Protests after "pharaoh" Mursi assumes powers in Egypt

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi's decision to assume sweeping powers caused fury amongst his opponents and prompted violent clashes in central Cairo and other cities on Friday.

Police fired tear gas near Cairo's Tahrir Square, heart of the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, where thousands demanded Mursi quit and accused him of launching a "coup". There were violent protests in Alexandria, Port Said and Suez.

Opponents accused Mursi, who has issued a decree that puts his decisions above legal challenge until a new parliament is elected, of being the new Mubarak and hijacking the revolution.

"The people want to bring down the regime," shouted protesters in Tahrir, echoing a chant used in the uprising that forced Mubarak to step down. "Get out, Mursi," they chanted, along with "Mubarak tell Mursi, jail comes after the throne."

Mursi's aides said the presidential decree was intended to speed up a protracted transition that has been hindered by legal obstacles but Mursi's rivals condemned him as an autocratic pharaoh who wanted to impose his Islamist vision on Egypt.

"I am for all Egyptians. I will not be biased against any son of Egypt," Mursi said on a stage outside the presidential palace, adding that he was working for social and economic stability and the rotation of power.

"Opposition in Egypt does not worry me, but it has to be real and strong," he said, seeking to placate his critics and telling Egyptians that he was committed to the revolution. "Go forward, always forward ... to a new Egypt."

Buoyed by accolades from around the world for mediating a truce between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip, Mursi on Thursday ordered that an Islamist-dominated assembly writing the new constitution could not be dissolved by legal challenges.

"Mursi a 'temporary' dictator," was the headline in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Mursi, an Islamist whose roots are in the Muslim Brotherhood, also gave himself wide powers that allowed him to sack the unpopular general prosecutor and opened the door for a retrial for Mubarak and his aides.

The president's decree aimed to end the logjam and push Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, more quickly along its democratic path, the presidential spokesman said.

"President Mursi said we must go out of the bottleneck without breaking the bottle," Yasser Ali told Reuters.

TURBULENCE AND TURMOIL

The president's decree said any decrees he issued while no parliament sat could not be challenged, moves that consolidated his power but look set to polarize Egypt further, threatening more turbulence in a nation at the heart of the Arab Spring.

The turmoil has weighed heavily on Egypt's faltering economy that was thrown a lifeline this week when a preliminary deal was reached with the International Monetary Fund for a $4.8 billion loan. But it also means unpopular economic measures.

In Alexandria, north of Cairo, protesters ransacked an office of the Brotherhood's political party, burning books and chairs in the street. Supporters of Mursi and opponents clashed elsewhere in the city, leaving 12 injured.

A party building was also attacked by stone-throwing protesters in Port Said, and demonstrators in Suez threw petrol bombs that burned banners outside the party building.

Mursi's decree is bound to worry Western allies, particularly the United States, a generous benefactor to Egypt's army, which praised Egypt for its part in bringing Israelis and Palestinians to a ceasefire on Wednesday.

The West may become concerned about measures that, for example, undermine judicial independence. The European Union urged Mursi to respect the democratic process.

"We are very concerned about the possible huge ramifications of this declaration on human rights and the rule of law in Egypt," Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay, said at the United Nations in Geneva.

The United States has been concerned about the fate of what was once a close ally under Mubarak, who preserved Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel. The Gaza deal has reassured Washington but the deepening polarization of the nation will be a worry.

"ANOTHER DICTATOR"

"The decree is basically a coup on state institutions and the rule of law that is likely to undermine the revolution and the transition to democracy," said Mervat Ahmed, an independent activist in Tahrir protesting against the decree. "I worry Mursi will be another dictator like the one before him."

Leading liberal Mohamed ElBaradei, who joined other politicians on Thursday night to demand the decree was withdrawn, wrote on his Twitter account that Mursi had "usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt's new pharaoh".

Almost two years after Mubarak was toppled and about five months since Mursi took office, propelled to the post by the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt has no permanent constitution, which must be in place before new parliamentary elections are held.

The last parliament, which sat for the first time earlier this year, was dissolved after a court declared it void. It was dominated by the Brotherhood's political party.

An assembly drawing up the constitution has yet to complete its work. Many liberals, Christians and others have walked out accusing the Islamists who dominate it of ignoring their voices over the extent that Islam should be enshrined in the new state.

Opponents call for the assembly to be scrapped and remade. Mursi's decree protects the existing one and extends the deadline for drafting a document by two months, pushing it back to February, further delaying a new parliamentary election.

Explaining the rationale behind the moves, the presidential spokesman said: "This means ending the period of constitutional instability to arrive at a state with a written constitution, an elected president and parliament."

"THIS IS NOT THE REMEDY"

Analyst Seif El Din Abdel Fatah said the decree targeted the judiciary which had reversed, for example, an earlier Mursi decision to remove the prosecutor.

Mursi, who is now protected by his new decree from judicial reversals, said the judiciary contained honorable men but said he would uncover corrupt elements. He also said he would ensure independence for the judicial, executive and legislative powers.

Although many of Mursi's opponents also opposed the sacked prosecutor, whom they blamed for shortcomings in prosecuting Mubarak and his aides, and also want judicial reform, they say a draconian presidential decree was not the way to do it.

"There was a disease but this is not the remedy," said Hassan Nafaa, a liberal-minded political science professor and activist at Cairo University.

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva and Sebastian Moffett in Brussels; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Peter Millership and Giles Elgood)

Read More..

Israel firms up security as Gaza truce takes hold

JERUSALEM: Israel restricted Palestinian access to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Friday and kept a tight grip on security as a first death tested a hard-won truce ending fighting in and around Gaza.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightwing Likud party prepared for a primary on Sunday amid signs its popularity was slipping among Israelis who would have preferred a ground invasion of the Hamas-controlled strip.

Tensions on the streets of annexed Arab east Jerusalem remained high a day after angry demonstrators stormed an Israeli police station in a bid to secure the release of a Palestinian woman who tried to stab a border guard.

The army reported arresting 28 suspected West Bank militants -- including five members of Hamas -- in the wake of a security sweep on Thursday in which 55 "terror operatives" were detained.

Israel decided on further precaution by barring Palestinians under the age of 40 from accessing the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem -- Islam's third holiest site -- which is also revered by Jews.

"An extensive police force and border guards will also be deployed in sensitive areas around the Old City of Jerusalem," police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.

The mosque compound has been the focus of past clashes, and Israel sought to prevent any repetition that could jeopardise the truce ending eight days of fighting in which 166 Palestinians and six Israelis died.

The ceasefire was holding firmly despite a dozen rockets being fired at Israel from Gaza in the first post-truce hours and a warning from Netanyahu that he would resume the offensive if need be.

The Palestinians also reported their first post-conflict casualty at the hands of Israeli soldiers who reportedly opened fire on a group of farmers near the Gaza border on Friday.

"This is the first Israeli violation of the truce," Sami Abu Zuhri of the Islamist Hamas movement that rules Gaza told AFP.

Hamas "will raise this violation with Egyptian mediators to make sure that it does not happen again," the spokesman added.

An Israeli army representative said the troops were forced to take action after hundreds of Palestinians attacked a border fence in an apparent attempt to take it down.

"The soldiers proceeded to fire warning shots in the air, but the Palestinians continued to close in, and the soldiers then fired at their feet," the spokeswoman said.

The Palestinian emergency services identified the victim as 21-year-old Abdelhadi Qdeih Anwar. They added that 19 other Palestinians suffered gunshot wounds in the village of Khuzaa.

No rockets were fired in reprisal by Hamas.

The first opinion polls assessing the government's handling of the Gaza conflict in the run-up to a snap general election called for January showed a general sense of disappointment that Israel had accepted the ceasefire terms.

A study commissioned by the Maariv newspaper found 49 percent of respondents saying Israel should have continued its operation of air strikes and just 31 percent agreeing with the truce.

The same poll showed support for Netanyahu's Likud party slipping by six percentage points over the past month.

But Likud was still leading the opposition Labour party by a 37-to-22 percent margin and on pace to form a new governing coalition with ultra-nationalist and Jewish Orthodox groups.

Maariv said many Israelis felt the truce spelled a "missed opportunity" for the Jewish state to eradicate Gaza's Hamas leaders.

"The ceasefire agreement was essential in the wake of the global and international circumstances and the heavy pressure placed on Israel" by the United States, Maariv wrote.

But "it seems that most of the public in the country has a hard time accepting these explanations."

Sunday's Likud primary will decide who makes it onto the party list to be put to voters on January 22. Analysts are watching to see if the party tilts further to the right in response to public disaffection over the truce.

-AFP/ac

Read More..

India tests missile shield, DRDO says it will be operational by 2014

NEW DELHI: There were some big fireworks over the Bay of Bengal on Friday afternoon when India tested its experimental ballistic missile defence (BMD) system to intercept two "incoming hostile" missiles with interceptor missiles.

Elated with the "bang-on accurate" test, the seventh time the BMD system has been tested successfully over the last six years, the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) promptly declared a missile shield could be deployed for New Delhi by 2014.

"We are now ready to convert the BMD system from an experimental to an operational one that can be deployed on demand. I am confident we can deploy the Phase-I of the BMD system by 2014," said DRDO chief V K Saraswat, speaking to TOI from the Wheeler Island test range off Odisha coast.

But the reality check is that even American missile defence systems like Patriot Advanced Capability-3, Aegis BMD-3 and THAAD (terminal high-altitude area defence), as also Russian and Israeli ones, are not fully foolproof as of now.

In Friday's test, only one of the incoming missiles was real: a modified Prithvi missile mimicking M-9/M-11 class of Chinese Dong Feng short-range ballistic missiles. The other was an electronically simulated missile of a longer range of 1,500km.

Both "enemy" missile launches were, however, conducted "in the same window" to test the BMD system's capability to handle "multiple threats" simultaneously. "This has been done only by the two superpowers (US and Russia) till now. The real missile was destroyed at an altitude of 14.7-km by the interceptor missile with a direct hit," said Saraswat.

The electronic missile was intercepted at an altitude of 120km. Both the missiles were picked up and tracked by long-range and multi-function radars, which in turn passed the data to guidance and launch computers of the interceptors to "kill" them. "The entire test was done practically in deployment configuration," he said.

While it remains to be seen whether DRDO can indeed deploy an effective missile shield by 2014, it has also begun work on adding a third tier to the BMD system. The existing two-tier system is designed to track and destroy ballistic missiles both inside (endo) and outside (exo) the earth's atmosphere.

The third layer is planned to tackle low-flying cruise missiles, artillery projectiles and rockets in the line with the overall aim to achieve "near 100% kill or interception probability".

"Look what is happening in the Middle-East (Hamas firing rockets at Israeli cities before the recent ceasefire)...hence, protection against low-cost, very close range threats is also needed. We have begun some initial work on the third-tier. We will try to integrate it with the BMD system once it fructifies," said Saraswat.

At present, Phase-I of the BMD system, with interceptors flying at 4.5 Mach high-supersonic speeds to intercept enemy missiles, is meant to tackle hostile missiles with a 2,000-km strike range.

As per DRDO's plans, Phase-II will be geared for taking on 5,000-km range missiles, virtually in the class of ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles), with interceptors at hypersonic speeds of 6-7 Mach.

Read More..

AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

Read More..

Shoppers Descend on Black Friday Deals

Black Friday got off to its earliest start ever as many shoppers cleared the table of Thanksgiving dinner and headed straight to the malls and big-box retailers across the nation to snag goods at bargain prices.

More than 10,000 people were wrapped around Macy's flagship store in New York City before the doors opened at midnight this morning. Across the country, up to 147 million people are expected to shop at some point this weekend.

Thousands lined up outside a Target in Chicago ahead of a 9 p.m. start time.

"I'm here because my mom is making me, because she said I couldn't eat any of the Thanksgiving food if I didn't hold her place in line," Alex Horton told ABC News station WLS-TV in Chicago Thursday.

Many critics panned the early start this year, saying it cuts into quality time that should be spent with family and friends.

PHOTOS: Black Friday Shoppers Hit Stores

Chicago resident Claudia Fonseca got creative and took Thanksgiving to go.

"We brought a plate, but that's about it, we've been here since 11 a.m. And that's it," Fonseca told WLS Thursday.

Black Friday makes headlines every year, but not always for the right reason as violence has become linked to the day after Thanksgiving tradition.

AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes

Black Friday Holiday Shopping Bargains and Pitfalls Watch Video

Black Friday Shoppers Brave Long Lines, Short Tempers Watch Video

In Los Angeles, police aren't taking any chances with the LAPD deploying dozens of extra officers around the city to make sure things don't get out of hand.

Ontario Mills shopping mall in Los Angeles opened at midnight last year, but decided to give excited shoppers a two-hour head start to get their hands on the cut-rate deals, especially for electronics.

"This is my first year," Gabriela Mendoza told ABC News station KABC-TV Thursday. "I tried to stay away from this but I've heard it's really exciting so, I'm looking forward to it."

Things have been relatively calmer compared to the incident last year when a woman was accused of unleashing pepper spray on other shoppers in a dash for electronics at Walmart in Los Angeles.

The Black Friday madness kicked off Thursday when a south Sacramento, Calif., Kmart opened its doors at 6 a.m. Thursday. A shopper in a line of people that had formed nearly two hours earlier reportedly threatened to stab the people around him.

At two Kmarts in Indianapolis, police officers were called in after fights broke out among shoppers trying to score vouchers for a 32-inch plasma TV going for less than $200, police told ABC News affiliate RTV6. No injuries or arrest were made.

Stores have taken preventive measures in hopes of shoppers and tempers at ease, where safety is the main concern for everyone involved.

Mall of America has tightened its Black Friday policies and will bar unaccompanied minors from the megamall all day today. After a chair-throwing melee last year after Christmas, which was captured on smartphones and posted online, the mall is taking steps to prevent any repeat.

At the Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento, Calif., security planned to place barricades at the mall entrance to control the crowds and officials planned to double the number of security officers.

ABC News' John Schriffen and Sarah Netter contributed to this report.

Read More..

Gaza ceasefire holds but mistrust runs deep

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas held firm on Thursday with scenes of joy among the ruins in Gaza over what Palestinians hailed as a victory, and both sides saying their fingers were still on the trigger.

In the sudden calm, Palestinians who had been under Israeli bombs for eight days poured into Gaza streets for a celebratory rally, walking past wrecked houses and government buildings.

But as a precaution, schools stayed closed in southern Israel, where nerves were jangled by warning sirens - a false alarm, the army said - after a constant rain of rockets during the most serious Israeli-Palestinian fighting in four years.

Israel had launched its strikes last week with a declared aim of ending rocket attacks on its territory from Gaza, ruled by the Islamist militant group Hamas, which denies Israel's right to exist. Hamas had responded with more rockets.

The truce brokered by Egypt's new Islamist leaders, working with the United States, headed off an Israeli invasion of Gaza.

It was the fruit of intensive diplomacy spurred by U.S. President Barack Obama, who sent his secretary of state to Cairo and backed her up with phone calls to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi.

Mursi's role in cajoling his Islamist soulmates in Gaza into the U.S.-backed deal with Israel suggested that Washington can find ways to cooperate with the Muslim Brotherhood leader whom Egyptians elected after toppling former U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak, a bulwark of American policy in the Middle East for 30 years.

Mursi, preoccupied with Egypt's economic crisis, cannot afford to tamper with a 1979 peace treaty with Israel, despite its unpopularity with Egyptians, and needs U.S. financial aid.

MORE DEATHS

Despite the quiet on the battlefield, the death toll from the Gaza conflict crept up on both sides.

The body of Mohammed al-Dalu, 25, was recovered from the rubble of a house where nine of his relatives - four children and five women - were killed by an Israeli bomb this week.

That raised to 163 the number of Palestinians killed, more than half of them civilians, including 37 children, during the Israeli onslaught, according to Gaza medical officials.

Nearly 1,400 rockets struck Israel, killing four civilians and two soldiers, including an officer who died on Thursday of wounds sustained the day before, the Israeli army said.

Israel dropped 1,000 times as much explosive on the Gaza Strip as landed on its soil, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.

Municipal workers in Gaza began cleaning streets and removing the rubble of bombed buildings. Stores opened and people flocked to markets to buy food.

Jubilant crowds celebrated, with most people waving green Hamas flags but some carrying the yellow emblems of the rival Fatah group, led by Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas.

That marked a rare show of unity five years after Hamas, which won a Palestinian poll in 2006, forcibly wrested Gaza from Fatah, still dominant in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel began ferrying tanks northwards, away from the border, on transporters. It plans to discharge gradually tens of thousands of reservists called up for a possible Gaza invasion.

But trust between Israel and Hamas remains in short supply and both said they might well have to fight again.

"The battle with the enemy has not ended yet," Abu Ubaida, spokesman of Hamas's armed wing Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades, said at an event to mourn its acting military chief Ahmed al-Jaabari, whose killing by Israel on November 14 set off this round.

"HANDS ON TRIGGER"

The exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said in Cairo his Islamist movement would respect the truce, but warned that if Israel violated it "our hands are on the trigger".

Netanyahu said he had agreed to "exhaust this opportunity for an extended truce", but told Israelis a tougher approach might be required in the future.

Facing a national election in two months, he swiftly came under fire from opposition politicians who had rallied to his side during the fighting but now contend he emerged from the conflict with no real gains for Israel.

"You don't settle with terrorism, you defeat it. And unfortunately, a decisive victory has not been achieved and we did not recharge our deterrence," Shaul Mofaz, leader of the main opposition Kadima party, wrote on his Facebook page.

In a speech, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's prime minister in Gaza, urged all Palestinian factions to respect the ceasefire and said his government and security services would monitor compliance.

According to a text of the agreement seen by Reuters, both sides should halt all hostilities, with Israel desisting from incursions and targeting of individuals, while all Palestinian factions should cease rocket fire and cross-border attacks.

The deal also provides for easing Israeli curbs on Gaza's residents, but the two sides disagreed on what this meant.

Israeli sources said Israel would not lift a blockade of the enclave it enforced after Hamas won a Palestinian election in 2006, but Meshaal said the deal covered the opening of all of the territory's border crossings with Israel and Egypt.

Israel let dozens of trucks carry supplies into the Palestinian enclave during the fighting. Residents there have long complained that Israeli restrictions blight their economy.

Barak said Hamas, which declared November 22 a national holiday to mark its "victory", had suffered heavy military blows.

"A large part of the mid-range rockets were destroyed. Hamas managed to hit Israel's built-up areas with around a metric tone of explosives, and Gaza targets got around 1,000 metric tonnes," he said.

He dismissed a ceasefire text published by Hamas, saying: "The right to self-defense trumps any piece of paper."

He appeared to confirm, however, a Hamas claim that the Israelis would no longer enforce a no-go zone on the Gaza side of the frontier that the army says has prevented Hamas raids.

(Additional reporting by Noah Browning in Gaza, Ori Lewis, Crispian Balmer and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Alistair Lyon; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Read More..

Motor Racing: I have nothing to lose, says Alonso

SAO PAULO: Fernando Alonso insists he has nothing to lose in this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix title showdown in which he seeks to wreck defending champion Sebastian Vettel's bid for a third title and take the crown himself for a third time.

The 31-year-old Spaniard trails the 25-year-old German Red Bull driver by 13 points ahead of the Interlagos race, but he remains hopeful that he can deliver an unexpected triumph.

"It would be good to be on the podium to score a minimum of 15 points and when we cross the line we will see where Seb is and we will try and do the numbers after that," said the Ferrari driver.

"The first priority is to be on the podium, which gives us a possibility to score more than 13 points and then we need to wait for the result from Red Bull.

"It is not in our hands, we have not much to lose -- the only possibility is to win something. If he wins, fine. We try again next year.

"There is always pressure but we have less than other occasions and less than leading the championship. We have nothing to lose.

"We are arriving in second position and have been qualifying seventh in the last few grands prix so to recover 13 points is quite difficult. If something normal happens we finish second.

"If something special happens then we win. It is not in our hands really so the pressure is much less."

The Ferrari driver conceded his car is unlikely to be closer to the Red Bulls in Brazil than he was in America last weekend.

"There is no magic that you can put in the car in five days. We were seventh in Abu Dhabi (qualifying), ninth in Austin, so those positions should be normal but hopefully we can do a better job."

Alonso, fighting Vettel to become the youngest triple champion in history, is convinced he will have more chances to fight for the title.

"I hope so. I am 31 and I still feel I will have some more possibilities. I am at Ferrari for the next four to five years minimum, so that always gives you the possibility to fight for championships.

"In three years at Ferrari, twice I have arrived in the last race fighting for the championship.

"We were never dominant, but even with problems we were fighting two times, so I am sure in next four or five years there will be other opportunities."

He added that he was proud of his Ferrari team's decision to incur a deliberate penalty for team-mate Felipe Massa during the United States Grand Prix.

The Italian squad decided to break a seal in the gearbox of Massa's car at Austin in order for the Brazilian to get a five-place grid penalty that moved Alonso up to seventh and, more importantly, to the clean side of the track.

Alonso backed that decision which allowed him to jump from seventh to fourth by the first corner.

"I am proud of my team for the strategy decision to start on the clean side with both cars," said Alonso. "It worked quite well and perhaps because it worked well maybe that is why (rivals) are not happy.

"I am proud of my team because they told the truth. Not every team has told the truth when they have made strategic decisions."

He added that he felt the reactions from rival teams to be 'funny'.

"Funny. I think we have seen so many things coming from the teams, not only this year, but also in the past in F1," he said.

"We don't need to go too far with some of the races where we had some doubts, even on Saturday night, about which teams and which position they start depending on some decisions. We saw this many times for many teams."

Vettel, fighting for his third title with Alonso, said he was not bothered by Ferrari's pragmatism in Texas.

"What they do is not in our hands. I didn't follow-up whether Felipe had real trouble with the gearbox or not, but it is not our job to focus on these things," he said.

"It is a different approach compared to our team. That is how life is, everyone handles certain situation in a different way."

-AFP/ac

Read More..

Turmoil in Gujarat Congress after first list of candidates for assembly polls

AHMEDABAD: Scuffle, demonstrations and a series of resignations were the order of the day in Gujarat Congress as those left out from the first list of 52 candidates for the assembly polls expressed their disappointment and anger.

As state party leaders camped in New Delhi for finalisation of the full list of nominees for the first phase, four Dalit leaders, who were also office-bearers, tendered thier resignations to protest candidature of Shailesh Parmar from Danilimda (SC) seat in Ahmedabad district.

Girish Parmar, Jayanti Parmar, Gunvant Solanki and Khemchand Solanki resigned from the posts of vice president, Gujarat Congress, spokesperson, general secretary and vice president of Ahmedabad City Congress, respectively.

"We all have submitted our resignations to protest the decision to field Shailesh Parmar," said Jayanti Parmar.

Supporters of Congress ticket aspirants from Kalol constituency, Praful Talsania and Kanti Thakor, were unhappy over the selection of Baldevji Thakor from the seat and demanded that party high command reconsider its decision.

They entered the Gujarat Congress headquarters here and started shouting slogans against Thakor, who they claimed was an "outsider" to the constituency. A minor scuffle broke out between them and other Congress workers when they were asked to go out of the office and protest.

"Candidature of Baldev Thakor, who is an outsider, has been imposed on us by the party. We are opposing this and asking the party high command to change the decision," said Talsania. "Ticket should be given to a local candidate if the party wants to win the Kalol seat."

Election to the 182-member Gujarat Assembly will be held on December 13 and 17 and Congress last night declared 22 candidates for the first phase and 30 for the second.

The main Opposition party had declared another list of 46 candidates, but it was withdrawn after two hours.

Announcement of the partial list of candidates for the first phase of the poll has brought the internal turmoil in Gujarat Congress to the fore. Several party office-bearers have tendered resignation over selection of candidates.

Demonstrations by rival factions were held in Mangrol and Amreli district Congress offices also.

Read More..

Study finds mammograms lead to unneeded treatment

Mammograms have done surprisingly little to catch deadly breast cancers before they spread, a big U.S. study finds. At the same time, more than a million women have been treated for cancers that never would have threatened their lives, researchers estimate.

Up to one-third of breast cancers, or 50,000 to 70,000 cases a year, don't need treatment, the study suggests.

It's the most detailed look yet at overtreatment of breast cancer, and it adds fresh evidence that screening is not as helpful as many women believe. Mammograms are still worthwhile, because they do catch some deadly cancers and save lives, doctors stress. And some of them disagree with conclusions the new study reached.

But it spotlights a reality that is tough for many Americans to accept: Some abnormalities that doctors call "cancer" are not a health threat or truly malignant. There is no good way to tell which ones are, so many women wind up getting treatments like surgery and chemotherapy that they don't really need.

Men have heard a similar message about PSA tests to screen for slow-growing prostate cancer, but it's relatively new to the debate over breast cancer screening.

"We're coming to learn that some cancers — many cancers, depending on the organ — weren't destined to cause death," said Dr. Barnett Kramer, a National Cancer Institute screening expert. However, "once a woman is diagnosed, it's hard to say treatment is not necessary."

He had no role in the study, which was led by Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of Dartmouth Medical School and Dr. Archie Bleyer of St. Charles Health System and Oregon Health & Science University. Results are in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Breast cancer is the leading type of cancer and cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide. Nearly 1.4 million new cases are diagnosed each year. Other countries screen less aggressively than the U.S. does. In Britain, for example, mammograms are usually offered only every three years and a recent review there found similar signs of overtreatment.

The dogma has been that screening finds cancer early, when it's most curable. But screening is only worthwhile if it finds cancers destined to cause death, and if treating them early improves survival versus treating when or if they cause symptoms.

Mammograms also are an imperfect screening tool — they often give false alarms, spurring biopsies and other tests that ultimately show no cancer was present. The new study looks at a different risk: Overdiagnosis, or finding cancer that is present but does not need treatment.

Researchers used federal surveys on mammography and cancer registry statistics from 1976 through 2008 to track how many cancers were found early, while still confined to the breast, versus later, when they had spread to lymph nodes or more widely.

The scientists assumed that the actual amount of disease — how many true cases exist — did not change or grew only a little during those three decades. Yet they found a big difference in the number and stage of cases discovered over time, as mammograms came into wide use.

Mammograms more than doubled the number of early-stage cancers detected — from 112 to 234 cases per 100,000 women. But late-stage cancers dropped just 8 percent, from 102 to 94 cases per 100,000 women.

The imbalance suggests a lot of overdiagnosis from mammograms, which now account for 60 percent of cases that are found, Bleyer said. If screening were working, there should be one less patient diagnosed with late-stage cancer for every additional patient whose cancer was found at an earlier stage, he explained.

"Instead, we're diagnosing a lot of something else — not cancer" in that early stage, Bleyer said. "And the worst cancer is still going on, just like it always was."

Researchers also looked at death rates for breast cancer, which declined 28 percent during that time in women 40 and older — the group targeted for screening. Mortality dropped even more — 41 percent — in women under 40, who presumably were not getting mammograms.

"We are left to conclude, as others have, that the good news in breast cancer — decreasing mortality — must largely be the result of improved treatment, not screening," the authors write.

The study was paid for by the study authors' universities.

"This study is important because what it really highlights is that the biology of the cancer is what we need to understand" in order to know which ones to treat and how, said Dr. Julia A. Smith, director of breast cancer screening at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. Doctors already are debating whether DCIS, a type of early tumor confined to a milk duct, should even be called cancer, she said.

Another expert, Dr. Linda Vahdat, director of the breast cancer research program at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, said the study's leaders made many assumptions to reach a conclusion about overdiagnosis that "may or may not be correct."

"I don't think it will change how we view screening mammography," she said.

A government-appointed task force that gives screening advice calls for mammograms every other year starting at age 50 and stopping at 75. The American Cancer Society recommends them every year starting at age 40.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the cancer society's deputy chief medical officer, said the study should not be taken as "a referendum on mammography," and noted that other high-quality studies have affirmed its value. Still, he said overdiagnosis is a problem, and it's not possible to tell an individual woman whether her cancer needs treated.

"Our technology has brought us to the place where we can find a lot of cancer. Our science has to bring us to the point where we can define what treatment people really need," he said.

___

Online:

Study: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1206809

Screening advice: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/uspsbrca.htm

___

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

Read More..

Black Friday Deals Kick Off on 'Gray Thursday'

Black Friday is the Super Bowl of retail, but some of the nation's largest big-box stores can't wait until the day after Thanksgiving to open their doors to shoppers eager to grab great deals the same day as their turkey dinner.

Traditional Black Friday door-busting deals now start tonight, on what's been dubbed Gray Thursday. Major retail stores such as Kmart, Toys R Us, Walmart and Sears will open their doors beginning at 8 p.m. Target will join the party an hour later.

"It's traditionally been the day after Thanksgiving when the stores go into the black, where they make all their money. But that's not true anymore," retail expert Michelle Madhock said.

With Black Friday sales starting Thursday, that means lines started forming Wednesday, or in some extreme cases a week before as bargain hunters tried to get a turkey leg up on their competition.

4 Steps to Get the Best Holiday Shopping Deals Watch Video

Top Tips for Thanksgiving Day Door-Buster Deals Watch Video

Luciana Pendleton pitched a tent outside a Deptford Township, N.J., Best Buy Monday fully equipped with all she needed to spend the next few days away from home so she could be first in line when the doors open.

"I am just happy I beat my competition. They pulled up here around 3 p.m., and we were already here so I was happy," she said Monday.

Last year, some sale seekers became a little too excited and turned holiday shopping into a contact sport. In one ugly incident, a woman was accused of unleashing pepper spray on other shoppers in a dash for electronics at Walmart in Los Angeles.

This year, stores are beefing up security, and Best Buy even participated in training drills to handle the large crowds. More than 147 million people plan to shop this weekend, according to the National Retail Federation.

The hottest deals that are up for grabs this year include a 46-inch Samsung LED flat screen TV at Walmart with $200 off the original price. If that's not good enough, Sears has knocked $500 off the price of a 50-inch Toshiba flat screen. Target is offering the Nook Simple Touch at half price.

Black Friday officially kicks off at midnight for Best Buy, Sports Authority and Macy's.

Read More..