Dunya TV

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• Hacker who told US of Wikileaks suspect testifies
• Rangers personnel suspended for killing youth
• Nawaz set to be elected new PM today
• Kerry makes first Latin America trip in office
• Apple fights manipulation claims on e-book prices
• West Indies beat Sri Lanka by 17 runs in CT warmup
• Fire crews called to rescue cow that got its head stuck in a tree
• Doctor tells man with swollen stomach that he is woman
• India thrash Australia by 243 runs in warmer
• US blacklists companies dealing with Iran
• US military calls sexual assault 'like a cancer'
• Syrian army advances in Qusair
• Nawaz set to become PM with two-third vote
• Security tightened for Iraqi pilgrimage
• Oman downs Iraq 1-0 in WCup qualifier

Hacker who told US of Wikileaks suspect testifies Posted: FORT MEADE, Maryland (AP) - A one-time computer hacker who told authorities that a U.S. soldier was giving information to WikiLeaks testified that Bradley Manning never said he wanted to help the enemy during their online chats.Manning is on trial for giving hundreds of thousands of documents to the secret-spilling website, by far the largest release of classified material in U.S. history.The case is the most sensational release of classified material in U.S. history since the 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers, a secret Defense Department history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.The case is also the most high-profile prosecution for the Obama administration, which has been criticized for its crackdown on those who leak information.Manning has pleaded guilty to charges that could bring 20 years behind bars, but the military has pressed ahead with a court-martial on more serious charges, including aiding the enemy. That charge carries a potential life sentence.The material WikiLeaks began publishing in 2010 documented complaints of abuses against Iraqi detainees, a U.S. count of civilian deaths in Iraq, and America's weak support for the government of Tunisia, a disclosure that Manning supporters said helped trigger the Middle Eastern pro-democracy uprisings known as the Arab Spring.The Obama administration has said the release of the material threatened to expose valuable military and diplomatic sources and strained U.S. relations with other governments.Adrian Lamo, a convicted hacker, said Tuesday he started chatting online with Manning on May 20, 2010, and alerted law enforcement the next day about the contents of the soldier's messages, including his mention of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He said he continued chatting with Manning on and off for six more days.Lamo said Manning never told him he wanted to help the enemy and did not express disloyalty to America. At any time, did Pfc. Manning ever say he wanted to help the enemy? defense attorney David Coombs said.Not in those words, no, Lamo said.Prosecutors have said they will show the 25-year-old Army intelligence analyst effectively put U.S. military secrets into the hands of the enemy, including Osama bin Laden. They said they will present evidence that bin Laden requested and obtained from another al-Qaida member the Afghanistan battlefield reports and State Department cables published by WikiLeaks.Manning has said he did not believe the information would harm the U.S. and he released the information to enlighten the public about the bitter reality of America's wars.More than 40 years ago, the 7,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers showed that the U.S. government repeatedly misled the public about the Vietnam War. Their leak to The New York Times set off an epic clash between the administration of President Richard Nixon and the press and led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling on the First Amendment of the Constitution, which protects free speech.Manning's attorney has also said the soldier struggled privately with gender identity early in his tour of duty, when gays couldn't openly serve in the military. Those struggles led Manning to feel that he needed to do something to make a difference in this world, Coombs said.Lamo testified Manning had contacted him because of his notoriety in the hacking community and because of his open support and leadership in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.Lamo pleaded guilty in 2004 of computer fraud after he was arrested for hacking the computer networks of The New York Times and Microsoft. He was sentenced to six months of house arrest and two years of probation.Much of the evidence in Manning's military trial is classified, which means large portions are likely to be closed to reporters and the public.U.S. authorities are looking into whether Assange can also be prosecuted. He has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex crimes allegations.This is not justice; never could this be justice, Assange said in a statement Monday.

Rangers personnel suspended for killing youth Posted: KARACHI (Dunya News) - The Director General of Sindh Rangers has taken notice of the Shah Faisal Colony firing incident that killed a man when he failed to pull his car over on Tuesday.According to Rangers spokesman, the DG Rangers has ordered a court of inquiry and suspended the individual involved.Meanwhile, police have also registered a case against the Rangers personnel allegedly involved in the killing. Police said that no criminal record of Haider was found in any police station and no weapons were recovered from him.Rangers signalled Ghulam Haider to stop his car but he did not, over which the officials opened fire at him, killing him on the spot. Haider’s car consequently collided with a motorcycle, injuring the rider.

Nawaz set to be elected new PM today Posted: ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) - The election for the new leader of the house in National Assembly is being held on Wednesday (today).PML-N President Mian Nawaz Sharif‚ Makhdoom Amin Fahim of PPP-Parliamentarians and Makhdoom Javed Hashmi of PTI are in the run for the post.Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) and Qaumi Watan Party will unconditionally favor PML-N for the top office. The 14th National Assembly will meet today at 11am to pick up its 27th Leader of the House.The oath taking ceremony of the prime minister will be held at Aiwan-e Sadr‚ Islamabad in the afternoon.

Kerry makes first Latin America trip in office Posted: GUATEMALA CITY (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is demanding reforms in the 35-nation Organization of American States as he visits Latin America for the first time since taking office.Leading the U.S. delegation to the annual general assembly of the OAS, an organization he has disparaged as ineffective, inefficient and nearly irrelevant, Kerry will try to convince fellow members of the need for major changes in its bureaucracy and a return to its core mission of promoting human rights, democracy and development.Officials traveling with Kerry said he also would be making the case against legalization of marijuana at the national level, lobbying for the election of the U.S. candidate for a hemispheric human rights panel and trying to improve badly damaged relations with Venezuela.Kerry arrived Tuesday in the Guatemalan capital for the meeting, which is taking place in the mountain resort of Antigua.The OAS often is criticized in the United States and Kerry wrote a scathing editorial about its failures and need to reform three years ago while he was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He then introduced legislation in Congress aimed at requiring significant budget reforms in the organization.Just last year, shortly before he was nominated to be secretary of state, Kerry penned a letter to the OAS permanent council with three other senators bemoaning that the group has been forfeiting its effectiveness with a lack of strategic focus and fiscal recklessness.The State Department said Monday that Kerry believed the bloc was an organization of critical importance to the Americas and that his participation in the two-day meeting in Guatemala was aimed at helping to strengthen it.The fact that he is going to the OAS and he is spending two days there participating sends a clear signal that he thinks this remains the premier multilateral organization in the hemisphere, department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.In order to assure that the OAS retains that status, it must refocus on its core principles, she said, stressing democracy, human rights, development and regional security. Strengthening it is of course part of (Kerry's) agenda and part of what he'll be focused on in the next couple of days.As a senator in 2010, Kerry made similar, though not as subtle, points in an opinion piece he co-wrote with Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey who succeeded Kerry as head of the Foreign Relations Committee.Sadly, its culture of consensus has often been the breeding ground of the ideas that reflect the lowest common denominator, rather than the highest ambitions of diplomacy and cooperation, they wrote in The Miami Herald.The pair excoriated the OAS for becoming a pliable tool of inconsistent political agendas and suggested that they agreed with critics who called the organization a grazing pasture for third-string diplomats.Psaki played down the last comment, saying she would hardly call the secretary of state a third-string diplomat. Kerry's mere presence at the meeting demonstrates his and the Obama administration's commitment to improving the OAS, she said.In November 2012, Kerry and Menendez, along with Republican Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana and Marco Rubio of Florida, wrote that OAS finances had become dangerously precarious and that it must reform, pare back superfluous projects or risk losing support from its prime contributor, the United States.The United States has over the past decades found itself at growing odds with numerous Latin and South American members of the OAS. Many of them, like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador, are led by leftist or populist leaders who have balked at accepting the dominance of the U.S. in the Americas and pursued policies that often run counter to Washington's wishes.Apart from Cuba, which has been suspended from the OAS for decades, the U.S. has most differences with Venezuela, whose former president, Hugo Chavez, reveled in tweaking Washington until his death last year.Kerry was scheduled to meet Wednesday with Venezuela's new foreign minister to discuss possibilities for improving relations, a U.S. official said.Kerry was expected to raise human rights and democracy concerns in the country, where the opposition was still disputing the narrow results of the election that brought Chavez's successor to power.

Apple fights manipulation claims on e-book prices Posted: NEW YORK (AP) - Apple Inc. defended itself Tuesday against claims that the computer giant manipulated electronic book prices and stifled competition when it opened an online bookstore three years ago.An attorney for the company, Orin Snyder, questioned David Shanks, the top executive at publisher Penguin Group USA, during the second day of an anti-trust civil trial resulting from a lawsuit brought last year by the Justice Department.The Penguin chief executive officer said irrational enthusiasm about the potential for 80 million to 100 million Apple customers to buy books online led the company to meet many of Apple's demands in 2010.Snyder was trying to rebut government claims that Apple and five book publishers conspired to eliminate Amazon.com's $9.99 bargain price for popular e-books by agreeing to a pricing policy that forced millions of consumers to pay more than they should have for most online books.Apple has insisted that its entrance into the e-book market improved the online book industry and stabilized prices in the long term.Under questioning by Justice Department lawyer Mark Ryan, Shanks said Penguin was not pleased that Amazon was selling its electronic books below cost before Apple entered the market since the publisher tried to maintain a fairly delicate ecosystem in publishing where we are trying to have everybody make a profit: the author, the publisher and the reseller.Penguin, the last of five publishers to settle its case with the government, tried to maintain a pricing agreement with Amazon that would enable the online megastore to continue its $9.99 price for e-books but had to change its position once Barnes & Noble then the second largest seller of e-books entered the market with a pricing scheme similar to Apple's, Shanks testified. He said Penguin otherwise would have risked losing money.Shanks said the negotiations with Apple were not unlike many of the other 100 or so negotiations he has conducted in his 35 years in the book publishing industry.Now, he testified, Penguin is better able to project its sales of hardbacks, paperbacks and e-books, in part because the electronic book industry is established and more predictable and because it is clear the number of printed books is decreasing. The company agreed in a deal announced last month to pay $75 million to settle claims against it.

West Indies beat Sri Lanka by 17 runs in CT warmup Posted: BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) - West Indies rebounded from a drubbing from Australia in beating Sri Lanka by 17 runs in a Champions Trophy warmup game at Edgbaston on Tuesday.Johnson Charles and Chris Gayle gave West Indies a solid start with a combined 87, then Darren Bravo and Ramnaresh Sarwan raced along before both retired at 71 and 55 respectively in the 44th over to give others batting time.Sri Lankas chase was well placed at 124-3 but few batsmen were allowed to settle, and Kumar Sangakkaras demise for 56 off 62 balls in the 32nd when he edged behind Dwayne Bravo, made the result inevitable despite a late flick from the tail.

Fire crews called to rescue cow that got its head stuck in a tree Posted: SHREWSBURY (Web Desk) - The rescuers got perhaps the weirdest call of their careers when they were called to save a cow that had somehow got its head wedged in a tree.Crews from Shropshire Fire and Rescue were called out and had to use a special large animal harness and crane to get the dumb animals head out of a hole in the trees trunk.Its not the first time, and wont be the last, that an animal is pictured with its head stuck in an object.

Doctor tells man with swollen stomach that he is woman Posted: Nothing can be more unnerving than going to the doctor and finding out that you are not who you think you are.This is exactly what happened to a 66-year-old Vietnam-born Chinese man who had gone to a doctor with a swollen stomach.Upon checking, and after some tests, the doctor dropped a bombshell on the poor man and told him that he was actually a womanThe patients swollen stomach was due to an ovarian cyst. Further tests revealed that the patient sufferd from Turner syndrome, a condition that usually affects women only and is caused due to a problem with the chromosomes.The patient had a beard and a micropenis and suffered from adrenal hyperplasia, which increases male hormones and made the patient appear like a man.The 1.37 metres tall patient has decided to continue perceiving himself as a male and may receive hormone treatment.

India thrash Australia by 243 runs in warmer Posted: CARDIFF (AFP) - Umesh Yadav did the bulk of the damage with a stunning return of five wickets for 18 runs in just five overs, with fellow paceman Ishant Sharma taking three for 11 against an Australia side where Shane Watson was given a rest from batting following his hundred against the West Indies.Earlier, world champions India collapsed to 55 for five before Dinesh Karthik revived the innings with a superb 146 not out, adding 211 for the fifth wicket with captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (91) to get the side to a total of 308 for six.Australia were without captain Michael Clarke because of a recurrence of a longstanding back injury which has made him doubtful for the sides tournament opener against England at Edgbaston on Saturday.India face South Africa in the first match of the Champions Trophy proper at Cardiff on Thursday.

US blacklists companies dealing with Iran Posted: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A global network of private companies were blacklisted by the United States on Tuesday for providing revenue to the Iranian government and helping Tehran evade international sanctions on its nuclear program, the U.S. Treasury Department said.The move targets 37 companies spread across the world, from Iran to Croatia, Germany and South Africa, and is the fourth action the United States has taken in the past week to sanction Irans government over its atomic program.The sanctions prohibit U.S. citizens and companies from dealing with the firms. Any foreign financial institutions dealing with them risk getting cut off from the U.S. financial system.The Treasury Department said the companies are governed by the Execution of Imam Khomeinis Order or EIKO - referring to Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - and earn tens of billions of dollars in profits.The companies take advantage of preferential loan rates from Iranian banks and sell and manage real estate holdings, including properties confiscated from Iranians who do not live in the country full-time, Treasury said.It said the firms have business links to Irans government but usually have non-Iranian or Iranian expatriate owners to get around restrictions on the governments ability to do business in Europe and other parts of the world.While the Iranian governments leadership works to hide billions of dollars in corporate profits earned at the expense of the Iranian people, Treasury will continue exposing and acting against the regimes attempts to evade our sanctions and escape international isolation, Under Secretary of the Treasury David Cohen said in a statement announcing the sanctions.The United States and other Western powers believe Iran is seeking the ability to make nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the charge, saying its nuclear program is strictly for power generation and medical purposes.Sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union halved Irans oil exports last year, depriving the government of billions of dollars in revenue, increasing already high inflation and hitting the value of the rial currency. But there is little evidence they have slowed the nuclear program.Each passing month shows important results obtained through sanctions. Yet, the Iranian regime is still able to fund nuclear enrichment in ways that bear no relationship to a peaceful program, Senator Mike Crapo, the top Republican on the Senate Banking committee examining the sanctions, said during a hearing.China and Russia are expected this week to join four Western powers in voicing deep concerns about Irans atomic activities, and pressing it to cooperate with a stalled inquiry by the U.N. nuclear agency.

US military calls sexual assault 'like a cancer' Posted: WASHINGTON (AP) - US military leaders said Tuesday that sexual assault in the ranks is like a cancer that could destroy the force, but they rejected far-reaching congressional efforts to strip commanders of some authority in meting out justice.Seated side-by-side at a long witness table, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the head of each branch of the military testified on what is widely viewed as an epidemic of sexual assault plaguing the services.Outraged by recent high-profile cases and overwhelming statistics, lawmakers have moved aggressively on legislation to address the scourge of sexual assault. They summoned the military brass to answer their questions at a jam-packed hearing.Sen. Carl Levin, a Democrat and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the problem of sexual assault is of such a scope and magnitude that it has become a stain on our military.Congress has acted in prior years to ensure the aggressive investigation and prosecution of sexual assaults, Levin said, but more needs to be done. The committee is considering seven bills to deal with sexual assault.As important as additional protections would be, Levin said, the problem wont be addressed successfully without a cultural change throughout the military. And that starts at the top of the chain of command.The military services are hierarchal organizations: The tone is set from the top of that chain, the message comes from the top, and accountability rests at the top, said Levin, who has not endorsed any of the bills.The military leaders offered no disagreement about the impact on the services.Sexual assault and harassment are like a cancer within the force, a cancer that left untreated will destroy the fabric of our force, said Army Gen. Ray Odierno. Its imperative that we take a comprehensive approach to prevent attacks, to protect our people, and where appropriate, to prosecute wrongdoing and hold people accountable.While acknowledging the problem and accepting that legislation is inevitable, military leaders insisted that commanders keep their authority to handle sexual assault cases.Reducing command responsibility could adversely affect the ability of the commander to enforce professional standards and ultimately, to accomplish the mission, Dempsey told the committee.The four-star chiefs told the committee they support Defense Secretary Chuck Hagels April recommendation to change the Uniform Code of Military Justice and largely strip commanding officers of the power to toss out a verdict. The change is included in several of the Senate proposals and likely will be adopted by the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday in their version of the annual defense policy bill.But service chiefs expressed concern over making broader changes to the militarys legal code that would undercut the ability of commanders to discipline the troops they need.One of the Senate bills proposed by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, would go the farthest by removing commanders from the process of deciding whether serious crimes, including sexual misconduct cases, go to trial. That judgment would rest with seasoned trial counsels who have prosecutorial experience and hold the rank of colonel or above.Her legislation, which has 18 cosponsors including four Republicans, also would take away a commanders authority to convene a court-martial. That responsibility would be given to new and separate offices outside the victims chain of command.Commanders would maintain their current authority in the legal process in cases of espionage, theft, sedition and conduct unbecoming an officer in her bill.Odierno, the Armys chief of staff, said a commanders ability to punish quickly, visibly and at the unit level is essential to maintaining discipline within the ranks.Without equivocation, I believe maintaining the central role of the commander in our military justice system is absolutely critical, Odierno said. The Air Forces top officer, Gen. Mark Welsh, said airmen should have no doubt about who will hold them accountable.Commanders having the authority to hold airmen criminally accountable for misconduct ... is crucial to building combat-ready, disciplined units, Welsh said.The Pentagon estimated in a recent report that as many as 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted last year, up from an estimated 19,000 assaults in 2012, based on an anonymous survey of military personnel. While the number of sexual assaults that members of the military actually reported rose 6 percent to 3,374 in 2012, thousands of victims were still unwilling to come forward despite new oversight and assistance programs aimed at curbing the crimes, the report said.

Syrian army advances in Qusair Posted: DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Syrian troops advanced toward the center of the strategic town of Qusair near the border with Lebanon and chased rebels from another key district on the edge of Damascus Tuesday, officials said, solidifying recent gains that have shifted the balance of power in the regimes favor in recent weeks.In the past two months, the Syrian army has moved steadily against rebels in key battleground areas, making strategic advances near the border with Lebanon and considerably lowering the threat to Damascus, the seat of President Bashar Assads government.The Syrian army, which is backed by Hezbollah fighters, is approaching victory in Qusair, almost three weeks after launching an offensive to recapture the western town, an official in the governors office of Homs province said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media about an ongoing military operation. He said the troops are advancing from the east and south of Qusair, fighting pockets of resistance along the way.The rebels still have control of the western and northern parts of the town as well as some areas in the center. A doctor coordinating medical treatment in Qusair said the troops have been pounding western parts of the town with artillery as they move toward the center. The doctor, Kasem Alzein spoke to the AP via Skype from Qusair on Tuesday, saying that the regime forces are approaching the area where hes been operating a makeshift hospital.Its very difficult here, Alzein said against a backdrop of constant shelling in the background. The battles are really close to where we work. He said he cant venture out of his makeshift clinic that has been set up in one of the houses in the town after the main hospital in Qusair was destroyed in earlier fighting. He said the rebels are resisting, but cannot match the governments Hezbollah-backed firepower.The rebels are not able to cover all the areas. The regime provides air cover and artillery shelling and the Hezbollah fighters are clashing (with the rebels on the ground) and advancing, Alzein said, adding that the makeshift clinics he oversees around the town have received 42 wounded and the bodies of five people killed in Tuesdays fighting.They are waiting for their turn to be operated on. I am not sure they will survive, Alzein said. Doctors in Qusair are treating the wounded in about 50 abandoned homes that have been turned into makeshift hospitals since the government launched an offensive on May 19. Four of the homes have been converted into operating theaters.The doctors had stocked up on medical supplies, but they are running out of antibiotics, bandages and anesthetics. Oxygen supplies are already exhausted, Alzein said.Appeals by the United Nations and other aid organizations to allow humanitarian workers to enter Qusair have gone unheeded by authorities in Damascus as fighting drags on and neither side has been able to deliver a decisive blow. Syrian regime troops and fighters from Hezbollah have steadily gained ground, but rebels have been able to defend some positions and appear to be dug in the north and west of the town.On Sunday, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon called Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem to express concern over the situation in Qusair, according to Syrias state-run news agency SANA. However, al-Moallem told the U.N. chief that the Red Cross and other aid agencies will only be able to enter Qusair after the end of military operations there, SANA said.Both sides in the Syrian civil war value Qusair. The Syrian government is fighting there because it wants to reassert its control over the town that is strategically located between Damascus, the seat of Assads government, and the Alawite heartland near the Mediterranean.Opposition forces want to hold on to the overwhelmingly Sunni town that has served as a conduit for shipments of weapons, fighters and supplies smuggled from Lebanon to the rebels inside Syria. Rebels in Qusair have called on fighters from all over Syria to come to their aid in the town.Meanwhile, Syrian government forces pushed rebels battling to topple Assad out of Jobar, a key district on the edge of Damascus, according to the state news agency. If confirmed, it would bolster the defenses of the Syrian capital and further shift the balance of power Assads way in the civil war.SANA said Tuesday that government troops restored security and stability to some vital areas in Jobar, a district on the northeastern edge of the capital from which the rebels had been trying to push into Damascus for weeks.In Damascus, a Syrian government official said four mortar shells landed near the Russian Embassy in the Mazrra neighborhood of Damascus, killing one person and wounding an unknown number of others. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.Residents in the area said the mortar shells landed about 150 meters (feet) from the building that houses the Russian Embassy in Damascus.Russia is close ally of Assads regime, which has been fighting an uprising against his regime that began as peaceful protests in March 2011, then morphed into a civil war.

Nawaz set to become PM with two-third vote Posted: ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) – PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif is expected the secure more than two-third of the votes from the MNAs on June 5 (Wednesday).It must be recalled that MQM, JUI-F and QWP of Aftab Sherpao have announced to vote for Nawaz Sharif.Pakistan People’s Party and Tehreek-e-Insaf have also filed the nomination papers of their candidates.Javed Hashmi is the candidate of PTI and Mehdoom Amin Fahim is PPP’s candidate.Main Nawaz Sharif will later take oath of his office in the President’s House.

Security tightened for Iraqi pilgrimage Posted: BAGHDAD (AP) - Tens of thousands of Shiite pilgrims converged Tuesday on a golden-domed shrine in northern Baghdad to commemorate a revered eight century saint as troops tightened security after a wave of deadly attacks across Iraq.Violence across the country has shot up to its highest level in years over the past two months, raising fears that Iraq is descending into a new round of widespread sectarian violence.Several thousand policemen and soldiers were deployed in Baghdad to secure the streets as Shiite faithful made their way to the northern neighborhood of Kazimiyah, where Iman Moussa al-Kadhim is buried, said Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Saad Maan Ibrahim.Pilgrims have to undergo several searches before they reach the gates of the shrine, which have been tightly guarded even before the latest wave of bloodshed.Many of the main streets in the Iraqi capital were closed in recent days to prevent attacks on the pilgrims, who travel on foot, and authorities last week took the drastic step of banning cars with temporary license plates from the roads altogether.The measure was explained by the fact that ownership of such cars is difficult to trace, and authorities fear they are more likely to be used in car bombings.No significant attacks have been reported during Tuesdays processions, Ibrahim said. According to the United Nations, at least 1,045 Iraqi civilians and security personnel were killed in May. The tally surpassed the one of 712 killed in April, making May the deadliest month recorded since June 2008.Ahmed Mustafa, a truck driver from eastern Baghdad, arrived at the Shiite shrine on Tuesday morning, after having walked with his brother from their home the whole night long, stopping and waiting at security checkpoints and taking many turns to avoid closed streets.We decided to take the journey despite all the security fears because we felt that this pilgrimage is an important religious duty that should be done regardless of any possible risks, he said.In Kazimiyah, ambulances were deployed around the shrine inside while helicopters hovered overhead. Along the roads leading to the shrine, pilgrims were served grilled meat, fish and juice.Shiites walk for hours, and often for days, from across the country to reach the beautiful mosque in Kazimiyah, known for its twin golden domes.The revered Imam Moussa ibn Jaafar al-Kadhim, who died in 799, was the seventh of 12 principal Shiite saints. The mosque was built atop what were believed to be the tombs of al-Kadhim and his grandson.In television footage from the site, there appeared to be fewer pilgrims than in the recent years. An interior ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media, confirmed the number of pilgrims is down, attributing this to the deteriorating security situation.But Ibrahim, the ministry spokesman, denied any decline in visitor numbers. He said many pilgrims decided to visit the shrine earlier in the week to avoid big crowds.One of those who stayed away from Kazimiyah was Rhida Abbas, a teacher from the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, who said he decided not to make the pilgrimage at the urging of his wife and his two daughters who feared for his safety.I have a good reason not to take the risk, he said. I am the father of two daughters and I do not want them to be orphans.

Oman downs Iraq 1-0 in WCup qualifier Posted: MUSCAT, Oman (AP) - With time running out on an uneventful first half, Ismail al-Ajmi headed the winner past keeper Noor Sabri Abbas and striker Humam Tareq Faraj, who failed to clear it off the line.The victory moves Oman into second in Group B behind Japan which became the first team to qualify for the World Cup in Brazil with a 1-1 draw against Australia. Oman and Japan only have a match remaining while Australia, Iraq and Jordan have two matches.Oman had several counterattacks in the second half that nearly doubled its lead. Al-Ajmi fired a close-range strike from just inside the area that Abbas swatted away in the 60th minute and Abdul Aziz twice got behind the defense and fired shots just wide in the 80th and 88th minute.Iraq rarely challenged Omani keeper Faiyz al-Rusheidi, as the Omani defense largely contained striker Younus Mahmood. The Iraqi captain had a good chance in the 87th when he took a pass in the area but fired a weak shot just to the right of the goal.Iraq still has a mathematical chance of advancing, but is bottom of the group and its two remaining matches are against Asian heavyweights Japan and Australia.

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