Sahil Saeed kidnapped by 'someone close to the family', says Pakistani minister

Pakistani authorities hunting for the kidnapped British boy Sahil Saeed say that there is growing evidence of family involvement in the 5-year-old child’s abduction.

"There was someone very close to the family," said Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s Interior Minister, describing the gang’s profile, "because of the way the situation happened, the way the abduction has happened, the way the entry was made, the way the conduct was made during that whole operation."

Sahil Saeed was seized in the early hours of Thursday by four heavily armed men who broke into a family home in Jhelum, 65 miles south of Islamabad, and embarked on a protracted robbery. Stealing jewellery and cash they put 12 members of Saeed’s family through a six-hour ordeal, in which they were beaten and threatened with death, before making off with the child.

It has since emerged that Sahil had travelled to Jehlum with his father Raja after a row between his parents that left his mother Akila stranded in their Oldham home, allegedly without her passport. Family elders in Jhelum had encouraged a rapprochement between the couple, and the father and son were preparing to fly home when the kidnap occurred.

Mr Malik also told reporters gathered in the family home at Jhelum that Pakistani police were closing in on the kidnap gang.

"We have certain leads which we would not like to disclose but I’m warning to those abductors: ’Leave the boy because we are very near to you’," Mr Malik said. "We will make sure that we make an example out of it so that nobody dares to do these kinds of things in future," he added.

However police officials gave conflicting reports and admitted that contact with the kidnap gang appeared to have broken down, with none of the anticipated follow up calls received from the gang since the demand for a ransom of 10 million rupees.

"We are totally blind with no clue in hand so far about the kidnapped child," said Raja Mohammad Tahir Bashir, a senior police official. "But our investigation continues."

Raja Naqqash, 28, told reporters that he had been warned by police against giving any details of the case for fear that it panicked the gang into harming his son. But Sahil’s great uncle, Raja Shahid, said that family members were getting increasingly frustrated with police efforts, adding that they had no fresh contact from the kidnappers since a telephone call to Sahil’s father on Friday.

"We have not received any information from police about the kid. We are very upset and concerned about the health and security of Sahil," he said.

"We will now contact the police again to find out why they have not been able to recover the child so far. The kidnappers have also not contacted us again — they had contacted us twice in the beginning."

British Pakistanis in Jhelum spoke of a climate of fear that had been growing in the town over the past five years since criminal gangs turned their attention upon wealthy expatriate homes.

"They are especially targeting people here from England and Europe," said Manzoor Ashraf, 42, a Nottingham man on a regular trip to Jhelum with his two young children to see relatives. "Its about pounds and good money. All of a sudden they see us as an easy target."

A particularly large expatriate community from Jhelum live in Oldham and Nottingham. The town was well known during the era of the Indian Empire for the number of Punjabi soldiers recruited there into the British Army. Though Salim’s father is unemployed the kidnapping occurred in an affluent quarter where expatriate money has produced a flourishing expansion in large, three-storey houses.

"We’ve got problems in Nottingham and Oldham on a Friday night but nothing compared to here," Mr Ashraf added. Like other British Pakistanis who were gathered at the house to support Sahil’s family he said that suspicions of inside involvement with the abduction were a commonly held local belief.

"People here tell us ’Why worry about it all so much?’ It’s all to do with business inside the family, they say. Here, say, your wife’s side of the family could take on some extreme measures if they aren’t happy with you. It’s not like EastEnders where you get divorced then go out and have a drink together."

Saeed accuses India of imposing war against Pak

While declaring war against Indian water aggression, Saeed said in JuD’s protest rally against theft of Pakistani waters by India said that for Pakistan water was a matter of life of death.

“I am declared guilty of raising voice for the oppressed people of Held Kashmir but my religion allows me for that,” Saeed said in media report.

“UN Security Council imposed sanctions against Jamat-ud-Dawa but now it is silent on controversial Indian plans in Held Kashmir,” he added.

The mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks said shortage of water could result in Pakistan facing extreme hardships in agriculture sector, including acute scarcity of potable water.

The rally in front of the of Punjab Assembly was supported by a similar 'water rally' held in Lahore by farmer wing of JuD in protest against the construction of Indian dams on rivers in Kashmir.

JUD has demanded stringent action from the government to protect Pakistani waters.

American arrested in Pakistan 'not al-Qaida US spokesman'

Pakistani intelligence officials today denied that an American militant suspect arrested in Karachi was al-Qaida's US-born spokesman.

Yesterday two intelligence officers and a senior government official identified the detained man as Adam Gadahn, a 31-year-old California-born convert to Islam who has appeared on videos threatening the west, including one that emerged earlier the same day.

But a senior government official and two security agents said today the suspect was not Gadahn.

"Our initial impression was that the guy was Adam Gadahn but that information now looks incorrect," a security official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

The arrested man was believed to be an American who goes by the alias of Abu Yahya. Gadahn is known to have used a similar alias. "Probably the name and his origin caused the confusion," the official said.

Gadahn, the first American to be charged with treason since the second world war era, is one of the FBI's top 10 most wanted terrorists and has had a $1m (£660,400) reward offered for information leading to his capture.

In a video released yesterday , Gadahn praised Nidal Malik Hassan, the Muslim-American army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 soldiers at an army base in Texas in November, calling him a role model.

US embassy spokesman Rick Snelsire said the embassy had not been informed of any American being arrested.

Pakistan interrogation center bombed, killing 13

A suicide car bomber Monday struck a building where police interrogate high-value suspects in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens including women taking children to school, officials said.

The attack broke what had been a relative lull in violence in Pakistan, where militant groups revile the government for its alliance with the U.S. It also showed that insurgents retain the ability to strike the country's heartland, far from the Afghan border regions where al-Qaida and the Taliban have long thrived, despite army offensives aimed at wiping them out.

Pakistanis living near the building had filed complaints urging authorities to move the unmarked interrogation facility out of the residential area so the street wouldn't become a target for an attack, said Mohammad Musharraf, a neighborhood resident.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility in a telephone call to an Associated Press reporter. It and allied groups are believed responsible for a wave of attacks that killed more than 600 people starting in October, including several in major Pakistani cities. More recent attacks have been smaller and confined to remote northwest regions near Afghanistan.

The bomb blast Monday comes amid reports of a Pakistani crackdown on Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida operatives using its soil. Among the militants said to have been arrested is the Afghan Taliban's No. 2 commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. In recent days, Pakistani officials say an American member of al-Qaida has been captured in the southern city of Karachi.

The explosion went off outside a Punjab province police building, police official Zulfikar Hameed said. TV footage showed a huge crater in the ground where the blast originated. It appeared the suicide bomber rammed a car packed with as much as 1,300 pounds (600 kilograms) of explosives into the building's perimeter wall, officials said.

"This place was used to interrogate important suspects, but presently there was no such suspect, but more than 40 staff were manning the place," Lahore police chief Pervez Rathore said.

Noorul Huda, a student at a nearby religious school, was in his first class when the blast shook the area, he told TV reporters.

"With the huge bang, blocks and pieces of the roof fell upon us and six of us were wounded," said the young man, who suffered a head injury that was covered by a bloodstained cloth. "It was total chaos outside and people were running and crying for help."

Musharraf, who lives near the building, said his son was injured.

"My whole house was shaken and I thought it was an earthquake," he said. "A window dislodged and fell on my son, fracturing his arm."

Police official Chaudhry Shafiq said 13 people had died. Of the 61 people wounded, several were in critical condition. Major Mushtaq, who heads the interrogation facility, said the dead included nine officials from police and the investigation agency and four civilians, including two women.

Hospital official Jawed Akram said the dead included at least one woman and a young girl, apparently part of a group heading to a school. Several women were among the wounded.

"People are coming with multiple wounds, many with head injuries and broken limbs," Akram said.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik painted the attack as sign of desperation from militants whose "backs have been broken" by the army.

"They are taking guerrilla actions but gradually it is decreasing and they are being arrested and in the coming days they will have no chance," Malik said.

Much of the police building collapsed, leaving piles of bricks and metal, TV footage showed. Other nearby homes and other buildings, including a mosque, also were damaged.

Militant attacks in Pakistan frequently target security forces, though civilian targets have not escaped.

During the bloody wave of attacks that began in October -- coinciding with a major army ground offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan tribal area -- Lahore was hit several times.

In mid-October, three groups of gunmen attacked three separate security facilities in the eastern city, a rampage that left 28 dead. Twin suicide bombings at a market in Lahore in December killed nearly 50 people.

The U.S. has applauded Pakistan for its military operations and is also suspected of pummeling militants in the tribal areas with dozens of drone missile strikes, including one Monday that killed three people, said Pakistani intelligence officials.

The attack, carried out by a drone that fired at least two missiles at a house in North Waziristan, also wounded one man, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The three dead were foreigners, but their nationalities were not known, said the officials.

Washington refuses to discuss publicly the covert drone program in Pakistan, but officials say privately it has killed several senior al-Qaida and Taliban commanders.

A New Possible Cure For Breast Cancer: Freezing

Researchers at the University Of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center released a study that shows that freezing cancerous tumors can kill the cancer, another up-side to this being that it causes an immune system response that could provide a natural barrier to this disease.

Research showed that of two methods used (fast freezing in 30 seconds, and slow freezing, over a period of minutes) that not only was fast freezing more effective in killing the cancerous cells, it provided an immune system response that hindered the spread, it is believed.

The study was published online with the Annals of Surgical Oncology, and based on this study a clinical trial initiated. Lead author, Michael Sabel, M.D., said that “it also may stimulate an immune response capable of eradicating any cells that have traveled throughout the body, reducing both local and distant recurrence, similar to giving a breast cancer vaccine.”

The research demonstrated that even though effective, not all methods are equal. The mice that had the fast freezing method had less spreading of the cancer and improved survival rates compared to slow freezing or surgery. Fast freezing tends to generate an anti-cancer immune response, and provides effective treatment without the cosmetic worries.

Washington DC to distribute free female condoms

Within the next few weeks, Washington DC will be handing out 500,000 female condoms for free in parts of the city with high HIV, The Washington Post reports.

The move will make the District of Columbia the first city in the United States to distribute condoms for females at no cost.

Different approach to cut city's steep rate of HIV infection
The District will make 500,000 female condoms available in beauty salons, convenience stores and high schools in sections of the city that are plagued with high HIV rates, the Post says.

The city officials say the distribution could begin within the next three weeks.

A 2008 report showed at least 3 percent or about 15,100 adults in the nation's capital are living with HIV or AIDS, making it a major epidemic. HIV/AIDS infection is the leading cause of death among black women between 25 and 34 nationwide.

The condoms giveaway
The city officials said the distribution will take place in parts of wards 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7, where, as per a study results, large numbers of African American heterosexuals engage in risky sexual behavior that could easily lead to fatal infection.

The city has distributed male condoms citywide for nearly a decade to stem the District's epidemic of HIV and AIDS, but infection rates still remain high among Washington's black residents.

Now, the city officials say they want to provide women with an opportunity to protect themselves from HIV and sexually transmitted diseases when their partners refuse to use protection, the Post reports.

"Anywhere male condoms are available, female condoms will be available," Shannon Hader, director of the city's HIV/AIDS administration, told the Washington Post.

"We're trying to make every effort count to build on what already exists... to expand options rather than limit them."

Original and second version of female condoms
Female condoms have been in the U.S. market since 1993 but their usage has been slow, as the first version, FC1, was judged by US customers to be too expensive, about $17 for a box of five. Women who used it complained that it was unsatisfactory.

A second version, approved by the Federal Drug Administration last year, will be distributed in Washington DC and offered for sale in pharmacies alongside male condoms.

The new and improved version of the female condom, FC2, now being used in countries including South Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia, consists of special polyurethane that conducts body heat to enhance sexual sensation for both men and women, claims Female Health Co., the manufacturer of the condom.

"There are areas where the city is not doing a good job [with AIDS], but in some areas they are cutting edge. On this one, they're cutting edge," Walter Smith, executive director of D.C. Appleseed, told the Post. "The very fact that they're doing this . . . says to women of the city that this is important to you. This is important to your families. Get with the program."

The grant and its usage
The female condom giveaway is funded through a $500,000 grant from the MAC AIDS Fund, a subsidiary of MAC Cosmetics, which contributes to numerous city programs, including two of the city's needle exchange programs.

Using the grant, the city will buy the female condoms at wholesale prices from its manufacturer and provide them for distribution by social service organizations, including Planned Parenthood, the Community Education Group, and the Women's Collective.

Automatic secretary to help tame out-of-control inboxes

Andrew Faulring and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have developed the Reflective Agents with Distributed Adaptive Reasoning (Radar) system to help manage bloated email box.

The tool depends on human trainers to figure out the type of words that may lead to the characterisation of the tasks involved, such as organising a conference and marking priorities, New Scientist reported.

The system then scans a user's inbox and sorts the emails in line of their significance.

Faulring observed volunteers using the tool significantly outperformed their unaided counterparts and also made fewer mistakes.

The findings were presented at the Intelligent User Interfaces conference in Hong Kong, China.