Pigs still can’t fly, but this winter, the mayor of Moscow promises to keep it from snowing. For just a few million dollars, the mayor’s office will hire the Russian Air Force to spray a fine chemical mist over the clouds before they reach the capital, forcing them to dump their snow outside the city. Authorities say this will be a boon for Moscow, which is typically covered with a blanket of snow from November to March. Road crews won’t need to constantly clear the streets, and traffic – and quality of life – will undoubtedly improve.
The idea came from Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who is no stranger to playing God. In 2002, he spearheaded a project to reverse the flow of the vast River Ob through Siberia to help irrigate the country’s parched Central Asian neighbors. Although that idea hasn’t exactly turned out as planned – scientists have said it’s not feasible – this time, Luzhkov says, there’s no way he can fail. (See TIME’s photo-essay “Vladimir Putin: Action Figure.”)
Controlling the weather in Moscow is nothing new, he says. Ahead of the two main holidays celebrated in the city each year – Victory Day in May and City Day in September – the often cash-strapped air force is paid to make sure that it doesn’t, well, rain on the parades. With a city budget of $40 billion a year (larger than New York City’s budget), Moscow can easily afford the $2-3 million price tag to keep the skies blue as spectators watch the tanks and rocket launchers roll along Red Square. Now there’s a new challenge for the air force: Moscow’s notorious blizzards.
“You know how every year on City Day and Victory Day we create the weather?” Luzhkov asked a group of farmers outside Moscow in September, according to Russian media reports. “Well, we should do the same with the snow! Then outside Moscow there will be more moisture, a bigger harvest, while for us it won’t snow as much. It will make financial sense.” (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory Day.)
The plan was unsurprisingly rubber-stamped this week by the Moscow City Council, which is dominated by Luzhkov’s supporters. Then the city’s Department of Housing and Public Works described how it would work. The air force will use cement powder, dry ice or silver iodide to spray the clouds from Nov. 15 to March 15 – and only to prevent “very big and serious snow” from falling on the city, said Andrei Tsybin, the head of the department. This could mean that a few flakes will manage to slip through the cracks. Tsybin estimated that the total cost of keeping the storms at bay would be $6 million this winter, roughly half the amount Moscow normally spends to clear the streets of snow.
So far the main objection to the plan has come from Moscow’s suburbs, which will likely be inundated with snow if the plan goes forward. Alla Kachan, the Moscow region’s ecology minister, said the proposal still needs to be assessed by environmental experts and discussed with the people living in the area before Luzhkov can enact it. “The citizens of the region have some concerns. We have received lots of messages,” she told the RIA news agency. (Read TIME’s 1991 article “The End of the U.S.S.R.”)
With only a few weeks left before winter comes, environmentalists will have to work fast to keep Luzhkov from implementing his zaniest plan to date – and to stop the first snowflakes from wafting down to the city streets.
ALBANY, N.Y. – President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton are lending their political star power to an unlikely Democratic bid to win a special congressional election in an area that’s been a Republican bastion for more than a century.
The Nov. 3 contest in upstate New York’s 23rd Congressional District, a sprawling, 11-county area where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by 45,000, is shaping up as a test of a struggling GOP and a possible gauge of Obama’s coattails.
Obama, who carried the district by 5 percentage points in his landslide victory in New York last year, forced the special election when he named the incumbent, Republican John McHugh, his Army secretary. The president will host a fundraiser for the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, on Tuesday in New York City.
In a fundraising e-mail for Owens, Clinton called the special election “bigger than just one candidate or one office … victory or defeat will also be seen as a referendum on President Obama’s agenda.”
Owens, 60, a Plattsburgh lawyer and retired Air Force captain, is one of three candidates competing for the seat. The others are Republican Dierdre Scozzafava, 49, a state Assemblywoman, and Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman, 59, a businessman.
Hoffman’s spokesman, Rob Ryan, said the race will be a referendum on Obama’s first 10 months and on the future of the Republican Party.
Democrats see an opening in the traditionally Republican district because Scozzafava and Hoffman are splitting the conservative vote. An Oct. 15 survey by Siena College showed Owens with 33 percent, Scozzafava with 29 percent and Hoffman with 23 percent. The poll of 617 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
Conservative groups such as The Club for Growth have endorsed Hoffman. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich endorsed Scozzafava last week, in a move apparently aimed as shoring up the Republican’s support among conservatives.
Republicans have complained that Obama picked McHugh for the Army job because he viewed the 23rd as vulnerable. Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand won the nearby 20th district, another longtime GOP stronghold, in 2006, and Democrat Scott Murphy won a close special election in March to hold the seat after Gillibrand was appointed to the U.S. Senate.
Whatever Obama’s motivations, McHugh, who represented the 23rd District since 1993, has the credentials for the Army job. He served on the House Armed Services Committee for years and worked with the oft-deployed 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, which is in the district.
The compressed time frame of a special election — McHugh was confirmed only last month — leaves voters with little-known candidates and little time for introductions.
In the state Assembly, Scozzafava, of Gouverneur, has broken with the Republican conference only 5 percent of the time, but on high-profile issues such as same-sex marriage, greenhouse gas emissions, sex education in schools and gender identity discrimination. In the past she’s won the Working Families Line — a liberal minority party closely associated with the Democratic Party. It endorsed Owens this time.
Scozzafava’s potential crossover appeal has the National Republican Congressional Committee hopeful it can hold onto the seat, one of only three that the Republicans controlled in the state’s 29-member congressional delegation.
Owens, is the managing partner at the law firm Stafford, Owens, Piller, Murnane, & Trombley, and has practiced law for 30 years. Hoffman, of North Elba, is the managing partner in an accounting firm and oversees a family business that includes investment, real estate and construction.
State GOP Chairman Edward Cox said the 23rd is a swing district with varied demographics, including organized labor, hunting enthusiasts and farmers. He said the combined vote of Conservatives and Republicans will be heard as a rejection of Obama’s agenda — no matter the winner.
“The national relevance is that the vote against Obama is going to be overwhelming,” Cox said.
June O’Neill, executive committee chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, said the seat is symbolically important for Republicans nationally.
“Let’s face it,” she said, “this seat should be a safe Republican seat and — as recent events and the most recent poll has shown — it is no longer a safe Republican seat.”
MIR ALI, Pakistan – The Pakistani army and the Taliban claimed to be inflicting heavy casualties on each other as fierce fighting raged Sunday on the second day of a military assault on an al-Qaida and Taliban sanctuary close to the Afghan border.
The outcome of the operation in South Waziristan stands to shape the future of nuclear-armed Pakistan and the militant groups seeking to topple its U.S.-backed government. The region is home to jihadists behind soaring terrorist attacks around the country, as well as al-Qaida and other extremists believed to be plotting strikes in the West.
The army said 60 militants had been killed on the first day of the operation, while six soldiers had died. The Taliban claimed to have inflicted “heavy casualties” on the army and to have pushed invading soldiers back into their bases.
It was not possible to independently verify the conflicting claims because the army is blocking access to the battlefield and surrounding towns.
“We know how to fight this war and defeat the enemy with the minimum loss of our men,” Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq told The Associated Press from an undisclosed location. “This is a war imposed on us and we will defend our land till our last man and our last drop of our blood. This is a war bound to end in the defeat of the Pakistan army.”
Tariq also said the Taliban were behind three commando-style raids on law enforcement agencies in the eastern city of Lahore on Thursday that killed around 30 people as well as the deadly bombing of a police station in the northwestern city of Peshawar a day later.
Accounts from residents and those fleeing South Waziristan on Sunday suggested that the 30,000 Pakistani troops were in for a bloodier time than in the Swat Valley, another northwestern region that the army successfully wrested away from insurgents earlier this year.
“Militants are offering very tough resistance to any movement of troops,” Ehsan Mahsud, a resident of Makeen, a town in the region, told The Associated Press in the town of Mir Ali, close to the battle zone. He and a friend arrived there early Sunday after traveling through the night.
Mahsud said the army appeared to be mostly relying on air strikes and artillery against militants occupying high ground. He said the insurgents were firing heavy machine guns at helicopter gunships, forcing the air force to use higher-flying jets.
The army is up against about 10,000 local militants and about 1,500 foreign fighters, most of them from Central Asia. They control roughly 1,275 square miles (3,310 square kilometers) of territory, or about half of South Waziristan, in areas loyal to former militant chief Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a U.S. missile strike in August.
Officials have said they envisage the operation will last two months, when winter weather will make fighting difficult.
A brief army statement said 60 militants had been killed, along with six soldiers, since Saturday. It said the army had secured high regions close to Razmak, where the army has had a base for several years, and destroyed six militant anti-aircraft gun positions.
A resident in Wana — the main town in South Waziristan and in the heart of Taliban-held territory — said the insurgents had left the town and were stationed on the borders of the region, determined to block any army advance.
“All the Taliban who used to be around here have gone to take their position to protect the Mehsud boundary,” Azamatullah Wazir said by phone Sunday. “The army will face difficulty to get in there.”
Intelligence officials said Saturday that the ground troops were advancing on two flanks and a northern front of a central part of South Waziristan controlled by the Mehsuds. The areas being surrounded include the insurgent bases of Ladha and Makeen, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to brief the media.
As many as 150,000 civilians — possibly more — have left in recent months after the army made clear it was planning an assault, but as many as 350,000 could still be in the region. The United Nations has been stockpiling relief supplies in a town near the region, but authorities are not expecting a major refugee crisis like the one that occurred during the offensive this year in the Swat Valley.
Over the last three months, the Pakistani air force has been bombing targets in South Waziristan, while the army has said it has sealed off many Taliban supply and escape routes. The military has been trying to secure the support of local tribal armies in the fight.
TEHRAN, Iran – A suicide bomber killed five senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guard and at least 26 others in an area of southeastern Iran that has been at the center of a simmering Sunni insurgency, state media reported.
The official IRNA news agency said the dead included the deputy commander of the Guard’s ground force, Gen. Noor Ali Shooshtari, as well as a chief provincial Guard commander for the area, Rajab Ali Mohammadzadeh. The other dead were Guard members or local tribal leaders. More than two dozen others were wounded, state radio reported.
The commanders were on their way to a meeting with local tribal leaders in the Pishin district near Iran’s border with Pakistan when an attacker with explosives around his waist blew himself up, IRNA said. The explosion occurred at the entrance of a sports complex where the meeting was to be held.
Top provincial prosecutor Mohammad Marzieh was quoted by the semi-official ISNA news agency as saying that a militant group from Iran’s Sunni Muslim minority called Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, claimed responsibility.
The region in Iran’s southeast has been the focus of violent attacks by Jundallah, which has waged a low-level insurgency in recent years. The group accuses Iran’s Shiite-dominated government of persecution and has carried out attacks against the Revolutionary Guard and Shiite targets in the southeast.
Iranian officials have accused Jundallah of receiving support from al-Qaida and the Taliban in neighboring Pakistan, though some analysts who have studied the group dispute such a link.
Jundallah’s campaign is one of several small-scale ethnic and religious insurgencies in Iran that have fueled sporadic and sometimes deadly attacks in recent years — though none have amounted to a serious threat to the government.
The attack does raise questions about Iran’s grip on a sensitive border region beset by criminal gangs and drug smuggling.
The latest violence, a symptom of the tension between Iran’s majority Shiites and impoverished minority Sunnis in the southeast, appeared to have no connection with the street unrest triggered by the dispute over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election in June.
Ahmadinejad vowed to strike back at those behind Sunday’s attack, the official IRNA news agency reported.
“The criminals will soon get the response for their anti-human crimes,” IRNA quoted him as saying. Ahmadinejad also accused unspecified foreigners of involvement.
Iranian officials have often raised concerns that the United States might try to incite members of Iran’s many ethnic and religious minorities against the Shiite-led government, which is dominated by ethnic Persians.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the United States condemned what he called an “act of terrorism.” Reports of alleged U.S. involvement are “completely false,” he said.
The Guard commanders targeted Sunday were heading to a meeting with local tribal leaders to promote unity between the Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.
In April, Iran increased security in Sistan-Baluchistan Province, at the center of the tension, by placing it under the command of the Guard, which took over from local police forces.
The 120,000-strong Revolutionary Guard controls Iran’s missile program and has its own ground, naval and air units.
Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, condemned the assassination of the Guard commanders, saying the bombing was aimed at disrupting security in southeastern Iran.
“We express our condolences for their martyrdom. … The intention of the terrorists was definitely to disrupt security in Sistan-Baluchistan Province,” Larijani told an open session of the parliament broadcast live on state radio.
In May, Jundallah claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque that killed 25 people in Zahedan, the capital of Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province, which has witnessed some of Jundallah’s worst attacks. Thirteen members of the faction were convicted in the attack and hanged in July.
Jundallah is made up of Sunnis from the Baluchi ethnic minority, which can also be found in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The group has carried out bombings, kidnappings and other attacks against Iranian soldiers and other forces in recent years, including a car bombing in February 2007 that killed 11 members of the Revolutionary Guard near Zahedan.
Jundallah also claimed responsibility for the December 2006 kidnapping of seven Iranian soldiers in the Zahedan area. It threatened to kill them unless members of the group in Iranian prisons were released. The seven were released a month later, apparently after negotiations through tribal mediators.
Despite Iran’s claims of an al-Qaida link, Chris Zambelis, a Washington-based risk management consultant who has studied Jundallah, said in a recent article that there is no evidence al-Qaida is supporting the group. He does note, however, that the group has begun to use the kinds of suicide bombings associated with the global terror network.
He said Jundallah likely looks to Baluchi insurgents in Pakistan as a source of inspiration and possibly material support. Its ties to the Taliban based in Pakistani Baluchistan are less clear, but Zambelis said any connections are probably limited to smuggling between the two countries.
“Jundallah’s contacts with the Taliban are most likely based on jointly profiting from the illicit trade and smuggling as opposed to ideology,” Zambelis wrote in the July issue of West Point’s CTC Sentinel.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – An Arizona homicide investigation now includes three deaths after a woman died more than a week after participating in a sweat lodge ceremony that hospitalized nearly two dozen people.
Liz Neuman of Minnesota died Saturday at a Flagstaff hospital, Yavapai County sheriff’s spokesman Dwight D’Evelyn said.
The 49-year-old suffered multiple organ damage during the Oct. 8 ceremony at a resort near Sedona, a resort town 115 miles north of Phoenix that draws many in the New Age spiritual movement.
Authorities were treating all three deaths as homicides, but no charges have been filed.
D’Evelyn did not provide a city of residence for Neuman, but public records showed an address in Prior Lake, about 25 miles southwest of Minneapolis.
Neuman was among more than 50 people crowded inside the sweat lodge run by self-help guru James Arthur Ray. An emergency call two hours after they entered the lodge reported two people not breathing.
Twenty-one people were taken to area hospitals with illnesses ranging from dehydration to kidney failure. Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, N.Y., and James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee died upon arrival at a hospital.
No one else remains hospitalized.
Authorities haven’t determined what caused the deaths. Autopsy results on Brown and Shore are pending further testing.
The Rev. Meredith Ann Murray of Bellingham, Wash., who has completed all of Ray’s retreats, said Neuman was among Ray’s earliest followers and had attended dozens of his events.
According to Ray’s Web site, Neuman was the leader of the Minneapolis-area “Journey Expansion Team.” The teams, developed by Ray’s friends and followers around the country, meet to exchange ideas on his principles. The next Minneapolis-area meeting is scheduled for Oct. 23.
Ray had rented the Angel Valley Retreat Center for his five-day “Spiritual Warrior” event that culminated in the sweat lodge ceremony. Participants paid between $9,000 and $10,000 to attend the retreat.
Ray declined to be interviewed by the sheriff’s office on the night of the incident and Arizona authorities said he had not spoken to them as of Thursday. In his first public appearance Tuesday in Los Angeles, Ray told a crowd of about 200 that he has hired his own investigative team to determine what went wrong.
His spokesman, Howard Bragman, has said that Ray’s team and Ray’s attorney are cooperating with the sheriff’s investigators.
More than 100 people attended the funeral for Brown on Saturday at Holy Name of Jesus Church in Otisville, N.Y., according to The Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y. The avid hiker and surfer who had a passion for art was remembered as a spiritual seeker.
Services for Shore were held late Saturday afternoon at the Hubbard Lodge in Milwaukee.
Chasing a second successive title, Australia face a tricky task against a resurgent rivals New Zealand in the Champions Trophy final in Centurion on Monday.
Ricky PontingRicky Ponting’s men have been in red-hot form and they have not lost a single match in the eight-nation ICC event.
A rejuvenated New Zealand, however, will not let a rare chance of an ICC event triumph go by so easily as they finally broke the semi-final jinx having made it to the final of the Champions Trophy for the second time.
Though without a major ICC event triumph, except for the 2000-01 edition of the Champions Trophy, New Zealand have always been tough opponents.
The Australians have been in fine form with the bat with skipper Ricky Ponting leading the chart of most prolific batsman in Champions Trophy with 287 runs at an average of nearly 96.
And Shane Watson’s return to form at the top order with a blistering unbeaten 136 against England in the first semi-final will only add to the concerns of Kiwis.
The timely return to form of Michael Hussey has also filled the void left by vice-captain Michael Clarke’s absence in the middle-order.
Australia’s quick bowling department comprising Peter Siddle , Brett Lee [ Images ], Watson and Mitchell Johnson has been among wickets too.
The good form of the pacers has also compensated the few concerns Ponting had in the slow-bowling department with only off-spinner Nathan Hauritz [ Images ] in his armour.
Ponting has already made his intentions clear and said his side will raise their game when it matters the most.
“We are playing at a level which would win us the big games. We look to play best cricket when it matters. We are peaking at the right time for the finals,” Ponting said.
New Zealand, on the other hand, have often been the underdogs in major tournaments, having faltered eight times in the semi-finals of 50-over ICC events.
The Black Caps mainly consists of bits-and-pieces players, mainly all-rounders, who have the capability to turn a match on any day, as was witnessed in Grant Elliot’s 75-run knock against Pakistan.
Skipper Daniel Vettori is determined to see that his side does not lose a chance to win a major tournament.
“There is a real ambition in the side. There’s belief and desire to win tournament instead of just ending up as semi-finalists,” he said.
But with a flat track on offer at Centurion, Vettori will bank on wicket-keeper batsman Brendon McCullum , Martin Guptill and Ross Taylor to give them a good start.
Although Vettori has been multi-tasking with both bat and the ball, the Black Caps cannot afford to leave it to him all the time.
On the bowling front, with support from Kyle Mills and James Franklin at the other end, Shane Bond too is slowly and steadily coming back to his usual hot form sending down fast stuffs.
The charge of middle overs, meanwhile, rests with Vettori, who along with Ian Butler and Elliot, have done a decent job so far in the tournament.
Teams
Australia: Ricky Ponting (Capt), David Hussey , Callum Ferguson, Nathan Hauritz, Ben Hilfenhaus, James Hopes, Michael Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, Tim Paine, Peter Siddle, Adam Voges, Shane Watson, Cameron White, Brad Haddin, Doug Bollinger.
New Zealand: Daniel Vettori (Capt), Shane Bond, Neil Broom, Ian Butler, Brendon Diamanti, Grant Elliott , Martin Guptill, Gareth Hopkins, Brendon McCullum, Kyle Mills, James Franklin, Jeetan Patel, Aaron Raymond, Ross Taylor, Daryl Tuffey.
Johannesburg—New Zealand found the perfect balance between the defensive and the offensive after having lost the toss on a flat pitch surrounded by an outfield as fast as a highway. They bowled tight lines interspersed with odd effort balls, their fielders made every run hard work, and frustrated Pakistan into giving their wickets away at important junctures. As a result, Pakistan were left to defend 233, that too thanks to a 35-run last-wicket stand between Mohammad Aamer and Saeed Ajmal.
Only the 19-year-old Umar Akmal batted with a free mind, scoring a 62-ball 55 in the middle overs, but just before he could open up in the last 10 a rare ordinary call from Simon Taufel accounted for him. The rest of the batsmen, though, were thrown off their game plan by the hustling New Zealanders. Pakistan once again suggested they had forgotten the batting Powerplay, and played as if the good old 15-over restriction rule was in place.
Mohammad Yousuf and Umar did well to bring Pakistan back from 86 for 4, but did little to unsettle the lesser bowlers. Yousuf, too, fell when the time to accelerate came, having scored 45 off 78. James Franklin and Grant Elliot went for 40 in their 10 overs, and gave Ian Butler and Shane Bond enough scope to attack. Butler ended with career-best figures of 4 for 44.
The innings started with a delightful face-off between two men making their comebacks from ICL. Bond was forever accurate, consistently bowling inswingers headed for the top of off stump. The first such delivery to Imran Nazir showed him a slight bat-pad gap. All through his first spell Bond kept working on that gap. He played on the intelligence and ego of a batsman known for his attacking instinct and dashing stroke play – mixing the inswingers with slower legcutters.
On his part, Nazir played one of his more mature knocks. He didn’t try any expansive shots to Bond. He found release by hitting Butler for three boundaries in his first over, and Pakistan suddenly looked healthy at 43 for 0 after nine overs.
That was when Bond produced a special over. Two accurate bouncers, one a no-ball, and the other one, a jaffa, rising from just short of a length and jagging into Nazir and taking the edge, reminded the cricketing world what it had been missing.
It was then Butler’s turn to make a comeback from an ordinary start. He first induced an edge from Shoaib Malik, and then got an under-pressure Kamran Akmal to hole out to sweeper-cover. At 69 for 3 Pakistan needed a renovation job from Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf, but bowling at such times is right up Daniel Vettori’s alley.
In his second over, he got a leading edge from Younis, his third failure in three innings in the tournament. While Yousuf and Umar added 80 runs for the fifth wicket, the intent that their middle order showed against India was missing. It also owed to much smarter bowling and field placements from New Zealand.
When Yousuf fell in the 39th over, with the score on 166, one would have expected Shahid Afridi to call for the Powerplay. He didn’t. But he kept playing risky cricket at the same time, and paid for it. In between those two dismissals, Taufel ruled Umar lbw off Vettori, while replays showed the batsman had hit the ball.
The bowlers were left to give themselves runs to defend, and Aamer and Ajmal did that in uninhibited manner. They managed 233 but will it be too much to do for the most varied and skilled attack of the tournament?
Pakistan: 1 Imran Nazir, 2 Kamran Akmal (wk), 3 Younis Khan (capt), 4 Shoaib Malik, 5 Mohammad Yousuf, 6 Umar Akmal, 7 Shahid Afridi, 8 Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, 9 Mohammad Aamer, 10 Saeed Ajmal, 11 Umar Gul.
New Zealand: 1 Brendon McCullum (wk), 2 Aaron Redmond, 3 Martin Guptill, 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Neil Broom, 6 Grant Elliot/Scott Styris, 7 James Franklin, 8 Daniel Vettori (capt), 9 Kyle Mills, 10 Shane Bond, 11 Ian Butler.
Umpire Simon Taufel, five times voted the sport’s best match official, is not permitted to stand in matches featuring Australia because of the International Cricket Council’s neutrality rules.
Taufel’s nationality has prevented him standing in some of cricket’s biggest showpieces, such as the 2007 World Cup final, the Ashes, and last summer’s battle for the number one Test ranking between Ricky Ponting’s side and South Africa.
There have been loud calls from many former players and commentators in recent times to abolish the neutrality rule so the highest-profile matches feature the best umpires.
Taufel was the number one umpire when the 2007 World Cup final descended into farce because five officials did not know how many overs constituted a match, and forced Australia and Sri Lanka to return to the field and play in darkness.
He also could have prevented the Sydney Test of 2008 turning ugly, which nearly resulted in India abandoning their tour.
But ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat is adamant umpires of neutral nationality will stay, as impartiality was the preference over the best.
“You can’t have both sets of issues resolved with the same debate,” he said.
“You’re either going to have neutral umpires or you’re going to have the best irrespective, and the (ICC) cricket committee has supported the view it is better to have neutral umpires.”
Had Pakistan reached the Champions Trophy final instead of New Zealand, the ICC would have had to rule out Aleem Dar, just days after the Pakistani broke Taufel’s five-year stranglehold on the umpire of the year award.
Lorgat said the ICC would retain its position on umpiring neutrality to ward off claims of bias from parochial fans in contentious decisions.
“Simon can make an honest mistake just like any other umpire,” he said.
“But as soon as he’s standing in an Australia game against somebody and he makes that mistake, the majority of spectators will view that not as a mistake.
“That is human nature. The conservative approach is better to keep neutrality.
“It’s worked, it’s not been a failure at all, it’s not been a failure at all, it’s been a success.”
Under ICC rules Test matches must feature two umpires of neutral nationality, while one home umpire is permitted to stand in one-day internationals outside ICC events such as the world cup and Champions Trophy, alongside one official of neutral nationality.