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South Korea has increased its budget to fund North Korea-related projects this year, government data showed on Thursday, with a new president seeking closer relations due to take office in Seoul and signs of an opening from Pyongyang. South Korea's Ministry of Unification said parliament had approved a 9.1 percent rise in the inter-Korean cooperation fund this year to 1.1 trillion won ($1.03 billion). "The last offer for talks we made to North Korea was last summer, when the North was suffering from flood damage," said Park Soo-jin, a spokeswoman for the ministry. The two Koreas remain technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended with a truce, not a treaty, and relations plunged under South Korean President Lee Myung-bak who cut aid dramatically after the shooting of a South Korean tourist in the North in 2008.  Lee's single term ends in February when he will be replaced by Park Geun-hye, who has pledged engagement with the isolated and impoveri

Social games publisher Zynga Inc confirmed on Monday that it has carried out 11 of the planned shutdowns of 13 game titles, with "Petville" being the latest game on which it pulled the plug.  Zynga in October said it would shut down 13 under-performing titles after warning that its revenues were slowing as gamers fled from its once-popular titles published on the Facebook platform in large numbers and sharply revised its full-year outlook.  The San Francisco-based company announced the "Petville" shutdown two weeks ago on its Facebook page. All the 11 shutdowns occurred in December. The 11 titles shut down or closed to new players include role-playing game "Mafia Wars 2," "Vampire Wars," "ForestVille" and "FishVille."  "In place of 'PetVille,' we encourage you to play other Zynga games like 'Castleville,' 'Chefville,' 'Farmville 2,' 'Mafia Wars' and 'Yoville,'

Apple Inc has started testing a new iPhone and the next version of its iOS software, news website The Next Web reported. The company's shares rose as much as 4.3 percent but eased a little to trade up 3 percent at $546.11 by mid-day on the Nasdaq. Application developers have found in their app usage logs references to a new iPhone identifier, iPhone 6.1, running iOS 7 operating system, the website reported. Apple's iPhone 5 bears the identifiers "iPhone 5.1" and "iPhone 5.2" and is powered by the iOS 6 operating system. Developer logs show that the app requests originate from an internet address on Apple's Cupertino campus, suggesting that Apple engineers are testing compatibility for some of the popular apps, the website said. "Although OS and device data can be faked, the unique IP footprint leading back to Apple's Cupertino campus leads us to believe this is not one of those attempts," the website said. Raymond James analyst

The government of Bangladesh has hiked the fuel prices of the country on the 3rd day of new year. Petrol and octane prices by Tk 5 per litre setting new prices at   Tk 96 and  Tk 99. Besides,  diesel and kerosene prices were up for Tk 7 setting new prices at  Tk 68 for the both items.   The prices would be effective from Thursday midnight, it said in a media statement at night.  The opposition BNP on Dec 26 threatened country wide general strike a day after the fuel prices were further increased.  But the opposition's reaction could not be known immediately after the fresh increase in the fuel oil costs. 

Sonia Gandhi was born at Antonia Edvige Albina Maino of Italy on 9th December 1946. Sonia turns into 67th year of age. She is an Italian-born Indian politician and the President of the Indian National Congress, one of the major political parties of India. She is 12th powerful man of the world as per the Forbes Magazine  annual ranking for 2012.   She is the widow of former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi and belongs to the Nehru–Gandhi family. After his assassination in 1991, she was invited by the Indian National Congress to take over the Congress but refused and publicly stayed away from politics amidst constant prodding by the Congress. She finally agreed to join politics in 1997; in 1998, she was elected as the leader of the Congress. Since then, Sonia Gandhi has been the President of the Indian National Congress Party. She has served as the Chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance in the Lok Sabha since 2004. In September 2010, on being re-elected for

Bangladeshies have won 5-match series  with 3-2 victory  against West Indies. They won by 2 wickets today in the deciding match. This is their 2nd ODI series victory in cricket. They first got first series victory in 2010 against  New Zealand .  Bangladesh lost eight wickets as they were chasing 218-run target set by West Indies Indies in the fifth and deciding one-day international at their home ground Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka on Saturday. The vice-captain smashed a solid 45 off 42, featuring seven boundaries, and hauled two wickets of the Caribbeans removing Darren Bravo (51) and Andre Russell for a duck. After restricting West Indies to a modest 217, Bangladesh appeared in trouble with losing three wickets -- Tamim Iqbal (4), Anamul Haque (0) and Jahurul Islam (10) -- only for 30 runs. Later, skipper Mushfiqur Rahim and Mahmudullah made a 91-run partnership in the fifth wicket. But Narine broke the strong partnership by sending back Mahmudullah in the

William Henry "Bill" Gates III, born October 28, 1955, is an American business magnate and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive and current chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company, which he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third; in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the second wealthiest person. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder, with 6.4 percent of the common stock. He has also authored or co-authored several books. Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts. In th