Algerian army stages "final assault" on gas plant


ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - The Algerian army carried out a dramatic final assault to end a siege by Islamist militants at a desert gas plant on Saturday in which 23 hostages were killed, many of them believed to be foreigners, the interior ministry said.


Thirty-two al Qaeda-linked militants were killed in the army operation to recapture the complex, according to a provisional toll from the ministry. A statement said 107 foreign hostages and 685 Algerian hostages had survived.


Militants seized the remote compound in the Sahara desert before dawn on Wednesday, taking a large number of hostages, including foreigner workers, and booby-trapped the compound with explosives.


The crisis marked a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.


The gas plant near the town of In Amenas was home to expatriate workers from Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil, Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp and others. One American and one British citizen have been confirmed dead.


British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Saturday he feared for the lives of five British citizens still unaccounted for. Statoil said five of its workers, all Norwegian nationals, were still missing. Japanese and American workers are also unaccounted for.


"We feel a deep and growing unease ... we fear that over the next few days we will receive bad news," Statoil Chief Executive Helge Lund said on Saturday. "People we have spoken to describe unbelievable, horrible experiences."


The Islamists' attack has tested Algeria's relations with the outside world, exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara and pushed Islamist radicalism in northern Africa to centre stage.


British Foreign Secretary William Hague confirmed that Algerian military operations at the plant had been concluded.


"We understand that the site is not yet fully safe because of hazards such as booby traps and so they are still working on that," Hague said.


Some Western governments expressed frustration at not being informed of the Algerian authorities' plans to storm the complex. Algeria's response to the raid will have been conditioned by the legacy of a civil war against insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives.


HOSTAGES FREED


As the army closed in, 16 foreign hostages were freed, a source close to the crisis said. They included two Americans and one Portuguese.


BP's chief executive Bob Dudley said on Saturday four of its 18 workers at the site were missing. The remaining 14 were safe.


The captors said their attack on the Algerian gas plant was a response to the French offensive in Mali. However, officials say the elaborate raid would have been planned well before France launched its strikes.


Scores of Westerners and hundreds of Algerian workers were inside the heavily fortified gas compound when it was seized on Wednesday.


Hundreds escaped on Thursday when the army launched a rescue operation, but many hostages were killed.


Before the interior ministry released its provisional death toll, an Algerian security source said eight Algerians and at least seven foreigners were among the victims, including two Japanese, two Britons and a French national. One British citizen was killed when the gunmen seized the hostages on Wednesday.


The U.S. State Department said on Friday one American, Frederick Buttaccio, had died but gave no further details.


U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said nobody was going to attack the United States and get away with it.


"We have made a commitment that we're going to go after al Qaeda wherever they are and wherever they try to hide," he said during a visit to London. "We have done that obviously in Afghanistan, Pakistan, we've done it in Somalia, in Yemen and we will do it in North Africa as well."


BURNED BODIES


Earlier on Saturday, Algerian special forces found 15 unidentified burned bodies at the plant, a source told Reuters.


The field commander of the group that attacked the plant is a fighter from Niger called Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, according to Mauritanian news agencies. His boss, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of fighting in Afghanistan and Algeria's civil war of the 1990s, appears not to have joined the raid.


Britain, Japan and other countries have expressed irritation that the army assault was ordered without consultation and officials grumbled at the lack of information.


But French President Francois Hollande said the Algerian military's response seemed to have been the best option given that negotiation was not possible.


"When you have people taken hostage in such large number by terrorists with such cold determination and ready to kill those hostages - as they did - Algeria has an approach which to me, as I see it, is the most appropriate because there could be no negotiation," Hollande said.


The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of outwardly tough Algerian security measures.


Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site.


Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a preoccupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.


The most powerful Islamist groups operating in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in the civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.


France says the hostage incident proves its decision to fight Islamists in neighboring Mali was necessary. Al Qaeda-linked fighters, many with roots in Algeria and Libya, took control of northern Mali last year.


(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Estelle Shirbon and David Alexander in London, Brian Love in Paris; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Rosalind Russell)


(This story was refiled to correct Algerian hostages)



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Sell off CPM offices, Mamata tells Delhi

KOLKATA: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee took her anti-Centre stance to a new high on Saturday asking the Congress-led UPA government to sell off CPM party offices to realise the interest against the loans it gave to Bengal during the Left Front rule.

"I have been working from morning till late in the night to break out of the debt trap left behind by CPM. Now some ministers in Delhi, I don't feel like taking their names (reference to Deepa Das Munshi) claim that we are announcing projects funded by the Centre. Let me tell you that a major portion of our revenue is spent on repaying the debt. I ask the Congress comrades in Delhi why they allowed CPM to take such loans. Why should I bear the burden? Let the Centre sell off CPM party offices and realise the interest," the chief minister said at a Trinamool rally at Esplanade on Saturday.

Mamata took a leaf out of former finance minister Ashok Mitra's book and argued how the Centre was giving crumbs to the state while grabbing most of the revenue in the form of central taxes.

"The Centre takes away as much as Rs 39,684 crore from Bengal in income tax, excise duty and other central tax heads, while it gives back a meagre Rs 18,557 crore to the state. I demand the remaining amount for rural development. I am not begging. It belongs to the people of our state out of which the Centre announces the assistance programmes," Mamata said.

The Bengal CM opposes the Centre on a whole range of issues - from hike in diesel and cooking gas prices and increase in railway fares to FDI in multi-brand retail. The Trinamool chief is aware that she is in for a tough battle by going it alone in the panchayat polls against Congress and CPM. She did not have to fight a three-cornered battle in the 2011 assembly polls.

Mamata is thus crying foul against the "Congress-CPM bonhomie" to marginalise Congress in the panchayat polls. By going ballistic against the Centre, she is not giving CPM the space to capitalise on the dissent against price rise.

Sensing the anti-incumbency against the Trinamool government, the chief minister listed her government's "achievements". "We have fulfilled 99% of the promises in our election manifesto. The government has made job reservations for OBCs and far outpaced the preceding CPM government in arranging scholarships for minority students. We have set up four new universities," the CM said.

Mamata again warned the media "to not cross the Lakshman rekha".

"You will get into trouble," she said, adding that crime against women has been blown beyond proportion in Bengal. "We are not worried about the safety of our sisters. Our brothers in the state will ensure the safety of their sisters," the CM said.

She, however, did not utter a word on Arabul Islam or Abdur Rezzak Mollah beyond a veiled reference: "The government will do its job. I am committed to the people and can be tough at times."

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Lilly drug chosen for Alzheimer's prevention study


Researchers have chosen an experimental drug by Eli Lilly & Co. for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it.


The drug, called solanezumab (sol-ah-NAYZ-uh-mab), is designed to bind to and help clear the sticky deposits that clog patients' brains.


Earlier studies found it did not help people with moderate to severe Alzheimer's but it showed some promise against milder disease. Researchers think it might work better if given before symptoms start.


"The hope is we can catch people before they decline," which can come 10 years or more after plaques first show up in the brain, said Dr. Reisa Sperling, director of the Alzheimer's center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.


She will help lead the new study, which will involve 1,000 people ages 70 to 85 whose brain scans show plaque buildup but who do not yet have any symptoms of dementia. They will get monthly infusions of solanezumab or a dummy drug for three years. The main goal will be slowing the rate of cognitive decline. The study will be done at 50 sites in the U.S. and possibly more in Canada, Australia and Europe, Sperling said.


In October, researchers said combined results from two studies of solanezumab suggested it might modestly slow mental decline, especially in patients with mild disease. Taken separately, the studies missed their main goals of significantly slowing the mind-robbing disease or improving activities of daily living.


Those results were not considered good enough to win the drug approval. So in December, Lilly said it would start another large study of it this year to try to confirm the hopeful results seen patients with mild disease. That is separate from the federal study Sperling will head.


About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Current medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.


___


Online:


Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov


Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org


___


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Ex-Teammate: Armstrong Showed 'Genuine Emotion'













While critics railed against Lance Armstrong for coming off as detached in the two-part interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired Thursday and Friday nights, former teammate and friend, Tyler Hamilton, told "Good Morning America" today that he felt Armstrong was displaying "genuine emotion."


"I've never seen Lance shed a tear until last night. Before I even heard one word from him Thursday night, I could tell he was a broken man," Hamilton said.


Armstrong's contrition turned tearful Friday when he revealed to Oprah Winfrey how difficult it was to betray his family -- particularly his 13 year old son -- who stood up for the fallen cycling star as rumors swirled that he was taking banned drugs.


Armstrong, 41, choked up when he recounted what he told his son, Luke, in the wake of the scandal.


"When this all really started, I saw my son defending me and saying that's not true…" Armstrong told Winfrey, "I told Luke. I said, 'Don't defend me anymore.'"


Armstrong's interview with Winfrey drew millions of viewers.


It was the first time Armstrong admitted using performance-enhancing drugs and oxygen-boosting blood transfusions to help him win the Tour de France.


"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times," Armstrong said. "I know the truth. The truth isn't what was out there. The truth isn't what I said.






George Burns/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc./AP Photo











Lance Armstrong Confession: 'I Could Not Believe Lance Apologized' Watch Video









Lance Armstrong-Winfrey Interview: How Honest Was He? Watch Video









Lance Armstrong-Winfrey Interview: Doping Confession Watch Video





"I'm a flawed character, as I well know," Armstrong added. "All the fault and all the blame here falls on me."


However, Hamilton said any hope for Armstrong's redemption would come if he came clean about others who were part of the doping scandal.


"The question now is where he goes from this, his actions moving forward. He needs to name names," Hamilton said.


READ MORE: Armstrong Admits to Doping


Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles in October 2012, after a report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency found that he and 11 of his teammates orchestrated "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."


Despite the admissions of his teammates that they had doped with Armstrong and seen him complete blood transfusions for races, Armstrong condemned the report and denied that he had ever cheated.


As sponsors including Nike began to pull support of Armstrong following the report, Armstrong's carefully-built image began to crumble. He stepped down from Livestrong, the charity he started to help cancer patients after he survived testicular cancer.


"It was a mythic perfect story and it wasn't true," Armstrong said of his fairytale story of overcoming testicular cancer to become the most celebrated cyclist in history.


In the interview, Armstrong explained his competition "cocktail" of EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone that he used throughout his career. He also said he had previously used cortisone.


Armstrong refused to give Winfrey the details of when, where and with whom he doped during seven winning Tours de France between 1999 and 2005, which was the last year he said he doped. Armstrong specifically denied using banned substances when he placed third in 2009 and entered the tour again in 2010.


Investigators familiar with Armstrong's case, however, told ABC News that Armstrong did not come completely clean to Winfrey, and say they believe he doped in 2009.






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Badminton: Lee Chong Wei reaches Malaysia Open finals






KUALA LUMPUR: World number one Lee Chong Wei dropped his first game of the tournament Saturday as he overcame Denmark's Jan O Jorgensen to secure a place in the finals of the Malaysia Badminton Open.

The home favourite, bidding for record ninth Malaysia Open title, dropped the second game to the determined and energetic 26-year-old emerging Dane, but eventually won through 21-13, 17-21, 21-12.

"It was indeed a tough match and Jan pushed me hard," said Lee, 30, who will now face Indonesia's Sony Dwi Kuncoro in the final.

"I haven't faced him in over a year but he has bounced back from his injuries to break into the top five in the world. So I'm expecting another tough match."

Kuncoro, a three-time Asian champion, was ranked as low as number 79 in the world ten months ago but is now in top form after battling back from back and leg injuries.

The 29-year-old, a bronze medallist in the 2004 Athens Olympics, will move up to number four when the new world rankings are announced next week.

Kuncoro advanced to the final by beating Japan's Kenichi Tago 21-12, 19-21, 23-21.

"I'm delighted to be back in the mix of a Superseries final. A year ago, my career was in jeopardy due to all my injuries but I've buckled down and I'm happy with my progress," he said.

In the women' singles, China's Yao Xue will be in her first Superseries final after beating South Korea's Bae Yeon-Ju 21-15, 21-18 in 34 minutes.

Yao, who turned 22 on Thursday, will take on 18-year-old Tai Tzu-ying of Taiwan, who stunned Indian top seed Saina Nehwal 22-20, 21-14.

"I never expected to come this far in this tournament. I had to come through the qualifying rounds and to reach the final is a big bonus for me," Yao said.

Chinese pair Bao Yixin/Tian Qing beat Indonesia's Lejarsar Variella Aprilsasi Putri/Marissa Vita 21-13, 21-17 to book a berth in the women's doubles finals.

The Chinese pair will face Japan's Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi. The Japanese players had earlier defeated Singapore's Shinta Mulia Sari and her partner Yao Lei 22-20, 21-14.

- AFP/de



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Foreigners still caught in Sahara hostage crisis


ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - More than 20 foreigners were still either being held hostage or missing inside a gas plant on Friday after Algerian forces stormed the desert complex to free hundreds of captives taken by Islamist militants.


More than a day after the Algerian army launched an assault to seize the remote desert compound, much was still unclear about the number and fate of the victims, leaving countries with citizens in harm's way struggling to find hard information.


Reports on the number of hostages killed ranged from 12 to 30, with anywhere from dozens to scores of foreigners still unaccounted for.


Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, eight of whose countrymen were missing, said fighters still controlled the gas treatment plant itself, while Algerian forces now held the nearby residential compound that housed hundreds of workers.


Leaders of Britain, Japan and other countries expressed frustration that the assault had been ordered without consultation. Many countries were also withholding information about their citizens to avoid helping the captors.


Night fell quietly on the village of In Amenas, the nearest settlement, some 50 km (30 miles) from the vast and remote desert plant. A military helicopter could be seen in the sky.


An Algerian security source said 30 hostages, including at least seven Westerners, had been killed during Thursday's assault, along with at least 18 of their captors. Eight of the dead hostages were Algerian, with the nationalities of the rest of the dead still unclear, he said.


Algeria's state news agency APS put the total number of dead hostages at 12, including both foreigners and locals.


Norway's Stoltenberg said some of those killed in vehicles blasted by the army could not be identified. "We must be prepared for bad news this weekend but we still have hope."


Northern Irish engineer Stephen McFaul, who survived, said he saw four trucks full of hostages blown up by Algerian troops.


The attack has plunged international capitals into crisis mode and is a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.


"We are still dealing with a fluid and dangerous situation where a part of the terrorist threat has been eliminated in one part of the site, but there still remains a threat in another part," British Prime Minister David Cameron told his parliament.


A local Algerian source said 100 of 132 foreign hostages had been freed from the facility. However, other estimates of the number of unaccounted-for foreigners were higher. Earlier the same source said 60 were still missing. Some may be held hostage; others may still be hiding in the sprawling compound.


Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among the seven foreigners confirmed dead in the army's storming, the Algerian security source told Reuters. One British citizen was killed when the gunmen seized the hostages on Wednesday.


Those still unaccounted for on Friday included 10 from Japan and eight Norwegians, according to their employers, and a number of Britons which Cameron put at "significantly" less than 30


France said it had no information on two Frenchmen who may have been at the site and Washington has said a number of Americans were among the hostages, without giving details. The local source said a U.S. aircraft landed nearby on Friday.


The attackers had initially claimed to be holding 41 Western hostages. Some Westerners were able to evade capture by hiding.


They lived among hundreds of Algerian employees on the compound. The state news agency said the army had rescued 650 hostages in total, 573 of whom were Algerians.


"(The army) is still trying to achieve a ‘peaceful outcome' before neutralizing the terrorist group that is holed up in the (facility) and freeing a group of hostages that is still being held," it said, quoting a security source.


MULTINATIONAL INSURGENCY


Algerian commanders said they moved in on Thursday about 30 hours after the siege began, because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.


A French hostage employed by a French catering company said he had hidden in his room for 40 hours under the bed, relying on Algerian employees to smuggle him food with a password.


"I put boards up pretty much all round," Alexandre Berceaux told Europe 1 radio. "I didn't know how long I was going to stay there ... I was afraid. I could see myself already ending up in a pine box."


The captors said their attack was a response to a French military offensive in neighboring Mali. However, some U.S. and European officials say the elaborate raid probably required too much planning to have been organized from scratch in the single week since France first launched its strikes.


Paris says the incident proves that its decision to fight Islamists in neighboring Mali was necessary.


Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a pre-occupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.


The most powerful Islamist groups in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in a civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of Al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.


Al Qaeda-linked fighters, many with roots in Algeria and Libya, took control of northern Mali last year, prompting the French intervention in that poor African former colony.


The Algerian security source said only two of 11 militants whose bodies were found on Thursday were Algerian, including the squad's leader. The others comprised three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a Frenchman, he said.


The plant was heavily fortified, with security, controlled access and an army camp with hundreds of armed personnel between the accommodation and processing plant, Andy Coward Honeywell, who worked there in 2009, told the BBC.


The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of outwardly tough security measures.


Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site. The attackers benefitted from bases and staging grounds across the nearby border in Libya's desert, Algerian officials said.


U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said those responsible would be hunted down: "Terrorists should be on notice that they will find no sanctuary, no refuge, not in Algeria, not in North Africa, not anywhere.... Those who would wantonly attack our country and our people will have no place to hide."


WARNING OF MORE ATTACKS


The kidnappers threatened more attacks and warned Algerians to stay away from foreign companies' installations, according to Mauritania's news agency ANI, which maintained contact with the group during the siege.


Hundreds of workers from international oil companies were evacuated from Algeria on Thursday and many more will follow, said BP, which jointly ran the gas plant with Norway's Statoil and the Algerian state oil firm.


The overall commander of the kidnappers, Algerian officials said, was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a one-eyed veteran of Afghanistan in the 1980s and Algeria's bloody civil war of the 1990s. He appears not to have been present.


Algerian security specialist Anis Rahmani, author of several books on terrorism and editor of Ennahar daily, told Reuters about 70 militants were involved from two groups, Belmokhtar's "Those who sign in blood", who traveled from Libya, and the lesser known "Movement of the Islamic Youth in the South".


Britain's Cameron, who warned people to prepare for bad news and who canceled a major policy speech on Friday to deal with the situation, said he would have liked Algeria to have consulted before the raid. Japan made similar complaints.


U.S. officials had no clear information on the fate of Americans. Washington, like its European allies, has endorsed France's military intervention in Mali.


(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Eamonn Mallie in Belfast, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin and Conor Humprhies in Dublin; Writing by Philippa Fletcher and Peter Graff; Editing by Andrew Roche)



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New surrogacy norms will hit ‘genuine couples’

MUMBAI: The home ministry's guidelines tightening visa norms for foreigners seeking children through an Indian surrogate have created confusion in various quarters. Foreigners who are midway in surrogacy procedures are worried that their future hangs in balance, even as doctors question the rationale behind some new provisions. There is, however, no denying the need for regulation given that the passage of the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Regulation Bill 2010 has been long overdue.

TOI (January 18) highlighted that the home ministry has introduced new visa norms for foreigners seeking to rent-a-womb in India with stringent eligibility criteria. Only couples married for two years and those whose countries recognize surrogacy, among other clauses, could apply for a medical visa for surrogacy. They thus disqualify gay couples and single individuals.

"The new provisions have brought in a dilemma for several gay foreigners and singles, who are undergoing ART procedures in India before the norms came in," points out Hari G Ramasubramanian, partner of Indian Surrogacy Law Centre, Chennai. He said one of his clients was due to have a child in June-July as per the old norms but there is no clarity if the new norms would be applicable to him too. "The ministry has not given any date of commencement for the guidelines," he said.

Sources at the foreign regional registration office here said they had written to the ministry last week seeking a clarification about the cut-off date for implementation of the new norms.

In a letter to the deputy commissioner of police, Dr Gautam Allahbadia, medical director of the Rotunda centre for human reproduction, Bandra, questions the provision requiring foreigners seeking surrogacy in India to be married for at least two years. "The statement is not in accordance with certain clauses of the draft ART Regulation Bill 2010 issued by the ministry of health & family welfare," he states, pointing out that the bill in many clauses clearly mentions that unmarried couples, as well as single persons, can commission surrogacy.

Doctors question the rationale behind the "two years" clause, as a couple married in their forties, for instance, may want to bear a child through surrogacy within the first year itself.

Advocate Amit Karkhanis, on behalf of an apex body of IVF clinics, plans to petition the home ministry. "We are okay with the government coming out with guidelines, but there has to be some logic," he says. Doctors, for instance, explain that the registration of ART clinics is nascent and under way. In that backdrop, the ministry condition requiring foreigners to undergo the procedure only in registered clinics may be ahead of its time.

Dr Nayana Patel, who runs a clinic in Anand, Gujarat, which is considered the surrogacy hub of India, said the new guidelines would hit genuine couples hard. "While we need regulation, creating bureaucratic hurdles through such regulations contradicts India's claims of promoting medical tourism," she said, adding that the health ministry and home ministry must come up with unified norms quickly. Illustrating the red-tapism introduced, she said an American couple who arranged for all requisite documentation and was due to come to India on January 24 is uncertain about their trip as their documents are with the Indian embassy.

Home ministry officials were not available for comment despite repeated attempts.

Guidelines
The home ministry has issued new guidelines in July 2012 regulating visas of foreigners coming to India seeking surrogacy"

* They must be on a 'medical visa'

* Only a heterosexual couple married for two years is eligible for the visa

* The home country's foreign ministry or embassy must certify they recognize surrogacy

* There should be an official assurance that the child/children will be allowed to enter the home country as a biological child of the couple

* The procedure must be done at an assisted reproductive technology clinic recognized by the Indian Council of Medical Research

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Flu season 'bad one for the elderly,' CDC says


The number of older people hospitalized with the flu has risen sharply, prompting federal officials to take unusual steps to make more flu medicines available and to urge wider use of them as soon as symptoms appear.


The U.S. is about halfway through this flu season, and "it's shaping up to be a worse-than-average season" and a bad one for the elderly, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


It's not too late to get a flu shot, and "if you have symptoms, please stay home from work, keep your children home from school" and don't spread the virus, he said.


New figures from the CDC show widespread flu activity in all states but Tennessee and Hawaii. Some parts of the country are seeing an increase in flu activity "while overall activity is beginning to go down," Frieden said. Flu activity is high in 30 states and New York City, up from 24 the previous week.


Nine more children or teens have died of the flu, bringing the nation's total this flu season to 29. That's close to the 34 pediatric deaths reported during all of the last flu season, although that one was unusually light. In a typical season, about 100 children die of the flu and officials said there is no way to know whether deaths this season will be higher or lower than usual.


The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people most years.


So far, half of confirmed flu cases are in people 65 and older. Lab-confirmed flu hospitalizations totaled 19 for every 100,000 in the population, but 82 per 100,000 among those 65 and older, "which is really quite a high rate," Frieden said.


"We expect to see both the number and the rates of both hospitalizations and deaths rise further in the next week or so as the flu epidemic progresses,'" so prompt treatment is key to preventing deaths, he said.


About 90 percent of flu deaths are in the elderly; the very young and people with other health problems such as diabetes are also at higher risk.


If you're worried about how sick you are and are in one of these risk groups, see a doctor, Frieden urged. One third to one half of people are not getting prompt treatment with antiviral medicines, he said.


Two drugs — Tamiflu and Relenza — can cut the severity and risk of death from the flu but must be started within 48 hours of first symptoms to do much good. Tamiflu is available in a liquid form for use in children under 1, and pharmacists can reformulate capsules into a liquid if supplies are short in an area, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, head of the Food and Drug Administration.


To help avoid a shortage, the FDA is letting Tamiflu's maker, Genentech, distribute 2 million additional doses of capsules that have an older version of package insert.


"It is fully approved, it is not outdated," just lacks information for pharmacists on how to mix it into a liquid if needed for young children, she said.


This year's flu season started about a month earlier than normal and the dominant flu strain is one that tends to make people sicker. Vaccinations are recommended for anyone 6 months or older. There's still plenty of vaccine — an update shows that 145 million doses have been produced, "twice the supply that was available only several years ago," Hamburg said.


About 129 million doses have been distributed already, and a million doses are given each day, Frieden said. The vaccine is not perfect but "it's by far the best tool we have to prevent influenza," he said.


Carlos Maisonet, 73, got a flu shot this week at New York's Brooklyn Hospital Center at the urging of his wife, who was vaccinated in August.


"This is his first time getting the flu shot," said his wife, Zulma Ramos.


Last week, the CDC said the flu again surpassed an "epidemic" threshold, based on monitoring of deaths from flu and a frequent complication, pneumonia. The flu epidemic happens every year and officials say this year's vaccine is a good match for strains that are going around.


___


Online:


Flu vaccine finder: http://www.flu.gov


CDC flu info: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm


___


AP Photographer Bebeto Matthews in New York contributed to this report.


___


Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at —http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Manti Te'o Hoax Incredibly Detailed and Complex













Fresh details have emerged about how complex and layered was the hoax involving Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o and his fake girlfriend, "Lennay Kekua."


According to ABC News interviews and published reports, Te'o received phone calls, text messages and letters before every football game from his "girlfriend." He was in contact with her family, including a twin brother, a second brother, sister and parents. He called often to check in with them, just as he did with his own family. And "Kekua" kept in contact with Te'o's friends and family, and teammates spoke to her on the phone.


"There are a remarkable number of characters involved. We don't know how many people they represent," Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick said at a news conference this week. "There are male and female characters, brothers, cousins, mother, and we don't know if it's two people playing multiple characters or multiple people."


"It goes to the sophistication of this, that there are all these sort of independent pieces that reinforce elements of the story all the way through," he said.


Click here for a who's who in the Manti Te'o case


One of Te'o's teammates who asked not to be identified told ABC News that it was normal for Te'o to pass his phone around to teammates when he was on the line with "Lennay" so they could say hello to her.


"I talked to her," this teammate said. "I wasn't suspicious."


When Te'o got the call telling him that Lennay had died last fall, he was in the locker room, the teammate said.


"He got real emotional, crying," the teammate said. "He's an emotional guy."


The teammate said he thinks Te'o genuinely got hoaxed. The fact that Te'o talked about meeting her and touching her hand - when really he only "met" her on the internet - makes this teammate think that he was not completely telling the truth about his relationship.








Manti Te'o Hoax: Was He Duped or Did He Know? Watch Video









Manti Te'o Hoax: Notre Dame Star Allegedly Scammed Watch Video









Tale of Notre Dame Football Star's Girlfriend and Her Death an Alleged Hoax Watch Video





"I think he was just embarrassed about it, the whole internet thing," the teammate said. The player said he hasn't talked to Te'o since this story broke.


With so many questions swirling around the revelation that Te'o's fake girlfriend, a source in the Notre Dame athletic department said the school would like Te'o to speak out publicly, but noted that they are not currently in touch with him.


"At some point the ball ends up in his court," the source said. "We're not involved right now."


A newly released transcript of "Sports Illustrated" writer Pete Thamel's Sept. 23 interview with Te'o gives a hint at the staggering depth of the deception.


Te'o told Thamel that Lennay Kekua's real name was Melelengei, but since no one could pronounce it properly it was shortened to Lennay. But her family nicknamed her Lala, he said.


Te'o's knowledge about the details of his girlfriend's life was often murky, including her majors in school, occupation and extent of her injuries after an alleged April 28 car accident with a drunk driver.


What he was absolutely clear about was how much time he spent in contact with her, especially while she was in the hospital recovering from the car accident, which led to the discovery of her leukemia.


"I talked to my girlfriend every single day," Te'o told Themel. "I slept on the phone with her every single day. When she was going through chemo, she would have all these pains and the doctors were saying they were trying to give her medicine to make her sleep. She still couldn't sleep. She would say, 'Just call my boyfriend and have him on the phone with me, and I can sleep.' I slept on the phone with her every single night."


He would spend eight hours a night with someone, somewhere, breathing on the other end, he told Thamel.


Te'o recounted how his girlfriend who was "on a machine" after being in a coma.


"We lost her, actually, twice. She flatlined twice. They revived her twice," he said. "It was just a trippy situation."


For a while Kekua was unable to talk and he described the nurse-deemed "miracle" of how Kekua's breathing would pick up when she heard his voice on the phone.


"There were lengthy, long telephone conversations. There was sleeping with the phone on connected to each other," Swarbrick said. "The issue of who it is, who's playing what role, what's real and what's not here is a more complex question than I can get into."


Perhaps one of the most touching displays of love from Kekua to Te'o, he told the writer, was the one-page letter she would write him on her iPad before each game. One of her siblings, often her twin brother Noa, would then read him the letter over the phone before sending it to him.






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Ukraine's Tymoshenko accused of organising 1996 murder






KIEV: Ukrainian prosecutors on Friday accused jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko of organising the 1996 murder of a lawmaker, saying she could face life imprisonment if found guilty.

Tymoshenko, serving a seven-year jail term for abuse of power, has been informed by prosecutors she is now a formal suspect in the murder of Yevgen Shcherban, Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka told reporters.

- AFP/de



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Thirty hostages reported killed in Algeria assault


ALGIERS (Reuters) - Thirty hostages and at least 11 Islamist militants were killed on Thursday when Algerian forces stormed a desert gas plant in a bid to free many dozens of Western and local captives, an Algerian security source said.


Details remained scant - including for Western governments, some of which did little to disguise irritation at being kept in the dark by Algeria before the raid and its bloody outcome.


Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among at least seven foreigners killed, the source told Reuters. Eight of the dead hostages were Algerian. The nationalities of the rest, as well as of perhaps dozens more who escaped, were unclear.


Americans, Norwegians, Romanians and an Austrian have also been mentioned by their governments as having been captured.


Underlining the view of African and Western leaders that they face a multinational, al Qaeda-linked insurgency across the Sahara - a conflict that prompted France to send troops to neighboring Mali last week - the official source said only two of the 11 dead militants were Algerian, including their leader.


After an operation that appeared to go on for some eight hours, after Algeria refused the kidnappers' demand to leave the country with their hostages, the bodies of three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a Frenchman were found.


So too was that of Taher Ben Cheneb, an Algerian whom the security official described as a prominent jihadist commander in the Sahara.


The gunmen who seized the important gas facility deep in the desert before dawn on Wednesday had been demanding France halt its week-old offensive against Islamist rebels in Mali.


French President Francois Hollande said the hostage drama, which has raised fears of further militant attacks, showed that he was right to send more than 1,000 French troops to Mali to back up a West African force in support of Mali's government.


A Algerian government spokesman, who confirmed only that an unspecified number of hostages had died, said the tough response to a "diehard" attitude by the militants showed that, as during its bloody civil war against Islamists in the 1990s, Algiers would not negotiate or stand for "blackmail" from "terrorists".


SECURITY IN QUESTION


The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions, however, over the reliability of what was thought to be strong security.


Foreign companies said they were pulling non-essential staff out of the country, which has only in recent years begun to seem stable after a decade of blood-letting.


"The embarrassment for the government is great," said Azzedine Layachi, an Algerian political scientist at New York's St John's University. "The heart of Algeria's economy is in the south. where the oil and gas fields are. For this group to have attacked there, in spite of tremendous security, is remarkable."


Algiers, whose leaders have long had frosty relations with the former colonial power France and other Western countries, may also have some explaining to do over its tactics in putting an end to a hostage crisis whose scale was comparable to few in recent decades bar those involving Chechen militants in Russia.


Communication Minister Mohamed Said sounded unapologetic, however. "When the terrorist group insisted on leaving the facility, taking the foreign hostages with them to neighboring states, the order was issued to special units to attack the position where the terrorists were entrenched," he told state news agency APS, which said some 600 local workers were freed.


A local source told Reuters six foreign hostages had been killed along with eight of their captors when troops fired on a vehicle being used by the gunmen at the Tigantourine plant.


The standoff began when gunmen calling themselves the Battalion of Blood stormed the facility early on Wednesday morning. They said they were holding 41 foreigners.


In a rare eyewitness account of Wednesday's raid, a local man who had escaped from the facility told Reuters the militants appeared to have inside knowledge of the layout of the complex and used the language of radical Islam.


"The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels," Abdelkader, 53, said by telephone from his home in the nearby town of In Amenas. "'We will kill them,' they said."


Mauritanian agency ANI and Qatar-based Al Jazeera said earlier that 34 captives and 15 militants had been killed when government forces fired at a vehicle from helicopters.


BAD NEWS EXPECTED


British Prime Minister David Cameron said people should prepare for bad news about the hostages. He earlier called his Algerian counterpart to express his concern at what he called a "very grave and serious" situation, his spokesman said.


"The Algerians are aware that we would have preferred to have been consulted in advance," the spokesman added.


Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said he had been told by his Algerian counterpart that the action had started at around noon. He said they had tried to find a solution through the night, but that it had not worked.


"The Algerian prime minister said they felt they had no choice but to go in now," he said.


The incident dramatically raises the stakes in the French military campaign in neighboring Mali, where hundreds of French paratroopers and marines are launching a ground offensive against Islamist rebels after air strikes began last week.


"What is happening in Algeria justifies all the more the decision I made in the name of France to intervene in Mali in line with the U.N. charter," Hollande said, adding that things seemed to have taken a "dramatic" turn.


He said earlier that an unspecified number of French nationals were among the hostages. A French national was also among the hostage takers, a local source told Reuters. A large number of people from the former French colony live in France.


Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the kidnappers were loyal to Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran Islamist guerrilla who fought in Afghanistan and set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local al Qaeda leaders.


A holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence and "Mister Marlboro" by some locals for his illicit cigarette-running business, Belmokhtar's links to those who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.


Britain said one of its citizens was killed in the initial storming on Wednesday and "a number" of others were held.


The militants had said seven Americans were among their hostages. The White House said it believed Americans were among those held but U.S. officials could not confirm the number.


"This is an ongoing situation and we are seeking clarity," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.


FOREIGN FIRMS


Norway's Statoil, which runs the plant with BP of Britain and Algeria's state energy company, said it had no word on nine of its Norwegian staff who had been held, but that three Algerian employees were now free.


BP said some of its staff were being held but would not say how many or their nationalities.


Japanese media said five workers from Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp. were held, a number the company did not confirm. The Irish government said one Irish hostage was freed.


Hollande has received public backing from Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a desert haven in Mali, a poor country helpless to combat fighters who seized its northern oasis towns last year.


However, there is also some concern in Washington and other capitals that the French action in Mali could provoke a backlash worse than the initial threat by militants in the remote Sahara.


The militants, communicating through established contacts with media in neighboring Mauritania, said on Wednesday they had dozens of men armed with mortars and anti-aircraft missiles in the compound and had rigged it with explosives.


They condemned Algeria's secularist government for letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali and shutting its border to Malian refugees.


The attack in Algeria did not stop France from pressing on with its campaign in Mali. It said on Thursday it now had 1,400 troops on the ground there, and combat was under way against the rebels that it first began targeting from the air last week.


The French action last week came as a surprise but received widespread public international support. Neighboring African countries planning to provide ground troops for a U.N. force by September have said they will move faster to deploy them.


Nigeria, the strongest regional power, sent 162 soldiers on Thursday, the first of an anticipated 906.


A day after launching the campaign in Mali, Hollande also ordered a commando raid in Somalia on Saturday, which failed to free a French hostage held by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants since 2009. Al Shabaab said on Thursday it had executed the hostage, Denis Allex. France said it believed he had died in the raid.


(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin in Dublin; Writing by Peter Graff, Giles Elgood, Philippa Fletcher and Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Kevin Liffey)



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Anti-India broadcasts of Iran-Bangladesh radio service worries govt

NEW DELHI: Iran is a strategic partner for India. India and Iran are cooperating in Afghanistan and India has taken considerable flak from the US about maintaining ties with Iran. So is Bangladesh, which is now one of India's most important partners in the neighbourhood.

But for some time now, India's security establishment has been tracking radio broadcasts by IranBangla Radio, a Bengali-language radio service which is part of an Iran-Bangladesh goodwill initiative, broadcasting radio programmes inside Bangladesh. India would normally not have bothered with this except for the fact that the radio service has been consistently putting out anti-India polemic and messaging, which is now a matter of growing concern to the government.

Foreign minister Salman Khurshid is scheduled to visit Dhaka in the coming weeks. Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde is also expected to be in Dhaka to sign a visa and extradition agreement.

India and Bangladesh have worked hard to improve relations with each other in the past couple of years. In fact, this bilateral relationship has seen the greatest degree of investment by the UPA government. Despite the inability of the Indian government to seal a deal on sharing Teesta river waters, the relationship has moved to a different plane.

But there remains a strong constituency that hews to the anti-India line. India is concerned that broadcasts like this could undo all the good work being put into the relationship. "Bangladesh has made no move to stop anti-India programming," said officials tracking this development.

On the other hand, officials said, Iran's own motives are under the scanner. The radio station is publicly owned, which means the government would have to bear responsibility for running anti-India broadcasts in Bangladesh. No one is quite sure where the programming is done, but they say its unlikely this is done in Bangladesh. Therefore, Iran has a greater responsibility to oversee the tone and tenor of its radio programming.

The matter is likely to be discussed between India and Bangladesh in the forthcoming discussions.

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Will Obama's order lead to surge in gun research?


MILWAUKEE (AP) — Nearly as many Americans die from guns as from car crashes each year. We know plenty about the second problem and far less about the first. A scarcity of research on how to prevent gun violence has left policymakers shooting in the dark as they craft gun control measures without much evidence of what works.


That could change with President Barack Obama's order Wednesday to ease research restrictions pushed through long ago by the gun lobby. The White House declared that a 1996 law banning use of money to "advocate or promote gun control" should not keep the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies from doing any work on the topic.


Obama can only do so much, though. Several experts say Congress will have to be on board before anything much changes, especially when it comes to spending money.


How severely have the restrictions affected the CDC?


Its website's A-to-Z list of health topics, which includes such obscure ones as Rift Valley fever, does not include guns or firearms. Searching the site for "guns" brings up dozens of reports on nail gun and BB gun injuries.


The restrictions have done damage "without a doubt" and the CDC has been "overly cautious" about interpreting them, said Daniel Webster, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.


"The law is so vague it puts a virtual freeze on gun violence research," said a statement from Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It's like censorship: When people don't know what's prohibited, they assume everything is prohibited."


Many have called for a public health approach to gun violence like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago even as the number of vehicles on the road rose.


"The answer wasn't taking away cars," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.


However, while much is known about vehicles and victims in crashes, similar details are lacking about gun violence.


Some unknowns:


—How many people own firearms in various cities and what types.


—What states have the highest proportion of gun ownership.


—Whether gun ownership correlates with homicide rates in a city.


—How many guns used in homicides were bought legally.


—Where juveniles involved in gun fatalities got their weapons.


—What factors contribute to mass shootings like the Newtown, Conn., one that killed 26 people at a school.


"If an airplane crashed today with 20 children and 6 adults there would be a full-scale investigation of the causes and it would be linked to previous research," said Dr. Stephen Hargarten, director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin.


"There's no such system that's comparable to that" for gun violence, he said.


One reason is changes pushed by the National Rifle Association and its allies in 1996, a few years after a major study showed that people who lived in homes with firearms were more likely to be homicide or suicide victims. A rule tacked onto appropriations for the Department of Health and Human Services barred use of funds for "the advocacy or promotion of gun control."


Also, at the gun group's urging, U.S. Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, led an effort to remove $2.6 million from the CDC's injury prevention center, which had led most of the research on guns. The money was later restored but earmarked for brain injury research.


"What the NRA did was basically terrorize the research community and terrorize the CDC," said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who headed the CDC's injury center at the time. "They went after the researchers, they went after institutions, they went after CDC in a very big way, and they went after me," he said. "They didn't want the data to be collected because they were threatened by what the data were showing."


Dickey, who is now retired, said Wednesday that his real concern was the researcher who led that gun ownership study, who Dickey described as being "in his own kingdom or fiefdom" and believing guns are bad.


He and Rosenberg said they have modified their views over time and now both agree that research is needed. They put out a joint statement Wednesday urging research that prevents firearm injuries while also protecting the rights "of legitimate gun owners."


"We ought to research the whole environment, both sides — what the benefits of having guns are and what are the benefits of not having guns," Dickey said. "We should study any part of this problem," including whether armed guards at schools would help, as the National Rifle Association has suggested.


Association officials did not respond to requests for comment. A statement Wednesday said the group "has led efforts to promote safety and responsible gun ownership" and that "attacking firearms" is not the answer. It said nothing about research.


The 1996 law "had a chilling effect. It basically brought the field of firearm-related research to a screeching halt," said Benjamin of the Public Health Association.


Webster said researchers like him had to "partition" themselves so whatever small money they received from the CDC was not used for anything that could be construed as gun policy. One example was a grant he received to evaluate a community-based program to reduce street gun violence in Baltimore, modeled after a successful program in Chicago called CeaseFire. He had to make sure the work included nothing that could be interpreted as gun control research, even though other privately funded research might.


Private funds from foundations have come nowhere near to filling the gap from lack of federal funding, Hargarten said. He and more than 100 other doctors and scientists recently sent Vice President Joe Biden a letter urging more research, saying the lack of it was compounding "the tragedy of gun violence."


Since 1973, the government has awarded 89 grants to study rabies, of which there were 65 cases; 212 grants for cholera, with 400 cases, yet only three grants for firearm injuries that topped 3 million, they wrote. The CDC spends just about $100,000 a year out of its multibillion-dollar budget on firearm-related research, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said.


"It's so out of proportion to the burden, however you measure it," said Dr. Matthew Miller, associate professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. As a result, "we don't know really simple things," such as whether tighter gun rules in New York will curb gun trafficking "or is some other pipeline going to open up" in another state, he said.


What now?


CDC officials refused to discuss the topic on the record — a possible sign of how gun shy of the issue the agency has been even after the president's order.


Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement that her agency is "committed to re-engaging gun violence research."


Others are more cautious. The Union of Concerned Scientists said the White House's view that the law does not ban gun research is helpful, but not enough to clarify the situation for scientists, and that congressional action is needed.


Dickey, the former congressman, agreed.


"Congress is supposed to do that. He's not supposed to do that," Dickey said of Obama's order. "The restrictions were placed there by Congress.


"What I was hoping for ... is 'let's do this together,'" Dickey said.


___


Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Officials: 5 Americans Escaped from Algeria Terrorists













Five Americans who were at an Algerian natural gas facility when it was raided by al Qaeda linked terrorists are now safe and believed to have left the country, according to U.S. officials. At least three Americans, however, were being held hostage by the militants when the Algerian military mounted an rescue operation earlier today that reportedly resulted in casualties.


Reports that as many as 35 hostages and 15 Islamist militants at a BP joint venture facility in In Amenas have been killed during a helicopter raid have not been confirmed, though Algeria's information minister has confirmed that there were casualties. According to an unconfirmed report by an African news outlet, the militants say seven hostages survived the attack, including two Americans, one Briton, three Belgians and a Japanese national.


British Prime Minister David Cameron said that Algerian forces had attacked the compound, and that the situation "was ongoing."


"We face a very bad situation at this GP gas compound in Algeria," said Cameron. "A number of British citizens have been taken hostage. Already we know of one who has died. ... I think we should be prepared for the possibility for further bad news, very difficult news in this extremely difficult situation."


An unarmed U.S. Predator drone is now above In Amenas and is conducting surveillance. A U.S. official says the U.S. was not informed in advance by the Algerians of the raid they launched today.


In a statement, BP, a joint owner of the facility, said it had been told by both the British and Algerian governments that "the Algerian Army is attempting to take control of the In Amenas site."


"Sadly, there have been some reports of casualties but we are still lacking any confirmed or reliable information," said the statement. "There are also reports of hostages being released or escaping."


Algerian troops had surrounded the compound in the Sahara desert, where hostages from the U.S., Algeria, Norway, Japan, France and other countries are being held by terrorists who claim to be part of Al Qaeda and are led by a one-eyed smuggler known as Mr. Marlboro.






SITE Intel Group/AP Photo













Leon Panetta on Americans Held Hostage in Algeria Watch Video







Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told ABC News that as many as 100 hostages are being held, and that there may be seven or eight Americans among them. "Right now, we just really don't know how many are being held," said Panetta, who said information about the situation, including the total number of hostages and where they are being held, is "pretty sketchy." The kidnappers have released a statement saying there are "more than 40 crusaders" held "including 7 Americans."


U.S. officials had previously confirmed to ABC News that there were at least three Americans held hostage at the natural gas facility jointly owned by BP, the Algerian national oil company and a Norwegian firm at In Amenas, Algeria.


"I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation," said Panetta. "I don't think there's any question that [this was]a terrorist act and that the terrorists have affiliation with al Qaeda." He said the precise motivation of the kidnappers was unknown. "They are terrorists, and they will do terrorist acts."


The terror strike came without warning Wednesday morning when an estimated 20 gunmen first attacked a bus carrying workers escorted by two cars carrying security teams.


At least one worker was killed. The terrorists moved on to the residential compound where they are now holed up with the American and other western hostages, including Norwegian, French, British, and Japanese nationals.


There is growing concern this morning about the fate of the hostages, and intelligence officials say the situation is tense. Without the element of surprise, they say, a raid to free them will be very dangerous.
"They are expecting an attack and therefore, it's going to be very, very difficult for Algerian special forces to sneak in without being seen," said Richard Clarke, a former White House counter terrorism advisor and now an ABC News consultant.


Mr. Marlboro: Kidnapper, Smuggler


Intelligence officials believe the attack was masterminded by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a rogue al Qaeda leader who also runs an African organized crime network that reportedly has made tens of millions of dollars in ransom from kidnappings and smuggling. He is known as Mr. Marlboro because of his success smuggling diamonds, drugs and cigarettes. Officials think it unlikely that Belmohktar would actually be in the middle of the hostage situation, but would be calling the shots from his base in Mali more than 1,000 miles away.


Belmokhtar fought in Afghanistan alongside the mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1990s, and lost an eye. He was formerly associated with al Qaeda's North African affiliate, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and was said to be a liaison with al Qaeda's international leadership. Belmokhtar split with AQIM late last year over what other Islamist militants considered his preference for lucre over jihad. He remains affiliated with al Qaeda, however, heading a breakaway group that calls itself the "Signers with Blood Brigade" or the "Veiled Brigade."


According to a Canadian diplomat who was held hostage by Belmokhtar, Mr. Marlboro is "very, very cold, very businesslike."


Robert Fowler was a UN diplomat in Africa when he was kidnapped and held hostage by Belmokhtar for four months in 2009.






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Football: Rodgers slams Suarez over diving admission






LONDON: Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers on Thursday said that his controversial striker Luis Suarez could face punishment from the club after admitting that he dived to try to win a penalty in a league game with Stoke City.

In an interview with Fox Sports Argentina, Suarez admitted "falling" during October's 0-0 draw between the clubs at Anfield, prompting Rodgers, who had defended him from criticism at the time, to hit out.

"I think it is wrong. It is unacceptable. I have spoken to Luis and it will be dealt with internally," said Rodgers. "(Diving) is not something we advocate. Our ethics are correct."

Rodgers spoke to Suarez on Thursday and said he had been "totally understanding on where I am coming from as manager of the club.

"What was said was wrong. He takes that and we move on," he added.

Suarez hit the headlines for a theatrical fall in the Stoke game after he went to ground under a challenge from Marc Wilson in an unsuccessful attempt to win a second-half penalty.

FIFA vice-president Jim Boyce was moved to describe Suarez's tumble as "cheating", adding that the tendency for players to easily fall to the ground was a "cancer" in the game.

Suarez has been accused of diving at regular intervals during his time in England and he admitted in the interview that he had gone down on purpose.

"I was criticised for trying to win a penalty by falling in a match against Stoke," said the Uruguay international. "It's true I fell because we were drawing against Stoke at home and we needed to do something.

"But afterwards, the coaches of Stoke, Everton, all of them, came forward. I came to realise that the name of Suarez was a (newspaper) seller."

Suarez sparked controversy again earlier this month when he handled the ball prior to scoring Liverpool's winning goal in their 2-1 victory at non-league Mansfield Town in the FA Cup.

"The other day, a ball hit my hand without me meaning it to," he said. "I kissed my wrist (in celebration) and everyone started rounding on me."

Suarez also claimed that foreign players are treated differently to home-grown players in the Premier League.

"It's difficult," he said. "It's what Carlitos (Tevez) said, it's what Kun (Sergio Aguero) said: foreigners, and especially the South Americans, are treated differently to local players."

Suarez added that his run-in with Manchester United defender Patrice Evra, which saw him hit with a 40,000 fine pounds and an eight-match ban for racial abuse, was long forgotten.

"When people come and insult me, saying I'm South American, I don't start crying. It's something that stays on the pitch, part of football. My conscience is clear," he said, before claiming that Manchester United control the British press.

"They've got a lot of power and they'll always help them."

- AFP/fa



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Sahara Islamists take hostages, spreading Mali war


ALGIERS/BAMAKO (Reuters) - Islamist fighters seized dozens of Western and Algerian hostages in a dawn raid on a natural gas facility deep in the Sahara on Wednesday and demanded France halt a new offensive against rebels in neighboring Mali.


Three people, among them one British and one French, were reported killed, but details were sketchy and numbers of those held at Tigantourine ranged from 41 foreigners - including perhaps seven Americans as well as Japanese and Europeans - to over 100 local staff, held separately and less closely watched.


What is clear is that with a dramatic counterpunch to this week's French build-up in Mali, the region's loosely allied, al Qaeda-inspired radicals have set Paris a daunting dilemma and spread fallout from Mali's hitherto obscure civil war far beyond northwest Africa, challenging Washington as well as Europeans and shutting down a major gas field that pumps energy to Europe.


The attack, which Algeria said was led by a veteran, Afghan-trained holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence, came just as French ground troops in Mali launched their first assault after six days of air strikes.


The United States, which like European powers endorsed France's decision to intervene last week against Islamists who have seized vast tracts of northern Mali, confirmed Americans were among the hostages and said it would work to "secure" them.


Western and African governments have been alarmed by a flow of weapons and fighters across the unmarked Sahara borders following the end of Libya's civil war in 2011 and fear that Mali, where Islamists drive the national army from the north nine months ago, could become an Afghan-style al Qaeda haven.


The militants, who said they had dozens of fighters in the gas field, issued no explicit threat but made clear to media in neighboring Mauritania the hostages' lives were at risk.


"We hold the Algerian government and the French government and the countries of the hostages fully responsible if our demands are not met and it is up to them to stop the brutal aggression against our people in Mali," read one statement from the group, which called itself the "Battalion of Blood".


In other comments carried by the Mauritanian news agency ANI, the group said its fighters had rigged explosives around the site and any attempt to free the hostages would lead to a "tragic end". The unusually large numbers of gunmen and hostages involved pose serious problems for any rescue operation.


After dark, ANI quoted a militant source saying fighters had repelled a raid by Algerian troops. He added that the hostage-takers' weaponry included mortars and anti-aircraft missiles.


AMERICANS


The militants said seven Americans were among the 41 foreign hostages - a figure U.S. officials said they could not confirm.


Norwegian energy company Statoil, which operates the gas field in a joint venture with Britain's BP and the Algerian state company Sonatrach, said nine of its Norwegian employees and three of its Algerian staff were being held.


Also reported kidnapped by various sources were five Japanese working for the engineering firm JGC Corp, a French national, an Austrian, an Irishman and a number of Britons.


The Algerian government, which fought a bloody civil war against Islamists in the 1990s, said it would not negotiate.


French media said the militants were also demanding that Algeria release dozens of Islamist prisoners from its jails.


Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said: "I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation."


He said he lacked firm information on whether there were links to the situation in Mali. Analysts pointed to shifting alliances and rivalries among Islamists in the region to suggest the hostage-takers may have a range of motives.


In their own statements, they condemned Algeria's secularist government for "betraying" its predecessors in the bloody anti-colonial war against French rule half a century ago by letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali. They also accused Algeria of shutting its border to Malian refugees.


Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia told the state news agency APS there were about 20 hostage-takers led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian who fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and set up his own group in the Sahara recently after falling out with other al Qaeda leaders.


Some of those held at the facility, near the small town of In Amenas, close to the Libyan border and about 1,300 km (800 miles) inland, had sporadic contact with the outside world.


The head of a French catering company said he had information from a manager who supervised some 150 Algerian employees at the site. Regis Arnoux of CIS Catering told France's BFM television the local staff were being prevented from leaving but were otherwise free to move around inside and keep on working.


"The Westerners are kept in a separate wing of the base," Arnoux said. "They are tied up and are being filmed. Electricity is cut off, and mobile phones have no charge.


"Direct action seems very difficult ... Algerian officials have told the French authorities as well as BP that they have the situation under control and do not need their assistance."


MALI OFFENSIVE


Just days after a bold deployment of French troops to Mali, another former colony, that had largely silenced critics questioning his leadership after eight months in office, French President Francois Hollande faced a possible further escalation of the conflict, with Western targets at risk across Africa.


He has called for international support against insurgents who France says pose a threat to Africa and the West, and admits it faces a long struggle against well-equipped fighters who seized Timbuktu and other oasis towns in northern Mali and have imposed Islamic law, including public amputation and beheading.


Islamists have warned Hollande that he has "opened the gates of hell" for all French citizens.


French army chief Edouard Guillaud said ground forces were stepping up their operation to engage directly "within hours" the alliance of Islamist fighters, grouping al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM and Mali's home grown Ansar Dine and MUJWA.


Residents said a column of some 30 French Sagaie armored vehicles has set off toward rebel positions from the town of Niono, 300 km (190 miles) from the capital Bamako.


A Malian military source said French special forces units were taking part in the operation. Guillaud said France's strikes, involving Rafale and Mirage jet fighters, were being hampered because militants were sheltering among civilians.


Many inhabitants of northern Mali have welcomed the French attacks though some also fear being caught in the cross-fire.


Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian acknowledged that France faced a hard slog, particularly in western Mali where AQIM's mostly foreign fighters have camps: "It's tough. We were aware from the beginning it would be a very difficult operation."


Hollande said on Tuesday that French forces would remain in Mali until stability returned to the West African nation. Hollande said France hoped, however, to hand over to African forces in its former colony, "in the coming days or weeks".


West African military chiefs met for a second day in Bamako to hammer out details of a U.N.-mandated deployment that had been expected to start only in September but was suddenly kick-started by French intervention. They said their aim was to send in the first units of a 2,000-man emergency force on Thursday.


Hollande's intervention in Mali brings risks for eight French hostages held by AQIM in the Sahara as well as the 30,000 French citizens living across West Africa. A French helicopter pilot was killed on Friday, France's only combat death so far.


The conflict in Mali, a landlocked state of 15 million twice the size of France, has displaced an estimated 30,000 people and raised concerns across mostly Muslim West Africa of a radicalization of Islam in the region.


"There is a great hope," one man said from Timbuktu, where he said Islamist fighters were trying to blend into civilian neighborhoods. "We hope that the city will be freed soon."


(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher and Andrew Callus in London, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Laurent Prieur in Nouakchott, Daniel Flynn in Dakar, John Irish, Catherine Bremer and Nick Vinocur in Paris, David Alexander in Rome and Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Kevin Liffey)



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DGCA forms team to review Dreamliner safety

NEW DELHI: With Japanese airlines grounding all their Boeing 787 aircraft for thorough checks, India has decided to do a safety review of the aircraft as Air India has also been facing technical glitches in its Dreamliners.

The DGCA ( Directorate General of Civil Aviation) on Wednesday formed a technical panel to examine the issues affecting AI's six B-787s, but as of now there is no move to ground them.

While AI maintains that it has so far not faced any issue that affects safety on the Dreamliner, the airline's engineers and pilots are checking the aircraft before each flight. It will do as advised by Boeing or US Federal Aviation Administration as DGCA will also base its recommendations on the basis of what these two say. DGCA chief Arun Mishra said, "We are taking all details from Boeing and AI. As of now there is no move to ground the Dreamliners here but we are constantly monitoring the situation," Mishra said.

All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines have grounded their 24 B-787s for thorough checks following major problems like fuel leaks and a battery problem triggering a cockpit error message that forced some pilots to land in southwestern Japan.

AI chief Rohit Nandan said, "None of those issues have so far been such that they affect passenger safety. We had some time back called a special team from Boeing for addressing the issues we face with our B-787s. Our engineers and flight safety department is reviewing these aircraft before each flight. As of now there is no plan to ground the B-787 but we are watching the situation very closely and are in constant touch with Boeing. We will not hesitate in taking any step in the interest of passenger safety." AI currently has six B-787s and uses it on both domestic and international routes.

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Large study confirms flu vaccine safe in pregnancy


NEW YORK (AP) — A large study offers reassuring news for pregnant women: It's safe to get a flu shot.


The research found no evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of losing a fetus, and may prevent some deaths. Getting the flu while pregnant makes fetal death more likely, the Norwegian research showed.


The flu vaccine has long been considered safe for pregnant women and their fetus. U.S. health officials began recommending flu shots for them more than five decades ago, following a higher death rate in pregnant women during a flu pandemic in the late 1950s.


But the study is perhaps the largest look at the safety and value of flu vaccination during pregnancy, experts say.


"This is the kind of information we need to provide our patients when discussing that flu vaccine is important for everyone, particularly for pregnant women," said Dr. Geeta Swamy, a researcher who studies vaccines and pregnant women at Duke University Medical Center.


The study was released by the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday as the United States and Europe suffer through an early and intense flu season. A U.S. obstetricians group this week reminded members that it's not too late for their pregnant patients to get vaccinated.


The new study was led by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It tracked pregnancies in Norway in 2009 and 2010 during an international epidemic of a new swine flu strain.


Before 2009, pregnant women in Norway were not routinely advised to get flu shots. But during the pandemic, vaccinations against the new strain were recommended for those in their second or third trimester.


The study focused on more than 113,000 pregnancies. Of those, 492 ended in the death of the fetus. The researchers calculated that the risk of fetal death was nearly twice as high for women who weren't vaccinated as it was in vaccinated mothers.


U.S. flu vaccination rates for pregnant women grew in the wake of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, from less than 15 percent to about 50 percent. But health officials say those rates need to be higher to protect newborns as well. Infants can't be vaccinated until 6 months, but studies have shown they pick up some protection if their mothers got the annual shot, experts say.


Because some drugs and vaccines can be harmful to a fetus, there is a long-standing concern about giving any medicine to a pregnant woman, experts acknowledged. But this study should ease any worries about the flu shot, said Dr. Denise Jamieson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


"The vaccine is safe," she said.


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Online:


Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org


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Republicans Criticize Obama's Gun Proposals


gty marco rubio mi 130116 wblog Republicans Criticize Obamas Gun Proposals

Drew Angerer/Getty Images


Less than an hour after President Obama finished outlining his plan to address gun violence in America, Republicans in Congress fired back, criticizing the president for attacking the Second Amendment.


Sen. Marco Rubio, who many conservatives look to as a viable presidential candidate in 2016, said he would “oppose the president’s attempts to undermine Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms.” Instead, he believes Congress should focus its efforts on keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.


“Nothing the president is proposing would have stopped the massacre at Sandy Hook. President Obama is targeting the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens instead of seriously addressing the real underlying causes of such violence,” Rubio, R-Fla., wrote. “Rolling back responsible citizens’ rights is not the proper response to tragedies committed by criminals and the mentally ill.”


PHOTOS: Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting


Michael Steel, spokesman to Speaker John Boehner, reacted to the president’s proposals in a brief statement, putting the onus on the Democratic Senate to lead the legislative path to tougher gun laws.


“House committees of jurisdiction will review these recommendations,” Steel wrote in an email after the announcement. “And if the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that.”


House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said House Republicans “welcome the recommendations of this task force and will consider them” but his committee will plot its own course in addressing gun violence.


Transcript: Obama’s Remarks On Gun Violence


“Good intentions do not necessarily make good laws,” Goodlatte, who received an A rating from the NRA, stated. “As we investigate the causes and search for solutions, we must ensure that any proposed solutions will actually be meaningful in preventing the taking of innocent life and that they do not trample on the rights of law-abiding citizens to exercise their Constitutionally-guaranteed rights.”


House Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., also said his committee would convene a hearing “to examine school safety and ways to protect our children.” Rep. Fred Upton, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee is also planning to review mental health laws.


Other House Republicans were skeptical of the effectiveness of the president’s ideas, such as enacting another ban on assault weapons.


“The fact is these firearms are no different than other legal firearms except for their exterior design,” Rep. Pete Olson, R-Texas, wrote. “Claiming to address gun violence by offering a failed, illogical action is nothing more than a red herring to target the constitutionally protected liberties of law abiding gun owners.”


“More gun restrictions may allow Washington to congratulate itself, but will never change the sickness and depravity that drive someone to murder indiscriminately,” Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., wrote in a statement.


“The president’s plan approaches the problem of gun violence from the wrong direction,” Louisiana Republican Rep. Rodney Alexander, who also received an A rating from the NRA, wrote in a statement. “This proposal will not stop criminals from getting their hands on weapons and using them for harm.”


“Guns are not the problem, evil people are,” Rep. Dan Beneshik, R-Mich., wrote in a statement. “The only thing these proposed restrictions would do is prevent law-abiding individuals from protecting their homes, children, and businesses.”


“The Second Amendment is non-negotiable,” Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kansas, wrote in a statement. “The right to bear arms is a right, despite President Obama’s disdain for the Second Amendment and the Constitution’s limits on his power.”


INFOGRAPHIC: Guns in America: By The Numbers


Huelskamp said the debate should instead focus on “what fuels a very small segment of the population to inflict harm and instill fear” and the Obama administration should enforce gun laws already on the books.


“This means holding Hollywood accountable for its culture of violence and death, and talking about mental health issues and the responsibilities of families and communities,” Huelskamp, who received an A+ rating from the NRA, stated. “The Obama Administration is neglecting its obligation to enforce current law. Apparently public safety matters only when there’s political gain to be had.”

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Elton John has second baby via surrogate






LONDON: British pop star Elton John and his partner David Furnish have become parents for a second time, they confirmed on Wednesday.

The couple told Hello! magazine that they were "overwhelmed with happiness" at the birth of their son Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John, who was born in Los Angeles on Friday to a surrogate mother.

"Both of us have longed to have children, but the reality that we now have two sons is almost unbelievable," they said.

The couple's first son Zachary was also born via a surrogacy arrangement in California in 2010.

"The birth of our second son completes our family in a most precious and perfect way," John and Furnish told the magazine.

"It is difficult to fully express how we are feeling at this time; we are just overwhelmed with happiness and excitement."

The "Candle in the Wind" singer, 65, has been in a relationship with 50-year-old film producer Furnish for almost 20 years and they have been in a civil partnership since 2005.

Last week, the couple's spokesman denied reports they had become parents again, but they have often spoken of their desire for Zachary to have a sibling.

The baby shares his middle name, Daniel, with one of John's 1970s hits.

- AFP/fa



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