More rain, snowfall forecast as mercury falls

TrendPK.com

KARACHI: The temperatures have further plugged to new lows after downpour and snowfall in different areas of the country on Saturday, TrendPK reports.

The Metrological Department said Karachi, Islamabad, Quetta, Chaman Hub, Parachinar, Charsadda and other parts of the country received rainfalls on early Saturday as the Met forecast more rains in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kashmir, Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan during the next 24 hours.

Weather in Karachi turned pleasant as the city received moderate rain this morning, escalating the cold.

The snow spell is also bringing the mercury down in Balochistan and upper country after mountains of Quetta, Chaman, Dir, Charsadda, Malakand, Marree, Kalam, received snowfall on Friday and Saturday. TrendPK

Gaza rockets rain down after Israeli brutality

Fighters fired over 20 rockets into Israel and the air force hit targets near Gaza City, a day after a rocket killed an Israel.

In what was the first air strike since Saturday afternoon, the Israeli air force fired at a target near BeitLahiya, just north of Gaza City, seriously wounding a 12-year-old boy, medical sources said.

Gaza security sources said militants from the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) had earlier been seen firing medium-range Grad rockets into southern Israel from the same area.

Tensions in and around the Gaza Strip have soared since Thursday when militants staged a series of bloody shooting attacks in the Negev desert, killing eight Israelis and prompting a wave of bloody tit-for-tat exchanges.

It also sparked a diplomatic crisis with Egypt after Cairo said five policemen were killed by Israeli fire as soldiers pursued gunmen involved in the Negev ambushes.

Israel blamed Gaza s Popular Resistance Committees for the bloodshed and in retaliatory air strikes has killed 15 Palestinians, including seven PRC militants and two from Islamic Jihad s armed wing.

Another 48 people have been injured, half of them women and children, medics said.

In the same period, militants have fired more than 100 rockets and mortars at Israeli towns and cities in the south, killing one and injuring dozens more, one critically.

Three illegal Palestinian workers sleeping rough near Ashdod were also injured by rocket fire from Gaza on Saturday, two of them seriously.

On Saturday night, rockets ploughed into Beersheva, which lies some 40 kilometres (24 miles) from Gaza, killing a man and injuring 15, one critically, Israeli medics said.

World’s largest stove destroyed by fire

The giant Michigan Stove, a historic landmark, sits in cinders after a fire apparently burned it to its frame on the locked grounds of the State Fair in Detroit.

A fire has destroyed the world s largest stove Saturday, a Michigan landmark standing at the Michigan state fairgrounds. Fire investigators believe lightning sparked the fire Saturday night. The stove was a total loss.

Built by the Michigan Stove Company, it was first displayed at the World s Fair in Chicago in 1893. The oak stove weighed 15 tons and stood 25 feet high. In 1998, the dismantled stove was pulled out of storage and reassembled at the fairgrounds along Woodward, near 8 mile. Before the automotive boom, Detroit was home to five major stove-making companies, and was called the Stove Capital of the World.

Anger still burns in epicentre of UK riots

Last Sunday residents of the multi-ethnic neighbourhood were assessing the scale of the damage after a night that saw running battles with riot police, homes and businesses reduced to cinders and stores smashed into.

But while the clean-up continues and businesses get back to normal one week on, the tension has not dissipated.

Tottenham High Road, the neighbourhood s main thoroughfare which was the scene of last Saturday s explosion of violence, remained a crime scene for a week, taped off by the police as they gathered evidence.

Saturday should have seen the area streaming with football supporters for Tottenham Hotspur s match against Everton as the English Premier League season kicked off, but the game was postponed for safety reasons.

“We re closed since last Saturday,” a Turkish restaurant owner said as he finally reopened for business, a week on.

“People never demonstrate here to protest. Everybody s unhappy, frustrated. Economy, racism. And suddenly it all explodes,” he said.

The trigger for last Saturday s riot, which then sparked a wave of arson, looting and disorder across London and then to cities beyond, was the death of Mark Duggan.

The 29-year-old was shot dead on Thursday, August 4 by armed police operating with officers from Trident, the unit of London s Metropolitan Police that deals specifically with gun-related murders in the black community.

He was stopped in a pre-planned attempted arrest.

A non-police issue handgun was recovered from the scene. The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which investigates all deaths involving officers, said there was no evidence of an exchange of shots.

Last Saturday s events began with a peaceful march to Tottenham police station on the High Road from Broadwater Farm, a 1960s public housing estate that is notorious across Britain for a deadly 1985 riot.

However, within hours, rioting broke out.

“The people wanted police to know that they re messing up,” reckoned 14-year-old Dillz Shah.

His friend Jeffrey Freeman said: “The people wanted revenge for Duggan s killing.

James Cardelle added: “My dad thinks Duggan was a very good man, he knew him.”

Duggan lived on Broadwater Farm, a collection of ugly-looking grey social housing blocks.

“He was a nice guy. So sad,” said Mohammed Abrar, 22, from beneath a grey hood.

The October 6, 1985 Broadwater Farm riot followed riots a week before in Brixton, south London.

They were sparked by the stroke death of a black woman during a police search at her home on the Tottenham estate.

Youths rioted, attacking police with petrol bombs and bricks. Shots were fired at officers and a policeman was hacked to death by a mob in some of the worst urban rioting in Britain of the past 30 years.

Then, as now, fingers were pointed at police “lies”, but also at “anger” provoked by governments past and present.

In a hairdressing salon opposite a burnt-out two-storey building, the black clientele lambast the authorities and the upper echelons of society.

“They abandon the population”; “the government has tripled the tuition fees”; “they cut the benefits”; “they evict people whose children were involved in the riots”; “these bankers have stolen our money”, they say as they discuss the situation.

Perry Linton, a 50-something, is “frustrated” by a society in which “we worked hard, very hard, to get what? Things went worse”.

Linton adds: “Racism is a big issue”.

Christina Showunmi, a mother in her 40s, replies: “Racism? I don t want to think about it, otherwise it will affect my attitude towards other people. So I just block it out of my mind.”

“True”, other customers say. “We do the same”.

Stella Saunders, 60, was having her nails painted blue.

“The youth are hanging around, have no jobs. If the factories were open, it would keep them busy. Everybody needs hope and an income,” she said.

If not, despair is simply passed on from generation to generation.

“If you have no hope at 14, 15, how can you become a good parent?” she said.

Showunmi warned: “This will happen again and it will escalate. The government will make it happen again.”

Genius: 50 trains to be shut to overcome crisis

Anjum Parvez said trains to be shut permanently to overcome railway crisis.

He said this while addressing a press conference Saturday at Railways Headquarters in Lahore. He regretted passengers were facing difficulties due to late arrival of trains, saying the situation will improve soon.

He said government had approved assistance package for railways under which 100 old engines, 500 passenger coaches, 660 goods wagons and 50 power vans will be repaired. Emergency is in place in railways and all the purchases will be made from respective companies directly through purchase single tenders, he said.

PML-Q’s leader Marvi Memon hurts in road accident

ISLAMABAD: The leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) leader and the Member National Assembly (MNA), Marvi Memon has injured in a traffic accident here on late Saturday, TrendPK reported.

According to sources, her vehicle met accident while was returning home having attended wedding ceremony of the son of her party’s chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.

Rescue efforts have been kicked started following the road mishap as she is being rushed to hospital for medical attainment. TrendPK

Air strikes hit Sabha in central Libya: Libya TV

TUNIS: Western air strikes have targeted military and civilian areas in the town of Sabha, Libyan state television reported on Saturday, quoting a military source.

Firing on mourners in Libya; 15 dead

TRIPOLI: Snipers from Libya”s government forces fired on mourners attending a funeral for slain protesters Saturday, killing at least 15 people as demonstrations calling for the ouster of President Moammar Gadhafi continued for the fifth straight day.

Snipers targeted the thousands of people who were attending a mass funeral in Benghazi, Libya”s second-largest city and the site of violent protests. The mourners had gathered to honour the 35 protesters who were shot by government forces on Friday.

Dozens of mourners were also injured, with many of the victims suffering from gunshot wounds to the head and chest.

“Many of the dead and the injured are relatives of doctors here,” an official at the local hospital told The Associated Press. “They are crying and I keep telling them to please stand up and help us.”

Saturday”s killings pushed the overall death toll to 99 as Gadhafi”s forces crack down hard on protesters calling for an end to his more than 40 years of autocratic rule.

“The blood of our martyrs is still leaking from coffins over the shoulders of the mourners,” one protester told The Associated Press, as she stood beside about 20 coffins in Benghazi.

After Friday”s violence, the government moved to stifle online communication, a key public relations component for organizers of the demonstrations. U.S.-based Arbor Networks said Internet use in Libya ground to a halt shortly after 2 a.m. local time Saturday, with protesters confirming they were unable to get online.

A few hours later, government special forces broke up a camp of protesters, which included lawyers and judges, outside of the Benghazi courthouse. One protester told the Associated Press that soldiers dispersed the crowd by firing tear gas on the group.

After the violence at the funeral, local residents organized neighbourhood patrols through Benghazi as police disappeared from the streets. Residents feared the lack of police presence meant that government forces were preparing to raid homes, particularly of protest organizers, overnight.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague called reports of guns and other weapons being used against demonstrators in Libya “clearly unacceptable and horrifying.” He also criticized limits on media access.

Malcolm Smart of Amnesty International said Saturday that during anti-government demonstrations across much of the Arab world, protesters have remained resolute even when they have been shot at by pro-government forces.

“I think that”s in a sense the inspiration that”s going to the protesters, and also in the minds of those in power and who do not want to go the way of those who were in power in Tunis and in Cairo,” Smart told CTV News Channel, referring to former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and former Tunisian leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who were both forced from power by popular uprisings.

Canada”s Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said the federal government is monitoring events in Libya very closely and is “deeply concerned” about the attacks on peaceful protesters.

“We call on the Libyan government to respect the rights of freedom of expression and assembly and to engage in peaceful dialogue with its people to address legitimate concerns,” Cannon said in a statement.

In Libya, as in Egypt and other nations, protesters want solutions to dire poverty and high unemployment, as well as greater respect for human rights, including the right to peaceful protest.

The demonstrations have largely occurred in the particularly impoverished cities in the nation”s east, although protesters have taken to the streets in the capital of Tripoli.

However, the police and military presence have remained heavy in Tripoli, where one female protester described residents as being “under siege.”

Iran drama wins top award at Berlin film festival

BERLIN: Iranian drama “Nader and Simin: A Separation” won the Golden Bear for best picture at the Berlin film festival on Saturday, fulfilling its billing as overwhelming favourite to scoop the coveted award.

Director Asghar Farhadi’s portrayal of a marriage in crisis explores Iran’s class divisions, religious conservatism and its judicial system while at the same time maintaining the tension of a crime thriller. AGENCIES

Govt. to follow court’s order in BB murder case: Awan

LAHORE: Federal Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan has said that the government will adhere to whatever order the court will issue regarding arrest of former President Pervez Musarraf in Benazir Bhutto’s assassination case.

Speaking to newsmen here on Saturday, Awan said the government will fully cooperate with the court on the issue of Musharraf’s arrest. TrendPK

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