Four bodies found in rainwater-filled pits, drains

KARACHI: As heavy rains stopped falling on Tuesday after a four-day intermittent spell, at least four bodies including that of a teenage girl and a six-year-old boy were found in rainwater-filled pits and storm-water drains in different areas of the city, officials and charity volunteers said.

The body of the girl aged between 13 and 15 years was found in a rainwater-filled pit near Banaras Chowk. She was believed to have drowned at least a day earlier.

Her body was moved to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital before being shifted to the Edhi morgue at Sohrab Goth for want of identification.

In New Karachi police found the body of a young man in a huge pond, formed by the recent rains. The dead was later identified Tahir.

“The body was found in Khameeso Goth. We reached the spot after a call from the area police,” said an official at the Chhipa Welfare Association that recovered the body and shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

An hour later the body of another young man was found in a storm-water drain in Ayub Goth within the remit of the Sohrab Goth police station. The victim was identified as 26-year-old Irfan.

A six-year-old boy was found dead in a storm-water drain in Akhtar Colony.

The deceased, identified as Osama, had left home in Kashmir Colony on Sunday evening amid heavy rains to play outside but never returned.

Sectarian killing

A man in his late 50s was gunned down near Baloch Colony on Tuesday in what appeared to be a fresh incident of targeted killing on sectarian grounds, officials said.

They said 58-year-old Agha Abib Shirazi was targeted near the Duty Free Shop along Sharea Faisal by a single gunman on a motorbike when he was leaving for his office after a stopover at a friend’s place.

“He was driving a car down a busy commercial area to land onto Sharea Faisal from the service lane,” said an official at the Ferozabad police station. “All of a sudden a man riding a motorbike came close to him, forcing Mr Shirazi to pull the brakes. The gunman then pulled out a 9mm pistol and fired multiple shots at him.”

The victim sustained at least three bullets and died on the spot, said an official, adding that the people around saw a man accelerate the two-wheeler towards one of the narrow lanes connecting the service road.

“Initial investigations found the attacker alone with no apparent support by anyone else,” said SSP Amir Farooqi of the Ferozabad police station, who suspected a sectarian motive behind the killing.

The deceased was associated with the construction business. He was the father of a son and three daughters. Resident of Muhammad Ali Cooperative Housing Society, he was also the brother of a trustee of the Azakhana-i-Zehra Trust, Agha Asghar Shirazi.

The incident came as a grim reminder of the multiple targeted killings on sectarian grounds that kept the city under fear till early July before the assassinations on ethnic and political grounds began.

Allama Abbas Kumaili of the Jafria Alliance Pakistan condemned Mr Shirazi’s murder and questioned the role of the security administration.

“For the last seven months targeted killings on sectarian grounds have continued unabated,” he said in a statement. “We have demanded an operation against the banned outfits, but unfortunately the government doesn’t seem interested in it. Not a single suspect of targeted killings has been arrested so far.”

The recent wave of targeted killings on sectarian grounds reemerged earlier this year that has claimed nearly 30 lives. Killings of political activists and on ethnic grounds remained a separate challenge for the law-enforcers to handle as it has seen nearly 200 people losing their lives this year alone.

Though the investigators claimed to have ‘found a few clues’ to determine the appearance of the attacker on Mr Shirazi and recovered casings of spent bullets of the 9mm gun used in the attack, fears run high ahead of Ramazan and religious leaders see it as a conspiracy to spark sectarian unrest mainly in the holy month.

“This is high time to show solidarity and unity so that we meet the challenge of terrorism together. But at the same time it’s the prime responsibility of the people at the helm of affairs to move before it’s too late.”

Apple to set up Japan Web warning on problem iPods

TOKYO: After prodding from the Japanese government, Apple Inc. will post prominent notices on its website warning some iPod Nano music players in Japan may overheat.

Sixty-one cases of batteries overheating have been reported in first-generation iPod Nano machines sold in 2005 and 2006, according to Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

Some units were warped by the heat that caused minor burns when people touched them, but no serious injuries or damage have been reported, it said.

A notice for a battery replacement was posted late last year on Apple Japan's website but it requires several clicks before it can be read.

The government, in talks with Apple Japan since last year, pressed the company to correct that, ministry official Seiji Shimagami said Friday.

Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said an easily accessible web page will be set up by early next week that outlines how to get a battery replacement.

Apple will also send e-mails to registered owners, he said in a telephone interview from California. “Safety is the highest priority for Apple,” said Neumayr.

Japanese are among the world’s biggest fans of Apple products, standing in long lines to snatch up iPhone models and the iPad as soon as they go on sale.

The ministry said 1.8 million first-generation iPod Nano players have been sold in Japan, but it is unclear how many of those have the problem battery.

Neumayr declined to comment on whether Nano players in other parts of the world may be affected by the same problem.

Last month, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs offered free protective cases to buyers of the iPhone 4 to prevent reception problems that occur when people cover a certain spot on the phone with a bare hand.

Huge ice island calves off Greenland glacier

WASHINGTON: An ice island four times the size of Manhattan broke off from one of Greenland’s two main glaciers, scientists said on Friday, in the biggest such event in the Arctic in nearly 50 years.

The new ice island, which broke off on Thursday, will enter a remote place called the Nares Strait, about 620 miles south of the North Pole between Greenland and Canada.

The ice island has an area of 100 square miles and a thickness up to half the height of the Empire State Building, said Andreas Muenchow, professor of ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware.

Muenchow said he had expected an ice chunk to break off from the Petermann Glacier, one of the two largest remaining ones in Greenland, because it had been growing in size for seven or eight years. But he did not expect it to be so large.

“The freshwater stored in this ice island could keep the Delaware or Hudson Rivers flowing for more than two years,” said Muenchow, whose research in the area is supported by the National Science Foundation.

“It could also keep all U.S. public tap water flowing for 120 days.”

He said it was hard to judge whether the event occurred due to global warming because records on the sea water around the glacier have only been kept since 2003. The flow of sea water below the glaciers is one of the main causes of ice calvings off Greenland.

“Nobody can claim this was caused by global warming. On the other hand nobody can claim that it wasn't,” Muenchow said.

Scientists have said the first six months of 2010 have been the hottest globally on record.

The El Nino weather pattern has contributed to higher temperatures, but many scientists say elevated levels of man-made greenhouse gases are pushing temperatures higher.

The initial discovery of the calving was made by Trudy Wohlleben of the Canadian Ice Service.

The ice island could fuse to land, break up into smaller pieces, or slowly move south where it could block shipping, Muenchow said.

The last time such a large ice island formed was in 1962 when the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf calved an island. Smaller pieces of that chunk became lodged between real islands inside Nares Strait. – Reuters

The covers comes on again at Edgbaston

Play resumed at 11.35am local time (1035GMT) on the second day of the second Test between Englandand Pakistan at Edgbaston here on Saturday after rain delayed the start by 35 minutes.

England were 112 for two, a lead of 40, in reply toPakistan’s first innings 72 — the tourists’ lowest total against England anywhere.

Jonathan Trott was 31 not out and Kevin Pietersen 36 not out.

1st Day: Pakistan crumbled meekly to their lowest-ever total against England as they were bowled out for 72 after winning the toss on the first day of the second Test.

Umar Amin top-scored with just 23, Stuart Broad claimed four for 38 and James Anderson four for 20 in idyllic conditions for seam and swing bowling.

The total was eight runs lower than Pakistan’s second innings in the first Ttest which finished on Sunday with England winning by 354 runs.

Pakistan resumed after lunch on 37 for six and despite the highest partnership of the innings of 27 between Mohammad Aamer and Amin, they lost their last four wickets for nine runs.

Five Pakistani batsmen failed to score a run and the innings lasted four minutes short of three hours.

Karachi’s stability important for country: PM

KARACHI: Speaking on the target killings in Karachi, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday said that stability in the metropolis was important for stability in the country.

The prime minister arrived in Karachi late on Friday to address the city’s law and order situation.

He said a code of conduct had been devised to bring an end to the target killings. He further stated that target killings were not the only challenge confronting the country.

We are facing other challenges as well, he said.

He also said that there should be no display of weapons in Karachi.

All political parties have the right to operate in the country and they should help each other, he said, adding that the government also realises its responsibilities.

The prime minister expressed suspicion that there could be a ‘third hand’ involved in these killings.

Sindh on alert as high flood tide passes through Guddu

SOOMRA PANHWARI: A flood tide of 9,62,000 cusecs was passing through Guddu barrage on Saturday, reports said. The high flooding at Guddu deluged dozens of villages in the Sindh’s Ghotki district.

Meanwhile, authorities raced to evacuate families threatened with fresh floods as heavy rains worsened the disaster in its second week, with up to 15 million people already affected.

Authorities in Sindh warned that a major deluge could hit impoverished river communities in the fertile basin, where they said up to three million people had already been affected and one million evacuated.

Torrential rains continued to hammer northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and helicopter services ferrying aid to some areas had to be suspended until the bad weather subsided.

Those uprooted from their homes in Sindh have been moved to temporary relief shelters in government buildings, schools and tents, but many families living in low-lying areas along the swollen Indus river were resisting evacuation.

“There are some areas where people are still reluctant to leave their homes and belongings. We are compelling them to evacuate because there is massive danger to their lives,” said irrigation minister Jam Saifullah Dharejo.

“The water flow in some places along the river is exceptionally high and intermittent rains continue,” he added.
“At least four districts are on high alert as the flood wave prepares to enter Sindh,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has appealed for immediate international help to cope with the country's worst ever floods, which have already devastated provinces in the northwest and centre.

Countries including the US, Britain and China have pledged tens of millions of dollars in aid for victims of the nearly two-week-old disaster.

Floods across country have swept away entire villages and killed at least 1,600 people, according to UN estimates.

Those marooned in Soomra Panhwari in Sindh faced a shortage of food and drinking water and authorities said their priority was shifting women and children to safety.

Zaibun Nisa, 40, said she had been forced to leave her husband to whisk her three children away from the floods after all the family's cattle were lost.

“All our belongings have been swept away, our cattle have been lost. My daughter was to be married once we had the money from our sugarcane harvest but the crop is destroyed. Now we are battling for our survival,” she said.

The meteorological office has warned that at least two more days of rain are expected in Sindh, where a red alert is in place because of the “imminent” and “extreme” flood threat.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, head of flood relief operations Major General Ghayoor Mehmood, has said some 1,400 people have been killed, with 213 still missing.

Flooding has spread to Indian-administered Kashmir, where at least 115 people have died, while some parts of the Punjab are under six feet of water, affecting nearly two million people, a senior crisis management official said.

“The scale of the needs is absolutely daunting,” Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said Friday.

More than 252,000 homes are thought to have been damaged or destroyed across Pakistan and 1.38 million acres of crop land flooded, and it could take weeks before electricity is fully restored.

The flooding has threatened electricity generation plants, forcing units to shut down in a country already suffering a crippling energy crisis.

In Punjab a senior government official said water had entered an oil refinery unit, oil depot and a power generation plant, with workers being forced to leave their homes in the area.

Survivors have lashed out at authorities for failing to come to their rescue and provide better relief, piling pressure on a cash-strapped administration straining to contain Taliban violence and an economic crisis.

The United States has pledged a total of 35 million dollars in aid, with military helicopter relief missions travelling into the worst-hit regions.

Australia on Saturday doubled its aid pledge to 10 million dollars (9.2 million US).

In neighbouring Afghanistan, authorities asked residents of several villages along the Kabul river to leave their homes as smaller floods caused minor damage to homes, an official from the national disaster authority said.

Haider murder investigation to be transparent: CM Qaim

KARACHI: Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah on Saturday said that a transparent investigation will be made into the death of MQM MPA Syed Raza Haider.

Qaim Shah visited the family of the deceased MQM member and offered his condolences. Speaking to media representatives, he said that the standing committee’s investigation report into the murder of Raza Haider will be presented to the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister arrived in Karachi late on Friday and was briefed on the law and order situation in the city. Later, the Prime Minister also met with different political leaders to discuss the issue.