US hit by new stomach bug spreading around globe

NEW YORK (AP) — A new strain of stomach bug sweeping the globe is taking over in the U.S., health officials say.

Since September, more than 140 outbreaks in the U.S. have been caused by the new Sydney strain of norovirus. It may not be unusually dangerous; some scientists don't think it is. But it is different, and many people might not be able to fight off its gut-wrenching effects.

Clearly, it's having an impact. The new strain is making people sick in Japan, Western Europe, and other parts of the world. It was first identified last year in Australia and called the Sydney strain.

In the U.S., it is now accounting for about 60 percent of norovirus outbreaks, according to report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Norovirus — once known as Norwalk virus — is highly contagious and often spreads in places like schools, cruise ships and nursing homes, especially during the winter. Last month, 220 people on the Queen Mary II were stricken during a Caribbean cruise.

Sometimes mistakenly called stomach flu, the virus causes bouts of vomiting and diarrhea for a few days.

Every two or three years, a new strain evolves — the last was in 2009. The Sydney strain's appearance has coincided with a spike in influenza, perhaps contributing to the perception that this is a particularly bad flu season in the U.S.

Ian Goodfellow, a prominent researcher at England's University of Cambridge, calls norovirus 'the Ferrari of viruses' for the speed at which it passes through a large group of people.

"It can sweep through an environment very, very quickly. You can be feeling quite fine one minute and within several hours suffer continuous vomiting and diarrhea," he said.

Health officials have grown better at detecting new strains and figuring out which one is the culprit. They now know that norovirus is also the most common cause of food poisoning in the U.S.

It's spread by infected food handlers who don't do a good job washing their hands after using the bathroom. But unlike salmonella and other foodborne illnesses, norovirus can also spread in the air, through droplets that fly when a sick person vomits.

"It's a headache" to try to control, said Dr. John Crane, a University of Buffalo infectious disease specialist who had to deal with a norovirus outbreak in a hospital ward a couple of years ago.

Each year, noroviruses cause an estimated 21 million illnesses and 800 deaths, the CDC says.

For those infected, there's really no medicine. They just have to ride it out for the day or two of severe symptoms, and guard against dehydration, experts said.

The illness even got the attention of comedian Stephen Colbert, who this week tweeted: "Remember, if you're in public and have the winter vomiting bug, be polite and vomit into your elbow."

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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Exterminator Charged in Pa. Doctor's Murder

An exterminator named Joseph Smith was arrested and charged today in the strangling and burning death of Philadelphia pediatrician Melissa Ketunuti.

Smith, 36, had been sent to Ketunuti's home on a service call where the two got into "some kind of argument" in Ketunuti's basement on Monday, Capt. James Clark of the Philadelphia police department said this morning.

"At her home they got into an argument. It went terribly wrong. He struck her, and knocked her to the ground," Clark said. "Immediately he jumped on top of her, started strangling her. She passed out, and then he set her body on fire."

Clark said Smith burned the woman's body "to hide evidence like DNA." He said "at some point, he bound her up." The doctor was found with her hands and feet tied behind her back.

The captain said that before today's arrest Smith's record consisted of only "minor traffic offenses."

Philadelphia Police Department/AP Photo

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Police received a call from Ketunuti's dog-walker about the house fire around 12:30 p.m. Monday, and once inside found Ketunuti with her hands and feet bound. They believe Smith hit her and strangled her with a rope, causing her to pass out, and then bound her body and set fire to it in order to destroy evidence, including DNA evidence.

Ketunuti, 35, was fully clothed and police do not believe she was sexually assaulted.

She was a doctor at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and had lived alone in the Graduate Hospital neighborhood of the city for about three years.

Clark said that homicide detectives scoured the neighborhood for surveillance videos from nearby stores and businesses, and through the video identified the suspect.

Smith was spotted on video getting out of the vehicle and following Ketunuti to her home. The man left her home after an hour and was seen on video circling her home.

Detectives drove to Clark's home in Levittown, Pa., outside of Philadelphia where he lives with a girlfriend and her child, on Wednesday night and brought him back to the Philadelphia police station.

A silver Ford truck was towed from Smith's home, which was the same truck spotted on surveillance video Monday in Ketunuti's neighborhood, sources told ABC News affiliate WPVI.

There, he gave statements that led police to charge him with the murders, Clark said.

Smith will face charges of murder, arson, and abuse of a corpse.

Ketunuti's hospital issued a statement Tuesday that she was "a warm, caring, earnest, bright young woman with her whole future ahead of her," adding that she will be deeply missed.

"[She was] super pleasant, really nice," one neighbor said. "Just super friendly."

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Cameron promises Britons contentious vote on EU future

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday promised Britons a vote on whether the country should stay in the European Union or leave, rattling London's biggest allies and some investors by raising the prospect of uncertainty and upheaval.

Cameron announced the referendum would be held by the end of 2017, provided he wins the next election, and said that while Britain did not want to retreat from the world, public disillusionment with the EU was at "an all-time high".

"It is time for the British people to have their say. It is time for us to settle this question about Britain and Europe," Cameron said in a speech, adding that his Conservative party would campaign for the 2015 election on a promise to renegotiate the terms of Britain's EU membership.

"When we have negotiated that new settlement, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice to stay in the European Union on these new terms; or come out altogether. It will be an in-out referendum."

A referendum would mark the second time Britons have voted on the issue. In 1975, they decided by a wide margin to stay in the EU's predecessor, two years after the country had joined.

Domestically, Cameron stands on relatively firm ground. Most recent opinion polls have shown a slim majority would vote to leave the EU amid often bitter disenchantment about its influence on the British way of life. However, a poll this week showed a majority wanted to stay.

Cameron's position is fraught with uncertainty. He must come from behind to win the next election, secure support from the EU's 26 other states for a new British role, and hope those countries can persuade their voters to back the changes.

Critics say that in the long run-up to a vote, Britain would slip into a dangerous and damaging limbo that could leave the country adrift or pushed out of the EU.

The United States, a close ally, is also uneasy about the plan, believing it will dilute Britain's international clout. President Barack Obama told Cameron by phone last week that Washington valued "a strong UK in a strong European Union".

Some of Britain's European partners were also anxious and told Cameron on Wednesday his strategy reflected a selfish and ignorant attitude. However, Angela Merkel, the leader of EU paymaster Germany, was quick to say she was ready to discuss Cameron's ideas.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was less diplomatic, quipping: "If Britain wants to leave Europe we will roll out the red carpet for you," echoing Cameron, who once used the same words to invite rich Frenchmen alienated by high taxes to move to Britain.

Billed by commentators as the most important speech of Cameron's career, his referendum promise ties him firmly to an issue that has bedeviled a generation of Conservative leaders.

In the past, he has been careful to avoid bruising partisan fights over Europe, an issue that undid the last two Conservative prime ministers, John Major and Margaret Thatcher.

His speech appeared to pacify a powerful Eurosceptic wing inside his own party, but deepen rifts with the Liberal Democrats, the junior partners in his coalition. Their leader, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, said the plan would undermine a fragile economic recovery.

Sterling fell to its lowest in nearly five months against the dollar on Wednesday as Cameron was speaking.

"BREXIT"?

Cameron said he would seek to claw back powers from Brussels, saying later in parliament that when it came to employment, social and environmental legislation "Europe has gone far too far".

But such a claw back - the subject of an internal audit to identify which powers he should target for repatriation - is likely to be easier said than done.

If Cameron wins the election but then fails to renegotiate Britain's membership of the EU, a 'Brexit' could loom.

Business leaders have warned that years of doubt over Britain's EU membership would damage the $2.5 trillion economy and cool the investment climate.

"Having a referendum creates more uncertainty and we don't need that," Martin Sorrell, chief executive of advertising giant WPP, told the World Economic Forum in Davos. "This is a political decision. This is not an economic decision. This isn't good news. You added another reason why people will postpone investment decisions."

Cameron has been pushed into taking such a strong position partly by the rise of the UK Independence Party, which favors complete withdrawal from the EU and has climbed to third in the opinion polls, mainly at the expense of the Conservatives.

"All he's trying to do is to kick the can down the road and to try and get UKIP off his back," said UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

Eurosceptics in Cameron's party, who have threatened to stir up trouble for the premier, were thrilled by the speech.

Conservative lawmaker Peter Bone called it "a terrific victory" that would unify 98 percent of the party. "He's the first prime minister to say he wants to bring back powers from Brussels," Bone told Reuters. "It's pretty powerful stuff".

Whether Cameron holds the referendum remains as uncertain as the Conservatives' chances of winning the election. They trail the opposition Labour party in opinion polls, and the coalition is grappling with a stagnating economy as it pushes through unpopular public spending cuts to reduce a large budget deficit.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said on Wednesday his party did not want an in/out referendum.

EU REFORM

Cameron said he would campaign for Britain to stay in the EU "with all my heart and soul", provided he secured the reforms he wants. He made clear the EU must become less bureaucratic and focus more on trade deals. It was riskier to maintain the status quo than to change, he said.

"The biggest danger to the European Union comes not from those who advocate change, but from those who denounce new thinking as heresy," he said.

Cameron said the euro zone debt crisis was forcing the bloc to change and that Britain would fight to make sure new rules were fair to the 10 countries that don't use the common currency, of which Britain is the largest.

Democratic consent for the EU in Britain was now "wafer thin", he said. "Some people say that to point this out is irresponsible, creates uncertainty for business and puts a question mark over Britain's place in the European Union," said Cameron. "But the question mark is already there: ignoring it won't make it go away."

A YouGov opinion poll on Monday showed that more people wanted to stay in the EU than leave it, the first such result in many months. But it was unclear whether that result was a blip.

Paul Chipperfield, a 53-year-old management consultant, said he liked the strategy. "Cameron's making the right move because I don't think we've had enough debate in this country," he told Reuters. "We should be part of the EU but the EU needs to recognize that not everybody's going to jump on the same bandwagon."

Asked after the speech whether other EU countries would agree to renegotiate Britain's membership, Cameron said he was an optimist and that there was "every chance of success".

"I don't want Britain to leave the EU," he told parliament later. "I want Britain to reform the EU."

In the 1975 referendum, just over 67 percent voted to stay inside with nearly 33 percent against.

(Additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Davos, Alexandra Hudson in Berlin and Brenda Goh in London; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and David Stamp)

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Global elite cautiously optimistic as Davos opens

DAVOS: The world's top politicians and business leaders opened their annual Davos meeting on Wednesday, hoping they might finally have seen the back of a crippling global economic crisis.

Kicking off a four-day extravaganza in the picturesque Swiss ski resort, the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, noted there had been "some respite and some stabilisation" on the financial markets recently.

"The short-term pressures might have alleviated, but the longer-term pressures are still with us," she added.

While the 2012 meeting was dominated by the eurozone debt crisis and fears Greece could be forced out of the bloc, this year's gathering appeared to be marked by a feeling the global economy might be turning the corner.

"I feel the circumstances in which I'm addressing you today are very different than 12 months ago," said Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti as he delivered the opening speech.

And Axel Weber, the head of Swiss banking giant UBS and former head of the German central bank, said: "The economy has turned, most of the markets have picked up... the major economies are recovering."

Nevertheless, Weber warned that the recovery was "slow and muted" and warned: "In particular, one dimension is missing. Jobs are lost and are not coming back quickly."

The first world leader to address the forum, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, was also in bullish mood, telling the assembled elite that his country grew 3.5 per cent last year and aimed for five per cent growth annually.

But with the sunnier mood came also warnings that the three-year eurozone debt woes could resurface if regulators in particular did not learn the lessons of previous financial crises.

"If we do everything right, we will get out of this. If we don't, this could last another 10 years," said Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JP Morgan Chase.

Events elsewhere often hijack the agenda at the World Economic Forum in Davos and this year was no different, with British Prime Minister David Cameron's vow to hold a referendum on EU membership by 2017 setting tongues wagging.

To applause from the assembled elite, Monti said: "I am confident that if there is to be a referendum, the UK citizens will decide to stay in the EU and contribute to shape its future."

"I think the EU does not need unwilling Europeans. We desperately need willing Europeans," he said.

Leading British business boss Martin Sorrell, chief executive of advertising WPP, complained that the referendum pledge was "at best neutral and at worst negative."

"You just added another reason why people are going to postpone investment decisions and the last thing we need is people postponing more," said Sorrell.

Cameron himself was due to address the forum on Thursday, along with EU powerbroker Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor.

The conflict in Mali and the crisis in Syria were also poised to exercise the minds of the global elite.

Jordan's King Abdullah II was due to make a special address and the premiers of Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia and the Palestinian Territories were scheduled to attend, as well as Israeli President Shimon Peres.

There is also a heavy African presence, with the leaders of South Africa and Nigeria attending a session on "de-risking" the continent on Wednesday.

Despite the presence of so many world leaders, no formal decisions are taken at Davos, although corporate deals are often sewn up on the sidelines and presidents and prime ministers huddle in small gatherings to thrash out pressing issues.

The invitation-only meeting is also known for its informal luncheons and lavish cocktail parties, often hosted by corporate sponsors and with exclusive guest lists, where political and business leaders can network and mingle.

For its annual invasion from the world's most powerful people, the snow-covered resort goes into lockdown, with around 5,000 police and military guarding the venue and helicopters buzzing overhead.

- AFP/jc

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Justice Verma panel gets tough on sexual crimes, but rejects death for rape

NEW DELHI: In keeping with the public outrage over Nirbhaya's gang rape, the Justice J S Verma Committee has raised the bar of punishment for a wide range of existing and proposed sexual offences even as it rejected the demand for introducing death for rape.

The report, released on Wednesday, has proposed codification of a stringent alternative to the life sentence, evolved through judicial activism in the last five years. Unlike the existing life sentence in which the convict is likely to be released after 14 years, at the discretion of the government, the Verma Committee's alternative would statutorily bar him from being released for 20 years or for "the rest of that person's natural life".

This new variety of 'long life' or 'whole life' sentence has been recommended for aggravated forms of sexual assault: rape causing death or persistent vegetative state, gang rape, repeat offenders of rape, rape of an underage person followed by death or coma, trafficking by a public servant or of a minor.

In another innovation, the committee has proposed that for several sexual offences, besides being awarded imprisonment, the convict should be rendered "liable to pay compensation to the victim, adequate to meet at least the medical expenses incurred by the victim".

The offences introduced by the committee include voyeurism, stalking, acid attack and, most significantly, "breach of command responsibility", which makes senior officers of the police and security forces accountable for the sexual crimes committed by their subordinates.

The committee has also attacked some of the patriarchal features of the existing statute. It has suggested, what is effectively introduction of marital rape in India. For, the existing law penalizes marital rape only if the wife is below 15 years of age. While enlarging the current provision of molestation, the committee has also asked for the removal of the archaic expression: "outraging the modesty" of a woman.

Radical as they are, the committee's proposals constitute a big leap forward from the sexual assault Bill introduced by the government just before the Nirbhaya incident. It debunked the government's approach of replacing rape with the generic, gender-neutral crime of 'sexual assault'.

The committee feared that in the current context such a change might "signal a dilution of the political and social commitment to respecting, protecting and promoting women's right to integrity, agency and autonomy." Arguing for the retention of rape as a distinct offence, the committee said, "This is a widely understood term which also expresses society's strong moral condemnation."

Despite the complicity of a juvenile in the Nirbhaya case, the committee rejected the popular demand for lowering the cut off age for juveniles from 18 years to 16 years.

The committee also rejected the demand for introducing death for rape, and retained the existing punishment for rape, which ranges from seven years to life sentence (in which the convict may be released after 14 years, at the discretion of the government). But if rape causes death or a persistent vegetative state, the imprisonment shall range from 20 years to rest of that person's natural life

For gang rape, the imprisonment should range from 20 years to the rest of that person's natural life. But if gang rape causes death or a persistent vegetative state, the convict should be put behind bars for the rest of his natural life, the committee has recommended.

Similarly, it suggests that a repeat offender of rape should be punished with imprisonment for the rest of that person's natural life.

The committee also introduced the offence of "breach of command responsibility" which makes a senior officer of security forces liable to imprisonment from seven to 10 years if his subordinates commit rape

Rape of an underage person by an adult shall be punishable with imprisonment ranging from 10 years to life. If the rape of the underage person causes death or a persistent vegetative state, the sentence shall range from 20 years to the rest of that person's natural life.

The panel has also introduced a heinous offence of "trafficking of a person", punishable with imprisonment ranging from seven years to life sentence, depending on the gravity of the crime.

If a public servant is involved in the trafficking offence, the punishment shall be imprisonment for the rest of that person's natural life.

If somebody is convicted for trafficking minors more than once, the punishment shall be imprisonment for the rest of that person's natural life

Anybody employing a trafficked person is liable to imprisonment ranging from five to seven years, if it is minor, and three to five years, if it is an adult.

The panel also introduced the heinous offence of acid attack. If it causes grievous hurt, the punishment shall range from 10 years to life sentence. If the victim escapes without serious damage, the imprisonment for the offender shall range from five years to seven years. The victim of an acid attack would be entitled to the right of private defence to the point of causing death.

Existing provisions of molestation and sexual harassment (eve-teasing) have been brought under the offence of "sexual assault". Under it, the punishment for "intentional touching" has been increased from two years to five years while the maximum sentence for other forms of sexual harassment ("using words, acts or gestures") would remain one year.

If a woman is assaulted with intent to disrobe her or compel her to be naked in a public place, the imprisonment shall be three years to seven years.

The report also introduces the offence of voyeurism, which punishes a "peeping Tom" with imprisonment from one to three years. The range of punishment for a repeat offender would be three to seven years.

It also introduces the offence of 'stalking' in any form with the penalty ranging from one to three years.

Full text of Justice (retired) JS Verma Committee report(pdf)

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Scientists to resume work with lab-bred bird flu

WASHINGTON (AP) — International scientists who last year halted controversial research with the deadly bird flu say they are resuming their work as countries adopt new rules to ensure safety.

The outcry erupted when two labs — in the Netherlands and the U.S. — reported they had created easier-to-spread versions of bird flu. Amid fierce debate about the oversight of such research and whether it might aid terrorists, those scientists voluntarily halted further work last January — and more than three dozen of the world's leading flu researchers signed on as well.

On Wednesday, those scientists announced they were ending their moratorium because their pause in study worked: It gave the U.S. government and other world health authorities time to determine how they would oversee high-stakes research involving dangerous germs.

A number of countries already have issued new rules. The U.S. is finalizing its own research guidelines, a process that Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health said should be completed within several weeks.

In letters published in the journals Science and Nature this week, scientists wrote that those who meet their country's requirements have a responsibility to resume studying how the deadly bird flu might mutate to become a bigger threat to people — maybe even the next pandemic. So far, the so-called H5N1 virus mostly spreads among poultry and other birds and rarely infects people.

"The risk exists in nature already. Not doing the research is really putting us in danger," said Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He and Ron Fouchier of Erasmus University in the Netherlands separately created the new virus strains that could spread through the air.

The controversy flared just over a year ago, when U.S. officials, prompted by the concerns of a biosecurity advisory panel, asked the two labs not to publish the results. They worried that terrorists might use the information to create a bioweapon. More broadly, scientists debated whether creating new strains of disease is a good idea, and if so, how to safeguard against laboratory accidents.

Ultimately, the flu researchers prevailed: The government decided the data didn't pose any immediate terrorism threat after all, and the two labs' work was published last summer.

Fouchier said that within weeks, he will begin new research in the Netherlands, with European funding, to explore exactly which mutations are the biggest threat. He said the work could enable scientists today to be on the lookout as bird flu continually evolves in the wild.

U.S.-funded scientists cannot resume their studies until the government's policy is finalized.

But the NIH had paid for the original research — and it would have been approved under the soon-to-come expanded policy as well, Fauci told The Associated Press. That policy will add an extra layer of review to higher-risk research, to ensure that it is scientifically worth doing and that safety and bioterrorism concerns are fully addressed up-front, he said.

Had that policy been in place over a year ago, it could have averted the bird flu debate, Fauci said: "Our answer simply would have been, yes, we vetted it very carefully and the benefit is worth any risk. Period, case closed."

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Manti Te'o Tells Katie Couric His Emotions Were Real

Manti Te'o says that even though he was hoaxed by the supposed existence of a fake girlfriend, his inspirational story of playing through emotional pain "was all real and that's something that I can't fake."

Te'o made his comments to Katie Couric which will air the exclusive interview on Thursday.

Te'o, 21, has been alternately questioned and lampooned over his role in the hoax that led him and the public to believe that his girlfriend Lennay Kekua died of leukemia as Te'o led the Notre Dame football team to an undefeated season that culminated in the national championship game.

Te'o was also a finalist for the Heisman Trophy, which goes to the best college football player in the country. Couric asked the star linebacker whether the emotional "story line" of a girlfriend who died on the same day as his grandmother "helped propel you to second place in Heisman voting?"

"I don't know. I really don't know," Te'o replied.

See more exclusive previews tonight on "World News With Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline."

He was more certain, however, when Couric pressed him by pointing out that it had become "sort of a legend that you had endured this hardship and gone on to play your team and your school to victory... Did you feel like, wow, I'm getting a lot of attention for this?"

Te'o denied reveling in the attention.

Watch Katie Couric's interview with Manti Te'o and his parents Thursday. Check your local listings or click here for online station finder.

Lorenzo Bevilaqua/Disney-ABC

Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax: Could Alleged Scammer Be Charged? Watch Video

"I think for me the only thing I basked in was that I had an impact on people, that people turned to me and for inspiration and I think that was the only thing I focused on. You know my story I felt was a guy who in times of hardship and in times of trial really held strong to his faith, held strong to his family and I felt that that was my story," said Te'o, who is a Mormon.

Te'o said there was no acting in his emotions at the time when he thought the girl he called "Lala" had died of leukemia.

"What I went through was real. You know the feelings, the pain, the sorrow, that was all real and that's something that I can't fake," he said.

During the interview, Te'o said that he received a phone call on Dec. 6, apparently from the same woman he believed was dead, who told him she was alive. She said that her name was not Lennay Kekua, it was Leah. Teo has also said that woman sent him a different picture of herself.

Nevertheless, he again publicly mentioned his girlfriend, and her death, two days later on the day the Heisman trophy was to be awarded.

"You stuck to the script. And you knew that something was amiss, Manti," Couric said.

"Katie, put yourself in my situation. I, my whole world told me that she died on Sept. 12. Everybody knew that. This girl, who I committed myself to, died on Sept. 12," Te'o said.

"Now I get a phone call on Dec. 6, saying that she's alive and then I'm going be put on national TV two days later. And to ask me about the same question. You know, what would you do?" Te'o said.

Te'o was joined by his parents, Brian and Ottilia, in the interview.

"Now many people writing about this are calling your son a liar. They are saying he manipulated the truth, really for personal gain," Couric said to Te'o's father.

"People can speculate about what they think he is. I've known him 21 years of his life. And he's not a liar. He's a kid," Brian Te'o said with tears in his eyes.

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

Diane O'Meara told NBC's "Today" show Tuesday that she was used as the "face" of the Twitter account of Manti Te'o's online girlfriend without her knowledge or consent.

O'Meara said that Ronaiah Tuiasosopo used pictures of her without her knowledge in creating Kekua.

"I've never met Manti Te'o in my entire life. I've never spoke with him. I've never exchanged words with him," O'Meara said Tuesday.

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Netanyahu appeals for votes amid high Israel turnout

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a frantic, last-minute appeal to supporters to rush to the polls after an unexpectedly high turnout in Tuesday's parliamentary election looked set to benefit center-left opponents.

Netanyahu's rightist Likud party, running in a single bloc with the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu group, still seemed certain to win the most seats, but politicians said the late surge in voting could seriously erode his majority.

"Likud rule is in danger. I ask you to drop everything and go out now and vote. This is very important to safeguard Israel's future," Netanyahu wrote on his Facebook page.

He hopes to win a third term in office, having served as premier in the 1990s and again since 2009.

A stream of opinion polls before the election had predicted an easy win for Netanyahu, who has said tackling Iran's nuclear ambitions would be his top priority if he won, shunting Palestinian peacemaking well down the agenda.

Coming off the back of a lackluster election campaign, the large turnout caught politicians of all stripes by surprise and suggested that an army of undecided voters might have turned against Netanyahu and his nationalist-religious allies.

"We managed to wake up Israel. Every extra percentage point of voter turn out is another hope for an upheaval," Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister and leader of a small centrist group, wrote on Twitter, urging her own supporters to get to the polls.

By 8 p.m. (1800 GMT), two hours before polling ends, the Israeli election committee said turnout was 63.7 percent, up from 59.7 percent at the same time in 2009 and the highest level since 1999, when Netanyahu, serving his first term as prime minister, was defeated by then-Labour Party leader Ehud Barak.

The final opinion polls on Friday showed his Likud-Beitenu bloc still on top, but losing some ground to the Jewish Home party, which opposes a Palestinian state and advocates annexing chunks of the occupied West Bank.

INTERNATIONAL CONCERN

Political sources said earlier that Netanyahu might approach center-left parties after the ballot in an effort to broaden his coalition and present a more moderate face to worried allies.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned Israel on Tuesday it was losing international support, saying prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were almost dead because of expanding Jewish settlements.

U.S.-brokered peace talks broke down in 2010 amid mutual acrimony. Since then Israel has accelerated construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem - land the Palestinians want for their future state - much to the anger of Western partners.

Some 5.66 million Israelis are eligible to vote. Polling stations close at 10 p.m. (2000 GMT). Full results were due by Wednesday morning. Coalition talks could take several weeks.

Basking in warm winter sunshine, Israelis flocked to the polls throughout the day, although few seemed to believe that they could dent Netanyahu's seemingly impregnable poll lead.

"There is a king sitting on the throne in Israel and I wanted to dethrone him, but it looks like that won't happen," said retired teacher Yehudit Shimshi voting in central Israel.

No Israeli party has ever secured an absolute majority, meaning Netanyahu would always need coalition allies.

The former commando has traditionally looked to religious, conservative parties for backing and is widely expected to seek out the surprise star of the campaign, self-made millionaire Naftali Bennett, who heads Jewish Home.

A one-time political aide to Netanyahu and a former settler leader, Bennett's youthful dynamism has struck a chord amongst Israelis, disillusioned after years of failed peace initiatives.

TURBULENCE

Surveys suggest Bennett may take up to 14 seats in the 120-member Knesset, many at the expense of Likud-Beitenu. The premier's bloc was projected to win 32 in the last round of opinion polls published on Friday - 10 less than the two parties won in 2009 when they ran separate lists.

On the center-left, the main opposition group, Labour, was seen taking 17 seats, although party leader Shelly Yachimovich clearly believed that the number might go higher: "Incredible voter turnout percentages. The government can be changed!" she tweeted.

Tuesday's vote is the first in Israel since Arab uprisings swept the region two years ago, reshaping the Middle East.

Netanyahu has said the turbulence, which has brought Islamist governments to power in several countries long ruled by secularist autocrats, including neighboring Egypt, shows the importance of strengthening national security.

If he wins, he will seek to put concerns about Iran swiftly back into focus. Netanyahu has said he will not let Tehran enrich enough uranium to make a single nuclear bomb - a threshold Israeli experts say could arrive as early as mid-2013.

Iran denies it is planning to build the bomb, and says Israel, widely believed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, is the biggest threat to the region.

The issue has barely registered during the election campaign, with a poll in Haaretz newspaper on Friday saying 47 percent of Israelis thought social and economic issues were the most pressing concern, against just 10 percent who cited Iran.

One of the first problems to face the next government, which will be formed after coalition negotiations and is unlikely to take power before the middle of next month at the earliest, is the stuttering economy.

Data last week showed the budget deficit rose to 4.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2012, double the original estimate, meaning spending cuts and tax hikes look certain.

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis, Jeffrey Heller and Tova Cohen; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Alastair Macdonald)

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5 foreigners still missing at Algeria hostage site

IN AMENAS: Algerian authorities searched on Tuesday for five foreigners still missing and tried to identify seven charred bodies, days after a bloody hostage crisis, a security source said.

"Still no news about the five missing foreigners," the source told AFP, after Algerian special forces launched a final assault on Saturday against Islamist gunmen at the remote desert gas plant where they seized hundreds of hostages.

Thirty-seven foreigners of eight different nationalities and an Algerian were killed in the siege by the hostage-takers, who were demanding the release of Islamist prisoners and an end to France's intervention in Mali.

Announcing the grim body count on Monday, Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal did not specify the nationalities of the slain foreigners, and said seven of them remain unidentified, adding that five foreigners were still missing.

A plane of Norwegian experts arrived in Algiers on Tuesday to help with identifying the victims, with five Norwegians unaccounted for.

"The gas complex is so big that we are still in the process of looking for bodies, especially those of missing foreigners," said an official at the sprawling In Amenas plant, 1,300 kilometres southeast of Algiers.

At the hospital morgue in the nearby town, only the bodies of the militants remained, 21 of who were killed, along with three others captured during the final assault launched against them.

Another security source said of those found alive, two were Algerian and one Tunisian.

A source close to hardline Islamist groups said the militants, most of who were thought to have entered Algeria from Libya, and reportedly used Libyan weapons, received logistical aid from Islamists based there.

"Logistical support was provided from Libya," said the source close to hardline Islamist groups in Libya, which has seen a rise in extremism since the fall of Colonel Moamer Kadhafi.

He did not specify the exact nature of such aid but acknowledged Libyan Islamists were responsible for establishing contacts between the captors and the media.

Harrowing accounts of the siege have emerged, with survivors recalling how fellow hostages were brutally executed, among them citizens of Japan, which grieved on Tuesday over its greatest loss of life at militant hands since 9/11.

A government plane was to leave Japan late Tuesday bound for Algeria. It was expected to return on Thursday with survivors and the bodies of those killed, all of whom were employees or contractors for Japanese engineering firm JGC.

There was blanket media coverage of the news that at least seven Japanese nationals had been killed in the Algerian hostage crisis, with the respected business daily Nikkei describing Japan's anger as "overwhelming".

Three other Japanese remained unaccounted for.

Some foreign governments, and Tokyo in particular, initially voiced concern over Algeria's response to the crisis, which many observers found hasty, but criticism then focused on the Islamist militants behind the hostage crisis.

The government has said its special forces managed to free 685 Algerian and 107 foreign hostages, most of them on Thursday, during their first rescue operation.

The In Amenas plant, part of a natural-gas industry vital to Algeria's economy and which is jointly run by three firms including Britain's BP, was being brought back on stream on Tuesday, according to the security source.

Security has been heavily beefed up at the plant, which is being guarded by the army, while security has been doubled at other energy installations across the country.

"Work to restart the complex has begun," the source said, after a demining and clearance operation at the desert complex was completed.

"But we will have to wait for a week before everything returns to normal," he added, as there were complicated technical procedures involved in resuming gas production.

Algeria's Energy Minister Youcef Yousfi had said on Sunday that the wet gas plant would restart "in the next two days," adding the damage caused during the four-day crisis was "not significant".

Employees not being treated for shock have been called back to the plant to help with restarting it and specialists have also been brought in from other sites, the security source said.

- AFP/jc

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I don't mind 'rediscovering' Bombay, Salman Rushdie says

True to magic realism, Salman Rushdie is worried about Indian cities vanishing. In an exclusive interview to TOI, he laughed, "This is going to make me sound ancient but I remember Juhu Beach when there weren't any buildings on it. You'd go through countryside and arrive at this amazing beach. I remember driving from Delhi to the Qutab Minar through countryside. Mehrauli was a little village - that's all gone. Indian cities have transformed so much, they're different cities. We did some filming for Midnight's Children in Colombo because we couldn't find the locations in India! Bombay is not that Bombay anymore. To write about Bombay now, I'd have to go and spend months and months there," Rushdie smiles, "I wouldn't mind doing that - at all."

Belying his acerbic image, Salman Rushdie comes across as a gentle, soft- spoken man - with razor-sharp wit. How would he deal with attacks on art? His smile goes. "I really worry about how it's become so easy to attack books, movies, paintings, works of scholarship - there've been so many attacks in recent years. That trend worries me a lot. It's partly driven by expediency. It's easier to stop something than defend its right to happen. The police tend to blame the writer, painter, filmmaker for being a trouble-maker, rather than defend them against the actual trouble-makers creating threats, sometimes violence. I worry we're getting things upside down - we're not defending what we need to defend. There seems more of that than ever. When Rohinton Mistry's novel was criticized by some little Thackeray, within five seconds, the book was taken off Bombay University's syllabus. Any society that wants to think of itself as a democracy must pay attention to free speech attacked - a real problem."

Rushdie is visiting India to promote the Deepa Mehta-directed Midnight's Children, based Was working with Deepa Mehta, targeted by far-right Hindus, logical for someone persecuted by radical Islamists? "We never thought about that. Both of us are actually sick of having that kind of history hung around our necks. I'm sick of being called controversial. We never discussed all that. The only time was when people started suggesting that because of this history, nobody would show this film in India. That was very depressing to think - but fortunately, it turned out to be not true. The frustrating part of being tagged controversial is people go looking for trouble where there isn't any to look for."

Last year, Rushdie's plans to attend the Jaipur Literature Festival had to be scrapped in the midst of a huge row. Asked if he had been invited by the organisers this time, he said flatly, "Nope". Is he annoyed about that? "Nope. Just got work to do," he said.

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