Chelsea weds Mezvinsky with people celebrating the occasion

Normally subdued but wealthy New York village of Rhineback witnessed on Saturday the wedding of former US president Bill Clinton’s and Hillary Clinton’s daughter Chelsea’s wedding to Marc Mezvinsky.

Despite all efforts of top secrecy and security, people of the town came to the wedding uninvited and celebrated it. Despite anonymous hotel reservations, confidentiality agreements, and a no-fly zone established over the area, this area was filled with the people who paid tributes to her. For instance, a baseball team sent its mascot, dressed up as a raccoon, parading through town asking Chelsea to marry him.

Celebration included some teenage boys chasing former secretary of state Madeleine Albright for autographs. Young women wrote “I do” on cheese slices. The family announced via email at 7.23pm: Chelsea was now married to Marc Mezvinsky. “Today, we watched with great pride and overwhelming emotion as Chelsea and Marc wed in a beautiful ceremony at Astor Courts, surrounded by family and their close friends,” the Clintons said. “We could not have asked for a more perfect day to celebrate the beginning of their life together, and we are so happy to welcome Marc into our family.”

This was an interfaith ceremony conducted by Rabbi James Ponet and the reverend William Shillady. While Chelsea is Methodist, Mezvinsky is Jewish.

Differences of India-Pak surface in joint press conference

Even after seven hours of talk, there was not any concrete statement from Indian and Pakistani foreign minister on Thursday. External Affairs Minister S.M Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi could not deliver a statement that could be term as breakthrough in the impasse.

At the time of a joint press conference, the difference between the two foreign minister surfaced clearly and a tit-for-tat response on the issues related to terrorism came to fore. The disagreement on infiltrations, alleged rights of violations in the Valley, on perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks and issues over Balochistan continued.

Still, the two countries decided to continue the dialogue and agreed to meet again next time in India in the near future. When asked about the hate speeches from Hafiz Saeed, Qureshi replied that both the sides should refrain from making such speeches. He was referring to the remarks of the Indian Home Secretary’s remarks that ISI was responsible for controlling and coordinating the 26/11 terror attacks. The talks between the two ministers could not yield anything concrete to move forward, it can be concluded. Now, the future talks are also likely to result in the same fate when the two ministers meet again in the near term.

Same-sex marriage is now legal in Argentina

On Thursday, Argentina was declared as the foremost country in Latin America that has made the gay marriage lawful.

It is a result of votes backed where the centre-left government of President Cristina Kirchner adopted this law after getting 33-27 vote after 15 hours of debate.

The ruling party leader Miguel Pichetto exclaimed, “It is a historic day.”

A number of people outside Congress cheered when the bill passed where some chanted “Equality, Equality” and some couples were seen in tears of happiness.

The law tweaks the legal code which no longer will refer to husband and wife, but rather to “the marrying parties”.

Pakistan minister to represent country at Sania-Shoaib reception

Pakistan Population Welfare Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan, cricketer Sohail Tanvir and singer Waris Baig have arrived here to attend the wedding reception of Shoaib Malik and Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza Thursday evening.

Awan, who landed in Hyderabad Wednesday night, hoped that the marriage of the two celebrities would help strengthen the ties between India and Pakistan.

“I am here to attend the wedding reception and I am confident that this marriage will help in the peace process,” she told reporters at the airport.

The minister, who would represent the Pakistani government at the reception Thursday, said she would present a gold crown to Sania as a special gift from the people of Sialkot, Shoaib’s home town. The minister also comes from the same town.

Awan, who is on a five-day visit to India at the invitation of union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, will also hand over gifts from Pakistan President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to the couple.

The minister reiterated that the newly-wed couple would be brand ambassadors of Pakistan population welfare ministry.

“We are aware of the legal process in India and the issue of passport will be resolved very soon,” she said when asked about Shoaib’s passport, which is still with a city court.

The Hyderabad Police have said it could take a week for the former Pakistan skipper to get back his passport as he would have to complete legal formalities with regard to the closure of the case filed against him by his first wife Ayesha Siddiqui.

Ayesha withdrew her complaint against Shoaib after the latter divorced her. But the cricketer’s passport, seized by the police after grilling him April 5, is still with the court.

The Pakistani cricketer married the Indian tennis ace Monday.

Meanwhile, the stage is set for the gala wedding reception at hotel Taj Krishna in Hyderabad. Sania’s family has invited about 1,000 guests, including film personalities and sportspersons.

Actors Salman Khan and Shahid Kapoor, tennis stars Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati, and ace shuttler Pullela Gopichand are among some of the celebrities expected to attend the reception.

Four Indians among 15 dead as Taliban bombers attack Kabul

Four Indians were among 15 people who were killed when Taliban bombers equipped with suicide vests and automatic rifles attacked a hotel and a guesthouse in central Kabul Friday, officials said.

A series of explosions occurred at the City Centre shopping complex and the Safi Landmark hotel, about 300 metres from the interior ministry, said Abdul Ghafar Sayedzadar, a senior police official.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said by phone from an undisclosed location that five Taliban bombers attacked two compounds used by foreigners.

“Our two bombers have been killed and three others are still resisting,” he said. “Around 100 foreigners are surrounded by our forces in one of the compounds.”

His claim, however, was rejected by Sayedzadar, who said all the attackers were dead and the area was fully under the control of Afghan security forces, adding that 16 or 17 people were killed in the attack.

Siamak Herawi, a presidential spokesman, said four Indian nationals were killed in bombings of their residence located in front of the shopping mall.

General Ahmad Zia Yaftali, chief doctor for the Afghan army, said 12 bodies were taken to army hospitals and three were taken to another hospital.

“Eight Indians and one Pakistani national were among the wounded,” he said.

Farid Rahid, a spokesman for the ministry of public health, said more than 30 people were injured in the attack.

The private television channel Tolo TV said the attack targeted a guesthouse for Indians next to the shopping complex. Several people were killed, the report said.

A policeman at the scene said he saw four bodies being taken away from the guesthouse but could not say whether the victims were Indians or Afghans.

A DPA reporter at the scene said police surrounded the shopping complex after a series of explosions and an exchange of heavy gunfire took place.

Another policeman said explosions caused by several hand grenades had damaged two guesthouses and a hotel. At least two suicide bombers were involved in the attack, said the policeman, who was at the scene and asked not to be named.

An interior ministry spokesman confirmed that several blasts had taken place. “The area is under control of the police, and police are searching for the attackers,” he said.

Pools of blood could be seen on the ground, the reporter said. The ground was also covered with broken glass from the explosions.

Few people were on the streets on the rainy morning, a public holiday.

The Safi Landmark hotel on the top floor of the shopping centre is popular with Westerners. The area under attack is in the central, most fortified part of Kabul.

On Jan 18, Taliban fighters attacked government facilities in the capital in a standoff that lasted several hours. At least 12 people, among them seven Taliban, were killed in that attack.

Beheading of Sikh in Pakistan condemned in India

The beheading of a Sikh man in Pakistan was Monday widely condemned in India with the government being asked to put diplomatic pressure on Islamabad over the safety of the minority community in that country.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) — a Sikh organisation that manages gurdwaras, the ruling Congress and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have condemned the killing of Jaspal Singh by suspected Taliban militants in Pakistan.

The victim was kidnapped along with two other Sikhs by Taliban militants from Tirah valley in Khyber Agency near the provincial capital Peshawar.

A letter was found with the body warning the relatives of the deceased and other Sikh locals against disclosing the case to the media. His two other companions, Gorwandar Singh and Surjeet Singh, are still being held captive by the militants, according to media reports.

“This is a condemnable act. The central government should take up the matter with the Pakistan government to ensure the safety of Sikhs in that area,” SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar said.

The government in Punjab, the only Sikh majority state in India, has sought the central government’s intervention to ensure the safety of Sikhs in the restive tribal region in Pakistan.

“The government should not sleep in this matter. Life of Sikhs should be protected,” Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said in Chandigarh.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said that India needs to talk to Pakistan over the incident.

“It is a serious issue and there is a need to talk to Pakistan. It also sends a message to world powers who are trying to differentiate between good and bad Taliban,” Tewari told reporters in Delhi.

He said the government had been regularly taking up the issue of providing security to minorities, especially Sikhs, in Pakistan.

The BJP has asked the government to mount “diplomatic pressure” on Pakistan to ensure release of the abducted Sikh residents in that country.

Minorities are facing threats in Pakistan and terrorism presents the real picture of that country, said BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad.

A large number of Pakistani Sikhs have fled from Orakzai and Tirah valley where the non-Muslims have been charged “jazia” or tax by militants on the pretext of providing security to them in the area.

Clinton says he’s ‘doing very well’ after heart procedure

Former US president Bill Clinton has said he was recovering well after undergoing a heart procedure for a blocked artery.

“Actually I’m doing very well. I feel very blessed,” Clinton told reporters Friday outside his home in Chappaqua, New York.

Clinton, 63, said he began feeling a “tingling, not pain” in his chest four days earlier and contacted his cardiologist, but he was never particularly worried about the procedure.

“They know what they’re doing,” said Clinton, who underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 2004. “I felt it was kind of a repair job.”

The former president underwent a procedure Thursday at the New York-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital to have two stents placed in one of his coronary arteries. He left the hospital early Friday.

Clinton said he took no sedatives and was awake for the entire procedure: “I was alert and I wanted to watch it.”

Bangladesh to make cell phones, laptops

Bangladesh has unveiled plans to manufacture cell phones and laptops with the help of foreign companies after witnessing a revolution in the usage of both mobiles and portable computers.

Six foreign companies have submitted ‘expressions of interest’ for forming a joint venture with the state-owned Bangladesh Telephone Shilpa Sangstha (Teshish) to manufacture mobile sets and laptops.

The mobile phone would be as cheap at Taka 2,000 ($29) and the laptop would be for Taka 12,000 ($174)

Teshish has been revived after 12 years.

The names of the six foreign contenders were held back “to avoid confusion” during scrutiny by Teshish Managing Director Ismail Hossain, New Age newspaper said Tuesday.

Hsssain told BSS, the country’s official news agency, that the letters of expression of interest were sent to head of the Electrical and Electronic Department of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) for scrutiny.

The government floated international tender in December 2009 inviting the entrepreneurs as the power and telecommunication ministry had taken an initiative to make Teshish fully operative after a long time.

Hossain hoped that the mobile sets and laptops would come to the market by April next year.

Teshish secretary Osman Gani said the mobile would be produced with local technology and every set of mobile would be priced at Taka 2,000 with every latest facility including double SIM system.

He quoted communication experts to say the number of mobile phone users in Bangladesh would be over 80 million in the next two years.

For them, Teshish will produce 400,000 sets a year initially.

Laptops and notebooks were entering Bangladeshi homes and NGOs have taken them to remote villages.

Bangladesh NGO Foundation (BNF) has been providing local NGOs with financial support in the pursuit of their social development programmes. It has as many as 1,000 or so partners all over the country, The Daily Star said.

Obama’s bank regulation is right: Vikram Pandit

Vikram Pandit, the Indian American CEO of Citigroup, says President Barack Obama’s plans to regulate and limit the size of banks is the “right direction”.

As the ailing banking giant has already been weeding out companies that didn’t fit into the company, “We are quite aligned with the principals he set out,” he told CNBC from Davos, where we was attending the World Economic Forum.

“We think it’s generally the right direct. It shouldn’t be a surprise given what we’ve been doing at Citi for the past few years,” he was quoted as saying by the news channel.

“We’re 20 percent smaller in size as a bank,” Pandit said. “We’ve asked ourselves are we in client business or not – which we are- do these businesses belong with us or not, and if they don’t we’ve sold them.”

Echoing the concerns of other bank CEOs, like Deutsche Bank’s Josef Ackermann, that if rules are set in place in the US they should be global, too, he said “It is an international industry. Level playing fields are really important around the world.”

“Ultimately the G20 has to come together and call us around some set of rules. And if this is the direction they want to go in, I think that direction is generally fine with us,” said Pandit.

Pandit also said that he expects the government would sell their 27 percent stake in Citi at some point over the next year. “They’re inclined to sell the stock over time, and we’re going to do everything we can to help them,” he was quoted as saying.

UAE charity helps Haiti quake victims

The Red Crescent Authority (RCA) of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have distributed 45 tonnes of relief items among the Haiti quake victims as part of its humanitarian aid assistance, WAM news agency reported.

The materials, including tents, blankets and food, were distributed in the Croix des Bouquets area, three kilometers from Port au Prince, Haiti’s capital. About 1,500 families received the aid.

Humaid Al-Shamsi, head of the RCA delegation in Haiti, said Friday his organisation would increase its humanitarian supplies to the country in the coming days.

In the early days of the disaster relief work in Haiti, RCA focused its efforts on helping the injured victims and enhancing the capacities of the hospitals and health centers, he said.

Earlier, RCA had supplied 145 tonnes of relief materials to the Caribbean nation.