"I have never said anything along the lines that we don't want to go to India. I never said that," said Afridi, hitting back at media reports that Pakistan wants to avoid playing their last-eight game in India.
"We are here to play the World Cup, so wherever we have to play we will go and we have no fears over going to India," said Afridi of the possibility of a mouth-watering quarter-final against their South Asian rivals at Ahmedabad.
"I think a cricket match has always brought the people of both countries together and has the capacity to improve the relations between the two," said Afridi.
The relationship between the nuclear rivals has been at breaking point since the terrorist attacks on Mumbai in 2008, which New Delhi blamed on extremists based in Pakistan.
Those attacks also forced India to stall bi-lateral cricket series with Pakistan, although both countries played against each other in the Champions Trophy in South Africa in 2009.
Afridi said he and his team-mates have always enjoyed playing cricket in India.
"I have always enjoyed cricket in India, never enjoyed anywhere more than in India, I get maximum enjoyment there," said Afridi, whose first Test century came at Chennai in 1999.
He also hit one-day cricket's fourth fastest century off just 45 balls, against India at Kanpur in 2005.
Pakistan have eight points from their five matches and could top Group A if they beat defending champions Australia in their last match on Saturday.
Afridi says his team fear no opposition.
"The kind of cricket we are playing we fear no venue and no opposition, so India in India, and Australia in the last group match are no problems," said Afridi, who played down threats from extremists groups in India.
"What ever is the response, we will get to know it when we go there because we will be going there after a long time," said Afridi.
"We have played in India in worse situations," added Afridi, referring to Pakistan's tour in 1999 where Hindu militants dug up the pitch in New Delhi.
"For both teams, the pressure is always there and whoever handles the pressure wins the match. But before that we have an important match against Australia and I think we have the capacity to beat them," said Afridi.
SENDAI: Japanese crews grappling with the world’s worst nuclear incident since Chernobyl contended with a new fire and feared damage to a reactor containment vessel Wednesday as the nation reeled from a quake-tsunami disaster.
With nerves on edge across the world’s third-biggest economy and beyond, people across Asia have been stripping shelves of essentials for fear of a major emission of radiation from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant.
However, after the Tokyo stock exchange’s biggest two-day sell-off in 24 years sparked a global market rout, the headline Nikkei share index recovered 4.37 percent on Wednesday morning as investors snapped up bargains.
The Bank of Japan pumped another 3.5 trillion yen into the financial system, adding to trillions spent this week since Friday’s 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami crippled a large swathe of the economy.
Authorities are staring at a staggering death toll. The devastation in tsunami-hit areas such as the small fishing town of Minamisanriku is absolute, with the northeastern settlement missing about half of its 17,000 residents.
“Ten of my relatives are missing. I haven’t been able to get in contact with them,” 54-year-old Tomeko Sato, who lost her house in the disaster, told AFP.
“I was very surprised by the power of the tsunami, next time, I will live on the hill and hope it never happens again.”
At the crippled Fukushima atomic plant 250 kilometres northeast of Tokyo, live TV footage showed a cloud of white smoke rising high into the clear blue sky.
The containment vessel around reactor number three may have suffered damage, and the “likeliest possibility” for the white cloud was that steam was escaping from the vessel, chief government spokesman Yukio Edano said.
The number-three reactor was hit by a blast Monday that tore off the outer structure of the reactor building.
Fire crews fought a new blaze early Wednesday at reactor number four, operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said, but it was later extinguished.
Engineers have been desperately battling a feared meltdown at the 40-year-old plant since the earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems and fuel rods began overheating.
There have now been four explosions and two fires at the complex, with four out of its six reactors in trouble.
France’s Nuclear Safety Authority said the disaster now equated to a six on the seven-point international scale for nuclear accidents, ranking the crisis second only in gravity to the level-seven Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
Yukiya Amano, the Japanese chief of the UN’s atomic watchdog, said Tuesday there might be limited core damage at the second reactor but repeated that he did not think the situation could escalate to rival Chernobyl in Ukraine.
“I continue to think that the Chernobyl and Fukushima reactors are different,” the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said.
Amano reiterated that unlike Chernobyl, the Fukushima reactors have primary containment vessels, and had also shut down automatically when the earthquake hit, so there was no chain reaction going on.
Japanese crews said they may pour water from helicopters, if necessary, to stop spent fuel rods at Fukushima from being exposed to the air.
Eight experts from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission were heading to Japan Wednesday to help advise on the crisis.
President Barack Obama, who has dispatched a naval flotilla led by a US aircraft carrier to aid in the quake-tsunami rescue operation, said he was “deeply worried” about the potential human cost of the crisis.
Obama also vowed to “further improve” the safety of US atomic facilities, while several European nations announced reviews of their own nuclear installations and Germany temporarily shut down seven reactors.
Hoax emails and text messages warning of radiation drifting south from Japan set off a run on essentials such as bottled water and fresh milk in places as far afield as the Philippines on Tuesday.
Japan’s government has warned that panic-buying could hurt its ability to provide aid to areas devastated by Friday’s natural disaster, which has left 3,373 confirmed dead. Many thousands more are still missing.
But scared Tokyo residents filled outbound trains and rushed to shops to stock up on face masks and emergency supplies amid heightening fears of radiation headed their way.
Radiation levels around the Fukushima facility again rose strongly on Wednesday morning before falling, officials said, while in Tokyo they see-sawed on Tuesday without ever reaching harmful levels.
The government has warned people living up to 10 kilometres beyond a 20-kilometre exclusion zone around the nuclear plant to stay indoors.
More than 200,000 people have already been evacuated from the exclusion zone.
PESHAWAR: In Pakistan’s bomb-hit northwest, bands of Taliban-fighting tribesmen are threatening to give up their struggle in the face of a string of attacks and a perceived lack of government help.
Armed with the Kalashnikov rifles that swill around this lawless region and dressed in traditional tribal garb, the militia or “lashkar” members patrol their villages daily to ward off homegrown militants and protect communities.
Set up from late 2006 to support the armed forces’ battle, the lashkars in Pakistan mirror efforts being made across the border in Afghanistan where authorities have encouraged armed village forces to keep insurgents at bay.
But their role has made them an obvious target for Taliban attack, and after a string of bomb and suicide attacks, as well as targeted assassinations, many of the villagers who form these private armies say they are ready to quit.
In the Matani district of Peshawar, the gateway city to insurgent-controlled areas of the northwest, a suicide bomber on Wednesday hit a funeral being held for the wife of one militiaman, killing 37 people and wounding 150 others.
Matani’s lashkar is made up of more than 4,000 tribesmen who formed their group in 2007 to fight Taliban mostly based in neighbouring Darra Adam Khel tribal town, where army troops had launched several of their own operations.
The group says it has already been the target of two suicide attacks, five bombs and more than 60 rocket attacks. The men blame not only the attackers, but the government and security forces for failing to provide material support.
Tackling Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked insurgents in the northwest is seen as key to ending the nearly 10-year US-led war in neighbouring Afghanistan.
“Our Kalashnikovs cannot match the Taliban’s rockets and mortars,” said one lashkar leader in the area, Malik Sakhi Jan, 50.
“We have become the Taliban’s target. They say we are lackeys of America because we are supporting the government. But the government is doing nothing for us,” said Jan.
Another militia leader in Matani, Dilarwar Khan, told AFP that the police had promised support but gave nothing.
“We lack resources, we receive no weapons, we have no ammunition and we have no cash, no rations for the lashkar volunteers. The lashkar will be there if we get support from the government, otherwise we will dissolve it,” he said.
Attacks across the country have killed more than 4,000 people since the storming of a militant mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.
A government official said more than a dozen anti-Taliban militias are active in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and across the tribal areas.
But the government says it is not willing to beef up the lashkars for fear of creating an unwieldy force in parallel to the army and police.
“We are talking to them and will accept their reasonable demands,” Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister in the provincial Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, told AFP.
“But the lashkars’ task was to help our troops to trace militants and to provide self-defence for the villages. They are not an attacking force, this job is done by our security forces,” Hussain said.
Regional police chief Liaqat Ali Khan said the militia’s role had to be limited to identifying and locating militants for the police to find.
“They were not formed to become a parallel or alternate force,” Khan said.
In Bazid Khel village, close to the Khyber border where Nato supply trucks bound for Afghanistan come under regular attack, head of the local 500-man anti-Taliban militia, Fahimuddin, also complains that he lacks guns and money.
His enemy is the anti-government force Lashkar-e-Islam, which enforces Taliban-style strict Islamic law in the area.
But not all authorities believe the pro-government forces are a good idea.
Former minister of the province Siraj-Ul-Haq told AFP that the militias were failing in what they set out to do.
“They form these lashkars in the name of peace but have failed to establish peace,” he said.
The Punjab Assembly has barely been able to transact any business since the re-alignment of the treasury and opposition benches in the house.
The two have descended to sloganeering against each other and have been rejecting appeals by the speaker to maintain order in the house. Moreover, opposition lawmakers in the province and political activists from the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid (PML-Q) have been using lotas to signify ‘defection’ by members of the Unification Bloc and have been sloganeering against the breakaway faction of the PML-Q.
ISLAMABAD: An Islamabad court handed over former religious affairs minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on a five day physical remand on Wednesday, DawnNews reported.
The FIA had requested the court to hand over Kazmi for a 14-day-long remand.
Earlier on Tuesday, the FIA had arrested Kazmi after a court refused to grant him a pre-arrest bail in a case relating to his alleged corruption in arranging residential accommodation for Pakistani Haj pilgrims in Saudi Arabia last year.
Mr Kazmi’s lawyer Malik Jawad Khalid had earlier told reporters: “It is a fit case for bail because the FIA has no substantial incriminating material against my client who is being implicated in the case on political and sectarian grounds”.
Mr Kazmi has pleaded on the media and in the court that he had no role in what is described as ‘Haj scam’.
Champions Australia, who have already qualified for the quarter-finals, are seeking to extend their unbeaten World Cup streak to 34 matches, kept the same team that defeated Kenya on Sunday.
Canada are playing their last match in the tournament and have won only one of their five matches, against fellow associates, Kenya.
They made two changes to the side that lost to New Zealand, bringing in Nitish Kumar and Karl Whatham in place of Khurram Chohan and Ruvindu Gunasekera.
Teams:
Australia: Ricky Ponting (captain), Shane Watson, Brad Haddin, Michael Clarke, Mike Hussey, Cameron White, Steve Smith, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, Shaun Tait, Jason Krejza.
Canada: Ashish Bagai (captain), Nitish Kumar, Zubin Surkari, Jimmy Hansra, Rizwan Cheema, John Davison, Hiral Patel, Harvir Baidwan, Karl Whatham, Balaji Rao, Henry Osinde.
“Davis was released from Pakistani custody and is out of the country. There was no quid pro quo,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A court freed Davis after blood money was paid in accordance with sharia law, the Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said.
“The family members of the slain men appeared in the court and independently verified they had pardoned him (Davis),” Sanaullah told a private television.
“He has been released from jail. Now it is up to him. He can go wherever he wants,” he added.
Raja Irshad, a lawyer for the families of the two dead men, said a total of 200 million Pakistani rupees (2.35 million dollars) was paid as compensation. That was confirmed by public prosecutor Abdul Samad.
“The family members told the judge that there was no pressure on them to accept the compensation and they had signed the pardon documents voluntarily, independently and with due consideration,” Irshad said.
Police investigator Muneer Ahmed told AFP the deal had been done by “mutual agreement” and the court had received signed family statements before ordering Davis’ release.
PML-N spokesman Pervez Rasheed said the Punjab government was not involved in the release of Davis, DawnNews reported.
Moreover, Ayesha, the sister of Shumaila Kanwal, the wife of victim Faheem Ahmed, said “we are not aware of any such settlement and we did not opt for any…we want justice.”
“They confined us in the jail for four hours and did not allow us to take part in the court proceedings. We were not allowed to leave the prison,” one of the lawyers, Asad Manzoor Butt, told AFP.
Butt said the families of the men had agreed with authorities to accept blood money over the deaths the previous night.
Another laywer for the families, Nauman Atiq, confirmed that the lawyers had been held at the court and told not to speak to media.
Blood money, or “diyya” is a provision under Islamic sharia law in which compensation can be paid to relatives of those killed to secure a pardon, and is commonly used to resolve such cases in Pakistan.
The January shooting ruptured diplomatic relations with the United States, who repeatedly insisted Davis was an embassy employee and enjoyed diplomatic immunity, particularly after it emerged he was working for the CIA.
The Davis case had sparked protests in Pakistan, with religious groups angrily denouncing the American who claimed he acted in self-defence to fend off an armed robbery when he shot dead the two men.
US authorities insisted Davis was protected by full diplomatic immunity, but the Pakistan government refused to back that claim and a decision on his status was on Monday deferred by the Lahore high court for criminal judges to decide.
Revelations that Davis was a CIA contractor heaped pressure on Pakistan’s embattled government and further ramped up burning public mistrust of Washington, damaging fragile relations between the two wary allies.
A third Pakistani was struck down and killed by a US diplomatic vehicle that came to Davis’ assistance in the January incident.
US officials denied Pakistan access to the vehicle, and the occupants are widely believed to have left the country.
Police have said they recovered a Glock pistol, four loaded magazines, a GPS navigation system and a small telescope from Davis’ car after the January 27 shooting.
About Me
