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Back to Today's Headlines Dalmiya Quits ICC World Cup Contracts Panel KOLKATA: The Indian cricket board has demanded independent mediation to resolve a sponsorship row between its players and the International Cricket Council (ICC) for the 2003 World Cup. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced on Monday that it had sent a notice to the world cricket body to arrange the talks and said it would seek arbitration if the move did not bear fruit. Making the announcement, BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya told reporters he had also resigned from the ICC's World Cup contracts committee set up to review the sponsorship contract. "I strongly feel that when the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has decided to test the legality of clauses, it is not fair on my part to remain on that committee as difference of opinion could come at this stage. In all fairness to the ICC, they have not asked (for my resignation) but I have decided to resign and in fact I have resigned this morning from the World Cup Contract Committee," Dalmiya said. The IDI is the world cricket body's marketing arm which signed a 550 million dollar rights deal for its events up to 2007. Dalmiya said it was for the IDI to name the mediator, but it could be someone from South Africa. The ICC will have to initiate the mediation within a fortnight, he said. Laxman Out of 15-member World Cup Team (Go To Top) KOLKATA: The 15-member Indian team announced on Monday for the World Cup has no major surprises. The announcement was made by the BCCI secretary SK Nair after a meeting of the selection committee which held a tele-conference with captain Sourav Ganguly and coach John Wright now in New Zealand. Dinesh Mongia has come in place of VVS Laxman whose omission was widely expected because of his low scores (only 593 runs from 21 matches this year with 99 as the highest). Axe has fallen on medium-pacer Rakesh Patel, who is in the 16-member squad in New Zealand. Team: Sourav Ganguly (captain), Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Harbhajan Singh, Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan, Anil Kumble, Parthiv Patel (wicket-keeper), Dinesh Mongia, Sanjay Bangar, Ashish Nehra and Ajit Agarkar. Jamali Wins Trust Vote(Go To Top) ISLAMABAD: Pro-Musharraf Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali on Monday won the vote of confidence in Parliament on Monday despite opposition by Islamic hardliners. Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain announced that Jamali had won 188 votes in the 342-seat National Assembly. "Consequently the resolution for a vote of confidence in Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali as prime minister of Pakistan has been passed," he told the lower house of parliament. Jamali, of the pro-military Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam, was elected prime minister by parliament on November 21 but was required under the Pakistani Constitution to face a confidence vote within 60 days of taking office. He is seen as staunchly loyal to Pakistan's army ruler General Pervez Musharraf. Jamali's party won 118 seats in a general election in October, and he has since formed a coalition with the support of smaller parties and defectors from the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Maulana Azhar Freed from House Arrest (Go To Top) MULTAN: Maulana Masood Azhar, chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad, has been freed from house arrest and restrictions on his movement have also been lifted, reports the News. Masood Azhar was under house arrest since December 2001 in Bahawalpur. The court had ordered his release on December 14, but the order was implemented only on Sunday, according to his father Ustad Allah Baksh. "It is a day of freedom for us. A day of freedom for me and a day of freedom for my son," said Baksh, a retired government school teacher. Azhar was one of the three militants released by India in 1999 in exchange for the freedom of passengers on a hijacked Indian airliner. Soon after his release, Azhar formed Jaish-e-Muhammad, or the Army of Muhammad, which is the militants group fighting against Indian forces in Kashmir. Osama's Desperate Hunt for Bomb(Go To Top) ISLAMABAD:A leading Pakistani nuclear scientist, barred from talking to reporters, has made it known through his son that Osama bin Laden approached him before the September 11 attacks for help in making nuclear weapons, reports Toronto Star. The son, Azim Mahmood, said in an interview: "Basically Osama asked my father, 'How can a nuclear bomb be made and can you help us make one?'" "My father said, 'No, and secondly you must understand it is not a child's play for you to build a nuclear bomb.' " The scientist, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, is under a gag order from Pakistani intelligence officials, but his conversations with Bin Laden in 2000 and as late as July 2001 were reconstructed by his son. Azim Mahmood said his father met bin Laden in Afghanistan several times, "and definitely this question of building a nuclear bomb came up." The father was detained in November 2001, questioned and freed in February, but has to carry a mobile phone at all times so Pakistani intelligence can track his movements, the son said. Mahmood first met Bin Laden in 2000 while visiting Afghanistan to build a school, the son said. "My father shared the Taliban thinking. He liked their system of government. He wanted to help them." When Bin Laden learned a nuclear scientist was in Kabul, he sent an Al Qaeda operative, Abu Bilal, to arrange a meeting, the son said. The two men met several times in the Afghan Capital. Pak Legislator, Six others Shot Dead (Go To Top) LAHORE: Member of the Punjab Assembly and provincial president of Pakistan Muslim League-Jinnah, Chaudhry Muhammad Farooq, was gunned down along with his six companions by unidentified assailants at Dandy Dara, 8 kilometres from Sarae Alamgir, on Sunday. Chaudhry Farooq and his companions were on their way to Sarae Alamgir in a car when some unknown attackers opened indiscriminate fire on their vehicle, resulting in the instant death of Chaudhry Farooq, his body guards and driver. Poachers Arrested, Leopard Skin Seized in Uttaranchal (Go To Top) UDHAMSINGH NAGAR: (Uttaranchal): Two poachers have been arrested from their hideouts in remote Bhur Chirwa village in Udhamsingh Nagar district of Uttaranchal and a rare leopard skin seized from them. UR Arya, a police official, said the animal's skin could fetch up to Rs 50,000 in the ternational market. Poachers, according to him, have been actively operating in the hill State, targetting elephants, tigers and leopards which were declared endangered species under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. Environmentalists say the Indian Government is not doing enough to protect its wildlife, particularly the leopards whose number has decreased to around 3,000 from 50,000 in 1947. Trade in wildlife products is banned in India, but skins and bones believed to have medicinal values are in great demand in the international market. 25 More Indian Buses Sent to Afghanistan (Go To Top)
WAGAH BORDER (Punjab): A convoy of 25 buses was flagged off from Wagah border checkpost on Sunday as the New Year's gift for war-torn Afghanistan. With this, Afghanistan has received 75 buses in three consignments as a goodwill gesture from India. Twenty-five drivers, three engineers and six transport officials from Afghanistan accompanied the buses on their 1,400-km long journey through Lahore, Peshawar, Jalalabad to the Chaman border between Pakistan and Afghanistan before proceeding to Kabul. These vehicles have been specially designed for the country's rough roads and terrain. In the past, India has supplied over 800 buses to Afghanistan between 1974-92, a large number of which are still operating in that country. India is offering technical, medical and financial aid to help reconstruct Afghanistan, ravaged by years of civil war and US-led air raids. Vaiko, Eight Others Charge-sheeted (Go To Top) CHENNAI: A charge-sheet was filed by Tamil Nadu police on Monday against MDMK chief Vaiko and eight others, arrested in July under POTA for their alleged speech supporting the banned LTTE. They had been charged under Section 21 (2) and (3) of the Pota. The charge-sheet, running into 440 pages, was filed at the designated POTA court in Poonamalee. 27 Prisoners Die in Iran Fire (Go To Top) TEHERAN:Twenty-seven prisoners were killed as a fire swept through a prison in northern Iran on Monday, the official IRNA news agency said. The fire which broke out in the early hours of Monday in Gorgan town near the Caspian Sea was probably caused by an electrical fault, the agency said. "Unfortunately, the fire killed 27 prisoners and injured some 50 others," it quoted the prisons head as saying. The victims were all men between 20 and 69. Family Feud in House of Jaipur As Maharaja Names His Heir(Go To Top) JAIPUR: A feud has sparked in the royal family of the Maharaja of Jaipur, Bhawani Singh, who owns some of Rajasthan's most marvellous palaces and forts worth crores of rupees, after he named his five-year-old grandson as his heir. The 71-year-old maharaja has no son. Hense he formally adopted his daughter's son, Padmanabh, and named him as his heir some time ago. But his brothers Jai, 69, and Prithvi Raj Singh, 67, sought a High Court writ, claiming that the family's wealth should be shared. They quoted an ancient Rajput tradition of naming an heir from the male line. According to family members, both sides will lay claim to Jaipur's palaces and forts, which have been transformed into lucrative five-star hotels. Bhawani Singh is the richest of India's 600 maharajas. Full Skeleton of 50-ton Ocean Monster Discovered (Go To Top) LONDON: Bones measuring 65 feet from nose to tail, teeth packed into 10 ft jaws powerful enough to bite through granite and a total physical weight of 50 tons - these are the characteristics of Liopleurodon ferox, a fearsome carnivore that terrorised the seas 150 million years ago. The complete skeleton of the largest predator of all times have been found by German and Mexican palaeontologists although its existence was known in 19th century through partial fossils, according to a report in Times Online. The details of the October discovery have been published in the German magazine, Der Spiegel. The marine behemoth was also featured in the BBC series Walking With Dinosaurs. Far larger than Tyrannosaurus rex, the skeleton of this "Monster of Aramberri," nicknamed after the place in Mexico where it was located, is likely to throw light on the beast's last meal and the cause of its death. It used to hunt the ancestors of the modern shark and aquatic reptiles such as ichthyosaurs. The skull, as large as a car, was found to have a huge hole in it. -ANI |