The Londoner

Pakistan 315 for 3 (Butt 129, Younis 108) beat India 290 (Dhoni 64, Yuvraj 56, Gul 4-57) by 25 runs A familiar nemesis and a battle-scarred warhorse inspired a downcast bunch to brave the odds and hand Pakistan their first multi-nation title in more than five years. In front of their board chairman, who had lashed out after their previous loss, and their coach, who was criticised for his overly optimistic statements, Pakistan turned in an intense, yet controlled, performance to clinch the Kitply Cup and head home upbeat for the Asia Cup. In an era of slam-bang cricket, Pakistan reverted to a strategy straight out of the early 1990s: win the toss, bat, see off the new ball, keep wickets, accelerate and launch a big score. From 75 for 1 in the 20th over, on a pitch where the ball appeared to be stopping on the batsmen, they soared to 315. Salman Butt cracked his fifth hundred against India, and seventh overall, but it was Younis Khan's pumped-up century that charmed - under the cosh

SRINAGAR, Kashmir (Reuters) - About a dozen spectators were detained in Indian Kashmir for shouting pro-Pakistan slogans at a soccer match aimed at generating goodwill and ending alienation among locals, police said on Monday. Those detained were among 5,000 people who had come to watch Sunday's final of the Indian national soccer championship, a rare major sporting event held in the violence-racked region. They shouted "we want freedom, long live Pakistan" before police led them away, a senior police official told Reuters. "Ten persons have been detained for provocative sloganeering and for inciting others," said the official, who asked not to be identified. A number of Muslim militant groups are fighting Indian security forces in the region, seeking either Kashmiri independence or the merger of India's only Muslim majority state with Pakistan. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in violence involving Indian troops and separatist militants since a

WASHINGTON: The US Congress has approved the delivery of ten refurbished F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, diplomatic sources have told Dawn. Four of these will be delivered to Pakistan on June 28 and four others by July 28. Pakistan has already received two such aircraft. Two refurbished F-16s are with the manufacturers and will be delivered soon. Besides the refurbished planes, Pakistan is buying 18 new F-16 fighter jets from the United States. Initially, Islamabad had agreed to buy 36 of these aircraft at a total cost of $5.1 billion, which included associated weapons, spares and upgrading of an earlier fleet purchased in the 1980s. But due to financial constraints it later decided to halve the number of aircraft to be bought. The decision to reduce the order by half would also halve the cost of buying new F-16s and that of the weapons associated with them. Pakistan, however, will still have to spend $1.3 billion on mid-life update and modification of the F-16A/B aircraft purchased ear

THE detention of paceman Mohammad Asif in Dubai on charges of possessing contraband drugs is the latest in a series of shocks that have left Pakistan cricket reeling. With Shoaib Akhtar fighting to have a life ban lifted, the Pakistan Cricket Board chief having just retracted his defamation suit against the maverick fast bowler, the PCB getting partial with the truth in its dealings with the Senate Standing Committee on Sports, rumours of financial bungling within the board, uncertainty over the future of the national coach and, amid all this confusion, the falling standard of the team�s performance, there can be little doubt that Pakistan cricket is in bad shape both on and off the field. It would take some bravado to even attempt a denial. That a senior official has now been rushed to Dubai for damage control is yet another indication of the PCB�s tendency to be more reactive than proactive. Indeed, no one can be expected to keep a constant eye on individual players, but corrective a

By Humayun Gauhar submitted 22 hours 12 minutes ago What is "the establishment" is a question that has never properly been answered. But since this amorphous entity has become the favourite whipping boy of losers who blame all their failures on "the establishment", the question demands an answer. The best way to describe "the establishment" is that it is that collection of vested interests that always ensure that the status quo isn't disturbed either by organised revolution (unlikely in Pakistan) or maverick rulers (regular in Pakistan). Revolution is neither in our history and nor, one is forced to deduce, in our psyche. We regularly side with one "devil" to get rid of another and call it revolution. Then we get into bed with the same old "devil" we had removed to get rid of the "devil" we were in bed with first. Again we call it revolution. And so goes our "revolutionary" syndrome, on and on and on... The maver

By G. Asgar Mitha Several years ago, maybe 1995, I remember reading an article in the Pakistani daily newspaper “The Dawn” titled “Jews Rule America”. The article was written by the late Dr. Eqbal Ahmed who passed away in Pakistan in 1999 from heart failure. Dr. Ahmed, in his article wrote as an opener that the title was not his. It was borrowed from a Tel Aviv newspaper he read on an airline en route to his destination. In fact, the contents of the article, as I remember correctly were borrowed from a sermon given in a synagogue by a Rabbi. Dr. Ahmed was not anti-Semitic or anti –Israeli and for the matter of fact neither am I. A nation has all rights to exist. What follows is what I, too, recently read in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Most Muslims are not anti-Israeli. Like any Jew, every Muslim wants to live in peace and that is what 95% of the world’s human beings also aspire. For both Jews and Muslims, the greetings are Shalom or Salam meaning peace. Unfortunately, war is thrust