MIC Deputy Chairman shot dead in Malaysia

SINGAPORE, Jan 12: A Malaysian assemblyman, S Krishnasamy, was gunned down inside the lift of his political party’s Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) building.

This incident is the first slaying of a top politician since 2000 and following the 25 November 2007 protest by ethnic Indians for being marginalised in the country.

The 61-year-old MIC deputy chairman was shot point-blank under his left eyebrow yesterday and the bullet exited the back of his head, Johor police chief Hussain Ismail told reporters in Johor Bahru.

A bullet slug was found in the pool of blood with Krishnasamy slummped in the lift building in the southern Peninsular Malaysian state capital of Johor Bahru.

The police is looking for 5-ft 4-inch man, believed to be ethnic Indian, according to Malaysian media reports today.

In November 2000, assemblyman Dr Joe Fernandez, 54, was shot by a pillion rider on a motorcycle.

While Malaysian police is investigating all possible links to the Krishnasamy murder, politcal analysts see a link with the 25 November protest where some 20,000 ethinic Indians sounded out their grievances for being left out of the Malaysian prosperity.

MIC, the third largest component of the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, has been blamed for doing very little for the country’s enthic Indians, many of whom are still plantation workers, the most backward strata of the Malaysian society.

Political observers believe MIC’s underperformance for the ethnic Indians in the country could result in vote loss for the Barisan Nasional which is expected to hold General Elections in March this year.

The predominantly Malay Muslim party United Malays National Organisation dominates the Barisan Nasional, which has uplifted the living standards of indigenous Malays, called Bumiputeras, while the second largest party Malaysian Chinese Association is supported by businessmen leading the Malaysian commerce sector. (UNI)

Sneeze : It's not always the nose

NEW YORK, Jan 12: It is a mystery that has baffled some of history's greatest minds.

Sneezing as the result of being exposed to a bright light known as the photic sneeze reflex, is a genetic quirk that is still unexplained by science, even though it has intrigued sages like Aristotle and Francis Bacon.

But because it does not relate to any serious medical condition, research on the topic remain scarce.

A sneeze is usually triggered by an irritation in the nose, which is sensed by the trigeminal nerve, a cranial nerve responsible for facial sensation and motor control.

This nerve is in close proximity to the optic nerve, which senses, for example, a sudden flood of light entering the retina. As the optic nerve fires to signal the brain to constrict the pupils, the theory goes, some of the electrical signal is sensed by the trigeminal nerve and mistaken by the brain as an irritant in the nose. Hence, a sneeze.

The genetic reason behind the phenomenon remains unidentified, but scientists are evincing interest in explaining it.

Epileptic seizures are sometimes triggered by flashing lights and migraine headaches are often accompanied by photophobia. ''If we could find a gene that causes photic sneezing, we could study that gene and we might learn something about the visual pathway and some of these other reflex phenomena,'' Louis Ptacek, a neurologist at the University of California, was quoted by Scientific American as saying.

But, until he and his colleagues find the right families for their study, the photic sneeze reflex will remain something of a genetic novelty act, like the ability to roll your tongue. (UNI)

US avoids comment on Musharraf’s warning

WASHINGTON, Jan 12: The Bush Administration has avoided commenting on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's reported warning to the United States against unilateral move into his country’s tribal region to hunt down Al-Qaida or Taliban militants.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said yesterday that he had seen only the press reports,''I'm not sure what he actually said or didn't say.''

He, however, said, ''the thing that's clear to us is we have a cooperative relationship with Pakistan. Pakistan is an important partner for us in combating terrorism and combating extremism. And certainly, anything that the United States has done and anything the United States will do will be in full cooperation with the Pakistani Government.''

Musharraf has been quoted by a Singapore daily saying that any US lateral action in Pakistan's Tribal region would be considered a breach of sovereignty.

Meanwhile, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen has voiced concern at the existence of Al-Qaida safe havens in Pakistan and said that Al-Qaida militants were not only launching attacks in Afghanistan, but inside Pakistan also.

While talking to mediapersons yesterday, Admiral Mullen said the United States was mindful that, Pakistan is a sovereign nation and that it is up to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and his military advisors to confront the problem directly.

The New York Times reported last week that Washington was considering expanding the authority of the CIA and the US military to launch aggressive covert operations within the tribal regions. Several US presidential candidates have also hinted they would support unilateral action in the area.

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are believed to be hiding in the tribal regions of the country.

(UNI)

Indonesia's Suharto conscious, but on ventilator

JAKARTA, Jan 12: Indonesia's former President Suharto, who has been critically ill in hospital for more than a week, is conscious but remains on a ventilator, doctors said today.

The 86-year-old Suharto, who ruled Indonesia for more than three decades, suffered multiple organ failure on Friday, but by Saturday morning doctors said his condition had improved and that he was showing a response.

Indonesia's Attorney-General, who visited the ailing Suharto and his family in hospital overnight, told reporters that the government would still seek an out-of-court settlement in a graft case against the former general.

After he quit office, Suharto was charged with embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars of state funds, but the government later dropped the case due to his poor health.

Last year, state prosecutors filed a civil suit seeking a total of 440 million dollars of state funds and a further $1 billion in damages for the alleged misuse of money held by one of Suharto's charitable foundations.

''The President gave instructions to me to pursue the family of Suharto to finalise an out-of-court settlement of the civil case,'' Attorney-General Hendarman Supandji told reporters at the hospital, adding that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had issued the request during his official visit to Malaysia.

Suharto and his family deny any wrongdoing.

The sudden deterioration in Suharto's health last weekend prompted some senior politicians to call for legal proceedings against him to be dropped. But the attorney-general said his office would press ahead with a civil case.

Suharto was rushed to Pertamina hospital a week ago suffering from anaemia and low blood pressure due to heart, lung and kidney problems. His health worsened yesterday as doctors said he appeared to have a lung infection.

Suharto came to power after an abortive coup on September 30, 1965 that was officially blamed on the communist party. Up to 500,000 people were killed in an anti-communist purge in the months that followed.

Some Indonesians, though, look back with nostalgia to the Suharto era, when Indonesia was one of Asia's tiger economies, and refer to him fondly as the ''Father of Development''. (AGENCIES)

Kenya tourism hurt by images of violence

SAMBURU GAME RESERVE, KENYA, Jan 12: Kenya's game parks usually teem with camera-toting tourists at this time of year. Now they are all but empty after images of deadly clashes that rocked the country were beamed around the world.

Operators say pictures of machete-wielding youths battling riot police and of a torched church that evoked nightmares of the Rwandan genocide, have sent some tourists packing and others delaying trips or scrapping planned visits outright.

A minority have bravely chosen to see out their holidays.

''We have never felt like we were in danger,'' said Debbie hillito, a Canadian relaxing by the pool of a lodge in the Samburu Game Reserve, the only tourist in sight. ''Our biggest fear was that our trip would be cancelled.''

Protests and clashes following President Mwai Kibaki's re-election have killed 500 people. His rival, Raila Odinga, believes he was cheated of an election win and the controversy has triggered bloodletting displacing more than 250,000 people.

Tourism industry players say the violence, which has been in isolated places and usually far away from where tourists stay, has portrayed the whole country as a basket case and no-go zone.

Tourism is Kenya's biggest foreign exchange earner and supports about a million people.

Many western countries, including Britain -- Kenya's biggest source market -- have slapped travel bans on non-essential visits, meaning insurance firms won't cover anyone going there.

As a result, bed occupancy across the country has fallen to around 20 per cent, when it would normally have been above 85 per cent at this time, the industry's peak season.

''Phones are not ringing with new bookings. That is the main concern for us,'' said Peter Mbogua, sales and marketing manager for the Serena Group of hotels. ''And the phones will not start ringing until the perception created is changed.''

Mbogua said the Mara Serena in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve, famous for its annual wildebeest migration, was just 40 per cent occupied. Usually in January it would be nearly full.

TOURISM DOWN, ECONOMY DOWN

Those in the industry see attempts at a political deal as half-hearted and say if the impasse remains unresolved much longer, all their first quarter bookings -- worth an estimated 30 billion shillings -- may go down the drain.

''We are telling the politicians: take your toys and play with them elsewhere,'' said Duncan Muriuki, chairman of the Kenya Association of Tour Operators.

''If tourism goes down, the economy will go down big time and the multiplier effect will hit everyone,'' he said.

The private sector Kenya Tourism Federation asked political leaders to find a quick solution, warning in a newspaper statement on Friday that its members may have to lay off some 20,000 workers in the next three months alone.

Kenyan tourism has bounced back from previous scares. Ethnic clashes in a suburb of the resort city of Mombasa in 1997. Bomb attacks the following year and in 2002 also cut visitor numbers.

The Kenya Tourist Board (KTB) said it had just managed to get Kenya back onto international tour operators' itineraries.

''To see all these gains wiped out overnight due to this crisis is very unfortunate,'' said KTB's Managing Director Achieng' Ongong'a.

''Kenya had regained her place on the tourist map. All of a sudden, just because of the perception that it is unsafe, we receive all these cancellations.''

(AGENCIES)

China to improve nutrition labelling on food

BEIJING, Jan 12: China will require basic nutritional labelling on all food packaging from May 1 and go after companies that hype up their products as having special health benefits, according to a new government directive.

Labels will be required to show how much protein, fat, carbohydrate and sodium is in a food, and may also show the cholesterol, sugar and vitamin content, the Health Ministry said in a statement on its Web site (http://www.Moh.Gov.Cn).

Companies will not be allowed to say their products are high in calcium, iron or low in fat unless they meet certain strict criteria, the notice said.

''The rules stress that nutritional labelling must be accurate and objective. They must not make false claims nor exaggerate the nutritional benefits of the product,'' it said. ''Labels must also not make direct or indirect claims of curing illness.''

China has suffered a rash of scares over the safety of its food and manufactured products in the last year, which highlighted shoddy oversight and prompted a wave of new regulations and clean-up campaigns from the central government.

According to a survey published in the official China Food Quality News this week, almost two-thirds of Chinese are worried about food safety, while a fifth have no confidence in drinking water safety.

(AGENCIES)

Gravely ill Suharto improves slightly: Doctors

JAKARTA, Jan 12: The health of Indonesia's ex- dictator Suharto improved today, a day after he suffered multiple organ failure, as the Government said a major graft case against him would be settled out of court.

The 86-year-old former President, who stepped down a decade ago after 32 years of often brutal rule in the world's fourth most populous nation, was admitted to hospital on Jan 4 with heart, kidney and lung problems.

His condition has since fluctuated before dramatically worsening yesterday, when he was connected to a ventilator to stay alive.

But Marjo Soebiandono, one of the doctors in the large team of experts assembled to treat Suharto, said that as of 0730 IST today, the patient's general condition was "better" and he had regained consciousness.

"When I asked him whether it hurt, he shook his head," he said, adding however that he showed signs of infection in his lungs and his haemoglobin levels were falling.

"The team of doctors will continue to make intensive efforts to improve his general condition by giving blood transfusions, medication for his lung infection and balancing the liquids in his body," he told a briefing.

Meanwhile the attorney general announced that a pending civil corruption case against Suharto, who is accused of massive graft while in power, would be settled out of court.

"We have reached a deal with Suharto's family... That the civil case related to the Supersemar foundation will be settled out of the court," Attorney General Hendarman Supanji told reporters. (AGENCIES)

E-Nose to take the Nose beyond what it knows

NEW YORK, Jan 12: Ancient medical practitioners relied on their nose to diagnose illness.

Technology is now turning this ancient art into modern science.

Technicians and engineers are working to develop an electronic nose which will allow doctors to use their sense of smell to detect much beyond what the nose knows about the human body.

The odour signatures of a disease arise due to several reasons. Bacteria, like all living organisms, release unique mixtures of gases; bacterial infections may be diagnosed by the characteristic scents of these gases.

However, non-bacterial disorders, such as diabetes, may prompt biochemical changes that alter the smell of a patient's body. But many of these odours may be tough for the humans to detect and identify.

Ancient doctors knew that diabetes could make a patient's breath smell sweet and that a wound emitting a foul odor was infected.

The new gadget would be a revolutionary step in the medical engineers' efforts to develop increasingly non-invasive techinques to diagnose and detect ailments.

There are a variety of electronic e-nose models, all of which consist of an array of olfactory sensors that are activated in unique patterns when exposed to different aromas. A special Software identifies each odour and its source by analysing the patterns.

Though the technology was originally designed for other tasks, such as sniffing out chemical leaks or detecting food spoilage, research is increasingly revealing its diagnostic potential. Physicians can effectively identify potential lung cancer patients by smelling their breath.

''Both diseases and bacteria that cause diseases have individual and unique odours. You can walk into a patient's room and know immediately in some cases that the patient has such and such bacteria just because of the odour,'' Scientific American quoted Bill Hanson, an anesthesiologist and critical care specialist at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mr Hanson showed that the technology is useful for diagnosing chronic sinusitis and pneumonia, and other researchers proved that the noses can distinguish asthmatic patients from healthy ones. Some of them can also sniff out infections in urine, blood and other bodily fluids.

Combined with the fact that these artificial noses are faster, cheaper and less invasive than many other diagnostic tests, and it is easy to understand why physicians find the technology appealing.

Researchers believe it could make a dramatic difference in the success of treatments, paving the way for early detection of lung cancer and other diseases.

(UNI)

'It is not just letting go, hypnotism does alter the brain'........

LONDON, Jan 12: Hypnotism produces measurable changes in the brain that suggest the effects are real and not simply people ''letting themselves go,'' a research shows.

The study conducted by a team of researchers in Israel found that parts of the brain were affected by hypnosis.

However, sceptics have argued that hypnosis does not result in an altered state of consciousness , but is an exaggerated form of social compliance, where subjects suspend their critical faculties to do whatever a hypnotist asks of them.

In the new study, brain scans of people that were taken following a hypnotic suggestion to forget have revealed parts of the brain really are affected, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The insights into memory suppression and recall may help understand the mechanisms underlying some forms of amnesia, along with how we suppress distressing memories or things we would rather not dwell upon, researchers claim.

In fact , the study was conducted on two groups of volunteers - those who were susceptible to hypnotic suggestions and those who were not - after they had shown a documentary depicting a day in the life of a young woman.

A week later, they placed them in a brain scanner and induced them into a hypnotic state. In this state, the scientists gave the subjects a posthypnotic suggestion to forget the movie, also giving them a reversibility cue that would restore the memory.

Once the subjects had been brought out of the hypnotic state, the researchers tested their recall, then gave them the reversibility cue and tested their recall again.

As expected, the hypnosis-susceptible group showed reduced recall of the movie, compared with the hypnosis-non-susceptible group.

Analysis of the brain scans revealed distinctive differences between the hypnosis-susceptible group and -non-susceptible group in specific brain areas.

(UNI)

UN seeks USD 104 million from donors to help Nepal........

NEW YORK, Jan 12: The United Nations has appealed to international donors for more than USD 104 million to support humanitarian and development efforts in Nepal, which is seeking to recover from a decade-long civil conflict after a 2006 peace accord between the Government and Maoists.

The Common Appeal for Transition Support (CATS) for 2008 has sought funds for 61 projects to address urgent needs in the areas of food and nutrition, protection, health, disaster preparedness and response.

It will also allow aid workers to assist internally displaced persons (IDPs), refugees and children affected by armed conflict.

Though the conflict officially ended in November 2006 when the Government and the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) signed a comprehensive peace agreement, the country faces a number of challenges as it seeks to recover and rebuild.

"Bombings, killings, abductions, demands for ransom and other forms of threats aimed at political opponents and civilian populations continue to hinder the ability of the state to deliver basic services in the country," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

The focus of this year's aid efforts will be assistance to refugees, IDPs and children affected by armed conflict, with nearly USD 29 million of the requested funds allocated for these groups.

Recent studies by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) indicate that only 39 per cent of the country's population have access to adequate toilet facilities while 50 to 70 per cent of the drinking water in many districts is contaminated.

In addition, the acute malnutrition rates hover around 13 per cent, with children being the most affected group, especially in the hill areas where over 65 per cent of children are stunted and almost 50 per cent are underweight.

The country also hosts some 107,000 Bhutanese refugees, who also require humanitarian assistance.

Last year donors contributed some USD 72.6 million over 70 per cent of the total requested in the CATS 2007 for Nepal.

The Appeal, an action plan developed by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) in Nepal with aid partners on the ground, will be revised in mid-year in response to changes in the humanitarian and socio-political situation in the country, OCHA said. (PTI)

US overstates nonproliferation Success: Watchdog ....

WASHINGTON, Jan 12: The US Department of Energy has overstated the success of a long-standing program to prevent former Soviet nuclear scientists from selling their secrets to the highest bidder, a US watchdog said.

The US Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention program was launched a few years after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union to provide employment to former Soviet scientists involved in weapons of mass destruction development.

Western officials feared unemployed WMD scientists could be enticed to share their knowledge with rogue states and terrorists.

But a report by the Government Accountability Office yesterday said the department had overstated the number of WMD scientists aided by the program and cast doubt on the stated number of private-sector jobs created.

Department officials had no immediate comment on the report's assertions.

The GAO, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, said the program claimed to have supplemented the income of more than 16,770 weapons scientists, engineers and technicians in Russia and other former Soviet states.

A GAO study of 97 program projects involving 6,450 scientists showed more than half the participants did not claim to possess any weapons-related experience, GAO said.

Scientists without WMD experience received about 10 million dollar in payments, or 40 per cent of the money those projects paid their personnel.

Officials from 10 Russian and Ukrainian institutes told GAO investigators that program money had also helped attract and retain not older former Soviet scientists but younger recruits who might otherwise emigrate to the United States or other Western countries.

The GAO report, submitted last month to the US House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, also raised questions about the program's claim to have helped create 2,790 long-term private-sector jobs for former weapons scientists.

''The credibility of this number is uncertain,'' the report said.

''(The department) relies on 'good-faith' reporting from US industry partners and foreign institutes on the number of jobs created and does not independently verify the number of jobs reported to have been created.''(AGENCIES)

Twins separated at birth met and married ........

LONDON, Jan 12: Twins who were taken away from each other as babies met later and got married without knowing they were brother and sister, according to a member of the House of Lords.

David Alton recounted the story to parliament last month to support his argument that children who are artificially conceived should be told who their biological parents are.

Alton said he had heard the story of the separated twins from a High Court judge who had dealt with the case.

''This did not involve in vitro fertilisation: It involved the normal birth of twins who were separated at birth and adopted by separate parents,'' said Alton, an independent member of the Lords.

''They were never told that they were twins.''

''They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation,'' he said.

''I suspect that it will be a matter of litigation in the future if we do not make information of this kind available to children who have been donor conceived,'' he said.

Alton could not immediately be reached for comment and no further information was available about the twins or where they were from.

''I think it's a very tragic story for the people involved,'' said Pam Hodgkins, head of a group that helps adults affected by adoption.

''It is a lesson that we need to learn and apply to the situation of donor-conceived children,'' she told Sky News.

''Whilst ... Nowadays it would be most unusual for siblings to be separated ... The risk of secrecy affecting the lives of people born as a result of egg and sperm donation is exactly the same as the risks that have affected adopted people in the past,'' she said.

(AGENCIES)