Death toll in Samoas tsunami reaches 150

APIA, Samoa – Stunned Samoans combed through the sodden wreckage of their lives and told of the terror of being trapped underwater or flung inland by a tsunami that ravaged towns and killed at least 150 people in the South Pacific.

Officials expect the death toll from Tuesday's disaster to rise as more areas are searched.

"The devastation caused was complete," Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele told New Zealand's National Radio on Wednesday after inspecting the southeast coast of the main island of Upolu, the most heavily hit area. "In some villages absolutely no house was standing. All that was achieved within 10 minutes by the very powerful tsunami."

His own village of Lesa was washed away, as were many others in Samoa and nearby American Samoa and Tonga.

A magnitude 8.0 quake struck off Samoa at 6:48 a.m. local time (1:48 p.m. EDT; 1748 GMT) Tuesday. The islands soon were engulfed by four tsunami waves 15 to 20 feet (4 to 6 meters) high that reached up to a mile (1.5 kilometers) inland.

"To me it was like a monster — just black water coming to you. It wasn't a wave that breaks, it was a full force of water coming straight," said Luana Tavale, an American Samoa government employee.

Tuilaepa said the death toll in Samoa was 110, mostly elderly and young children. At least 31 people were killed on American Samoa, Gov. Togiola Tulafono said. Officials in the island nation of Tonga said nine people had been killed.

Samoan police commander Lilo Maiava predicted the toll would rise.

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Indian swine flu vaccine by early next year

India first indigenous vaccine against swine flu is now being tested on animals. Once it proves to be safe, clinical trials on humans will be undertaken and the vaccine is likely to hit the market early next year.


India has never produced flu vaccines in the past because flu is not known to be a big killer here. But after the H1N1 pandemic reached the country, large Indian companies like Serum Institute have stepped in and are now carrying out trials of the vaccine that has been developed in India for the first time.

The vaccine is being tested on animals in sterile rooms at the institute now and once it is cleared phase one human clinical trials will begin.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) had approached Serum Institute to set up a flu facility after the bird flu outbreak in 2006. The one-and-a-half year's work put in on the bird flu vaccine helped fast track the H1N1 vaccine. "We are ready with the vaccine but it has to go through all the tests," says Cyrus Poonawala, MD, Serum Institute.

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America's Got Talent has brought them out in the open Ishaara for you

America's got talent, and scores join reality/talent hunt shows each month. They are appealing, compelling and seize audiences attention.

Ishaara's troupe has taken America by storm, the TV reality show America's got talent on NBC has been grooving to Bollywood like never before. Their eyecatching costumes, killer dance moves had smiling judges with their 'socks knocked off', bringing audience and show's anchor on their feet, dancing with them; all dunked and dazzled in their high-energy, colorful and powerful performances wowing everyone right from the day of the auditions to their last performance where audience just wouldn't stop making noise.

They met at Berkely and knew their common passion was dance. They are first generation kids of Indian parents who value their Indianess as much as they care about the American spirit.

With passion for dance so strong, they are an award winning troupe having performed at inter-college competitions and also at many dance festivals across nation.

Their dedication: Practicing late evening in their parking garage, stitching their own jazzy dance costumes and forming their unique style of heart wrenching drama and powerful music....

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Truck bomb kills at least 19 in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD – A suicide truck bomber hit a residential area of a Kurdish village in northern Iraq before dawn Thursday, killing at least 19 people and injuring 30 others, officials said, in what appeared to be the latest in a string of ethnic attacks in the region.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents who remain active in Mosul and surrounding areas.

A police officer and health official in Mosul said the bomb went off around 12:30 a.m. in the village of Wardek, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of the city — a region where U.S. commanders have warned that insurgents appear to be trying to stoke an Arab-Kurdish conflict.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The blast took down a number of houses and the casualty toll was expected to rise because many people are still missing in the rubble, the officials said.

Local security forces intercepted a second suicide truck bomber, killing the driver and defusing the bomb before it could be detonated, they said.

Insurgents in northern Iraq, who have maintained a stronghold in the city of Mosul, have frequently targeted remote villages and towns that depend on small security forces for protection.

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Microsoft show 'faster' Windows 7

Intel and Microsoft say the Windows 7 operating system (OS) will give "better battery life and quicker boot times".

The firms made the claim at a press event in San Francisco where engineers put the new OS through its paces.

Microsoft are hoping their new system will perform as promised and avoid a repeat of the negative publicity associated with Windows Vista.

Both firms said they collaborated more closely than ever before to deliver a product "they are proud of".

"We both made a larger investment than ever before on the engineer side to improve on the hardware and software," Microsoft's Mike Angiulo told the BBC.

The two firms, colloquially known as Wintel, said that the partnership involved hundreds of engineers and was started the day after Windows Vista was released over two years ago.

"We have spent 20 years getting to know each other and have businesses that are very well aligned," said Steve Smith, vice president of Intel's digital enterprise group.

Dean Takahashi of technology blog VentureBeat said that Microsoft's previous OS - the heavily criticised Windows Vista - had to be improved upon.

"The collaboration was in the name of making Windows 7 better and more bug-free than the January 2007 launch of Windows Vista, which was broadly criticised in the industry and was one of the best advertisements for buying a Mac in history" he said.

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Thousands call for Turing apology

Thousands of people have signed a Downing Street petition calling for a posthumous government apology to World War II code breaker Alan Turing.

Writer Ian McEwan has just backed the campaign, which already has the support of scientist Richard Dawkins.

In 1952 Turing was prosecuted under the gross indecency act after admitting to a sexual relationship with a man. Two years later he killed himself.

The petition was the idea of computer scientist John Graham-Cumming.

He is seeking an apology for the way the young mathematician was treated after his conviction. He has also written to the Queen to ask for a posthumous knighthood to be awarded to the British mathematician.

Alan Turing was given experimental chemical castration as a "treatment" and his security privileges were removed, meaning he could not continue work for the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

"This added insult and humiliation ultimately drove him to suicide," said gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, who also backs the campaign. "With Turing's death, Britain and the world lost one of its finest intellectual minds. A government apology and posthumous pardon are long overdue."

National legacy

Alan Turing is most famous for his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during WWII, helping to create the Bombe that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines.

However he also made significant contributions to the emerging fields of artificial intelligence and computing.

In 1936 he established the conceptual and philosophical basis for the rise of computers in a seminal paper called "On Computable Numbers", whilst in 1950 he devised a test to measure the intelligence of a machine. Today it is known as the Turing Test.

After the war he worked at many institutions including the University of Manchester, where he worked on the Manchester Mark 1, one of the first recognisable modern computers.

There is a memorial statue of him in Manchester's Sackville Gardens which was unveiled in 2001.

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Jay Sean for you an exclusive interview

In an exclusive interview at Universal Recording Studios, New York City, Jay Sean talks about his journey so far, Cash Money records, Bollywood and much more. Click the video above right now to hear Jay Sean in a very relaxed and bewitching conversation with Mihir Thakkar, Neha Mahajan and Rachel Sutaria of MonaDarling.com.

Jay Sean We Got Our Eyes On You!

I noticed him first time on an MTV show where his hit single 'Stolen' featuring our Bollywood babe Bipasha Basu was being played. I found him really cute, a Desi munda singing, dancing and with all that different kind of a rhythm to his music, it was definitely just the kind I was looking for in the year 2005. A charming and hot looking guy with coolest girl in the town and some tantalizing music. Only later did I realize that Jay Sean is the man, who was the whole mastermind behind redefining urban music.

Me against myself, this was the name of his first album, which featured other favorites like Eyes On You and Dance With Me, featuring Juggy D too. Little did I realize that I'll be so hooked on to Stolen... Chura Liya Hai...the song that has been his biggest hit till date and remained at number 4 on UK charts a big feat for a singer of Indian origin. Swinging to his tunes in UK, adoring fans stalked him at every step, Jay Sean became a name in R&B and Bhangra hip hop lovers could relate to.

Trivia, little facts about Jay Sean:

Jay Sean's real name is Kamaljit Jhooti. Jay Sean is a stage name that he adapted from taking the 'J' from 'Jhooti' and 'Sean' from 'Shaan', a name that his family affectionately called him which means star.

Born in Harlesden, London, United Kingdom, Jay Sean attended a private boy's school, The Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, and won himself a place at Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry to train as a doctor. After two years Jay Sean secured a one million pounds record deal and dropped out to pursue his musical career.

Jay Sean's only obstacle was frequent attention to his race rather than his music. Jay Sean, regarding the fact that he grew up in an extremely diverse country such as United Kingdom, had developed influences from his Black and South Asian friends.

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