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Photo: AFP CAIRO: Ghana on Tuesday qualified for a third successive World Cup, securing their ticket to Brazil with a 7-3 aggregate win over Egypt. The Black Stars, who have featured at the 2006 and 2010 World Cup finals, lost the African zone play-off return leg in Cairo 2-1 but had already done enough in last month’s first leg in Kumasi, routing Egypt 6-1. Africa’s fifth and final berth for the World Cup will come from the play-off between Algeria and Burkina Faso, with Burkina prevailing 3-2 in the first leg. Egypt took the lead on Tuesday in the 25th minute through Amr Zaki, who crashed his body against a free kick by Mohamed Aboutrika and Ghana goalkeeper Fatau Dauda misjudged the flight of the ball. Substitute Mohamed Gedo...

November 20, 2013 at 1:03 am | News Desk

Photo: AFP CHARLOTTE: Cam Newton threw three touchdown passes, including the game winner to Ted Ginn with 59 seconds remaining, as the Carolina Panthers beat New England 24-20 for their sixth NFL win in a row. The victory, which came only after controversy on the final play, lifted Carolina to 7-3, one game behind NFC South division leader New Orleans. The Patriots fell to 7-3, still two games ahead of Miami and the New York Jets in the AFC East. A pressured Newton found Ginn near the left sideline just inside the 20-yard line. Ginn cut to the middle of the field to evade one tackler and outraced two more to the corner of the end zone for the winning points, capping an 83-yard Carolina drive. “I just wanted to give Ted a chance to mak...

November 20, 2013 at 1:03 am | News Desk

A stage show by Monty Python group – this is so gonna happen real soon. Terry Jones, one of the group members, confirmed it to BBC, “we’re getting together and putting on a show — it’s real,” and added “I hope to be able to pay off my mortgage!” Eric Idle, another group member, hinted the news on social media platform, Twitter. He tweeted: Only three days to go till the Python Press Conference. Make sure Python fans are alerted to the big forthcoming news event. — Eric Idle (@EricIdle) November 18, 2013 And then his next tweet almost confirmed it for all the fans waiting eagerly. Python meeting this morning. Can’t wait. Press Conference Thursday will apparently be live on Sky News...

November 20, 2013 at 1:03 am | News Desk

Paris: French police deployed throughout Paris on Monday, tracking a lone fugitive gunman who shot and critically wounded a young photographer at the leftwing newspaper Liberation. After fleeing the daily’s office in the east of Paris, the shooter crossed the city to the La Defense business district, where he fired several shots outside the main office of the Societe Generale bank, hitting no-one, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said. He then hijacked a car and forced the driver at gunpoint to drop him off close to the Champs-Elysees avenue in the capital. That triggered a huge police operation in and around the France’s most famous avenue. Unconfirmed rumours that the man was armed with grenades as well as the hunting-style pu...

November 19, 2013 at 1:58 am | News Desk

Washington: Sony’s upcoming flagship device Sony Xperia Z1S spotted alongside of Sony Xperia Z1. The shot taken by (Didi-Wo), Xperia Z1S shot next to the Xperia Z1 give some clearer comparison on the size, and while we can’t verify if this is the real deal it does agree with everything we have seen so far. The person who posted the image also claimed that the phone will have an IPS display instead of Sony’s usual TFT panels. The rumors indicate that the device will feature a 2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. It also looks set to have its older sibling’s 20.7MP camera and share its waterproof and dustproof exterior. Mostly the hardware is pretty similar to the “...

November 19, 2013 at 1:58 am | News Desk

Cape Canaveral:  - NASA on Monday began the countdown to the launch of a new Mars spacecraft on a mission to study how the air on the Red Planet has changed over time. Researchers have described the mission as a search for a missing piece to the puzzle of what happened to Mars’ atmosphere, perhaps billions of years ago, to transform Earth’s neighbor from a water-bearing planet that might have been favorable for life to a dry, barren desert. The launch of the unmanned Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN), could happen as early as 1:28 pm (1828 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Despite some concerns about thick clouds, the weather forecast was 60 percent favorable for takeoff during a two-hour launch window, US Air...

November 19, 2013 at 1:41 am | News Desk

New York City: The Dow and S&P 500 blasted to new records in early trade Monday fueled by a wave of new Boeing plane orders and continued positive investor sentiment for stocks. After 90 minutes of trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 51.92 points (0.33 percent) at 16,013.62, after crossing the 16,000 milestone for the first time. The broad-based S&P 500 made its first foray above 1,800, adding 1.96 (0.11 percent) at 1,800.14. The tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index rose 2.66 (0.07 percent) to 3,988.62. The biggest gainer in the Dow was Boeing (+2.4 percent), which won more than $100 billion in new orders at the Dubai Airshow on Sunday. The pair of index landmarks followed last week’s series of records. On Friday, the D...

November 19, 2013 at 1:13 am | News Desk

NEW YORK CITY: Google has agreed to pay $17 million to settle an investigation by US states into its use of unauthorized tracking software on Apple Safari Web browsers, officials said Monday. New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the multi-state agreement on Google’s “unauthorized placement of cookies on computers using Apple Safari Web browsers during 2011 and 2012.”Google last year paid a $22.5 million fine to the US Federal Trade Commission on the same issue. The FTC said Google had agreed with the commission in October 2011 not to place tracking cookies or deliver targeted ads to Safari users, but then went ahead and did so. The latest settlement includes 37 states and the federal District of Colu...

November 19, 2013 at 1:00 am | News Desk

CAPE CANAVERAL: NASA on Monday launched its unmanned MAVEN spacecraft toward Mars to study the Red Planet’s atmosphere for clues as to why Earth’s neighbor lost its warmth and water over time. The white Atlas V 401 rocket carrying the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter blasted off on schedule at 1:28 pm (1828 GMT). “Everything is looking good,” said NASA mission control. The flawless liftoff of the $671 million spacecraft began its 10-month journey to the Red Planet. Arrival at Mars is scheduled for September 2014, with the science mission of the solar-wing paneled orbiter set to begin two months later. The probe is different from past NASA missions because it focuses not on the dry surface but on...

November 19, 2013 at 1:00 am | News Desk

INDIANAPOLIS: Carlos Munoz, a 21-year-old Colombian who finished second at this year’s Indianapolis 500 in his IndyCar debut, was named Monday as a full-time 2014 driver for Michael Andretti’s team. Munoz, who raced most of this year in the Indy Lights development series, joins Americans Marco Andretti and Ryan Hunter-Reay and Canadian James Hinchcliffe on a squad that has produced four season series champions, most recently Hunter-Reay in 2012. “Carlos stepped up this season and showed outstanding potential on track,” Andretti said. “We are looking forward to welcoming him as a full time IndyCar driver and seeing what 2014 has in store. We are confident that his success in Indy Lights will carry on into his In...

November 19, 2013 at 1:00 am | News Desk