26thJanuary.com to connect India
London based NRI U Bhardwaj has launched www.26thJanuary.com with the help of an Equity Finance group so as to promote Indian talents around the globe, reports DHNS.
26thJanuary.com is a social networking site that provides a video hosting service allowing users to view, upload, and share videos. Users can watch and upload songs, movie clips, Hindi music, Bollywood movie soundtracks, home videos, trailers and news.
26thJanuary.com also brings user generated video clips, music, songs and movie clips from Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Rajasthani, Marathi, Malayalam, English and other regional languages.
Russian on trial for killing 49
A Moscow court on Monday began trying a supermarket porter who prosecutors say murdered 49 people over a 14-year period, which would make him Russia's worst serial killer in a decade, Reuters reports from Moscow.
His lawyer said 33-year-old Alexander Pichushkin had confessed to most of the murders, but it was unclear how many. The jury must decide whether or not he is of sound mind.
If convicted, Pichushkin — called the “Bitsevsky Maniac” by Russian media after the Moscow park where many of the alleged victims were killed — would be Russia’s most deadly serial killer since Andrei Chikatilo, convicted in 1992 of 52 murders.
Prosecutors say Pichushkin befriended many of his victims in Bitsevsky park by inviting them to drink vodka with him, then bludgeoned them to death with a hammer. Some of the victims had fragments of glass pressed into their skulls.
Slaves freed from Chinese brick factories
China is still freeing people — including children — forced to work as slaves in illegal brick factories, two months after the scandal involving the brick yards was exposed, officials said on Monday, AFP reports from Beijing.
The scandal erupted in early June after children as young as 8 were abducted or recruited from bus and train stations with false promises of well-paying jobs and sold to kilns for about $65.
“Another 359 slave migrant workers have been rescued in Shanxi since late June, including 15 child workers and 121 mentally handicapped ones,” said Xue Yanzhong, executive vice governor of Shanxi province.
Saudi makes first music video
The Arab world’s hugely popular music video industry often features sexy performers in revealing clothes crooning about love. But the first clip to be fully produced in Saudi Arabia has a message of a different kind: You can be cool and devout, AP reports from Riyadh.
The video is unusual because it was made in a country where the religious establishment considers music un-Islamic and bans it in public places. And the main cast includes a Saudi woman, something rare in a work produced inside the kingdom.
But in a sign of Saudi impatience with the restrictions, Malak Ghair Allah or “You Only Have God to Count On” was a hit when it was launched at a popular mall in the western seaport of Jiddah last week. Hundreds of people showed up to watch it on a giant screen in the mall’s main hall.
“People didn’t stop clapping. Some had tears in their eyes,” Kaswara al-Khatib, the video’s director, said in an interview.
The video is expected to air on most of the Middle East’s more than 30 music satellite TV channels this week. Despite fears among the Saudi clergy over the corrupting influence of music videos, the clip had implicit government approval. The credits thank “those who helped make this work a success”, including the Information Ministry.
“You Only Have God to Count On” uses upbeat music to tell the story of a successful man who had strayed from the path of true Islam. He smokes, flirts with women even though he’s engaged and doesn’t join his colleagues at work in performing the five daily Muslim prayers.
Things slowly start to go bad: He has a flat tire and problems at work and his fiancee leaves him when she sees him talking to another woman. He then has a serious accident while recklessly driving his motorcycle. After he recovers, the man starts to pray, stops smoking, wins back his fiancee and excels at work.
Significantly, the man sports a hip goatee and doesn’t grow the big, bushy beard favored by fundamentalist Muslims. He still wears T-shirts and jeans and sticks to his old friends, including a man who favors the much-frowned-upon ponytails.
“I wanted the youths to understand that it’s not the looks that count. It’s what inside that matters,"al-Khatib said.
