Football Star Manti Te'o Faces Tough Questions

Notre Dame's star linebackerManti Te'o faces a problem bigger than any running back he's had to bring down.

As the elaborate hoax about his dead "girlfriend" unravels, many questions remain to be answered, chief among them whether he was complicit in promoting the dramatic story of his girlfriend's death from leukemia. Te'o may soon be forced to tackle those questions himself.

"A lot of people are very suspicious when Te'o says he had no idea and he was just a sucker in this," Deadspin writer Timothy Burke said on "Good Morning America" today. "Why would somebody go to such great lengths to hoax him like that?"

Click here for 'Catfish' stars' advice on online dating.

Burke's Deadspin story broke the scandal, forcing Te'o and Notre Dame to admit the girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, never existed. Notre Dame claims that Te'o is the victim of a "cruel hoax."

"[Notre Dame is] sticking to his story and they're going to, I think, fight and make every sort of attempt they can to prove he had no idea this was going on and that he was the unfortunate victim of a year-long prank," Burke said.

But it won't be easy.

"I think that there are some questions about when he became aware of it, simply because Notre Dame and Te'o's statement have indicated that he found out about it in late December, but he chose not to correct or identify when he was asked before the BCS Championship game about his girlfriend," he said. The championship game was played on Jan. 7.

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

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Burke said he is particularly eager for answers about the story Te'o told of meeting his girlfriend in 2009 and his father Brian Te'o's statements about how the purported girlfriend used to visit Manti in Hawaii.

What is clear is that Te'o tweeted Kekua twice after she was reported to have died on Sept. 11 or 12, 2012.

On Sept. 12, the day after his grandmother's death, Te'o tweeted to his purportedly deceased girlfriend, "You will always be with me wherever I go! Tell dad, BJ, papa Ima, papa Santiago, and grandma that I said hello! I love you! #574L."

Nearly two months later, on Nov. 6, he tweeted her again saying, "I miss you!"

Those tweets may be an indication of his sincerity or, to skeptics, elaborately planted fake evidence of his heartbreak.

The university's athletic director Jack Swarbrick said at a Wednesday night news conference that the school was not speaking for Te'o.

"At the end of the day, this is Manti's story to tell and we believe he should have the right to tell it, which he is going to do," Swarbrick said.

Swarbrick said that Te'o and his family came to the university last month with concerns that Te'o had been the victim of a hoax.

"The university immediately initiated an investigation to assist Manti and his family in discovering the motive for and nature of this hoax," he said. "While the proper authorities will continue to investigate this troubling matter, this appears to be, at a minimum, a sad and very cruel deception to entertain its perpetrators."

The school's investigators monitored online chatter by the alleged perpetrators, Swarbrick said, adding that he was shocked by the "casual cruelty" it revealed.

"They enjoyed the joke," Swarbrick said, comparing the ruse to the popular film "Catfish," in which filmmakers revealed a person at the other end of an online relationship was not who she said she was.

"While we still don't know all of the dimensions of this ... there are certain things that I feel confident we do know," Swarbrick said. "The first is that this was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax, perpetrated for reasons we don't understand."

Click here for more scandalous public confessions.

Swarbrick also said that he believed Te'o's representatives were planning to disclose the truth next week until Wednesday's story broke.

Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy, has only issued a written statement so far.

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Sahara hostage siege turns Mali war global

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Twenty-five foreign hostages escaped and six were killed on Thursday when Algerian forces launched an operation to free them at a remote desert gas plant, Algerian sources said, as one of the biggest international hostage crises in decades unfolded.

Fast-moving details of the military operation to free the hostages were difficult to confirm. Algeria's official APS news agency said that the military had freed four foreign hostages, giving no further information.

A local source told Reuters six foreign hostages were killed along with eight captors when the Algerian military fired on a vehicle being used by the gunmen. An Algerian security source said the 25 foreign hostages had escaped.

Mauritania's ANI news agency, which has been in constant contact with the kidnappers, said seven hostages were still being held: two Americans, three Belgians, one Japanese and one British citizen.

The standoff began when gunmen calling themselves the Battalion of Blood stormed the gas plant on Wednesday morning. They said they were holding 41 foreigners and demanded a halt to a French military operation against fellow al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants in neighboring Mali.

ANI and Qatar-based Al Jazeera reported that 34 of the captives and 15 of their captors had been killed when government forces fired from helicopters at a vehicle. Those death tolls, far higher than confirmed by the local source, would contradict the reports that large numbers of foreigners escaped alive.

Britain and Norway, whose oil firms BP and Statoil run the plant jointly with the Algerian state oil company, said they had been informed by the Algerian authorities that a military operation was under way but did not provide details.

As many as 180 Algerian hostages had also been held but managed to flee, the local source said.

The incident dramatically raises the stakes in the French military campaign in neighboring Mali, where hundreds of French paratroopers and marines are launching a ground offensive against rebels after air strikes began last week.

Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the kidnappers were led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran Islamist guerrilla who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and had set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local al Qaeda leaders.

A holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence and "Mister Marlboro" by some locals for his illicit cigarette-running business, Belmokhtar's links to those who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.

The hostage takers earlier allowed some prisoners to speak to the media, apparently to put pressure on Algerian forces not to storm the compound. An unidentified hostage who spoke to France 24 television said prisoners were forced to wear explosive belts and captors had threatened to blow up the plant.

Two hostages, identified as British and Irish, spoke to Al Jazeera television and called on the Algerian army to withdraw from the area to avoid casualties.

"We are receiving care and good treatment from the kidnappers. The (Algerian) army did not withdraw and they are firing at the camp," the British man said. "There are around 150 Algerian hostages. We say to everybody that negotiations is a sign of strength and will spare many any loss of life."

NUMBERS UNCONFIRMED

The precise number and nationalities of foreign hostages could not be confirmed, with some countries reluctant to release information that could be useful to the captors.

Britain said one of its citizens was killed in the initial storming on Wednesday and "a number" of others were held.

The militants said seven Americans were among their hostages, a figure U.S. officials said they could not confirm.

Norwegian oil company Statoil said nine of its Norwegian staff and three Algerian employees were captive. Britain's BP, which operates the plant with Statoil and Algerian state oil company Sonatrach, said some of its staff were held but would not say how many or their nationalities.

Japanese media said five workers from Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp. were held, a number the company did not confirm. Paris has not said whether any hostages were French. Vienna said one hostage was Austrian, Dublin said one was Irish and Bucharest said an unspecified number were Romanian.

Spanish oil company Cepsa said it had begun to evacuate personnel from elsewhere in Algeria.

Paris said the Algeria attack demonstrated it was right to intervene in Mali: "We have the flagrant proof that this problem goes beyond just the north of Mali," French ambassador to Mali Christian Rouyer told France Inter radio.

President Francois Hollande has received public backing from Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a desert haven in Mali, a poor country helpless to combat fighters who seized its north last year.

However, there is also some concern in Washington and other capitals that the French action in Mali could provoke a backlash worse than the initial threat by militants in the remote Sahara.

The militants, communicating through established contacts with media in neighboring Mauritania, said they had dozens of men armed with mortars and anti-aircraft missiles in the compound and had rigged it with explosives.

"We hold the Algerian government and the French government and the countries of the hostages fully responsible if our demands are not met, and it is up to them to stop the brutal aggression against our people in Mali," read one statement carried by Mauritanian media.

They condemned Algeria's secularist government for letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali and shutting its border to Malian refugees.

PRESSING ON

The attack in Algeria did not stop France from pressing on with its campaign in Mali. It said on Thursday it now had 1,400 troops on the ground in Mali, and combat was underway against the rebels that it first began targeting from the air last week.

"There was combat yesterday, on the ground and in the air. It happened overnight and is under way now," said Le Drian. Residents said a column of about 30 French Sagaie armored vehicles set off on Wednesday toward rebel positions from the town of Niono, 300 km (190 miles) from the capital, Bamako.

The French action last week came as a surprise but received widespread international support in public. Neighboring African countries planning to provide ground troops for a U.N. force by September have said they will move faster to deploy them.

Nigeria, the strongest regional power, sent 162 soldiers on Thursday, the first of an anticipated 906.

"The whole world clearly needs to unite and do much more than is presently being done to contain terrorism, with its very negative impact on global peace and security," President Goodluck Jonathan said.

Germany, Britain and the Netherlands have offered transport aircraft to help ferry in African troops. Washington has said it is considering what support it can offer.

Many inhabitants of northern Mali have welcomed the French action, though some also fear being caught in the cross-fire. The Mali rebels who seized Timbuktu and other oasis towns in northern Mali last year imposed Islamic law, including public amputations and beheadings that angered many locals.

A day after launching the campaign in Mali, Hollande also ordered a failed rescue in Somalia on Saturday to free a French hostage held by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants since 2009. Al Shabaab said on Thursday it had executed hostage Denis Allex. France said it believed he died in the rescue.

(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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More than 100 killed in new Syria 'massacre': watchdog

DAMASCUS: More than 100 civilians have been killed in a new "massacre" in Syria, a watchdog said Thursday, as Russia slammed the United States for blaming deadly blasts at a university campus on the Damascus regime.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the deaths came when the army on Tuesday swept through farmlands north of Homs city, where it said around 1,000 people had sought refuge from fighting in the central Syria metropolis.

"The Syrian regime carried out a new massacre on Tuesday claiming 106 victims, including women and children," said the Britain-based watchdog, which relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground.

Witnesses said several members of the same family were among those killed, some in fires that raged through their homes and others stabbed or hacked to death. Among the dead were 32 members of the same clan.

Homs, dubbed "the capital of the revolution" by Syria's opposition, is the most strategic city in the country's largest province, lying on key trade routes near the borders with Lebanon and Iraq, and with its southwestern areas not far from Damascus.

Pro-regime daily Al-Watan reported army advances against "gunmen" -- a term used by the regime for insurgents -- in the area, but activists said there were no insurgents there.

"They came in and slaughtered the women and the children. They burned their bodies," an unidentified woman told an anti-regime activist, according to amateur video distributed by Homs-based opponents of the regime.

The Observatory urged the UN to send a fact-finding team to probe the latest bloodshed.

The reported deaths were the latest to emerge from Syria, where twin blasts on Tuesday tore through an Aleppo campus while students were sitting exams.

At least 87 people were killed in one of the bloodiest attacks of the 22-month conflict, in a city that has suffered some US$2.5 billion in damage in six months of bitter conflict, according to Aleppo's governor.

No one claimed responsibility for the Aleppo blasts, but the United States blamed government forces for the violence, suggesting they were caused by air strikes on university buildings.

The remarks by US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland triggered an angry Russian response.

"I cannot imagine anything more blasphemous," said Moscow's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday, describing the killings as a "terrorist act."

Violence erupted again in Syria on Thursday, with the Observatory reporting several air strikes on flashpoints in Damascus province and Kafr Nabuda in the central province of Hama.

In the Husseiniyeh area near the capital, warplanes dropped three missiles killing 11 civilians, among them seven children, said the Observatory.

An air strike on Kafr Nabuda killed another four children, the monitoring group said, adding that more than 3,500 children have been killed in Syria's conflict.

The Observatory gave a preliminary death toll for Thursday of 118 killed -- among them 61 civilians.

Meanwhile, in the majority Kurdish town of Ras al-Ain, in the northern province of Hasakeh, unprecedentedly fierce fighting pitted rebels against pro-regime Kurdish fighters, the Observatory said.

Unlike in previous clashes in Ras al-Ain, jihadists did not join the fight alongside the rebels on Thursday.

But a senior Jordanian salafist said two prominent jihadists were killed in fighting regime troops alongside Al-Nusra Front fighters in Syria, among them a brother-in-law of slain Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

More than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Syria's conflict, according to the United Nations, while the Observatory says it has documented more than 48,000 dead.

The conflict has sent some 600,000 people fleeing the country, most of them to neighbouring countries, according to the UN.

An official in Iraq said it will reopen two border points to Jordan and Syria more than a week after they were closed after protests against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Anbar blocked the main route linking Baghdad to the two countries.

- AFP/jc

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Indo-Pak military de-escalation kicks in, diplomatic chill to persist

NEW DELHI: In a major climb-down after facing military as well as diplomatic heat from India, the Pakistani army on Wednesday shed its earlier confrontationist attitude to declare its troops would now firmly uphold the ceasefire agreement and exercise restraint on the 778-km-long Line of Control (LoC).

The Indian Army, while still furious over the beheading of one of its jawans, promptly accepted the truce offer made during the DGMO (director-general of military operations)-level talks to ensure the precarious situation along the LoC did not escalate "beyond the tactical level".

The beginning of the military de-escalation on the ground came even as Pakistani foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khan struck a discordant note at the UN headquarters in New York to charge India with 'war-mongering'.

With sports, cultural and trade ties already taking a hit, it's clear the bilateral diplomatic chill will continue for some more time to come.

A day after PM Manmohan Singh warned Pakistan that it could no longer be "business as usual" in the peace process, senior government officials on Wednesday reiterated Pakistan would have to investigate the barbaric beheading of the Indian soldier if it considered itself a "civilized country".

Indian DGMO Lt General Vinod Bhatia also raised the beheading of Lance-Naik Hemraj by Pakistani army regulars, in the Mendhar sector of J&K on January 8, with his Pakistani counterpart Major-General Ishfaq Nadeem Ahmed during their talk over the hotline at about 10am on Wednesday.

But while the Pakistani army remained in denial mode on this matter as before, it did not exhibit the "belligerence" displayed earlier during the DGMO-level talks on January 9 as well as the flag meeting at the Chakkan-Da-Bagh crossing point in Poonch district on January 14.

The conversation on Wednesday lasted for just about 10 minutes.

The Pakistani DGMO said orders had been passed to his troops to strictly observe the ceasefire and exercise restraint.

"The two DGMOs came to an understanding on not allowing the situation to escalate," said a senior officer.

"Pakistani army has violated the ceasefire agreement around 15 times since January 1, including four times since Tuesday evening. We were only retaliating to firing from the other side...Let's see for how long the Pakistani army sticks to its new position." added another official.

India had already decided that it would "militarily respond" to Pakistani firing only "tactically" without unnecessarily "upping the ante", in a meeting chaired by the PM on Monday, which was attended among others by the three Service chiefs — Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne, Gen Bikram Singh and Admiral D K Joshi.

Gen Singh had also declared that all his battalion commanders on the LoC would retaliate "aggressively and offensively" but only if the Pakistan army provoked them by violating the ceasefire or pushing militants into J&K.

Holding that while the beheading had "angered" India at the strategic level, Pakistan's cross-border raid of January 8 was "a tactical operation" that would be answered "at the tactical level" only, he added.

On Wednesday, once again rejecting Pakistan's charges about Indian troops crossing the LoC, the Army chief said any casualties across the border would have taken place due to the retaliatory firing. "Our jawans don't cross the LoC. We honour human rights. We fire in retaliation when provoked," he said, after meeting the family of Lance-Naik Hemraj at Khairiar village in Uttar Pradesh.

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ER visits tied to energy drinks double since 2007

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A new government survey suggests the number of people seeking emergency treatment after consuming energy drinks has doubled nationwide during the past four years, the same period in which the supercharged drink industry has surged in popularity in convenience stores, bars and on college campuses.

From 2007 to 2011, the government estimates the number of emergency room visits involving the neon-labeled beverages shot up from about 10,000 to more than 20,000. Most of those cases involved teens or young adults, according to a survey of the nation's hospitals released late last week by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The report doesn't specify which symptoms brought people to the emergency room but calls energy drink consumption a "rising public health problem" that can cause insomnia, nervousness, headache, fast heartbeat and seizures that are severe enough to require emergency care.

Several emergency physicians said they had seen a clear uptick in the number of patients suffering from irregular heartbeats, anxiety and heart attacks who said they had recently downed an energy drink.

More than half of the patients considered in the survey who wound up in the emergency room told doctors they had downed only energy drinks. In 2011, about 42 percent of the cases involved energy drinks in combination with alcohol or drugs, such as the stimulants Adderall or Ritalin.

"A lot of people don't realize the strength of these things. I had someone come in recently who had drunk three energy drinks in an hour, which is the equivalent of 15 cups of coffee," said Howard Mell, an emergency physician in the suburbs of Cleveland, who serves as a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians. "Essentially he gave himself a stress test and thankfully he passed. But if he had a weak heart or suffered from coronary disease and didn't know it, this could have precipitated very bad things."

The findings came as concerns over energy drinks have intensified following reports last fall of 18 deaths possibly tied to the drinks — including a 14-year-old Maryland girl who died after drinking two large cans of Monster Energy drinks. Monster does not believe its products were responsible for the death.

Two senators are calling for the Food and Drug Administration to investigate safety concerns about energy drinks and their ingredients.

The energy drink industry says its drinks are safe and there is no proof linking its products to the adverse reactions.

Late last year, the FDA asked the U.S. Health and Human Services to update the figures its substance abuse research arm compiles about emergency room visits tied to energy drinks.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's survey was based on responses it receives from about 230 hospitals each year, a representative sample of about 5 percent of emergency departments nationwide. The agency then uses those responses to estimate the number of energy drink-related emergency department visits nationwide.

The more than 20,000 cases estimated for 2011 represent a small portion of the annual 136 million emergency room visits tracked by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The FDA said it was considering the findings and pressing for more details as it undertakes a broad review of the safety of energy drinks and related ingredients this spring.

"We will examine this additional information ... as a part of our ongoing investigation into potential safety issues surrounding the use of energy-drink products," FDA spokeswoman Shelly Burgess said in a statement.

Beverage manufacturers fired back at the survey, saying the statistics were misleading and taken out of context.

"This report does not share information about the overall health of those who may have consumed energy drinks, or what symptoms brought them to the ER in the first place," the American Beverage Association said in a statement. "There is no basis by which to understand the overall caffeine intake of any of these individuals — from all sources."

Energy drinks remain a small part of the carbonated soft drinks market, representing only 3.3 percent of sales volume, according to the industry tracker Beverage Digest. Even as soda consumption has flagged in recent years, energy drinks sales are growing rapidly.

In 2011, sales volume for energy drinks rose by almost 17 percent, with the top three companies — Monster, Red Bull and Rockstar — each logging double-digit gains, Beverage Digest found. The drinks are often marketed at sporting events that are popular among younger people such as surfing and skateboarding.

From 2007 to 2011, the most recent year for which data was available, people from 18 to 25 were the most common age group seeking emergency treatment for energy drink-related reactions, the report found.

"We were really concerned to find that in four years the number of emergency department visits almost doubled, and these drinks are largely marketed to younger people," said Al Woodward, a senior statistical analyst with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration who worked on the report.

Emergency physician Steve Sun said he had seen an increase in such cases at the Catholic hospital where he works on the edge of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

"I saw one young man who had mixed energy drinks with alcohol and we had to admit him to the hospital because he was so dehydrated he had renal failure," Sun said. "Because he was young he did well in the hospital, but if another patient had had underlying coronary artery disease, it could have led to a heart attack."

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Follow Garance Burke on Twitter at http://twitter.com/garanceburke

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Obama Unveils Sweeping Plan to Curb Gun Violence

Flanked by four children from across the country, President Obama today unveiled a sweeping plan to curb gun violence in America through an extensive package of legislation and executive actions not seen since the 1960s.

Obama is asking Congress to implement mandatory background checks for all gun purchases, including private sales; reinstate a ban on some assault-style weapons; ban high-capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds; and crackdown on illicit weapons trafficking.

The president's proposal also includes new initiatives for school safety, including a call for more federal aid to states for hiring so-called school resource officers (police), counselors and psychologists, and improved access to mental health care.

Obama also signed 23 executive actions on gun violence, policy directives not needing congressional approval. Among them is a directive to federal agencies to beef up the national criminal background-check system and a memorandum lifting a freeze on gun violence research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"I intend to use whatever weight this office holds to make them a reality," Obama said at a midday news conference. "If there's even one thing that we can do to reduce this violence, if there's even one life that can be saved, then we have an obligation to try.

"And I'm going to do my part."

Maqndel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

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The announcement comes one month after a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., left 26 dead, including 20 children. Obama called it the worst moment of his presidency and promised "meaningful action" in response.

The proposals were the work of an Obama-appointed task force, led by Vice President Joe Biden, that held 22 meetings on gun violence in the past three weeks. The group received input from more than 220 organizations and dozens of elected officials, a senior administration official said.

As part of the push, Obama nominated a new director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which leads enforcement of federal gun laws and has been without a confirmed director for six years. The president appointed acting director Todd Jones, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, to the post, if the Senate confirms him.

The administration's plan calls for aid to states for the hiring of more school resource officers, counselors and psychologists. Obama also directed the Department of Education to ensure all schools have improved emergency-response plans.

He also called on Congress to make it illegal to possess or transfer armor-piercing bullets; it's now only illegal to produce them.

"To make a real and lasting difference, Congress must act," Obama said. "And Congress must act soon."

Officials said some of the legislative measures Obama outlined could be introduced on Capitol Hill next week. The pricetag for Obama's entire package is $500 million, the White House said.

"House committees of jurisdiction will review these recommendations," a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said in response to Obama's announcement. "And if the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that."

The proposals are already being met with stiff opposition from gun rights advocates, led by the National Rifle Association, which overnight released a scathing ad attacking the president as an "elitist hypocrite."

"Are the president's kids more important than yours?" the narrator of the NRA ad says. "Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?"

Obama has questioned the value of placing more armed guards at schools around the country, although his proposal does call for placement of more police officers at public schools. The NRA opposes most of the other gun restrictions Obama has proposed.

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Dozens held after Islamists attack Algerian gas field

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Islamist militants attacked a gas field in Algeria on Wednesday, claiming to have kidnapped up to 41 foreigners including seven Americans in a dawn raid in retaliation for France's intervention in Mali, according to regional media reports.

The raiders were also reported to have killed three people, including a Briton and a French national.

An al Qaeda affiliated group said the raid had been carried out because of Algeria's decision to allow France to use its air space for attacks against Islamists in Mali, where French forces have been in action against al Qaeda-linked militants since last week.

The attack in southern Algeria also raised fears that the French action in Mali could prompt further Islamist revenge attacks on Western targets in Africa, where al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operates across borders in the Sahara desert, and in Europe.

AQIM said it had carried out Wednesday's raid on the In Amenas gas facility in OPEC member Algeria, Mauritania's ANI news agency reported.

The Algerian interior ministry said: "A terrorist group, heavily armed and using three vehicles, launched an attack this Wednesday at 5 a.m. against a Sonatrach base in Tigantourine, near In Amenas, about 100 km (60 miles) from the Algerian and Libyan border."

"The Algerian authorities will not respond to the demands of the terrorists and will not negotiate," Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia was quoted as saying by official news agency APS.

The gas field is operated by a joint venture including BP, Norwegian oil firm Statoil and Algerian state company Sonatrach.

ARMED MEN

BP said armed men were still occupying facilities at the gas field, which produces 9 billion cubic meters of gas a year(160,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day), more than a tenth of the country's overall gas output, and 60,000 barrels a day of condensate.

"The site was attacked and occupied by a group of unidentified armed people at about 0500 UK time. Contact with the site is extremely difficult, but we understand that armed individuals are still occupying the In Amenas operations site," it said.

APS said a Briton and an Algerian security guard had been killed and seven people were injured. A French national was also killed in the attack, a local source said.

Also among those reported kidnapped by various sources were five Japanese nationals working for the Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp, a French national, an Irishman, and a number of Britons.

The U.S. State Department said it believed some U.S. citizens were also among the hostages, while Norway said 13 of its nationals were involved.

A member of an Islamist group styling itself the "Blood Battalion" was quoted by Mauritanian media as saying that five of the hostages were being held at the gas facility and 36 were in a housing area. APS said the Islamist raiders had freed Algerians working at the gas facility.

"The operation was in response to the blatant interference by Algeria and the opening of its air space to French aircraft to bomb northern Mali," the Islamist spokesman told Mauritania's ANI news agency.

ANI, which has regular direct contact with Islamists, said that fighters under the command of Mokhtar Belmokhtar were holding the foreigners.

Belmokhtar for years commanded al Qaeda fighters in the Sahara before setting up his own armed Islamist group late last year after an apparent fallout with other militant leaders.

The Algerian army was in the area of the gas facility, according to French and Algerian sources.

ANI also reported that the Islamists said they were surrounded by Algerian forces and warned that any attempt to free the hostages would lead to a "tragic end". One of the hostage takers told ANI that the perimeter of the site had been mined.

SECURITY IMPLICATIONS

The attack was the first time in years that Islamist militants are known to have launched an attack on an Algerian energy facility.

The attack could have implications for security across the whole of Algeria's energy sector, which supplies about a quarter of Europe's natural gas imports and exports millions of barrels of crude oil each year.

Such an attack would require a large and heavily armed insurgent force with a degree of freedom to move around, all elements that al Qaeda has not previously had.

However, the conflict in neighboring Libya in 2011 changed the balance of force. Security experts say al Qaeda was able to obtain arms, including heavy weapons, from the looted arsenals of former leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Statoil, a minority shareholder in the gas venture, said it had 17 employees at the plant and four of them had been evacuated. The company declined to comment on the other 13.

The five Japanese work for the engineering firm JGC Corporation, Jiji news agency reported, quoting company officials. JGC has a deal with Sonatrach-BP-Statoil Association for work in gas production at In Amenas.

A reporter for Japan's NHK television managed to call a JGC worker in Algeria.

The worker said he got a phone call from a colleague at the gas field. "It was around 6 a.m. this morning. He said that he had been hearing gunshots for about 20 minutes. I wasn't able to get through to him since."

French troops launched their first ground operation against Islamist rebels in Mali on Wednesday in an action to dislodge from a strategic town al Qaeda-linked fighters who have resisted six days of air strikes.

(Additional reporting by Catherine Bremer and John Irish in Paris, Laurent Prieur in Nouakchott, Andrew Osborn in London, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Antoni Slodkowski in Tokyo, Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi and Christian Lowe in Warsaw; Editing by Giles Elgood and Will Waterman)

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Football: Bayern pull off major coup as they hire Guardiola

BERLIN: German giants Bayern Munich won the battle to secure the most sought after coach in football when former Barcelona handler Pep Guardiola agreed to take over as head coach for the 2013/14 season.

The 41-year-old Spaniard - who last week said he was ready to return to coaching after a brief sabbatical since stepping down from the Barcelona hotseat at the end of last season - signed a three year contract.

Guardiola, who twice guided Barcelona to the Champions League title, will replace current Munich boss Jupp Heynckes, whose contract expires in June, just after his 68th birthday.

Bayern, who have not won any silverware in the past two seasons, have pulled off a major coup as Guardiola had been linked with jobs in England with both Chelsea and Manchester City being mentioned.

Bayern, who have won a record 22 German league titles as well as four Champions League trophies, made no secret of their delight at beating off high-profile rivals for his signature.

"We are very pleased that we have succeeded in securing the signature of Pep Guardiola, who was being courted by many clubs," enthused chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.

"Pep Guardiola is one of the most successful coaches in the world and we are sure he will lend plenty of glamour, not just to Bayern, but also to German football.

"We look forward to working with him from July 2013."

Heynckes had told Bayern he will not be extending his contract past June and club president Uli Hoeness paid tribute to the veteran, who steered Bayern to last season's Champions League final where they lost on penalties to Chelsea.

"After the decision from Jupp Heynckes, to whom we are extremely grateful for all his work, we would all be very happy if the team gives this coach the glorious farewell he deserves.

"As an adequate replacement for Jupp Heynckes, only a coach of the calibre of Pep Guardiola could come into question."

Guardiola will be working as head coach alongside Bayern's director of sport Matthias Sammer, who joined in July from the German FA, and Germany legend Franz Beckenbauer was quick to praise the club's success in recruiting such luminaries.

"One has to say, hats off!" Beckenbauer, who enjoyed World Cup success both as player and coach with the then West Germany, told German Sky.

"Matthias Sammer and Guardiola - I don't know if you can get a better team."

With Bayern facing Arsenal in the last 16 of the Champions League in February, the pressure is on the team to win some silverware after finishing both of the last two seasons without a single trophy.

"If he (Heynckes) brings the season to an end with one title or another, he will have managed an excellent farewell," added Beckenbauer.

Despite all his success at Barcelona, Guardiola - whom moody Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic once dubbed "a philosopher" as an insult - will have his work cut out at Bayern -- where immediate success is demanded.

Former German national coach Jurgen Klinsmann lasted ten months before he was sacked in April 2009, while current Holland boss Louis van Gaal was dismissed in April 2011 despite winning the league and cup double, plus having reached the 2010 Champions League final.

Guardiola will have to get his German up to speed fast - and bring the much-heralded success he enjoyed at Barcelona to southern Germany.

- AFP/jc

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Centre to introduce Real Estate Regulatory Authority Bill

NEW DELHI: Withstanding objections from real estate bodies and industry pressure groups against the proposed Real Estate Regulatory Authority Bill, the housing and poverty alleviation (HUPA) minister Ajay Maken, on Tuesday, said the bill will be introduced before parliament during the Budget session.

Earlier in the day a joint consultation meeting was held by Maken and urban development minister Kamal Nath where representatives of Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Association of India, National Real Estate Development Council, Confederation of Indian Industries, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry had objected to the bill. "But government put its foot down saying the bill aims to address concerns and protect interest of buyers. They are being shortchanged and hence there cannot be any compromise," said a government official.

The fate of the bill was hanging in balance after differences had cropped up between the housing and urban poverty alleviation and urban development ministries. Kamal Nath had objected to HUPA's move of circulating the proposed bill without consulting his ministry.

Finally, the issue reached the Prime Minister and a meeting of the two ministers was held on Friday where they were asked to sort out the issue to protect buyers' interest.
If the proposed law goes through there will be a real estate regulatory authority in every state.

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Experts: Proposed NY gun law might hinder therapy

NEW YORK (AP) — Mental health experts say a new tougher New York state gun control law might interfere with treatment of potentially dangerous people and even discourage them from seeking help.

The law would require therapists, doctors, nurses and social workers to tell government authorities if they believe a patient is likely to harm himself or others. That could lead to revoking the patient's gun permit and seizing any guns.

In interviews Tuesday, one expert called the new law meaningless and said he expects mental health providers to ignore it, while others said they worry about its impact on patients.

Dr. Paul Appelbaum at Columbia University said the prospect of being reported to local mental health authorities and maybe the police might discourage people from revealing thoughts of harm to a therapist, or even from seeking treatment at all.

"The people who arguably most need to be in treatment and most need to feel free to talk about these disturbing impulses, may be the ones we make least likely to do so," said the director of law, ethics and psychiatry at Columbia. "They will either simply not come, or not report the thoughts that they have."

"If people with suicidal or homicidal impulses avoid treatment for fear of being reported in this way, they may be more likely to act on those impulses," he said.

Currently a mental health professional has a duty to protect potential victims of a patient, but there are several ways to do that, he said. The patient can be committed to an institution, voluntarily or not, or his medication can be changed to reduce the risk, or the intended victim can be warned, he said.

The patient's family can be asked to lock up any guns in the house, or to keep an eye on the patient to see if he's doing something that could bring on violence, like drinking or skipping his medications, Appelbaum said. The family could then notify the mental health professional.

This flexibility allows a therapist to deal with a risk of violence without breaching confidentiality in all cases, he said. And even if those steps are enough to blunt the danger, the proposed law would still require that the patient be reported to mental health authorities, he noted.

"It undercuts the clinical approach to treating these impulses, and instead turns it into a public safety issue," Appelbaum said.

He also noted that in many mass shootings in the past, the gunman had not been under treatment and so would not have been deterred by a law like the proposed measure.

Dr. Steven Dubovsky, chairman of the psychiatry department at the University at Buffalo, called the new measure meaningless. "It's pure political posturing" and a deceptive attempt to reassure the public, he said.

The intent seems to be to turn mental health professionals into detectives and policemen, he said, but "no patient is going to tell you anything if they think you're going to report them."

A therapist who took the measure seriously would have to warn patients about revealing anything incriminating, which would destroy the doctor-patient relationship, he said.

At the same time, he said the law can't be taken seriously because therapists won't be held liable if they don't report a patient they think is dangerous.

He thinks most therapists will ignore the law and continue to handle cases as they do now.

Dr. Mark Olfson, a psychiatry professor at Columbia, said that if the new law is "crudely applied," it could "erode patient trust in mental health care professionals," essential for effective care. Yet, he said, "if the law is implemented in a clinically well-informed manner, it holds the promise of helping to protect patients and the general public."

Eric Neblung, president of the New York State Psychological Association and a psychologist in Nyack, NY, called the new measure "a helpful step" but said it doesn't address a more fundamental need — improved access to mental health services.

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Medical writer Lindsey Tanner reported from Chicago.

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