Monday 30 April 2012

Australian billionaire to build new Titanic

CANBERRA, Australia – An Australian billionaire said Monday he'll build a high-tech replica of the Titanic at a Chinese shipyard and its maiden voyage in late 2016 will be from England to New York, just like its namesake planned.

Weeks after the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the original Titanic, Clive Palmer announced Monday he has signed a memorandum of understanding with state-owned Chinese company CSC Jinling Shipyard to build the Titanic II.





"It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic, but … will have state-of-the-art 21st-century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems," Palmer said in a statement. He called the project "a tribute to the spirit of the men and women who worked on the original Titanic."

More than 1,500 people died after the Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its first voyage. It was the world's largest and most luxurious ocean liner at the time.

Saturday 28 April 2012

O2 mobile phone folder app launches text message expenditure

Mobile system O2 has launched a smart phone app that allows users to move up to £500 via text message. According to the firm said it had detained off introducing contactless payments as only a handful of retailers had installed the necessary systems. O2 wallet has been trialled internally for months and has undergone extensive stress-testing' with security experts.



O2 and its rivals Vodafone and Everything Everywhere are working on a nationwide mobile expenses service dubbed Project Oscar. They had hoped to have it up and running in time for the London Olympics. The service will be free to customers at first, but O2 said that it would charge 15p for each money communication sent by text at a later time.

Digital market Act's anti-piracy procedures is belated

The Digital Economy Act, The contentious piracy rule, has again been belated, the section for civilization, Media and Sport has established. The impediment was welcomed by the Internet Service Providers’ association. The frequent delays have led some business observers to consider that the Act's events will never come into strength.



According to an Ispa spokesman the truth it hasn't been implemented is a good thing. ISPs have criticized aspects of the Act; suggestive of it would unjustly force them to police user behavior on the internet. There's extra Digital market Act when it comes to tackling copyright infringement online.

Wednesday 25 April 2012

Matilda breaks: Olivier record

At a ceremony held at the Royal Opera House in London Musical hit Matilda was the toast of this year's Laurence Olivier Awards, winning seven prizes. Matilda's record-breaking count topped that of Nicholas Nickleby another RSC show which won six awards in 1980. The opinion of illusionist is that the award was actually lovely and very kind.


 

The show, currently running at London's Cambridge Theatre, was also recognized for its composition, set plan and sound design. Individual awards were presented to lyricist Sir Tim Rice and to Dame Monica Mason, who is shortly to leave her post as director of the imperial Ballet following 54 years with the corporation.

Fine-tuning memories might help addicts keep away from relapsing

According to scientists in China, Manipulating memories of drug use may aid reformed addicts keep away from a come back to a life of drug abuse. They were firstly shown a brief video to hark back them of taking drugs opening the memory window. Ten minutes later they watched more videos and looked at films of heroin drug use.



The work relies on the thought that a memory can turn into impressionable after it is accessed, creating a short window throughout which the memory can be rewritten. The researchers at Peking institution of higher education tried to rewrite the original memory so that it would be as if the link between cue and the longing not at all existed.

Wednesday 11 April 2012

Earthquake: High Commission alerts Indians in Phuket

BANGKOK/NEW DELHI: All Indians staying in Thailand's Phuket island have been alerted by the Indian High Commission here following the massive earthquake of 8.7 magnitude that hit waters off Indonesia triggering tsunami fears across the Indian Ocean nations.

"The High Commission is closely watching the situation and all Indians staying in Phuket have been alerted," High Commission sources here said.





Official spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi said that the Ministry is in touch with Indian Missions in the region.

Indian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia has said there was no reports of any loss of life.

Control rooms were being set up by Indian Mission in Jakarta in addition to Consulate in Medan, sources said.

They also said that RIMES (Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System for Africa and Asia) indicated that only 36 cm wave will hit the Indian coast, contrary to some alarmist projections of 6 metres.

The quake struck off Indonesia's Sumatra island, US and Indonesian monitors reported, prompting an Indian Ocean-wide tsunami alert.

The tremors were felt far and wide in southern and eastern parts of India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. The quake's magnitude was 8.7 on Richter scale and it struck 431-kilometres off the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh.

In India, tremors were felt in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andaman and Nicobar islands, Assam and West Bengal.

Clooney won’t croon, not even for Obama?

It looks like actor and activist George Clooney will only resort to thought-proviking ways to stay in news. This time around, George has hit the headlines for hosting a fundraising party for US President Barack Obama. Expected to take place in May, the party has been organised with the sole motive of improving his re-election campaign. The event will be co-hosted by DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg.

George, a self-admitted Obama admirer, will welcome both the American leader and his 150 supporters at his Los Angeles residence. Hold on, the entry isn’t free of cost! One is expected to shell out $US40,000 for a ticket.





Since it is George who is handling such an important occasion, how can he only focus on the monetray gains! The proceeds will be donated to the Obama Victory fund. Sounding upbeat about his efforts, the actor has been quoted as saying, “I'm proud to do whatever I can to support the president ... as long as no one asks me to sing.''

Clooney had attended a state dinner at the White House with First Lady Michelle Obama in March. Just a couple of days before that, he was photographed in plastic restarints outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington DC after he joined demonstrators during a humanitarian protest. “The Democrats are just very poor, in general, at explaining what it is, when they accomplished something. I think they’re pretty bad at it, and Republicans are very good at it," Clooney has been quoted as saying. “If I was a Republican, and Obama was a Republican, I would be selling all of the, you know, he saved the auto industry and he got Osama bin Laden. He passed a health care bill that no one could pass -- if that was a Republican issue. I would be able to sell his presidency as a very successful one. But Democrats are bad at that, we like to pick each other apart.”

Obama's campaign had made sincere efforts to rope in Hollywood biggies after it was realised that there was a dip in the support that was extended to him as compared to what the level of enthusiasm from the showbiz industry was during his 2008 run.

Tsunami warning after 2 quakes in Indonesia lifted Tsunami warning after 2 quakes in Indonesia lifted

Banda Aceh: The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre on Wednesday cancelled the tsunami watch for the Indian Ocean areas, hours after two major earthquakes, measuring 8.6 and 8.2 on Richter Scale, hit Indonesia. 

The tsunami warning was at first issued following the 8.6-magnitude earthquake, which was later scaled down. However, the warning was issued again for two hours after the second earthquake hit the Aceh province of the country. 

The tsunami watch was earlier lifted for Thailand, Myanmar, Australia and Malaysia. 




The first 8.6-magnitude quake off Aceh province, hours earlier, had spawned a wave around 30 inches (80 centimeters) high but caused no serious damage. 

The US Geological Survey had said the strong temblor that followed was centered 10 miles (16 kilometers) beneath the ocean around 380 miles (615 kilometers) from the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. 

Harjadi, a local official who goes by only one name, said the new tsunami warning was for residents living along the western coast of the country. 

It included Sumatra island and the Mentawai islands. 

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said a tsunami watch was in effect for Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Myanmar, Thailand, the Maldives and other Indian Ocean islands, Malaysia, Pakistan, Somalia, Oman, Iran, Bangladesh, Kenya, South Africa and Singapore. 

But hours later, the threat appeared to have passed. 

Roger Musson, seismologist at the British geological survey who has studied Sumatra's fault lines, says the temblor was a strike-slip quake, not a thrust quake. In a strike slip quake, the earth moves horizontally rather than vertically and doesn't displace large volumes of water. 

"When I first saw this was an 8.7 near Sumatra, I was fearing the worst," he said, noting one of the initial reported magnitudes for the quake. "But as soon as I discovered what type of earthquake it was, then I felt a lot better." 

The tremor was felt in Malaysia, where it caused high-rise buildings to shake for about a minute, and in Singapore, Thailand, Bangladesh and India. 

There was chaos in the streets of Aceh, where memories of a 2004 tsunami that killed 170,000 people in the province alone, are still raw. 

Patients poured out of hospitals, some with drips still attached to their arms. In some places, electricity was briefly cut. 

Hours after the temblor, people were still standing outside their homes and offices, afraid to go back inside.
There were several strong aftershocks. 

"I was in the shower on the fifth floor of my hotel," Timbang Pangaribuan told El Shinta radio from the city of Medan. "We all ran out. ... We're all standing outside now." 

He said one guest was injured when he jumped from the window of his room. 

Thailand's National Disaster Warning Center issued an evacuation order to residents in six provinces along the country's west coast, including the popular tourist destinations of Phuket, Krabi and Phang-Nga. 

India's Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning for parts of the eastern Andaman and Nicobar islands. In Tamil Nadu in southern India, police cordoned off the beach and used loudspeakers to warn people to leave the area. 

Satheesh Shenoi, director of the Indian National Center for Ocean information Services, said the chance of a tsunami was diminishing. 

"There are no indications of tsunami wave; the instruments are not showing any sea level change," he said.
The quake was felt in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where many people in the city's commercial Motijheel district left their offices and homes in panic and ran into the streets. No damage or causalities were reported. 

In Male, the capital of the Maldives, buildings were evacuated. 

Indonesia straddles a series of fault lines that makes the vast island nation prone to volcanic and seismic activity.
A giant 9.1-magnitude quake off the country on Dec. 26, 2004, triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people, most of them in Aceh.

Tuesday 10 April 2012

World News’ Political Insights: Rick Santorum’s Closing Window for Graceful Exit


Leave it to Newt Gingrich, back in his role as strategist rather than candidate, to state the obvious reality of Mitt Romney’s commanding position in the Republican presidential race.

“You have to be realistic,” Gingrich said today on “Fox News Sunday. “He is far and away the most likely Republican nominee.”

That matters almost not at all for Gingrich, whose campaign has morphed into an irregular traveling road show with a newly stated goal  of guarding against any Romney lurches toward the center, at the Republican National Convention and beyond.

But it should matter a great deal to Rick Santorum, who has more at stake in these next few weeks than any other Republican, up to and including Romney himself.

The hospitalization of Santorum’s 3-year-old daughter, Bella, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder that’s usually fatal in young children, has pulled the candidate off the campaign trail at least through Monday.

When he’s able to return to campaigning, Santorum will have to decide whether he wants to. The primary in his home state of Pennsylvania looms just two weeks away, and Santorum will be risking much of what he’s achieved in this campaign if he suffers an embarrassment there.

As for what he’s risking, recall that few Republicans and fewer pundits thought much of it when Santorum announced his presidential candidacy. He then consistently registered approximately nowhere in the polls.

Wednesday 4 April 2012

Romney revels in triple victory


MITT Romney has tightened his grip on the US presidential nomination with a triple primary win.

Mr Romney trained his sights on US President Barack Obama as his flagging Republican rivals vowed to fight on.

Mr Romney thumped main rival Rick Santorum in Maryland and the US capital Washington DC on Tuesday, and won a tighter but more important race in Wisconsin, in a pivotal night for the party's frontrunner.

"We won them all! This really has been quite a night," Mr Romney told supporters in Wisconsin, where he won by nearly five percentage points.

"We've won a great victory tonight in our campaign to restore the promise of America," he said.

Mr Romney's opponents remained undaunted, however, with Mr Santorum insisting the Republican race to see who will challenge US President Barack Obama in November was merely at "halftime."

Mr Santorum, a Christian conservative and staunch opponent of abortion and gay marriage, has said he will carry on at least into May, when primaries are held in more conservative states seen as friendlier to his candidacy.

"The clock starts tonight," Mr Santorum told supporters in his home state of Pennsylvania, which votes later in April.

"We've got three weeks to go out here in Pennsylvania and win this state. And after winning this state, the field looks a little different in May," he said, as his campaign announced a series of events in the state to be held yesterday.

But Mr Santorum must feel the sting of a loss in Wisconsin, where he campaigned heavily over the last week. With nearly 100 per cent of precincts reporting, Mr Romney had 43 per cent of the vote to Mr Santorum's 38 per cent.

Mr Santorum virtually ignored the other two contests in the hope of snagging a victory in the Midwest, where the arch-conservative opponent of abortion and gay marriage has fared far better than in the more moderate Northeast.

Mr Romney won 49 per cent to Mr Santorum's 29 per cent in Maryland and dominated with 70 per cent in Washington, DC, with former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas congressman Ron Paul trailing far behind in all three contests.

The trifecta put Mr Romney more than halfway to the magic number of 1144 delegates needed to be crowned the Republican flag-bearer at the party's national convention in Tampa, Florida in August.

Tuesday appeared to mark the start of a new phase in Mr Romney's campaign, as he turns his full attention to challenging Mr Obama in November.

He is already acting like the nominee, training his political fire on Mr Obama's "government-centered society" and no longer mentioning his Republican rivals on the campaign trail.

Mr Obama also appeared to step into campaign mode on Tuesday, rebuking Mr Romney by name in a speech and calling him to account for supporting a "radical" budget passed by congressional conservatives last week.

Mr Obama accused Mr Romney of championing cutthroat "social Darwinism" that neglects the middle class and favors the wealthy, and said the Republican candidate is seeking to institute such a budget on "day one of his presidency."

Mr Romney fired back, signaling his eagerness to square off with Mr Obama.

"There's no question that under this president, this recovery has been the most tepid, the most weak, the most painful since the beginning of our recorded economic history," Mr Romney said on the Sean Hannity radio show.

Mr Romney must still overcome skepticism from conservatives, who fear that the ex-governor of liberal Massachusetts will tack to the left once he wins the nomination in order to appeal to independents.

That scenario is fodder for Mr Santorum, who has tapped into conservative angst about the frontrunner by comparing Mr Romney to Mr Obama.

But exit poll data from Maryland suggests Mr Romney may be turning a corner with lower-income Americans and the most conservative of voters, people Mr Santorum has counted on throughout the campaign.

Prominent Romney supporter Tim Pawlenty, a former Minnesota governor, did not call on Mr Santorum or Mr Gingrich to drop out, but said the nominations race "for all practical purposes is over."

"Let's face it. Mitt Romney is going to be the nominee," he said.

But Linda Fowler, a professor of government at Dartmouth College, expected the race to carry on nevertheless.

"With Pennsylvania a couple weeks away, I can't imagine Santorum wouldn't hang on to run in his home state," said Ms Fowler.

Mr Romney has now won 24 out of 37 contests and amassed some 625 delegates of the 1144 needed, according to a tally by website RealClearPolitics.

Mr Santorum has racked up 11 victories and has well under half Mr Romney's delegate count.

A look at bomb attacks attributed to Somalia’s most powerful al-Qaida-linked militant group

A look at recent attacks claimed by or blamed on the al-Qaida-linked group known as al-Shabab:

— April 4: An explosion at a ceremony at Somalia’s national theater kills at least 10 people including two top sports officials in an attack claimed by al-Shabab. The theater symbolized the city’s attempt to rise from two decades of war.

March 14: Militants claim responsibility for a suicide bombing inside Somalia’s main government compound that kills three people, including the bomber.

— Feb. 8: A car bomb kills eight and wounds two members of parliament in Somalia’s capital in an attack claimed by al-Shabab.

— Jan. 24: Militants claim responsibility for a truck bomb targeting an Ethiopian military base in the western Somali town of Beledweyne. Ethiopian officials did not confirm a death toll, but al-Shabab claimed that 33 Ethiopian troops were killed in the attack.

— Dec. 6, 2011: A suicide bomber detonates a bomb-laden vehicle, killing four people. Somali police had just arrested the bomber but released him under orders that he disarm the explosives. Instead, the bomber was able to trigger the bomb.

— Nov. 30, 2011: A suicide bomber dressed in a military uniform kills four soldiers after detonating his explosives at Somalia’s army headquarters. The chief of Somalia’s armed forces said he believed the bomber was targeting him for assassination as he was arriving for work.

— Oct. 4, 2011: Militants detonate a truck bomb in front of the education ministry in Mogadishu, killing at least 70 people and wounding dozens. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack.

— June 10, 2011: An explosion kills Somalia’s interior minister at his home. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility, saying the minister was “an obstacle” to the group toppling Somalia’s struggling government.

— Feb 21, 2011: A suicide bombing at a police station in Mogadishu kills at least eight people and wounds 35. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility.

— Sept 9, 2010: A car bomb outside the gates of Mogadishu’s airport kills at least nine people. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility and said the attack was aimed at a high-level meeting of U.N., African Union and Somali officials at the airport.

— August 24, 2010: An attack on a hotel in Mogadishu kills 32 people, including several parliamentarians. Gunmen in Somali military uniforms accompanied a suicide bomber on the attack. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility.

— July 11, 2010: A double suicide bombing in Uganda’s capital kills 76 people watching the World Cup final on television. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility and said it was retaliation for Ugandan peacekeepers’ presence in Somalia.

— May 1, 2010: Two explosions inside a small mosque in Mogadishu’s main market kill at least 30 people. Al-Shabab officials did not claim responsibility and blamed “foreign security companies,” but offered no proof.

— Dec. 3, 2009: A suicide bombing at a university graduation ceremony in Mogadishu kills 24 people, including three government ministers, medical students and doctors. The government blamed al-Shabab, but the group denied responsibility.

— Sept. 17, 2009: A double suicide bombing at an African Union peacekeeping base in Mogadishu kills 21 people, mostly peacekeepers. Al-Shabab said the bombing was in retaliation for a U.S. raid days earlier that killed an al-Qaida operative in southern Somalia.

— June 18, 2009: A suicide attack in Somalia’s west kills the national security minister and at least 24 others. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility.

— Feb. 22, 2009: A suicide attack on an African Union peacekeeping base in the capital kills 11 Burundian soldiers. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility.

Monday 2 April 2012

Plane crash in Siberia kills 31 of 43 on board

MOSCOW: A passenger plane crashed in Siberia shortly after taking off on Monday morning, killing 31 of the 43 people on board, Russian emergency officials said. The 12 survivors were hospitalized in serious condition.

The ATR-72, a French-Italian-made twin-engine turboprop, operated by UTair was flying from Tyumen to the oil town of Surgut with 39 passengers and four crew.




The aircraft went down on a snowy field outside Tyumen, a major regional center in Siberia about 1,700 kilometers (1,000 miles) east of Moscow. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

UTair published a list of the passengers and crew, and none of them appeared to be foreigners.

The Emergency Situations Ministry first said 12 survivors were flown by helicopter to a Tyumen hospital, but that one of them had died. The ministry's regional branch in Tyumen later said that a 12th survivor was in a village hospital and revised the death toll downward to 31.

Russia has seen a string of deadly crashes in recent years. Some have been blamed on the use of aging Soviet-era aircraft, but industry experts point to a number of other problems, including poor crew training, crumbling airports, lax government controls and widespread neglect of safety in the pursuit of profits.

Euro zone joblessness rate rises: February Reports

According to the report unemployment across countries that use the euro edged higher in February to 10.8%. The slowdown is creating a tough environment for job seekers. Italy saw unemployment hit 9.3% in February, the highest level since the country started collecting monthly figures in 2004.





Finance ministers will hope that an agreement to increase the size of the euro zone’s rescue fund will help bolster sentiment. According to Howard Archer, chief European economist at IHS international Insight it looks odds-on that euro zone GDP contracted again in the first quarter of 2012, thus moving into depression.