NEW DELHI: Another Shoaib, another Mirza; another Pakistani boy and another Indian girl; another pair following the trend of Shoaib-Sania but more like a Mohsin Hasan Khan-Reena Roy affair; this time it is Rawalpindi Express who has stolen the limelight with a Bollywood beauty.
Just as the people finished thinking about the wedding of Shoaib-Sania, here came another scandal which is as bigger as the one with the Sialkot-Deccan marriage; a cricketer marrying an Indian film actress.

Indian film actress Diya Mirza has claimed that she and Shoaib Akhtar are very good friends and are getting married soon. She also challenged Shoaib-Sania that their wedding will be the biggest marriage of the sub-continent and they will not behave like them. She further stated that she loves Pakistani cricketers and Shoaib is her ideal man.
When the media tried to confirm the news from Shoaib Akhtar, Rawalpindi Express did not comment on it but sources told The Sports Encounter that the news of Akhtar-Diya scandal is true and they will also get married.

Shoania in Pakistan: Sania-Shoaib Walima & Media Frenzy

LAHORE: Shoaib Malik’s mother-in-law, Nasima Mirza, was adamant on selling coverage rights of the reception at Sialkot, the walima in Lahore and other functions, ARY News reported on its website today.

After Shoania – the Indo-Pak sports couple – arrived at the Pearl Continental hotel in Lahore on Friday, Malik reportedly threatened to vacate the place if the hotel management allowed any media personnel on the floor where Sania Mirza and he were staying.

Published reports say Sania and Shoaib, who got married earlier this month, want to cash in on their popularity in Pakistan and have reportedly demanded Rs30-50 million from media groups for exclusive rights to their walima (marriage banquet) reception in Sialkot and Lahore. Mirza and Malik have decided not to interact with Pakistani journalists till they sell the reception rights to the highest bidder, reported on TV channel on its website.

Shoania Reception & Valima Dates Announced

The marriage reception and valima dates of Indo-Pak sports couple, Shoaib Malik and Sania Mirza were announced in Lahore on Monday.



The reception will be held at former Pakistan cricket captain Shoaib Malik’s native city of Sialkot on April 25 and the Valima will be hosted at a five-star hotel in Lahore on April 27.



Shoaib’s brother-in-law Imran Zafar Malik told Geo News that Shoaib Malik would return home with his bride Sania as soon as he gets his passport back from Indian authorities.

Case filed against Shoaib, Sania for 'hurting Muslim sentiments'

In fresh trouble for Shoaib Malik and his wife Sania Mirza, police have registered a case against them and 12 others for allegedly hurting sentiments of Muslims by violating religious traditions in the Pakistani cricketer's divorce and marriage.






Based on a private complaint lodged by a city-based Muslim organisation, the court of Third Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate has referred the matter to Station House Officer of Banjara Hills Police here for investigation and asked for a report on it by May 26. West Zone Deputy Commissioner of Police Stephen Ravindra said today.







"After the court order, a case was registered last night. We have to investigate and a status report will be filed before the court," Ravindra said.





The complainant Moullim Mohsin Bin Hussain Al-Kasary, founder president of Mazlumeen-e-Ummatay Mohammediya organisation, has accused the Pakistani cricketer, Sania and her father as well as Shoaib's first wife Ayesha Siddiqui and family friends of hurting religious sentiments over matters relating to Shoaib's divorce to Ayesha and his subsequent marriage to the tennis star earlier this month.

Europe resumes some air travel despite volcano

LONDON – After five days in which nature brought the jet age to a halt, European officials agreed Monday to let air traffic resume on a limited basis, giving hope to millions of travelers around the world stranded by ash from a volcano in Iceland.

Three KLM passenger planes left Schiphol airport in Amsterdam on Monday evening during daylight under visual flight rules bound for New York, Dubai and Shanghai. An Associated Press photographer saw one jet taking off into a colorful sunset, which weather officials said was pinker than normal due to the ash.

European Union transport ministers reached a deal during a crisis videoconference to divide northern European skies into three areas: a "no-fly" zone immediately over the ash cloud; a caution zone "with some contamination" where planes can fly subject to engine checks for damage; and an open-skies zone.

Starting Tuesday morning, "we should see progressively more planes start to fly," said EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas.

The German airline Lufthansa said it would bring 50 planeloads of passengers home and Britain said it would reopen some of its airspace in the next 24 hours.

Britain's National Air Traffic Service said Scotland's airports and airspace would reopen at 2 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT) Tuesday, and London's airports — including Heathrow, Europe's busiest — might be able to reopen later in the day. British Airways said it hoped to start flying from London at 7 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) Tuesday.

The easing of the crisis came as the aviation industry — facing losses of more than $1 billion — criticized official handling of the disruption that grounded thousands of flights to and from Europe.

Visual flight rules allow a pilot to fly without reference to instruments, if weather conditions are good enough so the pilot can see landmarks and avoid any other aircraft. Those flights need to be under 18,000 feet, lower than usual altitude for commercial traffic.

Scientists have instruments that can both detect the presence of the ash and measure its concentration — information that can be relayed to pilots.

The airlines said test flights in recent days by airlines including KLM, Lufthansa and British Airways suggested planes can fly safely despite the ash. None of the flights reported problems or damage.

European airlines test skies, press to end ban

AMSTERDAM – Major airlines that sent test flights into European air space found no damage Sunday from the volcanic ash that has paralyzed aviation over the continent, raising pressure on governments to ease restrictions that have thrown global travel and commerce into chaos.

Is it safe to fly yet? Airline officials and some pilots say the passengerless test flights show that it is. Meteorologists warn that the skies over Europe remain unstable from an Icelandic volcano that continues to spew ash capable of knocking out jet engines.

European Union officials said air traffic could return to half its normal level on Monday if the dense cloud begins to dissipate. Germany allowed some flights to resume.

Eighty percent of European airspace remained closed for a devastating fourth day on Sunday, with only 4,000 of the normal 20,000-flight schedule in the air, said Brian Flynn, deputy head of operations for Eurocontrol, which supports the air traffic control network across theEuropean Union's 27 states.

"Today it has been, I would say, the worst situation so far," Flynn said.

The test flights highlighted a lack of consensus on when to reopen the skies. The microscopic but potentially menacing volcanic grit began closing airports from Ireland to Bulgaria on Thursday, stranding countless passengers and leaving cargo rotting in warehouses.

"It is clear that this is not sustainable. We cannot just wait until this ash cloud dissipates," EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas told reporters at the European capital in Brussels.

KLM Royal Dutch airlines, the national German carrier Lufthansa, Air France and several regional airlines sent up test flights, probing altitudes where the cloud of ash has wafted over Europe since the volcano turned active on Wednesday. British Airways planned an evening flight over the Atlantic from Heathrow, one of Europe's busiest hubs.

None of the pilots reported problems, and the aircraft underwent detailed inspections for damage to the engines and frame.

"Not the slightest scratch was found" on any of the 10 empty long-haul planes Lufthansa flew Saturday to Frankfurt from Munich, spokesman Wolfgang Weber said. The planes flew at low altitude, between 3,000 and 8,000 meters (9800 and 26000 feet), under so-called visual flight rules, in which pilots don't have to rely on their instruments.

Ash may hover for days over uncertain Europe

PARIS – The Icelandic volcano that has kept much of Europe land-bound is far from finished spitting out its grit, and offered up new mini-eruptions Saturday that raise concerns about longer-term damage to world air travel and trade.

Facing days to come under the volcano's unpredictable, ashy plume, Europeans are looking at temporary airport layoffs and getting creative with flight patterns to try to weather this extraordinary event.

Modern Europe has never seen such a travel disruption. Air spaceacross a swath from Britain to Ukraine was closed and set to stay that way until Sunday or Monday in some countries, affecting airports fromNew Zealand to San Francisco. Millions of passengers have had plans foiled or delayed.

Activity in the volcano at the heart of this increased early Saturday, and showed no sign of abating.

"There doesn't seem to be an end in sight," Icelandic geologist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson told The Associated Press on Saturday. "The activity has been quite vigorous overnight, causing the eruption columnto grow."

Scientists say that because the volcano is situated below a glacial ice cap, the magma is being cooled quickly, causing explosions and plumes of grit that can be catastrophic to plane engines, depending on prevailing winds.

In Iceland, winds dragged the ashes over new farmland, to the southwest of the glacier, causing farmers to scramble to secure their cattle and board up windows.

With the sky blackened out and the wind driving a fine, sticky dust, dairy farmer Berglind Hilmarsdottir teamed up with neighbors to round her animals and get them to shelter. The ash is toxic — the fluoride causes long-term bone damage that makes teeth fall out and bones break.

"This is bad. There are no words for it," said Hilmarsdottir, whose pastures near the town of Skogar were already covered in a gray paste of ash.