Balloon blast victim dies

LAHORE: A 15-year-old boy, who suffered critical burns along with 40 others when gas-filled balloons exploded on April 21, died at Mayo Hospital late on Friday.

Three children who had suffered three to four percent burns are still under treatment at Jinnah Hospital but their condition is stated to be normal. The injured had been rushed to General, Jinnahand Mayo hospitals following the incident. Mayo Medical Superintendent Dr Amjad Shahzad said Naveed Asghar of Dev Kalan village was referred here from Jinnah Hospital with above 40pc burns and was in a critical condition. He said a team of plastic and surgery department doctors was treating the patient but he succumbed to his wounds. He said Asghar was the only victim received by Mayo Hospital. During a ceremony on Walton Road to inaugurate a new fly over by the chief minister on April 21 near Dev Kalan village, Kamahan Road, several helium-filled balloons had landed in a make shift playground and caught fire when someone touched them with a cigarette, according to initial police inquiries. Jinnah Hospital received majority of the injured and relatives of some of the patients claimed doctors had discharged them in haste. MS Dr Muhammad Rauf denied the allegations saying most of the victims had been discharged after proper treatment. Presently, he said, only three children wereunder treatment at private rooms of the hospital. Dr Rauf said the discharged children had been visiting the health facility for follow-up treatment. On Saturday, he said the doctors called seven children for assessment and cleansing their wounds.

Two brothers re-arrested in Pakistan for cannibalism

Two brothers previously jailed for cannibalism and then released, have been arrested again after police discovered a child's severed head at their home in a remote village in northwest Pakistan. Mohammed Arif Ali was arrested early Monday after neighbors alerted police to a "foul smell" coming from his house in the village of Kahawar Khan in the Bhakkar district of Punjab, district police chief Ameer Abdullah Khan told Media.When they went to investigate, they discovered the decapitated head of an infant next to a burning stove. The head, which is now being examined at a hospital in the nearby village of Darya Khan, looked to be around five days old, Abdullah said Arif Ali was arrested at the scene, while his brother, Mohammed Farman Ali, was apprehended by police hours later on the outskirts of their village. Police said both men confessed to eating human flesh. The brothers were released from prison last year after serving a two-year jail term for similar offenses -- they admitted dismembering a woman's body they had stolen from a graveyard in Darya Khan where they lived at the time. With no explicit law on cannibalism in Pakistan, the two men were convicted of desecrating a dead body and other public order offenses in a case that provoked widespread revulsion across Pakistan.

Foreign investors keen to invest in Pakistan: Dar

Washington: Finance Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar says foreign investors have shown a keen interest in various sectors of Pakistan with a focus on energy after an improvement in the fundamentals of national economy.

He was talking to representatives of Standard & Poor's and Moody's in Washington. The Minister said the government is taking concrete steps to fill the gap between power production and supply. He said various projects are underway to add power to the national grid.
The Finance Minister said Pakistan's economy is gaining momentum and has successfully completed first two quarterly reviews of International Monetary Fund (IMF). He specifically mentioned privatization of public sector entities through capital market and strategic sale transactions.
Ishaq Dar hoped that Pakistan's GDP is expected to increase from 3.6 to 7 percent and tax to GDP ratio from 8.5 to 13 percent. He said inflation is expected to be contained within a single digit of eight percent. Dar said the stock market has been gaining momentum during the last few months. The representatives of rating agencies appreciated the launch of Pakistan Sovereign Bonds in international market. They also lauded the recent improvement in the economic performance of the government.

Saudi Arabia to build world's biggest botanical gardens

Saudi Arabia is set to lay the foundation stone for the King Abdullah International Gardens (KAIG) in Riyadh this week, with plans for the facility set to include the world’s largest botanical gardens, it was reported. Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs Prince Mansour Bin Miteb will perform the ceremony on Thursday at the site, which will be 2.5m square metres in size and will be one of the largest environment projects in the world. The plans include two separate elements: a covered section and an open area. The covered facility, which will be the largest of its kind in the world, will include two giant botanical gardens which will be five times bigger than the world’s largest geodesic domes at the Eden Project in the UK. The outdoor area will include an open museum for plants, seeds bank and rocky garden, while the plans will also include research institutes, retail and hospitality outlets and a theatre, it added. The project will focus on local plant life in the Arabian Peninsula and is designed to appeal to families and tourists. Construction is already underway, with the levelling of the site and fencing works already completed.

A Tourist Guide to Quetta

Quetta is a south-western city of Pakistan, situated at an elevation of 5,500 ft (1677m). Quetta has a dry climate with no factory chimneys to pollute its fresh and invigorating mountain air. Winter sets in by November and lasts till end February. Snowfall is light, though it is not unusual to have one as late as March.

Getting There:
Quetta has the fourth largest airport in Pakistan. Visitor can come to quetta by air via Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad. Domestic flights are available on daily basis. PIA also runs direct flights from Dubai to Quetta.
Quetta is also connected to other majors cities of Pakistan by road and railways.

Shopping:
Some prominent bazaars of Quetta are located on the roads Shahrah-e-Iqbal (the Kandahari Bazaar) and Shahrah-e-Liaquat (the Liaquat and Suraj Gang Bazaar, Alamdar road (little Tokyo). Here, tourists can find colourful handicrafts, particularly Pashtun embroidery which is admired all over the world. The Pashtun workers are prominently expert in making fine  carpets, with their pleasing and intricate designs, fur coats, jackets, waist-coats, sandals and other creations of traditional Pashtun skills. local handicrafts, specially green marble products, mirror work and embroidered jackets, shirts, and hand bags, pillow covers, bed sheets, dry fruits, etc. Apart from Pashtuns, a large numbers of Punjabis and Urdu speakers also live in Quetta.


Attractions:
About 50 km, from Quetta is the valley of Pishin, which is surrounded by thousands of acres of vineyards and orchards, made by boring holes into rocks to bring to the surface the deep water.

Hanna Lake nestles in the hills ten kilometres (six miles) east of Quetta, a startling turquoise pool within bare brown surroundings. There is a lakeside restaurant with picnic tables shaded by pine trees.