MTN Group Slides as Family Row Threatens Reliance Merger Talks

MTN Group Ltd. fell the most in more than a week in Johannesburg trading after a feud between India’s Ambani brothers threatened to disrupt merger talks with Reliance Communications Ltd. Chairman Anil Ambani. MTN, Africa’s largest mobile-phone company, lost as much as 3.94 rand, or 2.8 percent, to 135.01 rand, the biggest drop since June 9. The stock traded at 135.64 rand at 9:39 a.m., valuing the company at 253 billion rand ($29.3 billion).

Reliance Industries Ltd., controlled by Anil Ambani’s older brother Mukesh Ambani, said last week it had informed MTN and Reliance Communications that the company could block any move to sell a controlling stake in the Indian wireless operator without allowing Reliance Industries an opportunity to buy the shares.

Reliance Communications is India’s second-largest mobile- phone company.

Customs, excise duty up 12.8% in Apr, May

After dipping into negative growth in April, excise duty collections grew by 4.4 per cent in May helping the government mop up 12.8 per cent higher revenues at Rs 35,216 crore from indirect taxes, barring service tax, for the first two months of this fiscal.

Data for service tax collections are available only for April and the collection under this head grew by a whopping 40 per cent at Rs 6,093 crore in that month, according to an official release in New Delhi.

Excise duty collections grew by 0.9 per cent at Rs 15,993 crore for the first two months of this fiscal compared to same period in 2007, boosted by 4.4 per cent growth in May at Rs 9,583 crore against Rs 9,175 crore in the same month last year.

For the month of April, collections under excise duty had fallen by 3.9 per cent to Rs 6,410 crore against Rs 6,673 crore in the same month last year.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram had said that meeting target of excise duty collections for this fiscal appeared to be a formidable task.

Even excise duty collection growth in May fell short of the target of 8.8 per cent growth for the whole fiscal.

Customs duty mop-up was up by 25.1 per cent for the first two months at Rs 19,223 crore. Collections under this head grew by 25.2 per cent at Rs 10,205 crore in May.

Despite cut in customs duty on various items to tame inflation, the Government is hopeful of meeting the collection target under this head for this fiscal.

Customs duty and service tax collections are targeted to grow at 14.4 per cent and 26.1 per cent during the current fiscal, respectively.

Hearing loss common in diabetics

Hearing loss is nearly twice as common among diabetic adults than their healthy counterparts, according to a new study. Researchers stumbled on the phenomenon after analysing the results of tests administered to a nationally representative sample in the US.

The test measured their ability to hear low, middle, and high frequency sounds in both ears. The link between diabetes and hearing loss became evident across all frequencies, with a stronger association in the high frequency range.

Adults with pre-diabetes, whose blood glucose is higher than normal but not high enough for a diabetes diagnosis, had a 30 percent higher rate of hearing loss compared to those with normal blood sugar tested after an overnight fast.

The researchers analysed data from hearing tests administered between 1999 and 2004 under the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), held by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP).

Half of the 11,405 surveyed, aged between 20 to 69 were randomly assigned to have their hearing tested, and nearly 90 percent of them completed the hearing exam and the diabetes questionnaire.

"Hearing loss may be an under-recognised complication of diabetes," said co-author Catherine Cowie of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

Diabetes may lead to hearing loss by damaging the nerves and blood vessels of the inner ear, the researchers suggested, a finding also supported by autopsies of such patients.

Diabetes is a group of diseases marked by high levels of blood glucose resulting from defects in insulin production, insulin action, or both.

Afflicting nearly 21 million people in US, it is a major cause of heart disease and stroke and the most common cause of blindness, kidney failure and lower limb amputations in adults.

Pre-diabetes, which causes no symptoms, affects about 54 million adults in the US, many of whom will develop type 2-diabetes in the next 10 years.

These findings were published online on Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Yahoo! partners with MTNL, Idea Cellular

Yahoo! the leader in mobile advertising and mobile Internet services, on Tuesday announced partnerships with two Indian mobile operators MTNL and Idea Cellular as part of a series of initiatives in Asia. While in case of MTNL it is for Yahoo! oneSearch, the mobile search engine, in the case of Idea Cellular, the partnership is for mobile advertising.

The Sunnyvale, California based company on Tuesday announced several new mobile initiatives for the Asia Pacific region, including five new Yahoo! oneSearch partnerships with leading mobile operators including MTNL, Hong Kong CSL Limited (CSL), Smart Communications Inc (Smart, Philippines), Digital Mobile Phlis, Inc (SUN Cellular, Philippines) and Vibo Telecom Inc (Vibo, Taiwan).

It has also forged strategic mobile advertising partnerships with Idea Cellular Ltd and Maxis Communications Bhd (Malaysia), the company said in a statement distributed via Businesswire.

Yahoo! also announced localised versions of Yahoo! Go 3.0 for India, Australia and Southeast Asia, including a local language version for Indonesia, and an English version of Yahoo! oneSearch with voice that recognises regional accents.

The company also announced the launch of new mobile widgets for the Asia Pacific region including Yahoo! Cricket, Yahoo! Answers and Showtimes (Yahoo! India Movies), as well as a MTV Asia mobile widget featuring news updates and music charts.

These announcements further demonstrate Yahoo!’s global momentum and unveil the next phase of the company’s mobile strategy for the Asia Pacific region, said the release.

Today’s Yahoo! oneSearch partnerships announcement brings the total number of mobile search deals signed by Yahoo! worldwide in the last 18 months to over 60.

Coffee drinkers may live longer

Here’s some good news for coffee buffs -- drinking large amounts of the caffeinated concoction does not increase the risk of an early death, and, if you are a woman, it may protect you from developing heart disease.

A new research has revealed that drinking up to six cups of coffee a day has no negative effect on the health of a person and it could reduce the risk of women dying from fatal heart attacks and stroke by almost a quarter.

Researchers have based their findings on an analysis of 84,000 women and 41,000 men who were tracked for 20 years. The participants completed questionnaires every two to four years about their coffee intake and habits like diet, smoking.

According to study’s author Esther Lopez-Garcia of the School of Medicine at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain, "Coffee consumption was not associated with a higher risk of mortality in middle-aged men and women.

"(However) The possibility of a modest benefit of coffee consumption on heart disease, cancer, and other causes of death needs to be further investigated.

Market full of oil, price trend fake: Iran

The market is full of oil and the rising price trend is "fake and imposed", Iran’s president said on Tuesday, partly blaming a weak US dollar which he said was being pushed lower on purpose. "At a time when the growth of consumption is lower than the growth of production and the market is full of oil, prices are rising and this trend is completely fake and imposed," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech.

"It is very clear that visible and invisible hands are controlling prices in a fake way with political and economic aims," he said when opening a meeting of the OPEC Fund for International Development in the central Iranian city of Isfahan.

Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, has repeatedly said the market is well-supplied with crude and blames rising prices on speculation, a weak US currency and geopolitical factors.

"As you know the decrease in the dollar’s value and the increase in energy prices are two sides of the same coin which are being introduced as factors behind the recent instability," Ahmadinejad said.

Oil steadied on Tuesday after touching a record near $140 the previous day, with traders caught between a weaker dollar and expectations that top exporter Saudi Arabia will ramp up output to its highest rate in decades.

Iran has often said it sees no need for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to boost output.

"EVER-INCREASING DECREASE"

Ahmadinejad reiterated his view that oil should be sold in a basket of currencies rather than US dollars, an idea which has failed to win over other OPEC members, except Venezuela.

"The ever-increasing decrease in the dollar’s value is one of the world’s major problems," he said.

"A combination of the world’s valid currencies should become a basis for oil transactions or (OPEC) member countries should determine a new currency for oil transactions," he said.

Iran, embroiled in a standoff with the West over its nuclear programme, has for more than two years been increasing its sales of oil for currencies other than the dollar, saying the weak US currency is eroding its purchasing power.

Ahmadinejad, who in the past has called the dollar a "worthless piece of paper", suggested "some big powers" were driving it lower on purpose:

"The planners for some big powers are acting to decrease the dollar’s value," he said. "For years they imposed inflation and their own economic problems to other nations by injecting the dollar without any support to the global Economy."

Foes since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, Tehran and Washington are also at odds over Tehran’s disputed nuclear activities as well as over policy in Iraq. Iran says its atomic work is peaceful.

India inflation to head up, ease by end-2008

India’s headline inflation rate is likely to hover at 8 to 9 percent for some time and will hit double digits before declining in the last quarter of calendar 2008, its chief statistician said on Tuesday.India’s most widely watched inflation measure, the wholesale price index (WPI), is already at a seven-year high of 8.75 percent and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) unexpectedly raised its key lending rate last week to 8.0 percent in an effort to calm prices.

Economists expect the impact of a hike in government-set fuel prices early in June will push the WPI to a 13-year peak above 9 percent this month. The early June data is due this Friday.

Pronab Sen, secretary at the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, told Reuters in an interview primary price increases had been factored in but second-round increases were now coming through into the inflation numbers.

"Numerically, I suspect it’s going to hang around at somewhere between the 8 and 9 percent mark for a while," Sen said.

Asked if inflation would reach double digits, he replied: "It will touch it but it’s not likely to stay there for very long."

Rising costs of raw materials, food and energy worldwide have stoked prices in Asia’s third-largest economy, prompting the government to ban some exports and slash some import duties to keep supplies up and prices down.

Inflation is well above the RBI’s comfort zone of 5.5 percent and is posing a major policy headache for the communist-backed ruling coalition in the run-up to key state and federal polls later this year and in 2009, as rising prices hit the poorer members of the population the hardest.

BACK TO TREND

India’s economy grew 9 percent in the fiscal year which ended in March and Sen said growth was moderating.

"Now we are starting to taper down to the trend and the trend would be somewhere between 8 and 8.5 percent. So I suspect we’ll be there somewhere."

But he added that with inflation and efforts to control it, as well as a global slowdown, growth might drop below trend.

"We might actually overshoot on the downward trajectory a little bit, so we might dip slightly below 8 percent but eventually we’ll catch up."

The economy has averaged 8.8 percent in the past four years. The RBI expects it will expand at 8-8.5 percent this fiscal year to March, while some economists and policymakers say it could be lower.

On prices, Sen said the peak would depend on how soon demand was compressed and when new industrial capacity came on stream.

"So I’m really looking at the last quarter of the calendar for it to start coming down."

Demand was hard to gauge because of lack of data but there was some evidence of moderation in fast-moving consumer goods and white goods, he said.

Except for steel, capacity was being created across sectors, including pharmaceuticals, auto components, autos and cement, while capital goods, such as engineering plant and machinery, had gained in strength after a late start to capacity addition in 2006.

Inflation eased quickly in late 2007, dropping to just above 3 percent, and Sen said that base effect would give the headline rate an artificial "push-up" at the same time this year.

Where it ended the fiscal year next March would depend on the government’s policy on domestic fuel prices, he said.

"A lot depends on what is done on oil prices and that’s a policy matter," he said.

Rising FD rates bring cheer to depositors

There is some good news for retired persons and those dependent on the interest income as banks have started increasing their fixed deposit rates following the decision of the RBI to hike the short term lending rate by 0.25 per cent.Oriental Bank of Commerce on Monday revised their fixed deposit rates for various maturities and raised the rates for its special deposit scheme Asha Kiran (FDs for 400 days) to 9.75 for senior citizens.

This is probably the highest interest rate being offered by the city based public sector lender on 13-month deposit.

Though the senior citizens would get a rate of 9.75 per cent, others will receive 9.25 per cent for 400-day fixed deposit from OBC.

Even the new generation private sector lender Yes Bank increased the deposit rates by 0.5 per cent across all maturities.

After the recent revision of interest rates by Yes Bank, senior citizens would get a maximum of 10 per cent on fixed deposits with a maturity of one year to 18 months. The others would receive a return of 9.5 per cent.

Country’s largest public sector lender, State Bank of India, also revised fixed deposit rates upward by up to 0.5 per cent for selected tenures effective June 1.

SBI increased fixed deposits rate for 5-10 years by 0.5 per cent to 9 per cent while 3-5 years tenure was hiked by 0.35 per cent. Senior citizens will get 0.5 per cent more.

Another Mumbai-based lender Bank of India also increased deposit rates up to 0.5 per cent for various maturities.

For deposits having a maturity of one year to less than two years, the revised rates stands at 9.15 per cent, against the earlier rate of 8.50 per cent, while for deposits ranging from two to three years, the new rate is 9.25 per cent as against earlier rate of 8.75 per cent.

Similarly, fixed deposits of Bank of India having a maturity of three to five years will earn 9.50 per cent interest, against the earlier 8.75 per cent.

"The rates have been revised with a view to mobilize funds from deposits in the beginning of the financial year. We will review our rates by June 30, after which they might be revised again," the BOI official had said.

There would be a case for further upward revision of fixed deposit rates in case the inflation, as projected by many analysts, goes up to 10 per cent.

Moreover, the banks would have to raise fixed deposit rates to retain the deposit base, says brokerage firm Edelweiss Capital in its recent analysis on impact of repo rate hike on the banking sector.

The study further pointed out that following recent hike in repo rate, bottomline of those banks which are dependent on wholesale money market for funds would come under pressure.

Mkts cheer, Sensex ends 300 pts up

The Markets were on an upswing on Tuesday with the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex posting a gain of over 300 points on buying support in banking, realty and capital goods segments.The BSE baormeter gained 301.08 points, or 1.96 per cent, at 15,696.90, after touching the day’s high of 15,732.75 and a low of 15,357.98 poiints.

The wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty rose by 80.50 points at 4,653.00. It rose to a high of 4,664.05 and dipped to a low of 4,561.75 points during the day.

"Interest rate sensitive stocks are attracting a fair amount of buying by domestic funds, which in turn are lending support to banking shares," said a Delhi-based NSE broker Rajiv Malik.

He said realty stocks were bolstered by Unitech-Lehman deal as well.

Banking stocks surged the maximum and the sectoral index gained 311.54 points at 7,567.17, as most of the banking stocks led by ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Yes Bank, Kotak Baank, Axis Bank and Punjab National Bank witnessed good buying support.

Capital goods index also gained 260.07 points at 12,363.27 followed by realty sector index by 226.32 points at 6,099.19.

This MLA picks up garbage, cleans drains

PUDUCHERRY N Anand, fondly called "Bussy" Anand, is a busy man. A first-time MLA, he was elected from the Bussy assembly constituency in the Union territory in 2006 and hence the prefix. And when the 44-year-old legislator of Puducherry Munnetra Congress is not pushing for schemes, meeting voters or discussing local politics over a cuppa, he’s clearing garbage, cleaning clogged drains and spraying mosquito repellent across the town.

And he does this with his own money, spending Rs 75,000 to Rs 85,000 every month from his earnings.

Anand’s dual role began nine years ago when, disappointed with the government’s slack conservancy work, he started a garbage collection unit of his own.

Since then, he has been going to the ’field’ himself, assisting a small team in spraying mosquito repellent, clearing blocks in drains and undertaking door-to-door collection of garbage from all households in his constituency.

When his nine-year-old unit launched an intensive cleaning campaign last week, the MLA was spotted going around in a spotless white shirt and pants with a mosquito repellent kit on his back, covering the thoroughfares of Puducherry.

And he doesn’t do it for publicity: for long, he was neither given a party post nor a ticket while he was in Congress.

But Anand plodded on with garbage-clearing, not letting the mess in the Congress stop him from cleaning the city.

"The government is not effectively undertaking garbage clearance work," he says, as he expertly sprays repellent on an open sewage drain. Anand’s unit, which started with a single tricycle and two men in 1999, has 14 members today, equipped with four tricycles and gadgets "to carry out our mission".

So much so that residents refuse to hand over garbage to the government conservancy staff and wait for Anand’s unit every morning. The members visit all households daily, barring Sundays, from 6am to 12 noon, and from 4pm to 6pm and collect segregated garbage.

"People appreciated my work and rewarded me by electing me in 2006. I am grateful to them, but my garbage collection campaign will continue forever," said the first-time MLA. "The workers engaged by the municipality haven’t got their salaries for the past 11 months. They staged a token protest and are now threatening to go on indefinite strike. It is high time the municipality evolved a long-term plan for clearing garbage," says the MLA.

Brains of homosexuals are different

Researchers in Europe have revealed what has long been suspected - brains of homosexuals have structural and functional differences from those of "straight" people. Two studies have concluded that while lesbians have a lower proportion of grey matter in their more male-like brains than straight women, the brains of gay men have structural similarities to those of heterosexual ladies.

In fact, gays also exhibit the same powerful response as straight women to the sex hormones released in male sweat, according to the studies.

In one study, a team at University College London used magnetic resonance imaging to look at the brains of 80 men and women, including 16 gay men and 15 lesbians.

They found that lesbians had a "male-like" proportion and distribution of grey matter in their brain when compared with heterosexual women.

"In homosexual women the perirhinal cortex grey matter displayed a male-like structural pattern. The perirhinal area is associated with social and sexual behaviour," ’The Sunday Times’ quoted the British researchers as saying.

In another study, researchers at Karolinska Institute in Sweden questioned 12 gay men, 12 heterosexual women and 12 heterosexual men to smell hormones found in male sweat.

The researchers measured their brain responses and found that the anterior hypothalamus, an area linked to sexual behaviour, responded strongly in both heterosexual women as well as gay men.

However, straight men showed little response - this implies the brains of gay men have functional similarities to those of straight women, according to lead researcher Ivanka Savic.

The team from Sweden also measured the brain responses of 12 lesbians who were asked to smell male and female hormones. The participants actually responded much more strongly to the female hormones.

Tool against TB: Free mobile talktime

CAMBRIDGE/MASSACHUSETTS: Researchers at MIT believe they’ve discovered a new weapon in the battle against tuberculosis: Free cellphone minutes. For years, doctors have struggled to get some TB patients to take all their medication, which generally involves a six-month regimen of multiple drugs.

Now a student-led group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a way to use cellphones to let patients test themselves. And if the tests show patients are following doctor’s orders, they get rewarded with free minutes.

"We’re piggybacking on one of the bigger rollouts of infrastructure out there, which is wireless technology and telecom technology," said Jose Gomez-Marquez, one of the project’s leaders.

The system works like this: Patients test their urine using a strip that reveals a numeric code if it detects TB medicine. They then text message the code to their health care provider and get credit toward incentives such as free minutes.

The in-home tests also eliminate the need for health care workers to make several patient-monitoring visits a week, a routine that is often impractical in remote places, Gomez-Marquez said.

Mobile phones are good tools for the project because they are common in the developing world, where it’s often cheaper to erect cell towers than miles of poles and wires, Gomez-Marquez said.

Dr Mario Raviglione, director of a World Health Organization program to fight TB, called the MIT idea "creative".

But he said personal visits must continue because systems that depend heavily on patient self-reporting have often failed.

"I would think it’s a dangerous game to rely only on incentives," he said.

In 2006, the most recent year statistics are available, 9.2 million people worldwide were diagnosed with tuberculosis and 1.7 million died.

The disease can be cured with a steady regimen of drugs. But many patients start feeling better and stop taking the medicine too soon. Others abandon the drugs because of side effects such as nausea, fever and rashes. If the drugs are taken only sporadically, the bacteria build up resistance. The WHO estimates that 5 to 10% of TB deaths are patients who stop taking medication properly.

The MIT group - which originally included five students - took on the TB problem in 2007 as part of the university’s annual "IDEAS competition", which challenges participants to solve various world problems.

Under the TB treatment system used by the WHO, the relationship between the patient and health care worker can get adversarial, said Elizabeth Leshen, an MIT junior working on the project.

"We wanted to do something that takes the health care worker out of the supervisory role and puts him or her back into the patient care role," she said.

Cell minutes were chosen as an incentive because patients want them and phone companies are willing to give them out, said Gomez-Marquez, who added that other incentives and reporting methods can be tailored to different regions.

A small study of 20 patients in Nicaragua last year indicated the MIT system could work, and a larger study in Pakistan is planned for this summer. The team is trying to raise the $200,000 for a full-scale clinical trial.

The WHO’s Raviglione said the MIT group’s program could be an asset, particularly in developed countries, where people are more familiar with technology. But he said it must be combined with regular visits from health care workers or community leaders who can ensure patients take their medicine.

A pill a day for substance abusers

A single pill taken every day for nine months will now help the country’s intravenous drug users (IDUs) kick the habit. India has finally decided to roll out the ambitious Oral Substitution Therapy (OST) from September, to reduce the risk of HIV transmission among the country’s highly vulnerable IDU community.

The National AIDS Control Board, headed by health secretary Naresh Dayal, has sanctioned Rs 136 crore for the OST programme, which hopes to cover 40,000 IDUs by 2012.

Under the programme, substance abusers will keep an oral pill of Bupernorphin under their tongue for five minutes every day in front of a supervising doctor. This will cut their desire for addiction.

Speaking to TOI, director general of National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) K Sujatha Rao said that the first phase would see India enroll 10,000 IDUs by March 2009 from Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Chandigarh and Delhi.

These places may account for 90% of the country’s IDUs. Orissa, Mumbai, Punjab and Kolkata too are becoming hotbeds for IDUs. NACO estimates that India is home to 2 lakh IDUs.

Nearly 25% of them are suffering from HIV due to sharing of contaminated needles. OST programmes in China and Australia have proved to be a roaring success and it was found that Bupernorphin helped addicts get over hard substances like heroin and cocaine.

Rao had recently visited China, which had upscaled its OST programme to 30,000 IDUs in a year, to study how to formulate, plan and implement the programme in India.

According to Rao, surveys conducted by AIIMS had found the relapse rate after detoxification to be as high as 92% among addicts. "The OST policy has finally been cleared. By August, we will finish procuring the stock of Bupernorphin required to run the OST programme. By March 2009, we will reach out to 10,000 IDUs. Four expert teams are being formed to evaluate the 33 agencies who will implement the OST. The list of IDUs and the eligibility are being finalized - he should have support from family, ought to have gone through detox and failed," Rao said.

According to her, 20% of the IDUs were suffering from such advanced addiction that their brain’s motor functions had stopped responding. "They can even commit murder if not put on OST. However, once they get the medication, they are as normal as you and me. China’s crime rate dipped after they introduced the OST programme. Till now, India followed a conservative 15-day detox programme for addicts. However, it has failed miserably," Rao said.

India is a busy transit route for drug traffickers moving heroin from the Golden Triangle of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand and also from Afghanistan. Inevitably, that has led to a rise in substance addiction in India.

"Denying this would be disastrous - especially because drug addicts are at a higher risk of contracting HIV through sharing needles," an official said.

NACO has already been worried over the increasing number of IDUs as these addicts infect their partners with HIV by having unprotected sex. Needles are the predominant way that HIV is spread. Also, addicts often stop caring about sharing needles and are simply concerned about their next fix.

Chocolate-potent anti-cancer agent

We have all heard that eating chocolate is good for you - now here’s a study that tells you why. A chemical synthesised out of a cocoa compound has accelerated the killing of human tumours in a lab environment, according to the study by Georgetown University researchers.

The researchers described how four different tumour cell lines out of 16 tested sensitive to the chemical, known as GECGC. The strongest response was seen in two different colon cancers; growth was cut in half and most of the tumour cells were damaged.

GECGC "seems to be safe... because it has a structure similar to a natural product in cocoa beans - the same beans that are used to make chocolate," said the study’s lead author Min Kim.

Researchers have long studied the beneficial effects of flavanols - molecules in vegetables and fruits that exhibit potent anti-oxidant and potentially anti-tumour properties.

As part of these studies, investigators have been testing a new synthetic version of natural procyanidins, a class of flavanols, created and patented by a confectionery company Mars Incorporated.

In these studies, the scientists tested the effects of three different doses of GECGC on the cancer cell lines - the first time that a synthetic cocoa derivative has been used to screen human cancer cell lines.

None of the doses tested were extreme, Kim pointed out. "The effective concentrations were considered similar to what a person might eat or use," he said.

They found sensitivity to GECGC in both colon cancer cell lines they tested, in cervical cancer cells and in one line of leukaemia tumour cells. Other cell lines were resistant, including ovarian and prostate cancer cells.

Overall, GECGC showed the most effect in treating cancer cells that are normally fast growing, Kim said. And the fact that it demonstrated the most killing power in colon cancer suggests the chemical "could serve as a promising therapeutic for colon cancer," he said. "So far, these data are very convincing."

The researchers do not yet clearly understand the mechanism by which GECGC disrupts tumour growth, but they think it inhibits the physical connections between cancer cells and blocks internal cell signalling pathways.

The findings of the study have been published online Monday in the journal Cell Cycle .

Reliance to Raise Crude Oil Imports From Saudi Arabia

Reliance Industries Ltd., India’s biggest company, is increasing crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia as it seeks to secure supplies because of rising demand for fuels in India and the rest of Asia.Reliance, based in Mumbai, is boosting purchases by at least 90,000 barrels a day, accounting for 30 percent of Saudi Arabia’s output increase of 300,000 barrels a day this month, P.M.S. Prasad, president of the company’s oil and gas business, said in a telephone interview.

The refiner, building a second oil refinery that would make it the world’s largest by this year, stepped up imports after Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said last month the kingdom is raising output to meet demand from customers. Demand for fuels in the Middle East and Asia is forecast to rise 25 percent to 39 million barrels a day in 2015 from 2008, consultant FACTS Global Energy said today in a report.

``We have been assured of the additional barrels,’’ Prasad said yesterday.

Reliance operates a 660,000 barrel-a-day refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat, and would start operations at a 580,000 barrel-a-day plant under unit Reliance Petroleum Ltd. later this year.

Refiners in Japan and South Korea are poised to increase crude oil imports in the coming months after annual plant maintenance peaked this month.

``There’s an abundant supply of heavy crude but the Saudis are more savvy than others in marketing their crude,’’ said Harry Tchilinguirian, senior oil market analyst at BNP Paribas SA. ``There’s also a seasonal element to this as refiners return from maintenance.’’

Heavy Crudes

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producer, and the most influential member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, pumps a variety of light and heavy crudes. OPEC, which supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil, hasn’t been able to rein in prices, which rose to a record $139.89 a barrel in New York yesterday.

Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani earns more compared with overseas rivals by processing cheaper, dirtier crude with high- sulfur content. His plant is located two days away by ship from the Middle East.

Reliance earned $15.50 from processing a barrel of oil into fuels in the quarter ended March 31, compared with $7 for a plant in Singapore, the company said April 21.

China, the world’s biggest energy user after the U.S., has increased crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia 17 percent this year to almost 10 million tons as new refineries start operations, according to customs data.

Reliance eyeing stake in Jet Airways - paper

Energy group Reliance Industries Ltd is in talks with Jet Airways Ltd to buy a 6-7 percent stake in the private airline, the Mint daily said, citing a source familiar with the development.The newspaper said on Tuesday Reliance was keen to buy a minority stake as it wanted to be associated with the domestic carrier’s proposed cargo airline.

"The mode of Reliance Industries’ investment is not finalised. It could be issue of fresh shares or diluting promoter equity," the daily said.

Spokesmen for Reliance, India’s leading petrochemical maker and a refiner, and Jet were not immediately available for comment.

For Jet, a stake sale would give it cash at a time when Indian airlines are losing money due to high oil prices.

A top company official told Reuters on Monday Jet planned to invest around $10-$15 million to set up a cargo unit, which would likely be launched in mid-2009 or later that year.

I slept with Diana: Butler

In a shocking revelation, disgraced royal butler Paul Burrell has claimed that he secretly bedded Princess Diana, a leading British tabloid said on Sunday. According to the News of the World , the "slimy flunky bragged to his wife’s brother Ron Cosgrove that he was on call for sex 24x7. Ron told us: "Burrell said Diana was so demanding. And he told me he’d caught the Queen naked."

Ron said: "The man has shamed us and made a fool out of my sister Maria. The final straw came when he was caught on video admitting how he lied to Diana’s inquest. I hope I never see him again."

For 25 years furniture dealer 61-year-old Ron has had a ringside seat at Burrell’s extraordinary rise from humble palace footman to millionaire celebrity.

And he revealed how Diana’s trusted servant dropped his bombshell story of sex with the boss over a drink at the local pub.

"It was 1993 while Paul was working for the princess at Kensington Palace," he said. "He and Maria came home to Cheshire one weekend and on the Sunday lunchtime Paul specifically asked if he could talk to me in private.

"He clearly had something on his mind so we went to the Peal of Bells in Holt for a few pints. Then during the conversation he suddenly tells me he’s been having a sexual relationship with Princess Diana.

"He said they did it in the bedroom, the bath, everywhere. He claimed Diana liked to be domineering."

According to the report, Diana’s demands on Burrell eased off when she met and fell for heart surgeon Dr Hasnat Khan.