KARACHI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has pressed the Pakistan cricket Board (PCB) to outline its position on the Mohammad Asif drugs case.The fast bowler was detained at Dubai airport last June after being found in possession of opium.A senior Pakistani official said the board had received an e-mail from ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat inquiring about the board’’s stance on the case which has drawn calls for a life ban.”We have got an e-mail. They have seen documents from Dubai authorities related to the case,” Saleem Altaf, the PCB’’s chief operating officer, said on Thursday. “We will inform them accordingly.”Asif, who has played in 11 tests and 31 one-day internationals was detained in Dubai for 19-days when customs officials found 0.24 grams of opium in his wallet.He was returning home from India after playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL). The Dubai public prosecutor’’s office did not press criminal charges against Asif but he was deported from Dubai.Asif is also due to face a hearing of the IPL drugs inquiry tribunal next week for failing a doping test during the IPL last year.The PCB has already suspended Asif from playing any cricket in the country since his failed dope test.
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Al Qaeda leaders no longer feel safe in Afghan-Pakistan border areas, where they face heavy U.S. and Pakistani pressure and their local welcome has worn out, CIA chief Michael Hayden said on Thursday.
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Pakistan’s army says security forces have killed and injured a large number of militants in a restive valley in the country’s northwest.
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KARACHI: Director General PCB Javed Miandad Thursday formed a Media Coordination Committee comprising of senior journalists for running the media affairs during the two ODIs and One test match between Pakistan and Sri Lanka at national Stadium.The committee shall be the platform for resolving any issue pertaining to the media. It shall further look to facilitate the local media in general and touring Sri Lankan media in particular.
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NEW YORK: Oil prices tumbled Thursday in a market hammered by dismal economic news, worries over increasing US energy stockpiles and a new OPEC forecast of falling demand for 2009. New York’’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, tumbled 1.88 dollars to close at 35.40 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent North Sea crude for February fell 39 cents to settle at 44.69 dollars on the InterContinental Exchange. The contract expired at the close. Prices had climbed in earlier trade, recovering slightly after a mixed performance on Wednesday. But they headed south after OPEC cut its forecasts for global oil demand, predicting that demand would contract by a bigger-than-expected 0.2 percent this year. “The depressed world economy is expected to have a large impact on oil demand this year,” especially in industrialized countries, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said in a monthly report. “The year 2009 started with a very depressed world economy which caused the year’’s oil demand forecast to show negative growth” of 0.18 million barrels per day (bpd) or 0.2 percent, it said. In 2008, global oil demand was estimated to have contracted by 0.1 million bpd, “the first decline in over two decades,” it said. Restoring price stability to an acceptable level “will take time given the ongoing challenges facing the global economy.” Since September the cartel that supplies 40 percent of the world’’s crude has cut output by a total of 4.2 million bpd in an effort to shore up falling crude prices. The market continued to react to the US government report Wednesday of rising crude stockpiles, underlining weak demand in the world’’s largest energy consumer.
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Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) — India would accept Pakistan putting suspects in the Mumbai terrorist attacks on trial provided that the legal process was “transparent,” Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said.
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Pakistan said on Thursday security forces had closed five training camps run by Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for the Mumbai attack, and arrested 124 of its leaders and those of a related charity.
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Pakistan on Thursday reaffirmed its commitment to root out extremists on its soil, saying it had so far arrested 71 people in a crackdown on banned groups in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.
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Pakistan insisted it would help India to bring those behind the Mumbai terrorist attacks to justice, saying Thursday it had shut down extremist Web sites and suspected militant training camps, and detained 71 people in a deepening probe.
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Pakistan insisted it would help India to bring those behind the Mumbai terrorist attacks to justice, saying Thursday it had shut down extremist websites and suspected militant training camps, and detained 71 people in a deepening probe.
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