Moscow, Feb 9 (RIA Novosti) Russia will provide a loan of $300 million to Sri Lanka to help the island nation procure military equipment and technology to strengthen its armed forces.
Russia has agreed to give $300 million loan in ten years to buy armaments and dual-purpose technology for Sri Lanka’s military, Russia’s deputy finance minister Dmitry Pankin said Monday.
San Jose, Feb 9 (IANS) fifty-year-old Laura Chinchilla became the first woman president of Costa Rica after she won 64.7 percent votes in the country’s general election this weekend.
With over 64.7 percent of votes, the Supreme Electoral Court confirmed that Laura Chinchilla became the president of Costa Rica, a nation with over 4.5 million inhabitants.
Tehran, Feb 9 (DPA) Former Iranian deputy foreign minister Mohsen Aminzadeh has been given a six-year jail term for his involvement in the post-election protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, opposition websites reported Monday.
Aminzadeh, who served under the reformist president Mohammad Khatami, was a supporter of Green Movement leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi in last June’s presidential election.
Muenster, Feb 9 (DPA) A Polish-born artist has completed a 40-metre-long painting depicting Pope John Paul II, and said she believes it is the largest oil painting ever of the late pope.
Made up of a series of 26 canvasses, each 2.5 metres tall, the composite picture is to go on public view from Wednesday until April in a theatre in the northern German city of Muenster.
Los Angeles, Feb 9 (DPA) Three of the largest US book publishers are to hike the prices of their electronic books after the introduction of Apple’s iPad tablet computer forced Amazon to abandon its one-price-fits-all policy, Information Week reported Monday.
Amazon was able to dictate the 9.99-dollar price because its Kindle electronic reader dominated the market for electronic books. But the introduction last month of the iPad gave publishers a new outlet and MacMillan said it would withdraw its books from Amazon unless it was given the same pricing flexibility it had with Apple, when it can set prices at between $12.99 and 14.99 per book.
Kiev, Feb 9 (DPA) Viktor Yanukovych has effectively won Ukraine’s presidential election with a 3.14 percentage-point margin of victory over his opponent, and practically all ballots counted, a senior election official said Monday.
“Factually one can say, that there is an obvious victor of this election,” said Myhailo Ohendovsky, chairman of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission (CEC), at a Kiev press conference.
San Francisco, Feb 9 (DPA) Online payments’ service Paypal has halted personal payments to India following new government regulations that were designed to crack down on money laundering.
Paypal Monday did not cite a specific reason for the suspension apart from concerns raised by PayPal’s “business partners and stakeholders”. The company noted that commercial payments to merchants in India would continue as normal.
London, Feb 8 (IANS) British rocker Pete Doherty has been voted the least desirable celebrity neighbour in a new online poll.
The Babyshambles frontman was last year accused of trashing his English country mansion, with pictures emerging of graffiti-scribbled walls and stray cats roaming the garbage-strewn floor.
London, Feb 8 (IANS) Putting break-up rumours to rest, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie put on a public display of affection at the Super Bowl American football final and have also issued a legal statement insisting they have no intention of ending their relationship.
Lawyers for the couple today said they are not about to split and would consider suing any media outlets that continue publishing the ‘false allegations’.
London, Feb 8 (IANS) “Twilight” star Robert Pattinson has revealed he found his sex scenes with Uma Thurman in new movie “Bel Ami” “disturbing” because her character uses sex as a “weapon”.
The actor gets steamy with the screen beauty in the film in which he plays Parisian journalist Georges Duroy, but insists it was far from erotic because of the movie’s plot, reports gossipblender.com.