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Malaysian Indian Congress delegate suspended over slipper garland for ex-PM

September 17, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Kuala Lumpur, Sep.16 (ANI): The Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) has suspended a delegate who suggested a garland of slippers for former Prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

The Star quoted MIC President S. Samy Vellu as saying in a statement: “With the powers vested in me as the president under the MIC constitution, I have suspended the membership.”

He said the party would wait for recommendations by the disciplinary committee to the Central Working Committee CWC) before deciding on any further action.

The disciplinary committee had to issue a show-cause letter asking the delegate, who was not named, to provide an explanation, and they would decide on any action based on the explanation, he said.

The party constitution provides for the disciplinary committee to warn, suspend or sack the delegate, but it has to be endorsed by the CWC. (ANI)

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Carrots are better than sticks when it comes to fostering cooperation

September 4, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Sept 4 (ANI): Rewards have been found to be much more successful in promoting public cooperation rather than punishment, suggests a new study.

According to researchers, rewards robustly build compliance and cooperation and could help in developing solutions for thorny problems requiring the cooperation of large numbers of people to achieve a greater good.

“All of us engage in public goods games, on both large and small scales,” said David G. Rand, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics and lead author of the study.

“Climate change is a huge public goods game: If each person does his or her part to conserve energy and reduce CO2 emissions, it benefits us all.

“On a more local level, public goods games include volunteering on school boards, helping to maintain public facilities in your community, or cleaning up after yourself and doing your share of work at the office.

“In these types of domains, where people interact repeatedly with each other to solve a group social dilemma, our work suggests that rewards result in better outcomes than punishment,” he added.

Rand said that these rewards could change individuals’ behaviour and encourage cooperation without the destructive negative consequences that come with punishment.

During the study headed by Martin A. Nowak of Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, the researchers examined cooperation among 192 participants in a public goods game probing the fundamental tension between the interests of an individual and a group.

Over 50 rounds of interaction, each of four participants in a group would decide how much to contribute toward a common pool that benefited all four equally. Each participant was then able – at a cost to him or herself- to either reward or punish each of the three other subjects for their contributions to the group, or lack thereof.

As in real life, Rand said, study subjects tend to resent “free riders” who fail to contribute to a group yet reap the benefits of membership in it.

“But despite this anger at free riders, rewarding good behaviour is as effective as punishing bad behaviour for maintaining public cooperation and leads to better outcomes for the group. When both options are available, reward leads to increased contributions and payoff for the group, while punishment has no effect on contributions and leads to lower payoff for the group,” Rand added.

The study appears in journal Science. (ANI)

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Six factors that affect pupils’ involvement in school activities

September 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Sep 2 (ANI): An expert on classroom education at the University at Buffalo has listed six factors that affect whether elementary, middle and high school students get involved in the activities of their schools or feel detached.

Dr. Jeremy D. Finn said that students who feel “disengaged” from school are at greater risk for dropping out, avoiding challenging courses, scoring low on standardized achievement tests and achieving less as adults.

“Disengagement is the failure to develop a sense of school membership, failure to participate actively in class and school activities, or failure to become cognitively involved in learning. Different degrees of disengagement may be exhibited by students at all stages of schooling. The extreme of disengagement is leaving school without graduating, thus severing connections with school, teachers and activities that support learning,” said Finn.

And according to him, the six factors that can contribute to student disengagement are:

1. Failure to provide early school experiences that can impact engagement in later grades

2. School conditions that are inconsistent with the needs of adolescents

3. School conditions that produce feelings of anonymity

4. Rules and disciplinary practices that are unclear, too harsh or administered unfairly.

5. Inadequate academic and personal support for students at risk of “disidentification.”

6. Course work that may be seen as irrelevant to the needs of the students (upper grades).

These six factors and solutions are drawn from Finn’s research on the effects of class size, from an analysis of published research on the subject and from the “Dropout Prevention Guide,” which is authored by six experts including Finn.

He noted that each of the six factors can be addressed by changing school policies and/or practices to affect student behaviour.

Finn is presenting the research at an international education symposium on student engagement in New Zealand. (ANI)

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“Saddam-style” torture and death penalty still prevalent in Iraq: Amnesty

September 1, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Baghdad (Iraq), Sep 1(ANI): Amnesty International on Tuesday said that even though Iraq has been free from Saddam Hussein’s regime for six years, more than 1,000 prisoners are still facing death penalty in the country.

It said that Iraq’s burdened justice system can barely cope with ordinary crimes, and punishment for crimes ranging from murder to the membership and support of armed groups are out of bounds for them.

“Many Iraqis who had been traumatised by his policies hoped and expected that a new chapter would be opened in which human rights would be respected and upheld, and that torture, killings and the death penalty would remain only as a bad memory of the past,” The Daily Express quoted Amnesty International, as saying.

“Six years on (from the fall of the regime in 2003), as an estimated 1,000 prisoners face the prospect of execution, that dream has all but faded to nothing,” it added.

Amnesty further said that instead of wiping away the death penalty, Iraqi government had widened both the scope and application of penalty in 2004, and called for an “immediate moratorium” on all executions.

It further added that Iraq use of the death penalty “lacks transparency”, and trails in the country fail to match international standards and said it expressed disappointment that Iraq’s Human Rights Minister Dr Wajdan Mikhail Salam advocates the death penalty.

It also said that people suffering from death penalties should be given a ray of hope to contend their cases again.

Amnesty also claimed that complaints were received from defendants in numerous cases that confessions were extracted from them under torture.

It further informed that out of the 1,000 prisoners, some 150 have exhausted all means of appeal or clemency and are at “immediate risk of death”. (ANI)

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France wants to expand G8 group

July 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

L’Aquila (Italy), July 10 (DPA) French President Nicolas Sarkozy is pushing for an expansion of the Group of Eight (G8).
“The G8 are no longer representative enough to manage the economic crisis,” Sarkozy said Thursday in L’Aquila, Italy, after the close of the second day of the summit of the world’s seven leading industrialised democracies plus Russia.

Major emerging economies including China and India must be brought in for permanent membership, Sarkozy said. France, which takes over the rotating G8 leadership in 2011, intends to create a G14 group, he said.

“It’s unavoidable,” he said. “We must include these countries in discussions from the very beginning. There’s no way around it.”

Sarkozy expressed support for similar efforts to expand the UN’ most important decision-making body, the Security Council. He wants the permanent members to include Germany, Japan and India.

The suggestions are not new. The current permanent members, who have the power of veto over any Security Council resolution, are the World War II victors: China, Russia, the US, France and Britain. Other large contributors to the UN including Japan and European countries are pushing for equal clout.

Sarkozy questioned the continuing dominant role of the US dollar as the global currency.

“The world cannot continue to use just one currency” as its common denominator, he said.

Most of international commerce is calculated in US dollars, and the dollar dominates international financial markets.

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Brown supports India’s bid for UNSC

July 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

L’Aquila (Italy), July 8 (ANI): India’s bid to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council got a boost when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed his support for New Delhi’s demand to restructure the UNSC.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held a bilateral meeting with his British counterpart in this Italian mountain town. The meeting lasted 45 minutes. Dr. Singh met Brown on the sidelines of the G-8-G-5 summit.

Sources said the two leaders discussed issues of bilateral and multilateral importance, besides areas where they could cooperate mutually, including terrorism.

They confirmed that both leaders discussed the current global economic meltdown.

On Tuesday, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett had said, “India has become such an important and central part of the global infrastructure that just about everything that Britain wants to achieve internationally requires us to work in partnership with India.”

India has again broached the subject of UNSC’s expansion at the G-8 summit this year. In an article for he has written for The Vision of Emerging Powers – India, PM Manmohan Singh has said, “The Security Council has not changed at all and its present structure poses serious problems of legitimacy.

The system of two-tiered membership, which gives a veto to the five permanent members that is the nations that emerged victorious after the Second World War, is clearly anachronistic.”

Singh is expected to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos on Friday.

An informal meeting with US President Barack Obama is also scheduled. (ANI)

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Abu Dhabi wins International Renewable Energy Agency headquarters

July 1, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Nicosia, July 1 (ANI): Abu Dhabi has been selected to house the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

The announcement was made at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, after other candidate cities, like Bonn and Vienna withdrew their candidacies.

Although IRENA was established last January, it saw its membership grow quickly from 75 member countries to 130.

The IRENA will be located in Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City, the world’s first carbon-neutral, zero-waste city, powered entirely by renewable energy.

Masdar is a 22 billion-dollar project being constructed near Abu Dhabi which is scheduled for completion in 2015, with a capacity to house up to 50,000 people.

The symbolism of having the seat of an organization dealing with renewable energy sources in a city powered only by renewable energy was too big to miss, although some critics had pointed out that the per capita energy consumption in the UAE was the highest in the world.

The UAE Government offered to cover all operational costs of the IRENA in perpetuity and will also grant the agency an amount of 136 million dollars over a six year period.

It should be noted that IRENA’s innovation centre will be located in Bonn and the organization will have a liaison office in Vienna. (ANI)

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9-year-old whiz-girl develops Bar Council of Kerala website

June 28, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Kozhikode (Kerala), June 28 (ANI): A nine-year-old girl from Kozhikode district is being credited as the youngest web designer in the state for working out the website of the Bar Council of Kerala.

Shreelaxmi Suresh, the daughter of an advocate, has already designed and developed more than 10 websites.

The latest website launched by Shreelaxmi, www.barcouncilkerala.com is aimed at updating people on legal matters and helping poor people by providing free legal aid through the website.

“It was indeed great pleasure in seeing her (Shreelaxmi Suresh), interacting with her and really watching her performance in the IT field. There is no limit to what she can achieve. That’s what I feel and I am sure she will achieve glory and will cross all the world records in this field,” said Justice Kurien Joseph of the Kerala High Court.

When aged just eight, Shreelaxmi designed the official website of her own school apart from another website for deaf people and a Malyalam news website for kids.

“When I was small, I was so interested in doing computers. So when I was in LKG (Lower Kindergarten), I used to draw pictures and paint. Later I used to type alphabets on notepad. Then one day my dad showed me one news cut of a boy who designed a website of his own. So I thought that I too can do a website. My dad knows its basics. So I told him that I do want to study and my dad taught me web designing,” said Shreelaxmi Suresh.

She has won several National and International Awards for her excellence in web designing.

Sreelakshmi is the only member of the Association of American Webmasters, under the age of 18.

The Association of American Webmasters honoured her by giving their membership along with their highest award for excellence in web designing, the Gold Web Award including the National Child Award for Exceptional Achievement 2008 and the highest award in India for Children instituted by Government of India.

Sreelakshmi Suresh has been appointed as the Brand Ambassador of InfoGroup, a group of companies and Director of YGlobes Technologies. She has also started her own web designing company, eDesign, wherein she is the ‘Chief Executive Officer’. (ANI)

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Govt. backed ‘moral police’ Basij may be behind brutalities on Iranian protestors

June 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 20 (ANI): Basij, a semiofficial force of volunteers on whom the Iranian Government has relied for years to enforce a variety of laws and religious codes, have been accused of committing much of this week’s violence in the country.

The protests across Iran have been largely peaceful during the daytime, but Iranians shudder at the violence unleashed at night by Basijis, who indulge in beating, looting and sometimes gunning down protesters they tracked during the day.

One of the more dramatic video clips from Iran this week showed a man in an upper-floor window firing onto demonstrators outside a building near Tehran’s Azadi Square, killing at least one and wounding others, the Washington Post reports.

The building was a base for the Basij. Protesters say they have raided university dorms, beaten women and smashed their way into private homes. Many said they fear the Basij will be used to carry out even worse violence as the protests continue.

But although the Basiji fear looms large in the minds of their countrymen, Iranians and analysts said it is hard to pin down the number of members, their precise activities and whether they are all as loyal to hard-line government factions as many believe.

Joining the Basij can be as simple as going to a local mosque and receiving a membership card. Training and membership are often informal, said Gary Sick; an Iran expert at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, adding that some who carry out activities associated with the Basij may not be official members.

The term Basij means mobilization, and is originally referred to people too young or too old to join the army during Iran’s eight-year war against Iraq.

Then-leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for 20 million Iranians-half the country’s population at the time-to volunteer. Many were preteens and teenagers who, swept up in a religion-infused passion, famously walked onto minefields, unarmed, allegedly with plastic keys to heaven around their necks.

After the war, they became known for enforcing moral codes. For years, the word “Basiji” has struck fear into the hearts of more secular Iranians, who know them as young men who stop them on the street for failing to follow the dress code or fraternizing with the opposite sex. (ANI)

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Malay Indian party open to all Malaysians

May 28, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Klang (Malaysia), May 28 (AN): The newly formed Malaysian Makkal Sakthi Party (MMSP) is not exclusively for Indians and its founders hope that Malaysians of all races will join it.

Pro tem secretary-general Kannan Ramasamy said the MMSP was registered as a party with an open membership.

“The party constitution does not classify the party as Indian-based,” The Satr quoted him, as saying.

He said the party’s open membership was in line with the Makkal Sakthi concept, which was basically about people power regardless of race and religion.

He said the party’s central working committee would have representatives of every ethnicity in the party.

However, Kannan said that due to the many unresolved issues facing the Indian community, the party’s “initial work would revolve around the community.”

“Our pilot project is to look into the problem of statelessness among Indians,” Kannan said.

Kannan also said that the party offered free membership for the first 100,000 who signed up. (ANI)

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Gujarat has a new health scheme for poor

May 25, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Ahmedabad (Gujarat) May 25 (ANI): In a unique initiative aimed at making health care benefits available to the masses, Shri Krishna hospital in Ahmedabad has launched Krupa Arogya Suraksha (KAS), a social security scheme, wherein a poor family can get insurance cover by paying a minimum fee of Rs. 90 or 9 kilograms of food grains.

The insurance cover will be for Rs. 5000.

Under the scheme the hospital accepts food grains instead of money from people who belong to the special categories like landless labourers, farmers and other deprived section of the society.

” We believe, a scheme such as the one we have, where you pay seven or eight kilograms of rice or wheat can be a good way to cover themselves through our scheme,” said Sandeep Desai, CEO, H.M Patel Center for Medical care managed by Charotar Arogya Mandal.

The medical benefits under the KAS scheme may be opted at the Shri Krishna Hospital or any other hospital nominated by Shri Krishna Arogya Trust (SKAT).ny person between the ages of three months to 75 years is eligible to opt for the scheme.

So far, at least 45,000 people have enrolled themselves under KAS scheme.KAT plans to expand the work in rural areas by tying up with like-minded organization for maximizing benefits of the unique scheme.

“Till now this scheme is restricted only to Anand and Kheda districts. Our own hospital takes part in this organization. As our scheme grows, we would go to rural areas and tie up with like-minded organizations there,” said Pragnesh Gor, General Manager, Extension programme for Krupa scheme.

A special mobile van run by the Shri Krishna hospital also goes door to door to spread awareness about the health care scheme. This scheme also provides maternity benefits on completion of ten months of membership without any additional charges. It also covers pre-existing condition unlike other medi-claim policies. By Ami Sharma (ANI)

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Gujarat hospital launches unique grain for health scheme for poor

May 24, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Ahmedabad, May 24 (ANI): Villagers in Anand and Kheda in Gujarat can now avail medical benefits of up to Rs.5000 at Rs.90 or ten kilograms of food grains.

The Shri Krishna Hospital is promoting this unique initiative called the Krupa Arogya Suraksha (KAS) social security scheme.

The insurance cover will increase on higher subscription.

Under the scheme the hospital accepts food grains instead of money from people who belong to the special categories like landless labourers, farmers and other deprived section of the society, which accounts for 30 percent of the population in that district.

“We believe, a scheme such as the one we have, where you pay seven or eight kilograms of rice or wheat can be a good way to cover themselves through our scheme,” said Sandeep Desai, CEO, H.M Patel Center for Medical care managed by Charotar Arogya Mandal.

The medical benefits under the Krupa Arogya Suraksha (Security) scheme may be opted at the Shri Krishna Hospital or any other hospital nominated by Shri Krishna Arogya Trust (SKAT).

Any person between the ages of three months to 75 years is eligible to opt for the scheme.

So far, at least 45,000 people have enrolled themselves under KAS scheme.

SKAT plans to expand the work in rural areas by tying up with like-minded organization for maximizing benefits of the unique scheme.

“Till now this scheme is restricted only to Anand and Kheda districts (India’s western Gujarat). Our own hospital takes part in this organization. As our scheme grows, we would go to rural areas and tie up with like-minded organizations there,” said Pragnesh Gor, General Manager, Extension programme for Krupa scheme.

A special mobile van run by the Shri Krishna Hospital also goes door to door to spread awareness about the health care scheme and collects food grains from the families who enroll for the treatment.

This scheme also provides maternity benefits on completion of ten months of membership without any additional charges. It also covers pre-existing condition unlike other medi-claim policies. (ANI)

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UAE quits Gulf monetary union

May 22, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Nicosia, May 22 (ANI): The United Arab Emirates announced on Wednesday that it decided to withdraw from a planned Gulf Arab Monetary union, something with has been debated for the last 30 years. The decision does not affect UAE’s broader membership in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The decision casts doubts over the future of the project, although the other four countries- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain- reiterated their intention to participate. Two years ago, GCC member Oman announced that it would not join the planned single currency.

According to WAM news agency, UAE’s announcement was made by a Foreign Minister official who said that the general secretariat of Gulf Cooperation Council was informed accordingly.

Journalists and banking officials believe that the decision to withdraw from the planned monetary union was the result of the recent announcement that the proposed central bank of the GCC would be located in Saudi Arabia. The UAE government expected that the bank would be based on its own territory.

On May 5 GCC Secretary General Abdurrahman al-Attiyah told journalists that the first step toward creating a Gulf central bank would be the establishment of a Riyadh-based monetary council, which would exist in a ” transitional phase” in the move towards monetary union.(ANI)

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New Malay Indian party vows no street protests

May 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Petaling Jaya, May 20 (ANI): The newly-formed Indian origin Malaysia Makkal Sakti Party will not resort to street protests, preferring to solve things through discussions.

Party president and former Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) national coordinator R.S. Thanenthiran said grievances could be heard through round-table discussions.

“Enough fighting on the streets. We are more determined than ever that non-violence is the way forward with dignity and justice,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

The party, formed by several key Hindraf members, received its approval from the Registrar of Societies within two months of application and was officially registered on May 11, The NST online reported.

Thanenthiran said they would remain an independent party, but would not turn down funds from either Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat.

“We are not being funded by Barisan. But if they give us money, why not? We will take it. However, this does not mean that we will compromise our principles.

“We will work with any party coalition that supports and benefits the Indian community, be it Barisan or Pakatan,” he said, adding that the party would be officially launched in July.

Thanenthiran said he would meet Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and Pakatan Rakyat’s Anwar Ibrahim soon to convey the party’s aspirations.

Makkal Sakti is targeting an increase in membership from 5,000 to 300,000 by June next year. (ANI)

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Hindraf leaders form new political party to address Malay-Indians’ aspirations

May 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Klang (Malaysia), May 19 (ANI): Several Hindraf leaders in Malaysia have formed a political party, which they say is aimed at addressing the aspirations of the Indian community.

Led by the Hindu Rights Action Force’s former national coordinator, R.S. Thanenthiran, the Malaysia Makkal Sakthi Party vowed to remain neutral.

Its pro-tem secretary-general Kannan Ramasamy said the party had already received approval from the Registrar of Societies.

“We submitted the forms last month after realising the need for a political platform to represent the Indian community’s needs and wants,” The Star quoted Ramasamy, as saying.

“Since Hindraf is outlawed, it is timely that the movement and its support base find an alternative conduit to champion the Indian cause,” he added

Lack of support from those whom the Hindraf helped win the elections last year is the reason behind the decision to form a new party, Ramasamy said.

The new party plans to work with whichever coalition that was willing to support Hindraf’s 18-point demand.

“We are open to talks and negotiations with both the Barisan Nasional as well as Pakatan Rakyat and will support the coalition that supports our aspirations,” Ramasamy said.

When asked if the new party was expecting crossovers from PKR and the DAP as some staunch Hindraf and Makkal Sakthi supporters belonged to these parties, Kannan said he would not rule that possibility out.

“We have not initiated our membership drive yet and will only know who’s coming aboard when we start taking in members,” he said. (ANI)

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Less than one in ten anti-terrorism arrests leads to conviction in UK

May 13, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, May 13 (ANI): Less than one in ten of those people arrested for terrorism offences every year in Brtiain are ever convicted, according to new Government figures. lmost 230 people are arrested for terrorism offences every year, The Telegraph quotes the newly released statistics, as saying.

But the number eventually convicted of a specifically terrorist offence is less than 10 per cent.

Between September 11 2001 and March 31 2008, there were 1,471 arrests for terrorism in Britain.

Of these, 521 resulted in a charge of some form, with 222 people charged with terror offences, and 118 people charged with terror-related offences, such as conspiracy to murder.

The Home Office said the number of those arrested who were charged is similar to that for other criminal offences.

Of the 340 people charged in relation to terrorism, 196 were eventually convicted – 102 for terrorism offences under terror legislation and 94 for terrorism-related criminal offences.

That means, out of 1,471 terrorism arrests, 102 were eventually convicted under terrorism legislation.

The main offences for suspects charged under terrorism legislation were possession of an article for terrorist purposes, membership of a proscribed organisation, and fund raising. These are all offences under the Terrorism Act 2000. (ANI)

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Defamation case against Rabri Devi to be heard on May 13

May 4, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Patna, May 4 (ANI): A defamation case against former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi for making inflammatory remarks against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Rajiv Ranjan Singh ‘Lalan’ will be heard on May 13.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) A K Jha, who heard the matter, fixed the next date after Rajiv Ranjan Singh failed to appear before the court today because he was sick.

On April 13, Rajiv Ranjan Singh had filed a defamation case against Rabri Devi.
The complaint said such malicious and slanderous statements did not behove a former Chief Minister.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate A. K. Jha received the case under Section 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

On April 5, at an election rally in Saran parliamentary constituency, Rabri Devi had allegedly described Nitish Kumar and Lalan as being “brothers-in-law”.

On April 6, senior advocate Ashutosh Ranjan Pandey filed a petition in the Patna High Court against Rabri Devi, seeking criminal contempt proceedings against her.

He also charged Rabri Devi of scandalizing and lowering the authority of the judiciary.

The JD (U) also urged the Election Commission (EC) to bar Rabri Devi from participating in election campaigns and also asked for a termination of her membership from the Bihar State Assembly. (ANI)

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Adultery business booming in recession

May 4, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, May 4 (ANI): While the world is suffering from the ongoing recession, it has proved to be a boon for adultery business.

Ashley Madison agency, which revels in the motto, “Life is short. Have an affair,” is booming as its membership has soared from one million to 3.6 million in just 12 months.

Noel Biderman, the company’s founder and chief executive said that many couples who would otherwise have divorced were seeking affairs at the moment because of the cost of hiring lawyers and the difficulty of selling the marital home.

The company has recently launched a new promotional campaign, targeting potential adulterers with TV ads placed on peak-viewing daytime slots.

He hopes his business will flourish even more with the launch of a service allowing members to access the site from their mobile phones.

“We’re not just recession-proof, we’re booming,” the Telegraph quoted Biderman, 37, a happily married father-of-two who set up the business in his home city of Toronto in 2001.

The advertisement features an attractive woman enduring a dreadful dinner date with a boorish man.

“Have you ever found yourself on a really bad blind date?” asks the voice-over. “Now imagine that date lasting the rest of your life.”

Although it is free to register with Ashley Madison, but members pay with purchased credits to send messages to other users.

It charges 49 dollars for 100 credits or 249 dollars for 1,000 credits and 50 credits buys 60 minutes of instant messaging time or 10 emails to different users.

Mr Biderman is planning a full launch later this year of the business in Britain and Ireland, where it already has 25,000 registered users.

However, Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Centre, a conservative monitoring group the commercials has criticised the commercials for promoting “Home Wreckers Inc”. (ANI)

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Slovenia resists EU pressure over Croatia membership

May 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Luxembourg – Slovenia resisted European Union pressure on Monday to give immediate backing to a plan aimed at easing Croatia’s EU membership path, officials at a meeting of EU foreign ministers said.

Slovenia has been blocking Croatia’s EU bid in a row over the two neighbours’ maritime border.

Last week EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn proposed a compromise which would see the two countries nominate five judges tasked with solving the problem. Croatia and many EU member states welcomed the proposal.

EU foreign ministers gathered on Monday in Luxembourg to put pressure on both sides to agree to the compromise, according to Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, who chaired the meeting.

“It depends on the two of them. We had a talk together, they know the conditions, they have to accept the mediation offer, if they do then there will be progress,” he said as he arrived.

“There is pressure on both of them, there won’t be on one side alone,” he said.

But Slovenia’s foreign minister, Samuel Zbogar, said that his country would have to make an in-depth analysis of the proposal before it was ready to comment on it, according to diplomats close to the negotiations.

He also pointed out that Monday is the day on which Slovenia celebrates the beginning of its resistance, as part of the then Yugoslavia, to Nazi occupation in 1941. (dpa)

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Sweden: Unique opportunity to solve Cyprus problem

May 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Athens/Nicosia – Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt on Friday said there is now a unique window of opportunity for settling the Cyprus issue given that Turkey’s membership evaluation by the European Union will take place at the end of the year.

“The failure by Turkey to meet the criteria could not be seen in separation from all the other issues, including the Cyprus problem,” said Bildt during a visit to Cyprus.

The eastern Mediterranean island has been divided into a Greek Cypriot south and Turkish Cypriot controlled north since a Turkish invasion in 1974, with peace talks only resuming in September last year after being broken off in 2004.

Despite renewed efforts to solve the problem, EU diplomats say that the ongoing conflict over Cyprus has become the bloc’s single biggest problem in two key areas: It is troubling Turkey’s bid to join the EU and it is complicating the bloc’s relationship with Europe’s premier military power, NATO.

Speaking to journalists after talks with Cypriot Foreign Minister Marcos Kyprianou, Bildt said that a solution to the Cyprus problem would result in positive economic dynamics for both sides as well as positive dynamics between the EU and NATO.

Bildt was paying a visit to the island before Sweden takes over the presidency of the European Union in the second half of 2009.

The 35-year conflict continues to pose a headache for diplomats, most recently in 2004, when Greek Cypriots rejected a United Nations settlement blueprint a week before the island joined the EU as a divided state.

Both ethnic communities agree, on paper, to rejoining the island as a bizonal and bicommunal federation, but disagree on how it will work.

EU officials have said that progress in the Cyprus reunification talks will be essential to move Turkey’s slow-moving EU accession process forward.

Turkey refuses to recognise the Republic of Cyprus, even though it is itself a candidate to join the club of which the republic is now a member. It has also refused to open its ports and airports to Greek Cypriot ships and planes.

Turkey has opened talks on 10 out of the 25 policy areas it needs for EU entry but has provisionally completed negotiations on just one. The EU has frozen eight chapters following Ankara’s refusal to open its ports and airports to Greek Cypriots.

Turkey’s membership bid has also been held up by opposition from France and Austria which demand Ankara do more on certain domestic and external issues, including human rights and reforms.

The feud has even deadlocked EU relations with NATO – ironically, since the two alliances share four-fifths of their members and are headquartered just five kilometers apart in Brussels.

Cyprus is not a NATO member, but Turkey is, making both sides reluctant to approve any kind of formal cooperation between the two organisations – even though their soldiers and diplomats are dealing with exactly the same missions in places like Afghanistan and Kosovo.

For their part, Greek-Cypriots have also blocked any EU-proposed infrastructure projects, including direct trade and waterworks, that implies recognition of the authorities in the Turkish-Cypriot north.(dpa)

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