نیویارک: امریکی ریاست ایلی نوائے میں دنیا کی سب سے بڑی کیچپ کی بوتل فروخت کے لئے پیش کی گئی ہے جس کی قیمت  4 کروڑ 93لاکھ روپے ہے۔

عرب ویب سائٹ کے مطابق امریکی ریاست ایلی نوائے میں 52 میٹر بلند کیچپ کی بوتل کو 1949 میں کیچپ کے شوقین افراد کی دلچسپی کے لئے تیار کیا گیا تھا تاہم 1995 میں اس کی دوبارہ مرمت کی گئی تھی۔ اب اس بوتل کو فروخت کے لئے پیش کیا گیا ہے تاکہ دنیا کی سب سے بڑی بوتل کو محفوظ بنایا جاسکے۔

اس بوتل کی ملکیت کی حامل کمپنی ’’پیتھل ایکرٹ‘‘ کے مالک لاری ایکرٹ کا کہنا ہے کہ کیچپ کی بوتل اور اس کے ساتھ مشروبات کا گودام ایک ساتھ فروخت کے لئے پیش کیا گیا ہے جس کی ابتدائی قیمت 5لاکھ ڈالر ہے۔ اس کے علاوہ اس بوتل اور گودام کو خریدنے والے شخص یا ادارے کو ضمانت دینا ہوگی دنیا کی سب سے بڑی بوتل کی حفاظت کی جائے گی۔

A speeding truck driver ran over and killed at least 12 Hindu pilgrims on Tuesday who were sleeping on the side of a busy road in northeastern India, police said.

Four women were among the victims while a further 18 others were injured in the pre-dawn accident on a national highway in the Aurangabad district of Bihar state.

Upendra Kumar Sharma, superintendent of police for Aurangabad, said more than 50 pilgrims were resting up for the night after visiting a temple in neighbouring Jharkhand state when the lorry driver lost control.

"The pilgrims had parked their bus and were sleeping in the open nearby when the speeding vehicle crushed them to death," he told AFP.

India has one the world's worst road safety records with figures showing around 140,000 people are killed each year -- which works out at 16 an hour.

Russia on Friday called the latest US accusations of Moscow s involvement in the Ukrainian conflict a baseless "smear campaign" and said Washington bears responsibility for the bloodshed.

"Due to the smear campaign against us that the US Administration has begun... we reject the unfounded public insinuations that US deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf is spreading on a daily basis," a statement by the Russian foreign ministry said.

Harf on Thursday said that latest evidence suggests that Russian troops are firing artillery from within Russia on Ukrainian military across the border, while defence officials suggested that Moscow is supplying the pro-Russian rebels with equipment like rocket launchers.

The foreign ministry said that Harf has used "a basketful of these anti-Russian cliches" to sway public opinion against Russia.

"There are no facts or specifics about these falsehoods," the statement said, accusing Washington of essentially trying to "shield their Kiev wards and themselves" by obscuring the "real reasons for events in Ukraine."

Moscow has denounced the protests in Kiev which led to former president Viktor Yanukovych s ouster as a US-sponsored regime change and alleged that the current leadership wants to eliminate the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine, where Ukraine s army has been fighting an insurgency since April.

The foreign ministry accused the United States of supporting the "coup" in Ukraine and "pushing" it toward "cruel reprisals against the Russian-speaking population."

"Washington fully shares the responsibility for the bloodshed. The US Administration should not lay the blame on somebody else. It would be more honest and responsible to keep quiet if recognising the truth is difficult."

TRIPOLI (AFP) - Two weeks of fighting between militias in Libya's capital Tripoli have left 97 people dead, as Egypt and western foreign ministries Sunday urged their citizens to leave amid spiralling violence.

Washington evacuated its embassy staff on Saturday, with Secretary of State John Kerry warning the mission had faced a "real risk" from fierce fighting between armed groups for control of Tripoli's airport.

Another 38 people, mostly soldiers, were killed in 24 hours of fighting between the army and Islamists in the eastern city of Benghazi, military and medical officials said on Sunday, a further sign of the chaos plaguing the North African nation.

The Tripoli clashes, the most violent since the overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, started with an assault on the airport by a coalition of groups, mainly Islamists, which has since been backed by fighters from third city Misrata.

The attackers are battling to flush out fellow former rebels from the hill town of Zintan, southwest of Tripoli, who have controlled the airport for the past three years.

The health ministry said on Sunday that the violence had killed 97 people, a toll based on casualty reports from eight public hospitals in the city and its suburbs.

More than 400 people were wounded.

Fighting was still raging, with explosions heard from the city from early morning as militiamen battled around the airport.

Egypt's foreign ministry said a rocket hit a house in Tripoli on Saturday, killing 23 people, including several Egyptians.

"There are 23 people dead after a Grad rocket fell on a house in Tripoli. Some of them are Egyptians, but we don't know how many," ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty told AFP.

Cairo called on "all Egyptian nationals in Tripoli and Benghazi to immediately leave and save themselves from this chaotic internal fighting".

The foreign ministry statement said they should seek "safer areas in Libya or head to the Libya-Tunisia border".

There were an estimated 1.5 million Egyptians in Libya before Kadhafi's ouster. About two-thirds left during the war but many returned in 2012.

Also on Sunday, a British embassy convoy was fired on in a suspected attempted carjacking in western Tripoli. There were no casualties, a spokesman for London's mission in Libya said.

"Shots were fired at our vehicles but they managed to drive on and leave the area," Bob Phillipson said.

The violence prompted Berlin and London to join Washington in urging their citizens to leave the country as soon as possible, after the US pulled out its diplomatic staff under air cover on Saturday.

Belgium, Malta, Spain and Turkey previously urged their nationals to leave.

The airport has been closed since July 13 because of the clashes.

Libya's interim government has warned that the fighting between those vying for control of the strategic airport were threatening to tear the country apart.

In second city Benghazi, another 38 people, mostly soldiers, were killed in 24 hours of intense clashes between the army and Islamist groups.

A military source said the fighting erupted on Saturday when Islamist groups launched an assault on the headquarters of a special forces unit near the city centre, causing casualties among forces defending their barracks.

Benghazi's main hospital said the bodies of 28 soldiers had been taken there in the past 24 hours, along with 50 wounded, while Al-Marj hospital, 100 kilometres (60 miles) to the east, spoke of two soldiers dead and 10 wounded.

A spokesman for the self-proclaimed Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries, an alliance of Islamic and jihadist militia who have claimed a number of attacks on military bases in the area, said eight of its fighters were killed.

Overnight, special forces commander Wanis Abu Khamada told Al-Ahrar television his troops could still "repel any attack on state institutions".

An AFP correspondent said several families were seen leaving the area of the clashes, as loud explosions were heard on Sunday morning.

Near-daily clashes take place in Benghazi, parts of which have become strongholds for Islamist groups since Kadhafi's overthrow.

DONETSK (AFP) - Thirteen people including two children were killed Sunday in fierce clashes in the key insurgent holdout of Gorlivka in eastern Ukraine where government troops are battling rebels, local authorities said.

"As a result of military actions in Gorlivka 13 people have died, among them two children of one and five," the Donetsk regional administration said in a statement, adding that operations by medical teams in the crucial insurgent base, a city of some 250,000 around 45 kilometres (28 miles) north of Donetsk, were hampered by "constant shooting".

An eyewitness told AFP that mortar fire rained down on the centre of the city after rebels warned that there would be "intense firing".

"In the park I saw a man, a woman and a child dead on the ground," local resident Ludmila said.

"Near the railway station a shop was destroyed, while the bus station was also on fire and dead people were lying around," she said.

Ukraine's military accused insurgent fighters of firing Grad rockets at residential blocks in the city "aiming to bring discredit to the Ukrainian army and frighten the non-combattants".

A rebel commander from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic told a press conference that the situation in Gorlivka was "fine for the moment".

Seized by separatists in April, Gorlivka has been the headquarters for a hard core of insurgent militants, including an important rebel commander linked by Ukrainian security services to the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia said Saturday that new European Union sanctions targeting Russian intelligence chiefs over its role in Ukraine risked ending all joint cooperation on security.

The European Union "has practically speaking put at risk international cooperation in the area of security," the Russian foreign ministry said in an angry response.

The EU on Saturday announced it had broadened its list of Russian officials facing targeted sanctions to include the head of the FSB security service, Alexander Bortnikov, and the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Mikhail Fradkov.

It also included the head of Russia s national security council, Nikolai Patrushev who is a former head of the FSB.

"The additional sanctions list is a direct testimony that European Union countries have chosen a course towards fully rolling back cooperation with Russia in matters of international and regional security," Moscow said.

It cited the worsening situation in Afghanistan, the Middle East and North Africa.

Russia called the fresh sanctions "irresponsible", adding that the effect of the penalties "will be enthusiastically welcomed by international terrorism".

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President Barack Obama spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday, and stressed the need for an immediate and sustainable ceasefire in Gaza.

In a statement, the White House said Obama "made clear the strategic imperative of instituting an immediate, unconditional humanitarian ceasefire that ends hostilities now and leads to a permanent cessation of hostilities based on the November 2012 ceasefire agreement."

The call between the two leaders came as the Islamist Hamas movement fired more rockets at Israel Sunday, despite claims it had accepted a UN request for a 24-hour extension of a humanitarian truce in war-torn Gaza.

Hamas's belated acceptance of diplomatic calls for a temporary ceasefire was announced several hours after Israel resumed its devastating military assault on the Palestinian enclave after a pause of more than 24 hours.

During the call, Obama "underscored the United States' strong condemnation of Hamas' rocket and tunnel attacks against Israel and reaffirmed Israel's right to defend itself."

But the US head of state also "reiterated the United States' serious and growing concern about the rising number of Palestinian civilian deaths and the loss of Israeli lives, as well as the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza," according to the White House.

The conflict has killed more than 1,030 Palestinians, 43 Israeli soldiers and three civilians inside Israel.

Obama "underscored the enduring importance of ensuring Israel's security" as well as "protecting civilians, alleviating Gaza's humanitarian crisis and enacting a sustainable ceasefire that both allows Palestinians in Gaza to lead normal lives and addresses Gaza's long-term development and economic needs, while strengthening the Palestinian authority."

Obama reiterated Washington's support for Egypt's initiative to ease the situation -- endorsed by Israel but not accepted by Hamas -- and stressed that "ultimately, any lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must ensure the disarmament of terrorist groups and the demilitarization of Gaza."

Speaking on US broadcaster CNN earlier Sunday, Netanyahu had accused Hamas of violating a ceasefire that it had itself called and vowed that Israeli operations in Gaza would continue.