India batsman Virender Sehwag set for shoulder surgery

                                                       Stylish Sehwag inspires India victory

Key batsman Virender Sehwag is to undergo shoulder surgery, which will hamper his preparations for India's tour of England in July and August.


Sehwag, an explosive opener, will have an immediate operation having been troubled by pain in his right shoulder.
The 32-year-old was declared fit for the World Cup only after undergoing intensive rehabilitation in Bangalore.
He has topped the batting charts in the Indian Premier League, with 424 runs in 11 matches for the Delhi Daredevils.
Sehwag seems certain to miss India's tour of West Indies which precedes the trip to England. India begin with a tour match at Taunton on 15 July, before Lord's hosts the first of four Tests on 21 July.
India also play one Twenty20 international and five one-day internationals.
PB Vanchi, director of GMR Sports, owners of Delhi Daredevils, said the Board of Control for Cricket in India had advised Sehwag to undergo surgery as soon as possible.
"He has a problem. The BCCI is making the arrangements for the surgery," said Vanchi.
Sehwag is a crucial component of India's Test side, with 7,694 runs at an excellent average of 53.43. In December 2008, he hit a remarkable 83 from 68 balls as India successfully chased a tough target of 387 to beat England in Chennai.
His aggressive style also lends itself well to the shorter formats. He has 7,456 runs at a strike rate of 104 runs per 100 balls in one-day internationals.

Source link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/13338926.stm

Britain criticises UN Pakistan flood response

                                                The UN raised more than $1bn for disaster relief


A British parliamentary committee has criticised the UN for poor leadership during last year's floods in Pakistan, which it said led to delays and left millions in need of assistance.


The International Development Committee said the UN used only two thirds of more than $1bn it raised for relief.
Confusion and organisational constraints were cited as the reasons.
The flooding affected nearly 20 million people and led to the largest appeal for money ever launched by the UN.
The International Development Committee said too many agencies and charities had been brought in, with some meetings attended by as many as 600 groups.
It also warned that climate change and population growth would mean increased need for disaster relief in the future.
But it said it did not want to discourage future donations to disasters. The committee also praised the generosity of ordinary people after the floods.
About 1,750 people died in last year's floods in Pakistan, and up to 20 million people were affected.
They started in the mountainous north and surged south, destroying 1.2m homes and damaging about 14% of Pakistan's land under cultivation.

Source link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13343378

Bangladesh must end killings by 'death squad' - report

                             The Rapid Action Battalion was set up in 2004 to combat crime and terrorism



The Bangladeshi government has failed to end extra-judicial killings carried out by a paramilitary force, Human Rights Watch says.


In a new report it catalogues a series of human rights violations blamed on the elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in the past few years.
The government has strongly denied the accusations.
In December British officials in Dhaka confirmed Wikileaks reports that the UK was training some RAB members.
The course, the British officials said, focused on improving interviewing techniques, investigations and the management of crime scenes.
The latest Human Rights Watch report says at least 200 people have allegedly been killed in RAB operations since the Awami League-led government took office in early 2009.
Despite various commitments by the government, the report says, no RAB officer or official has ever been prosecuted for any of the killings or other human rights abuses.
The government says the police force is only acting against criminals and most deaths occur during shoot-outs between law enforcers and criminals.
But Manzurul Alam, whose relative was killed in a shoot-out with the police unit in 2009, says his brother-in-law was innocent.
"No police station said he was a criminal, only the RAB personnel told us that he was a criminal. Until now they can't produce any evidence whatsoever... We are still waiting for justice. We are now hopeless," he said.
Dressed in black with bandannas tied around their heads, RAB officers are a familiar sight on Bangladesh's streets.
Over the years they have developed a fearsome reputation and are credited with reducing crime and acting against Islamist militancy.
But human rights groups allege that more than 700 people have been killed by the unit since its creation in 2004.
Human Rights Watch says the government should immediately reform the RAB and hold it accountable for the killings - or the force should be disbanded.

Source link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13341359

Indian fury over Australia swimwear images of Girls

                               Photos of the models have caused outrage among some Indian groups


Images of the Hindu goddess of wealth displayed on swimwear at an Australian fashion show have sparked a legal battle in India.


The Allahabad High Court has issued notices to the Hindustan Times group for publishing the photos that show female models wearing the swimwear.
Images of the goddess, Laxmi, were displayed on the garments.
The fashion show attracted worldwide media attention and was held in the Australian city of Sydney last week.
Pictures of the controversial swimwear were published in many newspapers, leading to protests in towns and cities across India.

Protesters belonging to radical Hindu groups such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal took to the streets of Delhi on Monday, shouting slogans against the Australian government and swimwear designer Lisa Blue.

Protester Jai Bhagwan Goyal told the Reuters news agency that those who organised the Australian event should be arrested.
"The sentiments of billions of Hindus have been hurt and this issue will not get resolved by presenting an apology. We feel this is a deliberate act to get cheap publicity."
Company's apology

The court on Tuesday issued notices to the Press Council of India and the state and central governments requiring them to explain their position over the issue.

It said that the Indian government should convey to the Australian government how the swimwear display had offended the feelings of the Hindu community.

Last week one of those petitioning the court wrote a letter complaining about the publication of the photos in newspapers.
The letter demanded action against the publisher of the newspaper and Ms Blue.
Lawyers have argued that the newspapers should not have published such offending photos and the Indian government should urge the Australian government to take action against Ms Blue.
The BBC's Ram Dutt Tripathi in Lucknow says that the matter will be addressed again in the courts within six weeks.
In the meantime some newspapers have published a statement by Ms Blue saying the production and sale of the swimwear had been stopped.
The company has apologised for hurting the feelings of the Hindu community.

Source link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13347763

Pakistan: Nowshera court bomb 'kills two'

Two people, including a policewoman, have been killed in a bomb explosion outside a district court in north-western Pakistan, police said.


Eight people were also wounded in the blast, which officials say was caused by an improvised explosive device triggered remotely.
The bomb was planted at a court gate in Nowshera district.
No group has said it carried out the attack.
Police have said they suspect the district court was the target of the attack.
Taliban militants have killed hundreds people in bombings and other attacks in recent years.
Source link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13343384

Wikileaks: Sri Lanka 'rejected rebel surrender offer'

                               The death of Velupillai Prabhakaran two years ago marked the end of the war

The Sri Lankan government rejected a surrender offer by Tamil Tiger rebels at the end of the war, reports released through the Wikileaks website say.

They say that Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa dismissed US pressure to allow a mediated surrender with the words "we're beyond that now".

The leaked US cables suggest requests for the International Red Cross to go into the war zone were refused.
Sri Lanka's government has repeatedly denied all these accusations.
The Sri Lankan civil war came to an end in May 2009 with the death of their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran after the Tamil Tigers made a last stand in the north-east of the island.

The leaked US documents - which appeared in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten - say that on 16 May 2009 the Norwegian ambassador called his US counterpart to report that he had received a phone call from Selvarasa Padmanathan - known as "KP" - stating that the rebels were prepared to surrender without conditions to a neutral third party.

Correspondents say that although Padmanathan was abroad at the time, it would not have been unusual for him as rebel head of foreign relations to make the offer.
'Energetically refused'

The documents say that the US ambassador then called the International Red Cross (ICRC) who told him that their staff were prepared to go into the conflict zone by military helicopter to mediate a surrender.

ICRC head of delegation Paul Castella is quoted in the document as saying that Defence Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa initially agreed to the arrangement, but first wanted the names of the rebel leaders who were prepared to surrender.

But the documents say that "despite helpful efforts from Norway" the rebels failed to provide such a list.
The documents say the government rejected repeated US requests to allow the ICRC into the conflict zone to help many dead and wounded civilians there.
According to the US cables, presidential adviser Basil  Rajapaksa "energetically refused" to give the ICRC permission, accusing it of failing on "three consecutive days to evacuate the wounded, even though the Additional Government Agent had said it was safe to do so".

Source link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13349034

Bin Laden raid: US team 'ready to use force'

Bin Laden reportedly lived undetected in the Abbottabad compound for years

President Barack Obama insisted that the team to hunt down Osama Bin Laden be large enough to fight its way out in case it met resistance from Pakistani forces, the New York Times reports.

The size of the assault team was expanded days before the operation, unnamed military and administration officials quoted by the paper say.
Pakistan has begun an investigation into how Bin Laden lived undetected.
But relations with the US have been severely strained by the raid.
US President Barack Obama had previously urged Pakistan to investigate how the al-Qaeda leader could live in the garrison city of Abbottabad undetected and to find out if any officials knew of his whereabouts.
But in a statement to parliament on Monday announcing the inquiry, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani insisted that allegations of Pakistani complicity and incompetence were "absurd".
He said that Pakistan was "determined" to examine the failures to detect Bin Laden and he mounted a robust defence of Pakistan's record in fighting terrorism.
He also added that the US raid was "a violation of sovereignty".
The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that although there have always been questions over the level of Pakistan's commitment to demobilise the Taliban and certain elements of al-Qaeda, the raid on 2 May is the first clear proof of the Americans giving up hope that the Pakistanis would really ever deliver.
But the UK's Guardian newspaper reported that a deal struck between former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and former US President George W Bush in 2001, paved the way for the US to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan if they knew of Bin Laden's whereabouts.
The paper quotes serving and retired Pakistani and US officials as saying that under the terms of the arrangement Pakistan would "vociferously protest the incursion" after it took place.

'Return fire'

But the latest details of the operation reveal the extent to which the US was prepared to go in order to capture or kill the al-Qaeda leader.
Continue reading the main story
Bin Laden's Abbottabad house

Built in 2005
No telephone or internet connections
Three-storey house surrounded by outbuildings and walls up to 5.5m (18 feet) high
Bin Laden's bedroom on top floor
Known locally as "Waziristan Haveli" or "mansion"
Plans of Bin Laden's house
"Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorised to do it," one senior Obama administration official is quoted by the New York Times as saying.
In the original plan, two helicopters were going to stay on the Afghan side of the border to be called upon for assistance should the need arise. They would have been about 90 minutes away from the Bin Laden compound.
But, the paper reports, just 10 days before the raid President Obama reviewed the operational plans and the decision was taken to send two more helicopters carrying additional troops, which followed the aircraft carrying the assault team.
"Some people may have assumed we could talk our way out of a jam, but given our difficult relationship with Pakistan right now, the president did not want to leave anything to chance," the New York Times quoted one unnamed senior administration official as saying.
"He wanted extra forces if they were necessary."
Interrogators on standby

US forces had been instructed to avoid engaging with Pakistani forces and if a confrontation appeared imminent, there were plans for senior US officials to call Pakistani counterparts to avert a clash, senior administration officials are quoted as saying
But the size of the US force was increased when the president expressed his concern that this was not enough to protect those on the ground, the paper reports.
Other details that emerged about the operation include:
Two specialist teams were on standby, probably on the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the Arabian Sea: one to bury Bin Laden if he was killed, and a second team of lawyers, interrogators and translators if he was taken alive
One of the back-up helicopter teams was actually used when one of the first team's helicopters was damaged
US surveillance aircraft were watching and listening to how Pakistan's security forces responded to the raid to determine how long the team could safely remain on the ground
Correspondents say that Pakistan plays a crucial role in America's war efforts in Afghanistan, and too much public pressure on Pakistan could jeopardise the relationship.
And despite strained relations, Pakistan's prime minister also reiterated that Washington remained a key ally of Islamabad, in Monday's speech to parliament.

Source link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13343497