Nokia brings mobile music service to China

HELSINKI (AFP) – Top mobile phone maker Nokia brought its music download service to the key Chinese market Thursday and said it would also launch the service, which competes with Apple's iTunes, in India.
"Globally, we have expanded the reach of our music service to 30 markets in just 18 months," Liz Schimel, global head of music at the Finnish company said in a statement.
China is the world's biggest cellphone market and analysts said Nokia's "Comes with Music" service launch there was important but added the service had seen slow pickup elsewhere and remained far behing Apple's iTunes in popularity.
"Comes with Music has not been a success in any market. Volumes have been small," Martti Larjo, an analyst with Nordea Markets, told AFP.
Nokia said buyers of eight of its phone models across China would get "unlimited music downloads" of song catalogues from global lables Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Music, and local independent labels, including Huayi Brothers Media Group and Taihe Rye.
The phone models included in the service have a starting retail price of 140 euros (186 dollars), excluding local taxes and subsidies, Nokia said, adding local artists featured prominently in the Chinese version of the service.

Sania-Sohaib Nikah Postponed, Venue Shifted To Dubai

 

Sania-Sohaib Malik location has been moved from Hyderabad to Dubai due to the ongoing hullabaloo.

Information also has it that the wedding date may also be delayed.



In the meantime, Shoaib Malik has arrived at Sania’s house in Hyderabad amidst leveling blaze. It is organism consider that Sohaib has dropped in to apparent the air adjacent his ‘marriage’ to Ayesha.


According to Pakistani channel Geo TV, the Pakistani cricketer has decisive to move his marriage with Sania to Dubai.




Information also assert that the date of the marriage may also get late from April 15, 2010 to a little bit later, till the substance subsides.



Malik-Sania Mirza bridal hit anxious waters when Ayesha Siddiqui asserted that she is the ‘1st wife’ of Malik and also produced wedding documentation in sustain of her claim.

Iraq

An Iraqi soldier stands guard near the site of a suicide attack targeted the Iranian embassy Baghdad April 4, 2010. Three suicide bombers detonated car bombs near foreign missions in central Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 30 people and wounding 168. The blasts near the Iranian, Egyptian and German embassies followed mortar attacks on the Iraqi capital's Green Zone, home to government buildings, official residences and foreign embassies.

REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani (IRAQ - Tags: CONFLICT MILITARY CIVIL UNREST)

Sania Mirza Breaks A Million Heart

New Delhi: Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza has got engaged to a Hyderabad-based businessman but her family has ruled out an immediate wedding or early retirement for the star. Sania gets engaged to Hyderabad-based businessman
The 22-year-old, who is the most successful woman tennis player of the country, will continue playing the game and her father Imran Mirza said it will take a while before the two families decide on when the wedding would take place.

“This is to confirm that Sania Mirza is engaged to Mr. Muhammad Sohrab Mirza, whose family hails from the city of Hyderabad. Although not related, the two families have had friendly ties for several decades. However, the wedding is not expected to take place for a while,” Imran Mirza said. “I would like to state that the news appearing in certain sections of the media about the two maternal grandmothers having fixed the liaison is baseless. It has also been wrongly projected that Sania is contemplating early retirement from tennis. These reports are absolutely untrue,” he said.

Sania’s career has been marred by injuries and countless controversies but despite the off-court woes, she has been the lone flagbearer of Indian women’s tennis internationally. Sania was the first Indian to win a WTA singles title and earlier this year added an elusive Grand Slam title to her kitty when she combined with Mahesh Bhupathi to win the mixed doubles event at the Australian Open. Sania is currently in Paris playing the French Open.

never met Ayesha Siddiqui", says Shoaib Malik

Hyderabad: Breaking News! Former Pakistan cricket captain, Shoaib Malik broke his silence over the alleged marriage with Ayesha Siddiqui. "I never met Ayesha Siddiqui. I just talked to her over phone", said Shoaib.

Shoaib Mailk, who is in Hyderabad to finalize the marriage date and other formalities with Sania Mirza and her family, said that his relationship with Ayesha started on telephone in 2001.

"She told me that she was my fan and was living in Saudi Arabia. I was there in Sharjah to play a tournament. That's who we began talking", he said.

Shoaib Malik also accused the Siddiquis of cheating. "They showed some other girl's photograph as Ayesha's. Ayesha also said the same. She kept pressurizing me into marriage. I backed off, when I came to know about the truth", revealed Shoaib.

Meanwhile, Ayesha Siddiqui's family has sent a legal notice to the Maliks. They claim to have the marriage certificate and all other relvant documents to prove Shoaib's marriage with Ayesha.

Suicide bombers hit Afghan city

Taliban militants have carried out suicide attacks on several government buildings in Khost, eastern Afghanistan, police say.
A gun battle broke out between security forces and the fighters who launched co-ordinated attacks on the police chief's office, a hospital and a bank.
Militants were using machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades, and there were reports of casualties.
It comes amid a spike of violence ahead of elections on 20 August.
A doctor at Khost hospital said seven civilians and three police were injured.
It was unclear how many attackers were involved, but Zabihullah Mujahid who claims to be a Taliban spokesman told the BBC from unknown location: "Four of our attackers had entered the city this afternoon."
Khost provinical police chief Abdul Qayum Baqizai told the BBC seven suicide bombers attacked various sites, including one who detonated a bomb-laden car near a military hospital.
One hospital guard was injured in that attack.
Another attacker was shot by security personnel close to Kabul Bank, and another was shot close to a government guesthouse, he said.
Mr Baqizai said the rest, dressed in border police uniforms, tried to enter the police chief's office but "our forces opened fire and killed them all".

Obama Shifts Tone on Gates After Mulling Scale of Debate

WASHINGTON — President Obama tried Friday to defuse a volatile national debate over the arrest of a black Harvard Univercity professor as he acknowledged that his own comments had inflamed tensions and insisted he had not meant to malign the arresting officer.

Mr. Obama placed calls to both the professor, HenRy Lois Gate Jr, and the man who arrested him, Sgt. James Crowley, two days after saying the police had “acted stupidly” last week in hauling Professor Gates from his home in handcuffs. Mr. Obama said he still considered the arrest “an overreaction,” but added that “Professor Gates probably overreacted as well.”
“I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up,” the president said in an appearance in the White House briefing room. “I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically, and I could have calibrated those words differently.”