Coming soon: a horror story on American Fritzl’s victim?

London, Sept 20 (ANI): Publishers and Hollywood studios have begun a multi-million dollar bidding war for the rights to sex slave Jaycee Dugard’s horrifying life story.

Fresh details of the American Fritzl’s victim have emerged, including that in the early days of her captivity, the terrified schoolgirl was so hungry she ate bugs and worms in the rambling back garden where she was held in tents and lock-up sheds, reports The Daily Express.

She had to use a garden hose to shower outside, even in winters, say detectives guarding her and her two daughters, fathered by kidnapper Phillip Garrido.

However, the public apparently is desperate for the full story of how Jaycee, now 29, survived after being snatched on her way to a school bus stop when she was only 11.

A New York literary agent, who estimates the book and film rights to be worth up to 12million dollars, said: “You couldn’t dream up a script like this. Americans can’t wait to hear the story from the girl who lived it.”

A Hollywood studio producer said: “Everyone is in the market for this story. Poor Jaycee’s life may have been hell for 18 years but she’ll never want for anything for the rest of it.”

Garrido, a registered sex offender, has been linked to six child abductions and murders stretching back years within a 400-mile radius of the ramshackle home in Antioch, California, where Jaycee was held. (ANI)

Pak skipper Younis Khan fractures finger

Benoni (South Africa), Sep.19 (ANI): Pakistan cricket team’s Champions Trophy dreams suffered a major set back when captain Younis Khan fractured his finger during a warm-up match against Sri Lanka here.

Doctors have advised Khan complete rest for the next three days. It is unsure whether he will be playing in the next two practice games on Saturday and Sunday.

Notwithstanding Khan’s injury, Pakistan, however, trounced Sri Lanka by 108 runs in the first warm-up match ahead of eight nation tournament.

The Pakistan team is staying in Johannesburg’s Santon Sun Hotel while in South Africa.

Team manager Yawar Saeed has expressed satisfaction over the security arrangement.

“Over half a dozen security guards have been deputed to guard the floor where Pakistan team is staying. I think in recent times this is one of the best security cover the team is provided with,” The News quoted Saeed, as saying. (ANI)

India needs to liberalise, change policies to attract more FDI: Nazareth (Corrected)

New Delhi, Sep 18 (ANI): Policy analyst Premila Nazareth has emphasised that India needs to liberalise and change its policies to attract more foreign direct investments.

During the release of the annual study of worldwide investment trends by the United Nations Conference on Trade And Development (UNCTAD) in the national capital, Nazareth also blamed the bureaucracy in India for being the main reason for less inflow of FDI.

“FDI policies do not need much changes to increase fund inflows. Policies are fine. The rest of the policies, bureaucracies and regulations are creating problems for people and these are the reasons behind less inflow of FDI. The policies are liberal, but we need to change and liberalise the sectoral policies of various sectors for private investments,” Nazareth said.

Nazareth further said that India and China are being seen as strong contenders for the Global Direct Investment (GDI) due to their emerging economy status.

“India’s position as a recipient country in the global FDI picture is only going to strengthen over the next few years because global investors are now looking more and more the emerging world as a whole. China and India are seen as very strong players, markets with guaranteed growth in a way and this is only going to grow,” Nazareth added. (ANI)

India needs to liberalise, change policies to attract more FDI: World Bank

New Delhi, Sep 17(ANI): World Bank consultant Premila Nazareth on Thursday emphasised that India needs to liberalise and change its policies to attract more foreign direct investments.

During the release of the annual study of worldwide investment trends by the United Nations Conference on Trade And Development (UNCTAD) in the national capital, Nazareth also blamed the bureaucracy in India as the main reason for less inflow of foreign investments.

“FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) policies do not need much changes to increase FDI inflows. Policies are fine. The rest of the policies, bureaucracies and regulations are creating problems for people and these are the reasons behind less inflow of FDI. The policies are liberal, but we need to change and liberalise the sectoral policies of various sectors for private investments,” Nazareth said.

Nazareth further said that India and China are being seen as strong contenders for the Global Direct Investment (GDI) due to their emerging economy status.

“India’s position as a recipient country in the global FDI picture is only going to strengthen over the next few years because global investors are now looking more and more the emerging world as a whole. China and India are seen as very strong players, markets with guaranteed growth in a way and this is only going to grow,” Nazareth added. (ANI)

One militant killed in encounter in J-K

Srinagar, Sep 16 (ANI): Indian security force on Wednesday killed a militant in an encounter while three others are still holed up in border area of Mendhar in Poonch district.

Sources said that the army and the police in Chajla area of Mendhar launched a joint operation soon after receiving inputs that a group of four militants had come into the Indian side from across the Line of Control (LoC).

One militant was killed and rest are still trapped in the area, they said.

The encounter is continuing when the last reports came in. (ANI)

Tripura withdraws security escorts along highways

Dhalai (Tripura), Sep 15 (ANI): Consequent to the decline in activities of insurgents in Tripura, the government has decided to withdraw the 16-year-old system of escorting all vehicles plying along the major highways linking Agartala with the rest of the country through Assam and other states.

This was disclosed by A Chaturvedi, Inspector General of Police, Tripura at Dhalai on Monday.

In 1993 the State had promulgated an order that no vehicles will be allowed to ply without security escorts along the highway.

The highway is the lifeline of the landlocked state surrounded by Bangladesh on three sides – north, west and south.

“The reason for withdrawing the convoy system is that now we have gained confidence and now the problem of extremism is controlled and the morale of extremists is very low,” Chaturvedi said.

However, to avoid any terror act, patrolling and static deployment of troopers continues and even intensified at certain spots.

The government may allow plying of vehicles round the clock after observing the situation for one year. (ANI)

England rest Collingwood and Anderson for fourth ODI

London, Sep 11 (ANI): Despite facing a three nil scoreline in the seven match ODI series against Australia, England have rested all-rounder Paul Collingwood and paceman James Anderson ahead of the must-win match at Lord’s on Saturday.

Collingwood and Anderson have opted to take short breaks for three and two matches respectively.

Collingwood will comeback for the final match of the series at Chester-le-Street next weekend, while Anderson will join for the second of back-to-back day-nighters at Trent Bridge, The Independent reports.

After the seven-match series, England will leave for South Africa for the Champions Trophy. They also have a tour of South Africa scheduled, which comprises four Tests and five ODIs. (ANI)

US Navy ship sunk in World War II battle located

Washington, September 11 (ANI): A research mission has located and identified the final resting place of the YP-389, a US Navy patrol boat sunk approximately 20 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, by a German submarine during World War II.

Six sailors died in the attack on June 19, 1942. There were 18 survivors.

The wreck is located in about 300 feet of water in a region off North Carolina known as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” home to US and British naval vessels, merchant ships, and German U-boats sunk during the Battle of the Atlantic.

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and its expedition partners mapped and shot video of the wreck using high-resolution camera equipment, multibeam sonar and an advanced remotely operated vehicle deployed from the NOAA ship Nancy Foster.

Researchers were able to locate and positively identify the YP-389 by reexamining data from the Duke Marine Laboratory expedition that discovered the USS Monitor in 1973.

Today, the relatively intact remains of the YP-389 rest upright on the ship’s keel.

The wreck site is home to a variety of marine life. Much of the outer-hull plating has fallen away, leaving only the intact frames exposed.

“She rests now like a literal skeleton, a reminder of a time long ago when the nation was at war,” said Joseph Hoyt, Monitor National Marine Sanctuary archaeologist and principal investigator for the project.

Built originally as a fishing trawler, the YP-389 was converted into a coastal patrol craft and pressed into service after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The ship was equipped with one 3-inch deck gun to protect the ship from enemy aircraft and surfaced submarines and two .30-caliber machine guns.

However, on the day of the attack by the German submarine U-701, the ship’s deck gun was inoperative, and the YP-389 could return fire only with its machine guns.

Weeks after the attack on the YP-389, the U-701 was sunk by Army aircraft in the same vicinity as the YP-389.

According to Rear Admiral Jay A. DeLoach, USN (Ret), director, Naval History and Heritage Command, “The US Navy considers the YP-389 discovery a grave site and, by law, it is to be left undisturbed.” (ANI)

US Army Nurse reveals ‘humane’ side of Saddam Hussein

Washington, Sep. 11 (ANI): Saddam Hussein might be remembered as a brutal international criminal by the rest of the world; but to retired U.S. Army Nurse Robert Ellis, who spent more time with the dictator than any other American, he was a patient with a humane side.

Ellis worked as the senior American medical advisor at Baghdad’s Camp Cropper, where Hussein was held for eight months until his execution in December 2006, Fox News reports.

During this period, Hussein who went by the code name “Victor” grew close to his caregiver, who was known to him by the code name “Alice.”

The report quoted Ellis as saying that when he told Hussein that he had to return to St. Louis to see his dying brother, Hussein hugged him and said: “I will be your brother.”

Ellis’ new book, “Caring for Victor,” is a record of his time with the ruthless tyrant.

For Ellis, the mission caused serious internal conflict.

“I was always conflicted throughout the whole mission. My job was to keep these people alive and healthy so they could be interrogated,” he said.

Ellis says that by remaining “non-judgmental,” he was able to see another side of a human who was considered to be a brutal killer.

“By me spending time with him, I got to see his other side, a side that you don’t hear about. They play by a different set of rules over there,” he added. (ANI)

Pak Govt says it is watching illegal madrassas closely

Islamabad, Sep. 9 (ANI): The Pakistan Government has told the National Assembly Standing Committee on Interior that it is monitoring the activities of illegal madrassas in Islamabad.

While responding to concerns expressed by the legislators over unregistered madrassas, Chief Commissioner Fazeel Asghar said there were 140 seminaries in the city, out of which 122 were registered.

The Daily Times quoted him, as saying that the rest were operating illegally and the government was trying to get them registered soon.

The members had expressed fears that a Lal Masjid-like situation may arise if the government doesn’t take action soon.

The members, including former interior minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, said it was a matter of great concern that 18 seminaries were still operating ‘illegally’ despite the government’s orders making registration mandatory. (ANI)

Cities trap more CO2 than rain forests

Washington, September 9 (ANI): A surprising new study has found that cities trap more carbon dioxide (CO2) than rain forests.

According to a report in National Geographic News, compared with tropical rain forests, cities store more carbon, acre for acre, in their trees, buildings, and dirt.

“Everyone thinks about the tropical forests, but I don’t think people consider cities as a way to store carbon,” said study leader Galina Churkina of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research in Germany.

“Although a lot of studies have focused on carbon in forests, grasslands, and other natural ecosystems, looking at cities-which now house half of the world’s population-is relatively new,” Churkina said.

Intentionally storing carbon in cities could be one approach to counter global warming, she added.

Churkina and colleagues pulled together previous evidence looking at various stores of organic carbon, which comes from living things, as well as from such as plants and animals, wood, dirt, and even garbage.

Cities, including both dense metropolises and sprawling suburbs, store about a tenth of all the carbon in U.S. ecosystems, the study estimated.

In total, U.S. cities contain about 20 billion tons of organic carbon, mostly in dirt, according to the new study.

Some of this carbon-rich topsoil is in parks and under lawns, but it’s also sealed underneath buildings and roads-a remnant of grasslands or forests that were there before development.

Of all this urban carbon, about three billion tons are locked up in human-made materials-two-thirds of it in garbage dumps, and the rest in building materials such as wood.

Many cities have already launched ambitious plans for turning gray to green, such as Los Angeles’ Million Trees LA project, which aims to plant a million trees in the Californian city over several years.

Trees take up CO2 and turn it into carbon in their trunks, branches, and leaves, so planting more trees helps counter some of the excess CO2 in the air.

Likewise trees also cool cities and reduce the need for air-conditioning, according to urban forest expert David Nowak of the U.S. Forest Service in Syracuse, New York.

By planting trees around buildings, he added, “you avoid about four times more CO2 emissions than the trees sequester.”

Study leader Churkina added, “people could (also) try to store more carbon in gardens by smart management of the land. The carbon storage in lawns is quite amazing.” (ANI)

A docudrama plays a story of women cricketers’ struggle and triumph

Kolkata, Sep 9 (ANI): A docudrama titled ‘Indian Women’s Cricket team Poor Cousins of Million Dollar Babies’ highlights the disparity between men and women cricket players in India.

As the title suggests, the docudrama shows how while men cricketers hog all the limelight and bask in the glory of success and money, women cricketers are way behind their male counterparts though they have been able to carve a name for themselves in the international sport arena.

The 25-minute audio-visual commentary narrates a story of the triumph of women’s cricket despite the disparities and differential treatment.

Former Indian Skipper Anjum Chopra said the docudrama has been able to mirror the women cricketers’ struggle, hard work and determination to reach the milestone they have achieved despite receiving far less attention of sports authority, sponsorship and media coverage as compared with their male counterparts.

“I really liked it. I think it’s very nice. It covers a lot of angels into the lives of women cricketers on and off the field. It’s a true depiction of the lives and struggles of Indian women cricketers go through,” Anjum Chopra added.

The The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI ) spends millions of rupees on men’s cricket and its stalwart players but women’s team, which has consistently done well in the context of world tournaments, has not received the same attention and promotion.

Sunil Yash Kalra, who has directed the documentary, said it’s time to tell the story of players engaged in the most popular and fast growing game in India despite their gender.

“It’s a sport which is a nerve centre of India, the subcontinent. And, it’s also included in the Asian Games next year. So, basically if you were to look at it… A, it’s the fastest growing game. B, there is a story that needs to be told about each individual member, that’s what the idea is to showcase the best to the rest of the world,” Kalra added.

The film also reveals interesting facts about women’s cricket in India. For example, women’s cricket in India can be traced back to early 20th century when an Australian school teacher Anne Kelleve made cricket a compulsory game at the Baker Memorial School in Kottayam, Kerala, in 1913.

The Women’s World Cup was initiated in 1973, two years before the men’s World Cup. And, Indian eves played T20 international cricket in 2006 while Indian men played their first match in 2007. (ANI)

Satyam founder Raju placed under medial observation for 48 hours

Hyderabad, Sep 8 (ANI): Satyam Computers founder B Ramalinga Raju, who suffered a massive heart attack on Monday, has been put under observation for next 48 hours in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) hospital.

According to hospital sources, Raju has also been diagnosed with the Hepatitis C.

Doctors said, Raju’s condition is stable and that he needed rest for a long period.

According to jail sources, Raju suffered a cardiac arrest at around 8 p.m, was initially attended by the jail doctors before being shifted to NIMS hospital.

Raju, who has been under judicial custody at the Chanchalguda jail for the past eight months in connection with Rs 8,000 crore corporate fraud, facing criminal charges including fraud, forgery, cheating, embezzlement and insider trading along with his brother and Satyam’s former managing director Rama Raju and others.

Raju, will turn 55 on September 16.

Raju was Satyam’s Chairman until January 7, 2009 when he resigned from the company’s board after admitting to corporate fraud. The Andhra Pradesh Police arrested him on January 9.

Satyam was created by Raju and others and was until recently perceived to be among the top Indian IT companies. (ANI)

West Bengal Government scraps Rajarhat IT park project

Kolkata, Sep.7 (ANI): The West Bengal government on Monday scrapped plans for an IT-related township in the Rajarhat area near Salt Lake City in the wake of a land scam involving land sharks and government officials.

The State Government had revealed last month that it had acquired land for the Infosys and Wipro complexes.

The state Cabinet went far beyond the waiving aside of the urban land ceiling to enable promoters procure the rest of the land. The government also promised to facilitate the process of land conversion (from agricultural to non-agricultural). Clause 5.51 under Section D of the MoU clearly states that Webel shall enable the joint venture company to get all clearance and “applicable permits” under the law, including “conversion of land”.

The government stayed away from procuring land on its own. Instead, it gave the JVC a long rope and agreed on getting land from this company on lease, leaving 600 acres to the private partners for commercial use. Not only that, the private promoters set the terms for Webel’s activities on the leasehold land. Clause 4.6 of the MoU states: “With a view to meet the requirement of small IT companies for built-up space, if Webel intends to develop IT parks, the Joint Venture partner Vedic Diamond will be given the first right of refusal to develop such facilities.”

Nobody attempted a cost benefit analysis important for a public purpose project.(ANI)

CPI (M) defends Buddha over skipping politburo meet

New Delhi, Sep 5 (ANI): The Communist Party of India (Marxist) dismissed reports that West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was deliberately avoiding party’s two-day politburo meet, which began today on Saturday in the national capital.

According to reports, senior party leaders including Brinda Karat claimed that Buddhadeb had just recovered from viral fever and was advised by doctors to take rest, forcing party members urging him to stay back in Kolkata.

The CPI(M) Politburo is meeting to finalise a document to deal with its organisational problems, which led to its defeat in the recent polls in West Bengal and Kerala.

It is being assumed that topics regarding Lalgarh could be raised during the two-day meet, may have prompted Buddhadeb to give the meeting a miss.

It is also said that Buddhadeb is upset over reports of his successor or deputy being selected during the meet.

Differences between the West Bengal Chief Minister and CPI (M) leaders have been reported ever since party’s failure in the Lok Sabha elections, especially after the defeat they experienced in West Bengal during Lok Sabha polls. (ANI)

Engineers design buildings that can stand plumb after violent quakes

Washington, September 3 (ANI): A team of engineers from the Stanford University has designed a new earthquake-resistant structural system for buildings, which will not only help a multi-story building hold itself together during a violent quake, but also return it to standing up straight on its foundation afterward, true and plumb, with damage confined to a few easily replaceable parts.

Professor Greg Deierlein, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, used the world’s largest shake table to test a new structural design that lets buildings rock during earthquakes, then pull themselves into plumb when the shaking stops, confining damage to replaceable steel “fuses.”

During testing on a massive shake table, the system survived simulated earthquakes in excess of magnitude 7, bigger than either the 1994 Northridge earthquake or the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in California.

“This new structural system has the potential to make buildings far more damage resistant and easier to repair, so people could reoccupy buildings a lot faster after a major earthquake than they can now,” said Greg Deierlein, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, who led the team that designed the new system.

The system dissipates energy through the movement of steel frames that are situated around the building’s core or along exterior walls.

The frames can be part of a building’s initial design or could be incorporated into an existing building undergoing seismic retrofitting.

They are economically feasible to build, as all the materials employed are commonly used in construction today and all the parts can be made using existing fabrication methods.

“What is unique about these frames is that, unlike conventional systems, they actually rock off their foundation under large earthquakes,” Deierlein said.

The rocking frames are steel braced-frames, the columns of which are free to rock up and down within steel “shoes” secured at their base.

To control the rocking and return the frame to vertical when the shaking stops, steel tendons run down the center of the frame from top to bottom.

These tendons are made of high-strength steel cable strands twisted together and designed to remain elastic during shaking.

When shaking is over, they rebound to their normal length, pulling the building back into proper alignment.

At the bottom of the frame sit steel “fuses” designed keep the rest of the building from sustaining damage.

“The idea of this structural system is that we concentrate the damage in replaceable fuses,” Deierlein said.

The fuses are built to flex and dissipate the shaking energy induced by the earthquake, thereby confining the damage. (ANI)

How birds and mammals evolved to have 4-chambered hearts

Washington, Sep 3 (ANI): Scientists have discovered the first genetic link that can explain how the heart evolved from being a three-chambered to four-chambered organ.

The discovery has shed light on how cold-blooded birds and mammals became warm-blooded.

Frogs have a three-chambered heart consisting of two atria and one ventricle, which sends a concoction of blood that is not fully oxygenated to the rest of the frog’s body.

On the other hand, turtles’ hearts have three chambers, but the single ventricle starts developing a wall, or septum, which makes the heart send blood that is slightly richer in oxygen than the frog’s.

However, birds and mammals have a fully septated ventricle-a bona fide four-chambered heart, which ensures the separation of low-pressure circulation to the lungs, and high-pressure pumping into the rest of the body.

As warm-blooded animals, we use a lot of energy and therefore need a great supply of oxygen for our activities. The four-chambered heart gives us an evolutionary advantage- we’re able to roam, hunt and hide even in the cold of night, or the chill of winter.

But many humans suffer from congenital heart disease, a very common birth defect, which is usually caused by VSD, or ventricular septum defects-a condition that is frequently correctable with surgery

Benoit Bruneau of the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, who studies the transcription factor, Tbx5, in early stages of embryological development, has called it “a master regulator of the heart.”

He teamed up with scientists at Michigan State University to examine a wide evolutionary spectrum of animals and found that in the cold-blooded, Tbx5 is expressed uniformly throughout the forming heart’s wall.

On the other hand, warm-blooded embryos showed the protein very clearly restricted to the left side of the ventricle, which allowed for the separation between right and left ventricle.

Interestingly, in the turtle, the molecular signature was found to be transitional as well.

A higher concentration of Tbx5 is found on the left side of the heart, gradually dissipating towards the right.

“The great thing about looking backwards like we’ve done with reptilian evolution is that it gives us a really good handle on how we can now look forward and try to understand how a protein like Tbx5 is involved in forming the heart and how in the case of congenital heart disease its function is impaired,” concluded Bruneau. (ANI)

Biased parrots better at problem-solving than ambidextrous counterparts

London, Sept 2 (ANI): Parrots that are strongly right- or left-footed are better at problem-solving tasks than their ambidextrous counterparts, according to a new study.

Lead researchers Maria Magat and Culum Brown at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, worked with eight species of Australian parrot, some of which are primarily left-biased – gang-gang cockatoos, for instance, are 100 per cent left-footed – others right-biased and the rest “ambidextrous”.

They studied their side preference by noting which eye they preferred for looking at food.

During the study, the researchers put the birds to various tasks, including foraging for different seeds sprinkled in a tray of pebbles and raising a hanging seed basket up to their beaks using their claws.

They found that the birds that had a strong bias towards using one side or the other were faster at the tasks than species that showed no preference between left or right.

All animals have cerebral lateralisation, meaning that their brains are divided into two hemispheres responsible for processing different tasks.

Strongly lateralised individuals are strongly “handed” – or strongly “footed” in the case of birds.

“Our study shows that strong lateralisation improves problem-solving ability and foraging in birds, which is an evolutionary advantage,” New Scientist quoted Brown as saying.

“It allows each side of the brain to become specialised at different tasks, so, for instance, the right side of the parrot’s brain can process foraging tasks without being slowed by interference from the left side of the brain,” the expert added.

The study appears in Proceedings of the Royal Society. (ANI)

Single gene behind essential tremor, Parkinson’s disease identified

Washington, September 2 (ANI): A single gene promotes development of essential tremor in some patients and Parkinson’s disease in others has been identified by an international team of researchers.

In a study report published in Parkinsonism and Related Disorders, Mayo Clinic researchers in Florida and their collaborators worldwide note that patients with essential tremor shake when they move, while those with Parkinson’s disease shake when they are at rest.

They further state that a variant in LINGO1, a gene involved in neuronal survival, is the first proven evidence of a common genetic component in the development of both disorders.

Analysing their findings, the researchers have come to the conclusion that mutations in this gene are potentially responsible for five percent of patients with Parkinson’s disease, and five percent of patients with essential tremor.

Lead researcher Dr. Carles Vilarino-Guell, of Mayo Clinic, said: “There is a mutation in the gene that must be causing or contributing to Parkinson’s disease in some people and essential tremor in others.”

He, however, added that that did not mean that people with essential tremor have an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.

The findings are intriguing because “although essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease are considered to be different diseases, researchers have been arguing for a long time about whether essential tremor is a milder, preliminary form of Parkinson’s disease, and they have been looking for the genetic connection between these disorders,” he said.

“Now we know LINGO1 is the first gene identified,” he added.

The scientists have yet to identify any specific mutation or mutations on LINGO1 responsible for either disorder.

“The easiest explanation is that there are two separate and clearly distinct mutations in the gene contributing to the disorders. But because this gene doubles the risk of developing either disease and it is found at the same frequency in both diseases, it is possibly the same mutation,” Dr. Vilarino-Guell said.

“Both diseases are also affected by environmental factors, and that may influence which disorder a person would be more likely to develop,” he added. (ANI)