New Delhi, October 19 : The first batch of Indian Haj pilgrims will leave for Saudi Arabia Tuesday, beginning a two-and-a-half month operation during which over 123,000 Indian Muslims will perform the annual pilgrimage in the holy city of Makkah.
The first flight of the National Air Services of Saudi Arabia, carrying 250 passengers, will take off from the Delhi airport Tuesday morning and is scheduled to land at the Jeddah airport at 1 p. m.
Karachi, October 19: Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) governing council Monday appointed all-rounder Shahid Afridi as Twenty20 captain on a long-term basis.
Afridi thus will lead Pakistan’s title defence in the 2010 ICC World Twenty20 Championship in the Caribbean in May.
During the meeting, the issue pertaining to Pakistan skipper Younis Khan’s decision to quit as captain wasn’t discussed.
—–IANS
Hamburg, October 19: Serena Williams of the United States leads a nearly unchanged women’s tennis rankings top 10 issued Monday by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA).
Williams has 7,945 points for a slim advantage over former number one Dinara Safina of Russia (7,940). Svetlana Kuznetsova, also of Russia, moves into third place with 5,981 points at the expense of Venus Williams of the US (5,896).
WTA top 10 as of October 19 (previous ranking in parenthesis):
1. (1) Serena Williams, United States, 7,945 points
2. (2) Dinara Safina, Russia, 7,940
Tehran, October 19: As nuclear discussions are set to open in Vienna, Tehran says it will continue its work to enrich uranium to the 20 percent required for its research reactor should talks fail.
“If the negotiations do not yield the desired results, we will write a letter and announce to the [International Atomic Energy] Agency (IAEA) that Iran would act directly to supply the fuel for the Tehran reactor,” state-run IRNA news agency quoted spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali Shirzadian as saying on Monday.
Hyderabad, October 19: The only national team competing in a tournament meant for domestic sides, Trinidad and Tobago’s teen batting sensation Adrian Barath says the secret of his side’s stupendous unbeaten run in the Champions League Twenty20 is the unity among the players.
Melbourne, October 19: Newly appointed Australian Twenty20 captain Michael Clarke says he still has a chance to take part in the final stages of the upcoming seven-match one-day international series in India.
The 28-year-old, who was officially handed the reins of the Twenty20 side on Friday following Ricky Ponting’s decision to retire from the game’s shortest form, is still recovering from a back complaint that cut short his Champions Trophy campaign last month.
Bangalore, October 19: Already out of contention for a semifinal berth, the Delhi Daredevils would look to salvage some pride with a consolation win against the Cape Cobras in an inconsequential Champions League Twenty20 match at the Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium.
Delhi’s hope of making it to the final-four crashed yesterday after Gautam Gambhir’s men suffered an eight wicket loss to the Bangalore Royal Challengers.
Bangalore, October 19: Adrian Barath made a power-packed 63 as Trinidad & Tobago breezed into the semifinals after pipping the Eagles by 24 runs.
The unbeaten Trinidad side amassed 213/4, the highest score of the tournament, leaving the Eagles with an almost impossible task of achieving the target in 14.2 overs to qualify for the semis. The South African side tried their best but fell short of the target by 24 runs.
Needing 16.5 runs per over, the Eagles got off to a daring start by gathering 72 runs in the first five overs, but the task was just too much to manage.
Karachi, October 19: The National Selection Committee is facing a dilemma over picking Pakistan squad for the one-day series against New Zealand in Abu Dhabi and Dubai next month, as the Younus Khan captaincy issue is unresolved yet.
Chief selector Iqbal Qasim admitted that they wanted to finalise the squad by October 22 as the series starts on November 3 and the captain and coach normally want a short conditioning camp before every series or tournament.
Karachi, October 19: Former captains today backed Younus Khan to continue as the skipper, saying he is the bast man to lead the side.
“He is still your most valuable player and if he has any complaints and grievances of whatever nature the board must look into them and try to resolve them as soon as possible,” cricketer-turned-commentator Rameez Raja said.
Kolkatta, October 19: Bengal allrounder Avik Chowdhury has been put on a ventilator at an intensive care unit in Kolkata, after being critically injured in a car accident on Sunday evening.
The accident happened when the car Chowdhury was travelling in, along with four of his friends, rammed into a median divider on Eastern Metropolitan Bypass near Ruby Hospital.
Colombo, October 19: Sri Lanka Cricket has asked Gavin Fingleson, a former Olympic baseball player, to help improve the fielding skills of the national. South African-born Fingleson played baseball for Australia and is expected to arrive in Sri Lanka to discuss with the board the nature of his work and the number of trips he has to make to carry out his duties.
Johanesburg, October 19: Craig Kieswetter, Somerset’s South African keeper, who will qualify to play for England next February, has managed to take a few back lessons from the Champions League Twenty20 despite a disappointing show after he spoke to Adam Gilchrist on batting and keeping wickets.
“The best thing he has said to me is ‘just catch it as a keeper and don’t worry about how you look’ and that is especially true in England with the ball wobbling,” Kieswetter told the Sunday Telegraph after Somerset captain Justin Langer introduced him to Gilchrist.
Panaji, October 19: Goa Home Minister Ravi Naik Monday said the police would probe the links of the state transport minister’s wife with a Hindu group blamed for an explosion that killed two of its members.
Addressing reporters at his residence, Naik said that everyone involved with the Sanatan Sanstha was being investigated. The Goa transport minister is Ramkrishna alias Sudin Dhavalikar.
“We are probing everyone. We know that Jyoti Dhavalikar is a part of the institution although we do not know in which capacity. I have asked police to enquire,” Naik said.
Baghdad, October 19: At least four people were injured in the western Iraqi city of Falluja Monday when a man detonated explosives packed in his car, police said.
The blast, which targeted a police patrol in the eastern Falluja neighbourhood of al-Karama, injured three policemen and a civilian bystander, police told Baghdad’s Aswat al-Iraq news agency, adding that the number of confirmed casualties was likely to rise.
The bomber was thought to have been killed in the explosion.
Islamabad, October 19: US-led NATO forces vacated more than half a dozen security check posts on the Afghan side of the border just ahead of the major ground offensive launched by the Pakistani military against the Taliban in the volatile South Waziristan region, a media report said Monday.
“It is feared that the American decision will facilitate Afghan Taliban in crossing over to Pakistan and support militants in striking back at the Pakistani security forces in the troubled tribal area,” The News said in a report headlined “On whose side is US anyway?”
New Delhi, October 19 : The Supreme Court will Tuesday begin hearing of the dispute between the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries and Anil Ambani-led Reliance Natural Resources Ltd over supply of gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin.
The Anil Ambani company wants to secure 28 million units of gas a day from the Krishna-Godavari basin for 17 years at $2.34 per unit and got a favourable verdict from the Bombay High Court in June.
Reliance Industries has challenged this in the Supreme Court.
Tehran, October 19: Iran will independently enrich uranium to levels beyond what is needed for basic power generation if talks in Vienna on a plan to process the country’s nuclear fuel abroad fail, the spokesman of the Iranian Atomic Organization stressed on Monday.
Ali Shirzadian spoke in Tehran ahead of Monday’s multilateral meeting at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on a deal to export most of Iran’s enriched uranium to Russia and France, in order to enrich it to a higher level so it can be used in a medical-purpose reactor in Tehran.
Mumbai, October 19: Mumbai Police Nabs Three For Robbery At Bebo’s HousePolice claimed to have solved a case of theft, which happened on October 8 at Kareena Kapoor’s Rose Queen residence on 14th road in suburban Khar.
The Mumbai police arrested Bebo’s three house servants named as Pawansingh Chouhan (24), Anita Osami (35) and Tina Yadav (26) on October 15, who have confessed to the criminal offense.
The police recovered a pearl set and a ring worth Rs 41,000 and Rs 1.53 lakh in cash, from them.
New York, October 19 : Efforts by the US and its allies to cripple the Taliban’s sophisticated financial network in Afghanistan have barely made a dent, the New York Times reported Monday citing unnamed American officials.
The Taliban in Afghanistan are running a sophisticated financial network to pay for their insurgent operations, raising hundreds of millions of dollars from the illicit drug trade, kidnappings, extortion and foreign donations that American officials say they are struggling to cut off, the influential US daily said.
Washington, October 19 : India sees no change in Pakistan’s attitude towards jihadists, noting that Islamabad was yet to take credible action either to bring the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks to justice or to dismantle the “infrastructure of terror”.
“Now, this sort of thing does worry us. We want to see some really clear and firm action,” said India’s Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” programme.
Jerusalem, October 19: A Hungarian lawmaker has voiced worry over Israel’s expansionist policies, saying Israel is trying to take over the world.
“I’m a Hungarian nationalist. I love my homeland, love the Hungarians and give primacy to Hungarian interests over those of global capital – Jewish capital, if you like – which wants to devour the entire world, especially Hungary,” Oszkar Molnar said in a television interview.
Molnar’s comments come as there are reports of a mass Jewish exodus from Israel to Hungary, Haaretz reported.
Tehran, October 19: A leading Iranian Sunni cleric has urged the people to cooperate with the authorities in their efforts to detain the perpetrators of a recent deadly attack in Pishin.
The top cleric in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan-Balouchestan praised the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Brigadier Nour-Ali Shoushtari for his efforts to bring lasting stability to the region.
Abu Dhabi, October 19: A report released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows that Saudi Arabia and Israel have the highest military expenditure in the Middle East.
According to the report, Saudi Arabia has turned into the world’s ninth military spender.
Saudi Arabia’s military expenditure mounted to $ 38.2 billion in 2008.
Israel is the second military spender in the Middle East, with a military expenditure of $ 16 billion in 2008; IRNA quoted the report as saying.
Darfur, October 19: Two female aid workers kidnapped in Sudan’s conflict-scarred Darfur region over 100 days ago have been released.
Irish citizen Sharon Commins, 32, and her Ugandan colleague Hilda Kawuki, 42, were released early on Sunday and are said to be in good health, Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin confirmed.
The two were taken at gunpoint during a raid on the Irish charity Goal compound in the town of Kutum in northern Darfur on June 3.
Sudanese officials say local tribal leaders put pressure on the kidnappers to release the workers.
They stress no ransom was paid.