Fujifilm aims to be largest camera maker by March

Recently best known for inexpensive models, Fujifilm aims to become the world s fourth largest camera maker by next March. It aims tol become No. 3 manufacturer two years later, overtaking first rival Samsung and then Nikon.

Fujifilm is currently in fifth position behind Canon, Sony, Nikon and Samsung in digital still cameras unit sales. The company is confident that its plan to boost sales 25 percent to 14 million units this financial year and will gain the No. 4 spot.

Fujifilm is planning to spread risk by starting some production in Southeast Asia, with a decision to be made on the location by the end of the financial year.

Deepika to play Amitabh’s daughter

MUMBAI: Deepika Padukone has been selected by Prakash Jha to play Amitabh Bachchan’s daughter in upcoming film Aarakshan.

Two other leading actresses were being considered for the part. And initially, Jha even thought of casting a newcomer. What clinched the role for Padukone was her height and demeanour, reveals a source.

This will be Deepika’s first film with both Prakash Jha and Big B. Shooting begins in Bhopal soon. Interestingly, it is also the location where Jha based his last film Raajneeti featuring the actress” ex, Ranbir Kapoor.

How he zeroed in on Deepika is quite a story. “I began to flesh out the part, make it more dramatic.

That’s when I thought of Deepika in the role of Bachchan Saab’s daughter. They’re both tall and look quite like father and daughter.”

US: Wisconsin teen shoots himself after holding class hostage

The hostage drama at a Wisconson high school has ended without anyone being hurt. Earlier, a student armed with a handgun burst into a Wisconsin high school and held 23 students and a female teacher hostage for more than five hours.

According to media reports, a high school administrator called authorities around 3 pm notifying them of a student taking hostages in a classroom. Nearly 100 police officers surrounded the area. Authorities mediated with the gunman through the female teacher and finally won the release of the hostages. All the hostages were released not too long after five of the 23 hostages were released from a Marinette, Wisconsin high school classroom, but 18 students and a teacher remained for a period of time with the gunman. We know nothing about what the student wants, Marinette Police Chief Jeff Skorik said during a short press conference. Authorities are reluctant to release information about the student or those in the classroom, he said. The incident started during the school day, the chief said, but the exact time is unclear. Investigators have interviewed the parents of the hostage-taker, but they do not have answers on why he took hostages, he said.

The city of Marinette is located 50 miles north of Green Bay and has a population of about 11,700. Marinette County has a population of about 44,000 people and typically has low levels of violent crime, according to the state Office of Justice Assistance. Marinette County recorded 29 violent crimes in 2009, up from 21 the previous year, 32 in 2007 and 21 in 2006. While the number of incidents overall is low, Marinette County was the location of high-profile murder in 2007 of a Hmong man at the hands of a fellow hunter. Marinette County had 69 violent crimes per 100,000 people in2009, compared with Brown County’s 227 crimes per 100,000.

Sindh police to get GSM Technology

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has decided to equip the Sindh Government with the latest GSM Technology, Trend Pk reported Friday.

The technology will help the provincial government trace the exact location of mobile phone callers.

This decision was taken at the meeting of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Interior in Karachi.

Committee’s Chairman Abdul Qadir Patel, IG Police and senior officials of Home Department attended the meeting.

The meeting was told that Sindh Police would be provided GSM Technology so that it could trace the location of mobile phone callers involved in target killings and other crimes.

The committee was further told that 56 arrests had been made in connection with the latest wave of target killings. Trend Pk

NY’s Times Square street closed for suspicious vehicle

NEW YORK: A section of New York’s Times Square was closed off on Wednesday during lunchtime as police investigated a suspicious vehicle parked on 43rd Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues and cleared pedestrians from the location, police said.

An unattended Chevy minivan was parked with its lights on outside the Westin Hotel, a police spokesman said.

A suspect was seen running from the vehicle, according to Breaking News Network (BNN), a news service that monitors police scanners.

Investigations of suspicious packages are common in the Times Square area. Police typically close streets when unattended baggage is found at the busy section of Manhattan known as the Crossroads of the World.

Occasionally there is a real threat. On May 1, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen parked a truck full of fuel and fireworks in Times Square in an attempt to kill

Four NATO troops killed in western Afghanistan

KABUL: Four troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were killed in an insurgent attack in western Afghanistan on Saturday, ISAF said, the latest foreign casualties in a war now in its 10th year.

Violence is at its worst in Afghanistan since the Taliban were overthrown by U.S.-backed forces in late 2001. More than 2,000 foreign troops have died since the start of the war, more than half of those in the last two years.

The rising violence in Afghanistan will weigh heavily on President Barack Obama when his administration faces mid-term Congressional elections next month amid sagging public support for the war and ahead of a strategy review in December.

ISAF gave no further details regarding the nationality of the troops or the location of the attack. Troops from the United States, Spain and Italy are stationed in the west of the

Indian Muslim Group ‘Partly Disappointed’ by Ayodhya Verdict

LUCKNOW: The main Muslim group contesting a religious site in northern India said it was “partly disappointed” by a verdict Thursday to divide the location.

The case relates to the site of a 16th-century mosque in Ayodhya which is claimed by Muslims and Hindus.

Lawyers said the court had ordered the site to be divided into three parts, with two thirds for Hindus and a third for Muslims.

“The suit of Muslims were liable to be dismissed. But they are still entitled to one third of the site,” the lawyer for the Babri Masjid Action Committee, Zafaryab Jilani, told reporters.

“We can say we are partly disappointed not fully because some of the stand of the Muslims has been vindicated.”

In 1992 the demolition of the mosque by Hindu activists sparked riots that killed more than 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, and propelled India’s Hindu nationalists into the political mainstream.

NY voters support right to build Muslim center-poll

NEW YORK: A majority of New Yorkers say a Muslim group has a right to build an Islamic center and mosque near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks in Manhattan but think it should be built elsewhere, according to a poll released on Friday.

Most respondents think plans to build the center near the site known as Ground Zero are not appropriate, said the survey conducted among likely New York state voters by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Overall, the poll found 80 percent of respondents believe the Muslim group has the right to build the center near the site, while 15 percent do not think so. But 57 percent think the location is inappropriate, while 32 percent say it is appropriate.

Sixty-seven percent think the Muslim group should voluntarily build the center and mosque somewhere else, while 21 percent do not think so, it found.

The plans for

US charges Pakistani Taliban chief over CIA killings

WASHINGTON: The US slapped Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud with terrorism charges on Wednesday for his alleged role in the murder of seven USAians at a CIA base in Afghanistan.

The Justice Dept move came as the State Dept added the Tehreek-e-Taliban to a blacklist of foreign terrorist organizations, which means members face asset freezes and travel bans. The State Dept also offered rewards of up to $5m each for information leading to Mehsud’s location and the location of Wali ur-Rehman, who is reportedly Mehsud’s current second-in-command.

The Justice Dept said in a statement said: Hakimullah Mehsud, the self-proclaimed emir of the Pakistani Taliban, has been charged by criminal complaint for his alleged involvement in the murder of seven US citizens on Dec 30 2009 at a US military base in Afghanistan.

In a two-count complaint filed in US District Court in Washington, Mehsud was charged with conspiracy to murder US citizens abroad and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction against US citizens abroad. Justice Dept spokesman Benjamin said improvised explosive devices, often made up of fertilizer and diesel fuel, fall into the category of weapons of mass destruction.

Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin who is said to have been a triple agent, blew himself up at the base in Khost, near the Pakistani border in the deadliest attack against the CIA since 1983. In addition to the agents, Balawi also killed his Jordanian handler, a top intelligence officer and member of the royal family. In addition to the Khost bombing, the US has linked the Tehreek-e-Taliban to a botched car bomb plot in New York’s Times Square in May and a deadly attack at the US consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan in April.

US Sec State Clinton designated the TTP as a foreign terrorist organization on Aug 12, and it was formally added to the list when it was published Wednesday in the Federal Register. Formal designation as a foreign terrorist organization triggers sanctions including an asset freeze, a ban on members traveling to the US, and makes it a crime to provide material support to the group. Benjamin told reporters:

Today’s actions put the TTP and its sympathizers on notice that the US will not tolerate support to this organization, which has inflicted great harm to US and Pakistani interests. TTP’s destabilizing effect in Pakistan’s tribal areas has resulted in innumerable civilian deaths and considerable property losses. It has greatly, indeed unacceptably, complicated the efforts to counter the threat posed by al-Qaeda.

State Dept spokesman Crowley said in a statement: The TTP and Al-Qaeda have a symbiotic relationship. TTP draws ideological guidance from Al-Qaeda, while Al-Qaeda relies on TTP for safe haven in the Pashtun areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born US national, has pleaded guilty to the failed attack in New York and warned of more strikes on the US until it leaves Muslim lands. Shahzad told the judge he had undergone five days of bomb-making training during a 40-day stay with the Pakistani Taliban in Pakistan, between Dec 9-Jan 25. In Apr 2010, the State Dept said, Mehsud’s operatives used an explosives-laden truck, machine guns, and rocket launchers in an attack on the US consulate in Peshawar that killed six Pakistanis and wounded 20 others. Blacklisted along with the TTP are Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hamas, Hezbollah, the IRA and the Tamil Tigers.

US charges Mehsud over CIA killings

WASHINGTON : The United States slapped Taliban chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, with terrorism charges for his alleged role in the murder of seven Americans at a CIA base in Afghanistan.

The Justice Department move came as the State Department added the Tehreek-e-Taliban to a blacklist of foreign terrorist organizations, which means members face asset freezes and travel bans.

The State Department also offered rewards of up to five million dollars each for information leading to Mehsud’s location and the location of Wali ur-Rehman, who is reportedly Mehsud’s current second-in-command.

“Hakimullah Mehsud, the self-proclaimed emir of the Pakistani Taliban, has been charged by criminal complaint for his alleged involvement in the murder of seven American citizens on December 30, 2009 at a US military base in Afghanistan,” the Justice Department said in a

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