Sunday Times 2
Bollywood and sex education
By Shilpa Jamkhandikar NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A couple of weeks ago, I watched a Marathi film called “Balak Palak” (Children and Parents). A new crop of film-makers is portraying the burgeoning Indian middle class with its own set of problems and “Balak Palak” is no different. Director Ravi Jadhav chronicles the lives of four [...]
Sunday Times 2
Pakistan PM’s corruption official found dead
One of the officials investigating a corruption case in Pakistan linked to Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has been found dead. Reports say the man, Kamran Faisal, was found hanged in the government hostel in Islamabad where he lived. Police said it appeared he had taken his life but they were investigating all possibilities, including [...]
Sunday Times 2
Algeria desert stand-off as Islamists hole up with hostages
IN AMENAS, Algeria, Jan 19 (AFP) -Islamist gunmen were holed up with an unknown number of foreign hostages today at a remote gas plant in the Algerian desert, as the world awaited the military’s next move to free them. More than 72 hours after the heavily armed militants staged a deadly raid on the complex, [...]
Sunday Times 2
Obama inauguration: South African diva aims for ‘Marilyn moment’
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 19 (AFP) – South Africa’s Lira will be one among many performers at Barack Obama’s inaugural celebrations on Monday, but she is determined to be remembered for a performance to rival Marilyn Monroe’s for John F. Kennedy. The multi-platinum artist hopes to give Obama and other guests at the Ambassadors’ Inaugural Ball in [...]
Sunday Times 2
Salman Khurshid: India ‘not to rush’ into Kashmir talks
India’s foreign minister says he will “not rush” into talks with his Pakistani counterpart to defuse military tensions in Kashmir. Salman Khurshid’s remarks came after Hina Rabbani Khar’s call for a dialogue between the two ministers. The two armies have agreed to “de-escalate” tensions along the Line of Control (LoC) after a meeting of their [...]
Sunday Times 2
Burned out lithium battery that grounded Boeing’s Dreamliner jets
By Ray Massey and Sara Malm This burned out battery is what has caused a worldwide grounding of Boeing’s ‘revolutionary’ 787 Dreamliner jets. Photographs of the charred remains of lithium ion batteries from two separate incidents resulting in the grounding of Japanese Boeing Dreamliners indicate it operated at a voltage above its design limit. Today [...]
Sunday Times 2
Pope’s secretary dubbed “Gorgeous George” on Vanity Fair cover
ROME (Reuters) – Archbishop Georg Ganswein, Pope Benedict’s private secretary, who has been dubbed “Gorgeous George” by the Italian media, is now a real-life cover boy. The prelate has landed on the cover of Vanity Fair. The cover on the Italian edition of the magazine shows the 56-year-old archbishop smiling, his blue eyes beaming, above [...]
Sunday Times 2
Malaysia holds seminars to help parents and teachers spot ‘gay children’
They were once considered the height of fashion, worn by the likes of the Prince of Wales and tennis champion Fred Perry as he conquered Wimbledon in the 1930s. More than 80 years after first being sold the V-neck sweater remains as popular with both men and women. But in Malaysia wearing that type of [...]
Sunday Times 2
The 10 worst apps for taking personal details without letting you know
The mobile Angry Birds app was among those named by researchers By Lewis Smith A list of the worst mobile phone apps for extracting personal information such as location and contacts has been compiled by academics. Among the worst for taking details from users who have little or no idea it is happening include Angry [...]
Sunday Times 2
Companies luring young car buyers with gadgets, nail polish
DETROIT, Michigan, Jan 16, (AFP) -From navigation systems serving as game consoles to sound systems doubling as amplifiers and nail polish matching a paint job, automakers are trying new tricks to lure fickle young buyers. Connected consoles that sync with smartphones to stream music and even read incoming text messages aloud seemed to be almost [...]
Sunday Times 2
Swami Vivekananda, yoga missionary to the west
By Emily Buchanan Few in the west have heard of Swami Vivekananda, who was born 150 years ago this week. Yet this Bengali intellectual, still revered in India, introduced many people to yoga and meditation. The crunch of car tyres on gravel, the heavy smell of an imminent thunderstorm, swaying elm trees – random childhood [...]
Sunday Times 2
Al-Qaeda in the heart of Africa
By Patrick J. Buchanan “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction” is Newton’s third law of physics. Its counterpart in geopolitics is “blowback,” when military action in one sphere produces an unintended and undesirable consequence in another. September 11, 2001, was blowback. George H.W. Bush had sent an army of half a [...]
Sunday Times 2
Hollande in Mali
By Dominique Moisi PARIS – While hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Paris against the right of homosexual couples to marry and adopt children, French troops were arriving in Mali to stop a coalition of Islamist and rebel forces from taking control of its capital, Bamako, and creating in the Sahel a sanctuary for terrorists. These [...]
Sunday Times 2
Digging for water, but striking oil
By Thalif Deen ABU DHABI (IPS) – The volatile politics of the Middle East have long been dominated by the fluctuating fortunes of a single commodity: Oil. But when the oil-blessed region runs out of water, there could be a change in the political landscape, triggering potential conflicts. The world’s future wars, experts predict, will [...]
Sunday Times 2
Kashmir killings spook villagers on tense frontier
By Sajjad Qayyum and Tauseef Mustafa ALONG THE LINE OF CONTROL, Kashmir (AFP) – On both sides of the de facto border in Kashmir, villagers living on one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints have special reason to fear the return of tension between India and Pakistan. The Line of Control that separates Kashmir has [...]
