Snooker: Dott dumps Trump out of Masters tournament






LONDON: Judd Trump produced one of his worst displays in a 6-1 quarter-final loss to Graeme Dott at the Masters on Friday.

Several times Trump, taking on the role of fans' favourite in the ongoing self-imposed exile of crowd pleaser Ronnie O'Sullivan, missed pots by inches or left routine balls in the jaws of the pocket.

Former world champion Dott was not in the best of form himself, with the Scot's only major break a contribution of 111 in the final frame, but he did at least take some of the chances presented by his English opponent.

Judd insisted he would not linger on the disappointment of defeat, telling the BBC: "By the time I've got home, I will have already forgotten about it.

"I couldn't get going. It wasn't there today (Friday)."

He added: "I tried my best out there but it didn't happen. It's the worst I've felt and played since breaking through."

Meanwhile a bemused Dott said: "It's weird, you expect Judd to play well and sometimes, if someone doesn't play well, it puts you off.

"He really struggled from the first frame. I've not had any form for the last four or five months and even today I felt I missed a lot of bad shots. It was going to be hard for Judd to live up to how he had been playing."

- AFP/de



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Obscene MMS clip of wife drives man to suicide

PATIALA: An obscene MMS of his wife drove a young man to suicide on Thursday night. Although police have not recovered the MMS clip so far, they have registered a case against three neighbours of the deceased on the basis of suicide note recovered from his pocket.

Jaswinder Singh, 30, of Dholan Majra village worked on a wood works shop. Some days back his neighbour Dharinder Kaur allegedly showed him an MMS prepared by another neighbor, Sonu, with the wife of the deceased. Though it is still unclear if any money was demanded for not circulating the MMS, Jaswinder's family has complained that he was so depressed after the incident that he had stopped going to work out of humiliation.

"In his statement, Jaswinder's brother Kirpal has alleged that Sonu prepared the MMS clip of his sister-in-law some months back. The same was shown to the deceased a few days ago which led him to take the extreme step," said SHO Shambu Manjit singh.

A mentally strained Jaswinder went to his relatives house in Loha Kheri village on Thursday and went for a walk after dinner. However, he apparently consumed poison at small distance away from the house. His relatives started looking for him when he did not return home even after a long time and found his body near Mardapur village, located on Shambu-Ghanaur road.

Police recovered a suicide note from the pocket of deceased, in which he has mentioned about harassment by Dharinder, Sonu and another neighbor Gurdarshan Kaur. The deceased also described this as the reason for him ending his life.

"We have registered a case against three persons in this connection under 306 IPC ( abetment to suicide). We are conducting investigations to recover the MMS," said SP Rajpura Bhupinder Khatra.

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Flu season 'bad one for the elderly,' CDC says


The number of older people hospitalized with the flu has risen sharply, prompting federal officials to take unusual steps to make more flu medicines available and to urge wider use of them as soon as symptoms appear.


The U.S. is about halfway through this flu season, and "it's shaping up to be a worse-than-average season" and a bad one for the elderly, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


It's not too late to get a flu shot, and "if you have symptoms, please stay home from work, keep your children home from school" and don't spread the virus, he said.


New figures from the CDC show widespread flu activity in all states but Tennessee and Hawaii. Some parts of the country are seeing an increase in flu activity "while overall activity is beginning to go down," Frieden said. Flu activity is high in 30 states and New York City, up from 24 the previous week.


Nine more children or teens have died of the flu, bringing the nation's total this flu season to 29. That's close to the 34 pediatric deaths reported during all of the last flu season, although that one was unusually light. In a typical season, about 100 children die of the flu and officials said there is no way to know whether deaths this season will be higher or lower than usual.


The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people most years.


So far, half of confirmed flu cases are in people 65 and older. Lab-confirmed flu hospitalizations totaled 19 for every 100,000 in the population, but 82 per 100,000 among those 65 and older, "which is really quite a high rate," Frieden said.


"We expect to see both the number and the rates of both hospitalizations and deaths rise further in the next week or so as the flu epidemic progresses,'" so prompt treatment is key to preventing deaths, he said.


About 90 percent of flu deaths are in the elderly; the very young and people with other health problems such as diabetes are also at higher risk.


If you're worried about how sick you are and are in one of these risk groups, see a doctor, Frieden urged. One third to one half of people are not getting prompt treatment with antiviral medicines, he said.


Two drugs — Tamiflu and Relenza — can cut the severity and risk of death from the flu but must be started within 48 hours of first symptoms to do much good. Tamiflu is available in a liquid form for use in children under 1, and pharmacists can reformulate capsules into a liquid if supplies are short in an area, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, head of the Food and Drug Administration.


To help avoid a shortage, the FDA is letting Tamiflu's maker, Genentech, distribute 2 million additional doses of capsules that have an older version of package insert.


"It is fully approved, it is not outdated," just lacks information for pharmacists on how to mix it into a liquid if needed for young children, she said.


This year's flu season started about a month earlier than normal and the dominant flu strain is one that tends to make people sicker. Vaccinations are recommended for anyone 6 months or older. There's still plenty of vaccine — an update shows that 145 million doses have been produced, "twice the supply that was available only several years ago," Hamburg said.


About 129 million doses have been distributed already, and a million doses are given each day, Frieden said. The vaccine is not perfect but "it's by far the best tool we have to prevent influenza," he said.


Carlos Maisonet, 73, got a flu shot this week at New York's Brooklyn Hospital Center at the urging of his wife, who was vaccinated in August.


"This is his first time getting the flu shot," said his wife, Zulma Ramos.


Last week, the CDC said the flu again surpassed an "epidemic" threshold, based on monitoring of deaths from flu and a frequent complication, pneumonia. The flu epidemic happens every year and officials say this year's vaccine is a good match for strains that are going around.


___


Online:


Flu vaccine finder: http://www.flu.gov


CDC flu info: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm


___


AP Photographer Bebeto Matthews in New York contributed to this report.


___


Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at —http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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'Catfish' Star Reaches Out to Manti Te'o













Nev Schulman, the star and creator of the MTV show "Catfish" that follows Internet dating hoaxes, has reached out to Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o and offered to help solve his girlfriend hoax.


Te'o and Notre Dame claim he was a "catfish" victim when it was revealed that the woman he said was his girlfriend and died of leukemia never existed.


The "Catfish" television show was spawned by a movie of the same name in which Schulman tracked down a person who pretended to be a young woman he had met online.


".@MTeo_5 I know how you feel. It happened 2 me. I want 2 help tell ur story & prevent this from happening to others in the future. Lets talk," Schulman tweeted to Te'o.


Schulman says in his tweets that he has information about the baffling hoax. "I am working on finding out more about this @MTeo_5 #Catfish story. I have been in contact with the woman involved and will get the truth," Schulman tweeted on Wednesday night. It is unclear which woman Schulman has been in contact with.


However, in a statment released to ABC News, Schulman said "I have been in touch with Donna Tei. She reached out to me back in December asking for help regarding the person who had been using her photos to create a fake profile."


It's not clear whether Donna Tei was the woman whose photo was used as "girlfriend" Lennay Kekua or another person in the complicated hoax.


He also tweeted, "However his #Manti story ends, it doesn't change that we are all the victims of a #Catfish."


In a statement on MTV.com, Schulman defended the possibility that Te'o had been duped.


"When you read an article all at once where it reveals all these stories and all these details, it seems crazy, but in the process of it, as it happens very slowly, things don't seem so crazy," Schulman wrote. "And then, of course, when you look at it all in one snapshot, it does sort of seem kind of unbelievable."






ABC News; David J. Phillip/AP Photo











Manti Te'o Hoax: Notre Dame Star Allegedly Scammed Watch Video









'Catfish' Star Nev Schulman's Red Flags for Spotting Online Fakers Watch Video









Tale of Notre Dame Football Star's Girlfriend and Her Death an Alleged Hoax Watch Video





Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick cited the documentary "Catfish" in trying to explain how the star linebacker became a hoax victim.


"I would refer all of you, if you're not already familiar with it, with both the documentary called 'Catfish,' the MTV show which is a derivative of that documentary, and the sort of associated things you'll find online and otherwise about catfish, or catfishing," Swarbrick told reporters Wednesday.


The 2010 film stars Schulman, who was the real-life victim of a "catfish" scam. Schulman wanted to make the documentary to show how he was sucked in by an Internet pretender -- or a "catfish" -- who built an elaborate fake life.


Schulman made the documentary as he was falling for someone named "Megan," a gorgeous 20-something from Michigan. Their online relationship blossomed until Schulman confronted "Megan."


"Megan" turned out to be a middle-aged mom of two named Angela Wesselman, who later said she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.


Inside 'Catfish': A Tale of Twisted Cyber-Romance


"It was different. It was something new. It was a little mysterious," Schulman told ABC News in an earlier interview, describing his reaction before he discovered Megan's true identity.


Now, a much wiser Schulman is helping others catch the "catfish" in his new hit series on MTV inspired by the real-life documentary, "Catfish: The TV Show."


'Catfish' Stars Nev Schulman's Advice for Online Dating


In one episode, Schulman meets Sunny, who says she has been dating a medical student online named "Jameson" for eight months.


"He's going to be an anesthesiologist. He does online classes," Sunny says of "Jameson" in the episode.


Schulman convinces Sunny to take a road trip to meet "Jameson" face to face and and Sunny later finds out "Jameson" was really a woman who was pretending to be a man online for at least four years.


"I mean who does that?" Sunny said in the episode.


As more become connected through various social media outlets, Schulman says these "catfish" hoaxes will continue.


"So long as we're not looking people in the eye face-to-face, there's always going be room, a lot of room for deception," he said.


WATCH: Deadspin Writer Who Uncovered Hoax Explains the Story



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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













Andrew Cuomo Signs New York Gun Control Law, Obama Readies Federal Plan Watch Video









'The View' on NRA Shooting App: Think It Out Watch Video





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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