LONDON, Apr 22: Bee Gees star Robin Gibb has recovered consciousness after falling into a coma earlier this month.
The 62-year-old singer has been fighting for his life in a hospital for days after developing pneumonia, just weeks after announcing his colon and liver cancer had gone into remission, reported The Telegraph.
Robin’s brother Barry and his family flew to Britain from their home in Tennessee last weekend to join the bedside vigil.
His wife, Dwina, revealed that Barry has been using music to try and bring Robin back, singing to his ailing sibling and playing their songs.
And it seems the music therapy has worked. In a brief chat outside the hospital, Dwina said that her husband is making a miraculous recovery.
“He’s really, really good. I can’t believe it… He’s nodding and when we ask him questions, he’s just responding to everything,” she said. (PTI)

LONDON, Apr 22: “An Education” star Carey Mulligan and rocker Marcus Mumford have tied the knot in a private rustic-themed ceremony in the middle of the Somerset countryside.
The Mumford and Sons frontman’s father John, a vicar, conducted the service inside a barn at Stream Farm in Bridgwater, reported Daily Mail.
The newlyweds, who have been engaged for a year, were joined by family and friends at the venue adorned with hay bales.
Among the 200 guests were actress Sienna Miller, Hollywood star Jake Gyllenhaal and Oscar-winning actor Colin Firth.
Mulligan, 26, wore a full-length ivory plain backless dress with V-straps, thought to be a Versace design. (PTI)

TAIPEI, Apr 22: Taiwan plans to purchase four warships from the United States as part of the island’s efforts to modernise its forces against former rival China, local media reported today.
The defence ministry briefed President Ma Ying-jeou on the proposed arms deal during a meeting last month and is prepared to set aside the budget next year, the United Daily News said, without specifying the cost.
The ministry declined to comment on the report.
If finalised, the arms deal will increase to 12 the total number of such warships owned by Taiwanese navy.
The four Perry-class frigates, separately built in the 1980s and to be retired by the US navy lately, are aimed to replace the Taiwan navy’s fleet of eight Knox-class frigates, the daily said.
Tensions between Taiwan and China have eased markedly since President Ma Ying-jeou of the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang party came to power in 2008 on a platform of beefing up trade links and allowing more Chinese tourists to visit.
Ma was re-elected for a second term in January.
China however has still refused to renounce its use of force against Taiwan even though the island has governed itself for more than 60 years after their split in 1949 at the end of a civil war. (Agencies)

LONDON, Apr 22: “Pretty Woman” star Julia Roberts says, as a wedding gift for newly-engaged Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, she will babysit their six children.
Jolie, 36, and Pitt, 48, who have been together since 2005, announced their engagement earlier this month. They raise six children – Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, and twins Knox and Vivienne.
Roberts, 44, who has three children, was delighted to hear the news because she feels she knows what exactly to offer the busy couple as a present, reported Femalefist.
“People are starting to ask me and put pressure on me. Babysitting. Yeah, that’s good. It’s an exciting news. It’s always nice when you’re ready to hitch your wagon for eternity to somebody,” she said. (PTI)

LOS ANGELES, Apr 22: Singer Marc Anthony has reportedly reached out to ex-wife Jennifer Lopez’s first husband Ojani Noa through his lawyer to investigate whether there was a case of infidelity during their seven years of marriage.
Anthony’s attorneys are trying to find out the truth in the allegations that Lopez spent time with Noa while married to Anthony.
Now Anthony’s legal team wants to know the nature of Lopez and Noa’s relationship, reported Ace Showbiz.
“Marc Anthony’s lawyers are following up with allegations that Lopez was seeing Ojani while married to Anthony, before and after the twins were born. Jennifer allegedly would go to Ojani’s Hancock Park house and spend time with him, without Marc’s knowledge,” a source said.
“Noa would be asked to provide financial information and records related to Lopez because Anthony believes Lopez has money in offshore accounts. Ojani has extensive records still relating to his time with Jennifer. It seems that Marc is going after her money and it’s looking like this could be a divorce battle royale,” the source added.
Lopez, 42, is now dating dancer Casper Smart. (PTI)

TEHRAN, Apr 22: A senior Iranian commander says the country has reverse-engineered an American spy drone captured by Tehran’s armed forces last year and has begun building a copy.
Gen Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who is chief of the aerospace division of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, was quoted today by the semi-official Mehr news agency as saying that experts are also recovering data from the US RQ-170 Sentinel captured in December in eastern Iran.
US officials have acknowledged losing the drone. They have said Iran will find it hard to exploit any data and technology aboard it because of measures taken to limit the intelligence value of drones operating over hostile territory. (Agencies)

LOS ANGELES, Apr 22: Troubled star Lindsay Lohan’s father Michael has come out to defend his daughter after she was accused of entering into a brawl with another clubber.
Michael said that his daughter was subjected to cruel taunts prior to the incident, reported TMZ.
He said that the quarrel began when the girl made fun of the actress for taking her father on a night out, and then he was forced to call security.
Lindsay had a drink thrown over her by an unnamed woman at Los Angeles’ nightclub Smoke and Mirrors, while she was enjoying an evening out with her dad.
“There were some people dancing around her and people trying to get to her and I was keeping them away. I heard commotion behind me. And the girl said something and Lindsay cursed and the other girl threw a drink at her and that was it,” said Michael.
“I grabbed Lindsay, I held the other girl back and told security to get her out right away… (The girl said) ‘What are you doing here with your father?’” he said.
Asked if there was a physical fight between the pair, he said, “Absolutely not, there was no contact whatsoever. I’m not out here often, so I don’t get a chance to see her and it’s horrible that I had to be brought into this situation like this.” (PTI)

NEW YORK, Apr 22: Citigroup’s India-born CEO Vikram Pandit and its directors have been sued by a shareholder, saying that the board spent funds in an “unwarranted and excessive” manner on compensation packages for its executives.
The lawsuit was filed on April 20 in Manhattan Federal Court by Citigroup shareholder Stanley Moskal, who said Pandit and other Citi directors breached their fiduciary duties by awarding more than USD 54 million in compensation to the executives in 2011, a year when the bank had an “extremely disappointing” performance.
“This is a failed ‘say on pay’ shareholder derivative action, arising from the Board’s unwarranted and excessive spending of company (ie stockholders’) funds on executive compensation—namely, the Board’s recent authorisation of excessive 2011 compensation for executives who have presided over extremely disappointing company performance,” the lawsuit said.
It added that of the total USD 54 million of compensation awarded to top Citigroup executives in 2011, USD 14.9 million was for Pandit, a “raise of 1,499,999,900 per cent over his 2010 compensation.”
Pandit was paid USD 15 million in 2011, which included a base salary of USD 1.7 million and a cash bonus of USD 5.3 million.    At the height of the financial crisis, he had taken an annual salary of just USD 1 for most of 2009 and 2010.
Citigroup plans to get the suit dismissed saying it is baseless.
The suit came just days after Citi’s shareholders rejected a proposal on executive compensation at the bank’s annual meeting.
It is filed under the “say on pay” provision of the Dodd Frank reform act which gives shareholders the right to vote on executive pay.
In the April 17 vote at Citi’s annual shareholder meeting in Dallas, 55 per cent of shareholders voted against the proposal on executive compensation, which included approving Pandit’s USD 15 million pay package.
The vote “cast doubt on the board’s decision-making process, as well as the accuracy and truthfulness of its public statements”, the complaint said, adding, “Absent this (lawsuit), the majority will of the company’s stockholders shall be rendered meaningless.”
With the financial crisis eating into profits and revenues of firms and resulting in large scale lay-offs, there has been outrage among people over the millions of dollars of bonus and pay packages that Wall Street firms have doled out to their executives. (PTI)