MQM asks workers to go underground
ISLAMABAD, Oct 30 — The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), has asked its workers to go underground amidst apprehensions of government action

Tom Cruise, wife win damages
LONDON, Oct 30 — A London libel court has awarded “substantial” damages to Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise and his wife Nicole Kidman over allegations that the couple were gay and their marriage was a sham.

Population to be 6 billion in Oct, ’99
NEW YORK, Oct 30 — The world population will reach six billion in October, 1999, rather than in June as predicted because of a decrease in fertility levels, the United Nations has said.

Ruins of Cleopatra’s palace found
ALEXANDRIA (Egypt), Oct 30 — Archaeologists here have discovered the submerged Island of Antirhodos where Cleopatra, the last queen of ancient Egypt, lived in the city lost over 1,600 years ago in the Mediterranean Sea.

Turkish forces kill hijacker

ANKARA, Oct 30 (Reuters) — Turkish security forces stormed a hijacked airliner at Ankara airport today, freeing 40 passengers and crew and killing the armed hijacker “with a single bullet”.

A lone hijacker, proclaiming sympathy for Kurdish rebels fighting a separatist campaign in eastern Turkey, seized the Boeing 737 late last night.

The final moments in the freeing of the hostages were monitored in intercepts of radio traffic between the aircraft and Ankara airport’s control tower.

“Did they get him? Did they get him?” A voice from the control tower asked amid apparent confusion.

“They’ve got him, they’ve got him,” came the reply from the aircraft.

The control tower then thanked the captain of the aircraft and the radio went dead.

“An operation was conducted. The terrorist was destroyed. Not one of our citizens was harmed in any way,” Transport Minister Arif Ahmet Denizolgun said.

Interior Minister Kutlu Aktas told reporters at a news conference at Ankara airport that members of a 25-strong team had entered the aircraft’s rear door while a small group of women hostages was being released.

The hijacker was in the cockpit, talking with negotiators in the control tower.

Mr Aktas said the hijacker, named as Mursel Peker, carried a Russian-made hand grenade and a pistol with five bullets.

“He held the gun to the pilot’s head but he was neutralised with a single bullet,” Mr Aktas said. “He got his punishment. He got what he deserved.”

Talks had been conducted for six hours as the aircraft waited on the tarmac amid darkness. Negotiators appeared to be trying to convince the hijacker he was in fact in Bulgaria.

The hijacker showed the captain a grenade and ammunition. “The moment any operation is carried this hand grenade will explode,” he had told the control tower.

He initially demanded that the flight, from Adana in southern Turkey to Ankara, be diverted to Lausanne in Switzerland. The aircraft circled Ankara for a couple of hours before landing, its fuel almost spent.

MQM asks workers to go underground

ISLAMABAD, Oct 30 (PTI) — The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), has asked its workers to go underground amidst apprehensions of government action after it broke its alliance with Premier Nawaz Sharif’s party, even as Army Chief Gen Pervez Musharraf ruled out the possibility of immediate army operation in the trouble-torn Karachi city.

The MQM self-exiled chief, Mr Altaf Hussain, in a statement faxed from his home in London, condemned Mr Sharif for issuing "irresponsible statement" against the MQM which, he said was a message to the bureaucracy and the security agencies how they should deal with the MQM workers.

“It’s beautiful up here”

CAPE CANAVERAL, Oct 30 (Reuters) — John Glenn returned to space and with a big grin declared: “It’s beautiful up here.”

“Enjoying the show,” said Glenn (77), a retiring Democratic US Senator from Ohio turned the oldest spaceman of all-time.

Glenn relayed his emotions yesterday in a call to the mission control, three hours and 20 minutes into the flight of the shuttle, Discovery, as he and the rest of his crew soared over Hawaii.

“Three hundred and fortytwo miles above Hawaii,” mission control’s Robert Curbeam said in opening the long-distance chat from the earth to space.

“We’re just going by Hawaii and that is absolutely gorgeous,” replied Glenn, making his first trip to space since becoming the first American to orbit the earth 36 years ago as a member of the original Mercury 7 astronauts.

The conversation was broadcast over the NASA communication network.

Curbeam: “Glad, you’re enjoying the show.”

Glenn: “It’s beautiful up here. The best part of it is, to do a trite old statement, zero-g and I feel fine...”.

Curbeam: “Roger that. We had a bunch of your friends asking about you today, wondering how you’re feeling and I’m sure they’re glad to hear that.”

New brain cells in 70s!

NEW YORK, Oct 30 (AP) — Scientists have shown for the first time that adults can grow new brain cells, even in their 60s and 70s.

Up to now, it was generally believed that once you lost brain cells as an adult, they were gone forever. The finding raises a distant hope for treating brain diseases or damage by getting the brain to fix its broken circuitry.

The new neurons, or nerve cells that form circuits, were found in just one small part of the brain the hippocampus, a deep-brain structure that’s important for learning and memory. And it’s not yet clear whether the new brain cells actually function, or what they do.

Still, the discovery contradicts the traditional wisdom that adult human brains do not make new neurons, even though that ability had been identified in rat brains some 30 years ago.

“It’s not providing an answer or a cure at this point in time for any particular disorder, but it’s a very exciting discovery,” said Dr Ira Black, Head of the Neuroscience and Cell Biology at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, New Jersey.

The big question is whether scientists can find ways to make new brain cells appear in the right places to overcome damage from strokes, brain injuries and such diseases as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Right now, for example, the new neurons are in the wrong place to replace brain cells lost to heavy drinking.

Lots of people think they also lose brain cells just by getting older, but it’s not clear whether that’s true.

The new finding is reported in the November issue of the Journal Nature Medicine by Fred Gage of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, and Peter Eriksson and Colleagues at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Goteborg, Sweden.

For the study, they examined autopsy specimens from people who had been given a drug called BRDU because of cancer in their mouths or throats. BRDU is taken up by dividing cells doctors had administered it to see how rapidly the patients’ tumours were growing.

But the drug also spreads through the body, including the brain. The researchers reasoned that if cells in the brain were dividing to spawn new cells, they would take up BRDU, and the substance would be present in the new cells.

In hippocampus samples from all five patients, the researchers did, in fact, find neurons containing BRDU.

Two of the patients were in their 50s, two were in their 60s, and one was 72 when the cells were produced.

“The brain makes neurons during its early development, of course, and what we’re saying is the same programmes that are present during development are persisting throughout life,” Gage said.

Tom Cruise, wife win damages

LONDON, Oct 30 (Reuters) — A London libel court has awarded “substantial” damages to Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise and his wife Nicole Kidman over allegations that the couple were gay and their marriage was a sham.

“I take no pleasure in having to be here today, but it is the last recourse to counter the vicious lies that have been printed about me and my family,” the star of blockbuster movies such as “Top Gun” and “Rainman” told reporters outside the court yesterday.

The presiding judge heard that Express newspapers, which the couple sued, apologised and accepted that there was no truth in the allegations.

The Express on Sunday’s barrister, Patick Moloney, said it unreservedly withdrew all allegations and accepted they were “entirely false”.

The amount of the damages was not revealed but were described as “substantial”. The paper will also meet the legal costs, estimated at £ 1,50,000 ($ 251,600).

Top libel advocate George Carman, acting for the Hollywood couple, said the article, which he said claimed their marriage was a business arrangement and that Cruise was impotent or sterile, had caused the couple “grave personal distress”.

Population to be 6 billion in Oct, ’99

NEW YORK, Oct 30 (DPA) — The world population will reach six billion in October, 1999, rather than in June as predicted because of a decrease in fertility levels, the United Nations has said.

The world now has 5.9 billion people and the population is growing at 1.33 per cent annually or about 79 million. The U.N. population division had predicted the six-billion mark at June 17, but now pushed it back to October 12 as it revised its previous data.

The U.N. population division is the principal agency to research population trends. Its data are used by the world organisation to study population growth impact on societies, development and social programmes.

“This is a very encouraging news,” said Mr Nafis Sadik, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, which finances family planning programmes around the world.

Mr Sadik attributed the decline to better reproductive health and family planning services and improved education for women.

Ruins of Cleopatra’s palace found

ALEXANDRIA (Egypt), Oct 30 (PTI) — Archaeologists here have discovered the submerged Island of Antirhodos where Cleopatra, the last queen of ancient Egypt, lived in the city lost over 1,600 years ago in the Mediterranean Sea.

With the discovery of the lost royal quarters of the Ptolemies dynasty (to which Cleopatra belonged), believed to have been submerged following a series of earthquakes, the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities has proposed to turn the site into an underwater museum.

The excavations were undertaken by a French archaeologist, Franck Goddio, who discovered the lost site after three years of underwater research.

Among the discoveries from the ruins of the submerged city is a 100-year-old granite sphinx believed to depict Cleopatra’s father Ptolemy I.

Instead of taking the artefacts out of the water there is a proposal to build a network of underwater transparent tunnels, chief of the council Ali Gaballa told reporters here.

“We are opening a whole new world ....This is the world’s heritage,” Gaballa said.

“It sounds crazy, but I know it is not crazy, I know it can be done,” he said without elaborating further.

Goddio’s 35-member mission also discovered the Royal Harbour of Cape Chias and the Island of Antirhodos, which housed one of Cleopatra’s palaces, and the peninsula where her lover, Marc Antony, built his retreat.

Cleopatra’s original palace might not even have been in existence when the royal quarters were submerged as her rule had ended centuries earlier when she and Antony committed suicide in 30 BC, Goddio said.

However, many of the artefacts date to a period when Cleopatra lived there.

The discovery of the lost city brings us within touching distance of history. It gives a new perspective to the lives of people like Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Antony,” he said.

Imelda’s jewellery
MANILA: The Philippine Government plans to sell jewellery seized from former First Lady Imelda Marcos and other sequestered assets in an effort to boost government revenues, newspapers said here on Friday. Finance Under Secretary Joel Banares was quoted as saying the jewels were estimated to cost about $ 14 million and they hoped to sell them next year. The government also hoped to sell $ 17.9 million in real estate assets that were seized or surrendered after the downfall of Ferdinand Marcos. — AFP

Grave probe
COLOMBO: International human rights watchdog Amnesty International has said that Sri Lanka’s failure to “provide assurances of full cooperation and security” was delaying investigations into reports of a mass grave in the country’s north. Amnesty, in a statement on Friday, said it welcomed Sri Lanka’s decision to invite international experts to attend the investigation, but their safety must be guaranteed by the government. — Reuters

Malaria in Africa
WASHINGTON: Africa will be the focus of a “roll back malaria” campaign to be launched by three UN bodies along with the World Bank. With the number of malaria cases in Africa, south of the Sahara ranging between 27 to 40 million and an estimated 3,000 children dying every day due to the disease it is imperative that Africa becomes the immediate focus, a press note from the world bodies has said. The three UN organisations that are part of the malaria eradication campaign include the UNICEF, the UNDP and WHO. — PTI

75th anniversary
ANKARA (Turkey): Holding army parades and fighter jet fly-pasts, Turkey showed off its military might on Thursday while throngs celebrated the 75th anniversary of the republic and pledged to keep it secular. Turkey is secular and will remain so,” thousands chanted along a long route leading to the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the westward-looking republic on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire on October 29, 1923. — AP

Indian honoured
LONDON: The President of the National Council of Hindu Temples in UK Mr Om Prakash Sharma, has been honoured with the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) by the Queen for his contribution to the furtherance of race relations in the country. Mr Sharma, who is also the co-chairman of the Inter-Faith Network, has been involved in community service for the past 30 years, counselling and assisting families on social and domestic issues. — PTI

Letter to Vajpayee
WASHINGTON: Twentythree anti-India members of the US Congress have written to the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, condemning the rape of four nuns in Madhya Pradesh and describing it as an “assault” on religious freedom. In their missive, the lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties, including Dan Burton, India’s bete noire on Capital Hill, have also hit out at the VHP reported justification of the crime. “Rape is a serious crime, and rape against religious workers is an assault on the principle of religious freedom which all democratic nations hold dear,” the lawmakers wrote. — IANS

Sanctions extended
UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council has extended the sanctions against Libya for another four months following warnings from the USA that Tripoli should hand over immediately the suspects in the 1998 Lockerbie bombing. “If Libya fails to act, the United States and Britain will ask the Council to meet again in mid-December to consider Libya’s response,” the US representative, Mr Peter Burleigh, told reporters after a closed-door Council session on Thursday. The Council President, Sir Jeremy Greenstock of Britain, sought to assure Libya that the sanctions would be suspended as soon as the two suspects in the bombing appeared in the Netherlands for a trial under Scottish law and by Scottish judges. — Reuters