CDC: 1 in 24 admit nodding off while driving

NEW YORK (AP) — This could give you nightmares: 1 in 24 U.S. adults say they recently fell asleep while driving.

And health officials behind the study think the number is probably higher. That's because some people don't realize it when they nod off for a second or two behind the wheel.

"If I'm on the road, I'd be a little worried about the other drivers," said the study's lead author, Anne Wheaton of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the CDC study released Thursday, about 4 percent of U.S. adults said they nodded off or fell asleep at least once while driving in the previous month. Some earlier studies reached a similar conclusion, but the CDC telephone survey of 147,000 adults was far larger. It was conducted in 19 states and the District of Columbia in 2009 and 2010.

CDC researchers found drowsy driving was more common in men, people ages 25 to 34, those who averaged less than six hours of sleep each night, and — for some unexplained reason — Texans.

Wheaton said it's possible the Texas survey sample included larger numbers of sleep-deprived young adults or apnea-suffering overweight people.

Most of the CDC findings are not surprising to those who study this problem.

"A lot of people are getting insufficient sleep," said Dr. Gregory Belenky, director of Washington State University's Sleep and Performance Research Center in Spokane.

The government estimates that about 3 percent of fatal traffic crashes involve drowsy drivers, but other estimates have put that number as high as 33 percent.

Warning signs of drowsy driving: Feeling very tired, not remembering the last mile or two, or drifting onto rumble strips on the side of the road. That signals a driver should get off the road and rest, Wheaton said.

Even a brief moment nodding off can be extremely dangerous, she noted. At 60 mph, a single second translates to speeding along for 88 feet — the length of two school buses.

To prevent drowsy driving, health officials recommend getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night, treating any sleep disorders and not drinking alcohol before getting behind the wheel.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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Sandy Hook Parents Cope With Students' Return

Sandy Hook parents put their children on school buses this morning and waved goodbye as the yellow bus rolled away, but this first day back since the pre-Christmas massacre is anything but normal for the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Erin Milgram, the mother of a first grader and a fourth grader at Sandy Hook, told "Good Morning America" that she was going to drive behind the bus and stay with her 7-year-old Lauren for the entire school day.

"I haven't gotten that far yet, about not being with them," Milgram said. "I just need to stay with them for a while."

Today is "Opening Day" for Sandy Hook Elementary School, which is re-opening about six miles away in the former Chalk Hill school in Monroe, Conn.

Lauren was in teacher Kaitlin Roig's first grade class on Dec. 14 when gunman Adam Lanza forced his way into the school and killed 20 students and six staffers.

Roig has been hailed a hero for barricading her students in a classroom bathroom and refusing to open the door until authorities could find a key to open the door.

Sandy Hook Elementary School: Ready to Return Watch Video

Newtown, Conn. Students Return to New Sandy Hook Watch Video

The 20 students killed were first-graders and the Milgrams have struggled to explain to Lauren why so many of her friends will never return to school.

"She knows her friends and she'll also see on the bus... there will be some missing on the bus," Milgram said. "We look at yearbook pictures. We try to focus on the happy times because we really don't know what we're doing."

"How could someone be so angry?" Lauren's father Eric Milgram wondered before a long pause. "We don't know."

The school has a lecture room available for parents to stay as long as they wish and they are also allowed to accompany their children to the classroom to help them adjust. Counselors will be available throughout the day for parents, staff and students, according to the school's website.

The first few days will be a delicate balancing act between assessing the children's needs and trying to get them back to a normal routine.

"We don't want to avoid memories of a trauma," Dr. Jamie Howard told "Good Morning America." "And so by getting back to school and by engaging in your routines, we're helping kids to do that, we're helping them to have a natural, healthy recovery to a trauma."

Security is paramount in everyone's mind. There is a police presence on campus and drivers of every vehicle that comes onto campus are being interviewed.

"Our goal is to make it a safe and secure learning environment for these kids to return to, and the teachers also," Monroe police Lt. Keith White said at a news conference on Wednesday.

A "state-of-the-art" security system is in place, but authorities will not go into detail about the system saying only that the school will probably be "the safest school in America."

Every adult in the school who is not immediately recognizable will be required to wear a badge as identification, parent and school volunteer Karen Dryer told ABCNews.com.

"They want to know exactly who you are at sight, whether or not you should be there," Dryer said.

Despite the precautions and preparations, parents will still be coping with the anxiety of parting with their children.

"Rationally, something like this is a very improbable event, but that still doesn't change the emotional side of the way you feel," Eric Milgram said.

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Syria rebels in push to capture air base

AZAZ, Syria (Reuters) - Rebels battled on Thursday to seize an air base in northern Syria, part of a campaign to fight back against the air power that has given President Bashar al-Assad's forces free rein to bomb rebel-held towns.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in the 21-month-old uprising and civil war, the United Nations said this week, sharply raising the death toll estimate in a conflict that shows no sign of ending.

After dramatic advances over the second half of 2012, the rebels now hold wide swathes of territory in the north and east, but are limited in exerting control because they cannot protect towns and villages from Assad's helicopters and jets.

Hundreds of fighters from rebel groups were attempting to storm the Taftanaz air base, near the northern highway that links Syria's two main cities, Aleppo and the capital Damascus.

Rebels have been besieging air bases across the north in recent weeks, in the hope this will reduce the government's power to carry out air strikes and resupply loyalist-held areas.

A rebel fighter speaking from near the Taftanaz base overnight said the base's main sections were still in loyalist hands but insurgents had managed to infiltrate and destroy a helicopter and a fighter jet on the ground.

The northern rebel Idlib Coordination Committee said the rebels had detonated a car bomb inside the base.

The government's SANA news agency said the base had not fallen and that the military had "strongly confronted an attempt by the terrorists to attack the airport from several axes, inflicting heavy losses among them and destroying their weapons and munitions".

Rami Abdulrahman, head of the opposition-aligned Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors the conflict from Britain, said as many as 800 fighters were involved in the assault, including Islamists from Jabhat al-Nusra, a powerful group that Washington considers terrorists.

Taftanaz is mainly a helicopter base, used for missions to resupply army positions in the north, many of which are cut off by road because of rebel gains, as well as for dropping crude "barrel bombs" of explosives on rebel-controlled areas.

"WHAT IS THE FAULT OF THE CHILDREN?"

Near Minakh, another northern air base that rebels have surrounded, government forces have retaliated by regularly shelling and bombing nearby towns.

In the town of Azaz, where the bombardment has become a near nightly occurrence, shells hit a family house overnight. Zeinab Hammadi said her two wounded daughters, aged 10 and 12, had been rushed across the border to Turkey, one with her brain exposed.

"We were sleeping and it just landed on us in the blink of an eye," she said, weeping as she surveyed the damage.

Family members tried to salvage possessions from the wreckage, men lifting out furniture and children carrying out their belongings in tubs.

"He (Assad) wants revenge against the people," said Abu Hassan, 33, working at a garage near the destroyed house. "What is the fault of the children? Are they the ones fighting?"

Opposition activists said warplanes struck a residential building in another rebel-held northern town, Hayyan, killing at least eight civilians.

Video footage showed men carrying dismembered bodies of children and dozens of people searching for victims in the rubble of the destroyed building, shouting "God is greatest". The provenance of the video could not be independently confirmed.

In addition to their tenuous grip on the north, the rebels also hold a crescent of suburbs on the edge of Damascus, which have come under bombardment by government forces that control the center of the capital.

On Wednesday, according to opposition activists, dozens of people were incinerated in an inferno caused by an air strike on a petrol station in a Damascus suburb where residents were lining up for precious fuel.

The civil war in Syria has become the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts that rose out of uprisings across the Arab world in the past two years.

Assad's family has ruled for 42 years since his father seized power in a coup. The war pits rebels, mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority, against a government supported by members of Assad's Shi'ite-derived Alawite minority sect and some members of other minorities who fear revenge if he falls.

The West, most Sunni-ruled Arab states and Turkey have called for Assad to leave power. He is supported by Russia and Shi'ite Iran.

(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman and Dominic Evans in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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British PM dismisses Argentina's Falklands demands

LONDON: British Prime Minister David Cameron dismissed Thursday a renewed call by Argentinian President Cristina Kirchner for Britain to return the disputed Falkland Islands.

Cameron said the 3,000 residents of the South Atlantic archipelago had a strong desire to remain British and would have a chance to express their views in a referendum on their political status this year.

A spokesman for the legislative assembly of the islands, which are known as Las Malvinas in Spanish, confirmed the vote would take place on March 10 and 11.

In an open letter addressed to Cameron and published as a paid advert in two British newspapers, Kirchner said the islands were "forcibly stripped" from Argentina exactly 180 years ago on Thursday, "in a blatant exercise of 19th-century colonialism".

"Since then, Britain, the colonial power, has refused to return the territories to the Argentine Republic, thus preventing it from restoring its territorial integrity," she wrote.

But Cameron said that the future of the islands "should be determined by the Falkland Islanders themselves".

"Whenever they have been asked their opinion, they say they want to maintain their current status with the United Kingdom," he added.

"They're holding a referendum this year and I hope the president of Argentina will listen to that referendum and recognise it is for the Falkland Islanders to choose their future.

"As long as they choose to stay with the United Kingdom, they have my 100 per cent backing."

Barry Elsby, a member of the islands' elected legislative assembly, also rejected Kirchner's demands, saying: "We are not a colony -- our relationship with the United Kingdom is by choice.

"Unlike the government of Argentina, the United Kingdom respects the right of our people to determine our own affairs, a right that is enshrined in the UN Charter and which is ignored by Argentina."

Tensions between Britain and Argentina rose last year on the 30th anniversary of their short but bloody war for control of the islands, which left 255 British soldiers and 649 Argentinian troops dead.

Cameron and Kirchner publicly clashed over the issue at the G20 summit last June in Mexico, and the British prime minister used his recent Christmas message to the Falklands to accuse Argentina of denying islanders their rights.

Kirchner said the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in 1965 which considered the islands as a case of colonialism and invited Britain and Argentina to hold talks on their disputed claims.

"In the name of the Argentine people, I reiterate our invitation for us to abide by the resolutions of the United Nations," she wrote in the letter, which was copied to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

In her letter, Kirchner accuses Britain of expelling the Argentines from the islands when it took control in 1833 and beginning a "population implantation process similar to that applied to other territories under colonial rule".

She adds that the Falkland issue is "a cause embraced by Latin America and by a vast majority of peoples and governments around the world that reject colonialism".

Kirchner's account of how Britain seized the Falklands differs with that detailed on the Foreign Office website, which suggests London first claimed sovereignty in 1765.

- AFP/jc

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Navy set to issue tender for new submarines

NEW DELHI: The Indian Navy is set to "very soon" issue a RfP (request for proposal or tender) for a new line of six submarines with AIP (air independent propulsion) capability.

The requirement has been pending for quite a few years but the proposal for the new line, designated Project 75-I, has now being given firm clearance by the government, according to Indian Navy chief, Admiral DK Joshi.

Asked how soon is "very soon," the naval chief told India Strategic defence magazine (www.indiastrategic.in) that the defence acquisition committee (DAC) had already cleared a note on acceptance of necessity (AON), the navy had finalized the RfP and it was in its last stage of formalities for clearance in the defence ministry.

As per procedures, depending on the money involved, AON has to be cleared by a competent authority. If the requirement involves more than Rs 1,000 crores ($200 million ), then it is by the DAC, headed by the defence minister. The approval was accorded just before the Navy Day on December 4, 2012.

AIP increases the mission life of a submarine by around three times, depending upon the task and parameters required. The capability enables a submarine to generate air onboard without the need to surface for breathing to recharge its batteries.

At present, none of the Indian submarines have this capability, and some of them can only be under water for only three to five days. The existing fleet of 14 diesel-electric submarines is rather weak despite the periodic upgrades, although some newer EW (electronic warfare) systems have been installed.

Submarines are about staying underwater as long as possible, and that is why nuclear power is used to keep them submerged for around three months, or to the limits of human endurance.

The new Project 75-I submarines should be huge in value, estimated at around $10 billion-plus, depending upon the offsets and transfer of technology (ToT).

At present, six new Scorpenes under Project 75 are being built for more than 5% billion (Rs 23,562 crore) by the state-run Mazagon Dock Ltd. (MDL) under licence from the French DCNS company.

MDL is also hoping to get the new Project 75-I line but it has substantial work in hand for years — 14 ships in addition to the six Scorpenes. The experience gained in building the Scorpenes though should be extremely useful and must not get wasted.

AIP is also being considered for the last two of the existing line of Scorpenes by installing plugs — about eight meters in length and the same diameter as that of the submarine. Admiral Joshi said that the (Defence Research and Development Organisation) DRDO was working on building these plugs, but that if this entailed delay, "we will not wait".

The Scorpene project is already late by three years, with the first submarine scheduled to be out in June 2015 — instead of 2012 — and the last in September 2018.

DCNS has offered to build the plugs and some negotiations have taken place with it. Nonetheless, DRDO's Naval Materials Research Laboratory (NMRL) at Ambernath in Maharashtra is working on the project to bring in some indigenous capability and content.

About the Project 75-I, defence ministry sources said that its Department of Defence Production was working on fine-tuning some features like Who-Will-Do-What among the Indian shipyards and the suppliers in terms of sub-systems and weapons. Details on offsets and ToT, which have a sizeable bearing on the costs, are also being given the last touches.

Notably, the defence offsets policy mandates a minimum investment of 30 per cent to be put back in a related defence industrial venture in India, but in the biggest defence contract that is now being negotiated for the French Rafale multi role combat aircraft (MRCA), this figure is 50 per cent.

As per indications, the RfP for the submarines should be out even in January 2013, or latest by March before the financial year 2012-13 ends.

The Indian Navy's current fleet of conventional diesel-electric submarines is quite old.

There are four HDW Shishumar class submarines acquired from Germany and 10 Kilo Sindhughosh class from Russia, both from 1986 onwards. The service life of a submarine is estimated at around 20 years, but because of political indecision after the allegations over the purchase of Bofors guns from Sweden, the modernization process of the Navy — along with that of the Army and Indian Air Force — suffered.

In 1998, the then naval chief, Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, projected a requirement of a 24-submarine fleet in the navy's long-term vision for 30 years. In 1999, the Cabinet committee on security (CCS) — the apex body headed by the prime minister — approved the plan for their indigenous construction in two lines.

The Scorpenes are being built in India to gain experience and indigenous support capability. India had gained some earlier with the induction of HDW boats but as there was no follow-on programme, that experience was lost and all those involved in the project have retired.

The only direct submarine acquisition of the Indian Navy after the HDW and Kilo submarines is that of the single nuclear power attack submarine (SSN) INS Chakra from Russia in 2012. There are also some technical issues with it, and during his recent to New Delhi, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to have them sorted out ASAP.

An SSN is a nuclear propelled but not nuclear armed submarine. The conventionally-powered diesel electric submarines are knows as the SSK class.

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Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating

This is your brain on sugar — for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.

After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.

It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role. These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.

All sugars are not equal — even though they contain the same amount of calories — because they are metabolized differently in the body. Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim. And doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.

For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.

Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food," said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said. "As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn't turned off."

What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health & Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.

"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell. He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers now are testing obese people to see if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in this study did.

What to do? Cook more at home and limit processed foods containing fructose and high-fructose corn syrup, Purnell suggested. "Try to avoid the sugar-sweetened beverages. It doesn't mean you can't ever have them," but control their size and how often they are consumed, he said.

A second study in the journal suggests that only severe obesity carries a high death risk — and that a few extra pounds might even provide a survival advantage. However, independent experts say the methods are too flawed to make those claims.

The study comes from a federal researcher who drew controversy in 2005 with a report that found thin and normal-weight people had a slightly higher risk of death than those who were overweight. Many experts criticized that work, saying the researcher — Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — painted a misleading picture by including smokers and people with health problems ranging from cancer to heart disease. Those people tend to weigh less and therefore make pudgy people look healthy by comparison.

Flegal's new analysis bolsters her original one, by assessing nearly 100 other studies covering almost 2.9 million people around the world. She again concludes that very obese people had the highest risk of death but that overweight people had a 6 percent lower mortality rate than thinner people. She also concludes that mildly obese people had a death risk similar to that of normal-weight people.

Critics again have focused on her methods. This time, she included people too thin to fit what some consider to be normal weight, which could have taken in people emaciated by cancer or other diseases, as well as smokers with elevated risks of heart disease and cancer.

"Some portion of those thin people are actually sick, and sick people tend to die sooner," said Donald Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The problems created by the study's inclusion of smokers and people with pre-existing illness "cannot be ignored," said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.

A third critic, Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, was blunter: "This is an even greater pile of rubbish" than the 2005 study, he said. Willett and others have done research since the 2005 study that found higher death risks from being overweight or obese.

Flegal defended her work. She noted that she used standard categories for weight classes. She said statistical adjustments were made for smokers, who were included to give a more real-world sample. She also said study participants were not in hospitals or hospices, making it unlikely that large numbers of sick people skewed the results.

"We still have to learn about obesity, including how best to measure it," Flegal's boss, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, said in a written statement. "However, it's clear that being obese is not healthy - it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems. Small, sustainable increases in physical activity and improvements in nutrition can lead to significant health improvements."

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Online:

Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Mike Stobbe can be followed at http://twitter.com/MikeStobbe

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Lawmakers Furious at Boehner Over Sandy 'Betrayal'

Republican lawmakers from New York and New Jersey whose storm-ravaged residents are desperate for federal aid are fuming at their party's leaders for refusing to hold a vote on a $60 billion disaster relief package despite promises that help was on the way.

"This was a betrayal," Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., told ABC News.com. "It's just reprehensible. It's an indefensible error in judgment not have given relief to these people that are so devastated."

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, called it a "dereliction of duty" in a joint statement with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat.

"This failure to come to the aid of Americans following a severe and devastating natural disaster is unprecedented," the governors said.

Lawmakers were told by Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, that the relief bill would get a vote on Tuesday night following an eleventh hour vote on the fiscal cliff bill. But in an unexpected switch, Boehner refused to put the relief bill to a vote, leading to lawmakers from parties yelling on the floor of the House.

Congress historically has responded to natural disasters by promptly funding relief efforts. The Senate already passed its version of the bill that would replenish an emergency fund set to run out of cash next week and which will help repair subways and tunnels in New York City and rebuild parts of the New Jersey shore devastated by superstorm Sandy.

Time is particularly pressing, given that a new Congress will be sworn in Thursday. The Senate will therefore have to vote on the bill again before it comes to the House, which could be as late as February or March.

Boos as House Adjourns Without Hurricane Sandy Relief Watch Video

'Fiscal Cliff' Deal Passes House Despite GOP Holdouts Watch Video

Rep. Peter King, R- N.Y., took the floor of the House and to the airwaves and aimed his outrage squarely at Boehner, accusing him plunging "a cruel knife in the back" of storm-ravaged residents "who don't have shelter, don't have food," he said during a House session this morning.

"This is not the United States. This should not be the Republican Party. This shouldn't not be the Republican leadership," King said on the floor of the House.

He made no attempt to hide his anger, suggesting that residents in New York and New Jersey should stop sending money to Republicans and even questioning aloud whether he could remain a member of the party.

"Anyone who donates one cent to the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee should have their head examined," King, a staunch conservative and Republican congressman for 10 years, told CNN.

"They have written off New York and New Jersey. They've written me off…. Party loyalty, I'm over that. When your people are literally freezing in the winter… Then why should I help the Republican Party?" he added.

He said that Boehner refused to talk to Republican members from New York and New Jersey when they tried to ask him about the vote Tuesday night.

"He just decided to sneak off in the dark of night," King said.

Democrats were also outraged.

"It is truly heartless that the House will not even allow the Sandy bill to come to the floor for a vote, and Speaker Boehner should reconsider his ill advised decision," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D- N.Y., said in a statement.

October's storm was the worst natural disaster ever to hit the region, causing billions in damage and leaving 120 people dead.

More than 130,000 people are expected to make claims to the federal government, but without a funding increase only about 12,000 people can be covered with existing funds.

"It doesn't make sense they wouldn't vote on this. There are truly people in need," said Steve Greenberg, whose home was flooded and damaged by fire in the hard-hit Breezy Point section of Queens. "Not of these people are fit to serve," he said.

Grimm said Boehner's decision fuels a perception that the Republican Party does not care about people.

"It buys into the ideology that Republicans don't care and are callous," he said. Grimm said there were enough votes to get the bill passed and that it makes fiscal sense, because the money would go to help spur small businesses.

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U.N. lifts Syria death toll to "truly shocking" 60,000

AMMAN/GENEVA (Reuters) - More than 60,000 people have died in Syria's uprising and civil war, the United Nations said on Wednesday, dramatically raising the death toll in a struggle that shows no sign of ending.

In the latest violence, dozens were killed in a rebellious Damascus suburb when a government air strike turned a petrol station into an inferno, incinerating drivers who had rushed there for a rare chance to fill their tanks, activists said.

"I counted at least 30 bodies. They were either burnt or dismembered," said Abu Saeed, an activist who arrived in the area an hour after the 1 p.m. (1100 GMT) raid in Muleiha, a suburb on the eastern edge of the capital.

U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said in Geneva that researchers cross-referencing seven sources over five months of analysis had listed 59,648 people killed in Syria between March 15, 2011 and November 30, 2012.

"The number of casualties is much higher than we expected and is truly shocking," she said. "Given that there has been no let-up in the conflict since the end of November, we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013."

There was no breakdown by ethnicity or information about whether the dead were rebels, soldiers or civilians. There was also no estimate of an upper limit of the possible toll.

Previously, the opposition-linked Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group put the toll at around 45,000 confirmed dead but said the real number was likely to be higher.

FATAL RUSH FOR PETROL

Muleiha, the target of Wednesday's air strike, is a residential and industrial area in the eastern Ghouta region of Damascus that also houses a Syrian air defense base.

Video footage taken by activists showed the body of a man in a helmet still perched on a motorcycle amid flames engulfing the scene. Another man was shown carrying a dismembered body.

The video could not be verified. The government bars access to the Damascus area to most international media.

The activists said rockets were fired from the base at the petrol station and a nearby residential area after the air raid.

"Until the raid, Muleiha was quiet. We have been without petrol for four days and people from the town and the countryside rushed to the station when a state consignment came in," Abu Fouad, another activist at the scene, said by phone.

In Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad's forces fired artillery and mortars at the eastern districts of Douma, Harasta, Irbin and Zamlaka, where rebels are active, activists living there said.

Assad's forces control the centre of the capital, while rebels and their sympathizers hold a ring of southern and eastern suburbs that are often hit from the air.

The Observatory said a separate air strike killed 12 members of a family, most of them children, in Moadamiyeh, a southwestern district near the centre of Damascus where rebels have fought for a foothold.

The family of an American freelance journalist, James Foley, 39, said on Wednesday he had been missing in Syria since being kidnapped six weeks ago by gunmen. No group has publicly claimed responsibility for his abduction.

Syria was by far the most dangerous country for journalists in 2012, with 28 killed there.

The conflict began in March 2011 with peaceful protests against four decades of Assad family rule and turned into an armed revolt after months of government repression.

Insurgents trying to topple Assad see his air power as their main threat. They hold swathes of eastern and northern provinces, as well as some outlying parts of Damascus, but have been unable to protect their territory from relentless attack by helicopters and jets.

In the north, rebels, some from Islamist units, attacked the Afis military airport near Taftanaz air base, firing machineguns and mortars at helicopters on the ground to try and make a dent in Assad's air might, the Observatory said.

The al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham Brigade and other units in northwestern Idlib province were attacking the base, which is near the main north-south highway linking Damascus to Aleppo, Syria's biggest city, the Observatory said.

In recent months, rebel units have besieged military bases, especially along the highway, Syria's main artery.

The Observatory's director, Rami Abdelrahman, said the attack was the latest of several attempts to capture the base. A satellite image of the airport shows more than 40 helicopter landing pads, a runway and aircraft hangars.

Syrian state media gave no immediate account of the Damascus air strikes or the fighting in the north.

"FOR GOD'S EYES"

Both sides have been accused of committing atrocities in the 21-month-old conflict, but the United Nations says the government and its allies have been more culpable.

In the latest evidence of atrocities, Internet video posted by Syrian rebels shows armed men, apparently fighters loyal to Assad, stabbing two men to death and stoning them with concrete blocks in a summary execution lasting several minutes.

Reuters could not verify the provenance of the footage or the identity of the perpetrators and their victims. The video was posted on Tuesday but it was not clear where or when it was filmed. However it does clearly show a summary execution and torture, apparently being carried out by government supporters.

At one point, one of the perpetrators says: "For God's eyes and your Lord, O Bashar," an Arabic incantation suggesting actions being carried out in the leader's name.

The video was posted on YouTube by the media office of the Damascus-based rebel First Brigade, which said it had been taken from a captured member of the shabbiha pro-government militia.

The perpetrators show off for the camera, smiling for close-up shots, slicing at the victims' backs, then stabbing them and bashing them with large slabs of masonry.

Syria's civil war is the longest and deadliest conflict to emerge from uprisings that began sweeping the Arab world in 2011 and has developed a significant sectarian element.

Rebels, mostly from the Sunni Muslim majority, confront Assad's army and security forces, dominated by his Shi'ite-derived Alawite sect, which, along with some other minorities, fears revenge if he falls.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alistair Lyon/Mark Heinrich)

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US cliff deal to slow growth: economists

WASHINGTON: The political deal to pull the US away from the "fiscal cliff" will still hit economic growth and efforts to generate jobs, economists said Wednesday, but the country will avoid a feared recession.

Although not as severe as they could have been, Congress and the White House agreed tax increases on the country's wealthiest two per cent and higher paycheck deductions for all workers that will suck enough money out of the economy to significantly hold back growth in 2013, they said.

Moreover, politicians still face a battle over cutting federal spending -- put off for two months in the wrangling over the cliff deal finally passed Tuesday -- that could further crunch the economy this year.

That means more tepid expansion of gross domestic product this year, with equally slow job creation as in 2012, by most estimates.

"We are looking at growth of 1.7 per cent, somewhere around there," after around 2.0 per cent GDP growth in 2012, said Gregory Daco of IHS Global Insight.

But that is better than what could have been if Democrats and Republicans had failed to agree on legislation to avoid the much larger programmed tax hikes of the cliff, he said.

"If nothing had happened... we would have been in a recession."

The biggest impact will be an increase in how much employees see deducted from their paychecks for social security: after having been cut to stimulate growth in recent years, the rate goes back to 6.2 per cent from 4.2 per cent.

Daco estimated that will pull US$113 billion out of the economy -- money that mostly would have otherwise been spent on goods and services.

"That is the measure that is going to hit the most people," he told AFP -- by itself cutting 0.4 per cent from potential growth.

An increase in tax rates for Americans earning over US$400,000, to 39.6 per cent from 35 per cent, will not have as large an impact, he said: "A dollar for them is not the same as a dollar for someone earning US$50,000."

Economist Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics said the tax increases and spending cuts still to be agreed will take about one percentage point from what could have been, had the 2012 tax rates and spending plans stayed in place.

"The result is that the US economy will grow just over 2 per cent in 2013, about the same as in 2012," Zandi said.

In addition, he added, it will hold back job creation, "with 700,000 fewer net new jobs created and an unemployment rate about half a percentage point higher than it would have been if last year's policy had simply been extended."

Gregory Michael of BMO Capital Markets said the impact would be larger -- cutting 1.4 per cent from potential GDP growth.

"Nearly half of this restraint reflects the increase in payroll taxes, one third represents the delayed automatic spending cuts and the remainder reflects all other measures including higher tax rates for those making more than US$400,000."

Economists said that despite the deal on tax hikes, the looming political fight over short- and long-term spending reduction will continue to worry businesses, which could continue to hold off on investment and hiring as they did in 2012.

"There's still a lot of uncertainty in the economy," said Daco. "Businesses are not yet in the full-confidence mode."

- AFP/jc

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FIR against BJP MP from Gujarat for slapping doctor on duty

AMRELI (GUJARAT): An FIR was lodged on Tuesday against Naran Kachadiya, a BJP MP from Amreli, for allegedly slapping a government doctor on duty and threatening to kill him, police said.

The incident took place on Tuesday morning at Amreli Civil Hospital here, where one of the relatives of Kachadiya is undergoing treatment, they said.

The victim, identified as Dr Bhimji Dabhi has lodged the FIR against the MP.

"A relative of Kachadiya is being treated at the trauma centre of the civil hospital here. After tending to the MP's relative, Dr Dabhi went to attend an emergency case," police said.

Since he was busy with the new patient, Dabhi declined to attend the MP's phone call stating that he was on duty, they added.

Angered by this, Kachadiya soon came to the hospital along with his 15 followers and slapped the doctor, police said, adding that he also gave him life threats.

However, when contacted, Kachadiya claimed that he neither slapped the doctor nor threatened him.

"There was a verbal altercation between me and the doctor, but allegations that I slapped him are false and I have neither given any threats to him," Kachadiya told PTI over phone.

The MP alleged that the doctors at the civil hospital were not giving proper medical treatment to poor patients.

"Poor people come to the Civil Hospital for treatment. However, people complained to me that doctors are not treating patients from 9am to 2pm," he said.

"When one of the women patients called me on my phone, I asked her to give the phone to doctor, who refused to talk saying he did not want to talk to any MLA or MP. I told the patient that I would reach the hospital in five minutes," he added.

"When I came to the hospital, I saw over 25 patients sitting in the lobby waiting to be treated. I met the doctor in his office and he said that he did not want to talk to me," Kachadiya said, adding that there was only an altercation between the two.

The doctor has filed an FIR against Kachadiya under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

When asked why he did not file a cross-complaint against the doctor, the MP said, "I don't want to file a complaint against the doctor. I am a public representative".

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