Natalie Portman Engagement Ring Revealed!

Natalie Portman has (at long last!) debuted the engagement ring she received from fiancé Benjamin Millepied. The pregnant Black Swan star has been noticeably demure, keeping the ring under wraps since her engagement, which was announced at the end of December.
The most recent evidence of Portman's purposefully hidden ring was at the People’s Choice Awards on Wednesday night, where she kept her hands strategically clasped in front of her electric blue Jason Wu dress and her growing baby bump.
But, directly after the People's Choice Awards, Natalie Portman, 29, showed off the round sparkler with a seeming reckless abandon, revealing the elegant engagement ring in the Los Angeles Beachwood Canyon neighborhood.
The ring photos show a glowing Natalie Portman still in her blue PCA frock and holding her adorable dog, Whiz. But, despite Portman’s beauty and the cute Whiz, it’s the massive piece of bling that shines most brightly in these pics!
Read More: Natalie Portman Engagement Ring Revealed!

Natalie Portman Engagement Ring Revealed!

Sydney's skyline explodes for New Year

Sydney promised a New Year's Eve party better than any since the 2000 Olympics.
Judging by the crowd's reaction, the city delivered in dazzling fashion.
"Stunning, beautiful," said Cinthya Romo, 32, a Sydney-based interpreter from Chile, as she looked skyward from the Opera House forecourt.
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"Sydney's best show yet," remarked taxi driver George Stamp, who sacrificed a bumper payday to enjoy the show with his children and 1.5 million others.
As the clock ticked midnight the familiar rumble-and-bang of fireworks sounded and streams of incandescent colour shot into the heavens, illuminating the city.
A pulsing X on the Sydney Harbour Bridge reflected the Make Your Mark theme, replaced by a gold hand - the feature of the extravaganza.
Read More: Sydney's skyline explodes for New Year

Sydney's skyline explodes for New Year

Jamie Foxx Debuts On Album Chart At Number Six

Taylor Swift ruled the Christmas week album chart with “Speak Now” as her album sold more than 276,000 copies. Coming in second was Susan Boyle’s “The Gift” which according to Nielsen SoundScan data sold more than 240,000 copies.

For the highest debut on the chart, the honor went to Jamie Foxx, whose “Best Night Of My Life” album entered the chart at number six with an estimated 144,000 copies sold. This is the third Album from Foxx, and all three have debute in the top 10 of the US album chart. His “Intuition” debuted at number three in 2008, and his “Unpredictable,” from 2005 debuted at number two.
Read More: Jamie Foxx Debuts On Album Chart At Number Six

Jamie Foxx Debuts On Album Chart At Number Six

Somewhere’ Star Stephen Dorff on the Chateau Marmont

Stephen Dorff doesn’t mind New York in the winter. It wakes him up, he says, he can handle it. Dorff was in Manhattan last week to promote his newest film, “Somewhere” which was written and directed by Sofia Coppola and shot in only eight weeks. The film, which won the Golden Lion at the 2010 Venice Film Festival, features Dorff as Johnny Marco, a movie star who’s listlessly living at the Chateau Marmont until his 11-year-old daughter Cleo, played by Elle Fanning, makes a surprise visit.

Speakeasy sat down with a casual yet intentionally overdressed Dorff over two glasses of water, one sparkling one flat, at Per Se. While brushing and fingering crumbs on the tablecloth, Dorff talked about the current state of Hollywood, his morning gossip chats with the director and his dislike of “cutty” films.00
view full post: Somewhere’ Star Stephen Dorff on the Chateau Marmont

Somewhere’ Star Stephen Dorff on the Chateau Marmont

India urges Pakistan to bring Mumbai plotters to justice

 NEW DELHI: India on Thursday accused Pakistan of not doing enough to punish the men who plotted the 2008 militant attacks on Mumbai, as the city prepared to mark the second anniversary of the bloodbath.A senior Pakistan diplomat confirmed to AFP that an official diplomatic message was delivered to the embassy in New Delhi urging Pakistan to “fulfil its obligation and commitment” to bring the plotters to justice.

Ten gunmen launched coordinated attacks on luxury hotels, a railway station, cafe and Jewish cultural centre on the evening of November 26, 2008, starting a 60-hour siege that left 166 people dead.

Nine of the gunmen were killed, and the sole survivor has been sentenced to death in an Indian court.

The letter accused Islamabad of stalling over the trial in Pakistan of seven suspects accused of plotting the attacks.

“New Delhi expresses regret for not receiving feedback on issues raised by it,” the letter said.

The suspects on trial include the alleged mastermind of the attacks, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, and Lashkar-i-Taiba (LT) operative Zarar Shah

Read More:India urges Pakistan to bring Mumbai plotters to justice

India urges Pakistan to bring Mumbai plotters to justice

US adds Pakistan’s banned charity to terror list

WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday added Pakistan’s Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, a charity associated with a banned militant group, to its official list of blacklisted terror organizations.

The US State Department said Falah-e-Insaniyat (FeF) had been dubbed an “alias” of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which is already on the State Department’s list of “designated foreign terrorist organizations”.

Daniel Benjamin, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, said the move “shows that the United States will not tolerate any support to this organization.

“LeT has attempted to use FeF as a way to evade scrutiny. This designation will help put to an end to that attempted evasion,” Benjamin said in a statement announcing the move.

The official order also named FeF leader Hafiz Abdur Rauf and two other men associated with LeT, Mian Abdullah and Mohammad Naushad Alam Khan, to its list of “specially designated global terrorists.”
Falah-e-Insaniyat is a name used in public by the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), initially set up as the humanitarian wing of the Pakistan-based LeT, which has been active in relief efforts for those hit by Pakistan’s floods.
JuD was blacklisted by the United Nations following the November 2008 attack on Mumbai, blamed on the LeT. The group, which is also banned in Pakistan, denies it still has links to LeT.
Falah-e-Insaniyat provides education, healthcare and disaster relief and first appeared last year to help people displaced by military operations in Swat, in the northwest.
It has support and funding in the Pakistani diaspora, often in the form of donations for its charitable work. Analysts say it could exploit this network for attacks on the West.
Lashkar-e-Taiba has been linked to numerous attacks in India, including the three-day assault on Mumbai in November 2008 which killed 166 people.
Read More: US adds Pakistan’s banned charity to terror list

US adds Pakistan’s banned charity to terror list

U.S. gonorrhea rate at record low, other STDs rise

ATLANTA — A new government report on sexually spread diseases shows gonorrhea in the United States has dipped to the lowest rate ever recorded.

But chlamydia and syphilis infections continued to increase last year. That's according to a report released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency says there are roughly 19 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases annually.

Gonorrhea dropped to 301,000 cases, the lowest rate since reporting began in 1941.

Chlamydia reached another record high with 1.2 million cases. It's an easily treatable infection, mostly in young women. Officials attribute the increase to more and better screening. Syphilis inched up again to 14,000 cases.
Read More:U.S. gonorrhea rate at record low, other STDs rise

U.S. gonorrhea rate at record low, other STDs rise

North Korean actions tied to domestic agenda

It is now clear, if it wasn’t before, that Kim Jong-un’s ascension to follow his father as North Korea’s supreme leader is going to be a turbulent time on the Korean Peninsula. How dangerous it gets in the region may depend on how much aggressive behaviour South Korea is willing to tolerate from its neighbour without pushing back hard.

After a brief period of calm following the 20-something’s introduction as the heir apparent to an ailing Kim Jong-il, the North Korean regime has shocked the outside world twice in a matter of days. First by unveiling a uranium-enrichment facility – described as “stunning” by a U.S. scientist who was invited to see it – that could be used to produce more nuclear weapons for a regime that has already defied the world by detonating two of them. Then, on Tuesday, it shelled an inhabited South Korean island, killing two soldiers and wounding dozens of others, prompting a heavy retort from South Korea’s own artillery.
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North Korean actions tied to domestic agenda

Oops: Air Force sends tanker bid details to rivals

WASHINGTON -- The Air Force mistakenly gave rival companies sensitive information that contained each other's confidential bids in a long-standing, multibillion dollar competition to build a new refueling tanker.

Chicago-based Boeing Co., and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), parent of Airbus, are in an intense competition for a $35 billion contract to build 179 new Air Force tankers based either on the Boeing 767 jetliner or the Airbus A330.

Boeing received detailed proprietary information about the EADS bid; corresponding information was given to EADS North America concerning the Boeing bid.

"It was a clerical error and involved a limited amount of source selection information," Air Force spokesman Col. Les Kodlick said late Friday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. Kodlick declined to be more specific about what data had been transmitted.

Source selection information is data critical to the Air Force's making a decision on which bid to select and could include technical data about the competing aircraft as well as financial information. Defense News and The Seattle Times initially reported Friday on the Air Force's mistake. The Times said the data included crucial pricing information on the competing bids.

Kodlick said the incident "will not delay" the awarding of the contract which had been expected before year's end, but recently had been postponed until early next year. Kodlick said the postponement was not related to the disclosure of proprietary data.
Read More:Oops: Air Force sends tanker bid details to rivals

Oops: Air Force sends tanker bid details to rivals