Kohinoor is ours, won't be returned, British PM David Cameron tells India

AMRITSAR: British Prime Minister David Cameron says a giant diamond his country forced India to hand over in the colonial era that was set in a royal crown will not be returned.

Speaking on the third and final day of a visit to India aimed at drumming up trade and investment, Cameron ruled out handing back the 105-carat Kohinoor diamond, now on display in the Tower of London. The diamond had been set in the crown of the current Queen Elizabeth's late mother.

One of the world's largest diamonds, some Indians - including Mahatma Gandhi's grandson - have demanded its return to atone for Britain's colonial past.

"I don't think that's the right approach," Cameron told reporters on Wednesday after becoming the first serving British prime minister to voice regret about one of the bloodiest episodes in colonial India, a massacre of unarmed civilians in the city of Amritsar in 1919.

"It is the same question with the Elgin Marbles," he said, referring to the classical Greek marble sculptures that Athens has long demanded be given back.

"The right answer is for the British Museum and other cultural institutions to do exactly what they do, which is to link up with other institutions around the world to make sure that the things which we have and look after so well are properly shared with people around the world.

"I certainly don't believe in 'returnism', as it were. I don't think that's sensible."

Britain's then colonial governor-general of India arranged for the huge diamond to be presented to Queen Victoria in 1850.

If Kate Middleton, the wife of Prince William, who is second in line to the throne, eventually becomes queen consort she will don the crown holding the diamond on official occasions.

When Elizabeth II made a state visit to India to mark the 50th anniversary of India's independence from Britain in 1997, many Indians demanded the return of the diamond.

Cameron is keen to tap into India's economic rise, but says he is anxious to focus on the present and future rather than "reach back" into the past.

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NASA's Mars Rover Makes Successful First Drill

For the first time ever, people have drilled into a rock on Mars, collecting the powdered remains from the hole for analysis.

Images sent back from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Wednesday confirmed that the precious sample is being held by the rover's scoop, and will soon be delivered to two miniature chemical labs to undergo an unprecedented analysis. (Related: "Mars Rover Curiosity Completes First Full Drill.")

To the delight of the scientists, the rock powder has come up gray and not the ubiquitous red of the dust that covers the planet. The gray rock, they believe, holds a lot of potential to glean information about conditions on an early Mars. (See more Mars pictures.)

"We're drilling into rock that's a time capsule, rocks that are potentially ancient," said sampling-system scientist Joel Hurowitz during a teleconference from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

A Place to Drill

The site features flat bedrock, often segmented into squares, with soil between the sections and many round gray nodules and white mineral veins.

Hurowitz said that the team did not attempt to drill into the minerals or the gray balls, but the nodules are so common that they likely hit some as they drilled down 2.5 inches (6.3 centimeters).

In keeping with the hypothesis that the area was once under water, Hurowitz said the sample "has the potential of telling us about multiple interactions of water and rock."

The drill, located at the end of a seven-foot (two-meter) arm, requires precision maneuvering in its placement and movement, and so its successful initial use was an exciting and welcome relief. The rover has been on Mars since August, and it took six months to find the right spot for that first drill. (Watch video of the Mars rover Curiosity.)

The flat drilling area is in the lower section of Yellowknife Bay, which Curiosity has been exploring for more than a month. What was previously identified by Curiosity scientists as the dry bed of a once-flowing river or stream appears to fan out into the Yellowknife area.

The bedrock of the site—named after deceased Curiosity deputy project manager John Klein—is believed to be siltstone or mudstone. Scientists said the veins of white minerals are probably calcium sulfate or gypsum, but the grey nodules remain something of a mystery.

Triumph

To the team that designed and operates the drill, the results were a triumph, as great as the much-heralded landing of Curiosity on the red planet. With more than a hundred maneuvers in its repertoire, the drill is unique in its capabilities and complexities. (Watch video of Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")

Sample system chief engineer Louise Jandura, who has worked on the drill for eight years, said the Curosity team had made eight different drills before settling on the one now on the rover. The team tested each drill by boring 1,200 holes on 20 types of rock on Earth.

She called the successful drilling "historic" because it gives scientists unprecedented access to material that has not been exposed to the intense weathering and radiation processes that affect the Martian surface.

Mini-laboratories

The gray powder will be routed to the two most sophisticated instruments on Curiosity—the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) and Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin).

SAM, the largest and most complex instrument onboard, operates with two ovens that can heat the sample up to 1,800°F (982°C), turning the elements and compounds in the rock into gases that can then be identified. SAM can also determine whether any carbon-based organic material is present.

Organics are the chemical building blocks of life on Earth. They are known to regularly land on Mars via meteorites and finer material that rains down on all planets.

But researchers suspect the intense radiation on the Martian surface destroys any organics on the surface. Scientists hope that organics within Martian rocks are protected from that radiation.

CheMin shoots an X-ray beam at its sample and can analyze the mineral content of the rock. Minerals provide a durable record of environmental conditions over the eons, including information about possible ingredients and energy sources for life.

Both SAM and CheMin received samples of sandy soil scooped from the nearby Rocknest outcrop in October. SAM identified organic material, but scientists are still trying to determine whether any of it is Martian or the byproduct of organics inadvertently brought to Mars by the rover. (See "Mars Rover Detects Simple Organic Compounds.")

In the next few days, CheMin will be the first to receive samples of the powdered rock, and then SAM. Given the complexity of the analysis, and the track record seen with other samples, it will likely be weeks before results are announced.

The process of drilling and collecting the results was delayed by several glitches that required study and work-arounds. One involved drill software and the other involved a test-bed problem with a sieve that is part of the process of delivering samples to the instruments.

Lead systems engineer Daniel Limonadi said that while there was no indication the sieve on Mars was malfunctioning, they had become more conservative in its use because of the test bed results. (Related: "A 2020 Rover Return to Mars?")

Author of the National Geographic e-book Mars Landing 2012, Marc Kaufman has been a journalist for more than 35 years, including the past 12 as a science and space writer, foreign correspondent, and editor for the Washington Post. He is also author of First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth, published in 2011, and has spoken extensively to crowds across the United States and abroad about astrobiology. He lives outside Washington, D.C., with his wife, Lynn Litterine.

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Arias Leaves Stand After Describing Killing, Her Lies

Jodi Arias stepped down from the witness stand today after mounting an emotional effort to save herself from death row, insisting to the Arizona jury that an explosive fight with ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander led to his death, and that her lies about killing him masked deep regret and plans to commit suicide.

Arias, 32, will now face what is expected to be a withering cross-examination beginning Thursday from prosecutor Juan Martinez, who has been aggressive to many witnesses throughout the trial and who is expected to go after Arias' claim that she was forced to kill Alexander or be killed herself.

She is charged with murder for her ex-boyfriend's death and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Catching Up on the Trial? Check Out ABC News' Jodi Arias Trial Coverage

The day's dramatic testimony started with Arias describing the beginning of the fight on June 4, 2008 when she and Alexander were taking nude photos in his shower and she claims she accidentally dropped his new camera, causing Alexander to lose his temper. Enraged, he picked her up and body slammed her onto the tile floor, screaming at her, she told the jury.

Arias said she ran to his closet to get away from him, but could hear Alexander's footsteps coming after her down the hall. She grabbed a gun from his shelf and tried to keep running, but Alexander came after her, she said.

"I pointed it at him with both of my hands. I thought that would stop him, but he just kept running. He got like a linebacker. He got low and grabbed my waist, and as he was lunging at me the gun went off. I didn't mean to shoot. I didn't even think I was holding the trigger," she said.

"But he lunged at me and we fell really hard toward the tile wall, so at this point I didn't even know if he had been shot. I didn't see anything different. We were struggling, wrestling, he's a wrestler.

"So he's grabbing at my clothes and I got up, and he's screaming angry, and after I broke away from him. He said 'f***ing kill you bitch,'" she testified.

Asked by her lawyer whether she was convinced Alexander intended to kill her, Arias answered, "For sure. He'd almost killed me once before and now he's saying he was going to." Arias had earlier testified that Alexander had once choked her.

Timeline of the Jodi Arias Trial

Arias on Ex-Boyfriend's Death: 'I Don't Remember' Watch Video

Jodi Arias Describes Violent Sex Before Shooting Watch Video

Jodi Arias Testifies Ex Assaulted Her, Broke Her Fingers Watch Video

But Arias' story of the death struggle ended there as she told the court that she has no memory of stabbing or slashing Alexander whose body was later found with 27 stab wounds, a slit throat and two bullets in his head. She said she only remembered standing in the bathroom, dropping the knife on the tile floor, realizing the "horror" of what had happened, and screaming.

"I have no memory of stabbing him," she said. "There's a huge gap. I don't know if I blacked out or what, but there's a huge gap. The most clear memory I have after that point is driving in the desert."

Arias said that she decided in the desert not to admit to killing Alexander, a decision that would last for two years as Arias lied to friends, family, investigators and reporters about what really happened in Alexander's bathroom.

During that time she initially claimed she got lost that night while driving to a friend's house and never went to Alexander's home in Mesa,Ariz. She later changed her story and said two masked people, a man and a woman, burst into the home and killed Alexander and threatened to kill her family if she told anyone what happened.

She eventually confessed to killing her ex-boyfriend, but insisted it was self defense.

"The main reason (for lying) is because I was very ashamed of what happened. It's not something I ever imagined doing. It's not the kind of person I was. It was just shameful," she said. "I was also very scared of what might happen. I didn't want my family to know that I had done that, and I just couldn't bring myself to say that I did that."

"From day one there was a part of me that always wanted to (tell the truth) but didn't dare do that. I would rather have gone to my grave than admit I had done something like that," she said.

Arias said that she continued to lie because she figured she would never get caught; she was planning to kill herself before trial.

"I was concerned with how it would affect my family. I wanted to die. I was going to definitely kill myself," she said. "That was my plan. You can purchase different things in jail and I bought a bunch of Advil... and took it all in the next few days so it was in my system. They have razors for shaving, so I got one and took it apart one night with intentions to slit my wrists."

Arias said she balked at slitting her wrists after accidentally cutting herself, but that she still planned to commit suicide sometime in the future. When she told news reporters that "no jury would convict her," she claims she said it believing that she would be dead before they'd have a chance to put her on trial, Arias testified.

Arias said support from the public and her family eventually led her to change her mind.

"My family remained very supportive, and told me 'it doesn't matter what happens, we love you anyway.' I realized even if I told the truth they would still be there and wouldn't walk away," she testified.

"By the time spring, 2010, rolled around, I confessed. I basically told everyone what I could remember of the day and that the intruder story was all BS pretty much."

She said that her testimony today, a third version of events, was the truth.

Arias was arrested a month after Alexander's death, and prosecutors have argued that her behavior during those weeks showed a lack of remorse for the killing and an attempt to get away with murder.

Arias said today that after she killed Alexander and drove away from his Mesa, Ariz., home in a panic, it dawned on her that police would soon be looking for Alexander's killer, and she decided that she would pretend the bloody confrontation had never happened.

"I knew that it was really bad, that my life was probably done now. I wished it was just a nightmare I could wake up from, but I knew I had messed up pretty badly and the inevitable was going to be something I could not really run from," she testified.

"I didn't want anyone to know that that had happened or that I did it, so I started taking steps in the aftermath to cover it up. I did a whole bunch of things to try to make it seem like I was never there," she said.

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Football: FIFA calls for strict match-fixing laws

KUALA LUMPUR: Football authorities vowed to excise the "cancer" of match-fixing, but said Wednesday tougher laws were needed worldwide to protect the bruised integrity of the world's most popular sport.

FIFA director of security Ralk Mutschke told a two-day gathering with Interpol that the world governing body's "zero tolerance" for match-fixing needs to be helped by "the right policies for law enforcement and the football community".

The meeting comes following revelations a fortnight ago that almost 700 matches worldwide, including Champions League ties and World Cup qualifiers, were targeted by gambling gangs.

"We are banning players and referees for life but criminals are out there free -- they get no sentence. That's wrong," he told reporters when asked to comment on Singapore's refusal to arrest a key suspect wanted in Italy suspected of rigging games.

"We have to bring in governments to change legislation and laws. Many countries do not have laws to fight match manipulation," Mutschke said.

He pointed to the November acquittal of three players in Switzerland accused of committing fraud by throwing games, where a judge said there was no obvious victim.

Mutschke said FIFA was cooperating with the Council of Europe to draft legislation to fight match-fixing, with hopes it would be implemented across the continent.

FIFA's legal team will also press the case at a May meeting of national sports ministers in Berlin where match-fixing is due to be discussed, he added.

About 150 delegates from Asian football associations, player and referee representatives, as well as government agencies, are meeting in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, home to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

"We are ready to eradicate this cancer from the game. AFC will not rest until this plague is completely stopped in Asia," the AFC's acting president Zhang Jilong said in a speech.

But he later admitted to AFP that eradication "could be difficult, especially in Asia", where gambling is widespread and flourishing.

According to Europol, 380 suspicious match results have been identified in Europe, among nearly 700 worldwide, with the problem tied to a criminal syndicate based in Singapore.

Police in Singapore are calling for hard evidence before acting against Dan Tan Seet Eng, a Singaporean citizen whose name has cropped up in probes across several countries.

-AFP/gn

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Jallianwala Bagh massacre 'deeply shameful', says British PM Cameron

AMRITSAR: British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday termed as "shameful" the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of innocent Indians by British troops.

"This was a deeply shameful act in British history. One that Winston Churchill rightly described at that time as monstrous. We must never forget what happened here and we must ensure that the UK stands up for the right of peaceful protests," Cameron wrote in the visitors' book of the memorial.

However, Cameron, who is the first British prime minister to visit the Jallianwala Bagh, did not offer any apology for the massacre.

The British prime minister earlier paid homage at the Jallianwala Bagh memorial, the site of the massacre of hundreds of men, women and children by British troops April 13, 1919.

Queen Elizabeth too had visited the Jallianwala Bagh memorial in October 1997 and paid homage to those killed in the massacre of unarmed Indians by British forces led by Brigadier General Reginald Dyer.

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Florida Python Hunt Captures 68 Invasive Snakes

It's a wrap—the 2013 Python Challenge has nabbed 68 invasive Burmese pythons in Florida, organizers say. And experts are surprised so many of the elusive giants were caught.

Nearly 1,600 people from 38 states—most of them inexperienced hunters—registered for the chance to track down one of the animals, many of which descend from snakes that either escaped or were dumped into the wild.

Since being introduced, these Asian behemoths have flourished in Florida's swamps while also squeezing out local populations of the state's native mammals, especially in the Everglades. (See Everglades pictures.)

To highlight the python problem, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and its partners launched the 2013 Python Challenge, which encouraged registered participants to catch as many pythons as they could between January 12 and February 10 in state wildlife-management areas within the Everglades.

The commission gave cash prizes to those who harvested the most and longest pythons.

Frank Mazzotti, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Florida and scientific leader for the challenge, said before the hunt that he would consider a harvest of 70 animals a success—and 68 is close enough to say the event met its goals.

It's unknown just how many Burmese pythons live in Florida, but catching 68 snakes is an "exceptional" number, added Kenneth Krysko, senior herpetologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.

Snakes in the Grass

Finding 68 snakes is impressive, experts say, since it's so hard to find pythons. For one, it's been unusually warm lately in Florida, which means the reptiles—which normally sun themselves to regulate their body temperature—are staying in the brush, making them harder to detect, Krysko said.

On top of that, Burmese pythons are notoriously hard to locate, experts say.

The animals are so well camouflaged that people can stand right next to one and not notice it. "It's rare that you get to see them stretched out—most of the time they're blending in," said Cheryl Millett, a biologist at the Nature Conservancy, a Python Challenge partner.

What's more, the reptiles are ambush hunters, which means they spend much of their time lying in wait in dense vegetation, not moving, she said.

That's why Millett gave the hunters some tips, such as looking along the water's edge, where the snakes like to hang out, and also simply listening for "something big moving through the vegetation."

Even so, catching 68 snakes is "actually is a little more than I expected," said Millett.

No Walk in the Park

Ruben Ramirez, founder of the company Florida Python Hunters, won two prizes in the competition: First place for the most snakes captured—18—and second place for the largest python, which he said was close to 11 feet (3.4 meters) long. The biggest Burmese python caught in Florida, nabbed in 2012, measured 17.7 feet (5.4 meters).

"They're there, but they're not as easy to find as people think," said Ramirez. "You're not going to be stumbling over pythons in Miami." (Related blog post: "What It's Like to Be a Florida Python Hunter.")

All participants, some of whom had never hunted a python before, were trained to identify the difference between a Burmese python and Florida's native snakes, said Millett. No native snakes were accidentally killed, she said.

Hunters were also told to kill the snakes by either putting a bolt or a bullet through their heads, or decapitating them-all humane methods that result "in immediate loss of consciousness and destruction of the brain," according to the Python Challenge website.

Ramirez added that some of the first-time or amateur hunters had different expectations. "I think they were expecting to walk down a canal and see a 10-foot [3-meter], 15-foot [4.5-meter] Burmese python. They thought it'd be a walk in the park."

Stopping the Spread

Completely removing these snakes from the wild isn't easy, and some scientists see the Python Challenge as helping to achieve part of that goal. (Read an opposing view on the Python Challenge: "Opinion: Florida's Great Snake Hunt Is a Cheap Stunt.")

"You're talking about 68 more animals removed from the population that shouldn't be there—that's 68 more mouths that aren't being fed," said the Florida museum's Krysko. (Read about giant Burmese python meals that went bust.)

"I support any kind of event or program that not only informs the general public about introduced species, but also gets the public involved in removing these nonnative animals that don't belong there."

The Nature Conservancy's Millett said the challenge had two positive outcomes: boosting knowledge for both science and the public.

People who didn't want to hunt or touch the snakes could still help, she said, by reporting sightings of exotic species to 888-IVE-GOT-1, through free IveGot1 apps, or www.ivegot1.org.

Millett runs a public-private Nature Conservancy partnership called Python Patrol that the Florida wildlife commission will take on in the fall. The program focuses not only on eradicating invasive pythons but on preventing the snake from moving to ecologically sensitive areas, such as Key West.

Necropsies on the captured snakes will reveal what pythons are eating, and location data from the hunters will help scientists figure out where the snakes are living—valuable data for researchers working to stop their spread.

"This is the most [number of] pythons that have been caught in this short of a period of time in such an extensive area," said the University of Florida's Mazzotti.

"It's an unprecedented sample, and we're going to get a lot of information out of that."

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Former Navy SEAL on Coming Out of Shadows

It used to be that Navy SEALs didn't just operate in the shadows. They trained in them too. Their whole story stayed shrouded in mystery. Their secret missions stayed secret to the rest of us.

But when they got Osama Bin Laden, snatched back an American cargo ship taken by pirates and rescued two air workers held hostage in Somalia, then suddenly, it seemed that SEALs were headline-makers.

Add to that some SEALs wrote books about SEAL adventures and even acted in a movie about the SEAL experience using live ammunition when they made "Act of Valor." They can't quite be called "the military unit that no one ever talked about" any longer.

Watch the full story on "Nightline" TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET

Rorke Denver played Lt. Commander Rorke in "Act of Valor," a film that used dozens of SEALs and went on to gross $80 million at the box office. Now, with the help of a writer, Denver is doing some pretty decent storytelling in a new book, "Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior."

He agrees that with SEALs like him telling their stories that these guys are out in the open like never before.

"We are, at this moment in our history, when the heat is on, the missions are getting press and coverage," Denver said.

Acts of Valor: Four Boyfriends Took Bullets to Save Girlfriends Watch Video

'Zero Dark Thirty' Screenwriter Responds to Film's Controversy Watch Video

When asked if it was a good thing, he said, "time will tell."

"We are in the public eye and I think that mythology is something that people are hugely, hugely interested in and they have an appetite for it," Denver said. "So for us with the movie and then also with 'Damn Few' I had an opportunity, I feel, to authentically represent and hopefully do it from an honorable point of view and accurately do so."

It's mostly his own story Denver tells in "Damn Few," how he joined the SEALs after college -- they didn't want him at first.

"I put in my first application and they said no, and I am glad it went that way. I think the community really values resiliency and toughness and focus and a 'never quit' attitude. For me, when they said no I thought, that ain't going to cut it."

Denver didn't quit. He reapplied and went on to survive the SEALs brutal Hell Week and training, joined the team and deployed all over the world, including the deadly Al Anbar province in Iraq when the war there was at its hottest. His family waited for him to return stateside.

"The families, I feel, are the ones who pay the price of our choices," Denver said. "But I didn't appreciate how much I was asking my family to bear and experience it with me. They really are every bit a part of our experience and frankly they are the ones who are back home and praying and believing that you are going to come home."

But even his family didn't quite know what Denver did at work every day.

"I never ask questions about what he does," said his wife, Tracy.

But "Act of Valor" was revealing in that way, and Denver's wife watched the film.

"For me it was incredibly eye-opening to actually see a submarine mission or running around in the jungle, jumping out of a plane, shooting his weapons," she said. "For me, it was like, oh, so this is what you are doing when you are away. I appreciated it actually."

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President’s Day, by George

Did you enjoy that relaxing three-day weekend? Caught up on sleep, maybe sneaked in a movie or a few errands?

That’s no thanks to Rep. Frank Wolf
(R-Va.), who’s playing the role of the Grinch Who Wants to Steal Presidents’ Day.

Wolf recently reintroduced a bill that would do away with the congressionally established Monday holiday (it’s set for the third Monday of the month) and instead designate it as Feb. 22 — George Washington’s actual birthday. This year, that date falls on a Friday, which means we’d still have a three-day weekend. But that won’t happen every year.

Wolf thinks that by celebrating on an arbitrary Monday, the American people are missing out on the chance to truly remember the life and legacy of our first president (who, like Wolf, hails from the Commonwealth).

He bemoaned many schoolkids’ ignorance on the subject. “Congress has unwittingly contributed to this lack of historical understanding by relegating Washington’s Birthday to the third Monday of February to take advantage of a three-day weekend,” Wolf said in a statement entered into the Congressional Record. “We need to change the focus from celebrating sales at the mall to celebrating the significance of President Washington’s birth to the birth of our nation.”

Wolf even trotted out endorsements of the idea from presidential scholar and author
David McCullough
and from Jim Rees, the executive director of Mount Vernon.

But what would happen to all those great Presidents’ Day deals on mattresses?

New blood

As key members of Team Obama move on, a new study finds that President Obama is beginning his second term with fewer than a third of the senior staff members who made up his original team — a level of turnover that’s pretty typical among modern second terms.

The report from the Brookings Institution shows that 71 percent of Obama’s “A-team” has left, compared with 78 percent for Ronald Reagan, 74 percent for Bill Clinton and 63 percent for George W. Bush.

The paper also examines the importance of senior staff to the president and the toll that turnover takes: “a loss of institutional memory, time lost hiring and orienting a successor, the disappearance of unique networking contacts.”

Most companies in the private sector would consider the typical White House turnover rates “unthinkable.”

But there’s a silver lining here, the author suggests. Second-term hiring affords the White House the chance to bring in new blood and fresh ideas. And it could assuage “disgruntled” constituencies by hiring from their ranks. “Repaying political debts could advance the president’s efforts to pursue a vigorous legislative agenda,” they write.

And finally, a bit of advice: in Obama’s second term, the paper assesses the president’s agenda and suggests that Team Obama recruit from Capitol Hill, which could “provide necessary expertise for the legislative battles that lie ahead. ”

Out of Africa, and back in

Democratic National Committee Executive Director
Patrick Gaspard
, former political director in the Obama White House, appears to be the administration’s pick to be the next ambassador to South Africa.

Gaspard, a major player in New York City politics — he was a campaign staffer for former mayor David Dinkins, for example — was a top operative of the Service Employees International Union and a political organizer.

He also was actively involved in organizing efforts in the 1980s and ’90s to topple South Africa’s apartheid regime. While in the White House, Gaspard, a Haitian American, was also a key player in U.S. relief efforts in Haiti after a powerful earthquake devastated the country three years ago.

Although he grew up in New York City, Gaspard was born in Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, after his Haitian-born parents moved there for his father’s teaching job. The family moved to New York when he was 3.

Kerry on

Another longtime aide to Secretary of State John F. Kerry is taking a senior post at the State Department. David McKean is to be director of policy planning, a plum position created in 1947 by George F. Kennan and held in later years by foreign policy heavy hitters such as Paul H. Nitze, Mort Halperin and Richard N. Haass.

McKean became the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s staff director when Kerry took over the committee in 2009 and was his Senate office chief of staff from 1999 to 2008. He left the committee in early 2011.

McKean was also CEO of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation in Boston and has written three books on U.S. political history.

Last April, McKean become a senior adviser to then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, assessing State Department operations. Ought to come in handy as Kerry takes over. And his long relationship with Kerry should enable him to provide candid advice — a valuable commodity in this town.

With Emily Heil

The blog: washingtonpost.com/
intheloop. Twitter: @InTheLoopWP.

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Cricket: Injured Jayawardene out of Bangladesh series

COLOMBO: Former Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene has been ruled out of the forthcoming home series against Bangladesh because of a finger injury.

Jayawardene, 35, who is Sri Lanka's highest run-getter in Tests, dislocated a finger in his left hand while fielding during a domestic first-class match in Colombo on Sunday.

Scans of the injury have been sent to Australia for further analysis, Sri Lanka Cricket said in a statement, adding that the batsman could be out of action for four to six weeks.

Bangladesh are due to play two Tests, three one-dayers and one Twenty20 international during their month-long tour of Sri Lanka in March.

Jayawardene, who resigned as captain after the recent Australian tour, has scored 10,806 runs in 138 Tests at an average of 49.56 with 31 centuries.

He also has 10,892 one-day runs from 391 matches with 15 hundreds, and 1,293 runs in 46 Twenty20 internationals.

All-rounder Angelo Mathews replaced Jayawardene as Test and one-day captain, while Dinesh Chandimal will lead in Twenty20 matches.

- AFP/de

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Akhilesh Yadav presents deficit budget for Uttar Pradesh

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday presented a Rs 23,913 crore deficit budget for the state for 2013-14 at Rs 2,21,201.19 crore.

The budget tabled in the assembly showed a 10% increase from the last year's size of Rs 2,00,110.61 crore.

While no new tax has been imposed in the budget, the fiscal deficit has been estimated at Rs 23,913 crore -- 2.9% of the gross domestic product (GDP).

The government has estimated revenue receipts at Rs 2,15,919.82 crore and revenue savings at Rs 9,856.01 crore for the next financial year.

After deducting from the consolidated fund, the actual deficit would be Rs 5,281.37 crore, Yadav said in his address.

After adjusting Rs 3,550 crore from the PLA (personal ledger account), the net deficit is of Rs 1,731.7 crore.

While the opening balance is at Rs 2,957.9 crore, the expected closing balance has been shown at a surplus of Rs 1,226.53 crore.

Earlier, the BSP members staged a walk-out from the House.

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