Foreigners still trapped in Sahara hostage crisis


ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - More than 20 foreigners were captive or missing inside a desert gas plant on Saturday, nearly two days after the Algerian army launched an assault to free them that saw many hostages killed.


The standoff between the army and al Qaeda-linked gunmen - one of the biggest international hostage crises in decades - entered its fourth day, having thrust Saharan militancy to the top of the global agenda.


The number and fate of victims has yet to be confirmed, with the Algerian government keeping officials from Western countries far from the site where their countrymen were in peril.


Reports put the number of hostages killed at between 12 to 30, with possibly dozens of foreigners still unaccounted for - among them Norwegians, Japanese, Britons, Americans and others.


The U.S. State Department said on Friday one American, Frederick Buttaccio, had died but gave no further details.


On Saturday, the Algerian military was holding the vast residential barracks at the In Amenas gas processing plant, while gunmen were holed up in the industrial plant itself with an undisclosed number of hostages, making it difficult for Algerian special forces to intervene.


The army is surrounding the plant, and helicopters are monitoring the area, Algerian state radio said, quoting a reporter in the city of In Amenas.


Scores of Westerners and hundreds of Algerian workers were inside the heavily fortified compound when it was seized before dawn on Wednesday by Islamist fighters who said they wanted a halt to a French military operation in neighboring Mali.


Hundreds escaped on Thursday when the army launched an operation, but many hostages were killed in the assault. Algerian forces destroyed four trucks holding hostages, according to the family of a Northern Irish engineer who escaped from a fifth truck and survived.


Leaders of Britain, Japan and other countries have expressed frustration that the assault was ordered without consultation and officials have grumbled at the lack of information. Many countries also withheld details about their missing citizens to avoid releasing information that might aid the captors.


An Algerian security source said 30 hostages, including at least seven Westerners, had been killed during Thursday's assault, along with at least 18 of their captors. Eight of the dead hostages were Algerian, with the nationalities of the rest of the dead still unclear, he said.


Algeria's state news agency APS put the total number of dead hostages at 12, including both foreigners and locals.


The base was home to foreign workers from Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil and Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp and others.


Norway says eight Norwegians are still missing. JGC said it was missing 10 staff. Britain and the United States have said they have citizens unaccounted for but have not said how many.


The Algerian security source said 100 foreigners had been freed but 32 were still unaccounted for.


"We must be prepared for bad news this weekend but we still have hope," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said.


A U.S. official said on Friday a U.S. flight carrying wounded people from many countries had left Algeria, without giving further details.


The attack has plunged international capitals into crisis mode and is a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.


"We are still dealing with a fluid and dangerous situation where a part of the terrorist threat has been eliminated in one part of the site, but there still remains a threat in another part," British Prime Minister David Cameron told his parliament.


Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among the seven foreigners confirmed dead in the army's storming, the Algerian security source told Reuters. One British citizen was killed when the gunmen seized the hostages on Wednesday.


"(The army) is still trying to achieve a ‘peaceful outcome' before neutralizing the terrorist group that is holed up in the (facility) and freeing a group of hostages that is still being held," Algeria's state news agency said on Friday, quoting a security source.


MULTINATIONAL INSURGENCY


Algerian commanders said they moved in on Thursday about 30 hours after the siege began, because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.


A French hostage employed by a French catering company said he had hidden in his room for 40 hours under the bed before he was rescued by Algerian troops, relying on Algerian employees to smuggle him food with a password.


"I put boards up pretty much all round," Alexandre Berceaux told Europe 1 radio. "I didn't know how long I was going to stay there ... I was afraid. I could see myself already ending up in a pine box."


The captors said their attack was a response to the French military offensive in neighboring Mali. However, some U.S. and European officials say the elaborate raid probably required too much planning to have been organized from scratch in the single week since France first launched its strikes.


Paris says the incident proves its decision to fight Islamists in neighboring Mali was necessary.


Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a preoccupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.


The most powerful Islamist groups operating in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in a civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of Al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.


Al Qaeda-linked fighters, many with roots in Algeria and Libya, took control of northern Mali last year, prompting the French intervention in that poor African former colony.


The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of outwardly tough Algerian security measures.


Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site.


U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said those responsible would be hunted down: "Terrorists should be on notice that they will find no sanctuary, no refuge, not in Algeria, not in North Africa, not anywhere. ... Those who would wantonly attack our country and our people will have no place to hide."


(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Eamonn Mallie in Belfast, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London, Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries in Dublin, Andrew Quinn and David Alexander in Washington; Editing by Giles Elgood)



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Tennis: Serena, Murray suck it up to reach sweet 16






MELBOURNE: Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka came through their first uncomfortable moments and Andy Murray was also tested before reaching the Australian Open's last 16 on Saturday.

Williams, eyeing a calendar-year Grand Slam, was broken for the first time in the tournament by Japanese number one Ayumi Morita, before recovering from 0-3 down in the second set to win 6-1, 6-3.

Defending champion Azarenka screamed at herself and thrashed her racquet before overcoming an unexpectedly stiff challenge by America's Jamie Hampton, who bravely played through severe back pain.

Argentina's Juan Martin Del Potro, seeded six, became the tournament's biggest casualty when the 2009 US Open champion slumped to a five-set defeat to unseeded Frenchman Jeremy Chardy.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Richard Gasquet also went through, and with Gilles Simon playing Gael Monfils later France was assured of having four men in the fourth round, equalling their best performance at the tournament.

In the most competitive day so far, Murray extended his Grand Slam winning streak to 10 matches but not before a thorough workout from hitting partner Berankis, and he let his frustrations show during the 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 win.

The world number three trailed by a break of serve in the second set and appeared agitated at various stages, hitting his racquet on the court and yelling at his courtside box.

Murray served for the match at 5-4 in the third set but Berankis, the world number 110, broke back. But the 22-year-old dropped his next service game and Murray made no mistake in his second attempt at closing the victory.

The Olympic and US Open champion will next face the winner of the all-French affair between Monfils and Simon.

"I was struggling," Murray said. "He (Berankis) was making me feel pretty frustrated. We know each other well and we have practised together. He was making me feel pretty uncomfortable out there."

Williams unleashed her fastest ever serve, a 207 kilometres per hour (128 mph) bullet which equalled a speed clocked in round two against Garbine Muguruza, as she subdued the challenge of Morita.

"I feel today was actually a really good match for me," said Williams, a five-time winner at Melbourne Park and holder of 15 Grand Slam titles.

"I was involved in a lot of longer points, something I definitely wanted. I feel good. I hope I can keep this level up and go higher."

Azarenka admitted she needed to improve "everything" to successfully defend her title after surviving a scare against injured American Hampton, who winced as she played and was close to tears from the pain.

"It was definitely tough," said Azarenka, who won 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 and next plays Elena Vesnina. She is on course to meet Caroline Wozniacki in the quarter-finals.

"It's always good to know you can battle through not playing well, not feeling great."

World number seven Del Potro won four titles last year and dropped just 13 games in the first two rounds, but he found Chardy in inspired form and couldn't recover after going two sets down, finally succumbing in five.

Italy's Andreas Seppi ousted 12th seed Marin Cilic, but Tsonga found it easier with a straight-sets win over Blaz Kavcic, who was on an IV drip just two days ago after playing a five-hour marathon in intense heat.

In the prime-time evening match, four-time champion Roger Federer was due to play Australian upstart Bernard Tomic as he seeks to extend his record number of Grand Slam titles to 18.

-AFP/ac



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Chintan Shivir: Congress leaders pitch for Rahul Gandhi as PM candidate

JAIPUR: Amid talk that Rahul Gandhi will be given a larger responsibility, clamour for declaring the young leader as the Congress prime ministerial candidate grew louder at the party's Chintan Shivir on Saturday.

Union ministers Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajiv Shukla, Jitin Prasada, senior leader Manishankar Aiyar batted for larger responsibility for Rahul as the party recognised the need to respond to the demands of "new changing India peopled by a more younger" generation.

Young leader Milind Deora said, "It is a consensus and feeling in the Shivir that youths should be empowered.

On the first day also, a number of leaders including Raj Babbar and Avtar Singh Badhana had demanded that Rahul should be declared Congress PM candidate before the party goes to next Lok Sabha polls.

"Rahul will lead the party during 2014 general elections and would be the prime ministerial candidate," party leader Sanjay Nirupam said before the discussions began on Day-2.

Uttar Pradesh leader Jitin Prasada said, "Things are being discussed as to how we can ensure participation of youths. Rahul is certainly our leader and he will lead 2014 general elections of Congress and the country as well."

Union minister Veeprappa Moily said, "Rahul is already a leader.We have stable leaders we are proud of them. Congress has always enjoyed great leadership. If there is any disconnect we are discussing these concerns and will ensure that there is proper connect."

About the demand for larger role to Rahul, Union minister Rajiv Shukla said, "It is to be decided by Sonia and Rahul, we can only demand and we are demanding.

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Lilly drug chosen for Alzheimer's prevention study


Researchers have chosen an experimental drug by Eli Lilly & Co. for a large federally funded study testing whether it's possible to prevent Alzheimer's disease in older people at high risk of developing it.


The drug, called solanezumab (sol-ah-NAYZ-uh-mab), is designed to bind to and help clear the sticky deposits that clog patients' brains.


Earlier studies found it did not help people with moderate to severe Alzheimer's but it showed some promise against milder disease. Researchers think it might work better if given before symptoms start.


"The hope is we can catch people before they decline," which can come 10 years or more after plaques first show up in the brain, said Dr. Reisa Sperling, director of the Alzheimer's center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.


She will help lead the new study, which will involve 1,000 people ages 70 to 85 whose brain scans show plaque buildup but who do not yet have any symptoms of dementia. They will get monthly infusions of solanezumab or a dummy drug for three years. The main goal will be slowing the rate of cognitive decline. The study will be done at 50 sites in the U.S. and possibly more in Canada, Australia and Europe, Sperling said.


In October, researchers said combined results from two studies of solanezumab suggested it might modestly slow mental decline, especially in patients with mild disease. Taken separately, the studies missed their main goals of significantly slowing the mind-robbing disease or improving activities of daily living.


Those results were not considered good enough to win the drug approval. So in December, Lilly said it would start another large study of it this year to try to confirm the hopeful results seen patients with mild disease. That is separate from the federal study Sperling will head.


About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Current medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.


___


Online:


Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov


Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org


___


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


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Armstrong Tearful Over Telling Kids Truth













Lance Armstrong, 41, began to cry today as he described finding out his son Luke, 13, was publicly defending him from accusations that he doped during his cycling career.


Armstrong said that he knew, at that moment, that he would have to publicly admit to taking performance-enhancing drugs and having oxygen-boosting blood transfusions when competing in the Tour de France. He made those admissions to Oprah Winfrey in a two-part interview airing Thursday and tonight.


"When this all really started, I saw my son defending me, and saying, 'That's not true. What you're saying about my dad? That's not true,'" Armstrong said, tearing up during the second installment of his interview tonight. "And it almost goes to this question of, 'Why now?'


"That's when I knew I had to talk," Armstrong said. "He never asked me. He never said, 'Dad, is this true?' He trusted me."


He told Winfrey that he sat down with his children over the holidays to come clean about his drug use.


"I said, 'Listen, there's been a lot of questions about your dad, about my career and whether I doped or did not dope,'" he said he told them. "'I always denied that. I've always been ruthless and defiant about that, which is why you defended me, which makes it even sicker' I said, 'I want you to know that it's true.'"


He added that his mother was "a wreck" over the scandal.


Armstrong said that the lowest point in his fall from grace and the top of the cycling world came when his cancer charity, Livestrong, asked him to consider stepping down.






George Burns/Harpo Studios, Inc.











Lance Armstrong-Winfrey Interview: How Honest Was He? Watch Video









Lance Armstrong-Winfrey Interview: Doping Confession Watch Video







After the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency alleged in October that Armstrong doped throughout his reign as Tour de France champion, Armstrong said, his major sponsors -- including Nike, Anheuser Busch and Trek -- called one by one to end their endorsement contracts with him.


"Everybody out," he said. "Still not the most humbling moment."


Then came the call from Livestrong, the charity he founded at age 25 when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.


"The story was getting out of control, which was my worst nightmare," he said. "I had this place in my mind that they would all leave. The one I didn't think would leave was the foundation.


"That was most humbling moment," he said.


Armstrong first stepped down as chairman of the board for the charity before being asked to end his association with the charity entirely. Livestrong is now run independently of Armstrong.


"I don't think it was 'We need you to step down,' but, 'We need you to consider stepping down for yourself,'" he said, recounting the call. "I had to think about that a lot. None of my kids, none of my friends have said, 'You're out,' and the foundation was like my sixth child. To make that decision, to step aside, that was big."


In Thursday's interview installment, the seven-time winner of the Tour de France admitted publicly for the first time that he doped throughout his career, confirming after months of angry denials the findings of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which stripped him of his titles in October.


He told Winfrey that he was taking the opportunity to confess to everything he had done wrong, including for years angrily denying claims that he had doped.


READ MORE: Armstrong Admits to Doping


WATCH: Armstrong's Many Denials Caught on Tape


READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions






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Hostages still held after Sahara assault


ALGIERS (Reuters) - At least 22 foreign hostages remained unaccounted for on Friday after Algerian forces stormed a desert gas complex to free hundreds of captives taken by Islamist gunmen, an operation in which dozens of the hostages were killed.


With Western leaders clamoring for details of the assault they said Algeria had launched on Thursday without consulting them, a local source said the gas base was still surrounded by Algerian special forces and some hostages remained inside.


Thirty hostages, including several Westerners, were killed during the storming on Thursday, the source said, along with at least 11 of their captors, who said they had taken the site as retaliation for French intervention against Islamists in neighboring Mali.


Fourteen Japanese were among those still unaccounted for by the early hours of Friday, their Japanese employer said, while Norwegian energy company Statoil, which runs the Tigantourine gas field with Britain's BP and Algeria's national oil company, said eight Norwegian employees were still missing.


An Irish engineer who survived said he saw four jeeps full of hostages blown up by Algerian troops whose commanders said they moved in about 30 hours after the siege began because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.


The crisis posed a serious dilemma for Paris and its allies as French troops attacked the hostage-takers' al Qaeda allies in Mali. It also left question marks over the ability of OPEC-member Algeria to protect vital energy resources and strained its relations with Western powers.


Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among at least seven foreigners killed, the source told Reuters. Eight dead hostages were Algerian. The nationalities of the rest, as well as of perhaps dozens more who escaped, were unclear. Some 600 local Algerian workers, less well guarded, survived.


A diplomatic source said Britain had not received any information to suggest the hostage situation had ended. "The situation is still really fluid on the ground. We have no information from the Algerian authorities that it's over."


Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has cancelled part of his trip in Southeast Asia, his first overseas trip since taking office, and will fly home early due to the hostage crisis, Japan's senior government spokesman said on Friday.


"The action of Algerian forces was regrettable," said Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, adding Tokyo had not been informed of the operation in advance.


Americans, Romanians and an Austrian have also been mentioned by their governments as having been captured by the militants, who call themselves the "Battalion of Blood" and have demanded France end its week-old offensive in Mali.


Underlining the view of African and Western leaders that they face a multinational Islamist insurgency across the Sahara - a conflict that prompted France to send hundreds of troops to Mali last week - the official source said only two of the 11 dead militants were Algerian, including the squad's leader.


The bodies of three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a Frenchman - all assumed to have been hostage-takers - were found, the security source said.


The group had claimed to have dozens of guerrillas on site and it was unclear whether any militants had managed to escape.


The overall commander, Algerian officials said, was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of Afghanistan in the 1980s and Algeria's bloody civil war of the 1990s. He appears not to have been present and has now risen in stature among a host of Saharan Islamists, flush with arms and fighters from chaotic Libya, whom Western powers fear could spread violence far beyond the desert.


"NO TO BLACKMAIL"


Algeria's government made clear it remains implacably at odds with Islamist guerrillas who remain at large in the south, years after the civil war in which some 200,000 people died. Communication Minister Mohamed Said repeated their refusal ever to negotiate with hostage-takers.


"We say that in the face of terrorism, yesterday as today as tomorrow, there will be no negotiation, no blackmail, no respite in the struggle against terrorism," he told APS news agency.


British Prime Minister David Cameron, who warned people to prepare for bad news and who cancelled a major policy speech on Friday to deal with the situation, said through a spokesman that he would have liked Algeria to have consulted before the raid.


A Briton and an Algerian were also killed on Wednesday.


U.S. officials had no clear information on the fate of Americans, though a U.S. military drone had flown over the area. Washington, like its European allies, has endorsed France's move to protect the Malian capital by mounting air strikes last week and now sending 1,400 ground troops to attack Islamist rebels.


A U.S. official said on Thursday it would provide transport aircraft to help France with a mission whose vital importance, President Francois Hollande said, was demonstrated by the attack in Algeria. Some fear, however, that going on the offensive in the remote region could provoke more bloodshed closer to home.


The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of security measures that are outwardly draconian.


(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Eamonn Mallie in Belfast, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin and Conor Humprhies in Dublin; writing by Alastair Macdonald and Philippa Fletcher; editing by Peter Millership, Michael Perry and Will Waterman)



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Cycling: Livestrong "disappointed" by Armstrong's deception






WASHINGTON: Livestrong, the cancer charity founded by disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, said on Thursday it was "disappointed" that he had deceived the organization and many others about doping.

"We at the Livestrong Foundation are disappointed by the news that Lance Armstrong misled people during and after his cycling career, including us," it said after the broadcast of Armstrong's interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Armstrong, 41, used the interview to come clean for the first time about his use of performance enhancing drugs to win seven consecutive Tour de France races, after more than a decade of strident denials.

Prior to recording the interview on Monday in his hometown of Austin, Texas, Armstrong personally went to Livestrong headquarters to apologize to its staff -- and in the interview, he wore its iconic yellow fund-raising wristband.

"We accepted his apology in order to move on and chart a strong, independent course," the foundation said in its statement, received 40 minutes after the conclusion of part one of the broadcast, which will continue on Friday.

"Even in the wake of our disappointment, we also express our gratitude to Lance as a (cancer) survivor for the drive, devotion and spirit he brought to serving cancer patients and the entire cancer community," it said.

"Lance is no longer on the foundation's board, but he is our founder and we will always be grateful to him for creating and helping to build a foundation that has served millions struggling with cancer."

It added: "Our success has never been based on one person. It's based on the patients and survivors we serve every day who approach a cancer diagnosis with hope, courage and perseverance."

Armstrong founded Livestrong in 1997 after he underwent chemotherapy to overcome testicular cancer that had spread to his brain and other parts of his body.

He stepped down first as its chairman, then from its board of directors last year as the US Anti-Doping Agency, in a damning 1,000-page report, put him at the center of the biggest doping conspiracy in the annals of cycling.

Livestrong says it has served more than 2.5 million people affected by cancer and raised more than US$500 million since its founding to support cancer survivors. It does not contribute directly to cancer research.

- AFP/xq



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No question of forming govt with BJP, says Yeddyurappa

BANGALORE: Former chief minister and KJP leader B S Yeddyurappa on Friday ruled out the possibility of his party forming a government with BJP after the assembly polls.

"There is no question of KJP joining hands with BJP to form the government. Some of them are trying to create confusion in the minds of people. Our aim is to form KJP government on our own," he told reporters after inaugurating KJP's Election Office here.

Assembly elections are due in May. Yeddyurappa also said there is no question of his party tying up with other parties to form the government. "When I was in BJP, I was determined to bring it to power in South India and did it. I am now determined to bring KJP to power and I am confident I will succeed," he said.

Yeddyurappa said he did not expect any political change after January 23, nor was he "trying anything of that sort (destabilising the present government)."

Yeddyurappa said if JDS and Congress are ready to destabilise the government, why should he do it.

On his supporter Nehru Olekar's remarks that about 20 MLAs and four ministers would join KJP on January 23, Yeddyurappa said he was not aware of it.

Yeddyurappa said he has not given any deadline to BJP MLAs and Ministers to join KJP. "If they want to join my party happily, let them do so. If they feel safe in BJP, let them continue there. I have not set any deadline for them," he said.

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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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Armstrong Admits to Doping, 'One Big Lie'













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


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


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


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


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






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













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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


"No," Armstrong said. "Scary."


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


"No," he said.


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






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