TV journalist shot dead in Pakistan
Islamabad, October 5
A journalist working for a private TV channel was killed today in Pakistan's Punjab province by unknown gunmen, the channel said.

Gazans can pray at Al-Aqsa mosque: Israel
Jerusalem, October 5
Hundreds of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip prayed on Sunday at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque, the first time Israel has allowed such visits from the coastal enclave since the Hamas militant group overran the area in 2007.

Dakar/Geneva, October 5
In the first days of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, as aid workers and health authorities battled to contain the deadly virus, Mariano Lugli asked himself a simple question: where was the World Health Organization (WHO)?

Lugli, an Italian nurse, was among the first responders from medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) to reach the remote forests of Guinea in March where the hemorrhagic fever, one of the most lethal diseases known to man, was detected.

When the epidemic spread to the capital Conakry, Lugli set up a second Ebola clinic there. He encountered a foreign medic and a logistician sent by the UN health agency but saw no sign of a WHO official in charge of handling the escalating outbreak.

"In all the meetings I attended, even in Conakry, I never saw a representative of the WHO," said Lugli, deputy director of operations for MSF Switzerland. "The coordination role that WHO should be playing, we just didn't see it. I didn't see it in the first three weeks and we didn't see it afterwards."

The worst outbreak of Ebola on record has killed more than 3,400 people in four West African countries and spread to the United States, where the first case was confirmed in Dallas this week.

After a dire warning from the US Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) that the virus could infect up to 1.4 million people, many health professionals and politicians are asking how the crisis got so badly out of hand. In the past 40 years, Ebola had killed just 1,500 people in sporadic outbreaks in Africa.

Some aid workers and UN officials blame a lack of WHO leadership in the emergency response, particularly in the early stages when it would have been easier to contain. On several occasions, WHO officials played down the outbreak, they say.

MSF International President Joanne Liu, who warned that her organisation could not cope with the rising number of Ebola victims, has accused the WHO of failing its mandate to help member states cope with health emergencies.

Stung by the criticism, WHO officials say the organisation was overstretched by a series of health care crises. They blame weak health care systems and uncooperative populations in poor African nations still reeling from civil war in the 1990s for allowing the outbreak to explode.

Senior WHO staff, including Director General Margaret Chan, said the organisation's role was not to run Ebola clinics or campaigns but advise states how to do so.

Yet after a direct appeal from the leaders of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the worst affected countries, for the United Nations to do more on Ebola, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stepped in to create a special UN mission last week, effectively stripping WHO of its coordination role.

Rio de Janeiro, October 5
Brazilians were voting on Sunday in the most unpredictable presidential election in decades and the first since the end of an economic boom underpinning the leftist Workers' Party's 12-year rule.

As President Dilma Rousseff seeks a second term, voters are weighing whether the socioeconomic gains of the last decade are enough to reject the candidacies of a popular environmentalist and a pro-business social democrat, who both promise to jump-start the economy after four years of lackluster growth.

Polls show Rousseff as the front runner in a race that is likely to go to a runoff on Oct. 26, following one of the most competitive campaigns since Brazil returned to democracy in 1985.

The death of one candidate, the unexpected surge of another, and fierce marketing by Rousseff to claw back into the lead have contributed to a nail-biter election as uncertain as the course of the country itself.

"It really is too close to call," said Rafael Cortez, a political analyst with Tendencias, a consultancy in Sao Paulo.

"Volatility and frustration favor opposition candidates, but you don't really have a crisis to topple the government, either." Queues formed early Sunday as citizens prepared to cast ballots when voting started at 8 a.m. local time. Rousseff, wearing the Workers' Party's signature red, voted shortly after polls opened in the southern city of Porto Alegre, where she lived and rose in the state bureaucracy in the 1990s.

Rousseff's main rivals are Marina Silva, a hero of the global conservation movement and ruling party defector now with the Brazilian Socialist Party, and Aecio Neves, a senator and former state governor from the centrist party that laid the groundwork for Brazil's economic boom last decade.

The two opposition candidates, in a last-minute sprint for runner-up, both promise to return to the market-friendly economic policies that critics say Rousseff abandoned, especially strict budget and inflation targets. They also say they will stop meddling with big, state-run banks and companies that have been subject to political intervention and corruption scandals.

After trailing Silva for most of the campaign, Neves may have built up enough momentum to advance to a runoff against Rousseff. Three polls on Saturday showed Neves slightly ahead of Silva.

Rousseff counts on a bedrock of support among the working class, thanks to generous social welfare programs that grew in scope during the two terms of her hugely popular predecessor and political godfather, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. — Reuters

London, October 5
Prime Minister David Cameron has asked his spy chiefs to find Islamic State executioner ‘Jihadi John’ so that he could dispatch special forces to kill or capture the masked man who beheaded the latest British hostage.

The Prime Minister has stepped up the hunt for British aid worker Alan Henning’s murderer, who appears in IS beheading videos and has a British accent.

He summoned the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ — the main British spy agencies — to his Chequers country retreat yesterday and told them he wanted them to provide him with targets for a special forces raid on the IS kidnappers, The Sunday Times reported.

The meeting came 12 hours after the terrorists released a video showing the Britain-born terrorist beheading Henning, a 47-year-old former taxi driver from Salford.

Cameron stepped in as Henning’s brother-in-law, Colin Livesey, and one of his friends accused the government of failing to do enough to save him.

Henning’s widow Barbara said the family were “numb with grief” at his murder and thanked those who had campaigned for his release.

But Livesey, her brother, said he was “angry” with the government and criticised their handling of the case and that of David Haines, the Scottish aid worker who was beheaded last month.

“They could have done more when they knew about it months and months ago,” he said. “Just the same with David Haines as well — I don’t think they did enough for him either.”

Branding the terrorists “scum”, he said he prayed they “get what’s coming to them.”

Majid Freeman, a friend of Henning who was on the same aid convoy when he was kidnapped, said: “We have been pressuring the government into doing something to secure his release, but they abandoned him. The British government left him out there.”

The newspaper said that intelligence chiefs had supplied Cameron with information about the terrorist cell holding the remaining hostages.

But the information on their whereabouts is not detailed or reliable enough for him to allow an SAS raid because the terrorist group is moving around the Syrian desert.

Henning was abducted minutes after his aid convoy entered Syria on December 26. He was the fourth Western hostage to be killed by Islamic State since mid-August, following two American journalists and another British aid worker. — PTI

New York, October 5
Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara is not doing much to encourage speculation that he’s on the short list to be the next attorney general and he’s not exactly discouraging it either.

Bharara’s profile has grown steadily in his five years as the head of one of the nation’s most high-profile federal prosecutor’s offices. He made the cover of Time magazine for his aggressive pursuit of Wall Street fraudsters. He’s overseen the biggest civilian terrorism cases. And he stood up to Governor Andrew Cuomo over his dismantling of an anti-corruption panel.

As recently as this week, Bharara used humour to deflect speculation he’s among a handful of potential candidates for the job being vacated by Attorney General Eric Holder a promotion that would make him the first Indian-American ever to serve on any US President’s cabinet. “When you have a proud Indian mother and a vacancy seems to be coming open, she will call all newspapers and say please put me on the list,” he said. — AP

Hong Kong, October 5
Some Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters, many in tears, began leaving the Mong Kok area of the city late on Sunday, pulling back from the scene of recent clashes with those who back the pro-Beijing government.

Fearing a police crackdown may come within hours, other protesters who have paralysed parts of the Asian financial hub with mass sit-ins also pulled back from outside Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's office, with police removing barricades nearby.

Amid confusing signals, reports circulated on social media and by word of mouth that protest leaders had called on their supporters to rally at Admiralty, the main area they have occupied over the past week at the heart of the former British colony's government district.

Tens of thousands of protesters are demanding that Leung step down and that China allows them the right to vote for a leader of their choice in 2017 elections.

The pro-democracy camp mixed defiance with pragmatism in the cramped streets of Mong Kok, a gritty, working class neighbourhood where scuffles broke out between protesters and supporters of the government on Friday and Saturday - and where police used pepper spray and batons in sporadic clashes early on Sunday.

"We want everyone to leave because we don't want to see any more bloody conflicts ... we will come back again if the government doesn't respond (to calls for direct talks)," said Tang Sin-tung, a 16-year-old high school student who said she represents some of the protest volunteers in Mong Kok.

She said around 20 of the 30 or so volunteers in that area would leave and join the rally at Admiralty, though some may choose to stay. Tang alleged that some female volunteers had been molested and faced sexual harassment by some of those opposed to the protest movement.

"We will be back. Fight till the end," some of the protesters chanted. "Mong Kok, Mong Kok, never retreat," shouted those remaining, cheered on by around 200 supporters.

Many residents have criticised the police handling of the recent unrest in Mong Kok, a traditional stronghold of Hong Kong's notorious organised crime gangs, or Triads. Police have had to defend their tactics and denied allegations of any collaboration between the security forces and gang members.

"We've been pepper-sprayed. We've been tear-gassed. We've seen Triads. Now we're not afraid of anything," said Kit Lee, 41, who was among those opting to stay in Mong Kok.

Facing a government deadline on Monday to clear the streets of protesters so that Hong Kong's schools, businesses and government offices can return to work, the protest groups have said they would dismantle barricades to key government buildings to allow civil servants to get to work.

Businesses, shop owners and taxi drivers have added to the pressure on the protesters to end their occupation and disperse. The government said all secondary schools in Central, Western and Wan Chai districts would re-open on Monday, but primary schools and kindergartens would remain closed. — Reuters

Beirut, October 5
Images of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appearing frail and in bed have raised questions about the seriousness of his condition, and who might eventually succeed him.

In early September, Khamenei made a surprise announcement that he was having surgery and asked people to pray for his health. What followed was unprecedented in the 35-year history of the Islamic Republic.

Top officials including President Hassan Rouhani, the head of the judiciary and the speaker of parliament went to the 75-year-old Supreme Leader's bedside, with each visit reported with photos on Iranian news sites. Even former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has had a tense relationship with Khamenei in recent years, came for a visit.

Rumours about Khamenei have circulated for years. But there has never been such a media blitz on the health of the Supreme Leader, who holds substantial influence or constitutional authority over the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government as well as the military and media.

The head of the surgical team said Khamenei had an operation on his prostate which lasted less than half an hour and only local anesthetic had been used. He was completely awake and speaking during the procedure, the surgeon said.

But if Khamenei's health deteriorates, the traditional clergy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's top military force and an economic powerhouse, will need to settle on a successor quickly if the country is to avoid a period of political instability, experts say.

"The illness of leaders in undemocratic countries is seen as a national security issue," said Mehdi Khalaji, a former senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who is now the CEO of the Idea Center for Arts and Culture. — Reuters

Toronto, October 5
A NASA-backed study is exploring the feasibility of lowering the cost of a human expedition to Mars by putting the astronauts in deep sleep. The deep sleep, called torpor, would reduce astronauts' metabolic functions with existing medical procedures.

"Therapeutic torpor has been around in theory since the 1980s and really since 2003 has been a staple for critical care trauma patients in hospitals," said aerospace engineer Mark Schaffer, with SpaceWorks Enterprises in Atlanta, earlier this week at the International Astronomical Congress here. So far, the duration of a patient's time in torpor state has been limited to about one week.

Coupled with intravenous feeding, a crew could be put in hibernation for the transit time to Mars, which under the best-case scenario would take 180 days one-way, 'Discovery News' reported.

"We haven't had the need to keep someone in (therapeutic torpor) for longer than seven days. For human Mars missions, we need to push that to 90 days, 180 days," Schaffer said.

This will allow crews to live inside smaller ships with fewer amenities like galleys, exercise gear, water, food and clothing.

The SpaceWorks study, funded by NASA, shows a five-fold reduction in the amount of pressurised volume need for a hibernating crew and a three-fold reduction in the total amount of mass required, including consumables like food and water.

The study looked at a two-part system for putting Mars-bound astronauts in stasis and bringing them out.

The cooling would be done through an internasal system, which Schaffer admitted is "not very comfortable," but inhaling a coolant has several advantages over reducing body temperatures with external cooling pads. Cooled from the outside, the body is more susceptible to shivering and possible tissue damage, Schaffer notes.

Simply stopping the flow of coolant will bring a person out of stasis, though the study included rewarming pads as a backup and to speed up the waking process in case of an emergency.

An alternative to having the whole crew in stasis is to have one person awake for two to three days, then hibernate for 14 days.

By staggering the shifts, no one person would be in stasis for more than 14 days at a time and one crew member would be awake to monitor the ship, conduct science experiments and handle maintenance chores. More research is needed to assure prolonged stasis is safe, but initial results are promising, Schaffer added. — PTI

The torpor state The deep sleep, called torpor, would reduce astronauts' metabolic functions with existing medical procedures. So far, the duration of a patient's time in torpor state has been limited to about one week Coupled with intravenous feeding, a crew could be put in hibernation for the transit time to Mars, which under the best-case scenario would take 180 days one-way This will allow crews to live inside smaller ships with fewer amenities like galleys, exercise gear, water, food and clothing

Tokyo, October 5
More than a week after a deadly eruption claimed dozens of lives, a search operation for people missing on a volcano in central Japan was called off today due to an approaching typhoon brought heavy rains.

The bodies of at least 12 hikers are believed to be lying somewhere on the still-smoldering Mount Ontake, a popular trekking destination that saw a spectacular eruption on September 27.

Rescue workers have already retrieved the bodies of 51 other victims, making it Japan's deadliest eruption for almost 90 years.

"The rescue efforts are suspended due to heavy rains in the area," said a disaster official at Nagano prefecture.

Heavy rain and strong winds are sweeping across Japan as Typhoon Phanfone moves toward the Pacific coast, threatening to make landfall tomorrow.

Phanfone, a Laotian term for "animal", was at noon (0300 GMT) located around 120 kilometres (75 miles) southeast of Yakushima, Kagoshima prefecture in southern Japan, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Packing gusts of up to 216 kilometres per hour, the typhoon was moving north at speed of 20 km per hour, and could make landfall by tomorrow, the agency said.

Gasses are still rising from the mountain, now covered by a knee-deep layer of wet and sticky ash that has hampered with the search-and-rescue operation.

Nearly 1,000 troops, firefighters, police have participated in the search operation amid fears that the bodies of missing hikers remain buried under the ash.

Mount Ontake was popular among hikers particularly as the autumn leaves turn their colours. — AFP