Pak may soon lift ban on Indian TV channels
ISLAMABAD, Feb 19 (UNI) Pakistan may soon lift its ban on the screening of Indian satellite television channels, as a goodwill gesture following the secretary-level talks between the two nations.
Cable Operators Association of Pakistan (COAP)'s vice president Tahir Khan said they had indications from official sources that the ban would soon be lifted and were now waiting for the formal announcement of the decision.
" However, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has still not told us when it was going to lift the ban," the Daily Times Today quoted him as saying.
The report cited certain officials in Islamabad, who asked not to be named, as saying the government had no objection to lifting the ban on Indian channels dedicated to family entertainment.
In the second phase, they added, the cable operators could even relay Indian news channels.
" The growing ties between the two neighbours have convinced the government that the Indian news channels will not be hurling propaganda against Pakistan," an official said.
" Pemra will be announcing fresh guidelines for the cable operators pretty soon," another official said.
The Indian satellite channels were banned in Pakistan after the two countries closed their diplomatic offices and cut rail, road and air links after an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001.
More than 20 channels were affected, including Star, Zee and Sony networks.
Cable operators say they suffered badly during the 26-month ban.
" Indian entertainment channels are popular with Pakistanis and can help the cable operators continue their business, " Khan said, pointing out that subscriptions to cable TV were falling rapidly for lack of Indian channels, Since the ban was imposed on December 30, 2001, cable operators had been pleading for permission to relay Indian channels.
Last year, cable operators across Pakistan stopped showing five news channels CNN, BBC, ARY, GEO and Indus News in protest.
New blast threat keeps crews away from Iran train NISHAPUR, Iran, Feb 19 (Reuters) Fear of further explosions left Iranian rescuers looking on helplessly today at the wreckage of a fuel-laden freight train that blew up and killed about 300 people, many of them fire crews.
A cordon of troops ensured medics and investigators kept at least a kilometre from the charred, mangled remains of 51 wagons carrying a lethal cocktail of gasoline and fertiliser that hurtled down the tracks before derailing.
The wagons had first caught fire and attracted crowds of curious bystanders who were then engulfed with firefighters in a massive explosion felt more than 70 KM away.
" It is still not safe," one fire chief said, gesturing to plumes of smoke and flickering flames visible in the wintry night air above the scene near Nishapur in Northeastern Iran.
The death toll stood at at least 295, according to a document prepared by local officials and seen by Reuters.
Doctors called for supplies of blood to treat the hundreds more who were injured, many of them scorched black and pulverised by yesterday's fiery chemical blast.
The force of the explosion razed village homes to the ground, crushing their inhabitants under crumbled mud brick walls and shattering windows far around.
" The earth shook.
We thought it was an earthquake.
We were so scared," said Ali, 42, from Nishapur, 20 KM from the scene in the saffron-growing province of Khorasan, bordering Afghanistan and Ex-Soviet Turkmenistan.
Photographs showed the blast site strewn with shredded torsos, clothes ripped from their bodies, and severed limbs.
Local man Ali Soleimani said he found the body of the governor of Nishapur: " I pulled out the corpse of the governor myself.
He had no legs and was sliced to bits." The disaster came amid political uncertainty in Iran, two days ahead of parliamentary elections overshadowed by a bitter dispute over the mass disqualification of reformist candidates.
The country is still recovering from a December earthquake that killed over 40,000 people in the ancient city of Bam, some 650 KM further south.
Officials said it was too early to say what caused the wagons to break free, but state news agency Irna said tremors in the quake-prone region might have set them moving.
Other reports said tremors may have simply been caused by the blast itself.
The investigation was hampered by the fires and the danger of further explosions at the site where overturned wagons lay jumbled beside the tracks, with homes just metres (yards) away.
As well as the governor of Nishapur, the head of the city's electricity board, the fire chief and a 26-year-old Irna journalist were killed in the blast, Irna said.
In the worst rail crash of the last quarter century, at least 575 people died in June 1989 when two passenger trains in Russia's ural mountains were engulfed in an explosion from a leaking gas pipeline.