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Airblue Plane Crash in Islamabad near Margalla Hills

PakBee — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:27:01 +0000

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ISLAMABAD: A commercial airbus of AirBlue has crashed into Margalla Hills, a mountainous range behind Shah Faisal Mosque, apparently due to rough weather, Geo news reported.

According to preliminary reports, as many as 150 passengers including crewmembers were on board plane while the smoke is seen rising through heavy clouds from the crash site, police and rescue service officials said.

Eyewitnesses said people noticed airbus flying at very low altitude near Daman-e-Koh this morning and it might have crashed due to rough weather.

The wreckage can be seen in video footages with fierce fire raging and smoke emitting from there despite heavy rains in Islamabad.

Airport sources said the flight took off at 7:50am from Karachi to Islamabad but crashed due to uneven weather a few minutes before landing after loosing connection with control tower.

Islamabad is witnessing heavy showers and thick fog at the moment. Meanwhile rescue teams have been dispatched to area.

Update:
ISLAMABAD: Five people have been rescued from the wreckage of a Airblue crashed at Margalla Hills early on Wednesday.

One hundred and forty-six people including 139 adults, five kids and five crewmembers were onboard whereas 12 are those lucky people who missed the flight.

According to sources, an airbus 320 bound for Islamabad departed from Karachi at 7:50 am. The local residents said plane made low flight before the crash.

Rescue operation is underway despite difficulties because of hilly location of the incident site.

Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik said five wounded being shifted to hospital whereas rescue operation and search for black box is underway. The airport control tower had signaled landing approach to the plane when it was just eight kilometers away from the airport, reports said.

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Pakistan win thriller to end Aussie drought

PakBee — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 13:09:24 +0000

LEEDS: Pakistan held their nerve to claim their first Test victory against Australia in 15 years in a tense fourth-day finish at Headingley here on Saturday.

Pakistan, set 180 to win, lost four wickets for 40 runs before finishing on 180 for seven and a three-wicket win as they levelled this two-Test series at 1-1.

Left-arm quick Mohammad Aamer was five not out and Umar Gul, who hit the winning run off Mitchell Johnson, one not out as Pakistan ended a run of 13 straight Test defeats by Australia – a record for one country against another.

Pakistan were still five short when Australia’s Michael Hussey appealed for a gully catch against Kamran Akmal on 13, off the bowling of Mitchell Johnson but replays were inconclusive.

And then left-arm quick Mohammad Aamer, who took seven wickets in the match, edged Ben Hilfehnaus through the slips for four to tie the scores.

But there was one more twist with Kamran Akmal brilliantly caught by Hussey off Johnson and this time there was no doubt.

Gul, though, hammered his first ball from Johnson through the offside and Pakistan had won with more than a day and two sessions to spare.

Left-arm quick Doug Bollinger, starting Friday, took three wickets for five runs in 17 balls on his way to three for 51 and Ben Hilfenhaus three for 39 but even Australia could not turn this match around.

Ultimately, Australia paid the price for being bowled out for just 88 in their first innings – their lowest Test total since they were dismissed for 76 by the West Indies at Perth in 1984

Australia ‘held’ Pakistan to 258, with medium-pacer Watson taking a Test-best six for 33, following his previous best of five for 40 in Australia’s 150-run first Test win at Lord’s last week, after the frontline quicks had been mostly ineffective.

And Australia then maded 349 with Michael Clarke and Steven Smith, in his second Test, both making 77.

Australia captain Ricky Ponting contributed 66 as he became only the second batsman, after India’s Sachin Tendulkar, to score 12,000 Test runs.

But Aamer still managed to take four for 86, giving the 18-year-old left-arm quick Test best match figures of seven for 106.

Aammer and Watson won their teams’ respective man-of-the-match awards.

Pakistan resumed Saturday on 140 for three, needing 40 more runs to win with Australia requiring seven wickets.

However, as recently as the Sydney Test in January, Australia bowled Pakistan out for 139, chasing a victory target of 176.

Azhar Ali resumed on 47 not out, with Umar Akmal unbeaten on two.

Ali, off Bollinger’s third ball Saturday, cover-drove a full toss to the boundary to complete a maiden Test fifty off 108 balls with six fours.

But next ball, he could only edge Bollinger to keeper Tim Paine.

Ali was out for 51 and Pakistan were 146 for four.

Bollinger appealed for caught behind and lbw against Kamran Akmal, still on nought, in successive balls but Rudi Koertzen, in the South African umpire’s 108th and last Test before retirement, correctly rejected both pleas.

Shoaib Malik – on 10 – was brilliantly caught at the second attempt off a well-hit drive by Marcus North at short extra-cover off Hilfenhaus and Pakistan still needed 19 to win, with four wickets standing.

Kamran Akmal, with three boundaries, took Pakistan to the brink before Gul gave Salman Butt victory in his first Test as Pakistan captain.

Pakistan now have a short turnaround before a four-Test series against England starts at Trent Bridge on July 29.

Australia have to two Tests away to India in October before attempting to regain the Ashes from England on home soil, in a five-Test campaign that starts in November.

This series was played in England after international cricket in Pakistan was effectively suspended after an armed attack on Sri Lanka’s team bus in Lahore in March last year.

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Zardari using Google Earth to check land encroachment

PakBee — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:12:58 +0000

KARACHI: President Asif Ali Zardari Friday said that the government has initiated a drive against the encroachers and ordered a survey of all those areas which had been encroached upon, adding, all the encroached areas would be cleared of the encroachers.

He suggested the authorities to use the Google Earth to check whether the Goths of Karachi were old and not encroached upon.

“We welcome all those who are coming to Karachi, as it is their constitutional right, but not in the form of ‘Qabza groups,” he said.

Speaking at the ceremony of 11th draw of Waseela-e-Haq and Smart Cards programmes of Benazir Income Support Programme here, he said, the government would fulfil the vision of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto of women empowerment.

The president congratulated the gathering that the Parliament has unanimously passed the Benazir Income Support Programme bill as all the political parties, under the reconciliation policy and showing maturity has acknowledged that it should be continued in future as well as it is in the best national interest and benefits the downtrodden section of the society.

“Government is committed to steer the country out of the present crisis and we all will together give a better Pakistan to our coming generations,” the President said.

He said that Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has done his B.A Hons and got the same marks which Shaheed Benazir Bhutto had obtained. He said, “now we will start his training-the politics is in his genes”.

“We will give the youth of Pakistan in his hand and he (Bilawal) will make progammes for the coming generations,” he said.

President Zardari said that presently the users of internet in the country are 20 million and in coming years they would reach to 200 million, adding, the present government wanted to provide internet service and a laptop to every home.

He said that now the time has come that the son of a ‘Hari’ in Sindh should know the outflow of River Indus.

The president said that he had raised the issue of water with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the UN summit two years back and he (Singh) had said that Pakistan can take the issue to the World Bank.

He said that the government had hired an international arbitrator who would talk with India on the issue.

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Zong Becomes the Fastest Growing Network in the Country

PakBee — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:26:03 +0000

Zong has become the fastest growing network of Pakistan as it has recorded 500 percent growth in terms of number of cell sites during the last three years. The Company now has 5,612 cell sites out of which a massive 4,500 have been set up since 2007.

In April 2008, Zong joined the Telecom industry in Pakistan as the smallest operator. It took ZONG two years and the fastest rollout in the history of the industry to setup a network which its competitors had taken more than a decade to set up. ZONG now covers 10,000 cities, towns and villages across Pakistan.

“It has been more than 2 years since the launch of ZONG during which we have made monumental progress,” said Salman Wassay, Head of Marketing, ZONG. “In all areas of our operations, we have upped the ante and set new benchmarks for the industry,” added Wassay.

ZONG’s reach now stretches from the mountain tops of Ishkoman in Gilgit-Baltistan to the rocky plains of Buleda in Balochistan to the midst of mega cities. It has chosen to work with some of the top companies like Ericsson, Huawei, Alcatel Lucent and ZTE to provide top-of-the-line infrastructure for its services.

ZONG has so far invested US $1.66 billion in Pakistan and has plans to further invest $300 million in 2010 which is the largest investment by any telecom operator in the current year. The Company continues to invest heavily in the construction of GSM networks, support systems and transmission facilities, and for the development of new technologies and new businesses. China Mobile – the parent company of ZONG – pursues continuous innovation in the provision of services, business, technology and management and has sustained a leadership position in the telecom industry.

via=ProPakistani.PK

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NED Students Make Fuel-Efficient Car

PakBee — Mon, 31 May 2010 05:38:45 +0000

WinMark is a group of 12 engineering students, who have made a car locally in Pakistan that can cover 80 Kilometers per liter.

WinMark is participating in Shell Eco-Marathon, the 25th global competition which will be held first time in Asia (Malaysia) in July 2010.

Earlier we have discussed PakWheelers, students from NUST and about their participation with hybrid car in Shell Eco Marathon for prototype category, here we come with another team of auto enthusiasts from NED University of Engineering & Technology.

WinMark team has showcased their car at Karachi which is complete and is ready to race in the marathon. They will be competing with world’s top notch cars in urban category.

For Urban category a car is supposed to have 4 tires along with all basic auto fundamentals unlike prototype cars, which can have even 3 tires or even 2 and least possible components to secure highest level of mileage per liter.

About Rs 1.4 million will be the estimated cost of the project, including car development cost (Rs 5 lac), travelling (Rs 4 lac), transportation (Rs 3.5 lac) and accommodation and miscellaneous (Rs 1.5 lac).

WinMark is yet to secure any sponsor as of now. But they are hopeful to get the sponsored funds by next month so they can fly to Malaysia in July 2010.

WinMark is eyeing award at Shell Eco-Marathon in various contests including best Marketing team and Best Design.

The team comprises on students of Electrical and Mechanical Departments of NED University. They are:

M Tabrez Siddiqui, M Shahab Siddiqui, Ahsun Jawed, M Waqar Ahmed, Osama Rehman, Saeed Ahmad (Team Advisor), Haris Rehman (Team Manager), M Bilal Sohail, Taha Rasul Sheikh, M Hassan Abbasi, M Ahsan, Talha Asad and Usman Mehmood.

This year the event is to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Sepang International Circuit. The expected audience is more than 6000 people and the event will be covered by media from over 20 countries.

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Boycott Facebook On 20th May 2010

PakBee — Sun, 16 May 2010 14:40:10 +0000

There is this Facebook page that is holding a so-called contest for Prophet Mohammad’s drawings (Sallallahu Alayhi Wa-aal-hi-Wasallam).

Despite thousands of complaints, Facebook administration is not banning the page; unlike they usually do even for very minor violation of Facebook Terms of Services.

This page is clearly violating the terms, by spreading hatred and disrespecting Muslims and their values.

We have seen riots and protests in past when western media published such drawings. “Freedom of Speech” what they call it is no explanation, particularly when they know that their such deeds harm Islamic beliefs.

These campaigns are clearly more like a tease than of “Freedom of Speech”, and an obvious demo of mocking a religion, which for sure is not allowed by any religion of the world.

An SMS campaign in Pakistan is on the rise to boycott Facebook, at least on May 20th, 2010 to protest against this act of Facebook for not banning the page till now.

Recently, Facebook has been very strict for Fan Pages about Islam. Just this week we saw many Fan Pages getting banned from Facebook due to their relation with Islamic content.

You can report the page, or raise your voice with whatever channel available to you.

PLEASE REPLACE YOUR FACEBOOK PROFILE PICTURE

http://pakbee.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Facebook-Boycott-20th-May-2010.png

Boycott Facebook on 20th May 2010 against International Competition of Drawing Sketches of our beloved MUHAMMAD (Sallallahu Alayhi Wa-aal-hi-Wasallam) …

Join Facebook Event and Invite your Friends!
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=127186763959944

PROVE:
Event on FACEBOOK:
Title: Every body Draw MUHAMMAD Day.
More than 12000 Devilish artists have registered. Protest n Remove This Event.
Report against this Event Page. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=113257775375783

“EVERY MUSLIM SHOULD NOT COME ONLINE ON 20th May 2010 TO BOYCOTT FACEBOOK ”

Please Share Message with ALL! Let US Show the World We are United!!

Join Facebook Event and Invite your Friends!
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=127186763959944

Cause started by Pukaray Pakistan:
http://www.facebook.com/PukaryPakistan

Unity

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Lahore Resolution – 23 March 1940

PakBee — Tue, 11 May 2010 08:40:49 +0000

The Lahore Resolution (Qarardad-e-Lahore قرارداد لاھور), commonly known as the Pakistan Resolution (قرارداد پاکستان Qarardad-e-Pakistan),was a formal political statement adopted by the Muslim League at the occasion of its three-day general session on 22–24 March 1940 that called for greater Muslim autonomy in British India. This has been largely interpreted as a demand for a separate Muslim state, Pakistan. The resolution was presented by A. K. Fazlul Huq.

Although the name “Pakistan” had been proposed by Choudhary Rahmat Ali in his Pakistan Declaration in 1933, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and other leaders had kept firm their belief in Hindu-Muslim unity. However, the volatile political climate and religious hostilities gave the idea stronger backing.

The session was held between 22 March and 24 March, 1940, at Manto Park (now Iqbal Park),Lahore. The welcome address was made by Nawab Sir Shah Nawaz Mamdot. In his speech, Jinnah recounted the contemporary situation, stressing that the problem of India was no more of an inter-communal nature, but manifestly an international. He criticised the Congress and the nationalist Muslims, and espoused the Two-Nation Theory and the reasons for the demand for separate Muslim homelands. According to Stanley Wolpert, this was the moment when Jinnah, the former ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, totally transformed himself into Pakistan’s great leader.

Sikandar Hayat Khan, the Chief Minister of the Punjab, drafted the original Lahore Resolution, which was placed before the Subject Committee of the All India Muslim League for discussion and amendments. The Resolution text unanimously rejected the concept of a United India on the grounds of growing inter-communal violence and recommended the creation of an independent Muslim state.

After the presentation of the annual report by Liaquat Ali Khan, the Resolution was moved in the general session by A.K. Fazlul Huq, the Chief Minister of undivided Bengal and was seconded by Choudhury Khaliquzzaman who explained his views on the causes which led to the demand of a separate state. Subsequently, Maulana Zafar Ali Khan from Punjab, Sardar Aurangzeb from the North-West Frontier Province, Sir Abdullah Haroon from Sindh, and Qazi Esa from Baluchistan, and other leaders announced their support. In the same session, Jinnah also presented a resolution to condemn the Khaksar massacre of 19 March, owing to a clash between the Khaksars and the police, that had resulted in the loss of lives.

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Basit Riaz Sheikh

PakBee — Mon, 10 May 2010 10:53:09 +0000

Basit Riaz Sheikh, a Pakistani Ph.D student in AVLSI Lab at Cornell University, the United States has won the best paper award at Global Scientific Conference-2010 held in Grenoble, France.

World’s fastest supercomputers are characterized by the number of floating-point operations they can perform in one second.

Basit Riaz Sheikh (son of former ADG FIA Ahmed Riaz Sheikh) presented the design and implementation of a first high-performance asynchronous floating-point unit.

Compared against the state-of-the-art designs including the commercially manufactured microprocessors in nanoscale technology, Basit’s fully implemented transistor-level design not only performed at 3.2 times higher speed but also consumed 6 times less energy.

He was awarded the best paper award for his ground-breaking research.

Basit is the first Pakistani to win such a prestigious award at a premier circuits and computer design conference.

He is advised by a renowned scientist, Professor Manohar who recently co-founded Achronix Semiconductor, a 100 million dollar giga-scale asynchronous chip design company.

via=’ProPakistani.PK’Basit Riaz Sheikh

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Zong Ki Bijli Offer

PakBee — Fri, 07 May 2010 07:56:53 +0000

ZONG introduces its latest innovative campaign – Bijli Offer. With Bijli Offer, all new Zong prepaid customers get automatic daily lucky draw entries to win hundreds of UPS, generators, rechargeable fans and rechargeable lights every day. That’s the need of the hour and Zong felt it.

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Players should Work Hard

PakBee — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:39:07 +0000

KARACHI: Legendary squash player Jahangir Khan on Wednesday said that Pakistani squash players are talented but they lack the basic attributes needed to become a world champion.

“A player cannot become a world champion overnight. To become a champion, a player has to sacrifice a lot and to devote much of his time practising and training. There are always highly talented players in the international arena but only those reach the zeniths who dedicate everything for it,” Jahangir said.

“We used to practise for at least eight hours a day and after that we were able to play some good games in tournaments. When anyone made extraordinary efforts regularly, he needs no one to push or help him to reach the glory,” he added.

Jahangir, during his career won the World Open six times and the British Open a record ten times.

Between 1981 and 1986, he was unbeaten in competitive play for five years. During that time he won 555 matches consecutively.

This was not only the longest winning streak in squash history, but also one of the longest unbeaten runs by any athlete in top-level professional sports.

Jahangir is considered by many to be the greatest player in the history of the game.

Jahangir said that players have to be highly fit before featuring in any tournament.

“Players will always end with an injury in tournament if he is not highly fit. International competition is very exhausting and a player must have trained well before he features in any international event.

“Fitness of a top-class squash player is very important and talent only can’t do the job. They have to get training regularly for at least eight hours a day so that they could put some good show in a two-hour match.”

He criticised Pakistani squash players and said that their demand comes first and efforts later.

“If you make efforts, it would certainly appear in a tournament and then the federation would be obliged to send players regularly. But if you can’t give good performance when you get a chance to feature in a tournament, it certainly shows that you hadn’t done the homework well.

“Any of the Pakistani players haven’t performed well in the major international tournaments they have played. See the other international players of their age such as Ramy Ashour and Mohamed El-Shorbagy of Egypt, how they have crept up in the rankings. They regularly give top performance, which shows they have worked well on their game and fitness,” Jahangir said.

He further said that the Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) is wasting their time and money on overage players and they should bring in some young blood under consideration.

“By giving chances one after another to the aged players, the federation is wasting its time, money and the players’ time also. Moreover, the young player who has to replace them, their time is also being wasted as they are also getting older,” Jahangir stressed.

Jahangir further said that the coach and the trainer should have proper influence on the player and they should be able to force and compel players for training and practice.

“Unfortunately, here the coach and the trainer are under the influence of the obstinate players, who want to have coach or trainer of their choice. Subsequently they wouldn’t achieve anything if they continue to go like this,” said the former World No 1 player.

“I advise all the players to forget all the benefits they think they have the right to get from the federation, and concentrate on their game and practice as much as they can. This will be the only way that a player could toil in the international rankings. If they perform well, the federation will be forced to send them for other tournaments as well,” he added.—PPI

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