Iraq's Sadr-Abadi forge alliance
Baghdad, June 24 : Iraqs outgoing Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr have said they have become political allies in an effort to form a new government in the wake of a widely discredited May elections.
The announcement, made in the Shiite holy city of Najaf in a meeting between American ally Abadi and a long-time US foe Sadr on Saturday, came as a surprise to many political observers, the New York Times reported.
This was especially because Sadr -- the top vote-getter -- had already announced an alliance with a pro-Iranian Shiite leader, Hadi al-Ameri.
Ameri was second in the polls, while Abadi was third.
"This is a call for an alliance that is nonsectarian and rejects ethnic politics in order to include all of the Iraqi people," Sadr said at a joint news conference with Abadi, who is still the Prime Minister until the new parliament sits on July 1 and elects his replacement.
"We want to speed up the process of coming to a political agreement to send a positive message to the citizens that we are serious about moving forward," Abadi said.
Sadr scored an upset victory as the leading vote-getter in the May 12 national parliamentary elections, which were marred by the lowest voter turnout since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein. But no party won enough seats in parliament to govern without forming alliances with several of the many parties.
The results were also contested on grounds of fraud, with the outgoing parliament ordering a manual recount of the votes, a decision upheld by Iraq's highest court. It was unclear, however, whether the new parliament would carry out that decision, the New York Times report said.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
