ONE NEWS

Friday, February 12, 2010 MUMBAI: Shah Rukh Khan starrer 'My Name Is Khan' had a packed opening on Friday across the India with Mumbai restricting the number of shows following the Shiv Sena threat to disrupt screening. Most multiplex owners in Mumbai decided to go ahead with the screening while the single screen theatres decided against showing the movie for the time being, fearing violence. Amid unprecedented security for the film's release, Maharashtra home minister R R Patil drove to multiplex INOX to catch the first show of 'MNIK'. In Gujarat, the first few shows were cancelled after VHP and Bajarang Dal activists staged protests and torched posters of the movie, but later the shows resumed. The film opened to full houses in Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and several other cities. The film's release ran into trouble after Sena lashed out at Khan for supporting inclusion of Pakistani players in the IPL-3.

Friday, February 12, 2010 RIYADH: Religious police in Saudi Arabia are banning the sale of Valentine's Day gifts including red roses, a local newspaper has reported. The newspaper quoted shop workers as saying that officials had warned them to remove all red items including flowers and wrapping paper. Black market prices for roses were already rising, the paper said.

Friday, February 12, 2010 DHAKA: A fire has torn through a multistory residential complex in Bangladesh's capital, killing seven members of a family. Fire control room official Ziauddin says they recovered the bodies early Friday after the blaze broke overnight in Dhaka's Mohammadpur residential district. He says three children and two women were among the dead. He says the firefighters took more than two hours to douse the blaze.

Friday, February 12, 2010 NEW YORK: Former US president Bill Clinton underwent a sudden heart operation Thursday after complaining of chest pains, but was in good spirits afterwards, a statement from his advisor said. "Today President Bill Clinton was admitted to the Columbia Campus of New York Presbyterian Hospital after feeling discomfort in his chest," said the statement from Douglas Band sent to a French news agency. "Following a visit to his cardiologist, he underwent a procedure to place two stents in one of his coronary arteries." Clinton, 63, "is in good spirits, and will continue to focus on the work of his foundation and Haiti's relief and long-term recovery efforts," Band added. Clinton, who is married to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 2004 to free four blocked arteries. Clinton: The big-living ex-president who won't slow down Hillary Clinton, who is due to leave Friday for a trip ...

Friday, February 12, 2010 MUMBAI: The lawyer defending Faheem Ansari, one of the three arrested in connection with the 26/11 attack, was killed, nine days before the special court sets a date for the start of the final arguments. Unidentified men fired four rounds at Shahid Azmi from close range at his office in Kurla’s Taximen’s Colony, central Mumbai, around 7.40pm, police said, adding the assailants escaped in the darkness. The spot is behind the upscale Bandra-Kurla Complex, which houses the headquarters of several banks and business houses. Azmi, in his mid 30s, was rushed to Rajawadi Hospital in nearby Ghatkopar, but was declared dead on arrival. “We are verifying if there were three or four assailants. Azmi had received threats from don Ravi Pujari a few years ago but I am not aware of any recent threats,” said deputy commissioner of police Milind Bharambe. Ansari, whom Azmi represented, is in custody along with co-accused Shabahuddin Ahmed and Ajmal Kasab, the only alle...

Friday, February 12, 2010 NEW YORK: Autumn-Winter 2010 Fashion Week opened in New York on Thursday as the fashion world reeled from the apparent suicide of trailblazing British designer Alexander McQueen. "It's horrible news. It's so sad to be in such a state of despair. Such a great talent, such poetry -- it's horrific," New York fashion doyenne Diane von Furstenberg, head of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, said. McQueen, found dead at his London home, was not taking part in New York Fashion Week. However, the death of the flamboyant, 40-year-old bad boy overshadowed the show, which comes before shows in London, Milan, then Paris. The news broke in London shortly after models had begun showing clothes on the runways at Bryant Park in the heart of Manhattan. "His non-conforming voice of fashion will be greatly missed," said Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman, chair of the Department of Fashion Design at New York's Pratt Institute. ...

Friday, February 12, 2010 PARIS: The fashion world's leading voices on Thursday paid tribute to the outlandish avant-garde "genius" of Alexander McQueen, the British designer found dead at home in London, after an apparent suicide. "He was an imaginative designer and a show-stopper," said the powerful head of the Paris couture federation, Didier Grumbach, of a designer ready to court controversy with "bumster" trousers and ripped clothes, or send stuffed animals or an amputee model out on the catwalk. McQueen, a four-time winner of the British designer of the year award, was creative director of his own label which was bought out by Gucci and was one of Britain's most lauded fashion designers. "He was a genius. What a terrible, tragic waste," said the equally provocative and politically-inclined British designer Katherine Hamnett. Model Kate Moss said she was "shocked and devastated" at his death at 40 while designer V...