In China, Obama’s hosts show no signs of budging

President Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, reach out to shake hands after their news conference in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. The two leaders read 15-minute statements but, unusually, took no questions. (Ng Han Guan / Associated Press / November 17, 2009)

Pakistan Beat France in Hockey WC Qualifiers

Pakistan: Pakistan Beat France in Hockey WC Qualifiers, Pakistan recorded its third consecutive win Hockey World Cup 2010 Qualifiers when it hit France at the Metropole Club Ground here.
Pakistan Beat France in Hockey WC Qualifiers
The green shirts, who won their first two ties with Italy and Russia with the same margin of 5-0, defeated the hosts 4-2 in the line of wind, cold and rainy.

Previously, Italy, Japan won 3-0 after leading 1-0 at halftime and Poland beat Russia 2-1 after leading 2-0 at lemon break in the other two contests of the day.

The visitors, who were leading 2-1 after the conclusion of the first half, showed some excellent hockey to France, which had the home ground advantage and the crowd. Pakistan took a few minutes to find his rhythm in the cold, but soon took control of the game. During the two sessions, Pakistan dominated the process, without much danger, although the Frenchman added one more goal to his account in the second half.

“We played according to our plan and won, the coach said Shahid Ali Khan told reporters after the game. He said Pakistan had almost qualified for the finals.” Now we have to play three games – against Poland, Japan and the end ” .

Pakistan opened the account through an excellent field goal Akhtar Ali, at 8 minutes. The French, led by a friendly crowd of fans reacted and the equalizer came on 23 minutes through Frederic Soyez, a field goal. Despite the rain to a large extent, the game continues in the same tempo. Pakistan closed three more goals in the corner 26 (penalty), 37 (penalty corner) and 55 (field goal) minutes through Sharp Shooter Sohail Abbas and Rehan Butt, respectively, to the amusement of a handful of people in Pakistan this in the stadium.

The French figure was reduced in the 67th minute when Arnaud Becuwe converted a penalty corner, but in vain. The result certainly not in doubt again, the decreased intensity of the game and Pakistan players had more time and space to showcase their individual skills.

Train crash victims recall ordeal

KARACHI: ‘He was in my arms, sleeping soundly, when the accident shook us all. The only thing I remember now is that I lost consciousness and a grip on Abdur Rehman when something fell on me. He was barely three months’ old. I am shattered,’ said Kausar Ramzan, sobbing.

She is among the three parents who got injured and lost their minor children in the train crash that occurred near the Juma Goth railway station, Landhi Town, on Tuesday.

The accident occurred when a Karachi-bound Allama Iqbal Express coming from Lahore collided with a goods train.

Kausar, with a fractured leg, was admitted to the emergency section of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) along with 45 others. The tragedy, which seems to be the result of negligence, claimed the lives of many people.

Iqbal, Kausar’s husband, was waiting for his wife’s arrival at the Landhi junction and rushed to the scene as soon he got the news of the accident.

‘I talked to her around 10 to 15 minutes before the accident and told her to keep all the baggage at one place and be ready to get off at the Landhi junction. Later someone told me that the train had had an accident,’ grieving Iqbal, a restaurant worker and resident of Korangi, told Dawn.

Both husband and wife had shifted to Karachi a decade ago. Kesar, their adopted daughter, and Nasir, Kausar’s brother, also received injuries in the accident. The couple had a child after 10 years of marriage.

‘I had taken my son for the first time to my mother’s place in Lahore.

Some people at the hospital told me that he was alive when he was taken out of the train and died at the hospital. His body hasn’t been handed over to us yet,’ added Kausar.

Mohammad Arshad, another injured at the JPMC emergency section, was coming to Karachi after attending a wedding in Lahore. He lost his eight-month-old son, Mohammad Shayan, in the tragedy.

‘The berths fell and we got stuck. I kept shouting for two-and-a-half hours before I got help. I lost my son, my brother has fractured both his legs. We are still in a state of shock,’ says Arshad as he wiped off his tears.

Arshad, a rickshaw driver in Lyari Town, had also received minor injuries along with his wife and another son.

Six-year-old Manisha and her uncle, who were coming to Karachi with the entire family from Kamoki, Punjab, to attend a wedding in Korangi, were also among the victims. Sitting outside the JPMC emergency section all their relatives were in great shock.

‘We had been preparing for the wedding ceremony for so long. But our happiness has turned into grief. We could never have imagined this. I had made so many suits for the little Manisha. Her uncle who died in the accident had got married just two months ago,’ mourned Sakina, one of the relatives.

Looting spree

Shock and pain hit 50-year-old Mohammad Aslam, too. Six hours after the accident, his relatives had no clue to the whereabouts of Aslam’s son, 15-year-old Tariq. Lying on the hospital bed with fractured legs, he was crying for the safety of his son.

‘Please pray for my son’s life. All my belongings have been taken away following the crash.’ Aslam’s house is mortgaged and he has been asked to vacate it once he returns to Lahore.

‘Please mention my condition (in your report), so that I am given some time to recover, physically and financially, and not forced to vacate my house,’ he requested.

The injured not only complained about the delay in the rescue operation, but also said that the ‘looting that followed the accident was highly distressing’.

‘We want our belongings back. I had a suitcase which contained books, clothes and also my cellular phone,’ said Waris Ali, a college student who had boarded the train at Khairpur and suffered minor injuries in the accident.

At the hospital, Waris was by himself. He was being administered a drip and was told that he could go home now. But none of his family members were informed about the misfortune that befell him on his way back to Karachi.

‘My mother is a heart patient. I don’t want the news to reach home. I will manage on my own as soon as I gather some strength. I wish someone returns my luggage,’ he said.

Giving details about the injured, Dr Seemin Jamali, head of the JPMC emergency section, said that most of them got fractures and had been shifted to different departments.

‘Most of them are now in a stable condition and 15 people have already been discharged. All bodies have been identified.’

Referring to the problems that the hospital staff had faced in the morning due to an unruly mob, Dr Jamali said: ‘Too many bystanders were a major obstacle to delivering quick emergency aid today. We desperately need security and there needs to be an awareness programme to educate people on how to behave in emergencies.’

Pakistan Army Hasn’t Taken Taliban Redoubts, Ex-Commander Says

By Anwar Shakir and James Rupert

Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) — Pakistan’s capture of Taliban controlled-villages in South Waziristan may have limited strategic value unless soldiers pursue militants into their mountainous hideouts, said a former special forces commander.

“Infantry forces are moving along the main roads and not up into the side valleys,” ex-army brigadier Javed Hussain said in a telephone interview from Islamabad. With winter snows only weeks away, the offensive has stuck to three highways, he said.

Troops are clearing an area near the village of Sararogha in one of the battle zone’s three main valleys, the army said yesterday in the latest report on the 19-day-old campaign. Soldiers are trying to take control of the South Waziristan homeland of the Mehsuds, an ethnic Pashtun tribe that supplies the core of the largest Taliban force, about 10,000 fighters.

The most secure areas for guerrillas are in two forested mountain ranges, one west of Sararogha that includes the Asman Manza valley. The other is the Shawal range, near the Afghan border, with peaks exceeding 3,700 meters (11,000 feet).

The Taliban say their forces are falling back deliberately before advancing troops to fight what spokesman Azam Tariq called a “long war,” the Associated Press reported yesterday. Areas that “the army is claiming to have won are being vacated by us” to draw the army into a trap deep inside South Waziristan, he said.

Escape Routes

Accounts of the fighting are difficult to confirm as Pakistan bars foreigners from the tribal areas and local journalists have been forced out by the government and Taliban.

The army has said it dropped groups of soldiers onto strategic mountain ridges to protect its advance. Those forces are too small to enter the forested valleys and ravines where the Taliban will regroup, Hussain said.

Pakistan says the offensive in South Waziristan has cut off escape routes to prevent the Taliban from fleeing in large numbers. The army began the operation, its largest against Islamic militants, on Oct. 17, and said it has killed about 300 guerrillas. The Taliban has responded with suicide bombings and attacks that have killed more than 300 people.

“There is no place for the Taliban in Pakistan,” the Associated Press of Pakistan cited Interior Minister  as saying in a radio interview yesterday in Islamabad. “The entire nation has said ‘no’ to the Taliban.”

 

US aid under Kerry-Lugar bill to be spent on agri sector

Faisalabad—A substantial annual assistance of $ 1.5 billion under Kerry-Lugar Bill for Pakistan will be invested in agriculture sector, said US Agricultural Counselor at US Embassy in Pakistan, Joseph M. Caroll. He was addressing a seminar on business incubators, organized by UAF (University of Agriculture Faisalabad) Endowment Fund Secretariat at Old Senate Hall here Saturday. He said that 180 million population of Pakistan depends on agriculture and US is very much aware of the fact that agriculture is the only way to bring progress and prosperity in the rural as well as urban life. However, he expressed concern over rising poverty trends in southern Punjab and stressed the need for collaborative and integrated efforts of public and private sectors in order to achieve the desired goals of poverty alleviation. A US team is likely to visit Pakistan from October 4, he said and added that he will also convince the team for maximum assistance in agriculture sector. Joseph Caroll underlined the need for virus free cotton varieties and said that cotton was severely suffering from CLCV and Mealy Bug. Referring to the declining trends in getting patents of Pakistani intellectual properties, he said that in early 2004, India and Pakistan established their IPOs with 17000 and 489 registered patents respectively, but after 5 years India has touched the figure of 60,000 against 125 in Pakistan which needs to be reversed in the years to come by simplifying the patent procedure to encourage the innovators. Professor Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan, Vice Chancellor (VC) UAF asked the faculty to bring forward such projects to resolve the social problems with the novel ideas. Referring to the contributions of Nobel Laureate Agricultural Scientist Nornam E. Borlaug, he said prior to 1950, a long wheat straw used to lay on the ground on every heavy rain or wind storms. Thus the productions were destroyed but after introduction of small wheat straw varieties by Borlaug, world became surplus in the food and such innovative ideas can bring positive change in the society. He said that USAID has established endowments in various organizations to enable the scientists for their substantial contributions through innovative research approaches as it is moral and legal obligations to bring change for the society.—APP

Indonesian villagers use bare hands to dig corpses

JUMANAK, Indonesia — With no outside help in sight, villagers used their bare hands Sunday to dig out rotting corpses, four days after landslides triggered by a huge earthquake obliterated four hamlets in western Indonesia.

Officials said at least 644 people were buried and presumed dead in the hillside villages in Padang Pariaman district on the western coast of Sumatra island. If confirmed it would raise the death toll in Wednesday’s 7.6-magnitude earthquake to more than 1,300, with about 3,000 missing.

The extent of the disaster in remote villages was only now becoming clear. So far, aid and rescue efforts have been concentrated in the region’s capital, Padang, a city of 900,000 people where several tall buildings collapsed.

But the quake was equally devastating in the hills of Pariaman, where entire hillsides were shaken loose, sending a cascade of mud, rocks and trees through at least four villages.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla said there was little hope of finding anyone alive.

“We can be sure that they are dead. So now we are waiting for burials,” he told reporters.

Where the villages once stood, there was only mud and broken palm trees — the mountainsides appeared gouged bare as if by a gigantic backhoe.

The villages “were sucked 30 meters (100 feet) deep into the earth,” said Rustam Pakaya, the head of Indonesia’s Health Ministry crisis center. “Even the mosque’s minaret, taller than 20 meters (65 feet), disappeared.”

In Jumanak village, some 200 to 300 wedding guests at a restaurant were buried alive, including the bride, her 15-year-old brother, Iseh, told The Associated Press.

He said his sister Ichi, 19, had come back to the village for her wedding.

“When the landslide came, the party had just finished. I heard a big boom of the avalanche. I ran outside and saw the trees fall down,” said Iseh, who like many Indonesians uses only one name.

“I tried to get in front of the house with my brothers. We were so afraid. Landslides started coming from all directions. I just ran and then I waited,” he said.

Iseh says he knows of only 10 people from the village who survived. He doesn’t know the fate of his parents or brothers.

The adjacent villages of Pulau Aiya, Lubuk Lawe and Limo Koto Timur were also swept away.

Survivors in the area said no government aid or search teams had arrived, even four days after the quake. Only about 20 local policemen had come with a power shovel and body bags.

“My relatives were all killed, washed away by the landslide,” said Dola Jambak, a 48-year-old trader, picking through the rubble of his house. “I lost seven relatives. Now all I can do is wait for the search teams. But they don’t come.”

The landslides cut off all roads, and the villages were accessible only by foot. An AP team reached Jumanak after walking about four miles (six kilometers) for 1 1/2 hours.

Villagers gathered as men used their bare hands to slowly and cautiously pull corpses from a tangle of roots and grit. The bodies were bloated and mutilated, some unrecognizable. One man’s body was found because his hand was sticking out of the mud.

Women wept silently as bodies were placed in bright yellow bags.

Aid also had not reached Agam district, which is much closer to Padang.

Laila, a villager in Agam district, said she and hundreds of others had no food, clothes and clean water.

“Our house is gone … everything is gone,” she sobbed.

She said a helicopter dropped some instant noodle packets Saturday. “But we need clean water to cook it,” said Laila, who also uses one name. She said the local river had become dirty as people were using it wash.

In Padang, rescuers have all but given up hope of finding any survivors in the rubble of the 140-room, Dutch-colonial style Ambacang Hotel. Some 200 people were in the hotel when it collapsed. Search teams have found 29 bodies so far, and no one alive.

“After four days … to find survivors is almost impossible,” said Lt. Col. Harris, the chief of the 50-member rescue team, which comprises military, police and Red Cross personnel. “The smell of decomposing bodies is very strong,” said Harris, who uses one name.

According to the National Disaster Management Agency, 83,712 houses, 200 public buildings and 285 schools were destroyed. Another 100,000 buildings and 20 miles (31 kilometers) of road were badly damaged, and five bridges had collapsed.

Meanwhile, hundreds of doctors, nurses, search and rescue experts and cleanup crews arrived Saturday at the Padang airport from around the world with tons of food, tents, medicine, clean water, generators and a field hospital.

But with no electricity, fuel shortages and telecommunication outages, the massive operation was chaotic.

Deliveries came on C-130 cargo planes from the United States, Russia and Australia. Japanese, Swiss, South Korean and Malaysian search and rescue teams scoured the debris. Tens of millions of dollars in donations came from more than a dozen countries to supplement $400 million the Indonesian government said it would spend over the next two months.

The U.N. said there are sufficient fuel stocks in the area for four days, but with the road to a major depot cut off by landslides, gasoline prices had jumped six-fold.

Areas with “huge levels of damage to infrastructure were in need of basic food and tents for temporary shelter,” it said.

Wednesday’s quake originated on the same fault line that spawned the 2004 Asian tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen nations.

On Sunday, a 5.5-magnitude earthquake shook the eastern province of West Papua, the U.S. Geological Survey said. There were no reports of casualties. The quake’s epicenter was 128 kilometers (80 kilometers) northwest of the provincial capital of Manokawar, the only major center of inhabitation. The region is about 3,500 kilometers (2160 miles) from Sumatra.

Associated Press writers Ali Kotarumalos, Anthony Deutsch, Niniek Karmini and Vijay Joshi in Jakarta contributed to this report.