ICC to ensure Indian visas to Pak visitors for 2011 WC: Butt

KARACHI: The ICC has promised to ensure visas for Pakistani visitors to watch the 2011 World Cup matches in India under its out-of-court

settlement with the Pakistan Cricket Board to resolve the event’s hosting rights dispute, says PCB Chairman Ejaz Butt.

Butt told reporters in Lahore that ICC President David Morgan has assured that he would speak to the BCCI to ensure that a certain percentage of visas is allocated to Pakistani visitors to watch the World Cup matches in India as political relations between the two countries are strained since last year’s Mumbai terror attacks.

“We have been assured that if our team has to play in India, a certain percentage of our people would not face difficulties getting visas to travel to India,” Butt said.

He said as far as the Pakistan team was concerned if it had to play group stage or knockout stage matches in India, the Pakistan Board would seek clearance from the foreign ministry.

“We are aware of the situation as is the ICC regarding the present relations and we are already in touch with our government. We will have to seek clearance from our government to send our team to India,” he said.

Butt said similar protocol would apply if Pakistani players got a chance to play in the Indian Premier League next year.

Butt also played down talk off a possible boycott by Pakistan of the World Cup if it was not able to travel to India for its matches for any reason.

He said the ICC was yet to release schedule of the World Cup matches so the PCB was still not sure how many matches Pakistan could end up playing in India.

“In the 1996 World Cup we were only required to travel there for the knockout stage,” he recalled.

But other sources in the PCB disclosed that Pakistan had assured the ICC that if for some reason political and diplomatic relations between Pakistan and India remained tense then it would be willing to play all its matches up to the semi-finals in the two other host countries, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

“There is no chance of Pakistan now boycotting the World Cup,” one source said.

Pakistani court rules for scientist

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – A Pakistani court yesterday ordered the government to lift remaining restrictions on Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist alleged to have spread nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya, his lawyer said.

The interim instruction came in response to a petition filed by Khan and could stir alarm in the United States, which still regards him as a proliferation risk.

It was unclear whether authorities would obey the instruction. Judges adjourned the case until Friday, when police and government officials are to explain their position.

– AP

South Koreans to be released

SEOUL, South Korea – Four South Korean fishermen held by North Korea after their boat strayed into northern waters will be released, and families divided for decades after the Korean War will get a rare chance to meet next month – the latest signs tensions are easing on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea announced yesterday that it would hand over the fishermen and their boat to South Korean authorities across the eastern sea border at 5 p.m. local time today, Seoul’s Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae Sung said.

The announcement came hours after the two Koreas agreed to hold a new round of reunions next month for families separated by the Korean War – the first in nearly two years.

Red Cross officials from the two sides concluded three days of talks at the North’s scenic Diamond Mountain resort with a deal to hold six days of temporary reunions involving 200 families from Sept. 26.

– AP

Yemenia flight recorder found

MORONI, Comoros – Investigators yesterday retrieved the slightly damaged flight data recorder and 10 more bodies from a Yemenia Airways flight that crashed into the Indian Ocean on June 30, officials said.

The black box was found underwater off the coast of the island nation’s capital, Moroni, according to the Comoros-based aviation investigation team. No details were provided about the other black box, which contains the voice recorder.

Yemenia Flight 626 crashed en route from Paris to Moroni via Yemen, killing 152 people. One teenage girl survived and is back home outside Paris.

Red Cross coordinator Abdourhamane Bacari said 10 more bodies were found on the seafloor – in addition to the 27 bodies already recovered.

Angry relatives of victims killed in the crash have blamed Yemenia for operating a substandard plane, and the plane’s safety record was criticized by French authorities before the crash.

The company denies the accusations, saying the crash was caused by high winds and bad weather.

– AP

Elsewhere:

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Manitoba Premier Gary Doer as the country’s ambassador to the United States. The appointment awaits acceptance by the United States.

Fidel Castro chatted live via speakerphone with graduating medical students in Nicaragua in the latest of a series of media events showing off the former Cuban leader looking more robust.

Chechnya was hit by the third suicide bombing in the last week, part of a rising wave of violence in Russia’s predominantly Muslim southern republics.

Freed Megrahi backs public inquiry

The Lockerbie bomber has backed calls for a public inquiry into the atrocity.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi said it was “unfair” to the victims’ families not to have an inquiry into the bombing.

Megrahi, 57, speaking from a hospital bed in his home in Tripoli, Libya, told The Herald newspaper: “I support the issue of a public inquiry if it can be agreed.

“In my view, it is unfair to the victim’s families that this has not been heard. It would help them to know the truth. The truth never dies. If the UK guaranteed it, I would be very supportive.”

Dr Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora died in the disaster, has frequently called for a full public inquiry.

Megrahi added: “I would want to help Dr Swire and the others with the documents I hold. My feeling is that the UK Government will avoid a public inquiry because it would be a headache for them and the Americans, and it would show how much the Americans have been involved and it would also cost them a lot of money which they may not want to spend because of the recession.”

Last week Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, was allowed to leave Greenock prison to go home to Libya die.

The man who was convicted of murdering 270 people in the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103, returned to a hero’s welcome. He had served just eight years of a 27-year sentence. The scenes provoked international condemnation.

He said he dropped his appeal in the Scottish courts because he knew he would not live to see the outcome and because he was desperate to see his family. He said there was no pressure from Libyan or Scottish authorities.

He is determined to clear his name and was scathing of the Scottish legal system. Megrahi told the paper: “I was supposed to receive a fair trial and I was supposed to be subject to fair procedure. But from day one there were delays and delays from the Crown Office.”

Attack Kills 18 Pakistani Officers

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 27 — A suicide bombing at the main border crossing for NATO convoys traveling between Pakistan and Afghanistan killed at least 18 Pakistani security officers Thursday, according to witnesses and officials.

The bomber detonated his explosives amid the government offices and barracks of the Torkham checkpoint in northern Pakistan as guards were preparing to break their daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan with an evening meal. Dozens of officers were injured, officials said.

The top political official in the area, Tariq Hayat, said the bomber was a young boy who had walked among the tribal police carrying water while they were preparing the meal. Hayat said he suspected that the Taliban had carried out the attack in retaliation for Pakistani military operations against the militant group in recent months.

Pakistani Taliban fighters are trying to regroup after the apparent death of their leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who officials and Taliban members said was killed this month in a U.S. missile strike in the South Waziristan tribal region where he operated.

Pakistani intelligence officials reported a similar strike Thursday afternoon in the same border district. Officials said three missiles were fired at a Taliban member’s house, killing about eight people.

“Local Taliban volunteers were seen engaged in relief activities, pulling out bodies and the injured from the debris,” said a tribesman from the area who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was afraid. “The house was completely destroyed in the drone attack.”

The Torkham checkpoint is on a busy road through the Khyber Pass and is frequently used by U.S. military and NATO supply convoys traveling between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Previous attacks have targeted the convoys, but officials did not say whether any of the vehicles were hit in the bombing Thursday.

A political appointee in the Khyber district administration said by telephone that the bombing killed 18 tribal policemen and injured more than 10. A doctor at a nearby hospital put the death toll at 21.

Saeed Khan Afridi, who lives near the checkpoint, said the attack leveled a single-story building that tribal security forces were using for residential purposes.

Partlow reported from Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan. a

Federer wants to thank fans with sixth U.S. slam

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Roger Federer would like to repay New York fans for their support by treating them to a sixth successive U.S. Open triumph at the year’s last grand slam beginning on Monday.

Federer is one step away from matching the feat accomplished by Bill Tilden, who won six U.S. national titles in a row from 1920 before the championships were open to professionals.

“The fans really turned it around for me, and that’s why this year I’m so excited going back there,” Federer, 28, told reporters after winning the Cincinnati Masters this month.

“I hope I can again show them what I can do on a tennis court.”

Federer came to New York at a low point last year, losing a spectacular Wimbledon final to Rafael Nadal, losing his number one ranking to the Spaniard and then losing in his bid for Olympic singles gold in Beijing.

The Swiss rode a rousing wave of fan support to clinch his fifth Open at Flushing Meadows, however, and this year won his first French Open to complete a career grand slam.

He then went on to reclaim the Wimbledon title in July for a record 15th grand slam crown to surpass American great Pete Sampras.

“They were great,” Federer said of his New York reception. “Like all the cab drivers and everybody was stopping to wish me luck.

“It was something that I’ve never really experienced before in New York. I think that really helped turn it around for me.”

NEXT STEP

Federer’s primary challengers have their own cause for optimism at the Open.

World number two Andy Murray of Britain, runner-up to Federer last year after advancing to his first grand slam final, believes he is ready to take the next step.

“I believe that if I play well, I can obviously win the tournament,” said Murray, who has won five tournaments this year including four on hard courts.

The Scotsman’s win this month in Montreal leapfrogged him into the number two ranking above Rafael Nadal, who lost rankings points while sidelined with tendonitis in both knees.

Australian Open winner Nadal, working his way back to form, needs an Open title to complete his career slam.

Senate Has Seen Changes in Kennedy’s Time

WASHINGTON — In the spring of 2003, the United States Senate was heading for a meltdown. Democrats were blocking confirmation of federal judges. Republicans were set to retaliate with a “nuclear option”: a new rule stripping senators of their right to filibuster judicial nominations.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, fearing for the future of the institution, turned to a historian for help. He invited Robert A. Caro, author of the epic Lyndon B. Johnson biography, “Master of the Senate,” to speak to lawmakers about Senate traditions, and the founding fathers’ vision of it as a place for extended debate.

To Mr. Caro, Mr. Kennedy’s own knowledge of Senate history and reverence for its ideals was yet another reminder of why his host deserved a place in the pantheon of Senate greats, alongside men like Webster and Calhoun and Clay. But it was also a reminder of how much the Senate had changed during Mr. Kennedy’s 46 years there.

“Ted Kennedy was a senator out of another, very different, Senate era: an era in which senators who believed in great causes stood at their desks, year after year and decade after decade, fighting for those causes, and educating the country about them,” Mr. Caro said.

It is a tradition, he said, “that seems all but lost today.”

From physical changes to the chamber — in 1986 the lighting was brightened for television and the slouchy overstuffed couches were cleared away — to the arrival of women, to the disappearance of the conservative Southern Democrats who used their clout to strangle civil rights legislation, the Senate of today is far different from the one Mr. Kennedy joined in November 1962.

Like the nation itself, it has become coarser, more partisan and, many scholars and politicians argue, more dysfunctional. As both parties have moved to their ideological extremes, the center is all but gone.

“When Kennedy came, both political parties in the Senate were internally divided,” said Don Ritchie, the associate Senate historian. “There were as many Eisenhower Republicans as Goldwater Republicans. There were more liberal Democrats but a sizable number of conservative Democrats. There was never a party line vote on anything. There were ideological coalitions rather than partisan coalitions.”

One measure of that partisanship is the rise of the filibuster, once a rarity that was reserved for the great legislative debates of the day. Today, rare is the bill that does not face a filibuster threat. In 1963, Mr. Kennedy’s first full year in the Senate, the leaders filed just one “cloture motion,” Senate parlance for the procedure that can end a filibuster by cutting off debate. Last year, 50 cloture motions were filed.

The Senate was then, and is now, a clubby place governed by its own peculiar rules and conventions. But with the possible exception of Senator Robert C. Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat and longest-serving senator (at 91, having served for 50 years, he is frail and in failing health) today’s senators are rarely acclaimed for eloquent discourse.

Mr. Byrd’s March 2003 speech opposing the war in Iraq, for instance, made him an octogenarian Internet sensation; until he became ill, he was known to give Senate speeches on matters as simple as the beauty of spring. But in the era of the 24-hour news cycle, the world’s greatest deliberative body is finding it harder to be, well, deliberative.

Consider the communications style of two other longtime senators, Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Democrat, and Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican. Each has served 28 years in the Senate. Not long ago, they got into a spat over health care — through their Twitter feeds.

On Wednesday, when news of Mr. Kennedy’s death was announced, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, declared that “the Kennedy family and the Senate family have together lost our patriarch.” Yet some members lament that with fund-raising pressures growing increasingly intense and members rushing home every weekend, the Senate’s family days are behind it. Friendships, an essential ingredient to passing legislation, are harder to forge today, both within parties and across party lines.

Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican and good friend of Mr. Kennedy who was defeated for re-election last year, recalls that when he joined the Senate in 1969, the Democratic leader, Mike Mansfield urged freshmen to form bipartisan dinner groups “to get to know one another on a personal basis.” He remembers carpooling to work with Senator Edmund S. Muskie, Democrat of Maine.

“There were a bunch of us who lived over the District line. We all had kids, we all had one car, we’d pair up and drive to the Senate,” Mr. Stevens said. “It was a sharing Senate at the time, without regard to politics. It was a family. It’s not a family anymore.”

It is tempting to wax nostalgic about the good old days, but some things about the Senate have inarguably changed for the better. Today’s Senate is more diverse, with women especially represented in greater numbers. There were only two women in the Senate when Mr. Kennedy joined, while today there are 17. The women of the Senate share monthly off-the-record dinners (no aides allowed), organized by Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland and the longest-serving female senator.

The Senate staff is much larger and more professional today, with deep policy expertise. Mr. Kennedy’s staff was widely considered the best and the brightest, with high-powered alumni, among them a Supreme Court justice, Stephen G. Breyer. But Adam Clymer, a Kennedy biographer and former New York Times reporter, says there is a downside to specialization: today’s senators rely more on their aides than on one another.

“Kennedy told me he didn’t know from farm legislation,” Mr. Clymer said. “But he knew George McGovern and liked him, thought he was a serious fellow. So he asked McGovern how he ought to vote on farm legislation.”

Television, which arrived in 1986 when the Senate approved a C-Span camera in the chamber, was a boon for civic engagement. But it quickened the pace and coarsened the atmosphere, as Senate aides began monitoring TV screens for untoward remarks about their bosses. And with cameras inside the Senate chamber, the low lighting, “a calming influence,” in the view of Alan Simpson, the former Republican senator from Wyoming, had to go. Suddenly, some senators seemed more interested in engaging the cameras than one another.

“When they got those bright lights in, guys began to dye their hair,” Mr. Simpson said. “There was more of a peacock syndrome.”

Perhaps, 47 years from now, Americans will be wondering aloud whether there will ever be another Al Franken or Mark Udall or Kirsten Gillibrand. But as Mr. Kennedy is being lionized in death, it is difficult to envision the modern Senate’s producing another lawmaker who could amass his longevity and his record, or who could use the Senate, as he did, as a forum to educate the nation, decade in and decade out.

“There is no Kennedy of the future,” said Norm Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who studies the Senate. “You’ve got some smart diligent hardworking impressive senators. Is any of them like Kennedy? It’s like looking at a Major League Baseball game and seeing some really good players and knowing there’s no Ted Williams in that group.”