Anna Hazare to campaign only for Kejriwal's party

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BHUBANESWAR: Social activist Anna Hazare on Saturday said he will campaign only for candidates put up by Arvind Kejriwal and ruled out the possibility of supporting people from other parties.

"I will campaign only for Kejriwal's candidates," Hazare told reporters here. "There may be good people in other parties but who has the control?"

Criticizing other political parties for indulging in politics in the name of caste and communities, the 75-year-old activist also accused them of practicing unfair means to collect donations.

He said other political parties collected huge donations from vested interests and corporates but break them into amounts less than Rs 20,000 to hide the identities of the donors.

He also accused political parties of being controlled by individuals.

"I know Kejriwal. He has not done anything for himself. He is doing everything for the country," Hazare said, reiterating that he will however examine the candidates and back them only the deserving ones.

"I will check them. If they are found to be good, if they are proper candidates, I will campaign for those candidates," he said.

The India Against Corruption founder is on a three-day Odisha visit since Thursday. He addressed students, farmers and others.

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Photos: Kilauea Lava Reaches the Sea

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Could Outgoing Republicans Hold Keys to 'Cliff' Deal?

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Nov 30, 2012 1:45pm







ap obama boehner lt 121124 main Could Outgoing Republicans Hold Keys to Fiscal Cliff?

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster


The outlook for reaching some sort of bipartisan agreement on the so-called “fiscal cliff” before the Dec. 31 deadline is looking increasingly grim. Shortly after noon today, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, appeared before the cameras to say the talks had reached a “stalemate.”


But there may be a glimmer of hope. There are currently 33 outgoing members of Congress — they’re either retiring or were defeated last month — who have signed the Grover Norquist pledge stating that they will not raise taxes. Those members, particularly the ones who have traditionally been somewhat moderate, could hold the key to that stance softening.


“You have 33 people who do not have to worry about the future political consequences of their vote,” said ABC political director Amy Walter. “These are people who theoretically can vote based purely on the issue rather than on how it will impact their political future.”


One outgoing member has publicly indicated a willingness to join with Obama and the Democrats on a partial deal.


“I have to say that if you’re going to sign me up with a camp, I like what Tom Cole has to say,” California Republican Rep. Mary Bono Mack said on CNN on Thursday. Cole is the Republican who suggested that his party vote to extend the Bush tax-rates for everyone but the highest income earners and leave the rest of the debate for later. Mack’s husband, Connie, however, also an outgoing Republican member of Congress, said he disagreed with his wife.


But in general, among the outgoing Republican representatives with whom ABC News has made contact, the majority have been vague as to whether or not they still feel bound by the pledge, and whether they would be willing to raise tax rates.


“[Congressman Jerry Lewis] has always been willing to listen to any proposals, but there isn’t,” a spokesman for Rep. Lewis, Calif., told ABC News. “He’s said the pledge was easy because it goes along with his philosophy that increasing tax doesn’t solve any problems. However, he’s always been willing to listen to proposals.”


“Congressman Burton has said that he does not vote for tax increases,” a spokesman for Dan Burton, Ind., said to ABC.


“With Representative Herger retiring, we are leaving this debate to returning members and members-elect,” an aide for Wally Herger, Calif., told ABC News.


The majority of Congress members will likely wait until a deal is on the table to show their hand either way. However, it stands to reason that if any members of Congress are going to give in and agree to raise taxes, these would be the likely candidates.


An agreement will require both sides to make some concessions: Republicans will need to agree to some tax increases, Democrats will need to agree to some spending cuts. With Republicans and Democrats appearing to be digging further into their own, very separate territories, the big question is, which side will soften first?










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Putin's "health issue" sees Japan PM cancel visit

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TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has cancelled a planned visit to Russia next month due to a "health issue" affecting President Vladimir Putin, media reports and a government source said on Friday.

The mayor of a northern Japanese city said Noda had explained the reasons for the cancellation to him during a meeting in Tokyo Friday, Jiji Press and Kyodo news agencies reported.

Kyodo said the mayor quoted Noda as saying "President Putin's health condition is bad".

Noda, who is facing a December election widely expected to see him lose his job, met with Nemuro City mayor Shunsuke Hasegawa to talk about the Russian-controlled Kuril islands, the source of a long-standing territorial dispute between Moscow and Tokyo.

A Japanese government source told AFP that Russian officials had informed their Japanese counterparts the leaders' planned meeting would have to be cancelled due to Putin's unspecified health problem.

A spokesman for Noda on Friday declined to confirm the prime minister's reported remarks to the mayor or that health reasons were behind the cancelled trip, which had been scheduled in September.

According to Russian media reports, Putin has recently postponed a number of foreign trips and largely stayed at his suburban Moscow government retreat after aggravating a sports injury.

The Kremlin had insisted there had been no change to his schedule.

Russia said Wednesday Putin would visit Turkey next week after postponing the trip last month.

- AFP/ir



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Anna Hazare alleges arrested Maharashtra MLA getting 'five-star' treatment

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AHMEDNAGAR: Anna Hazare has alleged that MLA Suresh Jain, who was arrested in connection with the Jalgaon Housing scam, was getting "five-star" treatment and demanded an inquiry against jail authorities.

Hazare wrote a letter to this effect to additional commissioner of police Meera Borwankar, before leaving for Odisha tour on Wednesday, Anna's close aide advocate Shyam Asawa said here on Friday.

Hazare said in the letter that Jain was denied bail by the high court. After being arrested on March 12, 2012, Jain has been trying to spend maximum time in hospitals and not in prison.

Jain was brought to Arthur Road jail in Mumbai on November 3, but was immediately admitted to Saint George Hospital where he is getting five-star treatment. Some jail authorities are managing these comforts for Jain, Hazare alleged in the letter and demanded an inquiry against them.

Asawa said the Bhrashtachar Virodhi Jan Andolan, of which he is a trustee, will seek legal action against the special treatment being provided to the accused.

Jain, who was a minister for housing during the Shiv Sena-BJP rule in the 1990s, had been arrested for allegedly favouring a builder and indulging in irregularities to the tune of Rs 29 crore.

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Pictures: Inside the World's Most Powerful Laser

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Photograph courtesy Damien Jemison, LLNL

Looking like a portal to a science fiction movie, preamplifiers line a corridor at the U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF).

Preamplifiers work by increasing the energy of laser beams—up to ten billion times—before these beams reach the facility's target chamber.

The project's lasers are tackling "one of physics' grand challenges"—igniting hydrogen fusion fuel in the laboratory, according to the NIF website. Nuclear fusion—the merging of the nuclei of two atoms of, say, hydrogen—can result in a tremendous amount of excess energy. Nuclear fission, by contrast, involves the splitting of atoms.

This July, California-based NIF made history by combining 192 laser beams into a record-breaking laser shot that packed over 500 trillion watts of peak power-a thousand times more power than the entire United States uses at any given instant.

"This was a quantum leap for laser technology around the world," NIF director Ed Moses said in September. But some critics of the $5 billion project wonder why the laser has yet to ignite a fusion chain reaction after three-and-a-half years in operation. Supporters counter that such groundbreaking science simply can't be rushed.

(Related: "Fusion Power a Step Closer After Giant Laser Blast.")

—Brian Handwerk

Published November 29, 2012

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Man Arrested in Fla. Girl's 1993 Disappearance

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Police have arrested a 42-year-old man and charged him with murder in the case of a Florida girl who vanished almost 20 years ago.


Andrea Gail Parsons, 10, of Port Salerno, Fla., was last seen on July 11, 1993, shortly after 6 p.m. She had just purchased candy and soda at a grocery store when she waved to a local couple as they drove by on an area street and honked, police said.


Today, Martin County Sheriff's Department officials arrested Chester Duane Price, 42, who recently lived in Haleyville, Ala., and charged him with first-degree murder and kidnapping of a child under the age of 13, after he was indicted by a grand jury.


Price was acquainted with Andrea at the time of her disappearance, and also knew another man police once eyed as a potential suspect, officials told ABC News affiliate WPBF in West Palm Beach, Fla.






Handout/Martin County Sheriff's Office







"The investigation has concluded that Price abducted and killed Andrea Gail Parsons," read a sheriff's department news release. "Tragically, at this time, her body has not been recovered."


The sheriff's department declined to specify what evidence led to Price's arrest for the crime after 19 years or to provide details to ABCNews.com beyond the prepared news release.


Reached by phone, a sheriff's department spokeswoman said she did not know whether Price was yet represented by a lawyer.


Price was being held at the Martin County Jail without bond and was scheduled to make his first court appearance via video link at 10:30 a.m. Friday.


In its news release, the sheriff's department cited Price's "extensive criminal history with arrests dating back to 1991" that included arrests for cocaine possession, assault, sale of controlled substance, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and violation of domestic violence injunction.


"The resolve to find Andrea and get answers surrounding the circumstances of her disappearance has never wavered as detectives and others assigned have dedicated their careers to piecing this puzzle together," Martin County Sheriff Robert L. Crowder said in a prepared statement. "In 2011, I assigned a team of detectives, several 'fresh sets of eyes,' to begin another review of the high-volume of evidence that had been previously collected in this case."


A flyer dating from the time of Andrea's disappearance, and redistributed by the sheriff's office after the arrest, described her as 4-foot-11 with hazel eyes and brown hair. She was last seen wearing blue jean shorts, a dark shirt and clear plastic sandals, according to the flyer.


The sheriff's department became involved in the case after Andrea's mother, Linda Parsons, returned home from work around 10 p.m. on July 11, 1993, to find her daughter missing and called police, according to the initial sheriff's report.



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High-powered ‘Fix the Debt’ group draws attention, scrutiny in Washington

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In the discussions about the “fiscal cliff” consuming Washington, a powerful new group stands out, touting the virtue of bipartisanship and shared sacrifice.


The business leaders who set up the Campaign to Fix the Debt appear nearly every day on network talk shows and have won coveted time with President Obama in pushing for increased tax revenue, reduced government spending, and changes to Social Security and Medicare. The group’s leaders met Wednesday with lawmakers on Capitol Hill and returned, yet again, to the White House.

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Abbas seeks historic state backing at UN

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UNITED NATIONS: Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas will head to the General Assembly on Thursday with huge backing for his bid for UN recognition of statehood despite strong US and Israeli opposition.

Abbas will make the case for Palestine to become a UN "non-member observer state" and indicate his conditions for talks with Israel in a key speech to the 193-member assembly.

The Palestinian leadership is determined to make the 65th anniversary of a UN resolution on the division of Palestinian territory a "historic" landmark of their efforts to set up an independent state.

The United States, a staunch ally of Israel, has launched an aggressive campaign against the bid, warning that the vote will do nothing to improve the prospects for new peace talks aimed at ending the decades-long conflict.

US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Middle East envoy David Hale met with Abbas at his New York hotel on Wednesday but failed to get the resolution withdrawn or amended, officials said.

"It would be like changing my name," Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki told reporters when asked if the Palestinians were ready to change their request.

Abbas also held talks with a host of ministers and top diplomats in the day before his speech, including Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who pledged his country's support, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Much attention will be focused on the number of countries that back the observer state status. The Palestinians say 132 countries recognize their state bilaterally.

Some of those are expected to abstain, however. And some, such as France and other European nations, are expected to vote in favor even though they have not formally recognized a Palestinian state.

Canada has said it will join the United States in opposing the resolution. Only two European countries, Germany and the Czech Republic, are expected to vote against.

Britain announced it would abstain unless the Palestinians pledged not to seek an International Criminal Court (ICC) case against Israel and promised an immediate return to negotiations with the Jewish state.

The recent Israeli military onslaught against rocket attacks from Gaza could increase support for the Palestinians, diplomats said.

But several European countries, including some backing the bid, believe the Palestinians should have waited until after US President Barack Obama installed his new administration and Israel held elections, diplomats said.

The foreign ministers of Canada, Turkey, Jordan and Indonesia are to speak at the General Assembly meeting starting at 2000 GMT.

Success will give the Palestinians access to UN agencies and treaties and allow them to apply to join the ICC - a prospect that worries Israel.

Senior Palestine Liberation Organization official Hanan Ashrawi said Abbas resisted "intensive pressure" to make concessions on the ICC.

Palestinian envoys have said Abbas will not rush to join the court but could use it if Israel does not change its policies on settlements and other matters.

The United States blocked the application for full membership of the United Nations that Abbas made in September 2011.

The United States and Israel say a Palestinian state can only emerge from direct negotiations, which have been frozen since September 2010.

"We have made very clear to the Palestinian leadership that we oppose Palestinian efforts to upgrade their status at the UN outside of the framework" of talks with Israel, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

The Palestinian Authority and UN agencies that admit the Palestinians could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in financing because of the vote. US law prohibits funding for any international body recognising a Palestinian state.

Washington has warned Abbas he risks losing around $200 million in aid, which is currently blocked in the US Congress.

Israel is considering freezing the transfer of tax and customs funds it collects for the Palestinians, while one Israeli foreign ministry policy paper even suggested "toppling" the Palestinian Authority.

But ministry spokeswoman Ilana Stein said Israel would most likely not take any punitive measures unless the Palestinians used the upgrade "as a platform for confrontation" at the ICC.

"Israel's reaction to the Palestinian move depends on what they choose to do. If they use this resolution as a platform for confrontation, we will have to act accordingly," Stein said.

- AFP/de



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Caterpillar Fungus Has Anti-Inflammatory Properties

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In the Tibetan mountains, a fungus attaches itself to a moth larva burrowed in the soil. It infects and slowly consumes its host from within, taking over its brain and making the young caterpillar move to a position from which the fungus can grow and spore again.

Sounds like something out of science fiction, right? But for ailing Chinese consumers and nomadic Tibetan harvesters, the parasite called cordyceps means hope—and big money. Chinese markets sell the "golden worm," or "Tibetan mushroom"—thought to cure ailments from cancer to asthma to erectile dysfunction—for up to $50,000 (U.S.) per pound. Patients, following traditional medicinal practices, brew the fungal-infected caterpillar in tea or chew it raw.

Now the folk medicine is getting scientific backing. A new study published in the journal RNA finds that cordycepin, a chemical derived from the caterpillar fungus, has anti-inflammatory properties.

"Inflammation is normally a beneficial response to a wound or infection, but in diseases like asthma it happens too fast and to too high of an extent," said study co-author Cornelia H. de Moor of the University of Nottingham. "When cordycepin is present, it inhibits that response strongly."

And it does so in a way not previously seen: at the mRNA stage, where it inhibits polyadenylation. That means it stops swelling at the genetic cellular level—a novel anti-inflammatory approach that could lead to new drugs for cancer, asthma, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and cardiovascular-disease patients who don't respond well to current medications.

From Worm to Pill

But such new drugs may be a long way off. The science of parasitic fungi is still in its early stages, and no medicine currently available utilizes cordycepin as an anti-inflammatory. The only way a patient could gain its benefits would by consuming wild-harvested mushrooms.

De Moor cautions against this practice. "I can't recommend taking wild-harvested medications," she says. "Each sample could have a completely different dose, and there are mushrooms where [taking] a single bite will kill you."

Today 96 percent of the world's caterpillar-fungus harvest comes from the high Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayan range. Fungi from this region are of the subspecies Ophiocordyceps sinensis, locally known as yartsa gunbu ("summer grass, winter worm"). While highly valued in Chinese traditional medicine, these fungi have relatively low levels of cordycepin. What's more, they grow only at elevations of 10,000 to 16,500 feet and cannot be farmed. All of which makes yartsa gunbu costly for Chinese consumers: A single fungal-infected caterpillar can fetch $30.

Brave New Worm

Luckily for researchers, and for potential consumers, another rare species of caterpillar fungus, Cordyceps militaris, is capable of being farmed—and even cultivated to yield much higher levels of cordycepin.

De Moor says that's not likely to discourage Tibetan harvesters, many of whom make a year's salary in just weeks by finding and selling yartsa gunbu. Scientific proof of cordycepin's efficacy will only increase demand for the fungus, which could prove dangerous. "With cultivation we have a level of quality control that's missing in the wild," says de Moor.

"There is definitely some truth somewhere in certain herbal medicinal traditions, if you look hard enough," says de Moor. "But ancient healers probably wouldn't notice a 10 percent mortality rate resulting from herbal remedies. In the scientific world, that's completely unacceptable." If you want to be safe, she adds, "wait for the medicine."

Ancient Chinese medical traditions—which also use ground tiger bones as a cure for insomnia, elephant ivory for religious icons, and rhinoceros horns to dispel fevers—are controversial but popular. Such remedies remain in demand regardless of scientific advancement—and endangered animals continue to be killed in order to meet that demand. While pills using cordycepin from farmed fungus might someday replace yartsa gunbu harvesting, tigers, elephants, and rhinos are disappearing much quicker than worms.


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