SHIN Dong-hyuk was 14 in 1996
when prison guards suspended
him from the ceiling of an
underground torture chamber
by his hands and legs, all
because his mother and brother had
tried to escape....
MAYBE we gave up on
John Edwards too soon.
His hair still looks great,
even though he now gets
cuts for $12.95, not
$400. And the man clearly has a gift
for multitasking under pressure....
TUNIS QATAR has offered Tunisia a $1 billion low interest loan to bolster the North African country’s battered economy, Tunisia’s presidential spokesman announced recently.
DOHA AS PART of the fourth edition of the 'Schools without Accidents' campaign, the media and traffic awareness section of the traffic department organised lectures and other activities in schools across the country...
MAJOR emerging powers stood ready on Friday to pledge money to bolster the International Monetary Fund's crisis-fighting war chest, though Brazil was holding out for promises that their voting power at the global lender would increase...
TALENTED Indian duo of Pankaj Advani and Aditya Mehta came through a little bit different routes to reach the semi-finals of the Asian Snooker Championship on Friday.
AT 6 pm on a Tuesday in mid-March the people streaming into the Living Room, a Lower East Side club geared to singer-songwriters, weren't there for happy hour. Word had quietly gone out to friends and...
DOHA ALTOGETHER 49 Qatar Academy students won prizes for excelling in the annual Quran competition organised by the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, recently. The awards ceremony opened with the recitation of the Holy Verses by the students. The students were then congratulated by Primary School Assistant Principal Hanan al Meer. "We are proud of you. You have brought credit not only to yourselves, but also to the school as a whole. You are our ambassadors and you have succeeded in representing the school in a positive way...
DOHA THE Permanent Committee for Drug and Alcohol Affairs (PCDAA) of the Ministry of Interior (MoI) has announced the winners of its annual Weqaya (prevention) research contest. According to a MoI press release issued recently, the contest was organised under the patronage of the Director General of Public Security and Head of PCDAA Major General Saad bin Jassim al Khulaifi as part of the national strategy for combating drugs and creating awareness about its risks and perils. The committee selected ten winners from the 74 research works it received.
DOHA QATAR Charity and Doha Bank have announced the launch of the 'Dirhams Program' for all customers of the bank. According to a Doha Bank press release issued recently, the programme will allow all Doha Bank customers to sign an arrangement to transfer automatically the excess dirhams in their account at the end of each day to Qatar Charity to carry out humanitarian projects inside and outside Qatar. This alliance is a result of Doha Bank's undivided faith in Qatar Charity's ability to bring welfare to people around the world and it is intended to give every Doha Bank customer the power to make a change, the release said. ...
ECONOMIC growth cooled in the first quarter as businesses cut back on investment and restocked shelves at a slower pace, but stronger demand for automobiles softened the blow. Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.2 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Friday in its advance estimate, moderating from the fourth quarter's 3 percent rate. While that was below economists' expectations for a 2.5 percent pace, a surge in consumer spending took some of the sting from the report and growth was still stronger than analysts' predictions early in the quarter for an expansion below 1.5 percent....
FRENCH oil company Total saw its revenues grow strongly in the first quarter of the year but said on Friday that a drop in European demand for petrochemicals hit profits. While energy prices have soared amid unrest in the Middle East and tension in Iran, the economic slowdown in Europe has weighed on demand. Those high prices have buoyed Total's production business, but other sectors are struggling amid the poor economic environment. France's largest company by market value reported on Friday that net profit fell 7 percent to $4.9 billion for January to March...
MADRID SPAIN'S jobless rate soared to a record 24.4 percent in a deepening recession in the first quarter, data showed Friday, piling on the misery hours after a sharp credit-rating downgrade. A total 5.64 million people searched in vain for work in the deficit-plagued Spanish economy, the fourth-biggest in the troubled eurozone, the National Statistic Institute said. Spain already had the highest level of unemployment in the industrialised world as the slumping economy failed to absorb the millions of workers who have lost their jobs since a massive property bubble imploded in 2008...
BAYTOWN (TEXAS) THE Qatar Al-Anabi Racing Top Fuel team, two-time reigning NHRA Top Fuel World Champions, owned by His Excellency Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad al Thani, has entered the O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals at the suburban Houston race track. This has sparked the team for a return to the NHRA winner's circle. This weekend's event began with qualifying sessions on Friday and Saturday followed by eliminations on Sunday. ...
CANADIAN Milos Raonic handed second seed Andy Murray a clay-court humiliation on Friday as the big-hitting youngster hammered the Scot 6-4, 7-6 (7/3) to reach the semi-finals of the Barcelona Open. Raonic, ranked 25th, will be playing in his second career clay semi on Saturday against one of two Spanish seeds in number three David Ferrer or number seven Feliciano Lopez. Murray was to have been Raonic's opponent in Miami last month, but the Canadian had to withdraw injured before that showdown on hardcourt...
SOMEof The European Tour's most famous names were poised to mount an assault on the Ballantine's Championship over the weekend after an intriguing second round Friday. Conditions at the Blackstone Golf Club layout could not have been more contrasting to the gales of Thursday as an almost flat calm and bright blue skies made conditions perfect for scoring at the picturesque hillside course. Austria's world number 170 Bernd Wiesberger took full advantage to shoot a bogey-free seven-under 65, the best round of the week, and take a one-shot lead into the weekend ahead of former winner Marcus Fraser of Australia...
WHEN Zoe Bissell was a nine-year-old living in New York's East Village, her newly divorced father, a sculptor, built a rough-cut lumber cabin with an outhouse and a woodburning stove. There was no running water and, at first, no electricity. "It was very eccentric," said Bissell, 41, a welding artist with a self-deprecating sense of humour. "It was borderline squalor." So when her father died in 1994 and Bissell and her brother inherited their father's six acres (with the cabin on the brother's side)
WILDLY implausible faux news stories appear each April Fool's Day, some of which are taken seriously. This year's clear winner was the National Public Radio feature about a preschool's new requirement that all applicants submit DNA profiles. As the segment begins, the host Guy Raz is greeted by Rebecca Unsinn, described as headmaster at a school called the Porsafillo Preschool Academy, located in Manhattan. Unsinn walks Raz through gleaming computer labs where toddlers master C++...
GRAMMY-AWARD winning singer and new mother Beyonce was named the world's most beautiful woman for 2012 on Wednesday by People magazine. The 30-year-old entertainer was awarded People's top spot after she and her rapper husband Jay-Z welcomed their first child, a daughter named Blue Ivy Carter, who was born in New York in January. "I feel more beautiful than I've ever felt because I've given birth. I have never felt so connected, never felt like I had such a purpose on this earth," the singer told the magazine.
BEIJING CHINA and Russia on Friday ended their first joint naval exercises, which included live fire drills, state media said, amid regional tension over Beijing’s territorial claims.
WASHINGTON FORMER US commanderin- chief Bill Clinton appeared in a campaign video on Friday in which he hailed President Barack Obama for ordering the risky military operation that killed Osama bin Laden one year ago.
