McCain to talk security on Europe, Mideast trip

BOSTON, Mar 13: Republican presidential candidate John McCain says he will emphasize national security issues from Afghanistan to global climate change on a visit to Europe and the Middle East next week.

McCain, who will be his party's presidential nominee to face the Democrats' choice in the November election, will visit Israel, Britain and France as part of a congressional delegation.

He will be joined by two of his closest Senate allies, Democrat-turned-Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham.

McCain told reporters on his campaign bus on Wednesday that while many in Europe might want to take his measure as a potential president, he was going as a ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, not as a candidate.

''I won't be offering them my vision because I'm going as a member of the Armed Services Committee, not as the nominee of our party,'' said McCain, who at 71 would be the oldest person ever elected to a first presidential term.

Still, the visit gives him an excuse to grab some headlines and television news time that is otherwise being taken up by the fierce Democratic contest between Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

While riding in his bus from New Hampshire to Boston, McCain sometimes gazed overhead at a television showing the Fox News Channel and saw the Democrats dominating coverage with occasional snatches of himself on the screen.

He said he would avoid politics on his trip ''by not talking politics, only talking national security.''

McCain has had notable differences with President George W Bush on a host of issues although both are from the same political party.

He is a stronger advocate than Bush on taking steps to control global warming; disagreed for a long time with US strategy in Iraq; believes the United States should shut down the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where terrorism suspects are held; and battled Bush on the issue of torture.

''There are obvious differences,'' said McCain. But, he said, ''I certainly won't articulate them overseas.''

McCain and his colleagues will hold talks with Israeli, British and French leaders. A side trip to Iraq is possible. He has met both British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the past.

''I know these people. It's not as if they're seeing an unknown quantity. It's not the leaders taking measure -- maybe people will in those countries, but the leaders I have strong relationships with.''

McCain said he expected Brown in particular to talk about climate change, an issue that former Prime Minister Tony Blair brought to the fore.

McCain has said in the past he believes the United States and its allies should adopt a ''cap and trade'' system of capping greenhouse gas emissions, a step the Bush administration opposes.

''They (European leaders) do view climate change as a national security issue,'' said McCain.

On the same bus ride, Lieberman said he expected European leaders would want to talk about the possible expansion of NATO and relations with Russia.

The Russian government of Vladimir Putin has voiced concern about expanding NATO to countries in the former Soviet empire. (AGENCIES)

Afghan-born US envoy says no Presidential ambitions

NEW YORK, Mar 13: Washington's Afghan-born ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, rejected suggestions that he might run for president in his country of birth when Afghan President Hamid Karzai's term ends in 2009.

Asked about such reports while speaking at the Asia Society in New York, Khalilzad, who was US ambassador to Afghanistan after the 2001 US-led invasion, said he would always be happy to help Afghanistan but not by running for office there.

''I am not a candidate and I will not be a candidate,'' he said.

He said he appreciated the ''good thoughts'' of those talking about him as a possible president, but he joked they might have another motive.

''These are people who want to get rid of me. Some of them are my competitors for jobs in this country so they want to export me to Afghanistan,'' he said.

''I made a decision a long time ago to be exported from there to here.''

Khalilzad first came to the United States as an exchange student in 1966, attending high school in California, and has long been a US citizen.

A Bush appointee, his term at the United Nations is likely to end early in 2009.

(AGENCIES)

EU, US for tough talks over visa, air security

LJUBLJANA, Mar 13: The EU expects tough talks with the United States on visa-free travel today, after Washington signed separate deals with some EU members instead of the bloc as a whole, Europe's top justice official said.

EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini and the bloc's Slovenian Presidency will try to iron out differences with US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, after tensions within the EU and with Washington over the visa deals.

Brussels has pressed for a blanket agreement for all EU countries not yet in the US visa waiver programme, but some of the bloc's new member states, eager for quick visa-free travel, broke ranks and agreed to forge ahead with individual pacts.

The United States wants deals with individual states.

''I expect a friendly discussion, but tough on substance, because we need to defend European values and principles,'' Frattini told reporters on Wednesday in Brdo, Slovenia, the venue for the EU-US talks.

''It is tricky because our law requires bilateral talks... We are all in a bit of a very difficult situation'','' a US official told Reuters.

But today's meeting ''will be an opportunity to discuss the unevenness of the EU and U.S. Law and how we find a way forward...In a way acceptable to everybody,'' the official said.

Washington signed separate deals with the Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia, under which these new EU members agreed to enhanced cooperation on air security in return for the prospect of a swift entry to the visa waiver programme, undermining EU unity on the issue and angering a number of other EU states.

Hungary expects to sign a similar deal later this month.

Most EU states are already part of the US visa waiver programme, which allows people to travel without visas, but not 11 of the 12 mostly ex-communist countries that joined the bloc in 2004 and 2007, along with older member Greece.

EU diplomats agreed yesterday to defuse the intra-EU crisis on the issue by adopting a ''twin-track'' approach allowing both individual and EU talks, Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra told Reuters.

(AGENCIES)

British accountant loses 600,000 dollars grape lawsuit

LONDON, Mar 13: An accountant who tried to sue British retail chain Marks & Spencer after he slipped on a grape and injured himself lost his case and was ordered to pay legal costs.

Alexander Martin-Sklan, 55, sued for more than 300,000 pounds (600,000 dollars) over the 2004 incident in which he said a squashed grape from the store got lodged under the sole of his right sandal, causing him to slip and fall.

He said he suffered a ruptured quadricep, adverse psychological effects and depression following the incident, which meant that his business suffered and he could no longer ski or play tennis.

But the judge ruled against him, determining that while there may have been a grape or some ''crushed fruit or similar'' on the sole of Martin-Sklan's sandal, he was not persuaded that it ''caused the claimant to slip''.

''In my judgment it was one of those accidents that could happen to anyone,'' the judge said yesterday.

Martin-Sklan, who represented himself in the case, was ordered to pay the retailer's legal fees of nearly 20,000 pounds. He refused to comment after the judgment.

(AGENCIES)

Second study finds treating herpes won't stop HIV

WASHINGTON, Mar 13: A second study has found that treating genital herpes infections does not protect people from the AIDS virus.

The study, published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine, casts even more doubt on the once hopeful idea that treating the common infection might help put a dent in the AIDS pandemic.

Dr. Deborah Watson-Jones of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and colleagues reported on 659 workers aged 16 to 35 at recreational facilities in Tanzania.

They were asked to take two pills a day of acyclovir, an antiviral drug that can suppress painful outbreaks of herpes simplex 2, responsible for genital herpes.

Herpes simplex 2, or HSV-2, has been shown to raise the risk of HIV infection by as much as 69 per cent, so many groups had been testing the idea that treating it might reduce the rate of HIV transmission.

''In Tanzania, an estimated 74 per cent of new HIV infections in men, 22 per cent in woman and 63 percent in bar and hotel workers are attributable to HSV-2,'' Watson-Jones and colleagues wrote.

And HIV is common in Tanzania, infecting 6.5 percent of Tanzanians aged 15 to 49.

''It reaches 40 per cent in high risk groups such as workers in bars and guesthouses, who may supplement their income by offering sex in return for money or gifts,'' the researchers added, noting that few use condoms.

However, the women given two acyclovir pills a day were not any less likely to become infected with the AIDS virus than women given placebos.

''These data show no evidence that acyclovir as HSV suppressive therapy decreases the incidence of infection with HIV,'' the researchers wrote.

They said the dose given may not be powerful enough to suppress it, and noted that urine tests suggested many were not taking the pills as prescribed.

The AIDS virus infects an estimated 33 million people globally. It has killed 25 million and there is no cure and no vaccine.

(AGENCIES)

Lowly streams play big role in fighting pollution

CHICAGO, Mar 13: A meandering stream appears to play a powerful role in filtering out pollutants like nitrogen, and understanding this role could help prevent oxygen-depleting blooms of algae that threaten fish and shellfish downstream, researchers said.

The research revealed yesterday, was part of a project to etermine whether rivers actively process pollutants and remove them from the ecosystem, or simply act as drain pipes that flush polluted waters into lakes or out to sea.

''They are most definitely processors,'' said Stephen Hamilton, an aquatic ecologist at Michigan State University in Lansing, who led one of several teams studying the problem.

The study, which appears in the journal Nature, looked at how 72 streams across eight regions in the United States and Puerto Rico neutralize nitrogen.

''There is a remarkable amount of processing that takes place,'' Hamilton said in a telephone interview. ''We were able to see how streams vary in that nitrogen processing.''

If overloaded, however, they found the streams were less efficient at removing the nitrogen that enters the stream through agricultural runoff, acid rain and human waste.

Too much nitrogen in the water can cause excessive growth of algae and aquatic plants in lakes and coastal marine waters, which deplete oxygen stores, killing fish and other marine life. Such so-called ''dead zones'' already are seen in the Chesapeake Bay, the Gulf of Mexico and the Baltic Sea.

NOT SO LAZY RIVER

To measure this clean-up effort, the researchers added a small amount of a harmless, radioactive isotope of nitrogen into the streams. This acted as a tracer, allowing the researchers to track its path.

Hamilton's team stationed itself in the headwaters of the Kalamazoo River, dribbled the tracer into the water, then field workers took samples as it made its way downstream for a distance of about 3,000 feet.

''Most of the nitrogen we found in a stream was taken up by the stream organisms in a fairly short distance downstream,'' he said.

The nitrogen was gobbled up by tiny organisms such as algae, fungi and bacteria. But, a large portion of it was permanently pulled from the streams by a process known as denitrification, which converts nitrate to nitrogen gas that escapes into the atmosphere.

''We were able to quantify the fate of how much nitrogen goes into each of these potential pathways,'' he said.

''That allows us to understand how some streams do better than others and that opens up the possibility of understanding how we can manage streams to promote denitrification or importantly, how we are managing them to discourage it,'' he said.

Hamilton said the trick is to allowing lazy, meandering rivers to do their job instead of diverting them into straight drainage ditches that act more like water pipes and less like filters.

''We've been very industrious and successful in draining vast amounts of wetland. We've re-engineered our streams to conduct the water and any nutrients in the water out as fast as possible,'' he said.

''We think it's fair to say as a group there are a lot of ways we could do that better.''

(AGENCIES)

Give up smoking to have happier baby: study

LONDON, Mar 13: Pregnant women who stop smoking not only improve their physical health, but are more likely to have easygoing babies, a latest British research has shown.

The study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, believes that infants of women who continued to smoke while pregnant were notably grumpy.

Chemicals from cigarettes are known to harm the development of the brains of babies in the womb. Tobacco can affect the growth of a fetus and are also linked to low birth weight, birth defects and increased risk of cot death.

Researchers at Britain’s York University, who assessed 18,000 babies born between 2000 and 2002, as well as their mothers, suggested that women who smoke heavily in pregnancy had the most difficult infants with the worst moods.

"We know that children in later life suffer adverse effects from passive smoking in the womb, so it’s not surprising to find subtle signs of behaviour differences in the first few months of life," Dr Kate Pickett of York University was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail of UK.

Mothers who kicked the habit ended up with the best behaved babies. These babies had the lowest chances of unpredictable behaviour, were receptive to new things and had regular eating and sleeping patterns, the report said.

"Consistent with this, women who quit smoking in pregnancy have better general functioning, including more sustained relationships, more skillfulness in use of community resources and less disrupted and stressful life circumstances and are less likely to have a history of social problems and antisocial behavior compared to pregnancy smokers," the research suggested.

Interestingly, babies of recent quitters were shown to be even more easy-going than those born to women who had never smoked or had stopped years earlier. (PTI)

Liberals, Islamists clash over Morocco 'gay wedding'

KSAR EL KEBIR, MOROCCO, Mar 13: When rumours of a ''gay wedding'' spread through the northern Moroccan town of Ksar el Kebir, the only evidence produced was a video on YouTube of a man dancing suggestively in women's clothes.

Three months later, four people are in prison accused of homosexual acts, Islamists are decrying a decline in public morals and liberals are warning that the north African kingdom risks sleep-walking into extremism.

A reputation as a tolerant, nascent democracy has earned Morocco privileged ties with the European Union and helped draw millions of tourists to its cities, mountains and beaches.

But rights campaigners say the events in Ksar el Kebir are the latest sign that personal freedoms are in danger as the secular government seeks to placate powerful Islamists.

''Morocco has become a society where debate is much freer than before but many people are not happy with that freedom,'' said Issandr el Amrani, north Africa specialist at International Crisis Group. ''There is a real risk of people with conservative agendas influencing politics.''

The Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) has become a major political force by drawing on popular anger at poverty and corruption and calling for more morality in public life.

Despite lingering suspicions that the PJD wants to turn Morocco into a purist Islamist state, the secular establishment sees the party as part of a moderate religious bulwark against increasingly active and well-organised radical Islamist groups.

But some say this attitude has resulted in more restrictions on personal freedoms to comply with Islamist beliefs.

Organisers of an open-air pop concert held last May to encourage young people to vote in legislative elections were surprised by what was written about their event in the conservative newspaper Attajdid.

''It said people had stripped naked, climbed on the minaret of a mosque and stopped Muslims praying -- it was simply untrue,'' said Reda Allali, singer in rock band Hoba Hoba Spirit.

''When someone holds a concert, these populists always trot out their favourite themes: Zionists, Satanists, drugs, homosexuality and George Bush,'' said Allali.

In universities, tensions have grown between left-wing students and Morocco's largest Islamist opposition movement Justice and Charity, which now dominates the main student union.

Justice and Charity, which is banned from mainstream politics because of its open hostility to the monarchy, has set up informal morality tribunals in some universities, said Driss Mansouri, philosophy professor at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University in Fez.

''If they decide a couple of unmarried students are in a close relationship, they punish them. Some students have even been beaten -- it's a rural mentality,'' said Mansouri.

INSULT TO HONOUR

Human Rights Watch has called for the release of the four men jailed in Ksar el Kebir. The men say the ''gay wedding'' only ever existed in the minds of suspicious neighbours.

The rumours began after wine merchant and former circus artist Fouad Frettet held a party for friends and neighbours. (AGENCIES)

Expat workers get higher pay, strike ends

DUBAI, Mar 13: More than 1000 expatriate workers in Bahrain , majority of them Indians, ended their five day strike after the management agreed to hike their basic salary to 70 Bahrain Dinars(BD) (about Rs 7000).

The workers had gone on strike apparently after the Indian government held back a proposal on minimum wage of 100 BD for Indian workers taking up jobs in the Gulf.

The strike was resolved after the Labour Ministry negotiated a deal which could fetch them a pay close to the proposed minimum wages, if other facilities were taken into acccount.

The workers of Haji Hassan Al Ali Group, based at two labour camps in Salmabad, had stopped going to work from Saturday, saying they were not being paid a 'decent salary'. They demanded, among other things, better living conditions.

''Expatriate workers who received a monthly salary of more than 70 BD will get a raise of 5 BD,'' the Gulf Daily News quoted an official as saying.

(UNI)

Food phobic chef eats biscuits only

LONDON, Mar 13: Every day he used his art to produce delicacies for others-- chicken with a mango salad, skewered king prawns, handmade pasta and pizza-- but never tasted his own results of labour for he was suffering from food phobia.

Andrew Foster survived for 25 years by eating biscuits - and only biscuits.

''I used to get through two packets of biscuits a day. When I was 18 months old I stopped eating. Experts advised my mother to starve me as I'd eventually eat but the only thing I'd want was biscuits,'' the Daily Mail quoted the 27-year-old chef as saying.

As he grew up to become a chef, he had no choice but to rely on the verdict of his staff before sending dishes out to the customers.

''I'm a theory chef so I know what foods go together but would always get someone else in the kitchen to taste what I had created, he said, adding, ''I would think that smells delicious but the thought of tasting it would make me feel sick.''

With a daily intake largely made up of biscuits, the odd piece of toast, packet of crisps or bowl of cereal, he was missing out on nutrients.

''Along with the health issues, my diet was affecting every aspect of life, including socialising and work.''

''With the help of a psychologist and nutritionist, he is now trying other foods and biscuits are now solely a treat. It's fantastic to be able to taste good food for once,'' he said. (UNI)

)

China slams US on its human rights record

BEIJING, Mar 13: Mounting a scathing attack, China today described the US human rights record as "tattered and shocking", mocked at the "hypocrisy" of American democracy and accused Washington of having a "notorious record" of trampling upon the sovereignty of other countries.

China, in its tit-for-tat report to counter the American State Department's annual report slamming Beijing on human rights, listed "a multitude" of cases of human rights violations by the US within its own country and in other nations and bluntly told Washington to improve its own record.

The US State Department in its report released yesterday said Chinas human rights record was poor but did not list Beijing as the worst abuser of human rights.

The report had alleged human rights abuses in China, including "extrajudicial killings and use of forced labour" and accused the government of harassing and arresting journalists, writers and activists and tightening controls on religious freedom in Tibet and Muslim-majority Xinjiang.

Coming out with a matcher today, China said the US "reigns" over other countries and makes "arrogant and malicious attacks" on their human rights record, but "mentions nothing about its own human rights problems."

"The human rights records in the US can be best described as tattered and shocking," the report released customarily by the Information Office of China's State Council for the ninth consecutive year, said, telling Washington to stop applying "double standards" on human rights issues.

The report reviewed the US human rights record in 2007 from seven "perspectives", including on life and personal security, human rights violations by law enforcement and judicial departments, civil and political rights, racial discrimination, women and children and USs violation of human rights in other nations. (PTI)

Indira gave India nationhood and democracy: Lord Paul

LONDON, Mar 13: Leading NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul has said it was former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who gave India a nationhood and democracy.

"She was a great Prime Minister...And a greater human being. She gave nationhood for India and she would stand up to the erstwhile USSR or the USA or anybody else," Lord Paul, who had written a book on Gandhi and was considered a close friend of her, said while paying tributes to her at the Nehru Centre here last night as part of the International Women’s Festival, ‘Sakhi’.

"Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi won us freedom but she (Mrs Gandhi) was the first Prime Minister who gave us democracy," he said.

She was also "genuinely concerned that America would end up liquidating her," Lord Paul said.

Referring to the imposition of Emergency in 1975, Lord Paul, the British Ambassador for Overseas Business, said "She is the only leader in the world who declared emergency and removed it."

"I supported her during the emergency and supported her when she was out of office. She offered me a ministry of my choice in her cabinet and I said no. Then she said ‘will you become High Commissioner. I told her you are going down, not up’."

During the general elections in 1977, she was aware that she would lose the polls, Lord Paul said.

"In 1978, we invited her here. First, they (Janata Party Government) refused to give her passport and subsequently they were so mean, they sent an instruction to Air India not to upgrade her, thinking that she would travel by economy class. We had sent her a first class ticket."

Lord Paul, Chancellor of the Westminster and Wolverhampton Universities, said he really became "almost a devotee of Mrs Gandhi" after she facilitated him to bring his ailing daughter to London for treatment in 1966.

Lord Paul, Chairman of the 1.5 billion dollar Caparo Group, said later on, when her son Sanjay Gandhi wanted to build a car, Mrs Gandhi asked him to go to Sanjay’s factory and give his opinion whether it could be done.

Describing Sanjay as a temperamental but extremely gracious person, Lord Paul told Gandhi that he would be able to build the car but whether he could control the cost was doubtful.

"He did make a car and it gave him confidence. If he was alive he would have been a great leader," the Peer said.

Answering questions, Lord Paul said Gandhi’s real qualities were known only after her death. "I don’t think India had a Prime Minister of her calibre. Rajiv Gandhi had a good innings. But Mrs Gandhi was completely different."

Replying to another question, Lord Paul said, "It was she (Indira Gandhi) who first tried to open the economy and invited NRIs to come and invest (in India). Unfortunately, people around her did not allow it."

Recalling Gandhi’s remark that Indian private sector was neither private nor entrepreneur, Lord Paul said she did not want India to be dominated by anyone, particularly the American multinationals.

Harshadbhai Patel, Mayor of Brent, described Gandhi as one of the greatest prime Ministers who put India on the world map.

Manick Dalal, Chairman of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, said Gandhi was a person of great conviction.

Monika Kapil Mohta, Director, Nehru Centre, described her as one of history’s most powerful leaders.

Barry Gardiner, MP, former chairman of the Labour Friends of India, was the special guest on the occasion. (PTI)