Sunday Times 2
Obama gets Israel to apologise to Turkey
JERUSALEM, March 23 (Reuters) – Israel has apologised to Turkey for killing nine Turkish citizens in a 2010 naval raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla and the two feuding US allies agreed to normalise relations in a surprise breakthrough announced by US President Barack Obama. The rapprochement could help regional coordination to contain spillover from the [...]
Sunday Times 2
45 dead in Thailand refugee camp fire
MAE SURIN, Thailand, March 23 (AFP) – The toll from a blaze that swept through a camp in northern Thailand has risen to 45, authorities said Saturday, after hundreds of shelters for refugees from Myanmar were reduced to ashes. Over 100 people were injured in Friday’s fire, which destroyed about 400 homes at the Mae [...]
Sunday Times 2
Lebanese Prime Minister resigns
BEIRUT, March 23 (Reuters) – Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced his government’s resignation on Friday after a cabinet dispute with Shi’ite group Hezbollah over preparations for a parliamentary election and extending the term of a senior security official. Mikati’s announcement after a deadlocked ministerial meeting plunged Lebanon, already struggling to cope with a spillover [...]
Sunday Times 2
Cyprus on verge of financial death
NICOSIA, March 23, (AFP) – Cypriot politicians were facing increasing pressure to rethink their rejection of a levy on bank deposits, as a deadline to secure an EU bailout loomed closer Saturday. They approved the first three of eight measures put forward by the government in their bid to meet the terms of the EU [...]
Sunday Times 2
Musharraf on his way to Pakistan despite ‘peril’
DUBAI, March 23 (AFP) – Pakistan’s former military ruler Pervez Musharraf has said he will definitely return home Sunday to contest historic elections in May and that he was prepared to risk any danger to his life. He gave an interview with AFP in Dubai just hours after a Pakistani court granted him protective bail [...]
Sunday Times 2
Certain types of coffee may help you live past 90
By Anthony Bond For many people, it is their kick-start to the day. But a new study has found that drinking certain types of coffee could also help you to live longer. Researchers studied the elderly inhabitants of Greek Island Ikaria, who boast the highest rates of longevity in the world. They found that a [...]
Sunday Times 2
Antibiotics not worth risk in most chest colds, says study
NEW YORK (Reuters ) – Doctors need to give antibiotics to more than 12,000 people with acute respiratory infections to prevent just one of them from being hospitalised with pneumonia, according to a new study. And that small benefit is outweighed by the very real risks that go along with antibiotics — both from serious [...]
Sunday Times 2
Yoko Ono tweets against guns showing Lennon’s bloody glasses
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Yoko Ono has taken up arms against gun violence with a raft of Twitter postings, including a photograph of blood-stained glasses apparently worn by John Lennon when he was shot and killed more than 30 years ago. “Over 1,057,000 people have been killed by guns in the USA since John Lennon [...]
Sunday Times 2
Pakistan hopes for Buddhist tourism boost
TAKHT-E-BAHI, Pakistan (AFP) – Religious violence may be on the rise and the Taliban still a threat, but Pakistan is hoping a rich Buddhist heritage will help it boost international tourism to its troubled northwest. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with its balmy climate in the mountains and its wealth of history on the border with Afghanistan, was [...]
Sunday Times 2
‘Kim Jung Un loves 80s music, basketball and dotes over his baby daughter’
Former basketball star Dennis Rodman revealed more about his controversial trip to North Korea, and accidentally spilled that the country’s dictator has an heir to his power. He said that Kim Jung Un- the ruler that Rodman called a ‘kid’- has a young baby girl and that he heard Kim’s wife talk all about her [...]
Sunday Times 2
Miniskirts to be ‘banned’ in South Korea
Miniskirts could be banned in South Korea as a controversial ‘overexposure law’ comes into effect this week. Those deemed to be overexposed in public will face a fine of 50,000 KRW (£30) under the new law. But the law has been met with criticism after being passed by new president President Park Geun-hye at her [...]
Sunday Times 2
US TV show producers dismiss devil character’s resemblance to Obama
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The popular U.S. TV miniseries “The Bible” has plunged into controversy over what some viewers see as a physical resemblance between an actor playing Satan and President Barack Obama, but producers dismissed any likeness as coincidental. The controversy began after the History Channel aired the latest episode of the popular series [...]
Sunday Times 2
Secret Service almost shot Iranian President
By Hayley Peterson A U.S. Secret Service agent nearly shot Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a United Nations assembly in New York in September of 2006, according to a new book. The agent was adjusting a shotgun mounted to the side of a vehicle in President George W. Bush’s motorcade when the weapon was accidentally [...]
Sunday Times 2
Chinese scientists develop lightest material ever
By Damien Gayle Scientists have developed a solid material so light it can be balanced atop the petals of a flower. Researchers from Zhejiang university in Hangzhou, China, showed off their newly developed graphene aerogel by balancing a block of the stuff on a delicate cherry blossom. The sponge-like matter is made of freeze-dried carbon [...]
Sunday Times 2
‘World’s strongest coffee’
A U.S. coffee company is claiming to produce the first and last cup of coffee ever needed to kick start your work day. Death Wish, a medium-dark roast coffee blend roasted in Upstate New York, claims to be the ‘most highly caffeinated premium dark roast organic coffee in the world.’ The brand, featuring a menacing [...]
Sunday Times 2
Ex-French President ‘abused the weakness of the world’s richest woman’
Sarkozy facing trial for allegedly taking millions from 90-year-old L’Oreal heiress By Peter Allen Nicolas Sarkozy was last night formally charged with ‘abusing the weakness’ of the richest woman in the world. The former French president now faces a criminal trial and possible prison sentence for allegedly taking millions of pounds from L’Oreal heiress Liliane [...]
Sunday Times 2
Hollande is ‘The Penguin’ in Carla Bruni song
PARIS (AFP) – Carla Bruni has reportedly taken a swipe at French President Francois Hollande, depicting him as a bumbling buffoon with no manners in a song that features on the former first lady’s new album. The lyrics of “The Penguin” were immediately interpreted as an attack on the man who succeeded her husband, Nicolas [...]
Sunday Times 2
Aung San Suu Kyi: From icon to political player
By Jonathan Head The woman who was once the world’s most famous political prisoner is now wearing the less glamorous mantle of a mere politician. Aung San Suu Kyi’s re-election last weekend as chair of the party she helped found 35 years ago was one of the few certainties in today’s Burma. As one of [...]
Sunday Times 2
Indian startup aims for the moon – and $30 million
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Rahul Narayan, who describes himself as a serial entrepreneur, is the founder of Team Indus. It is the only Indian team in a race to the moon by privately funded groups competing for the largest international incentive prize of all time — the Google Lunar X Prize. Google is offering $30 [...]
Sunday Times 2
Nearly all doctors have given patients a placebo
Nearly all doctors have given their patients placebos, a study has found. Researchers say 97 per cent admitted giving ‘impure’ placebos — those which have medicinal value but are unproven in the illness they are given for — at least once. Meanwhile, 12 per cent had used ‘pure’ placebos, such as sugar pills. Oxford research [...]
Sunday Times 2
New medical lab implant will automatically phone a doctor before you fall ill
By Mark Prigg A blood laboratory small enough to be implanted under the skin could revolutionise healthcare, researchers claimed today. Measuring just 14mm long, it uses a mobile phone to send medical staff updates on a patient’s health. The team at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne say the gadget could be invaluable for patients [...]
Sunday Times 2
Bikram Yoga founder hit by sexual harassment claims
Sarah Baughn, 29, claims Bikram Choudhury, 67, relentlessly pursued her during his LA classes By Jill Reilly In the cut-throat world of Hollywood fitness gurus, he has long been the hottest property. Wearing nothing but the skimpiest of swimming trunks and a microphone, Bikram Choudhury won a legion of celebrity acolytes with his brand of [...]
Sunday Times 2
Humanising archaeology in multi-cultural society
Sudharshan Seneviratne, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Peradeniya, won the Archaeological Institute of America’s 2013 Conservation and Heritage Management Award for Excellence at a recent ceremony in Seattle, USA. The institute’s president, Elizabeth Bartman, in her citation said the award was presented in recognition of Prof. Seneviratne’s tirelss efforts to protect and preserve [...]
Sunday Times 2
A prescription for efficient healthcare adminsitration
A modern health care organisation is a complex entity with numerous stakeholders having divergent interests. Managing these complex organisations requires individuals with a variety of skills and prime among them is effective leadership with a positive attitude, stated President of the College of Medical Administrators of Sri Lanka, Surgeon Rear Admiral NELW Jayasekera in his [...]
Sunday Times 2
Vote Stalin? In India, you can
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – History has it that Stalin and Napoleon were born a hundred years apart but in India, you will find the two working together — at least on paper. Stalin and Napoleon (no relation to the Soviet dictator or the French emperor) are leaders in the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), a political [...]
Sunday Times 2
Indian anti-rape bill goes easy on first-time stalkers
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Women have become increasingly worried about their safety in New Delhi after the gang rape and torture of a young woman aboard a moving bus last December. Not for nothing do people call the city India’s rape capital. Beyond the leers and the crass words that men often direct at women [...]
Sunday Times 2
Muslims in European see dialogue hope in Pope name
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Muslims in Europe see hope for better relations with Roman Catholicism after the new pope took the name Francis, recalling the 13th-century saint known for his efforts to launch Christian dialogue with Islam. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio chose the name after his election on Wednesday in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, [...]
Sunday Times 2
Marines return to Delhi; anger in Italy, India ‘happy’
ROME/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A decision to return two Italian marines accused of murdering fishermen to stand trial in India stirred anger in Italy on Friday and calls for foreign minister Giulio Terzi to resign. Mario Monti’s caretaker government on Thursday reversed a March 11 decision not to send the marines back from a home [...]
Sunday Times 2
Hail the miracle of Mattala
By Don Juan As I watched the SriLankan Airlines flight land at the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport before it was declared open and then watched millions of rupees go up in smoke in a kaleidoscopic display of ‘have money, will burn’ no expense spared fireworks in the night, my hopes and heart soared with national [...]
Sunday Times 2
Crumbling BRICS: Questions over the bloc’s shared vision
By Jaswant Singh NEW DELHI – In 2001, when Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the acronym BRIC to refer to Brazil, Russia, India, and China, the world had high hopes for the four emerging economies, whose combined GDP was expected to reach $128.4 trillion by 2050, dwarfing America’s projected GDP of $38.5 trillion. When [...]
Sunday Times 2
Iraq War: Make it impossible to inflict such barbarism again
The US and Britain not only bathed Iraq in blood, they promoted a sectarian war that now threatens the region By Seumas Milne If anyone doubted what kind of Iraq has been bequeathed by a decade of US-sponsored occupation and war, this Tuesday’s deadly sectarian bomb attacks around Baghdad against bus queues and markets should [...]
Sunday Times 2
The disenchantment of post-invasion Iraq
By Feisal Amin Rasoul al-Istrabadi LONDON – Twenty-five years ago, on March 16, 1988, Saddam Hussein’s troops spread poison gas through the Kurdish town of Halabja. The attack, which killed an estimated 5,000 people and injured up to 10,000 more, remains the largest chemical-weapons attack ever to target a civilian population. In the light of [...]
