Saturday, August 7, 2010
A man threw two shoes towards Zardari - Protest against zardari
A man threw two shoes towards Zardari
BIRMINGHAM: A man threw two shoes towards President Asif Ali Zardari when the latter was delivering a speech at Pakistan People’s Party’s convention here on Saturday.
President Zardari was addressing a gathering of PPP workers at a convention here when a man – apparently a PPP worker – stood up and threw something in direction of the President as he (the man) criticized the latter for the UK trip.
Man hurls shoes at President Zardari in UK
 BIRMINGHAM: A man threw two shoes towards President Asif Ali Zardari when the latter was delivering a speech at Pakistan People’s Party’s convention here on Saturday.President Zardari was addressing a gathering of PPP workers at a convention here when a man – apparently a PPP worker – stood up and threw something in direction of the President as he (the man) criticized the latter for the UK trip. According to an eyewitness who was present at the convention said ‘the man threw two shoes one after another towards the President when he was giving speech.’ Security personnel present there sprung to action and took the man into custody and took him outside, the eyewitness added. This led the President to stop his address and immediately leave the place in a security cordon in his car waiting for him outside. President Zardari is presently in UK on a trip which was widely criticized due to his leaving the country at a time when people in Pakistan are facing unprecedented floods that has killed over 1000 people and displaced millions. |
Good looks can kill women's job chances: study
Researchers found that good-looking women were unlikely to be hired when they applied for jobs considered masculine -- like construction supervisor, prison guard, car salesperson or tow truck driver -- the study published in the Journal of Social Psychology says.
Good-looking women did, however, have an advantage over their less attractive female counterparts in jobs deemed feminine.
Men, on the other hand, face no such beauty-barrier: good-looking men always have an advantage over less good-looking men seeking work, regardless of whether the job they are after is a seen as masculine or feminine.
The study researchers, led by Stefanie Johnson, a management professor at the University of Colorado's Denver Business School, asked participants to pair jobs ranging from lingerie salesperson to tow truck driver with photos of applicants they considered suitable for the job.
They had a stack of 55 male and 55 female photos, and the list of jobs.
In job categories like director of security, hardware salesperson, prison guard and tow truck driver, attractive women were completely overlooked, even though appearance was considered unimportant for the job.
Even in jobs where appearance was considered important -- such as car salesperson -- attractive women were ignored. Instead, they were slotted into positions like receptionist or secretary.
In a second study, participants were also given the resumes of the job applicants. But that changed nothing: the good-looking women were still ignored for the manly jobs.
The study's authors chided employers who let stereotypes and physical appearance influence hiring decisions, urging them to hire on merit.
But even though attractive women tend to miss out on some job opportunities, overall, it's good to be good-looking, said Johnson.
When they do get hired, beautiful people tend to get higher salaries, better performance evaluations, are more likely to gain admission to university, get better voter ratings when running for public office and more favorable judgments in trials, she said.
Why Cameron should count his fingers after shaking hands with Pakistan's Mr Ten Per Cent
Fairly or not, Pakistan is synonymous with angry men who bomb people or take to the streets in protest.
An effigy labelled ‘Cameroon’ was burned in response to the Prime Minister’s comments about the country ‘looking both ways’ when it comes to fighting the Taliban.
Nonetheless, Pakistanis have a good sense of humour. There are many jokes about President Asif Ali Zardari, who this weekend plans to tackle Cameron about his comments when the pair meet at Chequers.
Handshake: David Cameron with Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari last year
Here’s a typical example: Pakistani robber: ‘Give me all your money!’
Zardari: ‘Don’t you know who I am? I’m the president.’
Robber: ‘OK. Give me all my money.’
Such a quip illustrates perfectly how the Pakistani leader is viewed by his people: corrupt, venal and materialistic.
However, the joke runs thin when you realise censorship laws ban anyone from emailing or texting jokes about the President (with the threat of 14 months in jail) and, as part of a crackdown on opposition groups, 500 websites including YouTube, Facebook and Google have been outlawed.
Zardari has been nicknamed Mr Ten Per Cent (and more recently, Mr Hundred and Ten Per Cent) for his rumoured habit of skimming off millions in kickbacks.
Indeed, before winning power he spent more than a decade in jail following corruption charges.
A typical story about Zardari relates how a businessman who owed him money was allegedly seized by thugs, who strapped his leg to a remote-controlled bomb and forced him to go to a bank to withdraw the cash.
Zardari’s powerbase derives from the political reputation of his wife Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in December 2007.
She had carried the torch for her father Zulfikar, the one-time prime minister who was hanged in 1979 for authorising the murder of a political opponent.
Benazir was a charismatic figure who championed Pakistan’s poor, becoming prime minister in 1988 and 1993.
In much of the Third World, political power is about dynastic entitlement, and the Bhutto-Zardari alliance was no exception.
Jet set: Mr Ten Per Cent arrives at Heathrow accompanied by his son Bilawal, seen scratching his head, and daughter Aseefa, who's holding his hand
Indeed, the Pakistan Peoples Party, which Zardari took over after his wife’s death, is referred to as the Permanent Plunder Party. Not only dogged by a reputation
for corruption, the president faces accusations of gross insensitivity for failing to return home to help tackle Pakistan’sworst floods in its history, which have so far killed up to 1,200 people and forced two million to flee their homes.
Critics understandably say he should be ‘trying to support his people, not swanning around in the UK and France’.
But the truth is that Zardari seems more concerned with self-aggrandising meetings with Cameron and the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, and advancing his family’s political future rather than tackling homegrowntragedies.
Indeed, it seems that a priority on his trip to Britain is to attend a rally in Birmingham to further his 22-year-old son Bilawal’s fledgling political career.
This mummy’s boy Oxford graduate, often seen in jeans and nautical themed T-shirts, is being groomed as his parents’ successor.
With opportunistic filial piety, Bilawal bears the Bhutto as well as the Zardari name.
At least there is proof Bilawal did graduate from Oxford — unlike his father, who claims to have studied at the non-existent London School of Economics and Business (a claim made just after a college degree became mandatory for Pakistani MPs.)
Another mystery is how the ruler of a country with desperate poverty and rampant illiteracy seems to be worth a rumoured £1.2 billion, despite having spent 1997 to 2004 in jail while corruptionand murder charges against him were investigated — and then dropped.
And there were the unsavoury episodes when one of his wife’s brothers was poisoned and another murdered after prolongedrows with Benazir and Zardari about hidden assets.
Originally from a minor landowningfamily, Zardari’s boat came in through an arranged marriage in 1987 with the Bhutto political clan, who have huge landholdings in Pakistan.
Though they occupied a £30 million official residence in Islamabad, with 110 acres, money was immediately diverted from funding urban parks to acquire a further 11½ acres of protected woodlands for a private polo park and parking for Zardari’s friends.
At this point, it’s worth pointing out that most Pakistanis live on just £1.25 a day.
Flood horror: Soldiers assist a boy out of a boat after he was rescued from heavy floods in a village of Deira Din Panah, in Pakistan's Punjab province
Though Zardari had no official position other than as consort to his imperiously liberal wife, he was always at hand whenever government defence contracts, broadcast licences, projects to build power stations and sugar mills, or export licences for textiles were up for grabs.
Among the reported scams is one in which a Swiss company paid 9 per cent commission into offshore accounts linked to Zardari in return for inspecting the Customs duty of all imports to Pakistan.
In a country where just one in 100 people pays income tax because of poverty, duty receipts are critical to maintaining the government’s income. This move is alleged to have netted Zardari nearly £7.5 million.
Another arrangement allegedly involved giving a Dubai merchant a monopoly of the gold imported from the Gulf into Pakistan.
According to a New York Times investigation shortly before the monopoly came into effect, £6 million was allegedly sent from the gold dealer’s company in two tranches to Citibank deposit accounts linked to Zardari.
Money is said to have been recycled via front companies in the tax-friendly British Virgin Islands into numerous overseas properties and many more in Pakistan, as well as a string of Pakistani sugar mills.
Land deals seemed to involve controversial valuations. For example, one plot worth two billion rupees was acquired for a bargain 62 million rupees.
The Bhutto-Zardari property portfolio includes a country club and polo ranch in Florida; a country estate called The House of the White Queen in France (where he stayed this week); and luxury apartments in London’s chic Pont Street in Belgravia.
Part of the portfolio is a 355-acre estate in Surrey called R Rockwood, which is up for sale for £7.5 million, though when he bought it, Zardari’s declared wealth was just £300,000.
Lavish home improvements have been made to the property. Tiny LED lights over the four- poster bed in the master suite mimic the stars in the night sky.
Bizarrely, Zardari has recreated the interior of the local Dog and Pheasant pub in the house after he tried to buy it, but the publican refused to sell. The house’s 30ft Lalique glass dining table alone cost £120,000, not to speak of the tiger-skin rugs and crystal chandeliers.
Such opulence is grotesque, particularly in light of the questionable circumstances surrounding the way the president obtained his wealth.
Now this controversial figure has arrived in Britain, apparently to lecture Cameron about how serious his government is about combating the nests of terrorists who lurk all over Pakistan.
Karachi in turmoil: Pakistani men queuing to buy fuel after the second night of violence in the capitali yesterday
By refusing to cancel the trip and return home to his flood-ravaged nation, he’s clearly made the decision that his presence in Europe will guarantee that the West will continue to pour huge amounts of aid into his venal swamp.
And, no doubt, much of this financial support will be diverted to the country’s powerful army — which is rumoured to be even more corrupt than Zardari.
All British governments have had to deal with unsavoury characters.
Apparently, this is the price we must pay for preventing any other Pakistani-related bombers, like those who stalked our transport system on 7/7, from hitting Britain.
Indeed, Pakistan is fast becoming the breeding ground for much terrorism and when we do eventually pull out of Afghanistan, ensuring Pakistan’s support will be vital to the stability of the region.
Not that he needs me to tell him, but when Mr Cameron entertains this dreadful fraud at Chequers, he should sup with a very long spoon.
MICHAEL BURLEIGH is author of Blood And Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism
Mobile Internet Users Increasing Tremendously in Pakistan
In the recent years, due to pretty low rates of cellular services, there is an increase in the number of subscribers with an accelerated pace. Furthermore, the subscribers adopting internet services are showing incredible growth of 161 percent by June-end.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority reported, the number of internet subscription on network of different cellular operators have reached 14.4 million by the end of closing financial year 2009-10. The number of internet subscribers on cellular operators’ network was recorded 4.4 million by the end of 2008-09.
Telenor has grabbed the biggest share in terms of number of mobile internet users; however, penetration-wise Zong is leading the market with its lowest cost package of internet services.
Industry analysts said the internet subscription numbers might be over-stated by the authority because the internet users are not permanent in the cellular sector on specific operator’s network. They were of the view that cellular operators’ revenue has seen a healthy increase from the usage of mobile internet on GSM technology.
The quality of handset also facilitates subscribers to use internet, an internet services are used mostly on expensive handset of branded companies. The growth of mobile internet subscribers has outpaced the growth of internet subscribers utilizing broadband and dial-up connections in the outgoing fiscal year.
As per estimated figures, the number of internet users had reached 19.5 million by 2009-10 as compared, with the number of users reported less than 19 million in the country by the end of corresponding previous year.
However, the number of internet connections has reached nearly 10 million in the country including broadband and dial-up. The broadband growth witnessed 150 percent in just two years, which has never been experienced before.
The number of broadband users has grown from 45,000 in 2007 to 900,000 this year. Due to these results, Pakistan has been placed 6th in terms of quarterly growth and 10th in terms of annual growth in the global broadband market by a leading web source on broadband statistics.
Chocolate pills to lift your mood
 LONDON: These pills will no doubt make anyone happy. No, they aren't the purple and yellow kind. These are so delicious that they are made out of chocolate!A chocolate pill can cure anything in this whole wide world, don't you think? No matter what your reason for feeling down and out is, these pills will surely elevate your mood. It means, come on, it's chocolate, the magical substance. One thinks, these yummy pills will definitely put Prozac out of business. There are 30 delicious chocolate pills in a blister pack. One strip of these chocolate pills costs $7.50. |
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Women gather in Newcastle for Miss World competition
Updated at: 0601 PST, Saturday, August 07, 2010 NEWCASTLE: Twenty of the nation's most beautiful and talented women descended on Newcastle yesterday for the final leg of the Miss World Australia contest.The annual pageant paid a visit to the city for the first time ahead of tomorrow's Sydney grand final. The winner will represent Australia at the Miss World competition in China in October. Two of the finalists are from Newcastle, Maxine Stokes, 21, of Merewether, and Elizabeth Spalding, 19, of Wickham. Ms Stokes was named Miss Newcastle yesterday. It was announced that the city would host its first official pageant next year. Ms Stokes raised $5000 for Ronald McDonald House, and was inspired by Jennifer Hawkins. Miss World Australia chairwoman Pauline McFetridge said Newcastle was this year's choice because the competition had a large following from regional and country-based women. Finalists were greeted yesterday with a civic reception before being judged on etiquette at a dinner. They will be put through their paces during sport and fitness judging at The Forum this morning before being special guests at the Newcastle Knights game tonight. |
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Zardari critic of Nawaz over UK visit
Updated at: 0415 PST, Saturday, August 07, 2010 LONDON: President Asif Ali Zardari has said world must help Pakistan more for complete eradication of terror menace, Geo News reported.Criticizing Nawaz Sharif over his viewpoint regarding his UK visit, Zardari said Nawaz reflected his sick thoughts through speaking against my UK visit. This he said in a televised interview with a British television on Friday. He said our fight is not only against Taliban but it is also a war against a concept. Pakistan army played a vital role in combating terrorism, he said. |
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Saina Nehwal turns glamorous
Saina Nehwal turns glamorous
Giving some of the sexy and sultry looks, Saina Nehwaldefinitely has that Oomph factor in her. In a recent photo-shoot sizzling Badminton Champion Saina gave some hot posses that would get men drooling all over her. She is seen in many different looks making it perfect for the magazine to sell like hot cakes. Indian Khel Ratna winning badminton player currently ranked number 2 in the world by Badminton World Federation, Saina is the first Indian woman to reach the singles quarterfinals at the Olympics and the first Indian to win the World Junior Badminton Championships.
From:
ATIF ASLAM MANAGEMENT TOOK RIGHTS OF ALL UNOFFICIAL FB FAN PAGE’S
With the Passage of time ” illegalship ” is getting fame day by day . And the most targeted people in music scene are the record label companies & musicians . From past few decades there were many statements up in the air from record companies & musicians that their products are illegally published . Back before , fire records call upon apniisp.com ( a music blog ) of putting songs illegally for download on their site have gave a new cite to privacy policy in pakistan . Today another step has been taken up by the management of atif aslam.
Young Pop Pride of Pakistan ” Atif Aslam ” who have been facing this issue since few years . Fan’s , Blog / website owners were using his name setting up fan pages using Aslam’s details & info , and posing to be the official management of atif aslam , selling their material in the web market , have today got a big slap on their faces .
The Management of Atif Aslam took the right step , and asked facebook management to help them deal with the issues . Facebook management favoring Atif Aslam a little more then before happened , have closed up all the unofficial fan pages related to Atif Aslam and merged up all the fans to the official atif aslam fan page .This not only results in promotion of non-relevant content but kills the artist-fan discussion that fan page can very well induce.
A Day before today , AtifAslamOfficialFanPage have fans about 10 K + , but after this lawful act the fan page is using more than 255,000 fans . This step would bring up more of the positive scene of the artist but also helping the fans not to get disturbed between irrelevant & un-authorized information .