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[OMEN]

The head of Manila's Roman Catholic Church has frowned on the participation of gay men in the "Santacruzan" flower festival held across the Philippines every May in honour of the Virgin Mary.

"Gays should not be allowed to participate in Santacruzan since it defeats the true meaning of the celebration," Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales told the church-run Radio Veritas station.

"I am not angry at gay men. But, I am against what they're actually doing."

In the past, Rosales said, he has refused to say mass to any parish that allows gays in the Santacruzan procession.

Danton Remoto, leader of the pro-gay activist group "Ladlad", protested against the cardinal's statement, saying the participation of gays in the May flower procession was not aimed at mocking or desecrating the church.

"In the eyes of God, everyone is equal," Remoto said.

"Some of these gay men have saved a lot of money for their gowns (to be worn in the procession) and they were doing it because they believed in the Virgin Mary. They need understanding, not condemnation."

Reuters

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[OMEN]

Scotland appeared to be moving towards a referendum on independence after the head of the country's Labour Party supported the idea for the first time, predicting Scots would vote to keep union with England.

The pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) formed a minority government after Scottish polls last year, breaking a long Labour hold.

Scotland dispatches many Labour members to the British parliament and its secession could change the balance in London, where a Labour government struggles to keep support.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond told Reuters at the weekend the SNP would seek legislation in 2010 for a referendum on independence after a two-year-long national dialogue.

Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander, who had opposed a referendum along with Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties, appeared to see a referendum as a way of ending uncertainty over the SNP demands.

"I don't fear the verdict of the Scottish people," she told BBC Scotland on Sunday. "Bring it on."

Alexander said the SNP appeared to be toying with the electorate, saying `we want this (independence), it is the reason we came into politics, but by the way we are frightened to bring the matter forwards'."

Support for independence after 300 years of union with England varies from poll to poll.

A YouGov poll in Saturday's Times newspaper gave a figure of 19 per cent, while other analysts have put it at up to one third in the nation of just over five million people.

The SNP said at the weekend its own poll-of-polls showed 41 per cent supported independence.

Alexander said there had been "tactical discussion" with Labour leaders in London on the referendum issue.

The Times said it was understood Prime Minister Gordon Brown now saw a referendum as the best way to weaken Salmond's grip on power in Scotland.

Labour lost heavily in local elections in England and Wales last Thursday, and was beaten into third place in the overall vote behind the leading Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

Some political analysts say Brown, who represents a Scottish constituency, can ill afford any loss of seats in Scotland in a future nationwide election.

Reuters

[OMEN]

DEADLY: Fear of a virus that has infected thousands of children gripped parents in China's capital and financial hub, as the number of cases of hand, foot and mouth disease mounted across the country.
Fear of a virus that has infected thousands of children gripped parents in China's capital and financial hub, as the number of cases of hand, foot and mouth disease mounted across the country.

Some 11,905 cases of the virus have been reported in China this year, the official Xinhua news agency said. The virus has caused 26 deaths, largely in Fuyang, a city in China's eastern province of Anhui.

But parents in northern Beijing, host of the 2008 Olympics which begin in August, were also on the alert.

"Of course we're worried. If a child got sick, we'd be very frightened," said one woman, bouncing a toddler on her hip. "We know about this virus, but we don't know clearly how to protect ourselves. The information hasn't been thorough enough."

Hand, foot and mouth disease is a common illness in children and infants caused by a family of viruses called enteroviruses, and outbreaks regularly occur in China.

But the current outbreak has led to fatalities mostly when the cases have been linked with enterovirus 71, which can cause a severe form of the disease that can lead to high fever, paralysis and viral meningitis.

Beijing has had 4496 cases of hand, foot and mouth disease this year, mostly in children under 5, though it has had no fatalities, the Beijing News reported.

The city's Centre for Disease Control has advised that any child found with the illness should be isolated at home, and that if more than three children in a single classroom were infected the class should be suspended, the newspaper said.

A doctor from a Beijing children's hospital declined permission for interviews there, saying it could cause panic.

"Parents are already very nervous, and if they see a camera, they would think that our hospital has such cases and they will take away their children," the doctor told Reuters.

"We are facing great pressure these days," she added.

Shanghai, China's financial centre, has reported no cases, but the city government nonetheless ordered kindergartens and primary schools to step up daily monitoring and emphasise more hand-washing and sterilising of furniture and toys.

The World Health Organisation has cautioned that the virus, which spreads mostly through contact with infected blisters or faeces, could be yet to peak.

China, which initially covered up the SARS epidemic in 2003, in a scandal which contributed to its spread and led to the sacking of Beijing's mayor and health minister, has ordered authorities to aggressively tackle hand, foot and mouth.

An editorial in Monday's China Daily blamed the crisis in Fuyang on a "delayed reaction" by the local government.

But at least one Beijing resident said he had confidence in the government's efforts.

"Before, when SARS hit, that was the scariest time," said He Xinping, the father of an 8-year-old. "But now, with Beijing hosting the Olympics, the city is certain to increase its efforts."

Reuters

[OMEN]

An envoy of the Dalai Lama said that one-day talks with China on the unrest in Tibet had been "a good first step", and the two sides will meet again after he reports back to the exiled spiritual leader.

"We had very candid discussions ... we have a good rapport, so that is always very helpful," Lodi Gyari told Reuters at Hong Kong airport as he prepared to board a flight for India, home of the Tibet government-in-exile.

"We have agreed to meet once again so I think it is a good sign, but we will make a formal statement after I have reported to his Holiness when I get back to India."

Lodi Gyari and another envoy held a meeting with Chinese officials, the first since an eruption of Tibetan protests and deadly riots two months ago, in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on Monday.

The unrest, the most serious challenge to Chinese rule in the mountainous region for nearly two decades, prompted anti-China protests around the world that disrupted the international leg of the Olympic torch relay and led to calls for Western leaders to boycott August's Beijing Games.

China proposed the latest talks last month after Western governments urged it to open new dialogue with the Dalai Lama, who says he wants a high level of autonomy, not independence, for the predominantly Buddhist Himalayan homeland he fled in 1959.

But state-run Xinhua news agency said on Sunday that the meeting was arranged at the government-in-exile's repeated request for contacts and consultations with Beijing.

Lodi Gyari, speaking to the media for the first time since the closed-door Shenzhen meeting, said a date for a further round of talks would only be announced after consultations with the Dalai Lama.

Reuters

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[OMEN]

The Austrian government has admitted for the first time to lapses in a probe into the disappearance of a woman kept prisoner and raped by her father for 24 years in a windowless dungeon.

The admission came ahead of the first questioning by a regional prosecutor of Josef Fritzl, 73, who has admitted subjecting his daughter Elisabeth to years of sexual abuse in a bunker beneath the family home in eastern Austria.

Elisabeth Fritzl, now 42, bore seven children to her father who had told authorities at the time that she had run away at 19 to join a religious sect.

"I consider that there was a certain credulity (on the part of the authorities), particularly concerning the story of the sect by which the suspect explained the disappearance of his daughter," Justice Minister Maria Berger was quoted as saying in today's edition of the Standard newspaper.

"Today it would certainly be examined more closely," she said - the first time the Austrian authorities had conceded any shortcomings in the grim case that has shocked the nation.

Fritzl had already been convicted of rape in 1967 and spent 18 months in prison.

But authorities did not examine his criminal record when he later adopted three of the children he fathered with Elisabeth, pretending she had left them on the doorstep, according to press reports.

"We wish however that this procedure had been followed even though these were adoptions by family members," Berger said.

Fritzl today faces questioning from the regional prosecutor, Christiane Burkheiser, for the first time.

Experts have said the incest victims will carry the scars of their ordeal for the rest of their lives, although doctors say the family has made progress since their release.

Three of Elisabeth Fritzl's children were held alongside her, living all their life underground, never even seeing natural daylight.

One died soon after birth and the other three were raised by Fritzl and his 69-year-old wife as their "grandchildren" in the house upstairs, unaware of the fate of their siblings underground.

"They remain in a very extreme and difficult situation," said Berthold Kepplinger, doctor at the Amstetten-Mauer psychiatric clinic where Elisabeth Fritzl, her mother and five of her children are recovering.

"The fresh air, the light and the balanced diet are doing them good," he said, adding that the youngest child, a five-year-old boy, "is growing livelier by the day. He's a real charmer, funny and sociable."

The eldest child, Kerstin, 19, is still fighting for her life in intensive care, where she has been placed in an artificially-induced coma and on a life-support machine.

The victims suffered a lack of vitamin D from the absence of natural daylight and possible motor deficiencies resulting from growing up in cramped conditions.

Even the three children who lived upstairs with Fritzl would face problems, said Paulus Hochgatterer, a child psychologist coordinating the team of experts looking after family.

"The man who provided for them, the father figure, has been arrested and is now suddenly the perpetrator," Hochgatterer said.

Fritzl himself is soon due to meet a psychiatrist for the first formal evaluation of his mental state. Adelheid Kastner will meet Fritzl, currently sharing a cell in a regular prison, at an as yet unspecified date.

Meanwhile, Elisabeth's lawyer has said she may sue her father for compensation.

Lawyer Christoph Herbst said he was looking into claiming compensation from Fritzl, who had four or five real estate assets in his name, for those who had been locked in the basement.

"There is the possibility of claiming compensation for imprisonment and the damage that has been incurred by it," Herbst said in an interview.

But Fritzl's assets also have debt attached to them and it is unclear how much money will be left in the end, he said.

"Now it is all about evaluating his financial circumstances. Does he actually have any wealth so that it pays off to start proceedings?"

Reuters

[OMEN]

Authorities in India's remote northeast said they were increasing security in the world's biggest reserve for the endangered great one-horned rhinoceros to save them from poachers.

Poachers have killed at least 10 rhinos in two national parks in Assam state since January, eight of them at the Kaziranga National Park.

"We are increasing the number of guards in Kaziranga because of a recent increase in poaching, and a probe has also been ordered," Rockybul Hussain, Assam's forest minister said.

Last year, two dozen animals lost their horns to poachers in Assam, for their medicinal value in the international black market.

Horns fetch up to 400,000 rupees ($NZ12,780) and demand is soaring in China and Southeast Asian countries, wildlife experts say.

After failing to check poachers for years, officials at Kaziranga have asked the national police's Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate.

But conservationists now say the new steps will be meaningless unless the government improves the working conditions of the existing guards.

"The guards do not have proper training, face harassment from senior forest officials and are blamed when things go wrong," said Soumyadeep Datta, director of Nature's Beckon, a conservation group working for protection of rhinos in the region.

The thick-skinned, one-horned Indian rhinoceros is one of the five surviving rhino species in the world.

The global conservation group WWF estimates there are less than 3000 animals left in the world. They are found mostly in northeastern India, with a few hundred in neighbouring Nepal.

Inside Kaziranga, 1800 of them live in swamps, forests and tall thickets of elephant grass, where poachers hide before trapping them with poison or just shooting them dead.

Morale among forest guards, often engaged in a lonely battle against poachers, is low.

"There is no coordination between the foresters and police," Hare Krishna Deka, a former police chief in Assam said.

Forest guards are poorly paid and often forced to patrol barefoot without raincoats.

They have old rifles and asked to counter poachers who have modern automatic weapons, some officials and conservationists said.

As a result, it has become easier for poachers to sneak into the park without worrying much about the guards.

Reuters