Washington, April 11
Amid the raging Tibet issue, the Dalai Lama has arrived in the United States for a visit which is expected to draw much international attention, to the dislike of China, for his quest for "genuine" autonomy and preservation of the unique Tibetan culture.

The exiled 72-year-old saffron-clad Buddhist leader flew into Seattle yesterday to lead a five-day conference on compassion in the western coastal city of Washington state.

The Dalai Lama, on a 13-day visit, said he supports non-violent demonstrations but was saddened by recent protests against the Beijing Olympic torch in London, Paris and San Francisco, where authorities often had to break or reroute the flame after human rights activists scuffled with pro-Chinese crowds.

This is the Dalai Lama's first visit to the US since the turmoil erupted in mid-March in Lhasa against the Chinese rule in Tibet.

Organisers of the five-day 'Seeds of Compassion' conference in Seattle said the Dalai Lama's visit is expected to draw over 150,000 people, AP reported.

The conference will feature dozens of workshops on various subjects, beginning with a panel discussion with the Dalai Lama on "The Scientific Basis for Compassion: What We Know Now."

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels is expected to present the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate with a key to the city. The University of Washington will present him an honorary degree.

Earlier yesterday, during a stopover in Japan, the Dalai Lama said he has always supported China's hosting of the Olympic Games, but said Beijing cannot suppress protests in Tibet with violence or tell those calling for more freedom in his homeland "to shut up."

The Dalai Lama denied Chinese allegations that he and his supporters have used the run-up to the Olympics to foment unrest in Tibet and elsewhere.

"Right from the beginning, we supported the Olympic Games," he said, adding that "I really feel very sad the government demonises me. I am just a human; I am not a demon."

After Seattle, the Dalai Lama is scheduled to speak at the University of Michigan
at Ann Arbor on April 19 and 20, then at Colgate University in Hamilton on April 22. — PTI

President George Bush, too, is under pressure to boycott the ceremony and the latest statement issued by the White House was rather ambiguous.

But all three presidential hopefuls Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain favour Bush skipping the ceremony. — PTI

Islamabad, April 11
Five Pakistani academics have been dismissed by the Punjab University for plagiarising a nuclear research paper from the findings of a prestigious Geneva-based scientific institute.

The dismissal of the lecturers from the university’s Centre for High Energy Physics has shocked academia across the country.

The head of the centre, Fazl-e-Azeem, was sacked along with his colleagues Rashid Ahmad, Sohail Afzal Tahir, M. Alam Saeed and Maqsood Ahmed. The orders for their dismissal were recently issued by Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool.

The lecturers were accused of plagiarising their Ph.D thesis from six different publications of the institute in Geneva.

“According to my personal reading of both articles, about 90 per cent of the later article by four of your faculty members is identical, word for word, with large segments of the earlier article written by our former director-general (Prof Llewellyn Smith),” said John Ellis, the advisor to the director-general of the European Centre for Nuclear Research in Geneva.

“I see no original idea of synthesis in the later article by your faculty members. Prof Llewellyn Smith’s article contains 19 references to previous academic literature, whereas the article by your faculty members refers to no other articles,” Ellis was quoted as saying by Newsline magazine in a letter he wrote to the vice-chancellor of Punjab University.

Ellis wrote to the vice-chancellor two years ago. The varsity initially took mild action against the teachers because they are believed to be linked to the Jamaat-e-Islami’s student wing Islami Jamiat Talaba.

Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission is now taking measures to stop plagiarism by both students and teachers.

It has installed plagiarism detectors - an application called “iThenticate” — which can compare sentences and paragraphs.

But there are limits to the computer software. If the text has not been lifted from the internet, it is difficult to “catch the thief”.

“If the software finds matching text in inverted commas, it ignores it, presuming it has been used in quotes or references from the original source,” university librarian Chaudhry Muhamed Hanif said.

The head of the psychology department at the university, Mian Aftab Ahmed, too has been accused of plagiarism and has been suspended.

The suspension has not gone down too well with the university’s academic staff association. The president of the association blamed the new vice-chancellor Mujahid Kamran, who he claimed had personal grudges against some faculty members. — PTI

A motion to set up a parliamentary committee on the question of restoration of deposed judges would be introduced in the National Assembly next week, law minister Farooq Naek announced in the National Assembly on Friday.

The move to set up the committee was immediately rejected by the PML-N, the second major coalition partner in the government, terming it as a move to delay the issue as contrary to the unambiguous commitment made in the Murree Declaration signed by top leaders of the PPP and PML-N - Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif -on March 9.

Senior minister and PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said that Nawaz Sharif will arrive in Islamabad on Tuesday for a meeting with PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari to clinch the matter in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Murree Declaration.

Nisar presided over a meeting of the parliamentary party of the PML-N that discussed threadbare the increasing confusion over the judges' issue generated by conflicting statements being made by ministers and senior leaders of the PPP.

Nisar said the party rejected attempts to link the judges' issue with a constitutional reform package being prepared by the PPP.

She said the owners of TV channels would not fear any punitive action over legitimate criticism of the government and its functionaries.

The Congress’ US-based arm has filed a lawsuit against three Indian Americans claiming $100 million in damages for an advertisement that defames Sonia Gandhi.

All three of those named in the lawsuit have ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party or the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

The three persons named in the lawsuit are, Narain Kataria and Arish Sahani, both from New York and Dr Bharat Barai from Indiana.

Dr Surinder Malhotra, president of the Indian National Overseas Congress (INOC), filed the lawsuit in New York.

In an interview with The Tribune, Malhotra said he was deeply offended by an October 7, 2007, full-page ad in the New York Times, which asked: “How can Sonia Gandhi represent Mahatma Gandhi on International Non-Violence Day?”

The ad claimed: “Sonia’s violence spans political, spiritual and physical spheres. Sonia locked the then Congress President with party goons in a toilet and declared herself party president.”

The lawsuit challenges this claim saying no such incident ever occurred and there is no evidence to suggest otherwise.

Among other charges, the ad calls Ms Gandhi “vindictive and undemocratic,” says since she came to power there is “a crusade to Christianise India,” and that her policies “have made the country a hot bed for terrorist violence.”

The ad also claims Rahul Gandhi “was detained by the FBI with large unaccounted cash at Boston in 2001.” The lawsuit refutes this charge as well. Malhotra called the ad “defamatory and groundless.”

The ad is endorsed by the “Forum for saving Gandhi’s Heritage consisting of Mahatma Gandhi International Foundation, Mahatma Gandhi Centre and Hindu Temple, Indo Caribbean Council, Kashmir Taskforce, Indian American Intellectuals Forum and Foundation of Nepalis in America and others on website.”

The lawsuit notes no authors “explicitly identified themselves as being responsible for the advertisement’s content.”

It says a “so-called corporate veil exists regarding such ‘entities’ as Forum for Gandhi Heritage, Forum for Saving Gandhi Heritage or Forum for Preserving Gandhi Heritage, it can and should be pierced in order to reach the responsible malefactors.”

In fact, the lawsuit points out, there is no legal entity known as “Forum for Gandhi Heritage.” Barai told The Tribune he had not seen the ad before the legal papers were sent to him.

“The accusations against me are a flat, outright lie,” he said. “I have nothing against Sonia Gandhi. I am not involved with political parties.”

Barai challenged Malhotra’s decision to file a lawsuit on behalf of Ms Gandhi and said he would take legal action when he returns from India.

Malhotra said he had left it to his attorneys to determine who was behind the ad. “They found out these names through their channels,” he said, adding, if Barai is not linked to the ad he would amend his lawsuit.

Malhotra’s attorney Sheldon Karasik of New York-based Karasik & Associates, said all three men named in the lawsuit are “linked to the websites listed in the ad and to anti-Sonia propaganda.”

Barai has written to Karasik asking him to “withdraw the frivolous, false complaint right away with a letter of apology from your client as well as your law firm.”

Washington, April 11
A legislation targeting India and seven other countries which allegedly refuse to take back illegal immigrants convicted of crimes in the United States has been introduced in the House of Representatives.

The Bill requires reports being sent to Congress every 90 days on the countries which inhibit repatriation that will automatically trigger denial of foreign aid as well as suspension of visa issuances to them.

The Bill, a companion to the Accountability in Immigrant Repatriation (AIR) Act of 2008 introduced last month in the US Senate, was introduced by Congressmen Charlie Dent and Michael Castle.

“Shockingly, criminal aliens (illegal migrants) who have served time in the US prisons are routinely released onto our streets after their home countries refuse to take them back,” Castle said at a press conference.

“This represents a serious loophole in our immigration system and I believe our legislation, combined with efforts to expand border enforcement and target fraudulent identification documents, can improve security and the spending of taxpayer dollars,” he added.

As of February 11, 2008, eight countries India, Laos, Iran, Eritrea, Vietnam, Jamaica, China and Ethiopia have refused to repatriate a total of over 139,000 illegal migrants, the Congressmen said. More than 18,000 of them were convicted criminals but were released.

The AIR Act would suspend all pending visa petitions from those countries until they agree to repatriate. The legislation would also direct the State Department to withhold funds under the Foreign Assistance Act to countries that persist in this refusal. — PTI

London, April 11 
London’s Central Criminal Court sentenced an Indian doctor to 18 months jail today for withholding information about planned car bomb attacks on central London and Scotland’s Glasgow airport.

Sabeel Ahmed (26), will not serve his sentence because he has already spent 270 days in custody, pleaded guilty and signed a document stating that he will return to India voluntarily.

New York, April 11
Astronomers have identified the coldest brown dwarf star ever observed, a discovery which they claim is a crucial step towards filling the gap between stars and planets.

Using telescopes stationed in Hawaii and Chile, the Canadian and French astronomers have located the brown dwarf, named CFBDS J005910.83-011401.3, about 40 light years from our solar system.

The newly found brown dwarf is an isolated object, meaning that it doesn’t orbit another star. Its temperature is about 350 degrees C and its mass 15-30 times the mass of Jupiter, the largest planet of our solar system.

Brown dwarfs are intermediate bodies between stars and giant planets. In contrast to a star like our Sun, a brown dwarf spends its lifetime getting colder and colder after its formation.

In the brown dwarf atmospheres, water is always in gaseous state, while it condenses into water ice in giant planets; and ammonia has never been detected in the brown dwarf near-infrared spectra, while it is a major component of Jupiter’s atmosphere.

CFBDS J005910.83-011401.3 looks much more like a giant planet than the known classes of brown dwarfs, both because of its low temperature and because of the presence of ammonia, the ‘ScienceDaily’ reported. — PTI

BRIEFLY

China, Pak to enhance cooperation
BEIJING: China and Pakistan on Friday pledged to deepen their strategic partnership and enhance cooperation in the fields of energy, trade and defence as President Pervez Musharraf held talks with his counterpart Hu Jintao in Hainan province. In his first high-level engagement as part of his six-day China visit, Musharraf met Hu on the sidelines of Boao Forum for Asia and said that developing a strategic partnership with China was the “pillar” of Pakistan’s foreign policies. — PTI

Patel’s extradition hearing put off
SILICON VALLEY/MELBOURNE: The extradition hearing of India-born surgeon Jayant Patel, facing manslaughter charges for alleged botched operations in Australia, was, on Friday, put off till May 27 by a US judge. Judge Dennis Hubel consented to the extension after Patel’s lawyer Marc Blackman notified the District Court in Portland, Oregon, that his client required more time to “evaluate his options” before the hearing which was slated for April 18. — PTI