KITES KILL 10 IN PAKISTAN

Islamabad - A kite string fatally slit a motorcyclist's throat in the latest of a series of tragedies that have prompted a kite-flying ban in an eastern Pakistan province, police said on Saturday. Nauman Nazir, a 19-year-old student, was riding through a bazaar on Friday in the city of Rawalpindi near the capital, Islamabad, when he hit the kite string late on Friday, said local police official Mohammed Khalid.
Kite flyers in Pakistan often use strings made of wire or coated with ground glass for "duelling", trying to cross and cut an opponent's string or damage the other kite, often after betting on the outcome.
After Nazir's accident passers-by immediately took him to a hospital, but doctors pronounced him dead on arrival due to blood loss, said Mohammed Ilyas who lives in the area.
Pakistan's most populous province, Punjab, banned the manufacture, sale and flying of kites after sharp kite strings caused several deaths.
But the popular pastime has continued.
Kite strings have been blamed for the deaths of at least 10 people, two of them children, over the past three weeks in Punjab, an eastern province.
The ban came ahead of the annual spring kite-flying festival of Basant in the eastern city of Lahore last weekend.
More than 1 400 people have been arrested for violating the ban.