Timeline Refresh
No one can deny that al Qaeda is a violent extremist threat wherever it operates. It poses a threat in terms of transnational terrorism in the United States and Europe, and a far more direct threat to the people who live in every area it operates. It has consistently been horribly repressive, violent, and often murderous in enforcing its political control and demands for a form of social behavior that reflect the worst in tribalism and offers almost nothing in terms of real Islamic values.
Like all extreme neo-Salafi movements, al Qaeda is also an economic and social dead end. It does not offer any practical way of operating and competing in a global economy, it is too dysfunctional to allow meaningful education and social interaction, and it finances itself largely through extortion in ways that cripple the existing local economy. Moreover, it does not tolerate competition even from other Islamist fighters. In Syria, it has provoked its own civil war with other hardline Islamist movements '" a civil war it now seems to be decisively losing to other Sunni rebel factions.
Police in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo have used tear gas to break up a protest against the football World Cup, hours before the opening match. At least one person was arrested and five others were injured, three of them journalists.
Protesters had tried to block a road leading to the stadium where the opening ceremony will take place. Further protests are planned in other Brazilian cities over the expense of hosting the tournament.
In another development, striking airport workers in Rio de Janeiro blocked a road outside the airport, demanding a wage increase and a World Cup bonus.
US President Barack Obama says his government is looking at "all options", including military action, to help Iraq fight Islamist militants. He said the US had an interest in making sure jihadists did not gain a foothold in Iraq.
His remarks came after the cities of Mosul and Tikrit fell to Sunni Islamist insurgents during a lightning advance. A parliamentary vote to grant PM Nouri Maliki emergency powers was delayed earlier after MPs failed to turn up. Just 128 out of the 325 MPs were present for the vote.
NDTV: 23 people have sustained injuries after a gas leak was reported from the Bhilai steel plant in Chhattisgarh.
Reports suggest the gas leaked after an explosion at the plant.
After doing his first degree locally, Mohsin set about acquiring the qualifications that might turn him into a salaried professional. He did a course in hardware networking and moved to Pune, which is to Maharashtra what Bangalore is to India, a symbol of metropolitan modernity.
He became the IT manager of a textile factory.
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Six militants including four Uzbeks were killed in the first strike last night around five km north of Miranshah, the capital of the North Waziristan tribal region, Pakistani military sources said today. Reports said all the 10 militants killed in the second strike today were affiliated with the feared Haqqani network that regularly launches attacks on US-led Western forces in Afghanistan.
The drone strikes came after the deadly attack at Karachi airport on Sunday that left 39 people dead including 10 Taliban militants, reportedly Uzbek fighters.
With an eye-catching promotional fare of Rs 990, AirAisa fulled a fare war among domestic airlines.
AirAsia India, the Indian arm of the Malaysian no-frills airline headed by Tony Fernandes, is the fourth budget carrier in the country -- after IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir.
"There is no basis in it," all India TMC General Secretary Mukul Roy told PTI, referring to CPI-M leader Mohammad Selim's remark.
The CPI-M Lok Sabha MP and central committee member while reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's praise for West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee yesterday, had told a local TV channel that it was aimed at enlisting TMC's support in the Rajya Sabha.
Addressing a press conference, Murthy, 67, welcomed 45-year-old Vishal Sikka as chief executive officer.
"Vishal brings valuable experience as a leader of a large, global corporation. His illustrious track record and value system make him an ideal choice to lead Infosys," Murthy said.
Salutations to Deendayal Upadhyaya and Atal Bihari Vajpayee will find mention, and obviously so.
However, there will not be any quotes from the Thirukkural, made popular by the previous incumbent, but it will include a few extracts from the Granth Sahib.
Also, one can expect a couple of refrains from popular Raj Kapoor songs, which Arun Jaitley, the new finance minister, is in the habit of always humming.
Speaking to reporters at an Investors' Conclave organised by UP, Yadav said that the "big" participation by investors at the meet was evidence that the law and order situation was fine in the state.
"Whenever somebody asks me about this (law and order), I say it is a very important subject and it is the government's responsibility to ensure that it remains in good condition. It (law and order situation) is fine in UP and better than in many other states... That is why they (investors) have come in such large numbers," he said.
Punjab Chemists Association had given a call to shut down medical shops in order to express their anger against the state police for allegedly raiding their shops and arresting shop owners under the garb of selling narcotic drugs.
"Except in hospitals, all chemist shops in Punjab are closed today," Punjab Chemists Association President Surjit Mehta said today. He said 31,470 drug shops are association's members across the state. "However, we have allowed shops in hospitals to continue with their operations so that patients do not suffer," he said.
The visit is basically meant to familiarise himself with the process of printing the top-secret document, Modi will also briefed by officials about how the utmost secrecy is
maintained on the exercise, and how the Intelligence Bureau handles its security cover.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will explain the logistic support the Budget preparation process.
Only last week, Modi and Jaitley undertook a similar top-secret visit to the Strategic Command of the defence ministry located underground somewhere in Delhi.
Informing her that his top officials are in touch with their counterparts in Kabul, the Prime Minister says, "Our primary concern at this stage is to ensure the integrity of the ongoing efforts for Father Prem Kumar's release and to ensure that he does not come to harm."
The 47-year- old aid worker was kidnapped earlier this month; three Taliban members have been arrested, but no group has claimed responsibility for the case.
The delegation includes Goa Sports Minister Ramesh Tawadkar, according to sources in the Goa Chief Minister's Office.
Sources say that no expert or member of the Sport Authority of Goa is part of the delegation.
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar refused to comment on the junket even as the Congress alleged that the state government is spending Rs 89 lakh for the tour.
Delhi has been reeling under intense heat wave. The maximum was yesterday recorded at 43.6 degrees, easing slightly from the record-breaking spree when it stayed above the 45-degree mark.
More details are awaited.
Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel had earlier expressed hope that with Narendra Modi as prime minister the state need not worry about getting the height of Narmada dam increased by installation of gates.
The state government had conveyed that 97 per cent of concreting work on Sardar Sarovar Dam has been completed and it is the gates that remain to be installed to increase the height of the dam to 138.68 metres from the present 121.92 metres.
The two-member bench of the SHC comprising Justice Mohammad Ali Muzhar and Justice Shahnawaz heard the case in which the ruling to strike off Musharraf's name from ECL was issued, Dawn reports.
Musharraf had earlier applied to clear off his name from the list, after which the court upon listening to the other party's arguments, had reserved the judgement in the case on May 29.
The minimum temperature was at 30.5 degrees Celsius, three notches above the normal, with the weatherman hinting at the possibility of thunderstorms or dust storms occurring in some areas of the city.
With the sky set to remain partly cloudy for the rest of the day, the maximum temperature is expected to settle at 43degrees, according to the MeT officials.
Two teenaged girls, who were cousins aged 14 and 15 years, were allegedly gangraped and murdered with their bodies found hanging from a mango tree, a day after they went missing on May 27, in a village in Ushait area in Badaun.
He lashed out against the two saying they were being nepotistic and neglecting the people. "The people have rejected the party because of brazen favoritism," he said.
Her family has alleged that she has been raped and murdered.
On Tuesday night, a woman was found hanging from a tree in Bahraich district of UP, in what too had chilling similarities to the killing of two young girls who were gang-raped and then murdered two weeks ago in Badaun district.
The ICC elections are scheduled for June 27.
The 30-share index, which had retreated from record high by losing almost 110 points in the last session, recovered 55.77 points, or 0.22 per cent, to 25,529.66 in early trade.
The National Stock Exchange Nifty moved up by 4.35 points, or 0.06 per cent, to 7,631.20. It breached 7,700 level for the first time yesterday.
Brokers said fresh buying by funds and retail investors ahead of of industrial production data for April and Consumer Price Index Inflation for May to be released later in the day contributed to the gains. Stocks of IT, healthcare, oil and gas, realty, capital goods and metal sectors led the gains.
"We encourage dialogue between India and Pakistan. We feel that's a positive step. There have been some steps in recent weeks that we've been encouraged by. We believe dialogue is an important step in the process between India and Pakistan," State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters.
Psaki was referring to the recent meeting held between Modi and Sharif in New Delhi on the former's first day of assuming office as India's new Prime Minister on May 27.
More details are waited.
The deadline for them to vacate their flats in the Campa Cola society in Mumbai ends today.
Over the past two years, the residents have been at loggerheads with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation hoping that their flats would be regularised. For over a decade, over 100 residents have stayed in the flats of Campa Cola and now they been asked to vacate.
Sikka says he is humbled to lead Infosys, an iconic pioneer in IT. He will take over from current Chief Executive S D Shibulal, one of the engineers who founded Infosys, on August 1.
The Vadodara-born Sikka is the first non-founder CEO of Infosys. His name has been doing the rounds since Sikka, 47, resigned from the German business software maker early last month.
The incident took place on Monday night when the woman had gone to Sumerpur police station to seek her husband's release who had been picked up by cops after a country-made pistol was seized from him.
The policemen allegedly demanded a bribe from the woman which she reportedly refused to pay.
She was then allegedly raped by the Station House Officer Rahul Pandey. .
Turkey today pledged to retaliate if dozens of its citizens seized in an attack by Islamist militants in northern Iraq are harmed.
Turkey's foreign ministry said in a statement today that jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant had kidnapped 49 of its citizens at the Mosul consulate and taken them to another part of the city.
"All those involved should know that if our citizens are harmed in any way, they will be the subject of harsh reprisals," Turkish media quoted Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as saying at the United Nations in New York.
Turkish officials told AFP earlier that militants storming the consulate had kidnapped 48 Turks, including the consul, staff members, guards and three children. The ministry also said 31 Turkish truck drivers kidnapped by ISIL fighters Tuesday were being held at a power station in Mosul.
AFP: Oil prices finished somewhat higher today following an unexpectedly large decline in US crude supplies and worsening turmoil in Iraq. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for July delivery edged higher by five cents to $104.40 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
In London, European benchmark Brent oil for July delivery advanced 43 cents to $109.95 a barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange.
Sunni militants extended their control over parts of northern and western Iraq on Wednesday as Iraqi government forces crumbled in disarray. The militants overran the city of Tikrit, seized facilities in the strategic oil refining town of Baiji, and threatened an important Shiite shrine in Samarra as they moved south toward Baghdad.
The remarkably rapid advance of the Sunni militants, who on Tuesday seized the northern city of Mosul as Iraqi forces fled or surrendered, reflects the spillover of the Sunni insurgency in Syria and the inability of Iraq's Shiite-led government to pacify the country after American forces departed in 2011 following eight years of war and occupation.
By late Wednesday, witnesses in Samarra, 70 miles north of Baghdad, were reporting that the militants, many of them aligned with the radical Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS, were on the outskirts of the city. They said the militants demanded that forces loyal to the government leave the city or a sacred Shiite shrine there would be destroyed. Samarra is known for the shrine, the al-Askari Mosque, which was severely damaged in a 2006 bombing during the height of the American-led occupation. That event touched off sectarian mayhem between the country's Sunni Arab minority and its Shiite majority.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has outgrown even Al Qaeda as it seeks to establish a new caliphate.
Juan Salgado was 16 when he started cutting sugarcane, in a town near the Pacific coast of Nicaragua in 1966. His symptoms began about 35 years later: Fever. Headaches. Poor appetite. Feelings of faintness. For no obvious reason, his kidneys were severely damaged, to the point that doctors said he couldn't do agricultural work anymore.
Many of his friends had it worse. "I know, many, many workers who were colleagues of mine, who have already died, and I know also many who are not capable of working anymore because of the disease," said Salgado, now 65, who worked near the town of Chichigalpa, Nicaragua. The disease is known by scientists as "chronic kidney disease of unknown origin," or CKDu.
In rural communities in Nicaragua, it's "creatinina," the Spanish word for creatinine, a biomarker of kidney strength. At least 20,000 people have died prematurely from this mysterious disease in Central America in the last two decades, according to one estimate, but the real scope of the problem is unknown. The illness is not related to diabetes or hypertension -- drivers of kidney disease in the United States -- and affects primarily young men.
Delhi University has sold over 3.27 lakh admission forms, both online and offline, and around 1.92 lakh students have applied for various undergraduate courses.
"As many as 1,91,949 online registrations and 1,35,781 offline forms for admission to the Delhi University undergraduate courses have been sold till today," an official from DU's Dean of Students' Welfare office said.
He said, till today, a total of 87,767 offline forms have been received by the university and a total of 1,04,666 students have made payments for the admissions at the varsity's portal.
The official said the number of students who have shown interest to get admission in DU in the first nine days was much more than it was seen last year.
The number of online registrations for Bachelor of Honours in Management Studies (BMS) on the second day was 21,426 while 12,181 students have made online payment for admissions.
The DU admissions for 54,000 seats began on June 2 and will end on June 16.
A widow of an army jawan, who died due to illness while in service in 2004, has knocked at the doors of the Madras High Court for relief after her plea for a government job on compassionate ground was rejected by Mettur Municipality in Tamil Nadu.
When the petition by M Mary Metilda of Salem District came up for hearing, Justice S Nagamuthu directed the state Chief Secretary to submit a report on whether the government had any scheme for providing employment for dependents of members of armed forces who died in service.
"This court is not informed as to whether there is any scheme available with the government of Tamil Nadu to provide employment for the dependents of the members of armed forces who lost their lives while in service befitting their educational qualification.
Since it involves a policy of the government, this court wants to know the stand of the government in this regard,' the Judge said.
Passing the interim order on the petition seeking a direction to appoint her as a Revenue Assistant in the Mettur Municipality, the Judge posted the matter for further hearing on June 23.
Iraq is facing its gravest test since the US-led invasion more than a decade ago, after its army capitulated to Islamist insurgents who have seized four cities and pillaged military bases and banks, in a lightning campaign which seems poised to fuel a cross-border insurgency endangering the entire region.
The extent of the Iraqi army's defeat at the hands of militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) became clear on Wednesday when officials in Baghdad conceded that insurgents had stripped the main army base in the northern city of Mosul of weapons, released hundreds of prisoners from the city's jails and may have seized up to $480m in banknotes from the city's banks.
Iraqi officials told the Guardian that two divisions of Iraqi soldiers - roughly 30,000 men - simply turned and ran in the face of the assault by an insurgent force of just 800 fighters. Isis extremists roamed freely on Wednesday through the streets of Mosul, openly surprised at the ease with which they took Iraq's second largest city after three days of sporadic fighting.
Senior government officials in Baghdad were equally shocked, accusing the army of betrayal and claiming the sacking of the city was a strategic disaster that would imperil Iraq's borders.
4 held for Pandit's murder; killing due to old enmity: Police
BJP leader's murder in Muzaffarnagar: Man taken in custody
Violent protests in Delhi over power outages
BJP not inclined to give LOP status to Congress
UP shocker: Another woman found hanging from tree; family alleges gang rape
Modi's first speech in Parl: Don't want to move forward without oppn
BOO RR Patil's rape remark: Even if we provide cop to each house, rapes can't be stopped
IMAGES: Deadly tanker accident near Mumbai
THUMBS UP OR THUMBS DOWN? Modi's maiden speech in Lok Sabha
Don't do 'psychological analysis' of rape, Modi to Oppn
Delhi power cuts: Kejriwal seeks PM's intervention
Modi sarkar to modify Lokpal rules
Cong steps up attack on V K Singh, says PM should censure him
Abdullah Abdullah emerges front-runner in Afghan poll
Watch Live: PM Modi's reply to Lok Sabha debate
HP tragedy: Body found, case against project authorities
Students' group protest outside Smriti Irani's home