Narendra Modi invited to European Parliament, his blog says

AHMEDABAD: After European Union ended over a decade-long boycott of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, lawmakers from the region have invited him to attend the European Parliament in Brussels in November, according to a post on his blog.

"The lawmakers invited Modi to attend the European Parliament in Brussels in November this year. The Parliament will be attended by representatives of over 27 nations. There is also an invitation to attend the European Business Meet in Brussels later this year," Modi's blog said.

The chief minister on Saturday had an online interaction with the European lawmakers who were attending the 10th corporate culture and spirituality India conference in Bangalore, according to the blog post.

The lawmakers appreciated Gujarat's development and congratulated Modi for making the state vibrant.

According to the post, during the interaction, Modi highlighted various initiatives taken by the Gujarat government for environment protection. He told them that Gujarat is the first state in India and among the four states in the world to have a separate department on climate change.

Briefing the lawmakers about Gujarat's advances in solar energy, Modi told them about Asia's largest solar park in Charanka in Patan district and about state government's roof-top solar policy.

The post also spoke of Gujarat's work in other forms of renewable energy, including wind energy.

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After early start, worst of flu season may be over

NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.

The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.

The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.

For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.

Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.

"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.

In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.

Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications

But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.

So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.

Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.

The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.

Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

___

Online:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

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Paternos Issue Report, Challenge Freeh's Findings

A report commissioned by Joe Paterno's family says the late coach did nothing wrong in his handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal and portrays the late Hall of Fame coach as the victim of a "rush to injustice" created by former FBI director Louis Freeh's investigation of the case for Penn State.

The family's critique, released Sunday, argues that the findings of the Freeh report published last July were unsupported by the facts.

Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, one of the experts assembled by the family's lawyer to review Freeh's report last year to Penn State, called the document was fundamentally flawed and incomplete.

Freeh's report reached "inaccurate and unfounded findings related to Mr. Paterno and its numerous process-oriented deficiencies was a rush to injustice and calls into question" the investigation's credibility, Thornburgh was quoted as saying.

In a statement released Sunday through a spokesman, Freeh defended his work.

"I stand by our conclusion that four of the most powerful people at Penn State failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade," he said.

Paterno's family released what it billed as an exhaustive response to Freeh's work, based on independent analyses, on the website paterno.com.

Patrick Smith/Getty Images|Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo

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"We conclude that the observations as to Joe Paterno in the Freeh report are unfounded, and have done a disservice not only to Joe Paterno and the university community," the family's report said, "but also to the victims of Jerry Sandusky and the critical mission of educating the public on the dangers of child sexual victimization."

Freeh's findings also implicated former administrators in university president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and retired vice president Gary Schultz. Less than two weeks after the Freeh report was released in July, the NCAA acted with uncharacteristic speed in levying massive sanctions against the football program for the scandal.

"Taking into account the available witness statements and evidence, it is more reasonable to conclude that, in order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders at Penn State University — Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley — repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse" from authorities, trustees and the university community, Freeh wrote in releasing the report.

The former administrators have vehemently denied the allegations. So, too, has Paterno's family, though it reserved more extensive comment until its own report was complete.

The counter-offensive began in earnest this weekend. The family's findings said that Paterno:

— Never asked or told anyone not to investigate an allegation made against Sandusky 12 years ago, Saturday, Feb. 9, 2001.

— Never asked or told former administrators not to report the 2001 allegation.

— And never asked or told anyone not to discuss or hide information reported by graduate assistant Mike McQueary about the 2001 allegation.

"Paterno reported the information to his superior(s) pursuant to his understanding of university protocol and relied upon them to investigate and report as appropriate," the family's analysis said.

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Netanyahu to discuss Iran, Syria, Palestinians with Obama

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Iran's nuclear ambitions, the civil war in Syria and stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts will top the agenda of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.

"It is a very important visit that will emphasize the strong alliance between Israel and the United States," Netanyahu, who has had a testy relationship with Obama, told his cabinet.

The White House announced on Tuesday that Obama plans to visit Israel, the West Bank and Jordan this spring, raising prospects of a new U.S. push to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts frozen for the past two years.

The White House gave no exact dates for the trip, Obama's first to Israel since taking office. Israel's Channel 10 television station cited unnamed sources in Washington last week saying the visit to Israel would start on March 20.

In public remarks at the cabinet session, Netanyahu put Iran at the top of his list of talking points with Obama and referred only in general terms to peace efforts with the Palestinians, stopping short of setting a revival of bilateral negotiations as a specific goal of the visit.

"The president and I spoke about this visit and agreed that we would discuss three main issues ... Iran's attempt to arm itself with nuclear weapons, the unstable situation in Syria ... and the efforts to advance the diplomatic process of peace between the Palestinians and us," Netanyahu said.

U.S.-hosted negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed in September 2010 in a dispute over Israeli settlement-building in the occupied West Bank, land captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians seek as part of a future state that includes Gaza and East Jerusalem.

Obama and Netanyahu discussed the coming trip in a January 28 telephone call.

COALITION TALKS

The visit will take place only after Netanyahu puts together a new governing coalition following his narrower-than-expected victory in Israel's January 22 election.

Netanyahu, who heads the right-wing Likud party, has begun talks with prospective political partners and still has up to five weeks to complete the process.

Citing the dangers Israel faces from the "earthquake that is happening around us", a reference to Arab upheaval in the region and the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, Netanyahu said Obama's visit now was particularly important.

Obama's tensions with Netanyahu have been aggravated by the Israeli leader's demands for U.S. "red lines" on Iran's nuclear program - something the president has resisted, though he has said military options are on the table if sanctions and diplomacy fail.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that Tehran would not negotiate about its nuclear program under pressure, and would talk to its adversaries only if they stopped "pointing the gun".

Iran dismisses Western suspicions that its nuclear program is aimed at building weapons. Israel is widely believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal.

Netanyahu has insisted he will stick to the red line laid down in September, when he told the United Nations that Iran should not have enough enriched uranium to make even a single warhead.

He gave a rough deadline of summer 2013, and Israeli political commentators have speculated that Obama had opted to visit Israel before that date to caution Netanyahu against any go-it-alone attack against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Obama visited Israel as a presidential candidate in 2008 but drew Republican criticism for not travelling there in his first term. His Republican predecessor, former President George W. Bush, also waited until his second term to go to Israel.

(Editing by Matthew Tostevin)

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Horsemeat 'contamination' could date back to August: Findus

LONDON: French frozen food supplier Comigel told the Findus brand that "the contamination" of processed beef products with horsemeat could date back to August 2012, Findus said in a statement Saturday.

"Findus want to be absolutely explicit that they were not aware of any issue of contamination with horsemeat last year," it said in a statement.

"They were only made aware of a possible August 2012 date through a letter dated 2 February 2013 from the supplier Comigel.

"By then Findus was already conducting a full supply chain traceability review and had pro-actively initiated DNA testing."

The opposition Labour lawmaker Tom Watson earlier claimed he had been shown by a retailer a copy of a letter that Findus sent to them on Monday.

He published an extract on his website.

"Investigations have led one of our suppliers based in France to inform us in writing on 2nd February 2013 that the raw materials delivered since 1st August 2012 are likely to be non-conform and consequently the labelling on finished products is incorrect," it said.

Britain's Food Standards Agency regulator announced Thursday that 11 of 18 samples of Findus beef lasagne were found to contain between 60 and 100 per cent horsemeat.

Asked by AFP to comment on Britain's food minister fearing a criminal conspiracy, a Findus spokesman said: "That's part of our investigations. We need to understand how the meat got into the supply chain. That's something we are working on with Comigel, as the supplier."

He did not know how long the investigation would take.

The spokesman said it was "still uncertain... where the meat exactly came from".

"The supplier has asked us to withdraw the raw material batches."

Findus said it was not taking part in the emergency food industry meeting taking place Saturday at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

"Findus did not receive an invitation to this summit. However they are aware that the Food and Drink Federation, of which they are a member, will be attending."

Sweden-based Findus has withdrawn various frozen meals from the market in France and Sweden.

- AFP/ck

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Activists protest against Afzal's hanging

NEW DELHI: Several people today protested against the hanging of Afzal Guru, one of the convicts of Parliament attack, at Jantar Mantar here. Protesters included social activists, students from universities, mostly from JNU, and from different social organisations.

"We are against capital punishment to any person and have gathered here to protest against Afzal's hanging," said Ruchika, one of the protesters. Another social activist and a student of JNU said "after more than 60 years of independence, the country is carrying on such draconian laws demeaning the humanity which should be abolished soon." During the protest, a Shiv Sene sympathizer clashed with the protesters saying demonstration was "anti-national".

"Afzal was convicted for Parliament attack and to demonstrate against his hanging is anti-national," he said. Protesters chanting, "Stop Capital Punishment" were seen with placards in their hands demanding "Change the Law".

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After early start, worst of flu season may be over

NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.

The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.

The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.

But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.

For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.

Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.

"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.

In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.

Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications

But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.

So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.

Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.

The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says

On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.

Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

___

Online:

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

Read More..

Storm Drops More Than 2 Feet of Snow on Northeast

A fierce winter storm brought blizzard conditions and hurricane force winds as the anticipated snowstorm descended across much of the Northeast overnight.

By early Saturday morning, 650,000 homes and businesses were without power and at least five deaths were being blamed on the storm, three in Canada, one in New York and one in Connecticut, The Associated Press reported.

The storm stretched from New Jersey to Maine, affecting more than 25 million people, with more than two feet of snow falling in areas of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire.

FULL COVERAGE: Blizzard of 2013

In Connecticut, Gov. Dannel Malloy declared a state of emergency and closed all roads in the state. Overnight, snow fell at a rate of up to five to six inches per hour in parts of Connecticut.

In Milford, Conn. more than 38 inches of snow had fallen by Saturday morning.

"If you're not an emergency personnel that's required to be somewhere. Stay home," said Malloy.

In Fairfield, Conn. firefighters and police officers on the day shift were unable to make it to work, so the overnight shift remained on duty.

PHOTOS: Blizzard Hits Northeast

The wind and snow started affecting the region during the Friday night commute.

Darren McCollester/Getty Images

Blizzard Shuts Down Parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts Watch Video

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In Cumberland, Maine, the conditions led to a 19-car pile-up and in New York, hundreds of commuters were stranded on the snowy Long Island Expressway. Police were still working to free motorists early Saturday morning.

"The biggest problem that we're having is that people are not staying on the main portion or the middle section of the roadway and veering to the shoulders, which are not plowed," said Lieutenant Daniel Meyer from the Suffolk County Police Highway Patrol."The snow, I'm being told is already over two feet deep."

Bob Griffith of Syosset, N.Y. tried leave early to escape the storm, but instead ended up stuck in the snow by the side of the road.

"I tried to play it smart in that I started early in the day, when it was raining," said Griffith. "But the weather beat us to the punch."

Suffok County Executive Steven Bellone said the snow had wreaked havoc on the roadways.

"I saw state plows stuck on the side of the road. I've never seen anything like this before," Bellone said.

However, some New York residents, who survived the wrath of Hurricane Sandy, were rattled by having to face another large and potentially dangerous storm system with hurricane force winds and flooding.

"How many storms of the century can you have in six months?" said Larry Racioppo, a resident of the hard hit Rockaway neighborhood in Queens, New York.

READ: Weather NYC: Blizzard Threatens Rockaways, Ravaged by Sandy

Snowfall Totals

In Boston, over two feet of snow had fallen by Saturday morning and the National Weather Service anticipated up to three feet of snow could fall by the end of the storm. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick enacted the first statewide driving ban since the 1978 blizzard, which left 27 inches of snow and killed dozens. The archdiocese told parishioners that according to church law the responsibility to attend mass "does not apply where there is grave difficulty in fulfilling obligation."

In New York, a little more than 11 inches fell in the city.

By Saturday morning, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said nearly all of the primary roads had been plowed and the department of sanitation anticipated that all roads would be plowed by the end of the day.

"It looks like we dodged a bullet, but keep in mind winter is not over," said Bloomberg.

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Tunisian Islamists rally to show "power of street"

TUNIS (Reuters) - Thousands of Islamists marched in Tunis on Saturday in a show of strength, a day after the funeral of an assassinated secular politician drew the biggest crowds seen on the streets since Tunisia's uprising two years ago.

About 6,000 supporters of the ruling Ennahda movement rallied to back their leader Rachid al-Ghannouchi, who was the target of angry slogans raised by mourners at Friday's mass funeral of Chokri Belaid, a rights lawyer and opposition leader.

"The people want Ennahda again," the Islamists chanted, waving Tunisian and party flags as they marched towards the Interior Ministry on Habib Bourguiba Avenue in the city centre.

The demonstration was dwarfed by the tens of thousands who had turned out in Tunis and other cities to honor Belaid and to protest against the Islamist-led government the day before, shouting slogans that included "We want a new revolution".

Belaid's killing by an unidentified gunman on Wednesday, Tunisia's first such political assassination in decades, has shaken a nation still seeking stability after the overthrow of veteran strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011.

The family of the slain politician has accused Ennahda of responsibility for his killing. The party denies any hand in it.

"We are here to support legitimacy, but if you prefer the power of the street, look at the streets today, we have this power," Lotfi Zitoun, an Ennahda leader, said in a speech to the Islamist demonstrators in Tunis.

Tunisia's political transition has been more peaceful than those in other Arab nations such as Egypt, Libya and Syria, but tensions are running high between Islamists elected to power and liberals who fear the loss of hard-won liberties.

FREEDOMS THREATENED

"We have gained things - the freedom of expression, the freedom to meet, to form organizations, parties, to work in the open," said Radhi Nasraoui, a veteran human rights campaigner.

"The problem is that these freedoms are still threatened, and there are attempts (by Islamists) to touch the gains of women," she told Reuters.

After Belaid's death, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali promised to form a non-partisan, technocratic cabinet to run the country until an election could take place, despite complaints from within his own Ennahda party and its two junior non-Islamist coalition partners that he had failed to consult them.

Jebali told France 24 television on Saturday that he would resign if political parties refused to support his proposal, which he said was intended to "save the country from chaos".

The state news agency TAP said the prime minister would unveil his new government next week.

Secular groups have accused the Islamist-led government of a lax response to attacks by ultra-orthodox Salafi Islamists on cinemas, theatres, bars and individuals in recent months.

Prolonged political uncertainty and street unrest could damage an economy that relies on tourism. Unemployment and other economic grievances fuelled the revolt against Ben Ali in 2011.

Tunisia's stock exchange has fallen 3.32 percent since Belaid's assassination.

France, the former colonial power, ordered its schools in Tunis to stay closed on Friday and Saturday, warning its nationals to stay clear of potential flashpoints in the capital.

Some of the Islamist demonstrators shouted "France, out", in response to remarks by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls which were rejected by Jebali, the prime minister, on Friday.

"We must support all those who fight to maintain values and remain aware of the dangers of despotism, of Islamism that threatened those values today through obscurantism," Valls had said on Europe 1 radio on Thursday in comments on Tunisia.

"There is an Islamic fascism which is on the rise in many places."

Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem described Valls's remarks as "worrying and unfriendly".

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Probe launched over email hacking of Bush family

WASHINGTON: A criminal inquiry was launched Friday into how a hacker appeared to breach email accounts belonging to former presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, as well as other members of their family.

"There's a criminal investigation under way," Jim McGrath, a spokesman for the elder ex-president Bush, who is now aged 88 and was recently hospitalized, told AFP, following reports that private communications had been accessed.

"I can't get into the specifics," McGrath added.

The investigative website The Smoking Gun reported that hackers had accessed several e-mail accounts and then published personal photos and private correspondence belonging to the former US leaders and their loved ones.

Separate email accounts used by prominent figures including CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz, a longtime Bush family friend, and others were also breached.

The hacker apparently intercepted photos that former president George W. Bush e-mailed to his sister showing paintings that he was working on, including self-portraits of him showering and in a bathtub, the report said.

Another picture showed the elder Bush in a hospital bed, a snapshot purportedly taken by his daughter, Dorothy Bush Koch, whose AOL account was among those that was apparently hacked.

According to The Smoking Gun, six separate e-mail accounts were compromised.

- AFP/al

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