Frist Commandant of Subsidiary Training Center Kharkan expires

AMRITSAR: The first Commandant of Subsidiary Training Center, (STC) Border Security Force (BSF) , Kharkan Hoshiarpur, Colnel (Retd.) Ajit Singh Gill expired at the age of 83, informed , BSF's Deputy Inspector General RPS Jaswal on Friday. He informed that Gill had served this STC as Commandant from May 21st 1979 to July 1st 1982 and gave his valuable services.

The present shape of STC BSF Kharkan was the vision of Colonel Gill who had been living with his family in Jahan-Khelan. He is survived by wife, a daughter and a son. Born on April 4th, 1929 Colnel (Retd.) Gill got commissioned in Madras in Madras Regiment in 1951. After and after service of 33 years in Army and BSF, he retired in 1984 from BSF.

Jaswal informed that Colonel (Retd.) Ajit Singh Gill who was the founder of the Subsidiary Training Centre, Border Security Force, Kharkan, will be remembered forever for his commendable and untiring efforts for the development of STC Kharkan.

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Food servers more vulnerable to legal threats

WASHINGTON (AP) — People with severe food allergies have a new tool in their attempt to find menus that fit their diet: federal disabilities law. And that could leave schools, restaurants and anyplace else that serves food more vulnerable to legal challenges over food sensitivities.

A settlement stemming from a lack of gluten-free foods available to students at a Massachusetts university could serve as a precedent for people with other allergies or conditions, including peanut sensitivities or diabetes. Institutions and businesses subject to the Americans With Disabilities Act could be open to lawsuits if they fail to honor requests for accommodations by people with food allergies.

Colleges and universities are especially vulnerable because they know their students and often require them to eat on campus, Eve Hill of the Justice Department's civil rights division says. But a restaurant also could be liable if it blatantly ignored a customer's request for certain foods and caused that person to become ill, though that case might be harder to argue if the customer had just walked in off the street, Hill said.

The settlement with Lesley University, reached last month but drawing little attention, will require the Cambridge, Mass., institution to serve gluten-free foods and make other accommodations for students who have celiac disease. At least one student complained to the federal government after the school would not exempt the student from a meal plan even though the student couldn't eat the food.

"All colleges should heed this settlement and take steps to make accommodations," says Alice Bast, president and founder of the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness. "To our community this is definitely a precedent."

People who suffer from celiac disease don't absorb nutrients well and can get sick from the gluten found in wheat, rye and barley. The illness, which affects around 2 million Americans, causes abdominal pain, bloating and diarrhea, and people who have it can suffer weight loss, fatigue, rashes and other problems. Celiac is a diagnosed illness that is more severe than gluten sensitivity, which some people self-diagnose.

Ten years ago, most people had never heard of celiac disease. But awareness has exploded in recent years, for reasons that aren't entirely clear. Some researchers say it was under-diagnosed, others say it's because people eat more processed wheat products like pastas and baked goods than in past decades, and those items use types of wheat that have a higher gluten content.

Gluten-free diets have expanded beyond those with celiac disease. Millions of people are buying gluten-free foods because they say they make them feel better, even if they don't have a wheat allergy. Americans were expected to spend $7 billion on gluten-free foods last year.

With so many people suddenly concerned with gluten content, colleges and universities have had to make accommodations. Some will allow students to be exempted from meal plans, while others will work with students individually. They may need to do even more now as the federal government is watching.

"These kids don't want to be isolated," Bast says. "Part of the college experience is being social. If you can't even eat in the school cafeteria then you are missing out on a big part of college life."

Under the Justice Department agreement, Lesley University says it will not only provide gluten-free options in its dining hall but also allow students to pre-order, provide a dedicated space for storage and preparation to avoid cross-contamination, train staff about food allergies and pay a $50,000 cash settlement to the affected students.

"We are not saying what the general meal plan has to serve or not," Hill says. "We are saying that when a college has a mandatory meal plan they have to be prepared to make reasonable modifications to that meal plan to accommodate students with disabilities."

The agreement says that food allergies may constitute a disability under the Americans With Disabilities Act, if they are severe enough. The definition was made possible under 2009 amendments to the disability law that allowed for episodic impairments that substantially limit activity.

"By preventing people from eating, they are really preventing them from accessing their educational program," Hill said of the school and its students.

Mary Pat Lohse, the chief of staff and senior adviser to Lesley University's president, says the school has been working with the Justice Department for more than three years to address students' complaints. She says the school has already implemented most parts of the settlement and will continue to update policies to serve students who need gluten-free foods.

"The settlement agreement provides a positive road map for other colleges and universities to follow with regard to accommodating students with food allergies and modifying existing food service plans," Lohse said.

Some say the Justice Department decision goes too far. Hans von Spakovsky, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who worked in the civil rights division of the Justice Department under President George W. Bush, says food allergies shouldn't apply under the disability act. He adds that the costs could be substantial when schools are already battling backlash from high tuition costs.

"I certainly encourage colleges and universities to work with students on this issue, but the fact that this is a federal case and the Justice Department is going to be deciding what kind of meals could be served in a dining hall is just absurd," he said.

Whether the government is involved or not, schools and other food service establishments are likely to hear from those who want more gluten-free foods. Dhanu Thiyagarajan, a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh, said she decided to speak up when she arrived at school and lost weight because there were too few gluten-free options in the cafeteria. Like Lesley University, the University of Pittsburgh requires that on-campus students participate in a meal plan.

Thiyagarajan eventually moved off campus so she could cook her own food, but not before starting an organization of students who suffer from wheat allergies like hers. She says she is now working with food service at the school and they have made a lot of progress, though not enough for her to move back on campus.

L. Scott Lissner, the disability coordinator at Ohio State University, says he has seen similar situations at his school, though people with food allergies have not traditionally thought of themselves as disabled. He says schools will eventually have to do more than just exempt students from a meal plan.

"This is an early decision on a growing wave of needs that universities are going to have to address," he said of the Lesley University agreement.

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Armstrong Admits to Doping, 'One Big Lie'

Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.

After years of denying that he had taken banned drugs and received oxygen-boosting blood transfusions, and attacking his teammates and competitors who attempted to expose him, Armstrong came clean with Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive interview, admitting to using banned substances for years.

"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times," he said. "I know the truth. The truth isn't what was out there. The truth isn't what I said.

"I'm a flawed character, as I well know," Armstrong added. "All the fault and all the blame here falls on me."

In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a report in which 11 former Armstrong teammates exposed the system with which they and Armstrong received drugs with the knowledge of their coaches and help of team physicians.

George Burns/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc./AP Photo

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The U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team "ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," USADA said in its report.

As a result of USADA's findings, Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles. Soon, longtime sponsors including Nike began to abandon him, too.

READ MORE: Did Doping Cause Armstrong's Cancer?

Armstrong said he was driven to cheat by a "ruthless desire to win."

He told Winfrey that his competition "cocktail" consisted of EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone, and that he had previously used cortisone. He would not, however, give Winfrey the details of when, where and with whom he doped during seven winning Tours de France between 1999 and 2005.

He said he stopped doping following his 2005 Tour de France victory and did not use banned substances when he placed third in 2009 and entered the tour again in 2010.

"It was a mythic perfect story and it wasn't true," Armstrong said of his fairytale story of overcoming testicular cancer to become the most celebrated cyclist in history.

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Armstrong would not name other members of his team who doped, but admitted that as the team's captain he set an example. He admitted he was "a bully" but said there "there was a never a directive" from him that his teammates had to use banned substances.

"At the time it did not feel wrong?" Winfrey asked.

"No," Armstrong said. "Scary."

"Did you feel bad about it?" she asked again.

"No," he said.

Armstrong said he thought taking the drugs was similar to filling his tires with air and bottle with water. He never thought of his actions as cheating, but "leveling the playing field" in a sport rife with doping.

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Some hostages reported to escape Sahara siege

ALGIERS/BAMAKO (Reuters) - Some hostages were reported to have escaped from a remote Algerian gas plant on Thursday, where dozens of foreigners and scores of Algerians were seized by Islamist gunmen demanding a halt to a French military campaign in neighboring Mali.

Governments around the world were holding emergency meetings to respond to one of the biggest international hostage crises in decades, which sharply raises the stakes over the week-old French campaign against al Qaeda-linked rebels in the Sahara.

Algeria's Ennahar television said 15 foreigners, including two French citizens, had escaped the besieged plant deep in the Sahara desert. About 40 Algerians had also been freed, mainly women working as translators, it said.

A security source told Reuters the captors, encircled by Algerian troops, were demanding safe passage out with their prisoners. Algeria has refused to negotiate.

A group calling itself the "Battalion of Blood" says it seized 41 foreigners, including Americans, Japanese and Europeans, after storming a natural gas pumping station and employee barracks before dawn on Wednesday.

The attackers have demanded an end to the French military campaign in Mali, where hundreds of French paratroops and marines are launching a ground offensive against rebels a week after Paris began firing on militants from the air.

Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the raid was led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran Islamist guerrilla fighter who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and had recently set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local al Qaeda leaders.

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

The hostage takers appear to have allowed some prisoners to speak to the media to put pressure on Algerian forces not to storm the compound. An unidentified hostage who spoke to France 24 television said prisoners were being forced to wear explosive belts. Their captors were heavily armed and had threatened to blow up the plant if the Algerian army tried to storm it.

"They attacked the two sites at the same time. They went inside, and once it was daylight they gathered everyone together," the man, who sounded calm, said in the only part of the phone call the French broadcaster aired.

Another hostage, identified as British, spoke to Al Jazeera television and called on the Algerian army to withdraw from the area to avoid casualties.

"We are receiving care and good treatment from the kidnappers. The (Algerian) army did not withdraw and they are firing at the camp," the man said. "There are around 150 Algerian hostages. We say to everybody that negotiations is a sign of strength and will spare many any loss of life."

Another hostage, identified as Irish, told the Qatar-based channel the hostages included French, American, Japanese, British, Irish and Norwegian citizens.

"The situation is deteriorating. We have contacted the embassies and we call on the Algerian army to withdraw ... We are worried because of the continuation of the firing."

After what it said was a phone interview with one of the hostage takers, the Mauritanian news agency ANI said Algerian security forces had tried to approach the facility at dawn.

"We will kill all the hostages if the Algerian army try to storm the area," it quoted the hostage taker as saying. Algeria has not commented on reports its troops tried to approach.

NUMBERS UNCONFIRMED

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

British Foreign Secretary William Hague confirmed one British citizen had been killed and "a number" of others were among those held. Algerian media said an Algerian was killed in the assault. Another local report said a Frenchman had died.

The militants said seven Americans were among their hostages, a figure U.S. officials said they could not confirm.

Norwegian oil company Statoil said nine of its Norwegian staff and three Algerian employees were captive. Britain's BP, which operates the plant with Statoil and Algerian state oil company Sonatrach, said some of its staff were held but would not say how many or their nationalities.

Japanese media said five workers from Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp. were held. France has not confirmed whether any French citizens were captive. Vienna has said one hostage is an Austrian working for BP.

"This is a dangerous and rapidly developing situation," Britain's Hague told reporters in Sydney.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Washington "will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation". Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said "Japan will never tolerate such an act".

France's ambassador to Mali, Christian Rouyer, said the attack in Algeria demonstrated that the French were right on the need to intervene in Mali.

"We have the flagrant proof that this problem goes beyond just the north of Mali," Rouyer told France Inter radio. "Northern Mali is at heart of the problem, of course, but the dimension is really national and international, which gives even more justification to the French intervention."

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

The Algerian government has ruled out negotiating with the hostage takers, and the United States and other Western governments condemned the attack on a facility that produces 10 percent of Algeria's gas, much of which is pumped to Europe.

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

They said they had repelled a raid by Algerian forces after dark on Wednesday. There was no government comment on that. Algerian officials said earlier about 20 gunmen were involved.

GOVERNMENTS HELD RESPONSIBLE

"We hold the Algerian government and the French government and the countries of the hostages fully responsible if our demands are not met, and it is up to them to stop the brutal aggression against our people in Mali," read one statement carried by Mauritanian media.

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

Regis Arnoux, head of CIS, a French catering firm operating at the site, told BFM television he had been in touch with a manager of some 150 Algerian workers there. Local staff were being prevented from leaving but were otherwise free to move around inside and keep on working.

"The Westerners are kept in a separate wing of the base," Arnoux said. "They are tied up and are being filmed. Electricity is cut off, and mobile phones have no charge.

"Direct action seems very difficult ... Algerian officials have told the French authorities as well as BP that they have the situation under control and do not need their assistance."

Japan's JGC Corp. said in a statement it was cooperating with the government and would not comment on the number of its employees kidnapped.

In Mali, France said on Wednesday its forces were about to launch a ground assault on the rebels they began targeting from the air last week. Residents said a column of about 30 French Sagaie armored vehicles set off toward rebel positions from the town of Niono, 300 km (190 miles) from the capital, Bamako.

The French action has widespread international support. Neighboring African countries are expected to provide ground troops soon. Germany, Britain and the Netherlands have offered transport aircraft. Washington has said it is considering what kind of support it can offer France.

Many inhabitants of northern Mali have welcomed the French attacks, though some also fear being caught in the cross-fire. The Mali rebels who seized Timbuktu and other oasis towns in northern Mali last year imposed Islamic law, including public amputations and beheadings that angered many locals.

"There is a great hope," one man said from Timbuktu, where he said Islamist fighters were trying to blend into civilian neighborhoods. "We hope that the city will be freed soon."

The rebels include fighters from al Qaeda's mainly Algerian-based North African wing AQIM as well as home-grown Malian groups Ansar Dine and MUJWA. Islamists have warned Hollande that he has "opened the gates of hell" for all French citizens.

A day after launching the campaign in Mali, Hollande also ordered a raid in Somalia on Saturday to free a French hostage held there by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants since 2009. That rescue was a failure, with two French commandos killed.

Al Shabaab said on Thursday it had executed its hostage, Denis Allex. France says it believes Allex died in the rescue attempt.

(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher, Andrew Callus and Dmitry Zhdannikov in London, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Laurent Prieur in Nouakchott, Daniel Flynn in Dakar, John Irish, Catherine Bremer, Marine Pennetier, and Nick Vinocur in Paris, David Alexander in Rome, Andrew Quinn in Washington, Jane Wardell in Sydney, Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Mirna Sleiman in Dubai and Kaori Kaneko in Tokyo; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Will Waterman)

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SDA, RP candidates outline their 5-year plans for Punggol East

SINGAPORE: Candidates for the Punggol East by-election from the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) and Reform Party (RP) outlined their five-year plans on Thursday.

RP's secretary-general, Kenneth Jeyaretnam said his plan won't cost a lot of money while SDA's secretary-general, Desmond Lim said he wants to set up a residents' cooperative to build a hawker centre.

Mr Lim said his five year plan had been announced during the General Election in 2011.

It includes building a hawker centre, bicycle tracks, childcare centres and coffee corners.

He explained the plan can be funded by the town council as it has the operating and sinking funds.

For programmes that can't be funded by the town council, Mr Lim said he intends to invite interested parties to invest in joint-ventures with the residents.

One such idea is to establish a residents' cooperative for a hawker centre.

Mr Lim said: "They manage the place, give low rental and rent out the stall to their own residents to operate and run. Residents within this constituency can patronise and have a discount rate. For outsiders, of course it is normal rates."

Mr Jeyaretnam was also busy reaching out to residents.

He will be discussing his five-year plan for the ward with his grassroots team on setting up a legal clinic to help those in debt, as well as a tuition club.

He added that several residents of Punggol East are in the team as his primary advisers in this by-election.

The RP chief remains undeterred about some views that the by-election will be a two-horse race between the Workers' Party and the ruling People's Action Party.

Mr Jeyaretnam said: "People have got to be given the right to choose. It is like the idea that it is better to have one or two brands in the supermarket because it might confuse consumers."

Mr Jeyaretnam added he will not hold more than two rallies and that the first will probably be held this weekend.

- CNA/fa

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Prime Minister to decide on talks with Pakistan: Khurshid

NEW DELHI: Talks between India and Pakistan have not been frozen, external affairs minister Salman Khurshid said on Thursday while stating that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would decide on Islamabad's offer of foreign minister-level talks.

"The differences have to be resolved and for that we need to proceed with wisdom, keeping in mind the interest and sentiments of the nation. We will await the prime minister's direction in this regard," Khurshid told CNN-IBN news channel.

"Having said that, it is certainly something that we noted and something that we would look very carefully and let us see what is acceptable. Talks have not frozen between India and Pakistan."

Pakistan foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar has called for talks with Khurshid, saying that continued tension along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir was not in the interest of South Asian peace.

Khurshid said any problem between the two countries had to be solved by them only.

"What we have always maintained that there is a problem and we have to resolve among ourselves and we cannot be hoping and working towards finding somebody else to step in and resolve it."

Khurshid said that India was hopeful that Pakistan had understood the "strong message" of the Prime Minister, who Tuesday said it could not "be business as usual" following the brutal killing of two Indian soldiers near the LoC, and would respond positively.

"An atmosphere is needed for the talks to go on. We are hopeful that Pakistan will understand the message sent by our Prime Minister," he said.

"Some signals are positive. What we heard from the military is welcoming. But we have to assess the overall situation," he added.

Ties between the two neighbours have been strained ever since the January 6 killing of a Pakistani soldier allegedly in firing by Indian troops.

Two days later, Pakistani soldiers brutally killed two Indian soldiers, including beheading one of them, near the LoC.

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Large study confirms flu vaccine safe in pregnancy

NEW YORK (AP) — A large study offers reassuring news for pregnant women: It's safe to get a flu shot.

The research found no evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of losing a fetus, and may prevent some deaths. Getting the flu while pregnant makes fetal death more likely, the Norwegian research showed.

The flu vaccine has long been considered safe for pregnant women and their fetus. U.S. health officials began recommending flu shots for them more than five decades ago, following a higher death rate in pregnant women during a flu pandemic in the late 1950s.

But the study is perhaps the largest look at the safety and value of flu vaccination during pregnancy, experts say.

"This is the kind of information we need to provide our patients when discussing that flu vaccine is important for everyone, particularly for pregnant women," said Dr. Geeta Swamy, a researcher who studies vaccines and pregnant women at Duke University Medical Center.

The study was released by the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday as the United States and Europe suffer through an early and intense flu season. A U.S. obstetricians group this week reminded members that it's not too late for their pregnant patients to get vaccinated.

The new study was led by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It tracked pregnancies in Norway in 2009 and 2010 during an international epidemic of a new swine flu strain.

Before 2009, pregnant women in Norway were not routinely advised to get flu shots. But during the pandemic, vaccinations against the new strain were recommended for those in their second or third trimester.

The study focused on more than 113,000 pregnancies. Of those, 492 ended in the death of the fetus. The researchers calculated that the risk of fetal death was nearly twice as high for women who weren't vaccinated as it was in vaccinated mothers.

U.S. flu vaccination rates for pregnant women grew in the wake of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, from less than 15 percent to about 50 percent. But health officials say those rates need to be higher to protect newborns as well. Infants can't be vaccinated until 6 months, but studies have shown they pick up some protection if their mothers got the annual shot, experts say.

Because some drugs and vaccines can be harmful to a fetus, there is a long-standing concern about giving any medicine to a pregnant woman, experts acknowledged. But this study should ease any worries about the flu shot, said Dr. Denise Jamieson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The vaccine is safe," she said.

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Online:

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

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Notre Dame: Football Star Was 'Catfished' in Hoax

Notre Dame's athletic director and the star of its near-championship football team said the widely-reported death of the star's girlfriend from leukemia during the 2012 football season was apparently a hoax, and the player said he was duped by it as well.

Manti Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy, said in a statement today that he fell in love with a girl online last year who turned out not to be real.

The university's athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, said it has been investigating the "cruel hoax" since Te'o approached officials in late December to say he believed he had been tricked.

Private investigators hired by the university subsequently monitored online chatter by the alleged perpetrators, Swarbrick said, adding that he was shocked by the "casual cruelty" it revealed.

"They enjoyed the joke," Swarbrick said, comparing the ruse to the popular film "Catfish," in which filmmakers revealed a person at the other end of an online relationship was not who they said they were.

"While we still don't know all of the dimensions of this ... there are certain things that I feel confident we do know," Swarbrick said. "The first is that this was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax, perpetrated for reasons we don't understand."

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Te'o said during the season that his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, died of leukemia in September on the same day Te'o's grandmother died, triggering an outpouring of support for Te'o at Notre Dame and in the media.

"While my grandma passed away and you take, you know, the love of my life [Kekua]. The last thing she said to me was, 'I love you,'" Te'o said at the time, noting that he had talked to Kekua on the phone and by text message until her death.

Now, responding to a story first reported by the sports website Deadspin, Te'o has acknowledged that Kekua never existed. The website reported today that there were no records of a woman named Lennay Kekua anywhere.

Te'o denied that he was in on the hoax.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in a statement released this afternoon. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her."

Swarbrick said he expected Te'o to give his version of events at a public event soon, perhaps Thursday, and that he believed Te'o's representatives were planning to disclose the truth next week until today's story broke.

Deadspin reported that the image attached to Kekua's social media profiles, through which the pair interacted, was of another woman who has said she did not even know Te'o or know that her picture was being used. The website reported that it traced the profiles to a California man who is an acquaintance of Te'o and of the woman whose photo was stolen.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," Te'o said.

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Syrian army on offensive in Aleppo after university blast

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian armed forces launched a renewed offensive in the northern city of Aleppo on Wednesday, state media said, a day after 87 people were killed in explosions at the city's university.

The state news agency SANA said the military had killed dozens of "terrorists" - a term Damascus uses for rebels trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad - in the new fighting.

Reuters cannot independently verify reports due to media restrictions in Syria.

"The Armed Forces carried out several special operations against the mercenary terrorists in Aleppo and its countryside, inflicting heavy losses upon them in several areas," SANA said.

Aleppo is split roughly in half between government and rebel forces. SANA said dozens of "terrorists" were killed in the rebel strongholds of Sukari, Bab al-Hadeed and Bustan al-Qasr.

Government forces also killed militants in al-Laramon, a area of Aleppo from which Damascus says two rockets were fired into the University of Aleppo on Tuesday, it added.

If confirmed, the government's report of a rocket attack would suggest rebels in the area had been able to obtain and deploy more powerful weapons than previously used.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said 87 people were killed and dozens wounded in the explosions, but it could not identify the source of the blasts. It said the toll could rise to more than 100 as there were still body parts that were unaccounted for.

State television showed a body lying on the street and burning cars. An entire facade of a multi-story university building had crumbled and cars were overturned. An interior shot of a corridor showed that the ceiling had caved in.

Amateur video footage showed students carrying books out of the university after one of the explosions, walking quickly away from rising smoke. The camera then shakes to the sound of another explosion and people begin to run.

Syria has been plunged into bloodshed since a violent government crackdown in early 2011 on peaceful demonstrations for democratic reform which turned the unrest into an armed insurgency bent on overthrowing Assad.

Each side in the 22-month-old conflict blamed the other for Tuesday's blasts at the university, located in a government-held area of Syria's most populous city.

Some activists in Aleppo said a government air strike caused the explosions, while state television accused terrorists of firing two rockets at the university. A rebel fighter said the blasts appeared to have been caused by surface-to-surface missiles.

The nearest rebel-controlled area, Bustan al-Qasr, is more than a mile away from the university.

The Observatory said rebel sources on the ground reported they were fighting with government forces in the early hours of Wednesday around Bustan al-Qasr, implying a renewed push by government forces to expel the insurgents.

(Reporting by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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European auto sector hits 17-year low

PARIS: European auto sales plunged to their lowest point in 17 years in 2012, trade data revealed Wednesday after Renault announced the latest job cuts to hit the beleaguered sector.

New car registrations in the European Union fell by 8.2 percent from their 2011 level to 12.05 million units last year, the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association said.

Sales in December fell for the 15th month in a row by 16.3 percent on a 12-month basis, even slipping slightly in Germany despite the global strength of top German brands.

French automakers in particular are being hard hit with Renault announcing 7,500 job cuts late on Tuesday.

PSA Peugeot Citroen, the second-biggest carmaker in Europe after the booming German VW group, has just been rescued by the state. The group is restructuring with 8,000 job cuts and targets development abroad after a government report said its strategy had missed the bus of globalisation.

And on Wednesday French car parts maker Faurecia reported weak results causing its shares to plunge.

By contrast the VW group has reported record global sales for 2012 with a rise of 11.0 percent to 9.07 million units and aspires to being the biggest manufacturer globally, ahead of Japanese Toyota, by 2018. German Daimler said at the Detroit auto show this week that it is on track to be the world's top luxury carmaker by the end of the decade.

The second-biggest manufacturer globally is General Motors, which struck a strategic partnership with PSA this year, but GM's sales across the whole of Europe fell by 8.2 percent last year, the US group said in Detroit.

These companies, and European manufacturers in general, are looking to growth in emerging markets to compensate for what they expect to be a lasting weaker trend in Europe, but these markets are also the home base for new competitors notably in China.

The European trade association said in its report on the European market: "Demand for new cars reached the lowest level recorded since 1995, totalling 12,053,904 units" in 2012.

Last year's 8.2 percent shrinkage was the worst since a downturn of 16.9 percent in 1993, the association said.

The trend was aggravated by exceptionally bad figures for December in debt-stricken Europe.

"In December, new car registrations declined by a sharp 16.3 percent in the EU, continuing a downward trend commenced 15 months ago. The decline is the steepest recorded in a month of December since 2008," the statement said.

With the eurozone struggling to cope with the tax rises and cuts in state spending imposed to correct its debt crisis, businesses and consumers have cut down their spending on vehicles.

In some countries the market, and employment, were supported after the financial crisis hit economies in 2008 by government subsidies for the replacement of old vehicles with new ones. But these schemes have run out and many European groups have announced job cuts and plant closures similar to, albeit less dramatic, those that occurred immediately in the US auto industry.

The latest came late on Tuesday from Renault which said it would shed 7,500 French jobs, or about 17.0 percent of its workforce by 2016, but by means of not replacing normal departures.

Renault, which has diversified its manufacturing into low-cost countries close to western Europe in recent years, notably in Romania where it builds its Dacia-branded vehicles, said that an agreement with unions on the cutbacks would save it 400 million euros ($534 million) in overheads and would avert any plant closures.

"On the basis of a progressive recovery of the European market, establishing such an agreement would allow for growth in French output that is more sustained than that of the European market," Renault said.

However the European trade data for the year showed big differences between countries.

Car sales rose only in Britain, by 5.3 percent from the level in 2011.

In Germany, a fall in sales on the home market was contained to 2.9 percent but in France sales slumped by 13.9 percent, in Spain by 13.4 percent and in Italy by 19.9 percent.

In terms of brands, sales in western Europe by PSA Peugeot Citroen fell by 12.9 percent, by Renault 18.9 and by Fiat of Italy by 15.8 percent.

Sales by Opel, based in Germany but owned by US group General Motors which has recovered strongly from bankruptcy, fell by 15.6 percent.

However, other German brands did far better. Sales by Audi rose by 3.7 percent, and by BMW they fell by 0.1 percent and by Mercedes-Benz by 0.9 percent.

In terms of sales in Europe by foreign manufacturers, the South Korean group Hyundai-Kia raised sales under the Hyundai name by 9.4 percent and under the Kia brand by 14.6 percent.

- AFP/ir

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