Iran says to miss hajj, Saudi 'blocking path to Allah'

Tehran: Iran said today its pilgrims will miss the pilgrimage this year because Saudi Arabia, custodian of Islam's holiest sites, was raising obstacles and "blocking the path to Allah" for its faithful.

The Iranian Hajj Organisation said: "Saudi Arabia is opposing the absolute right of Iranians to go on the hajj and is blocking the path leading to Allah."

The Saudi side had failed to respond to Iranian demands over "the security and respect" of its pilgrims to Mecca, of whom 60,000 took part in last year's hajj, the organisation said.

In the latest dispute between regional rivals Tehran and Riyadh, "after two series of negotiations without any results because of obstacles raised by the Saudis, Iranian pilgrims will unfortunately not be able to take part in the hajj" in September, Iran's Culture Minister Ali Jannati said.

Saudi officials have said an Iranian delegation wrapped up a visit to the kingdom on Friday without reaching a final agreement on arrangements for pilgrims from the Islamic republic.

The Saudi hajj ministry said it had offered "many solutions" to meet a string of demands made by the Iranians in two days of talks.

Agreement had been reached in some areas, including to use electronic visas which could be printed out by Iranian pilgrims, as Saudi diplomatic missions remain shut in Iran, it said.

It would be the first hajj in almost 30 years to take place without the participation of pilgrims from Iran.

Source:http://zeenews.india.com

Have sought report on Rafale negotiations: Manohar Parrikar

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has sought a report from the committee negotiating the price for the Rafale fighter jets as India looks at concluding the deal in a couple of months.

In an interview to IANS, the minister also said that concluding the deal by June-July will mean the first of two Rafale squadrons will be in place in two to three year’s time. Asked about the concessions sought by France on bank guarantees, the minister said any decision taken will be “within the legal framework”.

“Whatever happens will be within legal framework, governmental framework, and according to what has been done in past,” he said.

As per reports, Fence has rejected Indian request for a sovereign guarantee or bank guarantee for the deal, and instead offered to provide a “comfort letter” from the prime minister.

“At this stage, I do not want to interfere into or influence the committee that is discussing (the deal). I have told them they should discuss it and put up a report on this… what is the conclusion of the discussions,” he said.

“If the Rafale deal concludes by June-July we will have a squadron of Rafale in two-three year’s time,” the minister said.

He said that deal is in its final stage.

The deal for purchasing 36 Rafale combat jets in fly-away condition was inked during the prime minister’s visit to France last April.

A negotiating team was constituted to decide on the deal and is holding talks with the French side.

The deal comes with a clause for delivering 50 percent offsets, expected to generate business worth at least three billion euros for Indian companies.
Source: Financial express

300 people evacuated from Korean Air plane at Tokyo airport

About 300 passengers and crew members were evacuated from a Korean Air Boeing 777 at Tokyo’s Haneda airport after one of the engines caught fire, officials said today.

TV footage from the airport showed the plane, which was bound for South Korea’s Gimpo International, surrounded by red fire trucks and with the area around its left wing doused in foam. The plane’s inflatable emergency evacuation slides had all been deployed.

“The flight (Boeing 777) had a fire on Engine No.1,” a Korean Air spokesman told AFP.

“The plane bound to Kimpo (Gimpo) Airport from Haneda had 302 passengers and 17 crew members on board. (The) fire was apparently put out.”

Smoke was seen coming from the plane as it was about to take off at around 00:40 pm (0910 IST), officials of the Japanese transportation ministry and the airport told AFP.

Passengers and crew were evacuated and there were no reported injuries, NHK and Jiji Press said, citing police and fire department sources.

Source: http://www.financialexpress.com

Barack Obama pays tribute at Hiroshima nuclear memorial

Barack Obama on Friday paid tribute to the 140,000 people killed by the world's first atomic bomb attack and sought to bring global attention to his unfulfilled vision of a world without nuclear weapons, as he became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima.

"Death fell from the sky and the world was changed," Obama said, after laying a wreath, closing his eyes and briefly bowing his head before an arched monument in Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park that honors those killed on August 6, 1945, when US forces dropped the bomb that ushered in the nuclear age. The bombing, Obama said, "demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself."

Obama did not apologize, instead offering, in a carefully choreographed display, a simple reflection on the horrors of war and his hope the horror of Hiroshima could spark a "moral awakening." As he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stood near an iconic bombed-out domed building, Obama acknowledged the devastating toll of war and urged the world to do better.

"We stand here in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell ... we listen to a silent cry." Obama said.

A second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki three days later Hiroshima, killed 70,000 more.

Obama also sought to look forward to the day when there was less danger of nuclear war. He received a Nobel Peace Prize early on his presidency for his anti-nuclear agenda but has since seen uneven progress.

Source:  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Rs. 1,000 Crore Spent On Modi Government's 2-Year Ads': Arvind Kejriwal

full-page newspaper ads marked the two-year anniversary of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government today, a sharp tweet came from Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who has been accused of spending crores on publicity.

Mr Kejriwal cited sources to allege that the central government has spent "Rs. 1,000 crore" on the ads.

The Modi government has planned a mega show at Delhi's India Gate on Saturday to mark the two-year celebration that will begin with the prime minister's rally in Uttar Pradesh this evening.

Mr Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi was criticized recently for setting side Rs. 526 crore in its budget for publicity.

The Congress has alleged that the AAP government spent Rs. 100 crore for self-promotion just between February and May. The party said an RTI query had revealed that Rs. 14.5 crore had been spent just on newspaper ads and the rest on TV, radio ads and hoardings. The money, alleged the party, could have been spent by Delhi government on the salary of poor sanitation workers and pension.

In his tweet today, Mr Kejriwal said his government had spent Rs. 150 crore in a full year.

Source: http://www.ndtv.com

In 1998, He Helped Save Her After A Devastating Fire. In 2016, He Watched Her Graduate College.

Peter Getz held Josibelk Aponte in 1998, after a fire ripped through a Connecticut apartment. Getz, a patrolman at the time, performed CPR on the 5-year-old victim as she was being rushed to the hospital, working in the back of a police cruiser, the Hartford Courant reported.

The fire was fatal, killing one of Aponte's relatives. But Aponte survived. The Courant reported that when she awoke after the incident, she was "surrounded by her family and the first responders who saved her."

"I did what I was trained to do, what I had to do," Getz told the newspaper this week.

"I almost died, but I was given a second chance at life," Aponte said, according to the Courant. "And it was because of Peter and all the authorities, everyone who came to help that day."

Aponte is grown now, 23 years old. This week, she graduated from Eastern Connecticut State University. And Getz, who is now retired, was there for the commencement, watching along with her family.

"Pretty proud of her, for all the adversity that she has overcome," Getz told The Washington Post. "Both physically and mentally, having to go through that, and losing one of your loved ones, that you were very close to. That she had stayed the course and that she had come out as a shining star."

Getz said he was dispatched to the scene of the blaze along with other officers, who worked on crowd and traffic control. Fire crews who responded to the apartment found two victims inside the building, including the 5-year-old Aponte.

"Josi was unconscious and basically in cardiac arrest, and I took Josi from the fireman, because he was in full bunker gear - there was no ambulance available," Getz said. "And since we were kind of close to the hospital, I was not going to wait for an ambulance, so I had another officer drive my cruiser, and I did CPR on her on the way to the hospital."

It really was a group effort, Getz said. Dispatchers took down the correct information, and let responders know that people were in the apartment. Firefighters made their way through a smoke-filled apartment, he said. Someone drove the cruiser to the hospital, where medical personnel took over.

"This is how the process is supposed to work," Getz said.

He was photographed cradling Aponte during the incident, a moment that was captured by a Courant photographer. And in the years that followed, he said, he kept tabs on her, "to make sure that she was on track." Then, about two years ago, Aponte got in touch with the retired Hartford police detective.

"She started to reach out to me and sent me an email," he said. "I think she Facebook-stalked me, is what she calls it."

And they've been communicating ever since.

"Honestly, a lump came in my throat," Getz said, describing how he felt when he received the first message from Aponte. "It was kind of cool, you know, that somebody would even remember you from that long ago. I mean, I always remembered her. There's a picture on my desk that her mom gave me a year or two after one of her birthdays."

When asked if he considered Aponte to be family, Getz said: "Oh yeah."

"I mean, physically, not in my house," he said, "but she'll always be a part of me and a part of my family."

Source: http://www.ndtv.com/

Stockholders Okay Twitter CEO's Plan to Donate Shares to Employees

Celebrating Twitter's 10th birthday at its annual meeting on Wednesday, stockholders of the micro-blogging site have approved CEO Jack Dorsey's pledge to give away one-third of his shares to employees.

Last October, Dorsey had pledged to donate shares to a pool to be "granted over time to Twitter's employees and other service providers," Forbes reported on Thursday.

The 6.8 million shares that the Twitter CEO plans to donate were worth about $200 million (roughly Rs. 1,343 crores) when he promised to give them to employees in October.

Since then, Twitter stocks have slid more than 50 percent owing to stalled users growth and falling revenues, lowering the value of the promised shares to $98 million (roughly Rs. 658 crores), the report added.

Twitter shares fell sharply about 12 percent after the micro-blogging website - which managed to add 5 million people to take its monthly active user base to 310 million - missed the first quarter revenue estimates last month.

The company posted $595 million revenue in the first quarter ending March 31. It was up 36 percent from $435.9 million (roughly Rs. 2,924 crores) in the same quarter last year but missed the $607.9 million (roughly Rs. 4,079 crores) expected on average among analysts, Forbes reported.

Twitter posted a net loss of $79.7 million (roughly Rs. 534 crores) compared with a year-earlier loss of $162.4 million (roughly Rs. 1,089 crores).

Twitter has predicted revenue for the second quarter between $590 million (roughly Rs. 3,962 crores) and $610 million (roughly Rs. 4,096 crores) much lower than the $678 million (roughly Rs. 4,551 crores) analysts expected.

"Revenue came in at the low end of our guidance range, as brand marketers did not increase spend as quickly as expected in Q1," the company tweeted.

According to Dorsey, the engagement on Twitter is growing. Direct messages are up about 50 percent year-over-year and tweets shared via direct message are up more than 75 percent quarter-over-quarter.

Twitter said more than 800 million people visit the site and there are more than 1 billion monthly unique visitors to pages that syndicate Twitter content.

The company also said that new follows on the service are up about 48 percent.

Dorsey hinted that Twitter's deal with the National Football League (NFL) to stream 10 games this fall will help the company earn better traffic.

Source: http://gadgets.ndtv.com