Rahul Mahajan , the son of late Pramod Mahajan who had married Dimpy Ganguly in March on national television through the show ‘Rahul ka Swayamvar’ , beat his wife for a SMS message in the early hours of Thursday and a furious Dimpy left the house at 3.30 am with a vow never to return. Dimpy left Rahul’s residence in Worli after she was beaten up by him. Mumbai Mirror published Dimpy’s pictures where she was seen with injuries in her left thigh and swollen face.
Can you imagine watching the World Cup in the winter? Sounds silly, right? Well, for the Southern Hemisphere, that’s the cool reality. While we are hot, hot, hot here up North in this unbearable, humid heat, our other half is enjoying some crispier days. So pack your bags and escape down to the Southern Hemisphere. Before you know it, it will feel like you left this wet, hot summer half a world away.
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NEW YORK — BP holds enough oil in its reserves to single-handedly supply the United States for two years. It has little debt for a company of its size and makes more money than Apple and Google combined.
So when the White House arm-twisted its executives into setting aside $20 billion for the Gulf oil spill, investors weren’t worried it would bankrupt BP. They barely batted an eye.
“The U.S. government will become insolvent before BP does,” said Bruce Lanni, a stock analyst with Nollenberg Capital Partners.
Sure, BP stock has crumpled in half in a matter of weeks. Creditors are demanding ever higher interest. But this time it’s not some inscrutable, high-flying Wall Street bank in trouble.
BP posted $17 billion in profit from its vast operations around the globe last year, compared with $5.7 billion for Apple and $6.5 billion for Google. More important, in the past three years the company generated $91 billion in cash flow from operations.
It’s not highly leveraged with debt, as banks were during the financial crisis. And it has 18 billion barrels of oil in proven reserves, twice what the U.S. consumes every year.
BP has spent about $1.8 billion on the spill so far, but that’s the first drop in a very large bucket. If BP faces criminal charges, for instance, it could end up having to pay tens of billions in legal costs alone.
Analyst estimates of BP’s total cost range from $17 billion to $60 billion. If the worst predictions about the leak come true, that figure could surpass $100 billion, based on a Goldman Sachs estimate that each barrel of oil spilled could wind up costing as much as $40,000 in cleanup and compensation.
Such a big bill, even at the lower end of the estimates, would drive many companies under. But analysts said BP probably won’t have to go to that extreme unless it wants to wall off liabilities from the rest of its operations to attract potential suitors.
Under Wednesday’s deal with the Obama administration, BP will suspend its dividend for the rest of 2010, freeing up $8 billion. The company also plans to raise $10 billion from selling some assets. Add cash lying around in bank accounts and in short-term investments and BP could raise $25 billion without breaking much of a sweat.
What’s more, BP is expected to generate $30 billion this year in operating cash flow, assuming oil prices don’t fall. Investors like to focus on this figure because, unlike profits, it ignores costs for which money never changes hands, like wear and tear on rigs.
Much of this operating cash has to be plowed back into the company, but some of that spending – $21 billion last year – is discretionary and could be cut. On Wednesday BP said it will trim planned outlays this year by $2 billion.
BP also has relatively little debt for a company of its size. That means it has plenty of wiggle room to borrow. In fact, it already has lined up $10 billion with banks if it needs it.
The caveat: If BP did need to issue bonds or take out a loan, it would have to pay above-market interest rates because the risks posed by the oil spill have tainted its credit rating.
Fear of the unknown has taken a toll on BP’s stock.
With BP’s deepwater well in the Gulf of Mexico still spewing oil two months after it exploded, trying to guess how much the company will have to cough up for cleanup and damages seems a fool’s game.
And after watching other seemingly impregnable companies collapse over the past two years, investors are not in the mood for much uncertainty.
“We are living in an era where there is no such thing as too big to fail,” said Stephen Leeb, president of the money manager Leeb Group. That specter, he said, makes BP “very scary” to investors.
BP’s agreement to the $20 billion fund – and President Barack Obama’s pledge that the company is strong and should remain so – seemed to calm investors a bit. But they still fret about BP’s total tab.
Fresh estimates warn that as much as 2.5 million gallons of oil a day have been leaking into the Gulf – triple what scientists thought just a week ago. Worried that BP is more likely now to stiff its lenders, Fitch Ratings recently knocked BP’s credit score down six notches to triple B.
BP’s stock price has plunged 46 percent since the April 20 explosion, wiping out $87 billion in shareholder wealth. It’s more than most pessimistic stock analysts expect the company will have to pay.
And that’s got some of them quite animated.
“It’s overdone,” said Philip Adams of Gimme Credit. Fadel Gheit of Oppenheimer & Co. captures BP’s stock performance in one word: “Ridiculous.”
Gheit predicts BP shares will hit $55 by the end of the next year, up nearly 75 percent from where it was trading Wednesday. Before the explosion, BP’s stock was at about $60, valuing the company at $187 billion.
But despite BP’s enormous wealth, even bulls worry its stock might fall further.
Among their concerns:
_ A sharp drop in oil prices.
Oil falling from $75 per barrel to $60 or $55 “would be far more destabilizing to the company than any potential claim it might face in the Gulf,” Oppenheimer’s Gheit said. BP’s annual cash flow fluctuates by $450 million for every $1 change in oil, he estimated.
If oil prices fell, BP would be more likely to explore selling itself to Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell or Chevron or at least divest its U.S. operations, analysts said.
_ Washington could restrict BP in the U.S.
BP’s willingness to set up a compensation fund seems to have converted Obama into more of an ally than an antagonist. On Wednesday, the president called the company “strong and viable,” adding that it was “in all our interests that it remain so.”
But there’s still a risk that political backlash could restrict BP’s operations in the U.S. and reduce its government contracts.
Though it operates in more than 80 countries, BP is heavily dependent on the U.S. Forty percent of its assets are in the country, and the company is the biggest energy provider to the U.S. military.
“If the government has a single-minded focus to be punitive, it could take this company down,” said Lawrence Goldstein, a director of the Energy Policy Research Foundation.
Alex Morris of Raymond James said he expected politicians to be careful meting out punishment because the dependency is mutual, given the country’s oil addiction.
“We’re not going to ban them from the Gulf,” he said, noting that BP is the biggest producer there. “It’s hard to imagine our politicians telling them to pack their bags.”
_ Hurricane trouble.
If BP doesn’t plug the leak soon, it runs the risk that a big storm during hurricane season will wash more oil ashore and add to damages, said Argus Research analyst Phil Weiss.
For bulls on BP stock, the company’s greatest asset may be time.
Cases involving major companies tend to drag on for years in the labyrinth of the U.S. legal system, and the complexity and stakes involved in the Gulf spill probably will lengthen the process even more. With more time to pay, BP can stagger its costs instead of absorbing them all in a single financial blow.
“I would be stunned if all the criminal and civil cases against BP are wrapped up before the end of this decade,” said David Logan, dean of Roger Williams University’s School of Law in Rhode Island.
BP may be able to stretch out payments even longer, if the Exxon Valdez spill is any measure. The tanker spilled 11 million gallons in Alaska in 1989, but it took nearly two decades for the courts to determine what the company had to pay.
Said Raymond James analyst Morris, “Anytime you have lawyers billable by the hour, you know it’s going to drag out.”
___
Associated Press writers Harry Weber in Houston and Mark Williams in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report. Liedtke reported from San Francisco.
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BP Oil Spill: A $20 Billion Drop In A Very Large Bucket
LIMA, Peru — Peruvian police plan to take Joran van der Sloot, who they say has confessed to last week’s killing of a 21-year-old business student in his Lima hotel room, to visit the crime scene, officials said Tuesday.
They also said police have until the weekend to file criminal charges against the Dutchman in the May 30 killing of Stephany Flores.
The beating death occurred exactly five years after U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba – an assumed death in which Van der Sloot has long been considered the prime suspect by authorities on the Dutch Caribbean island.
It wasn’t clear if Van der Sloot has obtained private counsel, and there was no immediate word from either him or his family about the reported confession.
Peru’s chief police spokesman, Col. Abel Gamarra, told The Associated Press late Monday that Van der Sloot confessed earlier in the day.
Several Peruvian media outlets reported, without identifying their sources, that he admitted to killing Flores in a rage after learning she looked up information about his past on his laptop without permission.
The newspaper La Republica said Van der Sloot tearfully confessed, in the presence of a prosecutor and a state-appointed attorney, to grabbing Flores by the neck and hitting her because she had viewed images about the Aruba case on his computer while he was out buying coffee.
Neither Gamarra, senior police officials nor prosecutors would provide details of the alleged confession, which came on Van der Sloot’s third full day in Peruvian custody at criminal police headquarters.
Meanwhile, the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant quoted the suspect’s lawyer in the Netherlands as suggesting the confession may have been coerced.
“Joran told his mother crying Monday that he was being interrogated under reasonably barbaric conditions,” the paper quoted Bert De Rooij saying. “He said the police were trying to force him to confess.”
Under such conditions, he said, the “confession was possibly false.”
The state-appointed lawyer who represented Van der Sloot in initial interrogations, Carla Odria, told the AP that a different lawyer, who she said was hired by the suspect, was with Van der Sloot on Monday. She said she did not know the lawyer’s name. Authorities would not release the name of the lawyer.
Officials at the Dutch Embassy, who said the suspect’s family was attempting to obtain private counsel for Van der Sloot, could not be reached for comment Tuesday on whether a private lawyer had in fact been retained.
Van der Sloot’s mother, who apparently lives in Aruba, also could not be located for comment. The suspect’s father, a former judge and attorney on Aruba, died in February.
Flores, the daughter of a Peruvian circus empresario and former race car driver, was found beaten to death, her neck broken, in the 22-year-old Dutchman’s hotel room. Police said the two met playing poker at a casino.
The chief of Peru’s criminal police, Gen. Cesar Guardia, said the crime scene visit at the TAC hotel would most likely occur Wednesday. A psychological exam of the suspect is also required before a judge can decide whether he should stand trial.
Asked about the alleged confession, a brother of the victim, Enrique Flores, had no comment. “What we as a family want to do now is rest a bit and let this follow the judicial path,” he said.
Video from hotel security cameras shows the two entering Van der Sloot’s room together at 5 a.m. Sunday and Van der Sloot leaving alone four hours later with his bags. Police say Van der Sloot also left the hotel briefly at 8:10 a.m. and returned with two cups of coffee and bread purchased across the street at a supermarket.
Murder convictions carry a maximum of 35 years in prison in Peru, and it was not immediately clear if a confession could lead to a reduced sentence.
Van der Sloot remains the key suspect in Aruba for the 2005 disappearance of Holloway, an 18-year-old from Alabama who was on the resort island celebrating her high school graduation. He was arrested twice in the case – and gave a number of conflicting confessions, some in TV interviews – but was freed for lack of evidence.
Holloway’s father, Dave, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday that Van der Sloot should tell all he knows about the disappearance of his daughter. “Hopefully this is his last victim.”
The girl’s mother, Beth Holloway, said her heart and prayers were with the Flores family.
A fixture on true crime shows and in tabloids after Holloway’s disappearance, Van der Sloot gained a reputation for lying – even admitting a penchant for it – and also exhibited a volatile temper. In one Dutch television interview he threw a glass of wine in a reporter’s eyes. In another, he smashed a glass of water against a wall in a fury.
The 6-foot-3 (191-centimeter) Van der Sloot has been held at Peru’s criminal police headquarters since arriving Saturday in a police convoy from Chile, where he was captured Thursday.
He had crossed into Chile on Monday – roughly a day after leaving the Lima hotel.
Lima’s deputy medical investigator, Victor Tejada, told the AP that Flores was killed by blows with a blunt object, probably a tennis racket found in the hotel room. Guardia said her body was found face down and clothed with no indication of sexual assault.
Chilean police who questioned Van der Sloot the day of his arrest said he declared himself innocent of the Lima slaying but acknowledged knowing Flores.
There were indications Van der Sloot may have been traveling on money gained through extortion. The day of his arrest in Chile, Van der Sloot was charged in the United States with trying to extort $250,000 from Holloway’s family in exchange for disclosing the location of her body and describing how she died.
U.S. prosecutors say $15,000 was transferred to a Dutch bank account in his name May 10. He arrived in Peru four days later, coinciding with the runup to a June 2-5 Latin America Poker Tour tournament with a $930,000 prize pool.
Tournament organizers said Van der Sloot did not sign up for the event, which required a $2,700 entrance fee.
Van der Sloot is an avid gambler and was known to frequent Aruba’s casino hotels, one of which was where Holloway stayed.
In a lengthy 2006 interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News, Van der Sloot described drinking shots of rum with Holloway, whom he said he met while playing poker at a casino, then taking her to a beach and leaving her there around 3:30 a.m.
Two years later, a Dutch television crime reporter captured hidden-camera footage of Van der Sloot saying that after Holloway, drunk, collapsed on the beach while the two were kissing, he asked a friend to dump her body in the sea.
“I would never murder a girl,” he said.
That interview prompted authorities in Aruba to reopen the case, but Van der Sloot later said he made up the whole story and he was not charged.
The crime reporter, Peter de Vries – the victim of the wine-throwing incident – reported later in 2008 that Van der Sloot was recruiting Thai women in Bangkok for sex work in the Netherlands.
Aruba’s prime minister, Mike Eman, said he assured Holloway’s mother Tuesday that his government is committed to pursuing any new leads in the case. He said Van der Sloot’s arrest in Peru raised hope of determining what happened to the teenager.
Holloway’s family has faulted Aruban investigators, saying they botched the case. Eman said he told the mother that he hopes his government can “repair some broken relationships.”
___
Associated Press writers Carla Salazar in Lima, Frank Bajak in Bogota, Colombia, and Arthur Max in Amsterdam contributed to this report.
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Joran Van Der Sloot To Be Taken To Crime Scene, Peru Officials Say
The luxury goods brand Louis Vuitton misled the public by suggesting its expensive leather bags were hand-made, according to the advertising watchdog.

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The hand-crafted Louis Vuitton bags made on sewing machines
Little Orphan Annie has been living the hard-knock life for 86 years. On June 13, one of America’s favorite redheads pack her bags for good. In honor of the strip’s cancellation, TIME takes a look at some of the best long-running newspaper comics around.

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Top 10 Long-Running Comic Strips
“Which way to the crucifixions?” Our driver leaned out the car and directed the question at some auto rickshaw drivers, lolling around in the mid morning sun. To get to the site where three crosses awaited three sinners, we had to proceed slowly – making way for trails of black hooded men, slapping their naked backs with leather whips, blood spattering over their bodies.
Three hours out of Manila, San Fernando has now become internationally known for its Good Friday blood spilling and nailing. The city takes on a festive air as masses arrive for the spectacle. In typical Filipino style, it’s a mixture of pure devotion and Mardi Gras.
This annual ritual started as pure penitence about 40 years ago, but now, with ice cream sellers, souvenir hawkers and kids offering to carry your bags for a few pesos, it’s more of a festival – an enjoyable day out – a curious Biblical side show.
A neighbourhood basketball court is the home of one part of the festival; exhausted flagellators rest under the hoops and free throw line, and have a quick soothing cigarette – after handing their whips to local school boys only too happy to continue the rhythmic flogging of raw weeping flesh. Media are hustled onto a rickety creaking platform to the right of the crosses for optimum viewing pleasure. Medics tense for the inevitable wound dressing.
The tannoy loud speaker rumbles into life with atmospheric music and the crowd falls silent. Jesus arrives through the crowd, dressed in a simple kaftan, cross on his back. Centurions are with him, roughing him up and pushing him further onto the ground. The press surge forward and break the rope barriers, and are waved back by guards with t-shirts that read “Annual Lenten Rites – Good Friday – Security”.
There are already two sinners are already roped onto two crosses. The historial and biblical effect is somewhat diminished – they are both wearing jeans and have watches strapped to their wrists. (After some very unholy hank- panky with an Australian comedian being filmed on a cross, this year the Department of Tourism has a strict evaluation procedure for anyone wanting to be crucified. And yes, I am well aware how odd that sentence reads).
Jesus was then really nailed to the cross. Everyone rubbernecked, but we couldn’t see or hear – the cross was lowered for him to be hammered onto it and then lifted upwards. The cross was up for only a few scant minutes before a Keystone Cops formation of volunteers jogged up on a rescue mission. As a Jesus-laden stretcher was trotted at a fast clip to the medical tent, an announcer told us the show was over and he hoped “to see you all next year!” Jesus had his bloody hands seen to (iodine and gauze) then he grabbed his rack sack and disappeared into the amenities block.
I walked into find Jesus transformed in Bonjing, struggling with hammered and bandaged hands to put on his cargo pants. For the rest of the year, Jesus is Bonjing, a 55 year old welder and native of Pampanga. For the past 13 years, he had had himself hammered to a cross on Good Friday. “The nails don’t go in very far, only a little,” he told me through a translator, who was trying to find him a cigarette.
In truth Bonjing didn’t seem to be transported onto a spiritual plain by what he had just been through. The rock star reception when he emerged from the loos must have been fun though. Puffing on a Marlboro Menthol, he was the guy who everyone wanted to be photographed with, even if he was now dressed in a t-shirt and pants.
Over my shoulder on the Golgotha re-creation site, families were posing for photos by the crosses and drinking Coca Cola. The Calderon family from Pulilan stood smiling with their arms round each other and made sure the crucifix was in shot. “Yes it was good,” said the eldest son. “We might come again next year.”
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Virginia M. Moncrieff: What a Way to Spend Easter: Which Way to the Crucifixion?
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Virginia M. Moncrieff: What a Way to Spend Easter: Which Way to the Crucifixion?
Ford India : As we see in movies, the hero and say, “It’s show time” now on automotive manufacturers and say, “she reminds the time.” I remember started since the beginning of this year, many manufacturers including Toyota, Hyundai, Maruti, BMW, and now it’s Ford.
Ford India has not released any official statement about the recall, but silently referred to by traders who have a model of Eid.
Ford India currently replace the thermostat on the Eid Milan did not seem to stop production of fissile material to develop a high or low, and keeps running constantly.
Recalling the Ford Fiesta is the one who belongs to a group of cars that were produced in the last three and six months. Even for the people who have had this car during the period specified switch your phone number to get a phone call from the agent to replace.
Vigo the latest car to hit the road soon from Ford in India. This is the latest from Ford hatchback to compete with other auto companies in this category are Maruti, Hyundai, Chevrolet, Tata. It will be priced between 3.5 liters to 5 liters in the ceiling in various citiesin India. Ford Vigo will be launched in both the diesel and alternative fuels in the India. It will come with all the features of a sedan that comes along with the model. Is also termed as the Ford small cars, especially for India.
Color:
Ford Figo will come with seven colors of the Squeeze (green), Colorado Red, Chill (lighter gray), Black Panther, Diamond White, Moondust Silver, and the gray. Interiors will be identical with that of the color space.
Technical Specifications:
Throughout the year for the Ford Motor Company Vigo is 3795 mm, which is being presented by 1680 mm and height 1427 mm. Fuel tank capacity 45 liters. The wheelbase is 2489 mm with the removal of landmines, which are 168 mm. Boot space for 284.
Gasoline engine is being Duratec 1.2-liter and 1.4 liter diesel Duratorq. Alternative fuel system for petrol, while he would meet the diesel engines and common rail. And valves is 16V DOHC petrol and diesel for the 8V SOHC. The transfer of both petrol and diesel Figo being 5-speed manual transmission.
Area:
It comes with the largest boot space in the same category of 284 liters, and thus be able to maintain the bags and luggage and large even when the car is full. It also comes with flexible storage with the rear seats folded when needed, thus adding more baggage.
Interior:
Ford Vigo comes with controls can be accessed, thus giving complete rest for the driver window with the power button, the center stack, electric boot opening and adjust the mirrors. And comes with easy transition from gear with the gearbox which is actually a carefully engineered cable transfer speeds.
Music system:
And comes with a music system that can be played by both the Conference on Disarmament, music, MP3, and AM / FM radio. Also with the components and play iPod plugged in. It also comes with Radio Data System (shots) where you can find information about the song that played, and be alert to news, weather depending on the radio station.
Additional features:
Ford and come Vigo driveaway locks that automatically lock when the car up to no less than 7 kilometers per hour speed. The advantage of the empty space that will tell you the total distance you can travel with the fuel available in the fuel tank. Wipers come with the option of 6 speed depending on whether the rain or heavy mist. Figo has been built under very strict conditions and strong to ensure the safety, which is expected in any Ford. It is also designed in mind that all the fuel efficiency will be looking for Indian in a private car to driving conditions which prevailsin of India. Vigo Ford 1.2-liter gasoline is expected to give a mileage of about 13 kmpl in standard conditions, while the Indian leadership 17kmpl the road conditions. Whilethe diesel variant comes with a 1.4-liter engine is expected to give around 15 kmpl and 20 kmpl on the level of the road and driving conditions.
Overall, this Vigo Ford with all these features combined with the Ford brand, and certainly it will give value for money to car owners in India, and in fact is going to give tough competition to other similar cars from other car brands such as Maruti, Hyundai, Tata, Chevrolet.
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Ford India
AFP reports that a NATO airstrike from a helicopter gunship killed three civilian men and wounded a woman in Kandahar province, Afghanistan.
NATO’s International Security Assistance Force’s (ISAF) press release claims the helicopter crew fired at men placing IEDs next to the road and afterwards “discovered civilians in a car adjacent to the IED site.”
On Thursday, a “roadside mine” killed another seven civilians in Kandahar province.
Expect more civilian casualties as President Obama’s latest escalation sends more troops into Kandahar. Most civilians killed by insurgents die from IEDs and suicide attacks, while airstrikes in support of troops in combat account for most civilians killed by NATO and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. When this summer’s Operation Khanjar pushed into Helmand province, anti-Kabul-government forces responded by laying more IEDs, which led to a severe spike in civilian deaths.
Based on the Helmand experience, we know sending more troops into insurgent-controlled areas will mean IED attacks. We know new IED attacks will mean many more civilian deaths, not to mention the number of civilians that will be directly killed by U.S. forces. We’re doing it anyway. The people who will be killed have a right to life that exists independently of our goals in the region. We’re essentially making a decision for them that it’s better for them to be dead than under the thumb of the Taliban. If they want to make that decision, fine, let them. But that’s not our decision.
End the war in Afghanistan. Bring the troops home.
Derrick Crowe is the Afghanistan blog fellow for Brave New Foundation / The Seminal. The views expressed are his own. Sign our CREDO petition to reject escalation in Afghanistan & join Brave New Foundation’s #NoWar candlelight vigil on Facebook and Twitter. But make these your first steps as an activist to end this war, not your last.
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Derrick Crowe: NATO Airstrike Kills Another Three Civilians in Afghanistan



