China gold output up nearly 12% in 2012: report






SHANGHAI: Gold production in China, the world's second largest market for the precious metal, surged nearly 12 percent year-on-year last year despite a slowdown in the domestic economy, state media reported.

Output rose to 403.1 tonnes in 2012, up 11.66 percent from 2011, the official Xinhua news agency said late Saturday, quoting figures from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

China is the world's second largest consumer of gold after India. A global industry group, the World Gold Council, has put China's consumer demand for gold at 776.1 tonnes last year, flat from 2011.

The council attributed the stable Chinese demand to a slowdown in the domestic economy and consolidation in gold prices which discouraged investors, according to its latest report released this month.

China's economy -- the world's second largest -- grew at its slowest pace in 13 years in 2012, expanding 7.8 percent from the year before.

But the economy has been showing renewed vigour since late last year, with growth accelerating in the final three months of 2012 to 7.9 percent, snapping seven straight quarters of weakening expansion.

"The signs of economic improvement bode well for gold demand in China, although the indications are for a steady firming of demand rather than for strong growth," the World Gold Council said.

China's Ministry of Industry said domestic gold prices dropped in December last year as worries over the US "fiscal cliff" caused uncertainty.

US lawmakers clinched a last-gasp deal to avoid the fiscal cliff of tax hikes and spending cuts.

China's gold producers recorded a combined 35 billion yuan (US$5.6 billion) in profits last year, up just 4.0 percent from 2011, the ministry said.

- AFP/ir



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19 swine flu cases reported in Himachal

SHIMLA: Swine flu (H1N1) continues to spread in Himachal Pradesh with 19 cases reported this year, an official said on Sunday. Two people have died of the disease this year in this hill state.

At Shimla's Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital (IGMCH), 102 patients with symptoms of swine flu were reported from across the state, a health official told IANS.

He said both the people who died had been admitted at IGMCH.

Eight positive cases have been reported from Kangra, the state's largest district, five from Solan, four from Shimla, and one each from Una and Sirmaur districts.

The official said isolation wards have been set up at medical colleges and district hospitals.

Detection of new cases is being done at the places from where H1N1 cases have been reported, he added.

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Las Vegas Strip Shooting Suspect ID'd












Las Vegas police identified a suspect today in a shooting on the strip that caused a Maserati to hit a taxi and burst into flames, killing three people.


Ammar Harris, 26, has been named a suspect in the Thursday skirmish that killed three people, including rapper Kenny Clutch.


The altercation between Harris and Clutch, 27, whose legal name was Kenneth Cherry Jr., is believed to have originated in the valet area of a Las Vegas hotel, police said.


Police said Harris fired several rounds into a Maserati that was being driven by Cherry as both vehicles continued northbound on glitzy Las Vegas Boulevard.


The rapper's expensive sports car careened out of control after he was shot, slamming into several cars, including a taxi. The impact caused the cab to burst into flames, killing the driver, Michael Boldon and a female passenger. Witnesses said it looked like the car exploded.


"He was a number one guy," Carolyn Jean Trimble, Boldon's sister, told ABC News.








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"I looked out my window and I could see one vehicle down here on the corner of the intersection totally engulfed in flames," witness John Lamb told ABC News.


Boldon, 62, and his passenger, who has not yet been identified, were both killed, as was Clutch.


Timble said her brother loved driving his taxi around Vegas.


"He came to live with me in Las Vegas last year to help take care of our mother, and the first day he got here he said, 'I have to get a job.' The second day, I came home from work, and he said he got a job," she recalled.


"He says, 'You'll never guess what it is,' and I said, 'what,' and he said, 'taxi cab driver,' and we both fell out laughing," Trimble said. "He loved that job. He never complained. He'd come home and tell me stories about what happened, who he picked up."


Boldon was a single father who raised a 36-year-old son and was a new grandfather. His grandson was named after him, Trimble said.


"Of all the people to take from this earth," she said. "But I guess the Lord needed him."


A passenger in the Maserati was hit and sustained only a minor injury to his arm. Clutch died at University Medical Center.


His father, Kenneth Cherry Sr., expressed his grief for the loss of his son while speaking with ABC News.


"This is something you never really, really ever want to experience as a parent, to lose a child before you go," he said.


Harris is described as 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Las Vegas Metro Police Department's homicide division.



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Abe vows to revive Japanese economy, sees no escalation with China


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Americans on Friday "I am back and so is Japan" and vowed to get the world's third biggest economy growing again and to do more to bolster security and the rule of law in an Asia roiled by territorial disputes.


Abe had firm words for China in a policy speech to a top Washington think-tank, but also tempered his remarks by saying he had no desire to escalate a row over islets in the East China Sea that Tokyo controls and Beijing claims.


"No nation should make any miscalculation about firmness of our resolve. No one should ever doubt the robustness of the Japan-U.S. alliance," he told the Center for Strategic and International Studies.


"At the same time, I have absolutely no intention to climb up the escalation ladder," Abe said in a speech in English.


After meeting U.S. President Barack Obama on his first trip to Washington since taking office in December in a rare comeback to Japan's top job, he said he told Obama that Tokyo would handle the islands issue "in a calm manner."


"We will continue to do so and we have always done so," he said through a translator, while sitting next to Obama in the White House Oval Office.


Tension surged in 2012, raising fears of an unintended military incident near the islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. Washington says the islets fall under a U.S.-Japan security pact, but it is eager to avoid a clash in the region.


Abe said he and Obama "agreed that we have to work together to maintain the freedom of the seas and also that we would have to create a region which is governed based not on force but based on an international law."


Abe, whose troubled first term ended after just one year when he abruptly quit in 2007, has vowed to revive Japan's economy with a mix of hyper-easy monetary policy, big spending, and structural reform. The hawkish leader is also boosting Japan's defense spending for the first time in 11 years.


"Japan is not, and will never be, a tier-two country," Abe said in his speech. "So today ... I make a pledge. I will bring back a strong Japan, strong enough to do even more good for the betterment of the world."


'ABENOMICS' TO BOOST TRADE


The Japanese leader stressed that his "Abenomics" recipe would be good for the United States, China and other trading partners.


"Soon, Japan will export more, but it will import more as well," Abe said in the speech. "The U.S. will be the first to benefit, followed by China, India, Indonesia and so on."


Abe said Obama welcomed his economic policy, while Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said the two leaders did not discuss currencies, in a sign that the U.S. does not oppose "Abenomics" despite concern that Japan is weakening its currency to export its way out of recession.


The United States and Japan agreed language during Abe's visit that could set the stage for Tokyo to join negotiations soon on a U.S.-led regional free trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.


In a carefully worded statement following the meeting between Obama and Abe, the two countries reaffirmed that "all goods would be subject to negotiations if Japan joins the talks with the United States and 10 other countries.


At the same time, the statement envisions a possible outcome where the United States could maintain tariffs on Japanese automobiles and Japan could still protect its rice sector.


"Recognizing that both countries have bilateral trade sensitivities, such as certain agricultural products for Japan and certain manufactured products for the United States, the two governments confirm that, as the final outcome will be determined during the negotiations, it is not required to make a prior commitment to unilaterally eliminate all tariffs upon joining the TPP negotiations," the statement said.


Abe repeated that Japan would not provide any aid for North Korea unless it abandoned its nuclear and missile programs and released Japanese citizens abducted decades ago to help train spies.


Pyongyang admitted in 2002 that its agents had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s. Five have been sent home, but Japan wants better information about eight who Pyongyang says are dead and others Tokyo believes were also kidnapped.


Abe also said he hoped to have a meeting with new Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who takes over as president next month, and would dispatch Finance Minister Taro Aso to attend the inauguration of incoming South Korean President Park Geun-hye next week.


(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Doug Palmer; Editing by David Brunnstrom and Paul Simao)



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Taiwan ex-president's prison term extended






TAIPEI: Taiwan's former president Chen Shui-bian, jailed for corruption in 2009, has had his prison term extended by 18 months to 20 years due to a further bribery conviction.

Chen, 62, was already serving an 18 1/2-year term for corruption and money-laundering convictions relating to his 2000-2008 presidency -- charges he says stem from a vendetta by the current Beijing-friendly government.

The high court ruled Friday that Chen should serve the extra time for taking bribes from businessmen in a high-profile financial merger case. He was convicted of the offences in December.

Chen's wife Wu Shu-chen also saw her jail term extended to 20 years, although she has been spared from serving her sentence due to poor health.

The couple were also ordered to pay a total fine of Tw$450 million (US$15 million), the court said in a statement.

They face further charges in other cases, but legal experts say their sentences are unlikely to be extended again as individuals can only serve a maximum of 20 years in jail unless a life term is imposed.

Chen's supporters have urged the government to grant him parole for medical treatment saying he is suffering from depression and other health problems. He has been undergoing treatment in a Taipei public hospital since September.

Chen and his family have been accused of laundering millions of dollars by sending political donations and secret diplomatic funds abroad, and taking kickbacks on government contracts.

Chen insists that the charges against him are part of a politically motivated vendetta carried out by Taiwan's current government in retaliation for his eight years in power, when he promoted Taiwan's independence from China.

-AFP/fl



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59-hour countdown for Isro's PSLV-C20 begins

CHENNAI: The 59-hour countdown for the February 25 launch of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle to put into orbit seven satellites, including Indo-French spacecraft SARAL, commenced at 6.56am today at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in the spaceport of Sriharikota.

The Launch Authorisation Board earlier cleared the launch schedule for February 25 at 5.56 PM from the first launch pad in Sriharikota, about 90 kms from here, Isro sources said.

PSLV-C20, the 23rd PSLV Mission of Isro, would put the 400 kg Indo-French satellite and six others into orbit.

SARAL refers to Satellite with ARgos and ALtika. The French space agency CNES has developed ARgos and ALtikameter for analysing the ocean.

The rehearsal launch of PSLV - C20 with the primary satellite SARAL and six other foreign satellites has been completed satisfactorily, the sources said.

The other six auxiliary payloads are - two each from Canada, Austria and one each from Denmark and the United Kingdom.

President Pranab Mukherjee is likely to witness the launch along with Andhra Pradesh chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy.

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FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.


The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.


Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.


"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients — there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."


Cobleigh helped conduct the key studies of the drug at the Chicago facility.


The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.


The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.


Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.


FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.


Overall, patients taking Kadcyla lived about 2.6 years, compared with 2 years for patients taking the other drugs.


FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer


Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.


Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.


Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.


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Cyberattacks Bring Attention to Security Reform











Recent accusations of a large-scale cyber crime effort by the Chinese government left many wondering what immediate steps the president and Congress are taking to prevent these attacks from happening again.


On Wednesday, the White House released the administration's Strategy on Mitigating the Theft of U.S. Trade Secrets as a follow-up to the president's executive order. The strategy did not outwardly mention China, but it implied U.S. government awareness of the problem.


"We are taking a whole of government approach to stop the theft of trade secrets by foreign competitors or foreign governments by any means -- cyber or otherwise," U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel said in a White House statement.


As of now, the administration's strategy is the first direct step in addressing cybersecurity, but in order for change to happen Congress needs to be involved. So far, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is the most notable Congressional legislation addressing the problem, despite its past controversy.


Last April, CISPA was introduced by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md. The act would allow private companies with consumer information to voluntarily share those details with the NSA and the DOD in order to combat cyber attacks.






Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images







The companies would be protected from any liabilities if the information was somehow mishandled. This portion of the act sounded alarm bells for CISPA's opponents, like the ACLU, which worried that this provision would incentivize companies to share individuals' information with disregard.


CISPA passed in the House of Representatives, despite a veto threat from the White House stemming from similar privacy concerns. The bill then died in the Senate.


This year, CISPA was reintroduced the day after the State of the Union address during which the president declared an executive order targeting similar security concerns from a government standpoint.


In contrast to CISPA, the executive order would be initiated on the end of the government, and federal agencies would share relevant information regarding threats with private industries, rather than asking businesses to supply data details. All information shared by the government would be unclassified.


At the core of both the executive order and CISPA, U.S. businesses and the government would be encouraged to work together to combat cyber threats. However, each option would clearly take a different route to collaboration. The difference seems minimal, but has been the subject of legislative debates between the president and Congress for almost a year, until now.


"My response to the president's executive order is very positive," Ruppersberger told ABC News. "[The president] brought up how important information sharing is [and] by addressing critical infrastructure, he took care of another hurdle that we do not have to deal with."


Addressing privacy roadblocks, CISPA backers said the sharing of private customer information with the government, as long as personal details are stripped, is not unprecedented.


"Think of what we do with HIPAA in the medical professions; [doctors do not need to know] the individual person, just the symptoms to diagnose a disease," Michigan Gov. John Engler testified at a House Intelligence Committee hearing in an attempt to put the problem into context.






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Syrian opposition says Assad cannot be part of deal


CAIRO (Reuters) - The opposition Syrian National Coalition is willing to negotiate a peace deal to end the country's civil war but President Bashar al-Assad must step down and cannot be a party to any settlement, members agreed after debating a controversial initiative by their president.


The meeting of the 70-member Western, Arab and Turkish-backed coalition began on Thursday before Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem is due for talks in Moscow, one of Assad's last foreign allies, and as U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi renews efforts for a deal.


After an angry late night session in which coalition president Moaz Alkhatib came under strong criticism from Islamist and liberal members alike for proposing talks with Assad's government without setting what they described as clear goals, the coalition adopted a political document that demands Assad's removal and trial for the bloodshed, members said.


A draft document seen by Reuters that was circulated for debate said Assad cannot be party to any political solution and has to be tried, but did not directly call for his removal.


"We have adopted the political document that sets the parameters for any talks. The main addition to the draft is a clause about the necessity of Assad stepping step down," said Abdelbasset Sida, a member of the coalition's 12 member politburo who has criticized Alkhatib for acting alone.


"We removed a clause about a need for Russian and U.S. involvement in any talks and added that the coalition's leadership has to be consulted before launching any future initiatives," he added.


Still, the agreement marked a softening of tone by the coalition because previously it had insisted that Assad must step down before any talks with his government could begin.


In an indication that Syria's strongman remains defiant, Brahimi said Assad had told him he will remain president until his term ends in 2014 and then run for re-election.


Brahimi told al-Arabiya television he wants to see a transitional government formed in Syria that would not answer to any higher authority and lasts until U.N.-supervised elections take place in the country.


"I am of the view that U.N. peacekeepers should come to Syria as happened in other countries," Brahimi said.


BOMB, AIR STRIKES


The opposition front convened in Cairo on a day when a car bomb jolted central Damascus, killing 53 people, wounding 200 and incinerating cars on a busy highway close to the Russian Embassy and offices of the ruling Baath Party.


Syrian state television blamed the suicide blast on "terrorists". Central Damascus has been relatively insulated from the 23-month conflict that has killed around 70,000 people, but the bloodshed has shattered suburbs around the capital.


In the southern city of Deraa near the border with Jordan, activists said warplanes bombed the old quarter for the first time since March 2011, when the town set in a wheat-growing plain rose up against Assad, starting a national revolt.


A rebel officer in the Tawheed al-Janoub brigade which led an offensive this week in Deraa said there were at least five air strikes on Thursday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 18 people were killed, including eight rebel fighters.


Coalition member Munther Makhos, who was forced into exile in the 1970s for his opposition to Assad's father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, said supplies from Iran and Russia were giving government forces an awesome firepower advantage.


"It would be surreal to imagine that a political solution is possible. Bashar al-Assad will not send his deputy to negotiate his removal. But we are keeping the door open," Makhos said.


Makhos is the only Alawite in the Islamist-dominated coalition. The Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam which accounts for about 10 percent of Syria's population but makes up most of the intelligence apparatus and dominates the army and the political system, has generally remained behind Assad.


With Alawites feeling increasingly threatened by a violent Sunni backlash, Alkhatib, a cleric from Damascus who played a role in the peaceful protest movement against Assad at the beginning of the uprising in 2011, has been calling on Alawites to join the revolution, saying their participation will help preserve the social fabric of the country.


Alkhatib's supporters say the initiative has popular support inside Syria from people who want to see a peaceful departure of Assad and a halt to the war that has increasingly pitted his fellow Alawites against Syria's Sunni Muslim majority.


But rebel fighters on the ground, over whom Alkhatib has little control, are generally against the proposal.


The Syrian Islamic Liberation Front, which represents armed brigades, said in a statement it was opposed to Alkhatib's initiative because it ignored the revolt's goal of "the downfall of the regime and all its symbols".


"We are demanding his accountability for the bloodshed and destruction he has wreaked. I think the message is clear enough," said veteran opposition campaigner Walid al-Bunni, who supports Alkhatib.


Alkhatib formulated the initiative in broad terms last month after talks with the Russian and Iranian foreign ministers in Munich but without consulting the coalition, catching the umbrella organization by surprise.


Among Alkhatib's critics is the Muslim Brotherhood, the only organized group in the political opposition.


A Brotherhood source said the group will not scuttle the proposal because it was confident Assad is not interested in a negotiated exit, which could help convince the international community to support the armed struggle for his removal.


"Russia is key," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We are showing the international community that we are willing to take criticism from the street but the problem is Assad and his inner circle. They do not want to leave."


PLAY FOR RUSSIA


Russia hopes Alkhatib will visit soon in search of a breakthrough. Bunni said Alkhatib would not go to Moscow without the coalition's approval and that he would not be there at the same time as Moualem.


"In my opinion Alkhatib should not go to Moscow until Russia stops sending arms shipments to the Assad regime," Bunni said.


Formal backing by the coalition for Alkhatib's initiative gives it more weight internationally and undermines Assad supporters' argument that the opposition is too divided to be considered a serious player, opposition sources said.


Coalition members and diplomats based in the region said Brahimi asked Alkhatib in Cairo last week to seek full coalition backing for his plan, which resembles the U.N. envoy's own ideas for a negotiated settlement.


One diplomat in contact with the opposition and the United Nations had said a coalition approval of Alkhatib's initiative could help change the position of Russia, which has blocked several United Nations Security Council resolutions on Syria.


The diplomat said only a U.N. resolution could force Assad to the negotiating table, and a U.N. "stabilization force" may still be needed to prevent an all-out slide into a civil war.


"Brahimi has little hope that Assad will agree to any serious talks," the diplomat said. "Differences are narrowing between the United States and Russia about Syria but Moscow remains the main obstacle for Security Council action."


(Editing by Paul Taylor and Mohammad Zargham)



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Man charged with outraging modesty of girl






SINGAPORE: A man has been charged with outraging the modesty of a 16-year-old girl.

Toh Boon Cheong, 52, is accused of rubbing his groin area against the girl's hip on board the MRT train travelling from Choa Chu Kang station to Bukit Gombak station.

The alleged incident occurred on 15 January, at about 6:50am.

If convicted, Toh faces up to two years' jail and caning.

- CNA/ck



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