West Africa Ebola death toll hits 337: WHO

GENEVA: The death toll in West Africa´s three-nation Ebola outbreak has risen to 337, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, making it the deadliest ever outbreak of the haemorrhagic fever.

Fresh data from the UN health agency showed that the number of deaths in Guinea, the hardest-hit country, has reached 264, while 49 had died in Sierra Leone and 24 in Liberia.

The new toll marks a more than 60-percent hike since the WHO´s last figure on June 4, when it said 208 people had succumbed to the deadly virus.

Including the deaths, 528 people across the three countries have contracted Ebola, one of the deadliest viruses known to man, the WHO said.

Yet agency spokeswoman Fadela Chaib insisted the far higher number of cases did not mean the virus was spreading faster.

"There is no sudden rise," she said in an email to AFP, pointing out that the increase could be explained by the heightened vigilance in the region and the confirmation of previously suspected cases.

Retroactive investigations were pushing up the numbers, she said, stressing that WHO´s toll should be seen as "provisional", since "new samples are being taken daily and tests are underway." (AFP)

Moderate 5.3 magnitude earthquake hits southwestern Pakistan

QUETTA: A 5.3-magnitude earthquake struck southwestern Pakistan on Friday, but officials said there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

The epicentre was in the city of Khuzdar, in Baluchistan province, at a depth of 26 kilometres (16 miles), meteorological official Zabih Ullah told AFP.

The quake, which struck late morning, was also felt in surrounding towns and districts. Pakistan straddles part of the boundary where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet, making the country susceptible to earthquakes.

It was hit by a 7.6-magnitude quake on October 8, 2005 that killed more than 73,000 people and left about 3.5 million homeless, mainly in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

A 7.7-magnitude earthquake devastated several areas in southwestern Baluchistan province in September last year. It killed at least 370 people and left 100,000 homeless.

Neesham hits ton as New Zealand dominate

KINGSTON: Jimmy Neesham became the first New Zealander to score hundreds in his first two Test matches to put the visitors in a commanding position after two days of the first Test against the West Indies at Sabina Park in Jamaica on Monday.

Neesham´s innings of 107 and a 201-run sixth-wicket partnership with B.J. Watling (89) lifted the Black Caps to a total of 508 for seven declared.

Left to negotiate a tricky nine overs before the close of play, West Indies reached 19 without loss with Chris Gayle, in his 100th Test match on his home ground, to resume on the third morning with Kieran Powell.

Powell has already enjoyed a moment of good fortune, being put down by Peter Fulton at second slip in the third over of the innings off Tim Southee.

Despite an encouraging effort in the morning session when three wickets fell for 20 runs to have New Zealand at 279 for five from their overnight position of 240 for two, the West Indies bowlers again laboured on a gentle pitch throughout the afternoon.

Neesham, the 23-year-old left-hander from Auckland who launched his Test career with a century in a drawn match against India in Wellington last February, mixed watchful defiance with periods of bold aggression. He smashed off-spinner Shane Shillingford for two sixes in the same over and had 11 fours in an innings that occupied three-and-a-half hours before he fell to a catch at the wicket off Sulieman Benn. "I´m very pleased obviously, although my first Test ended in a draw and this pitch is pretty flat, so I´m more concerned about getting my first Test win," he said. "There´s a bit of turn and bounce so it´ll be interesting to see if we can put them under a bit of pressure."

For Benn, who together with fellow returning spinner Shane Shillingford took three expensive wickets apiece, the experience over the first two days of the match reminded him of the tough nature of Test cricket. "You get shown up at this level. It was a rude awakening, a re-awakening," he said after completing 52 overs.

Neesham´s century followed the first-day hundred of Kane Williamson, and New Zealand might have had a third century-maker except that the immediacy of the declaration in the final hour of the day forced Watling to be a bit more adventurous, the pugnacious wicketkeeper-batsman falling to a catch at deep midwicket off Shillingford.

The second session of play had contrasted sharply with the first, 129 runs being scored off 35 overs to redress the balance from the morning stumbles.

Williamson added just another eight runs before misjudging the line of a straighter delivery from Benn to have his off-stump knocked back on 113.

Former captain Ross Taylor, the other overnight batsman, got to 55 before chipping a catch to Kirk Edwards at midwicket off Shillingford.

In the next over Benn grazed the edge of Brendon McCullum´s bat and Gayle took the lobbed catch via wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin´s shoulder to send the New Zealand captain back for just seven. (AFP).

Death toll hits 32 in India rebel violence: police

GUWAHATI: Police found nine more bodies Saturday after a deadly rampage by tribal separatists in India´s remote northeastern Assam state, taking the death toll to 32 following two days of violence.

The nine bodies, including those of women and children, were recovered from Narayanguri village in Baksa district, some 200 kilometres (125 miles) west of Assam´s main city of Guwahati.

"The death toll has gone up to 32," police inspector general S. N. Singh told. "Security has been further tightened with police and paramilitary troopers deployed in strength.

"Fresh violence erupted Friday night when tribal rebels killed 12 Muslims, a day after they had killed three villagers in the same district and eight more in neighbouring Kokrajhar, opening fire on the victims as they slept in their homes.

The attacks have prompted security forces to launch a massive hunt for the guerillas and have spurred some 5,000 people to flee from their homes, Singh said.

He added that an indefinite curfew has also been imposed in the violence-torn districts, with police given shoot-on-sight orders.

The victims of the attacks were Muslim migrants who have been locked in land disputes with indigenous Bodo tribes in the tea-growing state that borders Bhutan and Bangladesh.

The attacks come as India votes in a multi-phased general election that began on April 7. Polling winds up on May 12, with results to be announced four days later.

Voting in Assam has ended, with April 24 the last day of polling.

Police blamed the attacks on the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), which has been demanding a separate homeland for decades.

Seventeen people were killed in clashes in the same region in January and thousands of others fled their homes for fear of further attacks.

In 2012, ethnic clashes in the same area claimed about 100 lives and displaced more than 400,000 people.

Death toll hits 32 in India rebel violence: police

GUWAHATI: Police found nine more bodies Saturday after a deadly rampage by tribal separatists in India´s remote northeastern Assam state, taking the death toll to 32 following two days of violence.

The nine bodies, including those of women and children, were recovered from Narayanguri village in Baksa district, some 200 kilometres (125 miles) west of Assam´s main city of Guwahati.

"The death toll has gone up to 32," police inspector general S. N. Singh told. "Security has been further tightened with police and paramilitary troopers deployed in strength.

"Fresh violence erupted Friday night when tribal rebels killed 12 Muslims, a day after they had killed three villagers in the same district and eight more in neighbouring Kokrajhar, opening fire on the victims as they slept in their homes.

The attacks have prompted security forces to launch a massive hunt for the guerillas and have spurred some 5,000 people to flee from their homes, Singh said.

He added that an indefinite curfew has also been imposed in the violence-torn districts, with police given shoot-on-sight orders.

The victims of the attacks were Muslim migrants who have been locked in land disputes with indigenous Bodo tribes in the tea-growing state that borders Bhutan and Bangladesh.

The attacks come as India votes in a multi-phased general election that began on April 7. Polling winds up on May 12, with results to be announced four days later.

Voting in Assam has ended, with April 24 the last day of polling.

Police blamed the attacks on the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), which has been demanding a separate homeland for decades.

Seventeen people were killed in clashes in the same region in January and thousands of others fled their homes for fear of further attacks.

In 2012, ethnic clashes in the same area claimed about 100 lives and displaced more than 400,000 people.

Rupee hits 18-month high against dollar

KARACHI: The dollar continues losing against the rupee, as it has dropped down to the last eighteen months low in the interbank on Tuesday here, Geo News reported.

Market sources said that the dollar against rupee further losing by paisa 50 pegged at Rs95.70 in the interbank.

Analysts said that the rupee started gaining strength after a grant received from the friendly country, loans from the international institutions and successful floating of Euro Bonds. Besides, the speculators have also started offloading dollars with its persistent losing value in the market.

New 6.6-magnitude quake hits Nicaragua

MANAGUA: A 6.6-magnitude earthquake hit Nicaragua´s Pacific region on Friday, one day after a quake of similar magnitude in the area left one person dead.

An initial official report said the new earthquake had caused no known deaths or damage. The quake struck at 2:29 pm (2029 GMT) at a depth of 138 kilometers (86 miles), according to the US Geological Survey. The epicenter was 24 kilometers south of Granada and 56 kilometers southeast of the capital Managua, the USGS said.

Tremors were felt as far away as neighboring El Salvador and Costa Rica´s northern Guanacaste province.

Thursday´s 6.1-magnitude quake, also centered in the Pacific coast region of Nicaragua, killed one person, left 33 people injured and damaged more than 800 homes, the government said.

5 dead as tsunami hits Chile

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  AP A military vehicle patrols after an earthquake in Iquique, Chile. A powerful magnitude-8.2 earthquake struck off northern Chile on Tuesday night, setting off a small tsunami that forced evacuations.
   
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  AP People gathered to avoid the tsunami after an earthquake in Iquique, Chile.

Tsunami waves generated by an earthquake measuring 8.3 on the Richter Scale that hit off the Chile coast on Tuesday struck some areas in the north of the country.

The Chilean National Office for Emergency Tuesday organised an evacuation of more than 10,000 people in some coastal areas, Xinhua reported.

According to the University of Chile Seismological Service, the major tremor hit off the Chilean coast at 8.46 p.m. (11.46 p.m. GMT) and the epicentre, with a depth of 44 km, is located 99 km northwest of the mining port of Iquique, near the border with Peru.

Interior Minister Rodrigo Penailillo attributed the five deaths to heart attacks or being crushed.

Thousands have lost power, and hundreds of thousands of Chileans are spending the night away from their beds due to the evacuation order, which remains in effect for northern Chile.

The U.S. Geological Survey initially reported the quake at 8.0 magnitude.

Local radio reported that power went out and communications were affected in some parts of northern Chile while some roads and highways in northern Chile were blocked by landslides, causing traffic jams.

So far, at least 10 strong aftershocks, including a 6.2-magnitude tremor, have occurred.

300 female inmates escape prison

More than 300 inmates escaped from a women’s prison amid a tsunami alert in northern Chile, the interior minister said.

“Around 100 special forces will be sent to the area” of the remote town of Iquique, around 200 kilometres from the Peruvian border, to deal with the problem, Rodrigo Penailillo told reporters.

Bebo Hits Out at The Khans

Once upon a time actresses like Devika Rani and Zubeidaa ruled Indian cinema. Are actresses today getting equal opportunities in the over $2 billion film industry? March 8 is International Women's Day, an appropriate time to take a look at the role of women in Indian cinema over the last 100 years.

When Dadasaheb Phalke, the Father of Indian Cinema, released his Raja Harischandra in 1913, women used to shun movies and it was left to male artists to play female characters.

Times changed by the 1930s. Devika Rani, Zubeidaa, Mehtab, Shobhana Samarth - all women from affluent families -- entered the movie business and changed the face of Indian cinema by redefining the importance of women in films. They were followed by Suraiya, Meena Kumari, Madhubala and Waheeda Rehman, stars who brought about a sea change in attitudes as leading ladies. Achhut Kanya, Jeevan Prabhat, Nirmala, Alam Ara, Zarina, Chitralekha, Parineeta, among others, are some of the movies with woman-centric themes of that era. In terms of remuneration, status and roles, the leading ladies of that time were on par with their male counterparts.

But are women enjoying the same status in the 21st century?  Listen to the leading ladies of modern-day cinema to get an insight into their status -- on and off the screen.

Kareena Kapoor: "In Bollywood it's always between three or four Khans and a couple of other actors. I guess female actors are there for just dancing with them. We have to stand behind Shah Rukh and Salman (Khan) and say, 'Hey! I'm here too, give me something to do.' And the pay cheques, what Salman gets and what I get... let's not even go into that"

Kangna Ranaut: "Forget the credit, they (male actors) take all the money as well. We don't get paid even one-third of what male actors take home. It's not so much about the money, but it's about (being a) woman."

When beautiful and free-willed Devika Rani, Zubeidaa, Mehtab, and Shobhana Samarth paved the way for women in films, no one would have thought that there would be a time when actresses would merely become showpieces in films.

It was not easy to find a strong foothold in a male-dominated and patriarchal society, but they achieved that feat. Devika Rani, co-founder of Bombay Talkies studio, was one of the most powerful actresses of her time and gave Hindi cinema's first kiss -- and perhaps its longest one at that.

Zubeida, daughter of Fatima Begum and the daughter of an affluent Nawab, shot to fame with Alam Ara and commanded a high wage. Cut to the present. At a time when women are breaking free of taboos and stereotypes, filmdom doesn't seem to reflect the changing social trend. In terms of women entering films, the number has gone up manifold, but in terms of screen space, their roles have shrunk. From the storyline to end credits -- most of the time their male counterparts get preference over them.

Filmmakers occasionally come up with stories about the empowerment of women, and actresses like Tabu and Vidya Balan get a rare chance to carry them on their shoulders. But such opportunities are few and far between.

If made well, women-centric films can dig gold at the box office. Kahaani and No One Killed Jessica are cases in point.

Today, when an actress poses in a bikini in a film or for the cover of a magazine, it sets tongues wagging. But it's not new -- Mehtab did a topless bathtub sequence in Kidar Sharma's Chitralekha in 1942. In fact, in terms of bold scenes and relationships, those women were not bound by any taboo or stereotype.

It's time to get inspired by the past and ensure actresses are judged by their abilities and achievements, and not labelled or stereotyped by their gender and relationships. (IANS

S&P 500 hits record on data, ECB; focus shifts to jobs report

NEW YORK: U.S. stocks mostly rose on Thursday, with the S&P 500 hitting a record after better-than-expected jobless claims data ahead of Friday's all important nonfarm payrolls report.
Boosting appetite for riskier assets, the European Central Bank decided not to take any action at its meeting on Thursday because economic and monetary conditions had not changed enough to warrant it. The euro hit its highest level against the U.S. dollar since late December.
Investors' focus shifted to Friday's employment data, due at 8:30 a.m. ET, which is likely to show job growth in the U.S. picked up enough in February to encourage the Federal Reserve to continue to scale back its monetary stimulus. But the gain was likely to be tepid given the unrelentingly harsh winter.
"There isn't much action today in terms of direction and volume on caution ahead of the jobs report tomorrow," said Ryan Detrick, analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati, Ohio.
With less than a hour left in trading, about 4.9 billion shares traded on U.S. exchanges, according to data from BATS Global Markets, below the daily average of about 7 billion in the past month.
The biggest gainers were stocks in basic materials, financial and industrial sectors, often associated with strong economic fundamentals. The S&P basic materials index was up 0.4 percent, the S&P financial index was up 0.8 percent and the S&P industrials index was up 0.5 percent.
But the Nasdaq 100 fell 0.2 percent, led lower by Staples, which lost 15 percent to $11.39. The largest U.S. office supplies retailer forecast a decline in sales. Staples also said it would close up to 225 stores in the United States and Canada by 2015.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 71.49 points or 0.44 percent, to 16,431.67, the S&P 500 gained 4.1 points or 0.22 percent, to 1,877.91 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 5.914 points or 0.14 percent, to 4,352.06.
Crimea's parliament voted to join Russia and its Moscow-backed government set a referendum for 10 days' time on the decision in a dramatic escalation of the crisis in the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula.
U.S. President Barack Obama took steps to punish those involved in threatening Ukraine while European Union leaders agreed to suspend visa and investment talks with Russia.
An index of Moscow stocks lost more than 2 percent after the vote in Crimea, but pared the losses and closed down 1 percent. The rouble weakened 0.4 percent versus the U.S. dollar. A U.S.-traded Russian ETF fell 1.3 percent to $23.37.
With the S&P 500 at a record and lingering tensions between Ukraine and Russia, investors turned to the options market for hedges against a market decline. The S&P 500 climbed to an all-time intraday high of 1,881.94 earlier in the session.
Put buying in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF continued, with the weekly $185 and $187 strikes that expire Friday garnering the most interest as of Wednesday's close, according to Schaeffer's Investment Research. The ETF was up 0.3 percent at $188.22.
Costco Wholesale Corp was down 1.8 percent at $114 after the warehouse retailer reported a bigger-than-expected 15 percent fall in quarterly profit as unusually deep discounting in the holiday shopping season hurt margins.
Weekly applications for U.S. unemployment insurance fell to 323,000, the lowest in three months, a sign of strength in a labor market that has been hobbled by severe weather. New orders for U.S. factory goods, however, fell more than expected in January and shipments also slipped, adding to signs of a recent slowdown in manufacturing activity.

Wave of pro-Russia sentiment hits Crimea capital

SIMFEROPOL: "Crimea, rise up!" shouted the protesters who rallied in their hundreds on Saturday in the capital of Ukraine's flashpoint peninsula, waving Russian flags in a region that is slowly edging away from the control of Kiev's new government.
Masked and helmeted pro-Russia militia patrolled outside Simferopol's regional parliament building and flexed their muscle nearby on the streets of the city. Some wore uniform and wielded assault rifles but none sported any insignia.
Groups of pro-Russian militants, apparently unarmed but displaying a distinctively military sense of discipline, supported the militia in their deployment.
The Russian-speaking southern Crimea peninsula has been in flux since a bloody three-month uprising in Ukraine swept Moscow's allies from power and brought in a pro-West leadership, angering giant neighbour Russia whose parliament on Saturday approved the deployment of troops in the ex-Soviet country.
Gun-toting militia believed to be under the control of Moscow seized government buildings in Crimea and took control of key airports in the region, prompting Kiev to denounce a Russian "armed invasion" a dramatic statement that did nothing to ease tensions.
"Russia! Russia!" and "fascism will be defeated!" were some of the slogans in the day-long rallies Saturday.
In the front row of demonstrators was a man wearing military fatigues and a woolly hat, constantly taking on his mobile phone.
The previous day, this "retired army officer" had presented himself as a spokesman for a group of what he said were civilians who later moved in on the nearby airport along with other militia.
The procession walked past the interior ministry, where the Ukrainian flag had not been taken down yet but the pro-Russia camp was also firmly in control, adding to a sense of chaos in the southern city.
Crimea, where Moscow has stationed part of its navy for 250 years, was transferred to Ukraine by the Soviet leadership in 1954 but the mainly Russian-speaking territory has always remained close to its neighbour.
At Armyansk, the land chokepoint which commands access to the Black Sea peninsula, hundreds of pro-Moscow Cossacks from a nearby Russian town manned an improvised checkpoint.
But in the streets of Simferopol, not everyone was in agreement. "They are bastards. I wonder who is pulling the strings but they need to be arrested. They are all armed," said a 76-year-old retired officer, clenching his walking stick.
Many of the residents congregating in front of the parliament building to voice their support for Russian rule, though, argued that the militiamen whoever they were acted as a rampart against chaos.
"If they weren't around, it would be much worse. It would be like Kiev," said Andrei, a young student, in reference to clashes that left dozens dead in the Ukrainian capital last week and precipitated the dramatic political change in the country.
"We are very happy the Russians were able to do all this," said 16-year-old Ekaterina Petrosevich, who had no doubt Moscow was supporting the militia.
"The most important thing is that it all took place without shots being fired and blood being spilled," she said. "I want us to be a part of Russia."