World closer to abolition of death penalty: Amnesty
London, April 10
Despite India and some other countries resuming the death penalty in 2012, the global trend towards ending capital punishment continued, a global human rights group said.

Man wiggles rat’s tail using just his thoughts
New York, April 10
Scientists have for the first time linked the brains of a human and a rat, enabling the man to use just his thoughts to wiggle the rodent's tail.

Chandigarh-born ‘Sri’ in race to be US appeals court judge
Washington, April 10
President Barack Obama is making a hard push for the Senate confirmation of a Chandigarh-born Indian-American legal luminary, Srikanth 'Sri' Srinivasan, to what is "often called the nation's second-highest court".

Plea to prove Bhagat Singh’s innocence filed in Lahore HC
Lahore, April 10
Eight decades after Bhagat Singh's execution by the British, a petition has been filed in a Pakistani court seeking the reopening of the freedom fighter's case so that he can be declared innocent.

Seoul/Washington, April 10
South Korea said on Wednesday there was "very high" probability that North Korea, engaged in weeks of threats of war, would launch a medium-range missile at any time as a show of strength despite diplomatic efforts to soften its position.

Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said South Korea had asked China and Russia to intercede with the North to ease tension that has mounted since the UN Security Council slapped fresh sanctions on Pyongyang after a new nuclear arms test in February.

But all was calm in the South Korean capital, Seoul, long used to North Korean invective under its 30-year-old leader Kim Jong-un. Offices worked normally and customers crowded into city-centre cafes. Seoul stocks edged up 0.77 per cent from a four-and-a-half-month low hit earlier this week, though trading was light with threats from the North still clouding the picture. The won currency gained 0.3 per cent.

Other officials in Seoul said surveillance of North Korean activity had been enhanced. Missile transporters had been spotted in South Hamgyong province along North Korea's east coast - possible sites for a launch.

North Korea observes several anniversaries in the next few days and they could be pretexts for military displays of strength. These include the first anniversary of Kim's formal ascent to power, the 20th anniversary of rule by his father Kim Jong-il, who died in 2011, and the birth date next Monday of his grandfather, state founder Kim Il-Sung.

The near-daily threats to South Korea and the United States of recent weeks were muted in state media on Wednesday, with the focus largely on the festivities lying ahead. — Reuters

Washington, April 10
North Korea is “skating very close to a dangerous line” with its heated rhetoric and provocative actions, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters today.

The USA and its allies hoped Pyongyang would tone down its inflammatory language but the American military was prepared for any possibility, Hagel said.

“North Korea ...with its bellicose rhetoric, its actions, has been skating very close to a dangerous line,” the Pentagon chief said.

“Our country is fully prepared to deal with any contingency, any action that North Korea may take or any provocation that they may instigate,” Hagel added.

The US military's top officer, General Martin Dempsey, told the same press conference that he could not publicly comment on intelligence estimates as to how close North Korea was to placing a nuclear warhead on a missile.

But the four-star general said the USA military was ready for the “worst case” scenario.

“They have conducted two nuclear tests. They have conducted several successful missile launches.

“And in the absence of concrete evidence to the contrary, we have to assume the worst case and that's why we're postured as we are today,” said Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The military has deployed US naval ships in the region capable of shooting down incoming missiles and staged a show of force with bomber aircraft in a bid to deter North Korea from launching any attack.

Hagel said the USA and its allies hoped “that that rhetoric be ratcheted down” and Pyongyang will seek to defuse a “combustible situation.” — AFP

Beirut, April 10
Syria's rebel al-Nusra Front formally pledged allegiance to Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri but appeared to distance itself from a recently announced merger with Al-Qaeda's Iraq branch under the banner Islamic State of Iraq and Levant.

According to an audio tape posted online on Wednesday, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, leader of the Syrian group, said: "The sons of Nusra Front renew their pledge (of allegiance) to the Sheikh of Jihad Ayman al-Zawahri and declare obedience."

Golani's statement, published in the name of al-Nusra, came a day after the leader of Islamic State of Iraq, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, said the two groups would operate under a united leadership called the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant.

Golani said his group was not consulted before the announcement and he heard about it in the media. While admitting to receiving help from the Iraq branch since the early days of the insurgency against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Golani said the Nusra Front would continue operating under its own banner, with loyalty to Zawahri.

"The banner of the Front will remain the same, nothing will change about it even though we are proud of the banner of the (Islamic) State and of those who carry it," he said. — Reuters

Beijing, April 10
China's former railways minister Liu Zhijun, who had overseen a number of high-speed railway projects in the country, was today charged with bribery and abuse of power, the latest step in a graft investigation into the scandal-hit railways.

The charges were filed against Liu at Beijing's No. 2 Intermediate People's Court.

"The court has accepted the case according to law and will set a trial date," state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the indictment, as a state functionary, Liu sought benefits for others by taking advantage of his position, and accepted financial incentives from others, which were of a huge amount.

The indictment said as a member of staff of a state organ, Liu engaged in malpractices for personal gains and abuse of power, leading to huge losses of public properties and of the interests of the state and its people. With "especially serious circumstances," Liu should be subject to criminal liabilities for bribe taking and abuse of power according to law, the Xinhua report said.

An inquiry report released by the Railways last year said Liu, the longest serving railway minister, who was dismissed in 2011 was charged with political and ethical misconducts, many of which are closely linked to Ding Shumiao, an executive of the Beijing Boyou Investment Management Corp. Liu, 60 took advantage of his position to help Ding make huge illicit gains, state media reported.

Liu was appointed vice minister of railways in 1996 and minister in 2003. He was removed from his post and came under investigation in February 2011.

China's railway system has faced numerous problems over the past few years, including heavy debts from funding new high-speed lines, waste and fraud. Since assuming leadership of the Communist Party, Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to crack down on corruption.

Last month, China dissolved the railways ministry in a raft of measures aimed at boosting government efficiency and tackling corruption, placing its functions under the transport ministry. — PTI 

London, April 10
British MPs and peers cut short their holidays to reconvene for a special Parliament session today to pay tributes to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

However, reflecting the deeply divisive legacy of Britain's former Conservative Prime Minister, several lawmakers plan to boycott the debate in the House of Commons and House of Lords called to consider "the matter of tributes" to the "Iron Lady".

Prime Minister David Cameron will lead the tributes to Thatcher, who died on Monday aged 87 after suffering a stroke.

Leaders of the Liberal Democrat coalition and the Opposition Labour party are expected to follow.

According to reports, Labour leader Ed Miliband is expected to tell MPs where he thinks Thatcher "went wrong".

In a sign of the deep unease in the Labour ranks after he instructed his MPs to act in a respectful manner, former housing minister John Healey is among a group of MPs expected to boycott the tributes.

"Parliament is being used today for narrow political gain by the Prime Minister, as a platform for his party's ideology not just eulogy. He's wrong to recall Parliament, and wrong to hijack it in this way. I will play no part and I will stay away, with other things to do at home in the constituency," Healey said.

But a Labour spokesperson stressed that the party expected "a large number of Labour MPs to be attending" the debate, adding that he expected remarks to be "appropriate".

Left-wing Respect party MP, George Galloway, also said he would stay away from what he derided as a "state-organised eulogy".

The divide over Thatcher's 11 years as Prime Minister between 1979 and 1990 centres around her free-market reforms.

While supporters argue they made Britain stronger, critics say they destroyed millions of lives.

This deep division was evident even on the streets of Britain yesterday, where floral tributes at her Belgravia residence were in sharp contrast to celebratory marches in other parts of the city. — PTI 

London, April 10
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is Britain's most popular prime minister since the Second World War, unexpectedly eclipsing even Winston Churchill, according to a poll.

Thatcher, who died on Monday aged 87 after a series of strokes, was named as the best of the 13 prime ministers since 1945 by 28 per cent of people, the poll conducted by The Sun said.

The YouGov poll of 1,893 adults declared her the nation's favourite prime minister.

Churchill - Britain's leader during the Second World War and again from 1951 to 1955 - was in second place with 24 per cent of the vote, and Tony Blair in third with 10 per cent.

Thatcher was regarded as a "great" or "good" prime minister by 52 per cent of people, while 30 per cent deemed her "poor" or "terrible".

Almost half of those polled (48 per cent) felt she left Britain economically better off, while 60 per cent felt she left it more respected in the world.

More than half (51 per cent) believed she created more opportunities for women, but just 36 per cent declared she left society more free, and almost half (49 per cent) said she left a less equal society. — PTI

London, April 10
Robert Edwards, a British Nobel prize-winning scientist who pioneered the development of "test tube babies" conceived through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), died on Wednesday after a long illness, his university said.

Edwards, who won the Nobel prize for medicine in 2010, started work on fertilisation in the 1950s, and the first so-called test tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in 1978 as a result of his pioneering research.

He founded the world's first IVF clinic in his hometown of Cambridge, eastern England in 1980.

"It is with deep sadness that the family announces that Professor Sir Robert Edwards, Nobel prize winner, scientist and co-pioneer of IVF, passed away peacefully in his sleep," Cambridge University said in a statement.

It said he would be greatly missed by family, friends and colleagues, adding "his work has had an immense impact throughout the world". — Reuters

London, April 10
Despite India and some other countries resuming the death penalty in 2012, the global trend towards ending capital punishment continued, a global human rights group said.

In its annual review of death sentences and executions, London-based Amnesty International said, "2012 saw the resumption of executions in several countries that had not used the death penalty in some time, notably India, Japan, Pakistan and Gambia, as well as an alarming escalation in executions in Iraq." But the use of the death penalty continues to be restricted to an isolated group of countries, and progress towards its abolition was seen in all regions of the world, the report said.

Only 21 of the world's countries were recorded as having carried out executions in 2012 – the same number as in 2011, but down from 28 countries a decade earlier in 2003, it said.

In 2012, at least 682 executions were known to have been carried out worldwide, two more than in 2011.

At least 1,722 newly-imposed death sentences in 58 countries could be confirmed, compared to 1,923 in 63 countries the year before.

But these figures do not include the thousands of executions that Amnesty International believes were carried out in China, where the numbers are kept secret.

"The regression we saw in some countries this year was disappointing, but it does not reverse the worldwide trend against using the death penalty. In many parts of the world, executions are becoming a thing of the past," said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International. — PTI

New York, April 10
Scientists have for the first time linked the brains of a human and a rat, enabling the man to use just his thoughts to wiggle the rodent's tail.

This is the first case of a brain-to-brain interface between species, and the first example of a noninvasive brain-to-brain interface, researchers claimed.

Earlier this year, scientists had linked together the brains of two rats.

This first known instance of a brain-to-brain interface apparently helped the rodents share data to accomplish certain tasks, even across intercontinental distances, LiveScience reported.

In the latest experiment, researchers from Harvard Medical School employed noninvasive techniques to link the brains of a human and a rat. The man had electrodes stuck onto his scalp that picked up brain-wave activity.

The rat was placed in a machine that focused ultrasound pulses through its skull to its brain, and was anesthetised so that it would not wriggle its head during the experiment.

The volunteer had a video screen placed in front of him that displayed a flickering pattern of light. If he paid attention to the screen, his brain waves would synchronise with the strobe light.

When the man focused on the flickering pattern, that action signalled the ultrasound to stimulate the part of the sleeping rat's brain responsible for moving its body. In response, the rodent flicked its tail.

The interface was accurate 94 per cent of the time, with a time delay of only about 1.6 seconds from the moment the man initiated his intent to the rat tail's wiggling."This is the first noninvasive attempt to achieve a brain-to-brain interface," researcher Seung-Schik Yoo, a neuroscientist and bioengineer at Harvard Medical School, told the website.

Yoo noted that brain-machine interfaces are getting increasingly advanced over time, enabling people with paralysis to control robot arms.

In the future, interspecies brain-to-brain interfaces could help search-and-rescue operations, Yoo suggested.

The study was published in the journal Plos One. — PTI

Washington, April 10
President Barack Obama is making a hard push for the Senate confirmation of a Chandigarh-born Indian-American legal luminary, Srikanth 'Sri' Srinivasan, to what is "often called the nation's second-highest court".

If confirmed, Srinivasan (45), who in August last year was named principal deputy solicitor general of the US, succeeding another Indian-American Neal Kumar Katyal, would create history as the first appeals court judge of South Asian heritage.

"With a coordination and an energy that echo a Supreme Court nomination fight, the Obama administration is pushing for “Srinivasan's confirmation”, said The New York Times on the eve of Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing today on Srinivasan's nomination to the US Court of Appeals for the American capital.

"The White House is lobbying some of the president's most vocal foes," noted the influential US daily with administration officials "trumpeting the endorsement of top Republican lawyers like Kenneth W Starr, the special prosecutor who investigated the Clintons".

"If the effort fails, it could lead to a confrontation with the Senate over the long-simmering issue of judicial nominees," the Times said.

"The court is of major importance to any White House because it often takes cases that decide the constitutionality of rules and regulations issued by federal agencies," it said.

Ami Bera, the sole Indian-American member of the House of Representatives, also came out in support of Obama's nominee saying, "Sri Srinivasan would be an outstanding court of appeals judge". "He is widely regarded as one of the best legal minds in the country. His integrity, experience, and education make him well- equipped,” he said. — IANS

Creating history If confirmed, Srikanth Srinivasan (45), who in August last year was named principal deputy solicitor general of the US, would create history as the first appeals court judge of South Asian heritage Ami Bera, the sole Indian-American member of the House of Representatives, also came out in support of Obama's nominee saying "Sri Srinivasan would be an outstanding court of appeals judge"

Lahore, April 10
Eight decades after Bhagat Singh's execution by the British, a petition has been filed in a Pakistani court seeking the reopening of the freedom fighter's case so that he can be declared innocent.

Imtiaz Rasheed Qureshi of the Save The Judiciary Committee filed the petition in the Lahore High Court.

He said Bhagat Singh, who was sentenced to death by the British government and hanged in Lahore in March 1931, was a freedom fighter of the subcontinent.

"Singh was first given life imprisonment but later awarded the death sentence. He was convicted in a fake case," Qureshi said in his petition.

Singh was respected by Sikhs and Muslims alike and Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah too had paid tribute to the freedom fighter in the erstwhile Central Legislative Assembly, Qureshi said.

"I, therefore, request the court to reopen the case of Singh and declare him innocent," Qureshi said in his petition.

Singh and a companion were arrested after they lobbed two bombs inside the Central Legislative Assembly in April 1929.

Though no one was killed in the incident, Singh was later convicted of shooting and killing a British police officer and sentenced to death.

The Lahore High Court is yet to decide another petition, which has been pending for about three months, regarding the renaming of Shadman Chowk after Bhagat Singh.

The roundabout stands at the spot where Singh was hanged.

Hardline and extremist groups like the Jamaat-ud-Dawah have opposed moves by civil society groups and NGOs to rename the spot after Singh. — PTI