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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. &quo

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

Friday, February 12, 2010 WASHINGTON: The blizzard that hammered the US east coast with record-breaking snowfall and icy winds had a plus side: it drove down crime in Washington, a police spokesman said Thursday. "Last night, we had very few reported crimes," Lieutenant Nicholas Breul said. "Every morning, we put out a report of serious crimes, and this morning it was very, very low," Breul said. "Certainly, the weather had to be a factor in that." No homicides have been reported in the US capital since February 3, when a few inches of snow fell on Washington and the surrounding area. That was followed at a weekend storm which together with Tuesday's blizzard dumped several feet of snow on the eastern United States, making the winter of 2009-2010 the snowiest on record in Washington and neighboring states. The season's snowfall total in Washington DC reached 54.9 inches (139.4 centimeters) Tuesday, the National Weather Service said. T

Friday, February 12, 2010 LONDON: A school has banned its pupils from sending cards on Valentine's Day, saying the youngsters are not mature enough for romance, a newspaper reported on Thursday. Ashcombe Primary School -- which teaches students aged four to 11 -- has threatened to confiscate any cards found on the premises in Somerset, said the Times. "Some children and parents encourage a lot of talk about boyfriends and girlfriends," wrote head teacher Peter Turner in a monthly newsletter. "We believe that such ideas should wait until children are mature enough emotionally and socially to understand the commitment involved in having or being a boyfriend and girlfriend," he said in the letter to parents. But the head teacher of the school, which has 419 pupils, came under fire for the Valentine card crackdown. Rajeev Takyar, whose children Jai, 11, and five-year-old Aryan, are pupils there, blasted the ban as "ridiculous." "Whatever

Friday, February 12, 2010 BERLIN: The 60th Berlin Film Festival kicks off Thursday with the world premiere of "Apart Together", a lush period drama from China and one of 20 pictures vying for the coveted Golden Bear top prize. "Apart Together" director Wang Quan'an, part of China's so-called sixth generation of film-makers, captured Berlin's best picture award in 2007 for the unconventional love story "Tuya's Marriage" set in the grasslands of Mongolia. Wang, 44, will compete with Roman Polanski, Britain's Michael Winterbottom and rivals from across Asia, Europe and the Americas at cinema's first major international showcase of the year. And Martin Scorsese will premiere his latest thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio, "Shutter Island" out of competition. A jury led by German director Werner Herzog ("Fitzcarraldo", "Rescue Dawn") and including Oscar-winning actress Renee Zellweger will hand out

Friday, February 12, 2010 NEW YORK: Former US president Bill Clinton was hospitalized Thursday with chest pains, US media reported. CNN television said it had confirmed that the former Democratic president, who is now UN special envoy for Haiti, had been taken to hospital in New York complaining of chest pains. ABC News chief political correspondent, George Stephanopoulos, who is close to the Clintons, said the 63-year-old former president was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, "likely for a stent procedure." In 2004, Clinton underwent quadruple bypass surgery. Calls to the Clinton Foundation and to the State Department, currently headed by his wife Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, were not immediately answered.

Friday, February 12, 2010 WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Thursday called Viktor Yanukovych to congratulate him on winning Ukraine's presidential election, describing the poll as a new step forward for democracy. Pro-Russian Yanukovych beat Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko by 3.5 percent in Sunday's vote, but she has not yet conceded and her party has alleged substantial fraud. International observers and Western states however hailed the vote as fair and clean. "President Obama called Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine today to congratulate him on his election and wish him success in carrying out his mandate," the White House said in a statement. "This peaceful expression of the political will of Ukrainian voters is another positive step in strengthening democracy in Ukraine." The statement said Obama and Yanukovych agreed on the need to continue cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation and wished their respective teams luck in the Winter Olymp

VANCOUVER, Canada—Awash in lights and color, and peopled by an army of 25,000 blue-clad volunteers, Vancouver is poised to take on the Olympics. Many of the 11,000 journalists and their helpers expected to descend on the city have already arrived, and begun amassing at the main media center at Vancouver’s iconic Canada Place. The venue is now outfitted with row upon row of tables where laptops sit, ready for work. It is impossible to compare the scale of the Olympics to anything else. Olympic sponsors have swallowed up available ad space so completely that finding a billboard or transit ad that doesn’t feature a skier flying through the air or a speedskater blurring down the track could become a sport in itself. Some people say there are so many ads here that it is impossible to remember who is the official mattress supplier and who provides the Olympics insurance, but if there is one thing the people of Vancouver know, it is that the Olympics has sponsors and they like to advertise