Bail granted to accused in KU admissions scam

(GNN) - KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday granted bail to the imprisoned former Karachi University (KU) examinations controller, Intisarul Haq, arrested in connection with the fake MBBS admissions scam of 2000.

A two-member bench, comprising Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Shahnawaz Tariq, announced the judgment and approved Haq’s bail against the surety of Rs 100,000 cash or personal recognizance bond.

While disposing of the bail plea of the applicant, the bench also ordered the trial court to pass judgement in the case on its merits without being influenced by the observations of the high court.

Haq, confined in the prison, had moved bail application through his lawyer, Shaukat Hayat. He submitted that he was appointed as KU examinations controller in November 2002 whereas the NAB had initiated the inquiry into the alleged illegal admissions of 38 students in the Sindh Muslim College between 2000 and 2001.

Hayat informed the judges that his client was suffering from serious heart ailments, chronic diabetes and hypertension and that his doctors have recommended that he be admitted to the hospital for treatment.

He also submitted that the co-accused Sindh Muslim College ex-vice principal Prof Dr Syed Naseerudin, who has also been granted bail before arrest, be treated on the same footing.

NAB, during prosecution, accused Haq of the illegal admissions along with the former programme coordinator Abdul Hadi Siddiqui and the former administration assistant Alauddin.

It was also argued by Hayat that no role has been assigned to the applicant by the prosecution, which has recorded the statements of 25 prosecution witnesses but only one of them stated that the forms were initiated by the applicant and forwarded to the deputy controller.

Opposing the bail plea, the additional deputy prosecutor general of NAB said while dealing with the question of bail the SHC has to consider the grounds mentioned in the Section 497 of Criminal Procedure Code.

The petitioner is nominated in the reference and a clear cut case under Section 9(a) of the NAB Ordinance 1999 is made out against him, the prosecutor claimed.

NAB prosecutor said the co-accused Dr Shamsher Ali and SMC ex-vice principal Dr Syed Naseerudin, were granted pardon under Section 26(a) of NAB Ordinance.

Published in GNN, Tribune, AIP, July 12th, 2014.

‘Harry Potter’ actor found dead in Death Valley

(GNN) - LOS ANGELES: British actor David Legeno, who played a werewolf in the "Harry Potter" movies, has been found dead in Death Valley, United States police said.

He apparently died of "heat-related issues," the local sheriff said, after the 50-year-old´s body was found near Zabriskie Point, a famed movie-related panorama spot.

Legeno played the werewolf Fenrir Greyback in several of the "Harry Potter" movies, including "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (2009) and the two-part finale "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

He also appeared in episodes of British soap operas "Eastenders," "The Bill" and "Emmerdale," as well as in films including 2005´s "Batman Begins."

Two hikers found Legeno´s body on Sunday in a remote area in the center of Death Valley, where summer temperatures regularly top 49 degrees Celsius (120 F).

"The remains have been identified as David Legeno, a 50-year-old United Kingdom man," said the Inyo County Sheriff´s Office in a statement.

"It appears that Legeno died of heat-related issues, but the Inyo County Coroner will determine the final cause of death. There are no signs of foul play.

"Legeno worked on demolition sites after leaving school, before studying performing arts. He became a professional wrestler before getting a role in Guy Ritchie´s 2000 London gangster movie "Snatch." When film work was slow he earned his living as a professional cage fighter, according to his profile on the IMDb movie industry website, adding that he put his fight career on hold after being in "Harry Potter."

Zabriskie Point is the name of a 1970 movie by Italian great Michelangelo Antonioni, and the spot -- famous for spectacular multi-colored panoramas of Death Valley -- was used for the cover of rockers U2´s 1987 album "The Joshua Tree." (GNN)(AFP)(AIP)

Play Girl Game Online - First Ball Of Baby Princess

Meet the beautiful Princess Catherine and her cute daughter Sandra. Today is a big day for Sandra, because her mom is going to take her to her first ball! Imagine how excited little Sandra must be! Help Princess Catherine pick the best ball gown and acces.


Princess Games

US satisfied with security of Pakistan’s nuclear assets

WASHINGTON: The United States has once again expressed satisfaction over the security of nuclear assets of Pakistan.

Spokesperson for the State Department, Jen Psaki said the US has no concerns over the security of Pakistan’s nuke assets.

Replying to a question during a press briefing, Psaki said officials of both the countries used to talk over several issues, adding US works with Pakistan over anti-terrorism and other matters.

Jen Psaki said she was not aware of any concern pertaining to security of nuclear assets of Pakistan.(GNN)(Geo)(AIP)

PM announces ‘Green Line’ bus service for Karachi

KARACHI: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has announced ‘Green Line’ bus service under a Rapid Transport service for Karachi.

The federal government will provide Rs15 billion for the project which would replicate the model of Lahore’s Metro Bus service.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in case the Sindh and city governments failed to finance its share, the same would also be contributed by the federal government.

The prime minister visited Karachi on Thursday and also had a meeting with traders to discuss problems they were encountering.

Earlier, while chairing a law and order meeting the prime minister was briefed on a strategic change in the Karachi operation due to Operation Zarb-e-Azb.(GNN)(Thenews)(AIP)

PM reviews Karachi law and order situation

KARACHI: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif chaired a meeting to review the law and order situation in the city.

 During the meeting Prime Minister Sharif was briefed about strategic changes made to ongoing operation in Karachi. Prime Minister Sharif was informed that the changes were made due to Operation Zarb-e-Azb.

The operation continues in sensitive and suburban areas of the city and action is being taken against terrorists and criminals.

Prime Minister Sharif was also informed that IDPs arriving in Karachi were being checked.

The meeting was attended by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar, Governor Sindh Dr Ishratul Ebad, DG Rangers and other high-ranking officials.

Earlier, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif held a meeting to review development projects.(GNN)(Thenews)(AIP)

Veteran Bollywood actress Zohra Sehgal dies

(GNN) - MUMBAI: Bollywood´s veteran actress Zohra Sehgal, whose seven-decade career spanned theatre, film, dance and television in both India and Britain, died in hospital on Thursday, her family said. She was 102.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi led tributes to the star, who was born in northern India in April 1912, describing her on Twitter as "prolific & full of life".

"Zohra Sehgal made a mark through her acting, which is admired across generations. Saddened on her demise," he wrote.

Sehgal´s daughter Kiran told the Press Trust of India news agency that her mother had been ill for a few days and died of a cardiac arrest in New Delhi in the afternoon.

Sehgal began work as a dancer in the 1930s before moving to acting, becoming known as the doyenne of Indian theatre, although she also won fans through her various roles in Hindi and English-language films and TV series over the years.

Her film debut came in the 1946 movie ´Dharti Ke Lal´ (Son of the Soil). After winning a drama scholarship in 1962, she moved to Britain.

In her memoir she told of how, after finishing her scholarship, she scraped by as a dresser in London´s green rooms and even managed to educate her children there. But her fortunes turned when she landed significant roles in British productions such as the landmark 1980s series "The Jewel in the Crown", and the film "My Beautiful Laundrette".

Sehgal returned to India in the 1990s at the age of 80 and continued acting until the age of 95.

Her most popular Hindi hits included "Dil Se" (From the Heart, 1998) and "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam" (I Have Given My Heart, Darling, 1999).

In 2010 she was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India´s second highest civilian award.

Her last film role came in 2007 in "Cheeni Kum" (Less Sugar), in which she acted alongside Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan as his mother.

"What a journey and what an immensely loveable co star ! Prayers for her blessed soul!!" Bachchan wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

Stars Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra were among others who paid tribute. (GNN)(AFP)(AIP)

(GNN) - PARIS: Test vaccine for dengue seen as promising

(GNN) - PARIS: A prototype vaccine for dengue that two years ago yielded lukewarm results has proved more effective after wider trials and is a potential arm against the disease, researchers said Friday.

Devised by the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Pasteur, the so-called CYD-TDV vaccine provided only 30 percent protection against the dangerous fever when first tested among children in Thailand.

Widened to trials in four other Asian countries, where disease conditions vary greatly, the vaccine´s protection has been shown to be significantly higher, at 56.5 percent overall, the scientists said.

The result falls short of the benchmark set by classic vaccines such as those for polio and measles, which can be more than 99 percent effective.

One reason for this is that CYD-TDV performed poorly against one of the four strains of dengue virus, the investigators reported in The Lancet.

These strains, or serotypes, circulate simultaneously, which means a vaccine should ideally protect against all of them.

Even so, the prototype was safe and well tolerated and its shield, if only partial, means it should be enlisted in the fight against dengue, they argued.

"Our results suggest that vaccination with CYD-TDV can reduce the incidence of symptomatic dengue infection by more than half and importantly reduced severe disease and hospitalisations," said Maria Rosario Capeding from the Philippines´ Research Institute for Tropical Medicine.

"This candidate vaccine has the potential to have a significant impact on public health in view of the high disease burden in endemic countries."

Dengue is a potentially fatal fever, caused by a virus transmitted by a mosquito when it takes its blood meal, and is especially dangerous for children.

The virus infects around 390 million people each year, of whom about 96 million fall sick, according to UN estimates.

It was once considered a disease of the tropics that was endemic in only nine countries. But globalisation, climate change and jet travel are helping it to move into more temperate zones.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) cases of dengue have risen 30 fold over the last 50 years, and more than half of the world´s population are at risk of the disease.

- Wider trials -

The CYD-TDV vaccine was tested as a so-called Phase IIb trial among just over 4,000 children in rural Thailand, the results of which were reported in September 2012.The new figures are those of a Phase III trial -- normally the final step in the process to test new drugs for safety and efficiency -- carried out in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, as well as in Thailand.

More than 10,000 children aged two to 14 years were enrolled. They were randomly assigned to receive three injections of the vaccine or a placebo over 12 months, and were followed for up to two years.

During this period a total of 150 dengue cases occurred, a majority of them in the placebo group, demonstrating an overall effectiveness of 56.5 percent.

But the protection varied according to the serotype -- more than 75 percent against virus types 3 and 4; 50 percent against type 1; but only 35 percent against type 2.

On the plus side, those who had received the vaccine were also far less likely to fall ill with a severe form of the disease, dengue haemorrhagic fever, which leads to half a million hospitalisations each year.

In a commentary, Annelies Wilder-Smith, a professor at Singapore´s Nanyang Technological University, said a vaccine that halved annual cases of dengue "would present a significant public health benefit" but was not a magic bullet.

"For the moment, the CYD-TDV vaccine is the best we have; however, with 56 percent efficacy it will never be a single solution," Wilder-Smith said.

Other strategies, including better approaches to tackling mosquitoes that cause the problem, would also have to be part of the campaign, she said.

The children in the trial are being followed up for another four years to see whether the vaccine´s promise still holds up. (GNN)(AFP)(AIP)

House Republicans seek CDC documents on anthrax scare

(GNN) - Congressional Republicans asked the Obama administration on Wednesday to provide documents related to last month's anthrax scare at a U.S. lab facility, where more than 80 people were initially feared to be exposed to the deadly pathogen.

In a series of letters, top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee asked for the results of several Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lab inspections and audits of potential weaknesses in biosecurity protocols dating back to October 2007.

"How many suspected exposures to select agents and/or toxins have been reported at CDC since October 2007? How many actual exposures have been reported," said the July 9 letter to CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden signed by three Republican panel members including Chairman Fred Upton of Michigan.

The lawmakers, who also requested information from the inspector general of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said they were gathering information for a July 16 hearing of the panel's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. Frieden is scheduled to testify.

CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said the agency has been working closely with the subcommittee and would "respond as quickly and completely as possible" to the requests.

CDC officials say live anthrax may have been transferred from the facility to employees in a lower-security facility who were not wearing proper protective gear, raising concerns that they may have been exposed to the deadly pathogen.

No one has shown symptoms. Officials initially believed as many as 84 people could have been exposed and scores have taken antibiotics to ward off infection.

The letters were also signed by subcommittee chairman Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania and vice chairman Michael Burgess of Texas.

But they bore no signatures from the committee's Democratic members. The office of the panel's top Democrat, Representative Henry Waxman of California, had no immediate comment.

The letter to Frieden listed 10 questions seeking documents or information by July 10 on a range of issues including an investigation conducted by a Canadian public health agency, the number of CDC staff approved to access dangerous toxins and pathogens, and how much the agency has spent on the facility.(GNN)(Reuters)(AIP)

(Reporting by David Morgan and Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Peter Cooney and Andrew Hay)

Fuel-Cell Cars Are Going To Get A Big Boost In California Next Year

We may not have hoverboards by October 2015, but thanks to investments from the California Energy Commission and Toyota, we’ll have something just as futuristic: the makings of a functioning hydrogen economy in California.

That month, FirstElement Fuel will open 19 new hydrogen fueling stations in the state of California with $27.2 million in grant funding from the California Energy Commission and a $7.2 million loan from Toyota. Another 9 will open in the state through grant money distributed to other proposals from the state.

With the number of hydrogen fuel stations more than quadrupling from the current 9, car companies will finally be able to release fuel cell vehicles with demonstrable advantages over battery electric vehicles.

Toyota, for instance, unveiled its fuel cell vehicle concept (pictured above at this year’s CES) in Tokyo last fall and promises it will be ready for mass production next year. The car is about the size of a Camry and has an electric motor powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. Thanks to a high-pressure tank, it’s able to store enough hydrogen gas to drive for more than 300 miles without refueling — 40 miles more than even the highest-end Tesla Model S — with no environmentally harmful emissions.

In a phone call, Toyota’s National Manager of Advanced Technologies Craig Scott explained that the technology for fuel cell vehicles has been ready for a few years now, but the infrastructure still wasn’t there to make them practical for most drivers. Even though their theoretical range is much further than electric cars with a battery, people simply wouldn’t be able to leave areas where hydrogen stations existed if they bought or leased one because the next station would be too far away.

The simultaneous expansion of hydrogen infrastructure and the release of cars that can take advantage of them from Toyota, Honda and Hyundai in 2015 will have accelerating effects on the industry overall. Because of the availability of stations, Toyota is now able to move their hydrogen platform into mass production, which brings significant cost savings as the company can start bringing in parts from its other powertrains and build fewer parts “by hand” in limited quantities.

FirstElement Fuel CEO Joel Ewanick told me this morning that there will be significant savings to future hydrogen station deployment thanks to these early investments as well. As the number of pumps increases, Ewanick told me that the cost to build a station could drop by 50% over the next decade, with fuel costs dropping by 30-40 percent. And within five years, those Ewanick says FirstElement’s stations will be profitable, as “it’s a very simple business model.”

What makes hydrogen vehicles so tantalizing is the fact that they can produce zero emissions with the range of a fossil-fuel-powered car. That zero comes with an asterisk, however: Some hydrogen is sourced in more environmentally friendly ways than others. If you’re using electricity from coal to turn water into hydrogen, it isn’t very clean.

Ewanick says that 33 percent of hydrogen at FirstElement stations in Southern California will come from renewable biogas (the minimum required by the state), while 35 percent will come from the same in the northern half of the state. “We could spend a lot more to bring that up to 100%,” he says, but the prices involved wouldn’t work well for them or drivers.

It should be noted that while there will be hydrogen stations within driving distance in most metropolitan areas of California after next year’s rollout, it’s still not going to be as convenient as filling up your car with gasoline today. As an example, here’s FirstElement’s map of upcoming stations in the Bay Area; I wouldn’t want to drive that far out of my way to fill up a car if I lived in San Francisco:

California wants to have 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2025, and it’s spending the money to make that happen. So far, its program to accelerate alternative and renewable fuels and technologies has invested more than $400 million in projects boosting hydrogen, biofuels, and electricity for transportation.

IMAGE BY TOYOTA

mNectar Raises $7M For New Kinds Of Mobile Ads That Let People Test-Drive Apps

First, there were teeny mobile banner ads pioneered by companies like AdMob, which Google bought for $750 million. Then there were full-screen interstitial ads. Those gave way to mobile video ads and then Facebook’s behemoth of a targeted mobile ad network.

So what’s next in mobile advertising?

A company called mNectar is betting that consumers will want to test drive mobile apps from right within ads. They’ve raised $7 million from NEA to do it. Rick Yang, a principal from the firm, is joining the board.

“When you buy music, I like to listen to a song for 30 to 60 seconds before buying an album. I thought this was fundamentally broken for apps,” said CEO Wally Nguyen. “Mobile advertising is broken. With static interstitials, there’s not enough information for a user to make a decision.”

mNectar units are full-screen, interactive ads that let you trial a game or app for a short amount of time.

They’ve racked up a client list, including Big Fish Games, Buffalo Studios, GREE, King, Wooga, Zeptolab and Zynga. Each mNectar unit is like a full-screen interstitial without any wrapper around the ad unit. You can test drive a few kinds of their ads here.

The costs are roughly $3 to $7 per install.

“It’s a high range, but we don’t force or preset pricing, and advertisers keep coming back to buy again,” said Nguyen, who was previously at another gaming monetization startup called Pocket Change.

Marketing and user acquisition for apps has always been a persistent issue within the Android and iOS app stores. There have been many solutions over the years, from earlier scammier attempts to game the rankings to App Store search optimization. As both stores have become increasingly crowded with north of 2 million apps, developers have had to become savvier and more data-driven about how their markets work.

That has meant that hyper-specific targeting has become increasingly important, along with new kinds of interactive mobile ad formats. That’s where mNectar would come in.
What is mNectar? from mNectar on Vimeo.

Connected TV Market Crosses 1B Devices As Google Pins Its Hopes On Android TV

A new report from Strategy Analytics puts the global market for connected TV devices at over 1 billion currently installed units, which include smart TVs, set-top boxes like the Apple TV, game consoles, connected Blu-ray players and more. The market is predicted to double in size between now and 2018, reaching the 2 billion mark, with smart TVs carrying embedded platforms as the main segment to watch.

Set-top boxes is the other type of device that’s poised to lead the growth, and Google has announced that its new project Android TV will be a platform available to both categories. Android TV is Google’s second stab at the connected TV device market, after it first tried the waters with Google TV beginning a few years ago. That effort met with tepid response from consumers, but Android TV is a complete rethink of its connected media device strategy.

The new platform puts an emphasis on content first, highlighting stuff you’re likely to watch from various sources installed on your platform. Apps take second stage, and games round out the content-delivery package. But what Android TV has going for it above all other competing solutions is the simplicity of the interface, and the similarity it has to the relatively mindless experience of idly browsing TV to watch via traditional cable and satellite delivery methods.

From the Strategy Analytics report, we learn that Apple TV is the current leader of the market, with around 35 percent of the 2013 share of devices. Google and Roku each had shares in the teens, with the research firm predicting a surge by Google because of the success of the Chromecast, and opportunities presented by the Android TV boxes coming up from Razer and Asus this fall. Pricing and availability will determine how much influence those have, however.

In the end, Google has learned a lot from Google TV and Chromecast, and Android TV clearly has input from both experiences. To capitalize on the growth coming up in the next few years, it’ll have to make sure Android TV comes in at the price point and with the convenience factor (i.e. preinstalled on a variety of new devices) that consumers appreciate with the company’s increasingly powerful streaming stick.

America Movil aims to sell assets as quickly as possible

(GNN) - Mexican telecoms company America Movil plans to divest assets as quickly as possible to escape tougher regulation, and it hopes to sell to a single buyer, spokesman Arturo Elias said on Wednesday.

The company controlled by billionaire Carlos Slim announced on Tuesday that it was ready to sell assets to cut its market share in Mexican telecoms below 50 percent and avoid regulations that apply only to dominant players.

Those new rules are part of a telecommunications sector overhaul approved by Congress in an attempt to curb the power of America Movil and broadcaster Televisa.

Shares of America Movil were up 8.69 percent at 14.6 pesos. The company has a market value of well over $70 billion. It has some 70 percent of the mobile market and is the dominant force in fixed line and Internet.

America Movil will have to sell 15 percent to 17 percent of its share in telephony to weigh in below the 50 percent threshold and still have margin to grow, and aimed to do so as quickly as it could, Elias said.

Speculation has already begun to swirl over who might buy the assets. Analysts have zeroed in on companies such as AT&T, which sold its stake in America Movil for $5.57 billion to a company controlled by Slim in June.

AT&T declined to comment.

"It would have to be someone who comes to Mexico to really invest in telecommunications, to create a true, tough competitor," Elias said.

He declined to name a price for the assets, which industry experts say could be worth well over $10 billion.

Elias added that the company also plans to offer pay television as quickly as possible, a lucrative market that it has been kept out of so far. If regulators approve Slim's divestiture plan, the pay TV market could open up to him.

Congress on Wednesday gave final approval to secondary laws laying out the fine print of the telecoms sector overhaul.

The legislation will now be signed into law by President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has pushed a host of reforms through Congress to boost lackluster growth.

The telecoms measures are the toughest battery of regulations Slim has faced since he took control of Mexico's former state phone monopoly Telmex at the start of the 1990s. That helped him to become the world's richest man by 2010.

Approval of the reform's rules and regulations was delayed by more than six months, as lawmakers clashed over issues such as whether the bills would give an unfair break to Televisa, the biggest player in Mexico's television market.

Presidential legal advisor Humberto Castillejos said that no dominant tag was planned for pay TV, but added the new telecoms regulator would have to investigate if any firm had "substantial market power" that could require tougher regulation.(GNN)(Reuters)(AIP)

(Reporting by Alexandra Alper, Gabriel Stargardter and Tomas Sarmiento; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Lisa Shumaker)

David Tisch’s Stealthy Mobile Commerce Product, Spring, Closes $7.5M Series A

(GNN) - David Tisch has been quietly working on a project called Jello Labs for over a year. He hasn’t said much about what the product will be, other than that it involves mobile commerce. However, today we can shed a bit more light on the super stealth project. For one, the product is actually called Spring, with Jello Labs being more of a company name or a placeholder name.

Secondly, the company has secured a $7.5 million Series A round led by Thrive Capital, Groupe Arnault, and Box Group, wiht participation form 41 other VCs and angel investors. Previous to the Series A round, Tisch was providing runway for the startup out of his own pocket.

Spring was co-founded by David Tisch (who is chairman of the board) and his brother Alan Tisch, who has taken the position of CEO. Other founding members of the team include Octavian Costache (an ex-Googler who will be taking over the CTO position) and Ara Katz (who will be leading marketing efforts as CMO).

David Tisch has his own venture fund called Box Group, which was started shortly after he left TechStars NY as Managing Director.

But what about the product itself? Tisch has confirmed that Spring will launch in the fall, likely around August, but he wouldn’t tell us much more than that.

However, we have learned that part of the slow roll-out has to do with exclusive partnerships that are currently being forged with big fashion and retail brands.

This seems to be somewhat confirmed by the fact that a good number of Spring’s investor don’t necessarily come from the tech world. Some of the investors include Desiree Gruber (the producer of Project Runway), Rachel Zoe Ventures, Uri Minkoff (CEO of Rebecca Minkoff), Steven Alan, and Shirley Cook (CEO of Proenza Schouler), among others.

Of course, there are plenty of tech-related investors participating in the round as well, including Aaron Levie, Gary Vaynerchuk, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Google Ventures, and SV Angel.

Currently, Spring has 26 full-time employees, including 14 full-time engineers.

Original Google Glass Chief Gives Us A Clue About Google’s Prime Motivator In Wearable Design

(GNN) - Google X director and former head of Google Glass Babak Parviz was on stage at the Wearables Technology Conference in San Francisco this week, and he shared some interesting details about the project (via CNET), its original and its progress so far. The Glass maker notably wasn’t wearing Glass at the show, and admitted that it wasn’t “necessarily the definitive answer” to the question of what’s next for computing platforms, but that it was “one answer.”

Parviz said that he believes Google has made good progress, and called the current version “a nice first step to where we want to go,” but he also conceded that there’s a long road ahead and that the current form factor needs to evolve to become more comfortable and more power efficient (so it requires less charging time).

Perhaps the most interesting thing that Parviz said was about the origin of Glass – there’s a myth built up and endorsed by Google’s Sergey Brin that Glass was intended to help people disconnect from their smartphone screens and become more engaged in whatever they’re doing at the moment. Brin even once famously said that smartphones “emasculate” their users, a negative outcome Glass was designed to counter.

What the former Glass head said about the impetus behind Glass was that it was about reducing the time it takes to make and receive results from a search query, from about 10 seconds as it stands on a smartphone to far, far less. Putting the input device and means of retrieving and reading the results directly on the head and in front of the eye seemed like the best way to do that.

This motivation makes a lot more sense than some idea about the ‘emasculating’ nature of smartphones, and it likely helps explain design decisions behind Android Wear, and possibly other upcoming Android hardware, too. Think about the always listening Moto X, too, and the introduction in Android KitKat of similar system-wide voice queries for Google search when the display is active.

Google’s end goal is not just to anticipate the next big computing platform, but also to make sure that is search product can thrive and grow on said platform. Through this rubric, it’s easy to see why Glass exists, and why Android Wear was designed the way it was, with voice taking a pretty primary place in the overall interaction experience.

Via 9to5Google

Yelp Throws Spanner Into Google EU Antitrust Settlement By Filing Formal Complaint

Just as Google looked to be nearing the end of a long-running EU antitrust investigation, Yelp, which competes vertically with Mountain View in local search, has thrown a spanner in the works by filing a formal complaint. It was already a witness in the case, but, via a letter to Europe’s Competition Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, the U.S. company has thrown its full weight behind the complaint.

“I realised Yelp’s current state as a mere witness within the DG-COMP deliberations was inadequate,” writes Yelp CEO and co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman. “In order to truly advocate on behalf of the European digital startups, our voice needed to be granted some form of official standing. As such, I have directed our government affairs team to convert Yelp into an official complainant.”

This means Yelp joins other tech companies like Microsoft, as well as the consumer rights advocate the European Consumer Organisation, in a long list of complainants who believe Google is acting in anticompetitive ways in Europe — in Yelp’s case, because of the way Google gives priority to its own services in search results over those of competitors. Specifically, local search results, such as those relating to nearby restaurants.

“I truly fear the landscape for innovation in Europe is infertile, and this is a direct result of the abuses Google has undertaken with its dominant position,” adds Stoppelman.

In typical EU fashion, the antitrust case has been 4 years in the running and goes back nearly a decade, but in February it looked like it was finally coming to an end after Almunia gave the U.S.-based search giant the all-clear, paving the way for the EU to move forward on implementing a remedy whereby Google would allocate space on its search results page for the placement of third-party results — i.e. those from competitors — for things like local search results and results for other services that compete with Google’s sprawling product range.

This left many competitors unhappy, and has led to arguments over whether or not Google was offering up the right screen real-estate for competitors’ results — arguments about so-called blind spots have ensued — and now that Yelp has joined the complainant list officially, this antitrust case likely has plenty of legs yet.

Stoppelman letter to Barroso

Zynstra Raises Further $8.4M Funding To Bring ‘Hybrid Cloud’ To SMEs

Zynstra, which offers ‘hybrid cloud’ solutions for small and medium sized enterprises, has raised a further $8.4 million of funding in a Series B round. This brings the total amount raised to just over $14.4 million.

The UK startup plans to use the additional capital to further develop its range of “hybrid cloud” products, which are designed for SMEs as opposed to much larger enterprises, and expand its channel reach in the UK, and then launch in the U.S. towards the end of this year.

Zynstra is also positioning itself, rather shrewdly, to benefit from Microsoft ending support for Windows Server 2003 next July. “This affects a lot of businesses,” Nick East, CEO of Zynstra, tells TechCrunch. “We are seeing an increasing pull from the market for our solution as a natural choice for infrastructure refresh. This is one of the reasons we are expanding.”

The company operates in the “hybrid IT” space, whereby East says companies use a mixture of on-site IT services -– usually a ‘private cloud’ — integrated with one or more remote cloud services. However, this hybrid approach, while increasingly favoured by most large enterprises, usually requires significant “up front capital investment in hardware and software, and IT integration skills,” putting it out of reach for smaller enterprises. Zynstra wants to change that.

“We have customers that use our smallest on-premise appliance; you could think of it as a ‘cloud gateway’ device. It runs local IT services like networking and user administration, printing and backup, but also integrates the office simply and securely with remote cloud services like Office 365, cloud backup and disaster recovery,” explains East.

“For larger IT needs, our product runs a resilient private cloud, with a series of applications or workloads that must run locally –- usually for reasons of network performance, security or control required by the customer.”

As an example of the latter, he cites customers who run collaboration apps on Zynstra’s appliances so that sensitive business data stays behind their firewall. These are then integrated with public cloud collaboration tools to share less sensitive information with customers and partners. Hence the “hybrid” termonology.

Zynstra’s new funding round was led by previous backers Octopus Investments, with participation from other previous investors including: Richard Brennan, former EVP Global Marketing at Orange Group, Tom Vari, former CIO of Cable at Rogers Communications Inc., and Jon Craton, Zynstra’s Chairman and former founder and CEO of Cramer.

Index Leads $7M Round In Banking Benchmark Startup, Credit Benchmark

London has chalked up another fintech investment today: Index Ventures has led a $7 million Series A round in Credit Benchmark, a startup that’s looking to improve financial market benchmarks by aggregating anonymized credit risk data from multiple banks.

The aim is to improve industry transparency around credit risk and create more precise and up-to-date consensus views by aggregating the internal assessments of large banks on their institutional borrowers’ credit worthiness. Its system specifically produces estimates for probability of default and loss given default – used for risk management and more broadly as benchmarks in the financial industry.

Bottom line: a dozen banks’ risk assessments should be better than one.  (Although, to make a counter point, the financial crisis was arguably the result of skewed group-think. But hey, maybe banks have learned a few lessons since then… Let’s hope so, eh.)

Credit Benchmark describes it system as a “contributed data” model. The data is rigorously anonymized — it says it has created “robust technological, security and legal frameworks for managing contributed data, guaranteeing the confidentiality of individual contributors’ estimates and allowing it to act as a trusted intermediary” — and has managed to sign up a dozen global banks in the US, UK and Continental Europe committed to supplying data thus far.

It adds that it expects to offer “comprehensive coverage” of the entities that matter most to financial institutions – e.g. funds, emerging market corporates and SMEs where it argues there is currently little or no data from existing sources, such as ratings agencies and credit default prices. So it’s basically looking to offer broader data that’s more frequently updated than the hoary old credit ratings agencies.

As well as announcing its funding raise, Credit Benchmark is launching its commercial service for banks today, having completed a proof of concept with a smaller group of banks.

Credit Benchmark is founded by serial entrepreneurs Mark Faulkner and Donal Smith, who applied their contributed data model in their previous company, a securities analytics startup called Data Explorers that was acquired by Markit in 2012.

Commenting on the funding round in a statement, Jan Hammer, partner at Index Ventures, said: “It would be difficult to find more experienced and talented founders than Donal and Mark. Together with CEO Elly Hardwick, they have the proven track records —  in developing and managing contributed data models — required to work with the elite among global banks.

“What’s so exciting to us is that it’s already clear that ultimately it’s not just banks that will derive value from access to Credit Benchmark’s credit risk data, but a host of other financial services too.”

NewVoiceMedia Raises Another $50M For Its Cloud-Based Contact Centers

NewVoiceMedia, a UK-based provider of cloud-based contact solutions, is today announcing that it has raised another $50 million, funding that it will use to continue to build out its business in America and Asia in competition with the likes of Inside Sales, LiveOps, inContact, carriers, and a number of regional providers.

With a long list like that, you can see where big funding might come in handy, but Jonathan Gale, the CEO of the company, tells me that this was only part of the impetus for raising the money.

The other simply had to do with seizing the moment as it was spotted by investors as well as NVM itself. “We had no plans to raise more so soon,” he tells me in an interview, “but the contact centre world is starting to migrate aggressively to the cloud and with customers coming off Cisco and Avaya on-premise solutions, we were seeing that they’re not even considering on-premise or hybrid anymore.”

NVM is not disclosing its current valuation except to say that it’s ‘big’. From what I understand it’s in the region of hundreds of millions but not net breaking 10 figures. The company told me last year that it had licensing revenues of $10 million for the year. Gale says that the projection is that this will grow 103% this year.

To date, NVM, which was founded in 2000, has raised $105 million. Nearly all of that has come in the last year and a half (including $20m in January 2013 and $35m in September 2013) — another measure not just of current investor interest in the enterprise space, but of the need for those who are serious about leading in it needing to push ahead aggressively right now to grow.

“A number of investors were pursuing us,” Gale says. “We think there is a potential in growing faster and harder than you are already doing and to be more global in scale… I think that the market is quite reminiscent of the CRM market in 2001-2002 when it was aggressively transitioning to the cloud,” he adds.

The CRM comparison made by Gale is not by accident. This latest round, a Series E, was led by Technology Crossover Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Highland Capital Partners Europe, Eden Ventures, Notion Capital, plus one strategic investor: the cloud-based CRM giant Salesforce.

Salesforce had actually had been a part of a previous, undisclosed round as well as this latest funding injection. And when you think about it, this makes a lot of sense: NewVoiceMedia is among the army of startups that have been leveraging the rise of cloud-based services to disrupt the world of enterprise IT, and it’s fitting that among the backers of this latest round is one of the bigger businesses to have benefitted and driven that move to cloud services.

It also helps that NVM has integrated very closely and easily with Salesforce for a long time now, and Gale tells me that it’s one of the strongest sales channels that his company has.

To date, NewVoiceMedia has been seeing strong interest from two types of businesses: those who work in sales and those who are in services, which each account for roughly half of its business. Gale says its customers are typically of the 2,000-seat size, but in his past experience at MessageLabs (now a part of Symantec), he recognises a cycle in progress.

“I recall enterprise customers that started really sniffing hard around your solution two to three years before they bought,” he says. “And I’m finding that we’re having those conversations now at NewVoiceMedia with the 5,000-10,000-seat customers who may not buy this year but are starting to factor that into the cycle for the future.”

As for where the money will be invested beyond marketing and sales, Gale says he “wouldn’t rule out” acquisitions, although the company has already built a healthy business growing organically by investing a lot in its own R&D.

Where investment is likely to be made is to help continue building out NVM’s infrastructure. In the UK, the company has its own data centers but more recently, outside of the country it’s moved its whole platform to Amazon, and now has six nodes globally on AWS, from previously running everything out of the UK. “That’s allowed us to expand quickly,” Gale says. The projection is that in the next year the company will add between 35-50% of its bookings from outside the UK.

Although NVM has just pulled in a Series E, the company is not making any commitments on what might happen next. “I wouldn’t rule anything in or out on the subject of an IPO,” Gale says. “We’re well capitalized and have a lot of money in the bank we are investing in growth. We don’t have any immediate plans to do anything other than focus on growing the business, doubling down and continuing to build out the product and our IP.”

And although it already sits very closely with Salesforce as a product, and now the CRM giant is an investor, Gale cautions against assuming this, or one of its legacy competitors, could become another exit route. “There is a place for an independent market leader in this space,” he says. “In two to three years, there could be an IPO or further private funding. We’re not focused on that at the moment. We’re delighted the maker is moving the way that it is.”

Format Acquires Format.com, Updates Its Portfolio Website App As It Relaunches

Online portfolio service Format has been trying to acquire the domain name, format.com, for the past three years. On Monday they announced the purchase as well as a rebranding of their entire platform, officially changing their name from 4ormat to Format.

Format is a portfolio website builder for creative professionals to showcase their work. Lukas Dryja, CEO of Format, didn’t offer specifics but said that Format is used by “tens of thousands” of people in 125 countries.

A theme editor is one of the primary additions to the platform. Users can access the HTML and CSS to edit the code base, but the editor also allows users to control the arrangement of the site and the colors, among others, in an easier, drag-and-drop interface. The theme editor is also mobile-friendly, allowing users to customize how the site looks on tablets or phones.

Apart from the theme editor comes a slew of new features such as new design principles, a more responsive design, updated pricing, better display and navigation.

The platform now also allows account holders to create image heavy blog posts to accompany the portfolio, without a limit on how many images can be used. There is a limit based on what account you own for the gallery of the portfolio. The basic account allows for 100 images to be uploaded.

Dryja said the company, which launched in 2010 and is based in Toronto, always intended to use the word “format” instead of 4ormat. They managed to convince the previous owners of format.com that Format’s goals matches the goal of the domain name.

IMAGE BY FORMAT

Facebook Tests Android L-Style Lock Screen Notifications

A new update for the test group of Facebook for Android users briefly enabled lockscreen notifications, at least for new message activity, before a later update today seems to have disabled the feature. The notifications looked very similar to the lock screen notifications Google showed off at I/O this year, one of the new upcoming features of Android L, the next major update for Google’s mobile OS. Facebook has confirmed to TechCrunch the update went out to a “small group of beta testers.”

The update doesn’t require Android L to be installed to work, however, as I encountered the new feature using an HTC One M8 running Android 4.4.2 with Sense 6. It features a Settings expander with viewing options, and tapping on the notification itself will take you to the Facebook app directly, after you unlock your device. As indicated on the notification itself, swiping will dismiss the notification and keep the device locked. Multiple notifications from multiple message senders stack visually one on top of the other.

I was only able to see message notifications because of the type of activity on my FB account during the test, but other FB activity was also included in the new test feature. Facebook often tests new features on Android, but they don’t always necessarily make it to a shipping release. Presumably once Android L becomes production software, it won’t be required, but Facebook could still gain a user attention advantage by delivering lock screen notifications regardless of what version of Android handset owners have installed on their devices.

Twitter Tanks More Than 7%

Following more executive changes, Twitter’s shares are down sharply today, sliding nearly 8 percent in morning trading. The company, which saw its share price soar following its IPO to more than $70 per share, is back under the $40 mark.

The slide comes on the heels of news that the social company has made Katie Jacobs Stanton its new global media boss, and made Gabriel Stricker its new chief communications officer. Twitter has a history of management changes. Investors could be skittish at the latest shifts.

Twitter is not the only technology company to retreat today, with Tesla and Netflix also taking firm whacks. Technology as an industry is down more than the larger market, which is having an off day.

Twitter will report its earnings on July 29. Investors expect the company to lose $0.01 per share on revenue of $282.44 million.

IMAGE BY FLICKR USER ANTONIO MORALES GARCÍA UNDER CC BY-SA 2.0 LICENSE (IMAGE HAS BEEN MODIFIED)

Microsoft To Abandon The Bastard Child Of Windows Phone In Two Months

(GNN) - Remember Windows Phone 7.8? Microsoft built it as a stop-gap measure to lessen the ire of Windows Phone 7.5 users, a group technologically precluded from making the leap to Windows Phone 8. If you had forgotten about it don’t worry, Microsoft is about to do the same.

Mary Jo Foley today detailed the coming death-dates of a number of Microsoft products, including Windows Phone 7.8. As it turns out, 7.8′s moment of expiration has been known for some time: September 9th.

Today Microsoft published — and then retracted, it seems — a note to computing users concerning the end of support for a number of its products. The list included a note that Windows Phone 7.8 would lose “mainstream support” in September.

It wasn’t clear what that meant. According to the company’s general life cyle page, consumer products generally receive a two year period of updates and support, after which they are no longer supported. There isn’t “extended support” for such products, as there is for versions of desktop Windows, for example.

Windows Phone 7.8 is being axed after a mere 18 months. The official verbiage: “Microsoft will make updates available for the Operating System on your phone, including security updates, for a period of 18 months after the lifecycle start date.” In short, if you are on Windows Phone 7.8 you have a few months left before your phone won’t update ever again.

How many Windows Phone 7.8 users are left? About 17% of the larger Windows Phone market, so it’s no small tally.

Windows Phone 7.8 was never more than a band-aid. Microsoft decided that Windows Phone needed to join the larger Windows family, and the original Windows Phone 7, 7.1 7.5, and 7.8 devices could never share in that future. Thus, to see Microsoft walk quickly away from the product is hardly surprising.

What does it gain from its support? Aside from honoring the implicit promise to not leave users behind when providing them with a platform to by into, little.

Strategically, that is, Windows Phone 7.8 is moot.

IMAGE BY FLICKR USER VERNON CHAN UNDER CC BY 2.0 LICENSE (IMAGE HAS BEEN MODIFIED)

PTI lawmakers approach ECP for disqualification of Prime Minister Nawaz

(GNN) - ISLAMABAD: Two Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf members of the National Assembly (MNAs) filed a petition with the Election Commission of Pakistan against the prime minister, seeking his disqualification.

Addressing the media outside the ECP office in Islamabad on Wednesday, MNAs Ali Muhammad Khan and Murad Saeed said they had filed the petition which called for the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif as a member of the National Assembly.

Khan added that the prime minister was no longer “sadiq” and “ameen” and was therefore, not eligible to be an MNA.

He added that Nawaz Sharif was misusing his power to provide benefits to his family.

Saeed said his party has also demanded certified copies of the prime minister’s nomination papers.
He remarked that Nawaz Sharif does not fulfill the requirements of Article 62 and 63 of the Constitution and hence, could not even take part in elections.

Referring to the Asghar Khan case, he claimed that the prime minister was a defaulter. The premier was one of the politicians accused of receiving monetary favours from agencies in order to rig the 1990 elections against the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Prime Minister Nawaz, however, has denied the allegations.

Saeed further alleged that the premier brokered a deal with former president Pervez Musharraf to go abroad when his government was toppled over during the 1999 coup, and further accused him of lying to the nation.(GNN)(Tribune)(AIP)

Punjab govt decides to end 'quota' system in 12 public universities

LAHORE: The Punjab government on Wednesday decided to abolish ‘quota’ system in 12 public universities of the province.

The move comes a few days after country’s prestigious education institution Aitchison College announced the end of its long standing tradition of providing admissions to relatives of VVIPs through a ‘quota’ system.

The ‘quota’ system gives extra powers to the vice chancellors of the universities.

The provincial government has also asked the education department to abolish the ‘quota’ system in Punjab colleges as well.(GNN)(Tribune)(AIP)

Cable operators do not have authority to shut channels: SHC

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday observed that cable operators did not have the authority to shut channels on their own directives.

The SHC has hearing eight petitions related to the closure of Geo News by cable operators. The case was heard by a two member SHC bench comprising Justice Muneeb Akhtar and Justice Shafiq Siddiqui. Justice Muneeb Akhtar remarked that under Article 19 freedom of press could not be ignored. He added that it was the right of every Pakistani to have access to information and this was an issue of human rights not just the closure of a channel.

Justice Muneeb Akhtar asked the lawyer for cable operators how could PEMRA ordinance or any laws violate the fundamental rights of citizens.

The SHC observed that freedom of expression and press would not be violated under the constitution. Justice Muneeb Akhtar asked what had been done by PEMRA for the restoration of Geo News which was the most popular channel in the country.

The lawyer for PEMRA informed the court that the regulatory authority had taken action and issued show cause notices to cable operators.

Meanwhile the lawyer for Geo, Jam Asif informed the court that the SHC and Supreme Court had issued verdicts against the closure of Geo News.

The court has issued notices to Attorney General Pakistan and other parties for August 6 and directed PEMRA to submit its written comments. The order further states that PEMRA should ensure that cable operators do not restrict freedom of expression.(GNN)(THENEWS)(AIP)

Electronic cash assistance programme for IDPs launched

(GNN) - PESHAWAR: The Government under a well transparent mechanism has formally launched an electronic cash assistance programme for the disbursement of money to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) of North Waziristan Agency through ZONG mobile SIMs .

The scheme was launched by the Khyber Pakthunkhwa Governor Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan during a ceremony at Governor House.

Speaking on the occasion the Governor said the people of North Waziristan had left their homes for defence and stability of the country and their sacrifices would not go waste. He said the governmnet was well aware of the problems being faced by the IDPs and would utilize all available resources to provide relief and assistance to them.

Mehtab said there was no dearth of resources and every single penny would be used for assistance relief and rehabilitation of displaced people. The Governor said crisis and difficulties come in the lives of nations but they face it with bravery.

He said the IDPs would soon return to their native homes with dignity and honour and government would remain with them till their complete rehabilitation.

The Governor said every IDP family will get Rs 40 000 relief package including Rs. 25000 for Ramzan through this latest and swift technalogy.

NADRA had confirmed 25000 IDPs families to take benefit from this scheme while the governmnet has already distributed Rs. 343.488 million among the affected.

On this occasion the Governor also distributed relief amount among the IDPs.

Chief Executive Officer of Zong Company, Sajid Muhammad, Member National Assembly from South Waziristan Agency, Ghalib Khan advocate, additional chief secretary Fata, Muhammad Arif, Director Gen Fata Disaster Management Authority and affectees of North Waziristan Agency were present.

The disbursement of money through mobile SIMs will ensure transparency and quick distribution of money among affteced families. More than 25000 affected families would take benefits from Prime Minister's package during Ramzan under which 1000 million rupees would be distributed among them.

Under the PM relief package every dislocated family will be paid Rs. 10000 for food and rent of houses for six months and that every month Rs. 250 million would be distributed among them.(GNN)(THENEWS)(AIP)

PM, Army chief discuss Operation Zarb-e-Azb

(GNN) - ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met with Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif here on Wednesday.

During the meeting the prime minister and COAS discussed the ongoing Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan Agency.

Army chief informed the prime minister that Operation Zarb-e-Azb was proceeding according to plan.

The prime minister said a comprehensive plan had been prepared for the IDPs who will be resettled after the operation concludes. Prime Minister Sharif also expressed satisfaction in the coordination between the Pakistan Army and other institutions during the operation.

Pakistan’s military launched the operation in North Waziristan Agency to root out terrorism from the tribal region. The operation has led to over half a million people fleeing from the agency and taking shelter at camps.

In earlier statements Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and COAS Raheel Shairf have expressed that the operation will continue till the last terrorist is eliminated.

Musharraf treason case: Statement of one more witness recorded

(GNN) - ISLAMABAD: One more witness from the prosecution Khalid Rasool recorded his statement in the Special Court hearing former president Pervez Musharraf’s treason case on Wednesday here.

The witness in his statement said that his job was to receive the documents, hand it over to the FIA investigation team and nothing except that.

Special Court three-member bench headed by Justice Faisal Arab was hearing the case here.

Prosecution witness Khalid Rasool in his recorded statement said that he obtained DVD of Pervez Musharraf’s speech relating to the declaration of November 3 emergency from PTV producer Ghalib Hussain on December 6, 2013 and after having obtained all the related documents handed them over to the head of the FIA investigation team, Khalid Quraishi.

Prosecutor Akram Sheikh suggested that the defence lawyer might cross-examine the witness today and for the next hearing summon for witness Khalid Quraishi might be issued.

Justice Faisal Arab adjourned further hearing until August 5, as the defence lawyer was not willing to cross-examine today.(GNN)(THENEWS)(AIP)

Air strike destroys Miranshah terrorists’ hideouts, 11 killed

MIRANSHAH: Eleven terrorists were killed and three of their hideouts destroyed on Wednesday as forces successfully continued Operation Zarb-e-Azb being conducted in North Wazirstan Agency.

Sources said that Pakistan Air force fighter jets in their precision attack last night at around 3:00 AM targeted three hideouts killing 11 terrorists at Zoi Dara Sayedgi, Tehsil Shawal in their latest offensive.

Pakistan on June 15 launched a military offensive, code named ‘Operation Zarb-e-Azb’ against militants in the North Waziristan region of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The region said to be the hotbed of militancy in the country.(GNN)(THENEWS)(AIP)

Power shortfall surges beyond 6,000MW

(GNN) - LAHORE: The power crisis in the country has once again intensified as the shortfall surged to over 6000 Megawatt (MW).

Sources said that the demand for electricity by Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) alone has doubled than its quota, while the electricity generation in the country currently stands at 13,000MW as against the demand of 19,000MW.

Talking about reasons for the shortfall, sources said the financial crunch remained at the heart of the current crisis. Pepco was supposed to pay well over Rs100 billion to IPPs (independent power producers), but could manage only Rs32 billion. With IPPs getting only 30 per cent of their dues, their fuel supplies dipped and so did their generation.

While the electricity distribution companies are forced to resort to prolonged unannounced load shedding causing great inconvenience to the people in this scorching summer heat.

On the other hand, LESCO chief Rao Zamir said that his company’s electricity quota is 2,647MW, while the demand has surged beyond 4700MW, as such, the system gets overloaded and power outages resorted to save system.

However, he said we are trying to avoid load shedding during Iftar and Sehri time and urged upon the customers to shun unnecessary consumption of electricity. (GNN)(THENEWS)(AIP)

Firing at rickshaw leaves 2 killed, 2 injured in Bannu

BANNU: Two people were killed and two others injured when a rickshaw was attacked here on Wednesday morning.

Police said unknown gunmen opened fire killing passengers on board the rickshaw.

The bodies and the injured have been shifted to the hospital. The deceased could not be identified immediately.(GNN)(THENEWS)(AIP

Militants storm Somalia presidential palace

(GNN) - MOGADISHU: Shebab rebels carried out a major bomb and armed attack on Somalia´s presidential palace late Tuesday, penetrating the heavily fortified complex in the capital Mogadishu before blowing themselves up.

Somalia´s internationally backed President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed were not inside at the time and were "both safe", officials said, just five months after a similar attack by the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab.

Security sources said the two men were with guards from the African Union´s 22,000-strong AMISOM force and authorities gave no immediate details of casualties from the latest attack.

"There were at least nine attackers, all have been killed, and the situation is under control, the attack is over," security official Abdi Ahmed said.

"There were eight blasts towards the end of the fighting, believed to have been suicide vests. They detonated themselves."

A Shebab spokesman confirmed that the group was behind the attack, and claimed their commandos had managed to seize the president´s office inside the presidential compound known as the Villa Somalia.

"Our commandos are inside the so-called presidential office," Shebab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab told AFP. "We are in control of the headquarters of the apostate regime." The enemy suffered high casualties during the operation, which is ongoing. The assault is a victory for us since the foreign installed government said that security was beefed up."

The attackers launched a two-pronged attack on the presidential complex, police said, setting off a large bomb at the rear of the compound and then storming in via another entrance.

The attack came shortly after the start of Iftar, when Muslims end the day´s Ramadan fast.

It was not immediately possible to confirm reports that the embassy of Djibouti, which has troops in Somalia and whose mission is close to the presidential palace, had also come under direct attack. (GNN)(AFP)(AIP)

Oil prices down

(GNN) - SINGAPORE, July 09, 2014 (AFP) -Oil prices edged lower in Asia Wednesday as dealers await the latest US stockpiles report for clues about demand in the world´s top crude consumer.

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for August delivery eased two cents to $103.38 while Brent crude was down 13 cents to $108.81 in mid-morning trade.

Asia shares extend losses after Wall St slip

(GNN) - HONG KONG: Asian markets sank Wednesday, following a negative lead from Wall Street, while China released data showing inflation eased slightly in June after hitting a four-month high in May.

There is also a nervousness that equities could be in line for a correction following a recent rally over the past few weeks.

Tokyo slipped 0.34 percent, Sydney shed 0.90 percent and Seoul was 0.44 percent lower, while Hong Kong lost 1.16 percent and Shanghai eased 0.18 percent.

Jakarta was closed for presidential elections.

US shares retreated on Tuesday for a second straight session after returning from the long, Independence Day weekend. The S&P 500 and Dow closed Thursday at record highs after a better-than-expected report on US jobs creation.

The Dow slipped 0.69 percent, the S&P 500 fell 0.70 percent and the Nasdaq tumbled 1.35 percent.

Some observers have predicted a pullback after the latest surge across global markets. Among them this week Nobel prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz said he was "very uncomfortable" with current prices.

There are also concerns that the Federal Reserve could accelerate its plan to raise interest rates next year in light of recent upbeat economic data out of Washington.

In China the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement that inflation came in at 2.3 percent last month, down from 2.5 percent in May.

It is also slightly below 2.4 percent forecast by economists for Dow Jones Newswires and well short of the 3.5 percent annual target set by Beijing.

Traders will now be keeping a close eye on Thursday´s trade statistics and the release next week of April-June economic growth data, hoping for an improvement on the previous three months.

On currency markets the dollar´s advances against the yen last week have been all but eliminated.

In early Tokyo trade the greenback was quoted at 101.53 yen, against 101.57 yen in New York and well below the 102.11 level touched on Monday in Japan.

The euro bought $1.3615 and 138.26 yen compared with $1.3611 and 138.24Oil prices were mixed. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for August delivery rose eight cents to $103.48 while Brent crude eased eight cents to $108.86.Gold fetched $1,319.57 an ounce at 0210 GMT compared with $1,322.43 late Tuesday. (GNN)(AFP)(AIP)