MUMBAI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has said the umpires named in the sting operation conducted by news broadcaster India TV have been suspended pending further enquiry.

The news channel had recently conducted a sting wherein six international umpires from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were caught on camera agreeing to fix Twenty20 matches in exchange for bribes.

"The International Cricket Council (ICC) and its relevant Full Member Boards have agreed not to appoint any of the umpires named in a sting operation recently conducted by India TV to any domestic or international cricket matches pending the outcome of the ongoing investigations into the allegations made," the ICC said in a statement.

"The officials named are not contracted by the ICC and those Boards which employ and nominate the umpires directly will conduct the investigations as a matter of urgency," the ICC clarified.

The sting operation called "Operation World Cup" had revealed how umpires Nadeem Ghauri and Anees Siddiqui of Pakistan, Nadir Shah of Bangladesh, and Gamini Dissanayake, Maurice Winston and Sagara Gallage of Sri Lanka were willing to fix decisions and share information like pitch report, weather report, toss report and playing elevens in exchange for money.

The accused have however denied the allegations saying that they were trapped by the channel. The news broadcaster had said that the seventh umpire Sharfudoullah Shahid Saikat of Bangladesh refused to give any favour in lieu of money.

MUMBAI: Canada‘s Nelvana Enterprises, a producer of children‘s animated content owned by Corus Entertainment and China‘s Ciwen Media Group have entered into a content acquisition and representation deal for China.

Nelvana has granted Ciwen distribution representation rights to over 1,000 half-hours of animated and live-action Nelvana programming, which includes titles such as Franklin, Babar, Rolie Polie Olie, Mr. Young and The Detentionaire, as well as exclusive merchandise representation rights for Franklin and non-exclusive rights for Ruby Gloom, 6teen and Grossology. The deal covers the territories of Mainland China, Macau and Hong Kong.

Beijing-based media research and consulting firm CMM-I MD Anke Redl said, "In terms of the number of episodes, the number of properties involved and the breadth of rights and distribution channels granted to Ciwen, this deal is certainly significant and likely one of the largest kids media deals for Western properties ever to be concluded in China".

Ciwen will work to place the shows with free TV, cable and satellite broadcasters after dubbing them into Mandarin or other regional languages. Where broadcasters aren‘t available, it will focus on the burgeoning VOD and Internet television market in China. In addition, Ciwen plans to release as many titles as possible on DVD.

On the merchandising side, Ciwen will undertake a comprehensive brand-building and licensing program across an array of categories that will include toys, apparel and accessories, and channels, including digital media, traditional and digital publishing, and themed entertainment.

Nelvana has a long and successful history of having its shows broadcast around the globe with sales in more than 160 countries in over 50 languages and a library that features over 4,000 half-hour episodes. Nelvana has received over 70 major international program awards including Emmys and Geminis.

Nelvana MD Colin Bohm said, "We are very excited to be partnering with Ciwen to bring our Nelvana properties to China. There are timeless themes in our shows that connect our audiences regardless of where they may live; and we are confident that our compelling stories and characters will translate well to the children of China and their families. We think our agreement with Ciwen presents a tremendous opportunity for us to bring our great content to China across multiple platforms and channels."

Ciwen Media Group president Ma Zhong-jun said, "Ciwen Media Group intends to take the lead in China for introducing classic animation properties to Chinese kids and their families. Our approach is to take world-class programs and characters and construct a comprehensive plan for their distribution across China through the traditional channels such as broadcast, DVDs, print publishing, toys, apparel and accessories, but also through emerging digital platforms such as Internet TV, VOD, e-publishing and content for mobile devices and tablets."

MUMBAI: In just a single lifetime, humans have changed the face of planet Earth on a scale unimaginable to our predecessors.

Generation Earth, a three-part documentary series by UK pubcaster BBC‘s BBC One channel, for the first time charts the epic scale of our re-design of the planet and how humans have transformed the planet.

‘Generation Earth‘ traces the spectacular story of how humans have changed our world in a single generation.

In this series, Dallas Campbell travels the globe, visiting the world‘s largest and most ambitious engineering projects, exploring the power of human ingenuity and the making of the modern world.

In 1980, the tallest building on the planet was the Sears Towers in Chicago and Dubai was a dusty strip of desert with a single highway. Fast forward 30 years and the world‘s tallest building stands at more than 800 metres in Dubai, cities like Las Vegas have sprawled across the desert and are home to millions, and China is the manufacturing capital of the world, with many of the fastest growing cities on earth.

Throughout the series Dallas undertakes some extraordinary feats - from cleaning the windows of the world‘s tallest building - the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, to scuba-diving in raw sewage in Mexico City, in order to unblock the turbines driving the mega-city‘s failing sewage system. He also flies a replica of the Wright Brother‘s glider from 1902, paraglides over the world‘s largest greenhouse array and travels to a cosmodrome on the desert steppes of Kazakhstan, to witness a new age of space travel.

Dallas said: "The way we live on the planet is changing in ways that our ancestors would have thought impossible. Telling that story has been utterly absorbing and fascinating and by far the most ambitious and demanding project I‘ve ever worked on. I‘ve had privileged access to the some of the world‘s defining engineering projects - projects that are re-shaping the planet, and the chance to experience first-hand some of the extraordinary innovations that allow us to live the way we now do."

In the first episode, Dallas looks at how we are building faster than ever before.

In episode two, he explores how we are shrinking the planet, transforming our transport networks, and moving more objects around the globe faster.

In the final episode, Dallas examines what it takes to keep seven billion of us alive, in terms of energy, food and water.

Drawing on satellite imagery, CGI and specialist filming, the series provides a new view on the world and compresses time to watch a generation of change pass in a few moments. Multiple time?lapse cameras track the progress of the biggest construction projects underway today, from bare rock to engineering marvels. Each an emblem of a global trend, together they capture the sheer scale of human ambition to remake the planet. Filmed in HD, Generation Earth invokes the stunning and sometimes terrible beauty of the man-made world.