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Islamabad: ECC to meet today
Raza Rabbani, Farooq Naek meet PM
Olympics: Kirani James wins men's 400m gold
Olympics: Suhr wins pole vault gold
Zaripova wins women's steeplechase gold for Russia
Ostapchuk beats Adams for Olympic shot put gold
Sanchez wins 2nd Olympic 400-meter hurdle gold
Algerian Olympic runner reinstated for 1,500 final
Japan beats France to reach Olympic football final
Pietersen threatens to quit test cricket
England draw with South Africa in second Test
Oil rises above $92 per barrel
Euro jumps to 1-month high against the dollar
UN pulls observers out of Aleepo
NASA lands rover on Mars to seek signs of life

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The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (ogra) has decided to oppose the Petroleum ministry summery which has sought Economic Coordination Committee(ECC) of the cabinet’s approval to revise oil prices on weekly instead of fortnightly bases.  According to sources ogra will again oppose the summery of petroleum ministry in today’s ECC meeting as it believes that to determine oil prices on weekly bases will provide an opportunity to hoarders and dealers to create artificial shortage of oil in the country.  “To fix oil prices on weekly bases is not practicable in a country like Pakistan because from the proposed move only hoarders and dealers will take benefit and rest of the price-stricken people would face more miseries as after the approval they will be on the mercy of hoarders and dealers,” sources added.  Sources further said on the desire of oil refineries the petroleum ministry has moved a summery to the ECC to seek its approval for price revisions on weekly bases because ministry believe so that burden of high prices for fortnightly can be avoided.  The ECC had already deferred its decision on a summary of the petroleum ministry proposing oil price revision on a weekly basis.  In the meeting ECC will consider the guarantees required for Pakistan State Oil (PSO)in an attempt to increase the period of furnace oil import from current two months credit to four-month from international suppliers.  The ECC will take up the issue of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) import project for which petroleum ministry has again sent summery to the ECC in which seek its approval to award contract for the import of LNG.  The ECC will mull over Rs.736 million losses claimed made by the Independent Power Producers of gas curtailment which has generated dispute between the Ministries of Water and Power and Petroleum.  In the meeting ECC will also consider exclusion of high octane blending component (HOBC) from the inland freight equalization margin and capacity payments to independent power producers.

Raza Rabbani, Farooq Naek meet PM

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Senator Mian Raza Rabbani, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security and Farooq H Naek, Minister for law and Justice called on Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, separately, at the Prime Minister House on Monday. They discussed with the Prime Minister overall political situation of the country.

Olympics: Kirani James wins men's 400m gold

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Teenager Kirani James powered to gold in the men s 400m on Monday to win Grenada s first Olympic medal of any colour and become the first non-American winner of the event since 1980. James, 19, the reigning world champion, dominated the field, winning in 43.94sec. Luguelin Santos, also 19, of the Dominican Republic, took silver in 44.46sec while Trinidad and Tobago s Lalonde Gordon took bronze. The Grenadan made his move in the final 150m, coming off the bend with a clear lead and never looked like being caught. His time was a new national record for the Caribbean island nation and he also became the first non-US athlete to dip under 44 seconds for the one-lap race. The United States has been utterly dominant in the race since Victor Markin, representing the former Soviet Union, won the event in the boycott-blighted 1980 Moscow Olympics, where the US did not compete. Last year James became the second youngest world gold medallist when he outdipped LaShawn Merritt of the United States. Merritt, the defending Olympic champion, pulled up in his heat in London on Saturday and limped off the track. James set world age-group records for the 400m when he was 13, 14 and 15, winning double 200-400m golds at the 2009 world youth championships, before being crowned world junior champion in the 400m a year later. While Usain Bolt ran 45.35sec for the 400m as a 16-year-old, James timed 45.24 at the same age. The world record holder in the event remains US great Michael Johnson, who timed 43.18sec in 1999, but many observers believe James has the potential to threaten that time.

Olympics: Suhr wins pole vault gold

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Jennifer Suhr of the United States won the women s Olympic pole vault on Monday with a best height of 4.75m while two-time champion Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia could only take bronze. Cuba s Yarisley Silva claimed silver with 4.75m by virtue of countback, while Isinbayeva failed to clear any height above 4.70m.

Zaripova wins women's steeplechase gold for Russia

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Yuliya Zaripova of Russia won the gold medal in the women s 3,000-meter steeplechase at the London Olympics on Monday, clocking the fourth-fastest time in history. Zaripova won in 9 minutes, 06.72 seconds in cool conditions in the night session. Habiba Ghribi of Tunisia took silver in 9:08.37 and Sofia Assefa of Ethiopia finished third in 9.09.84.

Ostapchuk beats Adams for Olympic shot put gold

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Nadzeya Ostapchuk of Belarus won the women s shot put gold medal at the London Olympics on Monday, pushing New Zealand s Valerie Adams into second place. The 31-year-old Ostapchuk, world champion in 2005, had the best mark of 21.36 meters on the third of her six attempts. Adams, who came to London as the defending Olympic, world, world indoor and Commonwealth champion and on a long winning streak, settled for silver with a best shot of 20.70. Russia s Evgeniia Kolodko moved into bronze medal position with her last throw of 20.48.

Sanchez wins 2nd Olympic 400-meter hurdle gold

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Felix Sanchez won his second Olympic 400-meter hurdles gold, and the Dominican Republic s first medal of the 2012 Games, by putting the field way behind down the stretch to finish in 47.63 seconds Monday night. Sanchez, who turns 35 on Aug. 30, also was the 2004 Olympic champion. He stuck his tongue out as he crossed the line and let out a scream. Then he knelt on the track, put down a photo of his late grandmother and kissed it, before tucking it into his uniform. Michael Tinsley of the United States was second in 47.91, while Javier Culson got the bronze in 48.10 for Puerto Rico s first medal of the London Games. Crowd favorite Dai Greene of Britain was fourth, and two-time Olympic champion Angelo Taylor was fifth.

Algerian Olympic runner reinstated for 1,500 final

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Algerian middle-distance runner Taoufik Makhloufi has been reinstated for the 1,500-meter final after he had been disqualified from the London Olympics for allegedly not trying hard enough Monday in the 800 heats. Makhloufi had already qualified for Tuesday s 1,500 final, where he was a likely medal contender, when he stopped running in the first lap of his 800 heat. The race referee ruled that the 24-year-old African champion in the 800 was guilty of "failure to compete honestly with bona fide effort" but the Algerian federation insisted he had a knee problem and that organizers knew about it. After assessing evidence of a games medical officer, the disqualification was revoked and the runner can compete in Tuesday s 1,500 final.

Japan beats France to reach Olympic football final

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As the Japanese women hugged each other and celebrated their place in the Olympic football final, Elise Bussaglia of France was left to wonder what if. The midfielder took a penalty with just over 10 minutes to go that would have been an equalizer, but she hit the ball wide of the right post and Japan won 2-1 on Monday. The world champion held off France, often desperately, for the remainder of the match and will now play in Thursday s final against the United States at Wembley Stadium. It will be a rematch of last year s World Cup final, won by Japan on penalty kicks. "I feel horrible," Bussaglia said. "It is a shameful feeling. I opened up my body too much and the ball went wide. We miss the final now, so it is a big disappointment. We are all very sad. But we have a bronze to play for so we must recover for it." The loss was especially hard for France because it was knocked out of the World Cup after reaching the semifinals. Japan, which had only conceded once in the tournament before Monday, went into the match as the favorite, but France had the better of the opening exchanges with Elodie Thomis and Marie-Laure Delie both looking dangerous down the flanks. Yuki Ogimi gave Japan the lead in the 32nd minute after an error by France goalkeeper Sarah Bouhaddi, who went to meet a free kick but fumbled an easy catch. The team s top scorer at the London Olympics got to the rebound first and bundled the ball in from close range. Three minutes into the second half, Japan doubled its lead when midfielder Mizuho Sakaguchi looped a header into the top right corner. France coach Bruno Bini brought on striker Eugenie le Sommer soon after, and the substitute galvanized the team. She scored in the 75th, firing in a cross first time, and won the penalty a minute later after she was bundled over running onto goal. France attacked in waves for the last 10 minutes of the match, with le Sommer coming close again with an overhead kick that was saved. Ogimi then the hit the post in the 90th after breaking from the halfway line. "They were an amazing team, but we had the most passion," Japan captain Aya Miyama said. Wendie Renard and Louisa Necib each came close for France in the four minutes of extra time, but again were denied by keeper Miho Fukumoto. "Today was even more disappointing than the world cup," said Bini. "In the last 20 minutes we played very well and were even better than Japan. They barely reached our side of the pitch."

Pietersen threatens to quit test cricket

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Kevin Pietersen has threatened to quit test cricket in the aftermath of England s draw with South Africa in the second test, blaming "politics" and leaks to the media. After confirming the third and final test against the Proteas at Lord s starting on Aug. 16 could be his last, Pietersen said Monday he wouldn t elaborate on his reasons before doing just that. Pietersen says "You can ask me a hundred times, I m not getting into it. The family thing is just one point, but there s a lot of other issues. It would be a huge shame. I love playing test cricket for England, but we ll see." Pietersen denied the lure of the Indian Premier League was a factor.

England draw with South Africa in second Test

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Kevin Pietersen enjoyed rare success as a bowler and Stuart Broad took five wickets, as England gave South Africa some anxious moments before the second Test ended in a draw at Headingley on Monday. The result means South Africa go into the third and final Test at Lord s on August 16 with a 1-0 lead, with England needing to win to prevent South Africa from taking over their number one place in the Test rankings. South African captain Graeme Smith, though, said neither side would take a significant edge into the deciding Test, insisting that there were "positives on both sides". His England counterpart Andrew Strauss said he was happy with the strategy of playing four seam bowlers and leaving out Graeme Swann, although he admitted they "probably missed" the off-spinner in the second half of the game.  "With the weather forecast we thought our best way of winning was to win the toss and bowl first. We probably misjudged the wicket a little bit, it didn t do as much as we would have liked," he added.  Speaking separately, man-of-the-match Pietersen dropped a bombshell by saying he might not play for England again after the final Test but Strauss said "We want to win this Test match and we want as few distractions as possible.  "We ve got a great chance of winning." South Africa-born Pietersen followed up a thrilling century in the first innings by taking the first three wickets with his occasional off-spin bowling, despite never having taken more than one wicket in an innings in 87 previous Test matches. Broad then took five wickets in 37 balls before South Africa declared at 258 for nine, leaving England an improbable 253 to win in 39 overs. They made 130 for four before the players agreed to a draw with six overs remaining. England opened the batting with Pietersen, who hit 149 in the first innings, and the star of the match hit three fours in the first over from Morne Morkel.  But he was caught at mid-on on 12 when he mistimed a drive against Vernon Philander without scoring any further runs. Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss tried to keep the scoring rate close to the required rate of almost six-and-a-half runs an over.  But the chase ended after Strauss hit a full toss straight back to off-spinner JP Duminy while on 22, Cook fell to Dale Steyn four short of his half-century and Matt Prior was run out for seven. Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell batted together for an hour before the players shook hands shortly after 7:30 pm (1730 GMT).

Oil rises above $92 per barrel

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Benchmark U.S. crude rose 80 cents to finish at $92.20 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, which is used to price international varieties of crude, rose 61 cents to end at $109.55 per barrel in London. Oil has gained nearly 20 percent since hitting a low of $77.69 in late June. Monday s increase for oil followed a big spike on Friday. That s when oil gained almost 5 percent after the U.S. government reported a surge in jobs growth last month, increasing optimism that the economy is on the right track. The pickup in hiring last month was far greater than analysts were expecting and marked the biggest increase since February. Still, the number of U.S. jobs added wasn t enough that investors are ruling out some sort of economic stimulus measures by the Federal Reserve. In other energy futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, wolesale gasoline fell 0.88 cent to $2.9222 a gallon; heating oil rose 1.48 cents to $2.9409 a gallon; and natural gas gained 3.1 cents to $2.908 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Euro jumps to 1-month high against the dollar

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The euro rose to $1.2399 in late trading Monday from $1.2377 late Friday. It went as high as $1.2442 earlier, its highest point against the dollar since July 5. Riskier currencies such as the euro tend to rise when investors think economic conditions are getting better. On Friday, The Labor Department said Friday that 163,000 jobs were added in July. Economists expected a rise of just 100,000 jobs. With no new economic data released Monday, the jobs report drove the euro higher. In other trading Monday, the British pound fell to $1.5611 from $1.5645 late Friday. The dollar fell to 78.22 Japanese yen from 78.59 yen, to 0.9692 Swiss franc from 0.9710 Swiss franc and to 99.92 Canadian cents from 99.96 Canadian cents.

UN pulls observers out of Aleepo

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The approximately 20 unarmed observers were moved back to the mission s Damascus headquarters at the weekend. "It is a temporary relocation because of the deteriorating security," Josephine Guerrero, a UN peacekeeping spokeswoman, told AFP. President Bashar al-Assad s forces have stepped up shelling of rebel-held districts of Aleppo in recent days. Hundreds have been killed in the city in the past two weeks, according to activists. Aleppo was one of four regional bases where the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) had retained teams, even though their main activities have been suspended since June. There are also UN offices in Deir Ezzor, Homs and Rif Damascus, which is in the capital s suburbs. The UN has halved the number of observers in Syria to about 150 since last month. The UNSMIS mandate ends on August 20 and the UN Security Council has yet to agree on the future UN presence in the country. UNSMIS s interim chief Lieutenant General Babacar Gaye said Monday that the civil war is worsening and expressed particular concern over Aleppo. "I am extremely concerned about the continued violence in Syria in particular the significant deterioration in Aleppo and its impact on the civilian population," Gaye said in a statement. "I urge the parties to protect civilians and respect their obligations under international humanitarian law. Civilians must not be subjected to shelling and use of heavy weapons," Gaye added, renewing calls for "dialogue" between the government and opposition.

NASA lands rover on Mars to seek signs of life

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NASA opened a new chapter in the history of interplanetary exploration on Monday when its $2.5 billion nuclear-powered robot Curiosity beamed back pictures from the surface of Mars. The one-ton mobile lab is the largest rover ever sent to Mars, and its high-speed landing was the most daring to date, using a rocket-powered sky crane to lower the six-wheeled vehicle gently to the Red Planet s surface. "Touchdown confirmed," said a member of mission control at NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as scientists hugged each other and the room erupted in cheers late Sunday. "We are wheels down on Mars. Oh, my God." Several images of the car-sized rover and its sophisticated toolkit designed to hunt for signs that life once existed there have come back to NASA since the landing occurred at 10:32 pm Sunday on the US West Coast (0532 GMT Monday). Among them was dusty, black and white footage showing the shadow of the rover on the Martian surface and a picture taken from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that showed the rover from above as it was lowered by parachute. The nuclear-powered rover is now set for a two-year mission to explore the Red Planet, including a long climb up a mountain to analyze sediment layers that are up to a billion years old. "The spacecraft is oriented northwest-southeast, pointing forward toward Mount Sharp," said project scientist John Grotzinger. "This couldn t have been a better position to land in." However, Grotzinger said it may be a year before the rover arrives at the mountain in the center of the planet s Gale Crater, as scientists first take a close look at soil and rock samples inside the crater. "We would never want to just drive aross the dunes as the shortest way to go there," he said. According to NASA chief engineer Miguel San Martin, the rover touched down inside the planned landing ellipse that spanned 12 by four miles (20 by six kilometers) at the foot of the mountain. Further data in the coming days will give scientists a better idea of exactly where the rover landed. Initial checks on the instruments on board have also come back positive, NASA said. When the landing was announced after a tense, seven-minute entry, descent and landing, NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory filled with jubilation as the mission team cheered and exchanged Mars chocolate bars. President Barack Obama described the landing as  "an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future." And Charles Bolden, the NASA administrator, applauded all the other nations -- including France, Canada, Finland, Spain, Russia and Germany -- whose scientists contributed to experiments on board the rover s Mars Science Lab. "It is a huge day for the nation, it is a huge day for all of our partners who have something on Curiosity and it is a huge day for the American people," Bolden said. Obama s science adviser John Holdren described the landing as "an enormous step forward in planetary exploration." "And if anybody has been harboring doubts about the status of US leadership in space, well there is a one-ton automobile sized piece of American ingenuity that is sitting on the surface of Mars right now," he added. Success had been anything but certain. NASA s more recent rover drop-offs involved smaller craft that were cushioned with the help of airbags. In the final moments, the MSL craft accelerated with the pull of gravity as it neared Mars s atmosphere, made a fiery entry at 13,200 miles per hour and then slowed with the help of a supersonic parachute. An elaborate sky crane powered by rocket blasters then kicked in, and the rover was lowered down by nylon tethers, landing upright on all six wheels. Adam Steltzner, engineer and leader of the entry, descent and landing team, who has previously admitted the landing bid appeared "crazy," said that in the end, it "looked extremely clean." Scientists do not expect Curiosity to find aliens or living creatures but they hope to use it to analyze soil and rocks for signs the building blocks of life are present and may have supported life in the past. The project also aims to study the Martian environment to prepare for a possible human mission there in the coming years. Obama has vowed to send humans there by 2030. The spacecraft had already been collecting data on radiation during its eight-and-a-half-month journey following launch in November 2011 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Previous attempts by space agencies since 1960 have seen a near 40 percent success rate in sending landers, orbiters or other spacecraft to Mars.

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Cricket - Sports

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

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