How To Make Pizza Dough at home

How To Make Pizza Dough

Pizza Dough Recipe. Forget wasting your money on takeaway pizza, this recipe is the key to the homemade variety which smells better, tastes better and is much more satisfying to eat. Devour our Pizza Dough recipe.

Step 1: You will need

• 180 g plain white flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp dried yeast
• ½ tsp caster sugar
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 120 ml warm water
• polenta for dusting
• 2 bowls
• 1 spoon
• some cling film
• 1 rolling pin
• 1 measuring jug
• 1 sieve
• 1 circular baking tray

1. Step 2: Sieve the flour

   Place the sieve over a bowl, add the flour and gently shake it through.

2. Step 3: Make the dough

   In the medium bowl, combine the salt, yeast and caster sugar. Make a hole in the centre, add the olive oil and warm water and mix in well. Give it a quick, final mix by hand to create a rough paste.

3. Step 4: Knead the dough

   Remove the dough from the bowl and place onto the chopping board. Knead the dough for roughly 3-4 minutes, using the heel of your hand. Keep kneading until it has formed a smooth ball.

4. Step 5: Leave dough to rise

   Transfer the dough into a large clean bowl, cover with some cling film, and leave it to rise for approximately two hours or until it has doubled in size.

5. Step 6: Roll the dough

   Uncover the bowl and sprinkle the dough with flour. Remove it from the bowl and place onto a flat surface. Sprinkle some more flour over the dough and roll it into a circle. Dust with flour again, turn it over and roll the other side.
6. Flour the base of the circular baking tray. Place the dough over the tray and push it outwards into a rustic circle.
7. If you aren't going to bake it straight away, it needs to be wrapped in cling film and kept in the fridge, for a maximum of 24hours.

Did Life Once Exist Below Red Planet's Surface? NASA Study of Clays Suggests Watery Mars Underground ?

ScienceDaily (Nov. 2, 2011) — A new NASA study suggests if life ever existed on Mars, the longest lasting habitats were most likely below the Red Planet's surface.

Impact cratering and erosion combine to reveal the composition of the Martian underground by exposing materials from the subsurface. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHUAPL)

A new interpretation of years of mineral-mapping data, from more than 350 sites on Mars examined by European and NASA orbiters, suggests Martian environments with abundant liquid water on the surface existed only during short episodes. These episodes occurred toward the end of a period of hundreds of millions of years during which warm water interacted with subsurface rocks. This has implications about whether life existed on Mars and how the Martian atmosphere has changed.

"The types of clay minerals that formed in the shallow subsurface are all over Mars," said John Mustard, professor at Brown University in Providence, R.I. Mustard is a co-author of the study in the journal Nature. "The types that formed on the surface are found at very limited locations and are quite rare."

Discovery of clay minerals on Mars in 2005 indicated the planet once hosted warm, wet conditions. If those conditions existed on the surface for a long era, the planet would have needed a much thicker atmosphere than it has now to keep the water from evaporating or freezing. Researchers have sought evidence of processes that could cause a thick atmosphere to be lost over time.

This new study supports an alternative hypothesis that persistent warm water was confined to the subsurface and many erosional features were carved during brief periods when liquid water was stable at the surface.

"If surface habitats were short-term, that doesn't mean we should be glum about prospects for life on Mars, but it says something about what type of environment we might want to look in," said the report's lead author, Bethany Ehlmann, assistant professor at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also in Pasadena. "The most stable Mars habitats over long durations appear to have been in the subsurface. On Earth, underground geothermal environments have active ecosystems."

The discovery of clay minerals by the OMEGA spectrometer on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter added to earlier evidence of liquid Martian water. Clays form from the interaction of water with rock. Different types of clay minerals result from different types of wet conditions.

During the past five years, researchers used OMEGA and NASA's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer, or CRISM, instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to identify clay minerals at thousands of locations on Mars. Clay minerals that form where the ratio of water interacting with rock is small generally retain the same chemical elements as those found in the original volcanic rocks later altered by the water.

The study interprets this to be the case for most terrains on Mars with iron and magnesium clays. In contrast, surface environments with higher ratios of water to rock can alter rocks further. Soluble elements are carried off by water, and different aluminum-rich clays form.

Another clue is detection of a mineral called prehnite. It forms at temperatures above about 400 degrees Fahrenheit (about 200 degrees Celsius). These temperatures are typical of underground hydrothermal environments rather than surface waters.

"Our interpretation is a shift from thinking that the warm, wet environment was mostly at the surface to thinking it was mostly in the subsurface, with limited exceptions," said Scott Murchie of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., a co-author of the report and principal investigator for CRISM.

One of the exceptions may be Gale Crater, the site targeted by NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. Launching this year, the mission's Curiosity rover will land and investigate layers that contain clay and sulfate minerals.

NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission, or MAVEN, in development for a 2013 launch, may provide evidence for or against this new interpretation of the Red Planet's environmental history. The report predicts MAVEN findings consistent with the atmosphere not having been thick enough to provide warm, wet surface conditions for a prolonged period.

JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. APL provided and operates CRISM. For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/mro and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro 

10 of the World's Coolest Jobs

Unless you're a Powerball winner, or you've inherited a large sum of money, chances are you have to wake up every day, go to work and make a living.

For most people, a job is just a job, little more than a way to pay the bills. But what if work were more like play? What if, instead of living for the weekend, you lived for Monday morning? There are people who feel that way; you just have to find them. We did. For instance, rock climber Steph Davis climbs up the north face of Castleton Tower in Castle Valley, Utah. Yeah, she gets paid to do that.

Here are 10 of the coolest jobs in the world, and the people who do them.

Stunt Woman

Alisa Hensley

Courtesy of Alisa Hensley

Some people fall into their careers, but Alisa Hensley falls, crashes, dives, rides, kicks and fights as part of her job. She is an established stunt woman with a long career in Hollywood working on a range of film and television shows, doubling for well-known actresses including Cameron Diaz, Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron and Yvonne Strahovski on the NBC series "Chuck."

Hensley started her career with a non-paying TV show gig, which eventually led her to Stunt Coordinator Joni Avery, who had no hesitation in hiring her for her first paying job on Pamela Anderson's TV series "V.I.P."

Hensley is one of about 500 women in this field. She can do martial arts, ride motorcycles, fence, shoot firearms, rock climb, rappel, swim and many different forms of falling.

"In the middle of a day, when I'm just sweating and beating up guys, it's like I can't believe people pay me to do this!" Hensley said.

Photographer, Victoria's Secret

Russell James

CNBC

Taking pictures of lingerie models, working barefoot and having your work showcased in every Victoria's Secret store in the world for everyone to see certainly seems like a dream job, but for Russell James it's reality.

This popular photographer for Victoria's Secret loves what he does, but it's not as easy as it seems. His photo shoots can cost upwards of $20,000 a day, meaning he's got to keep 25 other people on the payroll plus the supermodels he works with operating smoothly and efficiently.

The photographer's job is to "make the girl feel sexy and beautiful without being weird," said model Candice Swanepoel. "[I feel] just safe with Russell."

James' photography career took off in 1997 when he took a picture of Tyra Banks that ended up on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. That's where Ed Razek, the creative director of Victoria's Secret, first took notice of him.

Candy Store Owner

Dylan Lauren, CEO, Dylan's Candy Bar

Courtesy of Dylan's Candy Bar

The story goes that when Ralph Lauren asked his daughter Dylan, then a teenager, if he could name a new fragrance after her, she responded by saying she wanted to save her name for something she created. Something of her own.

She did just that in 2001 when she opened the Dylan's Candy Bar location in New York, inspired by "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory." After graduating from Duke University with a major in Art History, Lauren traveled the globe in search of the world's most exciting confectionery creations.

"I always wanted to do something big," Lauren said. "I wanted to open the world's biggest candy store and make it look like Disney World with candy."

Today, there are Dylan's Candy Bar locations in New York City (a whopping 15,000-square-feet of candy bliss), East Hampton and Roosevelt Field in New York; Houston; Orlando and, coming in 2012, stores in Miami and Los Angeles. The stores employ 206 people and sales for 2011 are expected to hit $25 million.

These candy emporiums offer not just candies from around the world but fashion items, accessories and even housewares. All with a sweet candy theme, of course.

Marine Biologist, Filmmaker, Inventor

Greg Marshall, Vice President, National Geographic Society, Remote Imaging

Courtesy of Greg Marshall

Greg Marshall has dedicated the last 25 years to studying, exploring, and documenting life in the oceans. He's won two Emmy awards for his cinematography and sound work on National Geographic specials, but perhaps his biggest contribution to the scientific world is the National Geographic Crittercam.

In 1986, while diving in the reefs off Belize, Greg encountered a shark and was struck by the sight of a remora fish clinging to the shark's side. Imagining the unique perspective the remora must have when hitchhiking with its host, Greg conceived a remote camera that would mimic the remora's behavior.

Marshall thought that if the camera were small and lightweight it could attach like a remora to a host and record the behavior of sea creatures in situations where a handheld camera could never go. Recognizing the scientific potential of such a tool he began developing a camera tool that could record images, sound and data from an animal's perspective.

"The first wild animal I worked with was an alligator... but I lost my one and only unit on the very first deployment," Marshall said. "The first successful wild deployment was with a Tiger shark at Isla Mujeres, Mexico, and it was incredibly exciting to finally see what a wild, free-ranging animal does in its natural habitat over time and spatial scales that we could never otherwise experience."

In 2003 Greg and his team deployed the first land-based Crittercam on wild lions in Kenya, capturing remarkable new images and ushering in a new era of behavioral science.

Beer Brewer

Jennifer Glanville, Brewery Manager, Boston Beer Co.

Courtesy The Boston Beer Co.

While some people's work might drive them to drink in the morning, it's actually part of Jennifer Glanville's job. There's a tasting every day at 10:30 a.m., and unlike in the wine world where professional tasters spit, Glanville and her brewing compatriots swallow. It's important in experiencing the true finish of the beer, she explained.

"My bad day at work is probably somebody else's best day," Glanville said.

Of course, there's a lot more to it than just tasting beers. A lot of work and passion goes into brewing craft beers for The Boston Beer Company, the maker of the Samuel Adams line of beers. It's Glanville's job not only to ensure the quality of the beer being made, but to come up with new flavors and new ideas that take traditional styles and turn them on their head.

One of her most recent brews is the Oyster Stout, literally made with oysters from Wellfleet, Mass., near the tip of Cape Cod. It was an idea near and dear to Glanville, who spent her summers on the Cape as a kid and now owns a home there overlooking the oyster flats. She recently debuted the brew at the Wellfleet Oyster Fest. It was a hit, but there's no word yet on when or if it will be widely distributed.

Meanwhile, she's still hard at work perfecting what might be her favorite brew yet: Sahti, a Finnish-style beer flavored with juniper. It's one of the oldest, continuously brewed styles of beer in the world, Glanville explained. Like the rest of her brews, it's full of her passion.

"It's a match made in heaven, I guess, because I've been here 10 years," Glanville said. " It's hard to imagine what else now would fulfill me."

LEGO Sculptor

Nathan Sawaya, Brick Artist

Courtesy of Nathan Sawaya

Nathan Sawaya was a successful corporate lawyer, but he dreamed of LEGOs. Sculpting with LEGOs, to be exact. So in 2004, he told his boss he was quitting and gave up his six-figure salary to start playing with the plastic blocks full-time.

"I remember walking into his office, 42nd floor, MetLife Building, and just telling him, you know, I'm going to go start a new career playing with LEGO, and I'm leaving the practice," he said. There were some lean times, but when the LEGO company noticed his work, things took off for Sawaya.

Today, he is a "LEGO certified professional" whose work can be seen around the world in museums and fine art galleries. His work was even featured in the annual Neiman Marcus Christmas Catalog, offering customers customized, life-size sculptures of themselves or their loved ones.

Sawaya's most recent work of art is a gift donated to The New York Public Library: Replicas of the library's famous marble lions, Patience and Fortitude. The half-scale sculptures took more than 60,000 legos and have an estimated value of about $30,000.

Music Teacher

Victoria Miller, Detroit Public Schools

CNBC

Detroit is a difficult place to grow up, and working there isn't easy either. But for Victoria Miller it's a calling. She has worked as a music teacher in the Detroit Public School System for nearly 40 years, teaching kids not just how to play, but how to be leaders.

"Times are so hard, and children need a place to be," Miller said. "They need things to do to keep them out of trouble. And so, I'm there for them. They need to know there's somebody they can count on."

She sees it as her personal duty to give these kids a chance. She tries to keep them out of trouble, focused on their futures and doing the best they can. For these students, spending time in band practice means less time in the dangerous Detroit streets. For some, it's been a life saver.

One of her students was at band practice on the day his best friend was murdered. To this day, he believes Miller saved his life.

"The best teacher I ever had, period." he said.

Car Aficionado

Mike Princhinello and Zach Moseley, Owners, Classic Car Club Manhattan

CNBC

This duo's idea of a dream come true? Searching all over the world to find the coolest and most powerful cars around. More than 300 members pay a $15,000 annual membership fee to drive the amazing collection of cars either on their own or as part of events such as skeet shooting, road rallies and visits to sports parks.

"We drive all the greatest cars. We get to buy what we like. We get to live our dream." said Princhinello about his dream job.

Princhinello and Moseley are currently planning to open clubs in Miami and Los Angeles. It's not all glamour and speed, though. The duo must also take care of the everyday necessities such as paying insurance policies costing $20,000 a year, dealing with accidents, overhead, and the dreaded Motor Vehicles department.

At right, Princhinello and Moseley driving some of their cool car finds.

Surfboard Designer/Builder

Ryan Harris, Co-Owner, Eco Boardworks

CNBC

Ryan Harris spends his days at the beach building the world's first ecologically friendly surfboards. Of course, he also tests the products.

"I get dirty like a 5-year-old every single day, covered in dust, covered in resin and then get to clean up and go home and then do it all over again. I love it. Wouldn't trade it for the world." Harris said.

Harris and his partners opened their shop in May 2011, and business is already booming with a typical shortboard going for $600, significantly more expensive than a normal shortboard made without eco-friendly material.

Harris handcrafts all the boards in his Hawthorne, Calif., production studio. The process usually begins with Harris and his partners or a client coming up with a design idea. After that, Harris crafts the basic board, adds natural resin and then bamboo in order to make the board more flexible, then he vacuum-bags it. Finally, it goes into the "hot box" and by 6 a.m. the next morning it's ready for the fins to be added.

Rock Climber

Steph Davis

Photo: Damon Johnston

Steph Davis's day job will likely make you feel like a wimp. The 38-year-old Moab, Utah, resident on a typical day will climb up a sheer rock face hundreds of feet high — without ropes — then casually jump from the top, coasting back down to earth using a small parachute. She also jumps out of planes. And she does this.

Davis was the first woman to free climb the Salathe Wall on El Capitan in Yosemite and to summit Torre Egger in Patagonia. For Davis, rock climbing started as a hobby in college. Making it a job stemmed from her figuring out what she really loved rather than "getting bogged down in what job" she should be doing and how much money she should be making.

"It's about pursuing passion, living simply," Davis said. For her, climbing — and jumping and flying — helps her examine the larger questions in life and deal with fear, not by just trying to overcome it but by being aware of it and working "alongside it rather than being controlled by it."

About 80 percent of Davis's income comes from sponsorships. She's established relationships over the last 20 years of climbing with well-known outdoor brands like prAna, Clif Bar, Mammut and Backcountry.com. She's also a scholar with a master's degree in literature and is presently working on her second book, "Learning to Fly," slated for publication sometime next year by Touchstone/Simon & Schuster.

Johnson bowls Australia to 1-0 lead in 5 ODI Series !

Australia 192 for 3 (Watson 69, Clarke 53*, Ponting 53) beat Sri Lanka 191 (Randiv 41, Johnson 6-31) by seven wickets

Mitchell Johnson produced the fourth-best figures in Australia's one-day history to set his team on the path to a seven-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in Pallekele. After losing the Twenty20s, Australia found a new spark with the arrival of the 50-over captain Michael Clarke, who attacked in the field and then helped steer the side home with Ricky Ponting after Shane Watson
 set up the chase.

Deep Recycling in Earth Faster Than Thought !

" The recycling of Earth's crust in volcanoes happens much faster than scientists have previously assumed. Rock of the oceanic crust, which sinks deep into the earth due to the movement of tectonic plates, reemerges through volcanic eruptions after around 500 million years. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz obtained this result using volcanic rock samples. Previously, geologists thought this process would take about two billion years "

Virtually all of the ocean islands are volcanoes. Several of them, such as Hawaii, originate from the lowest part of the mantle. This geological process is similar to the movement of coloured liquids in a lava lamp: hot rock rises in cylindrical columns, the so-called mantle plumes, from a depth of nearly 3000 kilometres. Near the surface, it melts, because the pressure is reduced, and forms volcanoes. The plume originates from former ocean crust which early in Earth's history sank to the bottom of the mantle. Previously, scientists had assumed that this recycling took about two billion years.


(Photo ; These are olivine crystals from Mauna Loa volcano, Hawaii, with a width of less than 1 mm. The brown ovals are solidified, glassy inclusions trapped as droplets of melt by the growing olivine crystal. They contain strontium isotope ratios which are inherited from 500-million-year-old seawater.) The chemical analysis of tiny glassy inclusions in olivine crystals from basaltic lava on Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii has now surprised geologists: the entire recycling process requires at most half a billion years, four times faster than previously thought.

The microscopically small inclusions in the volcanic rock contain trace elements originally dissolved in seawater, and this allows the recycling process to be dated. Before the old ocean crust sinks into the mantle, it soaks up seawater, which leaves tell-tale trace elements in the rock. The age is revealed by the isotopic ratio of strontium which changes with time. Strontium is a chemical element, which occurs in trace amounts in sea water. The isotopes of chemical elements have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons. Mainz scientists developed a special laser mass spectrometry method which allowed the detection of isotopes of strontium in extremely small quantities.

To their surprise, the Max Planck researchers found residues of sea water with an unexpected strontium isotope ratio in the samples, which suggested an age of less than 500 million years for the inclusions. Therefore the rock material forming the Hawaiian basalts must be younger.

"Apparently strontium from sea water has reached deep in the Earth's mantle, and reemerged after only half a billion years, in Hawaiian volcano lavas," says Klaus Peter Jochum, co-author of the publication. "This discovery was a huge surprise for us."

Another surprise for the scientists was the tremendous variation of strontium isotope ratios found in the melt inclusions in olivine from the single lava sample. "This variation is much larger than the known range for all Hawaiian lavas," says Alexander Sobolev. "This finding suggests that the mantle is far more chemically heterogeneous on a small spatial scale than we thought before." This heterogeneity is preserved only by melt inclusions but is completely obliterated in the lavas because of their complete mixing.

Sobolev, Jochum and their colleagues expect to obtain similar results for other volcanoes and therefore be able to determine the recycling age the ocean crust more precisely.

OSLO Bomb Blast Video

OSLO Bomb Blast Video and according to the latest report, 7 had died.

Norway police: 'Eighty killed' in island shooting

At least 80 people died when a gunman opened fire at an island youth camp in Norway, hours after a bomb attack on the capital, Oslo, police say.

Oslo police are questioning a 32-year-old Norwegian man in connection with both attacks.

The man was arrested on tiny Utoeya island outside Oslo, where police say he opened fire on teenagers.

The earlier bomb attack killed at least seven people. The attacks are the worst Norway has seen since World War II.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, whose Oslo offices were among those badly hit by the blast, described the attacks as "bloody and cowardly".

Hundreds of young people were attending a summer camp organised by the ruling Labour Party on Utoeya island.

Eyewitnesses described how a man dressed as a policeman opened fire indiscriminately.

Bomb blast hits government building in Oslo !

An explosion rocked government buildings in the centre of Oslo on Friday afternoon injuring several people. The greatest damage has been reported from the Norwegian prime minister’s office, though the bomb was apparently planted outside the building.

The blast is thought to have caused damage to the offices of Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and a number of other official buildings.

Initial reports suggested Mr Stoltenberg was unharmed.

At least eight people were injured in the city centre explosion, local media reports. No-one has said they were behind the attack.

Television footage from the scene showed rubble and glass from shattered windows in the streets - smoke was around some buildings. The wreckage of at least one car was in street.

All roads into the city centre have been closed, said the NRK newspaper.

Oistein Mjarum, head of communications for the Norwegian Red Cross, said his offices were close to the blast.

"There was a massive explosion which could be heard over the capital Oslo."

Mr Mjarum said there were fires burning in the 17-storey prime minister's building.

Eyewitness Ole Tommy Pedersen said he was standing at a bus stop about 100m away from the blast.

"I saw three or four injured people being carried out of the building a few minutes later," Mr Pedersen told AP.

He said there was a cloud of smoke billowing from the lower floors.

An NRK journalist, Ingunn Andersen, said the headquarters of tabloid newspaper VG had also been damaged.

"I see that some windows of the VG building and the government headquarters have been broken. Some people covered with blood are lying in the street," Associated Press news agency quoted him as saying.

"It's complete chaos here. The windows are blown out in all the buildings close by."

Afgan President's brother shot dead in Kandahar by one of his own bodyguards !

Ahmed Wali Karzai (3rd from left), half brother to the Afghan president and one of the most powerful men in the country, has been killed by one of his own bodyguards, according to a member of his security team.

Wali Karzai was shot dead on Tuesday morning inside his house by Sardar Mohammad, a bodyguard who regularly visited him, the security source told Al Jazeera.

Mohammad shot Wali Karzai in the stomach and chest as he emerged from a bathroom and was then shot and killed by other bodyguards, the man said.

Hamid Karzai, the president, attended a scheduled press conference on Tuesday afternoon with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and confirmed his brother's death.

"My younger brother was martyred in his house today. This is the life of all Afghan people, I hope these miseries which every Afghan family faces will one day end," Karzai said.

Taliban claims credit

A Taliban spokesman told Al Jazeera that they were behind the killing and had assigned Mohammad to carry it out a "long time" ago. But security sources say the hardline Islamic movement often claims credit for acts it may not have organised, and according to other reports, Mohammad was a longtime employee of the extended Karzai family and was close to Wali Karzai.

The source in Wali Karzai's security team told Al Jazeera that Mohammad was the commander of checkpoints in the town of Karz, the president's hometown, around five kilometres south of Kandahar.

The Taliban's claim of responsibility comes two weeks after a spectacular attack on the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul, which they claimed. Nineteen people died in that assault.

In response to the assassination, police mobilised a massive response in Kandahar city, according to Kabul-based journalist Matthieu Aikins, who spoke to a resident.

Checkpoints were "locked down," helicopters hovered overhead, and the road to the hospital, where Wali Karzai's body was taken, was blocked off, Aikins wrote on Twitter.

Super governor' of southern Afghanistan

Wali Karzai was the head of the Kandahar provincial council and considered a tribal elder, but his power extended far further in Afghan business, politics and security. He has been described in various media reports as a "warlord" involved in drug smuggling and as a paid asset of the Central Intelligence Agency.

"He was effectively the super governor of southern Afghanistan," said Al Jazeera's James Bays, who met Wali Karzai on multiple occasions and has reported extensively from the country.

In fact, influential pro-government Kandaharis had lobbied the president as recently as June to appoint Wali Karzai governor of the province, a prospect which seemed close to becoming a reality, Aikins wrote in Harper's magazine. The current governor, Tooryalai Wesa, spent the majority of the past two decades in Canada and was considered far less influential than Wali Karzai.

Amrullah Saleh, the former Afghan intelligence chief, said the government should use Wali Karzai's killing to come together against common enemies: al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Pakistani armed groups.

"Ahmed Wali Karzai was standing against these forces," he said. "This has boosted the morale of our enemies and given them more opportunities to infiltrate our ranks."

"[Wali Karzai's] assassination is a big loss for the president as he helped hold the greater Kandahar region together," Saad Mohseni, the director of the large media group that owns TOLO, wrote on Twitter.

There have been several previous attempts on Wali Karzai's life, and even the United States once warned that they could kill him.

In May 2009, Wali Karzai said he had been ambushed on the road to Kabul by Taliban fighters, who killed one of his bodyguards. Six months earlier, he escaped a Taliban attack on government buildings in Kandahar that left six others dead.

In March 2010, a senior US military official told the Reuters news agency that Wali Karzai could be targeted for killing or capture if it were ever proved that he provided arms or assistance to insurgent groups.

"We'd rather not have a guy like that down there because he's so divisive," the official said. "But there's nothing that we can do unless we can link him to the insurgency."

Allegations of CIA payments

Rumours of Wali Karzai's involvement in Afghanistan's opium trade have circulated in Afghanistan for years. In 2008, the New York Times reported that the White House, State Department and Central Intelligence Agency had received reports that linked him to the drug business and that they tried to convince Hamid Karzai to move his brother out of power.

Wali Karzai had once personally ordered a local commander in the security forces to release a large truck carrying heroin, the newspaper wrote. But he repeatedly denied any role in the drug trade and said he was the "victim of politics".

Confronted once in 2009 by a McClatchy news agency reporter who had interviewed officials and elders implicating him in drug trafficking, Wali Karzai threatened to beat the reporter and ordered him to leave his house.

A year later, the Times reported that Wali Karzai had received regular payments from the CIA for the previous eight years, in part to fund an Afghan paramilitary force that operated at the CIA's direction.

Wali Karzai was paid to allow the so-called Kandahar Strike Force to use a large compound outside the city, and a senior US official referred to him as "our landlord".

Mila Tele Actress Anushka Sonali Cought in a Brothel ! - Another Actress who turn to prostitution !

The popular Tele Actress Anushka Sonali Sayakkara (28y) in ‘MILA’ involved in a sex scandal has been caught and arrested by the Mirihana Police, while in a brothel house with another 33 year old prostitute, Anoma Vasanthi. It is learnt that in this popular had portrayed a supporting role in the Tele Drama.