MUMBAI, May 2: Shares of FMCG major Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) today soared over 4 per cent to touch 52-week high after the company posted 20.63 per cent increase in net profit for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2012.
Buoyed by the results, shares of the company shot-up by 4.21 per cent to a 52-week high of Rs 433.90 on the BSE.
At the NSE too, the FMCG major gained 3.87 per cent to touch a one year high of Rs 433.80.
The scrip was the top performer among the blue-chips on both the key indices Sensex and Nifty during the morning trade.
HUL yesterday posted 20.63 per cent increase in net profit at Rs 686.61 crore for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2012, on back of robust sales growth across all business verticals.
The company had posted net profit of Rs 569.18 crore in the same period of 2010-11. (PTI)

LONDON, May 2: Whitney Houstoun’s ex-husband Bobby Brown says he was shocked to discover that his former wife was taking drugs before she died.
Houston, 48, died in Beverly Hills in February from accidental drowning caused by cocaine use, reported Contactmusic.
“It is just unexplainable… How one could, you know, (say that I) got her addicted to drugs. I am not the reason she is gone.
“I was hurt… Because, you know, me being off of narcotics for the last seven years, I felt that she was, you know, I did not know she was struggling with it still. But at the same time, you know, listen, it is a hard fight. It is a hard fight to, you know, maintain sobriety that way,” Brown said.
Houston had apparently wanted to reunite with her former husband of 14 years and the pair had decided on an intimate ceremony with their daughter Bobbi Kristina as the only witness. (PTI)

LONDON, May 2: Troubled actress Lindsay Lohan has reportedly given USD 100 to a cleaner at the 98th Annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
The 25-year-old attended the dinner in Washington DC on Saturday night with her lawyer Shawn Chapman Holley, reported Femalefirst online.
During a visit to the ladies’ room, Lohan met an elderly Hispanic cleaner Bianca and after seeing how hard she was working, she felt sorry for her.
“You are too old to be doing this,” said Lohan.
The “Freaky Friday” actress then reached into her purse and handed Bianca a USD 100 bill.
The attendant initially refused Lindsay’s generosity and said, “No, no, no.”
Other guests at the dinner included Kim Kardashian and her mother Kris Jenner, Elle MacPherson, Josh Hutcherson, Mary J Blige, Goldie Hawn and Eva Longoria. (PTI)

KANO, May 2: Islamist group Boko Haram released a video celebrating its bombing of a Nigerian newspaper and warning of more attacks on local and foreign media if they published reports that were biased to the sect or insulting to Islam.
Suicide car bombers targeted the offices of This Day in the capital, Abuja, and northern city of Kaduna last Thursday, killing at least five people in apparently coordinated strikes.
Boko Haram has been fighting a low-level insurgency for more than two years and has become the main security threat facing Africa’s top oil producer, although most attacks have been in the largely Muslim north, far from southern oil fields.
The sect, which wants to impose an Islamic state on Nigeria’s more or less evenly mixed population of Muslim and Christians, has been blamed for hundreds of killings since its uprising against the government in 2009.
It had not previously targeted the press in its bombing campaign, although last October it killed a reporter for state TV who the sect said was an informant to President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
The video posted on the Internet opens with a Koranic song and a drawing of the Koran sitting on two crossed AK-47s. A banner in the northern Hausa language says:
‘Message from Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihadl (Boko Haram’s full name): on why we attacked  ThisDay’.
It then plays a video tape shot from a distance of the ThisDay Abuja office, which promptly explodes into a ball of flames and grey smoke – that suggests the sect had a cameraman set up in anticipation of the strike.
‘We attacked Thisday because we will never forget or forgive anyone who abused our Prophet,’ a voice booms in  Hausa.
ThisDay angered Muslims a decade ago when one of its columnists suggested the Prophet Mohammad might have wanted to marry a beauty queen, an event to which the tape  alludes.
JIHAD VIDEO
The statement rages against local and international media for carrying reports by Nigeria’s government that a faction of the sect was behind the kidnapping of two hostages – one British, the other Italian – who were killed by their captors during a botched March rescue  attempt.
‘We said we have nothing to do with it, yet these media houses reported that we were responsible for the incident,’ it said, also complaining about reports, which it denied, that its spokesman Abu Qaqa had been  captured.
It warned it would attack other media houses soon, listing several local papers as next on the list and several international media as ‘on the verge of jointing  them’.
It was at least the fifth video that Boko Haram had posted this year, mostly from self-proclaimed leader Abubakar Shekau. Shekau appears in this one, too, waving an AK-47 around.
From being a secretive sect in the shadows, the group has gradually raised its media profile, which may explain both the proliferation of home videos and growing attacks on media.
A spate of attacks in the past few days, including one against Christians in the north that killed 19 people on Sunday, dampened hopes that tighter security in the north had drastically reduced the sect’s capability.
Nigerian forces raided the hideout of Islamist militants in Kano on Tuesday, killing the suspected mastermind of an attack on Christian worshippers in a gun battle that lasted several hours in the main northern city.
(agencies)

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WASHINGTON, May 2: Afghan security forces would be “fully responsible” for the security of the country by 2014, US President Barack Obama today said.
“Already, nearly half the Afghan people live in places where Afghan Security Forces are moving into the lead. This month, at a NATO Summit in Chicago, our coalition will set a goal for Afghan forces to be in the lead for combat operations across the country next year,” Obama said in a nationally televised address to the nation from Bagram air force base in Afghanistan, where he made an unannounced visit last night.
International troops will continue to train, advise and assist the Afghans, and fight alongside them when needed. But US will shift into a support role as Afghans step forward, he said.
“As we do, our troops will be coming home. Last year, we removed 10,000 US troops from Afghanistan. Another 23,000 will leave by the end of the summer. After that, reductions will continue at a steady pace, with more of our troops coming home. And as our coalition agreed, by the end of 2014 the Afghans will be fully responsible for the security of their country,” he said.
“My fellow Americans, we have travelled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war. Yet here, in the pre-dawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon. The Iraq War is over. The number of our troops in harm’s way has been cut in half, and more will be coming home soon. We have a clear path to fulfill our mission in Afghanistan, while delivering justice to al-Qaeda,” Obama said.
As US emerges from a decade of conflict abroad and economic crisis at home, it is time to renew America, he said.
“An America where our children live free from fear, and have the skills to claim their dreams. A united America of grit and resilience, where sunlight glistens off soaring new towers in downtown Manhattan, and we build our future as one people, as one nation,” the US President said.
This time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end, he added. (PTI)

WASHINGTON, May 2: Indian-American Vikram Singh has been appointed to a key Pentagon position to look after entire South and Southeast Asia.
“Vikram J Singh has been appointed to the Senior Executive Service and is assigned as deputy assistant secretary of defence for south and Southeast Asia, Office of the Under Secretary of Defence (Policy),” a Pentagon announcement said.
Singh previously served as special assistant, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy), it said.
Singh was a close associate of late Richard Holbrooke, the Special US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He replaces Robert Scher, who has now been assigned as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Plans. (PTI)

WASHINGTON, May 2: Welcoming the talks between the Indian and Afghan foreign ministers, the US today said that it supports closer ties between the two South Asian nations.
“We certainly support closer ties between India and Afghanistan and between, frankly, the entire region for the greater stability of the region,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters at his daily news conference.
“So it’s certainly in India’s interest and Afghanistan’s interest to cooperate more closely,” he said, responding to a question on the India visit of Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul.
In New Delhi, Rassoul yesterday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who conveyed India’s “unwavering commitment” to assisting Afghanistan in its efforts to build a peaceful, democratic and prosperous country and hoped the strategic bilateral partnership would be further strengthened.
Besides his meeting with Singh, during which they discussed a range of bilateral, regional and global issues of mutual interest, Rassoul also held parleys with External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon. (PTI)

WASHINGTON, May 2: The long awaited Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) signed by President Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in Kabul reflects the common vision for a strong relationship between the two countries, a top American official has said.
“This partnership agreement reflects our common vision for a strong relationship that will continue beyond the end of the transition to Afghan security responsibility in 2014,” Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement here.
The agreement was signed last night by Obama and Karzai in Kabul, where the US president made an unannounced visit.
“That we can look beyond this period of transition is a tribute to the significant gains our forces have made, and the extraordinary growth in capability of the Afghan National Security Forces,” he said.
“The United States of America and Afghanistan are more secure today because of the service and sacrifices of these brave heroes, and we will be more secure thanks to the enduring partnership that President Obama and President Karzai have signed. There will be more challenges ahead, but our strategy is succeeding,” Panetta said.
The agreement, he said, affirms the long-term commitment of the United States to Afghanistan, and it is a further expression of their shared goal of defeating al-Qaeda and its extremist affiliates.
“It is a tangible sign of the strength and the resilience of the partnership that has been built between the United States and the Afghan people, and the significant progress that has been made by American, international and Afghan forces in building an Afghanistan that can secure and govern itself. The transition to Afghan security lead has commenced and it is on track,” Panetta said. (PTI)

NEW YORK, May 2: An American, who received training at Al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan, was today convicted on multiple terrorism charges including plotting with two of his friends to carry out suicide attacks in the New York subways in one of the most serious terrorist plots since 9/11.
Adis Medunjanin, 28, a Queens resident was found guilty by a jury after a four-week trial in federal district court in Brooklyn.
He will be sentenced by US District Judge John Gleeson on September 7 and faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
So far, seven defendants, including Medunjanin and his two co-conspirators have been convicted in connection with the al-Qaeda New York city bombing plot and related charges.
Jurors reached the verdict after deliberating for a little more than a day.
As the verdict was read, Medunjanin gazed at his family members, raised his palms upward and appeared to be saying a prayer.
A Bosnian native, Medunjanin and his two high school friends Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay came within days of executing a plot to carry out coordinated suicide bombings in New York City subways in September 2009, as directed by senior al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, the Justice Department said.
However, when the plot was foiled, Medunjanin attempted to commit a terrorist attack by crashing his car on the Whitestone Expressway here in an effort to kill himself and others.
US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Loretta Lynch said Medunjanin’s journey of radicalization led him from “Queens to Pakistan to the brink of a terrorist attack in New York City – and soon to a lifetime in federal prison.” (agencies)

NAYPYITAW, MYANMAR, May 2: Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi took her place in Myanmar’s parliament today, ushering in a historic new political era after nearly a quarter-century fight against military  dictatorship.
The 66-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate waded through throngs of foreign and local reporters as she entered parliament in Naypyitaw to join a fragile new political system after 49 years of oppressive army  rule.
Suu Kyi and 33 members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party who swept by-elections on April 1 took their seats after backing down from a demand to change the wording of the oath that new members take. Three more will join them in the lower house later.
Asked by Reuters as she walked toward the chamber if this marked an important day for Myanmar, Suu Kyi said: “I think only time will tell.”
She entered the imposing chamber and sat down on her own, near the block reserved for serving military men, who have a quarter of the seats in parliament under the  constitution.
She seemed relaxed as individual lawmakers strolled over to greet her before taking the oath.
The dispute with the ruling army-backed party over the oath had threatened to upset the delicate detente with President Thein Sein, a former senior general who has overseen a year of sweeping reforms in the resource-rich but impoverished country.
Suu Kyi agreed on Monday to stick to the original wording and she will swear to protect a constitution drafted under military direction that she says is undemocratic and needs to be amended to reduce the political role of the armed forces.
(AGENCIES)