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French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a revamp of the global currency system, saying Thursday that the dollar's supremacy is outdated. "We need to ask the question: shouldn't a world that is politically multi-polar correspond to a multi-monetary world economically?" he said in a news conference during a summit of world leaders in L'Aquila, Italy. Sarkozy compared an overhaul of the global currency system to the enlargement of the Group of Eight structure to encompass fast-growing emerging economies, which were invited to join the Italian summit. He said the supremacy of the dollar belongs to the post-Second World War era...

Mumbai yesterday, London tomorrow! This is the message sent out by BBC’s investigative reports on 26/11 which have revealed Pakistan’s skulduggery in its starkness. Terrorists have been called terrorists, not ‘militants’. Violent Islamism has been ruthlessly exposed Mumbai’s 26/11 tryst with Islamism and its hours of terrorist hell were shown in vivid detail on prime time British television. The first was a half-hour report on BBC’s Newsnight programme with a commentary by Richard Watson. The second was Channel 4’s hour-long Despatches documentary. Both films drew heavily on tape recordings of the instructions from controllers in Pakistan to their Pakistani terrorist...

In all the focus on Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal’s proposed changes in the school system, his suggestions for higher education have got neglected. To some degree, this was redressed in the discussion in Parliament on Tuesday, where the HRD Minister spoke of making it easier for quality institutions to call themselves full-fledged universities, rather than merely deemed universities. The implication was that if an institution could be trusted with making intellectual and physical investments and maintaining standards, it needed to be freed from the shackles of the bureaucracy in New Delhi. Similarly, the idea that first-rate foreign universities...

In 1965, when the House of Lords debated the proposal to legalise homosexual relations between consenting adults, the legendary Field Marshal Montgomery proposed a curious amendment. Incensed over what he called “this most abominable bestiality”, he argued the age of consent should be raised to 80! It is entirely possible that this very original suggestion may find takers among MPs and religious figures agitated by the Delhi High Court’s judgement to de-criminalise gay sex between consenting adults over the age of 21. That the private conduct of two responsible adults should not be the business of the state — unless...

Asif Zardari told a meeting of former senior civil servants in Islamabad, it was time to be honest about their deployment. "Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities," he said. "The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well." These groups were not thrown up because of government weakness, but as a matter of policy. He said they were deliberately "created and nurtured" as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives. His comments amount to an admission that Pakistan trained Islamic...

BEIJING: Even as additional security personnel and machinery poured into Urumqi, the Chinese foreign ministry has got into action asking several countries including Pakistan to prove their friendship by taking a stand on the issue. Beijing wants several countries to unearth the links between their citizens and the World Uyghur Congress. A worried Hu Jintao, secretary-general of the Communist Party of China and the country's president left the G8 summit in Italy and rushed back to Beijing on Tuesday night as it dawned on Chinese authorities that the Urumqi violence might set off a chain reaction and eventually affect the...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The global economy is beginning to pull out of recession but the recovery is expected to be sluggish, according to the latest economic update from the International Monetary Fund released Wednesday. The IMF raised its forecast for growth in 2010 to a 2.5% rate, which is higher than the 1.9% growth rate forecast in April. There is much less concern about systemic failure in the financial system. A gradual recovery in the U.S. seems on track, the IMF said. Japan is stabilizing after a dismal first quarter.

The International Monetary Fund raised its 2009 growth forecast for Asia's developing economies from 4.8 percent to 5.5 percent but cautioned Wednesday that a sustained rebound will depend on recovery in developed economies. The Washington-based IMF cited improved prospects for regional giants China and India. It raised its 2009 growth outlook for China by one percentage point to 7.5 percent and for India by 0.9 percentage points to 5.4 percent. "The upgrade owes to improved prospects in China and India, in part reflecting substantial macroeconomic stimulus, and a faster-than-expected turnaround in capital flows," the IMF said in a report on...

ROME, July 7 (Reuters) - Rich nations sought to persuade China and India on Tuesday to agree to a goal of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 at a summit of major economies in Italy later this week. Environment ministers or senior officials from the 17-member Major Economies Forum (MEF) met in Rome, trying to end deadlock over a declaration that could be a step towards a new U.N. climate pact due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December. "Positions have not shifted," a delegate said of the talks, called at the last minute to help leaders agree a...

The vinegar used to garnish salad dressings, pickles and other foods, may live up to its folk reputation as a fat buster and health promoter. Japanese researchers Tomoo Kondo and colleagues noted that vinegar has also been used as a folk medicine since ancient times, for a range of illnesses. Modern research suggests that acetic acid, the main component of vinegar, may help control blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and fat accumulation. Their new study showed that lab mice fed a high-fat diet and given acetic acid developed significantly less body fat (up to 10 percent less) than other mice,...

ROME: Fresh evidence of continued collusion of Pakistan's official agencies with terrorist groups plotting attacks on India has cast a shadow on resumption of full-scale talks between the estranged neighbours. According to sources, state actors in Pakistan were seeking to help terrorist groups using Thuraya satellite phones to plot attacks on India by camouflaging the location of the phones. The deception game, spoofing in intelligence parlance, involves setting up transmitters near the terrorist bases to block the signals from Thuraya sets which can help pinpoint location of the users. The transmitters cannot be set up or remain hidden to Pakistan's...

LONDON: Former US defence secretary Robert S. McNamara, who has died in Washington aged 93, wanted America to attack China with nuclear weapons if it invaded India for a second time. Although he became a hated figure among the world’s Left for his role as an architect of America’s war on Vietnam, one of his chief aims when he became the head of the World Bank in 1968 was to leverage the Bank’s aid to persuade India to tackle poverty more effectively. McNamara was key to plans discussed by US President John F. Kennedy in May 1963 to defend India...

NEW DELHI (AP) — India's top court has refused to replace hanging with lethal injection as the country's sole method of execution, saying there is no evidence it is less painful than other ways. Monday's ruling rejected a petition by rights activist Ashok Kumar Walia, who said hanging was a "cruel and painful" method of execution and should be replaced by lethal injection, which is used in more than 30 U.S. states as a primary method of execution. "How do you know that hanging causes pain? And how do you know that injecting the condemned prisoner with a lethal drug...

LONDON: He’s the spy who came in from the beach. Holiday snapshots and family details about the newly appointed head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency have been removed from a social networking page after a newspaper told the government about them. Pictures from the social networking website published in the Mail newspaper show John Sawers posing with his children, wearing a Santa hat and playing Frisbee on a beach. The paper said the information was posted by Sawers’ wife on the site. It included vacation photos, details about the couple’s three children and the location of their London home. Shelley...

A piece of research has shown that anger or mental stress can increase the flow of blood in the brain. Led by Tasneem Naqvi and Hahn Hyuhn from the University of Southern California and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the study involved a series of ultrasound experiments. It showed that mental stress causes carotid artery dilation, and increases brain blood flow. The researchers say that that dilatory reflex was absent in people with high blood pressure. They evaluated carotid artery reactivity and brain blood flow in response to mental stress in 10 healthy young volunteers (aged between 19 and 27 years), 20...

We're kicking off our series exploring memorable gadgets from memorable people with one of the most influential tech giants: Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple. – JCOK...meaningful...here goes...For that definition, it was probably an electronics learning kit I got for Christmas at about age 8 or 9. As I recall, it didn't teach electronics formulas or resistor codes, but was full of projects to hook up input devices like switches and output devices like buzzers and lights. It was like learning how to connect all the devices to your hi-fi, or connecting all your peripherals to a computer. It also...

LONDON: The smell of fear really does exist, according to a new study, which also suggests that being terrified is infectious. The study, conducted by Dr Bettina Pause and colleagues at the University of Dusseldorf in Germany, suggests that people subconsciously detect whether others are scared by picking up chemicals they release from their bodies. Researchers believe the signals can be contagious and can spread around a group. For the study, researchers put cotton pads under the armpits of 49 student volunteers before they were due to start a university exam, reports the Telegraph. Pause and colleagues also collected sweat...

AKOLA: Citizens from various walks of life have expressed opposition to Thursday's Delhi High Court order decriminalising homosexual sex, by holding that section 377 of Indian Penal Code violates the Constitution. Various Central ministers have expressed differing opinions on the issue in the recent past. In Akola, BJP MP Sanjay Dhotre said he was staunchly against the decision as it would totally destroy Indian culture and put an end to social ethics and values. He said he would fight tooth and nail in Parliament and outside if the Union government moves to scrap section 377 of IPC. Noted psychiatrist Dr...

MYSORE: Three people were killed on Thursday in clashes over the desecration of a mosque in this Karnataka city. The three - Zubaiullah (15), Yasir (35) and Tirupati (40) - died of stab wounds following the clash in the Udayagiri suburb of Mysore, about 140 km from the state capital Bangalore. Tensions erupted over the desecration of the Alima mosque in Kyathamaranahalli locality when worshippers found the carcass of a swine, according to police. "The situation is tense but under control," Udayagiri sub-inspector M. Srikanth told IANS by phone. "To avert further clashes and maintain peace, we have banned the...

Recommending an end to all cesses and surcharges on taxes, and free pricing of fertiliser and fuel ahead of the Union Budget for 2009-10, the Economic Survey suggested on Thursday aggressive disinvestment and financial sector reforms to bring the economy back to high growth track. "Review and phasing out of surcharges, cesses and transaction taxes (such as commodities transaction tax, securities transaction tax and fringe benefit tax)," it said, prescribing possibly the boldest set of financial sector reforms and lifting of all restrictions on farm sector trade. The survey, tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, also sought reduced...