Sampdoria beat Juventus 3-2 in final Serie A game Milan: Sampdoria became the only team to beat Juventus twice in the league under Antonio Conte as they secured a 3-2 victory over the newly-crowned Serie A champion on Saturday. Eder, Lorenzo De Silvestri and Mauro Icardi helped Sampdoria come from behind after Fabio Quagliarella had scored against his old team. Emanuele Giaccherini reduced the deficit in stoppage time. Juventus striker Nicklas Bendtner fractured his wrist in the game and...  
08:35 AM, May 19, 2013

Real Sociedad, Valencia win to stay in fight for 4th in La Liga Barcelona: Real Sociedad came back to win 2-1 at Sevilla and Valencia beat Getafe 1-0 on Saturday as both teams remained locked on points in their fight for a fourth-place finish in the Spanish league. Sociedad remained ahead of fifth-place Valencia on head-to-head goal difference and in control of Spain's last Champions League spot with two rounds to go. The Basque side fell behind 10 minutes in at Sanchez Pizjuan...  
08:29 AM, May 19, 2013

I won't step down, says Syria President Bashar al-Assad Beirut: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says he won't step down before elections are held in his war-ravaged country. The Syrian leader's comments, published on Saturday in the Argentine newspaper Clarin, highlight the difficulties the US and Russia face in getting the Assad regime and Syria's political opposition to the table at an international conference envisioned for next month. The country's main opposition group has demanded that these talks lead to...  
07:50 AM, May 19, 2013

Meteoroid impact triggers bright flash on lunar surface Cape Canaveral: An automated telescope monitoring the moon has captured images of an 88-pound (40 kg) rock slamming into the lunar surface, creating a bright flash of light, NASA scientists said on Friday. The explosion on March 17, 2013 was the biggest seen since NASA began watching the moon for meteoroid impacts about eight years ago. So far, more than 300 strikes have been recorded. "It exploded in a flash...  
06:53 AM, May 19, 2013

Ship stranded for 5 months, no help extended: ABHRO Amritsar: A ship, which had got struck along with its 39 crew members, for the last several months off the shores of Mumbai port, has not been provided with fuel, provisions or any means of safe exit by the owning company, a human rights organisation alleged on Saturday. "The ship, Kamal XXXVI, owned by Jaisu Shipping Co Pvt Ltd, with the 31 Indian crew members and eight from Ukraine on...  
02:32 AM, May 19, 2013

Girls outshine boys in Punjab Higher Secondary exams Mohali: Girls outshone boys in the class XII examinations conducted by the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB), the results of which were declared on Saturday. "More than three lakh students took the examinations in March and the total pass percentage was 78.97 per cent. The last year's percentage was 72.31 per cent," state Education minister Sikander Singh Maluka, who was along with PSEB Chairperson, Tejinder Kaur Dhaliwal, told reporters in...  
12:37 AM, May 19, 2013

Bardhan hits back at CPI(M) over remarks against his party Hyderabad: Senior CPI leader AB Bardhan on Saturday took exception to some CPI (M) leaders' reported remarks over his party's policies and programmes. Noting that the CPI (M) leaders claimed that his party had no programme or policy, he said, "The CPI continued to work vibrantly on various burning issues and problems of the poor and the deprived." He spoke at the state council meeting of the CPI in Hyderabad...  
12:25 AM, May 19, 2013

Congress says Telangana not on UPA's agenda New Delhi: Congress on Saturday said the issue of separate Telangana does not form part of the UPA's national agenda and it only concerned the state government- remarks which may cause consternation in Andhra Pradesh. "The issue does not form party of the national agenda of UPA. It definitely does not form part.... It concerns the state government", party spokesman PC Chacko told reporters at the AICC briefing. Chacko's remarks...  
08:53 PM, May 18, 2013

Railway bribery: Court rejects bail plea of accused New Delhi: A Delhi court on Saturday dismissed the bail plea of an accused in the Rs 10 crore railway bribery case in which ex-Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal's nephew was among those arrested. Special CBI Judge Swarana Kanta Sharma rejected the bail plea of Dharmender Kumar after CBI contended that his release could adversely affect probe which was in initial stages. Dharmedra along with co-accused Vivek Kumar had allegedly...  
06:10 PM, May 18, 2013

Poul-Erik Hoyer Larsen elected Badminton World Federation president Kuala Lumpur: Badminton's world governing body (BWF) will create a separate commission to deal with match-fixing problems, Poul-Erik Hoyer Larsen said after being elected president on Saturday. Denmark's 1996 Olympic men's singles gold medallist Hoyer Larsen beat Indonesian Justian Suhandinata to claim the role after an election at the BWF headquarters in Kuala Lumpur. The 47-year-old, the only European to win a badminton gold at the Olympics, will replace South...  
03:59 PM, May 18, 2013

Yahoo Japan suspects 22 million user IDs leaked: Report Bangalore: Yahoo Japan Corp said on Friday night it suspected that up to 22 million of its user IDs may have been "leaked" and it detected an unauthorised attempt to access the administrative system of its web portal Yahoo Japan, the Kyodo news agency reported. The leaked information does not include passwords and data necessary for identity verification to reset passwords, the agency said. The company detected the access attempt...  
02:51 PM, May 18, 2013

Protests in parts of Karnataka over denial of ministership Bangalore: Protests broke out in parts of Karnataka on Saturday as supporters of Congress leaders who failed to get berth in Cabinet expansion effected by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah gave vent to their anger. In the district headquarters town of Yadgir, Congress workers ransacked the party office and set fire to windows over denial of ministership to senior leader AB Maalaka Reddy, police said. In Ramanagara and Mandya, they held a...  
02:46 PM, May 18, 2013

Wooden spoon at stake in Pune-Delhi tie Pune: Pune Warriors India host Delhi Daredevils on Sunday in a match which will decide who takes the last spot in the sixth edition of the Indian Premier League. Both teams have a tournament to forget, each picking up just three wins in 15 matches and it's hard to say who is the favourite going into this match. Ideally, it has to be the team with fewer shortcomings. But looking...  
02:30 PM, May 18, 2013

Michael Phelps planning a comeback? A report on Friday night from WBBH, an NBC television affiliate in Fort Myers, Fla., said Phelps will return to swimming with an eye toward competing at the 2016 Rio Olympics. The three-paragraph story on the station's Web site was posted by news anchor Peter Busch, who is the son of Frank Busch, director of the U.S. national swim team. "The greatest Olympian of all time isn't hanging up his...  
12:32 PM, May 18, 2013

China: 'Death toll from new bird flu rises to 36' London: Four more people in China have died from a new strain of bird flu, bringing the death toll from the H7N9 virus to 36 from 131 confirmed cases, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday. The United Nations health agency said the four deaths were from cases that had already been identified in laboratories. Since May 8, there have been no new cases of infection with H7N9, it...  
11:30 AM, May 18, 2013

US paves way for shale gas export to India Washington: Opening up the prospects of export of shale gas to energy starved India, the US today granted conditional authorization to export domestically produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) to nations that do not have Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with it. In a decision, which has major implications for India, the Department of Energy announced that that it has conditionally authorized Freeport LNG Expansion, LP and FLNG Liquefaction, LLC (Freeport) to...  
11:10 AM, May 18, 2013

Syrian refugees exceed 1.5 million: UNHCR
by IANS
Geneva: The number of Syrian refugees, who are either registered or awaiting registration, has surpassed 1.5 million, while the actual number is much higher, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). The increasingly widening gap between needs and available resources is a growing challenge, reported Xinhua citing UNHCR's spokesperson Dan McNorton on Friday . "Over the past four months, we have seen a rapid deterioration compared to the previous 20...  
10:59 AM, May 18, 2013

'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' review: It's a new Pakistan New Delhi: It's a story that we have heard before. Perhaps different versions, but the milieu has been the same- of that of the plight of innocent south Asians in US post 9/11. Mira Nair's latest 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' tries to explore the plight of an educated Pakistani man working in Wall Street post the terror attack. While the subject is not new- several films, documentaries and books have been...  
10:56 AM, May 18, 2013

Ferguson praises 'amazing' Beckham's longevity David Beckham's longevity and his ability to reinvent himself were "absolutely incredible", retiring Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson has said. Beckham and Ferguson, who were synonymously linked with Manchester United until the former England captain moved to Real Madrid, both announced in the past 10 days they would retire from soccer at the end of the current season. The 71-year-old Ferguson's final game in charge after 26 years at Old...  
09:31 AM, May 18, 2013