A Canadian woman being held hostage in northern Pakistan says her captors are planning to behead her at the end of the month if a $2-million ransom isn’t paid
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An Obama administration panel reviewing Middle East strategy will recommend “intense engagement” with Pakistan, including a massive increase in economic aid and more helicopters to fight Islamic militants.
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KARACHI: Children will turn away from cricket in Pakistan unless something drastic is done to save the sport, national team captain Younis Khan has said.”You will see people losing interest in cricket and youngsters no longer having cricket idols to look up to,” Khan told a foreign news agency on Thursday.Pakistani cricket is in turmoil after a series of cancellations of tours by international sides to the country due to security concerns.”The Sri Lankans were the first team in 14 months to come and play test cricket in Pakistan. That incident even left the players depressed and upset,” Khan said.”It is a gloomy situation for us with so many cancellations and postponements of test and one-day matches involving us since last year.”I think the cricket board, our government, former and present players and other stakeholders need to sit together and come up with viable long-term proposals to keep cricket going in Pakistan”, he added.
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MASSACHUSETTS: For most teenagers high-school is tough enough facing peer-pressure and acne, but being a Muslim female who wears a hijab, or headscarf, can make it even more daunting, especially when you are a top-scoring, history-making basketball player. For Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir, who is on her way to becoming the first player in Massachusetts state history–male or female–to score 3,000 points, wearing the hijab was not an option but she was determined not to let it be an obstacle either.”It really wasn”t a decision. I had to.” Bilqis told Sports Illustrated. “I had to get used to it, no matter how hard it was for me. I know the first few weeks in school kind of tested me.” At 5” 3.5″, Bilqis started playing as an eighth-grader for New Leadership Charter School in Springfield but it was not until she reached puberty that she put the Muslim veil on and consequently start playing in full Muslim dress with her arms and legs completely covered beneath her uniform.Bilqis said it was not easy and she frequently turned heads as people taunted her about the “tablecloth” on her head or for being a “terrorist.”"Sometimes they yell out, ”Terrorist!”” one of Bilqis” teammates told the Boston Globe. “She gets mad, but she doesn”t lash out. I don”t know how she handles it. She just takes it.”
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Suspected Taliban militants fired a rocket that killed eight people in a northwest Pakistan town Thursday, in an attack targeting security forces near a key supply route for international forces in Afghanistan, an official said.
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NEW YORK: Oil prices jumped above 50 dollars Thursday after the Federal Reserve moved to inject another trillion dollars into the US financial system to boost the world’’s biggest economy. New York’’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, ended 3.47 dollars higher from Wednesday’’s close to 51.61 dollars per barrel, topping 50 dollars for the first time in four months. In early trading Thursday, the contract surged to 52.25 dollars — the highest level since November 28, 2008. Brent North Sea crude for May delivery rose 3.01 dollars to 50.67 in London after breaching 51 dollars. Analysts attributed the price jump to Wednesday’’s announcement by the US Federal Reserve that it would pump 1.15 trillion dollars into the financial system. The move also has pulled down the US dollar against key currencies. “You need to put this action in the context of what has happened in the last few weeks in the market. There has been a shift in market sentiment,” said Constanza Jacazio of Barclays Capital. “From a market where demand was the only driver of price action and sentiment, there seems to have been a shift in a more balanced view,” he said. Crude futures had slid Wednesday on news of a larger-than-expected increase in US energy reserves that highlighted weak American energy demand, but trimmed losses after news of the Fed plan. “Oil prices took a rollercoaster ride yesterday (Wednesday), with bearish (US) inventory data … firstly prompting a fall in the April (New York) contract to 47 dollars before the Fed’’s surprising announcement,” said Dresdner Kleinwort analyst Eugen Weinberg.The US central bank said Wednesday that it would buy up to 300 billion dollars in long-term US Treasury bonds over the next six months “to help improve conditions in private credit markets.”
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Foreign Secretary David Miliband called Thursday on all sides in Pakistan to unite against domestic terrorism after the country was taken to the brink of chaos by mass protests.
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PESHAWAR: At least eight people were killed and 30 others wounded when security forces and militants clashed here on Thursday.According to reports, suspected militants fired mortar shells at a FC post in Tehsil Landi Kotal after which fierce clash erupted between security forces and militants.During clash, several mortar shells fell in Landi Kotal bazaar, Khogakhel and Gagrah areas, killing eight people and injuring many more. The injured were shifted to the Landi Kotal Hospital.
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Pakistan’s government asks the Supreme Court to review a ruling that bans ex-PM Nawaz Sharif and his brother from office.
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The Pakistan government filed appeals Thursday to overturn a court ruling that banned opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and his brother from contesting elections and sparked a political crisis.
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