Buenos Aires: Jorge Rafael Videla, an austere former army commander who led Argentina during the bloodiest period of a "dirty war" dictatorship and was unrepentant about kidnappings and murders ordered by the state, died on Friday at age 87.
Videla was the first president to head the military junta that "disappeared" thousands of suspected leftists from 1976 to 1983, and he spent his final years behind bars for human rights crimes including the systematic theft of babies born to political prisoners in secret torture centers.
He died of natural causes in his jail cell in a prison outside the capital, Buenos Aires, a government spokesman said.
"Videla presided over a government that engaged in one of the most cruel repressions that we have seen in Latin America in modern times," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of Latin America for US-based Human Rights Watch....
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06:51 AM, May 18, 2013
Washington: On the eve of historic elections in Pakistan, a dismal public mood prevails in the country with majority of the people for the first time considering the threat from the Taliban on par with that from arch rival India, a poll by a US think tank showed on Tuesday. The country's public mood is exceedingly grim. Roughly nine-in-ten Pakistanis believe the country is on the wrong track, and about...
12:28 AM, May 08, 2013
New York: One World Trade Center already is New York's tallest building. And when the last pieces of its spire rise to the roof - weather permitting - the 104-floor skyscraper that replaces the fallen twin towers will be just feet from becoming the highest in the Western Hemisphere. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says the spire pieces plus a steel beacon will then be lifted...
01:15 PM, Apr 29, 2013
New York: A piece of landing gear believed to be from one of the commercial airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, has been discovered, wedged between two lower Manhattan buildings, police said on Friday. The piece of landing gear found in a narrow alleyway behind 51 Park Place and 50 Murray Street in Manhattan's financial district includes a "clearly visible" Boeing identification number, New...
06:26 AM, Apr 27, 2013
Mexico: A magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck western Mexico on Sunday, the US Geological Survey said. The quake, initially reported as a magnitude 6.2 off the coast, was centered 33 km (20 miles) northwest of La Union, on the border between Guerrero and Michoacan states, close to the Pacific coast. The quake was felt in Mexico City, 325 km (200 miles) away, where buildings shook and residents briefly ran outdoors but...
08:25 AM, Apr 22, 2013
Delray Beach: American Sloane Stephens, ranked 16th, will open the Fed Cup World Group Playoff tie against 54th-ranked Sophia Arvidsson of Sweden at the Delray Beach Tennis Center on Saturday. The second match on Saturday features world No. 1 Serena Williams of the US against 66th-ranked Johanna Larsson of Sweden. On Sunday, Serena Williams will play the first match against Arvidsson, followed by Stephens taking on Larsson. The final match...
11:36 PM, Apr 19, 2013
New York City will on Monday begin the mammoth task of sifting through the debris of buildings on the World Trade Center site to find more remains of the 9/11 terrorist attack victims that will allow more number of them to be identified. ...
05:44 PM, Apr 01, 2013
With 54 deaths, Rajasthan has seen the maximum casualties this year, followed by Haryana, Delhi and Punjab. ...
04:07 PM, Feb 18, 2013
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan set the stage on fire with his high octane performance in Jakarta along with co-stars Bipasha Basu, Rani Mukherjee and Preity Zinta. ...
04:51 PM, Dec 13, 2012
A 7.2-magnitude earthquake has been reported off the coast of Indonesia. The US Geological Survey says the quake struck offshore, 208 kilometers northwest of the city of Saumlaki. ...
11:03 PM, Dec 10, 2012
Washington: As the presidential poll campaign in the US moves towards its climax, independent surveys predict that incumbent Barack Obama holds an edge over rival Mitt Romney, but the two are locked in a virtual tie in the crucial battleground states believed to be holding the key. The prestigious Pew Research Center, in its latest opinion poll, said that Obama has edged Romney in the final days of the presidential...
09:52 AM, Nov 05, 2012
Washington: Barack Obama created history when he went to a polling booth in his home town of Chicago to cast his vote, over 12 days ahead of the November 6 elections, thus becoming the first US President to vote early. Amidst his hectic electioneering schedule, Obama flew in from Richmond in Virginia to cast his vote at the Martin Luther King Community Center in his home town of Chicago. As...
09:28 AM, Oct 26, 2012
Washington: Wary of India's economic growth, an overwhelming majority of Chinese have a negative opinion about India, a recent survey has found. "Roughly a quarter (23 per cent) have a favorable opinion of India, while 62 per cent offer a negative opinion," a survey done by the Washington-based Pew Research Center showed. "Currently, only 44 per cent of Chinese say their southern neighbour's expanding economy is positive for China, down...
08:59 AM, Oct 19, 2012
Kochi: The Tea Trade Association (TTA) of Cochin has decided to set up a state-of-the-art tea trade centre (TTC) here with the backing of the Tea Board of India, an official said. The proposed centre will come up on 10 acres of land provided by the Cochin Port Trust. "The port trust will provide the land to the TTA to create facilities with international standards of productivity and automation and...
02:34 PM, Sep 27, 2012
New York: Months before the 9/11 attacks, former US president George Bush had received multiple briefings by intelligence agencies warning of an "imminent" attack on US soil by al Qaeda but he did not take prompt action that could have prevented the tragedy, an op-ed in 'The New York Times' said on Wednesday. Former reporter for the news daily Kurt Eichenwald said Bush had begun to get "direct warnings" about...
10:18 AM, Sep 12, 2012
New York: Health concerns for emergency workers and a feud over financing that has stopped construction of the $1 billion Ground Zero museum, marks the eleventh year of September 11, 2001, attacks, on Tuesday. While notable progress on redevelopment of the World Trade Center has been made since early disputes over financial, design and security issues, the project remains hobbled by political battles and billions of dollars in cost overruns....
07:52 AM, Sep 11, 2012
Florida: Tropical Storm Isaac lashed south Florida with winds and heavy rain on Monday after battering the Caribbean, threatening to interrupt most US offshore oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and disrupting plans for the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Isaac is expected to strengthen to a Category 2 hurricane and hit the Gulf Coast somewhere between Florida and Louisiana at midweek, on or near the seventh anniversary of...
08:46 AM, Aug 27, 2012
Los Angeles: Men In Black star Will Smith is set to make his directorial debut with The Redemption Of Cain and will also be a part of the cast. The 43-year-old actor will helm as well as star in the film, which tells the story of Biblical characters Cain and his brother Abel, reported Deadline. Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve with the former committing the...
06:20 PM, Jul 13, 2012
New Delhi: After the wild success of his fiction - Five Point Someone, One Night @ the Call Center, The 3 Mistakes of my Life, 2 States and Revolution 2020 - popular author Chetan Bhagat will try his hand at non-fiction for the first time with the title 'What Young India Wants'. In his upcoming paperback, which is available for pre-order at the online shopping portal Flipkart.com, Bhagat analyses "some...
07:13 PM, Jul 12, 2012
Langhorne: Forget magazine drives and candy sales. A cash-strapped high school near Philadelphia hopes to raise money by auctioning itself on eBay. The starting bid of just under $600,000 for The Learning Center in Langhorne, Pa., is designed to offset steep budget cuts. A tongue-in-cheek listing describes the alternative school for at-risk teens as "pre-owned" and "slightly used." The winner won't own the facility, which is part of the Neshaminy...
08:09 AM, Jul 03, 2012
