Jaish-e-Mohammad 'threat' to blow up Doon, Haridwar stations

DEHRADUN: Terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad today allegedly threatened to blow up major railway stations and places of religious and tourist interest in Uttarakhand in retaliation to the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afjal Guru, a senior police official said.

The letter written purportedly by the Karachi based area commander of terror outrfit Jaish-e-Mohammad contains a threat to blow up Dehradun, Haridwar and Kath Godam rail junctions near Nainital and prominent places of religious and tourist interest like Har Ki Pauri in the holy city, Haridwar SSP Arun Mohan Joshi told PTI.

"Though the authenticity of the threat and the origin of the letter is being examined, we are not taking any chances and have alerted the highest authorities in places mentioned in the letter", he said.

Security around the places mentioned in the letter has been beefed up.

The letter addressed to former Superintendent of Haridwar Railway station Amrinder Singh was received today, he said adding similar letters have been issued to retired railway officials in the past as well.

The difference between the latest threat letter and those received in the past is that this one has purportedly been written by Jaish-e-Mohommad whereas the earlier ones bore the name of Lashkar-e-Toiba, the SSP said.

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C. Everett Koop, 'rock star' surgeon general, dies


NEW YORK (AP) — Dr. C. Everett Koop has long been regarded as the nation's doctor— even though it has been nearly a quarter-century since he was surgeon general.


Koop, who died Monday at his home in Hanover, N.H., at age 96, was by far the best known and most influential person to carry that title. Koop, a 6-foot-1 evangelical Presbyterian with a biblical prophet's beard, donned a public health uniform in the early 1980s and became an enduring, science-based national spokesman on health issues.


He served for eight years during the Reagan administration and was a breed apart from his political bosses. He thundered about the evils of tobacco companies during a multiyear campaign to drive down smoking rates, and he became the government's spokesman on AIDS when it was still considered a "gay disease" by much of the public.


"He really changed the national conversation, and he showed real courage in pursuing the duties of his job," said Chris Collins, a vice president of amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.


Even before that, he had been a leading figure in medicine. He was one of the first U.S. doctors to specialize in pediatric surgery at a time when children with complicated conditions were often simply written off as untreatable. In the 1950s, he drew national headlines for innovative surgeries such as separating conjoined twins.


His medical heroics are well noted, but he may be better remembered for transforming from a pariah in the eyes of the public health community into a remarkable servant who elevated the influence of the surgeon general — if only temporarily.


"He set the bar high for all who followed in his footsteps," said Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as surgeon general a decade later under President George W. Bush.


Koop's religious beliefs grew after the 1968 death of his son David in a mountain-climbing accident, and he became an outspoken opponent of abortion. His activism is what brought him to the attention of the administration of President Ronald Reagan, who decided to nominate him for surgeon general in 1981. Though once a position with real power, surgeon generals had been stripped of most of their responsibilities in the 1960s.


By the time Koop got the job, the position was kind of a glorified health educator.


But Koop ran with it. One of his early steps involved the admiral's uniform that is bestowed to the surgeon general but that Koop's predecessors had worn only on ceremonial occasions. In his first year in the post, Koop stopped wearing his trademark bowties and suit jackets and instead began wearing the uniform, seeing it as a way to raise the visual prestige of the office.


In those military suits, he surprised the officials who had appointed him by setting aside his religious beliefs and feelings about abortion and instead waging a series of science-based public health crusades.


He was arguably most effective on smoking. He issued a series of reports that detailed the dangers of tobacco smoke, and in speeches began calling for a smoke-free society by the year 2000. He didn't get his wish, but smoking rates did drop from 38 percent to 27 percent while he was in office — a huge decline.


Koop led other groundbreaking initiatives, but perhaps none is better remembered than his work on AIDS.


The disease was first identified in 1981, before Koop was officially in office, and it changed U.S. society. It destroyed the body's immune system and led to ghastly death, but initially was identified in gay men, and many people thought of it as something most heterosexuals didn't have to worry about.


U.S. scientists worked hard to identify the virus and work on ways to fight it, but the government's health education and policy efforts moved far more slowly. Reagan for years was silent on the issue. Following mounting criticism, Reagan in 1986 asked Koop to prepare a report on AIDS for the American public.


His report, released later that year, stressed that AIDS was a threat to all Americans and called for wider use of condoms and more comprehensive sex education, as early as the third grade. He went on to speak frankly about AIDS in an HBO special and engineered the mailing of an educational pamphlet on AIDS to more than 100 million U.S. households in 1988.


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's speeches and empathetic approach made him a hero to a wide swath of America, including public health workers, gay activists and journalists. Some called him a "scientific Bruce Springsteen." AIDS activists chanted "Koop, Koop" at his appearances and booed other officials.


"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."


Koop 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.


He got static from some staff at the White House for his actions, but Reagan himself never tried to silence Koop. 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.


After his death was reported Monday, the tributes poured forth, including a statement from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has made smoking restrictions a hallmark of his tenure.


"The nation has lost a visionary public health leader today with the passing of former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who was born and raised in Brooklyn," Bloomberg said. "Outspoken on the dangers of smoking, his leadership led to stronger warning labels on cigarettes and increased awareness about second-hand smoke, creating an environment that helped millions of Americans to stop smoking — and setting the stage for the dramatic changes in smoking laws that have occurred over the past decade."


Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health taught Koop what was known about AIDS during quiet after-hours talks in the early 1980s and became a close friend.


"A less strong person would have bent under the pressure," Fauci said. "He was driven by what's the right thing to do."


Carmona, a surgeon general years later, said Koop was a mentor who preached the importance of staying true to the science in speeches and reports — even when it made certain politicians uncomfortable.


"We remember him for the example he set for all of us," Carmona said.


Koop's nomination originally was met with staunch opposition. Women's groups and liberal politicians complained Reagan had selected him only because of his conservative views, especially his staunch opposition to abortion.


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 as surgeon general after he told a Senate panel he would not use the post to promote his religious ideology. He kept his word and eventually won wide respect with his blend of old-fashioned values, pragmatism and empathy.


Koop was modest about his accomplishments, saying before leaving office in 1989, "My only influence was through moral suasion."


The office declined after that. Few of his successors had his speaking ability or stage presence. Fewer still were able to secure the support of key political bosses and overcome the meddling of everyone else. The office gradually lost prestige and visibility, and now has come to a point where most people can't name the current surgeon general. (It's Dr. Regina Benjamin.)


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."


He maintained his personal opposition to abortion. 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.


Worried that medicine had lost old-fashioned caring and personal relationships between doctors and patients, Koop opened an institute at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire 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 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.


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


He 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.


___


Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Wilson Ring in Montpelier, Vt.; Jeff McMillan in Philadelphia; and AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard in Washington.


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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.










September 11: World Trade Center Time Lapse Watch Video







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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UN rights chief, nations condemn Security Council on Syria






GENEVA: The UN human rights chief and several nations criticised the Security Council Monday for failing to take action to halt spiralling violence in Syria and bring to justice perpetrators of abuses in the conflict.

"The Security Council has so far failed with regard to Syria," Navi Pillay told ministers at the start of a regular UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva.

Pillay said her office had pushed for the Security Council to refer the conflict to the International Criminal Court (ICC) after "repeated reports of widespread or systematic crimes and violations."

The ICC can only investigate war crimes if asked to do so by the Security Council but the body is deadlocked in its handling of the conflict by disagreements between its Western members and staunch Syrian ally Russia, plus China.

"For close to two years, the international community has failed to put a stop to the carnage," said UN General Assembly president Vuk Jeremic.

The UN estimates that more than 70,000 people have died in the two years since the Syrian government began a crackdown on anti-regime protesters.

In its latest report published this month, a UN commission of inquiry found that war crimes by both government forces and rebels were spiralling with the conflict becoming increasingly radicalised and sectarian.

It also called for the Security Council to refer the conflict to the ICC.

"For how long we, the international community, will allow this humanitarian tragedy to continue?" Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu asked the council.

President Bashar al-Assad's regime "has lost its legitimacy," he said.

Davutoglu stressed that the Security Council had the responsibility to help ensure that humanitarian assistance reached all of the estimated more than four million Syrians in desperate need.

"It is incomprehensible to hinder humanitarian access," he said, calling for a Security Council resolution "to ensure humanitarian access and introduce measures to those who prevent such access."

Frans Timmermanns, the foreign minister of The Netherlands, also insisted the ICC address the Syrian crisis.

"The bloodshed must stop," he said.

Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter said the world was witnessing a "human catastrophe, a humanitarian catastrophe".

Switzerland last month filed a petition signed by 57 countries calling for the ICC to open a case on war crimes in Syria.

Voicing support for a political solution to the conflict, Burkhalter said Switzerland was open to hosting another international meeting following one last June at which world powers agreed on a political transition plan.

-AFP/ac



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Hyderabad blasts: NIA's claim baseless, alleges Bukhari

RAMPUR: Delhi's Jama Masjid chief cleric Syed Ahmed Bukhari has said investigation agencies have the tendency to name perpetrators of any bomb blasts in the country much before initiation and conclusion of their probes.

Referring to the recent Hyderabad blasts, Bukhari said the National Investigation Agency's claim that the evidence pointed towards involvement of the Indian Mujahideen in the bombings was baseless.

"If the investigators have pointed fingers towards the Indian Mujahideen, then let them declare the location of its office and disclose identities of its activists," said the cleric while interacting with media persons here last evening. Official statements are not supported with evidence, the Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid said.

"The government machinery had arrested innocent Muslims after Malegaon, Mecca Masjid and Samjhauta Express blasts," he said. Sixteen people were killed and over 100 injured when two bombs placed on bicycles went off within minutes of each other at Dilsukhnagar area in Hyderabad on February 21.

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.


The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.


Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.


"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."


Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.


The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.


The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.


Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.


FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.


Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.


FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer


Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.


Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.


Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.


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Best Moments From the Academy Awards






Host Seth MacFarlane took the stage at the 2013 Oscars with an opening monologue revealing he was ready to poke fun at the star-studded audience.


"The quest to make Tommy Lee Jones laugh begins now," he said.


But it wasn't too long before MacFarlane was interrupted. William Shatner, dressed as his iconic character Captain Kirk from "Star Trek," descended on the stage to warn MacFarlane that he was about to ruin the Oscars and be branded the worst host ever.


"The show is a disaster. I've come back in time … to stop you from ruining the Academy Awards," Shatner said.

Seth MacFarlane's Boobs Tribute


Shatner tried to steer MacFarlane away from singing an "incredibly offensive song that upsets a lot of women in the audience."


Cue MacFarlane's medley "We Saw Your Boobs," a laundry list set to music of acclaimed actresses in Hollywood who all bared their breasts in film.


MacFarlane was joined by the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles to call out Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Naomi Watts, Jodie Foster, Hilary Swank and countless others who we've seen nude in film.



Not every joke funnyman Seth MacFarlane made landed with the A-list crowd at the 85th annual Academy Awards.


The host elicited gasps from the crowd when he introduced "Django Unchained" as "the story of a man fighting to get back his woman, who's been subjected to unthinkable violence. Or, as Chris Brown and Rihanna call it, a date movie."


Another joke that somehow earned a too-soon nod? A throw to President Abraham Lincoln's assassination.


"I'd argue that the actor who really got inside Lincoln's head was John Wilkes Booth," MacFarlane said.


MacFarlane's jab at Mel Gibson didn't land too smoothly either. MacFarlane said the N-word laden "Django Unchained" screenplay was "loosely based on Mel Gibson's voicemails."

Oscars' Movie Musical Tribute


The theme of the 85 annual Academy Awards was celebrating music in film, and the tributes to movie musicals didn't disappoint.


Featured performers included Catherine Zeta-Jones belting "All That Jazz" from 2002's Best Picture winner "Chicago," Jennifer Hudson's show-stopping "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" from 2006's "Dreamgirls," and the cast of this year's Best Picture nominee "Les Miserables" reuniting on stage for "One Day More."

Introducing the Von Trapp Family


To introduce Christopher Plummer to the stage to present the award for Best Supporting Actress, MacFarlane couldn't help but make a joke out of the actor's infamous role as Captain Von Trapp in "The Sound of Music."


MacFarlane came out to announce the Von Trapp family singers, but no one came out. Instead, a man dressed in a Nazi uniform ran in to tell him that they were gone.

Kristen Stewart Hobbles on Stage to Present


When Daniel Radcliffe took the stage to present the award for Achievement in Production Design, he was joined by his hobbling co-presenter Kristen Stewart, who was seen crutching along the red carpet during the pre-show.


The "Twilight" star's makeup artist told People magazine that the actress "cut the ball of her foot, quite severely, on glass two days ago."


The Associated Press reported that backstage, Best Supporting Actress winner Anne Hathaway told Stewart to "break a leg."

Jennifer Lawrence's Unstable Victory


Jennifer Lawrence was so shocked to take home the Oscar for Best Actress that she lost her footing on her way up to the stage to accept her award.


"You guys are just standing up because I fell and that's really embarrassing," she said to the audience.


Lawrence regained her composure to give her acceptance speech, extending a special thank you to "the women this year," who she called "so magnificent and so inspiring."

Daniel Day-Lewis a Three-Peat Best Actor Winner


It was a highly anticipated win for Daniel Day-Lewis, who took home the award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Abe Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln."


Lewis cracked a joke in his acceptance speech, saying he was supposed to be cast as Margaret Thatcher and presenter Meryl Streep was the first choice for Lincoln.


"Meryl Streep was Steven's first choice to play Lincoln… I'd like to see that version," Lewis said.

Michelle Obama Announces Best Picture Winner


In one of the biggest surprises of the night, the Academy brought out First Lady Michelle Obama to help Jack Nicholson introduce the nominees for Best Picture.


Rocking her new bangs and a silver gown, the first lady, live from the White House, announced "Argo" as this year's Best Picture.


"It was a thrill to announce the #Oscars2013 best picture winner from the @WhiteHouse! Congratulations Argo!" FLOTUS tweeted afterwards.

Ben Affleck Triumphs at Oscars


Ben Affleck was flabbergasted by his win for Best Picture for "Argo." His frenzied, heartfelt acceptance speech resonated as he thanked his wife, Jennifer Garner, and ended on an inspirational high note.


"I want to thank my wife, who I don't normally associate with Iran. I want to thank you for working on our marriage. It is work, but it is the best kind of work," he said.


"I was here 15 years ago or something and you know I had no idea what I was doing. I stood out here in front of you all, really just a kid. I went out and I never thought I'd be back here and I am because of so many of you who are here tonight …. I want to thank them for what they taught me, which is that you have to work harder than you think you possibly can, you can't hold grudges. It's hard, but you can't hold grudges. And it doesn't matter how you get knocked down in life because that's going to happen. All that matters is that you got to get up."


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Football: Man City leave Chelsea trailing, Newcastle edge Saints






LONDON: Manchester City galvanised their grip on second place in the Premier League and trimmed Manchester United's lead back to 12 points with a 2-0 victory at home to nearest rivals Chelsea on Sunday.

After Chelsea's Frank Lampard had seen a penalty saved by England colleague Joe Hart, City prevailed through a pair of fine second-half goals from man-of-the-match Yaya Toure and substitute Carlos Tevez.

Although City's chances of retaining their league title remain decidedly slender, they now have a seven-point advantage over Chelsea, who could slip to fourth if Tottenham Hotspur overcome West Ham United on Monday.

Both City manager Roberto Mancini and his Chelsea counterpart Rafael Benitez flooded their sides with midfielders at the Etihad Stadium, while Benitez opted to leave John Terry and Fernando Torres on the bench.

City deployed Sergio Aguero as a lone striker and although he had to plough a lone furrow, it was the hosts who dominated the first half.

Visiting goalkeeper Petr Cech had to tip a header from Matija Nastasic over the bar, while Gary Cahill did well to block a goal-bound volley from Pablo Zabaleta.

City handed a rare start to Jack Rodwell and the midfielder threatened twice shortly before half-time, extending Cech with first a 25-yard drive and then a header from the resulting corner.

Chelsea were gifted an opportunity to open the scoring early in the second half when Hart was adjudged to have fouled Demba Ba, but the England goalkeeper redeemed himself with an excellent save from Lampard's spot-kick.

Aguero dinked a shot onto the roof of the net before City's enterprise finally told in the 63rd minute.

Toure collected a pass from David Silva and deftly evaded the attentions of four visiting defenders before shaping a shot around Cech that nestled in the bottom-right corner.

Tevez settled the encounter in style in the 85th minute, collecting the ball 22 yards from goal and arrowing a shot into the top-left corner.

In the day's other game, Newcastle edged relegation rivals Southampton 4-2 in a topsy-turvy game at St James' Park that took Alan Pardew's side six points clear of the bottom three.

In honour of their growing French contingent, Newcastle had dubbed the day 'French Day', handing out berets to their supporters and playing the French national anthem prior to kick-off.

However, it was a Frenchman in a red shirt who broke the deadlock, as midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin converted a Rickie Lambert knockdown to give Southampton a third-minute lead.

Newcastle's reaction was swift and in the 32nd minute they went ahead thanks to two French players of their own.

Yoan Gouffran forced a save from Artur Boruc after darting into the box from the left and when the ball ran across goal, Moussa Sissoko sped in to touch it over the line.

The hosts' momentum did not abate and in the 42nd minute they went ahead with a stunning goal, as Papiss Cisse cracked home a looping half-volley from 25 yards.

Newcastle lost captain Fabricio Coloccini to injury just before half-time and saw Southampton equalise five minutes into the second half when Lambert swept home a low cross from Adam Lallana.

However, Newcastle hit back once again and took the lead for the second time in the game when Yohan Cabaye converted a 67th-minute penalty awarded for a handball by Danny Fox.

The suspense in a stretched game finally dissipated in the 79th minute, when an own goal by Jos Hooiveld put Newcastle 4-2 ahead and confirmed the hosts' success.

- AFP/fa



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Finmeccanica chopper scam: CBI gets some documents from Italy

NEW DELHI: Moving forward in its probe into alleged kickbacks in the VVIP helicopter deal, the CBI has procured some documents from Italian authorities in Milan that may help it investigating whether any Indian had received bribes to swing the deal in favour of AgustaWestland.

Highly-placed sources in the probe agency said on Sunday that one of the members of the CBI team who returned this morning from Milan had got some of the documents from the Italian prosecutor regarding the controversial Rs 3,600 crore deal which would be examined in the next couple of days.

The sources said a preliminary enquiry(PE) would be initiated in the next couple of days after examining the documents received from the Italian authorities. It has been alleged that kickbacks to the tune of Rs 362 crore were allegedly paid to help secure the deal in favour of the Anglo-Italian firm.

While declining to reveal the nature of documents, the sources said prima-facie it seemed sufficient to initiate a PE against unknown persons since Italian authorities could share only these papers at this stage. The authorities have, however, promised to hand over other documents once their probe is completed.

One of the two CBI officers was still in Milan to take some more documents and would be arriving here on Monday, the sources said.

The CBI team is also pinning its hope on the assurance made by the Italian government-controlled Finmeccanica group, parent company of AgustaWestland helicopters, that it would provide assistance in probing bribery allegations against some Indian nationals.

During the meeting, CBI officials had requested the Italian firm to hand over the report of its internal probe to them so that it could be examined in India and a proper investigation could be conducted.

The CBI team along with officials from defence and external affairs ministry had also met senior officials of the Italian judiciary including the judge in the case to request for assistance in probing the role of Indians in connection with alleged kickbacks in the deal.

Some more assistance would be provided after the local elections in Italy would be over this week, the team was told besides been conveyed that that the probe in that country was at a preliminary stage.

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.


The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.


Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.


"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."


Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.


The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.


The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.


Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.


FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.


Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.


FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer


Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.


Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.


Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.


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