London, June 18 : Senior Sri Lanka batsman Mahela Jayawardene has said they need to contain the "strong Indian batting" when the two teams meet in the Champions Trophy semifinal Thursday.

The 36-year-old led his team to victory over Australia by scoring an unbeaten 84 in their last group match Monday when Sri Lanka won by 33 runs, to fix a date with India at Sophia Gardens, Cardiff.

London, June 18 : NATO Tuesday handed over security to Afghan forces for the whole of Afghanistan for the first time since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.

At a ceremony in Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that from Wednesday "our own security and military forces will lead all the security activities", BBC reported.

Tuesday's ceremony saw the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) hand over control of the last 95 districts in a transition process that began in 2011.

London, June 18 : The Duchess of Cambridge, whose maiden name was Kate Middleton, celebrated Father's Day with her dad, Michael Middleton, in her hometown.

The pregnant royal spent the day in the West Berkshire village of Bucklebury, where she grew up. The father-daughter were spotted together, along with Kate's security, at a petrol station filling up their car, reports eonline. com.

"I was getting petrol too and she offered to let me go first. She was really sweet... She was lovely, I guess she was visiting her family," said an eye witness.

London, June 18 : Actress-model Cara Delevingne hasn't always seen eye-to-eye with fashion designer Marc Jacobs because he once reportedly banned her from his show by calling the 5' 9" model a "dwarf". But now they are good friends.

Jacobs banned the 20-year-old from appearing in his autumn-winter 2012-13 shows because he thought she was too short and looked odd amongst other models.

Katie Grand, who helps Jacobs decide which models to choose, revealed this in an interview to Sunday Times Style.

Majestic Wine has said that the its pre-tax profit has risen 2.1 per cent to £23.7 million due to online sales and high demand for fine and sparkling wine in the UK.

Steve Lewis, chief executive said that the demand has remained high among customers since the Royal Wedding two years ago followed by the Jubilee and the Olympics. However, the total sales of the company fell 2.1 per cent to £274.4 million as the company retreated from the wholesale drinks market. On the other hand, the sales at stores open more than a year increased by 1 per cent.

UK's engineering conglomerate, Smiths Group has said that it has appointed Sir George Buckley as its new chairman.

Sir George has been working as the head of US manufacturing giant 3M until previous year and is expected to join the board of Smiths Group in August. Sir George will replace Donald Brydon after he steps down at the company's annual general meeting in November. Following his exit from 3M, it took charge of investment groups Arle Capital Partners and Ownership Capital.

Ithaca Energy, a company focused on North Sea, has agreed to two farm-out deals, which is expected to bring down the cost of operations for the company.

Aberdeen-based oil and gas firm, Ithaca has already firmed out 25 per cent holding in two licences west of Shetland to a unit of Edison. Edison is also focusing on expanding its operations in the North Sea. Edison has said that the North Sea will emerge as its next production cluster in the International exploration and production operations. It already has operations from Mediterranean to the Falkland Islands.

Plane maker, Airbus has received $23.5 billion worth of potential orders at the beginning of the Paris Air Show as Boeing and Airbus compete for orders.

The event, which is being organised at the Le Bourget air field, is celebrating the 50th anniversary, is expected to include a series of orders from the two dominant manufacturers indicating that the commercial flight industry is recovering. Meanwhile, Boeing has received initial firm and provisional orders totalling $12.2 billion at the event.

London, June 17 : Band One Direction’s Harry Styles was reportedly working on a solo project which has been leaked online.

Styles’s “Don’t Let Me Go” appeared online Friday.

Styles's friend Sam McCarthy, who also sings in it, was pleased with the fans' reaction on Twitter.

According to starpulse. com, McCarthy thanked his fans saying: "Wow! Thanks for all the nice tweets about the song. Harry did most of the words, I did the music." (IANS)

The board of directors of the France Telecom are expected to meet today to determine charges against Chief Executive Stephane Richard relating to fraud and to take a decision on whether he will continue to head the telecom service provider.

According to the latest figures released, the wind turbine owners in the UK received £1.2 billion in consumer subsidies during the previous year.

According to a new report, adding energy saving improvements would increase the value of the property by between 14 per cent and 38 per cent in England.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) report, which covered more than 300,000 property sales in England between 1995 and 2011, found that energy saving improvements is an important aspect influencing the selling price of the housing units in England.

It is believed that hundreds of pensioners and other small investors in the Co-operative Bank in the UK are likely to lose losing millions of pounds under the new rescue plan for the financial institution.

London, June 15 : Singer Kylie Minogue has earned 85,000 pounds a week in the 25th year of her singing career. But new documents reveal she has ended her business relationship with younger sister Dannii.

Accounts for the "I should be so lucky" hitmaker’s company Darenote shows that Kylie made a profit of 3.27 million pounds, reports thesun. co. uk.

The figures follow the Australian star’s Aphrodite: Les Folies tour. She also got cash from sales of her greatest hits compilation.

London, June 15 : Top seed Andy Murray entered the semifinals of the Queen's Club grass court championship for the third time defeating Germany's Benjamin Becker here.

Murray, ranked second in the world and twice a Queen's champion, won a testing match 6-4, 7-6(3) Friday to set up a semifinal showdown against French star Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, reports Xinhua.

Tsonga, a beaten semifinalist at the French Open, beat American Denis Kudla 6-3, 6-2.

Bad weather had forced Murray to complete his opening two matches Thursday but he saw off Becker in bright sunshine and a stiff breeze, despite a rather more uneven performance.

British retailers have begun their summer sales to sell their summer stock in the market to boost growth and prepare for the new coming season.

The British retailers are now offering half-price high street in an attempt to sell unsold stock in the market. The recent cold weather has impact the market and thus the retailers are now looking to offer sales on a host of items from summer dresses to patio furniture.

According to the latest figures released, the total UK construction output fell 4.7 per cent during the three months till April mainly due to a sharp fall in public sector and commercial work.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked the US administration to reverse its decision to implement federal budget cuts that were introduced earlier this year.

"The deficit reduction in 2013 has been excessively rapid and ill-designed. These cuts should be replaced with a back-loaded mix of entitlement savings and new revenues, along the lines of the administration's budget proposal," the IMF said.

London, June 14 : State-owned Air India is looking to operate new international routes on its newly-acquired fuel-efficient Boeing 787 aircraft to gain market share and cut losses incurred on the domestic sector.

"We have extensive plans to scale up Air India's international network with low-fuel-consuming 787s, that will give Air India an edge over other airlines," Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh told IANS here.

London, June 14 : Britain Friday agreed with the US assessment of chemical weapons being used in Syria.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said he agreed with the US assessment that chemical weapons had been used in Syria, Xinhua reported.

The White House Thursday publicly accused the Bashar al-Assad regime, for the first time, of using chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin gas, against rebels in the ongoing civil war.