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LONDON: Roger Federer's bid for a record 15th Grand Slam title got underway in familiar fashion as the five-times champion settled into Wimbledon's new-look centre court with a straight sets demolition of Taiwan's Lu Yen-Hsun.Federer, the men's favourite in the absence of injured champion Rafael Nadal, recovered from going a break down early in the first set to win 7-5, 6-3, 6-2 and set up a second round meeting with Spain's Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who had a similarly straightforward win over Argentina's Agustin Calleri.Fine, dry conditions ensured there was no need of the new retractable roof that has been installed above Wimbledon's most famous court as part of an 80-million-pound upgrade.Federer also went largely untested and his post-match comments betrayed his confidence that he is destined for his seventh consecutive final.Novak Djokovic, the man seeded to meet Federer in the semi-finals, endured a much more testing afternoon. The Serb was forced to b...

Wednesday, June 24, 2009, PARIS: French President Nicolas Sarkozy reshuffled his right-wing cabinet, naming new interior and justice ministers and bringing on board the nephew of late Socialist leader Francois Mitterrand.Brice Hortefeux, a longtime Sarkozy ally who was labour and social affairs minister, was named to the interior ministry, replacing Michele Alliot-Marie who takes over from star minister Rachida Dati at justice.One high-profile newcomer to the cabinet was Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand, an openly-gay television personality and writer who currently heads the Villa Medicis French cultural academy in Rome.Despite his family ties to the former Socialist president, the 61-year-old is not himself a card-carrying member of the opposition party.Sarkozy's presidential chief of staff Claude Gueant announced the new lineup on the steps of the Elysee palace, following a day of consultations with Prime Minister Francois Fillon, who had argued against sweeping changes.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 NEW YORK: Unknown persons in American state of Maryland have killed a Pakistani descendent American. According to reports, Chaudhry Munaf was an owner of a petrol pump and living in US since 20 years. Police said the murder apparently took place during attempted robbery. He was belonged to Lala Musa.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 FLORIDA: NASA's new lunar probe beamed home images from the far side of the moon early Tuesday as the spacecraft eased into position for slamming down on the surface this October.The $79m Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) lifted off on June 18 along with its sister spacecraft, the $504m Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The two spacecraft separated shortly after launch.This morning's 1-hour swing-by put LCROSS about 1,988 miles (3,200km) from the moon's surface and gave NASA boffins their chance to calibrate the spacecraft's cameras and spectrometers. LCROSS is now in an elongated polar Earth orbit that won't get it up close and personal with the moon until the day of impact, October 9.Attached to the Atlas V's empty Centaur rocket upper stage, LCROSS will spend the downtime being prepped for the "heavy impactor" mission. NASA predicts the impact will create debris plumes that will be analyzed for the p...

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 WASHINGTON: The US military on Tuesday announced a new "cyber command" designed to wage digital warfare and to bolster defenses against mounting threats to its computer networks. Defense Secretary Robert Gates formally established the command -- the country's first -- that would operate under US Strategic Command, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. The command will begin operating in October and be fully operational in October 2010, Whitman said. The move reflects a shift in military strategy with "cyber dominance" now part of US war doctrine and comes amid growing alarm over the perceived threat posed by digital espionage coming from China, Russia and elsewhere. US officials said China has built up a sophisticated cyber warfare program and that a spate of intrusions in the United States and elsewhere can be traced back to Chinese sources. The officer widely expected to lead the command is Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, the dir...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Hurricane Andres, the first cyclone of the eastern Pacific season, pounded western Mexico on Tuesday after sweeping a fisherman to his death and flooding streets in Acapulco. Andres blew into a category one hurricane with sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph) as it moved north and neared the shore, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said The storm was around 65 miles (105 km) southwest of the port and resort town of Manzanillo. It was set to brush the coast before heading back out to sea and losing strength on Wednesday. The ports of Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas were all closed as the storm created huge waves. No major tourist resorts were in immediate danger, however, and Mexico has no oil drilling platforms in the Pacific. On Monday, Andres caused heavy rains that flooded parts of Acapulco, and a man in his mid-thirties was swept away to his death by a wave as he stood waist-deep in the sea in a nearby town fishing with a line. "...

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's health minister confirmed on Wednesday the country's first cases of the H1N1 flu virus after an Indonesian pilot in Jakarta and a British woman in the resort island of Bali tested positive for the virus. The 22-year-old British woman had been living in Australia, while the pilot, 37, had travelled to Australia and Hong Kong, Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said. The minister told a news conference that she believed both cases had originated from Australia and there was no evidence the virus had spread in Indonesia, the world's fourth-most populous country with 226 million people. "I assure you Indonesians have not been infecting other Indonesians. Both cases were transmitted from abroad," she said, adding that those in contact with the two confirmed sufferers had been screened for the virus. She urged health authorities in Bali, the country's main tourism hub, to increase surveillance of those visiting the island from abro...

Dhaka, June 24 (IANS) Retired career diplomat Ahmad Tariq Karim has been appointed the new high commissioner of Bangladesh to India. Brought back from voluntary retirement and a sabbatical in a US university, Karim was the deputy high commissioner in New Delhi in the 1980s. He had served in the Bangladesh missions in Thailand, Britain, India, Iran and South Africa, The Daily Star newspaper said quoting an official announcement. Another former India-hand and a career diplomat, Akramul Qader is the new Dhaka envoy to Washington. Qader, also member of the subcommittee on International Affairs of the Awami League (AL) since 2004, served at different posts in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, India, Myanmar and Pakistan. For appointment to eastern neighbour Myanmar, Dhaka has chosen Maj Gen Anup Kumar Chakma who is serving as master general of ordnance at the Army Headquarters.

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- The young woman who last weekend emerged as a powerful symbol of opposition to the Iranian government embraced life in many ways, but there was little about her that would have led her friends to predict she would become a martyr, one of them told CNN. Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, rose to prominence within hours after a crudely shot video documenting her final moments was uploaded to the Web shortly after she died Saturday from a single gunshot wound to the chest. "It's heartbreaking," President Obama said Tuesday in Washington, referring to the video of the woman the world has come to know simply as Neda, which means "divine calling" in Farsi. "And I think anyone who sees it knows there's something fundamentally unjust about it." Since Saturday, the Iranian government has sought to minimize the impact of her death, but one of her friends on Tuesday described her to CNN in an attempt to inject life and context into what has been -- f...