UML candidate killed

KATHMANDU, Apr 9: A CPN-UML candidate was killed in Nepal last evening.

Rishi Prasad Sharma, UML candidate for Surkhet was killed when an unidentified group shot him while he was heading from Jahare to Mehelkuna.

A local leader of the UML accused Nepali Congress cadres of killing Sharma.

"There was a clash between the UML and Congress workers at the spot and they fired at comrade Rishi Sharma", Yamlal Kandel UML leader told a local television.

However Kantipur quoted locals as saying that the clash occurred after Sharma was gunned down.

Curfew has been clamped and the election postponed in the district.

Forty-year-old Sharma was UML_s candidate in general elections in 1995 and 1999 and was was defeated with slight margins. (UNI)

China detains 953 linked to Tibet unrest -Governor

BEIJING, Apr 9: Chinese police have detained a total of 953 suspects for involvement in riots in Tibet last month, the Himalayan region's Governor said today.

Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region government, told a news conference in Beijing that prosecutors had also issued arrest warrants for 403 of those detained, a step that generally leads to formal prosecution.

China has blamed Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, for monk-led protests that turned violent in Tibet's regional capital, Lhasa, last month. The unrest spilled over into nearby Chinese provinces that have large Tibetan populations.

The Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule, has denied the accusation. (AGENCIES)

German pension increase draws fire from employers

BERLIN, Apr 9: Germany's cabinet backed a plan to raise state pensions by 1.1 percent this year and by as much as two per cent in 2009, drawing an angry response from employers, who said the rise would cost jobs.

The proposed hike from July 1 meant older generations would be able to share in Germany's recent economic upswing, the Ministry for Labour and Social Affairs said.

No decision would be made on the pension rise for 2009 until next spring, but current models suggested an increase of around two percent should be possible, the ministry added.

Some economists have attacked the rise because it busts restrictions on pension increases set out in a formula adopted under previous Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Leading welfare lobbies said the sub-inflation increase was not big enough. Germany's EU-harmonised measure of annual inflation stood at 3.2 per cent in March, according to a preliminary estimate.

The formula was devised to reduce strain on Germany's social security system caused by its ageing population.

Dieter Hundt, president of Germany's employers' federation (BDA), said it was wrong to break with the formula just because a general election was coming up in 2009.

''The consequence of this will be higher staffing costs for employers and less money in the pockets of workers,'' he said. ''That's going to hit employment.''

State pensions are funded by fixed levies split between workers and employers. If the population is stable but the workforce shrinks, the proportion of funding drawn from wages may have to rise to keep pension coffers filled.

The ministry said the divergence from the formula over the short term would be made good in 2012 and 2013.

The planned increases mean the contribution rate to statutory pension insurance will not be cut from 19.9 per cent of gross wages until 2012, a year later than previously envisaged.

The pension rise means workers and employers must both shoulder a further 2.5 billion euros in costs in 2011, and 1.7 billion euros in 2012, the government said. The federal budget will be saddled with about an extra 2 billion euros in 2011.

Germany, with a population of nearly 82.5 million, has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. Studies have forecast the population could fall as low as 69 million by 2050. (AGENCIES)

Chlorine's nerve receptor harmful for asthma patients

WASHINGTON, Apr 9: Inhaling chlorine produces a nerve receptor that protects healthy people by inducing sneezing, coughing and irritation but can be harmful for those suffering from respiratory diseases like asthma, a new study has warned.

The research published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, revealed that chlorine triggered a nerve receptor TRPA1, in pain-sensing nerve endings in the airways.

A population of neurons fire in response to chlorine exposure, inducing pain and irritation, and narrowing airway passages to protect the lung from chlorine damage in healthy people, Yale School of Medicine researchers has stated.

However, people suffering from respiratory problems such as asthma or congestion from colds and allergies experienced a hypersensitive response to chemicals.

''In these patients, chlorine and other TRPA1 activators can trigger constriction of the bronchial pathways and cause pain and discomfort in the airways,'' corresponding author, Sven-Eric Jordt, said.

Earlier, it was believed that chlorine and other oxidants induced pain and inflammation only through tissue injury. But the research team observed that mice lacking the receptor TRPA1 were insensitive to exposure to chlorine, used in industrial synthesis, disinfection of drinking water, swimming pools and household bleach.

Interestingly, the receptor is the same one triggered by pungent mustard and noxious chemicals in cigarette smoke, says a Yale press release.

The study points to TRPA1 as a promising new target for the development of new drugs to suppress coughs and relieve pain and inflammation.

(UNI)

German Catholics used 6,000 forced workers in Nazi era

BERLIN, Apr 9: Germany's Roman Catholic Church exploited nearly 6,000 forced labourers in the Nazi era, it said in a report today detailing a dark chapter in its history.

The Church had in 2000 acknowledged its use of forced labour under Hitler and has paid 1.5 millions euros in compensation to foreign workers, but the report ''Forced Labour and the Catholic Church 1939-1945'' is the most thorough look at the issue so far.

The 703-page official report documents the fate of 1,075 prisoners of war and 4,829 civilians who were forced to work for the Nazis in nearly 800 Catholic institutions -- mainly hospitals, homes and monastery gardens to boost the war effort.

The Church, which has financed over 200 ''reconciliation'' projects, said final numbers will never be known.

''It should not be concealed that the Catholic Church was blind for too long to the fate and suffering of men, women and children from the whole of Europe who were carted off to Germany as forced labourers,'' Karl Lehmann, the country's top Catholic prelate until mid-February, said at the book's presentation yesterday.

Catholics and Protestants were subject to oppression under the Nazis but aside from some notable figures from both churches who voiced opposition, they broadly went along with the regime.

Hitler's feared SS expropriated more than 300 monasteries and Catholic institutions between 1940 and 1942 and thousands of Catholics were sent to concentration camps, said Karl-Joseph Hummel, co-author of the book.

He told a televised news conference in the western city of Mainz the term ''cooperative antagonism'' summed up the Church's strategy at the time.

The report said a large proportion of the workers -- mostly from Poland, Ukraine and the then Soviet Union -- were forced to help the Nazi war effort in military hospitals which would not have kept going without their labour.

NAZI REGIME

Forced labour was an important tool for the Nazi regime during World War Two.

Nazis shipped millions of people from conquered territories, especially in eastern Europe, to toil for the war economy in poor conditions. Towards the end of the war, forced labour is estimated to have made up about a quarter of the work force.

Lehmann noted that the number of forced labourers for the church was a fraction of the estimated total of 13 million victims compelled to work for the Nazis.

And the conditions were not as bad as at some other rganisations, noted Hummel. A programme of ''annihilation through work'', for example, was not used, he said.

The revelations from the Catholic Church are the latest in a series of reports commissioned by firms, including Deutsche Bank, Volkswagen and Siemens, to expose their past.

The Protestant Church, roughly equal in size to the Catholic Church, has also acknowledged it used forced labour.

However, the Church stressed that the new book did not draw a line under the grim period.

''This documentation, which scientifically works through this forgotten chapter of Church history ... Can and should not be understood as a final balance sheet,'' Lehmann said. (AGENCIES)_

US Navy lawyer to defend alleged 9/11 mastermind

GUANTANAMO BAY US NAVAL BASE, CUBA, Apr 9: The elf-described mastermind of the September 11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon has been assigned a US military lawyer to defend him in the Guantanamo war court, where he could face execution if convicted, The Miami Herald reported.

Navy Capt. Prescott Prince was given orders yesterday to defend Pakistani prisoner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the newspaper said on its Web site.

Military officials at Guantanamo and at the Pentagon could not immediately confirm the report. However, they previously had said Prince had joined the team of military lawyers who defend foreign captives facing war crimes charges in the US military tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

Prince, 53, is an attorney and naval reservist from Richmond, Virginia. He recently served in Iraq, where he was a lawyer in the unit that oversaw detainee operations.

Mohammed, better known by his initials KSM, has said he planned every aspect of the September 11 attacks using hijacked airliners in 2001.

In February, US military prosecutors charged him and five other Guantanamo captives with counts that include murder, conspiring with al Qaeda and terrorism. The charges list the names of 2,973 people killed when four hijacked passenger planes slammed into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

Before Mohammed and the others can be tried, the charges and the potential death penalty still must be approved by a Pentagon official overseeing the Guantanamo war court, the first US military tribunals since World War Two.

Under the rules for the Guantanamo court, military lawyers are ordered to put on a ''zealous'' defense for the accused. But defendants can reject the lawyers and act as their own attorneys.

''This man is alleged to have done some very bad things. Personally I have faith in the American people to allow him to have a fair trial,'' Prince told the Herald.

But he said he did not feel a fair trial was possible in the Guantanamo court system designed to try foreign captives outside the regular U.S. Civilian and military courts.

Mohammed's confession could be troublesome for the US Government if used as evidence because the CIA has admitted it subjected him to ''waterboarding'' -- an interrogation technique of simulated drowning that has been widely criticized as torture.

The rules of the court prohibit the use of evidence gained through torture, as does an international treaty the United States has signed. But it is left up to the trial judge to determine what evidence can be introduced.

''You start with the fact that you've broken the rules -- a secret prison, torturing. Waterboarding. Harsh extreme techniques. Using cruel, coercive techniques to extract information,'' said Prince. ''I just don't see how you can give him a fair trial.''

(AGENCIES)

FDA reports more than 100 patients taking heparin died in 2007

WASHINGTON, Apr 9: US regulators have said more than 100 patients have died while taking the blood thinner heparin since early 2007.

The Food and Drug Administration has been investigating contamination of heparin made by the manufacturer Baxter International Inc, which it linked to 19 deaths and hundreds of allergic reactions.

New data posted to the FDA's Web site shows the agency has received 103 reports of death in patients taking heparin made by various manufacturers since January 2007. FDA did not specify how many may have involved contaminated product.

The FDA recorded a spike in deaths beginning in December 2007 and continuing through February this year, when Baxter recalled its contaminated product.

The FDA determined last month that Baxter's drug was contaminated with an unnatural chemical during production at a plant in China. The agency is still investigating whether the chemical was added accidentally or deliberately.

The FDA said 62 of the deaths were associated with allergic reactions or hypotension, a type of dangerously low blood pressure. The remaining deaths showed no evidence of allergic reactions.

"The fact that allergic symptoms or hypotension was reported does not mean that these were the cause of death in all cases," the agency said.

For both 2006 and 2007 FDA received 55 reports of death with the blood thinner.

A Baxter representative was not immediately available for comment.

An FDA spokeswoman yesterday said the agency decided to release the additional numbers on heparin deaths at the request of consumers. (AGENCIES)

Battle of the sexes begins in the womb

WASHINGTON, Apr 9: The battle of the sexes begins in the womb itself as a male twin compromises the health of his twin sister before birth, research found.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University analysed the incidence of complications like respiratory distress syndrome in pre-term twins and found that girls who share the womb with a boy twin and were born premature lost the respiratory health advantage normally seen in other premature girls.

''The male disadvantage, the study suggests, seems to be transferred from the boy to the girl in utero,'' the Science Daily quoted Prof Brian Reichman, a lecturer in pediatrics at the university as saying.

''The effects are occurring already in the uterus,'' he added.

The research ''Beware of the Weaker Sex: Don't Get Too Close to Your Twin Brother'' discovered that as compared to premature twin boys, their female counterparts had a 60 per cent advantage as they tended not to develop respiratory distress syndrome and chronic lung diseases sometimes found in premature infants. This advantage was lost in infant girls with a male twin.

The study is expected to help pediatricians better understand the health risks and outcome of premature babies.

A Pediatrics commentary on the research by Dr David K Stevenson of Stanford University and Dr Jon E Tyson of University of Texas Medical School summed up the findings, saying, ''For the time being, there remains some biological truth to the old nursery rhyme that boys are made of snakes, snails and puppy dogs tails, and girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice.'' (UNI)

Police: 2 teenage girls killed after attempt to rob cab

LOS ANGELES, Apr 9: Two teenage girls who attempted to rob a cab driver, slashing his face with a box cutter, were thrown from the taxi and killed in a wreck, police said.

The 50-year-old driver was taken to a hospital and released after receiving treatment for minor injuries, including cuts to his neck and face, Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman Officer April Harding said. His name was not immediately released.

Two 17-year-old girls flagged down the cab at about 12:30 am (local time) yesterday in eastern Los Angeles and asked to be taken to a nearby housing project, police said.

The girls were Alexous Ann Sandoval and Daisy Orozco, both Los Angeles residents, the coroner's office said.

When they pulled up, one girl said her boyfriend would come down to pay their fare. Instead, he approached the cab with a gun, Harding said.

The cab driver apparently sped away with the women still in the back seat.

"The cab driver got scared," Harding said. "One of the females pulled out a box cutter and began cutting the taxi cab driver and that's what caused him to crash."

It appeared the cab driver believed he was being followed by a gunman, police said. Two men were detained and being questioned about the incident, Harding said. (AGENCIES)

Making a man healthy, wealthy but not happy

LONDON, Apr 9: Happiness... Is it all about a hefty bank balance and pink health?

"Not really!" This is what most Britons believe, according to a recent survey.

Office for National Statistics revealed that three decades of improved living standards brought no change in the contentment and did not make Britons feel more secure.

One in six people admitted they were dissatisfied and uneasy and half of young people feared for their future financial security.

The startling figures revealed the number of British men drinking themselves to death had doubled in the past 15 years.

The report suggested that the benefits of higher earnings, universal consumer goods and travel opportunities undreamed of a few years ago were being offset by darker changes.

It pointed to the collapse of marriage and the spread of single-parent families, soaring levels of death from drink-related disease, and rising fear of crime as reasons why the country was not getting happier.

ONS chief Karen Dunnell said the organisation would now try to develop a new measure of how happy people were-"societal wellbeing" - to help in understanding "an increasing number of public policy needs and in political and public debate." (UNI)

India committed to comprehensive UN reform

ALMATY, Apr 9: Describing itself as a "barrier" against fundamentalism and terrorism, India today said it was committed to the comprehensive reform of the United Nations, including its Security Council.

"Our values and civilisational heritage make us a barrier against fundamentalism and terrorism and a factor of peace and stability," Vice President Hamid Ansari said while addressing the Al Farabi Kazakh National University where he was conferred an Honorary Doctorate.

He noted that India has actively pursued the strengthening of multilateral institutions, including the UN.

"Global threats demand global responses and equitable sharing of responsibilities... India was committed to the comprehensive reform of the United Nations, including its Security Council," he said.

Ansari said India seeks maintenance of friendly relations with all countries, resolution of conflicts through peaceful means and equity in the conduct of international relations. "We share the values of fundamental human rights and freedoms with other democracies".

The Vice President’s visit to this Central Asian country saw the Kazak leadership coming out in strong support of India’s representation in an expanded U N Security Council and bilateral parleys witnessed mutual commonalities on various issues including on fighting terrorism and drug trafficking. The two sides also dwelt on "troublespots in the neighborhood".

While India’s growth rate has risen to around nine per cent, Ansari said "yet much remains to be done, if we are to abolish mass poverty in India, we need to grow at 8 to 10 per cent every year until 2020. We need considerable effort , correct public policy choices and a supportive and peaceful international environment".

As India is seeking to reach out to Central Asia, which has emerged as a key region as regards energy resources and its geo-strategic location, Ansari in his address insisted that the old paradigms of economic relations were no longer valid.

"Similar is the case with the old paradigms of security. We live in a world where the imperative need for cooperative approaches in the security and economic arena asserts itself to overcome previously insurmountable obstacles," he said.

He said today "we do face problems in physical connectivity between our countries. We can be rest assured that the compelling logic of this age will lead to solutions to overcome this."

His observations came in the backdrop of New Delhi’S keenness to remove the lack of direct surface transport linkage with the Central Asian countries whose geo-strategic importance has grown in recent years.

The region is witnessing a race between Russia, China and US for the control of its energy resources.

Ansari who was conferred the doctorate by the University Rector Tolegen Kozhamkulov paid glowing tributes to Mohammed bin Al Farabi whom he described as a "Central Asian polymath and one of the greatest scientists and philosophers of the Islamic world in his time" .

Turning to democracy, he said India has decisively demonstrated that democracy and development are compatible and necessary for ensuring sustainability

The Vice President, who returns home tomorrow after a week-long visit to Trukmenistan and Kazakhstan, said that relations between India and Kazakhstan have always been warm, friendly and close.

"Our views coincide or converge on all major regional and international questions". (PTI)

Bangla Army chief rules out ‘political’ role for military

DHAKA, Apr 9: The Bangladesh Army chief has ruled out any "political" role for the military in the country even as he underlined the need to "let honest and competent people take over" the role of running the nation.

"I have stated this earlier and want to re-emphasise that we have no political ambition," General Moeen U Ahmed told a meeting with editors of print and electronic media yesterday.

"The way army has discharged its responsibility in the past and the present, it will be doing so in the future also. But as patriotic citizens, we have one desire let honest and competent people take over," he said.

Ahmed’s comments came as the caretaker government of Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed offered talks with major political parties, including Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of detained former Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, who are facing trials for graft charges.

No dates for formal dialogues were fixed yet for the transition to democracy but several advisers of the Government held informal talks with the Awami League and sent letters to two factions of the BNP, currently divided over reforms within the party.

The chief adviser of the interim Government, the chief election commissioner and the Army Chief earlier repeatedly said polls would be held by December 2008 in line with an election roadmap, though nearly 100 high-profile politicians, including the two ex-premiers were detained, while scores of others were on the run to evade trial on corruption charges.

Debates were on to ascertain if Hasina and Zia would be legally qualified for taking part in the polls following their trials even as activists at the grassroots of the both their parties were demanding their release.

Senior leaders of the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party said they would be proved innocent if a "proper trial" was done.

Analysts, however, said a large number of influential politicians, including dozens of former ministers and lawmakers of the major parties, would be disqualified for the polls as they were already convicted and jailed for graft charges while many others were hiding abroad to evade justice.

The Government launched a massive anti-graft campaign after its installation with crucial military support following the January 11, 2007 proclamation of state of emergency.

Since winning independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh has had a history of coups and counter-coups.

The military-supported caretaker administration was installed amid heightened political tension and violence ahead of the postponed general elections originally slated for January 22, 2007. (PTI)