Eleven persons, including Islamabad's district judge and a female lawyer, were killed and 25 other injured in a suicide attack and indiscriminate firing on Monday at Islamabad's district courts located in F-8 main market in the heart of the city.

The injured were shifted to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), five of them in a critical condition, according to hospital's spokesperson Dr Ayesha. Additional Sessions Judge Rafaqat Ahmad Khan Awan was among the dead.

According to the police, two suicide bombers entered the courtroom of additional judge and opened fire and hurled hand grenades. The suicide bombers blew themselves up after the police tried to overpower them. The police suspect that they had come to liberate some of their captive militants.

The attack came only hours after the government had on Sunday evening reciprocated an earlier announcement by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) of ceasefire in all hostilities.

Earlier in the National Assembly, interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan tried to dispel fears created by some remarks of a senior official of his ministry and declared that Islamabad was in no danger of terrorist attacks. Khan said stringent security measures have been taken to protect one million residents of the city.

The TTP, which had asked its various groups to respect the ceasefire, was quick to denounce the attack and dissociate itself from any responsibility. TTP spokesperson Shahidullah Shahid said his group was not involved in it. All allied groups are also abiding by the ceasefire, he added, but promised to further probe it and take appropriate action accordingly.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan condemned the attack. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Tasaddaq Hussain Jilani, immediately took suo motu notice of the deadly incident and constituted a three-member bench headed by him to hear the case on March 4 (tomorrow).

Police and intelligence agencies submitted an initial report to the interior ministry. According to the report, four armed men entered the court building and two suicide attacks took place. Firing broke out after the blasts and the two other attackers.

Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Anwar Kasi has formed a committee to hold an inquiry into the attack. 

Los Angeles, March 3
The slavery drama "12 Years a Slave" won the Academy Award for best picture on Sunday, making history as the first movie from a black director to win the film industry's highest honour in 86 years of the Oscars.

British director Steve McQueen's unflinching portrayal of pre-Civil War American slavery won two other Oscars, including best supporting actress for newcomer Lupita Nyong'o and best adapted screenplay based on the memoir of Solomon Northup, a free man tricked and sold into slavery in Louisiana.

"Everyone deserves not just to survive but to live. This is the most important legacy of Solomon Northup," said McQueen in his acceptance speech.

"12 Years a Slave," prevailed over space thriller "Gravity" from Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron, which nevertheless racked up the most Oscars of the night with seven, including the best director honour for Cuaron, a first for a Latin American director.

The film starring Sandra Bullock as an astronaut lost in space swept the technical awards like visual effects and cinematography, a reward for its groundbreaking work on conveying space and weightlessness.

‘12 Years a Slave’ director Steve McQueen poses with his best picture Oscar backstage. Reuters

Referring to the "transformative" experience he and others undertook in the four-plus years spent making "Gravity," Cuaron, whose hair is graying, said, "For a lot of these people, that transformation was wisdom. For me, it was just the colour of my hair." In one of the strongest years for film in recent memory, the 6,000-plus voters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences scattered golden Oscar statuettes among the many acclaimed movies in contention. It was a good night for the scrappy, low-budget film "Dallas Buyers Club," a biopic of an early AIDS activist two decades in the making that won three Oscars, including the two male acting awards. Matthew McConaughey won best actor for his portrayal of the homophobe-turned-AIDS victim-turned treatment crusader Ron Woodroof, a role for which he lost 50 pounds (23 kg). His co-star, Jared Leto, won best supporting actor for his role as Woodroof's unlikely business sidekick, the transgender woman Rayon, for which he also slimmed down drastically.

Australia's Cate Blanchett won the best actress Oscar for her acclaimed role as the socialite unhinged by her husband's financial crimes in Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine." "As random and subjective as this award is, it means a great deal in a year of, yet again, extraordinary performances by women," said Blanchett, who beat out previous Oscar winners Bullock, Amy Adams, Judi Dench and Meryl Streep. — Reuters

Academy honours

Best Picture
'12 Years a Slave'

Best Director
Alfonso Cuaron ('Gravity')

Best Actor
Matthew McConaughey ('Dallas Buyers Club')

Best Actress
Cate Blanchett ('Blue Jasmine')

Best supporting actor
Jared Leto ('Dallas Buyers Club')

Best supporting actress
Lupita Nyong'o ('12 Years a Slave')

Best animated feature film: 'Frozen'

Best visual effects
‘Gravity’

Best cinematography
‘Gravity’ 

Washington, March 3
US President Barack Obama today said Russia had violated international law in its military intervention in Ukraine. He said the US Government had warned it would look at a series of economic and diplomatic sanctions that would isolate Moscow.

"Russian President Vladimir Putin needs to allow international monitors to mediate a deal in Ukraine acceptable to all Ukrainian people," Obama told reporters before he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Over time this will be a costly proposition for Russia. And now is the time for them to consider whether they can serve their interests in a way that resorts to diplomacy as opposed to force," Obama said.

European Union foreign ministers also held out a threat of sanctions against Russia on if it failed to withdraw its troops from Ukraine. They, however, offered to mediate between two sides, along with other international bodies.

At talks on the Ukraine crisis in Brussels, they agreed no deadlines or details about any punitive measures that could be put in place against Russia, but leaders of the bloc's 28 nations will hold an emergency summit on Thursday and could take further decisions. The EU discussions were convened abruptly after Russian President Vladimir Putin seized the Crimean peninsula and said he had the right to invade Ukraine. — Reuters