Anna rejects Jan Lokpal Bill

PATNA: Anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare has rejected the amended Jan Lokpal Bill approved by the Union cabinet as a "farce" and announced the JantantraMorcha will continue to agitate till the government does not include their proposals in the Bill.

Hazare recalled UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi sent him a letter four days back stating the Bill, after being passed by the Lok Sabha, was lying in the Rajya Sabha and was likely to be debated during the Budget session. "I have written back to Sonia seeking clarification whether the proposed Bill will be a stringent one and whether the CBI and CVC will be kept out of the government's control. I am yet to get a reply from her," Hazare said at a press conference in Patna on Thursday.

"I am 75 and have seen the world. I have waited for two years hoping that the Jan Lokpal Bill will be amended. But just adopting the name 'Jan Lokpal Bill' will not be enough to convince me. They have to include our proposals," he said.

Anna also questioned the UPA government's commitment to root out corruption in the country, saying he did not trust PM Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi to bring a stringent Bill for creating an anti-corruption ombudsman. "I will travel across the country to mobilize people to join my movement," he said.

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Hedgehog Alert! Prickly pets can carry salmonella


NEW YORK (AP) — Add those cute little hedgehogs to the list of pets that can make you sick.


In the last year, 20 people were infected by a rare but dangerous form of salmonella bacteria, and one person died. Investigators say the illnesses were linked to contact with hedgehogs kept as pets.


Health officials on Thursday say such cases seem to be increasing.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends thoroughly washing your hands after handling hedgehogs. Also, clean pet cages and other equipment outside.


Other pets that carry the salmonella bug are frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, lizards, chicks and ducklings.


Seven of the hedgehog illnesses were in Washington state, including the death. The other cases were in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon.


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Online:


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


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Hagel, McCain Clash at Confirmation Hearing













Facing a rocky confirmation process, Chuck Hagel today defended his record before his former Senate colleagues, including an openly impatient Sen. John McCain.


"I'm on the record on many issues, but no one individual vote, no one individual quote, no one individual statement defines me," Hagel said in his opening statement at his first confirmation hearing for secretary of defense.


"My overall worldview has never changed: that America has and must maintain the strongest military in the world, that we must lead in the international community to confront threats and challenges together," Hagel said.


Who Is Chuck Hagel? Obama's Nominee for Secretary of Defense


A Vietnam veteran and former Republican senator from Nebraska who left office in 2009, Hagel, 66, is president Obama's nominee to replace Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Despite his 12-year career in the Senate, Hagel faces opposition from many of his former Republican colleagues.


In the hearing's testiest exchange, McCain grilled Hagel on the former senator's opposition to the Iraq "surge," a stance that separated Hagel from most members of his party in 2007.


The Arizona senator championed the "surge" both as a senator and in his 2008 presidential campaign, while Hagel joined Democrats in vocally criticizing the strategy. McCain pressed Hagel at today's hearing to say whether he believes the surge was a mistake.


When Hagel declined to answer "yes" or "no," McCain told his former colleague, "I want to know if you were right or wrong. That's a direct question," repeatedly accusing Hagel of refusing to answer the question.








Graham Says Hagel 'Sends Chills Up My Spine' Watch Video









Obama Announces Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense Watch Video









Obama Taps Sen. Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary Watch Video





"You're on the wrong side of it, and your refusal to answer whether you were right or wrong on it is going to have an impact on my judgment on whether to vote for your confirmation," McCain concluded


Hagel also underwent some tough, pointed questioning from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., an ally of McCain's in the Senate. Graham pointed out Hagel's decision not to sign letters on Middle-East policy during his Senate career, at one point asking Hagel, "Do you think that the sum total of your record, all that together, that the image you've created is one of sending the worst possible signal to our enemies and friends at one of the most critical times in world history?"


Hagel said he did not.


Senate Republicans and pro-Israel groups have voiced grievances with Hagel's record, including opposition to unilateral sanctions against Iran, support for talks with Hamas, opposition to deeming Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, and a reference to Israel-backing groups as the "Jewish lobby."


Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., acknowledged such concerns as he opened the committee's hearing, referencing "troubling statements [Hagel] has made about Israel and its supporters in the United States."


Hagel defended himself under questioning from multiple senators.


"When I voted against some of those unilateral sanctions on Iran, it was a different time," Hagel said, referring to votes in the early 2000s. "We were in a different place with Iran at that time. As a matter of fact, the Bush administration did not want a five-year renewal of [the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act] at that time because they weren't sure of the effectiveness of the sanctions."


Hagel said his record of public statements shows he has consistently referred to Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups and Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism.


"The way I approached every vote I took in the Senate was what I thought would be the most effective," Hagel said, defending his vote against labeling Iran's guard corps as a terrorist group. "What was the situation at the time, how can we do this smarter and better?"


Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the committee's top Republican, said he will oppose Hagel's nomination.


"Senator Hagel is a good man who has a record of service," Inhofe said of his former GOP colleague, while concluding, "He is the wrong person to lead the Pentagon.


Hagel was introduced at the hearing by former Sens. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and John Warner, R-Va., two respected former members of the Armed Services Committee, both of whom lavished praise on Obama's nominee.



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Egypt curfew scaled back as Mursi seeks end to bloodshed


CAIRO/BERLIN (Reuters) - Egyptian authorities scaled back a curfew imposed by President Mohamed Mursi, and the Islamist leader cut short a visit to Europe on Wednesday to deal with the deadliest violence in the seven months since he took power.


Two more protesters were shot dead before dawn near Cairo's central Tahrir Square on Wednesday, a day after the army chief warned that the state was on the brink of collapse if Mursi's opponents and supporters did not end street battles.


More than 50 people have been killed in the past seven days of protests by Mursi's opponents marking the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.


Mursi imposed a curfew and a state of emergency on three Suez Canal cities on Sunday - Port Said, Ismailia and Suez. That only seemed to further provoke crowds. However, violence has mainly subsided in those towns since Tuesday.


Local authorities pushed back the start of the curfew from 9:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. in Ismailia and to 1:00 a.m. in Port Said and Suez.


"There has been progress in the security situation since Monday. Calm has returned," Suez Governor Samir Aglan said.


Mursi, speaking in Berlin before hurrying home to deal with the crisis, called for dialogue with opponents but would not commit to their demand that he first agree to include them in a unity government.


He sidestepped a question about a possible unity government, saying the next cabinet would be formed after parliamentary elections in April.


Egypt was on its way to becoming "a civilian state that is not a military state or a theocratic state", Mursi said.


The violence at home forced Mursi to scale back his European visit, billed as a chance to promote Egypt as a destination for foreign investment. He flew to Berlin but called off a trip to Paris and was due back home after only a few hours in Europe.


Chancellor Angela Merkel, who met him, echoed other Western leaders who have called on him to give his opponents a voice.


"One thing that is important for us is that the line for dialogue is always open to all political forces in Egypt, that the different political forces can make their contribution, that human rights are adhered to in Egypt and that of course religious freedom can be experienced," she said at a joint news conference with Mursi.


SPIRIT OF REVOLUTION


Mursi's critics accuse him of betraying the spirit of the revolution by keeping too much power in his own hands and those of his Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement banned under Mubarak which won repeated elections since the 2011 uprising.


Mursi's supporters say the protesters want to overthrow Egypt's first democratically elected leader. The current unrest has deepened an economic crisis that saw the pound currency tumble in recent weeks.


Near Cairo's Tahrir Square on Wednesday morning, dozens of protesters threw stones at police who fired back teargas, although the scuffles were brief.


"Our demand is simply that Mursi goes, and leaves the country alone. He is just like Mubarak and his crowd who are now in prison," said Ahmed Mustafa, 28, a youth who had goggles on his head to protect his eyes from teargas.


Opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei called for a meeting of the president, ministers, the ruling party and the opposition to halt the violence. But he also restated the precondition that Mursi first commit to seeking a national unity government.


The worst violence has been in the Suez Canal city of Port Said, where rage was fuelled by death sentences passed against soccer fans for roles in deadly riots last year.


After decades in which the West backed Mubarak's military rule of Egypt, the emergence of an elected Islamist leader in Cairo is probably the single most important change brought about by the wave of Arab revolts over the past two years.


Mursi won backing from the West last year for his role in helping to establish a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinians that ended a conflict in Gaza. But he then followed that with an effort to fast-track a constitution that reignited dissent at home and raised global concern over Egypt's future.


Western countries were alarmed this month by video that emerged showing Mursi making vitriolic remarks against Jews and Zionists in 2010 when he was a senior Brotherhood official.


German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said ahead of Mursi's visit that the remarks, in which Mursi referred to Zionists as "descendants of apes and pigs" were "unacceptable".


"NOT AGAINST JEWS"


Asked about those remarks at the news conference with Merkel, Mursi repeated earlier explanations that they had been taken out of context.


"I am not against the Jewish faith," he said. "I was talking about the practices and behavior of believers of any religion who shed blood or who attack innocent people or civilians. That's behavior that I condemn."


"I am a Muslim. I'm a believer and my religion obliges me to believe in all prophets, to respect all religions and to respect the right of people to their own faith," he added.


Egypt's main liberal and secularist bloc, the National Salvation Front, has so far refused talks with Mursi unless he promises a unity government including opposition figures.


"Stopping the violence is the priority, and starting a serious dialogue requires committing to guarantees demanded by the National Salvation Front, at the forefront of which are a national salvation government and a committee to amend the constitution," ElBaradei said on Twitter.


Those calls have also been backed by the hardline Islamist Nour party - rivals of Mursi's Brotherhood. Nour and the Front were due to meet on Wednesday, signaling an unlikely alliance of Mursi's critics from opposite ends of the political spectrum.


Brotherhood leader Mohamed El-Beltagy dismissed the unity government proposal as a ploy for the Front to take power despite having lost elections. On his Facebook page he ridiculed "the leaders of the Salvation Front, who seem to know more about the people's interests than the people themselves".


In a sign of the toll the unrest is having on Egypt's economy, ratings agency Fitch downgraded its sovereign rating by one notch to B on Wednesday.


(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Yasmine Saleh and Marwa Awad in Cairo, Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia and Stephen Brown and Gernot Heller in Berlin; Writing by Peter Graff)



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Most Timbuktu texts saved say curators






JOHANNESBURG: Most of the priceless ancient books and manuscripts housed in a centre in Timbuktu were smuggled to safety as Islamists overran the Malian city last year, curators revealed Wednesday.

"A vast majority was saved... more than 90 per cent," said Shamil Jeppie, Timbuktu Manuscripts Project director at the University of Cape Town.

Jeppie said more than 20,000 manuscripts had been moved out of the South African-sponsored centre by May last year and hidden mostly in the capital Bamako and elsewhere in Timbuktu.

The texts were spirited out in trunks and placed deep in the vaults of another building.

It was feared the manuscripts had been destroyed by Islamists during their rampaging retreating from French forces, who now control the city.

The insurgent fighters had already destroyed many of the city's centuries-old shrines, the iconic legacy of Timbuktu's golden age of intellectual and spiritual development.

The fighters took the city in April, swiftly implementing a version of Islamic law which forced women to wear veils and set whipping and stoning as punishment for transgressions.

Islamist fighters had considered the texts and the shrines -- which helped earn the city UNESCO world heritage status -- to be idolatrous.

But details of an amazing effort to save the irreplaceable documents are now coming to light.

The texts, most dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, include a prized biography of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad and texts about music, astronomy, physics, traditional medicine.

"Archivists and librarians associated with the Ahmed Baba library, in fact, over the months of the occupation, worked to take the manuscripts out, to conserve them and hide them," Jeppie said.

In a statement, the project office said "a limited number of items have been damaged or stolen, the infrastructure neglected and furnishings in the library looted."

Jeppie suspects some of the delicate manuscripts could have also been damaged during movement but not at the "hands of these ignorant people."

The Ahmed Baba collection, the largest of its kind in Timbuktu, was home to around 40,000 texts.

They were housed in a state-of-the-art archive, paid for by international donors, including South Africa.

Opened in 2009, it is meant to keep the manuscripts safe and to act as a centre for research.

"There are two buildings" housing the documents, curator Ben Essayouti El-Boukhari told AFP. "There is the old one and the new one built by South Africans."

The old building is where most of the manuscripts had been kept -- including some dating back to the pre-Islamic era.

But with phone connections down, officials have been unable to get a full picture of the extent of the damage elsewhere in the city.

Officials have previously estimated there are more than 100,000 manuscripts held in several private libraries and by families in Timbuktu.

- AFP/jc



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Indian researcher at Stanford paves way for total TB cure

NEW DELHI: In what is being perceived as a significant breakthrough in the fight against TB, Bikul Das, an Indian researcher at Stanford University has discovered why it is difficult to completely eliminate the TB bacteria even after rigorous treatment.

In a study published in the journal, Science Translational Medicine, Das, who has been researching the subject for the past 15 years, points out that TB bacteria hide in a group of stem cells inside the bone marrow beyond the reach of antibiotics and the body's own immune system. These, he says, might reappear once the coast is clear and do a lot of damage. In fact, the bacteria take advantage of the body's own mechanisms of self-renewal.

Deepjyoti Kalita, a professor of microbiology with Gauhati Medical College and co-author of the study, calls it a landmark find. "We never knew where TB bacteria used to hide; but now that we know that the bacteria invade and hide in stem cells in the bone marrow, it would be possible to hunt them down and kill them in future. The present medicines don't help much in this respect."

Although considered "curable" to a large extent, TB still kills 1.9 million people across the globe. At present, the most popular treatment for the disease in India is the DOTS regimen, which takes six months to ameliorate the symptoms. But it fails to completely wipe it out, which is why relapses years or decades after the initial treatment are commonplace.

In his research, Das and his team studied the Idu-Mishimi community of Arunachal Pradesh that has a very high occurrence of TB. The team not only found genetic material from bacteria inside the stem cells, they were also able to isolate active bacteria from the cells from TB patients who had undergone extensive treatment for the disease. They say the findings indicate that other infectious agents may also employ similar "wolf-in-stem-cell-clothing" tactics.

"We now need to learn how the bacteria find and infect this tiny population of stem cells, and what triggers it to reactivate years or decades after successful treatment of the disease," says Das.

Many physicians treating TB are upbeat about the findings. Ashwini Khanna of Loknayak Hospital, Delhi, says he hasn't seen the research, but terms it as 'being full of promise.' "This might propel further research and change the way TB is treated across the globe," he says.

However, Praveen Pandey, a pulmonologist with Escorts Hospital, advises caution. "It may be possible to identify, isolate and kill TB bacteria even before they cause any problem; but there is also the risk of over-treatment. There could be a rush of people willing to be treated without any need for it."

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APNewsBreak: EPA moves to ban some rodent poisons


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency is moving to ban the sale of a dozen rat and mouse poisons sold under the popular D-Con brand in an effort to protect children and pets.


The agency said Wednesday it hopes to reduce the thousands of accidental exposures that occur every year from rodent-control products. Children and pets are at risk for exposure because the products typically are placed on floors.


The agency had targeted a handful of companies two years ago, saying they needed to develop new products that are safer for children, pets and wildlife. All but Reckitt Benckiser Inc., manufacturer of D-Con, did so.


The company will have at least 30 days to request a hearing before an administrative law judge. If no hearing is requested, the ban will take effect.


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Phoenix Gunman Shoots Three at Office Complex












A gunman shot and wounded three people at an office building in Phoenix, Ariz., today and police are now searching for the shooter, authorities told ABC News.


There are no reports of deaths at this time.


Police are clearing the office complex in the in the 7310 block of 16th Street, near Glendale Avenue.


Officials say there was only one gunman, who remains at large.




Police are also investigating a separate scene near Glendale Avenue, according to ABC News affiliate KNXV-TV. It's not clear if it's related to the office shooting.


The shooting took place moments after former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the victim of a shooting in Phoenix in 2011, testified before Congress on gun control.


In the weeks since 20 students were gunned down at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school on Dec. 14, 2012, several mass shootings have garnered public attention as the nation debates its relationship to firearms.


Five days ago, two men were arrested for a opening fire at Lone Star College in Houston, Texas. No one was injured. Earlier this month, a 16-year-old student was arrested after shooting a classmate in Taft, Calif.



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Cycling: Doping doctor 'worked in various sports'






MADRID: A Spanish doctor on trial over a major blood doping racket involving top professional cyclists said Tuesday he had worked for athletes in "all kinds" of sports.

Eufemiano Fuentes, 57, was testifying at his trial in the so-called Puerto affair, one of the biggest ever doping scandals, which came to court this week seven years after it erupted.

Fuentes is charged with public health offences rather than sports doping, which was not illegal at the time in Spain.

Although the doctor admits providing blood transfusions for athletes, who he refuses to name, he denies this risked their health.

That may limit the trial's impact on the sporting world, which is reeling from US cyclist Lance Armstrong's admission that he doped his way to seven Tour de France victories.

"I worked on a private basis with individual athletes of all kinds," Fuentes told the court in Madrid in his four-hour testimony on Tuesday.

Police detained Fuentes in 2006 when they seized 200 bags of blood and other evidence of performance-enhancing transfusions, in an investigation dubbed "Operation Puerto".

Asked who those bags of blood belonged to, Fuentes told the court: "It could be other kinds of athlete, but in 2006 it was mainly cyclists."

Investigators listed 58 cyclists suspected in the scandal.

Of the 58, only six have received sporting sanctions: Spain's Alejandro Valverde, Germans Jan Ullrich and Joerg Jaksche and Italians Ivan Basso, Michele Scarponi and Giampaolo Caruso, who was later cleared by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Fuentes, his sister Yolanda and three other defendants are charged with endangering public health rather than incitement to doping, which was also not a crime in Spain at the time of the arrests.

He denies that his treatment endangered the cyclists' health.

He told the court on Tuesday that athletes such as footballers and boxers came to him for "medical and nutritional advice, physical and medical tests to guarantee that their health would not suffer".

He said he did not know whether the cyclists he treated told their team managers about it.

Fuentes said that he and another doctor, Jose Luis Merino Batres, tested the viscosity of the athletes' blood -- known as the haematocrit value -- and extracted blood if they found the level too high.

After freezing the blood in a bag to preserve it, they re-injected it if the haematocrit value had fallen too low, "because that too is dangerous" for the health, Fuentes said.

Merino has been spared going on trial for the time being since he has Alzheimer's disease.

Fuentes said he kept a "blood diary" recording the extractions and tagged the frozen blood with codes identifying the athletes.

Former cyclist Jesus Manzano, a former rider on Spanish team Kelme of which Fuentes was the head doctor, has alleged generalised doping in the team and says he himself underwent unsafe transfusions.

A court official said Tuesday that Armstrong's former team-mate Tyler Hamilton will testify at the trial, after the judge granted a request by the World Anti-Doping Agency, a civil party in the case.

Other trial witnesses include Alberto Contador, Tour de France winner in 2007 and 2009, who returned to competition last year after a two-year ban for a separate case in which he denied doping. Contador, due to appear on February 5, was cleared of any involvement in the Puerto affair.

The date for Hamilton's testimony had yet to be set.

Fuentes's defence lawyer was due to take the floor on Wednesday and the trial is scheduled to last until March 22.

- AFP/jc



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I am Indian, father fought for freedom, Shah Rukh Khan says

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: Shah Rukh Khan on Tuesday sought to clear the air over his article in an Indian magazine, saying he had written nothing to indicate he felt unsafe in India. "Being an Indian and my parents' child is an unconditional accepted truth of my life and I am very proud of both... Nowhere does the article state or imply directly or indirectly that I feel unsafe... troubled or disturbed in India," Khan said, even as Indian ministers hit back at Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik for suggesting that India provide security to the actor.

Information & broadcasting minister Manish Tewari said all citizens of India were treated equally and asked Malik to redirect his worries to the condition of minorities in Pakistan. The political class in India, cutting across party lines, reacted sharply to Malik's "meddling in India's internal affairs".

In the first-person account, Khan, while recalling his experiences as a Muslim in a post-9/11 world, spoke of how he had become an inadvertent object of political leaders who "choose to make him a symbol of all that they think is wrong and unpatriotic about Muslims in India".

"Whenever there is an act of violence in the name of Islam, I am called upon to air my views and dispel the notion that, by virtue of being a Muslim, I condone such senseless brutality," he wrote. "There have been occasions when I have been accused of bearing allegiance to our neighbouring nation rather than my own country — this even though I am an Indian whose father fought for the freedom of India." Following the article, Jamat-ud-Dawa chief and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Sayeed had offered Khan a chance to move to Pakistan if he did not feel safe in India.

Criticizing such reactions to his article from Pakistan, Shah Rukh issued a statement saying, "Ironically, the article I wrote was actually meant to reiterate that on some occasions my being an Indian Muslim film star is misused by bigots and narrow-minded people who have misplaced religious ideologies for small gains... And, ironically, the same has happened through this article... once again."

"We have an amazing, democratic, free and secular way of life. In the environs that we live here in my country India, we have no safety issues regarding life or material. As a matter of fact, it is irksome for me to clarify this non-existent issue... My own family and friends are like a mini-India," he wrote.

Khan implored people to actually read his article before reacting to it, adding that people shouldn't be misled by those who "use religion as an anchor for unrest and a policy of divide and rule". The BJP said Pakistan should not meddle in India's internal affairs.

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