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Madonna's School in Malawi Not Happening news

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 12:16:00 +0000

Entire Foundation Falters of Madonna's School in Malawi Not Happening

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Madonna's School in Malawi Not Happening such Entire Foundation Falters
Hello guys here you will get new Celebrate news of Madonna's School in Malawi Not Happening such entire foundation falters.
"There's a real education crisis in Malawi," Madonna said in a statement Thursday. "Sixty-seven percent of girls don't go to secondary school, and this is simply unacceptable. Our team is going to work hard to address this in every way we can.
"A thoughtful decision has been made to discontinue plans for the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls, as it was originally conceived," the charity's cofounder, Michael Berg, said in a statement.

So where does Madonna go from here?
Don't tell Madonna her charitable efforts have failed.

Raising Malawi, the foundation started by the pop icon after she adopted son David from the African nation, is in regrouping mode amid complaints that $3.8 million has been funneled into a now-defunct plan to build a girls' school and there is absolutely nothing to show for it.

Well, according to the New York Times, Raising Malawi's board of directors has been replaced by a caretaker board that includes Madonna and her manager. The foundation's executive director, Philippe van den Bossche, left his post in October after allegedly racking up expenditures for personal comforts, like a car and driver and a golf club membership.

Global Philanthropy Group founder Trevor Neilson, who Madonna consulted last year after learning of trouble within her foundation, told the Times that it's unclear where exactly all of the $3.8 million that was frittered away went, but that much of it was spent on commissioning designs, hiring an architect and other preliminary measures.

"While I'm proud of [other] accomplishments, I'm frustrated that our education work has not moved forward in a faster way," she added.

A few months after adopting daughter Mercy in 2009, Madonna was back in Malawi for what turned out to be a purely ceremonial groundbreaking at the site of the proposed school in the capital city of Lilongwe.

Now that plans for the school have been scrapped for the time being, Raising Malawi officials say that they will start distributing money in new ways to benefit children's education in the country.

The foundation has raised a reported $18 million over the last several years, with the Material Girl contributing upward of $11 million of her own money to get the effort off the ground.

2010 JSC and JDC Result

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 09:31:00 +0000

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Weak TV, laptop sales hurt Best Buy 3Q profit

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 19:02:00 +0000

New Weak TV, laptop sales hurt Best Buy 3Q profit

Lower-than-expected spending on TVs and other electronics sends Best Buy 3Q net income down

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Best Buy Co.'s third-quarter net income fell more than expected as it lost sales of TVs and laptops to competitors. It also cut its full-year outlook Tuesday.

Shares of the largest U.S. electronics chain fell nearly 13 percent in premarket trading as the results raised fears over the holiday season.

The company, which benefited when Circuit City went out of business last year, is facing stepped-up competition from online and discount stores.

Best Buy, based in Minneapolis, said its market share in TVs, mobile computing and video game software fell. Americans are also buying fewer TVs and other electronics. Best Buy said there were larger than expected industry declines in key U.S. consumer electronics categories for the three months ended Oct. 31.

"There remains a significant amount of business still ahead of us in the holiday selling season and we don't have complete visibility to how customers will behave over the next several weeks," said CFO Jim Muehlbauer.

Revenue in stores open at least 14 months fell 5 percent in the U.S., hurt by lower revenue from TVs and entertainment hardware and software. Best Buy sold fewer TVS, and prices have fallen as the industry works through a glut in TV supply.

That was partly offset by strength in mobile phones and tablet computers.

Net income in the fiscal third quarter, which ended Nov. 27, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, fell 4 percent to $217 million, or 54 cents per share, from $227 million, or 53 cents per share, last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, on average, expected 61 cents per share.

Revenue fell 1 percent to $11.89 billion, from $12.02 billion last year. Analysts expected revenue of $12.45 billion.

Revenue in stores open at least 14 months fell 3.3 percent.

The measure is considered an important measure of a retailer's financial health because it excludes stores that open or close during the period.

But he said the company's view today is it now expects net income of $3.20 to $3.40 per share, from a prior range of $3.55 to $3.70 per share, hurt by lower revenue in the U.S. Analysts expect $3.59 per share.

Shares fell $5.27, or 12.6 percent, to $36.43 in premarket trading.

Virginia Madsen

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 18:53:00 +0000

One of the hottest stars of the mid-1980s, Virginia Madsen is one of Hollywood's most talented actresses. Voted as one of the most beautiful actresses in 1986, Virginia has had several excellent performances in her career thus far. Audiences first caught a glimpse of her as "Princess Irulan" in the 1984 science fiction epic Dune... See full bio »

Born: September 11, 1961 in Chicago, Illinois, USA

Shooting star show's brilliant history

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 04:27:00 +0000

Leonid meteor storm has made deep and terrifying impression on Americans

The Leonid meteor shower is back this month and poised to hit its peak next week. But there's a long history associated with the annual skywatching event.
It all began on the night of Nov. 12, 1833, when the Western Hemisphere unexpectedly came under attack by a firestorm of shooting stars that were reportedly silent, but overwhelming filled the sky.
During this historic display, which was seen under clear skies across the eastern United States, an estimated 240,000 meteors were observed. So heavy was the concentration of meteors that to those gazing skyward it was visually obvious that they were fanning out from a spot within the star pattern known as the Sickle in the constellation of Leo, the Lion. [ Top 10 Leonid Meteor Shower Facts]
Following this realization, the meteors were given the Latin family name for their apparent place of origin: the Leonid meteor shower.
Leonid meteor shower is born:
This spectacular 1833 Leonid meteor storm made a deep and terrifying impression on the American people.
According to newspaper reports almost everyone saw it, awakened either by the commotion in the streets or by the moving glare of fireballs shining into bedroom windows.
This point of emanation of the meteors (called the "radiant") was in the same place for all observers and remained so as the night wore on and the sky turned. Here was proof that the meteors were traveling parallel to each other from somewhere outside of our atmosphere
Up until only some years earlier, astronomers had refused to believe that meteors — those streaks of light so commonly seen in the upper atmosphere — could have any astronomical connection at all.
This remarkable finding, that meteors are visitors from astronomical realms, was striking in its own way as the shower itself. It sparked intense study into this new field of astronomy.

After 1833, many astronomers researched the history of the Leonids in ancient European, Arab and Chinese documents. In 1837, the German physician and astronomer Heinrich Olbers suggested that better-than-average displays occurred in cycles of 33 or 34 years.
Other accounts subsequently came to light. In 1799, Alexander von Humboldt — the great German naturalist and explorer — watched a stupendous display of brilliant fireballs during his explorations in Venezuela.
"There was not a space in the heavens equal to twice the moon's diameter which was not filled every instant by shooting stars," Humboldt wrote. The Leonids had apparently been observed for almost 1,000 years. [ Gallery: Spectacular Leonid Meteor Shower Photos
]
Particularly impressive displays were found to have taken place in the years of 1533, 1366, 1202, 1037, 967 and 934. Arab historical accounts have called the year of 902 A.D. the "Year of the Stars," as
The Leonids comet connection:
After astronomers began studying the Leonid meteor shower, they ultimately traced its origins to a so-called dense "knot" of matter that revolved around the sun in a period that, in 1866, was determined at 33.25 years. That same year, the likely source of meteor streams was established by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli: The Leonids came from a comet.
Schiaparelli's Leonids origins discovery came after he established that the orbit of another famous shower — the August Perseids — closely matched that of Periodic Comet Swift-Tuttle. In that same work, Schiaparelli published his calculations for the orbit of the Leonid stream.
Other experts in celestial mechanics noticed a striking resemblance of the Leonid orbit to that of the newly discovered Periodic Comet Tempel-Tuttle. This relatively small comet is in an orbit that at its closest point to the sun almost coincides with the Earth's orbit and also moves through space in a direction opposite to Earth.
So when we meet its dusty trail in mid-November these particles collide with us at the maximum possible speed — 45 miles (72 kilometers) per second. From our perspective on Earth, the meteors come at us from the direction of the constellation of Leo, the lion, which in mid-November appears dead ahead of us in our path around the sun.
This means that we have to be on the forward side of the Earth to see them coming — that is, we must be up during the hours between midnight and dawn. Leonids tend to be quite bright and are tinged with green or blue because of their great speeds. meteors lit up the night sky during which Ibrahim, king of Tunisia and Sicily, lay dying. About half of the Leonids create bright, luminous trails — in the most extreme cases, hanging in the air for eight or even 10 minutes. The meteors begin to flow when they are still nearly 100 miles (160 km) high because they, like the Orionid meteors of October, are thin flakes from the nucleus of their parent comet. So the relationship became clear: meteor streams are the debris of crumbling comets.
Jupiter, the spoiler:
After Schiaparelli's 1866 discovery, the Leonid meteor storms returned on schedule that same year and in 1867, though not nearly as abundant as what had been seen in 1833. The meteor rates reported in those years were about to be 5,000 per hour from Europe in 1866, and about 1,000 per hour from North America in 1867.
Another great shower was confidently expected for 1899 and fairly wide publicity was given to the possibility of a re-enactment of the events of 1867 and especially 1833.
More space news from MSNBC Tech & Science

NASA / ESA / STScI
Dark matter made visible on a map
Science editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: Astronomers use the Hubble Space Telescope to chart the concentrations of invisible dark matter in a giant galaxy cluster.
Far side of the moon explained
NASA finds faulty seal after delayed shuttle launch
Astronauts honor sacrifice by Vietnam vet
But instead, the anticipated Leonids spectacular failed to materialize. It was later determined that their orbit had been significantly perturbed by Jupiter — as happens to most comets and meteors sooner or later — or perhaps, as some suggested, the meteors in the Leonid stream were becoming more evenly and thinly spread along their orbit.

The once great Leonids had seemingly become just a minor stream. Even worse, Comet Tempel-Tuttle, the source of the meteor debris, failed to be seen both in 1899 and 1932 and was presumed to be lost
Rivers of ice:

Like rivers of liquid water, glaciers flow downhill, with tributaries joining to form larger rivers. But where water rushes, ice crawls. Alaska's Susitna Glacier revealed some of its long, grinding journey when NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead on Aug. 27. This satellite image from Terra, released Oct. 20, combines infrared, red, and green wavelengths to form a false-color image. Vegetation is red, and the glacier's surface is marbled with dirt-free blue ice and dirt-coated brown ice. Infusions of relatively clean ice push in from tributaries in the north. (NASA Earth Observatory) Sharehttp://breakingnews99.blogspot.com

Barack Obama arrives in India eyeing jobs for America

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 04:04:00 +0000

Barack Obama arrives in India eyeing jobs for America

MUMBAI, Nov 06 (http://breakingnews99.com) - US President Barack Obama flew into India's commercial capital on Saturday aiming to boost ties and seal big-ticket business deals to secure jobs and exports days after voters punished his Democrats in mid-term elections.

Obama will also visit Indonesia, South Korea and Japan on a 10-day tour that will see Washington push to prevent countries unilaterally devaluing currencies to protect their exports, a top theme at the Group of 20 heads of state meet in Seoul next week.

In Mumbai, Obama's first stop will be the luxury Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel, where he will pay respects to the victims of the 2008 attacks at one of the primary targets of gunmen who slaughtered 166 people.

One of the first diplomatic tests for Obama will be at the Taj. Indians will want a strong statement against Pakistan for fostering militants, but Washington must tread a fine line between appeasing New Delhi and supporting its regional ally.

Across town, police have removed coconuts around Mani Bhavan, where Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi stayed while in Mumbai and which now serves as a museum that Obama will visit on Saturday.

He will then attend a meeting with hundreds of US and Indian business leaders. He arrives in New Delhi on Sunday.

Obama's Saturday-to-Monday trip to India started just four days after his Democratic party sustained big election losses tied to the weak economy, raising some doubts over how much the trip can yield given the pressures at home.

But Obama clearly outlined that his goal was to strike "billions of dollars in contracts that will support tens of thousands of American jobs", and stated his intent to "reduce barriers to United States exports and increase access to the Indian market".

"It is hard to overstate the importance of Asia to our economic future," Obama wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times on Friday.

"It can be tempting, in times of economic difficulty, to turn inward, away from trade and commerce with other nations. But in our interconnected world, that is not a path to growth, and that is not a path to jobs. We cannot be shut out of these markets."

TOUGH SELL

On the agenda will be lucrative defence ties. The United States has held more military exercises with India in the past year than any other country, and US firms Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp are bidding for a $11 billion deal for 126 fighter jets.

But first, Obama will have to counter Indian perceptions he has relegated Asia's third-largest economy behind rivals China and Pakistan and has not recognised its growing global weight.

Washington faces a host of hurdles, including Indian worries that signing defence pacts -- which are necessary for the U.S. arms sales to go through -- may land New Delhi in a wider entanglement with the U.S. military.

A civil nuclear deal with the United States was signed in 2008 to great fanfare, but it struggled through parliament and now the accord has sparked criticism that US companies in the sector will be discouraged to invest due to high liabilities.

Also, an increase in US visa fees, a ban on offshoring by the state of Ohio and the Indian IT industry's portrayal in campaign publicity as a drain on US jobs have set a frosty tone in India.

"It has become so difficult to process visas these days and that is hurting us a lot," said Siddesh Apraj, an employee of India's second-largest outsourcer, Infosys Technology Ltd.

Obama will also push for greater access for US companies to India's market of 1.2 billion people. But given the political opposition in India to moves such as modern retail that could open to the market to firms such as Wal-Mart, a quick decision was unlikely.

A sign posted by the Congress of All India Traders near the Mani Bhavan proclaimed on Friday: "Retailers welcome President Obama in India but not foreign direct investment in retail."http://breakingnews99.blogspot.com

2011 ICC World Cup Schedule

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 04:33:00 +0000

2011 ICC World Cup Schedule

Group A:	Group B
Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Canada, Kenya.	India, South Africa, England, West Indies, Bangladesh, Ireland, Netherlands.

Match no.	Date	Teams	Venue
1	19 Feb	India vs Bangladesh	Dhaka
2	20 Feb	New Zealand vs Kenya	Chennai
3	20 Feb	Sri Lanka vs Canada	Hambantota
4	21 Feb	Australia vs Zimbabwe	Ahmedabad
5	22 Feb	England vs Netherlands	Nagpur
6	23 Feb	Pakistan vs Kenya	Hambantota
7	24 Feb	South Africa vs West Indies	New Delhi
8	25 Feb	Australia vs New Zealand	Nagpur
9	25 Feb	Bangladesh vs Ireland	Dhaka
10	26 Feb	Sri Lanka vs Pakistan	Colombo
11	27 Feb	India vs England	Kolkata
12	28 Feb	West Indies vs Netherlands	New Delhi
13	28 Feb	Zimbabwe vs Canada	Nagpur
14	1 Mar	Sri Lanka vs Kenya	Colombo
15	2 Mar	England vs Ireland	Bangalore
16	3 Mar	South Africa vs Netherlands	Mohali
17	3 Mar	Pakistan vs Canada	Colombo
18	4 Mar	New Zealand vs Zimbabwe	Ahmedabad
19	4 Mar	Bangladesh vs West Indies	Dhaka
20	5 Mar	Sri Lanka vs Australia	Colombo
21	6 Mar	India vs Ireland	Bangalore
22	6 Mar	England vs South Africa	Chennai
23	7 Mar	Kenya vs Canada	New Delhi
24	8 Mar	Pakistan vs New Zealand	Pallekelle
25	9 Mar	India vs Netherlands	New Delhi
26	10 Mar	Sri Lanka vs Zimbabwe	Pallekelle
27	11 Mar	West Indies vs Ireland	Mohali
28	11 Mar	Bangladesh vs England	Chittagong
29	12 Mar	India vs South Africa	Nagpur
30	13 Mar	New Zealand vs Canada	Mumbai
31	13 Mar	Australia vs Kenya	Bangalore
32	14 Mar	Pakistan vs Zimbabwe	Pallekelle
33	14 Mar	Bangladesh vs Netherlands	Chittagong
34	15 Mar	South Africa vs Ireland	Kolkata
35	16 Mar	Australia vs Canada	Bangalore
36	17 Mar	England vs West Indies	Chennai
37	18 Mar	Sri Lanka vs New Zealand	Mumbai
38	18 Mar	Ireland vs Netherlands	Kolkata
39	19 Mar	Australia vs Pakistan	Colombo
40	19 Mar	Bangladesh vs South Africa	Dhaka
41	20 Mar	Zimbabwe vs Kenya	Kolkata
42	20 Mar	India vs West Indies	Chennai
43	23 Mar	First Quarterfinal	Dhaka
44	24 Mar	Second Quarterfinal	Colombo
45	25 Mar	Third Quarterfinal	Dhaka
46	26 Mar	Fourth Quarterfinal	Ahmedabad
47	29 Mar	First Semifinal	Colombo
48	30 Mar	Second Semifinal	Mohali
49	02 Apr	FINAL	Mumbai

Bangladesh DGHS MBBS Admission Test Results 2011-2012

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:38:00 +0000

Bangladesh DGHS MBBS Admission Test Results 2011-2012

Hello dear friends here you will get Bangladeshi DGHS MBBS Admission Test Results 2011-2012 Published. A total of 43,644 candidates vied for 2509 seats in 18 public medical colleges and 3550 seats in 43 private medical colleges this year, said Prof Khandaker Shefayet Ullah, medical education director at the Directorate General of Health Services on Sunday.

A total of 20 MBBS seats are reserved for indigenous students, 80 for foreign students and 114 seats for freedom fighters’ children. The admission process would be completed by the end of November.
Among the public medical colleges, 50 students will be admitted to Jessore Medical College for the first time.

Medical Admission Test Result 2011-2012 have been published on the website www.dghs.gov.bd. The admission test was held on Friday.

Get result by mobile phone:

type MISdghs < space > college code < space > registration number, and sending the SMS to 9934

Get Medical Admission Test Result 2011-2012

www.dghs.gov.bd

Emotional intelligence seen as key to job performance

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 05:11:00 +0000

NEW YORK, Oct 28 (breakingnews99.com) - Measuring the emotional intelligence of employees, from their ability to read body language to controlling frustration, could be good for business, according to a new study.

Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) suggest that gauging emotional intelligence may be an indicator of how well employees will perform in their jobs.

"Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive emotions in oneself and in others. (It is) awareness of body language, for example. It's also the ability to control and handle frustration and other emotions," said Ronald Humphrey, a professor of management at that university who carried out the research.

"This study provides scientific evidence to back up the common sense notion that paying attention to moods and emotions is good for business," he added.

The researchers compared decade's worth of previous studies on the role of emotional intelligence. Humphrey said measuring the emotional intelligence of employees could prove to be very beneficial in predicting ability to work well with others, as well as to lead.

The studies analyzed in the research measured emotional intelligence in three ways. The first, referred to as ability-based testing, used multiple choice tests to evaluate emotional awareness. Other studies used situational tests, in which participants are given a social situation and asked to choose the most appropriate emotion that applied.

The third test, referred to as mixed-model emotional competency testing, is broader in definition than the other two and also takes into account factors such as empathy for others.

Humphrey added that emotional intelligence was the second most important factor in job performance, behind cognitive intelligence.

"It also is a factor in how to manage and lead. The study suggests that a culture that values emotional intelligence and understanding emotions is important. People can lead with emotional intelligence and have an emotionally competent team," Murphy added.

UK spy boss: Nukes a wider threat than terrorism

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 05:06:00 +0000

Photo: John Sawers

UK spy boss: Nukes a wider threat than terrorism
LONDON, Oct 28 (breakingnews99.com) - Britain's top spy, in the first public speech by a serving UK espionage chief, said on Thursday terrorists might hit the West again "at huge human cost" but nuclear proliferation by states was a more far-reaching danger.

Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) chief John Sawers, in a address to the Society of Editors media group hosted at Thomson Reuters London offices, said the risks of failure in tackling proliferation by countries like Iran "are grim."

"Terrorism is difficult enough, and despite our collective efforts, an attack may well get through. The human cost would be huge. But our country, our democratic system, will not be brought down by a typical terrorist attack," he said.

"The dangers of proliferation of nuclear weapons and chemical and biological weapons are more far-reaching. It can alter the whole balance of power in a region," said Sawers, whose century-old service is popularly known as MI6.

He added that intelligence failings on Iraq before the 2003 invasion showed "politicians and officials alike" how important it was that sources of information were rigorously evaluated.

Improving intelligence collection, coordination and analysis has been a major focus for Western governments since the September 11, 2001, attacks and the 2003 Iraq invasion, events involving profound faults in preparedness.

A British inquiry in 2004 by a former top civil servant, Lord Butler, said it was a "serious weakness" that caveats from intelligence chiefs were not spelt out in a September 2002 dossier which set out the government's case for disarming Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Former U.S. President George W. Bush launched the Iraq invasion citing a threat of weapons of mass destruction from Saddam Hussein's government. No such weapons were ever found.

Sawers said: "The Butler Review following Iraq was a clear reminder, to both the agencies and the center of government, politicians and officials alike, of how intelligence needs to be handled.

"Sources of intelligence have to be rigorously evaluated and their reports have to be honestly weighed alongside all other information. Those who produce it, and those who want to use it have to put intelligence in a wider context."

The Butler report urged steps to ensure "effective scrutiny and validation of human intelligence sources" and to make sure this was properly resourced and organized.

Sawers, a career diplomat, had previously been the ambassador to the United Nations, the Foreign Office's political director, and also worked as an envoy in Baghdad and as foreign affairs adviser to former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Sawers said al Qaeda was unlikely to achieve its goals of weakening Western power and toppling moderate Arab governments.

But the threat of "Islamic terrorism" was unlikely to fade away soon and reading reports of what militants were plotting was the most draining part of his job.

The move to more public accountability and openness at SIS is a big cultural shift for a service that 20 years ago was so secret the government would not publicly avow its existence, even if it still enjoys more anonymity than its close US ally, the Central Intelligence Agency.

The pressure on intelligence officials to be more transparent has many roots -- pressure from lawmakers to prevent abuses and improve performance, public concern over surveillance by police and local government, and a need by all arms of the intelligence community to make their work known so as to widen the avenues of recruitment.

Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors, said: "Wherever possible the public should be told what is being done in their name. The default switch should be set to release information unless there is an extremely good reason for withholding it."

SIS, which gathers secret intelligence overseas, was first publicly acknowledged by the government in the 1990s.

The opening up of Britain's intelligence community gathered pace in 2006 when the then-head of the MI5 domestic security service, Eliza Manningham-Buller, appeared in public to make a speech to academics and journalists at a university campus.

Biman grounds to a halt

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 04:41:00 +0000

Biman grounds to a halt

Biman grounds to a halt

Dhaka, Oct 28 (http://breakingnews99.blogspot.com) — Biman has cancelled all flights scheduled on Friday and Saturday, except Hajj flights.

The national flag carrier's public relations officer, Khan Mosharraf Hossain, told bdnews24.com that the airline was compelled to resort to such a measure because of an 'unprecedented situation'.

A pilots strike has crippled the national flag carrier. Biman had to cancel eight of its 15 flights on Thursday, although authorities had earlier vowed to keep things normal.

A brewing crisis came to a head when Bangladesh Airlines Pilots' Association (BAPA) went on strike on Tuesday to protest the suspension of four of its members including the acting president and general secretary.

Thursday saw Biman flight schedules in a shambles as more than half of its flights had to be cancelled.

Two international flights and one domestic flight have been delayed. Moreover, passengers of two flights were boarded on a single aircraft, a Biman schedule said on Thursday.

Khan Mosharraf Hossain, however, said the hajj flights had gone smoothly.

The carrier and pilots pointed the finger at each for the crisis.

Biman managing director Zakiul Islam told a press conference that the carrier will run according to its normal regulation. "Anyone who wants to create a turmoil will be dealt with strictly."

"Biman is facing an internal instability," the Biman boss stated referring to the pilots' strike.

FLIGHTS MUDDLED

The Biman PRO said eight flights—Dhaka-Bahrain-Kuwait, Dhaka-Kolkata, Dhaka-Delhi, Dhaka-Kathmandu, Dhaka-Abu Dhabi, Dhaka-Dubai, Dhaka-Cox's Bazar and Dhaka-Chittagong—were cancelled due to shortage of pilots.

Several other flights were delayed and rescheduled.

The national carrier on Thursday morning issued a notice to pilots warning them of stern action if they do not join work by 11am on Saturday.

Biman pilots have decided to defy the 48-hour ultimatum to join work.

M A Basit Mahtab, secretary general of the Bangladesh Airlines Pilot Association (BAPA), told a press conference at 2:30pm on Thursday that they will not even sit for a meeting with the authorities until the suspension of its four members are withdrawn.

Biman temporarily suspended four of its pilots on Tuesday. Immediately following the suspension, 116-strong BAPA went for a strike.

Biman officials who have flying experience were reassigned to fly planes including two directors and a director general. Moreover, seven contractually appointed pilots who are not members of BAPA were also flying planes.

George Michael freed from jail, vows new start

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:56:00 +0000

George Michael

LONDON, Oct 11(breakingnews99.com) - British pop singer George Michael was released from prison on Monday after serving four weeks for driving under the influence of cannabis.

The 47-year-old was sentenced to eight weeks in jail last month after he smashed his car into the facade of a London shop in July.

"I'm coming out here on my own so that you realize I'm going to start again," Michael told reporters outside his home in north London.

The singer was freed from Highpoint Prison in Suffolk, in eastern England, from where he told fans earlier this month: "in the last three weeks, there have been no tears, no anxiety, no bullying -- in fact, not so much as a sleepless night for me."

"On the contrary, I've been treated with kindness by fellow inmates and prison staff alike ..."

At his sentencing on Sept. 14, a judge told Michael he would spend four weeks behind bars and the remainder of his term on licence. He was also banned from driving for five years and fined.

A former frontman for the band Wham!, Michael has sold an estimated 100 million albums as a solo artist. He hinted in a statement last week that he would return to the recording studio after years without releasing new material.

The star has a history of drug and driving offences. He was banned from driving for two years in 2007 and sentenced to 100 hours of community service after admitting to driving when unfit due to drugs.

In 2008, Michael apologized to fans after being arrested and cautioned by police for possession of drugs, promising to "sort himself out."

Winner of a Grammy award, Michael is famous worldwide for hits like "Careless Whisper" and "Faith."http://breakingnews99.blogspot.com

Bosnian minister cancels Jolie's filming permit

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:50:00 +0000

Bosnian minister

SARAJEVO, Oct 14 (breakingnews99.com) - A Bosnian minister canceled on Wednesday a permit for Hollywood star Angelina Jolie to shoot parts of her debut feature film in Bosnia, citing incomplete paperwork.

The Oscar-winning actress has begun shooting the film in Budapest and her production company said it was a love story between a Serbian man and a Bosnian woman who meet on the eve of the Bosnian war, which killed 100,000 people between 1992 and 1995.

The filming should conclude in November in Bosnia.

Jolie has said the film would not meddle in politics, but an association of female victims from the Bosnian war has already objected to what it says are details of the plot.

"In the film, a victim is really falling in love with her torturer," Bakira Hasecic, president of the Women Victims of War association, was quoted as saying in Wednesday's Oslobodjenje daily newspaper.

But Sarajevo-based producer Scout Film said the film's narrative had nothing to do with the group's accusation and said it was a love story. Jolie has offered to meet the women to reassure them about the movie's content.

Hasecic urged authorities to ban the shooting of the film in Bosnia "because of the script which offends a female war victim and distorts the truth about what that woman has suffered in a detention camp," according to the paper.

It was not immediately clear whether Hasecic had seen a copy of the script herself.

Gavrilo Grahovac, the outgoing culture and sports minister of Bosnia's Muslim-Croat federation, canceled permission for the shooting.

"Since the request (for the shooting) is not in accordance with the law, it is incomplete and not accompanied by the necessary script, Minister Gavrilo Grahovac decided to annul the permit," the ministry said in a statement.

SCRIPT PASSED TO MINISTRY

The statement said Scout Film may reapply to provide necessary documentation to the ministry for the film which will be based on her own screenplay and will be acted solely by people from the region.

"We were informed today that we need to amend the documentation and I have just forwarded the script to the ministry," said Edin Sarkic, the Scout Film executive producer and location manager, adding the ministry had never asked for a script but only for a synopsis.

"I hope the film will get the green light after the officials see the script," Sarkic told Reuters by telephone.

"The film has nothing to do with the allegation made by this women's association. As we said before, it is only a love story."

Saying the movie was being filmed in Hungary, Jolie's Los Angeles-based spokesman said it was "not true" that that there had been any protest about the movie.

When asked about Hasecic's complaint, he said she "brought something up, and UNHCR have been on the phone with her."

Jolie, who is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, sent a letter to the women's group last week to reassure them about her film and proposed to meet them the next time she comes to Sarajevo.

"Don't judge me before you see the film," Jolie said in a letter read to the women by Naveed Hussain, the UNHCR representative in Bosnia, and published in Oslobodjenje.

Jolie arrived in Sarajevo in August for a surprise visit and met members of Bosnia's inter-ethnic presidency to discuss ways to help thousands of returning war refugees.

The actress visited returnees in eastern Bosnia in April with her partner Brad Pitt and promised then to come back.

Harry Potter 3D release cancelled

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:44:00 +0000

Dhaka, Oct 9 (breakingnews99.com) -- The 3D version of the next Harry Potter film has been ditched so as not to delay its release in standard 2D, Warner Bros Studios has said.

The studio said it could not complete the 3D conversion of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 in time for its 19 November UK and US release date, BBC reports.

Warner Bros said it did not want to keep fans waiting for the film.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 will still be released in both 2D and 3D on 15 July 2011, it added.

This second instalment will now be the first film in the Harry Potter series to be 3D.

In a statement on Friday, the studio said: "Despite everyone's best efforts, we were unable to convert the film in its entirety and meet the highest standards of quality.

"We do not want to disappoint fans who have long anticipated the conclusion of this extraordinary journey.

"We, in alignment with our filmmakers, believe this is the best course to take in order to ensure that our audiences enjoy the consummate Harry Potter experience."

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was expected to be the seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series, but in the past week author JK Rowling has revealed she might write more books about the boy wizard.

Rowling told US chat show host Oprah Winfrey that the characters were still in her head and she "could definitely" write several new books about them.

"I'm not going to say I won't," she said.

Harry Potter's planned conversion to 3D comes amid a growing trend towards making blockbuster films available in both 2D and 3D.

In September the Film Distributors' Association said that 3D films had helped boost UK box office takings by 8% so far this year compared with the similar period of 2009.

It said that £786m had been generated between January and August, and that three of the year's top five films had been in 3D, which had helped to boost revenue as tickets are more expensive.

Diabetes to double or triple in US by 2050

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:36:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (breakingnews99.com) - Up to a third of US adults could have diabetes by 2050 if Americans continue to gain weight and avoid exercise, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projected on Friday.

The numbers are certain to go up as the population gets older, but they will accelerate even more unless Americans change their behavior, the CDC said.

"We project that, over the next 40 years, the prevalence of total diabetes (diagnosed and undiagnosed) in the United States will increase from its current level of about one in 10 adults to between one in five and one in three adults in 2050," the CDC's James Boyle and colleagues wrote in their report.

"These are alarming numbers that show how critical it is to change the course of type-2 diabetes," CDC diabetes expert Ann Albright said in a statement.

"Successful programs to improve lifestyle choices on healthy eating and physical activity must be made more widely available because the stakes are too high and the personal toll too devastating to fail."

The CDC says about 24 million US adults have diabetes now, most of them type-2 diabetes linked strongly with poor diet and lack of exercise.

Boyle's team took census numbers and data on current diabetes cases to make models projecting a trend. No matter what, diabetes will become more common, they said.

"These projected increases are largely attributable to the aging of the US population, increasing numbers of members of higher-risk minority groups in the population, and people with diabetes living longer," they wrote.

Diabetes was the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States in 2007, and is the leading cause of new cases of blindness among adults under age 75, as well as kidney failure, and leg and foot amputations not caused by injury.

"Diabetes, costing the United States more than $174 billion per year in 2007, is expected to take an increasingly large financial toll in subsequent years," Boyle's team wrote.

Vatican keeps up attack on Nobel committee over IVF

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:29:00 +0000

VATICAN CITY, Oct 5 (breakingnews99.com) - The Vatican kept up its attack on the Nobel committee on Tuesday for giving the medicine prize to in-vitro fertilisation pioneer Robert Edwards, saying he had led to a culture where embryos are seen as commodities.

For the second straight day, it gave the thumbs down to the choice of Edwards, whose success in fertilising a human egg outside of the womb led to "test tube babies" and innovations such as embryonic stem cell research and surrogate motherhood.

The Vatican ratcheted up its negative opinion as several leading Italian newspapers criticised it for its attack on Edwards.

A statement by the Vatican-based International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC), said the group was "dismayed" at the choice.

"Although IVF has brought happiness to the many couples who have conceived through this process, it has done so at enormous cost," the federation said in a statement issued on Vatican letter head.

"Many millions of embryos have been created and discarded during the IVF process," it said, adding that embryos were being used as "animals destined for destruction."

"This use has led to a culture where they are regarded as commodities, rather than the precious human individuals which they are."

NO DEVIL IN THE DISH

A Vatican official's initial negative reaction on Monday to the medicine prize being given to Edwards as "completely misplaced" was splashed on front pages of Tuesday's Italian newspapers, with some editorials harshly critical of its stance.

"The devil is not behind Robert Edwards, as the Church seems to suspect, but a passion for science and an attempt to satisfy the desire that women have for maternity," La Repubblica said in an editorial.

"Edwards helped -- not damaged -- millions of people," said an editorial in the Corriere della Sera while the leftist L'Unita sarcastically ran a headline reading "The Heretic" under a picture of Edwards with two infants born through IVF.

Tuesday's statement by the Catholic medical federation said that "as Catholic doctors we recognise the pain that infertility brings to a couple" but that research had to be carried "within an ethical framework".

While the Catholic Church teaches that life begins at the moment of conception, more liberal Christians view the beginning of life less strictly and have fewer qualms about embryo manipulation

Russian-US crew heads for space station

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:25:00 +0000

MOSCOW, Oct 8 (breakingnesw99.com) - A Russian spacecraft carrying two cosmonauts and a US astronaut to the international space station lifted off early on Friday from Russia's launch site in Kazakhstan.

Alexander Kaleri, Oleg Skripochka and Scott Kelly are to join three other crew members on the orbital station after a two-day trip from Earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-01M, an upgraded model of a Soviet-designed standby.

In live footage on Russian state television, the rocket blasted off on schedule at 0511 local time (2311 GMT Thursday) from its launch pad at the Baikonur facility.

"Everything is in order on board," veteran cosmonaut Kaleri, strapped in with his two crewmates, reported to Russian Mission Control a few minutes into the flight as rocket stages dropped off. The craft soon entered orbit.

"I wish you every success," Russian space agency chief Anatoly Perminov told the crew.

Kaleri is on his fifth space flight and Skripochka his first. Kelly has visited the international space station twice on US shuttle missions.

They are to spend six months aboard the station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations that has been under construction about 220 miles above Earth since 1998.

The growing orbital complex, a mix of mostly Russian and American-built modules, can now accommodate a six-member crew at all times. Cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin and NASA astronauts Doug Wheelock and Shannon Walker have been aboard since June.

Construction of the orbital outpost will be finished following US space shuttle missions in November and February. Single-use Soyuz craft will have to ferry all crews to the station after the US space agency NASA retires its shuttle fleet next year.

US-Japanese team wins 2010 chemistry Nobel

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:21:00 +0000

STOCKHOLM , Oct 6 (breakingnews99.com) – An American and two Japanese scientists won the 2010 Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday for a tool that makes it easier to build complex chemicals, including those that could help in the fight against cancer.

Richard Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki shared the prize for the development of "palladium-catalysed cross-coupling," the Nobel Committee for Chemistry at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

"Palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling is used in research worldwide, as well as in the commercial production of, for example, pharmaceuticals and molecules used in the electronics industry," the committee said.

The tool allows scientists to build complex chemicals such as the carbon-based ones that are the basis of life.

Such chemicals include one that is naturally found in small quantities in a sea sponge, which scientists hope can be used to fight cancer cells.

Thanks to the scientists' tool, researchers can now artificially produce this substance, called discodermolide.

"In order to create these complex chemicals, chemists need to be able to join carbon atoms together. However, carbon is stable and carbon atoms do not easily react with one another," the committee said.

It said this meant scientists had to make carbon atoms more active, but this also produced more byproducts when more complex molecules were being created.

"Palladium-catalysed cross coupling solved that problem and provided chemists with a more precise and efficient tool to work with," the committee added.

The prize of 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.5 million) was the third of this year's Nobel prizes, following awards for medicine on Monday and for physics on Tuesday

US/Japanese scientists win Nobel for chemical tool

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:16:00 +0000

STOCKHOLM, Oct 6 (breakingnews99.com) - A US and two Japanese scientists won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday for inventing new ways to bind carbon atoms with uses that range from fighting cancer to producing thin computer screens.

Richard Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki shared the prize for the development of "palladium-catalysed cross-coupling", the Nobel Committee for Chemistry at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

"Palladium-catalysed cross-coupling is used in research worldwide, as well as in the commercial production of, for example, pharmaceuticals and molecules used in the electronics industry," the committee said.

Such chemicals include one found in small quantities in a sea sponge, which scientists aim to use to fight cancer cells. Thanks to the scientists' chemical tool, researchers can now artificially produce this substance, called discodermolide.

Heck, now with the University of Delaware in the United States, developed his work on palladium as a catalyst in the 1960s and early 1970s, while the other two came through with their variants of the same process in the late 1970s.

Negishi, who is at Purdue University in the United States, said he was sound asleep when the academy telephoned him at 5 a.m. local time, but was extremely happy to be woken.

"This means a lot. I would be telling a lie if I wasn't thinking about this. I told someone that I began thinking -- dreaming -- about this prize half a century ago."

Suzuki, of Hokkaido University in northern Japan, was also pleased and said science was important for his country.

"I don't know how much longer I'll live, but I want to continue to work to help young people," he told a news conference in Hokkaido.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan welcomed the news his two countrymen had won the prize. "I hope this encourages more young people and children to say 'I'll work hard to win a Nobel prize'," he told reporters in Tokyo.

Joseph Francisco, president of the American Chemical Society and himself a professor at Purdue, said the three worked in parallel for years. "They have just played off of each other," Francisco said in a telephone interview.

NEW CATALYSTS

"Professors Negishi and Suzuki and Professor Heck have developed new catalysts for doing specific types of reactions that connect new atoms and connect new functional groups to allow a broader array of new compounds to be made."

"It revolutionises the kinds of techniques that chemists have available to make new medicines and new plastics and new materials," he added.

The prize does not come as a surprise, Francisco said, because the work is so fundamental and significant.

The main problem the scientists overcame was how to make atoms of carbon, a very stable substance, more active and thus likely to link together to make bigger, more useful compounds.

Using palladium in the reaction meant fewer byproducts were made, giving a more precise and efficient tool for scientists.

The prize of 10 million crowns ($1.5 million) was the third of this year's Nobel prizes, following awards for medicine on Monday and for physics on Tuesday.http://breakingnews99.blogspot.com

Scientists use seals, gliders to unlock ocean secrets

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:05:00 +0000

SINGAPORE, Oct 15 (breakingnews99.com) - Scientists are outfitting elephant seals and self-propelled water gliders with monitoring equipment to unlock the oceans' secrets and boost understanding of the impacts of climate change.

Oceans regulate the world's climate by soaking up heat and shifting it around the globe. They also absorb huge amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide, acting as a brake on the pace of climate change.

But scientists say they need to ramp up a global monitoring network, with the Southern Ocean between Australia and Antarctica playing a key role. The Southern Ocean is a major "sink" of mankind's carbon emissions and an engine of the world's climate.

"To understand the rate of climate change, we need to understand these ocean processes, like how fast it can sequester heat and carbon," said oceanographer Susan Wijffels, a group leader for Australia's Integrated Marine Observing System, or IMOS.

"So what the ocean does affects how fast the system can move and the regional patterns of climate change," she told Reuters on Friday by telephone from a climate conference in Hobart, Tasmania.

Scientists also need to better understand natural ocean cycles that affect weather on land to improve long-term forecasts for crops and water management for cities.

IMOS groups researchers across Australian universities and research bodies and also links scientists in the United States, Asia and Europe.

A recent funding boost means the team can outfit about 100 elephant seals to collect data from the depths around Antarctica. A small device with an antenna is attached to the heads of the seals to measure temperature, salinity and pressure as the animals dive for food.

BLIND SPOT

Self-propelled gliders about 2 meters (six feet) long will also be deployed in the seas around Australia to a depth of up to 1,500 meters (5,000 feet) to take measurements.

Fitted with wings and a rudder, the gliders can stay at sea for months and can be controlled remotely.

A key focus is the area of sea ice around Antarctica where existing self-propelled measurement devices, called Argos, can't easily function because they need to surface regularly to send data to satellites.

Argos are cylinders that rise and fall to depths of up to 2 km (one mile). Thousands have been deployed globally.

New types of Argos are being developed that can "sense" breaks in the sea ice to send their data.

"The oceans under the ice are actually a blind spot in the global and national observing systems," Wijffels said.

"We're starting to suspect the ocean is carrying heat into the sea ice zone," she added, and this could be playing a role in destabilizing the vast iceshelves of Greenland and Antarctica.

Scientists say Greenland has enough ice to raise sea levels by 7 meters (23 feet) if it all melted. Rising amounts of carbon dioxide are also making oceans more acidic, affecting sea creatures' ability to make shells and there are fears increased acidity could curb the ocean's ability to mop up carbon.

The programme also aims to boost monitoring of major currents around Australia that shift heat around the planet, including through the Lombok Strait near Bali in Indonesia, via deep-ocean moorings.

Such measurements were more common in the North Atlantic but the Southern Hemisphere remained a major gap, Wijffels said.

First babies born in IVF full gene screening study

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:01:00 +0000

LONDON, Oct 17 (breakingnews99.com) - Two women have given birth to healthy babies from eggs screened for genetic defects before being implanted in the womb, in a study of a new technique that could improve the success rate of in-vitro fertilization.

Twin girls born in Germany in June and a boy born in Italy in September are the first deliveries in a pilot study of a technique called comparative genomic hybridisation (CGH) by microarray, European scientists said on Friday.

The technique is a new way of screening eggs and embryos for genetic defects to increase the odds a woman achieves a healthy pregnancy from in-vitro fertilization (IVF), when eggs are fertilized with sperm in a lab dish and implanted into her womb.

The births were part of a "proof of principle" analysis on whether this method of screening of oocytes, or egg cells, and embryos before transfer in IVF can help to increase birth rates.

"We have learnt from more than 30 years of IVF that many of the embryos we transfer have chromosome abnormalities," Luca Gianaroli, chairman of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) and one of the scientists who worked on the study, said in a statement.

Gianaroli said two out of every three embryos implanted by doctors into a woman's womb during IVF fail to develop into a pregnancy, often because of these abnormalities.

"The whole world of IVF has been trying to find an effective way of screening for these abnormalities for more than a decade," Gianaroli said. "Now we have a new technology...and our hopes are that this will finally provide a reliable means of assessing the chromosomal status of the embryos we transfer."

The study was conducted in Bologna, Italy, and Bonn, Germany and designed and organized by the ESHRE to find out the clinical value of CGH.

Cristina Magli, an embryologist who worked on the study at the SISMER Center in Bologna said in a statement that all three babies and their mothers were "doing very well in terms of weight and overall developmental performance."

The scientists said the next step is for the pilot study to be upgraded to a large-scale international clinical trial which is expected to start in 2011.

If it proves successful in larger trials, experts say the new CGH screening is most likely to be used to help women over the age of 37 who undergo IVF, or those with a history of miscarriage or a record of unsuccessful IVF treatments.

All of these conditions are associated with a higher than average rate of embryonic chromosomal abnormality.

The technique is also likely to be important in countries such as Germany where interfering with or freezing of embryos is banned but analysis of oocyte or egg cells is allowed.

One in six couples worldwide experience some form of infertility problem at least once during their reproductive lifespan. EHRE says the current prevalence of infertility that lasts for at least 12 months is estimated to be an average of 9 percent worldwide for women aged 20-44.

China to launch manned space lab around 2020

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:57:00 +0000

BEIJING, Oct 27 (breakingnews99.com) - China said on Wednesday it would launch a space lab to be manned for long stretches within about 10 years, a move it believes would bring it closer to the United States and Russia as powers capable of reaching the moon.

The official Xinhua news agency, quoting an unidentified space official, said a trial space lab would be launched before 2016 to test equipment and techniques. But it was not clear if that lab would be manned for long periods.

The space station programme will use existing technology, including the Shenzhou space vehicle and the Long March 2F launch rocket, Xinhua said. The agency gave no details of the size of the planned labs.

Establishing a manned space lab will "promote our country's scientific and technological progress and innovation, enhance overall national strength and make an important contribution to raising national prestige", the official said.

While the initiative is unlikely to rival the size of the International Space Station jointly operated by Russia, the United States and other countries, it is the latest sign of China's growing space technology ability.

China launched its second moon orbiter this month after it became only the third country to send its astronaunts walking in space outside their orbiting craft in 2008.

China plans an unmanned moon landing and deployment of a moon rover in 2012, and the retrieval of lunar soil and stone samples around 2017. Scientists have talked about the possibility of sending a man to the moon after 2020.

China is jostling with neighbours Japan and India for a bigger presence in outer space, but its plans have faced international scrutiny. Beijing says its space aims are peaceful.

Fears of a space arms race with the United States and other powers mounted after China blew up one of its own weather satellites with a ground-based missile in January 2007.

'Contractors for hi-tech park soon'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:52:00 +0000

Dhaka, Oct 7 (breakingnews99.com) – The government has taken initiative to set up a hi-tech park at Kaliakoir, near Dhaka and its implementation will begin soon with the appointment of contractors.

Bangladesh Computer Council has been given responsibilities to finalise the tendering process for the project.

The decision was taken at the maiden meeting of the executive committee of the hi-tech authorities on Thursday with state minister for science and information and communication technology Yafes Osman in the chair.

BCC's executive director Mahfuzur Rahman told bdnews24.com that the government had taken initiatives to finish the construction of basic infrastructure for the park within a short time. "More than one contractor or developer will be appointed if necessary to complete the work."

The ICT state minister said the developers or contractors would be appointed on the basis of their expertise in doing this kind of work. "We will soon invite expression of interest from different construction companies. Request for proposal (RFP) will be accepted from the selected company after evaluating applications from different interested parties."

BCC had been asked to submit the requirements of the park to the ministry by within the next 15 days, Osman said. "Further actions will be taken after this."

A high official, who was present at the meeting, said the committee also decided to give several incentives to the investors, which include tax holiday for 10 years and tax levitation for three years for foreigners who have been working in these companies.

Moreover, gas, water and power supply will be ensured at a low cost in the 100 percent foreign investments.

Cellphones move into cars, to hit satnav makers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:49:00 +0000

BARCELONA, Oct 7 (breakingnews99.com) - Technology that allows cellphones to be used as navigation devices in cars took a step forward on Thursday, putting more pressure on the makers of in-car satnav systems.

German car industry group Consumer Electronics for Automotive (CE4A) unveiled a standard for the technology, which is being pushed by Nokia, the world's top cellphone maker.

The personal navigation device (PND) industry, led by TomTom and Garmin, has been hit badly by competition from navigation-enabled smartphones.

When the new "terminal mode" standard is included in cars -- likely starting next year -- it enables consumers to plug a wire to their smartphones in the car and without any additional setup issues to use navigation or other features of their phones directly from a screen built into the car.

Wider adoption will however take time, industry players and analysts say.

"Immediate impact of this is limited, but if you get a credible, good enough experience from the phone navigation in the car -- it removes the need to have any PND," said Tim Shepherd, analyst with research firm Canalys.

Navteq, the world's largest digital mapping firm, said it was seeing interest in the new technology across the industry.

"We have seen a lot of interest in terminal mode from system vendors and OEMs (original equipment manufacturers)," Navteq's Chief Executive Larry Kaplan told Reuters in a recent interview.

Microsoft launches new phones, available Nov. 8

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:45:00 +0000

SEATTLE/NEW YORK, Oct 11 (breakingnews99.com) - Microsoft Corp unveiled a new line of phones running its Windows software on Monday, as it attempts to pull back market share from Apple Inc's iPhone and Google Inc's Android system in the fast-growing market for multi-featured "smartphones."

The world's largest software company is hoping that the new phones, from handset makers Samsung, LG, HTC and Dell Inc, will propel it back into the mobile market, which many see as the key to the future of computing.

The new phones, initially available on AT&T Inc's network in the United States, are much closer in look and feel to Apple's iPhone, with colorful touch-screens and "live tiles" for easy access to email, the Web, music and other applications.

Some analysts say they represent Microsoft's last chance to catch up in the smartphone market with rivals who overtook it in the past few years.

"I've been looking forward to this day for some time," said Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, showing off nine phone models at a launch event in New York.

Ballmer, who has admitted that his company "missed a generation" with its recent unpopular phone offerings, said the new phones would eventually be available from 60 mobile operators in 30 countries.

The first phone from AT&T, priced at $200, will be available on Nov. 8, said Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets.

The new range of phones, which are built on the Snapdragon processor made by Qualcomm Inc, represent Microsoft's best attempt yet to introduce live connections with its other products and the Web.

Users will be able to play Xbox games on the phones, link to Windows Office, use the Bing search engine and download and play music through its Zune music software. TV episodes are also available for download via AT&T's U-verse service. Updates from Facebook will be incorporated into a user's contacts.

Game maker Electronic Arts Inc said it will introduce a wave of games for the new phone software this holiday season.

Microsoft has a market share of only 5 percent in the global smartphone market, according to research firm Gartner, compared with 9 percent a year ago. Google's Android system has a 17 percent market share, jumping from only 2 percent a year ago.

The market for multi-feature phones that allow users to email, surf the Web and play games, as well as have access to music and video, is set to expand massively.

Gartner expects almost 270 million smartphones to be sold around the world this year, up 56 percent from last year.

In comparison, Gartner expects only a 19 percent increase in worldwide PC sales to 368 million units this year.

Microsoft shares were unchanged at $24.57 on the Nasdaq on Monday morning. AT&T shares were up 15 cents at $28.37 on the New York Stock Exchange.