Saturday, December 4, 2010

Mid Day International News

Mid Day International News

Lingerie Football Kicks Off in LA

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No longer just an entertainment ploy during Super Bowl halftime, the former Lingerie Bowl has spawned the official Lingerie Football League hosted in 10 major cities across the country.The LFL's second season officially started yesterday with a game between defending champions, the Los Angeles Temptation, and the Dallas Desire at the Coliseum.

Far from a powder-puff league, these women are on the gridiron to play. Besides their essential uniform (read: lingerie and garters), they sport shoulder, knee and elbow pads as well as helmets.

Many of the players are athletes and they aren't afraid to tackle, check and take down opponents.
But the league has its own opponents. LFL has come under fire from critics who say that the sport degrades women athletes by using sex to sell and legitimise the sport. League founder Mitchell Mortaza, admitted that the LFL is marketed toward "mostly beer-drinking college students."

"You may come in the door lured by the sex appeal, but you'll leave blown away by the competition," Mortaza said.


Obama surprises troops in Kabul

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US President Barack Obama yesterday last night paid a surprise lightning visit to Afghanistan to huddle with leaders and troops as his administration takes a hard look at whether its war strategy is working.

Obama left the White House quietly and flew to Kabul under cover of darkness. It was the second such visit since Obama became president, with his aides announcing nothing of his trip due to security concerns.

Obama, who has tripled US troop numbers in Afghanistan, was set to spend a mere three hours in the country at Bagram Air Base, the headquarters of the 101st Airborne Division.

He was met by General David Petraeus, commander of US troops in Afghanistan, and US ambassador Karl Eikenberry, and went straight to a base hospital to meet with wounded soldiers.

At the air base, Obama met with "wounded warriors" and other US troops spending the holiday season, an official said.

Obama's trip comes as his administration works on a review of its war strategy to be completed by the end of December, but coincides with new problems with Karzai over embarrassing Wikileaks.

The Afghan presidency declined to comment those allegations.

Underwear protest at US airport

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A disabled woman sick of being searched every time she went through airport security turned up at check-in wearing only her underwear.

Fed-up Tammy Branovac, stripped down to her black lace bra and panties in protest at the fact she always gets frisked by over-zealous officials.

Amazingly, the wheelchair-bound retired surgeon was still patted down " despite having no apparent hiding place. She said, "I use a metal wheelchair, so of course it's going to set off the metal detector."
But Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials at Oklahoma Airport didn't let her through that easily. However, the issue was later resolved.


S Korea vows air strike response

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South Korea's defence minister has promised a tougher response, including air strikes, if North Korea attacks again.

Kim Kwan-jin was responding to questions in Parliament during his confirmation hearing.

North Korea shelled a southern island near the two countries' disputed maritime border last week, killing four people and destroying many homes.

South Korea's spy chief has said another Northern attack was likely. Tensions have soared in the region since the North Korean bombardment of Yeonpyeong island on 23 November.

The shelling came after South Korean forces conducted exercises in the area.

"If North Korea provokes again, we will definitely use aircraft to attack North Korea," Kim said when asked how he would respond to another attack. He also criticised his predecessor.


Woman calls Police over snowman theft

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Stunned police officers have branded a woman "completely irresponsible" -- after she phoned 999 to report a stolen snowman.

Cops said she thought it needed their involvement because she had used pound coins for the eyes and teaspoons for the arms.

In the transcript, the woman tells the operator: "There's been a theft from outside my house. I haven't been out to check on him for five hours but I went outside for a fag and he's gone."The operator asked "Who's gone?" and the woman replies, "My snowman. I thought that with it being icy and there not being anybody about, he'd be safe."

The incredulous operator asked her: "Do you mean an ornament?" The woman replies: "No, a snowman made of snow, I made him myself.The operator then told her that it was an emergency line and she should have called it to report the theft of a snowman.


Rock legend bans Brit PM to like rock band Smiths

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Johnny Marr uses Twitter to express his distaste at Gordon Brown's name-dropping, adding definitively: 'I forbid you to like it'

It has become something of a tradition for British prime ministers to name-drop a rock star or two in the hope that a bit of cool will rub off by association, only to be publicly and embarrassingly rebuffed.

Who can forget Gordon Brown's Arctic Monkeys debacle in a men's magazine, when he was unable to name a single track?

Or Tony Blair's admission that he was a fan of Oasis only for lead singer Noel Gallagher to announce that he was fed up with taking "flak" for it?

Now David Cameron has become the latest to run the gauntlet of the uneasy and usually unrequited relationship between politician and musical muse.

'Stop it'

Johnny Marr, a founding member and the lead guitarist of The Smiths, yesterday called on the Prime Minister to stop saying that he liked the band.

"Stop saying that you like The Smiths, no you don't," he wrote on Twitter, adding: "I forbid you to like it."

Cameron has made no secret of his love of the Mancunian group, who since the 1980s have been acclaimed as one of the best British bands.

He picked This Charming Man a track composed by Marr with the group's lead singer, Morrissey when he was a castaway on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs four years ago.

Marr hasn't explained why he was so incensed at being Cameron's taste.

Not the exception

Marr is not the first musician to take exception to Cameron.

Radiohead's frontman, Thom Yorke, came forward to dispute a claim made by Cameron during his appearance on Desert Island Discs that Yorke had performed the song Fake Plastic Trees, his favourite, at a show following a request by the prime minister.

Although Fake Plastic Trees may have been the favoured soundtrack at Notting Hill dinner parties in 2006, its inclusion in the band's set had nothing to do with any special guests," Yorke said in a statement.

The Killers, Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan, Cameron's other musicians of choice, have yet to air their views.

He's no JFK

Oasis's Noel Gallagher, who famously chatted with Tony Blair in Downing Street in 1997 had launched a scathing attack on the prime minister.

He said people had thought Blair "was going to be John F Kennedy", but he was now "saddled" with the Iraq
war.

He told BBC that he did not think there was "anything left to vote for".


China sets train speed record

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A Chinese passenger train hit a record speed of 486 kmph yesterday during a test run of a yet-to-be opened
link between Beijing and Shanghai.It is believed to be the fastest speed recorded by an unmodified conventional commercial train.

Other types of trains in other countries have traveled faster. State television footage showed the sleek white train whipping past green farm fields in eastern China. The line is due to open in 2012 and will halve the current travel time between the capital Beijing and Shanghai to five hours.

The project is part of a massive government effort to link many of China's cities by high-speed rail and reduce overcrowding on heavily used lines. China already has the world's longest high-speed rail network, and it plans to cover 13,000 kilometres by 2012 and 16,000 kilometres by 2020.

The line is expected to carry 80 million passengers a year, double the current capacity on the 818-mile route.


Jealous man guilty of hacking wife to pieces

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Killer hired machete-wielding gang to murder his wife because she wanted a divorce

A mother-of-two was brutally hacked to death with a machete on the orders of her jealous husband because she wanted a divorce.Geeta Aulakh was murdered by a teenager and his illegal immigrant accomplice.
Such was the ferocity of the attack, the 28-year-old's hand was severed as she tried to defend herself.

Her estranged husband Harpreet Aulakh (32), offered �5,000 (Rs 3.5 lakh) for her to be killed.
Just days before the murder, he was caught on CCTV buying the 14-inch machete for �13.99 (Rs 1,000) in a shop.

Time of death
Geeta, a radio station receptionist, was killed by the two assassins after stepping off a bus and was just minutes away from picking up her two sons, now nine and 10, from their babysitter in Greenford, West London.
The man said to have wielded the machete was Aulakh's friend Sher Singh, (19). He flew into the UK from India four months before the murder on a student visa. The third killer, 30-year-old Jaswant Singh Dhillon, was an illegal immigrant who entered the country in 2002.

All three men were found guilty at the Old Bailey yesterday of murdering Geeta on November 16 last year.
Geeta's sister Anita Shinh, (30), sobbed as they were convicted.

The jury will continue to deliberate on a fourth defendant, alleged getaway driver Harpreet Singh, today. He denies murder.

Determined attack
Aftab Jafferjee, prosecuting, said behind the "savage and determined" attack was Aulakh's "chilling" reaction to his wife's desire to leave him.

"Geeta Aulakh was in the process of divorcing him and that would not be tolerated. No one else in the world could possibly have wished this utterly innocent and hard-working woman and mother any harm."
Jafferjee said, "Reduced to its bare and brutal essentials this case is about the worthlessness of the life of a woman, be she wife and mother, once she dares to offend a powerfully held belief -- however
indefensible -- of male unaccountability.'

Unemployed
Jobless Aulakh, described by Jafferjee as "smug and utterly unrepentant", spent his days at home drinking, smoking and playing computer games.He had thought he was in the clear because he made sure he was captured on CCTV in a pub at the time of the murder.

Indian-born Aulakh ordered the murder after his wife plucked up the courage to ask for a divorce following years of abuse and harassment by him, including hacking into her Facebook account and having her followed.
He was wrongly convinced that she was having an affair with another man.

A friend of Geeta said her husband "made her feel horrible, that she was ugly and disgusting" and that when he went away in 2009 to spend some months in India she had a positive glow.

In divorce papers, she said he hit her throughout the marriage and even while she was pregnant, once when she took a wrong turn when driving to see a midwife, and at other times slapping her, pulling her hair and hitting her with a toy car.

Jafferjee said that by the weeks leading up to the murder, Aulakh was subjecting his wife to "sheer unmitigated harassment".

On November 16 last year, he arranged for men to lay in wait to kill her and she was hit with what were described as at least four rapid and focused blows to the head that left her with irreversible brain damage. The case continues.

Defence, N-deals to dominate Sarkozy agenda during visit

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French president expected to push deals for fighter planes for IAF and nuclear reactors on 4-day trip; visit to 26/11 police memorial on cards

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will chase multi-billion euro deals in India for fighter planes and nuclear reactors during a four-day visit, and try to win support for his ambitious G20 agenda of financial reforms.

The French president, who starts his trip today from Bangalore, will lead a delegation of 50 senior businessmen as well as top cabinet officials, including Economy Minister Christine Lagarde.

Sarkozy will go on to visit Agra, Delhi and Mumbai during his tour. In Mumbai on Tuesday, Sarkozy will visit the 26/11 police memorial.

Bravery awards

French bravery awards will be given to the staff of the Taj and Oberoi hotels for saving lives during the Mumbai attacks. During the attacks, many of the hotel guests were French.

Sarkozy, who took the helm of the Group of 20 this month, will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday with France hoping for a breakthrough in talks to build two nuclear reactors and supply 126 fighter jets to the Indian Air Force (IAF).

Officials said the most likely deal to be concluded during the trip was a smaller 1.5 billion euro contract for defence electronics group Thales to modernise 51 Mirage 2000 planes for the IAF.

"Will this be settled during the visit? We hope so, but discussions are still ongoing," said a French presidency source.

French nuclear group Areva signed a memorandum of understanding last year with Nuclear Power Corp of India to supply at least two EPR water pressurised reactors, estimated at some seven billion euros.

India has given the green light for construction and suggested a framework contract could be concluded during the visit.

Accompanied by seven of his key ministers, Sarkozy will also have with him a business delegation carrying some of the heavyweights of French industry as well as a large press troupe. His wife Carla Bruni will also accompany him.

The ministers accompanying Sarkozy are Defence Minister Alain Juppe, Foreign Affairs Minister Michele Alliot Marie, Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, Ecology, Transport and Housing Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, Higher Education and Research Minister Valerie Pecresse, Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire and Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand.

Taj and Delhi

On Sunday, Sarkozy is expected to finally visit the Taj Mahal in Agra with his wife and will reach Delhi in the evening when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hosts a private dinner at his residence.

On Monday, Sarkozy will hold bilateral discussions with Manmohan Singh at Hyderabad House and the 90-minute talks are expected to end with the signing of several agreements.

The two will also address a joint press conference and this will be followed by a working lunch.


Posted by Harshad at 7:23 AM

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