Former president A P J Abdul Kalam, who visited the Indian Deep Space Network and the giant antenna at Byalalu village near Bangalore on Saturday, said that every Indian should be proud of the space researchers who made the launch of Chandrayana- I, the country’s first unmanned lunar spacecraft, a successful attempt.

Dr. Kalam expressed his aspiration to see an Indian researcher land on the moon by 2021.

He told a gathering of senior scientists, “I would be 90 years old then.”

Taipei - Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou on Sunday urged China and Taiwan to recognize each other's sovereignty.

"If the two sides recognize each other, the cross-strait problem will no longer exist," he said in an interview with the Taichung Radio Station, referring to the Taiwan-China feud which began with the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, which the Nationalists, who fled to Taiwan, lost.

Ma added that he hopes that when Chinese negotiator Chen Yunlin visits Taiwan this week for talks, Chen would call him "president."

Before Taiwan and China extend mutual recognition to each other, each side for the time being should not deny the other side's existence, Ma said.

Washington, Nov 2 : Last summer, while on a European tour, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama paid a whopping seven lakh dollars to a Berlin-based event management firm for erecting a stage for him to deliver a speech.

The job included staging, sound and lighting services to help Obama deliver a speech last summer in Berlin, where he declared himself a “citizen” of both the US and the world, the Daily Times quoted a Washington Times report as saying.

Sydney - An Australian circus performer aboard 17-metre poles set a world record for stilt walking Sunday in Adelaide.

National champion Roy Maloy succeeded in walking the requisite five steps on stilts the height of a four-storey building.

The stilts weighed nearly 60 kilograms, and it took Maloy 11 attempts to get moving.

Dhaka - Two Bangladeshi development workers abducted in Afghanistan were released in the east-central province of Ghazni, officials said Sunday.

"The unidentified abductors left them in front of our Gazni office Saturday evening, 10 days after they were picked up," said Zia Hashan, communications manager of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, a Dhaka-based non-governmental organization.

Akhter Ali and Mohammad Shahjahan Ali, who have been working for the committee in Afghanistan for three years, were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen on October