TopNews

Washington, June 18 : A new study has indicated that sport hunters are depleting lion and cougar populations in the United States and Africa.

The study was led by Craig Packer, a University of Minnesota professor and renowned authority on lion behavior, who worked with an international team of conservationists.

The study looked at numbers of lions and cougars killed by hunters over the past 15 to 25 years in Africa and the western United States.

The analysis suggested that management agencies often adjusted quotas to control rather than conserve the big cats in areas where humans or livestock were threatened.

Washington, June 18 : Hollywood actor Orlando Bloo

London, June 18 : Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was aware of the existence of a secret interrogation policy which effectively led to British citizens, and others, being tortured during counter-terrorism investigations, the Guardian reveals.

The policy, devised in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, offered -guidance to MI5 and MI6 officers -questioning detainees in Afghanistan whom they knew were being mistreated by the US military.

Washington, June 18 : A team of scientists has claimed to have solved a century-old problem involving the proper understanding of tiny metal crystals in steel, by finding a `touch of glass' in the crystals.

The research team, from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has recently found evidence of an important similarity between the behavior of polycrystalline materials, such as metals and ceramics, and glasses.

Most metals and ceramics used in manufacturing are polycrystals. The steel in a bridge girder is formed from innumerable tiny metal crystals that grew together in a patchwork as the molten steel cooled and solidified.

Washington, Jun 18 : American actor Michael Douglas was so taken in by Catherine Zeta-Jones' beauty when they first met that he immediately told her that he wanted to be the father of her children.

Douglas, 64, who received AFI's 37th Annual Lifetime Achievement Award last week, spent most of the evening looking adoringly at his wife of almost 9-years.

"My very first impression was that he was very funny and very charming," Fox News quoted Zeta-Jones as recalling her first encounter with Douglas.

London, June 18 : Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto has become the first foreign business group to hire a team of Indian lawyers to try to reduce its annual 60 million pound legal bill by 20 per cent.

According to The Times, Rio has recruited 12 lawyers in Delhi through CPA Global, a legal outsourcing group, to work for it on tasks such as reviewing documents and drafting contracts.