Home minister Shinde 'deeply shocked' at Bhandara rapes

NEW DELHI: Expressing shock at the kidnapping, gang-rape and killing of three minor sisters in Maharashtra last month, home minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Friday said police in the state was making every effort to nab the perpetrators."I am deeply shocked that three minor girls from same family were brutally murdered after being sexually abused and their bodies thrown in a well in a village in Maharashtra's...

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WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident

LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk."The additional risk is quite small...

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Sequestration: Surrender is in the Air

The budget ax is about to fall, and there's little lawmakers in Washington are doing to stop it.Despite a parade of dire warnings from the White House, an $85 billion package of deep automatic spending cuts appears poised to take effect at the stroke of midnight on Friday.The cuts – known in Washington-speak as the sequester – will hit every federal budget, from defense to education,...

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Sony sells Tokyo office building for US$1.2b

TOKYO: Sony said on Thursday it has sold one of its main buildings in Tokyo for US$1.2 billion as the embattled Japanese electronics giant offloads assets to help repair its tattered balance sheet.The news comes after the company in January announced the sale of its US headquarters in Manhattan for more than US$1.0 billion while this month it also sold part of its online medical services...

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Landslide victory for Left in Tripura, Cong to retain power in Meghalaya

AGARTALA: Tripura's ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) led Left Front was Thursday heading for a landslide victory and set to retain power for a fifth straight term. In a virtual status quo, the ruling formations were ahead and appeared to be romping back to power in the assembly elections in Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya where counting of votes was taken up on Thursday. TRIPURA PARTY...

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Medicare paid $5.1B for poor nursing home care

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Medicare paid billions in taxpayer dollars to nursing homes nationwide that were not meeting basic requirements to look after their residents, government investigators have found.The report, released Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general, said Medicare paid about $5.1 billion for patients to stay in skilled nursing facilities that failed to...

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Arias Prosecutor Too Combative, Experts Say

He has barked, yelled, been sarcastic and demanded answers from accused murderer Jodi Arias this week.And in doing so, prosecutor Juan Martinez and his aggressive antics may be turning off the jury he is hoping to convince that Arias killed her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in June 2008, experts told ABCNews.com today."Martinez is his own worst enemy," Mel McDonald, a prominent...

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World powers and Iran end talks, sides to meet again

ALMATY (Reuters) - World powers ended two days of talks with Iran on Wednesday with no sign of a breakthrough, and the two sides have agreed to meet at expert level in Istanbul next month and to hold further high-level negotiations in Kazakhstan in April. At the talks that ended in the Kazakh city of Almaty, the six world powers - France, Germany, the United States, China Russia and Britain...

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Australian cyclone crossing Western Australian coast

SYDNEY: A tropical cyclone hit Australia's resource-rich northwest coast Wednesday, bringing winds of up to 165 kilometres (102 miles) an hour as it crossed the shore near the tiny community of Pardoo.Severe tropical cyclone Rusty had been sitting offshore for several days, slowly intensifying as it edged towards the Pilbara coast and bringing heavy rain and gale-force winds to the iron...

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Ruckus in Rajya Sabha over alleged tapping of Arun Jaitley's phone

NEW DELHI: The issue of the alleged tapping of the phone of Rajya Sabha leader of opposition Arun Jaitley created a ruckus in the upper House on Wednesday morning. Rajya Sabha chairman M Hamid Ansari was forced to adjourn the House briefly. As soon as the House met for the day, Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agarwal stood up and raised the issue. "It is a matter of concern that the leader of opposition's...

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