Govt failed to control prices: Nawaz

Talking to mediamen after having a meeting with PML-N coordination committees, he said the yellow cab scheme was announced in the budget.

According to plan, 20,000 cabs would be launched at once and distributed candidly on easy installments. It would not only eradicate unemployment but also promote the industrial sector.

He suggested that the federal government should launch such schemes on national level.

He said that the government had failed to control over price hike. If the expenses of government are curtailed, “we need no foreign aid”, he added.

CM Shahbaz Sharif himself drove the cad while Nawaz Sharif sit on the front seat and Zafar Iqbal Jhagra and Pir Sabir Shah in the rear.

China Pledges Regular Patrols Near Disputed Islands

China has said it will do more to protect its fishing grounds next year, with regular patrols near disputed islands in the East China Sea that sparked a huge row with Japan.

The collision of a Chinese fishing trawler and two Japanese coastguard ships near the uninhabited islets, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, led to the worst breakdown in ties between Asia’s top two economies in years.

“Normal patrols to safeguard fishing around the Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea will be organised in 2011,” fisheries administration director Zhao Xingwu, was quoted Friday by the China Daily as saying.

Surveillance of fishing grounds in the South China Sea and Yellow Sea — where one Chinese fisherman died and another remained missing after a clash with South Korean coastguards last week — will also be stepped up, Zhao said.

Chinese fishermen ply the waters near the mainland, but also travel as far away as the Pacific islands of Fiji and Tonga, or the waters off east African nations such as Kenya and Tanzania, which have given them special concessions.

But in the East and South China Seas, they are treading on the competing territorial claims of more than a half-dozen Asian countries, most of which involve tiny island chains that are potentially resource-rich.

Japan has protested China’s patrols near the islands in the East China Sea, which are claimed by both countries and Taiwan. Patrol boats from the two sides were involved in a brief standoff last month, Chinese state media said.

The two sides have worked to restore ties since the incident, which saw Beijing reduce political, cultural and economic exchanges with Tokyo.

Escalation of Korean tensions must be prevented: China

BEIJING: China’s foreign minister on Wednesday called for all parties involved in the Korean peninsula crisis to avoid actions that “inflame the situation”, state-run Xinhua news agency said.

The comments came as the US and South Korean navies ended a major exercise in the Yellow Sea intended as a warning to North Korea following last week’s deadly artillery strike on the South — war games strongly opposed by China.

“The parties concerned should keep calm and exercise restraint, and work to bring the situation back onto the track of dialogue and negotiation,” the agency quoted Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi as saying.

China had come under growing international pressure to step in forcefully to restrain the unpredictable regime in Pyongyang after the shelling, which left four people dead and led to increased tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Beijing has

Escalation of Korean tensions must be prevented: China

BEIJING: China’s foreign minister on Wednesday called for all parties involved in the Korean peninsula crisis to avoid actions that “inflame the situation”, state-run Xinhua news agency said.

The comments came as the US and South Korean navies ended a major exercise in the Yellow Sea intended as a warning to North Korea following last week’s deadly artillery strike on the South — war games strongly opposed by China.

“The parties concerned should keep calm and exercise restraint, and work to bring the situation back onto the track of dialogue and negotiation,” the agency quoted Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi as saying.

China had come under growing international pressure to step in forcefully to restrain the unpredictable regime in Pyongyang after the shelling, which left four people dead and led to increased tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Beijing has

Thai PM Abhisit Faces Court

BANGKOK: Thailand’s prime minister is due in court on Monday as his party tries to fend off a possible ban that threatens to further shake the kingdom’s fractured political landscape.

Abhisit Vejjajiva, alongside other executives, faces a five-year ban from politics and the ruling Democrat Party could be dissolved if it is found guilty of corruption by the Constitutional Court.

The premier is set to be a witness for the defence in what could be the final hearing before judges rule on the case, which centres on claims of misuse of a 29-million-baht (900,000-dollar) state grant in 2005.

“We are satisfied with the facts we have presented to the court and confident our party has done nothing wrong,” Democrat lawyer Virat Kalayasiri said.

The party faces accusations that it paid 23 million baht to advertising firms, despite only having permission to spend 19 million on billboard marketing.

Thailand’s Election Commission (EC) in April called for the party to be abolished over the claims as well as a separate case alleging an undeclared political donation.

Abhisit on Sunday rejected accusations that a member of his party had attempted to influence the court’s decision.

“It is not necessary to do that. The Constitutional Court should be independent and we do not want to see any lobbying,” he said on his weekly television show.

The Prime Minister added that the court is likely to reach a verdict next month.

Judicial rulings have played a pivotal role in shaping the kingdom’s politics in the past.

The Democrats, Thailand’s oldest party, came to power two years ago after controversial court decisions ousted allies of fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was dislodged in a 2006 military coup.

Two premiers were deposed from office by the judiciary in 2008 — one of whom, Samak Sundaravej, was removed for taking payments for hosting TV cooking shows.

Uncertainty over the government comes at a difficult stage for the deeply divided country.

April’s EC intervention coincided with a tense standoff between troops and “Red Shirts”, which descended into violence that left over 90 people dead and almost 1,900 injured during two months of unrest.

Experts question whether powers thought to support Abhisit’s ruling coalition — including the military and Yellow Shirt movement, representing the Bangkok elite in palace circles — would allow the Democrats to be toppled.

Author and former Thai diplomat Pavin Chachavalpongpun said he does not believe the party will be disbanded.

“What is the point of staging a military coup in the first place when they know the party they rely on will have to be dissolved?” he said.

However, he said one potential motive would be as a gesture to the Red Shirts to rebuff allegations of double standards in the legal system.

Pavin said “even then, they will have a plan B”, with rumours that a new party would swiftly rise from the ashes of the old.

“They will still carry on the mission of maintaining the status quo but that is a deeper, more complicated game. I still don’t believe that the Democrat party will be dissolved,” he said.

Michael Montesano, of the Institute of South East Asia Studies in Singapore, said: “It is possible that there will be dissolution of the Democrat Party and it could happen for one of several reasons.”

He said it could be that the Yellows “decided that the Democrats and Abhisit had outlived their usefulness”, or the judge makes the decision on the basis of the law. Another reason would be as a concession to reconciliation efforts.

Montesano said it appears a new party — “Democrat in all but name” — would try to boost its electoral chances ahead of next year’s poll.

But Montesano said those involved still had not managed to reach out to the rural poor and working class.

“There is every indication that the Democrats and their allies do not really know what to do in order to reshape the political landscape so that they can win the next election.” he said.

Home Minister upset with Big B’s comments on Metro rail; Big B clarifies

Here is a squabble between a politician and a celebrity yet again. The politician being Mr. RR Patil and the celebrity in question is none other than Big B. Here is how it all started. On the morning of August 29, Big B wrote his blog as usual where he started out with a mention about the much in talk ‘Mumbai Metro rail’. He went on to say in his blog, “The metro rail being laid over the metropolis called Mumbai, some under the ground, some above over large tracts of cement structures is taking shape. There is general happiness from the commuters, for, the misery of crowded locals and the uncertainties of the three-wheeler or the yellow black cab shall hopefully be greatly reduced. But here is the killer… its going to roll over Prateeksha!! Yesterday the authorities came over to check externally the structural condition of all houses that would get affected by the rail car moving in its proximity and they came into Prateeksha. So bye bye privacy and hello fellow traveller.” Reading this Home Minister RR Patil was rather upset. He went ahead and commented to the media that Mumbai traffic has been steadily growing and the common man is spending almost 4-5 hours commuting. And it is them that one should be thinking off.

Understanding Mr Patil’s ire, Amitabh was quick to explain as he said in a letter to the media that, “Mumbai as a city has given my family and me a place in their hearts besides recognition and respect.” He went on to say, “My blog represents my heart and on the matter of the Metro it clearly says the ‘general happiness’ that it brings to ‘commuters’ and that ‘the misery of crowded locals and the uncertainties of the three wheeler or the yellow black cab shall hopefully be greatly reduced’. Indeed I have ended the piece by saying welcome ‘fellow passengers’. By fellow passenger I include myself as one.”

It seems like Big B is time and again misunderstood by one and all. Earlier in the year he had to heavily explain his comments on the editing of the film Raavan and now the metro rail. Wonder what’s next?

N. Korea fires artillery into sea as tensions rise

SEOUL: North Korea fired an artillery barrage Monday into waters near the disputed inter-Korean sea border as tensions rose over a South Korean naval exercise and the seizure of one of Seoul”s fishing boats.

Seoul military officials said the North”s batteries fired about 130 shells into the Yellow Sea soon after the South”s navy ended a five-day naval exercise south of the borderline — for which the North had threatened retaliation.

“Our navy was placed on high alert, closely watching the movement of North Korean troops,” a Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) spokesman told a foreign news agency.

The North”s seizure Sunday of a South Korean fishing boat in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), on the other side of the peninsula, has further inflamed tensions.

Most shells landed on the North Korean side of the borderline but some fell on the southern side, according to a JCS official quoted by Yonhap news agency.

Three minutes after the firing began at 5:30 pm (0830 GMT), the South”s navy patrol ships warned the North Koreans by radio to stop firing but the warning was ignored, the official said.

South Korea”s largest-ever anti-submarine exercise was a show of force after Seoul accused its neighbour of torpedoing a South Korean warship in March near the contested border.

The North, which denies staging the attack that killed 46 sailors, had warned of “strong physical retaliation” against the navy drill which it described as a preparation for invasion.

The border drawn by UN forces after the 1950-1953 Korean War was the scene of deadly naval battles in 1999 and 2002 and a firefight last November which left a North Korean boat in flames.

Some analysts believe the alleged torpedo attack was in revenge for the November clash.

Earlier Monday Seoul urged Pyongyang to free the 41-ton squid fishing boat and its crew as soon as possible.

It was unclear whether the weekend seizure was a response to the naval drill, or just an attempt to curb alleged illegal fishing.

The South”s unification ministry said there had been no word from the other side since the Daeseung 55 was detained in or near an exclusive economic zone proclaimed by the North in the Sea of Japan.

The South”s coastguard has said the boat, which was being towed Sunday to the North”s port of Songjin, was presumed to have been in the zone when seized.

“The government has urged the North to deal quickly with the case and release our crew members and their boat in accordance with international law and practice,” said unification ministry spokesman Chun Hae-Sung.

It was unclear where the boat — with four South Korean and three Chinese crew — was located when it was seized, he said.

China”s embassy in North Korea has expressed concern over the reported detention of the boat and crew, Xinhua news agency said.

If the report was confirmed, North Korea “should treat the Chinese crew members well with humanitarianism, guarantee their rights and interests, and inform the Chinese side”, the Chinese agency quoted the diplomats as saying.

South Korea, the United States and other countries cite the findings of a multinational investigation to accuse the North of sending a submarine to torpedo the corvette.

The North says the allegations are a smear campaign designed to furnish a pretext for aggression.

Military officers from the North and the US-led United Nations Command were Tuesday to hold their fourth round of talks on the warship sinking at the border truce village of Panmunjom.

The UN Command has been based in the South since the end of the war to enforce the armistice which ended the conflict.

At previous rounds the North demanded the right to send investigators to the South to inspect evidence dredged from the seabed, including what Seoul says is a part of a North Korean torpedo.

South Korea has rejected the demand, saying the UN Command should handle the case as a serious breach of the armistice.

The exercise which ended Monday was of a series planned in coming months, some of them joint drills between South Korea and its US ally.

Kashyaps That Girl In Yellow Boots at Venice Festival

MUMBAI: That Girl In Yellow Boots , a Hindi thriller film directed by acclaimed film-maker Anurag Kashyap and co-produced by National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) has been selected for the esteemed 67th Venice Film Festival.

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Kashyaps That Girl In Yellow Boots at Venice Festival

S.Korea to stage joint naval drill despite China protest

SEOUL: South Korea said Friday it would stage a naval exercise with the United States in the Yellow Sea to deter North Korean “provocation”, despite strong protests from China about the drill.

“The date and methods have not yet been decided but the South Korea-US joint military exercise will be carried out,” said defence ministry spokesman Won Tae-Jae.

“The joint exercise in the Yellow Sea is being planned as North Korea carried out an illegal provocation, the sinking of the Cheonan.”

The South, citing the findings of a multinational investigation, accuses the North of torpedoing the warship in March with the loss of 46 lives. The North angrily denies responsibility.China warned the United States and South Korea Thursday against holding the war games near its waters, and urged them not to worsen tensions with its ally North Korea.

Germany rout Argentina to march into semi-finals

CAPE TOWN: Striker Miroslav Klose celebrated his 100th cap with two second-half goals to help Germany reach the World Cup semi-finals with a 4-0 demolition of Diego Maradona”s outclassed Argentina on Saturday.

Germany now face either Spain or Paraguay, who meet later on Saturday, in Durban next Wednesday with a place in the final at Johannesburg”s Soccer City on July 11 at stake.

A third-minute goal by Thomas Mueller gave Germany a 1-0 lead, before the three-time champions turned the screw after the interval.

Klose netted in the 68th minute, centre-back Arne Friedrich scored his first for his country six minutes later before Klose completed the rout with an 89th-minute volley which gave him a 14th World Cup goal, just one behind Ronaldo”s record of 15.

German coach Joachim Loew got the better tactically of a bewildered Maradona as the men in black defended doggedly and attacked in numbers.

World footballer of the year Lionel Messi was tightly marked by Mueller and Bastian Schweinsteiger as Argentina”s star-studded side failed to shine.

The only blot on Germany”s copybook was Mueller”s first-half yellow card which sees him suspended for the semi-final.

Klose was lucky not to receive a yellow card in the opening minute, when he fouled Argentina captain Javier Mascherano, but the Germans were soon in front.

They took the lead after just three minutes when Mueller headed home a Schweinsteiger free-kick for his fourth goal of the tournament, the ball deflecting in off goalkeeper Sergio Romero”s leg.

Argentina right-back Nicolas Otamendi earned the first yellow card of the game on 11 minutes for a foul on Friedrich.

The South Americans” first sight of goal came when Messi slid a pass through the German defence to Carlos Tevez, but goalkeeper Manuel Neuer raced from his line to deal with the threat.

Mueller”s bright start then suffered a setback when he picked up his yellow card for handling the ball on 35 minutes.

Argentina had an encouraging start to the second-half as Real Madrid new boy Angel Di Maria fired a long-range shot which had Neuer at full-stretch on 48 minutes and Per Mertesacker blocked a shot from Tevez on 54 minutes.

But Germany extended their lead when Podolski found space on the left flank and passed back inside for Klose to score on 68 minutes.

Schweinsteiger helped make sure of Germany”s place in the last four when he darted through the Argentinian defence to give Friedrich a simple tap in on 74 minutes to claim his first international goal on his 77th appearance.

Argentina”s defence crumbled as Klose completed the demolition with his 52nd goal for Germany as he volleyed home a cross from Mesut Ozil just before the final whistle.

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