New guidelines may boost ‘go green’ practices

Washington, May 13 (ANI): A new movement is under way to develop universal guidelines for determining whether chemical products and chemical processes are environmentally friendly.

C&EN Senior Correspondent Stephen Ritter notes that chemical companies are eager to produce greener products, but there are no standardized criteria for determining whether starting materials and chemical processes are environmentally friendly.

The standards, usually issued by companies themselves, tend to focus on only one or two product attributes, such as content of volatile organic compounds or percent of recycled content.

The American Chemical Society”s Green Chemistry Institute (GCI) plans to create a “Greener Chemical Products & Processes Standard”, which will allow anyone to evaluate the relative environmental performance of chemical products and their manufacturing technologies.

The next step could be an information label, similar to nutrition information labels now used on foods, that manufacturers can apply to product packaging to describe the product”s eco-friendly attributes.

For business-to-business markets and for consumers, this should make choosing “greener” products a lot easier.

The article is published in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS” weekly newsmagazine. (ANI)

Pak to face ‘severe consequences’ if terrorists hit US, warns Clinton

Washington, May 8 (ANI): In what probably can be seen as the strongest message to Pakistan since the failed Times Square bombing plot, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned of ‘severe consequences’ if a successful terror attack is traced back to that country.

In an interview with the CBS, which would be aired on Sunday, Clinton said that though Pakistan’s attitude towards Islamic terrorism has changed in the recent past, it still needs to take far more stringent measures to quell militancy emanating from its soil.

“We’ve made it very clear that if, heaven-forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences,” Clinton warned.

“We’ve gotten more cooperation and it”s been a real sea change in the commitment we”ve seen from the Pakistan Government. But we want more. We expect more,” she added.

Acknowledging that both US and Pakistan share a much better military and intelligence relationship than before, Clinton minced no words in saying that Islamabad had been playing a ‘double game’ on the issue of terrorism.

“I think that there was a double game going on in the previous years, where we got a lot of lip service but very little produced. We”ve got a lot produced. We have seen the killing or capturing of a great number of the leadership of significant terrorist groups and we”re going continue that,” Clinton said while replying to a question from ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent Scott Pelley. (ANI)

Disgraced Madhuri Gupta yearned for plum posting

Madhuri Gupta, the 53-year-old second secretary at the Indian High Commission here who has been arrested on charges of allegedly spying for Pakistan, was hoping for a plum diplomatic posting in either London or Washington.

“I should get London or Washington,” a confident Gupta said few months back. Gupta had earlier served in the Indian mission in Baghdad and said she was looking forward to another good posting sometime later this year.

Gupta made friends easily and was great with small talk. She could talk about clothes, hair styles or Pakistan’s Urdu press ¿ “where the real news was” ¿ with equal ease.

“English newspapers are boring. They always pick up news a day late. If you want to read real news, real gossip, read Urdu newspapers,” she told this correspondent once.

Gupta learnt Urdu in New Delhi shortly before she was posted to Pakistan in late 2007. She hired a Muslim woman as a private tutor to teach her.

“She taught me from scratch. I didn’t even know my ‘alif-bays’,” said Gupta, who had earlier learnt another foreign language at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s school of languages.

Gupta spoke perfect Urdu and could have easily passed off as a Pakistani because of her accent. Like locals, she was always well dressed, make-up in place, her hair coloured and looked younger than her age.

“I bought this in Lajpat Nagar on my last trip to India,” she said when friends recently praised her stylish new coat.

Gupta sometimes came across as brash and fearless, especially when she regaled friends with tales of driving to India via the Islamabad-Lahore motorway, often at breakneck speed. “I did the Lahore motorway in three-and-a-half hours,” she would tell friends, most of whom admired her guts for driving to and fro alone.

Obama’s team found Brown “dour and depressing”, Cameron “dynamic”

Wellington, Sep. 5 (ANI): US President Barack Obama’s team thinks British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is rather “dour and depressing,” it has been claimed.

Richard Wolffe, a former Newsweek White House correspondent, who travelled with Obama on his election campaign, made this revelation.

The Daily Express quoted Wolffe as saying that Obama team’s views were formed after the 48-year-old president-elect met the Brown, 58.

“They found the experience faintly depressing, a sort of end-of-regime feel about the whole thing,” he said.

However, the US President’s team was impressed by Tory leader David Cameron ‘s “energy, verve and dynamism”.

“He was really taken with Cameron. He and his aides thought that he had energy and verve, a dynamism that suggested he was a good candidate. Brown on the other hand, really they found very lack-lustre, his mood and his dourness. (ANI)

Popular Arab TV Program exposes real Al Qaeda

Dubai, Sep.2 (ANI): The Al Arabiya satellite television channel has come up with a popular program titled “Death Making,” that exposes another side of Al Qaeda.

Hosted by female correspondent Rima Salha, the Dubai-based show is heading into its third year on Al Arabiya and aims to influence how the Arab world views Al Qaeda, reports Fox News.

It is a unique program that lets jihadists tell their stories, and then shows the results of their actions.

“It’s not enough to tell you that Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization. You have to understand why, what it means, how everything works, and what the end goal is for them,” Al Arabia’s general manager Abdul Rahman al-Rashed explains.

For her work, Salha, who is Lebanese, gets death threats, including when Osama bin Laden’s number two, Ayman al Zawahiri, singled the show and Al Arabiya out, by weaving video of both into one of his multi-media diatribes against mass media.

Despite the threats, Salah is undeterred. She goes to the jihadists, wherever they are: in refugee camps off limits even to security forces and to Iraq. She and her team convince subjects to talk to them. It’s not easy, but some of these militants apparently think they stand to benefit from a bit of publicity.

The topic of terrorism is so hot that Salha gets attacked from all sides. (ANI)

‘NWFP, FATA most unsafe region for journalists’

Peshawar, Aug.26 (ANI): Monday’s incident in which an Afghan journalist, Janullah Hashimzada, was brutally murdered in Jamrud sub-division of Khyber Agency has once again highlighted that the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are the two most unsafe areas for journalists in the region.

About 12 journalists have been killed by extremists and many kidnapped since the Taliban established its writ in the region.

Musa Khan Khel, correspondent of The News and Geo News in Swat, was killed in February this year while returning home after covering a meeting of the banned Tanzim Nifaze Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM).

Another journalist from the Valley, Mohammad Shoaib, was shot dead by the security forces for alleged violation of curfew. He was taking his daughter to hospital when security personnel opened fire at him.

Similarly several media persons, who were constantly bringing the brutalities of the Taliban to the fore, have been killed by militants over the last one year.

While the government and the Army claims that extremists have been forced to retreat and the region is now safe for thousands of displaced people to return, there still exists severe threats to the lives, properties and families of media persons in NWFP and FATA, The News reports. (ANI)

Zardari lacks political strength to allow concessions to India: Report

London, July 11 (ANI): Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s ‘candid admission’ that militants were being nurtured on his soil may have been welcomed by the international community, but a report in The Times said that he lacks the political strength to give India the concessions that it has put forth as conditions to resume the stalled peace process between both the countries.

Jeremy Page, The Times correspondent, believes that Zardari does not have the powers needed to blunt the turmoil in the country’s troubled region amid the current political pandemonium.

Page, in his report, said that the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was the biggest threat to Zardari, as is on the lookout to oust the former to access power.

“Moving too far or too fast could leave him vulnerable to attacks from Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister who heads the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N party and remains determined to lead the country again,” said Page.

He said that the ‘unusual’ silence of Sharif after leading a significant lawyers’ march against the PPP-led government to restore the judiciary, was in accordance with a deal fostered with the US, The Dawn reports.

“Sharif has been remarkably quiet since leading a lawyers’ march against the government in March, and his aides like to say this is because of a deal with Washington under which he will return to power in the near future,” Page said. (ANI)

17 killed as one more US drone strikes in South Waziristan

Wana, July 8 (ANI): Seventeen people were killed when one more US drone launched an strike in South Waziristan Agency on Wednesday.

According to the correspondent of Geo News, the drone targeted a convoy of militants, killing 17 people and destroying completely 5 vehicles.

Some of the people in the convoy were also injured while there is a possibility of the death toll to mount.

It may be mentioned here that it is a second drone strike in South Waziristan in a single day. The total death toll from the two strikes has reached 26. (ANI)

Its looks over ranking that decide which women play on Wimbledon’s Centre Court!

London, June 30 (ANI): Wimbledon tennis organizers have been accused of using looks rather than ranking to decide which women play on Centre Court.

According to Sky News, in the first week of the Championships, fans missed out on watching several top seeded players on the exclusive Centre Court.

On Wednesday, the number two seed Serena Williams played her second round game on Court One, while fourth seed Elena Dementieva appeared on Court Two.

Centre Court was allocated to the 24th seed Maria Sharapova and the unseeded Gisela Dulko in what was widely regarded as a ‘battle of the babes’.

The Times said some eyebrows were raised last Thursday, when the ninth seed played on Centre Court, leaving the top seed Dinara Safina on Court Two.

“There was a little bit of surprise in putting the Wozniacki-Kirilenko match on Centre Court – two beautiful blonde girls. You could argue there it was more box office, than whether they were deserving of a place on Centre Court,” the paper’s correspondent said.

On Friday, Serena Williams played on Court Two, while Centre Court saw action from the attractive, but lower ranked eighth seed Victoria Azarenka and 28th seeded Sorana Cirstea.

Some are now questioning the way Wimbledon allocates its most prestigious court – and asking whether it is based on looks.

Olympic Gold Medallist, and sports campaigner Tessa Sanderson CBE, described the situation as “laughable”.

“I can’t believe they’re doing this. You can’t judge people by the way they look. Women have been getting a lot better at raising their profile in sport. This is the most pathetic thing I’ve heard,” she was quoted, as saying.

All England Club spokesman Johnny Perkins said: “We don’t look at a player and say she is attractive or he is attractive, therefore they play on the big court. But if a player is deemed to be popular, for whatever reason, they are more likely to be on one of the bigger courts.” (ANI)

Rising GOP star Sanford admits being unfaithful to wife

Washington, June 25 (ANI): South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who rose through the Republican ranks over the past decade, from congressman to governor to potential 2012 presidential candidate, has tearfully admitted having an affair with an Argentine pen pal, diminishing his future GOP chances.

Sanford, after pulling off a bizarre vanishing act this week, reappeared on Wednesday to admit that he was having an affair that involved secret visits with his mistress in Argentina.

South Carolina’s Governor arrived home from a secret six-day trip to Buenos Aires to tearfully admit he has been having an affair with an Argentine pen pal.

“I spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina,” Sanford said at an extraordinary, rambling press conference in Columbia, S.C.

Sanford, who was until this week one of the GOP’s most promising rising stars, resigned as chairman of the Republican Governors’ Association but did not step down from his job running South Carolina.

His staff initially told reporters that he had left town on Thursday to go hiking on the Appalachian Trail, but the Governor returned on Wednesday morning on a flight from Argentina.

“I’ve let down a lot of people. That’s the bottom line. I’ve been unfaithful to my wife,” Fox News quoted Sanford, as saying.

E-mails obtained by The State, a South Carolina newspaper, capture deeply personal exchanges between the Governor and the woman, whom the newspaper called only by her first name, Maria.

“My heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul,” Sanford wrote in one of the e-mails, dated last summer.

The newspaper said a McClatchy correspondent reached Sanford’s mistress, but she declined to be interviewed.

Sanford’s wife, Jenny, who apparently had known about the affair for five months, had asked him to leave home two weeks ago and to stop talking to her and their children. In a written statement, she said the couple needed a trial separation, but that her husband had since “earned a chance to resurrect our marriage.”

The Governor apologized profusely to his family, his staff and the people of South Carolina. He said he’s let down his four sons in a “profound way,” though he said his wife had known about the affair for five months and they were trying to work through it. (ANI)

Obama killing fly – PETA upset with Obama killing fly during TV interview

Obama killing fly – PETA upset with Obama killing fly during TV interview

Barack Obama Melbourne, June 18 U.S. President Barack Obama has apparently left People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) unhappy by killing a fly during a televised interview, for the animal rights organisation is now sending him a device that allows users to trap a house fly and then release it outside.

“We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals,” the Daily Telegraph quoted PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich as saying.

“We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals,” he added.

It was during an interview for CNBC at the White House on Tuesday that Obama killed a fly, which had intruded on his conversation with correspondent John Harwood.

Friedrich said that PETA was pleased with Obama’s voting record in the Senate on behalf of animal rights, and with the fact that he has been outspoken against animal abuses.

“(Still) swatting a fly on TV indicates he’s not perfect, and we’re happy to say that we wish he hadn’t,” Friedrich added.

Deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said the White House had no comment on the matter.

US President Obama – Obama kills a fly – Obama swats fly – Obama fly – Obama and the fly – Obama fly swat

US President Obama – Obama kills a fly – Obama swats fly – Obama fly – Obama and the fly – Obama fly swat

US President Obama, got irritated by a fly buzzing , disturbing and interrupting his TV interview at the Executive Mansion took some executive action, but not without warning. The president first spoke to the fly in question, uttering a stern, “Get out of here,” but the pesky insect, obviously a republican, refused to give away.

As soon as the fly landed, Obama killed him with his bare hands and then continued his interview with CNBC correspondent John Harwood. The president seemed proud of the victory:

“That was pretty impressive, wasn’t it?” he said. “I got the sucker.”

See this video of Obma killing the fly.

CEE Kerala Entrance Results – Entrance test results today – KEAM 2009 Results – keralaresults.nic.in

CEE Kerala Entrance Results – Entrance test results today – KEAM 2009 Results – keralaresults.nic.in

Thiruvananthapuram: The results of the medical and engineering entrance examinations will be announced on Monday. The formal announcement will be made by Education Minister M.A. Baby at 9.30 a.m. Soon after the Minister’s announcement, the results will be available on www.keralaresults.nic.in, www.cee.kerala.gov.in, www.results.kerala.nic.in and www.cee.kerala.gov.in/wap (for GPRS-enabled mobile phones). An official statement said the web site of the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations www.cee.kerala.org will be provided with links to the above-mentioned web sites. The results will be available from the government’s call centres. Subscribers of BSNL connections can dial 155300. Callers from other connections can dial 0471-2115054, 2115098 to get the results, the statement said. — Special Correspondent

Now, ‘Really Goode Job’ for wine lovers

San Francisco, Apr 30 (ANI): Inspired by the publicity campaign of Queensland Tourism, an American winemaker is offering a dream job with a salary 10,000-dollar-a-month for six months to drink wine, learn and talk about wine, eat good food and live rent free.

According to the Murphy-Goode winemaker Dave Ready Jr., the ideal candidate should have an engaging personality, should be a wine-lover and an expert at tweeting, blogging, and keeping photo and video diaries.

The ‘Really Goode Job’ with Murphy-Goode Winery in Sonoma County, as ‘Wine Country correspondent’, is expected to attract 10,000 applications.

Hundreds of wine-loving, social-media-savvy types thronged to downtown San Francisco to apply for the job.

“I’m busy trying to turn grapes into wine, so what I don’t know, really, is Web 2.0,” the San Francisco Chronicle quoted Ready as saying.

“We’re looking for a communicator to promote wine, promote what we do and promote Sonoma County,” he added.

Ready said the idea for the dream job in Healdsburg came from a publicity campaign launched in Queensland, Australia.

The tourism bureau there invited applicants to apply for “The Best Job in the World,” as “island caretaker on the Great Barrier Reef.”

The application process for the ‘Really Goode Job’ closes June 5, when the 50 top candidates will be selected.

The applicant should be at least 21 years old. They are required to complete an employment application, and upload a one-minute video (longer videos will not be viewed) on www.areallygoodejob.com that demonstrates special qualifications for the job.

The list will be narrowed to the top 10, who will be interviewed between June 27 and July 1. The candidate selected for the Really Goode Job will be announced July 9 and the work is to commence Aug. 1. (ANI)

Tripura witnesses dull campaigning on last day

Agartala, Apr. 21 (ANI): Elections for two Lok Sabha seats scheduled on April 23, Tripura witnessed a very dull last day of campaigning.

“This is the dullest election I have witnessed till date; the state Congress unit without any campaign or activities seems to have given a walkover to the Left”, said senior member Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) and a former Congress MLA Tapas Dey.

Tripura which is politically very active unlike earlier, this election missed street plays, poems, songs and colourful decorations as part of campaigning for the two Lok Sabha seats.

No star campaigner or any big rally was there in the state except one by CPIM general secretary Prakash Karat, who visited the state only for few hours.

“The TPCC has brought Pranab Mukharjee, as captain to attack Left, but unfortunately for only few street corners like and he returned back on the same day to Kolkata and the impact is our boys could not be motivated to come to the field’, said Dey.

The ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) though managed few big rallies but stretched on people to people contact through local meeting and house to house campaign.

Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have organised poll campaigns using vehicles draped with colourfully party flags and festoons and putting few flags by the road side.

“Campaign here this time is very dull no doubt about that because Congress has not taken much of an initiative to launch and carry on good campaign for the election,” said Sekhar Datta, special correspondent, The Telegraph.

Tripura which had it assembly election only a year back in which Left had a sweep victory this time had had very less publication of books; leaflets besides letters to the electorate highlighting various issues are the other methods of campaign used by all political parties.

“In Tripura campaign had not pickup because the opposition is a divided house. Activist of the opposition seems to be not working for the victory of Congress candidate. It has become a one-sided game. Left or CPIM is a much organised party,” said Jayanta Bhattacharjee, political analyst.

Today at the end of the campaign there was a mammoth rally of the Left in capital Agartala and the enthusiasm of the party cadres with band party and songs was so high as if they were celebrating victory.

“Today at the end of campaigning it can be easily said that the campaign was only of out party i.e. of Left Front and the scene is same through out the state’, Samar Aidro, senior CPM leader.

Tripura is going for poll for its two Lok Sabha seats with 19 candidates, including a woman in the fray and over 2.08 million voters, including 1.01 million women, will exercise their franchise at 3,008 polling stations. With almost no campaign of opposition parties the result is expected to be sweep for the ruling CPI-M-led Left Front. By Pinaki Das (ANI)

Sony Pictures picks up “Remote Control”

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Sony Pictures has acquired the movie rights to “Remote Control,” a spy novel by Mark Burnell, for an adaptation to be produced by James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.

Wilson and Broccoli aren’t straying far from the Bond reservation with “Remote,” which follows a war correspondent turned British corporate intelligence analyst who goes on the run with a former lover after getting caught up in a conspiracy to destabilize the Chinese economy.

Burnell will write the adaptation. The author is perhaps best known for his series of novels featuring heroine Stephanie Patrick. The first book in that series, “The Rhythm Section,” is being developed as a movie at New Line.

(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)

Fiji’s military government expels three foreign journalists

London, Apr 14 (ANI): Fiji’s military government has expelled three foreign journalists and arrested a local reporter over their reporting of the deteriorating political situation in the island nation.
ABC correspondent Sean Dorney is expected to arrive in Sydney today after he was deported by FIJI Government officials unhappy with his coverage of recent political developments in the troubled nation.

Dorney spent the night under supervision by immigration officials in Nadi along with New Zealand journalist Sia Aston and cameraman Matt Smith, who are also understood to have been deported.

Fijian television reporter Edwin Nand was arrested overnight for giving footage to a New Zealand television network.

Dorney said officials initially told him that he was to be deported. “They called me to the Immigration Department … and informed me they were unhappy with my reporting, which was being broadcast on the local Fiji One network.”

He said he was allowed to return to his hotel to pack and was then asked if he would leave voluntarily.

“I said no. I’m here to report and my visa is still valid, and now I’m awaiting further information,” The Telegraph quoted him, as saying.

The move comes after President Ratu Josefa Iloilo abolished the constitution, sacked the judiciary and reinstalled Bainimarama as Prime Minister despite a court ruling that his administration, put in place during a bloodless coup in 2006, was unlawful.
local Fiji One tv reporter, named by colleagues as Edwin Nand, was also taken into custody by security officials, reportedly for transmitting news material overseas, The Telegraph reported.

Regional powers Australia and New Zealand have labelled the Fiji regime a military dictatorship and warned the country would be expelled from the Commonwealth.

“We’ve got effectively a self-appointed dictator and a very unpredictable regime,” said Murray McCully, New Zealand Foreign Minister.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Bainimarama had turned Fiji into a military state by suspending freedom of speech and undermining the well being of its citizens. (ANI)

Juan Williams, Speaker at Chancellor University Commencement

CLEVELAND, April 12 /PRNewswire/ — National political correspondent and
author, Juan Williams, is the keynote speaker at Chancellor University’s 160th
graduation taking place Saturday, May 2, 2009. As senior correspondent for
NPR’s Morning Edition, host of America’s Black Forum, a nationally syndicated
weekly news program, and regular panelist on FoxNews Sunday, Williams is at
the cutting edge of America’s culture and politics. In addition to
prize-winning columns and editorial writing for The Washington Post, he has
also authored six books.

Prior to writing bestsellers, Williams was a political columnist and national
correspondent for The Washington Post. In a 21-year career at The Post he
served as an editorial writer, op-ed columnist, and White House correspondent.
He won several journalism awards for his writing and investigative reporting.
He also won an Emmy Award for TV documentary writing. He was given widespread,
critical acclaim for a series of documentaries including Politics-The New
Black Power. His documentary on A. Phillip Randolph was featured on PBS. His
articles have appeared in magazines such as Newsweek, Fortune, The Atlantic
Monthly, Ebony, and The New Republic.

The Commencement is being held at the Masonic Auditorium and Performing Arts
Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

ABOUT CHANCELLOR UNIVERSITY
Chancellor University, the second oldest business school in the U.S., rooted
in northeast Ohio, is a premier global institution offering educational
opportunities to a multi-national student body, which includes
first-generation college students and working adults. Chancellor University
students graduate with real-world knowledge and skills that prepare them for a
lifetime of professional achievement, civic engagement, and personal
fulfillment in a fast-paced, ever-changing, pluralistic world. Chancellor
University graduates demonstrate critical thinking, integrity,
professionalism, and leadership in their careers and in their communities.

Chancellor University provides opportunities to earn associate, bachelor, and
master degrees in business and select professional fields, including
accounting, corporate management, criminal justice, finance, health-services
management, human resources management, small business entrepreneurship,
marketing, paralegal, and public administration.

Chancellor University has a rich and deep heritage, having graduated several
titans of business, including John D. Rockefeller, Sr., founder of the
Standard Oil Company; Harvey Firestone, founder of Firestone Tire and Rubber;
Theodore Ernst, founder of Ernst and Young; and leading Cleveland businessman
and philanthropist David N. Myers.

The school’s website is www.ChancellorU.edu.

SOURCE Chancellor University

Shaun Redgate, COO of Chancellor University, +1-216-361-2753,
sredgate@ChancellorU.edu

Aircel launches GSM services in Mumbai

Aircel, the telecom player in India, with majority stakeholder Malaysian telecom major Maxis Communications, has announced the launch of its GSM mobile services in Mumbai.

With a subscriber base of over 1.8 lakh, Aircel, the fifth largest service provider, rolled out its 17th circle in Mumbai.The company has launched GSM services around 6 circles within past two months.

According to a report, the company has invested over Rs 550 crore for launch of services in the Mumbai circle.

During launch of service in the city, the company has introduced a special tariff plan for mumbaikars, under which Aircel charge the first minute at the rate of Rs. 1, the second minute@50p and the third minute onwards @30p.

A company official talking to our correspondent informed that Aircel plans to spend about US$5 billion in the next three years in the country and the company will use the fund to add another six circles – Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana in its basket.

In addition, the company also intends to put a part of the investments for developing its existing network and for doubling the number of cell sites to 40,000 by the end of this year.

Presently, the company has 20,000 towers throughout the country.

Terror Cop’s Job On The Line After Blunder

Hundreds of officers carried out raids on 10 properties in the North-West of England and arrested 12 men – including 10 Pakistani nationals on student visas and one Briton.

Sources said the raids – codenamed Operation Pathway – were brought forward after Metropolitan Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick was photographed carrying clearly visible papers relating to the operation as he arrived in Downing Street for a meeting with the Prime Minister and Home Secretary.

Fearing the suspects would be tipped off about the plan, police swooped at about 5.30pm on Wednesday on addresses in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, Liverpool – including John Moores University – and Clitheroe in Lancashire.

A Homebase store, due to open today, was also raided by more than 100 officers and two staff members are believed to have been arrested.

As police targeted the suspects Mr Quick released an apology to Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson saying he “deeply regretted” leaving the document on show.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the UK remained under “severe” threat from terrorists and praised police for a “successful operation” – but she refused to be drawn about Mr Quick’s future.

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: “This is an extraordinary and very alarming lapse.

“It’s the kind of error that Britain’s most senior anti-terrorist officer simply can’t afford to make and it will lead to serious questions about his judgement and about his ability to do his job properly.”

Sky’s chief political correspondent, Jon Craig, said: “The Home Secretary has effectively hung Bob Quick out to dry.

“She could have said he was an excellent officer doing a first-class job, but conspicuously she did not do that.”

Mr Quick is no stranger to controversy:

Last December he apologised for an outburst in which he accused senior Tories of leaking a story about his wife’s business interests.

Mr Quick faced unwanted newspaper headlines after it emerged his wife Judith was running a luxury car hire firm from their home and details of their address were published on a website.

The stories followed hot on the heels of his involvement in overseeing the arrest of shadow immigration minister Damian Green as part of a Whitehall leak inquiry.