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RIYADH: Afghan President Hamid Karzai held talks with Saudi King Abdullah as he sought support to negotiate peace with the Islamist Taliban rebels in his war-torn country. Karzai met with King Abdullah and senior officials in Riyadh at the king's Janadriyah farm outside Riyadh. "They discussed international efforts to achieve security and stability in Afghanistan as well as the prospects for cooperation between the two countries," local news agency reported. Karzai was believed to be seeking Saudi help to persuade Taliban leaders into reconciliation talks, as well as asking for more financial aid for his country. The meeting with King Abdullah came a week after Britain hosted a meeting of nearly 70 countries to discuss Afghanistan's problems and seek ways to end the war between the the Taliban and Kabul and its Western backers. Saudi Arabia agreed at the London conference to host a follow up meeting of Gulf and other donors to Afghanistan at the end of Febru...

Thursday, February 04, 2010 NEW DELHI: For the first time Indian government has admitted that at least one of the 26/11 attackers could be Indian. Indian Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, speaking exclusively to an Indian channel claimed that there could have been an Indian hand in the Mumbai terror attacks. The Home Minister said that voice samples of the suspect from Pakistan were essential to conclusively establish the identity of Abu Jindal, who is suspected to the Indian handler. Chidambaram said goes by the name Abu Jindal. That's something we have known for many, many months now, he goes by the name Abu Jindal, but he is not Abu Jindal, that is not his real name. We can't get a finger on who he is, unless we get a voice sample. Indian home minister said he is one of the alleged masterminds of the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai. It is believed that his real name could be Syed Zabiuddin Ansari. He is wanted in the Aurangabad arms haul case as well as well as for...

Thursday, February 04, 2010 MUMBAI: Bollywood actress Urmila Matondkhar is celebrating her 36th birthday today. Born in tinsel town Mumbai, Rangeela girl Urmila started her career as a child artist. Perhaps the best known of her early movies is Shekhar Kapoor’s Masoom in 1983. She made her film debut as a lead actress with the film ‘Bade ghar ki beti’. She next starred in the fantasy film Chamatkar, along with Shahrukh Khan. Apart from a successful acting career, Urmila is also an outstanding dancer and has been a featured performer in many Bollywood item numbers.

Thursday, February 04, 2010 NAIROBI: Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden have hijacked a Libyan-owned cargo ship thought to be carrying 17 seafarers from Romania and Libya, a Kenya-based maritime group said on Thursday. Ecoterra, which monitors shipping off Somalia, said the 4,800-tonne MV Rim was seized on Tuesday in the strategic channel south of the Yemen coast. It said it was flying a North Korean flag, but is owned by White Sea Shipping of Tripoli. "Her crew usually comprises 17 sailors and, based on outdated crew lists, it could be assumed that they are holding Romanian and Libyan nationalities," Ecoterra said. The group said local reports suggested the hijackers were from Somalia's semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland. "It is assumed the vessel is now commandeered to one of the Puntland pirate lairs," it said in a statement. A European Union counter-piracy force confirmed the hijacking but had no information on the make-up of the crew.

Thursday, February 04, 2010 LOS ANGELES: Michael Jackson's doctor is set to be arraigned Friday on a charge connected to the pop singer's death, a source told foreign news agency on Wednesday. Dr. Conrad Murray is to be arraigned at a courthouse near Los Angeles International Airport, according to a person familiar with the planning, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the situation. The person didn't say what Murray would be charged with.

Thursday, February 04, 2010 LOS ANGELES: Julia Roberts claims that she will not be appearing in a Pretty Woman sequel. The movie, which is celebrating it's twentieth anniversary this year, shot Roberts to fame in 1990. The role of Vivian Ward remains Roberts' most famous roles but she has no intention of returning to the part. Speaking to Moviehole she said: "There’s already been a Pretty Woman sequel, it was called Runaway Bride. Nobody wants to see an old hooker. "It’s not that I’m anti romantic-comedy, which, for some reason, is always the favoured interpretation. “I like being funny, I like being romantic ... but it’s challenging trying to find a script which is original or interesting". Roberts is returning to the big screen later this month with romantic comedy Valentine's Day as part of impressive ensemble cast. She is joined by Bradley Cooper, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Jamie Foxx and Ashton Kutcher.

Thursday, February 04, 2010 WASHINGTON: Global warming is good news for trees, which are thriving in higher temperatures and longer growing seasons, but bad news for ducks and other waterfowl, whose wetland habitat may dry up and disappear, two studies show. A study by researchers at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Maryland indicates that higher temperatures, longer growing seasons and increased levels of carbon dioxide brought by climate change are helping trees in temperate climates to grow faster. The researchers studied data on how many trees there were in 55 forests in the eastern United States during a 22-year period, as well as 100 years of local weather measurements and 17 years of carbon dioxide measurements. Their findings, which were published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) show that recent tree growth "greatly exceeded the expected growth," and they hypothesized that the spurt was due to clima...

Thursday, February 04, 2010 PARIS: Debate over the obesity epidemic sweeping parts of the world has focussed on whether lifestyle -- too much junk food and couch-potato living -- is the big culprit or whether genes are also to blame. A new study may help tip the balance in favour of those who claim that fat runs in their family and there is little they can do about it. People who are morbidly obese lack a tiny stretch of DNA containing around 30 genes, according to the investigation released on Wednesday by the British journal Nature. Obesity means having a body mass index of 30 or more, while morbid obesity is classified as having a BMI of at least 40. BMI is determined by one's weight in kilos divided by one's height, in metres, squared. The probe by a consortium of European scientists found that 0.7 percent, or seven in every thousand, of morbidly obese people have a "micro-deletion" of genetic code, located on Chromosome 16. The telltale sign was initi...

Thursday, February 04, 2010 SAN FRANCISCO: Google is ramping up its entry in the hotly competitive smartphone race by adding "pinch-to-zoom" multi-touch and 3G wireless broadband network capabilities to the Nexus One. The US Internet powerhouse said it is rolling out the improvements in an "over-the-air" software update it is firing off to Nexus One smartphones this week. "This update provides some great new features, and fixes a few problems that some users might have experienced," the Nexus One team said in a blog post. "In order to access the update, you will receive a message on your phone's notification bar." The software modification will allow users to use two-finger pinching motions to zoom into on-screen images in Internet browser, picture gallery, or map applications. Nexus One devices were limited to controls based on single-finger taps or swipes on screens when they launched in the United States on January 5. Google ...

Thursday, February 04, 2010 WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday it was "unfortunate" that American Christians are suspected of smuggling children out of quake-hit Haiti even if their intentions were good. Haitian prosecutors are due to decide Thursday whether to charge the 10 Christians, who have been held by authorities there since they attempted to sneak a group of 33 children out of the country. "Trafficking of human beings, particularly of children is a problem across the world," Clinton said after holding talks in Washington on Wednesday about the problem of trafficking in persons worldwide. "The Haitian nation acted to protect children who were being removed from their country without appropriate documentation," the chief US diplomat said. "It was unfortunate that, whatever the motivation, this group of Americans took matters into their own hands," Clinton said. "We are engaged in a discussion w...

Thursday, February 04, 2010 PORT-AU-PRINCE: More than 200,000 people were killed in the earthquake that shook Haiti on Jan. 12, Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive said. The prime minister said 300,000 people were injured, including 4,000 amputees. The 7.3-magnitude quake has put the country into a total mess. At present, doctors from some countries and international organizations are orchestrating vaccination efforts against diseases that may spread in the tent cities. Children are main vaccination targets and vulnerable adults will also get vaccine shots in temporary residence areas which are mostly large tents in open places.

Thursday, February 04, 2010 NEW YORK: Kariana, aged three, has a lonely existence in the New York homeless shelter her parents moved into last year. Lonely, but not alone -- there are nearly 16,000 children just like her. Homelessness in New York has soared as a result of the damaged US economy and children make up almost half of that growing population. Shivering outside the forbidding gates to a Brooklyn shelter, Kariana's petite mother, Karen Diaz, said she'd been homeless since arriving three months ago from Puerto Rico with her husband Pedro, Kariana, and a second daughter, aged six. "We thought we would be here just for 10 days and get some place better, but time flew by," said Diaz, 24. Guards would not allow a reporter inside the building, a former hospital now named the Auburn Family Shelter. Diaz described a rough life of tasteless food, "disgusting, dirty" communal toilets, bunk beds in their family room, and "scary" fellow r...

Thursday, February 04, 2010 VIENNA: Austria scored a hat-trick this year, with three of its countrymen nominated for an Oscar, including "Inglourious Basterds" star Christoph Waltz, commentators praised on Wednesday. "This is a hat-trick, not just for Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon" but also for Austrian cinema," the Film and Music Industry trade association said after nominations were announced in Los Angeles on Tuesday. "The White Ribbon," directed by Austria's Haneke and co-produced by the small alpine country, was nominated as best foreign language picture for Germany, while its Tyrolean cinematographer Christian Berger also won a surprise nod. Waltz, who has swept awards as the devilish Nazi officer in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," was nominated as expected in the best supporting actor category. "After an almost unbelievable streak, this confirms the enormous international significance o...

Thursday, February 04, 2010 SANTO DOMINGO DE HEREDIA: The day when restaurants will serve garlic grasshoppers or beetle larva skewers is getting closer in Costa Rica, where scientists are "growing" insects for human consumption. Entomologist Manuel Zumbado's research into this alternative food source is inspired by practices in Africa, where insects have long been part of people's diet. With its rainforests playing host to countless insect species, including thousands that have yet to be identified, Costa Rica is a perfect breeding ground for the work. From leaf-cutting ants to rhinoceros beetles and a dizzying flurry of butterflies, the Central American nation is also a haven of ecotourism. But is it the next hotbed of mouth-watering bugs? The food diversification program at the National Biodiversity Institute in Santo Domingo de Heredia, a small city close to the capital San Jose, looks into indigenous insect species. But it also examines mushrooms, insp...

Thursday, February 04, 2010 LOS ANGELES: "Avatar" has reached yet another milestone, smashing the North American box office record previously held by the 1997 James Cameron epic "Titanic," Fox studios announced on Wednesday. By Tuesday the futuristic 3-D blockbuster had racked up some 601.1 million dollars in the United States and Canada, overtaking the 600.8 million dollars that "Titanic" earned. "We have broken the domestic number" for North America, Fox spokeswoman Aviz Hakhamanesh confirmed. "Avatar" has also earned nine Oscar nominations, including in the leading categories of best film and best director, as well as several technical achievement categories. Believed to be the most expensive motion picture ever made, the film and has now shattered all the major box-office records previously held by "Titanic." The love story on the doomed cruiseliner took in 1.8 billion dollars over the course of its release wor...

Have a history teacher explain this----- if they can Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946. Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960. Both were particularly concerned with civil rights. Both wives lost their children while living in the White House. Both Presidents were shot on a Friday. Both Presidents were shot in the head Now it gets really weird. Lincoln 's secretary was named Kennedy. Kennedy's Secretary was named Lincoln . Both were assassinated by Southerners. Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln , was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908. John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln , was born in 1839. Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939. Both assassins were known by their three names. Both names are composed of fifteen letters. ...