Baghdad, June 22
Twenty-seven persons were killed today as a spate of attacks hit Iraq just days before US troops are due to pull out of Iraq's cities, security officials said. Seventy-six persons were also wounded in the attacks in Baghdad and other restive parts of the country.

Security and hospital officials said the dead included five Iraqi soldiers, two policemen, three university students on their way to sit their final exams, and a four-year-old child.

In the deadliest single strike, seven persons were killed in a car bombing that targeted municipal offices in Abu Ghraib, a town on Baghdad’s western outskirts that is notorious as the site of the 2006 scandal over the abuse of prisoners by US jailers. The attack also wounded 16 persons, including three US soldiers.

The predominantly Sunni Arab town was once a bastion of Al-Qaeda, but Jihadists have since been beaten back by Sunni groups allied with US forces and the Iraqi government.

In Baghdad's sprawling Shiite slum neighbourhood of Sadr City, a roadside bomb hit a minibus, killing three students on their way to sit exams. Twelve other students and the driver were wounded in the morning rush-hour attack.— AFP

Toronto, June 22
In a major breakthrough for AIDS cure, Canadian scientists have finally found where the HIV virus hides in the human body to become impervious to medical treatment.

This breakthrough could pave the way for a total cure of the deadly disease, claim the scientists who carried out the study with researchers from the US.

The current anti-viral treatment for HIV patients can only subdue, not eliminate, the virus as it hides somewhere to lie low and then attack the system again.

Till now, scientists conjectured that the virus might be hiding in the kidneys or the brain. But now the Canadian researchers claim that they have discovered the safe havens where the virus hides in the human body.

Led by Professor Rafick-Pierre Sekaly, researchers said they have found that the virus hides in “long-lived” memory cells in the human body.

These memory cells, which have a long life just like the stem cells, lie sleepy in the body most of the time until they encounter a new virus or disease-causing agents.

Like stem cells, these memory cells are also capable of replicating themselves. So when the HIV virus enters them or attacks them, these memory cells multiply to defend the body. But the problem is that the once the virus enters these memory cells, it also multiplies with them.

Thus, in the current intense medication - which involves five to six drugs that can prolong life up to 13 years - for a patient, the virus retreats into these safe havens to stage an attack later.

The researchers said they were finding ways to destroy the virus in its safe havens in the memory cells without harming the immune system.Their research was the “first clue” to eliminating the virus, said research leader Sekaly Sunday.

There are over 33 million HIV patients worldwide, with 2.7 million more getting infected each year. The research study has been published in the journal Nature Medicine. — IANS

“The killer of my mother had only pulled the trigger while the gun had been loaded by the dictator,” Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of slain Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, said on Sunday, in an apparent reference to former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf.

Bilawal (19), who is also chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was speaking at Bradford University in UK on occasion of 56th birth anniversary of his mother.

“The Rawalpindi incident (murder of Bhutto) was a great conspiracy against Bhutto family,” said Bilawal, hoping that assassins of his mother would soon be taken to task. He reiterated the stance of the PPP to uproot terrorism from the country following the footsteps of Benazir Bhutto.

President Asif Ali Zardari had said yesterday that the UN team tasked to probe the assassination would begin its worked from July 1. Pakistan's permanent representative Hussain Haroon told a private channel that the investigation would cost $4 million, of which the government would contribute $1.5 million while pledges have been made by some friendly countries to pay the balance. 

London, June 22
A series of signed and autographed letters by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru and some documents and postcards will figure in a Christie’s sale here on July 14. As many as three of Gandhi’s autographed letters to Islamic scholar and leading figure in the Khilafat movement, Maulana Abdul Bari, in Urdu have an estimated price of £2,500-3,000 (Rs 1.99-2.38 lakh).

They refer to Hindu-Muslim relations, including communal tension in Lucknow and their personal friendship. Writing a letter from prison, Gandhi thanks Bari for gifting cotton for spinning.

A khadi cloth signed by Gandhi and said to have been woven by him will go under the hammer at an estimated price of £2,000-2,500 (Rs 1.59-1.99 lakh).

The cloth was a gift from Gandhi to South African-born actress Moira Lister, who was a friend of Maharani of Jaipur, Gayatri Devi.

Two autograph postcards (worth £1,500-2,000 or Rs 1.19-1.59 lakh) signed by Gandhi to Urdu poet Hamid Ullah Afsar also figure in the auction of 153 lots under the category of English Literature, History, Children’s Books and Illustrations.

A series of 29 letters signed and four autograph letters and notes signed by Nehru to friend Mridula Sarabhai, together with a signed document, a signed greeting card and 29 envelopes will have an estimated price of £4,000-5,000 (Rs 3.17-3.97 lakh).

Nehru’s letters discuss subjects, including events in Kashmir, Sarabhai’s political campaigns, rehabilitation of Muslims evicted from their homes at Partition and a humanitarian project for homeless children in Delhi.

“I must act according to my own judgment. I know perhaps better than you do of the consequences of what is happening and what is likely to happen consequences not only in Kashmir but the whole of India and Pakistan,” says one of the letter written on August 3, 1953, just before the dismissal of Sheikh Abdullah as Kashmiri Prime Minister. — PTI 

Moscow, June 22
Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the leader of Russia’s troubled Ingushetia region, was severely wounded when a suicide bomber today triggered an explosive laden car in a bid to assassinate him in the latest set back to Kremlin’s attempt to restore stability in the Caucasus, media reports said.

Yevkurov, the President of the Republic of Ingushetia bordering the restive Chechnya, was gravely wounded while four of his bodyguards and driver were killed when the suicide bomber triggered the explosive laden car parked on the roadside as the presidential motorcade passed by it in the capital today, Vesti FM radio said.

According to the Channel 1 TV, Yevkurov's brother, was also wounded in the attack. Ingushetia became a republic within Russia in 1992 after the partition of Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic. Ingushetia is home to hundreds of refugees from the wars in Chechnya, to the east. It has a close-knit population of over 450,000 that is based around tribal clans.

The president of neighbouring Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, called the attack on Yevkurov a “mean and inhuman act.”.— PTI