Berlin: Germany on Friday became the first European country to allow babies born with characteristics of both sexes to be registered as neither male nor female, but advocates called for broader reforms. Under the new legislation, the entry for gender can be left blank on birth certificates, effectively creating a category for indeterminate sex in the public register. But activists promoting the rights of so-called ‘intersex’ people said they hoped the creation of a third gender option would open the door to broader changes limiting genital surgery on newborns with both male and female characteristics. “It’s a first, important step in the right direction,” Lucie Veith, an intersex person from the northern German...
November 2, 2013 at 1:00 am | News Desk
PESHAWAR: Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the banned terrorist outfit, chief Hakimullah Mehsud and four others were killed in a US drone strike North Waziristan tribal region of the couuntry bordering Afghanistan, sources said The fresh unmanned drone strike has hit a compound in Danday Darpakhel area of the agency just a day before Pakistan government was scheduled to send its delegation to hold talks with the banned outfit. It was also the second drone strike since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited the US last month. Taliban sources have also confirmed that death of Mehsud the attack and said that the funneral of the leader would be held in Miranshah at 3 PM on Satuday. “The drone fired first missile on...
November 2, 2013 at 1:00 am | News Desk
PARIS: Roger Federer set up a Paris Masters semi-final showdown with Novak Djokovic by edging Juan Martin del Potro 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in Friday’s quarter-finals. Djokovic had earlier seen off Stanislas Wawrinka 6-1, 6-4. The Swiss fifth seed had lost for the third straight time to the towering Argentine in the final of the Basel tournament on Sunday, on what was home turf for him. But with Del Potro looking decidedly leg weary from his marathon efforts in recent weeks that have seen him win 15 out of his last 16 matches, Federer was in commanding form from the start. He broke serve to lead 3-1 and had little difficulty pocketing the first set from there in just 30 minutes, leaving his opponent stranded on the baseline with a succession of...
November 2, 2013 at 1:00 am | News Desk
ISLAMABAD: A month after increasing the petroleum products’ price in rupees, Pakistan government has cut the price of patrol by 48 paisas per litre. A notification issued by Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA), the price of patrol has been reduced to Rs112.78/litre while the price of diesel went down by 20 paisas (Rs.0.20) to Rs116.75, whereas the price of light diesel remained unchanged at Rs101.24/litre. The authority has also cut the price of Kerosene oil by 13 paisas to Rs108 per litre. The new rates has now been implemented. The News Tribe – UK-based bilingual news website covering politics, technology, sports, health and lifestyle from US, Pakistan, Middle East and around the world Click here for more ...
November 1, 2013 at 1:51 am | News Desk
On the day when Android 4.4 is expected to be officially announced, Sprint has begun rolling out the Android 4.3 update (build GJ04) for the Galaxy Nexus. Accordingto Sammobile, the Android 4.3 update isn’t a major one, and includes features such as TRIM support for faster and consistent performance, always-on Wi-Fi location scanning (can be turned off from Wi-Fi settings), support for multiple new languages, improved typing, auto-complete in the dialer, and other under-the-hood tweaks. The update’s available over-the-air and should be arriving on your Spring Galaxy Nexus in the next few hours/days, and you can do a manual check for its availability from the Settings » About phone » System updates menu. There&...
November 1, 2013 at 1:09 am | News Desk
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 – 2014 Edition, a 10-inch tablet, is now available in the UK, following its launch in South Korea and Canada today, and in the US a couple of weeks ago. It’s priced at £494.99 (a couple of bucks less than the standard price), and is available from retailer Expansys, with 16GB of internal storage and Wi-Fi connectivity. Galaxy Note 10.1 – 2014 Edition specs: 10.1-inch 2,560×1,600 touchscreen 2.3 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor 3 GB of RAM 8-megapixel rear camera 2-megapixel front camera Wi-Fi Bluetooth GPS 8,220 mAh battery Android 4.3 Jelly Bean Software features: Air View Air Command Smart Scroll Multi Window S Pen stylus and more. The News Tribe – UK-...
November 1, 2013 at 1:09 am | News Desk
PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pukhtunkhwa Assembly passed the K-P Local Government Bill 2013 by a majority vote on Thursday paving a legislative way for local body elections in the province. The bill, which the ruling coalition of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Jamaat–e-Islami (JI) and Sherpao group claim is designed to transfer authority to the lower level in a real sense, was introduced into the assembly for debate on October 5. Th law finally passed on Thursday, despite opposition from the various members of the parliament on abolishing union councils and instituting elections for village councils on non-party basis. The new bill will see elections of the district and tehsil councils on party basis while village councils will be elected o...
November 1, 2013 at 1:09 am | News Desk
Halloween or Hallowe’en, also known as All Hallows’ Eve, is a yearly celebration observed in a number of countries on October 31, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows’ Day. It initiates the triduum of Hallowmas, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed believers. According to many scholars, All Hallows’ Eve is a Christianized feast initially influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, with possible pagan roots, particularly the Gaelic Samhain. Other academics maintain that it originated independently of Samhain and has solely Christian roots. Typical festive Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (or th...
October 31, 2013 at 1:55 am | News Desk
Beijing: Chinese police announced Wednesday they have captured five suspects over a “terrorist attack” in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, the first time authorities have accused terrorists of striking in the capital. The driver of the sports utility vehicle which sped along the pavement, ploughed into crowds and crashed in the symbolic heart of the Chinese state on Monday was named by state media as Usmen Hasan. His wife and mother were both with him, the media said. City police said on a verified social media account that they “ignited the petrol inside the car so the car caught on fire” and the three “died at the scene”. Two tourists, one a woman from the Philippines, were also killed in the incident,...
October 31, 2013 at 1:27 am | News Desk
Berlin: German envoys are due to hold talks with US officials in Washington Wednesday on rebuilding a “basis of trust” after alleged US tapping of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone in sweeping surveillance operations that have outraged Europe. As spy claims ricocheted across the Atlantic in a row that has frazzled ties between US and European allies, two high-ranking Berlin officials will seek answers and fresh rules on intelligence cooperation, Merkel’s spokesman said. Steffen Seibert told reporters the talks were aimed at clarifying the allegations and working out “a new basis of trust and new regulation for our cooperation in this area.” “We are in a process of intensive contacts with US partners ...
October 31, 2013 at 1:06 am | News Desk
Milan: Italian auto group Fiat was saved from loss in the third quarter by a strong recovery at its US unit Chrysler, which is now heading for about a third more annual profit than the parent company. Chrysler reported a 22 percent jump in net profit to $464 million (337 million euros), while Fiat overall saw its net profit rise by 11 percent to 189 million euros. Stripping out Chrysler, Fiat suffered a loss of 247 million euros, which is a drop of 37 million euros in the same quarter last year. Fiat took a 20-percent stake in the third largest US automaker in 2009 as part of Chrysler’s bankruptcy and restructuring. What was originally seen as a risky bet for Fiat — the German automaker Daimler had failed to turn around Ch...
October 31, 2013 at 1:02 am | News Desk
BerlinL: Germany on Friday will become the first European country to allow babies born with characteristics of both sexes to be registered as neither male nor female. Parents will be allowed to leave the field for gender blank on birth certificates, effectively creating a category for indeterminate sex in the public register. “This will be the first time that the law acknowledges that there are human beings who are neither male nor female, or are both — people who do not fit into the traditional legal categories,” University of Bremen law professor Konstanze Plett told AFP. The change is intended to remove pressure on parents to quickly make a decision about controversial sex assignment surgeries for newborns. But even as ...
October 31, 2013 at 1:02 am | News Desk
Damascus: President Bashar al-Assad insisted in a meeting Wednesday with visiting UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi that Syrians alone will decide on the fate of an initiative for Geneva peace talks. The encounter came a day after the Red Crescent evacuated hundreds of civilians from a besieged town near Damascus, in an operation that saw rare cooperation among the regime, its opponents and the international community. Brahimi has been travelling the Middle East to muster support for proposed peace talks dubbed Geneva II. The Syrian leg of the tour is the most sensitive, as the veteran Algerian diplomat needs to persuade a wary regime and an increasingly divided opposition to attend. During his last visit to Damascus in December, Brahimi...
October 31, 2013 at 1:02 am | News Desk
Paris: Four French hostages who were kidnapped by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in northern Niger in 2010 have been released, President Francois Hollande said Tuesday. “I have some good news. I just learned from Niger’s president that our four hostages in the Sahel, the Arlit hostages, have been released,” Hollande said on a visit to Bratislava. Frenchmen Thierry Dol, Daniel Larribe, Pierre Legrand and Marc Feret were working for French nuclear giant Areva when they were kidnapped on September 16, 2010, from a uranium compound in Arlit, north-central Niger. Hollande spoke of “three years of trials for the kidnapped men, who were held by unscrupulous captors”, and of “three years of suffering for the fam...
October 30, 2013 at 1:56 am | News Desk
Washington: Samsung extended its lead over Apple in the global smartphone market in the third quarter as Chinese manufacturers also made inroads, a survey showed Tuesday. The worldwide smartphone market saw record sales in the quarter, with growth of 38.8 percent from a year ago and 258.4 million units sold, the IDC survey said. The South Korean electronics giant Samsung widened its lead, shipping 81.2 million smartphones, boosting its market share by nearly half a percentage point to 31.4 percent. Apple sold 33.8 million iPhones in the quarter, but its growth was slower than the overall market, so its share slipped to 13.1 percent from 14.4 percent a year ago. China’s Huawei moved into third place, propelled by 76 percent year-over-y...
October 30, 2013 at 1:20 am | News Desk
Zurich: Following a string of scandals, a Swiss regulator has ordered the ountry’s biggest bank, UBS, to significantly increase the cash it has available to deal with legal and compliance issues. FINMA, the Swiss financial market regulator, had ordered the banking behemoth to temporarily increase by 50 percent the capital it sets aside to deal with operational risks, including unexpected legal cases. The bank, which is in the midst of a massive restructuring after turmoil during the financial crisis, said the order had come after FINMA examined its “recent loss history with the capital underpinning for operational risks.” As a result, UBS said that from the fourth quarter it would increase its so-called Risk Weighted Asset...
October 30, 2013 at 1:06 am | News Desk
Pakistan Rupee Exchange Rate