Fires and floods hammer Australia

Wildfires threatened homes and new flooding forced evacuations in embattled Australia, as officials warned that last week’s monster cyclone would compound economic woes.
Hot and gusty conditions whipped up by Cyclone Yasi, a top-level tropical storm that ripped into Australia’s northeast coast Thursday, fanned an out-of-control blaze on the outskirts of Perth on Sunday, endangering about 20 homes.
“The bushfire is moving fast in a northwesterly direction. It is out of control and unpredictable,” the Fire and

Bollywood celebs wish Abhishek success on birthday

A host of Bollywood celebrities, including Preity Zinta, Riteish Deshmukh and Bipasha Basu, have wished good luck and success to Abhishek Bachchan on his birthday Saturday.
The actor, who turned 35, is currently shooting in New Zealand for Abbas Mastan’s “Players”. But his colleagues reached out to wish him through micro-blogging site Twitter.
Preity Zinta: “Happy Birthday Abhishek! Hope 2011 is most special with more happiness, more love, more success, more laughter and blockbusters.”
Genelia D’Souza: “Wishin you a very happy birthday,

Uday Chopra welcomes Aamir to ‘Dhoom’

Bollywood actor Uday Chopra, best remembered for his role as Ali in the “Dhoom” franchise, has extended a warm welcome to Aamir Khan, who is on board to play a baddie in its third edition.
“Heres welcoming @aamir_khan to the Dhoom madness. Maybe he teaches us a few things or then again maybe we do (sic),” Uday posted on his Twitter page Saturday.
Aamir has come in after John Abraham and Hrithik Roshan respectively played the smart thief in the first and second movie of the franchise.

A.R. Rahman to perform at Oscars again

Indian composer A.R. Rahman, who has been second time lucky in getting two nominations at the Oscars, will be performing at the prestigious award ceremony in Los Angeles yet again.
The 45-year-old, who has been nominated in two categories – original score and original song – for his work in Danny Boyle`s “127 Hours”, will team up with British pop singer Florence Welch to perform “If I Rise” from the movie.
The performance is being staged for the best song nominees, and other competitors will be performing too,

Salman wants to let Katrina go

There is a lot of ambiguity about when Bollywood’s most desirable woman Katrina Kaif and her boyfriend Salman Khan called it splits.
One of the reasons for this confusion is because this time around, Alpha-male Salman didn’t react to their parting as he has done in the past.
On earlier occasions when Salman split with his girlfriends, Somy Ali or Aishwarya Rai, the star usually made a public display of his displeasure.
This time he is all quiet and dignified; in fact he