Live! Greeks decide their 'destiny' in close-fought referendum

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Sun, 05 July 2015

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21:16 Greeks decide their 'destiny' in close-fought referendum

Greece voted in a tightly fought referendum today that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said will determine its "destiny" in the eurozone, as the EU country teetered on the brink of financial collapse.

From remote Aegean islands to the shadow of the 2,400- year-old Parthenon in Athens, Greeks despairing at years of austerity - and angry at capital controls this week that have closed banks and prompted a clean-out of supermarket shelves - cast their ballots.

Polls show opinion evenly divided between 'Yes' and 'No' with many believing neither result would provide a quick and clear solution to Greece's debt woes.

21:04 Tunisian President declares emergency

Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi on Saturday declared a 30-day state of emergency, saying another attack such as last week's terrorist massacre at a beach hotel would "cause the country to collapse."

The declaration gives the military and police more authority to combat terrorism and places restrictions on such rights as public assembly. Essebsi pledged to respect freedom of expression.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will leave on a four-day visit to Russia tomorrow evening to participate in the inaugural meeting of the BRICS-backed New Development Bank.

During the visit, Jaitley will also be participating in the functions on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit at Ufa which is being attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Dalai Lama launches three days of celebrations today in California for his 80th birthday at what is billed as a Global Compassion Summit but which is expected to draw protests.

Thousands of followers and fans of the Tibetan spiritual leader are to attend events in Anaheim and at the University of Irvine, including on his actual birthday tomorrow.

A suspicious boat, seen off the Alapuzha coast, was intercepted by the Coast Guard and brought to Vizhinjam on Sunday.

A 12-member crew from Iran who were in the boat have been taken into custody by Kerala police and are being interrogated.

A Coast Guard official said the interception was based on intelligence inputs from central and state agencies, including Kerala police.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart went face to face again today with time running out to nail down a landmark nuclear deal in marathon talks in Vienna.

Ahead of Tuesday's final deadline, there were signs that inside the neoclassical palace-turned-hotel hosting the past nine days of talks in a hot Vienna that the end may be in sight.

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has appeared in public for the first time in more than a month.

State television showed images of Castro at a meeting with cheese experts near the capital, Havana.Fidel Castro, 88, handed power to his younger brother Raul in 2006 after struggling to recover from illness.

His appearance comes days after Cuba and the United States announced they were reopening embassies in each other's capitals on 20 July.

17:48 Russian cargo ship docks to space station

An unmanned Russian cargo ship successfully docked with the International Space Station today following a string of failed attempts to resupply the orbital laboratory.

"The transport cargo ship Progress M-28M has docked with the... Russian segment of the ISS at 10:11am Moscow time (0711GMT)," the Russian federal space agency (Roscosmos) said in a statement.

Eminent Pakistani Urdu novelist Abdullah Hussain who authored the bestseller and critically- acclaimed 'Udas Naslain' passed away in Lahore.

Hussain was 84. He was suffering from blood cancer for the past one year and his condition deteriorated on Friday. He breathed his last yesterday at his Lahore residence.

Two trams used to shuttle visitors around a zoo in northeastern Thailand collided today, killing five people and injuring more than 30, police said.

The accident at the Kao Suan Kwang Zoo in Khon Kaen province occurred when one tram driver lost control due to a problem with the vehicle's brakes and slammed into a tram in front, said police Col Pichit Deeya.

Billionaire industrialist and India's richest Mukesh Ambani has not taken a pay hike for seven years, but his salary is over 205-times that of the median employee remuneration at Reliance Industries Ltd.

However, this ratio stands much higher at 439 times in case of ITC Ltd Executive Chairman Y C Deveshar.

To plug information leak in the wake of corporate espionage case, the Centre has issued stringent guidelines for its departments, making security screening of personnel outsourced from elsewhere mandatory and avoiding doing confidential work on computers with net connection.

The guidelines, which say external memory devices must not be connected to the USB drives on these computers and that misuse of photocopying machines should be prevented, were issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs last week.

The death toll from a ferry that capsized in the central Philippines has risen to 61, the coast guard said today, indicating that the vessel was overloaded.

Whether the ferry was carrying too many people will be part of an investigation into last week's disaster off the city of Ormoc, which has seen the boat's owner and crew charged with murder.

In a scathing attack, Democratic presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton has accused China of "hacking into everything that doesn't move" in America and "stealing" huge amounts of government information.

During a Fourth of July campaign organising event at a house party in Glen in northern New Hampshire yesterday, Clinton said she wanted to see China's peaceful rise but that the US needed to stay "fully vigilant".

A retired firefighter, who severely damaged his lungs while responding to the 9/11 terror attack at the World Trade Centre, has won a whopping USD 5 million in a lottery here in the US.

Carmelo Mercado, 63, rushed to the scene of the September 11, 2001 terror attack soon after the second tower of the World Trade Centre collapsed and spent two days aiding in search efforts at ground zero.

A woman was stripped naked and harassed by a group of five men in Jammu and Kashmir's Udhampur district earlier this week. The accused even shot a video when they were stripping the woman, the police has said.

"A woman was stripped in full public view by five people in Jaganoo area of Udhampur. The accused recorded the incident on a mobile phone camera... it has gone viral on Whatsapp," Udhampur District Commissioner said.

The fifth batch comprising of 2,069 pilgrims today left from the base camp here to the cave shrine of Amarnath in South Kashmir Himalayas amid tight security.

The batch, which included 1,554 men, 488 women, 27 children, left in a cavalcade of 66 vehicles from Bhagwati Nagar base camp here at 4:30 am today, a police official said.

12:44 AI passenger claims insect in on board meal

A passenger on board an Air India flight from Kathmandu reportedly found a "housefly" in the meal served to him during the journey, but the airline said that no sample of the food item was submitted to it for verifying the claim.

The incident took place yesterday on the airline's flight from Kathmandu to Kolkata. Air India said that since the aggrieved passenger did not provide a sample of the "insect-ridden" food item to it for examination, it could not verify the claim.

Greece's finance minister accused creditors of trying to "terrorise" Greeks into accepting austerity, warning Europe stood to lose as much as Athens if the country is forced out of the euro after a referendum on Sunday on bailout terms.

After a week in which Greece defaulted, shuttered its banks and began rationing cash, Greeks vote on Sunday on whether to accept or reject tough conditions sought by international creditors to extend a lending lifeline that has kept the debt-stricken country afloat.

The left-wing government is urging a 'No' vote, saying Greece's European partners are bluffing when they warn that would mean a Greek departure from Europe's single currency, with unforeseeable consequences for Greece, Europe and the global economy.

12:11 AI passenger claims insect in on board meal

12:04 Selfie with Ira Singhal

Here's a proud selfie: Ira Singhal became the first physically challenged candidate to top the civil services examination that saw women take the top four ranks on Saturday. Singhal cleared the exam in 2011 but had to cut short the celebrations after the government not only refused to appoint her but also cancelled her candidature on account of her disability. Photograph: @the_hindu photo by Mohammed Yousuf

MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan says his govt is writing to HC-constituted SIT probing Vyapam scam to investigate death of scribe Akshay Singh.

Under fire after over 40 deaths in the high-profile Vyapam scam, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Sunday said that he did nothing wrong by ordering a probe into it. Defending his government for not initiating a probe by the Central Bureau Investigation, Chouhan said the High Court ruled against a probe by the agency.

A DoT panel on net neutrality is learnt to have opposed projects like Facebook's Internet.org, which allow access to certain websites without mobile data charges, while suggesting that similar plans such as Airtel Zero be allowed with prior clearance from Trai.

The panel has stated however that "collaborations between telecom operators and content providers that enable such gate-keeping role to be played by any entity should be actively discouraged", sources said.

The dean of a medical college in Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur was found dead on Sunday morning at a hotel in Delhi.

Dr Arun Sharma, Dean of Jabalpur's NS medical college, was found dead in his room in Hotel Uppal, not very far from the Delhi airport.

Foreigners intending to work in NGOs, carry out research work on human rights and environment issues will have to face stricter scrutiny of their visa applications after detection of several incidents of alleged misuse of these provisions.

The move came after Home Ministry found that Research Visas, given to professors, scholars and participants to do research work and attend research conferences, are being allegedly misused by several foreigners in recent past.

11:12 This Salmans killed 57 people in 10 years

"No dacoity is complete without a murder", Salman Khan told UP Police interrogators a few days ago, his matter-of-fact confession shocking even the toughest of the cops.

Salman was 16 when he committed his first murder. Ten years later, the dreaded dacoit and leader of the Rohilkhand-based Chaimar gang has shocked UP Police by "confessing" to 57 murders in 10 years.

It makes the 26-year-old, recently arrested during a robbery, India's most prolific 'serial killer' ever, second only to Behram Singh, a thug, who is said to have bludgeoned more than 150 people to death in the 19th century.

Islamic State has released a significant new execution video from the historic city of Palmyra, in the Syrian desert. Child executioners are shown in the video being forced to brutally slaughter a group of more than 25 regime soldiers. The video shows the soldiers lined up on their knees on the stage of the Roman amphitheatre, which had formerly been used for an annual festival in the city.

Greece risks a collapse of the medical system, power black-outs, and an import blockade, if the Greek people reject creditor demands in a make-or-break referendum tomorrow, the EU's highest elected official has warned. Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, said the EU authorities may have to prepare emergency loans to keep basic public services functioning and to prevent the debt-stricken country spinning out of control next week.

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