Leona Lewis: ‘I’d choose a global ban on animal testing over my singing career’
She’s famous for being incredibly nice to everyone she meets and now singer Leona Lewis has gone one step further by revealing that she would give up her career to end animal testing. Although the EU has outlawed testing beauty products on animals, the rest of the world is yet to follow suit – much [...]
Quake hits Indonesia’s Sumatra days after deadly tremor
JAKARTA, July 6 (AFP) -A strong 6.0-magnitude quake struck off Indonesia’s Sumatra Saturday, US seismologists said, just days after a tremor on the vast island killed dozens and left thousands homeless. No tsunami warning was issued and there were no reports of damage after the quake struck at a shallow depth of just 23 kilometres [...]
Venezuela offers Edward Snowden hope of asylum
MOSCOW, July 6(AFP) -US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden remained stranded in a Moscow airport for the 14th day Saturday amid rising hopes he may finally be able to leave Russia after being offered asylum by Venezuela. The saga surrounding the fugitive former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor took a new turn late Friday when [...]
Egypt counts dead after Islamist protest violence
CAIRO, July 6 (Reuters) – Egypt counted its dead today after Islamists enraged by the overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi took to the streets in an explosion of violence against what they denounced as a military coup. At least 30 people died and more than 1,000 were wounded after Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement called “Friday [...]
Two Koreas hold rare talks on joint zone
SEOUL, July 06 (AFP) -North and South Korea held rare talks Saturday on re-opening a joint industrial zone seen as the last remaining symbol of cross-border reconciliation. But the meeting dragged on into late Saturday, showing little signs of making headway. Negotiations got off to a faulty start, with the two sides talking across each [...]
Japan PM Abe set to win upper house majority: polls
TOKYO, July 6 (AFP) -Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling bloc is set to secure a majority in the upper house in this month’s election, newspaper polls said Saturday. Victory would give Abe control of both chambers of the legislature and he would not have to face a public vote for three years. The Liberal [...]
At least 14 killed in Pakistan train accident: Officials
LAHORE, Pakistan, July 6 (AFP) -At least 14 people, including two children, were killed on Saturday when a train collided with a packed motorcycle rickshaw in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, officials said. The passenger train travelling from the country’s financial hub Karachi to Punjab capital Lahore crushed the rickshaw on a road crossing which had [...]
Asia’s richest woman: Lover of Nina Wang jailed
HONG KONG (Reuters) – A Hong Kong judge on Friday jailed a former lover of late billionaire tycoon Nina Wang for 12 years for forging a will naming him the sole heir to one of Asia’s largest fortunes, estimated at $4 billion. Justice Andrew Macrae delivered the sentence on Peter Chan, formerly known as Tony [...]
Pennies for heir to the throne
Babies born on the same day as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s first child will receive a ‘lucky’ silver penny, the Royal Mint announced yesterday. An average of 1,983 children are born each day in the UK, so 2,013 of the commemorative coins have been struck to be sure there will be enough to [...]
Most senior female Afghan police officer shot dead
The most senior female police officer in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, has been shot dead outside her home as four girls were killed in a separate roadside bomb as they fetched water. Lieutenant Islam Bibi, 37, was targeted by a gunman as she rode on a motorbike with her son-in-law on her way to work on [...]
Smitten spies?
MOSCOW (Reuters) – A tabloid says Vladimir Putin is Russia’s most eligible bachelor, but the president may have competition from an American half his age: Edward Snowden, the former U.S. spy agency contractor believed to be holed up at a Moscow airport. Snowden, 30, has received a marriage proposal of sorts in a tweet from [...]
Grumpy? Eat a steak. Eat the right vitamin for your ailment
Could that niggling health problem actually mean you’re deficient in something? Learn what your body might be trying to tell you about the vitamins and minerals you could lack. Cracks at the side of your mouth could mean you lack: Vitamin B2. RECOMMENDED DAILY AMOUNT (RDA): 1.3mg for men, 1.1mg for women. Fissures and sores [...]
WHO sets up emergency committee on MERS virus
GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization is forming an emergency committee of international experts to prepare for a possible worsening of the Middle East coronavirus (MERS), which has killed 40 people, WHO flu expert Keiji Fukuda said on Friday. Fukuda said there was currently no emergency or pandemic but the experts would advise on [...]
English profanity earns place in dictionary
BERLIN (Reuters) – The English profanity “shitstorm” is so widely used by Germans, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, that the country’s most prestigious dictionary has included it in its latest edition. “Over the last few years, ‘shitstorm’ has entered everyday usage so that’s why it now appears in the new printed edition of the dictionary,” said [...]
Can nothing deter Delhi’s rapists?
December 16 changed Delhi, but unfortunately for the worse. With more than four rapes every 24 hours in the months after the brutalisation of a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus on December 16 last year, the city’s ‘rape capital’ tag is more apt than ever. There have been 806 cases of rape reported in [...]
Prevent measles, get your infants immunised now
Hard on the heels of a measles outbreak, the Health Ministry launched on Friday an islandwide campaign to administer a booster dose of the measles vaccine for infants between six to 12 months and parents have been requested to get their babies immunised against this contagion. According to the Health Ministry’s Epidemiology Unit chief Dr. [...]
Bets close on minnows while sharks continue to prey, with Govt. patronage?
Police are cracking down on small casinos in Colombo and the suburbs, citing a 123-year-old law that deems “keeping, permitting to be kept, or managing a common gaming place” to be an offence. The Organised Crimes Division (OCD) raided the Red Star casino in Bambalapitiya on June 28, followed by the Regina Club in Slave [...]
Star Wars-style moving holograms are no longer lightyears away
Moving hologram displays like those featured in Star Wars could soon be available to watch on a laptop. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have cracked a major technological hurdle to make low-cost, high quality holographic videos a reality. Until now, the video hologram has generally been confined to science fiction, the most famous [...]
Are you addicted to the internet?
Do you stay up late into the night using the internet? Are you grumpy or anxious when you can’t log on? Do you need to use the internet more and more to feel satisfied? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be suffering from internet addiction, say experts. Researchers at the [...]
One small step for Kirobo, one giant leap for robotkind
The world’s first space conversation between a robot and an astronaut is set to take place later this year. The talking robot called Kirobo – after ‘kibo’, which means hope in Japanese, and ‘robot’ – is set to join a Japanese astronaut into space in August. Its developers have gathered in Tokyo to demonstrate the [...]
10 inventors who didn’t get mega-rich from their inventions
Doug Engelbart, who has died aged 88, never really made any money from inventing the mouse. Here are 10 others who didn’t get to be billionaires. 1. LEDs When Nick Holonyak Jr invented the first practically useful LED in 1962 he predicted it would one day replace Edison’s lightbulb. Holonyak’s colleagues have said he should [...]
Hitler’s food taster feared death with every morsel
BERLIN (Reuters) – Margot Woelk spent the last few years of World War Two eating lavish meals and fearing that every mouthful could mean death. The former food taster for Adolf Hitler was served a plate of food and forced to eat it between 11 and 12 every morning for most of the last 2-1/2 [...]
Reconciliation redefined
The war is over. Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity has been restored. The writ of the President, who exercises the executive power of the people, runs all over Sri Lanka. But are we one country? Geographically, yes. But we are not one people yet, although more than four years have lapsed since the separatist Liberation Tigers [...]
Two decades of Australian general elections: A Lankan perspective
With the change of Labor Parliamentary leader last week the new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has two choices as it is mandatory to hold the general election before November this year. He can go for the scheduled general election on September 17 or postpone it until November this year. This will be the first Australian [...]
The late Pope John Paul II to be made a saint
The late Pope John Paul II will be made a saint, the Vatican announced today. The news came after Pope Francis approved a second miracle attributed to the Polish pontif who led the Roman Catholic Church from 1978 to 2005. The Vatican said Pope John XXIII, who reigned from 1958 to 1963 and called the [...]
In picturesque Shanxi, China’s Buddhist culture glows
The Yellow River dubbed “the Tragedy of China” flows through the picturesque Shanxi province in Northern China, adding colour to its beauty. It is surrounded by Hebei to the east, Henan to the south, Shaanxi to the west. The province with a population of 33 million houses three of the 40-odd world heritage sites of [...]
Football fury
PARIS – Who would have thought it? There they were, Brazilians, protesting outside football stadiums against their country hosting the World Cup in 2014 – and this even as their national team was thrashing Spain in the final of the Confederations Cup. It was as if Catholics were to protest outside the Vatican against picking [...]
Media portrayals of Syrian conflict dangerously inaccurate
Every time I come to Syria I am struck by how different the situation is on the ground from the way it is pictured in the outside world. The foreign media reporting of the Syrian conflict is surely as inaccurate and misleading as anything we have seen since the start of the First World War. [...]