New York, October 5
Pakistani-American terrorist Faisal Shahzad, who pleaded guilty 100 times to plotting the botched Times Square bombing this May, was today sentenced to life on 10 counts of terrorism and weapons charges.

Shahzad (30), son of a retired Pakistani Air Force Vice-Marshal, was given a mandatory life prison term at the sentencing in a Manhattan court by a federal judge.

The home-made bomb he had packed into the back of an vehicle sputtered on May one, injuring no one in Times Square packed with tourists.

Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and the indictment also said Shahzad was trained in Pakistan by affiliates of Tehrik-i-Taliban.

A defiant Shahzad who appeared in the court today asked America “to brace itself as the war with Muslims have just begun.” Making a statement in the court, the former budget analyst said: “We don’t expect your freedom... we already have Shariah law and freedom.” “We Muslims don’t abide by human made laws because they are corrupt,” a relaxed Shahzad said and alleged that his family was threatened by FBI when he was being questioned here.

Calling himself a Muslim solider, a defiant Shahzad, who also confessed to have got trained terrorists in Pakistan’s restive tribal region of north Waziristan, had in June pleaded guilty 100 times in June to 10 terrorism and weapons counts.

“I want to plead guilty, and I’m going to plead guilty 100 times over because until the hour the US pulls its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan, and stops the occupation of Muslim lands, and stops killing the Muslims, and stops reporting the Muslims to its government, we will be attacking US and I plead guilty to that,” Shahzad had said in a statement in June.

Shahzad was apprehended at John F Kennedy airport while trying to escape to Pakistan via Dubai on May 3 and has been cooperating with the federal authorities by providing them with information.The father of two worked as a financial analyst in Connecticut where he lived with his wife.

If the Times Square bombing was successful, Shahzad also allegedly planned to attack four other targets-Rockefeller Center, a Grand Central Terminal, the World Financial Center and the Connecticut headquarters of defence contractor Sikorsky, the prosecutors have said then.

Shahzad also allegedly received money from a man in Pakistan who is believed to be working for Tehrik-i-Taliban, according to prosecutors. The suspect then used this money to buy the Nissan Pathfinder and a 9-millimetre Kel-Tec rifle, which was found inside his car at the airport on the day of his arrest. — PTI

London, October 5
Two Russian-born scientists based at the University of Manchester in the UK today shared the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics for their "groundbreaking" work on a material with amazing properties.

Andrei Geim, 51, and Konstantin Novoselov, 36, have been announced as the winners of the £900,000 prize for their research on graphene.

Reacting to the news, Dr Geim said: "I'm fine, I slept well. I didn't expect the Nobel Prize this year". A thin flake of ordinary carbon, just one atom thick, lies behind the prize.

The two experts have shown that carbon in such a flat form has exceptional properties that originate from the remarkable world of quantum physics, a release from the Nobel committee said.

Graphene is a form of carbon. As a material it is completely new — not only the thinnest ever but also the strongest. As a conductor of electricity, it performs as well as copper. As a conductor of heat, it outperforms all other known materials.

It is almost completely transparent, yet so dense that not even helium, the smallest gas atom, can pass through it. Carbon, the basis of all known life on earth, has surprised us once again.

Geim and Novoselov extracted the graphene from a piece of graphite such as is found in ordinary pencils. Using regular adhesive tape they managed to obtain a flake of carbon with a thickness of just one atom. This at a time when many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. However, with graphene, physicists can now study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.

Graphene makes experiments possible that give new twists to the phenomena in quantum physics. Also a vast variety of practical applications now appear possible including the creation of new materials and the manufacture of innovative electronics.

Graphene transistors are predicted to be substantially faster than today's silicon transistors and result in more efficient computers.

This year’s Laureates have been working together for a long time now. Novoselov, first worked with Geim, 51, as a PhD-student in the Netherlands. He subsequently followed Geim to the United Kingdom. Geim is a Dutch national while Novoselov holds British and Russian citizenship. Both of them originally studied and began their careers as physicists in Russia. — PTI

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A non-stick chewing gum to keep streets clean!
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Miss World contestant Manasvi Mamgai of India shows a T-shirt she bought after visiting the Mutianyu Great Wall in Beijing on Tuesday. Contestants from 120 countries will compete in the 60th Miss World Final to be held on Sanya Island October 30. — AP/PTI

‘Naked Cowboy’ to contest Prez poll
New York: New York's popular 'Naked Cowboy' Robert John Burck, who plays the guitar and wears nothing more than his boots, hat and briefs to entertain people in Times Square, has announced his plans to contest the 2012 US Presidential election. "America needs a President who believes in America. America needs a President who will stand up for America and protect its language, its borders, and most importantly, its culture," New York Post quoted Burck as saying in a statement Monday. — IANS

Indian student goes missing in Oz
Melbourne: A 20-year-old Indian student, who arrived in Australia just months back with his family, has gone missing in Sydney, prompting a hunt by the police. Abhijeet Swami, the young engineering student left his Sydney home on Friday on a bicycle but did not return, the police said. Swami came to Australia with his family some months back and was staying with them in a northwest suburb. — PTI