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HYDERABAD TUESDAY 4 | DECEMBER 2012

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Robert Thomson to take charge of Rupert Murdochs News Corp as CEO

RiRi looked picture of innocence at the launch of new perfume Nude

INTERNATIONAL
Settler plans: UK, France call envoys
Palestinian-Israeli peace hopes in jeopardy
Jerusalem, Dec. 3: Israels envoys in Paris and London were called in for consultations on Monday as the Jewish state came under huge diplomatic pressure over its settlement activities which the UN chief warned could wipe out peace hopes. It was the latest in a series of top-level diplomatic protests over Israeli plans to build 3,000 settler homes in east Jerusalem and the West Bank that emerged on Friday with an official source confirming it was payback for the Palestnians. On Monday morning,

I dont think anything will ever come close to Avengers.

Chris Hemsworth

N. KOREA FIXES ROCKET ON LAUNCH PAD

Seoul, Dec. 3: North Korea has installed the first stage of a longrange rocket it plans to launch this month in position, defying international calls to cancel the mission, a report said on Monday . North Korea announced on Saturday that it would carry out its second long-range rocket launch between Dece-mber 10 and 22. The United States and its allies South Korea and Japan have condemned the launch as a disguised ballistic missile test that violates United Nations resolutions triggered by Pyongyangs nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. AFP

Other stories

Germany concerned by Israeli settler plans

Berlin: Germany said on Monday it was deeply concerned about Israeli plans for new settlements but would not for the moment summon its ambassador to Berlin. Ahead of talks this week between Chancellor Angela Merkel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert called on Israel to withdraw its plan to build new Jewish settler homes.
Britains Foreign Office confirmed it had summoned Israeli Ambassador Daniel Taub for talks over new settlement plans, shortly after warning it was weighing a strong reaction to the proposals. And in Paris, Ambassador Yossi Gal was also summoned for consultations at the French foreign ministry, an embassy source said. Also, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned that it would be a fatal blow to the peace bid. AFP

MALAYSIA FREES 105 FOREIGN MAIDS HELD AGAINST WILL

MALAYSIAN authorities have freed 105 mostly Indonesian maids who were forced to work without pay by day and held against their will at night, local media reported on Monday . The women were freed on Saturday in a raid on a building near the capital Kuala Lumpur where they had been held by their employment agency, said the reports, in a case sure to feed anger among Malaysias neighbours over recurring reports of foreign maids being abused in the country . The 95 Indonesians, six Filipinas and four Cambodians had entered Malaysia in recent months on social visit passes that do not confer the right to work legally in the country, leaving them vulnerable to abuse, officials were quoted saying. PTI

TERROR IN UNIFORM

Israeli soldiers prevent a man from going and seeing the body of his brother, Hatem Shabib, who was shot dead earlier by Israeli forces after he rammed an Israeli security car and attacked the occupants with an axe on Monday in the West Bank area of Deir Sharaf. AFP

RESEARCH CORNER
Women may get winter blues, claims new study
London: Women get winter blues as dark evenings and chilly temperatures prevent them from venturing outside, a new study has found. Lack of daylight can also make women feel sad as experts say most people feel down from time to time in winter and many suffer with seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Sad is a type of depression thought to be caused by a lack of daylight, said Dr Rob Hicks, a medical journalist and a doctor. PTI

SAFETY PROBE AS 9 DEAD IN JAPAN TUNNEL MISHAP

Honeymoon period is a myth, claims research
Melbour ne:Honeymoon period is just a myth and in fact couples are unhappiest in their first year of marriage, according to a new study . Australian researchers have found that the happiest husbands and wives are those who have notched up more than 40 years of wedded bliss. The study by Deakin Universitys Australian Centre on Quality of Life, measured the happiness of 2000 people on a scale of 0-100, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. PTI Tokyo, Dec. 3: Japan ordered inspections of ageing highway tunnels on Monday after a fiery collapse that killed nine people, as suspicion over the cause of the accident centred on decaying ceiling supports. The government pledged a thorough review and said significant investment would likely be required in the motorway network, parts of which, including the accident site, were built during the economic boom of the 1960s and 1970s. As a major factor, we suspect ageing, an official from highway operator NEXCO said, referring to the tragedy at the Sasago tunnel, which passes through hills near Mount Fuji, 80 kilometre (50 miles) west of Tokyo. Footage from inside the tunnel showed concrete panels had collapsed in a V-shape, possibly indicating some kind of weakness in the central supporting pillars suspended from the roof, experts said. Engineers on Monday began inspections at three other tunnels in the region with the same design, as well as at Sasago. AFP

Men attracted to similar looking women: Study

London: Men are more attracted to women whose facial features resemble their own, according to a new study . French researchers asked 100 men to choose the women they found most appealing from a selection of photographs. They then asked a similar number of men to do the same with another selection of four faces which had been computer manipulated to look more like them, the Daily Mail reported. The results showed that 37 per cent of men in the second experiment said the face which most resembled theirs was the most attractive. The researchers then analysed photos of real life couples with at least one child who had agreed to take part in the experiment. They found that once again, spouses share more facial traits than two randomly selected individuals. PTI

GUESSING HEADS OR TAILS ISNT A 50-50 GAME

TOSSING A COIN to settle an argument? Your chances of winning are not exactly 50-50! If a coin is flipped with its heads side facing up, it will land the same way 51 out of 100 times, a Stanford researcher has claimed. According to math professor Persi Diaconis, the probability of flipping a coin and guessing which side lands up correctly is not really 5050. He claims that a natural bias occurs when coins are flipped, which results in the side that was originally facing up returning to that same position 51 per cent of the time, the Daily Mail reported. Diaconis came to this conclusion after determining that no matter how hard a coin is flipped, the side that started up will spend more time facing up most of the time. What youll discover is that no matter what number you stop at, there will never be more even numbers than odd numbers in that sequence, the paper said.The coin flips work in much the same way . PTI

POPE TO JOIN TWITTER FROM DECEMBER 12

Vatican City, Dec. 3: Pope Benedict XVI will join Twitter on December 12, with regular tweets in eight languages from the account @pontifex just in time for Christmas, the Vatican said on Monday . The first tweets will be answers to questions sent to the Pope on matters of faith. The public can start sending them starting now, the Vat-ican said. The account already has 2,435 followers, with numbers rising quickly immediately after the anno-uncement. An introductory message read: Welcome to the official Twitter page of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. The tweets will be in Arabic,English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish with more to follow soon. AFP

CAREER CHRONICLE

NEWSMAKERS

Moon may host next vegetable farm

Beijing: Gardening in space! Chinese astronauts may grow fresh vegetables in extraterrestrial bases on Moon or Mars in the future to provide food and oxygen supplies to astronauts, an official said after a successful lab experiment. Deng Yibing, deputy director of the Beijing-based Chinese Astronaut Research and Training Center, said that the recent experiment focused on a dynamic balanced mechanism of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and water between people and plants in a closed system. According to Deng, a cabin of 300 cubic metres was established to provide sustainable supplies of air, water and food for two participants during the experiment, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Four kinds of vegetables were grown, added Deng. PTI

Original Batmobile to go for sale

London: Comics superhero Batmans iconic black car Batmobile to go under the hammer for the first time, 47 years after its designer bought it for $ 1. American car customiser George Barris transformed the banger into the sleek black vehicle that starred in the legendary film and TV series in 1966, reported Daily Mail. Now Barrios, 87, who has owned it ever since, has decided to sell the caped crusaders company car. PTI

Women motorists outnumber males

London: Women motorists in the US have outstripped men for the first time, and the UK is also witnessing a similar trend behind the wheel, latest figures show. The Royal Automobile Club Foundation (RAC) for Motoring in UK has found a dramatic narrowing of the gender gap on the roads since the mid-1990s. The analysis found that number of women drivers in the USA has just outstripped men for the first time and UK may follow suit, The Telegraph reported. PTI

War-era shells kill 4 Vietnamese children

Hanoi: A shell from the Vietnam War killed four children and seriously injured four other villagers when it exploded at a family party, police said on Monday . The children, a girl and three boys aged between four and 11-years-old, died on Sunday after finding the unexploded shell while they played in a garden, according to police officer Luong Van Tri. Four others two men and two children aged five and 12 were seriously wounded in the blast which occurred in Vinh Long province, he added. The owner of the house found the US-made 81-millimetre (3.2 inch) shell several years ago. He left it next to bamboo trees in his backyard garden without reporting it to authorities, Tri said. AFP