Tendulkar props up India with unbeaten 64

MOHALI: Sachin Tendulkar completed a half-century to boost India on the third day of the opening Test against Australia on Sunday.

The middle-order batsman, the world’s leading run-getter in Tests and one-day internationals, was unbeaten on 64 as India reached 280-4 in their first innings at tea in reply to Australia’s 428.

Suresh Raina was not out on 26 at the break.

Australia, looking for wickets to keep the pressure on India, could manage just two in as many sessions on an easy-paced pitch.

Fast bowler Doug Bollinger was the only successful bowler, removing nightwatchman Ishant Sharma in the morning session and well-set Rahul Dravid (77) in the afternoon.

Dravid reached his half-century when he steered left-arm paceman Mitchell Johnson past gully for a four and looked set to play a long innings before being caught behind. He hit 12 fours in his impressive 134-ball knock.

Tendulkar, who added 79 for the fourth wicket with Dravid, never looked in trouble during his 131-ball knock, having so far cracked nine fours.

He played some attractive strokes during his stay at the wicket, twice driving Bollinger through the covers for fours and hitting off-spinner Nathan Hauritz for two boundaries in an over.

India batted steadily in the first two sessions, adding 81 to their overnight total of 110-2 in the morning and 89 in the afternoon for the loss the just two wickets.

Australia started the day with pace from one end and spin from the other on a slow pitch, but had to wait for more than an hour to taste the first success in the morning session.

Bollinger struck in his opening spell when he removed Sharma (18), who was bowled shouldering arms, but not before held off the Australian attack for the crucial opening hour.

Sharma offered a sharp chance off Hauritz when on six but close fielder Michael Hussey failed to hold on to the ball. He hit three fours in his 56-ball knock.

Johnson, who dismissed openers Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag in the final session on Saturday, went wicketless in his 10 overs.

The second and final Test starts in Bangalore on October 9. -AFP

Nato supplies remain suspended at Torkham border

KARACHI: Nato supply remained suspended for the fourth day in a row after Pakistani authorities ordered a halt on the supply trucks going to Afghanistan.

According to security officials, about 200 Nato oil tankers and supply containers were stranded at the Torkham border on Sunday after being rejected clearance to proceed. Security forces also sent Nato trucks and containers back to Peshawar from another check-post near the border.

The order to suspend the supply trucks from passing through Torkham border into Afghanistan came after Nato helicopters conducted strikes inside Pakistan. According to a Foreign Office statement, the route will be opened after public anger over the Nato strikes eases.

Boys’ school destroyed in Mohmand Agency

KARACHI: A boy's school was destroyed by explosives on Sunday in Mohmand Agency, according to officials.

The building was severely damaged in the attack which left three classrooms, a balcony and a bathroom completely destroyed.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack as yet.

Often local Taliban groups have claimed responsibility in the past for attacks on various schools and government institutions.

Bullet-riddled bodies of three men found in N. Waziristan

PESHAWAR: Officials say the bullet-riddled bodies of three men have been found at the side of a road in North Waziristan, killed by suspected Pakistani Taliban militants in apparent retaliation for recent US drone strikes in the area.

Two intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media, said Sunday a note saying ''anyone who dares spy for the Americans will meet the same fate'' was found next to the corpses.

Local government official Asghar Khan confirms the report but wouldn't identify the victims.

The slayings came the day after two suspected US missile attacks killed 16 people in the region, part of a recent surge in drone strikes in Pakistan along with stepped-up Nato operations along the frontier. – AP

Defiant Times Square bomber faces sentencing

NEW YORK: A Pakistani-American who admitted trying to set off a large bomb in New York's Times Square faces sentencing Tuesday, with prosecutors demanding the unrepentant would-be killer be incarcerated for life.

Faisal Shahzad, a US citizen who lived in Connecticut and started what resembled an ordinary American family before embracing militancy, pleaded guilty in June to the May 1 bombing attempt.

The bomb scare and revelations that the Taliban inside Pakistan were behind the attack further strained US-Pakistani relations, while deepening worries in the United States about so-called homegrown terrorists.

Shahzad, 30, was defiant in his last court appearance, claiming to have committed the crime in revenge for bombing by US drones in Pakistan.

Prosecutors say he should be shown no clemency.

“Far from providing an explanation for his criminal activity, Shahzad's history and characteristics strongly militate in favor of the maximum available sentence,” assistant US attorney Randall Jackson said in court papers ahead of the sentencing hearing.

The bombing attempt failed when the crude device, left in an SUV parked outside a theater on a warm Saturday evening, fizzled without igniting.

The entire operation was characterized by extreme amateurishness, with the bomber having to escape on foot because he left the keys to a second getaway car -- and those to his apartment -- inside the vehicle with the bomb.

But officials say that the bomb, had it gone off, would have caused carnage in one of New York's busiest neighborhoods.

Last week, FBI officials recreated the device in an empty field to demonstrate the fiery explosion they said could have occurred.

Prosecutors say that Shahzad boasted he expected to kill at least 40 people and that he had also planned to set off a second explosion, had he not been caught after the first.

According to prosecutors, he admitted using Internet webcam sites to monitor Times Square and see when and where a bomb would be most likely to cause bloodshed.

The car bomb was discovered smoking by a street vendor who alerted police.

Once the teeming area had been cleared, police dismantled the device and launched a frantic manhunt, only catching the bomber 53 hours later, just after he'd boarded a plane preparing to leave from JFK Airport to Dubai.

The son of a Pakistani air force officer, Shahzad came to the United States to study at the age of 18 and in 2009 became a naturalized American citizen.

Living in suburban Connecticut, he worked as a financial analyst and married another Pakistani-American, raising two children. But he says he became disillusioned with his estrangement from Islam and upset at what he considered humiliation of Muslims worldwide.

In a 40-minute Taliban video released by the US government, Shahzad, wearing Afghan garb and carrying an automatic rifle and a Quran, calls for war against the West to avenge what he refers to as downtrodden Muslims.

“You will see the Muslim war has just started, until Islam spreads war over the whole world,” he threatens in the video, whose authenticity could not be independently confirmed. “Our way is with the sword.” The video was apparently shot while Shahzad was receiving training in Taliban-friendly regions in Pakistan over the previous year, before coming back to Connecticut and gathering materials for the bomb. – AFP

US contemplating travel alert for Europe

WASHINGTON: The United States is considering issuing as early as Sunday an alert advising Americans traveling to Europe to be vigilant, a US official said after intelligence suggested an Al-Qaeda attack could be imminent.

“We are contemplating a travel alert for Europe,” the US official told AFP on Saturday on the condition of anonymity.

“The bottom line would be to tell Americans to continue to travel but be vigilant. The alert could be issued as early as tomorrow (Sunday),” the official said without giving a specific reason.

Another US government official told AFP the State Department would take “further actions as appropriate.” “We have been and continue to be focused on Al-Qaeda's interest in attacking us, our allies and our interests. We will spare no effort to thwart terrorists' plans, and will take further actions as appropriate,” the official said.

News media in the last week reported that western intelligence agencies had uncovered an Al-Qaeda plot to launch attacks in Britain, France, Germany and the United States.

The reports said well-armed, commando-style teams planned to seize and murder Western hostages in a manner similar to the siege two years ago of two Indian hotels in Mumbai, in which 10 gunmen killed 166 people and injured more than 300.

Intelligence and diplomatic officials in Europe and the United States so far have refused to confirm the alleged terror plot on the record.

However, a US official on Wednesday privately confirmed the reports, but said it was not clear when and where the attack was meant to be launched.

“The threat is, at this point, credible but not specific,” said the official, who asked to remain unnamed.

“It's unclear, for instance, precisely where something might occur. For that reason, people shouldn't limit their thinking to the United Kingdom, France, or Germany,” the official told AFP.

“And while no one should dismiss the prospect of a Mumbai-style operation, it's entirely conceivable that other modes of attack are in play.”The German weekly Der Spiegel reported Saturday that an Al-Qaeda plot to launch Mumbai-style attacks on European cities was planned by the group's number three leader with Osama bin Laden's support.

Der Spiegel reported in its issue to hit newsstands Monday that Al-Qaeda number three Sheikh Yunis al-Mauretani had plotted the attacks, and had shared his plans with Ahmad Siddiqui, a terrorist with German nationality currently held at the US-run Bagram Air Base in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Siddiqui was the likely source of information that sparked the recent hikes in Western security threat levels, the weekly said, adding that German intelligence agents were expected to travel to Afghanistan soon to question him.

Travel alerts are one step down from travel warnings, and the State Department says alerts usually refer to specific short-term events, according to its website.

Alerts “are issued to disseminate information about short-term conditions, either transnational or within a particular country, that pose significant risks to the security of US citizens,” the website said.

“Natural disasters, terrorist attacks, coups, anniversaries of terrorist events, election-related demonstrations or violence, and high-profile events such as international conferences or regional sports events are examples of conditions that might generate a Travel Alert.” Currently, a travel alert exists for India through November 15 due to the 2010 Commonwealth Games scheduled to be held in New Delhi between October 3 and October 14, it said.

A total of 31 travel warnings are in effect for various countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel and Lebanon as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Somalia. – AFP

Hundred thousand police lock down Delhi

NEW DELHI: Nearly 100,000 police and paramilitary forces locked down New Delhi on Sunday for the start of the Commonwealth Games after a shambolic run-up that left the event teetering on the brink of collapse.

Many athletes have commented on the heavy security presence and the number of machine guns on display -- a result of months of worry in leading countries about the showpiece being a target for extremists.

A total 17,000 heavily armed paramilitary troopers are reinforcing 80,000 police to counter the danger from militant groups in South Asia.

Games veterans say that security exceeds the tight policing of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Delhi police commissioner Y.S. Dadwal promised “foolproof security” at a news conference on the eve of the Games, adding that every police officer “is on the job 24/7. Most are working and sleeping at the police station”.

India's particular form of organisation will finally be put to the test when the event begins with the opening ceremony attended by Britain's Prince Charles later Sunday.

Games supremo Suresh Kalmadi and Sports Minister M.S. Gill have insisted that the showpiece will be like an Indian wedding: disorganised beforehand but a roaring success on the day that sends everyone home with fond memories.

When advance parties from participating nations arrived in Delhi two weeks ago they found an “uninhabitable” athletes' village strewn with builders' rubble and blighted by blocked toilets and faulty electrics.

Many of the sports venues have only been completed in recent weeks, equipment has been installed hastily at the 11th hour and the rush has left little time for rehearsals and testing.

Instead of showcasing emerging India, the Games have so far highlighted the corruption and inefficiency in its bureaucracy and generated unflattering comparisons with China's organisation of the Olympics.

“I think the reality is that you can't take a monsoon wedding approach that everything will come together at the last minute,” Mike Hooper, chief executive of the Commonwealth Games Federation, warned late last month.

“It is such a massive task putting on a multi-sport event like the Commonwealth Games.”That the Games are even taking place at all could be seen as a minor triumph for India given the warnings and threats to pull out from participating nations, mostly countries and territories in the former British empire.

There have been multiple setbacks: a bridge collapsed near the main stadium; leading athletes have pulled out, leaving the already thin line-up of stars even more depleted; armed men attacked a tourist bus with a submachine gun.

At a commercial level, organisers have struggled to find sponsors and ticket sales have been slow, but have picked up in recent days.

“It is a sad state of affairs indeed and, psychologically, puts a question mark against India's capacity to deliver,” lamented Amit Mitra, general secretary of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Representatives from 71 nations and territories will be in the Indian capital to compete in 17 disciplines ranging from aquatics to wrestling and including lawn bowls and netball.

Many stars will be absent, however, including sprinters Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell, tennis aces Andy Murray, Lleyton Hewitt and Samantha Stosur, swimmer Stephanie Rice and cyclist Chris Hoy.

In an event with far less rigorous competition than the Olympics, sporting minnows such as Lesotho, Swaziland, Caymen Islands, Maldives, Niue and Kiribati have a chance of medal glory.

Despite chaotic preparations, there are signs the last-ditch efforts are paying off, with many athletes and teams full of praise for the facilities and security, reviving hopes the Games may yet be a qualified success.

“The venues are outstanding and we're really looking forward to competing there,” Wales chef de mission Chris Jenkins told reporters on Saturday.

The Games will be the most expensive in history with a price tag, including related city infrastructure such as transport upgrades, of six billion dollars, Urban Development Minister S. Jaipal Reddy said in August. – AFP