Pill no cause for heart attacks
LONDON, June 11 — In the largest study to date investigating a possible link, scientists have concluded that taking the oral contraceptive is not associated with an increased risk of heart attack.

Pak using IT Dept to harass me: Sethi
ISLAMABAD, June 11 —A noted Pakistani Journalist, Mr Najam Sethi, has accused the Nawaz Sharif government of using the Income Tax Department to intimidate and harass him and his wife, Ms Jugnu Mohsin, for their outspoken views.

• Minister's remark boomerangs

Ruling party wins in Lanka polls

Cure for baldness?

India, Myanmar to check drugs trade

Indian plan to check intrusions

LONDON, June 10 (PTI) — The Indian Army plans to instal unattended ground sensors, short range battlefield surveillance radars and hand-held thermal imagers, backed by a secure, modern communication system to prevent future intrusions along the line of control (LoC), akin to the one it is currently facing in Kargil and Drass sectors.

These sophisticated systems would give the Indian Army early warnings of large and medium scale infiltrations across the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir, according to Janes Defence Weekly.

The Weekly, in its latest issue, says that a 180-200 km stretch of extremely inhospitable terrain along the LoC, which has suddenly become hot after the recent large scale recent intrusion by Pakistan-backed mercenaries, is in danger of becoming another Siachen Glacier for the Indian and Pakistani forces.

“Even after the Indian Army throws out the mercenaries from the vital posts overlooking the Leh-Srinagar highway, the Army would now have to have a large permanent military presence in the area. Units in the Kargil-Drass sector have been ordered to hold their positions and not to withdraw even after evicting the intruders,” Janes reported.

“The Indian Army is concerned that establishing posts in the harsh Kargil region could surpass the daily expenditure of Rs 30 million in Siachen Glacier,” Janes reports, adding that if the Indians have presence, the Pakistanis too could not avoid keeping troops in the region.

According to the weekly, the strategy employed by the Pakistan-backed mercenaries is the same as that used by Pakistan in the three wars they have fought against India — to dominate the national highway linking Srinagar to Leh, and to internationalise the Kashmir issue since India has been winning the proxy war in Kashmir.

The defence weekly says that Pakistan intelligence strategists have chosen a vital sector to hit the Indians since the Line of Control from the international border from Jammu to the Zojila Pass at the end of the Kashmir valley is well guarded as is the 75 km stretch of the Siachen Glacier.

“The 180-200 km stretch of the LoC from the Zojila Pass to Khor that lies beyond Leh in the Nubra valley was relatively undefended,” the weekly said, adding that this snowy, mountainous wasteland with ridges upto 6060 ft high, is the second coldest place after Siberia and is covered by 4 to 6 metres of snow between October and June, with temperatures ranging from —20°C to 60°C.

Japan against third party mediation

tokyo, June 11 (uni) — Japan has expressed concern over the recent developments along the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistan and come out against any third party mediation to resolve the Kashmir issue.

‘‘We are particularly concerned by the developments in Kashmir now as both India and Pakistan tested their nuclear capabilities last year,’’ said Mr Masaya Fujiwara, Director of the South-West Asia Division in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here.

He said Japan was against any third party involvement in the Kashmir issue. ‘‘It should be resolved by both sides in accordance with the Simla Agreement. The important thing is to carry out dialogue,’’ he said.

Mr Fujiwara said the developments around the LoC in Kashmir undermined the momentum brought about by the India-Pakistan summit in Lahore in February for normalisation of relations.

‘‘Japan appreciates the Lahore Declaration as a positive movement to stabilise the situation in South Asia,’’ a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

The spokesman said the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan had strained Japan’s ties with these countries. ‘‘Our main consideration is peace and stability in the region after the May 1998 nuclear tests,’’ he said.

Talks in Moscow stalled

MOSCOW, June 11 (PTI, Reuters) — Talks in Moscow to find a role for Russian troops in or alongside a NATO-led Kosovo peacekeeping mission today failed, even as Kremlin started moving its troops into Yugoslavia, officials said.

The talks, which included Russia, the USA and Finnish generals, stalled after Americans called for a time-out for further consultations, Gen Leonid Ivashov, Russia’s chief negotiator at the talks, told reporters here.

“We were offered to debate on the participation of the Russian contingent in one of the four sectors under NATO command. This is not acceptable. We have presidential directive that the Russian contingent should act independently, though in close interaction with NATO,” Mr Ivashov said.

“Russia does not want its barrack alongside the American barracks,” he said, adding, “Moscow intends to send its soldiers for defending the Serbs in the northern part of Kosovo”.

Stating that Moscow will not “beg” before Washington for letting it into Kosovo, Mr Ivashov said Moscow plans to despatch upto 10,000 troops to the northern sector in Kosovo.

The visit of the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, who had parallel political negotiations during the past two days with Russian leaders, also failed to yield any tangible results as Moscow refused to “buy” the US line that NATO had won the war with Yugoslavia and it is for Brussels to decide Kremlin’s role in Kosovo.

LONDON: NATO said on Friday that its peacekeeping forces would go into Kosovo within 24 hours, denying that there had been any delay in the deployment after the Serb forces began to leave the province yesterday.

“No, there isn’t a delay. In fact everything is going extremely smoothly,” spokesman Jamie Shea told BBC television.

NEW YORK: Earlier Holding Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic responsible for NATO’s 79-day bombing, US President Bill Clinton virtually called for a revolt against the Serbian leader asserting that Yugoslavia would not get any aid for reconstruction so long as Milosevic is in power.

“As long as your nation is ruled by an indicted war criminal, we will provide no support for the reconstruction of Serbia,” Clinton told Serbs in an address telecast from Oval office Thursday.

Pill no cause for heart attacks

london, June 11 (ap) — In the largest study to date investigating a possible link, scientists have concluded that taking the oral contraceptive is not associated with an increased risk of heart attack.

While the findings confirm earlier, smaller studies indicating the pill is not linked to an increased risk, the scale of the new study renders that conclusion definitive,’’ said Ojvind Lidegaard, an obstetrics and gynecology professor at the University of Copenhagen who was not involved in the research.

The study by the Drug Safety Research Unit in Southampton, England, to be published in tomorrow’s issue of the British medical journal examined the last two versions of the pill.

The study found that the latest version, which contains a different type of the hormone progestagen, was just as safe as the previous version when it comes to heart attacks, countering earlier findings.

Some studies have indicated that the risk of heart attack is higher only among women over 35 who smoke, while others have shown no such evidence.

The British scientists studied 448 women between the ages of 16 and 44 who had suffered heart attacks and matched them by age and region with 1,728 women who had not had heart attacks.

They further found that among those who smoked. Taking the pill did not increase the chance of heart attack any further.

Pak using IT Dept to harass me: Sethi

islamabad, June 11 (pti) —A noted Pakistani Journalist, Mr Najam Sethi, has accused the Nawaz Sharif government of using the Income Tax (IT) Department to intimidate and harass him and his wife, Ms Jugnu Mohsin, for their outspoken views.

“After the failure to make concocted charges levelled against me in the Supreme Court, the government has now resorted to dirty tactics of using the Income Tax Department to harass me,” Mr Sethi, who is the Editor of Friday Times said.

“This shows the real reason of arresting me last month,” he was quoted as saying by the English Daily, The News.

He was arrested last month by the Military Intelligence and ISI from his Lahore residence for ‘‘endangering the sovereignty of the country’’ by making critical comments against the Nawaz Sharif government in New Delhi recently, and for his alleged links with Indian Intelligence Agency, raw.

The Pakistan Government set him free on June 2, after almost a month’s detention, but said it reserved the right to proceed against him afresh.

Minister's remark boomerangs

islamabad, Jun 11 (uni) — Pakistan's Information Minister Mushahid Hussain’s remark that ‘‘nuclear Pakistan’’ will write success stories both in Kargil and in cricket has boomeranged with the hat trick of defeats at the hands of Bangladesh, South Africa and arch-rivals India.

People smashed between 50,000 and 70,000 tv sets and a large number of fans had no dinner on Tuesday when Pakistan lost to India at Old Trafford, just when most of the countrymen, like their captain Wasim Akram, had taken victory for granted.

A bbc programme, ‘‘Muktoob-e-Pakistan’’, said there was not much grief when South Africa beat Pakistan.

However, when it lost to Bangladesh, about 30,000 houses in Karachi had no food. The reason was not an overwhelming feeling of national humiliation but because most of the cooks were Bengalis, who were too jubilant to work.

Just a few days before the Indo-Pak World Cup match, Information Minister Mushahid Hussain had said the ‘‘chain of success that Pakistan achieved in Chaghai (nuclear-testing site) will continue through Kargil to the field of cricket.’’

Ruling party wins in Lanka polls

COLOMBO, June 11 (PTI)— Sri Lanka’s ruling People’s alliance led by President Chandrika Kumaratunga has emerged as the largest single party in yesterday’s southern provincial council elections, but fell one seat short of gaining simple majority.

The ruling alliance has won 27 seats, including the two bonus seats. The opposition United National Party (UNP) has bagged 21 seats while the ultra Left wing Janatha Vimukthi Prumuna (JVP), which has strong pockets of influence in the province, has managed to win seven seats.

Cure for baldness?

washington, June 11 (Reuters) — It might be possible to use gene therapy to treat baldness, according to researchers in the USA.

A team at the University of Pennsylvania said it had managed to get growing human hairs to take up genetic material — and said it had been eassier than they expected.

So far it has only been able to turn hair blue, but hopes that the idea could be turned to growing hair someday.

“These early results in our ongoing research suggest that certain types of hair loss might be suitable for Gene therapy,” Dr George Cotsarelis, director of the Hair and Scalp Clinic at the University, said in a statement.

Dr Cotsarelis’s team thought it would try it for a range of hair loss, including alopecia, areata, caused when the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the hair follicles.

“It often occurs in children and can be psychologically devastating,” Dr Cotsarelis, who reported his teams’ findings to a meeting of the American Society of Gene Therapy, said.He futher clarified that the team not tried to treat baldness just yet. Instead, it used a Gene coding for an enzyme, known as Beta Galactosidase, which turns the hair follicle blue. The team grafted pieces of human scalp on specially bred mice.

India, Myanmar to check drugs trade

beijing, June 11 (pti) — India and Myanmar have decided to check trafficking of narcotics, drugs and psychotropic substances and chemicals used in refining drugs on the Myanmar-India border, Yangon’s official newspaper reported today.

A high-level joint drug control meeting between the two countries was held in Yangon yesterday, said the New Light of Myanmar.

The Myanmar delegation was led by the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Brig-Gen Thura Myint Maung, while the Revenue Secretary, Mr Javed Chowdhury headed the Indian delegation.

Slave servant
PARIS: A local couple has been each sentenced to 12 months imprisonment and fined 1,00,000 francs (some $ 16,000) for treating their servant from Togo in a way which the court heard was akin to “modern-day slavery.’’ The young woman was employed without a work permit, had received no payment for working 12 hours a day over the past four years, and had been obliged to sleep on a mat in the children’s bedroom. — DPA

Mars probe in 2003
PARIS: The European Space Agency has unveiled plans for a June 2003 launch of a probe to look for signs of water and possible life on Mars. After a six-month journey to Earth’s next-door neighbour in space, the Mars express probe will land and deploy a mobile lander, dubbed Beagle Two to explore the surface. Scientists with the $ 150 million project picked June 2003 because Mars will be closest to Earth at that time. — DPA

German slaves
BERLIN: Sixteen of Germany’s biggest companies have unveiled plans to compensate hundreds of thousands of Europeans who were forced to work for minimal pay in factories in Nazi Germany during World War II. But the outline immediately ran into a storm of criticism from claimants over plans to match the payments to income levels in whatever country the former slave worker lives in today. As a result, US residents would receive far more than Ukrainians, for example. — DPA

Coke found ‘safe’
ATLANTA: Coca Cola Co found no contamination in a batch of coke in Belgium after about 30 children went to a hospital after drinking the soda, forcing the recall of 2.5 million bottles of the beverage, according to a company spokeswoman. “We withdrew the product not because of health concerns, but because it did not meet our high quality standards,” Coke spokeswoman Jennifer McCollum said. — Reuters

Sleeping passenger
CAIRO: A passenger on a flight from here to Frankfurt ended up on the flight back home because he slept through the landing and return take-off, airport sources have said. They said on Thursday that the crew of the Egypt Air plane did not notice the passenger, an Eritrean, in a “deep sleep.’’ The man, was shocked when the plane landed back here and demanded compensation from the airline. — DPA