Bangalore student commits suicide in Germany

BANGALORE: A Bangalore student enrolled in a post-graduate course in Siegen University, Germany, died under mysterious circumstances. While German authorities said it was a clear case of suicide, the youth's family expressed doubts about it.

The body of Likhith Shashidhar, 24, who was found hanging in his apartment in Kreuztal, allegedly by a computer cable tied around his neck on January 8, was brought to the city on Thursday night and cremated on Friday.

Likhith graduated from Jain Engineering College, Bangalore. After working for a couple of years here, he joined for the MS course in Mechatronics at Siegen University. He is survived by his parents and a younger sister.

His parents SV Shashidhara and Siddalingamma were told by German authorities on January 9 that their son had committed suicide. But papers accompanying the body were vague about the cause of death. A 'no-objection certificate for dead body clearance' issued by the Indian consulate in Frankfurt cited the death certificate and mentioned the cause of death as "unknown". Immigration authorities at the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) ascribed the death to an "accident".

Likhith's family suspect Likhith's death was linked to alleged harassment meted out to him by his seniors. Siegen University authorities dismissed these charges as mere rumours and said Likhith was depressed.

Lekha, Likhith's younger sister and engineering student, told reporters her brother had told her that some seniors at the university had posted some of his pictures on Facebook and harassing him about it.

The family last spoke to Likhith on January 7. "He told me he was being harassed by his seniors and he was fed up. He said he wanted to return home. As he didn't seem too well, I called one of his roommates, also a Bangalorean from Yelahanka. He told me Likhith had been depressed for some time and promised he would talk to him. Then came the news of his death," said Siddalingamma, a school librarian.

On January 8, Siddalingamma got a missed call from Likhith. "Generally when he gave me a missed call, it meant he wanted me to log on to Skype. I was in school when I got the call. I got back home and found he wasn't online. A day earlier, he asked what we wanted from Germany. I can't understand why he committed suicide," she said.

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Will Obama's order lead to surge in gun research?


MILWAUKEE (AP) — Nearly as many Americans die from guns as from car crashes each year. We know plenty about the second problem and far less about the first. A scarcity of research on how to prevent gun violence has left policymakers shooting in the dark as they craft gun control measures without much evidence of what works.


That could change with President Barack Obama's order Wednesday to ease research restrictions pushed through long ago by the gun lobby. The White House declared that a 1996 law banning use of money to "advocate or promote gun control" should not keep the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies from doing any work on the topic.


Obama can only do so much, though. Several experts say Congress will have to be on board before anything much changes, especially when it comes to spending money.


How severely have the restrictions affected the CDC?


Its website's A-to-Z list of health topics, which includes such obscure ones as Rift Valley fever, does not include guns or firearms. Searching the site for "guns" brings up dozens of reports on nail gun and BB gun injuries.


The restrictions have done damage "without a doubt" and the CDC has been "overly cautious" about interpreting them, said Daniel Webster, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.


"The law is so vague it puts a virtual freeze on gun violence research," said a statement from Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It's like censorship: When people don't know what's prohibited, they assume everything is prohibited."


Many have called for a public health approach to gun violence like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago even as the number of vehicles on the road rose.


"The answer wasn't taking away cars," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.


However, while much is known about vehicles and victims in crashes, similar details are lacking about gun violence.


Some unknowns:


—How many people own firearms in various cities and what types.


—What states have the highest proportion of gun ownership.


—Whether gun ownership correlates with homicide rates in a city.


—How many guns used in homicides were bought legally.


—Where juveniles involved in gun fatalities got their weapons.


—What factors contribute to mass shootings like the Newtown, Conn., one that killed 26 people at a school.


"If an airplane crashed today with 20 children and 6 adults there would be a full-scale investigation of the causes and it would be linked to previous research," said Dr. Stephen Hargarten, director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin.


"There's no such system that's comparable to that" for gun violence, he said.


One reason is changes pushed by the National Rifle Association and its allies in 1996, a few years after a major study showed that people who lived in homes with firearms were more likely to be homicide or suicide victims. A rule tacked onto appropriations for the Department of Health and Human Services barred use of funds for "the advocacy or promotion of gun control."


Also, at the gun group's urging, U.S. Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, led an effort to remove $2.6 million from the CDC's injury prevention center, which had led most of the research on guns. The money was later restored but earmarked for brain injury research.


"What the NRA did was basically terrorize the research community and terrorize the CDC," said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who headed the CDC's injury center at the time. "They went after the researchers, they went after institutions, they went after CDC in a very big way, and they went after me," he said. "They didn't want the data to be collected because they were threatened by what the data were showing."


Dickey, who is now retired, said Wednesday that his real concern was the researcher who led that gun ownership study, who Dickey described as being "in his own kingdom or fiefdom" and believing guns are bad.


He and Rosenberg said they have modified their views over time and now both agree that research is needed. They put out a joint statement Wednesday urging research that prevents firearm injuries while also protecting the rights "of legitimate gun owners."


"We ought to research the whole environment, both sides — what the benefits of having guns are and what are the benefits of not having guns," Dickey said. "We should study any part of this problem," including whether armed guards at schools would help, as the National Rifle Association has suggested.


Association officials did not respond to requests for comment. A statement Wednesday said the group "has led efforts to promote safety and responsible gun ownership" and that "attacking firearms" is not the answer. It said nothing about research.


The 1996 law "had a chilling effect. It basically brought the field of firearm-related research to a screeching halt," said Benjamin of the Public Health Association.


Webster said researchers like him had to "partition" themselves so whatever small money they received from the CDC was not used for anything that could be construed as gun policy. One example was a grant he received to evaluate a community-based program to reduce street gun violence in Baltimore, modeled after a successful program in Chicago called CeaseFire. He had to make sure the work included nothing that could be interpreted as gun control research, even though other privately funded research might.


Private funds from foundations have come nowhere near to filling the gap from lack of federal funding, Hargarten said. He and more than 100 other doctors and scientists recently sent Vice President Joe Biden a letter urging more research, saying the lack of it was compounding "the tragedy of gun violence."


Since 1973, the government has awarded 89 grants to study rabies, of which there were 65 cases; 212 grants for cholera, with 400 cases, yet only three grants for firearm injuries that topped 3 million, they wrote. The CDC spends just about $100,000 a year out of its multibillion-dollar budget on firearm-related research, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said.


"It's so out of proportion to the burden, however you measure it," said Dr. Matthew Miller, associate professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. As a result, "we don't know really simple things," such as whether tighter gun rules in New York will curb gun trafficking "or is some other pipeline going to open up" in another state, he said.


What now?


CDC officials refused to discuss the topic on the record — a possible sign of how gun shy of the issue the agency has been even after the president's order.


Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement that her agency is "committed to re-engaging gun violence research."


Others are more cautious. The Union of Concerned Scientists said the White House's view that the law does not ban gun research is helpful, but not enough to clarify the situation for scientists, and that congressional action is needed.


Dickey, the former congressman, agreed.


"Congress is supposed to do that. He's not supposed to do that," Dickey said of Obama's order. "The restrictions were placed there by Congress.


"What I was hoping for ... is 'let's do this together,'" Dickey said.


___


Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Officials: 5 Americans Escaped from Algeria Terrorists













Five Americans who were at an Algerian natural gas facility when it was raided by al Qaeda linked terrorists are now safe and believed to have left the country, according to U.S. officials. At least three Americans, however, were being held hostage by the militants when the Algerian military mounted an rescue operation earlier today that reportedly resulted in casualties.


Reports that as many as 35 hostages and 15 Islamist militants at a BP joint venture facility in In Amenas have been killed during a helicopter raid have not been confirmed, though Algeria's information minister has confirmed that there were casualties. According to an unconfirmed report by an African news outlet, the militants say seven hostages survived the attack, including two Americans, one Briton, three Belgians and a Japanese national.


British Prime Minister David Cameron said that Algerian forces had attacked the compound, and that the situation "was ongoing."


"We face a very bad situation at this GP gas compound in Algeria," said Cameron. "A number of British citizens have been taken hostage. Already we know of one who has died. ... I think we should be prepared for the possibility for further bad news, very difficult news in this extremely difficult situation."


An unarmed U.S. Predator drone is now above In Amenas and is conducting surveillance. A U.S. official says the U.S. was not informed in advance by the Algerians of the raid they launched today.


In a statement, BP, a joint owner of the facility, said it had been told by both the British and Algerian governments that "the Algerian Army is attempting to take control of the In Amenas site."


"Sadly, there have been some reports of casualties but we are still lacking any confirmed or reliable information," said the statement. "There are also reports of hostages being released or escaping."


Algerian troops had surrounded the compound in the Sahara desert, where hostages from the U.S., Algeria, Norway, Japan, France and other countries are being held by terrorists who claim to be part of Al Qaeda and are led by a one-eyed smuggler known as Mr. Marlboro.






SITE Intel Group/AP Photo













Leon Panetta on Americans Held Hostage in Algeria Watch Video







Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told ABC News that as many as 100 hostages are being held, and that there may be seven or eight Americans among them. "Right now, we just really don't know how many are being held," said Panetta, who said information about the situation, including the total number of hostages and where they are being held, is "pretty sketchy." The kidnappers have released a statement saying there are "more than 40 crusaders" held "including 7 Americans."


U.S. officials had previously confirmed to ABC News that there were at least three Americans held hostage at the natural gas facility jointly owned by BP, the Algerian national oil company and a Norwegian firm at In Amenas, Algeria.


"I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation," said Panetta. "I don't think there's any question that [this was]a terrorist act and that the terrorists have affiliation with al Qaeda." He said the precise motivation of the kidnappers was unknown. "They are terrorists, and they will do terrorist acts."


The terror strike came without warning Wednesday morning when an estimated 20 gunmen first attacked a bus carrying workers escorted by two cars carrying security teams.


At least one worker was killed. The terrorists moved on to the residential compound where they are now holed up with the American and other western hostages, including Norwegian, French, British, and Japanese nationals.


There is growing concern this morning about the fate of the hostages, and intelligence officials say the situation is tense. Without the element of surprise, they say, a raid to free them will be very dangerous.
"They are expecting an attack and therefore, it's going to be very, very difficult for Algerian special forces to sneak in without being seen," said Richard Clarke, a former White House counter terrorism advisor and now an ABC News consultant.


Mr. Marlboro: Kidnapper, Smuggler


Intelligence officials believe the attack was masterminded by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a rogue al Qaeda leader who also runs an African organized crime network that reportedly has made tens of millions of dollars in ransom from kidnappings and smuggling. He is known as Mr. Marlboro because of his success smuggling diamonds, drugs and cigarettes. Officials think it unlikely that Belmohktar would actually be in the middle of the hostage situation, but would be calling the shots from his base in Mali more than 1,000 miles away.


Belmokhtar fought in Afghanistan alongside the mujahideen against the Soviets in the 1990s, and lost an eye. He was formerly associated with al Qaeda's North African affiliate, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and was said to be a liaison with al Qaeda's international leadership. Belmokhtar split with AQIM late last year over what other Islamist militants considered his preference for lucre over jihad. He remains affiliated with al Qaeda, however, heading a breakaway group that calls itself the "Signers with Blood Brigade" or the "Veiled Brigade."


According to a Canadian diplomat who was held hostage by Belmokhtar, Mr. Marlboro is "very, very cold, very businesslike."


Robert Fowler was a UN diplomat in Africa when he was kidnapped and held hostage by Belmokhtar for four months in 2009.






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Thirty hostages reported killed in Algeria assault


ALGIERS (Reuters) - Thirty hostages and at least 11 Islamist militants were killed on Thursday when Algerian forces stormed a desert gas plant in a bid to free many dozens of Western and local captives, an Algerian security source said.


Details remained scant - including for Western governments, some of which did little to disguise irritation at being kept in the dark by Algeria before the raid and its bloody outcome.


Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among at least seven foreigners killed, the source told Reuters. Eight of the dead hostages were Algerian. The nationalities of the rest, as well as of perhaps dozens more who escaped, were unclear.


Americans, Norwegians, Romanians and an Austrian have also been mentioned by their governments as having been captured.


Underlining the view of African and Western leaders that they face a multinational, al Qaeda-linked insurgency across the Sahara - a conflict that prompted France to send troops to neighboring Mali last week - the official source said only two of the 11 dead militants were Algerian, including their leader.


After an operation that appeared to go on for some eight hours, after Algeria refused the kidnappers' demand to leave the country with their hostages, the bodies of three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a Frenchman were found.


So too was that of Taher Ben Cheneb, an Algerian whom the security official described as a prominent jihadist commander in the Sahara.


The gunmen who seized the important gas facility deep in the desert before dawn on Wednesday had been demanding France halt its week-old offensive against Islamist rebels in Mali.


French President Francois Hollande said the hostage drama, which has raised fears of further militant attacks, showed that he was right to send more than 1,000 French troops to Mali to back up a West African force in support of Mali's government.


A Algerian government spokesman, who confirmed only that an unspecified number of hostages had died, said the tough response to a "diehard" attitude by the militants showed that, as during its bloody civil war against Islamists in the 1990s, Algiers would not negotiate or stand for "blackmail" from "terrorists".


SECURITY IN QUESTION


The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions, however, over the reliability of what was thought to be strong security.


Foreign companies said they were pulling non-essential staff out of the country, which has only in recent years begun to seem stable after a decade of blood-letting.


"The embarrassment for the government is great," said Azzedine Layachi, an Algerian political scientist at New York's St John's University. "The heart of Algeria's economy is in the south. where the oil and gas fields are. For this group to have attacked there, in spite of tremendous security, is remarkable."


Algiers, whose leaders have long had frosty relations with the former colonial power France and other Western countries, may also have some explaining to do over its tactics in putting an end to a hostage crisis whose scale was comparable to few in recent decades bar those involving Chechen militants in Russia.


Communication Minister Mohamed Said sounded unapologetic, however. "When the terrorist group insisted on leaving the facility, taking the foreign hostages with them to neighboring states, the order was issued to special units to attack the position where the terrorists were entrenched," he told state news agency APS, which said some 600 local workers were freed.


A local source told Reuters six foreign hostages had been killed along with eight of their captors when troops fired on a vehicle being used by the gunmen at the Tigantourine plant.


The standoff began when gunmen calling themselves the Battalion of Blood stormed the facility early on Wednesday morning. They said they were holding 41 foreigners.


In a rare eyewitness account of Wednesday's raid, a local man who had escaped from the facility told Reuters the militants appeared to have inside knowledge of the layout of the complex and used the language of radical Islam.


"The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels," Abdelkader, 53, said by telephone from his home in the nearby town of In Amenas. "'We will kill them,' they said."


Mauritanian agency ANI and Qatar-based Al Jazeera said earlier that 34 captives and 15 militants had been killed when government forces fired at a vehicle from helicopters.


BAD NEWS EXPECTED


British Prime Minister David Cameron said people should prepare for bad news about the hostages. He earlier called his Algerian counterpart to express his concern at what he called a "very grave and serious" situation, his spokesman said.


"The Algerians are aware that we would have preferred to have been consulted in advance," the spokesman added.


Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said he had been told by his Algerian counterpart that the action had started at around noon. He said they had tried to find a solution through the night, but that it had not worked.


"The Algerian prime minister said they felt they had no choice but to go in now," he said.


The incident dramatically raises the stakes in the French military campaign in neighboring Mali, where hundreds of French paratroopers and marines are launching a ground offensive against Islamist rebels after air strikes began last week.


"What is happening in Algeria justifies all the more the decision I made in the name of France to intervene in Mali in line with the U.N. charter," Hollande said, adding that things seemed to have taken a "dramatic" turn.


He said earlier that an unspecified number of French nationals were among the hostages. A French national was also among the hostage takers, a local source told Reuters. A large number of people from the former French colony live in France.


Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the kidnappers were loyal to Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran Islamist guerrilla who fought in Afghanistan and set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local al Qaeda leaders.


A holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence and "Mister Marlboro" by some locals for his illicit cigarette-running business, Belmokhtar's links to those who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.


Britain said one of its citizens was killed in the initial storming on Wednesday and "a number" of others were held.


The militants had said seven Americans were among their hostages. The White House said it believed Americans were among those held but U.S. officials could not confirm the number.


"This is an ongoing situation and we are seeking clarity," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.


FOREIGN FIRMS


Norway's Statoil, which runs the plant with BP of Britain and Algeria's state energy company, said it had no word on nine of its Norwegian staff who had been held, but that three Algerian employees were now free.


BP said some of its staff were being held but would not say how many or their nationalities.


Japanese media said five workers from Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp. were held, a number the company did not confirm. The Irish government said one Irish hostage was freed.


Hollande has received public backing from Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a desert haven in Mali, a poor country helpless to combat fighters who seized its northern oasis towns last year.


However, there is also some concern in Washington and other capitals that the French action in Mali could provoke a backlash worse than the initial threat by militants in the remote Sahara.


The militants, communicating through established contacts with media in neighboring Mauritania, said on Wednesday they had dozens of men armed with mortars and anti-aircraft missiles in the compound and had rigged it with explosives.


They condemned Algeria's secularist government for letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali and shutting its border to Malian refugees.


The attack in Algeria did not stop France from pressing on with its campaign in Mali. It said on Thursday it now had 1,400 troops on the ground there, and combat was under way against the rebels that it first began targeting from the air last week.


The French action last week came as a surprise but received widespread public international support. Neighboring African countries planning to provide ground troops for a U.N. force by September have said they will move faster to deploy them.


Nigeria, the strongest regional power, sent 162 soldiers on Thursday, the first of an anticipated 906.


A day after launching the campaign in Mali, Hollande also ordered a commando raid in Somalia on Saturday, which failed to free a French hostage held by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants since 2009. Al Shabaab said on Thursday it had executed the hostage, Denis Allex. France said it believed he had died in the raid.


(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin in Dublin; Writing by Peter Graff, Giles Elgood, Philippa Fletcher and Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Kevin Liffey)



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Australia's Qantas cancels one Dreamliner, 14 still on order






SYDNEY: Australian airline Qantas Friday said it was cutting its order for Dreamliner aircraft by one, but said it had planned this move before the Boeing jets were grounded worldwide and still had 14 on order.

Qantas had initially said it would not be changing its order for 15 of the fuel-efficient aircraft after a Japanese jet was forced into an emergency landing on Wednesday, triggering the halting of flights.

But in a statement on Friday on an update to its fleet, it said it had cancelled a single Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner on order for low-cost carrier Jetstar.

The remaining 14 B787-8s will be delivered to Jetstar as planned, with the first aircraft to arrive in mid-2013, it said.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said it was firmly committed to the Dreamliners for both Qantas International and Jetstar, and that it retained options and purchase rights for 50 B787s of either -8 or -9 variants available for delivery from 2016.

"... we are using the flexibility in our agreement with Boeing to cancel a firm order knowing that we can replace it with one of our 50 options for this aircraft down the track, and with a full view of what market conditions are like at the time," he said.

The airline said the decision to amend the B787 order was reached at the end of 2012 and the agreement with Boeing had now been finalised.

Qantas said production of its first B787 aircraft had just begun and it was confident current technical issues would be resolved by Boeing before it took delivery in mid-2013.

In the statement on its fleet update, Qantas also said it would lease an additional five Boeing 717 aircraft and purchase three Bombardier Q400 planes, due to start arriving from the second half of 2013, to boost domestic operations.

Qantas said the fleet changes would have no material impact on the group's planned capital expenditure.

The US Federal Aviation Administration has grounded Dreamliners with effect worldwide after several recent incidents believed to be related to complex electrical systems and the batteries used in the next-generation aircraft.

- AFP/jc



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Mulayam threatens changes in LS candidate list

LUCKNOW: In yet another denunciation of AkhileshYadav governance in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, on Thursday, said there were instances of those in power serving their "own interest" rather than focusing on "public interest". He also hinted the party may give a re-look to the list of 63 candidates it announced for the LokSabha elections scheduled in 2014.

"I am aware of what is going on in the state government," said the SP national president. Yadav's stern observation came during the party's state working committee meeting, attended not only by SP's top leaders including general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav, but also MLAs who are cabinet/state ministers in the Akhilesh's cabinet. This is the second time that Mulayam red-flagged working of the present dispensation headed by his son.

It was only three days ago, during a function in Saifai on January 14, that Mulayam had questioned the working of the state government saying it was being run by some handpicked bureacrats instead of the ministers. He also pointed out how some of the babus were handling more than one important department. The SP chiefs' observation led to a sudden reshuffle as in transfer of senior IAS officers Anil Kumar Gupta and Sanjeev Saran. Both these officers were considered to be one of the most powerful administrative officials in the Akhilesh Yadav team. While Gupta was shunted out as IIDC and principal secretary (energy) to an insignificant post, member revenue board, Saran, who was CEO of Noida, was put on the waiting list.

On Thursday, Yadav, reportedly went a step ahead and criticised even MLAs and MPs of ignoring the interests of party workers. His observation comes in the midst of raging speculation about some of the party workers getting restless and causing embarrassment to the leadership. Though the party assuaged some workers giving them chairman/vice-chairmanship of different boards and corporations, it left quite a few of them seething.

Speaking to reporters, SP general secretary Ram Asrey Kushwaha said: "Netaji (Mulayam) does have the right to assess the working of the state government as well as party affairs. It is our responsibility to see his observations are given full regard."

At the same time, the SP chief also asked workers not to get into the business of transfer and posting of officials and instead concentrate on problems faced by people in their respective areas. SP national general secretary, Ram Gopal Yadav had recently admitted that aspirations of the workers had risen significantly.

During the meeting, he was assured by chief minister Akhilesh Yadav that efforts will be made to make improvements in governance, said sources. At the meeting, the party also reviewed preparations for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and discussed names of candidates. Later, SP's spokesperson, Rajendra Chaudhary said Mulayam Singh Yadav emphasised the state government to meet the target set in the election manifesto. He also gave necessary directions on how party workers should go about in a bid to achieve success in 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Meanwhile, SP announced Kameshwar Upadhaya's son Ashutosh Upadhayay as candidate for by-elections in Bhatpar Rani constituency in Deoria district. The seat fell vacant following death of Kameshwar Upadhyay, a five times MLA from the seat in October last year.

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Large study confirms flu vaccine safe in pregnancy


NEW YORK (AP) — A large study offers reassuring news for pregnant women: It's safe to get a flu shot.


The research found no evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of losing a fetus, and may prevent some deaths. Getting the flu while pregnant makes fetal death more likely, the Norwegian research showed.


The flu vaccine has long been considered safe for pregnant women and their fetus. U.S. health officials began recommending flu shots for them more than five decades ago, following a higher death rate in pregnant women during a flu pandemic in the late 1950s.


But the study is perhaps the largest look at the safety and value of flu vaccination during pregnancy, experts say.


"This is the kind of information we need to provide our patients when discussing that flu vaccine is important for everyone, particularly for pregnant women," said Dr. Geeta Swamy, a researcher who studies vaccines and pregnant women at Duke University Medical Center.


The study was released by the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday as the United States and Europe suffer through an early and intense flu season. A U.S. obstetricians group this week reminded members that it's not too late for their pregnant patients to get vaccinated.


The new study was led by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It tracked pregnancies in Norway in 2009 and 2010 during an international epidemic of a new swine flu strain.


Before 2009, pregnant women in Norway were not routinely advised to get flu shots. But during the pandemic, vaccinations against the new strain were recommended for those in their second or third trimester.


The study focused on more than 113,000 pregnancies. Of those, 492 ended in the death of the fetus. The researchers calculated that the risk of fetal death was nearly twice as high for women who weren't vaccinated as it was in vaccinated mothers.


U.S. flu vaccination rates for pregnant women grew in the wake of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, from less than 15 percent to about 50 percent. But health officials say those rates need to be higher to protect newborns as well. Infants can't be vaccinated until 6 months, but studies have shown they pick up some protection if their mothers got the annual shot, experts say.


Because some drugs and vaccines can be harmful to a fetus, there is a long-standing concern about giving any medicine to a pregnant woman, experts acknowledged. But this study should ease any worries about the flu shot, said Dr. Denise Jamieson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


"The vaccine is safe," she said.


___


Online:


Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org


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NRA President Defends Ad Attacking Obama


Jan 16, 2013 6:40pm







In an interview with ABC News this evening, NRA President David Keene said the gun-rights lobby is aggressively preparing for “battle” with the White House and Congress over President Obama’s sweeping new proposals to curb gun violence.


Keene criticized Obama’s announcement today, surrounded by four children from around the country, for “using kids to advance an ideological agenda.” And he expressed cautious confidence that few of the legislative measures would ultimately pass.


“It’s going to be very tough for the president to accomplish some of these things, but that doesn’t mean he can’t do it if he really turns it on,” Keene told ABC.


“All bets are off when a president really wants to go to war with you,” he said. “We’re gonna be there and we’re gonna fight it.”


Keene said passage of the 1994 assault weapons ban remains fresh in the minds of NRA leaders, noting that initial widespread congressional opposition gradually gave way to a narrow margin in favor, thanks in part to pressure from then-President Bill Clinton.


NRA members would hold accountable any politicians who “sell them out to some pie-in-the-sky scheme such as the president is proposing,” he said.


The group launched a new “Stand and Fight” advocacy campaign Tuesday night, opposing Obama’s gun control measures, anchored by a controversial new TV ad that began airing online and on the Sportsman Channel.


The ad calls President Obama an “elitist hypocrite” for sending his daughters to a private school with armed guards while questioning whether all other U.S. schools should have the same security measures. The White House blasted the ad as “repugnant and cowardly.”


“When the question is the protection of children, which is what this is all about… it’s perfectly legitimate to ask why some children should be protected and other children should not be protected,” Keene said, defending the ad.


“We were not talking about the president’s kids. We were talking about an elite class who criticizes others in their desire to be safe while making sure that they and their families and their children are always protected.


“We’re not talking about the Secret Service protection the president’s children enjoy — they ought to have that wherever they go,” he added.


Keene also ribbed Obama for using children as “props” for his announcement:  “We didn’t line them up on a stage and pat them on the shoulder while we were urging somebody to take our position,” he said.


The NRA has acknowledged some areas of common ground for curbing gun violence included the Obama proposal — namely beefed up resources for mental health care, better background check data and increased presence of school resource officers (police) at public schools.


But Keene said many of those steps were just “fig leaves.”


“What the president did is say … ‘I care about armed security.’ He can check off that box on the Gallup polls. He can say to the people concerned about it, ‘It’s part of my package.’ … He said the problem of severely, mentally ill — we’re going to study it.”


Obama called for federal aid to states for the hiring of up to 1,000 new resource officers and school counselors.  Currently, there are armed resource officers at 28,000 U.S. schools.


“That’s a drop in the ocean in terms of the problem,” Keene said. “It’s simply a fig leaf so he can pursue an anti-gun agenda. It has less to do with security and more to do with gun.”



SHOWS: World News







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Sahara Islamists take hostages, spreading Mali war


ALGIERS/BAMAKO (Reuters) - Islamist fighters seized dozens of Western and Algerian hostages in a dawn raid on a natural gas facility deep in the Sahara on Wednesday and demanded France halt a new offensive against rebels in neighboring Mali.


Three people, among them one British and one French, were reported killed, but details were sketchy and numbers of those held at Tigantourine ranged from 41 foreigners - including perhaps seven Americans as well as Japanese and Europeans - to over 100 local staff, held separately and less closely watched.


What is clear is that with a dramatic counterpunch to this week's French build-up in Mali, the region's loosely allied, al Qaeda-inspired radicals have set Paris a daunting dilemma and spread fallout from Mali's hitherto obscure civil war far beyond northwest Africa, challenging Washington as well as Europeans and shutting down a major gas field that pumps energy to Europe.


The attack, which Algeria said was led by a veteran, Afghan-trained holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence, came just as French ground troops in Mali launched their first assault after six days of air strikes.


The United States, which like European powers endorsed France's decision to intervene last week against Islamists who have seized vast tracts of northern Mali, confirmed Americans were among the hostages and said it would work to "secure" them.


Western and African governments have been alarmed by a flow of weapons and fighters across the unmarked Sahara borders following the end of Libya's civil war in 2011 and fear that Mali, where Islamists drive the national army from the north nine months ago, could become an Afghan-style al Qaeda haven.


The militants, who said they had dozens of fighters in the gas field, issued no explicit threat but made clear to media in neighboring Mauritania the hostages' lives were at risk.


"We hold the Algerian government and the French government and the countries of the hostages fully responsible if our demands are not met and it is up to them to stop the brutal aggression against our people in Mali," read one statement from the group, which called itself the "Battalion of Blood".


In other comments carried by the Mauritanian news agency ANI, the group said its fighters had rigged explosives around the site and any attempt to free the hostages would lead to a "tragic end". The unusually large numbers of gunmen and hostages involved pose serious problems for any rescue operation.


After dark, ANI quoted a militant source saying fighters had repelled a raid by Algerian troops. He added that the hostage-takers' weaponry included mortars and anti-aircraft missiles.


AMERICANS


The militants said seven Americans were among the 41 foreign hostages - a figure U.S. officials said they could not confirm.


Norwegian energy company Statoil, which operates the gas field in a joint venture with Britain's BP and the Algerian state company Sonatrach, said nine of its Norwegian employees and three of its Algerian staff were being held.


Also reported kidnapped by various sources were five Japanese working for the engineering firm JGC Corp, a French national, an Austrian, an Irishman and a number of Britons.


The Algerian government, which fought a bloody civil war against Islamists in the 1990s, said it would not negotiate.


French media said the militants were also demanding that Algeria release dozens of Islamist prisoners from its jails.


Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said: "I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation."


He said he lacked firm information on whether there were links to the situation in Mali. Analysts pointed to shifting alliances and rivalries among Islamists in the region to suggest the hostage-takers may have a range of motives.


In their own statements, they condemned Algeria's secularist government for "betraying" its predecessors in the bloody anti-colonial war against French rule half a century ago by letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali. They also accused Algeria of shutting its border to Malian refugees.


Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia told the state news agency APS there were about 20 hostage-takers led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian who fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and set up his own group in the Sahara recently after falling out with other al Qaeda leaders.


Some of those held at the facility, near the small town of In Amenas, close to the Libyan border and about 1,300 km (800 miles) inland, had sporadic contact with the outside world.


The head of a French catering company said he had information from a manager who supervised some 150 Algerian employees at the site. Regis Arnoux of CIS Catering told France's BFM television the local staff were being prevented from leaving but were otherwise free to move around inside and keep on working.


"The Westerners are kept in a separate wing of the base," Arnoux said. "They are tied up and are being filmed. Electricity is cut off, and mobile phones have no charge.


"Direct action seems very difficult ... Algerian officials have told the French authorities as well as BP that they have the situation under control and do not need their assistance."


MALI OFFENSIVE


Just days after a bold deployment of French troops to Mali, another former colony, that had largely silenced critics questioning his leadership after eight months in office, French President Francois Hollande faced a possible further escalation of the conflict, with Western targets at risk across Africa.


He has called for international support against insurgents who France says pose a threat to Africa and the West, and admits it faces a long struggle against well-equipped fighters who seized Timbuktu and other oasis towns in northern Mali and have imposed Islamic law, including public amputation and beheading.


Islamists have warned Hollande that he has "opened the gates of hell" for all French citizens.


French army chief Edouard Guillaud said ground forces were stepping up their operation to engage directly "within hours" the alliance of Islamist fighters, grouping al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM and Mali's home grown Ansar Dine and MUJWA.


Residents said a column of some 30 French Sagaie armored vehicles has set off toward rebel positions from the town of Niono, 300 km (190 miles) from the capital Bamako.


A Malian military source said French special forces units were taking part in the operation. Guillaud said France's strikes, involving Rafale and Mirage jet fighters, were being hampered because militants were sheltering among civilians.


Many inhabitants of northern Mali have welcomed the French attacks though some also fear being caught in the cross-fire.


Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian acknowledged that France faced a hard slog, particularly in western Mali where AQIM's mostly foreign fighters have camps: "It's tough. We were aware from the beginning it would be a very difficult operation."


Hollande said on Tuesday that French forces would remain in Mali until stability returned to the West African nation. Hollande said France hoped, however, to hand over to African forces in its former colony, "in the coming days or weeks".


West African military chiefs met for a second day in Bamako to hammer out details of a U.N.-mandated deployment that had been expected to start only in September but was suddenly kick-started by French intervention. They said their aim was to send in the first units of a 2,000-man emergency force on Thursday.


Hollande's intervention in Mali brings risks for eight French hostages held by AQIM in the Sahara as well as the 30,000 French citizens living across West Africa. A French helicopter pilot was killed on Friday, France's only combat death so far.


The conflict in Mali, a landlocked state of 15 million twice the size of France, has displaced an estimated 30,000 people and raised concerns across mostly Muslim West Africa of a radicalization of Islam in the region.


"There is a great hope," one man said from Timbuktu, where he said Islamist fighters were trying to blend into civilian neighborhoods. "We hope that the city will be freed soon."


(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher and Andrew Callus in London, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Laurent Prieur in Nouakchott, Daniel Flynn in Dakar, John Irish, Catherine Bremer and Nick Vinocur in Paris, David Alexander in Rome and Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Kevin Liffey)



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Cycling: UCI urged to offer amnesty for repentant cheats






PARIS: The International Cycling Union (UCI) has been urged to reconsider offering an amnesty for riders who admit taking performance-enhancing drugs in the wake of the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.

The independent panel probing claims of a cover-up between the sport's governing body and the shamed US rider suggested an amnesty would be "in the interest not only of the commission of inquiry but also of professional cycling as a whole".

The commission, set up by the UCI in October, comprises two Britons -- former appeal court judge Philip Otton and Paralympian great Tanni Grey-Thomson and an Australian lawyer, Malcolm Holmes.

The panel noted in a statement that the UCI had rejected the idea of the establishment of a "truth and reconciliation" commission last January.

In contrast, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which last year said Armstrong was at the heart of the most sophisticated doping programme in the history of sport, favours a "warts-and-all" approach to allow the sport to wipe the slate clean.

Pressure group "Change Cycling Now", which includes former US champion and Tour de France winner Greg LeMond, backs calls for a truth commission followed by partial or full amnesties for riders willing to admit doping.

The independent commission's comments come on the eve of the broadcast of a pre-recorded interview between Armstrong and chat show host Oprah Winfrey in which he admits doping.

The panel, which is due to hold hearings in London in April and report by June 1, said they regretted that the UCI on the one hand and World Anti-Doping Agency and USADA on the other could not agree on a common strategy to tackle the issue.

The trio said it had written to world cycling chiefs to ask them to reconsider their position.

However the UCI reacted by saying granting an amnesty contravened WADA's very own anti-doping laws.

"We have informed WADA of our concern that any amnesty from the UCI would constitute a violation of the WADA code," it said in a statement.

"Any amnesty from UCI would have limited effect as the IOC (International Olympic Committee), national anti-doping authorities, sponsors and indeed criminal authorities could, as we have seen in the Lance Armstrong case, pursue actions against athletes admitting to doping.

"USADA handed out sanctions, albeit reduced, to all those that admitted to doping while assisting the investigation (into Armstrong).

"In contrast, WADA's proposal was that anyone who came forward with information would be given a complete amnesty, with no period of ineligibility and no loss of results, and, incredibly, would be given psychological support to be financed by the UCI."

- AFP/jc



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