Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Mid Day International News

Mid Day International News

Scottish schoolgirl allowed to use iPod during exams

Posted:

A year six schoolgirl in Scotland has won the right to use an iPod during her examination, saying she can't concentrate unless she listens to her favorite music.

The decision came after her parents threatened legal action against the school and examination authorities.

A schoolteacher was compelled to buy a new iPod loaded with the girl's choice of music to ensure that no answers are hidden among the music tracks.

Initially the school staff of Mary Erskine School for girls in Edinburgh refused the request, fearing a possibility of cheating. However, they agreed after the girl's parents took her case to the court.

The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) examination board ruled out that such a request could be accepted.

But, it was forced to back down after reportedly being threatened with legal action under the Equalities Act because the girl often struggles to pay attention in class.

SQA bosses have finally allowed the girl to listen to the iPod as long as it can be ''proved not to contain any prompts''.

"Everyone is very angry that this has been allowed to happen. The implications are massive. Once this girl has been allowed to do this, there's nothing stopping all pupils bringing in their iPods," the Daily Mail quoted an insider as saying.

"It will also present quite a logistical challenge to ensure those who do not have them are not interrupted by the noise," he added.

Nick Seaton, spokesman for the Campaign for Real Education further added, "I would have thought the whole idea of using an iPod, or any other portable music device, in an exam would be ridiculous."

IMF head says farewell

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned last week as head of the International Monetary Fund in the face of sexual assault charges, told the fund's staff of his "frustration in having to leave" in an e-mail obtained by CNN, addressed to his colleagues. An excerpt from the e-mail:



"You have seen my letter of resignation as Managing Director of the Fund--one of the most difficult communications of my life. I wanted very much to be in touch with you, personally and directly, to express my profound sadness and frustration in having to leave under these circumstances. I am doing so because I believe it to be in the best interests of the institution that I care about so much, and of you, the staff, whom I deeply appreciate and admire.

The past days have been extremely painful for me and my family, as I know they have been for everyone at the Fund. I am very sorry that this has been the case. I deny in the strongest possible terms the allegations which I now face; I am confident that the truth will come out and I will be exonerated. In the meantime, I cannot accept that the Fund--and you dear colleagues--should in any way have to share my own personal nightmare. So, I had to go."


Pakistan quashes Taliban attack

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16-hour siege of Mehran airbase came to an end

Pakistani security forces yesterday retook control of a naval base in Karachi that had been under siege by militants for 17 hours, but the brazen, commando-style attack renewed disturbing questions about the military's ability to defend sensitive installations, including its nuclear arsenal.


Siege over: Smoke and flames belch out at Mehran after the attack.
Pic/AFP

A team of 10 to 15 militants armed with rocket launchers, AK-47s and hand grenades stormed the Mehran Naval Station late on Sunday, destroyed two US-supplied maritime surveillance aircraft at the base and then engaged Pakistani navy commandos and soldiers in a pitched firefight that ended last afternoon.

The 17 foreigners, including 11 Chinese and six Americans, trapped during the long gun battle, were also safely rescued, Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced to newsmen here saying that the "the siege has been brought to an end." Navy spokesman Irfan ul-Haq said 12 commandos and soldiers were killed and another 14 were injured.


Is Mullah Omar dead or alive?

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Afghan officials say the Taliban leader may be dead, militant group scorns the claim

Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, has disappeared in the past five days, a spokesman for Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, Lutfullah Mashal, said on Monday. Mashal said he "hopes" Omar is dead but cannot confirm it. "Our sources and senior Taliban members confirm that they can't contact him," Mashal said, adding that Omar had been living in Quetta, Pakistan, for 10 years. But the Taliban said that its one-eyed supreme leader Mullah Muhammad Omar is alive and "living in a safe place," dismissing reports that he was killed in Pakistan two days ago.


Headless? Mullah Omar (circled) is seen in this 1996 photo taken
secretly from a TV screen grab.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman dismissed as "totally" false the report that Omar was shot dead as he was being moved from Quetta to North Waziristan by former ISI chief General Hamid Gul. "We totally deny such reports that get published by our enemies and then other media publish the same baseless reports," Mujahid, was quoted as saying by a New York daily. He urged "our fellow countrymen, Mujahideen and the rest of the Muslims not to believe these intelligence lies and false reports."


A detained Afghan would-be suicide bomber speaks at a newsconf in
Kabul as Mashal looks on. Pics/AFP

Pak denies
Pakistan's Interior Rehman Malik also denied that Omar was dead, saying in a press conference that the claims were "baseless." An official with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force told CNN there was no indication the rumour was true. Former ISI chief Gul also vehemently denied that he was with Omar. Laughing at the reports and calling them completely baseless, he remarked "Am I killed too?" and "Am I speaking to you from heaven?"

General Gul said he was in Rawalpindi two days ago, though it was not clear whether the Afghan security directorate believed he was physically with Omar or was orchestrating the move from elsewhere. "Am I supposed to be transporting him from Quetta to Waziristan? It's nonsense," he said. Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency is thought to have had strong links with the Afghan Taliban over the years.

Osama connection
Omar was a rural Islamic cleric when he became a leader of a group of students -- or "taliban" -- who took over Afghanistan in the early 1990s and established a hard-line Islamic fundamentalist regime that gave shelter to Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network. The US led an invasion of Afghanistan soon after the attacks, toppling Omar's Taliban and sending bin Laden into hiding.

In the wake of the Soviet withdrawal, Omar created the Taliban to overcome what he saw as Afghanistan's descent into a lawlessness landscape dominated by warlords. He set to transform Afghanistan into the purest Islamic state, declaring himself Amir-ul-Momineen, or head of the Muslims. Many Afghans were willing to endure the Taliban's excesses in exchange for the relative peace they brought. In building the perfect Islamic state, though, he had little regard for the concerns of the outside world. Public executions and amputations were common and the Taliban's treatment of women attracted much international condemnation because of the hardliner.

One-eyed recluse
The reclusive Omar refused to be photographed or filmed and rarely travelled. Those who had met him said he cast an imposing figure -- bearded with a black turban and one eye stitched shut; the result of a wound sustained during a gunfight with Soviet troops during their occupation of Afghanistan. He infrequently gave interviews and was thought to have met only two non-Muslims in recent years. But what Omar said passed as law and to challenge him was unknown. The "commander of the faithful," as he had become known, created the Taliban in the early 1990s and was their spiritual guide.


Carla Bruni 'expecting a boy'

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Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is expecting a boy, a close friend of Nicolas Sarkozy has confirmed, just days after the French president's father let slip his daughter-in-law is pregnant. Jacques Seguela -- an advertising tycoon who brought the presidential couple together in 2007 at a dinner party -- disclosed the sex of the child in an interview with a Belgian newspaper. He said, "I have it on good authority that the baby will a boy."


Wish granted? Carla Bruni had reportedly prayed for a son at the
dargah of Salim Chishti when she visited Fatehpur Sikri six months ago.
File Pic

It will be the couple's first child. France's 43-year-old first lady already has a nine-year-old son, Aur �lien, with media philosopher Raphael Enthoven. Sarkozy (55) has two sons, Pierre (25) and Jean (23) from his first marriage to Marie-Dominique Culioli, who he divorced in 1996. He has a 13-year-old son Louis from his second marriage to Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz, who he divorced in 2007.


Arnold-Maria divorce could be costliest ever

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The Terminator may pay out $200 million (Rs 900 crore) in divorce battle; pre-nup agreement may not hold

The likely divorce between Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger could wind up being one of the costliest celebrity splits ever if a pre-nup is thrown out of court. The power couple, whose worth has been assessed at between $200 million (Rs 900 crore) and $400 million (Rs 1,800 crore), split after learning the former California governor had fathered a son, Joseph, with his maid Mildred Baena 13 years ago.


Show me the money: Although she has not announced official divorce
plans, Shriver has already hired one of Hollywood's top divorce lawyers,
Laura Wasser. File Pic

Although she has not announced official divorce plans, Shriver has already hired one of Hollywood's top divorce lawyers, Laura Wasser. Shriver is believed to have a prenuptial agreement, but after 25 years of marriage, and because of Schwarzenegger's philandering, that document could be thrown out. News of a potential costly divorce comes as actress Jane Seymour claimed Arnold Schwarzenegger has at least two more illegitimate children that he had kept secret from his estranged wife.

If Shriver does decide to divorce her husband of more than two decades, she could walk away with way more than the $100 million slice of Tiger Wood's fortune that the golf great's ex-wife, Elin Nordegren, took home in their split last year, according to reports.

Heather Mills walked away with �24.3 million (Rs 177 crore) after her divorce from Paul McCartney in 2008.
However if the prenup between Schwarzenegger and Shriver does not stand up, the couple would likely split their net worth evenly, under California law. A spokesperson for Schwarzenegger has declined to comment on the pre-nup issue.

Daughter Forgives?
Arnold and Maria's daughter Katherine (21) took to Twitter to vent. 'Sometimes we forgive people cause we want them back in our lives,' one of her tweets said. Another read, 'Holding grudges is bad for your health. Forgive and let go.'

Deadly tornado kills 89 in US state of Missouri

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At least 89 people have died after a massive tornado swept through the Missouri town of Joplin in US, reports said today.

"The death toll is expected to rise. It's total devastation," Jay Nixon, Governor of Missouri told CNN. Nixon, who declared a state of emergency said, "We are responding aggressively, quickly. We want to make sure as the night goes on that we're saving lives between now and dawn". There are a number of injuries".

"The particular area that the tornado went through is just like the central portion of the city, and it's very dense in terms of population," Joplin Emergency Management Director, Keith Stammer told the television channel.

The deadly tornado struck the town of Joplin near the border with Oklahoma and Kansas yesterday, less than a month after a horrific tornado outbreak left 354 dead across seven US states.

Phone communications in and out of the city of about 50,000 people about 160 miles south of Kansas City were largely cut off, Wall Street Journal reported.

A tornado near Reading, roughly 100 miles southwest of Kansas City, destroyed at least 20 homes and knocked out power and water service, Kansas authorities said.

The National Weather Service estimates that 600 tornadoes swept across the US in April, surpassing the previous monthly record of 542 tornadoes set in May 2003.

Engaged for 28 years, couple finally finds time to wed

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A couple in Britain has finally exchanged wedding rings after being engaged for 28 years!

Their eyes first met in 1981 while they were working in a hospital, but the consultant groom and his radiographer bride showed their patience to the hilt.

Ivan Brown, 63, and fiancee Barbara Furlonger, 55 kept delaying their wedding since they were busy with work and because the perfectionist Barbara wished to have time to organise every detail of their big day, the Mirror reported Monday.

Just when Barbara retired, she spent 12 months planning the perfect wedding.

Barbara said: "I can't believe the day has finally arrived and we are husband and wife. It's been a marathon engagement. I never really doubted it would happen as we always said we'd get married one day."

"With both of us working .....and being on call, we rarely had the same weekend off," she recalled.

"We got engaged when we had been together for two years but we didn't even have time for a proper party then."

"When I retired last year, I asked Ivan if I should arrange the wedding now and he said yes. I was quite shocked."

"I like to organise things with military precision and I've enjoyed having time to devote to all the arrangements," Barbara said.

"If I'd arranged a wedding when I was stressed and busy with work, things would have gone wrong and I'd have got upset."

"I felt relaxed and serene on the day. It was definitely worth the wait."

The couple will spend their honeymoon in the Channel Islands.
Posted by Harshad at 7:11 AM

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