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Gillard snatches victory
Man-made kidney to be a reality soon
Opponents talk about me like
a dog: Obama
Nepal House fails to elect PM yet again
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Booker: Will Carey be 3rd time lucky?
21 killed in Pak blast
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Gillard snatches victory
Melbourne, September 7 After Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, the two rural independent lawmakers, said they would support her party, 48-year-old Gillard called on Governor-General Quentin Bryce in Yarralumla, a suburb of Canberra. She formally advised her that Labor had the numbers to form a minority government, more than two weeks after the cliffhanger August 21 polls failed to produce a clear winner. Labor now controls 76 seats in Parliament’s 150-member House of Representatives, with the opposition Coalition of Liberal party leader Tony Abbott having 74 seats. Earlier in the day, Gillard, who assumed power 10 weeks ago in a party revolt, told reporters in Canberra that it was likely she would be in a position early next week to swear in a new ministry and added that Labor would govern in the best interests of the Australian people. “Labor is prepared to govern,” said the Prime Minister, who would be heading the first minority government since 1943. “I believe the Australian people, given the closeness of this vote, want us to find more common ground in the national interest,” she said in her first remarks after snatching victory. Gillard said her minority government would be held to higher standards of accountability as a result of the deal struck with the independents. She thanked all independent MPs, including Bob Katter who went against Labor, for the “tone and tenor” of their negotiations. She said she had no idea about the decision taken by Windsor and Oakeshott to back her and learnt about it while watching their live press conference. Gillard said her government will spend $9.9 billion on development projects as part of the deal with the rural independents. She also thanked Abbott for the “common courtesy” of phoning her after Windsor and Oakeshott made it clear that they would back Labor. Meanwhile, Oakeshott has been offered a role in Regional Development Ministry of the Gillard government. However, according to AAP, Oakeshott was not able to decide on the offer. Oakeshott said the deciding factors in siding with the Labor Party had been the “raw numbers” on the floor of Parliament, workability of the Senate, possibility that the coalition would aim for his seat at the next election and greater chance of an early poll under an Abbott government. — PTI
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Man-made kidney to be a reality soon
London, September 7
The device comprises thousands of microscopic filters to remove toxins from the blood and a bio-reactor to mimic the metabolic and water-balancing roles of a real kidney, reports the Daily Mail. The implant is being developed jointly by engineers, biologists and physicians led by Shuvo Roy at the University of California, San Francisco. The treatment has already been proven to work for the sickest patients using a room-sized external model. The process relies on the body's blood pressure to perform filtration without needing pumps or an external electrical power supply. Roy plans to apply silicon fabrication technology, along with specially engineered compartments for live kidney cells, to shrink the current device to the size of a coffee cup. Tissue engineering will be used to grow renal tubule cells to provide other biological functions of a healthy kidney. This would remove the need for immune suppressant medications after it was implanted, allowing the patient to live a more normal life. This could dramatically reduce the burden of renal failure for millions of people worldwide. — IANS
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Opponents talk about me like
a dog: Obama
Washington, September 7 Entering into a tongue and cheek with his Republican adversaries, Obama said his opponents in Washington talk about him “like a dog”. “Over the last two years, that’s meant taking on some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time. And they’re not always happy with me,” Obama said in his speech at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Sunday. “They talk about me like a dog,” Obama said. “That’s not in my prepared remarks, but it’s true,” Obama said as he tried to explain to the people the hurdles posed by the Republican opponents in not getting things done for the nation. “They (Republicans) think you’ll forget what their agenda did to this country. They think you’ll just believe that they’ve changed. These are the folks whose policies helped devastate our middle class and drive our economy into a ditch. And now they’re asking you for the keys back,’ he said bitterly, hinting at the recent tirade carried out by his critics. The President said he passed financial reforms to provide new accountability and tough oversight of Wall Street, “stopping credit card companies from gouging you with hidden fees and unfair rate hikes”.
— PTI
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Nepal House fails to elect PM yet again
For the seventh time in a row, Nepal Parliament on Tuesday failed to elect the new prime minister. When Speaker Subash Nembang tabled the twin proposals registered by the Unified CPN-Maoists and the Nepali Congress seeking endorsement of the House with simple majority in 600-member Parliament, none of the contestants secured the required votes. Maoist supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal, whose nom de guerre is Prachanda, failed to become Nepal's new Prime Minister, as a breakaway group of Madheshi MPs, whose support he was banking on, opted to stay away from voting in Parliament at the last moment. He thus fell far short of majority support in the fresh round of voting in the Constituent Assembly, which failed to end a stalemate that has held up vital government spending and threatened the fragile peace process. With the breakaway group of 25-strong Madheshi alliance opting to stay away, Prachanda managed to get only 252 votes, far short of 301 required to get elected, amid reports of horse trading, bribery allegations and allegations of Maoists seeking funds from China to wean away lawmakers. As many as 110 lawmakers voted against him, 159 stayed neutral. The breakaway Madheshi group, which had been wooed by the Maoists, apparently stayed away as even with their support, Prachanda was still short of numbers. His rival Ramchandra Poudyal of the Nepali Congress fared no better, barely managing to hold on to his party's vote bank of 119. Meanwhile, emerging from the House after the election, caretaker Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal said it was shame to all political parties and their leaders, mainly the candidates contesting for the coveted post. He also opined that the political parties should resume fresh dialogues to sort out the contentious issues prior to enter into power sharing game. After announcing the results, Speaker Nembang said the eighth round of voting will be carried out on September 26.
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Booker: Will Carey be 3rd time lucky?
London, September 7 The other shortlisted authors are Howard Jacobson with "The Finkler Question", Damon Galgut with "In a Strange Room" and Tom McCarthy, who is among the bookmakers' favourites to win the prize with his critically acclaimed novel "C". The winner of the £50,000 prize, which can catapult an unknown author to worldwide success, will be announced on October 12. The judges, chaired by former Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion, had to whittle down a list of 13 previously selected books which the organisers said had achieved the best sales for a so-called "long list" since 2001. Motion waxed lyrical about the talents of 67-year-old Carey, who could become the first author to win the prize three times with his novel "Parrot and Olivier in America". "It's like being alive at the same time as Dickens," Motion told reporters at the unveiling of the short list in London. "I think he's that good." Carey won the 2001 Booker Prize for "True History of the Kelly Gang" and was also successful in 1988 with "Oscar and Lucinda". He is one of just two authors to have won the award twice, the other being South African JM Coetzee. — Reuters
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Peshawar, September 7 The attacker detonated an explosive-laden vehicle shortly after ‘iftar’, the evening meal to break the fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramzan. A majority of the 25 flats in the colony collapsed due to the powerful blast, which was heard from several kilometres away. At least 21 persons were killed in the blast and over 40 have been injured, officials said. Police officials said 21 bodies have been pulled out of the rubble of collapsed buildings, including six children and eight women. Rescue operation is still underway and the status of the persons buried inside is unclear, raising fears that the toll could still go up. — PTI
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26/11: Plea filed for panel formation Gandhi stands tall at Oz varsity ‘Burning Quran endangers troops’ Fake Bollywood DVDs seized 
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Ending weeks of political uncertainty, Australia’s first woman Prime Minister Julia Gillard today staked claim to form a new government after two kingmaker independent MPs extended support to her Labor party, giving it a wafer-thin one-seat majority in the first hung Parliament in nearly 70 years.
But the popular-selling and controversial "The Slap" by Christos Tsiolkas did not make the cut for the 2010 Man Booker Prize shortlist, the judges said on Tuesday.
