Basketball: Bryant gets record 15th straight NBA All Star nod






NEW YORK: Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant led all players in votes in earning a record 15th successive NBA All-Star selection, the NBA said.

The league on Thursday announced the starters for the 2013 mid-season exhibition and said Bryant received 1,591,437 votes to edge Miami's LeBron James (1,583,646) as the top vote-getter.

Bryant had been tied with Jerry West, Karl Malone and Shaquille O'Neal for the most consecutive All-Star nods.

The Los Angeles Clippers' Chris Paul will be Bryant's partner at the guard position in the Western Conference starting line-up. Paul, with 929,155 votes, beat out Houston's Jeremy Lin (883,809) for the spot.

Paul's teammate Blake Griffin, the Lakers' Dwight Howard and Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant -- the reigning All-Star Game Most Valuable Player -- round out the West's frontcourt.

In addition to James, the Eastern Conference's frontcourt features New York's Carmelo Anthony and Boston's Kevin Garnett. The guards are Miami's Dwyane Wade and the Celtics' Rajon Rondo.

The 62nd NBA All-Star Game will be played in Houston on Sunday, February 17.

The starting line-ups were determined by global fan voting. This year in a new twist, fans were able to vote via social networks including Facebook and Twitter, and Sina Weibo and Tencent QQ in China.

The reserves will be selected by polling of the 30 NBA head coaches, who must vote for seven players within their conference and cannot vote for players on their own teams.

The reserves will be announced on January 24.

The East and West All-Star coaches will be determined by the best record in the conferences through February 3.

- AFP/al



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Will Obama's order lead to surge in gun research?


MILWAUKEE (AP) — Nearly as many Americans die from guns as from car crashes each year. We know plenty about the second problem and far less about the first. A scarcity of research on how to prevent gun violence has left policymakers shooting in the dark as they craft gun control measures without much evidence of what works.


That could change with President Barack Obama's order Wednesday to ease research restrictions pushed through long ago by the gun lobby. The White House declared that a 1996 law banning use of money to "advocate or promote gun control" should not keep the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies from doing any work on the topic.


Obama can only do so much, though. Several experts say Congress will have to be on board before anything much changes, especially when it comes to spending money.


How severely have the restrictions affected the CDC?


Its website's A-to-Z list of health topics, which includes such obscure ones as Rift Valley fever, does not include guns or firearms. Searching the site for "guns" brings up dozens of reports on nail gun and BB gun injuries.


The restrictions have done damage "without a doubt" and the CDC has been "overly cautious" about interpreting them, said Daniel Webster, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.


"The law is so vague it puts a virtual freeze on gun violence research," said a statement from Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It's like censorship: When people don't know what's prohibited, they assume everything is prohibited."


Many have called for a public health approach to gun violence like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago even as the number of vehicles on the road rose.


"The answer wasn't taking away cars," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.


However, while much is known about vehicles and victims in crashes, similar details are lacking about gun violence.


Some unknowns:


—How many people own firearms in various cities and what types.


—What states have the highest proportion of gun ownership.


—Whether gun ownership correlates with homicide rates in a city.


—How many guns used in homicides were bought legally.


—Where juveniles involved in gun fatalities got their weapons.


—What factors contribute to mass shootings like the Newtown, Conn., one that killed 26 people at a school.


"If an airplane crashed today with 20 children and 6 adults there would be a full-scale investigation of the causes and it would be linked to previous research," said Dr. Stephen Hargarten, director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin.


"There's no such system that's comparable to that" for gun violence, he said.


One reason is changes pushed by the National Rifle Association and its allies in 1996, a few years after a major study showed that people who lived in homes with firearms were more likely to be homicide or suicide victims. A rule tacked onto appropriations for the Department of Health and Human Services barred use of funds for "the advocacy or promotion of gun control."


Also, at the gun group's urging, U.S. Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, led an effort to remove $2.6 million from the CDC's injury prevention center, which had led most of the research on guns. The money was later restored but earmarked for brain injury research.


"What the NRA did was basically terrorize the research community and terrorize the CDC," said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who headed the CDC's injury center at the time. "They went after the researchers, they went after institutions, they went after CDC in a very big way, and they went after me," he said. "They didn't want the data to be collected because they were threatened by what the data were showing."


Dickey, who is now retired, said Wednesday that his real concern was the researcher who led that gun ownership study, who Dickey described as being "in his own kingdom or fiefdom" and believing guns are bad.


He and Rosenberg said they have modified their views over time and now both agree that research is needed. They put out a joint statement Wednesday urging research that prevents firearm injuries while also protecting the rights "of legitimate gun owners."


"We ought to research the whole environment, both sides — what the benefits of having guns are and what are the benefits of not having guns," Dickey said. "We should study any part of this problem," including whether armed guards at schools would help, as the National Rifle Association has suggested.


Association officials did not respond to requests for comment. A statement Wednesday said the group "has led efforts to promote safety and responsible gun ownership" and that "attacking firearms" is not the answer. It said nothing about research.


The 1996 law "had a chilling effect. It basically brought the field of firearm-related research to a screeching halt," said Benjamin of the Public Health Association.


Webster said researchers like him had to "partition" themselves so whatever small money they received from the CDC was not used for anything that could be construed as gun policy. One example was a grant he received to evaluate a community-based program to reduce street gun violence in Baltimore, modeled after a successful program in Chicago called CeaseFire. He had to make sure the work included nothing that could be interpreted as gun control research, even though other privately funded research might.


Private funds from foundations have come nowhere near to filling the gap from lack of federal funding, Hargarten said. He and more than 100 other doctors and scientists recently sent Vice President Joe Biden a letter urging more research, saying the lack of it was compounding "the tragedy of gun violence."


Since 1973, the government has awarded 89 grants to study rabies, of which there were 65 cases; 212 grants for cholera, with 400 cases, yet only three grants for firearm injuries that topped 3 million, they wrote. The CDC spends just about $100,000 a year out of its multibillion-dollar budget on firearm-related research, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said.


"It's so out of proportion to the burden, however you measure it," said Dr. Matthew Miller, associate professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. As a result, "we don't know really simple things," such as whether tighter gun rules in New York will curb gun trafficking "or is some other pipeline going to open up" in another state, he said.


What now?


CDC officials refused to discuss the topic on the record — a possible sign of how gun shy of the issue the agency has been even after the president's order.


Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement that her agency is "committed to re-engaging gun violence research."


Others are more cautious. The Union of Concerned Scientists said the White House's view that the law does not ban gun research is helpful, but not enough to clarify the situation for scientists, and that congressional action is needed.


Dickey, the former congressman, agreed.


"Congress is supposed to do that. He's not supposed to do that," Dickey said of Obama's order. "The restrictions were placed there by Congress.


"What I was hoping for ... is 'let's do this together,'" Dickey said.


___


Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Lance Armstrong Admits to Doping













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













Lance Armstrong Admits Using Performance-Enhancing Drugs Watch Video









Lance Armstrong's Oprah Confession: The Consequences Watch Video





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.


READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions


PHOTOS: Olympic Doping Scandals: Past and Present


PHOTOS: Tour de France 2012


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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Sahara hostage siege turns Mali war global


ALGIERS/BAMAKO (Reuters) - Islamist fighters have opened an international front in Mali's civil war by taking dozens of Western hostages at a gas plant in the Algerian desert just as French troops launched an offensive against rebels in neighboring Mali.


Nearly 24 hours after gunmen stormed the natural gas pumping site and workers' housing before dawn on Wednesday, little was certain beyond a claim by a group calling itself the "Battalion of Blood" that it was holding 41 foreign nationals, including Americans, Japanese and Europeans, at Tigantourine, deep in the Sahara.


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


"This is a dangerous and rapidly developing situation," Hague told reporters in Sydney on Thursday, adding Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron had spoken with the Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.


"We have sent a rapid deployment team from our Foreign Office in order to reinforce our embassy and consulate staff there. The safety of those involved and their co-workers is our absolutely priority and we will work around the clock to resolve this crisis."


Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a daily briefing after a government emergency meeting that: "Japan will work to secure the release of Japanese citizens as soon as possible in close cooperation with other involved nations."


Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in Vietnam on the first leg of a Southeast Asian tour, told reporters that "Japan will never tolerate such an act", according to the Jiji news agency.


One thing is clear: as a headline-grabbing counterpunch to this week's French buildup in Mali, it presents French President Francois Hollande with a daunting dilemma and spreads fallout from Mali's war against loosely allied bands of al Qaeda-inspired rebels far beyond Africa, challenging Washington and Europe.


A French businessman with employees at the site said the foreigners were bound and under tight guard, while local staff, numbering 150 or more, were held apart and had more freedom.


Led by an Algerian veteran of guerrilla wars in Afghanistan, the group demanded France halt its week-old intervention in Mali, an operation endorsed by 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 haven in the desert.


Hollande, who won wide praise for ordering air strikes and sending troops to the former French colony, said little in response. In office for only eight months, he has warned of a long, hard struggle in Mali and now faces a risk of attacks on more French and other Western targets in Africa and beyond.


The Algerian government ruled out negotiating and the United States and other Western governments condemned what they called a terrorist attack on a facility, now shut down, 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 at the base, near the town of In Amenas close to the Libyan border, and that they were armed with mortars and anti-aircraft missiles.


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.


LIVES AT RISK


The militants issued no explicit threat but made clear the hostages' lives were at risk: "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.


The group also said its fighters had rigged explosives around the site and any attempt to free the hostages would lead to a "tragic end." The large numbers of gunmen and hostages involved pose serious problems for any rescue operation.


Smaller hostage-taking incidents have been common in the Sahara and financial gain plays a part in the actions of groups whose members mingle extremist religious aims with traditional smuggling and other pursuits in the lawless, borderless region.


Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the raid was led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 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.


French media said the militants were also demanding that Algeria, whose government fought a bloody war against Islamists in the 1990s, release dozens of prisoners from its jails.


AMERICANS


The militants said seven Americans were among the 41 foreign hostages - a figure U.S. officials said they could not confirm.


Norwegian energy company Statoil, which operates the gas field in a joint venture with Britain's BP and the Algerian state company Sonatrach, said nine of its Norwegian employees and three of its Algerian staff were being held.


Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp. said in a statement it was cooperating with the government but that it would not comment the number of its employees kidnapped or the location of the incident. According to Japanese media reports, five of the firm's employees were among the hostages.


Also reported kidnapped, according to various sources, were a French national, an Austrian, an Irishman and the Britons.


U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said: "I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation."


He said he lacked firm information on whether there were links to the situation in Mali. Analysts pointed to shifting alliances and rivalries among Islamists in the region to suggest the hostage-takers may have a range of motives.


In their own statements, they condemned Algeria's secularist government for "betraying" its predecessors in the bloody anti-colonial war against French rule half a century ago by letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali. They also accused Algeria of shutting its border to Malian refugees.


Panetta said Washington was still studying legal and other issues before providing more help to France in the war in Mali.


Hollande has called for international support against rebels who France says pose a threat to Africa and the West, and admits it faces a long struggle against well-equipped fighters who seized Timbuktu and other oasis towns in northern Mali and have imposed Islamic law, including public amputations and beheading.


Islamists have warned Hollande that he has "opened the gates of hell" for all French citizens.


Some of those held at the facility, about 1,300 km (800 miles) inland, had sporadic contact with the outside world.


The head of a French catering company said he had information from a manager who supervises some 150 Algerian employees at the site. Regis Arnoux of CIS Catering told BFM television the local staff was being prevented from leaving but was 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."


MALI OFFENSIVE


French army chief Edouard Guillaud said ground forces were stepping up their operation to engage directly "within hours" the alliance of Islamist fighters, grouping al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM and Mali's home-grown Ansar Dine and MUJWA.


West African military chiefs said the French would soon be supported by about 2,000 troops from Nigeria, Chad, Niger and other states - part of a U.N.-mandated deployment that had been expected to start in September before Hollande intervened.


Chad's foreign minister, Moussa Faki Mahamat, told Radio France International his country alone would send 2,000 troops, suggesting plans for the regional force were already growing.


In Mali, residents said a column of some 30 French Sagaie armored vehicles had set off toward rebel positions from the town of Niono, 300 km (190 miles) from the capital, Bamako.


A Malian military source said French special forces units were taking part in the operation. Guillaud said France's strikes, involving Rafale and Mirage jet fighters, were being hampered because militants were sheltering among civilians.


Many inhabitants of northern Mali have welcomed the French attacks, although some also fear being caught in the cross-fire.


Hollande said on Tuesday that French forces would remain in Mali until stability returned to the West African nation.


The conflict, in a landlocked state of 15 million twice the size of France, has displaced an estimated 30,000 people and raised concerns across mostly Muslim West Africa of a radicalization of Islam in the region.


But many who have lived for many months under harsh and violent Islamist rule said they welcomed the French.


"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."


(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher and Andrew Callus in London, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Laurent Prieur in Nouakchott, Daniel Flynn in Dakar, John Irish, Catherine Bremer and Nick Vinocur in Paris, David Alexander in Rome, Andrew Quinn in Washington, Jane Wardell in Sydney and Kaori Kaneko in Tokyo; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Peter Cooney and Michael Perry)



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Tennis: Murray keeps it short in sizzling Sousa win






MELBOURNE: Andy Murray has played in tougher conditions but he was glad he made short work of reaching the Australian Open's third round on a sweltering day on Thursday.

The British third seed and reigning US Open champion conceded just eight games in putting away 100th-ranked Portuguese Joao Sousa, 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 in 1hr 41min on Hisense Arena.

Murray, a twice runner-up at the Australian Open, has his hitting partner, Lithuanian qualifier Ricardas Berankis, as his next opponent in the last 32.

"It wasn't that bad on the court. When the sun came out it was extremely hot. There was little humidity," Murray said, as ambient temperatures hovered around 41 degrees Celsius (106 Fahrenheit).

"When you get the combination of the heat and the humidity is when it's normally at its worst. I've played in worse conditions, but it's still very hot."

Murray, who trains in Miami to condition for the heat of the Australian Open, was too hot to handle, breaking Sousa's service five times without facing a break point.

"I got up a couple of breaks pretty quickly in the first two sets so I could try to shorten the points, which helped," he said.

"I also served well too. I got a lot of free points on my serve and there were very few long rallies which worked out well for me."

Murray controlled the match and had two service breaks to wrap up the opening set in 31 minutes.

He quickly reinforced that with further breaks in Sousa's opening two service games in the second set, which he clinched with a forehand winner.

There was little Sousa could do and he was broken again at the start of the final set as Murray coasted to victory.

It was Murray's sixth consecutive match victory this season after he beat Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov to win his 25th career title at the Brisbane International.

Murray is familiar with his next opponent, Berankis, having regularly practised with him.

"I've actually hit with him a lot. I trained with him before the Australian Open last year," Murray said.

"I practised with him in Brisbane this year and I practised with him a couple times before the tournament here.

"He's won five matches and he hits the ball pretty big from the back of the court. He plays aggressive and he's a very flat hitter of the ball."

- AFP/ac



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Another Congress MLA in Andhra joins Jaganmohan's party

HYDERABAD: The Congress government in Andhra Pradesh suffered yet another blow with its Kakinada MLA Dwarampudi Chandrasekhar Reddy formally joining the YSR Congress on Thursday.

The Congress' strength in the assembly has now been reduced to 149, just one more than the magic mark of 148 in the 294-member House.

Dwarampudi, however, said he would not resign from his post despite switching over to the YSRC.

The MLA met YSRC honorary president Y S Vijaya here on Thursday and completed the formality of joining the party.

His move does not come as a surprise as he is a known loyalist of Kadapa MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy.

Dwarampudi accused chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy of failing to honour any of the promises made for the development of Kakinada constituency.

"I waited patiently for a year but the government did nothing to keep its word after I voted against the no-confidence motion in December 2011. Moreover, it has been implementing several anti-people's policies, the latest being the move to increase power tariff very steeply," the legislator pointed out.

Hence, he quit the Congress and joined the YSRC to stand by the family of late Y S Rajasekhara Reddy.

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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.


___


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."






Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images











Notre Dame's Athletic Director Discusses Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax Watch Video









Notre Dame Football Star Victim of 'Girlfriend Hoax' Watch Video









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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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France to stay in Mali until stability restored


BAMAKO/DUBAI (Reuters) - France pledged on Tuesday to keep troops in Mali until stability returned to the West African country, raising the specter of a long campaign against al Qaeda-linked rebels who held their ground despite a fifth day of air strikes.


Paris has poured hundreds of soldiers into Mali and carried out 50 bombing raids since Friday in the Islamist-controlled northern half of the country, which Western and regional states fear could become a base for terrorist attacks in Africa and Europe.


Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that, despite French air support, Malian forces had not been able to dislodge Islamist fighters from the central Malian towns of Konna or Diabaly, just 350 km (220 miles) northeast of Bamako.


A column of French armored vehicles rolled northward from the dusty riverside capital of Bamako towards rebel lines on Tuesday, the first major northward deployment of ground troops. A military official declined to comment on their objective.


Thousands of African soldiers are due to take over the offensive. Regional armies are scrambling to accelerate an operation which was initially not expected until September and has been brought forward by France's surprise bombing campaign aimed at stopping a rebel advance on a strategic town last week.


President Francois Hollande, on a visit to the United Arab Emirates during which he sought Gulf states' financial backing for the African-led mission, suggested France would retain a major role in its former colony for months to come.


"We have one goal. To ensure that when we leave, when we end our intervention, Mali is safe, has legitimate authorities, an electoral process and there are no more terrorists threatening its territory," Hollande told a news conference.


Paris has said it plans to deploy 2,500 soldiers to bolster the Malian army and work with the intervention force provided by West African states.


AFRICAN TROOPS


West African Defense chiefs met in Bamako on Tuesday to approve plans for the swift deployment of 3,300 regional troops, foreseen in a United Nations-backed intervention plan. After failing to reach a final agreement, they adjourned their talks until Wednesday.


Nigeria pledged to deploy soldiers within 24 hours, and Belgium said it was sending transport planes and helicopters to help, but West Africa's armies need time to become operational.


Mali's north, a vast and inhospitable area of desert and rugged mountains the size of Texas, was seized last year by an Islamist alliance combining al Qaeda's north African wing AQIM with splinter group MUJWA and the home-grown Ansar Dine rebels.


Any delay in following up on the French air bombardments of Islamist bases and fuel depots with a ground offensive could allow the insurgents to slip away into the desert and mountains, regroup and counter-attack.


The rebels, who French officials say are mobile and well armed, have shown they can hit back, dislodging government forces from Diabaly on Monday.


Residents said the town was still under Islamist control on Tuesday despite a number of air strikes that shook houses.


An eye witness near Segou, to the south, told Reuters he had seen 20 French Special Forces soldiers driving toward Diabaly.


In Konna, whose seizure on Thursday sparked French involvement, residents said Islamist fighters were camped just outside town. Army troops had also withdrawn after entering the town on Saturday.


Malians have largely welcomed the French intervention, having seen their army suffer a series of defeats by the rebels.


"With the arrival of the French, we have started to see the situation on the front evolve in our favor," said Aba Sanare, a resident of Bamako.


QUESTIONS OVER READINESS


Aboudou Toure Cheaka, a senior regional official in Bamako, said the West African troops would be on the ground in a week.


The original timetable for the 3,300-strong U.N.-sanctioned African force - to be backed by western logistics, money and intelligence services - did not initially foresee full deployment before September due to logistical constraints.


Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Guinea have all offered troops. Col. Mohammed Yerima, spokesman for Nigeria's Defense ministry, said the first 190 soldiers would be dispatched within 24 hours.


But Nigeria, which is due to lead the mission, has already cautioned that even if some troops arrive in Mali soon, their training and equipping will take more time.


Sub-Saharan Africa's top oil producer, which already has peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur and is fighting a bloody and difficult insurgency at home against Islamist sect Boko Haram, could struggle to deliver on its troop commitment of 900 men.


One senior government adviser in Nigeria said the Mali deployment was stretching the country's military.


"The whole thing's a mess. We don't have any troops with experience of those extreme conditions, even of how to keep all that sand from ruining your equipment. And we're facing battle-hardened guys who live in those dunes," said the adviser, who asked not to be named.


FRENCH LINING UP SUPPORT


France, which has repeatedly said it has abandoned its role as policeman of its former African colonies, said on Monday that the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Germany had also offered logistical support.


Fabius has said Gulf Arab states would help the Mali campaign, while Belgium said on Tuesday it would send two C130 transport planes and two medical helicopters following a request from Paris.


A meeting of donors for the operation was expected to be held in Addis Ababa at the end of January.


Security experts have warned that the multinational intervention in Mali, couched in terms of a campaign by governments against "terrorism", could provoke a jihadist backlash against France and the West, and African allies.


U.S. officials have warned of links between AQIM, Boko Haram in Nigeria and al Shabaab Islamic militants fighting in Somalia.


Al Shabaab, which foiled a French effort at the weekend to rescue a French secret agent it was holding hostage, urged Muslims around the world to rise up against what it called "Christian" attacks against Islam.


"Our brothers in Mali, show patience and tolerance and you will win. War planes never liberate a land," Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, al Shabaab's spokesman, said on a rebel-run website.


U.S. officials said Washington was sharing information with French forces in Mali and considering providing logistics, surveillance and airlift capability.


"We have made a commitment that al Qaeda is not going to find any place to hide," U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters as he began a visit to Europe. Panetta later said the U.S. had no plans to send troops to Mali.


One U.S. military source said the haphazard nature of French involvement reminded him of the U.S. entry into Afghanistan.


"I don't know what the French endgame is for this," the source said. "Air strikes are fine, but pretty soon you run out of easy targets. Then what do you do? What do you do when they head up into the mountains?"


(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau and Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi, Felix Onuah in Abuja and Tim Cocks in Lagos, Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu, Michelle Nichols and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations,; Richard Valdmanis in Dakar, Joe Bavier in Abidjan, Jan Vermeylen in Brussels; Writing by Pascal Fletcher, Daniel Flynn and David Lewis; editing by Richard Valdmanis, Giles Elgood and Will Waterman)



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S. Korea satellite rocket launch set for Jan 30-Feb 8






SEOUL: South Korea will make another bid at the end of this month to put a satellite in orbit and gain entry to an elite global space club that includes Asian powers China, India and Japan.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced Wednesday a January 30 to February 8 window for launching the 140-tonne Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1) from the Naro Space Centre on the south coast.

"By the end of this week, first and second stages will be connected and next week, rehearsals will take place," a ministry official told AFP.

Following failed attempts in 2009 and 2010, a successful launch is considered crucial to South Korea's commercial space ambitions.

The current attempt has already been postponed twice for technical reasons after launch dates were set in October and then November.

The KSLV-1 has a first stage manufactured by Russia, with a solid-fuel second stage built in South Korea.

In 2009, the carrier achieved orbit, but faulty release mechanisms on its second stage prevented proper deployment of the satellite.

A 2010 effort saw the carrier explode two minutes into its flight, with both Russia and South Korea blaming each other.

Last month, North Korea successfully launched its own long-range rocket, which Pyongyang was a purely scientific mission to place a satellite in orbit.

Most of the world saw it as a disguised ballistic missile test that violated UN resolutions imposed after the North's nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

Seoul's space ambitions were restricted for many years by its main military ally the United States, which feared that a robust missile or rocket programme would accelerate a regional arms race, especially with North Korea.

Japan and China both achieved their first satellite launches back in 1970, and India made its breakthrough in 1980. But the lack of US support contributed to South Korea, Asia's fourth largest economy, lagging behind.

Soon after joining the Missile Technology Control Regime in 2001, South Korea made Russia its go-to space partner.

The KSLV-1 will deploy a small satellite that will mainly collect data on space radiation.

- AFP/ck



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