WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident

LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.

In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk.

"The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report. "It's more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima."

The report was issued by the World Health Organization, which asked scientists to study the health effects of the disaster in Fukushima, a rural farming region.

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima plant's power and cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors and spewing radiation into the surrounding air, soil and water. The most exposed populations were directly under the plumes of radiation in the most affected communities in Fukushima, which is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo.

In the report, the highest increases in risk are for people exposed as babies to radiation in the most heavily affected areas. Normally in Japan, the lifetime risk of developing cancer of an organ is about 41 percent for men and 29 percent for women. The new report said that for infants in the most heavily exposed areas, the radiation from Fukushima would add about 1 percentage point to those numbers.

Experts had been particularly worried about a spike in thyroid cancer, since radioactive iodine released in nuclear accidents is absorbed by the thyroid, especially in children. After the Chernobyl disaster, about 6,000 children exposed to radiation later developed thyroid cancer because many drank contaminated milk after the accident.

In Japan, dairy radiation levels were closely monitored, but children are not big milk drinkers there.

The WHO report estimated that women exposed as infants to the most radiation after the Fukushima accident would have a 70 percent higher chance of getting thyroid cancer in their lifetimes. But thyroid cancer is extremely rare and one of the most treatable cancers when caught early. A woman's normal lifetime risk of developing it is about 0.75 percent. That number would rise by 0.5 under the calculated increase for women who got the highest radiation doses as infants.

Wakeford said the increase may be so small it will probably not be observable.

For people beyond the most directly affected areas of Fukushima, Wakeford said the projected cancer risk from the radiation dropped dramatically. "The risks to everyone else were just infinitesimal."

David Brenner of Columbia University in New York, an expert on radiation-induced cancers, said that although the risk to individuals is tiny outside the most contaminated areas, some cancers might still result, at least in theory. But they'd be too rare to be detectable in overall cancer rates, he said.

Brenner said the numerical risk estimates in the WHO report were not surprising. He also said they should be considered imprecise because of the difficulty in determining risk from low doses of radiation. He was not connected with the WHO report.

Some experts said it was surprising that any increase in cancer was even predicted.

"On the basis of the radiation doses people have received, there is no reason to think there would be an increase in cancer in the next 50 years," said Wade Allison, an emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, who also had no role in developing the new report. "The very small increase in cancers means that it's even less than the risk of crossing the road," he said.

WHO acknowledged in its report that it relied on some assumptions that may have resulted in an overestimate of the radiation dose in the general population.

Gerry Thomas, a professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College London, accused the United Nations health agency of hyping the cancer risk.

"It's understandable that WHO wants to err on the side of caution, but telling the Japanese about a barely significant personal risk may not be helpful," she said.

Thomas said the WHO report used inflated estimates of radiation doses and didn't properly take into account Japan's quick evacuation of people from Fukushima.

"This will fuel fears in Japan that could be more dangerous than the physical effects of radiation," she said, noting that people living under stress have higher rates of heart problems, suicide and mental illness.

In Japan, Norio Kanno, the chief of Iitate village, in one of the regions hardest hit by the disaster, harshly criticized the WHO report on Japanese public television channel NHK, describing it as "totally hypothetical."

Many people who remain in Fukushima still fear long-term health risks from the radiation, and some refuse to let their children play outside or eat locally grown food.

Some restrictions have been lifted on a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the nuclear plant. But large sections of land in the area remain off-limits. Many residents aren't expected to be able to return to their homes for years.

Kanno accused the report's authors of exaggerating the cancer risk and stoking fear among residents.

"I'm enraged," he said.

___

Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.

__

Online:

WHO report: http://bit.ly/YDCXcb

Read More..

Sequester: What Will Happen, What Won't Happen

When it comes to critical elements of the sequester timeline, not much is known -- because federal agencies have been tight lipped.

Asked when specific effects will be felt, officials at three federal departments declined to discuss the timing of sequester cuts and their consequences. Some departments were waiting for President Obama's Friday night sequester order and subsequent guidance they expected to receive from the Office of Management and Budget before talking about what would and wouldn't happen and when.

Read more: 57 Terrible Consequences of the Sequester

"There's no calendar of dates for specific actions or cuts on specific dates," Department of Health and Human Services public affairs officer Bill Hall told ABC News. "Again, these cuts need to be applied equally across all agency programs, activities and projects. There will be wide variation on when impacts will occur depending on a given program."

Some cuts won't be felt for a while because they have to do with government layoffs, which require 30 days notice, in most cases.

For instance, the Federal Aviation Administration won't begin layoffs until at least April 7, one FAA official estimated.

But some cuts don't involve furloughs, and could conceivably be felt immediately.

The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the timeline of layoffs to cybersecurity contractors and first responders funded through states, as well as limited Coast Guard operations and cuts to FEMA disaster relief.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development said it could not comment on cuts to housing vouchers, rent assistance for AIDS patients, maintenance for housing projects.

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Imag

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The Department of Health and Human Services declined to discuss the specific timing of cuts to Head Start services, low-income mental-health services, AIDS/HIV testing, and inpatient substance-abuse treatment.

Read More: Automatic Cuts Could Hurt on Local Level

So even as the sequester hits, we still don't know when some of its worst effects will be felt.

Here's what we do know:

What Will Happen Saturday

      Air Force Training. At a briefing Friday, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter warned that "effective immediately, Air Force flying hours will be cut back."

More from Carter, via ABC News' Luis Martinez: "What does that mean for national security? What it means is that as the year goes on, apart from Afghanistan, apart from nuclear deterrence through two missions we are strictly protecting, the readiness of the other units to respond to other contingencies will gradually decline. That's not safe. And that we're trying to minimize that in every way we possibly can."

      Closed Doors at the Capitol. ABC News' Sunlen Miller reports that Capitol Police issued a memo announcing it would have to close some entrances to the Capitol, writing: "At this time it is anticipated that the U.S. Capitol Police will be required to close some entrance doors and exterior checkpoints, and either suspend or modify the hours of operation for some of the U.S. Capitol Complex posts located inside and outside of the CVC and Office Buildings."

      Capitol Janitor Furloughs. After President Obama warned that janitors at the Capitol will be furloughed, ABC News' Sunlen Miller reported that was not entirely true: The Senate sergeant at arms, Terrance Gainer, told ABC News that no full-time salaried Capitol Police officers would face furloughs or layoffs at this time. They will, however, see a "substantial reduction in overtime," Gainer told ABC News.

      Delayed Deployment for USS Truman Aircraft Carrier. This has already happened, the Associated Press reported Friday morning: "One of the Navy's premiere warships, the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, sits pier-side in Norfolk, Va., its tour of duty delayed. The carrier and its 5,000-person crew were to leave for the Persian Gulf on Feb. 8, along with the guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg."

Read More..

President Tony Tan hosts reception for 2013 Special Olympics team

SINGAPORE: Singapore's Special Olympians had a special reception at the Istana on Saturday.

President Tony Tan Keng Yam and his wife hosted the athletes, officials and coaches who represented the nation at the 2013 Special Olympics World Winter Games, held in Pyeongchang, South Korea last month.

The athletes were invited to the Istana, after bringing home an unprecedented eight medals. Four of them were gold medals.

The medals were won in the short track speed skating category.

The skaters and the floor hockey team were introduced to the president, who paid tribute to the athletes.

President Tan said: "Not only was this an achievement, the team which we sent also won the first medals for Singapore at an international skating competition. Our athletes in this Special Olympics Winter Games, have, I believe, indeed been very brave and very courageous. They flew the Singapore flag high at the Special Olympics World Winter Games, and they were an inspiration to many Singaporeans."

- CNA/xq

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'Not inevitable' to call Raja as witness before JPC: Chacko

THRISSUR: JPC chairman P C Chacko on Saturday said 'it is not inevitable' to call former telecom minister A Raja, prime accused in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case, before the joint parliamentary committee as a witness as all the main witnesses had been called and evidence taken.

"It is not inevitable at this juncture to call Raja as all main witnesses have been called and evidence taken," he said.

He was responding to a query on CPI leader and joint parliamentary committee member Gurudas Dasgupta's letter to him stressing the need to call Raja as witness.

Chacko said Raja had written to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar to allow him tender evidence as witness before the JPC. Several other persons have also expressed a similar desire but it was impractical to call all of them, he said.

"A final decision, however, in this regard will be taken after discussing it with all JPC members," Chacko said.

On February 22, Raja had written to Meira Kumar and Chacko, expressing willingness to appear before JPC as witness. He claimed he has been "condemned unheard" in the 2G scam and wanted to present his side of the story.

Chacko said JPC had asked to prepare the draft report which would be ready by the first week of May.Thereafter a JPC meeting would be convened to finalize it and the report would have to be submitted before the end of the current Parliament session on May 22, he said.

On Dasgupta's contention that Raja's name was there in the list of witnesses prepared, Chacko said it was not correct as no final list of witnesses had been prepared.

All members had given a list of witnesses to be called before JPC and no final list was prepared by JPC, Chacko said.

DMK members in the JPC T R Baalu and T Siva have been pressing Chacko to call Raja as a witness.

However, Congress members in JPC are against calling Raja as witness as his deposition could be used by the opposition, including BJP and the Left, to corner the government. Raja has maintained he had kept the Prime Minister's Office and others informed about his decisions on 2G licencing issue.

Read More..

WHO: Slight cancer risk after Japan nuke accident

LONDON (AP) — Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable.

In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk.

"The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report. "It's more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima."

The report was issued by the World Health Organization, which asked scientists to study the health effects of the disaster in Fukushima, a rural farming region.

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami knocked out the Fukushima plant's power and cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors and spewing radiation into the surrounding air, soil and water. The most exposed populations were directly under the plumes of radiation in the most affected communities in Fukushima, which is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo.

In the report, the highest increases in risk are for people exposed as babies to radiation in the most heavily affected areas. Normally in Japan, the lifetime risk of developing cancer of an organ is about 41 percent for men and 29 percent for women. The new report said that for infants in the most heavily exposed areas, the radiation from Fukushima would add about 1 percentage point to those numbers.

Experts had been particularly worried about a spike in thyroid cancer, since radioactive iodine released in nuclear accidents is absorbed by the thyroid, especially in children. After the Chernobyl disaster, about 6,000 children exposed to radiation later developed thyroid cancer because many drank contaminated milk after the accident.

In Japan, dairy radiation levels were closely monitored, but children are not big milk drinkers there.

The WHO report estimated that women exposed as infants to the most radiation after the Fukushima accident would have a 70 percent higher chance of getting thyroid cancer in their lifetimes. But thyroid cancer is extremely rare and one of the most treatable cancers when caught early. A woman's normal lifetime risk of developing it is about 0.75 percent. That number would rise by 0.5 under the calculated increase for women who got the highest radiation doses as infants.

Wakeford said the increase may be so small it will probably not be observable.

For people beyond the most directly affected areas of Fukushima, Wakeford said the projected cancer risk from the radiation dropped dramatically. "The risks to everyone else were just infinitesimal."

David Brenner of Columbia University in New York, an expert on radiation-induced cancers, said that although the risk to individuals is tiny outside the most contaminated areas, some cancers might still result, at least in theory. But they'd be too rare to be detectable in overall cancer rates, he said.

Brenner said the numerical risk estimates in the WHO report were not surprising. He also said they should be considered imprecise because of the difficulty in determining risk from low doses of radiation. He was not connected with the WHO report.

Some experts said it was surprising that any increase in cancer was even predicted.

"On the basis of the radiation doses people have received, there is no reason to think there would be an increase in cancer in the next 50 years," said Wade Allison, an emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, who also had no role in developing the new report. "The very small increase in cancers means that it's even less than the risk of crossing the road," he said.

WHO acknowledged in its report that it relied on some assumptions that may have resulted in an overestimate of the radiation dose in the general population.

Gerry Thomas, a professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College London, accused the United Nations health agency of hyping the cancer risk.

"It's understandable that WHO wants to err on the side of caution, but telling the Japanese about a barely significant personal risk may not be helpful," she said.

Thomas said the WHO report used inflated estimates of radiation doses and didn't properly take into account Japan's quick evacuation of people from Fukushima.

"This will fuel fears in Japan that could be more dangerous than the physical effects of radiation," she said, noting that people living under stress have higher rates of heart problems, suicide and mental illness.

In Japan, Norio Kanno, the chief of Iitate village, in one of the regions hardest hit by the disaster, harshly criticized the WHO report on Japanese public television channel NHK, describing it as "totally hypothetical."

Many people who remain in Fukushima still fear long-term health risks from the radiation, and some refuse to let their children play outside or eat locally grown food.

Some restrictions have been lifted on a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the nuclear plant. But large sections of land in the area remain off-limits. Many residents aren't expected to be able to return to their homes for years.

Kanno accused the report's authors of exaggerating the cancer risk and stoking fear among residents.

"I'm enraged," he said.

___

Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.

__

Online:

WHO report: http://bit.ly/YDCXcb

Read More..

Sequester Set to Trigger Billions in Cuts

Nobody likes the sequester.

Even the word is enough to send shivers of fiscal panic, or sheer political malaise, down the spines of seasoned politicians and news reporters. And today, the sequester will almost certainly happen, a year and a half after its inception amid the stalemate of the debt-limit crisis in 2011.

Automatic budget cuts will be triggered across federal agencies, as President Obama will be required to order sequestration into effect before midnight Friday night. The federal bureaucracy will implement its various plans to save the money it's required to save.

Read more: How Automatic Cuts Could Hurt at the Local Level

Now that the sequester will probably happen, here are some questions and answers about it:

1. HOW BIG IS IT?

The cuts were originally slated for $109 billion this year, but after the fiscal-cliff deal postponed the sequester for two months by finding alternate savings, the sequester will amount to $85 billion over the next 10 months. In 2013, nondefense programs will be cut by nine percent, and defense programs will be cut by 13 percent.

If carried out over 10 years (as designed), the sequester will amount to $1.2 trillion in total.

2. WHAT WILL BE CUT, SPARED?

Most government programs will be cut, with the cuts distributed evenly (by dollar amount) between defense and nondefense programs.

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Some vital domestic entitlements, however, will be spared. Social Security checks won't shrink; nor will Veterans Administration programs. Medicare benefits won't get cut, but payments to providers will shrink by two percent. The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), food stamps, Pell grants, and Medicaid will all be shielded from the sequester.

But lots of things will get cut. The Obama administration has warned that a host of calamities will befall vulnerable segments of the population.

Read more: Sequester May Revive 'Amtrak' Joe Biden

3. WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO BAD?

Questions persist over whether or not it really does.

The sequester will mean such awful things because it forces agencies to cut indiscriminately, instead of simply stripping money from their overall budgets.

But some Republicans, including Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, have suggested that federal agencies have plenty of flexibility to implement these cuts while avoiding the worst of the purported consequences. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal accused President Obama of trying to "distort" the severity of the sequester. The federal government will still spend more money than it did last year, GOP critics of sequester alarmism have pointed out.

Read more: 57 Terrible Consequences of the Sequester

The White House tells a different story.

According to the Office of Management and Budget, the sequestration law forces agency heads to cut the same percentage from each program. If that program is for TSA agents at airports, the sequester law doesn't care, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano can't do anything about it.

Agency heads do have some authority to "reprogram" funds, rearranging their money to circumvent the bad effects. An OMB official told ABC News that "these flexibilities are limited and do not provide significant relief due to the rigid nature of the way in which sequestration is required by law to be implemented."

4. WHEN WILL THE WORST OF IT START?

Not until April -- but some of the cuts could be felt before then.

Read More..

Canada's Q4 GDP flat, growth at 1.8% for 2012

OTTAWA: Canada's economy grew 1.8 percent last year, a bit less than the central bank's forecast and down from 2.6 percent in 2011, the government statistics agency said on Friday.

Gross domestic product in the fourth quarter was up 0.2 percent, similar to the previous quarter's gains, as mining and oil and gas extraction was up and manufacturing recorded a significant decrease.

The arts and entertainment sector, transportation and warehousing as well as wholesale trade also declined while construction, the public sector, utilities and the finance and insurance sector increased in the last three months of 2012.

Household spending was up.

Business investment on machinery and equipment continued to be weak, with fewer purchases of heavy trucks and buses, and more aircraft and computer outlays. Following 12 months of anaemic government spending, it ticked up slightly in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Business inventories were "sharply lower" in the fourth quarter, said Statistics Canada. Manufacturers' and wholesalers' inventories were down while retailers' inventories rose.

Imports were down, and exports edged up. Disposable income inched up, but Canadians saved less.

- AFP/al

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J&K assembly adjourned after furore over Afzal issue

JAMMU: The Jammu and Kashmir assembly was rocked by repeated disruptions on Friday, which ultimately led to the House being adjourned for the day, as various parties demanded that Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru's mortal remains be handed over to his family.

Cutting across party lines, members of the House from the ruling National Conference as well as opposition PDP and CPM had moved adjournment motions seeking discussion on the situation in the aftermath of Guru's execution and handing over of his mortal remains to his family.

Led by the leader of the opposition Mehbooba Mufti, PDP legislators flashed placards and demanded suspension of the business of the House to discuss the issue, with CPM member MY Tarigami, too joining in urging the speaker Mubarak Gul to accept their demand.

But when the speaker tried to pacify them saying that a discussion would be held in due course, PDP members raised slogans like 'Guru ki body ko wapas karoo, wapas karoo' (Return Guru's body).

"If there is a serious issue, (then) you have to suspend the normal business and discuss (it). But I fail to understand the attitude of this government (since yesterday)," Mehbooba Mufti later told reporters here.

The protests continued for over 15 minutes, forcing the speaker to adjourn the House for 45 minutes.

As the House reassembled after the adjournment, the speaker said that he had received adjournment motions of five members of NC besides those from PDP and CPIM and that he would take a view on them.

However, PDP members continued their protest even as the speaker started discussion on the governor's address.

With noisy scenes continuing in the House, the speaker adjourned the House for a second time around noon and later for the day.

Read More..

Medicare paid $5.1B for poor nursing home care

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Medicare paid billions in taxpayer dollars to nursing homes nationwide that were not meeting basic requirements to look after their residents, government investigators have found.

The report, released Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general, said Medicare paid about $5.1 billion for patients to stay in skilled nursing facilities that failed to meet federal quality of care rules in 2009, in some cases resulting in dangerous and neglectful conditions.

One out of every three times patients wound up in nursing homes that year, they landed in facilities that failed to follow basic care requirements laid out by the federal agency that administers Medicare, investigators estimated.

By law, nursing homes need to write up care plans specially tailored for each resident, so doctors, nurses, therapists and all other caregivers are on the same page about how to help residents reach the highest possible levels of physical, mental and psychological well-being.

Not only are residents often going without the crucial help they need, but the government could be spending taxpayer money on facilities that could endanger people's health, the report concluded. The findings come as concerns about health care quality and cost are garnering heightened attention as the Obama administration implements the nation's sweeping health care overhaul.

"These findings raise concerns about what Medicare is paying for," the report said.

Investigators estimate that in one out of five stays, patients' health problems weren't addressed in the care plans, falling far short of government directives. For example, one home made no plans to monitor a patient's use of two anti-psychotic drugs and one depression medication, even though the drugs could have serious side effects.

In other cases, residents got therapy they didn't need, which the report said was in the nursing homes' financial interest because they would be reimbursed at a higher rate by Medicare.

In one example, a patient kept getting physical and occupational therapy even though the care plan said all the health goals had been met, the report said.

The Office of Inspector General's report was based on medical records from 190 patient visits to nursing homes in 42 states that lasted at least three weeks, which investigators said gave them a statistically valid sample of Medicare beneficiaries' experiences in skilled nursing facilities.

That sample represents about 1.1 million patient visits to nursing homes nationwide in 2009, the most recent year for which data was available, according to the review.

Overall, the review raises questions about whether the system is allowing homes to get paid for poor quality services that may be harming residents, investigators said, and recommended that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services tie payments to homes' abilities to meet basic care requirements. The report also recommended that the agency strengthen its regulations and ramp up its oversight. The review did not name individual homes, nor did it estimate the number of patients who had been mistreated, but instead looked at the overall number of stays in which problems arose.

In response, the agency agreed that it should consider tying Medicare reimbursements to homes' provision of good care. CMS also said in written comments that it is reviewing its own regulations to improve enforcement at the homes.

"Medicare has made significant changes to the way we pay providers thanks to the health care law, to reward better quality care," Medicare spokesman Brian Cook said in a statement to AP. "We are taking steps to make sure these facilities have the resources to improve the quality of their care, and make sure Medicare is paying for the quality of care that beneficiaries are entitled to."

CMS hires state-level agencies to survey the homes and make sure they are complying with federal law, and can require correction plans, deny payment or end a contract with a home if major deficiencies come to light. The agency also said it would follow up on potential enforcement at the homes featured in the report.

Greg Crist, a Washington-based spokeswoman for the American Health Care Association, which represents the largest share of skilled nursing facilities nationwide, said overall nursing home operators are well regulated and follow federal guidelines but added that he could not fully comment on the report's conclusions without having had the chance to read it.

"Our members begin every treatment with the individual's personal health needs at the forefront. This is a hands-on process, involving doctors and even family members in an effort to enhance the health outcome of the patient," Crist said.

Virginia Fichera, who has relatives in two nursing homes in New York, said she would welcome a greater push for accountability at skilled nursing facilities.

"Once you're in a nursing home, if things don't go right, you're really a prisoner," said Fichera, a retired professor in Sterling, NY. "As a concerned relative, you just want to know the care is good, and if there are problems, why they are happening and when they'll be fixed."

Once residents are ready to go back home or transfer to another facility, federal law also requires that the homes write special plans to make sure patients are safely discharged.

Investigators found the homes didn't always do what was needed to ensure a smooth transition.

In nearly one-third of cases, facilities also did not provide enough information when the patient moved to another setting, the report found.

___

On the Web:

The OIG report: http://1.usa.gov/VaztQm

The Medicare nursing home database: http://www.medicare.gov/NursingHomeCompare/search.aspx?bhcp=1&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

___

Follow Garance Burke on Twitter at —http://twitter.com/garanceburke.

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Why Should We Care? The Politics of Picking a Pope

Feb 28, 2013 9:34am

                             (Image Credit: L’Osservatore Romano/Vatican/Getty Images)

ANALYSIS

VATICAN CITY – In a U.S presidential campaign, the New Hampshire primary is thought of as “retail politics,” where the candidates actually get to meet and have contact with real voters.

That’s Walmart, compared to a Vatican conclave. This process is more of a boutique.

READ MORE: Benedict XVI Begins Final Day as Pope

All the voters and all the viable candidates can fit into one room. In some cases, they have known each other – or known “of” each other – for years. In some cases, they have worked with (or against) each other in the daily management of the church.

It’s not just the fancy costumes, the churchly rituals or the sweep of history that makes this process so fascinating. There’s also the sheer human drama of it all.

VIDEO: Pope Benedict’s Last Sunday Prayer Service

For the 115 men planning to take part in the conclave to elect a pope, all of whom have devoted their lives to the Catholic church, this choice might well be the most important contribution they make. A lifetime of service reduced to a single election.

It’s also crucial for the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.

The new pope will set the tone of the institution on issues of life and death: abortion, birth control, genetic medicine, euthanasia and more.

He’ll frame the church’s role in the moral debate about the way people live their lives, as individuals and as families. Divorce, gay rights, adoption, education, the role of women (not least in the church) are all areas in which previous pope’s have exerted tremendous influence.

He’ll instantly be the most powerful spiritual leader in the world, a global ambassador for Christian values (however he and the rest of the church interpret that mandate).

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Will he be able to win over a wayward flock? Many have left the church, bitterly disappointed by the betrayal of pedophile priests, the mismanagement of arrogant administrators or even what they perceive as the institution’s irrelevance in the modern era.

At its best, the church is a voice of compassion and social justice. But it has also, at times, been a voice of intolerance, as well as a bastion of the status quo.

On one level, this is local politics. Each voting cardinal – even the ones who live thousands of miles away – has a titular church, an actual church here in Rome assigned to them where they officially serve as the pastor. So the conclave represents the Roman clergy’s electing the next Bishop of Rome.

At another level, it’s global. Prelates from 50 countries do their best to discern (through the guidance of the Holy Spirit) how to make the universal church thrive in a new millennium.

Win or lose in a presidential election, we all know it’ll start all over again in four years’ time. There are checks and balances too, so, for better or worse, “change” tends to be largely a campaign slogan.

It would be sheer exaggeration to say any presidential contest were a battle for the soul of the United States.

But in a very real way that’s what this process is for the world’s largest church.

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U.S. to give Syrian rebels medical, food aid, not arms

ROME (Reuters) - The United States will send non-lethal aid directly to Syrian rebels for the first time, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday, disappointing opponents of President Bashar al-Assad who are clamoring for Western weapons.

But in a change of emphasis, the mainly Western and Arab "Friends of Syria" group meeting in Rome "underlined the need to change the balance of power on the ground".

A final communique said participants would "coordinate their efforts closely so as to best empower the Syrian people and support the Supreme Military Command of the (rebel) Free Syrian Army in its efforts to help them exercise self-defense".

More than 70,000 Syrians have been killed in a fierce conflict that began with peaceful anti-Assad protests nearly two years ago. Some 860,000 have fled abroad and several million are displaced within the country or need humanitarian assistance.

Kerry, after the talks in Rome, said Washington would more than double its aid to the Syrian civilian opposition, giving it an extra $60 million to help provide food, sanitation and medical care to devastated communities.

The United States would now "extend food and medical supplies to the opposition, including to the Syrian opposition's Supreme Military (Council)", Kerry said.

In their communique, the "Friends of Syria" pledged more political and material support to the Syrian National Coalition, a fractious Cairo-based group that has struggled to gain traction inside Syria, especially among disparate rebel forces.

Riad Seif, a coalition leader, said before the Rome meeting that the opposition would demand "qualitative military support".

Another coalition official welcomed the result of the talks. "We move forward with a great deal of cautious optimism. We heard today a different kind of discourse," Yasser Tabbara said.

But the continued U.S. refusal to send weapons may compound the frustration that prompted the coalition to say last week it would shun the Rome talks. It attended only under U.S. pressure.

Many in the coalition say Western reluctance to arm rebels only plays into the hands of Islamist militants now widely seen as the most effective forces in the struggle to topple Assad.

However, a European diplomat held out the possibility of Western military support, saying the coalition and its Western and Arab backers would meet in Istanbul next week to discuss military and humanitarian support to the insurgents.

MEALS READY TO EAT

Kerry's offer of medical aid and Meals Ready to Eat (MREs), the U.S. army's basic ration, fell far short of rebel demands for sophisticated anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to help turn the tables against Assad's mostly Russian-supplied forces.

It also stopped short of providing other forms of non-lethal assistance such as bullet-proof vests, armored personnel vehicles and military training to the insurgents.

Last week the European Union opened the way for direct aid to Syrian rebels, but did not lift an arms embargo on Syria.

The Rome talks again signaled the lack of appetite among the United States and its allies for direct military intervention in Syria, after the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops from Iraq and the drawdown under way in Afghanistan.

The communique called for an immediate halt to "unabated" arms supplies to Damascus by third countries, referring mostly to Assad's allies Russia and Iran.

It also said Syria must immediately stop indiscriminate bombardment of populated areas, which it described as crimes against humanity. NATO officials say Assad's military has fired ballistic missiles within Syria, which the government denies.

Human Rights Watch has reported that at least 171 civilians were killed in four Scud missile strikes last week.

The "Friends of Syria" pledged "more political and material support to the coalition as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people and to get more concrete assistance inside Syria", but gave no details on exactly what would be provided.

Kerry said earlier this week he would not leave the Syrian opposition "dangling in the wind", unsure of getting support.

But the White House continues to resist providing weaponry to the rebel forces, arguing there is no way to guarantee the arms might not fall into the hands of Islamist militants who might eventually use them against Western or Israeli targets.

"HUGE DEBATE"

U.S. officials have said that the U.S. Defense and State departments, under former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, privately recommended that the White House arm the rebels, but were overruled.

"It's a huge debate inside the administration between those that have to deal with Syria on an everyday basis, the State Department and DoD (Defense) particularly, and the White House, which ... until now has vetoed any kind of outreach to the armed groups," said Andrew Tabler, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think-tank.

The United States says it has already provided more than $50 million in non-lethal assistance such as communications gear and governance training to Syria's civilian opposition.

A source in the Syrian coalition, however, said even the extra $60 million promised by Washington was a pittance compared to what he said was the $40 million a day in humanitarian aid needed for Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons.

The United States has provided some $365 million in humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees in countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon and for internally displaced people, channeling this money through non-governmental organizations.

More than 40,000 people a week are fleeing Syria and the total number of refugees will likely pass 1 million in less than a month, far sooner than the United Nations had forecast, a senior U.N. official told the Security Council on Wednesday.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said his agency had registered 936,000 Syrians across the Middle East and North Africa, nearly 30 times as many as in April last year.

"We expected to have 1.1 million Syrian refugees by June. If things continue to accelerate like this, it will take less than a month to reach that number," he told the 15-member council.

(Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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US pledges US$60m for Syria opposition

ROME: The United States on Thursday pledged US$60 million in "non-lethal" assistance for the Syrian political opposition to President Bashar al-Assad as well as the first direct US aid to rebel fighters in the form of food and medical assistance.

"The US will be providing an additional US$60 million in non-lethal assistance to support the efforts of the Syrian opposition coalition over the coming months," US Secretary of State John Kerry said after talks between the 11-nation Friends of Syria and the opposition in Rome.

"We will be sending medical supplies and food to the (rebel) Supreme Military Council, so there will be direct assistance," he added.

"All Syrians... must know that they can have a future," Kerry said.

A State Department official said the US$60 million (49 million euros) in aid would be used to help local councils and communities in liberated areas in Syria, to provide basic goods and services and "fulfil administrative functions including security, sanitation and education services."

The official said the new money was in addition to US$50 million in non-lethal support Washington has already provided to help Syrian opposition activists, including communications equipment.

That aid was provided through Turkey, while the United States has also contributed some US$380 million dollars in humanitarian aid through UN agencies and aid groups.

Asked about congressional approval of the funding, Kerry told journalists he was "very confident for rapid delivery".

He said the goal was to give a boost to the opposition and show Assad that he could not use violence to resolve the conflict.

"This is the beginning of the process that will change (Assad's) calculation."

The announcement of aid came as news broke of a car bomb explosion in a suburb of the flashpoint city of Homs that left "dead and wounded", according to state news agency SANA, which blamed "terrorists" for the blast.

Kerry had earlier met for about an hour with opposition leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib at the 16th-century Villa Madama on a hilltop above Rome.

The Rome talks come two days before an important meeting of the main opposition National Coalition on Saturday in Istanbul, where the umbrella group is to elect a prime minister and government to run parts of Syria seized from Assad's control.

A watchdog reported, meanwhile, that rebels had seized control of the Umayyad Mosque in the second city of Aleppo after days of fierce clashes that damaged the historic building.

Regime troops were forced to withdraw at dawn, taking up positions in buildings around the landmark structure, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Officials from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates took part in the Rome talks, as well as EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

The Syrian opposition -- which initially vowed a boycott -- had been lured back to the meeting after the US and Britain promised specific offers of help.

In Paris on Wednesday, Kerry said he wanted to hear from Khatib about how best to end the violence in Syria, where the United Nations says at least 70,000 have died and hundreds of thousands have been uprooted since the conflict broke out in March 2011.

US media including The New York Times and Washington Post have reported that the "non-lethal" aid to be provided to the opposition could include equipment such as vehicles, communications gear and night-vision goggles.

The New York Times also reported that a US mission training rebels at a base in the region was already under way.

Russia, Assad's most powerful supporter, has kept up pressure for the two sides in the Syrian conflict to sit down for negotiations.

In Moscow, French President Francois Hollande said ahead of a meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that a political solution to the Syrian crisis was possible within weeks.

"I think that in the next few weeks we will manage to find a political solution that will stop the conflict from escalating," Hollande told Echo of Moscow radio station in comments translated into Russian.

Hollande stressed Russia's key role as a member of the UN Security Council, where it has vetoed resolutions that would have put pressure on Assad to end hostilities.

"We must finally start the process of political dialogue that has not yet started on the territory of Syria."

"President Putin and I both understand all the seriousness of the situation. And even though our positions at the moment differ, we want to find the best solution for Syria."

- AFP/xq

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Left returns to power in Tripura for 5th consecutive time; Congress retains Meghalaya

AGARTALA: The Left Front in Tripura today retained power for the fifth consecutive time since 1993 with the coalition securing a three-fourths majority by winning 50 of the 60 Assembly seats.

While CPM, which contested in 55 seats, secured win in 49 seats, coalition partner CPI won one seat of the two it had contested. However, RSP which fought in two seats and Forward Bloc in one, failed to open their accounts.

The Left Front also increased its tally from 49 seats in 2008 and 42 seats in 2003, paving the way for the seventh Left Front government since 1978 in the Northeast state.

The Congress managed to retain 10 seats of the 48 in which it had contested, while allies Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura and National Conference of Tripura were unable to win a single seat. The INPT and the NCT had contested in 10 and one seats, respectively.

All ministers of the outgoing ministry except science and technology minister Joy Gobinda Debroy of RSP were re-elected.

Chief minister Manik Sarkar won from the Dhanpur constituency where he defeated his nearest rival -- Congress' Shah Alam -- by 6,017 votes. Sarkar had won by 4,000 votes in the last Assembly elections.

Finance minister Badal Chowdhury made electoral history by defeating his nearest rival, a Congress candidate, by 12,429 votes in the Hrishyamukh constituency.

Other prominent Front leaders who won are Agriculture Minister Aghore Debbarma (Asharambari constituency), Industries Minister Jitendra Chowdhury (Manu) and Jail Minister Manindra Reang (Shantirbazar; ST).

Among Congress winners were Leader of the Opposition Ratan Lal Nath (Mohanpur constituency) and TPCC President Sudip Roy Burman (Agartala).

INPT president Bijoy Hrankhawl (Ambassa) and former TPCC president Surajit Dutta (Ramnagar) were among prominent candidates who lost in electoral battle.

CPM state party secretary Bijan Dhar said: "It is a victory of the people of the state, and a victory of peace and development and good governance of the sixth Left Front government."

Leader of the opposition Ratan Lal Nath said, "We accept defeat and will review the causes for it.

Nagaland for NPF and Congress wins Meghalaya

The Left Front stormed back to power in Tripura and the Naga People's Front (NPF) in Nagaland, while the Congress, which fared poorly in both states, emerged as the single largest party in Meghalaya with two seats short of absolute majority in the assembly election results declared today.

The three outgoing chief ministers of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, Manik Sarkar, Neiphu Rio and Mukul Sangma respectively were victorious.

The Left Front, which has won for the fifth consecutive term in Tripura, secured a three fourths majority with 50 of the 60 seats, with major partner CPM itself securing 49.

In Nagaland, NPF swept back to power for the third consecutive time winning absolute majority securing 38 of the 59 seats. Election in one seat was countermanded following the death of a candidate.

Congress could win only 10 of the 48 seats it contested in Tripura while it could manage to win only eight seats compared to the 18 it clinched last time in Nagaland.

In Meghalaya, the Congress bagged 29 of the 60 seats, falling two short of an absolute majority.

But the Congress improved its tally by securing four more than its tally in 2008.

The results were a shot in the arm of Congress chief minister Mukul Sangma who faced stiff opposition from old warhorse P A Sangma whose National People's Party managed to win just two seats.

In Tripura, the Left Front increased its tally from 49 seats in 2008 and 42 seats in 2003 paving the way for the installation of the seventh Left Front government since 1967.

Congress allies INPT and National Conference of Tripura, which had virtually revolted over allocation of seats before being pacified, drew a blank.

All ministers of the outgoing ministry except Science and Technology minister Joy Gobinda Debroy of RSP were re-elected.

Finance minister Badal Chowdhury made electoral history by defeating his nearest Congress rival by 12,429 votes in the Hrishyamukh constituency.

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Vt. lye victim gets new face at Boston hospital

BOSTON (AP) — A Vermont woman whose face was disfigured in a lye attack has received a face transplant.

Doctors at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital say 44-year-old Carmen Blandin Tarleton underwent the surgery earlier this month.

A team worked 15 hours to transplant the facial skin, including the neck, nose, lips, facial muscles, arteries and nerves.

The 44-year-old Tarleton, of Thetford, Vt., was attacked by her former husband in 2007. He doused her with industrial strength lye. She suffered chemical burns over 80 percent of her body. The mother of two wrote a book about her experience that describes her recovery.

It was the fifth face transplant at the Boston hospital.

Physicians are planning to discuss the case Wednesday at the hospital.

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Pope Thanks Crowd in Final Address

On his final full day as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI thanked a huge crowd for respecting his historic decision to step down and told them that God will continue to guide the church.

"The decision I have made, after much prayer, is the fruit of a serene trust in God's will and a deep love of Christ's Church," Benedict said to cheers in his last public words as pope.

Benedict, 85, is the first pope to resign in 600 years. He told the crowd today that he was "deeply grateful for the understanding, support and prayers of so many of you, not only here in Rome, but also throughout the world."

Pope Benedict's Last Sunday Prayer Service

Under sunny skies on this late February day, hundreds of thousands of people, some waving flags, some banners, flocked to Vatican City to see Benedict make a final lap around St. Peter's Square. Throughout his eight-year papacy, Benedict has conducted a weekly audience from St. Peter's. Before delivering his last papal address today, Benedict waved to the festive group of supporters as he toured the square in his glass-encased popemobile.

The city of Rome planned for more than 200,000 people to head to the Vatican for today's event. Streets around St. Peter's were blocked off to cars as pedestrians from around the world headed to the square.

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The conclave to elect Benedict's replacement will start next month at a date yet to be determined. Benedict issued a decree known as a "motu poprio" that will allow cardinals to convene the conclave sooner than the March 15 date that would have been mandated under the old rules.

Benedict today asked the faithful to pray for him and for the new pope.

"My heart is filled with thanksgiving to God who ever watches over his church," Benedict said.

The German-born Benedict, who had appeared frail at times in recent months, seemed more energized in his remarks today. He has said he will devote more time to prayer and meditation after he leaves the papacy.

Benedict will meet Thursday with his cardinals in the morning and then flies by helicopter at 5 p.m. to Castel Gandolfo, the papal residence south of Rome. Benedict will greet parishioners there from the palazzo's balcony, his final public act as pope.

Then, at 8 p.m., the exact time at which his retirement becomes official, the Swiss Guards standing outside the doors of the palazzo at Castel Gandolfo will go off duty, their service protecting the head of the Catholic Church finished.

In retirement, Benedict will continue to wear white and will be called "Pope Emeritus," or the "Supreme Roman Pontiff Emeritus" or "Your Holiness," the Vatican announced Tuesday. Benedict will ditch his trademark red shoes, opting for a pair of brown shoes given to him on a trip to Mexico. But he will still reside on Vatican grounds in a former nunnery.

Benedict's final days as pope have been marked by controversy. For nearly a week now Italian newspapers speculated that Benedict really resigned because of a dossier he was given detailing a sex and blackmail scandal in the Catholic Church. The Italian media news reports do not state any attribution.

It turns out a dossier does exist. The Vatican spokesman Monday underscored that the contents of the dossier are known only to the pope and his investigators, three elderly prelates whom the Italian papers have nicknamed "the 007 cardinals."

But the dossier itself will remain "For the Pope's Eyes Only."

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Iran upbeat on nuclear talks, West wary

ALMATY (Reuters) - Iran gave an upbeat assessment of two days of nuclear talks with world powers that ended on Wednesday, but Western officials said Tehran must start taking concrete steps to ease mounting concerns about its atomic activity.

The first negotiations between Iran and six world powers in eight months ended without a breakthrough in Almaty, but they agreed to meet again at expert level in Istanbul next month and resume political discussions in the Kazakh city on April 5.

Israel, assumed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power, is watching the talks closely. It has strongly hinted it might attack Iran if diplomacy and sanctions fail to stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran denies any such aim.

Iran's foreign minister said he was optimistic an agreement could be reached with the powers - the United States, France, Russia, Britain, Germany and China - on the country's disputed nuclear program.

"Very confident," Ali Akbar Salehi told Reuters when asked on the sidelines of a U.N. conference in Vienna how confident he was of a positive outcome.

The six powers offered at the February 26-27 Almaty meeting to lift some sanctions if Iran scaled back nuclear activity that the West fears could be used to build a bomb.

Tehran, which says its program is entirely peaceful, did not agree to do so and the sides did not appear any closer to a deal to resolve a decade-old dispute that could lead to another war in the Middle East if diplomacy fails.

But Iran still said the talks were a positive step in which the six powers tried to "get closer to our viewpoint".

Western officials had made clear they did not expect major progress in Almaty, aware that the closeness of Iran's presidential election in June is raising political tensions in Tehran and makes significant concessions unlikely.

"I hope the Iranian side is looking positively on the proposal we put forward," said European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who led the talks on behalf of the powers. "We have to see what happens next."

The United States did not expect a breakthrough and "the result was clearly in line with those expectations," a senior U.S. official said.

The meeting was "useful" as the two sides agreed dates and venues for follow-up talks but there was a need for progress on confidence building measures, the official added.

UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR SITE

The West's immediate priority is that Iran halts higher-grade uranium enrichment and closes an underground facility, Fordow, where this work is carried out. The material is a relatively short technical step from bomb-grade uranium.

"What we care about at the end is concrete results," the U.S. official said.

One diplomat in Almaty said the Iranians appeared to be suggesting at the negotiations that they were opening new avenues, but that it was not clear if this was really the case.

Both sides said experts would meet for talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul on March 18 and that political negotiators would return to Almaty on April 5-6.

Russian negotiator Sergei Ryabkov confirmed that the powers had offered to ease sanctions on Iran if it stops enriching uranium to 20 percent fissile purity - a short technical step from weapons grade - at the Fordow underground site where it carries out its most controversial uranium enrichment work.

Western officials said the offer of sanctions relief included a resumption of trade in gold and precious metals.

One diplomat said that lifting an embargo on imports of Iranian petrochemical products to Europe, if Iran responded, was also on the table. But a U.S. official said the world powers had not offered to suspend oil or financial sanctions.

The sanctions are hurting Iran's economy and its chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, suggested Iran could discuss its production of higher-grade nuclear fuel, although he appeared to rule out shutting Fordow.

In comments in Persian translated into English, Jalili told a news conference Fordow was under the supervision of the U.N. nuclear watchdog and there was no justification for closing it.

MOOD "MORE OPTIMISTIC"

Asked about the production of 20-percent enriched fuel, he reiterated Iran's position that it needed this for a research reactor and had a right to produce it.

Iran says its enrichment program is aimed solely at fuelling nuclear power plants so that it can export more oil, and that Israel's assumed nuclear arsenal is the main threat to peace in the region.

But Jalili did indicate that Iran might be prepared to talk about the issue, saying: "This can be discussed in the negotiations ... in view of confidence building."

Iran has also previously suggested that 20-percent enrichment was up for negotiation if it received the fuel from abroad instead. It also wants sanctions lifted.

"While an agreement to meet again may not impress skeptics of diplomacy, an important development did occur," said Trita Parsi, an expert on Iran. "The parties began searching for a solution by offering positive measures in order to secure concessions from the other side.

Another expert, Dina Esfandiary of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: "I note that the mood is more optimistic and that's great, but a deal still hasn't been reached and in my view its unlikely to be reached before the Iranian elections have come and gone."

(Additional reporting Fredrik Dahl in Almaaty, Georgina Prodhan in Vienna, Zahra Hosseinian in Zurich, Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow, Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Marcus George in Dubai; Writing by Timothy Heritage and Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Portugal seizes 79 tonnes of meat containing horse

LISBON: Portuguese authorities said they had launched fraud proceedings after seizing 79 tonnes of wholesale food and thousands of packaged meals that contained horsemeat despite not being labelled with it.

The 79 tonnes of "meat and meat-based products" were seized in plants that processed, packaged and distributed meat to supermarkets, the government's Economic and Food Safety Authority said in a statement.

Authorities also seized nearly 19,000 packets of food "such as lasagne, hamburgers, canneloni and meatballs" in retail and distribution outlets, said the statement published on Tuesday.

Five criminal cases of fraud were opened over the seizures, it added, without giving further derails.

A vast food scandal has erupted across Europe after horsemeat was found in supposedly beef ready-made meals and burgers in Britain and Ireland.

Among various companies implicated in the scandal, Swiss food giant Nestle last week withdrew dishes destined for restaurants in Portugal, Spain and Italy.

- AFP/xq

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India silent over US-backed resolution against Lanka at UN rights body

NEW DELHI: India is not ready to reveal its hand on the US-sponsored resolution against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). And, the radio silence is all for a good reason.

Despite the loud support by DMK and AIADMK members in the Rajya Sabha for the resolution on Wednesday, there is discomfort within the Indian government regarding the document's fine print. Sources said recommendations in the resolution are "intrusive", which would be unacceptable for India.

However, India will continue to push Sri Lanka to devolve more power to the Tamil areas, as part of the promise of the 13th amendment. Colombo maintains that most of the amendment has been implemented, but they wanted to "adjust" some of what was left to work on. The government has set up a select committee, but the Tamil parties have refused to be part of it.

Although the text of the resolution has not yet been made public, it is believed that the US resolution calls for an international committee to monitor that justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation are implemented by the Lankan government. India would much rather like that issues of accountability are kept as sovereign responsibility of a nation and not imposed from outside. Like China, India is opposed to externally imposed solutions on countries.

Foreign minister Salman Khurshid remained non-committal on how India would vote at the UN body. He told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday that while the recent photographs of Prabhakaran's son's death were "very sad, very moving, very tragic" and "that is the reason we have engaged with Sri Lanka". This accountability, he said, should come from within, rather than from outside. "When accountability comes from within, there is a greater chance of sustainability," he added.

India has more problems with the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay. Her report, which the US has said it will support, calls for an "independent, international inquiry" into the Lankan actions during the concluding phase of the war against the LTTE. The report also calls for investigations of "violations" of international law. In addition, India is uncomfortable with the idea of special rapporteurs being appointed to visit Sri Lanka, fearing that at some stage it could come back to bite New Delhi.

"Our initiative is to find a solution... go beyond pain and anger. We want a sustainable settlement to the issues in Sri Lanka. "There is no question of our having a blinkered vision of the ground situation," Khurshid said.

Traditionally, India did not support country-specific resolutions, though New Delhi went against its own unwritten rule to vote against Sri Lanka at the UNHRC last year. Second, there is a strong opinion in the government that the US resolution is basically going after an easy target. "There is no accountability sought in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, where there was significant violations of international law," said sources.

Quietly, the government is also wary of fanning the flames of ethnic nationalism among the Tamils again, given the dangers of that operating in India as well. In the past year, Tamil Nadu has seen violence against Lankan tourists and pilgrims which has got the Centre worried.

Human rights organisations like Human Rights Watch (HRW) have documented horrific tales of rape and torture of Sri Lankan Tamil detainees who have told their stories after fleeing from the country. This is in addition to the film, No Fire Zone by Callum McCrae, which showed disturbing visuals of Prabhakaran's son's last hours.

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Koop, who transformed surgeon general post, dies

With his striking beard and starched uniform, former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop became one of the most recognizable figures of the Reagan era — and one of the most unexpectedly enduring.

His nomination in 1981 met a wall of opposition from women's groups and liberal politicians, who complained President Ronald Reagan selected Koop, a pediatric surgeon and evangelical Christian from Philadelphia, only because of his conservative views, especially his staunch opposition to abortion.

Soon, though, he was a hero to AIDS activists, who chanted "Koop, Koop" at his appearances but booed other officials. And when he left his post in 1989, he left behind a landscape where AIDS was a top research and educational priority, smoking was considered a public health hazard, and access to abortion remained largely intact.

Koop, who turned his once-obscure post into a bully pulpit for seven years during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and who surprised both ends of the political spectrum by setting aside his conservative personal views on issues such as homosexuality and abortion to keep his focus sharply medical, died Monday at his home in Hanover, N.H. He was 96.

An assistant at Koop's Dartmouth College institute, Susan Wills, confirmed his death but didn't disclose its cause.

Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as surgeon general a decade ago under President George W. Bush, said Koop was a mentor to him and preached the importance of staying true to the science even if it made politicians uncomfortable.

"He set the bar high for all who followed in his footsteps," Carmona said.

Although the surgeon general has no real authority to set government policy, Koop described himself as "the health conscience of the country" and said modestly just before leaving his post that "my only influence was through moral suasion."

A former pipe smoker, Koop carried out a crusade to end smoking in the United States; his goal had been to do so by 2000. He said cigarettes were as addictive as heroin and cocaine. And he shocked his conservative supporters when he endorsed condoms and sex education to stop the spread of AIDS.

Chris Collins, a vice president of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, said many people don't realize what an important role Koop played in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

"At the time, he really changed the national conversation, and he showed real courage in pursuing the duties of his job," Collins said.

Even after leaving office, Koop continued to promote public health causes, from preventing childhood accidents to better training for doctors.

"I will use the written word, the spoken word and whatever I can in the electronic media to deliver health messages to this country as long as people will listen," he promised.

In 1996, he rapped Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole for suggesting that tobacco was not invariably addictive, saying Dole's comments "either exposed his abysmal lack of knowledge of nicotine addiction or his blind support of the tobacco industry."

Although Koop eventually won wide respect with his blend of old-fashioned values, pragmatism and empathy, his nomination met staunch opposition.

Foes noted that Koop traveled the country in 1979 and 1980 giving speeches that predicted a progression "from liberalized abortion to infanticide to passive euthanasia to active euthanasia, indeed to the very beginnings of the political climate that led to Auschwitz, Dachau and Belsen."

But Koop, a devout Presbyterian, was confirmed after he told a Senate panel he would not use the surgeon general's post to promote his religious ideology. He kept his word.

In 1986, he issued a frank report on AIDS, urging the use of condoms for "safe sex" and advocating sex education as early as third grade.

He also maneuvered around uncooperative Reagan administration officials in 1988 to send an educational AIDS pamphlet to more than 100 million U.S. households, the largest public health mailing ever.

Koop personally opposed homosexuality and believed sex should be saved for marriage. But he insisted that Americans, especially young people, must not die because they were deprived of explicit information about how HIV was transmitted.

Koop further angered conservatives by refusing to issue a report requested by the Reagan White House, saying he could not find enough scientific evidence to determine whether abortion has harmful psychological effects on women.

Koop maintained his personal opposition to abortion, however. After he left office, he told medical students it violated their Hippocratic oath. In 2009, he wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, urging that health care legislation include a provision to ensure doctors and medical students would not be forced to perform abortions. The letter briefly set off a security scare because it was hand delivered.

Koop served as chairman of the National Safe Kids Campaign and as an adviser to President Bill Clinton's health care reform plan.

At a congressional hearing in 2007, Koop spoke about political pressure on the surgeon general post. He said Reagan was pressed to fire him every day, but Reagan would not interfere.

Koop, worried that medicine had lost old-fashioned caring and personal relationships between doctors and patients, opened his institute at Dartmouth to teach medical students basic values and ethics. He also was a part-owner of a short-lived venture, drkoop.com, to provide consumer health care information via the Internet.

Koop was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the only son of a Manhattan banker and the nephew of a doctor. He said by age 5 he knew he wanted to be a surgeon and at age 13 he practiced his skills on neighborhood cats.

He attended Dartmouth, where he received the nickname Chick, short for "chicken Koop." It stuck for life.

Koop received his medical degree at Cornell Medical College, choosing pediatric surgery because so few surgeons practiced it.

In 1938, he married Elizabeth Flanagan, the daughter of a Connecticut doctor. They had four children, one of whom died in a mountain climbing accident when he was 20.

Koop was appointed surgeon-in-chief at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

He pioneered surgery on newborns and successfully separated three sets of conjoined twins. He won national acclaim by reconstructing the chest of a baby born with the heart outside the body.

Although raised as a Baptist, he was drawn to a Presbyterian church near the hospital, where he developed an abiding faith. He began praying at the bedside of his young patients — ignoring the snickers of some of his colleagues.

Koop's wife died in 2007, and he married Cora Hogue in 2010.

He was by far the best-known surgeon general and for decades afterward was still a recognized personality.

"I was walking down the street with him one time" about five years ago, recalled Dr. George Wohlreich, director of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, a medical society with which Koop had longstanding ties. "People were yelling out, 'There goes Dr. Koop!' You'd have thought he was a rock star."

___

Ring reported from Montpelier, Vt. Cass reported from Washington. AP Medical Writers Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

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'93 WTC Bombing Crushed Lives, Not Memories

Edward Smith remembers vividly the call from the morgue 20 years ago today, that his pregnant wife had died in the World Trade Center bombing hours before she was supposed to start her maternity leave.

"It seems like kind of yesterday sometimes," he told ABC News, "but it seems like a long time ago, too."

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the 1993 WTC bombing, which was overshadowed eight years later by the 9/11 attacks. Six people died and about 1,000 were injured after terrorists detonated a truck bomb in the parking garage of the World Trade Center's North Tower Feb. 26, 1993.

Four of the six killed -- Robert Kirkpatrick, 61, Stephen A. Knapp, 47, William Macko, 57, and Monica Rodriguez Smith, 35 -- were employees of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owned the buildings. John DiGiovanni, 45, a dental-supply salesman visiting the World Trade Center, and Wilfredo Mercado, 37, a purchasing agent for Windows on the World restaurant, also died.

To commemorate the event, ABC News spoke with several people affected by the bombing -- a widower, a former Port Authority executive director, a plaintiff's attorney and a jury foreman -- to illustrate how the bombing resonates 20 years later.

EDWARD SMITH: Husband of pregnant Monica Rodriguez Smith, who died in the bombing.

Edward and Monica Rodriguez Smith on their wedding day, Aug. 31, 1990.

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Edward Smith, 50, remembers where he was Feb. 26, 1993, when he heard the news.

"I was up in Boston, and I had heard there was a fire at the [World] Trade Center," Smith told ABCNews.com last week. "I turned the TV on, and eventually heard there was an actual bombing, and drove down as quickly as I could."

Smith said he couldn't reach his wife, Monica Rodriguez Smith, a secretary for a mechanical supervisor for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey who worked in the World Trade Center, for "hours and hours."

He said he didn't hear from her or anything about her until he contacted the New York City morgue at 11:30 p.m. that evening.

"Obviously, I was informed that I should come there," Smith said.

He and his wife had been married for a little more than three years, he said, and Feb. 26 was to be Monica's last day of work before she went on maternity leave. They were expecting their first child, a boy, to be named Eddie.

"She had worked at the Port Authority for at least 12 years," Smith said. "And she had just gotten an award for never having a sick day. That was a little thing you remember."

Smith said the World Trade Center was where he met his wife the first time.

"I was a sales guy, selling to the Port Authority, and she was the admin [secretary] for one of the guys," he said. "For the first two years, she wouldn't go out with me.

"She said, 'Do you know how many knuckleheads come in here and ask me out? What makes you different?'" Smith recalled Monica's saying.

It took her two years to go out on a date with him, Smith said.

The couple tied the knot Aug. 31, 1990. Smith said he even bought the house in which he grew up on Long Island to raise their family.

But after the events of Feb. 26, 1993, Smith said, it was hard to stay in New York. Shortly after the bombing, he moved to Arizona and later to California.

"There were too many reminders, it was too much," he said.

Smith now resides in Phoenix, but makes a trip to New York every year for the memorial in February.
This year is no exception.

"It's kind of an interesting feeling," he said of the 20-year anniversary. "It seems like kind of yesterday sometimes, but it seems like a long time ago, too."

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Italy faces post-vote stalemate, spooking investors

ROME (Reuters) - The Italian stock market fell and state borrowing costs rose on Tuesday as investors took fright at political deadlock after a stunning election that saw a comedian's protest party lead the poll and no group secure a clear majority in parliament.

"The winner is: Ingovernability" ran the headline in Rome newspaper Il Messaggero, reflecting the stalemate the country would have to confront in the next few weeks as sworn enemies would be forced to work together to form a government.

In a sign of where that might lead, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi indicated his center-right might be open to a grand coalition with the center-left bloc of Pier Luigi Bersani, which will have a majority in the lower house thanks to a premium of seats given to the largest bloc in the chamber.

Results in the upper house, the Senate, where seats are awarded on a region-by-region basis, indicated the center-left would end up with about 119 seats, compared with 117 for the center-right. But 158 are needed for a majority to govern.

Any coalition administration that may be formed must have a working majority in both houses in order to pass legislation.

Comedian Beppe Grillo's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement won the most votes of any single party, taking 25 percent. He shows no immediate inclination to cooperate with other groups.

Despite talk of a new election, the main established parties seem likely to try to avoid that, fearing even more humiliation.

World financial markets reacted nervously to the prospect of a stalemate in the euro zone's third largest economy with memories still fresh of the crisis that took the 17-member currency bloc to the brink of collapse in 2011.

In a clear sign of worry at the top over what effect the elections could have on the economy, Prime Minister Mario Monti, whose austerity policies were repudiated by voters, called a meeting with the governor of the central bank, the economy minister and the European affairs minister for later on Tuesday.

Other governments in the euro zone sounded uneasy. Allies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel made no secret of disappointment at Monti's debacle and urged Rome to continue with economic reforms Berlin sees as vital to stabilizing the common currency.

France's Socialist finance minister also expressed "worry" at the prospect of legislative deadlock in Italy but said that Italians had rejected austerity and hoped Bersani's center-left could form a stable government to help foster growth in Europe.

INSTABILITY

Fabio Fois, an economist at Barclays bank, said: "Political instability is likely to prevail in the near term and slow the implementation of much needed structural reforms unless a grand coalition among center-left, center-right and center is formed."

Berlusconi, a media magnate whose campaigning all but wiped out Bersani's once commanding opinion poll lead, hinted in a telephone call to a morning television show that he would be open to a deal with the center-left - but not with Monti, the technocrat summoned to replace him in a crisis 15 months ago.

"Italy must be governed," Berlusconi said, adding that he "must reflect" on a possible deal with the center-left. "Everyone must be prepared to make sacrifices," he said of the groups which now have a share of the legislature.

The Milan bourse was down more than four percent and the premium Italy pays over Germany to borrow on 10-year widened to a yield spread of 338.7 basis points, the highest since December 10.

At an auction of six-month Treasury bills, the government's borrowing costs shot up by more than two thirds. Investors demanded a yield of 1.237 percent, the highest since October and compared to just 0.730 percent in a similar sale a month ago.

Berlusconi, who was forced from office in November 2011 as borrowing costs approached levels investors feared would become unsustainable, said he was "not worried" about market reaction to the election and played down the significance of the spread.

The poor showing by Monti's centrist bloc reflected a weariness with austerity that was exploited by both Berlusconi and Grillo; only with the help of center-left allies did Bersani beat 5-Star, by just 125,000 votes, to control the lower house.

The worries immediately went beyond Italy's borders.

"What is crucial now is that a stable functioning government can be built as swiftly as possible," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. "This is not only in the interests of Italy but in the interests of all Europe."

The euro skidded to an almost seven-week low against the dollar in Asia on fears about the euro zone's debt crisis. It fell as far as $1.3042, its lowest since January 10.

"NON-PARTY" SURGES TO THE TOP

Commentators said all Grillo's adversaries underestimated the appeal of a grassroots movement that called itself a "non-party", particularly its allure among young Italians who find themselves without jobs and the prospect of a decent future.

The 5-star Movement's score of 25.5 percent in the lower house was just ahead of the 25.4 percent for Bersani's Democratic Party, which ran in a coalition with the leftist SEL party, and it won almost 8.7 million votes overall - more than any other single party.

"The 'non-party' has become the largest party in the country," said Massimo Giannini, commentator for Rome newspaper La Repubblica, of Grillo, who mixes fierce attacks on corruption with policies ranging from clean energy to free Internet.

Grillo's surge in the final weeks of the campaign threw the race open, with hundreds of thousands turning up at his rallies to hear him lay into targets ranging from corrupt politicians and bankers to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In just three years, his 5-Star Movement, heavily backed by a frustrated generation of young Italians increasingly shut out from permanent full-time jobs, has grown from a marginal group to one of the most talked about political forces in Europe.

RECESSION

"It's a classic result. Typically Italian," said Roberta Federica, a 36-year-old office worker in Rome. "It means the country is not united. It is an expression of a country that does not work. I knew this would happen."

Italy's borrowing costs have come down in recent months, helped by the promise of European Central Bank support but the election result confirmed fears of many European countries that it would not produce a government strong enough to implement effective reforms.

A long recession and growing disillusionment with mainstream parties fed a bitter public mood that saw more than half of Italian voters back parties that rejected the austerity policies pursued by Monti with the backing of Italy's European partners.

Monti suffered a major setback. His centrist grouping won only 10.6 percent and two of his key centrist allies, Pier Ferdinando Casini and lower house speaker Gianfranco Fini, both of parliamentarians for decades, were booted out.

"It's not that surprising if you consider how much people were let down by politics in its traditional forms," Monti said.

Berlusconi's campaign, mixing sweeping tax cut pledges with relentless attacks on Monti and Merkel, echoed many of the themes pushed by Grillo and underlined the increasingly angry mood of the Italian electorate.

Even if the next government turns away from the tax hikes and spending cuts brought in by Monti, it will struggle to revive an economy that has scarcely grown in two decades.

Monti was widely credited with tightening Italy's public finances and restoring its international credibility after the scandal-plagued Berlusconi, who is currently on trial for having sex with an under-age prostitute.

But Monti struggled to pass the kind of structural reforms needed to improve competitiveness and lay the foundations for a return to economic growth, and a weak center-left government may not find it any easier.

(Additional reporting by Barry Moody, Gavin Jones, Catherine Hornby, Lisa Jucca, Steven Jewkes, Steve Scherer and Naomi O'Leary; Writing by Philip Pullella; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

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