Denge Fever infested Mosquitos may kill the Delhi Games

• An outbreak of Denge Fever caused by mosquito infested puddles in the sites may be the last straw against the games.
• TWO of India’s top track-cycling Commonwealth Games medal hopes have been struck down by dengue fever.
• Vinod Malik, 25, and Somvir, 23, became seriously ill while training on the velodrome in Delhi recently and were rushed to hospital.

Dengue fever, which is passed by mosquitos, produces flu-like symptoms and can be fatal.

“I had one rider in hospital for eight days, the other four,” said Sydney-born India cycling coach Graham Seers.

“Dengue (fever) is definitely an issue and has been a major concern of mine with the team ever since I took on the coaching job for the Games 14 months ago.

“On any given day, I’d have up to 10 per cent of my squad off on sick leave with flu-like symptoms, high fever and diarrhoea.

“The two guys who went to hospital are two of my best and tests showed they had low white-blood-cell counts.

“Hygiene is another major worry in Delhi.”

Seers said he had taken extra precautions with his squad of 18 male and nine female riders in the lead-up to the competition starting on October 4.

“I’ve banned the wearing of shorts and T-shirts,” he said. “Long pants and long-sleeved shirts and blouses for the women is a must in Delhi.

“The squad has also attended compulsory seminars in Bangalore, about 1500km from where the team is based, attending lectures on dengue fever.”

Seers said the typical symptoms the riders were told to watch out for included the sudden onset of fever and intense headaches.

• Next to the Commonwealth Games village, last-minute preparations are on at an athletics practice facility as armed police keep a close watch.
• In fact, the security is almost oppressive. Armed commandoes are in position all along the road leading to the village.
• Others are on the lookout from watchtowers on the perimeter. Last Sunday’s shooting in Delhi’s old city – in which two Taiwanese tourists were injured – is still fresh in everyone’s mind and the Commonwealth venues are under virtual lockdown.

Even the policemen are conscious that India’s reputation is on the line.

“Please tell the world it’s OK to come,” one of them tells me.

“All of you have been exaggerating the extent of the problems. Our national pride is at stake, don’t let it down.”

But that is a sentiment not everyone shares.
Filthy

The Games Village is still out of bounds but the BBC has managed to get hold of pictures from inside showing the conditions.
Continue reading the main story

In pictures: paw prints and leaking toilets
Send us your pictures of the village

They show filthy toilets with wash-basins and walls stained with betel leaf (chewed and spat out by contruction workers), bedrooms in a mess and flooded apartments, a result of all the heavy rain Delhi has experienced over the past few weeks.

Extra cleaning crews have been pressed into service and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has been in to take stock.

Even outside the area, workers are busy fixing the pavements, making sure the plants are in place and generally cleaning up.

Despite the sense of urgency there is a growing feeling, especially among some from the visiting teams, that it has been left a little too late.

There has been a constant stream of visitors, representatives of the participating nations, trying to assess the situation and feed the information back home.

Members of the Malaysian high commission are the latest to arrive, pulling up in a black limousine and being waved inside by the security guards.
Continue reading the main story
Related stories
Photographs expose Delhi concerns
NZ adds to India’s Games pressure
Delhi Games: Indian reaction

Although most of the initial criticism of the facilities came from Western countries, including England, Scotland, Canada and New Zealand, other nations including some of the smaller ones are also monitoring the situation.

It has forced Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to call a crisis meeting of top ministers and officials to get a handle on the situation.
Scathing

His government is coming under intense criticism, not just from the international community, but increasingly from a furious Indian public.

In online polls carried out by national newspapers, radio call-in shows, blogs and television news programmes people are scathing in their criticism.

Many are particularly incensed at the insensitivity shown by one of the senior members of the Games’ organising committee, Lalit Bhanot, when he dismissed the concerns of many of the participating nations, putting them down to “different standards of hygiene” in the West.

“Does he mean we are happy living in filthy conditions?” one angry viewer asked on a TV show.

Many Indians fear their international standing will be left in tatters

Others have been asking why things have come to such a pass with India’s global standing taking a beating.

There are still some who think India can pull it off.

But a walk just beyond the Games Village makes you want to question their optimism.

The village has been built close to the Yamuna river which flows through Delhi. The incessant rain over the past few weeks has flooded much of the area.

From the road you can make out the gleaming towers of the village in the distance, across what seems to be an enormous lake – water that has collected over the past month.

And, on the road, people are living in makeshift tents having been moved from lower ground.

With talk of further rain and the level of the river rising even higher, it looks likely that more problems are on the way.
What’s Gone Wrong

Athletes’ village – Indian media reports only 18 of 34 towers are completed
Yamuna River – flooded in worst monsoon rain for 30 years, leaving pools attracting mosquitoes
Nehru Stadium – part of false ceiling collapsed in weightlifting area
Bridge leading to the Nehru Stadium – collapsed on Tuesday
Jama Masjid Mosque – Two tourists injured in shooting near mosque, Indian Mujahideen threatens more attacks
Shivaji Stadium – no longer to be used as a venue because it was not going to be ready in time
Yamuna Sports Complex – roof damaged by heavy rain in July

Aafia Siddiqui’s sentence sparks protests in Pakistan

NEW YORK — A Pakistani scientist convicted of trying to kill U.S. agents and military officers has been sentenced to 86 years in prison.

Aafia Siddiqui (ah-FEE’-uh sih-DEE’-kee) was sentenced Thursday in Manhattan.

She was labeled an al-Qaida supporter and was brought to the United States after her July 2008 arrest in Afghanistan. She was convicted of grabbing a rifle and trying to shoot U.S. authorities while yelling, “Death to Americans!”

Her February conviction touched off protests in Pakistan.

Prosecutors say Siddiqui is a cold-blooded radical who deserves life in prison. The defense sought a sentence of about 12 years behind bars.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

NEW YORK (AP) — Aafia Siddiqui’s strange legal odyssey began two summers ago in Afghanistan, where she turned up carrying evidence that — depending on the argument — proved she was either a terrorist or a lunatic.

Which portrayal prevails will determine whether the U.S.-trained scientist from Pakistan spends the rest of her life in prison.

A judge is scheduled to sentence Siddiqui on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan. A jury convicted her in February of trying to kill U.S. agents and military officers after Afghan police detained her in 2008.

During Siddiqui’s three-week trial, FBI agents and U.S. soldiers testified that when they went to interrogate Siddiqui, she snatched an unattended assault rifle and shot at them while yelling, “Death to Americans!” She was wounded by return fire but recovered and was brought to the United States to face trial.

Her conviction touched off protests in Pakistan. On Thursday, there were more protests as hundreds chanted “Free Aafia!” at a rally in Karachi, Pakistan, while others demonstrated outside the Manhattan courthouse.

Though she was not convicted of terrorism, the government has argued that Siddiqui is a cold-blooded radical who deserves a “terrorism enhancement” under federal sentencing guidelines that would guarantee a life term.

“She made it explicit, through her own words and her conduct, her intention to kill Americans, to cause `death to Americans,’” prosecutors wrote in court papers.

Prosecutors cited threatening notes Siddiqui was carrying at the time of her detention. They directly quoted one as referencing “a `mass casualty attack’ … NY CITY monuments: Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge,” and another musing how a dirty bomb would spread more fear than death. They claimed the notes, along with the fact that she was carrying sodium cyanide, showed she wasn’t an accidental menace.

“Her conduct was not senseless or thoughtless,” prosecutors wrote. “It was deliberate and premeditated. Siddiqui should be punished accordingly.”

The defense has asked the judge for a sentence closer to 12 years behind bars. Her lawyers argued in court papers that their client’s outburst inside a cramped Afghan outpost was a spontaneous “freak out,” born of mental illness instead of militancy.

“Mentally ill and caught in the crossfire of a war that is no longer fought on conventional battlegrounds, Dr. Siddiqui’s self destructive behavior got her shot once in the abdomen, charged with attempted murder and … convicted of the same,” the defense wrote.

Siddiqui’s rambling courtroom rants proclaiming her innocence and offering odd solutions for Middle East peace ran counter to the prosecution’s portrait of “a cold, calculating jihadist who set out to harm American troops by any means necessary,” the defense wrote.

Siddiqui, 38, trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University in the early 1990s. Authorities claim she returned to her native Pakistan in 2003 after marrying an al-Qaida operative related to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Testifying in her own defense while wearing a head scarf at trial, Siddiqui claimed she was tortured at a “secret prison” before her detention. Charges that she purposely shot at soldiers were “crazy,” she said. “It’s just ridiculous.”

Among Saddiqui’s possessions at the time of her arrest, the defense says, was a computer disk with an essay she’d written about feminism and her struggles as a Muslim woman living in America.

The title: “I am not a Terrorist.”

In Karachi on Thursday, about 400 activists of the Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami and its allied youth group, Pasban, gathered outside the Karachi Press Club carrying pictures of Siddiqui and chanting slogans against the U.S. government and justice system.

“Free Aafia,” “We want Aafia, not dollars!” the activists chanted, a reference to U.S. aid funds given in return for Pakistan’s cooperation in battling Islamist militancy.

The group tried to march toward the U.S. Consulate, but the police stopped them before they got too close. Aafia’s sister, Fauzia Siddiqui, later went to the consulate to submit a written message, which said, “Free Aafia Now.”

“I have no good expectations from Judge Richard Berman,” Fauzia Siddiqui told reporters. “He has time and again shown his bias and he has shown his discrimination and he has shown how he has tortured the justice system of the U.S.”

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Associated Press Writer Ashraf Khan contributed to this report from Pakistan.