Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

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Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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White House Says It Has No New Fiscal Cliff Plan

The White House said today it has no plans to offer new proposals to avoid the fiscal cliff which looms over the country's economy just five days from now, but will meet Friday with Congressional leaders in a last ditch effort to forge a deal.

Republicans and Democrats made no conciliatory gestures in public today, despite the urgency.

The White House said President Obama would meet Friday with Democratic and Republican leaders. But a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said the Republican "will continue to stress that the House has already passed legislation to avert the entire fiscal cliff and now the Senate must act."

The White House announced the meeting after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called the budget situation "a mess" and urged the president to present a fresh proposal.

"I told the president I would be happy to look at whatever he proposes, but the truth is we're coming up against a hard deadline here, and as I said, this is a conversation we should have had months ago," McConnell said of his phone call with Obama Wednesday night.

McConnell added, "Republicans aren't about to write a blank check for anything Senate Democrats put forward just because we find ourselves at the edge of the cliff."

"That having been said, we'll see what the president has to propose," the Republican Senate leader said.

But a senior White House official told ABC News, "There is no White House bill."

That statement, however, may have wiggle room. Earlier today White House spokesman Jay Carney said, "I don't have any meetings to announce," but a short time later, Friday's meeting was made public.

It's unclear if the two sides are playing a game of political chicken or whether the administration is braced for the fiscal cliff.

Earlier today, fiscal cliff, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lashed out at Republicans in a scathing speech that targeted House Republicans and particularly Boehner.

Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

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Reid, D-Nev., spoke on the floor of the Senate as the president returned to Washington early from an Hawaiian vacation in what appears to be a dwindling hope for a deal.

The House of Representatives will meet for legislative business Sunday evening, leaving the door cracked open ever so slightly to the possibility of a last-minute agreement.

But on a conference call with Republican House members Thursday afternoon, Boehner kept to the Republican hard line that if the Senate wants a deal it should amend bills already passed by the House.

That was the exact opposite of what Reid said in the morning, that Republicans should accept a bill passed by Democratic led Senate.

Related: What the average American should know about capital gains and the fiscal cliff.

"We are here in Washington working while the members of the House of Representatives are out watching movies and watching their kids play soccer and basketball and doing all kinds of things. They should be here," Reid said. "I can't imagine their consciences."

House Republicans have balked at a White House deal to raise taxes on couples earning more than $250,000 and even rejected Boehner's proposal that would limit the tax increases to people earning more than $1 million.

"It's obvious what's going on," Reid said while referring to Boehner. "He's waiting until Jan. 3 to get reelected to speaker because he has so many people over there that won't follow what he wants. John Boehner seems to care more about keeping his speakership than keeping the nation on a firm financial footing."

Related: Starbucks enters fiscal cliff fray.

Reid said the House is "being operated with a dictatorship of the speaker" and suggested today that the Republicans should agree to accept the original Senate bill pass in July. Reid's comments, however, made it clear he did not expect that to happen.

"It looks like" the nation will go over the fiscal cliff in just five days, he declared.

"It's not too late for the speaker to take up the Senate-passed bill, but that time is even winding down," Reid said. "So I say to the speaker, take the escape hatch that we've left you. Put the economic fate of the nation ahead of your own fate as Speaker of the House."

Boehner's spokesman Michael Steel reacted to Reid's tirade in an email, writing, "Senator Reid should talk less and legislate more. The House has already passed legislation to avoid the entire fiscal cliff. Senate Democrats have not."

Boehner has said it is now up to the Senate to come up with a deal.

Obama, who landed in Washington late this morning, made a round of calls over the last 24 hours to Reid, Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Related: Obama pushes fiscal cliff resolution.

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Peace envoy Brahimi, Syria diplomats in Moscow talks

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will host Syria peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi this week after Syrian officials held talks in Moscow on Thursday as part of a diplomatic drive to try to agree a plan to end the 21-month-old conflict, Russia's foreign ministry said.

Talks have moved to Moscow, a long-time Syria ally, after a flurry of meetings Brahimi held in Damascus this week, but the international envoy has disclosed little about his negotiations.

Brahimi, who saw Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday and is planning to hold a series of meetings with Syrian officials and dissidents this week, is trying to broker a peaceful transfer of power.

More than 44,000 Syrians have been killed in a revolt against four decades of Assad family rule, a conflict that began with peaceful protests in March last year, but which has descended into civil war.

However, past peace efforts have floundered, with world powers divided over what has become an increasingly sectarian struggle between mostly Sunni Muslim rebels and Assad's security forces, drawn primarily from his Shi'ite-rooted Alawite minority.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Makdad and an aide held talks at Russia's Foreign Ministry for less than two hours on Thursday, but declined to disclose any details of their visit.

A Russian Foreign Ministry source had said earlier that they would meet Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Mikhail Bogdanov, the Kremlin's envoy for Middle East affairs.

Syrian and Lebanese sources said Makdad had been sent to Moscow to discuss the details of a peace plan proposed by Brahimi.

Foreign Ministry spokesman, Alexander Lukashevich, played down the idea that a specific plan was on the table in Moscow talks, at least none agreed by Moscow and Washington.

"We plan to discuss a range of issues linked to a political and diplomatic settlement in Syria, including Brahimi's efforts aimed at ending the violence and the launch of a comprehensive national dialogue," Lukashevich told reporters.

'TRYING TO FEEL A WAY OUT'

Asked about rumors of a Russian-American plan to resolve the conflict, he said: "There has not been and is no such plan."

"In our talks with Mr. Brahimi and with our American colleagues, we are trying to feel a way out of this situation on the basis of our common plan of action that was agreed in Geneva in June."

World powers believe Russia, which has given Assad military and diplomatic aid to help him weather the uprising, has the ear of the Syrian government and must be a key player in peace talks.

Moscow has tried to distance itself from Assad in recent months and has said it is not propping him up, but Lukashevich reiterated its stance that Assad's exit from power could not be a precondition for negotiations.

Setting such a condition, he said, would violate the terms of an agreement reached by world powers in Geneva on June 30 that called for a transitional government in Syria.

"The biggest disagreement ... is that one side thinks Assad should leave at the start of the process - that is the U.S. position, and the other thinks his departure should be a result of the process - that would be the Russian position," Dmitry Trenin, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center, told Reuters.

But Trenin said battlefield gains made by the Syrian rebels were narrowing the gap between Moscow and Washington.

On Saturday, Lavrov said Syria's civil war had reached a stalemate, saying international efforts to get Assad to quit would fail. Bogdanov had earlier acknowledged that Syrian rebels might win.

Lavrov has said this month that Russia had no intention of offering Assad asylum and would not act as messenger for other nations seeking his exit. He has also said Russia lacks the sway to persuade him to step down.

(Additional reporting by Nastassia Astrasheuskaya; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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India president's son apologises for rape demo remarks

NEW DELHI: The Indian president's son landed himself in hot water with his own family on Thursday for denigrating women who took part in mass protests over a gang-rape as being middle-aged and caked in makeup.

Abhijit Mukherjee, who is also a member of parliament, came in for widespread condemnation after he said that many of those who have taken part in the nationwide protests were "dented and painted" women rather than students.

"These pretty women, dented and painted... have no contact with ground reality," Mukherjee told a regional news channel.

The phrase "dented and painted" is used by mechanics who mask the bruised bodywork and rust on second-hand vehicles with liberal coatings of paint.

Among the most vocal critics was his own sister Sharmishtha, who described his comments as "a bit of a shocker" and said her father, President Pranab Mukherjee, also disapproved.

"It is definitely something that we as a family definitely don't agree with," she told the NDTV network.

"It's not just one protest, it's accumulated rage over the way women are being treated, raped, molested... my father is absolutely with me on this."

The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party said Mukherjee junior's remarks were particularly ill-timed as the 23-year-old victim of the December 16 attack fights for her life in hospital in Singapore.

"I think this is exactly the kind of mindset that the youth is fighting against," said Smriti Irani, head of the BJP's women's wing.

Mukherjee later issued an apology.

"My intention was not to hurt anyone," he told NDTV. "I apologise to all those people whose sentiment got hurt by these sentences and these sentences are withdrawn."

- AFP/xq

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Maoists trigger landmine blast in Odisha

BHUBANESWAR: A member of the special operation group (SOG) was hurt when a landmine planted by Maoists exploded on Thursday in a forest in Odisha's Rayagada district, police said.

The landmine exploded as a group of the elite anti-Maoist force was walking in the forest in Kalyansinghpur area as part of routine combing operations, district Superintendent of Police Rajesh Pandit told IANS.

"It was a low intensity blast. One SOG jawan sustained minor injuries," he said.

Maoists are active in more than half the state's 30 districts. Rayagada district, about 400 km from here, is considered one of their strongholds.

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Predicting who's at risk for violence isn't easy

CHICAGO (AP) — It happened after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colo., and now Sandy Hook: People figure there surely were signs of impending violence. But experts say predicting who will be the next mass shooter is virtually impossible — partly because as commonplace as these calamities seem, they are relatively rare crimes.

Still, a combination of risk factors in troubled kids or adults including drug use and easy access to guns can increase the likelihood of violence, experts say.

But warning signs "only become crystal clear in the aftermath, said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminology professor who has studied and written about mass killings.

"They're yellow flags. They only become red flags once the blood is spilled," he said.

Whether 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who used his mother's guns to kill her and then 20 children and six adults at their Connecticut school, made any hints about his plans isn't publicly known.

Fox said that sometimes, in the days, weeks or months preceding their crimes, mass murderers voice threats, or hints, either verbally or in writing, things like "'don't come to school tomorrow,'" or "'they're going to be sorry for mistreating me.'" Some prepare by target practicing, and plan their clothing "as well as their arsenal." (Police said Lanza went to shooting ranges with his mother in the past but not in the last six months.)

Although words might indicate a grudge, they don't necessarily mean violence will follow. And, of course, most who threaten never act, Fox said.

Even so, experts say threats of violence from troubled teens and young adults should be taken seriously and parents should attempt to get them a mental health evaluation and treatment if needed.

"In general, the police are unlikely to be able to do anything unless and until a crime has been committed," said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a Columbia University professor of psychiatry, medicine and law. "Calling the police to confront a troubled teen has often led to tragedy."

The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry says violent behavior should not be dismissed as "just a phase they're going through."

In a guidelines for families, the academy lists several risk factors for violence, including:

—Previous violent or aggressive behavior

—Being a victim of physical or sexual abuse

—Guns in the home

—Use of drugs or alcohol

—Brain damage from a head injury

Those with several of these risk factors should be evaluated by a mental health expert if they also show certain behaviors, including intense anger, frequent temper outbursts, extreme irritability or impulsiveness, the academy says. They may be more likely than others to become violent, although that doesn't mean they're at risk for the kind of violence that happened in Newtown, Conn.

Lanza, the Connecticut shooter, was socially withdrawn and awkward, and has been said to have had Asperger's disorder, a mild form of autism that has no clear connection with violence.

Autism experts and advocacy groups have complained that Asperger's is being unfairly blamed for the shootings, and say people with the disorder are much more likely to be victims of bullying and violence by others.

According to a research review published this year in Annals of General Psychiatry, most people with Asperger's who commit violent crimes have serious, often undiagnosed mental problems. That includes bipolar disorder, depression and personality disorders. It's not publicly known if Lanza had any of these, which in severe cases can include delusions and other psychotic symptoms.

Young adulthood is when psychotic illnesses typically emerge, and Appelbaum said there are several signs that a troubled teen or young adult might be heading in that direction: isolating themselves from friends and peers, spending long periods alone in their rooms, plummeting grades if they're still in school and expressing disturbing thoughts or fears that others are trying to hurt them.

Appelbaum said the most agonizing calls he gets are from parents whose children are descending into severe mental illness but who deny they are sick and refuse to go for treatment.

And in the case of adults, forcing them into treatment is difficult and dependent on laws that vary by state.

All states have laws that allow some form of court-ordered treatment, typically in a hospital for people considered a danger to themselves or others. Connecticut is among a handful with no option for court-ordered treatment in a less restrictive community setting, said Kristina Ragosta, an attorney with the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national group that advocates better access to mental health treatment.

Lanza's medical records haven't been publicly disclosed and authorities haven't said if it is known what type of treatment his family may have sought for him. Lanza killed himself at the school.

Jennifer Hoff of Mission Viejo, Calif. has a 19-year-old bipolar son who has had hallucinations, delusions and violent behavior for years. When he was younger and threatened to harm himself, she'd call 911 and leave the door unlocked for paramedics, who'd take him to a hospital for inpatient mental care.

Now that he's an adult, she said he has refused medication, left home, and authorities have indicated he can't be forced into treatment unless he harms himself — or commits a violent crime and is imprisoned. Hoff thinks prison is where he's headed — he's in jail, charged in an unarmed bank robbery.

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Online:

American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: http://www.aacap.org

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Okla. Senator Could Prevent Gun Control Changes

If there's one person most likely to keep new gun-control measures from passing Congress swiftly, it's Sen. Tom Coburn.

Conservatives revere the Oklahoma Republican for his fiscal hawkishness and regular reports on government waste. But he's also a staunch gun-rights advocate, and he's shown a willingness to obstruct even popular legislation, something in the Senate that a single member can easily accomplish.

That mixture could make Coburn the biggest threat to quick passage of new gun-control laws in the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., shooting that has prompted even pro-gun NRA-member lawmakers like Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., to endorse a new look at how access to the most powerful weapons can be limited.

Coburn's office did not respond to multiple requests to discuss the current push for gun legislation. But given his record, it's hard to imagine Coburn agreeing to a major, new proposal without some fuss.

The last time Congress considered a major gun law -- one with broad support -- Coburn held it up, proving that the details of gun control are sticky when a conservative senator raises unpopular objections, especially a senator who's joked that it's too bad he can't carry a gun on the Senate floor.

After the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, Congress heard similar pleadings for new gun limits, some of them similarly to those being heard now. When it came to light that Seung-Hui Cho, the mentally disturbed 23-year-old who opened fire on campus, passed a background check despite mental-health records indicating he was a suicide threat, a push began to include such records in determining whether a person should be able to buy a gun.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., a longtime gun-control advocate whose husband was killed in a mass shooting on the Long Island Rail Road in 1996, introduced a widely supported bill to do just that. The NRA backed her National Instant Check System Improvement Amendments Act of 2007.

But Coburn didn't. The senator blocked action on the bill, citing concerns over patient privacy, limited gun access for veterans, and the cost of updating the background-check system,

In blocking that bill, Coburn pointed to a government study noting that 140,000 veterans had been referred to the background-check registry since 1998 without their knowledge.

"I am certainly understanding of the fact that some veterans could be debilitated to the point that such cataloguing is necessary, but we should ensure this process does not entangle the vast majority of our combat veterans who simply seek to readjust to normal life at the conclusion of their tours. I am troubled by the prospect of veterans refusing necessary treatment and the benefits they are entitled to. As I'm sure you would agree we cannot allow any stigma to be associated with mental healthcare or treatment of Traumatic Brain Injury," Coburn wrote to acting Veterans Secretary Gordon Mansfield.

Coburn succeeded in changing the legislation, negotiating a set of tweaks that shaved $100 million over five years, made it easier for prohibited gun owners to restore their gun rights by petitioning the government, and notifying veterans that if they abdicated control of their finances they would be added to the gun database. The bill passed and President Bush signed it in January 2008.

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Spring Wish denied as suicide bomber brings down Afghan juice empire

KABUL (Reuters) - When a Taliban suicide bomber killed two people on the edge of the Afghan capital this month, there was another casualty - a global fruit juice business optimistically called "Spring Wish" which provided work for thousands of farmers across the country.

Mustafa Sadiq's empire had been expanding healthily, bringing in badly needed foreign capital, before the attack inflicted the kind of financial loss cash-strapped Afghanistan can ill afford.

The pomegranate juice business was nearly wiped out in the split second it took the militant to detonate explosives in a truck parked near the factory on December 17.

Pieces of shredded metal were scattered everywhere. Chairs were hurled across the office where Sadiq had spent so much time figuring out how to beat the odds against decades of war, instability and hopelessness.

Sadiq was in Dubai drumming up new export deals when an assistant called with the bad news. The call that Sadiq said he did not get is also troubling him.

"So far no officials, for the sake of sympathy, have called us," Sadiq, 40, told Reuters, standing beside a year's supply of juice in containers that were ruined in the attack - nearly $10 million in losses overall.

"In this situation they should have called me and asked what kind of help they could provide. The agriculture, finance, commerce ministries. Nobody so far has visited or called."

The impact of the war, and expectations for the future, are often seen only through the eyes of Western or Afghan soldiers, or officials who point to the progress that has been made.

Sadiq offers another perspective. Some workers told him the bomber triggered the loudest blast they had heard in 30 years.

A Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was followed by a decade of resistance by mujahideen fighters who drove them out. Then warlords carved out fiefdoms and destroyed half of the capital in the civil war that followed.

DIRTY POLITICS

The Taliban took over, were toppled in 2001 and are now raising fears they may return when U.S.-led NATO troops hand over security to Afghan forces in 2014.

But Sadiq does not see the Taliban as the biggest threat to Afghanistan's future. Instead, he says, officials have turned politics into a commercial enterprise driven by corruption.

"Government employees think it's time to fill their pockets and grab whatever they can. That will pave the way for civil war," said Sadiq, as workers feverishly loaded boxes of the little fruit juice left onto a truck, and others worked to rebuild a brick wall.

"You have to struggle, not run away. It is kind of like running away now. They have walls around themselves sitting there and they do not have contact with ordinary Afghans."

His disillusionment is shared by the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries.

"There is no guarantee for investment in Afghanistan. People are afraid of the government, there is no rule of law. Government officials can do anything they want," the chamber's first vice-chairman, Jan Alokzai, told Reuters.

"President (Hamid) Karzai's words are only on paper and don't have any value."

Afghanistan's U.S.-backed government says it is committed to building up the economy, attracting foreign investment and helping Afghans secure a brighter future. Karzai says it is contracts with foreigners that spread graft.

WISHFUL THINKING?

The government has highlighted 2014 as a year to invest in Afghanistan, which relies heavily on foreign aid, and to take advantage of its cheap labor and land leases.

In each of the 10 years following 2014, the government hopes revenues from oil, natural gas, iron, copper and other mining ventures will generate $4 billion in revenue.

Sadiq spent time in Europe, waiting for an opportunity to return and invest in his homeland. He eventually opened a factory in an industrial park along Kabul's dusty Jalalabad Road in 2008, from where he broke into overseas markets.

Spring Wish, which employed about 1,000 people, was selling produce to the health conscious in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, bringing money into Afghanistan, while anxious Afghans carted $4.5 billion in cash out of the country last year to safety.

But when asked about the maps on a wall identifying parts of Afghanistan which offer opportunities for farmers and businesses like his, Sadiq could only put his head in his hands and cry.

The dark red seeds from Sadiq's fruits were prized in Europe for their antioxidant qualities, and in Japan where many believe they can help fight cancers. He seems most proud of the fact that he helped 40,000 farmers across Afghanistan earn a living.

As Sadiq tries to persuade his staff to keep dreaming big and to rebuild, one question may haunt him for some time. The suicide bomber parked his truck in a lane between his company and a foreign firm.

The Taliban said it attacked an American company next door, but he still wonders whether his factory, which relied on Italian machinery and benefited from U.S. aid programs, was the target. And he acknowledges he is desperate for money from Western donors.

"Around 120 people were working here and this factory was totally destroyed in the suicide attack," said Mohammed Jaw, 28, a general operator for the company. "A number of our workers will lose their jobs and now everyone is concerned about what happens next."

Despite the loss, Sadiq's entrepreneurial and marketing spirit seems intact.

"Have you tried the juice with mulberry flavor?" he asked proudly. "It's really good."

Then a worker brought the moment back to reality. He lifted his cellphone to show a photograph of the suicide bomber's severed head.

(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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London transport strike fails to deter bargain hunters

LONDON: Strike action heavily disrupted London's Underground train network on Wednesday, as hundreds of thousands of bargain hunters headed to the shops for the traditional Boxing Day sales.

All 13 of the Tube lines were running a reduced service after just a third of drivers turned up for work in a dispute between the Aslef union and the network operators over payments for working on national holidays.

Howard Collins, London Underground's chief operating officer, said: "This strike action is completely unnecessary.

"Train drivers are paid a salary that reflects some bank holiday working, but the Aslef leadership is demanding to be paid twice for the same work and has rejected our attempts to resolve the matter."

Despite the transport problems, shoppers formed long queues from the early hours of the morning outside London's top department stores including Harrods and Selfridges.

Many of the bargain hunters were Chinese, with Harrods creating a separate queue outside its store in the upmarket district of Knightsbridge for those looking for reductions on designer goods such as Gucci.

Sue West, director of operations at Selfridges, said handbags and menswear were particularly popular items in the sale at its flagship branch on London's main shopping thoroughfare of Oxford Street.

She said: "Of the people queuing to get inside 60 percent or 70 percent were men. It's a great day for men's shopping. It's a tradition and people want to experience it.

"Online sales for us have been great but year on year people still want to experience the Boxing Day sales."

British retailers slash prices on the day after Christmas Day, with big-ticket items such as TVs and computers carrying the biggest reductions.

The price comparison site MoneySupermarket.com estimates that shoppers in Britain will spend 2.9 billion pounds ($4.7 billion, 3.55 billion euros) in the sales.

The British Retail Consortium had described high-street spending as "acceptable but not exceptional" during the Christmas period.

- AFP/de

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Cabinet gives nod to new science policy

NEW DELHI: India is set to unveil its new science policy next week which lays greater thrust on innovation, establishing research institutes and participation in mega science projects with an aim to positioning itself among the top five scientific powers in the world by 2020.

The Union Cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, today approved the Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy-2013.

It will be released by the Prime Minister on January three at the inauguration session of the centenary edition of the Indian Science Congress in Kolkata.

"The proposed STI policy seeks to focus on both STI for people and people for STI," officials said.

The document is a revision of the 2003 policy which sought to bring science and technology together and emphasised on the need for higher investment into research and development (R&D) to address national problems.

"The (STI) policy also seeks to trigger an ecosystem for innovative abilities to flourish by leveraging partnerships among diverse stakeholders and by encouraging and facilitating enterprises to invest in innovations," the officials said.

The policy also aims at positioning India among the top five global scientific powers by 2020.

The officials said the aim of the policy is to accelerate the pace of discovery, diffusion and delivery of science-led solutions for serving the aspirational goals of India for faster, sustainable and inclusive growth.

The key features of the STI Policy, 2013 include making careers in science, research and innovation attractive and establishing world-class infrastructure for R&D for gaining global leadership in some select frontier areas of science.

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