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Sunday, April 26, 2009

Facebook users say yes to changes

Facebook users have voted to back changes which give them control over data and content they post on the site.Early results suggest 75% of those who voted support the proposals.The vote was triggered by changes Facebook made to its terms and conditions in February.The move drew fire because it appeared to hand the social network site ownership of images, videos and data that users posted on profile pages.

Team Standings - IPL2009


MPWLNRRRP
Hyderabad3300+1.6276
Delhi2200+0.994
Chennai4121+1.0673
Mumbai3111+0.1753
Kolkata4121-0.8873
Rajasthan3111-1.8753
Punjab3120-0.3642
Bangalore4130-0.5192

Rain may force abandonment of Cape Town match

CAPE TOWN It has been raining all day in this lovely city and it looks likely that the match between Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders would become the second game to be abandoned in the DLF Indian Premier League here.The players from both Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders preferred to not make the trip to the ground at the scheduled hour. The covers have been on the pitch all day and there were huge puddles, making the chances of play very bleak.Last week, Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals shared the two points from a rained-off match in Durban.

Chargers make it three wins in a row

Deccan Chargers’ great IPL run continued as they snatched a thriller against Mumbai Indians by 12 runs here on Saturday.Deccan Chargers maintained their winning track by defeating Mumbai Indians by 12 runs here at Kingsmead on Saturday.This was their third successive victory in second edition of the Indian Premier League. Chasing a modest target of 169 runs, Mumbai began on a disastrous note as they lost veteran batsman Sanath Jayasuriya at only four runs on the board.However, captain Sachin Tendulkar (36) and Jean-Paul Duminy (47) batted with responsibility and took the score to 86 runs when Tendulkar departed. Then wickets began to fall at regular intervals.When the final over began, Mumbai needed 22 runs with four wicket remaining but they could make only nine runs and lost another wicket to give up the match.Pragyan Ojha was the most successful bowler with three wickets for 21 while Fidel Edwards and RP Singh claimed two wickets each.Earlier, Deccan Chargers captain Adam Gilchrist won the toss and opted batting. He opened the innings with Hershelle Gibbs and both gave a solid start of 63 runs and then Gibbs and Dwayne Smith put 41. However, then no other batsman could get into double figures as Mumbai bowlers dominated the scene.Gibbs made 58 runs off 44 balls with six fours and two sixes, Gilchrist and Smith scored 35 runs each with three sixes and two sixes, respectively.For Mumbai Indians, Lasith Malinga and Dwayne Bravo claimed three wickets each for 19 and 34 runs, respectively while Harbhajan Singh and Sanath Jayasuriya took one wicket each.

Crimson tide turns against Spurs

Manchester United surged back from 2-0 down to smash five goals past Tottenham Hotspur after a controversial penalty decision turned the match – and the title race – in their favour.Liverpool's 3-1 victory at Hull City earlier meant the Merseysiders went top on goal difference before United's win opened up a three-point gap with a game in hand.
Results & fixtures

Saturday April 25

 Bolton 1-1 Aston Villa
 Everton 1-2 Man City
 Fulham 1-0 Stoke City
 Hull City 1-3 Liverpool
 Man Utd 5-2 Tottenham
 West Brom 3-0 Sunderland
 West Ham 0-1 Chelsea

Sunday April 26

 Arsenal v Middlesbrough 
 Blackburn v Wigan Athletic

Monday April 27

 Newcastle Utd v Portsmouth

Two second-half goals by Dirk Kuyt following Xabi Alonso's opener gave Liverpool the points against the relegation strugglers, who had Caleb Folan sent off in the 59th minute.In the later match, Darren Bent and Luka Modric put the Londoners two up at Old Trafford after 45 minutes.But in the second half, Michael Carrick won a penalty as he was brought down by Spurs keeper Heurelho Gomes, who was shown in replays getting a hand on the ball.Cristiano Ronaldo put away the kick before a rampaging Wayne Rooney scored two and set up another for Ronaldo.Dimitar Berbatov then capped a humiliating afternoon for the London club."It was a tough game but my team controlled the game on a bad pitch," Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez told Sky Sports News ahead of the United kickoff on Saturday."Hull play direct and look for the second balls and it made it difficult to manage. If they (United) feel the pressure, so much the better, but we can only do our job."Chelsea stayed third on 71 points with a 1-0 victory at West Ham United.Fourth-placed Arsenal entertain Middlesbrough on Sunday.

Toyotas take front row at Barhain GP

Both Toyotas will start the Bahrain GP from the front row after Italy's Jarno Trulli and Germany's Timo Glock clocked the fastest times in qualifying, followed by China GP winner Sebastian Vettel and the drivers' championship leader Jenson Button.Italian veteran Jarno Trulli took pole position for Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix when he delivered a scorching final lap in Saturday's closely-contested qualifying session at the Sakhir circuit.Trulli, 34, topped the times ahead of his Toyota team-mate German Timo Glock recording a first-ever Toyota front row lockout for his first pole since Japan in in 2005.The Toyota pair will start on the grid ahead of German Sebastian Vettel, winner of last Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix for Red Bull and championship-leading Briton Jenson Button of Brawn GP.For Trulli, it was the fourth pole of his career.Defending world champion Lewis Hamilton was fifth for McLaren Mercedes ahead of Brazilian Rubens Barrichello in the second Brawn, two-times champion Spaniard Fernando Alonso of Renault and Brazilian Felipe Massa, for Ferrari. German Nico Rosberg was ninth for Williams and Finn Kimi Raikkonen 10th for Ferrari, a result that gives the team a chance of ending their worst start to a season since 1981.Trulli was fastest after the early running in Q3, which had the 2009 rarity value of seeing both Ferraris and a McLaren hunting high grid positions for the race.As always, everyone saved a set of new super-soft tyres for the final flying laps in the last two minutes. 

Pakistan Official: Taliban Clear Out of Buner

Taliban militants have completed their pullback from a district just 60 miles from the Pakistani capital and troops have fanned out in their wake, a senior official said Saturday.The Taliban's retreat to their stronghold in the Swat Valley brings some relief for Pakistani officials trying to salvage a controversial peace deal that halted nearly two years of bloody fighting in the northwestern region.But U.S. officials kept up their pressure for more forceful action against Islamist groups they argue present a growing threat to Pakistan's stability as well as to American troops battling in neighboring Afghanistan.Militants from Swat seized Buner, a jumble of mountains and farmsteads on the west bank of the Indus River, after President Asif Ali Zardari earlier this month signed the peace pact, which provides for the introduction of Islamic law in the region.They began pulling out on Friday as officials issued increasingly loud threats of military action and a hardline cleric who mediated the peace deal intervened to defuse the tension.Syed Mohammad Javed, the top government official in Malakand Division, which includes Swat and Buner, said Saturday that all the militants had crossed the mountains passes into Swat."They all have gone back," Javed told The Associated Press. "No one is left in Buner."He also said that six platoons of paramilitary troops had deployed to police stations across Buner.

Bombers target Kandahar governor

At least five people have been killed by a group of suicide bombers who attacked the Kandahar governor's compound in Afghanistan.Three bombers carried out the attack, detonating their explosives at the compound entrance on Saturday killing five people and injuring nine, police said.Three police were among the dead and three women among the wounded.The governor, who was in the compound with his deputy at the time, was not hurt.Mullah Hayat Khan, a Taliban commander, claimed that the group was behind the attack, the Reuters news agency reported.Al Jazeera's Nick Clark, reporting from the Afghan capital, Kabul, said: "This is a relatively new tactic by  the Taliban going in as suicide bombers armed with AK-47s."The first went into a container at the first checkpoint into the property where they check IDs. There he blew himself up.

Army says Tamil Tiger leader is still at large

A Sri Lankan military commander says the leader of the Tamil Tigers is trapped in the jungle but is still in charge of his depleted army. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka refused a UN demand to send a humanitarian mission to the island's war-torn north.The leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers is trapped in a small strip of jungle in the northeast and intends to make a final stand with his surviving forces, an army commander said Friday.The commander said a rebel spokesman who surrendered to government troops earlier in the week had reported that Velupillai Prabhakaran, 54, was still in charge of his cornered and depleted separatist army.The Tamil Tiger spokesman "says that Prabhakaran was living inside and that he will be there until the last moment," Brigadier Shavendra Silva told reporters."But, even at the last minute, he will try to escape," said the commander, who is spearheading the offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).Prabhakaran has not been seen for 18 months, and speculation has been rife that he may have been killed or already fled the island.

N Korea resumes nuclear work

North Korea has started to extract plutonium from spent fuel rods at a nuclear facility, its foreign ministry has said.The announcement on Saturday came hours after a UN Security Council committee placed three North Korean companies on a UN blacklist for aiding the country's missile and nuclear programmes.KCNA, North Korea's official news agency, quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying: "The reprocessing of spent fuel rods from the pilot atomic power plant began as declared in the foreign ministry statement dated April 14."This will contribute to bolstering the nuclear deterrence for self-defence in every way to cope with the increasing military threats from the hostile forces."The reclusive state struck a deal with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US in 2007 to disable its Soviet-era Yongbyon nuclear plant in exchange for aid and an end to its international ostracism.But it has since expelled UN and US nuclear inspectors at Yongbyon, about 100km north of the capital, Pyongyang, who had been overseeing steps to put the plant out of operation for at least a year.

Turkey criticises Obama comments

Barack Obama's words on the day marking the killing of Armenians by Turks in World War I were "unacceptable", Turkey's foreign ministry has said.Though Mr Obama did not use "genocide", as he did during his election campaign, Ankara said he failed to honour those Turks killed by Armenians at the time."Everyone's pain must be shared," President Abdullah Gul of Turkey said.President Obama described the deaths of the Armenians as "one of the great atrocities of the 20th Century".He appealed for Turks and Armenians to "address the facts of the past as a part of their efforts to move forward".The two countries agreed this week on a roadmap for normalising relations.

Clinton promises support to violence-hit Iraq

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a surprise visit to Baghdad on Saturday, promising support to the country in the wake of several bomb attacks which rocked the Iraqi capital this week.US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday promised that America will give Iraq the support it needs to stay secure amid simmering violence just weeks before a planned US troop drawdown.Clinton landed in the Iraqi capital a day after two suicide attackers killed at least 58 people at a Shiite shrine in the city, and less than 48 hours after a similar attack killed dozens in a northern town.A series of bombings and suicide attacks have claimed more than 250 lives so far this month ahead of a June 30 deadline for US troops to leave Iraqi cities and major towns.Clinton, paying her first visit to Iraq as America's top diplomat, took questions from an invited audience of about 140 Iraqis, including students, teachers and members of women's groups, some of whom expressed security fears."We are not going to tell you how to resolve internal political issues, you have to decide that," Clinton said at the US Embassy organised event."But we will continue to work very, very hard to give you the tools to make sure that you have a secure country."Clinton, however, appealed for national unity and said only Iraqis could ensure stability in the long-term and it was up to them to decide if former elements of Saddam Hussein's regime could join the security forces.

WHO: Swine flu outbreak 'serious'

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the outbreak of a multi-strain swine flu, which has already killed about 60 people in Mexico and spread to the US, has "pandemic potential".Margaret Chan, the WHO chief, on Saturday described the outbreak as "serious" and called on countries to "increase vigilance" following the discovery of related strains on both sides of the Mexico-US border.At least 62 people in Mexico have died from pneumonia after contracting the flu virus.Chan said how the situation would evolve was "unpredictable".An emergency committee of the WHO met in Geneva on Saturday to oversee the agency's handling of the outbreak.Jose Angel Cordova, the health minister of Mexico, said on Friday that the rate of deaths appeared to be slowing and there were no plans to seal the country's borders, although schools, libraries, museums and theatres were closed in a bid to contain the disease.The mayor of Mexico City has cancelled all public events for 10 days to try to contain the outbreak.Two of Mexico's main football games, one of them in the capital's giant Aztec Stadium, will be played without spectators on Sunday to avoid large crowds.In all, 1,004 suspected cases have been reported nationwide.

Zuma celebrates victory, pledges to unite the country

Jacob Zuma of the African National Congress (ANC) celebrated on Saturday his party's victory at the polls and pledged to form a "government for all South Africans".Jacob Zuma on Saturday claimed a "resounding victory" for his African National Congress in general elections and pledge to form a "government for all South Africans"."Working together we will make it a government for all South Africans," he said in nationally televised remarks, shortly after the electoral commission announced the final results in Wednesday's poll."The new president of the republic will be a president for all," he said.With a 66 percent majority in parliament, the ANC is set to elect Zuma as president when the new legislature convenes on May 6."We do not take the mandate lightly, we know the responsibility that comes with it," he said."Our resounding victory is a celebration for people from all walks of life," he said."We are very grateful and humbled by the decisive mandate we have received from millions of South Africans," he said."The ANC victory is an endorsement of our policies and programmes. But more than that, it is a victory for the country's constitution, which we will always uphold, promote and defend," he added."We reiterate that the constitution is not under threat from the ANC. It has never been."The ANC took 264 seats in the 400-member parliament, just two short of the number needed to change the constitution at will. The party won a super-majority in 2004, but did not make major changes to the charter.