London, August 23
Two major investigations by the French and British police concluded that Princess Diana’s death in a Paris car crash was a tragic accident, but 10 years on many remain convinced she was murdered in a sinister plot.

The usual suspects cited by conspiracy theorists include Britain’s royal family — because they were unhappy Diana was to marry her lover, Dodi al-Fayed — or arms dealers, because they were angry at her support for a ban on landmines.

“They were killed as a result of a wicked conspiracy by people who did not want the princess to marry my son and were fearful of what she could say and do,” Dodi’s father Mohamed, the leading murder theory protagonist, said.

And there are some truly bizarre hypotheses. These suggest leaders of a “new world order” assassinated her because she wouldn’t marry former US President Bill Clinton, or that she was killed as part of a Satanic ritual, or even that she is still alive having faked her own death.

Alasdair Spark, at the Centre for Conspiracy Culture at Britain's University of Winchester, said doubts about the official version of her death reflected a common belief that the public was always deliberately misled by the authorities.

“At the heart of it is this very strong belief we are always lied to, that any government never tells you the truth,” Spark said.

“People believe in conspiracy theories the way they believe in TV adverts. It’s a very casual belief, sometimes it’s more of a refusal to disbelieve. But people are prepared to entertain that it might be true,” he said.

One of the strengths of conspiracy theories is the focus on unanswered details, and arguments are developed from there. In her case, much has been made of the untraced white Fiat Uno car that police reports say collided with her car.

“But at the same time actually often it’s about the little inconsistent facts. Where is the white Uno? These sort of things, the piece of the jigsaw that doesn’t fit, tend to get very exaggerated. You can spin fantasies out of that,” he said.

Despite the 832-page report by the police, sceptics still doubt the official accounts on Diana.

Dr Karen Douglas from Britain's University of Kent found that people exposed to Diana conspiracy theories were influenced by what they had been told when asked to rate how much they agreed with statements such as “Diana was killed by British secret agents”.

The study also showed that they did not even realise that their judgment had been affected. — Reuters

Repudiating suggestions that the country's foreign policy and relations with the USA need a drastic review, Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri has said Pakistan cannot afford isolation and disengagement in the comity of nations.

Khurshid told the Senate while concluding a two-day debate on foreign policy that the present policy was framed to serve the best interests of the nation.

He rejected the opposition members' call for a review of policy towards the USA.He insisted that the policy targeted at maintaining strong defence, national security and economic stability.

He said the US and other friendly countries were fully briefed about Pakistan's sensibilities and its 'red lines', which they must not cross.

He said the government had to make unpopular decisions at times, but Pakistan 's interests were kept supreme in the process.

He rejected the US intelligence reports that Pakistan had become a haven for Al- Qaida and Taliban militants, but conceded that some terrorists had taken refuge in the country's areas bordering Afghanistan against which forces were in action.

Kasuri criticised US presidential hopefuls for "Pakistan-bashing". He rejected Tom Tancredo's call for bombing Muslim holy cities.

He demanded the presidential candidate be tried for hurting the sentiments of Muslims, as done under the holocaust laws.

Kasuri said Pakistan's foreign policy did not revolve around the US but was aimed at promoting relations with all countries, especially Asian countries, the European Union, China, Russia, Japan and Germany.

He said the policy specially focused on improving ties with the US and the EU because 80 per cent of Pakistan's trade was with them.

He added that Pakistan had improved relations with its neighbours over the years but faced some problems in enhancing ties with India and Afghanistan.

The foreign minister denied that Pakistan was blindly accepting "each and every thing" coming from the US and said the government was and would continue protecting national interests.

He said Islamabad had refused to back US policies on many occasions, including a motion in the UN Security Council, the invasion of Iraq and another against Iran's nuclear programme in Vienna.

He said Pakistan was actively engaged with India through backchannel diplomacy to settle the Kashmir conflict.

Durban, August 23
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and South African President and ruling ANC leader Thabo Mbeki today agreed to forge closer links between their parties as a part of the process to strengthen Indo-South African ties.

The two leaders met at President Mbeki’s official residence in Cape Town soon after Gandhi arrived in the city from Johannesburg.

Gandhi and Mbeki agreed to forge closer ties within the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) context.

Gandhi also expressed interest in South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) programme, which aims to speed up the economic advancement of the black majority.

The Congress leader also held talks with deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who gave her a full account of the working of the BEE policies.

She will today leave for Johannesburg to catch a flight to New Delhi amidst the ongoing stand-off with the Left allies over the Indo-US nuclear deal. — PTI

New York, August 23
A significant number of octogenarian Americans are still having sex, according to a new study.

Yet doctors don't appear to be talking to their older patients about sex — a trend that may have to change as more treatments for age-related sexual dysfunction have now become available, it further says.

"Sex among older adults is the last taboo in the USA," Dr Virginia Sadock, professor of psychiatry and director of the Program of Human Sexuality at New York University, was quoted as saying.

ABC television network reported the study which was released yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study surveyed 3,005 men and women in the USA over the age of 57. Researchers, with the study, hoped to better understand the decline in sexual activity as one ages, as well as the differences between the sex lives of older men and older women.

The study found that among adults 57 to 64 years of age, 73 per cent reported recent sexual activity. This number declined to 53 per cent among those aged 65 to 74 and to 26 per cent among those who were 75 to 85 years old.

But although the percentage of individuals who are sexually active decreases with age, the study, says ABC, highlights the fact that a "substantial number of men and women continue to engage in sexual activity."

Lead study author Dr Stacey Lindau, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at the University of Chicago, was quoted as saying that a general lack of basic information on sexuality and the elderly prompted her to look for more information in this area.