President Ahmadinejad will attend the funeral of Chavez

Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, conveying expressions of grief over the people and the Government of Iran the death of Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez.(REUTERS)

Tehran (Reuters)-Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would visit Venezuela to attend the funeral ceremony of late President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, on Friday.

According to the Fars news agency reports, President Ahmadinejad and his delegation from Iran will be leaving Tehran to Caracas on Thursday for a two-day visit to Venezuela.

Iran's Government also set Wednesday as the day of national mourning over the death of Chavez and planned to hold a memorial service to honor Chavez, who died in a hospital in Caracas on Tuesday (5/3) or local time Wednesday (6/3) Indonesia time.

President Ahmadinejad delivered a speech of grief from the people and Government of Iran over the death of Chavez in a message to Venezuela officials.

"For Justice, love and freedom alive, Hugo Chavez will stay alive. For conviction, the sanctity of human life, and he's going to stay alive. As long as the Nations life and struggle for independence, manifest the goodness and justice, he would still be alive, "Ahmadinejad's message.

(ANT)

News; Finance; Insurance; Health; Cancer

News; Finance; Insurance; Health; Cancer; Car Insurance; Health Insurance

Read More

US urges Syria attend opposition Rome

Syria Liberation fighters drinking tea together during a break in the Salaheddine, Aleppo, Saturday (29/12). (REUTERS/Muzaffar Khan)

London (Reuters)-A senior United States officials, Sunday urged Syria to withdraw Islamic opposition out of the international gathering in Rome on Thursday which will be attended by new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

National Coalition Chief Ahmed al-Khatib Moaz said on Saturday that it withdrew from the meeting of the 11 countries Syria to protest the inaction of the international community which was "shameful" in the face of civilian killings in his country.

U.s. officials said: "we have stressed ... that they have a chance in Rome, to meet with those countries that have given the greatest support to them and present to us all how they look at the security situation in the field, the humanitarian situation, politically and economically.

"The meeting was also an opportunity for them to meet with the Foreign Minister of the new us and speak directly to him," he said when speaking on the plane carrying Kerry to London to start his first official visit, a visit to Europe and the Middle East.

Former u.s. Ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford will be in Cairo on Sunday night to meet with the opposition of Syria in order to try to convince them to withdraw their decision to boycott the meeting in Rome.

However, the officials acknowledged that the opposition of Syria was under "heavy pressure" from its own members and those of Syria, who is skeptical about the value of attending the International Conference.

Khatib said on Saturday that the withdrawal from the Rome meeting and the cancellation of a planned visit to Washington and Moscow is the lack of protest over the global outcry over the "crimes committed against the people of Syria".

The conflict, which the UN said Syria has killed more than 70,000 people in the two years since a crackdown President Bashar al-Assad to anti-regime protesters, shows no sign of subsiding. (AK)

News; Finance; Insurance; Health; Cancer

News; Finance; Insurance; Health; Cancer; Car Insurance; Health Insurance

Read More

Stars attend Tintin UK premiere

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
23 October 2011 Last updated at 17:33 GMT Jamie Bell: "I was very flattered to be given the opportunity to play this part"

The stars of Steven Spielberg's take on Herge's classic comic character, Tintin, have attended its UK premiere in London.

The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn tells of how the intrepid reporter sets off on a treasure hunt for a sunken ship with Captain Haddock.

British actor Jamie Bell portrays the hero in the computer-generated 3D animation.

Bell told the BBC the film was "Spielberg at his best".

He said: "It's fun - what we've done is make an action-packed movie.

"It's a true adventure and it's worthy of any kind of Indiana Jones film."

Spielberg's film uses motion-capture techniques similar to those used in Lord of the Rings, King Kong and Avatar, where actors wear special suits which record all movement.

The data is then transformed into a computer-generated three dimensional image.

'Not very Munich'

The film also stars Daniel Craig as criminal Ivanovich Sakharine, Simon Pegg as Inspector Thompson and Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock.

Pegg told the BBC he did not originally plan to star in the movie: "I went to see Steven Spielberg in LA for a meeting about writing for the film and while we were speaking he said, 'You're an actor, why don't you be in it?' so I said, 'Alright, I'll see what I can do'.

Daniel Craig said he loved playing criminal Ivanovich Sakharine in the film

"I didn't want to lose composure in front of my hero - I called my mum straight after."

Craig added he loved playing "a baddie" but the filming process was not what he was used to.

"You're in a studio wearing a leotard - it's not very Munich (the 2005 drama Craig made with Spielberg)," he said.

"It was all filmed in one room and you have camera in your face, but they're not filming anything, and it's all fed into a computer in some wizarding way."

First created in 1929 by Brussels-born author Georges Remi, who wrote under the name Herge, Tintin books have sold more than 220 million copies around the world.

The film had its world premiere in Belgium on Saturday, where Spielberg said he hoped his film would find new fans in the US, where the character is not as well known as it is in Europe.

"American audiences will look at this as an original movie," the director - who bought the rights to the character in the 1980s - told reporters.

"Hopefully, if it is successful in America, perhaps for the first time in 80 years the books will start being published in America."

Belgian press were broadly positive about the adaptation, with Belgian French-language magazine Le Vif writing: "Action and humour dominate in a very pleasant spectacle."

French daily Le Soir added: "Herge would have loved this Tintin, full of character."

Technology

News

Read More