Cannes Festival rocked as $1-mn jewels stolen
Cannes, May 17
Jewellery worth over $1 million due to be loaned to stars treading the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival was stolen in a pre-dawn heist today but the coveted Palme d'Or trophy was safe, officials said.

Australian gets 45-year jail for raping, killing Indian girl
Melbourne, May 17 
A 21-year-old Australian man was today sentenced to 45 years in jail with a minimum non-parole period of 30 years for the "planned and premeditated" rape and murder of Indian student Tosha Thakkar, whom he strangled to death, stuffed into a suitcase and dumped in a canal.

Baghdad, May 17
Bombs struck Sunni areas in Baghdad and surrounding areas today, killing at least 76 persons in the deadliest day in Iraq in more than eight months, officials said, as a spike in violence has raised fears the country could be on the path to a new round of sectarian bloodshed.

The attacks in Baghdad and surrounding areas pushed the three-day Iraqi death toll to 130, including Shiites at bus stops and outdoor markets in scenes reminiscent of the retaliatory attacks between the Islamic sects that pushed the country to the brink of civil war in 2006-2007.

Tensions have been intensifying since Sunnis began protesting what they say is mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government, including random detentions and neglect.

The protests, which began in December, have largely been peaceful, but the number of attacks rose sharply after a deadly security crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in the country’s north on April 23. Majority Shiites control the levers of power in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

Wishing to rebuild the nation rather than revert to open warfare, they have largely restrained their militias over the past five years or so as Sunni extremist groups such as Al-Qaida have targeted them with occasional large-scale attacks.

An increase attacks against Sunni mosques has fed concerns about a return to retaliatory warfare. The deadliest blast today struck worshippers as they were leaving the main Sunni mosque in Baqouba, a former Sunni insurgent stronghold 60 km northeast of Baghdad.

Another explosion went off shortly afterward as people gathered to help the wounded, leaving at least 41 dead and 56 wounded. — AP

Beijing, May 17
The obscure birth place of the Dalai Lama in the mountainous region of north-west China is all set for a major makeover with the government approving a multi-million dollar plan to urbanise the entire prefecture.

The Tibetan spiritual leader's village of Hong'ai, located in Ping'an county in Qinghai province will soon become a city to be named Haidong and its former capital of Ping'an will be one of its districts.

The plan has been endorsed by China's Cabinet, state-run Xinhua news agency reported today.

Starting from this year, the provincial treasury will allocate 1.5 billion yuan ($244 million) annually to boost Haidong's infrastructure development, the local government said. Among the new city's key development projects are the renovation of old roads and residential areas, as well as the construction of new homes, urban boulevards, commercial centres, a sewage treatment plant and drinking water facilities.

The Dalai Lama, whose name is Tenzin Gyatso, was born in 1935 in an agriculturist family. At the age of two, he was recognised as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, and anointed as the 14th Dalai Lama becoming part of the pantheon of Tibet's Buddhism. His ancestral house remained there after he fled to India in 1959 opposing Chinese rule in Tibet.

The new Ping'an district is also home to a high-tech industrial base that features companies operating in the new energy, new materials and information technology sectors and has drawn 12 high-tech companies from China, the United States and Japan since it opened last year.

China asserts that the rapid development of Tibet is lifting the poor and backward areas from poverty while critics point out that the rapid urbanisation is brining more outsiders mainly, majority Han Chinese. "The base is essential in accelerating infrastructure construction in Ping'an County," Ma Yingjian, a deputy official, said.

Haidong, located in east Qinghai, is an underdeveloped, predominantly agricultural area. — PTI

Cannes, May 17
Jewellery worth over $1 million due to be loaned to stars treading the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival was stolen in a pre-dawn heist today but the coveted Palme d'Or trophy was safe, officials said.

In a scenario itself worthy of a movie, thieves broke into the room of an American employee of Swiss bijoutier Chopard, ripped a safe off the wall and made off with the jewels, according to police reports.

The robbery took place at around 5.00 am (local time) at the Novotel hotel, 15 minutes from the festival venue, they said.

Chopard is one of the official sponsors of the festival, and one of its stores, complete with its own red carpet, lies on the palm-fringed beachfront, just opposite the venue.

The jeweller redesigned the Palme d'Or trophy and each year lends out jewellery to stars for their walk up the red-carpeted steps at the Palais des Festivals.

The photo-calls are hugely valuable to makers of gowns and jewellery, providing media exposure around the world.

An official linked to the festival said the trophy was safe.

The Palme d'Or features 118 grammes (four ounces)) of yellow gold, with a value of more than 20,000 euros ($26,000), set in a base of rock crystal.

The history of the trophy dates back to 1955, by coincidence, the year that Alfred Hitchcock made "To Catch A Thief", about a gentleman robber and a jewel heist on the French Riviera. — AFP 

Melbourne, May 17 
A 21-year-old Australian man was today sentenced to 45 years in jail with a minimum non-parole period of 30 years for the "planned and premeditated" rape and murder of Indian student Tosha Thakkar, whom he strangled to death, stuffed into a suitcase and dumped in a canal.

New South Wales Supreme Court Judge Derek Price sentenced Daniel Stani-Reginald to a maximum of 45 years in jail with a minimum non-parole period of 30 years. With time served, he will be eligible for parole in March 2041. Stani-Reginald strangled 24-year-old Thakkar to death with a cable, stuffed her body into a suitcase and dumped it in the canal off the Parramatta River on March 21, 2011, when he was only 19, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

He and Thakkar, who was an accountancy student, lived in neighbouring apartments in a boarding house on the Edwin Street, Croydon in Sydney's inner west. Thakkar's body was discovered in a large black-cloth case floating in a canal near Meadowbank Park by workmen undertaking regular maintenance on an oil line, it said. — PTI