FNC

Ask Dr. Manny: My daughter was born with a cataract. What can we do to help her?

Maggots help clean out leg wounds but don’t lead to faster healing compared with gels that are easier to use, a trial suggests.

Debt-ridden Madhya Pradesh farmer kills himself

March 22nd, 2009 - 12:14 am ICT by IANS - Bhopal, March 21 (IANS) Disturbed by his inability to pay back his loans, a farmer in Meharghatti village of Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone district committed suicide by drinking pesticide, the police said Saturday. …

Missing South Delhi woman found dead (Lead, correcting name in second paragraph)

March 21st, 2009 - 10:50 pm ICT by IANS - New Delhi, March 21 (IANS) The body of a missing call centre employee has been found in Faridabad, next to the national capital, police said Saturday. Sagarika Ghosh, resident of Vasant Vihar …

US First Lady Michelle Obama (L) breaks ground on the South Lawn of The White House for an organic vegetable garden
The garden will be the first at The White House since US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II.

As US President Barack Obama hopes for green shoots of economic recovery, his wife Michelle is seeking a different return to growth, from the first White House kitchen garden in 60 years.

The first lady grabbed a shovel and joined local school kids on Friday to break ground on the first presidential vegetable patch since Eleanor Roosevelt’s “victory garden” in World War II, as part of her crusade to promote healthy eating.

The organic plot, on a secluded part of the White House’s south lawn, is tipped to produce a bumper harvest of spinach, lettuce, kale, shell-peas, broccoli and radishes, as well as verdant traditional herbs.

Borders in the garden, shaded by trees, are planted with a mix of marigolds, nasturtiums and Zinnias.

“The whole point of this garden for us is that I want to make sure that our family, as well as the staff and all the people who come to the White House and eat our food, get access to really fresh vegetables and fruits,” the first lady said.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed on Friday the coming into force of the nuclear free zone Treaty in Central Asia, signed by the five regional countries. The document completed the ratification process started on September 2006 after its approval by the six parties ”Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Tadzhikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan- and became the first of its kind in the northern hemisphere.

Bank’s statement highlights the particular significance of the Treaty in a region that had nuclear armament in the past and also because it is the first document of its kind that requires the parties to negotiate with the International Atomic Energy Agency to have an additional protocol on safeguards in an 18-month period after its coming into force.

To secure an affective implementation of the document, scheduled to come into force tomorrow, the Secretary General urged members to discuss any relevant issue that may affect its operation.

In the light of the proximity of the Conference of Revision of the Non-Proliferation Treaty by its Parties, in 2010, Ban was confident of the coming into force of this zone in Central Asia and of progress in main issues leading to a nuclear-free world, the statement concluded.

North Korea Saturday reconnected cross-border military phone lines cut earlier this month and reopened the frontier for South Koreans visiting an industrial complex, officials here said.

The North on Saturday also gave approvals for border crossings by hundreds of South Koreans who wanted to cross to and from the Kaesong industrial estate, it said.

“Border crossings resumed this morning. People are crossing the border into Kaesong,” a Unification Ministry spokesman told AFP.In protest at a joint US-South Korea military exercise, North Korea cut off the phone lines used to authorise crossings to and from the joint industrial estate just north of the border.

The frontier has been intermittently closed since they were switched off on March 9, the day the drill started. The US-South Korean military exercise, which Pyongyang described as a rehearsal for invasion, ended Friday.

An agreement to open the Seoul-funded estate was reached at the first inter-Korean summit in 2000.

Sibling love: Today is World Water Day. Water is the elixir sustaining life. Young and old, man anad beast all need water for survival. ANCL file photo

Security has been strengthened at all three international airports in Kerala following an alert received from Mumbai about an LTTE threat to the key installations, India media reported yesterday.

The Air India security office in Thiruvanathapuram received the alert message from its Mumbai office, they said.

There were also intelligence reports that the LTTE may attack any of the South Indian airports in the coming days. Kerala has three airports Thiruvananthapuram, Nedumbassery (Kochi) and Karippur (Kozhikode). There are regular flights from Sri Lanka to Kochi and Thiruvanathapuram.

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), in charge of airport security, has stepped up vigil at the airports. A special meeting was conducted by the CISF Commandant Rajiv Panth to evaluate the security measures.

Thiruvananthapuram International Airport was thoroughly searched by the bomb squad and dog squad of the police. The Quick Reaction Team of the CISF also joined search operations, said a news report from the city. Similar search operations were conducted in other Kerala airports too.

There has been an active operation of the LTTE in the state and of late there were reports that the LTTE is having a “loose arrangement” with certain fringe Maoist groups and some Islamist organizations in the state., reported rediff.com.

A top-ranking intelligence official said some former Naxalite leaders in the state are in touch with the terror elements in Sri Lanka, it added.

In another development, on Friday the Tamil Nadu Coast Guard and Police launched a search operation for a boat from Sri Lanka, suspected to belong to the banned LTTE, off the coast of Tamil Nadu near Cuddalore.

Superintendent of Police Pradeep Kumar along with his team of officers, Q Branch Police and SB-CID scanned the Pichavaram Mangrove Forest using boats but of no avail. The Coast Guard also conducted an aerial recce along the coast looking for the boat

Meanwhile, Indian President Pratibha Devisingh Patil addressing a passing out parade at the Officers Training Academy (OTA), Chennai yesterday suggested modern warfare must necessarily incorporate measures to counter threats posed by terrorism and eradicate the menace.