Research examines robot-assisted therapy

WEST LAFAYETTE, IND, Dec 7: Computerized pets, such as those coming from Japanese electronics makers, could approach their flesh-and-blood counterparts in providing people with social interaction stimuli, scientists have said.

Purdue University is running a year-long study that puts an Aibo robot dog for six weeks in the homes of people 65 years and older who live alone, said Alan Beck, director of the Center for the Human-Animal Bond in Purdue’s School of Veterinary Medicine.

Cats and dogs have the well-documented ability to improve patients’ stress levels, blood pressure and other factors. Using robots could do the same while alleviating a medical staff’s worries about possible animal drawbacks, such as the need for feeding and exercise, Beck said on Thursday.

We want to see if robots can provide social stimulation in places such as assisted-living facilities and nursing homes, Beck told United Press International. The robots have just enough movement and action to allow people to suspend their disbelief.

Using a robot also avoids the possibility of an animal being neglected or abandoned, Beck said.

Although people have been suspicious of the idea at first, positive reactions have come quickly and strongly, Beck said. The first participant, in her 90s, started off thinking the robot’s needs would include things such as batteries. After three weeks of hosting the Aibo, however, she said it needed attention and physical contact, Beck said.

We’re also finding people get so involved they start using the same pseudo-language with the Aibo that they would with real animals, Beck said. The robot spurs more person-to-person contact as well, with visitors such as grandchildren coming by more often, he said. The robot’s programming introduces enough random activity to keep a person’s attention, Beck said. It can even provide mental stimulation, such as with a simple card game, that can alleviate feelings of isolation, he said.

Despite their advantages, robots such as Aibo lack the literal warm and fuzzy feelings of a living animal, said Edith Markoff, coordinator of the dog visitation program at Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati. This sort of approach is nonetheless a valuable adjunct to animal-assisted therapy, Markoff told UPI.

I can see occupational therapy uses with children that would be incredibly effective, Markoff said. Once you start playing with technology, it becomes so clear how you could use it.

The robots would be especially useful in environments such as cancer or transplant wards, where animals are forbidden, Markoff said.

Improvements in the robots’ design will take them past simple interaction, said Nancy Edwards, a professor of nursing at Purdue also involved in the study.

Ideally, down the road, these robotic pet companions could become a more valuable health asset, Edwards said. They will record their masters’ blood pressure, oxygen levels or heart rhythms. One manufacturer already is working to include a blood-pressure sensor in its robot, beck said, so holding the robot does more than just give the owner something to cuddle. Other possibilities include alerting a nurses’ station if the person does not react to the robot for extended periods, he said.

Those sorts of monitoring activities could be very useful in home-care situations, Markoff said.

Japanese researchers have done similar studies with paro, a fairly simple, baby seal creation with a few novel twists to appear more true-to-life. A combination of airbag-based pressure sensors and artificial fur creates a soft, pliable surface allowing paro to sense when it is being petted. The end of paro’s power cord is shaped like a baby’s pacifier, which is placed in the robot’s mouth while it recharges.

The study showed sessions with the robot improve the subjects’ emotional states and they reported feeling more vigorous. Nursing staff members also reported fewer symptoms of job burnout after dealing with paro and the subjects, the study’s authors said.

Purdue and the University of Washington are working together on the Aibo study, funded by the National Science Foundation. (UPI)

Palestinians accuses Israel of setting fake
Al Qaeda cell to justify attack

RAMALLAH, WEST BANK, Dec 7: The Palestinian authority accused Israel’s Mossad spy agency today of setting up a fake Al Qaeda cell in Gaza so that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could justify Israeli attacks in Palestinian areas.

A spokesman for Sharon called the allegation "sheer nonsense".

The Israeli leader said on Thursday that Osama bin Laden’s organisation had established a presence in Palestinian-ruled areas of Gaza and in Lebanon, aiming to attack Israel. He gave no further details in his comments at an Israeli media lunch.

"It is a big, big, big lie to cover (Sharon’s) attacks and his crimes against our people everywhere," Palestinian President Yasser Arafat told reporters at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo pointed to an alleged Israeli plot.

"There are certain elements who were instructed by the Mossad to form a cell under the name of Al Qaeda in the Gaza Strip in order to justify the assault and the military campaigns of the Israeli occupation army against Gaza," Abed Rabbo said.

He did not elaborate, but Palestinian officials said they would present proof of Mossad involvement at a news conference tomorrow.

Sharon’s allegation of a link between Al Qaeda and the Palestinians marked a new stage in his equation of Israel’s battle against militants leading a two-year-old uprising for statehood to the US-led global war against terrorism.

Israel has named Al Qaeda as prime suspect in a suicide bombing at a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya last week that killed 13 Kenyans and three Israelis and a failed attempt to shoot down with missiles an Israeli airliner taking off nearby.

The United States blames Al Qaeda, a multinational Islamic fundamentalist network, for the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Sharon, said Abed Rabbo’s comments were part of an attempt by Palestinian officials "to exonerate themselves from the allegations they are collaborating and particpating with terrorists". In what Israel called a raid to capture a wanted militant, Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships swept into the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip yesterday, sparking a gunbattle and killing 10 people.

The bloodshed was sure to fuel more violence despite the United States’ calls for calm as it prepares for possible war on Iraq.

The Army said the troops met fierce resistance in the three-hour incursion. Armed men fought the soldiers in fierce street battles, but it was unclear how many of the dead were gunmen involved in the fighting and how many were civilians.

Palestinian residents said that of the nine men and one woman, a teacher employed by the United Nations, who were killed in the Israeli raid, eight were civilians and two were policemen involved in the fighting.

But the militant Islamic group Hamas said in a statement issued on Hizbollah’s Al-Manar television in Beirut that six of the dead were Hamas members, including the dead woman. It said two were from its Izz-El-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades Military Wing.

In New York, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a statement demanding Israel exercise restraint and "refrain from the excessive and disproportionate use of deadly force in civilian areas".

US State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher declined to comment on the incident but said Washington has been concerned over civilian casualties that have resulted from Israeli military operations.

At the same time, he voiced support for what he called Israel’s right to defend itself.

In the West Bank, Israeli troops killed an Islamic Jihad militant in an exchange of fire during a raid of a village near Jenin late last night, Palestinian medical sources said.

The Army said that in a separate incident in the West Bank it captured a Palestinian would-be suicide bomber who had an explosives belt. (AGENCIES)

Hot winds expected to refuel Sydney bushfires

SYDNEY, Dec 7: Sydney firefighters and homeowners raced against the clock to control roaring bushfires during a brief respite today, with Australia’s largest city expecting a return of hot, windy weather within 24 hours.

"It’s a crunch day tomorrow," new South Wales Premier Bob Carr told reporters after a week of trying to contain the fires, among the worst to hit Sydney in 30 years.

"High temperatures, and strong winds from the northwest (are) returning. We’ve only got today to set up for that instead of having two days to set up."

Despite today’s cooler, calmer conditions, a new fire emerged in Sydney’s north, and soon flames up to 20 metres high were threatening homes.

But the blaze was held back by water-bombing helicopters and firefighters who blasted it with water cannon shooting 3,000 litres a minute.

"It is physically impossible for us to contain all the fires," Rural Fire Service Commissioner Phil Koperberg said. Some bushland would have to be left to burn out.

"We can expect spasmodic outbreaks tomorrow ..." he said.

Sydney remained ringed by what Koperberg has described as an almost unprecedented line of fire, from the Nepean river west of Sydney to the mouth of the Hawkesbury river in the north.

Some houses burned down. Media reports said 41 had now been lost, compared with estimates of about 20 yesterday. But there has only been one fatality. The drop in winds left smoke hanging over Sydney, and the city awoke under a purple-grey sky. And the city seized the opportunity to get the fires under control.

More than 4,000 firefighters, and homeowners in bush suburbs from one end of Sydney to the other, cleared combustible materials, filled roof gutters with water and even mowed lawns to leave as little fuel as possible for the flames.

The weekend battle to save homes employed 91 aircraft, including helicopters.

This followed a massive effort yesterday, when winds whipped bushfires into walls of flame around Sydney’s fringes.

"We’ve got 24 to 48 hours to put in as much back-burning, as much containment lines as possible and go from there," Rural Fire Service Spokesman Ross West told Reuters, before new weather forecasts confirmed that strong wind and high temperatures would return tomorrow.

Rain and cooler temperatures were forecast to bring relief on Monday, earlier than previously expected, but only after a hot, windy start to the day.

The choking smoke led medical authorities to urge sydneysiders with breathing problems to consult doctors.

The Fire Service’s greatest fear was that embers might jump containment lines into unburned territory, spokesman John Winter said.

Sydney is not the only part of new South Wales to suffer —80 fires were still burning around the Eastern Australian state today, including some in the hunter valley north of Sydney and others in the blue mountains, to the west.

Commuter chaos continued in Sydney’s north, with a freeway to the northern city of newcastle intermittently opened and closed near Bewowra. (AGENCIES)

Nasa determind to land space shuttle

CAPE CANAVERAL, Dec 7: Nasa was determined to land the space shuttle endeavour today before life support for the astronauts becomes a problem.

Weather at the Kennedy Space Center landing strip in Florida was still marginal at best, with a 167-metre cloud ceiling all but obscuring the runway. Conditions there were expected to improve throughout the day.

The report was better from an alternate landing site at Edwards Air Force base in California’s Mojave Desert, where a few broken clouds were the only concern.

"You will be home today," mission control promised the space crew.

Endeavour’s return to earth has been delayed into its fourth day by heavy clouds and high winds, a first for the 21-year-old shuttle program.

The first landing opportunity today will be in Florida at 1437 hrs local time (0107 hrs Ist tomorrow).

Although the orbiter has enough fuel for three landing attempts today and two more tomorrow, life support for the crew would run out sometime after the second attempt tomorrow, Nasa said.

Seven astronauts are aboard the shuttle, three of them a returning crew from the international space station who have already spent more than six months in space.

The others launched 15 days ago, delivered a new crew to the space station and added a 14-ton(ne) truss segment to the orbiting science lab.

They left the station on Monday expecting to land on Wednesday.

The crew has had little to do for four days but repeat the exercise of donning their spacesuits and preparing to fire endeavour’s reentry rockets, only to have the "stand down" order come each time. "I’m going to get out of my favorite suit now," said Shuttle Commander James Wetherbee after the last attempt on Friday.

"Don’t hide it anyplace where you won’t find it," said mission control.

Pick-up games of jeopardy with mission control have helped keep them amused, and for a wake-up call today, ground controllers played "I’ll be home for christmas."

The crew has even joked that if they cannot land on earth, they might look elsewhere.

"We’ve polled the crew and we’re ‘go’ for the moon," said astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who made three spacewalks earlier in their mission.

A cold front that has swept the US East Coast, dumping piles of snow and interrupting electrical services, was also a culprit in endeavour’s delay. Although no snow reached Florida, the front brought a line of storm clouds, rain and heavy winds with it.

Nasa always tries to land its shuttles at their home base in florida. A California landing can delay that orbiter’s next launch and costs 900,000 dollars to fly it 3,000 miles cross-country atop a boeing 747.

Nasa also has a battery of tests in florida awaiting the returning space station crew — American Peggy Whitson and Russians Valery Korzun and Sergei Treschyov. They have been 185 days weightless and scientists want to study them before they readapt to gravity.

Landing in California would mean a wait until the crew reaches their Houston Training Center. (AGENCIES)

Bush vows thorough exam for Iraqi arms declaration

WASHINGTON, Dec 7: The United States will take "some time" to thoroughly evaluate Iraq’s expected arms declaration and judge whether Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was meeting UN disarmament demands, US President George W Bush said today.

The Iraqi declaration, demanded by a UN resolution last month, was to be handed over to un weapons inspectors in Baghdad today, then flown to New York for evaluation by Security Council member countries including the United States.

"We will judge the declaration’s honesty and completeness only after we have thoroughly examined it, and that will take some time," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

"The declaration must be credible and accurate and complete, or the Iraqi dictator will have demonstrated to the world that once again he has chosen not to change his behavior."

The declaration, which is supposed to give a full accounting of any past or present Iraqi programs involving biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, is expected to be at least 10,000 pages long.

Bush said Saddam bears the burden of proving compliance with UN demands that he dismantle programs to develop ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction, and of cooperating with UN arms inspectors who began work in Iraq last week.

"Compliance means bringing all requested information and evidence out into full view, to show that Iraq has abandoned the deceptions of the last decade," the US President said.

"Any act of delay or defiance will prove that Saddam Hussein has not adopted the path of compliance, and he has rejected the path of peace."

Bush said Iraq had so far failed to show the necessary "fundamental shift in practice and attitude" and he reiterated his vow to lead an international coalition to disarm Iraq if needed.

Iraqi officials have said the arms declaration will describe "dual-use technology," and that it covers biological, chemical and nuclear activities. But they deny Iraq has any banned weapons, despite strong US assertions that it has a solid basis to conclude iraq possesses such weapons.

US officials said yesterday that Washington was expected to declare Iraq in "material breach" of the UN resolution if Baghdad says in its declaration that it does not have weapons of mass destruction.

The administration may not cite the breach as an immediate cause for war, but could instead let UN weapons inspections continue while Bush courts members of a "coalition of the willing" to help strike Iraq if needed, officials said. (AGENCIES)

Rumsfeld says preferable for Saddam to leave Iraq

BEIRUT, Dec 7: Saddam Hussein should try to avert war on Iraq by giving up and leaving the country, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Lebanese TV station, as a UN deadline for Baghdad to declare its arms programmes approaches.

Rumsfeld told LBC TV in an interview aired late yesterday: "Is he going to continue to lie, or is he going to conclude that the game’s up and I’m gone and he leaves? or I’m going to stay and give up every weapon of mass destruction."

UN arms experts resumed inspections in Iraq after a two-day break on Saturday, hours before the country was due to hand in its arms declaration estimated at over 11,000 pages.

The expected declaration follows a UN Security Council resolution last month setting tomorrow as the deadline for Baghdad to give a full account of any past and current programmes involving biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

Iraq says it has no such weapons.

"Everyone would prefer that he just leave tomorrow," Rumsfeld said, according to an english transcript of the interview obtained today. "War is your last choice."

Rumsfeld did not say where he thought Saddam might go if he were to leave Iraq.

UN Arms Inspectors last month restarted inspections in Iraq for the first time in four years and say Baghdad has cooperated with searches at some 20 suspect sites so far.

If Baghdad is found in "material breach" of the resolution, it could set the stage for a military attack on Iraq by the United States and its allies. (AGENCIES)

Bush skeptical over Iraqi compliance
on weapons inventory

WASHINGTON, Dec 7: President George W Bush made plain his skepticism today about Iraq’s inventory of weapons of mass destruction and said "any act of delay or defiance" would show Saddam Hussein is not complying with world demands.

The UN Security Council resolution approved on Nov. 8 requires Iraq to provide by tomorrow a complete accounting of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, as well as programmes to develop long-range missiles.

Iraqi officials displayed the documents, said by one to total 13,000 pages, to the international media today. It was expected to be handed over to UN officials in Baghdad later today.

An American official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the declaration would be distributed first to the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China - the five permanent members of the Security Council - and then to the 10 other members. But that would be delayed for at least a week while inspectors weed out the sensitive details and translate, UN officials said.

In his weekly radio address, taped before the Iraqis displayed the document, Bush raised pre-emptive suspicions that the information would pass muster, continuing a campaign of increasingly tough talk by his administration.

In the past, he said, Saddam admitted to "a massive biological weapons programme" only after being confronted with evidence. More recent moves by the Iraqi leader, including defiant letters to the United Nations and shots fired at us and British planes patrolling "no-fly" zones in Iraq, merely heighten suspicion, the President said.

"Thus far we are not seeing the fundamental shift in practice and attitude that the world is demanding," Bush said.

Bush’s reference to a required change in attitude reflects his administration’s reluctance of late to speak of "regime change," a reference to Saddam’s ouster that unnerved allies about US plans for a war.

The President promised that the US judgment of Iraq’s report will be made only after a thorough examination "that will take some time."

He made clear, however, that the burden is on iraq to prove that it has provided a full accounting of its weapons capabilities and that it has destroyed what it possesses - not on Security Council countries or the inspectors to prove that it has not.

"Inspectors do not have the duty or the ability to uncover terrible weapons hidden in a vast country," Bush said. "The responsibility of inspectors is simply to confirm evidence of voluntary and total disarmament."

"Compliance means bringing all requested information and evidence out into full view, to show that Iraq has abandoned the deceptions of the last decade," Bush said.

"Any act of delay or defiance will prove that Saddam Hussein has not adopted the path of compliance and has rejected the path of peace."

As a result, he said, while war is a last resort it is not out of the question.

Meanwhile, the administration pressured UN officials and weapons inspectors to more aggressively court Iraqi weapons scientists with promises of safety and asylum in exchange for evidence against Saddam. (AP)

Canada, Russia each expel two diplomats: Paper

OTTAWA, Dec 7: Canada and Russia have recently expelled two of each other’s diplomats for allegedly engaging in activities inconsistent with their status, a term which is short-hand for spying, a newspaper reported today.

The Ottawa citizen said Russia had on Monday given two Canadian diplomats a week to leave Moscow as a reprisal for the recent expulsion of two of its own officials from Canada.

No one at the Canadian Foreign Ministry was immediately available for comment. Last week, Russia ordered two Swedish diplomats to leave Moscow after two Russian envoys — accused of espionage — had been expelled from Sweden.

The Ottawa citizen named one of the Canadian diplomats as Guillaume Siemienski, a First Secretary based at the Embassy who works for Canada’s international aid agency. (AGENCIES)

Iraq gives journalists a brief glimpse of
key arms declaration

BAGHDAD, Dec 7: Iraqi officials put on display today a key arms declaration covering 11,807 pages at the headquarters of its National Monitoring Directorate, ahead of the formal handover to the United Nations.

Dozens of reporters fought to get inside to see the document before its delivery to UN officials in time for a Sunday deadline under Security Council Resolution 1441.

Supplementary information contained in 529-megabytes of CD-ROMs as well as another 325 pages about a "complete system for long-term monitoring" were included as annexes to the 11,807-page dossier, described as "initial", and held in clear plastic binders.

The CD-ROMs covered Iraqi’s semi-annual arms reports from July 1998 to July 2002 which had no longer been presented to the UN Weapons Commission since inspectors had fled the country in December 1998.

The Dossier was placed on a table watched over by six officials.

The front-cover read "currently accurate, full and complete declaration", picking up the words of the November 8 Security Council resolution which launched the new disarmament process.

But none of the contents were revealed ahead of the formal handover of the Dossier to the UN due to take place later in the evening before the dossier heads to New York and Vienna via Cyprus.

A decision to allow only a small group of reporters in the Directorate sparked a battle for access between photographers, camera crews and journalists and several windows were broken and a door pushed down. (AFP)

One soldier killed, 9 others wounded in
clashes in Philippines

MANILA, Dec 7: One soldier was killed while nine others were seriously injured when Government troops clashed with Muslim rebels fighting for independence in the Southern Philippines, an official said today.

Army Major Julieto Ando, spokesman for the military in Maguindanao Province, said fierce fighting between soldiers and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) since yesterday left casualties on both sides, but the rebels took the bodies of their colleagues to hide their casualties.

"Military operation is still ongoing. The rebels are still in the area and we expect more clashes and escalation of MILF attacks against civilian and military targets," he told newsmen.

Ando said the MILF continued its offensive against Government forces that is why they have no choice but to defend their position at all costs. "We will not allow the milf to hurt civilians or attack our soldiers. We will also attack them until they stop."

MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said, however, that it was the military who was attacking their camps. "The soldiers targetted our positions, so we have to defend ourselves, that’s why fighting is going on."

He added they saw military men on board six trucks, reinforced by tanks and armoured vehicles, and were on their way to buldon town today. The military set up command posts in the area.

"MILF forces are ready to crush the advancing soldiers. They are literally face to face with troops in buldon and battles could erupt unless the military pull out their forces and leave us in peace," said Kabalu. (DPA)

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