Pakistan lost Hong Kong Sixes final to Australia

Australian captain David Warner plays a shot against Pakistan during the Cup Final cricket match at the Hong Kong Cricket Sixes 2010 on November 7, 2010. Australia won the match by 2 wickets. – Photo by AFP
Karachi: In spite of posting a huge total of 132-6, Pakistan lost to Australia when the later managed 50 runs off the last nine balls to end 135-4 in Hong Kong Sixes final in Hong Kong.
Ahmed Shehzad scored a brilliant 92-run knock coming off 28 balls. However, Australia conquered the target of 133 runs with impressive innings from their captain David Warner (35no), Glen Maxwell (34) and Ryan Carters (31no) to storm to an improbable victory.
Imran Nazir conceded 48 runs in the last over, which he did not even complete after bowling 12 wides and 9 no-balls. – PPI

ICC impressed with Pakistan’s corruption response

DUBAI: A Task team of cricket’s governing body on Sunday said it was impressed by the steps taken by Pakistan authorities to curb corruption and discipline problems to safeguard the integrity of the game.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) last month advised Pakistan to take strict steps to curb corruption and disciplinary problems, if they fail it could see the ICC punishing them.
Pakistan cricket has been rocked by allegations of spot-fixing, match-fixing and disciplinary problems, resulting in earning a bad name for the game at international level.Three Pakistani players Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer were provisionally suspended on charges of violating the ICC players’ code of conduct last month.
The suspension came over reports in the British newspaper News of the World, which claimed several Pakistani players including the suspended trio obeyed orders from an alleged bookmaker during Lord’s Test against England in August.
The Pakistan team was also accused of deliberately losing their Sydney Test in January this year.
The ICC also launched a separate inquiry after a tip off from another British tabloid The Sun, which claimed Pakistan’s scoring pattern in the Oval one-day match (played on September 17) was pre-arranged with book-makers.
The ICC, however, cleared Pakistan from the Oval one-day allegations after no evidence was found.
The Task team led by England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Giles Clarke held a tele-conference on Sunday, saying it was impressed with the steps taken by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).
“The ICC’s Pakistan Task Team (PTT) met by teleconference on Sunday to receive an update on the progress being made by the PCB to ensure the integrity of cricket,” said an ICC release.
It further added: “The PTT were impressed by the progress reported by the PCB. These included: The development of an Anti-Corruption Code by the PCB, a proposed plan to regulate agents of Pakistani players and an enhanced and countrywide education programme.” On the directives of the ICC, PCB last month introduced a stricter code of conduct for all the national team players and implemented steps to educate the players on corruption and doping.
“The PCB has clearly recognized that it is imperative to protect the integrity of cricket and we are indeed impressed by the progress reported. They have shown a clear determination to tackle their challenges,” ICC chief executve Haroon Lorgat said.
“The ICC Task Team is mindful of those challenges and is committed to supporting the PCB.”Clarke also praised PCB’s efforts.
“The PCB chairman and his team must be congratulated for the speed with which they have adopted the recommendations of the ICC Board. Everyone is encouraged by the statements and actions of the PCB and we must hope that they continue,” said Clarke.PCB chairman Ijaz Butt reiterated his stance to purge Pakistan cricket.
“The PCB is determined to implement the recommendations provided by the ICC. We at the PCB, like the ICC, are committed to a zero-tolerance approach to any form of corruption,” Butt was quoted in the release. – AFP

Two US drone strikes kill 14 militants in Northwest

PESHAWAR: A pair of American drone strikes killed 14 suspected militants in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, local intelligence officials said, in the latest attacks against al-Qaida and Taliban militants seeking sanctuary in the region.
The missiles struck an hour apart in the North Waziristan – the area that has seen the overwhelming majority of drone strikes over the last two months. The rugged region is home to hundreds of Pakistani and foreign militants, many belonging to or allied with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
In the first strike, one American missile slammed into a house and another hit a vehicle in the town of Ghulam Khan just north of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, the two officials said. Nine insurgents were killed.
An hour later, another pair of missiles struck a vehicle in the nearby town of Datta Khel, killing five suspected militants, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to the media. They said all five killed were foreigners.
Further details were not immediately available. The intelligence officials said agents on the ground were collecting more details.
North Waziristan, which is part of the Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal belt, is home to the Haqqani network, a powerful insurgent group that US officials say is behind many of the attacks on US and Nato forces just across the border in Afghanistan. The group is believed to control the town hit by the first strike Sunday.
The region is too dangerous for outsiders to visit and independently confirm the attacks, and US officials do not acknowledge firing the missiles, much less discuss who they are targeting.
It is widely believed, however, that Pakistan’s army has given tacit approval to the strikes and the recent spike in attacks has not attracted a greater level of criticism.
Washington wants Islamabad to launch a military offensive in the region, but so far has had to rely on missile strikes to hamper militant operations. The pace of the attacks has picked up recently, with roughly 20 apiece in the past two months, double the preceding monthly tally.
Some locals allege that the suspected US drone strikes regularly kill innocents, while others say the missiles are accurate and most of the dead are militants or villagers knowingly harboring them.
The strikes are carried out by unmanned drones that fly over the region for hours and equipped with extremely high-powered video cameras. — AP

The Socialite Network: UK’s Queen joins Facebook

LONDON: Now it’s the socialite network – Britains Queen Elizabeth II has joined Facebook, launching a series of official pages offering the website’s 500 million users daily updates on her engagements, the royal household said Sunday.
The 84-year-old British monarch will be featured in videos, photos and news items on the site, which will be available from Monday, alongside other members of the country’s royal family, including Princes William and Harry.
Users will be able leave messages or comments for Buckingham Palace on the site and find details of royal events close to their homes.
However, because the pages will be corporate – and not a personal account – people won’t be able to request to become friends with the queen.
A royal official said the queen had personally approved the plan, but acknowledged she has not actually used the site herself.
“The decision went right up to the queen,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the plan ahead of its official launch. “If you are going to have an online presence in 2010, you just have to be on Facebook.”
The Facebook page is the queen’s latest social media venture – the royal family already have an account on the Flickr photography website, joined Twitter in 2009 and set up a video channel on YouTube in 2007.
Buckingham Palace set up its own website in 1997, which now allows people to apply for palace jobs online, track the royal family via Google Maps or read details in a section devoted to the queen’s prized corgi dogs.
Her Facebook site will include Britain’s court circular, the official daily record of the royal family’s engagements. It lists all royal diary appointments from the previous day and was created by George III in 1803, reportedly after he became frustrated at inaccurate newspaper reports. — AP

Foreign military deaths in Afghanistan in 2010 hit 626

KABUL: The deaths of three Nato soldiers – two on Sunday – in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban-led insurgency have taken the toll for this year to 626.
Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the soldiers, whose nationalities were not revealed, died following insurgent attacks in eastern Afghanistan.
One of the soldiers died on Saturday and two died on Sunday, ISAF said in separate statements.
The AFP toll is based on a tally kept by the independent icasualties.org website. The total number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the war began in late 2001 is 2,196.
Last year, 521 foreign troops died in the war.
Nato and the United States have more than 150,000 troops in the country fighting the Taliban-led insurgency.
The insurgency is concentrated in the southern provinces of Kandahar and neighbouring Helmand, regarded by the Taliban as their territory and where most of the world’s opium is produced.
The Helmand governor’s office said that an improvised explosive device – the IEDs that have become the hallmark of Taliban violence – killed five civilians on Sunday morning.
The device exploded when a car in which 11 people were travelling near the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah hit it, the office said in a statement, and four children were wounded in the blast.
The United Nations said in a report early this year that most Afghan civilian casualties are caused by the Taliban. The perception among ordinary Afghans however is that the foreign military presence is behind the violence.
The Taliban have expanded their tactics in recent months to include political assassinations, which have been heavily felt in Kandahar, where the movement was formed.
The latest victim was a senior officer at Kandahar jail, who was gunned down by assailants on motorbikes while out shopping, the spokesman for the provincial administration, Zalmay Ayoubi, said.
On November 4, the deputy head of the provincial adult literacy department was killed by unidentified gunmen, police said.The wave of killings of government employees has made it almost impossible to fill civil service posts, creating a chasm in governance in Kandahar, residents have said.
One of the pivots of the counter-insurgency campaign currently underway in and around the city is following clearing operations – which push out the insurgents – with the establishment of civil services.
The bodies of five police officers who were seized last week by the Taliban in an attack on a remote district in Ghazni province have been found, an official said.
A spokesman for the governor of neighbouring Wardak province, Adam Khan Sirat, said the bodies had been found by security forces early Sunday.
The dead police officers were among a total of 19 who were kidnapped after insurgents stormed Khogyani district late last Sunday, seizing the local administration.
One was released and four were killed earlier, officials said. Nine were still unaccounted for.
Provincial governor Musa Khan Akbarzada said on Monday that the district had been retaken after a long and tough fight. — AFP

Obama pushes India to talk to Pakistan

MUMBAI: President Barack Obama called on India on Sunday to bolster peace efforts with Pakistan, a country that he said was not acting quickly enough to deal with militancy within its borders.
Obama faces a diplomatic tightrope in fostering ties with India as its economic and geopolitical importance grows while at the same time helping Pakistan with billions of dollars in aid and promoting wider peace in Afghanistan.
“My hope is that over time, trust develops between the two countries, that dialogue begins, perhaps on less controversial issues, building up to more controversial issues,” Obama told a meeting of students at a college in Mumbai.
“There are more Pakistanis who’ve been killed by terrorists inside Pakistan than probably anywhere else,” Obama said.
India blames Pakistan for fostering militants and says elements withing the Pakistan state were behind the Mumbai attacks in 2008, when Pakistan-based gunmen killed 166 people in a 60-hour rampage through India’s financial hub.
The attack inflamed tension between the nuclear foes, who have been to war three times since independence from Britain in 1947. India immediately broke off peace talks with Pakistan, although there have been some largely fruitless top level meetings in the last year.
While Obama’s visit is mainly about boosting trade with India, the issue of regional stability in South Asia dominated a meeting on Sunday that Obama held with students at a college in Mumbai.
On Saturday, Obama announced the United States would relax export controls over sensitive technology, a demand of India’s that will help deepen U.S. ties with the emerging global power and its trillion dollar economy.
The White House also announced Obama would support India’s membership of four global non-proliferation organizations.
Obama is scheduled later on Sunday to fly to New Delhi for a tour of a Mughal-era tomb and dinner with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Obama will also visit Indonesia, South Korea and Japan on an Asian tour that will see Washington push to prevent countries unilaterally devaluing currencies to protect their exports, a top theme at the Group of 20 heads of state meet in Seoul next week.

Ten militants killed in Orakzai air strikes

KALAYA: Ten militants were killed and five others injured when helicopter gunships pounded their hideouts in various areas of Lower Orakzai tribal region on Saturday.

Official sources said that military helicopters targeted militant positions in Andar Mella, Malokhel and Saidkhel villages after nine people, security personnel among them, were kidnapped.

Sources said that those kidnapped were going from Bezotkhel to Kohat on Friday when militants stopped their vehicles in Saidkhel area and forcibly took them away.

Three hideous were destroyed in the shelling.

The political administration called a meeting of the elders of Bezotkhel, Perozkhel and Istrikhel tribes and asked them to take action against militants who were attacking security forces’ convoys and government installations in the area.

The elders were told to inform the security forces about the movement of militants in their areas.