Karachi, February 27: Waqar Younis has been offered a contract by the PCB to coach the Pakistan side until December 2011.
The former fast bowler, in Sydney currently, received the contract yesterday and is expected to sign it and send it back over the next few days, in the process becoming Pakistan’s fourth coach in three years.
Wellington, February 27: Mitchell Johnson wants Australia to continue dominating New Zealand after their strong performance in the opening Twenty20 in Wellington on Friday. Johnson was Man of the Match in the crushing six-wicket win, which was set up by some extreme speed from Australia’s fast bowlers.
Port Of Spain, February 27: Tatenda Taibu scored 107 to set Zimbabwe up for a five-run victory over the University of the West Indies? Vice Chancellor?s XI in their 50 overs-a-side match on Friday at Frank Worrell Oval.
Taibu struck 11 fours and one six from 92 balls, as Zimbabwe were bowled out for 281 in 49.2 overs, after they elected to bat in their only warm-up tour match prior to a series of limited-overs match against West Indies.
Dubai, February 27: An international police unit with officers from the Emirates and at least seven other countries will hunt for the killers of a top Hamas militant suspected of being Israeli agents, Dubai’s police chief said in comments published on Saturday.
The Al-Bayan daily quoted Dhahi Khalfan as saying that officers from the United Arab Emirates, unspecified European countries, Australia and perhaps the United States, would be part of the unit.
Jamaica, February 27: Ottis Gibson, the newly-appointed West Indies coach, has emphasised the need to move on from the winless debacle in Australia to prepare for success against Zimbabwe.
West Indies were beaten 2-0 in the Tests, 4-0 in the ODIs and 2-0 in the Twenty20s during the tour Down Under, and Gibson, who took over from interim coach David Williams, warned against complacency against one of the minnows of international cricket.
Tokyo, February 27: A magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit off Japan’s southern coast early Saturday, shaking Okinawa and nearby islands, where a tsunami warning was issued, Japan’s Meteorological Agency said.
The quake occurred off the coast of the island of Okinawa at a depth of 10 kilometres at 5:31 a.m. (0201 IST) Saturday, the agency said.
It predicted a tsunami up to two metres near the Okinawan coast. There were no immediate reports of major damage or casualties.
Kirkuk, February 27: An Iraqi journalist kidnapped more than a week ago here has been freed after his family paid a USD 20,000 ransom, the Sadrist movement to which he is affiliated has said.
Hussam Dawood Lazim works for Al-Ahad (“Promise” in Arabic) radio and television stations, which are controlled by the bloc loyal to radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
“He was freed this evening and is now with his family,” the bloc’s Kirkuk office director Raad al-Sarkhy said.
Karachi, February 27: Pakistan’s flamboyant all-rounder Shahid Afridi said he is not running after captaincy and is willing to play in the national team even just as a senior player.
“I am not running after the captaincy. If the board gives me this responsibility, I will do it but even if I am not captain I still try to play my role as a senior player to encourage and push other players to do well for the team,” said Afridi, who is gearing up for the national Twenty20 championship where he will play for his native Karachi team under the captaincy of Mohammad Sami.
Mumbai, February 27: India’s most celebrated artist Maqbool Fida Husain, who has been under attack from sections of the Hindu right, has accepted Qatar’s offer of an honorary citizenship as having a ‘sense of belonging’ was important at this stage of his life, said his son Owais Husain, who added that his father ‘missed home in India terribly’.
New Delhi, February 27: The Supreme Court today sought an explanation from the Andhra Pradesh Government as to why it had deployed the elite anti-Naxalite force `Greyhounds’ to quell the students’ unrest in Osmania University, the hotbed of Telangana Statehood agitation.
Washington, February 27: US President Barack Obama will host an international nuclear security summit here April 12-13, the White House said.
“On April 12 and 13, the president will host a nuclear security summit at the Washington Convention Centre,” Xinhua reported quoting White House spokesman Robert Gibbs as saying Friday.
“The purpose of the summit is to discuss steps we can collectively take to secure vulnerable nuclear materials and prevent acts of nuclear terrorism,” he added.
Mumbai, February 27: B-Town has become very experimental as far as music is concerned. The music of “Karthik Calling Karthik’ is no less, no wonder it is creating waves all over. However, the innovation here is not in terms of instrumentation or any other reason, but something entirely different. The director of the film Vijay Lalwani explains.
Mumbai, February 27: On the recommendation of superstar Salman Khan, the first blind band Udaan got its big break with the album “Udaan Instrumental’ which was produced by T-series and gave chance to Udaan Entertainment to showcase their talent.
The album turned out so well that T-series’ Kishan Kumar decided to produce two to three albums every year with them.
Hyderabad, Feb 27: Two men N. Innaiah and Subba Rao were Friday arrested in Andhra Pradesh’s Khammam town for helping an author in writing a book that reportedly hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims, police said.
Police Thursday arrested Macha Laxmaiah alias Krantikar, author of ‘Crescent over the world – is a boon or the silent Holocaust’ containing blasphemous comments about Islam, the Prophet and the Quran.
A case was booked against him for hurting the religious sentiments of the community.
New Delhi, Feb 27: President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Friday greeted the nation on the eve of Milad-un-Nabi, the birthday of Prophet Mohammed to be celebrated Saturday.
Patil in her message prayed ‘may the message of compassion, tolerance and service to humanity preached by the Prophet inspire and guide us to follow the path of kindness and universal brotherhood’.
‘I extend my greetings and good wishes to all my fellow citizens,’ she said.
Baghdad, February 27: After the warm-up acts for Iraq’s prime minister nearly broke down in tears reciting anti-sectarian poetry, there could be no doubt about the Shiite leader’s message to tribal leaders from the Sunni heartland.
“We are all brothers, Sunni and Shiite,” began a chant in the auditorium, where hundreds of tribal leaders in Arab head dresses and flowing robes had gathered to hear Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki speak as part of his campaign for a March 7 vote.
Another chant followed: “Iraq is our mother and father.”
Baghdad, February 27: The Iraqi military will reinstate 20,000 Saddam Hussein-era army officers who were dismissed from their posts after the 2003 US-led invasion for serving under the former dictator, an Iraqi defense spokesman said Friday.
The announcement, a little over a week before the March 7 parliamentary elections, immediately raised questions about whether the move was timed to pump up votes for Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.
Washington, February 27: Noting that resumption of talks between India and Pakistan does not mean that the two sides are close to any breakthrough, a former Bush-era official has warned that the two neighbours might go to war again if there was any major terrorist attack in India emanating from Pakistan.
Kabul, February 27: The battalion commander pondered the question: How much is a tree worth? Warrior one day, haggler the next. Lt. Col. Burton Shields was talking to an Afghan farmer who said the Americans had damaged five trees on his property in an operation against the Taleban near the town of Marjah, where NATO forces are fighting insurgent holdouts.
The farmer, an elderly man with a beard and turban, wanted compensation.
Tirupati, February 27: Leaders of various political parties have called for a bandh in this temple town tomorrow to protest the ”inhumane” behaviour meted out by policemen to agitators who laid siege to the TTD administrative building.
Police had inhumanly dragged the peaceful agitators and whisked them away when they were demonstrating peacefully in front of the TTD administration building as a part of the 48-hours siege.
Jerusalem, February 27: Israel’s defense minister has called on the United Sates to impose strict sanctions on Iran over its nuclear energy program.
Speaking in Washington on Friday after a series of meetings with US officials including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak stressed the necessity of “significant and effective sanctions within a time limit,” against Iran.
Tehran, February 27: Iran’s Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Ali Larijani says the Non-Proliferation Treaty, NPT, has so far proven inefficient in nuclear disarmament.
“NPT has no authority to act for nuclear disarmament,” Larijani told reporters on Friday, on the fourth day of his visit to Japan.
“The treaty has been unable to get rid of even a single nuclear warhead and it is generally viewed as a failure to the International Atomic Energy Agency,” added the Iranian official.
Washington, February 27: Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flourney says the US will not accept the assertion of Russia’s sphere of influence, particularly in the Baltic States.
“We’ve made it very clear that even as we seek to find new ways of working with Russia we also are very clear that we don’t accept certain of their policies, the assertion of their sphere of influence, particularly in this [Baltic] region,” Flournoy said at a news conference in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia on Friday.
Washington, February 27: The US is set to extend a Bush-era controversial counter-terrorism law called the Patriot Act for yet another year.
The Patriot Act, hastily adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks, greatly expands the government’s ability to spy on Americans in the name of national security.
On Thursday, The House of Representatives voted the bill overwhelmingly and sent it to President Barack Obama for his approval.
The vote came a day after the Senate approved the extension to the bill.
Gaza, February 27: For the fifth consecutive day, Israeli soldiers clash with Palestinian protesters over holy shrines in the West Bank city of al-Khalil.
Clashes erupted after Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, Febuary 21, announced plans to add two West Bank holy sites — the Ibrahimi Mosque (Cave of the Patriarchs) and Bilal Mosque (Rachel’s Tomb) — to Israel’s so-called Jewish heritage list.
Palestinian caretaker Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, who joined the Friday prayers in al-Khalil called for calm among Palestinians.