NY volunteer firefighter honored with medal for Sept. 11 sacrifice

JERICHO, N.Y. — A volunteer firefighter who died helping to rescue people from the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has been awarded the 9/11 Heroes Medal of Valor.

Chaos at airports as Jet pilots go on mass sick leave

MUMBAI - Chaos prevailed at Mumbai, Delhi and other airports across the country as over 400 pilots of Jet Airways stayed away from work on ’sick leave’ since early Tuesday.

Infosys shocked, Wipro mum about West Bengal Govt’s decision to ditch them

BANGALORE/KOLKATA - West Bengal Govt has ditched Infosys and Wipro off their prospective lands after making them wait for 5 years. So, as a result, it has lost an opportunity to create thousands of jobs when it scrapped the proposed IT hub project in Kolkata, a senior official of Infosys Technologies said late Monday.

Bengal Government Shelve IT projects over Land Fiasco at Vedic Village

KOLKATA, Sept 07 Embroiled in a land controversy yet again, the Marxists in West Bengal on Monday said it was junking a plan to set up an Information Technology (IT) township that would have hosted bellwethers like Infosys and Wipro.

I’m popular because Italians want to be like me, Berlusconi says of sex scandal

ROME — Defiant in the face of a sex scandal, Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Monday that he is still popular because Italians secretly want to be like him.

Iran is ready for talks with world powers, rejects any deadline

TEHRAN, Iran — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran is ready to hold talks with the world powers over global challenges including its nuclear program. Ahmadinejad said Monday Iran will initially present its package of proposals to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany.

Hyenas are hunting down men in Ranchi!

RANCHI - Fear has gripped villagers on the outskirts of Ranchi after hyenas went on a rampage, attacking around a dozen people last month. A pack of hyenas attacked at least a dozen people in Lalli and neighbouring villages. One died and five persons were injured.

Pro-al Qaeda group tried to assassinate Blair, Carter in Gaza

JERUSALEM - A Gaza Strip based pro-al Qaeda terrorist organization has revealed that it tried to kill former British prime minister and Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair and former US president Jimmy Carter.

China says India’s charge of incursion in Ladakh groundless

BEIJING - The Chinese Foreign ministry on Monday said reports of yet another Chinese incursion into India are groundless. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said: “Reports of any incursion into India are groundless and based on incidents which never happened.”

‘Smell of space’ strong, metallic and unique, say NASA astronauts

WASHINGTON - NASA astronauts aboard the US space shuttle Discovery have said that the smell of space, which is regarded as the final frontier, is strong, metallic and unique. “There is one smell up here that is really unique though and that is the smell, we just call it ‘the smell of space’,” said NASA engineer and astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, who is on board US space shuttle Discovery.

37 Guatemalan prison officials sacked

GUATEMALA CITY - Guatemala’s government ministry sacked 37 prison officials for their alleged complicity in allowing weapons, drugs, cash and assorted electrical devices into a prison, authorities have said. The sacking of the officials came after a raid conducted Saturday at the El Boqueron prison, located in the southeastern province of Santa Rosa.

US expands arms sales, ranked as top weapons supplier

WASHINGTON - The US not only increased its arms sales by nearly 50 percent last year but its share of world weapons sales also rose to more than two-thirds despite the global economic downturn, a newspaper reported Monday.

Asian stock markets advance as Wall Street jobs improve

HONG KONG — Asian stock markets rose Monday, following Wall Street higher after the pace of job losses eased in the world’s largest economy. Benchmarks in Japan, Hong Kong and China added more than 1 percent, while oil prices were little changed above $68 a barrel. The dollar gained against the yen.

Man arrested for raping daughter for years

BHUBANESWAR - A man in Orissa’s Bhadrak district has been arrested for allegedly raping his daughter for over a decade and forcing her to undergo several abortions over the years, police said Monday.

At 9.7 percent, US unemployment rate highest in 26 years

WASHINGTON - The US unemployment rate jumped to 9.7 percent in August, as employers slashed an additional 216,000 jobs, the Bureau of Labour Statistics reported Friday.

Lance Corporal Joshua M. Bernard: the real story

Joshua M. Bernard, if you are wondering about this Lance Corporal and why is he in the news today, you will realize the proverb that truth is indeed stranger than fiction or for that matter, stories. coz, this AP news, called death of a marine isn’t only a story that talks of another brave hero or a martyr. It speaks of real scares that still loom large in Afghanistan. Let me give you an excerpt,

Iran accuses US of “fabricated, baseless” nuclear allegations

VIENNA — Iran is accusing the United States of using “forged documents” and relying on subterfuge to build its case that Tehran is trying to build a nuclear weapon.

Air India plane catches fire, survives scare

MUMBAI - An Air India plane caught fire just in the verge of taking off from Mumbai Airport. A probe has been ordered after 229 passengers and crew of a Riyadh-bound Air India flight had a narrow escape here Friday as they had to be hastily evacuated after one of the aircraft’s engines caught fire while proceeding for take-off.

Y.S. Rajsekhara Reddy buried with full state honours in native village

Pulivendula (Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh), - Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajsekhara Reddy, who tragically died in a helicopter crash on Wednesday morning, was on Friday buried with full state honours in his native village of Pulivendula in Kadapa District.

Swine flu deaths surge to at least 2,837: WHO

GENEVA — The World Health Organization says at least 625 people have been reported dead from swine flu in the last week.

‘Catholic church can love homosexuals, not homosexuality’: Church Father

PANAJI - The Catholic church in Goa has steadfastly maintained it is against homosexuality. But a prominent Christian spiritual advisor has now said it is not against homosexuals per se.

YSR to be buried in Pulivendula on Friday

HYDERABAD - The last rites of the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S.Rajsekhar Reddy will be held with full state honours at his native place Pulivendula in Cuddapah district on Friday.

YSR Reddy search operation details

NEW DELHI - The following is the timeline of the search operations to locate the helicopter carrying Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy:

Indonesian earthquake kills 57, dozens missing

CIKANGKARENG, Indonesia — Indonesian rescue workers pulled bodies Thursday from homes buried in a landslide triggered by a powerful earthquake that killed at least 57 people and severely damaged more than 10,000 buildings.

Look back: Indian leaders who died and who escaped from helicopter crash

Andhra CM YSR Reddy’s death in a mysterious helicopter crash isn’t the only one if you have a decent enough memory. India has lost quite a few prominent personalities over the years while some of them had a close shave. Helicopters are frequently used to ferry VIPs and they are indeed vulnerable as these situations prove time and again. Taragana today dates back to history and remembers all the leaders who had to succumb to death in a chopper accident and those who had lucky escape. Also, here we have tried to give a brief but scientific explanation as in why these accidents occur that frequently.

Prince William, Harry’s mobile phones hacked!

LONDON - Mobile phones of Princes William and Harry may have been hacked, it has been suggested. Detective Chief Superintendent Philip Williams, from the Metropolitan Police, mentioned the probability.

Obama’s ‘world free of nuclear weapons’ campaign facing steep resistance

WASHINGTON — Five months after President Barack Obama, with great fanfare, called for a world free of nuclear weapons, a crucial step toward that goal is running into resistance.

Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy: Biography

HYDERABAD - A doctor by training, Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy, or YSR as he was popularly known, was known for his strong administrative skills and whose second stint as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh this year broke a 53-year-old jinx for the Congress party.

Andhra CM Rajasekhara Reddy killed in crash, bodies recovered

HYDERABAD - Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy has been killed, officials in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMAndhra CM Y.S. O) confirmed Thursday, more than 24 hours after his helicopter went missing in a densely forested Maoist stronghold of the state. “The bodies have been recovered. They will be taken to Hyderabad for post mortem,” a PMO official in Delhi told IANS.

Gunmen kill 17 people at a drug rehab in Mexico

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Gunmen broke into a drug rehabilitation center and shot 17 people dead in a northern Mexican border city, an official said.