Osama bin Laden killed

                                           
It took years to find him but just minutes to kill him
  

                                   
The trail that led the CIA to Osama bin Laden began with his most trusted courier. It had taken the CIA years to discover first his name and then the home where he was hiding the al-Qaida leader. But it took only 40 minutes for US special forces to kill both the courier and Bin Laden. After 9/11 the CIA chased various leads about Bin Laden's inner circle, in particular his couriers. One of these couriers came in for special attention. He was said to be a protege of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, and one of the few couriers Bin Laden trusted.


Bin Laden courier led CIA on four-year chase

Two years ago, the CIA found the rough location where the courier and his brother lived in Pakistan, and on August last year they narrowed it down to a compound in Abbottabad, an affluent area about 35 miles north of Islamabad. They realised immediately this was no normal residence. The walls of the 3,000 sq ft compound were 12-18ft high. There were two security gates, and access to the compound was severely restricted. Built around five years ago, it was valued at about $1m but had no phone or internet connection.

Found in a mansion, not a cave

  Suspicions were aroused by the fact that the residents of the compound burned their rubbish rather than putting it out for collection. Salman Riaz, a film actor, said that five months ago he tried to film next to the house, but was told to stop by two men. "They told me that this is forbidden in Islam," he said. By Sept, the CIA had determined there was a 'strong possibility' that the hideout was Laden's, and by Feb, they were confident. On 29 April, while the world's attention was on the royal wedding in London, Obama gave the order to mount an operation.

What really happened in Abbottabad?

At around 1.15am local time on Monday, Abbottabad residents became aware that something was happening. "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1am (is a rare event)," tweeted one local, Sohaib Athar (@ReallyVirtual); following that some minutes later by: "A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S" "I heard a thundering sound, followed by heavy firing. Then firing suddenly stopped," said a local resident, Mohammad Haroon Rasheed. "Then more thundering, then a big blast," he said

 Osama bin Laden operation Code Name: 'Geronimo'
 
Senior officials say that Bin Laden 'resisted' during a gun battle. He died from a bullet to the head. He was identified by facial recognition. The al-Qaida courier, his brother and one of Bin Laden's sons were also killed. Informed immediately, Obama spoke to former presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton. Keith Urbahn, the former chief of staff to Bush's defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, gave the first public indication of the news, tweeting: "So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn

AMERICANS CELEBRATE THE DEATH OF OSAMA

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time to secret.. :)

Hidden Objects - Snow White
Click here to play this game

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Inside the Beckhams' Homes

                          The Beckhams will soon move into a new home this summer. This mansion in Malibu, California could be the one where the newest addition to the Beckham family will spend her first days. The couple will be leasing the plush home for $60,000 per month.

                           While this property boasts seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, marble walls, a gym, pool and lavish tropical gardens; here's inside two other luxury homes that the Beckhams own.


Beckingham Palace

One of the first multi-million pound homes the Beckhams bought was in Hertfordshire, near London. The mansion they bought in '99 was worth a good £2.5 million. This home had seven bedrooms. While living there, the couple renovated the place and added indoor and outdoor pools, a petting zoo, recording studio, a snooker room, a gym, and state-of-the-art floodlit tennis courts. They have also installed a 52ft garden pavilion with marble flooring, which has a 4ft barbeque in it.

Chateau Beckham

David and Victoria Beckham also have a home in south of France. They bought themselves a mansion, Le Domaine Saint-Vincet for £2 million in 2003. It's a 19th century chateau with 15 bedrooms, a swimming pool, a chapel and a farm. The couple had put up the house for sale as it was reportedly haunted.

Beverly Hills Pad

In April 2007, the family purchased their Italian villa in Beverly Hills, to coincide with Beckham's transfer to the Los Angeles Galaxy in July. The mansion worth $22 million, is near homes of celebs like Tom cruise and Katie Holmes and talk show host Jay Leno. This Italian-style villa is a sprawling 13,000 sq ft one with six bedrooms and nine bathrooms. The flooring is a mixture of hardwood and slate, has a swimming pool, a fountain and a garage that can house three cars.

Luxury in Dubai

In 2009, the couple bought themselves a luxury apartment in the tallest tower in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The spacious apartment is said to be worth £5 million. This is be their second home in Dubai as they already own a property on Palm Jumeirah, a palm-shaped man-made island.

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Pen Drive

• A pen drive is another name for a USB flash drive. 
• Other names are Flash drive, USB flash drive, Thumb drive, etc. 
• They are devices that allow storage of computer files that you can remove and take from computer to computer.
• The price of the drive is determined by the size of its memory measured in megabytes or gigabytes. While 128 megabyte drives used to be considered large, current pen drives sizes can reach 1, 2, 4, or more gigabytes.
• The drives are inserted in the computers USB ports and are automatically recognized on PC operating systems beyond Windows 98 (which needs a separate installation of drivers). 
• Pen drives can also have full blown applications on them which are written in what is called U3 compatible software.

Who is the inventor of  pen drive ?      

          Pua Khein Seng [K.S. Pua]- Phison Electronics

        Here is a small story about successful inventor of pen drive

               WHEN he set off for Taiwan in 1993, Pua Khein Seng's only aim was to complete his degree in Electrical Control Engineering at the renowned Chiao Tung University and return home to work in Malaysia .

Never did he envision himself heading a multi-million dollar Taiwanese company that developed the world's first USB flash removable disk, which they called Pen Drive .


Pua Khein Seng went to Taiwan to get his engineering degree but ended up staying on, starting his own company and inventing the pen drive.

"I went to Taiwan to pursue my undergraduate degree. I chose Taiwan only because it was too expensive to study either in the United States or Singapore .

"However, I did well in my undergraduate programme and was offered a place to do my masters," explained Pua, who was back in Kuala Lumpur recently for a holiday.

After completing his Masters in July 1999, Pua worked for about six months in a local company before deciding to set up his own venture company with four fellow engineers who had studied with him at Chiao Tung.

"We were confident that we had the know-how and ability to start our own business, which is focused on USB technology. The company is called Phison because there are five of us - two Malaysians and three Taiwanese engineers," said Pua, 31, who hails from Sekinchan, Selangor.

Phison Electronics Corporation was set up in November 2000 and within six months the young entrepreneurs came up with their first invention - a USB storage device called Pen Drive .

"We were the first company in the world to develop the USB Drive SoC (System On Chip) and we were very confident that the market for USB will be huge. At the time, no one believed in us so we had to do everything ourselves - from developing the technology, the chips to the product itself.

"We were only 27 at the time and inexperienced. But we were confident that we could design good systems and chips but we didn't know anything about selling. So, we sought partners or traders who could help sell our products for us," Pua added.

Through smart partnerships and shrewd strategies, Phison soon made its way into European, American and Japanese markets. One quick move was securing Japanese tech giant Toshiba as Phison's largest shareholder and customer.

"We launched Pen Drive in June 2001 and by August the same year, we broke even! From September 2001, we were reaping monthly profits from our invention and there has been no turning back since."


Having established himself in Taiwan , Pua is in the midst of setting up Phison's branch in Malaysia , due to begin operations this
February.

"I am starting a branch in Malaysia because this is my country. I would like to do contribute to its development.

"We have about 100 engineers at Phison in Taiwan , 20 of whom are Malaysians. Though they studied in Taiwan , I had to re-train all the engineers I hire because, like most fresh graduates (in this field), they are not industry-ready upon graduation.

"Unfortunately, some of the Malaysian engineers want to return home after a couple of years because they are homesick, about to start a family and so on. Some prefer to work in Singapore , as it is closer to home. Instead of losing them to competitors, I decided to set up an office in Malaysia where they can still work for me," said Pua.

Another problem faced by returning computer engineers from Taiwan , Pua added, was the lack of job opportunities for hardware engineers in Malaysia .

"There is no environment or support for design engineers here in Malaysia . One of my Malaysian engineers from Phison returned home and ended up as a teacher in a Chinese school! I was shocked and thought, 'After all that training and re-training, he is going to just teach?' I told him to hold on till I open up the Phison branch in Malaysia ."

Though he has been in Taiwan for the past 12 years and married to a Taiwanese, Pua is not sure how much longer he will remain there.

"I have really no idea where I will be in 20 years. Maybe Taiwan , maybe Malaysia , maybe somewhere else ... it all depends on my business. The industry is moving so fast that I cannot predict what or where I will be," he said.

For the moment though, Taiwan is home for Pua, his wife and two children even though he misses the Malaysian way of life.

"I come home once a year for Chinese New Year and will usually stay for about two weeks. There are several things I really miss about Malaysia . One is the food! For the past 12 years I have been craving for Malaysian food ... I miss laksa, curry noodles, chee cheong fun and all the other delicious dishes we have here.

"I also miss the lifestyle and quality of life here. When I come back, I am always amazed to see people hanging out and relaxing at mamak shops at night. In Taiwan , most people would still be at work at that time of the night!

"Before I got married, I used to work for 15 to 17 hours a day, everyday. Now that I have children, my wife has forbidden me to stay so late. Now, I go to work at 9am and come home by 11pm . These hours are quite normal for the Taiwanese."


The man who invented USB pen-drive is a young modest Malaysian who can't even get into a local University but invented the most versatile, indispensable computer peripheral today. And helped his adopted country, Taiwan made $31bil in the process. The rest is history....
                                

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Indians in Madame Tussauds

Madame Tussauds is a famous wax museum in London with branches in a number of major cities.It was set up by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud. The museum that immortalizes the world’s favourite celebrities by sculpting and displaying their wax statues.

Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is one of the first Indians to have a wax statue at madame tussauds

Meet the world’s most famous pacifist

An inspirational and iconic champion of non violent resistance, Gandhi was instrumental in leading India to free itself from the British Empire. Not content just to fight for independence, Gandhi campaigned tirelessly against poverty and caste discrimination as well as championing the liberation of women, religious tolerance and economic sustainability for his beloved homeland.

Aishwarya Rai is immortalised as a dancing diva at the NY City Madame Tussauds. This happened in the year 2007, and she became the 3rd Bollywood star, and the only actress from India to be installed at the Tussauds.

1. 
   Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar is the first Indian sportsperson to be featured in the Madame Tussauds museum.
   
   Perhaps the only place where Ash won't avoid Salman would be Madame Tussauds Museum. Initially, Sallu wasn't happy about the idea of his wax figure being placed near ex-lady love, and he refused the offer. But he finally gave a nod owing to his fans requests . Salman even personally chose the clothes for his wax image.
   
   SRK has two statutes installed at the Madame Tussauds. One at the Los Angeles museum and the other at New York's Times Square museum.

Hrithik Roshan is the latest Bollywood addition to the Madame Tussauds. Hrithik's wax figure is a homage to his famous role in 'Dhoom: 2',

In 2000, Amitabh Bachchan became the first Indian film personality and also the first living Asian to set foot in the Madame Tussauds wax museum.

 

 Kareena Kapoor has also made it to the famous Madame Tussauds. She will be the second Bollywood actress after Aishwarya Rai at Tussauds.

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Iceland Volcanic Ash disrupts Flights

                London, May24 (TruthDive) : A dense ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano blew toward Scotland, causing airlines to cancel  flights.  It has been reported that US President Barack Obama has shortened his visit to Ireland as a result.

                  Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority said it appears that ash from the Grimsvotn volcano could reach Scottish airspace early Tuesday and affect other parts of the U.K. and Ireland later in the week. The US president and his wife have arrived in London ahead of schedule. They were forced to out-run the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud and cut short their trip to Ireland. Their state visit comes ahead of the G8 meeting in Paris on Thursday.

                 There is expected to be a change in the wind direction so there is some risk that the ash would some extent come down towards Europe,” said Brian Flynn, the head of Eurocontrol’s Central Flow Management Unit. “But of course it is impossible to say at this stage to what extent and how much ash cloud would in fact come to this part of Europe.’‘

                 Experts see little chance of a repeat of last year’s travel chaos caused by the eruption of another Icelandic volcano.

                 Rules on flying through ash have since been relaxed. Authorities are cautiously optimistic that even though some disruption is possible, a blanket flight ban can be avoided. “It is not likely to be anything on the scale that was produced last year when the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted,” said Pall Einarsson, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland. “That was an unusual volcano, an unusual ash size distribution and unusual weather pattern which all conspired together to make life difficult in Europe.”

                   The US president and his wife have arrived in London ahead of schedule. They were forced to out-run the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud and cut short their trip to Ireland. Their state visit comes ahead of the G8 meeting in Paris on Thursday

            After the ash falls

                From the satellite view

                        

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