short takes

Mysterious disease kills over 120 in north India

A mysterious fever has claimed over 120 lives in northern Indian state Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur division in the last three weeks, official sources said Wednesday. A group of scientists, including experts from India’s National Institute of Virology (NIV) have been formed to contain the disease, the Indo-Asian News Service reported.

Besides NIV experts, scientists and doctors from medical colleges and hospitals are also the members of the group. The mysterious disease, which is infecting about 8-10 people daily, is marked by high fever. Symptoms of the mystery disease are similar to that of malaria and jaundice, sources said.

The unofficial count of the deaths due to the mysterious disease in six districts of Kanpur division is 160.

Xinhua

70 migrants feared missing in Mediterranean

Some 70 African migrants are feared missing in the central Mediterranean after a large rubber dinghy taking them to Europe capsized, the Malta representative of the UN refugee agency said on Wednesday.

A Maltese fishing boat rescued eight migrants some 55 miles (90 km) south of Malta on Wednesday, and the crew were told the group had originally numbered 78, UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) representative Neil Falzon said.

Falzon said the survivors, whom he interviewed at a detention centre, said they had set sail from Libya on Thursday last week but their dinghy had started taking in water, and capsized on Monday. A Maltese fishing boat found the eight survivors on the half submerged dinghy early on Wednesday. Reuters

HIV spreads in NY at three timesthe U.S. average

New Yorkers are contracting HIV at three times the national rate, the city health department said on Wednesday, attributing the difference to New York’s large population of high-risk groups such as gay men and blacks. In 2006, 72 in every 100,000 New Yorkers became infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, compared with the national average of 23 infections, the health department said.

Some 4,800 people contracted HIV in 2006 in New York, long considered the epicenter of the U.S. HIV/AIDS epidemic. About 100,000 New Yorkers are believed to be infected with the virus, officials said.

Blacks and men who have sex with men have the highest rates of new infections and are represented in large numbers in New York City.

Half of the city’s 2006 infections occurred among men who have sex with men, the city’s health report said. Reuters.

Straw urged to scrap ‘Titan jails’ plan

Criminal justice groups urged the British Government on Thursday to scrap its plans to build three supersize or “Titan” jails, each housing up to 2,500 prisoners. The appeal in an open letter by 34 charities and associations came as the Ministry of Justice ended a public consultation on the mega-prisons.

“Titan prisons would be a huge waste of public money, doing nothing to reduce crime or tackle sky-high reoffending rates,” said one of the signatories of the letter, Jon Collins, Campaign Director for the Criminal Justice Alliance.

“The money could be much better spent elsewhere, making improvements to the existing prison system and investing in measures to reduce the prison population.”

Justice Secretary Jack Straw announced last December the government would spend 1.2 billion pounds to create an extra 10,500 jail places by 2014 to help tackle a crisis of overcrowding in prisons.

Accepting a review of prisons by life peer Lord Carter, Straw said the government would close some older jails and build up to three Titan jails.

In their letter, the criminal justice groups said the giant jail-building plans would “cement this country’s position as the prison capital of western Europe.”

London is the likely location for the first Titan jail, which could potentially concentrate on housing remand prisoners awaiting trial. Reuters