WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident

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LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.


In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk.


"The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report. "It's more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima."


The report was issued by the World Health Organization, which asked scientists to study the health effects of the disaster in Fukushima, a rural farming region.


On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima plant's power and cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors and spewing radiation into the surrounding air, soil and water. The most exposed populations were directly under the plumes of radiation in the most affected communities in Fukushima, which is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo.


In the report, the highest increases in risk are for people exposed as babies to radiation in the most heavily affected areas. Normally in Japan, the lifetime risk of developing cancer of an organ is about 41 percent for men and 29 percent for women. The new report said that for infants in the most heavily exposed areas, the radiation from Fukushima would add about 1 percentage point to those numbers.


Experts had been particularly worried about a spike in thyroid cancer, since radioactive iodine released in nuclear accidents is absorbed by the thyroid, especially in children. After the Chernobyl disaster, about 6,000 children exposed to radiation later developed thyroid cancer because many drank contaminated milk after the accident.


In Japan, dairy radiation levels were closely monitored, but children are not big milk drinkers there.


The WHO report estimated that women exposed as infants to the most radiation after the Fukushima accident would have a 70 percent higher chance of getting thyroid cancer in their lifetimes. But thyroid cancer is extremely rare and one of the most treatable cancers when caught early. A woman's normal lifetime risk of developing it is about 0.75 percent. That number would rise by 0.5 under the calculated increase for women who got the highest radiation doses as infants.


Wakeford said the increase may be so small it will probably not be observable.


For people beyond the most directly affected areas of Fukushima, Wakeford said the projected cancer risk from the radiation dropped dramatically. "The risks to everyone else were just infinitesimal."


David Brenner of Columbia University in New York, an expert on radiation-induced cancers, said that although the risk to individuals is tiny outside the most contaminated areas, some cancers might still result, at least in theory. But they'd be too rare to be detectable in overall cancer rates, he said.


Brenner said the numerical risk estimates in the WHO report were not surprising. He also said they should be considered imprecise because of the difficulty in determining risk from low doses of radiation. He was not connected with the WHO report.


Some experts said it was surprising that any increase in cancer was even predicted.


"On the basis of the radiation doses people have received, there is no reason to think there would be an increase in cancer in the next 50 years," said Wade Allison, an emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, who also had no role in developing the new report. "The very small increase in cancers means that it's even less than the risk of crossing the road," he said.


WHO acknowledged in its report that it relied on some assumptions that may have resulted in an overestimate of the radiation dose in the general population.


Gerry Thomas, a professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College London, accused the United Nations health agency of hyping the cancer risk.


"It's understandable that WHO wants to err on the side of caution, but telling the Japanese about a barely significant personal risk may not be helpful," she said.


Thomas said the WHO report used inflated estimates of radiation doses and didn't properly take into account Japan's quick evacuation of people from Fukushima.


"This will fuel fears in Japan that could be more dangerous than the physical effects of radiation," she said, noting that people living under stress have higher rates of heart problems, suicide and mental illness.


In Japan, Norio Kanno, the chief of Iitate village, in one of the regions hardest hit by the disaster, harshly criticized the WHO report on Japanese public television channel NHK, describing it as "totally hypothetical."


Many people who remain in Fukushima still fear long-term health risks from the radiation, and some refuse to let their children play outside or eat locally grown food.


Some restrictions have been lifted on a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the nuclear plant. But large sections of land in the area remain off-limits. Many residents aren't expected to be able to return to their homes for years.


Kanno accused the report's authors of exaggerating the cancer risk and stoking fear among residents.


"I'm enraged," he said.


___


Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.


__


Online:


WHO report: http://bit.ly/YDCXcb


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Man's Body Recovery Effort Ends; Sinkhole 'Unstable'

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Authorities have discontinued the rescue effort for a Florida man who was swallowed by a sinkhole when his home's foundation collapsed and said it is unlikely his body will ever be recovered.


"We feel we have done everything we can," Hillsborough County administrator Mike Merrell said at a news conference this afternoon. "At this point, it's not possible to recover the body."


Merell said officials would bring in heavy equipment to begin demolishing the home on Sunday.


"We're dealing with a very unusual sinkhole," he said. "It's very deep. It's very wide. It's very unstable."


Jeff Bush was in his bedroom when a sinkhole opened up and trapped him underneath his home at 11 p.m. Thursday.


Two homes next door to Bush's residence were evacuated today after authorities said they had been compromised by the growing sinkhole.


With the assistance of rescuers, the homeowners will be allowed to enter their home for only 30 minutes to gather valuables, authorities said.


Rescuers returned to the site in Seffner, Fla., early this morning to conduct further testing, but decided it was too dangerous for the family initially affected by the sinkhole to enter their home, which was declared condemned.








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While the sinkhole was initially estimated to be 15 feet deep on Thursday night, the chasm has continued to grow. Officials now estimate it measures 30 feet across and is up to 100 feet deep.


The Hillsborough County Fire Rescue has set up a relief fund for all families affected by the growing sink hole.


MORE: How Sinkholes Can Develop


Rescue operations were halted Friday night after it became too dangerous to approach the home.


Bill Bracken, an engineer with Hillsborough County Urban Search and Rescue team said the house "should have collapsed by now, so it's amazing that it hasn't."


RELATED: Florida Man Swallowed by Sinkhole: Conditions Too Unstable to Approach


Using ground penetrating radar, rescuers have found a large amount of water beneath the house, making conditions even more dangerous for them to continue the search for Bush.


Hillsborough County lies in what is known as Florida's "Sinkhole Alley." More than 500 sinkholes have been reported in the area since 1954, according to the state's environmental agency.


Meanwhile, Bush's brother, Jeremy Bush, is still reeling from Thursday night.


Jeremy Bush had to be rescued by a first responder after jumping into the hole in an attempt to rescue his brother when the home's concrete floor collapsed, but said he couldn't find him.


"I just started digging and started digging and started digging, and the cops showed up and pulled me out of the hole and told me the floor's still falling in," he said.


"These are everyday working people, they're good people," said Deputy Douglas Duvall of the Hillsborough County sheriff's office. "And this was so unexpected, and they're still, you know, probably facing the reality that this is happening."



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Bangladesh deploys troops as protest toll mounts

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DHAKA: Bangladesh deployed troops in the north of the country on Sunday as six more people were killed in fresh clashes over the conviction of Islamist leaders for war crimes in the Muslim-majority nation.

The army was deployed in violence-wracked Shahjahanpur town after more than 5,000 stick-wielding protesters attacked two police stations, forcing police to open fire, they said.

"At least four people were killed in clashes after Jamaat-e-Islami supporters attacked us. The toll could rise," Shahjahanpur district's deputy police chief Moqbul Ahmed told AFP, adding that troops had been deployed to boost security.

Two other people were also killed on Saturday night, including a ruling party student activist who was allegedly hacked to death by suspected Jamaat supporters, police said.

An inter-city train was torched late Saturday in the northwest but there were no casualties, police said.

The death toll in the clashes over the war crimes verdicts has risen to 62 since January 21, including 46 killed in the past four days after Jamaat's vice president was sentenced to death, police said.

Delwar Hossain Sayedee was on Thursday found guilty of murder, religious persecution and rape during the 1971 independence war, triggering violent clashes between rampaging Jamaat supporters and police across the country.

The 73-year-old firebrand preacher was the third person to be convicted by the war crimes tribunal, whose verdicts have been met with outrage from Islamists.

Jamaat says the process is more about settling scores than delivering justice. The party has enforced a nationwide strike on Sunday to protest the verdict and killing of its activists in police "brutalities".

The war crimes trials of a dozen Jamaat and main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leaders have opened old wounds and divided the nation, with the opposition parties accusing the government of staging a witch-hunt.

The government, which says the war claimed three million lives, rejects the claims and accuses Jamaat leaders of being part of pro-Pakistani militias blamed for much of the carnage during the 1971 independence war.

Independent estimates put the death toll from the war in which Bangladesh won its independence from Pakistan at a much lower figure of 300,000 to 500,000.

- AFP/ir



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Dantewada Maoist attack case: CRPF to appeal against acquittal

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NEW DELHI: The CRPF has decided to contest the acquittal of 10 arrested accused in the 2010 Tadmetla Maoist attack case in which 76 security personnel were killed in Chhattisgarh'sDantewada district.

Three years after the central paramilitary lost 75 of its men, the force has written to the Chhattisgarh government with a request to appeal against the January 7 verdict of a local court. A Chhattisgarh policeman was also killed in the attack.

"We have written to the state government. We certainly want the verdict to be challenged and see that the perpetrators are brought to justice," CRPF chief Pranay Sahay told PTI here.

Senior officials in Raipur said the CRPF has also approached local police, probing the case, and offered them help in gathering evidence and bringing on record witnesses for the incident that occurred in the wee hours of April 6.

Ten accused were recently acquitted by the court of additional district judge Anita Dahariya at Dantewada citing lack of evidence against these people.

The CRPF, the mainstay for anti-Naxal operations in the country with more than 80,000 personnel deployed for the task, suffered a huge setback in the deadly Maoist ambush.

The court acquitted the suspects, arrested from nearby areas of Chintalnar in Dantewada within a month of the Naxal attack, as there was no evidence against them.

The force has decided to fight the case and help police in preparing a better and water-tight case, a senior official in Raipur said.

During the case hearing, 43 witnesses of the Chhattisgarh government turned hostile and no witness was presented by the defence side.

Some CRPF jawans, who had sustained bullet injuries in the ambush, were not of much help to the prosecution as they could not re-count much about the incident.

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WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident

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LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.


In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk.


"The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report. "It's more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima."


The report was issued by the World Health Organization, which asked scientists to study the health effects of the disaster in Fukushima, a rural farming region.


On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima plant's power and cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors and spewing radiation into the surrounding air, soil and water. The most exposed populations were directly under the plumes of radiation in the most affected communities in Fukushima, which is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo.


In the report, the highest increases in risk are for people exposed as babies to radiation in the most heavily affected areas. Normally in Japan, the lifetime risk of developing cancer of an organ is about 41 percent for men and 29 percent for women. The new report said that for infants in the most heavily exposed areas, the radiation from Fukushima would add about 1 percentage point to those numbers.


Experts had been particularly worried about a spike in thyroid cancer, since radioactive iodine released in nuclear accidents is absorbed by the thyroid, especially in children. After the Chernobyl disaster, about 6,000 children exposed to radiation later developed thyroid cancer because many drank contaminated milk after the accident.


In Japan, dairy radiation levels were closely monitored, but children are not big milk drinkers there.


The WHO report estimated that women exposed as infants to the most radiation after the Fukushima accident would have a 70 percent higher chance of getting thyroid cancer in their lifetimes. But thyroid cancer is extremely rare and one of the most treatable cancers when caught early. A woman's normal lifetime risk of developing it is about 0.75 percent. That number would rise by 0.5 under the calculated increase for women who got the highest radiation doses as infants.


Wakeford said the increase may be so small it will probably not be observable.


For people beyond the most directly affected areas of Fukushima, Wakeford said the projected cancer risk from the radiation dropped dramatically. "The risks to everyone else were just infinitesimal."


David Brenner of Columbia University in New York, an expert on radiation-induced cancers, said that although the risk to individuals is tiny outside the most contaminated areas, some cancers might still result, at least in theory. But they'd be too rare to be detectable in overall cancer rates, he said.


Brenner said the numerical risk estimates in the WHO report were not surprising. He also said they should be considered imprecise because of the difficulty in determining risk from low doses of radiation. He was not connected with the WHO report.


Some experts said it was surprising that any increase in cancer was even predicted.


"On the basis of the radiation doses people have received, there is no reason to think there would be an increase in cancer in the next 50 years," said Wade Allison, an emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, who also had no role in developing the new report. "The very small increase in cancers means that it's even less than the risk of crossing the road," he said.


WHO acknowledged in its report that it relied on some assumptions that may have resulted in an overestimate of the radiation dose in the general population.


Gerry Thomas, a professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College London, accused the United Nations health agency of hyping the cancer risk.


"It's understandable that WHO wants to err on the side of caution, but telling the Japanese about a barely significant personal risk may not be helpful," she said.


Thomas said the WHO report used inflated estimates of radiation doses and didn't properly take into account Japan's quick evacuation of people from Fukushima.


"This will fuel fears in Japan that could be more dangerous than the physical effects of radiation," she said, noting that people living under stress have higher rates of heart problems, suicide and mental illness.


In Japan, Norio Kanno, the chief of Iitate village, in one of the regions hardest hit by the disaster, harshly criticized the WHO report on Japanese public television channel NHK, describing it as "totally hypothetical."


Many people who remain in Fukushima still fear long-term health risks from the radiation, and some refuse to let their children play outside or eat locally grown food.


Some restrictions have been lifted on a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the nuclear plant. But large sections of land in the area remain off-limits. Many residents aren't expected to be able to return to their homes for years.


Kanno accused the report's authors of exaggerating the cancer risk and stoking fear among residents.


"I'm enraged," he said.


___


Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.


__


Online:


WHO report: http://bit.ly/YDCXcb


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Obama Signs Order to Begin Sequester Cuts

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President Obama and congressional leaders today failed to reach a breakthrough to avert a sweeping package of automatic spending cuts, setting into motion $85 billion of across-the-board belt-tightening that neither had wanted to see.


President Obama officially initiated the cuts with an order to agencies Friday evening.


He had met for just over an hour at the White House Friday morning with Republican leaders House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Democratic allies, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Vice President Joe Biden.


But the parties emerged from their first face-to-face meeting of the year resigned to see the cuts take hold at midnight.


"This is not a win for anybody," Obama lamented in a statement to reporters after the meeting. "This is a loss for the American people."


READ MORE: 6 Questions (and Answers) About the Sequester


Officials have said the spending reductions immediately take effect Saturday but that the pain from reduced government services and furloughs of tens of thousands of federal employees would be felt gradually in the weeks ahead.








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Federal agencies, including Homeland Security, the Pentagon, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education, have all prepared to notify employees that they will have to take one unpaid day off per week through the end of the year.


The staffing trims could slow many government services, including airport screenings, air traffic control, and law enforcement investigations and prosecutions. Spending on education programs and health services for low-income families will also get clipped.


"It is absolutely true that this is not going to precipitate the crisis" that would have been caused by the so-called fiscal cliff, Obama said. "But people are going to be hurt. The economy will not grow as quickly as it would have. Unemployment will not go down as quickly as it would have. And there are lives behind that. And it's real."


The sticking point in the debate over the automatic cuts -- known as sequester -- has remained the same between the parties for more than a year since the cuts were first proposed: whether to include more new tax revenue in a broad deficit reduction plan.


The White House insists there must be higher tax revenue, through elimination of tax loopholes and deductions that benefit wealthier Americans and corporations. Republicans seek an approach of spending cuts only, with an emphasis on entitlement programs. It's a deep divide that both sides have proven unable to bridge.


"This discussion about revenue, in my view, is over," Boehner told reporters after the meeting. "It's about taking on the spending problem here in Washington."


Boehner: No New Taxes to Avert Sequester


Boehner says any elimination of tax loopholes or deductions should be part of a broader tax code overhaul aimed at lowering rates overall, not to offset spending cuts in the sequester.


Obama countered today that he's willing to "take on the problem where it exists, on entitlements, and do some things that my own party doesn't like."


But he says Republicans must be willing to eliminate some tax loopholes as part of a deal.


"They refuse to budge on closing a single wasteful loophole to help reduce the deficit," Obama said. "We can and must replace these cuts with a more balanced approach that asks something from everybody."


Can anything more be done by either side to reach a middle ground?


The president today claimed he's done all he can. "I am not a dictator, I'm the president," Obama said.






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Assad forces take Aleppo village, reopening supply line

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BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces seized a village southeast of the city of Aleppo on Friday, reopening a supply line to the country's biggest city where they have been battling rebels for eight months, a monitoring group said.


The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the capture of Tel Shghaib marked the last step to creating a land supply route north into Aleppo from Hama province, crucial for Assad's forces who have lost control of part of the main north-south highway.


Rebels say they hold most of the city itself and nearly all the rural hinterland. But they have been unable to achieve a decisive victory and complain that they are outgunned and vulnerable to Assad's air force, artillery and ballistic missiles, which killed dozens of people in Aleppo last week.


The United States pledged direct but non-lethal aid to the rebels at a meeting in Rome on Thursday, disappointing Assad's opponents who had hoped for more tangible military support to tip the balance of forces on the ground.


Activists reported another day of fierce fighting around Aleppo, including the military airport at Nairab, three miles north of Tel Shghaib which Assad's forces retook.


"It's a significant gain for the regime," the British-based Observatory's director Rami Abdelrahman said of the army's push north, which reversed many rebel advances when they moved south into Hama from Aleppo province at the end of last year.


Further east, on the Iraqi frontier, government troops also managed to wrest back control of the Yarubiyah border crossing after insurgents seized it 24 hours earlier, he said.


SYRIA COULD FALL APART


The revolt against Assad, which erupted in March 2011 with mainly peaceful protests, has escalated into civil war between mainly Sunni Muslim forces and troops and militias loyal to Assad, from the minority Alawite community whose faith derives from Shi'ite Islam.


The United Nations says 70,000 people have been killed, nearly a million have fled the country and millions more have been displaced or need aid.


U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday that Syria, a major Arab state on the fault lines of broader Middle East conflict, would fall apart if the government and rebels keep fighting instead of seeking a negotiated peace.


"This is a very small window of opportunity which we strongly support and encourage them to use that. The opportunity may close soon," Ban said in Geneva.


The government and opposition have both edged away in recent weeks from their previous rejection of dialogue. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said on Monday the government would even talk to armed rebels and opposition coalition leader Moaz Alkhatib has said he is ready to meet Assad's representatives.


But Syrian officials say any serious talks must be on Syrian soil under state control, and have shown no readiness to discuss Assad's departure - the central demand of the opposition. For rebel fighters, who do not answer to exiled civilian opposition leaders, Assad's exit is a precondition for any negotiations.


"I continue to urge the Syrian parties to find their way to the negotiating table. The horrors of the last months and years prove beyond doubt: the military solution in Syria is leading to the dissolution of Syria," Ban said.


He also called on the U.N. Security Council, paralyzed by a standoff between the United States and European allies on one side, pushing for U.N. action against Assad, and Russia and China, who have backed Assad, to unite and address the crisis.


Moscow criticized Thursday's meeting in Rome of largely anti-Assad Western and Arab states for taking positions and steps which "directly encourage extremists" to topple the government by force.


But the Kremlin also said presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama had told their foreign ministers to keep in close touch and seek new initiatives to end Syria's civil war.


U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday Washington would provide non-lethal aid including medical supplies and food to rebel fighters, as well as $60 million to help the civilian opposition provide services including security, education and sanitation.


The European Union said it had amended sanctions on Syria to allow the supply of armored vehicles, non-lethal military equipment and technical aid.


The steps still fell well short of what rebels are looking for - more arms, and prompted the opposition to postpone a Saturday meeting where they had been due to choose a prime minister to head the administration of rebel-held territory.


Alkhatib said he was tired of hearing Western concerns over the growing role of Islamists in the Syrian rebel ranks - one of the main obstacles to greater military support, saying it paled into insignificance alongside the prolonged civilian suffering.


"Many sides...focus (more) on the length of the rebel fighter's beard than they do on the blood of the children being killed," he said, standing next to Kerry after their meeting.


(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Alissa de Carbonnel in Moscow; Editing by Mark Heinrich)



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Thai tourist industry 'driving' elephant smuggling

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BANGKOK: Smuggling the world's largest land animal across an international border sounds like a mammoth undertaking, but activists say that does not stop traffickers supplying Asian elephants to Thai tourist attractions.

Unlike their heavily-poached African cousins -- whose plight is set to dominate Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) talks in Bangkok next week -- Asian elephants do not often make the headlines.

But the species is also under threat, as networks operate a rapacious trade in wild elephants to meet the demands of Thailand's tourist industry.

Camps and zoos featuring elephants tightrope walking, playing football or performing in painting contests employ almost 4,000 domesticated elephants for the amusement of tourists.

Conservation activists accuse the industry of using illicitly-acquired animals to supplement its legal supply, with wild elephants caught in Myanmar and sold across the border into one of around 150 camps.

"Even the so-called rescue charities are trying to buy elephants," said John Roberts of the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation.

Domestic elephants in Thailand -- where the pachyderm is a national symbol -- have been employed en masse in the tourist trade since they found themselves unemployed in 1989 when logging was banned.

Just 2,000 of the animals remain in the wild.

Prices have exploded with elephants now commanding between 500,000 and two million baht ($17,000 to $67,000) per baby, estimates suggest.

The number of baby elephants "coming into the system" is far higher than would be possible "from actual breeding", said Roberts, whose group decided to stop buying elephants seven years ago and now has 26 residents.

"I cannot see a way to buy an elephant which doesn't cause another elephant to be smuggled," he added.

Between 50 and 100 wild baby or young female elephants are sold from Myanmar each year, according to estimates by British charity Elephant Family.

The group's head of conservation, Dan Bucknell, told AFP that while some trafficked elephants may be taken elsewhere, the majority enter the Thai market.

"Thailand is certainly a hub," he said.

Smuggling such a large mammal should in theory require elaborate planning to avoid the police but in reality traffickers just "do it over a normal road", said wildlife trade researcher Vincent Nijman of Oxford Brookes university.

"Elephants can be in a truck or even walk" across the Thai border in front of complicit customs officers and border guards, he said.

Demand is not only threatening the 4,000 to 5,000 wild elephants in Myanmar, but is also hitting populations in Thailand's other neighbour Laos.

Young domestic elephants are exported across the border, furthering the decline of a population of around 480 animals, said Gilles Maurer of the group ElephantAsia.

Laos, known as the "land of a million elephants", only has between 300 and 500 wild pachyderms left and Maurer said that as the domestic population shrinks, "there is a strong risk" that poachers will turn to them.

Last year Thai authorities conducted several raids on elephant camps and seized some 25 animals -- 19 remain under their protection.

"It is likely the 19 seized elephants were smuggled wild animals as their paperwork did not match up," said forest ranger Pradung Jitraon, of Thailand's National Parks department, who participated in the operation.

Activists have welcomed the initiative but are also calling for broader reforms. "The system now is so weak," said Petch Manopawitr of the World Wildlife Fund in Thailand.

Thailand needs "more control, more transparent monitoring of the population, of what they do in terms of new born elephants", he said, calling for a proper database of elephants, using DNA testing or microchips.

Such a system, he added, would allow foreigners to visit elephant camps safe in the knowledge they are not "harming or threatening the wild population".

- AFP/ck



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Lawyer accuses Pak of 'blocking' book on Sarabjit

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MUMBAI: Pakistani lawyer-activist Awais Sheikh has accused the authorities of stalling the release of his book on Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh.

Sheikh wrote an email to say, "At 3pm on Friday my guests and I arrived at Lahore Press Club for the launch ceremony and were shocked to see the doors locked. The administration informed us that they were unable to allow the function owing to a security threat."

Invitees including Hamid Khan, former president of Pakistan's Supreme Court Bar Association and I A Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, and other guests were reportedly displeased with the authorities for "blocking" the function.

Sheikh alleged that those who "feared that the facts of Sarabjit Singh's matter would be revealed through the book were responsible for this unlawful and unfair act".

He claimed his writings would make the people of Pakistan "aware of the gross injustice done to Sarabjit".

He also claimed that an anonymous letter addressed to his wife was delivered at his residence Friday morning by an "unknown person". The writer allegedly threatened to harm his family if he went ahead with the press conference on Sarabjit. Sheikh is yet to approach the police in this matter.

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Arias Recounts Each Moment of Stabbing, Slashing

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Accused murderer Jodi Arias was forced to recount today each detail of how she killed her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, including re-enacting how he allegedly tackled her when she shot him, leaving her crying in her hands on the witness stand.


During hours of dramatic cross-examination by prosecutor Juan Martinez, Arias bawled as he asked her about stabbing, slashing and shooting Alexander on June 4, 2008.


"You would acknowledge that Mr. Alexander was stabbed, and that the stabbing was with the knife, and it was after the shooting according to you, right?" Martinez said in rapid succession.


"Yes, I don't remember," Arias said, covering her face with her hands.


"Do you acknowledge the stab wounds, and we can count them together, were to the back of the head and the torso?" Martinez said, flashing a photo of Alexander's bloodied body onto the courtroom projector. " Do you want to take a look at the photo?"


Arias, burying her face in her hands and shutting her eyes on the stand, mumbled, "No."


Alexander's sisters, seated in the front row of the gallery, also looked away, crying.


Arias, 32, is accused of killing Alexander on June 4, 2008 out of jealousy. He was stabbed 27 times, his throat was slashed and he was shot in the head twice.


Arias claims she killed in self-defense after Alexander had become increasingly violent with her. She could face the death penalty if convicted.


Martinez also forced Arias to demonstrate in court today how she claims Alexander lunged at her "like a linebacker," causing her to fire the gun at him. The pair argued over how exactly Alexander was positioned, and Martinez pushed her to explain what she meant.


"He lunges at me like a linebacker," Arias said.


"Like a linebacker, what does that mean?" Martinez asked.








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"He was low. It was almost like he dove," she said, and trying to explain it further, added, "He was like a linebacker is the only way I can describe it unless I get up to act it out which I'd rather not do."


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Timeline of the Jodi Arias Trial


"Go ahead and do it," Martinez said. "Just stand. Go ahead."


Judge Sherry Stephens initially cleared the court as Arias demonstrated and then Martinez had her do it again after the jury and spectators were allowed back into the courtroom.


Standing and moving away from the witness box, Arias bent at the waist and spread out her arms and meekly made a slight lunging motion.


According to her testimony, Arias fired the gun as Alexander rushed at her, tackling her to the ground. She said she does not remember how she stabbed or slashed him.


It was a day of dramatics and anger as the prosecution pressed Arias on the details of the killing, with Martinez ending the afternoon of questioning by accusing Arias of lying throughout her direct testimony.


At one point Arias dissolved into tears, unable to answer pointed questions when shown a photo of Alexander's body lying crumpled in the bottom of the stall shower.


After a short pause, Martinez asked dryly, "Were you crying when you were shooting him?"


"I don't remember," Arias moaned.


"Were you crying when you stabbed him?" he said. "How about when you slashed his throat?"


"I don't remember, I don't know."


Martinez pressed on, "You're the one that did this right? And lied about all this right?"


"Yes."


"So then take a look at it," he barked.


Arias did not answer Martinez's question, crying into her hands instead. The judge, after a moment, called for the lunch recess to take a break from the testimony. Arias' attorney walked over and consoled her, telling her to "take a moment."


Until that moment, Arias had given vague answers to Martinez as he asked about the hours leading up to the murder. Arias, 32, has testified that she drove to Alexander's house on June 4, 2008, for a sexual liaison, that she had sex with Alexander and the pair took nude photos before an explosive confrontation ended with her killing him. She claims she doesn't remember stabbing Alexander, but insists it was in self-defense.


Martinez questioned her claims, asking exactly what they argued about and who encouraged whom to take the nude photos. He pointed out that Arias told Detective Esteban Flores of the Mesa police department that she had to convince Alexander to take the nude photos in the shower, but that she testified on the stand that Alexander had wanted them.






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Shark fin-hungry China drives "chaotic" fishing in Indonesia

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BENOA, Indonesia: Dozens of weary Indonesian fishermen sail into a busy port on the resort island of Bali celebrating their lucrative and controversial haul that is destined to end up at Chinese banquets.

The fishermen show off about 100 shark fins, already sliced off the carcasses, that are ready to be sold to middle-men and then most likely onwards to mainland China or cities around the world with big Chinese populations.

"We don't only look for sharks -- we mainly catch tuna and marlin -- but finding sharks is a good bonus. Their fins are worth a lot and the meat is easy to sell locally," said 33-year-old Warsito, who goes by one name.

Fishermen around Bali sell shark fins fresh off the boat for between US$15 and US$50, helping to satiate an ancient but fast-growing Chinese appetite for soup in which it is the main ingredient.

Shark fin soup was once a delicacy for China's elite, but shark populations have been decimated around the world as the country's 1.3 billion people have grown wealthier and incorporated it into their festivities.

While the Chinese government has banned shark fin soup from state banquets, and some five-star restaurants in Hong Kong and Singapore have dropped it from their menus, a burgeoning middle class in China continues to stoke demand.

Humans kill about 100 million sharks each year, mostly for their fins, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and conservationists are warning that dozens of species are under threat.

Ninety percent of the world's sharks have disappeared over the past 100 years, mostly because of overfishing in countries such as Indonesia, the FAO said.

Conservationists also point out that "finning" -- slicing the valuable fins from live sharks -- is simply inhumane, as the rest of the animal is typically dumped back into the ocean where it bleeds slowly to death.

How to save the shark will be a top concern at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) that begins in Bangkok, Thailand, on Sunday.

World authorities will look at restricting trade of certain shark species.

Restrictions would apply to manta rays and five shark species -- the porbeagle, scalloped hammerhead, great hammerhead, smooth hammerhead and oceanic whitetip -- and must be approved by two-thirds of member states.

However, experts say laws to restrict trade will mean little unless there are total bans on fishing, with greater efforts needed to control unregulated fisheries.

Indonesia is particularly important because it is the world's biggest fisher and exporter of sharks, with thousands of small-time fishermen such as those in Bali able to operate with impunity.

Management of the Indonesian industry has been "total chaos", Conservation International Indonesia marine programme director Tiene Gunawan said, with no national restrictions on the trade.

In 2010, the Indonesian government designed a national plan of action to better manage the shark fishing industry, but it has so far issued no regulations.

Rampant shark fishing has already affected ecosystems in Indonesian waters, Gunawan said, including the world-famous diving spot Raja Amapat in the region of Papua.

However recent efforts by the provincial authorities there -- emanating from a recognition that there is greater economic benefit in maintaining shark populations -- could be a model for the future.

After authorities in Raja Ampat noticed a surge in boats carrying hundreds of shark fins but no carcasses, the local government banned shark fishing in 2010.

Last week the ban was made into law, creating the country's only shark and manta ray sanctuary. It is also the first in the Coral Triangle, a massive region in Southeast Asia known as the "Amazon of the ocean".

"What they realised, and our studies support this, is that the value of a dead shark is much lower than if we keep it alive for tourism," Gunawan said.

-AFP/fl



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630 cases of child sexual abuse reported in Mizoram during 2003 to 2009

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NEW DELHI: There is an alarming increase in the number of child abuse as well as juvenile delinquency in Mizoram, with as many a 630 cases of child sexual abuse reported during 2003 and 2009. Yet, there seem to be no urgency or sincerity on the part of the state government to implement the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2000.

Children are not safe anywhere in the state as most cases of child sexual abuse were committed by relatives, friends and teachers of the victims. Sexual abuse of children remains high. A study commissioned by the Social Welfare Department of Mizoram government and released in October 2012 recorded 630 cases of child sexual abuse during the period of 2003 to 2009.

Juvenile delinquency remains equally high. During the last decade from 2002 to 2011, the National Crime Records Bureau under the Ministry of Home Affairs recorded a total of 1,699 cases of "juvenile delinquency" in Mizoram. These include 1,258 cases registered under the Indian Penal Code and 441 cases under the Special and Local Laws.

Despite the situation, the state government went slow on implementing JJ Act. In fact while the JJ Act was enacted in 2000, the statutory support services namely the Juvenile Justice Boards and the Child Welfare Committees in Mizoram have been set up in all the eight districts only during 2010-11.

"Mizoram has failed miserably in providing institutional care. The lack of separate Special Home and the poor facilities in the existing Observation Home-cum-Special Homes at Aizawl and Lunglei, overcrowding, lack of segregation of the juveniles on the basis of the nature of their crimes severely undermine the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act," said Suhas Chakma, director of Asian Centre for Human Rights.

According to an ACHR report, the Observation Home-cum-Special Home at Lunglei is overcrowded and facilities are poor. The Home has a capacity to house only 10 inmates (boys only). The Officer-in-Charge took the initiative of adding four extra beds for the inmates as sometimes number of inmate increases beyond the capacity. However, many a times the inmates exceeded 14 and in such situations the inmates had to sleep on the floor.

Also the Mizoram government has failed to utilise the grants under Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) provided by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. On July 6, 2012, Mizoram informed the Project Approval Board under ICPS that Rs 75.25 lakhs was lying unspent from the grants of 2011-12. Further, the state government informed that it had received construction grant for two Government Homes in 2011 but this grant has remained unutilised.

According to ACHR report, there are 28 recognised Children Homes in Mizoram and almost all of them are either privately owned or run by faith based organisations. As majority of the Children Homes are run through charity and children are admitted without the consent of the Child Welfare Committees, the lack of supervision by the state government is responsible for poor conditions of the Children Homes.

The First Step Children Home, Aizawl is inhospitable for small children and the Home's authorities have decided to close it down but the state government is yet to take a decision about it. Children are subjected to abuse and torture in many of the Homes. On July 13, 2009, a 13-year-old child was beaten to death by the officials at the Herald for Christ's Children Home, a government recognised Children Home at Lungleng, about 15 kms north of Aizawl.

"The NHRC has awarded compensation of Rs 3,00,000 to the mother based on the complaint filed by ACHR. But the particular murder shows the violence against children who require the outmost care," said Chakma.

ACHR recommended to the Mizoram government to establish the new Special and Observation Homes sanctioned by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in the districts not having such homes; separate the Observation Homes and Special Homes at Aizawl and Lunglei; ensure judicial utilisation of funds within the financial year; implement the recommendations made by the PAB under ICPS to establish more Observation Homes, Special Homes, Children Homes, and Shelter Homes and improve facilities at the Homes; ensure segregation of juveniles and children as per age and nature of offences; provide educational and vocational training facilities both within and outside the Homes and tie up with vocational training institutes; appoint adequate number of staff, including the Warden at the Observation Home-Cum-Special Home at Aizawl, and staff at three Shelter Homes at Aizawl, Mamit and Champhai; improve the functioning of the JJBs and CWCs through proper selection of the members and imparting adequate training; reduce the number of pendency cases both at JJBs and CWCs by increasing the number of sittings; and ensure regular inspections including surprise visits to all the juvenile justice and care institutions, whether run by government or private entities.

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Medicare paid $5.1B for poor nursing home care

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Medicare paid billions in taxpayer dollars to nursing homes nationwide that were not meeting basic requirements to look after their residents, government investigators have found.


The report, released Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general, said Medicare paid about $5.1 billion for patients to stay in skilled nursing facilities that failed to meet federal quality of care rules in 2009, in some cases resulting in dangerous and neglectful conditions.


One out of every three times patients wound up in nursing homes that year, they landed in facilities that failed to follow basic care requirements laid out by the federal agency that administers Medicare, investigators estimated.


By law, nursing homes need to write up care plans specially tailored for each resident, so doctors, nurses, therapists and all other caregivers are on the same page about how to help residents reach the highest possible levels of physical, mental and psychological well-being.


Not only are residents often going without the crucial help they need, but the government could be spending taxpayer money on facilities that could endanger people's health, the report concluded. The findings come as concerns about health care quality and cost are garnering heightened attention as the Obama administration implements the nation's sweeping health care overhaul.


"These findings raise concerns about what Medicare is paying for," the report said.


Investigators estimate that in one out of five stays, patients' health problems weren't addressed in the care plans, falling far short of government directives. For example, one home made no plans to monitor a patient's use of two anti-psychotic drugs and one depression medication, even though the drugs could have serious side effects.


In other cases, residents got therapy they didn't need, which the report said was in the nursing homes' financial interest because they would be reimbursed at a higher rate by Medicare.


In one example, a patient kept getting physical and occupational therapy even though the care plan said all the health goals had been met, the report said.


The Office of Inspector General's report was based on medical records from 190 patient visits to nursing homes in 42 states that lasted at least three weeks, which investigators said gave them a statistically valid sample of Medicare beneficiaries' experiences in skilled nursing facilities.


That sample represents about 1.1 million patient visits to nursing homes nationwide in 2009, the most recent year for which data was available, according to the review.


Overall, the review raises questions about whether the system is allowing homes to get paid for poor quality services that may be harming residents, investigators said, and recommended that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services tie payments to homes' abilities to meet basic care requirements. The report also recommended that the agency strengthen its regulations and ramp up its oversight. The review did not name individual homes, nor did it estimate the number of patients who had been mistreated, but instead looked at the overall number of stays in which problems arose.


In response, the agency agreed that it should consider tying Medicare reimbursements to homes' provision of good care. CMS also said in written comments that it is reviewing its own regulations to improve enforcement at the homes.


"Medicare has made significant changes to the way we pay providers thanks to the health care law, to reward better quality care," Medicare spokesman Brian Cook said in a statement to AP. "We are taking steps to make sure these facilities have the resources to improve the quality of their care, and make sure Medicare is paying for the quality of care that beneficiaries are entitled to."


CMS hires state-level agencies to survey the homes and make sure they are complying with federal law, and can require correction plans, deny payment or end a contract with a home if major deficiencies come to light. The agency also said it would follow up on potential enforcement at the homes featured in the report.


Greg Crist, a Washington-based spokeswoman for the American Health Care Association, which represents the largest share of skilled nursing facilities nationwide, said overall nursing home operators are well regulated and follow federal guidelines but added that he could not fully comment on the report's conclusions without having had the chance to read it.


"Our members begin every treatment with the individual's personal health needs at the forefront. This is a hands-on process, involving doctors and even family members in an effort to enhance the health outcome of the patient," Crist said.


Virginia Fichera, who has relatives in two nursing homes in New York, said she would welcome a greater push for accountability at skilled nursing facilities.


"Once you're in a nursing home, if things don't go right, you're really a prisoner," said Fichera, a retired professor in Sterling, NY. "As a concerned relative, you just want to know the care is good, and if there are problems, why they are happening and when they'll be fixed."


Once residents are ready to go back home or transfer to another facility, federal law also requires that the homes write special plans to make sure patients are safely discharged.


Investigators found the homes didn't always do what was needed to ensure a smooth transition.


In nearly one-third of cases, facilities also did not provide enough information when the patient moved to another setting, the report found.


___


On the Web:


http://1.usa.gov/VaztQm


___


Follow Garance Burke on Twitter at —http://twitter.com/garanceburke.


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Arias Prosecutor Too Combative, Experts Say

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He has barked, yelled, been sarcastic and demanded answers from accused murderer Jodi Arias this week.


And in doing so, prosecutor Juan Martinez and his aggressive antics may be turning off the jury he is hoping to convince that Arias killed her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in June 2008, experts told ABCNews.com today.


"Martinez is his own worst enemy," Mel McDonald, a prominent Phoenix defense attorney and former judge, told ABC News. "He takes it to the point where it's ad nauseam. You have difficulty recognizing when he's driving the point home because he's always angry and pushy and pacing around the courtroom. He loses the effectiveness, rather than build it up."


"He's like a rabid dog and believes you've got to go to everybody's throat," he said.


"If they convict her and give her death, they do it in spite of Juan, not because of him," McDonald added.


Martinez's needling style was on display again today as he pestered Arias to admit that she willingly participated in kinky sex with Alexander, though she previously testified that she only succumbed to his erotic fantasies to please him.


Arias, now 32, and Alexander, who was 27 at the time of his death, dated for a year and continued to sleep together for another year following their break-up.


Arias drove to his house in Mesa, Ariz., in June 2008, had sex with him, they took nude photos together and she killed him in his shower. She claims it was in self-defense. If convicted, Arias could face the death penalty.








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Jodi Arias Admits to Killing Man, Lying to Police Watch Video





Martinez also attempted to point out inconsistencies in her story of the killing, bickering with her over details about her journey from Yreka, Calif., to Mesa, Ariz., including why she borrowed gas cans from an ex-boyfriend, when she allegedly took naps and got lost while driving, and why she spontaneously decided to visit Alexander at his home in Mesa for a sexual liaison.


"I want to know what you're talking about," Arias said to Martinez at one point.


"No, I'm asking you," he yelled.


Later, he bellowed, "Am I asking you if you're telling the truth?"


"I don't know," Arias said, firing back at him. "Are you?"


During three days of cross examining Arias this week, Martinez has spent hours going back and forth with the defendant over word choice, her memory, and her answers to his questions.


"Everyone who takes witness stand for defense is an enemy," McDonald said. "He prides himself on being able to work by rarely referring to his notes, but what he's giving up in that is that there's so much time he wastes on stupid comments. A lot of what I've heard is utterly objectionable."


Martinez's behavior has spurred frequent objections of "witness badgering" from Arias' attorney Kirk Nurmi, who at one point Tuesday stood up in court and appealed to the judge to have a conference with all of the attorneys before questioning continued. Judge Sherry Stephens at one point admonished Martinez and Arias for speaking over one another.


Andy Hill, a former spokesperson for the Phoenix police department, and Steven Pitt, a forensic psychiatrist who has testified as an expert witness at many trials in the Phoenix area, both said that despite his aggressive style, Martinez would likely succeed in obtaining a guilty verdict.


"When it comes to cross examination, one size does not fit all," said Pitt. "But if you set aside the incessant sparring, what the prosecutor I believe is effectively doing is pointing out the various inconsistencies in the defendant's version of events."






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Iran upbeat on nuclear talks, West still wary

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ALMATY (Reuters) - Iran was upbeat on Wednesday after talks with world powers about its nuclear work ended with an agreement to meet again, but Western officials said it had yet to take concrete steps to ease their fears about its atomic ambitions.


Rapid progress was unlikely with Iran's presidential election, due in June, raising domestic political tensions, diplomats and analysts had said ahead of the February 26-27 meeting in the Kazakh city of Almaty, the first in eight months.


The United States, China, France, Russia, Britain and Germany offered modest sanctions relief in return for Iran curbing its most sensitive nuclear work but made clear that they expected no immediate breakthrough.


In an attempt to make their proposals more palatable to Iran, the six powers appeared to have softened previous demands somewhat, for example regarding their requirement that the Islamic state ship out its stockpile of higher-grade uranium.


Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said the powers had tried to "get closer to our viewpoint", which he said was positive.


In Paris, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry commented that the talks had been "useful" and that a serious engagement by Iran could lead to a comprehensive deal in a decade-old dispute that has threatened to trigger a new Middle East war.


Iran's foreign minister said in Vienna he was "very confident" an agreement could be reached and Jalili, the chief negotiator, said he believed the Almaty meeting could be a "turning point".


However, one diplomat said Iranian officials at the negotiations appeared to be suggesting that they were opening new avenues, but it was not clear if this was really the case.


Iran expert Dina Esfandiary of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said: "Everyone is saying Iran was more positive and portrayed the talks as a win."


"I reckon the reason for that is that they are saving face internally while buying time with the West until after the elections," she said.


The two sides agreed to hold expert-level talks in Istanbul on March 18 to discuss the powers' proposals, and return to Almaty for political discussions on April 5-6, when Western diplomats made clear they wanted to see a substantive response from Iran.


"Iran knows what it needs to do, the president has made clear his determination to implement his policy that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon," Kerry said.


A senior U.S. official in Almaty said, "What we care about at the end is concrete results."


ISRAELI WARNING


Israel, assumed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power, was watching the talks closely. It has strongly hinted it might attack Iran if diplomacy and sanctions fail to ensure that it cannot build a nuclear weapon. Iran denies any such aim.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said economic sanctions were failing and urged the international community to threaten Iran with military action.


Western officials said the offer presented by the six powers included an easing of a ban on trade in gold and other precious metals, and a relaxation of an import embargo on Iranian petrochemical products. They gave no further details.


In exchange, a senior U.S. official said, Iran would among other things have to suspend uranium enrichment to a fissile concentration of 20 percent at its Fordow underground facility and "constrain the ability to quickly resume operations there".


The official did not describe what was being asked of Iran as a "shutdown" of the plant as Western diplomats had said in previous meetings with Iran last year.


Iran says it has a sovereign right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, and wants to fuel nuclear power plants so that it can export more oil.


But 20-percent purity is far higher than that needed for nuclear power, and rings alarm bells abroad because it is only a short technical step away from weapons-grade uranium. Iran says it produces higher-grade uranium to fuel a research reactor.


Iran's growing stockpile of 20-percent-enriched uranium is already more than half-way to a "red line" that Israel has made clear it would consider sufficient for a bomb.


In Vienna on Wednesday, a senior U.N. nuclear agency official told diplomats in a closed-door briefing that Iran was technically ready to sharply increase this higher-grade enrichment, two Western diplomats said.


"Iran can triple 20 percent production in the blink of an eye," one of the diplomats said.


The U.S. official in Almaty said the powers' latest proposal would "significantly restrict the accumulation of near-20-percent enriched uranium in Iran, while enabling the Iranians to produce sufficient fuel" for their Tehran medical reactor.


This appeared to be a softening of a previous demand that Iran ship out its stockpile of higher-grade enriched uranium, which it says it needs to produce medical isotopes.


Iran has often indicated that 20-percent enrichment could be up for negotiation if it received the fuel from abroad instead.


Jalili suggested Iran could discuss the issue, although he appeared to rule out shutting down Fordow. He said the powers had not made that specific demand.


The Iranian rial, which has lost more than half its foreign exchange value in the last year as sanctions bite, rose some 2 percent on Wednesday, currency tracking websites reported.


(Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl and Yeganeh Torbati in Almaty, Georgina Prodhan in Vienna, Zahra Hosseinian in Zurich, Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow, Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Marcus George in Dubai; Writing by Timothy Heritage and Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Louise Ireland)



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Yvonne Lim: Making time for love

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SINGAPORE: Her eyes glistened with tears when Singapore actress Yvonne Lim spoke about her character Liu Xixi in the upcoming drama "Marry Me", during a recent media event.

In the show, Liu, a successful gynecologist, winds up getting dumped by her boyfriend of 20 years, after she spent too much time on her career and neglected their relationship.

Lim revealed that she became emotional as her character's painful experiences in "Marry Me" reminded her of own.

"I have all these experiences before."

"I spend so much of my time on my work that I end up spending very little time dealing with matters of the heart," said Lim, explaining that she once broke up with a guy over the same issue.

"I remember I was very emotional when I read the script."

"I know how this character feels, why she struggles with her feelings, and why she is in pain, but keeps it bottled up inside."

Lim expressed that Liu is a character many women can identify with, because what happens to her in the show is something that also occurs in real life.

"She is so dedicated to her work that she forgot about her love life and kind of took it for granted.

"I've seen that happen to my girl friends. I have seen that happen to other people. I've heard stories like that before."

"When things drag on for too long, it (the relationship) gets stagnant. That's when things happen," said Lim earnestly.

Still, Lim said she prefers to take her time to slowly get to know someone instead of rushing things, and said she believes in "letting nature take its course".

"You have to find the right partner who is willing to be with you.

"If it happens, it happens. If not, that's the way it is," said Lim with a smile.

"I don't think about it much, though there is still this part of me that hopes for a fairytale ending."

"Marry Me", which also stars Koh Ya Hui and Jesseca Liu, airs every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, 8pm on Channel U.

-CNA/ha



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Assembly polls: Ruling formations ahead in Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland

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AGARTALA: In a virtual status quo, the ruling formations were ahead and appeared to be romping back to power in the assembly elections in Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya where counting of votes was taken up on Thursday.

MEGHALAYA

PARTY LEADS WINS
CONGRESS 22 0
UDP 6 0
NCP 1 0
National People's Party 1 0
Hill state People's
Democratic party		 3
0
Others 8 0

NAGALAND

PARTY LEADS WINS
CONGRESS 7 0
Janata Dal(United) 1 0
NPF 20 1
NCP 3 0
Rashtriya Janata Dal 1 0
Others 2 0

TRIPURA
PARTY LEADS WINS
CONGRESS 7 0
CPM 45 1
CPI 0 0
Revolutionary Socialist Party 1 0
Others 1 0

The Left Front government is set to come back to power for the fifth consecutive term in Tripura with leader of the coalition CPM leading in 32 of the 60 seats while its ally CPI was ahead in one.

Congress was a poor second leading only in four seats and others in one in the trends available so far.

In Meghalaya, the ruling Congress-UDP coalition is ahead in 14 of the 60 seats. Congress was ahead in 9 and its alliance partner UDP in 5.

Nagaland also continued with the same trend of favouring the ruling combination.

The Naga Peoples Front (NPF) was ahead in 15 seats while the Congress was ahead in 4, JD(U) 1 and others 2 in the 60-member assembly.

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Advanced breast cancer edges up in younger women

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CHICAGO (AP) — Advanced breast cancer has increased slightly among young women, a 34-year analysis suggests. The disease is still uncommon among women younger than 40, and the small change has experts scratching their heads about possible reasons.


The results are potentially worrisome because young women's tumors tend to be more aggressive than older women's, and they're much less likely to get routine screening for the disease.


Still, that doesn't explain why there'd be an increase in advanced cases and the researchers and other experts say more work is needed to find answers.


It's likely that the increase has more than one cause, said Dr. Rebecca Johnson, the study's lead author and medical director of a teen and young adult cancer program at Seattle Children's Hospital.


"The change might be due to some sort of modifiable risk factor, like a lifestyle change" or exposure to some sort of cancer-linked substance, she said.


Johnson said the results translate to about 250 advanced cases diagnosed in women younger than 40 in the mid-1970s versus more than 800 in 2009. During those years, the number of women nationwide in that age range went from about 22 million to closer to 30 million — an increase that explains part of the study trend "but definitely not all of it," Johnson said.


Other experts said women delaying pregnancy might be a factor, partly because getting pregnant at an older age might cause an already growing tumor to spread more quickly in response to pregnancy hormones.


Obesity and having at least a drink or two daily have both been linked with breast cancer but research is inconclusive on other possible risk factors, including tobacco and chemicals in the environment. Whether any of these explains the slight increase in advanced disease in young women is unknown.


There was no increase in cancer at other stages in young women. There also was no increase in advanced disease among women older than 40.


Overall U.S. breast cancer rates have mostly fallen in more recent years, although there are signs they may have plateaued.


Some 17 years ago, Johnson was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer at age 27, and that influenced her career choice to focus on the disease in younger women.


"Young women and their doctors need to understand that it can happen in young women," and get checked if symptoms appear, said Johnson, now 44. "People shouldn't just watch and wait."


The authors reviewed a U.S. government database of cancer cases from 1976 to 2009. They found that among women aged 25 to 39, breast cancer that has spread to distant parts of the body — advanced disease — increased from between 1 and 2 cases per 100,000 women to about 3 cases per 100,000 during that time span.


The study was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.


About one in 8 women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, but only 1 in 173 will develop it by age 40. Risks increase with age and certain gene variations can raise the odds.


Routine screening with mammograms is recommended for older women but not those younger than 40.


Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the American Cancer Society's deputy chief medical officer, said the results support anecdotal reports but that there's no reason to start screening all younger women since breast cancer is still so uncommon for them.


He said the study "is solid and interesting and certainly does raise questions as to why this is being observed." One of the most likely reasons is probably related to changes in childbearing practices, he said, adding that the trend "is clearly something to be followed."


Dr. Ann Partridge, chair of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's advisory committee on breast cancer in young women, agreed but said it's also possible that doctors look harder for advanced disease in younger women than in older patients. More research is needed to make sure the phenomenon is real, said Partridge, director of a program for young women with breast cancer at the Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.


The study shouldn't cause alarm, she said. Still, Partridge said young women should be familiar with their breasts and see the doctor if they notice any lumps or other changes.


Software engineer Stephanie Carson discovered a large breast tumor that had already spread to her lungs; that diagnosis in 2003 was a huge shock.


"I was so clueless," she said. "I was just 29 and that was the last thing on my mind."


Carson, who lives near St. Louis, had a mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and other treatments and she frequently has to try new drugs to keep the cancer at bay.


Because most breast cancer is diagnosed in early stages, there's a misconception that women are treated, and then get on with their lives, Carson said. She and her husband had to abandon hopes of having children, and she's on medical leave from her job.


"It changed the complete course of my life," she said. "But it's still a good life."


____


Online:


JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org


CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/breast/index.htm


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Inside Organized Retail Crime Raids

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We used to call it shoplifting, but these days the foot soldiers of retail crime rings are known as boosters. Police even have an acronym for these operations: ORC, which stands for Organized Retail Crime.


"It's just like a Fortune 500 company," said Sergeant Eric Lee of the Gardena Police Department in Gardena, Calif. "All of this is just organized."


Watch the full story on "Nightline" TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET


Police say big retail stores, from Walgreens to J.C. Penny, are getting hit by highly sophisticated shoplifting networks that steal and resell everything from underwear to razors to milk. According to the National Retail Federation, theft can amount to annual losses as high as a $37 billion for retail businesses.


"Every store in every city has to go through this," Lee said. "They wait until no one's paying attention and they walk out."


Tide detergent is currently a hot target because it is compact, expensive and easy to sell on the streets for profit, police said. The Street name: "liquid gold."


"Sometimes we get rings that just do alcohol," Lee said. "And then we get some that do just meat and seafood."


Investigators say boosters move the loot for cents on the dollar to fencing operations -- the black market resellers of the stolen goods -- which sell the stolen merchandise in plain sight in stores. Boosters, fencers, Mr. Bigs, all of those involved in these shoplifting operations can potentially make millions a year from boosting and re-selling stolen goods.








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And Mike Swett is on the case. A former Riverside County sheriff's deputy in Los Angeles, Swett was badly injured in a car wreck and now works as a full-time private investigator on the ORC beat who has worked with Target, Marshalls, T.J. Maxx. Stores hire him to do his own undercover police work, catching thieves before involving local law enforcement.


"Kind of like working a narcotics case, it's like you've got low-level, mid-level and then top dog," Swett said. "We like to go after the top dog and the only way to get to the top dog is mid-level first."


At his command center -- his apartment -- Swett showed off the boxes upon boxes of tapes and photographs he has collected, the fruits of countless silent stake-out hours.


Swett said he has been casing two joints in L.A. for months, both alleged to be mid-level fencing operations. "Nightline" was invited to ride along with him when he sent undercover agents in for a final reconnaissance mission.


At some stores and shopping malls, clerks do little to stop shoplifters and often let them run, which has contributed to the growing fencing operations.


"[The stores] don't want their employees to get injured," Swett said. "So oftentimes they will call the police, but by the time we get there they are already in their car and they are gone."


This leaves professional investigators like Swett to put the pieces together and bust open the gangs to lead over-stretched police departments to the prey.


When raid day arrived, a motorcade of squad cars departed from the Gardena, Calif., police department and pulled up to one fencing operation. Swett said the merchandise being sold was boosted goods.


"There is Victoria's Secret, expensive Victoria's Secret, the gift sets," he said, pointing down a line of tables. "J.C. Penny, Miramax, its real stuff not counterfeit."


He spotted a bottle of Katy Perry brand perfume, which usually retails for around $90 but one seller had it priced at $59.






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Italy parties seek way out of election stalemate

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ROME (Reuters) - Italy's stunned political parties searched for a way forward on Tuesday after an inconclusive election gave none of them a parliamentary majority and threatened prolonged instability and a renewal of the European financial crisis.


The results, notably the dramatic surge of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comic Beppe Grillo, left the center-left bloc with a majority in the lower house but without the numbers to control the upper chamber, the Senate.


Financial markets fell sharply at the prospect of a stalemate that reawakened memories of the crisis that pushed Italy's borrowing costs toward unsustainably high levels and brought the euro zone to the brink of collapse in 2011.


"The winner is: Ingovernability," ran the headline in Rome newspaper Il Messaggero, reflecting the deadlock the country will have to confront in the next few weeks as sworn enemies are forced to work together to form a government.


Ratings agency Standard & Poor's said on Tuesday that policy choices of the next Italian government would be crucial for the country's creditworthiness, underlining the need for a coalition that can agree on new reforms.


Pier Luigi Bersani, head of the center-left Democratic Party (PD), has the difficult task of trying to agree a "grand coalition" with former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the man he blames for ruining Italy, or striking a deal with Grillo, a completely unknown quantity in conventional politics.


The alternative is new elections either immediately or within a few months, although both Berlusconi and Bersani have indicated that they want to avoid a return to the polls if possible: "Italy cannot be ungoverned and we have to reflect," Berlusconi said in an interview on his own television station.


For his part, Grillo, whose movement won the most votes of any single party, has indicated that he believes the next government will last no more than six months.


"They won't be able to govern," he told reporters on Tuesday. "Whether I'm there or not, they won't be able govern."


He said he would work with anyone who supported his policy proposals, which range from anti-corruption measures to green-tinted energy measures but rejected suggestions of entering a formal coalition: "It's not time to talk of alliances... the system has already fallen," he said.


The election, a massive rejection of the austerity policies applied by Prime Minister Mario Monti with the backing of international leaders from U.S. President Barack Obama to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, caused consternation across Europe.


German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble put a brave face on it, saying "that's democracy".


Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo was more pessimistic.


"This is a jump to nowhere that does not bode well either for Italy or Europe," he said.


A long recession and growing disillusionment with mainstream parties and tax-raising austerity fed a bitter public mood and contributed to the massive rejection of Monti, whose centrist coalition was relegated to the sidelines.


Projections by the Italian center for Electoral Studies showed that the center-left will have 121 seats in the Senate, against 117 for the center-right alliance of Berlusconi's PDL and the regionalist Northern League. Grillo would take 54.


That leaves no party with the majority in a chamber which a government must control to pass legislation.


"THE BELL IS RINGING"


On a visit to Germany, President Giorgio Napolitano said he would not comment until the parties had consulted with each other and Bersani called on Berlusconi and Grillo to "assume their responsibilities" to ensure Italy could have a government.


He warned that the election showed austerity policies alone were no answer to the economic crisis and said the result carried implications beyond Italy.


"The bell is ringing for Europe as well," he said in his first public comments since the election.


He said he would present a limited number of reform proposals to parliament, focusing on jobs, institutional reform and European policy.


However forming an alliance may be long and difficult and could test the sometimes fragile internal unity of the mainstream parties.


"The idea of a majority without Grillo is unthinkable. I don't know if anyone in the PD is considering it but I'm against it," said Matteo Orfini, a member of Bersani's PD secretariat.


"The idea of a PD-PDL government, even if it's backed by Monti, doesn't make any sense," he said.


For his part, Berlusconi won a boost when his Northern League ally Roberto Maroni won the election to become regional president of Lombardy, Italy's economic heartland and one of the richest and most productive areas of Europe.


For Italian business, with an illustrious history of export success, the election result brought dismay that there would be no quick change to what they see as a regulatory sclerosis that has kept the economy virtually stagnant for a decade.


"This is probably the worst possible scenario," said Francesco Divella, whose family began selling pasta under its eponymous brand in 1890 in the southern region of Puglia.


Berlusconi's campaign, mixing sweeping tax cut pledges with relentless attacks on Monti and Merkel, echoed many of the themes pushed by Grillo and underlined the increasingly angry mood of the Italian electorate.


But even if the next government turns away from the tax hikes and spending cuts brought in by Monti, it will struggle to revive an economy that has scarcely grown in two decades.


Monti was widely credited with tightening Italy's public finances and restoring its international credibility after the scandal-plagued Berlusconi, who is currently on trial for having sex with an under-age prostitute.


However, Monti struggled to pass the kind of structural reforms needed to improve competitiveness and lay the foundations for a return to economic growth. A weak center-left government may not find it any easier.


The view from some voters, weary of the mainstream parties, was unrepentant: "It's good," said Roger Manica, 28, a security guard in Rome, who voted for the center-left PD.


"Next time I'll vote 5-Star. I like that they are changing things, even if it means uncertainty. Uncertainty doesn't matter to me, for me what's important is a good person who gets things done," he said. "Look how well they've done."


(Additional reporting by Barry Moody, Gavin Jones, Lisa Jucca, Steven Jewkes, Steve Scherer, Catherine Hornby and Massimiliano Di Giorgio, Annika Breidthardt in Berlin. Writing by Philip Pullella and James Mackenzie; Editing by Peter Graff)



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Safety concerns cloud S. Korea nuclear drive

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GORI, South Korea: South Korea has big plans to become a major nuclear energy player, but they are unfolding at a time when the global industry is under intense scrutiny after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

And its ambitions have not been helped by a series of domestic scandals and forced reactor shutdowns in 2012 that rattled public confidence and exposed a glaring lack of regulatory transparency.

Around US$400 billion is riding on South Korea's ability to sell its technology to potential clients as it aims to take on the United States, France and Russia and grab a 20 percent share of the nuclear energy market.

With around half of the world's 430 reactors due for retirement by 2030, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the next 15 years or so offer the prospect of a sales bonanza.

Spearheading South Korea's global drive is its ARP-1400 reactor. It won a $20 billion deal in 2009 to build four of them in the United Arab Emirates and it aims to export another 80, worth around US$400 billion, by 2030.

It is also planning a domestic energy expansion that would see it build 16 new reactors by 2030. South Korea currently operates 23 nuclear power reactors which meet more than 35 percent of the country's electricity needs.

"Our reactors are safe," Lee Young-Il insisted as he guided a group around an ARP-1400 nearing completion at the Gori nuclear power complex.

"We also have an excellent record of operating the reactors with a comparatively low annual rate of forced outage," said Lee, who heads the complex where South Korea's first commercial reactor came on line in 1978.

But the Fukushima disaster in Japan forced a number of countries to rethink their energy strategy, as public concern placed an even greater emphasis than before on reactor safety.

A survey commissioned by the Economics Ministry and published in November showed only 35 percent of South Koreans considered nuclear power to be safe, sharply down from 71 percent in January 2010.

"You are never free from worry as long as your country depends heavily on nuclear energy," Yangyi Won-Young, head of Nuclear-Free Korea, a coalition of civic groups, told AFP.

"Our nuclear power plants are vulnerable to natural disasters because of lax safety regulations which have been applied to construction, operation and parts," Yangyi said.

In the wake of the earthquake and tsunami-triggered meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, the state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co (KHNP) launched a US$1.0 billion-dollar safety upgrade due to be completed by 2015.

The project involves building higher seawalls around the country's four nuclear power complexes, and equipping plants and reactors -- including the ARP-1400 -- with advanced watertight doors and ventilation systems, as well as new quake sensors.

But the upgrade coincided with a series of shutdowns and scandals in 2012 that triggered a warning from the International Energy Agency (IEA) in November about the need to rebuild public trust.

In May, five senior KHNP engineers were charged with trying to cover up a potentially dangerous power failure at the country's oldest Gori-1 reactor.

Later in the year, the government shut down two reactors at the Yeonggwang nuclear complex to replace components provided with fake quality certificates.

And a third reactor was taken offline at Yeonggwang when cracks were found on control rod tubes during maintenance work.

"Recent incidents at Korean nuclear facilities should serve as a timely reminder to the government that the nuclear regulatory authority must maintain an enhanced profile... and be able to take independent decisions," the IEA said in a report on South Korea's energy policies.

The South has been criticised in the past for a lack of transparency in the nuclear sector -- largely attributed to the regulatory bodies' mixed supervisory and promotional roles.

President Park Geun-Hye, who took office this week, looks set to further muddy the waters with her proposal for the nominally independent Nuclear Safety and Security Commission.

Park wants to affiliate the commission with a newly created super-ministry in charge of policies on science research, information communication technology and atomic energy development.

Scientists, environmentalists and a number of politicians -- including some from Park's ruling party -- say the move would undermine the watchdog's independence and weaken its safety management authority.

"The Republic of Korea is going to be the only country across the globe where regulators and basically developers or promoters might be working all together under the same roof," said Suh Kune-Yull, a nuclear engineering professor at Seoul National University.

"A conflict of interest is inevitable," Suh said.

- AFP/fl



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