Justice Verma panel suggests amendments to AFSPA

NEW DELHI: Taking strong cognizance of sexual offences committed by armed forces personnel in conflict zones, Justice J S Verma committee report has not only recommended amendments to the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) but even questioned its continuance in such areas.

The report has recommended that the Act's provision of seeking sanction from the central government before initiating any legal action against an armed forces personnel should be done away with in case of sexual crimes. These would include crimes such as outraging the modesty of a woman and rape.

While making this recommendation Justice Verma has observed that "There is an imminent need to review the continuance of AFSPA and AFSPA-like legal protocols in internal conflict areas as soon as possible. This is necessary for determining the propriety of resorting to this legislation in the area(s) concerned."

The north-east and Jammu & Kashmir have seen massive protests over the years against AFSPA specially due to the protection given to armed forces personnel against legal action that people believe allows the men in uniform get away with heinous crimes. While, J&K CM Omar Abdullah has recommended removal of AFSPA from certain areas of the state, home minister Sushilkumar Shinde has repeatedly said that time isn't ripe yet.

With respect to amendments in the Act to ensure safety of women, Justice Verma has noted: "At the outset, we notice that impunity for systematic or isolated sexual violence in the process of Internal Security duties is being legitimized by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which is in force in large parts of our country. It must be recognized that women in conflict areas are entitled to all the security and dignity that is afforded to citizens in any other part of our country."

To ensure protection of women in conflict areas, the report has also made several recommendations that include bringing sexual violence against women by uniformed men under the purview of ordinary criminal law and appointment of special commissioners for safety of women in conflict areas.

"These commissioners must be chosen from those who have experience with women's issues, preferably in conflict areas. In addition, such commissioners must be vested with adequate powers to monitor and initiate action for redress and criminal prosecution in all cases of sexual violence against women by armed personnel," the report states.

The committee has also recommended reorientation of training of armed forces to include laws and issues related to women's safety.

Full text of Justice (retired) JS Verma Committee report

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Scientists to resume work with lab-bred bird flu


WASHINGTON (AP) — International scientists who last year halted controversial research with the deadly bird flu say they are resuming their work as countries adopt new rules to ensure safety.


The outcry erupted when two labs — in the Netherlands and the U.S. — reported they had created easier-to-spread versions of bird flu. Amid fierce debate about the oversight of such research and whether it might aid terrorists, those scientists voluntarily halted further work last January — and more than three dozen of the world's leading flu researchers signed on as well.


On Wednesday, those scientists announced they were ending their moratorium because their pause in study worked: It gave the U.S. government and other world health authorities time to determine how they would oversee high-stakes research involving dangerous germs.


A number of countries already have issued new rules. The U.S. is finalizing its own research guidelines, a process that Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health said should be completed within several weeks.


In letters published in the journals Science and Nature this week, scientists wrote that those who meet their country's requirements have a responsibility to resume studying how the deadly bird flu might mutate to become a bigger threat to people — maybe even the next pandemic. So far, the so-called H5N1 virus mostly spreads among poultry and other birds and rarely infects people.


"The risk exists in nature already. Not doing the research is really putting us in danger," said Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He and Ron Fouchier of Erasmus University in the Netherlands separately created the new virus strains that could spread through the air.


The controversy flared just over a year ago, when U.S. officials, prompted by the concerns of a biosecurity advisory panel, asked the two labs not to publish the results. They worried that terrorists might use the information to create a bioweapon. More broadly, scientists debated whether creating new strains of disease is a good idea, and if so, how to safeguard against laboratory accidents.


Ultimately, the flu researchers prevailed: The government decided the data didn't pose any immediate terrorism threat after all, and the two labs' work was published last summer.


Fouchier said that within weeks, he will begin new research in the Netherlands, with European funding, to explore exactly which mutations are the biggest threat. He said the work could enable scientists today to be on the lookout as bird flu continually evolves in the wild.


U.S.-funded scientists cannot resume their studies until the government's policy is finalized.


But the NIH had paid for the original research — and it would have been approved under the soon-to-come expanded policy as well, Fauci told The Associated Press. That policy will add an extra layer of review to higher-risk research, to ensure that it is scientifically worth doing and that safety and bioterrorism concerns are fully addressed up-front, he said.


Had that policy been in place over a year ago, it could have averted the bird flu debate, Fauci said: "Our answer simply would have been, yes, we vetted it very carefully and the benefit is worth any risk. Period, case closed."


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Manti Te'o Tells Katie Couric His Emotions Were Real













Manti Te'o says that even though he was hoaxed by the supposed existence of a fake girlfriend, his inspirational story of playing through emotional pain "was all real and that's something that I can't fake."


Te'o made his comments to Katie Couric which will air the exclusive interview on Thursday.


Te'o, 21, has been alternately questioned and lampooned over his role in the hoax that led him and the public to believe that his girlfriend Lennay Kekua died of leukemia as Te'o led the Notre Dame football team to an undefeated season that culminated in the national championship game.


Te'o was also a finalist for the Heisman Trophy, which goes to the best college football player in the country. Couric asked the star linebacker whether the emotional "story line" of a girlfriend who died on the same day as his grandmother "helped propel you to second place in Heisman voting?"


"I don't know. I really don't know," Te'o replied.


See more exclusive previews tonight on "World News With Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline."


He was more certain, however, when Couric pressed him by pointing out that it had become "sort of a legend that you had endured this hardship and gone on to play your team and your school to victory... Did you feel like, wow, I'm getting a lot of attention for this?"


Te'o denied reveling in the attention.


Watch Katie Couric's interview with Manti Te'o and his parents Thursday. Check your local listings or click here for online station finder.






Lorenzo Bevilaqua/Disney-ABC











Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax: Could Alleged Scammer Be Charged? Watch Video









"I think for me the only thing I basked in was that I had an impact on people, that people turned to me and for inspiration and I think that was the only thing I focused on. You know my story I felt was a guy who in times of hardship and in times of trial really held strong to his faith, held strong to his family and I felt that that was my story," said Te'o, who is a Mormon.


Te'o said there was no acting in his emotions at the time when he thought the girl he called "Lala" had died of leukemia.


"What I went through was real. You know the feelings, the pain, the sorrow, that was all real and that's something that I can't fake," he said.


During the interview, Te'o said that he received a phone call on Dec. 6, apparently from the same woman he believed was dead, who told him she was alive. She said that her name was not Lennay Kekua, it was Leah. Teo has also said that woman sent him a different picture of herself.


Nevertheless, he again publicly mentioned his girlfriend, and her death, two days later on the day the Heisman trophy was to be awarded.


"You stuck to the script. And you knew that something was amiss, Manti," Couric said.


"Katie, put yourself in my situation. I, my whole world told me that she died on Sept. 12. Everybody knew that. This girl, who I committed myself to, died on Sept. 12," Te'o said.


"Now I get a phone call on Dec. 6, saying that she's alive and then I'm going be put on national TV two days later. And to ask me about the same question. You know, what would you do?" Te'o said.


Te'o was joined by his parents, Brian and Ottilia, in the interview.


"Now many people writing about this are calling your son a liar. They are saying he manipulated the truth, really for personal gain," Couric said to Te'o's father.


"People can speculate about what they think he is. I've known him 21 years of his life. And he's not a liar. He's a kid," Brian Te'o said with tears in his eyes.


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


Diane O'Meara told NBC's "Today" show Tuesday that she was used as the "face" of the Twitter account of Manti Te'o's online girlfriend without her knowledge or consent.


O'Meara said that Ronaiah Tuiasosopo used pictures of her without her knowledge in creating Kekua.


"I've never met Manti Te'o in my entire life. I've never spoke with him. I've never exchanged words with him," O'Meara said Tuesday.






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Netanyahu tops Israel vote despite losses: exit polls


JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emerged the bruised winner of Israel's election on Tuesday, with his hawkish bloc unexpectedly losing ground to resurgent center-left challengers, exit polls showed.


They suggested the Israeli leader's Likud party, yoked with the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu group, would still be the biggest bloc in the 120-member assembly with 31 seats, 11 fewer than the 42 they held in the previous parliament.


If the exit polls compiled by three Israeli television channels prove correct, Netanyahu would be on course to secure a third term in office, perhaps leading a hardline coalition that would promote Jewish settlement on occupied land.


But his weakened showing in an election he himself called earlier than necessary could complicate the struggle to forge an alliance with a stable majority in parliament.


The projections showed right-wing parties with a combined strength of 61-62 seats against 58-59 for the center-left.


"According to the exit poll results, it is clear that Israel's citizens have decided that they want me to continue in the job of prime minister of Israel and to form as broad a government as possible," Netanyahu wrote on his Facebook page.


But the mood was subdued at his Likud party's election headquarters, with only a couple of hundred party activists and supporters in a venue that could house thousands.


The 63-year-old Israeli leader promised during his election campaign to focus on tackling Iran's nuclear ambitions if he won, shunting Palestinian peacemaking well down the agenda despite Western concern to keep the quest for a solution alive.


After a lackluster campaign, Israelis voted in droves on a sunny winter day, registering the highest projected turnout since 1999 when Netanyahu, serving his first term as prime minister, was defeated by then-Labour Party leader Ehud Barak.


The strong turnout buoyed center-left parties which had pinned their hopes on energizing an army of undecided voters against Netanyahu and his nationalist-religious allies.


The centrist Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party, led by former television talk show host Yair Lapid, came second with 18 or 19 seats, exit polls showed - a stunning result for a newcomer to politics in a field of 32 contending parties.


Lapid won support amongst middle-class, secular voters by promising to resolve a growing housing shortage, abolish military draft exemptions for Jewish seminary students and seek an overhaul of the failing education system.


The once dominant Labour party led by Shelly Yachimovich was projected to take third place with 17 seats.


A stream of opinion polls before the election had predicted an easy win for Netanyahu. The final opinion polls on Friday showed his Likud-Beitenu group still on top, but losing some ground to the Jewish Home party, which opposes a Palestinian state and advocates annexing chunks of the occupied West Bank.


The exit polls projected 12 seats for Jewish Home.


COALITION BUILDING


Full election results are due by Wednesday morning and official ones will be announced on January 30. After that, President Shimon Peres is likely to ask Netanyahu, as leader of the biggest bloc in parliament, to try to form a government.


The former commando has traditionally looked to religious, conservative parties for backing and is widely expected to seek out self-made millionaire Naftali Bennett, who heads the Jewish Home party and stole much of the limelight during the campaign.


Political sources said before the election that Netanyahu might approach center-left parties in an effort to broaden his coalition and present a more moderate face to worried allies.


British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned Israel on Tuesday it was losing international support, saying prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were almost dead because of expanding Jewish settlements.


U.S.-brokered peace talks broke down in 2010 amid mutual acrimony. Since then Israel has accelerated construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem - land the Palestinians want for their future state - much to the anger of Western partners.


Tuesday's vote is the first in Israel since Arab uprisings swept the region two years ago, reshaping the Middle East.


Netanyahu has said the turbulence, which has brought Islamist governments to power in several countries long ruled by secularist autocrats, including neighboring Egypt, shows the importance of strengthening national security.


He views Iran's nuclear program as a mortal threat to the Jewish state and has vowed not to let Tehran enrich enough uranium to make a single nuclear bomb - a threshold Israeli experts say could arrive as early as mid-2013.


Iran denies it is planning to build the bomb, and says Israel, widely believed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, is the biggest threat to the region.


The issue barely registered during the election campaign, with a poll in Haaretz newspaper on Friday saying 47 percent of Israelis thought social and economic issues were the most pressing concern, against just 10 percent who cited Iran.


One of the first problems to face the next government, which is unlikely to take power before the middle of next month at the earliest, is the stuttering economy.


Data last week showed the budget deficit rose to 4.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2012, double the original estimate, meaning spending cuts and tax hikes look certain.


(Reporting by Jerusalem bureau; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)



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US existing-home sales dip in December: NAR






WASHINGTON: US existing-home sales dipped in December, capping a year that saw the briskest sales pace in five years as the housing market recovers, a trade group said Tuesday.

Sales fell 1.0 per cent from November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.94 million last month, the National Association of Realtors said.

The NAR revised downward its November estimate to 4.99 million, from an initial 5.04 million.

The December sales reading was weaker than the 5.10 million pace expected by analysts.

But on a 12-month basis, sales marked a 12.8 per cent increase from the December 2011 level, a fresh sign that the housing market has turned the corner six years after prices collapsed.

Total sales in 2012 was 4.65 million, up 9.2 per cent from 2011, the strongest increase since 2004, the NAR said.

The 2012 sales volume was the highest since 2007, boosted by record low mortgage interest rates, an improving job market and pent-up demand six years after the market collapsed.

The median home price rose for the 10th consecutive month year-over-year in December to US$180,800, a robust 11.5 per cent higher.

Limited inventory pushed 2012 median home prices 6.3 per cent higher to US$176,600, the biggest annual increase since 2005.

"The number of potential buyers who stayed on the sidelines accumulated during the recession, but they started entering the market early last year as their financial ability and confidence steadily grew, along with home prices," said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun.

"Likely job creation and household formation will continue to fuel that growth," he said, predicting gains in sales and prices in 2013.

- AFP/jc



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Is FDI in retail a gimmick? SC asks

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would test the constitutional validity of the Centre's decision to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail and asked the UPA government to spell out the safeguards put in place to protect small traders from possible onslaught of multinationals in future.

Parliament's approval of the policy decision was cited by Attorney General G E Vahanvati to clinch the issue before a bench of Justices R M Lodha and S J Mukhopadhaya, which was hearing a PIL filed by advocate M L Sharma alleging that permitting FDI in retail was in breach of FEMA Regulations.

The bench asked whether the government has received FDI proposals since Parliament approved the policy decision. "It is now six-seven weeks since Parliament approved the decision. Now the policy is in place. What has happened since then? Have you received some investment or was it just a political gimmick," it said.

Taken aback by the terse comments, the AG said receiving FDI in retail would take some time as it was a part of series of reforms that would slowly transform the country's investment scenario to make it lucrative enough for the foreign investors and, more importantly, beneficial for the consumers and small traders.

"FDI in India has already registered a substantial increase. The whole outlook for India as an investment decision has undergone a positive change," Vahanvati said and stuck to his argument that it was a policy decision approved by Parliament after a detailed debate and hence the courts could not go into the necessity of such a move by the executive.

But, the bench said, "it is a policy decision alright but its legal validity is challenged. The government must satisfy the court on this count." It said the petitioner alleged that the decision posed a serious threat to the existence of small traders. "We want to know what steps had been taken by the government to alleviate these fears?" the bench asked.

Vahanvati said these were the concerns Parliament debated before approving the decision permitting FDI in retail. But, the bench was firm to examine the decision to permit FDI in retail not only from the small traders' point of view but from all angles and asked the government to file an affidavit in three weeks giving a detailed response to all apprehensions and legal challenges specified in the PIL.

To explain its mind, the bench gave an illustration on elimination of competition by big players in India where small traders have traditionally played the role of friendly shop next door where one could bargain a good deal on virtually every consumable item.

The bench said, "Once the big players come in, they artificially so bring down the price that the small traders fail to match the price tag and are forced to shut shop. Once the competition is eliminated in this process, the big players jack up the price leaving the consumer no option but to pay."

Vahanvati said there was adequate legal framework to protect small traders from unfair means meant to kill competition and pointed out the setting up of Competition Commission. But, the bench asked, "How many small traders can move the forum?"

On October 16, the court had said the permission to allow FDI in multi-brand retail appeared to be at variance with the FEMA Regulations. Two weeks later, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) amended the regulations and the amendments were approved by Parliament.

Petitioner had said that Regulation 5 read with provisions of FEMA strictly prohibited FDI in retail trading (except in single brand product retailing), atomic energy, lottery, gambling and betting, business of chit funds, Nidhi company, trading in transferable development rights (TDRs) and activities/sectors not opened to private investment.

dhananjay.mahapatra@timesgroup.com

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws


NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.


A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.


"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.


An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for a third of civilian workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.


Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.


Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.


The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.


Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.


But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.


Michael Sinensky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."


"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinensky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.


Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.


To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.


"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.


Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.


Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.


In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.


The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.


Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.


While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.


"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."


___


Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.


___


Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz


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Lone Star College Evacuated After Shots Fired













A shooting on the campus of Lone Star College in Houston, Texas, this afternoon caused the school to be locked down and evacuated while police searched for suspects.


The college said today that shots were fired on the campus and at least two people were shot. Two individuals with multiple gunshot wounds are in serious condition at Ben Taub Hospital, according to ABC News affiliate KTRK.








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Connecticut School Shooting: 1 Gunman Confirmed Dead Watch Video





Police have a suspect in custody and are searching for a man about 6-foot-2 wearing an Atlanta Falcons hat.


Emergency reponders are currently on campus.


The shooting comes only a month after the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 students and six staff members were shot, sparking a wave of attempted copycat crimes in states like California and Indiana.


The Connecticut shooting inspired calls from government officials including President Obama for stricter gun control laws.



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Algeria says 37 foreigners died in siege led by Canadian


ALGIERS (Reuters) - A total of 37 foreigners and an Algerian died at a desert gas plant and five are still missing after a four-day hostage-taking coordinated by a Canadian gunman, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said on Monday.


Sellal also told a news conference that 29 Islamists had been killed in the siege, which Algerian forces ended by storming the plant on Saturday, and three were taken alive. Most of the gunmen were from various states of north and west Africa.


With some bodies burned beyond recognition and Algerian forces still combing the sprawling site, some details were still unclear or at odds with figures from other governments.


The siege has shaken confidence in the security of Algeria's vital energy industry and drawn attention to Islamist militancy across the Sahara, where France has sent troops to neighboring Mali to fight rebels who have obtained weaponry from Libya.


Of the 38 dead captives, out of a total workforce of some 800 at the In Amenas gas facility, seven were still unidentified but assumed to be foreigners, Algerian premier Sellal said.


Citizens of nine countries died, he said, among them seven Japanese, six Filipinos, two Romanians, an American, a Frenchman and four Britons. Britain said three Britons were dead and three plus a London-based Colombian were missing and believed dead.


Norway said the fate of five of its citizens was unclear; in addition to seven Japanese dead, Tokyo said three were missing.


An Algerian security source had earlier told Reuters that documents found on the bodies of two militants had identified them as Canadians: "A Canadian was among the militants. He was coordinating the attack," Sellal said, adding that the raiders had threatened to blow up the gas installation.


That Canadian's name was given only as Chedad. Algerian officials have also named other militants in recent days as having leadership roles among the attackers. Veteran Islamist Mokhtar Belmokhtar claimed responsibility on behalf of al Qaeda.


In Ottawa, Canada's foreign affairs department said it was seeking information, but referred to the possible involvement of only one Canadian.


The jihadists had planned the attack two months ago in neighboring Mali, Sellal added. During the siege, from which he said they had hoped to take foreign hostages to Mali, the kidnappers had demanded France end its military operation.


Sellal said that initially the raiders in Algeria had tried to hijack a bus carrying foreign workers to a nearby airport and take them hostage. "They started firing at the bus and received a severe response from the soldiers guarding the bus," he said. "They failed to achieve their objective, which was to kidnap foreign workers from the bus."


He said special forces and army units were deployed against the militants, who had planted explosives in the gas plant with a view to blowing up the facility. Normally producing 10 percent of Algeria's natural gas, it was shut down during the incident.


The government now aims to reopen it this week.


One group of militants had tried to escape in some vehicles, each of which also was carrying three or four foreign workers, some of whom had explosives attached to their bodies.


After what he called a "fierce response from the armed forces", the raiders' vehicles crashed or exploded and one of their leaders was among those killed.


LIBYAN NUMBER PLATES


Sellal said the jihadists who staged the attack last Wednesday had crossed into the country from neighboring Libya, after arriving there from Islamist-held northern Mali via Niger.


An Algerian newspaper said they had arrived in cars painted in the colors of state energy company Sonatrach but registered in Libya, a country awash with arms since Western powers backed a revolt to bring down Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.


The raid has exposed the vulnerability of multinational-run oil and gas installations in an important producing region and pushed the growing threat from Islamist militant groups in the Sahara to a prominent position in the West's security agenda.


Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has ordered an investigation into how security forces failed to prevent the attack, the daily El Khabar said.


Algerian Tahar Ben Cheneb - leader of a group called the Movement of Islamic Youth in the South who was killed on the first day of the assault - had been based in Libya where he married a local woman two months ago, it said.


ONE-EYED JIHADIST


Belmokhtar - a one-eyed jihadist who fought in Afghanistan and Algeria's civil war of the 1990s when the secular government fought Islamists - tied the desert attack to France's intervention across the Sahara against Islamist rebels in Mali.


"We in al Qaeda announce this blessed operation," he said in a video, according to Sahara Media, a regional website. About 40 attackers participated in the raid, he said, roughly matching the government's figures for fighters killed and captured.


Belmokhtar demanded an end to French air strikes against Islamist fighters in neighboring Mali. These began five days before the fighters swooped before dawn and seized a plant that produces 10 percent of Algeria's natural gas exports.


U.S. and European officials doubt such a complex raid could have been organized quickly enough to have been conceived as a direct response to the French military intervention. However, the French action could have triggered an operation that had already been planned.


The group behind the raid, the Mulathameen Brigade, threatened to carry out more such attacks if Western powers did not end what it called an assault on Muslims in Mali, according to the SITE service, which monitors militant statements.


In a statement published by the Mauritania-based Nouakchott News Agency, the hostage takers said they had offered talks about freeing the captives, but the Algerian authorities had been determined to use military force. Sellal blamed the raiders for the collapse of negotiations.


BLOODY SIEGE


The siege turned bloody on Thursday when the Algerian army opened fire, saying fighters were trying to escape with their prisoners. Survivors said Algerian forces blasted several trucks in a convoy carrying both hostages and their captors.


Nearly 700 Algerian workers and more than 100 foreigners escaped, mainly on Thursday when the fighters were driven from the residential barracks. Some captors remained holed up in the industrial complex until Saturday when they were overrun.


The bloodshed has strained Algeria's relations with its Western allies, some of which have complained about being left in the dark while the decision to storm the compound was being taken.


Nevertheless, Britain and France both defended the military action by Algeria, the strongest military power in the Sahara and an ally the West needs in combating the militants.


"This would have been a most demanding task for security forces anywhere in the world and we should acknowledge the resolve shown by the Algerians in undertaking it," British Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament on Monday.


The raid on the plant, which was home to expatriate workers from Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil, Japanese engineering firm BGC Corp and others, exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara.


However, Algeria is determined to press on with its energy industry. Oil Minister Youcef Yousfi visited the site and said physical damage was minor, state news service APSE reported. The plant would start up again in two days, he said.


Algeria, scarred by the civil war with Islamist insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives, insisted from the start of the crisis there would be no negotiation in the face of terrorism. France especially needs close cooperation from Algeria to crush Islamist rebels in northern Mali.


In a reference to Western concerns that the Sahara and the dry grasslands of the Sahel to its south may become a haven for its Islamist enemies as Afghanistan was under the Taliban before 2001, Sellal said Algeria would not become "Sahelistan".


Cameron said Islamist threats to Britain from Afghanistan and Pakistan had diminished, compared with four years ago: "But at the same time," he said, "Al Qaeda franchises have grown in Yemen, Somalia and parts of North Africa."


(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, William Maclean in Dubai, d Daniel Flynn in Dakar, David Ljunggren in Ottawa and Ed Klamann in Tokyo; Writing by David Stamp; Editing by Giles Elgood and Alastair Macdonald)



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Pakistan suspends PM graft probe after investigator's death






ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's anti-corruption watchdog Monday said it had suspended a probe into a graft scandal involving the prime minister pending an inquiry into the death of an officer investigating the case.

Kamran Faisal was found dead on Friday in the government hostel where he lived in Islamabad with colleagues from anti-corruption watchdog the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

According to the initial findings of an autopsy, he committed suicide. He was reportedly found hanging from a ceiling fan, but Faisal's family say he had marks on his wrists and dispute that he killed himself.

"The proceedings in RPPs (Rental Power Plants) case would remain pending till the conclusion of the inquiry in Kamran case," said a statement by the watchdog attributed to its chairman Fasih Bokhari.

The long-running probe involving Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and other officials relates to allegations of kickbacks during Ashraf's tenure as minister for water and power.

"In the event that any inquiry is concluded unsatisfactorily, NAB can, and will, institute its own inquiry/investigation," added the statement.

The Pakistani government earlier appointed a retired judge to probe the death. The retired Supreme Court judge will head the commission and submit a report in two weeks, Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters late Sunday.

The watchdog said Faisal was a junior investigations officer working on the case against Ashraf, whose arrest was ordered by the Supreme Court last week in a move that sparked panicked rumours of a "soft coup" against the government.

The court has since adjourned the case to January 23 and a further perceived threat to the government, a rally of tens of thousands led by a cleric outside parliament, has dispersed.

The prime minister on Monday withdrew a petition asking the Supreme Court to review its orders from March 30, 2010 for action against all officials involved in the alleged scam, including himself.

According to NAB, Faisal suffered from "mental stress" and "psychological issues". He had asked to be taken off the case, but the Supreme Court refused a written request on January 7 and ordered he be reinstated.

Suicide is frowned upon under Islam and Faisal's father, Abdul Hameed, told AFP on Monday that he believed his son was murdered.

"I have seen marks on his wrist. His hands were apparently tied before his death. He is a martyr," he said by telephone from his home in Punjab province.

The retired civil servant said he wanted justice for his son but was doubtful that a judicial commission would get to the bottom of his death.

"I want a fair investigation so that culprits be exposed," he said.

Employees in the eastern city of Lahore on Monday observed a "pen down" strike -- turning up to work but refusing to work -- demanding an independent and transparent investigation, and compensation for the family, said NAB official Atiqur Rehman.

Doctor Shaukat Kiyani at the Services General Hospital in Islamabad where the autopsy was performed, said the initial conclusion was suicide but that a final verdict was expected in a week or 10 days' time.

- AFP/ac



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