Chavez "working" from hospital, aide says






CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is able to work on government issues and is "very energetic" despite being hospitalised and breathing through a tube, a top aide said Saturday.

The 58-year-old president has not been seen or heard from since Monday, when he returned to Caracas from cancer surgery in Cuba.

"The president continues to breathe through a tracheal tube, but he is able to communicate with us through written notes and give us instructions," Vice President Nicolas Maduro told local television.

He said he spent more than five hours with Chavez in his hospital room on Friday, and was able to discuss several issues, specifically military affairs and the economy.

"He was very energetic, had a lot of spirit and vitality, and that's what we wanted to tell the people despite the late hour," Maduro said.

"We have reviewed a number of subjects, and he told us about being extremely happy to be in Caracas, the city of his heart."

Since his last surgery, the only photos released of Chavez came out almost a week ago. He was seen bed-ridden but smiling, looking through a newspaper with two of his daughters at his side.

At the Caracas military hospital where Chavez is said to be continuing his convalescence, soldiers are on guard outside to keep out journalists and curious onlookers.

Chavez had declared himself free of cancer after earlier rounds of surgery and went on to win another six-year term in October elections.

But he later suffered a relapse and after the latest surgery in Havana on December 11, he was too sick to return to Venezuela for his scheduled inauguration on January 10.

The inauguration has been postponed indefinitely, prompting the opposition to cry foul. Vice President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez's handpicked heir, has essentially been running the country in Chavez's absence.

-AFP/fl



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Akbaruddin Owaisi asked to appear before court on March 1

BANGALORE: A city court today directed Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi to appear before it on March 1 in connection with a criminal case filed against him for alleged hate speech.

Chief metropolitan magistrate Rajashekhar V Patil directed Owaisi to appear before the court on March 1 after he kept aside the application filed by him seeking exemption from appearing before the court on health grounds.

Owaisi's counsel Mohammad Jaffer Shah sought two weeks time for appearing before the court as his client has been advised bed rest. "He is carrying bullet injuries which he suffered a long time back. One bullet is still in his body and doctors have advised him bed rest due to mental stress," he argued.

On January 23, Patil had issued summons to Owaisi on two complaints lodged by advocates K Dilip Kumar and Dharmapal praying for prosecuting Owaisi for his hate speech in Andhra Pradesh last year.

The court had directed Andhra Pradesh DGP to produce the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader before it on February 23.

Owaisi, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen's (MIM) floor leader in the Andhra Pradesh assembly, was arrested by the police in Hyderabad on January 8 and was lodged jail in Adilabad district.

On February 15 the First additional sessions court in Adilabad granted conditional bail to Owaisi.

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Space Pictures This Week: Space Rose, Ghostly Horses








































































































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Cyberattacks Bring Attention to Security Reform











Recent accusations of a large-scale cyber crime effort by the Chinese government left many wondering what immediate steps the president and Congress are taking to prevent these attacks from happening again.


On Wednesday, the White House released the administration's Strategy on Mitigating the Theft of U.S. Trade Secrets as a follow-up to the president's executive order. The strategy did not outwardly mention China, but it implied U.S. government awareness of the problem.


"We are taking a whole of government approach to stop the theft of trade secrets by foreign competitors or foreign governments by any means -- cyber or otherwise," U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel said in a White House statement.


As of now, the administration's strategy is the first direct step in addressing cybersecurity, but in order for change to happen Congress needs to be involved. So far, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is the most notable Congressional legislation addressing the problem, despite its past controversy.


Last April, CISPA was introduced by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md. The act would allow private companies with consumer information to voluntarily share those details with the NSA and the DOD in order to combat cyber attacks.






Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images







The companies would be protected from any liabilities if the information was somehow mishandled. This portion of the act sounded alarm bells for CISPA's opponents, like the ACLU, which worried that this provision would incentivize companies to share individuals' information with disregard.


CISPA passed in the House of Representatives, despite a veto threat from the White House stemming from similar privacy concerns. The bill then died in the Senate.


This year, CISPA was reintroduced the day after the State of the Union address during which the president declared an executive order targeting similar security concerns from a government standpoint.


In contrast to CISPA, the executive order would be initiated on the end of the government, and federal agencies would share relevant information regarding threats with private industries, rather than asking businesses to supply data details. All information shared by the government would be unclassified.


At the core of both the executive order and CISPA, U.S. businesses and the government would be encouraged to work together to combat cyber threats. However, each option would clearly take a different route to collaboration. The difference seems minimal, but has been the subject of legislative debates between the president and Congress for almost a year, until now.


"My response to the president's executive order is very positive," Ruppersberger told ABC News. "[The president] brought up how important information sharing is [and] by addressing critical infrastructure, he took care of another hurdle that we do not have to deal with."


Addressing privacy roadblocks, CISPA backers said the sharing of private customer information with the government, as long as personal details are stripped, is not unprecedented.


"Think of what we do with HIPAA in the medical professions; [doctors do not need to know] the individual person, just the symptoms to diagnose a disease," Michigan Gov. John Engler testified at a House Intelligence Committee hearing in an attempt to put the problem into context.






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Uncertainty as Italian election campaign wraps up






ROME: Italy held its final day of campaigning on Friday ahead of crucial elections, as international investors warned an unclear outcome could shake the economy and set off shockwaves through the Eurozone.

Italians will cast their ballots on Sunday and Monday as they grapple with the longest recession in two decades and austerity cuts that have caused deep resentment in the euro area's third economy.

The most likely outcome is a centre-left government led by Democratic Party leader Pier Luigi Bersani, a former communist with a down-to-earth manner who now espouses broadly pro-market economic views.

"I am very, very confident of victory although we should not underestimate the right," Bersani said in one of his last television interviews ahead of Saturday, when no campaigning is allowed.

But the result is by no means certain and whether Bersani can form a stable coalition with a majority in both houses of parliament is in serious doubt, putting the financial markets on edge.

The European Commission added further pressure on Friday, downgrading its forecast for the Italian economy to a 1.0-percent contraction this year from its previous forecast of a 0.5-percent shrinkage.

Bersani is due to address his last electoral meeting in Rome later on Friday, while his rival Silvio Berlusconi will address a rally in Naples.

With everything at stake, the campaign has been remarkably underwhelming, with few rallies and a lot of back-and-forth in television interviews with little or no hard detail on electoral promises.

A case in point was Silvio Berlusconi's vow to refund Italians an unpopular property tax levied by Prime Minister Mario Monti in an official-looking letter that prompted some people to queue up at post offices to claim their money straight away.

European capitals and foreign investors will be watching closely as a return to Italy's free-wheeling public finances could spell disaster for the Eurozone.

"We believe that a risk exists that after the February 24-25 elections there may be a loss of momentum on important reforms to improve Italian growth prospects," Standard & Poor's ratings agency said in a report this week.

London-based Capital Economics warned that even with a stable governing majority "huge underlying economic problems suggest that it may only be a matter of time before concerns about the public finances begin to build again."

"And a hung parliament might plunge Italy and the Eurozone back into crisis rather sooner," the economic research company said this week.

Polls open at 0700 GMT on Sunday and close at 1900 GMT. A second day of voting on Monday begins at 0600 GMT and ends at 1400 GMT, after which preliminary results will begin to trickle through late Monday and into Tuesday.

The wild card in the election will be Beppe Grillo, a tousle-haired former comedian whose mix of invective and idealism has appealed to crowds of protest voters fed up with corrupt politicians.

Grillo's last election rally later on Friday in a large square in Rome traditionally associated with the left is expected to be packed with supporters.

Bersani has said he will follow the course set by Monti, a former high-flying European commissioner roped in to replace the scandal-tainted Berlusconi who was forced to step down in November 2011.

But Bersani will come under immediate pressure to row back on austerity and do more to create jobs in an economy where an already record-high unemployment rate of 11.2 percent masks far higher joblessness among women and young people.

A Bersani victory is far from a sure thing mainly because of the rapid rise in the polls of Berlusconi, the irrepressible 76-year-old billionaire tycoon who is still in the game even after 20 tumultuous years in Italian politics.

This is the sixth election campaign for Berlusconi, who has been prime minister three times, has survived multiple court cases, sex scandals and diplomatic gaffes and has turned into something of an international pariah.

One recent poll said he was within 2.5 points of catching up with Bersani.

Berlusconi has pursued a populist campaign, intimating that Italy's social misery can be blamed on a "hegemonic" Germany imposing austerity.

The president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, who was once invited to play the role of a Nazi camp guard by Berlusconi, has warned Italians not to vote for the flamboyant tycoon.

Several polls indicate that Bersani may score only a half-victory by managing to secure a stable majority in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, but failing to get one in the upper house, the Senate.

That would give Monti, an economics professor who is running as head of a centrist grouping, a key role as a coalition partner and could bring him back into a government with a ministerial posting.

An average of the most recent polls would give Bersani 34 percent, Berlusconi 30 percent, Grillo 17 percent and Monti around 11 percent of the vote.

Coming after the last polls were made public, Pope Benedict XVI's resignation could boost the church-going Monti and stop Berlusconi in his tracks as it has drawn away the media attention that the showman tycoon has often relied on.

The run-up to the vote has also been marked by a succession of high-profile corruption inquiries against politicians and business leaders in a period similar to one in the early 1990s that brought down Italy's entire political system.

Monti says the scandals mark "the end of an era".

-AFP/fl



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Promised to return home before blast, Hyderabad cloth merchant meets death

HYDERABAD: 45-year-old cloth merchant Mohd Amanulla Khan had called up his family before the twin blasts here promising to return home soon.

But he fell victim to the deadly blasts that left a total of 16 dead.

Khan had called his family members around 5.30pm on Thursday to say that he is going to Dilsukhnagar for some work and that he would return home after that.

As fate would have it, he never answered calls after the blasts and his body was found among the dead in the mortuary of the Osmania General Hospital, his son Kamran said.

"We were searching all hospitals. We came to Osmania Hospital this morning and found him dead," he said.

Fighting back tears, the young son recalled that his father had plans to go for Haj as he had performed the marriage of his only daughter.

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Oldest Known Wild Bird Hatches Chick at 62



Wisdom, the oldest known wild bird, has yet another feather in her cap—a new chick.


The Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis)—62 years old at least—recently hatched a healthy baby in the U.S. Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, her sixth in a row and possibly the 35th of her lifetime, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) North American Bird Banding Program. (Related: "51-Year-Old Albatross Breaks N. American Age Record [2003].")


But Wisdom's longevity would be unknown if it weren't for a longtime bird-banding project founded by USGS research wildlife biologist Chandler Robbins.


Now 94, Robbins was the first scientist to band Wisdom in 1956, who at the time was "just another nesting bird," he said. Over the next ten years, Robbins banded tens of thousands of black-footed albatrosses (Phoebastria nigripes) and Laysan albatrosses as part of a project to study the behavior of the large seabirds, which at the time were colliding with U.S. Navy aircraft.


Robbins didn't return to the tiny Pacific island—now part of the U.S. Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument—until 2002, when he "recaptured as many birds as I could in hopes that some of them would be the old-timers."


Indeed, Robbins did recapture Wisdom—but he didn't know it until he got back to his office at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Maryland, and checked her band number in the database.


"That was real exciting, because we didn't think the chances of finding one that old would be that good," Robbins said Wednesday in an interview from his office at the Patuxent center, where he still works.



Chandler Robbins counts birds.

Chandler Robbins counts birds in Maryland's Patuxent Research Refuge.


Photograph by David H. Wells, Corbis




Albatrosses No Bird Brains


Bigger birds such as the albatross generally live longer than smaller ones: The oldest bird in the Guinness Book of Animal Records, a Siberian white crane (Leucogeranus leucogeranus), lived an unconfirmed 82 years. Captive parrots are known to live into their 80s. (See National Geographic's bird pictures.)



The Laysan albatross spends most of the year at sea, nesting on the Midway Atoll (map) in the colder months. Birds start nesting around five years of age, which is how scientists knew that Wisdom was at least five years old in 1956.



Because albatrosses defend their nests, banding them doesn't require a net or a trap as in the case of other bird species, Robbins said—but they're far from tame.


"They've got a long, sharp bill and long, sharp claws—they could do a job on you if you're not careful how to handle them," said Robbins, who estimates he's banded a hundred thousand birds.


For instance, "when you're not looking, the black-footed albatross will sneak up from behind and bite you in the seat of the pants."


But Robbins has a fondness for albatrosses, and Wisdom in particular, especially considering the new dangers that these birds face.


Navy planes are no longer a problem—albatross nesting dunes were moved farther from the runway—but the birds can ingest floating bits of plastic that now inundate parts of the Pacific, get hooked in longlines meant for fish, and be poisoned by lead paint that's still on some of Midway Atoll's buildings. (Also see "Birds in 'Big Trouble' Due to Drugs, Fishing, More.")


That Wisdom survived so many years avoiding all those hazards and is still raising young is quite extraordinary, Robbins said.


"Those birds have a tremendous amount of knowledge in their little skulls."


"Simply Incredible"


Wisdom's accomplishments have caught the attention of other scientists, in particular Sylvia Earle, an oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer in Residence, who said by email that Wisdom is a "symbol of hope for the ocean." (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)


Earle visited Wisdom at her nest in January 2012, where she "appeared serenely indifferent to our presence," Earle wrote in the fall 2012 issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review.


"I marveled at the perils she had survived during six decades, including the first ten or so years before she found a lifetime mate. She learned to fly and navigate over thousands of miles to secure enough small fish and squid to sustain herself, and every other year or so, find her way back to the tiny island and small patch of grass where a voraciously hungry chick waited for special delivery meals."


Indeed, Wisdom has logged an estimated two to three million miles since 1956—or four to six trips from Earth to the moon and back, according to the USGS. (Related: "Albatross's Effortless Flight Decoded—May Influence Future Planes.")


Bruce Peterjohn, chief of the North American Bird Banding Program, called Wisdom's story "simply incredible."


"If she were human, she would be eligible for Medicare in a couple years—yet she is still regularly raising young and annually circumnavigating the Pacific Ocean," he said in a statement.


Bird's-Eye View


As for Robbins, he said he'd "love to get out to Midway again." But in the meantime, he's busy going through thousands of bird records in an effort to trace their life histories.


There's much more to learn: For instance, no one has ever succeeded in putting a radio transmitter on an albatross to follow it throughout its entire life-span, Robbins noted.


"It would be [an] exciting project for someone to undertake, but I'm 94 years old," he said, chuckling. "It wouldn't do much for me to start a project at my age."


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Arias Challenged On Pedophilia Claim












Accused murderer Jodi Arias was challenged today by phone records, text message records, and her own diary entries that appeared to contradict her claim that she caught her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, looking at pictures of naked boys.


Arias had said during her testimony that one afternoon in January 2008, she walked in on Alexander masturbating to pictures of naked boys. She said she fled from the home, threw up, drove around aimlessly, and ignored numerous phone calls from Alexander because she was so upset at what she had seen.


The claim was central to the defense's accusation that Alexander was a "sexual deviant" who grew angry and abusive toward Arias in the months after the incident, culminating in a violent confrontation in June that left Alexander dead.


Arias claimed she killed him in self-defense. She could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.


Catching Up on the Trial? Check Out ABC News' Jodi Arias Trial Coverage


Today, prosecutor Juan Martinez, who has been aggressive in questioning witnesses throughout the trial, volleyed questions at her about the claim of pedophilia, asking her to explain why her and Alexander's cell phone records showed five calls back and forth between the pair throughout the day she allegedly fled in horror. Some of the calls were often initiated Arias, according to phone records.








Jodi Arias Doesn't Remember Stabbing Ex-Boyfriend Watch Video









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She and Alexander also exchanged text messages throughout the afternoon and evening at a time when Arias claims the pedophilia incident occurred. In those messages they discuss logistics of exchanging one another's cars that night. Alexander sends her text messages about the car from a church social event he attended that night that she never mentioned during her testimony.


Arias stuck by her claim that she saw Alexander masturbating to the pictures, and her voice remained steady under increasingly-loud questioning by Martinez.


But Martinez also sparred with Arias on the stand over minor issues, such as when he asked Arias detailed questions about the timing and order of events from that day and Arias said she could not remember them.


"It seems you have problems with your memory. Is this a longstanding thing? Since you started testifying?" Martinez asked.


"No it goes back farther than that. I don't know even know if I'd call it a problem," Arias said.


"How far back does it go? You don't want to call them problems, are they issues? Can we call them issues? When did you start having them?" he asked in rapid succession. "You say you have memory problems, that it depends on the circumstance. Give me the factors that influence that."


"Usually when men like you or Travis are screaming at me," Arias shot back from the stand. "It affects my brain, it makes my brain scramble."


"You're saying it's Mr. Martinez's fault?" Martinez asked, referring to himself in the third person.


"Objection your honor," Arias' attorney finally shouted. "This is a stunt!"


Timeline of the Jodi Arias Trial


Martinez dwelled at one point about a journal entry where Arias wrote that she missed the Mormon baptism of her friend Lonnie because she was having kinky sex with Alexander. He drew attention to prior testimony that she and Alexander used Tootsie Pops and Pop Rocks candy as sexual props.


"You're trying to get across (in the diary entry) that this involved a sexual liaison with Mr. Alexander right?" he asked. "And you're talking about Tootsie Pops and Pop Rocks?"


"That happened also that night," Arias said.


"You were there, enjoying it, the Tootsie Pops and Pop Rocks?" he asked again, prompting a smirk from Arias.


"I enjoyed his attention," Arias said.






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Group releases list of 90 medical ‘don’ts’



Those are among the 90 medical “don’ts” on a list being released Thursday by a coalition of doctor and consumer groups. They are trying to discourage the use of tests and treatments that have become common practice but may cause harm to patients or unnecessarily drive up the cost of health care.


It is the second set of recommendations from the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation’s “Choosing Wisely” campaign, which launched last year amid nationwide efforts to improve medical care in the United States while making it more affordable.

The recommendations run the gamut, from geriatrics to opthalmology to maternal health. Together, they are meant to convey the message that in medicine, “sometimes less is better,” said Daniel Wolfson, executive vice president of the foundation, which funded the effort.

“Sometimes, it’s easier [for a physician] to just order the test rather than to explain to the patient why the test is not necessary,” Wolfson said. But “this is a new era. People are looking at quality and safety and real outcomes in different ways.”

The guidelines were penned by more than a dozen medical professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and ­Gynecologists.

The groups discourage the use of antibiotics in a number of instances in which they are commonly prescribed, such as for sinus infections and pink eye. They caution against using certain sedatives in the elderly and cold medicines in the very young.

In some cases, studies show that the test or treatment is costly but does not improve the quality of care for the patient, according to the groups.

But in many cases, the groups contend, the intervention could cause pain, discomfort or even death. For example, feeding tubes are often used to provide sustenance to dementia patients who cannot feed themselves, even though oral feeding is more effective and humane. And CT scans that are commonly used when children suffer minor head trauma may expose them to cancer-causing radiation.

While the recommendations are aimed in large part at physicians, they are also designed to arm patients with more information in the exam room.

“If you’re a healthy person and you’re having a straightforward surgery, and you get a list of multiple tests you need to have, we want you to sit down and talk with your doctor about whether you need to do these things,” said John Santa, director of the health rating center at Consumer Reports, which is part of the coalition that created the guidelines.

Health-care spending in the United States has reached 17.9 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product and continues to rise, despite efforts to contain costs. U.S. health-care spending grew 3.9 percent in 2011, reaching $2.7 trillion, according to the journal Health Affairs.

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India strike paralyses banks, offices for second day






NEW DELHI: India's public-sector banks and many government offices were shut Thursday on the second day of a general strike called to protest against the government's planned pro-market reforms.

Eleven unions called the strike in protest against the measures which they condemn as "anti-poor" and likely to cost jobs and raise prices.

While the impact of the stoppage was patchy and felt mainly in heavily unionised state institutions, analysts said it underscored discontent among workers.

"The government must sit down with the workers and hear them out because it cannot afford to ignore this class anymore, with general elections due in 2014," Shubha Singh, a New Delhi-based political analyst and writer, told AFP.

The reforms include opening the retail, insurance and aviation sectors wider to foreign investment in a bid to spur a sharply slowing economy.

They also involve raising prices of subsidised diesel and reducing the number of discounted cooking gas cylinders to reduce a ballooning fiscal deficit.

Leaders of two main leftist parties said they were boycotting the opening session of parliament on Thursday in solidarity with the strikers.

The government is already under pressure over an economy growing at its weakest pace in a decade and widespread allegations of corruption.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry has estimated losses from the two-day stoppage at more than 200 billion rupees ($3.7 billion).

Attendance at government offices was thin and many education institutes were closed as teachers' unions joined the strike. Universities cancelled exams set for Thursday.

Operations at India's state-run banks were also halted.

Top carmaker Maruti, which has a history of labour unrest, declared a holiday to avert trouble, while two-wheeler manufacturer Hero MotorCorp gave workers a day off.

The All India Trade Union Congress said millions of workers were taking part in the strike and called on them to keep up pressure on the government, already facing a hostile opposition in parliament.

But most privately-run factories reported normal operations and financial markets were open in Mumbai.

Police said dozens of people were arrested after protests turned ugly in an industrial hub near New Delhi on Wednesday when a mob threw stones, vandalised factories and set several vehicles on fire to enforce the strike.

- AFP/al



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