Tragedy strikes Sunjay Dutt once again

Sanjay is restless as wife battles liver tumour in the hospital. PHOTO: FILE

Life hasn’t been easy for actor Sanjay Dutt, and it doesn’t appear to be getting better any time soon. He has been in and out of jail, despite being a critically acclaimed actor; he lost his mother right before making his debut in the industry; he lost his first wife to a brain tumour; and his father actor Sunil Dutt died of a heart attack in his sleep in 2005. Now, his current wife Manyata Dutt has been admitted to a hospital after one of her lungs collapsed.

Any man would have had a break down after going through this many misfortunes, and so did Sanju Baba. According to Times of India, the actor, who is currently out on parole, became hysterical after seeing his wife unconscious on the hospital bed. “He was wailing, saying that he cannot take this anymore. He told the hospital staff that he has suffered many losses in his life, including his mother Nargis and first wife Richa Sharma, both of whom succumbed to cancer. The sight of Manyata in the hospital bed triggered all those memories,” said a source.

Manyata was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday following a lung infection, and has undergone lung surgery, where doctors removed excess fluids from her lungs. The 37-year-old was diagnosed with a liver tumour a few weeks ago as well. Doctors have refused to reveal any further details about her condition or prognosis. Her cardiologist Dr Ajay Chaughule’s statement simply said, “Manyata Dutt is quite unwell”. He further added, “We are doing complete investigation for everything for some problems she has. There are lots of tests that she will have to undergo.”

Ever since the surgery, Sanjay has not left Manyata’s side and hospital staff has had to constantly console and calm him down. “Sanjay said that he is really scared at this point in time. Manyata’s hospitalisation reminds him of his earlier losses. As Manyata’s treatment is prolonged, he is panicking. And, on top of it, he is alone in hospital,” added the source.

French magazine says Hollande having affair with actor

President Francois Hollande. PHOTO: AFP

PARIS: French magazine Closer said Friday President Francois Hollande was having an affair with actor Julie Gayet, backing its claim with photographs after months of swirling rumours.

Closer‘s Friday edition carried a seven-page report on the 59-year-old president’s alleged infidelity under the headline “Francois Hollande and Julie Gayet – the president’s secret love”.

The weekly tabloid’s actions earned a rapid rebuke from the president, who said he was considering legal action over what he called an “attack” on his right to privacy.

Closer, echoing reports published on various websites in recent days, said Hollande routinely drives through Paris on his scooter to spend the night with his 41-year-old mistress.

“Around New Year’s Day, a helmeted head of state joined the actor at her apartment, where he has got into the habit of spending the night,” Closer wrote on its website.

Speaking in a personal capacity, Hollande condemned the report as an “attack on the right to privacy,” to which he “like every other citizen has a right”.

The president, in a statement released exclusively to AFP, said he was “looking into possible action, including legal action,” against the weekly magazine.

Respected news weekly L’Express had last month reported that the presidential palace’s security services were increasingly concerned by Hollande’s frequent “escapades”.

Closer said the pictures raised security concerns by showing that the head of state is accompanied by only one bodyguard when he treks halfway across Paris to Gayet’s flat.

The bodyguard “even brings the croissants”, Closer said.

Hollande lives with his partner Valerie Trierweiler, a journalist for whom he left fellow Socialist politician Segolene Royal, the mother of his four children.

Gayet, who appeared in one of Hollande’s 2012 election commercials, filed a complaint in March over rumours of the affair which she said were a breach of privacy.

Gayet, a mother of two, is an established television and cinema character actor who has appeared in more than 50 films.

She had a leading part in “Quai d’Orsay”, a 2013 satirical film centred on the French foreign ministry. Her filmography also includes the titles “Shall We Kiss?” and “My Best Friend”.

In December, French actor Stephane Guillon made repeated innuendos on the subject during a talk show where he and Gayet were invited to promote a film in which they co-star.

She appeared a little uneasy but laughed with him when he said Hollande had been visiting the film set and quipped that Trierweiler was less enthusiastic about the film than Hollande.

If confirmed, Hollande’s relationship with Gayet would perpetuate a long French tradition of philandering presidents and senior politicians.

Former president Jacques Chirac is believed to have had many extra-marital conquests, as did his predecessor Francois Mitterrand, who even had a daughter born to a mistress.

Valery Giscard d’Estaing was also described as an incorrigible womaniser. He hinted in a recent book at an affair with Princess Diana.

France’s media is subject to strict laws on privacy, and has in the past drawn a veil over rumours about the personal lives of the country’s leaders.

However, the French are known for being tolerant of their leaders’ infidelities, which have in the past proved to have little or no negative impact on popularity ratings.

A survey released on Thursday – before the latest allegations – showed that only 23 percent had a positive opinion of Hollande’s performance as president.

More than 182,000 officials punished in China graft crackdown

BEIJING: China’s ruling Communist Party punished more than 182,000 officials last year in its high-profile anti-corruption campaign, authorities said Friday.

Anti-graft authorities across the country last year received more than 1.95 million allegations of corruption and agreed to investigate 172,532 cases, said Huang Shuxian, a deputy head of the ruling party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, at a briefing.

Huang said that as a result, a total of 182,038 officials were given disciplinary punishment, which can range from a mere warning to expulsion from the Party or worse.

“Disciplinary authorities at all levels… upheld imposing punishment upon all the corrupt,” he said.

Communist chief Xi Jinping has taken a much-publicised hard line against graft since coming to power a little over one year ago, warning that corruption could destroy the party.

Graft causes widespread public anger and Xi has pledged to stamp down on high-ranking officials, or “tigers”, along with low-level “flies” to maintain the purity of the organisation.

At the same time he has mounted an austerity drive, with a range of measures including limits on banquets and bans on gift-giving.

So far at least 19 officials at vice-ministerial level or above have fallen since November last year, including Jiang Jiemin, head of China’s state-owned assets watchdog, and Li Dongsheng, formerly a vice minister of public security.

But critics say no systemic measures have been brought in to curb endemic graft.

US blacklists militants blamed for Benghazi attack

Members of Ansar al-Sharia, an al Qaeda-affiliated group, are seen near a tank taken from the army. PHOTO: REUTERS

WASHINGTON DC: The United States on Friday blacklisted Libyan militant groups it accuses of involvement in a 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi in which the ambassador and three more Americans died.

The State Department named two groups known as Ansar al-Sharia from the eastern Libyan cities of Benghazi and Darnah and their leaders, and a third affiliated organisation from Tunisia.

Each was designated as a “foreign terrorist organisation.”

Two groups named Ansar al-Sharia were set up separately in Benghazi and Darnah in 2011 after the fall of the former Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.

The State Department said they “have been involved in terrorist attacks against civilian targets, frequent assassinations, and attempted assassinations of security officials and political actors in eastern Libya, and the September 11, 2012 attacks against the US special mission and annex in Benghazi.

“Members of both organisations continue to pose a threat to US interests in Libya.”

Ahmed Abu Khattalah, a senior leader of Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi, and Sufian bin Qumu, the leader of the Darnah, were also both designated global terrorists.

Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American staff were killed when heavily-armed militants overran the US mission in Benghazi, and then attacked a nearby CIA annex in a sustained, hours-long attack.

The assault roiled the 2012 presidential campaign, with Republicans accusing Democratic President Barack Obama of being lax on security and of seeking to cover up the true cause of attack.

US officials have long said that the attack was carried out by militants, but have denied that core al Qaeda leaders planned and directed the operation, as claimed by some of Obama’s critics.

So far no charges have been brought and no-one has been arrested in an investigation being led by the FBI.

The third group put on the US terror list was Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia, and its leader Seifallah Ben Hassine, commonly known as “Abu Iyadh”.

It is blamed for an attack on the American school in Tunis which was set on fire and badly damaged on September 14, 2012.

The arson attack “put the lives of over one hundred United States employees in the embassy at risk,” the State Department said.

One in 10 babies in England are now Muslims, census shows

Some 317,952 children aged under five, or 9.1 per cent, were registered as being Muslim in the 2011 census, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show. PHOTO: AFP/FILE

LONDON: Almost one in 10 babies and toddlers in England and Wales are Muslim, according to new analysis of census figures published Friday, illustrating the growth of the minority community.

Some 317,952 children aged under five, or 9.1 per cent, were registered as being Muslim in the 2011 census, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show.

As a measure of how the religious demographics of England and Wales are changing, the figure is nearly double the 4.8 per cent of the whole population who are Muslim, while fewer than one in 200 people aged over 85 are Muslim.

It is also an 80 per cent increase on the 176,264 Muslim under-fives recorded in the 2001 census.

“It certainly is a startling figure,” David Coleman, professor of demography at Oxford University, told The Times newspaper on Friday.

“Continuing immigration from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India has been added to by new immigration from African countries and from the Middle East.

“Birth rates of Muslims of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin remain quite high, although falling.”

Muslims have the youngest age profile of the main religious groups. Nearly half of Muslims (48 per cent) were aged under 25 (1.3 million).

The figures showed that Christianity remains by far the most common religion registered for babies in England and Wales, at more than 1.5 million, or 43.7 per cent.

Nearly as many parents listed their children under five as having no religion – the answer given for nearly 1.2 million (34.1 per cent).

The next most common religions registered for British toddlers after Christianity and Islam were Hinduism at 55,869 (1.6 per cent), Sikhism at 28,380 (0.8 per cent), Judaism at 18,221 (0.5 per cent) and Buddhism at 9,026 (0.3 per cent).

Ibrahim Mogra, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain umbrella group, said the number of Muslim babies reflected the confidence of the community.

“It’s not about Britain becoming a Muslim country but about Britain enabling the practice of Islam, which gives confidence to the vast majority of Muslims,” he told The Times.

Thirteen children aged under five were being raised in witchcraft, while 121 had heavy metal as their stated religion. Some 4,700 were listed as “Jedi knight”, the statistics showed.

ONS figures showed that Mohammed was the most popular name for newborn baby boys in England and Wales in 2009, though 12 different spellings of that name meant that Oliver officially topped the chart.

11 extreme weather records

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The temperatures from the polar vortex are far from being the coldest on Earth
• The U.S. holds two records -- the greatest rainfall in a minute and the highest temperature
• The Kolyma Highway (M56) in Russia is the coldest road on Earth

(CNN) -- An escaped jail inmate turned himself in just so that he could warm up -- that's how cold the U.S. has been this week.

With the country swept with unforgiving weather since December due to a distorted polar vortex, Brimson in Minnesota plunged to -40 Celcius (-40 Fahrenheit: this is the point at which the temperature scales meet) on Wednesday while Chicago saw its record low of -27 C (-16.6 F) on Monday.

As dangerously cold as it seems to be, however, it's (fortunately) still a long way from beating the world's lowest temperature record.

"Everybody is interested in extremes -- the hottest, the wettest, the windiest -- so creating a database of professionally verified records is useful in that fact alone," says Randall Cerveny from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

With that in mind, what other extreme weather records are there? Cerveny helped us pick out a few highlights from around the world.

MORE: Frigid air from the North Pole: What's this polar vortex?

Lowest temperature

According to WMO, the lowest temperature noted was -89.2 C, recorded on July 21, 1983, in Vostok, Antarctica. Yes, Celsius, not Fahrenheit. In the latter, that's minus 128.5 degrees.

An absence of solar radiation, clear skies, little vertical mixing, calm air for a long duration and high elevation (3,420 meters, 11,220 feet) accounted for the frigid weather.

Highest temperature

With an average high of 46.7 C (116 F) in July, summer in Death Valley, California, can be baking.

But it was the summer of 1913 that entered the record books, acknowledged officially as the hottest temperature ever recorded at 56.7 C (134 F) in recent years, according to WMO.

Swimming goggles recommended.

Greatest rainfall in one minute, Unionville

This record is owned by Unionville, Maryland, where on July 4, 1956, 1.22 inches (31.2 millimeters) of rain fell in one minute.

To give you an idea -- in sub-tropical Hong Kong, the most severe black rainstorm signal will be hoisted if the rainfall exceeds 70 millimeters (2.75 inches) in an hour.

Greatest rainfall in 24 hours

The biggest rainfall in a day occurred with the passage of Cyclone Denise in Foc-Foc, La Réunion, an island in the southern Indian Ocean. Some 1.825 meters (71.8 inches) of rain fell over 24 hours, from January 7 to 8, 1966.

MORE: World's 10 toughest endurance challenges

Heaviest hailstone, Bangladesh

The heaviest hailstone was discovered during a hailstorm in Gopalganj, Bangladesh on April 14, 1986. The storm killed 92 people and included one hailstone that weighed 1.02 kilos (2.25 pounds).

Longest recorded dry period, Arica

The longest dry period in history was measured in years. There was not a single raindrop in Arica, Chile, for more than 14 years, from October 1903 to January 1918 -- a total of 173 months.

The Old Faithful geyser, with an average eruption height of 44 meters, is 20 meters short of Geysir Andernach.

Highest cold water geyser

Located in Andernach, Germany, Geysir Andernach usually blows water from 30 to 60 meters (98 feet to 197 feet) high. The highest ejection reached 61.5 meters (201.7 feet), recorded on September 19, 2002.

Cold-water geysers are different from naturally occurring hot-water geysers. The cold underground water erupts from a drilled well. The Andernach well is more than 350 meters (1,148 feet) deep.

Coldest road

The Kolyma Highway (M56) in Russia is the coldest road on Earth -- temperatures once plunged to -67.7 degrees C (-89.8 F).

A section of the 2,031-kilometer (1,262-mile) highway is called the "Road of Bones" to commemorate the prisoners from the Sewostlag Labour Camp who died constructing the road and were buried beneath it.

READ: World's greatest wildernesses

Largest non-polar ice field

You don't need to live in the polar regions to be stuck in the middle of a vast ice field.

The largest ice field outside the Poles is Yukon Territory in Canada, inside the 21,980-square-kilometer (8,486-square-mile) Kluane National Park and Reserve.

Antarctica: desert with ample water, but in a different form.

Largest desert

No, not the Sahara.

A desert is defined as an area that has no or very little rainfall. The largest desert in the world is Antarctica, which is 14 million kilometers squared (5.4 million square miles) and records only 50 millimeters (2 inches) of precipitation per year.

The 9.1-million-kilometer-square (3.5 million square miles) Sahara, according to Guinness World Records, is only the biggest hot desert.

Inhabited place with the lowest temperature

The coldest permanently inhabited place is the Siberian village of Oymyakon, Russia.

The temperature once dropped to -68 C (-90.4 F) in 1933 -- the coldest temperature recorded outside Antarctica.

Some extreme weather records are provided by Guinness World Records. The latest edition of Guinness World Records 2013 was released on September 13, 2012. Check out more on Guinness World Records' website.

Pakistan rubbishes US gun maker's claim of spurning $15m rifle deal over ethics

Pakistan was seeking purchase of $15 million worth of precision rifles. PHOTO: FILE

WASHINGTON DC: Pakistani embassy in Washington DC on Friday rubbished reports that an American gun manufacturer had declined a potential $15 million deal to provide precision rifles over fears they may be ultimately used against US soldiers.

According to the statement released by the Pakistan embassy spokesperson on Friday, the Utah gun maker Desert Tech, never even made it to the shortlist and that all reports to the contrary were baseless.

The statement added that Desert Tech had initially shown interest in securing the deal.

“Desert Tech’s first and foremost ethical responsibility should be honesty,” the statement read. The spokesperson alleged that the company had clearly violated ethics by fabricating a story that at best was a publicity stunt.

Pakistan and the US enjoy a productive and mutually beneficial defence partnership, now for decades – a relationship that has been particularly critical more recently in fighting terrorists and in protecting our two peoples, the statement added.

“Any insinuation to the contrary is unwarranted and misguided.”

Earlier in January, Mike Davis, sales manager at Desert Tech, had said that company was on a short list for a contract with Pakistan, but spurned the opportunity because of unrest in Pakistan and ethical concerns.

“We don’t know that those guns would’ve went somewhere bad, but with the unrest we just ended up not feeling right about it,” Davis had told KTVX-TV, even though the sale would have been legal.

The company, based in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Valley City, was founded in 2007 on the principle of keeping America and its allies safe, he added.

“As a business owner you always want to be successful, but I think ethically and morally you want to go about it the right way and stick behind your founding principles,” Davis told KSL.