BEIJING, July 26: China has denounced a British Parliamentary inquiry on the 30-year implementation of a Hong Kong joint declaration, saying that UK should stop interfering in its internal affairs.
“Such practice is an interference of China’s domestic affairs,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, referring to the Lower House Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry which was announced on Tuesday.
The inquiry is about the implementation of the Sino- British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong since its signing in 1984.
“China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposes Britain’s practice, and has lodged solemn representations,” state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Hong as saying.
The joint declaration was signed on December 19, 1984 in Beijing, after 22 rounds of negotiations.
It confirmed that the government of the People’s Republic of China will resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong from July 1, 1997, and the “one country, two systems” policy will be implemented in the region.
The practice of “one country, two systems” has achieved great success in Hong Kong since its return to the motherland in 1997, which is recognized by all, Hong noted.
Hong Kong is one special administrative region of China, and its affairs are China’s domestic affairs.
The Chinese government opposes any foreign forces intervening, Hong said.
He urged the British side to respect China’s stance and concerns with concrete actions, abide by its commitment and stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs in any form to maintain sound development of Sino-British relations. (PTI)

BEIJING, July 26:  A 24-year-old Chinese student at the University of Southern California has been found dead in a student apartment after being assaulted in Los Angeles.
Police investigators said Xinran Ji was assaulted with a blunt object on Thursday near the University campus while walking back to his nearby apartment, where he apparently succumbed to his injury on head.
The motive for the attack is still under investigation, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles has condemned the killing of Ji shortly after midnight, warning other Chinese students to be more alert.
In a statement issued in Chinese, the Consulate General said it is shocked by the cruel and harsh nature of the case and it asked the US authorities to arrest the killer as soon as possible and take more measures to protect Chinese students in the United States.
Two years ago, two other Chinese graduate students were gunned down near campus.
The Consulate General also said it has reminded Chinese students to be more alert and take protection steps. (PTI)

WASHINGTON, July 26:  The act of making eye contact with another person to share an experience without a smile can predict later autism symptoms in babies, a new study has found.
Some babies are at risk for autism because they have an older sibling that has the disorder, researchers said.
To find new ways to detect Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) earlier in life, researchers at the University of Miami are exploring the subtleties of babies’ interactions with others and how they relate to the possibility and severity of future symptoms.
The study helps us to understand the connection between early joint attention before one year and later ASD symptoms.
Joint attention is an early form of communication that develops toward the end of the first year. It’s the act of making eye contact with another person to share an experience.
Previous studies have shown that low levels of initiating joint attention are linked to later autism symptoms in high-risk siblings.
The current study shows that joint attention without a positive affective component (a smile) in the first year is particularly important to this relationship.
“The ability to coordinate attention with another person without a smile, without an emotional component, seems to be particularly important for high-risk siblings in the development of ASD symptoms,” said Devon Gangi, student in the UM College of Arts and Sciences and first author of the study.
“The detection of markers associated with autism early in life, before a child can be diagnosed with autism, is important to help identify children at the greatest need for early interventions,” said Gangi.
The findings show that early joint attention initiation without smiling – matter-of-fact looking at an examiner to communicate interest in a toy – was negatively associated with ASD symptoms.
According to the study, the less joint attention without smiling at 8 months in a high-risk sibling, the more likely they were to have elevated ASD symptoms by 30 months.
The study was published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. (PTI)

WASHINGTON, July 26:  Researchers has developed a new safe, noninvasive method for assessing the function and properties of the gastrointestinal (GI) in real time that could lead to better diagnosis and treatment of gut diseases.
Illnesses such as small bowel bacterial overgrowth, irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease all occur in the intestine and can lead to serious side effects in patients with diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson’s.
Until now, there hasn’t been a good way to functionally image the intestine.
However, researchers demonstrated that through a complementary approach using photo-acoustic imaging and positron emission tomography (PET), they have created a multi-modal functional imaging agent that could be used to perform noninvasive functional imaging of the intestine in real time.
Weibo Cai from the University of Wisconsin-Madison — worked with Jonathan Lovell, from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, and Chulhong Kim, from the Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea.
The team developed a family of nanoparticles that can provide good optical contrast for imaging — yet avoid absorption into the body and withstand the harsh conditions of the stomach and intestine.
Currently, patients drink a chalky liquid called barium and technicians view the intestine through X-rays and ultrasound. These methods, however, have many limitations, including accessibility and the possibility of radiation exposure.
The researchers’ nanoparticles contain bright dyes. Patients still will drink a liquid, but it will contain the nanoparticles and allow an imaging technician to noninvasively view the illuminated intestine with photo-acoustic imaging.
“We can actually see the movement of the intestine in real time,” Lovell said.
Cai and Lovell worked collaboratively to use two imaging techniques.
While photo-acoustic techniques yield high-definition images, PET imaging can penetrate deeper and image the entire body.
Combining the two delivers the most information possible: high-definition images, images deep inside the body and a view of the intestine in relation to the entire body.
So far, the researchers have conducted successful test trials in mice and are hoping to move to human trials soon.
The research was published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. (PTI)

LONDON, July 26:  The dark side of meerkats – which leads them to prevent their daughters from breeding and kill their grandchildren – brings benefits, a new study has found.
Research into the desert creatures – which live in groups with a dominant breeding pair and many adult helpers – shows that the alpha female can flourish when it maintains the sole right to breed.
The study shows how this way of life, also found in many animals such as ants and bees, can prove effective despite its sinister side.
Dominant meerkats control breeding within their group through violence. They banish any other females who reproduce, and kill their grandchildren, to ensure plentiful resources for the alpha pair’s pups.
Scientists studied the impact of giving contraceptive jabs to adult female helpers in 12 groups of meerkats in the Kalahari Desert, to ensure that they could not reproduce for six months.
During this time, dominant females were less aggressive towards helpers and foraged more, gaining more weight and having bigger pups.
The female helper meerkats experienced less violence than usual from the alpha female, and provided more care and food for the pups.
The study, published in Nature Communications, was carried out by the Universities of Edinburgh, Cambridge, Exeter and Pretoria with the Kalahari Meerkat Project in South Africa.
“The meerkat way of life is a paradox, in which alpha females will attack their daughters, banish them from the group and infanticise their offspring,” said Dr Matt Bell, School of Biological Sciences, the University of Edinburgh.
“Our study reveals that dominant animals are worse off when subordinates in their group try to breed – explaining why they brutally suppress others much of the time,” Bell said. (PTI)

WASHINGTON, July 26:  Ancestral exposures to the pesticide methoxychlor may lead to adult onset of kidney disease, ovarian disease and obesity in future generations, scientists say.
“What your great-grandmother was exposed to during pregnancy, like the pesticide methoxychlor, may promote a dramatic increase in your susceptibility to develop disease, and you will pass this on to your grandchildren in the absence of any continued exposures,” said Michael Skinner, Washington State University professor and founder of its Centre for Reproductive Biology.
Methoxychlor – also known as Chemform, Methoxo, Metox or Moxie – was introduced in 1948 and widely used during the 1970s as a safer replacement for DDT.
It was used on crops, ornamental plants, livestock and pets. It is still used in many countries around the world.
It was banned in the US in 2003 due to its toxicity and ability to disrupt endocrine systems. Methoxychlor can behave like the hormone estrogen and profoundly affects the reproductive system.
When Skinner and his colleagues exposed gestating rats to methoxychlor at a range typical of high environmental exposures, they saw increases in the incidence of kidney disease, ovary disease and obesity in offspring spanning three generations.
The incidence of multiple diseases increased in the third generation or “great-grandchildren.”
The researchers said the pesticide may be affecting how genes are turned on and off in the progeny of an exposed animal, even though its DNA and gene sequences remain unchanged. This is called transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.
In recent years, the Skinner lab has documented epigenetic effects from a host of environmental toxicants, including DDT, plastics, pesticides, fungicides, dioxins, hydrocarbons and the plasticizer bisphenol-A or BPA. The newest findings support those observations.
Additionally, the study identified mutations in the sperm epigenome of great-grandchild male rats. The epigenome functions like a set of switches for regulating gene expression and can be altered by environmental conditions.
The epigenetic changes observed were specific to methoxychlor exposure and may prove to be valuable biomarkers for future research on transgenerational disease.
For people exposed to the pesticide, Skinner said his findings have implications such as reduced fertility, increased adult onset disease and the potential to pass on those conditions to subsequent generations.
The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE. (PTI)

WASHINGTON, July 26:  India needs to revitalize its economy to reach the potential as a strategic power across the Asia region and across the globe, a top US official has said.
“For India to be the power and reach the potential as a strategic power across the Asia region, across the globe, its first order of business will be revitalizing its economy,” Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal told lawmakers at a Congressional hearing.
The United States, she said, has a deep interest in partnership with India in that quest and partnering with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in that quest.
“I think that Prime Minister Modi comes in with strong wind at his back from the business community and confidence from the investor community about the plans that he has outlined and the vision that he has outlined for India’s growth,” she told lawmakers on Thursday.
“We think that the US, that American companies will bring a tremendous amount of technology and support to be able to help that, and we look forward to doing that,” she added.
“We also think that as India’s economy rises, that India will be increasingly consequential player across the Asia region, and we think that that is aligned with our interests. We have shared goals and objectives, and we’d like to see that not only do we have shared goals and objectives but that we work closely together in achieving those goals because we will have far greater impact across the region and around the world when we align and work together,” she told.
Biswal said as India seeks to create a defense manufacturing base and as India seeks to modernize its defense sector, the US is going to play a critical role.
“We seek to deepen that partnership, to look for opportunities for co-development and coproduction in that range because as India’s capacity grows, the ability of India to be a force for stability and security across the Asia- Pacific grows as well, and that is something that we very much support,” she said.
Responding to questions, Biswal said Indian investment in the US has resulted in over 100,000 jobs in America.
“That’s a powerful example of the two-way trade and the two-way benefits of this relationship,” she said.
“With respect to skills and higher education, this is a big priority for the Modi government. It is an active area of engagement through our higher education dialogue. We’re looking at not only how US institutions of higher education, our universities can partner with India, both in terms of Indian students studying in the US as well as opportunities to expand access to education in India,” she said.
Assistant Commerce Secretary for Global Markets Arun Kumar said the US is very encouraged by the interests of Indian companies.
“As they go global, they see the US as the best place to invest. They see the US as a place that provides them with a global platform to go to other countries,” he said. (PTI)

MOSCOW, July 26:  A vast crater discovered in a remote region of Siberia known to locals as “the end of the world” is causing a sensation in Russia, with a group of scientists being sent to investigate.
The giant hole in the remote energy-rich Yamalo-Nenetsky region first came to light in a video uploaded to YouTube that has since been viewed more than seven million times.
“The crater is enormous in size — you could fly down into it in several Mi-8s (helicopters) without being afraid of hitting anything,” the person who posted the video, named only as Bulka, wrote.
The crater is located in the permafrost around 30 kilometres from a huge gas field north of the regional capital of Salekhard, roughly 2,000 kilometres northeast of Moscow.
The appearance of the mysterious chasm prompted numerous conspiracy theories and speculation that it may have been caused by something otherworldly, with some even suggesting aliens might be behind it.
Initial theories suggesting the crater was caused by a meteorite, however, were dismissed by scientists.
“This does not stand up to any criticism,” the deputy director of the Oil and Gas Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vasily Bogoyavlensky, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
He said the crater was likely to have been caused by the melting of underground ice in the permafrost, freeing gas that then built up high pressure and broke through to the surface.
“At some point an explosion took place without any flame,” Bogoyavlensky said.
In an effort to discover its mysteries, regional governor Dmitry Kobylkin sent a group of scientists into the tundra where the crater is located in the Yamal peninsula — which translates as “the end of the world”, Interfax reported.
Marina Leibman, chief researcher at the Earth Cryosphere Institute, which studies permafrost, was part the team sent to scour the area.
“A thorough search showed there were no traces of people or machinery” by the crater, Leibman said in a statement released by local authorities.
She said that the crater could not have been caused by a meteorite because there were no traces of burning around the edge.
“It most likely happened when pressure went up in some cavity containing deposits of marsh gas (methane),” she said.
“So far this is just a hypothesis, the least contradictory one. There is no proof,” she cautioned.
Andrei Plekhanov, a senior researcher at the state Scientific Centre for the Study of the Arctic, said the crater has a diameter of around 40 metres on the inside and 60 metres on the outside.
“To measure the depth precisely, you need specialists with serious mountaineering equipment,” he added.
“It’s deadly dangerous to go close because the sides of the raised mound around it constantly cave in,” Plekhanov said, quoted by the regional authorities in a statement.
Scientists measured radioactivity levels and found there was no dangerous radiation. (AGENCIES)

WASHINGTON, July 26:  After the formation of the Narendra Modi government, there is a tremendous mood swing and positivity in the country, a visiting delegation of Indian CEOs from CII said describing its maiden budget as visionary.
The delegation of Indian CEOs from Confederation of Indian Industry in an interaction with the Washington audience at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace yesterday highlighted the growing sense of optimism amongst both the public and industry in India following the recent election results which brought BJP to power with a landslide majority.
Ajay Shriram, CII President described the unique nature of the recent elections, in which the BJP came to power solely on the campaign promise of growth and development, which speaks to the aspirations of India’s young people.
Describing the 2014-15 annual budget as visionary, Shriram commended the new government for moving very actively to ease and facilitate the way business is done in India.
“Success in India will come with leadership, mindset change, philosophy and action,” he said.
In his remarks, Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII also appreciated the government’s vision and receptivity to new ideas and thoughts, especially from industry.
Naushad Forbes, vice president, CII and director, Forbes Marshall Pvt Ltd focused on the promising steps being taken in India’s education sector and the increasing role of the market in this sector which is having a net positive impact on issues related to quality and equity of access.
He also specifically mentioned the community college model in the US as one worth looking at in India as well.
Vikram Kirloskar, vice chairman, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, highlighted the importance of the manufacturing sector and pointed out that the role of industry in this sector related to enhancing quality, competitiveness and innovation.
Rajan Navani, chairman, CII National Committee on India@75 and managing director, Jetline Group of Companies  spoke about the need for India to channelize the power of India’ youth through skilling and leadership development.
He also spoke of the use of technology as a major potential game changer in India.
The wide ranging discussion that followed came at a critical time in India’s engagement with the US, with the resumption of several stalled bilateral dialogues , beginning with the US-India Strategic Dialogue in Delhi next week. (PTI)