The debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney covered a milestone on Wednesday by reaching more than 70 million viewers. It was first of three presidential debates between them.

 It is the highest number for a first debate since 1980 as about 67.2 million viewers watched on television at home, said by Neilson, a television measurement company.

Going back in 1980, about 80.6 million people watched the debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, the republican presidential candidate. Since then, more than 67 million viewers have been attracted by second-and-third-round presidential debates including the second debate of the 1992 cycle.

People who watched the first of three presidential debates outside the home like in bars, restaurants, offices, airports or in other countries are not counted in Nielsen’s total for Wednesday’s debate. Similarly, people who had access to the debate on phones, tablets and computers are also not included. For instance, 1.2 million around the world covered the debate on live stream of CNN.com. Likewise, YouTube and its partners had “millions of live streamed views of the debates,” said by the Web video giant, YouTube. However, it declined to release exact figures.

ABC was one of the 11 traditional channels that subscribed to Nielsen ratings and televised the debate with almost 11.3 million viewers. NBS and CBS were close behind with 11.1 million and 10.6 million viewers respectively during the commercial-free debate, said by Nielsen. And the list goes on with Fox News Channel broadcasting the debate to about 10.4 million viewers. CNN attracted about 6 million; MSNBC 4.7 million and the Fox broadcast network about 6.9 million.

Spanish-language viewers watched on Univision that counts 2.6 million in number. Also, 248,000 witnessed on Telemundo, according to Nielson.

21st September, Ishq-e-Rasool (PBUH) Day

Nobody as well as no power has even a single right to criticize any religion. A religion is said to be a specific fundamental sets of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects. Every religion has its own values; beliefs as well as practices and nobody have a right to degrade it.

Now a day, Anti-Islamic Film is one of the hottest topics buzzing throughout the world. Muslims all over the world are taking strong action against this Anti-Islamic Film by celebrating “Love the Prophet PBUH Day” tomorrow. For this purpose, an official holiday has been announced on 21^st of September, Friday.

According to PPDA, The Pakistan Petroleum Dealers’ Association, petrol pumps and CNG Stations will remain closed on account of Ishq-e-Rasool (PBUH). Transport will also be unavailable.

Muslims from all over the world are deciding to celebrate this day with complete devotion in order to show their love and respect for their beloved Prophet PBUH. 

Google blocks Singapore access to Anti-Islam Film

Today, Google blocked YouTube users in order to stop viewing clips of an anti-Islamic film in Singapore. This anti-Islamic has incited violent protests all over the Muslim World. The access to clips of the film has also blocked by Google in Muslim-majority neighbors Malaysia as well as in Indonesia.

While an email response to queries on the block, one of the spokesperson told AFP, “Where we have launched YouTube locally and we are notified that a video is illegal in that country, we will restrict access to it after a thorough review.”

According to ministry of home affairs, “The film, “Innocence of Muslims” has sparked off violent protests and riots that resulted in deaths and injuries in many parts of the world, including several countries in our region and the continued circulation of this film is likely to cause disharmony or feelings of ill-will-between different groups in Singapore.”

A Government Survey Data reveals that Singapore has a predominantly Chinese Population with minority races including Malays, making up 13.4% of its population of over five million.

ITLAPD, International Talk like a Pirate Day

There is no better way to start a day without saying Arrggh……! Hope so, you understand to some extent. Well, I am talking about Pirate day.

Today, on 19^th September ITLAPD (International Talk like a Pirate Day) is celebrating its 10^th Anniversary.

According to most internet accounts, the day was begun by two jokers who began talking like a pirate while playing racket ball. They wrote to humor columnist Dave Barry in 2002. Dave Barry apparently liked the idea and then others later picked up on the idea.

This ITLAPD parodic holiday was created by John Baur and Mark Summers in 1995.  They proclaimed 19^th September every year as the day when everyone in the world should talk like a pirate such as an observer of this holiday would greet friends not with “Hello,” But with “Ahoy, matey!”

Keep enjoying the day by talking in pirate manner.

Children’s Film Festival is on in Lahore

According to Geo News, in collaboration with Teacher’s Resource Center, the Little Art group is holding 4th International Children’s Film Festival. The ceremony held at the Ali auditorium at the Ali Institute of Education and it marked the 2^nd day of the six-day long film festival in which 86 films from 32 countries will be screened.

Regarding this festival, the organizers said yesterday that the festival is aimed at enhancing media literacy of young people, fostering children’s creativity as well as imagination by showcasing the very best in filmmaking for and by children and young people. They continued to say that this event is a part of their efforts to nurture innovative arts education projects for children and young people all over the country.

The ceremony is to be celebrated on different dates in Peshawar, Islamabad, Karachi and Rawalpindi, expected to create 80,000 children and young people this year, with the celebrations of world cultures created for the children of all ages.

The partners for all the festivals scheduled to hold in six different cities of the country included:-

• Embassy of the Netherlands
• Embassy of Germany
• Groupe Development
• Idara-e-Taleem-o-Agahi (ITA)
• Teacher’s Resource Center (Karachi)
• Peace Niche (Karachi)
• Agriculture University (Peshawar)
• Sir Syed Memorial Society (Islamabad)
• Annemarie Schimmel Haus (Goethe Institute) and others.

Bank of America’s site stuck in prolonged slowdown

From yesterday, the Bank of America’s website is working in a sluggish and inactive manner. While talking about this, Mark Piptone, the Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) spokesman said that the company is “working to ensure full availability,” and that online banking is available “although some customers may experience occasional slowness.”

To satisfy their customers, the bank’s official Twitter account sent similar messages to their members.

Piptone continued to say that the majority of Bank of America’s customers were able to access the site, which remained online throughout the day. But still, many customers were unable to connect because of the site’s slowness.

Aaron Rudger, Keynote’s senior marketing manager of Web performance said that it’s possible that something Bank of America has done on its end, some kind of change, caused the problem and the bank’s homepage looked different before the trouble began. He told that as of about 6 p.m., a “small percentage” of website requests were being fulfilled successfully, but the majority were still met with errors.

However, the spokespersons of Bank of America assured their members that they’ll take continuously proactive measures to secure their systems.

Anti-Film Protest: Female car bomber kills 12 in Kabul

Now a day, Anti-Film Protest is one of the hottest topics all over the world. Here is a piece of news regarding that 12 people killed in Kabul. According to a report, a female suicide car attacked a van in Kabul today and as a result 12 people, including 8 South Africans lost their lives, in an assault insurgents said was in revenge for an anti-Islam film made in America.

One of the officers unveiled that after 51 NATO soldiers were shot dead this year by their local colleagues, Western troops are scaling back joint operations with Afghans.

While talking about this, Police said in a statement that at around 6:45am (0215 GMT), a suicide bomber using a sedan blew herself up along the airport road in District 15. As a result, nine workers of a foreign company and three Afghan civilians are dead, and two police are wounded.

According to a spokesman for NATO’s US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), it had no reports that its personnel were among the casualties.

240 killed in Karachi Garment Blaze

About 240 people lost their lives in a blaze at a garment factory in Karachi, Pakistan. On talking about this, Ehtesam Salim, the Karachi fire chief told AFP that they have recovered 110 bodies so far and are still searching for more victims.

He continued to say that they found dozens of people dead in a large room of the factory’s basement. It was totally burnt and parts of it were smoldering, which we put out before shifting the bodies to hospitals. He said that their firemen are searching every nook and corner of the factory despite having limited resources to cope with such a grave situation.

According to Salim, “the blaze was Karachi’s “biggest fire in terms of deaths in decades”.

Some officials told that 40 people were killed, more than half of them children, when a fire engulfed dozens of wooden homes in Karachi’s impoverished Baldia neighborhood in January 2009.

Strong Costa Rica quake causes panic, minor damage

A powerful earthquake of 7.6 magnitude hit Costa Rica and the neighboring countries yesterday. One confirmed death and a little damage has been reported by the authorities.  

Rosa Pichardo while walking on the beach in the town of Samara with her family told that when they felt earthquake, they held onto each other because they kept falling. She continued, “I’ve never felt anything like this. We just couldn’t stay standing. My feet gave out under me. It was terrible, terrible,”

According to officials, the quake collapsed some houses and at least one bridge and caused landslides that blocked highways.

Laura Chinchilla, the Costa Rica President said that there were no reports of major damage and called for calm.

Fred Willard best known for his roles in Christopher playing a dog-show announcer was arrested for his lewd act in Hollywood adult theater on Wednesday.

The 72 years old Willard was busted on the spot by on duty vice officers while conducting a routine investigation around 9 p.m. at the theatre. Los Angeles police Sgt. Mark Ro said that the vice officers witnessed Willard engaged in a lewd act.

Sgt. Mark Ro further added that Willard acted alone and was released after midnight without posting bail.

He was fired from his job in less than 24 hours on Thursday. He was performing his job as a host of new PBS show “Market Warriors.” He has been nominated four times for guest roles in TV shows on the behalf of Emmy such as “Modern Family” and “Everybody Loves Raymond”.