Ben Affleck's 'Argo' wins best film at Britain's BAFTAs






LONDON: Iran hostage crisis drama "Argo" won the best film prize at Britain's BAFTA awards on Sunday, in a further boost for US actor-director Ben Affleck's movie at the Oscars later this month.

Affleck also won the best director award at the biggest night of the British film industry, while Daniel Day-Lewis was named best actor for "Lincoln" and France's Emmanuelle Riva won best actress for "Amour".

Anne Hathaway won best supporting actress for her performance in British musical "Les Miserables" while Christoph Waltz won best supporting actor for his role in Quentin Tarantino's blood-soaked Western "Django Unchained".

Celebrities defied sleet, rain and wind to parade down the red carpet for the ceremony at the Royal Opera House in London, with the BAFTAs widely seen as a key bellwether for the Academy Awards.

The best director award for Affleck highlights the fact that he has been snubbed in the same category at the Oscars, which will be handed out at a ceremony in Los Angeles on February 24.

- AFP/jc



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No Rafale, nuclear deals during Hollande visit

NEW DELHI: India and France will not sign a contract for nuclear reactors at Jaitapur during the forthcoming visit of French President Francois Hollande. Neither will they seal the deal for 126 Rafale fighter aircraft. But as Hollande makes India his first stop in Asia, both sides are keen to showcase a growing relationship.

The complex negotiations for the nuclear reactor deal will get a leg up during the official talks. Described as "complex", the deal has been caught in the toils of nuclear protests in India, the Indian nuclear liability law and review procedures for the European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) in a post-Fukushima environment.

India and France have started a dialogue on "civilian nuclear responsibility" which is a euphemism for consultations on the liability law. While France has not expressed displeasure, it continues to have concerns and the dialogue is intended to find answers to the vexing issues of supplier liability clauses in the law. After a first meeting, the two sides are expected to have a second in the run-up to the visit. However, there is an expectation of an agreement for joint manufacture between NPCIL, Areva and Alstom.

Meanwhile, sources said the EPR has been subject to a year's review of its safety features -- China has two EPRs and Finland has one. France's Areva has reportedly carried out a few fixes and enhanced the safety features. "These have been shared at every stage with the Indian nuclear authorities," said diplomatic sources.

The Rafale deal has probably been pushed further down the year because India is cash-strapped. Rafale won the race for supplying 126 MMRCA to India, but during his recent visit to Paris, foreign minister Salman Khurshid said India had asked France to supply an extra 63 aircraft. The deal, under which the first 18 aircraft will be manufactured in France and the rest in India, involves an extraordinary number of related offset deals, as well as questions of technology transfer.

In his conversation with PM Manmohan Singh, Hollande is expected to talk about Mali, where French troops are fighting to oust al-Qaida from the desert. India, unexpectedly, has stepped up to be involved in the Mali campaign, contributing to upgrading the Malian army as well as contributing $100 million to the stabilization and reconstruction of the desert state.

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After early start, worst of flu season may be over


NEW YORK (AP) — The worst of the flu season appears to be over.


The number of states reporting intense or widespread illnesses dropped again last week, and in a few states there was very little flu going around, U.S. health officials said Friday.


The season started earlier than normal, first in the Southeast and then spreading. But now, by some measures, flu activity has been ebbing for at least four weeks in much of the country. Flu and pneumonia deaths also dropped the last two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.


"It's likely that the worst of the current flu season is over," CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.


But flu is hard to predict, he and others stressed, and there have been spikes late in the season in the past.


For now, states like Georgia and New York — where doctor's offices were jammed a few weeks ago — are reporting low flu activity. The hot spots are now the West Coast and the Southwest.


Among the places that have seen a drop: Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Allentown, Pa., which put up a tent outside its emergency room last month to help deal with the steady stream of patients. There were about 100 patients each day back then. Now it's down to 25 and the hospital may pack up its tent next week, said Terry Burger, director of infection control and prevention for the hospital.


"There's no question that we're seeing a decline," she said.


In early December, CDC officials announced flu season had arrived, a month earlier than usual. They were worried, saying it had been nine years since a winter flu season started like this one. That was 2003-04 — one of the deadliest seasons in the past 35 years, with more than 48,000 deaths.


Like this year, the major flu strain was one that tends to make people sicker, especially the elderly, who are most vulnerable to flu and its complications


But back then, that year's flu vaccine wasn't made to protect against that bug, and fewer people got flu shots. The vaccine is reformulated almost every year, and the CDC has said this year's vaccine is a good match to the types that are circulating. A preliminary CDC study showed it is about 60 percent effective, which is close to the average.


So far, the season has been labeled moderately severe.


Like others, Lehigh Valley's Burger was cautious about making predictions. "I'm not certain we're completely out of the woods," with more wintry weather ahead and people likely to be packed indoors where flu can spread around, she said.


The government does not keep a running tally of flu-related deaths in adults, but has received reports of 59 deaths in children. The most — nine — were in Texas, where flu activity was still high last week. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, the CDC says


On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.


According to the CDC report, the number of states with intense activity is down to 19, from 24 the previous week, and flu is widespread in 38 states, down from 42.


Flu is now minimal in Florida, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire and South Carolina.


___


Online:


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


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$1M Reward for Capture of Fugitive Ex-Cop Dorner













A $1 million reward was offered today for information leading to the arrest of Christopher Dorner, as authorities in Big Bear, Calif., scaled back their search for the disgruntled ex-cop, who is suspected in three revenge killings.


"Hopefully the reward will motivate people that may be involved with assisting him or might be reluctant to talk to us to call us and to put an end to this," Los Angeles police Sgt. Rudy Lopez told The Associated Press.






Irvine Police Department/AP Photo











Manhunt for Alleged Cop Killer Heads to California Mountains Watch Video









Christopher Dorner Search: Officials Search for Ex-officer in the Mountains Watch Video









Hundreds of Officers on Hunt for Alleged Cop Killer Watch Video





Although there have been no reported sightings of Dorner in the Big Bear area, authorities have zeroed in on the area after finding his burned out truck.


On day four of the manhunt, a scaled-back force of 25 officers and one helicopter spread out in the mountainous area, located 80 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.


Officers have been going door-to-door at some 600 cabins, looking for signs of the fugitive ex-cop.


No new evidence has been found, authorites said.



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Gunbattle rocks Gao after rebels surprise French, Malians


GAO, Mali (Reuters) - Islamist insurgents launched a surprise raid in the heart of the Malian town of Gao on Sunday, battling French and local troops in a blow to efforts to secure Mali's recaptured north.


Local residents hid in their homes or crouched behind walls as the crackle of gunfire from running street battles resounded through the sandy streets and mud-brick houses of the ancient Niger River town, retaken from Islamist rebels last month by a French-led offensive.


French helicopters clattered overhead and fired on al Qaeda-allied rebels armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades who had infiltrated the central market area and holed up in a police station, Malian and French officers said.


The fighting inside Gao was certain to raise fears that pockets of determined Islamists who have escaped the lightning four-week-old French intervention in Mali will strike back with guerrilla attacks and suicide bombings.


After driving the bulk of the insurgents from major northern towns such as Timbuktu and Gao, French forces are trying to search out their bases in the remote and rugged Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, far up in the northeast.


But with Mali's weak army unable to secure recaptured zones, and the deployment of a larger African security force slowed by delays and kit shortages, vast areas to the rear of the French forward lines now look vulnerable to guerrilla activity.


"They infiltrated the town via the river. We think there were about 10 of them. They were identified by the population and they went into the police station," said General Bernard Barrera, commander of French ground operations in Mali.


He told reporters in Gao that French helicopters had intervened to help Malian troops pinned down by the rebels, who threw grenades from rooftops.


Malian gendarme Colonel Saliou Maiga told Reuters the insurgents intended to carry out suicide attacks in the town.


SUICIDE BOMBERS


No casualty toll was immediately available. But a Reuters reporter in Gao saw one body crumpled over a motorcycle. Malian soldiers said some of the raiders may have come on motorbikes.


The gunfire in Gao erupted hours after French and Malian forces reinforced a checkpoint on the northern outskirts that had been attacked for the second time in two days by a suicide bomber.


Abdoul Abdoulaye Sidibe, a Malian parliamentarian from Gao, said the rebel infiltrators were from the MUJWA group that had held the town until French forces liberated it late last month.


MUJWA is a splinter faction of al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM which, in loose alliance with the home-grown Malian Islamist group Ansar Dine, held Mali's main northern urban areas for 10 months until the French offensive drove them out.


Late on Saturday, an army checkpoint in Gao's northern outskirts came under attack by a group of Islamist rebels who fired from a road and bridge that lead north through the desert scrub by the Niger River to Bourem, 80 km (50 miles) away.


"Our soldiers came under heavy gunfire from jihadists from the bridge ... At the same time, another one flanked round and jumped over the wall. He was able to set off his suicide belt," Malian Captain Sidiki Diarra told reporters.


The bomber died and one Malian soldier was lightly wounded, he added. In Friday's motorbike suicide bomber attack, a Malian soldier was also injured.


Diarra described Saturday's bomber as a bearded Arab.


Since Gao and the UNESCO World Heritage city of Timbuktu were retaken last month, several Malian soldiers have been killed in landmine explosions on a main road leading north.


French and Malian officers say pockets of rebels are still in the bush and desert between major towns and pose a threat of hit-and-run guerrilla raids and bombings.


"We are in a dangerous zone... we can't be everywhere," a French officer told reporters, asking not to be named.


One local resident reported seeing a group of 10 armed Islamist fighters at Batel, just 10 km (6 miles) from Gao.


OPERATIONS IN NORTHEAST


The French, who have around 4,000 troops in Mali, are now focusing their offensive operations several hundred kilometers (miles) north of Gao in a hunt for the Islamist insurgents.


On Friday, French special forces paratroopers seized the airstrip and town of Tessalit, near the Algerian border.


From here, the French, aided by around 1,000 Chadian troops in the northeast Kidal region, are expected to conduct combat patrols into the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.


The remaining Islamists are believed to have hideouts and supply depots in a rugged, sun-blasted range of rocky gullies and caves, and are also thought to be holding at least seven French hostages previously seized in the Sahel.


The U.S. and European governments back the French-led operation as a defense against Islamist jihadists threatening wider attacks, but rule out sending their own combat troops.


To accompany the military offensive, France and its allies are urging Mali authorities to open a national reconciliation dialogue that addresses the pro-autonomy grievances of northern communities like the Tuaregs, and to hold democratic elections.


Interim President Dioncounda Traore, appointed after a military coup last year that plunged the West African state into chaos and led to the Islamist occupation of the north, has said he intends to hold elections by July 31.


But he faces splits within the divided Malian army, where rival units are still at loggerheads.


(Additional reporting by Tiemoko Diallo and Adama Diarra in Bamako; Writing by Joe Bavier and Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Kevin Liffey)



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Golf: Sterne, Fisher extend Joburg Open lead






JOHANNESBURG: South Africans Richard Sterne and Trevor Fisher stretched their lead to five shots on Saturday, after three rounds of the 1.3 million euros Joburg Open.

They held a healthy advantage at the event being played at the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club which is co-sanctioned by the European Tour and the local Sunshine Tour.

Playing together, each fired a third-round 68 to share first place on 196, with compatriots George Coetzee, tournament favourite Charl Schwartzel, Jaco van Zyl and Chilean Felipe Aguilar on 201, the nearest challengers.

American Peter Uihlein is alone on 202 and the group a shot further back includes South Africans Thomas Aiken and Garth Mulroy, Tommy Fleetwood of England, David Drysale of Scotland and Lorenzo Gagli of Italy.

Mulroy and Aiken posted the best third rounds -- 65 and 66 respectively over the par-72, 6942-metre east course at the north-eastern Johannesburg club -- but bridging a seven-stroke gap on the leaders is asking a lot of the pair.

The chances of the trophy staying in South Africa for a fourth consecutive year after two wins by Schwartzel and one by Branden Grace are good with seven locals among the top 12 contenders.

Sterne, runner-up to Stephen Gallacher of Scotland in the Dubai Desert Classic last weekend, had three birdies on the outward nine to make the turn one shot behind Fisher, who was four-under-par over the first nine holes.

But Fisher had an inconsistent inward nine with three birdies and three bogeys while 2008 Joburg Open champion Sterne displayed greater stability with two birdies and a solitary bogey.

"It was pretty good going out there," said Sterne as he admitted feeling the mental and physical pressure of being a title chaser for the second consecutive weekend.

"I feel quite drained at chasing first prize twice within eight days, but I would rather be at the top of the leaderboard than in the middle of the pack. My heart was pumping quite fast out there today."

Fisher admitted to back-nine nerves: "A few set in -- you try not to think about the lead, but the board is there in front of you. I was jumpy with the swing and not waiting at the top, so I hit a few bad shots.

"But I came back nicely on the second nine with a few birdies. It is all about feeling and you have got to try and feel comfortable out there on the course as much as possible."

- AFP/jc



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Jaish's single masterstroke caught global attention

NEW DELHI: The daring 2001 attack on Indian Parliament was the signature that announced the arrival of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), founded by Maulana Masood Azhar, who was one of the three terrorists released as part of the 1999 Kandahar hijack prisoner swap. JeM, with a single masterstroke of hitting the seat of world's largest democracy, established its terror credentials overnight not only in India but across the world.

Jaish owes its early origins to Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI), a militant outfit active in Kashmir, which subscribes to the same Deobandi ideology that drives the Taliban. It also inflicted a major embarrassment on the NDA government by extorting the release of its leader Azhar and Omar Sheikh, the London School of Economics-trained jehadi who lured and killed American journalist Daniel Pearl.

HuJI later split due to differences, and it was its breakaway group Harkat ul Ansar that used the cloak of Al-Faran to execute the 1995 kidnapping of six foreign tourists in Jammu & Kashmir. The six included two British tourists, Keith Mangan and Paul Wells; two Americans, John Childs and Donald Hutchings; a German, Dirk Hasert; and a Norwegian, Hans Christian Ostro. A note put out just a day after the abductions had said, "Accept our demands or face dire consequences". The central demand of 'Al-Faran' was the release of Pakistan-born Maulana Masood Azhar, arrested by the J&K Police in 1994, and 20 others.

Childs managed to escape and was subsequently rescued. However, Ostro was not so lucky and his headless body was discovered in Pahalgam in August 1995 with the words 'Al Faran' carved across his chest. There is still no information on the other four hostages.

As US and other nations rushed to ban Harkat-ul-Ansar, the jehadi grouop swiftly rebranded itself as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM). There was no change in goal or tactic, securing the release of Masood Azhar by taking hostages. It stepped up its modus operandi to hijack Indian Airlines flight IC-814 soon after it took off from Kathmandu on December 24, 1999. The hijacked plane was diverted to Kandahar leading to o a week-long hostage situation in which Taliban, then in control of Afghanistan, sided with the hijackers.

A swap deal was worked out to meet the hijackers' demands; Maulana Masood Azhar, along with two aides Omar Sheikh (linked to the Daniel Pearl murder case) and Mushtaq Zargar, was taken to Kandahar and freed in exchange for all the passengers.

Azhar, who was feted in Pakistan with Kalashnikovs being fired to celebrate his freedom, did not wait long before floating another terror outfit, the JeM. In its first spectacular act in Kashmir, JeM carried out a fidayeen (suicide) attack on the Badami Bagh cantonment in Srinagar in 2000. Emboldened, now it was Jaish's turn to target the national Capital. What followed was an audacious attack on Parliament House by a five-member fidayeen squad. Though all the five terrorists were killed, the attack went down in history as the most daring bid yet to hit the seat of democracy.

Though the Parliament attack earned him recognition in Pakistan, the subsequent overreach by JeM in issuing threats to the US and targeting the Pakistan dictator General Pervez Musharraf , led to a clampdown by the Pakistani government. The JeM soon fell out of favour with the ISI, as LeT consolidated its position as the most trusted aide of ISI to plot attacks against India.

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After Blizzard, Northeast Begins to Dig Out













The Northeast began the arduous process of cleaning up after a fierce storm swept through the region leaving behind up to three feet of snow in some areas.


By early this morning, 650,000 homes and businesses were without power and at least five deaths were being blamed on the storm: three in Canada, one in New York and one in Connecticut, The Associated Press reported.


The storm dumped snow from New Jersey to Maine, affecting more than 25 million people, with more than two feet falling in areas of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire. The Postal Service closed post offices and suspended mail delivery today in New England.


As the storm waned, officials in the hardest hit areas cautioned residents to remain indoors and off the roads to ease the clean-up.


Massachusetts was hard hit by the storm, with more than two feet of snow in Boston and even more in coastal areas. State police and national guard troops helped rescue more than 50 stranded motorists and even helped deliver a baby girl, according to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.


Patrick enacted the first statewide driving ban since the 1978 blizzard, which left 27 inches of snow and killed dozens. The ban was to be lifted at 4 p.m. today, the governor said.


However, Patrick cautioned residents to act with extreme caution even after the ban is over.


"Stay inside and be patient," Patrick said.


In Massachusetts a boy reportedly died of carbon monoxide poisoning as he helped his father shovel snow on Saturday, according to ABCNews.com affiliate WCVB-TV in Boston.


For residents along the coast, the waning snowfall didn't mean the end of the storm. Storm surges along the Massachusetts coastline forced some residents out of their homes Saturday morning.


"We've got 20-foot waves crashing and flooding some homes," Bob Connors on Plum Island told WCVB. "We have power and heat and all that. We just have a very angry ocean. In my 33 years, I've never seen the seas this high."






Darren McCollester/Getty Images











Blizzard Shuts Down Parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts Watch Video









Blizzard 2013: Power Outages for Hundreds of Thousands of People Watch Video









Blizzard 2013: Northeast Transportation Network Shut Down Watch Video





FULL COVERAGE: Blizzard of 2013


In Connecticut, Gov. Dannel Malloy declared a state of emergency and closed all roads in the state. The state police responded to more than 1,600 calls over the last 24 hours and the governor called up an additional 270 National Guard members.


"If you're not an emergency personnel that's required to be somewhere, stay home," Malloy said.


Overnight, snow fell at a rate of up to five to six inches per hour in parts of Connecticut. In Milford, more than 38 inches of snow had fallen by this morning.


In Fairfield, Conn. firefighters and police officers on the day shift were unable to make it to work, so the overnight shift remained on duty.


PHOTOS: Blizzard Hits Northeast


The wind and snow started affecting the region during the Friday night commute.


In Cumberland, Maine, the conditions led to a 19-car pile-up and in New York, hundreds of commuters were stranded on the snowy Long Island Expressway. Police and firefighters were still working to free motorists early this morning.


"The biggest problem that we're having is that people are not staying on the main portion or the middle section of the roadway and veering to the shoulders, which are not plowed," said Lt. Daniel Meyer from the Suffolk County Police Highway Patrol.


In New York, authorities are digging out hundreds of cars that got stuck overnight on the Long Island Expressway.


Bob Griffith of Syosset, N.Y., said he tried leave early to escape the storm, but instead ended up stuck in the snow by the side of the road.


"I tried to play it smart in that I started early in the day, when it was raining," said Griffith. "But the weather beat us to the punch."


Suffolk County Executive Steven Bellone said the snow had wreaked havoc on the roadways.


"I saw state plows stuck on the side of the road. I've never seen anything like this before," Bellone said.


However, some New York residents, who survived the wrath of Hurricane Sandy, were rattled by having to face another large and potentially dangerous storm system with hurricane force winds and flooding.


"How many storms of the century can you have in six months?" said Larry Racioppo, a resident of the hard hit Rockaway neighborhood in Queens, New York.


READ: Weather NYC: Blizzard Threatens Rockaways, Ravaged by Sandy


Snowfall Totals


In New York, a little more than 11 inches fell in the city.


By this morning, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said nearly all of the primary roads had been plowed and the department of sanitation anticipated that all roads would be plowed by the end of the day.


"It looks like we dodged a bullet, but keep in mind winter is not over," said Bloomberg.






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Israel's Lieberman says Palestinian peace accord impossible


JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has no chance of signing a permanent peace accord with the Palestinians and should instead seek a long-term interim deal, the most powerful political partner of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.


The remarks by Avigdor Lieberman, an ultranationalist whose joint party list with Netanyahu narrowly won a January 22 election while centrist challengers made surprise gains, seemed designed to dampen expectations at home and abroad of fresh peacemaking.


A spring visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories by U.S. President Barack Obama, announced this week, has stirred speculation that foreign pressure for a diplomatic breakthrough could build - though Washington played down that possibility.


In a television interview, ex-foreign minister Lieberman linked the more than two-year-old impasse to pan-Arab political upheaval that has boosted Islamists hostile to the Jewish state.


These include Hamas, rivals of U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who control the Gaza Strip and spurn coexistence with Israel though they have mooted extended truces.


"Anyone who thinks that in the center of this socio-diplomatic ocean, this tsunami which is jarring the Arab world, it is possible to arrive at the magic solution of a comprehensive peace with the Palestinians does not understand," Lieberman told Israel's Channel Two.


"This is impossible. It is not possible to solve the conflict here. The conflict can be managed and it is important to manage the conflict ... to negotiate on a long-term interim agreement."


Abbas broke off talks in late 2010 in protest at Israel's settlement of the occupied West Bank. He angered Israel and the United States in November by securing a U.N. status upgrade that implicitly recognized Palestinian independence in all the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.


Israel insists it will keep East Jerusalem and swathes of West Bank settlements under any eventual peace deal. Most world powers consider the settlements illegal because they take up land seized in the 1967 Middle East war.


Lieberman, himself a West Bank settler, said the ball was "in Abu Mazen's (Abbas') court" to revive diplomacy.


Abbas has demanded Israel first freeze all settlement construction. With two decades gone since Palestinians signed their first interim deal with Israel, he has ruled out any new negotiations that do not solemnize Palestinian statehood.


Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev noted that Lieberman, in the Channel Two interview, had said he was expressing his own opinion.


Asked how Netanyahu saw peace prospects for an accord with the Palestinians, Regev referred to a speech on Tuesday in which the conservative prime minister said that Israel, while addressing threats by its enemies, "must also pursue secure, stable and realistic peace with our neighbors".


Netanyahu has previously spoken in favor of a Palestinian state, though he has been cagey on its borders and whether he would be prepared to dismantle Israeli settlements.


Lieberman's role in the next coalition government is unclear as he faces trial for corruption. If convicted, he could be barred from the cabinet. Lieberman denies wrongdoing and has said he would like to regain the foreign portfolio, which he surrendered after his indictment was announced last year.


(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Stephen Powell)



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US stocks end higher on sharply narrowed US trade deficit

 





NEW YORK: The S&P 500 punched to a new five-year high on Friday and the Nasdaq to its best since 2000, as stocks regained footing helped by a sharply narrowed US trade deficit.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average also reached a post-crisis high above 14,022 during trade, but slipped back to end up 48.92 points (0.35 percent) at 13,992.97.

The S&P 500 index rose 8.54 points (0.57 percent) to 1,517.93, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 28.74 points (0.91 percent) to 3,193.87.

- AFP/de




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