BJP naming PM candidate could split NDA: Togadia

BHOPAL: Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Praveen Togadia on Sunday said that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) should not announce a prime ministerial candidate before the 2014 general elections. Togadia said that such an attempt would weaken the BJP and the NDA alliance.

"Announcing the name of PM candidate could work as a strategy in favour of UPA parties. It could split both the BJP and its NDA alliance partners. Best would be for BJP to democratically elect its leader after winning the elections,'' Togadia told reporters here.

Asked if VHP would support the BJP in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Togadia explained, "VHP neither supports nor opposes any political party or person. VHP's only intention is to strengthen Hindutva. However, we are not in favour of political parties that hit-out and defame Hindus.''

Togadia argued that recent controversy over Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde's comment on Hindu terrorism "is one such instance of how greed to placate minority vote-bank politics makes political parties to give statements that work in favour of Pakistan.''

"Rebellion against Hindus is equated with secularism presently. Congress party should pressurize home minister Shinde to withdraw his statement which might work out as an advantage to Pakistan on the international forum. And voters should start contemplating on such remarks and give a fitting reply to such allegations,'' he added.

Meanwhile, VHP stands firm on the issue of the disputed Bhojshala structure in Dhar in Madhya Pradesh. It could be yet another trying law and order situation as Basant Panchami fall on Friday, February 15 this year. "Bhojshala belongs to Hindus and Muslims have nothing to do with it. VHP will keep up the struggle for Bhojshala. There will be no compromise on the issue.''

Bhojshala is an 11th century Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) protected monument in Dhar town, 350 km south of Bhopal, which Hindus believe is a temple of goddess Waghdevi (Saraswati) while Muslims treat it as a mosque. In 2003, the VHP started a movement claiming the structure was a university established by Raja Bhoj with a temple of the goddess of learning inside the premises.

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Brazil Nightclub Fire: 232 Dead, Hundreds Injured

Flames raced through a crowded nightclub in southern Brazil early Sunday, killing more than 230 people as panicked partygoers gasped for breath in the smoke-filled air, stampeding toward a single exit partially blocked by those already dead. It appeared to be the world's deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade.

Witnesses said a flare or firework lit by band members may have started the blaze in Santa Maria, a university city of about 225,000 people.

Television images showed smoke pouring out of the Kiss nightclub as shirtless young men who had attended a university party joined firefighters using axes and sledgehammers to pound at windows and walls to free those trapped inside.

Guido Pedroso Melo, commander of the city's fire department, told the O Globo newspaper that firefighters had a hard time getting inside the club because "there was a barrier of bodies blocking the entrance."

Teenagers sprinted from the scene desperately seeking help. Others carried injured and burned friends away in their arms.

"There was so much smoke and fire, it was complete panic, and it took a long time for people to get out, there were so many dead," survivor Luana Santos Silva told the Globo TV network.

The fire spread so fast inside the packed club that firefighters and ambulances could do little to stop it, Silva said.

Germano Roratto/AFP/Getty Images

Another survivor, Michele Pereira, told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper that she was near the stage when members of the band lit flares that started the conflagration.

"The band that was onstage began to use flares and, suddenly, they stopped the show and pointed them upward," she said. "At that point, the ceiling caught fire. It was really weak, but in a matter of seconds it spread."

Guitarist Rodrigo Martins told Radio Gaucha that the band, Gurizada Fandangueira, started playing at 2:15 a.m. "and we had played around five songs when I looked up and noticed the roof was burning"

"It might have happened because of the Sputnik, the machine we use to create a luminous effect with sparks. It's harmless, we never had any trouble with it.

"When the fire started, a guard passed us a fire extinguisher, the singer tried to use it but it wasn't working"

He confirmed that accordion player Danilo Jacques, 28, died, while the five other members made it out safely.

Police Maj. Cleberson Braida Bastianello said by telephone that the toll had risen to 233 with the death of a hospitalized victim — he said earlier that the death toll was likely made worse because the nightclub appeared to have just one exit through which patrons could exit.

Officials counted 232 bodies that had been brought for identification to a gymnasium in Santa Maria, which is located at the southern tip of Brazil, near the borders with Argentina and Uruguay.

Federal Health Minister Alexandre Padhilha told a news conference that most of the 117 people treated in hospitals had been poisoned by gases they breathed during the fire. Only a few suffered serious burns, he said.

Brazil President Dilma Roussef arrived to visit the injured after cutting short her trip to a Latin American-European summit in Chile.

"It is a tragedy for all of us," Roussef said.

Most of the dead apparently were asphyxiated, according to Dr. Paulo Afonso Beltrame, a professor at the medical school of the Federal University of Santa Maria who went to the city's Caridade Hospital to help victims.

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Artur Davis considers bid for Virginia Senate or Congress

RICHMOND — Former congressman Artur Davis, who represented Alabama as a Democrat before moving to Virginia and the Republican Party, is considering a bid for the Virginia state senate or Congress, according to three Republicans with knowledge of his thinking.

Davis has met with a Virginia campaign consultant and several operatives to assess the viability of running for state Senate in 2015 or seeking the U.S. House seat held by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) if the congressman retires, according to two of those people, who asked not to be named in order to discuss a private matter. He has no intention of challenging Wolf, they said.

The third person, former Republican congressman Tom Davis, confirmed that Artur Davis talked to him recently about possible runs for various offices, including state Senate.

“If there’s a Senate seat that’s winnable, I’m sure he’d be interested,” said Tom Davis, who represented Northern Virginia. “He’d be an instant star.”

Davis, who lives in heavily Democratic Arlington, is said to be considering moving into a more competitive district. Reached via e-mail Saturday, he declined to comment.

“More and more people are moving into districts to run,” Tom Davis said. “Twenty years ago, that didn’t happen.”

The Virginian-Pilot reported that a new Senate map the GOP rammed through the chamber Monday has Artur Davis considering a Senate bid from Northern Virginia, perhaps for the seat held by Sen. Dave Marsden (D-Fairfax).

Tom Davis and the two other Republicans familiar with Artur Davis’s thinking said his interest in the Senate predates the surprise redistricting plan. Artur Davis is said to have been exploring his options since late December.

But the new map, which makes several districts more favorable to Republicans, seems to have moved his planning to the front burner.

“Republicans have told Davis that the map requires potential Republican candidates to get a stronger head start given that the affected Democratic incumbents will be ramping up their efforts, and that if it stands, it has upped the timetable for decision-making, given the certainty that a number of local Republicans will be looking at these districts too,” one of the Republicans familiar with Davis’s planning said via e-mail.

The redistricting measure creates a new majority-black district in Southside but also dilutes the black vote in at least eight other districts, making them more heavily Republican. The plan still must get past the House, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) and a near-certain legal challenge from Democrats before it could take effect in 2015.

Time in the state Senate could help Davis establish himself for voters as both a Virginian and a Republican, several political observers said. In 2008, when he was still a Democratic congressman, Davis heartily seconded the nomination of Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention. He went on from there to lose a bid for Alabama governor, move to Virginia and declare himself a Republican — one featured speaker at last year’s Republican National Convention.

“He would be a very strong candidate for anything he wants to do, and I think right now he’s earning his stripes,” Tom Davis said.

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Sailing: Olympic sailing champion visits Singapore

SINGAPORE: Xu Lijia, the 25 year old who became the first Chinese to win a gold medal in the dinghy class after finishing first in the laser radial class at the 2012 London Olympics, is in town.

The Chinese athlete shared her experiences with local sailors at a talk, which attracted 500 participants. The talk also saw the launch of the Character Development Through Sailing programme.

The Shanghai native, who won bronze in the same class at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, said that it was not just about winning, but also enjoying the journey.

She had to beat many odds including injuries, physical limitations and the lack of a proper support structure for the sport in China.

"It is about promotion, promoting this sport not only in Singapore, China but... in whole of Asia. I hope that Asia can become stronger and stronger and (compete) with the European countries," she said.

- CNA/jc

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Swine flu pandemic infected at least one in five Indians: Study

LONDON: The 2009 global H5N1 swine flu pandemic - the first in over 41 years that swept throughout the globe in record time -- infected at least one in five Indians with the highest rates of infection being among children.

A joint Imperial College, London, and the World Health Organization global study released on Saturday found that 47% of those aged five to 19 showed signs of having caught the deadly influenza virus in India.

Older people were affected less, with only 11% of people aged 65 or above becoming infected.

The study analyzed data from 19 countries, including India, UK, US and China, to assess the global impact of the 2009 pandemic.

It collated results from over two dozen research studies involving more than 90,000 blood samples collected before, during and after the pandemic and showed that the virus that continues to infect and kill Indians now affected 20-27% people studied during the first year of the pandemic.

The study was published in "Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses" journal on January 26.

Imperial College's Dr Maria Van Kerkhove said, "This study is the result of a combined effort by more than 27 research groups worldwide, who all shared their data with us to help improve our understanding of the impact the pandemic had globally.'' She said the samples were tested for antibodies produced in response to the specific flu strain that caused the pandemic.

While this study did not set out to look at mortality, the authors also used previously published estimates of pandemic influenza mortality together with mortality estimates that are still in progress to estimate the proportion of people infected who died from the pandemic virus.

Based on an estimate of approximately 200,000 deaths, they suggest that the case fatality ratio was less than 0.02%.

The study said multiple exposures to previously circulating influenza viruses may have given older people some protection against the strain.

Blood samples from before the pandemic showed that 14% people aged 65 or above had antibodies that reacted to the 2009 strain.

WHO's Dr Anthony Mounts said, "Knowing the proportion of the population infected in different age groups and the proportion of those infected who died will help public health decision-makers plan for and respond to pandemics.'' He said this information will be used to quantify severity and develop mathematical models to predict how flu outbreaks spread and what effect different interventions may have."

The study said data used to estimate age-specific incidence were available from 11 countries and 12 studies. ``The overall incidence of H1N1 was 24% and varied significantly by age. The highest age-specific incidence was found among children 5-19 years old (46%) followed by 0-4 years old (37%) and decreased by age from 20 years old and older (20-44 years old 20% and 14% among 45-64 years olds). Overall incidence was 28% lower in Asia when compared with Europe."

The WHO in August 2009 issued the swine flu alert to the highest pandemic level, signaling that a global epidemic of the H1N1 virus had begun. It first detected the novel pandemic influenza H1N1 virus in Mexico and the US in April 2009.

The last flu pandemic was declared in 1968 when H3N1 virus strain killed an estimated 1 million people.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, recently said India may have grossly underestimated the might of 21st century's most aggressive pandemic.

A recent CDC study, with help from New Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences, published in medical journal Lancet said the deaths caused by H1N1 pandemic flu in its first year (2009-10) could be 15 times higher than the number of laboratory-confirmed deaths previously reported to the WHO.

During the pandemic, 18,500 laboratory-confirmed H1N1-deaths were reported worldwide from April 2009 to August 2010.

The CDC research indicated that the death toll was anywhere between 1.51 lakh and 5.75 lakh during the first year when the virus circulated worldwide.

The results said that 80% deaths occurred in people younger than 65, contrary to seasonal influenza where most deaths occur among the elderly.

Additionally, the study suggested that 51% deaths may have occurred in south-east Asia and Africa home to 38% of the world's population.

"China and India, where about a third of the world's population live have garnered little information about the burden of influenza," it said.

India's age-adjusted respiratory and cardiovascular mortality rate associated with 2009 pandemic influenza H1N1 per 100 000 individuals stood at 4.1-6 per 100,000 population.

"An additional 83,300 cardiovascular deaths associated with the 2009 pandemic influenza were estimated to have occurred in people older than 17 years globally, resulting in a total of 284,400 respiratory and cardiovascular deaths. Around 20% of these deaths occurred in people older than 64 years," the CDC study said.

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Anonymous Hijacks Federal Website Over Reddit Co-Founder's Suicide

Jan 26, 2013 12:27pm

(AP Photo)

Activists from the hacker collective known as Anonymous assumed control over the homepage of a federal judicial agency this morning.

In a manifesto left on the defaced page, the group demanded reform to the American justice system and what the activists said are threats to the free flow of information.

The lengthy essay largely mirrors previous demands from Anonymous, but this time the group also cited the recent suicide of Reddit co-founder and activist Aaron Swartz as has having “crossed a line” for their organization. Swartz was facing up to 35 years in prison on computer fraud charges.

Prosecutors said he had stolen thousands of digital scientific and academic journal articles from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the goal of disseminating them for free.

Read More: Aaron Swartz’ Death Fuels MIT Probe, White House Petition to Oust Prosecutor

Anonymous says Swartz was “killed because he was forced into playing a game he could not win — a twisted and distorted perversion of justice — a game where the only winning move was not to play.”

“There must be a return to proportionality of punishment with respect to actual harm caused,” it reads, also mentioning recent arrests of Anonymous associates by the FBI.

In their statement, the hackers say they targeted the homepage of the Federal Sentencing Commission for “symbolic” reasons.

The group claimed that if their demands were not met they would release a trove of embarrassing internal Justice Department documents to media outlets. Anonymous named the files after Supreme Court justices and provided hyperlinks to them from the defaced page.

As of press time the commission’s site had been taken offline but an earlier attempt by CNN to follow the files’ links yielded dead-ends, mostly offline sites.

The file names use an “.aes256″ suffix, denoting a common encryption protocol. The same system was used to encrypt the Wikileaks Afghan war documents before their release.

SHOWS: Good Morning America World News

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Pictures: The Story Behind Sun Dogs, Penitent Ice, and More

Photograph by Art Wolfe, Getty Images

If you want the beauty of winter without having to brave the bone-chilling temperatures blasting much of the United States this week, snuggle into a soft blanket, grab a warm beverage, and curl up with some of these natural frozen wonders.

Nieve penitente, or penitent snow, are collections of spires that resemble robed monks—or penitents. They are flattened columns of snow wider at the base than at the tip and can range in height from 3 to 20 feet (1 to 6 meters). The picture above shows the phenomenon in central Chile. (See pictures of the patterns in snow and ice.)

Nieve penitente tend to form in shallow valleys where the snow is deep and the sun doesn't shine at too steep an angle, said Kenneth Libbrecht, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who studies ice crystal formation.

As the snow melts, dirt gets mixed in with the runoff and collects in little pools here and there, he said. Since the dirt is darker in color than the surrounding snow, the dirty areas melt faster "and you end up digging these pits," explained Libbrecht.

"They tend to form at high altitude," he said. But other than that, no one really knows the exact conditions that are needed to form penitent snow.

"They're fairly strong," Libbrecht said. "People have found [the spires] difficult to hike through."

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 25, 2013

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Update: Obama claim on background checks moved from ‘verdict pending' to 2 Pinocchios

(Larry Downing/Reuters)

“The law already requires licensed gun dealers to run background checks, and over the last 14 years that’s kept 1.5 million of the wrong people from getting their hands on a gun. But it’s hard to enforce that law when as many as 40 percent of all gun purchases are conducted without a background check.”

— President Obama, remarks on gun violence, Jan. 16, 2013

“Studies estimate that nearly 40 percent of all gun sales are made by private sellers who are exempt from this requirement.”

— “Now Is the Time: The president’s plan to protect our children and our communities by reducing gun violence,” released Jan. 16

Earlier this week, we gave this claim a “verdict pending.” We said we faced a bit of a conundrum because the 40 percent statistic was based on a single, relatively small survey of 251 people from nearly two decades ago — but that foes of gun control had made it difficult for further research to be conducted.

We also gave kudos to Vice President Biden for acknowledging that the statistic might not be accurate. So we said we would be watching carefully for how the statistic would be used by gun-control advocates in the future.

We also noted that the microdata used in the original survey could be accessed by researchers. A pair of readers, including John R. Lott Jr. (a noted skeptic of gun restrictions) downloaded the data and presented us with an Excel analysis to argue that the words used by the President and the White House—“gun purchases” and “gun sales” — were inaccurate. That’s because the original report on the survey, from which the statistic is derived, referred to “gun acquisitions” and “transactions” — much broader categories of data.

So we went back to Jens Ludwig, one of the original researchers. He patiently reran his data and explained how he and his colleague, Philip Cook, had reached their conclusions. We won’t get into the weeds of the discussion, but Lott and Ludwig looked at the data in different ways.

Part of the difference was that Ludwig and Cook looked across a variety of different answers in order to spot inconsistencies, rather than immediately assume the gun had been purchased from a licensed dealer, also known as the primary market. “Our approach with the rest of the cases (don’t know source of gun, refused to report source of gun) was to be conservative in estimating what fraction of sales are in the primary market,” Ludwig said.

Still, the data as presented in Ludwig and Cook’s 1996 report on the survey (see Table 3.14) did not give us enough information to test whether the president’s use of the words “gun purchases” was accurate. So Ludwig examined the data yet again at our request and came up with the following results:

Percent of Secondary (“off the books”) market purchases

Cash purchase from gun, hardware or department store, from pawnshop, or from seller at gun show, flea market or military, or through mail that respondent says “yes” was FFL [federally licensed dealer]: 22 percent

Add cash purchase from seller at gun show, flea market or military, or though the mail that respondent says “probably was/think so:” 20 percent

Add cash purchases, trades with family, friends/acquaintance that respondent says are or probably are FFL: 14 percent

In other words, rather than being 30 to 40 percent (the original estimate of the range) or “up to 40 percent” (Obama’s words), gun purchases without background checks amounted to 14 to 22 percent. And since the survey sample is so small, that means the results have a survey caveat: plus or minus six percentage points.

Moreover, as we noted before, the survey was taken in late 1994, eight months after the Brady law went into effect, and the questions were asked about gun purchases in the previous two years. So some of the answers concerned gun purchases that took place in a pre-Brady environment.

Ludwig noted that “if you look at where gun criminals obtained their guns (as indicated from surveys of people in prison or arrestees detained in jail), people have typically found that 80-90 percent of that population get their guns in the secondary market.” We referenced some of that data in our earlier column, and gun-control advocates might argue that it bolsters the need for universal background checks. But that is not the statistic used by Obama.

We can understand why the president might want to use a word like “purchases” rather than “transactions.” And certainly there is a pressing need for additional and up-to-date research on gun purchases in the secondary market. But that is no excuse for the president’s language, especially because the survey data is already nearly two decades old. (The White House declined to comment.)

So we are changing our ruling in this matter from “Verdict Pending” to Two Pinocchios.

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Polling Day commences for 31,600 voters in Punggol East

SINGAPORE: Punggol East residents will head to the polls on Friday, Polling Day, as Singapore marks its second by-election in eight months.

Some 31,600 voters in Singapore and 59 voters overseas will cast their votes in a four-cornered fight for the single member constituency (SMC).

The Punggol East single member seat fell vacant in December 2012 when former Speaker of Parliament and MP for the ward Michael Palmer resigned over an extramarital affair.

A writ of election was issued by President Tony Tan on 9 January 2013, declaring 16 January as Nomination Day and 26 January as Polling Day.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said at the announcement of the by-election that he wanted to give Punggol East residents their own MP in Parliament before Singapore focused back on its "busy national agenda". This includes the upcoming White Paper on population, the Budget 2013 debate and the Our Singapore Conversation project.

Voters issued with poll cards are reminded to bring their identity card or passport for verification at polling stations. Their poll card will indicate the polling station nearest to their home, at which they would cast their vote.

Polling stations will be open from 8am until 8pm.

The four candidates contesting the Punggol East by-election are Dr Koh Poh Koon from the People's Action Party, Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam from the Reform Party, Mr Desmond Lim Bak Chuan from the Singapore Democratic Alliance and Ms Lee Li Lian from the Workers' Party.

Mr Lim and Ms Lee contested Punggol East SMC in the 2011 General Election but lost to PAP's Michael Palmer.

The Returning Officer for the by-election is Mr Yam Ah Mee.

Results are expected after 10pm on Friday.

A special by-election programme will be aired on Channel NewsAsia from 9pm Singapore/Hong Kong time.

- CNA/jc

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Jaipur Literature Festival shifts focus to cinema on second day

JAIPUR: The debate shifted from literature to cinema on the second day of the Jaipur Literature Festival on Friday.

Actor Shabana Azmi questioned the portrayal of women in films in a session on the subject. She called for a need for heroines to ''make an informed choice'' about the roles they play and the way they are portrayed. ''My problem is that the commoditization of women is, very often, happening at a subliminal level, without the women themselves understanding it.''

Lyricist Prasoon Joshi called for an urgent need to deconstruct the language and sexism implicit in the problematic portrayal of women. ``The women have to given the freedom to make choices... (and) not be forced into stereotypes of mother, working woman,'' he said. ''Just like it is unfair to portray a woman as someone who is always in the kitchen, it is equally unfair that a woman, who chooses to not work, is given the space and freedom to not work.''

He maintained that the filmmakers are conscious of their roles in shaping the society and said they are constantly making an effort to introspect and to balance the way men and women are projected.

Lyricist Javed Akhtar spoke about the interdependency of films and the society. He insisted that though there is immense scope for meaningful cinema, its viability remains a pressing concern.

''If you care for a Paan Singh Tomar ensure that the film makes Rs 200 crore profit at the box office and I can assure more such films can be made,'' he said while responding to question from the audience.

Akhtar pointed out that films are a reflection of the society and that heroes reflect it and its morality just like villains in the 1950s ``...the zamindar was the villain. It changed over the years to the corporate, industrialist, who was projected as the villain. Finally, by the 70's, the angry young man as the hero was a projection of a society disillusioned by its social context.''

He said the Indian audiences are now looking for films that entertain and are an opportunity to ''party''.

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