Tennis: Li shocks Sharapova to reach Australian Open final

MELBOURNE: China's Li Na stormed into the final of the Australian Open with a straight-sets win over Maria Sharapova, leaving her one victory away from her second major title.Li, 30, defeated the world number two 6-2, 6-2 in 1hr 33min and will now meet the winner of Thursday's second semi-final between world number one Victoria Azarenka and American teenager Sloane Stephens."Every time...

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Is Akbaruddin Owaisi in a bad way?

HYDERABAD: In a development which could give the government sleepless nights, doctors attending on Akbaruddin Owaisi, the jailed MIM legislator, said his health was failing and the 41-year-old leader should be moved, at least, to a prison facility which is close to a multi-speciality hospital.Owaisi junior is being treated at the Adilabad district hospital, which doctors said did not have modern...

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Women have caught up to men on lung cancer risk

Smoke like a man, die like a man.U.S. women who smoke today have a much greater risk of dying from lung cancer than they did decades ago, partly because they are starting younger and smoking more — that is, they are lighting up like men, new research shows.Women also have caught up with men in their risk of dying from smoking-related illnesses. Lung cancer risk leveled off in the 1980s for men but...

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Pentagon to Allow Women in Combat

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will lift a longstanding ban on women serving in combat, according to senior defense officials.The services have until this May to come up with a plan to implement the change, according to a Defense Department official.That means the changes could come into effect as early as May, though the services will have until January 2016 to complete the...

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Netanyahu turns to Iran after narrow election win

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed victory in Israel's parliamentary election, shrugging off surprise losses to centre-left challengers and vowing on Wednesday to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. However, Tuesday's vote, which also disappointed religiously inspired hardliners, may deflect the premier's focus on confronting Tehran and resisting...

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South Korea welcomes new UN sanctions on North

SEOUL: South Korea on Wednesday welcomed fresh UN Security Council sanctions on North Korea and warned Pyongyang against ignoring demands to scrap its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.The 15-nation council meeting in New York unanimously adopted Tuesday a resolution that "condemned" North Korea's rocket launch last month and threatened "significant action" if it stages...

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At least 15 killed in road accident in Gaya

GAYA, BIHAR: At least 15 people were killed and ten others injured on Wednesday when a speeding bus rammed into thick iron bars at a revenue checkpost amid heavy fog at Dobhi in Bihar's Gaya district. The accident happened at Dobhi integrated revenue checkpost under Barachatti Police Station early Wednesday morning. The bus was going from Kalipahari in Gurwa Police Station area to Rajrappa Temple...

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home...

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Al Qaeda Commander Killed for the 3rd Time

The second in command of al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Yemen in December, according to a news report by Arabic television network Al Arabiya, the third time the former Guantanamo detainee has been reported dead since 2010.According to the report, Said al-Shihri died last month after sustaining severe injuries from a joint U.S.-Yemeni airstrike...

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Algeria vows to fight Qaeda after 38 workers killed

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria's prime minister accused a Canadian of coordinating last week's raid on a desert gas plant and, praising the storming of the complex where 38 mostly foreign hostages were killed, he pledged to resist the rise of Islamists in the Sahara. Algeria will never succumb to terrorism or allow al Qaeda to establish "Sahelistan", an Afghan-style power base in arid northwest...

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