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Kabul airport targeted in militant suicide attack
Kabul airport targeted in militant suicide attack (AFP) / 10 June 2013 Militants launched a suicide and grenade attack on Kabul airport early Monday, taking over a nearby building which security forces attempted to storm as blasts and gunfire rocked the Afghan capital. Loud explosions and bursts of small-arms fire erupted for at least two hours and were continuing, with the US embassy sounding its “duck and cover” alarm and its loudspeakers warning that the alarm was not a drill. “An explosion… occurred after which a group of suicide attackers entered a building (near) Kabul airport, and started sporadic shooting,” Hashmat Stanikzai, Kabul’s police chief, said in a statement. “Now the area is sealed off and a stand-off between security forces and the attackers is ongoing.” A senior government official said several insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and machine guns were holed up in the building, which was under construction. “They are firing all over the place, including at the airport. They have machine guns and RPGs. Police have engaged them and there are also units of our special forces in the area,” he said, declining to be identified. The heavily-guarded airport, which is both a civilian and military facility and contains a large base for the US-led NATO coalition, was closed to all flights. The NATO-led coalition said that some international forces were involved in the military response to quell the attack. “There were personnel from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) with Afghan forces but Afghan forces led the operation,” a coalition spokesman said. President Hamid Karzai was on a visit to Qatar but it was unconfirmed whether he was scheduled to return on Monday. There were no immediate reported casualties or claims of responsibility for the attack, which began at 4:30 am (1200 GMT). Kabul last came under attack on May 24, when Taleban militants launched a coordinated suicide and gun attack on a compound of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). One insurgent detonated himself outside the compound at the start of the fighting, which left several buildings destroyed or damaged by rocket-propelled grenades, gunfire and explosions. A policeman, two civilians and all four militants died in that attack, with the government lauding the response of the Kabul security forces for preventing further casualties. The effectiveness of Afghan forces is crucial to the government’s ability to defeat the Taleban insurgency as 100,000 NATO-led combat troops withdraw by the end of 2014. The police, army and special forces are being trained by the international coalition, but there are widespread fears that they will not be able to impose security after 12 years of war. On Saturday, an Afghan soldier shot dead two US soldiers and one US civilian, the latest “insider attack” to undermine efforts by the two armies to work together to defeat the Taleban insurgency. The killings in the eastern province of Paktika came on the same day that one Italian soldier died when a grenade was thrown into an armoured vehicle in Farah province, in the far west of the country. In another recent attack to shake confidence in Afghanistan’s prospects after 2014, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) offices in the eastern city of Jalalabad were attacked on May 29. The two-hour assault, which left one Afghan guard dead, was the first time ICRC offices have been targeted in Afghanistan since the aid organisation began work in the country 26 years ago. The Taleban, who were ousted from power in Kabul in 2001, denied any involvement in the Jalalabad attack. Continue reading
Dubai doctor’s bid to solve Kerala’s water problem
Dubai doctor’s bid to solve Kerala’s water problem T K Devasia (news@khaleejtimes.com) / 10 June 2013 The acute drinking water crisis faced by the South Indian state of Kerala during summer this year came as a surprise to many. It is surprising because Kerala, with 50,000 million cubic metres of fresh water in 44 rivulets, 19 lakes, more than 900 ponds, and 300cm rainfall for 120 days in a year in normal conditions, is considered as the wettest state in the country. While most people have been indulging in a blame game, the paradox has spurred a Non-resident Keralite (NRK) based in Dubai into action. Dr Azad Moopen, who heads the DM Healthcare — a leading healthcare conglomerate in the Middle East — is trying to show how the natural gift can be preserved. He believes that the current water shortage can easily be solved even if a small section of the population preserves the rain water that goes into the Arabian Sea due to the peculiar slanting topography of the state. Moopen has decided to test it out in his home village of Kalpakanchery, where the wells and ponds dry by January every year. The people in the village have been sourcing water from far off places in tankers paying Rs600 for 2,000 litres. He looked for a solution that can easily be adapted by the people. Moopen didn’t have to go far. He could find a cheaper indigenous rain harvesting device in the village itself. Developed by Perumalparampil Jaleel, the device seeks to harvest rain water from roof tops. Under the system, rain water from the roof is sourced to a plastic drum through PVC pipes. The plastic drum acts as a filter as it is filled with pure river sand, charcoal and baby metal. There is also a nylon net placed on the top of all these so that leaves and other similar particles are prevented from going inside. After filtering, the harvested rain water is driven to the well through another PVC pipe. In most cases, the water stored in the well is enough to meet the dry season demand. Moopen Institute for Local Empowerment (Miles), an initiate launched by Moopen to strengthen the villages, has launched a campaign to propagate the device with the help of Central Ground Water Board. They explained the conservation measures through a two-day workshop. This was followed by meetings at the ward level. Miles also got devices for rain harvesting with the help of Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM), Calicut. Irfan Habib, coordinator of the programme, said the efforts evoked massive response from the villagers, who are now queuing up to install the device in their homes. He told Khaleej Times that four to five well recharging filters were being installed on a daily basis now. A group of plumbers are racing against time to install the filters in a maximum number of houses before the monsoon advances. Miles plans to install the rainwater harvesting filter in at least 500 houses at Kalpakancherry, which they hope would bring a permanent solution to the drinking water crisis plaguing the village for more than a decade now. Experts believe that Kerala may not need piped water at all if it taps the wells available in the state. The state has as many as seven million wells as against 7.6 million ‘occupied houses’, according to CWRDM. Continue reading
Circuit Factory: On the circuit to fitness
On the circuit to fitness Nivriti Butalia / 8 June 2013 ‘Cooler than Cavalli’, ‘The Challenge’, ‘Male Breast Awareness programme’, ‘Time to Speak the Truth’, ‘Social life? Please. I work out’ are all headers on the website of Circuit Factory, a large gym equipment-packed tin-roofed warehouse in Al Quoz Industrial Area, where there exist equal measures of dust and sweat. The tagline of The Circuit Factory, at least on their Facebook page and website, is ‘Most Powerful Weight Loss System In The Sandpit Babes’ (sic). Fitness enthusiasts work out at Circuit Factory in Al Quoz. — Supplied photo You could call it a gymnasium. But that might be similar to calling the Burj Khalifa a skyscraper — there is the risk of underestimation as scales aren’t quite gauged. Owned by the Al Tayer group, and with 3,000 members, Circuit Factory is a towel-toting community of fitness enthusiasts, who by their mere attendance are committed to pushing their bodies to the outer reaches of its comfort zone, and then tipping over. They have a mission, part of which is “to transform people’s lives by proving that great health and a great body is neither complicated nor inaccessible”. Upon showing up, a trainer very quickly writes your name on a sheet of paper and you’re made to sign a disclaimer that states you have no medical issues, and which presumably absolves the guys at the warehouse of any responsibility. Broken bones, stiffened mus cles, shattered nerves – all at your own risk. Perhaps the piece of paper should be more than perfunctorily glanced at. But the tempo is bustling. All around you people in various kinds of gym-gear are making a bee line for one end of the tin shed. Everyone is assembling. There must be two dozen people at a start line for what seems like a race start. Trainers are shouting. There is a nervous chaos – unless that’s what they call adrenalin. It’s a run alright — a kilometre and a half outside, cutting past other warehouses and stretches of dusty roads, traversing the less-frequented roads. There are fellow circuit trainers, much more athletic, all whizzing past. The sound and fury of rubber-soled footsteps pervades your ears. Trainers yell ‘Go! Go! Go!’ amid other shorthand codes of encouragement. You feel any minute now Nicholas Cage is going to swoop down from a loud hovering chopper, dangle down a rope ladder, ask for your hand and rescue you or that is, at least, the prayer. The run is only the first bit. And apparently there are variations in every class. Once you finish running the seemingly interminable stretch of dust-road, it’s back into the warehouse for more muscle-torture. Hamid, the trainer, says after the day’s training: “The first day is the hardest.” He also provides the assurance, the careful distinction, that no, it doesn’t get easier, it gets better. You tell Hamid the purpose of your attendance is a battle against belly fat. He tosses you a circuit-factory aphorism: weightloss is 80 per cent food, 20 per cent exercise. The run is succeeded by a circuit — repetitions of squats and strides and jumps and thrusts. ‘Burpees’( squat thrusts) seems to be a favourite. By the second repetition, it’s heartening to see most fellow trainees dissolve into puddles of sweat. People’s sizes vary. The fat and the marginally fat trot –if not alongside, at least somewhere in the orbit of the gazelle-like Adonis figures who seem to be not just surviving, but doing so with a stoic, sculpted grace. People you both dislike and yearn to be. Circuit Training is not everyone’s cup of tea, but the results show. The trainers assure you that if you keep at it, you’ll become one of them in no time – a top of the class figure, soaked-in-sweat with calves of steel. For more info see: circuitfactory.ae/classes.php nivriti@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
