Arias Had No Remorse: Prosecutor

Prosecutor Juan Martinez hammered alleged murderer Jodi Arias today with accusations that she felt no remorse when she lied over and over again about killing her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander.

"Ma'am you have a problem with telling the truth don't you?" Martinez asked as his first question today, the 11th day Arias has been on the stand explaining her role in Alexander's death.

"Not typically," Arias responded.

Martinez then took Arias through a series of lies she admittedly told in the days after she stabbed and shot Alexander to death on June 4, 2008, lying to friends, investigators and even Alexander's grandmother, going so far as to send a dozen irises to his grandmother expressing her sympathy.

See the Evidence in the Jodi Arias Murder Trial

Arias, 32, has testified that she killed Alexander in self-defense during a violent argument and lied about it out of "shame."

But prosecutors say that the 27 stab wounds, a slashed throat, and two bullets she fired at Alexander's head prove that she murdered him. She could face the death penalty if convicted.

Catching Up on the Trial? Check Out ABC News' Jodi Arias Trial Coverage

Today Martinez tried to raise doubts about Arias' earlier testimony in which she depicted Alexander as an increasingly menacing and sexually demanding lover by grilling her about the lies she told after she killed Alexander.

Martinez pointed out that Arias lied to Detective Esteban Flores of the Mesa, Ariz., police department as he investigated Alexander's death. She initially denied to the detective that she was at Alexander's Mesa, Ariz., home when he was killed, and later said he was murdered by a pair of masked intruders.

Jodi Arias Testimony: Prosecution's Cross-Examination Watch Video

Jodi Arias Remains Calm Under Cross-Examination Watch Video

Jodi Arias Doesn't Remember Stabbing Ex-Boyfriend Watch Video

"You told (Flores) you would help him, but that was a lie right? You weren't there to tell the truth. You were there for another purpose: to make sure he didn't get the truth.... You were hoping, ma'am, that (Flores) would believe what you were saying so you could walk out of jail," Martinez said.

Arias argued with Martinez, claiming that she lied to investigators out of shame, and lied to friends immediately after the death out of confusion.

"My mind wasn't right during all that period," Arias said referring to the hours immediately following the killing when she drove through the Arizona desert and made phone calls to ex-boyfriend Matthew McCartney and new love interest Ryan Burns.

"It's like I wasn't accepting it in my mind... because I never killed anyone before," she said.

Martinez also suggested that Arias tried to find out the status of the investigation into Alexander's death so that she could know if she were about to be arrested. When a friend of Alexander's called her to report the news about Alexander's death, Arias asked about details into the investigation, the prosecutor said. She also called Alexander's Mormon bishop and asked him what he knew about the case, and then asked friends and family members what they knew, according to Martinez.

"You needed to see what you needed to know to make sure you weren't charged. What purpose would there be for that information other than to benefit you?" Martinez asked. "You called [the bishop] at 3 a.m. You call him and spoke to him because you wanted to get the information about what he knew about the investigation. That was going to help you."

Timeline of the Jodi Arias Trial

Martinez also went over lies that Arias told to her friend, Leslie Udy, and Ryan Burns, both of whom she saw in Utah the day after killing Alexander. She talked to both about Alexander as if he were still alive. Martinez pointed out that Arias even made out with Burns in his bedroom during their visit.

But Arias claimed that it was Burns who lied about their encounter.

"And with Mr. Burns, didn't you get on top of him and grind on him?" Martinez asked.

Arias said she was on top of Burns at one point, but they did not "grind."

"Well, when you were romantic kissing, he did put his hand between your legs, didn't he?" Martinez said, referring to Burns' own testimony in court weeks earlier.

"No," Arias said. "It could be that he's full of crap...when he says he got near my vaginal area."

"This is the person who lied to him, to (friends), to Detective Flores, and yet you're telling us someone else is full of crap," Martinez asked incredulously.

"When it comes to that, yes," she said.

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Huge protest vote pushes Italy towards deadlock

ROME (Reuters) - A huge protest vote by Italians enraged by economic hardship and political corruption pushed the country towards deadlock after an election on Monday, with voting projections showing no coalition strong enough to form a government.

With more than two thirds of the vote counted, the projections suggested the center left could have a slim lead in the race for the lower house of parliament.

But no party or likely coalition appeared likely to be able to form a majority in the upper house or Senate, creating a deadlocked parliament - the opposite of the stable result that Italy desperately needs to tackle a deep recession, rising unemployment and a massive public debt.

Such an outcome has the potential to revive fears over the euro zone debt crisis, with prospects of a long period of uncertainty in the zone's third largest economy.

Italian financial markets took fright after rising earlier on hopes for a stable and strong center-left led government, probably backed by outgoing technocrat premier Mario Monti.

The projected result was a stunning success for Genoese comic Beppe Grillo, leader of the populist 5-Star Movement, who toured the country in his first national election campaign hurling obscenity-laced insults against a discredited political class.

With vague election promises and a team of almost totally unknown candidates, the shaggy haired comedian channeled pure public anger against what many see as a sclerotic and useless political system.

The likely result was also a humiliating slap in the face for colorless center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani, who appeared to have thrown away a 10-point opinion poll lead less than two months ago against Silvio Berlusconi's center right.

Berlusconi, 76, who staged an extraordinary comeback from sex and corruption scandals since diving into the campaign in December, appeared to be leading in the Senate race, but Grillo's projected bloc of Senators would leave him well short of a majority.

Projections gave Bersani's center-left alliance a lead of less than one percentage point in the lower house. If confirmed, that would be enough to control the chamber because of election laws that guarantee a 54 percent majority to the party with the largest share of the vote.

In the Senate the picture was different. The latest projection from RAI state television showed Berlusconi's bloc winning 112 Senate seats, the center-left 105 and Grillo 64, with Monti languishing on only 20 after a failed campaign which never took off. The Senate majority is 158.

Berlusconi, a master politician and communicator, wooed voters with a blitz of television appearances and promises to refund a hated housing tax despite accusations from opponents that this was an impossible vote buying trick.

Grillo has attacked all sides in the campaign and ruled out a formal alliance with any group although it was not immediately known how he would react to his stunning success or how his supporters would behave in parliament.

DANGER OF NEW ELECTION

A bitter campaign, fought largely over economic issues, made some investors fear a return of the kind of debt crisis that took the euro zone close to disaster and brought the technocrat Monti to office, replacing Berlusconi, in 2011.

The projected results showed more than half of Italians had voted for the anti-euro platforms of Berlusconi and Grillo.

Officials from both center and left warned that the looming deadlock could make Italy ungovernable and force new elections.

A center-left government either alone or ruling with Monti had been seen by investors as the best guarantee of measures to combat a deep recession and stagnant growth in Italy, which is pivotal to stability in the currency union.

The benchmark spread between Italian 10-year bonds and their German equivalent widened from below 260 basis points to above 300 and the Italian share index lost all its previous gains after projections of the Senate result.

"These projections suggest that we are heading for an ungovernable situation", said Mario Secchi, a candidate for Monti's centrist movement.

Stefano Fassina, chief economic official for Bersani's center-left, said: "The scenario from the projections we have seen so far suggests there will be no stable government and we would need to return to the polls."

If the results are confirmed the only possibility looks like a "grand coalition" combining right and left, like the one Monti led for a year. But politicians said before the vote this could not work for long and would struggle to work decisively.

Monti helped save Italy from a debt crisis when Rome's borrowing costs were spiraling out of control, but few Italians now see him as the savior of the country, in its longest recession for 20 years.

Grillo's movement rode a huge wave of voter anger about both the pain of Monti's austerity program and a string of political and corporate scandals. It had particular appeal for a frustrated younger generation shut out of full-time jobs.

"I'm sick of the scandals and the stealing," said Paolo Gentile, a 49-year-old Rome lawyer who voted for 5-Star.

"We need some young, new people in parliament, not the old parties that are totally discredited."

Berlusconi, a billionaire media tycoon, exploited anger against Monti's austerity program, accusing him of being a puppet of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but in many areas Grillo was a bigger beneficiary of public discontent.

Italy desperately needs a strong, reform-minded government to revive growth after two decades of stagnation and address problems ranging from record youth unemployment to a dysfunctional justice system and a bloated public sector.

Italians wrung their hands at prospects of an inconclusive result that will mean more delays to these reforms.

"It's a classic result. Typically Italian. It means the country is not united. It is an expression of a country that does not work. I knew this would happen," said 36-year-old Rome office worker Roberta Federica.

Another office worker, Elisabetta Carlotta, 46, shook her head in disbelief. "We can't go on like this," she said.

(Additional reporting by Stefano Bernabei, Steve Scherer, Gavin Jones, Naomi O'Leary and Giuseppe Fonte in Rome and Lisa Jucca in Milan; Writing by Barry Moody; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Berlusconi's vote gains hit euro; yen rebounds

NEW YORK: The strong election showing in Italy of former premier Silvio Berlusconi's party battered the euro Monday, amid worries a new coalition government could weaken Rome's commitment to reforms.

The euro rose in early trade amid the first exit polls from the two-day election, which suggested the center-left was on its way to a firm victory.

But later, data showed Berlusconi's party, and another rightist party, were neck-and-neck with rivals in the Senate race, suggesting it could end up part of a fractious coalition that could roll back Italy's deficit-cutting efforts.

At 2200 GMT, the euro was at $1.3065, down from $1.3189, after having risen to $1.3316 early in the day as European markets read the early poll results as keeping Berlusconi out of power.

Beyond Italy's election results, "the single currency remains poised to face additional headwinds over the near-term as the fundamental developments coming out of Europe point to a deepening recession," said David Song of DailyFX.

But commitment to the dollar was hanging on the testimony to Congress on Tuesday by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, with hopes he will clarify the Fed's direction amid some clear differences among policy-makers over how long to keep in place policies aimed at holding interest rates down.

Reports that the pro-stimulus Haruhiko Kuroda, currently head of the Asian Development Bank, would be nominated as Bank of Japan governor weakened the Japanese currency in early trade, with the dollar buying more than 94 yen.

But without official backup for those reports, the yen snapped back, the dollar dropping to 91.92 yen.

The euro also fell, to 120.12 yen from 123.18 late Friday.

"Mr. Kuroda's appointment would no doubt turn the BOJ policy to a much more accommodative stance," said Boris Schlossberg of BK Asset management.

"But the rally quickly fizzled... as there was no official confirmation from the government and traders took quick profits on the run-up."

The British pound held steady near where it dropped following Friday's sovereign downgrade by Moody's, which stripped London of its coveted AAA rating.

That sent the pound down to $1.5131, and on Monday it slipped beneath the $1.51 line before pulling back to trade at $1.5162 at 2200 GMT.

The dollar meanwhile rose to 0.9318 Swiss francs, compared to 0.9290 francs on Friday.

-AFP/ac

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94% women feel unsafe travelling alone in India, survey finds

NEW DELHI: The Delhi gang-rape incident has not just bruised the image of the national Capital, but the country as well. A travel survey has found that 94% women feel unsafe traveling alone, while 84% voted for Delhi as the most unsafe metro. The findings come at a time when an increasing number of women admitted that they preferred to travel alone both for work and leisure.

TripAdvisor, a leading travel site, surveyed 500 women to find that 84% women claimed to have travelled alone for leisure, business or both. The respondents were a mix of working women, including a number of self employed, as well as homemakers.

The survey also brings to light the disturbing fact that 94% women worry about their safety — always or at least sometimes — when they travel alone within India. Among women who said they travel alone on work, 37% agreed that they don't mind travelling alone but worry about their safety.

Even more dismal is the fact that more women travelers have a better sense of safety overseas than in India. Around 24% respondents said they worry when they travel within India but not when they travel to international destinations, while only 6% suggested otherwise.

Despite the fear and worry, only 33% women said they carry any item for self defense when travelling to a new or unfamiliar city.

Due to the recent spate of crime against women, Delhi has gained notoriety with 84% women claiming it to be the most unsafe metro in the country. Mumbai came out on top as the city considered safest by 34% women. Ahmedabad and Bangalore were tied at a distant second with 12% each.

Among the states, Delhi NCR again topped the hall of shame with 60% women voting it as the most unsafe. At a distant second is Bihar (18%), followed by Uttar Pradesh (8%). A majority of 27% respondents said they considered Maharashtra to be the safest state, followed by Gujarat (15%) and Karnataka (10%).

According to TripAdvisor country manager Nikhil Ganju, "The rise in women travelling alone on business is understandable fallout of the increase in the number of working women. The real surprise is the significant number of Indian women who are choosing to travel solo on vacation. Another interesting insight that highlights a latent opportunity for the hospitality sector is that 78% respondents said they would prefer to stay in an all women's hotel or on a women exclusive floor in a hotel, when travelling alone."

In a break from tradition, Indian women enjoy traveling alone for leisure. Among women who travel alone, 41% respondents said they actually enjoyed travelling alone for work. In addition, 76% said they enjoy going solo on holidays.

And lack of company is definitely not a complaint. In fact, majority (58%) said their biggest incentive for solo vacations was that they could do all the things they want without having to worry about what someone else wants. Around 34% women indicated they loved travelling alone as it was adventurous and exciting. Another 32% claimed the thrill of managing everything by themselves was a motivator as well.

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.

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Pistorius' Brother Facing Own Homicide Trial

The attorney for Oscar Pistorius' family said today that the Olympian's brother is facing a culpable homicide charge relating to a 2008 road accident in which a motorcyclist was killed.

Carl Pistorius, who sat behind his younger brother, Oscar, every day at his bail hearing, will now face his own homicide trial for the accident five years ago, which his attorney, Kenny Oldwage, said he "deeply regrets."

Carl Pistorius is charged with culpable homicide, which refers to the unlawful negligent killing of another person. The charges were initially dropped, but were later reinstated, Oldwage said in a statement.

Full Coverage: Oscar Pistorius Case

Pistorius quietly appeared in court on Thursday, one day before his Paralympic gold-medalist brother was released on bail, Oldwage said. His next appearance is scheduled for the end of March.

Liza van Deventer/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images

'Blade Runner' Murder Charges: Oscar Pistorius Out on Bail Watch Video

Oscar Pistorius Granted Bail in Murder Case Watch Video

It was the latest twist in a case that has drawn international attention, after 26-year-old Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee who ran in both the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games, was charged with the premeditated murder of his model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.

On Saturday, Carl Pistorius' Twitter handle was hacked, according to a family spokeswoman, prompting the Pistorius family to cancel their social media accounts.

Steenkamp's parents speak about the Valentine's Day shooting that ended their daughter's life in a sit-down interview on South African television tonight.

On Saturday, the model's father, Barry Steenkamp, told the Afrikaans-language Beeld newspaper that Pistorius will have to "live with his conscience" and will "suffer" if his story that he shot Steenkamp because he believed she was an intruder is false.

RELATED: Oscar Pistorius Case: Key Elements to the Murder Investigation

After a four-day long bail hearing, Pistorius was granted bail Friday by a South African magistrate.

The court set bail at about $113,000 (1 million rand) and June 4 as the date for Pistorius' next court appearance.

Pistoriuis is believed to be staying at his uncle's house as he awaits trial. As part of his bail conditions, Pistorius must give up all his guns, he cannot drink alcohol or return to the home where the shooting occurred, and he must check in with a police department twice a week.

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Syrian opposition says captures former nuclear site

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian rebels have captured the site of a suspected nuclear reactor near the Euphrates river which Israeli warplanes destroyed six years ago, opposition sources in eastern Syria said on Sunday.

Al-Kubar site, around 60 km (35 miles) west of the city of Deir al-Zor, became a focus of international attention when Israel raided it in 2007. The United States said the complex was a North Korean-designed nuclear reactor geared to making weapons-grade plutonium.

Omar Abu Laila a spokesman for the Eastern Joint Command of the Free Syrian Army said the only building rebels found at the site was a hangar containing at least one Scud missile.

"It appears that the site was turned into a Scud launch base. Whatever structures it had have been buried," he said, adding that three army helicopters airlifted the last loyalist troops before opposition fighters overran the area on Friday.

The Syrian military, which razed the site after the Israeli raid, said the complex was a regular military facility but refused to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency unrestrained access, after the agency said the complex could have been a nuclear site.

The U.N. investigation appears to have died down since the national revolt against Preident Bashar al-Assad broke out in 2011, with the armed opposition increasingly capturing military sites in rural areas and on the edges of cities.

U.N. inspectors examined the site in June 2008 but Syrian authorities has barred them access since.

Abu Laila said Scuds appear to have been fired from Kubar at rebel-held areas in the province of Homs to the west.

The complex, he said, had command and control links with loyalist troops in the city of Deir al-Zor, where Assad's forces have been on the retreat and are now based mainly in and around the airport in the south of the city.

Footage showed fighters inspecting the site and one large missile inside a hangar. One fighter pointed to what he said were explosives placed under the missile to destroy it before attacking forces got to it.

Abu Hamza, a commander in the Jafaar al-Tayyar brigade, said in a YouTube video taken at Kubar that various rebel groups, including the al Qaeda linked al-Nusra front, took part the operation and that U.N. inspectors were welcome to come and survey the site.

In the last few months, opposition fighters have captured large swathes of the province of Deir al-Zor, a Sunni Muslim desert oil producing region that borders Iraq, including most of a highway along Euphrates leading to Kubar.

The province is far from the Assad's main military supply bases on the coast and in Damascus. Long-time alliances between Assad, who belongs to the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Islam, and Sunni tribes in Deir al-Zor have also largely collapsed since the revolt.

But Assad's forces remain entrenched in the south of the city of Deir al-Zor and armed convoys guarded by helicopters still reach the city from the city of Palmyra to the southwest, according to opposition sources.

(Editing by Stephen Powell)

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Pakistan hit by nationwide blackout

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan was hit by a nationwide blackout for more than two hours after the breakdown of a major plant caused power stations to stop working across the country, officials said Monday.

While power cuts are common in Pakistan due to chronic underinvestment in infrastructure, outages across the whole country are rare.

Late Sunday's blackout occurred when the HUBCO plant in southwestern Baluchistan province, which generates 1,200 megawatts a day of electricity, developed a technical fault, said official Rai Sikandar.

That breakdown prompted a "cascading effect" which caused plants nationwide to shut down, said the water and power ministry official.

"It was a technical fault in one of our power plants and not in the national grid," he insisted, adding that electricity was gradually being restored across Pakistan after it remained off for more than two hours.

Another ministry official said power should be back on across the country within two hours.

He said that all 24 power stations in the capital Islamabad were working again and electricity was being restored in parts of all the country's four provinces.

"1,200 megawatts of electricity is back in the national grid with the restoration of different power stations," said the official.

He added an inquiry would look into the causes of the technical fault at HUBCO. "It would be pre-mature at this stage to speculate about the nature of the fault that caused the plant to fail."

- AFP/jc

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Riyaz Bhatkal: Shy student to terror mastermind

MUMBAI: Seventeen-year-old Riyaz Shahbandri from Kurla was a shy civil engineering student at Nagpada's Saboo Siddik polytechnic in 1993. He would maintain a low profile and hardly participated in any college events. However, girls found his chocolate-boy looks appealing. Two decades later, he began making headlines as Riyaz Bhatkal, a suspected terrorist who has killed more people than the feared Dawood Ibrahim or the hanged Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab—more than 344 killed from 15 bomb blasts. Still elusive, today he is the most dreaded face of the banned terror outfit Indian Mujahideen.

Born in 1976 as Riyaz Ismail Shahbandri in Bhatkal village of Karnataka, he came to be known as Roshan Jamal, while staying at the 60-year-old, two-storey building Qadir Mansion in Kurla here. Today his family owns two rooms in the building, which have been rented out as they wanted to stay away from the police who would often land up at their place inquiring about his whereabouts. His father, Ismail, had shifted from Karnataka to Mumbai for setting up a purse-making business much before Riyaz was born. Despite obtaining a degree in civil engineering, Riyaz couldn't find a job and began helping his father in his business. By then, his elder brother Iqbal had joined a local developer's firm as a civil engineer.

In 2001, Riyaz fell in love with a girl from Kurla but his family disapproved of the relationship and he was finally married to Nashua, the daughter of a Bhatkal-based businessman. A few months before his wedding, he came in touch with the Kurla unit of Students' Islamic Moment of India (SIMI). When he became a member of the outfit, it was already divided into two factions, extremists and the moderates. Riyaz preferred to stay with the first group. While the outfit was banned and its members arrested, he managed to evade the police. Soon he started preaching the SIMI ideology and was considered as a key figure among his associates. At the same time, Riyaz came in touch with local goons and started extorting money from traders in order to fund the activities of SIMI. "In 2002, he allegedly gave supari to kill the owner of Deepak Farsan in Kurla. The shooters killed the owner's bodyguard and Riyaz was never arrested," said an investigator of the case.

A city crime branch official said, "A year later, he entered Pakistan illegally and got training in operating fire arms and assembling explosives at a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) camp. In 2004, along with Atif Ameen (who was later killed in the Batla House encounter in 2008), Sadiq Asrar Shaikh (who is behind bars in Mumbai), Subhan Qureishi alias Tauqeer and Yasin Bhatkal (both absconding), he conducted his first training for Indian men at Jolly Beach, a farm house in Bhatkal. Yasin, though hailing from Bhatkal, is not related to Riyaz. In 2005, the quintet executed their first terror blast at Sankat Mochan temple in Uttar Pradesh. While Riyaz provided the explosives, Tauqeer and Shaikh recruited the men. This was the time the group decided to name itself Indian Mujahideen (IM). Cops were unaware of its existence. Iqbal too had got influenced by the extremist ideology. He was one of the founder members of the IM.

"Soon after executing the bombings at the court premises in Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad on November 23, 2007, IM sent its first email to a news channel, claiming responsibility," the charge sheet on these blasts reads. In 2008, IM carried out bombings in Bangalore and Ahmedabad and for the first time Riyaz's name cropped up during the probe. He had conducted a seven-day training session for new recruits at Bhatkal prior to the blasts." After police started visiting Bhatkal frequently in search of him, Riyaz escaped to Pakistan in 2008 via Bangladesh. That was the last time his family saw him," a senior ATS officer added. Meanwhile, his father was last spotted in Mumbai on April 16, 2008, when he had gone to collect rent for his two rooms in Qadir Mansion.

In March 2010, Riyaz travelled to Colombo and met Yasin Bhatkal, Mohsin Chaudhry and Mirza Himayat Bain to plan Pune's German Bakery bomb blast. In July 2011, a red corner notice was issued against Riyaz in connection with the 2008 Bangalore blast. The chargesheet in Mumbai's July 13, 2011, triple blast cases said that "the entire criminal conspiracy was hatched by Riyaz and Yasin Bhatkal", who are "the chief cogs of the notorious" IM. The banned terrorist group, it adds, was created by Pakistani spy agency ISI "to spread terror in India". Riyaz and his brother Iqbal Bhatkal "operate from Pakistan" and impart instructions via electronic means to their associates based here through Yasin. According to forensic reports, Trinitrotoluene (TNT), ammonium nitrate and petroleum oil were used in the Mumbai bomb blasts.

This is the story as narrated by Riyaz's proteges, neighbors, friends and police. However, no one knows Riyaz's side of the story.

Riyaz Bhatkal's bloody trail:

Oct 29, 2005: Paharganj, Sarojini Nagar and Gopal Nagar in Delhi, killed 62

March 7, 2006: Sankat Mochan temple, Kashi Viswanath temple in Varanasi, killed 28

Nov 24, 2006: Faizabad, Lucknow and Varanasi courts

May 25, 2007: Gorakhpur market

Aug 25, 2007: Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat in Hyderabad, killed 42

May 23, 2008: Jaipur, killed 80

July 24, 2008: Bangalore, killed 02

July 25, 2008: Ahmedabad serial explosions, killed 56

July 26, 2008: Surat (bombs defused)

Sept 13, 2008: Delhi, killed 30

Feb 13, 2010: Pune German Bakery blast, killed 17

July 13, 2011: Mumbai triple blasts, killed 27

August 1, 2012: Pune serial bomb blasts

Total killed: 344

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.

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