Bollywood big shots Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan have confirmed to attend the audio launch of Rajini-Shankar's The Robot, the Hindi version of Tamil movie Endhiran.
The Robot features Superstar Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Bachchan in the lead and produced by Sun Pictures. Grammy Award winner A.R. Rahman has scored the music and the audio of the Tamil version was launched in Malaysia on July 31 and soon after that Telugu version of the film Robo audio was also launched in Hyderabad.
Hansraj Saxena, the CEO of Sun Pictures, confirmed that the Big B and King Khan have agreed to attend the function.He says,"We are making all the arrangements to ensure it’s a memorable show. We have also invited Aamir Khan as well. Aishwarya will join us from there itself. Of course, Rajinikanth, Kalanidhi Maran, A.R. Rahman will also be flying in. The event is scheduled to take place at the Marriot in Mumbai on Saturday, August 14th."
It’s getting more difficult to keep up with what the Kardashian sisters are doing in the fashion industry.
This week, the sisters announced plans to launch a new clothing, home and accessories line. Kourtney, Khloe and Kim will join with designer Bruno Schiavi and his Australia-based apparel company, Jupi Corp., for their collection of ready-to-wear, bags and belts, and lingerie.
“We are excited to work with Bruno Schiavi in developing our first brand together,” stated the Kardashian sisters in a release. “His expert design sensibilities and amazing creativity, and his genuine understanding of female consumers everywhere make him the ideal partner.”
Look for the first collection to land in stores in 2011, with luggage, shoes and children’s fashion to follow later.
The Kardashian sisters already have a fashion line with Bebe and a swimwear collection with
Beach Bunny.
Lots of speculations are going around concerning the identity of the new American Idol judges. With Simon Cowell, Ellen DeGeneres and Kara DioGuardi out, three slots remain to be filled and the Fox folks haven’t confirmed on any of those slots yet.
But whoever fill those positions, Paula Abdul is not going to be one of them. Buzzes were around that Paula, who already served a stint as an Idol judge would have been an ideal substitute for Ellen. But now as it appears, Abdul, according to her deal with CBS’ Got to Dance, cannot appear at any competitive show on any network, broadcast or cable.
“If Paula did Idol she would get sued big-time by Viacom,” a source for E! News dished. “She’s locked in exclusively with CBS.”
The deal with Paula is for “about five years.” So, as the source puts, “Paula has a better chance at winning American Idol than she does at returning as a judge.”
Meanwhile, there is high chance of Jessica Simpson filling one of those slots. Per reports, Jessica has met the Idol producers more than once in last two weeks and talks are reported to be heading to a finalisation.
Elton John and Justin Timberlake, among others, are also said to be in the contention.
Miley Cyrus is headed for Detroit, Michigan this weekend. Reportedly Miley will shoot visuals for another single from her album Can’t Be Tamed. After the title track, this time it is turn for “Who Owns My Heart” to get turned into a video.
Ken Baker of E! Online informs that Robert Hales, the one directing the title track video, is at the helm this time too and it has also been known that the present video will be up for only a European release.
However, there is no leakage concerning the way the video is going to be shot. No news as to whether there will be a narrative or just random strobing cuts and people would also like to know about Miley’s attire on the video. But they will have to wait.
Meanwhile there is news that Demi Lovato and Miley, once BF, can hardly find time for each other now.
Many are of the opinion though that they have fallen out and now see themselves more as competitors than friends.
In fact the rift started to open when Demi started dating Joe Jonas from Jonas Brothers. Evidently Miley couldn’t take it in the right spirit then as she was dating another Jonas brothers, Mick Jonas.
Jennifer Aniston latest comedy “The Switch” is all set to hit the theatres soon. Aniston plays the role of a single woman who is all set out to look for a sperm donor. In the last Thursday’s edition of the Tonight’s show with Jay Leno, Aniston came forward to promote her latest movie. When Jay asked her whether she had any idea of how a sperm bank worked Aniston seemed to be quite confused at the idea. Aniston was at a loss of words when she replied “You need to get a card at the bank, I really don’t know how it works “
Jay got a bit personal when he questioned Aniston whether she ever thought of visiting a sperm bank to have a child .Aniston simply laughed it off and replied “the question has never been asked to me “ .
Jennifer also spoke about her perfume which is named after her .The actress also admitted that other names were also considered for the perfume such as ‘Clean,’ ‘Air.
The perfume is only available at the Harrods, a departmental store in London .Jennifer also added “other names such as “Lolavie,” were also considered, however I finally zeroed on my name”. “The Switch,” a comedy also has Jason Batemen in a leading role and is expected to release on August t 20.
Angelina Jolie didn’t have a picture perfect childhood, rather a very disturbing one. Even her teenage years were anything that one would like to have. Her wild ways and lifestyles are still famous and she continued to have that till she became a mom of her first adopted son Maddox. The actress have never been shy of talking about the untamed ways she had led before, not her bisexual liaisons
It now seems her children are craving for the attention too. It is very well known at the moment that her little girl Shiloh has an affinity for dressing up like a boy, lopped her hair, wears tie and calls herself John. On the other hand it was reported by Hollywood Life that Angie has bought a manicure kit as a birthday present for her eight year old son Maddox. So is the actress raising her children to be gender confused?
According to a licensed psychotherapist Rebecca Roy who specializes in the entertainment industry, Shiloh is trying to get the attention of her parents. The four year old being closes to her dad Brad tries to identify with him. On the other hand purchase of Maddox’s manicure kit cannot be termed as a Jolie instigating gender confusion.
Rebecca says that she feels Jolie is just allowing her children to express their need and it can just be a passing phase. However, the situation needs to be investigated since two of her kids are in the same situation. Also Angie had been through such turbulent past and it might just influence her kids too and the 35year old actress too had been an attention seeker from her parents.
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£50m to improve cancer drug access
A new £50 million fund has been launched by the Government to give patients access to cancer drugs.
The fund will pay for medicines which can extend life by a few months or improve quality of life but which may have been rejected by the health watchdog as too expensive.
It will also cover drugs currently used off-label by clinicians to treat conditions not covered by the medicine's licence, or those which have yet to be appraised by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).
Doctors working in regional groups will decide how the funding is spent in their area based on advice from cancer specialists.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said the fund makes good on a promise the Tories made during the election race to provide money from central budget savings to pay for cancer drugs.
"I promised that I would help patients in England get cancer drugs that are readily available in the rest of Europe," he said.
"Patients should have access to innovative cancer drugs that can extend or improve their quality of life and which their doctors have recommended, which is why I'm determined to take action now."
Before the election, the Tories said the cancer fund would total £200 million, coming from the cash the NHS would save on its national insurance bill to the Treasury, but critics, including experts from the University of Leeds, have said the bill will be far higher and could rise to £600 million.
However, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham questioned how the plans would be funded, claiming that money saved from stopping the National Insurance rise would be cancelled out by a rise in VAT to 17.5% in January.
Mr Burnham also said the Government will be forced to explain why funding for cancer treatments is being prioritised over drugs for other conditions such as Alzheimer's or motor neurone disease.
Northern Rock finance boss banned for hiding arrears
The misreporting of mortgage arrears led to a false picture of Northern Rock's strength
Northern Rock's former finance director, David Jones, has been fined and banned by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for his part in the misreporting of mortgage arrears.
The FSA fined Mr Jones £320,000 and banned him from performing any function in relation to any regulated activity.
Mr Jones said the penalties were "unfair and disproportionate".
He is now the third former executive from Northern Rock to be banned and fined by the regulator.
In April, two others - the former deputy chief executive David Baker and the former credit director Richard Barclay - were fined a total of £650,000 by the FSA for failing to ensure accurate financial information.
'Pressure'
The FSA found that Mr Jones' misconduct started in mid-January 2007 when he agreed, along with David Baker, to allow false mortgage arrears figures to appear in footnotes accompanying the 2006 annual accounts.
As a result of these actions, Northern Rock left out almost 2,000 repossessions that were pending, but had not yet taken place.
[David Jones] had numerous opportunities to put things right, but failed to do so”
Margaret ColeFinancial Services Authority
Mr Jones stressed that he had co-operated with the investigation and accepted that he did not ensure that financial information was presented correctly.
But he said the FSA's judgement was too severe: "I consider that the FSA's conclusions and imposed penalty are both unfair and disproportionate."
The FSA said that, from 2005, Northern Rock staff were under pressure to report arrears at half the rate of rivals.
If they had reported correct figures, said the FSA, Northern Rock's arrears would have increased by more than 50%, or repossessions figures by about 300%.
But, crucially, it would also have given investors and depositors a truer picture of the health of the bank.
Mr Jones argued, however, that investors received sufficient information to assess Northern Rock's financial position.
Unsound
Northern Rock relied heavily on positive perceptions in order to attract the funds that catapulted it into becoming the UK's fifth largest lender.
But the credit crisis revealed it as unsound, and its near-collapse resulted in it being nationalised.
Margaret Cole, FSA director of enforcement and financial crime, said: "Jones had a duty to reveal the true position to the public and to important internal committees. He had numerous opportunities to put things right, but failed to do so.
"This is a message to all FSA approved persons, that they must take their individual responsibilities seriously at all times, or suffer the consequences."
Hans Blix: 'Iraq weapons inspectors were not given enough time'
It was "very hard" for Iraq to declare weapons programmes that did not exist, former United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said today.
Dr Blix said UN Security Council resolution 1441, passed four months before the March 2003 invasion, gave Saddam Hussein the "chance for a new start".
He told the Iraq Inquiry he privately believed Saddam had kept weapons of mass destruction, but criticised the short time his Unmovic inspection team was given to search for them.
Dr Blix said he was in favour of resolution 1441, passed on November 8 2002, which declared Iraq in "material breach" of its obligations to disarm and paved the way for the return of weapons inspectors.
"The declaration, I felt, might give Iraq a chance for a new start," he said.
"If they had weapons, which I thought might well be the case, they had an opportunity. Now here it is, they could put the blame on some general or other."
Inquiry panel member Sir Roderic Lyne asked him: "Did you feel that it gave Iraq a realistic possibility of meeting the requirements of the resolution?"
Dr Blix replied: "Yes, except that it was very hard for them to declare any weapons when they didn't have any."
The former weapons inspector said he believed another resolution explicitly authorising military action was needed before attacks could be launched on Iraq.
"To me it was clear that a second resolution was required," he said.
Resolution 1441 said the weapons inspectors should give an update to the UN Security Council within 60 days.
Dr Blix questioned how this worked in practice, particularly in the light of the coalition's initial plans to invade Iraq from the north through Turkey.
He said: "I am a little puzzled, I must say, at how they calculated because the impression was that the invasion would take place through Turkey and that it would occur even in the beginning of January.
"That would have given (a) very very short time to the inspection.
"As it turned out we only had three-and-a-half months, but had they gone into Turkey it would have been even shorter."
He said he told then-prime minister Tony Blair in autumn 2002 of his belief that Saddam had maintained his WMD programmes.
"I, like most people at the time, felt that Iraq retains weapons of mass destruction," he said.
"I did not say so publicly. I said it perhaps to Mr Blair in September 2002 privately, but not publicly."
Dr Blix also spoke of his disquiet at the US national security strategy published in September 2002, which set out the Bush administration's belief in its right to launch pre-emptive attacks.
He said: "The US in 2002, that time you refer to, threw it overboard. I think they were high on military at the time. They said, 'we can do it'."
The former weapons inspector compared attempts to deal with Iraq's supposed WMD in 2002-03 with current efforts to stop Tehran's ambitions to become a nuclear power.
"We have economic pressure against Iran. I do not think that is illegal. I think the use of force against Iran today would be illegal," he said.
Afghanistan war logs: Wikileaks founder rebuts White House criticism
Julian Assange rejects accusation that publishing thousands of secret US military files about the war in Afghanistan has compromised America's national security
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks a news conference at the Frontline Club in central London. Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters
The founder of the whistleblowing website Wikileaks today defended his decision to publish thousands of secret US military files about the war inAfghanistan, faced with criticism from the White House for placing troops in danger.
Julian Assange said his organisation was currently working through a backlog of further secret material and was expecting a "substantial increase in submissions" from whistleblowers after one of the biggest leaks in US military history.
The documents have revealed unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings and information about secret operations against Taliban leaders, as well as highlighting US fears that Pakistan's intelligence service was aiding the Afghan uprising.
Assange rejected accusations that the leak had compromised America's national security. "We are familiar with groups whose abuse we expose attempting to criticise the messenger to distract from the power of the message," he said.
"We don't see any difference in the White House's response to this case to the other groups that we have exposed. We have tried hard to make sure that this material does not put innocents at harm. All the material is over seven months old so is of no current operational consequence, even though it may be of very significant investigative consequence."
Speaking at a press conference at the Frontline Club in central London, Assange said that the 90,000 leaked US military documents about the war in Afghanistan would help shape understanding of the past six years of fighting.
Earlier, the White House said the leaks "could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security".
It said that Wikileaks had made no effort to contact US security services, but insisted that what it called the "irresponsible leaks" would not "impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people".
In London, the security minister Lady Neville-Jones, former chair of the UK's joint intelligence committee, described the leak as "really serious stuff" and questioned how the documents had been obtained.
"We don't know how they got that material – it may be a combination of leaking of documents, but also one strongly suspects they have hacked into systems as well.
"This is a very, very big story. But if you stop to think about it for a moment, military systems have to be secure because people's lives are at stake."
The Guardian, along with the New York Times and German weekly Der Spiegel, were given access to the archive and have spent several weeks investigating the logs. In order not to compromise intelligence sources or to put forces at risk, the Guardian has only published a selection of the logs, relating to significant events.
The White House national security adviser, General Jim Jones, stressed that the documents related to a period from January 2004 to December 2009, during the administration of President George Bush and before President Obama ordered a "surge" in Afghanistan.
"President Obama announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan, and increased focus on al-Qaida and Taliban safe havens in Pakistan, precisely because of the grave situation that had developed over several years," he said.
Labour leadership candidate David Miliband, said the "war logs" showed that the war could not be won by military means alone.
"We cannot kill our way out of an insurgency. Instead, the battle for power is fought in the minds of the local population, insurgents and western publics. The purpose of military effort and civilian improvement is to create the conditions for political settlement.
"There is now a race against time to persuade the Afghan people that the correct strategy is in place and show our own people it can succeed. Better Afghan security forces, better police, better schooling and economic opportunities are all vital but not enough. None of them are durable or possible without a political settlement."
Miliband, the former foreign secretary, said any peace settlement "must include the vanquished as well as the victors" and urged the government in Kabul to involve Afghans in "defining a political endgame".
Elsewhere, experts analysed the damage inflicted on the war effort by the leak. British military expert professor Michael Clarke, director of the Royal United Services Institute thinktank, said the leaked files were less damaging than the Abu Ghraib Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal but would prove awkward for politicians.
"There is no doubt that the leaks are politically pretty damaging. The papers give an impression of a lack of military discrimination in how operations were conducted. They are also appearing at the worst possible time, particularly in the United States, because people are looking for an exit strategy. This is old bad news at a new bad time."
In the US, the chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee and former Democrat presidential candidate, John Kerry, responded to the leak with a direct challenge to the administration. "However illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America's policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan," he said.
"Those policies are at a critical stage and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right."
