Jay Leno jibe sparks Sikh anger

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
23 January 2012 Last updated at 07:31 GMT The Sikh community has launched an online petition against Leno India has condemned a comment by US comedian Jay Leno on the holiest Sikh shrine, the Golden Temple of Amritsar.

A Leno skit showed the temple as the summer home of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Mr Romney has faced taxation questions over his huge wealth and many Sikhs are angry the temple has been depicted as a place for the rich.

The Sikh community has launched an online petition and an Indian minister called the comments "objectionable".

Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi told reporters: "It is quite unfortunate and quite objectionable that such a comment has been made after showing the Golden Temple."

Mr Ravi said the Indian embassy would take up the matter with the US state department, the Press Trust of India reported.

He said: "The Golden Temple is the Sikh community's most sacred place... The American government should also look at this kind of thing.

The Golden Temple is the holiest Sikh shrine

"Freedom does not mean hurting the sentiments of others... This is not acceptable to us and we take a very strong objection for such a display."

The skit appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on NBC television on 19 January.

The online petition organised by members of the US Sikh community says Leno has been guilty of derogatory comments on Sikhs before. It adds that "Jay Leno's racist comments need to be stopped right here".

Petition signatory Simran Kaur says: "Jay Leno must apologise and promise not to make any direct or oblique references to Sikhs or their places of worship."

Leno has not yet commented on the matter.

Mr Romney has been criticised by rival presidential candidates over his reluctance to release taxation records, which will reveal his earnings and the taxes he pays.

On Sunday he agreed to release his income tax records for 2010 and estimates for 2011.

Source BBC

GOOGLE NEWS | BBC NEWS | NY DAILY NEWS | TRAFFIC NEWS | TECH NEWS |

Read More

Tremor 'sparks Turkey jail riot'

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
25 October 2011 Last updated at 21:17 GMT Reports say the authorities refused to let inmates out after the aftershock in Van An aftershock has been blamed for sparking a riot in a Turkish prison in the eastern city of Van, one of the places worst hit by Sunday's devastating earthquake.

Eyewitnesses said flames and smoke billowed into the night sky and shots were heard.

The death toll from the disaster has risen to 459 people, officials said, as rescue teams continued to search for survivors.

Some 1,352 others were also injured.

Survivors have continued to be rescued, including a two-week-old baby, her mother and grandmother.

Meanwhile, the Turkish government has pledged more aid to the thousands made homeless and aid agencies have set up field hospitals and kitchens and distributed thousands of tents and blankets.

'Police fired tear gas'

The trouble at the Van prison is reported to have begun when a strong aftershock of 5.4 magnitude caused panic among the inmates.

Continue reading the main story Jonathan Head BBC News, Ercis

The main street in Ercis has been transformed. Some of the buildings lean over at alarming angles, bits of debris dropping from them.

Then there are the mounds of concrete slabs, multifloor apartment blocks crushed down to the height of a single storey.

They are all swarming with orange-suited rescue workers, hammering and drilling, cranes standing by to lift the sawn-off hunks of masonry in the hope that someone may have survived in an air pocket.

Every so often, there is a call for silence. The drills, saws and generators stop, and one of the rescuers shouts into the rubble, listening intensely for any sounds of life.

Prisoners set fire to the jail and fought their guards because authorities refused to let them out, reports say.

Security forces surrounded the jail, from which a number of prisoners were reported to have escaped on Sunday.

Angry relatives gathered outside the prison as they tried to find out what was going on.

Speaking outside the prison, a pro-Kurdish member of parliament - Aysel Tugluk - said people wanted to know what had happened.

"From what we heard, prisoners in the jail asked permission to get some air, naturally, after an aftershock, because they were concerned.

"When they couldn't get permission, they reacted and fire broke out in the jail. That's what we were told. But we heard gunshots with our own ears and learned that police fired tear gas."

The Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute said the epicentre of the aftershock was Degirmenozu, between Van and Ercis.

Extraordinary rescue

Rescue efforts have been continuing in the area.

In one extraordinary episode, three generations of the same family - a two-week-old baby, her mother and grandmother - were pulled out alive from the rubble in the town of Ercis, which was worst hit in the disaster.

However, hopes are fading for many more who remain unaccounted for, and Turkish officials warn that the death toll is likely to rise.

Survivors and opposition politicians have criticised the government for failing to provide enough supplies.

Turkey is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because it sits on major geological fault lines.

Technology

News

Read More

Kindle sparks Amazon profit fall

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
25 October 2011 Last updated at 22:40 GMT Amazon founder Jeff Bezos launching the Kindle Fire tablet computer last month Profits at the online retailer Amazon have dropped 73% after the company invested heavily in the Kindle tablet computer.

The company, the world's largest online internet retailer, said third quarter net income was $63m (£40m, 45m euros).

During the period it launched the Kindle "Fire" model, which runs apps and streams films and other non-text content.

The results left Amazon shares down 12% in after hours trading.

The company said that sales had grown by 44% and that last month, on 28 September, it had its "biggest order day ever for Kindle, even bigger than previous holiday peak days".

It now offers four Kindle devices, including a 3G model.

Lower margins

Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, said: "In the three weeks since launch, orders for electronic ink Kindles are double the previous launch. And based on what we're seeing with Kindle Fire pre-orders, we're increasing capacity and building millions more than we'd already planned."

Amazon also forecast lower-than-expected sales for the next quarter, which includes the crucial Christmas period, and said it could even see an operating loss as it continues to invest in the Kindle Fire.

Amazon's profit margins have generally been lower than other technology firms, a situation that analysts say is now catching up with them.

"Investors have always given Amazon a hallpass to invest and it looks like they may have had their patience exhausted," Lawrence Haverty from Gamco Investors told the BBC.

"Its operating margin is only 4%. Most technology companies need an operating margin of over 20% so I think investors are asking themselves if the business will ever really be profitable," he said.

Technology

News

Read More

As sparks fly, Pakistan warns U.S.: "You will lose an ally"

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

U.S. Army soldiers from Alpha Company 2nd battalion 27th infantry (the Wolfhounds), Task Force No Fear climb upon arrival to Observation Post Mace from FOB Bostick in eastern Afghanistan Naray district, Kunar province near border of Pakistan August 26, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Nikola Solic

By Qasim Nauman and Missy Ryan

ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON | Fri Sep 23, 2011 4:02am EDT

ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pakistan warned the United States it risks losing an ally if it continued to accuse Islamabad of playing a double game in the war against militancy, escalating the crisis in relations between the two countries.

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar was responding to comments by U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, who said Pakistan's top spy agency was closely tied to the Haqqani network, the most violent and effective faction among Islamic Taliban militants in Afghanistan.

It is the most serious allegation leveled by the United States against nuclear-armed and Muslim-majority Pakistan since they began an alliance in the "war on terror" a decade ago.

"You will lose an ally," Khar told Geo TV in New York in remarks broadcast on Friday.

"You cannot afford to alienate Pakistan, you cannot afford to alienate the Pakistani people. If you are choosing to do so and if they are choosing to do so it will be at their (the United States') own cost."

Mullen, speaking in Senate testimony, alleged Haqqani operatives launched an attack last week on the U.S. embassy in Kabul with the support of Pakistan's military intelligence.

The tensions could have repercussions across Asia, from India, Pakistan's economically booming arch-rival, to China, which has edged closer to Pakistan in recent years.

A complete break between the United States and Pakistan -- sometimes friends, often adversaries -- seems unlikely, if only because Washington depends on Pakistan for supply routes to U.S. troops fighting militants in Afghanistan, and as a base for unmanned U.S. drones.

Pakistan relies on Washington for military and economic aid and for acting as a backer on the world stage.

"The message for America is: 'They can't live with us, they can't live without us," Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told reporters.

But support in Congress for curbing assistance or making conditions on aid more stringent is rising rapidly.

The unilateral U.S. Navy SEALs raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May took already fragile relations between Pakistan and the United States to a low.

Relations were just starting to recover before the Kabul attack. Both sides are now engaged in an unusually blunt public war of words.

The dangers could be enormous if Washington and Pakistan, a largely dysfunctional state teeming with Islamist militants and run by a feckless, military-cowed government, fail to arrest the deterioration in relations.

At stake are the fight against terrorism, the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and - as Islamabad plays off its friendship with China against the United States - regional stability.

HUMILIATION

"Anything which is said about an ally, about a partner, publicly to recriminate it, to humiliate it, is not acceptable," said Khar.

The United States has long pressed Pakistan to go after the Haqqani network, which it believes operates from sanctuaries in North Waziristan on the Afghan border.

Pakistan says its army is too stretched fighting its own Taliban insurgency. But analysts say the Islamabad government regards the Haqqanis as a way to exert its influence on any future political settlement in Afghanistan.

The Haqqani network, Mullen said, is a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

The charges come amid mounting exasperation in Washington as the Obama administration struggles to curb militancy in Pakistan and end the long war in Afghanistan.

Mullen, CIA director David Petraeus and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all have met with their Pakistani counterparts in recent days to demand Islamabad take action against the Haqqani network.

Any Pakistani offensive against the Haqqanis would be risky. The group has an estimated 10,000-15,000 seasoned fighters at its disposal and analysts say the Pakistani army would likely suffer heavy casualties.

Mahmud Durrani, a retired major general and former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, said both sides should ease tensions to avoid American military action beyond drone strikes or economic sanctions.

"There's a possibility. It's wide open. But it will be absolutely, totally disastrous."

(Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by John Chalmers and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

View the original article here

Peliculas Online

Read More

Drone crash sparks Pakistan fight

  Pakistani troops have battled Taliban fighters for the debris of a US unmanned drone which crashed in a north-western tribal area.

It was not clear whether the unmanned drone had come down because of Taliban fire or due to a technical fault.
The US does not comment on its drone missile programme, which is designed to target insurgents in the area.
It was the second drone crash in a month in Pakistan, although such incidents are rare.
The drone crashed on Saturday night close to Jangara village in South Waziristan, which lies close to the Afghan border.
'Two killed'
The Taliban said they had shot down the unmanned aircraft, but local security officials told AFP news agency it was a result of technical problems.
The debris was first taken by the Taliban, but Pakistani troops were later sent to seize it back, security sources said.
At least two militants were killed in the ensuing firefight, while one soldier was wounded, security sources told Reuters.
North and South Waziristan are regularly targeted by drone missiles.
The US says the region provides sanctuary to al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents who are involved in attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan.
Drone attacks have escalated in the region since President Barack Obama took office in 2008. More than 100 raids were reported in the area last year.
The US does not routinely confirm drone operations, but analysts say only American forces have the capacity to deploy such aircraft in the region.
Pakistan publicly criticises drone attacks, saying they kill innocent civilians and fuel support for militants. But observers say the authorities privately condone the strikes, although there have been recent signs that they want to limit the scope of such attacks.

Read More