Samsung gets 9 million preorders for new Galaxy phone: report

A man uses Samsung Electronics' new Samsung Galaxy SIII smartphone during its launch at The Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London May 3, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Ki Price

SEOUL | Thu May 17, 2012 8:41pm EDT

(Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co has received some 9 million pre-orders for its third-generation Galaxy S smartphone from more than 100 global carriers, the Korea Economic Daily reported on Friday.

Samsung toppled Apple as the world's biggest smartphone maker in the first quarter, helped by its line-up of Galaxy named devices running on Google's free Android software.

The latest version of its flagship phone, unveiled this month, will first go on sale on May 29 in Germany before being rolled out to other countries.

The newspaper, which cited an unidentified Samsung official, also said the company's smartphone factory in South Korea was running at its full capacity of 5 million units per month.

Samsung declined to comment.

It said late last month that the new Galaxy S smartphone would "substantially contribute" to its second-quarter earnings.

(Reporting by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)

Earthquake strikes northern Italy killing six

A powerful earthquake struck northern Italy on Sunday, killing at least six people and reducing medieval castles, churches and clock towers to rubble

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The quake, which struck at 4am local time, led to the partial collapse of several historic stone towers and church steeples. 

By Nick Squires, Rome

7:03PM BST 20 May 2012

The 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit at around 4am local time in the Emilia Romagna region between the historic cities of Bologna, Modena and Ferrara — the latter a Unesco World Heritage site.

The quake was almost as powerful as one which devastated the central region of Abruzzo in 2009, killing more than 300 people and leaving tens of thousands homeless.

Although there were far fewer casualties from Sunday’s earthquake, it was felt as far away as Venice, the German-speaking South Tyrol region of far northern Italy and the Friuli region on the border with Slovenia.

Thousands of panic-stricken residents ran out into the streets in their pyjamas and nightclothes, as statues crashed down from centuries-old palazzi and the roofs of churches collapsed.

“They were 20 to 30 seconds of sheer terror — everything was trembling and shaking,” said Clarissa Dal Bello, 20, a law student, who was in bed in her shared fifth floor flat in Ferrara when the quake hit.

“A picture fell to the ground and there was the noise of shattering windows. I didn’t know what to do — I was just rooted to the spot, paralysed by fear under the sheets, hoping that it would all be over quickly.”

Around 3,000 people were evacuated from their homes and emergency accommodation was hastily prepared by the authorities.

Aldra Bregoli, 73, who managed to quickly pull on a sweater over her nightgown as she evacuated her home, told AFP: “I had to run out as quickly as possible. The firemen told me I can’t go back in. I’m scared.”

The Italian cabinet is expected to declare a state of emergency for the region when it meets tomorrow.

Four of the victims, including a 29-year-old Moroccan immigrant, were night-shift workers who died when the roofs of factories caved in.

The other two were women who apparently died of heart attacks or other forms of shock when the quake hit — an Italian woman aged over 100 and a 37-year-old German who was living and working near Bologna.

Emergency officials searched through rubble for survivors and managed to pull a lightly injured five-year-old girl out of the remains of her badly damaged home.

Her relatives had been unable to get through to the emergency services on the telephone, so called a family friend who happened to be in New York, who managed to raise the alarm back in Italy.

As experts warned of the dangers of aftershocks, a strong new quake of 5.1 magnitude hit the region in the afternoon, seriously injuring a fireman who was hit by a falling roof tile.

In the town of Sant’Agostino, the fresh tremor led to the total collapse of the town hall, which had already been badly damaged.

The epicentre of the initial earthquake was the town of Finale Emilia, 20 miles north of Bologna.

A centuries-old clock tower in the town was sheared in two, with one half collapsing into rubble and the other standing precariously.

In towns and villages across the region, cars were hit by falling masonry and the streets were filled with rubble.

An imposing 14th century castle in the town of San Felice Sul Panaro was badly damaged by the quake, its battlements and towers crumbling into dust.

Three churches in the town were also affected, with centuries-old paintings damaged.

“We have lost virtually all our cultural heritage,” said Alberto Silvestri, the town’s mayor.

In the village of San Carlo near Ferrara, the roof of a 16th century chapel, which had taken eight years to restore, collapsed, leaving statues of angels exposed to the sky.

The church, which locals said contained the remains of a pope, may be beyond repair.

The ministry of cultural heritage in Rome said damage to historic buildings and the artistic treasures they contained was “significant”.

It is likely to be the biggest blow to Italy’s cultural heritage since 1997 when an earthquake badly damaged the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi in Umbria.

Emilia Romagna is renowned for its balsamic vinegar and prosciutto ham, and the region’s culinary icons did not escape damage.

More than 300,000 wheels of Grana Padano and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, worth millions of pounds, were destroyed in warehouses and stockrooms affected by the quake, according to an industry association.

While mountainous areas of Italy are prone to earthquakes, this one hit the low-lying valley of the Po River.

Enzo Boschi, a reputed seismologist, said it was the biggest to have hit the region for centuries.

“It is not true that there are never earthquakes in the Po plain. Ferrara suffered a very big one in the 15th century. You can still see the traces.”

Number of asteroids that pose risk to Earth is doubled

The Earth is at risk from more asteroids than previously thought, according to a new survey. New data from the asteroid-tracking NEOWISE mission reveals that twice as many asteroids as previously thought are on low-inclination orbits that could bring them into contact with our home planet.

"We were very surprised to find that," says Amy Mainzer of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "We were not expecting to find [that result] at all."

NEOWISE, which took data with NASA's infrared WISE space telescope from 2010 to 2011, has completed the most accurate census yet of potentially hazardous asteroids: those that come within 8 million kilometres of Earth, and are large enough to survive the trip through the atmosphere.

Because WISE searched in infrared wavelengths, it was equally as sensitive to large dark asteroids as to small bright ones. Previous surveys that looked only at visible light couldn't tell those two populations apart, Mainzer says.

Mainzer and colleagues sampled 107 potentially hazardous asteroids (a representative sample of the entire population) and extrapolated to predict the total number. They found that about 4700 of them – give or take 1500 – are 100 metres or larger in diameter. Only 20 to 30 per cent of these have actually been observed.

Twice as many of those as previously thought are on so-called low-inclination orbits, which means they are closely aligned with Earth's orbit and therefore have a higher chance of hitting us.

"It's easier for them to make close approaches to the Earth more often," Mainzer says. "It's a hazard and a risk."

Our best recourse is to make sure we know where they are, where they're going and what they're made of. "If you find things 20 to 30 years before a potential impact would take place, then you have time to deflect them," she says. "If we find them days before impact, then it's much worse."

But there's a silver lining: the new population of easy-access asteroids is also an opportunity for scientific exploration or the proposed asteroid mining industry. "If the asteroid is naturally carried near the Earth, it's easier to reach with a spacecraft, either robotic or with astronauts," Mainzer says.

Brahumdagh Bugti Latest Pic May2012

Asteroid Vesta is 'last of a kind' rock

A computer generated perspective of Rhea Silvia basin, which was dug out by an impact a billion years ago

Continue reading the main story

Vesta is the only remaining example of the original objects that came together to form the rocky planets, like Earth and Mars, some 4.6 billion years ago.

This assessment is based on data from the Dawn probe which has been orbiting the second largest body in the asteroid belt for the past 10 months.

The findings from the Nasa mission are reported in Science magazine.

They confirm that Vesta has a layered interior with a metal-rich core, just as Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury do.

Using information about the shape of the asteroid and its gravity field, scientists can even say something about the likely size of this core.

The Dawn team calculates it to be about 220km (135 miles) across, representing about 40% of the radius of Vesta, or roughly 80% of its total mass.

Cutaway model: Data indicates Vesta has an iron core that is about 220km across

"This mission at Vesta has been a spectacular success," said Carol Raymond, Dawn's deputy principal investigator from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"It's transformed Vesta from a fuzzy orb into a planetary body, which has exceeded our expectations in many ways."

Dawn has studied in detail the pattern of minerals exposed in Vesta's surface by innumerable impacts through the eons. It has also mapped the diverse geological features that shape its surface.

These observations have enabled scientists to elucidate a history for the colossal rock, which is second in size only to Ceres in the band of material moving between Mars and Jupiter.

The researchers believe Vesta formed within the first two million years after the first solids came together in the Solar System, before the planets we know today were formed.

Short-lived radioactive materials would have generated enough heat to melt Vesta's insides and produce a subsurface ocean of magma.

This melting would have led to differentiation, to denser materials like iron falling to the asteroid's centre.

Other such bodies in the infant Solar System with magma oceans ended up becoming parts of Earth and the other planets. Somehow, Vesta did not; somehow, it survived obliteration in the cascade of impacts that would have marked those early times. Nothing telescopes see today in the asteroid belt quite matches what Dawn has seen at Vesta, suggesting the mighty rock is unique.

"Vesta is special because it has survived the intense collisional environment of the asteroid belt for billions of years, allowing us to interrogate a key witness to the events at the very beginning of the Solar System," said Dr Raymond.

The crystalline structure in HED meteorites: These common meteorites can now be tied definitively to Vesta

Another in a series of stand-out discoveries about Vesta is the definitive association that can now be made between it and the howardite-eucrite-diogenite, or HED, class of meteorites.

Based on telescopic observations, researchers had always suspected these common meteorites came from Vesta. But the signatures of pyroxene - a mineral rich in iron and magnesium - in those meteorites have now been matched precisely with mineral signatures spied in Vesta's surface by Dawn's instruments.

The HED meteorites account for about 6% of all the meteorites seen falling to Earth.

Common they may be, but their value to science is greatly increased following the Dawn mission because researchers now know they offer some remarkable insights into the earliest epoch of planetary formation.

Much of the HED material is likely to have come from two huge impact basins at Vesta's southern pole.

The Rhea Silvia crater measures some 475km in diameter, and gives Vesta the look of a punctured football in global images.

It overlies the Veneneia basin, which is a little less extensive at 375km across.

"Our estimate [is that] about 250,000 cubic miles [was] excavated from Rhea Silvia," said Dr David O'Brien, from the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.

"To put this into another perspective - 250,000 cubic miles is enough to fill the Grand Canyon a thousand times over."

Some of that excavated material lies just outside Rhea Silvia crater, but a lot of it would have gone into space to form the group of much smaller Vesta-like objects seen in the asteroid belt and, of course, those HED meteorites that have fallen to Earth.

The pattern of craters on Vesta has allowed the Dawn team to age Rhea Silvia and Veneneia. The former was created about a billion years ago; the latter was dug out by an impact around two billion years ago.

The ages are much younger than had previously been supposed.

The other great impact basins in the inner Solar System, such as the ones that pock Earth's Moon, are considerably older, dating to a period about 3.8 billion years ago.

Scientists suspect this period to have been a very dynamic phase in the early evolution of the Solar System and even have a name for it - the "late heavy bombardment".

The ages of Vesta's big impact basins put some new constraints on the timing of that bombardmentand and the region within the inner Solar System affected by it.

Dawn continues to study Vesta. It has an extension on its mission that will allow it to stay at the asteroid until at least 26 August, when it is due to leave on a three-year cruise to Ceres.

The Dawn team is hoping to be able get images of the north pole, which, as a result of the seasonal angle to the Sun, is currently in darkness.

Dr Jim Green, the head of planetary science at Nasa, indicated that the team would be given sufficient time to complete its work.

There is considerable excitement about what might be found at the north pole, with the suspicion being that the terrain may reflect in some way the seismic repercussions from the Rhea Silvia impact at the opposite pole.

"With Dawn's ion engines, which are running much better than predicted, it really enables us to stay at Vesta longer," Dr Green told BBC News.

"We're very excited about that because it will enable us to map the unknown region. That region is very important to look at now that we know about the Rhea Silvia impact basin. How that impact might affect the northern hemisphere will now be revealed."

Crater counting is used to date the surface of asteroid Vesta. Rhea Silvia and Veneneia appear as undulating lines. Note how the terrain of the north pole has yet to be revealed

Heavy rain takes 19 counties out of drought

The organisation said that South-West England, the Midlands and parts of Yorkshire have had their “drought status” removed due to torrential rain over the last six weeks.

The lifting of drought status follows the highest level of monthly rainfall in over 100 years, the Environment Agency said.

It said that the heavy rain has “significantly increased” river and reservoir levels in the counties in question.

However the agency’s removal of drought status on many part of the UK does not affect the 20 million Britons who are hit by hosepipe bans.

The South, East and South-East of England remain in drought and these are the only areas where a hosepipe ban has been put in place.

Dr Paul Leinster, the chief executive of the Environment Agency, said: “The recent record rainfall has eased pressure on water resources in some parts of England, helping levels in rivers and reservoirs to recover and providing relief to farmers, gardeners and wildlife.”

He said that the agency will “continue to keep a close eye on the situation”. He added that low groundwater levels remain a “concern” and are unlikely to return to normal levels before this winter.

Groundwater levels in many parts of the UK are still at a similar level to 1976, the last time the UK was hit by such a severe drought, said Dr Leinster.

According to the Environment Agency, the 19 areas that are no longer in drought are South Yorkshire, East Yorkshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Bristol.

Parts of Gloucestershire, parts of Hampshire, most of Wiltshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, West Midlands, Warwickshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire are also out of drought.

All of these counties bar South and East Yorkshire were only placed under official drought status on April 16, less than a month ago.

South and East Yorkshire were placed in drought on March 28.

The agency said that it is “unlikely” that water companies will now impose hosepipe bans in these areas over the summer.

Four killed in separate incidents in Burning Balochistan

QUETTA: Four people, including two women, were killed in separate incidents in Kohlu and Naseerabad districts on Monday. According to reports, unidentified armed men killed a couple in Kohlu and fled. The names of the deceased could not be confirmed. The incident is stated to be honour killing. Separately, a man identified as Chakar Khan, a resident of Killi Sourab Khan Sherani of Kohlu district, was shot dead. The local administration moved the body to a nearby hospital for an autopsy and started investigation. In another incident, police recovered a woman’s body from the precincts of Mir Hassan Police Station and moved it to a nearby hospital. Police said the deceased had been identified as Sakina and was strangled to death. However, investigations were underway to ascertain reason behind her killing. staff report

Targeted:- SP CID killed in Quetta

QUETTA: Superintendent of Police Crime Investigation Department (CID) Shahnawaz Khan succumbed to bullet wounds sustained in a targeted attack by unidentified men on Tuesday in the Satellite Town area of Quetta, Express Newsreported.

Khan was strolling near his house when unidentified men on two motorcycles opened fire on him, wounding him severely.

He was shifted to a hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

Recently, a convoy of the Frontier Corps (FC) was targeted in a blast on Saryab Road in Quetta, killing two people and injuring 16 others.

Members of the Hazara community, United Nations (UN) workers and security personnel have also been targeted and killed in different incidents in Balochistan where the security situation is yet to be brought under control.

Many citizens abducted from different areas of the province also remain missing.

Sindhi & Baloch rally outside 10 Downing Street

LONDON: Members of the Sindhi, Hindu and Baloch rights organisations held a demonstration in front of 10 Downing Street, the residence of British Prime Minister David Cameron, protesting the alleged kidnapping and forced marriages of Hindu girls in Sindh and against the Lyari operation.

Members of the World Sindhi Congress and International Sindhi Women Organisation (ISWO) were joined by Baloch and Hindu groups.In a petition submitted to the office of the British prime minister, the demonstrators urged the British Government to intervene in the matter as the Pakistani government was showing “apathy” on the issue.

The petition pointed out that the Hindus constituted 15 per cent of the total population in Pakistan at the time of the partition in 1947 but it has now dwindled to less than 2 per cent.The petition claimed that in the recent past there were as many as 25 cases of Hindu girls being kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam and married to Muslims youths in Pakistan.

The speakers requested the international community to put pressure on Pakistan to guarantee the protection and safety of Sindhi Hindu girls in Pakistan as, they alleged, young Sindhi Hindu girls are being kidnapped, subjected to forced marriages with Muslim boys, and converted to Islam. They mentioned the case of Sindhi Hindu girls Rinkal, Lata and Aisha Kumari and called on the Pakistani government to take notice of their plights.

The Baloch on this occasion protested against the on-going operation in Lyari and urged the Pakistani security

Box Office: 'Jannat 2' shines, 'Fatso' fails

Mumbai: The weekend gone by reaffirmed the draw of the Emraan Hashmi-Bhatt brothers combination. Their newest film 'Jannat 2' not only registered good numbers but also ensured profits in the opening weekend itself, points out trade experts. On the other hand, 'Fatso', ironically, attracted the thinnest audience ever.

Prakhar Joshi, programming head of a national multiplex chain, says that 'Jannat 2' opened on a very good note on Friday. He says, "The music and good pre-release promotion has ensured that the film sustains on Monday-Tuesday also. Besides, the ongoing vacations will also help."

Made at the cost of about Rs 16-17 crore including print and advertising, trade analysts peg 'Jannat 2's first three-day India net collections at about Rs 23 crore. Girish Wankhede of another multiplex chain too believes that the film will hold strong till the second weekend at least. "'Jannat 2' has opened well enough to maintain the required momentum," he states.

IBNLive

Upbeat about 'Jannat 2', Delhi-based distributor Sanjay Ghai stated that the film is a hit and the collections in the coming days will only add to its profit. Sharing a similar viewpoint, Indore-based distributor Aditya Choksi adds, "The intense subject has also caught on with the audience, more so in the single screens."

The Ranvir Shorey-Gul Panag starrer 'Fatso' failed to exert its weight. As a distributor of the film in North India said, on condition of anonymity, "The audience just wasn't interested in seeing 'Fatso'." Of the new Hollywood imports, only 'Hugo' managed to draw any attention, though limited.