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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French, Malian forces fight Islamist rebels in Gao

GAO, Mali (Reuters) - French and Malian troops fought Islamists on the streets of Gao and a car bomb exploded in Kidal on Thursday, as fighting showed little sign of abating weeks before France plans to start withdrawing some forces.

Reuters reporters in Gao in the country's desert north said French and Malian forces fired at the mayor's office with heavy machineguns after Islamists were reported to have infiltrated the Niger River town during a night of explosions and gunfire.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told a news conference in Brussels that Gao was back under control after clashes earlier in the day.

"Malian troops supported by French soldiers killed five jihadists and the situation is back to normal," he said.

In Kidal, a remote far north town where the French are hunting Islamists, residents said a car bomb killed two. A French defense ministry source reported no French casualties.

French troops dispatched to root out rebels with links to al Qaeda swiftly retook northern towns last month. But they now risk being bogged down in a guerrilla conflict as they try to help Mali's weak army counter bombings and raids.

"There was an infiltration by Islamists overnight and there is shooting all over the place," Sadou Harouna Diallo, Gao's mayor, told Reuters by telephone earlier in the day, saying he was not in his office at the time.

Gao is a French hub for operations in the Kidal region, about 300 km (190 miles) northeast, where many Islamist leaders are thought to have retreated and foreign hostages may be held.

"They are black and two were disguised as women," a Malian soldier in Gao who gave his name only as Sergeant Assak told Reuters during a pause in heavy gunfire around Independence Square.

Six Malian military pickups were deployed in the square and opened fire on the mayor's office with the heavy machineguns. Two injured soldiers were taken away in an ambulance.

French troops in armored vehicles later joined the battle as it spilled out into the warren of sandy streets, where, two weeks ago, they also fought for hours against Islamists who had infiltrated the town via the nearby river.

Helicopters clattered over the mayor's office, while a nearby local government office and petrol station was on fire.

A Gao resident said he heard an explosion and then saw a Malian military vehicle on fire in a nearby street.

Paris has said it plans to start withdrawing some of its 4,000 troops from Mali next month. But rebels have fought back against Mali's weak and divided army, and African forces due to take over the French role are not yet in place.

Islamists abandoned the main towns they held but French and Malian forces have said there are pockets of Islamist resistance across the north, which is about the size of France.

CAR BOMB

Residents reported a bomb in the east of Kidal on Thursday.

"It was a car bomb that exploded in a garage," said one resident who went to the scene but asked not to be named.

"The driver and another man were killed. Two other people were injured," he added.

A French defense ministry official confirmed there had been a car bomb but said it did not appear that French troops, based at the town's airport, had been targeted.

Earlier this week, a French soldier was killed in heavy fighting north of Kidal, where French and Chadian troops are hunting Islamists in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, which border Algeria.

Operations there are further complicated by the presence of separatist Tuareg rebels, whose rebellion triggered the fighting in northern Mali last year but were sidelined by the better-armed Islamists.

Having dispatched its forces to prevent an Islamist advance south in January, Paris is eager not to become bogged down in a long-term conflict in Mali. But their Malian and African allies have urged French troops not to pull out too soon.

(Additional reporting by Emanuel Braun in Gao, Adama Diarra in Bamako, David Lewis and John Irish in Dakar and Adrian Croft in Brussels; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Jason Webb and Roger Atwood)

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Cricket: Hyderabad Test still on, says Australia chief

SYDNEY: Australia plan to play the second Test against India in Hyderabad as scheduled next week despite deadly bomb attacks in the city on the eve of the Test series opener, reports said on Friday.

The twin blasts on Thursday killed 14 people and wounded dozens more in a busy neighbourhood in the southern Indian city, raising questions over whether Australia would play the second Test starting on March 2.

But Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland told Fairfax newspapers the match was still on as planned as Australia prepared for the opening match in the four-Test series in Chennai starting later Friday.

"As far as I'm concerned we are playing the second Test in Hyderabad next week. That's where we are at," said Sutherland, who is with the team in Chennai.

Sutherland told Fairfax he was happy to continue to Hyderabad where the team is scheduled to arrive on Wednesday.

"We've got great confidence in the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) and the relevant authorities here to be able to prepare as best as possible for whatever issues may change from day to day," he said.

"We're very comfortable with everything that has been done so far on this tour."

"We'll obviously take advice from relevant authorities and work with the BCCI and others here to make assessments around Hyderabad but at the same time plans have been in place for a long time," Sutherland said.

"At this stage I wouldn't be calling into question things going ahead in Hyderabad."

He added that team manager Gavin Dovey had sent players text messages overnight updating them on the blasts and that security had been stepped up.

Dozens of extra police reportedly surrounded the Chennai hotel where the Australian and Indian teams are staying.

Captain Michael Clarke said his players were focused on the Chennai game.

"From the team's point of view, our focus is wholly and solely on the field because we've got people off the field who are experts in what is going on. We'll be advised by them," he said.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with all the people of Hyderabad who have been affected."

Earlier, media reports raised doubts over the tour.

"Australia's cricket tour of India has been plunged into uncertainty," said the Herald-Sun newspaper, while the Sydney Morning Herald carried a headline "Hyderabad Test in doubt as bombings rock city".

Australia pulled out of a tour to Pakistan in 2008 over security concerns after a series of bombings in the troubled country. They also refused to play any matches in the 1996 World Cup in Sri Lanka after bombings there.

Cricket Australia, which said the safety of players was paramount, earlier said the tourists had received "no information to suggest there is any threat to the team" but that talks were ongoing.

The attacks targeted a Hindu district in the city, a hub of India's computing industry in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, home to local offices of Google and Microsoft among other Western IT companies.

After the blasts, the Foreign Affairs Department in Canberra warned Australians following the tour in India that terror attacks could happen anywhere.

"We advise you to exercise a high degree of caution in India at this time because of the risk of terrorism, civil unrest, crime and vehicle accidents," the department said.

"Terrorist attacks could occur anywhere at any time in India with little or no warning," it said.

"Possible targets include public places in New Delhi, Mumbai and other major cities, and Indian security and political interests."

However, the overall level of advice for Australians in India has not changed, with the department recommending people exercise a high degree of caution.

No major international cricket has been played in Pakistan since a deadly attack on the Sri Lankan team bus by armed militants in Lahore in 2009.

- AFP/ck

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BJP calls for shutdown in Andhra Pradesh

HYDERABAD: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called for a shutdown in Andhra Pradesh on Friday to condemn the twin bomb blasts, which killed 14 people and injured over 100.

The Bharatiya Janata Party today demanded the suspension of question hour and said that in the wake of the Hyderabad blasts there should be a discussion the the Parliament over terror.

BJP state president G Kishan Reddy appealed to all people to voluntarily observe the shutdown to protest the blasts and show their sympathies with the victims' families.

Talking to reporters, he said the state government failed to take steps to prevent the blasts despite warnings from the intelligence agencies. He demanded the government to act firmly against terrorists.

Police have stepped up security in the city and other major towns in view of the shutdown call and Friday prayers.

The Bharatiya Janata Party today demanded the suspension of question hour and said that in the wake of the Hyderabad blasts there should be a discussion the the Parliament over terror.

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APNewsBreak: Govs to hear Oregon health care plan

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber will brief other state leaders this weekend on his plan to lower Medicaid costs, touting an overhaul that President Barack Obama highlighted in his State of the Union address for its potential to lower the deficit even as health care expenses climb.

The Oregon Democrat leaves for Washington, D.C., on Friday to pitch his plan that changes the way doctors and hospitals are paid and improves health care coordination for low income residents so that treatable medical problems don't grow in severity or expense.

Kitzhaber says his goal is to win over a handful of other governors from each party.

"I think the politics have been dialed down a couple of notches, and now people are willing to sit down and talk about how we can solve the problem" of rising health care costs, Kitzhaber told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Kitzhaber introduced the plan in 2011 in the face of a severe state budget deficit, and he's been talking for two years about expanding the initiative beyond his state. Now, it seems he's found people ready to listen.

Hospital executives from Alabama visited Oregon last month to learn about the effort. And the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday that it's giving Oregon a $45 million grant to help spread the changes beyond the Medicaid population and share information with other states, making it one of only six states to earn a State Innovation Model grant.

Kitzhaber will address his counterparts at a meeting of the National Governors Association. His talk isn't scheduled on the official agenda, but a spokeswoman confirmed that Kitzhaber is expected to present.

"The governors love what they call stealing from one another — taking the good ideas and the successes of their colleagues and trying to figure out how to apply that in their home state," said Matt Salo, director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors.

There's been "huge interest" among other states in Oregon's health overhaul, Salo said, not because the concepts are brand new, but because the state managed to avoid pitfalls that often block health system changes.

Kitzhaber persuaded state lawmakers to redesign the system of delivering and paying for health care under Medicaid, creating incentives for providers to coordinate patient care and prevent avoidable emergency room visits. He has long complained that the current financial incentives encourage volume over quality, driving costs up without making people healthier.

Obama, in his State of the Union address this month, suggested that changes such as Oregon's could be part of a long-term strategy to lower the federal debt by reigning in the growing cost of federally funded health care.

"We'll bring down costs by changing the way our government pays for Medicare, because our medical bills shouldn't be based on the number of tests ordered or days spent in the hospital — they should be based on the quality of care that our seniors receive," Obama said.

The Obama administration has invested in the program, putting up $1.9 billion to keep Oregon's Medicaid program afloat over the next five years while providers make the transition to new business models and incorporate new staff and technology.

In exchange, though, the state has agreed to lower per-capita health care cost inflation by 2 percentage points without affecting quality.

The Medicaid system is unique in each state, and Kitzhaber isn't suggesting that other states should adopt Oregon's specific approach, said Mike Bonetto, Kitzhaber's health care policy adviser. Rather, he wants governors to buy into the broad concept that the delivery system and payment models need to change.

That's not a new theory. But Oregon has shown that under the right circumstances massive changes to deeply entrenched business models can gain wide support.

What Oregon can't yet show is proof the idea is working — that it's lowering costs without squeezing on the quality or availability of care. The state is just finishing compiling baseline data that will be used as a basis of comparison.

One factor driving the Obama administration's interest in Oregon's success is the president's health care overhaul. Under the Affordable Care Act, millions more Americans will join the Medicaid rolls after Jan. 1, and the health care system will have to be able to absorb the influx of patients in a logistically and financially sustainable way.

The federal government will pay 100 percent of the costs for those additional patients in the first three years before scaling back to 90 percent in 2020 and beyond.

"There are a lot of governors who are facing the same challenges we're facing in Oregon," Kitzhaber said. "They recognize that the cost of health care is something they're going to have to get their arms around."

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Arias Challenged On Pedophilia Claim

Accused murderer Jodi Arias was challenged today by phone records, text message records, and her own diary entries that appeared to contradict her claim that she caught her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, looking at pictures of naked boys.

Arias had said during her testimony that one afternoon in January 2008, she walked in on Alexander masturbating to pictures of naked boys. She said she fled from the home, threw up, drove around aimlessly, and ignored numerous phone calls from Alexander because she was so upset at what she had seen.

The claim was central to the defense's accusation that Alexander was a "sexual deviant" who grew angry and abusive toward Arias in the months after the incident, culminating in a violent confrontation in June that left Alexander dead.

Arias claimed she killed him in self-defense. She could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.

Catching Up on the Trial? Check Out ABC News' Jodi Arias Trial Coverage

Today, prosecutor Juan Martinez, who has been aggressive in questioning witnesses throughout the trial, volleyed questions at her about the claim of pedophilia, asking her to explain why her and Alexander's cell phone records showed five calls back and forth between the pair throughout the day she allegedly fled in horror. Some of the calls were often initiated Arias, according to phone records.

Jodi Arias Doesn't Remember Stabbing Ex-Boyfriend Watch Video

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Arias on Ex-Boyfriend's Death: 'I Don't Remember' Watch Video

She and Alexander also exchanged text messages throughout the afternoon and evening at a time when Arias claims the pedophilia incident occurred. In those messages they discuss logistics of exchanging one another's cars that night. Alexander sends her text messages about the car from a church social event he attended that night that she never mentioned during her testimony.

Arias stuck by her claim that she saw Alexander masturbating to the pictures, and her voice remained steady under increasingly-loud questioning by Martinez.

But Martinez also sparred with Arias on the stand over minor issues, such as when he asked Arias detailed questions about the timing and order of events from that day and Arias said she could not remember them.

"It seems you have problems with your memory. Is this a longstanding thing? Since you started testifying?" Martinez asked.

"No it goes back farther than that. I don't know even know if I'd call it a problem," Arias said.

"How far back does it go? You don't want to call them problems, are they issues? Can we call them issues? When did you start having them?" he asked in rapid succession. "You say you have memory problems, that it depends on the circumstance. Give me the factors that influence that."

"Usually when men like you or Travis are screaming at me," Arias shot back from the stand. "It affects my brain, it makes my brain scramble."

"You're saying it's Mr. Martinez's fault?" Martinez asked, referring to himself in the third person.

"Objection your honor," Arias' attorney finally shouted. "This is a stunt!"

Timeline of the Jodi Arias Trial

Martinez dwelled at one point about a journal entry where Arias wrote that she missed the Mormon baptism of her friend Lonnie because she was having kinky sex with Alexander. He drew attention to prior testimony that she and Alexander used Tootsie Pops and Pop Rocks candy as sexual props.

"You're trying to get across (in the diary entry) that this involved a sexual liaison with Mr. Alexander right?" he asked. "And you're talking about Tootsie Pops and Pop Rocks?"

"That happened also that night," Arias said.

"You were there, enjoying it, the Tootsie Pops and Pop Rocks?" he asked again, prompting a smirk from Arias.

"I enjoyed his attention," Arias said.

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French general urges EU to equip "impoverished" Mali army

BAMAKO, Mali (Reuters) - The European Union should complement a mission to train Mali's army, routed by rebels last year, by providing equipment from uniforms to vehicles and communications technology, a French general said on Wednesday.

General Francois Lecointre, appointed to head the EU training mission to Mali (EUTM) that was formally launched this week, said in Bamako equipping the "very impoverished" and disorganized Malian army was as important as training it.

Europe, along with the United States, has backed the French-led military intervention in Mali which since January 11 has driven al Qaeda-allied Islamist insurgents out of the main northern towns into remote mountains near Algeria's border.

European governments have ruled out sending combat troops to join French and African soldiers pursuing the Islamist rebels.

But the EU is providing a 500-strong multinational training force that will give military instruction to Malian soldiers for an initial period of 15 months at an estimated cost of 12.3 million euros ($16.45 million).

While hailing what he called the EU's "courageous, novel, historic" decision to support Mali, Lecointre told a news conference the Malian army's lack of equipment was a problem.

"I know the Malian state is poor, but the Malian army is more than poor," the French general told a news conference, adding that it urgently needed everything from uniforms and weapons to vehicles and communications equipment.

Last year, when Tuareg separatist forces swelled by weapons and fighters from the Libyan conflict swept out of the northern deserts, a demoralized and poorly-led Malian army collapsed and fled before them, abandoning arms and vehicles.

Mali's military was further shaken by a March 22 coup by junior officers who toppled President Amadou Toumani Toure, sowing division among rival army factions. Islamist radicals allied to al Qaeda later hijacked the victorious Tuareg rebellion to occupy the northern half of the country.

In a fast-charging military campaign led by Paris, French and African troops have driven the jihadists out of principal northern towns like Gao and Timbuktu, and are fighting the rebels in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.

HUMAN RIGHTS INSTRUCTION

Flanked by Mali's armed forces chief, General Ibrahima Dembele, Lecointre said he was disappointed that a meeting of international donors last month pledged funds for an African military force, known as AFISMA, being deployed in Mali, but included "very few" contributions for the Malian army itself.

"The European Union needs to invest today in the equipping of the Malian army and not just in its training," the general said, adding he would make this point strongly in a report to EU member state representatives early next month.

Asked how much re-equipping the army would cost, he said it would be "much more" than the 12 million euros of EU financing for the training mission, but could not give a precise estimate.

Starting early in April, the EU mission will start instructing Malian soldiers with a plan to train four new battalions of 600-700 members each, formed from existing enlisted men and new recruits.

Lecointre said the EU training would include instruction in human rights. Demands for this increased after allegations by Malian civilians and international human rights groups that Malian soldiers were executing Tuaregs and Arabs accused of collaborating with Islamist rebels.

The European training contingent is drawn from a range of European countries, but the main contributors would be France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain, EUTM officers said.

Mali's army has received foreign training before - several battalions that fled before the rebels last year were trained by the U.S. military and the leader of the March 22 coup, Captain Amadou Sanogo, attended training courses in the United States.

Dembele said U.S. training failed to forge cohesion among Malian units and he hoped the EU training would achieve this.

The United States, which halted direct support for the Malian military after last year's coup, could eventually resume aid if planned national elections in July fully restore democracy to the West African country.

Washington is providing airlift, refuelling and intelligence support to the French-led military intervention in Mali. ($1 = 0.7479 euros)

(Reporting by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Jason Webb)

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Oscar hopeful Haneke fears failure with Mozart

MADRID: Although he is nursing hopes of an Oscar, Austrian film-maker Michael Haneke says he feels doomed to failure with his latest project -- a staging of a Mozart opera in Spain.

"Amour", Haneke's film about an ageing couple that won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year, is up for five Oscars on Sunday, including for best film and best director.

First, however, the 69-year-old faces another big night -- Saturday's premier of "Cosi Fan Tutte", by his fellow Austrian at Madrid's Teatro Real.

"With Mozart you are condemned to fail. The question is on what level," Haneke, considered one of the greatest and most uncompromising living film-makers, told reporters in Madrid on Wednesday.

"I don't much like talking about opera. I prefer to talk about my films. I see myself more as a film director."

The Madrid show is his second opera project after "Don Giovanni" in Paris in 2007, and "probably my last" before returning to film-making, he added.

"After 'Don Giovanni' I received about 15 offers to direct operas but I rejected them all because I didn't think I was the right person to do them," he said.

Haneke's films such as "The White Ribbon" -- a macabre tale of pre-war Germany for which he won the first of his two Palmes D'Or -- have earned him a reputation for painful subjects.

"Cosi Fan Tutte" is ostensibly a romantic comedy -- the tale of two women who are tricked and tested by their suitors -- but the theatre says its meditation on love and loyalty has its hard side too.

Written by a depressed Mozart when he was having love pains of his own, "Cosi Fan Tutte" is one of the composer's most challenging operas to stage, said the theatre's Belgian director Gerard Mortier.

"It is the most profound and difficult Mozart, with some extraordinarily difficult arias," he said.

Haneke has stage-directed the opera in Madrid under the musical baton of French conductor Sylvain Cambreling.

"Amour" meanwhile examines the intimate life of an elderly man and his dying wife.

"It touches people because it could happen to any family," Haneke said.

"If you are young it could happen to your grandparents. If you're less young, to your parents. And if you're even less young, it could happen to you."

The film is nominated for Oscars in the best film, director, actress, script and foreign film categories.

"I would like to win them all. I would hope to win at least one -- any of them," he said. "I am crossing my fingers."

- AFP/sf

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Day 2 of nationwide strike: Cops on alert in Noida; UP govt forms panel to probe violence

NEW DELHI: Normal life in several parts of the country continued to remain affected on Day 2 of the nationwide strike called by the trade unions.

Cops in Noida are on high alert, after widespread violence on the first day of the strike. According to TV reports, several schools and offices in Noida have been closed.

The UP government has formed a two-member panel to probe the violence in Noida on the first day of the two-day nationwide shutdown.

The state government late on Wednesday named additional director general of police (Law and Order) Arun Kumar and home secretary Rakesh as members of the probe committee and asked them to submit a fact finding report within three days.

Principal secretary (Home) RM Srivastava told IANS that "toughest action" would be taken against those found guilty of violence.

The committee has been asked to look into the state of preparedness of the Noida police to handle the shutdown and identify district officials guilty of dereliction of duty.

"The government has taken a serious note of the whole episode, wherein properties were gutted, people were beaten up and several vehicles were set on fire. There should be no doubt that the government would crack down on all found guilty," Srivastava said.

Violence erupted on Wednesday in Noida and Greater Noida where factories were targeted and set on fire. Violent clashes took place and several vehicles were set afire.

Officials have started screening the video footage of the violence in order to identify and book the perpetrators.

"We are also exploring possibilities of slapping the National Security Act (NSA) on the rioters," a senior official said.

State government sources said chief minister Akhilesh Yadav was particularly miffed at the Noida violence as he views it as a big blow to his efforts to create a pro-investment climate in Uttar Pradesh.

"The chief minister has taken a serious note of the clashes as it could send a wrong signal that industries are not safe in UP," an official said.

In Kerala, workers from most sectors ranging from transport to banking keeping away from work.

Reports from across the state said buses and taxis were off the roads and markets remained shut. Train and air services were not affected.

Attendance in government offices was thin and educational institutions remained closed as pro-Left service and teachers unions joined the strike. Universities have cancelled examinations scheduled for the last two days.

Barring stray incidents of minor violence, the state has remained peaceful since Wednesday.

Police in their vehicles facilitated the short-distance travels of train and air passengers, who arrived in the state unaware of the hartal atmosphere.

Emergency services like healthcare, milk supply and media have been exempted from the strike.

In Mangalore, however, there has been no effect of strike on Day 2. The buses are plying normally and the schools are functioning as usual.

(With inputs from PTI, IANS)

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