Srinagar-Jammu national highway closed for 2nd day

Srinagar - Jammu national highway closed for 2nd day

The Srinagar-Jammu national highway remained closed for the second day Friday as snowfall and inclement weather threw life out of gear across the Kashmir Valley.

"Four feet deep snow has accumulated on the road in the Banihal area of the Srinagar-Jammu highway. The Border Roads Organisation is busy making efforts to reopen the highway," a traffic department official said here.

However, he said that no passenger vehicle was stranded anywhere along the 300-km long highway.

"Over three dozen trucks carrying essential supplies to the valley are parked at different safe locations along the highway, while no passenger vehicle is stranded anywhere along the highway," he said.

The weather department has forecast moderate to heavy snowfall across the valley till Saturday morning as the minimum temperature recorded here was minus 0.2 degree Celsius Friday.

Although authorities claim to have pressed snow clearing machines into service to remove the accumulated snow from all highways and roads in the valley, very few vehicles were seen plying in the suburban areas of Srinagar Friday morning.

People across Kashmir were complaining of electricity breakdown.

"We have not seen any electric supply since the last two days," said 52-year-old Bashir Ahmad, a resident of north Kashmir's Ganderbal district.

An engineer of the local electricity department said that even the ground staff has been moved to service and restore electric supply.

"Some problems in the transmission lines occurred in the rural areas because of the snowfall and we are attending to them. Electricity in all areas of the city has already been restored," he said

Ivory Coast 'on brink of genocide'

Ivory Coast 'on brink of genocide'

Ivory Coast's new ambassador to the United Nations fears the country is on the brink of genocide, saying houses have been marked according to their occupants' tribe.

Youssoufou Bamba says the UN has a duty to force losing presidential candidate Laurent Gbagbo to step down as Ivory Coast's leader.

"We are on the brink of genocide, something should be done," he said.

The UN human rights team on the ground say nearly 200 people have been killed and 90 tortured in the last couple of weeks.

The UN has around 9,000 peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, but the situation is becoming increasingly tense as they face down pro-Gbagbo supporters.

Mr Gbagbo's most notorious lieutenant, youth chief Charles Ble Goude, has urged the strongman's diehard supporters to launch an unarmed assault on rival Alassane Ouattara's UN-defended base.

Mr Gbagbo has called on the UN to leave immediately after their decision to recognise his rival as the winner of the elections.

Chief UN peacekeeper Alain Le Roy has accused Mr Gbagbo's state media of "inciting hatred" against UN troops to turn the population against them and make their already dangerous mission impossible.

South Africa Test: India pull off a remarkable victory to level series

South Africa Test: India pull off a remarkable victory to level series

An inspired India made amends for the drubbing at Centurion with a sensational 87-run victory against South Africa in the low-scoring second cricket Test to level the three-match series 1-1 in Durban today.

After setting a target of 303, the Indian bowlers put up a disciplined show to dismiss the hosts for 215 in 72.3 overs about an hour after the lunch break to record only their second Test triumph on South African soil.

It turned out to be an extraordinary Test with fortune fluctuating from one team to the other but the Indians eventually tilted the balance in their favour on a bouncy Kingsmead track which saw 40 wickets fall in three and half days.

The Indians, who had lost the first Test at Centurion by an innings and 25 runs, showed great character and resilience to demolish the Proteas in their own den and in conditions tailor-made to suit the home team.

The Indians players jumped in joy and hugged each other after last man Lonwabo Tsotsobe was run out to bring about the moment of glory while coach Gary Kirsten and the other support staff stood up at the dressing room to applaud the players.

S Sreesanth (3/45), Zaheer Khan (3/53) and Harbhajan Singh (2/70) were the pick of the bowlers for India while Ashwell Prince was the top scorer for the South Africans with an unbeaten 39.

It was India's second Test triumph in South Africa. The 123-run victory in the first Test at Johannesburg in 2006 was their first Test victory on South African soil.

The two teams will now travel to Cape Town for the third and final Test starting on Sunday.

Both teams had an equal chance of winning the match when play began this morning with South Africa needing 192 runs and India needing to scalp the seven remaining wickets.

With plenty of time at hand, South African batsmen adopted a cautious approach in the morning and were content in playing the waiting game against some disciplined Indian bowling.

Resuming their chase at the overnight score of 111 for three, both AB de Villiers and Jacques Kallis found the going tough against the Indian attack and scored in ones and twos before a ripper from Sreesanth broke the dangerous-looking 41-run fourth-wicket stand.

India have a great chance of winning second Test

India have a great chance of winning second Test

Durban, Dec 27 (PTI) Ace spinner Harbhajan Singh feels India have a great chance of winning the second Test against South Africa provided they bat well in the first session and post a target of over 300 tomorrow.

In a day in which 18 wickets fell, India finished on top with an overall lead of 166 runs with six wickets in hand and Harbhajan said the onus would be on VVS Laxman and Cheteshwar Pujara to help India set a target of over 300.

"Tomorrow is a big day. It is the day for us to level the series. Just need to have faith in our abilities. Back ourselves to score on this wicket," Harbhajan told reporters at the post-match press conference.

"There''s still lot of cricket left. We don''t want to be complacent. We want to bat well tomorrow. Hope (VVS) Laxman and (Cheteshwar) Pujara can bat a long time and get a lot of runs on the board, and then we''ll take it from there.

"We need to make sure we score more than 300. If we do score more than 300, we definitely have a very good chance. If we bat well tomorrow we can definitely score a lot of runs. If you survive the first session we have a great chance to win the Test match," he added.

Harbhajan (4/10)and Zaheer Khan (3/36) wrecked havoc to dismiss South Africa for 131 today and help India manage a 74-run first innings lead here and the offie said the bowlers got rewarded for bowling in good areas.

"Obviously when you get wickets you can''t complain. It was nice to be out there taking wickets. All the bowlers bowled really well. We got the reward for bowling in good areas," he said.

"There is extra bounce but you still need to be very sure of length. Slightly short can go for runs. Slightly fuller also can go for runs.

"I''m taking from a spinner point of view. Fast bowlers obviously need to make batsmen come forward. They are big time in the game then. But spinners, you can go for runs. Sides are also small. With bounce you can connect well," he added. MORE PTI Cor ATK

Telangana Congmen threaten to quit party

Telangana Congmen threaten to quit party

NEW DELHI: The Andhra Pradesh government appears to be heading for a fresh crisis, with Congress MPs, ministers and legislators from Telangana threatening to resign en masse if the Srikrishna Committee does not recommend a separate state for the region. 

The threat of mass resignation comes a day after the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) offered to merge with the Congress if a separate state is formed.
Reports from Hyderabad said Congress leaders from Telangana met in the Hyderabad to chalk out their strategy on the separate statehood demand. They asked the UPA government at the Centre to table a bill in parliament during the budget session for the formation of a separate state. 

The leaders, including nine MPs, seven ministers, 15 members of assembly and four members of council said they were ready for any sacrifice to achieve a Telangana state.
“We are hoping that the Srikrishna Committee report will be in favour of the formation of Telangana state. If it does not, we will submit our resignations,” senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Keshava Rao told reporters. He said all MPs, ministers and legislators would send their resignations to Congress president Sonia Gandhi. 

The meeting also decided that Congress MPs from the region would launch a hunger strike from Monday if the government failed to withdraw all cases against students and others who participated in the Telangana agitation late last year and early this year. 

Sarve Satyanarayana said it would be fast unto death. The deadline set by the MPs for the government to withdraw all the cases is ending on Sunday evening. The meeting took note of TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao’s latest offer. The leaders felt that they should go all out to achieve the separate state instead of allowing TRS and other groups to claim credit.

They noted that since KCR floated the TRS in 2000 only to revive the Telangana movement, the formation of separate state would make the party irrelevant.

They also decided to present their views before the central leadership while underlining the need to immediately carve out a separate state.

KCR made the offer at a meeting of government employees from Telangana. The meeting also asked the state government to send back all Central paramilitary forces called and deployed by it in Telangana ahead of the Srikrishna Committee report.

Minister Shankar Rao said he was ready for any sacrifice for the sake of Telangana.

Ivory Coast violence has killed nearly 200 - U.S

Nearly 200 people have been killed in violence that has followed last month's disputed presidential election in Ivory Coast, the United States told the U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday.

"We have credible reports that almost 200 people may have already been killed, with dozens more tortured or mistreated, and others have been snatched from their homes in the middle of the night," U.S. ambassador Betty E. King said.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said on Sunday that more than 50 people had died in the post-election violence.

2G scam: BJP rejects UPA’s special Parliament session offer

BJP rejects UPA’s special Parliament session

Rejecting UPA’s offer of a special Parliament session to debate the 2G scam, BJP on Thursday stuck to its demand of a Joint Parliament Committee probe into the issue, saying if the Congress has nothing to hide why is it shying away from JPC.

“If Congress has nothing to hide why it is shying away from a JPC inquiry. They should form a JPC and probe would bring out everything,” BJP spokesperson Ravi Shanker Prasad told reporters ahead of the commencement of the party’s National Office Bearers meet here.

Echoing his sentiments, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said, “We do not want any debate. We want an inquiry. The government should form a JPC to probe it (2G scam).”

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had on Thursday proposed to convene a special session of the Parliament to discuss whether to set up a JPC to probe the 2G scam.

“Why PM is not ready to face a JPC, even as he offered to appear before the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee on the 2G spectrum allocation?” Mr. Prasad asked.

BJP have had enough of debates and discussions with the government, and now we expect some action and will not settle for anything less than a JPC probe, he said.

Worries for Congress as birthday boy Jagan Reddy fasts for farmers

Worries for Congress as birthday boy Jagan Reddy fasts for farmers

Hyderabad:  In the season of merry-making and feasting, Andhra Pradesh politics is all about fasting instead.

First it was Chandrababu Naidu's fast and now, Jaganmohan Reddy, who recently announced his divorce from the Congress party, is set to begin a 48-hour hunger strike in Vijayawada today.

Jagan too is espousing the cause of farmers as his opening gambit in preparation for launching his political party in mid-February. It is also his birthday - he turns 38 - and his supporters are hoping for a turnout of about four lakh people ove the two days as a birthday gift.

Jagan's first political campaign after he quit the Congress is called the Lakshya Deeksha. Lakshya also means lakh, for the lakhs expected to attend. Arrangements ar being made for about one lakh people at the venue.

Jagan will sit on hunger strike on a huge stage on the banks of the Krishna river, with big tents pitched and scores of people already gathered. A massive Jagan hoarding dominates the scene.

The birthday campaign shall begin with a visit to the famous Kanaka Durga temple of Vijayawada.

There are Jagan's posters all over Vijayawada and there is cause to worry for the Congress with the likelihood of about five party MPs and 20 MLAs being present. Jagan's campaign has the tacit support of quite a few Congressman. NT Rama Rao's widow Lakshmi Parwati may be present too.

In attendance also shall be farmers whose cause Jagan has decided to champion. There are reports of farmers being brought in from all districts of Andhra Pradesh, especially the coastal areas.

Jagan is tapping into huge political potential. Farmers in the coastal belt lost much of their Kharif crop in the rains. They are so desperate that they will take any help that comes their way and many say they also want to see YSR Reddy's son in flesh and blood. 

South African fast bowlers feast at Centurion

South African fast bowlers feast at Centurion

India was reduced to 136-9 in 38.1 overs Thursday under a barrage of fast bowling by South Africa on the rain-shortened first day of the opening test at Centurion, South Africa.
Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn shared seven wickets as the Proteas' quick men sent India's top-ranked test team reeling on a lively SuperSport Park pitch juiced up further by earlier rain.
Sachin Tendulkar led the Indians with 36, Harbhajan Singh made 27 and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was 33 not out at stumps. But Steyn and Morkel were dominant on the bowler-friendly surface as South Africa took the early advantage in the three-match series between test cricket's top teams.
Rain had delayed play by four-and-a-half hours before South Africa won a crucial toss and put India in to bat on a green-top pitch that offered pace, bounce and swing — and was perfectly suited to South Africa's attack.
Morkel took 4-20 in 12.1 hostile overs and Steyn had 3-34 from 10 overs as the home team made good its pre-series promise to test India's batsmen — and its No. 1 ranking — with aggressive fast bowling in helpful home conditions.
"It's a huge statement," the 1.96-metre (6-foot-5) Morkel said. "We wanted to lay the first blow, the first punch. It sends the message that we're here and we're not going to step back.
"We enjoyed that for the first day, and I think the wicket is going to get even quicker with some more sun tomorrow."
India, which is unbeaten in a test series since 2008 and has seven victories and two draws out of its last nine, struggled to 55-3 in 20 overs by tea. It then lost six wickets for 81 runs in 18.1 overs in the second session as the No. 2 ranked Proteas turned the screw.
Only Tendulkar, who is one short of becoming the first man to 50 test centuries, looked anywhere near comfortable.
Dhoni and 19-year-old debutant Jaidev Unadkat (1 not out) were hanging on at the crease at stumps.
"It was a damp wicket, very difficult to bat on and they bowled in good areas," Harbhajan said. "It was a tricky thing to lose the toss on this type of wicket.
"We can come back … We have also got the bowlers to do damage. It's going to be important for us not to let them get too far ahead."
India's hopes had already been hampered before play when it was forced to leave out fast bowling spearhead Zaheer Khan, who failed to recover from a hamstring injury.
Earlier, overnight rain had continued into the morning at SuperSport Park leaving the pitch under heavy covering and a protective tent.
But the weather cleared at lunchtime, and South Africa's plan worked perfectly when skipper Graeme Smith called the coin toss correctly and backed his pace attack.
"I was lying in bed at 12 (o'clock) and all of a sudden we're at the ground … A great day," Steyn said. "It's nice to see the ball swing and bounce.
"It wasn't like that in Dubai and Abu Dhabi [in the recent series vs. Pakistan]. It's nice to be back in South Africa."
Steyn struck an early psychological blow when the top-ranked test bowler removed dangerous opener Virender Sehwag for a duck in the third over — caught by Hashim Amla at third man in an apparent planned tactic by Smith.
Fellow opener Gautam Gambhir appeared to glove a delivery from Morkel through to wicketkeeper Mark Boucher soon after while trying to evade a mean bouncer, but umpire Steve Davis turned down a strong appeal.
It was a decision likely to have been challenged, but there is no Umpire Decision Referral System despite South Africa being in favour of its adoption for the series. India has opted against using it in South Africa and both teams have to agree to its use.
However, a fired-up Morkel hit back with two wickets in two overs after swapping ends, and India wilted to 27-3 as the sun shone through in the afternoon at Centurion.
The left-handed Gambhir edged a full-pitched ball for a low two-handed catch by Paul Harris at first slip. Gambhir faced 43 balls and batted for over an hour for just 5 runs.
Morkel trapped Rahul Dravid lbw 10 balls later for 14 with a surprise low delivery that caught the experienced batsman on the back foot.
Tendulkar looked to play India out of trouble with two fours in three balls off Lonwabo Tsotsobe just before tea, the leading test run-scorer pulling a short one through mid-wicket and then cover-driving sublimely.
But the bowlers' dominance had ensured 101 run-less balls in a total of 123 deliveries in the delayed first session.
And a three-over burst shortly after tea put India in serious trouble as VVS Laxman, Tendulkar and Suresh Raina were blasted out by South Africa's quicks to leave India on 71-6 in 24.4 overs.
Steyn, who had softened up Laxman with short-pitched bowling before and after tea — sent a full, swinging delivery crashing into the right-hander's middle stump.
Steyn then beat Tendulkar with another pitched-up ball to have the Indian maestro clearly out lbw to claim his third wicket.
In between, Raina edged an away-swinger from allrounder Jacques Kallis to Ashwell Prince in the slips.
Boucher cleverly ran out Harbhajan, the only wicket not to come from quick bowling, after the Indian offspinner had begun a fightback with the bat with five boundaries in his 25-ball 27.
With his back to the stumps, the wicketkeeper flicked the ball through his legs and into the stumps with Harbhajan just short of the crease.
Ishant Sharma and Shanthakumaran Sreesanth both fell to Morkel for ducks.
Dhoni hit two fours and two sixes, and manipulated the strike cleverly in a stubborn 16-run, last-wicket partnership with Unadkat. But they soon gratefully accepted the offer from the umpires to go off for failing light.

Twitter valued at US$3.7bn post latest fund raising

Popular micro-blogging web site Twitter has been valued at US$3.7bn after it raised US$200mn in new financing, which was led by one of the highest-profile Internet investors in Silicon Valley. 

According to one estimate, Twitter's annual revenue was currently under US$100mn.

The company was last valued at US$1bn in a funding round last year. 

Facebook, the world's No. 1 Internet social networking company, is valued at more than US$45bn in recent stock purchase transactions on the secondary market.

The San Francisco-based Twitter had raised US$160mn in four earlier funding rounds, from investors that included Spark Capital, Institutional Venture Partners and T. Rowe Price.

Twitter’s newest round was led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and early investor in Internet giants such as Google, Amazon.com and others.

As part of the new funding round, Twitter has added two new board members - Flipboard CEO Mike McCue, and former Google executive David Rosenblatt.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said on Wednesday that the company has added over 100 million new registered accounts in the past year, and now employs over 350 people. 

The money will help Twitter expand the company, Costolo said in the company's corporate blog. 

Costolo replaced Twitter co-founder Evan Williams as CEO in October. 

Twitter had 175 million users as of September.

Twitter has been developing revenue models designed to cash in on its growing popularity among the marketers, advertisers, media professionals apart from celebrities, politicians and businesses.

The company recently unveiled “Promoted Accounts,” a service aimed at drawing users to Twitter accounts operated by advertisers.

Twitter also has sealed deals with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to have its short messages, or tweets, appear in these companies’ search results.

Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Diplomat, Dead at 69

Richard Holbrooke

Richard Holbrooke, a forceful presence in American diplomacy for more than 45 years, died tonight in Washington, D.C. He was 69. 

His death, after emergency surgery Friday for a torn aorta, was confirmed by sources to ABC News White House Correspondent Jake Tapper.

Holbrooke, who served in the Obama administration as the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was putting the finishing touches on a major report on American military and diplomatic efforts in Afghanistan, due to be released on Thursday.

President Obama was at a dinner in the East Room of the White House when the news came, said a senior administration official. He called Holbrooke's widow, the best-selling author and journalist Kati Marton, to express his condolences. At the dinner, he toasted him as "a public servant in the truest sense."

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton called Holbrooke one of America's "fiercest champions" in a statement. "He was one of a kind -- a true statesman -- and that makes his passing all the more painful," she said.

Holbrooke had been in Clinton's office on Friday when he collapsed. He was rushed to George Washington University Hospital, where he went through 20 hours of surgery. His wife, along with their children and other family, were in the hospital room when he died. Just an hour before, they had had a private meeting with Obama at the State Department. The president praised him as "a tough son of a gun."

Holbrooke joined the Foreign Service in 1962. Vietnam loomed large in his early career. He served a tour there in the mid-1960s, including time in the Mekong Delta for USAID. In 1966, he began working on Vietnam issues in the White House under President Lyndon B. Johnson. He later wrote a portion of the Pentagon Papers -- the secret internal history of the Vietnam War that was leaked to and published by the New York Times. Holbrooke saw the Vietnam War come full circle: he was part of the U.S. delegation to the Paris peace talks with the North Vietnamese that ended the war.

Holbrooke's career took him to all corners of a changing world. He served as director of the Peace Corps in Morocco in the early 1970s and later, under President Jimmy Carter, tackled issues in Asia as the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He served as chairman of the Asia Society from 2002 to 2009.  

During President Clinton's second term in office, Holbrooke was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Beyond his roles in the State Department, Holbrooke also served as managing editor of Foreign Policy, in leadership roles at two Wall Street banks and, prior to joining the Obama administration, as vice chairman of Perseus LLC, a private equity firm. He also served in leadership roles at a number of non-profits and authored a memoir, "To End a War," about his time in the former Yugoslavia.

It was there that Holbrooke had some of his most dramatic moments of diplomacy and statecraft. In the mid-1990s, he served as assistant secretary of state for Europe, where he brokered peace in the Balkans, crafting the Dayton Peace Accords that ended years of brutal fighting in Bosnia.

The Latest Health Care Decision

The Latest Health Care Decision

It was no great surprise that a federal district judge in Virginia, nominated by President George W. Bush, declared a provision of the health care reform law unconstitutional. Yet his decision offers at least some hope for health care reform because it bends over backward to limit the scope of his ruling in two important respects.

The core of his ruling is that a requirement in the law that people buy health insurance in 2014 or pay a penalty is unconstitutional because it exceeds Congressional powers to regulate interstate commerce or to impose taxes for the general welfare. Two other district court judges nominated by President Bill Clinton — in Michigan and in another part of Virginia — have ruled the mandate constitutional.

Judge Henry Hudson concluded that Congress can’t regulate “economic inactivity,” the failure to buy health insurance, as if it were “economic activity” that affected interstate commerce. Yet it seems clear that decisions not to buy insurance will, in the aggregate, affect costs in the broader health care markets. We hope higher courts will find that a decision to forgo insurance simply shifts much of the cost for subsequent illness to hospitals, doctors and insured individuals. Taxpayers’ costs would rise to pay for billions of dollars in uncompensated care given to individuals who can’t pay for it.

Judge Hudson also ruled that the penalties for failing to buy insurance, though administered through the Internal Revenue Service, were really a penalty not a tax and thus can’t be justified by Congress’s authority to raise taxes for the general welfare. Yet there are precedents that seem to suggest that penalties can be considered taxes if they raise some revenue.

Virginia’s attorney general had asked the judge to invalidate the entire law if he found the mandate to buy insurance unconstitutional, but Judge Hudson invalidated only the mandate. He said he was following a time-honored rule to “sever with circumspection” by removing only problematic parts of a law.

The attorney general had also asked the judge to stop implementation of the law until a higher court rules on its constitutionality. Judge Hudson sensibly denied that request in part because the crucial provisions of the mandate, the only issue he was addressing, don’t take effect until 2013. Preparatory steps are not irreversible and states should not hang back while this case is being appealed and likely decided by the Supreme Court.

Cricket South Africa Terminates Herschelle Gibbs

Cricket South Africa Terminates Herschelle Gibbs

The former South African right-handed opener Herschelle Gibbs has been in the news for all the bad reasons recently. The latest blow to the batsman came when the South African cricket board terminated his national contract, ending his prospects of playing for the national side in future.

According to Cricket South Africa, the contract was terminated by mutual agreement. A source within the association said, “He violated his contract on various grounds, most employment contracts have a clause that the employee may not criticise the employer and there are many occasions where he did that."

On the other hand, Gibbs Lawyer claimed that the termination was not a mutual event and he was still waiting to have a meeting with Cricket South Africa on the matter.

In November, Gibbs irked the CSA by releasing an autobiography "To the Point", in which he made some startling revelations about the team’s sexual escapades and has accused fellow players Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher and AB de Villiers of dictating the team. Gibbs has also criticised the former national coach Mickey Arthur of being controlled by this inner circle.

The claims in the autobiography unnerved the CSA and they started looking into the legal actions, which could be taken against the player for his disclosures. The book has received immense popularity in South Africa where it sold 15,000 copies in just five days.

Initially, Cricket South Africa refused to clarify whether Gibbs had violated his contract by criticising the team players and the management.

The Current South African captain Graeme Smith has shown his disappointment over the claims made by the opening batsman in his autobiography. However, the players have refrained from giving any statement against their former comrade.

The CSA has also refused to give statements supporting the claim that Gibbs’ contract was terminated because of the autobiography. “Because of the sensitivity of the matter as well as the confidentiality agreements signed between the parties, the matter is now closed and there will be no further comments from the parties concerned," said Gerald Majola, the CSA Chief Executive.

Gibbs expressed his desire to play the 2011 Cricket World Cup, but did not believe that he had a realistic chance of making the squad. Now, with the termination of his contract that seems impossible.

The 36-year-old made his Test debut on 27^th November 1996 against India. The prolific opener has scored 6,167 runs in the five-day format of the game. He made his ODI debut in the same year on October 3^rd against Kenya. He has scored 8,060 in 245 ODI outings. Gibbs has had an illustrious career playing for South Africa, both as a batsman and as a fielder.

Gibbs has been an integral part of the South African team since he made his international debut. He is one of the only three players in the history of ODI cricket to have scored centuries in three back-to-back innings.

Gibbs had an early dark period in his career when he was accused of being involved in match fixing along with fellow South African captain Hansie Cronje. This was perhaps the only difficult time that he had to suffer in his cricketing career.

Sensex continues to languish in dull trade

Sensex continues to languish in dull trade

Mumbai: A benchmark index of Indian equities on Tuesday continued to trade weak even as selling pressure increased in broader markets.

The 30-share sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 19,982.9 points, was ruling at 19,885.59 points - down 95.72 points or 0.47 percent from its previous close at 19,981.31 points.

At the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the 50-share S&P CNX Nifty was trading at 5,960.45 points, down 0.53 percent.

Broader markets were also in the red, with the BSE midcap index ruling 1.08 percent down and the BSE smallcap index trading 1.46 percent lower.

Energy stocks rallied strongly while banking and scrips came under selling pressure.

The market breadth was negative, with 750 stocks advancing, compared to 1,981 scrips on the decline, while 81 stocks were unchanged.

Among major gainers of the Sensex were Hindalco Industries, Maruti Suzuki, Bharti Airtel and RIL, while prominent losers included DLF, ICICI Bank, and Tata Motors.

Other Asian markets were mixed as uncertainty grew after an overnight fall in US markets and reports of a rate hike by the Chinese cenral bank.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng was trading 0.86 percent higher at 23,438.69 points, while the Shanghai Composite index ruling 0.92 percent up at 2,883.51 points.

The Japanese Nikkei closed on a dull note, down 0.26 percent at 10,141.13 points.

Honda unveils city slicker

Designers managed to give it a sporty attitude despite having very compact dimensions to work with This.

In recent years, Honda has been missing out on the compact hatchback market that caters for young and cash-strapped buyers. Its smallest car at the moment, the Jazz, is quite frankly more in tune with family buyers in their 30s and 40s.

That's all set to change next year, with the release of Honda's long-awaited entry-level hatchback and the Brio Prototype, just unveiled at the Thailand Motor Expo, is likely the spitting image of this car. 

The Brio was developed for Asian markets and will go on sale in Thailand and India during the course of next year. Unfortunately there are currently no plans to introduce it to South Africa. 

Despite its minute dimensions (it measures just 3610mm in length), Honda has managed to inject some sporty flair into the design and that's especially evident in that back window which resembles the Civic hatch. Efficient packaging is said to result in decent interior space. 

Honda CEO Takanobu Ito said, "Honda would like to expand the joy of mobility to more customers in Thailand, India and other Asian countries through the introduction of a new small vehicle with compact and highly efficient packaging by utilizing our own experiences cultivated by motorcycle business here in Asia." 

The Brio will be altered slightly to meet the differing needs of the countries in which it's sold and although not much detail has been divulged at present, the Thai model is expected to sell for around R94 000 and achieve fuel consumption of five litres per 100km.