It seems that even a close friendship with Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan wasn’t good enough to help Pakistan’s pace star Shoaib Akhtar become one of IPL’s million-dollar men. Shoaib was not the only Pakistani star snubbed by auctioneers in Mumbai. Former Pakistan captain Younis Khan, regarded among the world’s most prolific batsmen, failed to impress the franchisees. None of them opted to bid for him and finally it was Jaipur, which picked him for a base price of US$225,000. Mohammad Yousuf, who broke the record of the highest number of Test runs in a calendar year in 2006, was snatched away by the IPL from rival Indian Cricket League (ICL) last year.Read the rest of this entry »

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A high level meeting held here under President Pervez Musharraf has accorded approval to raise prices of petroleum products besides reviewing budget targets for the current fiscal year 2007-8.

Besides care taker Prime Minister Muhammadmian Soomro, care taker finance minister Suleman Shah, care taker ministers for petroleum, food and agriculture, commerce, economic division, deputy chairman planning commission, chairman FBR and other senior officers attended the meeting at presidential camp office.
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The state-run CPC Corp. Taiwan petroleum company announced yesterday that gasoline and diesel fuel prices will remain unchanged in January, in line with government policy.
Natural gas and fuel oils will also remained unchanged to help stabilize consumer prices, the company said in a statement.
CPC Corp. implemented a "floating price" mechanism in September 2007 that adjusted fuel prices weekly based on changes in international crude oil costs. The policy was changed in November 2007 as crude oil approached US$100 per barrel, with domestic gasoline prices not allowed to go more than 12 percent higher than their level at the beginning of September 2007.

via chinapost.com.tw

West Bank - Palestinian pedestrians gawked at the unusual sight of female police officers directing traffic in Ramallah on Wednesday, the first batch of women to venture into a job traditionally reserved for men in the West BankThe women wore uniforms of navy blue pants and light blue shirts and many donned navy blue headscarves, a sign of Muslim modesty. Some male police officers sneered at the women as they directed traffic and kept pedestrians from jaywalking on their first day on the job.

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The US Central Intelligence Agency is running a secret programme aimed at encouraging Iranians involved in the country’s nuclear programme to defect to the West, The Los Angeles Times reported on its website on Sunday.
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A man opened fire with a rifle at a busy department store Wednesday, killing eight people in an attack that made holiday shoppers run screaming through a mall and barricade themselves in dressing rooms.The young shooter, who left a note predicting, "Now I'll be famous," wounded five others, two critically, then took his own life.

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The saga of the last two Yangtze giant soft-shells is symbolic of the threatened state of wildlife as a result of pollution, hunting and rampant development.

via nytimes.com

Kan. - A missing Kansas college student believed to be the victim of foul play apparently led a double life as an Internet porn star by the name of Zoey Zane.Nude photos of 18-year-old Emily Sander appeared on a Zoey Zane Web site before she vanished, and investigators are looking into whether her modeling had anything to do with her disappearance last Friday.

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Over 5000 schoolteachers in the southern Ghazni province will receive a two-year professional training aimed at their honing their skills, officials said the other day.
The training of teachers would be conducted as part of the Building Education Support System for Teachers (BESST) initiative of the ministry concerned.Read the rest of this entry »

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Millions of Chinese-made toys have been recalled in the US and Australia after they were found to contain a substance linked to the date-rape drug GHB.

A total of five children were taken to hospital after swallowing tiny beads known as Bindeez in Australia and Aqua Dots in the US.

The beads were coated in chemicals which transformed into the banned drug when swallowed.

via news.bbc.co.uk

Two years ago police discovered the battered body of Nadia Anjuman, a young Afghan poet already known in literary circles for her poignant poems about the misery of being a woman in Afghanistan.

Police arrested her husband on charges of beating her to death in their home in the western city of Herat; he confessed to the assault but not to murder. Today the case is classified by the courts as "suicide."

via paktribune.com

The head of the British Army says he is becoming increasingly concerned about "the growing gulf between the Army and the nation".
Gen Sir Richard Dannatt said soldiers were sometimes greeted with indifference on returning from service.

He contrasted the attitude in Britain with support for soldiers among people in the United States....

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The Taleban "will need to be involved" at some stage with a peace process in Afghanistan, UK Defence Secretary Des Browne has said.

At a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference, he said a solution would have to be "Islamic based".

Mr Browne said Taleban involvement would happen "because they are not going.........

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The US finds the weekend detention of opposition politicians in Pakistan "troubling", Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said.

"Some of this is troubling and we've certainly told the Pakistanis," she told Reuters news agency.

The US has called on President Pervez Musharraf to ensure that forthcoming.......

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India's Supreme Court has put on hold the sentencing of four journalists of a daily newspaper who had accused a former chief justice of corruption.
The journalists were sentenced to four months in prison by the high court in Delhi which ruled that the allegations constituted a contempt of court.....

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