State Department made "grievous mistake" over Benghazi: Senate report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department made a "grievous mistake" in keeping the U.S. mission in Benghazi open despite inadequate security and increasingly alarming threat assessments in the weeks before a deadly attack by militants, a Senate committee said on Monday.

A report from the Senate Homeland Security Committee on the September 11 attacks on the U.S. mission and a nearby CIA annex, in which the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans died, faulted intelligence agencies for not focusing tightly enough on Libyan extremists.

It also faulted the State Department for waiting for specific warnings instead of improving security.

The committee's assessment, "Flashing Red: A Special Report On The Terrorist Attack At Benghazi," follows a scathing report by an independent State Department accountability review board that resulted in a top security official resigning and three others at the department being relieved of their duties.

Joseph Lieberman, an independent senator who chairs the committee, said that in thousands of documents it reviewed, there was no indication that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had personally denied a request for extra funding or security for the Benghazi mission. He said key decisions were made by "midlevel managers" who have since been held accountable.

Republican Senator Susan Collins said it was likely that others needed to be held accountable, but that decision was best made by the Secretary of State, who has the best understanding "of how far up the chain of command the request for additional security went."

The attacks and the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens put diplomatic security practices at posts in risky areas under scrutiny and raised questions about whether intelligence on militant activity in the region was adequate.

The Senate report said the lack of specific intelligence of an imminent threat in Benghazi "may reflect a failure" by intelligence agencies to focus closely enough on militant groups with weak or no operational ties to al Qaeda and its affiliates.

"With Osama bin Laden dead and core al Qaeda weakened, a new collection of violent Islamist extremist organizations and cells have emerged in the last two to three years," the report said. That trend has been seen in the "Arab Spring" countries undergoing political transition or military conflict, it said.

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The report recommended that U.S. intelligence agencies "broaden and deepen their focus in Libya and beyond, on nascent violent Islamist extremist groups in the region that lack strong operational ties to core al Qaeda or its main affiliate groups."

Neither the Senate report nor the unclassified accountability review board report pinned blame for the Benghazi attack on a specific militant group. The FBI is investigating who was behind the assaults.

President Barack Obama, in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, said the United States had "very good leads" about who carried out the attacks. He did not provide details.

The Senate committee said the State Department should not have waited for specific warnings before acting on improving security in Benghazi.

It also said it was widely known that the post-revolution Libyan government was "incapable of performing its duty to protect U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel," but the State Department failed to fill the security gap.

"Despite the inability of the Libyan government to fulfill its duties to secure the facility, the increasingly dangerous threat assessments, and a particularly vulnerable facility, the Department of State officials did not conclude the facility in Benghazi should be closed or temporarily shut down," the report said. "That was a grievous mistake."

The Senate panel reviewed changing comments made by the Obama administration after the attack, which led to a political firestorm in the run-up to the November presidential election and resulted in U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice withdrawing her name from consideration to replace Clinton, who is stepping down early next year.

Rice had said her initial comments that the attack grew out of a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam film were based on talking points provided by intelligence agencies.

Lieberman said it was not the job of intelligence agencies to formulate unclassified talking points and they should decline such requests in the future.

The report said the original talking points included a line saying "we know" that individuals associated with al Qaeda or its affiliates participated in the attacks. But the final version had been changed to say: "There are indications that extremists participated," and the reference to al Qaeda and its affiliates was deleted.

The report said that while James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, had offered to provide the committee with a detailed chronology of how the talking points were written and evolved, this had still not been delivered to Capitol Hill because the administration had spent weeks "debating internally" whether or not it should turn over information considered "deliberative" to Congress.

(Editing by Warren Strobel and David Brunnstrom)

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Oil prices rise on US cliff deal hopes

NEW YORK: Oil prices surged higher on Monday after US politicians signaled a last-minute compromise deal was in view to avert driving the economy over a fiscal cliff toward recession.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, gained $1.02 from Friday to close at $91.82 a barrel.

Brent North Sea crude for February settled at $111.11 a barrel, up 49 cents.

Over the year, New York's West Texas Intermediate fell 7 percent from the last day of trade in 2011, while Brent rose 3 percent.

Oil prices earlier had been under pressure amid US political deadlock on a bipartisan deficit reduction deal that would avoid the cliff of automatic sharp tax hikes and spending cuts due to begin taking effect at midnight.

Oil prices surged after President Barack Obama, in a nationally televised statement from the White House, said an agreement to prevent the tax hike is "within sight."

"The market experienced significant volatility during Obama's comments on fiscal negotiations and ended up closing near today's highs," BMO Capital Markets analysts wrote in a market note.

"People are getting optimistic about the fiscal cliff," said Michael Lynch of Strategic Energy and Economic Research.

"They feel that if even it is not done tonight it will be done in the next day or so, so that there won't be any serious negative impact on the economy."

Lynch said that positive news in China, the world's biggest energy consumer and driver of global growth, also was making the oil market bullish.

China's manufacturing activity surged to a 19-month high in December, British bank HSBC said Monday, a further sign of stronger growth in the world's second-largest economy.

HSBC's purchasing managers' index (PMI) rose to 51.5, up from 50.5 in November, the first month of growth after a solid year of contraction.

- AFP/de

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80 witnesses in chargesheet

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police files around 500 chargesheets in rape cases every year, but the first one of 2013 will be their most elaborate ever. With the world's attention now on the Nirbhaya rape and torture case, police cannot afford to go wrong and the 1,000-page document is likely to include statements of close to 80 witnesses, besides crucial forensic reports. The statements of the 23-year-old victim and her male friend are expected to strengthen the police's case.

Sources say the draft of the chargesheet is almost ready and the final challan will be filed this week. The investigating officer is waiting for the postmortem report from Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore which will be the most important evidence in the case. Liaison officers of the Indian High Commission in Singapore are working to have it sent quickly.

A team comprising four inspectors, two ACPs and the DCP (South) is working to finalize the chargesheet after getting it approved by legal experts. While police hope to meet their January 3 (commitment) for submission, it could be delayed till Saturday.

Among the 80 witnesses quoted in the chargesheet are police officers, including PCR officials, Vasant Vihar police station staff and the investigating officer who attended to Nirbhaya and registered the FIR, around 10 doctors of Safdarjung Hospital who looked after her for 11 days, three doctors of Mount Elizabeth Hospital, where she breathed her last, and her parents. The evidence includes DNA reports, forensic reports of clothes worn by the accused, results of the test identification parade, the bar used to hit the victims, the bus used in the crime, fingerprint reports etc.

The chargesheet, with a 30-page operative part, will detail the role of five accused and a separate report will be sent to the Juvenile Justice Board for the trial of the minor involved in the case.

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AP IMPACT: Big Pharma cashes in on HGH abuse

A federal crackdown on illicit foreign supplies of human growth hormone has failed to stop rampant misuse, and instead has driven record sales of the drug by some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The crackdown, which began in 2006, reduced the illegal flow of unregulated supplies from China, India and Mexico.

But since then, Big Pharma has been satisfying the steady desires of U.S. users and abusers, including many who take the drug in the false hope of delaying the effects of aging.

From 2005 to 2011, inflation-adjusted sales of HGH were up 69 percent, according to an AP analysis of pharmaceutical company data collected by the research firm IMS Health. Sales of the average prescription drug rose just 12 percent in that same period.

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EDITOR'S NOTE — Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the second of a two-part series.

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Unlike other prescription drugs, HGH may be prescribed only for specific uses. U.S. sales are limited by law to treat a rare growth defect in children and a handful of uncommon conditions like short bowel syndrome or Prader-Willi syndrome, a congenital disease that causes reduced muscle tone and a lack of hormones in sex glands.

The AP analysis, supplemented by interviews with experts, shows too many sales and too many prescriptions for the number of people known to be suffering from those ailments. At least half of last year's sales likely went to patients not legally allowed to get the drug. And U.S. pharmacies processed nearly double the expected number of prescriptions.

Peddled as an elixir of life capable of turning middle-aged bodies into lean machines, HGH — a synthesized form of the growth hormone made naturally by the human pituitary gland — winds up in the eager hands of affluent, aging users who hope to slow or even reverse the aging process.

Experts say these folks don't need the drug, and may be harmed by it. The supposed fountain-of-youth medicine can cause enlargement of breast tissue, carpal tunnel syndrome and swelling of hands and feet. Ironically, it also can contribute to aging ailments like heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

Others in the medical establishment also are taking a fat piece of the profits — doctors who fudge prescriptions, as well as pharmacists and distributors who are content to look the other way. HGH also is sold directly without prescriptions, as new-age snake oil, to patients at anti-aging clinics that operate more like automated drug mills.

Years of raids, sports scandals and media attention haven't stopped major drugmakers from selling a whopping $1.4 billion worth of HGH in the U.S. last year. That's more than industry-wide annual gross sales for penicillin or prescription allergy medicine. Anti-aging HGH regimens vary greatly, with a yearly cost typically ranging from $6,000 to $12,000 for three to six self-injections per week.

Across the U.S., the medication is often dispensed through prescriptions based on improper diagnoses, carefully crafted to exploit wiggle room in the law restricting use of HGH, the AP found.

HGH is often promoted on the Internet with the same kind of before-and-after photos found in miracle diet ads, along with wildly hyped claims of rapid muscle growth, loss of fat, greater vigor, and other exaggerated benefits to adults far beyond their physical prime. Sales also are driven by the personal endorsement of celebrities such as actress Suzanne Somers.

Pharmacies that once risked prosecution for using unauthorized, foreign HGH — improperly labeled as raw pharmaceutical ingredients and smuggled across the border — now simply dispense name brands, often for the same banned uses. And usually with impunity.

Eight companies have been granted permission to market HGH by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which reviews the benefits and risks of new drug products. By contrast, three companies are approved for the diabetes drug insulin.

The No. 1 maker, Roche subsidiary Genentech, had nearly $400 million in HGH sales in the U.S. last year, up an inflation-adjusted two-thirds from 2005. Pfizer and Eli Lilly were second and third with $300 million and $220 million in sales, respectively, according to IMS Health. Pfizer now gets more revenue from its HGH brand, Genotropin, than from Zoloft, its well-known depression medicine that lost patent protection.

On their face, the numbers make no sense to the recognized hormone doctors known as endocrinologists who provide legitimate HGH treatment to a small number of patients.

Endocrinologists estimate there are fewer than 45,000 U.S. patients who might legitimately take HGH. They would be expected to use roughly 180,000 prescriptions or refills each year, given that typical patients get three months' worth of HGH at a time, according to doctors and distributors.

Yet U.S. pharmacies last year supplied almost twice that much HGH — 340,000 orders — according to AP's analysis of IMS Health data.

While doctors say more than 90 percent of legitimate patients are children with stunted growth, 40 percent of 442 U.S. side-effect cases tied to HGH over the last year involved people age 18 or older, according to an AP analysis of FDA data. The average adult's age in those cases was 53, far beyond the prime age for sports. The oldest patients were in their 80s.

Some of these medical records even give explicit hints of use to combat aging, justifying treatment with reasons like fatigue, bone thinning and "off-label," which means treatment of an unapproved condition

Even Medicare, the government health program for older Americans, allowed 22,169 HGH prescriptions in 2010, a five-year increase of 78 percent, according to data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in response to an AP public records request.

"There's no question: a lot gets out," said hormone specialist Dr. Mark Molitch of Northwestern University, who helped write medical standards meant to limit HGH treatment to legitimate patients.

And those figures don't include HGH sold directly by doctors without prescriptions at scores of anti-aging medical practices and clinics around the country. Those numbers could only be tallied by drug makers, who have declined to say how many patients they supply and for what conditions.

First marketed in 1985 for children with stunted growth, HGH was soon misappropriated by adults intent on exploiting its modest muscle- and bone-building qualities. Congress limited HGH distribution to the handful of rare conditions in an extraordinary 1990 law, overriding the generally unrestricted right of doctors to prescribe medicines as they see fit.

Despite the law, illicit HGH spread around the sports world in the 1990s, making deep inroads into bodybuilding, college athletics, and professional leagues from baseball to cycling. The even larger banned market among older adults has flourished more recently.

FDA regulations ban the sale of HGH as an anti-aging drug. In fact, since 1990, prescribing it for things like weight loss and strength conditioning has been punishable by 5 to 10 years in prison.

Steve Kleppe, of Scottsdale, Ariz., a restaurant entrepreneur who has taken HGH for almost 15 years to keep feeling young, said he noticed a price jump of about 25 percent after the block on imports. He now buys HGH directly from a doctor at an annual cost of about $8,000 for himself and the same amount for his wife.

Many older patients go for HGH treatment to scores of anti-aging practices and clinics heavily concentrated in retirement states like Florida, Nevada, Arizona and California.

These sites are affiliated with hundreds of doctors who are rarely endocrinologists. Instead, many tout certification by the American Board of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine, though the medical establishment does not recognize the group's bona fides.

The clinics offer personalized programs of "age management" to business executives, affluent retirees, and other patients of means, sometimes coupled with the amenities of a vacation resort. The operations insist there are few, if any, side effects from HGH. Mainstream medical authorities say otherwise.

A 2007 review of 31 medical studies showed swelling in half of HGH patients, with joint pain or diabetes in more than a fifth. A French study of about 7,000 people who took HGH as children found a 30 percent higher risk of death from causes like bone tumors and stroke, stirring a health advisory from U.S. authorities.

For proof that the drug works, marketers turn to images like the memorable one of pot-bellied septuagenarian Dr. Jeffry Life, supposedly transformed into a ripped hulk of himself by his own program available at the upscale Las Vegas-based Cenegenics Elite Health. (He declined to be interviewed.)

These promoters of HGH say there is a connection between the drop-off in growth hormone levels through adulthood and the physical decline that begins in late middle age. Replace the hormone, they say, and the aging process slows.

"It's an easy ruse. People equate hormones with youth," said Dr. Tom Perls, a leading industry critic who does aging research at Boston University. "It's a marketing dream come true."

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Associated Press Writer David B. Caruso reported from New York and AP National Writer Jeff Donn reported from Plymouth, Mass. AP Writer Troy Thibodeaux provided data analysis assistance from New Orleans.

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AP's interactive on the HGH investigation: http://hosted.ap.org/interactives/2012/hgh

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The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate(at)ap.org

EDITOR'S NOTE _ Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the second of a two-part series.

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Time's Up: Sides Closing In on 'Fiscal Cliff' Deal

President Obama said an 11th-hour agreement to avert year-end tax hikes on 98 percent of Americans is "within sight" but not yet complete with just hours to go before the nation reaches the so-called fiscal cliff.

"There are still issues left to resolve but we're hopeful Congress can get it done," Obama said at a midday White House news conference. "But it's not done."

Congressional and White House negotiators have forged the contours of an agreement that would extend current tax rates for households making $450,000 or less; raise the estate tax from 35 to 40 percent for estates larger than $5 million; and prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax from hammering millions of middle-class workers, sources said.

The deal would also extend for one year unemployment insurance benefits set to expire Tuesday, and avert a steep cut to Medicare payments for doctors.

"There is an agreement to fix the tax problem; that is finalized," an aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told ABC News.

Both sides remained at odds over what to do about the other significant piece of the "fiscal cliff" -- the more than $1 trillion of automatic cuts to defense and domestic programs set to begin tomorrow.

The White House has proposed a three-month delay of the cuts to allow more time to hash out details for deficit reduction, while many Senate Democrats want a flat one-year delay. Republicans insist that some spending cuts should be implemented now as part of any deal.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

"In order to get the sequester moved, you're going to have to have real, concrete spending cuts," Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said. "[Without that], I don't know how it passes the House."

Vice President Joe Biden and McConnell, R-Ky., have been locked in behind-the-scenes negotiations for much of the day, sources said, following several "good" conversations that stretched late into Sunday night.

If a deal is reached between Biden and McConnell, members in both chambers would still need to review it and vote on it later today. Passage is far from guaranteed.

"This is one Democrat that doesn't agree with that at all," Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin said of the tentative deal. "No deal is better than a bad deal, and this looks like a very bad deal the way this is shaping up."

"I don't see how you get something voted on today," Rogers said. "Even if they get a handshake deal today, you have to put the whole thing together and that's probably not going to happen before midnight. So it would make sense to roll into tomorrow to do that."

Failure of Congress to act on a tax measure by Tuesday morning would trigger income tax hikes on all Americans. The average family would pay an extra $3,446 in 2013 under the higher rates, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Regardless of the "cliff," virtually all workers are due to see less in their paychecks starting in January when the temporary 2 percent payroll tax cut will expire.

More than $1 trillion in automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs will also begin to take effect later this week unless Congress delays or replaces them.

"It is absolutely inexcusable that all of us find ourselves in this place at this time," Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Sunday night on the Senate floor.

"Something has gone terribly wrong when the biggest threat to our American economy is our American Congress," he said, echoing a frustration shared by many Americans.

Both sides say the cost of failure is high.

"If we are not able to reach an agreement, it will be dire," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "Probably at least another million jobs lost, an unemployment rate over 9 percent, and putting us back into recession."

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Body of India rape victim cremated in New Delhi

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The body of a woman, whose gang rape provoked protests and rare national debate about violence against women in India, arrived back in New Delhi on Sunday and was cremated at a private ceremony.

Scuffles broke out in central Delhi between police and protesters who say the government is doing too little to protect women. But the 2,000-strong rally was confined to a single area, unlike last week when protests raged up throughout the capital.

Riot police manned barricades along streets leading to India Gate war memorial - a focal point for demonstrators - and, at another gathering point - the centuries-old Jantar Mantar - protesters held banners reading "We want justice!" and "Capital punishment".

Most sex crimes in India go unreported, many offenders go unpunished, and the wheels of justice turn slowly, according to social activists, who say that successive governments have done little to ensure the safety of women.

The unidentified 23-year-old victim of the December 16 gang rape died of her injuries on Saturday, prompting promises of action from a government that has struggled to respond to public outrage.

The medical student had suffered brain injuries and massive internal injuries in the attack and died in hospital in Singapore where she had been taken for treatment.

She and a male friend had been returning home from the cinema, media reports say, when six men on a bus beat them with metal rods and repeatedly raped the woman. The friend survived.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, police figures show. Reported rape cases rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011, according to government data.

Six suspects were charged with murder after her death and face the death penalty if convicted.

In Kolkata, one of India's four biggest cities, police said a man reported that his mother had been gang-raped and killed by a group of six men in a small town near the city on Saturday.

She was killed on her way home with her husband, a senior official said, and the attackers had thrown acid at the husband, raped and killed her, and dumped her body in a roadside pond.

Police declined to give any further details. One officer told Reuters no criminal investigation had yet been launched.

"MISOGYNY"

The leader of India's ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, was seen arriving at the airport when the plane carrying the woman's body from Singapore landed and Prime Minister Mannmohan Singh's convoy was also there.

A Reuters correspondent saw family members who had been with her in Singapore take her body from the airport to their Delhi home in an ambulance with a police escort.

Her body was then taken to a crematorium and cremated. Media were kept away but a Reuters witness saw the woman's family, New Delhi's chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, and the junior home minister, R P N Singh, coming out of the crematorium.

The outcry over the attack caught the government off guard. It took a week for the prime minister to make a statement, infuriating many protesters. Last weekend they fought pitched battles with police.

Issues such as rape, dowry-related deaths and female infanticide rarely enter mainstream political discourse.

Analysts say the death of the woman dubbed "Amanat", an Urdu word meaning "treasure", by some Indian media could change that, though it is too early to say whether the protesters can sustain their momentum through to national elections due in 2014.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon added his voice to those demanding change, calling for "further steps and reforms to deter such crimes and bring perpetrators to justice".

Commentators and sociologists say the incident earlier this month has tapped into a deep well of frustration many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social issues.

Newspapers raised doubts about the commitment of both male politicians and the police to protecting women.

"Would the Indian political system and class have been so indifferent to the problem of sexual violence if half or even one-third of all legislators were women?" the Hindu newspaper asked.

The Indian Express said it was more complicated than realizing that the police force was understaffed and underpaid.

"It is geared towards dominating citizens rather than working for them, not to mention being open to influential interests," the newspaper said. "It reflects the misogyny around us, rather than actively fighting for the rights of citizens who happen to be female."

(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin and Diksha Madhokin New Delhi and Sujoy Dhar in Kolkata; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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Nobel medicine laureate Levi-Montalcini dies aged 103

ROME: Nobel medicine laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini, a neurologist and developmental biologist, died on Sunday at her home in Rome aged 103.

She was the oldest living Nobel laureate at the time of her death.

Levi-Montalcini shared the prize with colleague Stanley Cohen in 1986 for their ground-breaking discovery of growth factors.

The Nobel committee cited the pair for advancing "our knowledge from a stage when... growth factors were unknown, to a situation today when the role of growth factors in cell proliferation, organ differentiation, and tumour transformation is generally recognised."

Their work has helped understanding of such disorders as cancer, birth defects and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

Enjoying great affection and respect in Italy, Levi-Montalcini intervened to defend the teaching of evolution in schools when, in 2004, the then education minister, Letizia Moratti, wanted to remove it from the curriculum.

In 2001, Italy's then president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi named Levi-Montalcini a senator for life, an honour bestowed on former presidents and prominent figures in social, scientific, artistic or literary fields.

In this role, she was the grand old lady of the Senate, taking pains to turn up for crucial votes in support of the Italian centre-left, even late in life when she was deaf and nearly blind.

In 2007 she cut short a trip to Dubai to help then prime minister Romano Prodi survive a confidence vote.

Levi-Montalcini had vowed to continue exercising her "right and duty" to vote alongside elected senators despite her age and sniping from elements of the right.

The indefatigable scientist continued to work daily at her laboratory in Rome well into her declining years.

She was the first woman president of the Italian Encyclopaedia and a member of several prestigious scientific societies including the Italian Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences in the United States and London's Royal Society.

Born into a wealthy Jewish intellectual family in northern Turin in 1909, Montalcini was the daughter of an engineer and an artist whom she described in her Nobel autobiography as "an exquisite human being."

Her twin sister Paola died in 2000, and her brother Gino in 1974. The oldest, Anna,

Overcoming her father's resistance to the idea of a professional career for a woman, Levi-Montalcini entered medical school in Turin aged 20.

Levi-Montalcini shunned marriage and motherhood to devote herself to a medical career.

But in 1936, the same year she earned a summa cum laude degree in medicine and surgery, Mussolini decreed racial laws that barred Jews from pursuing academic and professional careers.

So instead of embarking on a specialisation in neurology and psychiatry, she set up a small laboratory in her bedroom, performing experiments on chick embryos.

The Allied bombing of Turin in 1941 forced the family to flee to the Piedmont countryside, where Levi-Montalcini rebuilt the lab. Two years later, with the German invasion, the family fled to Florence, where they lived underground until the end of the war.

She managed to work as a medical doctor for Allied forces, treating war refugees afflicted by deadly epidemics of infectious diseases such as typhus.

Finally, when the war in Italy ended in May 1945, Levi-Montalcini was able to resume her career.

Her work on chick embryos, published in Switzerland and Belgium, led to an invitation to a research position at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri, in 1947.

Although she initially planned to stay for a brief stint, she wound up staying 30 years. It was there that she and Cohen studied mouse tumours implanted in chick embryos.

She set up the interdisciplinary European Brain Research Institute in Rome in 2002.

She established the Levi-Montalcini Foundation to help African women, and as Food and Agriculture Organisation ambassador for many years and in many other public forums she advocated the alleviation of world hunger.

- AFP/jc

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Don’t let Nirbhaya’s fire die

NEW DELHI: Her funeral was conducted in near-secrecy and amid tight security, but all of India mourned as the mortal remains of 23-year-old Nirbhaya were cremated at Dwarka early on Sunday morning. The bubbly girl who was the pride and joy of her family could not live to fulfill her fond dreams. But as the protesters who congregated at Jan tar Mantar a few hours later clearly demonstrated, the memory of her courage will never die.

The aircraft bearing her body reached Palam technical area of IGI airport from Singapore at 3.30am. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi arrived immediately. They spent around 30 minutes at the airport consoling the girl's parents. The body reached the family's residence at around 4:30am in an ambulance amid heavy security and a convoy of police vans.

After prayers by relatives, Nirbhaya's body was taken to the Dwarka crematorium at 6:45am in dense fog. The charnel ground had no light and preparations for her funeral were made under torch and flashlights. The girl's emotionally drained mother collapsed and was rushed to hospital, where doctors later described her condition as stable. Nirbhaya's father lit the pyre with chief minister Sheila Dikshit, Union minister RPN Singh and Delhi BJP chief Vijender Gupta among those in attendance.

The funeral preparations were made in complete secrecy with everyone - from the police, to family members and politicians - told by the home affairs ministry about fears of crowd trouble at the crematorium if information about it leaked. Nevertheless, as the day wore on and people gathered at various places in the capital in protest, youth groups of ABVP, NSUI and AISA clashed with the police at Jantar Mantar.

Deliberations on who would receive the body took place at a Congress core group meeting at the PM's residence late on Saturday evening, during which Sonia was learnt to have expressed her wish to receive the body and meet the grief-stricken family.

The meeting - also attended by home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and RPN Singh - agreed on Sonia's decision and also advised the PM to be there at the airport. Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit and West Delhi MP Mahabal Mishra, too, were informed about the plan.

Delhi Police was directed to make necessary arrangements and deploy personnel along the entire route from Palam technical area to Mahavir Enclave, where Nirbhaya lived. The lanes to her house were fortified with more than 200 policemen and BSF jawans as early as Saturday night.

A neighbour of the 23-year-old said police deployment in the area had begun at 8pm on Saturday when all the lanes were barricaded.

When the body arrived at the house, people were seen coming in from everywhere, politicians included. Among the first to reach were Vijender Gupta and Mahabal Mishra. Not many were allowed to meet the family members.

Soon the body was taken out and people walked with it for a short distance before it was transferred to an ambulance and taken to Dwarka crematorium. More than 200 people from the neighbourhood where the girl lived joined the family members in mourning and moved in a convoy of vans and cars.

Many people, on hearing about the funeral, even walked to the crematorium. The last rites were performed within an hour of the body reaching the crematorium. Nirbhaya's father looked completely distraught. Nirbhaya's three uncles and her younger brothers were present.

RPN Singh and Dikshit condoled with the family. After the funeral, Nirbhaya's family members were taken to their home in cars arranged by Mahabal Mishra.

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

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Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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President Suggests Small 'Cliff' Deal Likely

With less than two days remaining for Congress to reach a budget agreement that would avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff,” President Obama today suggested that a small deal remains the best hope to avoid the perilous package of spending cuts and tax increases.

In an interview aired this morning on NBC’s “Meet the Press” the president said if Republicans agreed to raising taxes on top income earners it should be enough to avoid the triggers that would execute the $607 billion measure. Economists agree that going over the cliff would likely put the country back in recession.

“If we have raised some revenue by the wealthy paying a little bit more, that would be sufficient to turn off what’s called the sequester, these automatic spending cuts, and that also would have a better outcome for our economy long-term,” he said.

Saying the “pressure is on Congress to produce,” the president did not specify what income level his party would deem acceptable as the cutoff for those who would see their tax rates remain at current levels. The president has called for expiration of the “Bush-era” tax cuts to affect household earnings over $250,000 since the campaign, but has reportedly floated a $400,000 figure in past negotiations. Speaker John Boehner once offered a $1 million cut-off in his failed “Plan B” proposal, which failed to garner enough support among the House Republicans.

“It’s been very hard for Speaker Boehner and Republican Leader McConnell  to accept the fact that taxes on the wealthiest Americans should go up a little bit as part of an overall deficit reduction package,” the president said.

Domestic programs would lose $55 billion in funding should sequestration pass, including $2 billion to Medicare and unemployment benefits. The Pentagon would take a $55 billion loss as well, or 9 percent of their budget.

Repeating remarks he made Friday after a meeting with congressional leaders, Obama said that should negotiations fail he has asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to introduce a stripped- down proposal to Congress for a straight up-or-down vote – if it isn’t blocked.

“If all else fails, if Republicans do in fact decide to block so that taxes on the middle class do in fact go up on January 1, then we’ll come back with a new Congress on January 4, and the first bill that will be introduced on the floor will be to cut taxes on middle-class families,” he said of the worst case scenario. “I don’t think the average person is going to say, ‘Gosh, you know, that’s a really partisan agenda.’”

The interview was taped Saturday while Reid and his GOP counterpart Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky scrambled to their offices for a solution behind closed doors. Press staking out Capitol Hill reported little public activity from the leaders or their surrogates. If negotiations are successful, the lawmakers could introduce a bill for vote this afternoon.

Republican leaders bit back at the president’s remarks. In a written statement Speaker Boehner said casting blame was “ironic, as a recurring theme of our negotiations was his unwillingness to agree to anything that would require him to stand up to his own party. ”

“In an effort to get the president to agree to cut spending – which is the problem – I put revenues on the table last year, and I put them on the table again last month,” he wrote. “Republicans made every effort to reach the ‘balanced’ deficit agreement that the president promised the American people, while the president has continued to insist on a package skewed dramatically in favor of higher taxes that would destroy jobs.”

Senator McConnell’s office issued this response to the NBC appearance:

“While the President was taping those discordant remarks yesterday, Sen. McConnell was in the office working to bring Republicans and Democrats together on a solution. Discussions continue today.”

Regardless of outcome, talk of a comprehensive budget deal is gone and any bill would likely set up a series of smaller partisan roadblocks in the weeks and months to come. For example, if any hypothetical legislation managed to dodge tax increases for the middle class it may still not address the looming debt ceiling, which Treasury can avoid using accounting tricks for approximately two months.

A small deal may also not address the estate tax, another central point of the brinkmanship. Currently standing at 35 percent, Republicans want to leave that rate as-is after exempting the first $5 million in estate value. Meanwhile Democrats have called for a 45 percent tax after a $3.5 million exemption. Should negotiations fail, it would climb to 55 percent after a $1 million exemption after the New Year.

ABC’s Sunlen Miller and the Associated Press contributed to this report, which has been updated.

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