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Pak suffers its worst floods since 1929
UK city council bans mini skirts at work
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Chelsea set for ‘wedding of the millennium’
Cluster munition treaty comes into force from today
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Pak suffers its worst floods since 1929
Islamabad/Peshawar, July 31 The death toll in the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province alone has risen above 800, said provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain. Reports of deaths had come in from several districts in the northwest, which was worst hit by rains and floods this past week. Over 100 people were missing and more than 26,000 were stranded, Hussain said. Some 50 deaths were reported in Punjab province while over 30 people have died in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, officials said. At least one million people in the northwest have been affected by the worst monsoon since 1929, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. Torrential rains had breached flood defences and caused many rivers to burst their banks. Various areas in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, including Peshawar, Charsadda and Nowshera, were affected by flooding for the fifth day today. Provincial capital Peshawar, which has a population of about three million, has been cut off for the past three days. Some 200 Chinese nationals working on a hydropower project were trapped in Kohistan district. People continued to flee the inundated areas in trucks and makeshift boats. Rescuers were struggling to reach inundated areas where flooded rivers have swept away roads and bridges and snapped communication links. Geo News channel aired dramatic footage of riverside houses and hotels being swept away by the swollen Swat river in the Kalam area. Reports from the region said over 300 houses had been destroyed by the rains and flooding. In Punjab, about 3,000 people were stranded in Taunsa Sharif due to floods. Over 100 villages have been flooded in Mianwali. An emergency was declared in Dera Ghazi Khan, Bhakkar, Muzaffarghar and Rajanpur as they could be affected when inflows of up to 900,000 cusecs cross the Taunsa Barrage during August 1-3, officials said. The Kohlu, Nasirabad, Jhal Magsi and Barkhan areas of Balochistan too were affected by floods. Many people made homeless were living in the open and officials feared they could be affected by the outbreak of water-borne diseases. The deluge also submerged millions of acres of agricultural land. Though floodwaters were receding in the northwest today, officials said rescuers were facing problems reaching affected people because of damage to roads and bridges. The Pakistan Army said all available troops have been mobilised for relief operations. Seventeen helicopters and over 50 boats were being used for relief work and to transport affected people to safer areas. Military engineers are working to reopen roads and repair bridges, it said. — PTI EU gives Pak 30 million euros
Brussels: The European Commission said today it had given 30 million euros in humanitarian aid to help the most needy in Pakistan, including those hit by flooding that has killed at least 800 people. "Pakistan has been hit by terrible floods and more rain is forecast. Our thoughts are with those affected by them," Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva was quoted as saying.
— AFP
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UK city council bans mini skirts at work
London, July 31 In fact, a memo sent to 400 staff says that they dress in “appropriate” clothing including trousers, informal dresses or skirts of “reasonable” length, but “not miniskirts”. The memo was sent to social workers, youth workers, educational welfare officers and many others in children’s services. “Please try to dress smartly, in line with other professionals you come across in your work, and in a way that shows respect to children and families,” the memo reads. One council worker, who did not want to be named, was quoted as saying, “Are they going to come around with a tape measure?” Mike Tucker, of the Unison union, said: “If anyone is disciplined we are more than happy to defend them.” A council spokesman said: “We do not have a rigid dress code and will not be going around with a tape measure. It’s important staff in customer-facing roles look professional.”
— PTI
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Chelsea set for ‘wedding of the millennium’
New York, July 31 The star studded wedding will take place in Rhinebeck, a quaint rural retreat for the New York elite, amidst a news black out which has triggered a media frenzy with hundreds of scribes descending on the small town. The bride, 30, met her would-be-husband as a teenager and her nuptials with Mezvinsky, 32, are set to take place at the grand Astor Courthouse, which has been declared a 'no-fly' zone, with hundreds of security personnel blocking all roads leading to the venue. They were friends as teenagers in Washington DC and attended Stanford University together. Chelsea completed her master's degree in public health this year at Columbia University. The bride's parents, former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are already in Rhinebeck for the wedding which will have a guest list of 500, but sans President Barack Obama and the first family. According to unconfirmed reports the guests include talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, Hollywood mogul Steven Speilberg and former British Prime Minister John Major. Obama won't be there as he says that he wasn't actually invited and that in any case, two Presidents would be "one too many" at the wedding. But media reports do not rule out the possibility of the Obamas making a grand entry by keeping their participation a secret for security reasons. Estimates of the wedding cost, has been put between $3 to 5 million. — PTI
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Cluster munition treaty comes into force from today
United Nations, July 31 The convention on cluster munitions will enter into force on August 1, 2010, the UN said, with Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon commenting that the new instrument will be a major advance for global disarmament and humanitarian agenda. The convention has been signed by 107 states and enters into force six months after 37 countries ratified the treaty, which was concluded in 2008. The instrument needed to be ratified by 30 countries to come into force. That benchmark was reached in February when Burkina Faso and Moldova both submitted their instruments of ratification of the Convention on Cluster Munitions at UN Headquarters in New York. Cluster bombs are both air dropped and used by artillery guns, and the shells open before impact and scatter hundreds of shrapnels causing widespread casualties over a wide area. Many of these munition fail to explode and lie dormant for years killing or maiming hundreds of civilians, long after the conflicts have ended. From Asia only five countries-Afghanistan, Indonesia, Japan, Laos and Philippines-are the signatories.
— PTI
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