Steve Jobs’ Cause Of Death Revealed

A report from Bloomberg states that according to the Steve Jobs’ death certificate, the cause of death was respiratory arrest and a pancreatic tumor. As you already know that Steve Jobs, Apple’s co founder, died last Wednesday at approximately 3:00 PM Pacific Time....Read More

Malik Riaz, son yet to be arrested in 1,401-kanal land scam, SC told

ISLAMABAD - The Supreme Court was informed on Tuesday that real estate tycoon Malik Riaz and his son Ali Riaz were yet to be arrested over fake and illegal transfer of 1,401 kanals of land despite being nominated by the Rawalpindi Anti-Corruption Establishment. Appearing on notice, Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) Punjab Director General Abid Javed told a three-member Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez that during the investigation, 16 people were found involved in the fake and illegal transfer of land, of which seven had been arrested. To a court query, he said Malik Riaz and his son Ali had not been arrested so far. The court was hearing a bail application filed by one of the arrested accused, Tanveer Hussain. Meanwhile, the court disposed of the case after Raza Pasha, counsel for estate agent Tanveer Hussain told the court that he wished to withdraw his bail application from the Supreme Court and wanted to contest his case in a trial court.
He contended that during the transfer of hundreds of kanals of land to Bahria Town, his client did not get any benefit. The court accepted his request and disposed of the plea as dismissed. To a court query, Pasha told the court that the benefit of fake and illegal transfer of land went to Malik Riaz and his son. Earlier on October 6, the Rawalpindi ACE had submitted in the Supreme Court a re-investigation report on acquisition of hundreds of kanals of land on the outskirts of Rawalpindi through bogus documents. ACE had found the role of four revenue department officials and two senior officials of Bahria Town in the land scam.
Tehsildar Adnan Bashir Kiani, Patwari Muhammad Rizwan, Tanveer Hussain Shah and Muhammad Hussain of the Revenue Department and Colonel (r) Saeed Akhtar and Muhammad Iqbal of Bahria Town have already been arrested by ACE in addition to an estate agent, Tanveer Hussain......Read More

India successfully launches monsoon research satellite

India has successfully launched a new satellite, the Megha-Tropiques, to study the patterns of the monsoon.

The one-tonne satellite was one of four spacecraft fired into orbit on Wednesday from Sriharikota, about 80km from Madras.

The Megha-Tropiques satellite is a joint venture with France....Read More

Dancing With the Stars' Week Four Elimination (Video)

In between all those sightings of Cher there was a dance competition going on Monday night on'Dancing With the Stars' (Tue., 9PM ET on ABC). And it was a nail-biter, with the incredibly entertaining Carson Kressley coming in dead last with the judges, while Ricki Lake earned the season's first perfect 10s.

Early front-runner Chynna Phillips had a very rough night, reflected in her low scores from the judges, tying her with Chaz Bono and Nancy Grace at one point ahead of Kressley.

Everyone knows Phillips is a stronger dancer than both of them; she just had a very bad night. Would America forgive her?.....Read More

GOP Debate: Republican Presidential Candidates Face Off In New Hampshire (LIVE UPDATES)

Eight Republican candidates competing for their party's presidential nomination will go head-to-head in a primary debate in New Hampshire on Tuesday night.

The Bloomberg/Washington Post forum begins at 8 p.m. ET. GOP contenders participating in the event include: U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.....Read More

Classic Movie Review: Charade

A Parisian Treat

Stanley Donen’s stylishly elegant, charming comedy-romance-thriller Charade teams Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, for the first and only time in their careers – a shame since both of them had the most wonderful chemistry. For some, the movie, intelligently scripted by Peter Stone, is Donen’s homage to Alfred Hitchcock. But it also represents Hollywood at its most entertaining — and it is the last great movie that Cary Grant made before retiring three years later.

Regina Lampert aka Reggie (Audrey Hepburn) returns to Paris after a ski trip to the Alps, to find her house ransacked and her husband Charles murdered. His funeral is attended by three curious oddballs – played by James Coburn, George Kennedy and Ned Glass – each of whom makes sure that the corpse is indeed dead. A mysterious stranger, originally going by the name Peter Joshua (Cary Grant), who she had met earlier on her skiing holiday, offers his assistance to Reggie, as does CIA man Hamilton Bartholomew (Walter Matthau), who informs her that her husband was part of a gang that, during WW2, stole and stashed a quarter of a million dollars. Naturally, everyone mistakenly assumes that Reggie knows the whereabouts of the money.

What ensues is a riotous take on the spy thriller. Peter Joshua develops a romantic attraction to Regina, but he is a figure whose job and intentions shift on the hour. He may also have an unknown stake in the $250,000. The three thugs from the funeral may be her ‘dead’ husband’s accomplices; they too demand that Reggie give them the missing money since she must know where it is. The five figures run rings around each other and lie endlessly to determine where Charles has hid the stash, while they attempt to appease and dodge CIA big-shot Hamilton.

Shot by Charles Lan, one of Hollywood’s greatest cinematographers, Charade is wonderful entertainment, a glittering and witty feature with a ’60s sensibility. Decked out in a Givenchy wardrobe, Hepburn is a treat, and the film is given a deeper shade of humour by Henry Mancini’s playful score. The radiant Hepburn’s romance with the suave Grant....Read More

PakiUM.com: Strings now become Official Brand Ambassador of Gillette

Pakistani Pop Band Strings has now officially become the brand ambassador of Gillette Razors, a brand of multinational company Procter & Gamble.

The duo of the band, Faisal Kapadia and Bilal Maqsood attended a news conference recently and announced this news to the media. Faisal and Bilal who are mostly seen in a very casual look, wearing Jeans and keeping grown beard, were seen in a “Men in Black” style and with “clean-shaved” look. It won’t be unfair to say here that Gillete has made the duo back into life. 

Earlier, Strings band has also become a Brand Ambassador of Levi’s clothing line and Emirates Airline. The band which is now committed to release only Singles and that too for Free, is finalizing its deals with corporate sponsors,......Read More

U.S. open to Afghan peace deal including Haqqani

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday signaled the United States remains open to exploring a peace deal including the Haqqani network, the militant group that U.S. officials blame for a campaign of high-profile violence that could jeopardize Washington’s plans for withdrawing smoothly from Afghanistan.
“Where we are right now is that we view the Haqqanis and other of their ilk as, you know, being adversaries and being very dangerous to Americans, Afghans and coalition members inside Afghanistan, but we are not shutting the door on trying to determine whether there is some path forward,” Clinton said when asked whether she believed members of the Haqqani network might reconcile with the Afghan government.
“It’s too soon to tell whether any of these groups or any individuals within them are serious,” she said in an interview with Reuters.
Inclusion of the Haqqani network in a hoped-for peace deal — now a chief objective in the Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy after a decade of war is a controversial idea in Washington.
Officials blame the group for last month’s attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul and a truck bombing that injured scores of American soldiers.
The State Department is facing heat from Capitol Hill for refraining, at least so far, from officially designating the Haqqani group, which U.S. officials say is based in western Pakistan, as a terrorist organization.
The White House has backed away from assertions from Admiral Mike Mullen, who was the top U.S. military officer until he retired last month, that Pakistani intelligence supported the Haqqani network in the September 13 embassy attack.
But President Barack Obama and others have put their sometimes-ally Pakistan on notice that it must crack down on militants or risk severing a key relationship.
According to media reports, U.S. officials have held meetings with Haqqani network representatives as part of their efforts — which have not yet yielded any visible results — to strike a peace deal, but the State Department declines to discuss details of the reconciliation process.
In recent months reconciliation has become a more prominent feature of Obama’s Afghan strategy even as U.S. and NATO soldiers continued to battle the Taliban and Haqqani militants in Afghanistan’s volatile south and east.
Earlier this year, Clinton advanced a peace deal as a key plank of regional policy for the first time, saying Washington would support a settlement between the Afghan government and those militant groups that meet certain requirements, including renouncing violence and supporting the Afghan constitution.
FIGHTING, TALKING
Despite the conciliatory signals, Clinton said the United States would stick to its military campaign that the White House hopes will make militants more likely to enter serious negotiations.......Read More

Maseeha Shafi Appear in a Hollywood movie

Pakistani fashion model Meesha Shafi is to star in a Hollywood movie “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”. This movie is directed by Mira Nair.
The movie is based on Mohsin Hamid’s bestselling novel ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’. Pakistani fashion model Meesha Shafi will perform alongside Hollywood actors Kate Hudson, Liev Schreiber and Kiefer Sutherland. Rest of the cast, of ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’, includes Bollywood icons Shabana Azmi, Om Puri and the international project star Riz Ahmed along with Nelsan Ellis, Martin Donovan and Haluk Bilginer.....Read More

The burka debate

IT is a debate that is unending and can go on ad infinitum. The object of this global controversy is the contentious hijab that has had as many supporters as detractors. The arguments draw references from religion, culture, social norms, human rights and, above all, feminism.
Last week, Canada’s largest circulated newspaper, had a catchy headline for its lead story: ‘Hijab or dejab?’ Women who defended the hijab asserted they were not coerced by their male relatives. To cover their hair was purely their own choice — an act of defiance, a political statement or a spiritual awakening.
Those who had let go of the hijab said they had felt suffocated by it. Others said after wearing it for some time they had found their identity being defined by the little piece of cloth and they found that unacceptable. Others found nothing to defy because no one ever looked at them “strangely” when they covered their head. One said her school friend had described it as an “interesting fashion”.
So why does the brouhaha go on? It is not clear what Tariq Ali, the author and activist, was referring to when he said at the annual Marxism festival in London, “I’ve spoken to many young women who wear the hijab and aren’t even religious — they do it because they’re told they can’t do it. In France particularly this is the case.”
To the best of my knowledge, no one has been stopped selectively from wearing a hijab in public places in any country — if we follow the finer definition of the term. The hijab, the most popularly worn by Muslims in the West, just covers the head and neck. Since 2004, French public schools have prohibited the use of all religious symbols — the hijab, the crucifix and the Jewish yarmulka — on their premises.
They militate against the constitutional secular traditions, the French claimed. What has, however, been the subject of a ban in France is the niqab that veils the entire face with a small area around the eyes left uncovered and the “most concealing” burka that “covers the entire face and body leaving a mesh screen to see through”.
The law that came into effect in April 2011 in France does not target the wearing of a headscarf, hijab or sunglasses “as long as the accessories do not prevent the person from being identified”, the French interior ministry said in a statement. It is the all-concealing head coverings, the niqab and the burka, that are the focus of the law.
Critics have interpreted the law as an expression of Islamophobia and are now waging a battle against it. Those so shrouded — and I had seen quite a few in the pre-ban years in France — have virtually disappeared from public view. There have been a few protests but they have not created more than a few ripples. I chanced to see one burka-clad woman being booked in a metro station in Lyon. Her face was fully concealed and obviously she could not be identified. She was probably testing the waters. The police requested her to step aside and she was probably fined.
What is intriguing about the spirited defence of this act of defiance is that this adolescent behaviour has no takers back home among those professing progressive views. Many of us hardly see it as a human rights issue.
For us, security is more vital and today an individual shrouded in a burka can be an unsettling sight even though women in all-concealing garbs have been a part of our cultural environment for ages. That tolerance has melted away ever since Maulana Abdul Aziz tried to escape disguised as a woman in a burka from the besieged Lal Masjid in 2007. Masked men committing crimes have also contributed to the fear of the burka.
Security concerns should require everyone to be identifiable. Of what use will the cameras installed on street corners be if all they can film — when they are working — are hooded women (presumably) in niqabs? If you can have laws prohibiting people from riding in vehicles with tinted glass, how can masked people not be considered a security risk?
For many years now, .....Read More

GOOGLE CELEBRATES ART COLKEY’S 90TH BIRTHDAY

Sticking to its tradition for celebrating important events and remembering pioneers and important personalities. In honor of his contribution to clay animation, Google has a new doodle on itshomepage celebrating Art Cokley’s 90th birthday with a fun Gumby doodle.

Since October 1, Google has celebrated 8 prominent occasions from across the world. A complete list of doodles can be found here.

Arthur “Art” Clokey (1921 – 2010) was a pioneer in the popularization of stop motion clay animation, beginning in 1955 with a film experiment called Gumbasia, influenced by his professor, Slavko Vorkapich, at the University of Southern California. From the Gumbasia project, Art Clokey and his wife Ruth invented Gumby. Since then ....Read More