Syria protests over Israel attack, warns of "surprise"

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - Syria protested to the United Nations on Thursday over an Israeli air strike on its territory and warned of a possible "surprise" response.

The foreign ministry summoned the head of the U.N. force in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to deliver the protest a day after Israel hit what Syria said was a military research centre and diplomats said was a weapons convoy heading for Lebanon.

"Syria holds Israel and those who protect it in the Security Council fully responsible for the results of this aggression and affirms its right to defend itself, its land and sovereignty," Syrian television quoted it as saying.

The ministry said it considered Wednesday's Israeli attack to be a violation of a 1974 military disengagement agreement which followed their last major war, and demanded the U.N. Security Council condemn it unequivocally.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed "grave concern". "The Secretary-General calls on all concerned to prevent tensions or their escalation," his office said, adding that international law and sovereignty should be respected.

Israel has maintained total silence over the attack, as it did in 2007 when it bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear site - an attack which passed without Syrian military retaliation.

In Beirut on Thursday Syria's ambassador said Damascus could take "a surprise decision to respond to the aggression of the Israeli warplanes". He gave no details but said Syria was "defending its sovereignty and its land".

Diplomats, Syrian rebels and security sources said Israeli jets bombed a convoy near the Lebanese border on Wednesday, apparently hitting weapons destined for Hezbollah. Syria denied the reports, saying the target was a military research centre northwest of Damascus and 8 miles from the border.

Hezbollah, which has supported Assad as he battles an armed uprising in which 60,000 people have been killed, said Israel was trying to thwart Arab military power and vowed to stand by its ally.

"Hezbollah expresses its full solidarity with Syria's leadership, army and people," said the group which fought an inconclusive 34-day war with Israel in 2006.

Russia, which has blocked Western efforts to put pressure on Syria at the United Nations, said any Israeli air strike would amount to unacceptable military interference.

"If this information is confirmed, we are dealing with unprovoked attacks on targets on the territory of a sovereign country, which blatantly violates the U.N. Charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motives," Russia's foreign ministry said.

Iranian deputy foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdullahian said the attack "demonstrates the shared goals of terrorists and the Zionist regime", Fars news agency reported. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad portrays the rebels fighting him as foreign-backed, Islamist terrorists, with the same agenda as Israel.

An aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday Iran would consider any attack on Syria as an attack on itself.

In battle-torn Damascus, residents doubted Syria would fight back. One mother of five said she had heard retaliation would come later. "They always say that. They'll retaliate, but later, not now. Always later," she said, and laughed.

"The last thing we need now is Israeli fighter jets to add to our daily routine. As if we don't have enough noise and firing keeping us awake at night."

BLASTS SHOOK DISTRICT

Details of Wednesday's strike remain sketchy and, in parts, contradictory. Syria said Israeli warplanes, flying low to avoid detection by radar, crossed into its airspace from Lebanon and struck the Jamraya military research centre.

But the diplomats and rebels said the jets hit a weapons convoy heading from Syria to Lebanon and the rebels said they - not Israel - attacked Jamraya with mortars.

One former Western envoy to Damascus said the discrepancy between the accounts might be explained by Jamraya's proximity to the border and the fact that Israeli jets hit vehicles inside the complex as well as a building.

The force of the dawn attack shook the ground, waking nearby residents from their slumber with up to a dozen blasts, two sources in the area said.

"We were sleeping. Then we started hearing rockets hitting the complex and the ground started shaking and we ran into the basement," said a woman who lives adjacent to the Jamraya site.

The resident, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity over the strike, said she could not tell whether the explosions which woke her were the result of an aerial attack.

Another source who has a relative working inside Jamraya said a building inside the complex had been cordoned off and flames were seen rising from the area after the attack.

"It appears that there were about a dozen rockets that appeared to hit one building in the complex," the source, who also asked not to be identified, told Reuters. "The facility is closed today."

Israeli newspapers quoted foreign media on Thursday for reports on the attack. Journalists in Israel are required to submit articles on security and military issues to the censor, which has the power to block any publication of material it deems could compromise state security.

Syrian state television said two people were killed in the raid on Jamraya, which lies in the 25-km (15-mile) strip between Damascus and the Lebanese border. It described it as a scientific research centre "aimed at raising the level of resistance and self-defense".

Diplomatic sources from three countries told Reuters that chemical weapons were believed to be stored at Jamraya, and that it was possible that the convoy was near the large site when it came under attack. However, there was no suggestion that the vehicles themselves had been carrying chemical weapons.

"The target was a truck loaded with weapons, heading from Syria to Lebanon," said one Western diplomat, echoing others who said the convoy's load may have included anti-aircraft missiles or long-range rockets.

The raid followed warnings from Israel that it was ready to act to prevent the revolt against Assad leading to Syria's chemical weapons and modern rockets reaching either his Hezbollah allies or his Islamist enemies.

A regional security source said Israel's target was weaponry given by Assad's military to fellow Iranian ally Hezbollah.

Such a strike or strikes would fit Israel's policy of pre-emptive covert and overt action to curb Hezbollah and does not necessarily indicate a major escalation of the war in Syria. It does, however, indicate how the erosion of the Assad family's rule after 42 years is seen by Israel as posing a threat.

Israel this week echoed concerns in the United States about Syrian chemical weapons, but its officials say a more immediate worry is that the civil war could see weapons that are capable of denting its massive superiority in airpower and tanks reaching Hezbollah; the group fought Israel in 2006 and remains a more pressing threat than its Syrian and Iranian sponsors.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny and Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow and Marcus George in Dubai; editing by David Stamp and Philippa Fletcher)

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Wall Street Journal says hit by Chinese hackers too

WASHINGTON: The Wall Street Journal said Thursday its computers were hit by Chinese hackers, the latest US media organisation citing an effort to spy on its journalists covering China.

The Journal made the announcement a day after The New York Times said hackers, possibly connected to China's military, had infiltrated its computers in response to its expose of the vast wealth amassed by a top leader's family.

The Journal said in a news article that the attacks were "for the apparent purpose of monitoring the newspaper's China coverage" and suggests that Chinese spying on US media "has become a widespread phenomenon."

"Evidence shows that infiltration efforts target the monitoring of the Journal's coverage of China, and are not an attempt to gain commercial advantage or to misappropriate customer information," said a statement from Paula Keve of Journal parent Dow Jones, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

The Journal gave no timeline for the attacks but said a network overhaul to bolster security had been completed on Thursday.

"We fully intend to continue the aggressive and independent journalism for which we are known," Keve said.

On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that hackers have over the past four months infiltrated computer systems and stole staff passwords.

The effort has been particularly focused on the emails of Shanghai bureau chief David Barboza, the newspaper said.

According to a Barboza story published on October 25, close relatives of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao have made billions of dollars in business dealings.

"Chinese hackers, using methods that some consultants have associated with the Chinese military in the past, breached The Times' network," the newspaper said, citing a wealth of digital evidence gathered by its security experts.

The newspaper said the IT consultants believed the attacks "started from the same university computers used by the Chinese military to attack United States military contractors in the past."

The hackers stole corporate passwords and targeted the computers of 53 employees including former Beijing bureau chief Jim Yardley, who is now the Times' South Asia bureau chief based in India.

The Times said Bloomberg News was also targeted by Chinese hackers, after publishing in June a report on the wealth accumulated by relatives of Xi Jinping. In November, Xi was elevated to leader of the Chinese Communist Party.

In a related development, CNN said its international service went down for several minutes in response to its reporting on the hacking at the New York Times.

"CNNI went dark for 6 minutes," said a tweet from CNN International anchor Hala Gorani. "#China blacks out CNN for @HalaGorani interview on hacking of @nytimes."

In Beijing, China dismissed any notion that it was involved in any hacking.

"The competent Chinese authorities have already issued a clear response to the groundless accusations made by the New York Times," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters in Beijing.

"China is also a victim of hacking attacks," he said. "Chinese laws clearly forbid hacking attacks, and we hope relevant parties take a responsible attitude on this issue."

The US online security firm Symantec, cited by the New York Times for having failed to prevent the infiltration, issued its own statement deflecting any blame.

"Advanced attacks like the ones the New York Times described... underscore how important it is for companies, countries and consumers to make sure they are using the full capability of security solutions," the company said.

"Turning on only the signature-based anti-virus components of endpoint solutions alone are not enough in a world that is changing daily from attacks and threats."

- AFP/jc

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Manmohan assures Pawar over Telangana, says still to decide on timing

NEW DELHI: Formation of Telangana appeared that bit closer on Thursday after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reportedly said the government only has to decide upon the timing of the announcement.

NCP chief and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar told reporters that Singh indicated to him that the ongoing deliberations in Congress were only about when to announce the decision. Pawar's comment was interpreted as an indication that the government may have already decided to create Telangana.

Pawar said he had raised the Telangana issue with the PM after the meeting of the Cabinet and had told Singh that an early decision will help Congress. According to Pawar, Singh agreed with him and assured that only the timing of the announcement remained to be clinched.

It marks the strongest confirmation of what Congress announced a day earlier to settle all doubts on which way the vexed issue was headed. AICC spokesman PC Chacko had on Wednesday said that the ruling party was committed to statehood for Telangana and the only delay was on account of fulfilling constitutional obligations and deciding when the decision for statehood be made public.

The agitation-prone region has been roiled in fresh turbulence after the Centre failed to meet the deadline given by home minister Sushilkumar Shinde to clinch the issue. Shinde had in December last week told an all-party meeting that the Centre would close the protracted debate by January 28.

The fresh agitation, led by Telangana Rashtra Samithi, has brought Congress MPs and MLAs from the region under pressure to quit.

While the PM's reported assurance to Pawar suggests the fate of united Andhra is decided, it also indicated that there appeared a growing unanimity in the ruling coalition on the tricky subject. A meeting of UPA can be called soon to seek a final stamp of approval.

The NCP chief said he had met Singh to stress on early creation of the new state. "A delay will not be helpful to us," Pawar said, reminding Congress that UPA had made pro-Telangana commitment in its common minimum programme in 2004.

Pawar added that NCP would back the demand for separate Vidarbha out of Maharashtra if there was a popular sentiment in its favour.

The growing chorus for division of Andhra Pradesh seems to be the last chapter in a battle of wits that has paralyzed the Andhra government for three years since the death of anti-Telangana Congress strongman YS Rajasekhara Reddy.

A section of Congress and other state parties is opposed to division of AP. Congress is confident that it may be able to deal with resultant backlash in the Coastal and Rayalaseema region. The party is seeking to cut its losses in Telangana where it is at the receiving end of a popular sentiment for new state. The rebellion of YSR's son Jagamohan Reddy has put Congress on the defensive in other regions and Congress believes it can position itself strongly in at least Telangana by being on the right side of its aspiration.

Congress had announced Telangana on December 9, 2009, but then made a U-turn days later, triggering agitations that have not ceased ever since.

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Hedgehog Alert! Prickly pets can carry salmonella

NEW YORK (AP) — Add those cute little hedgehogs to the list of pets that can make you sick.

In the last year, 20 people were infected by a rare but dangerous form of salmonella bacteria, and one person died in January. The illnesses were linked to contact with hedgehogs kept as pets, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health officials on Thursday say such cases seem to be increasing.

The CDC recommends thoroughly washing your hands after handling hedgehogs and cleaning pet cages and other equipment outside.

Other pets that carry the salmonella bug are frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, lizards, chicks and ducklings.

Seven of the hedgehog illnesses were in Washington state, including the death — an elderly man from Spokane County who died in January. The other cases were in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon.

In years past, only one or two illnesses from this salmonella strain have been reported annually, but the numbers rose to 14 in 2011, 18 last year, and two so far this year.

Children younger than five and the elderly are considered at highest risk for severe illness, CDC officials said.

Hedgehogs are small, insect-eating mammals with a coat of stiff quills. In nature, they sometimes live under hedges and defend themselves by rolling up into a spiky ball.

The critters linked to recent illnesses were purchased from various breeders, many of them licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, CDC officials said. Hedgehogs are native to Western Europe, New Zealand and some other parts of the world, but are bred in the United States.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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Negotiations Drag Out for 5-Year-Old Hostage

An Alabama community is on edge today, praying for a 5-year-old boy being held hostage by a retired man who police say abducted him at gunpoint Tuesday afternoon.

Nearly 40 hours have slowly passed since school bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, heroically tried to prevent the kidnapping, but was shot to death by suspect Jimmy Lee Dykes, a former truck driver, police said.

Dykes boarded the bus Tuesday and said he wanted two boys, 6 to 8 years old. As the children piled to the back of the bus, Dykes, 65, allegedly shot Poland four times, then grabbed the child at random and fled, The Associated Press reported.

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The primary concern in the community near Midland City, Ala., is now for the boy's safety. Dale County police have not identified the child.

Mickey Welsh/Montgomery Advertiser/AP

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"I believe in prayer, so I just pray that we can resolve this peacefully," Dale County sheriff Wally Olson said.

The boy is being held in a bunker about 8 feet below ground, where police say Dykes likely has enough food and supplies to remain underground for weeks. Dykes has been communicating with police through a pipe extending from the bunker to the surface.

It is unclear whether he has made any demands from the bunker-style shelter on his property.

The young hostage is a child with autism. Dykes has allowed the boy to watch television, and have some medication, police said

Multiple agencies have responded to the hostage situation, Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson said. The FBI has assumed the lead in the investigation, and SWAT teams were surrounding the bunker.

"A lot of law enforcement agencies here doing everything they possibly can to get this job done," Olson said.

Former FBI lead hostage negotiator Chris Voss said that authorities must proceed with caution.

"You make contact as quickly as you can, but also as gently as you can," he said. "You don't try to be assertive; you don't try to be aggressive."

Voss said patience is important in delicate situations such as this.

"The more patient approach they take, the less likely they are to make mistakes," he said.

"They need to move slowly to get it right, to communicate properly and slowly and gently unravel this."

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Egypt curfew scaled back as Mursi seeks end to bloodshed

CAIRO/BERLIN (Reuters) - Egyptian authorities scaled back a curfew imposed by President Mohamed Mursi, and the Islamist leader cut short a visit to Europe on Wednesday to deal with the deadliest violence in the seven months since he took power.

Two more protesters were shot dead before dawn near Cairo's central Tahrir Square on Wednesday, a day after the army chief warned that the state was on the brink of collapse if Mursi's opponents and supporters did not end street battles.

More than 50 people have been killed in the past seven days of protests by Mursi's opponents marking the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

Mursi imposed a curfew and a state of emergency on three Suez Canal cities on Sunday - Port Said, Ismailia and Suez. That only seemed to further provoke crowds. However, violence has mainly subsided in those towns since Tuesday.

Local authorities pushed back the start of the curfew from 9:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. in Ismailia and to 1:00 a.m. in Port Said and Suez.

"There has been progress in the security situation since Monday. Calm has returned," Suez Governor Samir Aglan said.

Mursi, speaking in Berlin before hurrying home to deal with the crisis, called for dialogue with opponents but would not commit to their demand that he first agree to include them in a unity government.

He sidestepped a question about a possible unity government, saying the next cabinet would be formed after parliamentary elections in April.

Egypt was on its way to becoming "a civilian state that is not a military state or a theocratic state", Mursi said.

The violence at home forced Mursi to scale back his European visit, billed as a chance to promote Egypt as a destination for foreign investment. He flew to Berlin but called off a trip to Paris and was due back home after only a few hours in Europe.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who met him, echoed other Western leaders who have called on him to give his opponents a voice.

"One thing that is important for us is that the line for dialogue is always open to all political forces in Egypt, that the different political forces can make their contribution, that human rights are adhered to in Egypt and that of course religious freedom can be experienced," she said at a joint news conference with Mursi.

SPIRIT OF REVOLUTION

Mursi's critics accuse him of betraying the spirit of the revolution by keeping too much power in his own hands and those of his Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement banned under Mubarak which won repeated elections since the 2011 uprising.

Mursi's supporters say the protesters want to overthrow Egypt's first democratically elected leader. The current unrest has deepened an economic crisis that saw the pound currency tumble in recent weeks.

Near Cairo's Tahrir Square on Wednesday morning, dozens of protesters threw stones at police who fired back teargas, although the scuffles were brief.

"Our demand is simply that Mursi goes, and leaves the country alone. He is just like Mubarak and his crowd who are now in prison," said Ahmed Mustafa, 28, a youth who had goggles on his head to protect his eyes from teargas.

Opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei called for a meeting of the president, ministers, the ruling party and the opposition to halt the violence. But he also restated the precondition that Mursi first commit to seeking a national unity government.

The worst violence has been in the Suez Canal city of Port Said, where rage was fuelled by death sentences passed against soccer fans for roles in deadly riots last year.

After decades in which the West backed Mubarak's military rule of Egypt, the emergence of an elected Islamist leader in Cairo is probably the single most important change brought about by the wave of Arab revolts over the past two years.

Mursi won backing from the West last year for his role in helping to establish a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinians that ended a conflict in Gaza. But he then followed that with an effort to fast-track a constitution that reignited dissent at home and raised global concern over Egypt's future.

Western countries were alarmed this month by video that emerged showing Mursi making vitriolic remarks against Jews and Zionists in 2010 when he was a senior Brotherhood official.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said ahead of Mursi's visit that the remarks, in which Mursi referred to Zionists as "descendants of apes and pigs" were "unacceptable".

"NOT AGAINST JEWS"

Asked about those remarks at the news conference with Merkel, Mursi repeated earlier explanations that they had been taken out of context.

"I am not against the Jewish faith," he said. "I was talking about the practices and behavior of believers of any religion who shed blood or who attack innocent people or civilians. That's behavior that I condemn."

"I am a Muslim. I'm a believer and my religion obliges me to believe in all prophets, to respect all religions and to respect the right of people to their own faith," he added.

Egypt's main liberal and secularist bloc, the National Salvation Front, has so far refused talks with Mursi unless he promises a unity government including opposition figures.

"Stopping the violence is the priority, and starting a serious dialogue requires committing to guarantees demanded by the National Salvation Front, at the forefront of which are a national salvation government and a committee to amend the constitution," ElBaradei said on Twitter.

Those calls have also been backed by the hardline Islamist Nour party - rivals of Mursi's Brotherhood. Nour and the Front were due to meet on Wednesday, signaling an unlikely alliance of Mursi's critics from opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Brotherhood leader Mohamed El-Beltagy dismissed the unity government proposal as a ploy for the Front to take power despite having lost elections. On his Facebook page he ridiculed "the leaders of the Salvation Front, who seem to know more about the people's interests than the people themselves".

In a sign of the toll the unrest is having on Egypt's economy, ratings agency Fitch downgraded its sovereign rating by one notch to B on Wednesday.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Yasmine Saleh and Marwa Awad in Cairo, Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia and Stephen Brown and Gernot Heller in Berlin; Writing by Peter Graff)

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Brazil night club owner attempts suicide

SANTA MARIA: An owner of the Brazilian night club where 235 people perished in a weekend fire tried to commit suicide, police said Wednesday, as the number of survivors seeking medical treatment after the disaster continued to rise.

Elissandro Sphor tried to kill himself with a plastic shower hose, said senior police official Lilian Carus in the town of Cruz Alta 125 kilometres from Santa Maria, where the club owner is hospitalised.

"It was clear he wanted to hang himself," Carus told AFP, adding that a police officer arrived at the scene -- a hospital where Sphor is being treated for gas poisoning -- before anything happened.

Police took Sphor and three others into custody as they pieced together what caused the inferno at the Kiss nightclub, which was packed with partying students when the blaze broke out early Sunday.

About 75 injured victims of the fire are clinging to life, some in critical condition, in the college town of Santa Maria.

Meanwhile, health officials there said about 20 people have been hospitalised since the fire with symptoms of "chemical pneumonitis" after breathing in smoke and toxic gases emitted during the inferno.

The symptoms may take five days to appear and can be severe, health official Neio Pereira said.

Most of the victims died of smoke inhalation as they desperately tried to escape.

Those treated for the respiratory ailments Wednesday were in addition to 123 people hospitalised after the fire, which authorities say was sparked by a cheap flare lit by musicians as part of an illegal pyrotechnics display.

Authorities catalogued a long list of other infractions at club, including a lack of emergency lighting, non-functioning fire extinguishers and suspected overcrowding.

It also was operating with an expired licence and had only one functioning exit, which survivors said was unmarked and blocked by steel barriers, making it difficult to flee the establishment.

Sphor's doctor told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper that since the tragedy, his client -- who is one of two owners of the night club -- cries incessantly, has had to be put on a prescription of tranquilisers, and is emotionally "destroyed."

Meanwhile, dozens of people late Tuesday took to the streets of Santa Maria demanding justice and stricter laws.

"We will work tirelessly until all those responsible are identified," police commissioner Marcelo Arigony promised the demonstrators -- even as many blamed the government itself for failing to carry out the inspections that might have saved lives.

Some survivors said that security guards initially blocked the exit to prevent customers from leaving the club without paying their bar tabs.

Fire chief Sergio Roberto de Abreu said his department had been in the process of reviewing the club's fire extinguisher documentation, but that approval had not yet been given at the time of the fire.

Lawyers for the club, however, have insisted that the establishment was in full compliance.

- AFP/jc

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Anna launches 'Jantantra Morcha', aims to change system

PATNA: Anna Hazare on Wednesday launched a new outfit " Jantantra Morcha" at a rally in Patna.

"Now a change in the system is our aim. The change can be brought about by passing the Jan lokpal Bill and decentralizing power to gram sabhas and ward sabhas," he told a public meeting.

The social activist said the new outfit would not join electoral politics and the occasion marked the beginning of the "second freedom struggle". He said now he plans to tour the entire country to awaken people. "I wish to awaken only six crore of the country's 120 crore people. If six crore people are with me, government "ki naak dabaunga, munh khulegi" (government will be forced to talk)," he said. He said the government would be forced to give Jan lokpal to the country.

In his 45-minute speech, Anna did not refer to Arvind Kejriwal at all. Alleging the Congress-led government did not intend to bring the Jan lokpal because 15 of its ministers would be behind bars and that 163 of the MPs were tainted, he said after the demand of Jan lokpal was fulfilled they would force Parliament to empower people with the "right to reject" and "right to recall" their candidates if they were unworthy.

"None of the rejected candidates should be allowed to contest election," he said and added that parties would be forced to give tickets to clean candidates.

Hazare said he chose Bihar as the venue for his first 'Jantantra Rally' because the "pious land" was the "tapobhoomi" of JP and Mahatma Gandhi. "We have to realize the dreams of JP that have remained unfulfilled," said Anna in a bid to strike a chord with the crowd responding with an applause every time he used adjectives like "goonda", "lootera" and "ghotalebaaz" for the people in power.

Former army chief Gen VK Singh and former IPS officer Kiran Bedi were present at the rally as well.

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Study sees prostate cancer treatment side effects

A new study shows how important it is for men to carefully consider treatments for early-stage prostate cancer. Fifteen years after surgery or radiation treatment, nearly all of the older men in the study had some problems having sex.

About one-fifth had bladder or bowel trouble, researchers found.

The study doesn't compare these men — who were 70 to 89 at the end of the study — to others who did not treat their cancers or to older men without the disease. At least one study suggests that half that age group has sexual problems even when healthy.

The study isn't a rigorous test of surgery and radiation, but it is the longest follow-up of some men who chose those treatments.

Since early prostate cancers usually don't prove fatal but there are no good ways to tell which ones really need treatment, men must be realistic about side effects they might suffer, said one study leader, Dr. David Penson of Vanderbilt University.

"They need to look at these findings and say, 'Oh my gosh, no matter what I choose, I'm going to have some quality-of-life effect and it's probably greater than my doctor is telling me,'" he said.

The study appears in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in American men. In the United States alone, there were about 240,000 new cases and 28,000 deaths from the disease last year. Radiation or surgery to remove the prostate are common treatments when the disease is confined to the gland.

Men usually live a long time after treatment — 14 years on average — so it's important to see how they fare, said another study leader, Vanderbilt's Dr. Matthew Resnick.

The study involved 1,655 men diagnosed in 1994 or 1995, when they were ages 55 to 74. About two-thirds of them had surgery and the rest, radiation. They were surveyed two, five and 15 years later. By that time, 569 had died.

Men who had surgery had more problems in the first few years after their treatments than those given radiation, but by the end of the study, there was no big difference.

After 15 years, 18 percent of the surgery group and 9 percent of the radiation group reported urinary incontinence, and 5 percent of the surgery group and 16 percent of the radiation group said they were bothered by bowel problems. But the differences between the two groups could have occurred by chance alone once researchers took other factors such as age and the size of the men's tumors into account.

Impotence was "near universal" at 15 years, the authors write — 94 percent of the radiation group and 87 percent of the surgery group. But the difference between the groups also was considered possibly due to chance. Also, less than half of men said they were bothered by their sexual problems.

"These men do get some help from pills like Viagra, Cialis, Levitra," but it may not be as much as they would like and most men would rather not need those pills, Penson said.

The National Cancer Institute paid for the study. Two authors have consulted for several makers of prostate cancer treatment drugs.

No study is perfect and this one has many limitations, said Dr. Timothy Wilson, urology chief at City of Hope, a cancer center in Duarte, Calif. Men who are having problems are more likely to complete follow-up surveys because they're angry, so that could skew results, he noted.

Still, "it's a high percentage" with side effects, said Wilson, who has been a paid speaker for two makers of surgery equipment.

"There's no question we overtreat" many cases of early prostate cancer, yet the disease is still the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in men. "We need to better sort out who really needs treatment," he said.

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Online:

New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Giffords to Senate: 'Americans Are Counting on You'

Former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, whose congressional career was ended by a bullet wound to her head, opened a Senate hearing on gun violence today by telling the panel, "Speaking is difficult, but I need to say something important."

In a determined and forceful voice, she told the Senators to be "courageous" because "Americans are counting on you."

Giffords sat alongside her astronaut husband Mark Kelly as she delivered her emotional statement just over a minute long imploring Congress to act on gun policy.

"This is an important conversation for our children, for our communities, for Democrats, and Republicans," the former Arizona congresswoman said. "Speaking is difficult but I need to say something important: Violence is a big problem too many children are dying. Too many children. We must do something. It will be hard, but the time is now. You must act. Be bold, be courageous, Americans are counting on you. Thank you," Giffords said before being helped out of the hearing room.

Giffords was shot by a gunman in her Arizona district two years ago, and was a last-minute addition to the hearing about the nation's gun laws as lawmakers grapple with how to curb gun violence in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., tragedy that left 20 children and seven adults dead late last year.

Today's hearing is a showdown on guns, featuring two powerful but conflicting forces in the gun control movement. Giffords' husband also testified, as did Wayne LaPierre, the fiery executive vice president and CEO of the National Rifle Association.

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Kelly's opening remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee today emphasized that he and his wife are both gun owners and he has said that he recently bought a new hunting rifle. But he said they are also dedicated to minimizing gun violence because of their personal tragedy.

"We are simply two reasonable Americans who realize we have a problem with gun violence, and we need Congress to act," Kelly said. "Our rights are paramount, but our responsibilities are serious and as a nation we are not taking responsibility for the gun rights our founding fathers conferred upon us."

Kelly said that a top priority should be to close the loophole that says people who buy weapons at gun shows are not required to undergo background checks.

"Closing the gun show loophole and requiring private sellers to require a background check for they transfer a gun…I can't think of something that would make our country safer than doing just that," he told the panel.

Giffords and Kelly recently launched Americans for Responsible Solutions, an organization promoting the implementation of universal background checks and limits on high capacity magazines.

"Overwhelmingly, you told us that universal background checks and limiting access to high capacity magazines were top priorities, and I'll make sure to address each of those ideas in my opening remarks," Kelly wrote in an email to supporters Tuesday. Kelly asked the group's allies to sign a petition calling on Congress to pass legislation on both issues.

LaPierre laid out the NRA's opposition to universal background checks and urged legislators not to "blame" legal gun owners by enacting new gun control laws.

"Law-abiding gun owners will not accept blame for the acts of violence of deranged criminals. Nor do we believe the government should dictate what we can lawfully own and use to protect our families," LaPierre said."And when it comes to background checks, let's be honest – background checks will never be 'universal' – because criminals will never submit to them."

"If you want to stop crime, interdict violent criminals incarcerate them and get them off the streets," LaPierre said.

He repeated an NRA proposal to place armed security guards in every school in America, arguing that "it's time to throw an immediate blanket of security around our children."

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