Pink concert alerts Oz woman to her ballooning breast implant

Cairns, Aug 20 (ANI): An Aussie woman, who woke up with one breast double the size of the other, said that had she not attended American singer Pink’s concert, she would not have known there was a problem with her breast implant.

Cattle station worker Kimberley Koy’s breast had ballooned out overnight after a plane trip to Sydney to see Pink perform, and fearing that it might be breast cancer, she immediately visited her doctor.

But at the clinic, Koy came to know that the breast problem had started a week earlier, when she was stabbed in the chest by a runaway cow’s horn while working on a Cape York property.

Koy, who has C-cup silicone gel breast implants, had brushed the incident off as the horn did not break her skin or leave a bruise, and was oblivious to the damage it had done to her implant until it popped up after the plane flight.

“When I told the doctor I’d flown she said, ‘That makes perfect sense because air pressure forced out the silicone’,” Cairns.com.au quoted her as saying.

“I could have gone years without knowing.

“When I woke up the day after the plane trip it was double the size of my right one … I thought I had breast cancer.

“If I hadn’t have gone to the Pink concert I wouldn’t have known my breast was leaking,” she said.

Koy said that her breast had since shrunk, but still edged out further than the right one.

“It was like a coconut to an orange; it was bloody weird and incredibly noticeable,” she said.

“I just wanted everyone to hear my story because I think it is very funny.

“It felt like one breast had filled up with milk and the other hadn’t,” she added. (ANI)

At least 7 African migrants die off Yemen: UNHCR

SANAA (Reuters) – Seven African migrants drowned and a further seven are missing and presumed dead after smugglers forced passengers off a boat in deep sea off Yemen, the U.N. refugee agency said.

Survivors told the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees that the boat, carrying 72 Somalis and Ethiopians, was far from the Yemeni coast when smugglers started to force them off, the agency said in a statement dated Saturday.

“I owe my life to my brother who helped me swim ashore,” one of the 58 survivors told UNHCR staff at a transit camp.

Last year 50,000 people, mostly from Somalia and Ethiopia, took rickety smugglers’ ships across the Gulf of Aden, which is on the sea route from Europe to the Middle East and Asia via the Suez Canal.

Most are thought to be seeking jobs in the Middle East, or fleeing political turmoil in Somalia or drought and food shortages in Ethiopia.

UNHCR said 350 boats and 17,936 people have arrived in Yemen this year after crossing the Gulf of Aden from the Horn of Africa. To date, 116 people have been reported dead and 66 are missing at sea.

Survivors of the latest incident said their boat had left on Wednesday from near the Somali town of Bossasso.

A Yemeni partner of the refugee agency buried the 7 bodies which were washed ashore and gave survivors food and water on arrival before transporting them to Ahwar reception camp, where they would be registered.

(Reporting by Mohammed Sudam, writing by Sam Cage; editing by Thomas Atkins)

“Hi, is that the Somali pirates?”

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Your best source is jailed. You track high-sea hijacks by text and email. You get through to captors on a satellite phone but are then roundly abused.

Reporting on Somali piracy can be surreal.

While some in the world only woke up to the phenomenon with the first seizure of an American hostage, Somalia’s modern-day buccaneers have been marauding off the Horn of Africa for years, taking hundreds of captives and millions in ransoms.

Covering their exploits is a near-daily task for reporters in Somalia and foreign correspondents in East Africa.

At times, like the saga of just-released American hostage Richard Phillips on a lifeboat with four gunmen, it becomes a 24/7 job, requiring moral judgments and canny journalism.

Reuters reporters in Somalia were able to contact Phillips’ captors — on their fuel-less, floating lifeboat stalked by U.S. warships — at the start of the standoff. They issued various defiant messages to the world in barked conversations.

Having then been informed, however, that their remarks were making instant headlines on TV networks across the world, the pirate gang became less cooperative.

“We are tired of your calls. We have no time for journalists,” is a polite translation of some of the last quotes our team managed to extract from the pirates.

“If you bother us again, we will order someone in Mogadishu to meet you,” a gang member added before the line went dead.

Often, though, the pirates are friendly and helpful, though they detest use of the p-word. “We never kill people. We are Muslims. We are marines, coastguards — not pirates,” one said.

Hostages say the pirates are normally as friendly as they can be under the circumstances. While they threaten to shoot or beat them if they do not cooperate, they also roast goat for their captives and pass phones around for calls home.

“ELECTRONIC” HIJACKS

At Reuters, news of dramatic hijacks can often break by texts, sometimes in the middle of the night, from sources.

On a warship in the Gulf of Aden, one journalist was first to report the hijacking of an Italian boat from staff who got a distress call then saw communications disappear in minutes.

One of the best sources on piracy in the region is Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme. Based in Kenya’s Mombasa port, the body is a champion for sailors’ welfare, essentially a human rights group.

Mwangura believes some authorities in the region, and wealthy kingpins in places like Nairobi, Dubai and London, are complicit in masterminding and sheltering piracy.

Last year, Mwangura accused Kenya of trying to cover up the real destination of tanks on board a hijacked Ukrainian ship.

Mwangura was labeled a “mouthpiece” for pirates by the Kenyan government, and went to jail on charges of giving “alarming” information and possessing $3 worth of marijuana.

He was later released, but the case hangs over him in what he says is a crude attempt to gag him from telling the truth.

Kenya’s sensitivity over Mwangura mirrors some of the moral ambiguities over covering piracy. Are journalists fanning criminality when they speak to the gangs, or adding to a necessary understanding of the phenomenon?

Answers, please, in a bottle on the Indian Ocean.

(Editing by Jack Kimball and Richard Balmforth)

Rescue off Somalia prompts calls for action

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The dramatic rescue of U.S. cargo ship captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates on Sunday fueled calls for aggressive action to stop attacks off the Horn of Africa, including the arming of merchant vessels.

Others called for called for changes to international law that would make it easier to pursue and try pirates.

“We remain resolved to halt the rise of piracy in this region,” President Barack Obama said in a written statement after the rescue.

“To achieve that goal, we must continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks, be prepared to interdict acts of piracy and ensure that those who commit acts of piracy are held accountable for their crimes,” he said.

The U.S. Navy ended the five-day ordeal of Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship, by killing three pirates who held him captive on a lifeboat. A fourth pirate was taken into custody.

Phillips was the first American taken captive in a wave of piracy that is rampant off the Horn of Africa, where Somali civil conflict has let the practice flourish for nearly two decades in an atmosphere of poverty and lawlessness.

“We’ve got to figure out a way in an international community to … arm the crews, increase the number of warships that are there on scene (and) reduce the abilities of the Somalis to have ships that are anchored off the coast in a safe haven,” Adm. Rick Gurnon, president of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy where Phillips was trained, told a news conference.

ARMING CREWS UNPOPULAR WITH SHIPPING COMPANIES

A military operation may be needed to clear out the pirate bases on land, he said, “I think the international community needs to seriously look at that.”

Republican U.S. Senator Tom Coburn said, “we’re going to have to be much more aggressive” against pirates. Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” he said “a tremendous increase in resources” would be needed and other countries must share the burden.

U.S. military officials expressed caution.

U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen said arming crews remains unpopular with shipping companies, who are concerned about liability or an arms race with pirates.

“That’s not what these mariners are trained to do,” Allen said shortly before the rescue on ABC television’s “This Week.”

He called instead for new international legal agreements to fight piracy, which often involves multiple questions of national jurisdiction.

“What you really have to have is a coordinating mechanism that ultimately brings these pirates to court,” Allen said.

The U.N. Security Council over last year authorized navies to chase pirates into Somalia’s territorial waters and later allowed land operations against pirate havens.

The United States, Britain and the European Union have struck agreements with Kenya for prosecuting captured pirates there, but Kenya has warned that it cannot be the only place for trials.

Vice Admiral William Gortney, head of the U.S. Naval Central Command, said the successful U.S. strike could possibly escalate violence. He said the conditions that give rise to piracy — failed governments, lawlessness and poverty — must be wiped out to end the threat.

“The ultimate solution to piracy is on land,” Gortney said in a Pentagon briefing from Bahrain.

(Editing by Alan Elsner)

Navy Seals kill three Somali pirates

New York, Apr.13 (ANI): Navy Seals killed three Somali pirates and rescued an American ship captain in a daring operation in the Indian Ocean on Sunday.

The encounter ended a five-day hostage standoff between United States naval forces and a small band of brigands in a covered orange lifeboat off the Horn of Africa, reports the New York Times.

Acting on President Obama’s authorization and in the belief that Captain Richard Phillips was in imminent danger of being killed by his captors, the Navy Seals opened fire and picked off the three captors who were on the fantail of the destroyer Bainbridge.

Two of the captors had poked their heads out of a rear hatch of the lifeboat, exposing themselves to clear shots, and the third could be seen through a window in the bow, pointing an automatic rifle at the captain, who was tied up inside the 18-foot lifeboat, senior Navy officials said.

It took only three remarkable shots – one each by snipers firing from a distance at dusk, using night-vision scopes, the officials said. Within minutes, members of the Special Forces slid down ropes from the Bainbridge, climbed aboard the lifeboat and found the three pirates dead. They then untied Captain Phillips, ending the contretemps at sea that had riveted much of the world’s attention. A fourth pirate had surrendered earlier.

Shortly after his rescue, Captain Phillips was taken aboard the Bainbridge, underwent a medical exam and was found to be in relatively good condition for a 53-year-old seafarer who had been held since Wednesday by pirates who had demanded two million dollars for his life. (ANI)

Somali pirates, U.S. captive drift toward shore

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – A lifeboat used by Somali pirates holding a U.S. merchant marine captain captive drifted toward Somalia’s lawless coast on Sunday, with U.S. warships tracking it to keep the pirates from escaping to shore.

The lifeboat that was out of fuel had drifted to within 20 miles of the Somali coast by late on Saturday, and U.S. military officials said they feared that if it reached the shore, the pirates might try to escape with their hostage on land.

The U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama container ship from which Capt. Richard Phillips was taken last week arrived safely in the Kenyan port of Mombasa on Saturday, as a Somali mediator headed to sea to try to secure his release.

“The captain is a hero,” one crew member shouted from the 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama container ship as it docked. “He saved our lives by giving himself up.

The ship was attacked by gunmen far out in the Indian Ocean on Wednesday but its 20 American crew apparently fought off the hijackers and regained control of the ship.

Relatives said Phillips volunteered to join the pirates in their lifeboat in exchange for the safety of his ship and its crew. The four pirates holding him want $2 million ransom for him and a guarantee of safe passage.

Three U.S. warships including the destroyer USS Bainbridge were in the area around the lifeboat.

Military officials said the pirates fired on a small U.S. craft that approached them from the Bainbridge on Saturday. No one was hurt by the volley and the craft withdrew.

Somalia has suffered 18 years of chaotic civil war, and the international waters off the Horn of Africa have become some of the most dangerous in the world.

HOSTAGES FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES

Phillips is just one of about 270 hostages from around the world being held by pirates preying on the busy sea-lanes of the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. The Maersk Alabama incident has captured world attention because Phillips is the first U.S. citizen seized and his crew regained control of the ship.

The standoff has forced U.S. President Barack Obama to focus on a place most Americans would rather forget. A U.S. intervention in Somalia in the early 1990s was a disaster, including the “Black Hawk Down” battle in 1993 that killed 18 U.S. troops and inspired a book and a movie.

A White House spokesman said Obama received multiple updates on the piracy situation on Saturday.

John Reinhart, president and chief executive of Maersk Line Ltd, said the FBI was investigating the hijacking in Kenya.

“Because of the pirate attack, the FBI has informed us that this ship is a crime scene,” he told reporters, adding that the crew will have to stay on board the vessel.

It was still not clear how the crew retook control of their vessel, which was carrying thousands of tons of food aid for Somalia, Uganda and Kenya.

Somali elders sent a mediator on Saturday in hopes of resolving the standoff between the U.S. Navy and the pirates holding Phillips, a 53-year-old Vermont father of two.

“They are just looking to arrange safe passage for the pirates, no ransom,” said Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of a regional group that monitors piracy.

The mediator took to sea in a boat but it was unclear how he planned to reach the pirates.

The gang holding Phillips remained defiant. “We will defend ourselves if attacked,” one told Reuters by satellite phone.

Pirates are keeping about 17 captured vessels on Somalia’s eastern coast, six of them taken in the last week alone.

(Writing by Todd Eastham; Editing by Philip Barbara and Kieran Murray)

Somali pirates rush to help comrades in US Navy face-off

Nairobi/Washington – Somali pirates were on Saturday rushing to the aid of their comrades, who are holding the captain of a US-flagged ship hostage on a lifeboat surrounded by US Navy forces, media reports said. Pirates have been holding Captain Richard Phillips hostage since Wednesday, following a failed attempt to hijack his ship, the 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama, in the Indian Ocean near the coast of Somalia.

The USS Bainbridge, part of a coalition force based in the Gulf of Aden, arrived on the scene on Thursday morning and was joined on Friday by the USS Halyburton, Commander Peter Schneider, a spokesman for the US Defence Department, said.

Now, a separate pirate group is sailing the 20,000-ton Hansa Stavanger – a German-owned container ship hijacked one week ago – to help the embattled group of pirates, media reports said.

Germany’s Foreign Ministry said it was working hard to obtain the release of the German vessel, whose crew of 24 includes four Germans, among them the captain.

Media reports said the government dropped ideas to launch a commando raid to retake the Hansa Stavanger after the pirates sailed it to their base in Harardere, Somalia, quicker than anticipated.

Other pirate-held vessels were reportedly on their way to where the American captain was being held, carrying guns and hostages taken from previous seizures.

The pirates are seeking ransom and safe passage for the release of Phillips, who unsuccessfully tried to flee on Thursday, leaping from the lifeboat in a daring attempt to swim to the Bainbridge.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is helping in the negotiations.

Observers said the hostage drama could drag on for days. US Navy forces are generally reluctant to storm ships to free crew members being held hostage.

However, the pirates are in a weak bargaining position with no fuel for the lifeboat and only one hostage. The lifeboat has about 10 days’ supplies of food and water, media reports said.

The Alabama, a cargo vessel carrying food aid, was boarded by the pirates Wednesday morning, the first time US sailors have been seized in the treacherous waters near the Horn of Africa.

The unarmed crew quickly retook the ship, but Phillips ended up being held on the Alabama.

The Alabama has since steamed away from the area and is due to arrive at its original destination, the Kenyan port of Mombasa, on Saturday.

Somali pirates have stepped up their attacks in recent weeks after a brief lull. The Alabama was the sixth ship to have been seized since last Saturday.

French naval forces on Friday stormed one of those vessels – a yacht taken last weekend – killing two pirates and one hostage in the process.

Four other hostages were freed successfully and three pirates taken into custody, Defence Minister Herve Morin told journalists in Paris late Friday.

In 2008, pirates seized dozens of vessels in and around the Gulf of Aden and collected tens of millions of dollars in ransom, prompting the international community to send warships to the region.

Around 15 warships from the European Union, a coalition task force and individual countries such as Russia, the United States, India and China patrol an area of about 2.85 million square kilometres.

However, the pirates are now venturing farther into the Indian Ocean off the south-east coast of Somalia to avoid the international patrols.

Observers have said they feel piracy can only be stopped by dealing with insecurity on the ground in Somalia. A bloody insurgency is ongoing in south and central Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since 1991.

Somali pirates demand ransom as US Navy sends more ships

Nairobi/Washington, April 11 (DPA) Somali pirates, holding a US ship captain in a lifeboat and surrounded by two Navy warships, have reportedly sought ransom and safe passage as their brazen standoff with the US military continued Friday.

The pirates’ demands came as a US frigate, the USS Halyburton, became the second US Navy vessel to arrive in the area off the Somali coast, according to Commander Peter Schneider, a spokesman for the US Defence Department.

The frigate joined the USS Bainbridge, a destroyer, which arrived Thursday morning and had taken up negotiations with the four pirates, who have been holed up in the lifeboat since an aborted attempt Wednesday to capture the Maersk Alabama, a US-operated cargo ship.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation was also aiding the negotiations, yet the pirates have told the Navy they will not release Captain Richard Phillips without a ransom and guaranteed safe passage out of the area, according to Bloomberg News, which interviewed one of the pirates’ contacts on the Somali mainland.

Phillips reportedly attempted to flee from his captives earlier Friday, leaping from the lifeboat in a daring attempt to swim to the Bainbridge.

The incident happened too quickly for the Bainbridge crew to help Phillips, who was apparently unhurt during his recapture. Schneider said he could not confirm the exact details of the escape attempt and the Navy had not been in contact with the captain since the incident.

Andrea Phillips, the captain’s wife, said she has received an ‘outpouring of support’ for her husband since the crisis began.

‘We have felt the compassion of the world through your concern for Richard. My husband is a strong man and we will remain strong for him,’ she said in a statement released by Maersk Line Ltd, the Virginia-based company that operated the Alabama.

The Alabama, a cargo vessel carrying food aid, was boarded by the pirates Wednesday morning, the first time US sailors were seized in the treacherous waters near the Horn of Africa. The unarmed crew quickly retook the ship, but Phillips ended up being held on the Alabama’s lifeboat by the pirates.

The Alabama has since steamed away from the area and was Friday heading towards its original destination of Mombasa, Kenya, according to Kevin Speers, a spokesman for Maersk.

The ongoing standoff has also attracted the attention of the US’ top military and civilian officials.

President Barack Obama has been receiving regular updates and Defence Secretary Robert Gates Thursday said he was watching the situation ‘very closely’.

Other pirate-captured vessels were also apparently on their way to the scene in a show of solidarity, carrying guns and hostages taken from previous seizures, though the pirates were apparently unable to get close to the US fleet, media reported.

Phillips has been in contact with the US Navy and his own crew through a radio and has been given extra batteries and provisions, according to Speers.

Observers said the hostage drama could drag on for days. Navy forces are generally reluctant to storm ships to free crew members being held hostage.

However, the pirates are in a weak bargaining position with no fuel for the lifeboat and only one hostage. The lifeboat has about 10 days’ supplies of food and water, media reports said.

Somali pirates have stepped up their attacks in recent weeks after a brief lull. The Alabama was the sixth ship to have been seized since Saturday.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said: ‘Piracy may be a centuries-old crime, but we are working to bring an appropriate 21st-century response.’

US seeks global help for anti-piracy task force

WASHINGTON: In the wake of an American-flagged cargo-ship being attacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
on Friday said the United States has sought the help from more countries for the anti-piracy task force in the region.

“Piracy may be a centuries-old crime, but we are working to bring an appropriate 21st-century response,” she told reporters at the State Department press meet.

Terming piracy as a serious matter, Clinton said these people are nothing more than criminals.

“We are looking for ways to increase the effectiveness of what we are doing, including the recruitment of additional partners, to be part of the surveillance work that is done,” Clinton said in response to a question.

With the naval vessels of several countries in the region, Clinton said: “We have had some success in coordinating amongst the contributors to this naval task force. The Department of Defence is taking the lead in helping to put together an international task force.”

“There are a number of nations now ranging from, of course, the United States to Europe to Asia, including Japan and China and Korea, which have naval vessels in the waters off the Horn of Africa,” she said.

“It’s important that we come up with an international resolution of this. And we will be consulting closely and widely to determine what else other countries are willing to do and what further steps the international community believes should be taken,” Clinton said.

At the same time, she acknowledged that the instability in Somalia is a contributing factor to those who take to the seas in order to board ships, hijack them, intimidate and threaten their crews and then seek ransom.

Earlier in the day, the State Department Spokesman Robert Wood said the US is in touch with a number of nations with regard to this issue.

“It’s a growing concern to not just the United States but others who deal with shipping in that area,” he said, adding the US military and the militaries of other countries are trying to see what we can do to prevent these types of piracy acts from happening.

In response to a specific question, Wood said India can certainly play an important role in this regard. “I think India certainly could play a role. That’s a decision for India,” he said.

About 30 Somali refugees drown near Yemen

Geneva, April 7 (DPA) Eight people drowned and 22 others were missing and presumed dead, after two boats heading from Somalia to Yemen encountered troubles at sea over the weekend, the UN said Tuesday.

One boat carrying 40 Somalis capsized and only 20 passengers made it to shore in Yemen, the UN quoted survivors as saying. In the second boat with 23 people, eight drowned and two went missing, presumed dead.

‘Those who make the crossing are fleeing desperate a situation of civil war, political instability, poverty and famine in Somalia and the Horn of Africa,’ William Spindler, a spokesman for UN refugee agency UNHCR, said in Geneva.

The fate of the human smugglers was unclear.

The UNHCR said 339 boats and 17,035 people arrived in Yemen from the Horn of Africa via this dangerous sea route this year and 74 died while another 51 have gone missing. Last year, 50,000 people were smuggled into Yemen by sea and 949 died making the trip.

Somali pirates hijack British-owned ship

Pirates seized a British-owned ship on Monday after taking three vessels over the weekend, marking a jump in the number of hijackings in the perilous waters off Somalia this year.

In the first three months of 2009, only eight ships had been hijacked in the busy Gulf of Aden linking Europe to Asia and the eastern Indian Ocean off the Somali coast, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).

Last year, heavily armed gangs from the lawless Horn of Africa nation hijacked dozens of vessels, taking hundreds of sailors hostage and earnings millions of dollars in ransoms.

Foreign navies rushed warships to the area and reduced the number of successful attacks. But there are still near-daily attempts and the pirates have begun hunting further afield near the Seychelles archipelago.

“A 32,000-tonne bulker was seized early this morning. It is UK-owned but operated by Italians. The crew is mixed but we are not sure of their nationalities,” said Andrew Mwangura of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme.

The British vessel was named as the Malaspina Castle.

“I hear they have also captured a Taiwanese fishing vessel near the Seychelles,” he told Reuters.

Over the weekend, pirates seized a French yacht, a Yemeni tug and the Hansa Stavanger, a 20,000-tonne German container vessel, despite the presence of foreign warships that have been sent to the region to deter the pirates.

Mwangura said the German container ship was taken 400 nautical miles (740 km) off the southern Somali port of Kismayu, between the Seychelles and Kenya.

Germany’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the hijack on Monday. Spokesman Jens Ploetner said there were several German citizens on board and a crisis centre had been set up at the ministry.

The pirates typically use speed boats launched from “mother ships”, which means they can sometimes evade foreign navies patrolling the busy shipping lanes and strike far out to sea.

They then take captured vessels to remote coastal village bases in Somalia, where they have usually treated their hostages well in anticipation of a sizeable ransom payment.

Pirates stunned the shipping industry last year when they seized a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil. The Sirius Star and its 25 crew was freed in January after $3 million was parachuted onto its deck.

Last September, they also grabbed world headlines by seizing a Ukrainian cargo ship carrying 33 Soviet-era T-72 tanks. It was released in February, reportedly for a $3.2 million ransom.

Before the latest spate of hijackings, the IMB said 9 vessels with 153 crew were being held and that 59 pirates had been captured this year.

Nothing Nano about the buzz around it

POOJA KHANDELWAL (21) accompanied by her mother and two siblings went to Infinity Mall in Andheri to buy clothes and cosmetics on Thursday. They ended up shopping for a car.

The Khandelwals belonged to the throng of visitors gathered at the Westside store to get a look and feel of the world’s first Rs 1-lakh car – the Nano. The car, which is on display at the store till April 25, attracted onlookers and prospective buyers who examined it in detail, from its rear engine to its horn.

A store official, who did not wish to be named, said that the walk-in customers had doubled from the previous day. He estimated 75 booking forms were sold in the first four hours that the car was showcased.

A gaggle of college students took turns to sit inside the car. Brijal Gaglani (19) was impressed by the Nano’s legroom but lamented the lack of an ashtray.

Business executive Abhishek Anand (27) had no complaints. “It is small, beautiful and spacious,” he said.

Anand, who left work mid-way to see the Nano, immediately bought the Rs 300 registration form. “I’ve finally found a small car where my 5 ft 11 inch frame can fit without brushing against the roof,” he said.

“I am very eager to buy the Nano.” An official explaining the car’s features to customers said many senior citizens had expressed a keen desire to buy the Nano.

As if on cue, an elderly gentleman asked him about the security features of the car while a grandmother enquired about the available colours.Captain D.N. Banerjee and Captain Kondal, colleagues in the merchant navy, who rushed from their office to buy the booking forms, couldn’t stop raving about the Nano.

The Nano will be Kondal’s third car, and he wants to buy it for his wife. “It’s not cramped and the visibility is superb.

It’s perfect for city roads,” he said. “Hats off to Ratan Tata,” said Banerjee who plans to gift the Nano to his daughter.

The Khandelwals, who liked the slick and roomy interiors of the car, also bought their registration form. “We are a tall family of five and we all fit perfectly in the Nano.

But the car is only for the girls of the family,” Pooja said with a smile.

78yr-old bachelor chases away 2 burglars with a bugle!

London, Mar 27 (ANI): A 78-year-old man chased away two burglars with a bugle, when they tried to rob his house.

Alex Wade, a bachelor who lives alone in Coventry, West midlands, did not know that his idea of keeping a bugle by his pillow incase of an emergency would come handy one day, as it helped him chase away two young burglars with it.

Wade revealed that the burglars broke into his house through a window at about 2:40 am, but had to run away empty-handed when he sounded the bugle on the face of one of the burglars.

“I was lying in bed and heard the front window smash and heard people talking. At first I thought I was dreaming. I keep a bugle by my pillow in case anything like this happens so I reached over and grabbed it. I went to my bedroom door. I yelled into the hallway ‘who’s there?’ and then the two little scoundrels started talking among themselves,” the Telegraph quoted Wade as saying.

“I opened my door and walked into the hallway and blew the bugle as loud as I could into one of the lad’s faces. He looked absolutely startled and they both panicked and raced out the front door,” he added.

The police of West Midlands have applauded Wade for his daring act.

“This was an instinctive action from the man which has caused the offenders to flee the scene,” Detective Inspector Bob Petipher, of West Midlands Police, said.

“It prevented any more possessions being taken from the house and they were swiftly arrested,” he added.

Wade, who made the bugle from an old-fashioned car horn after a spate of break-ins in his neighborhood, is happy with the instrument, which proved very helpful.

“It’s is the best burglar alarm a man can have. Now the neighbors will always know if I’m in trouble,” he said. (ANI)

Archaeologists recreate Egyptians’ fabled voyage to Land of Punt

Cairo, March 16 (ANI): An international team of archaeologists has reconstructed an ancient Egyptian ship of the first quarter of the second millennium BC called “Min of the Desert”, in order to find how the ancient Egyptians sailed to the fabled Land of Punt.

Until a few years ago, there was a widely held belief that the ancient Egyptians did not travel long distances by sea because of their poor naval technology.

People in the past tended to assume that the ancient Egyptians did not make long-distance trips because little evidence of such journeys has been found.

Based on this belief, they also thought that the Land of Punt, the fabled source of many ancient Egyptian imports, could not have been located in the Horn of Africa, but must have been in southern Sinai.

However, this view is changing.

Now, according to a report in Al-ahram weekly, in order to find how the ancient Egyptians sailed to the Land of Punt, and how did they use their maritime technology to resist the destructive forces of the sea, a team of French, Italian, American and Egyptian archaeologists working with shipping experts have reconstructed an ancient Egyptian ship of the first quarter of the second millennium BC called “Min of the Desert”.

The idea was to set sail across the Red Sea in order to experience how the ancient Egyptians sailed to Punt and to expand the data available from archaeological evidence and the technical study of ships in ancient Egypt.

Such ships were built without using nails, and the planks used to construct them were designed to fit together like pieces of a puzzle.

“The purpose of the expedition was to understand the capabilities of a reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian ship,” said ship archaeologist Cheryl Ward of Florida State University.

The rigging of the ship was reconstructed from models and from the bas reliefs at the temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Al-Deir Al-Bahari.

“Our primary goal was to demonstrate the extraordinary capability of the Egyptians at sea, as many people, including fellow archaeologists, have thought of the Egyptians as tied to the Nile and lacking the ability to go to sea,” Ward said.

The test rides were made in the shape of short trips on the Nile, then in the Red Sea, and then in the shape of a longer trial voyage south towards the Sudan from Safaga along the route used by the ancient Egyptians.

According to Mustafa, “Once the sail was set, all of us remarked on the efficiency and simplicity of the ship when maneuvering and steering, and on its responsiveness.” (ANI)

“Nano-origami” used for making tiny electronic devices

Washington, Feb 28 (ANI): A team of scientists is developing the basic principles of “nano-origami,” a new technique that allows engineers to fold nanoscale materials into simple 3-D structures, which could be used to make tiny electronic devices.

The tiny folded materials could be used as motors and capacitors, potentially leading to better computer memory storage, faster microprocessors and new nanophotonic devices.

The technique, developed by a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was led by George Barbastathis, associate professor of mechanical engineering.

Traditional micro- and nano-fabrication techniques such as X-ray lithography and nano-imprinting work beautifully for two-dimensional structures, and are commonly used to build microprocessors and other micro-electrical-mechanical (MEMS) devices.

However, they cannot create 3-D structures.

“A lot of what’s done now is planar,” said Tony Nichol, a mechanical engineering graduate student working on the project. “We want to take all of the nice tools that have been developed for 2-D and do 3-D things,” he added.

The MIT team uses conventional lithography tools to pattern 2-D materials at the nanoscale, then folds them into predetermined 3-D shapes, opening a new realm of possible applications.

The researchers have already demonstrated a 3-D nanoscale capacitor, developed in collaboration with MIT Professor Yang Shao-Horn, which was presented at the 2005 meeting of the Electrochemical Society.

The current model has only one fold but the more folds that are added, the more energy it will be able to store.

“Extra layers also promote faster information flow, just as the human brain’s many folds allow for quicker communication between brain regions,” said Nader Shaar, a mechanical engineering graduate student working on the project.

Once the material is folded, the tricky part is getting the faces to align properly.

The researchers have developed a few ways to do this successfully: one uses magnets; another involves attaching polymers to a certain spot on the faces and melting them with an electric current, sealing the two faces together.

The researchers are now deep in the development phase of their nano-folded devices, but they are starting to think about how the technology could be used in the future.

“We’ve got the core components figured out, and now we’re just having fun with figuring out some applications,” said Nichol. (ANI)

John Mayer admits to all-nighters with Jennifer Aniston

Washington, Feb 7 (ANI): John Mayer does have sleepovers with Jennifer Aniston, and the singer admitted to the same on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Talking to DeGeneres about his relationship with the ‘Friends’ star, the five-time Grammy winner candidly shared certain private details as well.

“Yeah, there are sleepovers, yeah,” People magazine quoted Mayer as telling the host while replying to a question.

“Yes, there are. There are sleepovers,” he added.

The discussion was prompted after DeGeneres and Mayer were recalling when they both went to Aniston’s housewarming party for her new hi-tech residence.

Describing Aniston’s house, Mayer said: “There is no normal thing in the Aniston house. You won’t find a light switch. The light switch is not antiquated – there is a six-button light panel. It does everything. The top button is ‘on,’ and the button right below that one seems to be an air horn, so in the middle of the night it’s very difficult.”

He also admitted that there was too much of technology involved in the house.

He said: “I just want a switch that glows orange. Just give me a switch that glows orange, and I can swing my arm up [and turn on the light]. I don’t want a smart-home button.” (ANI)

Triceratops’ horns were lethal battle weapons, not mere ornaments

Washington, Jan 28 (ANI): After searching the skulls of Triceratops in museum collections across North America, paleontologists have come up with evidence that the horns on the animals were not just for looks, and were used to combat each other in the Cretaceous-era.

The study, led by Andrew Farke, curator at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in the US, have found battle scars on the skulls of Triceratops, which preserve rare evidence of Cretaceous-era combat.

“Paleontologists have debated the function of the bizarre skulls of horned dinosaurs for years now,” said Farke. “Some speculated that the horns were for showing off to other dinosaurs, and others thought that the horns had to have been used in combat against other horned dinosaurs,” he added.

If Triceratops fought each other with their horns, wounds from this combat would be preserved in the fossil bones.

So, Farke, in collaboration with paleontologists Ewan Wolff of the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Wisconsin and Darren Tanke of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, searched museum collections throughout North America for evidence of these injuries.

The researchers focused on the skulls of Triceratops and a closely related dinosaur, Centrosaurus.

“If Triceratops and Centrosaurus only used their horns and frills for showing off, we would expect no difference in the rate of injury for both animals,” stated Farke.

Instead, the team found that the squamosal bone, which forms part of the frill, was injured 10 times more frequently in Triceratops than in Centrosaurus.

“The most likely culprit for all of the wounds on Triceratops frills was the horns of other Triceratops,” said Farke.

The new study included over 400 observations, which were analyzed statistically to detect differences between Centrosaurus and Triceratops.

“Our findings provide some of the best evidence to date that Triceratops might have locked horns with each other, wrestling like modern antelope and deer,” said Farke.

According to the researchers, many of the injuries they observed may have been caused by misplaced horn thrusts from rival animals. Similar injuries are occasionally seen in modern horned animals.

The size and shape of the horns varied among different horned dinosaurs, and the researchers hypothesize that different horn shapes indicate different kinds of combat.

Furthermore, some evidence suggests that certain species may have evolved different kinds of horns in order to reduce the risk of traumatic injury. (ANI)