SP leader Abu Azmi endorses RSS chief, says western culture to blame for rapes

MUMBAI: Samajwadi Party leader Abu Asim Azmi said on Tuesday that western culture had ruined Indian culture and led to increasing atrocities on women including rapes.

"Young girls and women must not roam around with any men except their parents, brothers or husband," Azmi said here.

"Having boyfriends and girlfriends has become a fashion in cities. This is why incidence of rapes is higher in urban areas compared to rural parts of the country," he added.

Azmi endorsed RSS leader Mohan Bhagwat, who last week expressed similar sentiments.

Asked if he supported the RSS chief's views, Azmi said: "When he is saying is something right. I cannot say he is wrong.

"If he calls the sun the sun or the moon the moon, I cannot say he is wrong just because of our political differences."

Saying that "we are all proud of our Indian culture and values", Azmi added that women in Rajasthan were always veiled. But when young women go out skimpily dressed, they attract attention and face risks.

"Such nudity must be banned. The censor board must not clear movies having explicit scenes which embarrass families watching them together.

"Women from rural India with knowledge of Indian culture must be inducted into the censor board," Azmi said.

Azmi felt that capital punishment for rape could be "misused by girls and innocent men could be hanged".

"Even if there is a consensual relationship and it turns sour later, girls could resort to blackmail and men would still be punished."

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down


WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.


Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.


"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.


But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.


Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.


The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.


Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.


Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.


But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.


Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.


Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.


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Giffords, Kelly Say 'Enough' to Gun Violence













After she was gravely wounded by gunfire two years ago in Tucson, Ariz., former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, imagined a life out of the public eye, where she would continue therapy surrounded by the friends, family and the Arizona desert she loves so much.


Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly Speak Exclusively to Diane Sawyer


But after the slaughter of 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last month, Giffords and Kelly knew they couldn't stay silent.


"Enough," Giffords said.


The couple marked the second anniversary of the Tucson shooting by sitting down with Diane Sawyer to discuss their recent visit to Newtown and their new initiative to curb gun violence, "Americans for Responsible Solutions."


"After the shooting in Tucson, there was talk about addressing some of these issues, [and] again after [a movie theater massacre in] Aurora," Colo., Kelly said. "I'm hopeful that this time is different, and I think it is. Twenty first-graders' being murdered in their classrooms is a very personal thing for everybody."








Rep. Gabby Giffords on Meeting Newtown, Conn. Shooting Victims Watch Video









Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly Speak Exclusively to Diane Sawyer Watch Video









Gabrielle Giffords: Pledge of Allegiance at DNC Watch Video





Full Coverage: Gabrielle Giffords


During their trip to Newtown, Giffords and Kelly met with families directly affected by the tragedy.


"[The] first couple that we spoke to, the dad took out his cell phone and showed us a picture of his daughter and I just about lost it, just by looking at the picture," Kelly said. "It was just very tough and it brought back a lot of memories about what that was like for us some two years ago."


Full Coverage: Tragedy in Newtown


"Strength," Giffords said she told the families in Newtown.


"Gabby often told them, 'You got to have strength. You got to fight for something,'" Kelly said.


The innocent faces of the children whose lives were abruptly taken reminded the couple, they said, of 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, the youngest victim to die in the Tucson shooting at a Giffords constituent event.


"I think we all need to try to do something about [gun violence]," Kelly said. "It's obvious to everybody we have a problem. And problems can be solved."


Giffords, Kelly Call for 'Common Sense' Solutions


Giffords, 42, and Kelly, 48, are both gun owners and supporters of the 2nd Amendment, but Kelly had strong words for the National Rifle Association after the group suggested the only way to stop gun violence is to have a "good guy with a gun."


There was a good guy with a gun, Kelly said, the day Jared Loughner shot Giffords and 18 other people, six fatally, at her "Congress on Your Corner" event.


"[A man came out] of the store next door and nearly shot the man who took down Jared Loughner," Kelly said. "The one who eventually wrestled [Loughner] to the ground was almost killed himself by a good guy with a gun, so I don't really buy that argument."


Instead, Giffords and Kelly are proposing "common sense" changes through "Americans for Responsible Solutions."






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Five accused of rape in India appear in court for charges


NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Five men accused of the rape and murder of an Indian student appeared in court on Monday to hear charges against them after two of them offered evidence possibly in return for a lighter sentence in the case that has provoked widespread anger.


The five men, along with a teenager, are accused of raping the 23-year-old physiotherapy student after she boarded their bus on the way home from a movie in New Delhi on December 16. She died two weeks later in a Singapore hospital.


The attack on the student has ignited protests against the government and anger towards the police for their perceived failure to protect women. It has also provoked a rare national debate about rising violence against women.


A police guard said the men had their faces covered when they entered the courtroom, which had been closed to the public minutes earlier.


The five had already been charged with murder, rape and abduction along with other offences and the magistrate gave them copies of the charges, a prosecutor in the case told Reuters.


The court has yet to assign them defense lawyers or legal aid, said public prosecutor Rajiv Mohan. Most lawyers are unwilling to defend them because of the brutality of the crime.


Reuters video images showed the men stepping out of a blue police van that brought them from Tihar jail, and walking through a metal detector into the South Delhi court, across the street from the cinema where the victim watched a film before boarding the bus with a male friend on December 16.


Following shouting and angry scenes in the packed court, the magistrate, Namrita Aggarwal, closed the hearing to the media and the public. The court was cleared and police were posted at its doors before the accused were brought in.


"Keeping in view the sensitivity of this case that has risen, the proceedings including the inquiry and trial are to be held in camera," Aggarwal said, before ordering people not connected with the case out of the courtroom.


Aggarwal said the next hearing would be on January 10. She did not say when the case would go to trial in a separate, fast-track court, set up after the attack on the woman.


Two of the accused, Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta, moved an application on Saturday requesting they be made "approvers", or informers, against the other accused, Mukesh Kumar, Ram Singh and Akshay Thakura, prosecutor Mohan said.


Mohan said he was seeking the death sentence given the "heinous" crime.


"The five accused persons deserve not less than the death penalty," he said, echoing public sentiment and calls from the victim's family.


Most members of the bar association in Saket district, where the case is being heard, have vowed not to represent the accused.


GROUNDS FOR APPEAL?


But on Monday, lawyers Manohar Lal Sharma and V. K. Anand stood up to offer representation to the men. They were heckled by other lawyers who said the accused did not deserve representation.


"We are living in a modern society. We all are educated. Every accused, including those in brutal offences like this, has the legal right to represent his or her case to defend themselves," Lal Sharma said.


The court asked Anand to get the approval of the accused to represent them. If the men, most of them from a slum neighborhood, cannot arrange their own lawyers, the court will offer them legal aid before the trial begins.


Police have conducted extensive interrogations and say they have recorded confessions, even though the five have no lawyers.


Legal experts say their lack of representation could give grounds for appeal should they be found guilty. Similar cases have resulted in acquittals years after convictions.


Last week, chief justice Altamas Kabir inaugurated six fast-track courts to help reduce a backlog of sex crime cases in Delhi.


But some legal experts have warned that previous attempts to fast-track justice in India in some cases led to imperfect convictions that were later challenged.


The sixth member of the gang that lured the student and a male friend into the private bus is under 18 and will be tried in a separate juvenile court.


The government is aiming to lower the age teenagers can be tried as an adult, given widespread public anger that the boy will face a maximum three-year sentence.


The victim, who died on December 29 in hospital in Singapore, where she had been taken for treatment, was identified by a British newspaper on the weekend but Reuters has opted not to name her.


Indian law generally prohibits the identification of victims of sex crimes. The law is intended to protect victims' privacy and keep them from the media glare in a country where the social stigma associated with rape can be devastating.


But her father repeated on Monday his wish that she be identified and said he would be happy to release a photograph of her.


"We don't want to hide her identity, there is no reason for that. The only condition is it should not be misused," he told Reuters.


He said he was confident the trial would be quick and reiterated a call that those responsible be hanged.


(Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Robert Birsel)



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Boom expected in mobile app industry






SINGAPORE: The rising use of mobile applications has been a boon for the industry.

The mobile appplication industry recorded a 68 per cent rise in global sales last year, from US$8.5 billion to US$14.3 billion.

With the growing shipment of tablets and smartphones, experts say sales growth may increase by almost four times by 2017.

Cooliris, a photo sharing and browsing application, has become the top-ranked iPad app in 75 countries.

The application has been installed two million times and there have been 300 million photo views in the past five months.

It has also distinguished itself from over 700,000 applications available in app stores across the iPhone and Android operating system.

For the company that develops Cooliris, the installations have translated to growing revenue, and it expects this growth to continue into 2013.

Meanwhile, its downloads increased by 30 times since it launched a localised version of the app in China through an integration with China's social networking platform Renren last month.

With Asia constituting 30 per cent of Cooliris' downloads, the app developer has plans to grow its presence in markets like China and Japan.

"We do see a better trend in Asia compared to Europe, in terms of engagement and consumers using the application. The affinity for consumers in Asia towards photos has always been higher and we see that translated in the engagements with the app," said Soujanya Bhumkar, CEO of Cooliris.

"The consumers are much more open when it comes to trying new things and in terms of partnership, companies understand the velocity and momentum of a Silicon Valley based startup."

Experts say Asia is fast becoming an important market for mobile application developers.

"China makes up 50 per cent of all installed base of users in Asia when we look at the smartphone market. It's really Asia where the high growth of devices and the access to app stores and apps is coming from. Also currently, Asia is where people do have money to spend," said Rachel Lashford, managing director at Canalys.

The number of smartphone users in China is growing to over 300 million.

This growth momentum has prompted more industry players to focus on Asia to expand.

Jake Saunders from ABI Research said: "We see the Asia Pacific market being the fastest growing and this is just simply due to adoption rates of people adopting and upgrading their smartphones, growth in population so for total application downloads, we're looking at from 9 billion to 70 billion downloads in 2017."

Looking ahead, experts say start-up developers will find it harder to survive in the industry.

They will have to look for more creative ways to monetise their products and beat the growing competition from free downloads.

- CNA/xq



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Water rationing in Bangalore, Mysore not ruled out

BANGALORE: The state government is likely to go in for rationing of water in Bangalore and Mysore cities till the end of summer to meet the demand.

The storage level has drastically reduced in KRS following release of water to Tamil Nadu. While the maximum capacity of the dam is 124.80 feet, storage has reduced to 80 feet. With summer expected to be severe this year, water level is further expected to dip in the reservoir. The present water storage -- including live and dead storage -- in KRS and Kabini reservoirs is expected to last only till April end, water resources minister Basavaraj Bommai told reporters here on Monday.

Modalities of rationing the water are yet to be worked out. Allaying fears of a severe water scarcity, Bommai said: "There is sufficient water to meet drinking requirement for coming summer. There is no need to panic. A meeting of dam engineers of KRS has been convened on Tuesday in this regard. Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) officials will also attend the meeting.''

Farmers in Cauvery basin have been told to adopt crop pattern that is less water intensive. "In the meeting, an idea may be evolved on rationing system besides looking at the possibility of exploiting ground water," Bommai said.

On desilting the dams, the minister said the department has planned to remove only the annual accumulation of silt. "A report is being prepared by the experts in this regard. Once it is ready we will approach the Centre for financial assistance," Bommai said.

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Your medical chart could include exercise minutes


CHICAGO (AP) — Roll up a sleeve for the blood pressure cuff. Stick out a wrist for the pulse-taking. Lift your tongue for the thermometer. Report how many minutes you are active or getting exercise.


Wait, what?


If the last item isn't part of the usual drill at your doctor's office, a movement is afoot to change that. One recent national survey indicated only a third of Americans said their doctors asked about or prescribed physical activity.


Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation's largest nonprofit health insurance plans, made a big push a few years ago to get its southern California doctors to ask patients about exercise. Since then, Kaiser has expanded the program across California and to several other states. Now almost 9 million patients are asked at every visit, and some other medical systems are doing it, too.


Here's how it works: During any routine check of vital signs, a nurse or medical assistant asks how many days a week the patient exercises and for how long. The number of minutes per week is posted along with other vitals at the top the medical chart. So it's among the first things the doctor sees.


"All we ask our physicians to do is to make a comment on it, like, 'Hey, good job,' or 'I noticed today that your blood pressure is too high and you're not doing any exercise. There's a connection there. We really need to start you walking 30 minutes a day,'" said Dr. Robert Sallis, a Kaiser family doctor. He hatched the vital sign idea as part of a larger initiative by doctors groups.


He said Kaiser doctors generally prescribe exercise first, instead of medication, and for many patients who follow through that's often all it takes.


It's a challenge to make progress. A study looking at the first year of Kaiser's effort showed more than a third of patients said they never exercise.


Sallis said some patients may not be aware that research shows physical inactivity is riskier than high blood pressure, obesity and other health risks people know they should avoid. As recently as November a government-led study concluded that people who routinely exercise live longer than others, even if they're overweight.


Zendi Solano, who works for Kaiser as a research assistant in Pasadena, Calif., says she always knew exercise was a good thing. But until about a year ago, when her Kaiser doctor started routinely measuring it, she "really didn't take it seriously."


She was obese, and in a family of diabetics, had elevated blood sugar. She sometimes did push-ups and other strength training but not anything very sustained or strenuous.


Solano, 34, decided to take up running and after a couple of months she was doing three miles. Then she began training for a half marathon — and ran that 13-mile race in May in less than three hours. She formed a running club with co-workers and now runs several miles a week. She also started eating smaller portions and buying more fruits and vegetables.


She is still overweight but has lost 30 pounds and her blood sugar is normal.


Her doctor praised the improvement at her last physical in June and Solano says the routine exercise checks are "a great reminder."


Kaiser began the program about three years ago after 2008 government guidelines recommended at least 2 1/2 hours of moderately vigorous exercise each week. That includes brisk walking, cycling, lawn-mowing — anything that gets you breathing a little harder than normal for at least 10 minutes at a time.


A recently published study of nearly 2 million people in Kaiser's southern California network found that less than a third met physical activity guidelines during the program's first year ending in March 2011. That's worse than results from national studies. But promoters of the vital signs effort think Kaiser's numbers are more realistic because people are more likely to tell their own doctors the truth.


Dr. Elizabeth Joy of Salt Lake City has created a nearly identical program and she expects 300 physicians in her Intermountain Healthcare network to be involved early this year.


"There are some real opportunities there to kind of shift patients' expectations about the value of physical activity on health," Joy said.


NorthShore University HealthSystem in Chicago's northern suburbs plans to start an exercise vital sign program this month, eventually involving about 200 primary care doctors.


Dr. Carrie Jaworski, a NorthShore family and sports medicine specialist, already asks patients about exercise. She said some of her diabetic patients have been able to cut back on their medicines after getting active.


Dr. William Dietz, an obesity expert who retired last year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said measuring a patient's exercise regardless of method is essential, but that "naming it as a vital sign kind of elevates it."


Figuring out how to get people to be more active is the important next step, he said, and could have a big effect in reducing medical costs.


___


Online:


Exercise: http://1.usa.gov/b6AkMa


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


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Hagel Nomination Stirs Bipartisan Opposition













Two weeks before his inauguration, and with more "fiscal cliffs" on the horizon, President Obama is embracing a showdown with Congress over his pick to lead the Pentagon in his second term.


Obama will nominate former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to be the next Secretary of Defense at a formal White House announcement later today, administration officials said.


The president will name counterterrorism advisor John Brennan as the new CIA director to replace David Petraeus, rounding out an overhaul of his national security team.


Obama tapped Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts last month to become the next Secretary of State.


Hagel is in many ways an ideal pick for Obama, giving nod to bipartisanship while appointing someone with a demonstrated commitment to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and to retooling and economizing the Pentagon bureaucracy for the future.


But the nomination of Hagel to replace outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is also politically charged, expected to trigger a brutal confirmation fight in the Senate, where a bipartisan group of critics has already lined up against the pick.


"This is an in your face nomination by the president to all of us who are supportive of Israel," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told CNN on Sunday. "I don't know what his management experience is regarding the Pentagon -- little, if any, so I think it's an incredibly controversial choice."








Obama's Defense Nominee Chuck Hagel Stirs Washington Lawmakers Watch Video









The criticism stems from Hagel's controversial past statements on foreign policy, including a 2008 reference to Israel's U.S. supporters as "the Jewish lobby" and public encouragement of negotiations between the United States, Israel and Hamas, a Palestinian group the State Department classifies as terrorists.


"Hagel has consistently been against economic sanctions to try to change the behavior of the Islamist regime, the radical regime in Tehran, which is the only way to do it, short of war," Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said last month.


The Nebraska Republican has also drawn fire for his outspoken opposition to the 2003 U.S.-led war in Iraq and the subsequent troop "surge" ordered by then-President George W. Bush in 2007, which has been credited with helping bring the war to a close.


On the left, gay rights groups have protested Hagel for comments he made in 1998 disparaging then-President Bill Clinton's nominee for U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg James Hormel as "openly, aggressively gay." Hagel has since apologized for the remark as "insensitive."


Top Senate Democrats tell ABC News there is no guarantee Hagel will win confirmation and that, as of right now, there are enough Democratic Senators with serious concerns about Hagel to put him below 50 votes.


But that could change, with many top lawmakers publicly vowing to withhold final judgment until Hagel has an opportunity to answer his critics during confirmation hearings. No senator has yet publicly vowed to filibuster the Hagel nomination.


Hagel is a decorated Vietnam veteran and businessman who served in the senate from 1997 to 2009. After having sat on that chamber's Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees, he has in recent years gathered praise from current and former diplomats for his work on Obama's Intelligence Advisory Board as well as the policy board of current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.


"Chuck Hagel is a tremendous patriot and statesman, served incredibly in Vietnam, served this country as a United States senator. He hasn't had a chance to speak for himself. And so why all the prejudging?" said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., on "This Week."


"In America, you give everybody a chance to speak for themselves and then we'll decide," she said.


The top Senate Republican echoed that sentiment. "I'm going to wait and see how the hearings go and see whether Chuck's views square with the job he would be nominated to do," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said.






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Assad "peace plan" greeted with scorn by enemies


BEIRUT (Reuters) - A defiant President Bashar al-Assad presented what he described as a new initiative on Sunday to end the war in Syria but his opponents dismissed it as a ploy to cling to power.


Appearing before cheering supporters who packed the Damascus Opera House, it was his first such speech since June and first public appearance of any kind since a television interview in November.


He called for national mobilization in a "war to defend the nation", describing rebels fighting him as terrorists and foreign agents with whom it was impossible to negotiate.


His new initiative, including a reconciliation conference that would exclude "those who have betrayed Syria", contained no concessions and appeared to recycle proposals that opponents have rejected since the uprising began nearly two years ago.


The opposition National Coalition said the speech was an attempt to thwart an international agreement, backed by Western and Arab powers, that he must stand down.


British Foreign Secretary William Hague said "empty promises of reform fool no one". In a Twitter message, he added: "Death, violence and oppression engulfing Syria are of his own making."


EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Brussels would "look carefully if there is anything new in the speech, but we maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition".


Assad spoke confidently for about an hour before a crowd of cheering loyalists, who occasionally interrupted him to shout and applaud, at one point raising their fists and chanting: "With blood and soul we sacrifice for you, Oh Bashar!"


At the end of the speech, supporters rushed to the stage, mobbing him and shouting: "God, Syria and Bashar is enough!" as a smiling Assad waved and was escorted from the hall.


"We are now in a state of war in every sense of the word," Assad said in the speech, broadcast on Syrian state television. "This war targets Syria using a handful of Syrians and many foreigners. Thus, this is a war to defend the nation."


Saying that "suffering is overwhelming" the land, he added: "The nation is for all and we all must protect it."


Independent media are largely barred from Damascus.


DEATHS


The United Nations says 60,000 people have been killed in the civil war in Syria. Fighting has arrived at the edge of the capital in what has become the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts to emerge from two years of revolts in Arab states.


The past six months have seen rebels advance dramatically. They now control much of the north and east of the country, a crescent of suburbs on the outskirts of the capital and the main border crossings with Turkey.


But Assad's forces are still firmly in control of most of the densely populated southwest, the main north-south highway and the Mediterranean coast. The army also holds military bases throughout the country from which its helicopters and jets can strike rebel-held areas with impunity, making it impossible for the insurgents to consolidate their grip on territory they hold.


The rebels are drawn mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority, while Assad, a member of the Alawite sect related to Shi'ite Islam, is supported by some members of religious minorities who fear retribution if he falls. He has backing from Shi'ite Iran while most Arab and Western powers sympathies with the rebels.


Assad, a 47-year-old eye doctor, succeeded his late father, Hafez, in 2000. The family has ruled Syria since the elder Assad led a military coup 42 years ago.


Assad's speech seemed ostensibly aimed at showing Syrians, and perhaps diplomats, that he is open to change.


But the plan could hardly have been better designed to ensure its rejection by the opposition. Among its proposals: rebels would first be expected to halt their operations before the army would cease fire, a certain non-starter.


NO DIALOGUE


Assad repeatedly described parts of the opposition as agents of foreign powers who could not be included in any negotiations: "We will not have dialogue with a puppet made by the West," he said to an outburst of applause.


The opposition has consistently said it will not cease fire until the army does, and will not negotiate any transitional government unless Assad is excluded.


Assad also repeatedly emphasized rebel links to al Qaeda and Islamist radicals. Washington, which supports the opposition, has also labeled one of the main rebel groups terrorists and says it is linked to the network founded by Osama bin Laden.


Diplomacy has been largely irrelevant so far in the conflict, with the United States, European powers, Arab states and Turkey all demanding Assad leave power, while Russia and Iran refuse to exclude him from talks on a future government.


U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi has been trying to bridge the gap, meeting senior U.S. and Russian officials to discuss a peace proposal that does not explicitly mention Assad's fate.


National Coalition spokesman Walid Bunni told Reuters that Assad's speech was timed to try and prevent a breakthrough from those talks by taking a position intended to thwart compromise:


"The talk by Brahimi and others that there could be a type of political solution being worked out has prompted him to come out and tell the others 'I won't accept a solution'," Bunni said, adding that Assad feared any deal would mean his downfall.


"He is sensing the danger that any initiative would entail."


Giving the speech in the opera house, in a part of central Damascus that has been hit by rebel attacks, could itself be seen as a show of strength for a leader whose public appearances have grown rarer as the rebellion has gathered force.


He spoke before a giant flag, constructed of portraits of what state television described as victims of the conflict.


"We meet today, and suffering is overwhelming the land of Syria. There is no place for joy while security and stability are absent on the streets of our country," he said.


"But from the womb of pain, hope must be born."


(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Tim Castle in London; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)



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SJI International attains stellar grades in IB programme






SINGAPORE: St Joseph's Institution (SJI) International has reported its best results for the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme.

The school said 99 per cent from the class of 2012 passed the exam, attaining an average score of 36.2 points out of the maximum 45.

It added one in four students achieved 40 points.

The top student is Monica Layarda, who had a perfect score.

The first batch of of 58 IB students at SJI International completed the diploma in 2009.

In 2012, it had 137 students.

Principal Bradley Roberts said the students' outstanding results are due to the dedication of staff and the hard work of students.

"This particular batch of students included those who joined the school when it first opened its doors in January 2007. During this time, our average PSLE entry score has remained around 225. With this in mind, our results are truly extraordinary," Mr Roberts said.

- CNA/xq



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