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June 29, 2012

Shaheed Fida Hussain Bugti

Five killed, 1 injured after tow truck and car collide in Pennsylvania

NBCPhiladelphia.com
A car and tow truck collided in Lehigh County, Pa., killing five people. The passenger in the tow truck survived and was taken to the hospital.
Five people were killed and another was injured when a tow truck and a car collided Thursday afternoon in eastern Pennsylvania, police said.

State Police Cpl. Mark Rowlands said the car ran a stop sign and was hit by a tow truck on a rural road in Heidelberg Township, about 15 miles outside of Allentown, Pa. All four people in the car – three males and one female – and the man driving the tow truck died in the collision, which happened around 2:35 p.m. Thursday, according to a police press release.
A male passenger in the tow truck suffered non-life threatening injuries and was taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest.
Images of the collision aftermath show the car badly mangled beneath the tow truck, which was hauling a box truck at the time of the crash.

Police said the vehicles crashed into a utility pole, causing more than 200 customers of PPL, a utility provider in Allentown, to lose power.
PPL spokesman Michael Wood told msnbc.com the routine outage allowed rescue crews to remove bodies from the vehicles and clean up downed power lines.
Power was fully restored about six hours after the crash.

A spokesman for the Lehigh County coroner’s office told msnbc.com Friday that officials were still trying to identify victims of the crash and contact their families.

One Killed, Four Kidnapped at Kenyan Refugee Camp

Kenyan police say one person was killed and four foreign aid workers were kidnapped Friday in the sprawling Dadaab refugee complex, near the border with Somalia.
Dadaab District Commissioner Albert Kimathi tells VOA the incident happened in the Ifo 2 camp, in the compound of an aid group, the Norwegian Refugee Council.
“In total there are four foreigners: one Norwegian, one Colombian, one Pakistan, and one Philippine,” he said.
Kimathi initially said two Kenyans were also kidnapped, but later said one Kenyan had been killed.
He declined to speculate on who was responsible for Friday's attack.
Kenyan authorities have blamed the Somali militant group al-Shabab for previous kidnappings in Dadaab and other areas near the border.
Kenya cited the kidnappings as a reason for sending military forces into Somalia last October to fight al-Shabab. The militant group has denied abducting people in Kenya.
Kimathi said police had recovered a vehicle used in Friday's kidnapping. He said he did not believe the kidnap victims had been taken into Somalia.
The Dadaab complex is home to more than 450,000 Somali refugees who fled their homes because of chronic conflict, drought and poverty.
In a brief statement, the Norwegian Refugee Council said two of its top officials were present at Friday's incident but that both were unharmed.

50 killed, 42 missing in China floods

Beijing: At least 50 people have died and 42 missing as floods triggered by strong rainfall have battered many parts of China since June 20, authorities said on Friday.

More than 10.4 million people have been affected by downpours in 399 counties in Inner Mongolia, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Chongqing, Sichuan and Guizhou, with 1.247 million in urgent need of aid so far, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said in Beijing.

Torrential rain also toppled 34,000 houses, damaged another 89,000 and rendered 738,000 hectares of crops unharvested in these regions, resulting in direct economic losses worth 10.3 billion yuan (USD 1.62 billion). 
Some of the affected provinces have been battered by numerous rounds of heavy rain since April while other usually water-starved regions, including Inner Mongolia autonomous region, have suffered record levels of rain that have seen many of their crops ruined, it said.

More than half of the affected counties and cities are in the country's impoverished regions and ethnic areas where local residents with already limited means of self-support largely rely on government aid, state-run Xinhua news agency reported quoting the ministry.

Local governments in disaster-hit regions have poured more than 90 million yuan into living aid, including 20 million yuan allocated in Inner Mongolia - one of the hardest-hit areas, said the ministry.

Vowing to keep close track of how these disaster unfold, the National Commission for Disaster Reduction and the ministry promised to trigger emergency responses in a timely manner and offer relief guidance for affected areas.

Dozens killed in fierce shelling of Damascus suburbs, say Syrian activists

VEDAT XHYMSHITI/AFP/GETTY IMAGESA young Syrian boy with the Syrian revolutionary flag painted on his cheeks, during an anti-government demonstration after Friday prayers on Friday, in the rebel-controlled northern countryside city of Mareh.
Associated Press 

BEIRUT—Syrian troops rained tank and artillery shells down on a rebellious suburb of the Syrian capital of Damascus Friday, killing dozens of people during a particularly bloody week across the country, opposition groups and activists said.
Arab Awakening coverage
It’s difficult to get an accurate death toll in tightly controlled Syria, where journalists and human rights groups are either banned or severely restricted. But two opposition groups that compile and document casualties reported the death of more than 125 civilians in fighting across the country on Thursday alone.
Death tolls often take several days to compile because of the restrictions and chaos in the country.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday’s toll included more than 60 soldiers. If confirmed, it would be one of the highest death tolls on a single day since the start of the uprising against President Bashar Assad in March 2011.
Activists said at least 43 people were killed in over two days of shelling in the sprawling Damascus suburb of Douma that has been a hotbed of dissent against Assad’s regime. The dead included three children and five members of a single family.
The barrage is part of a fierce government offensive aimed at regaining control of parts of Damascus suburbs where rebels operate, particularly Douma.
A local activist who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons said the shelling was “relentless” throughout Thursday, and exploding shells killed people in their homes.
“They (government troops) are trying to bring Douma under control, but they are being met by fierce resistance,” said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the group’s director. He said most of the dead were civilians.
The Local Coordination Committees network said 59 people were killed in Thursday’s shelling of Damascus suburbs, most of them in Douma. The difference in tolls could not be reconciled.
The state-run news agency SANA said troops continue to pursue “terrorist groups” in Douma, raiding their hideouts and destroying their communications and other equipment. Clashes resulted in the death of dozens of terrorists — the official term authorities use for rebels — and the wounding and arrest of many others, the statement said.
Amateur videos posted by activists online showed bloodied bodies lying on blankets in a room and others shrouded in white sheets and placed on stretchers. “A new massacre by Bashar Assad,” cried a man holding a dead girl in a pink blouse, a large gash on her face.
The violence around the capital’s suburbs mirrored fighting across many parts of Syria that killed dozens of other people Thursday, according to the groups.
Activists say more than 14,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March 2011.
Much of the violence that has gripped Syria has been sanctioned by the government to crush dissent. But rebel fighters are launching increasingly deadly attacks on regime targets, and several huge suicide bombings this year suggest al-Qaida or other extremists are joining the battle. A bomb blast rocked central Damascus on Thursday near a busy market and the country’s main justice complex, wounding at least three people and sending a cloud of black smoke into the air.
The latest carnage came as world powers show new urgency to resolve the crisis, which so far has resisted international efforts.
World powers will meet Saturday in Geneva for talks on Syria, but few observers expect a breakthrough. Syria has the protection of Russia, a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council, and has so far been impervious to international pressure.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow will not endorse a call on Assad to give up power.
“We are not supporting and will not support any external meddling,” he said. “External players must not dictate ... to Syrians, but, first of all, must commit to influencing all the sides in Syria to stop the violence.”
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday it was “very clear” that all the participants at the Geneva meeting — including Russia — are on board with a transition plan created by international envoy Kofi Annan. His plan calls for the formation of a national unity government that would oversee the drafting of a new constitution and elections.
Clinton told reporters that the invitations to Saturday’s meeting in Geneva made clear that representatives “were coming on the basis of (Annan’s) transition plan.”
Lavrov said it was “obvious that a transitional period is needed to overcome the Syrian crisis,” but insisted the major powers in Geneva must focus on convincing the opposition groups to soften their demands.
Diplomatic hopes have rested on Russia to agree to a plan that would end the Assad family dynasty, which has ruled Syria for more than four decades. Russia is Syria’s most important ally, protector and supplier of arms.
There are few options besides keeping up diplomatic pressure, as an international military intervention is all but ruled out in the near future. Few countries are willing to get deeply involved in such an explosive conflict, and Russia and China have pledged to veto any international attempt to intervene militarily.

June 28, 2012

Quetta: Visitor's bus bomb blast kills 30, injures 11

According to sources, a bus was carrying pilgrims from Iran’s city Tuftan to Quetta. When it reached the western bybass near Hazar Ganji, miscreants fired a rocket on bus, overturning it.

As a result, the bus caught fire and eleven people died on the spot while many others sustained injuries.

The people from area started rescue services at their own while corpses and injured were shifted to hospital.

Before this, numbers of such mishaps also have occurred due to lack of security measures in the area. This time, the caravan was accompanied by a policeman who also fell victim to terrorists’ barbarism.

At least six killed by train-station bomb blast

28 June (AKI) - At least six people died and 18 were injured early Thursday by an explosion in a train station in the Balochistan city of Sibi.
Sibi is a major railway junction some 600 kilometres southwest of Islamabad. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack
The target of the bomb was a train that connects Quetta and Rawalpindi, a city near Islamabad, according to Pakistani media.
Authorities warned that the serious condition of some of the wounded could cause the death toll to rise.

War of words over Goole Hospital

A LABOUR Councillor has this week claimed that hospital services in Goole will be put at risk by the cost of reorganisation made necessary by the government’s health reform bill.
But the town’s Conservative MP, Andrew Percy says Coun Keith Moore has got it wrong and is misleading the public.
Coun Moore says that figures the Labour Party has seen show that Strategic Health Authorities and Primary Care Trusts have been told to hold back two per cent of their budgets in the next two years to pay for re-organisation costs.
The result, he said, would mean that nearly £30m would be held back by N Lincs and East Riding Primary Care Trusts.
With up to 90 per cent of hospital income being sourced from Primary Care Trusts, hospitals are likely to face severe cuts in finance, he said.
“This news puts paid to the theory that financial challenges facing the NHS are a consequence of the Nicholson Reforms which Labour commissioned,” said Coun Moore.
“While Nicholson requires savings to be made, which are re-invested back into the NHS, the Tories are engaged in an additional re-organisation which will cost the NHS £3billion.”
He went on: ”Since May 2010 there has been a 152 per cent increase in the number of patients who waited longer than 18 weeks for treatment.
“I have deep concerns that services and beds in Goole and our other hospitals will now be cut.”
Responding to Coun Moore’s claims, however, Mr Percy said “I am disgusted that Coun Moore is misleading people with dodgy figures and incorrect information.
“Under Labour, Goole lost countless beds including the Bartholomew House unit, the Rivers Ward and more hospital beds in 2008.
“The pressures faced by the Hospital Trust arise because of the Nicholson Challenge. This was set by Labour before they left power and requires the NHS to make savings of £20 billion in the next few years.
“Secondly, the Hospital Trust has not been told to hold back any money to pay for the NHS reforms, which actually save billions of pounds that are being re-invested back into the NHS.
“There are 15,000 less NHS managers since we came to power but 5000 more doctors, midwives and health visitors.
“In addition, the most recent figures up to March 2012 show that our hospital trust started treating 19 out of 20 patients within 16 weeks and half of local patients start their treatment within four weeks. Our Trust does better than the national standard.”

Rihanna turns up the heat in bright red tuxedo after fire fiasco at hotel

RihannaRihanna put the fire scare behind her as she left her hotel wearing a red hot suit (Picture: Xposurephotos)
The singer, who is currently in the capital following her performance at Hackney Weekend, spent time signing autographs for a flock of her devoted fans who waited for her outside her hotel.
Looking relaxed and happy in her matching fire engine red jacket and shoes, and white high-heeled shoes, it was clear the earlier scare was far from the superstar's mind.
The What's My Name singer had to be ushered out of the hotel where she is staying in central London, after the alarms went off at 6am on Wednesday.
RihannaWearing her hair loose, Rihanna maintained her femininity in her eye-catching suit (Picture: Xposure)
The sexy singer was asked to leave the Corinthia Hotel in Whitehall and forced to roam the streets before sheltering in a taxi shortly afterwards.
Although the fire is believed to have been fairly small, 300 hotel guests were ushered out and made to stand outside in the cold.
RihannaWhile Rihanna mostly covered up, the saucy singer revealed a floral low cut top underneath her jacket (Picture: Xposurephotos)
The 24-year-old tweeted throughout the drama from the back of a black cab.
She wrote: ‘Roamin da streets since 6am! Fyah in da telly #evacuationlife.’
Rihanna Smoked out: A disgruntled Rihanna poses up in a black cab after a fire at her hotel earlier that morning (Picture: Rihanna/Twitter)
A spokesman for the Corinthia Hotel said: ‘At approximately 6.30am, one of the service elevator motors burnt out.
‘There was a slight discharge of smoke and because of our robust fire management policy, the alarms were activated and a full evacuation of the building was carried out.'

Cristiano Ronaldo: I didn't demand 'glory' penalty in Euro 2012 shoot-out

Portugal's Cristiano RonaldoDown and out: Ronaldo reacts after Portugal's shoot-out defeat to Spain (Picture: EPA)
The Real Madrid star could only watch in agony as Cesc Fabregas’ converted effort gave Spain a 4-2 shoot-out win, which denied him the chance of taking his country’s crucial fifth penalty. 
The world’s most expensive player cut a frustrated figure while Spain celebrated, and was widely criticised for not stepping forward sooner in the spot-kick pecking order. 
However, despite suggestion he held himself back in the hope of scoring the deciding goal; Ronaldo insists it was all part of a tactical plan.
Spain's Sergio Ramos comforts Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal Crying shame: Ronaldo is comforted by his Madrid team-mate Sergio Ramos (Picture: EPA)
'I was going to take the fifth penalty but we missed two,' Ronaldo said. 
'It was just a question of me speaking with the coach. He said to me: "Do you want to take the fifth one?" and I said "yes". 
'Sometimes I take the first, the second or the third. I agreed to take the fifth. 
Portugal coach Paulo Bento supported his captain’s claim, saying: ‘We lost because Spain were more efficient in the penalties. 
‘We had this plan and if it would have been 4-4 and he (Ronaldo) would take the last penalty, we would be talking in a different way.’

June 27, 2012

At Least 76 Killed in Bangladesh Landslides, Floods

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Landslides and floods caused by heavy monsoon rains killed at least 76 people in southern Bangladesh and rescuers Wednesday were searching for more missing, officials said.
Three days of rain had hit the region of small hills and forests, and huge chunks of earth and mud buried flimsy huts where families were sleeping late Tuesday and early Wednesday. Many homeless people live at the foot of the hills or close to them despite warnings from authorities.
[image]Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
A relative of landslide victims mourns in Chittagong, June 27.
Monsoon floods are common in Bangladesh, a delta nation of 160 million people. Many of the dead were women and children, and the death toll is likely to rise as rescuers are searching for several missing people, officials said.
Volunteers using loudspeakers had warned people about the danger of landslides during the recent monsoon rains, said Jaynul Bari, a government administrator in one of the stricken areas, Cox's Bazar district. The floods inundated dozens of villages and were disrupting communications in the region.
The bodies of 32 adults and children have been recovered in Bandarban district, said K.M. Tariqul Islam, the chief government administrator in the area that is 248 kilometers (155 miles) southeast of the capital, Dhaka.
Another 34 people died, most of them in landslides, in neighboring Cox's Bazar district. Mr. Bari said 23 bodies were recovered from the debris of mostly mud-and straw huts in the remote Ukhia region and another 11 people drowned in floodwaters.
About 200 displaced people were ferried to school buildings on high ground, Mr. Bari said.
In Chittagong, another district in the region, the bodies of 10 people whose houses were buried in landslides have been recovered, fire official Jasim Udddin said.
An airport in Chittagong was closed for hours Tuesday after floodwater swamped its runway, officials said. It reopened Wednesday after rains stopped, they said.

916 killed in Syria's 'bloodiest week'

Of the 15,804 people killed since March last year, almost 5000 had died since a UN-backed ceasefire was supposed to take effect on April 12, says UK group
Close to 16,000 people have been killed since the outbreak of the Syrian revolt 15 months ago, a human rights watchdog says.
And the past seven days have been the bloodiest so far with 916 deaths.
"The pace of the killings has escalated," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday.
"The last week was the bloodiest week of the Syrian Revolution," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP by telephone. He said 916 people had been killed from June 20 to 26.
Of the 15,804 people killed since March last year, 4,681 had lost their lives since a UN-backed ceasefire was supposed to take effect on April 12, he said.
Of those, roughly a quarter - 1,197 - had been killed since the UN observer mission intended to oversee the peace plan suspended its operations on June 16 in the face of the mounting violence.
"The last month, from May 26 to June 26, was the deadliest since the start of the protests. During this period, 3,426 people were killed," Abdel Rahman said.
The statistics were released after 129 people were killed in violence on Tuesday, 79 of them civilians, according to the Observatory's figures.
The UN's deputy envoy for Syria, Jean-Marie Guehenno, told the UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday that the violence in Syria had "reached or even surpassed" levels seen before the ceasefire agreement and that a six-point peace plan forged by his boss, UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, "is clearly not being implemented".
Senior diplomats said world powers would meet on Saturday in an attempt to end the bloodshed.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would be joined by other top diplomats from UN Security Council nations and possibly neighbours of Syria.
Meanwhile, a report on UN probe into a massacre in the central Syrian village of Houla has concluded that forces loyal to the government "may have been responsible" for many of the deaths.
The report released to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva by UN-appointed human rights experts said most of the victims were women and children who were slaughtered in their homes.
The findings of the report triggered a walkout by the Syrian delegation as it was being read out.
"We will not participate in this flagrantly political meeting," said Syrian ambassador Faisal Khabbaz Hamoui before leaving the hall.
The walkout came as the commission told the council that the unrest was taking on an increasingly sectarian basis.
"Where previously victims were targeted on the basis of their being pro or anti-government, a growing number of victims appear to have been targeted because of their religious affiliation," said the report.
It said: "Gross violations of human rights are occurring regularly, in the context of increasingly militarised fighting."

Iraq bombings kill at least eight people


Iraqis inspect the site of two roadside bombs near a house in Madaen. Two roadside bombs have killed at least eight people south of Baghdad, in the latest in a wave of attacks in Iraq this month.
Iraqis inspect the site of two roadside bombs near a house in Madaen. Two roadside bombs have killed at least eight people south of Baghdad, in the latest in a wave of attacks in Iraq this month.
Two roadside bombs killed at least eight people south of Baghdad on Wednesday, security and medical officials said, in the latest in a wave of attacks in Iraq this month.
A bomb exploded near the garden of a house in Madain, and the second one detonated after people gathered at the site, an interior ministry official said.
A medical source said that two hospitals had received eight bodies and that 18 people had been wounded in the blasts, while the official said eight people were killed and 10 hurt.
Wednesday's toll brings to at least 184 people killed in Iraq since June 13 -- more than the number of people killed in all of May.
Attacks on June 13, which killed 72 people across the country, were later claimed by Al-Qaeda's front group, the Islamic State of Iraq.
Two car bombs targeting Shiites commemorating the death of a revered imam killed 32 people in the capital on June 16.
Two days later, a suicide bomber killed 22 people in an attack on Shiite mourners in Baquba, north of Baghdad.
And at least 12 people were killed by roadside bombs, a suicide car bomb and a shooting on June 22, and 12 more killed in two bombings on June 25.
Violence has declined significantly since its peak in 2006 and 2007, but attacks remain common, killing 132 people in May, government figures show.

Syrian gunmen attack pro-government TV station, killing 7

The site of an attack on the pro-government Al-Ikhbariya satellite television channel's offices outside Damascus, on Wednesday, after which President Bashar Assad said Syria was in a "state of war."
The site of an attack on the pro-government Al-Ikhbariya satellite television channel's offices outside Damascus, on Wednesday, after which President Bashar Assad said Syria was in a "state of war."
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DAMASCUS, SYRIA—Gunmen raided the headquarters of a pro-government Syrian TV station early Wednesday, killing seven employees, kidnapping others and demolishing buildings, officials said. The government blamed terrorists and described the killings as a “massacre.”
An Associated Press photographer who visited the Al-Ikhbariya station’s compound said five portable buildings used for offices and studios had collapsed, with blood on the floor and wooden partitions still on fire. Some walls had bullet holes.
Al-Ikhbariya is privately-owned but strongly supports President Bashar Assad’s regime. Pro-government journalists have been attacked on several previous occasions during the country’s 15-month uprising, although such incidents are comparatively rare.
Information Minister Omran al-Zoebi said the killings were “a massacre against the freedom of the press” in remarks broadcast on state TV. He later told reporters that it had been carried out by terrorists — the same word the government uses for rebels.
Rebels deny they target the media.
Much of the violence that has gripped Syria over the past 15 months has been sanctioned by the government to crush dissent. But rebel fighters are launching increasingly deadly attacks on regime targets, and several massive suicide attacks this year suggest Al Qaeda or other extremists are joining the fray.
Many in the opposition consider the media an arm of the regime. Syria does not have a free press and most news organizations are either state-run or private bodies that carry the government’s point of view. Most of the private TV stations and newspapers are owned by politicians or wealthy businessmen who have close links to the regime.
Assad denies that there is any popular will behind the uprising, saying terrorists are behind a conspiracy to destroy the country.
Al-Zoebi, the information minister, said gunmen stormed the station’s compound in the town of Drousha, about 20 kilometres south of the capital Damascus, and detonated explosives. He said the attackers killed seven people and kidnapped others.
Restrictions on the media make it difficult to verify accounts of events on the ground.
An employee at the station said several other staffers were wounded in the attack, which happened just before 4 a.m. local time. He said the gunmen kidnapped him along with several station guards. He was released but the guards were not.
The employee, who did not give his name for fear of repercussions, said the gunmen drove him about 200 metres away, and then he heard the explosion of the station being demolished.
“I was terrified when they blindfolded me and took me away,” the man said by telephone.
Earlier this month, two Al-Ikhbariya employees were shot and seriously wounded by gunmen in the northwestern town of Haffa while covering clashes between government troops and insurgents.
Hours after the attack, the station was still on the air, broadcasting a rally in Damascus’ main square against the station raid.
Also Wednesday, Burhan Ghalioun, the former leader of Syria’s main opposition group, said he briefly entered rebel-held areas in the north of the country in a rare trip by the exiled political opposition to the country. Ghalioun told Al-Jazeera TV that the areas he visited in Idlib province are ruling themselves, without any regime presence.
Ghalioun, former head of the Syrian National Council, did not say when the visit happened.
“I went to see the war that the Syrian regime is staging,” Ghalioun said. “The regime continues to shell and kill.” Ghalioun said he spoke with wounded Syrians including some who lost limbs and others who were paralyzed.
He added that he was able to drive about freely and that “part of the country is liberated.”
Activists reported violence throughout Syria on Wednesday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist network, said at least 10 government soldiers were killed in an ambush in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour.
The group said that rebels on Tuesday were able to shoot down a helicopter gunship in Idlib province. Amateur videos showed a helicopter burning in a field but the report could not be independently confirmed.
Activists reported other clashes, mostly in Idlib and nearby Aleppo province as well as rebel-held areas in the central city of Homs that have been under government attack for nearly three weeks.
In neighbouring Turkey, some 30 more Syrian soldiers defected with their families overnight, the country’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported Wednesday. It was not clear if the group included any senior officers.
Assad’s regime has suffered an embarrassing string of high-ranking defections this week, with dozens of soldiers, including senior officers, reported to have fled to Turkey.

Potential collapse of Pakistan - Obama

U.S. President Barack Obama fears that in the event that Pakistan disintegrates, it would spark a scramble for nuclear weapons, some of which could fall into the hands of Islamic militants.
According to a book by David E. Sanger, chief Washington correspondent of The New York Times, Pakistan is Obama’s “biggest single national security concern.” The president even told his senior aides that he had “the least power to prevent” the potential collapse of Pakistan.
Obama even received some intelligence suggesting that Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) -- an umbrella group of Islamic militants that operate in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas near Afghanistan -- might have obtained a nuclear weapon, or perhaps a “dirty bomb.”

The suspicions were never confirmed, although fears about Pakistan’s growing atomic arsenal are all too real.
The book, called “Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret War and Surprising Use of American Power,” also claims that nuclear officials from both countries periodically meet surreptitiously in locales like Abu Dhabi or London to discuss nuclear security and the detection and disablement of atomic weapons in Pakistan.

Pakistani officials reportedly told their U.S. counterparts that no weapons were missing from its nuclear arsenal.
However, during his appearance at a nuclear security summit in Seoul, South Korea, in March, Obama declared: “There are still too many bad actors in search of these dangerous materials and these dangerous materials are still vulnerable in too many places.”
As for TTP, the group has been blamed by Pakistani authorities for a number of terrorist acts, including the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007, as well as a multitude of attacks on Pakistani state officials and soldiers.
TTP leader Hakimullah Mahsud has vowed to dispatch suicide bombers to the U.S. and Europe to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden. The attempted bombing of Times Square in New York City in May 2010 was linked to TTP.

One million teenage girls 'suffer death or injury from pregnancy'

About one million teenage girls suffer death or injury from childbirth or pregnancy complications every year, according to a report.
A report from Save the Children, due to be released today, found that "girls under 15 are five times more likely to die in pregnancy than women in their 20s" Photo: PA
Many fall pregnant only because they are denied access to contraceptives, either due to lack of availability or deeply rooted cultural prohibitions. The British government will launch a new campaign next month to spread family planning to millions of women in the developing world.
A report from Save the Children, due to be released today, found that "girls under 15 are five times more likely to die in pregnancy than women in their 20s". The prevention of teenage pregnancies through the use of contraception would save many thousands of lives, adds the report.
"The issue of children having children – and dying because their bodies are too immature to deliver the baby – is a global scandal," said Justin Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children. "This is a tragedy not just for those girls but also for their children: babies are 60 per cent more likely to die if their mother is under 18."
Despite these risks, about 20 per cent of girls worldwide have their first child before the age of 18.
The Department for International Development is planning a special summit to promote family planning. Traditionally, aid donors have steered clear of this area in order to avoid treading on cultural sensitivities.

Andrew Mitchell, the International Development Secretary, said that Save the Children's report "underlines the shocking fact that pregnancy can be a death sentence for many girls and women in the developing world". This was why Britain had chosen to hold a summit in London with the aim of reducing by half the number of women who are unable to gain access to family planning.

Android Firefox: Screaming, awesome, you'll go blind etc

Mozilla has galloped a new version of Firefox for Android out of the gates just ahead of the expected launch of Chrome on mobes later this week.
The open-source firm has had a version of its popular browser on little green phones since 2010, but it hasn't lit many Google-mobe-lovers' fires so far.
The new version is packed with shiny upgrades and word on the review-vine is pretty positive.
Mozilla claims the browser is twice as fast as Android's built-in one, or "screaming fast" as the marketing speak would have it, and the company is so sure Firefox for Android rocks that it has given it something called the "Awesome Screen".
The Awesome Screen, ie, the redesigned UI, is where one finds the "Awesome Bar", which will now have the top sites, bookmarks and history on it. Mozilla has also built Adobe Flash support into the new Firefox and fixed a number of niggling issues, including blinking characters in form fields.
For some reason incomprehensible to the ordinary Google crank with Chocolate Factory offerings in all areas of their tech life, there hasn't been any Chrome on Android so far, although the company is widely expected to change that at its I/O developers' conference later this week.
Chrome has been eating into Firefox's slice of the desktop browser market since it came out, but that's not going to matter much if all this jazz about everything going mobile turns out to be true. Since it's all Google gear, much will be expected of Chrome for Android whenever it does come out – and a misstep could see Mozilla take the lead.

June 26, 2012

Nawab Brahamdagh with Shaheed Balach Baloch

Nawabzada Jamil Akbar Bugti questions Jam Yousaf’s induction into federal cabinet


ISLAMABAD: Nawabzada Jamil Bugti, who is fighting a legal battle for trial of killers of his father Nawab Akbar Bugti, on Monday questioned what message the rulers had sent to people of Balochistan by induction of Jam Muhammad Yousaf in the federal cabinet.

Jam Yousaf is named in the FIR Jamil Bugti filed about two years back after pushing hard for several years, following the killing of his father.

He (Jam) was Balochistan’s Chief Minister during the regime of General Pervez Musharraf when in August 2006, in a cave attack, the former Governor Akbar Bugti was killed, triggering what is believed to be the severest ever anti-Islamabad feeling, mostly in Baloch-inhabited areas of the province.

Lawmakers of the trouble-hit province insist on the floor of the legislatures that the wave of insurgency has intensified ever since the assassination of the veteran Baloch politician and also charge the present PPP-led civilian dispensation has failed to alleviate Balochistan’s seething problems rather the situation further deteriorated.

About the maiden speech of newly-elected prime minister on Friday, wherein he talked of mitigating sufferings of the people of Balochistan, he said just two days after his statement on the floor of the National Assembly, Jam Yousaf was made a minister.

Talking to The News from Quetta, Jamil Bugti said one should not wonder if the ‘hollow rulers’ tomorrow install Jam Yousaf as next prime minister of Pakistan, as their agenda was not akin to the harsh ground realities in the province.

The PML-Q senior leader MNA Jam Yousaf, who stayed abroad for almost four years, recently returned and straight away distanced himself from the 2006 action in Kohlu, which saw the death of Nawab Bugti. He took part in general election in 2008 and was elected an MNA from Lasbela. Jamil Bugti rejected his contention and said how come a chief minister of a province was not aware of what was happening under his rule.

June 25, 2012

Cap Juluca, Anguilla



Vomp, Tyrol, Austria.



Chute Montmorency, Québec (Canada)









Warmer seas rising faster on U.S. east coast than elsewhere


Sea levels are rising much faster along the U.S. east coast than they are around the globe, putting some of the world's most prized coastal properties in danger of flooding, government researchers report.
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists call the 965-kilometre swath a "hot spot" for climbing sea levels caused by global warming.
Along the region, the Atlantic Ocean is rising at an annual rate three to four times faster than the global average since 1990, according to the study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
It's not just a faster rate, but at a faster pace, like a car on a highway "jamming on the accelerator," said the study's lead author, Asbury Sallenger Jr., an oceanographer at the agency. He looked at sea levels starting in 1950 and noticed a change beginning in 1990.
Since then, sea levels have gone up globally about 5 centimetres. But in Norfolk, Va., where officials are scrambling to fight more frequent flooding, the sea level has jumped a total of 12.19 centimetres, the research showed. For Philadelphia, levels went up 9.4 centimetres, and in New York City, it was 7.11 centimetres.
Climate change pushes up sea levels because it causes ice sheets in Greenland and west Antarctica to melt and because warmer water expands.
Computer models long have projected higher levels along parts of the U.S. east coast because of changes in ocean currents from global warming, but this is the first study to show that's already happened.

Higher sea levels mean more damage during storms

By 2100, scientists and computer models estimate that sea levels globally could rise as much as 1.01 metres. The accelerated rate along the east coast could add about 20 to 28 centimetres more, Sallenger said.
A map showing changes in sea levels between 1950 and 2009, with the greatest rise concentrated on the Atlantic coast between North Carolina and Massachusetts. A map showing changes in sea levels between 1950 and 2009, with the greatest rise concentrated on the Atlantic coast between North Carolina and Massachusetts. (Asbury H. Sallenger Jr, Kara S. Doran & Peter A. Howd/Nature Climate Change )
"Where that kind of thing becomes important is during a storm," Sallenger said.
That's when it can damage buildings and erode coastlines.
On the west coast, a U.S. National Research Council report released Friday projects an average rise in sea level in California of nearly 1-metre by the year 2100 and 0.61 metres in Oregon and Washington. The land mass north of the San Andreas Fault is expected to rise, offsetting the rising sea level in those two states.
The USGS study suggests the northeast of the U.S. would get hit harder because of ocean currents. When the Gulf Stream and its northern extension slow down, the slope of the seas changes to balance against the slowing current. That slope then pushes up sea levels in the northeast. It is like a see-saw effect, Sallenger theorizes.
Scientists believe that with global warming, the Gulf Stream and other ocean currents are slowing and will slow further, Sallenger said.

Real estate at risk

Jeff Williams, a retired USGS expert who wasn't part of the study, and Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor of ocean physics at the Potsdam Institute in Germany, said the study does a good job of making the case for sea level rise acceleration.
'Somewhere between Maryland and Massachusetts, you've got some bodaciously expensive property at risk.'— Margaret Davidson, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Margaret Davidson, director of the Coastal Services Center for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Charleston, S.C., said the implications of the new research are "huge when you think about it. Somewhere between Maryland and Massachusetts, you've got some bodaciously expensive property at risk."
Sea level projections matter in coastal states, because flood maps based on those predictions can result in restrictions on property development and affect flood insurance rates.
Those estimates became an issue in North Carolina recently when the state legislature proposed using historic figures to calculate future sea levels, rejecting higher rates from a state panel of experts. The USGS study suggests an even higher level than the panel's estimate for 2100.
The North Carolina proposal used data from University of Florida professor Robert Dean, who had found no regional differences in sea level rise. Dean said he can't argue with the results from Sallenger's study showing accelerating sea level rise in the region, but he said it's more likely to be from natural cycles. Sallenger said there is no evidence to support that claim.