'Mother Teresa of Sumanahalli' allowed to stay in India" By Swaminathan Natarajan

A British missionary involved in social work for almost three decades in India has been dramatically allowed to stay in the country.

Her 11th hour reprieve came at the behest of Home Minister P Chidambaram.
London-born Jean McEwan, known as Sister Jean, has over the years taken care of leprosy patients.
The Catholic nun faced the prospect of having to leave the country on Monday after the government refused to renew her residency permit.
But Mr Chidambaram intervened to restore her visa "without limit of time" - pointing out that the notice for her to leave India was a mistake.
The nun, fondly called as Amma by local people, is often described as the Mother Teresa of Sumanahalli - an area of the city of Bangalore.
"I am absolutely overjoyed," she said.
"All my friends are overjoyed as well. I am very thankful to everyone who helped me. I have been stopped in the streets by the people who said they are praying that you would be able to stay."
Television pictures on Tuesday showed her being greeted by locals in tears. Some women even prostrated before her.
But it was entirely different on Monday when she was ordered to leave India - without explanation - by the home ministry.
"All my friends and colleges were devastated. I was in a state of shock for a quite a while. But now I am happy and exited," she said.
Ms McEwan has been co-ordinating the running of mobile clinics for leprosy patients in Bangalore since 1982.
Although leprosy has officially been eliminated in India, thousands of new cases are diagnosed every year.
Sufferers have little financial support from the government and are often shunned by society.

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Afghan Nato forces 'kill 35 Pakistan Taliban militants'

At least 35 Taliban militants from Pakistan have been killed and several wounded by Nato-led forces inside Afghanistan, officials say.

The militants are said to have crossed over into the Afghan province of Paktia to target coalition forces when they came under attack last week.
Sources in Pakistan's Waziristan tribal region told the BBC that many of those wounded had now been brought back.
Some are said to be receiving medical treatment in the town of Miranshah.
Pakistan has been under severe pressure from the US in recent months to prevent militants based in its tribal regions from crossing into Afghanistan to fight Nato troops based there.
Earlier this month Washington said that it was cutting $800m (£500m) in military aid to Islamabad because of "difficulties" in its relationship with Pakistan.
Dangerous faction Efforts are said to be under way to bring back the bodies of those killed in the latest fighting for burials.

Reports suggest many of the dead and wounded belonged to two leading militant leaders in Waziristan - Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Mullah Nazir.
The BBC's Shahzeb Jillani says that both are known for actively targeting Nato-led forces. He says the deaths appear to be a significant blow to cross-border militants feeding the insurgency inside Afghanistan.
The coalition itself has confirmed the raid, saying it believes the fighters were moved into Afghanistan by the Haqqani group, long regarded by the US as an especially dangerous militant faction based in Waziristan.
There have been previous cases of Pakistani Taliban being killed by Nato, but few incidents are reported.
Correspondents say that the Pakistani army faces a dilemma when pursuing militants in the border areas.
On the one hand it is under pressure from the US and Afghanistan to stop the incursions, but on the other hand it has to be careful to respect Afghan territorial integrity.
Last month Islamabad rejected claims made by Kabul that it had fired more than 450 rockets into Afghan territory over a period of three weeks.
A spokesman told the BBC that a "few accidental rounds" may have landed in Afghanistan as the army battled Taliban militants entrenched in the area.
In recent weeks, Islamabad has also complained of a number of cross-border militant attacks in Pakistan's north-west and has lodged official protests with Kabul over the incursions.
In one incident on 16 June more than 200 militants were said to have stormed a Pakistani village near the Afghan border.

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Foreign ministers set for India-Pakistan talks

The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan are due to hold talks in Delhi, the first such meeting between the two nuclear rivals in a year.

The delegation from Pakistan is led by Hina Rabbani Khar, its newly appointed and first ever female foreign minister.
The meeting comes five months after the South Asian neighbours resumed bilateral discussions.
Talks were suspended after the 2008 Mumbai (Bombay) attacks which India blamed on Pakistan-based militants.
But earlier this year, leaders vowed to resume their dialogue.
Correspondents say the talks are unlikely to throw up any major policy statements, but they will be another step in improving relations between the neighbours.
Ms Khar, 34, was appointed only last week as Pakistan's foreign minister. Her meeting with Indian counterpart SM Krishna will be keenly watched.
'Lessons from history' Arriving in India on Tuesday, Ms Khar said both countries "would have learnt lessons from history without being burdened by it".
Earlier, she told reporters in Lahore that it was "in the interests of Pakistan that the dialogue should be result-oriented".
"We should be positive in our engagement, and we are."
Since February, Indian and Pakistani officials have met to discuss a range of issues in an attempt to find ways to build trust and promote peace.
Last month, the foreign secretaries of the two countries held two days of talks where they agreed to discuss new nuclear confidence-building measures.
India has said it is "ready to discuss all issues with an open mind", and will push for justice for victims of the Mumbai attacks.
Even before the formal talks got underway, Ms Khar caused a flutter by meeting Kashmiri separatist leaders in Delhi on Tuesday.
Pakistan will be eager to raise the contentious issue of disputed Kashmir.
The Himalayan region is claimed by both India and Pakistan in its entirety, but has been divided since 1948. It has been the cause of two wars between the countries.
There remains a huge amount of mistrust between the nations but, analysts say, for now it seems both governments appear committed to improving relations.

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Mumbai blasts death toll rises to 24

The death toll from the deadly blasts in the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) has risen to 24 following the death of an injured man, a doctor said.

The man did not regain consciousness since the 13 July blasts and died early on Monday, KEM Hospital chief Sanjay Oak told the AFP news agency.
Two more wounded had died in a Mumbai hospital on Saturday.
The attacks were the deadliest in India since 2008, when gunmen killed 165 people in a three-day raid in Mumbai.
The three blasts hit Zaveri Bazaar, an area with many jewellery shops, Opera House business district in the south of the city and Dadar district in the city centre.
The 48-year-old man who died on Monday morning was the first to die from the blast that hit a bus stand in the Dadar area, reports said.
No group has said it planted the bombs but some officials and analysts have blamed them on the Indian Mujahideen, a group which claimed to have carried out similar attacks in the past.

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Pakistan city of Karachi hit by factional 'bloodbath'

At least 27 people have been killed in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi in violence since Saturday, police and hospital sources say.

Most violence was reported from the eastern and central parts of the city, police say.
Hundreds of people have been killed in ethnic violence in this sprawling metropolis in recent months.
Much of it has involved activists of the city's dominant parties such as the MQM, the ANP and PPP.
The attacks are part of a cycle of violence which has claimed the lives of 200 people since 1 July, police officials say. Three of the deaths were on Monday.
The latest round of violence started when members of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) resisted attempts by a breakaway faction to come out of hiding - after a decade under cover - and enter areas of the city.
The MQM is mainly a party of Muslim Urdu-speaking people whose families moved to Sindh province at the time of the partition of India in 1947.
The MQM(H) broke away from the MQM in 1991, and since then the two have had a history of mutual violence and armed hostilities.
'Armed terrorists' The top leaders of MQM(H) were jailed in 2002-03 on various charges, and the bulk of its activists went into hiding, fearing persecution by members of the MQM who were then in power.

 

A ban on pillion riding has been introduced to reduce drive-by shootings

The MQM is still a part of the ruling coalition both at the centre and in Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital.
The failure of the prosecution to obtain a conviction against Afaq Ahmad, the top leader of the MQM(H), prompted his party activists to return to their areas of the city.
Witnesses told BBC Urdu service that violence had erupted in the eastern district of Malir on Saturday when some MQM(H) activists tried to enter the area. The activists were among those who had been in hiding for nearly 10 years after their leaders were jailed on various charges.
A spokeswoman of MQM(H), Rida Fatima, told the media on Sunday that at least four party activists had been killed when they returned to their homes on Saturday.
She said that the houses of three MQM(H) activists were also burnt down.
Body count Meanwhile, the London-based chief of MQM, Altaf Hussain, in a statement on Sunday blamed "armed terrorists" and "criminal elements" for causing a "bloodbath" in some areas.

 

There is additional security across Karachi

Police and paramilitary rangers have been put on 24-hour patrol duty in some tense areas of Karachi, where weapons were recovered and arrests made, police official Naim Baroka told the media.
Meanwhile the administration has banned pillion riding on motorbikes to reduce the number of drive-by shootings.
The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hosain in Karachi says that there is a tit-for-tat element to the violence, which is why the body count continues to mount.
Most of the victims killed so far are political activists.
Our correspondent says that the violence has descended into street battles between armed groups in some areas.
This is especially so in Malir but also in other neighbourhoods hit by drive-by shootings of political workers.
The authorities have now deployed additional security patrols in addition to snap checkpoints on all major roads.
Political leaders have appealed for calm, with the the central government announcing on Monday that it was working on a new strategy to bring peace.
Our correspondent says that similar efforts in the past have failed to end the killings.

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Afghan children injured by UK Apache helicopter attack

Five Afghan children were injured in a strike carried out by a British Apache attack helicopter, the Ministry of Defence has said.

They were working in a field in the Nahr-e-Saraj area of Helmand Province on Saturday as UK forces targeted an insurgent riding a motorcycle nearby.
They were taken to Camp Bastion, the main British base in Helmand, for treatment.
Their injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.
The Nato-led military coalition in Afghanistan, known as the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), has prioritised the reduction of civilian casualties.
An MoD spokeswoman said: "Any incident involving civilian casualties is a matter of deep regret and we take every possible measure to avoid such incidents.
"A shooting incident review is now under way and UK officials in Afghanistan are keeping the provincial governor abreast of the results of the investigation."
Civilian deaths The Apache is understood to have fired at the insurgent with its machine gun.
Isaf said in a statement: "Isaf is currently assessing this event, and more details will be released as they become available. Coalition forces take every allegation of civilian casualties seriously."
According to a recent United Nations report, the first six months of 2011 were the deadliest for civilians in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.
The country saw 1,462 civilian deaths in January to June, a 15% increase on the same period last year. Most of the deaths were caused by roadside bombs and anti-government forces such as the Taliban.
While the total number of people killed by pro-government action fell by 9%, more people died in Nato air strikes, leaving 79 Afghans dead in the period in question.
More than half of those deaths have been attributed to the use of Apache ground attack helicopters.

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Oxfam concern over Pakistan flood recovery,"By Mike Wooldridge

Aid agency Oxfam has said that a year after the worst floods in Pakistan's history, the country is still not sufficiently prepared to cope with flooding and other natural disasters.

More than 1,750 people are thought to have been killed and 20 million people affected by last year's floods.
An Oxfam report expresses concern about the pace of reconstruction.
It says more than 8,000 families are still without permanent shelter as another monsoon season approaches.
The aid agency also says many people who missed the chance to plant or harvest crops are struggling to sustain themselves with little work available and rising food prices.
Oxfam acknowledges that the floods would have challenged any government and that as a result of the aid operations thousands of lives were saved.
With much of the country still not covered by early warning systems and many flood defences destroyed in last year's disaster not yet properly repaired, Pakistan is not sufficiently prepared to cope as it now faces another monsoon season, the aid agency says.

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Indian MP Amar Singh questioned over 'vote buying'

Indian police are questioning an MP in connection with the alleged buying of votes during a 2008 vote of confidence.

Amar Singh is accused of offering to bribe opposition MPs to abstain from the vote. He denies the allegation.
India's Congress party-led government survived the vote over a controversial civilian nuclear deal with the US.
If the vote had been lost, India would have faced early elections. The government has been beset by corruption scandals in recent months.
Earlier this week, Delhi police arrested two people in connection with what has come to be knows as the "cash-for-votes" scandal.
Mr Singh's former aide Sanjeev Saxena was arrested on Sunday, while Sohail Hindustani, a political activist, was held on Wednesday.
Mr Singh is a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament.
In 2008 he was the general secretary of the Samajwadi Party, which supported the government, and he is accused of offering money to win over three members of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during the vote of confidence.
He has consistently denied the charge.
Earlier this month, India's Supreme Court criticised the Delhi police for carrying out a "shoddy probe" into the scandal.
In July 2008 two days of parliamentary debate on the nuclear accord ended in uproar with allegations of vote buying.
BJP members waved wads of currency notes in the air, alleging that they had been offered bribes to abstain.
India's media was awash with reports of alleged defections and desertions among MPs ahead of the vote.
The opposition claimed that a news channel had secretly recorded the alleged bribe taking. The channel handed over the tapes to parliament Speaker Somnath Chatterjee for investigation.

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India Islamic school in Deoband sacks reformist leader

India's best-known Islamic seminary has sacked its reformist leader just months after he took over for praising a Hindu nationalist politician.

Darul Uloom Deoband's vice-chancellor Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi had been criticised for praising Bharatiya Janata Party politician Narendra Modi.
Mr Modi is the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat.
He is widely blamed for doing nothing to stop the 2002 riots in which more than 1,000 Muslims were killed.
Mr Vastanvi had pledged to update the seminary's curriculum and modernise the institution when he took over in January.
His praise for Mr Modi's development policies earned him the ire of conservatives and led to protests.
"Maulana Vastanvi has been removed from the post of vice-chancellor by Majlis-e-Shoora (governing council) of the seminary," Press Trust of India quoted Maulana Abdul Qasim Nomani, the new vice-chancellor, as saying.
Mr Vastanvi said he was a victim of a conspiracy.
Correspondents say Darul Uloom Deoband is one of the most respected Islamic theological schools in the region.

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India announces environment regulator

India will set up an environment regulator to bring in a "complete change" in the process of granting clearances for industries.

PM Manmohan Singh said the regulator would also ensure the compliance of "green norms" by industry.
India's environment ministry has been often embroiled in controversy over how to balance development with the preservation of the environment.
This has led to the delay of a number of projects across the country.
Announcing the setting up of the independent National Environment Appraisal and Monitoring Authority, Mr Singh said it will "lead to a complete change in the process of granting environmental clearances".
Correspondents say Mr Singh's move follows the stalling of several industrial and mining projects after the environment ministry refused to clear them.
Mr Singh said that economic growth should accommodate environmental concerns.
"There is now a general agreement that environment cannot be protected by perpetuating the poverty of developing countries...
"But it is no longer acceptable to take it as given that a certain degree of environmental degradation and over-exploitation of natural resources in the cause of promoting growth is inevitable," Mr Singh told a seminar in Delhi on Sunday.
There have been a number of controversies over environmental clearances of some big projects in India in recent months.
In May the environment ministry cleared the South Korean company Posco's plan to build a steel plant in the eastern state of Orissa after a government panel earlier said the plant's environmental clearances should be scrapped.
The $12bn plant is India's single biggest foreign investment and has faced stiff opposition from the local people, campaigning to save farmland and forests.
And in January the ministry declared a privately built hill resort town in Maharashtra state illegal.
On the other hand, some recent decisions of the ministry have been criticised by environmentalists - they include the go-ahead to a new Mumbai (Bombay) airport and a nuclear power station in Maharashtra.

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Tamil party wins elections in Sri Lanka's ex-war zone

Sri Lanka's biggest Tamil party has won local elections in the island's former war zone in the north and east.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) took 18 out of 26 councils in what is being seen as a rare electoral setback for the government of President Rajapaksa.
His Sinhalese-dominated coalition won in all other areas being contested.
The TNA was in effect a proxy of the Tamil Tigers, who troops defeated in May 2009, but it now seeks greater devolution for Sri Lanka's provinces.
The BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo says the results indicate that ethnic polarisation is still an issue in the country.
'Scare tactics' Elections were held in a patchwork of councils around Sri Lanka, including the mainly Tamil north and the more ethnically mixed east.
The TNA - which projects itself as the main representative of the northern and eastern Tamils - has become more moderate since the end of the war and now accepts that Sri Lanka will remain united with no place for separatism.
But it wants more powers devolved than President Rajapaksa will agree to and the party's talks with him on political reforms have so far yielded nothing.
Outside the north and east every contested council was taken by the governing coalition.
The government lavished the north with ministers, money and posters during the campaign - it wanted to do well there to ward off international pressure on human rights, our correspondent says.
Civil society groups and Tamil politicians accused the government of using scare tactics and threats during the campaign.
The government denied it and the election commissioner said the actual voting day was largely peaceful.

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Sri Lanka holds local elections in northern ex-war zone" By Charles Haviland

Voting has closed in local elections in parts of Sri Lanka, including much of the previously war-affected north.

There were disturbing breaches of electoral rules in one part of the north, and an election-related death elsewhere, monitoring groups said.
But the election commissioner said that overall the polling went well.
The government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has not been popular in the north and both it and the biggest Tamil party have much at stake in the vote.
New election commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya told the BBC he was very sad that a man had been killed in apparent violence within the governing party in central Sri Lanka.
But he said that in most other places, including the mainly Tamil north, the situation was overwhelmingly calm, with turnout a little higher than in last year's general elections.
'Disturbing' The main violations in the north were reported from Kilinochchi, once the Tamil Tiger headquarters, and a place whose population has only recently returned home from displaced people's camps.
Civil society groups said thousands of voting cards had been confiscated and voters threatened with violence.
But Mr Deshapriya said that in response the authorities held a mobile loudspeaker campaign urging people to come out and vote even without cards.
The confiscations had been "well organised" and very disturbing, Rajith Tennakoon, of the Campaign for Free and Fair Elections, told the BBC.
He also said far too little transport had been provided for voters to get to polling stations. But he said that in other parts of the north - Jaffna and especially Mullaitivu, close to where the war's endgame took place - the situation was "really peaceful".

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India's BJP 'put pressure on anti-corruption judge'

India's main opposition BJP wanted the Karnataka chief minister's name dropped as a key suspect in a report on illegal mining, a former judge told the BBC.

Judge Santosh Hegde, the state's anti-corruption chief, said he refused to bow to pressure from Dhananjay Kumar, a former BJP cabinet minister.
Mr Kumar admits meeting Justice Hegde, but denies asking him to omit BJP Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa's name.
Mr Yeddyurappa denies profiting from illegal mining.
"So far they have not submitted the report," he told India's Times Now channel in Mauritius, where he is on holiday. "So many things may be media speculation."
Justice Hegde says the alleged mining scam cost the state $400m (£250m).
He says other members of the state's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, as well as politicians from the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) parties also profited from illegal mining.
Illegal mining has allegedly been rife for years in Karnataka. It produces about 45 million tonnes of iron ore a year and exports more than half of it to China.
'Laughed'
"Dhananjay Kumar came to my house and asked me not to name the chief minister in the report," Justice Hegde told the BBC Hindi service.
"I laughed. I said no pressure would work on me."
Mr Kumar admitted that he and other party leaders had met the judge, but said that at no point did he try to raise the issue of illegal mining. He challenged the judge to prove his allegation.
Meanwhile, Karnataka Governor HR Bharadwaj has vowed to take action on the report, which is due to be submitted in the next few days. Parts of the report were leaked this week.
"Justice Hegde is a competent man. Whatever he recommends, I will go according to it," Mr Bharadwaj told reporters.
The BJP, too, is waiting for the report to be submitted before it decides its course of action. Its embattled chief minister is also facing charges of corruption and nepotism in land deals and is being investigated separately by the courts.
Correspondents say the BJP appears reluctant to act against Mr Yeddyurappa, who is from the influential Lingayat community. His departure from his post could bring down the party's only government in southern India.
The affair is highly embarrassing for the BJP after months on the offensive against India's governing Congress party, which itself is embroiled in a series of damaging corruption scandals.

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Indian army officers killed in Siachen fire

Two Indian army officers burned to death when their shelter caught fire in the disputed Siachen glacier area of the Himalayas, the army told the BBC.

Two soldiers were injured when they tried to rescue the officers on Thursday night, an army spokesman said.
An inquiry has been ordered into how the fire started, he added.
Siachen borders the Pakistani- and Indian-administered portions of disputed Kashmir and is regarded as the world's highest battlefield.
India believes that the glacier is of vital, strategic and diplomatic value.
The two countries agreed a ceasefire deal over the Siachen glacier in 2003 but thousands of troops are deployed in the region.

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Two Britons arrested in Afghanistan

Two Britons have been arrested in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence has said.

The MoD said a male and a female had been detained in a joint operation between local forces and UK troops.
Some reports say they were arrested in Helmand province, but an Afghan source told the BBC they were arrested at a hotel in Herat.
The Britons are currently being held in a secure facility in Kandahar for questioning.
Nato forces in Afghanistan usually hold suspects for up to 96 hours before they are freed or sent to local authorities.
However, this can be extended in certain cases.
BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said: "The two Britons picked up in Herat in recent days are believed to have gone to Afghanistan from the UK.
"They may have been under suspicion here and it's thought they had gone out to Afghanistan probably to make contacts."
He said they may have met people, potentially militants, with a view towards training and then carrying out some kind of attack back in the UK - but that is not certain.
And the BBC's Bilal Sarwary, in Kabul, quoted an Afghan intelligence official in Herat as saying: "Our agents played a key role in the arrests. Both were staying at a local hotel in the city."
The source added that the pair had dual citizenship but were not Afghans.
Stern test In a statement, the MoD said: "We can confirm that two British passport holders were detained in an ISAF operation conducted jointly last week by UK forces with Afghans in support.
"Detention operations are a vital element of protecting UK, ISAF and Afghan forces and Afghan civilians from those who are assessed to pose a threat regardless of their nationality.
"All detention operations in Afghanistan carried out under the remit of the UN mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which includes those conducted by British Forces, are conducted in accordance with international law and strict policy frameworks.
"No further information will be released at this stage."
The Foreign Office said embassy staff were "providing assistance".
Meanwhile, Herat was handed from Nato to Afghan control on Thursday. There was not thought to be any link between this planned event and the arrests.
It comes a day after responsibility for security in Lashkar Gah, the capital of volatile Helmand province, was handed to Afghan forces.
In recent days Nato handed over the relatively peaceful province of Bamiyan and the eastern town of Mehtar Lam.
But analysts say that maintaining stability in Lashkar Gah will be the sternest test yet for local forces.
The handover is seen as a critical step in a transition of power before foreign troops end combat operations in 2014.

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World Health Organization calls for TB blood test ban" By Matt McGrath

Blood tests designed to detect active TB are inaccurate and should be banned, the World Health Organization has said.

More than two million such tests are carried out annually, but the WHO says they are unethical and lead to misdiagnosis and the mistreatment of patients.
The organisation's review of these tuberculosis test kits says they give wrong results in around 50% of cases.
The kits are mainly sold in the developing world.
However, most of the 18 kits on the market are produced in Europe and North America.
According to Dr Mario Raviglone, the director of the WHO Stop TB Department, the tests must be banned.
He said: "A blood test for diagnosing active TB disease is bad practice. Tests are inconsistent, imprecise and put patients' lives in danger."
The tests work by detecting antibodies or antigens in the blood that are produced in response to the bacterium.
But some of these commercial tests have what's called "low sensitivity" which leads to large numbers of patients being told they do not have TB when they do.
'Unethical' Dr Karen Weyer, who is also from the WHO Stop TB department, added: "The evidence we reviewed over the past couple of months shows that one in two patients will be wrongly diagnosed, either [as] false negative or false positive.
"If it's a false negative patients get the all clear when they in fact have TB, the disease continues to spread, and the patients may die.

"If, on the other hand, it's false positive, patients are put on treatments unnecessarily while the true cause of their disease remains undiagnosed."

"We would describe this as unethical - and we are making a very strong urge to governments to consider that TB is a threat and the use of these ineffective tests is also a threat."
The WHO says that the tests which are manufactured in Europe and North America are prevented from going on sale where they are made due to regulations that call for extensive evidence of accuracy.
But this is not the case in the developing world - including in India and China.
Dr Weyer added: "One of the major problems is that these developing countries often have little or very weak regulatory mechanisms to make sure that tests are registered before they are used at country level.
"Another problem is that these tests are often used in the private sector, which is a difficult sector to regulate and as a result there is a wide misuse, I would say, of these inaccurate tests in the private sector in at least 17 countries that we are aware of."
She said there was a need for a TB test that could be used "at the bedside". But she added: "We don't have a blood test for TB that can be used at the point of care level."
The WHO says this call for a ban is a highly unusual move - It's the first time the organisation has issued an explicitly negative policy recommendation against a practice that is widely used in tuberculosis care.
TB kills 1.7m people every year, and is the biggest cause of death of people living with HIV.

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Nepal landslides kill Dutch trekker and 11 others

A Dutch trekker has been killed by a landslide in Nepal.

Another trekker and their guide were injured in the landslide in Langtang region north-west of Kathmandu.
The Dutchman is the 12th person to die this week in a series of landslides in the mountainous nation, officials say.
In one incident, a girl of 17 was killed when her home was buried in debris outside the capital, AFP news agency reported. Heavy monsoon rains trigger landslides every year in Nepal.
Analysts say the number of casualties has risen notably this year, and that the increase in landslides may be linked to changing weather patterns and deforestation.

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Bomb kills oilmen in Pakistani province of Balochistan

A bomb attack in Pakistan's Balochistan province has killed at least two oil workers and injured seven, medics say.

Police say the oil workers' convoy was attacked near the town of Jafarabad in the south-east of the province.
"It was a remote-controlled device which hit the oil and gas officials' vehicle," senior police official Mohammed Tariq told AFP news agency.
No group has claimed in the attack. Separatist rebels fighting for autonomy have been behind previous attacks.
They want a greater share of profits from Balochistan's vast natural resources.
Taliban militants are also active in the province, which borders Afghanistan.
Officials at a hospital in Jafarabad where the dead and injured were taken say four of the injured are in a critical state.
"We received two dead bodies and seven injured from the blast site," Siddiq Ahmed, a doctor there, told AFP by telephone.
Police say they believe the bomb was attached to a motorbike parked by the roadside near Jafarabad, about 40km (30 miles) east of the city of Jacobabad.
Pakistan's state-run Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDCL) manages several oil and gas fields in the mineral-rich area, and operates under heavy security.

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Ministers 'stole millions in Karnataka mining scam'

Karnataka's Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa was involved in an illegal mining scam that cost the southern Indian state $400m (£250m), according to an anti-corruption ombudsman.

Retired judge Santosh Hegde said he had evidence of a "huge racket" involving members of the state's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
Members of the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) parties are also accused.
Mr Yeddyurappa has previously called the allegations against him baseless.
The chief minister, who led the BJP to power for the first time in Karnataka in 2008, is holidaying in Mauritius and has not commented on the report.
His party leaders said they would react after it was submitted to the government. That is due to happen by Monday.
Opposition parties have called for Mr Yeddyurappa's resignation.
'Plunder' Justice Hegde confirmed the report's contents after it was leaked.
He said he had "substantive" evidence that Mr Yeddyurappa had been involved in the alleged mining scam in mineral-rich Bellary district between March 2009 to May 2010.
"The report is based on corroborative evidence," said Justice Hegde, a former Supreme Court judge who has won acclaim for fighting corruption during his five-year term which ends on 4 August.
Justice Hegde has denied that the leak was from his office and alleges his phone was tapped.
Correspondents say illegal mining of iron ore has been rampant in Karnataka which produces about 45 million tonnes of iron ore a year and exports more than half of it to China.
"There has been a systematic plundering of ore with active support of politicians. Illegal mining has thrived only because of a lack of political will," a senior police officer associated with the investigation told the BBC.
The report accuses Mr Yeddyurappa of benefiting through overvalued land sales to mining companies and kickbacks routed through trusts his relatives have a stake in.
Last year he said that many ministers in previous governments had been involved in promoting illegal iron ore mining in Karnataka and he promised to expose them.
"I am not the one to keep quiet when baseless allegations are hurled against me," Mr Yeddyurappa said.
Correspondents say the contents of Justice Hegde's report are a serious setback for the BJP. Karnataka is the only southern state the party governs.
The BJP has been on the offensive against India's governing Congress party, which has been embroiled for months in a series of damaging corruption scandals.

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Pakistan accuses US of slander over 'agent' arrest

Pakistan has accused the US of slander against Islamabad over the arrest of a Kashmiri-born man accused of acting as a Pakistani agent in Washington.

Ghulam Nabi Fai, a 62-year-old American citizen, is accused of working in Washington for a Pakistani spy agency to lobby for Kashmiri independence.
Mr Fai was arrested on Tuesday and charged with failing to register as a foreign government agent.
Meanwhile, Congress rejected a proposal on Thursday to cut off aid to Pakistan.
Mr Fai and a second man, Zaheer Ahmad, a 63-year-old US citizen and resident of Pakistan, were both charged in the case. Mr Ahmad is believed to be in Pakistan.
The pair are suspected of having connections to an effort by the Pakistani government that allegedly funnelled millions of dollars through a front group, the Kashmiri American Council, to Washington to lobby US politicians on behalf of Kashmir.
The US has said the group contributed money to US election campaigns, helped fund conferences and other efforts, including meetings with White House and state department officials.
The US justice department said Mr Fai - who denies the charges - and Mr Ahmad would face five years in prison if found guilty.

 

Shabir Shah A senior separatist in Kashmir

India and Pakistan have fought two wars over the territory of Kashmir, which was split in two in 1947 and has been claimed by both nations.

Analysts say Mr Fai's arrest is likely to worsen already strained relations between Washington and Islamabad.
The killing in Pakistan of Osama Bin Laden by US forces in May angered many in Pakistan, and left US officials questioning whether Pakistani intelligence had known about the al-Qaeda leader's whereabouts.
'Slander campaign' The allegations against Mr Fai focused primarily on his work with the Kashmiri American Council, a Washington-based group that is suspected of being run by Pakistan's military intelligence service.
Mr Fai's arrest and the allegations against the Pakistani government sparked an angry response from Islamabad.
"A demarche was made to the US embassy in Islamabad today to register our concerns, in particular the slander campaign against Pakistan," the ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement.
But FBI Assistant Director in Charge James McKunkin said foreign nations attempting to "influence the United States by unregistered agents threaten our national security".
The FBI has already accused the government of Pakistan of paying Mr Fai between $500,000 (£306,712) and $700,000 a year.
Officially, the Kashmiri American Council had a much smaller budget and it said that it received no foreign grants.
Kashmiri separatists condemned Mr Fai's arrest on Thursday, calling it a conspiracy.
Shabir Shah, a senior separatist in Kashmir, told AFP news agency: "We strongly condemn his arrest. It is aimed at suppressing the voices who call for Kashmir's freedom from India."
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee blocked an amendment to a spending bill that would have banned any assistance to Pakistan.
The measure was introduced by Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher, who said aid to Pakistan was "foolishness" at a time when the US is trying to avoid defaulting on its financial obligations.

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