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| President Barack Obama last month confirmed for the first time that US drones attacked Taliban and Al Qaeda militants on Pakistani soil. - photo: Dawn.com |
According to sources, six people were killed and two others injured when two missiles slammed into a compound in the village of Spilga near Miramshah. The identities of the persons who died could not be ascertained.
Hours later, another drone attacked a moving vehicle on the Zekerkhel-Khaisur road in Mirali tehsil.
Official sources said 15 members of a militant group were killed. Their bodies were charred.
Local people rushed to the place and carried out rescue work.
Unmanned planes kept flying over the area throughout the day.
AFP adds: A security official said Uzbek militants had been killed in the attack on the vehicle.
Those who died in the first attack belonged to Badar Mansoor and the Haqqani network, loyal to the Afghan Taliban, another official said. Last Thursday, officials said Mansoor, described as the “de facto leader of Al Qaeda in Pakistan” had been killed in a drone strike in North Waziristan.
The New America Foundation think-tank in Washington says drone strikes in Pakistan have killed between 1,715 and 2,680 people over the past eight years.
According to an AFP tally, 45 US missile strikes were reported in the tribal belt in 2009, 101 in 2010 and 64 last year.
President Barack Obama last month confirmed for the first time that US drones attacked Taliban and Al Qaeda militants on Pakistani soil.
Source: Dawn.com
In an effort to understand how the motivation to exercise is linked to behavior, the researchers examined college students’ intentions to be physically active as well as their actual activity levels.
"Many of us set New Year’s resolutions to be more physically active, and we expect these resolutions to be stable throughout the year," said professor of kinesiology.
"One of the things we see in this study is that from week to week our motivation can change a lot, and these weekly changes in motivation can be destructive to our resolutions," he stated.
The professor Conroy and colleagues recruited 33 college students and assessed over a ten-week period both the students’ weekly intentions to be physically active and their activity levels.
During each of the ten weeks, participants were instructed to log on to a website and to rate their intentions to perform physical activity for the week ahead. To assess physical activity, participants were instructed to wear pedometers each day for the first four weeks.
The team found that for many of the participants, the motivation to exercise fluctuated on a weekly basis, and these fluctuations were linked to their behaviour.
"Our motivation to be physically active changes on a weekly basis because we have so many demands on our time," said Conroy.
"Maybe one week we’re sick or we have a work deadline-or, in the case of students, an upcoming exam. But these lapses in motivation really seem to be destructive. Our results suggest that people with consistently strong intentions to exercise have the best chance of actually following through on their intentions, while people with the greatest fluctuations in their motivation have the hardest time using that motivation to regulate their behaviour," he explained.
Conroy added that consistency of intentions is not the only thing that matters in predicting whether or not a person will be active. It also matters if it is a weekday or the weekend.
"We saw that people who consistently reported stronger intentions to be active were more active during the week, but then on weekends the pattern flipped for them. If a person was really motivated during the week, then he or she crashed on the weekend," said Conroy.
The results have been published in the current issue of the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology.
Former solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam, appearing for the state government, contended that Kasab was never tortured or maltreated and there has been no violation of his constitutional rights.
"At no point of time he was tortured or maltreated by the authorities and there has been no failure of constitutional rights given to him," he submitted before a bench comprising justices Aftam Alam and C K Prasad.
Subramaniam also submitted that death sentence, which has been awarded to Kasab, is a permissible means of punishment.
Referring to the entire sequence of events leading to the 26/11 attack, he submitted that if Kasab had not been caught alive, then it would not have been possible to know that outsiders were involved in the mayhem.
24-year-old Kasab had on Tuesday pleaded with Indian Supreme Court to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment.
Senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, who has been appointed amicus curiae by the apex court to defend Kasab, had told the bench that he was not a part of the larger conspiracy for waging war against the nation.
Stressing on Kasab’s age as an important factor to commute his sentence, he had pleaded for a lenient approach as he was drawn into it as a result of exploitation of religious faith and false ideology.
Showing steady improvement since early December, Obama’s approval rating has reached the 50 percent mark in The Times/CBS News poll - an important baseline in presidential politics and his highest approval rating since May 2010 (excepting the brief bump he received after Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011).
For the first time since the election season began in earnest in the late summer, as many Democratic voters as Republicans said they were more enthusiastic than usual about voting in the 2012 presidential election.
That would appear to wipe out the “enthusiasm gap” that promised to help Republicans greatly next fall.
Eight nominating contests, about 20 closely watched debates and several months of heavy state-by-state campaigning have seemingly failed to settle a restive Republican electorate that is highly motivated in its goal of limiting Obama to a single term but shows lingering signs of nervous indecision about whom it wants to assign the task of taking him on.
The poll shows that Romney would lose to Obama by six percentage points among all registered voters if the election were held today.
The last couple of months appear to have greatly harmed Romney’s standing with independent voters, who favored him over Obama in January by 46 percent to 39 percent, but now favor Obama over Mr. Romney by 49 percent to 38 percent.
Republican primary voters remain dissatisfied with their candidates: 62 percent say they want more choices while 34 percent say they are happy with the field. Sixty percent of GOP primary voters who have picked a candidate say they could still change their mind, while 39 percent say they have settled on a candidate.
The nationwide poll was based on telephone interviews conducted between February 8 and February 13 on land lines and cell phones with 1,197 adults, including 331 self-described Republican primary or caucus voters, and has margins of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. (APP)
PARIS: A probe designed to delve into the "Big Bang" that created the cosmos has uncovered an enigmatic fog of microwave radiation in the centre of our galaxy, European astronomers reported on Monday.Planck, a billion-dollar European space telescope launched in May 2009, found "a mysterious haze of microwaves that presently defies explanation" during a scan of the centre of the Milky Way, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.
It could be a form of energy called synchrotron emission, which occurs when electrons zip through magnetic fields after being accelerated by the blast of an exploding star, or supernova.
But the newly discovered emission is something of a mystery, as its signature lingers far longer compared with other synchrotron sources spotted in the Milky Way.
Several explanations have been offered, ranging from higher rates of supernovae in the galactic centre to the annihilation of so-called dark matter particles, ESA said in a press release.
Planck, deployed in orbit 1.5 million kilometres (937,000 miles) from Earth, is designed to pick up tiny variations in temperature in microwave energy released after the Big Bang that created the universe some 14 billion years ago.
Scientists looking at the data have to filter out a haze of microwave emissions that obscure the precious telltale, known as Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation.
The new results are being presented this week at a conference in Bologna, Italy, which is looking at the intermediate results from the mission.
Planck has also located concentrations of carbon monoxide among the clouds of cold gas in the Milky Way and other galaxies that are a reservoir for making stars. (AFP)
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Angelina Jolie's new movie — a love story set against the genocide of Bosnia's war — will be shown in Sarajevo for the first time on Tuesday, but it already has touched off anger left over from the conflict.
Muslim Bosniaks have said they expect "In the Land of Blood and Honey" to focus on their plight during the brutal 1992-1995 war. But the distributor in the Serb part of Bosnia said he won't show it there because it portrays Serbs as the villains and they wouldn't put up with that.The screening — which Jolie plans to attend — will show a fictional movie about a romance that develops between a Bosnian Serb man and a Bosnian Muslim woman, and what happens when he becomes an army officer and she is held in a military prison camp where atrocities such as rape occur.
About 5,000 people are expected at the debut in Sarajevo, and the movie also will be shown in theaters in the Bosniak-Croat part of the country.But the sole film distributor in the Serb-run part of Bosnia said Serbs don't want to see it.
For that reason, Vladimir Ljevar told The Associated Press, "In the Land of Blood and Honey" will not be shown in Bosnian Serb movie theaters.
"There is simply no interest for this movie here, so I can't sell any tickets," he said. "The fact that the Serbs are the bad guys in it is the reason why there is no interest. The film is lousy. I watched it. It has had bad reviews. It is unprofitable."
Thousands of women were raped during Bosnia's war, which also included the notorious Srebrenica massacre in July 1995 and the 44-month siege of the capital, Sarajevo. Most of the rape victims were Muslim Bosniak women, often the target of mass rape used as a weapon of terror.
Many of the victims were raped repeatedly. Some were brought back to their homes and dumped in front of their husbands. Other women were violated in their husbands' presence as part of a shock campaign.
So a group of Muslim Bosniaks who now have returned to their homes in the Serb part of the country say they are interested in seeing Jolie's movie and plan to organize private screenings once they make a deal with some other distributor from the region.
Zinaida Mahmuljin of the northwestern town of Kozarac said people there are willing to pay for the screening equipment and show it in the local town's community center.
"There is interest here among the returnees," she said, denying Ljevar's claims about the movie. "What are we here? Thin air?"
Together with others in Kozarac, Mahmuljin plans to screen the movie next week.
More than 27,000 people lived there before the war, but the population is now down to about 8,000, she said. The notorious Serb prison camps Omarska and Keraterm are not far from Kozarac, and many townspeople were prisoners there during the war, she said.
Murder, torture, rape and other abuses were common at the two camps during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, and the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague has convicted several Bosnian Serbs of persecution and cruel treatment of Muslim Bosniaks.
So many people died in those camps that it is hard to find any Muslim family in Kozarac that did not lose someone there, Mahmuljin said. Her father was killed in Omarska and her mother survived torture there.
"But we need to move forward, and we won't do that if we don't talk about what happened," she said.
"During the Second World War, Serbs of this area were the victims and that was swept under the carpet," she said referring to the many Serbs who died in the Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia," Mahmuljin said. "In this war, the Bosniaks were the victims. It is time we all sit down and talk about it."
Source: Yahoo / Associated Press
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| Source: Dawn.com |
According to sources, the US national was arrested while traveling on flight PK218 which was heading to Islamabad from Peshawar.
William Charles is an employee of the American consulate in Peshawar.
The Airport Security Force Pakistan (ASF) has taken the American citizen into their custody for additional interrogation.
Source: Dawn.com
"The Vow," starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum, took in $41.7 million at US and Canadian theaters from Friday through Sunday in the biggest domestic opening so far this year, according to studio estimates.
Twenty international markets added $9.7 million, bringing the global total to $51.4 million.
Action movie "Safe House" featuring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds took second place with an estimated $39.3 million domestically plus $10.2 million from 25 international markets. The worldwide total stood at $49.5 million.
The studios had projected domestic openings in the $20million range for each of the top two finishers.
To the surprise of industry executives, four movies topped $20 million each. That lifted the domestic weekend total for all films 29.3percent higher than the same weekend last year, according to the box office division of Hollywood.com.
"The Vow" was inspired by the real-life story of a husband who must win over his wife a second time after a car crash erases her memory of him. The movie was released this weekend to draw in couples ahead of Valentine's Day, said Rory Bruer, president of worldwide distribution for distributor Sony Pictures. The film cost about $30 million to make.
"We grossed what it cost to make the film in the first two days. It's really a fantastic result," Bruer said.
"Safe House" had a higher budget of around $85 million that was financed by privately held Relativity Media and distributor Universal Pictures.
The movie features Washington as a rogue CIA agent who shows up at the US Embassy in South Africa. Reynolds plays a rookie operative who must bring him in. "People are back in the movie going mode" and audiences liked Washington in an "action antagonist role," said Nikki Rocco, president of distribution for Universal Pictures.
In third place, family film "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson brought in $27.6million, well ahead of studio projections of around $15 million.
The movie has brought in $74.7 million from international markets after opening in late January, bringing the global haul to $102.3 million. The 3D follow-up to 2008's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" cost $79 million to make.
The movie tells the story of a man leading his stepson, a helicopter pilot and his daughter on a rescue mission set on an unusual island. "We dominated the family business," said Dan Fellman, head of domestic distribution for Warner Bros.
'STAR WARS' STRIKES AGAIN
Families also turned out for a 3D remake of 1999's "Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace," which took fourth place domestically with $23.0 million. Distributor 20th Century Fox had hoped the film that tells the story of a young Anakin Skywalker, the boy who becomes Darth Vader, would bring in $20million or more.
Sales in international markets hit $20.5 million, bringing the movie's weekend total to $43.5 million around the globe.
Last weekend's domestic winner, thriller "Chronicle" about three boys with superpowers, slipped to fifth place with $12.3million.
The movie division of Sony Corp released "The Vow." "Safe House" was released by Universal Pictures, a division of Comcast Corp. News Corp unit 20thCentury Fox distributed "Star Wars" and "Chronicle." Time Warner Inc unit Warner Bros. released "Journey 2." (Reuters)
SHARJAH: Such is the unifying power of cricket in Afghanistan that even the Taliban sent a message of support to the team ahead of their historic ODI against Pakistan in Sharjah on Friday. The match, which Pakistan won by seven wickets, was Afghanistan’s first ODI against a Test-playing nation and the first ODI played between an Affiliate Member of the ICC and a Full Member.
According to a sports website, a spokesman for the Taliban contacted the Afghanistan Cricket Board on the morning of the game to wish the team well and assure them they would be remembered in their prayers.
Indeed, the event appears to have unified the Afghanistan nation in unprecedented fashion. The country’s president, Hamid Karzai, phoned officials at the ground several times in order to be kept up to date with the scores, while the country’s minister of finance, Dr Omar Zakhilwal, estimated that "hardly anybody was not watching" the match. "Nothing has ever brought us together like this," he said.
Zakhilwal, who is also chairman of the Afghanistan Cricket Board, stressed the importance of cricket in his war-ravaged country and called on the Full Members of the ICC - the Test playing nations - to remember their "responsibility" to continue to develop the game and to reach out to a country in need. "Cricket is not just a game for us," Zakhilwal said during the ODI. "We have had so much bad news in Afghanistan. But cricket - and this game against Pakistan - has brought good news for the people of a country who have suffered so much in the past. This is a proud day.
"There is nothing that can touch cricket in popularity or as a force for good in Afghanistan. There is absolutely nothing else that mobilises our society in the same way. Not politics, political events or reconstruction. Between 80-90% of kids will be watching this game and they play it on every street. President Karzai is watching and has phoned several times to get the latest news. Even the opposition Taliban have sent a message of support. Their spokesman said we are praying for the success of the team.
"We have received support from other countries. But it is important people realise the role that cricket can play: it can help in our development and help rebuild our society. It can be used an example to show what we can achieve if we have peace and we work together. It can help restore peace and give people a sense of purpose. For other countries to play a role in bringing something good is a responsibility; Pakistan has contributed to this purpose and I hope other countries will also contribute."
As things stand, however, Afghanistan have no more ODIs scheduled against Full Member nations. They will not be competing in the Asia Cup, an ODI event that includes India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, which Zakhilwal refers to as "disappointing." He hopes, however, that when the Full Member nations realise how important the sport has been in raising morale and providing a sense of purpose and unity in Afghanistan, they will rally to the cause and ensure the momentum is not lost.
"The top teams shy away from playing us," Zakhilwal continued. "I suppose they feel the benefits of beating us are small but the pain of losing to us would be great. We are pushing India, Australia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka for games as only by playing them can we improve and take cricket to the next step in our country.
"The story of cricket in Afghanistan only started about ten years ago when people returned from the refugee camps in Pakistan. But there is something about the game that seems to appeal to the psyche of the Afghan people. It has created a sense of unity and happiness that has brought people together. This match is breaking the ice. But we want to be part of the big club."
Cricket is booming in Afghanistan. Not only is the international team now full time, but there are league teams in 28 of the 34 provinces and the country has an A team, an Under-19 programme and, next year, the sport will be made compulsory as part of the school curriculum.
A country starved of entertainment, success and joy is crying out for support from the ten Full Members of the ICC. It remains to be seen who is listening.
In the video titled "Onwards, Lions of Syria", Zawahiri criticised the Syrian regime for crimes against its citizens, and praised those rising up against the government, the SITE Intelligence Group said.
Zawahiri, shown in front of a green curtain in the video released Saturday which runs for over eight minutes, urged Syrians not to rely on the West or Arab governments, whom he said would impose a new regime subservient to the West.
He called on Muslims in Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon to support the uprising and remove the current regime which he condemned as anti-Islam.
Since March last year, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government has carried out a bloody crackdown on an uprising in which more than 6,000 people have been killed.
Arab League foreign ministers will meet on Sunday in Cairo to discuss their next move over the crisis.
Long Al-Qaeda's number two, Zawahiri took over the helm of the group after Osama bin Laden was killed in May 2011 during a US special forces night raid deep in Pakistan.
The video is the latest of a number in which the militant chief has attempted to seize on the "Arab Spring" revolutions.
Al-Qaeda has been absent from the popular protests that swept the Arab world last year, leading to the fall of leaders in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia and provoking major unrest elsewhere.
Analysts argue that the phenomenon has left the global terror outfit weakened and increasingly irrelevant.
The United States said last year that it believed Zawahiri, who has been in hiding since the United States declared a "war on terror" after the September 11, 2001 attacks, was still in Pakistan. (AFP)
Black US astronaut James Washington, on a mission to boost the flagging electoral fortunes of a US president clearly modelled on Sarah Palin, stumbles across the huge Swastika-shaped complex and is captured.
His madcap adventures, set in 2018, see his skin turned white by an Albert Einstein look alike, send him back to Earth where he is greeted as a lunatic and finally to the moon again to try to save the day, and his skin.
The movie has its official world premiere at the Berlin film festival where it screened out of competition on Saturday.
Amidst a typically dark and gritty selection of films at this year's festival, Iron Sky has been among the most talked about by the thousands of journalists covering the event.
Producer Tero Kaukomaa said a large part of the funding came from "crowd-sourcing" either on the Internet or through selling merchandise to fans.
Of the 7.5 million euro ($9.89 million) budget, almost 1million was raised that way, he said, in turn helping to bring more mainstream investors on board.
Director Timo Vuorensola said the original idea for the oddball plotline was born in a Finnish sauna "as all good things from Finland usually are".
He also directed the 2005 picture "Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning", another sci-fi comedy funded by fans which went onto become a cult hit.
German producer Oliver Damian admitted there had been some resistance within Germany to making a film that made light of the Nazis.
"Over the years we needed to organise financing and we had a lot of obstacles to overcome in Germany because a lot of people were very critical of the project," he told reporters after a packed press screening.
"We (younger Germans) have a different past and we are fully aware of this. I think you can make a dark comedy (about Nazis). "The film is supposed to be fun. This is important. At the end of the day we found funding partners in Germany and the film will be released here in April so we found people who believed in the project here as well."
Actor Christopher Kirby, who plays Washington, did not believe it was a genuine script when he was first approached to consider the part. He stars alongside Julia Dietze, who portrays the Nazi ideologue Renate Richter.
Together, the two characters become involved in a life-or-death mission to halt the Nazi onslaught, in particular its secret weapon, the massive Gotterdammerung spaceship.
Meanwhile on Earth, the US president sees an opportunity to stay in the White House for another term.
"It's wonderful," she crows. "I'm a war-time president. I thought I was going to have to bomb Australia or something."
Her response is to dispatch her own secret weapon, the USS George W. Bush spaceship. (Reuters)
Germany has delayed signing the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) following concerns from its justice ministry.A foreign ministry spokesperson revealed that the nation's authorities requested more time for "further discussions" on the controversial anti-piracy treaty, AFP reports.
ACTA, which aims to establish international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement, was signed last month by 22 EU member states, including the UK.
The move coincided with the resignation of its rapporteur Kader Arif, who claimed that the agreement "lacked transparency".
Last week, Latvia delayed putting its signature to the legislation. The Czech Republic and Slovakia have also delayed ratification.
ACTA has sparked international protests, with critics warning that it could impinge on civil and digital rights, such as freedom of expression and communication privacy.
Official websites supporting the international agreement have been hit by cyber-attacks from individuals allegedly acting on behalf of Anonymous.
The European Parliament is yet to ratify the ACTA treaty, and is due to hold a debate on the matter in June.
Source: Digital SPy
Beverly Hills police Lt. Mark Rosen said Houston was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. in her room on the fourth floor of the Beverly Hilton. A Los Angeles County coroner's official said the body remained in the building late Saturday.
"There were no obvious signs of any criminal intent," Rosen said.
Houston's publicist, Kristen Foster, said the cause of death was unknown.
Rosen said police received a 911 call from hotel security about Houston at 3:43 p.m. Saturday. Paramedics who were already at the hotel because of a Grammy party were not able to resuscitate her, he said.
Houston's death came on the eve of music's biggest night — the Grammy Awards. It's a showcase where she once reigned, and where she will be remembered Sunday in a tribute by Jennifer Hudson, organizers said.
Her longtime mentor Clive Davis went ahead with his annual concert at the same hotel where her body was found. He dedicated the evening to her and asked for a moment of silence as a photo of the singer, hands wide open, looking to the sky, appeared on the screen.
Houston was supposed to appear at the gala, and Davis had told The Associated Press that she would perhaps perform: "It's her favorite night of the year ... (so) who knows by the end of the evening," he said.
Houston had been at rehearsals for the show Thursday, coaching singers Brandy and Monica, according to a person who was at the event but was not authorized to speak publicly about it. The person said Houston looked disheveled, was sweating profusely and liquor and cigarettes could be smelled on her breath.
Two days ago, she performed at a pre-Grammy party with singer Kelly Price. Singer Kenny Lattimore hosted the event, and said Houston sang the gospel classic "Jesus Loves Me" with Price, her voice registering softly, not with the same power it had at its height.
Lattimore said Houston was gregarious and was in a good mood, surrounded by friends and family, including daughter Bobbi Kristina.
"She just seemed like she was having a great night that night," said Lattimore, who said he was in shock over her death.
Aretha Franklin, her godmother, also said she was stunned.
"I just can't talk about it now," Franklin said in a short statement. "It's so stunning and unbelievable. I couldn't believe what I was reading coming across the TV screen."
The Rev. Al Sharpton said he would call for a national prayer Sunday morning during a service at Second Baptist Church in Los Angeles.
"The morning of the Grammys, the world should pause and pray for the memory of a gifted songbird," Sharpton said in a statement.
In a statement, Recording Academy President and CEO Neil Portnow said Houston "was one of the world's greatest pop singers of all time who leaves behind a robust musical soundtrack spanning the past three decades."
At her peak, Houston was the golden girl of the music industry. From the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world's best-selling artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful and peerless vocals rooted in the black church but made palatable to the masses with a pop sheen.
Her success carried her beyond music to movies, where she starred in hits like "The Bodyguard" and "Waiting to Exhale."
She had the perfect voice and the perfect image: a gorgeous singer who had sex appeal but was never overtly sexual, who maintained perfect poise.
She influenced a generation of younger singers, from Christina Aguilera to Mariah Carey, who when she first came out sounded so much like Houston that many thought it was Houston.
But by the end of her career, Houston became a stunning cautionary tale of the toll of drug use. Her album sales plummeted and the hits stopped coming; her once serene image was shattered by a wild demeanor and bizarre public appearances. She confessed to abusing cocaine, marijuana and pills, and her once pristine voice became raspy and hoarse, unable to hit the high notes as she had during her prime.
"The biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy," Houston told ABC's Diane Sawyer in an infamous 2002 interview with then-husband Brown by her side.
It was a tragic fall for a superstar who was one of the top-selling artists in pop music history, with more than 55 million records sold in the United States alone.
She seemed to be born into greatness. In addition to being Franklin's goddaughter, she was the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston and the cousin of 1960s pop diva Dionne Warwick.
Houston first started singing in the church as a child. In her teens, she sang backup for Chaka Khan, Jermaine Jackson and others, in addition to modeling. It was around that time when music mogul Clive Davis first heard Houston perform.
"The time that I first saw her singing in her mother's act in a club ... it was such a stunning impact," Davis told "Good Morning America."
"To hear this young girl breathe such fire into this song. I mean, it really sent the proverbial tingles up my spine," he added.
Before long, the rest of the country would feel it, too. Houston made her album debut in 1985 with "Whitney Houston," which sold millions and spawned hit after hit. "Saving All My Love for You" brought her her first Grammy, for best female pop vocal. "How Will I Know," ''You Give Good Love" and "The Greatest Love of All" also became hit singles.
Another multiplatinum album, "Whitney," came out in 1987 and included hits like "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."
The New York Times wrote that Houston "possesses one of her generation's most powerful gospel-trained voices, but she eschews many of the churchier mannerisms of her forerunners. She uses ornamental gospel phrasing only sparingly, and instead of projecting an earthy, tearful vulnerability, communicates cool self-assurance and strength, building pop ballads to majestic, sustained peaks of intensity."
Her decision not to follow the more soulful inflections of singers like Franklin drew criticism by some who saw her as playing down her black roots to go pop and reach white audiences. The criticism would become a constant refrain through much of her career. She was even booed during the "Soul Train Awards" in 1989.
"Sometimes it gets down to that, you know?" she told Katie Couric in 1996. "You're not black enough for them. I don't know. You're not R&B enough. You're very pop. The white audience has taken you away from them."
Some saw her 1992 marriage to former New Edition member and soul crooner Bobby Brown as an attempt to refute those critics. It seemed to be an odd union; she was seen as pop's pure princess while he had a bad-boy image and already had children of his own. (The couple only had one daughter, Bobbi Kristina, born in 1993.) Over the years, he would be arrested several times, on charges ranging from DUI to failure to pay child support.
But Houston said their true personalities were not as far apart as people may have believed.
"When you love, you love. I mean, do you stop loving somebody because you have different images? You know, Bobby and I basically come from the same place," she told Rolling Stone in 1993. "You see somebody, and you deal with their image, that's their image. It's part of them, it's not the whole picture. I am not always in a sequined gown. I am nobody's angel. I can get down and dirty. I can get raunchy."
Brown was getting ready to perform at a New Edition reunion tour in Southaven, Miss., as news spread about Houston's death. The group went ahead with its performance, though Brown appeared overcome with emotion when his voice cracked at the beginning of a ballad and he left the stage.
Before his departure, he told the sell-out crowd: "First of all, I want to tell you that I love you all. Second, I would like to say, I love you Whitney. The hardest thing for me to do is to come on this stage."
Brown said he decided to perform because fans had shown their loyalty to the group for more than 25 years. During an intermission, one of Houston's early hits, "You Give Good Love," played over the speakers. Fans stood up and began singing along.
It would take several years for the public to see the "down and dirty" side of Houston. Her moving 1991 rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at the Super Bowl, amid the first Gulf War, set a new standard and once again reaffirmed her as America's sweetheart.
In 1992, she became a star in the acting world with "The Bodyguard." Despite mixed reviews, the story of a singer (Houston) guarded by a former Secret Service agent (Kevin Costner) was an international success.
It also gave her perhaps her most memorable hit: a searing, stunning rendition of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You," which sat atop the charts for weeks. It was Grammy's record of the year and best female pop vocal, and the "Bodyguard" soundtrack was named album of the year.
She returned to the big screen in 1995-96 with "Waiting to Exhale" and "The Preacher's Wife." Both spawned soundtrack albums, and another hit studio album, "My Love Is Your Love," in 1998, brought her a Grammy for best female R&B vocal for the cut "It's Not Right But It's Okay."
But during these career and personal highs, Houston was using drugs. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2009, she said by the time "The Preacher's Wife" was released, "(doing drugs) was an everyday thing. ... I would do my work, but after I did my work, for a whole year or two, it was every day. ... I wasn't happy by that point in time. I was losing myself."
In the interview, Houston blamed her rocky marriage to Brown, which included a charge of domestic abuse against Brown in 1993. They divorced in 2007.
Houston would go to rehab twice before she would declare herself drug-free to Winfrey in 2009. But in the interim, there were missed concert dates, a stop at an airport due to drugs, and public meltdowns.
She was so startlingly thin during a 2001 Michael Jackson tribute concert that rumors spread she had died the next day. Her crude behavior and jittery appearance on Brown's reality show, "Being Bobby Brown," was an example of her sad decline. Her Sawyer interview, where she declared "crack is whack," was often parodied. She dropped out of the spotlight for a few years.
Houston staged what seemed to be a successful comeback with the 2009 album "I Look To You." The album debuted on the top of the charts, and would eventually go platinum.
Things soon fell apart. A concert to promote the album on "Good Morning America" went awry as Houston's voice sounded ragged and off-key. She blamed an interview with Winfrey for straining her voice.
A world tour launched overseas, however, only confirmed suspicions that Houston had lost her treasured gift, as she failed to hit notes and left many fans unimpressed; some walked out. Canceled concert dates raised speculation that she may have been abusing drugs, but she denied those claims and said she was in great shape, blaming illness for cancellations.
Houston was to make her return to film in the remake of the classic movie "Sparkle." Filming on the movie, which stars former "American Idol" winner Jordin Sparks, recently wrapped.
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Associated Press writers Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tenn., contributed to this report
Source and Posted at Yahoo.com
Addressing a public gathering here, Imran Khan said that his party would get Pakistan released from slavery of US. He said that if drone attacks remained continue during his tenure then he would leave the government.
PTI Chief claimed that PPP and PML-N are once again coming closer due to the fear of ‘tsunami.’ He said that PPP-led government broke all the records of corruption.
He alleged that whenever Asif Ali Zardari set to leave Nawaz Sharif saved him. He said both the leaders don’t want change in the country but the nation has decided to bring change.
Imran Khan said that his party would bring revolution in the country and his government would not take loan.
Source: The News pk
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| Aafia Siddiqui |
Outside the court a number of civil rights activists staged a rally demanding Dr. Siddiuqi’s immediate release and repatriation to Pakistan.
Dr. Siddiqui was sentenced after a jury trial in the Federal District Court in New York City nearly two years ago for allegedly shooting at American intelligence officials in Afghanistan in 2008, a charge she consistently denied. She is now spending time in prison in Carswell, Texas.
On Friday, Dawn Cardi, the attorney, made a strong case before the justices that Ms. Siddiqui should have been barred from giving evidence before the trial court because of her mental illness, which had been confirmed by doctors.
Cardi also questioned the evidence collected from Dr. Siddiqui by two FBI agents at the U.S. base in Baghram while she was recovering from the bullet wounds she sustained at a police facility in Ghazni, Afghanistan, in July 2008.
She said the evidence was prejudicial because she had not been read her rights and therefore should not have been entertained. Moreover, she had not the opportunity to consult any lawyer.
Cardi also said that during the trial, experts had provided concrete evidence that the M-4 rifle which she allegedly picked up had not been not fired and that no spent bullets or casings were found.
She said since Dr. Siddiqui was not being tried for terrorism, the material containing diagrams of New York landmarks allegedly recovered from her should not have been introduced into the proceedings.
But the government side maintained that Dr. Siddiqui was competent to stand trial. Prosecution lawyers also said that Dr. Siddiqui was not “interrorgated” but was “interviewed”. The government lawyers also justified the introduction of material recovered from her, saying she harboured hatred against the United States and shouted anti-American slogans at the time of her arrest.
As regard the shooting incident, government lawyers that it was a pre-meditated and calculated move on Dr. Siddiqui’s part. But her defence lawyer against denied any premeditation on her part and that she had not shot at any one.
Pakistan’s Consul-General in New York, Fakir Asif Hussain, was among a large number of people witnessing the proceedings. (APP)
Romney’s razor-thin, eight-vote margin of victory came out of a total 122,255 votes cast on Tuesday, Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn said.
Romney won 25 per cent of the vote, or 30,015 votes, in the first contest in the state-by-state battle for the Republican presidential nomination to face Democratic President Barack Obama on November 6.
The Republican candidates now head to the New Hampshire primary next Tuesday, where Romney holds a commanding lead in the polls.
Santorum vaulted from the back of the pack to emerge as the latest conservative contender in a Republican race that has been marked by volatility. Ron Paul, a US congressman from Texas with libertarian views and an antiwar stance, came in third place with about 21 per cent of the vote.
Romney is a favourite of the party’s business wing, while Santorum appeared to be consolidating the state’s large bloc of Christian conservatives.
Voters gathered in public meetings at hundreds of sites around Iowa such as schools, libraries and churches, listening to speeches touting the various candidates before casting their ballots.(Reuters)
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| photo: photo: WN / Imran Nissar |
According to reports, Indian government said that they don’t want to dignify Ghulam Nabi Fai’s claims with a comment. They also said that Fai is totally discredited, and nobody should believe his claims.
US-based Kashmiri separatist Ghulam Nabi Fai has claimed that he met several Indian ministers during last two decades of his activities in Washington and had "a channel of communication" opened with the Indian embassy.
Sixty two-year-old Fai, who last week pleaded guilty in the US to the federal charges of being an ISI agent, said in a statement that meeting these Indian officials was part of his strategy to communicate with New Delhi.
In his statement titled Fai claims, "During the past twenty years, I along with Ambassador Yusuf Buch, former Indian Senior Advisor to the UN Secretary General and late Ayub Thuker, President, World Kashmir Freedom Movement, have met with various Indian Cabinet Ministers, belonging to the administrations of Prime Ministers Chandra Shekhar, Narasimha Rao, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh."
"And during the past eleven years, I also met with four different officials at the Indian embassy who succeeded each other periodically and introduced me to the new incoming official before leaving for a new post," Fai claimed.
However, Fai did not respond to PTI email on the names of these Indian ministers and officials.
The embassy did not respond to a PTI email seeking a response to the allegations being made by Fai on its official who used to meet him regularly or if it was incorrect.
Fai claimed that it has always been his habit to keep the channel of communication open to the Indian embassy.
"I have met with the officials of Indian embassy in Washington since 1999, sometimes monthly, sometimes bi-monthly. From March 2006 onward we met monthly and at times twice a month. Whenever we had a seminar or a conference on Kashmir I would invite the Indian ambassador to speak," Fai said.
"I had a habit of exchanging information and establishing the details in advance with an official of the embassy, and then a final copy of the invitation for the ambassador would be given to the official, whom I usually met at a public cafeteria.
"An Indian official called me either on July 18 or July 19, 2011, the day I was arrested. He left a voicemail that we must meet, which I heard ten days later after my release," Fai said.(Online)
The two-day conference will also be addressed by Prime Minister yousaf Raza Gilani. The main purpose of the conference to be held on Dec 12-13 is to focus on the situation emerged after the the NATO attacks on Pakistani posts in Mohmand Agency.
The first session of the conference begun under the head of Minister of Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar. While Minister of Finance, Abdul Hafeez sheikh, Chairman joint chief of staff committee, Khalid Shameem Wynne and DG ISI,Ahmed Shuja Pasha are also attending the conference.
The 15 Ambassadors and High commissioners of Pakistan in America, Baitain, EU, UN, China, Germany, Iran India, Afghanistan, Turkey and others have reached Islamabad to attend the conference.
Sources told that they would be given special task of conveying Nato’s brutality to the international community along with the outcomes of the strikes on Pakistani check post in their respective countries.
The envoy’s conference will deliberate on different aspects of the foreign policy and formulate the future strategy of Pakistan.
Source: Aaj.tv
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| Photo: Wiki |
District and Additional Sessions judge of Delhi High Court O.P. Gupta jailed Anil Kumar Dubey, 39, convicting him under Section 3 of the Official Secrets Indian Act for passing on secret information to Pakistan about the movement and deployment of army troops in India.
According to the prosecution, the Special Cell of Delhi Police had arrested Dubey from his home at Mahipalpur on October 20, 2006 on a tip-off that an alleged Pakistan High Commission employee would be visiting him to procure some sensitive information.
Police had caught Dubey while he was handing over a bag, containing some CDs and other documents, including some notifications pertaining to army’s anti-insurgency operations, to the alleged Pakistan High Commission employee, Mohd Farooq.
Raids at Dubey’s house led to recovery of three cheque books, two of which belonged to Farooq and one to Shamshad Hussain, another alleged Pakistan Embassy official.
Police in its search of Dubey’s desk at Army Group Insurance Bhawan also recovered documents pertaining to new dialling system and AGI journal of the year 2005, the prosecution said.
As Farooq enjoyed diplomatic immunity, he was handed over to Pakistan High Commission through ministry of external affairs, while Dubey was arrested, it said.
More than 2,000 participants, including political and corporate leaders, civil society activists and faith communities have gathered there to take part in the UN Alliance of Civilizations Forum (UNAOC) to discuss how to improve relations across cultures, combat prejudice and build lasting peace.
The Alliance was established in 2005, at the initiative of the Governments of Spain and Turkey, under the auspices of the United Nations.
In April 2007, the United Nations Secretary-General appointed Jorge Sampaio, former President of Portuga, as High Representative for the Alliance.The UNAOC is supported by a Group of Friends- a community of a 100 member countries and some 20 international organizations and bodies.
Speaking out against extremism, advancing tolerance, standing for justice, dignity and mutual understanding. These values are at the core of the Alliance of Civilizations, the secretary-general said, noting that these principles were more important than ever during times of change.
“Everywhere, these values are being tested. We see in the daily news headlines: in Syria, North Africa, across the Middle East, and beyond.”
Ban stressed the Alliance”s responsibility to prevent conflict and violence by promoting dialogue and laying the groundwork for mutual understanding.
“The Alliance has a special role in speaking out when terrorists attack and kill innocent people, when politicians stir hatred and exploit stereotypes to win votes, when moderate voices struggle to be heard amid the politics of polarization,” he said.
The Secretary-General underscored the need to help nations in transition in the Middle East and North Africa who have been part of the so-called Arab Spring movement. “In some countries these transitions have been peaceful. Others have seen bloody crackdowns. But in all, reconciliation is essential for transformations to succeed,” he said.
“There is considerable scope for the Alliance to help these nations to shape their future.” Ban told members of the Alliance that empowering women and youth, along with achieving sustainable development, should also be key areas of focus to ensure a positive future.
“I want the coming years to see an emphasis on the problems of women and children, in particular” in health, in education, in creating jobs and new opportunities on a scale never seen before,” he said.
He also warned against potential new divides that impact development, and called on the Alliance to do its utmost to engage with students, families, activists and their religious communities.
“Have a dialogue ‘ far and wide. But also ensure that it leads to action ‘ real and concrete to make this world better for all people.” (APP)