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Waqas Dar

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Blog Entries posted by Waqas Dar

  1. Waqas Dar
    Photo: File The Pakistan Meteorological Department on Wednesday said heavy downpour is expected in parts of the country in the next 48 hours. 
    A seasonal low lies over North Balochistan and its adjoining areas and a westerly wave continues to affect upper parts of the country. Monsoon currents are penetrating in upper and central parts of the country, the MET said.
    Rain and thundershowers with strong gusty winds are expected at a number of places in upper Punjab (Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Lahore, Sargodha, Faisalabad divisions), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, lower Sindh (Hyderabad, Karachi, Mirpur Khas, Sh. Benazirabad divisions), Islamabad, FATA and Kashmir, while at scattered places in South Punjab (Sahiwal, Multan, Bahawalpur, D.G. Khan divisions), upper Sindh (Larkana, Sukkur divisions), eastern Balochistan (Zhob, Sibbi, Naseerabad, Kalat divisions) and Gilgit-Baltistan in the next 24 hours.
    Past weather
    Rain and dust-thundershowers with gusty winds occurred at scattered places in Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Lahore, Sargodha, D.G Khan, Malakand, Hazara, D.I. Khan, Quetta divisions, Islamabad, while at isolated places in Kohat, Bahawalpur, Hyderabad divisions, and Kashmir.
    The weather remained hot and humid in other parts of the country.
    Rainfall in the last 24 hours (mm)
    Punjab: Mangla 52, Bhakkar 48, Noorpur Thal 33, Kamra 20, Kot Addu 19, Gujarat, Chakwal 16, Jhelum 15, Lahore city 13, Mianwali 10, Joharabad 08, Bahawalnagar 07, Islamabad (Saidpur, Z.P 05, Golra 01), Rawalpindi (Chaklala 04, Shamsabad 01), KP: D.I.Khan 26, Dir 18, Kakul, Kohat 03, Kalam 02, Balochistan: Barkhan 38, Kashmir: Kotli 01, Sindh: Mithi 02.
    Yesterday's highest maximum temperatures
    Turbat 48°C, Sibbi, Dadu 47°C, Jacobabad, Rohri, Sukkar 46°C, Larkana 45°C, Sh. Benazirabad, Moenjodaro 44°C.


    Data courtesy: Pakistan Meteorological Department 


  2. Waqas Dar
    A screengrab from a video shared on social media shows a helicopter flying above Caracas. CARACAS: A helicopter dropped two grenades on Venezuela´s Supreme Court building in a "terror attack" against the government, President Nicolas Maduro said in a speech Tuesday.

    "I have activated the entire armed forces to defend the peace," he said in remarks delivered from the Miraflores presidential palace.
    Maduro said he has put the military on alert to respond to the alleged assault.
    "Sooner or later, we are going to capture that helicopter and those that carried out this terror attack," he declared.
    He did not say when the alleged attack is supposed to have occurred, and said no one was injured and that one of the grenades failed to detonate.
    In his speech, Maduro, 54, said that in addition to firing on Venezuela´s high court, the helicopter flew over the Justice and Interior Ministeries.
    The beleaguered president, who for weeks has been thundering about alleged coup plots against him, said the aircraft was flown by a pilot who worked for his former Interior and Justice minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres, from whom he is now estranged.
    Earlier Tuesday, Maduro repeated claims of a US-backed coup attempt and angrily warned President Donald Trump that Venezuela would fight back against such a move.
    His comments came a day after he announced the arrests of five opponents he accused of plotting against him to clear the way for a US invasion.
    Anti-US tirade
    It was one of the more dramatic in a regular series of anti-US tirades by the socialist leader, who is resisting opposition calls for elections to remove him.
    "If Venezuela were dragged into chaos and violence... we would fight," Maduro bellowed in a speech to supporters.
    If a coup prevented his side fulfilling his contested reform plans, he said, "we would achieve it by arms."
    He said that an armed intervention in his country would spark a crisis that would dwarf those caused by conflicts in the Middle East.
    Addressing Trump, he said: "You are responsible for restraining the madness of the Venezuelan right-wing."
    Maduro has a number of times claimed that the United States is to blame for the grave political and economic crisis in the oil-producing country, which has fueled the often violent demonstrations of recent months.
    Clashes in anti-Maduro protests over the past three months have left 76 people dead, prosecutors say.
    The opposition blames Maduro for an economic crisis that has caused shortages of food and medicine in the oil-rich country.
    They regularly accuse him of repressing and jailing opponents. Judicial NGO Foro Penal says there are 383 political prisoners in Venezuela.
    War of words
    Addressing a crowd over the weekend, Maduro had said detainees would face military trial over an alleged coup plot, backed by Venezuelan opposition leaders and aimed at precipitating a US intervention in the country.
    "I am not exaggerating when I say it would have involved the arrival of American ships and troops in Venezuelan waters, on Venezuelan soil," Maduro said.
    And on Saturday the head of the Organization of American States dug his heels in a war of words with Caracas, flatly rejecting its demand that he resign.
    Maduro had suggested that Luis Almagro -- who has criticised the Venezuelan government of violating human rights, interfering in elections and detaining political prisoners -- step down in exchange for the country´s continued membership in the regional body.
    Though Almagro dismissed that notion, the OAS General Assembly was unable to reach agreement on a plan to deal with the instability in Venezuela at a meeting in Cancun last week.


  3. Waqas Dar
    Japan's Toshiba Corp faced shareholders at its annual meeting on Wednesday with no deal in hand for the sale of its prized flash memory chip unit and a long list of humiliating setbacks to apologise for.
    Scrambling to cover billions of dollars in cost overruns at its bankrupt Westinghouse nuclear unit, Toshiba had pledged to have a signed definitive agreement for the $18 billion sales of the unit - the world's No. 2 producer of NAND chips - by the shareholders meeting.
    But the conglomerate said in a statement on Wednesday that talks with some members of the preferred bidder consortium - which is led by Japanese government investors and includes private equity firm Bain Capital - were taking time.
    Prospects for a quick and smooth deal have become highly uncertain as Western Digital Corp which jointly runs Toshiba's main semiconductor plant, is vehemently opposed to a sale that does not include it and is seeking a U.S. court injunction to prevent any deal that does not have its consent.
    Underscoring tensions between the two business partners, Toshiba CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa lambasted Western Digital at the shareholders meeting.
    "Western Digital has been interfering with no due cause in the process of the chip unit sale with its request for arbitration and its lawsuit," he said.
    Further complicating matters, Western Digital and private equity firm KKR & Co LP resubmitted an offer for the semiconductor business on Tuesday, in an eleventh-hour effort to prevent a deal with the preferred bidder.
    While Toshiba said late last week that it was open to talks with its US chip partner, its response to the resubmitted bid has been to only say that is continuing to talk with its preferred bidder.
    Western Digital said it will provide debt financing to facilitate a sale as part of the resubmitted bid. It was not immediately clear if terms of the offer had significantly changed from one tabled earlier this month that Western Digital has said met Toshiba's minimum requirement of 2 trillion yen ($18 billion).
    Sources with knowledge of the matter have said a state-backed fund, the Innovation Network Corp of Japan, and the Development Bank of Japan which are currently part of preferred bidder consortium - would be invited to join Western Digital's resubmitted offer.
    While it was not immediately clear what parts of the talks with the preferred bidder consortium were taking time, sources familiar with the matter have said some Toshiba board members are concerned about technology leaks to South Korean chip rival SK Hynix Inch is part of the consortium and will provide Bain with financing.
    Western Digital has also said it is strongly opposed to SK Hynix's participation and has threatened further legal action.
    In addition to failing to sign a deal for the chip unit, Toshiba last week flagged a net loss of around $9 billion for the year ended in March with negative shareholders' equity of around $5.2 billion, both worse than expected.
    It has also yet to have auditors sign off on its annual results due to a prolonged probe at Westinghouse and its shares are set to be demoted to the second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange from Aug. 1.
    Toshiba's shares were mostly flat in morning trade, giving the company a market value of 1.25 trillion yen ($11 billion). The stock has lost some 34 percent since last December when the company flagged huge losses at its U.S. nuclear power operations.
    ($1 = 112.1100 yen)


  4. Waqas Dar
    Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist, best known for a leading role in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Swedish film series, died in Sweden on Tuesday after a year-long battle with lung cancer, his representative said. He was 56.
    Nyqvist "passed away quietly surrounded by family" in Stockholm, his spokeswoman Alissa Goodman said in an emailed statement that called him "one of Sweden's most respected and accomplished actors."
    "Michael's joy and passion were infectious to those who knew and loved him. His charm and charisma were undeniable, and his love for the arts was felt by all who had the pleasure of working with him," the statement said.
    Nyqvist rose to prominence as the complex investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist in film adaptations of Swedish author Stieg Larsson's gritty "Millennium" novel series that spawned "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" franchise.
    More recently, he played menacing villains in Hollywood action films "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" and "John Wick."
    Nyqvist made his debut as an author in 2010 with an autobiographical memoir "Just After Dreaming," which detailed his quest to find his biological parents three decades after he was adopted as a baby.
    The actor is survived by his wife and two children.


  5. Waqas Dar
    International passengers arrive at Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, US, June 26, 2017. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan  WASHINGTON: Without close family in the United States, Elly and her husband had few options for getting permission to immigrate from Iran to America. So when they won a US government lottery last September for a so-called "diversity visa" allowing them to resettle in the United States, the couple was thrilled.
    "Since last year, we made all the important decisions in our lives because we hoped we would get a visa," Elly said, declining to give her full name because her visa application is still in process. The couple decided to put off having children and purchasing a home until after their move to the United States.
    But the visa, which they still hope to get, is still being processed. Their attorney provided Reuters with an email documentation of their application to verify some of their accounts.
    Elly and her husband are two of the many people who fall into grey areas created by US Supreme Court's Monday order allowing parts of President Donald Trump's travel ban to take effect.
    While the court said it would exempt travellers from the ban who have "bona fide relationships" with Americans, the ruling did not specify exactly what that means, leaving would-be travellers from the six countries affected by the ban uncertain whether they will be allowed to enter the United States.
    In its ruling, the Supreme Court said Trump's blanket 90-day ban on travellers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen could proceed, but only for foreigners with no "bona fide relationship" with an American person or entity.
    The court gave examples of what might qualify some travellers for exemptions from the ban, including close family ties in the United States, admittance to a US university, or offers of employment from an American company.
    Many advocates for immigrants say they are hopeful that the vast majority of people from the six targeted countries applying for US visas will qualify for such exemptions.
    But the ruling leaves some things vague and has led to confusion and anxiety for those like Elly and her husband, who had hoped to come to the United States but do not fall into one of the clear exemptions laid out in the ruling.
    Also in the grey area are such things as travel strictly for tourism or to attend conferences. Would-be travellers are also asking how close family members need to be, and whether travelling to see close friends in America might qualify.
    Diversity visas at risk
    Diversity visa applicants like Elly are among those in limbo. The program grants 50,000 visas per year to citizens of countries that normally do not send many immigrants to the United States.
    In 2015, 10,487 citizens of the six countries targeted by Trump's travel ban were selected for diversity visas, according to the State Department figures. Nearly half that number ? 4,992 ? went to Iranians alone.
    "Absolutely, diversity visas will be affected," said Leon Rodriguez, a former director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security. "You generally don't even go into the diversity visa system unless you lack another pathway."
    The State Department said on Tuesday that it was trying to develop a definition of what constitutes a bona fide relationship for travellers.
    "We have a couple days still to work this out and get more information," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters on Tuesday. "We will be looking to the Department of Justice to get more clarification on what a bona fide relationship would be."
    Business could be spared
    Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin, who led the legal fight against Trump's revised order, said the exemptions included in the Supreme Court's order will likely spare businesses the kind of disruption they would have faced without them. Chin said his office has reached out to the federal government to try to agree on an interpretation that could avoid additional litigation.
    "We are trying to look for ways to come up with a framework that everyone can live with going forward," Chin said.
    If the US government bars entry to an individual because they lack a "bona fide relationship" with someone in the country, one way to challenge the decision would be for the person to file a so-called contempt motion before the same federal judges in Hawaii or Maryland who blocked the travel ban in the first place, legal experts said.
    Instead of filing a brand-new lawsuit, the person could ask US District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii to hold the Trump administration in contempt because it interpreted the Supreme Court opinion too broadly. Such a strategy could increase the chances of a favourable ruling for the person seeking to enter the United States since Watson has already shown a dim view toward Trump's policy.
    Elly and her husband, who are in their late 20s and early 30s, respectively, and are both university-educated, remain hopeful they will be allowed to come. In May, they had their interviews with consular officials, usually among the final steps before a visa decision.
    The diversity visa is a pathway to permanent residence, commonly known as a green card.
    "One could argue that those winning the green card lottery have a bona fide relationship with the US government that is formal, documented and formed in the ordinary course, rather than for the purpose of evading the executive order," said Shahrzad Rezvani, an immigration attorney based in Maryland. "It remains to be seen, I guess since the language is unclear."


  6. Waqas Dar
    An arm patch of the Chicago Police Department is visible in this image taken as a screengrab from Reuters' video.  CHICAGO: Three current and former Chicago police officers were indicted on Tuesday on felony charges of conspiring to cover up the shooting death of a black teenager by a white officer, prosecutors said.
    The indictments stem from a 2014 incident, in which Laquan McDonald, 17, was shot to death. A video of the shooting, released in 2015, sparked days of protests and thrust Chicago into a national debate over the use of excessive force by police against minorities.
    Detective David March and officers Joseph Walsh and Thomas Gaffney were each charged with conspiracy, official misconduct, and obstruction of justice, special prosecutor Patricia Brown Holmes said.
    "The indictment makes clear that these defendants did more than merely obey an unofficial 'code of silence,' rather it alleges that they lied about what occurred to prevent independent criminal investigators from learning the truth," Holmes said in a statement.
    A police union spokesman declined to comment.
    It was not immediately known if March, Walsh, and Gaffney had hired attorneys. A lawyer for the McDonald family did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
    All three officers were on scene the night of the shooting, Holmes told reporters. Chicago police representatives said Walsh and March are no longer with the force and that Gaffney will be suspended without pay.
    The three officers conspired to conceal the true facts surrounding McDonald's killing in order to protect their fellow officer from criminal investigation and prosecution, the indictment said. They lied about what happened and mischaracterized the video recordings, which they knew would lead to a criminal investigation and likely criminal charges, it said.
    Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer accused of murder in the McDonald shooting, was charged in March with 16 new counts of aggravated battery. Van Dyke pleaded not guilty to the 16 counts. He pleaded not guilty to murder in 2015 and is awaiting trial.
    When asked if others might face charges, Holmes said the matter is still being investigated.
    March, 58, and Walsh, 48, were police veterans of more than 30 years and about 20 years, respectively. Gaffney, 43, has about 20 years in the department. All are expected to be arraigned on July 10.
    Chicago police last month finalised stricter limits on when officers can use firearms and other force, the latest attempt to reform a department roiled by misconduct and criticism in the wake of McDonald's death.


  7. Waqas Dar
    The University of Texas at Dallas briefly evacuated its campus on Tuesday afternoon after receiving a bomb threat but police later determined it was a hoax and reopened the campus.
    The university tweeted at around 2:45 PM local time that all faculty, students, staff, and visitors needed to immediately leave buildings and parking garages on the campus, located roughly 29 kilometres north of downtown Dallas, in Richardson.
    After the orders to leave were issued, television footage from a local Fox affiliate showed a long line of cars leaving one area of campus, and dozens of people standing around buildings and parking lots in other areas.
    Campus police received the bomb threat around 2 PM local time from an anonymous caller who demanded a large amount of money, the Dallas Morning News quoted the University of Texas at Dallas Police Department Lieutenant Ken MacKenzie as saying.
    Less than an hour later, university officials tweeted that campus police had determined the bomb threat was a hoax.
    "We do not believe this to be a valid bomb threat," MacKenzie said, according to the Dallas Morning News. "The person hung up before we could get any details."


  8. Waqas Dar
    Former FIFA boss Joseph "Sepp" Blatter leaves a press conference wherein he announced stepping down from his post. Zurich, Switzerland. June 3, 2015. AFP/Valeriano Di Domenico  LAUSANNE: FIFA on Tuesday released a long-withheld report on alleged corruption in awarding the 2022 World Cup to Qatar after more leaks deepened the controversy surrounding the vote.
    World football's governing body had previously declined to publish in full the 400-page report into awarding the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 edition to Qatar drawn up by US independent investigator Michael Garcia.

    But FIFA's hand was forced when German tabloid newspaper Bild said it had obtained the full report and released extracts on Monday, including revelations that a 10-year-old daughter of one FIFA member had received $2 million in her bank account.
    FIFA said it was already considering releasing in full Garcia's findings prior to the latest disclosures.
    "However, as the document has been illegally leaked to a German newspaper, the new chairpersons (of the committee) have requested the immediate publication of the full report? in order to avoid the dissemination of any misleading information," FIFA explained in a statement on its website.
    FIFA corruption fight 'setback' by ethics team purge
    It is a controversial decision as critics have accused FIFA president
    "For the sake of transparency, FIFA welcomes the news that this report has now been finally published."
    Garcia had resigned as head of FIFA's investigatory body in December 2014 in protest after the association released a 40-page sanitised summary of his report, which he disowned, describing it as "incomplete and erroneous".
    The full report referred to an array of suspect financial dealings, including the sum of $2 million allegedly sent by Sandro Rosell, a consultant for Qatar, to the 10-year-old daughter of a FIFA official.

    While the payment was described by an associate as the proceeds from a real estate deal, Garcia concluded that "no proof exists linking Qatar and this £2 million to the daughter of executive committee member (former Brazil football chief Ricardo Teixeira)".
    Rosell is the ex-Barcelona president who is in prison under investigation for money laundering related to the sale of the Brazilian national football team's television rights.
    Controversy
    Garcia's investigation also revealed that one former FIFA executive committee member thanked Qatar by mail for a transfer of several hundred thousand euros just after Qatar was awarded the 2022 tournament.
    The report also documents that three executive members of FIFA were flown to Rio de Janeiro for a private party ahead of the vote to decide who would host the 2022 World Cup.
    Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup in late 2010 and the result of the vote has been the source of enormous controversy ever since.
    Following Garcia's investigation, the adjudicatory chamber of FIFA's ethics committee noted that there had been suspicious behaviour during the bidding process but not enough to call into question the decision to give Qatar the 2022 finals or Russia the 2018 tournament.
    Hours before FIFA made the decision to go public, former FIFA boss Sepp Blatter had denounced the report's leaking to Bild.
    Qatari official hits out at FIFA ban
    DOHA: A senior Qatari official who recently overturned a one-year FIFA ban said on Tuesday the case against him was
    Blatter, who announced Qatar as the 2022 hosts in December 2010, told AFP, "The only comment that I can make is that there was a leak as only the ethics commission had the power to publish the Garcia report."
    "I stand by the statements made at the time by Hans-Joachim Eckert, the Ethics Committee chairman, to the executive committee," he said, adding that "for him, the Garcia report did not contain any elements to call into question the attribution of the 2018 World Cup to Russia and 2022 to Qatar."
    Blatter, replaced as FIFA boss in 2016 by Gianni Infantino, concluded, "I've always pointed out and I'll repeat it now, it was Michel Platini's vote in favour of Qatar which influenced the executive committee's vote, whereas there was initially an agreement to award 2018 to Russia and 2022 to the United States."
    Platini, then the head of European football body UEFA, attended a dinner in Paris with Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France at the time, and future Qatari ruler Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, on November 23, nine days before the crucial vote.
    But Garcia stated that "no proof had been discovered tying Platini's vote" in favour of Doha with Qatar's subsequent investment in France, notably the purchase of Paris Saint-Germain. 


  9. Waqas Dar
    Several major companies said Tuesday they were targeted in an international cyberattack which started in Russia and Ukraine before spreading to western Europe.
    Danish sea transport company Maersk, British advertising giant WPP and the French industrial group Saint-Gobain all said they came under attack and put protection protocols in place to avoid data loss.
    "Most of our IT systems are down across all business units due to a virus. We continue to assess the situation. The safety of our operations are top of our priorities," Concepcion Boo Arias, spokeswoman of Maersk Line, told AFP.
    A Saint-Gobain spokesperson told AFP that the company also "is the target of a cyberattack. As a security measure we have isolated our computer systems to protect our data".
    WPP tweeted that "IT systems in several WPP companies have been affected by a suspected cyber attack. We are taking appropriate measures & will update asap".
    The three groups were the first major businesses to be hit by what is believed to be a ransomware attack of the so-called Petya type, which earlier affected Russia and Ukraine.
    "This is a bit like a flu epidemic in winter," said Nicolas Duvinage, head of the French military´s digital crime unit.
    "We will get many of these viral attack waves in coming months," he said.


  10. Waqas Dar
    EU antitrust regulators hit Alphabet unit Google with a record 2.42-billion-euro ($2.7 billion) fine on Tuesday, taking a tough line in the first of three investigations into the company's dominance in searches and smartphones.
    It is the biggest fine the EU has ever imposed on a single company in an antitrust case, exceeding a 1.06-billion-euro sanction handed down to US chipmaker Intel (INTC.O) in 2009.
    The European Commission said the world's most popular internet search engine has 90 days to stop favouring its own shopping service or face a further penalty per day of up to 5 percent of Alphabet's average daily global turnover.
    The fine, equivalent to 3 percent of Alphabet's turnover, is the biggest regulatory setback for Google, which settled with US enforcers in 2013 without a penalty after agreeing to change some of its search practices.
    The EU competition enforcer has also charged Google with using its Android mobile operating system to crush rivals, a case that could potentially be the most damaging for the company, with the system used in most smartphones.
    The company has also been accused of blocking rivals in online search advertising.
    The Commission found that Google, with a market share in searches of over 90 percent in most European countries, had systematically given prominent placement in searches to its own comparison shopping service and demoted those of rivals in search results.
    "What Google has done is illegal under EU antitrust rules. It denied other companies the chance to compete on the merits and to innovate. And most importantly, it denied European consumers a genuine choice of services and the full benefits of innovation," European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
    Google said its data showed people preferred links taking them directly to products they want and not to websites where they have to repeat their search.
    "We respectfully disagree with the conclusions announced today. We will review the Commission's decision in detail as we consider an appeal, and we look forward to continuing to make our case," Kent Walker, Google's general counsel, said in a statement.
    The action follows a seven-year investigation prompted by scores of complaints from rivals such as US consumer review website Yelp (YELP.N), TripAdvisor (TRIP.O), UK price comparison site Foundem, News Corp (NWSA.O) and lobbying group FairSearch.
    The penalty payment for failure to comply would amount to around $12 million a day based on Alphabet's 2016 turnover of $90.3 billion. The Commission did not specify what changes Google had to make.
    "This decision is a game-changer. The Commission confirmed that consumers do not see what is most relevant for them on the world?s most used search engine but rather what is best for Google," said Monique Goyens, director general of EU consumer group BEUC.
    Thomas Vinje, legal counsel to FairSearch, welcomed the Commission's findings and urged it to act on Google's Android mobile operating system following its 2013 complaint that Google restricted competition in software running on mobile devices.


  11. Waqas Dar
    Nanga Parbat - File Photo  ISLAMABAD: Two alpinists, a Spaniard and an Argentinian, have gone missing while attempting to summit a peak in northern Pakistan nicknamed "Killer Mountain", mountaineering experts said Tuesday.

    "Alberto Zerain, a Spanish alpinist, and Mariano Galvan, an Argentinian national, went missing while trying to climb Nanga Parbat," the world´s ninth highest mountain, Alpine Club of Pakistan spokesman Karrar Haidri told AFP.
    Muhammad Iqbal, owner of Summit Karakorum, the tour operating company that had arranged the climb, said the duo had left base camp on June 19 but were holed up in their tent for three days at an altitude of 6,100 metres (20,000 feet) due to bad weather.
    "They pushed for the summit again as the weather got better but lost contact with our staff at base camp on Friday," he told AFP.
    "Our sherpas on the mountain estimate them to be somewhere above 7,000 metres which makes it impossible for them to climb and search so we have requested a search and rescue helicopter, which will start either today or tomorrow depending on weather conditions," he added.
    At 8,125 metres, Nanga Parbat earned its grisly nickname after more than 30 climbers died trying to conquer it before the first successful summit in 1953.
    In 2013 gunmen shot dead 10 foreign climbers and their Pakistani guide at the Nanga Parbat base camp - one American with dual Chinese citizenship, two other Chinese, three Ukrainians, two Slovakians, one Lithuanian and one Nepalese.
    Northern Pakistan is a magnet for mountaineers and is home to some of the tallest mountains in the world, including K2 - at 8,611 metres, the world´s second highest peak, but often deemed a more challenging climb than the highest, Mount Everest.
    Nestled between the western end of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush mountains and the Karakoram range, the Gilgit-Baltistan region houses 18 of the world´s 50 highest peaks.
    It is also home to three of the world´s seven longest glaciers outside the polar regions. Hundreds of its mountains have never been climbed.


  12. Waqas Dar
    [embed_video1 url=http://stream.jeem.tv/vod/5e58ac9256b8dbbec6466e598efb8840.mp4/playlist.m3u8?wmsAuthSign=c2VydmVyX3RpbWU9Ni8yNy8yMDE3IDE6MjY6MTggUE0maGFzaF92YWx1ZT1WalFORjkzTjJTeXh6T254UlRmcVRnPT0mdmFsaWRtaW51dGVzPTYwJmlkPTE= style=center] ISLAMABAD: As is the case every Eid for the last several years, tourists thronged to Murree and surrounding areas to spend the Eid holidays as well as enjoy a respite from the summer sun. 

    Visitors who managed to reach Murree complained of soaring prices of food items and other commodities, as well as the hike is rates of hotel rooms. 
    Police officials said on Tuesday around 3,000 vehicles have so far entered Murree in the first two days of Eid. Every year, the Murree Expressway is choked as tourists from across the country head to the Northern Areas. 
    In the last few years, authorities have been forced to close down further entry to the hill station owing to the bumper-to-bumper traffic jam along the highway. 
    Police have also asked visitors, especially those travelling on motorcycles, to restrict from parking on the roadside to take selfies as it leads to traffic jams. 
    In Islamabad, the traffic police said more than 800 people have been fined for reckless driving. 
    Islamabad Traffic Police SSP Malik Matloob Khan said 220 motorcycles have also been impounded in various police stations.
    He said a total of 1,320 people were fined on the first day of Eid, adding that over 20 pickets have been set up in the capital to stem wheeling and other dangerous stunts by motorcyclists. 


  13. Waqas Dar
    ACM Aman inquiring about the treatment from doctors at Jinnah Hospital. Photo: Geo News  LAHORE: Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal (ACM) Sohail Aman visited Jinnah Hospital on Tuesday to inquire into the treatment of victims of the Ahmedpur East oil tanker fire tragedy. 
    During his visit, ACM Aman said the Pakistan Air Force is standing shoulder to shoulder with the injured and bereaved families in their hour of need. 
    "Will ensure that all kinds of aid reaches those in need," said ACM Aman according to a spokesperson. The air chief also read a prayer alongside relatives of the victims.
    Several of those injured in Sunday's devastating inferno are under treatment at Jinnah Hospital in Lahore. 
    152 burnt to death as oil tanker catches fire in Bahawalpur
    Scores injured in fire that broke out after oil tanker overturned and crowds rushed to collect fuel
    According to health sources, 126 people were killed on the spot while 31 died later during treatment within two days after the crashed oil tanker caught fire Sunday morning in Bahawalpur?s Ahmedpur East tehsil. 
    Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, along with his brother Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif, visited Bahawal Victoria Hospital on Monday to inquire into the treatment being meted out to the injured victims. 
    He also distributed cheques worth Rs1 million each to the injured victims and announced compensation worth Rs2 million each for the families of deceased. 
    Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa also visited those injured in the tragedy at Nishtar Hospital, Multan on Monday. 


  14. Waqas Dar
    ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday extended his deepest sympathies to the government and people of China over the devastating landslides that hit the country recently.

    At least ten people have been confirmed dead and 93 are missing after the landslide engulfed Xinmo village in mountainous Sichuan province on Saturday. Heavy rain triggered the landslide, authorities have said.
    According to the press release, the prime minister in his message to Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang said: "I have learnt with great distress and sorrow the news of the devastation caused by the recent landslides in China. On behalf of the government and people of Pakistan, I extend my deepest sympathies to the victims and their families.?
    Villagers begin to mourn dead after deadly China landslide
    At least 93 people are missing after the landslide engulfed Xinmo village in mountainous Sichuan province
    The statement further added:?The Pakistani nation stands in solidarity with our Chinese brothers in this difficult time as they face the devastation caused by the landslides with strength and grace."
    The government of China has sent some 3,000 rescuers, along with heavy digging equipment, and has promised to do all it can to look for survivors.


  15. Waqas Dar
    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) shakes hands with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during a news conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, May 15, 2015 - Reuters China has accused Indian border guards of crossing into its territory from the state of Sikkim on India's northeastern border with Tibet, the Chinese foreign and defence ministries have said, complicating an already difficult relationship.
    Geng Shuang, a spokesman with China's foreign ministry, said Indian guards "obstructed normal activities" by Chinese forces on the border and called on India to withdraw immediately, according to a ministry statement late on Monday.
    He urged India to respect China's territorial integrity and the border treaties signed by the two countries, and said China had already suspended official pilgrimages at the Nathu La Pass, which lies on the frontier between Sikkim state and Tibet.
    A spokesman for the Indian Army declined to comment but said the army would issue a statement on Tuesday. India's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
    Nathu La connects India to Hindu and Buddhist sites in the region and was the site of a fierce border clash between Chinese and Indian troops in 1967.
    China's Defence Ministry said in a separate statement India's military had obstructed work on a road, a move it described as seriously threatening peace on the border.
    "China is dedicated to developing bilateral relations, and will staunchly defend its legitimate rights," it said.
    "China hopes India will meet it halfway, not do anything to complicate the border issues and jointly maintain the good momentum of relations," the defence ministry said.
    Ties between China and India have long been frosty as a result of long-term territorial disputes, as well as Beijing's support of Pakistan, and Indian leaders declined to attend China's "Belt and Road" summit aimed at boosting regional economic and political ties last month.
    Chinese President Xi Jinping told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this month that the two countries should work to "appropriately" manage their differences.
    A visit in April by Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who Beijing brands a separatist, to a region controlled by India but claimed by China also stoked tensions between the two countries.
    The Indian government has since taken steps to cool tensions, rejecting an Australian request to take part in joint naval exercises with the United States and Japan last month to avoid agonising China.
    Modi is expected to visit China in September to attend a summit of the BRICS nations, which groups Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.


  16. Waqas Dar
    A woman walks past a golden ATM, marking the location of the first 'hole in the wall', which opened fifty years ago in Enfield, Britain June 27, 2017. Photo: Reuters Five decades since it heralded a transformation in the way people obtained and used cash, the world's first ATM was turned into gold for celebrations of its fiftieth anniversary.
    The brainchild of Scottish inventor Shepherd-Barron, the first ATM (automated teller machine) was opened on June 27, 1967 at a branch of Barclays bank in Enfield, north London, the first of six cash dispensers commissioned by the bank.
    English actor Reg Varney, who starred in the British TV comedy show "On The Buses", was the first person to withdraw cash from the new machine.
    Now there are an estimated three million cash machines across the globe with some 70,000 cash machines in the UK alone which dispensed 175 billion pounds in 2016. The world's most northerly machine is at Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway and the most southerly located at the McMurdo station at the South Pole.
    To commemorate the anniversary, Barclays transformed the ATM at its Enfield branch into gold, added a commemorative plaque and placed a red carpet in front for its users.
    "Even though recent years have seen a huge uptake of digital banking and card payments, cash remains a crucial part of most people?s day-to-day lives," said Raheel Ahmed, head of Customer Experience and Channels at Barclays.


  17. Waqas Dar
    Pakistan cricket team is all set to battle it out against England cricket team in Women's World Cup 2017 match today (Tuesday) at Leicester.

    The Pakistan team won the toss and captain Sana Mir unsurprisingly opted to field first. The match, which was scheduled to begin at PST 2:30PM was delayed for half-an-hour due to rain.
    The teams of both the sides remain unchanged. Interestingly, this will be the 50th appearance of England?s Dani Wyatt, who also received a special cap to commemorate the day.
    Pakistan?s lineup includes Ayesha Zafar, Nahida Khan, Javeria Khan, Bismah Maroof, Nain Abidi, Kainat Imtiaz, Asmavia Iqbal, Sana Mir (c), Sidra Nawaz (wk), Nashra Sandhu, Sadia Yousuf, Marina Iqbal, Diana Baig, Waheeda Akhtar and Ghulam Fatima.

    While England players includes Tammy Beaumont, Sarah Taylor (wk), Heather Knight (c), Natalie Sciver, Fran Wilson, Danielle Wyatt, Katherine Brunt, Jenny Gunn, Anya Shrubsole, Danielle Hazell, Alex Hartley, Georgia Elwiss, Beth Langston, Laura Marsh and Lauren Winfield.
    Seeking redemption
    Pakistan is all set to pick up itself and redeem after suffering a three-wicket defeat against South Africa.
    South Africa slipped to 177-7 chasing 207 to win before Sune Luus (15no) and Shabnim Ismail (22no) held their nerve.
    Moreover, host team England also suffered a shocking 35-run defeat against India in their opener in Derby on Saturday, after being bowled out for 246 in reply to their opponents' 281-3.
    Fran Wilson top scored for England with 81 and captain Heather Knight chipped in with 46 but they could not stop an inspired India, for whom Smriti Mandhana smashed 90 from 72 balls.


  18. Waqas Dar
    BRUSSELS: EU antitrust regulators hit Alphabet unit Google with a record 2.42-billion-euro ($2.7 billion) fine on Tuesday, indicating they will likely take a tough line with the company in two other ongoing cases.
    The European Commission said the world's most popular internet search engine has 90 days to stop favouring its own shopping service or face a further penalty of up to five per cent of Alphabet's average daily global turnover.
    The commission found that Google had systematically given prominent placement in searches to its own comparison shopping service and demoted those of rivals in search results.
    "What Google has done is illegal under EU antitrust rules. It denied other companies the chance to compete on the merits and to innovate. And most importantly, it denied European consumers a genuine choice of services and the full benefits of innovation," European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
    The action came after a seven-year long investigation prompted by scores of complaints from rivals such as US consumer review website Yelp, TripAdvisor, UK price comparison site Foundem, News Corp and lobbying group FairSearch.
    This is the biggest fine for a single company in an EU antitrust case, exceeding a 1.06-billion-euro sanction handed down to U.S. chipmaker Intel in 2009.
    It is also the biggest regulatory setback for Google, which settled with US enforcers in 2013 with a requirement to stop "scraping" reviews and other data from rival websites for its own products.
    The EU competition enforcer has also charged Google with using its Android mobile operating system to crush rivals, a case that could potentially be the most damaging for the company, with the system used in most smartphones.
    The company has also been accused of blocking rivals in online search advertising, with the commission warning of deterrent fines if Google is found guilty of breaching EU rules.


  19. Waqas Dar
    Bibi Bushra sold one of her kidneys 12 years ago for 1,000 USD and is still suffering from the surgery in Pakistan, which is known as an international hub for the illegal organ trade. Photo: AFP   When Pakistani authorities burst into a makeshift hospital in Lahore this year, doctors were caught mid-way through two illegal kidney transplants, the local donors and Omani clients still unconscious on the tables.
    The doctors were allowed to finish the operation then arrested, along with their assistants and the Omanis, in a raid Pakistani authorities say is a turning point in their battle against organ trafficking.
    Organ donation is legal in Pakistan so long as it is voluntary, given without duress or the exchange of money but strict cultural and religious taboos mean there is a shortage of those willing to donate. Photo: AFP.  Pakistan has long been an international hub for the illegal kidney trade, but medical and local authorities complain they have been unable to act against the practice, frustrated by ineffective enforcement policies and what they perceive as a lack of political will to crack down.
    Organ donation is legal so long as it is voluntary, given without duress or the exchange of money.
    Pakistani clerics have ruled it Islamic, but a lack of awareness and the pervasive belief that it is taboo for Muslims mean there is a shortage of those willing to donate.
    The limited supply, observers say, sees Pakistan's wealthy routinely exploit its millions of poor with the help of an organ trade mafia.
    Kidneys can be bought so cheaply that overseas buyers are also tapped in, largely from the Gulf, Africa and the United Kingdom.
    In many countries such trafficking is confined to the shadows, in Pakistan -- it is brazen.
    Within minutes of an AFP reporter entering the lobby of an upmarket general hospital in the capital Islamabad, staff had helped him find a so-called "agent" who offered to get a donor and facilitate government approval for a kidney transplant, all for a tidy $23,000.
    The government's Human Organs Transplant Authority (HOTA) says it is toothless. If a donor claims they give their consent, "there is nothing else we can do", says Dr Suleman Ahmed, a HOTA monitoring officer.
    But the April 30 raid in Lahore was the beginning of a new clampdown, suggests Jamil Ahmad Khan Mayo, a deputy director of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
    Enforcement of current laws was in the hands of provincial authorities -- and thus restricted by provincial boundaries -- until March of this year, when those limits were removed by the decision to assign the powerful FIA to such cases, he explains.
    In the Lahore case, all 16 people arrested remain behind bars as the investigation continues. They face up to a decade in prison.
    "By this raid we would like to send a strong message abroad that Pakistan is no longer a safe haven for (illegal) kidney transplantation," Ahmad says.
    - Market forces -
    Experts suggest there is a need to tackle the root causes of the rampant underground industry.
    "This illegal trade benefits the rich and elites of the country," says Mumtaz Ahmed, head of nephrology at the government-run Benazir Bhutto hospital in Rawalpindi.
    Ahmed, a member of a government investigation commission on the kidney trade, claims that is why lawmakers are unwilling to enforce penalties. FIA officials have vowed they will be indiscriminate in their bid to end organ trafficking.
    Some 25,000 people suffer kidney failure each year in Pakistan, but just 10 percent receive dialysis and a mere 2.3 percent are able to get a transplant, according to the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplant (SIUT), a regional leader in kidney transplants headquartered in Karachi.
    "Many people come to us in government hospitals and bring their family donors willing to donate kidneys," says Ahmed.
    "Then suddenly they shift to private hospitals when they learn that they can buy a kidney from there."
    The high demand creates a market that inhabitants of Pakistan's vast rural areas see as an opportunity to drag themselves out of poverty.
    Employed in factories, fields and brick kilns, they borrow money from employers for medical bills or to raise children, but are unable to repay their debt.
    Instead they are forced to work it off in a never-ending cycle of bonded labour -- one they hope to break with the income from selling their organs.
    - Deeper and deeper into debt -
    Bushra Bibi, stiff with the pain she has suffered since selling her kidney years ago, is one of them.
    Crying softly, Bibi recounts how her father needed the money for medical treatment and to pay off a loan -- so, 12 years ago, she sold her organ for 110,000 rupees ($1,000).
    With her father-in-law in the same predicament, her husband followed suit. But their desperate move has left them in chronic pain, struggling to work and care for their five children, and as a result owing even more money than when they began.
    "I can't sweep, people talk about me when I can't finish my work," Bibi says, tears rolling down her cheeks.
    The agony of giving birth after her kidney operation, she says, is "known to me only and my God".
    Bibi and her family live in the fertile Sargodha district of Punjab province, where Pakistan's best oranges are produced.
    It is also a region where so many families have been caught up in the kidney trade that resident Malik Zafar Iqbal says he has formed a union to fight for donors' rights.
    Showing AFP documents with hundreds of names listed, he says he has met with authorities, but not yet managed to achieve better conditions for members.
    "I sold my kidney for 104,000 rupees. One hardly gets enough," he says.


  20. Waqas Dar
    Jamaat-e-Islami chief Sirajul Haq, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen leader Syed Salahuddin, Jamaat-ud-Dawa head Hafiz Saeed and others hold hands in solidarity at an anti-India rally in Islamabad on July 20, 2016. Photo: AFP ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday it is unjust to term those partaking in the freedom struggle for Kashmir as terrorists.

    A statement by the ministry stated that human rights continue to be violated in Indian Occupied Kashmir.
    ?In the last one year, the occupying Indian forces have increased their atrocities against innocent civilians in the valley. Kashmiris cannot be denied their right to self-determination,? read the statement.
    The ministry?s statement follows the imposition of sanctions on Kashmiri freedom fighter and chief of the Hizbul Mujahieed Syed Sallahudin by the US government on Monday.
    The move means the United States now considers Salahuddin, also known as Mohammad Yusuf Shah, a ?Specially Designated Global Terrorist,? the US State Department said in a statement.
    The designation slaps sanctions on ?foreign persons who have committed, or pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of US nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States,? the statement read.
    US sanctions Kashmiri leader Syed Salahuddin
    Salahuddin in September vowed to block any peaceful resolution to the Kashmir conflict
    The new sanctions mean American citizens are generally barred from doing business with Salahuddin, and all his assets subject to United States jurisdiction are blocked.
    The designation was announced just before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was due at the White House for his first face-to-face meeting with President Donald Trump.
    After the meeting, a statement issued by the White House stated that President Trump and Prime Minister Modi called on Pakistan to ensure that its territory is not used to launch terrorist attacks on other countries.
    The two leaders also "called on all nations to resolve territorial and maritime disputes peacefully and in accordance with international law," the statement said further.
    "Both our nations have been struck by the evils of terrorism, and we are both determined to destroy terrorist organisations and the radical ideology that drives them. We will destroy radical Islamic terrorism. Our militaries are working every day to enhance cooperation between our military forces. And next month, they will join together with the Japanese navy to take place in the largest maritime exercise ever conducted in the vast Indian Ocean," said Trump, according to the joint press statement released by the White House.



  21. Waqas Dar
    Rafael Nadal of Spain (R) is embraced by Roger Federer of Switzerland after defeating him in their finals match at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Britain, July 6, 2008. Photo: REUTERS/File Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have shared the grand slam spoils this year and it would take a hard heart not to hope for a fairytale rematch next month of their epic 2008 Wimbledon final.
    Federer, 35, prevailed in their five-set battle in Australia to win a record-extending 18th slam, but sat out the clay court season in which Nadal, 31, made his own history by winning a 10th French Open title -- 'La Decima' -- and 15th slam.
    In 2008, Nadal was just 22. He survived two rain breaks and an enthralling Federer fightback to end the Swiss's five-year reign as Wimbledon champion to finally triumph 6-4 6-4 6-7(5) 6-7(8) 9-7 after defeats in the 2006 and 2007 finals.
    The match, at four hours and 48 minutes, is still the longest final in Wimbledon history. It was hailed by pundits, players and fans alike, with seven-time grand slam champion John McEnroe describing it as the greatest match he'd ever seen.
    The Wimbledon seedings, to be confirmed on Wednesday, and Friday's draw will determine whether the titans could meet on Centre Court in the final of the tournament, which runs from July 3 to 16, for the first time since that tussle.
    But for those who believe in omens, Nadal, then all pirate swagger with his long shorts, long hair and sleeveless shirts, won the 2008 Wimbledon title after annexing the French Open without dropping a set -- a feat he repeated earlier in June.
    "He'll go to Wimbledon with so much confidence. For me, he's favorite with Federer but Federer won't have the confidence of coming in as French Open champion," Mats Wilander, three-times French Open champion and Eurosport host, told Reuters.
    Nadal, the world number two, pulled out of the traditional grasscourt warm-up tournament, the Aegon Championships at London's Queen's Club, to rest up for his challenge for a third Wimbledon title while preparing in his native Mallorca.
    "VERY MOTIVATED"
    He missed Wimbledon last year with a wrist injury and since he lost to Novak Djokovic in the 2011 final, Nadal has had an underwhelming run, with each of his four subsequent visits ending in defeat to a player ranked 100 or lower.
    Yet Nadal gave notice of his intent after winning in Paris.
    "I'm motivated. Grass is not my specialty, but I'm very motivated," he told reporters.
    For his part, Federer, whose 2016 season came to an abrupt end after he lost in the Wimbledon semi-finals to runner-up Milos Raonic, made a sensational start to the year.
    He prevailed in the 35th chapter of his rivalry with Nadal in January to clinch the Australian Open -- his first grand slam title since Wimbledon in 2012 -- before again trumping the Spaniard en route to claiming the Indian Wells and Miami titles.
    That run defied logic as Federer had spent the last six months of 2016 on the sidelines recuperating from a knee injury that had required surgery earlier in the season.
    He then gave the unforgiving Roland Garros courts a miss to focus on Wimbledon and the hardcourt swing.
    While the grasscourt comeback for the seven-time Wimbledon champion faltered in the first round at Stuttgart, losing to German veteran Tommy Haas, Federer was imperious on Sunday as he won a ninth Halle title without dropping a set all week.
    "I was doubting myself a little bit, I must admit, because losing (in the opening) round for the first time in 15 years on grass was always going to shake me a little bit and it did," Federer told the ATP men's tour website.
    "So I'm happy to react right away and let that be forgotten and actually move on and remind myself I actually can play well on grass."
    And if Federer also needs a talisman from the statistics books as he heads to London, how about the fact that in the years that he won his first four finals -- 2004, 2005 and 2012 -- he also went on to win Wimbledon?
    Could the great man now do the same in 2017?


  22. Waqas Dar
    Investigators work at the scene of the explosion. Photo: Reuters  A colonel in Ukraine's military intelligence was killed by a car bomb in central Kiev on Tuesday, the defence ministry said, describing the incident as a "terrorist act".

    Police said an explosive device in the vehicle blew up at 0516 GMT while the car was moving, killing the driver and wounding a passer-by.
    "As a result of (the explosion) a member of the defense ministry's main intelligence department, Colonel Maksim Shapoval, was killed," the defence ministry said in a statement.
    The police and the ministry did not give further details or say who could be behind the attack.
    Since fighting with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine broke out in 2014, the number of incidents involving explosives outside the conflict zone has increased, but car bombs are relatively rare.
    The last major incident in Kiev occurred in July, when a prominent investigative journalist, Pavel Sheremet, was killed by the detonation of an explosive device in his car.


  23. Waqas Dar
    Canadian Prime Minister high-fiving a little girl at the Pride parade wearing a Wonder Woman tiara. Photo: Adam Scotti  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's socks are causing a stir on social media once again.
    Along with a rainbow maple leaf on his cheek, the PM sported brightly coloured socks that marked Eid-ul-Fitr, which is celebrated by Muslims at the end of the fasting month of Ramazan.
    This year, Eid coincided with Toronto's Pride parade on Sunday.
    Trudeau?s socks are from the Toronto-based company Halal Socks, according to The Washington Post, and feature the traditional greeting "Eid Mubarak."
    Justin Trudeau pictured holding socks from Toronto-based company Halal Socks featuring the traditional greeting "Eid Mubarak."  Trudeau's official photographer Adam Scotti snapped a shot of the PM high-fiving a little girl wearing a Wonder Woman tiara, but it was Trudeau's colourful socks that attracted the most attention on Twitter.
    Last year, Trudeau became the first sitting Canadian prime minister to march in a Pride parade.
    The PM's sock choices are closely scrutinised. He stirred a social media frenzy when he wore Star Wars socks to meet the Irish prime minister, and wore NATO socks at a NATO summit earlier this year.


  24. Waqas Dar
    A pumpjack drills for oil in the Monterey Shale, California, April 29, 2013. Photo: REUTERS Crude oil futures rose for a fourth consecutive session on Tuesday as investors covered short positions, though worries over a festering supply glut kept a lid on prices.
    US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were up 12 cents, or 0.3 percent, at $43.50 per barrel by 0323 GMT. Brent crude futures LCOc1 gained 14 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $45.97 per barrel.
    The market is up slightly so far this week after dropping for the past five weeks.
    "The market has fallen a lot as the news has been bad pretty consistently for the oil market," said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney.
    "It has moved a long way in response to that news. Maybe we are getting to a point that there is upside risk to any good news?"
    The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its partners have been trying to reduce a global crude glut with production cuts. OPEC states and 11 other exporters agreed in May to extend cuts of 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) until March.
    However, Nigeria and Libya, OPEC members exempt from the cuts, have raised output.
    Iran was allowed a small increase to recover market share lost under Western sanctions over its nuclear programme. It said its production has surpassed 3.8 million bpd and is expected to reach 4 million bpd by March.
    And U.S. shale oil output has risen around 10 percent since last year, with the number of U.S. oil rigs in operation at the highest in more than three years.
    Hedge funds and other money managers appear to have abandoned all hope that OPEC will rebalance the oil market, slashing formerly bullish bets on crude futures and options, John Kemp, a Reuters market analyst wrote in a column.
    "Exchange data showed that speculators had cut their net long positions in WTI and Brent to (the) lowest level in 10 months last week," ANZ said in a note.
    "Traders are also looking ahead to the EIA Energy Conference in Washington, where U.S. shale oil producers are expected to give their view of current market conditions."
    Analysts at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said demand had not grown quickly enough to absorb excess output.
    As the global oil market frets about a stubborn supply glut, faltering demand growth in key Asian crude importers is further hampering efforts to restore market balance.
    A fuel glut in China, a hangover from demonetisation in India, and an ageing, declining population in Japan are holding back crude oil demand growth in three of the world's top four oil buyers.


  25. Waqas Dar
    A Saudi family embraces as members arrive at Washington Dulles International Airport after the US Supreme Court granted parts of the Trump administrations' emergency request to put its travel ban into effect later in the week pending further judicial review. Photo: Reuters WASHINGTON: The Supreme Court's criteria for who can be barred from entering the United States under President Donald Trump's travel ban may confuse the US officials overseas charged with implementing it and trigger a new round of lawsuits, experts said.

    People with a "bona fide relationship with a person or entity" in the United States are spared from the temporary ban affecting people from six Muslim-majority countries and all refugees that the justices on Monday allowed to go partially into effect.
    "There's no precedent for something like this that I'm aware of," said Jeffrey Gorsky, a former legal adviser to the State Department's Visa Office, referring to the new "bona fide" standard.
    Gorsky said the standard is likely to sow confusion among US consular officials who have to make visa decisions and could require another court decision to determine what constitutes a connection to the United States sufficient to allow entry.
    The Supreme Court agreed to decide the legality of Trump order in its next term, which begins in October. Justice Clarence Thomas argued that the court should have granted Trump's request to implement the travel ban in full while the legal fight continues.
    "Today's compromise will burden executive officials with the task of deciding ? on peril of contempt ? whether individuals from the six affected nations who wish to enter the United States have a sufficient connection to a person or entity in this country," Thomas wrote, joined by two fellow conservative justices.
    In Monday's ruling, the court gave a few examples of connections that qualify. For individuals, a close family relationship is required.
    Bona fide connections to entities, it said, must be "formal" and "documented." That would include students who have been admitted to a US school and workers who have accepted an offer of employment from an American company, the court said. It noted that Trump's executive order already allowed for case-by-case waivers for people with connections to the country.
    On the other hand, the justices said, relationships created for the purposes of evading the travel ban will not be considered valid. For instance, an immigration agency cannot add foreigners to client lists "and then secure their entry by claiming injury from their exclusion."
    The March 6 order called for a 90-day ban on travelers from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and a 120-day ban on all refugees to enable the government to implement stronger vetting procedures. Trump cited national security concerns as the reason for the order.
    Litigation predicted
    Stephen Legomsky, chief counsel for US Citizenship and Immigration Services under former President Barack Obama, said lawsuits could claim that a bona fide relationship was ignored.

    While Legomsky said he believes the vast majority of cases will be clear cut, courts will have to determine whether visiting a close friend or taking part in a wedding could also qualify.
    "In theory, you could say if somebody is coming for tourism and has made a reservation for a hotel, there's now a US interest in bringing them to the United States. The hotel is a US entity," Gorsky said.
    Some lawyers also said the vagueness of the "bona fide" standard was license for the Trump administration to interpret it broadly.
    "It's just like a green light to the government to do what it wants to do," said Kiyanoush Razaghi, a Maryland-based immigration attorney who deals with primarily Iranian clients. "Who is going to tell us what is the definition of 'bona fide relationship?'"
    The difficult job of judging foreigners' claimed connections could land back in the lower courts in Maryland and Hawaii that had originally blocked Trump's travel ban, said Stephen Vladeck, a professor University of Texas School of Law.
    "We could have dozens of these cases between now and September," Vladeck said, adding that the Supreme Court would not be likely to weigh in on them on a case-by-case basis.
    David Martin, a former US Department of Homeland Security official and now a professor at the University of Virginia, said the ruling was "carefully tailored" and should be manageable for officials to enact.
    Part of the reason, Martin said, is the case-by-case waiver process that was already envisioned in the executive order.
    "I think there will be some litigation over the extent of the reach of this bona fide relationship but I don't think it will be as burdensome as the dissenters suggest," Martin said.


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