World News Gathered & Syndicated

Malawi, a largely agricultural country, is making efforts to overcome decades of underdevelopment and the more recent impact of a growing HIV-Aids problem.

Most Malawians rely on subsistence farming, but the food supply situation is precarious and the country is prone to natural disasters of both extremes – from drought to heavy rainfalls – putting it in constant need of thousands of tonnes of food aid every year.

Malawi has been urged by world financial bodies to free up its economy, and has it has privatised many loss-making state-run corporations.

Since 2007 the country has made real progress in achieving economic growth as part of programmes instituted by the government of President Mutharika in 2005. Healthcare, education and environmental conditions have improved, and Malawi has started to move away from reliance on overseas aid.

Its single major natural resource, agricultural land is under severe pressure from rapid population growth, although the government's programme of fertilizer subsidies has dramatically boosted output in recent years, making Malawi a net food exporter.

Tens of thousands of Malawians die of Aids every year. After years of silence, the authorities spoke out about the crisis. A programme to tackle HIV-Aids was launched in 2004, with President Muluzi revealing that his brother had died from the disease.

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However, the sources said, the two players refused to attend.

The sources also claim that Chandila told interrogators that in the 2012 IPL season, the last two overs of a match between Delhi Daredevils and Rajasthan Royals might have been fixed.

Amidst media reports that Rajasthan Royals co-owner Shilpa Shetty, her husband Raj Kundra and captain Rahul Dravid would also be questioned, police denied calling them for the probe.

The police said they were able to trail the connection when they started to intercept the calls of aides of Tiger Memon, who is wanted in connection with the 1993 Bombay bombings is said to be in Dubai, since March 2013.

They also said that escorts were used to lure the players into the net.

Sources also said that when Sreesanth was arrested from the Trident Hotel in south Mumbai’s Nariman Point late on Wednesday, he was with a woman. Police refused to give more details about her but ruled out her involvement in spot-fixing.

The three players, who along with 11 bookies have been remanded to five days’ police custody, have been lodged in the Special Cell in Lodhi Colony.

Police said all the three players have confessed to their crime.

A senior officer said Sreesanth was ‘cooperating’ in the investigations, while Chavan ‘broke down’ during questioning.

“He [Chavan] accepted that he made a mistake,” the officer said. “He also accepted his role in spot fixing.”

Of the 11 bookies, Chandresh Patel, who was arrested from Mumbai’s Andheri area, may be the main conspirator in the case and could have been involved in spot fixing for several years.

Sources also said that Sreesanth was directly approached by cricketer-turned-bookie Jiju Janardhan, his distant cousin who has also been arrested. He had played for Kerala.

Although the three accused have allegedly confessed to their crimes, their families and lawyers said they were innocent.

Deepak Prakash, Sreesanth’s lawyer, said: “Sreesanth has been falsely or mistakenly arrested. They [Delhi Police] have got some wrong information or mistakenly arrested him.”

Delhi police said more teams have been sent to other states to conduct raids.

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, meanwhile, congratulated Delhi police for the investigations. Asked about the underworld link in the betting racket, he said: “Police is investigating.”

NEW YORK — Lamont Peterson understands his days of being just Lamont Peterson may be over.

Huh?

See, to many he’s Lamont Peterson, IBF junior welterweight champion, D.C. kid who rose from the horrors of the streets to become a world champion. He slept in cars, used newspaper for toilet paper and, Peterson told me recently, had he not met trainer Barry Hunter when he was 11, he probably would be dead or in prison.

To others… well… he’s the guy who flunked a drug test, the guy who tested positive for synthetic testosterone, the guy whose career, including a defining win over Amir Khan, will always be shrouded in some doubt.

“I’m still trying to bury that whole drug testing situation,” Peterson admitted. “People seem to forget very fast about how I performed up to that Khan fight. And then, after the Khan fight, a lot of people were saying I need this and that and this and that. But people forget that I’ve already been a top fighter and I just want to get paid to go out and to prove to people that Lamont Peterson’s still a top fighter and a world champion.”

Peterson’s explanation for the failed test — he was prescribed the testosterone by a doctor to treat his abnormally low levels and that it wasn’t enough to enhance his performance in the ring — had its share of believers and doubters. The WBA didn’t buy it; the sanctioning body stripped Peterson of the belt he won against Khan. The IBF did buy it and allowed Peterson to keep its version of the 140-pound title.

In February, Peterson (31-1) ended a 14-month layoff when he defended his title against Kendall Holt. Peterson looked sluggish early, absorbing plenty of power shots. But in the fourth round, Peterson seized control, steadily advancing on Holt, punishing him with short, crisp punches. Holt went down in the fourth and was finished off in the eighth, when a surging Peterson buried him under an avalanche of punches that forced a stoppage.

“That’s kind of how I work or go about things,” Peterson said. “People can call me a slow starter; I guess that’s the case. I take my time. I figure things out, and after a few rounds I start taking over.”

On Saturday night, Peterson will continue his road back when he takes on Lucas Matthysse at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City (Showtime, 9 pm). No titles will be at stake — Matthysse (33-2) is the interim WBC champion, and because the IBF does not recognize interim titles it would not sanction it as a unification fight, Golden Boy Promotions matchmaker Eric Gomez said, so instead it will be fought at a 141-pound catchweight — but there is plenty on the line. The winner is earmarked for a shot at junior welterweight kingpin Danny Garcia in the fall.

“Every fight right now is important to me,” Peterson said, “because you’re at the top level right now and every fight that you win, every fight that you’re in is a big fight and if you win that big fight you’re going to a bigger fight. I’m 29 years old now. So I’m, some people might not say this but, on the tail end of my career. I don’t plan on doing this much longer.”

Peterson claims to be motivated to fight Matthysse by the urban legend that he has become. Despite losing his two most significant fights — close decision defeats to Zab Judah in 2010 and Devon Alexander in 2011 — Matthysse is considered one of the most feared fighters in the division. He has stopped his last five opponents, including a crushing first-round knockout of Mike Dallas Jr. last January.

“It was the media who said things like, ‘No one wants fight him,’” Peterson said. “I’m in the division, in the same division, when I hear things like that, that are not true, it kind of gets under my skin. I’m like, ‘I’ll fight anyone.’ Not being angry or anything, it’s just the fact that I want to prove to everyone I’m the best at the weight class.

“A lot of people, when you hear about the best in the weight class, they were saying his name. So of course that was the person that I wanted to fight to prove myself and to let people know that someone out here wanted to fight him.”

The taint of the positive test will never fully fade, not with the Internet, not with Wikipedia, not with search engines linking it to his name. But Peterson knows he can win back some of the fans he lost with clean tests and entertaining fights. And matching his fight in the pocket style with the heavy handed Matthysse is close to a can’t-miss.

“I normally don’t worry about anybody’s punching power before the fight,” Peterson said. “I understand that it’s boxing and I’m going to get hit. That’s something that’s a given. If I get hit hard or not, that really doesn’t make a difference to me. I’m willing to take any shot that anybody can give out.”

Story By: by Gregory Warner

Mike Watson (left), CEO of Kenya’s Lewa Conservancy, and conservationist Ian Craig identify the carcass of a 4-year-old black rhino named Arthur, whom poachers had killed the night before. The well-armed, well-informed poachers very likely used night vision goggles and a silencer on an AK-47.

- Patrick Omondi, an official with the Kenya Wildlife Service

Game rangers report for duty at a community conservancy in northern Kenya. The flourishing safari economy in Kenya generates more than $1 billion a year and nearly 500,000 jobs.

- Mike Watson, CEO of Kenya’s Lewa Conservancy

Mzee Kinyanjui is one of the first and longest-serving rangers to work for Lewa Conservancy. Now retired, he is often called upon for advice and guidance by the security department for his forensic skills.

John Palmeri, chief of security, says now they have a new enemy: the cellphone. If one of their rangers simply calls a poacher to alert them — say, there’s an unguarded rhino in the northeast corner — that phone call will be richly rewarded, reportedly to the tune of $3,500.

That’s a lot of money for a rural Kenyan, especially for committing a crime for which no Kenyan has ever served prison time. They’re all free on bail.

“This money is tempting people in the system,” Palmeri says.

Does it ever tempt him?

“No. … I came here when [there were 20 or fewer rhinos]. At the moment we have 125 animals here,” Palmeri says. “And especially, if you have been here, growing with these animals, and knowing that [the animals] have reached this number because of me.”

Not every ranger has such a personal link. Some are just here for the job. So the poaching crisis has left every conservancy in Africa with a question that any army fighting a guerrilla war hates to confront. It’s not how to defend; it’s whom can you trust.

Just recently the last rhino in Mozambique may have been killed, and if so, it was apparently with the direct assistance of the game rangers protecting it. The warden of Limpopo National Park recently told the Associated Press that he’d caught members of his staff “red-handed while directing poachers to a rhino area.”

And considering how much money is dangling there on the black market, it’s remarkable that more rangers haven’t been turned. So while it’s true that rhinos are losing the war against poachers, it’s also true that they have a surprising number of loyal friends.

SAN FRANCISCO May 17 (Reuters) – California Governor Jerry
Brown’s cautious view of the economy and the state’s revenue in
the revised state budget plan he unveiled earlier this week
seems “too pessimistic,” the state’s budget watchdog agency said
in a report on Friday.

“We do not agree with the administration’s view that there
has been a significant dimming of the state’s near-term economic
prospects,” the report by the Legislative Analyst’s Office
added. “In addition, we observe that the administration’s new
revenue forecast does not seem to reflect some recent economic
improvements-most notably, a sharp increase in stock prices.”

Brown on Tuesday unveiled his new budget plan for the fiscal
year beginning in July. Concerned income tax receipts could fall
following a recent surge and that the economy could slow, he
lowered his proposal for general fund spending to $96.4 billion
from the $97.7 billion he outlined in January and called on
lawmakers to support his plans for restraining spending.

A Hong Kong taxi driver prosecuted for overcharging a passenger by HK$0.5 (£0.04; $0.06) has had the case against him thrown out.

The lawsuit, which was withdrawn on Thursday after the prosecution offered no evidence, lasted six months.

Tam Hoichi said the case had tired him out, and he wanted an explanation as to why he was sued.

Hong Kong taxi drivers frequently round up to the nearest dollar when giving change.

It is considered a common practice by many drivers and passengers in Hong Kong.

The overcharging incident is reported to have occurred during a taxi ride in October.

The journey fare was HK$136.5 (£12; $18), and Mr Tam kept HK$0.5 of the change, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.

The passenger did not demand the missing change at the time, but later reported the incident to the police, the SCMP said.

Mr Tam attended the trial hearing on Thursday morning on charges of "taxi overcharge", but was cleared after the case was dismissed.

"The case was reviewed by the Prosecutions Division," Hong Kong's Department of Justice said. "Given the trivial nature… it was considered not appropriate to proceed with it."

Mr Tam told reporters at the court that he felt the lawsuit was "really not just".

"I want to know why the opposite side, for the reason of this small amount, would want to sue me," he said.

A representative for Hong Kong taxi and minibus drivers told AFP news agency that the court case had wasted taxpayers' money and time.

Sao Tome and Principe, once a leading cocoa producer, is poised to profit from the commercial exploitation of large offshore reserves of oil.

From the late 1400s Portugal began settling convicts on Sao Tome and establishing sugar plantations with the help of slaves from the mainland. The island was also important in the transshipment of slaves.

The colony's aspirations for independence were recognised after the 1974 coup in Portugal and at first the Movement for the Liberation of Sao Tome and Principe was the country's sole political party. However, the 1990 constitution created a multi-party democracy. The island of Principe assumed autonomy in 1995.

Sao Tome and Principe is trying to shake off its dependence on the cocoa crop. Falls in production and prices left the island state heavily reliant on foreign aid. The government has been encouraging economic diversification and is set to exploit the billions of barrels of oil which are thought to lie off the country's coast.

Drilling is under way and commercial production is expected to begin within a few years.

Promoters of tourism say the islands have plenty for visitors to see. But hurdles include ignorance about the country, the difficulties of getting there, and what some say is an exaggerated fear of malaria.

Editor’s note: In the Human Factor, we profile survivors who have overcome the odds. Confronting a life obstacle — injury, illness or other hardship — they tapped their inner strength and found resilience they didn’t know they possessed. Evan and Eric Edwards have life-threatening allergies and wanted to develop a better way to deliver epinephrine, a drug used to treat serious allergic reactions. Their vision started shortly after graduating from high school and became a reality soon afterward.

Like many kids, we were unaware and felt invincible. We didn’t worry too much about managing our allergies. That changed after the first severe allergic reaction either of us had.

Evan was playing at a friend’s house when he ate what he had been assured was a “fake peanut.” Almost immediately, it was apparent that something was very, very wrong. Luckily, his friend’s dad also happened to be Evan’s doctor; he treated him immediately, and the incident was resolved.

Life-threatening allergies were much less common when we went to school, so we really stood out as the “strange twins with allergies” — those guys who had to sit at a separate table by themselves at lunchtime. It is unfortunate that severe allergies are much more widespread now, but there is a silver lining: People and organizations are more aware and better able to support the children and adults who suffer.

The idea to develop a new epinephrine auto-injector (commonly known as an EpiPen), specifically designed for the needs of patients like us, came about the summer after we graduated high school. We were on our way to a family vacation in Europe, and it looked as if, once again, the two of us had not packed our EpiPens. They were too bulky so we often didn’t carry them.

After the usual finger-pointing and questions about why we didn’t carry something that could save our lives, the idea of developing a smaller, more portable type of epinephrine auto-injector was born.

At the time, we had recently selected our college majors. (Evan went into the engineering program at the University of Virginia, and Eric chose pre-med/medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University.) We decided to customize our education to develop the skills necessary to make this invention a reality. At the start of each school year we reviewed our course options and decided together which classes to take that would help us achieve our goal.

Our first real funding came from winning a collegiate inventors’ grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance. It was at that point we knew we were on our way.

Soon after we confirmed what we had already suspected: that developing a new pharmaceutical product is extremely complicated. To do it successfully would require deep industry expertise. We founded Intelliject, which now has a leadership team with more than 100 years of combined experience in the pharmaceutical industry.

We are fortunate to work with a team of industry veterans who are just as committed to patients as we are. As we say, the patients are the real experts — we just need to create the opportunities to capture their insight and design products that truly address their needs. Our entire approach puts the user at the center of development from the beginning of the process.

It is hard to describe the feeling now that Auvi-Q – the epinephrine auto-injector that is a culmination of the ideas we had all those years ago — is available in pharmacies across the United States (and as Allerject in Canada).

If you had asked us on the day of the launch in January, we would have told you that it simply can’t get any better than this. But we were wrong.

About a month after Auvi-Q’s launch, we read a Facebook post in which a mother described how her daughter had a severe allergic reaction. She described how Auvi-Q helped her by “having a voice walking through the steps in an emergency situation.” In her opinion, Auvi-Q saved her daughter’s life.

We can confidently say that there is no better feeling than that.

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“For me, being cool is being original, genuine and, most of all, compassionate,” he says. “It doesn’t mean owning the coolest gadgets, or being cool in appearance.”

It’s easy to see why he is such a hit with young people – he talks to them in their language, touching on topics close to their hearts.

One of the fastest-selling authors – the Guardian called him the “paperback king of India” – in 2010 Chetan was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 people “who most affect our world”. That’s not all. The New York Times crowned him “the biggest-selling English-language novelist in India’s history’’.

Rupa and Co, the publisher that has brought out all of Bhagat’s novels since 2004, said over one million copies of Five Point Someone were sold since its release in 2004. In 2011, his novel Revolution 2020 sold 600,000 copies, and Rupa ran out of stock a day after release.

Chetan made his mark in Bollywood with the phenomenal success of the 2009 film 3 Idiots. Loosely based on his book Five Point Someone, the film starring Bollywood icons Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor among others, became one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films of all time in India while also grabbing
16 International Indian Film Academy awards, 10 Star Screen awards and six Filmfare awards.

The appeal of films over books

Despite his fame, Chetan appears a little dazed by all the attention he is receiving here. “I didn’t expect this in the UAE,” he murmurs.
“I didn’t know there were so many people here who knew me.’’

But his secret smile reveals this could be part of his game plan. Though Chetan won’t comment on this, it appears these exercises are his way of broadening his audience base as well as giving back to society. That is the reason why Chetan is now concentrating on writing for Bollywood. “My books will only be read by the educated. Films, on the other hand, cater to the vast majority,” he says. “I’m experimenting to see how I can extend my reach through films. If I can put the values I spoke about with these children into a film that reaches millions, think of the impact.”

His first attempt at writing a film that is not based on one of his books, the Salman Khan-starring Kick, is likely to broaden his base beyond anything literature has done for him. But there are those who deny his books the status of ‘good literature’. Though his stories may be engaging, reviewers have sometimes called his writing “crass”.

Celebrated writer and artist Manjula Padmanabhan voiced the feelings of her contemporaries when she said, “His significance has less to do with what or how he writes than the fact that an audience exists for his kind of writing.”

Chetan says, “Oh yes, it hurt initially. I have now learnt to take it much better. Of course,
the success helped, but inside I changed as a person too.”

So what is it about his books – six so far over a span of nine years – that gives him this superstar status that’s usually reserved for Bollywood stars? “I don’t really know,” he says disarmingly. “The youth may not see me as the best author, but they’ll say ‘he’s my author’. They feel a connection, probably because they see I am an ordinary person, a boy next door. They don’t feel much of a gap between them as readers, and me as the author. “Usually an author who writes in English is quite intimidating for a kid in India, but I’ve had 10-year-olds standing up and asking me questions. I suppose they feel I understand them. They are quite relaxed and not intimidated by me or my writing.”

He, in turn, is not intimidated by his reviewers and critics anymore. “I’ve come to the stage where I feel that if they like my work, great; if they don’t, that’s OK. How does it matter when you reach millions of people?

“I believe that, at the end of the day, my books are interesting for some, and not
for others.”

Around the time he wrote his third novel,
The Three Mistakes of My Life, Chetan began to feel he knew the pulse of the people. “When the book came out I had a chance to meet a top psychiatrist in Delhi during an event,” he
says. “At that time although I was a popular writer, I was being beaten down mercilessly
by critics.

“The psychiatrist gave me a good piece of advice. He told me, ‘There’s something else going on here. You need to understand the power you have over the young generation. They are being influenced by you, they are latching themselves on to something in your books. You must take that seriously. Let
others say whatever they want to. They don’t know the power you have. Please focus on
it properly’. That’s when I decided to quit my job as a banker to concentrate on writing. So, here I am writing syndicated columns and holding talks all over the country, and even abroad.”

Chetan says since that day he’s never bothered about the criticism that he still 
keeps receiving fairly regularly.

“Until then everybody had classified my writing as pulp, something like Mills & Boon. But I don’t think so. If it was, why is it still being talked about years later? It’s something more; though it’s difficult to put a finger on what that is. There is a connect; otherwise why is a 10-year-old girl in Dubai asking me a question about it?”

A long and winding path to success

Chetan began inventing stories early.
“I used to make up stories even as a kid,
because then television was still in its infancy,” he says. “There were not many movies we’d get to watch, so we’d recite stories of movies to each other. I even wrote a play at the age of eight at a camp I went to for students at the Army Public School, Dhaula Kuan in New Delhi. I learnt the art of storytelling from there.”

As he grew up, storytelling faded into the background. He picked up culinary skills from his mother, and wanted to be a chef. “I really enjoyed cooking, I still do, though I don’t get the time now,” he says. “I have the knack and I would have been a good chef, but my father, an army officer, didn’t encourage me. Initially there was even some pressure on me to join the army, but I guess they realised that I was just not cut out for it. I was more of a daydreamer than a person who loves to do physical stuff.”

But he was a daredevil in his own way, climbing up lamposts to retrieve kites stuck at the top, shimmying up roofs to pick up cricket balls hit there… “Yeah, but I was not the disciplined kind of daredevil required for the armed forces!” he grins. “The problem is that I am too much of a rebel while the army requires conformity. I thrive on change, and would have been a total misfit in such an atmosphere.”

But then he proved a conformist when it came to college. He chose to study mechanical engineering at one of India’s premium schools, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi, and later acquired an MBA from the India’s premier management school, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Ahmedabad.

It was while in college that he realised it is better to be ‘over-confident’ than to be a wallflower. “Seeing how the shy guys were being pushed over by the brash ones, I learnt that it’s good to be confident, even over-confident because those are the people who tend to do better in life than those who lack
in confidence.”

After his MBA he joined the banking sector and ended up working for 11 years in the industry, the last few with Deutsche Bank
in Hong Kong. He didn’t enjoy it, though
he does point out the global experience he gained and the fact that it earned him a comfortable living.

It was at this time that he first began to dabble in writing. Three of his books – all of which were hugely popular – were written while he was an investment banker.

From there to becoming youth icon was accidental. “People used to invite me to give talks at small local functions,” he says, explaining this was because he was an achiever in that he had been to IIT and IIM – both prestigious institutions in India. “I gave a speech titled ‘Sparks’ at a college in India, and when I put the text of it on my blog it went viral. Soon, I started getting lots of invitations, and now it’s become a part of my life.”

While it has got him the youth icon tag, Chetan doesn’t claim that it’s always his way of giving back to society. “I can’t claim that, because I do charge as a professional speaker for corporate audiences,” he says candidly. “But with audiences such as this at government festivals where I talk to children, I don’t.”

Chetan considers himself different from other motivational speakers. “The idea is to give something to students to think about,” he says. “I keep my talks light, personal and honest. Mothers sometimes ask me to tell their children not to do drugs, because they listen to me. Strange! But I have to do that.”

But perhaps that’s why he’s 
a youth icon? “Yeah, but it’s bizarre,” 
he exclaims. “All I’ve done is write a few stories. There’s nothing to it. Dan Brown also writes popular stories, but I don’t think mothers would ask him to advise their children.”

He ponders this and 
decides it’s probably “because they see me as someone on 
the same wavelength as their kids. It happens to me everywhere, old people and young, kids and their parents ask me for advice.”

He may claim to be unconventional and something of a rebel, but Chetan tends 
to play it safe where children are concerned. “Would you advise everybody to follow their heart when 
it comes to choosing their professions?” asks the moderator at his talk at the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival. “I’d say secure your future first and then follow your heart,” came the reply.

“I see my role as very responsible,” explains Chetan later. “I wouldn’t want any child hurt, which is quite likely when you follow your dreams. That’s probably why I would not tell
a kid to just follow their heart.”

Makes perfect sense. That’s perhaps why he’s not just a youth icon, but loved by parents too.