BJP condemns killing of Indian soldiers by Pak Army

NEW DELHI: Condemning the brutal killing of two Indian soldiers by the Pakistan Army, BJP today said it was a "warning" to India and asked the government to place all facts before the international community so that Islamabad can be "named and shamed" before the world at large.

BJP leader Arun Jaitley also asked the government to "clearly define the dos and don'ts" in relations with the neighbouring nation.

He said the brutal nature of the killing of two Indian soldiers by Pakistanis shows the "real design behind this attack."

"As far as this unprovoked attack is concerned, it is now incumbent on the Government of India, since Pakistan still continues to give denial, to collect the entire evidence including the identity of those Pakistani Army officials and the groups guarding particular area who are responsible for this assault, place all these facts before the international community so that Pakistan can be named and shamed before the world at large for this brutal attack," Jaitley said.

"This attack is also warning to India. A warning that in dealing with Pakistan is now extremely important that Government of India clearly define the red lines. It has to be very firm, very cautious and very clear in how to deal with Pakistan," he told reporters here.

Government "must clearly define the dos and don'ts particularly the red lines," he said.

In a "provocative" attack yesterday, Pakistani regular soldiers crossed into Indian territory in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir and ambushed an Indian patrol killing two soldiers, one of whom was decapitated.

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Pictures: Wildfires Scorch Australia Amid Record Heat

Photograph by Jo Giuliani, European Pressphoto Agency

Smoke from a wildfire mushrooms over a beach in Forcett, Tasmania, on January 4. (See more wildfire pictures.)

Wildfires have engulfed southeastern Australia, including the island state of Tasmania, in recent days, fueled by dry conditions and temperatures as high as 113ºF (45ºC), the Associated Press reported. (Read "Australia's Dry Run" inNational Geographic magazine.)

No deaths have been reported, though a hundred people are unaccounted for in the town of Dunalley, where the blazes destroyed 90 homes.

"You don't get conditions worse than this," New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told the AP.

"We are at the catastrophic level, and clearly in those areas leaving early is your safest option."

Published January 8, 2013

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Dead Lotto Winner's Wife Seeks 'Truth'













The wife of a $1 million Chicago lottery winner who died of cyanide poisoning told ABC News that she was shocked to learn the true cause of his death and is cooperating with an ongoing homicide investigation.


"I want the truth to come out in the investigation, the sooner the better," said Shabana Ansari, 32, the wife of Urooj Khan, 46. "Who could be that person who hurt him?


"It has been incredibly hard time," she added. "We went from being the happiest the day we got the check. It was the best sleep I've had. And then the next day, everything was gone."


Ansari, Khan's second wife, told the Chicago Sun-Times that she prepared what would be her husband's last meal the night before Khan died unexpectedly on July 20. It was a traditional beef-curry dinner attended by the married couple and their family, including Khan's 17-year-old daughter from a prior marriage, Jasmeen, and Ansari's father. Not feeling well, Khan retired early, Ansari told the paper, falling asleep in a chair, waking up in agony, then collapsing in the middle of the night. She called 911.


Khan, an immigrant from India who owned three dry-cleaning businesses in Chicago, won $1 million in a scratch-off Illinois Lottery game in June and said he planned to use the money to pay off his bills and mortgage, and make a contribution to St. Jude Children's Research Center.


"Him winning the lottery was just his luck," Ansari told ABC News. "He had already worked hard to be a millionaire before it."






Illinois Lottery/AP Photo











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Jimmy Goreel, who worked at the 7-Eleven store where Khan bought the winning ticket, described him to The Associated Press as a "regular customer ... very friendly, good sense of humor, working type of guy."


In Photos: Biggest Lotto Jackpot Winners


Khan's unexpected death the month after his lottery win raised the suspicions of the Cook County medical examiner. There were no signs of foul play or trauma so the death initially was attributed to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, which covers heart attacks, stroke or ruptured aneurysms. The medical examiner based the conclusion on an external exam -- not an autopsy -- and toxicology reports that indicated no presence of drugs or carbon monoxide.


Khan was buried at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago.


However, several days after a death certificate was issued, a family member requested that the medical examiner's office look further into Khan's death, Cook County Medical Examiner Stephen Cina said. The office did so by retesting fluid samples that had been taken from Khan's body, including tests for cyanide and strychnine.


When the final toxicology results came back in late November, they showed a lethal level of cyanide, which led to the homicide investigation, Cina said. His office planned to exhume Khan's body within the next two weeks as part of the investigation.


Melissa Stratton, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department, confirmed it has been working closely with the medical examiner's office. The police have not said whether or not they believe Khan's lottery winnings played a part in the homicide.


Khan had elected to receive the lump sum payout of $425,000, but had not yet received it when he died, Ansari told the AP, adding that the winnings now are tied up as a probate matter.


"I am cooperating with the investigation," Ansari told ABC News. "I want the truth to come out."


Authorities also have not revealed the identity of the relative who suggested the deeper look into Khan's death. Ansari said it was not her, though she told the AP she has subsequently spoken with investigators.


"This is been a shock for me," she told ABC News. "This has been an utter shock for me, and my husband was such a goodhearted person who would do anything for anyone. Who would do something like this to him?


"We were married 12 years [and] he treated me like a princess," she said. "He showered his love on me and now it's gone."



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Obama’s failure to nominate women for two top Cabinet posts questioned



Obama, who made women’s issues a core of his reelection bid, has nominated men to serve in three of his most prominent national security positions, including secretary of state, where Sen. John F. Kerry (D) was named last month to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton. The president on Monday announced former senator Chuck Hagel for the defense job and counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan to head the CIA.


The moves have disappointed some supporters who said they fear, with Clinton’s departure, a paucity of females among Obama’s top advisers, particularly in the traditionally male-dominated field of defense and security.

Thomas Donilon, the president’s national security adviser, was in the audience, as outgoing Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and acting CIA director Michael J. Morrell joined their possible successors and the president.

The pattern is particularly striking for a president who was elected with majority support from women and racial minorities and focused heavily during his reelection campaign on women’s health concerns and equal pay in the workplace. Obama won 55 percent of the female vote to Republican rival Mitt Romney’s 44 percent.

Obama is committed to “finding the very best people for each job,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday, when asked about the lack of women among the second-term appointments. “And that’s what he’s done today, and that’s what he’ll continue to do.”

Among those passed over to lead the Pentagon was Michele Flournoy, who became the highest-ranking woman to serve in the Defense Department when she was confirmed as undersecretary of defense for policy in 2009. Flournoy, 52, resigned from the role last February, citing a desire to spend more time with her family. But she also served as an adviser to Obama’s reelection campaign and was considered a top candidate.

Instead, Obama chose Hagel — who got to know Obama when he was a senator — though the Nebraska Republican has been criticized by GOP leaders and some Democrats for statements on Israel.

“I think he’s blowing a huge opportunity here for reasons I don’t even get,” said Rosa Brooks, a professor on national security at Georgetown University who spent two years working for Flournoy at the Pentagon.

“It would have been fantastic for this president to appoint the first woman secretary of defense,” Brooks said, “particularly given we are so embroiled at this moment in the ongoing conflict in the Islamic world, where the suppression of women is such a major issue. It was a chance for us to show we’re leading by example.”

Carney noted that Janet Napolitano, head of the Department of Homeland Security, and U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice are in top national security roles.

He added that Obama “insists on diversity on the lists that he considers for the job because he believes that in casting a broader net, you increase the excellence of the pool of potential nominees for these positions. But in the end he’ll make the choice that he believes is best for the United States.”

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Indian guru blames Delhi rape victim, sparks outrage






NEW DELHI: A popular Indian spiritual guru sparked a backlash Tuesday after saying a 23-year-old student could have averted a murderous gang-rape by begging for mercy from her attackers.

Self-styled godman Asharam, known to his followers as "Bapu" or father, told his devotees that blame for the assault on a moving bus in New Delhi on December 16 should not just rest with her attackers.

"This tragedy would not have happened if she had chanted God's name and fallen at the feet of the attackers. The error was not committed by just one side," he said in video footage which has been widely circulated on the Internet.

The 71-year-old's remarks -- the latest in a series of gaffes by public figures blaming women for the country's rape epidemic -- drew a chorus of condemnation.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, spokesman for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said the statement was "deeply disturbing and painful".

"For him to make the statement in relation to a crime which has shocked the conscience of the country is not only unfortunate but deeply regrettable," he told reporters.

The Hindu newspaper said it was "a disgrace when a man of religion stoops so low".

"Asharam deserves to be condemned in the strongest words," the daily added in an editorial.

The editorial also criticised politicians from the ruling Congress party as well as the BJP for their sexist commentary on the Delhi rape and the need for Indian women to stay home and make traditional choices.

"Their notions of... an ideal society appear rooted in the very prejudices that have engendered a culture of violence against women, the Delhi incident being its most recent and horrific manifestation," the newspaper said.

Abhijit Mukherjee, the son of India's president who is a Congress lawmaker, landed himself in hot water last month after comparing women who took part in protests over the gang-rape to patched up second-hand cars.

Five men have been charged with rape and murder in the December 16 attack on the young student. A sixth accused, who is 17, is to be tried in a separate court for juveniles.

-AFP/fl



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Jharkhand cabinet recommends dissolution of assembly

RANCHI: Jharkhand Cabinet on Tuesday decided to recommend dissolution of the state assembly to prevent any "horse trading-like situation", a day after the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha withdrew its support to the BJP-led government.

"Seven ministers (of the coalition government) were present during the Cabinet meeting, and it has decided to recommend dissolution of the state assembly," chief minister Arjun Munda said.

He said the decision was taken as no national party had openly come forward to provide an alternative government in the wake of the JMM's announcement to pull out of the government.

"We have sought time from governor Syed Ahmed to inform him about the Cabinet decision," Munda, who took over the reins on September 11, 2010, said.

Meanwhile, Raj Bhavan sources said the JMM has submitted its letter of withdrawal of support to the Arjun Munda-led BJP government.

JMM leader and deputy chief minister Hemant Soren had said on Monday that the decision to withdraw support was taken at the party's executive committee meeting after talking to several BJP leaders, including its Jharkhand affairs in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan.

In the 82-member state assembly, BJP and JMM have 18 members each and the Munda government enjoys the support of six members of All Jharkhand Students' Union, two of JD (U), two independents and one nominated member who has voting right in trial of strength.

Opposition Congress has a total 13, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha(P)11 and RJD 5 members in the assembly.

JMM had put before BJP 'over phone' certain issues, including the "ruling by rotation". The 28-month limit for ruling by BJP, according to the tribal party, ends on January 10.

Relations between BJP and JMM have come under strain since the chief minister, in a written reply to a letter from JMM on January 3, rejected that there was an agreement between the two parties on "rotation of power" after 28 months in office.

JMM, however, insisted there had been an agreement to share power. Hemant Soren had in a letter to Munda on December 25 asked him to clarify BJP's stand on the issue.

Hemant Soren had said that "if BJP considers them (the issues) positively, then the JMM can even consider its withdrawal of support."

He had said the issues are, "A senior BJP MP from Santhal Pargana has been giving baseless statements against the JMM leadership, which is intolerable. There is no coordination in the alliance."

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Primitive and Peculiar Mammal May Be Hiding Out in Australia



It’d be hard to think of a mammal that’s weirder than the long-beaked, egg-laying echidna. Or harder to find.


Scientists long thought the animal, which has a spine-covered body, a four-headed penis, and a single hole for reproducing, laying eggs, and excreting waste, lived only in New Guinea. The population of about 10,000 is critically endangered. Now there is tantalizing evidence that the echidna, thought to have gone extinct in Australia some 10,000 years ago, lived and reproduced there as recently as the early 1900s and may still be alive on Aussie soil.


The new echidna information comes from zoologist Kristofer Helgen, a National Geographic emerging explorer and curator of mammals at the Smithsonian Institution. Helgen has published a key finding in ZooKeys confirming that a skin and skull collected in 1901 by naturalist John T. Tunney in Australia is in fact the western long-beaked echidna, Zaglossus bruijnii. The specimen, found in the West Kimberley region of Western Australia, was misidentified for many years.


(More about echidnas: Get to know this living link between mammals and reptiles.)


Helgen has long been fascinated by echidnas. He has seen only three in the wild. “Long-beaked echidnas are hard to get your hands on, period,” he said. “They are shy and secretive by nature. You’re lucky if you can find one. And if you do, it will be by chance.” Indeed, chance played a role in his identification of the Australian specimen. In 2009, he visited the Natural History Museum of London, where he wanted to see all of the echidnas he could. He took a good look in the bottom drawer of the echidna cabinet, where the specimens with less identifying information are often stored. From among about a dozen specimens squeezed into the drawer, he grabbed the one at the very bottom.


(Related from National Geographic magazine: “Discovery in the Foja Mountains.”)


“As I pulled it out, I saw a tag that I had seen before,” Helgen said. “I was immediately excited about this label. As a zoologist working in museums you get used to certain tags: It’s a collector’s calling card. I instantly recognized John Tunney’s tag and his handwriting.”


John Tunney was a well-known naturalist in the early 20th century who went on collecting expeditions for museums. During an Australian expedition in 1901 for Lord L. Walter Rothschild’s private museum collection, he found the long-beaked echidna specimen. Though he reported the locality on his tag as “Mt Anderson (W Kimberley)” and marked it as “Rare,” Tunney left the species identification field blank. When he returned home, the specimen was sent to the museum in Perth for identification. It came back to Rothschild’s museum identified as a short-beaked echidna.


With the specimen’s long snout, large size, and three-clawed feet, Helgen knew that it must be a long-beaked echidna. The short-beaked echidna, still alive and thriving in Australia today, has five claws, a smaller beak, and is half the size of the long-beaked echidna, which can weigh up to 36 pounds (16 kilograms).



As Helgen began tracing the history and journey of the specimen over the last century, he crossed the path of another fascinating mind who had also encountered the specimen. Oldfield Thomas was arguably the most brilliant mammalogical taxonomist ever. He named approximately one out of every six mammals known today.


Thomas was working at the Natural History Museum in London when the Tunney echidna specimen arrived, still misidentified as a short-beaked echidna. Thomas realized the specimen was actually a long-beaked echidna and removed the skull and some of the leg bones from the skin to prove that it was an Australian record of a long-beaked echidna, something just as unexpected then as it is now.


No one knows why Thomas did not publish that information. And the echidna went back into the drawer until Helgen came along 80 years later.


As Helgen became convinced that Tunney’s long-beaked echidna specimen indeed came from Australia, he confided in fellow scientist Mark Eldridge of the Australian Museum about the possibility. Eldridge replied, “You’re not the first person who’s told me that there might be long-beaked echidnas in the Kimberley.” (That’s the Kimberley region of northern Australia.) Scientist James Kohen, a co-author on Helgen’s ZooKeys paper, had been conducting fieldwork in the area in 2001 and spoke to an Aboriginal woman who told him how “her grandmothers used to hunt” large echidnas.


This is “the first evidence of the survival into modern times of any long-beaked echidna in Australia,” said Tim Flannery, professor at Macquarie University in Sydney. “This is a truly significant finding that should spark a re-evaluation of echidna identifications from across northern Australia.”


Helgen has “a small optimism” about finding a long-beaked echidna in the wild in Australia and hopes to undertake an expedition and to interview Aboriginal communities, with their intimate knowledge of the Australian bush.


Though the chances may be small, Helgen says, finding one in the wild “would be the beautiful end to the story.”


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Meet Obama's Defense Secretary Nominee













President Obama nominated former Senator Chuck Hagel as the next U.S. secretary of defense. To those who haven't followed the Senate closely in the past decade, he's probably not a household name.


Hagel is a former GOP senator from Nebraska and Purple-Heart-decorated Vietnam veteran, but he wouldn't necessarily be a popular pick with Republicans in Congress.


At age 21, Hagel and his brother Tom became the next in the family to serve in the United States Army. They joined the masses of Americans fighting an unfamiliar enemy in Vietnam.


In his book, he describes finding himself "pinned down by Viet Cong rifle fire, badly burned, with my wounded brother in my arms."


"Mr. President, I'm grateful for this opportunity to serve our country again," Hagel said after Obama announced his nomination Monday.


In 1971, Hagel took his first job in politics as chief of staff to Congressman John Y. McCollister, a position he held for six years. After that, he moved to Washington for the first time, where he went on to work for a tire company's government affairs office, the 1982 World's Fair and in 1981, as Ronald Reagan's Deputy Administrator of the Veterans Administration.








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He worked in the private sector for most of the 80s and 90s before his first election to the Senate in 1997.
Since the turn of the century, Hagel has followed a curvy path of political alliances that puts his endorsements all over the map. Hagel's record of picking politically unpopular positions could be a large part of why Obama is naming him for the job, as Slate's Fred Kaplan surmises the next Defense secretary will be faced with tough choices.


In 2000, he was one of few Republican senators to back Sen. John McCain over then-presidential-candidate George W. Bush.


After that election, Hagel fiercely criticized Bush for adding 30,000 surge troops to Iraq, in place of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's proposal of a draw-down and regional diplomacy, which Hagel preferred. When Bush instead announced that more troops would go to Iraq, Hagel co-sponsored a nonbinding resolution to oppose it, along with then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.


"The president says, 'I don't care.' He's not accountable anymore," Hagel told Esquire in June 2007. "He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends how this goes."


Hagel's fierce opposition to America's involvement in Iraq – he called it one of the five monumental blunders of history, on par with the Trojan War – will be of substantial importance as the Obama administration charts our course out of Afghanistan, deciding how to withdraw the last of the troops in 2014 and how much of a presence to leave behind.


Hagel's support for McCain, which was substantial in his competition against Bush, disappeared in the 2008 election. Hagel toured Iraq and Afghanistan with Obama during his first campaign for the presidency.


In October 2008, Hagel's wife, Lillibet, announced her support for the Obama team, after the Washington Post reported on her donations to his campaign. She donated again in 2012.


Before the 2008 election, Hagel wrote: "The next president of the United States will face one of the most difficult national security decisions of modern times: what to do about an Iran that may be at the threshold of acquiring nuclear weapons."






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Historic inauguration on MLK holiday means federal workers lose a quadrennial holiday



That means the historic event — the first African American president taking the oath of office on a holiday commemorating one of the nation’s most notable civil rights leaders — will cost the region’s government employees a quadrennial holiday, at least in terms of pay and leave.


The official Inauguration Day takes place every four years on Jan. 20, except when the date falls on a Sunday, as it does this year. When that happens, the federal holiday moves to the following Monday.

Since the observance of King’s birthday falls on the same day, government workers in the D.C. area will lose the extra paid time off they usually receive for the swearing-in ceremony.

Full-time federal employees are entitled to “in lieu of” holidays, meaning they can normally bump the dates forward or back when official holidays fall on non-workdays. But that won’t apply this year because the law doesn’t offer such a provision for the inauguration holiday.

The reason: It’s not necessary.

The government provides a holiday for the swearing-in to relieve some of the logistical problems — such as traffic congestion and security — associated with the event, which draws massive crowds. That’s also why the holiday applies only to federal workers in the D.C. area instead of nationwide.

The extra day off won’t be needed to keep things running smoothly, because the King holiday eliminates the usual weekday crush of commuters and workers.

Some federal employees will have to work Jan. 21 despite the holiday. Agencies can decide which, if any, employees need to work that day.

Workers who have to show up on holidays include law-enforcement officers, firefighters, medical personnel, meteorologists and watch-center operators.

When Inauguration Day falls on a Sunday, the chief justice can administer the oath of office privately that day and publicly the following Monday. That’s how the process will take place this time around.

This year marks the seventh time in U.S. history that the constitutionally mandated inauguration date has fallen on a Sunday, with the last instance occurring during President Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985, according to a press release from the office of Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.

Perhaps more notable is the symbolic importance of President Obama taking the oath of office on the King holiday.

“It works so well together,” said Hilary Shelton, senior vice president of policy and advocacy for the NAACP and director of the organization’s D.C. bureau. “It’s a wonderful thing, because so many people that support Dr. King’s legacy and believe in his dream will be coming to this inauguration.”

Shelton said Obama’s efforts on job creation, hate-crime prevention, public education and access to health care align with the mission of the late civil rights leader, who was assassinated in 1968.

“Many people see the agenda President Obama has worked so hard to push forward as something that supports Dr. King’s vision,” he said. “If we look at the agenda put forward by this administration, we see a direct correlation with what Dr. King worked for and died for.”

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Basketball: Lawson shines as Nuggets down Lakers






LOS ANGELES: Ty Lawson posted a double-double of 21 points and 10 assists Sunday to help Denver hand the Los Angeles Lakers a third straight NBA defeat, 112-105.

Danilo Gallinari scored 20 points and grabbed six rebounds for the Nuggets, draining a big three-pointer with 13.8 seconds remaining to stretch Denver's lead to 108-102 after Lakers star Kobe Bryant had trimmed the deficit to three points with a three-pointer.

Bryant led the Lakers with 29 points, 18 of them in the fourth quarter. Dwight Howard scored 14 points and tied his career high of 26 rebounds with four blocked shots and Steve Nash added 10 points and 13 assists.

But Bryant said the Lakers had too many defensive lapses and too many mistakes, including 18 turnovers.

"We've just got to try to focus on the next one," Bryant said. "We've got to execute better ... we've got to buckle down and try to minimize mistakes."

Pau Gasol scored 11 points -- all in the first half, and departed in the fourth quarter after an inadvertent elbow to his nose left him bleeding profusely.

Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni said he expected the Spaniard to be ready for the Lakers' next game at Houston on Tuesday.

D'Antoni admitted that the Lakers' slump -- which has seen them fall to 15-18 for the season -- increased the pressure on the team.

"So be it," D'Antoni said. "That's the way it is and we've got to overcome it ... We can't shrug our shoulders or hang our heads. We've got to go out and fight as a unit."

The Nuggets notched their fifth win in seven games. Andre Miller scored 12 points with 10 assists. JaVale McGee added 17 points, six rebounds, three steals and two blocked shots.

-AFP/ac



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