Iran tells Zardari pipeline must advance despite US






TEHRAN: Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday told the visiting Pakistani president that a much-delayed $7.5 billion gas pipeline project must go ahead despite US opposition.

"The Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline is an important example of Tehran-Islamabad cooperation, and despite hostilities towards the expansion of ties we must overcome this opposition decisively," Khamenei told Asif Ali Zardari, his office reported.

The gas pipeline project is strongly opposed by Tehran's archfoe Washington.

"Accessing safe energy source is the first priority for any country including Pakistan. In this region, the Islamic republic is the only nation that has safe energy resources and we are ready to provide Pakistan its energy needs," the all-powerful Khamenei said.

The pipeline project has run into repeated problems, including Pakistan's difficulty in finding funds and opposition to the project from Washington, which has slapped Iran with a raft of sanctions over its nuclear activities.

The Pakistani media reported last year that Zardari would visit Iran in mid-December 2012, when a final agreement was to have been signed, but the visit was delayed.

In 2010, Iran and Pakistan agreed that Tehran would supply between 750 million cubic feet (21 million cubic metres) and one billion cubic feet per day of natural gas by mid-2015.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Zardari that, "building the gas pipeline between Iran and Pakistan is a great and important event, and it serves the two nations' interests," the president's office reported.

"I believe that building this project is very beneficial for both sides and we support all the work carried out so far," Zardari said in talks his Iranian counterpart.

"The international and regional players have tried in vain to prevent an expansion of Iran-Pakistan ties but the people have learnt how to act against enemies of Islam," he was quoted as saying.

Islamabad has said it will pursue the project regardless of US pressure, saying the gas is needed to help Pakistan overcome its energy crisis that has led to debilitating blackouts and suffocated industry.

Iran has almost completed the pipeline work in its territory, but Pakistan has not yet started construction of 780 kilometers (490 miles) of the pipeline on its side, which is said to cost some $1.5 billion.

Sanctions-hit Iran finally agreed to finance one-third of the costs of laying the pipeline through Pakistani territory to Nawabshah, north of Karachi, with the work to be carried out by an Iranian company.

Pakistani officials in mid-December said Iran had promised a $500 million loan and that Islamabad would meet the rest of the cost.

"There are impediments in view of the US opposition to the project but we are determined to complete it to meet our fast-growing energy requirements," said one government official on condition of anonymity.

Tehran has been strangled by a Western oil embargo that has seen its crude exports halve in the past year, while Pakistan has an acute need for energy and plans to produce 20 percent of its electricity from Iranian gas.

Iran has the second largest world gas reserves after Russia and currently produces some 600 million cubic metres a day, almost all of which is consumed domestically due to lack of exports means.

The only foreign client is Turkey, which buys about 30 million cubic metres of gas a day.

Tehran also plans to sell its gas to two other neighbours, Iraq and Syria. The three countries agreed in 2011 to build a pipeline, with the work already started on the Iranian side.

-AFP/ac



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Ishrat encounter case: Fifth Gujarat cop arrested

AHMEDABAD: The CBI arrested one more Gujarat policeman in connection with the alleged fake encounter killing of Mumbai teenager Ishrat Jahan and three others by Ahmedabad Crime Branch in 2004.

Anaju Chaudhary, a commando with State Reserve Police Force, was arrested here late last night, making him the fifth policeman to be taken into custody in the nine-year-old case.

He was then deputed to protect Tarun Barot, a suspended deputy superintendent of Police (DySP) who too has been arrested.

Chaudhary, at present posted at the office of Gujarat minister of state for home at Gandhinagar, has been booked for murder, conspiracy, illegal detention and abduction besides under relevant sections of the Arms Act, CBI sources said.

He was today presented before the Special CBI court, which sent him in CBI custody till March 4, rejecting the Central agency's plea for 14-day remand.

Explaining Chaudhary's role in the encounter, CBI said he had fired 10 rounds from his service weapon at the order of IPS officer G L Singhal, first police officer to be arrested in the case, but had not submited the empty cartridges.

"We suspect he was also involved in the conspiracy of the fake encounter and had not cooperated during his questioning earlier," CBI claimed in its remand plea.

Isharat, a 19-year-old student, along with Javed Shaikh alias Pranesh Pillai, Amjadali Akbarali Rana and Zeeshan Johar, were killed in an encounter with the police on June 15, 2004 on the city's outskirts.

Gujarat Police had then claimed all four were terrorists out to kill chief minister Narendra Modi.

Besides Singhal, who was taken into custody by CBI last week, other accused in the case are Barot, retired DSP J G Parmar and Inspector Bharat Patel.

Barring Chaudhary, all others were posted with Crime Branch at time of the encounter, which was later found to be fake by a Gujarat high court-constituted SIT.

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Vt. lye victim gets new face at Boston hospital


BOSTON (AP) — A Vermont nurse disfigured in a 2007 lye attack has received a new face at a Boston hospital.


Carmen Blandin Tarleton's full facial transplant at Brigham & Women's Hospital included transplanting a female donor's facial skin to Tarleton's neck, nose and lips, along with facial muscles, arteries and nerves.


Hospital officials say the 44-year-old Thetford, Vt., woman suffered burns on more than 80 percent of her body after her estranged husband attacked her.


Tarleton's sister said Wednesday she showed "great appreciation" for the gift she's been given.


The donor's family believes their loved one's spirit lives on in Tarleton.


Tarleton has undergone more than 50 surgeries. The latest took 15 hours and included a team of more than 30 medical professionals.


Tarleton once worked as a transplant nurse.


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'93 WTC Bombing Crushed Lives, Not Memories












Edward Smith remembers vividly the call from the morgue 20 years ago today, that his pregnant wife had died in the World Trade Center bombing hours before she was supposed to start her maternity leave.


"It seems like kind of yesterday sometimes," he told ABC News, "but it seems like a long time ago, too."


Today marks the 20th anniversary of the 1993 WTC bombing, which was overshadowed eight years later by the 9/11 attacks. Six people died and about 1,000 were injured after terrorists detonated a truck bomb in the parking garage of the World Trade Center's North Tower Feb. 26, 1993.


Four of the six killed -- Robert Kirkpatrick, 61, Stephen A. Knapp, 47, William Macko, 57, and Monica Rodriguez Smith, 35 -- were employees of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owned the buildings. John DiGiovanni, 45, a dental-supply salesman visiting the World Trade Center, and Wilfredo Mercado, 37, a purchasing agent for Windows on the World restaurant, also died.


To commemorate the event, ABC News spoke with several people affected by the bombing -- a widower, a former Port Authority executive director, a plaintiff's attorney and a jury foreman -- to illustrate how the bombing resonates 20 years later.


EDWARD SMITH: Husband of pregnant Monica Rodriguez Smith, who died in the bombing.



Edward and Monica Rodriguez Smith on their wedding day, Aug. 31, 1990.










September 11: World Trade Center Time Lapse Watch Video







Edward Smith, 50, remembers where he was Feb. 26, 1993, when he heard the news.


"I was up in Boston, and I had heard there was a fire at the [World] Trade Center," Smith told ABCNews.com last week. "I turned the TV on, and eventually heard there was an actual bombing, and drove down as quickly as I could."


Smith said he couldn't reach his wife, Monica Rodriguez Smith, a secretary for a mechanical supervisor for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey who worked in the World Trade Center, for "hours and hours."


He said he didn't hear from her or anything about her until he contacted the New York City morgue at 11:30 p.m. that evening.


"Obviously, I was informed that I should come there," Smith said.


He and his wife had been married for a little more than three years, he said, and Feb. 26 was to be Monica's last day of work before she went on maternity leave. They were expecting their first child, a boy, to be named Eddie.


"She had worked at the Port Authority for at least 12 years," Smith said. "And she had just gotten an award for never having a sick day. That was a little thing you remember."


Smith said the World Trade Center was where he met his wife the first time.


"I was a sales guy, selling to the Port Authority, and she was the admin [secretary] for one of the guys," he said. "For the first two years, she wouldn't go out with me.


"She said, 'Do you know how many knuckleheads come in here and ask me out? What makes you different?'" Smith recalled Monica's saying.


It took her two years to go out on a date with him, Smith said.


The couple tied the knot Aug. 31, 1990. Smith said he even bought the house in which he grew up on Long Island to raise their family.


But after the events of Feb. 26, 1993, Smith said, it was hard to stay in New York. Shortly after the bombing, he moved to Arizona and later to California.


"There were too many reminders, it was too much," he said.


Smith now resides in Phoenix, but makes a trip to New York every year for the memorial in February.
This year is no exception.


"It's kind of an interesting feeling," he said of the 20-year anniversary. "It seems like kind of yesterday sometimes, but it seems like a long time ago, too."






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Italy parties seek way out of election stalemate


ROME (Reuters) - Italy's stunned political parties looked for a way forward on Tuesday after an election that gave none of them a parliamentary majority, posing the threat of prolonged instability and European financial crisis.


The results, notably by the dramatic surge of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comic Beppe Grillo, left the center-left bloc with a majority in the lower house but without the numbers to control the powerful upper chamber, the Senate.


Financial markets fell sharply at the prospect of a stalemate that reawakened memories of the crisis that pushed Italy's borrowing costs toward unsustainably high levels and brought the euro zone to the brink of collapse in 2011.


"The winner is: Ingovernability," ran the headline in Rome newspaper Il Messaggero, reflecting the deadlock the country will have to confront in the next few weeks as sworn enemies are forced to work together to form a government.


Pier Luigi Bersani, head of the center-left Democratic Party (PD), has the difficult task of trying to agree a "grand coalition" with former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the man he blames for ruining Italy, or striking a deal with Grillo, a completely unknown quantity in conventional politics.


The alternative is new elections either immediately or within a few months, although both Berlusconi and Bersani have indicated that they want to avoid a return to the polls if possible: "Italy cannot be ungoverned and we have to reflect," Berlusconi said in an interview on his own television station.


For his part, Grillo, whose "non-party" movement won the most votes of any single party, has indicated that he believes the next government will last no more than six months.


"They won't be able to govern," he told reporters on Tuesday. "Whether I'm there or not, they won't be able govern."


He said he would work with anyone who supported his policy proposals, which range from anti-corruption measures to green-tinted energy measures but rejected suggestions of entering a formal coalition: "It's not time to talk of alliances... the system has already fallen," he said.


The election, a massive rejection of the austerity policies applied by Prime Minister Mario Monti with the backing of international leaders from U.S. President Barack Obama to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, caused consternation across Europe.


"This is a jump to nowhere that does not bode well either for Italy or Europe," said Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo.


In a sign of worry at the top over what effect the elections could have on the economy, Monti, whose austerity policies were repudiated by voters who shunned his centrist bloc, met the governor of the central bank, the economy minister and the European affairs minister to discuss the situation on Tuesday.


The former EU commissioner and his team of technocrats, who were brought in to govern when Berlusconi was consumed by crisis and scandal, will stay on until a new administration is formed.


UNTHINKABLE WITHOUT GRILLO


Projections for the Senate by the Italian Centre for Electoral Studies indicated that the center-left would have 121 seats, against 117 for the center-right alliance of Berlusconi's PDL and the regionalist Northern League. Grillo would take 54.


That leaves no party with the majority in a chamber which a government must control to pass legislation and opened up the prospect of previously inconceivable partnerships that will test the sometimes fragile internal unity of the main parties.


"The idea of a majority without Grillo is unthinkable. I don't know if anyone in the PD is considering it but I'm against it," said Matteo Orfini, a member of Bersani's PD secretariat.


"The idea of a PD-PDL government, even if it's backed by Monti, doesn't make any sense," he said.


Berlusconi, a media magnate whose campaigning all but wiped out Bersani's once commanding opinion poll lead, hinted in a telephone call to a morning television show that he would be open to a deal with the center-left - but not with Monti, the economics professor who replaced him 15 months ago.


"Italy must be governed," Berlusconi said, adding that he "must reflect" on a possible deal with the center-left. "Everyone must be prepared to make sacrifices," he said of the groups which now have a share of the legislature.


The Milan bourse was down almost 4 percent and the premium Italy pays over Germany to borrow on 10-year widened to a yield spread of 338 basis points, the highest since December 10 and more than 80 points above the level seen earlier on Monday.


At an auction of six-month Treasury bills, Italy's borrowing costs jumped by more than two thirds with the yield reaching 1.237 percent, the highest since October and compared to just 0.730 percent in a similar sale a month ago.


The euro dropped to an almost seven-week low against the dollar in Asia on fears of a revival of the euro zone crisis. It fell as far as $1.3042, its lowest since January 10.


"What is crucial now is that a stable functioning government can be built as swiftly as possible," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. "This is not only in the interests of Italy but in the interests of all Europe."


However the view from some voters, weary of the mainstream parties, was unrepentant: "It's good," said Roger Manica, 28, a security guard in Rome, who voted for the center-left PD.


"Next time I'll vote 5-Star. I like that they are changing things, even if it means uncertainty. Uncertainty doesn't matter to me, for me what's important is a good person who gets things done," he said. "Look how well they've done."


A long recession and growing disillusionment with mainstream parties and tax-raising austerity fed the bitter public mood and contributed to the massive rejection of Monti, whose centrist coalition was relegated to the sidelines.


Berlusconi's campaign, mixing sweeping tax cut pledges with relentless attacks on Monti and Merkel, echoed many of the themes pushed by Grillo and underlined the increasingly angry mood of the Italian electorate.


But even if the next government turns away from the tax hikes and spending cuts brought in by Monti, it will struggle to revive an economy that has scarcely grown in two decades.


Monti was widely credited with tightening Italy's public finances and restoring its international credibility after the scandal-plagued Berlusconi, who is currently on trial for having sex with an under-age prostitute.


However he struggled to pass the kind of structural reforms needed to improve competitiveness and lay the foundations for a return to economic growth. A weak center-left government may not find it any easier.


For Italian business, with an illustrious history of export success, the election result brought dismay that there would be no quick change to what they see as a regulatory sclerosis that has kept the economy virtually stagnant for a decade.


"This is probably the worst possible scenario," said Francesco Divella, whose family began selling pasta under its eponymous brand in 1890 in the southern region of Puglia.


"We are very concerned about the uncertainty and apparent ungovernability," said Silvio Pietro Angori, chief executive of Pininfarina, which has designed Ferrari sportscars since 1950. "A company competing on the global markets like Pininfarina needs the support of a stable government that inspires trust."


One of the country's leading bankers summed up his personal reaction: "I'm in shock," he told Reuters. "What a mess!"


(Additional reporting by Barry Moody, Gavin Jones, Lisa Jucca, Steven Jewkes, Steve Scherer Writing by Philip Pullella and James Mackenzie; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)



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Portugal may get more time to cut deficit: prime minister






LISBON: Portugal's prime minister on Tuesday said his country may be granted more time to meet its fiscal targets as the implementation of its international bailout was under review.

"There is a possibility of getting one year more to adjust the state deficit and it is very likely that this is up for discussion", Pedro Passos Coelho said as the so-called Troika of public creditors -- the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund -- on began its latest review of the country's finances.

Portugal was granted a financial rescue package worth 78 billion euros ($103 billion) in May 2011, in exchange for a pledge to straighten out its finances via austerity measures and economic reforms.

Last year the Troika gave eased Portugal's fiscal targets given the recession in the country and across much of the eurozone.

Lisbon now has to reduce its public deficit to 4.5 percent of GDP this year, instead of bringing it back within the EU ceiling of 3.0 percent of GDP.

The government has recently conceded it may be impossible for it to reach even the revised targets given the continued recession.

On Sunday, Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar said the economy is expected to contract around 2 percent this year, or double that of its previous forecast, and said he hopes the European Commission will give Portugal another year to reach the 3.0 percent target.

Passos Coelho said his country would like to "finish the (rescue) programme in June 2014 and we will neither ask for more time or more money."

-AFP/ac



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Pak troops violate ceasefire to provide cover fire to militant; Army kills intruder

JAMMU: Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire on Tuesday to provide cover fire to a militant who was gunned down in a fierce gunbattle with security forces along the line of control in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir.

"At around 1.45pm, troops guarding the borderline observed suspicious movements at Keri sector in Rajouri," PRO defence SN Acharya said.

Immediately the entire area was cordoned off by the troops as the terrorist fired indiscriminately at the Indian post, he said.

Fifteen minutes later, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire and fired at the forward Indian post to give cover fire to the infiltrating militant, the PRO said.

"Our troops responded to the Pakistani fire. There was no casualty on our side," Acharya said.

At around 3pm, contact was established with the militant who opened fire and in the ensuing gunfight with the troops, he was killed, the PRO said.

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C. Everett Koop, 'rock star' surgeon general, dies


NEW YORK (AP) — Dr. C. Everett Koop has long been regarded as the nation's doctor— even though it has been nearly a quarter-century since he was surgeon general.


Koop, who died Monday at his home in Hanover, N.H., at age 96, was by far the best known and most influential person to carry that title. Koop, a 6-foot-1 evangelical Presbyterian with a biblical prophet's beard, donned a public health uniform in the early 1980s and became an enduring, science-based national spokesman on health issues.


He served for eight years during the Reagan administration and was a breed apart from his political bosses. He thundered about the evils of tobacco companies during a multiyear campaign to drive down smoking rates, and he became the government's spokesman on AIDS when it was still considered a "gay disease" by much of the public.


"He really changed the national conversation, and he showed real courage in pursuing the duties of his job," said Chris Collins, a vice president of amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.


Even before that, he had been a leading figure in medicine. He was one of the first U.S. doctors to specialize in pediatric surgery at a time when children with complicated conditions were often simply written off as untreatable. In the 1950s, he drew national headlines for innovative surgeries such as separating conjoined twins.


His medical heroics are well noted, but he may be better remembered for transforming from a pariah in the eyes of the public health community into a remarkable servant who elevated the influence of the surgeon general — if only temporarily.


"He set the bar high for all who followed in his footsteps," said Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as surgeon general a decade later under President George W. Bush.


Koop's religious beliefs grew after the 1968 death of his son David in a mountain-climbing accident, and he became an outspoken opponent of abortion. His activism is what brought him to the attention of the administration of President Ronald Reagan, who decided to nominate him for surgeon general in 1981. Though once a position with real power, surgeon generals had been stripped of most of their responsibilities in the 1960s.


By the time Koop got the job, the position was kind of a glorified health educator.


But Koop ran with it. One of his early steps involved the admiral's uniform that is bestowed to the surgeon general but that Koop's predecessors had worn only on ceremonial occasions. In his first year in the post, Koop stopped wearing his trademark bowties and suit jackets and instead began wearing the uniform, seeing it as a way to raise the visual prestige of the office.


In those military suits, he surprised the officials who had appointed him by setting aside his religious beliefs and feelings about abortion and instead waging a series of science-based public health crusades.


He was arguably most effective on smoking. He issued a series of reports that detailed the dangers of tobacco smoke, and in speeches began calling for a smoke-free society by the year 2000. He didn't get his wish, but smoking rates did drop from 38 percent to 27 percent while he was in office — a huge decline.


Koop led other groundbreaking initiatives, but perhaps none is better remembered than his work on AIDS.


The disease was first identified in 1981, before Koop was officially in office, and it changed U.S. society. It destroyed the body's immune system and led to ghastly death, but initially was identified in gay men, and many people thought of it as something most heterosexuals didn't have to worry about.


U.S. scientists worked hard to identify the virus and work on ways to fight it, but the government's health education and policy efforts moved far more slowly. Reagan for years was silent on the issue. Following mounting criticism, Reagan in 1986 asked Koop to prepare a report on AIDS for the American public.


His report, released later that year, stressed that AIDS was a threat to all Americans and called for wider use of condoms and more comprehensive sex education, as early as the third grade. He went on to speak frankly about AIDS in an HBO special and engineered the mailing of an educational pamphlet on AIDS to more than 100 million U.S. households in 1988.


Koop personally opposed homosexuality and believed sex should be saved for marriage. But he insisted that Americans, especially young people, must not die because they were deprived of explicit information about how HIV was transmitted.


Koop's speeches and empathetic approach made him a hero to a wide swath of America, including public health workers, gay activists and journalists. Some called him a "scientific Bruce Springsteen." AIDS activists chanted "Koop, Koop" at his appearances and booed other officials.


"I was walking down the street with him one time" about five years ago, recalled Dr. George Wohlreich, director of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, a medical society with which Koop had longstanding ties. "People were yelling out, 'There goes Dr. Koop!' You'd have thought he was a rock star."


Koop angered conservatives by refusing to issue a report requested by the Reagan White House, saying he could not find enough scientific evidence to determine whether abortion has harmful psychological effects on women.


He got static from some staff at the White House for his actions, but Reagan himself never tried to silence Koop. At a congressional hearing in 2007, Koop spoke about political pressure on the surgeon general post. He said Reagan was pressed to fire him every day.


After his death was reported Monday, the tributes poured forth, including a statement from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has made smoking restrictions a hallmark of his tenure.


"The nation has lost a visionary public health leader today with the passing of former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who was born and raised in Brooklyn," Bloomberg said. "Outspoken on the dangers of smoking, his leadership led to stronger warning labels on cigarettes and increased awareness about second-hand smoke, creating an environment that helped millions of Americans to stop smoking — and setting the stage for the dramatic changes in smoking laws that have occurred over the past decade."


Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health taught Koop what was known about AIDS during quiet after-hours talks in the early 1980s and became a close friend.


"A less strong person would have bent under the pressure," Fauci said. "He was driven by what's the right thing to do."


Carmona, a surgeon general years later, said Koop was a mentor who preached the importance of staying true to the science in speeches and reports — even when it made certain politicians uncomfortable.


"We remember him for the example he set for all of us," Carmona said.


Koop's nomination originally was met with staunch opposition. Women's groups and liberal politicians complained Reagan had selected him only because of his conservative views, especially his staunch opposition to abortion.


Foes noted that Koop traveled the country in 1979 and 1980 giving speeches that predicted a progression "from liberalized abortion to infanticide to passive euthanasia to active euthanasia, indeed to the very beginnings of the political climate that led to Auschwitz, Dachau and Belsen."


But Koop, a devout Presbyterian, was confirmed as surgeon general after he told a Senate panel he would not use the post to promote his religious ideology. He kept his word and eventually won wide respect with his blend of old-fashioned values, pragmatism and empathy.


Koop was modest about his accomplishments, saying before leaving office in 1989, "My only influence was through moral suasion."


The office declined after that. Few of his successors had his speaking ability or stage presence. Fewer still were able to secure the support of key political bosses and overcome the meddling of everyone else. The office gradually lost prestige and visibility, and now has come to a point where most people can't name the current surgeon general. (It's Dr. Regina Benjamin.)


Even after leaving office, Koop continued to promote public health causes, from preventing childhood accidents to better training for doctors.


"I will use the written word, the spoken word and whatever I can in the electronic media to deliver health messages to this country as long as people will listen," he promised.


In 1996, he rapped Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole for suggesting that tobacco was not invariably addictive, saying Dole's comments "either exposed his abysmal lack of knowledge of nicotine addiction or his blind support of the tobacco industry."


He maintained his personal opposition to abortion. After he left office, he told medical students it violated their Hippocratic oath. In 2009, he wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, urging that health care legislation include a provision to ensure doctors and medical students would not be forced to perform abortions. The letter briefly set off a security scare because it was hand delivered.


Koop served as chairman of the National Safe Kids Campaign and as an adviser to President Bill Clinton's health care reform plan.


Worried that medicine had lost old-fashioned caring and personal relationships between doctors and patients, Koop opened an institute at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire to teach medical students basic values and ethics. He also was a part-owner of a short-lived venture, drkoop.com, to provide consumer health care information via the Internet.


Koop was the only son of a Manhattan banker and the nephew of a doctor. He said by age 5 he knew he wanted to be a surgeon and at age 13 he practiced his skills on neighborhood cats. He attended Dartmouth, where he received the nickname Chick, short for "chicken Koop." It stuck for life.


He received his medical degree at Cornell Medical College, choosing pediatric surgery because so few surgeons practiced it. In 1938, he married Elizabeth Flanagan, the daughter of a Connecticut doctor. They had four children. Koop's wife died in 2007, and he married Cora Hogue in 2010.


He was appointed surgeon-in-chief at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He pioneered surgery on newborns and successfully separated three sets of conjoined twins. He won national acclaim by reconstructing the chest of a baby born with the heart outside the body.


Although raised as a Baptist, he was drawn to a Presbyterian church near the hospital, where he developed an abiding faith. He began praying at the bedside of his young patients — ignoring the snickers of some of his colleagues.


___


Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Wilson Ring in Montpelier, Vt.; Jeff McMillan in Philadelphia; and AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard in Washington.


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Secret Vatican Dossier for 'Pope's Eyes Only'





Feb 25, 2013 9:05am


ROME – Pope Benedict XVI decided to keep secret the contents of an investigative report on the “Vatileaks” scandal, ruling that the only person who will get to see it will be the next pope.


The top secret dossier details the findings of an internal investigation the pope launch last April into the so-called Vatileaks affair, in which Benedict’s former butler leaked confidential documents stolen from the papal chambers.


Italian newspapers have claimed — without attribution — that the investigation revealed a sex and blackmail scandal inside the curia.


The Vatican spokesman today underscored that the contents of the dossier are known only to the pope and his investigators, three elderly prelates whom the Italian papers have nicknamed “the 007 cardinals.”


Pope Benedict met today with Cardinals Julian Herranz of Spain, Jozef Tomko of Slovakia, and Salvatore De Giorgi of Sicily in a private audience.


According to the Vatican, the pope thanked them for their work and expressed satisfaction with their investigation.


“Their work made it possible to detect, given the limitations and imperfections of the human factor of every institution, the generosity and dedication of those who work with uprightness and generosity in the Holy See,” read a Vatican statement.


The Vatican statement pointedly added: “The Holy Father has decided that the acts of this investigation, known only to himself, remain solely at the disposition of the new pope.”


Many here had expected the investigating cardinals, who are too old to participate in the conclave, would brief the voting cardinals about their findings.


Today Vatican officials clarified the investigating cardinals will be free to discuss their investigation with the other cardinals, as the voting members of the conclave seek to understand the challenges the next pope will face.


But the dossier itself will remain “For the Pope’s Eyes Only.”




SHOWS: World News






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Crédit Agricole could cut 1,400 jobs: report






PARIS: French bank Credit Agricole could cut another 1,400 jobs in 2013 at its regional branches, the daily Les Echos said Monday, but unions said no figures had yet been decided.

Citing an internal document, the business daily said that Credit Agricole's regional branches expected only half of departing employees would be replaced in 2013, leading to a staff cut of 1,418 posts.

The bank declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

A union representative confirmed the figures to AFP, but said they were based on projections made in November and were likely to change.

Last week Credit Agricole posted a record 6.5 billion euro ($8.6 billion) loss for 2012, and said it would be launching a three-year strategic plan aimed at saving 650 million euros.

The bank, which shed 2,300 jobs last year, did not say how many jobs would go under the new cost-savings initiative.

The head of human resources for Credit Agricole's regional branches, Camille Beraud, told Les Echos that was as yet no job cuts strategy for the entire bank group.

-AFP/ac



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