PIA aircraft comes under fire in Peshawar

 

PESHAWAR: A woman was killed and two persons, including a flight steward, were wounded when a passenger flight of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) came under attack while landing at the Bacha Khan International Airport in Peshawar on Tuesday night.
The woman passenger, who is said to be a foreigner, died of wounds en route to the Combined Military Hospital in Peshawar Cantonment, reports said.Sources said the PIA flight from Riyadh (No PK-756) wasabout to land in Peshawar when unidentified attackers opened fire on the aircraft. The bullets hit a woman, a steward and another person.

The firing panicked the passengers but the pilot safely landed the aircraft. Ambulances and security personnel encircled the parked aircraft.The wounded were taken to the CMH. The spokesman for the PIA confirmed the attack, saying that three persons had sustained injuries in the firing incident and were shifted to the CMH.

The attack was the first of its kind. There were a number of attacks on the airport in the past but it was for the first time that an aircraft was hit and its passengers were wounded.A search operation was launched in the Pishtakhara and Sarband areas after the attack while more security personnel were deployed around the airport and the airbase. While landing in Peshawar, all aircraft come close to the tribal areas and the nearby settled towns.

Cold storage fire near Karachi airport still rages on

KARACHI: Fire at a cold storage facility near Karachi airport could not be doused even after a lapse of two days.

The cold storage had caught fire as a result of the deadly attack on the airport by terrorists equipped with modern weapons on Sunday night.

The officials of the city’s fire brigade and Airport Security Force (ASF) had made claims to distinguish the fire by today.

Daily Jang’s vehicle set on fire in Rawalpindi

 

RAWALPINDI: The anti-Jang Group people attacking the group through different means this time torched a delivery vehicle of the Daily Jang loaded with Friday’s religious edition, after kidnapping and torturing the driver of the vehicle, in the wee hours of Friday.
The driver was shifted to the Holy Family Hospital after the “well-known captors” threw the blindfolded man in critical condition somewhere at Rawat.The Banni Police, however, have registered the case against unidentified criminals under sections 436, 427, 341, 342, 147 and 149 PPC but haven’t yet traced the “criminals” embroiled in the anti-Jang Group activities.

The driver of the delivery vehicle, Mohammad Razzaq, an employee of the Universal Distribution Network (UDN), said he was attached with the delivery network of the Jang Group as a driver for the last two years, adding that he left the Al-Rehman Building on his vehicle (registration number AJKA-3103) loaded with thousands of copies of the Friday’s edition of Jang for the Akhbar Market, Aabpara, at 2:10am.

He said gunmen on two vehicles intercepted him and straightaway dragged him out of his vehicle and pushed him into one of their cars. The driver said that the gunmen thrashed him inhumanly, blindfolded him and tied his hands on his back with a nylon rope. He said that they kept torturing him during about one-hour-long drive and later threw him out of their vehicle.

Razzaq said that as the light of the dawn appeared, a passer-by untied him and on query, he told him he was at the Chamber Road near Rawat. He, however, walked to Rawat and sought help from a van driver and informed his brother from the van driver’s mobile phone who reached there and started searching the delivery vehicle, which was left at the place from where he was kidnapped. His brother shifted him to the Holy Family Hospital as his condition was worsening, the driver said.

In the meantime, an employee of Geo TV living on the however, shifted him to Holy Family Hospital as his condition was worsening, the driver said.In the meantime, an employee of Geo TV living at Kuri Road (Sadiqabad) found the Jang’s delivery van which was burnt along with Friday religious edition of the newspaper. He informed chief security officer of the Jang Group about location of the van at Kuri Road.

The management of the Jang Group reprinted the burned copies and sent them for distribution.Earlier, on May 30, unidentified assailants equipped with lethal weapons, set the van carrying The News and Jang Friday edition to transport to Islamabad, after creating fear among the people at Committee Chowk. People who witnessed the last Friday attack confirmed that the assailants were carrying lethal weapons and they acted as professional fighters. “Their delivery was not like normal citizens or agitators but they seemed as trained people,” the witnesses said.

Mohammad Razzaq said that about 10/12 gunmen, carrying kalashnikovs, suddenly jumped in front of the van and pointed their guns towards him, asking him to come out of the van if he wants to save his life otherwise they would burn him alive. He said that three were holding pistols and remaining were carrying kalashnikovs.

Pakistan workers fire ´Brazuca´ ball to Brazil

SIALKOT: She has no idea who Lionel Messi is and her home country isn't even playing, but Pakistani mother-of-five Gulshan Bibi can't wait for the World Cup -- because she helped make the balls.

When Brazil and Croatia kick off the tournament in Sao Paolo on June 12 there's a good chance they'll be using a ball made by Gulshan and her colleagues at the Forward Sports factory in Pakistan's eastern town of Sialkot.

Cricket-mad Pakistan might not have much of a football team -- 159th in FIFA's world rankings -- but Sialkot has a long history of manufacturing top-class balls.

Forward Sports has been working with Adidas since 1995 and supplies match balls to some of the world's top football competitions, including the Champions League, the German Bundesliga -- and now the World Cup.

In any case, assembling modern match balls is not simply a matter of sitting down with a needle and thread.

The Forward Sports plant stands barely a free kick's distance from the dust and chaos of the Grand Trunk Road, the great British-era highway that cuts across the subcontinent all the way to Kolkota.

In contrast to the baking, deafening road outside where ancient goods trucks, donkey carts and motorbikes overloaded with families and livestock compete to avoid potholes, order and efficiency reign inside the factory.

On the Brazuca production line, women in headscarves, some with their faces veiled, work briskly.

They start with flat white propeller-shaped pieces of polyurethane, add the Brazuca's distinctive bright colours and glue the panels to the ball's rubber bladder.

The seams are then treated with a special sealant and the ball is heated and compressed in a spherical clamp to give it the correct shape. The heat also activates the temperature-sensitive bonding compound that holds the ball securely together.

The whole process from flat panels to finished item takes 40 minutes -- speed is crucial to prevent impurities getting into the ball -- and the factory can produce up to 100 per hour.

It's a high-tech process for Pakistan, where much of the workforce is unskilled and poorly educated -- only around half the population can read and write.

Ninety percent of those working on the Brazuca were women -- unusual in Pakistan, where they are largely expected to stay at home with families, but they were more diligent and meticulous than their male colleagues.

Making the Brazuca was no simple matter for Forward, as Adidas gave the order at short notice when they realised their main manufacturer in China was unable to meet demand.

In just over a month, Forward managed to have the equipment it needed to make the Brazuca from scratch.

Pakistan workers fire ´Brazuca´ ball to Brazil

SIALKOT: She has no idea who Lionel Messi is and her home country isn't even playing, but Pakistani mother-of-five Gulshan Bibi can't wait for the World Cup -- because she helped make the balls.

When Brazil and Croatia kick off the tournament in Sao Paolo on June 12 there's a good chance they'll be using a ball made by Gulshan and her colleagues at the Forward Sports factory in Pakistan's eastern town of Sialkot.

Cricket-mad Pakistan might not have much of a football team -- 159th in FIFA's world rankings -- but Sialkot has a long history of manufacturing top-class balls.

Forward Sports has been working with Adidas since 1995 and supplies match balls to some of the world's top football competitions, including the Champions League, the German Bundesliga -- and now the World Cup.

In any case, assembling modern match balls is not simply a matter of sitting down with a needle and thread.

The Forward Sports plant stands barely a free kick's distance from the dust and chaos of the Grand Trunk Road, the great British-era highway that cuts across the subcontinent all the way to Kolkota.

In contrast to the baking, deafening road outside where ancient goods trucks, donkey carts and motorbikes overloaded with families and livestock compete to avoid potholes, order and efficiency reign inside the factory.

On the Brazuca production line, women in headscarves, some with their faces veiled, work briskly.

They start with flat white propeller-shaped pieces of polyurethane, add the Brazuca's distinctive bright colours and glue the panels to the ball's rubber bladder.

The seams are then treated with a special sealant and the ball is heated and compressed in a spherical clamp to give it the correct shape. The heat also activates the temperature-sensitive bonding compound that holds the ball securely together.

The whole process from flat panels to finished item takes 40 minutes -- speed is crucial to prevent impurities getting into the ball -- and the factory can produce up to 100 per hour.

It's a high-tech process for Pakistan, where much of the workforce is unskilled and poorly educated -- only around half the population can read and write.

Ninety percent of those working on the Brazuca were women -- unusual in Pakistan, where they are largely expected to stay at home with families, but they were more diligent and meticulous than their male colleagues.

Making the Brazuca was no simple matter for Forward, as Adidas gave the order at short notice when they realised their main manufacturer in China was unable to meet demand.

In just over a month, Forward managed to have the equipment it needed to make the Brazuca from scratch.

 

Another van of The News set on fire

 

RAWALPINDI: Unidentified assailants equipped with lethal weapons set a van carrying the copies of ‘The News’ to Islamabad on fire after creating panic among the people here at the Committee Chowk on Friday morning.
The people who witnessed the scene confirmed that the assailants were carrying lethal weapons and acted as professional fighters. “Their delivery was not like normal citizens or agitators but they seemed trained people,” the witnesses said.

Driver of ‘The News’ van Muhammad Razzaq said that around 10-12 gunmen, carrying Kalashnikovs, and pistols suddenly jumped in front of the van and pointed their guns towards him, asking him to come out of the vehicle if he wanted to save his life or they would burn him alive. He said that three attackers were holding pistols and the remaining were carrying Kalashnikovs.

“I am working with the UDN (Universal Dispatch Network) attached with the delivery network of the Jang Group as a driver for the last two years,” Razzaq said in his complaint lodged with the police, adding that he left the Al-Rehman Building on his van (registration number RIS-1011) after loading 7,000 copies of ‘The News’ for the Akhbar Market, Aabpara, at 5:05am. As he reached the Committee Chowk bus stop at about 5:10am, 10 to 12 bearded people suddenly jumped in front of the van and asked him to come out of the vehicle or he would be burnt alive. On his resistance, they dragged him out of the van, sprinkled kerosene oil on the vehicle and newspapers and set them on fire.

“The leading assailants were speaking Urdu in a Pashto slang while others were silent but active,” the driver said. He said that two among them, carrying cans of kerosene, came forward, sprinkled it on different parts of the vehicle and newspapers, threw a burning match stick on the newspaper copies and set the vehicle on fire. The assailants kept watching the burning van for a while and later ran away while shooting in the air.

The vehicle was destroyed within a few minutes before firefighters of Rescue-1122 could arrive.An atmosphere of fear was created in the area and the people rushed to safer places when the assailants waved lethal weapons, the witnesses said, adding that traffic at the Committee Chowk and adjacent roads was choked and remained suspended for hours.

The police high-ups later reached the scene and took obligatory action after collecting evidence from the crime scene and recorded statements of the people who had witnessed the episode.After the burning of The News van, the newspaper copies were again printed and distributed late in Islamabad.

It is a general perception of the people belonging to civil society and other walks of life that pleading its case in the court of law and before the people of Pakistan is the basic right of theGeo/Jang Group but the power active behind the scene is trying to silence the voice of Geo and Jang by resorting to such heinous and low-bred tactics.

“Public opinion is turning in favour of the Jang Group after the group’s administration tendered an apology as the religious scholars unanimously believed that doors of Allah Almighty are forever open and He always accepts request for forgiveness,” experts said.

“The News and Jang are not doing anything against the social or religious norms but simply pleading their case to seek justice. In these circumstances, why did some people attack The News?” they asked, adding, “There are some other powers active behind the scene who want to gain their objectives in the garb of spreading hatred against the Geo/Jang Group.”

The police have taken up the case and registered an FIR with the Ganjmandi Police Station against the unknown assailants on the complaint of the driver of the van, Muhammad Razzaq, under sections 436, 341, 427, 148, 149 PPC and started an investigation.

Van carrying Jang, The News bundles set on fire in Rawalpindi

RAWALPINDI: A van carrying bundles of the Daily Jang and The News was attacked near Committee Chowk.

Eight to ten armed men attacked the van and set it on fire after dousing it with petrol. The van was travelling from Rawalpindi to Islamabad. The drive of the van remained was not hurt in the attack.

According to sources over 7,000 copies of the newspapers were burnt resulting in losses in the hundreds of thousands.

The driver of the van said he was dragged out of the vehicle and threatened. He added that the attackers were carrying pistols and Kalashnikovs.

In a similar attack unidentified bike riders set a vehicle carrying bundles of the Daily Jang and The News on fire in Lahore on Sunday.

Eight women locked in building die in Philippine fire

MANILA: Eight women died in the Philippine capital on Friday as a fire engulfed a building in which they had been locked in by their employer, police said.

Eight other women survived the blaze by climbing to the roof of the two-storey building and jumping off, said police officer Cris Gabutin, an investigator in the case.

"They said the gate was locked. It was dark and they could not find a way out. It was a lucky thing they were able to get out to the roof and jump," Gabutin said.

The bodies of the eight other women were found sprawled in one room, Gabutin said.

"It was like they were trapped. Maybe they panicked and could not find their way out," he said. Gabutin said six of the dead women identified so far were aged between 19 and 24.

A neighbourhood watchman in the middle-class residential area where the fire occurred, Jayvee Arizapa, said neighbours saw the women leaping from the roof.

"We could also hear people screaming for help inside but we could not help them because the wall was too high," he said.

The women were all from rural areas who had been brought to Manila to work in a warehouse storing electronic products and computer disks, according to Gabutin. He said they were sleeping in a building next to the warehouse when the fire started just after midnight.

He said the cause of the fire was unknown but police had arrested the owner of the building, charging him with human trafficking, negligence resulting in homicide and operating a business in the area without a license.

It is a common practice in the Philippines for low-paid employees to sleep in their place of work.

Employers typically do not provide enough safety measures for their staff, and some are known to lock them in to stop them stealing or prevent socialising.

Seventeen workers died in the southern Philippines in 2012 when a fire burnt down a department store in which they were sleeping. (AFP)

Fire engulfs Lahore godown

LAHORE: A fire erupted at a godown located near a Utility Store in Hinjarwal area of the city on late Saturday night.

According to reports, the huge fire engulfed a Ghee godown within minutes and fire fighters were unable to douse the blaze through the night.

According to latest reports, Fire Brigade was still trying to douse the fire.

12 killed in Damascus mortar fire: state media

DAMASCUS: Mortar shells slammed into central Damascus on Tuesday, hitting a technical institute in a barrage that killed 12 people and wounded 50, state media reported.

"Twelve citizens were killed and 50 others wounded by terrorists who targeted the Shaghour neighbourhood in Damascus with four mortar shells," the SANA news agency said, adding that two shells hit the Badr al-Din al-Hussein technical institute.

The Syrian government and media use the term "terrorists" for all those seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad´s government. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the mortar attack, saying at least eight people were dead and dozens injured and the toll was expected to rise.

Rebel forces arrayed in positions on the outskirts of the capital regularly fire mortar shells and rockets into the heart of Damascus, often killing civilians.

Shaghour is a district in the Old City of Damascus, which has been hit by rebel fire frequently.

Baby among five killed in British house fire

LONDON: A nine-week-old baby girl and two children aged seven and nine were among five people killed in a house fire in Britain on Monday.

Anum Parvaiz, 54, and her 20-year-old daughter Shabina Begum were named as the two adults killed in the blaze in Sheffield, northern England.

"It´s a tragedy beyond description," said Parvaiz´s cousin Ishfaq Hussain Kayani.

He said a nine-week-old baby girl was among those who had died, as well as nine-year-old Adhyan Nazim and seven-year-old Amaan Nazim.

"It´s so sad. A couple of hours ago the whole family was leading their normal life," he said.

"Just in a matter of minutes the whole family has been destroyed. The whole family has gone."

The local fire service confirmed that two adult females and three young children had died in the blaze.

"An investigation has commenced, involving police and fire officers, to establish the cause of the fire," the service said.

Rivals trade fire leaves three dead in Bannu

BANNU: Three persons were killed in firing on Sunday here, Geo News reported.

Police said that three persons were killed as the two rival groups traded fire at Township here. The accused after firing fled away from the scene of incident, police said.

Police have started the investigations.

Karachi fire gutted goods worth millions

KARACHI: The fire erupted on the first floor of the Rainbow centre in Saddar early morning on Friday here gutted goods worth millions before it could be controlled, Geo News reported.

Fire Brigade on information initially sent two fire tenders and later two more were called to control the spreading fire that soon engulfed as many as eight shops before it could be doused after one and a half hour struggle.

Three dead in Lahore fire

LAHORE: At least three people were killed as a fire engulfed the Hardware Plaza in Bakara Mandi area of the city.

The three died of suffocation due to accumulation of smoke at floor where they had taken shelter after the fire erupted.

The three bodies have been retrieved after hectic efforts

Gunmen fire shots in air during raid at Crimean naval base

Armed men, believed to be Russian servicemen, march outside an Ukrainian military base in the Crimean city of Simferopol Monday. Reuters

Unidentified armed men fired in the air as they moved into a Ukrainian naval post in Crimea on Monday in the latest confrontation since Russian military groups seized control of the Black Sea peninsula.
With diplomacy at a standstill, Russia said the United States had spurned an invitation to hold new talks on resolving the crisis, the worst East-West standoff since the Cold War.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, who said he would address the UN Security Council on Thursday, put the blame for the crisis on Russia and accused Moscow of undermining the global security system by taking control of Crimea.
Russian forces have in little more than a week taken over military installations across Crimea, home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet and Russian territory until Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine in 1954.
Pro-Russian separatists have taken control of the regional parliament, declared Crimea part of the Russian Federation and announced a referendum for Sunday to confirm this.
President Vladimir Putin says Moscow is acting to protect the rights of ethnic Russians, who make up a majority of Crimea’s population, after Ukraine’s president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in what Russia says was an unconstitutional coup.
On Monday, a group of about 10 unidentified armed men fired in the air at a Ukrainian naval post in Crimea, a Ukrainian defence spokesman was quoted as saying.
Ukraine’s Channel 5 television quoted Vladislav Seleznyov as saying the shooting took place at a motor pool base near Bakhchisaray. The men in two minibuses drove into the compound and demanded Ukrainian personnel there give them 10 trucks.
Earlier, Interfax Ukraine news agency quoted an unnamed Ukrainian official describing the men as Russian troops and saying none of the Ukrainians at the site was injured.
Russian forces, who have been in control of Crimea for more than a week, have not so far exchanged fire in anger with Ukrainian troops. Shots were fired over the heads of a group of Ukrainians during a standoff at a military airfield last week.
In other armed action, Russian forces took over a military hospital and a missile unit. Reuters correspondents also saw a big Russian convoy on the move just outside the port city of Sevastopol near a Ukrainian air defence base.
It comprised more than 100 vehicles, including around 20 armoured personnel carriers, plus mobile artillery.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Putin that Russia’s position on Ukraine remained at odds with the West, but US Secretary of State John Kerry had declined an invitation to visit Russia Monday for talks. “It is all being formulated as if there was a conflict between Russia and Ukraine.,” Lavrov told Putin.

TonenGeneral Kawasaki cracker on fire, refining normal elsewhere

TOKYO: Japanese oil refiner TonenGeneral Sekiyu KK said several workers were injured when a fire broke out on Saturday in the residue hydrocracking unit of its Kawasaki plant near Tokyo, but that other refining units were operating normally.
The fire originated from the reactor of the 31,000 barrel per day hydrocracking unit during cleaning work at around 0440 GMT, the company said in a statement.
The unit, which processes low-priced heavy oil into lighter products such as gasoline, has been shut since early February for maintenance, a company spokesman said.
The company has plans to raise the capacity of the unit to 34,500 bpd this month to meet government rules on improving efficiency.
TonenGeneral said the fire had almost been brought under control by pumping nitrogen into the unit. Six workers were treated in hospital and one of them was been admitted. Local officials said the fire had not spread to the surrounding facilities.
TonenGeneral said it was continuing normal operations at crude distillation and other secondary units at the Kawasaki plant, which has a capacity of 335,000 barrels per day, and that there had been no impact to shipments from either its marine or truck terminals.
However, it was not yet clear what had caused the fire, how much damage had been done to the hydrocracking unit, or when it would resume operations, a company spokesman said.