MELBOURNE, June 30: A new technology that can detect sharks and send alerts to lifeguards via smartphones is being developed in Australia.

The Clever Buoy, being developed by Australian tech firm Optus, is a floating device anchored to a seabed-located box, that emits sonar signals into the surrounding water.

A processor in the buoy analyses the reflections of those signals, and is able to identify the sonar signature of shark-sized objects in the vicinity.

It also takes note of how such objects propel themselves through the water, to see if they are moving in a shark-like fashion.

A series of the buoys/boxes could be arranged in a row offshore, running parallel to a beach. Whenever any of them detects a shark, it would send an alert via satellite to the local lifeguard’s smartphone, ‘Gizmag’ reported.

The person would then sound an alarm, telling all swimmers to get out of the water until the shark had moved on.

The Clever Buoy technology has already successfully identified sharks in tests conducted at the Sydney Aquarium and Australia’s Abrolhos Islands. (PTI)

LOS ANGELES, June 30: Rapper French Montana has gifted USD 30,000-worth of jewels to girlfriend Khloe Kardashian on her 30th birthday.

The Rafaello & Co company designed her a flexible finger ring from its Rafaello Couture line, reported Us magazine.

The intricate accessory is made of Colombian green emeralds and fancy yellow canary diamonds.

The ‘Pop That’ hitmaker also gifted Kardashian with a set of grillz, including one with diamonds and the other without, on her birthday on June 27.

Kardashian wore a draped white gown that showed off her famous curves while her rapper boyfriend held her close during the party. The reality star took to social media to thank her many fans for their birthday support.

“Thank you thank you thank you for all the birthday love, wishes and blessings today!!!!! It means the world to me!!” she wrote. (PTI)

LONDON, June 30: Actress Keira Knightley is surprised that her husband did not kill her when he tried to teach her how to play guitar because she was so bad at it.

The ‘Begin Again’ star, who plays aspiring singer Greta in the upcoming comedy-drama, said she almost fell out with her husband because he got frustrated with her lack of ability to play the instrument, reported Contactmusic.

“He is a musician and he did try (to teach me guitar). It didn’t go so well, it’s a miracle we’re still married. I didn’t have the natural ability for the guitar.

“It was a little bit stressful but we’re still together, so it was fine, and I didn’t kill him and he didn’t kill me, so it was fine,” she said. (PTI)

TRIPOLI, June 30: A Tunisian diplomat and a fellow embassy staffer abducted in Libya earlier this year were freed by their abductors after months in captivity.

Tunisia’s Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa confirmed their release and said they were on their way back home.

“I want to inform you that several minutes ago a plane left Tripoli with our compatriots who had been held,” Jomaa said in a press conference yesterday at the foreign ministry.

Embassy employee Mohamed ben Sheikh was kidnapped in Tripoli on March 21 while diplomat Al-Aroussi Kontassi was seized April 17.

The pair had been freed through “the efforts of the Tunisian authorities in collaboration with the Libyan authorities whom we thank for their cooperation”, Jomaa said alongside Tunisian Foreign Minister Mongi Hamdi.

Hamdi declined to give details on the circumstances of their release but said no ransom had been paid.

He also said that Tunisia’s contact was with the Libyan authorities and not with the kidnappers whose identity he did not know, though he added their motivation was “political”.

Diplomats in Tripoli say militias which fought to topple the Muammer Gaddafi regime in the 2011 uprising often carry out kidnappings to blackmail other countries into releasing Libyans they hold.

Hamdi said the abductors had demanded the release of Libyans imprisoned in Tunisia on terrorism charges, but that they would not be freed.

The abductions of the Tunisians took place during a string of attacks targeting diplomats in the Libyan capital.

Jordan’s ambassador to Libya has also been kidnapped and Portugal’s embassy was attacked by gunmen.

Libya has been awash with weapons since the end of the uprising that killed Gaddafi and has been gripped by increasing lawlessness. (AGENCIES)

LOS ANGELES, June 30: Socialite Olivia Palermo tied the knot with German model Johannes Huebl during a very intimate ceremony in Bedford, New York.

Palermo, 28, who has been dating Huebl since 2008, posted the first official wedding photo and blogged about the ceremony, reported People magazine.

“We really wanted to keep this beautiful day very private and special to us and enjoyed the whole day with our family and two friends. Bedford is such an amazing and romantic countryside,” Palermo says.

Palermo, who appeared on MTV’s The City alongside Whitney Port, wore a three-piece Carolina Herrera bridal set that included a cashmere sweater, white shorts and a full tulle skirt with a high slit.

While her groom complemented her bridal ensemble in a white Marc Anthony Hamburg suit.

After the nuptials, the newlyweds headed back to New York City.

The Couple met six years ago through mutual friends at a movie screening in New York. (PTI)

WASHINGTON, June 30: The top manager in Iraq of the notorious private security firm Blackwater threatened to kill a US State Department investigator for probing the company’s performance, the New York Times reported today.

The Times, citing an internal State Department memorandum, said the threat came just weeks before Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 civilians on September 16, 2007 in Baghdad’s Nisour Square.

However US embassy officials in Baghdad sided with Blackwater and the State Department investigators were ordered to leave, The Times said.

Four former Blackwater employees are currently on trial in a US court for the Nisour Square deaths.

The killing, seen as an example of the impunity enjoyed by private security firms on the US payroll in Iraq, exacerbated Iraqi resentment toward Americans.

The lead State Department investigator, Jean Richter, warned in the memo dated August 31, 2007, that little oversight of the company, which had a USD 1 billion contract to protect US diplomats, had created “an environment full of liability and negligence.”

Blackwater guards “saw themselves as above the law,” Richter wrote.

According to a State Department memo, Daniel Carroll, Blackwater’s project manager in Iraq, told Richter after an argument “that he could kill me at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq.”

Richter wrote: “I took Carroll’s threat seriously. We were in a combat zone where things can happen quite unexpectedly, especially when issues involve potentially negative impacts on a lucrative security contract.”

A fellow State Department investigator who witnessed the exchange corroborated Richter’s report in a separate statement.

Blackwater, whose license to work in Iraq was revoked by Baghdad, has since been renamed twice and after merging with a rival firm is now called Constellis Holdings.

The State Department canceled its contract with the company soon after President Barack Obama took office in January 2009. (AGENCIES)

SEOUL, June 30: North Korea confirmed today its second missile test in recent days, with leader Kim Jong-Un overseeing the drill just days before Chinese President Xi Jinping visits South Korea.

The South Korean military said yesterday’s test was of two short-range Scud missiles with a range of about 500 kilometres (300 miles).

A dispatch by the North’s official KCNA news agency was unclear about the type of missile, mentioning, “tactical rockets” and “precision-guided missiles”.

A few days earlier, a similar despatch had hailed the test of a new “cutting-edge” guided missile as a “breakthrough” in the North’s military capability.

Pyongyang has in the past made extravagant claims about its ballistic missile capability, and experts are divided as to how far the country has gone in developing its missile systems under UN sanctions.

North Korea carries out regular missile tests, sometimes for technical reasons but often as a show of force to register its displeasure with events elsewhere.

The two latest tests come ahead of Xi’s visit to Seoul for talks with South Korean President Park Geun-Hye.

China is North Korea’s sole major ally and key economic benefactor, and the fact that Xi is visiting Seoul before Pyongyang has been seen by some as a deliberate snub.

For all its leverage, China has grown increasingly frustrated with North Korea’s refusal to curb its nuclear weapons programme as well its penchant for raising regional tension.

According to KCNA, Kim argued that the missile tests “had not the slightest impact” on regional peace and security, and were in fact a guarantor of regional stability.

“Durable peace can be protected only when one is so strong that nobody dares provoke one and it can be guaranteed by one’s own strength,” said Kim, who personally oversaw both the latest tests.

Tensions between North and South Korea have been running high for months, with each accusing the other of provocations.

Most recently, the North’s army threatened a “devastating strike” after the South held a live-fire drill near the flashpoint maritime border in the Yellow Sea.

In March, the two sides traded hundreds of shells across the border off the west coast after the North dropped shells in the South’s waters during a live-fire drill. (AGENCIES)