India set to introduce death penalty in some rape cases

NEW DELHI - India's Cabinet has approved harsher punishments for rapists, including the death penalty, after a brutal gang-rape in New Delhi that sparked national outrage.

A government-appointed panel recommended the changes to ministers after the death of a 23-year-old woman who was savagely raped and attacked in a bus on December 16 and died nearly two weeks later.

The case ignited nationwide demonstrations by protesters demanding better safety for women.

The changes, which must be approved by President Pranab Mukherjee to become law, include doubling the minimum sentence for gang-rape and imposing the death penalty when the victim is killed or left in a vegetative state.

"We have taken swift action and hope these steps will make women feel safer in the country," Law Minister Ashwani Kumar told reporters late on Friday.

"This is a progressive piece of legislation and is consistent with the felt sensitivities of the nation in the aftermath of the outrageous gang-rape," he added.

On Saturday, the gang-rape victim's brother praised the Cabinet's decision to make sentences tougher for attackers, calling it a "positive initiative", according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

The changes to the rape laws were expected to be approved by Mukherjee as early as this weekend but must be ratified by parliament or they will lapse.

Under the changes, the minimum sentence for gang-rape, rape of a minor, rape by policemen or a person in authority will be doubled to 20 years from 10 and can be extended to life without parole.

Under the current law, a rapist faces a term of seven to 10 years.

The Cabinet has also created a new set of offences such as voyeurism and stalking that will be included in the new law.

Five men are being tried in a special fast-track court in New Delhi on charges of murder, kidnapping and rape in connection with the death of the student, who died from her injuries.

A sixth suspect faces trial in a juvenile court.

The physiotherapy student was assaulted on a bus she had boarded with a male companion as they returned home from watching a film in an upmarket shopping mall.

India says it only imposes the death penalty in the "rarest of rare cases". Three months ago, it hanged the lone surviving gunman from the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks -- the country's first execution in eight years.

Verdicts for the five men would be handed down "very soon", a defence lawyer said earlier in the week, as an application to relocate the trial outside of the capital failed.

A separate court has ruled that a sixth suspect in the case should be tried as a juvenile after it accepted his claim based on his school certificate that he was aged 17.

The decision, which means he faces a maximum of three years if convicted instead of the death penalty, has appalled the victim's family who said they would call for an exception to be made in the case.

Indian media reports, citing unnamed police officials, say the 17-year-old was among the most brutal of the assailants, who are accused of attacking the woman with an iron bar, causing horrifying internal injuries.

- AFP/ir

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Rahul Gandhi to visit Amethi on Feb 5 and 6

AMETHI: In his first visit after being elevated as Congress vice-president, Rahul Gandhi would tour his constituency of Amethi for two days during which he would also interact with party cadres.

District Magistrate Vidya Bhushan today confirmed the two day visit of the local MP and said he would arrive here on February 5.

Rahul, who will be here within a fortnight after being appointed the Congress vice-president, would use the visit to interact with party cadres and galvanise them before the general election scheduled for next year, party leaders said.

He will also meet leaders of frontal organisations like the Youth Congress and interact with people, they said.

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Pictures We Love: Best of January

Photograph by Dieu Nalio Chery, AP

The magnitude 7 earthquake that struck near Port au Prince, Haiti, in January 2010 so devastated the country that recovery efforts are still ongoing.

Professional dancer Georges Exantus, one of the many casualties of that day, was trapped in his flattened apartment for three days, according to news reports. After friends dug him out, doctors amputated his right leg below the knee. With the help of a prosthetic leg, Exantus is able to dance again. (Read about his comeback.)

Why We Love It

"This is an intimate photo, taken in the subject's most personal space as he lies asleep and vulnerable, perhaps unaware of the photographer. The dancer's prosthetic leg lies in the foreground as an unavoidable reminder of the hardships he faced in the 2010 earthquake. This image makes me want to hear more of Georges' story."—Ben Fitch, associate photo editor

"This image uses aesthetics and the beauty of suggestion to tell a story. We are not given all the details in the image, but it is enough to make us question and wonder."—Janna Dotschkal, associate photo editor

Published February 1, 2013

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Gov's Handling of Sandusky Case Under Investigation

The newly-elected attorney general of Pennsylvania is going after the state's governor, Tom Corbett, who was attorney general when child sex allegations against Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky were first brought forward.

Kathleen Kane, a Democrat who was sworn in as attorney general on Jan. 15, said that she will name a special prosecutor in the coming days to investigate Corbett's handling of the Sandusky case. Corbett is a Republican.

The investigation will look specifically at why it took the attorney general's office three years to bring criminal charges against Sandusky while he continued to have access to children.

"Attorney General Kane will appoint a special prosecutor to lead the office's internal investigation into how the Sandusky child abuse investigation was handled by the Office of the Attorney General," Kane's office said in a statement released today.

Corbett's attorney general's office was first notified of the allegations against Sandusky in 2008 when a high school student told his mother and school that Sandusky had molested him. The local district attorney passed the allegation on to the attorney general, then Corbett. Corbett convened a grand jury.

Mario Tama; Patrick Smith/Getty Images

Jerry Sandusky Insists Innocence Before Sentencing Watch Video

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Jerry Sandusky Claims Innocence in Audio Statement Watch Video

It wasn't until 2011 that sex abuse charges were filed against Sandusky while Corbett had since become governor. Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of sex abuse in June 2012.

The charges sent shockwaves throughout Pennsylvania, as Penn State's president, two top officials, and legendary coach Joe Paterno all lost their jobs over the scandal.

"Why did it take 33 months to get Sandusky off the streets? Was the use of a grand jury the right decision? Why were there so few resources dedicated to the investigation? Were the best practices implemented?" the statement from Kane's office read.

"At the end of this investigation, we will know the answers to these questions and be able to tell the people of Pennsylvania the facts and give them answers that they deserve," the statement said.

Describing an interview Kane gave the New York Times, the Times said Kane suggested that Corbett did not want to upset voters or donors in the Penn State community before his gubernatorial run in 2009.

Corbett has denied those suggestions. His office did not immediately return calls for comment.

Kane's office preemptively fought back against the idea that the investigation is politically motivated. Kane, a Democrat, defeated the incumbent attorney general, Linda Kelly, a Republican in November 2011. Corbett is a Republican.

"The speculation that this is about politics is insane," a staff member in Kane's office told ABC News today. "You go anywhere in Pennsylvania and anywhere across the country and you'll find individuals asking, 'why did it take three years? Why was there a grand jury? Why make these kids talk to 30 different people about what happened?"

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VA study finds more veterans committing suicide

Every day about 22 veterans in the United States kill themselves, a rate that is about 20 percent higher than the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 2007 estimate, according to two-year study by a VA researcher.

The VA study indicates that more than two-thirds of the veterans who commit suicide are 50 or older, suggesting that the increase in veterans’ suicides is not primarily driven by those returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There is a perception that we have a veterans’ suicide epidemic on our hands. I don’t think that is true,” said Robert Bossarte, an epidemiologist with the VA who did the study. “The rate is going up in the country, and veterans are a part of it.” The number of suicides overall in the United States increased by nearly 11 percent between 2007 and 2010, the study says.

As a result, the percentage of veterans who die by suicide has decreased slightly since 1999, even though the total number of veterans who kill themselves has gone up, the study says.

VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said his agency would continue to strengthen suicide prevention efforts. “The mental health and well-being of our courageous men and women who have served the nation is the highest priority for VA, and even one suicide is one too many,” he said in a statement.

The study follows long-standing criticism that the agency has moved far too slowly even to figure out how many veterans kill themselves. “If the VA wants to get its arms around this problem, why does it have such a small number of people working on it?” asked retired Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a former Army psychiatrist. “This is a start, but it is a faint start. It is not enough.”

Bossarte said much work remains to be done to understand the data, especially concerning the suicide risk among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. They constitute a minority of an overall veteran population that skews older, but recent studies have suggested that those who served in recent conflicts are 30 percent to 200 percent more likely to commit suicide than their ­non-veteran peers.

An earlier VA estimate of 18 veterans’ suicides a day, which was disclosed during a 2008 lawsuit, has long been cited by lawmakers and the department’s critics as evidence of the agency’s failings. A federal appeals court pointed to it as evidence of the VA’s “unchecked incompetence.” The VA countered that the number, based on old and incomplete data, was not reliable.

To calculate the veterans’ suicide rate, Bossarte and his sole assistant spent more than two years, starting in October 2010, cajoling state governments to turn over death certificates for the more than 400,000 Americans who have killed themselves since 1999. Forty-two states have provided data or agreed to do so; the study is based on information from 21 that has been assembled into a database.

Bossarte said that men in their 50s — a group that includes a large percentage of the veteran population— have been especially hard-hit by the national increase in suicide. The veterans’ suicide rate is about three times the overall national rate, but about the same percentage of male veterans in their 50s kill themselves as do non-veteran men of that age, according to the VA data.

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A*STAR scientists solve century-old mystery in yeast infections

SINGAPORE: Scientists from the Agency for Science Technology And Research (A*STAR) have solved a century-old mystery in yeast infections.

They constructed stable strains of Candida albicans, the most prevalent human fungal pathogen and a major cause of hospital acquired infection.

A*STAR said on Friday that their discovery will help pave the way to develop drugs that effectively target and treat such infections.

Currently, the choice of drugs for this pathogen is limited.

Drugs resistance has also emerged worldwide, posing a great challenge to medicine.

The A*STAR scientists have shown that Candida albicans, long thought of as always having two copies of each chromosome and no sexual reproduction in its life, can and does exist as a sexually reproducing cell carrying only one copy of its genome.

The discovery fills a long missing gap in the life cycle of the pathogen and greatly advances the understanding of how it generates genetic variations.

The tools developed will help speed up the analyses of gene function and might speed up efforts to cure Candida infections.

- CNA/fa

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Saibaba trust got Rs 275 crore donation in 2012

SHIRDI: The Saibaba Shirdi Sansthan Trust received a donation of Rs 274.71 crore from devotees last year, a senior trust official said.

Devotees also donated 36 kg of gold in various forms in 2012, estimated to be worth Rs 11 crore, Sansthan's executive officer Kishor More said yesterday.

However, the Sansthan received 373 kg of silver in the last calendar year, even as it received 440 kg of the metal in 2011, More said.

The Sansthan had recently melted the treasure's 37 kg gold and 513 kg silver for making coins while it still has about 300 kg gold and 4,000 kg silver with it, he said.

In 2011, the trust had received Rs 225.55 crore cash, while last year the cash donation increased by about 20 per cent, he said.

Out of the Rs 274.71 crore cash, Rs 57 crore was earned through the Sansthan's donation counters, Rs 180.74 crore through cash boxes and Rs 40 crore was received through cheques, online and money orders, More said.

Sansthan's fixed deposits with various nationalised banks in 2012 were worth Rs 803 crore, while deposits in 2011 were of Rs 580 crore.

Last year, there was also an increase in foreign exchange worth Rs 8.30 crore, while in 2011 it was Rs 6.28 crore, he added.

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Sinkhole Swallows Buildings in China

Photograph from AFP/Getty Images

The sinkhole that formed in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou (pictured) is, unfortunately, not a new occurrence for the country.

Many areas of the world are susceptible to these sudden formations, including the U.S. Florida is especially prone, but Guatemala, Mexico, and the area surrounding the Dead Sea in the Middle East are also known for their impressive sinkholes. (See pictures of a sinkhole in Beijing that swallowed a truck.)

Published January 31, 2013

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SK Group head gets four-year jail sentence

SEOUL: The head of South Korea's third largest conglomerate, the SK Group, was sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday after being convicted of embezzling close to $50 million.

The custodial sentence was seen as relatively tough in a country where convicted business tycoons are often given suspended prison terms in recognition of their apparent contribution to the national economy.

The court ruled that Chey Tae-Won, 53, had embezzled 49.7 billion won ($45.6 million) from two affiliates and funnelled the money into a firm for investments in stock futures and options in 2008.

The SK Group boss had remained free since he was indicted a year ago.

The energy-to-telecom conglomerate, which includes top mobile carrier SK Telecom, said Chey would appeal the verdict.

It was not Chey's first conviction.

In 2003 he was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in a $1.3 billion accounting fraud. He was released after just seven months and, in 2008, was finally granted a full presidential pardon, wiping his record clean.

It is not unusual for senior executives with convictions for crimes including tax evasion and embezzlement to remain in charge of South Korea's family-dominated conglomerates.

The Seoul Central District Court said in its statement that Chey had betrayed the public trust in his group.

"He should be reproached for using subsidiaries as a tool for his crime," it said.

Chey's younger brother and group vice chairman Chey Jae-Won was acquitted on charges that he was a knowing accomplice to the embezzlement.

South Korea has a long history of pardoning powerful tycoons.

Hyundai Motor head Chung Mong-Koo, who had been convicted of embezzlement and other charges, was pardoned in 2008, and Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-Hee - convicted of tax evasion - was pardoned in 2009.

- AFP/de

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Six Congress MPs from Telangana firm on resignations

HYDERABAD: Six Congress MPs from Telangana on Thursday made it clear that they will not take back their resignations over the delay in formation of a separate state.

The MPs, who met here a day after reports of differences among them, claimed that resignations of seven MPs were Wednesday submitted to party president Sonia Gandhi's office.

However, Madhu Yaskhi Goud, later stated that there is no need for resignations as the party spokesperson has clarified that the party is not against Telangana state.

K. Rajagopal Reddy told reporters that Goud's views were his personal and that the remaining MPs stand by their resignations both from parliament and the party.

He said the resignations along with a letter addressed to Sonia Gandhi were sent to Delhi through Goud and another MP, Ponnam Prabhakar.

Reddy said they had requested Gandhi to accept their resignations if the party was unable to take a decision for formation of Telangana.

"We will continue to put pressure on the leadership till a favourable decision is taken," he added.

Senior leader K. Keshava Rao, at whose residence the meeting was held, said he would send his resignation from the party to Sonia Gandhi. He denied that there were any differences among the members.

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