Kashmir killers dress as cricketers

Indian police men take cover during a gunbattle in Srinagar, India. Picture: AP Source: AP

MILITANTS disguised as cricketers have killed five paramilitary police in an ambush in the main city of Indian Kashmir.

Two gunmen from the local pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen, which claimed the attack, were shot dead after the assault on a police compound housing a barracks, school and playing field, the officials said.

A senior police officer said the extremists from Kashmir's biggest rebel group pretended to be joining children for a game of cricket before taking out automatic weapons from a bag and throwing a grenade.

"They came into the compound carrying cricket gear in which they hid their weapons. We recovered weapons and grenades from their bags later," Sudhir Kumar, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) spokesman, said.

Four civilians and four CRPF soldiers were injured in the attack, said police.

The Kashmir News Service, a Srinagar news agency, reported it received a call from a Hizbul Mujahideen spokesman who claimed the "guerrilla attack" and warned that more would follow.

Indian Home Secretary R.K. Singh said in New Delhi the dead gunmen appeared "not local but from across the border" in Pakistan and added two other militants who were not involved in the attack might still be at large in Srinagar.

The deaths marked the deadliest single day for Indian security forces since July 2008 when a landmine killed nine soldiers on a bus on the outskirts of Srinagar.

The attack comes as a 23-year anti-India insurgency has been on the wane.

Violence across the region has been at its lowest since the revolt began in 1989, boosting the vital tourism industry in the scenic Himalayan region.

But tensions have mounted since the execution last month of a Kashmiri separatist over a deadly 2001 attack on the national parliament in New Delhi.

Mohammed Afzal Guru was convicted over the attack, but he retained wide support in Muslim-majority Kashmir where many said he had not got a fair trial.

Much of Kashmir, which is divided between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan but claimed in full by both, has since been under repeated curfews while protests and strikes have disrupted daily life.

Police said a 24-year-old man, Altaf Ahmed Wani, was shot dead on Wednesday by paramilitary forces when they opened fire to stop people hurling stones at their armoured vehicle.

But several bystanders who said they witnessed the killing contested the account and said Wani was shot dead as he crossed a road and there was no stone-throwing.

Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah argued recently the national government should abolish emergency laws giving federal security forces in Kashmir legal impunity to shoot-to-kill.

The militant attack could undermine his campaign, which Abdullah sees as necessary to defuse resentment over alleged human rights abuses by the hundreds of thousands of troops in the region.

More than 47,000 people have died in the fighting by an official count while rights groups estimate up to 70,000 have lost their lives.

The Hizbul Mujahideen is fighting for the transfer of Indian Kashmir to Pakistan.

Violence in the region has its roots in the subcontinent's partition in 1947 when the Hindu leader of Kashmir opted for his mostly Muslim subjects to join secular India instead of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

The region is now split between the two countries along a UN-monitored line of control, but both claim it in full and have fought two wars over its control.

The last major rebel attack in Srinagar was in January 2010 when two militants from another pro-Pakistan militant group opened fire and took refuge in a hotel. Both were killed as were a policeman and a bystander.

Last October, gunmen opened fired on a popular hotel, killing a bellboy.

In May 2004, 28 Indian troopers and their relatives were killed in a blast carried out by Hizbul militants in southern Kashmir.
 

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Aussie citizen tortured in Africa

Manyang Maker Tulba at his graduation from Perths Edith Cowan University in 2011, where he received a Bachelor of Criminology and Justice. Facebook picture Source: Supplied

AN Australian university graduate is being tortured with daily beatings and whippings and starved of food and water in a South Sudan prison, according to relatives who are pleading for his release and return to Australia.

Manyang Maker Tulba, 22, is one of about 100 young men being held in a military prison in Rumbek, in the country's north, as part of a state investigation into violent ethnic clashes last month.

Mr Tulba, an Australian citizen who was born in South Sudan but has lived in Perth since 2003 and was visiting his family at the time of his arrest.

A Sudanese news website reported he and his mum were arrested for having "witnessed" the clashes, which left six people dead and four wounded.

Cousin Adhel Maker said Mr Tulba's sister, who has been visiting him and his mother separately in jail, had told family members in Australia he was being tortured daily by prison guards.

"She said they sort of beat him up pretty much every day for the first two weeks of his arrest and they whipped him about 100 times a day," she said.

"You have to pay to give him food and you have to pay to buy water for him, he's not allowed to see his family, so she says she hopes the guards give him the food she brings.

"They're literally just torturing him."

Ms Maker said the family felt "hopeless". Her cousin graduated from Perth's Edith Cowan University in 2011 with a bachelor's degree in criminology and justice and was enlisted in the Army Reserve.

She said Mr Tulba had plans to get married in Rumbek and return to Perth to start a family and undertake his masters degree when he was arrested.

"I'm really worried ... about his well being and because he hasn't been in that sort of condition before, it's very different to somebody that grew up in Sudan," she said.

"He was taken away when he was a kid and he grew up half his life in Australia so it's a bit hard for him, and we wonder how much he can take."

Mr Tulba's brother Makur Maker Tulba said he was terrified his younger sibling would receive the death penalty, and said the family had so far received little help from Australian authorities.

A spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs and Trade Department yesterday said consular officials from the Australian Embassy in Nairobi were liaising with South Sudanese authorities in order to obtain consular access to Mr Tulba.

A spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr said Mr Tulba had been detained as part of a mass arrest, but it was not clear why.

"We have been unsuccessful in obtaining information on the reasons for his detention, from either the South Sudanese Government and from Rumbek provincial officials," the spokeswoman said.

Consulate officials had been in touch with Mr Tulba's brother, she said.

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Sumatran tiger decapitates farmer

A Sumatran tiger has apparently decapitated a cocoa farmer in Indonesia. Source: AFP

A SUMATRAN tiger has killed a cocoa farmer in Indonesia as the rare wild cat's habitat is rapidly cleared for plantations.

The body of Karman Lubis, 32, was found decapitated around one kilometre from a cocoa plantation on Sumatra island at 2am on Tuesday (6am Tuesday AEDT), while his head was found hours later in another area, a relative said.

Lubis' right hand was still missing, Amiruddin Nasution added, saying he was likely attacked by a tiger sighted days earlier near their village of Rantau Panjang, adjacent to the Batang Gadis National Park on the island's north.

A national park office staff member said there were no witnesses to confirm a tiger was to blame.

"Given the body's condition, he could have been attacked by a bear, a clouded leopard or a tiger," said the staff member, who declined to be named.

The Sumatran tiger is the world's smallest tiger and is critically endangered, with only an estimated 400 to 500 alive on the Indonesian island.

Rampant deforestation and poaching have led to a decrease in the number of Sumatran tigers, experts say.
 

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N Korea's sexist swipe at South

North Korea has fired a sexist swipe at  South Korea's new President Park Geun-hye, using a derogatory phrase about her "poisonous skirts". Above, Ms Park salutes during a joint commission ceremony of new officers of Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines in Seoul. Picture: AP/Yonhap

NORTH Korea took its first official swipe at South Korea's new president, employing a well-known sexist phrase to paint Park Geun-Hye as overbearing and manipulative.

A lengthy statement attributed to a spokesman of the Armed Forces Ministry said South Korean officials were engaging in a round of "warmongering" orchestrated by the "poisonous swish" of the president's skirt.

The statement did not actually use Ms Park's name or title, referring to her only as the current "owner" of the presidential Blue House in Seoul.

"Swish of the skirt" (or "chima baram") is a common, derogatory Korean term used to criticise women seen as overly bossy or domineering.

North Korea's propaganda machine had slammed Ms Park repeatedly during the presidential campaign, warning that she would adopt the dictatorial methods of her father, the late military strongman Park Chung-Hee.

But Wednesday's official comment was the first since she was sworn in a little more than two weeks ago as the first female president of what remains a largely male-dominated country.

It also slammed recent comments by Ms Park - that the North's obsession with nuclear weapons would bring about its own collapse - as "utter ignorance".

South Korean marines check a weapon on their K-55 self-propelled howitzer during an exercise against possible attacks by North Korea near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea. Picture: AP/Ahn Young-joon

Handling North Korea is a major challenge for any South Korean president and, in many cases, has been the issue by which their entire presidency is defined.

Ms Park had campaigned on a promise of greater engagement with the North, but just two weeks into her term is facing threats from Pyongyang to unleash a second Korean War backed by nuclear weapons.

Addressing a lunch function on Wednesday, Ms Park made no mention of the sexist slight and stressed her total commitment to ensuring national security.

"I will certainly safeguard the security of the Republic of Korea and its people no matter what sacrifices it takes," Ms Park said, using the South's official name.

"North Korea's nuclear programs are unacceptable and we will respond thoroughly to provocations," she said, while adding that she was not ready to give up her campaign pledge to build more trust between North and South.

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Push for experimental cancer therapies

UK Doctors are reluctant to try unproven experimental therapies because of a risk of being sued. Source: News Limited

Lord Maurice Saatchi's wife, best-selling Irish novelist Josephine Hart, died from ovarian cancer in 2011, and he describes her cancer treatment as "medieval". Picture: AP Source: AP

AFTER the best-selling Irish novelist Josephine Hart died from ovarian cancer in 2011, her husband was so devastated he often went to her grave to have breakfast.

And even now, Lord Maurice Saatchi describes his wife's cancer treatment as "medieval." A member of UK Parliament, he's proposing a bill that would allow doctors to use experimental therapies even if there is no proof they work.

Hart and Lord Saatchi were an oft-photographed celebrity couple in Britain more than a decade ago. She produced plays in London's West End and hosted poetry readings featuring actors including Ralph Fiennes and Roger Moore. Her 1991 novel Damage was turned into a film starring Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche.

Lord Saatchi, an advertising executive who co-founded advertising powerhouse Saatchi and Saatchi and sits in the House of Lords, acknowledges his bill was driven by grief at his wife's death.

After a diagnosis in 2009 that her cancer was too advanced for surgery, Hart got chemotherapy and radiation, which Lord Saatchi calls "degrading and ineffective."

Though ovarian cancer is one of the hardest cancers to catch and treat early, Lord Saatchi says Britain's current law is a serious barrier to new treatments. Theoretically doctors can be prosecuted if they try something that deviates from standard practice.

His bill is aimed at encouraging new therapies by allowing doctors to try them, including those lacking evidence of effectiveness. The decision would have to be made by several medical experts in different fields and doctors would need to tell their supervisors in advance as well as inform the patient of any opposing medical opinions.

While bills initiated by individual politicians rarely make it into law, Lord Saatchi's proposal has raised a broader issue about British health care: Survival rates for most cancers there are worse than in other countries including France, Germany and the US. A report released this month said Britain ranked 16th out of 19 Western countries for ovarian cancer death rates.

Access to drugs is so poor the government started a 200 million pound (US$289 million) emergency fund in 2010 to try getting patients quicker treatment; the UK spends about half what France spends on cancer drugs.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the five-year survival rate for breast cancer in the US is 89 per cent. In the UK, it is 81 per cent.

After the cancer drug Avastin was approved for use in the US, it took nearly another year for it to become available in Britain. For drug Tykerb, the delay was more than two years. Avastin is used to treat numerous cancers including those of the kidney, colon, lung and breast while Tykerb is used to treat breast cancer in combination with other drugs.

In a debate on Lord Saatchi's bill in the House of Lords in January, Lord Frederick Howe, a government health minister, lamented the contrast between Britain's role as a world leader in health research and its lagging approval of new treatments for patients.

"It still takes an estimated average of 17 years for only 14 per cent of new scientific discoveries to enter day-to-day clinical practice," he said. "This is not acceptable."

Several other members voiced support for Lord Saatchi, citing other problems that have slowed medical advances, including bureaucracy and slashed budgets.

Some experts suggest that if Lord Saatchi's bill doesn't make it into law in its current form, its key planks might be rolled into a government-sponsored bill, making it much likelier to succeed. Lord Saatchi has even been advised by the UK's top medical officer.

"We're very sympathetic to the points that Lord Saatchi has raised," said Daniel Poulter, a minister in the Department of Health, during a televised discussion with Lord Saatchi. "We'd certainly like to engage further."

Legal experts said current British law should be sufficient to protect doctors who try experimental procedures as long as there is some reason to think they might work and the patient agrees. But a High Court judge ruled in 1957 that doctors could be found negligent if they used treatments that strayed from common practice, setting a precedent often cited in medical negligence lawsuits. In that case, the judge ruled that doctors must act in accordance with what the majority of doctors do, even if there are opposing medical views.

According to National Health Service records, the number of medical negligence suits has jumped by about 30 per cent since 2010. Though it is rare for doctors to be penalised for using new treatments, experts said many doctors are wary.

"Doctors are very fearful that if they do anything innovative, the lawyers will get them," said Charles Foster, who teaches medical law and ethics at Oxford University.

"There's a culture of following guidelines where they think they will only be safe if they treat patients conservatively," he explained.

Mr Foster said Lord Saatchi's bill could be important in addressing doctors' misconceptions of what the law allows.

"It could change the zeitgeist of the medical profession and make them more willing to try new things," he said.

Still, some aren't convinced Lord Saatchi's bill would help speed new treatments. Dr. Karol Sikora, director of CancerPartners UK, a network of treatment centres and dean of the medical school at the University of Buckingham, thinks the proposal is superfluous.

"If the doctor wants to do it and the patient consents, people can do wacky things," Dr Sikora said, citing the alternative medicine industry, where there is little evidence treatments work. He also said the bill could encourage false hope among terminal patients.

Lord Saatchi doesn't know whether his bill would have helped his wife. Ultimately, he said, it's about giving patients and doctors new opportunities in the future.

"This bill is not going to cure cancer, but it will encourage the man or woman who will," he said.
 

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'Jihad travellers' may spread terror

A Syrian rebel crosses a street while trying to dodge sniper fire in the old city of Aleppo in northern Syria on March 11. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

THE Dutch government has raised its terror threat amid concerns that Dutch citizens travelling to Syria to fight in the civil war could return battle-hardened, traumatised and further radicalised.

The government cited the threat posed by jihad fighters returning from Syria, where rebels are battling government forces, and signs of increasing radicalisation among Dutch youth as key reasons for lifting its threat level from "limited" to "substantial". The level now is the second-highest on the four-step scale, just below "critical."

"The chance of an attack in the Netherlands or against Dutch interests abroad has risen," the country's National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism said in a statement.

The warning comes just two months before hundreds of thousands of people are expected to descend on Amsterdam for mass celebrations around the abdication of Queen Beatrix and coronation of her son, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander.

Counter-terror chief Dick Schoof said nearly 100 people had travelled from the Netherlands to Africa and the Middle East, mainly to Syria, to fight, and warned that it is not just a Dutch problem.

"These jihadist travellers can return to the Netherlands highly radicalized, traumatised and with a strong desire to commit violence, thus posing a significant threat to this country," Mr Schoof said in his statement.

He said that several fighters have already returned to the Netherlands and are being monitored.

Syrian rebels take position as they monitor the movement of regime forces in the old city of Aleppo in northern Syria on March 11. Picture: AFP

Government terror experts also say that political upheavals in North Africa and the Mideast are giving terror networks room to grow.

Mr Schoof said Dutch intelligence and law enforcement agencies are working with other European allies to contain the threat. More intelligence staff are monitoring "jihadist travellers" and police are stepping up efforts to tackle radicalisation in Dutch towns and cities.

Last month, France also expressed concerns about its citizens heading to Mali to join radical Islamic fighters there, even as the French army was fighting the Muslim rebels in its former colony.

French police arrested four youths last month suspected of trying to join radical Islamic fighters in West Africa, and expelled radical imams and others considered risks to public order.

Germany's Interior Ministry said that in 2012, some 220 people from across Europe went to Syria to fight. Of those, fewer than 10 were from Germany. The majority of German "jihadi travellers" picked Egypt as their first destination in 2012, and then travelled on either to Mali, Syria or Yemen, according to German intelligence information.

Police in the port city of Rotterdam arrested three men in November on suspicion of preparing to travel to Syria to fight alongside rebels
 

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Gay marriage in NZ a step closer

Gay couples in New Zealand are on track to be given the same marriage rights as hetrosexual couples. Source: AP

NEW Zealand lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favour of a bill allowing same-sex marriage, all but assuring that it will soon become law.

Lawmakers supported the bill 77 to 44 in the second of three votes needed for a bill to be approved. The second vote is typically the most crucial one. The third and final vote is likely to be little more than a formality and could be taken as early as next month.

The vote came after a committee of lawmakers considered emails and letters from thousands of New Zealanders.

More than 200 people crammed into the Parliament's public gallery to watch lawmakers debate the bill before they voted at about 10:15pm. The mostly young crowd clapped and cheered for lawmakers who spoke in support of the bill, and sat in silence for those who spoke in opposition.

"I'm very excited, as excited as the young people,'' bill sponsor Louisa Wall said after the vote. "It's a fantastic result.''

The result was little changed from the 80-to-40 result in the first vote in August. There were some minor changes to the bill, including wording to make it clear that clergy can decline to preside over gay marriage ceremonies if they conflict with their beliefs.

In her speech supporting the bill, Ms Wall said denying marriage to any person devalues that person's right to participate fully in all that life offers.

"Marriage belongs to society as a whole, and that requires the involvement of the whole of society,'' Ms Wall said. "The role of the state in marriage is to issue a license to two people who love each other and want to commit to one another formally. That's what this bill does.''

Ms Wall, who is gay, quoted Seattle singer Macklemore: "And I can't change, even if I tried, even if I wanted to, I can't change.''

Many New Zealand church groups opposed the bill.

Lawmaker Chester Borrows said he opposes the bill because it would redefine marriage from the heterosexual institution it has always been.

Student Rory Sweeney, 20, was one of a handful of people who were unable initially to get into Parliament's public gallery because it was full. He said he was in favour of the bill because "everybody needs to be treated the same under the law.''

New Zealand already has same-sex civil union laws that confer many legal rights to gay couples.

Polls indicate about two-thirds of New Zealanders support gay marriage. The bill was given impetus last year by President Barack Obama's public support of the issue.
 

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Hate mail over Richard III burial

An illustration of King Richard III, who died during the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, and a photo made available by the University of Leicester, of King Richard III's skull, which was discovered under a car park. Source: The Courier-Mail

A NEW War of the Roses is raging over the remains of King Richard III.

As England's Leicester Cathedral reveals details of plans to rebury the 15th-century English monarch, a rival cathedral says it has received hate mail.

York Minster says it has been sent "a small number'' of abusive letters, which have been passed to cathedral security.

Officials in York want Richard buried in the northern English city because of its strong ties to the king, who belonged to the House of York.

Richard's skeleton was discovered last year under a parking lot in Leicester, central England. He died nearby in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field.

Leicester Cathedral released design guidelines overnight for the king's reburial, including a memorial of "simple dignity'' marked by a stone slab.

 

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Watch it live: Pope election

Cardinals attend the Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice Mass at St Peter's Basilica, before they enter the conclave to decide who the next pope will be. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images) Source: Getty Images

BLACK smoke has billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, meaning Roman Catholic cardinals have not elected a pope in their second or third rounds of balloting.

Cardinals voted twice on Wednesday morning (Vatican time) in Michelangelo's famed frescoed chapel, but no candidate received the necessary 77 votes.

The 115 cardinals held a first inconclusive vote in the Sistine Chapel in Rome earlier as they began the process of finding a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, 85, who made history last month by becoming the first pope in 600 years to step down.

The black smoke, created from the burning of the ballots in a stove in the chapel and aided by some added chemicals including potassium and sulphur billowed above the Vatican, indicating that no-one had gained the two-thirds majority needed to become the 266th Roman pope.

"I'm not happy to see black smoke. We all want white," said the Reverend ThankGod Okoroafor, a Nigerian priest studying theology at Holy Cross University in Rome. "But maybe it means that the cardinals need to take time, not to make a mistake in the choice."

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White smoke, produced by mixing the smoke from burning ballots with special flares, would indicate that a new head of the Roman Catholic Church has been chosen.

As they awaited the outcome of the first vote, suspense mixed with hopes among the tens of thousands of pilgrims in St Peter's Square - and in the Catholic Church worldwide, which is struggling in many parts with scandals, indifference and conflict.

Thousands gather on St Peter's square waiting for the smoke announcing the result of the first vote of the conclave at the Vatican. AFP PHOTO / JOHANNES EISELE

The Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi insisted that the continued balloting was part of the natural course of the election and didn't signal divisions among cardinals. He noted that only once in the past century had a pope been elected on the third ballot: Pope Pius XII, elected on the eve of World War II.

"This is very normal," he said. "It's not a sign of particular divisions within the college, but rather of a normal process of discernment."

Among the cardinals Italy's Angelo Scola, Brazil's Odilo Scherer and Canada's Marc Ouellet - all conservatives like Benedict - are the three favourites but there is no clear frontrunner and conclaves are notoriously difficult to predict.

Cardinal Peter Erdo of Hungary has the backing of European cardinals who have twice elected him as head of the European bishops' conference.

On the more pastoral side is Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, the favourite of the Italian press, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the back-slapping, outgoing archbishop of New York who has admitted himself that his Italian is pretty bad - a drawback for a job that is conducted almost exclusively in the language.

The American candidates, however, did get a boost of sorts on Wednesday: President Barack Obama, who has clashed with American bishops over his health care mandate, indicated the Catholic Church could certainly tolerate a superpower pope since Catholic bishops in the US "don't seem to be taking orders from me."

In an interview with ABC News, he said an American pope would preside just as effectively as a leader of the Catholic church from any other country.

Some analysts suggest that Benedict's dramatic act - the first papal resignation in over 700 years - could push the cardinals to take an equally unusual decision and that an outsider could emerge as a compromise candidate.

Cardinals have held an inconclusive vote in the Sistine Chapel as they begin the process of electing a pope.

Hopes are high in the Philippines for the popular Archbishop of Manila, Luis Antonio Tagle, and on the African continent for South Africa's Wilfrid Napier, the archbishop of Durban, but in practice their chances are very slim.

Two-thirds of the cardinals are from Europe and North America and the view among many experts is that only someone with experience of its inner workings can reform the scandal-tainted Vatican bureaucracy, the Roman Curia.

The drama is playing out against the backdrop of the church's need both for a manager who can clean up an ungovernable Vatican bureaucracy and a pastor who can revive Catholicism in a time of growing secularism.

The difficulty in finding both attributes in one man, some analysts say, means that the world should brace for a long conclave - or at least one longer than the four ballots it took to elect Benedict in 2005.

"We have not had a conclave over five days since 1831," noted the Rev. Thomas Reese, author of Inside the Vatican, a bible of sorts for understanding the Vatican bureaucracy. "So if they are in there over five days, we know they are in trouble; they are having a hard time forming consensus around a particular person."

Breakfast was served for the cardinals in Domus S. Marthae at 6:30am (4:30pm AEDT). They will be transferred to the Sistine Chapel at 7:45am (5:45pm AEDT).

Today's timetable for the cardinals is:

08:15 (6:15pm AEDT) – Mass

Morning vote(s) (scrutiny(ies) taken

12:30pm (10:30pm AEDT): Cardinals return to Domus Sanctae Marthae

1pm (11pm AEDT) – Lunch

4pm (2am Thursday AEDT) - Cardinals return to Sistine Chapel

4:50pm (2.50am AEDT) – Scrutinies taken

7:15pm (5.15am AEDT) – Vespers

7:30pm (5.30am) – Cardinals return to Domus Sanctae Marthae

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