China, Japan engage in new invective over disputed isles

BEIJING (Reuters) - China and Japan engaged on Friday in a fresh round of invective over military movements near a disputed group of uninhabited islands, fuelling tension that for months has bedeviled relations between the Asian powers.

An increasingly muscular China has been repeatedly at odds with others in the region over rival claims to small clusters of islands, most recently with fellow economic giant Japan which accused a Chinese navy vessel of locking radar normally used to aim weapons on a Japanese naval ship in the East China Sea.

China's Defence Ministry rejected Japan's complaint about the radar, its first comment on the January 30 incident. It said Japan's intrusive tracking of Chinese vessels was the "root cause" of the renewed tension.

A Japanese official dismissed the Chinese explanation for incident saying China's actions could be dangerous in the waters around the islets, known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, believed to be rich in oil and gas.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe led his conservative party to a landslide election victory in December, promising to beef up the military and stand tough in territorial disputes.

On Thursday, another border problem was brought into focus when Japan said two Russian fighter jets briefly entered its air space near long-disputed northern islands, prompting Japan to scramble combat fighters. Russia denied the accusation.

The commander of U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific said the squabble between Japan and China underlined the pressing need for rules to prevent such incidents turning into serious conflict.

"What we need in the South China Sea is a mechanism that prevents us turning our diplomacy over to young majors and young (naval) commanders ... to make decisions at sea that cause a problem (that escalates) into a military conflict that we might not be able to control," Admiral Samuel Locklear told a conference in the Indonesian capital.

China is in dispute with several Southeast Asian countries including the Philippines and Vietnam over parts of the South China Sea, which is potentially rich in natural resources.

Locklear said governments and their leaders had to understand the potential for things to get out of hand.

"In this case, I think that point has been made pretty clear," he said in reference to international reaction to the dispute between China and Japan.

"IRRESPONSIBLE"

China's Defence Ministry, in a faxed statement late on Thursday, said Japan's complaints did not "match the facts". The Chinese ship's radar, it said, had maintained regular alerting operations and the ship "did not use fire control radar".

The ministry said the Chinese ship was tracked by a Japanese destroyer during routine training exercises. Fire control radar pinpoints the location of a target for missiles or shells and its use can be considered a step short of actual firing.

Japan, the ministry said, had "made irresponsible remarks that hyped up a so-called China threat, recklessly created tension and misled international public opinion".

"Japanese warships and airplanes have often conducted long periods of close-range tracking and surveillance of China's naval ships and airplanes," the Chinese Defence Ministry said.

"This is the root cause of air and maritime security issues between China and Japan."

In Tokyo, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference Japan could not accept China's explanation and Japan's accusation came after careful analysis.

"We urge China to take sincere measures to prevent dangerous actions which could cause a contingency situation," Suga said.

Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said this week that the radar incident could have become very dangerous very quickly, and it could have been seen as a threat of military force under U.N. rules.

Hopes had been rising recently for an easing of the tension, which was sparked, in part, by Japan's nationalization of three of the privately owned islets last September.

Fears that encounters between aircraft and ships could bring an unintended clash have given impetus to efforts to improve links, including a possible summit between Abe and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who takes over as head of state in March.

(Additional reporting by Linda Sieg in TOKYO, Joathan Thatcher in JAKARTA; Editing by Ron Popeski and Robert Birsel)

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Power put off by mistake, IGI Airport radars go dead

NEW DELHI: Skilled air traffic controllers at IGI Airport averted disaster on Friday afternoon after radar screens at the airport's ATC tower went blank for 45 minutes because electricians on routine maintenance duty had inadvertently switched off the main power button.

The power shutdown caused both primary and back-up radar systems to go dead. These systems give the complete coordinates - such as altitude, speed and horizontal separation - of all aircraft over vast stretches of north India, and are essential guiding tools to avoid mid-air collisions. When the screens went blank, one aircraft was in its final descent over IGI.

ATC officials saved the day by manually bringing in arriving aircraft. All departing aircraft were asked to remain on the ground. An Air India and a Jet Airways aircraft were even given priority landing after the pilots reported fuel shortage. No plane was asked to go around the airport.

The Maharaja just got a firsthand taste of why passengers are not exactly enamoured by its services. On Thursday-Friday midnight, 11 of the 63 staff who were supposed to be present at Delhi's terminal 3 were missing and only 16 of the 25 check-in counters that should have been open were actually functional. As a result, the usual check-in time of two to three minutes per passenger was almost seven to eight minutes.

The airline came to know of this ground reality - something that passengers have been complaining of for years - when the management kicked off a new practice of sending its senior officials as decoy passengers to airports from IGI on Thursday night. The team that went to IGI Airport's terminal 3 gave a detailed report to the management which has now decided to make such surprise checks a regular practice at all airports across the country.

"Our ground handling joint venture agency, AISATS, services a number of airlines. It seems their employees reserve their best for other airlines and not for handling AI flyers. The team found there were no floor walkers at T3 on Thursday-Friday midnight to escort passengers to their aircraft. The check-in time was longer that the global average of two to three minutes," said a source. Wheelchairs, which are required by physically challenged and aged flyers right from the time they alight from their cars at the airport, were to be found at check-in counters!

The airline is also trying to strengthen its other perceived weakness: on time performance.

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After early start, worst of flu season may be over

NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.

The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.

The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.

For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.

Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.

"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.

In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.

Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications

But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.

So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.

Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.

The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.

Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

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Online:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

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Blizzard of 2013 May Bring More Than 2 Feet of Snow

A blizzard of possibly historic proportions is set to strike the Northeast, starting today and could bring more than two feet of snow and strong winds that could shut down densely populated cities such as Boston and New York City.

A storm from the west will join forces with one from the south to form a nor'easter that will sit and spin just off the East Coast, affecting more than 43 million Americans. Wind gusts will reach 50 to 60 mph from Philadelphia to Boston.

"[It] could definitely be a historic winter storm for the Northeast," Adrienne Leptich of the National Weather Service in Upton, N.Y., said. "We're looking at very strong wind and heavy snow and we're also looking for some coastal flooding."

The snow began falling in New York City shortly before 7 a.m. ET. The snow is expected to mix with some sleet and then turn back into snow after 3 p.m.

Airlines have started shutting down operations between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. at major airports in the New York area as well as in Boston, Portland, Maine, Providence, and other Northeastern airports. More than 4,000 flights have been cancelled on Friday and Saturday, according to FlightAware. Airlines hope to resume flights by Saturday afternoon.

New York City is expecting up to 14 inches, which is expected to start this morning with the heaviest amounts falling at night and into Saturday. Wind gusts of 55 mph are expected in New York City and Cape Cod, Mass., could possibly see 75 mph gusts.

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Boston, Providence, R.I., Hartford, Conn., and other New England cities canceled school today. Boston and other parts of New England could see more than 2 feet of snow by Saturday.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency Friday afternoon and announced a ban on all traffic from roads after 4 p.m. It is believed that the last time the state enacted such a ban was during the blizzard of 1978.

Beach erosion and coastal flooding is possible from New Jersey to Long Island, N.Y., and into New England coastal areas. Some waves off the coast could reach more than 20 feet.

"Stay off the streets of our city. Basically, stay home," Boston Mayor Tom Menino warned Thursday.

Blizzard warnings were posted for parts of New Jersey and New York's Long Island, as well as portions of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, including Hartford, New Haven, Conn., and Providence. The warnings extended into New Hampshire and Maine.

To the south, Philadelphia was looking at a possible 4 to 6 inches of snow.

Thousands of flights have already been canceled in anticipation of the storm. Amtrak said its Northeast trains will stop running this afternoon.

Bruce Sullivan of the National Weather Service says travel conditions will deteriorate fairly rapidly Friday night.

"The real concern here is there's going to be a lot of strong winds with this system and it's going to cause considerable blowing and drifting of snow," he said.

Parts of New York, still reeling from October's Superstorm Sandy, are still using tents and are worried how they will deal with the nor'easter.

"Hopefully, we can supply them with enough hot food to get them through before the storm starts," Staten Island hub coordinator Donna Graziano said.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said plows and 250,000 tons of salt were being put on standby.

"We hope forecasts are exaggerating the amount of snow, but you never can tell," Bloomberg said Thursday.

Residents of the Northeast have already begun to hit stores for groceries and tools to fight the mounting snow totals.

The fire department was called in to a grocery store in Salem, Mass., because there were too many people in the store Thursday afternoon trying to load up their carts with essential items.

"I'm going to try this roof melt stuff for the first time," Ian Watson of Belmont, Mass., said. "Just to prevent the ice dam. ... It's going be ugly on that roof."

ABC News' Max Golembo and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Football: Kelly signs new Liverpool contract

LONDON: Liverpool defender Martin Kelly signed a new long-term contract with the Premier League club on Friday.

Kelly, 22, is currently sidelined due to a knee ligament injury, but the England international has been rewarded for his impressive displays at full-back earlier this season.

The day after team-mate Jamie Carragher announced he will retire at the end of the season, Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers admitted it was gratifying to see another Liverpool-born product of the club's youth academy commit his future to the Reds.

"Martin has shown a commitment to our vision here. He is a young player who really impressed me when I came in," Rodgers said.

"He was exceptionally good in the games he played earlier in the season."

Kelly, who injured his knee in the 2-1 home defeat against Manchester United in September, admitted he was relieved to have secured his long-term future at Liverpool.

"I'm delighted to sign. It means everything to me and my family," he said.

"I've been at Liverpool since I was seven, so it's in my heart and I love the club.

"When you play in the Liverpool shirt, you have to show the fans what it means. I just love playing and trying my hardest for the supporters and for my family."

Kelly, who has made 54 appearances for Liverpool since making his debut in 2009, added: "Being a Liverpool supporter myself, it's brilliant to put the shirt on.

"Today shows the faith that the club have in me and that the hard work I have put in since I was young has paid off."

- AFP/de

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Iran's Khamenei rebuffs U.S. offer of direct talks

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's highest authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Thursday slapped down an offer of direct talks made by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden last week, saying they would not solve the problem between them.

"Some naive people like the idea of negotiating with America, however, negotiations will not solve the problem," Khamenei said in a speech to officials and members of Iran's air force carried on his official website.

"If some people want American rule to be established again in Iran, the nation will rise up to face them," he said.

"American policy in the Middle East has been destroyed and Americans now need to play a new card. That card is dragging Iran into negotiations."

Khamenei made his comments just days after Biden said the United States was prepared to meet bilaterally with the Iranian leadership. "That offer stands but it must be real and tangible," Biden said in Munich on Saturday.

With traditional fiery rhetoric, Khamenei lambasted Biden's offer, saying that since the 1979 revolution the United States had gravely insulted Iran and continued to do so with its threat of military action.

"You take up arms against the nation of Iran and say: 'negotiate or we fire'. But you should know that pressure and negotiations are not compatible and our nation will not be intimidated by these actions," he added.

Relations between Iran and the United States were severed after the overthrow of Iran's pro-Western monarchy in 1979 and diplomatic meetings between officials have since been very rare.

ALL OPTIONS STILL 'ON THE TABLE'

Currently U.S.-Iran contact is limited to talks between Tehran and a so-called P5+1 group of powers on Iran's disputed nuclear program which are to resume on February 26 in Kazakhstan.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland brushed off Khamenei's remarks and urged Iran to show up in Almaty "prepared to discuss real substance" either in a group setting or in bilateral talks.

"As the Iranians well know, the ball is in the Iranians' own court," she told reporters.

"We've always said that action on the Iranian side would be matched by action on our side, so it's really up to Iran to engage if it wants to see sanctions eased," said Nuland, adding that failure to address the nuclear concerns would bring more pressure on Tehran.

Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor said he was skeptical the negotiations in Almaty could yield a result, telling Israel Radio that the United States needed to demonstrate to Iran that "all options were still on the table".

Israel, widely recognized to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East, has warned it could mount a pre-emptive strike on Iranian atomic sites. Israel says the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran threatens its existence, given Tehran's refusal to recognize the Jewish state.

"The final option, this is the phrasing we have used, should remain in place and be serious," said Meridor.

"The fact that the Iranians have not yet come down from the path they are on means that talks ... are liable to bring about only a stalling for time," he said.

Iran maintains its nuclear program is entirely peaceful but Western powers are concerned it is intent on developing a weapons program.

Many believe a deal on settling the nuclear issue is impossible without a U.S.-Iranian thaw. But any rapprochement would require direct talks addressing many sources of mutual mistrust that have lingered since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and the subsequent U.S. embassy hostage crisis in Tehran.

Moreover, although his November re-election may give President Barack Obama a freer hand to pursue direct negotiations, analysts say Iran's own presidential election in June may prove an additional obstacle to progress being made.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams, and Paul Eckert in Washington; Editing by William Maclean, Jon Boyle and Mohammad Zargham)

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Nanded police book Pravin Togadia for hate speech

AURANGABAD: The Nanded police on Thursday booked Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Pravin Togadia under various sections of the IPC for allegedly delivering a hate speech at Bhokar town in the district last month.

Deputy superintendent of police (Bhokar), Yashwant Solanke, told TOI on Thursday that Togadia is accused of making the provocative speech was made during a VHP programme at Bhokar on January 22. After examining excerpts of his speech, the Bhokar police inspector Pandit Munde registered a complaint against the VHP leader.

Solanke said that Togadia has been booked under Section 295 A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and Section 505 (2) (statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes). Inspector Pandit Munde, in-charge of the Bhokar police station, is investigating, said Solanke.

PTI adds: The Centre asked the Maharashtra government to book Togadia if he was found to be violating laws after probing the charges of hate speech.

The Maharashtra government ordered an inquiry into the speech even as state minorities affairs minister Naseem Khan demanded that a case be filed against Togadia. Minister of state for home R P N Singh said if Togadia's speech is inflammatory, the state government must take action against him.

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Southern diet, fried foods, may raise stroke risk

Deep-fried foods may be causing trouble in the Deep South. People whose diets are heavy on them and sugary drinks like sweet tea and soda were more likely to suffer a stroke, a new study finds.

It's the first big look at diet and strokes, and researchers say it might help explain why blacks in the Southeast — the nation's "stroke belt" — suffer more of them.

Blacks were five times more likely than whites to have the Southern dietary pattern linked with the highest stroke risk. And blacks and whites who live in the South were more likely to eat this way than people in other parts of the country were. Diet might explain as much as two-thirds of the excess stroke risk seen in blacks versus whites, researchers concluded.

"We're talking about fried foods, french fries, hamburgers, processed meats, hot dogs," bacon, ham, liver, gizzards and sugary drinks, said the study's leader, Suzanne Judd of the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

People who ate about six meals a week featuring these sorts of foods had a 41 percent higher stroke risk than people who ate that way about once a month, researchers found.

In contrast, people whose diets were high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish had a 29 percent lower stroke risk.

"It's a very big difference," Judd said. "The message for people in the middle is there's a graded risk" — the likelihood of suffering a stroke rises in proportion to each Southern meal in a week.

Results were reported Thursday at an American Stroke Association conference in Honolulu.

The federally funded study was launched in 2002 to explore regional variations in stroke risks and reasons for them. More than 20,000 people 45 or older — half of them black — from all 48 mainland states filled out food surveys and were sorted into one of five diet styles:

—Southern: Fried foods, processed meats (lunchmeat, jerky), red meat, eggs, sweet drinks and whole milk.

—Convenience: Mexican and Chinese food, pizza, pasta.

—Plant-based: Fruits, vegetables, juice, cereal, fish, poultry, yogurt, nuts and whole-grain bread.

—Sweets: Added fats, breads, chocolate, desserts, sweet breakfast foods.

—Alcohol: Beer, wine, liquor, green leafy vegetables, salad dressings, nuts and seeds, coffee.

"They're not mutually exclusive" — for example, hamburgers fall into both convenience and Southern diets, Judd said. Each person got a score for each diet, depending on how many meals leaned that way.

Over more than five years of follow-up, nearly 500 strokes occurred. Researchers saw clear patterns with the Southern and plant-based diets; the other three didn't seem to affect stroke risk.

There were 138 strokes among the 4,977 who ate the most Southern food, compared to 109 strokes among the 5,156 people eating the least of it.

There were 122 strokes among the 5,076 who ate the most plant-based meals, compared to 135 strokes among the 5,056 people who seldom ate that way.

The trends held up after researchers took into account other factors such as age, income, smoking, education, exercise and total calories consumed.

Fried foods tend to be eaten with lots of salt, which raises blood pressure — a known stroke risk factor, Judd said. And sweet drinks can contribute to diabetes, the disease that celebrity chef Paula Deen — the queen of Southern cuisine — revealed she had a year ago.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, drugmaker Amgen Inc. and General Mills Inc. funded the study.

"This study does strongly suggest that food does have an influence and people should be trying to avoid these kinds of fatty foods and high sugar content," said an independent expert, Dr. Brian Silver, a Brown University neurologist and stroke center director at Rhode Island Hospital.

"I don't mean to sound like an ogre. I know when I'm in New Orleans I certainly enjoy the food there. But you don't have to make a regular habit of eating all this stuff."

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Alleged Cop-Killer Has Calif. Region on Edge

Police officers across Southern California are on the defensive and scaling back their public exposure today, no longer responding to "barking-dog calls" and donning tactical gear outside police stations as former-cop-turned-alleged-gunman Christopher Dorner, armed and apparently on the hunt for cops, remains at large.

Dorner is suspected of killing one cop and two civilians during a rampage that began Sunday, injuring two other officers along the way.

Police departments have stationed officers in tactical gear outside police departments, stopped answering low-level calls and pulled motorcycle patrols off the road in order to protect officers who might be a target of Dorner's alleged rampage.

"The person we suspect of doing this is mobile, and with California's interstate highway system, every hour that goes by that's another 60 or 70 or 80 miles or greater circumference, it is a very wide net," Chief of Police Sergio Diaz of the Riverside police department said.

"We've made certain modifications of our deployments, our deviations today and I want to leave it at that, and also to our responses. We are concentrating on calls for service that are of a high priority, threats to public safety, we're not going to go on barking dog calls today," Diaz said.

Sgt. Rudy Lopez of the Los Angeles police department said Dorner is "believed to be armed and extremely dangerous."

Police have also put Dorner's license plate number and car description on highway signs, although they warn Dorner might have changed his license plate.

A former Los Angeles police officer and Navy reservist, Dorner released an online manifesto before the shooting saying that he was targeting law enforcement and would be hard to capture because of his knowledge of police tactics.

The Los Angeles police department has sent dozens of patrols to guard specific targets named in Dorner's manifesto, which cops say he posted online.

Dorner wrote a long letter posted to his Facebook page in which he explained that he had been wrongly fired from the Los Angeles police department and would take revenge on those that wronged him.

The fired California cop went to a yacht club near San Diego overnight where police say he attempted to steal a boat and flee to Mexico.

He aborted the attempted theft when the boat's propeller became entangled in a rope, law enforcement officials said. It was at that point he is believed to have headed to Riverside, where he allegedly shot two police officers.

"He pointed a handgun at the victim [at the yacht club] and demanded the boat," Lt. David Rohowits of the San Diego Police Department said.

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Police say the rifle marksman shot at four officers in two incidents overnight, hitting three of them: one in Corona, Calif., and the two in Riverside, Calif.

Lopez said two LAPD officers were in Corona on special detail to check on one of the individuals named in Dorner's manifesto and encountered Dorner. Dorner allegedly grazed one of them but missed the other.

"[This is an] extremely tense situation," Lopez said. "We call this a manhunt. We approach it cautiously because of the propensity of what has already happened."

After Dorner allegedly shot at LAPD officers in Corona, he fled and encountered two Riverside police officers stopped at a red light in their police car. Dorner used a rifle to shoot through their windshield, killing one officer and injuring the other.

The deceased officer was a 34-year-old, 11-year veteran of the police department. The injured officer, age 27, is expected to make a full recovery.

Diaz said that the names of the officers are being withheld to protect their families, who might be targeted by Dorner if the names are released.

"They were on routine patrol stopped at a stop light when they were ambushed," Lt. Guy Toussant of the Riverside police department said.

In the manifesto Dorner published online, he threatened at least 12 people by name, along with their families.

"Your lack of ethics and conspiring to wrong a just individual are over. Suppressing the truth will leave to deadly consequences for you and your family," Dorner wrote in his manifesto.

A badge and identification belonging to Dorner have been found in San Diego, according to San Diego police Sgt. Ray Battrick. Dorner's LAPD badge and ID were found by someone near the city's airport, and turned in to police overnight, The Associated Press reported.

Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck said today that 40 protective details have been deployed to protect officers and their families.

"We are taking all measures possible to ensure safety of our officers and their families," he said.

Dorner is also believed to be responsible for the weekend slayings of an assistant women's college basketball coach and her fiancé in what cops believe are acts of revenge against the LAPD, as suggested in his online manifesto.

Lawrence was found slumped behind the wheel of his white Kia in the parking lot of their upscale apartment complex in Irvine Sunday and Quan was in the passenger seat.

"A particular interest at this point in the investigation is a multi-page manifesto in which the suspect has implicated himself in the slayings," Maggard said.

Police said Dorner's manifesto included threats against members of the LAPD. Police say they are taking extra measures to ensure the safety of officers and their families.

The document, allegedly posted on an Internet message board this week, apparently blames Quan's father, retired LAPD Capt. Randy Quan, for his firing from the department.

One passage from the manifesto reads, "I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty."

"I never had the opportunity to have a family of my own," it reads. "I'm terminating yours."

Dorner was with the department from 2005 until 2008, when he was fired for making false statements.

Randy Quan, who became a lawyer in retirement, represented Dorner in front of the Board of Rights, a tribunal that ruled against Dorner at the time of his dismissal, LAPD Capt. William Hayes told The Associated Press Wednesday night.

According to documents from a court of appeals hearing in October 2011, Dorner was fired from the LAPD after he made a complaint against his field-training officer, saying in the course of an arrest she had kicked a suspect who was a schizophrenic with severe dementia.

After an investigation, Dorner was fired for making false statements.

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War crimes court wants Gaddafi spy chief handed over

THE HAGUE: International Criminal Court judges on Thursday demanded Libya hand over Muammar Gaddafi's former spy chief Abdullah Senussi to face charges of crimes against humanity.

The latest broadside in the legal tug-of-war between The Hague-based ICC and Tripoli over where Senussi and Gaddafi's son Seif al-Islam should be tried repeated a demand for Senussi to be handed over.

The ICC "orders the Libyan authorities to proceed to the immediate surrender of Mr Senussi to the court," said a ruling issued on Wednesday and made public on Thursday.

The ICC has the option of calling on the United Nations Security Council to take action.

The ICC is mulling a Libyan request to put Senussi and Gaddafi on trial there, while the ICC itself wants to try Gaddafi and Senussi on charges of crimes against humanity committed in the conflict that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The ICC, which was mandated by the UN Security Council to investigate the Libyan conflict, issued arrest warrants in June 2011 for both Seif and Senussi on charges of crimes against humanity.

Lawyers for the two accused have said they will not get a fair trial in Libya.

- AFP/de

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