Pakistan all out for 258, lead Australia by 170

LEEDS: Shane Watson took a career-best six-wicket haul as Australia dismissed Pakistan for 258 on day two of the second test at Headingley on Thursday.

Allrounder Watson helped clean up Pakistan's tail to finish with figures of 6-33, limiting Salman Butt's side to a lead of 170 after Australia was bowled out for 88 in its first innings.

Butt (45) finished the innings as the top scorer for Pakistan, which lost its final five wickets in the second session to be all out in 64.5 overs.

Pakistan came out after lunch on 218-5, having lost Umar Akmal (21) and Umar Amin (25) in the morning session, but Watson almost single-handedly dragged Australia back into the match with two wickets from the final two balls of the first over after the interval.

He had Kamran Akmal (15) caught at first slip by Marcus North and then trapped Mohammad Aamer (0) lbw, although umpire Rudi Koertzen's decision appeared harsh.

Umar Gul (0) survived the hat-trick ball at the start of Watson's next over, Australia's 59th, but was soon clean-bowled by the opening batsman, giving Watson his second five-wicket test haul, having claimed 5-40 at Lord's in the first match of the series.

Watson added to his tally in the next over, Shoaib Malik (26) playing a poor shot and holing out to wicketkeeper Tim Paine.

The last-wicket pair of Danish Kaneria (15) and Mohammad Asif (9 not out) added 24 runs from as many balls in an entertaining cameo, before Kaneria was run out by Steven Smith.

The morning session had been delayed by 45 minutes due to rain but when play did eventually begin, the opening over provided an explosive start as Mitchell Johnson conceded 11 runs before having Umar Akmal caught at mid-off from the sixth delivery.

Akmal was given a reprieve as Johnson was called for a no-ball, although Umar Amin was nearly run out at the opposite end as he scrambled for a single.

It proved to be a temporary stay of execution for Akmal, who was caught behind off Johnson in the 44th over, the fifth of the morning.

Amin was the victim of a freak dismissal in the 51st over, when he ducked under a bouncer from Ben Hilfenhaus but left his bat in the air. The ball struck the toe-end of his bat and flew straight to North at square leg.

Indian tail resists with Muralitharan on 799

GALLE: Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan, playing his final Test, stands one wicket away from becoming the first bowler to take 800 Test wickets as India fight to stave off defeat in the series opener.

India went to lunch on the final day Thursday at 292-8 in their second innings, with a 48-run second innings lead.

V.V.S. Laxman scored a stubborn 58 not out.

Muralitharan needed eight wickets in his final test to reach the 800 mark. After five in the first innings, he had taken two in the second. He trapped Harbhajan Singh lbw on Thursday for his 799th wicket.

However seamer Lasith Malinga had bowled best for the hosts, returning 5-48.

Karachi targeted killings claim three more lives

KARACHI: At least three people were killed in different incidents of targeted killings in Karachi on Thursday

Unknown gunmen opened fire in the city's Lyari Town killing two people. Police said the victims, who were shifted to the Civil Hospital, were associated with the Ghaffar Zikri gang.

Separately, in Orangi Town, unknown assailants shot and killed one person. The victim, Asghar Hussain, was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, police said.

Hussain was associated with a political group, police said.

Earlier, on Wednesday, at least seven people were killed in different incidents of targeted killing across the city.

Two militants die while making bomb in Bajaur

KHAR: A local Taliban commander and his aide died when a bomb they were constructing in the militant chief's home in northwestern Pakistan’s Bajaur tribal region exploded, a government official said.

Syed Ghafoor, a local official, said Thursday's blast in Bajaur also wounded several members of commander Irshad Khan's family.

He said Khan was behind several attacks on troops in the region and had contacts with top Taliban leaders in nearby North and South Waziristan.

The military has twice declared victory in Bajaur against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters over the past 18 months, but militant attacks have continued in the area.

Shahbaz, Awan trade barbs

LAHORE: Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif on Wednesday related the matter of Rana Maqbool's arrest to the arrest of wanted persons in the federation. Meanwhile, Law Minister Babar Awan said there were no wanted persons or fugitives in the federation.

Sharif told media representatives that the court was "currently dealing with the matter of Rana Maqbool" and therefore he could not interfere in the issue.

Sharif said "how are wanted persons still part of the federal government?"

Separately, Babar Awan told reporters in Multan that "wanted persons have no place in government service...if there are any fugitives or absconders in the federal government, I would get them arrested myself".

We will keep working according to the constitution no matter what the number of "fake degrees" may turn out to be, Awan said.

He further said that "the people of Punjab are bound to ask for the province’s division if the entire provincial budget will be spent on Lahore".

Awan said those challenging the 18th Amendment were the ones who had a problem with democracy in Pakistan.

He further said that in the past, a few lawyers used to be paid but now that the government was giving funds to entire bar associations that some elements started to have a problem with it.

UN chief plans meeting to end disarmament deadlock

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is inviting nations to a high-level meeting in September on how to revive stalled international disarmament talks, UN diplomats and officials said on Wednesday.

The meeting, scheduled for Sept. 24 during the annual General Assembly gathering of world leaders in New York, follows 12 years of inaction at the world's sole multilateral disarmament negotiating forum in Geneva.

The 65-nation UN-backed Conference on Disarmament (CD), created in 1978, negotiated biological and chemical weapons conventions but has been unable to carry out substantive work since 1998 because members could not agree on priorities.

A key proposed task has been to negotiate a halt to production of nuclear bomb-making fissile material but that has been blocked by Pakistan, which says it would put it at a permanent disadvantage to rival India.

To try to break the deadlock, invitations were going out this week to all 192 UN member states to send delegates at ministerial or higher level, said a UN official involved in the planning. He said the meeting was “seen as an opportunity to generate the political will to register some progress.”

The official, who asked not to be identified, said the meeting would last only three hours. Ban would chair it and read out a summary of conclusions at the end but the exact outcome of the meeting was still under discussion, he said.

A senior Western diplomat specializing in disarmament said one possibility was that experts would be asked to draft a resolution for the General Assembly to adopt to reform the UN disarmament machinery.

The diplomat, briefing reporters on condition he was not named, said the cost of the CD was put at some $500,000 a year in interpretation and other administrative costs.

“Each year you have the hope that it's going to be back on track but after 12 years you have to admit that there's something in the system that doesn't work, that you have to reform something,” the diplomat said.

Ban first floated the idea of a special meeting in a speech to a nuclear non-proliferation conference at the United Nations in May. When the conference ended, it recommended that he go ahead with the special meeting. –Reuters

CIA announces new head of spy service

WASHINGTON: The CIA announced Wednesday it was appointing an experienced spy as the new head of its vast intelligence network, the National Clandestine Service.

John Bennett, who joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1981 after service in the US Marine Corps, will replace retiring NCS chief Michael Sulick.

Bennett's most recent foreign posting was as the agency's station chief in Islamabad, where he guided a “major improvement” in ties with the Pakistanis, according to Newsweek magazine.

CNN said that while in Pakistan, Bennett was in charge of increasing the use of aerial drones in striking suspected terrorists.

Among those killed by drones on his watch was the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, according to CNN.

Bennett, a former chief of the covert paramilitary Special Activities Division and ex-deputy chief of the Africa Division, has spent most of his career working abroad for the CIA, including four tours as station chief.

He “has been at the forefront of the fight against Al-Qaeda and its violent allies,” CIA Director Leon Panetta said, pointing to his “impeccable credentials at the very core of intelligence operations — espionage, covert action and liaison.”

Panetta also had words of praise for Sulick, who retired in September 2004 after clashing with then-director Porter Goss but was coaxed into returning to the CIA in 2007. —AFP