Category: news

Violent protests have taken place in Andhra Pradesh

Supporters of a new state have begun a two-day strike in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh state in India.

It follows mass resignations by legislators over their demand for the creation of a new state.

So far, 81 legislators from the ruling Congress and opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) have quit the state assembly. Ten MPs have also resigned from the national parliament.

Andhra Pradesh saw violent protests for and against the proposal last year.

With a population of 40 million, the proposed Telangana state comprises 10 of Andhra Pradesh’s 23 districts, including the state capital and India’s sixth most populous city, Hyderabad.

Security is tight in the region, including in Hyderabad.

Schools, colleges, businesses and government offices are shut in the Telangana region, and traffic is thin, says the BBC’s Omer Farooq in Hyderabad.

Pro-Telangana activists have planned more protests and disruption of train services after the strike ends on Wednesday, reports say.

Correspondents say Monday’s resignations could destabilise the Congress government in the southern state.

Forty-two of the party’s 167 lawmakers have submitted their resignations to the deputy speaker of the assembly. They include 11 ministers.

Telangana

Population of 40 millionComprises 10 districts of Andhra Pradesh, including city of HyderabadLandlocked, predominantly agricultural areaOne of the most under-developed regions in India50-year campaign for separate statusMore than 400 people died in 1969 crackdown

All the legislators who have resigned belong to the Telangana region – there are 118 lawmakers in the 294-seat assembly who belong to the area.

And the party leading the demand for statehood, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), is sticking to its position.

Opponents of the move are unhappy that Hyderabad, home to many major information technology and pharmaceutical companies, could become Telangana’s new capital.

The final decision on a new state lies with the Indian parliament. But the state assembly must also pass a resolution approving its creation.

Deep divisions have emerged over the Telangana issue in the past year.

In December 2009, India’s Congress party-led government promised that the new state would be formed, but later said more talks were needed.

The announcement prompted widespread protests in the state, and a student committed suicide in support of the formation of Telangana.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Patrick Corrigan said women do not feel safe enough to approach police

The PSNI could do more to help victims of sex trafficking, the head of Amnesty International in Ireland has said

Patrick Corrigan said the police are letting victims down because they don’t feel safe enough to go to court.

“There are things that could be done here. We can better protect the women and we can better prosecute the offenders,” he said.

His remarks follow a BBC investigation that found up to £500,000 every week is spent on prostitution in NI.

Police estimate there are 88 brothels in operation, with Northern Ireland having a higher demand for prostitution than most other areas of Europe.

The brothels are usually run by local gangs, including paramillitaries, but there are also foreign groups.

Many of the women working in the brothels have been trafficked from abroad. They are held captive and forced into prostitution.

Mr Corrigan said men who willingly pay for sex with these women should face charges of rape.

“I think that it is a case of rape when it is clear to the person buying their services that that woman is there under false pretences or under threat of violence,” he added.

“I think those men are potentially responsible for rape. That is what it feels like on the receiving end.”

However, Mr Corrigan admitted successfully prosecuting these men would be “extremely difficult”.

Millions are spent in 88 brothels in Northern Ireland

“Obviously this is a very underground crime. These women are terrified of the people who have put them in that position and terrified of being sent back to their countries of origin.

“I think those women are not yet properly receiving assurance that they will be safe and protected in order that they can freely co-operate with authorities and help bring forward prosecutions.”

The problem is most evident in Belfast, but other towns and cities – such as Londonderry, Antrim, Enniskillen, Portadown and Bangor – are known to have brothels.

The gangs can make millions of pounds in a year by exploiting women they have brought to Northern Ireland illegally.

The PSNI have broken up some of the prostitution rings and rescued dozens of women from the sex trade over the last couple of years.

However, every day, new women are being brought in from abroad and often the women are so traumatised by their experiences they can’t help the police bring convictions against the gangs.

PSNI Detective Inspector Douglas Grant said the public needed to know the full extent of the problem.

“There’s a significant demand in Northern Ireland for prostitutes and that’s larger than other parts of the UK and Europe,” he said.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Ghulam Nabi Azad says gay sex is a ‘disease’

India’s health minister has said homosexuality is a “disease” which is “spreading fast” in the country.

Ghulam Nabi Azad also told a meeting that gay sex was “unnatural”. Activists said his comments were “unfortunate”.

India’s Supreme Court decriminalised gay sex in the country in a landmark judgement in 2009.

The ruling was widely welcomed by India’s gay community, which said the order would help protect them from harassment and persecution.

Mr Azad told a meeting on HIV/Aids in Delhi on Monday that gay sex “which was found more in the developed world, has now unfortunately come to our country and there is a substantial number of such people in India”.

“Even through it [homosexuality] is unnatural, it exists in our country and is now fast spreading, making it tough to detect it,” he said.

“With relationships changing, men are having sex with men now. Though it is easy to find women sex workers and educate them on sex, it is a challenge to identify men having sex with men.”

Gay rights activists have criticised Mr Azad’s comments.

“It’s unfortunate, regrettable and totally unacceptable that a minister of his stature… is still insensitive to a vulnerable groups such as MSM [men who have sex with men],” Hindustan Times newspaper quoted Anand Grover, United Nation’s special rapporteur on health, as saying.

According to one estimate, more than 8% of homosexual men in India were infected with HIV, compared to a less than 1% infection rate in the general population.

The 2009 Supreme Court ruling overturned a 148-year-old colonial law which described a same-sex relationship as an “unnatural offence”.

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Christine Lagarde is the first woman to head the IMF since it was created in 1944

Christine Lagarde, France’s former finance minister, takes over as head of the International Monetary Fund later.

The first woman to head the IMF, she was picked by its 24-member board.

The post became vacant after the resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn following his arrest in New York in May. He denies sexual assault charges.

Ms Lagarde beat Mexico’s Agustin Carstens to the job, receiving support from the EU, US and emerging market nations China, India and Brazil.

Announcing its decision last week, the IMF board said it had regarded both candidates as highly suitable for the job, but had decided on Ms Lagarde “by consensus”.

Ms Lagarde takes the helm of the IMF at time of heightened global financial nerves, says the BBC’s Jonny Dymond in Washington.

The fund is up to its elbows in the Euro-crisis and directly involved in bailing out debt-stricken Greece, while keeping a close eye on other Euro-area countries in difficulties, he says.

Perhaps the first task of her five-year term will be to deal with the efforts of the IMF and European Union to resolve the Greek debt crisis and prevent contagion to other Eurozone economies.

In a television interview after her appointment, Ms Lagarde pressed Greece to move quickly to push through unpopular austerity measures that the IMF and EU had said were a prerequisite for further aid. Greece subsequently approved the measures.

But there are others worries too, adds our correspondent; the global economy seems badly off balance, with high inflation in China, sluggish growth in the US and Europe and a risk of overheating in some developing economies.

Although Ms Lagarde is the first woman to become managing director since the IMF was created in 1944, she maintains the tradition that the post is held by a European.

It has been convention that Europe gets the IMF, while an American gets the top job at the World Bank.

After her appointment, Ms Lagarde said her “overriding goal” would be that the IMF “continues to serve its entire membership”.

“As I have had the opportunity to say to the IMF board during the selection process, the IMF must be relevant, responsive, effective and legitimate, to achieve stronger and sustainable growth, macroeconomic stability and a better future for all.”

She also said she wanted to unify the IMF’s staff of 2,500 employees and 800 economists and restore their confidence in the organisation.

Before becoming France’s finance minister in June 2007, she was minister for foreign trade for two years.

Prior to moving into politics, Ms Lagarde, a former champion swimmer, was an anti-trust and employment lawyer in the US.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Social care in England needs to be revamped, an independent review says

The government is under pressure to consider tax rises and further spending cuts to find the money to pay for the overhaul of social care.

An independent review has recommended individual costs be capped at £35,000 – a move which would cost £1.7bn a year.

Ministers have said they will consider the proposals, but the Treasury is known to have reservations.

However, both the Dilnot Commission and campaigners are preparing to keep the pressure on in the coming months.

Commission chairman Andrew Dilnot is urging ministers to act quickly and consider ways extra funds could be found.

After launching his report on Monday, he said he wanted to see the government come forward with a white paper by Easter, paving the way for the introduction of the new system by the end of this parliament.

Meetings are now being planned with officials about how his proposals would work in practice.

He is said to be confident that he will be able to win the argument and wants to use the next few months to “build momentum” around his plans.

In a warning to ministers, he said if they did not act before Easter the commission’s feelings would move “quickly to disappointment”.

His case is being strengthened by having widespread support from charities – some of whom are involved in delivering social care services.

More than 20 charities, including Carers UK and Mencap, immediately put their names to a joint statement calling for action.

It said: “It is now vital that government sets out a clear timetable for change and does so quickly.”

Many of them will also be seeking talks with government in the coming months.

A number of options are being put forward for finding the money.

These include taking money from other departments as the £1.7bn represents just 0.25% of total government spending.

Some argue a precedent has already been set for this as the NHS is earmarking £1bn a year from its £100bn-plus budget by 2014 to boost services which overlap with social care.

It will also be argued that improving social care will help save the NHS money as fewer people will need expensive hospital treatment if they get better access to social care.

However, raising more through taxes or the benefits system will also be put forward.

An analysis from Age UK setting out how this could be done has already been handed over to the Treasury.

It includes suggestions such as making those working past the normal retirement age pay national insurance contributions. This would raise £3bn a year.

Alternatively a 0.25% rise in contributions across the board would make a similar amount.

Meanwhile, £2bn could be found by either increasing the basic rate of income tax by 0.25%, VAT by 0.5% or reducing pension tax relief.

For any of these to happen, cross-party support would almost certainly be needed.

The Labour party has already indicated it would be willing to enter talks.

But doubts still remain about the appetite for change.

In his official response to the Dilnot Commission, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said the proposals would be “carefully considered”.

But he acknowledged they would involve “significant cost” and need to be balanced against other funding priorities.

A spokeswoman for the Treasury refused to be drawn on any of the suggestions.

But she said officials would welcome “constructive engagement from all stakeholders”.

Michelle Mitchell, of Age UK, said: “The government now needs to act on Andrew Dilnot’s proposals. Delay would be indefensible.”

And Richard Humphries, of the King’s Fund health think-tank, added: “A solution must be found.

“What we are talking about is a relatively small proportion of government spending.”

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Twin pregnancies carry risks for mother and babies

Experts say they have found a way to avoid the increased risk of twins that comes with having IVF without reducing the fertility procedure’s success rate.

Internationally, clinics often transfer more than one embryo per IVF cycle to boost the odds of it working.

But this is riskier for both mother and child and governments, including the UK, recommend single embryo transfer.

Now doctors say they can predict who will get pregnant with one embryo, and so only transfer more where essential.

At a meeting of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) in Stockholm, experts heard how running through a simple checklist of questions about the patient could bring down the risk of causing twins to virtually “normal”.

In other words, women undergoing IVF would have a one-in-50 or two per cent chance of having a twin – the same as women conceiving naturally.

Currently, multiple births account for over 20% of IVF births in the UK.

UK fertility regulator the HFEA says clinics must bring this down to no more than 15% and, ultimately, it aims to cut this to 10%.

Dr Jan Holte of the Uppsala Science Park, who led the latest research, says the UK could learn from the experience of clinics in Sweden.

Over a four-year period between 1999 and 2002, Dr Holte and his colleagues analysed over 3,000 of the IVF cycles performed at their clinic, taking note of different factors that played a role in the treatment’s success.

They found four factors – age of the woman, how many eggs she produced, quality of the resultant embryo and past success or failure with IVF – could predict the chances of pregnancy.

Using the information, they were able to strike a balance between making sure the treatment worked and reducing the twin rate by only transferring more than one embryo when absolutely essential.

In this way they were able to get their twin rate down from 26% to two per cent.

And, importantly, this meant better outcomes for the patients involved. Fewer babies were born prematurely and the baby death rate before, during or shortly after birth was more than halved.

Another clinic in Sweden has had similar success using the model, and now three more have started to use it.

Dr Holte said: “These improved outcomes were entirely due to the lower rate of twins.”

Tony Rutherford of the British Fertility Society said: “This shows that you can get the twin rate back down towards almost normal, and so taking away the risk of multiple pregnancy from assisted reproduction treatment. That is an important step forward.”

Richard Kennedy of the International Federation of Fertility Societies said: “Multiple pregnancy is a global and avoidable issue with IVF.

“Fertility specialists are continually looking for ways of transferring as few embryos as possible, while maintaining the success rates of the IVF cycle.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has addressed cheering supporters from the balcony of the presidential palace in Caracas following his return from Cuba.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

The Duchess and Duke of Cambridge flew to Prince Edward Island from the French-speaking province of Quebec

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will compete against each other in a dragon boat race on Monday.

The couple have been given the job of steering their teams to victory as they cross a lake in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island.

Prince William and his wife Kate are spending the fifth day of their first official overseas tour on the island.

The duke will also take part in a Sea King helicopter training session during the visit.

The island is known as the home of Anne of Green Gables, a fictional character said to be a favourite of the duchess.

Clarence House has said it expects the visit to Prince Edward Island be a focal point for well-wishers from across the Maritimes provinces.

Prince William and his wife Kate began their visit at Canada’s second oldest active legislature building – Province House. Province House was the site of the Charlottetown conference in 1864, at which the idea of the nation of Canada was born.

They will then travel to Dalvay by the Sea, where Prince William, an RAF search and rescue helicopter pilot, will join his Canadian counterparts for a demonstration of landing a Sea King helicopter on water.

Canada is the only country which trains its Sea King pilots to perform such landings and Prince William requested the exercise.

The Duke and Duchess will steer teams of professional dragon boat racers and local athletes across Dalvay Lake, before taking part in a traditional ceremony led by Mi’Kmaq chiefs.

They will participate in a search and rescue exercise at Summerside Harbour before leaving for Canada’s Northwest Territories, arriving at Yellowknife Airport at 1940 local time (0240 BST).

In Quebec City on Sunday, the royal couple took part in an interfaith prayer service on the HMCS Montreal, before being met by dignitaries including Konrad Sioui, Grand Chief of the Council of the Huron-Wendat nation.

The couple visited a centre that helps homeless youths and attended a military ceremony to honour the Royal 22nd Regiment of Canada at a Freedom of the City ceremony at Quebec City Hall.

There was a small anti-monarchy protest a few streets away but it was drowned out by 2,000 well-wishers who lined a square around the hall.

The separatist group Reseau de Resistance du Quebecois, or Quebecker Resistance Network carried signs saying: “Pay your own way” and “The monarchy, it’s over”.

The couple’s final formal event of the day before they left for Prince Edward Island was to meet war veterans and small children dressed in period uniform as British soldiers, at Fort-de-Levis.

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This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.