HAMBURG: Marlon Brando started it, Diana Ross and Nicolas Cage picked up the trend and Johnny Depp perfected it. The ueber-rich and famous often dream of owning their own private island and a German-born Canadian entrepreneur has made a fortune making it happen for them.As founder of one

WASHINGTON: US officials said Wednesday they were highly confident no more oil would leak into the Gulf of Mexico after BP successfully plugged the well, but said there was still a lot more work to do.We "have reached a static condition in the well that allows us to have high confidence

NEW YORK: Bill Gates and Warren Buffett think fellow US billionaires should donate most of their vast fortunes to charity -- and they revealed Wednesday that 40 are set to do just that."Forty of the wealthiest families and individuals in the United States have committed to returning the

NEW DELHI: Violent protests in Indian Kashmir have forced the suspension of train services and fuel supplies to the Muslim-majority region, officials said Wednesday.Anand Sharma, president of the Jammu and Kashmir Tankers` Association, which supplies 2.4 million litres (634,000 gallons)

RAIPUR: Indian police and Maoist fighters were locked in a fierce gun battle on Wednesday in the central state of Chhattisgarh, one of the rebels` key strongholds, officials said.The clash took place in deep jungle about 500 kilometres (300 miles) south of the state capital Raipur, and no

HONG KONG: Hong Kong`s Cathay Pacific on Wednesday announced plans to buy 30 new planes for almost eight billion US dollars, underlining the carrier`s expansion as it reported strong first-half profits.In a statement to Hong Kong`s stock exchange, Cathay said the total catalogue price for

CHARSADDA: Desperate survivors crushed into relief centres Wednesday after Pakistan`s worst floods in living memory as officials feared a food crisis could compound the humanitarian disaster.With over three million people affected by the flooding, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told

MARBELLA:  US First Lady Michelle Obama and her nine-year-old daughter Sasha arrived Wednesday on Spain`s Mediterranean coast for a vacation with friends at a luxury hotel where they have booked 60 rooms.The pair and their entourage arrived at the Hotel Villa Padierna in the hills above

TEHRAN - A grenade exploded on Wednesday near the motorcade of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the western city of Hamedan, but the Iranian president was unhurt, a conservative website reported."This morning a hand grenade exploded next to a vehicle carrying reporters accompanying the president in

ADAYSSEH: Israeli troops on Wednesday uprooted trees along the border with Lebanon, completing an operation interrupted by a deadly gunbattle with Lebanese soldiers, an AFP correspondent witnessed. The troops were seen using a crane that reached over a fence in a disputed border area

LONDON: British food safety officials said Tuesday that meat from the offspring of a cloned cow had entered the country`s food chain last year.The Food Standards Agency (FSA) made the discovery as it probed a report that milk from the offspring of a cloned cow had been put on sale for

LONDON: The diplomatic row over Britain`s accusation that Pakistan supports terrorism intensified Wednesday as President Asif Ali Zardari arrived in London with a vow to tackle the charges head-on. Zardari -- also under fire for continuing a European trip despite deadly floods at home --

  NEW YORK: A plan to build a mosque and Islamic center next to Ground Zero, sparking a national debate on religious tolerance, won a crucial battle Tuesday in New York. The city`s Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously not to declare the building now occupying the site

WASHINGTON: The Obama administration on Tuesday rebuffed a call for a US-Iranian summit, but saw signs that growing international sanctions may force Iran into holding big-power talks about its nuclear aims. The US Treasury Department at the same time imposed sanctions on 21 firms it

ADAYSSEH: Lebanese and Israeli troops traded deadly fire on their tense border Tuesday in the worst clash since the 2006 war between the Jewish state and Hezbollah, with the Shiite movement`s leader warning against future Israeli "aggression."Two Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist

SEOUL: North Korea moved long-range anti-aircraft missiles close to the border with South Korea as tensions rose over the sinking of one of Seoul`s warships, a newspaper reported Wednesday. Chosun Ilbo quoted a military source as saying the North moved some SA-5 missiles from the

  WASHINGTON: Militant jihadists claimed Tuesday that a suicide bomber blew himself up on a Japanese oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz last week, the US monitoring group SITE said. Mitsui OSK Lines had previously reported that one of its tankers, the M Star, appeared to have been hit

UNITED NATIONS: UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged "maximum restraint" Tuesday after Israeli and Lebanese troops traded deadly fire on their tense border in the worst clash since the 2006 war in southern Lebanon. Ban, who is on a visit to Japan, said through his spokesman Martin Nesirky that he

SEOUL: South Korea warned North Korea Wednesday it would not tolerate provocations during an upcoming naval exercise in the Yellow Sea, after Pyongyang threatened "strong physical retaliation" for the drill. "Our military will keep a close eye on our enemy, be ready under any

  PESHAWAR: Pakistan issued new flood warnings and the country on Wednesday faced a "serious humanitarian disaster" after downpours which have affected 3.2 million people and killed up to 1,500. A week into the crisis and as more monsoon rains lashed the country, anger was reaching