Washington, Dec 9 : Legendary guitarist Joe Satriani has accused rock band Coldplay for plagiarising one of his songs.

The 52-year-old veteran artist has filed a lawsuit at Los Angeles federal court against the band for their 2008 hit track Viva La Vida.

Satriani alleges that the Yellow hitmakers have copied segments from his 2004 instrumental If I Could Fly to use in their track.

He also said that he never intended to instigate a full-fledged legal battle - but was forced to after the group refused to address his concerns.

Washington, Dec 9 : Want to know whether you’ll make it big like Madonna, Britney Spears or King of pop Michael Jackson? Well, researchers from Tel Aviv University’s School of Electrical Engineering have developed software that, they claim, can predict future hit artists.

Lead researcher Professor Yuval Shavitt, of Tel Aviv University’s School of Electrical Engineering, has developed a computer algorithm that can spot an emerging artist several weeks or months before national success hits.

“Until now, talent scouts for record companies used instinct to predict the next rock personality,” said Shavitt.

London, Dec 9 : A new research has suggested that meteorite impacts during Earth’s early history could have created amino acids, which kick-started life on the planet.

Exactly how and when organic molecules appeared in abundance on the young Earth, leading to the origin of life about 4 billion years ago, has been unclear.

But, according to a report in New Scientist, a new research by Yoshihiro Furukawa at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, and colleagues, suggests that meteor impacts could have created amino acids, the building blocks of life.

Wellington  - New Zealand's newly elected conservative government promised workers Tuesday it would cut their income taxes in each of the next three years, but immediately sparked a row with labour unions over tough new employment laws.

As the new parliament was officially opened with traditional pomp and ceremony, the National Party, which ended nine years of rule by a social democrat-led government in last month's elections, moved to rush radical new policies into law before Christmas.

London, December 9 : British actress Liz Hurley has enraged animal rights activists by appearing in an ad wearing black ”baby mink skin”.

The 43-year-old model posed for the latest advertising campaign for Blackglama, the American fashion house known for the pedigree of expensive mink fur accoutrements.

She is shown pouting above a black mink coat.

Andrew Tyler, the head of the vegan group Animal Aid, said that the label''''s choice of Hurley showed how fur companies were struggling to sign up major Hollywood celebrities to model their clothes.

Tel Aviv  - The Likud, the hardline opposition party currently leading in opinion polls to win the February 10 Israeli election, announced the official results of its primary early Tuesday morning in Tel Aviv.

Likud caucus leader Gideon Sa'ar won the second spot on the party's list of parliamentary candidates, after hawkish former premier Benyamin Netanyahu, whose place as number one had already been secured in a separate contest for the party's leadership in late 2005.

An extreme-right activist, Moshe Feiglin, who Netanyahu had hoped would not make it to a ranking spot, came in at 20th place, giving him a good chance of making it into Israel's parliament, the Knesset.