Speaking at a press meet, he completely denied these allegations which he also termed as malicious.

“It is a concocted story which has the sole purpose to tarnish my reputation. Given the seriousness of the allegations which also tamper my integrity, I have filed a case against this criminal act at the Line Barracks police on Tuesday,” he said.

Chedumbrum highlighted that there has also been a violation of the Official Secrets Act whereby a confidential document which should not have been made public has been given to the press.

He strongly criticised the journalist for not cross-checking the information. According to the minister, the document which has been published has been manipulated.
He assured that there has been no audit report which has been released.

“It is true that some officers from my ministry were not satisfied with the allowance received during the conference. Auditors came to enquire about it and they drafted a management letter. The letter arrived to my ministry on Thursday and I had access to it only on Monday. However, it had already leaked out and I read about it in the newspaper on Sunday. It is a serious matter,” he explained.

He condemned the article for associating his name with the assistant secretary (AS) from the ICT ministry, Dharamraj Deenoo in this case.

“As a minister, I am only concerned only with the policy making while it is the permanent secretary (PS) who is responsible for the administration. Deenoo has been working for the ministry since 2008 and it is not the minister who prepares his scheme of duty,” said the minister

“It is totally false to say that I gave Deenoo the responsibility to organise the conference. He is an officer who is accountable to the PS and not to me,” underlined Chedumbrum.

The minister added that the PS has already filed a statement to the police concerning leakage of information and he has also identified a person who is suspected of providing this information to the press.

The team led by 67-year-old Panagiotis Pikrammenos, the head of Greece’s top administrative court, is made up mainly of prominent university professors, a retired general and a diplomat.

The election left Greece in limbo, pushing the financial markets and euro down sharply, and the new poll on June 17 offers no guarantee of a viable government able to implement an EU-IMF bailout which has divided the country.

European stock markets were mainly lower again in midday trade Thursday, with the euro holding at around $1.27, off four-month lows hit Wednesday.

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund, which are all that stand between Greece and a disorderly debt default and exit from the eurozone, have warned that no new funds will be released if progress on pledged reforms and tough austerity measures falters.
Outgoing prime minister Lucas Papademos on Thursday warned that it would be “disastrous” for Greece to unilaterally reject the EU-IMF bailout but it could try for some adjustments in the terms in cooperation with its partners.

“Any modification … must be pursued in a spirit of consensus and with the full agreement of European peers,” Papademos said in an open letter.

“A unilateral rejection of the country’s contractual obligations would be disastrous for Greece, leading unavoidably outside the euro and possibly outside the European Union.

“The decisions we take could seal Greece’s course for decades,” he added.

Papademos took over as head of a technocrat government in November to ratify the EU-IMF bailout, supported by the main socialist Pasok and conservative New Democracy parties which suffered badly in the May 6 voter backlash.

In the cabinet sworn in Thursday, George Zannias, formerly head of the state’s council of economic advisors and a key negotiator in Greece’s landmark debt rollover, was appointed finance minister.

Petros Molyviatis, an 83-year-old retired diplomat, returns to head the foreign ministry after a stint in 2004-2006, while Greece’s former head of the army general staff Frangos Frangoulis has been named defence minister.

The caretaker administration was appointed after Greece’s political parties failed to cobble together a coalition following the May 6 elections.

“We have received the order from the US court,” to freeze $2.6 billion of assets, a spokesman for the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ told AFP, declining to give details on the value of Iranian holdings at the bank.

The court order reflects “the amount that the court in 2007 upheld for compensation demands by families of victims of the 1983 attacks on US forces in Beirut,” he said.

The bank lodged an appeal against the US court order on Thursday, Japan time, he said.

“One of the reasons for the appeal is that the US court has ordered a freeze on assets in accounts not only in the United States but also in Japan, which is problematic under Japanese law,” the spokesman said.

“We cannot comment on how much or whose assets related to Iran are in the bank’s accounts,” he added, while admitting that the bank “handles a relatively large number of transactions for trade with Iran”.

On October 23, 1983, a 19-tonne explosives-laden truck rammed through barricades and detonated in front of the US barracks in the Lebanese capital, killing 241 US troops.

As part of the same wave of attacks, a French barracks was also bombed, killing 58 French paratroopers.

Tehran has denied responsibility for the attacks, but Washington subsequently named Iran on a list of terrorism-supporting states.

A 2007 court ruling in the United States ordered Iran to pay $2.65 billion to victims’ families.

Resource-hungry Japan, which relies heavily on the Middle East for its oil, came under pressure earlier this year to curb imports from Iran, with Washington seeking to squeeze Tehran over what it says is a nuclear weapons programme.

In exchange for a reduction in its dependence on Iranian oil, Tokyo won concessions that would exempt its financial institutions from sanctions.

The actor, who co-owns the Indian Premier League (IPL) team Kolkata Knight Riders, took a group of youngsters including his daughter Suhana onto the pitch of the Wankhede Stadium after a match on Wednesday night.

A security guard tried to stop them from playing, leading the multi-millionaire actor to argue angrily for 10-15 minutes before finally giving up and leaving the stadium, an AFP photographer witnessed.

“Security officials told him to leave, but Shah Rukh Khan started the brawl,” Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) secretary Nitin Dalal told NDTV news.

“He entered the ground half an hour after the game. The officers told him that this was not the right time. He misbehaved and he used foul language.”

Dalal said the MCA had filed a police complaint and would ban the cricket-crazy star from future attendance at the Wankhede Stadium.

“He’ll not be allowed for any match Test match, one-day international or any T20 or IPL matches hereafter. That is what we have decided,” said MCA treasurer Ravi Savant.

Savant said MCA president Vilasrao Deshmukh was among the officials and security personnel “abused” by Khan, adding that the stadium ban would be “for life”.
Khan’s agent was unavailable for comment on Thursday.

Baby blues

“What surprised us was that we were seeing rates of problems at the same level as what we were seeing in the mothers,” chief researcher Jan Nicholson said of the groundbreaking study. “That was a surprise. We simply haven’t looked for this before.”

Professor Nicholson is research director at Melbourne’s Parenting Research Centre and the study is published in the latest issue of the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.

She defined the baby blues as symptoms of being anxious, being worried, feeling stressed, feeling unable to cope, feeling blue and despairing of things getting better.
The team looked at mental health data for 5,000 new mothers up until their child turned five and at questionnaires returned by 3,471 of the fathers. In the first year of the child’s life, 9.7 per cent of fathers reported symptoms of post-natal depression compared with 9.4 per cent of mothers — a statistically insignificant difference.

“We were able to determine that new fathers have a higher rate of these problems, a 40-per-cent higher rate, than men generally who are of a similar age and background,” Nicholson said.

Men with lower incomes were at a 70-per-cent higher risk and the younger the father the higher the risk.

Those who displayed high levels of psychological stress when their babies were infants were much more likely to still be reporting psychological problems when their children were two and when they were four.

Nicholson said that the study highlighted the need to get rid of the idea that only young mothers get the baby blues.

“There’s often an assumption that with mothers their distress is related to biological changes, but also that early life services are very much geared around mothers
and babies, and we really haven’t looked at fathers closely before to see what’s going on with them,” she said.

“We think that to the extent that we have services that are geared to supporting women, given that the rate is the same for men, we should be having similar efforts going into supporting men.”

Man confesses to killing 16-yr-old stepdaughter

His 56-year-old accomplice, Tany Ramdassen, only confessed to participating in the disposal of the body and denied being involved in her murder.

He told officers the victim was already dead when he met Sookur who instructed him to wrap the body and put it into the back of his taxi.

The breakthrough was achieved after officers of the Western division confronted the suspects with evidence collected during the enquiry. According to sources close to investigators, the crime was committed between May 5 and 6. Ramdassen retracted his previous statement recorded on Wednesday where he said Sookur had told him to dispose off ‘garbage’ which he later revealed was the victim.

He was presented under a temporary charge of murder at the Bambous court on Thursday.

Sookur is temporarily being held at the Moka detention centre and is being represented by counsel Arun Kutowaroo.

His previous lawyer Raouf Jaddoo has refused to represent him any further. Investigators had collected key evidence from the plastic bag and ropes which were used in the murder.

According to the girl’s school principal, Gerard Trepier, she had not been attending school since early April. Investigators also interrogated the cousin of the victim to collect more evidence and establish the timeline of events.

European stocks slump Euro hits four-month dollar low

In early afternoon deals, London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index dived 1.30 percent to 5,335.61 points and Frankfurt’s DAX 30 slid 0.86 percent to 6,329.61 points.

In Paris, the CAC 40 shed 1.12 percent to 3,014.51, while Milan’s FTSE Mib slumped 2.27 percent and Madrid’s IBEX 35 tumbled 1.80 percent.

Shares in Spain’s state-rescued lender Bankia plunged on the back of newspaper reports that clients had withdrawn more than one billion euros in the past week.

In foreign exchange deals, the European single currency nosedived to a new four-month low at $1.2667, which compared with $1.2715 late in New York on Wednesday, as fears grew over Greece’s potential exit from the eurozone.

Spain raised 2.494 billion euros ($3.173 billion) in a sale of three- and four-year government bonds on Thursday, but was forced to pay higher rates in a sign of mounting concern over the country’s debt position.

In Athens, a caretaker technocrat government took office on Thursday to organise the debt-plagued nation’s second elections in just six weeks after an inconclusive May 6 vote jolted the eurozone.

The election left Greece in limbo, pushing the financial markets and euro down sharply, and the new poll on June 17 offers no guarantee of a viable government able to implement an EU-IMF bailout which has divided the country.

The ECB bombshell, revealed on Wednesday, has sent markets spiralling lower once again on renewed fears over Greece.

“The news that the ECB had stopped lending to some Greek banks is having a bit of delayed reaction on market sentiment,” added research director Kathleen Brooks at trading siteForex.com.

“Although Greek banks can still access funds through the Greek central bank’s emergency lending facility, the situation is extremely grave in Greece and risk assets remains at risk from stray headlines from Athens or Spain.”

Analysts also expect a degree of volatility in low trading volumes on Thursday, with many European investors away for a religious holiday. However, markets remain open.

Aside from Greece, investors remain extremely anxious that the eurozone debt crisis, which resulted in bailouts for Ireland, Greece and Portugal, could also sink Italy and particularly Spain.

“As we have said all along, the biggest risk is Spain,” added Brooks at Forex.com.

“Deposits at its banks have held up better than their Greek counterparts, but they continue to drop.”

Djokovic into Rome last eight after fightback

With gusts making life a challenge on the red clay, top seed Djokovic had to smash a racquet into useless bits of composite material to get himself going after losing the opening set to “Pico,” best friend of Rafael Nadal on the ATP.

The outburst came after the Argentine had finally converted on a fifth set point in the blustery conditions.

The Serb went down a break in the second set but got it back with one more for insurance as he levelled at a set apiece. It took a break for 5-3 in the final set to put the Serb into position to close out victory on his second match point.

Djokovic finished with 16 winners and 40 unforced errors, a symptom of the windy conditions which have bothered players all week. He now leads Monaco 6-0 as the pair played for the first time on the South American’s preferred surface.

Rome is one of the four Masters 1000 titles which Djokovic has won in multiple editions, along with Indian Wells, Miami and Canada.

Spanish sixth seed David Ferrer knocked out French 11th seed Gilles Simon 6-0, 7-6 (7/5), while Madrid finalist Tomas Berdych, seeded seventh, reached the last eight as he put out Spaniard Nicolas Almagro 7-6 (7/3), 6-3.

On the women’s side, top seed Victoria Azarenka faces a French Open fitness battle after a right shoulder injury forced her to withdraw before her third-round match.

She pulled out prior to her third-round match, handing a walkover win to Slovak Dominika Cibulkova.

With just 10 days until the start of the French Open, the Belarusian will hope for a quick recovery ahead of her bid for a second straight grand slam title.

Wimbledon winner and fourth seed Petra Kvitova battled to overcome Romanian Sorona Cirstea 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 while German 12th seed Angelique Kerber beat German compatriot Julia Goerges 6-4, 6-1. Italy’s Flavia Pennetta continued to thrill home fans, crushing Petra Cetkovska 6-0, 6-1.

Faugoo said, “Presently, the retirement age is 62 and there is no country in the world where people retire at the age of 45. However, we should see the pre-retirement scheme in the present context.”

The minister said that the 300 workers opted for the VRS scheme and that reforms in the sugar industry can be explained by external factors that has
severely impacted the local economy.

He said, “This is explained by the decision of the European Union (EU) to reduce sugar prices by 36 per cent and the dismantling of the sugar protocol where we will no longer benefit from guaranteed access and quota to compete on the international market.” He added, “Therefore, we were compelled to revise our strategy and undertake reforms to modernise our operations and centralise the industry.”

Faugoo also explained that the aim of reform is to give an impetus to the industry.

The minister announced that till the next harvest, there will be only five sugar industries with the closing of Mon Loisir, “In 2013, Beau Champ sugar industry will also have to close down.”

Questioned by The Independent on theVRS scheme, Faugoo said, “It is a very symbolic day where some Rs 3 billion has been invested for pre-retirement and Rs 300 million will be given to workers. But, at the same time I am said since 300 workers are going on pre-retirement.”

He added that the sugar industry has a very promising future.

“I am aware that several units dating from the colonial era should be renovated. These buildings cannot continue to accommodate more patients since they contain asbestos,” he said.

A shortage of space in the rooms is also being deplored by the hospital staff.

Bundhoo highlighted that his ministry hope for the development of various health institutions across the island.

During the weekend of May 12 to 13, 600 hospital beds were occupied, forcing the management of the facility to transfer patients to the pre-natal room and even to Rose Belle Hospital.

“The 600 beds in various admission rooms were all occupied, which compelled the management of this establishment to transfer some patients to the pre natal section.

However, most patients were asked to go to Jawaharlal Nehru hospital in Rose-Belle,” he said.

He added that another reason was the increasing number of influenza cases linked to the onset of winter.

“We recognise that the problem becomes increasingly severe. We are studying several possibilities to address this problem.

We are seriously thinking about the possibility of installing waiting rooms on different floors of the new wing of the hospital,” said Bundhoo.