FA short-list 3 managers

At least three managers are on the England shortlist and the Football Association could appoint Fabio Capello’s successor as soon as next month, without conducting a job interview. Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp is the leading contender to lead England into the European Championship in June, but the FA is now willing to allow its new coach to start after the tournament if that is a deal-breaker. Before any official approach is made, the FA hopes to discover privately whether its preferred candidate wants the job. FA chairman David Bernstein says ”our next step is to narrow that target list down to a very small number of key people who of course we believe actually want the position. There may be other people who don’t actually want this position.”

Disqualify Waheeda Shah

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has disqualified Waheeda Shah from holding public office for two years. Women rights activists and political analysts have declared it a historic decision since it upholds the rule of law in the country and would go a long way in setting standards for potential public representatives. The DSP who stood by while Waheeda Shah had attacked the polling staff has already been suspended pending a departmental inquiry. The Chief Election Commissioner of Pakistan heard the case of Waheeda Shah on Tuesday and had reserved the verdict till today (March 7). On the other hand, Waheeda had sought unconditional apology, but it was turned down it being a state matter as declared by the apex court. The Supreme Court had taken up the incident after suo mottu action by the Honourable Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The ECP has also decided to immediately hold fresh elections in her constituency PS 57 Tando Muhammad Khan. Arrangements for re-polling would be made after further orders from the ECP. Waheeda’s lawyer however said she reserved the right to appeal.

The richest person on Earth

And this is so according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world s 20 wealthiest individuals. The 72-year-old's net worth fell $478.4 million in a day to $68.5 billion as of the close of markets on March 2, as U.S. moguls Bill Gates and Warren Buffett placed second and third on the list compiled by Bloomberg News.

Slim controls Mexico's America Movil SAB (AMXL).

Brazil s Eike Batista, who ranks 10th, still covets the top spot after vowing a year ago that he d become the world s wealthiest man by 2015. "I m competitive," Batista, who trails Slim by almost $39 billion, said in a March 2 telephone interview from Rio de Janeiro. "It s Brazil s time to be No. 1. Brazilians have always admired the American dream. What s happening in Brazil is the Brazilian dream and I happen to be the example."

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index takes measure of the world s wealthiest people based on market and economic changes and Bloomberg News reporting. Each net worth figure is updated every business day at 5:30 p.m. in New York. The valuations are listed in U.S. dollars.

Today s ranking was published with the release of new billionaires profile pages in the Bloomberg Professional service. The profiles feature a transparent analysis of how each billionaire s fortune was calculated.

Slim's fortune has increased 11 percent this year, according to the index. A spokesman for Slim didn t immediately return a telephone request for comment.

Gates, Buffett Gates, 56, co-founder of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) in Redmond, Washington, is worth $62.4 billion, down $102.1 million on March 2 and up 11 percent year to date.

The fortune of Buffett, 81, chairman of Omaha, Nebraska- based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/B), declined $336.9 million to $43.8 billion on March 2 and is up 2.4 percent in 2012. Almost all of Buffett s wealth is held in Berkshire Hathaway, the publicly traded holding company he has run since 1965.

The combined net worth of the 20 richest people is $676.8 billion. Nine are Americans, including three from the family of Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) Number seven is Larry Ellison, 67, chief executive officer of Redwood City, California-based Oracle Corp. (ORCL), the world s third-largest software maker after Microsoft and SAP AG. (SAP) His $38 billion fortune puts him $4 billion ahead of brothers Charles and David Koch, who each own 42 percent of Koch Industries Inc., one of the biggest closely held companies in the world by revenue. Charles, 76, and David, 71, control the Wichita, Kansas, refiner and chemical maker.

Batista, 55, whose investments range from iron ore to coal, is worth $29.8 billion, up $133.9 million on March 2. His fortune has grown 32 percent this year, the most on the list. The House Wins Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who owns 47 percent of Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS), which operates resorts in Macau and Las Vegas, is number 13 with $25.7 billion. Adelson, 78, and his family have pledged at least $10 million to a super-PAC supporting Newt Gingrich, a Republican presidential candidate.

Liliane Bettencourt, 89, who with her family owns 31 percent of Paris-based cosmetics company L Oreal SA (OR), is last on the ranking. Bettencourt was the subject of an international scandal in 2007 when her daughter, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, filed a lawsuit accusing a family friend, photographer Francois- Marie Banier, of exploiting her mother s frail state. Evidence later revealed Bettencourt had granted more than $1 billion in cash and gifts to Banier. In October, Meyers and two grandsons became guardians of the clan s $22.4 billion fortune.

Mark Zuckerberg, the 27-year-old founder of Facebook Inc. (FB), the world s largest social-networking company, didn t make the cut. Based on a roughly $100 billion valuation the Menlo Park, California-based company has been trading at in the private market, Zuckerberg s stake may be worth $21 billion, or about 25 percent less than previous estimates, once Facebook holds its initial public offering.

Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s Saving Face, Why Not Saving Pakistan?

It is really an honour that Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy is the first Pakistani lady who was nominated for the Oscar Award and Pakistan is surely proud of her as she caused to brighten Pakistan’s name internationally whereas none brought the Oscar Award in the history of Pakistan before! Doubtless, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy made a good documentary and highlighted an issue in Pakistani society in which women are attacked and their faces are burnt with acid and she should surely be highlighting the real issues existing in Pakistani society. Obviously the topic Chinoy chose for her documentary was a matter of concern and they should really be coped with seriously but can anybody tell me how many incidents of the acid attack take place in Pakistan? These types of incidents are very few and most of the incidents normally occur within families and there are definitely family matters usually behind these incidents! I don’t say that I am against Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy or her documentary but she made documentary on the topic that America and other liberal countries appreciate. She made documentary on the faces of women that are burnt with acid but why not she makes documentary on the faces of those children, women and older people whose faces are burnt and get black due to drone attacks? America keeps killing them by drone attacks that fire missiles on innocent people and their faces are unable to identify! I surely guarantee that if Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy had made a documentary on this issue, neither had she received Oscar Award and nor would her documentary have been included in the event because the topic was against America and US never liked the documentary against it! Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy has everything she needs. She has money, fame, instruments and perhaps she needs nothing more. She is surely talented and can create a good documentary on drone attacks in which a foreign country or an enemy of Pakistan harms Pakistan’s sovereignty and integrity and kills a lot of innocent people declaring them terrorists although US itself is the biggest terrorist of the world! Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy should definitely highlight issues of Pakistan and surely the topic she chose previously could be coped with easily if our law enforcement agencies or police performed better. Hence, it is crucial to bring improvements in law enforcement agencies and train police morally and religiously so that the society could be saved from these types of issues whereas Chinoy should also highlight those issues that are harming Pakistan so that everybody could know how Pakistan is affected by external issues!

India's Congress party flops in state elections

India's Congress party trailed in fourth place as vote counting neared its end in Uttar Pradesh Tuesday, a bitter election blow to Rahul Gandhi who had staked his political future on reviving his party s fortunes in the populous northern state. Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that ruled India for most of its 65 years of independence, had campaigned tirelessly to revive his party in the politically crucial state where it has not ruled for 22 years. The campaign, which thrust him into the rough and tumble of the state s politics - even sleeping in villagers  huts - was widely seen as a test of his fitness to take the reins of Congress from his ailing Italian-born mother, Sonia. The Uttar Pradesh election was also seen as a measure of Rahul s ability to emerge from the shadows of government and replace Manmohan Singh as prime minister if Congress and its coalition allies retain power in national elections due in 2014. The socialist Samajwadi Party (SP) looked set to win the largest number of seats in Uttar Pradesh, where the population of 200 million people makes it larger than Brazil. There was also mostly disappointing news for Congress from four other states that went to the polls over the past month. It was heading for a loss in Punjab and Goa and neck-and-neck with a rival in Uttarakhand, but was set to win in the far-flung northeastern state of Manipur. "It has been a disaster for the Congress, it s an even bigger disaster for Rahul Gandhi and the Gandhi family," said political analyst Amulya Ganguli. "They were banking on success in these elections, hoping to get at least four out of five states. It has gone exactly the opposite way. It shows that there is no charisma left in the Gandhi family." The party s setbacks in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab could make it harder for Singh s already weakened coalition government to pursue reforms that could shore up the country s economic growth, which has slipped below 7 percent. Battered by a string of corruption scandals and inflation, Singh last year was forced to shelve a flagship reform to open the supermarket sector to foreign direct investment (FDI) by global retailers such as Wal-Mart, in the face of protests from even within his government. "Following the state assembly election results, the unpopular reforms might be postponed to some extent like FDI in retail and the deregulation of diesel prices," said N.R. Bhanumurthy, an economist at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, a Delhi-based think tank. "It breaks the confidence of the government." With partial results in for 398 of the 403 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, Congress was leading in just 34, according to the Election Commission. That was an improvement on the 22 it won in the last poll, but a far cry from the 100-plus it had predicted. The Uttar Pradesh result means a return to power for Mulayam Singh Yadav, a former wrestler who first became chief minister there in 1989, when Rahul s father, Rajiv, was still alive. However, his party may fall short of an absolute majority and may seek a coalition with Congress to rule the state. Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi defended Gandhi s electioneering despite the disappointing results. "Not even Rahul Gandhi s worst enemies, political or otherwise, suggest that his leadership was lacking. He was outstanding," he said. "He s gone to every nook and cranny, he s provided the spirit, the euphoria, the leadership - if it doesn t translate, then it doesn t translate." 

U.N. inspectors access to Irani military complex

It’s the camp where the U.N. nuclear agency suspects secret atomic work has been carried out, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported Tuesday. Tehran had previously banned U.N. inspectors from visiting the Parchin installation, southeast of Tehran, but a statement by Iran s permanent envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency said the visit will now be allowed in a gesture of good will. However, it would require an agreement between the two sides on a guidelines for the inspection, ISNA reported. Inspecting Parchin was a key request made by senior IAEA teams that visited Tehran in January and February. Iran rebuffed those demands at the time, as well as attempts by the nuclear agency s team to question Iranian officials and secure other information linked to the allegations of secret weapons work. The latest development comes a day after IAEA chief, Yukiya Amano, expressed growing concern that there was new activity at Parchin. Amano did not specify whether he believed the activity was linked to suspected new weapons experiments or attempts to clean up previous alleged work. The Parchin complex has been often mentioned in the West as a suspected base for secret nuclear experiments a claim Iran consistently denies. IAEA inspectors visited the site in 2005, but only one of four areas on the grounds and reported no unusual activities. Last year, IAEA s report said there were indications Tehran has conducted high-explosives testing to set off a nuclear charge at Parchin. Iran denied the atomic activity and insisted that any decision to open the site rests with the armed forces since it was a military, not nuclear, facility. Speaking Monday in Vienna, Austria, Amano said the suspicions of "activities ... ongoing at the Parchin site" in Iran means "going there sooner is better than later" for IAEA inspectors seeking to probe suspicions that Iran has been or is working secretly to develop nuclear arms. "We have our credible information that indicates that Iran engaged in activities relevant to the development of nuclear explosive devices," Amano said told reporters outside of a 35-nation IAEA board meeting in Vienna, describing his sources as "old information and new information." Iran denies any intention of possessing nuclear weapons and says all of its atomic activities are peaceful, but the IAEA says it has intelligence-based suspicions that may not be the case, based on thousands of pages of documentation. Tehran has dismissed the information, saying it was based on "fabricated documents" provided by a "few arrogant countries". "Given that Parchin is a military site, access to this facility is a time-consuming process and it can t be visited repeatedly," ISNA quoted the Iranian statement as saying. It added that following repeated IAEA demands, "permission will be granted for access once more." The statement added that Tehran and IAEA need to agree on "modalities" before the visit can take place.