Woman Who Lost Her Legs in Tornado Starts Foundation Helps Others

Heroes Among Us

By Janine Rayford

02/01/2013 at 10:15 AM EST

Stephanie Decker with her kids, Dominic and Reese, and her husband Joe

Courtesy Stephanie Decker

When a storm of deadly twisters ravaged Indiana in March 2012, Stephanie Decker saved her two kids – but lost both her legs.

Now, less than a year after the tragedy, Decker, 38 – who describes the sacrifice as a "small price to pay" for her kids' safety – is already up on prosthetic legs thanks to countless hours of grueling physical therapy. She has barely let the traumatic experience slow her down – and instead created the Stephanie Decker Foundation that aims to help kids with disabilities.

"I'm a better person now," says Decker. "Life goes on."

The tornado that ripped through Henryville leveled the Deckers' house on top of Stephanie as she covered son Dominic, 9, and daughter Reese, 6. A steel beam crashed down on top of the three of them, but her children escaped the disaster without a scratch.

"As parents, we sacrifice for our kids," says Decker.

These days, her routine at home is pretty similar to what it used to be. "The only difference is I wake up in the morning and I put legs on," she says. "There are days that I go 'This is hard, it hurts.' But all I have to do is take one look at my kids and it's enough. I wasn't going to let this stop me."

That determination is clear in Decker, who went as high up as President Obama to help her access a military grade water resistant prosthetic leg so she can swim with her children.

"Stephanie's never been one to take no for an answer," says her husband Joe, a high school math teacher. "I'm so thankful I didn't get to the house and find my wife and kids dead. Stephanie's so strong, she's the core of our family."

Though the kids still have nightmares, the Decker family is getting better every day, and are grateful to be together.

The Deckers' son, Dominic, says getting past the tragedy took a bit of time. "My mom and dad made us take baby steps," he says. "We'd sleep in their bed, and then sleep right by their bed, and then sleep on the couch and then sleep in the front room and then sleep upstairs."

Asked if his mom is a hero, he says, "Yeah, because she saved me."

And Decker aims to help others, too.

In December, her fledging foundation received a $10,000 donation from Shutterfly during an appearance on Ellen DeGeneres's show. She's also recently partnered with NubAbility Athletics – which helps kids with congenital and traumatic amputations compete in sports – to set up scholarships for kids to attend their sports camps.

"I should have been dead in 15 minutes," says Decker. "But I told my kids I was going to be here and that everything was going to be okay."

Stephanie Decker and her family with President Barack Obama

Pete Souza / The White House

Know a hero? Send suggestions to heroesamongus@peoplemag.com. For more inspiring stories, read the latest issue of PEOPLE magazine

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Hedgehog Alert! Prickly pets can carry salmonella

NEW YORK (AP) — Add those cute little hedgehogs to the list of pets that can make you sick.

In the last year, 20 people were infected by a rare but dangerous form of salmonella bacteria, and one person died in January. The illnesses were linked to contact with hedgehogs kept as pets, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Health officials on Thursday say such cases seem to be increasing.

The CDC recommends thoroughly washing your hands after handling hedgehogs and cleaning pet cages and other equipment outside.

Other pets that carry the salmonella bug are frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, lizards, chicks and ducklings.

Seven of the hedgehog illnesses were in Washington state, including the death — an elderly man from Spokane County who died in January. The other cases were in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon.

In years past, only one or two illnesses from this salmonella strain have been reported annually, but the numbers rose to 14 in 2011, 18 last year, and two so far this year.

Children younger than five and the elderly are considered at highest risk for severe illness, CDC officials said.

Hedgehogs are small, insect-eating mammals with a coat of stiff quills. In nature, they sometimes live under hedges and defend themselves by rolling up into a spiky ball.

The critters linked to recent illnesses were purchased from various breeders, many of them licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, CDC officials said. Hedgehogs are native to Western Europe, New Zealand and some other parts of the world, but are bred in the United States.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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School board member pimped out girls for sex, authorities allege

The young woman on the witness stand said Mike Rios approached her on the street with a school district business card in his hand and a job opportunity on his mind: He wanted her “to gather girls and sell them," she said.

The young woman, identified in court only as Valery, testified Wednesday that she and others worked as prostitutes for Rios, a member of the Moreno Valley Unified School District Board of Education.

Valery’s testimony came on the opening day of Rios’ trial in Riverside County Superior Court. He faces felony charges, including rape, pandering and pimping of six females, including two underage girls.

Valery, 21, with long black hair and bangs covering her forehead, bit her lip between questions, and her face was somber. In addition to working as a prostitute for Rios, she said she helped recruit other young women for him.

"He told me we had to get the best-looking girls so we could get more money for them," Valery said.

Prosecutors allege Rios ran a prostitution ring out of his Moreno Valley home.
In opening statements, Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Brusselback told the jury: "This is a case about greed. This is a case about money. This is a case about power."

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Way of the World: A Symbol of Progress, or Villainy?

NEW YORK — Is oil like red meat or is it like tobacco? Your answer to that question determines how you feel about the North American boom in unconventional sources of fossil fuel, particularly the Canadian oil sands.

If you think oil is like tobacco, it is a strictly noxious commodity, which seriously harms its users and those around them. We should stop consuming it at once and at all costs. But if you think oil is like red meat, you take a more nuanced view. For the health of the planet, we should find greener alternatives to it whenever we can, but used wisely and in moderation, it has an honorable role in the 21st-century economy.

This morality play is being acted out with the greatest intensity in the fight over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would stretch from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast. “Keystone is really a symbol of oil, it is very emotive,” Daniel Yergin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning energy expert and chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, told me. “It is probably the most famous pipeline in the history of the world, and it hasn’t even been built yet. It is a symbol around which the opponents of hydrocarbon have rallied.”

Last autumn, the consensus view was that the pipeline would be approved after the U.S. presidential election, no matter who won. In recent weeks, those odds have shifted.

“If you had asked me prior to the U.S. election, I would’ve said, ‘Of course it’s going to be built after the election, regardless of who wins,”’ said Naheed Nenshi, the mayor of Calgary, Alberta, where many of the oil companies that are counting on Keystone have their headquarters.

“If you had asked me immediately after the U.S. election, I would’ve said, ‘Of course it’s going to be built, now that the immediate political pressure is off,”’ he said. But today, Mr. Nenshi is less certain: “The feeling in Canada over the past four or five weeks has become less optimistic about this thing being built.”

Jim Flaherty, the Canadian finance minister, took the same view. “I actually don’t know,” he replied, when I asked him if the Keystone pipeline would be built. “I had reason for optimism before the election that the president would approve it, were he re-elected.”

But, Mr. Flaherty said, President Barack Obama’s inaugural address “was not encouraging.”

Many politicians and business leaders in Canada, whose economy relies heavily on fossil fuels, have been caught by surprise by the intense opposition to the Keystone pipeline, and to the oil sands crude it would carry south. The paperback edition of Mr. Yergin’s latest book, “The Quest,” provides a powerful explanation of that mystery.

“We have to start somewhere to end the addiction to oil,” is the way one environmentalist explained the broader strategy to Mr. Yergin. “The pipeline is a convenient device for fighting a larger battle,” Mr. Yergin said.

Canadians, who are accustomed to being thought of as the world’s official nice guys — think of all those students globe-trotting with maple leaves on their backpacks — are uncomfortable with this new role as climate change villains. (Disclosure: I am a proud Canadian myself.)

“I think it’s a shame that a one-meter-in-diameter pipe is suddenly having to wear all of the sins of the carbon economy,” Mr. Nenshi said. “You know, it’s not clubbing seals with child labor.”

Mr. Yergin agrees. “The one thing that doesn’t get much talked about is that this oil sands technology continues to advance, it is not static,” he said.

“We reached peak oil demand in the U.S. more than half a decade ago. Our oil demand is going down. Our cars are getting more efficient,” he said. “Meanwhile, there is a supply of energy we do need now. The real trade-off is, is it going to be Canadian oil, or is it going to be Venezuelan oil?”

That trade-off used to be viewed in primarily strategic terms: Were our oil suppliers political friends or foes? By that measure, the Canadians score high. But the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, of all places, underscored another consequence of the North American boom in unconventional sources of oil: its impact on jobs.

Participants from slow-growth Europe and more vigorous Asia alike were dazzled by the job-creating potential of North America’s renaissance as a fossil fuel producer. Moreover, these jobs happen to be the very sort that are being hollowed out by globalization and the technology revolution: high-paying, skilled, blue-collar work that cannot be outsourced or done by robots.

Which may be why the Canadians are picking up such mixed messages from the White House on the Keystone pipeline. For the Al Gore wing of the Democratic Party, it has become a symbolic battle in the fight to save the planet; for the Joe Biden wing, Keystone and the unconventional oil revolution are a source of the middle-class jobs many feared modern economies could no longer provide.

The pipeline is also a litmus test for what you think is the most important problem in the early 21st century.

Chrystia Freeland is editor of Thomson Reuters Digital.

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Telecoms boom leaves rural Africa behind

JOHANNESBURG/FREETOWN (Reuters) – While mobile phone usage has exploded across Africa over the last decade, transforming daily life and commerce for millions, it’s a revolution that has left behind perhaps two thirds of its people.

Poor or no reception outside the towns helps explain why the continent’s mobile penetration, in terms of the percentage of the population using the service, is far lower than previously thought, and the cost of providing that service to impoverished, sparsely populated areas remains prohibitive.

In rural Sierra Leone, a country where GDP per capita is less than $ 400 a year, money doesn’t grow on trees, but mobile reception can, says street trader Abass Bangura in Freetown, the West African country’s capital.

In parts of Tonkolili, a district in the center of the country, or Kailahun to the east, it’s the only way you can get reception, he said.

“You climb stick, like mango tree, before you have network,” he said.

In South Sudan, the world’s newest state, it’s a similar story. Less than a year old, the country already has five mobile operators, and its capital, Juba, is teeming with giant billboards advertising mobile phones, but go just a few kilometers beyond a handful of fast-growing towns, and cell phones become useless.

Multiple SIM cards help users navigate patchy network coverage and take advantage of price promotions from rival operators.

That is typical of much of the continent.

With a population of just over a billion people, Africa has over 700 million SIM cards, but with most users owning at least two cards, penetration is only about 33 percent, according to a study released in November by industry research firm Wireless Intelligence.

“If we look at the fact that the rural population of Africa is about 60-70 percent of the population, and if we look at the degree of penetration into the rural market, it’s very, very low,” said Spiwe Chireka of advisory firm IDC.

In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, there are more than enough SIM cards for everyone, but penetration is only 61 percent, according to a 2012 study by research firm Informa.

The average mobile phone user in Nigeria owns an average of 2.39 SIM cards. Globally, only Indonesia is higher, with an average of 2.62 SIM cards per user.

Even in Africa’s biggest economy, South Africa, SIM numbers comfortably exceed the population, but given the number of people using multiple devices, actual population penetration is closer to 80 percent, says market leader Vodacom.

“You’ve got a lot of people buying SIMs, but maybe not enough phones to put it in,” said Olayemi Jinadu, an executive with the Sierra Leone arm of Indian telco Bharti Airtel.

COST VERSUS BENEFIT

The unserved rural millions could represent another growth opportunity for Africa-focused telcos like South Africa’s MTN Group, Bharti Airtel and Kuwait’s Zain, but first they have to figure out a cost-effective way to push into sub-Saharan Africa’s remote corners.

“There’s great potential, but the big concern for us is operational costs,” said Andre Claasson, chief operating officer at Zain South Sudan.

In rural Africa, the cost of running a network tower often exceeds the revenue it reaps. Fuel is typically about 40 percent of a tower’s operating cost, and in remote areas companies burn more diesel by bringing fuel to towers than is used powering them.

Although roughly 73 percent of Africa’s land has cell phone coverage, according to market research firm IDC, that still leaves vast tracts of rural Africa without network access.

Africa has 170,000 mobile towers now and needs another 60,000, according to tower company IHS Group, which at an average $ 200,000 each means an outlay of $ 12 billion.

“If you are an operator asked to spend $ 200,000 to build a site and another $ 2,000 a month to run it in an area with 500 people herding cows, it doesn’t make sense,” said Issam Darwish, IHS’s chief executive.

Average revenue per user is also low. It can vary between $ 1 and $ 10 per month, much lower than in developed markets such as the United States, which delivered ARPU of $ 51 in 2012 or Britain, $ 27.

Bharti, sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest telecom group, says it makes $ 6.40 per user in Africa, which is higher than its home Indian market, where it makes only $ 3.30 a month, but the cost of operating in Africa is much higher and there isn’t a comparable middle class ready and able to spend more.

“You either have a handful of people in the affluent part of the society or you have lots of people who can’t afford the services,” its Chairman Sunil Mittal said last year.

Operators can save money by sharing towers, but even then, some sites will never make sense without government subsidies, analysts say.

African expansion has not been cheap for telcos. Over the past five years, mobile operators have spent a combined $ 16.5 billion on capital expenditure in the key markets of South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal and Ghana, according to Wireless Intelligence.

Bharti has earmarked $ 1.5 billion for capex this year, while fourth-placed France Telecom is spending $ 9.3 billion between 2010 and 2015.

Spare cash is increasingly rare for debt-strapped European telecoms operators, which are cutting their dividends to cope with falling revenues and network upgrade costs in their home markets.

Some African regulators have set up funds to promote coverage, to which operators are expected to contribute.

In Sierra Leone, the Universal Access Development Fund (UADF) is yet to subsidize the cost of putting up a single mast, though it has been active for several years. The regulator complains networks do not contribute the fees they should.

“If we can’t subsidize, they’ll never erect towers there,” said Bashir Kamara, Project Manager at UADF.

($ 1 = 0.6350 British pounds)

(Additional reporting by Hereward Holland in Juba and Chijioke Ohuocha in Lagos; Editing by David Dolan and Will Waterman)

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Keri Russell's The Americans: Are You Hooked?

TV Watch

By Tim Nudd

01/31/2013 at 10:25 AM EST

Keri Russell in The Americans

FX

She's come a long way since Felicity.

That much was clear in the very first scene of The Americans on Wednesday night, as Keri Russell was shown in an extremely compromising position with a Department of Justice agent. Long gone is that sweet college girl from the '90s.

In the new FX drama, Russell, 36, and Matthew Rhys play suburban parents who are actually KGB agents, living in the early-'80s Washington, D.C.

Their lives are complicated. The husband is growing fond of American culture, while Russell's character is steadfastly devoted to the Soviet Union. An FBI agent just moved in down the road. And another KGB agent has defected, putting other agents in danger.

The gritty, suspenseful period piece has been getting good reviews. But did you watch on Wednesday? What did you think of it. Tell us below.

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Sex to burn calories? Authors expose obesity myths

Fact or fiction? Sex burns a lot of calories. Snacking or skipping breakfast is bad. School gym classes make a big difference in kids' weight.

All are myths or at least presumptions that may not be true, say researchers who reviewed the science behind some widely held obesity beliefs and found it lacking.

Their report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine says dogma and fallacies are detracting from real solutions to the nation's weight problems.

"The evidence is what matters," and many feel-good ideas repeated by well-meaning health experts just don't have it, said the lead author, David Allison, a biostatistician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Independent researchers say the authors have some valid points. But many of the report's authors also have deep financial ties to food, beverage and weight-loss product makers — the disclosures take up half a page of fine print in the journal.

"It raises questions about what the purpose of this paper is" and whether it's aimed at promoting drugs, meal replacement products and bariatric surgery as solutions, said Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition and food studies.

"The big issues in weight loss are how you change the food environment in order for people to make healthy choices," such as limits on soda sizes and marketing junk food to children, she said. Some of the myths they cite are "straw men" issues, she said.

But some are pretty interesting.

Sex, for instance. Not that people do it to try to lose weight, but claims that it burns 100 to 300 calories are common, Allison said. Yet the only study that scientifically measured the energy output found that sex lasted six minutes on average — "disappointing, isn't it?" — and burned a mere 21 calories, about as much as walking, he said.

That's for a man. The study was done in 1984 and didn't measure the women's experience.

Among the other myths or assumptions the authors cite, based on their review of the most rigorous studies on each topic:

—Small changes in diet or exercise lead to large, long-term weight changes. Fact: The body adapts to changes, so small steps to cut calories don't have the same effect over time, studies suggest. At least one outside expert agrees with the authors that the "small changes" concept is based on an "oversimplified" 3,500-calorie rule, that adding or cutting that many calories alters weight by one pound.

—School gym classes have a big impact on kids' weight. Fact: Classes typically are not long, often or intense enough to make much difference.

—Losing a lot of weight quickly is worse than losing a little slowly over the long term. Fact: Although many dieters regain weight, those who lose a lot to start with often end up at a lower weight than people who drop more modest amounts.

—Snacking leads to weight gain. Fact: No high quality studies support that, the authors say.

—Regularly eating breakfast helps prevent obesity. Fact: Two studies found no effect on weight and one suggested that the effect depended on whether people were used to skipping breakfast or not.

—Setting overly ambitious goals leads to frustration and less weight loss. Fact: Some studies suggest people do better with high goals.

Some things may not have the strongest evidence for preventing obesity but are good for other reasons, such as breastfeeding and eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, the authors write. And exercise helps prevent a host of health problems regardless of whether it helps a person shed weight.

"I agree with most of the points" except the authors' conclusions that meal replacement products and diet drugs work for battling obesity, said Dr. David Ludwig, a prominent obesity research with Boston Children's Hospital who has no industry ties. Most weight-loss drugs sold over the last century had to be recalled because of serious side effects, so "there's much more evidence of failure than success," he said.

___

Online:

Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Man fell in love with Manti Te'o, pretended to be girlfriend

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

For the last two weeks, the story of Manti Te’o’s fake girlfriend has unraveled one layer at a
time.

The Notre Dame linebacker spoke, then a
Long Beach woman whose pictures were used in the ruse came forward. But the
biggest questions could be answered only by a
22-year-old man from Palmdale -- the man Te’o and the woman alleged was the
mastermind behind the hoax.

Now Ronaiah Tuiasosopo has broken his
silence publicly, saying he fell “deeply, romantically in
love” with the Heisman Trophy runner-up in an interview with Dr. Phil McGraw
set to air later this week.

“Here we have a young man that fell deeply,
romantically in love,” McGraw told the “Today” show Wednesday. “I asked him straight up,
‘Was this a romantic relationship with you?’ And he says, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Are
you then, therefore, gay?’ And he said, ‘Well, when you put it that way, yes.’
And then he caught himself and said, ‘I am confused.’”

The new revelations come a day after
Tuiasosopo’s attorney, Milton Grimes, told The Times his client “feels as
though he needs therapy and part of that therapy is to come out of the closet,
so to speak, and tell the truth.” Grimes said Tuiasosopo is seeing a medical
professional.

“His point is that he wants to heal,”
Grimes said. “He knows that if he doesn’t come out and tell the truth, it will
interfere with him getting out of this place that he is in.”

The comments add another twist to a story
so bizarre, reporters from across the country
bombarded Tuiasosopo’s family and friends after Deadspin.com revealed earlier
this month that Te’o’s girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, did not exist.

Tuiasosopo, the report said, was the
mastermind behind the hoax and used photos from an old high school classmate
and social media to connect Kekua with Te’o.

Te’o repeatedly spoke to the media,
including The Times, about his girlfriend, the car accident that left her
seriously injured and the leukemia that led to her September death. The tale
became one of the most well-known stories of the college football season as
Te’o led his team to an undefeated season and championship berth.

Te’o has denied any role in the ruse,
saying he spent hours on the phone with a woman he thought was Kekua.

Grimes confirmed his client pretended to be
Kekua, insisting it was possible that Tuiasosopo disguised his voice to sound
like a woman, similar to role-playing or method-acting techniques.

“I don’t think it’s so unusual that a
person could imitate that voice of a person of a different sex,” Grimes said.

Grimes offered no explanation as to why his
client hatched the plan but said he never wanted to hurt Te’o.

“He did not intend to harm him in any way,”
Grimes said. “It was just a matter of trying to have a communication with
someone.”

Those who know Tuiasosopo said they were
baffled when they learned of his involvement in the hoax. Neighbors and former
high school coaches described him as popular, faith-driven and family-oriented.

“I’ve done a lot of thinking about it,”
said Jon Fleming, Tuiasosopo’s former football coach at Antelope Valley High.
“It’s all speculation. He’s goofy just like any other kid. The question that comes
up in my mind is: ‘What could he possibly gain from doing something like this?’
It would really surprise me. What would he gain?”

Grimes said he warned his client that he
could face legal consequences for admitting that he falsified his identity on
the Internet. But Tuiasosopo insisted that going public was something he had to
do.

“This is part of my public healing,” Grimes
quoted Tuiasosopo as saying.

In a short clip of the TV
interview obtained by The Times, McGraw asks Tuiasosopo why he ended
his relationship with Te’o.

“For many reasons,” Tuiasosopo said. “There
were many times where Manti and Lennay had broken up before.... They would
break up, and then something would bring them back together, whether it was
something going on in his life or in Lennay’s life -- in this case, in my
life.”

ALSO:

Listen to Lennay Kekua’s voicemails for Manti Te’o

Lance Armstrong and Manti Te'o get trapped in a good story

Manti Te'o hoax: Diane O'Meara says she was hounded for photos

--Matt Stevens, Kate Mather and Ann Simmons

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India Ink: No Knowledge of Pakistan Complaints, Indian Officials Say

Following the recent killings of Indian and Pakistani soldiers near the Kashmir border, a local newspaper reported classified United Nations documents show that the cycle of violence between troops of the two countries has continued despite the cease-fire in 2003.

The Hindu, a national English-language daily newspaper, said Wednesday that Pakistan has repeatedly complained to the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan about the killings of at least 18 of its soldiers, including four beheadings, by Indian forces between 2000 and 2011. The United Nations group was set up in 1949 to monitor cease-fire violations between the two countries.

Indian officials denied the report on Wednesday.

In the worst flare-up since the 2003 cease-fire, Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged gunfire near the Line of Control earlier this month, resulting in deaths on both sides. At the time, India accused Pakistan of beheading one of its soldiers, a charge Pakistan denies.

Among the complaints it filed, Pakistan alleged in 2003 that Indian forces decapitated one of its soldiers, the Hindu said.

The Hindu also reported that Pakistan also complained that Indian forces decapitated two civilians during a massacre in the village of Bandala in 1998, which claimed 22 civilian lives.

Indian army spokesperson Col. Jagdeep Dahiya described the article as “erroneous and speculative.”

“The Indian Army is highly professional and does not indulge in un-soldierly acts as alleged in the article,” he said. “The very fact that Pakistan has not raised such issues in bilateral interactions since 1998 bears testimony to allegations leveled against the Indian army being misleading,” he said.

Col. Dahiya also said that there is an existing mechanism to regulate conflict near the line of control between India and Pakistan. “The article seems to have been based on one-sided allegations made by the Pakistan army to UNMOGIP,” he said, an organization whose status is questionable.

Sitanshu Kar, spokesman for the Indian Ministry of Defense, said that he had no knowledge of Pakistan’s complaints to the United Nations group, and that he had not been contacted for The Hindu article. “It’s the first time I’m hearing about this,” he said. “I have not seen any such document.”

Syed Akbaruddin, the spokesman for the India’s Ministry of External Affairs, said that India did not have any formal exchange with the United Nations Military Observer Group. “We feel that Unmogip has outlived its relevance,” he said. The country’s relationship with the organization ended after India and Pakistan entered the 1972 Simla Agreement, in which both countries said they would resolve their disputes bilaterally.

Mr. Akbaruddin added that Pakistan had not raised these complaints directly with India. “Frankly, this is not a discussion we have had diplomatically,” he said.

An official at the United Nations organization’s office in Srinagar refused to comment on the report, or whether such complaints by Pakistan had been received. Calls made to the group’s office in Delhi were not answered.

Lt. Gen. Baljit Singh Jaswal, who from October 2009 to December 2010 led the Northern Command, which supervises troops in Jammu and Kashmir, said that India had engaged in no cross-border violations during that time.

General Jaswal, now retired, added that Pakistan had violated the cease-fire “numerous times” and that India had exchanged retaliatory fire.

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RIM starts glitzy BlackBerry 10 launch parties

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd on Wednesday kicked off a string of global launch parties for a long-delayed line of smartphones it says will put it on the comeback trail in a market it once dominated.

The new BlackBerry 10 phones will compete with Apple‘s iPhone and devices using Google‘s Android technology, both of which have soared above the BlackBerry in a competitive market.

They boast fast browsers, new features, smart cameras and, unlike previous BlackBerry models, enter the market primed with a large app library.

(Writing by Janet Guttsman; Editing by Frank McGurty)

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