Multiple Blasts Rock Mumbai Many Killed Over 100 Injured

Terror struck Mumbai when three serial blasts rocked crowded areas in Zaveri Bazar, Dadar and the Opera House this evening killing 10 people and leaving about 100 injured in three explosions in Mumbai in a grim reminder of 26/11 when 166 people were killed.


In New Delhi, the Union Home Ministry said the multiple explosions were a terror strike and that Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) were used.Home Minister P Chidambaram said that the death toll could rise and appealed to the people of the country to remain calm.He said that National Security Guard (NSG) which has a hub in Mumbai was put on standby.
Mumbai police said at least 50 people were injured in the serial blasts.


Police said the nature and intensity of the explosions were not known but the blasts revived memories of the terror attack in November 2008 in which 166 persons were killed by 10 gunmen of Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba(LeT).


Police said all the three blasts took place in a crowded markets and busy areas.


The first explosion took place in south Mumbai's Zaveri Bazaar, near famous Mumbadevi temple, this evening in which some people were injured, said Mumbai Police spokesperson Nisar Tamboli. The bustling market also has a number of jewellery shops.


The second explosion was reported in a taxi in Dadar area, he said. The site of the explosion was close to dadar railway station.


"We are verifying the nature of explosions. At this moment I cannot say anything more than this," Tamboli said.


The third blast was reported from Opera House in Charni.


Teams of Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) have rushed to the spots.


A security alert was sounded in the national capital this evening following a series of blasts in Mumbai and police personnel were fanned across the city to carry out intensive searches and checkings.


No group claimed responsibility for the blasts.

written content source:-
The EconomicTimes

War crimes court jails ex-Croatian general Ante Gotovina for 24 yrs

THE INDEPENDENT

A UN war crimes tribunal convicted a former Croatian general of orchestrating a campaign of murder and plunder to drive around 200,000 Serbs from a rebel enclave of Croatia, sentencing him to 24 years in prison.
Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor said her government would "use all legal means to fight" today's ruling, which identified Ante Gotovina - along with the late Croatian President Franjo Tudjman - as part of a criminal enterprise dedicated to expelling Serb residents of the country's Krajina region.
"We will hold a cabinet session already today to discuss our next legal moves. Operation Storm was a legal operation to liberate occupied Croatian territory," said Kosor.
She was referring to the 1995 offensive near the end of Croatia's war for independence from federal Yugoslavia. Tudjman was independent Croatia's first president. He was never indicted by the tribunal, and died in 1999.
Gotovina, 55, became a hero in his homeland for his role in the four-day blitz by the U.S.-equipped Croatian army to wrest back breakaway Krajina, and his arrest in 2005 in Spain's Canary Islands triggered street protests in Croatia.
Gotovina was sentenced today along with police general Mladen Markac, who was jailed for 18 years by the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, based in The Hague.
A group of war veterans announced a rally for Saturday in Zagreb's central square in support of the two men.
The mountainous Krajina, which skirts the borders of Bosnia in southern and central Croatia, had been heavily settled by ethnic Serbs for centuries.
After Croatia declared independence in 1991, Serb militia armed by Belgrade,the Yugoslav capital, drove out around 80,000 Croats in a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" and then proclaiming their own Krajina republic.
In 2007, the tribunal convicted former Krajina Serb militia chief Milan Martic of war crimes and jailed him for 35 years. Former Krajina Serb "President" Milan Babic committed suicide in 2006 while serving a 13-year prison term for war crimes.
Gotovina and Markac were convicted of orchestrating the killing of dozens of Krajina Serbs and the shelling of their towns and villages as Croatian forces retook the isolated mountainous region. They had both pleaded not guilty.
Another former Croatian army general, Ivan Cermak, who had been accused of the same crimes, was acquitted.
"Mr Gotovina's order to unlawfully attack civilians and civilian objects amounted to a significant contribution to the joint criminal enterprise," Presiding Judge Alphons Orie said.
Gotovina's arrest in 2005 removed a serious obstacle to Croatia's bid to join the European Union, which insists that all Balkan states arrest war crimes suspects from the 1990s conflict before joining the bloc.
Croatia hopes to complete the EU entry talks in the coming months.

The curse of 'juju' that drives sex slaves to Europe

THE INDEPENDENT

Nigerian traffickers use black magic to trap thousands of women and send them to Italy as prostitutes.
It is 6pm on a Monday night on a highway outside Milan. The thermometer on the car dashboard says it is two degrees below zero, but every few metres our headlights pick out figures waiting along the roadside, some hunched with their palms splayed over makeshift fires. Silvio Berlusconi outlawed soliciting on the street three years ago, but the estimated 20,000 Nigerian women who work as prostitutes in Italy are easy to find. Even in winter, there is no shortage of customers.
This is one of hundreds of highways throughout Europe where Nigeria's trafficking victims are forced to work. We could be in Barcelona or Madrid, Paris or Berlin, Glasgow or London. There are 100,000 trafficked Nigerians in Europe, and 80 per cent come from Edo – a southern state that is home to only three per cent of Nigeria's population. It is the trafficking capital of Africa, and home of the traditional West African religion they call juju.
The condom-strewn lay-by near Bergamo where Rita picks up clients is a far cry from the Europe she imagined five years ago when traffickers approached her in Edo. "I was happy that I was going to Europe to feed my family," explains Rita, 27. "I didn't know it would turn out to be like this." She now sleeps with about 10 men a day, seven days a week, for €20 (£17.50) a time. She will work even if she feels ill, even if she has her period, even though she has been badly beaten in the past.
Rita says she has no choice but to carry on working. Before she left Nigeria, she swore an oath of loyalty to her traffickers in a traditional religious ritual, a practice I was investigating for Channel 4's Unreported World programme. She promised to pay back the cost of her transportation to Europe and offered up her soul as collateral for the debt. When she arrived in Italy, she was told she owed her traffickers €50,000 (£44,000), as well as extortionate living costs, including €300 a month in "rent" for the right to solicit from her particular patch. "I can't escape this unless I pay," she says. "Africans have very strong charms that can destroy someone in the twinkle of an eye."
Nigeria's human traffickers are using black magic to trap thousands of women like Rita into a life of sex slavery in Europe. Eastern European gangs use violence to coerce the women they transport, but the "madams" at the top of the Nigerian trafficking chain don't need muscle – they have juju on their side. It is a form of ritualised extortion that allows Nigerian women to be both perpetrators and victims of the exploitation.
Three thousand miles away in the small Edo village of Ewhoini, I meet 23-year-old Vivian Peter – intelligent, beautiful and full of aspirations that are hard to realise in rural Nigeria. The £2 a day she earns selling tomatoes at the market isn't enough to put her younger brothers and sisters through school, and buy a home where she can live with her boyfriend, Elonel. But he says he has the answer to their problems: he is arranging for Vivian to go and work for someone he says is his sister in Italy.
Paved roads and reliable electricity may not have reached this part of rural Nigeria, but the myth of the "Italos" – the women who have made a fortune in Italy – has permeated every household. It is an open secret that the Italos earn their money by selling sex, and there is no shame in it – Nigerian women who travel are stigmatised only if they return home penniless. But many do, often beaten and HIV-positive, and are rejected by their families.
Vivian doesn't know exactly where she will be taken, or how much she will owe her traffickers, but she imagines her debt will be paid within a few months. "I won't have any idea until I get there," she tells me. Her boyfriend has no qualms about sending her to sell sex on Italy's streets. "A lot of people do it over there," Elonel, 27, says matter-of-factly, "I'm not going to stop her." All the arrangements are in place: he has bought her plane ticket to Rome and booked her in to see Doctor Stanley, the local juju priest. He says the ritual will "help her out" and bring her luck in Italy. Juju has been practised in West Africa for centuries, and it would be hard to find anyone in Edo who is prepared to say they don't fear it. Believers say invisible spirits govern the earth and control every aspect of human existence, and nothing can be hidden from their scrutiny. The spirits can be called on to protect people, but they can also destroy them.
"If she breaks the promise she makes at my shrine, we need blood from her," Dr Stanley tells me on the morning of Vivian's ritual. "I can use my power to destroy anything I want. I can throw any type of sickness to a person, whether cancer or stroke." He boasts that "uncountable" trafficked women have sworn oaths at his shrine. I ask if he feels responsible for compelling so many to a life of prostitution. He fixes me with a stern gaze. "When you promise this is what you will do, unfailingly you must do it."
Tall and muscular, with crimson robes adorned with talismans, Dr Stanley strikes an imposing figure next to Vivian's small frame. While not officially part of the trafficking chain, he provides the most important component: the oath that makes women compliant. It is a lucrative source of business for him. He is making £120 from today's ritual – a serious amount of money here.
The shrine is filled with juju fetishes: rattles, idols made out of feathers, bones and sea shells, crucibles filled with bright powders. Dr Stanley commands Vivian to undress and wash in the hut outside the shrine, and when she emerges he blows chalk dust over her body and smears clay over her forehead, marking her out so the spirits can identify the soul that is being offered to them. Then he asks her to kneel before him to swear the oath. Elonel watches impassively, smoking a cigarette. The ritual over, Dr Stanley lifts Vivian to her feet. "I feel safe in his hands," she says, visibly relieved.
A few days later, in a bar an hour's drive away, Elonel says he is doing another piece of business: he claims his sister has found two other women to travel alongside Vivian, and he is arranging for them to swear their oaths tomorrow so they can all go and work for her in Italy. "When they get there, she will make money. A lot of money," he says blankly, "and if things are going well, they will send me money." Poverty has absolved him of any moral responsibility for the women he's trafficking, he says. "I don't have to feel bad. I need money."
Vivian has been outside Edo only once – when Elonel took her to Lagos to get her travel papers – but the myth of the Italos has convinced her she belongs in Italy. "I know it will be a better place for me," she says when we meet for the last time. I tell her about the women I saw at the roadside outside Milan, about the cold, the beatings, and the €50,000 debt that Rita is still paying off, five years on. "I don't think so. Mine won't be like that," Vivian frowns. "If you are hard-working, you won't suffer. I know how to plait hair. There are lots of things I know how to do," she insists. Then she pauses. "I've made up my mind that I will go there, and I must go there. I chose it."
Europe's trafficking statistics are made up of Edo women like Vivian who do not conform to the stereotype of passive "victims". It is the most determined and driven who fall prey to Nigeria's traffickers – those without dreams to exploit are left alone. No matter how strong these women might be, the juju oath leaves them manipulated, abused and utterly trapped. Without faith in ancient, traditional beliefs, this modern form of slavery would not exist. And without a thriving market for their services, no Nigerian woman would be trafficked to Europe in the first place.
An ancient African ritual
Little is known about the origins of juju – a West African tradition which encompasses a range of rituals and supernatural entities from auras, spirits and ghosts, to magical properties believed to be bound to objects.
It is not uncommon for Nigerians from all walks of life to carry amulets to ward off evil spirits and bad luck. But it is also believed that the powers of juju can be summoned and used only by a witch doctor. Contrary to popular belief, juju is not related to voodooism.
Believers hold that juju can be used for 'good' purposes, such as curing ailments, but 'bad' juju can also be used to impose a host of misfortunes, such as madness, disease and death.
Dried chameleons and chickens are often used in juju rituals.

Walls have eyes: houses that look like people

THE INDEPENDENT

A house in Wales that 'looks like Hitler' has become a hit on Twitter. But, says Rebecca Gonsalves, that's just the start of it
Estate agents are fond of saying that a property has plenty of "character".But some characters are most desirable than others. An end-of-terrace house in Port Tennant, Swansea, has become an unlikely internet sensation after a passer-by uploaded a picture of the "Hitler House" to Twitter.
Charli Dickenson had passed the house many times before noticing, as she sat in traffic outside, that its stony façade and sloping roof resembled the late leader of the Nazi party. The angled roof suggested his fringe,while the door echoed his toothbrush moustache.
The 22-year-old first uploaded the image to the Comic Relief Twitter feed of the comedian Armando Ianucci, where it was picked up by Jimmy Carr, causing it to go viral, gaining news coverage across the UK and as far away as New Zealand.

South African ritual animal slaughters given the go-ahead

THE AUSTRALIAN

SOUTH Africans can perform ritual animal slaughters in urban areas as long as they respect basic hygiene and city ordinances, the national cultural rights commission says.
Its ruling came after animal rights activists challenged the traditional ritual of slaughtering cattle to communicate with God and the ancestors for blessings, protection or healing.
Such rituals are common in rural areas but have migrated to cities as the urban population has grown, said Wesley Mabuza, head of the Commission on the Rights of Culture and Religion.
"Many of them (traditional leaders) feel that they should be able to perform the ritual in the yards of their city homes without encountering problems," he said.
"This has fuelled debate on the subject as issues of the contravention of the municipal by-laws, environmental health, animal abuse and cruelty are always raised."
After a series of public debates, the commission ruled that ritual slaughters are allowed in cities as long as municipal sanitation laws are followed and the suffering caused to the animal is minimised.
Last year a South African court granted an order that allowed the Zulu ritual killing of a bull by youths using only their hands.
The ritual is performed every year at a harvest festival at King Goodwill Zwelithini's residence in northern KwaZulu Natal province where a bull is attacked by young men who twist its tail and genitals and beat it to death.

Can caffeine make us healthy?

THE INDEPENDENT

For years we have been told to beware of caffeine. Now we seem to have swung in the opposite direction, with studies claiming that moderate amounts of coffee may reduce headaches and protect against diabetes, Alzheimer's and heart disease, among others. So where does the truth lie?
We don't all have the same reactions to caffeine, Mehul Dhinoja, a consultant cardiologist at BMI London Independent Hospital, says.
"Each of us has an enzyme in the liver that breaks down and metabolises caffeine. It's that process that enables caffeine to have its effect around the body," he says. "Some people are born with an enzyme that works extremely efficiently and others have quite the opposite. Because this isn't controlled in studies about caffeine, it's not surprising to find statistical contradictions."
Peter Rogers, head of experimental psychology, says some people are more sensitive to the effects of caffeine, while others develop a tolerance. "One of the things caffeine has been found to do is increase blood pressure and make your hands shake a little," he says. "But actually this depends if you're a person who regularly consumes caffeine."
You can even develop a dependence of caffeine so that without it, you can feel fatigued and headachey, he says. "That's why if coffee drinkers haven't had caffeine for a while – for example, overnight – the coffee they have in the morning is likely to make them feel more energetic and alert, while for a non-regular drinker, it will make them jittery."
So while some studies say coffee stimulates the brain and makes drinkers feel more awake, Rogers and his team have found the "caffeine high" may just be a reaction to the body craving the drug. Caffeine may even have radically different effects on the sexes. Studies from Bristol University have found that drinking caffeinated coffee boosted a woman's performance in stressful situations, but had the opposite effect on men, who became less confident and took longer to complete tasks once they had several coffees.
What caffeine is good for
Forget hair of the dog. If you want to cure a hangover, a good old cup of coffee and aspirin really is best, according to a new study from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Confirming what many have suspected for years, the research found that the caffeine in coffee and the anti-inflammatory ingredients of aspirin reacted against the chemical compounds of ethanol, or pure alcohol, which – even in small doses – can bring on headaches.
Tim Grattan, who developed the technology for the new paracetamol and caffeine product, Panado Extra Advance, isn't surprised: "There's plenty of clinical evidence that shows caffeine actually speeds up the painkilling properties of various painkillers. In fact, caffeine has played a role in making our new product 37 per cent more tough on pain than ordinary paracetamol tablets."
Drinking lots of coffee can also boost sports performance by as much as 6 per cent – but, critically, only in any activity where muscles are not being worked to the limit, meaning coffee or tea could benefit a long-distance runner but not a sprinter.
Rob James, from the University of Coventry's department of Biomolecular and Sports Science, believes caffeine in the bloodstream may influence receptors on skeletal muscle, making a person temporarily more powerful. If you overdo it, fear not – caffeine can help here, too. A study from the University of Georgia found that caffeine can help reduce the soreness that discourages some people from keeping up their workouts.
What it's bad for
Contrary to popular opinion, one thing coffee doesn't do is sober you up – it may even further impair your judgement, scientists at Temple University in Philadelphia have found. Combining alcohol and caffeine at the same time produces a potentially lethal mix that makes it harder to realise you are drunk, according to the study published in Behavioural Neuroscience. Perhaps Less of a surprise is the discovery that energy drinks – some of them, at least – are bad for our health. "There have been increasing instances of atrial fibrillation (AF), a heart-rhythm problem, among young people who consume large amounts of energy drinks," Dhinoja says. It's not just drinks that can cause this problem. In 2009, a 13-year-old boy needed hospital treatment after ingesting "energy" chewing gum that contained 320mg of caffeine – more than in three cups of coffee.
Large amounts of caffeine in pregnancy also appear to be risky. Back in 2008, the Food Standards Agency warned women to have no more than two cups of coffee a day after a study linked caffeine to low birth weight. Caffeine may affect your chances of getting pregnant in the first place, too, according to a Netherlands study that found that women who drank four cups of coffee a day were 26 per cent less likely than average to have conceived naturally.
Caffeine could even shrink some women's breasts. Swedish research found that too much of it can affect hormones, playing havoc with their bust size.
Cancer and heart disease
An analysis of 59 studies just published on the BioMed Central Cancer website suggests that coffee consumption may reduce your overall risk of getting cancer and that it may be inversely associated with the risk of bladder,breast, pharynx, pancreas and prostate cancers and leukaemia, among others.One study even discovered that caffeine can cut the risk of skin cancer by more than a third.
But women who drink more than four cups of coffee a day increase their risk of developing breast cancer by a third, according to Harvard University. A high caffeine intake can also increase the chance of developing larger tumours,which are harder to treat.
The jury is still out on caffeine's relationship with the heart, too. Arthur Klatsky, a cardiologist, and his team at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in California discovered that regular coffee drinkers were less likely to be treated in hospital for irregular heartbeats or rhythms. The more cups of coffee they drank each day, the less likely they were to suffer from the condition. Spanish research has even shown that women who drink three cups a day could reduce their risk of dying from heart disease by a quarter, whilst another study found that men who drank five or more cups a day were 44 per cent less likely to die from the disease.
Other factors
Women who drink tea were recently found by American researchers to be at greater risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis. Other studies have shown tea drinkers can halve their risk of dementia and cut their risk of a stroke. Yet the same cannot be said about coffee drinkers."This highlights a really important point – that the other constituents in tea and coffee may have their very own impact on health and well-being," Rogers says.
Australian scientists found that drinking three to four cups of coffee a day can lower the risk of type 2 diabetes by 25 per cent, but those who drank decaffeinated coffee showed similar results. And a study of almost 50,000 men found that those who drank the most coffee were 60 per cent less likely to develop the most aggressive form of prostate cancer.
Should we give it up?
Doctors often tell patients to quit caffeine, but that may not be necessary, Rogers says. "It seems to me odd to be telling someone to give up something they enjoy and when there's no real evidence." Rogers followed a group of people with tinnitus – a condition for which caffeine has traditionally been deemed by doctors as a big no-no. "We found that those who did give up caffeine didn't improve their condition in any way."He adds: "Not to undermine the importance of my own research, but tea and coffee are things to worry about so much less than if you're a smoker, overweight or have a poor diet.

Pilots unsettled by laser pointers

THE INDEPENDENT

Civil aviation officials said pilots are complaining that laser pointers are being aimed at their planes as they land at Grenada's international airport.
The Grenada Airports Authority said pilots have reported seeing lasers while on final approach to Maurice Bishop International Airport.
Several have filed a complaint with the Eastern Caribbean Civil Aviation Authority.
The airports authority said it is looking for a culprit who could be charged with interfering with air crew duties.
The authority has posted notices in local newspapers warning that shining lights at planes is considered a security offence.
None of the pilots have had trouble landing but they say that the lasers are a hazard.

sex.sells (The World's most expensive Domain Names)

The Economist

SEX.COM is set to fetch a record $13m for a domain name on Wednesday when a Californian bankruptcy court meets to decide on the deal. The domain name last changed hands in 2006 for a reported $14m in cash and shares, but it was put up for auction in July after its owner went bust. This 2006 transaction does not appear on our chart, which compares the highest prices paid for domain names in cash only, and those that can be verified. It does not, for instance, include the purchase of Insure.com for $16m in 2009 because the related website was part of the deal. And the priciest domains may never be known. Many big sales are not made public, and these may account for the largest share of the domain-name market.

Tickets in black for Mohali tie

NDTV SPORTS

World Cup cricket fever was at its peak here Saturday with a Rs.15,000 ticket of next week's India and Pakistan semi-final match at Mohali being sold for up to Rs. 100,000 in the black market,said a man close to the black market operators.
A Rs.15,000 ticket may cost between Rs.85,000 to Rs.100,000, depending upon the negotiations by a buyer with the black marketer, said the man who did not wish to be named.
"Demand for tickets is increasing with each passing day. Nobody wants to miss the live action of India-Pakistan clash. There are buyers, who are ready to pay Rs.100,000 for a Rs.15,000 ticket.The prices can go even higher in the next couple of days," he said.
"Most of the ticket seekers are non-resident Indians, who have come to Punjab on holiday. Besides there are buyers from Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh," he said.
While a Rs.250-ticket was being sold on the sly for Rs.5,000, Rs.500-tickets were available in the black market for over Rs.10,000.A Rs.1,000-ticket was being sold for nearly Rs.15,000,he said.
India and Pakistan will play under floodlights Wednesday at the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) stadium at Mohali, some 10 km from here.

US preacher warns end of the world is near: 21 May, around 6pm, to be precise

THE INDEPENDENT

The end of the world is near; 21 May, to be precise. That's the date when Harold Camping, a preacher from Oakland, California, is confidently predicting the Second Coming of the Lord. At about 6pm, he reckons 2 per cent of the world's population will be immediately "raptured" to Heaven; the rest of us will get sent straight to the Other Place.
If Mr Camping were speaking from any normal pulpit, it would be easy to dismiss him as just another religious eccentric wrongly calling the apocalypse. But thanks to this elderly man's ubiquity, on America's airwaves and billboards, his unlikely Doomsday message is almost impossible to ignore.
Every day Mr Camping, an 89-year-old former civil engineer, speaks to his followers via the Family Radio Network, a religious broadcasting organisation funded entirely by donations from listeners. Such is their generosity (assets total $120m) that his network now owns 66 stations in the US alone.
Those deep pockets were raided to allow Family Radio to launch a high-profile advertising campaign, proclaiming the approaching Day of Judgement. More than 2,000 billboards across the US are adorned with its slogans, which include "Blow the trumpet, warn the people!". A fleet of logoed camper vans is touring every state in the nation. "It's getting real close. It's really getting pretty awesome, when you think about it," Mr Camping told The Independent on Sunday. "We're not talking about a ball game, or a marriage, or graduating from college. We're talking about the end of the world, a matter of being eternally dead, or being eternally alive, and it's all coming to a head right now."
Mr Camping, who makes programmes in 48 languages, boasts tens of thousands of followers across the globe, with radio stations in South Africa, Russia and Turkey. After 70 years of studying the Bible, he claims to have developed a system that uses mathematics to interpret prophesies hidden in it. He says the world will end on 21 May, because that will be 722,500 days from 1 April AD33, which he believes was the day of the Crucifixion. The figure of 722,500 is important because you get it by multiplying three holy numbers (five, 10 and 17) together twice. "When I found this out, I tell you, it blew my mind," he said.
Recent events, such as earthquakes in Japan, New Zealand and Haiti, are harbingers of impending doom, he says, as are changing social values. "All the stealing, and the lying, and the wickedness and the sexual perversion that is going on in society is telling us something," he says. "So too is the gay pride movement. It was sent by God as a sign of the end."
Mr Camping, who founded Family Radio in the 1950s, grew up a Baptist. Many of his strongly held views – he does not believe in evolution and thinks all abortion should be banned – are relatively commonplace among America's religious right.
Critics point out that this isn't the first time Mr Camping has predicted the second coming. On 6 September 1994, hundreds of his listeners gathered at an auditorium in Alameda looking forward to Christ's return.
"At that time there was a lot of the Bible I had not really researched very carefully," he said last week. "But now, we've had the chance to do just an enormous amount of additional study and God has given us outstanding proofs that it really is going to happen."
Mr Camping's argument has convinced Adam Larsen, 32, from Kansas. He is among scores of "ambassadors" who have quit their jobs to drive around America in Family Radio vehicles warning of the impending apocalypse."My favourite pastime is raccoon hunting," Mr Larsen told CNN. "I've had to give that up. But this task is far more important."

16-year-old boy held in Rs 30-lakh extortion case

Hindustan Times

A 16-year-old Class 11 student of Agra's St Paul's Church School has been arrested for bullying and extorting around Rs 30 lakh from his 11-year-old junior. Kushagra Nagwani's father, in his complaint to the police, said his son - a Class 7 student - had been demanding large sums of money for the past two years and that some valuables had gone missing from the house too.Suspecting something amiss, Kushagra's parents confronted him and he confessed that his senior was forcing him to get the money.
When Kushagra's senior called him again, the father, a local jeweller, recorded the call and handed the evidence to the police.
The police then laid a trap for him on Friday and when he came to collect the money, he was arrested.
The police said the senior boy - the 16-year-old son of a banker - had confessed to the crime, though he told the police he only made Rs 5-6 lakh.
The police said the accused confessed to having squandered the money in five-star hotels and restaurants. 
Kushagra's father said complaints to the school went unheeded and that the "bully" had a full-fledged gang operating in the school.

Children pose as IRA terrorists at EU-funded centre

THE INDEPENDENT

Former Provos show off weapons to youngsters who are then photographed brandishing AK-47s.
Photographs showing children dressed as IRA terrorists and brandishing weapons provoked fury among victims' groups in Northern Ireland yesterday and prompted investigations by the police,the Children's Commissioner and the European Union.
The controversy involves a community centre in South Armagh that has received millions of pounds from the European Union,including funds intended to promote peace and social cohesion.
Describing itself as "the jewel in the crown of South Armagh tourism", the Ti Chulainn Centre, near Mullaghbawn, hosted a youth event organised by Sinn Fein at which scores of children listened to talks by former IRA terrorists.
Racks of sub-machineguns, rifles, handguns, mounted machineguns, a rocket launcher and even a bazooka were on show in the centre, and children were photographed holding AK-47s, rifles and handguns.
It is not known if the weapons were replicas or had escaped the decommissioning process.
The pictures,entitled "North Armagh Martyrs in South Armagh", were posted online. One, showing a boy cradling an AK-47 and dressed in combat uniform, black beret, sunglasses and leather gloves, is captioned "IRA dude".
The discovery of the photos comes just months after the centre was criticised for using EU money to fund tours promoting the "proud tradition of resisting British rule in Ireland".The pictures came to light last week after the father of a boy at the event contacted the terrorist victims' group Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (Fair).
William Frazer, from Fair, said: "The son asked his father if he could join Sinn Fein Youth. I believe they had a heated discussion and, during this, the man discovered the photos on Facebook. He was distraught and was determined to make sure that no other child should face the same pressure. He did not feel comfortable going to the police and couldn't approach Sinn Fein, so he approached me. He told me, 'You need to try and stop this. They are poisoning those kids and filling them with hate'."
Dominic Bradley, the SDLP member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for Newry and Armagh, condemned the "elaborate glorification of violence and Provo gunmen involving young children".Barrie Halliday, Newry and Armagh Assembly candidate for Traditional Unionist Voice in the May elections, said: "We're constantly being told to forget the past, as Northern Ireland has moved into a new era. These disgusting photographs show that to be lies."
Patricia Lewsley, Northern Ireland's Children's Commissioner, promised to investigate the incident. "My job is to hold government and organisations to account over their actions," she said. The images were taken during a weekend to commemorate fallen IRA members. Republicans marched through Mullaghbawn on Sunday 3 October last year to the Ti Chulainn centre, where a monument in memory of IRA men on the "South Armagh Roll of Honour" was unveiled.
The IoS has discovered that the march was not registered with the Parades Commission. Yesterday the Police Service of Northern Ireland confirmed that it had opened an investigation. In addition the Special EU Programmes Body, which has given grants to the centre from an EU Peace programme, is to look into the photographs.
Neither the Ti Chulainn centre nor Sinn Fein responded to requests for comment.The controversy comes as the British government is about to stop favouring Catholic recruits to the Northern Ireland police force over Protestants,ending a decade-old affirmative action policy undertaken as part of the peace process.

The plastic found in a single turtle's stomach

THE INDEPENDENT
Hundreds of shards reveal the threat to wildlife from debris floating in our seas.
This collection of hundreds of coloured, jagged shards could be a work of abstract art. But the objects in the photograph to the right are the contents of the stomach of a sea turtle that lost its battle with plastic pollution.
Environmentalists examined the stomach of the juvenile turtle found off the coast of Argentina. The bellyful of debris that they found is symptomatic of the increasing threat to the sea turtles from a human addiction to plastic.
Sea turtles often mistake plastic items for jellyfish or other food.Ingesting non-biodegradable ocean pollution can cause a digestive blockage and internal lacerations. The result can be debilitation,followed by death.
Humans currently produce 260 million tons of plastic a year. When those products are pulled into the sea's currents, the plastics do not biodegrade but are broken into smaller pieces which are consumed by marine life at the bottom of the food chain. An examination of gastrointestinal obstruction in a green turtle found off Florida discovered that, over the course of a month, the animal's faeces had contained 74 foreign objects, including "four types of latex balloons, different types of hard plastic, a piece of carpet-like material and two 2-4mm tar balls."
The biggest rubbish "swill" is the North Pacific Gyre, known as the "great garbage patch", which is the size of Texas and contains an estimated 3.5 million items of detritus, ranging from toys to toothbrushes.
"The oceans have become one giant refuse bin for all manner of plastics. All sea turtle species are particularly prone and may be seriously harmed," according to the biologists Colette Wabnitz, from the University of British Columbia, and Wallace Nichols,of the California Academy of Sciences. In "Plastic Pollution: An Ocean Emergency",they write:"Continued research on the impacts of plastic on the ocean environment and human health is likely to conclude the problem is worse than currently understood.
"The symptom of this growing crisis can be seen inside and on sea turtles as well as their oceanic and terrestrial habitats.Bold initiatives that directly confront the source of plastic pollution,redesign packaging and rethink the very idea of 'throwaway culture' are urgently required."
Almost all marine species, from plankton to whales,have ingested plastic. But, even in small quantities, plastic can kill sea turtles due to obstruction of the oesophagus or perforation of the bowel, the biologists said.
Fifty out of 92 turtles found dead, stranded on the shorelines of Rio Grande do Sul state in Brazil, had ingested a "considerable amount of man-made debris".
Because young sea turtles indiscriminately feed on pelagic material,"high occurrences of plastic are common in the digestive tract of these small sea turtles," the biologists write.
They are asking visitors to help reduce the threat from plastics during visits to coastal areas by bringing their own reusable bags and food containers,and avoiding plastic-bottled drinks.

Elizabeth Taylor: Violet-eyed movie queen

THE INDEPENDENT
Elizabeth Taylor, who has died at the age of 79, was the archetypal Hollywood movie queen, a violet-eyed beauty known equally for her stormy romances and eight marriages as her Oscar-winning performances.
Over a five-decade career she won two Academy Awards for best actress, including in the 1966 classic "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" one of many films where she played opposite her two-times husband Richard Burton.
In later years as her health failed she retired from the public gaze, although she notably attended the 2009 funeral of her long-time friend Michael Jackson, while she remained active in raising funds to battle AIDS/HIV.
Born in London February 27, 1932, she was evacuated to California with her American parents in 1939, where she was soon discovered at her father's art gallery by the fiancee of the chairman of Universal Studios.
She debuted in 1942 in "There's One Born Every Minute," and by 1944 had become a child star with "National Velvet," the story of a girl who rides her horse to victory at the Grand National disguised as a boy.
"Before men, my great love was for animals, which I still have," Taylor would later say.
Schooled on the set, it wasn't long before her attention turned to men.
She married for the first time in 1950, aged 18, to playboy hotel chain heir Nicky Hilton. The marriage lasted 203 days, collapsing amid verbal and physical abuse after a lavish Hollywood wedding and a three-month European honeymoon.
Taylor moved on, and by 1952 she had tied the knot with British matinee idol Michael Wilding, 19 years her senior. They had two children, Michael Jr. and Christopher.
Though Taylor said Wilding gave her stability, it wasn't enough. She filed for divorce in 1956, and within days of the separation producer Michael Todd, 49, proposed.
Tough and domineering, he was Taylor's first great love. They had a daughter, Elizabeth Frances, in August 1957, but seven months later tragedy struck: Todd was killed in a plane crash in New Mexico.
Devastated, Taylor was accompanied at Todd's funeral by his best friend, singer Eddie Fisher, whose wife actress Debbie Reynolds stayed home in California to take care of Taylor's children.
From grieving widow to homewrecker, Taylor made a lightning change of roles, stealing Fisher from Reynolds in an affair that scandalized puritanical America.
They married in 1959, but the public outrage nearly killed Taylor's flourishing acting career.
She had just finished filming the Tennessee Williams classic "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958) with Paul Newman, and had already earned critical raves with "Giant" (1956), the Texas oil patch epic with Rock Hudson and James Dean.
But her flame only burned brighter. She made Tennessee Williams' "Suddenly Last Summer" in 1959 with Katharine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift.
The following year, she won her first Oscar for best actress for her portrayal of a high-class call girl in "Butterfield 8." Taylor is said to have hated the movie.
Then came "Cleopatra" (1962) - "surely the most bizarre piece of entertainment ever perpetrated," Taylor said of the production, at the time the most expensive in Hollywood history. Taylor was paid a record million dollars.
The movie flopped, but the Roman set was the backdrop for a sizzling love affair that made headlines around the world: Taylor and her leading man, Burton, who was married.
"Elizabeth looks at you with those eyes, and your blood churns," said Burton, a Shakesperean actor hailed as the next Lawrence Olivier.
They married in March 1964 in Montreal. By the time they were filming "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," the harrowing portrayal of a marriage torn by booze, bitterness and failure mirrored their own.
They divorced in June, 1974 and remarried in October of the following year in Botswana, only to divorce again in August, 1976. Before he died, Burton commented: "We never really split up - and we never will."
The marriage left Taylor an alcoholic, and her career in decline. A seventh marriage to Virginia Senator John Warner, from 1976 to 1982, failed to cure the blues.
In and out of California's Betty Ford Clinic in the 1980s, she overcame her alcoholism and a dependence on painkillers and emerged as a champion in the cause of AIDS victims.
In 1991, she stunned the world by marrying husband No. 8: Larry Fortensky, a 40-year-old construction worker she met in rehab. They parted amicably three years later.
Taylor's health continued to deteriorate. In 1997, she underwent surgery to have a brain tumor removed and in 2006 she appeared on US television to deny rumors she had Alzheimer's disease.
In July 2008, she was hospitalized but her spokesman denied reports that she was close to death, while in 2009, she underwent heart surgery to repair a "leaky valve," tweeting afterwards: "It's like having a brand new ticker."
She was admitted to hospital in early February 2011 for "symptoms caused by congestive heart failure," an ongoing condition, said her publicist Sally Morrison.

Tokyo gets radiation in tap water,Japan quake proves to be costliest ever

The Times of India

TOKYO:A spike in radiation levels in Tokyo tap water spurred new fears about food safety Wednesday as rising black smoke forced another evacuation of workers trying to stabilize Japan's radiation-leaking nuclear plant.
Radiation has seeped into vegetables, raw milk, the water supply and seawater since a magnitude-9 quake and killer tsunami crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant nearly two weeks ago. Broccoli was added to a list of tainted vegetables, and U.S. officials announced a block on Japanese dairy and other produce from the region.
The crisis is emerging as the world's most expensive natural disaster on record, likely to cost up to $309 billion, according to a new government estimate. The death toll continued to rise, with more than 9,400 bodies counted and more than 14,700 people listed as missing. Concerns about food safety spread Wednesday to Tokyo after officials said tap water showed elevated levels: 210 becquerels per liter of iodine-131 — more than twice the recommended limit of 100 becquerels per liter for infants. The recommended limit for adults is 300 becquerels.
``It is really scary. It is like a vicious negative spiral from the nuclear disaster,'' said Etsuko Nomura, a mother of two young children ages 2 and 5. ``We have contaminated milk and vegetables, and now tap water in Tokyo, and I'm wondering what's next.''
Infants are particularly vulnerable to radioactive iodine, which can cause thyroid cancer,experts say. The limits refer to sustained consumption rates, and officials urged calm, saying parents should stop giving the tap water to babies, but that it was no worry if the infants already had consumed small amounts. They said the levels posed no immediate health risk for older children or adults.
``Even if you drink this water for one year, it will not affect people's health,'' Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said. Tokyo residents shouldn't worry, said Dr. Lim Sang-moo, director of nuclear medicine at the Korea Cancer Center Hospital in Seoul.Parents might want to be more cautious if they have a choice. ``Nobody wants to drink radioactive water,'' he said. But ``it's not a medical problem but a psychosocial problem:The stress that people get from the radioactivity is more dangerous than the radioactivity itself.''
Experts also say iodine-131 dissipates quickly in the air, with half of it disappearing every eight days.
Richard Wakeford, a public health radiologist at the University of Manchester in Britain, blamed the spike in radiation on a shift in winds from the nuclear plant toward Tokyo. He predicted lower levels in coming days once the wind shifts back to normal patterns.``I imagine that bottled water is now quite popular in Tokyo,'' he said.
Convenience stores around Tokyo began selling out of water soon after the news broke. At one downtown supermarket, clerk Toru Kikutaka said water purchases were limited to two, two-liter bottles per person, but the store still sold out almost immediately. ``I've never seen anything like this,'' he said.
The latest reported food data showed sharp increases in radioactivity levels in a range of vegetables. In an area about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of the plant, levels for one locally grown leafy green called kukitachina measured 82 times the government's limit for radioactive cesium and 11 times the limit for iodine. The unsettling new development affecting Japan's largest city, home to some 13 million in the city center and 39 million in the greater Tokyo area, came as nuclear officials struggled to stabilize the hobbled reactor 140 miles (220 kilometers) to the north.
The quake and tsunami that struck off the east coast March 11 knocked out the plant's crucial cooling systems. Explosions and fires followed in four of the plant's six reactors, leaking radioactive steam into the air. Progress in cooling down the facility has been intermittent, disrupted by rises in radiation, elevated pressure in reactors and overheated storage pools.
The plant operator had restored circuitry to bring power to all six units and turned on lights at Unit 3 late Tuesday for the first time since the disaster — a significant step toward restarting the cooling system. It had hoped to restore power to cooling pumps at the unit within days, but experts warned the work included the risk of sparking fires as electricity is restored through equipment potentially damaged in the tsunami. Tokyo Electric Power Co. manager Teruaki Kobayashi said the pump for Unit 3 had been tested and it was working. But officials weren't sure when they would be able to turn the power on to the pump.
In a new setback, black smoke billowed from Unit 3, prompting another evacuation of workers from the plant during the afternoon, Tokyo Electric officials said. They added that there had been no corresponding spike in radiation at the plant.
``We don't know the reason'' for the smoke, said Hidehiko Nishiyama of the Nuclear Safety Agency. As a precaution, officials have evacuated residents living within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the plant and advised those up to 19 miles (30 kilometers) away to stay indoors to minimize exposure. And for the first time, Edano suggested that those downwind of the plant, even if just outside the zone, should stay indoors with the windows shut tight. Survivors, meanwhile, buried the dead from the disaster in makeshift coffins, resorting to wrapping some bodies in blue tarps.
In Higashimatsushima, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, soldiers lowered bare plywood coffins into the ground, saluting each casket, as families watched from a distance. Two young girls wept inconsolably, their father hugging them tight. ``I hope their spirits will rest in peace here at this temporary place,'' said mourner Katsuko Oguni, 42. Hundreds of thousands remained homeless, squeezed into temporary shelters without heat, warm food or medicine and no idea what to call home after the colossal wave swallowed up cities and towns along the coast.

Hollywood Legend Elizabeth Taylor dies at 79

The Times of India

NEW YORK:Hollywood legend Elizabeth Taylor,one of the most alluring actresses of the 20th century, died on Wednesday at age 79, her publicists said.
She died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles surrounded by her four children after having been hospitalized six weeks ago with congestive heart failure, a statement from publicist Sally Morrison said.
"My mother was an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest, with great passion, humor, and love. Though her loss is devastating to those of us who held her so close and so dear, we will always be inspired by her enduring contribution to our world," son Michael Wilding said in a statement.
Elizabath Taylor was born on February 27, 1932, in London and was considered one of Hollywood's greatest stars of all time.She was married eight times to seven husbands.

Photos: Tsunami And Earthquake in Japan 2011

A Few Photos of the Condition in Japan At the Time of the Tsunami and Earthquake....2011

On Edge of Disaster, Japanese Town Reels From Tsunami

The New York Times
NAKAMINATO, Japan — Takako Koguchi turned 78 on Thursday. On Friday, hours before a planned birthday celebration, she saw a wave of black water coursing through the streets of this small fishing town, heading toward her.
Hotel workers cleaned up on Saturday in Nakaminato.Debris was everywhere, and the town reeked of seawater and sludge.Chiyako Ito of Nakaminato watched as her barn collapsed, flattening her tractor and two cars.
Just 15 minutes had passed since a devastating earthquake rocked Nakaminato and a broad stretch of the northeastern coast.
Mrs. Koguchi rushed to her car,escaping shortly before the swirling,debris-laden water crumpled one of the walls of her small ryokan, or inn, and left a trail of destruction throughout the town. On Saturday, you could smell the effects as much as see it: the air stank of dead fish and the sticky brown mud deposited by the three feet of water that had flowed freely through the roads closest to the ocean.
She spent the night in a community center, in freezing temperatures, but went home as soon as she could Saturday. She had not eaten in 24 hours.
“People used to come and praise my inn as beautiful,” she said as she tried to clear the silt and fish that blanketed the floor of her inn.“Now look at it. It’s disheartening.”
Many hours after the most powerful quake to strike Japan in recorded history hit off the country’s northeastern coast,people here remained on edge. They had spent the night without electricity, running water or working telephones, and aftershocks rocked the area all night Friday and through the day on Saturday. On Sunday, waiting cars stretched for more than half a mile at the few open gas stations in the prefecture, and shoppers lined up in the few open supermarkets.
The scenes of destruction were especially frightening because they were far from the worst-hit areas. Nakaminato is on the southern edge of the worst devastation from the 8.9-magnitude quake and the tsunami it spawned, which swept away whole villages farther north.Nakaminato sits about 155 miles south of Sendai, the city that bore much of the brunt of the tsunami.
Before the shaking and the waves hit, Nakaminato’s buildings had a worn-out look; the town had been left behind by the country’s industrial buildup and by the young people who headed for thriving cities.The mostly aging population made its living mainly from fishing;the heart of the community was a fishing co-op on the waterfront.
On Saturday,the waterfront was battered,and Nakaminato’s residents were surrounded by the signs of a livelihood in tatters.Giant freezers in the co-op were stacked on top of each other, packed against a far wall where the waves had pushed them. Forty-foot fishing boats,tilting in all directions, were piled on top of a long concrete wharf.
And the fish, mostly silver and blue bonito,were everywhere, mouths agape.
Yukinao Nemoto, a 34-year-old forklift driver,was at the wharf on Saturday, trying to absorb the chaos around him. He was loading a boat on Friday afternoon when he noticed the bottom of the forklift suddenly scraping the ground. The reality that the earth was moving took a moment to set in: the forklift hit the ground because the ground beneath it had sunk eight inches.
Mr. Nemoto scanned the water and saw a white line of waves speeding to shore. He jumped off his forklift and ran up a nearby hill, barely beating the waves.
“I just dropped everything and ran,” he said.
It was unclear if the water that buffeted the town had spilled over the seawall built to keep it out, or had rushed through an opening that the town’s fishing boats passed through each day.
The destruction was not limited to the water’s edge.
Yukio Kobayashi was on his onion farm when he felt the first tremors radiating from the quake’s center in the Pacific.
“I couldn’t stand up; I had to crawl out of my field,”he said,dropping to the ground and showing how he had fled.“And then I saw the tsunami. I could see it pass by.”
Mr. Kobayashi, 71, said he felt lucky because the waves hit at low tide. “If it was high tide, the waves would have got me.”
He spent the night with about 100 others at an elementary school gymnasium in town, in the dark and the cold, listening to a lone radio for information. He had taken a power generator and a single kerosene space heater to the center, the only source of heat for the people huddled in the gym. No one slept, as aftershocks regularly rattled the building.
On Saturday, his fields were coated with mud. “This is the first time in my more than 70 years that something like this has happened,” he said.
In another part of Nakaminato, Hiromi and Kimiko Ogawa were in their sushi restaurant, scooping up mud and other debris that filled the building. When the quake hit, they sped off in their car.
A day later, their restaurant reeked of seawater and sludge. The giant freezer outside the restaurant used to store food was missing. The second of their cars was stacked on top of a pile of wooden debris.
It will be a long time, they said, before the restaurant will reopen.
Chiyako Ito said she was in her house when the shaking began. The first tremor was so powerful that Ms. Ito, a 72-year-old rice farmer, was knocked off her feet. As the trembling subsided, she ran outside, only to be knocked off her feet again by an aftershock.
As she lay on the ground, she saw the barn collapse on her tractor and two cars, flattening them. But the worst was yet to come. The tsunami waters swept up the river near her farm, stopping just a few yards from her house.
“I was paralyzed in fear,” she said.
On Saturday, as she walked amid shattered glasses, cups and plates in her home, she said she felt helpless. “I have no electricity, no water, no cellphone, no telephone,” she said. “I have no idea what’s happening.”
Ms. Ito added: “I’m afraid it might happen again. I’m so afraid, my feet are tingling.”

No tsunami threat to India

Hindustan Times
There is no threat of tsunami along the Indian coast,officials said on Thursday after a massive earthquake triggered a devastating tsunami in Japan. "There is no tsunami threat to India and people should not panic,"Shailesh Nayak, ministry of earth sciences secretary, told IANS. Nayak said
sunami slams coastal Japan after 8.9 magnitude quake the tsunami warnings have been issued to east Asian countries and not in the Indian Ocean.Following the 2004 tsunami, India in 2007 had set up a tsunami warning centre run by the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) in Hyderabad under the ministry of earth sciences.
A massive earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale hit Japan early Thursday, triggering tsunamis as high as 10 metres that slammed the far east country's coastal areas. There was no immediate estimate of casualties.
The earthquake struck off Japan's northeastern coast,forcing people to flee their homes.
Tsunami alerts were issued in the Philippines,Taiwan,Guam and Russia as well as islands in the Pacific,and Indonesia.

How is A Tsunami Caused?

The Times of India

Tsunami is a Japanese word with the English translation - "harbour wave". It is a series of ocean and water waves caused when a large body of water is displaced in an ocean or a large lake. It is usually triggered by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions.The wavelength of a tsunami can range from 10 to 500 km and wave periods up to an hour. In the deep ocean, where the typical water depth is around 4000 m, a tsunami will therefore Tsunami is a Japanese word with the English translation - "harbour wave". It is a series of ocean and water waves caused when a large body of water is displaced in an ocean or a large lake. It is usually triggered by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions.The wavelength of a tsunami can range from 10 to 500 km and wave periods up to an hour. In the deep ocean, where the typical water depth is around 4000 m, a tsunami will therefore travel at around 700 kilometer per hour.The amplitude (i.e wave height) of tsunamis that are generated by underwater earthquakes is determined by the amount by which the sea-floor is displaced.Similarly, the wavelength and period of the tsunami are determined by the size and shape of the underwater disturbance.Travelling at high speeds, tsunamis can cover a large distance causing huge human and material loss to the country.travel at around 700 kilometer per hour.The amplitude (i.e wave height) of tsunamis that are generated by underwater earthquakes is determined by the amount by which the sea-floor is displaced.Similarly, the wavelength and period of the tsunami are determined by the size and shape of the underwater disturbance.Travelling at high speeds, tsunamis can cover a large distance causing huge human and material loss to the country.

60 Killed in Major Tsunami after 8.9 Quake in Japan

The Times Of India
TOKYO:A ferocious tsunami spawned by one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded slammed Japan's eastern coast on Friday, killing at least 60 people as it swept away boats, cars and homes while widespread fires burned out of control. Tsunami warnings blanketed the entire Pacific, as far away as South America,Canada,Alaska and the entire US West Coast.
The magnitude 8.9 offshore quake unleashed a 23-foot (7-meter) tsunami and was followed by more than 20 aftershocks for hours, most of them of more than magnitude 6.0.
Police said at least 60 people were killed and 56 were missing. The death toll was likely to continue climbing given the scale of the disaster.
Dozens of cities and villages along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of coastline were shaken by violent tremors that reached as far away as Tokyo, hundreds of miles (kilometers) from the epicenter.
"The earthquake has caused major damage in broad areas in northern Japan," Prime Minister Naoto Kan said at a news conference.
Japan issued a state of emergency at a nuclear power plant after its cooling system had a mechanical failure. Trouble was reported at two other nuclear plants as well, but there was no radiation leak at any.
Chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said the measure at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima was a precaution and that the facility was not in immediate danger.
Even for a country used to earthquakes, this one was of horrific proportions because of the tsunami that crashed ashore, swallowing everything in its path as it surged several miles (kilometers) inland before retreating.
Large fishing boats and other sea vessels rode high waves into the cities, slamming against overpasses or scraping under them, snapping power lines along the way. Upturned and partially submerged vehicles were seen bobbing in the water. Ships anchored in ports crashed against each other.
A tsunami warning was extended to a number of Pacific, Southeast Asian and Latin American nations, including Japan,Russia,Indonesia,New Zealand and Chile. In the Philippines,authorities said they expect a 3-foot (1-meter) high tsunami.
In downtown Tokyo, large buildings shook violently and workers poured into the street for safety. TV footage showed a large building on fire and bellowing smoke in the Odaiba district of Tokyo. The tremor bent the upper tip of the iconic Tokyo Tower,a 333-meter (1,093-foot) steel structure inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Driver Jason Rippard was texting as his car killed a father of three

The Daily Telegraph,
IF there was ever an example of the tragic consequences of texting While driving, it was the death of father-of-three Graham Denton, a court heard
The amateur triathlete was riding in the breakdown lane on the outside of his female training partner - like he always did should the "unthinkable" happen when a driver drifted off the road and slammed into him.
The driver, Jason Noel Rippard, later told police he was sending a text at the time.
Rippard's solicitor, Kevin Pearce of Aubrey Brown Partners, told Wyong Local Court his client intended pleading guilty to dangerous driving occasioning death.
"If there was ever an example of the dangers of using a mobile phone while driving, this is it," he told the court.
The 30-year-old driver, of Budgewoi, was also charged with low range drink-driving after he was breath-tested at the scene and later returned a reading of 0.057.
Checks also showed his licence had expired five days before the crash on the Pacific Highway at Gwandalan, near Lake Macquarie, about 6.30am on December 9.
Rippard's defence will argue when he is committed for sentencing next month the alcohol in his system had little influence on the crash, which was instead caused by his lapse of concentration.
In a handwritten letter to the 52-year-old victim's grieving wife Catherine and their three sons, Rhys, 13, Jacob, 12,and Lennex,10 - written prior to him seeking legal advice and tendered as part of the police brief Rippard apologised for "destroying such a beautiful family".
"I don't write this letter seeking forgiveness because I will never forgive myself," he wrote. "To know that the car I was driving ended Graham's life is devastating to me but I can only imagine how devastating it is for you."
The father-of-two is possibly the first motorist in NSW to be charged over a fatality while using a mobile phone. According to the latest available Roads and Traffic Authority data there were 31 crashes in 2009 in which use of a hand-held phone was a proven contributing factor.
It follows the sentencing of Marcus Johnstone in Victoria in 2006 to six years and nine months in jail after he crashed into a power pole while deleting a 24-word text, killing two teenage girls in the back seat.
Outside court, Mr Denton's training partner, who narrowly escaped serious injury, said she was still traumatised by the horrific incident.
Vanessa Parry-Williams said she had returned to training but was scared every time she got back on her bike.

Citibank fraud: 8 employees fired

NDTV
New Delhi: Citibanks’ Gurgaon branch has terminated services of eight employees including Puri in connection with the fraud.
"Following disciplinary procedures, the services of a few employees of our Gurgaon branch have been terminated," a Citibank spokesperson had said.
Several corporates and High-Networth Individuals (HNIs) lost Rs 460.91 crore in a scheme floated by Puri which promised high returns. Puri fabricated a circular of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to lure people into investing into accounts held by his accomplices Premnath, Shiela Premnath and Deeksha Puri.
Gurgaon Police has hired a Chartered Accountant firm hired to help crack the Rs 460 crore fraud at a Citibank branch will submit its report soon.
Besides the Police inquiries, the Investigation Directorate of the Income Tax has initiated proceedings to track the source of deposit of the affected persons in Citibank. Even, the Directorate of Enforcement has initiated inquiries in the matter. Employees whose services were terminated were reportedly under suspension ever since the fraud came to light.
Other employees whose services have been terminated included Gurgaon branch manager, Amit Zalpuri, Assistant Sales Manager, Kapil Chabra and Branch Investment Counsellor Nitin Chawla, sources said. However, names of the employees whose services were terminated could not be ascertained from Citibank. At the same time, Citibank is undertaking the process of compensating its customers who have lost money in the scheme floated by Puri.

Sachin Tendulkar completes 2000 World Cup runs

NDTV
New Delhi:Sachin Tendulkar accomplished yet another milestone on Wednesday as he completed 2000 runs in World Cup matches.
Sachin,who is already the highest scorer in World Cups, smashed a boundary of the last ball of a Ryan ten Doeschate over to reach the feat.
The 37-year-old, who came into his 40th World Cup match with 1982 runs to his name, first played at cricket's showpiece tournament in 1992.
Tendulkar was later dismissed for 27 off 22 balls, caught near the long-off boundary by Bradley Kruger off the bowling of Pieter Seelaar.The next player on the list is Australian skipper Ricky Ponting, who has 1,577 runs in 42 matches.

Dollar party days are numbered

Herald Sun
SOARING oil prices threaten to end the Aussie dollar's dream run and send it tumbling below parity with the US greenback.
The local currency is trading about $US1.01 after hitting parity in October.
But spooked traders are worried that the two reasons behind the dollar's stellar run Australia's comparatively high interest rates and the nation's strong commodities trade with China -- may be on the wane.
If the recent high oil prices are sustained, central banks throughout the world will be forced to lift interest rates to rein in inflation.
This, in turn, will reduce the Aussie dollar's higher yield on investment relative to other currencies as global interest rates play catch-up.
CMC Markets senior forex dealer Tim Waterer said the local currency would be forced downward if the US Federal Reserve starts to lift interest rates.
"So much depends on what happens in the next three to four months," he said. "Oil is the biggest question in the market at the moment as traders are clearly uncomfortable with prices over $US100 a barrel."
The Australian dollar is also at risk if the Chinese Government raises interest rates, as that may dampen demand for the nation's key commodities exports.
Rochford Capital managing director Thomas Averill said the Australian dollar was closely linked to commodity prices.
"I certainly think it could fall below parity and you won't have to wait that long for it," he said.
"This could happen if the Chinese Government tightens rates as it seeks to put the brakes on inflation in the local economy."
Oil prices fell for the first time in three days yesterday following a media report that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had offered to cede power.
London's Brent North Sea crude -- benchmark for two-thirds of the world's oil market -- was last night trading about $US114 a barrel.
It hit a two-and-a-half year high of about $US120 a barrel in late February.
In a sign that the oil price volatility is far from over, investment bank Goldman Sachs raised its forecast for Brent crude by $US4.50 to $US105 a barrel for the three months to June 30 due to the Libyan supply disruptions.

Spain lowers speed limit to cut fuel bill

Guardian
An army of workers changed motorway speed signs overnight from 120km/h to 110km/h, as part of a series of measures designed to save €2.3bn a year in oil costs.
Spanish drivers have begun keeping their speed to below 110 km per hour (68mph) on motorways after the government made a cut in the speed limit a key measure in moves to lower energy bill.
The controversial 10 km/hr change to the speed limit will remain in place at least until the end of June as part of a series of measures designed to cut consumption by more than 5%.
Other measures included schemes for replacing old tyres, switching public lighting to low energy bulbs and helping town halls hire consultants to reduce their electricity consumption.
Spain's socialist government aims to save the country from importing 28.6m barrels of oil a year a potential saving of €2.3bn (£2bn). The government said it also hoped to reduce annual CO2 emissions by 12.5m tonnes.
More than 6,000 motorway speed limit signs had to be changed overnight, with an army of workers sticking the new speed limit over the old one.
Opposition parties said the reduced speed limit would make little impact on Spain's overall oil bill. Right-wing commentators claimed the change was mainly aimed at increasing income from speeding fines.
The government is also reducing the price of commuter train tickets in order to persuade more Spaniards to leave their cars at home and use public transport. Increased oil prices and a rise in eurozone interest rates could further slow Spain's return to growth, analysts warn.

Airlines slam Heathrow's snow performance

Guardian
Virgin Atlantic and British Airways tell MPs Gatwick embarrassed its bigger rival by coping better with December's extreme weather.Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport, was only operating a fraction of its normal schedule during December's snow disruption.Heathrow was slow in preparing for the snowstorms that crippled Britain's largest airport in December while Gatwick embarrassed its bigger rival by coping better with the wintry weather,two leading airlines alleged on Tuesday.
Virgin Atlantic also told MPs that the media and ministers were told ahead of passengers and airlines about the reopening of Heathrow's second runway,the airport was paralysed for four days in the wake of a severe snow storm on 18 December.
Steve Ridgway, Virgin Atlantic's chief executive, said the airline began preparing for heavy snow days before the heavy showers arrived, but did not notice Heathrow owner BAA making similar preparations.
"We were disappointed that we did not appear to see the same early approach to activating the plan," Ridgway told the House of Commons transport committee.
Corneel Koster, the airline's director of operations,said the snow plan that had been drawn up by BAA had only received a cursory consultation before December. "It was a slight, light consultation," Koster said.
Koster added that Gatwick, which was sold by BAA in 2009 sold by BAA in 2009,also ran a smoother operation during the mid-December snow. "Gatwick implemented a much more integrated approach to working with the airlines."
British Airways director of operations Andrew Lord was more conciliatory, arguing that the severity of the snow storm should be taken into account."The plan that was published for a significant snow event was robust.We should all recognise that the event that occurred ..was a severe event."Lord added that there were "clearly" lessons that Heathrow could take from Gatwick's performance. "The way Gatwick has learned over the past 18 months is probably the best example."
Both airlines called for a new regulatory regime that will fine airport owners for poor performance such as the Heathrow fiasco."The government found it frustrating in December that, like the airlines, they had so little power and resources." BA's Lord warned that fines could be passed on to passengers, in a reference to the threat of higher landing fees or steeper car parking charges.
Colin Matthews, BAA chief executive,told the committee the main lesson from the snow crisis was that greater co-operation is vital, including a system to implement rail-style emergency timetables during the next crisis.
"We have to be able to have an authoritative version of an emergency timetable. That's what they have in the rail industry," said Matthews, who gave up his annual bonus following heavy criticism gave up his annual bonus following heavy criticism.
Matthews explained he would create a group comprised of chief executives from airlines, the aviation regulator and the national air traffic controller that would co-operate on establishing emergency timetables at Heathrow.
"It would be better in terms of disruption to get an executive group and not have that free-for-all [for take off and landing slots]."
A BAA-funded report into the snow chaos will be published later this month.

40 years since the Equal Pay Act, equality remains a dream

Guardian
It is four decades since the Equal Pay Act came into force, yet men still earn more than women in nearly 90% of job categories, according to analysis by the Guardian.
On the day when International Women's Day reaches its 100th anniversary, men take home higher pay than women in 370 of the UK's 426 job classifications, while women earn more in only 53 categories, according to data supplied by the Office for National Statistics and analysed by the Guardian. Equal pay prevails in three job categories only.
The biggest disparity is in steel foundries and other parts of the metal-making and treatment industry, with men's median annual pay 52% ahead of women's.
Second is the brokerage industry, where men earn 42.4% more in their annual salaries.
The average man working full-time has a median salary, including overtime, of £28,091 in 2010, 19.9% more than his female counterpart, according to the ONS. The gap falls to 10.2% when overtime - which typically pays a much higher rate and is largely carried out by men - is eliminated by comparing hourly rates, which is the favoured measure for the ONS.
The pay gap has narrowed considerably in the past decade, from 16.3% (excluding overtime) in 2000 to 10.2% last year in hourly full-time wages. But the gap continues to attract near-universal condemnation.
"It's appalling. How can this be when we have pay equality laws?" said Ruth Sealy, deputy director of the International Centre for Women Leaders at Cranfield University.
Sealy was scathing about the government's decision in December to reverse a section of the Equality Act that would have given powers to make companies disclose pay differences between men and women if, by 2013, they continued to show no evidence of tackling them.
Sealy believes the threat of disclosure contributed to the 2 percentage point decline in the gender pay disparity last year, and that its removal "may well lead to a decline in the further closing of that gap".
Anna Bird, acting chief executive at the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for gender equality, added: "The persistent gap in pay between men and women is one of the starkest examples of inequality in the UK today. Forty years after the Equal Pay Act and women across the UK still face a lifetime of earning less then men."
A spokesman for the Government Equalities Office, created in 2007 and now part of the Home Office, conceded that "the gender pay gap is too large".
Using the ONS data, the Guardian found that men earn 10% or more than women in 170 jobs, and between 1% and 10% extra in a further 200 areas.
Experts said it was not possible to extrapolate to what extent men earn more than women for exactly the same job, and how much was down to the fact that men typically hold more senior positions within a given category. However, it is clear that both play a role, they said.
Although the government's decision on the Equality Act is a blow, many remain hopeful for change.
Last month, Lord Davies of Abersoch, former head of Standard Chartered bank, gave Britain's 100 biggest companies five years to double the number of women on their boards from the current average level of 12.5% to a quarter, or face mandatory quotas. Davies made his recommendations following a review ordered by the government, and, while some campaigners had hoped for quotas, the recommendations were widely welcomed as a step in the right direction for gender equality.
"The wind of change is in the air. I hope that if there are more women at the top of companies then pay equality will be given more attention. But it depends on how quickly women ascend to the boardroom [without quotas]," says Sealy.
Separately, six in 10 women aged 15 to 30 say they have experienced sexist remarks or sexist behaviour, while 47% of women do not believe they are treated equally to men in the workplace, according to a survey by Ipsos Mori on behalf of Amnesty International, the Fawcett Society and Women's Aid.

Libya War Traps Poor Immigrants at Tripoli’s Edge

The New York Times
TRIPOLI, Libya —As wealthier nations send boats and planes to rescue their citizens from the violence in Libya, a new refugee crisis is taking shape on the outskirts of Tripoli, where thousands of migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa have been trapped with scant food and water, no international aid and little hope of escape.
A man prayed among his fellow refugees from Ghana at a camp in Tunisia near the Libya border.The migrants many of them illegal immigrants from Ghana and Nigeria who have long constituted an impoverished underclass in Libya — live amid piles of garbage, sleep in makeshift tents of blankets strung from fences and trees, and breathe fumes from a trench of excrement dividing their camp from the parking lot of Tripoli’s airport.
For dinner on Monday night two men killed a scrawny, half-plucked chicken by dunking it in water boiled on a garbage fire, then hacked it apart with a dull knife and cooked it over an open fire. Some residents of the camp are as young as Essem Ighalo, 9 days old, who arrived on his second day of life and has yet to see a doctor. Many refugees said they had seen deaths from hunger and disease every night.
The airport refugees, along with tens of thousands of other African migrants lucky enough to make it across the border to Tunisia, are the most desperate contingent of a vast exodus that has already sent almost 200,000 foreigners fleeing the country since the outbreak of the popular revolt against Col.Muammar el-Qaddafi nearly three weeks ago.
Dark-skinned Africans say the Libyan war has caught them in a vise. The heavily armed police and militia forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi who guard checkpoints along the roads around the capital rob them of their money, possessions and cellphone chips, the migrants say. And the Libyans who oppose Colonel Qaddafi lash out at the African migrants because they look like the dark-skinned mercenaries many here say the Libyan leader has recruited to crush the uprising.
“Qaddafi has brought African soldiers to kill some of them, so if they see black people they beat them,” said Samson Adda, 31, who said residents of Zawiyah, a rebellious city, had beaten him so badly that he could no longer walk.
Sub-Saharan Africans make up a vast majority of the estimated 1.5 million illegal immigrants among Libya’s population of 6.5 million, according to the International Organization for Migration. Many were desperately poor people made even more so by investments of up to $1,000 each to pay smugglers to bring them across Libya’s southern border for a chance at better work in its oil economy.
Their flight has emptied the streets of thousands of day laborers who played a crucial, if largely unheralded, role in sustaining Libya’s economy. Their absence has played a role in halting construction projects that had been rising across the skyline.
They are trapped in part because most lack passports or other documents necessary to board a plane or cross the border. Few can afford a plane ticket. They say they are afraid to leave the airport or try their luck on the roads to the border for fear of assaults by Libyan citizens or at militia checkpoints.
They complain bitterly of betrayal by their home governments, which have failed to help evacuate them even as Egyptian, Bangladeshi and Chinese migrant workers who crowded the airport a week ago have found a way out.
And international aid workers, who have raced to minister to the hundreds of thousands camped on the borders, say the migrants trapped at the airport remain beyond their reach. The Libyan government’s tight security and the threat of violence on the streets of Tripoli have apparently prevented any international aid groups from reaching the makeshift camps.
“We are operating out of Benghazi,” said Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration, referring to the eastern Libyan city that is the headquarters of the rebellion. “But unfortunately because of the conditions we can’t help them out of Tripoli.”
The outbreak of violence in Tripoli around Feb. 20 sent migrants of all kinds fleeing for the airport. Until recently, desperate hordes of all nationalities were sleeping packed together on the floors of the terminals or in the fields and parking lots outside. Guards with whips and clubs beat them back to clear the entrance.
Despite Colonel Qaddafi’s brotherly pan-African rhetoric, racial xenophobia is common here. Many Libyans, ethnically Arab, look down on Chinese, Bangladeshis and darker-skinned Africans, in that order. Many African refugees here and in the camps on the Tunisian border say Libyans often addressed them as “abd,” or slave.
“Even if someone stabs you with a knife and you go to the police to report it, they won’t do anything about it,” said Paul Eke, 34, a Nigerian who was camped out at the Tunisian border, displaying a mangled arm as evidence of his firsthand experience. “In the hospitals, no one will care for you. They just don’t like blacks.”
But many said it was the presence of mercenaries from other African countries that made the situation unbearable. “Qaddafi brought the mercenaries who are black, so the people are chasing us,” one 30-year-old Nigerian said.
Perhaps as many as 100,000 refugees, most of them sub-Saharan Africans, have made it to the Tunisian camps, where groups like the Red Crescent, the Muslim counterpart to the Red Cross, care for the sick. The United States has lent planes to fly Egyptian refugees home from Tunisia.
But the crowds left at the airport, now almost exclusively African, have no such support. Some have been there for two weeks or more.
Several said that someone — perhaps with a local charity, perhaps with the Libyan government — had given them each a biscuit. On Monday refugees holding bottles lined up at the back of a tanker truck dispensing water.
But an exploitative economy has also sprung up. A group of burly, well-dressed men stood by a sport utility vehicle in the parking lot holding thick stacks of dollars, euros and Libyan dinars and offering to change money at usurious rates.
Many of the workers had been paid in foreign currency but need to change it to buy a Coke, a candy bar, or perhaps an emaciated chicken from the vendors who have turned up to profit from the camps. Several refugees said a live chicken cost about $8 in the camp, more than four times what it might have cost before the crisis.
Bathing is another problem. A Ghanaian woman said angrily that she had not washed in nine days.
“Some women try to wash naked in the bushes,” a Nigerian man said. “It is an abomination.”
But many said the worst indignity was being robbed of their few possessions either by soldiers with machine guns or by young civilians carrying knives.
“The most painful thing is this: A lot of people buy things, for more than two years they are gathering their own money to keep their own things that they will take to Nigeria,” the Nigerian man said. “But the little things that you have — like tele, plasma, clothes, shoes, bags, all your assets — they take everything.”
Another man added: “Just imagine: We are poor people, and they are robbing us. They are taking our dinars, our euros, our pounds. They are taking our mobile phones and SIM cards.”
The loss of the cellphones — the Libyan government is confiscating them apparently to prevent the circulation of cellphone pictures of the unrest — means that many of the refugees have been unable to tell their families they are alive, several said.
Many said that after waiting days for people from their embassies to help arrange their travel papers, they had given up hope in their home countries.
“We are somebody and we are from somewhere,” said Abru Razak, 35, a Nigerian with two daughters, 2 and 5, at the airport. “Even when we get into the airport they are beating us and pushing us. We are dying. Tell the United Nations they should get us away from here to anywhere, just to save our lives.”