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A new, free-of-cost insurance for 2.1 million families and free cancer care for all children below 16 years are among the slew of new schemes that will be launched soon, two Kerala ministers said here Tuesday.A joint press conference was addressed by state Health Minister P.K. Sreemathi and state Labour Minister P.K. Gurudasan.

‘Rashtriya Swasthya Bheema Yojana is a plan of the central government and it is to be implemented in phases. We have instead decided to implement this in all the 14 districts of the state and the inauguration will take place on Oct 2,’ said Gurudasan.

The plan envisages free medical insurance for a family of five up to a maximum limit of Rs.30,000 a year.

A smart card will be provided to each family and the plan is tenable across the country.

‘The entire premium for the 21.79 lakh (2.1 million) families who fall in the below poverty line category will be borne by the state government and in this year’s budget a sum of Rs.40 crores (Rs.400 million) has been set aside,’ said Gurudasan.

Of the 2.1 million families, the central government has identified 1.1 million families and the state government has identified another one million families who would get the benefit. The premium for each family comes to Rs.506.

United Indian Assurance Company will run the medical insurance scheme and it would be available in all government, cooperative and even select private hospitals across the state.

‘We have decided to offer a free cancer treatment programme for all children below the age of 16. No other state in the country has this programme and for this we have created Rs.65 crores (Rs.650 million) by way of a corpus fund,’ said Sreemathi.

He said to run this scheme, the Kerala Social Security Mission has ben set up and would liaison between the various hospitals providing cancer treatment for children.

‘These hospitals will have to send the details of the treatment provided and the mission will allocate the required funds. This scheme will commence shortly and the scheme will be extended to children suffering from cancer and undergoing treatment now,’ said Sreemathi.

A billion-euro rescue plan for Alitalia on Monday won the support of two final unions of the nine that have bargained hard on pay and contractual issues at the failing Italian flagship, media reports said.

The two unions representing flight attendants and ground crew signed on to the plan by the Italian Air Company (CAI) investor group at a meeting with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s top aide Gianni Letta, ANSA reported, quoting sources close to the dossier.

A first breakthrough came last Thursday when Italy’s most powerful union, the CGIL, signed on after obtaining last-minute concessions on pay, leave and contractual issues.

Then holdout pilots came on board in the early hours of Saturday, leaving the small flight attendants and ground crew unions little choice but to mount a symbolic resistance today.

Alitalia, 49.9 per cent state-owned, is losing about three million euros a day and has debt of about 1.2 billion euros, which is now to be shouldered by the Italian taxpayer.

Under the rescue plan, CAI would take over Alitalia’s passenger activities and merge them with Italy’s number two airline Air One, which is also faltering.

Some 12,500 workers of the two sections would be rehired by CAI, while 3,250 would be laid off.

The government has promised compensation over seven years for those who lose their jobs.

Congress is close to passing legislation that would buy extra time to finalize an agreement intended to save the emerging Internet radio market from a crippling hike in copyright royalty rates.

The House on Saturday unanimously passed a bill sponsored by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., that would greenlight an anticipated agreement between Webcasters and SoundExchange, a nonprofit that collects royalties on behalf of recording copyright owners and artists from Internet radio stations and other digital radio services.

The two sides have been negotiating new copyright royalty rates following a federal Copyright Royalty Board ruling in March of 2007 that dramatically increased the rates that Internet radio stations must pay artists and record labels. Internet radio stations say the new rates — which most but not all are paying — would effectively put them out of business.

After months of talks, Webcasters and SoundExchange have recently moved closer to a deal. But because Internet radio companies operate under a government license, any final agreement needs congressional authorization. And with Congress preparing to adjourn at least until after the elections — and possibly until next year — lawmakers probably will not be around to provide approval when an accord is reached.

Inslee’s bill would enable the two sides to continue negotiations through Feb. 15 and make any deal struck while Congress is in recess legally binding. The bill would provide congressional approval for any agreements that SoundExchange reaches with Webcasters represented by the Digital Media Association, a trade group made up of companies that operate in the online audio and video market, and with other types of Webcasters, such as National Public Radio, college or religious Webcasters.

The Senate is expected to take up the bill before it adjourns this week.

“There may now be a light at the end of the tunnel in the fight over Internet radio royalties,” Inslee said in a statement released Sunday.

Tim Westergren, founder of popular Internet radio company Pandora Media, said more affordable copyright royalty rates are critical to the future of the young industry.

“Absent an agreement, Webcasters will go out of business and that’s bad for everybody — artists and listeners,” Westergren said Monday. Pandora, which is based in Oakland, Calif., has threatened to shut down if the Copyright Royalty Board rates are not lowered.

Under the current rate structure, copyright royalties could eventually eat up as much as 70 percent of Internet radio industry revenue, Westergren said. He estimates that up to $17 million of Pandora’s projected 2008 revenue of roughly $25 million could go to copyright royalties if the existing rates are left intact.

The Digital Media Association, SoundExchange, the Recording Industry Association of America and NPR have praised Inslee’s legislation. Besides Pandora, other DiMA members include Yahoo Inc., RealNetworks Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc.

The National Association of Broadcasters, which represents traditional AM and FM broadcasters, has withdrawn its own objections to the measure.

Traditional broadcasters are currently exempt from copyright royalty rates for over-the-air radio play since — under the logic of existing law — that airplay provides free promotion for artists and labels and helps drive record sales. But they are subject to the new rates for any songs streamed over radio station Web sites.

One of the world’s largest chocolate makers, Britain’s Cadbury, became the latest victim of China’s tainted milk scandal Monday, ordering a recall of its Chinese-made products after questionable findings in tests. Two U.S. food makers, meanwhile, were investigating Indonesian claims that high traces of the industrial chemical melamine had been found in Chinese-made Oreos, M&Ms and Snickers, but stressed the same goods had tested negative in other Asian countries. The milk scandal erupted earlier this month when China’s public learned that melamine had been found in milk powder and was linked to kidney stones in children. Contamination has since turned up in liquid milk, yogurt and other products made with milk.

Four deaths have been blamed on the bad milk and some 54,000 children have developed kidney stones or other illnesses after drinking tainted baby formula. A Cadbury spokesman said preliminary test results showed traces of melamine in chocolates produced at the company’s factory in Beijing, but said it was not yet known how much of the chemical was in them.

“These are preliminary findings from tests. And it’s too early to say where the source was or the extent of it,” the spokesman said, declining to be named because of company policy.

The British manufacturer said it recalled 11 types of chocolate made at the Beijing factory. The recalled chocolates are distributed in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, Nauru and Christmas Island, the company said in a statement.

It added, however, that Cadbury factories outside of China don’t use Chinese dairy products and that all its dairy suppliers have been cleared by government milk testing. It did not say what governments.

Experts say some amount of melamine, which is used to make plastics, may be transferred from the environment during food processing. Ingesting a small amount of the chemical poses no danger, but health experts say melamine can cause kidney stones and lead to kidney failure.

Infants are particularly vulnerable. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s Food and Drug Monitoring Agency said a dozen products distributed nationwide, including M&Ms, Oreos and Snickers repeatedly tested positive for melamine last week.

Mars Inc., which makes M&Ms and Snickers, and Kraft Foods Inc.

, which makes Oreos, said they would comply with the Indonesian government’s recall but questioned the test results. Mars said in a statement issued in Hong Kong that tests by the governments of Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia had cleared Mars chocolate and other candy products.

Chinese regulators and a German laboratory also found milk powder supplied to Mars’ factory in China free of melamine, the company said. “The vastly different results give Mars significant reason to question the validity of the Indonesian laboratory results,” the statement said.

Kraft took a similar position. “We are trying to understand what methodology was used,” Tod Gimbel, Kraft’s director of corporate affairs for the Asia Pacific, told the AP by phone from Singapore.

“The results are unusually high,” he added. The two companies said they would conduct their own tests and were looking into the possibility the suspect products were counterfeit.

Meanwhile, police in China’s Hebei province arrested 22 people and seized more than 480 pounds (220 kilograms) of melamine in the raid, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The report said the melamine was produced in illicit plants and sold to breeding farms and purchasing stations.

Xinhua said 19 of the 22 detainees were managers of pastures, breeding farms and purchasing stations. It did not say when the raids took place.

Authorities believe suppliers added melamine, which is rich in nitrogen, to watered-down milk to deceive quality tests for protein. Chinese officials had previously arrested at least 18 people and detained more than two dozen suspects in connection with the scandal.

Governments in other Asian countries have tightened controls against Chinese dairy products. Myanmar’s commerce ministry said it has barred entry of all Chinese dairy products since last Tuesday, the Myanmar Times, a government-affiliated weekly newspaper, reported Monday a significant move because China is the country’s biggest trade partner.

It was the government’s first public announcement of the suspension. Cheap dairy products from China are widely sold in impoverished Myanmar, but there have been no reported cases of illnesses.

The Philippines’ health secretary said Monday the country will ban any imported dairy product whose origin has not been fully disclosed. If an exporter fails to make a full disclosure, officials will assume the milk product came from China and ban it, Francisco Duque III said.

“Of course it’s always good to have evidence rather than just speculate, but we will have to shift the burden of proof to them because our duty is to protect public health,” Duque told the AP..

‘Pretty Woman’ Julia Roberts has revealed that the Hollywood legend Paul Newman, who recently passed away at 83, was her mentor.The Oscar-winning actress, who had recently attended a charity event with late Paul Newman’s wife Joanne Woodward, remembered the philanthropist actor as her ‘hero’.

“He was my hero,” People magazine quoted her as saying.

Julia is also on the board of Newman’s charitable ‘Hole in the Wall’ association, which provides financial assistance to summer camps across the globe for children suffering from life-threatening diseases.

Newman, who died of cancer at his Connecticut residence on September 26, is hailed for his enormous philanthropic efforts and legendary acting career.

Sprint Nextel Corp. opened its new wireless network to customers in Baltimore on Monday, offering Internet service for laptops for $30 per month. It’s the first commercial network in the U.S. to use so-called WiMax technology for mobile customers.

Compared to more mainstream cellular broadband technology, WiMax provides fast downloads and is cheap to deploy. Sprint is betting on the technology, championed by Intel Corp., to give it a few years’ head start before cellular broadband catches up.

Sprint’s network carries the “Xohm” brand (pronounced “zoam”) and provides download speeds of 2 to 4 megabits per second, slightly more than twice as fast as the current cellular broadband networks of Sprint, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA and AT&T Inc.

To use the network, customers need a $60 laptop card an $80, coffee-brewer-sized home modem. Sprint expects additional devices, like a USB modem and laptops with built-in WiMax modems, to become available this year.

With the home modem, Sprint will be competing not just with cellular broadband, but with fixed broadband services like DSL. It will charge $25 per month for home access.

Sprint’s launch of Xohm in Baltimore was widely expected, but it hadn’t previously revealed pricing details.

Xohm service will be activated by users online, much like people sign up for Wi-Fi access at hotels. In addition to the monthly plans, Sprint will offer a day pass for $10. No contracts are required.

The next cities to get Xohm will be Washington and Chicago, according to the Xohm Web site.

Sprint is spinning off Xohm into a joint venture with Clearwire Corp., which already has a WiMax-like network in parts of the country. That deal is expected to close before the end of the year. Google Inc., Intel and a group of cable companies are investing billions into the venture, which will carry Clearwire’s name.

Sudanese forces on Sunday killed six heavily armed bandits who kidnapped 19 European tourists and their Egyptian guides in a remote desert nine days ago, the army said.

The shootout erupted as Sudanese troops were scouring the desert for the 11 tourists and eight Egyptians who were snatched during a desert safari in southwestern Egypt and taken into Sudan, an army statement said.

Troops searching the Jebel Uweinat mountain range on the Sudan-Libya-Egypt border “spotted a moving white vehicle (and) when the soldiers tried to make it stop those inside the car opened fire,” it said.

“There was a fight between our soldiers and the kidnappers, in which six of the kidnappers were killed and two were arrested… The hostages are now inside Chad at a place called Tabbat Shajara, where they are being held by 30 men.”

The statement accused a faction from the Darfur rebel Sudan Liberation Army of being behind the kidnapping and said the army had found Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns inside the vehicle.

“The kidnappers are from the SLA-Unity group and their leader was killed,” the statement said, naming him as a Chadian called Adam Bakheet.

Sudanese presidential advisor Mahjoub Fadl Badri told AFP the kidnappers were holding the hostages in a hideout and were negotiating on their fate, but that there were no details on whether the Chadian army had moved in.

A Sudanese soldier was also injured in the clash, Egypt’s official MENA news agency quoted the Sudanese army as saying.

Earlier an official had said the tourists, who were kidnapped at gunpoint on September 19, were “all well.”

Chad’s government, however, cast doubt on the claim that the hostages were inside the country.

“We have noticed nothing on Chadian national territory,” government spokesman Mahamat Hissene told AFP.

“We are surprised by the announcement … We are wondering whether it doesn’t amount to a media strategy by Sudan to turn public opinion.”

A French military source said a European force serving in eastern Chad had not spotted the kidnappers in Chadian territory.

A separate French deployment serving in Chad had also not spotted them, according to the source.

A London-based SLA spokesman said none of his fighters were involved.

“We completely deny any report that we are involved in this kidnap,” Mahgoub Hussein told AFP. “The movement, or any individual member, have no connection with the kidnappers, and in fact we condemn the action.”

However he offered a warning to those seeking the safe release of the group.

“Knowing the region and the behaviour of men like the kidnappers, we urge all parties to exercise restraint and enter in direct dialogue,” he said. “Any attempt by force may affect directly the hostages.”

An Egyptian security official told AFP that the kidnappers and German negotiators had agreed a deal but that “negotiations were still ongoing to work out details.”

The kidnappers have demanded that Germany take charge of payment of a six-million-euro (8.8-million-dollar) ransom, an Egyptian security official said last week. They want the ransom to be handed over to the German wife of the tour organiser.

The five Italians, five Germans, and one Romanian plus eight Egyptians — two guides, four drivers, a guard and the organiser — were kidnapped on a desert plateau famous for prehistoric cave paintings, including the “Cave of the Swimmers” featured in the 1996 film “The English Patient.”

Germany has kept quiet about its role in any negotiations, saying only that it has set up a crisis team.

The group was first moved across the border to Sudan to the remote mountain region of Jebel Uweinat, a plateau that straddles the borders of Egypt, Libya and Sudan.

There are conflicting reports about the nationality of the hostage-takers, with different sources saying they were from Sudan, Egypt, Libya, Chad or Djibouti.

One travel agent told AFP that in January a German group was attacked and robbed in the same area. They were abandoned in the desert with nothing but a satellite telephone. It is not known who carried out that attack.

Kidnappings of foreigners are extremely rare in Egypt, although in 2001 an armed Egyptian held four German tourists hostage for three days in Luxor, demanding that his estranged wife bring his two sons back from Germany. He freed the hostages unharmed.

Bomb attacks aimed at foreigners have been more common, with the most recent occurring between 2004 and 2006 in popular Red Sea resorts, killing dozens of people.

Apple Inc. has begun selling unlocked iPhones in Hong Kong that can be used with any cell phone carrier. The move appears to depart from the company’s previous strategy of selling the popular device capable of working with 3G, or third-generation cellular networks, through specific service providers, usually with a required service contract. On its Hong Kong Web site, the Cupertino, California-based company is advertising unlocked iPhones, saying people can “buy directly from Apple” and choose their own carrier.

“iPhone 3G purchased at the Apple Online Store can be activated with any wireless carrier,” the Web site says. With free shipping, the 8-gigabyte phone sells for HK$5,400 (US$695) and the 16-gigabyte version costs HK$6,200 (US$798).

Apple’s Hong Kong office could not be reached for comment Saturday. Previously, Hong Kong buyers could only officially purchase the phone from Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd.

with a two-year contract, although the device was widely available on the gray market. In the U.S., Apple sells 8-gigabyte iPhones for US$199 and 16-gigabyte models for US$299, both with a required two-year service contract with AT&T..

People who frequent online sex, fetish and swinging sites have “alarmingly high” rates of depression, anxiety and stress, says a shocking new research.What’s more, people who seek out cyber sex typically devote hours a day to the covert activity, the study found.

The Australian research also revealed that overwhelmingly male, well-educated, and aged anywhere from 18 to 80 indulge in such kind of ‘pleasure’.

They spend an average of just over 12 hours on the sites each week - mostly chatting, participating in cyber sex with webcams, downloading video and images, or sending erotic emails, the study found.

The research revealed that more than 65 per cent of the 1325 American and Australian men surveyed said they had met someone off line that they had first encountered online.

Marcus Squirrell, a doctoral student at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, said the study, to be presented at a major psychology conference tomorrow, was the first to paint a full picture of cyber sex surfers.

Most concerning was the high rate of poor mental health among the sample group.

“We found that 27 per cent of them were moderate to severely depressed on the standard depression scales,” Sydney Morning Herald quoted Squirrell, as saying.

“Thirty per cent had high levels of anxiety and 35 per cent were moderately to severely stressed, which is of course extremely high,” Squirrell added.

The more heavily they engaged in online sexual activity the higher their level of depression and anxiety was, he said.

A low pressure system over the Carolinas was forecast to trigger showers and thunderstorms across the mid-Atlantic and New England on Saturday. The Virginias were expected to be hit hardest with rain and strong winds.

In the mid-Atlantic, Tropical Storm Kyle was expected to remain offshore. It could increase to a Category 1 hurricane on Sunday, a day before it was expected to make landfall in Nova Scotia.

Clear skies and dry conditions were forecast for the Southeast on Saturday.

A cold front associated with a low pressure system over the upper Midwest was expected to continue pushing eastward, kicking up showers from the Great Lakes to Kansas. Severe weather, including heavy rain, strong winds and hail, was possible along the front.

Scattered showers and thunderstorms were forecast for the Southwest, and southern Texas braced for more flooding along the Rio Grande. Warm, dry weather was expected along the West Coast.

Temperatures in the Lower 48 states on Friday ranged from a low of 21 degrees at Stanley, Idaho, to a high of 102 degrees at Williams Gateway Airport, Ariz.