China holds public hearing on mobile phone charges

BEIJING, Jan 23: China has held a public hearing on reducing mobile phone service charges after the users accused two service-providers of making huge profits by monopolising the market.

However, final pricing scheme remained suspended as divergent views emerged during the hearing.

A cut ranging from 14.9 per cent to 63 per cent were proposed by 18 representatives, including five consumers, five telecommunication operator officials and three experts during the hearing, state media reported.

Mobile users accuse two mobile phone service providers, China Mobile and China Unicom, of raking in handsome margins by taking advantage of their monopoly in the market.

Two plans were proposed at the meeting one to cut the 0.2 yuan (less than USD 0.03) per minute surcharge for roaming services and the other to scrap the surcharge and proposing a charge of 0.7 yuan per minute for making calls and 0.3 yuan for receiving calls for all users, official Xinhua news agency said.

Most of China's 539 million mobile subscribers pay 33 to 50 per cent more for calls made or received on their cell phones when they travel to another province.

Shen Changzheng, representing users, said roaming charges should be scrapped and, instead, an equal charge should be imposed for domestic roaming services and local services on a step-by-step basis.

Lu Wenchang from China Mobile said his company had reduced call charges by 62.1 per cent in the last five years and it was impossible to provide mobile services in such a vast country with no costs. (PTI)

Moderate earthquake hits Tibet

BEIJING, Jan 23: A moderate earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale shook a sparsely populated area of Tibet today, the third time this month, Chinese authorities said.

The epicentre was located 32.4 degrees north latitude and 85.2 degrees east longitude, about 200 kms to the east of thinly populated Gerze in Ngari Prefecture in western Tibet, China Seismological Monitoring Network was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.

Earlier, two quakes measuring 6.9 and 6.0 on the Richter scale jolted the same area on January 9 and January 16 but no casualty or loss of property was reported, it added. (PTI)

Coal woes push China to record power shortage

BEIJING, Jan 23: China is facing its worst-ever power shortage, equivalent to around a tenth of generating capacity, as tight coal supplies and poor profit margins force plant closures, media and officials said today.

The Government banned shipping of any coal not headed for power plants, as brownouts hit at least 13 provinces and the nationwide shortfall reached nearly 70 gigawatts, state media reported.

Coal-fired power plants account for 78 per cent of China's generating capacity, but provided around 83 per cent of electricity output in 2007.

Equivalent to nearly the entire generating capacity of Britain, the shortfall dwarfs the scale of China's worst previous crisis in the summer of 2004 when demand outpaced supply by around 40 GW.

That year the problem was due largely to a lack of capacity and a rising amount of power-hungry air-conditioning.

This time government price controls have exacerbated the impact of mine closures, and a spate of freezing weather has disrupted transportation.

''Rising coal prices, limited transportation capacity and recent natural disasters including snow and sleet all contributed to coal shortages,'' said an official with the State Electricity Regulatory Commission who asked for anonymity because he is not an authorised spokesman.

The official also declined to confirm the sensitive figure for the total power deficit.

Beijing keeps a tight cap on electricity prices, and after inflation hit an 11-year high near the end of 2007, pledged to freeze power costs in the near term.

But it has relaxed its grip on coal prices, which are rising fast because domestic and international demand is soaring, while Beijing is cutting into production by closing thousands of small and often hazardous coal pits as part of a safety drive.

Thermal coal stocks were 40 per cent below normal levels and only covered eight days of generation, the China Business News reported, quoting data from the State Grid.

''The main reason behind the power shortages this time is rising coal prices,'' said Henry Li, analyst at Core Pacific-Yamaichi, adding that power capacity is basically balanced in the country.

''I don't expect the Government to raise power tariffs in the first half of this year, so the shortages will last till then.''

An intermittent blackout that started earlier this week in Wuhan, the Yangtze riverside capital of Hubei province, is the city's worst since 1997, according to a report on www.Cpnn.Com.Cn, an industry Website run by the SERC's newspaper, t he China Electric Power News.

Other affected areas ranged from the manufacturing hub of Guangdong to poor coal heartland of Shanxi.

A drought has also hit hydropower output and worsened the impact of the coal squeeze in provinces including southwestern Yunnan and Guizhou, and central Hubei.

(AGENCIES)

Pet-mad Hong Kong fertileground for pooch pampering services

HONG KONG, Jan 23: The latest bakery to open in one of Hong Kong's prime residential areas, Happy Valley, is perfectly positioned to catch passing trade.

The gleaming counter displays mouth-watering pastries, cookies and cakes as the smell of food lovingly prepared by resident chef David wafts from the giant ovens into the street.

But the target customers of this particular bakery, even the biggest, cannot always see the goodies on the shelves -- although their barking indicates they can definitely smell them.

Three Dog Bakery is the latest effort to provide a further level of pampering for Hong Kong's four-legged friends in this pet-mad city.

Most of Hong Kong's seven million people live in tiny cramped apartments and dogs are banned from many city parks but nevertheless the animals have become a must-have accessory and are treated accordingly.

"People consider their dogs as an extra member of the family," said Brent Earles, general manager of Three Dog Bakery, which is an international franchise based in the US.

"If your dog is your companion or surrogate child there are people who will go and spend a lot of money on their dogs."

The range of options is endless. Around Hong Kong dogs are dressed in elaborate costumes, expensive collars and even pushed around in strollers if walking gets a bit too much for them.

Every week, TV programmes show elaborate and expensive ways to spoil dogs -- and this is where Three Dog Bakery comes in with its extensive range of exclusive items ranging from USD 350 blankets to fluffy toys shaped like expensive shoes and embossed with the names "Jimmy Chew" and "Vera Wag". (AGENCIES)

Pak situation complicated, but US favours long-term ties: Rice

WASHINGTON, Jan 23: The situation in Pakistan is "obviously complicated", US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said, but underscored that Washington wants a long-term relationship with "the institutions" of the country and is pushing for a "moderate centre" there.

The United States was "working very hard with the Pakistanis" to ensure that the upcoming general elections will be an opportunity for the country "to get back on the democratic path", she said.

"The situation in Pakistan’s obviously complicated. But our strong view is that we have to have a long-term consistent, predictable relationship with Pakistan, not with any one person, but with the institutions of Pakistan," Rice said.

"And (President Pervez) Musharraf has been a good ally in the war on terror. But our policies have been about strengthening a moderate centre in Pakistan. It’s about helping in efforts to promote better education for Pakistanis," the Secretary of State said.

The US is trying to help development in the most difficult region-the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and has been involved in assisting the Pakistanis train for the war on terrorism, Rice noted.

"All moderate forces in Pakistan obviously have very determined enemies. And I don’t see how all-any of those interests or any of those tasks change," she added.

"We are all working very hard with the Pakistanis to try and ensure that the elections will be an opportunity for Pakistan to get back on the democratic path and an opportunity for Pakistanis to come together and that’s very much on everybody’s mind. But I think the assistance is aimed at very important goals and that isn’t going to change," Rice said on her way to Germany.

The upcoming polls need to have "the confidence of Pakistanis", she emphasised.

"No one has ever said that democracy is something that’s borne in a minute. It does take time. But you have to get started and you have to start putting in place the institutions that will secure democratic values and that will allow people to exercise their rights to freedom."

Admitting that sometimes there will be "setbacks", Rice said. "every leader has an obligation to push that goal as far forward as possible and that’s what we’re saying to all of the countries with which we have a dialogue about democracy." (PTI)

Pak dentist asks Musharraf to vacate Army Chief's house

ISLAMABAD, Jan 23: Pakistanis have a great sense of humour, and it just seems to get better as the crisis in their country deepens.

In an open letter to President Pervez Musharraf, Awab Alvi, a Pakistani dentist who blogs at teethmaestro.Com, has asked the military ruler to vacate the residence of the Army Chief in Rawalpindi as it was inconveniencing his successor.

Copies of the letter have been sent to the "Chief Executive of Pakistan, George W Bush" and "General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani of Army-Q".

The letter, with an "army stamp", also lists the other group companies "Army Welfare Trust, Defence Housing Authority, Fauji Foundation, Fauji Cereals etc".

The undated letter asks Musharraf to vacate Army House in Rawalpindi within a week's time.

Alvi writes that "the Government of Pakistan has been quite active in issuing eviction notices to all the freshly retired Government employees, more specifically targeting the judges who stood up and refused to take oath (under) the illegal Provisional Constitutional Order enforced on November three last year.

"Granted a retired personnel must soon vacate the official residence but somehow the bureaucracy seems to turn a blind eye to our very own President who was also retired from active duty last year and now is officially a ranked as a retired general in the Pakistan Army but ironically he still chooses to live in the luxurious Army House which he has enjoyed for the past many years," wrote Alvi, who is currently holidaying in Balochistan.

"We the people of Pakistan would like to issue him an eviction notice to also vacate his official residence, and herewith attached is a notice by the Executive Engineer of the Army House", he said.

Sacked former Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was recently asked to vacate his residence in a week's time.

Former premier Nawaz Sharif has also asked Musharraf to vacate Army House. (PTI)

Survival of the fittest: Exercise trumps age

LONDON, Jan 23: Leave the bed, wear your tracks and put on your jogging shoes if you want to live longer.

The fittest men tend to live the longest, regardless of age or history of heart disease, a new study shows.

According to the research, older men who were classified as ''highly fit'' died at half the rate of those who were not as fit.

The work, comprised of about 15,000 U S military veterans being followed for 7.5 years, is one of the largest to show that exercise extends life regardless of age or race.

The researchers also noted the men's age, blood pressure, history of heart attack, Body Mass Index etc.

Performance on the exercise test was the best predictor of mortality, followed by age and heart disease.

Compared to men with a low level of fitness, death rates were 50 per cent lower for highly fit men and 70 per cent lower for men in the ''very fit'' category, Web Md reported.

The study, however, had some limits. The men were not assigned to exercise and not retested as the study progressed. So it is not clear if they became more or less fit as time passed.

The study did not reveal whether the findingd applied to women. Reams of research, however, show benefits from fitness for both sexes.

(UNI)

Go easy or work will kill you

LONDON, Jan 23: Attention! all cut-throat corporate executives working round the clock to drive your businesses to new frontiers.

Leave your work, sit back for a while and read this.

Experts providing the strongest evidence yet have revealed how high-pressure jobs causing chronic stress at work could dramatically increase the risk of heart disease by disrupting the body's internal system.

The study involving more than 10,000 civil servants since the mid-1980's could lead to tougher guidelines for employers on reducing stress.

People question whether it was work stress or stress from other parts of people's lives or whether some people just had angry personalities that was the cause. ''We showed there is an association between the stress people reported and their biological responses,'' the Independent quoted Tarani Chandola of University College London as saying.

The study also claimed that those in low-status jobs, who were required to follow the orders of their bosses, were more stressed and died sooner, than the hot-shot executives handing out the orders.

(UNI)

Hollywood writers strike clouds Oscars.............

LOS ANGELES, Jan 23: In the 80 years since the first Oscars were handed out, it has taken a war or a flood or an assassination to drastically alter or delay the celebration surrounding the film industry's highest honors.

Now Hollywood is wringing its hands over whether the 11-week-old strike by screenwriters against the major studios could, or should, be enough to postpone the Academy Awards this year.

More than a week after the writers strike yanked the red carpet out from under the Golden Globes, reducing that ceremony to a 30-minute news conference, Oscar organizers insisted on Tuesday their show will go on as scheduled on February 24.

''We're dealing with contingencies, but we're full steam ahead,'' said Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, moments after nominations for the 80th annual event were announced in Beverly Hills.

''The point is we're going to have a show, and we're going to give these incredible artists what they're due,'' he added. ''We're going to present Oscars on February 24.''

Whether the usual star-studded, three-hour-plus live telecast of the event will have to be scaled back in some way remains to be seen.

The Writers Guild of America has threatened to picket the event, barring a settlement of the strike it launched on Nov. 5 against the major film and TV studios. And its sister union, the Screen Actors Guild, has said its members would stay home rather than cross picket lines to attend the Oscars.

SURPRISE REVERSAL

It was the threat of a SAG boycott in support of the striking writers that derailed the Golden Globes telecast on January 13 and earlier forced sponsors of the People's Choice Awards to announce their winners in a pre-taped clips show.

Network broadcasts of both events in their strike-altered forms bombed in the ratings.

However, Oscar prospects brightened yesterday with two separate announcements from the Writers Guild.

In a surprise reversal of its earlier stance, the WGA said it would not picket the recording industry's upcoming Grammy Awards. And the union confirmed that its leaders would meet with studio executives today for the first time since contract talks collapsed on December 7.

Gilbert Cates, a veteran producer of the Oscars, said a hallmark of the awards show has always been to ''reflect the times'' in which they are held, and that might very well include the advent of the writers strike this year.

''The first year I did the show, the Berlin Wall came down,'' he recalled. ''Then five years ago we entered Iraq (and) we didn't have a red carpet that year.''

The last time a Hollywood labor dispute coincided with the Oscars was the writers strike of 1988. That year, the show made do without union writers but all the stars attended.

But Oscar pundit Tom O'Neil, of entertainment awards Web site Theenvelope.Com, said the Writers Guild was less militant then, and that strike was in its early stages. He said it would be more difficult to stage the event as usual today in the face of a SAG boycott.

''It's not just another awards show. It's the biggest show of all -- it's the Super Bowl of show business and Hollywood's family reunion,'' he said.

The Oscars have only been postponed three times -- in 1938 because of floods, in 1968 due to the assassination of civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and in 1981 after the attempt on President Ronald Reagan's life.

In 2003, Oscar organizers went on with the show just days after the US-led invasion of Iraq began, but much of the usual glitz was toned down in keeping with the somber mood of the time.

(AGENCIES)

Agency casts doubt on cost of Army expansion plan ..........

WASHINGTON, Jan 23: The US Army cannot show how it arrived at the 70.2 billion dollar price tag for its plan to add 74,000 soldiers to active duty and reserve ranks, a US watchdog agency said.

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, said the Army's ''Grow-the-Force'' initiative, intended to help relieve the strains of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, also appeared to have underestimated some costs and overlooked others.

Among costs omitted from the funding plan is 2.5 billion dollar in health care and educational support assistance associated with increased personnel levels, the GAO said in a January 18 report released on Tuesday.

Defense officials had no immediate comment on the report. But the GAO said the Defense Department was generally in agreement with its recommendations, which called on the Pentagon to provide new oversight data to Congress by March 30 and maintain a transparent audit trail of the program.

The Army disclosed plans a year ago to grow its active duty and reserve ranks from 1,037,000 to 1,112,000 by October of 2013. Defense officials have since announced an accelerated plan that would bring the deadline forward to 2010.

The Army hopes the addition of six active-duty combat brigades and 13 support brigades will revitalize and balance its fighting force, which has been placed under severe strain by nearly five years of war in Iraq.

But the GAO said the expansion's funding plan is not transparent or comprehensive enough to ''allow decision makers to understand the full magnitude of the funds needed and weigh competing defense priorities.''

Army budget officials told the GAO they had limited time to develop their 70.2 billion dollar estimate before President George W Bush submitted his budget to Congress last February.

''It is not clear how the Army developed this estimate,'' the report said. ''Army documents do not identify key assumptions, limitations or the steps used to develop the estimates.'' (AGENCIES)

Women spend hair raising amounts on their hair: Poll ....

LONDON, Jan 23: The average money a woman spends on her hair might give the man in her life a few grey hair.

An average UK woman spends 27,722 pounds on her hair in her adult life-an amount, which if she would forgo, could buy her an Alfa Romeo or perhaps a luxury one-bedroom apartment in a holiday resort in Bulgaria at an estimated 26,000 pounds.

Besides the hairdresser, who pocket the majority of this amount, shampoo, conditioner, hair-dryer, straightening irons, brushes and styling products all contribute to a lifetime cost which is more than the average annual wage of 24,000 pounds.

But, this is not the end of the story!

Women also devote an hour and 53 minutes every week to washing, blow drying and styling-or four days a year, according to a poll.

Washing and drying alone takes up an hour of every week, more than two-and-a-half days a year.

Straightening, curling and brushing takes up almost a day and a half.

In London, women spend two hours and 15 minutes each week on hair care-almost five days a year.

But in a huge contrast, men spend just 39 minutes a week in front of the mirror. And trips to the barber and the odd slick of gel, cost the average male just 218 pounds a year-or 12,696 pounds in his lifetime.

"It’s incredible how much money women spend on their hair, but also unsurprising as we know that many women aspire to achieve a salon-like finish.

"Hair is such an important aspect of our appearance and having stylish locks can really make you look and feel good about yourself," the Daily Mail quoted a spokesman for the hair care company TRESemmi, which conducted the research, said.

"It’s a shame men don’t see it as so important, although they are slowly becoming more aware of their appearance, especially the younger generation," she added.

(UNI)

Kinnow's cancer-fighting nutrients under study ........

LUDHIANA, Jan 23: Deliciously juicy Kinnow, which has emerged as a favourite winter fruit, is good for heart and promises to fight cancer.

The fruit can play a great role in the nutritional security and health promotion in the country, said Dr Gurkanwal Singh, Nodal Officer (Citrus), Hoshiarpur.

The fruit is full of natural contents called limonoids, which the laboratory tests have established as an efficient inhibitants against a variety of cancers.

Dr Singh, while interacting with horticulturists at the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) here, said he was in contact with international experts such as Dr Gary D Manners of Agricultural Research Services, USDA, on this aspect.

Dr Singh informed that he has gathered information from the experts involved in research on citrus limonoids, that human body can readily access the limonoids, called limonin, present in citrus fruits.

Kinnow fruit, mainly grown in Punjab, is richest source of limonoids (218 ppm) among the world's commercial cultivars.

The available information shows that persistence of limonin in the human blood stream up to 24 hours helps fight cancer.

He explained that the laboratory tests have revealed the cholesterol lowering properties of limonin as well, which makes kinnow a heart-freindly fruit.

So far, all the testing of citrus limonoids has been done in animals or with human cancer cell lines, Dr Gurkanwal Singh said, adding further research on this aspect of kinnow will be immensely beneficial for society.

He has also taken up this aspect with State Department of Horticulture and State Farmers' Commission and suggested that PAU scientists consider this subject for further research.

Responding to his suggestion, Dr J S Randhawa, Head, Department of Horticulture, PAU, said the PAU was considering this aspect in the new proposals being submitted for research funding under the national innovation project.

With the technology made available by the PAU and the State Department of Horticulture, growers are cultivating kinnow on 27000 ha with a production of 4.14 lakh tonnes, thereby, earning profits better than the traditional agriculture.

An awareness campaign about immunity boosting, cancer fighting and cholesterol retarding properties of limonoids in kinnow juice should be taken up, the experts stressed. (UNI)