Selena Gomez’s Role in New Movie!

It appears as though Selena Gomez is finally over her good girl image at least when it comes to the television screen. The 19 year old is going to have a part in an upcoming movie that will have all of her fans surprised. It will be nothing like her role played in Wizards of Waverly Place.

Selena Gomez is expected to complete her world tour in South America in about three more weeks. Once she has returned to the States she will be in Florida with the indie filmmaker Harmony Korine. They will be working on the movie Spring Breakers which will also feature, James Franco, Vanessa Hudgens, and Emma Roberts.

The three actresses will play the role of friends who decide to rob the bank in order to pay for their spring-break vacation. Selena Gomez will be playing the role of a character by the name of Faith.

Selena Gomez has indicated that the character she plays is more tamed out of the three. However, she also admits that she does get a little crazy every once in a while. When they are on spring-break the friends get into just about everything. They party, drink, and even go to jail.

Be sure to visit trendpk.com where this article was originally published for more celebrity gossip and celebrity news.

Gwyneth Paltrow headed back to ‘Glee’

TrendPK.com: For those who loved Gwyneth Paltrow on ‘Glee,’ prepare for some more as the actress is reportedly heading back for two upcoming episodes.

Paltrow has reportedly been confirmed to be coming back in order for her character to date Matthew Morrison’s character, states Entertainment Weekly. “Those two have become really good friends in real life and had really good chemistry. She’s coming back as a sex education teacher,” co-creator Ryan Murphy said about what fans can expect.

Paltrow will reportedly be filming this month for episodes that will air in the spring. As of now, it is unknown what songs she will be a part of for both episodes.

US to Send 1,400 Extra Troops to Afghanistan

WASHINGTON: The United States has ordered an additional 1,400 Marines to southern Afghanistan to preempt a Taliban spring offensive, despite a planned troop drawdown starting in July, the Pentagon said Thursday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday “approved additional Marine forces to southern Afghanistan to exploit and consolidate gains already achieved and apply pressure on the enemy during the winter campaign,” spokesman Colonel David Lapan told media.

The Marine contingent could start arriving within weeks and would only be on the ground for a short mission of less than 90 days, defense officials said.

The move was designed to cement tentative gains against the mostly Pashtun insurgency, with the hope of bolstering recently cleared areas between Kandahar city and Helmand province, officials said.

The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, currently based on a ship in the Indian Ocean, would be heading to Afghanistan for the “winter campaign,” the head of US Central Command, General James Mattis, said later in a statement.

There are currently about 97,000 American troops in Afghanistan, along with 45,000 forces from other countries, and officials said the new Marines would not put the total number of US forces above the limit of 100,000 authorized by President Barack Obama.

“These forces are within the current authority,” Lapan said.

Obama last month said the US war strategy in Afghanistan was “on track,” but warned that gains won by his surge strategy at a heavy cost in casualties remained fragile and reversible.

That assessment came one year after Obama announced both a surge of 30,000 reinforcements to Afghanistan and gradual troop drawdown beginning in July 2011.

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the Marine reinforcements, said that commanders were considering an even larger boost of up to additional 3,000 troops. Pentagon officials could not confirm that detail.

The new Marine deployment comes as a surprise given the preparations for withdrawals by the United States and its allies in Afghanistan, where a war against Taliban insurgents has dragged on for more than nine years, with nearly 2,300 coalition deaths, about two-thirds of them Americans.

US commanders are under pressure to show clear progress in Afghanistan in 2011 and successfully counter any upswing in Taliban attacks in the spring, or else face fresh public doubts about the course of the war.

Defense officials insisted the Marine deployment did not reflect difficulties in the war but was aimed at hammering home progress at a time when the insurgents usually pull back to prepare for fighting after the winter.

US officials see the American-led campaign in the south as make-or-break for the war effort, pinning their hopes on undermining the Taliban in its heartland.

The White House strategy review issued last month said progress in Afghanistan was evident in gains by Afghan and coalition forces against Taliban bastions around Kandahar city and in the Helmand province.

But the study was short on details, and did not include pointed criticisms of the Pakistani and Afghan governments that have featured in US government documents leaked in recent months.

Though pledging to work with Afghanistan to improve governance and reduce corruption, the review said little about countrywide graft, including in President Hamid Karzai’s government, which many analysts see as endemic to Afghanistan and a serious threat to the US-led war effort.

Miley Cyrus”s image hits a new low. Or, is it high?

LOS ANGELES: Home video of singer Miley Cyrus using a bong apparently to smoke the hallucinogenic herb salvia hit the Internet on Friday, capping a year which has seen the teen star throw aside her squeaky clean Disney image.

The video obtained by celebrity website TMZ was said to have been shot days after Cyrus”s 18th birthday in November.

It shows the star of Disney Channel’s “Hannah Montana” giggling and laughing after smoking from a glass pipe, commonly called a bong. TMZ said sources close to Cyrus told the website that the video was shot by one of Cyrus”s friends, but the substance was not marijuana.

“Is that me tripping!?”, Cyrus exclaims in the video, after using the bong and mistaking another person at the party for her ex-boyfriend, actor Liam Hemsworth

The herb salvia divinorum has hallucinogenic properties but is not illegal in California. According to a 2007 U.S. survey on drug use and health, about one million people had used it that year.

The singer’s father, Billy Ray Cyrus, said on Friday he was saddened at the video, which quickly made headlines around the world.

“Sorry guys. I had no idea. Just saw this stuff for the first time myself. I”m so sad. There is much beyond my control right now,” Cyrus said in a Twitter posting. Cyrus and his wife Tish announced in October that they were divorcing.

Representatives for Cyrus did not return requests for comment on Friday.

Miley Cyrus has sought this year to distance herself from the “Hannah Montana” character she began portraying in 2006, winning millions of young fans.

She played a rebellious teen in romantic movie “The Last Song”, stepped out publicly with Hemsworth, and made two raunchy pop music videos.

The new image has dismayed parents of some of the younger fans of “Hannah Montana”, whose final episode does not air until the spring of 2011.

The video even caused one betting site, bookmaker, to place odds on what might next be revealed about Cyrus. Examples included whether she might attend rehab, or be dropped by her record label.

Tokyo Sky Tree: An enriching experience

It’s difficult not to be wowed when you are in Japan, especially if you get an opportunity to witness the Tokyo’s biggest work in progress – the Tokyo Sky

Tree. A marvel of Japanese technology and engineering, the Tokyo Sky Tree was envisaged by a consortium of six of Japan’s biggest broadcasting stations. They

wanted a new terrestrial broadcasting tower, but since construction began in 2008, the Sky Tree has come to mean a lot more to the citizens of Tokyo. It is,

when fully constructed, going to be the highest radio tower in the world. You stand in front of the iron and steel structure and you feel humbled. It stands

in front of you, a 350 meter tall behemoth, with hundreds of men and machines working on it night and day. My guide tells me that when it is completed in

December 2011, the Tokyo Sky Tree will be the tallest structure of its kind in the world – scaling an incredible 634 meters!

The building has a triangular shape at the base and as you go higher, it becomes round. An engineer working on the project tells me that this was necessary

to avoid the fierce gale that blows in Tokyo. Even as we, an excited group of foreigners from DigiCon 2010, were being escorted to the tower, it started

raining heavily.

At the apex of the structure will sit the antenna, which will be used for digital, terrestrial broadcasting throughout Tokyo. Believe it or not, the whole

idea of reaching this height with the structure was necessitated because the Tokyo Tower, the existing terrestrial tower, at 332.5 metres, proved too short

to broadcast signals throughout the city! After Sky Tree was commissioned, in a plot of land between the Sumida River and Imperial Palace, the common

Japanese were called upon to suggest a name for the proposed mega-structure. My guide tells me that a final list of six names was put to vote from almost

eleven thousand entries. The moniker, Tokyo Sky Tree, was polled the favourite.

If you stand atop the already constructed first observatory, at 350 metres, you can look down at the fireworks in the night sky. When completed, in spring

2012, a shopping area and office building will be added at the base of the tower, making it the nerve centre of business and cultural interaction in this

part of Tokyo. One can get to the first observatory using an elevator, but beyond that one will have only one way up – through the glass-walled walkway. No

doubt, you will have a great view of Tokyo from there.

My guide insists that I visit Tokyo again in the spring of 2012, when the Tokyo Sky Tree will be thrown open to the public, along with a brand new café at

the first observatory at 350 metre. “Come back…” he says. Now every time I think of Japanese Manga; in the backdrop will be the Tokyo Sky Tree.

Kandahar offensive against Taliban ‘to end soon’

KABUL: The Afghan defence ministry said Wednesday that a major military operation against the Taliban in their southern stronghold was coming to an end, claiming that victory was in sight.

The insurgency in Afghanistan is fiercest in the southern province of Kandahar, where thousands of US-led troops and Afghan forces have stepped up operations since the spring in a bid to reclaim the Taliban stronghold.

General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, the Afghan defence ministry spokesman, said Wednesday that the assault was set to be wrapped up “in weeks.”

“The Kandahar operation is in its last stages,” Azimi told a news conference in Kabul, saying that rebels had left most areas without fighting.

“The enemy preferred not to fight. Mostly we were cleaning the area of mines,” he added.

Asked whether the Taliban were defeated in the area, he said: “Well, when

Randy Moss to Vikings

Randy Moss to Vikings, The request caught coach Bill Belichick off-guard, but the Patriots have been discussing the possibility with several teams, sources say.

In the final year of a three-year, $27 million deal, Moss does not believe the Patriots will reach an agreement with him on an extension. The 33-year-old said this spring, “I don’t think I’m realistically in the future plans of the Patriots. But I’m not mad.”

A Fox Sports report indicated the Patriots and Vikings are “very close” on a trade for undisclosed compensation that would bring Moss back to where he first starred in the NFL and hook him up with old friend, quarterback Brett Favre. A source with knowledge of the discussions between the teams believes it is likely a deal is struck today.

The hold-up is that the Vikings and Moss would have to renegotiate his contract, though the discussions have not yet happened. The NFL trade deadline is Oct. 19.

Moss is happy in New England, close friends say, but he understands he may have to move on if the Patriots don’t want him in their future. He’d like a fat new contract before the possible 2011 lockout because he doesn’t want to be a free agent with no football.

Friends of Moss also maintain they’ve kept his purple No. 84 jerseys in their closets just in case.

Meanwhile, the Patriots are hoping second-year receiver Brandon Tate is the future Moss. A trade of Moss also increases the likelihood of a new contract for Wes Welker.

Patriots spokesman Stacey James said last night there is “no trade,” while a source with intimate knowledge of the situation said there was “no trade done.”

Either way, it seems there is a serious possibility the Patriots could be moving on without their future Hall of Famer and perhaps the NFL’s best-ever deep threat.

Moss had zero catches in the win over the Dolphins on Monday night, though he shrugged it off and appeared happy with the win. “It’s called a game plan,” he said.

Yet part of the reason Moss may want out is that with a balanced offense featuring two tight ends and plenty of rushing, his stats may not help him in free agency. The receiver, who recently eclipsed 150 career touchdown catches, has just nine catches for 139 yards and three scores in 2010.

US report questions Pakistani efforts against Qaeda

WASHINGTON: A White House assessment of the war in Afghanistan concludes that Pakistan’s military avoided direct conflict this spring with the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda militants, in part for political reasons.

The biannual evaluation of progress in the war also said devastating monsoon flooding in August has prompted Pakistan to scale back its military effort against the insurgents, a move that could ultimately result in gains for the militants.

“The Pakistan military (between April 1 and June 30) continued to avoid military engagements that would put it in direct conflict with Afghan Taliban or al-Qaeda forces in North Waziristan,” the report said.

“This is as much a political choice as it is a reflection of an under-resourced military prioritizing its targets,” said the report, which was compiled by the White House National Security Council and sent to

Head of UK armed forces to retire early over Afghan war

LONDON: The professional head of Britain”s three armed services will retire early, a leading figure in the new coalition government confirmed on Sunday, in a move which heralds significant long-term changes in military policy.

The new defense secretary, Dr Liam Fox, said that the services” professional head, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, had not been sacked, but he would be replaced early, leaving his post in the autumn some months earlier than his retirement in the spring of next year.

Stirrup, who began his military career as a jet fighter pilot, has been criticized for his handling of the war in Afghanistan, which has seen an expensive and bloody escalation over the past few years.

A lack of troops on the ground and helicopters to move them around dogged the early years of a major additional deployment of the British army in Helmand Province in Afghanistan from 2006 onwards.

Sir Bill Jeffrey, the top civil servant at the Ministry of Defence (MoD), will also leave his job in the autumn.

The British government is committed to a far-reaching Strategic Defense Review (SDR), which began at the beginning of this year.

Fox said in an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper, “We have to be able to maintain full stability and the full confidence of the people who work for us, not least because we”re in a very dangerous armed conflict.”

Fox added that Stirrup and Jeffrey would stay in post until the SDR was completed. “I”ve been discussing with them and other senior staff how we transition to the new structures,” he said.

“We”ve talked about the best time to be replacing our senior staff, probably the end of the SDR in the autumn.”

Stirrup had been the chief of the defense staff, professional head of the three armed services, since 2006. His term in office was extended by former prime minister Gordon Brown, in a move seen by many to stop the then head of the army, who had been critical of government policy and spending on the war in Afghanistan, from moving into the job.

The SDR will be a fundamental review of Britain”s military forces, and will look closely at how military policy can reflect foreign policy. It will set the priorities of military spending for the next 10 to 15 years.

In the wake of the global financial crisis and with the new government committed to cutting the record public sector deficit of 156 billion pounds (about 250 billion U.S. dollars), military spending is an area where cuts are certain to be made.

Military spending for the current year is protected from any government cuts, but after April 2011 savage cuts are expected and the capabilities of the three military services are likely to change radically.

A public debate between the three service chiefs — from the navy, the army and the air force — has seen all of them attempting to present their service as essential to future defense and foreign policy.

But several expensive and prestigious programs are likely to be ended or radically changed.

China targets Tibet artists, intellectuals: report

BEIJING: China is cracking down on Tibetan intellectuals and artists who have sought to open up discussion of the future of their region after unrest that spread across the area in Spring 2008, an overseas activist group said on Tuesday.

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China targets Tibet artists, intellectuals: report

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