Israel general strike enters second day, talks failed

 

A general strike in Israel entered its fifth day on Sunday after late-night talks between trade unions and the government failed again to resolve their differences.

 

The two sides were to report on the status of their negotiations to the national labour court later on Sunday, which will decide whether to allow the strike to continue.

 

Uncollected rubbish was piling up on streets. Many drivers of the national bus corporation joined the strike, disrupting travel on the first day of the Israeli working week.

 

“We hope it will end as soon as possible,” Jihad Akl, manager of the Histadrut trade union confederation s situation room, told public radio.

 

Histadrut and finance ministry representatives failed again late Saturday to resolve their dispute over the rights of contract workers, who have lower salaries than full-time colleagues and few benefits, and can be fired without notice.

 

Ben Gurion international airport, railways and harbours were open on Sunday, but government offices, banks and the stock exchange kept up the open-ended strike.

 

The issue of contract workers has been simmering for months, with the Histadrut staging a four-hour strike in the same dispute in November.

 

It wants to see contract workers receive the same benefits as others, and has called on the government to hire some of the contract workers as full employees.

 

The government says it is willing to make some concessions on the status of contract workers but that it would be economically disastrous to offer them all the same rights as permanent staff.
 

English FA will explain everything after Capello’s exit

 

England s Football Association will give its version of the events that led to Fabio Capello s resignation as coach when it holds a media conference Thursday.

 

Capello quit Wednesday, angry that he had not been consulted about the FA s decision to strip John Terry of the captaincy.

 

Capello said Terry should have led the side at the upcoming European Championship since his criminal trial for racially abusing an opponent is not scheduled until after the June 8-July 1 tournament.

 

Capello s resignation came on the same day that the man most favored to replace him, Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp, was cleared of tax evasion in a London court.

ICC lauds Afghanistan cricket development

 

War-ravaged Afghanistan s fairy-tale rise in cricket is a success story in the development and growth of the game, a further step arriving with their first-ever one-day international against Pakistan here on Friday.

 

Afghanistan joined the International Cricket Council eleven years ago, rose rapidly on cricket horizons in 2009 when they won the right to one-day status by finishing fifth in the World Cup 2011 qualifiers.

 

They won the qualifying rounds to feature in the World Twenty20 held in the West Indies in 2010 and in the same year won the Inter-Continental Cup for Associate countries before finishing silver medallists at the Asian Games in China.

 

Cricket, developed through refugees who learned the game while in Pakistan during the Russian invasion in 1979, is now the most sought after game in Afghanistan.

 

Tim Anderson, ICC global development manager, said Afghanistan s progress is amazing.

 

“We are delighted with Afghanistan and they are a wonderful story for us to tell how you can overcome the challenges and work through the system,” Anderson, a former Australian junior team captain, told reporters.

 

“We are really excited about Afghanistan and they are making some great grounds in terms of infrastructure development in and around Kabul. They are making some other centeres and making good grounds in administration.”

 

Anderson praised the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for giving Afghanistan an opportunity to play a one-dayer against their team.

 

“Credit to PCB for allowing Afghanistan to play a one-day and I offer them best wishes in this match as it is important for these growing nations to play bigger teams in order to progress,” said Anderson, highlighting China and the United States as other big developing nations.

 

“ICC tend to talk about China and USA in the same breath, whereas the USA has a significant cricket culture as there is a large Asian and Caribbean community so they take a lot of interest, but China on the other hand has next to no cricket culture.

 

“The Asian Cricket Council is doing a great job in China by trying to build some momentum, there is a big facility in Guangzhou and having cricket in the Asian Games was a big plus.

 

“There is definite potential in China but it will take a little while to grow.”

 

The ICC Development Programme was launched in 1997. According to the ICC there are approximately 700,000 male and female participants currently involved in formal cricket programmes outside the Full Member nations.

 

The ICC has set an ambitious strategic target of more than doubling this number to over 1.5 million participants by 2015.

 

ICC has ten full, 59 associates and 36 affiliate members.

 

Anderson said the objectives of the development programme was to increase the number of countries.

 

“The main objectives of the development programme is to build the number of countries at the highest level of the game that can be competitive. Afghanistan and Ireland are in that cateogry and on the other hand we have our focus on the grassroots as well,” he said, praising the growth of Nepal and Papua New Guinea.
 

US, Australian filmmakers killed in copter crash

LOS ANGELES: Cinematographer Mike deGruy and Australian television writer-producer Andrew Wight have died in a helicopter crash in eastern Australia, their employer National Geographic said Sunday.

Police said two people — an Australian pilot and an American passenger — died Saturday when their helicopter crashed soon after takeoff from an airstrip near Nowra, 97 miles north of Sydney, but they did not immediately release the victims’ identities.

National Geographic and “Titanic” director James Cameron confirmed the victims’ identities in a joint statement that said “the deep-sea community lost two of its finest” with the deaths of the two underwater documentary specialists.

David Bennett, president of Australia’s South Coast Recreational Flying Club, said the pair had set off to film a documentary when they crashed.

DeGruy, 60, of Santa Barbara, California, won multiple Emmy and British Academy of Film and Television Arts, or BAFTA, awards for cinematography.

Wight, 52, of Melbourne, was the writer-producer of the 3D movie “Sanctum,” which took in $100 million and was Australian cinema’s biggest box office hit of 2010.

The joint statement said deGruy spent 30 years producing and directing documentary films about the ocean. An accomplished diver and submersible pilot who spent many hours filming deep beneath the sea, he was the director of undersea photography for Cameron’s 2005 “Last Mysteries of the Titanic,” the statement said.

“Mike and Andrew were like family to me,” Cameron said. “They were my deep-sea brothers and both were true explorers who did extraordinary things and went places no human being has been.”

After spending three years at the University of Hawaii in a Marine Biology Ph.D. program, DeGruy moved to the Marshall Islands, according to his website. He spent three years there, working as the manager of the Mid-Pacific Marine Lab, with his knowledge of and fascination with the ocean growing rapidly.

DeGruy spent much of his early film career traveling the world, shooting films for clients including the BBC, PBS and National Geographic, his website says. He later began producing and hosting the films.

HEC, Microsoft join hands to provide software for students

Higher Education Commission (HEC) in collaboration with the Microsoft Pakistan has launched National Student Software Accessibility (NSSA) Portal to provide genuine software availability to the higher education sector. The service will streamline software distribution to all faculty members and students of public sector universities in the country.

All public sector universities recognized by HEC have been provided a customizable Portal for licensed software distribution. The portal consisting of around 150 software applications will enable over one million students and about 40,000 faculty members to download genuine Microsoft software.

The event to mark the launch of the portal was held at HEC Secretariat and was attended by the Vice Chancellors, Rectors, Directors, and representatives from different universities of the country.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Javaid R. Laghari, Chairperson HEC said that this is a great opportunity for institutions of higher learning to gain access to a broad spectrum of technology and enable the country to move towards a knowledge-based economy, ultimately benefiting the country through socioeconomic development.

“I appreciate Microsoft’s commitment for development of the education sector in Pakistan. It is always fruitful for public sector and private enterprise to combine expertise, knowledge and resources to ensure successful and sustainable education transformation. Microsoft has facilitated HEC to attain its goals by transforming education, fostering local innovation and creating jobs and opportunities through the Strategic Education Alliance,” the Chairperson said.

Mr. Kamal Ahmed, Country General Manager, Microsoft Pakistan said that Microsoft believes that Information and Communications Technology, combined with education, provides the path to individuals, communities and nations to achieve their potential.“NSSA provides support for a comprehensive joint public/private implementation plan that will sustain Pakistan’s objective of achieving education excellence. It is aligned with the key strategic aims of transforming education, fostering local innovation and use of genuine software,” he said.

The portal will further strengthen HEC’s objectives of equipping university students and faculty members with the latest technological access across Pakistan.

Last year Microsoft and HEC entered into the agreement to provide centralized IT services to the universities and degree awarding institutions across Pakistan while maintaining the highest standards in the use of ICT across higher education sector in the country.The alliance consists of Faculty Connection, Microsoft Student Partner Programme, Imagine Cup, Course Lab Integration, Student to Business Interaction (S2B), .NET clubs and MSDN Academic Alliance.

Indian Cricket Team Personal Accident Policy

World cup is starting from 19th February and the fever of cricket is on his top. Indian cricket board has also insured every player of Indian team going for world cup worth $ 500,000. There is another insurance policy has been taken by BCCI worth Rs 130 crore to secure them from matches affected by bad weather.

Oriental Insurance Company Deputy General Manager said that BCCI has taken group personal insurance policy from them. The players’ participation in the world cup will get the cover of Rs 2.3 crore under this insurance policy.

The main purpose of policy is to provide financial shelter to players from injuries. This policy will provide them benefit in case of death, disability or injury during the match, on or off the field accident. The duration of the insurance is of two months. It starts from 10th February and ends on 9th April.

The policy is in accordance with ICC laws. There is another policy introduce by the board of amount 1 crore. This is contingent policy and its purpose is to protect the board from financial loses due to cancellation of matches resulting from bad weather. There is a rule that if match went off without bowling a single ball then board could claim the compensation.

Pakistan starts training for NZ tour

LAHORE: Pakistan’s cricket team started training at a camp set up in Qaddafi Stadium, Lahore, ahead of the upcoming tour of New Zealand.

Pakistan is to play three Twenty20 International, six one-day international and two Test matches during the tour.

Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul, Younis Khan, Shahid Afridi and other players joined the camp which will continue till December 15.

Coach Waqar Younis is supervising the camp.

On the first day of training, Team Manager Intikhab Alam told reporters that none of the players had sought the board’s permission to participate in advertisement shoots.

“The World Cup is just three months away. Players should only concentrate on their game,” he said.

To a question, he responded that Javed Miandad will assume charge any time today. Trend Pk

Alam sees progress for Pakistan cricket

ABU DHABI: Manager Intikhab Alam on Thursday expressed confidence that Pakistan cricket was heading in the right direction after drawing the two-Test series against South Africa.

Both Tests were drawn and Alam believes this will establish a solid platform for his team to build upon following a turbulent last four months.

Pakistan cricket was rocked by spot-fixing allegations which led to the suspensions of former Test captain Salman Butt and bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer, leaving them to rebuild their system.

The International Cricket Council directed the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to take serious measures to curb corruption and disciplinary problems in their cricket or face crippling sanctions.

Alam said Pakistan cricket was progressing both on and off the field.

“We have put in a lot of efforts and I think with a good result in

Pakistan team flies to UAE for South Africa series

Staff Report

LAHORE: The national cricket team today left for UAE where it is to play two Tests, five One Day Internationals (ODIs) and two Twenty20 matches against South Africa during a month-long tour.

Out of the two, one T20 match will be played to raise funds for the flood victims of Pakistan. The floods killed more than 1,600 people and left more than four million homeless.

A large number of cricket fans were present at Lahore airport to see the team off amid cheers.

Speaking to newsmen, Manager Intikhab Alam said Pakistan is mentally and physically prepared to take on the formidable Proteas.

He was confident that Afridi’s team would put up a good show in the ODIs. SAMAA

PCB appoints Intikhab Alam as manager

KARACHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has brought back former test captain, Intikhab Alam as the manager of the national team after the troubled tour to England.

“Intikhab Alam has been appointed manager only for the South Africa series,” PCB media manager Nadeem Sarwar told Reuters.

“The board will take decisions on future series later on.”

Alam, who was coach of the national team until early this year, replaces Yawar Saeed who stepped down as manager after the controversial England tour.

Alam was coach between October 2008 to the shambolic tour to Australia early this year after which he was replaced as coach by Waqar Younis. AGENCIES

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