China's longest high-speed railway to start on December 26

BEIJING: The world's longest high-speed rail route, running from the Chinese capital Beijing to Guangzhou in the south, will open for business on December 26, state media said on Saturday.Travelling at an average speed of 300 kilometres per hour, the line will slash journey times linking Beijing in the north with the country's southern economic hub from 22 hours to eight hours, the China...

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Now, Lord Balaji devotees can send offerings by mobile phone

TIRUPATI: Devotees of Lord Venkateswara of the famous hill shrine at nearby Tirumala can soon make their cash offerings using their mobile phones. The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which manages the cash-rich temple, is all set to introduce a 'mobile phone Hundi' that would enable the devotees to send their offerings using the balance in their pre-paid account, top TTD officials told reporters...

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Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National GeographicThe aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles...

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Conn. Shooter Adam Lanza: Quiet, Bright, Troubled

Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who killed 20 kids and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school Friday, was very bright, say neighbors and former classmates, but he was also socially awkward and deeply troubled."[Adam] was not connected with the other kids," said family friend Barbara Frey. A relative told ABC News that Adam was "obviously not well."READ full ABC News coverage...

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Football: Troubled Indonesia dodges FIFA sanctions

JAKARTA: Indonesia evaded sanctions from world football regulator FIFA Friday, the nation's federation said, and was given an extension to resolve a row that has thrown Indonesian football into crisis.FIFA had given the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) a December 10 deadline to reconcile its differences with rival Indonesian Soccer Rescue Committee (KPSI) that runs a rebel league...

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Chhattisgarh paid Kareena Kapoor Rs 1.40 crore for dance show

RAIPUR: The Chhattisgarh government has admitted that it paid a whopping sum of Rs 1.40 crore to Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor for her performance last month at the state's anniversary function.In a written reply to Congress member Mohammed Akbar in the state assembly, public works department minister Brijmohan Agrawal, who holds the tourism and culture portfolios as well, said that 245 artistes...

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Pictures: Surveying Rain Forest Arthropods

Insects on High Photograph courtesy Jürgen Schmidl, University of ErlangenAfter an exhaustive search for the creepy crawlies living in a small patch of Panama's rain forest,...

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State Police: Two Gunmen at Conn. Grade School

A shooting involving two gunmen erupted at a Connecticut elementary school this morning, prompting the town of Newtown to lock down all of its schools and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today.State Police confirm that one shooter is dead. A second gunman is apparently at large, sources told ABC News.The shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,...

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Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s 2012 Christmas card: Fiscal cliff, Gretzky in heaven

Here it is, ladies and gentlemen — your Rep. Loretta Sanchez Christmas card for 2012! (Courtesy of the Office of Rep. Loretta Sanchez) Over the past decade, the California Democrat’s wacky holiday greetings have drawn a cult following. “I’ve seen them being sold on eBay,” the congresswoman told us. (Courtesy of the Office of Rep. Loretta Sanchez) Nice topical theme this...

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Ukrainian MPs brawl in parliament as PM re-appointed

KIEV: The Ukrainian parliament Thursday voted to reinstate its prime minister after dozens of opposition and pro-government lawmakers brawled for a second day in the chamber notorious for its fisticuffs.Newly-elected world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko sought to stand above the fray by staying well out of the fighting that came just before parliament voted to re-appoint Prime Minister...

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PSU bank unions threaten to go on strike on Dec 20

NEW DELHI: Two major bank employee unions -- AIBEA and Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) -- have threatened to go on strike on December 20 to protest against the proposed Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill. "The two unions have threatened to go on strike on December 20. Negotiations are going on with the government," an All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) functionary said. The unions...

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Hubble Discovers Oldest Known Galaxy

The Hubble space telescope has discovered seven primitive galaxies formed in the earliest days of the cosmos, including one believed to be the oldest ever detected.The discovery, announced Wednesday, is part of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field campaign to determine how and when galaxies first assembled following the Big Bang."This 'cosmic dawn' was not a single, dramatic event," said astrophysicist...

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Royal Hoax Nurse Hanged Herself, Left 3 Notes

Jacintha Saldanha, the London nurse who killed herself after she answered a radio-station prank call about Kate Middleton, was found hanging from the neck, and left three notes, according to the coroner's officer.The 46-year-old nurse who worked at London's King Edward VII Hospital was discovered Dec. 7 hanging by a scarf from a wardrobe in her bedroom, Coroner's Officer Lynda...

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As John Boehner navigates fiscal cliff, House Republican freshmen largely quiet

Two years after sweeping into office in the tea party wave of 2010, noisily promising to be a wake-up call for GOP leaders on spending issues, many House Republican freshmen are trying a new tact: quiet unity. They have responded with near silence as a group largely controlled by House Speaker John A. Boehnerremoved four sometimes-defiant members, three of them freshmen, from plum committee...

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OPEC sits tight before oil output meeting

VIENNA: OPEC maintained Tuesday its oil demand growth forecasts ahead of a meeting to discuss output levels and pick a new secretary-general for the cartel that pumps out more than a third of the world's crude.While the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was expected to hold its oil production ceiling at 30 million barrels per day (mbpd) in Vienna on Wednesday, there was uncertainty...

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Congress nuances its stand on Rahul's leadership

NEW DELHI: A day after announcing that he will lead the campaign in 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Congress today nuanced its stand saying it will fight the polls under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. "I think party spokesperson P C Chacko has already clarified...Sonia Gandhi is our leader and President of the Congress Party. She will continue to be President. "We are going to fight...

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U.K. Dash for Shale Gas a Test for Global Fracking

Thomas K. Grose in London The starting gun has sounded for the United Kingdom's "dash for gas," as the media here have dubbed it.As early as this week, a moratorium on shale gas production is expected to be lifted. And plans to streamline and speed the regulatory process through a new Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil were unveiled last week in the annual autumn budget statement by...

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Royal Hoax: Station to Give $500K to Nurse's Family

The Australian radio station that employed the DJs who prank-called the London hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated has cancelled their show and will donate at least $500,000 to the grieving husband and children of the nurse who took the call and later apparently killed herself.Australia's 2Day FM released a statement today saying it hopes to "help [Jacintha] Saldanha's...

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Security strike hits German airports

BERLIN: Airport security personnel in Germany staged warning strikes on Monday in a dispute over pay, bringing disruption to several German airports and causing dozens of flight cancellations.Around 1,000 security staff went on strike at airports including Berlin and Frankfurt, Europe's third-busiest, the giant services union Verdi said, although some resumed work shortly afterwards.A...

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India has to accept China's presence in 'exclusive' areas: Salman Khurshid

NEW DELHI: India will have to accept the "new reality" of China's presence in areas it considers exclusive as it converts the relationship into a "meaningful partnership", external affairs minister Salman Khurshid said on Monday, while stressing that greater collaboration between the two would define Asia's role in the 21st century. As India and China move forward in "finding resolution to the...

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Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity

When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't...

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Royal Hoax: DJs 'Shattered' After Nurse's Suicide

The two Australian radio DJs who prank-called the London hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated last week said they were "shattered" and "gutted" after the nurse who answered their call apparently killed herself.Shock jocks Mel Greig, 30, and Michael Christian, 25, cried as they spoke to Australia's Channel 9 overnight in their first public interview since Jacintha...

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Merkel rival fires up party for election battle

HANOVER, Germany: Chancellor Angela Merkel's rival, Peer Steinbrueck, on Sunday kicked off his bid to topple her in next year's German election, pledging social equality and a clear pro-European policy.In a speech lasting almost two hours and punctuated with frequent bursts of enthusiastic applause, Steinbrueck said: "Freedom, justice, solidarity... with a commitment to these values, I...

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India misguided, paranoid over China: Guha

Shreya Roy Chowdhury, TNN Dec 8, 2012, 06.12AM ISTMUMBAI: A good half-hour into the discussion on 'India, China and the World', historian Ramachandra Guha issued a disclaimer—all the three members on the panel had been to China only once. "We should learn their language, promote quality research, and have a panel on China driven by Chinese scholars," he said. And that was the general tenor of the...

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Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity

When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't...

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Colorado Springs Doctor Rescued from Taliban

Dec 9, 2012 6:34am ABCThe American doctor rescued from the Taliban in Afghanistan Saturday by U.S. Special Operations Forces is the medical adviser for a Colorado Springs NGO, his employer confirmed today.Dr. Dilip Joseph and two colleagues were kidnapped by a group of armed men while returning from a visit to a rural medical clinic in eastern Kabul Province, according...

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