Pashtun Community | Pashtuns | Pashto | http://www.pashtunforums.com// en Fri, 18 May 2012 17:38:39 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.pashtunforums.com/images/bluesaint/misc/rss.jpg Pashtun Community | Pashtuns | Pashto | http://www.pashtunforums.com// <![CDATA[[Afghan News] May 16, 2012]]> http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28840&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 17:36:04 GMT *Karzai To Sign Strategic Pact With Germany *May 16, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Afghan President Hamid Karzai is in Germany for talks... Karzai To Sign Strategic Pact With Germany
May 16, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is in Germany for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel and to sign a long-term strategic partnership agreement with Berlin.
Karzai, accompanied by Foreign Minister Zalmai Rasoul and Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, is also scheduled on May 16 to hold talks with German ministers.
Germany has been one of the leading contributors of NATO troops to Afghanistan over the past decade.
From Berlin, Karzai is due to travel to the United States to attend the May 20-21 NATO summit in Chicago.
The summit is expected to focus on military and civilian support to Afghanistan after NATO and U.S. troops withdraw in 2014.
Australia Pledges Afghan Funds
In a related development, Australia has pledged to contribute $300 million over three years starting in 2015 to assist Afghan forces with the security transition.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Defense Minister Stephen Smith released a statement on May 15 saying that Australia would provide $100 million every year for three years, starting in 2015.
Australia has some 1,550 troops stationed in Afghanistan, mainly as trainers for Afghan forces.
Gillard said in April that Australia would start withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan in 2013.
Gillard said on May 15 that Australia is considering "an ongoing special forces presence" in Afghanistan and would maintain a "substantial development assistance program beyond 2014."
Based on reporting by AP and AFP

Many will profit if Pakistan reopens NATO supply routes
The Washington Post By Richard Leiby Wednesday, May 16, 2012
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - U.S. commanders in Afghanistan want to get war supplies rolling across Pakistan’s borders again. So do Pakistanis in places high and low — from officials trying to balance the nation’s budget to black marketeers who stand ready to plunder the NATO-contracted trucks and oil tankers expected to shortly resume passage into Afghanistan after nearly six months of closed border crossings.
The deal isn’t quite sealed, but Pakistan is set to announce as early as Wednesday its decision to again allow onto its territory the convoys that supply U.S.-backed international forces trying to wind down the decade-long war against the Taliban.
Pakistan’s decision, after months of political posturing and delicate negotiations, is likely to ease strains between Washington and Islamabad. For its renewed cooperation, Pakistan would reap higher tariffs and a payout of at least $1.3 billion in withheld “coalition support funds” for its contribution to the fight against Islamist militants.
Officials on both sides say the agreement will not provide Pakistan the full apology it wants for an incident in which U.S. fighter jets and helicopters mistakenly bombed two outposts on the border with Afghanistan in November, killing 24 Pakistani soldiers. The deaths prompted Pakistan to seal the borders.
Multiple beneficiaries
But for traders such as Baz Muhammad Afridi, happy days will return when the blockade ends. Afridi, 46, who vends looted goods in a bazaar on the outskirts of Peshawar known informally as “the U.S. market,” nearly abandoned his business because of dwindling stock.
Afridi said he sold food, daggers, computers and engineering equipment pillaged from supply convoys. “We were getting quality goods, technological gadgets and American flags at very reasonable prices,” he said Tuesday.
“But the supply suspension nearly stopped our business, and it becomes hard to meet even daily expenses,” he said. “Lower-middle-class people like me will be happy with the reopening of NATO supply lines.”
On the macroeconomic level, Islamabad needs help, too. The $1.3 billion has been penciled into the proposed budget, according to Finance Ministry officials.
And there are other beneficiaries. The Pakistani military — sometimes called Army Inc. because of its sizable stake in commerce, corporations and land holdings — indirectly controls 30 percent of the NATO oil tanker contracts, according to local transporter associations. The military, which played the key role in the NATO-provisioning negotiations with U.S. and Afghan army commanders last weekend, declined to comment on its share of the supply business.
Tribal-area militants will profit, too: They demand protection money from the companies that haul the freight. And they launch attacks to get their slice of what’s inside the steel sea-shipping containers that begin their journey at the port of Karachi and travel hundreds of miles through perilous territory.
“Even the Taliban is the beneficiary. . . . They get weapons and ammunition when they attack the containers,” said a black-market trader in NATO goods, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of Taliban reprisals. “This is one of the financial sources of the militants.”
Not to be left out, police and other local authorities extract bribes to allow convoys to pass, transporters say. It’s part of doing business for companies that are hoping to put 8,000 to 10,000 tankers and trucks back on the roads to reach land-locked Afghanistan.
Cost concerns for NATO
Pakistan shut its border crossings soon after the November attacks, forcing NATO to use other, more costly routes across Central Asia. In the past, NATO has shipped two-thirds or more of its supplies for the Afghanistan war through Pakistan.
Even before the border closure, U.S. military officials had stockpiled several months of material to weather possible problems with the Pakistan route. Those stockpiles have been supplemented by increased shipments through what’s known as the Northern Distribution Network, through Central Asia and Russia.
While new NDN agreements have been signed to expand the types and quantities of goods those countries allow to pass through their territories, the passage is far more expensive and lengthy. The cost and difficulty would increase exponentially as the United States and its coalition partners begin to remove equipment as the coalition withdraws combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
In April, Pakistan’s Parliament unanimously passed guidelines for future dealings with the United States, calling for an end to CIA drone strikes on targets in Pakistan and an apology for “the condemnable and unprovoked” border attacks in November. The Pentagon has called the deaths accidental and regrettable but has concluded that both sides shared blame.
Observers in Islamabad and Washington never expected the drone strikes would end, but an apology was a possibility until April 15 attacks on Western targets in Kabul that U.S. officials attributed to the Pakistan-based Haqqani network.
Pakistan’s willingness to reopen the border, widely signaled Monday, seemed to have an immediate result: On Tuesday afternoon, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen invited President Asif Ali Zardari to this weekend’s Chicago summit, where the alliance will discuss the endgame in Afghanistan.
Despite Washington’s extreme mistrust of Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus — which it blames for harboring militants who attack troops in Afghanistan — Pakistani participation is seen as vital to a settlement with the Taliban and allied insurgents.
Pakistani officials said that Zardari would attend the summit and that the invitation was not linked to the opening of the NATO supply lines.
For people in Pakistan’s insurgency-wracked northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the practical implications of the NATO issue matter far more than the political ones.
Javed Ali Khan, a farmer in his early 30s who lives near Peshawar, said he has to protect himself from militants. He would like the looters to get back in business.
“The prices of weapons, arms and ammunition will come down once the NATO supply is restored,” he said. “American- and European-made pistol prices went up almost double since November 26, 2011.”
That was the day U.S. aircraft bombed Pakistan’s border posts.
Staff writer Karen DeYoung in Washington and special correspondents Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar and Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Pakistan seeks $1M per day to supply Afghan war
McClatchy Newspapers By Saeed Shah May 16, 2012
ISLAMABAD - The cost of the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan is about to rise by $365 million annually under an agreement that would reopen a key NATO supply route through Pakistan that has been closed for nearly six months.
The accord, which the Pakistani government announced late Tuesday, would revive the transport of vital supplies of food and equipment from Pakistani ports overland to land-locked Afghanistan. In return, the U.S.-led coalition will pay Pakistan a still-to-be-fixed fee of $1,500 to $1,800 for each truck carrying supplies, a tab that officials familiar with negotiations estimated would run nearly $1 million a day. The officials requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to reveal agreement details.
Pakistan closed the land route to supplies headed to the coalition after U.S. aircraft mistakenly attacked two Pakistani border outposts Nov. 26, killing 24 Pakistani soldiers. Since then, supplies for coalition forces in Afghanistan have passed through one of two routes that stretch from Afghanistan through central Asia and Siberia to Georgia on the Black Sea. One of the routes is nearly 6,000 miles long. The Pakistan route is less than 500 miles.
Officials in Washington said they didn't know how much of the new cost the United States would bear. As the United States contributes more than two-thirds of the 130,000-strong international force, which operates under the command of NATO, it is expected that Washington will pay most of the new fee.
In return, the United States is asking Pakistan to provide security for the supplies, which are trucked through the country by private local transport companies, and much speedier clearance of customs and checkpoints. Militants and robbers often attack trucks carrying NATO goods. No effective security had been provided in the past.
Before the Pakistan route was suspended, 30 percent of coalition supplies passed through the country, according to the Pentagon.
Reopening the route could be key to plans by NATO forces to end their combat mission in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, a goal that would require the United States and other countries to move equipment out of Afghanistan to Pakistani ports.
U.S. and Pakistani negotiators are still haggling over details of the new supply agreement. A definitive deal is likely by early next week.
The NATO traffic in and out of Afghanistan through Pakistan is anticipated to be as many as 600 trucks a day between now and the end of next year.
Until now, Pakistan, which joined the United States as an ally in invading Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has charged only nominal fees for shipments to U.S.-led forces. But the new charge is considered a Pakistani effort to assert itself in its relationship with Washington, which suffered a series of serious setbacks last year, beginning with a CIA contractor's shooting of two Afghan civilians in January, continuing with the May raid that found and killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and ending with the border outpost attack.

G8 and NATO-athon, with a possible surprise guest
CNN By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst May 16, 2012
Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst and the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden, from 9/11 to Abbottabad."
It's the diplomatic equivalent of hosting both the World Cup and the World Series in the same country on the same weekend.
On Saturday President Obama welcomes the leaders of the world's most powerful countries to the G8 conference at his country retreat at Camp David in Maryland. And the next day he hosts some two dozen NATO heads of state in Chicago.
The challenges of this Diplopaloozaa include some complicated logistics: How do you get eight world leaders and their delegations comfortably situated in the rustic wood chalets that make up Camp David, and which has never hosted this many heads of state before?
And the challenges, of course, also involve trying to resolve some very knotty problems:
-- In a time of contracting budgets, what kinds of commitments are plausible for NATO countries to make to Afghanistan after the alliance withdraws all its combat troops from the country in 2014?
-- What to do about the civil war in Syria?
NATO has invited Pakistan President Asif Zardari to attend its summit, an important and symbolic development, given that its principal focus will be the future of Afghanistan. A discussion without the participation of its much larger neighbor, Pakistan, is a bit like trying to stage "Hamlet" without having Hamlet ever appear on the stage.
Pakistan's presidential spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said Zardari would consider.
Right now Pakistan is blocking the transit of critical NATO supplies over Pakistani roads to Afghanistan. Still, the vital air corridor across Pakistani airspace into Afghanistan remains open.
Pakistan closed the ground routes in protest after NATO forces killed about two dozen Pakistani soldiers last November at a post on the Afghan-Pakistan border, in what NATO has termed an accident.
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Monday raised the possibility of reopening those ground supply routes to Afghanistan, saying their closure was "important to make a point. Pakistan has made a point and now we can move on."
In addition to an agreement on reopening the supply routes, the Obama administration hopes to obtain greater Pakistani involvement in peace talks with the Taliban.
A senior administration official says that there is evidence that the "reconciliation" process with the Taliban -- which the United States has been quietly moving forward with for many months -- has split the Taliban movement; some elements of the Taliban are interested in reconciliation, while others are "very upset" about this idea.
The assassination on Sunday of Mullah Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban minister who was negotiating between the Afghan government and Taliban insurgents -- an attack that has been claimed by a breakaway Taliban faction -- would seem to underline this point.
A key issue that will be discussed in Chicago is who will pay for the Afghan army and police after the NATO drawdown. The expected end strength of the Afghan national security forces will be around 350,000 by 2015, although that is expected to fall to 230,000 by 2017.
The costs to pay for this are estimated to run around $4 billion a year after 2014, and the Afghan government can pay only a small fraction of it.
Although the Obama administration "won't be passing the hat," U.S. officials expect that some NATO countries will announce in Chicago commitments to pay for the Afghan army and police post-2014.
At the Camp David meeting one of the most complex problems that will be discussed is what to do about the conflict in Syria.
Former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan reached an agreement with Syrian President Bashir Assad in April that Assad would observe a ceasefire and pull back his soldiers from urban areas where Assad's forces have killed thousands.
The senior administration official says, "We have been very skeptical about the Annan plan. We have not seen Assad fulfill any part of the deal."
At Camp David, the administration plans to discuss measures about how to hold Assad accountable for his violations of the ceasefire and the human rights of his people.
It will be a long weekend for President Obama and his team. There appear to be no good options in Syria and, like most Americans, NATO countries have grown very weary of the long war in Afghanistan.
CNN's Elise Labott contributed reporting to this piece.

Australia to assist Afghanistan with 100 mln USD annually after 2014
KABUL, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government has announced to assist Afghanistan with 100 million U.S. dollars each year after 2014 when the 130,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) complete security transition process to Afghan government and leave the country, a statement released by Australian embassy here on Wednesday said.
"Australia will contribute US$100 million annually for three years from 2015 as part of international efforts to help sustain and support Afghan National Security Forces beyond the transition process," the statement added.
According to the statement, Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Defense Minister Stephen Smith will take this commitment to the NATO and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) summit in Chicago on May 20-21.
"Australia has a vital national interest in supporting Afghanistan's stability and security after transition. Our commitment to Afghanistan National Security Force (ANSF) funding reflects these enduring national interests," the statement further said.
At Chicago summit, the United States and its allied nations are expected to pledge 4.1 billion U.S. dollars annually after 2014 to Afghan national security forces when the NATO-led forces complete security transition process and depart for their homelands.
The security transition from NATO-led troops to Afghan security forces which began in July 2011 is scheduled to complete by the end of 2014, enabling the multinational peacekeeping force with some 90,000 of them Americans to vacate Afghanistan.
As a significant contributor to ISAF, more than 1,500 Australian troops have been stationed in Afghanistan within the framework of NATO-led ISAF troops to help stabilize the conflict- ridden nation.

Australia Pledges $300 Million Toward Afghan Transition Process
Bloomberg By Jason Scott May 16, 2012
Australia, a military ally of the U.S., will contribute $300 million starting 2015 to support Afghanistan’s forces after the Asian nation becomes responsible for its own security, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said today.
The government will contribute $100 million a year for three years, Gillard, who attends a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit on Afghanistan in Chicago on May 20-21, said in a statement.
Australia has about 1,500 troops in Afghanistan and said last month the majority of its forces will withdraw by as early as mid-2013. During a surprise visit to Afghanistan earlier this month, President Barack Obama defended the 2014 deadline for NATO members to transfer all combat operations to Afghan security forces.
“To consolidate and build on the security gains of the transition strategy, the Afghan National Security Forces will need ongoing funding and training and mentoring support,” Gillard, who spoke by telephone with Obama yesterday, said in the statement. “Australia has a vital national interest in supporting Afghanistan’s stability and security after transition.”
Gillard and Obama “discussed their shared objectives” for the Chicago summit, including the importance of “support for Afghanistan’s security and economic development beyond 2014,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement yesterday.
Australia announced May 8 it will cut defense spending by A$5.4 billion ($5.4 billion) over four years as Gillard attempts to return the budget to surplus next year. The prime minister is allowing 2,500 U.S. Marines to be based in the northern city of Darwin after agreeing with Obama last year to increase cooperation and allow a greater regional presence for American forces.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Scott in Canberra at jscott14@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net

Policeman killed, 5 injured in bomb attack in NW. Afghanistan
KABUL, May 16 (Xinhua) -- An Afghan policeman was killed and five others injured Wednesday in a roadside bombing in northwestern Afghan province of Badghis, a provincial official said.
"A roadside bomb was detonated through a remote control device at about 9 a.m. local time along a road in Muqur district when a police convoy was passing by the area," Deputy Provincial Governor Abdul Ghani Sabiri told Xinhua.
He said a policeman was killed and five other police officials including district police chief Hajji Syia Khan was injured in the attack.
Separately, three local elders were killed and one other injured Tuesday when a gunman riding a motorcycle opened fire in neighbouring Herat province.
"A group of people including several tribal elders were holding a meeting in an open area over a dispute in Shindand district late on Tuesday but the crowd was attacked by a terrorist," a provincial government spokesman Mohiddin Noori told Xinhua on Wednesday.
He said the attacker fled the area and police launched an investigation into the case.
In another development, five Taliban insurgents were killed Tuesday night as the Afghan police, backed by army, launched a sweep operation in Urgu district of northeastern Badakhshan province, provincial police chief General Abdul Sabor Nisbati told Xinhua.
The joint forces also found weapons during the raid but an army soldier and a policeman were also killed in the operation.
The Taliban insurgents, who have been waging a decade-long insurgency, intensified their activities across the country since the beginning of the spring known as "fighting season" particularly after the militant group announced on May 2 that they would launch a spring rebel offensive from May 3 against Afghan forces and some 130,000 U.S. and NATO troops stationed in the country.

As Trained Afghans Turn Enemy, a U.S.-Led Imperative Is in Peril
New York Times By MATTHEW ROSENBERG May 15, 2012
COMBAT OUTPOST SANGESAR, Afghanistan - A burst of gunfire snapped First Sgt. Joseph Hissong awake. Then came another, and another, all with the familiar three-round bursts of an American assault rifle — and the unfamiliar sound of its rounds being fired in his direction.
The shooters were close. His first thought: “Are Taliban inside the wire?”
But it was not the Taliban. Over the next 52 minutes, as his company of paratroopers braved bullets and rocket-propelled grenades in the predawn darkness to retake one of their own guard towers in southern Afghanistan, they found themselves facing what has become a more pernicious threat: the Afghan soldiers who live and fight alongside the Americans.
The attack on Sergeant Hissong’s company, on March 1 at Combat Outpost Sangesar, left two Americans dead along with two Afghan assailants, but it was not the first time that Afghan solders had attacked forces from the American-led coalition, nor would it be the last of what the military calls “green on blue” attacks. Already this year, 22 coalition service members have been killed by men in Afghan uniform, compared with 35 for all of last year, according to coalition officials.
Yet with the coalition as a matter of policy offering only the barest of details about the attacks — the episode at Sangesar, for instance, was disclosed in a 71-word coalition statement — interviews conducted during a week at this outpost provided a rare and detailed account of the violence.
The attacks, and the personal animosity that officials believe have driven most of them, are threatening the joint-training model that is one of the remaining imperatives of the Western mission in Afghanistan. The future of that mission will be a main topic at a NATO summit meeting this weekend, as American and European leaders discuss whether to accelerate their drawdown.
At the personal level, the Sangesar attack was a nightmarish betrayal for the units involved, and in the moments after the violence ended their commanders were already struggling to figure out how the Afghan and American soldiers who share the base could possibly cooperate again.
They knew how quickly the situation could spiral downward. Just days before, hundreds of American advisers had been pulled from Afghan government offices in Kabul after two American officers were killed by an Interior Ministry employee, worsening an already poisonous atmosphere during the rioting that broke out after American military personnel burned Korans. The Afghan and American officers at Sangesar, in southern Afghanistan’s opium poppy belt, decided pulling back from one another was not an option at the base. Instead, they immediately put their men to work together repairing damage from the attack. The Americans also quickly turned down an Afghan Army offer to swap out the Afghan unit based at Sangesar.
Sergeant Hissong’s unit — Company B of the Second Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, from the 82nd Airborne Division — had assumed formal command of the outpost only on the night of the attack. New to the area, the Americans reasoned they needed the local knowledge of the Afghan unit, which had been in place for some time. The base is in the Zhare district of Kandahar Province, the closest thing to home turf for the Taliban, a group founded at an Islamic seminary a few miles from the outpost.
American and Afghan soldiers were back out on joint patrols within a week. Security measures imposed immediately after the attack — like posting armed guards at the American mess hall — had fallen away by the end of the month.
In April, American and Afghan soldiers paired up to successfully push the Taliban from a nearby village.
After watching Afghan soldiers kick down doors and clear mud-brick farm compounds, “it’s hard not to like some of those guys,” said First Lt. Nicholas Olivero, 24, of Fairfax, Va. “But I’d be lying if I said there was trust across the board.”
Another American soldier added: “I don’t always need to have them walking in front of me now. I did for a while.”
Yet Afghan soldiers still complain of being kept at a distance by the Americans, figuratively and literally. The Americans, for instance, have put up towering concrete barriers to separate their small, plywood command center from the outpost’s Afghan encampment.
Also still in place is a rule imposed by the Afghan Army after the attack requiring most of its soldiers to lock up their weapons when on base. The Afghan commanding officer keeps the keys.
One American soldier nonetheless advised a visitor to take an armed escort to the Afghan side of the base, which was about 100 feet away, “just in case.”
The effort at Sangesar to move past the attack, and the difficulties in doing so, exemplifies the broader struggle that American-led forces face as they seek to accelerate the training of the Afghan Army and police forces to take over before NATO’s combat mission ends in 2014.
Sangesar, like hundreds of other coalition outposts scattered across Afghanistan, is split between American and Afghan forces and situated on a few acres in a remote and often hostile area.
Its structures are made of little more than sandbags, heavy-duty tents, plywood huts and Hesco barriers, hulking bales of canvas wrapped in wire mesh and filled with dirt. The guard towers at Sangesar are essentially wooden frames filled out with sandbags and placed atop the base’s exterior wall of double-stacked Hescos.
Specialist Payton Jones, 19, was alone in one of the towers around 3 a.m. on March 1 when two Afghans sneaked up. They killed him with a bullet to the head.
Within minutes, Staff Sgt. Jordan Bear, 25, who was among the first soldiers on the scene, had been fatally wounded in a volley of fire from the tower. When Sergeant Hissong, a 35-year-old on his third tour in Afghanistan, arrived moments later, bullets were still smacking into the ground near where Sergeant Bear had fallen.
The two Afghans in the tower — a soldier and a civilian teacher — were in an easily defended position. The only approach was up a funnel-shaped stretch of open turf that gave them a clear field of fire to repulse any counterattack.
Along with assault rifles, the Afghans had an American machine gun and their own rocket-propelled grenades. One RPG obliterated a sandbagged bunker between a pair of mortar pits at the center of the base, just moments after an American officer had dashed out of it.
Despite the gun and RPG fire, Sergeant Hissong and another soldier managed to sneak closer to the tower along a row of Hescos. But they could not take a clear shot at the tower’s narrow entrance — its only opening — without dangerously exposing themselves.
They turned to their grenade launchers but were too close to the tower for the grenades to detonate once fired. Most landed with nothing more than a thud. The ones that did explode hit the tower’s exterior, inflicting little damage.
Helicopter gunships were soon overhead but could not risk firing their missiles or explosive rounds — the base’s fuel tanks were right next to the tower.
The paratroopers on the ground tried approaching the tower in an armored vehicle. But it was disabled with an RPG before it could be positioned to fire its powerful gun.
That left Sergeant Hissong and his comrade. After firing 17 grenades, they were down to their last one. They tried to position themselves so they could get a clear shot into the tower — and enough distance so it would detonate.
Instead, it bounced off a wall and exploded atop a thick fuel line, sparking a fire that quickly shot toward the main fuel supply: a rubber bladder as big as a swimming pool that was now separated from the flames by only a row of Hescos.
Racing to disconnect the line from the main fuel supply, Sergeant Hissong did not realize Company B had finally caught a break: Flames were also climbing the wooden stairs to the tower, filling it with smoke.
The Afghans in the tower pushed out an exterior window, jumped about two stories to the ground and ran. They made it roughly a hundred yards before being cut down by an Apache helicopter.
The fight was over. But as the Americans and Afghans at the base began to regroup, they soon learned a third conspirator, an Afghan sergeant, remained among their ranks.
At the outset of the attack, the Afghan sergeant had gone to the outpost’s entrance and shot the two guards — a fellow Afghan soldier and an American. Then he sneaked back to his bunk to wait out the fighting with the other Afghan soldiers.
His undoing: He had not killed either man at the entrance. The American was hit in the chest plate of his body armor, knocked down and badly bruised, but nothing more. The Afghan guard was shot clean through the shoulder, a serious but not life-threatening wound, and he quickly identified the third conspirator. Afghan forces detained him immediately.
The coalition and Afghan Army would now have a rare opportunity to interrogate an Afghan soldier who had turned on coalition forces; most are quickly killed in ensuing firefights. Why had three men attacked American soldiers they barely knew? Was it a personal grudge against Americans? Or had they turned to the Taliban?
The detainee has since presumably been asked those questions. But in a reflection of the official reticence to discuss green-on-blue attacks, his answers remain shrouded in secrecy. It is not even clear whose custody he is in.
Bryan Denton contributed reporting.

Afghan torture claim detainee seeks review
The Independent By John Aston Tuesday 15 May 2012
An Afghan detainee who says he was subjected to torture after being handed over to the Afghan authorities following capture by British forces today won permission to challenge the legality of his transfer.
Serdar Mohammed, 24, was given leave to seek judicial review by Mr Justice Collins, sitting at the High Court in London.
His lawyers say that, after the transfer, he was tortured into confessing that he was a member of the Taliban by the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Afghanistan intelligence service, and is now serving a six-year prison sentence.
The judge ruled that the father-of-two had "an arguable case" that should go to a full hearing, but stressed his decision did not mean that the challenge would necessarily succeed.
The judge said that - in part as a result of the case - Defence Secretary Philip Hammond had now stopped all transfers of detainees from British forces to the Afghan authorities "as part of an ongoing review".
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "Where there is enough evidence to support a prosecution through the Afghan courts, UK-held detainees may be passed to Afghan authorities for prosecution.
"The UK works to ensure the wellbeing of all UK-captured detainees we have transferred.
"The UK does not transfer detainees to any facility where there is a real risk at the time of transfer that a detainee will suffer torture or serious mistreatment."
The judge also gave peace campaigner Maya Evans permission to bring a linked legal challenge. Both cases are being brought on legal aid.
The judge rejected Ministry of Defence submissions that the twin challenge was too costly for the public purse and that only one case should have been given the go-ahead.
Lawyers for Serdar Mohammed said he was initially detained by British soldiers in April 2010 and beaten and kicked. He is about to launch a separate civil claim for damages in the UK courts over those allegations.
After being held by the British for two months, he was handed over to the NDS and claims that he suffered beatings with sticks and electric cables.
He says he was also hooded, suspended by one hand and shackled in stress positions for prolonged periods. His counsel Ben Jaffey told the court he signed a confession that he was a member of the Taliban following the ill treatment.
Mr Jaffey said he was sentenced to 16 years in prison, later reduced to six years, "after a trial lasting 15 minutes conducted in a language he did not understand".
He has an appeal against conviction and sentence pending before the Afghanistan Supreme Court.
James Eadie QC, appearing for the Defence Secretary, said Mohammed had been caught in the middle of a firefight by UK forces as he fled along a road where a rocket-propelled grenade launcher (RPG) was found, but denied knowing anything about it.
PA

Russian Official Hails Joint Antidrugs Operation In Afghanistan
May 16, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The head of Russia's Federal Service for Drugs Control says a joint antinarcotics operation in Afghanistan -- involving forces from Afghanistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and the United States -- had "a phenomenal result."
Viktor Ivanov said on May 16 that more than four tons of drugs, 130 illegal guns, and 15 automobiles were confiscated from illegal drug producers during the operation between April 30 and May 14.
He said 67 suspects were arrested and four illegal drug laboratories were discovered.
In October 2010, officials said a similar Afghan-Russian-U.S. operation smashed four illegal drug labs and seized almost one ton of heroin.
Antidrug experts say the majority of some 5 million drug addicts in Russia use illegal drugs produced in Afghanistan.
Based on reporting by ITAR-TASS, Interfax, and CTK

Tensions Simmer Between Tehran, Kabul
RFE/RL By Frud Bezhan May 15, 2012
Iran's influence in Afghanistan is set in concrete: new roads crisscross the country, power grids supply remote cities with electricity, and planned railways form ties that bind.
Tehran's also leaves its mark in less obvious ways, for example through its export of cultural and political views, strong media presence, and the funding of religious schools.
But even while welcoming the much-needed assistance, Kabul has always warily eyed Tehran's advances.
Now that caution has given way to tension, leading observers to warn that Tehran is poised to make Afghanistan an ideological battleground should Kabul not see things its way.
The tipping point, says Najib Mahmoud, professor of political science at Kabul University, is the recent signing of a long-term strategic agreement between Afghanistan and the United States.
"This agreement might make Iran feel like it is surrounded," Mahmoud says. "Secondly, if the U.S. maintains control in Afghanistan, considering the state of relations between Iran and the U.S., Tehran will feel that Afghanistan could be a threat in the future. And this will create tension between the two countries."
The agreement signed on May 1, while light on specifics, is intended to signify the United States' financial and security commitment to Afghanistan through 2024. On the military level, the security pact sets general terms for the funding and maintenance of a large Afghan National Army.
Although not yet determined, the U.S. commitment could entail a small contingent of troops staying in Afghanistan beyond 2014, when foreign combat troops are scheduled to leave. The remaining U.S. troops would assist Afghan forces in defending Kabul's sovereignty, including taking part in actual combat missions against external threats.
Mahmoud says the prospect of a large Afghan military backed by the U.S. military and Western financial clout is a source of deep concern for Iran.
Tehran, he explains, fears that an extended U.S. military presence in Afghanistan would provide Washington a strategic advantage to conduct surveillance and perhaps even future military attacks on Iran.
Tensions Rise, Accusations Fly
In the wake of the signing, Kabul-Tehran relations have soured considerably.
Last week, Afghan officials expressed outrage after Iran's newly appointed ambassador to Kabul reportedly demanded Afghan lawmakers reject the U.S.-Afghan agreement, which has to be ratified by the Afghan Senate and parliament before it can go into effect.
The diplomat, Abul Fazal Zahrawand, also reportedly threatened to expel all Afghan refugees -- estimated to number around 1 million -- from Iran if Afghan officials failed to heed his demands. Afghan lawmakers responded by publicly accusing Tehran of meddling in Afghanistan's domestic affairs.
As the diplomatic row played out, Afghan intelligence leaked a video purporting to show two Afghan men confessing to spying for Iran and attempting to carry out terrorist attacks in Afghanistan. They admitted to belonging to Sipah-e Mohammad, a group of Afghan refugees who allegedly received training by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The Revolutionary Guards, the men claimed, were recruiting and providing training for Afghan militants from the Taliban movement and the extremist Hizb-e Islami group in training camps inside Iran.
Adding to the growing discord, Afghan intelligence announced that allegations that up to 40 Afghan members of parliament were on Tehran's payroll were being investigated. And Iranian-funded media outlets also came under scrutiny for alleged incitement of anti-American and antigovernment sentiment.
A Battleground, Once Again
Afghan political commentator Wahid Muzhda says that the further escalation of tensions could have grave consequences for Kabul. The worst-case scenario, he explains, could even see Afghanistan once again become the battleground for a regional proxy war.
After the defeat of the Soviet Union in 1989 and the collapse of the subsequent regime in Kabul in the early1990s, Afghanistan's neighbors funded, armed, and trained their Afghan proxies to gain regional leverage -- a move that fuelled the country's descent into civil war.
Iran provided assistance to Afghan Shi'ite and Persian-speaking groups, while Pakistan, with the aid of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, armed Sunni Islamists in Pakistan who later gained control of Afghanistan.
Muzhda says it's "natural" the Kabul's U.S. pact would "worry" its neighbors. "When this deal was signed, without doubt, proxy war has looked like more of a possibility. Why? Because Iran and the U.S. will probably not fight directly," he adds. "Afghanistan is the best place for them to put pressure on the U.S. This will make Iran's opposition to the Afghan government and the U.S. much clearer."
Although Muzhda notes there is evidence that neighboring countries such as Iran are interfering in its domestic affairs, he says Kabul may have to pull its punches.
This is because Afghanistan depends heavily on its larger and more powerful neighbors for energy supplies and trade, in addition to its stability and security.
"Our trade routes go through our neighbors. If Pakistan and Iran close their borders for a week, even if they are not at war against us, you can imagine what would happen," Muzhda says. "It is necessary for us to have good relations with our neighbors."

Amu River, Afghan Tajik Oil is Sufficient, Afghan Minister Says
TOLOnews.com Tuesday, 15 May 2012
Oil from Amu River and Afghan Tajik oil zones will not only be sufficient for Afghanistan, but also could export oil to other countries, Afghan Mines Minister Wahidullah Shahrani said today.
The oil extraction bidding process will be started in five months with a quantity of 5,000 barrels a day and the winner company is obliged to increase the quantity to 45,000 barrels a day, he added.
"Extraction of Amu River and Afghan Tajik oil zone will not only fulfill internal needs but also Afghanistan could export oil for the first time," Mr Shahrani said at a press conference in Kabul today.
Meanwhile, a contract between Afghan Ministry of Mines and Terasize, a Canadian company, was signed today to determine the level of oil in Andkhoy and Aqina oil zones.
The $6.5 million project will be started immediately after signing this contract and will be completed within three months.
The Afghan, Tajik oil zone oil determination project was started earlier this year with total budget of the $12.5 million with the help of the US government and has now been completed.
The results will be announced publicly in the near future.
"Hopefully in the future we could progress to 3D where you get a three dimensional model as all structures under the surface and you can see something similar to mountains and valleys and everything under the surface, John Briant, Head of the Canadian Terasize company said at a press briefing today.
"The data will be available for the bidders in the block they can process and analyse it themselves, and then make their target before they even start the bidding," he added.
The contract was signed in Kabul today between Afghan Minister of Mines, Wahidullah Shahrani, and Head of the Terasize Company John Briant.

Afghanistan hopeful of extra US cash to fund security
Officials believe Washington will pay more on top of lion's share of expected $4.1bn annual budget after foreign troops leave
Guardian.co.uk By Emma Graham-Harrison Tuesday 15 May 2012
Kabul - Afghanistan is confident the US will stump up billions of extra dollars for its army and police on top of the main chunk of a $4.1bn (£2.6bn) annual budget that is expected to be sealed at a Nato summit this month, an Afghan diplomat has said.
With foreign combat troops already heading home, and all due to be all gone by the end of 2014, there is little hope the impoverished country will be able to hold off the hardened Taliban insurgents without outside financial help.
Nato nations fighting in Afghanistan have informally agreed that they will top up $500m of Afghan government cash to reach $4.1bn annually, the amount western diplomats and the Afghan government say is sufficient to support 228,000 soldiers and police.
The deputy foreign minister, Jawed Ludin, said of the sum: "We are pretty confident that we will get that." But he added that while the money would cover the slimmed-down force numbers scheduled for 2017, it would cost more than that to pay for the much larger force expected to be securing the country in two years' time.
"The $4.1bn is the cost not of 352,000 [soldiers and police] but of the reduced size, which is 228,000," Ludin told journalists at a briefing in Kabul. "The United States will be paying for the gap between 2014 to 2017."
The speed of the reduction will depend on conditions across the country, which few experts believe will improve rapidly. The US embassy declined to comment on Ludin's remarks.
Afghanistan's own contribution could also go up, if finances allowed, Ludin said. If planned major copper and iron ore mines start production on schedule this decade, it could revolutionise the national budget.
The main funding deal is expected to be announced at a summit in Chicago on May 20-21, at which Nato heads of state will gather to agree their commitments to Afghanistan, along with other major non-military donors, such as Japan, regional powers and international organisations.
Pakistan was issued a last-minute invitation to the gathering after signs that the country could be moving to reopen its Afghan border to Nato military supplies.
The route was closed nearly six months ago after US cross-border air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, forcing an expensive and logistically challenging rerouting of truck convoys through Russia and central Asia.
A spokesman for Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, said he would consider the invitation, which the spokesman added was not linked to any reopening of the supply lines, the Associated Press news agency reported.
Ludin said there had been some "positive signs" from Pakistan that the border could soon reopen. "It may be resolved today or tomorrow, but as it stands, it's still unresolved," he said.
Last-minute summit planning was slightly overshadowed by suggestions that the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, could leave the country before his tour of duty ends. Allen is under initial consideration to become head of US-European command this winter, Reuters cited an anonymous US official as saying.
"Allen is one of the most widely respected leaders in the military. No one would bat an eye if he were nominated," the official told Reuters, adding that the plans were preliminary and could change.
If Allen does leave Kabul early, he would be the fourth successive commander of forces there to fail to see out his posting. Barack Obama replaced General David McKiernan after taking office, as he sought a new strategy for the war.
General Stanley McChrystal then resigned in summer 2010 after Rolling Stone magazine quoted the commander and his aides making disparaging and "contemptuous" remarks about senior administration officials, including the president himself. McChrystal's successor, General David Petraeus, was appointed head of the CIA last summer.

An Outpost of Afghan Dining Inside an American Military Base
New York Times By GRAHAM BOWLEY May 15, 2012
At Forward Operating Base Salerno recently, the April air at lunchtime smelled fragrantly of eucalyptus and roses.
The camp, near Khost in the eastern reaches of Afghanistan, within miles of the Pakistan border, was once known locally as “rocket city” for all the enemy bombardment it used to receive. This region is, after all, Haqqani network territory and one of several throughways that insurgents used for years to move back and forth across the border.
About three years ago, a suicide attacker exploded a car bomb near the main gate, killing 7 civilians and wounding 21. And later that year, seven CIA operatives were killed by a suicide attack at a nearby base. In 2010, insurgents, some wearing United States Army uniforms, attacked the base.
Each week, soldiers here still gather for the Rocket City Cigar Club. But recently the attacks have become much less frequent – thanks, in part, to “the power of prayer,” according to Capt. Charles Spears, a public affairs officer who was strolling through the base.
But also, he says, because of a more aggressive stance toward locating and attacking the militants beyond the walls.
A white tethered blimp, or surveillance balloon, hangs over the camp. A radar stand, atop one of the nearby luscious green hills, looks like nothing so much as some medieval Tuscan tower. The name Allah, inscribed in rock in huge white letters on an overlooking mountain, reminds us where we are.
The camp was named after the beach on the Amalfi Coast in Italy that the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment landed on in September of 1943.
Camp Salerno has everything you might expect of a big American military camp, one of the largest in Afghanistan. There’s a basketball court, a church and a roomy dining hall offering soldiers platefuls of dependable American fare: mashed potatoes, pancakes, bacon, pork chops. But while many soldiers welcome these home comforts, one of the camp’s most popular places is tucked away on a back road on the overgrown edges: Aziz’s Bakery, an Afghan restaurant.
The man who operates the restaurant, Aziz Rahmon, 45, is one of those rare people, an Afghan who is allowed to run his own business inside a heavily fortified American base.
His story mirrors the growth of the base. Mr. Rahmon started out as a baker catering for Badshah Khan Zadran, then the powerful governor of Khost.
When American forces started operating here after 2001, he says, the governor asked him to begin supplying bread to the troops. He started taking food and cigarettes to them up into the mountains where they were working.
“I was working with the special forces, and they were grateful,” he says.
From 2002 onward, Italian and many more American troops arrived. There are now about 3,000 soldiers at Salerno, most belonging to the Fourth Brigade Combat Team (Airborne) of the 25th Infantry Division, based out of Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson in Alaska.
And they seem to like Mr. Rahmon’s food.
At a recent Sunday lunch, nine soldiers sat on the leafy veranda at tables with flowery-colored tablecloths as trucks roared past.
His nephew Nawar Khan, 22, in a white plastic apron, waited on the tables.
Only one soldier, Sgt. William Begley, another public affairs officer, based out of Bagram, seemed circumspect about the food.
“Don’t lead me astray,” he said, as his two colleagues and a reporter and photographer were tucking into lamb kebabs, stew and dahl, each about $5 a dish.
The bread – plain, garlic, cinnamon – seemed a particular attraction.
Mr. Rahmon, wearing a traditional brown shalwar kamiz over a white T-shirt, came out of the kitchen and sat at the table.
Why did everyone like his food so much?
“It is fresh food,” he said. “It is something different for them. It is all Afghan food. They all start fresh every morning.”
But, he says, he makes no compromises for their American palates. “They are the same flavors. It is Afghan.”
“Sometimes I have 30 people,” he says. “Sometimes I have 40. The truth is this is a really good business. It looks after itself.”
That may be true. But soon Mr. Rahmon must confront the next stage of the camp’s life — and his own.
Most American forces are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014. It is not yet clear how many troops will remain. But there will most likely be a lot less customers for him in the years to come.
His hope, he says, is to follow the Americans out of here.
He has four sons and seven daughters, from 6-months-old to to 21, and he hopes he can take them with him.
“When they leave, I am going to go, too. That’s my plan.”
Not only are his customers leaving, but Mr. Rahmon is also not optimistic about the future of Afghanistan after coalition troops depart.
In other words, he doesn’t want to stay around to see if Camp Salerno becomes rocket city again.
“Even 30 years after the Americans leave,” he said, “Afghanistan will not stand up on its own feet without American and coalition forces assistance.”

www.afghanistannewscenter.com ]]> News Archive Yasmeenaah http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28840 Book Exhibition opens in Baghlan http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28839&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 17:25:59 GMT Baghlan (BNA) with starting of Book week in Afghanistan, the book exhibition was opened in Baghlan province yesterday. In this exhibition nearly... Baghlan (BNA) with starting of Book week in Afghanistan, the book exhibition was opened in Baghlan province yesterday. In this exhibition nearly 10,000 books from Afghan writers have been exhibited for three days in the university of Pul-e-Khomri city. Shokoria Aseel head of the information and culture of Baghlan province said to BNA, these books were exhibited in cultural, social, economical, literature, historical, political fields. According to him, this exhibition was opened on the occasion of celebration from book week and improvement studying culture among youths in this province.

http://www.bakhtarnews.com.af/eng/so...n-baghlan.html ]]> Admin Khan http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28839 Traditional jewellery http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28838&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 17:16:23 GMT Some tumars , necklaces, earings and hats. Everything comes from Afghanistan but some objects don't belong to Pashtun culture.
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]]> Yasmeenaah http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28838 Polish Prez Will Push for Afghan Withdrawal at NATO Summit http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28837&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 16:45:58 GMT *http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Polish-Prez-Will-Push-for-Afghan-Withdrawal-at-NATO-Summit-152045525.html* *Polish Prez Will Push for Afghan... http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local...152045525.html

Polish Prez Will Push for Afghan Withdrawal at NATO Summit

Komorowski also said those giving any financial aid will face "tough decisions"


Friday, May 18, 2012 | Updated 11:20 AM CDT

AP Military personnel watch on a screen as President Barack Obama makes a live address at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 2, 2012.




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Poland's president says he will press NATO leaders at an upcoming summit to stick to plans to end its military mission in Afghanistan in 2014, and for member states to offer financial support to the nation after troops have left.
Bronislaw Komorowski said Friday he will press for NATO to confirm U.S. President Barack Obama's plans for the withdrawal at the summit in Chicago from May 20-21. Poland has some 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, and has been reducing its contingent.

Komorowski also said those giving any financial aid will face "tough decisions" as to whether the money should be spent on building security, or on civilian needs. ]]> lynx http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28837 Taliban rocket attack kills two US troops in Afghanistan http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28836&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 16:31:20 GMT *http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/breaking-news/taliban-rocket-attack-kills-two-us-troops-in-afghanistan/story-e6freoo6-1226360652383* *Taliban... http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/b...-1226360652383

Taliban rocket attack kills two US troops in Afghanistan

  • From: NewsCore
  • May 18, 2012 9:06PM



TWO US troops were killed today in a Taliban rocket attack on a NATO base in Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed the deaths of two service members, with FOX News Channel reporting that both troops were American.
An Afghan ISAF official told AFP that Taliban insurgents attacked the base in Nari district with rocket fire, killing two and injuring six.
The deaths came as world leaders prepared to attend Sunday's NATO summit in Chicago to discuss the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan. ]]> lynx http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28836 <![CDATA[اغلې حسيبه شهيد]]> http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28835&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 13:28:55 GMT
شاعرې ،ليکوالې اوتکړه ژورناليستې اغلې حسيبه شهيددفاني دونياڅخه دتل لپاره سترکې پټې کړې







انا للــــــــــــــــــــــــه و اناالیـــــــــــــــــــــــــه راجعـــــــــــــــــــــون

 اغلې ميرمن حسيبه شهيددمحمدداودشهيدلوراوددننګرهارولايت دبهسودسردار دوست محمدخان اودپښتنې شاعرې ليکوالې مرحومې سايره محوي لمسې وه چې په ١٣٦٢ لمريز كال د زمري په اوه ويشتمه دننګرهار ولايت په يوه عالمه او روشنفکره کورنۍکې زېږېدلې وه .
 لومړنۍ زده کړې دکابل قلعه فتح الله، منځنۍ زده کړې : جلال اباد تجربوى، ثانوي زده کړې، بې بې مريم لېسه پيښوراولوړې زده کړې كې يې وروسته دژورنالېزم په برخه کې ډېپلوم واخيسته .
 لمړى يې په پيښور کى د بي بي سي له څانګى سره دشااوخوا دوه کاله همکاري درلوده او بيا كابل اوجرمنې كې د ازادۍ راډيوخبرياله شوه چې اوس محال دجرمنې هيوادپه پراګ کې دخبريالې دنده يې درلوده او دمسافرې شپې سباکولې


 اغلې مرحومه حسيبه شهيديوه ډيره مودبه لايقه او خوږژبۍ شاعره وه چې په شعرونو کې ژور تخيل اورياليستکه صنحې ډيري په سترګو کيدې دغه با استعداده شاعره اوليکواله يوه ناچاپ شعري ټولکه لري چې دسوزه ډک اشعار په کې راټول شويدي


داغلې شهيد شعرونه په ورځپاڼو،مجلو،او نورو خپرونوكې خپاره شوي دي اوډيرلوستونکي او مينه وال لري دغه پښتنه ليکواله د تحقيقي رپوټونه ، ترڅنګ مستندې اوځېنې خورې ورې نورې ليكنې هم كړې دي اکثرا دبشري حقوقو ،اود ښځو دحقونو ټولنيز، راپورنه يې برابرولې

اغلې ميرمن حسيبه شهيد واده کړ ې وه او ددو ماشومانو مور وه. لکه څرنګه چې کورنى يې له ډير پخوا د مطبوعاتو دكورنۍغړي پاتې شوې وو له ماشومتوبه ېى د مطبوعاتو ټولو برخو په تيره بيا ژورناليزم او په ادبياتو كې له شعر او شاعري سره مينه درلوده. دشعرونو يو ناچاپ ټولګه لري. که چيرته دا ټولګه مونږ ترلاسه کړو نودزرلښت ډاډکام په مالي لښکت به چاپ او مينوالو ته ورسيږي ميرمن حسيبه شهيدچې دمې۹/ثور۲۰) د چک جمهوریت په مرکز پراګ ښار په یوه ترافیکي پېښه کې هغه وخت ټپي شوه چې يوغټ ټرک د هغې موټرسره ټکر وکړ چې دسختو ټپونو په اثر دډيروارمانونوسره له دی فاني دونيا څخه يې سترګې پټې کړې او ژوندسره يې دتل لپاره خدای پاماني وکړپه دی توګه خپل مينه وال يې دغم په ټغر کيناوه
]]> DaZahroJaam. http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28835 <![CDATA[IPL can't duck the F-word]]> http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28834&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 12:53:08 GMT Image: http://www.espncricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/131600/131694.2.jpg If Ravi Sawani discovers that the black money being talked...
If Ravi Sawani discovers that the black money being talked of casually by the suspended five was actually paid out, will any of the teams be punished? © Associated Press
On Wednesday night, Lalit Modi complained about how the TV channel that showed the sting operation and put certain information "in the public domain" was "totally misleading". He felt for the viewers, the fans and the sporting fraternity, he said, because the sting had no proof.
Quite the contrary. What India TV's "Operation IPL" proved beyond doubt was that India's young domestic cricketers, those who drift away from centrestage, are quite happy to pocket any extra cash that the delusional or foolish may want to shell out.
If caught they will either be reprimanded - like Ravindra Jadeja or Manish Pandey - or be consigned to the some outer darkness like the suspended five players will possibly be. And that will be that.
What the India TV programme did not prove on camera was that any of the players stung on tape had either willingly accepted cash on camera and then bowled a no-ball, or "spot-fixed" as promised. That is not to say that does not happen - it just didn't show up on tape.
The IPL, set up to imitate the franchise model of American sport, is actually a very cosy family business. The owners are, for the majority, in this largely for individual and corporate mileage. They owe their original loyalty to the BCCI, which continues to play patriarch. It is why they are protected and if players are caught being invited to break rules, they are the ones who get punished. This is not to say that players are poor lambs being seduced by cash but everyone knows the difference between being the guy receiving the pay cheque and the guy actually signing it.
In leagues where rules matter, teams are punished - however powerful they may be. In 2006, Juventus of Turin, historically one of the richest and most powerful football clubs in Europe, were found guilty of rigging games with four other teams and stripped of back-to-back Serie A titles, relegated to Serie B, booted out of the UEFA Champions League and forced to play three home matches without any fans.
The National Rugby League in Australia has fined four teams more than US$165,000 for breaching the salary cap in 2012. A fifth team has just lost an appeal over a US$185,000 salary cap fine from 2010.
Sometimes it's not what the club itself does; earlier this month, football clubs AC Milan and Inter Milan had to pay 20,000 euros and 10,000 euros for insulting banners seen among their fans during a local derby as well as one that racially abused a player.
During a 2011 NFL lockout, three teams including the Tampa Bay Buccaneers received six figure fines - $250,000 was found to be the Buccaneers' fine - for breaking the rule that no players could be contacted during the lockout period. By this yardstick, Mumbai Indians should have been fined along with Jadeja but weren't. Over the last few years the players get flung the rule-books and the franchises offering extra frills are treated with respect.
If Ravi Sawani discovers that the black money being talked of casually by the suspended five was actually paid out, will any of the teams be punished? A sports law expert, Vidushpat Singhania, has said that for any code or investigation to actually matter, it had to be completely spelt out and it needed to have teeth. That is how the partnership between the ICC and Interpol is said to work. It is how the US anti-doping agency was able to ensure that Balco went to court and Marion Jones went to jail. If the BCCI is serious about its anti-corruption code, it must have the government, the cops and the courts on its side. The first problem with this, though, is that the BCCI has long avoided public scrutiny.
Modi, in that interview, spoke warmly of his "close", "great" and "best friends" who had "supported" his league in its early days, buying up franchises, and with whom he said was always "impartial".
Everyone involved with the league knows there are some franchises who can be a bit bendy with the rules because they are allowed to be, and there is another that is not required to bend rules because it cannot be argued with.




Rules have been changed as the IPL has gone along: without warning, the retention clause was brought in, as opposed to all players going back into a public auction



It is why the addition of two teams in 2010 became so problematic - the new entrants came from outside the circle of friends and the flexibility of the IPL's rules was not about to be explained to them.
Rules have been changed as the IPL has gone along: without warning, the retention clause was brought in, as opposed to all players going back into a public auction. This helped some of the key "icons" stay with teams that could offer them rich pickings.
Then came the "secret" bid to help solve dead-heat tie-breaks during an auction. The most public secret of that new rule was the fact that whoever had the most cash would get the player they wanted and anything beyond $2m would remain unmentioned and be given to the BCCI as a bit of a sweetener.
Franchises will always talk about what it actually costs to get the best domestic talent into their side. There are many stories about offers that players couldn't refuse: extra cash or "jobs" as euphemistic extras, cars, owners criss-crossing the country in chartered planes to speak to the most desirable domestic players …
The Rs 30 lakh salary cap for non-India players began with noble intentions. It was the BCCI's attempt to try to keep domestic cricketers interested in playing all formats, to ensure that Twenty20 cricket does not become what it has - the one form of cricket that every kid wants to play - and the IPL contract the one legal but still flexible document everyone wants to grab.
Now Rs 30 lakhs in India is a more than decent income in itself - and more so for someone in his 20s. It puts the player in the top 1% of the Indian salary bracket, alongside the Ambani brothers, Sonia Gandhi and Shah Rukh Khan. According to the National Council of Applied Economic Research, any household earning an annual income of Rs 12.5 lakh (1% or less than 1% of the population) are India's "affluent or rich."
Yet the figure is a victim of its environment - and of the messages cricketers get. Some franchises are willing to offer more to ensure that they have at least four half-good domestic players once they have filled their quota of four foreigners and local "stars" in the playing XI.
The IPL's ecosystem grumbles that 'market forces' should come into play over salary caps. It will imply that market forces will put in more cash with the overseas buys and less with the Indian players, which would be fine if this were not an event that required teams have seven Indians in their playing XI.
The India TV sting operation will end up being misleading only if the IPL allows it to be. What the sting operation has revealed again is that some of the IPL's most influential stakeholders are willing to go the extra mile to get players they believe they need. The players, who cannot understand what the word 'enough' means, are just willing to bargain long and hard.
If the franchises are not pulled up or reined in, another sting operation in a few years' time will just offer up another round of suspensions. ]]> Afgun http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28834 Dual nationality: 278 Afghans held for possessing Pak CNICs http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28833&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 09:55:55 GMT PESHAWAR: The government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) has sent alarm bells ringing across the province after intelligence agencies arrested 278 Afghan... PESHAWAR: The government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) has sent alarm bells ringing across the province after intelligence agencies arrested 278 Afghan nationals holding fake Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs).
The cards were acquired from NADRA offices in small towns of far-flung areas. The CNICs were not fake, but apparently, the process through which these were acquired was fraudulent.
“A number of Afghan refugees (have) managed to obtain fake CNICs from different National Database and Registration Authority(NADRA) offices, especially from Zhob, Loralai, Bhakkar, Muzafargarh,Thatta and Dera Islmail Khan,” the K-P Home and Tribal Affairs Department said in a notification.
The commissioner Dera Ismail Khan has been directed to take action against Afghan nationals carrying CNICs, along with all those who had been involved in providing CNICs to the Afghan nationals, it said.
When contacted, an official of the Home Department requesting anonymity told The Express Tribune that the department had been receiving information against Afghan nationals having fake CNICs.
“We have issued instructions to NADRA to start screening all the CNICs issued, which would help identify fake CNICs,” he said.
“Apart from CNICs, Afghan nationals, who have transferred properties andvehicles in their names, would also be netted and their properties would be auctioned or confiscated,” the official said.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/378429/d...ing-pak-cnics/ ]]> Luffy http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28833 <![CDATA[Weight management 'benefits' for mother and baby]]> http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28832&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 08:17:53 GMT 17 May 2012 Last updated at 21:36 ET *Share this page* * Em... 17 May 2012 Last updated at 21:36 ET Share this page


Weight management 'benefits' for mother and baby

Pregnant women are already advised to eat healthily
Continue reading the main story Related Stories


Dieting in pregnancy is safe for women and does not carry risks for the baby, a review of research has suggested.
The British Medical Journal analysis looked at the findings from 44 previous studies involving more than 7,000 women.
The London-based team said following a healthy diet - and not eating for two - prevents excess weight gain and cuts the risk of complications.
But current guidelines do not advocate dieting or weight monitoring.
The advice from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), published in 2010, says: "Dieting during pregnancy is not recommended as it may harm the health of the unborn child."
However women are advised to aim to reach a healthy weight before conceiving.
Babies' weights 'unaffected' Half the UK population are either overweight or obese and the rates are rising.
And in Europe and the US, between 20% and 40% of women gain more than the recommended weight during pregnancy.
High weights are linked to complications such as pre-eclampsia, diabetes and high blood pressure as well as early delivery.
Continue reading the main story “Start Quote
We should be careful to note that the researchers are not advising women to lose weight during pregnancy”
Dr Janine Stockdale, Royal College of Midwives
This review, funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), compared diet, exercise or a combination of the two.
Dietary advice was based on limiting calorie intake, having a balanced diet and eating foods such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables and pulses.
The researchers then examined how much weight women gained during their pregnancies and if there were complications.
While each approach reduced a woman's weight gain, diet had the greatest effect with an average reduction of nearly 4kg (8.8lbs).
With exercise, the average reduction in weight gain was just 0.7kg (1.5lbs). A combination of diet and exercise led to an average reduction of 1kg (2.2lbs).
Women following a calorie-controlled diet were significantly less likely to develop each of the complications considered, but the researchers say those findings need to be repeated in larger studies.
Babies' birth weights were not affected by dieting.
'Simpler and easier' Dr Shakila Thangaratinam, a consultant obstetrician at Queen Mary, University of London who led the study, said: "We are seeing more and more women who gain excess weight when they are pregnant and we know these women and their babies are at increased risk of complications.
"Weight control is difficult but this study shows that by carefully advising women on weight management methods, especially diet, we can reduce weight gain during pregnancy.
"It also shows that following a controlled diet has the potential to reduce the risk of a number of pregnancy complications."
She added: "Women may be concerned that dieting during pregnancy could have a negative impact on their babies. This research is reassuring because it showed that dieting is safe and that the baby's weight isn't affected."
But in a commentary in the journal, women's health experts from St Thomas' Hospital in London - including Lucilla Poston who helped develop the NICE guidance, said it would be "premature" for the current guidance, which only recommends women be weighed at their first pregnancy check-up, to change.
Dr Janine Stockdale, research fellow at the Royal College of Midwives, said: "We should be careful to note that the researchers are not advising women to lose weight during pregnancy; this is about managing excessive weight or weight gain.
"If a woman is on target to gain the right amount of weight during her pregnancy, then 'dieting' and 'calorie-controlled dieting' as we commonly understand these terms, is not for her.
"We need to reassure women that under the care of a midwife or other health professional, weight management is safe." ]]> din http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28832 Kepler telescope studies star superflares http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28831&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 08:16:59 GMT 17 May 2012 Last updated at 09:37 ET *Share this page* * Em... 17 May 2012 Last updated at 09:37 ET Share this page


Kepler telescope studies star superflares

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News A superflare would be associated with very large starspots - much larger than those on the Sun
Continue reading the main story Related Stories


Nasa's Kepler space telescope has provided fresh insight on the colossal explosions that can afflict some stars.
These enormous releases of magnetic energy - known as superflares - could damage the atmosphere of a nearby orbiting planet, putting at risk any lifeforms that might reside there.
Fortunately, Kepler shows superflares to be much less frequent on slow-rotating stars like our Sun.
The new observations are reported in the journal Nature.
The biggest recorded flare on the Sun was probably the "Carrington event" of 1 September 1859.
Described by the English astronomer Richard Carrington, this outburst sent a surge of electromagnetic radiation and charged particles towards the Earth.
The magnetic fields embedded in the bubble of matter buffeted the Earth's own magnetic field, producing spectacular auroral lights. Electric fields generated in telegraph wires disrupted communications.
Remarkably, a Carrington flare is puny compared to some of the events witnessed by Kepler. These superflares can be 10,000 times more energetic.
The US space agency telescope is currently staring at 100,000 stars in a patch of sky about 600 to 3,000 light-years from Earth.
The flares seen on our Sun are timid compared with the events witnessed by Kepler
It is looking for tell-tale dips in light that might indicate orbiting planets have just moved across the face of those stars. But in making those observations, Kepler is also gathering information on the sudden brightening that might be associated with flares.
Hiroyuki Maehara from Kyoto University, Japan, and colleagues have now reviewed the data to compile the best statistics yet on the frequency and size of superflares.
Kepler saw a total of 365 superflares during an observation period lasting 120 days.
The numbers confirm that very few (only 0.2%) Sun-like stars experience monster flares.
That may be explained by current models which indicate superflares could be caused by magnetic interactions with closely orbiting giant planets - not something we see in our Solar System, where the largest worlds, Jupiter and Saturn, circle far away from the Sun.
But, this is a situation seen in some distant planetary systems where worlds even bigger than our gas giants orbit extremely close to their host stars.
One other interesting observation Kepler makes is that the stars which have superflares display extremely large starspots.
Carrington sketched what he saw on the Sun's surface in 1859
These are regions of the star's surface that are relatively cooler than the typical surface temperatures around them.
Carrington famously sketched the spot group on the Sun associated with his big flare, but according to Kepler this group would be dwarfed by the sort of spots on a superflare star.
Scientists have long speculated about the impact of a superflare on our Sun might have on Earth. The expectation is that it would strip away the ozone layer, leading to increased radiation at ground level. Widespread extinctions could result.
There is a flip side to this, however. In some distant planetary systems, superflares might actually be life-enabling by providing sufficient energy in the atmospheres of these worlds to initiate the chemistry necessary for biology to get going.
]]> din http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28831 Chanderpaul defiant despite Broad sweep http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28830&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 08:10:45 GMT Image: http://www.espncricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/145700/145720.2.jpg Stuart Broad took five wickets during the evening session...
Stuart Broad took five wickets during the evening session to swing the match back England's way © Getty Images
That Shivnarine Chanderpaul values his wicket like few others is not a matter for debate. His team-mate Darren Bravo felt it, the umpire Marius Erasmus felt it and, most painfully of all, the England bowlers felt it. All three found at the start of an international summer that getting him to leave the crease is no easy matter.
More than 18 years since he made his Test debut, Chanderpaul is ranked the No. 1 Test batsman in the world, which is proof enough that, at 37, his appetite for batting has not diminished. He finished the opening day of the first Test unbeaten on 87 from 175 balls, with his average against England in England climbing beyond 69.
That England could claim nevertheless to have got the job done was down to the competitive zeal of Stuart Broad, who became stronger as the day progressed and who took all five wickets in the final session, with old ball and new, as West Indies faltered from 181 for 4. But as well as he bowled in a session that Chanderpaul was threatening to flatten, and as fulfilled as he looked as he acknowledged the applause, it still felt like a coda to a Guyanese day.
Chanderpaul's innings was not without collateral damage as he played a central role in the run out of his team-mate Darren Bravo in mid-afternoon. He was guilty of ball watching when he clipped Graeme Swann backward of square, took a couple of paces forward, enough to lure Bravo into attempting a rash single, whereupon he made a timely return to his crease shortly before Bravo arrived alongside him. Matt Prior's transfer of Ian Bell's throw to the bowler's end was inaccurate enough for Swann to have to dive to his left to retrieve and complete the run out with a measure of relief.
England came close to dismissing Chanderpaul on three occasions. Three overs after the run-out of Bravo, umpire Erasmus upheld James Anderson's appeal for lbw, around the wicket, after Chanderpaul raised arms and was hit on the pad. But Chanderpaul reviewed it with the calm demeanour of a batsman who knew his angles and Hawk-Eye suggested the ball was comfortably missing off stump.
Swann could have had him lbw on 63, but England failed to review. By the time he was on 74, England's captain, Andrew Strauss, gambled on Stuart Broad's conviction that he had him lbw - never a wise move - and the ball was shown to have pitched outside leg stump.
England's seam bowlers bowled wide of off stump at Chanderpaul until tea, often to 7-2 fields, respectful of his strength through the legside. They attacked the stumps more in the final session. Graeme Swann invited the sweep and his offspinners went for 14 in an over. Through it all, Chanderpaul's river rolled along, not as rapid as the Demerara in his native Guyana, more a languid plotting of the safest route through the mangroves. He bats to his own moods, at No. 5, because he is comfortable doing so; to question that, as has Brian Lara among others, is to invite his failure.
A cool, inhospitable English spring was a daunting challenge for the West Indies and when Anderson, England's player of the year, has a Dukes ball in his hand, the task is all the more challenging. He predictably made inroads in what for him were near-perfect bowling conditions with two wickets by lunch, bowling Kieran Powell with a superb delivery that snaked back to take the top of off stump and disorientating Kirk Edwards first up with an inswinger out of the Harry Potter school of wizardry before removing him with a full and straight one. Anderson even gave the on-field pep talk before play began. He is a man of few words and has probably found that an equally difficult skill to master.


Smart stats

  • Shivnarine Chanderpaul continued his great run in England. He has now scored 1044 runs in his last ten Tests in England at an average of 80.30. It is also his ninth fifty-plus score in the ten matches.
  • Chanderpaul's half-century is his 60th in Tests. Only Sachin Tendulkar, Allan Border, Rahul Dravid and Ricky Ponting are above him on the list of batsmen with the most half-centuries.
  • Stuart Broad picked up his first five-wicket haul at Lord's. It is also the eighth five-wicket haul for an England bowler at the venue since the beginning of 2007.
  • Broad's five-wicket haul is his fifth in Tests and second against West Indies. The performance is the fifth-best bowling performance by an England bowler against West Indies at Lord's.
  • James Anderson is now level fourth with Brian Statham on the list of England bowlers with the most wickets at Lord's (45 wickets). Ian Botham is on top with 69 wickets.
  • The 81-run stand between Chanderpaul and Marlon Samuels is the fifth-highest fifth-wicket stand for West Indies at Lord's. Chanderpaul was also involved in the highest (125 runs) with Dwayne Bravo in 2004.
  • It is now 24 years since a West Indian opener scored a century at Lord's. Gordon Greenidge did so on that occasion as West Indies won by 134 runs.

It was no surprise that England chose to bowl. The pitch was white and gleaming but it was what lay above and below that mattered. The groundsman, Mick Hunt, regarded underlying moisture as inevitable and up above the cloud cover added to the sense that batting would be difficult. As it turned out, there was more swing - and mostly for Anderson - than seam and the surface was slow. Anderson was outstanding as he swung the ball lavishly before lunch; Bresnan was steadfast and economical. But Broad's final-session flourish salvaged a more difficult day than they might have imagined.
But West Indies' recent history also made Strauss' decision a logical one. West Indies sides coming to England used to invite a sense of awe. These days, for many they bring a sense of regret, a regret at their inability to stand alongside the first-tier nations, illustrated by their record of two wins in their past 30 Tests.
The great West Indian sides could strut their stuff in midsummer in conditions that were more in their favour, but weaker West Indies sides have become the English season's support act and so must play their Test cricket earlier when conditions are stacked against them. It makes their task of recovery doubly difficult. They often came close to having a good day, particularly at 181 for 4, at which point Marlon Samuels, who had added 81 with Chanderpaul for the fifth wicket, drove uncertainly at a fullish, wide one from Broad and edged to backward point.
England followed their two wickets before lunch with two more in the afternoon. Adrian Barath, who had included some cultured cover drives in his 42 - nine boundaries in all - fell to a gully catch by Anderson, who fell backwards as he parried, but caught at the second attempt. England had failed with an lbw review against Barath earlier in the over, but retained their two reviews because Broad had overstepped.
Bravo had fortunate moments even before his run-out. There was reason for England supporters to rue Andrew Strauss' conservatism when Bravo edged his first ball, from Anderson, at catchable height through a vacant fourth slip. Swann should also have caught him at second slip off James Anderson in the previous over, the ball rebounding off his chest. There is something about catching the ball out of the egg-and-bacon backdrop in the Lord's pavilion that can defeat the best of slip catchers.
But England's catching sparked up in the final session as Broad picked off Chanderpaul's unreliable allies at regular intervals. Denesh Ramdin was undone by extra bounce. Then came three wickets with the new ball: Darren Sammy, working too square on the leg side and caught off a leading edge; Kemar Roach, chipping a return catch; and Fidel Edwards, caught at the wicket to end the day after Chanderpaul had got off strike from the first ball of the final over.
Broad walked off to the flattery of a contented crowd. But there, somewhere in the corner of his eye, was a batsman of immense durability. He remained not out, and is still England's unsolved challenge for the Test series that lies ahead. ]]> Afgun http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28830 No pay for players following Toronto All Star T20 http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28829&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 08:09:48 GMT Top international players who participated in an 'All Star Twenty20' event in Toronto last weekend, some of them travelling from as far as South Africa and Sri Lanka, have been left in the lurch over their appearance money and in some cases reimbursement for air travel. Events company Kat Rose, who organised the event, said they incurred substantial losses when six Pakistan players including Shahid Afridi pulled out at the last minute. The company is in contact with their lawyers and accountants to resolve the issue, but has not put a time-frame on when monies will be distributed.
The match, which was played in Toronto on Saturday, was billed as a high-quality encounter between the best Asian and international players in the game, and was marketed primarily with the city's Asian population as the target. It featured several internationals such as Mark Boucher and Sanath Jayasuriya, who were left without their fees.
Boucher told ESPNcricinfo that he has not been paid, but said he "enjoyed the experience of playing in Canada". He added that he had delivered all receipts on monies spent, including an internal flight in Canada, to his agents and they will try to recover the money. Boucher posted a message from Toronto on Twitter which read, "Absolute shambles at the @T20AllStar2012 in Canada. No players been paid. No organisers here to explain! Disgrace for Canadian cricket! So sad!", followed by "doubt any international cricketers will be back here in Canada after this".
mark boucher @markb46
Absolute shambles at @T20AllStar2012 in Canada.no players been paid.no organisers here to explain!disgrace for Canadian cricket!so sad!

14 May 12
Jayasuriya told Canada's CBC news that he has "been playing for the last 20 years and never gone through this kind of thing before", and that he is owed $15,000 for his flights and appearance in the event.
Herb Choga, president of Kat Rose, denied some of those claims. "There are lot of rumours [around] that are difficult to justify," Choga said. "Everything has happened in such a rush and everything is a bit upside-down." Choga denied that Boucher had to take an internal flight. He also said that Jayasuriya was not owed as much as $15,000, although Choga would not say how much exactly was due to him. Boucher said it was not a "great deal of money, but money is money, after all".
Kat Rose's financial troubles came to a head in the week leading up to the match. The PCB refused to release its star players for the event. "We heard on the Tuesday before the match that the players may not come but, through Cricket Canada, we engaged in further negotiation. We even spoke to the Pakistani consulate in Canada. Up until Thursday we were hopeful that they would be there," Choga said. "When the players pulled out, we were in a very difficult position. We had a totally different concept to what was advertised. We had to refund tickets and investors pulled out. We had a choice of either cancelling the match or continuing."
Choga said he asked the players who had made it to Toronto whether they wanted to go ahead with the game but was upfront with them about the circumstances under which they would be playing. "I made it clear to them what situation we were in," Choga said, referring to the fact that Kat Rose no longer had the money to make payments immediately. "I gave them a choice [whether to play or not] and Brian Lara, for example, said he was not willing to play but he would come to the match." Lara's omission from the International XI was widely questioned on the day, with no explanation offered.
Various Canada players made up the rest of the Asian contingent and the result was a much lower-profile event, played in front of an estimated crowd of 12,000 in the Rogers Centre, which can hold over 50,000. Both Kat Rose and Cricket Canada made a loss and the players involved have not received any remuneration. "We've got our accountants and lawyers involved to see what we can do but nothing is certain right now," Choga said. "We owe banks money and we owe sponsors explanations."
Cricket Canada, meanwhile, has also not been paid its share of the monies either and has expressed regret over the matter. While Choga said Cricket Canada was paid certain instalments in the planning phases, he admitted they were not given any of the ticket proceeds. Doug Hannum, the Cricket Canada chief executive, said they also suffered financially and although they are not directly responsible for player payment, they "will not take a penny until the players have been paid".
Hannum said Cricket Canada had noted a few important lessons from the botched arrangements of the event. "What we have learnt is that is it not easy to host these kinds of events and it requires the co-operation of multiple cricket boards. We will not enter into an agreement like this again unless we are absolutely sure that the people we make the agreement with have made proper arrangements."
Still, Hannum believes the match was "a great success and quite well attended given the circumstances". He acknowledged that Cricket Canada's reputation would have suffered as a result of the failed organisation. "It doesn't help our cause at all and it will make it more challenging for us to try and hosts events like this in future," he said. ]]> Afgun http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28829 Shah Rukh Khan gets five-year ban from Wankhede http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28828&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 08:08:56 GMT Image: http://www.espncricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/145600/145680.2.jpg Shah Rukh Khan and security officials in an argument at the...
Shah Rukh Khan and security officials in an argument at the Wankhede Stadium © AFP
The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) has banned Shah Rukh Khan, the Kolkata Knight Riders owner, from entering Wankhede Stadium for five years as a result of his scuffle with security guards after the game between Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians on May 16. The IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla, however, said the ban was not final until the BCCI had its say on the matter.
"The MCA managing committee is forced to ban Shah Rukh Khan from entering Wankhede Stadium for a period of five years," Vilasrao Deshmukh, the MCA president, said in Mumbai. "It was a unanimous decision. It applies to any match whether domestic or international at the Wankhede. We have taken a decision to protect the dignity of our association. BCCI is our parent body and we have written to them informing what had happened. We have no control over BCCI's decision. We are also an independent body with the Wankhede being our property.
"If rules are violated, action will be taken. It does not depend who the individual is. It's a message to everyone, whosoever he or she may be, that stern action will be taken if there is any misbehavior. How can he go inside the ground without proper accreditation? Even I can't go inside the ground if not invited for presentation ceremony."
Shukla said only the Indian board could make the final decision. "State bodies can only recommend but a final decision has to be taken by the BCCI. When the matter comes to BCCI, the board will decide [on the ban]."
The incident took place after Knight Riders had beaten Mumbai Indians. Shah Rukh was accused of trying to walk on to the field of play after the game and MCA officials lodged a complaint against him the Marine Drive police station. They also said he had been drunk and abused officials.
Shah Rukh, however, denied being drunk and said he was reacting to the "obnoxious" and "unpardonable" behaviour of officials at the stadium. He said he had not been present at the match but had gone there after it was over to pick up a large group of his children and their friends. Shah Rukh said he saw security guards manhandling the children and when he objected a group of officials came over and the altercation started. ]]> Afgun http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28828 Pomersbach detained over alleged assault http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28827&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 08:08:09 GMT Image: http://www.espncricinfo.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/83600/83621.2.jpg Luke Pomersbach has not played for Royal Challengers this...
Luke Pomersbach has not played for Royal Challengers this season © Getty Images
Luke Pomersbach, the Western Australia batsman who is part of the Royal Challengers Bangalore squad, has been detained by Delhi police following allegations that he assaulted a US national and her fiance at a hotel on Thursday night. The alleged incident took place after the match against Delhi Daredevils.
"A US national, staying at Hotel Maurya, was molested by Luke Pomersbach, an Australian player of RCB, when they were partying in her room," the Delhi police said in a statement. "When her fiancé Sahil intervened he too was boxed by Luke. A case under Sections 354, 323, 454 and 511 IPC [Indian Penal Code] registered at the Chanakyapuri police station."
Vijay Mallya, the owner of Royal Challengers, said the franchise would co-operate fully with the authorities. "Royal Challengers Bangalore regrets the incident involving Luke Pomersbach. We will ensure full co-operation with the concerned authorities so that a fair investigation takes place and the issue is disposed off in accordance with law," Vijay Mallya said in Delhi. "Pending disposal of this matter Luke Pomersbach will not take the field for The Royal Challengers Bangalore."
The IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla said the league was "not responsible" for the alleged incident. "There was no official party hosted by the IPL. It's the behaviour of an individual, let the police handle it. We will wait for the report from the police and then react."
Both foreign nationals were reportedly injured and have been admitted to the Primus hospital. Pomersbach, who has not played a game for Royal Challengers this season, was reportedly taken to hospital for a medical test. ]]> Afgun http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28827 Gayle ton delivers crucial win for Bangalore http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28826&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 08:07:32 GMT
Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli's 204-run partnership was the second-best effort in all Twenty20 © AFP
Royal Challengers Bangalore needed to win at the Kotla, to draw level with Chennai Super Kings on 17 points, to move one ahead of Kings XI Punjab, and to pull further away from Rajasthan Royals, their closest competitors. Defeat against league leaders Delhi Daredevils, who had already secured a playoff spot, would have been debilitating to their campaign. So the time and place Chris Gayle chose to score his season's first century - 128 off 62 balls with 13 sixes - was perfect. He and Virat Kohli took 204 runs, the second best Twenty20 partnership, off a Morne Morkel-less attack to lead Royal Challengers to the highest total of 2012, one that was ultimately a match-winning one.
In the end, Royal Challengers were glad Gayle and Kohli gave them 215, because their profligate bowlers needed that many. Daredevils were without Virender Sehwag, who was unwell, but their batsmen were aggressive from the outset and sustained the attack for a considerable period. Several batsmen made small but explosive contributions but it was Ross Taylor, the one Daredevils wanted desperately to find form, who led the chase. His 55, scored at a strike-rate 211, kept the home side abreast with the asking-rate. Taylor, however, was dismissed in the 17th over. Gayle had stayed for all 20, and that made the difference.
Believe it or not, Gayle had started slowly. He played out a maiden against Umesh Yadav, was scoreless for eight consecutive balls, and was one off nine deliveries. He let Kohli provide the initial propulsion after Tillakaratne Dilshan fell early. Royal Challengers were only 42 for 1 after six overs, when the fielding restrictions were lifted. Gayle had hit no sixes by then. At the end of the ninth over, both Gayle and Kohli were on 27, off 25 and 23 balls respectively. Kohli had been far more fluent than his partner, with his flicks through midwicket and drives off the back foot. Gayle was biding his time.
In the 13th over Gayle decided it was time, heaving left-arm spinner Pawan Negi over the midwicket boundary before driving to long-off, where Yadav mis-fielded and allowed the four. Yadav and Daredevils' fielding wasn't as sharp as it had been against Kings XI Punjab.
Thereafter, there was no respite. Gayle passed 50 off his 37th delivery and began to score through sixes. He hit three in the 14th over, from Irfan Pathan. The first just cleared long-off, where Negi leaped on the boundary but parried the ball over; the next two, off a long-hop and a full toss, went more than 100 metres over the leg side. Gayle hit three more, in a row this time, in the 16th over from Negi. While his favoured region was down the ground and over midwicket, Gayle also sliced Yadav and Varun Aaron over the point boundary. He got to his century, his third in the IPL, off 53 deliveries.
Kohli was no slouch either, finishing with 73 off 53 balls. He had provided the initial thrust and raised the run-rate while Gayle settled in. He hit only one six, though, and eventually the show was only about Gayle.
Faced with an asking-rate of over 10 from the start, Daredevils approached the chase in top gear. At the end of the 11th over, they were 105 for 3; Royal Challengers had been 83 for 1. Freed of pressure and with only one obvious way to play, Taylor slog-swept with abandon and made clean connection more often than not. He brought up his half-century, off 22 deliveries, by blitzing Muttiah Muralitharan over deep midwicket.
The shot of the day, however, came from Andre Russell. He was facing his first delivery of the season, and Zaheer Khan had just bowled three tight deliveries in the 16th over before dismissing Naman Ojha with the fourth. The fifth crashed into the second tier behind the bowler's head, more than 100 metres from the centre. Russell even held his front-foot pose with a straight bat for the cameras.
Daredevils then needed 58 off 24 balls but Taylor was dismissed soon after, holing out to deep midwicket. And with runs coming from only Russell's end, Daredevils quickly fell behind the asking-rate, never to recover.

Innings Dot balls 4s 6s Powerplay 16-20 overs NB/Wides
Royal Challengers Bangalore 39 18 14 42-1 78-0 2/2 Delhi Daredevils 40 18 8 51-2 45-5 0/4 ]]> Afgun http://www.pashtunforums.com//showthread.php?t=28826