Cold, gas crisis affect life in Peshawar

PESHAWAR: People of Peshawar are facing double trouble due to extreme weather and gas loadshedding that has affect

Written on January 7, 2012 | Posted in News, War, ad, ads, weather | Leave a comment

Snowy day forecast in Kashmir Valley, mountains

Srinagar, Dec 19 : The Kashmir Valley is likely to get moderate snowfall and the higher reaches witness witness heavy snowfall Tuesday, the weather office here has forecast and advised all …

Written on December 19, 2011 | Posted in ad, kashmir, unlmitie, weather | Leave a comment

Rain-snow to improve weather in Kashmir, Pahalgam-G

Srinagar, Dec 5 : Rain or snow, expected in next two to three days, is likely to improve the weather in the Kashmir valley, where world famous tourist resorts of Pahalgam and Gulmarg were coldest …

Written on December 5, 2011 | Posted in US, kashmir, unlmitie, weather | Leave a comment

McIlroy shares Hong Kong Open lead

HONG KONG: A battling performance from an under-the-weather Rory McIlroy saw him sharing the lead with Alvaro Quir

Written on December 2, 2011 | Posted in Hong Kong, Sports, UN, ad, weather | Leave a comment

The Long Handle: England’s dew karma

England’s hardy warriors return after having beaten every trace of moisture out of the ground with their bats

Written on March 16, 2011 | Posted in Cricket, Sports, UN, US, War, ad, drs, england, weather | Leave a comment

Blasts, fire escalate Japan’’s nuclear crisis

SENDAI: Explosions and fire rocked a quake-stricken nuclear plant in Japan Tuesday, pumping out dangerous radiation and sparking a rout on the stockmarket and panic buying in supermarkets. Tokyo stocks, which were punished Monday and sent indexes around the world sliding, plummeted another 14 percent on Tuesday before paring some losses and ending 10.55 percent down. In towns and cities fearful citizens stripped supermarket shelves, prompting the government to warn against panic-buying, saying this could hurt the provision of relief supplies to quake-hit areas. But scared Tokyo residents filled outbound trains and rushed to shops to stock up on food, water, face masks and emergency supplies amid heightening fears of radiation headed their way. Radiation levels around the Fukushima No.1 plant on the eastern coast had “risen considerably”, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said, and his chief spokesman announced the level was now high enough to endanger human health. In Tokyo, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) to the southwest, authorities also said that higher than normal radiation levels had been detected in the capital, the world’’s biggest urban area, but not at harmful levels. Kan warned people living up to 10 kilometres (six miles) beyond a 20 km exclusion zone around the nuclear plant to stay indoors. “I would like to ask the nation, although this incident is of great concern, I ask you to react very calmly,” he said. The fire, which was later extinguished, broke out in the plant’’s number-four reactor, he said, meaning that four out of six reactors at the facility were in trouble — and temperatures were reportedly rising in the last two. Radiation levels later dropped at both the plant and in Tokyo, chief government spokesman Yukio Edano said. As well as the atomic emergency, Japan is struggling to cope with the enormity of the damage from Friday’’s record quake and the tsunami that raced across vast tracts of its northeast, destroying all before it. The official death toll rose to 2,414, police said Tuesday, while officials said at least 10,000 were likely to have perished. But in the only country in the world to have experienced a nuclear attack — two bombs dropped by the United States during World War II killed some 200,000 people — Japanese citizens are gripped by fear of nuclear fallout. “What we most fear is a radiation leak from the nuclear plant,” Kaoru Hashimoto, 36, a housewife living in Fukushima city 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of the stricken plant, said by phone. Hashimoto said supermarkets were open but shelves were completely empty. “Many children are sick in this cold weather but pharmacies are closed. Emergency relief goods have not reached evacuation centres in the city. “Everyone is anxious and wants to get out of town. But there is no more petrol.” More than 200,000 people have already been evacuated from the exclusion zone around the crippled plant. At one shelter, a young woman holding her baby told public broadcaster NHK: “I didn”t want this baby to be exposed to radiation. I wanted to avoid that, no matter what.” However, even in evacuation centres filled with shell-shocked quake and tsunami survivors, Japan’’s famed emphasis on social harmony is in evidence. From the sharing of tasks among volunteers to the neat arrangement of shoes outside the living areas, life in the shelters is orderly and peaceful. “I have never been in a disaster before so I didn”t know what to expect. In the movies, you always see people running around screaming but here at the centre, it’’s really calm,” Canadian student Jouvon Evans said. But the crisis at the ageing Fukushima nuclear plant has worsened daily since Friday’’s quake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems. On Saturday an explosion blew apart the building surrounding the plant’’s number-one reactor. On Monday, a blast hit the number-three reactor, injuring 11 people and sending plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. Early on Tuesday a blast rocked the number-two reactor. That was followed by a hydrogen explosion that started a fire at the number-four reactor. Chief government spokesman Yukio Edano said radioactive particulates leaked along with the hydrogen. The UN’’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tokyo had asked for expert assistance in the aftermath of the quake, which US seismologists are now measuring at 9.0-magnitude, revised up from 8.9. But the IAEA’’s Japanese chief Yukiya Amano moved to calm global fears that the situation could escalate to rival the world’’s worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986. “Let me say that the possibility that the development of this accident into one like Chernobyl is very unlikely,” he said. In Tokyo, the French embassy on Tuesday retracted an earlier statement indicating that a radioactive cloud was headed for the capital, saying the city was not at risk. But the devastation in tsunami-hit areas such as Sendai city in the northeast is absolute. At the once-bustling regional airport small planes jutted out at awkward angles from thick mud, amid the wreckage of clusters of wooden beachfront houses that were splintered into flotsam in an instant by the waves. As far as the eye can see, the machinery of modern life has been crumpled almost beyond recognition — cars are stuck incongruously into the few remaining structures or balanced on top of wrecked homes. Aid workers and search teams from across the world have joined 100,000 Japanese soldiers in a massive relief push in the shattered areas. In the region of Miyagi, which took the full brunt of Friday’’s terrifying wall of water, rescue teams searching through the shattered debris of towns and villages have found 2,000 bodies. And the Miyagi police chief has said he is certain more than 10,000 people perished in his prefecture alone. Millions have been left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food and hundreds of thousands more are homeless and facing harsh conditions with sub-zero temperatures overnight, and snow and rain forecast. The government expects a “considerable” economic impact from the disaster, which has plunged the nation into what Prime Minister Kan called its worst crisis since World War II. Singapore’’s DBS Bank estimated Tuesday that the twin disasters would cost Japan’’s economy about $100 billion, or about two percentage points of its annual gross domestic product. (AFP)

Written on March 15, 2011 | Posted in 2011, Economy, Health, ISI, International, Movies, News, Oman, Singapore, Social, UK, UN, US, USA, War, ad, aid, ban, call, cars, cia, police, teams, uth, weather | Leave a comment

Japan’’s nuclear crisis escalates further

SENDAI: Japan’’s nuclear crisis escalated Tuesday as two more blasts and a fire rocked a quake-stricken atomic power plant, sending radiation up to dangerous levels. Radiation around the Fukushima No.1 plant on the eastern coast had “risen considerably”, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said, and his chief spokesman announced the level was now high enough to endanger human health. In Tokyo, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) to the southwest, authorities also said that higher than normal radiation levels had been detected in the capital, the world’’s biggest urban area, but not at harmful levels. Kan warned people living up to 10 kilometres (six miles) beyond a 20 km (12-mile) exclusion zone around the nuclear plant to stay indoors. The fire, which was later reportedly extinguished, was burning in the plant’’s number-four reactor, he said, meaning that four out of six reactors at the facility are now in trouble. As well as the atomic emergency, Japan is struggling to cope with the enormity of the damage from Friday’’s record-breaking quake and the tsunami which raced across vast tracts of its northeast, destroying all before it. The official death toll has risen to 2,414, police said Tuesday, but officials say at least 10,000 are likely to have perished. The crisis at the ageing Fukushima plant has escalated daily after Friday’’s quake and tsunami which knocked out cooling systems. On Saturday an explosion blew apart the building surrounding the plant’’s number-one reactor. On Monday, a blast hit the number-three reactor, injuring 11 people and sending plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. Early on Tuesday a blast hit the number-two reactor. That was followed shortly after by a hydrogen explosion which started a fire at the number-four reactor. Chief government spokesman Yukio Edano said radioactive substances were leaked along with the hydrogen. “What we most fear is a radiation leak from the nuclear plant,” Kaoru Hashimoto, 36, a housewife living in Fukushima city 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of the stricken plant, told by phone. “Not much confirmed information is coming to us, so we are in trouble about how to cope with the situation.” Hashimoto said supermarkets are open but shelves are completely empty. “Many children are sick in this cold weather but pharmacies are closed. Emergency relief goods have not reached evacuation centres in the city. “I”m wondering how long we can manage with the food we have in stock. Everyone is anxious and wants to get out of town. But there is no more petrol. We are afraid of using a car as we may run out of petrol.” The UN’’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tokyo had asked for expert assistance in the aftermath of the quake which US seismologists are now measuring at 9.0-magnitude, revised up from 8.9. But the IAEA’’s Japanese chief Yukiya Amano moved to calm global fears that the situation could escalate to rival the world’’s worst nuclear crisis at Chernobyl in the Ukraine in 1986. “Let me say that the possibility that the development of this accident into one like Chernobyl is very unlikely,” he said. Officials have already evacuated 210,000 people in the exclusion zone around the crippled plant. At one shelter, a young woman holding her baby told public broadcaster NHK: “I didn”t want this baby to be exposed to radiation. I wanted to avoid that, no matter what.” Further north in the region of Miyagi, which took the full brunt of Friday’’s terrifying wall of water, rescue teams searching through the shattered debris of towns and villages have found 2,000 bodies. And the Miyagi police chief has said he is certain more than 10,000 people perished in his prefecture. Millions have been left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food and hundreds of thousands more are homeless and facing harsh conditions with sub-zero temperatures overnight, and snow and rain forecast. Tokyo stocks, which were punished Monday when the markets reopened, sending indexes around the world sliding, plummeted another 12 percent by early afternoon on Tuesday. Panic selling saw stocks close more than six percent lower in Tokyo Monday on fears for the world’’s third-biggest economy, as power shortages prompted rolling blackouts and factory shutdowns in quake-hit areas. Kaori Ohashi, 39, a mother-of-two working in a nursing home for the elderly near the city of Sendai, spent two nights trapped in the building after its first floor was submerged by the tsunami. “Snow started to fall and it became dark. We lost power. I thought ”This is a nightmare”,” Ohashi said after she was rescued. At least 1.4 million people in Japan were temporarily without running water and more than 500,000 were taking shelter in evacuation centres, said the UN’’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. At a hospital in the fishing town of Kesennuma hit by the tsunami, an official said basic supplies were desperately needed. “We are critically short of water,” he said. “Water is very important here. To save it, we need a lot of disposable dishes. We need blankets as well.” Aid workers and search teams from across the world joined 100,000 Japanese soldiers in a massive relief push as the country suffers a wave of major aftershocks. The foreign ministry expressed its “heartfelt appreciation” for offers of help pouring in from around the world, and said rescue teams from 11 countries including China — Japan’’s traditional rival — were now on the ground. With ports, airports, highways and manufacturing plants shut down, the government has predicted “considerable impact on a wide range of our country’’s economic activities”. Leading risk analysis firm AIR Worldwide said the quake alone would exact an economic toll estimated at between $14.5 billion and $34.6 billion (10 billion to 25 billion euros) — even leaving aside the effects of the tsunami. (AFP)

Written on March 15, 2011 | Posted in 2011, Economy, Health, ISI, International, News, Oman, UK, UN, US, USA, War, ad, aid, ban, call, china, cia, fair, import, police, teams, uth, weather | Leave a comment

Power shortfall exceeds 2000 MW

LAHORE: The power shortfall has exceeded 2000 MW across the country in the wake of increased demand of electricity due to shift in weather from cool to warmer side. Four-hour spell of long loadshedding has also been started for the industrial sector. According to PEPCO sources, the power generation has declined to 10,203 points while the demand for electricity has shot up to cross 12000 MW. Consequently, the industrial sector is being subjected to 4 hour loadshedding; commercial sector 4-6 hour power shedding and; domestic consumers are made to endure 6-10 hour duration of electricity loadshedding. The PEPCO officials expressed fear that the shortfall could shoot further up by 1000 MW in case gas was not supplied to power generation houses.

Written on March 9, 2011 | Posted in Politics, UN, US, War, ad, ads, cia, lahore, weather | Leave a comment

Weather conditions improve in Kashmir,Kargil coldest with -15 degree

Srinagar, Mar 8 : The weather conditions have improved in the Kashmir valley, where sky remained partially cloudy while Kargil in Ladakh region remained coldest after the minimum dipped further to …

Written on March 8, 2011 | Posted in ad, kashmir, unlmitie, weather | Leave a comment

In-form Green Brigade poised to meet NZ

PALLEKELE: In-form Pakistan batsman Misbah-ul-Haq said his team was ready for the double challenge of facing New Zealand as well as a mystery World Cup pitch on Tuesday. The Group A rivals meet at the newly-built Pallekele stadium in the first-ever one-day match at the venue, a factor which vice-captain Misbah believes will give both teams plenty to think about. “Of course, it adds to the challenge because we don”t know how the pitch will behave but that’’s the same for both teams, and as far as we are concerned we are up to the challenge,” Misbah said Monday. The 36-year-old has anchored the Pakistan team in the World Cup with two half-centuries against Kenya and Sri Lanka and a hard-fought 37 in the last match against Canada. Pakistan sit top of Group A with six points after three matches, followed by co-hosts Sri Lanka (five points in four) and defending champions Australia (five after three), with New Zealand fourth with four in three matches. Misbah said Pakistan’’s recent one-day series win over New Zealand will count for nothing. “We have done well against them in World Cups and in the recent series there but that win will count for nothing as it’’s a new game at a new place,” said Misbah, of Pakistan’’s 3-2 win in New Zealand last month. Pakistan will bring in paceman Shoaib Akhtar after resting him in the last match against Canada, while left-arm spinner Abdur Rehman will also be available after missing the last match due to a leg muscle injury. Led by skipper Shahid Afridi’’s leg-spin, which has garnered a tournament-leading 14 wickets, Pakistan possess variety in their bowling with off-spinners Saeed Ajmal and Mohammad Hafeez, coupled with a strong new-ball attack of Akhtar, Umar Gul and Wahab Riaz. “I think we know how good their bowling can be,” said New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori. “They can probably defend any score because of the nature of their bowlers. They bring a lot to the table.” Pakistan successfully defended a below-par 185-run target against Canada and 278 against co-hosts Sri Lanka in the two of their three matches. New Zealand, who lost to Australia by seven wickets but eased past Kenya and Zimbawe by 10 wickets in each game, have four points after three matches. “We know to win these big games it needs complete team performances and that’’s what we have done. “It’’s a matter of stepping up against the harder teams,” said Vettori, whose country has lost six World Cup matches against Pakistan since winning their first in 1983. Unlike the bowling head-to-head, New Zealand hold the upper hand in batting, with openers Martin Guptill (86) and Brendon McCullum (76) chasing a 186-run target against Zimbabwe without being separated. “I”m not sure you could ask for too much more, we wanted complete performances out of ourselves and that we gave in the last match,” said Vettori, whose team have made the semi-finals in the last three World Cups. The hill town of Kandy has suffered from persistent rains and the only international match here, a Test between Sri Lanka and the West Indies in December, was drawn without a single innings completed in five days. The warm-up matches before the World Cup were also moved because of bad weather. Teams Pakistan: Shahid Afridi (capt), Misbah-ul-Haq, Mohammad Hafeez, Kamran Akmal, Younis Khan, Asad Shafiq, Umar Akmal, Abdul Razzaq, Abdur Rehman, Saeed Ajmal, Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul, Wahab Riaz, Junaid Khan, Ahmed Shahzad. Coach: Waqar Younis New Zealand: Daniel Vettori (capt), Hamish Bennett, James Franklin, Martin Guptill, Jamie How, Brendon McCullum, Nathan McCullum, Kyle Mills, Jacob Oram, Jesse Ryder, Tim Southee, Scott Styris, Ross Taylor, Kane Williamson, Luke Woodcock. Coach: John Wright Umpires: Daryl Harper (AUS) and Nigel Llong (ENG) TV umpire: Ian Gould (ENG) Match referee: Chris Broad (ENG) Match start: 02:00 PM Pitch conditions: Heavy rains last month have hit the preparations of the pitch, and if the sun comes out in the next two days, the square will have good grass and help the seamers, provided the grass is not removed. The pitch has bounce and if it doesn”t rain will help batsmen. Pakistan v New Zealand head to head Head-to-head record for the World Cup Group A match between Pakistan and New Zealand at the Pallekele stadium on Tuesday: Matches: 88 Pakistan: 51 New Zealand: 34 No result/Tied: 3 First meeting: Feb 11, 1973, Christchurch – New Zealand won by 22 runs Last meeting: Feb 5, 2011, Auckland – New Zealand won by 57 runs (AFP)

Written on March 8, 2011 | Posted in 2011, Canada, International, Pakistan, Shahid AFridi, Sports, UK, UN, US, Umpires, War, World Cup, Younis Khan, ad, afridi, aid, australia, batting, bowling, captain, games, kenya, new zealand, pta, teams, uth, weather, west indies, zimbabwe | Leave a comment

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