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WEEKLY UPDATE
Al-Jazeera launches Urdu service
DOHA: The Doha-based Al-Jazeera network, due to launch an English-language channel this spring, announced Tuesday a new service in Urdu, ahead of plans to offer similar services in French, Spanish and Turkish.
“We have brokered an agreement with the biggest cable company in Asia to offer this 24-hour new service meant to attract about 150 million viewers, most of them in Asia,” said marketing manager Hamad al-Nuaimi.
“The simultaneous translation (of Al-Jazeera news channel) into the Urdu language started two days ago as a test transmission. Subscriptions will only start in June.”
Speaking on the sidelines of an Al-Jazeera media forum, he said the network planned to offer similar simultaneous translation of its Arabic-language news channel in French, Spanish and Turkish at a later stage.
The English-language Al-Jazeera International news channel will be launched “this spring” with 250 journalists from 30 countries, managing director Nigel Parsons confirmed on Tuesday.
Veteran BBC television host Sir David Frost and Josh Rushing, a former US marine who was a Pentagon spokesman during the first months of the US-led invasion of Iraq, have signed with the new channel. It launched a children’s channel last year as part of a major expansion.
It also has a sports channel and another dedicated to covering live events without presenter or commentary.—AFP
First mobile bookshop
KARACHI: The Oxford University Press Launched its first mobile bookshop, called the Oxford Mobile Bookshop. Pakistan's first bookshop on wheels was inaugurated by Ameena Saiyid, Managing Director, Oxford University Press at the Oxford University Head Office.
The mobile bookshop will stock a wide range of books which will include dictionaries and reference books, children's books, academic and general books as well as school and college textbooks. Teacher's resource material will also be available here. It will mainly travel to areas with poor access to bookshops. The tour will begin from
Karachi where it is initially parked and will move on to its suburbs and thence to the interior of Sindh.
It will spend around three months in Sindh and then will travel to Lahore, NWFP and Islamabad.
Cholesterol drug inhibits cancer cells in lab
NEW YORK: Atorvastatin, the widely prescribed cholesterol-lowering “statin” drug, sold under the trade name Lipitor, shows significant action against human bladder cancer cells in laboratory experiments, researchers report in the medical journal Urology.
Although the findings suggest that atorvastatin is active against bladder cancer cells, clinical trials are still needed to confirm these results in patients, lead investigator Dr. Ashish M. Kamat told Reuters Health.
Kamat and Dr. Gina M. Nelkin of the University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, note that some research has suggested that statin use might increase the risk of cancer-related deaths.—Reuters
Shetlands come alight
LERWICK (Scotland): The inhabitants of Scotland’s remote Shetland Islands were celebrating the spectacular “Up-Helly-Aa” festival of fire on Tuesday, a tradition dating back to the rugged isles’ Viking past.
The event culminated in the darkness with 1,000 torch-bearing men, marching in double file, setting ablaze a full-scale Viking longship replica to commemorate the warrior race’s settlement of Shetland over 1,000 years ago.
The abiding influence of the Vikings is celebrated every last Tuesday in January to mark the coming of longer daylight hours, awaited on Shetland through the depths of the northern winter.
“Up-Helly-Aa” is a variant of the Scots Uphaliday, denoting Epiphany as the end of the Christian holiday, according to the New Oxford Dictionary.
Closer to Oslo than to London, adrift in the North Sea and 150 miles northeast of the Scottish mainland, the archipelago was given to Scotland by the Danish monarchy in the 15th century.
At 8:30 am when the rising sun begins to colour the sky orange, the Jarl Squad, 53 men clad in Norse warrior gear, begin a procession through Lerwick town, led by the Guizer Jarl, the Viking chief who wears a metal helmet decorated with feathers.— AFP
Fats Domino to headline New Orleans jazz festival
NEW ORLEANS: R-and-B legend Fats Domino — who was feared dead last fall after Hurricane Katrina flooded his home — will headline the 37th annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, organizers said Tuesday.
Domino, brought the unmistakable sound of New Orleans to the nation’s record stores in the 1950s and 1960s with hits like Ain’t that a Shame, Blueberry Hill and Whole Lotta Loving.
The rollicking pianist and singer’s legendary smile graces the posters for the festival.—AFP
PCB wants ICC to allow six-day Tests in winter
KARACHI: Pakistan cricket authorities will ask the International Cricket Council (ICC) to allow six-day tests to be played in winter to reduce the impact of bad light and poor weather on play.
Pakistan would also start experimenting with orange cricket balls in domestic matches to combat the problem of poor light, Shaharyar Khan, chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), told a news conference on Monday.
“We want clearance to have six-day tests between November 15 and January 15 every year when bad light and poor weather usually badly affect tests,” he said.
Shaharyar also said Pakistan would ask the ICC to review its policy on playing tests under lights.—Reuters
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