Algerian army stages "final assault" on gas plant


ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - The Algerian army carried out a dramatic final assault to end a siege by Islamic militants at a desert gas plant on Saturday, killing 11 al Qaeda-linked gunmen after they took the lives of seven more foreign hostages, the state news agency said.


The state oil and gas company, Sonatrach, said the militants who attacked the plant on Wednesday and took a large number of hostages had booby-trapped the complex with explosives, which the army was removing.


"It is over now, the assault is over, and the military are inside the plant clearing it of mines," a source familiar with the operation told Reuters.


British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said the hostage situation had been "brought to an end" by the Algerian army assault on the militants.


The exact death toll among the gunmen and the foreign and Algerian workers at the plant near the town of In Amenas remained unclear, although a tally of reports from various sources indicated that several dozen people had been killed.


The Islamists' attack on the gas plant has tested Algeria's relations with the outside world, exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara and pushed Islamic radicalism in northern Africa to centre stage.


Some Western governments expressed frustration at not being informed of the Algerian authorities' plans to storm the complex. Algeria's response to the raid will have been conditioned by the legacy of a civil war against Islamist insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives.


HOSTAGES FREED


As the army closed in, 16 foreign hostages were freed, a source close to the crisis said. They included two Americans and one Portuguese. Britain said fewer than 10 of its nationals at the plant were unaccounted for and it was urgently seeking to establish the status of all Britions caught up in the crisis.


The base was home to foreign workers from Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil, Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp and others.


BP's chief executive Bob Dudley said on Saturday four of its 18 workers at the site were missing. The remaining 14 were safe.


The crisis at the gas plant marked a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.


The captors said their attack on the Algerian gas plant was a response to the French offensive in Mali. However, some U.S. and European officials say the elaborate raid probably required too much planning to have been organized from scratch in the week since France launched its strikes.


Scores of Westerners and hundreds of Algerian workers were inside the heavily fortified gas compound when it was seized before dawn on Wednesday by Islamist fighters who said they wanted a halt to the French intervention in neighboring Mali.


Hundreds escaped on Thursday when the army launched a rescue operation, but many hostages were killed.


Before the final assault, different sources had put the number of hostages killed at between 12 and 30, with many foreigners still unaccounted for, among them Norwegians, Japanese, Britons and Americans.


The figure of 30 came from an Algerian security source, who said eight Algerians and at least seven foreigners were among the victims, including two Japanese, two Britons and a French national. One British citizen was killed when the gunmen seized the hostages on Wednesday.


The U.S. State Department said on Friday one American, Frederick Buttaccio, had died but gave no further details.


U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said nobody was going to attack the United States and get away with it.


"We have made a commitment that we're going to go after al Qaeda wherever they are and wherever they try to hide," he said during a visit to London. "We have done that obviously in Afghanistan, Pakistan, we've done it in Somalia, in Yemen and we will do it in North Africa as well."


BURNED BODIES


Earlier on Saturday, Algerian special forces found 15 unidentified burned bodies at the plant, a source told Reuters.


The field commander of the group that attacked the plant is a fighter from Niger called Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, according to Mauritanian news agencies. His boss, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s and Algeria's civil war of the 1990s, appears not to have joined the raid.


Britain, Japan and other countries have expressed irritation that the army assault was ordered without consultation and officials grumbled at the lack of information.


But French President Francois Hollande said the Algerian military's response seemed to have been the best option given that negotiation was not possible.


"When you have people taken hostage in such large number by terrorists with such cold determination and ready to kill those hostages - as they did - Algeria has an approach which to me, as I see it, is the most appropriate because there could be no negotiation," Hollande said.


The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of outwardly tough Algerian security measures.


Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site.


Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a preoccupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.


The most powerful Islamist groups operating in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in the civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.


France says the hostage incident proves its decision to fight Islamists in neighboring Mali was necessary. Al Qaeda-linked fighters, many with roots in Algeria and Libya, took control of northern Mali last year.


(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Estelle Shirbon and David Alexander in London, Brian Love in Paris; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Rosalind Russell)



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Rahul Gandhi takes No 2 spot in India's ruling Congress






JAIPUR: Rahul Gandhi, often tagged India's "prime minister-in-waiting", said on Saturday he would "transform" the country after he was promoted to second-in-command of the ruling Congress party.

Members of the Congress Working Committee earlier approved a motion making Rahul -- the son, grandson and great-grandson of Indian prime ministers -- second in the party's hierarchy after his mother, party president Sonia Gandhi.

"I have great experience," the 42-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty said in the northern Indian city of Jaipur, at a party meeting held to prepare for general elections due in 2014.

"Together we will transform the country," he said in his speech accepting the post of Congress vice president, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

"It is a great party," he said.

The move could propel the long-anticipated accession to power of Rahul Gandhi, who has long been the party's unofficial candidate to succeed Manmohan Singh, 80, as prime minister of the Congress-led national government.

Congress senior leader Janardan Dwivedi declared that Rahul Gandhi was now "next only to Sonia Gandhi in the party" and said "this decision will greatly strengthen the party and the hands of the party president".

Dwivedi added that a decision on who will lead the party in the elections would be made later. Sonia Gandhi led the party to back-to-back victories in the 2004 and 2009 polls.

Saturday's decision formally cements the position of Rahul Gandhi, who had already been seen as the de facto number two on the Congress ladder and has been in charge of regalvanising the party's youth wing.

Analysts said the move meant Rahul Gandhi, often accused of staying aloof from daily political battles, now must get his hands dirty trying to revive the party, which has been buffeted by slow economic growth and corruption scandals.

The decision to elevate the boyish-looking politician comes despite the party's dismal results in state elections that have raised serious doubts about his political abilities.

Congress, India's oldest political party, was routed in polls in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Goa last year.

Rahul Gandhi's appetite for India's turbulent political scene has often been questioned by critics due to his refusal to accept repeated requests to take on ministerial responsibilities.

But with Rahul Gandhi's mother Sonia holding the reins as Congress president, any opposition within the party to the Gandhis has been swiftly suffocated, say observers.

Oil Minister Veerappa Moily hailed Rahul Gandhi as the country's leader for the "present and for the future" at the meeting.

Rahul Gandhi "is our candidate for the post of prime minister after the 2014 elections", Sanjay Nirupam, a Congress leader from western Maharashtra state said at the meeting where pictures of the young politician were plastered.

Party workers celebrated the announcement in the streets with fireworks but the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party denounced Gandhi's promotion as a "sham".

Some observers argue the party's drubbing in states polls should not be taken as a sign of Rahul Gandhi's chances in the general election.

"At the national level, people vote for parties. Things are different because in the local polls people prefer their local leaders," Rajendra Dayal, a political scientist at Delhi University, told AFP recently.

- AFP/de



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4-year-old raped in school bus in Mumbai

MUMBAI: A 35-year-old school bus conductor has been arrested by police for allegedly sexually assaulting a four-year-old nursery student of a premier Juhu school on a moving school bus.

Vile Parle resident Ramesh Rajput committed the crime on the young girl on Tuesday afternoon when the bus was dropping children home. The victim was the last child left on the 16-seater vehicle. Police officers said that, in breach of a state government policy, no woman attendant was present on the bus at the time of the offence. The school, however, insisted that a female attendant was at hand and it was she who "confronted" conductor Rajput and "stopped" him.

Police arrested Rajput on Thursday and booked him for rape and molestation under the Indian Penal Code and invoked several sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. He was produced before the Andheri magistrate court on Friday and remanded in police custody till February 1. Meanwhile, the bus driver was made a witness in the case based on his version that he was unaware of what was going on in the back.

"We have effected immediate arrest of the person concerned, registered a strong case for a non-bailable offence and will ensure that the culprit is punished severely. We will also terminate the contract with the bus owner," said a trustee of the girl's school.

The crime occurred around 1pm on Tuesday after the bus left the school with more than a dozen nursery students, including several girls. One by one, the other kids were dropped off. A resident of the western suburbs, the victim was sitting in the front row waiting for her turn, when Rajput threatened her to go with him to the backseat, officers said. He then sexually assaulted her. According to a statement released by the school, the girl was "first pushed and then touched inappropriately". As her residence neared, Rajput warned the child of dire consequences if she spoke about the incident to anyone.

Police officers said the child, in shock, did not reveal the crime to her parents on Tuesday. She did, however, make it known on Wednesday. According to the school, the child spoke to her father, who reported the offence in writing to the principal at 4pm on Wednesday.

"The principal initiated an immediate medical check-up of the child," said the school statement, and on Thursday the school "handed over the bus driver, lady attendant and the accused". The statement declared that the lady attendant was present in the bus "at all times as per the guidelines of the school" and she "immediately confronted" the conductor during the act of the crime and "stopped" him. "The lady attendant was a supportive witness", the statement claimed.

On this however, the police differed from the school. Officers said there was no female attendant on the bus at the time of the crime.

The bus was engaged by the school, it admitted, on a yearly contract and guidelines given to "the transport vendors with respect to lady attendants, cleaning norms, etc. This has to be followed religiously". Despite several attempts, the contractor was unavailable for comment.

As per the rules prescribed in the state government's School Bus Safety policy, a school bus ferrying female students has to compulsorily employ a lady attendant. She has to remain present in the bus from the start of the journey till the last student is dropped off. The policy also demands that the school and the bus contractor sign an agreement requiring background checks on bus personnel by the contractor. At the same time, the school is made responsible for ensuring proper training for bus drivers, cleaners, conductors and attendants.

The police on Friday said they are inquiring into the lapses that possibly led to the Tuesday offence. They are also probing if Rajput committed a crime on any other child in the past. He has been slapped with Indian Penal Code sections 376 (rape), 354 (criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman). "We also applied sections 3 (penetrative sexual assault), 7 (sexual assault) and 12 (sexual harassment of the child) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, in the case," said additional police commissioner (west region) Vishwas Nangre-Patil.

Officers said the rape section was added taking into account a Supreme Court judgment that says that penetration is not necessary to establish the offence of rape. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, was invoked for it victim-friendliness. It bars direct confrontation between the victim and the perpetrator during investigation and trial, gives children the comfort of having a friend or family member with them while deposing, and directs police personnel to go to the victim's home to take his or her statement and to do so in plainclothes.

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Flu season 'bad one for the elderly,' CDC says


Flu hospitalizations among the elderly rose sharply last week, prompting federal officials to take unusual steps to make more flu medicines available and to urge wider use of them as soon as symptoms appear.


The U.S. is about halfway through the flu season, which is shaping up to be worse than average and a bad one for the elderly, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


New figures from the CDC show the flu epidemic is continuing, with widespread activity in all states but Tennessee and Hawaii.


Nine more children or teens have died of the flu, bringing the nation's total this flu season to 29, health officials reported Friday. That's close to the 34 pediatric deaths reported during all of the last flu season, although that one was unusually light. In a typical season, about 100 children die of the flu and officials said there is no way to know whether deaths this season will be higher or lower than usual.


So far, half of confirmed flu cases are in people 65 and older. Lab-confirmed flu hospitalizations totaled 19 for every 100,000 in the population, but 82 per 100,000 among those 65 and older, "which is really quite a high rate," Frieden said.


"We expect to see both the number and the rates of both hospitalizations and deaths rise further in the next week or so as the flu epidemic progresses," so prompt treatment with antivirals is key to preventing deaths, he said.


Two drugs — Tamiflu and Relenza — can cut the severity and risk of death from the flu but must be started within 48 hours of first symptoms to do much good. To increase supplies of Tamiflu, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, head of the Food and Drug Administration, said the agency had allowed Genentech to distribute additional doses that have old packaging information.


This year's season is earlier than normal and the dominant flu strain is one that tends to make people sicker.


Health officials say it's not too late to get a flu shot to help protect against the flu. Vaccinations are recommended for anyone 6 months or older.


Last week, the CDC said the flu again surpassed an "epidemic" threshold, based on monitoring of deaths from flu and a frequent complication, pneumonia. The flu epidemic happens every year and officials say this year's vaccine is a good match for strains that are going around.


The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people most years.


___


Online:


CDC flu: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm


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Algeria Terrorists Want to Trade US Hostages for Blind Sheikh













The al Qaeda-linked terrorists holding Americans and other Westerners hostage at a gas plant in Algeria have now demanded the release of two convicted terrorists held in U.S. prisons, including the "blind sheikh" who helped plan the first attack on New York's World Trade Center, in exchange for the freedom of two American hostages, according to an African news service.


The terror group calling itself the Masked Brigade, which raided the BP joint venture plant in In Amenas early Wednesday, reportedly contacted a Mauritanian news service with the offer. In addition to the release of Omar Abdel-Rahman, who planned the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, they demanded the release of Aifia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist who shot at two U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan in 2008.


Asked about the unconfirmed report of a proposed swap, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said firmly, "The United States does not negotiate with terrorists." She repeated the statement again when questioned further. She also said she was not prepared to get into any details about the status of Americans in "an ongoing hostage situation."


At least three Americans were being held hostage by the militants when the Algerian military mounted a rescue operation at the facility Thursday that reportedly resulted in casualties.


Five other Americans who were at the facility when it was attacked by the terrorists are now safe and believed to have left the country, according to U.S. officials.






Mike Nelson/AFP/Getty Images













Algeria Hostage Situation: Military Operation Mounted Watch Video







Reports that dozens of hostages were killed during the Algerian military's attempt to retake the compound have not been confirmed, though Algeria's information minister has confirmed that there were casualties. It's known by U.S. and foreign officials that multiple British, Japanese and Norwegian hostages were killed.


According to an unconfirmed report by an African news outlet, the militants said seven hostages survived the attack, including two Americans, one Briton, three Belgians and a Japanese national. U.S. officials monitoring the case had no information indicating any Americans have been injured or killed, but said the situation is fluid and casualties cannot be ruled out.


On Friday, a U.S. military plane evacuated between 10 and 20 people in need of medical attention, none of them American, from In Amenas and took them to an American medical facility in Europe. A second U.S. plane is preparing to evacuate additional passengers in need of medical attention.


British Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament today that the terror attack "appears to have been a large, well coordinated and heavily armed assault and it is probable that it had been pre-planned."


"The terrorist group is believed to have been operating under Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a criminal terrorist and smuggler who has been operating in Mali and in the region for a number of years," said Cameron.


Cameron said Algerian security forces are still in action at the facility. On Thursday, he said that the situation was "very bad … A number of British citizens have been taken hostage. Already, we know of one who has died. ... I think we should be prepared for the possibility for further bad news, very difficult news in this extremely difficult situation."


The kidnappers had earlier released a statement saying there are "more than 40 crusaders" held "including 7 Americans."


U.S. officials had previously confirmed to ABC News that there were at least three Americans held hostage at the natural gas facility jointly owned by BP, the Algerian national oil company and a Norwegian firm at In Amenas, Algeria.


"I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation," said Panetta. "I don't think there's any question that [this was] a terrorist act and that the terrorists have affiliation with al Qaeda."


He said the precise motivation of the kidnappers was unknown.


"They are terrorists, and they will do terrorist acts," he said.






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Foreigners still caught in Sahara hostage crisis


ALGIERS (Reuters) - More than 20 foreigners were still being held hostage or missing inside a gas plant on Friday after Algerian forces stormed the desert complex to free hundreds of captives taken by Islamist militants, who threatened to attack other energy installations.


Thirty hostages, including at least seven Westerners, were killed during Thursday's assault, along with at least 18 of their captors, said an Algerian security source.


The attack, which plunged capitals around the world into crisis mode, is a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.


"We are still dealing with a fluid and dangerous situation where a part of the terrorist threat has been eliminated in one part of the site, but there still remains a threat in another part," British Prime Minister David Cameron told his parliament.


A local Algerian source said 100 of 132 foreign hostages had been freed from the facility. The fate of the other 32 was unclear as the situation was changing rapidly.


Earlier he said 60 were still missing with some believed still held hostage, but it was unclear how many, and how many might be in hiding elsewhere in the sprawling compound.


Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among the seven foreigners confirmed dead in the army's storming, the Algerian security source told Reuters. One British citizen was killed when the gunmen seized the hostages on Wednesday.


Those still unaccounted for on Friday included 10 from Japan and eight Norwegians, according to their employers, and a number of Britons which Cameron put at "significantly" less than 30.


France said it had no information on two Frenchmen who may have been at the site and Washington has said a number of Americans were among the hostages, without giving details. The local source said a U.S. aircraft landed nearby on Friday.


Some countries have been reluctant to give details of the numbers of their missing nationals to avoid disclosing information that may be useful to their captors.


As Western leaders clamored for news, several expressed anger they had not been consulted by the Algerian government about its decision to storm the facility.


The sprawling facility housed hundreds of workers. Algeria's state news agency said the army had rescued 650 hostages in total, 573 of whom were Algerians.


"(The army) is still trying to achieve a ‘peaceful outcome' before neutralizing the terrorist group that is holed up in the (facility) and freeing a group of hostages that is still being held," it said, quoting a security source.




MULTINATIONAL INSURGENCY


Algerian commanders said they moved in on Thursday about 30 hours after the siege began because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.


An Irish engineer who survived said he saw four jeeps full of hostages blown up by Algerian troops.


A French hostage employed by a French catering company said Algerian military forces had found some British hostages hiding and were combing the sprawling In Amenas site for others when he was escorted away by the military.


"I hid in my room for nearly 40 hours, under the bed. I put boards up pretty much all round," Alexandre Berceaux told Europe 1 raid. "I didn't know how long I was going to stay there ... I was afraid. I could see myself already ending up in a pine box."


"When Algerian solders ... came for me, I didn't even know it was over. They were with some of my colleagues, otherwise I'd never have opened the door."


Western governments are trying to determine the degree to which the hostage taking was part of an international conspiracy and was linked, as the captors claimed, to the week-old French military intervention in neighboring Mali.


The Algerian security source said only two of 11 militants whose bodies were found on Thursday were Algerian, including the squad's leader. The others comprised three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a Frenchman, he said.


Algeria state news agency APS said the group had planned to take the hostages to Mali.


The plant was heavily fortified, with security, controlled access and an army camp with hundreds of armed personnel between the accommodation and processing plant, Andy Coward Honeywell, who worked there in 2009, told the BBC.


U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said those responsible would be hunted down: "Terrorists should be on notice that they will find no sanctuary, no refuge, not in Algeria, not in North Africa, not anywhere," he said in London. "Those who would wantonly attack our country and our people will have no place to hide."


MALI WOES


The crisis posed a serious dilemma for former colonial power Paris and its allies as French troops attacked the hostage-takers' al Qaeda allies in Mali, another former colony.


The desert fighters have proved to be better trained and equipped than France had anticipated, diplomats told Reuters at the United Nations, which said 400,000 people could flee Mali to neighboring countries in the coming months.


In Algeria, the kidnappers warned locals to stay away from foreign companies' oil and gas installations, threatening more attacks, Mauritania's news agency ANI said, citing a spokesman for the group.


Algerian workers form the backbone of an oil and gas industry that has attracted international firms in recent years partly because of military-style security. The kidnapping, storming and further threat cast a deep shadow over its future.


Hundreds of workers from international oil companies were evacuated from Algeria on Thursday and many more will follow, BP, which jointly ran the gas plant with Norway's Statoil and the Algerian state oil firm, said on Friday.


The overall commander of the kidnappers, Algerian officials said, was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of Afghanistan in the 1980s and Algeria's bloody civil war of the 1990s and one of a host of Saharan Islamists, flush with arms and fighters from the 2011 civil war in Libya. He appears not to have been present.


Algerian security specialist Anis Rahmani, author of several books on terrorism and editor of Ennahar daily, told Reuters about 70 militants were involved from two groups, Belmokhtar's "Those who sign in blood", who travelled from Libya, and the lesser known "Movement of the Islamic Youth in the South".


"They were carrying heavy weapons including rifles used by the Libyan army during (Muammar) Gadaffi's rule," he said. "They also had rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns."


Algeria's government is implacably at odds with Islamist guerrillas who remain at large in the south, years after the civil war through the 1990s in which some 200,000 people died.


Britain's Cameron, who warned people to prepare for bad news and who cancelled a major policy speech on Friday to deal with the situation, said he would have liked Algeria to have consulted before the raid. Japan made similar complaints.


U.S. officials had no clear information on the fate of Americans, though a U.S. military drone had flown over the area. Washington, like its European allies, has endorsed France's move to protect the Malian capital by mounting air strikes last week and now sending 1,400 ground troops to attack Islamist rebels.


The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of outwardly tough security measures.


(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Eamonn Mallie in Belfast, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin and Conor Humprhies in Dublin; Writing by Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Peter Graff)



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Toyota settles 'bellwether' US wrongful death suit






WASHINGTON: Japanese automaker Toyota has settled a wrongful death lawsuit in the United States over sudden, unintended acceleration that allegedly killed two people in Utah in 2010.

"We are satisfied that both parties reached a mutually acceptable agreement to settle this case," Toyota Motor Corp said in a statement late Thursday.

A Toyota spokeswoman, Celeste Migliore, told AFP it was the first "bellwether" settlement among hundreds of cases pending in a federal court in California.

Toyota did not reveal financial details of the settlement, but said in a statement it "will have a number of other opportunities to defend our product at trial... and other legal venues."

"We would emphasize that at no time has anyone put forth any reliable scientific evidence of an alleged electronic defect in our vehicles that could cause unintended acceleration," it said.

The settled case involved a man and woman in the US state of Utah killed when the Toyota Camry they were traveling in slammed into a wall.

Critics have argued that Toyota's accelerator technology was behind several deadly accidents.

But Japan's biggest automaker said its accelerator technology was confirmed as safe.

"We sympathize with anyone in an accident involving one of our vehicles; however, we continue to stand fully behind the safety and integrity of Toyota's Electronic Throttle Control System, which multiple independent evaluations have confirmed as safe," the statement said.

The acceleration problem prompted a recall of millions of Toyota vehicles in 2009-2010, severely damaging the carmaker's once-sterling reputation.

Toyota has argued at least in some cases that the problems involved floor mats that came loose and trapped the accelerator pedal.

Last year, Toyota added two models to 2009-2010 recalls citing the floor mat problem.

Toyota's mishandling of its vehicle problems led to a US congressional probe, more than $50 million in fines from US regulators and public apologies by its chief.

In December, the automaker announced an agreement to pay about $1.1 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by US vehicle owners who said the value of their cars had fallen due to the recalls.

It also agreed to pay a record $17.35 million fine for failing to promptly notify US authorities that floor mats could also be trapped under the accelerators of 2010 Lexus models.

In November Toyota agreed to pay $25.5 million to settle claims from shareholders who lost money after its stock price plummeted in the wake of the recalls.

- AFP/de



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Cabinet nod for President’s rule in Jharkhand

NEW DELHI: The government on Thursday recommended President's rule in Jharkhand with the Union Cabinet approving the proposal of governor Syed Ahmed to this effect while keeping the assembly in suspended animation.

The governor's recommendation was made in his second report to the Centre on the political situation in the state in the wake of chief minister Arjun Munda's resignation. Munda had, however, sought dissolution of the assembly after ally Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) withdrew support to his government.

Former Union home secretary Madhukar Gupta and former CRPF director-general K Vijay Kumar are likely to be appointed advisors to the Jharkhand governor, said a source.

Jharkhand, which was created in 2000, has been placed under President's rule twice earlier. Munda's government was reduced to a minority on January 8 when JMM, in a letter to the governor, formally withdrew its support to the 28-month-old government.

In the 82-member assembly, BJP and JMM have 18 members each. The Munda government had the support of six members of All Jharkhand Students' Union, two of JD(U), two independents and one nominated member who has voting right in a trial of strength.

Opposition Congress has 13 members, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha(P) 11 and RJD five in the assembly. CPI-ML(L), Marxist Coordination Party, Jharkhand Party (Ekka), Jharkhand Janadhikar Manch and Jai Bharat Samta Party have one member each besides an independent.

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Study: NYC better than LA at cutting kids' obesity


NEW YORK (AP) — A new study shows New York City is doing better than Los Angeles in the battle against childhood obesity, at least for low-income children.


From 2003 to 2011, obesity rates for poor children dropped in New York to around 16 percent. But they rose in Los Angeles and ended at about 20 percent.


The researchers focused on children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in a government program that provides food and other services to women and their young children.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the study Thursday.


The authors noted that the Los Angeles program has many more Mexican-American kids. Obesity is more common in Mexican-American boys than in white or black kids.


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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











Tale of Notre Dame Football Star's Girlfriend and Her Death an Alleged Hoax Watch Video









Notre Dame's Athletic Director Discusses Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax Watch Video









MTV's 'Catfish' Series Pulls Back Curtain on Online Profiles Watch Video





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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