Some foreign hostages said killed in Algeria assault

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria said several hostages were killed on Thursday when its forces stormed a remote desert gas plant occupied by Islamist militants in retaliation for French intervention in Mali, and local sources said six foreigners were among the dead.

Amid reports of many more casualties in one of the biggest international hostage crises in decades, Western leaders expressed anger they had not been consulted before the operation and scrambled for word of their citizens. Some eight hours after the army assault began, Algerian state media said it was over.

Americans, Britons, Norwegians, French, Romanians and an Austrian, were among those taken, their countries said.

Algeria said its troops had been forced to act to free them due to the "diehard" attitude of their captors.

"When the terrorist group insisted on leaving the facility, taking the foreign hostages with them to neighboring states, the order was issued to special units to attack the position where the terrorists were entrenched," the government spokesman, Communication Minister, Mohamed Said told the state news agency.

The standoff began when gunmen calling themselves the Battalion of Blood stormed the natural gas facility early on Wednesday morning. They said they were holding 41 foreigners and demanded a halt to a French military operation against fellow al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants in neighboring Mali.

Said said the military operation, which Western officials were told had begun around noon (6:00 a.m. EST) on Thursday, resulted in "the liberation of a large number of hostages and the destruction of a large number of terrorists".

The raid increased fears jihadist militants could launch further attacks in Algeria, a vast desert country with large oil and gas reserves that is only just recovering from a protracted conflict with Islamist rebels during the 1990s which cost an estimated 200,000 lives.

A local source told Reuters six foreign hostages were killed along with eight captors when the Algerian military fired on a vehicle being used by the gunmen.

He said 40 Algerians and three foreigners were freed by the army as it continued its operation into Thursday evening. An Algerian security source said earlier that 25 foreign hostages had escaped.

Algeria's official APS news agency said about half the foreign hostages had been freed and about 600 Algerian workers at the site, under less tight guard, had managed to escape.

MILITANTS KNEW THEIR WAY AROUND

In a rare eyewitness account of Wednesday's raid, a local man who had escaped from the facility told Reuters the militants appeared to have good inside knowledge of the layout of the complex and used the language of radical Islam.

"The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels," Abdelkader, 53, said by telephone from his home in the nearby town of In Amenas. "We will kill them, they said."

Mauritanian agency ANI and Qatar-based Al Jazeera said that 34 of the captives and 15 of their captors had been killed when government forces fired from helicopters at a vehicle.

Those death tolls, far higher than confirmed by the local source, would contradict the reports that large numbers of foreigners escaped alive. On Thursday evening, ANI said it had lost its previously regular contact with the kidnappers.

Britain and Norway, whose oil firms BP and Statoil run the plant jointly with the Algerian state oil company, said they had been informed by the Algerian authorities that a military operation was under way.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said people should prepare for bad news about the hostages. He earlier called his Algerian counterpart to express his concern at what he called a "very grave and serious" situation, Cameron's spokesman said.

"The Algerians are aware that we would have preferred to have been consulted in advance," the spokesman added.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said he had been told by his Algerian counterpart the action had started at around noon. He said they had tried to find a solution through the night, but that it had not worked.

"The Algerian prime minister said they felt they had no choice but to go in now," he said.

RAISING THE STAKES

The incident dramatically raises the stakes in the French military campaign in neighboring Mali, where hundreds of French paratroopers and marines are launching a ground offensive against Islamist rebels after air strikes began last week.

"What is happening in Algeria justifies all the more the decision I made in the name of France to intervene in Mali in line with the U.N. charter," French President Francois Hollande said, adding that things seemed to have taken a "dramatic" turn and he was still seeking details.

He said earlier that an unspecified number of French nationals were among the hostages. A French national was also among the hostage takers, a local source told Reuters. A large number of people from the former French colony live in France.

Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the kidnappers were led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran Islamist guerrilla who fought in Afghanistan and set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local al Qaeda leaders.

A holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence and "Mister Marlboro" by some locals for his illicit cigarette-running business, Belmokhtar's links to those who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.

A local source told Reuters the hostage takers had blown up a petrol filling station at the plant.

NUMBERS UNCONFIRMED

The precise number and nationalities of foreign hostages could not be confirmed, with some countries reluctant to release information that could be useful to the captors.

Britain said one of its citizens was killed in the initial storming on Wednesday and "a number" of others were held.

The militants had said seven Americans were among their hostages. The White House said it believed Americans were among those held but U.S. officials could not confirm the number. "This is an ongoing situation and we are seeking clarity," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters, expressing concern about the reported loss of lives.

Statoil said it had no word on nine of its Norwegian staff who had been held but that three Algerian employees were now free. BP said some of its staff were held but would not say how many or their nationalities.

Japanese media said five workers from Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp. were held, a number the company did not confirm. Vienna said one hostage was Austrian, Dublin said one Irish hostage had been freed and Bucharest said an unspecified number of those held were Romanian.

BP, Statoil and Spanish oil company Cepsa all said they had begun to evacuate personnel from elsewhere in Algeria, an OPEC member.

Hollande has received public backing from Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a desert haven in Mali, a poor country helpless to combat fighters who seized its northern oasis towns last year.

However, there is also some concern in Washington and other capitals that the French action in Mali could provoke a backlash worse than the initial threat by militants in the remote Sahara.

The militants, communicating through established contacts with media in neighboring Mauritania, said on Wednesday they had dozens of men armed with mortars and anti-aircraft missiles in the compound and had rigged it with explosives.

They condemned Algeria's secularist government for letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali and shutting its border to Malian refugees.

The attack in Algeria did not stop France from pressing on with its campaign in Mali. It said on Thursday it now had 1,400 troops on the ground in Mali, and combat was under way against the rebels that it first began targeting from the air last week.

The French action last week came as a surprise but received widespread international support in public. Neighboring African countries planning to provide ground troops for a U.N. force by September have said they will move faster to deploy them.

Nigeria, the strongest regional power, sent 162 soldiers on Thursday, the first of an anticipated 906.

A day after launching the campaign in Mali, Hollande also ordered a failed rescue in Somalia on Saturday to free a French hostage held by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants since 2009. Al Shabaab said on Thursday it had executed hostage Denis Allex. France said it believed he died in the rescue.

(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin in Writing by Peter Graff, Giles Elgood and Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

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Lagarde warns more global recovery work needed

WASHINGTON: International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde warned Thursday that more efforts were needed to get the global economy back on track.

"We stopped the collapse, we should avoid the relapse, and it's not time to relax," Lagarde said at a news conference at the multilateral institution's Washington headquarters.

"There's still a lot of work to be done."

The IMF managing director, while pointing to signs of economic improvement, noted deterioration on the jobs front, which she called "critical from an economic point of view but also from a social point of view."

"We need growth for jobs and jobs for growth," she said.

The eurozone, the centre of the public debt crisis dragging down global growth, and where the IMF together with the European Union has rescued Greece, Ireland and Portugal, has to do more to address its challenges, she said.

Financial firewalls erected by the European Union and the European Central Bank, such as the European Stability Mechanism rescue fund and ECB bond purchases, "have not proven operational."

"Progress needs to be made on the banking union," she added.

Lagarde suggested further monetary easing in Europe may be appropriate to sustain demand.

As for the United States, the IMF chief called on bitterly divided politicians to reach a compromise on the nation's borrowing limit and deficit-reduction plans.

"All sides should pool together in the national interest" to avoid another "avoidable political mistake", she said.

With the mandated US borrowing limit already reached, and the Treasury using extraordinary measures to avoid putting the world's biggest economy into default, Republicans are tying raising the ceiling to spending cuts.

Democratic President Barack Obama has rejected that basis for negotiations.

More than four years after the US financial crisis plunged the global economy into recession, Lagarde also called for completion of financial system reforms.

She expressed concern about the banking sector's tendency to drag its heels with regulation, especially the international Basel III standards.

"It's the constant approach by the industry to actually push back because it's nicer to operate without regulation rather than with regulation."

"I might be a little blunt but that's my experience as a former minister of finance (in France) and having observed the profession close by," she added.

Asked about Japan's desire to curb appreciation of the yen, Lagarde reiterated her firm opposition to currency wars and other competitive devaluations.

"If only the risks of retaliation should actually prevent anybody to go into that sort of monetary policy," she said.

- AFP/jc

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Hike in fuel price a signal to ratings agencies, investors

NEW DELHI: Although deregulation of diesel prices has been in the works for a while, the government bit the bullet around 8 pm on Wednesday when a decision was taken to place the politically knotty proposal before the cabinet committee on political affairs the next morning.

The approval of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs is seen as a major step to prune a subsidy bill playing havoc with government finances and is a signal to woo foreign investors ahead of road shows in Asia and Europe and the World Economic Forum's annual meeting at Davos later this month.

The government signaled its determination by defying conventional wisdom that the unpopular decision - that follows a recent hike in rail fares -- would not be taken before the Congress brainstorming session due to begin on Friday.

The unambiguous message the government has sought to convey is that it is serious about nipping the fiscal deficit and hopes its actions will convince ratings agencies that India is taking energetic steps to remain a viable investment destination.

There is a consensus in government that although India remains a relatively attractive investment option in view of Eurozone's problems and slow growth in the US, it must show the resolve to take steps that will improve FDI inflows.

Tackling red tape, reducing corruption and de-stressing government finances are seen as key to boosting investor confidence at home and abroad. The oil subsidy is reportedly in the region of Rs 1.5 lakh crore and the sum earmarked in the 2011-12 budget was consumed settling the previous year's bill.

With disinvestment struggling and fresh auction of 2G spectrum proving a damp squib, the government has little choice but to attack the subsidy on diesel despite the obvious inflationary implications of such a decision.

Disregard for the Jaipur 'chintan shivir' indicates the Congress leadership understands the urgent need to raise fuel prices.

Financial analysts and the markets welcomed the move to reform the oil sector and the government's eye is fixed on finance minister P Chidambaram's tours to woo foreign investors when he travels to Hong Kong and Singapore and a little later to European cities.

By taking some tough calls, the government will hope to convey the right signals ahead of the bwhich will be its last such full-scale exercise before the 2014 general election. The budget will not be bereft of populism, but the giveaways are likely to be limited and focused on key voter groups.

An increase in diesel rates will bring the fuel closer in price parity to petrol and would be seen as an environment friendly decision if the mitigation costs are calculated over the long term.

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Study: NYC better than LA at cutting kids' obesity

NEW YORK (AP) — A new study shows New York City is doing better than Los Angeles in the battle against childhood obesity, at least for low-income children.

From 2003 to 2011, obesity rates for poor children dropped in New York to around 16 percent. But they rose in Los Angeles and ended at about 20 percent.

The researchers focused on children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in a government program that provides food and other services to women and their young children.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the study Thursday.

The authors noted that the Los Angeles program has many more Mexican-American kids. Obesity is more common in Mexican-American boys than in white or black kids.

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Obama Unveils Sweeping Plan to Curb Gun Violence

Flanked by four children from across the country, President Obama today unveiled a sweeping plan to curb gun violence in America through an extensive package of legislation and executive actions not seen since the 1960s.

Obama is asking Congress to implement mandatory background checks for all gun purchases, including private sales; reinstate a ban on some assault-style weapons; ban high-capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds; and crackdown on illicit weapons trafficking.

The president's proposal also includes new initiatives for school safety, including a call for more federal aid to states for hiring so-called school resource officers (police), counselors and psychologists, and improved access to mental health care.

Obama also initiated 23 executive actions on gun violence, policy directives not needing congressional approval. Among them is a directive to federal agencies to beef up the national criminal background-check system and a memorandum lifting a freeze on gun violence research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"I intend to use whatever weight this office holds to make them a reality," Obama said at a midday news conference. "If there's even one thing that we can do to reduce this violence, if there's even one life that can be saved, then we have an obligation to try.

"And I'm going to do my part."

The announcement comes one month after a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., left 26 dead, including 20 children. Obama called it the worst moment of his presidency and promised "meaningful action" in response.

Maqndel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

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The proposals were the work of an Obama-appointed task force, led by Vice President Joe Biden, that held 22 meetings on gun violence in the past three weeks. The group received input from more than 220 organizations and dozens of elected officials, a senior administration official said.

As part of the push, Obama nominated a new director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which leads enforcement of federal gun laws and has been without a confirmed director for six years. The president appointed acting director Todd Jones, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, to the post, if the Senate confirms him.

The administration's plan calls for aid to states for the hiring of more school resource officers, counselors and psychologists. Obama also directed the Department of Education to ensure all schools have improved emergency-response plans.

He also called on Congress to make it illegal to possess or transfer armor-piercing bullets; it's now only illegal to produce them.

"To make a real and lasting difference, Congress must act," Obama said. "And Congress must act soon."

Officials said some of the legislative measures Obama outlined could be introduced on Capitol Hill next week. The pricetag for Obama's entire package is $500 million, the White House said.

"House committees of jurisdiction will review these recommendations," a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said in response to Obama's announcement. "And if the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that."

The proposals are already being met with stiff opposition from gun rights advocates, led by the National Rifle Association, which overnight released a scathing ad attacking the president as an "elitist hypocrite."

"Are the president's kids more important than yours?" the narrator of the NRA ad says. "Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?"

Obama has questioned the value of placing more armed guards at schools around the country, although his proposal does call for placement of more police officers at public schools. The NRA opposes most of the other gun restrictions Obama has proposed.

"Keeping our children and society safe remains our top priority," the NRA said in a statement after Obama's announcement.

"Attacking firearms and ignoring children is not a solution to the crisis we face as a nation," the group said. "Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected and our children will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy."

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Dozens held after Islamists attack Algerian gas field

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Islamist militants attacked a gas field in Algeria on Wednesday, claiming to have kidnapped up to 41 foreigners including seven Americans in a dawn raid in retaliation for France's intervention in Mali, according to regional media reports.

The raiders were also reported to have killed three people, including a Briton and a French national.

An al Qaeda affiliated group said the raid had been carried out because of Algeria's decision to allow France to use its air space for attacks against Islamists in Mali, where French forces have been in action against al Qaeda-linked militants since last week.

The attack in southern Algeria also raised fears that the French action in Mali could prompt further Islamist revenge attacks on Western targets in Africa, where al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operates across borders in the Sahara desert, and in Europe.

AQIM said it had carried out Wednesday's raid on the In Amenas gas facility in OPEC member Algeria, Mauritania's ANI news agency reported.

The Algerian interior ministry said: "A terrorist group, heavily armed and using three vehicles, launched an attack this Wednesday at 5 a.m. against a Sonatrach base in Tigantourine, near In Amenas, about 100 km (60 miles) from the Algerian and Libyan border."

"The Algerian authorities will not respond to the demands of the terrorists and will not negotiate," Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia was quoted as saying by official news agency APS.

The gas field is operated by a joint venture including BP, Norwegian oil firm Statoil and Algerian state company Sonatrach.

ARMED MEN

BP said armed men were still occupying facilities at the gas field, which produces 9 billion cubic meters of gas a year(160,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day), more than a tenth of the country's overall gas output, and 60,000 barrels a day of condensate.

"The site was attacked and occupied by a group of unidentified armed people at about 0500 UK time. Contact with the site is extremely difficult, but we understand that armed individuals are still occupying the In Amenas operations site," it said.

A spokesman for BP said it usually had fewer than 20 people working at the site but would not be drawn on whether there were any talks with the hostage takers. He said: "Obviously we are doing everything we can to make sure our people are okay."

APS said a Briton and an Algerian security guard had been killed and seven people were injured. A French national was also killed in the attack, a local source said.

Also among those reported kidnapped by various sources were five Japanese nationals working for the Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp, a French national, an Austrian, an Irishman, and a number of Britons.

The U.S. State Department said it believed some U.S. citizens were also among the hostages, while Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said 13 employees of Statoil, a minority shareholder in the gas venture, were being held.

A member of an Islamist group styling itself the "Blood Battalion" was quoted by Mauritanian media as saying that five of the hostages were being held at the gas facility and 36 were in a housing area. APS said the Islamist raiders had freed Algerians working at the gas facility, though Regis Arnoux, head of French company CIS Catering, told JDD weekly newspaper that 150 Algerian employees of his company were being held at the site.

"The operation was in response to the blatant interference by Algeria and the opening of its air space to French aircraft to bomb northern Mali," the Islamist spokesman told Mauritania's ANI news agency.

ANI, which has regular direct contact with Islamists, said that fighters under the command of Mokhtar Belmokhtar were holding the foreigners.

Interior Minister Kablia also told APS that Belmokhtar was leading the group of about 20 individuals, whom he said were not from Mali, Libya or "any other neighboring state".

Belmokhtar, dubbed by French intelligence as "the uncatchable", for years commanded al Qaeda fighters in the Sahara before setting up his own armed Islamist group late last year after an apparent fallout with other militant leaders.

The Algerian army was in the area of the gas facility, according to French and Algerian sources.

ANI reported that the Islamists said they were surrounded by Algerian forces and warned that any attempt to free the hostages would lead to a "tragic end". One of the hostage takers told ANI that the perimeter of the site had been mined.

SECURITY IMPLICATIONS

The attack was the first time in years that Islamist militants are known to have launched an attack on an Algerian energy facility.

The attack could have implications for security across the whole of Algeria's energy sector, which supplies about a quarter of Europe's natural gas imports and exports millions of barrels of crude oil each year.

Such an attack would require a large and heavily armed insurgent force with a degree of freedom to move around, all elements that al Qaeda has not previously had.

However, the conflict in neighboring Libya in 2011 changed the balance of force. Security experts say al Qaeda was able to obtain arms, including heavy weapons, from the looted arsenals of former leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The five Japanese work for the engineering firm JGC Corporation, Jiji news agency reported, quoting company officials. JGC has a deal with Sonatrach-BP-Statoil Association for work in gas production at In Amenas.

A reporter for Japan's NHK television managed to call a JGC worker in Algeria.

The worker said he got a phone call from a colleague at the gas field. "It was around 6 a.m. this morning. He said that he had been hearing gunshots for about 20 minutes. I wasn't able to get through to him since."

French troops launched their first ground operation against Islamist rebels in Mali on Wednesday in an action to dislodge from a strategic town al Qaeda-linked fighters who have resisted six days of air strikes.

(Additional reporting by Catherine Bremer and John Irish in Paris, Laurent Prieur in Nouakchott, Andrew Osborn in London, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Antoni Slodkowski in Tokyo, Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi and Christian Lowe in Warsaw; Editing by Giles Elgood and Will Waterman)

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US to recognise first Somali government in 20 years

WASHINGTON: The United States will on Thursday recognise the first Somali government in two decades, heralding a significant shift in ties since the deadly 1993 attack on US helicopters over Mogadishu.

The beginning of the new chapter will come when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton exchanges diplomatic notes with visiting Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, a top US official said Wednesday.

"The visit here this week of the new Somalian president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud represents a significant change in the security and political situation on the ground in Somalia and our relationship with that country," Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson told journalists.

It will be Clinton's first meeting with the new Somali leader who was only elected in September, and was relatively unknown outside his country.

Somalia has not had an effective central government since 1991. Two years later, Americans were shocked by scenes of US soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu after Somali militants shot down two Black Hawk helicopters. Eighteen Americans died, and 80 were wounded.

However, a new Somali administration took office last year, ending eight years of transitional rule by a corruption-riddled government.

And in recent months, a 17,000-strong African Union force, fighting alongside government troops and Ethiopian soldiers, finally wrested a string of key towns from the control of Islamist Shebab insurgents.

Carson hailed recent US policies on Somalia, and praised the work of African nations through the African Union force in Somalia AMISOM, which helped oust the militants from their last major stronghold of Kismayo in September.

"This has been a major, major success. We are long way from where we were on October 3, 1993 when Black Hawk down occurred in Mogadishu," Carson said.

"Significant progress has been made in stabilising the country and in helping to break-up and defeat al-Shebab. Much more needs to be done but we think enormous progress has been made," he added.

Carson has repeatedly stressed that the success in Somalia should be seen as a model for African-led peacekeeping forces in the region.

A university lecturer, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud defied predictions and was chosen by lawmakers as Somalia's new president from among a dozen hopefuls in September elections.

Clinton swiftly congratulated him on his win, which was hailed by the US administration as "an important milestone" for the country.

His party described the new president as the architect of Somali civil society, and unlike many Somali politicians he is not part of the diaspora.

But he inherits an ongoing war, a humanitarian crisis, feeble institutions and deeply entrenched warlordism. Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels, who still control vast swathes of the country, dismissed his election as illegitimate.

The US move on Thursday will open doors to the country, which will also be the focus of a new international conference to be hosted in Britain in May.

"This will build on last year's successful meeting in London to help sustain international support for the progress being made by the Somali government," a spokeswoman for the office of British Prime Minister David Cameron said.

A US official, who asked to remain anonymous, said no official American aid package would be unveiled at the State Department meeting on Thursday.

However "the fact that we recognise a government there would allow us to do things through USAID we have not been able to do before," he said.

"The fact that we recognise them as the legitimate government would allow the World Bank and the IMF to do things that they had not been able to do before."

- AFP/jc

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Another Nirbhaya battles for life in Rajasthan

JAIPUR: The story of Nirbhaya shook the collective conscience of the nation. But a similar gory incident — of an 11-year-old from Sikar in Rajasthan, who is battling for life at a hospital in Jaipur after a brutal gangrape — is yet to be told.

Six persons had abducted the girl on August 20 last year from a bus stand in Sikar town. They raped and thrashed her mercilessly before dumping her on the outskirts of the town. Her private parts, say doctors looking after her, had been so brutally vandalized that she had to undergo six major surgeries and eight minor surgical procedures. Even now, her condition is critical.

Doctors recall that when she was brought to JK Lon hospital in Jaipur from Sikar on August 22, they were appalled to see the barbaric manner in which she had been violated. She had a complete perineal tear -- there was no partition of muscles left between her vagina and rectum. Surgeons had to use a portion of her large intestine to create a new rectum as well as a colostomy surgery for creating an alternative channel for fecal passage. "In the last four-and-a-half months, we have tried our best to help her. Her condition had shocked each one of us," says Dr LD Agarwal, who led the team of surgeons that performed the surgeries.

The girl, who is from Darbhanga in Bihar, is reportedly the youngest of seven children (six sisters and one brother). She came to Sikar with her mother after her father died. They were hoping that their relatives in Sikar would help them get work.

Now, after the incident, doctors say, the girl has virtually stopped reacting. "In the beginning, she was scared of injections but now she doesn't react to anything. Her physical and mental ability is worsening gradually," says a family member.

Despite the brazenness and brutality of the incident, what has shocked many is the apathy of the police. Till the day after the incident, family members allege, the police were refusing to even register a case. It was only because of pressure from locals who took out a protest march that the case was registered. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar also spoke to his Rajasthan counterpart Ashok Gehlot after which the administration swung into action.

Even though six people were arrested, two have already been granted bail as the police had allegedly booked them under milder sections of IPC. Her relatives say that the rapists are politically well-connected and that the police is going soft on them. They also allege that the actual culprits are still at large.

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ER visits tied to energy drinks double since 2007

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A new government survey suggests the number of people seeking emergency treatment after consuming energy drinks has doubled nationwide during the past four years, the same period in which the supercharged drink industry has surged in popularity in convenience stores, bars and on college campuses.

From 2007 to 2011, the government estimates the number of emergency room visits involving the neon-labeled beverages shot up from about 10,000 to more than 20,000. Most of those cases involved teens or young adults, according to a survey of the nation's hospitals released late last week by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The report doesn't specify which symptoms brought people to the emergency room but calls energy drink consumption a "rising public health problem" that can cause insomnia, nervousness, headache, fast heartbeat and seizures that are severe enough to require emergency care.

Several emergency physicians said they had seen a clear uptick in the number of patients suffering from irregular heartbeats, anxiety and heart attacks who said they had recently downed an energy drink.

More than half of the patients considered in the survey who wound up in the emergency room told doctors they had downed only energy drinks. In 2011, about 42 percent of the cases involved energy drinks in combination with alcohol or drugs, such as the stimulants Adderall or Ritalin.

"A lot of people don't realize the strength of these things. I had someone come in recently who had drunk three energy drinks in an hour, which is the equivalent of 15 cups of coffee," said Howard Mell, an emergency physician in the suburbs of Cleveland, who serves as a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians. "Essentially he gave himself a stress test and thankfully he passed. But if he had a weak heart or suffered from coronary disease and didn't know it, this could have precipitated very bad things."

The findings came as concerns over energy drinks have intensified following reports last fall of 18 deaths possibly tied to the drinks — including a 14-year-old Maryland girl who died after drinking two large cans of Monster Energy drinks. Monster does not believe its products were responsible for the death.

Two senators are calling for the Food and Drug Administration to investigate safety concerns about energy drinks and their ingredients.

The energy drink industry says its drinks are safe and there is no proof linking its products to the adverse reactions.

Late last year, the FDA asked the U.S. Health and Human Services to update the figures its substance abuse research arm compiles about emergency room visits tied to energy drinks.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's survey was based on responses it receives from about 230 hospitals each year, a representative sample of about 5 percent of emergency departments nationwide. The agency then uses those responses to estimate the number of energy drink-related emergency department visits nationwide.

The more than 20,000 cases estimated for 2011 represent a small portion of the annual 136 million emergency room visits tracked by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The FDA said it was considering the findings and pressing for more details as it undertakes a broad review of the safety of energy drinks and related ingredients this spring.

"We will examine this additional information ... as a part of our ongoing investigation into potential safety issues surrounding the use of energy-drink products," FDA spokeswoman Shelly Burgess said in a statement.

Beverage manufacturers fired back at the survey, saying the statistics were misleading and taken out of context.

"This report does not share information about the overall health of those who may have consumed energy drinks, or what symptoms brought them to the ER in the first place," the American Beverage Association said in a statement. "There is no basis by which to understand the overall caffeine intake of any of these individuals — from all sources."

Energy drinks remain a small part of the carbonated soft drinks market, representing only 3.3 percent of sales volume, according to the industry tracker Beverage Digest. Even as soda consumption has flagged in recent years, energy drinks sales are growing rapidly.

In 2011, sales volume for energy drinks rose by almost 17 percent, with the top three companies — Monster, Red Bull and Rockstar — each logging double-digit gains, Beverage Digest found. The drinks are often marketed at sporting events that are popular among younger people such as surfing and skateboarding.

From 2007 to 2011, the most recent year for which data was available, people from 18 to 25 were the most common age group seeking emergency treatment for energy drink-related reactions, the report found.

"We were really concerned to find that in four years the number of emergency department visits almost doubled, and these drinks are largely marketed to younger people," said Al Woodward, a senior statistical analyst with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration who worked on the report.

Emergency physician Steve Sun said he had seen an increase in such cases at the Catholic hospital where he works on the edge of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

"I saw one young man who had mixed energy drinks with alcohol and we had to admit him to the hospital because he was so dehydrated he had renal failure," Sun said. "Because he was young he did well in the hospital, but if another patient had had underlying coronary artery disease, it could have led to a heart attack."

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Follow Garance Burke on Twitter at http://twitter.com/garanceburke

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Secret Revealed: Facebook Announces New Tool

How you search Facebook is about to change. In fact, just the act of searching Facebook is probably about to start.

Facebook is trying to give Google a run for its money, with a new product called "Graph Search." It turns some of the personal information people have shared on Facebook into a powerful searchable database.

For the social network's 170 million users in the U.S., it's bound to change the way people interact with their Facebook friends. It also could mean lots more time wasted at work.

Facebook allowed ABC News "Nightline" behind the scenes ahead of today's product launch, an event shrouded in secrecy and rife with speculation. Company officials had sent out a tantalizingly vague invitation: "Come and see what we're building."

IMAGES: Screenshots of Graph Search and the offices where it was built

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long wanted to develop a social search engine, even hinting back in September that one might be in the works. The new feature gives users the ability to easily search across the network and their friends' information. Company officials say they believe it has the potential to transform the way people use Facebook.

Graph Search: What Is It?
Until now, the search bar you saw when you logged in to your Facebook page wasn't very powerful. You could only search for Timelines -- your friends' pages, other peoples' public pages and business or product pages.

But now, after close to a year and a half of development, the new "Graph Search" will allow you to search and discover more about your friends and other information that's been put on the world's largest social site.

Inside the Crucial 24 Hours Before Facebook's Graph Search Launch: Watch Tonight at 12:35 a.m. on ABC News "Nightline"

The new tool, available only to a limited set of U.S. users at first, turns key information that nearly a billion people have shared on the site -- including photos, places, and things they "like" -- into a searchable database tailored to your individual social network.

The new tool allows you to search across your friends' Timelines, without having to go to each of their Timeline pages to find out if they like a specific place or thing.

"I can just type in a short, simple phrase, like friends who like soccer and live nearby," Facebook product manager Kate O'Neill, told ABC News "Nightline" in an exclusive behind-the-scenes interview. "And now I'm getting the exact group of people that I'm looking for, so I can play soccer and ask them if they want to kick the ball around with me after work." O'Neill was able to narrow down the search in a demonstration only to show women.

MORE: Guide to Facebook's New Privacy Settings

The tool can search your friends' publicly shared interests, photos, places and connections. O'Neill showed ABC News how you can search for different musical artists and see which of your friends like them. She also showed how you can search a company and see which of your friends, or friends of your friends, work there. Additionally, you can search for photos of a specific place -- like Big Sur -- and the Graph Search will return images your friends might have taken of the location.

Right now, you can't search for things that were shared in a Timeline post or an event. However, O'Neill confirmed that this would be added to Graph Search later.

Privacy and Opting Out
The new product raises obvious privacy questions. Will personal information now pop up in the Graph Search, even if you never wanted to share it? How about those photos you never wanted to have on Facebook in the first place, or the ones you thought you were sharing only with your close friends?

"[Privacy] is something, of course, we care a lot about, and so from the very beginning we made it so that you can only search for the things that you can already see on Facebook," Tom Stocky, one of the lead Graph Search senior engineers, told "Nightline."

Stocky also pointed ABC News to Facebook's recent privacy tool changes, which allow you better to see what personal information your friends and others can see on Facebook. O'Neill showed the new Activity Log tools as well as the photo "untag" tool, which lets you contact others who might have a photo of you posted that you'd wish they'd take down.

When asked if users can opt out of the new search in general, Stocky said that they can choose to change the privacy settings on each of their pieces of content.

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