Ambulances line up a site of a trolleybus explosion, background, in Volgograd, Russia on Monday. A bomb blast tore through the trolleybus in the city Volgograd on Monday morning, killing at least fourteen people a day after a suicide bombing that killed at 17 at the city’s main railway station - AP Moscow: At least 14 people were killed Monday when a suicide bomber blew himself up on a packed trolleybus in Volgograd, raising new concerns about security at the Sochi Olympics a day after a deadly attack on the southern Russian city's train station.
President Vladimir Putin, under pressure to show that Russia can assure the security of tens of thousands of guests when the Winter Games open on February 7, ordered stepped up security across the country.
The twin suicide attacks on Volgograd, which until this year had no record of recent unrest, have stunned Russia and troubled the authorities as people prepare for mass New Year celebrations. At least 17 people died in Sunday's attack blamed on a suspected female suicide bomber.
The force of the blast destroyed the number 15A trolleybus, which was packed with early morning commuters and was turned into a tangle of wreckage with only its roof and front remaining.
Health ministry spokesman Oleg Salagai told Russian state television that 14 people were killed in the trolleybus bombing and 28 wounded.
Russian investigators have opened a criminal probe into a suspected act of terror as well as the illegal carrying of weapons, the Investigative Committee said. "The explosives were detonated by a male suicide bomber, fragments of whose body have been found and taken for genetic analysis to establish his identity," said spokesman Vladimir Markin.
He said that some four kilogrammes (nine pounds) of TNT equivalent had been used in the blast and noted the explosives were identical to those used in Sunday's train station bombing. "This confirms the theory that the two attacks are linked. It is possible that they were prepared in the same place," he added.
Concerns over Olympic security
The new attack will further heighten fears about security at the Winter Olympic Games in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, which lies 690 kilometres (425 miles) southwest of Volgograd.
Putin ordered security stepped up across all of Russia after the bombings, with a special regime to be imposed in Volgograd, the national anti-terror committee announced.
Russia is already preparing to impose a "limited access" security cordon around Sochi from January 7 which will check all traffic and ban all non-resident cars from a wide area around the city.
State television said that after the latest blast in Volgograd commuters were abandoning buses and trolleybuses and going to work on foot in fear of a new attack. Speculation swirled on social networking sites that there had been more blasts but the local authorities insisted that was not the case, the RIA Novosti news agency said.
The search for the perpetrators of the blast is expected to focus on Russia's largely Muslim North Caucasus region where Islamist militants have for years been fighting the Russian security forces.
Doku Umarov, the leader of militants seeking to impose an Islamist state throughout Russia's North Caucasus, has ordered rebels to target civilians outside the region and disrupt the Games.
Next: Hitting the Russian heartland
Ambulances line up a site of a trolleybus explosion, background, in Volgograd, Russia, on Monday. -AP
Victims' bodies lie outside a wreckage of a trolleybus in Volgograd, Russia. The blast caused by a suicide bomber has killed 14 people. -APExperts and police officers examine a site of a trolleybus explosion, in Volgograd, Russia, on Monday. Investigating officials have found that the bomb was detonated by a male suicide bomber whose body fragments has been recognised. -APAn ambulance leaves the site of a trolleybus explosion in Volgograd, Russia. The explosions put the city on edge and highlighted the terrorist threat that Russia is facing as it prepares to host the Winter Games in February. -APExperts, firefighters and police officers examine a site of a trolleybus explosion in Volgograd, Russia. -APPolice officers with a sniffing dog examine territory around the site of a trolleybus explosion in Volgograd. The force of the blast left almost no trace of the trolleybus, which was packed with early morning commuters, and also blew out windows of nearby houses. -APFlowers are placed at the main entrance of Volgograd main railway station. Volgograd blasts will be a particular concern to the authorities as the bomber struck a city of more than one million people in the Russian heartland. -APPolice officers guard the Volgograd main railway station as passengers from arriving trains leave, in Volgograd. -APA Volgograd resident walks crying in Volgograd, near the main railways station. -APBodies of the victims lie outside a wreckage of a trolleybus in Volgograd. -APA demolition expert walks along a wreckage of a trolleybus in Volgograd. Russian investigators have opened a criminal probe into a suspected act of terror as well as the illegal carrying of weapons. -APAn investigator takes photos in a wreckage. After the latest blast in Volgograd commuters were abandoning buses and trolleybuses and going to work on foot in fear of a new attack. -AP
The state-run telecom firm Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has decided to discontinue the 160-year-old telegram service from July 15, 2013 once a source of quick and urgent communication. Here, DC Online offers helps you recall those gadgets that have already vanished or are awaiting extinction.
Smart phones, emails and SMS seem to have pushed the humble telegram service to a quiet corner with the BSNL deciding to discontinue the 160-year-old telegraph service from July 15.A telegram notifying parents of the death of their 22-year-old son, US Marine Cpl. Thomas, who died in the bloody assault on a Japanese-held island during World War II. Telegram existed in Europe as early as 1792. In 1837, American artist-turned inventor Samuel F. B. Morse conducted the first successful experiment with an electrical recording telegraph.Once the main source of quick and urgent communication, the service delivered many happy and sad news to people spread all over the country. But with the advent of technology and newer means of communication, the telegram found itself edged out.The first telegraphs used smoke signals, beacons or reflected light. As e-mail arrived in the mid-1960s it slowly replaced telegraph. Though in many countries like Netherland and Ireland it was closed by early 20th century. Nations like Baharin and Mexico still use it as low cost service. In picture: electric telegraph BSNL employees display a set of 1960's telegraph Morse key transmitter, left, which the operator used to send messages and a telegraph receiver, right, at a telegraph centre in Bengaluru.An official showing an old double sounder telegraph board at Central Telegraph Office in Mumbai. Click on to find out what other services (that may matter to you) are coming to an end soon.Curtains will be down for landmark music-and-movies store Music World next month after losing the battle to online downloads, streaming and piracy. In March 2011, Music World had 39 stores across India but one year later it was down to seven, all in Bengal. By June 2013, the Park Street Music World was the last one standing. Gone are the days people waiting for letters from dear ones. As communicating through telephone, e-mails are cheaper than writing letters, inland letters face extinction. Thus, India post is increasingly running at a loss for the few decades. Stamps are not in demand; they are now collector’s items. A stamp which has been issued a long ago is more valuable if unused.India is among the first country in the world to witness a total wipe-out of the radio paging industry. The device without display was used to alert the user that a message has been sent.The introduction stage of pagers occurred in 1950s, and the earliest innovators were hospitals which used pagers as a means to sending messages to nurses. At that time, pagers were not available for the general public. In early 1990s, the pager industry had 64 million users all over the world.However, by the mid-1990s, as cellular technologies became cheaper and more widely available, advanced services began to displace paging as a commercial product. Even though the pagers are nearly extinct, they are still used by a marginal population such as technicians.From its creation in the 1960s through to its peak of popularity in the 1980s, the audio cassette was part of music culture for 48 years. It almost remained as an history to new generation of Apple and iPod. At least a handpicked ones still like their music played on cassettes.Dutch electronics giant Philips perfected the design of the cassette in the 1960s. Oddly, Philips did not charge royalties on their cassette patent, allowing numerous other companies to use their design for free. This ensured the quick acceptance of it as a new form of media. In 1979, Sony came up with its first stereo cassette player which was cherished by a generation of joggers, school children and music fans. The Walkman revolutionised the way people listened to music but has since been overtaken by another icon of the modern era, the iPod. With total sales of 385 million around the world, Sony pressed 'Stop' on Walkman in 2010.Trunk call was a telephonic call between towns or cities that went through the telephone exchange. In this system, human operators used to interconnect (switch) telephone subscriber lines to establish calls between subscribers. A well known phrase of those times were 'number please'. There used to be ordinary calls, urgent and lightning calls. 1924-era telephone switchboard on display at the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta, Georgia. In the ringdown method, the originating operator called another intermediate operator who would call the called subscriber, or passed it on to another intermediate operator. This chain of intermediate operators could complete the call only if intermediate trunk lines were available between all the centers at the same time.In October 1966, the system was automated and known as Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD). This increased the number of STD calls that could be made per day. At this point 95% of long distance calls could be connected via STD. The remaining 5% had to be connected by an operator. Telecommunications technology has come a long way since. The term 'trunk call' gradually fell out of use.Teleprinters, once used by newspaper offices for receiving data, went out of vogue with the advent of the internet.
Billie Jean King is an American former World No. 1 professional tennis player. King won 39 Grand Slam titles, including 12 singles, 16 women's doubles, and 11 mixed doubles titles.
Billie Jean King won the singles title at the inaugural WTA Tour Championships.Chris Evert also known as Chris Evert-Lloyd from 1979 to 1987, is a former World No. 1 professional tennis player from the United States. She won 18 Grand Slam singles championships and three doubles titles.Chris Evert was the year-ending World No. 1 singles player in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, and 1981. Overall Evert won 157 singles championships and 29 doubles titles.Justine Henin-Hardenne is a Belgian retired professional tennis player and former World No. 1. Henin won 43 WTA singles titles and seven Grand Slam singles titles, including four French Open titles, one Australian Open title, and two US Open titles.Andre Agassi said of Henin, "Justine Henin is one of the most talented women ever to have played the game of tennis."Margaret Smith Court is a retired World No. 1 professional tennis player and Christian minister from Australia.In 1970, Court became the first woman during the open era (and the second woman in history) to win the singles Grand Slam (all four majors in the same calendar year). Court won a (still current) record 24 of those titles during her career. She also won 19 women's doubles and 21 mixed doubles titles, giving her a record 64 Major titles overall.A United States resident since 1994, Maria Sharapova has won twenty-nine WTA singles titles, including four Grand Slam singles titles. She has also won the year-end WTA Tour Championships in 2004. The WTA has ranked Sharapova World No. 1 in singles on five separate occasions, for a total of 21 weeksMaria Sharapova became the world no. 1 for the first time on August 22, 2005, and last held the ranking for the fifth time for four weeks from June 11, 2012 to July 8, 2012. She has been in eight Grand Slam finals with a record of 4–4.Martina Navratilova is a retired Czech American tennis player and coach. Billie Jean King, former World No. 1 player, said in 2006 that Navratilova is "the greatest singles, doubles and mixed doubles player who's ever lived."Navratilova won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, 31 major women's doubles titles (an all-time record), and 10 major mixed doubles titles. She reached the Wimbledon singles final 12 times, including nine consecutive years from 1982 through 1990, and won the women's singles title at Wimbledon a record nine times.Monika Seles is the former Yugoslav world no. 1 professional tennis player and a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame.In 1990, at the age of 16, Seles became the youngest-ever French Open champion. She went on to win eight Grand Slam singles titles before her 20th birthday and was the year-end World No. 1 in 1991 and 1992. However, on April 30, 1993 she was the victim of an on-court attack, when a man stabbed her in the back with a 9-inch-long knife.Serena Jameka Williams is an American professional tennis player who is currently ranked No. 1 in women's singles tennis. The Women's Tennis Association has ranked her World No. 1 in singles on six separate occasions.Williams became the World No. 1 for the first time on July 8, 2002, and regained this ranking for the sixth time on February 18, 2013, becoming the oldest world no. 1 player in WTA's history. She is the only female player to have won over $50 million in prize money. Williams is the reigning French Open, US Open, WTA Tour Championships and Olympic ladies singles champion.Steffi Graf is a former World No. 1 German tennis player. In total, Graf won 22 Grand Slam singles titles, second among male and female players only to Margaret Court's 24.Graf was ranked World No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks—the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the number-one ranking since the WTA and the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing rankings. She also holds the open era record for finishing as the year-end World No. 1 the most times.Venus Williams has been ranked World No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association on three separate occasions. She became the World No. 1 for the first time on February 25, 2002, becoming the first black woman to achieve this feat during the Open Era. She is credited as changing the women's game and ushering a new, modern era of power and athleticism on the women's professional tennis tour. She is also regarded as the best grass court player of her generation and she is widely considered as one of the all-time greats of women's tennis.