanistan are carried out by militants holed up in Pakistan's lawless tribal zones, who infiltrate the porous 2,400-kilometre (1,500-mile), largely mountainous border. Payman said the US rein...

PHNOM PENH: The former head of a prison where thousands of Cambodians were tortured then killed for opposing the Khmer Rouge expressed remorse for his deeds as a genocide tribunal got under way here late Wednesday.Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, is charged with crimes against humanity. He is the first of five defendants who belonged to a close-knit, ultra-communist regime that turned Cambodia into a vast slave labor camp and charnel house in which 1.7 million or more people died of starvation, disease and execution.Duch oversaw the S-21 prison in the capital Phnom Penh, previously a school, now the Tuol Sleng genocide museum, through whose gates some 16,000 men, women and children passed. Only a handful survived.In one mass execution, he gave his men a "kill them all" order, the indictment said. In another incident involving 29 prisoners he told his henchmen to "interrogate four persons, kill the rest," it said.After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Duch disappear...

CARACAS: President Hugo Chavez is vowing that Venezuela will provide China with all the oil it needs ``for the next 200 years.'' Chavez spoke to a visiting delegation led by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping. The two nations are expected to sign a series of accords on Wednesday.Caracas sees China as a key partner in its strategy of diversifying oil sales away from the U.S., which buys about half Venezuela's crude despite years of political tensions. The South American nation aims to increase exports to China to 1million barrels a day by 2012, up from 330,000 currently. Venezuela and China plan to build four oil tankers and three refineries in China capable of processing heavy Venezuelan crude.

WASHINGTON: The United States State Department had no specific comment to offer on the Swat peace agreement, saying it is in contact with the Pakistani government to learn about the full strategy.“We are in touch with the government in Pakistan, we are discussing the issue, but that is all I have for you at the moment,” a State Department spokesman said at the daily briefing in his cautious response to questions on the development that Pakistan said would help bring peace to its restive valley in the northwestern province, bordering Afghanistan. Spokesman Gordon K. Duguid, asked to comment on enforcement of Shariat-based justice system in Swat said, “As I understand that Islamic law is within the constitutional framework of Pakistan, so I don’t know that is particularly an issue for anyone outside of Pakistan to discuss.” Pressed if Washington saw the agreement as a good or bad development, he said “We have seen these sorts of actions before, what is important is that we are all workin...

JAKARTA: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived Wednesday in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, on her first mission to start mending US ties with the Islamic world.She was to meet Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda and leaders of the Jakarta-based Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) later in the day on the second leg of her four-nation trip through Asia.Wearing a red coat over a black blouse and trousers, Clinton touched down under heavy skies and was greeted by senior officials and a choir of female students from US President Barack Obama's old primary school in Jakarta.Obama, who spent part of his childhood here in the late 1960s, has promised to improve relations with the Islamic world after the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan under his predecessor George W. Bush."We have a responsibility to speak out and to work with the Muslim world on behalf of positive change and to enlist the help of Muslims around the world against th...

KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah said in comments published Wednesday that a French firm is studying a plan by the Gulf state for a civilian nuclear project to produce power.Al-Watan daily quoted the emir as saying Kuwait is "seriously considering joining the nuclear club but only for peaceful purposes.""A French company is taking charge of the matter," the daily quoted the emir as saying. He did not name the company.Sheikh Sabah also said that generating power through a nuclear programme would "save large quantities of fuel being consumed by power and water desalination plants."The emir stressed Kuwait has no military ambitions with its planned nuclear programme which will be "within international law and standards."Kuwait is a member of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which has decided to develop a joint nuclear technology programme for peaceful use under international rules.Besides Kuwait, the group i...

JERUSALEM: Al-Aqsa foundation for endowment and heritage issued an urgent appeal to the Palestinian people and the Islamic Nation to save occupied Jerusalem before it is entirely judaized and Al-Aqsa Mosque before it is destroyed, warning that there will be more dangerous Zionist attacks on the holy city and Mosque during this year.In a new report, the foundation underlined that during 2008, Israel escalated its policy of fait accompli in Jerusalem and raced against time to carry out different judaization schemes against Islamic holy places, antiquities, history and civilization other than Palestinian inhabitants of the city.The report outlined that the Zionist break-ins at Al-Aqsa Mosque escalated significantly in the second half of 2008, where groups composed of hundreds of men, women and children in addition to Israeli politicians under heavy police guard desecrated the Mosque dozens of times.It added that the IOA also committed a violation of another kind against the Mosque last ye...

WASHINGTON: Even with an additional 17,000 troops in Afghanistan, the top US commander there predicted "a tough year" in 2009 and said the fight against insurgents would require a major commitment of up to four years.General David McKiernan, who commands US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, spoke a day after President Barack Obama approved the deployment in coming months of 17,000 troops, increasing the current US force by about 50 percent."Even with these additional forces, I have to tell you, 2009 is going to be a tough year," McKiernan told reporters at the Pentagon."But we do see, with these additional forces, an opportunity to break this stalemate, at least in terms of security conditions in the south," he said.The general said NATO troops were training Afghan military and police but that it would take up to four years before the international force could hand over to the Afghans and have them take a leading role."For the next three to four years, ...

MANAMA: Bahrain said on Wednesday it has halted negotiations with Iran over a major gas import deal in a deepening row over comments that touch on the sovereignty of the tiny Gulf kingdom.The protest action came as regional Arab heavyweights weighed into the dispute with an outpouring of support for the US-allied island nation over the alleged remarks by an Iranian official last week."The kingdom of Bahrain has stopped negotiations with Iran concerning importing natural gas," a senior official told a foreign news agency on condition of anonymity."The decision was taken after the regretful remarks that touch on Bahrain's sovereignty and do not support the relations between the two countries."An Iranian official allegedly said last week that Bahrain used to be Iran's 14th governorate and once had a representative in its parliament.

DHAKA: Scores of people were feared missing on Thursday after a ferry with more than 100 passengers on board collided with a cargo boat and capsized in southern Bangladesh, police said. Local police chief Nuruzzaman Chowdhury told foreign news agency many on board the small ferry swam ashore after the boat was hit by a sand-laden boat on the river Kirtankhola in dense early morning fog. "We fear that scores of people have been missing. We have called in divers to conduct searches in the river," he said. Boat and ferry accidents due to poor safety standards and overloading are common in Bangladesh, which is criss-crossed by a network of 230 rivers.

NEW DELHI: Former captain of Indian cricket team Mohammad Azharuddin has decided to enter into the field of politics and the ruling party Congress has approved his primary membership in this regard.The former cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin has decided to play the second innings of his life and this time on a pitch of politics.Though the leaders of the Congress have approved the primary membership of Azharuddin but it has not been decided yet to award him the ticket for the elections of Lok Sabha.Congress leader M Veerappa Moily on Thursday said that the membership of Azharuddin has been approved and he is joining the Congress.The Congress leaders said that the past of Azharuddin is not an issue for the party.This may be recalled that Mohammad Azahruddin was banned to play cricket following the charges of match-fixing. However, the ban was later lifted but before that he had taken the retirement from cricket.

SWAT: The peace talks between Maulana Sufi Mohammad, Chief of the Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Maulana Fazlullah for the restoration of peace in Swat have begun at undisclosed location in Matta.The first round of talks was held between delegation of TNSM and Maulana Fazlullah. Sufi Mohammad did not take part in the meeting. He would likely participate in the second round.On Tuesday, Maulana Sufi Mohammad in his address said that the purpose of his Swat’s visit is to restore peace in the area. He said peace is necessary for the implementation of Sharia.