Friday, October 7, 2011

Mid Day International News

Mid Day International News

Feels like death, wrote teen on Facebook before dying

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A teenager in Britain typed in her Facebook status " :'( feels like death" and minutes later she lay dead from a fatal asthma attack

Siobhan Ullah, 18, was unable to breathe and in desperation she sent her father Yousuf a text: "I can't breathe."

Yousuf ran to her room, but she told him: "I think I'm going to stop breathing. I think I'm going to die."

Minutes later she fell to the floor with a massive heart attack and never regained consciousness, reported The Sun.

"She didn't have the lungs to shout for help, so she texted me.

"Siobhan was diagnosed with asthma when she was five, but we never thought this would happen," her father was quoted as saying.

Pakistani who helped CIA track down Osama faces treason charges

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A Pakistani panel, investigating the US raid to kill Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad May 2, Thursday suggested registration of treason charges against a doctor who helped a fake CIA vaccination programme in an attempt to obtain DNA from the Al Qaeda leader's family

Shakil Afridi was arrested by the Pakistani security agency days after the US military helicopters killed the most wanted man in a compound where he was believed to have lived for years, reported Xinhua.

The US had reportedly pressurized Pakistan to release Afridi but the authorities rejected the US demand.

"In view of the record and evidence placed before the Commission in relation to Dr Shakeel Afridi, the Commission is of the view that prima facie, a case of conspiracy against the State of Pakistan and high treason is made out against him," a commission statement said.

The statement said that a case under relevant law should be registered against Afridi and he should be proceeded in accordance with law.

Pakistani laws carry death penalty for high treason charges, legal experts say.

The statement said the commission has taken statements and investigated the wives and daughters of Osama bin Laden and they are no more required by the commission.

It also withdrew its earlier order to restrain the Pakistani authorities from handing over the Osama family members to any country.

The commission again interviewed the chief of the main intelligence agency Thursday for the second time in two days.

It conducted an exhaustive interview of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, to know his perspective leading to the Abbottabad incident.

The Commission also allowed the security forces to hand over the alleged Osama compound/house at Abbottabad to the civil administration for disposal in accordance with relevant law.

Sources said the commission's decision may lead to the destruction of Osama's compound as many people are visiting the place daily.

The security forces have blocked all roads to the compound and are not allowing anyone, including journalists, to visit the building.

Woman jailed for sinking husband's yatch

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A British woman has been jailed for 18 months for sinking her estranged husband's 75,000-pound yacht on Valentine's Day, a media report said

Mandy Fleming "lost it" when she realised her spouse had splashed cash on his boat after pleading poverty to her, the Guardian newspaper reported Thursday.

She drilled three holes in the hull of the boat, which was berthed at Brighton Marina, and turned on cooker gas taps turning it into a "bomb", the Old Bailey heard.

Fleming, 47, of Sheerness, Kent, had admitted endangering life by causing criminal damage in 2004, during a hearing last month, the newspaper said.

She wept as she was sentenced Thursday, with judge Richard Hone telling her: "You were a manipulative, angry and troubled individual."

She was told she would have to serve half the sentence, less the two-and-a-half months she had initially spent in custody.

Fleming had gone to the yacht for a "menage-a-trois" with her then lover, the court heard. After seeing new electrical equipment and some bills for work which had been done on the yacht, she rang her husband and berated him for spending money on the vessel.

The couple married two years before the incident and the yacht was bought during the marriage. It was her third marriage. They have since divorced.

Ban Indian films in Pakistan, says newspaper

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A ban on Indian films in Pakistan's cinema houses would help the country's film industry "develop and thrive", a Pakistani daily said Friday

An editorial in The Nation said the demand made by a group of artists, singers and directors in Lahore Wednesday to ban Indian films in national cinema houses ought to be met by the government.

"That would help the national film industry develop and thrive.

"There are lots of cinema houses which screen only Indian movies and do not show any interest in playing Pakistani movies. The result is a gradual decline of our own film industry," it said.

It warned that "by not banning Bollywood films being shown in every nook and cranny of the country, we would only be letting the Indians succeed in their ploy of invading us culturally".

The editorial, however, did not go into the details of what it described as cultural invasion.

It claimed that according to the group of Pakistan movie directors, "certain self-seeking individuals associated with Lollywood are reaping huge benefits by making huge investments in India".

The editorial added that the government should not only ban Indian films from Pakistan's cinema houses, "but also from the various private TV channels that keep broadcasting them".

"The policy of letting India disseminate its culture freely in Pakistan is dealing a serious financial blow to the Lollywood industry and polluting the minds of the youth," it said.

Woman jailed for sinking husband's yatch

Posted:

A British woman has been jailed for 18 months for sinking her estranged husband's 75,000-pound yacht on Valentine's Day, a media report said.

Mandy Fleming "lost it" when she realised her spouse had splashed cash on his boat after pleading poverty to her, the Guardian newspaper reported Thursday.

She drilled three holes in the hull of the boat, which was berthed at Brighton Marina, and turned on cooker gas taps turning it into a "bomb", the Old Bailey heard.

Fleming, 47, of Sheerness, Kent, had admitted endangering life by causing criminal damage in 2004, during a hearing last month, the newspaper said.

She wept as she was sentenced Thursday, with judge Richard Hone telling her: "You were a manipulative, angry and troubled individual."

She was told she would have to serve half the sentence, less the two-and-a-half months she had initially spent in custody.

Fleming had gone to the yacht for a "menage-a-trois" with her then lover, the court heard. After seeing new electrical equipment and some bills for work which had been done on the yacht, she rang her husband and berated him for spending money on the vessel.

The couple married two years before the incident and the yacht was bought during the marriage. It was her third marriage. They have since divorced.

Man hails power of Facebook after using it to catch burglar

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A 59-year-old man in Britain hailed the power of Facebook after he used the social networking site to catch a bugler

John Germon, from Ashburton, Devon, caught a man who stole a strimmer and chainsaw worth over 300 pounds from his garden, within nine hours by using Facebook.

Germon's 30-year-old son John uploaded the details of the missing cutting equipments on the social network and appealed for anyone with information to come forward.

Within hours, two people phoned and gave the name of a man who had suddenly acquired a strimmer and chainsaw, the Telegraph reports.

Germon then phoned the man, pretending he was interested in buying the equipments and they arranged to meet in a car park, where the police immediately arrested him.

Germon then acknowledged the power of technology.

"It just goes to show that, with advanced technology, in a close-knit community you can track someone down and solve a crime very quickly," the paper quoted Germon, as saying.

"So many bad things have been said about Facebook. It just shows something good can come out of it," he added.


'Death is the best invention'

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Said Steve Jobs in an address at Stanford University after receiving surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2005. At the age of 56, Jobs died yesterday

Steve Jobs, who overcame steep odds as an adopted child and a college dropout, spoke in great length about his own mortality more than six years ago after the world-changing success of the iPod music player.


The day Apple went black: An Apple store in Paris paid tribute to the
Steve Jobs, the innovator of the century, by unfurling a black flag.
Social networking sites were clogged with eulogies for the genius. Pic/afp

The Apple co-founder and former CEO, who rescued the company in 1998 following his ouster 13 years earlier, was diagnosed in 2003 with a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare form of pancreatic cancer, and had a liver transplant in 2009.

He died yesterday, 24 hours after Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, whom Jobs hand-picked as the company's leader, unveiled the latest iteration of the phenomenally successful iPhone.

Jobs, a hard-charging executive who delved into the nuts and bolts of engineering and marketing, foreshadowed his own passing during a memorable commencement address at Stanford University. The tech visionary, had described death as "the single best invention of life."

Still, Jobs avoided talk of illness and death, as when he took medical leaves of absence from Apple without disclosing details.

Survivors include his wife of 20 years, Laurene Powell, and their three children.

Excerpts from the speech
For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything just falls away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Timeline: From Mac to i-Pad
1976: Jobs co-founds Apple
1980: Apple's stock market flotation, biggest since Ford in 1956
1985: Leaves Apple to concentrate on Pixar and NeXT
1997: Returns to Apple
2000: Resumes as Apple CEO
2002: iPod launched
2003: iTunes launched
August 2004: Announces he has pancreatic cancer
2007: iPhone launched
2009: Returns to work six months after taking time off for liver transplant as part of cancer treatment
January 2010: iPad launched
17 January 2011: Announces he is taking a break
11 March 2011: iPad 2 launched
24 August 2011: Jobs resigns as Apple CEO
05 October 2011: iPhone 4S launched


Steve Jobs' estranged father never got phone call he waited for

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Steve Jobs' estranged father, who had given up his infant son for adoption, had been hoping that his grown son would call him. That hope died yesterday.

Abdulfattah John Jandali (in pic) had e-mailed his son a few times in a tentative effort to make contact. The father never called the son because he feared Jobs would think the dad who had given him up was now after his fortune.



And Jobs never responded to his father's emails.

"I really don't have anything to say," said Jandali, vice president at Boomtown Hotel Casino in Reno, Nevada.

Jandali, a Syrian immigrant, had been quoted recently saying he didn't know until just a few years ago that the baby he and his ex-wife, Joanne Simpson, gave up, grew to be Apple's CEO.

Jandali said that had it been his choice, he would have kept the baby. But Simpson's father did not approve of her marrying a Syrian, so she moved to San Francisco to have the baby alone and give him up for adoption.
Jandali, who is 80, said at the time that he would have been happy to just have a cup of coffee with the son he never knew before it was too late.

He was quoted as saying, "This might sound strange, though, but I am not prepared, even if either of us was on our deathbeds, to pick up the phone to call him."


Girl who lived with dead grandmom recovering

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A two-year-old girl in China who lived with her dead grandmother for over a week is recovering, a media report said.

The girl's digestive system was returning to normal after being without food for several days, said Xiao Tao, a doctor in Changsha, capital of Hunan province.

The girl was found Sep 27. She was lying in the arms of her dead grandmother Wang Lichun, reported Shanghai Daily.

The girl was found by her neighbours. She suffered from dehydration, skin infections, wounds.

Her father, Xiao Kaiquan, said he had not been able to contact Wang for more than a week.

"It seems my daughter did not have any food to eat for a week," the girl's father was quoted as saying.

Naming your kids Beckham or Madonna can come back to haunt you

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A study done by YourBabyDomainName.com has found that choosing a trendy celebrity name like Beckham or Chardonnay for your baby can turn out to be a big mistake.

Many have admitted that the novelty of using celebrity monikers soon wore off. While, boys names that were most regretted included Beckham, Axl, Kai, Kester, Jordan and Joaquim, for girls, Apple, Chardonnay, Peaches and Madonna were all seen as a big regret.

"It's sad there are parents who feel the names they gave to their children perhaps don't hold such a special meaning," the Daily Express quoted Wayne Bloore, for the poll by YourBabyDomainName.com

It was also found that more than four in 10 parents had decided on a name before their child was born.

Milestones in a tech legend's journey

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Apple's visionary co-founder Steve Jobs, who died after a long battle with cancer Wednesday, is credited with turning the once loss making company into one of the world's largest tech giants. Here are the milestones:

1955: Stephen Paul Jobs born Feb 24.

1972: Jobs enrols in Reed College in Portland, Oregon, but drops out after a semester.

1974: Works for video game maker Atari and attends meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Steve Wozniak, a high school friend.

1976: Apple Computer is formed on April Fools' Day, shortly after Wozniak and Jobs create a new computer circuit board in a Silicon Valley garage. The Apple I later goes on sale for $666.66.

1977: Apple is incorporated by its founders and a group of venture capitalists. It unveils Apple II, the first PC to generate colour graphics.

1980: Apple goes public, raising $110 million in one of the biggest IPOs.

1983: Apple starts selling the "Lisa", a desktop computer for businesses with a graphical user interface.

1984: Apple debuts the Macintosh personal computer.

1985: Jobs and CEO John Sculley clash, leading to Jobs' resignation. Wozniak also resigns.

1986: Jobs founds Next, a company making high-end machines for universities. He buys Pixar from Star Wars creator George Lucas for $10 million.

1991: Apple and IBM announce an alliance to develop new PC microprocessors and software.

1994: Apple introduces Power Macintosh based on the PowerPC chip it developed with IBM and Motorola. Apple licenses its operating software, allowing others to clone the Mac.

1995: The first Mac clones go on sale. Microsoft releases Windows 95. Pixar's Toy Story, the first commercial computer-animated feature, hits theatres.

1996: Apple buys Next for $430 million.

1997: Jobs returns to Apple after the company records losses of more than $1.8 billion. CEO Gil Amelio is pushed out. Jobs ends Mac clones.

1998: Apple returns to profitability and unveils the iMac desktop computer.

2000: Jobs is named CEO of Apple.

2001: The first iPod goes on sale, as do computers with OS X, the modern Mac operating system based on Next software.

2003: Apple launches the iTunes music store with 200,000 songs at 99c each. Users can also buy and download music, audiobooks, movies and TV shows online.

2004: Jobs undergoes surgery for a rare but curable form of pancreatic cancer.

2006: Disney buys Pixar for $7.4 billion. Jobs becomes Disney's largest sole shareholder and much of his wealth is derived from this sale.

2007: Apple releases the iPhone.

2008: Apple opens its App Store as an update to iTunes amid mounting speculation that Jobs is ill.

2009: Jobs returns from medical leave in June after undergoing a liver transplant.

2010: Apple sells 15 million iPads in nine months and has an 84 percent share of the tablet market by year's end.

2011: Apple launches the iPad 2 on March 2.

2011: Jobs' resignation as CEO announced Aug 24. He is replaced by Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer.

2011: Jobs dies Oct 5 at age of 56 after battle with pancreatic cancer.

How Steve Jobs changed the world

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Apple's visionary co-founder Steve Jobs put his own stamp on everything from the personal computer to the music industry in myriad ways.

For Jobs, how a product looked, felt and responded trumped raw technical specifications. While PC makers chased after faster processor speeds, Jobs pursued clever, minimalist design, noted Fortune magazine listing the ways he changed the world.

Apple's titanium-turned-aluminium notebooks have became bestsellers. The most recent MacBook Air models have been held up as examples of the ideal intersection of design, price and performance.

Launched in 2003, iTunes has become the largest online music retailer in the world, with over 200 million registered users who have downloaded 15 billion songs. The fall 2011 launch of a cloud-based iTunes service should only further cement that standing.

Much has happened since Apple II, a mass-produced 8-bit computer encased in plastic that became one of the most successful PCs of the 1980, revolutionised the way people work.

But despite the rise of Windows-based computers, Mac sales continue to climb. In fact, Mac sales for the September 2011 quarter are expected to come in between 4.4 million and 4.6 million, a new record.

In the "post-PC" era tablet-laptop hybrid iPad has sold nearly 14.7 million units in 2010, and just last quarter, sales exploded 183 percent, proving that many people want a sizable yet portable device they can take anywhere.

Apple operating systems were always intended to be simpler than the competition -- MS-DOS, Windows or Linux -- and that approach is readily apparent, whether it's Mac OS System 7 or Mac OSX, software largely derived from Jobs' work at NeXT.

Ultimately, Jobs' biggest contribution isn't just a smartphone, a tablet or an operating system, but Apple itself, a 12,000-strong organization that was once on the brink of irrelevance, Fortune said.

Since his return to the company in 1997, Jobs has rebuilt it into the most valuable technology company in the world, surpassing other heavyweights like Microsoft or HP. It may indeed be the greatest turnaround in business history, it said.
Posted by Harshad at 8:28 AM

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