Pakistan national junior champion Asjad Iqbal is drawn in group ‘E’ while Hamza Akbar is placed in group ‘G’.

Forty-eight cueists from 18 countries, including eight from the host country Iran, are taking part in the event.

Two top players, after the round robin league, from each group will qualify for pre-quarter-finals.

Groups:

‘A’: Shaheen Al Shaheen (Kuwait), Chuang Liu (China), Ali Jalil Ali (Iraq), Ali Obaidly (Qatar), Hussain Mahmood Ali (Bahrain), Iran No.5.

‘B’: Samer Kamal (Egypt), Shravan Mohta (India), Nabih Nasser (Lebanon), Nidhal Albaqshi (Saudi Arabia), Saker Razouk (Syria), Iran No.1.

‘C’: Imad Al-Tayab (Iraq), Kurt Brown (Australia), Mohamed Ibrahim (Egypt), Ayoub Matook (Lybia), Karam Fatima (Syria), Iran No.2.

‘D’: Kim Do-Hoon (South Korea), Vivek Chopra (India), Charles Chafe (Australia), Abdel Baset Beshir (Lybia), Noppon Saengkham (Thailand), Iran No.7.

‘E’: Yan Li (China), Abdulazid Al Bader (Kuwait), Mohammad Berjawi (Lebanon), Asjad Iqbal (Pakistan), Mohammed Alsofi (Syria), Iran No. 8.

‘F’: Ibrahim Suhail Al Khalfan (Bahrain), Shahbaaz Adil Khan (India), Mohana Obaidly (Qatar), Abdullah Al Shaikh (Saudi Arabia), Yuttapop Pakpoj (Thailand), Iran No. 3.

‘G’: Mazen Berjawi (Lebanon), Mohamed Al Muosawi (Bahrain), Adam Korwash (Lybia), Hamza Akbar (Pakistan), Thanawat Tirapongpaiboon (Thailand), Iran No.6.

‘H’: Abdulrahman Alammar (Saudi Arabia), Fady Mahmoud (Egypt), Hanqing Shi (China), Bogdan Cozmaciuc (Romania), Khalid Ali Kamali (UAE), Iran No.4.

Britain's Gemma Spofforth won gold at the world championships in the women's 100m backstroke, setting a world record in the process, but the defeat of Phelps sent shockwaves through the sport and his coach, Bob Bowman, said the American would not swim again until the issue was resolved. "Bob sorts my schedule," confirmed a distraught Phelps. Both Phelps and Spofforth were wearing Speedo LZR suits, which are being superceded by the new generation of wetsuit-style costumes made by adidas, Arena and others. From next year all will become illegal but Phelps was beaten by Paul Biedermann, a German wearing an Arena X-glide suit. Bowman said that Fina had better "do something or they're going to lose their guy who fills these seats."

The new regulations announced yesterday will limit the size of the suits and restrict the materials from which they are made to "textiles". There are numerous difficulties with the decision. First, Fina, the sport's governing body, cannot say when these changes will occur, their heavily-qualified estimate being "by April 2010". And secondly, Fina has yet to reveal what the term "textiles" actually means. Additionally, the rule change is in effect only a bye-law, which means the decision can be reversed at any point.

Fina insists that will not happen but it has already banned the new generation of swimsuits once this year only to change its mind after coming under heavy pressure from manufacturers and sponsors. Controversially, the records set in the new suits will stand. Fifteen world records have been set so far in Rome but not all in the new generation of suits. "Remember," said Fina's executive director Cornel Marculescu last night, "the world records are being broken here because these people are fantastic athletes."

Tell that to Michael Phelps. The greatest Olympian swimmer in history with 14 golds was not just beaten in the 200m, he was thrashed. Biedermann shattered Phelps' world mark of 1min 42. 96sec with a time of 1min 42sec. Phelps said: "I look forward to racing Biedermann next summer. It will be fun when swimming gets back to swimming." Of his race, done in a time of 1:43.22, Phelps added: "Theoretically it was a pretty good swim for me. Three tenths off my best time after taking six months off. I'm not happy but I know I didn't train much this year."Biedermann was understandably ecstatic, saying: "It's still hard for me to believe that I defeated a legend like Phelps. It is true that he has been training only for six months and he is not the same as at the Beijing Olympics. But the German team which I am part of is great." Biedermann finished a distant fifth behind Phelps in the 200m final in Beijing. Ten months on he trimmed four full seconds from his time.

The technology has moved on so quickly that Phelps' Speedo LZR seems almost obsolete. Or it did until the very next race, when Spofforth broke the world record by 0.36 of a second with a time of 58.12sec. It was the first gold won by a swimmer in a Speedo suit in Rome. The LZR is only partially polyurethane, whereas the new suits are fully coated with the material. That makes them water-impermeable, adding a huge amount of buoyancy.

Heavy guns and small arms fire pounded the besieged compound of the Boko Haram group, which styled itself on the Taliban and wanted strict Sharia introduced across Nigeria.

Helicopters swooped over the organisation's base in the city of Maiduguri yesterday, flushing out followers who were gunned down as they fled. Witnesses reported seeing bodies littering the mosque compound. We spotted dozens of members of Boko Haram fleeing," said Hamad Bulunkutu, a Maiduguri resident. "They stopped by briefly, shaved their hair and beard and discarded their jellabiyah (white Arabic kaftans) for T-shirts and jeans."

Up to 200 were killed during the operation, adding to as many as 400 others who have died since the violence broke out on Sunday.

Similar police operations were going in at least two other northern Nigerian cities as the authorities acted on President Umaru Yar Adua's order to crush the group "once and for all".

Its leader, Muhammed Yusuf, is believed to have escaped as his house and headquarters in Maiduguri were shelled, but police sources said his deputy, Abubakar Shekau, had been killed.

Nigeria's Taliban, which has no known links to the Afghan insurgency, emerged seven years ago and began a series of attacks on the country's authorities, mostly police stations.

It said it would wage war on "immorality" and its strict interpretation of Islam called for "Western education" to be banned.

The latest eruption began in Vanity Fair, with a lengthy article by Todd Purdum examining the Alaska governor's past and future. The controversy migrated instantly to the web and the blogs--it was, in fact, made for the viral communication of today's politics--and became even more intense, nasty and personal. Jonathan Martin provided the fullest account for Politico.

There are several elements to this controversy. One is over Palin and her fitness as a possible presidential candidate in 2012. The pretext is her suitability to have been John McCain's vice presidential nominee, but the real issue is the sharp division within the Republican Party over where she goes from here.

Another element of the controversy is the future of the party itself. How much must the GOP adapt and change to assure its vitality as a healthy alternative to the Democrats? Palin is only a proxy in this larger debate that is consuming many Republican strategists and elected officials.

Finally there is the after-action war over John McCain's failed presidential campaign that still rages among a handful of GOP insiders. To those who were on the inside, there was virtually no way for McCain to defeat Obama in a year when George W. Bush's approval rating was below 30 percent, when more than eight in 10 Americans thought the country was off track. To those on the outside, McCain's defeat may have been likely, but their view was aided by mismanagement and poor strategy atop the campaign.

The criticism of Palin in Vanity Fair, and the strong reaction by Palin defenders, echoed the breakdown that occurred at the end of the campaign. Never has there been such a moment of internecine warfare just as a losing candidate is exiting the stage as there was in the days following Obama's victory last November.

For several days, the two camps fired at one another at the expense of both Palin and McCain. The charges and countercharges aimed at Palin were, to many Republicans, shocking and inexcusable, a messy end to a dispiriting campaign. Would that it would have ended there. Instead the Palin controversy has become a staple of the Republican story in the months since.

There's no surprise that Palin remains a controversial figure with the public at large. Her performance in the campaign created a wide gulf in public opinion between those who found her fresh and appealing and those who found her shallow and unready. What has been surprising is the degree to which she has divided Republicans--at least Republican strategists, insiders and talking heads--and how virulent their disagreements have become.

This was that foundation upon which the latest exchanges have taken place, with William Kristol of the Weekly Standard and Steve Schmidt, who was one of McCain's top advisers, carrying on a public argument over whether Schmidt had privately criticized Palin in the Vanity Fair piece and whose credibility should most be called into question.

The exchanges were vicious, if perhaps of interest to a small community of GOP insiders. But they continue to keep alive the debate over Palin. She is, in the estimation of many Republicans and even some Democrats, the most charismatic Republican in the country. But she also has generated a small cadre of detractors inside the party who question her capacity and her judgment, particularly as a possible 2012 candidate.

Beyond Palin, however, is the question of whither the GOP. Schmidt caused a stir earlier this spring when he publicly urged the party to rethink its position on gay marriage. He argued that in a nation that is both more diverse and more tolerant, Republicans must not appear to be rigid in their judgments of how people live their lives.

Other Republican strategists who don't necessarily agree with Schmidt on that particular question nonetheless see the GOP as a shrinking enclave. They see a party that has lost its footing among moderates and independents in need of a major overhaul. They worry that, given present demographic trends, the party must modernize, as the British Conservative Party has done, or risk a long-term period in exile.

Others within the GOP family believe that a combination of a return to first principles, the addition of some fresh faces who can attractively repackage a conservative agenda and a few stumbles by President Obama will help start the GOP comeback.

They remember what happened after Bill Clinton won the White House and how Republicans hunkered down, created a wall of resistance to Clinton's agenda (particularly health care) and successfully stoked the anti-government sentiment around the country. The result was the landslide of 1994 that drove Democrats from power in Congress.

Apple ignited the mobile software market and now others want to emulate its success, writes David Flynn.

There's no doubt the iPhone changed the way mobile phones are designed, sold and used. Yet Apple's stylish and seductively easy-to-use smartphone was the launch pad for something even more revolutionary: an online software store with programs to unleash the full potential of the modern mobile phone, making it a pocket computer.

Unlike the programs sold for desktops and laptops, these mobile phone applications or apps are small, fast, low-cost (if not free) and usually designed for a single task. And there are thousands: games, guides to restaurants and cafes, apps for travel and banking, news and weather, sports, hobbies and business tools.

There is, as the advertisements say, an app for just about everything and they're all on the App Store Apple's one-stop shop for browsing and downloading software for the iPhone.

Although almost none of the programs are written by Apple, the company provided the App Store as a kind of software supermarket in which an astounding number of the programs are free and most of those offered for sale cost less than $US5 ($6.20). The average price is $US2.65 and Apple takes a 30 per cent cut on all software sold through the store.

Apps can be downloaded directly over the high-speed 3G mobile network or using Apple's iTunes software on a Windows or Mac computer, with the programs transferred to the iPhone the next time the phone is connected to that computer. By making it easy to find, download and buy programs for your mobile phone, the App Store ignited the mobile software market.

There are now more than 65,000 programs listed on the App Store and, in its first year, users of the iPhone (and the iPod Touch, which can run the same apps) downloaded a staggering 1.5 billion programs.

And in the same way that the iPhone has prompted other manufacturers to release touchscreen phones with elegant and finger-friendly interfaces, the major players in the mobile phone market are also seeking to emulate the barnstorming success of the App Store as a way to serve up mobile software.

Potentially, the biggest competition to the iPhone's App Store will come from Nokia, which dominates the world's mobile phone market with a share of 38.6 per cent more than double that of its nearest rival, Samsung (16.2 per cent). By way of comparison, Apple holds a 1.1 per cent share of the mobile market.

Nokia also leads in the more specialised smartphone segment with 41.2 per cent, ahead of the iconic BlackBerry (20 per cent) and Apple (10.8 per cent). Nokia's Ovi Store, which launched last month at store.ovi.com, leverages mobile technology such as GPS receivers and trends in social networking to make the app store even more practical.

"This is not just a place to find applications," says the executive vice-president of services and software for Nokia, Niklas Savander.

"It's a smart store. It suggests things you might like and adds social location dynamics to show you relevant applications. It shows you what your friends have bought. And it changes the inventory based on where you are." In addition to software, podcasts and video will be offered.

"The presidency of the EU condemns today's bomb attacks in Jakarta that have killed and injured so many innocent people," the Swedish government, current holder of the European Union's presidency, said in a statement.

"The EU conveys its deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims of these brutal acts. We stand in sympathy and in solidarity with the Indonesian government and the Indonesian people in this most difficult time," the statement added.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, en route to Asia for talks in India and Thailand, condemned what she called the "senseless" attacks, underlining that the threat of terrorism remains "very real".

"We condemn these senseless acts of violence and stand ready to provide assistance if the Indonesian government requests us to do so," she said. "The attacks reflect the viciousness of violent extremists, and remind us that the threat of terrorism remains very real," Clinton said.

In Paris, the French government said it condemned the double attack "in the strongest terms" and offered the victims' families and the Indonesian government its support and solidarity.

"France stands by the side of Indonesia, a major partner for our country in Asia, in its courageous fight against terrorism," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

France "offers its full support to the determined efforts of the Indonesian authorities to promote the stability of this great democracy," it said.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the blasts, in which at least two of his countrymen were wounded, made him "sick to the stomach".

"Any attack anywhere is an attack on us all," Rudd told reporters. "Any terrorist attack on our friends Indonesia is an attack on our neighbors. Any terrorist attack is an act of cowardice. It is an act of murder. It is a barbaric act that violates the fundamental principles of human decency."

The federal ministry of environment planted mangrove saplings ‘Rhizophora Mucronata’ on the coastal island on ‘Khedewari’ along the shores of Keti Bandar in Thatta district.

The tree plantation drive was organised by the ministry in cooperation with the Sindh forest department and local people and in financial coordination with the National Bank of Pakistan.

The earlier record was set by India on June 12 and 13 when 447,874 saplings were planted in Assam. Before that Mexico had planted 3,48,393 saplings on Aug 29 and 30 last year.

The task was accomplished by over 300 local volunteers who were divided in groups of 20, each supervised by one forest manager and helped by other designated persons. Within the first hour, they planted 97,000 saplings.

Federal Minister for Environment Hamidullah Jan Afridi, provincial ministers Asghar Taqi and Sassui Palijo and Inspector General Forests Dr Mohammad Iqbal Siyal were present on the occasion.

MNA Marvi Memon and IUCN’s representative in Pakistan Tahir Qureshi acted as observers.

Adil Ahmed, the Adjudicator of Guinness Book of World Records, Pakistan, who had monitored and assessed the world records in India and Mexico, also visited the site.

He told newsmen that the process of enlistment in the Guinness Book would be carried out after a reassessment of plantation.

Ms Palijo and Ms Memon, who hail from Keti Bandar, told Dawn that the event was a healthy achievement. They said non-release of sweat water into Indus downstream Kotri for a couple of years had resulted in the diminishing of mangroves.

APP adds: The task was accomplished five hours before sunset. It was expected that the number of saplings would exceed 600,000 by the end of the event.

The plantation was organised as part of a series of events planned by the ministry to mark the National Year of Environment.

In view of global significance of mangrove forests, particularly in the context of the tsunami of 2005, the event was planned in the mangrove areas on the coastal island, which are devoid of vegetation.

The head of WWF International and secretary general of International Ramsar Convention on Wetland have congratulated the ministry of environment for setting the world record in tree plantation.

They lauded the efforts of the environment minister who took national and international environment organisations on board and made the event a success.

An official said: ‘The ministry will look after the site for three years to ensure maximum survival of saplings.’

The tough three-day negotiations concluded here on Wednesday, with the World Bank Mission expressing concern over the government’s resolution to pass on the subsidies to the power consumers.

Currently, the government was providing Rs122 billion subsidy to the consumer on electricity.

The officials, who participated in the negotiations, told Dawn that the government had agreed to withdraw Rs55 billion in power subsidies during the current fiscal year.

However, the schedule for power tariff raise had not yet been finalised, the officials added.

The World Bank and the ADB teams finally agreed that subsidies worth Rs67 billion on electricity could be given during this fiscal year with Rs55 billion cushion provided by the IMF and that would be diverted from the development budget.

While, the government would provide 100 mmcfd gas for power generation that would be worth around Rs12 billion, sources said.

Adviser to the PM on Petroleum Dr Asim Hussain confirmed to Dawn that the new gas discoveries in the NWFP would be directed to the Pepco.

‘These new finds are expected to provide commercial production of 100 mmcfd gas,’ he said, adding that a summary would be presented to the ECC to seek approval for this allocation.

Responding to the World Bank concerns over continuing subsidies on electricity the Pakistan side maintained that tariff would be raised gradually linking it with the elimination of load-shedding.

The sources revealed that the tentative schedule for increasing electricity tariff would be five to seven per cent in the second quarter of 2009-10 followed by another 10 per cent in the third quarter.

The bureau has also circulated the request of the WPC to be offered NAM observer status since July 6.

The bureau recommended that the summit endorse the applications of Argentina and the WPC.

The NAM groups 118 member states, including 53 from Africa, 38 from Asia, 26 from Latin America and the Caribbean and one from Europe (Belarus).

It represents nearly two-thirds of the United Nations' members, particularly developing countries, and comprises 55 percent of the world population.

The movement now has 16 observer countries and nine observer organizations.

Argentina is the second largest country in South America and eighth in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico, Colombia and Spain are more populous.

It is currently classified as an upper-middle income country or as a secondary emerging market by the World Bank. Argentina is also one of the G-20 major economies.

The WPC was formed in 1949, replacing the permanent committee of the World Peace Congress, in order to promote peaceful coexistence and nuclear disarmament.

The WPC was especially active in the areas bordering U.S. military installations in Western Europe, believed to house nuclear weapons. It waged large campaigns against U.S.-led military operations, especially against the Vietnam war.

The WPC had its headquarters in Helsinki of Finland until the 1990s when the Council moved to Greece. In the past, the WPC awarded the International Peace Prize.

In May 2004, the council held its world congress in Athens attended by representatives of 100 peace groups from around the world. The 2008 world congress of the council was held in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas from April 8 to 13. The 2008 congress showed a greatly increased membership of WPC with more than 120 peace groups from 76 countries in attendance.

Now, for many in the autonomous region, another big step toward normality will come when the local government unblocks the Internet so they can go back online.

"No Internet in Xinjiang, no business for me," said Li Fenfa, an Urumqi resident who runs an online business selling dry fruit and who has seen no transactions for several days.

Online businesses have been among the hardest hit since authorities cut access to the Internet in most of the Xinjiang region following the July 5 riot that took the lives of almost 200 people.

Many online store owners have had to rely on friends in other parts of the country to post messages on their homepages telling potential buyers that business is on hold until after the Internet lockdown.

Professor Chen Lidan, a communications scholar at the Beijing-based Renmin University of China, said the government had blocked online access because that was the way instigators of the riots spread their messages and mobilized rioters.

Investigators believe overseas separatist groups used Internet tools including Tencent QQ and MSN, as well as social networking sites Twitter, Facebook and Xiaonei, to spread messages.

The Xinjiang government said it terminated Internet access to prevent the spread of the violence. Up to now, the only known public venue where the Internet could be found was the Hoi Tak Hotel, which was used as a base by reporters covering the riot's aftermath.

Some Web users have complained that their attempts to access Twitter and Facebook in other Chinese cities have also been unsuccessful. And Chinese portals, including Fanfou, which is similar to Twitter, have also been unavailable.

The government has not yet given a date when the services will be resumed.

"I believe most governments in the world will do something similar in times like these. But it is frustrating to know that I can't talk to my soccer club members after forum access was blocked," wrote John Ning, a self-proclaimed "Web freak" in Beijing.

Internet experts are now concerned that an extended "indistinctive Internet lockdown" may create new dilemmas for the government.

"The authorities probably think they are justified to cut off Internet on national security grounds, so they openly admitted it for the first time," said Hu Yong, a new media expert with the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University.

But the lockdown has inevitably curtailed harmless Web activities, such as daily forums, information sharing and online shopping.

"Time after time, young Web users may grow doubts over the government's Internet policies, which will produce more profound impacts," Hu said.

China's young, whose daily lives often rotate around the Web, make up a large percentage of China's 300-million cyber population. They will "get discouraged" if they find their Internet space getting smaller, experts said while urging the government to use "wisdom of the masses" to deal with issues brought by new media.

"Blocking information should not be the first choice in an open society," said Yu Xiaofeng, director of non-traditional security and peaceful development studies at Zhejiang University. "The government should allow official and unofficial sources so that both the government and the public can seek truth through knowledge."

KARACHI (AFP) — Pakistan's cricket chief on Wednesday denied boycotting a meeting in India that handed the country's World Cup 2011 matches to co-hosts and called again for talks on winning back the fixtures.

The Central Organising Committee (COC) of the World Cup 2011 met in Mumbai on Tuesday and redistributed the 14 matches originally given to Pakistan. Eight went to India, four to Sri Lanka and two to Bangladesh.

Pakistan, which was stripped of its matches by the International Cricket Council (ICC) in April over security fears, was invited to the meeting as the fourth co-host but no Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) representative attended.

PCB chairman Ijaz Butt denied Pakistan had refused to go to the event.

"No, we did not boycott the meeting," Butt told AFP. "Since it is a legal matter we do not want to make comment on that, but I can tell you that we are still trying to solve the matter through talks."

Butt said he was due to meet ICC chairman David Morgan on July 27 or 28.

"We are definitely trying to solve the matter out of court and I am going to meet the ICC president soon," said Butt, who last month threatened to sue the ICC, the COC and the IDI (ICC Development International).

Pakistan initiated legal proceedings after the ICC decided to strip it of its World Cup 2011 matches following the attack on the Sri Lankan team bus in Lahore last March.

The attack, which left seven players and their assistant coach injured and eight people dead, ended any immediate chance of Pakistan's hosting international cricket, with teams already refusing to tour over security fears.

A civil court in Lahore has given a stay order until July 30 against the relocation of the World Cup secretariat to Mumbai.

In an effort to resolve the matter through talks, the PCB put legal proceedings on hold and met several times with the co-hosts and ICC.

But a summit in England last month failed to find a solution.

The ICC ruled out the possibility of matches being staged in the United Arab Emirates, where Pakistan has previously played "home" internationals.

The COC on Tuesday also decided that it definitely wanted to keep the World Cup secretariat in Mumbai, a decision criticised by PCB legal adviser Taffazul Rizvi.

"I would not like to comment on the merit of the decisions made Tuesday because it's a legal matter, but keeping the central office in Mumbai is tantamount to contempt of court and will be brought to the knowledge of the court," Rizvi told AFP.