Extremists have infiltrated four UK varsities: Imam

LONDON, Nov 14: Islamic fundamentalists have infiltrated four British universities and are "indoctrinating" Muslim students to particiapte in Jihad, a leading Imam has claimed here.

Extremists have entered the varsities and radicalised students so deeply that they are close to "travelling to Afghanistan and Iraq to engage in Jihad or holy war", Sheikh Musa Admani, an advisor on Muslim Affairs to Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell, has alleged.

Admani, who is a Muslim chaplain at Metropolitan University, has alleged that four institutions -- Brunel, Bedfordshire, Sheffield Hallam and Manchester Metropolitan varsities -- have been infiltrated.

Officials at Brunel University located in West London have launched a high-level probe to verify Admani's allegations.

The imam runs a charity -- The Luqman Institute of Education and Development -- that helps to rehabilitate young men who have fallen prey to extremism and sends teams to campuses to tackle indoctrination, media reports here said.

According to him, fundamentalists had flouted campus bans on extreme organisations by posing as "ordinary Muslims" or forming societies with alternative names. They had won their peers' trust in varsity prayer rooms before inviting them to off-campus lectures.

"We are dealing with people filled with hatred," he said. "It's hatred for the white man and the West, because they have read the works of Qurb and Maududi (radicals followed by al-Qaeda) who set Muslims apart from everyone else," Admani said.

A spokesman for the varsity said, "The safety of our students and staff is paramount, as is the security of our campus. We will look into the (Admani's) institute's claims."

The imam's allegations came days after a court was told that al-Qaeda terrorist Dhiren Barot, a Hindu converted to Islam who plotted to bomb the Tube under the Thames, used a forged pass to carry out research on Brunel's campus.

The 34-year-old was recently jailed for at least 40 years last week after he admitted planning terrorist attacks in Britain and America.

Last week, Mi5 British Intelligence Agency Chief Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller had said that over 200 terror networks had been identified in Britain, involving at least 1,600 people and 30 plots to kill were being investigated. (PTI)

Ending buses to stymie regrowth of New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS, Nov 14: Theresa Jones hangs on to her low-paying job in New Orleans by riding a free, government-funded bus 80 miles to work from the temporary housing she has lived in since Hurricane Katrina.

But her efforts to keep a job in hand and a roof over her head are in peril, as the bus service for displaced New Orleans residents is running out of money and poised to shut down at the end of this month.

''I'm going to lose this job if they get rid of that bus,'' said Jones, 45, who earns 100 dollars caring for an elderly couple one week per month. ''I don't see why they encourage everyone to come to New Orleans to work. I get a job, and they turn around and stop the bus.''

Funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and carrying an average of 1,000 people a day, the free buses have been running between New Orleans and the state capital, Baton Rouge, where many storm victims live, since last fall.

The service would need at least 6 million dollars from FEMA to keep running, but officials say it's unlikely the federal agency will pay up.

''As it stands right now, on December 1 there will be no bus service to New Orleans,'' said Mark Lambert, spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. ''The thing that we need and don't have is the money.''

The demise of the LA Swift bus service comes as a blow to its riders, many of whom are low-paid workers who cannot afford to live in New Orleans, where a housing shortage has sent rents soaring since the storm devastated the city in August 2005.

''People want to work, they want to get jobs and it's not asking very much of government to keep those doors open through something as meager as bus service from Baton Rouge to New Orleans,'' said Alan Jenkins of Opportunity Agenda, a research and advocacy group based in New York. ''It makes no sense.''

According to FEMA, the service was funded as a relief measure in an emergency situation that no longer exists in New Orleans.

''We're way beyond the emergency period,'' said Jim Stark, director of FEMA's Louisiana Transitional Recovery Office. ''It's become a successful commuter system that rightfully belongs to the state for responsibility.''

Of the bus riders, 85 per cent use it to go to work or to find work. Riders also include teenagers making the trek of nearly two hours each way to attend high schools in New Orleans.

''The thing that's a shame is that this has really been a successful service. These are people who are trying to make the best of a bad situation,'' Lambert said. ''This truly is a recovery tool. It's frustrating, very frustrating.''

NO ALTERNATIVE

State officials have asked FEMA, which in June extended the service to keep buses through Nov. 30ember the end of the hurricane season, to reconsider.

They also have asked the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which coordinates the state's rebuilding efforts, to consider taking over the service, although that is likely to mean a one-way bus fare of 6 dollars. Three-quarters of the riders earn less than 10 dollars an hour, Lambert said.

Now, with no other public transport between the state's two major cities, alternatives include paying 14.50 dollars one-way for a Greyhound Bus or not making the trip at all.

That's what looms for Andrea Raymond, 31, who stays in Baton Rouge but works mowing grass at New Orleans' public parks.

''I would have to quit my job because I don't have nowhere to live down here,'' Raymond said as she waited at a grimy corner of downtown New Orleans for a bus back to Baton Rouge. ''It's a must.''

Kathy Taylor, 33, also waiting at the bus stop, said she would work in Baton Rouge but finds employers reluctant to hire workers from New Orleans. So she takes the bus to care for an elderly woman in New Orleans.

''We're not welcome,'' she said. ''I want to come home. Get the schools together, make it affordable for us so we can come back home.''

Michael Cowan of Common Good, a local coalition of faith-based groups, schools and non-profits, said without affordable transportation, ''You put a wall between people who want to work and the good jobs that are available in their region.

''A community that has a wall between its jobs and its workforce cannot have a growing economy,'' he said.

At Opportunity Agenda, Jenkins argues the rebuilding of New Orleans, with affordable transportation, housing and health care and quality education, is ''a test of our national values.''

''We're supposed to be a land of opportunity, which means that everyone should have a fair chance to start over,'' he said. ''We're falling very far short of that promise of opportunity in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

(AGENCIES)

Green campaigners dream of a recycled Christmas

LONDON, Nov 14: British environmentalists are dreaming of a green Christmas.

Turn off the lights, turn down the heating, stay at home and wrap up warm they say in a message even Charles Dickens' penny-pinching Scrooge might have approved of.

Eager to capitalise on a wave of eco-awareness sweeping the country as politicians battle for green credentials, campaigners want people to give a gift to the planet instead of each other.

Recycled wrapping paper and second-hand gifts are in, but visiting friends and family are not -- since travel adds too much to global warming -- and wine and food should be bought in moderation from local sources to reduce so-called food miles.

Even the glittering fairy, tinsel and baubles that traditionally adorn the Christmas tree should be shunned in favour of edible and biodegradable decorations such as popcorn or fruit which can be fed to the birds afterwards.

''Avoid anything that cannot be recycled or has not been made from recycled materials,'' the Green Guide for Christmas says.

According to Friends of the Earth environmental campaign group, which has also produced a green Christmas guide, the equivalent of 248,000 trees could be saved if Britons alone recycled, rather than threw away, the estimated 744 million Christmas cards sent each year.

Another 50,000 trees could be saved if the 83 square kilometres of wrapping paper that was thrown away last year was recycled this time around.

Campaigners suggest wrapping gifts in old newspaper or magazines, or at least buying wrapping paper made from recycled materials.

For the gifts themselves, second-hand can be imaginative, they say, and should not be seen as a ''cheap option''.

''Try flea markets, antique jewellery and vintage clothing shops for gifts,'' Friends of the Earth suggests.

And those who really want to go green this Christmas can forget that festive visit to granny or far-away friends. Leave the car in the garage, stay at home, and get online, campaigners say.

''The advances in modern communications technology make it possible to see and hear your kith and kind via the internet, and investing in a simple webcam setup can bring you closer,'' says the Green Guide.

''It is certainly worth trying out, as the saving in CO2, time and energy are considerable!''

(AGENCIES)

Myanmar builds "new" Shwedagon in jungle capital

YANGON, Nov 14: Myanmar's generals are building an almost life-sized replica of Yangon's gilded Shwedagon Pagoda, the country's holiest Buddhist shrine, in their new jungle capital, state media has reported.

A ground-breaking ceremony led by junta supremo Senior General Than Shwe was held on Sunday for the ''Uppatasanti Pagoda'', as the replica is named, in Nay Pyi Taw, the new command and control centre 400 km north of Yangon.

Radio, television and newspapers yesterday gave wide coverage of the traditional Buddhist ceremony conducted by yellow-robed monks and attended by other top generals and their wives.

Analysts have suggested the move to Nay Pyi Taw, which means ''Royal City'', is a bid by Than Shwe to walk in the footsteps of Burmese kings who liked to build a new capital every time they proclaimed a new dynasty.

''It is part of their attempt to make their jungle capital competitive with big cities like Yangon and Mandalay,'' one retired government official said.

The generals argue the site, midway between Yangon and the second city of Mandalay, will work better as a national capital of the Southeast Asian country, under military rule since 1962.

The replica will be 325 feet high, one foot lower than the original Shwedagon, built more than 2,500 years ago in what is now the heart of the colonial capital.

The new pagoda may offer some solace to the estimated 10,000 government workers forced to leave friends and family in Yangon.

''I hope the new pagoda becomes an important place to worship like Shwedagon. Only then will those who had to move to Nay Pyi Taw be able to bury their loneliness and homesickness,'' the retired official said.

(AGENCIES)

Environmentalists oppose Victoria Falls hotel project

LUSAKA, Nov 14: Zambian environmentalists oppose a 260 million dollars plan to construct two hotels, a golf course and hundreds of chalets in a park near the famous Victoria Falls world heritage site, officials have said.

Zambia's Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) has given permission to local and foreign investors to go ahead with the project in Livingstone, 480 km south of Lusaka, even though environmental groups said yesterday it would harm the local ecology.

Critics say the park and its wildlife, which includes black rhinos, could be damaged by the development and Victoria Falls could lose its status as one of Africa's biggest tourist sites.

Peter Sinkamba, the head of one of the environmental groups opposed to the plan, said the government broke the law because it did not do a proper study of potential ecological damage.

''The whole project has been done in reverse ... The (law) was not followed (and) this is an anomaly,'' he told journalists. Environmentalists have threatened to ask the courts to block the project if the government allows it to proceed on its present site.

There was no immediate comment from the government.

Legacy Holdings Zambia Ltd, a subsidiary of Legacy International Group, plans to construct the two hotels, a golf course and some 450 chalets on the fringes of one of Africa's longest rivers, the Zambezi, close to Victoria Falls.

A ZAWA official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the government understood the environmentalists' fears but did not think there was anything wrong with going ahead with the project.

Legacy International chairman Bart Dorrestein recently told Zambian media the project would balance a respect for nature with the need to provide jobs and meet other social challenges in Africa.

''The site should be developed with strict adherence to (ecological) recommendations,'' Dorrestein was quoted as saying by the Post newspaper.

Officials say the project will create 2,000 new jobs, attract 150,000 additional tourists to the area and provide Zambia with 170 million dollars more per year in foreign exchange. (AGENCIES)

UN urges rainwater harvesting to aid Africa

NAIROBI, Nov 14: Harvesting rainfall in Africa is an underused and cheap way to combat drought in the world's poorest continent, the U N Environment Programme said.

Pipes from rooftops and mini-reservoirs can catch rains in systems costing 30-70 dollars for every cubic metre of water storage capacity, it said. Saving rains can also save millions of people hours a day spent fetching water.

''Rainwater harvesting ... Is a way to help communities who are on the front line of drought, of seasonable availability of rainfall, to act,'' UNEP head Achim Steiner yesterday told a news conference on the sidelines of the U N climate talks in Kenya.

''It does not require billions of dollars of investment,'' he said, comparing it to the costs of dams or systems for piping drinking water to homes.

The report, by UNEP and the World Agroforestry Center, estimated that Kenya's 35 million people had enough rains to supply six or seven times its current population.

Ethiopia, where almost half the 79 million population suffer hunger, had a potential rainwater harvest to supply 520 million people, it said.

Steiner said it would be impossible to harvest all rains but ''the numbers do underline the huge untapped potential,'' he said, adding that rainwater harvesting needed more research for use around the world in both rich and poor nations.

''Rainwater harvesting has helped us very much,'' said Agnes Mosoni Loirket, a Maasai community leader in Kisamese in central Kenya whose village has set up a 500 cubic metre storage system.

She said the project saved women and children from having to walk five km daily to fetch water from a polluted source. ''Now our children wake up in the morning and go to school,'' she said.

Loirket said she had a small kitchen garden growing vegetables, including spinach and onions, that she previously had to buy in shops. Other women, freed from carrying water, could also work on everything from farming to handicrafts.

UNEP said 14 of Africa's 53 countries were classified as water stressed or water scarce. The number could double by 2025, partly because of global warming widely blamed on rising emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels.

''In the popular mind, Africa is seen as a dry continent,'' said Dennis Garrity, head of the World Agroforestry Center. ''But overall, it actually has more water resources per capita than Europe.''

''Some countries are already successfully exploiting their rainwater. In south Australia, over 40 per cent of households use rainwater stored in tanks as their main source of drinking water,'' he said. ''Germany has over half a million rainwater harvesting schemes.''(AGENCIES)

Men moan more about flu than women

LONDON, Nov 14: Men may or may not suffer more from influenza than women, but according to a survey they moan more, spend more on remedies and take more time off work when they are ill.

A poll of 2,000 men and women on winter ailments revealed that 64 per cent of men said they had suffered a viral infection last winter that caused them to miss work, compared with 45 per cent of women.

Not only did men appear to be more susceptible to illness, their bodies took longer to recover. Men took on average three days to get better against 1.5 days for women.

And during the recovery period, men were dipping into their pockets more often and spending more. On average men spent 18.34 pounds on cold and flu remedies throughout winter against just 12.03 pounds for hardier women.

November was statistically the worst month for the medically unrecognised ailment of ''man flu''.

The survey, on behalf of men's magazine ''Nuts'', found 82 per cent of men thought the best way to recover was to take it easy in bed and just wait. In contrast, 66 per cent of women thought the best way to get better was to keep active.

The best home remedy -- agreed by both genders -- was judged to be chicken soup.

(AGENCIES)

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Red meat linked to some breast cancers:Study

CHICAGO, Nov 14: Younger women who eat more red meat may be at higher risk of a certain kind of breast cancer, perhaps because of hormonal residues in beef cattle and other factors, according to a study published.

Data from a multiyear study involving the health histories of more than 90,000 US nurses show that ''in this population of relatively young, premenopausal women, red meat intake was associated with a higher risk of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer,'' said the study from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston.

Hormone receptor-positive tumors are those that carry certain proteins to which hormones, in this case estrogen and progesterone, bind, helping them grow. Those kinds of tumors have been on the increase in the United States, especially among middle-aged women.

''Given that most of the risk factors for breast cancer are not easily modifiable, these findings have potential public health implications in preventing breast cancer and should be evaluated further,'' concluded the report published yesterday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The researchers said they had found that women who ate more than one and one-half servings of red meat per day had almost double the risk of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer compared with those who ate three or fewer servings per week.

The study began in 1989 when the women were surveyed on eating and other habits. Those in the red meat study were followed from 1991 through 2003. Only women who had not gone through menopause and were cancer-free were included in the analysis.

There are known to be cancer-causing compounds in cooked or processed red meat that increase breast tumors in laboratory animals and have been suspected of causing breast cancer in humans, the report said.

In addition ''hormone treatment of beef cattle for growth promotion, which is banned in European countries but not in the United States, has been of concern,'' the report said.

''Although long-term health effects of hormone residues in beef have not been investigated, theoretically they may preferentially affect hormone receptor-positive tumors,'' it added.

Other potential factors involved with red meat include animal fat in general and a form of iron in meat which has been shown to play a role in the development of such tumors. (AGENCIES)

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World's poor still deprived of drugs:Activists

LONDON, Nov 14: Poor people in developing countries are still not getting access to many life-saving medicines five years after a trade declaration that rich countries should put patients before profits, campaigners said today.

British-based anti-poverty charity Oxfam and AIDS groups said rich nations were taking little or no action towards meeting their obligations under the ''Doha Declaration'', leaving millions without affordable drugs.

The World Trade Organisation granted a special exemption in 2001 allowing countries to put public health ahead of patents within its Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement.

But Oxfam said rich countries, particularly the United States, were bullying developing countries to impose stricter patent rules in order to preserve pharmaceutical monopolies.

Health activists say that access to cheap generic drugs is vital if poor countries are going to put up an effective fight against killer diseases such as AIDS and malaria.

''At the time, the Doha Declaration seemed like a great breakthrough for people in poor countries who urgently needed affordable treatment. Sadly, promising words have not translated into life-saving treatments,'' said Steve Cockburn, Stop AIDS campaign co-ordinator.

The clash over patents in the developing world has focused attention on a couple of high-profile cases including a dispute over the cancer drug Glivec, made by Switzerland's Novartis.

An Indian court in January rejected its patent application for Glivec, but Novartis is fighting back, arguing that the principle of intellectual property protection must be protected if innovation is to flourish.

The ruling has minimal commercial significance because 99 per cent of Indian patients are entitled to receive the drug free of charge under a Novartis compassionate use programme.

But Paul Herrling, the company's head of corporate research, told the Reuters Health Summit last week that India risked falling behind China in drug research if it did not shore up its weak patent protection system.

(AGENCIES)

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