Sammy forgives critics, sees West Indies resurgence

(Reuters) - Leading West Indies to their first World Cup title since 1979 gave Darren Sammy a chance to hit back at his critics but the all-rounder preferred to forgive them and talk about a possible resurgence of cricket's former superpower instead.

Sammy's rise to captaincy and his place in the side have often been questioned by critics, including former players, but the 28-year-old silenced them all on Sunday.

Sammy hit 26 runs off 15 balls and then returned to claim two Sri Lankan wickets as West Indies emerged as the new World Twenty20 champions.

"I never worry about the critics," Sammy, the first player from St Lucia to captain West Indies, said in the post-match presentation ceremony.

"I go by one way in my life. I say if Jesus Christ... never did a thing wrong but yet still he was crucified, who is Darren Sammy? That's the way I live my life.

"Everybody will have an opinion but when I go out there on the field, I go on to play for this crest," said the ever-smiling player, tapping on the West Indies logo on his shirt.

"...as long as I go out there and put a hundred percent, that's what matters to me," he said.

West Indies are a pale shadow of their former self, having ruthlessly dominated the game in the 1970s and 1980s, winning the first two 50-over World Cup.

Their glory days well behind them, West Indies rank seventh both in the test and one-day rankings but Sammy expected Sunday's victory to trigger a turnaround.

"The last decade we have been through a lot... this hopefully would be the beginning of things to come, a step in the right direction," he said.

"Hopefully this team would go on. We won't say we are back but it's a step in the right direction. Hopefully we can maintain the team spirit and make the Caribbean people proud.

"I know it's a party from Jamaica down to Guyana. Thank God it's a Sunday. If it was a weekday, nobody would be at work. It means a lot to the Caribbean people." (Writing by Amlan Chakraborty; Editing by Sudipto Ganguly)

UN condemns Syrian attack on Turkish town

The UN Security Council has condemned a Syrian mortar attack on a Turkish border town that killed five civilians.

The statement said the attack underscored the grave impact the Syrian crisis was having on "regional peace and stability".

An earlier draft referring to "international peace and security" was blocked by Syria's ally Russia.

Turkey's parliament has authorised military action inside Syria, a move that triggered anti-war protests.

However, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said his country does not intend to start a war with Syria.

The BBC's Barbara Plett at the UN says the statement was strongly worded but was still the result of a compromise with Russia, which has blocked previous resolutions condemning Damascus.

Russia had tried but failed to include language apparently aimed at balancing the Syrian attack with Turkey's military response, she says.
Threat or not?

But Russia did succeed in blocking a draft version that called the mortar attack "a threat to international peace and security", a phrase our correspondent says could be used to justify greater Security Council involvement.
Continue reading the main story   
“Start Quote

    We never want to fight with the Syrian people or go to war with them. We have lived with them for centuries”

Ufuk Yigit Turkish resident of Izmir

    Turks react: 'Enough'
    Analysis: Underlying issues
    Tensions in pictures

The final version said the incident "highlighted the grave impact the crisis in Syria has on the security of its neighbours and on regional peace and stability".

It demanded that "such violations of international law stop immediately and are not repeated".

It called on the Syrian government to "fully respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its neighbours" and urged "restraint".

Syria's UN envoy Bashar Jaafari said his government was not seeking escalation with Turkey.

He criticised the Security Council's silence on "suicide terrorist attacks that struck the city of Aleppo" that killed dozens of Syrians on the same day as the Turkish incident.

A senior diplomat said the Security Council would address that issue on Friday.

On Thursday, Turkey's parliament authorised troops to launch cross-border operations against Syria for a period of one year.

The emergency vote followed the shelling of the Turkish town of Akcakale in which two women and three children were killed.

Turkey's immediate response was to shell targets inside Syria.
Mr Erdogan said at a news conference in Akcakale on Thursday evening: "We want peace and security and nothing else. We could never be interested in something like starting a war."

But he added: "The Turkish Republic is a state capable of defending its citizens and borders. Nobody should try and test our determination on this subject."

On Thursday evening thousands of people held an anti-war rally in Istanbul's Taksim Square.

Demonstrators chanted: "No to war! Peace now! We won't be soldiers of imperialists!"

Some banners accused Mr Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) of being a stooge of the US.

Bedri Baykam, a Turkish artist and activist, said: "[The] United States wants Turkey to enter war against Syria because there are elections coming in the United States. Obama doesn't want to send American troops so the Turkish army serves as their tool but we don't want to be part of the bloodshed in the Middle East."

Other, smaller anti-war protests were reported in Izmir, Mersin, Eskisehir and other cities and towns.

Mr Jaafari said his country had offered condolences over the deaths but not an apology because an inquiry into the incident had not been completed.

Turkey has been a critic of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since anti-government protests erupted there more than a year ago.

Ankara has openly supported the armed rebellion and called for the end to the regime.

Obama comes out swinging at Romney after debate

US President Barack Obama has accused Mitt Romney of being dishonest, after a televised debate that most observers agreed his Republican rival won.

'If you want to be president, you owe the American people the truth'

Speaking in Denver, Colorado, Mr Obama urged his rival to tell the "truth" about his own policies.

A total of 67.2 million people watched Wednesday's debate, the Nielsen TV ratings service announced.

The Obama campaign has said there will be some "adjustments" in strategy before the election on 6 November.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll on Thursday suggested Mr Romney had a net positive rating for the first time in the presidential campaign.

The poll said 51% of voters viewed him positively, with Mr Obama at 56%. The Republican moved ahead of the president on which candidate voters trust to handle the economy, create jobs and manage the deficit.
'Big Bird'

Mr Obama told a rally of some 12,000 supporters on Thursday: "When I got on to the stage, I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney.
"But it couldn't have been Mitt Romney, because the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $5 trillion in tax cuts that favour the wealthy. The fellow on stage last night said he didn't know anything about that."

The president continued the theme in front of an estimated crowd of 30,000 people on the campus of University of Wisconsin-Madison later in the day.

At a campaign rally in Virginia on Thursday evening, Mr Romney did not respond directly to the president's criticism.

But he did argue that Mr Obama had failed during the debate to make his case for another term.
"I got the chance to ask the president questions people across the country have wanted to ask him." Mr Romney said.

"Such as why is it he wanted to push through Obamacare at a time when we had 23 million people out of work?"

During Wednesday night's head-to-head Mr Romney repeatedly denied the $5tn (£3tn) claim.

Fact-checkers have said that Mr Romney's proposal to lower taxes by 20%, abolish estate tax and the alternative minimum tax would reduce revenue by $5tn over a decade.

The Republican has said he would help offset that by eliminating tax loopholes; the non-partisan Tax Policy Center says the sums do not add up.

Mr Obama told Thursday's rally: "So Governor Romney may dance around his positions. But if you want to be president, you owe the American people the truth.

"So here is the truth. Governor Romney cannot pay for his $5 trillion tax plan without blowing up the deficit or sticking it to the middle class. That's the math. We can't afford to go down that road again."

The Democratic president also mocked Mr Romney's plan to cut government subsidies for the PBS television channel that produces Sesame Street.

Mr Romney said during the debate: "I love Big Bird", adding that would not stop him axing federal funding to the public broadcaster.

"Thank goodness somebody is finally getting tough on Big Bird," Mr Obama told Thursday's rally. "It is about time. We didn't know that Big Bird was driving the federal deficit."
'Damage control'

Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams dismissed the president's attack.

"In full damage-control mode, President Obama today offered no defence of his record and no vision for the future," he said.
Obama strategist David Axelrod told reporters on a conference call that the campaign would now rethink its strategy.

"We are going to take a hard look at this," he said. "I'm sure we will make adjustments as to where to draw the line in these debates and how to use our time."

The candidates went head to head on Wednesday for 90 minutes on jobs, taxes and healthcare.

Opinion polls agreed that Mr Romney had the upper hand in the debate - the first of three between the White House rivals.

Various surveys gave Mr Romney a 46-67% margin, with Mr Obama trailing on 22-25%.

The president was criticised for appearing hesitant and subdued, while the former governor - who has been lagging in the race - seemed animated and assertive.

Vice-presidential candidates Joe Biden and Paul Ryan will meet in Danville, Kentucky on 11 October, before the second presidential debate on 16 October.

India beat South Africa but crash out of World Twenty20

 COLOMBO: India would say that they were a bit unfortunate to exit from the World T20. They beat England and Pakistan, and then pipped South Africa by one run in a thriller, as L Balaji castled Morne Morkel, who has just smashed the first six of his T20I career.

India's chances were dented grievously by Pakistan's big win over the favoured Aussies which left the Men in Blue with the stiff ask of beating the Proteas by a minimum margin of 31 runs in their final Super Eights game on Tuesday in order to make the semis. They sneaked out a close win, but couldn't do enough to make the cut for the last four.

India made 152 for six, and needed to stop the Proteas at 121, but Faf du Plessis, who had a highest T20I score of 13 before this match, smashed 65 (38b, 6x4, 2x6) to spoil their plans.

However, questionable team composition for Tuesday's must-win game, along with a major captaincy gaffe by skipper MS Dhoni didn't help India's cause. In the end, the hammering at the hands of Shane Watson and David Warner, which won Australia their Super Eights game against India with 31 balls to spare, came back to haunt them. It just proved too costly.

Dhoni will have much answering to do about why he didn't play veteran off-spinner Harbhajan Singh on a wicket on which Pakistan played four spinners against Australia with much success. The Proteas are as bad players of spin as anybody in the world, so why was Harbhajan, who took four for 12 against the English earlier in the tournament, not brought on in this game at the expense of a seamer, preferably Balaji?

Zaheer and Balaji bowled their heart out, picking up three wickets each, but India needed to win a bit more easily. Harbhajan could have helped them do that.

That wasn't enough. Even as South Africa, especially Du Plessis, seemed to be rather comfortable against the seamers after suffering the initial blows, Dhoni perhaps forgot that he had R Ashwin's services up his sleeve.

One of the best off spinners in world cricket was brought on after even part-timer Rohit Sharma had tried his arm around! Ashwin came on in the 10th over but it was too late by then.

Yuvraj Singh did his bit for India, scoring 21, and then taking two wickets, but he would trade his Man of the Match award with a spot in the last four for his team any day.

Earlier, Suresh Raina's run out off the final ball of the Indian innings summed up India's campaign in the World T20 this time. The stylish left-hander, who had kept India's challenge alive till then with a 34-ball 45, was found inches short of the crease while going for the second run. For both India, and Raina, it was a case of being so near, yet so far!

India fumbled initially, slipping to 36 for three, as the top-order batsmen panicked in search of quick runs, throwing their bats around at everything. It was always going to be difficult to go bang bang against the likes of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel from ball one. Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag fell trying to be too adventurous. Sadly, Virat Kohli, who normally steps up on these occasions, had an off day, gloving Jacques Kallis down the leg side.

Yuvraj then brought India back into the game, smashing two trademark sixes in a 15-ball cameo. There was a 44-run stand between Rohit Sharma and Raina off 36 balls that gave India a decent total. In the slog, Dhoni and Raina gave India the surge they needed.

It was tragic to see India crash out despite the batting line-up they posses, and despite eking out a thrilling win on Tuesday.

Somewhere, though, they had themselves to blame.

HOW INDIA LOST THE PLOT

After Pak beat Aus by 32 runs, India needed a big win over S Africa to make the semis. Pak used spinners for the first 17 overs against Aus, but on the same ground, India went in without Harbhajan.

The openers failed again. Kohli's rare off-day plunged India into trouble. Rohit Sharma tried to rebuild but his 25 off 27 balls was too slow.

Having scored 152, India needed to restrict the Safs to 121 or less. But Dhoni gave Irfan a third straight over which went for 14 runs. Part-timer Rohit's over too was taken for 13 runs as the momentum swung decisively.

By the time India's main spinner R Ashwin came on, S Africa were already 68/3. Balaji got his first over at 79/3. India finally won by 1 run, but were knocked out of the World T20.

FIFA World Cup 2018 to be held in 11 cities: Russian chief

Moscow: Eleven Russian cities will host the 2018 World Cup, head of the local organising committee (LOC) Vitaly Mutko said on Friday following FIFA's executive board meeting in Zurich.

"FIFA has made a decision to use 12 stadiums in 11 cities," Russian Sports Minister Mutko told reporters without naming the two cities who did not make the list.

Thirteen Russian cities - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Samara, Saransk, Volgograd, Krasnodar, Rostov, Sochi and Yekaterinburg - had been competing for the right to stage the matches.
FIFA World Cup 2018 to be held in 11 cities: Russian chief
Getty Images

Local media reported that Saransk and Yaroslavl had been dropped. Mutko said earlier this month that Saransk, Volgograd, Yaroslavl, Kaliningrad and Rostov were the most under threat.

"The official decision is to have 11 host cities, which will be announced live on national television on Saturday evening," a LOC spokesman said.

"Until then, anything else is pure speculation."

Moscow will have two venues - the 90,000-seat Luzhniki stadium which will stage the final - and another to be chosen from two 45,000-seat arenas that are being built by the Spartak and Dynamo clubs.

Russia beat England and joint bids from Spain-Portugal and Belgium-Netherlands in December 2010 to win the right to stage the tournament.

World city in a garden

I visited Singapore recently to attend the World Cities Summit, a biennial event that aims to present the best directions urbanism has taken in key cities worldwide. It aims to highlight these great cities as models for how we should shape our metropolises for tomorrow.

Today, the world, the Philippines included, is more urban than rural. By 2050, 70 percent or more of the people on this planet will be living in cities. The world’s population is also expanding, and the challenge is how to accommodate more people into more sustainable cities; marshalling and managing natural and social resources to ensure a quality of life that should only get better.

Of course, a key model city is Singapore itself. It seems the city, which was my second home for 12 years, can’t get any better. But despite an increase of close to a million people since I lived there in the ’90s, the city, or city-state to be precise, has lived up to its billing as the best place to live in Southeast Asia.

One of the key ingredients of this liveability is the fact that the city has one of the most extensive parks and open space systems in the world. Singapore is a city in a garden, not just a garden city, which was the original goal in its earlier decades under Lee Kuan Yew. Mr Lee and the rest of Singapore’s leaders understood, decades before the rest of the world, that being green was one sure way to keep urban problems at bay.
The Flower Dome conservatory is cooled down to support temperate flowering displays.

This year, the city launched its most ambitious green development, its Gardens by the Bay. We glimpsed the lush new park as our shuttle approached the city center and our hotel and convention site — the Marina Bay Sands. I had taken the family to take advantage of the trip and the opportunity to stay at the iconic venue. The view from its 57th floor’s 150-meter-long infinity-edge pool alone was worth the trip. We took a dip every day of our stay.

Our room faced the new park and we strolled over early the first morning before the summit. The 100-hectare Gardens by the Bay accents the city’s new inner harbour, an extension of the city’s original central core. It is twice the size of our Rizal Park and serves to bring people close to nature in the middle of the city.

The park, actually three connected parks, is a product of an international competition won by the landscape architectural firms of Gustafson Porter and Grant Associates. The three main features now open in the Bay South Garden section are the super trees and the two conservatories. The super trees are a cluster of 25-50-meter-tall armatures on which verdant and colorful tropical plant life is now thriving. The “trees” also harvest rain water and produce energy. They are also linked with sky bridges for touring.

We also toured the two fantastic conservatories — the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest. Each conservatory is cooled to recreate cool-dry and cool-moist habitats respectively for plant life not found in Singapore. The conservatories are an amazing way to show visitors plant life, from tropical mountains to the sub-tropical coasts of the Mediterranean and the temperate regions of the globe. Of course, the rest of the park has themed gardens highlighting the tropical plants and flowers of Singapore and the region.

The summit itself was held at the Marina Bay Sands expansive convention and exhibition center. The three-day event covered presentations on the theme “Liveable and Sustainable Cities — Integrated Urban Solutions.” It was the third edition of the event launched in 2008 and each staging gets bigger in size and scope, proving that the topic is gaining more and more relevance globally. Over a hundred city mayors and top government officials and thousands of participants from all over the world attended.

The summit was coorganized by Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and the Center for Livable Cities (CLC). Summit participants like me, along with youthful mayors Herbert Bautista of QC and John Rey Tiangco of Navotas, had the chance to visit the URA headquarters to get a briefing on how urban planning and rational physical development helped Singapore achieve its goals. I love that they know where every building, infrastructure and utility line is in Singapore. In Philippine cities, one has to guess all the time as our maps and “as-built” plans are all inaccurate or non-existent.

I went dizzy trying to attend all the presentations I wanted, as the event was an embarrassment of riches in terms of plenary and break-out sessions. Bundled with the event were two other related confabs — Singapore International Water Week and the CleanEnviro Summit Singapore. This was apart from the annual World Cities Summit Mayors Forum, which of course was limited to government officials.

The issue of water as a resource for cities was an important one and there were numerous presentations on new technologies for water management, processing and distribution (many from firms based in Singapore). I even got to visit the famed Marina Barrage at the end of the Gardens by the Bay. Housed in a literally-green building (its lawn sweeps up to its roof), the facility controls what is essentially a dam that stores water in the inner harbour. This water is the island’s 15th reservoir and harvests rainwater, storing it for future use. The structure also houses interactive displays for school kids and other visitors to learn about water conservation and sustainability.

A key event in the summit was the awarding of the Lee Kuan Yew City Prize. The prize is a biennial award given to individuals and organizations that contributed to creating “vibrant, livable and sustainable urban communities around the world.” It honors initiatives in creative planning, good governance and innovation in addressing problems faced by today’s cities.

This year, the prize went to New York City for its transformation in the last 30 years from a lost cause to a place that continues to lead in terms of urban governance, planning and urban design. It is also a city that takes its greens seriously and although Mayor Bloomberg was unable to accept the prize, Adrian Benepe, head of the city’s Parks Department, represented him and the Big Apple. I did attend Benepe’s most interesting talk on the city’s renaissance with special emphasis on parks development and maintenance.

Key to New York’s success, Benepe explained, is PPP. Public-private partnerships were, in fact, a recurring theme in a lot of the presentations. This is something we should learn from in terms of what works and what does not in taking this direction for urban development. I spoke to Cheng Hsing Yao, deputy executive director for the Centre for Liveable Cities, co-organizer of the event. Cheng emphasized this plus the importance of integrating urban solutions into the fabric of city governance, economy and social development.

The lesson from the World Cities Summit can be summarized, paraphrasing one of the keynote speakers and melding his message with key messages from others, thus: “Build the most beautiful city you can… plant as many trees as you can… plan as comprehensively as you can… partner with as many groups in society as you can, towards the creation of improved cities… because there is no excuse not to build better places for our people to live, work and play.”

World powers open to more nuclear talks with Iran

 WASHINGTON: World powers decided to lay the groundwork for another round of negotiations with Iran over its disputed nuclear program, a senior US official said, but they want a significantly improved offer from the Islamic republic.

Neither the US nor any of its international partners was ready to abandon diplomacy in favor of military or other actions, as Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu has advocated.

The new hope for a negotiated end to Iran's decade-long nuclear standoff came Thursday after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with the foreign ministers of Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia - powers that have sought, over several rounds of talks, to persuade Iran to halt its production of material that could be used in nuclear weapons. All such efforts have failed so far.

The latest stab at a diplomatic compromise collapsed this summer after Iran proposed to stop producing higher-enriched uranium in exchange for a suspension in international sanctions, which Clinton has termed a "nonstarter." The US official said Iran would have to bring a much better offer to the table this time, but stressed that nations were seeing some signs for optimism and that diplomacy remained "far and away the preferred way to deal with this issue."

Catherine Ashton, the European Union's top diplomat, who has been spearheading the international diplomacy with Iran, was instructed to reach out to Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili. Still, no date was set for the possible resumption of the so-called P5+1 talks with Iran, said the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she wasn't authorized to comment publicly about the closed-doors meeting at the United Nations.

After looking for a diplomatic solution there, Clinton met later Thursday with Netanyahu one-on-one for 75 minutes at a New York hotel where she was expected to hear the alternative argument for possible military action. The US official said they agreed that Iran must be prevented from becoming a nuclear power, without going into details.

Their meeting occurred just hours after the Israeli leader warned in an address to the U.N. General Assembly that Iran will have enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon by next summer.

Pulling out a red marker while holding a poster depicting a cartoon-like bomb that measured Iran's nuclear progress, Netanyahu drew a "red line" across the second-to-last stage of nuclear development, reminding everyone of his demand for President Barack Obama to declare when the U.S. might attack Iran. Obama has rejected the demand.

It is getting "late, very late" to stop the Iranian nuclear threat, Netanyahu said at the United Nations.

"Red lines don't lead to war; red lines prevent war," he said.

Iran insists its program is solely for peaceful energy and medical research purposes, while the U.S. and many Western and Sunni Arab states see that as a cover for developing nuclear arms. But there is disagreement on how to stop Iran, with Obama insisting there is more time for diplomacy and hard-hitting sanctions while Netanyahu presses for a military response.

That disagreement has spilled over into Obama's bid for re-election, with Republican challenger Mitt Romney accusing the president of being weak on Iran. Romney has promised a more credible threat of military action and closer alignment of U.S. policy with Netanyahu's positions - an argument that resonates with some Jewish and pro-Israel evangelical Christian voters.

Neither presidential candidate, however, advocates clearly for military action.

An attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would surely prompt retaliation. Iran could seek to disrupt fuel supplies from the Persian Gulf, through which about one-fifth of the world's oil flows, or it could support proxies such as Hezbollah to attack Israel or U.S. allies in the Gulf. A worst-case scenario might see the U.S. dragged into another major war in the Muslim world at a time of staggering American debt and continued economic struggles.

Obama and Netanyahu probably will speak by telephone Friday, the White House said, after Clinton's meeting are over. She is doing the bulk of America's diplomatic work at this year's gathering of global leaders in New York, with Obama ruling out any bilateral meetings with presidents or prime ministers so he can spend more time campaigning for re-election.

America's partners also prefer diplomacy.

"We discussed at length the need for Iran to take action urgently," said Ashton, who briefed officials for more than an hour on her recent discussions with the Iranians.

"We were united," said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, refusing to comment on Netanyahu's call for red lines.