Yahoo! News India

By Alexei Oreskovic and Jennifer Saba SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc will buy blogging service Tumblr for $1.1 billion cash, giving the Internet pioneer a much-needed social media platform to reach a younger generation of users and breathe new life into its ailing brand. The deal, announced on Monday, is a bold bet by Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer to revitalize the company by co-opting a Web property with strong visitor traffic but little revenue. ...

HELSINKI (Reuters) - A group of ex-Nokia software developers unveiled its first smartphone on Monday, aiming to prove their former employer wrong by making a success of a technology dropped by the Finnish mobile phone maker. Jolla was founded by Nokia's former MeeGo software team that was shut down after the company decided to switch to Microsoft's Windows Phone software in 2011. With just 70 employees and 11 million eurosin venture financing, Jolla joins a handful of boutique operating systems such as Ubuntu which together have less than a one-percent presence in the mobile phone market. ...

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya's oil terminals at Tobruk and Zueitina re-opened over the weekend after protests forced both ports to shut, Libya's deputy oil minister Omar Shakmak said. However, fresh trouble arose at Libya's gas-exporting Mellitah complex, he added, where guards were again attacked overnight after clashes in March forced a halt in flows. This time operations had not been affected, Shakmak said, in the brief assault in which the attackers seized vehicles and weapons from the guards. ...

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (Reuters) - Two car bombs killed at least three people and wounded dozens of others on Monday in Dagestan, a turbulent province in Russia's North Caucasus region where armed groups are waging an Islamist insurgency. Car bombs, suicide bombings and firefights are common in Dagestan, at the centre of an insurgency rooted in two post-Soviet wars against separatist rebels in neighbouring Chechnya. ...

SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday it is crucial for Syrian opposition envoys to engage in peace talks without setting preconditions, apparently referring to demands for President Bashar al-Assad's removal. Lavrov also reiterated that Iran must be invited to the conference that Russia and the United States are trying to organise to seek a resolution to the more than two-year-old conflict that has killed at least 80,000 people. Days after U.N. ...

By Estelle Shirbon LONDON (Reuters) - Radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada could be deported to Jordan to face trial on terrorism charges within weeks, a British court heard on Monday, and it ruled he should remain in jail in the meantime to prevent him from absconding. Abu Qatada's deportation to Jordan, which the British government has been trying to achieve for eight years, is expected to take place within weeks when Jordan ratifies a new treaty with Britain, according to evidence shown to the court. ...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A gunman shot dead four people execution-style in a bank in Israel on Monday after being refused an overdraft and cash from its automatic teller machine. The assailant, identified by media reports as a former paramilitary border policeman, killed himself after police raided the Bank Hapoalim branch in the southern city of Beersheba to free his hostages. "It appears that we are talking about a lone individual who came to the bank in the morning hours, sought cover for a debt, a loan, and did not get it," Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said on Army Radio. ...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Threatening slogans were daubed on Monday outside the doorway of an Israeli activist in a Jewish women's prayer group seeking equal rights of worship for women at Jerusalem's holy Western Wall. "Your time is up," read one of several slogans spray painted in black in the apartment building where Peggy Cidor, a board member of the Women of Wall movement lives. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said it was "the first incident of its type in which one of the Women of the Wall houses are directly targeted". ...

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South African Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius, who is charged with murdering his girlfriend, will not compete in any events this year, local media reported on Monday. The sprinter's agent had previously said August's world championships in Moscow were "on the radar" after Pistorius' bail conditions were relaxed on March 28 and the 26-year-old was granted permission to travel abroad. But the double amputee, nicknamed 'Blade Runner', will not return to the track in 2013 according to his coach, Ampie Louw. ...

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain coach Vicente del Bosque has spoken out in defence of his captain Iker Casillas and confirmed that the Real Madrid goalkeeper will be part of the world and European champions' squad at next month's Confederations Cup in Brazil. Casillas has been warming the bench at Real since returning from a broken hand after he fell out with coach Jose Mourinho but Del Bosque said he had faith in his captain, who turned 32 on Monday, and he would be travelling to the warm-up tournament for next year's World Cup. ...

MADRID (Reuters) - Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has convened a news conference for later on Monday amid speculation the La Liga club are poised to announce the departure of coach Jose Mourinho. Perez will appear at the Bernabeu stadium at 8 p.m. local time (1800 GMT), Real said on their website (www.realmadrid.com) without giving further details. The world's richest club by income, Real will end this season without major silverware following Friday's defeat by city rivals Atletico Madrid in the King's Cup final. ...

By Natasha Baker TORONTO (Reuters) - A new app launched on Monday aims to bring William Shakespeare's sonnets to the masses with the help of short films starring stage actors performing them in front of New York landmarks. The Sonnet Project is a free app for the iPhone and iPad that showcases the bard's poetry through films of up to two minutes and performances by Tony-Award winning actors Joanna Gleason and Cady Huffman, among others. "Shakespeare gets a bad rap. ...

By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Britain launched a research programme on Monday that should eventually allow all cancer patients to have access to the kind of genetic analysis that led Hollywood star Angelina Jolie to decide to undergo a double mastectomy. The project, involving the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London, the U.S. gene sequencing firm Illumina , geneticists and cancer doctors, aims to find a way to allow more cancer genes be tested in more people. Researchers announcing the 2. ...

Moscow, May 20 (IANS/RIA Novosti) A retired US diplomat and expert on the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been banned from entering Russia.

Baghdad, May 20 (IANS) A series of car bombings and shootings, mainly targeting Shia Muslim areas across Iraq, Monday killed at least 61 people, including Iranian pilgrims, and wounded around 200 others, officials said.

Islamabad, May 20 (IANS) The Taliban's offer for peace talks should be taken seriously as every issue cannot be solved through use of power and bullet, Pakistan's prime minister-designate Nawaz Sharif said Monday.

Rome, May 20 (IANS/AKI) Police in the central Italian city of Perugia Monday arrested a 22-year-old Congolese migrant on suspicion of sexually assaulting his Italian girlfriend after she refused to have sex with him.

Bangalore, May 20 (IANS) Karnataka's apex industry body Bangalore Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BCIC) has drawn an action plan to revive the state's sagging economy with a strategy on kick-starting the manufacturing sector.

New Delhi, May 20 (IANS) A man accused of rape can be convicted only if he has a malafide intention of not fulfilling a promise of marrying the victim, the Supreme Court Monday said, describing the crime as an assault on the "body and privacy of the victims".

Kolkata, May 20 (IANS) The Congress-led UPA 2, which will complete four years in office Wednesday, would fare badly if general elections were to be held now, with inflation, unbridled corruption and economic decline playing a major role, said a survey.

New Delhi, May 20 (IANS) A Delhi court Monday disposed of a plea by cricketer S. Sreesanth, arrested for alleged spot fixing in IPL matches, seeking a copy of the first information report (FIR) registered against him.

Kolkata, May 20 (IANS) The stalemate between the West Bengal government and the State Election Commission over the rural polls continued despite yet another round of meetings Monday.

Lucknow, May 20 (IANS) A NRI, running a NGO here for HIV-AIDS afflicted, was found dead under mysterious circumstances at his rented accomodation here Monday, police said.

Moscow, May 20 (IANS) At least four people were killed and 35 others injured Monday in twin car bombings in Russia's North Caucasus region, officials said.

Moscow, May 20 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Police killed two suspected militants and detained another in a special operation outside Moscow Monday, preventing a terror attack in the capital, the National Anti-terrorism Committee said.

New Delhi, May 20 (IANS) A man accused of rape can be convicted only if he has a malafide intention of not fulfilling a promise of marrying the victim, the Supreme Court Monday said, describing the crime as an assault on the "body and privacy of the victims".