A 'Zero Option' for Afghanistan

Sunday 20 January 2013

Kabul, Jan 20 : Afghan President Hamid Karzai's visit this week to Washington marks one of the final big decision points in America's 11-year Afghanistan war.

This week's meetings are likely to determine the final U.S. footprint in Afghanistan after 2014, when all international combat operations are slated to end. And that residual number of U.S. forces could well be zero.

Recent reports suggest that the White House is looking at troop options ranging from 3,000 to as many as 15,000 stay-behind troops. Many think that the final figure will be well under 10,000. These numbers are much diminished from proposals seriously considered even 12 to 24 months ago of a long-term presence in the range of 20,000 to 35,000 troops. The realities of shrinking budgets and crumpled public support for the war have dramatically trimmed those expectations. In recent weeks, vigorous debate has been under way inside the administration in advance of Karzai's visit to sort out a minimalist approach that will protect long-term U.S. interests in the region, but do so with the absolute leanest outlay of dollars and troops.

Karzai comes to this week's discussions convinced that the United States desperately needs long-term military bases in Afghanistan. He sees an America without other viable options to maintain its regional influence, cajole Pakistan, threaten Iran, or launch raids against nearby terrorists. Because of this, Karzai thinks that he holds all the cards in the upcoming negotiations. He is absolutely convinced that the United States has no workable strategic choice but to station substantial U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014.

But Karzai has it wrong. There is strong sentiment in the United States to look at all the options. Here are five reasons why:

Iraq. The outcome of America's war in Iraq sets a strong precedent for a similar "zero" U.S. military posture in Central Asia. Iraq has not become an Iranian puppet state nor descended into chaos since the United States withdrew all its military forces at the end of 2011. The United States maintains a robust diplomatic presence there -- and presumably conducts intelligence activities -- to protect its interests. Iraqi political decisions are often at odds with U.S. preferences; few think that a U.S. troop presence would change that reality. Iraq's failure to grant remaining U.S. soldiers legal immunity from Iraqi law doomed any possibility of a residual force there; the same could happen in Afghanistan, and withdrawal could be seen as an equally viable outcome by many Americans.

Budgetary pressure. With a debt crisis and crumbling infrastructure at home, enthusiasm on Capitol Hill for spending taxpayer dollars on foreign adventures is at an all-time low. The recent action to avert the fiscal cliff has delayed, but not fixed, the substantial imbalance between U.S. spending and revenue. A perpetual flow of billions of aid dollars to Afghanistan after 2014 -- for U.S. troops or for Afghans -- will be a much tougher sell two years from now than it is today. And it is very tough today.

War weariness. By 2014, the United States will have been at war in Afghanistan for over 12 years. The connection between Afghanistan and the 9/11 attacks has frayed deeply since Osama bin Laden's death at the hands of U.S. forces in 2011. With over 2,000 Americans killed and another 17,000 wounded in over a decade of inconclusive fighting, most Americans are looking for an exit from a seemingly interminable war. Maintaining congressional and popular support for an unending deployment of thousands of U.S. troops after 12 years at war will be supremely difficult, even more so if casualties continue.

Stand-off capabilities. The United States has powerful remote intelligence, surveillance, and strike capabilities that could only be dreamed of in the 1990s. These capabilities increasingly can be employed from "stand-off" distances, with a few flying from as far as the United States. Some of these capabilities require regional basing, but Afghanistan is not the only country that can provide low-visibility basing options. Drones have changed the face of warfare, and used in concert with U.S. intelligence into remote areas, they are increasingly lethal to terrorists.

U.S. intelligence networks. Eleven years of extensive quiet intelligence efforts partnered with Afghans (and Pakistanis) have created a deep web of friendly contacts that will be maintained long after 2014. In some ways, the post-2014 environment in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area could evolve into a prolonged "intelligence war," with hundreds of U.S. operatives and billions of covert dollars invested in preventing further terrorist attacks on the United States. Given its vital importance, this undertaking will endure -- regardless of the size of the residual U.S. military presence.

U.S. President Barack Obama will have to weigh the substantial risks inherent in a "Zero Option" for Afghanistan. Absent the stabilizing influence of some numbers of U.S. troops, Afghanistan could slip back into chaos, experiencing a new version of the devastating civil war that rent the country in the 1990s. The ability to see and strike terrorist groups that aim to attack the United States or its allies from within the region would be degraded. Al Qaeda could surge into growing ungoverned spaces and perhaps re-establish a more prominent foothold. U.S. influence on a nuclear-armed Pakistan would undoubtedly lessen if U.S. troops were no longer stationed next door. And the potential for the United States to put pressure on Iran from U.S. forces posted near its eastern border would vanish. By any measure, it is a suboptimal posture for the United States in the region, but not necessarily an untenable one.

Obama must consider all these risks as he sits down with Karzai to hammer out this last chapter of the war. Karzai would be wise to avoid overplaying his hand. Even though the Zero Option is not the best choice to protect American long-term regional interests, it certainly remains on the table. Overreach on Karzai's part could easily sour prospects for any sort of enduring U.S. military presence.

For Americans, the Afghanistan war is entering its final phase. Obama knows that this war will end on his watch. His legacy as president will inevitably be shaped by its outcome. Whether U.S. troops ultimately stay or leave Afghanistan after 2014 may now come down to just one week of tough bargaining. Each nation has a great deal at stake.

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The open question of Afghanistan

Kabul,. Jan 20 : Most speculation has focused on how rapidly the remaining 60,000-plus U.S. combat troops will be withdrawn and how many will be permanently assigned there after 2014. But as the U.S. financial belt is being tightened, people want to know the financial cost, for how long and what will be accomplished.

The fiscal 2013 Defense Authorization Act contains $4.7 billion for the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), an amount that the U.S. government can’t continue to expend. The House-Senate conferees on the bill, realizing that Afghan support must be reduced, called for an independent study of what size the ANSF should be to make certain that Afghanistan will not again serve as a training camp for terrorists. The Afghans cannot support the security forces that the United States and its allies have created. That means Washington will have to pay or get others to join in future funding of Kabul’s forces.

“There are no public U.S. plans that show how the Obama administration will deal with either the civil or military aspects of this transition between now and the end of 2014, or in the years that follow,” Anthony H. Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh A. Burke chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote last week. A former Pentagon official who has closely followed the 10- year war in Afghanistan, Cordesman questioned recent Pentagon statements of continuing successes, saying his reading of official reports shows “there has been no meaningful military progress since the end of 2010.”

He also wrote, “The State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have never issued a remotely credible report on the progress and impact of the civilian surge or any aspect of the civil aid program.”

The real issue, Cordesman said, “is the future size of the civil-military effort, not the military effort alone. Any debate or analysis of the future U.S. role in Afghanistan that does not tie the two together is little more than intellectual and media rubbish.”

High on the Obama-Karzai agenda is a status-of-forces or similar agreement that would authorize a U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan after 2014. Discussions have been underway since November. One has to only look back at Iraq to see the pitfalls that may arise before the two sides can reach such an agreement. Not the least is getting an Afghan-U.S. guarantee over which country will exercise criminal jurisdiction over U.S. personnel and under what circumstances.

Karzai, who is set to give up the presidency next year, has his own wish list that seems to include a long-term U.S. presence, but under Afghan terms. He has a list that “he has enumerated for months in public speeches, including accusations that the United States has fomented corruption in Afghanistan and continues to violate the country’s sovereignty,” according to The Washington Post’s Kabul correspondent Kevin Sieff.

One of Karzai’s favorite subjects is the U.S. approval of contracts “with [Afghan] warlords who use the money for their own gains,” according to his spokesman, Aimal Faizi. While one of the U.S. complaints about the Afghan government is its corruption, Karzai has repeatedly said that corruption is “imposed on us, and it is meant to weaken our system.”

A glance at the contracts awarded or offered in the first week of January shows how deeply committed the U.S. operation is in Afghanistan.

Construction contracts alone awarded last week totaled $41.3 million to build various facilities for elements of the ANSF and other government agencies. The largest was for $14.2 million to build a national fire training academy near Kabul that would be “for a population of 350 personnel to include students, instructors, mentors, administration and support staff,” according to the award notice.

Also awarded were contracts to construct a $3.4 million Afghan Border Police headquarters in Farah province; a $3.3 million Class B fire station for the Afghan National Police (ANP) in Ghor province; a $4.3 million expansion of Afghan army facilities in Helmand province; a $5.6 million supply facility for the ANP in Baghlan province; a $6.8 million expansion of facilities for the Afghan army and air force combined wing in Kandahar province; and $3.8 million to expand facilities at Camp Zafar in Herat province, which I wrote about last week.

New contracts also were in the offing. For example, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is seeking a contractor to upgrade the Afghan army’s Khair Khot garrison in Paktika province. The work, to involve 25 structures, would include “a new compound for a Transient Kandak [Afghan battalion of about 600], an Operations Coordination Center, additional barracks and latrines for existing units already fielded, two literacy training classrooms and utility upgrades,” according to the government notice.

Remember, this was just the first week in January, and the United States is planning to be in Afghanistan 51 more weeks this year. It would be much better for Obama and Karzai to end their meeting with a specific list of what exactly will be involved rather than empty words saying they will continue to support each other in the fight against terrorists.

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Saving Afghanistan

Kabul, Jan 20 : In the year 2000, well before the tragic Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and the subsequent liberation of Afghanistan, a secret meeting took place in northern Afghanistan, one of the few areas not conquered by the Taliban.

A man named Hamid Karzai, as part of a delegation representing the former king of Afghanistan, flew in to meet Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the anti-Taliban United Front, and me to discuss the future of the country.

Our conversation might have seemed presumptuous, focused as it was on outlining a post-Taliban government.

Following 9/11 and the global response, these ideas became the structure for the future Afghan government. But today, despite incredible amounts of blood and treasure and unprecedented support from the United States and the international community, Afghanistan is perceived as on the brink of collapse, with the shadow of the 2014 withdrawal date casting a pall on everything from soldier morale to the economy.

Despite the overwhelming list of challenges, however, from corruption to an economy dependent on foreign aid, Afghanistan can still experience a successful political transition in 2014. For this to happen, all the stakeholders involved must stop thinking strictly in terms of military means.

Afghanistan arrived at this point through a tragic combination of errors, some internal and some external. The initial mistake was to entrust President Karzai with the sacred duty of securing the fate of our embattled nation. His lack of faith in his fellow countrymen is perhaps best exemplified by his request that the CIA, even before he was officially inaugurated as president, provide bodyguards to protect him not from al Qaeda but from the Afghans who helped install him in power. Despite high hopes, he has rarely pursued local support for his policies and alienated many U.S. and international partners with his xenophobic pronouncements, thus tainting any opportunity for genuine leadership.

Karzai's lack of trust led directly to the ill-conceived policy of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, best described as Iraqi-style de-Baathification but in practice targeted against those who had fought as U.S. allies against the Taliban. The end result was a power vacuum that pitted a government with limited resources and capability against a nascent but determined and foreign-supported insurgency. Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's fateful decision to continue to view elements of the Taliban, and Islamic extremism more broadly, as a strategic asset for use in Afghanistan set the stage for the current conflict and fed the insecurity, while the United States became more focused on Iraq, Iran's nuclear program, and the rise of China.

Yet other obstacles to success in Afghanistan are much harder to quantify. The tolerance of the Afghan government and foreigners alike toward high-brow corruption has today become a significant threat to a stable Afghanistan, along with the Taliban. It would be a tragic mistake for the international community to conclude that democracy doesn't work in Afghanistan, while the only thing that doesn't work is democracy as Karzai's government understands it. The Afghan government has done little to ensure that the institutions of democracy, from our parliament to our courts and civil society, are supported and nurtured. Instead, it has confused the Afghan people by being passive toward corruption and pursuing an inconsistent and ambivalent policy regarding reconciliation with the armed insurgency. As the current Afghan government has repeatedly made clear, a red line of reconciliation with the Taliban must be their acceptance of the Constitution -- and Karzai needs to illustrate his own commitment to this same standard. No wonder Afghans feel no connection to this government and understand democracy to be code language for anarchy.

Because of these countless psychological and structural missteps, influential, democratically minded Afghans -- and those who support them -- must focus more sharply on a political transition, without which any "military transition" will ultimately be meaningless. And for a successful political transition, Afghanistan needs every country involved in its rebuilding effort to send a clear message to today's Afghan leadership demanding a democratic transition of power based on the principles of free and fair elections. Instead of abandoning democracy because it hasn't worked under a kleptocracy, Afghanistan and the international community must clean it up.

Can this be done in just over a year? Yes. The time until the 2014 elections must be used to implement procedures that support democracy. Our international partners, in particular the United States, should ensure the positioning of foreign observers to keep a clean tally of the votes. Karzai and the Afghan parliament should approve new voter registration procedures to ensure that every voter's voice -- new and old -- is heard. Our parliament needs to mandate the vetting of all election officials who will oversee election centers, rather than accepting them as a result of presidential decree, as they are now. There needs to be an independent body to resolve all electoral disputes -- an independent Electoral Complaints Commission whose members are selected transparently and with meaningful consultations among Afghan political opposition groups, parliament, civil society, and others.

Karzai must clearly illustrate his willingness both to step down when his constitutionally limited time is up and to promise not to interfere in the election process, addressing the top two concerns of the Kabul political elite. Taking into account our recent presidential and parliamentary elections in 2009 and 2010, state resources should not be used to influence the outcome of the elections.

The political transition, based entirely on credible and transparent elections, is of paramount importance because it will restore the Afghan people's faith and sense of ownership in their government. Despite all the fraud and mismanagement in previous elections, it is, remarkably, not yet lost. And if the government obtains this mandate from the people, it can act with confidence on issues from dealing with the Taliban to stabilizing the economy and receiving long-term assistance from the West and the international community that will ensure Afghanistan's security, stability, and prosperity. By playing a constructive role in facilitating necessary electoral reforms and overseeing a credible and legitimate transfer of power in 2014, Karzai can still take advantage of this unique opportunity and moment in Afghan history to be remembered as a reformist.

The structure of Afghanistan's political process, which was discussed in that meeting in 2000, further implemented in the 2001 Bonn agreement, and painfully built over the past decade, is still the right one. But work remains on that central point -- ensuring that every person gets the opportunity to choose his or her government. With a push from the international community, and in particular, the United States, to help Afghanistan conduct free and fair elections, Afghanistan can be saved -- and move into the next decade from a position of strength. Together with our international partners, the Afghan nation has come a long way in our transition toward democracy and stability. We must march on forward.

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Gun Owners on Gun Violence: Education, enforcement, but not fewer guns

New York, Jan 20: The NRA's Wayne LaPierre stoked emotion on both sides of the gun-control debate in December when he suggested that armed guards in American schools would prevent tragedies like the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will announce a push for stricter firearms legislation, including broadening an assault-weapons ban and limiting high-volume magazines.

President Barack Obama, while not as a specific, told the country shortly after Newtown that the nation has "an obligation to try" any measures that will reduce gun-related violence. He tapped Vice President Joe Biden to lead a task force to explore options.

Very public efforts and ideas notwithstanding, it is also everyday gun owners (80 million strong) who sway much of the firearms debate in the United States. A CBS News poll from December says 57 percent of Americans believe the country needs stricter gun-control laws, an 18-point surge since last spring.

This week, Yahoo News asked gun owners how they'd specifically address gun-related violence. We received a variety of suggestions—focus on the mentally ill, educate more and increase gun ownership—but, perhaps not surprisingly, not one advocated for fewer guns.

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Trail of Cheetos leads to store robber

Washington, Jan 20 : Police nabbed a South Carolina teenager when they followed a trail of Cheetos leading from a convenience store to a local residence where he was staying.

Austin Lee Westfall Presler, 19, was arrested on January 6 in Kershaw County, S.C., after allegedly stealing beer, cigarettes, snacks and energy drinks from the local Cassatt Country Store, WLTX reported. Calls placed to Kershaw County sheriff's office by ABCNews.com were not immediately returned.

Store manager Howard "Buck" Buckholz told ABCNews.com that Presler only stole $160 worth of goods, but caused upwards of $2,500 worth of damage.

"The fella broke in our store," he said. "We were called at 3:15 a.m. The fuel truck fella said that the front door had been knocked in, so he called it in. He knocked out our front door, he knocked out the beer cooler, and stole beer, cigarettes, Slim Jims, and in his haste, he punctured two or three bags of Cheetos."

Those Cheetos were strewn all over the store's floor and in the doorway. Buckholz said that a neighbor across the street told him and police that the car Presler was driving was parked across the street at the Hard Times Café.

"Cheetos were all over the parking lot, at the place where he parked his car, and at the residence," Buckholz said.

Presler does not live in the area, but was staying with someone that lives less than 1/5 of a mile from his store, Buckholz said.

"He was very easy to catch," he said. "It was a very quick deal."

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Teachers flock to gun courses as gun-violence debate heats up

New York, Jan 20 : Free gun courses aimed at teachers and school administrators in Utah, Texas, North Carolina and Ohio have attracted hundreds of applicants in the wake of the shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

The classes provide gun training and a concealed carry license for those who qualify. Gerard Valentino, a co-founder of the Buckeye Firearms advocacy group in Ohio, said more than 900 teachers and administrators have signed up to take the three-day class his organization is offering at the Tactical Defense Institute in West Union, Ohio. Local news reports out of Utah, Texas and North Carolina suggest that hundreds more teachers are undergoing gun training in those states as well.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, has sent armed volunteers to patrol areas around about 50 schools this week, and a city council in a small town in Utah is considering passing a resolution that encourages all teachers to carry concealed weapons to schools.

The vast majority of teachers are not allowed to bring weapons to school, training or no training. It's unclear how many school districts allow teachers to carry weapons, but at least one district in Texas and all the districts in Utah do so. A handful of states, including Ohio, do not expressly prohibit guns on school campuses, in theory leaving it up to local governments and school districts to decide. But it doesn't appear that any district in Ohio does allow guns in schools. State lawmakers in Tennessee and other states are weighing legislation to change this, however, and to open up schools to armed teachers.

One middle school teacher in Central Ohio said she decided to sign up for the gun course because in the Newtown shooting, many of the teachers who followed the school's security procedures exactly were still unable to save their kids. "I love my students; they are everything to me," said Carly, who asked that her real name not be used because her school district does not want employees talking about the issue. "I would do anything to protect them. Putting them in a lockdown drill and hiding them in the closet isn't enough. It's time for something to change."

Carly says she could hide her weapon with an ankle or bra holster, so that none of her students will ever know that she's carrying a weapon.

Many have expressed concern and even disbelief at the idea of arming teachers as a way to combat gun violence. The disconnect points to a big split in the way Americans view the problem of gun violence, with one side calling for fewer restrictions on legal gun owners and the other pushing for more restrictions and fewer guns.

“Guns have no place in our schools. Period,” said the presidents of both major teachers' union in a rare joint statement last month. The union heads called the idea "disturbing."

"More guns are not the answer. Freedom is not a handgun on the hip of every teacher," Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, a Democrat, said in a speech.

Vice President Joe Biden said the White House would move quickly to address gun crime and that Obama would turn to executive action if Congress won't cooperate. While Biden didn't outline specifics, many expect Obama to push for more thorough background checks for every gun buyer and possibly a ban on certain kinds of semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity ammo clips. The gun used in the Newtown shooting was an AR-15 type of semi-automatic rifle that was legally purchased by the shooter's mother, according to authorities. It's one of the best-selling guns in the country.

Meanwhile, National Rifle Association Vice President Wayne LaPierre argues that "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." Valentino, the Ohio gun advocate, notes that a school shooter in Pearl, Miss., in 1997 was killed by an assistant principal who ran to his car to get his rifle. If capable teachers were armed, more shooters could be stopped, he said.

According to a recent Christian Science Monitor poll, 64 percent of Americans support an increased police presence at schools. That's the recommendation of school safety expert Ken Trump, who says it's a bad idea for schools to allow teachers to be armed.

"There is a huge difference between having trained, certified and commissioned law enforcement officers who are full-time, career public safety professionals that are armed and assigned the duty of protecting students and staff versus having teachers, custodians, cafeteria workers and other non-public safety professionals packing a gun in school with hundreds of children," Trump wrote.

Many districts say they can't afford to pay a police officer to be at every school, however. Carly, the Ohio teacher, says her school has only a part-time officer on the premises.

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Attorneys spar over fate of California boy who killed neo-Nazi dad

Riverside, Jan 20 : A lawyer for a California boy accused of murdering his neo-Nazi father urged a judge on Wednesday to convict his client of a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, citing what he termed an abusive upbringing.

But a prosecutor told the court that Joseph Hall, who both sides agree shot his father at point blank range in May 2011 when he was 10 years old, knew at the time his actions were wrong, and that abuse allegations cited by the defense were a diversion.

"Joseph was not raised in the home described by the defense here," Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Michael Soccio said during his closing remarks in the high-profile trial. "It doesn't exist. It's fiction, a smoke screen, a red herring."

Defense lawyers concede that Hall, now 12, shot his 32-year-old father, a regional director of the National Socialist Movement, with his own gun, but argue that the boy should not be held criminally responsible.

The case in Riverside, 60 miles east of Los Angeles, has made headlines because of Jeffrey Hall's neo-Nazi associations and the rarity of a parent being killed by a child so young.

Kathleen Heide, a criminologist who specializes in juvenile offenders, has said that 8,000 murder victims over the past 32 years were slain by their offspring, but only 16 of those crimes were committed by defendants aged 10 or younger.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jean Leonard, who is hearing the juvenile case without a jury, was expected to render her verdict on Monday.

Because Hall is a minor, the purpose of the trial is not to determine guilt or innocence, but whether certain allegations about his motives are true. If he is found responsible for the crime, he could be sent to a juvenile facility until he is 23.

Defense lawyers have said the boy was conditioned by his father's violent, racist behavior and that he killed him to put an end to physical abuse.

Defense attorney Matthew Hardy - who on Monday withdrew his young client's plea of not guilty by reason of insanity - told Leonard that Hall should be convicted of voluntary manslaughter because he was essentially acting in self-defense.

Hardy displayed a photo of Hall, his father and an unidentified young girl standing with a man who was wearing Ku Klux Klan robes. Hall was holding a toy gun in the picture.

"I put this photo up to show the type of conditioning Joseph had," he said. "This young man never had a chance in his life. He was pre-programmed to act immorally."

A psychologist called as a witness by the defense testified during the trial that the boy had been conditioned to violence by years of physical, emotional and likely sexual abuse.

But Soccio called Jeffrey Hall a "loving father" who taught his son to be nonviolent despite his own neo-Nazi ties, and said the boy "made the choice" to kill.

Prosecutors say Hall, who lived with four siblings, shot his father because he thought he was planning to divorce his stepmother, Krista McCary. Prosecutors said the boy was close to McCary and considered her his true mother.

"The proper finding should be murder," he said. "The evidence is ample that it was premeditated and planned."

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Mother of serial killer Ted Bundy dies in Wash.

Tacoma, Jan 20 : Louise Bundy, who was a staunch defender of her serial killer son, Ted Bundy, before he made a series of death-row confessions, has died. She was 88.

She died last month in her hometown of Tacoma after a long illness, The News Tribune newspaper reported.

Her death was confirmed by the Rev. Melvin Woodworth, pastor of Tacoma's First United Methodist Church, which she attended from 1951 until a few years ago, when her health prevented her.

In the mid-1970s, Louise Bundy was a married mother of five working as a secretary at the University of Puget Sound when authorities across the nation began to accuse her eldest son in a series of gruesome killings.

For years, she refused to believe the charges.

"Ted Bundy does not go around killing women and little children!" she told The News Tribune in 1980 after Ted Bundy was convicted in the Florida killings. "And I know this, too, that our never-ending faith in Ted - our faith that he is innocent - has never wavered. And it never will."

Her stance softened after Ted Bundy made a number of death-row confessions, the newspaper reported.

He ultimately confessed to murdering more than two dozen women and was executed in 1989 after being convicted of killing two Florida State University sorority members and a 12-year-old girl.

Louise Bundy spoke with him twice on his execution day, telling him at the end of the second call, "You'll always be my precious son."

Ted Bundy was among some of the notorious criminals who have been represented by Seattle lawyer John Henry Browne. He recalled Louise Bundy as "very quiet, very much concerned about her son."

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Browne said he hadn't spoken with Louise Bundy in several decades but had flown to Florida with her several times after Bundy was arrested there.

"I do know her insistence on Ted's innocence actually waned even before he started confessing, but her love for him certainly didn't," Browne said.

Louise Bundy remained in Tacoma following her son's execution and was an active member of the First United Methodist Church.

Her son's troubles took a toll, the newspaper reported. Louise Bundy and her husband, John Bundy, endured jokes and dirty looks over the years and often changed their telephone number to avoid angry calls.

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NYC crane collapses, 7 people hurt, 3 seriously

New York, Jan 20 : A 200-foot crane collapsed onto a building under construction near the East River waterfront Wednesday, injuring seven people, three of them seriously.

A two-story framework for the residential building in the New York City borough of Queens had been erected when the red crane toppled and went sprawling across it around 2:30 p.m. behind a big neon "Pepsi Cola" sign, a local landmark.

The three people who were seriously injured were in stable condition.

One person appeared to have a broken bone. Three people had to be extricated from underneath the crane, Deputy Fire Chief Mark Ferran said.

Preston White, 48, a carpenter from the Bronx, was on his first day on the job at the site in the Long Island City neighborhood.

He had turned to speak to a friend when he heard a popping sound and turned back around.

At that moment, "I saw the cable whipping toward the deck. ... You could just hear it buckling," White said.

The impact shook the scaffolding he was on.

The crane cut down the framework of the building "like a hot knife in butter," White said, because there was no plaster on it yet.

A fellow worker, Russell Roberson, 32, of Brooklyn, said the crane had been up about four days — and went down really fast.

City officials went up in a cherry picker while investigating the accident.

Construction cranes have been a source of safety worries in the city since two giant rigs collapsed within two months of each other in Manhattan in 2008, killing a total of nine people.

Those accidents spurred the resignation of the city's buildings commissioner and fueled new safety measures, including hiring more inspectors and expanding training requirements and inspection checklists.

Another crane fell and killed a worker in April at a construction site for a new subway line. That rig was exempt from most city construction safety rules because it was working for a state-overseen agency that runs the subway system.

During Superstorm Sandy, a construction crane atop a $1.5 billion luxury high-rise in midtown Manhattan collapsed in high winds and danged precariously for several days until it could be tethered.

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BlackRock to buy Credit Suisse's European ETFs

New York, Jan 20  : BlackRock Inc has won the bidding for Credit Suisse Group AG's European exchange-traded fund business, according to a source familiar with the situation.

The deal is expected to be announced shortly, said the source, who declined to be identified because the deal is not yet public. The value of the deal could not be determined.

A BlackRock spokeswoman and a Credit Suisse spokeswoman declined to comment.

Credit Suisse put its $17.6 billion ETF unit up for sale in October, sources said at the time.

In November, Credit Suisse said it was integrating its private banking and asset management divisions into a new wealth management unit.

BlackRock and State Street Global Advisors, the asset management arm of State Street Corp, were among the companies bidding for the business, but State Street dropped out of the bidding in December.

Credit Suisse is the fourth largest ETF provider in Europe, with 58 ETFs and a 5.3 percent market share as of December 31, according to ETFGI, a London-based ETF research firm.

BlackRock is the largest ETF provider in Europe, with more than 42 percent of the $331 billion European ETF market. Its 202 European iShares ETFs had $139.6 billion in assets as of December 31, the research firm said.

Credit Suisse's ETF business would be the second international ETF business BlackRock has acquired in the past several months.

BlackRock bought Toronto-based Claymore Investments, a Canadian ETF operation, from Guggenheim Partners LLC, in March.

"This acquisition shows BlackRock's further commitment to being the dominant player in ETFs in every market they are in," said Dave Nadig, director of research at IndexUniverse LLC, a San Francisco-based firm that tracks ETFs.

In October, BlackRock Chief Executive Laurence Fink said it was looking at a "fill-in ETF acquisition in another country.

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KFC's parent apologizes to China customers over handling of food scare

Shanghai, Jan 20 : Fast-food chain KFC's parent Yum Brands Inc apologized to customers in China over its handling of a recent food scare that has hit the company's sales in its biggest market.

"We regret shortcomings in our self-checking process, a lack of internal communication," Su Jingshi, chairman and chief executive of Yum China, wrote on the company's Weibo microblog.

Yum, which gets more than half of its revenue and operating profit from China, warned that bad publicity from the safety review of its chicken suppliers had hit sales in China harder than expected in the fourth quarter.

Subsequent findings by the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration found the levels of antibiotics and steroids in Yum's current batch of KFC chicken supply were safe, though the watchdog found a suspicious level of an antiviral drug in one of the eight samples tested.

The scandal erupted when the official China Central Television reported in late December that some of the chicken supplied to KFC and McDonald's Corp contained excess amounts of antiviral drugs and hormones used to accelerate growth.

A spokesman for Yum said that the firm had stopped using the two suppliers before the official probe was announced, after its own random tests showed they were not meeting Yum's own standards.

Yum's Su also apologized for the company's failure to actively report test results to the government and a lack of transparency and speed in its external communication.

Nonetheless, the bad publicity has hurt KFC's image in China, where Western brands are often regarded as safer and higher quality than Chinese peers, an important factor as food safety is often near the top of the list of consumer concerns.

"They do finally apologize now, but it's too late. I don't know if other people will forgive them or not, but I certainly won't!" wrote Jackson_Dong on popular microblog site Sina Weibo.

Yum, which has more than 5,100 restaurants in China and is the largest Western restaurant operator in China, pulled some products in 2005 because they contained "Sudan Red" dye, which was banned from use in food due to concerns it could lead to an increased risk of cancer.

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Morgan Stanley to cut jobs, may signal more pain ahead

New York, Jan 20 : Morgan Stanley plans to slash 1,600 jobs in what may be just the beginning of a new round of layoffs at large investment banks, this time driven by a deeper reassessment of Wall Street businesses in the face of new regulations and capital standards.

Morgan Stanley, the sixth-largest U.S. bank by assets, plans to begin letting go of the employees, many of whom work in its securities unit, starting this week, two people familiar with the matter said.

A third person who has been involved with plans to cut staff at Morgan Stanley and other large banks said that Morgan Stanley's cuts had been in the works for months, and that more are expected in the future.

Large global investment banks have been cutting staff for the better part of five years, when the financial crisis pegged to the U.S. housing market began to seize up markets.

Firms previously focused their job cuts on areas where activity had screeched to a halt, such as securitization of mortgages, or that were explicitly banned by new regulations, such as proprietary trading.

But banks are now making strategic decisions about businesses in grey areas where management teams do not see major profit potential, or realize that their individual banks are not competitive, the third source said.

"It's hard to look at yourself in the mirror, and say: 'I'm not good at this,'" said the source. But now that management teams are coming to those realizations, he said, they are beginning to make strategic decisions to exit businesses and cut more staff.

So far, the most prominent example of a bank making that kind of a tough decision is Swiss bank UBS AG, which said in October that it would exit bond trading altogether and eliminate 10,000 jobs.

Morgan Stanley has said it will not give up on the fixed income, currency and commodities trading business, known as "FICC" in Wall Street circles. The firm has said it wants to boost market share in FICC by two percentage points.

But Morgan Stanley is aiming to exit more complex realms of bond trading that require more capital under new regulations.

The latest staff reductions will affect 6 percent of the institutional securities unit's workforce, which includes the bank's FICC business. The cuts will target salespeople, traders and investment bankers, the sources said. Support staff who work in areas such as technology will also be affected, the sources said.

Although all staff levels will be affected, the likely targets will be more senior employees who take in the biggest paychecks, and about half of the cuts will come from the United States, one of the sources said.

The cuts are also notable because, unlike its chief rival Goldman Sachs Group Inc, which culls the bottom 5 percent of its workforce each year to improve performance, Morgan Stanley does not have such a staff reduction program.

Some analysts have questioned Morgan Stanley's plans to gain market share in the bond trading business.

JPMorgan analyst Kian Abouhossein - who earlier said that Morgan Stanley should give up that goal - expects Wall Street banks to report a 10 percent decline in revenue for the fourth quarter, compared with the previous period.

Bernstein Research analyst Brad Hintz, a former Morgan Stanley treasurer, said in a report that layoffs are expected in capital-intensive areas of Morgan Stanley's fixed-income trading business, such as asset-backed securitization, synthetic products, structured credit and correlation trading.

"Investors continue to wonder how Morgan Stanley's fixed income business will be able to generate steady returns and beat its cost of capital without massive changes to its business model," Hintz said.

Morgan Stanley Chief Executive James Gorman has pledged to cut costs, and said in July that he planned to reduce overall staff 7 percent in 2012. The new job cuts are in addition to that plan, the sources said, and come just a week after Colm Kelleher took over as the sole president of the securities unit on January 1.

The cuts represent less than 3 percent of Morgan Stanley's entire estimated workforce at year-end, following other staff reductions in 2012.

"This continues the steady drumbeat of negative news from banks," said Greg Cresci, a Wall Street recruiter with New York-based Odyssey Search Partners. "It's hard to tell where the bottom is, given how many banks have made similar announcements."

Altogether, U.S. financial firms announced plans to reduce payrolls by 38,135 jobs last year, in addition to 63,624 job cuts that were detailed in 2011, according to employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

"We are seeing a redrawing and restructuring of the industry," said John Challenger, CEO of the firm. "The map continues to be redrawn in terms of regulation, who the competitors are, and the resources banks are willing to commit to the investment banking business."

In addition to earlier job cuts at Morgan Stanley and UBS, Goldman Sachs cut 700 jobs during the first nine months of 2012 as part of a plan to reduce annual expenses by $1.9 billion.

Citigroup Inc announced plans last month to cut 11,000 jobs, including some in investment banking and trading, to save $1.1 billion in annual expenses. Credit Suisse Group AG is also cutting securities jobs to reach an annual cost-savings target of 1 billion Swiss francs ($1.1 billion), while Bank of America Corp is in the process of cutting 30,000 jobs across the firm in a plan unveiled in 2011 to save $5 billion in annual expenses.

Morgan Stanley shares fell 0.2 percent to close at $19.62. Its shares are up 15 percent over the past 52 weeks, part of a broad rally in financial stocks.

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China exports pick up more than expected in December

Beijing, Jan 20 : China's export growth rebounded surprisingly sharply in December to a seven-month high, in a strong finish to the year for an economy that had slowed for seven quarters, but the spike may not herald an enduring recovery as global demand stays subdued.

The murky trade outlook contrasts with data that showed resilient local loan demand, which supported hopes that the world's second-largest economy rebounded towards 8 percent in the final quarter of 2012 on firming domestic demand and as the nation undertook a once-in-a-decade leadership change.

China's export growth rebounded surprisingly sharply in December to hit a seven-month high, supporting expectations of a pick-up in growth after seven quarters of slowdown, but the spike may not herald an enduring recovery as global demand stays subdued.

A broad measure of credit growth also expanded strongly, adding to evidence that annual growth in the world's second-largest economy rebounded towards 8 percent in the final quarter of 2012, which coincided with a once-in-a-decade leadership transition at the head of the ruling Communist Party.

Data showed the value of China's exports grew 14.1 percent last month compared with a year earlier, racing past the forecasts of analysts polled, who had expected annual growth of 4 percent.

Economists said the pick-up in exports growth from November's 2.9 percent rise was likely accentuated by lower comparison figures a year ago and exporters clearing year-end orders, factors that do not suggest a sustainable turnaround.

China's customs office, which released the data, agreed.

"China trade still faces uncertainties in 2013," said Zheng Yusheng, a spokesperson for the customs office. "But we expect the trade situation will be relatively better compared to 2012."

Data showed the value of imports grew 6 percent on the year in December, also handily beating market forecasts for a 3 percent rise and quickening from zero growth in November.

But December's strong trade performance was not enough to help China meet its import and export growth targets for 2012, underlining that exports have been the biggest drag on China's economy over the past two years.

For 2012, China's exports grew 7.9 percent and imports were up 4.3 percent, both well under their 10 percent target.

"At the year-end, exporters tend to respond quickly to increases in external orders. The temporary rise could be a result of some seasonal factors that resulted in the spike," said Ma Xiaoping, economist at HSBC in Beijing.

"If you look at the fundamentals of U.S. and Europe, this could be a temporary rise. In coming years, we expect export growth to remain at a low level, below 10 percent for 2013."

Still, financial markets were buoyed by the strong data. Asian shares rose immediately after the trade figures were released and the Australian dollar, sensitive to the strength of the economy in the biggest customer for its iron ore and other resources, popped higher.

The trade numbers followed credit and money supply data that pointed to resilient demand for loans in China.

Data from the central bank earlier showed China's M2 measure of money supply growing 13.8 percent in December from a year earlier, broadly in line with market expectations for a 14 percent rise.

Banks were shown lending 454.3 billion yuan of new yuan loans in December, missing market expectations for a 550 billion yuan rise. But for the year, 8.2 trillion yuan of loans were disbursed, exceeding an undisclosed target of 8 trillion yuan.

Growth in alternative financing outside banks was even stronger, in a sign that Chinese firms now enjoy greater financing options, analysts said.

The central bank said China's total social financing aggregate, a broad measure of liquidity in the economy, jumped 23 percent from a year ago to 15.8 trillion yuan in 2012.

Corporate bond sales and trust loans led the way in alternative financing. Bond issuance climbed 884 billion yuan to 2.25 trillion yuan last year, while trust loans hit 1.29 trillion yuan in 2012, up 1.09 trillion yuan from 2011.

"Robust system-wide credit growth lends support to our view that gross domestic product growth could rebound to 7.8 percent year-on-year in the fourth quarter," said Ting Lu, an economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch.

China's economy has been trapped in its worst downturn in three years, growing 7.4 percent between July and September to mark the seventh consecutive quarter of slowing growth.

But analysts are hopeful that a gentle recovery is imminent. A poll showed economists expect data out next week to show China's economic expansion picked up slightly in the fourth quarter to hit 7.8 percent.

The gradual rebound would be led by strengthening domestic demand, economists say, with trade remaining an Achilles' heel.

Europe, mired in its debt crisis and a recession, has posed the strongest headwinds to China's trade sector. Bilateral trade with the European Union fell 3.7 percent in 2012 from a year ago even though export sales recovered in December.

On an annual basis, exports to the European Union climbed 1.9 percent last month in their first rise in seven months.

Shipments to the United States, which overtook Europe as the top buyer of Chinese goods this year, also improved in December to rebound 9.6 percent, reversing from a 2.6 percent drop the month before.

"We're hitting a low base for the next several months, so that means the headline will be looking OK for December and for the first quarter," said Kevin Lai, an economist at Daiwa in Hong Kong.

"I suspect that smartphone shipments were still quite strong into December given new launches that month. The picture is still more mixed regionally."

Exports from South Korea unexpectedly fell last month, though the government blamed the poor performance on fewer working days.

Exports from Taiwan, on the other hand, surpassed expectations to rise to three-month highs, although analysts warned that shipments may have been lifted by the year-end shopping season.

China's trade sector, a key part of the economy that supports an estimated 200 million jobs.

Net exports from China have subtracted from growth in its gross domestic product (GDP) since March 2011, and had shaved 0.4 percentage points off GDP expansion in the third quarter.

With Europe expected to sink deeper into recession this year, analysts say it is another difficult year for Chinese trading firms.

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As public fumes, AIG says will not sue US over bailout

New York, Jan 20  : Facing anger from Congress and the American people, AIG Inc said it would not sue the U.S. government over terms of the company's multi-billion dollar bailout.

Insurer American International Group had been weighing whether to join a lawsuit filed by its former Chief Executive Hank Greenberg and his company Starr International, which owned 12 percent of AIG before its $182 billion rescue that started in 2008.

Greenberg claims the rescue was unfair to shareholders and that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York charged an excessive interest rate on its initial loan. He is seeking billions of dollars in damages.

AIG said its board had carried out its legal and fiduciary duty to consider joining Greenberg's lawsuit before making its decision. Greenberg has a case pending in the Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., and is also appealing the dismissal of a lawsuit in the federal court in New York.

AIG's Chief Executive Bob Benmosche said in an interview with CNBC that ultimately the public had to trust the company.

"It is not acceptable socially for AIG to have taken this money and to think we can go back and sue the government," Benmosche said.

AIG said it would not pursue Starr's claims nor would it allow Starr to pursue them on AIG's behalf, setting the stage for a fresh legal fight between Greenberg and the company.

The idea that AIG might sue the government struck a raw nerve with the public, which took to the Internet to vent its anger at what it viewed as the company's audacity. The volume of AIG mentions on Twitter rose more than 50-fold, according to Topsy Analytics.

Starr's attorney, David Boies, said in a statement that AIG's effort to block Starr from pursuing claims was contrary to shareholders' interests.

"Whether or not the AIG Board will be successful in blocking Starr's efforts to recover damages for their shareholders will ultimately be decided the Court," Boies said.

Former Obama administration adviser Austan Goolsbee said "GO SCREW YOURSELVES" in a multi-tweet tirade. Comedian Andy Borowitz drafted a mock letter from the company to taxpayers, asking for more bailout money to pay for the cost of the lawsuit. Dozens of obscene comments made descriptive references to the anatomy of Chief Executive Robert Benmosche.

And those were the gentler barbs. The New York Daily News ran an editorial cartoon in which a lifeguard saves a drowning man with "AIG" on his belly. When the lifeguard asks the man how he feels, the victim says, "Like suing you."

The vitriol was just like it had been in late 2008 and early 2009 when, with the United States deep in recession, AIG employees hid ID badges and their families were threatened amid an uproar over bonuses.

A group of congressmen led by Vermont Democrat Peter Welch sent AIG's chairman a letter, advising, "Don't do it. Don't even think about it." Other members of Congress threatened hearings.

AIG took to Twitter to defend itself, saying it was legally obligated to at least consider action, but its defense mostly fell on deaf ears.

The U.S. government rescued the company from the brink of bankruptcy in September 2008 with a bailout that ultimately topped $182 billion. After a recapitalization deal closed in early 2011, the U.S. Treasury owned 92 percent of AIG.

The Treasury sold the last of that stake in mid-December 2012. The government has said it earned a return of $22.7 billion on the rescue.

In a statement, the Obama administration welcomed AIG's decision.

"AIG ran a careful process and the board's decision not to join Starr International's lawsuit is the right result," Assistant Treasury Secretary Timothy Massad said. "We continue to believe that Starr's case is without merit and will continue to defend our actions vigorously."

AIG shares rose 0.3 percent to close at $35.76. The stock lost half its value in 2011 but then rose more than 50 percent in 2012, as it showed consistent profitability.

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507 cases of graft pending in IHK courts

Jammu, Jan 20 : Around 507 cases related to corruption charges are pending disposal before two special anti-corruption courts in held Jammu and Kashmir.

The information was given in a meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Madhav Lal to review the functioning and performance of State Vigilance Organization here.

It was informed that another 131 cases are under investigation. In about 60 cases, the accused officials were held guilty in last seven years, while there is no pendency on part of the State Government regarding the cases referred by SVO for grant of prosecution sanction.

The Chief Secretary, on the occasion, directed the SVO to increase the pace of investigation and bring out department-wise patterns of misconducts and corruption for effective supervision.

Vigilance Commissioner, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Secretary General Administration Department and other officers were present on the occasion.

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Consumer watchdog tightens mortgage lending rules on banks

Washington, Jan 20 : More than five years after the housing market collapsed, the U.S. government's newly created consumer watchdog said it will force banks to verify a borrower's ability to repay loans to ward off the kind of loose lending that helped push the U.S. economy into recession.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said its new guidelines would also protect borrowers from irresponsible mortgage lending by providing some legal shields for lenders who issue safer, lower-priced loan products.

Lenders and consumer groups have anxiously awaited the new rules, which are among the most controversial the government watchdog is required to issue by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

"When consumers sit down at the closing table, they shouldn't be set up to fail with mortgages they can't afford," Richard Cordray, the bureau's director, said in a statement.

The new rules are intended to combat lending abuses that contributed to the U.S. housing bubble, when shoddy mortgage standards led American households to take on billions of dollars in debt they could not afford.

The U.S. economy is still feeling the after-effects of the bubble, which sparked a global credit crisis after it burst in 2006. As the housing market imploded, banks sharply tightened the screws on lending.

Regulators said the new rules would head off future crises by preventing irresponsible lending, without forcing banks to restrict credit further. Lenders will have to verify a potential borrower's income, the amount of debt they have and their job status before issuing a mortgage.

And because lenders are likely to want the heightened legal protection that comes with offering certain "plain vanilla" loans, the rules could go a long way in determining who gets a loan and who can access low-cost borrowing rates.

Dodd-Frank directed regulators to designate a category of "qualified mortgages" that would automatically be considered compliant with the ability-to-repay requirement. The rule was first set in motion by the Federal Reserve and then handed off to the consumer bureau in July 2011.

The consumer protection bureau said that it would define "qualified mortgages" as those that have no risky loan features - such as interest-only payments or balloon payments - and with fees that add up to no more than 3 percent of the loan amount.

In addition, these loans must go to borrowers whose debt does not exceed 43 percent of their income.

These loans would carry extra legal protection for lenders under a two-tiered system that appears to create a compromise between the housing industry and consumer advocates.

Bank groups had lobbied the bureau to extend a full "safe harbor" to all qualified loans, preventing consumers from claiming in lawsuits that they did not have the ability to repay them. But consumer advocates wanted a lower form of protection that would allow borrowers greater latitude to sue.

Under the rules announced, the highest level of protection would go to lower-priced qualified mortgages. Such prime loans generally will go to less-risky consumers with sound credit histories, the bureau said.

Higher priced loans would receive less protection. Lenders would be presumed to have verified the ability to repay the loan, but borrowers could sue if they could show that they did not have sufficient income to pay the mortgage and cover other living expenses.

Some lawmakers and mortgage lenders had warned against a draconian rule that could exacerbate the current credit crunch and set back a housing market that has become a bright spot in an otherwise tepid economic recovery.

Consumer bureau officials said they were sensitive to concerns about credit tightening, and they baked into the rules several provisions meant to keep credit flowing and to smooth the transition to the new regime.

The new rules establish an additional category of loans that would be temporarily treated as qualified. These mortgages could exceed the 43 percent debt-to-income ratio as long as they met the underwriting standards required by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or other U.S. government housing agencies.

The provision would phase out in seven years, or sooner if housing agencies issue their own qualified mortgage rules or if the government ends its support of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two housing finance giants it rescued in 2008.

Regulators also proposed creating a qualified mortgage category that would apply to community banks and credit unions.

Banks will have until January 2014 to comply with the new rules, the consumer bureau said.

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Cops beat teenage boys, reveals video

Srinagar, Jan 20 : Police started investigation into YouTube video showing stripping, beating of teenagers by police in held Kashmir’s Baramulla district.

 A police spokesman said that an FIR has been registered and are investigating the veracity of the video. The video clip shows around dozen policemen with an officer sitting in a chair stripping two teenagers and thrashing them ruthlessly.

 Titled ‘Kashmir: Indian militiamen assault detained Kashmiri teenagers’, 2.15 minute video clip, is showing two teenagers being stripped and beaten up ruthlessly with a senior officer witnessing the scene.

The video has recorded more than 2000 hits. Even, Twitter, users following Chief Minister Omar Abdullah forwarded the clip to him to seek his response.

 A police spokesman told Greater Kashmir that that a case has been registered. “We will carry out thorough investigation and will try to find out whether the video was uploaded with criminal intent,” he said and added that persons responsible uploading the video would be identified.

 The spokesman made it clear that incase policemen are found involved in the act, they too would be taken to task. “Law will take its own course and those involved will have face to the wrath,” he said.

The spokesman said that every angle of the video is being looked into. “We will also try to ascertain that video might be of year 2010, when the Valley witnessed large scale protests,” he added.

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Khanabal-Sarnal road turns into death trap

Islamabad, Jan 20 : The stretch of the Khanabal-Pahalagam (KP) road in Islamabad town is turning to be a death trap for the pedestrians.

Reason: The ill planning of the Roads and Building department which has raised the foot path in a way that pedestrians are forced to walk amidst the road.

 Last year about four pedestrians lost their lives while many sustained serious injuries after being hit by the moving vehicles on this busy road in Islamabad town.

“Recently two youth in their early twenties lost their lives  after the passenger vehicle and Tata mobile collided with each other and hit the duo near Gulshanabad area of the town,” residents said. They youth were identified as Azhar Ahmad Want, 22, of Laizbal and Sahnawaz Wani, 23, of Sarnal area of the town.

 The residents said that the duo was walking on the road side as the height of the foot path is so high that nobody can walk over it. “The very next day, a pregnant lady sustained injuries after a Sumo vehicle and auto rickshaw collided with each other near Women College, Islamabad and later hit her,” said the locals.

 Two more pedestrians lost their lives last year at Sarnal and General Bus Stand after being hit by the moving vehicles while many others were injured. The residents are up in arms against the R&B for putting their lives at risk . “We fail to understand the wisdom of the R&B authorities. Not even a 20 year old can walk on the foot path on either side of the lane as it is at least 3 feet above the main road,” said Ajaz Ahmad, of Bakshiabad.

 He said the foot path lacks any symmetry and the pedestrians have to step up and down several times if they intend to walk on the footpath. “The authorities have left gaps near the residential houses to pave way for their vehicles and as such one has to step up and down after every five meter distance while walking on the footpath,” Ajaz added.

 Residents, said that the foot paths are being used by shopkeepers for their own purpose. “As the foot path from Khanabal to Sarnal is useless, the shopkeepers have encroached them and are using it for their own purpose,” said they.

 Residents said that that plenty of gaps have been kept for crossing on the dividers near the houses of the influential people and kith and kin of engineers and contractors, thus making no sense of a divider.

 “Due to these numerous gaps the chances of accidents increase as the vehicles take a U turn through each gap,” said Rayees Ahmad, of Laizbal.

 He said that though the money was spent on crores but work is still incomplete and the central verge is still a non- entity. “The pedestrians are scared of walking on the stretch during evening hours as the vehicles move at a fast speed,” he added.

 Though the construction of foot-paths in the residential areas from Khanabal to Mattan was also under the proposal, but that has not been accomplished.

“Our children are forced to walk amidst the road, as the foot path from Khanabal to Sarnal is useless,” said Farooq Ahmad of Iqbalabad.

He added that money spent on construction of footpaths from Khanabal to Sarnal Check post has totally gone waste.
 “As several coaching centers and schools are also located on the KP road, the lives of the students are thus put to risk,” say the residents.

 They said that the road is one of the busiest in the town with Bus stand also located there.

 The residents have decided to move court against the R&B.
 “Due to the callous approach of the R&B we are losing precious lives and the tax payers money has also gone waste. Nobody is  paying any heed to our pleas. So, we have no choice but to move High Court  and file Public Interest Litigation (PIL) to seek action against the erring officials responsible for the mess,” said Riyaz Ahmad.

 Residents allege that the widening of this much hyped 110 crore Khanabal-Pahagam (KP) road  project has failed to live up to the set standards as major portion of the work is still in complete or spoiled for petty interests.

 Citing another example they said the construction of drainage on Islamabad town stretch of the road as well as the peripheries which is virtually defunct.

 “Plenty of money was spent on the drainage system of the road in the town and the adjoining areas but that has proved to be a total failure as even a small downpour can literally inundate the whole area,” said the residents of Sadiqabad.

 They said that due to the defunct drainage system the fear of heavy floods is looming large. The electric poles erected by the electric wing of the Roads and Building department (R and B) worth crores in the year 2004 residents say, are only made functional during Yatra period.

The work on the project was started way back in 2003 and after missing two deadlines it was completed in 2009 only.

Sources in the R&B department blame the engineers posted in Islamabad and Seer sub-divisions for the whole mess by resorting to diversion of funds and filling up their own pockets as well as those of politicians and bureaucrats.

 Chief Engineer, R&B, Mushtaq Ahmad Lone did not pick up the phone despite repeated attempts.

 Executive Engineer, R& B, Islamabad division, Bashir Ahmad Bhat when contacted admitted that the foot path is high. “It is true that the height of the footpath is such that the pedestrians find it difficult to walk over it. We are shortly convening a meeting wherein we will decide what we can do with it,” said Bhat , however, he blamed the residents for forcing them to leave gaps near their residential houses. “People did not cooperate while construction of foot paths and forced us to keep gaps near their entry gates,” said Bhat.

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New leads in the case against drug-resistant biofilms

Islamabad, Jan 20 : Films of bacteria that form around foreign materials in the body can be very difficult to defeat with drugs, but research led by Brown University biologists has identified a couple proteins that play a key role in building these "biofilms." This pair could prove to be a very important target for developing new antibiotics to fight infections.

When a foreign object such as a catheter enters the body, bacteria may not only invade it but also organize into a slick coating -- a biofilm -- that is highly resistant to antibiotics. Like sophisticated organized crime rings, biofilms cannot be defeated by a basic approach of conventional means. Instead doctors and drug developers need sophisticated new intelligence that reveals the key players in the network and how they operate. New research led by biologists at Brown University provides exactly that dossier on some key proteins in the iconic bacterium E. coli.

In a paper published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the researchers describe a couple of prime suspect genes and the "toxin-antitoxin" protein pair they produce. By analyzing the structure and binding of the proteins in the exquisite detail of atomic-scale X-ray crystallography, the team at Brown and Texas A&M University makes the case that "MqsR" and "MqsA" proteins are important operators worth targeting in hopes of disrupting the formation of biofilms.

"Developing new antibiotics has been very difficult, and they all pretty much target the same few proteins," said corresponding author Rebecca Page, assistant professor of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry at Brown. "Our proteins belong to a family of proteins that have never been investigated for their ability to lead to novel sets of antibiotics. This really provides a new avenue."

The main role of the combination, or complex, of MqsA and MqsR is that they appear to control the transcription of many genes, including ones that govern the growth of "persister" cells, which provide biofilms with a mesh of antibiotic-resistant constituents. In normal populations, persisters are one in a million. In biofilms, they are one in a hundred.

"The MqsR:MqsA complex not only binds its own genetic promoter, but also binds and regulates the promoters of other genes that are important for biofilm formation," Page said. "This is the only known toxin-antitoxin system that is capable of doing this."

The MqsA antitoxin is as unusual as it is influential, Page's team reports. For one thing, the protein, which resembles a bird with wide flapping wings -- Page likens it to a Klingon "Bird of Prey" ship from Star Trek -- needs the metal zinc on each wing tip to keep it stable. When it's bound to its partner toxin and DNA, the antitoxin also keeps a very tight lid on the toxin's ability to operate on mRNA, squeezing key parts, or active sites, so close together (about 1 billionth of a meter) that the mRNA simply can't enter.

Because the toxin's activity is key to the health and welfare of persister and biofilm cells, the properties of the toxin-antitoxin binding that regulate them give rise to some potential drug development strategies, Page said. For most of the time, the toxin is bound by the antitoxin, allowing cells to grow. Under other conditions, the antitoxin is destroyed and the toxin is free to cleave, or disable, mRNA. That shuts off existing persister and biofilm cells from further growth, and instead keeps them in a dormant state well-protected from things like antibiotics. If that cleaving goes on too long, however, the cells will die.

So two approaches for drug development, Page said, might be to find compounds that can either keep the toxin-antitoxin pair associated all the time (so that the toxin is inactive and thus that no cleaving occurs), or keep them separated all the time (so that the toxin is active and cleaving always occurs). The zinc on the antitoxin may also prove to be a target.

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Prostate cancer treatment linked to higher rate of colon cancer

Islamabad, Jan 20 : Men treated with hormone-based therapy for prostate cancer faced a 30 percent to 40 percent higher risk of colorectal cancer, compared to patients who did not receive this treatment, according to a new study.
The study looked at use of androgen deprivation therapy, a common type of treatment for prostate cancer that involves blocking the male hormone testosterone through either surgical removal of the testicles or a series of injections. It's been shown to benefit men with advanced cancers, but its benefit for less-advanced disease is unclear. Still, more than half a million men in the United States currently receive this therapy.

Researchers looked at data from 107,859 men aged 67 and older with prostate cancer, identified through the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results and Medicare linked database, which provides information about older adults with newly diagnosed cancer. Results of the study were published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The study is the first to link androgen deprivation therapy for prostate cancer to an increased risk of colorectal cancer. The researchers found that the risk increased the longer a man received androgen deprivation therapy. Patients who had their testicles removed, a procedure called orchiectomy, had the highest rates of colorectal cancer.

Overall, the risk of colorectal cancer was still low -- less than 1 percent per year even among orchiectomy patients. But any increased risk should be carefully considered when using androgen deprivation therapy in cases when its benefit is not clear, the researchers say.

"Androgen deprivation therapy still continues to be used in situations where there are not evidence-based studies showing its benefit. When androgen deprivation therapy is clearly known to be beneficial, people should not shy away from using it. But where there's not solid evidence, this is potentially another harm," says lead study author Vahakn B. Shahinian, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School and a member of the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Shahinian stresses that androgen deprivation therapy can be lifesaving for certain men with prostate cancer, and those patients should not hesitate to use it. The study authors suggest that continued routine preventive care, including colorectal cancer screening, is important during prostate cancer treatment.

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Does long-term cell phone use lead to brain tumors?

Islamabad, Jan 20 : The highest-quality research data available suggests that long-term exposure to microwaves from cellular phones may lead to an increased risk of brain tumors, reports a paper in the November/December issue of Journal of Computer Assisted Tomography.

Although debate continues, independent studies with long-term follow-up strongly suggest an increased risk of brain tumors related to the use of cellular or cordless phones. "We conclude that the current standard of exposure to microwave during mobile phone use is not safe for long-term exposure and needs to be revised," conclude the study authors, led by R.B. Dubey of Apeejay College of Engineering, Sohna, Gurgaon, India.

There is increasing public concern about the potential cancer risks from microwave emissions related to wireless phones -- not only cellular phones and base stations (transmission tower antennae), but also home cordless phones. Some studies have reported that long-term wireless phone users have increased rates of brain tumors, including malignant gliomas and benign acoustic neuromas. However, other studies have found no association.

To gain insight into the controversy, Dubey and colleagues performed an in-depth analysis of research on the health risks associated with microwave exposure from wireless phones. To date, only eleven published studies have provided data on the risk of developing brain tumors in long-term cell phone users -- ten years or longer.

The largest data source was a series of studies called the Interphone studies, which were largely funded by the wireless communications industry. Based on data from thirteen countries, the Interphone studies concluded that cell phone exposure did not increase the risk of brain tumors. In addition to possible bias associated with industry funding, the studies had some important flaws, including relatively short durations of cell phone use.

However, an independent series of studies led by Swedish cancer specialist Dr. Lennart Hardell reached a different conclusion. Dr. Hardell's studies included more patients who had used a cell phone for ten years or longer and were performed without financial support from the wireless industry. The findings suggested that the more hours of cellular phone use over time, the higher the risk of developing brain tumors. Risk also increased along with the level of power from the wireless device, years since first use, total exposure, and younger age when starting wireless phone use.

Based on an analysis of pooled data from different studies, researchers write, "[L]ong-term cell phone usage can approximately double the risk of developing a glioma or acoustic neuroma in the more exposed brain hemisphere" -- that is, on the side where the user typically holds the phone to the ear. That conclusion is consistent even with data on the long-term cell phone users from the Interphone studies.

It's unclear exactly how exposure to microwave radiation from cell phones may increase brain cancer risk. However, studies have shown that the cell signal is absorbed up to two inches in the adult skull. There is special concern about the risks in younger age groups, as cell phone signals penetrate much deeper into the brain in children.

Further studies are needed to definitively determine the risk of brain cancer and other health effects related to long-term use. Meanwhile, Dr. Dubey and coauthors suggest some steps that cell phone users can take to reduce exposure. These include limiting the number and length of calls, restricting children's cell phone use, communicating by text instead of voice, and wearing an "air tube" headset (not a regular wired headset) rather than holding the phone to the ear.

The researchers also urge adoption of newer phones and other technologies to reduce exposure, and call for government action to revise standards for microwave exposure.

"The precautionary principle clearly applies in this case, since the problem is possible but not certain and low cost ameliorating actions are easily implemented by industry," Dubey and coauthors conclude. "With over 3 billion people using cell phones and with children among the heaviest users, it is time for governments to mandate precautionary measures to protect their citizens."

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