Dunya TV

Operations near Pak border continue, ISAF commander
Vehari resident gets Sui gas bill without connection
Karachi: Dacoits kill minor boy
Athletics: Blake, Bolt nominated for Sportsman award
Protect Test cricket, says Dravid
Time names The Protester as person of the year
US House freezes $700m aid to Pakistan
National Assembly session starts today
Toxic liquor kills 55 in east India, dozens in hospital
US House approves tough new Iran sanctions
Hafizabad: Old enmity claims two lives
UK court rules over Pak detainee held by US troops
Obama marks Iraq war's end with a salute to troops
Oil price drops below $95 a barrel as euro tumbles
Afghanistan recalls its ambassador to Qatar

Operations near Pak border continue, ISAF commander

Posted:

International Security Assistance Force operations continue in Afghanistan along the Pakistan border, but are conducted with special care to avoid escalating current tensions, a senior commander said here today. Army Lt. Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, commander of the ISAF Joint Command and deputy commander of US Forces Afghanistan, told reporters during a roundtable discussion that success in Afghanistan requires close communication with Pakistan. Relations between ISAF and Pakistan have been tense since the cross-border incident Nov. 26 that left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead. Pakistani authorities have closed ground supply routes through their country and ended American use of the Shamsi airbase. Scaparrotti declined to discuss the border incident in light of the ongoing investigation but, acknowledging his professional and personal association with Pakistani military leaders, expressed condolences about the lives lost. “What happened is a tragedy,” he said. Scaparrotti said ISAF continues to communicate regularly with the Pakistani military as before the incident, but coordination is not as close as it has been in the past. “We are being a little more careful,” he acknowledged. “But we are still running interdiction. We are still working with the Afghans right on the border posts. We are still running reconnaissance and doing the things … that we need to do. And as I said, we are still pressing the Pak military so that we can continue communication.” Scaparrotti said he believes “over time, we will regain that coordination, that communication that we had in the past.” The November incident has caused ISAF leaders to consider ways to bolster the coordination and communication along the border, where insurgent provocation can have a deadly effect. “There are certainly incidents where insurgents along the border have instigated a fight using direct fires or indirect fires, and they have done so in proximity to Pakistani military border locations,” the general said. “We think it was to draw our attention, or perhaps, in some instances, to draw conflict here between Afghan, coalition or Pakistan forces.” Such provocations are one reason “we are working very hard, as we have in the past, to develop better communications with the Pakistani military on the other side of the border,” the general said. “That has been one of our priorities.” A working relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan is critical for both nations, he said.

Vehari resident gets Sui gas bill without connection

Posted:

According to details, Muhammad Ashraf, a resident of Vehari, has submitted an application for the connection of Sui gas and deposited demand notice some three years ago. The Sui gas staff has allotted his Sui gas meter to some other person and sent Rs 4.550 bill on his address. Ashraf went to Sui gas office where he learnt that the Sui gas meter was issued on his name but was installed at some other person’s residence. Ashraf has demanded of the higher authorities of the Sui gas department to conduct an inquiry and install his meter at his residence.

Karachi: Dacoits kill minor boy

Posted:

According to details, three dacoits entered a milk shop in Kausar Niazi Colony to commit robbery. The shopkeeper raised alarm on which dacoits opened indiscriminate firing, killing 11-year-old boy, Imran, who was sitting in a rickshaw in front of the milk shop. The residents of the area have captured one of the dacoits and handed him over to police.

Athletics: Blake, Bolt nominated for Sportsman award

Posted:

Blake, the 100 metre champ at the World Athletic Championships in Daegu, South Korea, was recently named the winner of the Jamaica Track and Field Association s top athlete award. Bolt won the 200 metres at the same Worlds. Others in contention for the award include, West Indies cricketer Marlon Samuels, Pan American 100 metre champion Lerone Clarke, IAAF Diamond league winner Asafa Powell and boxer Nicholas Walters. On the female side, Veronica Campbell-Brown, the world championships 200 metre gold medallist and 100 silver medallist, is considered a front runner in a group that also includes ICC cricketer of the year Stafanie Taylor. The winners will be announced on January 22.

Protect Test cricket, says Dravid

Posted:

Indian batting great Rahul Dravid has urged administrators to cut "meaningless" one-day cricket matches and make efforts to win back fans to Tests, which he said remain the "gold standard" for players. Dravid also cautioned against the menace of match-fixing while delivering the Sir Donald Bradman Oration at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra on Wednesday night. "Cricket must find a middle path," he said. "It must scale down this mad merry-go-round that teams and players find themselves in -- heading off for two-Test tours and seven-match ODI series with a few Twenty20s thrown in." Dravid, the first foreign player to deliver the commemorative lecture, said finding the right balance between the three formats was the biggest challenge for officials. "Test cricket is the gold standard, it is the form the players want to play," he said. "It deserves to be protected, it is what the world s best know they will be judged by. "We may not fill 65,000 capacity stadiums for Test matches, but we must actively fight to get as many as we can in, to create a Test match environment that the players and the fans feed off. "Anything, but the sight of Tests played on empty grounds. For that, we have got to play Test cricket that people can watch." Dravid said playing day-night Tests was a viable option. "I don t think day-night Tests or a Test championship should be dismissed. "In March last year, I played a day-night first-class game in Abu Dhabi for the MCC and my experience from that was that day-night Tests is an idea seriously worth exploring. "There may be some challenges in places where there is dew but the visibility and durability of the pink cricket ball was not an issue."

Time names The Protester as person of the year

Posted:

Time Magazine has named "The Protester" as its Person of the Year for 2011 and says the activists are reshaping global politics. The publication bestows the front page honour on the person or thing that the magazine feels has most influenced the culture and the news during the past year. Time says it is recognizing protesters because they are redefining people power around the world. There has been no shortage of protest movements this year as Air Canada flight attendants, Keystone XL pipeline demonstrators and Occupy movement members took to the streets. The magazine says the Arab spring movement and the Occupy protests have made "The Protester" the most significant and influential person of 2011.

US House freezes $700m aid to Pakistan

Posted:

The Republican-led House of Representatives voted 283-136 to approve the bill. The Democratic-held Senate was to quickly follow suit. The measure freezed roughly $700 million in aid to Pakistan pending assurances that Islamabad has taken steps to thwart militants who use improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against US-led forces in Afghanistan.

National Assembly session starts today

Posted:

The acting president, Farooq H Naik has summoned National Assembly session today. This session will be the 37th session of the 4th Parliamentary year of the incumbent National Assembly. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) will likely to bring the current political situation in the country under discussion during today’s session. The opposition members have also deposited adjournment motions on important issues.

Toxic liquor kills 55 in east India, dozens in hospital

Posted:

The deaths were reported from the impoverished district of 24 Parganas in West Bengal state, the officials said. "The death toll has now risen to 55 but we fear it will rise further," Narayan Swarup Nigam, the district administrator said. The civilian administrator also said at least 130 others injured by the poison-laced liquor were in hospitals and that more were reporting ill. "Some of them are in critical condition," he said from 24 Parganas district, around 30 kilometres (19 miles) from state capital of Kolkata. The Press Trust of India, quoting unnamed sources in West Bengal, put the toll at 57. While 10 people died in Sangrampur village, 47 others succumbed to their injuries in hospitals, the semi official news agency added. It said most of the victims were poor people including construction workers, rickshaw-pullers and street vendors. The victims drank adulterated liquor late Tuesday night and the deaths occurred earlier Wednesday, police said. The state administration rushed emergency medicines and doctors to the government-run Diamond Harbour hospital, located near the village, other officials said. The police also arrested four alleged bootleggers and as local residents ransacked village breweries and staged protests, the West Bengal state administration ordered action against people selling toxic liquor.

US House approves tough new Iran sanctions

Posted:

The US House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved tough new sanctions aimed at forcing Iran to freeze what the West says is a nuclear weapons programme. Despite the 410-11 vote in the Republican-held House, the legislation s fate was unclear in the Democratic-led Senate, where aides said privately that the bill would never reach President Barack Obama. The bill aims to punish countries and companies that invest in Iran s energy sector, furnish it with gasoline, or provide Tehran with know-how that may help develop chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons or advanced conventional arms. It also aims to toughen existing sanctions by making it harder for the president to waive the measures on grounds of national security.

Hafizabad: Old enmity claims two lives

Posted:

According to details, Nasir Kharal opened indiscriminate firing on members of his rival group,killing Tanvir Chan on the spot and critically injuring Mazhar Chan near canal bridge in Hafizabad. The injured Mazhar also died on his way to hospital. The cause of killing is stated to be old enmity. One passerby was also reported injured in the incident. Police party reached the spot after the incident shifted the dead bodies to the police station in a ‘donkey cart’ instead of ambulance. Fear spread in the city after transported the dead bodies openly through the city.

UK court rules over Pak detainee held by US troops

Posted:

An appeals court issued a landmark ruling Wednesday ordering the British government to free a Pakistani detainee who has been held in US custody for nearly eight years without charge. It was unclear whether Yunus Rahmatullah would be released as required, however, because the US government is not bound by the ruling. It announced that it was reviewing the ruling. Britain has seven days to produce Yunus Rahmatullah, who is being held by American forces in Afghanistan, according to the Appeals Court s ruling. Although Rahmatullah, 29, is not a British national, the UK-legal charity Reprieve filed a habeas corpus petition claiming that his detention lacked sufficient cause or evidence, and that British forces violated international law when they rendered him to US custody. British forces in Iraq seized Rahmatullah in 2004, but then handed him over to the Americans who sent him to the US Air Base in Bagram, Afghanistan a sprawling base that includes the Parwan detention facility where just under 3,000 detainees are being held. Wednesday s ruling marks one of the first times that a habeas corpus petition has been successful for a detainee at the US base. It puts the United States and Britain in an awkward position Britain is bound by the ruling, but the United States is not because the decision was handed down by a foreign court. Britain s Foreign Office and the Pentagon both said they were reviewing the court s decision. "We are aware of the opinion and are reviewing the decision by the Court of Appeal (Civil Division)," said US Department of Defense spokesman Lt. Col. Defense Todd Breasseale. Reprieve first sued the British government to formally identify Rahmatullah. It then filed a habeas petition asking for his release. Wednesday s ruling reversed an earlier decision by the High Court, which refused to grant habeas relief a principle enshrined in English law for centuries. "The court is quite right once the U.K. takes a prisoner it cannot simply wash its hands of him, or of the Geneva Conventions," said Cori Crider, Legal Director of Reprieve. "The (British) government stands warned: failure to get Yunus out of Bagram now may be to aid and abet a war crime." The appeals court found that the British government has to take action. "On the face of it (Rahmatullah) is being unlawfully detained and (British ministers) have procedures at their disposal ... to enable them to take steps which could bring the unlawful detention to an end," said one of the three appeal judges, Lord Justice Maurice Kay, in the ruling on Wednesday.

Obama marks Iraq war's end with a salute to troops

Posted:

President Barack Obama on Wednesday saluted troops returning from Iraq, asserting that the nearly nine-year conflict was ending honorably, "not with a final battle, but with a final march toward home." Marking the conclusion of the war at a military base that s seen more than 200 deaths from fighting in Iraq, Obama never tried to declare victory. It was a war that he opposed from the start, inherited as president and is now bringing to a close, leaving behind an Iraq still struggling. But he sought to pronounce a noble end to a fight that has cost nearly 4,500 American lives and more than 100,000 Iraqi lives. "The war in Iraq will soon belong to history, and your service belongs to the ages," he said, applauding their "extraordinary achievement." All U.S. troops are to be out of Iraq Dec. 31, though Obama has pledged the U.S. will continue civilian assistance for Iraq as it faces an uncertain future in a volatile region of the world. Even as majorities in the U.S. public favor ending the war, some Republicans have criticized the withdrawal, arguing that Obama is leaving behind an unstable Iraq that could hurt U.S. interests and fall subject to influence from neighboring Iran. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Obama s one-time rival for the presidency, issued a particularly harsh verdict on his handling of Iraq. "I believe that history will judge this president s leadership with the scorn and disdain it deserves," McCain said on the Senate floor Obama, appearing with first lady Michelle Obama, highlighted the human side of the war, reflecting on the bravery and sacrifices of U.S. forces now on their way back home. He recalled the start of the war, a time when he was only an Illinois state senator and many of the warriors before him were in grade school. "We knew this day would come. We have known it for some time now," he said. "But still, there is something profound about the end of a war that has lasted so long." Obama noted the early battles that defeated and deposed Saddam Hussein and what he called "the grind of insurgency" roadside bombs, snipers and suicide attacks. "Your will proved stronger than the terror of those who tried to break it," he said. Upon his arrival at Fort Bragg, Obama met with five enlisted service members who had recently returned from combat. He also met with the family of a soldier killed in Iraq who was the most recent, and potentially final, U.S. fatality of the war.

Oil price drops below $95 a barrel as euro tumbles

Posted:

Prices tumbled early in the day as traders focused on Europe s credit problems and its weakening currency. Oil has wavered around the $100-per-barrel mark for the past month while eurozone leaders wrestled with ballooning government debts. Now analysts say that the latest financial reforms won t fix underlying credit problems within the 17-nation currency bloc. Europe is expected to fall back into recession, and investors fear that the banking system could collapse, if nations don t find a way to reduce debts soon. Benchmark crude fell $5.19, or 5.2 percent, to end the day at $94.95 per barrel in New York. Prices dropped as low as $94.21 the lowest since Nov. 7. Brent crude, which is imported by some U.S. refineries, lost $4.83, or 4.4 percent, to finish at $104.25 a barrel in London.

Afghanistan recalls its ambassador to Qatar

Posted:

Afghanistan is recalling its ambassador to Qatar for consultations amid reports that the Taliban are planning to open an office in the tiny, gas-rich Gulf state. The Afghan Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday that the government has decided to recall Khalid Ahmad Zakaria from the Qatari capital of Doha for consultations. The ministry did not give a reason for recalling Zakaria, but said Kabul values ties with Qatar and that diplomatic communications would continue. An Indian newspaper quoted Indian diplomatic sources on Wednesday as saying that work was being finalized on a Taliban office. The Afghan Foreign Ministry could not be immediately reached for comment.

PoliticusUSA

Cricket - Sports

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Dunya TV

Dunya TV

0 comments:

Reuters News Agency

World EYE