Parties claim consensus on all issues

KATHMANDU, The major political parties--UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN-UML--have claimed to have reached "very close" to sealing a "package deal" on the integration and rehabilitation of former Maoist combatants.

Leaders of the parties engaged in a series of bilateral and trilateral meetings throughout Sunday told the Post that they have forged consensus on almost all contentions and an agreement would be inked once the Maoist party comes up with a time-bound action plan on completing the remaining work of the peace process.

The optimism surfaced after the NC and the UML on Sunday agreed to demonstrate "maximum flexibility" on the number and rehabilitation package in return for Maoist leaders' promise to come up with a time-bound action plan.

The Maoist leadership, which faces strong opposition from the party's hardliners, on Sunday decided to prepare and endorse the action plan through a majority vote in the party's Standing Committee (SC) and push forward the stalled peace process.

"We will move ahead as per the majority vote," said Maoist SC member and spokesperson Dina Nath Sharma after Sunday's SC meeting. "The parties will reach an agreement within a couple of days."

Earlier on Sunday, a meeting between the NC and the UML had decided to seek the action plan from the Maoists. "There has been agreement at the policy level; as such, numbers and the rehabilitation package are not big issues," NC leader Krishna Prasad Sitaula said after the NC-UML meeting.

Leaders said they are likely to hold 'decisive' talks on Monday and take a final call on all the contentions. As of Sunday evening, NC and UML were willing to integrate up to 5,000 combatants, while the Maoists demanded integration of 7,000. On the package, NC offered between Rs 300,000 to Rs 600,000 to the combatants opting for rehabilitation, but the Maoists have proposed at least Rs 700,000. The parties have settled other issues such as standard norms of integration, rank determination and role and mandate of combatants after the integration.

The UML, however, has demanded that the package deal also resolve contentions in constitution writing and power sharing issues, according to UML leader Surendra Pandey.

Sources said Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal wants to sign the package deal before he leaves for New York on November 5 to meet UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to discuss Lumbini's development. To that effect, he is making a last ditch effort to take his deputy, Mohan Baidya, into confidence.

"In fact, more than the NC and the UML, it is the hardline faction in the party that has emerged a major challenge," Maoist Politburo member Haribol Gajurel, who is close to Dahal, said.

The Baidya faction is pressing Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai and Dahal to not make a "compromise" with the NC and the UML before the party's Central Committee meeting.

Speaking to the Post on Saturday, Bhattarai, however, had said there was no need to wait for the CC meet to seal an agreement with the other parties. "The party's official decision is to integrate the combatants and draft a new constitution from the Constituent Assembly (CA)," Bhattarai said.

Constituent Assembly Chairman Subas Nembang also said parties are near consensus. "I met Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai and urged him to forge consensus on the peace process," he said.

Read More

Chhath festival being observed

KATHMANDU,

Chhath festival is being observed in the mid and eastern Terai region on Tuesday. The festival begins on the sixth day of the lunar calendar in the month of Kartik (Nepali calendar).

After taking a holy dip to purify their own body devotees offer curd to the Sun at the banks of ponds, lakes, and rivers.

Rani Pokhari and other ponds and rivers in the capital are cleaned up and decorated for the festival.

The setting sun is offered bananas, Thekuwa, Bhusana, and other offerings. The festival concludes after worshipping the rising sun tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, President Dr Ram Baran Yadav and Nepali Congress President Sushil Koirala extended greetings to all the Nepalese on the occasion of Chhath festival today.

Read More

Bollywood actor becomes Indian 'prince'

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

MUMBAI, : Top Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan was made the new Nawab (Muslim prince) of Pataudi on Monday in a private ceremony at his ancestral home in northern India.

Khan became the 10th nawab of the former princely state after the death in September of his 70-year-old father, Mansur Ali Khan, from a rare form of lung disease.



The elder Khan, nicknamed "Tiger Pataudi" for his brilliant fielding, captained India at cricket while his father, Ifthikar Ali Khan, played for both India and England.

Saif Ali Khan, who was educated at the private Winchester school in England, is one of Hindi-language cinema´s biggest stars and was recently seen in the thriller "Aarakshan" (Reservation).

Monday´s ceremony was held at the family seat of Pataudi Palace in Haryana state and attended by relatives and local villagers, said Rohini Iyer, Khan´s spokeswoman in Mumbai.

Village chiefs tied a turban around his head at a ceremony watched by his mother, the former actress Sharmila Tagore, and his two sisters.

The 41-year-old actor, who is dating Bollywood pin-up Kareena Kapoor, told the NDTV news channel after the ceremony that "even if it´s symbolic, it´s very humbling... I´m also conscious of some kind of responsibility."


Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan sits on stage near a portrait of his late father as he is made the new Nawab (Muslim prince) of Pataudi on October 31, 2011 in a private ceremony at his ancestral home in Gurgaon, the northern Indian state of Haryana. (AFP)

Pataudi was a princely state in pre-independence India while the nawabs, who can trace their lineage back centuries, were its aristocratic rulers.

Like the heads of other erstwhile Indian princely states that were taken over after the British left in 1947, the title is now ceremonial with no formal powers.

Part of Pataudi Palace is now a heritage hotel.

Read More

Drunk, naked driver smashes 12 cars in Moscow

MOSCOW,

Russian police say a drunk and naked driver has wreaked havoc in central Moscow, damaging 12 cars before being caught by police.

The city police said they started pursuing the man Sunday after he ignored a road sign banning a turn and refused orders to stop. In the ensuing chase, the motorist nearly hit a school bus, rammed through a police vehicle and smashed several other cars before being caught. When police got him he was completely naked.

Footage broadcast by Russian television stations showed him lying on the pavement and shouting "don't cover me!" to officers who tried to cover him with clothes.

The man said he came from the ex-Soviet nation of Moldova and was in distress over an unhappy relationship.

Read More

Miracle Dog: Daniel the Beagle Up for Adoption after Surviving Gas Chamber

It's a happy ending that wasn't supposed to happen for a big eared, doe-eyed beagle.
Now, the dog that was found as a stray in Alabama and defied death, is searching for a new home.
Three weeks ago, the beagle was euthanized along with 18 otherdogs at an overcrowded animal shelter in Florence, on Oct. 3.
But to the shock of everyone he somehow survived.
When the animal control officer in charge of the operation returned to the locked chamber he found the dog waiting at the door, wagging its tail. The other dogs were dead.
His amazing survival has attracted several charitable groups to come to his aid to make sure he isn't sent back into the gas chamber. He found a temporary home in Tennessee with Karen Rudolph, who runs Schnauzer Savers Rescue of West Tennessee with her husband Michael.
Rudolph dubbed him Daniel, inspired by the biblical story of Daniel, who walked out of a lion's den unscathed. Eleventh Hour Rescue, which brought Daniel to New Jersey with the help of Pilots and Paws, gave the dog the last name "Milagro," meaning miracle in Spanish.
When Rudolph took Daniel Milagro to see her veterinarian, he received a clean bill of health.
"Amazingly, not only did he survive the gas chamber which is very rare … he was not sick," Rudolph said. "It was almost as though angels pulled him out of there and he didn't even breathe the gas."
At 20 pounds, Daniel is underweight and his immune system is slightly compromised, but otherwise he is in good health, Eleventh Hour Rescue president Linda Schiller said. Schiller's group is trying to find a home for Daniel.
The beagle is now staying with Eleventh Hour volunteer Jill Pavlik until the organization finds an appropriate home for him.
She's his new foster mom while they search for the perfect home.
"He's very fun loving , he's very sweet," said Pavlik.
Schiller isn't worried about finding a new home for Daniel, who is highly adoptable due to his celebrity status. In fact, just an hour after the Star Ledger newspaper first covered the story, Schiller had received over 200 emails from readers interested in Daniel, and the attention hasn't slowed down since.
But she hopes at least some of the applicants will be interested in adopting other dogs.
"We have dogs that are just as wonderful as him that were on death row, but didn't walk out of a gas chamber," Schiller said. "They're happy and they're wagging their tales and ready to be adopted."
Other Miracle Dogs
Daniel isn't the first pup to be called a miracle dog.
Back in March, a little puppy from Oklahoma came back to life after being put down not once, but twice.
After becoming a Facebook phenomenon, Wall-E made it to New York and "Good Morning America."

Read More

Nepali wounded in Afghanistan Sucide attack

KABUL,  - A Nepali was wounded in a suicide attack in the southern Afghan city of Kandhar early on Monday,  Reuters reported quoting Afghan authorities. However, the identity of the deceased Nepali has not been ascertained.

Five afghan civilians were killed in the blast close to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) building in Kandhar, the  UN said.

"We are aware of an explosion which took place earlier this morning in the vicinity of the UNHCR guest house," United Nations spokesman Dan McNorton said. "All our international staff are accounted for ... the incident is still ongoing. We are working through our processes to make sure all our Afghan staff are safe."

"(There have been) three local civilians killed and another one wounded. A Nepali is wounded too," the provincial governor's media office said on its Twitter feed, adding that two armed attackers were still shooting at security forces.

The attack is the latest in a string of lethal assaults on foreigners in Afghanistan.

Read More

Chhath festivals begins

‘Arawa-Arawain’ ritual is being observed today – the first day of the great festival of Mithila zone, Chhath.

The ‘Arawa-Arawain’ is also considered the day to take holy dip to purify own body.

Devotees start fasting from the day of Araba-Arabain by avoiding the consumption of meat, fish, turnip, onion, millet and yellow lentil.

Worships are offered to life-sustaining source of power, the god Sun, and the goddess Chhathi on the day.

The festival is celebrated in ancient Mithila’s capital, Janakpurdham, with great joy and excitement. The Chhath celebration here has also gained international fame and popularity.

Begun with rigorous fasting on Kartik shukla panchami, the devotees go to nearby rivers and ponds and worship the setting sun. Then, they worship the rising sun with special homage and conclude the festival.

Sasthi tithi (the day between panchami and saptami) is a special day of this festival.

It is considered a very tough festival requiring devotees to sit for strict fasting during two days.

Various ponds and rivers banks across the country are being cleaned up and decorated to mark the Chhath festival with fanfare. RSS

Read More

Afghanistan: Suicide attack kills 13 US troops

A suicide bomber has attacked a bus carrying foreign troops in the Afghan capital Kabul killing 13 US soldiers.

A Nato spokesman said the attacker detonated a car filled with explosives.

The attack, in the Darulaman area, west of Kabul, also killed three Afghan civilians and a police officer.

The Taliban has admitted carrying out the attack - one of the worst ground attacks against foreign troops since the beginning of the war. Such attacks are rare in heavily-guarded Kabul.

Read More

Nepal Sambat 1132 being celebrated; Newars observing Mha Puja, ‘worship of the self’

Nepal Sambat 1132 is being celebrated in Kathmandu valley and many parts of the the country amidst Tihar fanfare by people of Newar community on Thursday.

Read More

Raw Video: Buildings Evacuated After Peru Quake

A magnitude-6.9 earthquake centered off Peru's central coast sent people running panicked into the streets on Friday in cities badly damaged by a killer quake four years earlier. There were no reports of damage or injuries.

Read More

Magnitude-6.9 quake shakes Peru's coast

PERU, - A magnitude-6.9 earthquake centered off Peru's central coast sent people running panicked into the streets Friday in cities badly damaged by a killer quake four years earlier. There were no reports of damage though hospital directors reported at least 20 injuries.

People who had lost loved ones and homes in the earlier quake were badly shaken and some broke into tears.

"It felt like the one in 2007 because it was very strong," Felix Sihuas told RPP radio. He said he was buried under rubble for six hours in the Aug. 15, 2007, quake, which killed 596 people and largely destroyed the town of Pisco.

Friday's quake was considerably less violent in Lima, a city of 8.5 million people. The capital shook for about 30 seconds in a series of moderate, swaying movements.

Several aftershocks followed with magnitudes up to 5.5, said the U.S. Geological Survey.

It said Friday's quake was centered 31 miles (51 kilometers) south-southwest of Ica, a provincial capital of about 200,000 people which suffered widespread damage in the 2007 quake. It was at a depth of 21.7 miles (35 kilometers).

The directors of two hospitals in Ica told RPP that 20 people were treated for non life-threatening injuries including two for broken bones.

Peru's government-run Institute of Geophysics put the quake's magnitude at 6.7 and put its depth at 19 miles (30 kilometers). The USGS said the killer 2007 quake was centered 24 miles (39 kilometers) deep.

A seismologist at the institute, Hernan Tavera, told RPP the 2007 quake released 33 times more energy than Friday's temblor but this time " the radius of action was far wider."

"There was panic, a lot of panic," said Ruben Vargas, a police official in Ica, which is flanked by asparagus fields and vineyards that produce wine and the liquor pisco.

Vargas said that many people were still in the streets nearly a half hour after the 1:54 p.m. (18:54 GMT) quake. "Little by little people are calming down but they're still outside their homes," he added.

In Pisco, police officer Julio Lopez said people were spooked though the quake wasn't nearly as bad as the 2007 temblor.

"It wasn't like the last time. It was shorter," said Jorge Luis Yupanqui, 30, from Pisco. "Some people started to cry."

He said there was a big traffic jam in Pisco because he, like many others, went home to make sure his family and home were safe.

About 40,000 homes were destroyed in the 2007 quake and the previous government of President Alan Garcia was widely criticized for the slow pace of reconstruction.

Read More

Bangkok floods: Thousands flee as waters approach

Thousands of residents are rushing to leave the Thai capital Bangkok, which is braced for potentially severe flooding over the weekend.

The city's bus and train stations and many roads are jammed by crowds of people attempting to flee.

People in several northern districts of the capital - some of which are now 90% submerged by rising water - have been told they should evacuate immediately.

More than 360 people have died in Thailand's worst flooding in decades.

The crisis is an early test for Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who took office in August and has previously been criticised for failing to take the flood threat seriously enough.

"It's a crisis, because if we try to resist this massive amount of floodwater, a force of nature, we won't win," Ms Yingluck said.

"But if we allow it to flow freely then people in many areas are prepared."

Any lingering sense of complacency has long gone, says the BBC's Rachel Harvey in Bangkok.

'Food rationing'
Over the weekend the influx of run-off water from Thailand's inundated central plains is expected to combine with seasonal high tides to flood more parts of the capital.

Thai authorities have declared a five-day holiday, to run from Thursday through to Monday, in Bangkok and in 20 provinces affected by the flooding to allow residents to relocate.


Bangkok's Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra issued an evacuation alert for residents of Don Muang, Bang Phlad and Thawi Wattana districts in the north of the capital.

"This is the first time I am using the term 'evacuation', the first time I'm really asking you to leave," Mr Sukhumbhand said.

The city's Mo Chit bus terminal has already seen huge crowds of people, some of whom had to wait for hours to get a bus to leave the city.

Many residents were reportedly heading for southern and eastern coastal resorts that have escaped the flooding.

Flights out of the international airport, Suvarnabhumi, were operating as normal but were said to be packed.

At Bangkok's domestic airport, Don Muang, people living in an evacuation shelter are now being moved again. The airport itself is closed because the runway is flooded.

But the government's flood relief operation centre, which is based on the second floor of the airport, insists it will not relocate.

In the city of nine million, there were reports that some shops were rationing stocks of staples including rice and eggs amid stockpiling by anxious residents.

Supplies of bottled water were said to be running low in many areas.

Residents were protecting their homes and businesses with sandbags - with some even erecting sealed cement barriers across shop fronts, reported the Associated Press news agency.

Britain's Foreign Office on Wednesday warned against all but essential travel to Bangkok.

Ms Yingluck has warned that flood waters could linger in the capital for between two weeks and a month.

The flooding has been triggered by unusually heavy seasonal rains across the country since July. About one third of all provinces remain affected by flooding.

Read More

Turks Cheer Rescues, Mourn Deaths After Quake

Turkish families are cheering some dramatic rescues, but also mourning the growing loss of life as rescue workers continue the search for survivors following a 7.2-magnitude quake. It has killed at least 279 people.

Read More

Laxmi Puja today, Prez extends wishes

KATHMANDU,

Hindus all over the world have been celebrating Laxmi Puja by worshipping the Goddess of Wealth on Wednesday.

The goddess of wealth is worshipped for prosperity. Hindus worship Laxmi by decorating their homes with garlands and lights. All the nooks and corners of the house, including the courtyard, rooms and cowsheds, are cleaned and illuminated with colorful and decorative lights in the evening in the belief to attract Goddess Laxmi.

Some people light lamps and spend the whole night in vigil to please the goddess. The worship consists of a combined puja of five deities: Ganesha is worshiped at the beginning of every auspicious act as Vighnaharta. Similarly, Goddess Lakshmi is worshiped in her three forms—Mahalakshmi (the goddess of wealth and money), Mahasaraswati (the goddess of books and learning) and Mahakali.

Meanwhile, President Dr. Ram Baran Yadav has extended best wishes for the happiness, peace and prosperity of the Nepalis on the occasion of Laxmi  Puja today.

He has wished for economic prosperity and mutual understanding among all the Nepalis on the occasion today.

Read More

All My Friends jazz up their winning dreams

KATHMANDU : The Jazz for the New Generation, a band competition among three local Jazz bands of Nepal, marked the first day of the five-day Kathmandu Jazz Festival, also dubbed The Surya Nepal Jazzmandu 2011. The reason behind organizing the competition, according to the organizers, is to “encourage and acknowledge upcoming jazz musicians in Nepal.”  In its ninth year, the competition is taking place after a gap of five years. Answering to the reason behind the long gap, Samir Chettri, media coordinator, shared, “Earlier, we didn’t have that many bands willing to participate. However, that scene has changed considerably over the years. Looking at the responses shown by participants, the competition will be a regular feature in the event.” After a rigorous preliminary round held on October 17, three bands – KJC Quartet, All My Friends, and the KJC Power Trio – made it to the finals held at Moksh, Jhamsikhel, on Friday, October 20. All three acts performed three musical pieces each and were judged by ‘bconnected,’ a Swiss band founded by guitarist Eugene Montenero in 1994. According to the organizers, the bands were evaluated on the basis of their musicality, dexterity and technical abilities on their instruments, improvisation skills, and musical interaction with fellow band members, originality, and stylistic representation of the music.

Read More

What does the deal entail?

KATHMANDU,  -

The signing of the Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement (BIPPA) in New Delhi on Friday has addressed one of India’s major concerns on protecting its investment in Nepal.

The deal will also support Nepal’s cause as it seeks more investment from the southern neighbour.

BIPPA seeks to promote and protect investments from either country in the territory of the other country with a view to increasing bilateral investment. The agreement requires each country to encourage and create favourable conditions for investors of the other country to make investments in its territory and to admit investments in accordance with its laws. Nepal will now have to treat Indian companies at par with the national ones. Article 6 of BIPPA has provisions for compensation to investors if their investments suffer losses owing to war, armed conflict and state of emergency. “Such investors shall be accorded treatment by the host country, no less than the treatment accorded to its own investors or investors of any third state. Any payment made under this Article shall be freely transferable,” states the agreement.

Read More

Tihar: Then and now

KATHMANDU, : With Tihar coming up, families are getting geared up for the three days of celebrations, and with that the singing and fun that comes with deusi-bhailo. Republica sat down with some youth to get their take on this tradition and the changes in their experience as children into young adults.  Participating in this session of chitchat are Mandeep Bashistha, 20, who is studying Chartered Accounting at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Nepal (ICAN), Kismita Dhakal, 19, a student at Holy Vision Nursing Campus, Sushil Pokhrel, 24, who recently started teaching Chemistry in Universal College, and Sahara Dhakal, 19, who just completed her +2 from VS Niketan. What were your experiences of deusi-bhailo during Tihar when you were younger? Mandeep: When we were small, deusi-bhailo meant memorizing the songs and trying to get money! Sahara: As a girl, when we were little, most of the focus was on dressing up and looking attractive! Sushil: I used to join deusi-bhailo before, but it’s not the same anymore. Kismita: We would practice for a while, like for two months before Tihar, but it’s not like that anymore. Now as girls, we aren’t allowed because it gets late. Our parents don’t want us to go. The situation is different now.

Read More

Gadhafi put on display in shopping center freezer

MISARTA, LIBYA, OCT 22 -

Moammar Gadhafi's blood-streaked body was on display in a commercial freezer at a shopping center as Libyan authorities argued about what to do with his remains and questions deepened over official accounts of the longtime dictator's death.

Also Friday, new video emerged of his violent, chaotic last moments, showing fighters beating him as they drag him away.

Nearly every aspect of Thursday's killing of Gadhafi was mired in confusion, a sign of the difficulties ahead for Libya. Its new rulers are disorganized, its people embittered and divided. But the rulingNational Transitional Council said it would declare the country's liberation on Saturday, the starting point for a timetable that calls for a new interim government within a month and elections within eight months.

The top U.N. rights chief raised concerns that Gadhafi may have been shot to death after being captured alive. The fate of his body seemed tied up in squabbles among Libya's factions, as fighters from Misrata — a city brutally besieged by Gadhafi's forces during the civil war — seemed to claim ownership of it, forcing the delay of a planned burial Friday.

Read More

Pulled from drain pipe, Gadhafi was shown no mercy

Dragged from hiding in a drainage pipe, a wounded Moammar Gadhafi raised his hands and begged revolutionary fighters: "Don't kill me, my sons." Within an hour, he was dead, but not before jubilant Libyans had vented decades of hatred by pulling the eccentric dictator's hair and parading his bloodied body on the hood of a truck.

The death Thursday of Gadhafi, two months after he was driven from power and into hiding, decisively buries the nearly 42-year regime that had turned the oil-rich country into an international pariah and his own personal fiefdom.

Read More

China urges 'inclusive transition' in Libya

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE BEIJING, Oct 21: China called Friday for an "inclusive political transition" in Libya after the death of ousted leader Moamer Kadhafi in an assault by National Transitional Council forces on Sirte, his home town. Beijing, which has significant economic interests in the oil-rich North African country, had long helped prop up the Kadhafi regime before the uprising began.  China criticised NATO airstrikes which boosted the progress of the Libyan uprising and has been accused of trying to sell weapons to the former dictator in July. It only formally recognised the NTC as Libya´s government last month -- becoming the last permanent member of the UN Security Council to do so. Reacting to Kadhafi´s death, China´s foreign ministry said Libya had "opened a new page" in history. "We hope Libya will be able to start an inclusive political transition process as soon as possible to safeguard ethnic and national unity and achieve social stability," said ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu. The demise on Thursday of the hated dictator, who ruled his oil-rich North African nation with an iron rod for close on 42 years, sparked a spontaneous outpouring of joy and celebratory gunfire in streets across Libya.

Read More

LONDON, -

Scientists have found a direct link between the number of "friends" a person has on Facebook and the size of certain brain regions, raising the possibility that using online social networks might change our brains.
The four brain areas involved are known to play a role in memory, emotional responses and social interactions.
So far, however, it is not possible to say whether having more Facebook connections makes particular parts of the brain larger or whether some people are simply pre-disposed, or "hard-wired," to have more friends.
"The exciting question now is whether these structures change over time -- this will help us answer the question of whether the Internet is changing our brains," said Ryota Kanai of University College London (UCL), one of the researchers involved in the study.
Kanai and colleagues used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study the brains of 125 university students, all of them active users of social media site Facebook, and cross-checked their findings in a further group of 40 students.

Read More

MUAMMAR GADDAFI KILLED IN GUNBATTLE - LIVE VIDEO

Read More

Gaddafi 'killed, died of wounds': Video of Sirte celebrations

Read More

Gaddafi killed as Libya's revolt claims hometown

SIRTE, LIBYA, OCT 20 -

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi died of wounds suffered on Thursday as fighters battling to complete an eight-month-old uprising against his rule overran his hometown Sirte, Libya's interim rulers said.

His killing, which came swiftly after his capture near Sirte, is the most dramatic single development in the Arab Spring revolts that have unseated rulers in Egypt and Tunisia and threatened the grip on power of the leaders of Syria and Yemen.

Read More

Libyan forces 'capture Gaddafi'

Commanders for Libya's transitional authorities say they have captured ousted leader Col Muammar Gaddafi.

The reports came after transitional forces claimed control of Sirte, Col Gaddafi's birthplace, following weeks of fierce fighting.

Col Gaddafi is said to be wounded. There is no independent confirmation of the reports.

The colonel was toppled in August after 42 years in power. The International Criminal Court is seeking his arrest.

"He's captured. He's wounded in both legs," National Transitional Council (NTC) official Abdel Majid told Reuters news agency.

"He's been taken away by ambulance."

AFP news agency quoted another NTC official, Mohamed Leith, as saying that Col Gaddafi had been captured in Sirte and was "seriously wounded" but still breathing.

Read More

Interior hardware brand ‘Hafele’ enters Nepali market

Constructing home or setting up an office and confused where to step in for interior hardware? Hafele Compact, a newly opened store at Kathmandu Plaza, could be a solution. The store features a wide variety of interior hardware products ranging from furniture fittings, kitchen fixtures to lighting and sliding solutions.

Hafele is one of the prestigious interior hardware brands from Germany. Archie Hardware Concern, authorised distributor of Hafele for Nepal, on Monday opened the exclusive showroom. The showroom was inaugurated by Jurgen Wolf, managing director of Hafele India, amid a programme. “We have been dealing with this brand for a long time. With this exclusive showroom, we plan to market our products aggressively,” said Navin Madhogaria of Archie. “Now, Nepalis can shop world class products at a world class showroom.” Hafele’s Wolf expressed happiness about the official entry of the brand in the Nepali market. “We had been planning to come here ever since we forayed into the Indian market some 10 years ago, he said. “I am sure that our product quality will lure Nepali customers.”

Read More

Songlines

As such, biography is a notoriously tricky genre to tackle, where filmmakers find themselves walking a fine line between the strict, ritual baring of facts on one hand and on the other, the understandable need to demonstrate a certain amount of creative freedom so as to amp up the material for the big screen. If there is a tug-of-war between these two opposing inclinations, it should never be evident in a well-made biopic. Indeed, efforts to this end are clearly seen in the recently released Acharya—Prashant Rasaily’s directorial debut—based on the life and times of music legend Bhajan Shiromani Bhakta Raj Acharya. And if the marriage between the historical and the theatrical is not always seamless here

, it still represents a valiant attempt all the same.

Read More

NA plane crash: All 6 on board dead

	BAGLUNG, : All six people have died on board the Nepal Army (RAN 49 BN2T ) plane that crashed onto the Chaudhulko Dhuri hillock at Bowang-9, Baglung Tuesday evening. Of them, the body parts of four deceased along with the wreckage of the plane were founded scattered all over the crash site, police said who reached the site at around at 1 Tuesday night.

Read More

The old face of the Army

There is an opportunistic quality to the demand currently being made by the opposition that Defence Minister Sarat Singh Bhandari be forced to resign. There is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the substance of the comments that he made. The minister, contrary to what is being claimed by the Nepali Congress, the UML and the hardline Maoist faction, did not threaten immediate secession by the Madhes. What he said was that the state should make efforts to rectify the historical discrimination faced by Madhesis; that if this did not happen, the 22 districts of the plains could even decide that there was no point to remaining part of Nepal. His comments were made in the context of the four-point agreement signed between the Maoist and the Madhesi parties. In particular, he was referring to that clause in the agreement that states that Madhesis would be recruited into the Nepal Army.

Read More

Lawyer for Jackson doctor says key tactic dropped

LOS ANGELES, 

 Dr. Conrad Murray's attorney says he knew months before the physician's trial that a theory that Michael Jackson drank a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol would have to be abandoned.

Defense attorney J. Michael Flanagan made the statement Friday without the jury present.

Murray, who was not in court for the hearing, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the June 2009 death of the superstar from an overdose of propofol.

Read More

Iran's Ahmadinejad denies US assassination claims

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed Sunday U.S. accusations that Iranian government agents plotted to kill the Saudi ambassador in the United States.

"Iran is a civilized nation and doesn't need to resort to assassination" Ahmadinejad was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying Sunday. "Terror belongs to you," he said, addressing the United States.

Two men, including a member of Iran's special foreign actions unit known as the Quds Force, have been charged in New York federal court with conspiring to kill the Saudi diplomat, Adel Al-Jubeir.

Read More

Amazon follows Apple

Last week there were two events that diehard geeks such as myself found fascinating: the first being the announcement of Amazon’s new book reader (the Kindle Fire) and Apple’s latest cool product announcement for the new iPhone 4S and iOS5. But as Tim Cook, Apple’s replacement CEO for the legendary Steve Jobs, started the event with stats on Apple as a company, it became clear that the announcement was not about new Apple hardware or software, but more about how Apple now sees itself as the leader of consumer gadgetry and media consumables – and Tim had the numbers to prove it. In the first five minutes Tim Cook showed charts and graphs on Apple media sales in the multiple billions, and hardware sales in the hundreds of millions. One chart caught my eye: the number of iPods sold since its inception in 2001 – over 300 million! Compare that with the “revolutionary” device of my youth, the Sony Walkman, which only sold 220,000 players in 30 years.

Read More