Flu season 'bad one for the elderly,' CDC says

The number of older people hospitalized with the flu has risen sharply, prompting federal officials to take unusual steps to make more flu medicines available and to urge wider use of them as soon as symptoms appear.

The U.S. is about halfway through this flu season, and "it's shaping up to be a worse-than-average season" and a bad one for the elderly, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It's not too late to get a flu shot, and "if you have symptoms, please stay home from work, keep your children home from school" and don't spread the virus, he said.

New figures from the CDC show widespread flu activity in all states but Tennessee and Hawaii. Some parts of the country are seeing an increase in flu activity "while overall activity is beginning to go down," Frieden said. Flu activity is high in 30 states and New York City, up from 24 the previous week.

Nine more children or teens have died of the flu, bringing the nation's total this flu season to 29. That's close to the 34 pediatric deaths reported during all of the last flu season, although that one was unusually light. In a typical season, about 100 children die of the flu and officials said there is no way to know whether deaths this season will be higher or lower than usual.

The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people most years.

So far, half of confirmed flu cases are in people 65 and older. Lab-confirmed flu hospitalizations totaled 19 for every 100,000 in the population, but 82 per 100,000 among those 65 and older, "which is really quite a high rate," Frieden said.

"We expect to see both the number and the rates of both hospitalizations and deaths rise further in the next week or so as the flu epidemic progresses,'" so prompt treatment is key to preventing deaths, he said.

About 90 percent of flu deaths are in the elderly; the very young and people with other health problems such as diabetes are also at higher risk.

If you're worried about how sick you are and are in one of these risk groups, see a doctor, Frieden urged. One third to one half of people are not getting prompt treatment with antiviral medicines, he said.

Two drugs — Tamiflu and Relenza — can cut the severity and risk of death from the flu but must be started within 48 hours of first symptoms to do much good. Tamiflu is available in a liquid form for use in children under 1, and pharmacists can reformulate capsules into a liquid if supplies are short in an area, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, head of the Food and Drug Administration.

To help avoid a shortage, the FDA is letting Tamiflu's maker, Genentech, distribute 2 million additional doses of capsules that have an older version of package insert.

"It is fully approved, it is not outdated," just lacks information for pharmacists on how to mix it into a liquid if needed for young children, she said.

This year's flu season started about a month earlier than normal and the dominant flu strain is one that tends to make people sicker. Vaccinations are recommended for anyone 6 months or older. There's still plenty of vaccine — an update shows that 145 million doses have been produced, "twice the supply that was available only several years ago," Hamburg said.

About 129 million doses have been distributed already, and a million doses are given each day, Frieden said. The vaccine is not perfect but "it's by far the best tool we have to prevent influenza," he said.

Carlos Maisonet, 73, got a flu shot this week at New York's Brooklyn Hospital Center at the urging of his wife, who was vaccinated in August.

"This is his first time getting the flu shot," said his wife, Zulma Ramos.

Last week, the CDC said the flu again surpassed an "epidemic" threshold, based on monitoring of deaths from flu and a frequent complication, pneumonia. The flu epidemic happens every year and officials say this year's vaccine is a good match for strains that are going around.

___

Online:

Flu vaccine finder: http://www.flu.gov

CDC flu info: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm

___

AP Photographer Bebeto Matthews in New York contributed to this report.

___

Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at —http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Read More..

Manti Te'o Hoax Incredibly Detailed and Complex

The hoax that is Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend "Lennay Kekua" has revealed layers of lies carried out by a complex web of characters.

Te'o received phone calls, text messages and letters before every football game from his "girlfriend." He was in contact with her family, including a twin brother, a second brother, sister and parents. He called often to check in with them, just as he did with his own family. And "Kekua" kept in contact with Te'o's friends and family.

"There are a remarkable number of characters involved. We don't know how many people they represent," Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick said at a news conference this week. "There are male and female characters, brothers, cousins, mother, and we don't know if it's two people playing multiple characters or multiple people."

"It goes to the sophistication of this, that there are all these sort of independent pieces that reinforce elements of the story all the way through," he said.

Click here for a who's who in the Manti Te'o case

The newly released transcript of "Sports Illustrated" writer Pete Thamel's Sept. 23 interview with Te'o gives a hint at the staggering depth of the deception.

Manti Te'o Hoax: Was He Duped or Did He Know? Watch Video

Manti Te'o Hoax: Notre Dame Star Allegedly Scammed Watch Video

Tale of Notre Dame Football Star's Girlfriend and Her Death an Alleged Hoax Watch Video

Te'o told Thamel that Lennay Kekua's real name was Melelengei, but since no one could pronounce it properly it was shortened to Lennay. But her family nicknamed her Lala, he said.

Te'o's knowledge about the details of his girlfriend's life was often murky, including her majors in school, occupation and extent of her injuries after an alleged April 28 car accident with a drunk driver.

What he was absolutely clear about was how much time he spent in contact with her, especially while she was in the hospital recovering from the car accident, which led to the discovery of her leukemia.

"I talked to my girlfriend every single day," Te'o told Themel. "I slept on the phone with her every single day. When she was going through chemo, she would have all these pains and the doctors were saying they were trying to give her medicine to make her sleep. She still couldn't sleep. She would say, 'Just call my boyfriend and have him on the phone with me, and I can sleep.' I slept on the phone with her every single night."

He would spend eight hours a night with someone, somewhere, breathing on the other end, he told Thamel.

Te'o recounted how his girlfriend who was "on a machine" after being in a coma.

"We lost her, actually, twice. She flatlined twice. They revived her twice," he said. "It was just a trippy situation."

For a while Kekua was unable to talk and he described the nurse-deemed "miracle" of how Kekua's breathing would pick up when she heard his voice on the phone.

"There were lengthy, long telephone conversations. There was sleeping with the phone on connected to each other," Swarbrick said. "The issue of who it is, who's playing what role, what's real and what's not here is a more complex question than I can get into."

Perhaps one of the most touching displays of love from Kekua to Te'o was the one-page letter she would write him on her iPad before each game. One of her siblings, often her twin brother Noa, would then read him the letter over the phone before sending it to him.

"She and I, man, we had this relationship where it was just amazing," Te'o told Thamel. "With all of that time on her hands in the hospital, she was never thinking about herself and what was hurting her. She was just always thinking about others. She went on and wrote a letter to me before every game. Things that she would want me to know."

Kekua and her family were also in frequent contact with Te'o's family and friends.

Read More..

Some foreign hostages said killed in Algeria assault

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria said several hostages were killed on Thursday when its forces stormed a remote desert gas plant occupied by Islamist militants in retaliation for French intervention in Mali, and local sources said six foreigners were among the dead.

Amid reports of many more casualties in one of the biggest international hostage crises in decades, Western leaders expressed anger they had not been consulted before the operation and scrambled for word of their citizens. Some eight hours after the army assault began, Algerian state media said it was over.

Americans, Britons, Norwegians, French, Romanians and an Austrian, were among those taken, their countries said.

Algeria said its troops had been forced to act to free them due to the "diehard" attitude of their captors.

"When the terrorist group insisted on leaving the facility, taking the foreign hostages with them to neighboring states, the order was issued to special units to attack the position where the terrorists were entrenched," the government spokesman, Communication Minister, Mohamed Said told the state news agency.

The standoff began when gunmen calling themselves the Battalion of Blood stormed the natural gas facility early on Wednesday morning. They said they were holding 41 foreigners and demanded a halt to a French military operation against fellow al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants in neighboring Mali.

Said said the military operation, which Western officials were told had begun around noon (6:00 a.m. EST) on Thursday, resulted in "the liberation of a large number of hostages and the destruction of a large number of terrorists".

The raid increased fears jihadist militants could launch further attacks in Algeria, a vast desert country with large oil and gas reserves that is only just recovering from a protracted conflict with Islamist rebels during the 1990s which cost an estimated 200,000 lives.

A local source told Reuters six foreign hostages were killed along with eight captors when the Algerian military fired on a vehicle being used by the gunmen.

He said 40 Algerians and three foreigners were freed by the army as it continued its operation into Thursday evening. An Algerian security source said earlier that 25 foreign hostages had escaped.

Algeria's official APS news agency said about half the foreign hostages had been freed and about 600 Algerian workers at the site, under less tight guard, had managed to escape.

MILITANTS KNEW THEIR WAY AROUND

In a rare eyewitness account of Wednesday's raid, a local man who had escaped from the facility told Reuters the militants appeared to have good inside knowledge of the layout of the complex and used the language of radical Islam.

"The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels," Abdelkader, 53, said by telephone from his home in the nearby town of In Amenas. "We will kill them, they said."

Mauritanian agency ANI and Qatar-based Al Jazeera said that 34 of the captives and 15 of their captors had been killed when government forces fired from helicopters at a vehicle.

Those death tolls, far higher than confirmed by the local source, would contradict the reports that large numbers of foreigners escaped alive. On Thursday evening, ANI said it had lost its previously regular contact with the kidnappers.

Britain and Norway, whose oil firms BP and Statoil run the plant jointly with the Algerian state oil company, said they had been informed by the Algerian authorities that a military operation was under way.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said people should prepare for bad news about the hostages. He earlier called his Algerian counterpart to express his concern at what he called a "very grave and serious" situation, Cameron's spokesman said.

"The Algerians are aware that we would have preferred to have been consulted in advance," the spokesman added.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said he had been told by his Algerian counterpart the action had started at around noon. He said they had tried to find a solution through the night, but that it had not worked.

"The Algerian prime minister said they felt they had no choice but to go in now," he said.

RAISING THE STAKES

The incident dramatically raises the stakes in the French military campaign in neighboring Mali, where hundreds of French paratroopers and marines are launching a ground offensive against Islamist rebels after air strikes began last week.

"What is happening in Algeria justifies all the more the decision I made in the name of France to intervene in Mali in line with the U.N. charter," French President Francois Hollande said, adding that things seemed to have taken a "dramatic" turn and he was still seeking details.

He said earlier that an unspecified number of French nationals were among the hostages. A French national was also among the hostage takers, a local source told Reuters. A large number of people from the former French colony live in France.

Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the kidnappers were led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran Islamist guerrilla who fought in Afghanistan and set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local al Qaeda leaders.

A holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence and "Mister Marlboro" by some locals for his illicit cigarette-running business, Belmokhtar's links to those who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.

A local source told Reuters the hostage takers had blown up a petrol filling station at the plant.

NUMBERS UNCONFIRMED

The precise number and nationalities of foreign hostages could not be confirmed, with some countries reluctant to release information that could be useful to the captors.

Britain said one of its citizens was killed in the initial storming on Wednesday and "a number" of others were held.

The militants had said seven Americans were among their hostages. The White House said it believed Americans were among those held but U.S. officials could not confirm the number. "This is an ongoing situation and we are seeking clarity," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters, expressing concern about the reported loss of lives.

Statoil said it had no word on nine of its Norwegian staff who had been held but that three Algerian employees were now free. BP said some of its staff were held but would not say how many or their nationalities.

Japanese media said five workers from Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp. were held, a number the company did not confirm. Vienna said one hostage was Austrian, Dublin said one Irish hostage had been freed and Bucharest said an unspecified number of those held were Romanian.

BP, Statoil and Spanish oil company Cepsa all said they had begun to evacuate personnel from elsewhere in Algeria, an OPEC member.

Hollande has received public backing from Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a desert haven in Mali, a poor country helpless to combat fighters who seized its northern oasis towns last year.

However, there is also some concern in Washington and other capitals that the French action in Mali could provoke a backlash worse than the initial threat by militants in the remote Sahara.

The militants, communicating through established contacts with media in neighboring Mauritania, said on Wednesday they had dozens of men armed with mortars and anti-aircraft missiles in the compound and had rigged it with explosives.

They condemned Algeria's secularist government for letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali and shutting its border to Malian refugees.

The attack in Algeria did not stop France from pressing on with its campaign in Mali. It said on Thursday it now had 1,400 troops on the ground in Mali, and combat was under way against the rebels that it first began targeting from the air last week.

The French action last week came as a surprise but received widespread international support in public. Neighboring African countries planning to provide ground troops for a U.N. force by September have said they will move faster to deploy them.

Nigeria, the strongest regional power, sent 162 soldiers on Thursday, the first of an anticipated 906.

A day after launching the campaign in Mali, Hollande also ordered a failed rescue in Somalia on Saturday to free a French hostage held by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants since 2009. Al Shabaab said on Thursday it had executed hostage Denis Allex. France said it believed he died in the rescue.

(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin in Writing by Peter Graff, Giles Elgood and Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

Read More..

Lagarde warns more global recovery work needed

WASHINGTON: International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde warned Thursday that more efforts were needed to get the global economy back on track.

"We stopped the collapse, we should avoid the relapse, and it's not time to relax," Lagarde said at a news conference at the multilateral institution's Washington headquarters.

"There's still a lot of work to be done."

The IMF managing director, while pointing to signs of economic improvement, noted deterioration on the jobs front, which she called "critical from an economic point of view but also from a social point of view."

"We need growth for jobs and jobs for growth," she said.

The eurozone, the centre of the public debt crisis dragging down global growth, and where the IMF together with the European Union has rescued Greece, Ireland and Portugal, has to do more to address its challenges, she said.

Financial firewalls erected by the European Union and the European Central Bank, such as the European Stability Mechanism rescue fund and ECB bond purchases, "have not proven operational."

"Progress needs to be made on the banking union," she added.

Lagarde suggested further monetary easing in Europe may be appropriate to sustain demand.

As for the United States, the IMF chief called on bitterly divided politicians to reach a compromise on the nation's borrowing limit and deficit-reduction plans.

"All sides should pool together in the national interest" to avoid another "avoidable political mistake", she said.

With the mandated US borrowing limit already reached, and the Treasury using extraordinary measures to avoid putting the world's biggest economy into default, Republicans are tying raising the ceiling to spending cuts.

Democratic President Barack Obama has rejected that basis for negotiations.

More than four years after the US financial crisis plunged the global economy into recession, Lagarde also called for completion of financial system reforms.

She expressed concern about the banking sector's tendency to drag its heels with regulation, especially the international Basel III standards.

"It's the constant approach by the industry to actually push back because it's nicer to operate without regulation rather than with regulation."

"I might be a little blunt but that's my experience as a former minister of finance (in France) and having observed the profession close by," she added.

Asked about Japan's desire to curb appreciation of the yen, Lagarde reiterated her firm opposition to currency wars and other competitive devaluations.

"If only the risks of retaliation should actually prevent anybody to go into that sort of monetary policy," she said.

- AFP/jc

Read More..

Hike in fuel price a signal to ratings agencies, investors

NEW DELHI: Although deregulation of diesel prices has been in the works for a while, the government bit the bullet around 8 pm on Wednesday when a decision was taken to place the politically knotty proposal before the cabinet committee on political affairs the next morning.

The approval of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs is seen as a major step to prune a subsidy bill playing havoc with government finances and is a signal to woo foreign investors ahead of road shows in Asia and Europe and the World Economic Forum's annual meeting at Davos later this month.

The government signaled its determination by defying conventional wisdom that the unpopular decision - that follows a recent hike in rail fares -- would not be taken before the Congress brainstorming session due to begin on Friday.

The unambiguous message the government has sought to convey is that it is serious about nipping the fiscal deficit and hopes its actions will convince ratings agencies that India is taking energetic steps to remain a viable investment destination.

There is a consensus in government that although India remains a relatively attractive investment option in view of Eurozone's problems and slow growth in the US, it must show the resolve to take steps that will improve FDI inflows.

Tackling red tape, reducing corruption and de-stressing government finances are seen as key to boosting investor confidence at home and abroad. The oil subsidy is reportedly in the region of Rs 1.5 lakh crore and the sum earmarked in the 2011-12 budget was consumed settling the previous year's bill.

With disinvestment struggling and fresh auction of 2G spectrum proving a damp squib, the government has little choice but to attack the subsidy on diesel despite the obvious inflationary implications of such a decision.

Disregard for the Jaipur 'chintan shivir' indicates the Congress leadership understands the urgent need to raise fuel prices.

Financial analysts and the markets welcomed the move to reform the oil sector and the government's eye is fixed on finance minister P Chidambaram's tours to woo foreign investors when he travels to Hong Kong and Singapore and a little later to European cities.

By taking some tough calls, the government will hope to convey the right signals ahead of the bwhich will be its last such full-scale exercise before the 2014 general election. The budget will not be bereft of populism, but the giveaways are likely to be limited and focused on key voter groups.

An increase in diesel rates will bring the fuel closer in price parity to petrol and would be seen as an environment friendly decision if the mitigation costs are calculated over the long term.

Read More..

Study: NYC better than LA at cutting kids' obesity

NEW YORK (AP) — A new study shows New York City is doing better than Los Angeles in the battle against childhood obesity, at least for low-income children.

From 2003 to 2011, obesity rates for poor children dropped in New York to around 16 percent. But they rose in Los Angeles and ended at about 20 percent.

The researchers focused on children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in a government program that provides food and other services to women and their young children.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the study Thursday.

The authors noted that the Los Angeles program has many more Mexican-American kids. Obesity is more common in Mexican-American boys than in white or black kids.

Read More..

'Catfish' Star Reaches Out to Manti Te'o

Nev Schulman, the star and creator of the MTV show "Catfish" that follows Internet dating hoaxes, has reached out to Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o and offered to help solve his girlfriend hoax.

Te'o and Notre Dame claim he was a "catfish" victim when it was revealed that the woman he said was his girlfriend and died of leukemia never existed.

The "Catfish" television show was spawned by a movie of the same name in which Schulman tracked down a person who pretended to be a young woman he had met online.

".@MTeo_5 I know how you feel. It happened 2 me. I want 2 help tell ur story & prevent this from happening to others in the future. Lets talk," Schulman tweeted to Te'o.

Schulman says in his tweets that he has information about the baffling hoax. "I am working on finding out more about this @MTeo_5 #Catfish story. I have been in contact with the woman involved and will get the truth," Schulman tweeted on Wednesday night. It is unclear which woman Schulman has been in contact with.

However, in a statment released to ABC News, Schulman said "I have been in touch with Donna Tei. She reached out to me back in December asking for help regarding the person who had been using her photos to create a fake profile."

It's not clear whether Donna Tei was the woman whose photo was used as "girlfriend" Lennay Kekua or another person in the complicated hoax.

He also tweeted, "However his #Manti story ends, it doesn't change that we are all the victims of a #Catfish."

In a statement on MTV.com, Schulman defended the possibility that Te'o had been duped.

"When you read an article all at once where it reveals all these stories and all these details, it seems crazy, but in the process of it, as it happens very slowly, things don't seem so crazy," Schulman wrote. "And then, of course, when you look at it all in one snapshot, it does sort of seem kind of unbelievable."

ABC News; David J. Phillip/AP Photo

Manti Te'o Hoax: Notre Dame Star Allegedly Scammed Watch Video

'Catfish' Star Nev Schulman's Red Flags for Spotting Online Fakers Watch Video

Tale of Notre Dame Football Star's Girlfriend and Her Death an Alleged Hoax Watch Video

Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick cited the documentary "Catfish" in trying to explain how the star linebacker became a hoax victim.

"I would refer all of you, if you're not already familiar with it, with both the documentary called 'Catfish,' the MTV show which is a derivative of that documentary, and the sort of associated things you'll find online and otherwise about catfish, or catfishing," Swarbrick told reporters Wednesday.

The 2010 film stars Schulman, who was the real-life victim of a "catfish" scam. Schulman wanted to make the documentary to show how he was sucked in by an Internet pretender -- or a "catfish" -- who built an elaborate fake life.

Schulman made the documentary as he was falling for someone named "Megan," a gorgeous 20-something from Michigan. Their online relationship blossomed until Schulman confronted "Megan."

"Megan" turned out to be a middle-aged mom of two named Angela Wesselman, who later said she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Inside 'Catfish': A Tale of Twisted Cyber-Romance

"It was different. It was something new. It was a little mysterious," Schulman told ABC News in an earlier interview, describing his reaction before he discovered Megan's true identity.

Now, a much wiser Schulman is helping others catch the "catfish" in his new hit series on MTV inspired by the real-life documentary, "Catfish: The TV Show."

'Catfish' Stars Nev Schulman's Advice for Online Dating

In one episode, Schulman meets Sunny, who says she has been dating a medical student online named "Jameson" for eight months.

"He's going to be an anesthesiologist. He does online classes," Sunny says of "Jameson" in the episode.

Schulman convinces Sunny to take a road trip to meet "Jameson" face to face and and Sunny later finds out "Jameson" was really a woman who was pretending to be a man online for at least four years.

"I mean who does that?" Sunny said in the episode.

As more become connected through various social media outlets, Schulman says these "catfish" hoaxes will continue.

"So long as we're not looking people in the eye face-to-face, there's always going be room, a lot of room for deception," he said.

WATCH: Deadspin Writer Who Uncovered Hoax Explains the Story

Read More..

Dozens held after Islamists attack Algerian gas field

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Islamist militants attacked a gas field in Algeria on Wednesday, claiming to have kidnapped up to 41 foreigners including seven Americans in a dawn raid in retaliation for France's intervention in Mali, according to regional media reports.

The raiders were also reported to have killed three people, including a Briton and a French national.

An al Qaeda affiliated group said the raid had been carried out because of Algeria's decision to allow France to use its air space for attacks against Islamists in Mali, where French forces have been in action against al Qaeda-linked militants since last week.

The attack in southern Algeria also raised fears that the French action in Mali could prompt further Islamist revenge attacks on Western targets in Africa, where al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operates across borders in the Sahara desert, and in Europe.

AQIM said it had carried out Wednesday's raid on the In Amenas gas facility in OPEC member Algeria, Mauritania's ANI news agency reported.

The Algerian interior ministry said: "A terrorist group, heavily armed and using three vehicles, launched an attack this Wednesday at 5 a.m. against a Sonatrach base in Tigantourine, near In Amenas, about 100 km (60 miles) from the Algerian and Libyan border."

"The Algerian authorities will not respond to the demands of the terrorists and will not negotiate," Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia was quoted as saying by official news agency APS.

The gas field is operated by a joint venture including BP, Norwegian oil firm Statoil and Algerian state company Sonatrach.

ARMED MEN

BP said armed men were still occupying facilities at the gas field, which produces 9 billion cubic meters of gas a year(160,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day), more than a tenth of the country's overall gas output, and 60,000 barrels a day of condensate.

"The site was attacked and occupied by a group of unidentified armed people at about 0500 UK time. Contact with the site is extremely difficult, but we understand that armed individuals are still occupying the In Amenas operations site," it said.

A spokesman for BP said it usually had fewer than 20 people working at the site but would not be drawn on whether there were any talks with the hostage takers. He said: "Obviously we are doing everything we can to make sure our people are okay."

APS said a Briton and an Algerian security guard had been killed and seven people were injured. A French national was also killed in the attack, a local source said.

Also among those reported kidnapped by various sources were five Japanese nationals working for the Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp, a French national, an Austrian, an Irishman, and a number of Britons.

The U.S. State Department said it believed some U.S. citizens were also among the hostages, while Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said 13 employees of Statoil, a minority shareholder in the gas venture, were being held.

A member of an Islamist group styling itself the "Blood Battalion" was quoted by Mauritanian media as saying that five of the hostages were being held at the gas facility and 36 were in a housing area. APS said the Islamist raiders had freed Algerians working at the gas facility, though Regis Arnoux, head of French company CIS Catering, told JDD weekly newspaper that 150 Algerian employees of his company were being held at the site.

"The operation was in response to the blatant interference by Algeria and the opening of its air space to French aircraft to bomb northern Mali," the Islamist spokesman told Mauritania's ANI news agency.

ANI, which has regular direct contact with Islamists, said that fighters under the command of Mokhtar Belmokhtar were holding the foreigners.

Interior Minister Kablia also told APS that Belmokhtar was leading the group of about 20 individuals, whom he said were not from Mali, Libya or "any other neighboring state".

Belmokhtar, dubbed by French intelligence as "the uncatchable", for years commanded al Qaeda fighters in the Sahara before setting up his own armed Islamist group late last year after an apparent fallout with other militant leaders.

The Algerian army was in the area of the gas facility, according to French and Algerian sources.

ANI reported that the Islamists said they were surrounded by Algerian forces and warned that any attempt to free the hostages would lead to a "tragic end". One of the hostage takers told ANI that the perimeter of the site had been mined.

SECURITY IMPLICATIONS

The attack was the first time in years that Islamist militants are known to have launched an attack on an Algerian energy facility.

The attack could have implications for security across the whole of Algeria's energy sector, which supplies about a quarter of Europe's natural gas imports and exports millions of barrels of crude oil each year.

Such an attack would require a large and heavily armed insurgent force with a degree of freedom to move around, all elements that al Qaeda has not previously had.

However, the conflict in neighboring Libya in 2011 changed the balance of force. Security experts say al Qaeda was able to obtain arms, including heavy weapons, from the looted arsenals of former leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The five Japanese work for the engineering firm JGC Corporation, Jiji news agency reported, quoting company officials. JGC has a deal with Sonatrach-BP-Statoil Association for work in gas production at In Amenas.

A reporter for Japan's NHK television managed to call a JGC worker in Algeria.

The worker said he got a phone call from a colleague at the gas field. "It was around 6 a.m. this morning. He said that he had been hearing gunshots for about 20 minutes. I wasn't able to get through to him since."

French troops launched their first ground operation against Islamist rebels in Mali on Wednesday in an action to dislodge from a strategic town al Qaeda-linked fighters who have resisted six days of air strikes.

(Additional reporting by Catherine Bremer and John Irish in Paris, Laurent Prieur in Nouakchott, Andrew Osborn in London, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Antoni Slodkowski in Tokyo, Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi and Christian Lowe in Warsaw; Editing by Giles Elgood and Will Waterman)

Read More..

US to recognise first Somali government in 20 years

WASHINGTON: The United States will on Thursday recognise the first Somali government in two decades, heralding a significant shift in ties since the deadly 1993 attack on US helicopters over Mogadishu.

The beginning of the new chapter will come when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton exchanges diplomatic notes with visiting Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, a top US official said Wednesday.

"The visit here this week of the new Somalian president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud represents a significant change in the security and political situation on the ground in Somalia and our relationship with that country," Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson told journalists.

It will be Clinton's first meeting with the new Somali leader who was only elected in September, and was relatively unknown outside his country.

Somalia has not had an effective central government since 1991. Two years later, Americans were shocked by scenes of US soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu after Somali militants shot down two Black Hawk helicopters. Eighteen Americans died, and 80 were wounded.

However, a new Somali administration took office last year, ending eight years of transitional rule by a corruption-riddled government.

And in recent months, a 17,000-strong African Union force, fighting alongside government troops and Ethiopian soldiers, finally wrested a string of key towns from the control of Islamist Shebab insurgents.

Carson hailed recent US policies on Somalia, and praised the work of African nations through the African Union force in Somalia AMISOM, which helped oust the militants from their last major stronghold of Kismayo in September.

"This has been a major, major success. We are long way from where we were on October 3, 1993 when Black Hawk down occurred in Mogadishu," Carson said.

"Significant progress has been made in stabilising the country and in helping to break-up and defeat al-Shebab. Much more needs to be done but we think enormous progress has been made," he added.

Carson has repeatedly stressed that the success in Somalia should be seen as a model for African-led peacekeeping forces in the region.

A university lecturer, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud defied predictions and was chosen by lawmakers as Somalia's new president from among a dozen hopefuls in September elections.

Clinton swiftly congratulated him on his win, which was hailed by the US administration as "an important milestone" for the country.

His party described the new president as the architect of Somali civil society, and unlike many Somali politicians he is not part of the diaspora.

But he inherits an ongoing war, a humanitarian crisis, feeble institutions and deeply entrenched warlordism. Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels, who still control vast swathes of the country, dismissed his election as illegitimate.

The US move on Thursday will open doors to the country, which will also be the focus of a new international conference to be hosted in Britain in May.

"This will build on last year's successful meeting in London to help sustain international support for the progress being made by the Somali government," a spokeswoman for the office of British Prime Minister David Cameron said.

A US official, who asked to remain anonymous, said no official American aid package would be unveiled at the State Department meeting on Thursday.

However "the fact that we recognise a government there would allow us to do things through USAID we have not been able to do before," he said.

"The fact that we recognise them as the legitimate government would allow the World Bank and the IMF to do things that they had not been able to do before."

- AFP/jc

Read More..

Curtains for Pak actors at Jaipur fest

JAIPUR: At least 24 Pakistani artists in Jaipur for a theatre festival set to stage a play on Wednesday are instead on their way back home.

The artistes of Ajoka Theatre of Lahore were participating in the 15th Theatre Utsav, Bharat Rang Mahotsav, organized by the National School of Drama and ministry of cultural affairs. It began on January 7 and was to conclude on January 17.

Following growing tension between India and Pakistan due to incidents at the border, various organizations including BJP's Yuva Morcha and other activists threatened to disrupt the festival protesting their involvement. To avoid an incident, the organizers cancelled the show. Before there could be any kind of confrontation between the protestors and the artistes, the police quietly took them away from the venue.

Madeeha Gohar, director of the play, said, "It is disappointing. Our theatre group has been performing throughout India with a message of peace. Theatre lovers in India know we come here with a message of harmony...I believe whatever has happened is condemnable. The government of India and Pakistan are playing into the hands of people who don't want the peace process to continue," she said.

"I am shocked as the 26/11 attack in Mumbai was much more serious. I still remember that despite the tension, we had a hassle free stay and went ahead with our performances. New Delhi must probe the entire episode before asking us to leave," she added.

Reacting to the developments, Madeeha, said, "I think governments of both countries are aware of the fact that they have hawkish elements. Thus, for the peace and prosperity of the country they need to keep these elements at bay. Instead, unfortunately, they are trying to put a brake on the activities of artistes and sportsman who can bridge the gap."

"Merely 50 or 60 workers of some party had protested against our play and we were asked to leave. I think this is injustice to thousands of the theatre lovers," she added.

Out of the 24 artistes, 10 were to perform in Jaipur for the first time and were seen quietly loading their bags on to a bus to Delhi.

Read More..