Pakistan could be world’s last polio reservoir: UNICEF

As many as 63 new polio cases have been reported in Pakistan this year.

Daniel Toole, UNICEF s Regional Director for South Asia who is in Pakistan to meet government and UN officials, has emphasised the need to urgently improve local polio response, vaccination outreach, management and accountability for results.

“We must ensure access to all children as specified in the President s National Emergency Action Plan for Polio Eradication in Pakistan. We have a huge task ahead of us, and we must build on lessons learned and act now,” Toole said.

Since beginning of the year, Pakistan has continued to see rising numbers of polio cases. In 2011, a total of 63 cases were reported compared to 36 in the same period last year.

Balochistan province has reported 22 polio cases this year, more than any other region in Pakistan.

The virus, which circulated in five high-risk districts in Balochistan, has spread to districts previously not infected for the past five years.

The militancy-hit tribal belt has reported 20 cases, Sindh province has 14, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province has six, and Gilgit-Baltistan has one case.

Punjab, with 60 per cent of Pakistan s population, has not reported any cases of polio this year and UNICEF said this was a “major accomplishment that must be sustained”.

UK decides to pull out troops from Afghanistan

According to a foreign news agency, Prime Minister Davd Cameron was expected to announce on Wednesday the return of 800 troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year.

According to defence ministry, there will be no British soldier in Afghanistan by year 2015.

US President Barack Obama last month ordered all 33,000 US surge troops home from Afghanistan by mid-2012. France quickly followed suit, saying several hundred French troops would leave by the end of this year.

The Western nations have set a deadline of the end of 2014 to hand over control of security to Afghan forces.

Russia to supply nuclear submarine to India-RIA

MOSCOW: Russia will deliver a nuclear submarine to India by the end of the year, Russia’s navy chief was quoted as saying on Friday by state news agency RIA.

India Pakistan Series Will Held In The End Of This Year: Ijaz Butt

India Pakistan Series Will Held In The End Of This Year: Ijaz Butt

Chairman of Pakistan cricket board Ijaz Butt has said that the positive statement from Indian Foreign Secretary about India Pakistan series is pleasurable. We are about to write the letter to government about the preparation of holding the series matches. Hopefully the cricket lovers will enjoy the series between the two traditional rivals in the end of this year. If it would difficult to play in the home ground Pakistan is ready to play at the neutral venue. While talking to media he said that the decision, of holding series with Pakistan, from Indian side is a positive step and Pakistan appreciates India for this step. In the meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the President of ICC Sharad Pawar and Head of BCCI Shashank Manohar were also present. Manmohan Singh gave instructions about the holding of series between two countries.

Players Will Give Good Performance In India Pakistan Series.

About the performance of Abd-ur-Razzaq and Kamran Akmal in World Cup, he said that both players presented very bad game in World Cup, the cricket of both players is over now so they should quit the game. He further said that it depends upon them that they get position in the team again by proving themselves capable of playing international cricket by giving good performance in domestic cricket. The trend of emptying the place for new players is not there in our country. Senior players do not decide something about quiting their career the cricket board has to decide something about them. This is the issue due to which the board is being criticized. If Shahid Afridi would not have played well, then he too would not be included in the team any more. But he has proved his abilities in World Cup by taking 21 wickets. Misbah-ul-Haq too has given good performance in World Cup so he must not be criticized. Hopefully players will give good performance in India Pakistan series.

India Pakistan Series: Step Towards Betterment of Relations.

It is to be remembered that no India Pakistan series held since Mumbai blast. India Pakistan series would be a positive towards the betterment of bilateral relations.

‘Aarakshan’ during Ramzan

It has been noticed time and again that producers refrain from releasing their movies during the holy month of Ramzan. The reason being, a big chunk of movie-going audience abstain from watching movies during this month, which in turn makes a big dent at the box-office.

That explains why major film-makers either release their films before the holy month of Ramzan or during Eid festivities.

This year, the holy month of Ramzan will begin on the sunset of Sunday, 31 July and will continue for 30 days until Tuesday, 30 August. Surprisingly, Prakash Jha has decided to release AARAKSHAN during Ramzan this year – on 12 August. Not only Jha, even Y-Films, the youth film studio of Yash Raj Films, will release their film MUJHSE FRAAANDSHIP KAROGE on the same date 12 August.

Isn’t Jha making a mistake by releasing his multi-starrer AARAKSHAN during Ramzan? “See, it’s a long weekend – a 4-day weekend – since 15 August is a national holiday. Besides, AARAKSHAN gets a clear run of 2 weeks till BODYGUARD arrives on Eid 31 August, so why should I miss out on this period? The release schedule is packed with multiple films every single week and this seems to be the most appropriate period, in my opinion,” Jha reasons.

Lights off as ”Earth Hour” begins

HONG KONG: Australia’s Opera House was the first of many global landmarks to go dark on Saturday as “Earth Hour” got under way with hundreds of millions of people around the world set to switch off their lights.

The Eiffel Tower in Paris and the world”s tallest building in Dubai will also have their lights turned off for 60 minutes as part of the remarkable event in which people reflect in darkness about how to fight global warming.

“The amount of power that”s saved during that time is not really what it”s about,” Earth Hour co-founder and executive director Andy Ridley told in Sydney, where the movement began in 2007. “What it is meant to be about is showing what can happen when people come together.”

Ridley said a record 134 countries or territories were on board for this year”s event, which organisers have dubbed the world”s largest voluntary action for the environment.

Other landmarks going dark for the hour are Times Square in New York, Beijing”s “Bird”s Nest” stadium that hosted the 2008 Olympics, the London Eye Ferris wheel and Brazil”s Christ the Redeemer statue.

The lights were being turned off from 8:30 pm local time around the world.

The event kicked off in the Pacific, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia, and was then set to roll into Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas as it followed the descending sun.

In Australia, organisers said an estimated 10 million people, nearly half the population, took part, with the Sydney Harbour Bridge another of the landmarks to go dark.

Originally designed as a symbolic act to heighten awareness of everyday energy use, organisers this year asked people to also commit to an action, large or small, that they will carry through the year to help the planet.

As part of the longer-term commitment, Dalian city in northeastern China will spend 1.5 billion dollars planting 340 million trees and Chengdu city in the southwest will make up to 60,000 bicycles available for public rental.

Ridley said Earth Hour, organised by global environment group the WWF, this year would also focus on connecting people online so they could inspire each other to make commitments to help protect the environment.

Hong Kong”s neon waterfront dimmed, while in Singapore all decorative lights were switched off and non-critical operational lights lowered at Changi Airport for an hour. The airport said the effort would result in energy savings equivalent to the total amount of electricity consumed by a four-room apartment over three months.

In Japan, which is reeling from a huge earthquake and tsunami that struck this month, several thousand people and a hotel-turned-evacuation centre in the northeast marked Earth Day.

“People in Japan will have a special feeling this year when they turn the switches off,” WWF spokeswoman Hideko Arai told ahead of the switch-off. “We will not only think about climate change but also the people who need energy in the disaster-hit areas,” she said. (AFP)

The 2011 Razzie Awards

Awards season is hitting its peak tonight with the oscars being announced any minute. But we can’t forget about the all important Razzie Awards. Just in-case you don’t know what a Razzie Award is, they were created by the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation to celebrate the worst films and the most terrible performances of the past year.

This year Sarah Jessica Parker, Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Alba all took home Razzies. Sex in the City was a big winner, Sarah Jessica Parker took home the worst actress award. The film also won worst screen ensemble, worst screen couple and it was also named Worst Sequel.

Not surprisingly none of this year’s winners actually showed up to collect their awards. It’s a shame they couldn’t learn a lesson in humor from Sandra Bullock, she famously showed up at last years Razzie Awards to collect hers.

Oscars Only 1 Week Away

This Sunday it will be the 83rd Academy Awards in Los Angeles. The Academy has just announced that Scarlett Johansson and Russell Brand have been added to the lineup of celebrity presenters.

This year’s main hosts will be James Franco (127 Hours) and Anne Hathaway (Love and Other Drugs).

Last year the coveted Best Picture category was expanded to 10 nominees, this year’s big change will see the Special Effects category go from three to five nominations.

The King’s Speech leads the run with a whopping 12 nominations, followed by True Grit with 10, and then 8 nominations for both The Social Network and Inception.

Tune in this Sunday night for the live broadcast and to find out who this year’s Oscars will go to.

Discovery shuttle poised for historic final launch

CAPE CANAVERAL: Discovery, NASA’s oldest and most journeyed space shuttle, is poised to launch Thursday on its final mission, wrapping up a near three-decade legacy of orbital travel.

When the storied spacecraft lifts off at 2150 GMT, it will mark the beginning of the end of the US space shuttle program, with Discovery the first of the remaining three shuttles headed for retirement this year.

The closure of the US shuttle program will leave a gaping hole in the American space mission, and leaves astronauts to rely on the Russian Soyuz space capsule for transport to the orbiting International Space Station.

But concerns for the future were brushed aside as excitement mounted at Kennedy Space Center for Discovery”s mission, with technical checks moving along smoothly and no hint of the fuel tank woes that delayed the launch in November.

“Everything is on track and going beautifully with the countdown,” said mission management team director Mike Moses. “We’re really looking forward to a very action-packed, successful mission.”

Cracks on Discovery”s external fuel tank emerged just before launch more than three months ago, causing engineers to puzzle for many weeks over the cause and how to fix it.

In January, engineers agreed that installing small metal strips, called radius blocks, on the 6.7 meter- (22-foot-) long U-shaped aluminum brackets, called stringers, would reinforce their strength.

Shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach said the teams preparing Discovery this time had found “no problems at all” as they count down toward lift-off.

“We’re not tracking any issues and it looks like Discovery will fly this time,” said Leinbach.

The rotating service structure around Discovery was rolled away on Wednesday evening, revealing the shuttle on the launch-pad for the first time.

The six-member crew of astronauts headed to bed at 0400 GMT and were to awaken at 1200 GMT for the launch Thursday, NASA said.

The loading of the external fuel tank was to begin at 1225 GMT. The astronauts were expected to board the shuttle at around 1835 GMT.

The mission will be led by commander Steven Lindsey, pilot Eric Boe and astronauts Alvin Drew, Michael Barratt, Steve Bowen and Nicole Stott.

Astronaut Tim Kopra was scratched from the crew list after a bicycle accident in January. He was replaced by Bowen.

The crew plans to deliver the Permanent Multipurpose Module, with extra storage space and an area for experiments, as well as some spare parts and the Express Logistic Carrier, an external platform for large equipment.

The shuttle is also to bring the first humanoid robot to the ISS. The Robonaut 2, or R2, is a joint project of General Motors and NASA and will stay behind when Discovery leaves as a permanent resident of the ISS.

The weather forecast – clear skies, sunshine and a mild breeze – was considered exceptionally good with only a 20-percent chance of conditions that could delay the launch, NASA weather officer Kathy Winters said.

Discovery first flew in 1984. Final flights for the other two remaining in the fleet, Atlantis and Endeavour, are scheduled for later this year.

Endeavour is set for its final takeoff on April 19 and a last mission for Atlantis is scheduled for June 28, though funding for Atlantis remains in question.

There were initially five space shuttles in the fleet — Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff in 1986 and Columbia disintegrated on its way back to Earth in 2003.

The sixth shuttle, Enterprise, did test flights in the atmosphere but was never flown into space. It is already on display at a museum outside Washington.

Oscars telecast to undergo dramatic change

LOS ANGELES: The Oscars are entering the world of virtual reality.

This year’s Academy Awards telecast is taking a radical departure from past years. Producers of the February 27 show are abandoning the concept of a traditional set. Instead, they will rely on a series of “projections” to give the show a constantly changing look.

“Our design this year is actually going to reflect more content than you would usually expect of an awards show of this type,” producer Don Mischer told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview with fellow producer Bruce Cohen in the Kodak Theater. “We’re using our environment to take us to different places, different times, and it will change dramatically. The look will change from act to act.”

Producers plan to take viewers on a trip through Hollywood history.

“We’re doing six or seven scenic transitions during the show, but they are each sort of a different concept,” Cohen explained. “In other words, one might be a scene from a film, one might be a more specific time in history, one might be a specific event, one might be a specific genre. The hope is that we briefly leave the Kodak in 2011 — not literally, but metaphorically — and take the audience, both in the room and on television, to a specific time and place.”

Pressed for more detail, Cohen added, “This is the tenth anniversary of the best animated feature Oscar, so we go to an animated environment to present that Oscar — actually two, animated feature and animated short — but the reason we are there is to celebrate that this is the tenth anniversary of the best animated feature Oscar.”

The transitions, Mischer explained, will not be long segments, but 30-45 second set-ups. “We are not going back to teach history, but to put the awards in context.”

The design scheme grew out of the theme that the two producers devised once they began working on the show back in June. In an extensive review of past broadcasts, they were struck by the two-fold nature of the assignment. On the one hand, they have to come up with something new and different. On the other, they wanted to recognize the previous 82 years of Oscar history.

“Is there any way to approach the show where those two ideas are working together and not fighting each other with every single decision?” they asked themselves. The solution, they decided, was somehow to combine the old and the new.

To that end, they cast Anne Hathaway and James Franco — two of the youngest hosts to ever front the Oscars — as audience surrogates for the journey.

“Yes, they are famous, but they are on their way up,” Cohen said of the two stars. “They are not untouchable, they are not unreachable. We hope they will offer a way in. So everyone come along, and we’ll see through the eyes of these two up-and-coming stars.”

The hosts’ job, he said, will be “to take the audience on this journey of a show that will hopefully start in one place, and if it all goes according to plan, it will take you back to where we started at the end.”

To realize that on stage visually, the producers have been working with production designer Steve Bass, who’s previously worked with Mischer on such shows as the “62nd Primetime Emmy Awards” and “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial.”

While the production has moved into the Kodak to set up the show, it’s been using the daytime hours to hang the physical scenery on which the projections will be displayed, and then during the night another team has been programing the projections. Working throughout this weekend, the goal is to have the whole system up-and-running by Monday. AGENCIES

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