TAIPEI, Apr 22: Taiwan plans to purchase four warships from the United States as part of the island’s efforts to modernise its forces against former rival China, local media reported today.
The defence ministry briefed President Ma Ying-jeou on the proposed arms deal during a meeting last month and is prepared to set aside the budget next year, the United Daily News said, without specifying the cost.
The ministry declined to comment on the report.
If finalised, the arms deal will increase to 12 the total number of such warships owned by Taiwanese navy.
The four Perry-class frigates, separately built in the 1980s and to be retired by the US navy lately, are aimed to replace the Taiwan navy’s fleet of eight Knox-class frigates, the daily said.
Tensions between Taiwan and China have eased markedly since President Ma Ying-jeou of the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang party came to power in 2008 on a platform of beefing up trade links and allowing more Chinese tourists to visit.
Ma was re-elected for a second term in January.
China however has still refused to renounce its use of force against Taiwan even though the island has governed itself for more than 60 years after their split in 1949 at the end of a civil war. (Agencies)

LONDON, Apr 22: “Pretty Woman” star Julia Roberts says, as a wedding gift for newly-engaged Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, she will babysit their six children.
Jolie, 36, and Pitt, 48, who have been together since 2005, announced their engagement earlier this month. They raise six children – Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, and twins Knox and Vivienne.
Roberts, 44, who has three children, was delighted to hear the news because she feels she knows what exactly to offer the busy couple as a present, reported Femalefist.
“People are starting to ask me and put pressure on me. Babysitting. Yeah, that’s good. It’s an exciting news. It’s always nice when you’re ready to hitch your wagon for eternity to somebody,” she said. (PTI)

LOS ANGELES, Apr 22: Singer Marc Anthony has reportedly reached out to ex-wife Jennifer Lopez’s first husband Ojani Noa through his lawyer to investigate whether there was a case of infidelity during their seven years of marriage.
Anthony’s attorneys are trying to find out the truth in the allegations that Lopez spent time with Noa while married to Anthony.
Now Anthony’s legal team wants to know the nature of Lopez and Noa’s relationship, reported Ace Showbiz.
“Marc Anthony’s lawyers are following up with allegations that Lopez was seeing Ojani while married to Anthony, before and after the twins were born. Jennifer allegedly would go to Ojani’s Hancock Park house and spend time with him, without Marc’s knowledge,” a source said.
“Noa would be asked to provide financial information and records related to Lopez because Anthony believes Lopez has money in offshore accounts. Ojani has extensive records still relating to his time with Jennifer. It seems that Marc is going after her money and it’s looking like this could be a divorce battle royale,” the source added.
Lopez, 42, is now dating dancer Casper Smart. (PTI)

TEHRAN, Apr 22: A senior Iranian commander says the country has reverse-engineered an American spy drone captured by Tehran’s armed forces last year and has begun building a copy.
Gen Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who is chief of the aerospace division of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, was quoted today by the semi-official Mehr news agency as saying that experts are also recovering data from the US RQ-170 Sentinel captured in December in eastern Iran.
US officials have acknowledged losing the drone. They have said Iran will find it hard to exploit any data and technology aboard it because of measures taken to limit the intelligence value of drones operating over hostile territory. (Agencies)

LOS ANGELES, Apr 22: Troubled star Lindsay Lohan’s father Michael has come out to defend his daughter after she was accused of entering into a brawl with another clubber.
Michael said that his daughter was subjected to cruel taunts prior to the incident, reported TMZ.
He said that the quarrel began when the girl made fun of the actress for taking her father on a night out, and then he was forced to call security.
Lindsay had a drink thrown over her by an unnamed woman at Los Angeles’ nightclub Smoke and Mirrors, while she was enjoying an evening out with her dad.
“There were some people dancing around her and people trying to get to her and I was keeping them away. I heard commotion behind me. And the girl said something and Lindsay cursed and the other girl threw a drink at her and that was it,” said Michael.
“I grabbed Lindsay, I held the other girl back and told security to get her out right away… (The girl said) ‘What are you doing here with your father?’” he said.
Asked if there was a physical fight between the pair, he said, “Absolutely not, there was no contact whatsoever. I’m not out here often, so I don’t get a chance to see her and it’s horrible that I had to be brought into this situation like this.” (PTI)

NEW YORK, Apr 22: Citigroup’s India-born CEO Vikram Pandit and its directors have been sued by a shareholder, saying that the board spent funds in an “unwarranted and excessive” manner on compensation packages for its executives.
The lawsuit was filed on April 20 in Manhattan Federal Court by Citigroup shareholder Stanley Moskal, who said Pandit and other Citi directors breached their fiduciary duties by awarding more than USD 54 million in compensation to the executives in 2011, a year when the bank had an “extremely disappointing” performance.
“This is a failed ‘say on pay’ shareholder derivative action, arising from the Board’s unwarranted and excessive spending of company (ie stockholders’) funds on executive compensation—namely, the Board’s recent authorisation of excessive 2011 compensation for executives who have presided over extremely disappointing company performance,” the lawsuit said.
It added that of the total USD 54 million of compensation awarded to top Citigroup executives in 2011, USD 14.9 million was for Pandit, a “raise of 1,499,999,900 per cent over his 2010 compensation.”
Pandit was paid USD 15 million in 2011, which included a base salary of USD 1.7 million and a cash bonus of USD 5.3 million.    At the height of the financial crisis, he had taken an annual salary of just USD 1 for most of 2009 and 2010.
Citigroup plans to get the suit dismissed saying it is baseless.
The suit came just days after Citi’s shareholders rejected a proposal on executive compensation at the bank’s annual meeting.
It is filed under the “say on pay” provision of the Dodd Frank reform act which gives shareholders the right to vote on executive pay.
In the April 17 vote at Citi’s annual shareholder meeting in Dallas, 55 per cent of shareholders voted against the proposal on executive compensation, which included approving Pandit’s USD 15 million pay package.
The vote “cast doubt on the board’s decision-making process, as well as the accuracy and truthfulness of its public statements”, the complaint said, adding, “Absent this (lawsuit), the majority will of the company’s stockholders shall be rendered meaningless.”
With the financial crisis eating into profits and revenues of firms and resulting in large scale lay-offs, there has been outrage among people over the millions of dollars of bonus and pay packages that Wall Street firms have doled out to their executives. (PTI)

LONDON, Apr 22: Scientists have discovered a faulty gene linked to breast cancer in women that also increases the risk of prostate cancer in men four-fold, a finding they say could lead to early detection of tumours in the gland of male reproductive system.
Researchers from The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust in the UK found that men with BRCA1 gene have a one in 11 chance of developing prostate cancer by the age of 65.
It has already been established that the BRCA1 gene ups the chance of developing breast cancer by five folds, meaning women with BRCA1 have six in ten chance of developing the disease as compared to one in eight chance for healthy women. This gene has also been associated with ovarian cancer.
The new findings could help detect whether men with family history of either cancer are carrying a faulty BRCA1 gene so their health can be monitored from an early age, the researchers said.
Study author Prof Ros Eeles, from The Institute of Cancer Research, said: “Until now there has been some doubt as to whether mutations in the BRCA1 gene increase the risk of prostate cancer.”
“This large study has shown that men with prostate cancer have a one in 200 chance of having an alteration of this gene and men with this alteration have a 3.8 fold increased risk of developing the disease,” Prof Eeles was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph.
“This translates as nearly nine per cent risk of prostate cancer by the age of 65. The important thing about this result is that there are drugs that can target specific defects that occur with the BRCA1 mutation and this kind of result can open up the possibility of targeted medicines based on genetics.”
In the study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, 913 men underwent genetic screening, with results obtained from 886 and four men were found to have alterations in BRCA1. Three out of those four men were diagnosed with prostate cancer before the age of 65. (PTI)

WASHINGTON, Apr 22: India and other members of BRICS grouping have agreed to establish a task force to come up with recommendations to set up a developmental bank, a move that has received “good vibrations” from the World Bank and IMF.
“The fact that there would be a task force to elaborate on the proposal for a BRICS-led developmental bank has been agreed upon. We are all very enthusiastic about this,” Kaushik Basu, the Chief Economic Advisor to the Finance Ministry, told in an interview.
There will be both policymakers from BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and experts who will partake in this, he said.
“The exact structure of such a task force or experts group will soon be worked out,” Basu said, referring to the decisions made by the BRICS Finance Ministers when they met here on sidelines of the annual Spring meeting of the World Bank and the IMF.
“I have to say, contrary to earlier BRICS meetings, this time it was evident that all five countries are very enthusiastic about the importance of the new development bank. On this even from the World Bank and the IMF we have received good vibrations—I have had conversations with several leaders of the Bank and the Fund,” Basu said.
They recognise that today’s global economy is so large that another new development bank does not really take away from any existing bank; “there is space for much more; indeed there is need for much more,” he noted. (PTI)_

LONDON, Apr 22: Being engaged in mundane household chores like cooking, cleaning and washing dishes could help reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease even in those over 80 years of age, a new study has claimed.
The study, which was published in the journal Neurology, included 716 dementia-free men and women in their 70s and 80s who had to wear a device to monitor their daily activities. They were also given cognitive tests to measure memory and thinking ability.
After around three years, 71 of the volunteers developed Alzheimer’s disease, and it was found that the least active were more than twice as likely to develop the disease as those who were most active, the Daily Mail reported.
“The results of our study indicate that all physical activities including exercise as well as other activities such as cooking, washing the dishes, and cleaning are associated with a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease,” said study author Dr Aron Buchman of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
“These results provide support for efforts to encourage all types of physical activity even in very old adults who might not be able to participate in formal exercise, but can still benefit from a more active lifestyle.”
Dr Anne Corbett at the Alzheimer’s Society said: “It is well established that regular physical exercise is an important way to reduce your risk of developing dementia.
“It can reduce the risk by up to 45 per cent. This study adds to this evidence and suggests that simple things like cooking and cleaning can also make a difference.
“One in three people over 65 will die with dementia, but as this shows, there are things you can do to help reduce your risk. It is important to maintain a healthy weight and stop smoking.
“Eating a Mediterranean diet high in antioxidants and oily fish and even the odd glass of red wine can also help.”
Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at the charity Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “While the study highlights an association between physical activity and cognitive decline, more research is needed to explore this relationship further.” (PTI)

CARACAS, Apr 22: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been out of sight for a week, speaking only through Twitter messages and written statements while undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba.
The lack of any appearances on television has left Venezuelans wondering about what his unusual silence might say about his struggle with cancer, and whether Chavez may be coping with a particularly tough phase of radiation therapy.
More than 30 messages have appeared on Chavez’s Twitter account since he left for Cuba on April 14. He has cheered on supporters with slogans such as “Let’s continue building socialism!”
In others, he has praised his military commanders, announced funding for local governments and vowed to survive and win re-election in October. But he has seldom mentioned his cancer treatment.
National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello reiterated on Friday that Chavez is expected to return to Venezuela soon.
“God willing, next week he’ll be here again with us once he has finished the treatment,” Cabello said in a televised speech.
He insisted that even when Chavez is away in Cuba, “he leads just the same as if he were here in Venezuela.”
“The commander’s presence here isn’t necessary, because just the same he’s the commander of the revolution,” Cabello said.
But even some of Chavez’s supporters have been saying recently that they wonder what’s going on with his health.
“It makes me sad, but my Comandante must not be as well as they say,” said Guillermo Suarez, a street vendor selling sunglasses. “It’s already been many days that we haven’t seen him, heard him.” (AGENCIES)