One of the black box flight recorders from the Yemeni plane which crashed in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday has been located, a French official has said.

Efforts to retrieve the recorder will begin during the day, the official added, quoted by AFP news agency.
Meanwhile doctors say the only survivor of the crash, teenage girl Baya Bakari, is recovering and in no danger.
The plane, flying from the Yemeni capital Sanaa to the Comoros, came down in bad weather with 153 on board.
There were 66 French nationals among the passengers. Most of the rest were Comorans.
Most of the passengers had flown on a different Yemenia aircraft from Paris or Marseille before boarding flight IY626 in Sanaa.
"The black box's signal was located yesterday [Tuesday] at 1630 local time (1230 GMT) by an aerial patrol, 40 km [25 miles] from Grande Comore," a spokeswoman for Co-operation Minister Alain Joyandet said.
Most aircraft have a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder. It was not clear which of the two from the Yemeni plane had been located.
'Still hope'
A French vessel has been sent to the site to start recovery operations, she added. French rescue teams are already involved in the search for survivors.
She's a very timid girl, I never thought she would escape like that
Father of survivor Baya Bakari
Apart from the 14-year-old girl found alive, no-one from the plane has been confirmed alive, and rescuers say chances of finding more survivors are slim.
AFP news agency quoted hospital sources in the Comoros capital Moroni as saying they were preparing to receive another child survivor, but Mr Joyandet later said no more survivors had been found.
Sources close to the Comoran rescue team say the only confirmed survivor, who has been named as Baya Bakari, was being treated in Moroni and her condition had improved.
The Associated Press news agency quoted her father as saying she had been travelling with her mother to the Comoros from Paris to visit family.
Kassim Bakari said she had been ejected from the plane when it came down and clung to debris for several hours until she was rescued.
"She's a very timid girl, I never thought she would escape like that," he said, describing her as "fragile" and barely able to swim.
He added that he was mourning the loss of his wife whilst overjoyed at his daughter's extraordinary escape.
Doctors at the hospital said she had cuts to her face and a fractured collarbone, but was not in danger.
"She is very calm given the shock she suffered," surgeon Ben Imani told Reuters.
Angry protest

The French transport ministry had earlier said the Airbus 310 plane which crashed had been banned from France because of "irregularities".
But Yemenia responded by criticising "false information and speculation about technical problems" on the plane.
Several Comoran expatriates angry with what they see as the poor state of the company's aircraft tried to stop passengers from checking in for another Yemenia flight leaving Paris Charles de Gaulle airport for Sanaa.
About 60 people failed to check in, reports said, but it was not clear how many did so as a result of the protest.
The crash was the second involving an Airbus aircraft in recent weeks. On 1 June an Air France Airbus 330 travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris plunged into the Atlantic, killing all 228 people on board.

HOW THE BLACK BOX WORKS
Flight data recorders, or "black boxes", are in fact orange or red.
Commercial aircraft carry two. One logs performance and condition of aircraft in flight, another records conversations of crew and their contact with Air Traffic controllers during the flight.
The Crash Survivable Memory Unit (CSMU) contains a memory board surrounded by thermal insulation and steel armour that can withstand a crash impact thousands of times the force of gravity and survive in the sea at depths of 20,000ft (6,096m).
The CSMU is insulated to sustain temperatures up to 1,100C for up to an hour or "low" temperature fires of around 260C for 10 hours.
An underwater locator beacon fitted on recorders emits continuous ultrasonic "ping" when they come into contact with water. The signal can reach the surface from depths of 14,000ft.

Italian train crash children die

Two children badly burned when a train exploded as it passed through an Italian town have died of their injuries, taking the death toll to 16.

The three-year-old girl and the two-year-old boy had both suffered burns on 90% of their bodies, officials said.

At least a dozen other people remain in a critical state, according to reports.

The accident happened in the northern town of Viareggio on Monday night, when a train carrying gas tanks jumped the tracks and exploded near houses.

Investigators want to know whether a broken axle may have been responsible.

Berlusconi booed

The blast caused two buildings - described as houses or small blocks of flats - to collapse while others were set on fire.

The accident happened shortly before midnight, when most people would have been at home.


Two children badly burned when a train exploded as it passed through an Italian town have died of their injuries, taking the death toll to 16.

The three-year-old girl and the two-year-old boy had both suffered burns on 90% of their bodies, officials said.

At least a dozen other people remain in a critical state, according to reports.

The accident happened in the northern town of Viareggio on Monday night, when a train carrying gas tanks jumped the tracks and exploded near houses.

Investigators want to know whether a broken axle may have been responsible.

Berlusconi booed

The blast caused two buildings - described as houses or small blocks of flats - to collapse while others were set on fire.

The accident happened shortly before midnight, when most people would have been at home.

Elia Quiroz, who lives near the town's railway station, said he was about to go to bed on Monday night when his kitchen table started shaking.

"Then I heard an explosion and I went outside. I saw flames as high as 30, 40 metres, and I ran," he told the Associated Press.

Fire crews have been working to clear the scene, while residents are still being kept away from their homes amid fears other gas tanks might be at risk of exploding.

By Wednesday morning six of the 13 remaining wagons of the freight train had been made safe, fires services said.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi travelled to the town on Tuesday to witness the emergency operation, but was greeted by a jeering crowd.

The region is left-leaning and it was unclear whether the boos were politically motivated, had any relation to recent scandals involving the prime minister, or were a reaction to the accident, correspondents say.

Local people have demanded to know why gas was being transported so close to people's houses.

The cause of the accident is unclear, though one of the main theories being investigated is that an axle on one of the gas wagons broke, causing it to derail.

Railway unions blamed old and obsolete rolling stock.

But the company that owned the wagon, a subsidiary of US-based GATX Corp, said the unit was new, and that so far there was no evidence of "any connection between the cause of the accident and our wagons".

Earlier police said the incident may have been caused by damage to the tracks or a problem with the train's braking system.

Dastardly attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team shocks Indian board

MUMBAI: The Indian cricket board Tuesday expressed its shock over the dastardly attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in
Lahore.

"The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) expresses its sorrow and anguish over the dastardly attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team at Lahore. We pray for the speedy recovery of the injured cricketers, and sympathise with their families and compatriots. The BCCI stands alongside Sri Lanka Cricket in this hour of crisis," said BCCI secretary N. Srinivasan.

At least six Sri Lankan cricketers including captain Mahela Jayawaredene, his deputy Kumar Sangakkara, Ajantha Mendis, Thilan Samaraweera, Tharanga Paranavitana and Chaminda Vaas were injured Tuesday when the team bus came under attack from gunmen enroute to the Gaddafi Stadium for the ongoing Test match.

Five escorting policemen were killed in the attack that took place near the Liberty Market crossing.

The Sri Lankan team filled in for a one-day and Test series after India pulled out following the Mumbai terror attack in November last year.

Indian Premier League asked to avoid clash with general elections

NEW DELHI — Indian politician Palaniappan Chidambaram has asked the organizers of the twenty20 Indian Premier League to avoid a clash of dates with the country's general elections.

Chidambaram, the federal home minister who is charge of policing, said Tuesday that he wanted the IPL organizers to postpone the event as he did not want to "juggle security between elections and cricket matches."

"We're concerned about the security arrangements. We'll talk to the IPL organizers," Chidambaram told Indian television. "Cricket is safe in India. If the IPL clashes with elections, I don't want my forces to be stretched."

The IPL is scheduled to be held from April 10 to May 24, while the elections for the Indian Parliament's lower house will be staged across the country in five different phases between April 16 and May 13.

Lalit Modi, the IPL chairman and a vice-president of the Indian cricket board, said the IPL dates were set but the matches would be scheduled in a manner so they don't clash with elections in a particular state or city on the polling dates there.

"I agree that the IPL matches should be structured around the elections, we've taken that into account from Day 1," Modi said from Macau. "We're not going to compromise with security, but will work with government and go ahead with tournament."

IPL director Dhiraj Malhotra said there was no possibility of starting the tournament after the elections had concluded on May 13.

"Unfortunately, there's no window to shift the IPL," Malhotra said, adding that the IPL organizers would "prepare a new schedule and share it with the government."

"We can work around the dates of the voting as long as we can convince the government."

India can rise to 2nd in ICC rankings

DUBAI: The Indian cricket team has the chance to rise up a notch and replace Australia as the second-placed team in the ICC one-day rankings if
it manages to whitewash New Zealand 5-0 in the series starting tomorrow.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni's team is currently third, four ratings points behind second-placed Australia and five behind top team South Africa.

A clean sweep will put India ahead of Ricky Ponting's men by a fraction of a point but it would remain just behind the Proteas in what would be an extraordinarily tightly packed leader-board with one ratings point separating the top three ODI teams in world cricket.

For its part, New Zealand can move up to third ahead of India if it wins the series 4-1 or better but it will drop as low as sixth if it suffers a 5-0 defeat.

The series is also an opportunity for some of the top players to make further gains in the rankings.

Dhoni is currently enjoying the top spot in the rankings for batsmen but team-mate Yuvraj Singh is hot on his heels in third position.

Azharuddin, the new political batsman

More than eight years after former Indian cricket team captain Mohammed Azharuddin was banned from cricket for his alleged involvement in the match-fixing scandal, he now takes guard as a political batsman.

"The controversy took place long time back, I have nothing to say to that. In fact I have lodged a case against the BCCI. Now I want to keep moving forward," said Azharuddin.

Azhar, in his playing days, was a role model for all cricketers because of his fitness. His obsession with keeping himself fit would serve him well in the energy-sapping cesspool of Indian politics.

"When I was playing, my managers always told me that I should speak up. That training I have, and it will help me address the people well," said Azhar.

His admirers would like Azhar to contest from any of the three Lok Sabha constituencies in Hyderabad. The former skipper who has played 99 tests would need all his batting skills to negotiate all the political bouncers and googlies.

People who don't promote cricket are running the game: Kapil

Bangalore: Miffed by BCCI's rigid stance against the Indian Cricket League, former India captain and ICL Board Chairman today alleged the Cricket Board is just not interested in promoting the game.

“It's a very simple thing. People who do not want to promote the game are running the game,” Kapil said.

Earlier this week, a tripartite talk in Johannesburg on ICL's application seeking ICC approval failed to end the deadlock. ICC President David Morgan, chief executive Haroon Lorgat, BCCI secretary N Srinivasan, chief of the Essel Group, which is bankrolling ICL, Subhas Chandra and its business head Himanshu Mody attended the three-hour meeting.

Kapil said the basic idea was to promote the game and ICL had no reasons to feel bad about it.

“Aren't we promoting the game?. That's the bottom line. If we are promoting the game in India, then one should not feel bad. Rather one should feel proud and we are happy about that,” Kapil said.

He was speaking on the sidelines of a mascot launch programme of International Wheelchair & Amputee Sports (IWAS) World Games which would be held here from November 24 to December one.