38 Confirmed to Have Hepatitis A in Chinese School

Thirty-eight people in a school in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have been confirmed to have hepatitis A and 30 others are suspected of coming down with the disease, said local health authorities Monday.

The number of the confirmed and suspected announced by the health authorities was 36 and 27 respectively two days ago.

One hundred and eleven students and a canteen worker in Fengshan Town No. 2 Middle School in Bobai County have been identified as carriers of hepatitis A, said Xu Zhangneng, head of the Bobai health bureau.

According to Xu, all the patients and suspected ones have been sent to local hospitals and are in stable condition. "Some 58 of the hospitalized are getting better after treatment."

The other infected students now have lessons in separate classrooms, while uninfected students have been required to remain on campus over the weekend for further observation to avoid possible spread, officials said.

All the 1,438 students and staffers at the school have been inoculated to contain the spread of the disease as the incubation period of the virus lasts 15 to 30 days, said Xu.

Initial investigation shows contaminated drinking water is the main cause of the outbreak. The first case was found on Nov. 23 and the outbreak spread on Dec. 6.

A well in the junior middle school, the main supply of drinking water for students, was contaminated possibly by a drainage ditch only five meters away.

Students also washed faces and rinsed mouths with water channeled from nearby mountain springs.

Tests have found that colon bacillus in water from the well and the springs were above the set standard, according to Gong.

Besides, the accommodation condition of students is rather poor with normally 20 students sharing one dormitory. The school's canteen was in operation without the health certificate.

Local health authorities have sterilized toilets, canteen, dormitories and classroom to stop further infection.

In August, an outbreak of hepatitis A knocked down 69 high school students in the same region.

Hepatitis, or inflammation of the liver, is caused by infectious or toxic agents and characterized by jaundice, fever, liver enlargement, and abdominal pain.

Seven found dead in Missouri duplex

KIRKSVILLE, Missouri (AP) -- A 911 call reporting a "strange odor" from a duplex apartment in this northeast Missouri city led police to the bodies of seven people.

The victims were all thought to be residents of Kirksville, about 165 miles northwest of St. Louis. Police Chief Jim Hughes did not release the victims' names or ages, pending notification of relatives.

Authorities expected autopsy results Monday.

Paramedics found the bodies around 2:30 p.m. Sunday after dispatchers received a 911 call reporting "a number of unresponsive individuals... and a strange odor" inside the home, police Chief Jim Hughes said.

The yellow duplex sits on the corner of a quiet cul-de-sac a few blocks from the Truman State campus. Ten duplexes, all neatly kept, line the street, and a swing set sits in the back yard of the home where the bodies were found.

"It's horrible," said Regina Lee, who lives two doors down from the duplex. "To find seven people in there. I just can't understand it."

A large crowd, including many relatives of the victims, gathered in the street near the taped-off investigation scene Sunday night seeking answers. After helping make preliminary identification of the victims, many in the crowd cried.

Hughes said no suspects were being sought for the time being.

"We haven't ruled anything out nor have we ruled anything in," Hughes told the Kirksville Daily Express. "We are in the very beginning, basic stages and we are taking it very carefully."

Man held over UK prostitute murders

A 37-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murdering five women whose bodies were found at sites around the Ipswich area.

Supermarket worker Tom Stephens was arrested by police at his home at Trimley St Martin, near Felixstowe.

He is being held on suspicion of murdering prostitutes Gemma Adams, Anneli Alderton, Tania Nicol, Paula Clennell and Annette Nicholls.

Mr Stephens is in custody at an unnamed police station in Suffolk.

He is due to be questioned by detectives later on Monday.

Laptop taken

Speaking in an interview with BBC News last week for background purposes, Mr Stephens said he "was probably the closest thing Tania [Nicol] had as a boyfriend".

"It wasn't a relationship like that, although Annette [Nicholls] in fact thought that we were an item," he added.

He said he had spoken to Miss Nicol's mother in the days following her disappearance.

He said he had known Miss Nicol for about six months but had known Miss Adams for 18 months - "about as long as I've known any of the girls".

Police had interviewed him at his home in Jubilee Close earlier in the investigation and had taken his mobile phone and laptop computer, he added.

Det Ch Supt Stewart Gull said: "We will not be naming the police station where the man is being held.

"As legal proceedings are now active, Suffolk Police will not be issuing further comments or appeals at this stage."

The five dead women, aged between 19 and 29, were all found naked in rural settings within 10 miles of Ipswich.

They worked as prostitutes and all were drug-users. Their bodies were found close to the A14 road.

'Water-filled ditch'

The body of Miss Adams, 25, who went missing on 15 November, was found in a brook at Hintlesham, Suffolk, by a member of the public on 2 December.

Tania Nicol's body was found by police divers searching areas of water at Copdock Mill, near Ipswich, on 8 December.

Miss Nicol, 19, was last seen after leaving her home in Ipswich on 30 October.

The body of Anneli Alderton, 24, was found in woodland in Nacton, near Ipswich, on 10 December.

On 12 December detectives found the bodies of Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29, near the village of Levington.

Mr Stephens was arrested at 0720 GMT on Monday in the village, which is close to the A14 road between Ipswich and Felixstowe.

Trimley was last in the national news when 17-year-old Vicky Hall vanished on her way home from a nightclub in Felixstowe in 1999 and was found dead in a water-filled ditch at Creeting St Peter - 25 miles from Felixstowe.

It was believed she had been asphyxiated but a post-mortem examination proved inconclusive.

Police have not linked this case with the deaths of the five prostitutes.

On Monday they were unable to confirm Mr Stephens would be questioned about Miss Hall's murder.

The Association of Chief Police Officers say the number of officers deployed from forces outside Suffolk, under the control of the Police National Information and Co-ordination Centre, was the biggest ever for a murder inquiry.

In total 36 forces have sent 412 detectives, uniformed officers and police staff.

Female Indian athlete fails gender test

A top Indian woman athlete who won a silver medal at a recent regional championship has failed a gender test, officials say.

Santhi Soundararajan, who took the silver in the women's 800m race at the Asian Games in Doha, is likely to be stripped of her award, reports say.

Soundararajan, 25, was declared the best athlete at an Indian championship in the capital, Delhi, this year.

In 1999, a woman in an Indian state football team failed a gender test.

Not mandatory

"Santhi was subjected to a gender test in Doha and we have received the report which says she failed the test," said Manmohan Singh, chairman of the Indian Olympic Association's Medical Commission.

Soundararajan is refusing to comment. "I was not informed about the test results and I don't know much on that. I do not want to talk about it," she told journalists.

The test is not mandatory, but carried out if officials want it or a rival team protests, reports say.

KP Mohan, a sports journalist, said athletes are usually examined by a team of doctors, including a gynaecologist, endocrinologist and psychologist, and put through physical and clinical examinations during a gender test.


The test was done soon after Soundararajan came second in the women's 800m race on 9 December.

Reports say the athlete cleared the gender test at the Asian track and field championship in South Korea last year where she won the silver medal in the 800m.

It is not clear how she failed the test at the Asian Games in Doha.

This is the second controversy to hit Indian athletes within a month - female shot putter Seema Antil was withdrawn from the Asian Games after she failed a pre-competition dope test.

Former Nazi Elite School to Become Tourist Attraction

The Nazis used the space for a political and military training facility. Soon tourists will be able to spend their vacation there. Much of the architecture has already been landmarked.

The state government in North Rhine-Westphalia decided this week to back the development of the former Nazi elite school "Vogelsang" into a significant tourist destination.

Located in the Eifel region in northwestern Germany, the location is to offer exhibitions, gastronomy, educational facilities and a tourist information center.

The state and the federal government, which owns the property, are expected to work out the financial details by March 2007, said a spokesperson from the state ministry of finance. Private investors are also being sought to help cover the 20 million euro ($26.4 million) price tag.

Controversial decision

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The Eifel, rich in natural beauty, is already a popular vacation destination
Not all of the state officials agreed with the decision to transform the former Nazi school into a tourist attraction.

"The national park center is not an amusement park," said Reiner Priggen, chairman of the Green Party in North Rhine-Westphalia. "Big hotels and vacation facilities would compete with tourism in the surrounding communities, which should be supported and not threatened."

Many have already visited

During the Third Reich, the Nazis built three such elite educational centers. The "Vogelsang" facility was first used for political and military training before it was taken over by the "Wehrmacht," the Nazi army, in 1939.

After World War II, the 70,000 square-meter (753,474 square-foot) national park was put to use as a training ground for the Belgian military, but abandoned in October 2005.

Since it was opened to the public in early 2006, some 160,000 tourists have already visited the site -- in particular to view the architecture, which is considered to be exemplary of national socialist style and much of which is under monument protection.

German Soldiers Face Court-Martial Over Afghan Skull Scandal

Seven German soldiers are facing courts-martial over photographs that show troops posing and playing with human skulls while stationed in Afghanistan, according to the Defense Ministry.

The soldiers, five of whom are still among active troops while two are in the reserves, will be charged with bringing the Bundeswehr into disrepute and risking the lives of their fellow soldiers serving with the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.

The ministry said Friday that 5,500 soldiers had been questioned in an internal inquiry into the scandal that broke in October when German media splashed photographs of soldiers on duty in Afghanistan striking sometimes obscene poses with human skulls and bones.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Criminal charges were dropped against all the soldiers
The soldiers could face demotion and pay cuts if found guilty. Four other lower-ranking soldiers avoided courts-martial when it became clear that superiors did not hinder them from posing with the human remains.

State prosecutors opened criminal investigations against 23 soldiers but have decided not to charge any of them. Six soldiers have been suspended from the military over the pictures.

The prosecutor's office in Munich last week said two of the main culprits in the affair had taken human remains from a lime field outside Kabul, rather than from a cemetery, and could therefore not be charged with desecrating graves.

It said the area near the Afghan capital was strewn with skeletons, presumably those of Russian soldiers who died during the Soviet occupation of the central Asian country in the 1980s.

Bundeswehr training to be altered

Bundeswehr General Inspector Wolfgang Schneiderhan said he intended to make changes in ethical and moral training given to middle and high-ranking officers as a consequence of the so-called skull scandal.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Defense Minister Jung, left, and Bundeswehr head Schneiderhan
"Overall, our training is good and appropriate," he said Friday in an interview with the online version of Die Welt newspaper. "The young superiors have to have the courage to intervene when mistakes are made, even when it is not easy."

Schneiderhan also submitted a three-page report to German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, outlining how he intended to prevent similar occurrences in the future. Schneiderhan, however, also said that the Bundeswehr should not be considered a "school for the country."

"Obviously the internalization of morals laid out in the constitution are no longer an obvious result of parental and school education," he said. "We in the Bundeswehr are not a school for the nation. We cannot correct the mistakes that have probably been made over many years."

Germany has 2,750 peacekeepers serving with the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and commands the section of the force operating in the north of the country.

Police charge 13 year over violent attack

A 13-YEAR-old boy has been charged with violently robbing a youth in north Queensland.

Police said two boys targeted a 17-year-old boy who was riding his bike near a Townsville skate park about 12.30am (AEST) yesterday.

They stopped him at Riverway Drive in Thuringowa, demanded his iPod and earphones, and attacked him when he refused to hand them over.

Nearby police officers detained one person after a foot chase but a second person escaped.

A 13-year-old boy has been charged with robbery with violence and assault occasioning bodily harm in company.

He is due to appear at the Townsville Children's Court on December 20.

Police are seeking a second person believed responsible.

Elderly man severely injured in bashing

A 58-year-old man suffered severe facial injuries when he was attacked by a large group of men in south-west Sydney last night.

The man was outside his house on Cedar Road in Prestons around 7.30pm (AEDT) when he was attacked by eight to ten men of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern appearance, police said.

He did not know the men and police believe the attack was the result of an argument.

The victim was taken to Liverpool Hospital, where he is being treated for severe facial injuries including fractures.

Anyone who may have information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

Man shoots his four kids, then himself

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (AP) -- A man killed five people, including three of his children, before fatally shooting himself Saturday morning, and a fourth child was in the hospital with life-threatening wounds, police said.

The man killed one woman around 8:30 a.m., then went to another home and shot his longtime girlfriend, their four children and himself, Capt. Rich Lockhart said.

Police did not immediately identify the shooter or the women. Relatives identified the shooter's girlfriend as Shanika King, who was in her 30s.

The slain children were a 1-year-old boy, 11-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl, police said. An 8-year-old boy was in critical condition.

Witnesses identified the first victim, a woman in her mid-30s, as the shooter's cousin, Lockhart said. The woman's son told police a man came to the door and asked to see his mother. The boy said he heard a "pop," but thought it was fireworks.

After the man left, the boy found his mother had been shot and went to a neighbor's house to call police, Lockhart said.

About 15 minutes later, police received a call from a woman who said her son-in-law had called her to say he had shot her daughter and grandchildren.

The man's body was found in the kitchen with a revolver nearby, police said. King and the youngest child were found dead in a bed, and the girl was found in a different bedroom. The 8-year-old and 11-year-old boys were found in the basement.

All had been shot, police said.

Two of the couple's other children had spent the night at their grandmother's house, said King's aunt, Janna Walker, who lives nearby in the neighborhood of low- to middle-income, single-family homes, about five miles east of downtown Kansas City.

Court frees American Pie actress

American Pie actress Natasha Lyonne was freed by a court after handing herself in on charges which included threatening to molest a dog.

The 27-year-old was also charged with trespass and harassment following an incident in 2004.

She allegedly walked into a neighbour's home saying: "I'm going to sexually molest your dog".

A judge ordered charges to be dismissed if she is not arrested for six months as she had undergone drug treatment.

Back working

She has also paid $2,000 (£1,023) compensation and is continuing to receive drug counselling.

The court appearance stemmed from an incident when authorities said Lyonne banged on the neighbour's door, stormed into their apartment, ripped a mirror from the wall and threatened the dog.

An arrest warrant was issued after she failed to appear in court three times.

She had previously been sentenced to probation following a drink-drive arrest.

As well as appearing in two of the American Pie comedies, Lyonne also featured in Blade and Scary Movie 2.

Her lawyer, Terry Karl, said the actress was back working again after a period away from the profession.

Filipino legislator gunned down

A Philippines' congressman and his bodyguard have been shot dead as they left a wedding near the capital Manila.

Luis Bersamin from northern Abra province was shot twice in the head at point blank range by a man who then escaped on a motorcycle.

Mr Bersamin, 62, a vice chairman of political committees on dangerous drugs and trade and industry, had been attending his niece's wedding.

He belonged to a coalition supporting Filipino President Gloria Arroyo.

President Arroyo's adviser said she "was shocked and outraged by this gruesome, cold-blooded murder" and would make every effort to bring the perpetrators to book.

Police have launched a search for the killer.

A Quezon City police official told the Associated Press news agency another bodyguard and driver of Mr Bersamin was hurt in a fire-fight with the gunman and a 13-year-old boy hit by a stray bullet was taken to hospital.

Where Holocaust denial is welcomed

By Frances Harrison

BBC News, Iran

Iran has been severely criticised for hosting a conference questioning the Holocaust. Delegates included not only some of the world's best-known Holocaust deniers, but also white supremacists and anti-Semites.

Iran frequently plays host to those who criticise Israel.

In the BBC there's a lot of talk about impartial broadcasting. I've always wondered how that would work if you were the BBC correspondent in Nazi Germany reporting on Hitler.

Would you not have to take sides? Well I got closer than ever before to this problem reporting on Iran's Holocaust conference.

I have interviewed suicide bombers, sexually-abused children, raped women - I have seen the devastation of war and the tsunami.

But I have never reported on anything like this. On the second day some of the delegates were coming up to me congratulating me on my coverage of the story.

The guest list was a who's who of holocaust deniers - men who have spent time in prison in Europe for saying Hitler's gas chambers never existed

I was actually lurking around wondering if they wanted to kill me for calling them Holocaust deniers and members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Quite the contrary - all publicity is good publicity for these sort of people. They were delighted to have made it onto the BBC and did not think being called a holocaust denier was at all insulting.

Only one Malaysian woman whose interview I didn't broadcast looked at me rather sourly.

Nazi apologists

The conference was organised by the Iranian Foreign Ministry in a centre where normally the topic of discussion is the price of oil or the future of the non-aligned movement.

David Duke formed the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
When it is so difficult for an American to get an Iranian visa, I cannot understand how the government here let in a man who has been described as perhaps America's best known racist.

There's a photograph on the internet of a young David Duke wearing a swastika on his arm.

He formed the National Association for the Advancement of White People, not to mention the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

One of my colleagues tried to explain to a foreign ministry official what sort of organisation the Klan was - he talked of its history - men in white hoods going around lynching black people.

Every delegate I interviewed congratulated Iran on its commitment to freedom of speech which they said was absent in the West

The official just shrugged it off. I wondered if the Foreign Ministry lost control over the guest list but then again the visa process is rigorous - it took my mother more than three months to get a tourist visa for Iran.

But it was not just white supremacists - the guest list was a who's who of Holocaust deniers - men who have spent time in prison in Europe for saying Hitler's gas chambers never existed.

A small clique of apologists for the Third Reich with only fringe appeal suddenly revelling in being mainstream - well mainstream at least in Iran.

Free speech

Let me give you a flavour of the so-called academic papers they delivered. One French speaker said: "The Holocaust is a gigantic lie and the gas chambers should be put in the rubbish bin of history."

CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS

Australian Fredrick Toeben, jailed in Germany for incitement and insulting the memory of the dead
Frenchman Robert Faurisson, convicted in France under Holocaust denial laws
Frenchman Georges Thiel, convicted in France under Holocaust denial laws
American David Duke, a former KKK leader and white supremacist

Media spotlight on conference

In quotes: World reaction

He had already spent one year in prison because of what he called "one of his little books". Little books - but big lies - denying the Nazis had a deliberate policy to exterminate the Jewish people.

He summed up his argument succinctly. He claimed there were no gas chambers at all - millions of Jews did not die - therefore there was no holocaust.

And if there was no Holocaust then there was no justification for the creation of the state of Israel. Therefore Israel was an impostor.

It had all the simplicity of a mathematical proof - refuting the worst genocide in living memory and absolving one of the most evil and wicked regimes in history of its crimes against humanity.

Holocaust deniers insist Auschwitz could not have been a death camp
So this was the aim of the conference for Iran - to undermine the very argument for the existence of Israel.

And also to score a few points over the West on the issue of freedom of speech. Every delegate I interviewed congratulated Iran on its commitment to freedom of speech which they said was absent in the West where their comrades were in jail for denying the Holocaust.

They all paid tribute to their new hero, President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. I asked them if they knew about the journalists and students who have been jailed in Iran for pushing the limits of freedom of speech in this country.

They were vague - happy to whitewash Iran without knowing the facts. As a journalist living and working in Iran I found it particularly galling to be told that I had freedom of speech by these people.

Eventually I found one of the movers and shakers behind the conference - a friend of President Ahmedinejad and asked him why there was freedom of speech to deny the Holocaust but not to criticise the Iranian government.

He told me there was complete freedom but the Western media was in the pocket of the Zionists and sent spies to undermine Iran's national security.

Presumably he meant all the students, bloggers, journalists and human rights lawyers who've been jailed here are Zionist spies.

Then he went on to say that the very presence of a BBC correspondent in Iran proved there was freedom of speech. Another twisted logic.

But when all the delegates were taken to see President Ahmedinejad for a mutual admiration session, the BBC, unlike other foreign media, was excluded from covering it. So much for Iranian freedom of speech.

Khmer Rouge film reveals horrors

A documentary film dealing with the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime is opening in Cambodia.

The film, Waiting To See The Truth, includes interviews with Cambodians who describe the forced labour, starvation and mass killings under Pol Pot's rule.

But it also shows footage of young Cambodians who do not believe stories of the atrocities of the late 1970s.

The period is not taught in schools, and the producers plan to screen it to children to boost awareness.

The Khmer Rouge regime killed, starved or worked to death up to two million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979.

Changing times

The BBC's Guy de Launey, in Phnom Penh, says the 35-minute film makes for occasionally staggering viewing.

Throughout the film older Cambodians describe the horrors of life under the Khmer Rouge, when up to two million died because of the regime's brutality.

The camera then pans to giggling teenagers who declare that they do not believe a word of what their relatives have just said.

Waiting To See The Truth was funded by a US-based organisation.

The film's producer, Tara Urs, said the teenagers' testimonies were evidence that times had changed.

"Our film shows a lot of people saying: 'I don't believe, I don't believe what happened'.

"But I think the better way to understand it is: 'I just have nothing in my own life today to allow me to conceive and to understand the stories of what you're telling me about what happened in the past," she said.

Trials due

In the film, the young people are eventually shocked into belief when they are taken to visit the "killing fields", where they encounter vast collections of the skulls of victims.

Trials of some of the surviving leaders are due to be begin next year.

Pol Pot, the founder and leader of the Khmer Rouge, died in a camp on the border with Thailand in 1998.

Other key figures have also died. Ta Mok - the regime's military commander and one of Pol Pot's most ruthless henchmen - died on 21 July 2006.

Mass mouse escape on Saudi plane

More than 100 passengers on a Saudi plane were left panic-stricken by the unexpected appearance of furry fellow flyers - dozens of mice.

The small rodents - about 80 in total, according to a local newspaper - escaped from the bag of a man travelling on the domestic flight.

An airline official said the aircraft was at 28,000 feet (8,500m) when mice began scurrying around the cabin.

Some of the mice fell on passengers' heads, Al-Hayat newspaper reports.

The incident occurred on a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight from the capital, Riyadh, to north-eastern town of Tabuk.

The flight landed safely and the bag's owner was detained by police investigating how he managed to get the mice onto the plane.

No explanation was given for the man's live cargo.

Priest jailed over Rwanda genocide

A former Catholic priest has been jailed for 15 years for participating in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda convicted Father Athanase Seromba for ordering militiamen to burn down and then bulldoze a church where 2,000 ethnic Tutsis were hiding.

About 800,000 people died during the country's genocide.

According to the charge sheet, the militia "attacked with traditional arms and poured fuel through the roof of the church, while gendarmes and communal police launched grenades and killed the refugees".

Seromba then ordered the church be demolished, the document said.

Guilty of genocide

"The chamber finds you guilty of genocide and extermination and sentences you to a single term of 15 years in prison," Andresia Vaz, the chief judge, said, reading the verdict of the three-member panel.

Seromba will only serve about 11 years because he has already spent four years in jail while on trial.

He was acquitted on lesser counts of complicity to commit genocide and incitement to commit genocide, the court said.

The former priest, the 27th person to be convicted by the court, had denied the charges claiming he was a simple parish priest and powerless to stop the killing.

Thousands of Rwandans have turned away from Catholicism after learning of the complicity of church officials in the genocide.

Priests, nuns and parishioners were all implicated in the killings, and some churches became sites of notorious massacres.

100 days of slaughter

Last month, the tribunal sentenced a Catholic nun to 30 years in jail for helping militias kill hundreds of people hiding in a hospital.

In 2001, two Catholic nuns were convicted by a Belgian court of aiding and abetting the murders.

Rwanda's genocide began hours after a plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down as it approached the capital, Kigali, in April 1994.

The slaughter ended after 100 days when forces led by Paul Kagame, the current president, forced the Hutu government out of power.

About 63,000 genocide suspects are detained in Rwanda, and justice authorities say that at least 761,000 people should stand trial for their role in the slaughter.

The suspects represent 9.2 per cent of Rwanda's estimated 8.2 million people.

The UN tribunal in Tanzania is only trying those accused of masterminding the genocide.

Bangladesh force a 'death squad'

A prominent human rights group has accused Bangladesh's elite security force of killing more than 350 people in custody and called it a government "death squad".

The allegations could add to the current political crisis in the country after Human Rights Watch said the force could be used by the former ruling party before next month's election.

The present interim government were looking to hold talks with political parties on Thursday in an attempt to end the crisis over the election, as an alliance of 14 parties threatened protests to demand reforms despite a heavy army presence on the streets.

As well as accusing them of being responsible for the deaths of people held in custody, a report released by Human Rights Watch said the Bangladeshi Rapid Action Battalions were responsible for widespread torture that included beatings, boring holes in suspects with electric drills and giving them electric shocks.

Brad Adams, the US group's Asia director, said the battalions "had become a government death squad".

Shameful behaviour

"Bangladesh's Rapid Action Battalion has become a government death squad"

It is the second time in as many days that the elite force has been criticised after the New Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights described Bangladesh as the worst abuser of rights in South Asia.

Adams said the battalions behaviour was "especially shameful to a nation whose citizen just won the Nobel prize for peace".

Muhammad Yunus won the 2006 peace prize with the Grameen Bank he founded to lend money to the poor of Bangladesh.

Officials at the Bangladesh embassy were not immediately available for comment.

Human Rights Watch said Bangladesh government officials have said the government has given the force a mandate to kill suspected criminals instead of making arrests, and had even drafted a list of most-wanted criminals to kill.

Continued violence

A caretaker government is in charge in Bangladesh after Begum Khaleda Zia stepped down as prime minister in October in accordance with the country's constitution, which requires power be given to an independent, interim authority that then has to organise elections within three months.

Human Rights Watch said killings by the battalions had continued since the Bangladesh Nationalist party, which has defended the deaths as the result of criminals resisting arrest or being caught in a crossfire, handed over power.

Meanwhile, after meeting late on Wednesday to discuss next month's polls, government advisers decided to seek talks with the alliance to discuss its demands.

Supporters of the alliance said they would hold demonstrations outside election offices to demand changes in the Election Commission, including the removal of two commissioners it says favour Zia.

Different dates

Shafiqul Huq Chowdhury, a government adviser said: "The alliance has said they will come to the polls if proposed changes are made."

He said the government was hopeful it could resolve the outstanding issues "in two or three days".

The alliance, led by Sheikh Hasina, a former prime minister, also wants the election date, currently January 23, to be postponed further.

Advisers were expected to hold talks with the alliance's main rivals, a four-party coalition led by Zia which wants the commissioners and the poll date unchanged.

The Election Commission has said the poll date, which has already been postponed by two days, cannot be delayed further because the elections must be held within 90 days after a prime minister leaves office.

China to Crack down on Fake Rabies Vaccines

Reuters

2006-12-14 18:08:32


China will severely punish companies that produce fake and poor quality rabies vaccines, the country's food and drug watchdog said on Thursday, after several people reportedly died from substandard vaccines.

"Vaccines with quality problems will be sealed where found and seriously dealt with according to the law," the State Food and Drug Administration said on its Web site (www.sfda.gov.cn).

"This will prevent unqualified vaccines from entering shops and places of use," it added in a statement.

The official Xinhua news agency added that sub-standard rabies vaccines had been responsible for several deaths recently, though it did not elaborate.

The food and drug body said local authorities had to report their findings on fake vaccines to the central government by July next year.

"Cases which seriously harm people's health, or are criminal in nature, will be handed over to the police in a timely manner for investigation," it said.

The statement did not provide details on how many people may have been affected by fake vaccines.

Rabies has killed more people in China than either tuberculosis or AIDS in each of the preceding seven months, the Health Ministry said on Monday, prompting a crackdown in the capital and several provinces to control unregistered dogs.

In the first nine months of 2006, the health ministry recorded 2,254 rabies infections in people, up 26.69 percent on the same period last year.

Some 2,660 people died of rabies in China in 2004, according to Health Ministry figures.

The Chinese government has also previously expressed concern about fake or poor quality bird flu vaccines used on domestic poultry.

Fake or bad drugs have killed dozens of people in China in recent years and raised questions about drug safety.

Alleged Moscow serial killer claims 62 murders

13:48 | 14/ 12/ 2006

MOSCOW, December 14 (RIA Novosti) - An alleged Moscow serial killer, arrested in June, has been charged with 49 murders, but claims that he killed 62 people in all, a senior law police official said Thursday.

Alexander Kshevitsky, a deputy head of the Interior Ministry's operations and investigations bureau, said that in some of the murder cases Alexander Pichuzhkin claims to have committed, the victims are still considered missing.

Pichuzhkin, 32 at the time of his arrest, was earlier charged with killing at least 10 people, most of them in Bitsa park, a stretch of dense woodland in the south of Moscow, where he was apprehended by police this summer.

The investigation determined that Pichuzhkin began killing in 2000. Most of the victims found in the park were killed with a blow to the head after Pichuzhkin approached them from behind.

If it turns out to be true that Pichuzkin, who has already been dubbed the "Bitsa Maniac," killed as many people as he claims, he will become the bloodiest serial killer in Russian history, well ahead of Andrei Chikatilo.

Between 1978 and 1990, Chikatilo, or the "Rostov Ripper," killed 53 people, many of them young women and boys, in and around the city of Rostov, near the Black Sea. He was eventually caught, found guilty of multiple murders, sentenced to death and executed in 1994.

In 1996, Russia imposed a moratorium on the death penalty, and if Pichuzhkin is found guilty of the murders he claims, the most severe punishment he faces will be a life sentence.

Cameras capture deadly robbery - Video Link (1:24)

*** WARNING VERY DISTURBING IMAGARDY ***

Dr. Jack Kevorkian to be paroled in June - promises no more suicides

LANSING, Michigan (AP) -- After more than eight years in prison, a frail Dr. Jack Kevorkian will be paroled in June with a promise that he won't assist in any more suicides, a prison spokesman said Wednesday.

Leo Lalonde, the corrections spokesman, would not provide further details.

Kevorkian, once the nation's most vocal advocate of assisted suicide for the terminally ill, is serving a 10- to 25-year sentence for second-degree murder in the 1998 poisoning of Thomas Youk, 52, an Oakland County man with Lou Gehrig's disease. Michigan banned assisted suicide in 1998.

Youk's death was videotaped and shown on CBS' "60 Minutes."

Kevorkian, who claimed to have assisted in at least 130 deaths in the 1990s, called it a mercy killing.

Mayer Morganroth, Kevorkian's attorney, said this summer that Kevorkian, now 78, was suffering from hepatitis C and diabetes, that his weight had dropped to 113 pounds and that he had less than a year to live.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm ordered corrections authorities to carry out an independent medical evaluation of Kevorkian, but did not commute the retired pathologist's sentence, as Morganroth had hoped.

Kevorkian has always been eligible for parole on June 1, 2007, and will now be released on that date, Lalonde said. He directed calls seeking further comment to Russ Marlan, another state corrections spokesman who did not immediately return calls Wednesday.

If Kevorkian is released on June 1, he will have spent close to 3,000 days in prison since being sentenced in April 1999.

He has promised he would not assist in a suicide if he was released from prison.

Indian army's biggest enemy - suicide and murder

By Renu Agal

BBC Hindi Service, Delhi

Lack of home leave leads to rising stress levels

Pankaj Jha, a medium-level officer in the Indian army, shot himself with a service revolver earlier this month. He was 38.

Nobody quite knows why Lt Col Jha pulled the trigger on himself - he had been serving in the military for the past 14 years. According to his mother, Lalita Jha, "there was no tension, no problems. I just can't understand why he did it".

He is far from the only soldier to take his own life this year - Capt Sunit Kohli, Maj Sobha Rani, Lt Sushmita Chatterjee... the list goes on.

In fact, the Indian army is losing more soldiers in these incidents than in action against the enemy.

The army has lost 72 soldiers to enemy attacks so far this year. But over 100 soldiers have already taken their lives. In addition, another 32 have been killed by their colleagues.

What is happening to the army?


DISTURBING TREND

Since 2004, 282 soldiers have been killed in militant attacks
Since 2004, 408 soldiers have taken their lives, killed colleagues or died after colleagues ran amok
Of the 408 soldiers, 333 killed themselves
The million-strong force is clearly under tremendous stress.

Though it has not fought a full-blown war in decades, the force is bogged down in fighting domestic insurgencies, guarding restive borders and sometimes quelling civilian rioting.

Most experts attribute the growing stress to low morale, bad service conditions, lack of adequate home leave, unattractive pay and a communication gap with superiors.

Retired Maj Gen Afsar Karim, who has fought three wars, says that the stress may be high among soldiers because of lack of leave.


The army is involved in quelling several local insurgencies
"The army is involved in a [difficult] long running internal security environment. There is lack of rest and they get very little leave. Lack of leave increases his stress," he says.

"Soldiers get angry when they are denied leave and their officers themselves take time off. It triggers a reaction, they are well armed and they take their own lives.''

Then there is the question of what many say is low pay - starting salaries in many jobs in middle-class India are double that of a new soldier, and for many of them the army no longer holds out the promise of a good life.

Retired Maj Gen Karim suspects that with the increase in numbers of soldiers, cohesiveness is being eroded.

"In our times, we used to know the names of our soldiers, where they came from. We used to meet their families, but now the army has expanded manifold and this cohesiveness is gone," he says.

Frayed nerves

The army says it is worried about this disconcerting trend.

Spokesman Col SK Sakhuja says soldiers kill each other when one of them perceives that they are being harassed by superiors or when they have heated arguments among themselves.

''We have strengthened formal and informal interaction between soldiers and officers. Leave policy, especially for soldiers posted in difficult areas, has been liberalised so that a soldier can go home to sort out his domestic problems," he says.

"Also, counselling by officers, psychiatrics and religious teachers is being undertaken.''

Delhi-based psychiatrist Achal Bhagat says a combination of stress and high alcohol consumption could lead to frayed nerves.


The army says it is holding classes to relieve stress
"What is needed is confidential counselling, creating a support system for the soldiers working in adverse conditions," he says.

The army is confident that this is a "testing time" for the force and it will pass.

"Our foundations are strong," says Col Sakhuja.

The problem is that there is not enough clarity still on what precisely is causing these soldier deaths.

Lalita Jha, mother of Pankaj Jha, hopes that she will find out more about her son's suicide.

"I am sure the army will look into the matter and find out what happened," she says.

Before more soldiers take their lives, one hopes.

Gunmen seize Haiti schoolchildren

A dozen schoolchildren in Haiti have been abducted by gunmen who hijacked a school bus and a car on Wednesday in broad daylight, local media report.
One group of children was travelling to school on the private bus when the men stopped it, forced their way aboard and diverted it, local radio reported.

Another gang stopped a car carrying four children and two adults, and fled with the car and the children.

Kidnappings for ransom have become the top security threat in the country.

Both incidents took place in the north of the capital, but it was not immediately clear if they were linked.

Haitian police spokesman Frantz Lerebours said it was not known exactly how many children were missing.


Mounting insecurity

About 10 children have been reported abducted since November, including two who were killed by their captors.

One parent told local radio: "We feel disenchanted in front of this upsurge of insecurity. Children are going to school and you do not know if they will come back.

"You who take them to school may not return home sometimes as they might abduct either you or the children."

Authorities blame the crimes on well-armed street gangs that flourished after a 2004 rebellion overthrew former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

A Brazilian-led UN peacekeeping force has been deployed since then.

Body removed in UK murders inquiry

Officers investigating the murder of three prostitutes and the discovery of two more suspected victims have removed one body from woodland near Ipswich.
The body has been taken away by Suffolk Police to establish the cause of death and the victim's identity.

Police said it was likely the body, found close to another in Levington, is one of two missing prostitutes.

Paula Clennell, 24, and Annette Nicholls, 29, have not been seen for several days.

Officers are also checking reports a handbag and clothes had been found in the River Orwell, near Ipswich.

A police spokeswoman said: "We are checking to see whether those reports are true and, if they are, to establish the significance of any finds."

Detectives said earlier the latest victims - whose bodies were found on Tuesday - had not died at the scenes, and had been dumped in the wooded areas where they were found.

The other body is likely to remain at the scene until Thursday.

Police have linked the murders of Gemma Adams, 25, Tania Nicol, 19, and Anneli Alderton, 24, whose bodies were found in nearby villages within 10 days.

Det Ch Supt Stewart Gull said all five deaths bore "striking similarities" in that the women had been found naked and in a rural environment.

A number of people are helping police with their inquiries, but no-one has been arrested.

Officers are working through more than 2,000 calls made on Tuesday in what is now the biggest criminal inquiry in Suffolk Police's history.

Home Office pathologist Dr Nat Carey, who carried out post-mortems examinations on the three murdered prostitutes, will examine the bodies.


A picture of the prostitutes working in the area and their clients was gradually being built up, the officer said.

Despite appeals for the women to keep off the streets, there are some continuing to work through desperation for money to buy drugs and Christmas presents.

Home Secretary John Reid and Downing Street have contacted Suffolk's Chief Constable Alastair McWhirter to make sure he has enough resources to deal with the current murder inquiry.

The prime minister's spokesman said officials were assured Mr McWhirter was "happy" with the level of resources he had.

At Commons question time, the prime minister said there was "entirely understandable fear" in the community in Ipswich and said all MPs would want to send their sympathy to the people of Suffolk and the relatives of the victims.

The sites where the two bodies were found on Tuesday is off the main A14 trunk road between Ipswich and Felixstowe docks close to a railway line, the Orwell estuary and a marina.

It is near to where the body of Miss Alderton who had moved to the area from Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, was found on Sunday in Nacton.

The body of Miss Adams was found on 2 December in woodland at Hintlesham, on the outskirts of Ipswich. She had last been seen on 15 November.

On 8 December the body of Miss Nicol was found in nearby Copdock. She was the first to go missing and had last been seen on 30 October.

Ukraine babies in stem cell probe

By Matthew Hill

BBC Health Correspondent

There is heated debate about the ethics of using stem cells
Healthy new-born babies may have been killed in Ukraine to feed a flourishing international trade in stem cells, evidence obtained by the BBC suggests.

Disturbing video footage of post-mortem examinations on dismembered tiny bodies raises serious questions about what happened to them.

Ukraine has become the self-styled stem cell capital of the world.

There is a trade in stem cells from aborted foetuses, amid unproven claims they can help fight many diseases.

But now there are claims that stem cells are also being harvested from live babies.

Wall of silence

The BBC has spoken to mothers from the city of Kharkiv who say they gave birth to healthy babies, only to have them taken by maternity staff.

In 2003 the authorities agreed to exhume around 30 bodies of foetuses and full-term babies from a cemetery used by maternity hospital number six.

One campaigner was allowed into the autopsy to gather video evidence. She has given that footage to the BBC and Council of Europe.

In its report, the Council describes a general culture of trafficking of children snatched at birth, and a wall of silence from hospital staff upwards over their fate.

The pictures show organs, including brains, have been stripped - and some bodies dismembered.

A senior British forensic pathologist says he is very concerned to see bodies in pieces - as that is not standard post-mortem practice.

It could possibly be a result of harvesting stem cells from bone marrow.

Hospital number six denies the allegations.

Jury for Pickton trial picked, plus 2 alternates; trial to start in January

Tuesday, December 12, 2006 | 7:24 PM ET
Canadian Press: GREG JOYCE

NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. (CP) - The trial of accused serial killer Robert Pickton will expose jurors to evidence that is both disturbing and graphic, the trial judge says.

"I think this trial might expose the juror to something that might be as bad as a horror movie and you don't have the option of turning off the TV," Justice James Williams said Tuesday as he excused one juror during the two-day selection process.

Artist's sketch shows accused Robert Pickton as he appeared in B.C. Supreme Court for his jury selection. (CP/Artist/Jane Wolsak) It took less than two days for the legal teams to agree on 12 jurors and two alternates. If the trial proceeds on schedule they'll begin sitting Jan. 8.

The jury will sit through more than a year of testimony, evidence and arguments as Pickton, a pig farmer from Port Coquitlam, is tried on six of the 26 charges against him. He is to face another 20 counts of murder at a later trial.

All of the alleged victims are women who vanished from Vancouver's destitute and dangerous Downtown Eastside, where many of them worked in the sex trade.

Pickton, 57, sat almost motionless throughout the jury selection process. He was brought into the courtroom at the start of each session and each time made a point of bowing to the judge.
Williams spoke to the potential jurors, who appeared in groups of 30. He acknowledged that the task of being on the jury for this lengthy and complicated criminal trial won't be easy.

He took pains to make clear that not only will there be graphic evidence, some of it will involve complex science as well.

And the jury will have to sit in court day after day. Williams warned that people who have health problems, scheduled medical treatment or physical difficulty with the gruelling routine would likely be unsuitable for a year-long trial.

The judge said he'd also excuse anyone for whom being involved would cause financial hardship or employment difficulties.

"Serving on this jury will not be a holiday but will involve a great deal of hard work," Williams told the jurors before jury selection began. "At the conclusion of the trial you will be required to process a large amount of evidence and information and reach an honest verdict. Decisions must be made.

"You must be prepared to acquit or convict according to a proper assessment of the evidence and application of the law as it will be explained to you."

Prospective jurors were given a list of names of people connected with the case, either as witnesses or as investigators. Williams instructed them to let him know when they were called if they were associated with anyone on the list.

He told the lawyers that the list of witnesses, lawyers and others connected to the case is the size of the Penticton phone book.

"It's so long that I would say if you didn't know someone on there you would feel inadequate about yourself."

Among the dozen questions prospective jurors were asked was whether they know anyone who's involved in or affected by the case, whether they have any personal interest in the outcome of the case and whether they have obligations that would make it a hardship to serve on the jury.

"The task of sitting on serving as a juror on this trial will not be an easy one," Williams said. "It will entail many hours sitting in a jury box listening to evidence. It will require serious attention be paid to that evidence.

"Given the nature of the allegations against Mr. Pickton, the evidence at times will be quite graphic and distressing. At other times will be quite technical and complex concerning scientific matters such as DNA."

Ritchie also asked several questions on how much people knew about the case and whether they had information from any source other than the media.

Despite the rigorous process to screen out people who could not realistically take a year out of their lives, one man who'd been selected on Monday returned to court Tuesday and asked to be excused for financial reasons.

One woman who was called initially told the court she didn't have a reason to be excused. But she later revealed she'd have trouble finding daycare and that the evidence might be tough on her.

"It would be hard having a weak stomach," she said. "I can't watch gory movies. I have nightmares and I can't sleep."

Another woman was dismissed after a defence challenge when she told Ritchie she doesn't pay any attention to the news and didn't know who Pickton is.

Another was rejected apparently because she was a little too eager. She said she wanted to do her civic duty.

Under the Criminal Code, 12 jurors and two alternates are chosen to hear evidence in a trial. But the alternates don't stick around to hear the evidence. Once the trial starts, they are dismissed and can't be brought into the jury at a later date.

That has led defence lawyer Ritchie to wonder whether the case could be headed for a mistrial if several jurors fall ill or have to leave for some reason.

If the jury panel falls below 10 members, a mistrial is declared. In this case that would mean beginning the whole trial over again - more than five years after Pickton was first charged.

Women began disappearing from the Downtown Eastside as early as the 1980s. There have been complaints that police did not act early on because the women were prostitutes.

Pickton was arrested in February 2002 and his trial began in January 2006 with procedural arguments that were under a publication ban.

For the first trial, he is accused of killing Mona Wilson, Sereena Abotsway, Andrea Joesbury, Georgina Papin, Brenda Wolfe and Marnie Frey.

-

NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. (CP) - The following is a list of questions asked of potential jurors by Justice James Williams and defence lawyer Peter Ritchie:

Justice James Williams

-"Is there anything about you that I should know that you think would cause me to excuse you?"

-"You're able to read and understand the English language?"

-"Have you reviewed the list of names provided to you by the sheriff?

-"Did you recognize any names on the list?"

-"Do you know anyone who's involved in the case or personally affected by the case?"

-"Do you know anyone who's provided information to the police about this case?"

-"Do you have any personal interest in the outcome of the case, how the case turns out?"

-"Do you have any obligation or commitments that would make it a hardship to be on this jury, family or otherwise?"

-"Would service on this jury impose an unacceptable financial burden?"

-"Are there any personal reasons that you would find it difficult to be on this jury? For example I made mention earlier that some of the evidence would be graphic, is that a problem for you."

-"When I asked you that, I indicated earlier that some of the evidence is quite graphic, do you think you could deal with that?"

-"Do you have any health issues, physical, mental or emotional that will interfere with your ability to sit on this jury?"

Defence lawyer Peter Ritchie

-"The case has been subject to a great deal of media attention and my questions relate to that:

-"To what extent have you heard about this case, about Mr. Pickton in the media?"

-"Have you obtained any other information about this case, or about our client, Mr. Pickton, from any other sources other than the media?"

-"Have you formed an opinion about if Mr. Pickton is guilty or not guilty?"