267 Indian illegal workers held in Sharjah, likely to deported

DUBAI, Jan 25: In a major crackdown, over 260 Indian nationals have been arrested in Sharjah for allegedly violating residency and labour laws and are likely to be deported.

Sharjah Department of Naturalization and Residency and Sharjah Police arrested the 267 Indians, 67 of whom had no IDs or documents, on Tuesday.

It was one of the major raids on illegal expats in the UAE since the official amnesty ended last year during which nearly 300,000 people had regularised their status.

"Some had residence visas but which had expired several years ago and they had not renewed it. Some of the arrested were working with people other than their sponsors. They were all referred to the Sharjah Public Prosecution on Wednesday," department official Major Al Shamsi said.

Shamsi said all the workers will be deported.

But local authorities have not informed the Indian consulate about those detained, officials said, adding they may approach the consulate for processing documents when they are deported.

Indian consul-general Venu Rajamony told PTI today that consulate had asked all Indians in the UAE not to violate local immigration rules and had helped a majority of those staying illegally to leave the country during the last amnesty.

Almost 3.4 lakh illegal residents, including 110,000 Indians, had benefited from the three-month amnesty scheme declared by the UAE government in July.

"The government is dealing strictly with all those people who are staying illegally in the country. They will be arrested and will be subsequently deported to their native countries," Shamsi added. (PTI)

Taped Chinese kissing couple to negotiate with metro company

BEIJING, Jan 25: A couple, who had threatened to sue Shanghai Metro Company after videotapes of them kissing and hugging at a subway appeared on internet, has said that it will negotiate with the metro-operator on the issue.

The metro company has apologised to the couple for the "inappropriate behaviour" of its former employees, Wang (not his real name), the man taped in the video said, according to the state-run China Daily.

Wang said the video was posted on the internet by former employees of the company and the matter would be pursued against them.

He said the metro company had agreed to hold further talks with them and added that the couple would discuss with their lawyer about compensation and a public apology.

"We will try to get a peaceful resolution and avoid a lawsuit against the company, if our legitimate interests are met", he said, but added that if the final proposals were "unsatisfactory, a law suit will be unavoidable".

Following an internal investigation, the metro company said it has found how the video came to be shot and uploaded to the Internet and it might also take legal action against the former employees involved in it, the daily said, quoting Shanghai Oriental Morning Post.

The couple, unaware of the camera, was captured in their passionate moment at the Shanghai subway entrance.

The three-minute clipping received 15,000 hits in just two days after it was posted on a website.

After the incident, Shanghai subway authorities had said they were investigating whether their staff had used the monitoring device to make the video. (PTI)

Barjeel Geojit launches online MF trading platform for NRIs

DUBAI, Jan 25: UAE-based brokerage and financial services provider Barjeel Geojit Securities launched a web- based trading platform of Indian mutual funds for non-resident Indian investors from the UAE.

"The web-based service, Mutual Fund Online, will eliminate the multiple paper work and logistical issues that an investor now has to face. The focus will now shift to obtaining value added advisory services from Barjeel, all for the benefit of investors," Barjeel Geojit Securities Chairman Sheikh Sultan Bin Saud AI Qassimi said.

"We are the first independent financial intermediary to launch such a service," said Barjeel Geojit Securities CEO Krishnan Ramachandran.

Barjeel Geojit, a partnership between Indian brokerage company Geojit Financial Services and Al Saud Group of Sharjah, is the first financial services firm in the UAE to offer direct brokerage investment services to the NRI community in the UAE.

Along with the online trading platform, Barjeel Geojit will offer investment advisory services on Indian mutual funds and capital markets.

"Although the number of NRI investors in Indian markets has increased significantly, many have missed the opportunity. The recent market corrections offers them a chance to enter the market at attractive prices," said Barjeel Geojit Director K V Shamsudin. (PTI)

Burns' resignation to take focus away from N deal: US experts

WASHINGTON, Jan 25: The surprise retirement of Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, who played a seminal role in finalising the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, will take "some of the focus away" from the accord but his continuation as Special Envoy will help in its early conclusion, experts said.

"The encouraging thing is that Nick Burns is not leaving that portfolio... He will continue to be an envoy on his issue. That is very important and I think he can bring it to a successful conclusion as soon as possible," Former Assistant Secretary for South Asian Affairs Karl Inderfurth told PTI.

Analysts said that while Burns impending departure may have come as a surprise in some quarters, the practice of senior officials leaving their high profile jobs in the last year of administration to seek greener pastures in the private sector is nothing new.

"He (Burns) was of course the major advocate within the administration and his leaving had nothing to do with the trouble the accord faced on the Indian side," said Walter Andersen, the Acting Director of South Asia Studies at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University.

"That having been said, because he (Burns) was the major intellectual advocate of it, his not being there lends to take some of the focus away from it than otherwise would be," he said.

The decision by 51-year-old Burns was announced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Jan 18. Though Burns will resign in March, officials said he had been asked to continue handling the deal.

However, with the deal facing opposition from the Left parties, both Inderfurth and Anderson said that the ball was now in India's court. (PTI)

Contraceptive pills to fight ovarian cancer

LONDON, Jan 25: The oral contraceptive not only safegaurds against unwanted pregnancies, but also diminishes the risk of ovarian cancer to a great extent.

A British study showed that the longer a woman is on the pill, the less likely she is to develop the disease dubbed the ‘silent killer’ because symptoms are often diagnosed too late. The benefits outweighed any other slight rise in cancer risk posed by the pill, researchers claimed.

The latest study by Cancer Research UK scientists looked at evidence from 45 studies of ovarian cancer in 21 countries, including 23,257 women with ovarian cancer of whom 7,308 (31 per cent) had used oral contraceptives and 87,303 women without ovarian cancer of whom 32,717 (37 per cent) had used oral contraceptives.

The study estimated that in high income countries, using oral contraceptives for ten years cut the risk of developing ovarian cancer before the age of 75 from 12 down to 8 per 1000 women. It reduced the risk of death from ovarian cancer before age 75 from 7 down to 5 per 1000 women.

However, the type of pill or level of oestrogen in it does not play a role, the study found.

The pill also protects against endometrial cancer (cancer of the lining of the womb).

The protective mechanism is probably because women on the pill are not producing any eggs. The normal process of egg release triggers cell damage and repair that raises the risk of tumour development, researchers said.

(UNI)

London the worst to have a baby

LONDON, Jan 25: And you thought it is only the developing countries where pre and post-natal health care are the worst affected.

Rethink, for the answer is in the first world.

In a review by the Healthcare Commission, the independent health inspectorate, London is the worst place to have a baby.

In the first review of maternity units in England, 19 out of 27 NHS trusts in the capital were ranked as the poorest performers across a range of 25 indicators, ranging from tests during antenatal care to staffing levels on labour wards.

One in five of the 148 trusts surveyed was found to be risking lives of mothers and babies by failing to carry out scans, discharging them too quickly or not following up with postnatal visits.

All trusts were ranked on a four-point scale from best to worst.

Requirements for screening were raised in new guidance issued by National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) last April but nine out of 10 trusts were not meeting them, the review found. Trusts with the lowest number of midwives performed worst.

The highest standards were in the North of England, where three-quarters of the 44 trusts were ranked as top performers.

In response, the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, announced extra funding reaching over three years to 122m Pounds per annum for maternity services and said the worst trusts would have to produce action plans.

''NHS, the strategic health authority, has much more work to do to ensure women receive the most modern maternity care. We will be holding the NHS to account," he was reported by The Independent.

Anna Walker, chief executive of the Healthcare Commission, said "serious concerns" about maternity services had triggered three full-scale investigations by the commission and accounted for one in 14 referrals to its investigation unit on safety grounds.

The NHS Confederation, which represents NHS trusts, said the review revealed "deep concerns".

(UNI)

Cell phone to combat nuclear terrorism

WASHINGTON, Jan 25: Terrorists may soon have a tough time plotting attacks, as researchers are working hard to develop a system where cell phones can detect radiation and prevent Nuclear Terrorism.

Researchers at Purdue University in collabortion with the state of Indiana are putting in efforts to develop a system that would use a network of cell phones to detect and track radiation to help thwart terrorist attacks with radiological 'dirty bombs' and nuclear weapons.

The network of cell phones, which already have global positioning locators, can serve as a tracking system when equipped with radiation sensors able to detect even light residues of radioactive material, said physics professor Ephraim Fischbach, who is working with Jere Jenkins, director of Purdue's radiation laboratories within the School of Nuclear Engineering.

Andrew Longman, a consulting instrumentation scientist developed the software for the system and then worked with Purdue researchers to integrate the software with radiation detectors and cell phones.

''Big cities with concentrated population form soft targets for potential terrorist attacks and a system like this would pose difficulties for someone to go undetected with a radiological dirty bomb in such an area,'' Longman, also a Purdue alumnus said. The more people are walking around with cell phones and Personal digital assistants (PDAs), the easier it would be to detect and catch the perpetrator, he said.

Tiny solid-state radiation sensors are commercially available. The detection system would require additional circuitry and would not add significant bulk to portable electronic products, Fischbach said adding that the software can work with a variety of sensor types.

The system was tested last November is capable of detecting a weak radiation source 15 feet from the sensors, researchers said.

The sensors don't really perform the detection task individually, Fischbach said adding that the collective action of the sensors, combined with the software analysis, detects the source.

The system would transmit signals to a data center, and the data center would transmit information to authorities without alerting the person carrying the phone.

The signal grows weaker with increasing distance from the source, and the software is able to use the data from many cell phones to pinpoint the location of the radiation source.

The system would be sensitive enough to detect these tiny levels of radiation, but it would be smart enough to discern which sources posed potential threats and which are harmless. (UNI)

FDA downplays long-term impact of animal cloning

WASHINGTON, Jan 25: Meat and milk products of offspring from the 600 cloned animals in the United States most likely have not entered the nation's food supply, an official with the US Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday, as the agency downplayed the long-term impact of cloning.

The FDA last week said meat and milk from cloned cattle, swine and goats and their offspring were as safe to eat as products obtained from traditional animals. Before then, farmers and ranchers had followed a voluntary moratorium that prevented the sale of clones and their offspring.

''There is no feeling that this will ever become a way of mass producing animals,'' Stephen Sundlof, director of FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied nutrition, told reporters.

He noted that another reproductive technique used in agriculture, in vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer, has been used to create only a small portion of the millions of animals on US farms.

It could take four or five years before consumers are able to buy clone-derived food on a wide scale as animals need to be cloned, mature and give birth. So far, several major food companies including Tyson Foods Inc <TSN.N>, the largest US meat company, and Smithfield Foods Inc <SFD.N> have said they would avoid using cloned animals.

The FDA and the small cloning industry both maintain cloned animals are as safe as regular animals.

''At this point in time we don't believe there are offspring out there in the nation's food supply system,'' said Sundlof. ''We are not really concerned with tracking progeny because they are in every respect a normal animal.''

Even as the FDA unveiled its final rule, the Agriculture Department has asked the cloning industry to prolong the ban on selling products from cloned animals during a ''transition'' period expected to last at least several months.

Democratic lawmakers Sen Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and Rep Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut have introduced legislation that would require a label on products from cloned animals or their offspring. Some state lawmakers also have introduced similar legislation.

''If cloned food is safe, let it onto the market, but give consumers the information they need to avoid these products if they choose to,'' said Mikulski.

Proponents have touted cloned animals as safe and hope the technology will create animals that produce more milk, better meat and are more disease-resistant.

Critics still contend not enough is known about the technology to ensure it is safe and they also say the FDA needs to address concerns over animal cruelty and ethical issues. (AGENCIES)

Volcanic deposits a possible help to astronauts at lunar stations

WASHINGTON, Jan 25: Surface deposits on moon from early lunar volcanoes might just prove useful to the astronauts at lunar stations.

A US study of radar images of the moon suggests deposits from early lunar volcanoes, or pyroclastics are possible sources of materials for lunar outposts.

Bruce Campbell and associates at the National Air and Space Museum said ancient volcanic eruptions on the Moon produced deposits of fine-grained, often glass-rich, pyroclastic material. In some places, such as at the Aristarchus Plateau, the deposits can be up to nearly

100 feet thick.

As reported in the journal Geology, the scientists used longer wavelength radar images from Earth-based radio telescopes that penetrate the mantling layers to "see" underlying terrain and details of the geologic events, including the extent of lava flows that shaped the plateau.

When struck by relatively small meteorites, the lava flows are broken into rocks and mixed into the fine-grained layers above, the researchers said, noting such abundant rocks might complicate the use of the pyroclastics as a resource for future lunar explorers.

The new radar data can be used to identify thick, rock-poor areas of the pyroclastic deposits best suited for resource recovery. (UNI)

6,500 km walk in honour of the Year of Russia in India ...

MOSCOW, Jan 25: Devout Krishnaite Vladimir Komaritskikh of Voskresensk in Moscow will traverse 6,500 kilometres from the town to Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, in honour of the Year of Russia in India.

Komaritskikh, a construction engineer, will set out in late February and hopes to reach his destination in eight months.

A hiker since childhood, he thinks travelling on foot is not a mere athletic pastime but a ‘philosophy of motion’.

"Walking helps you to reappraise your behaviour, repent evil thoughts and willing or unwilling wrongs, stay eye-to-eye with the Lord and feel at one with the universe," said the 56-year-old.

Komaritskikh’s itinerary crosses Siberia, Central Asia and eleven Himalayan passes. He is eager to get to India before Karttika (October and November in the Christian calendar) as he intends a pilgrimage to the holy places of Lord Krishna-Mayapur, Vrindavan and Puri, RIA Novosti said.

However, he is not sure of his return to Russia. "I will walk back if I feel strong enough," he said adding that he hoped to find followers in India.

"At least one enthusiast might be found among the many millions of Indians who would repeat my itinerary the other way round, from India to Russia. He can dedicate his venture to the Year of India in Russia, set for 2009," he said.

Komaritskikh, whose sacred name is Vatsapal Das, is trained in Vedic vegetarian cooking and is considered a fine chef by his fellow believers.

He has walked more than 10,000 km since he joined the Vaishnava community. One of his routes stretched from Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea to the Chukchi Peninsula across a narrow strait in Alaska. Others were from north to south. All told, he has made 15 journeys on foot totalling 32,000 km, the agency said.

"I have invented a gait all my own. It saves energy, so I never tire of long journeys with a knapsack," he said, adding that he lived a monastic life spending two hours reciting "holy names on my beads."

"Years on foot taught me to put up with hardships, bad weather, harsh words, depression and ailments, to say nothing of merger savings. As I travel, I walk to the Lord like the five Pandava Brothers in the Mahabharata," he added. (UNI)

China to help other nations tackle natural disasters....

BEIJING, Jan 25: China would expand the use of its environment-monitoring satellites to help more countries tackle natural disasters.

A number of countries have shown interest in acquiring more data on land, forests and farmland which can be provided through satellites, China National Space Administration (CNSA) said.

China launched CBERS-2B, its first high-definition, earth observing satellite, in September last year which became fully operational yesterday, to replace CBERS-2, launched in 2003, which has outlived its two-year lifespan.

CBERS-2B is the third Sino-Brazilian earth resources satellite, jointly developed by the two countries.

CNSA spokesman Li Guoping said China and Brazil had announced in November last that they would share data from Sino-Brazilian resources satellites with African countries as a way to support economic development there, according to the state-run China Daily.

The CNSA had also signed an international disaster-relief cooperation charter last year, agreeing to provide free data and information to countries hit by natural disasters to help them monitor disasters and assess their impact. (PTI)