Aldi's Oliver Cromwell London Dry Gin impressed ISC judges. Photograph: Getty Images/Purestock
PESHAWAR: A suicide bomber killed at least eight people and wounded 43 others when he rammed his motorcycle into a bus on University Road here on Monday, police said.
The bombing took place at Peshawar's Jehangir Abad neighbourhood on Arbab Road close to a police vehicle and also damaged a passing bus.
"The commissioner, who passed just a minute before from the road, was the target of the bombing, but he escaped unhurt as the bomber missed the target and struck his motorcycle into a passenger bus," police official said.
Body parts of the suicide bomber were also found at the blast site, he added.
Bomb disposal officials said the explosives weighed up to six kilograms (13 pounds).
Rescue teams shifted the bodies and injured to Khyber Teaching Hospital while police cordoned off the area and started investigation.
The University Road was closed for traffic after the incident.
Almost every visitor to Far North Queensland has the tropical town of Cairns on their itinerary. As the gateway to the iconic Great Barrier Reefand fringed by jungle-covered mountains, littered with white-sand beaches and home to a surprisingly cosmopolitan nightlife scene, it is little wonder this erstwhile fishing village has become one of Australia’s top tourist destinations. But for those who are willing to look beyond Cairns’ obvious attractions – and have the energy to get out of their deck chair – there is a wealth of delightful alternatives within an hour’s drive of the coast’s sticky climes.
The Atherton Tablelands is a cool, clean and astonishingly green volcanic plateau with vistas more reminiscent of Switzerland than sunburnt Australia; dairy cows munch yellow flowers, tractors trundle down meandering tracks and blue lakes wink at the base of impossibly rounded emerald hills. But do not mistake bucolic for boring: the 32,000sqkm region – which soars to heights of almost 1,300m – packs a dramatic punch in the sightseeing stakes.
The Tablelands are a short and scenic drive inland from Cairns, but for those who believe the journey should be as thrilling as the destination, the Kuranda Scenic Railway – a 37km mountain edge train track constructed in the late 1800s – and Skyrail – a 7.5km-long cableway gliding above the jungle canopy – are delightful alternatives. Both start in Cairns and terminate in Kuranda, a hippy hamlet nestled between a World Heritage-listed rainforest and the Barron Falls, which roars to life in the summer monsoon season. Billed as “the village in the rainforest”, Kuranda offers prime nature experiences both outside and in: more than 80 types of winged wonders flutter about in the Birdworld complex, while the Butterfly Sanctuary is Australia’s largest butterfly aviary. But the town’s most interesting inhabitants can be found at the Original Markets at the northern end of town, a ramshackle, sandalwood-scented jumble of stalls flogging everything from avocado ice cream to organic lingerie until 3 pm every day.
Trade the sarongs for spurs with a 30km drive west to the cowboy town of Mareeba. Home to one of Australia’s most iconic annual rodeos (held this year from 12 to 14 July), the town revels in a “wild west” atmosphere, with local merchants selling leather saddles, handcrafted bush hats and the oversized belt buckle of your bronco-bustin’ dreams. Mareeba’s main street is even wide enough for a high-noon showdown. Once the heart of Australia’s largest tobacco growing region, Mareeba now turns its soil to more wholesome produce, with organic coffee plantations, distilleries, a mango winery and abundant fruit and nut crops. For a sample, visit one of the many farms that offer tasting menus, or try Food Trail Tours for guided gourmandising.
Heading north towards Queensland’s rugged Cape York Peninsula, twitchers should stop off at the Mareeba Wetlands just out of town, a 2,000 hectare sanctuary that harbours more than 200 bird species, as well as the upmarket Jabiru Safari Lodge, a collection of lagoon-side African-style safari cabins ideally placed for wildlife watching and unwinding.
Named after the man – 19th-century pastoralist John Atherton – who gave the region its name, Atherton, located 30km south of Mareeba, is a bustling, central country town that makes an ideal base for exploring the delights of the southern Tablelands. Old-school accommodation at any of Atherton’s four traditional pubs ensures an authentic stay, while the lure of Crystal Caves – a gaudily fabulous mineralogical museum that houses the world’s biggest amethyst geode (more than 3m high and weighing 2.5 tonnes) – and the fastidiously restored late 19th-century Hou Wang Temple – one of the oldest original Chinese temples in Australia – tempt day tippers to linger longer.
It was John Atherton who also, accidentally, named one of the Tablelands’ most beloved outdoor playgrounds, the nearby Lake Tinaroo. Locals swear that in 1875 Atherton stumbled across a deposit of alluvial tin and, in a fit of excitement, shouted “Tin! Hurroo!” The excitement has not died down since, with Tinaroo becoming a favourite for Tablelanders as well as Cairnsites fleeing seasonal jellyfish, the threat of giant crocs and the swelter of the lowlands. People flock to its cool, clean waters for boating, water skiing and lazy shoreline lolling. It is also renowned as one of the best barramundi fishing spots in Australia. The sprawling lake, estimated at being two thirds the area of Sydney Harbour, is framed by the Danbulla Forest, a green blanket of rainforest, pine and scrub that offers refuge to kangaroos, bird colonies and platypus.
An own-label supermarket gin costing less than £10 has won a top award and seen off competition from well-known brands and niche rivals costing more than five times its price.
Aldi's Oliver Cromwell London Dry Gin, which costs £9.65 for a 70cl bottle, impressed judges in blind taste tests at the prestigious International Spirits Challenge 2013. It picked up a silver medal alongside more expensive rivals including The London No 1 Gin, which sells for £35 at Harrods, and the Worship Street Whistling Shop Cream Gin, which costs £55.95.
The so-called Bathtub Gin from the Professor Cornelius Ampleforth range of spirits and liqueurs was awarded a gold medal in the premium and super premium categories. Costing £32.95 for a 70cl bottle, it is made in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
Famous mainstream brands such as Bombay Sapphire (£21.70) and artisan favourite Hendricks (£26.39) fell short in the eyes of the experts. Both were awarded bronze medals despite being more than twice as expensive as their value Aldi rival.
Described as having a "ripe, citrus aroma with rounded spice and a touch of juniper", Aldi's Oliver Cromwell London Dry Gin is distilled "for a clear, crisp, complex flavour".
Several other products in Aldi's spirits range were also highly decorated, with two of its vodkas picking up silver awards and its amaretto, white rum and peach schnapps taking bronze awards in the liqueurs category.
Tony Baines, managing director of buying at Aldi, said: "Our expert buyer works closely with some of the world's leading distilleries to enable us to deliver high-quality own-label spirits to our customers, so it is fantastic that our commitment to quality has been recognised by as prestigious a group as the ISC tasting panel.
"It's safe to say we're all in high spirits today – and we hope our customers will enjoy raising a glass of gin and tonic to our success."
Supermarkets have reported a steady rise in gin sales amid new interest from consumers in mixing their own cocktails after a flurry of new product launches. Waitrose's Heston from Waitrose gin – made with British potatoes and infused with the chef's signature Earl Grey tea and lemon – hit the shelves last autumn and retails at £22 for a 70cl bottle.
The Waitrose spirits buyer Hercehelle Perez Terrado said: "Gin is the trendiest tipple around, with sales up 13% year on year at Waitrose. Underground gin bars are popping up all over London and pubs are starting to sell lesser known craft brands. The scope for creativity in the blend of botanicals is what makes gin so special."
New measurements suggest the Earth's inner core is far hotter than prior experiments suggested, putting it at 6,000C - as hot as the Sun's surface.
The solid iron core is actually crystalline, surrounded by liquid.
But the temperature at which that crystal can form had been a subject of long-running debate.
Experiments outlined in Science used X-rays to probe tiny samples of iron at extraordinary pressures to examine how the iron crystals form and melt.
Seismic waves captured after earthquakes around the globe can give a great deal of information as to the thickness and density of layers in the Earth, but they give no indication of temperature.
That has to be worked out either in computer models that simulate the Earth's insides, or in the laboratory.
X-ray vision
Measurements in the early 1990s of iron's "melting curves" - from which the core's temperature can be deduced - suggested a core temperature of about 5,000C.
"It was just the beginning of these kinds of measurements so they made a first estimate... to constrain the temperature inside the Earth," said Agnes Dewaele of the French research agency CEA and a co-author of the new research.
Iron samples were subjected to enormous pressures before being probed with a spray of intense X-rays
"Other people made other measurements and calculations with computers and nothing was in agreement. It was not good for our field that we didn't agree with each other," she told BBC News.
The core temperature is crucial to a number of disciplines that study regions of our planet's interior that will never be accessed directly - guiding our understanding of everything from earthquakes to the Earth's magnetic field.
"We have to give answers to geophysicists, seismologists, geodynamicists - they need some data to feed their computer models," Dr Dewaele said.
The team has now revisited those 20-year-old measurements, making use of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility - one of the world's most intense sources of X-rays.
To replicate the enormous pressures at the core boundary - more than a million times the pressure at sea level - they used a device called a diamond anvil cell - essentially a tiny sample held between the points of two precision-machined synthetic diamonds.
Once the team's iron samples were subjected to the high pressures and high temperatures using a laser, the scientists used X-ray beams to carry out "diffraction" - bouncing X-rays off the nuclei of the iron atoms and watching how the pattern changed as the iron changed from solid to liquid.
Those diffraction patterns give more insight into partially molten states of iron, which the team believes were what the researchers were measuring in the first experiments.
They suggest a core temperature of about 6,000C, give or take 500C - roughly that of the Sun's surface.
But importantly, Dr Dewaele said, "now everything agrees".
LONDON: Three British Muslims were jailed on Friday for planning what a court heard was an Al-Qaeda-backed plot to carry out a string of bombings that they hoped would rival 9/11 and the 2005 London attacks.
Ringleader Irfan Naseer received a life sentence, his right-hand man Irfan Khalid was jailed for 18 years and co-conspirator Ashik Ali was jailed for 15 years by a judge at Woolwich Crown Court in southeast London.
Naseer, 31, and Khalid and Ali, both 28, were convicted in February of engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts, through an extremist plot to set off eight rucksack bombs in crowded areas and possibly other timed devices.
"Your plot had the blessing of Al-Qaeda and you intended to further the aims of Al-Qaeda," Judge Richard Henriques said as he sentenced the three men.
The group, all from Birmingham in central England, were heavily influenced by the teachings of American-born Al-Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a drone strike in Yemen in September 2011, police said. (AFP)
AFP
SYDNEY: Pakistani asylum-seeker Fawad Ahmed has signed to play with Australian state side Victoria for the next three seasons, Cricket Victoria said on Friday.
Leg-spinner Ahmed, who could be in contention to play for Australia in the Ashes series in England in July if he is granted citizenship on time, was named in Victoria's squad for the next Australian season. "Fawad Ahmed was the success story from last year and we're extremely happy to have signed him for the next three seasons," Victoria coach Greg Shipperd said in a statement.
The 31-year-old leg-spinner was handed a permanent visa to remain in Australia in November after leaving his home in the border region near Afghanistan, where he said he was targeted by Muslim extremists.
But to play for Australia in the Ashes from July he needs fast-tracked citizenship and an Australian passport.
Otherwise, under International Cricket Council rules, he will not become available until August 18, before the fifth Test at the Oval.
Ahmed played three Sheffield Shield games for Victoria late last season and took 16 wickets at 28.37, bringing him to the notice of Australian selectors given a dearth of spin bowlers of Test quality. "Fawad Ahmed is a mature and very good leg-spinner," chairman of selectors John Inverarity said last month. "I've seen quite a bit of him and all those who have played against him, and the coaching staff, rate him as a good bowler. "He would certainly come under consideration. It will all be considered on merit. He will be treated no differently from anybody else."
Of his chances of playing for Australia, Ahmed told reporters last month "Playing Test cricket is the dream for any single cricketer, very, very exciting. "Like a dream, especially playing for Australia in an Ashes against England. That would be a dream for me and would be amazing. I just only can imagine."
Cricket Victoria also announced Friday that former Australian all-rounder Dan Christian would be playing for Victoria from next season. (AFP)
AFP
LAHORE: Pakistan said Friday that it probes an attack on Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh, convicted of plotting terror attacks on Pakistani soil.
A foreign office spokesman said that a request of Indian High Commission for Counselor’s visit to the injured prisoner is being considered by the Pakistani authorities.
He said that the Punjab Home Department and Interior Ministry were jointly probing the issue. Indian High Commission has contacted Pakistan foreign office over the issue.
Indian media reports said that five prisoners who attacked the Indian spy have been identified. The reports said Indian authorities have also contacted President Asif Ali Zardari over the incident.