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Sunday, March 11, 2012

Asia Cup 2012: Pakistan won by 21 runs

Pakistan beat Bangladesh by 21 runs in opening match of the Asia Cup against Bangladesh.  Pakistan scored a competitive 262-8 off 50 overs while Bangladesh could only score 241 runs all out at the Asia Cup one-day tournament at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka on Sunday.

16 Afghans kill by US soldier


Afghan President Hamid Karzai Sunday condemned as "unforgivable" the slaughter of 16 villagers in their homes by a rogue American soldier. "When Afghan people are killed deliberately by US forces this action is murder and terror and an unforgivable action," Karzai said in statement. Western forces shot dead 16 civilians including nine children in southern Kandahar province on Sunday, Afghan officials said, in a rampage that witnesses said was carried out by American soldiers who were laughing and appeared drunk. One Afghan father who said his children were killed in the shooting spree accused soldiers of later burning the bodies. Witnesses told they saw a group of U.S. soldiers arrive at their village in Kandahar’s Panjwayi district at around 2 am, enter homes and open fire.

Asia Cup 2012: Pakistan set 263-runs target for Bangladesh


Pakistan scored a competitive 262-8 off 50 overs against Bangladesh in the opening match of the Asia Cup one-day tournament at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka on Sunday. Mohammad Hafeez (89) and Nasir Jamshed (54) hit half-centuries for Pakistan, while paceman Shahadat Hossain (3-53) and left-arm spinner Shakib Al Hasan (2-41) were the main wicket-takers for Bangladesh in the day-night match.

Japan earthquake - personal thoughts

Japan marks one year since massive earthquake and tsunami


With moments of silence and prayers, Japan on Sunday was remembering the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck the nation one year ago, killing just over 19,000 people and unleashing the world s worst nuclear crisis in a quarter century. At dawn in the devastated northeastern coastal town of Rikuzentakata, dozens of people from across Japan gathered to offer prayers in front of a solitary pine tree that stands amid the barrenness, a symbol of survival. Some returned to where their houses and those of friends once stood, and placed flowers and small gifts for loved ones lost in the disaster. Naomi Fujino, a 42-year-old Rikuzentakata resident who lost her father in the tsunami, was in tears recalling March 11, 2011. With her mother, she escaped to a nearby hill where they watched the enormous wave wash away their home. They waited all night, but her father never came to meet them as he had promised. Two months later, his body was found. "I wanted to save people, but I couldn t. I couldn t even help my father. I cannot keep on crying," Fujino said. "What can I do but keep on going?" Later on Sunday, memorial ceremonies to mark 2:46 p.m. the precise moment the magnitude-9.0 earthquake hit were planned along the northeastern coast and in Tokyo, where the emperor and prime minister were scheduled to speak at the National Theater. The quake was the strongest recorded in Japan s history, and set off a tsunami that towered more than 65 feet (20 meters) in some spots along the northeastern coast, destroying thousands of homes and wreaking widespread destruction. Today, some 325,000 people rendered homeless remain in temporary housing. While much of the debris has been gathered into massive piles, very little rebuilding has begun. Beyond the massive cleanup, many towns are still finalizing reconstruction plans, some of which involve moving residential areas to higher ground. Bureaucratic delays in coordination between the central government, prefectural (state) authorities and local officials have also slowed rebuilding efforts. "Differences of opinion between central and local governments and even among the populations affected" has contributed to delays, Tadateru Konoe, president of the Japan Red Cross Society, said earlier this week. "They couldn t reach any consensus. They still keep fighting with each other, looking for the best solution." Also, "it s not simply building back as it used to be. It s to build back better, and that requires a lot of consultations," he added. An anti-nuclear protest was also planned in downtown Tokyo on Sunday amid growing public opposition to atomic power in the wake of the disaster, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986. The government says the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, where three reactor cores melted down after the tsunami knocked out their vital cooling systems, is stable and that radiation coming from the plant has subsided significantly. But the plant s chief acknowledged to journalists visiting the complex recently that it remains in a fragile state, and makeshift equipment  some mended with tape could be seen keeping crucial systems running. Only two of Japan s 54 reactors are now running while those shut down for regular inspections undergo special tests to check their ability to withstand similar disasters. They could all go offline by the end of April if none are restarted before then. The Japanese government has pledged to reduce reliance on nuclear power, which supplied about 30 percent of the nation s energy needs before the disaster, but says it needs to restart some nuclear plants to meet Japan s energy needs during the transition period. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has acknowledged failures in the government s response to the disaster, being too slow in relaying key information and believing too much in "a myth of safety" about nuclear power. "We can no longer make the excuse that what was unpredictable and outside our imagination has happened," Noda told a group of reporters last weekend. "Crisis management requires us to imagine what may be outside our imagination." The phrase "soteigai," or "outside our imagination," was used repeatedly by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima plant, as the reason it was not prepared for the giant tsunami. Although some scholars had warned about such tsunami risks, both the utility and regulators did little to prepare for such an event, and kept backup generators in basements, where they could be flooded. "We can say in hindsight that the government, business and scholars had all been seeped in a myth of safety," Noda said of the oversights in the accident. "The responsibility must be shared." Enormous risks and challenges lie ahead at the Fukushima plant, including removal of the melted nuclear fuel from the core and the disposal of spent fuel rods. Completely decommissioning the plant could take 40 years. Meanwhile, some 100,000 residents who lived around the plant are in temporary shelters or with relatives, unsure of when they will be able to return to their homes. A 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the complex and an adjacent area remains off limits. Pilot efforts to make radiation-contaminated land around the plant inhabitable again have begun, using everything from shovels and high-powered water guns to chemicals that absorb radiation. But it is a monumental, costly project fraught with uncertainty, and experts cannot guarantee it will be successful. The Environment Ministry expects it will generate at least 130 million cubic yards (100 million cubic meters) of soil, enough to fill 80 domed baseball stadiums. In Rikuzentakata, 37-year-old Mika Hashikai, who lost both her parents in the tsunami, was going around leaving flowers at the former homes of her friends and neighbors. Her brother also lost his wife and daughter in the tsunami. "I only wish for my brother s happiness now that he s lost everything and is alone," she said. "Maybe one day he can remarry and have children again."

Suicide attack in Pakistan


A suicide bomber blew himself up at a funeral near the northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday, killing at least 15 people and wounding more than 30 others, police and hospital officials said. The blast took place in the Badaber area on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, nobody claimed responsibility for the blast but militants have carried out several attacks in the area. The blast went off after mourners had offered prayers for a local woman. Peshawar has a population of 2.5 million people and has long been on the frontline of violence blamed on an insurgency led by Taliban militants opposed to Islamabad’s alliance with the United States.

Coca Cola & Pepsi


PEPSI and Coca Cola companies have decided to change the formulae to make their drinks or beverages or constituents to prepare PEPSI and Coca Cola in order to restrain from publishing a warning or caution on bottles about Cancer. PEPSI and Coca Cola have 90 per cent of shares in the  market of fizzy drinks or carbonated beverages. The authorities of California, a US state, have said that a kind of matter or substance is used in the preparation of PEPSI and Coca Cola due to which the possibility or chance to create cancer is increased. According to the law of the state, these companies must publish a warning or caution about the mixing of the substance on the bottles or else they should change their formulae. Afterwards, these companies changed their constituents to prepare PEPSI or Coca Cola in California and now it is being implemented in the whole America. In new way of preparing drinks or beverages, the quantity of the matter or substance that is used to bring the real colour of PEPSI or Coca Cola will be reduced. According to a research, this matter or substance is proved to create cancer in mouses but it has not proved yet that it could cause to create cancer in human being as well. The American Food and Drug Administration has claimed that  man will have to drink a thousands bottles of PEPSI or Coca Cola to reach the amount of the substance or matter that was given to the mouses to research. Representative of Coca Cola, Diana Garza told AP that they did not accept whether their beverages could put the public’s health at risk, adding that they decided to change the formula to prepare Coca Cola because they did not want to publish a warning message on their bottles. PEPSI and Coca Cola companies have claimed that despite changing the formulae of their beverages, the taste of the beverages will surely remain same!

Airstrikes killed 18 al-Qaida in central Yemen


Separate strikes targeted militants in the south, officials said, as the military struck back at the group after it killed nearly 200 of its soldiers. The military offensive comes in response to an attack last week in which al-Qaida s militants sneaked across the desert at dawn to the back lines of Yemeni forces. Many of the troops were asleep in their tents when militants sprayed them with bullets. Their bodies, many of which were missing heads or mutilated, were later dumped in the desert. The bloody assault on the military in Abyan province revealed the magnitude of the Yemeni army s defeat after nearly a year of political turmoil across the country has left an emboldened al-Qaida in its wake. Yemen s new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, faces the heavy burden of trying to dislodge the militants. He was sworn-in as president Feb. 25 after taking over from Ali Abdullah Saleh, who ruled the country for more than three decades.

Peace proposals to Syrian president

International envoy Kofi Annan made several peace proposals to Syrian president. He also expressed "grave concern" to Syria s President Bashar al-Assad over the deadly crackdown on protests in talks Saturday, the United Nations said. Former UN secretary general Annan, acting for the UN and Arab League, made "several proposals" to stop the violence which has left thousands dead in the past year, the UN said in a statement. UN envoy Kofi Annan met with Syrian President Bashar Assad on Saturday in Damascus during a high-profile international mission to mediate an end to the country’s yearlong conflict, even as activists reported fresh shelling by regime forces that sent families fleeing for safety in the northern province of Idlib. Thick black smoke billowed over the area. The state-run news agency SANA reported that talks between Assad and Annan had begun but there were no further details on the meeting, aimed at a halting violence that began with crackdowns on mostly peaceful protests but appears to be transforming into a civil war. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the government was shelling the Idlib region after tanks moved toward the area in recent days. There was no independent confirmation, but smoke rose into the sky behind some apartment buildings, according to an Associated Press team in the area. Some families were seen fleeing the violence, clutching their belongings, or taking shelter. Military reinforcements have been pouring into Idlib for days, including dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers, activists said. There have been concerns Idlib would be the focus of an offensive following the government recapture of the rebel-held district of Baba Amr in Homs after a bloody, monthlong siege. The latest diplomatic mission to end the Syrian crisis has faced stumbling blocks even before it began, as the opposition rejected Annan’s calls for dialogue with Assad’s regime Friday as pointless and out of touch after a year of bloodshed. Annan, the former UN secretary-general, was appointed last month as the joint special envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League.