Breast cancer on the rise in younger women

NEW DELHI: A study has found that the incidence of advanced breast cancer among American women between 25-39 has steadily increased since the mid-1970s. The findings, published in the Journal of American Medical Association, are devastating because breast cancer patients under 40 years are more likely to have an aggressive form of the disease and face lower survival rates. However, doctors here say developing countries like India have more to worry in comparison.

Additional professor in the department of surgical oncology, AIIMS, Dr S V S Deo says, "Breast cancer cases in India have increased by 10-15% in the last decade. These numbers are likely to rise further - 60-70% of the cases would be in developing countries like India in the future." The number of younger patients in the US has increased at just 2% a year in the last three decades, comprising 1.8% of the total breast cancer cases. In comparison, different studies peg the number of young patients in India between 10-16%.

In recent years, breast cancer has emerged as the most common form of cancer among urban Indian women. Dr Geeta K, senior consultant in surgical oncology at Max Cancer Centre, Delhi, adds, "Of the 25-30 new breast cancer cases that we get in a month, five-six are in the under-35 age group. Some are in their 20s."

Just 10% of these cases are said to be of genetic causes - lifestyle is said to be the major culprit in the rest. Dr Anil Dhar, director, medical oncology, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurgaon, says, "There is no data but personally I feel that exposure to chemicals (in food and the environment) is an important factor in causing breast cancer."

However, doctors say there's no need to panic as survival rates are improving with timely treatment. "Breast cancer is 90% curable in stage 1, and 80% in stage 2. What's required is greater awareness and early treatment. The problem is a majority of the patients here come to us in stage 2 or 3. Even educated women tend to delay treatment for one-two years after detecting a lump," says Dr Deo.

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Huge study: 5 mental disorders share genetic links

WASHINGTON (AP) — The largest genetic study of mental illnesses to date finds five major disorders may not look much alike but they share some gene-based risks. The surprising discovery comes in the quest to unravel what causes psychiatric disorders and how to better diagnose and treat them.

The disorders — autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia — are considered distinct problems. But findings published online Wednesday suggest they're related in some way.

"These disorders that we thought of as quite different may not have such sharp boundaries," said Dr. Jordan Smoller of Massachusetts General Hospital, one of the lead researchers for the international study appearing in The Lancet.

That has implications for learning how to diagnose mental illnesses with the same precision that physical illnesses are diagnosed, said Dr. Bruce Cuthbert of the National Institute on Mental Health, which funded the research.

Consider: Just because someone has chest pain doesn't mean it's a heart attack; doctors have a variety of tests to find out. But there's no blood test for schizophrenia or other mental illnesses. Instead, doctors rely on symptoms agreed upon by experts. Learning the genetic underpinnings of mental illnesses is part of one day knowing if someone's symptoms really are schizophrenia and not something a bit different.

"If we really want to diagnose and treat people effectively, we have to get to these more fine-grained understandings of what's actually going wrong biologically," Cuthbert explained.

Added Mass General's Smoller: "We are still in the early stages of understanding what are the causes of mental illnesses, so these are clues."

The Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, a collaboration of researchers in 19 countries, analyzed the genomes of more than 61,000 people, some with one of the five disorders and some without. They found four regions of the genetic code where variation was linked to all five disorders.

Of particular interest are disruptions in two specific genes that regulate the flow of calcium in brain cells, key to how neurons signal each other. That suggests that this change in a basic brain function could be one early pathway that leaves someone vulnerable to developing these disorders, depending on what else goes wrong.

For patients and their families, the research offers no immediate benefit. These disorders are thought to be caused by a complex mix of numerous genes and other risk factors that range from exposures in the womb to the experiences of daily life.

"There may be many paths to each of these illnesses," Smoller cautioned.

But the study offers a lead in the hunt for psychiatric treatments, said NIMH's Cuthbert. Drugs that affect calcium channels in other parts of the body are used for such conditions as high blood pressure, and scientists could explore whether they'd be useful for psychiatric disorders as well.

The findings make sense, as there is some overlap in the symptoms of the different disorders, he said. People with schizophrenia can have some of the same social withdrawal that's so characteristic of autism, for example. Nor is it uncommon for people to be affected by more than one psychiatric disorder.

___

Online:

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)60223-8/abstract

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Arias Prosecutor Too Combative, Experts Say

He has barked, yelled, been sarcastic and demanded answers from accused murderer Jodi Arias this week.

And in doing so, prosecutor Juan Martinez and his aggressive antics may be turning off the jury he is hoping to convince that Arias killed her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in June 2008, experts told ABCNews.com today.

"Martinez is his own worst enemy," Mel McDonald, a prominent Phoenix defense attorney and former judge, told ABC News. "He takes it to the point where it's ad nauseam. You have difficulty recognizing when he's driving the point home because he's always angry and pushy and pacing around the courtroom. He loses the effectiveness, rather than build it up."

"He's like a rabid dog and believes you've got to go to everybody's throat," he said.

"If they convict her and give her death, they do it in spite of Juan, not because of him," McDonald added.

Martinez's needling style was on display again today as he pestered Arias to admit that she willingly participated in kinky sex with Alexander, though she previously testified that she only succumbed to his erotic fantasies to please him.

Arias, now 32, and Alexander, who was 27 at the time of his death, dated for a year and continued to sleep together for another year following their break-up.

Arias drove to his house in Mesa, Ariz., in June 2008, had sex with him, they took nude photos together and she killed him in his shower. She claims it was in self-defense. If convicted, Arias could face the death penalty.

Jodi Arias, Prosecutor Butt Heads in Cross-Examination Watch Video

Jodi Arias Maintains She 'Felt Like a Prostitute' Watch Video

Jodi Arias Admits to Killing Man, Lying to Police Watch Video

Martinez also attempted to point out inconsistencies in her story of the killing, bickering with her over details about her journey from Yreka, Calif., to Mesa, Ariz., including why she borrowed gas cans from an ex-boyfriend, when she allegedly took naps and got lost while driving, and why she spontaneously decided to visit Alexander at his home in Mesa for a sexual liaison.

"I want to know what you're talking about," Arias said to Martinez at one point.

"No, I'm asking you," he yelled.

Later, he bellowed, "Am I asking you if you're telling the truth?"

"I don't know," Arias said, firing back at him. "Are you?"

During three days of cross examining Arias this week, Martinez has spent hours going back and forth with the defendant over word choice, her memory, and her answers to his questions.

"Everyone who takes witness stand for defense is an enemy," McDonald said. "He prides himself on being able to work by rarely referring to his notes, but what he's giving up in that is that there's so much time he wastes on stupid comments. A lot of what I've heard is utterly objectionable."

Martinez's behavior has spurred frequent objections of "witness badgering" from Arias' attorney Kirk Nurmi, who at one point Tuesday stood up in court and appealed to the judge to have a conference with all of the attorneys before questioning continued. Judge Sherry Stephens at one point admonished Martinez and Arias for speaking over one another.

Andy Hill, a former spokesperson for the Phoenix police department, and Steven Pitt, a forensic psychiatrist who has testified as an expert witness at many trials in the Phoenix area, both said that despite his aggressive style, Martinez would likely succeed in obtaining a guilty verdict.

"When it comes to cross examination, one size does not fit all," said Pitt. "But if you set aside the incessant sparring, what the prosecutor I believe is effectively doing is pointing out the various inconsistencies in the defendant's version of events."

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Italy parties seek way out of election stalemate

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's stunned political parties searched for a way forward on Tuesday after an inconclusive election gave none of them a parliamentary majority and threatened prolonged instability and a renewal of the European financial crisis.

The results, notably the dramatic surge of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comic Beppe Grillo, left the center-left bloc with a majority in the lower house but without the numbers to control the upper chamber, the Senate.

Financial markets fell sharply at the prospect of a stalemate that reawakened memories of the crisis that pushed Italy's borrowing costs toward unsustainably high levels and brought the euro zone to the brink of collapse in 2011.

"The winner is: Ingovernability," ran the headline in Rome newspaper Il Messaggero, reflecting the deadlock the country will have to confront in the next few weeks as sworn enemies are forced to work together to form a government.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's said on Tuesday that policy choices of the next Italian government would be crucial for the country's creditworthiness, underlining the need for a coalition that can agree on new reforms.

Pier Luigi Bersani, head of the center-left Democratic Party (PD), has the difficult task of trying to agree a "grand coalition" with former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the man he blames for ruining Italy, or striking a deal with Grillo, a completely unknown quantity in conventional politics.

The alternative is new elections either immediately or within a few months, although both Berlusconi and Bersani have indicated that they want to avoid a return to the polls if possible: "Italy cannot be ungoverned and we have to reflect," Berlusconi said in an interview on his own television station.

For his part, Grillo, whose movement won the most votes of any single party, has indicated that he believes the next government will last no more than six months.

"They won't be able to govern," he told reporters on Tuesday. "Whether I'm there or not, they won't be able govern."

He said he would work with anyone who supported his policy proposals, which range from anti-corruption measures to green-tinted energy measures but rejected suggestions of entering a formal coalition: "It's not time to talk of alliances... the system has already fallen," he said.

The election, a massive rejection of the austerity policies applied by Prime Minister Mario Monti with the backing of international leaders from U.S. President Barack Obama to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, caused consternation across Europe.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble put a brave face on it, saying "that's democracy".

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo was more pessimistic.

"This is a jump to nowhere that does not bode well either for Italy or Europe," he said.

A long recession and growing disillusionment with mainstream parties and tax-raising austerity fed a bitter public mood and contributed to the massive rejection of Monti, whose centrist coalition was relegated to the sidelines.

Projections by the Italian center for Electoral Studies showed that the center-left will have 121 seats in the Senate, against 117 for the center-right alliance of Berlusconi's PDL and the regionalist Northern League. Grillo would take 54.

That leaves no party with the majority in a chamber which a government must control to pass legislation.

"THE BELL IS RINGING"

On a visit to Germany, President Giorgio Napolitano said he would not comment until the parties had consulted with each other and Bersani called on Berlusconi and Grillo to "assume their responsibilities" to ensure Italy could have a government.

He warned that the election showed austerity policies alone were no answer to the economic crisis and said the result carried implications beyond Italy.

"The bell is ringing for Europe as well," he said in his first public comments since the election.

He said he would present a limited number of reform proposals to parliament, focusing on jobs, institutional reform and European policy.

However forming an alliance may be long and difficult and could test the sometimes fragile internal unity of the mainstream parties.

"The idea of a majority without Grillo is unthinkable. I don't know if anyone in the PD is considering it but I'm against it," said Matteo Orfini, a member of Bersani's PD secretariat.

"The idea of a PD-PDL government, even if it's backed by Monti, doesn't make any sense," he said.

For his part, Berlusconi won a boost when his Northern League ally Roberto Maroni won the election to become regional president of Lombardy, Italy's economic heartland and one of the richest and most productive areas of Europe.

For Italian business, with an illustrious history of export success, the election result brought dismay that there would be no quick change to what they see as a regulatory sclerosis that has kept the economy virtually stagnant for a decade.

"This is probably the worst possible scenario," said Francesco Divella, whose family began selling pasta under its eponymous brand in 1890 in the southern region of Puglia.

Berlusconi's campaign, mixing sweeping tax cut pledges with relentless attacks on Monti and Merkel, echoed many of the themes pushed by Grillo and underlined the increasingly angry mood of the Italian electorate.

But even if the next government turns away from the tax hikes and spending cuts brought in by Monti, it will struggle to revive an economy that has scarcely grown in two decades.

Monti was widely credited with tightening Italy's public finances and restoring its international credibility after the scandal-plagued Berlusconi, who is currently on trial for having sex with an under-age prostitute.

However, Monti struggled to pass the kind of structural reforms needed to improve competitiveness and lay the foundations for a return to economic growth. A weak center-left government may not find it any easier.

The view from some voters, weary of the mainstream parties, was unrepentant: "It's good," said Roger Manica, 28, a security guard in Rome, who voted for the center-left PD.

"Next time I'll vote 5-Star. I like that they are changing things, even if it means uncertainty. Uncertainty doesn't matter to me, for me what's important is a good person who gets things done," he said. "Look how well they've done."

(Additional reporting by Barry Moody, Gavin Jones, Lisa Jucca, Steven Jewkes, Steve Scherer, Catherine Hornby and Massimiliano Di Giorgio, Annika Breidthardt in Berlin. Writing by Philip Pullella and James Mackenzie; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Pope readies for final audience on resignation eve

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI will hold the last audience of his pontificate in St Peter's Square on Wednesday on the eve of his historic resignation as leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.

Tens of thousands of pilgrims are expected at the Vatican to bid a final farewell to an 85-year-old pope who abruptly cut short his pontificate by declaring he was too weak in body and mind to keep up with the modern world.

The Vatican says 50,000 people have obtained tickets for the event but many more may come and city authorities are preparing for 200,000, installing metal detectors in the area, deploying snipers and setting up field clinics.

No parking has been allowed in the zone since 10:00 pm Tuesday, and cars were to be barred entirely from 7:00 am on Wednesday.

The weekly audience, which is exceptionally being held in St Peter's Square because of the numbers expected, is to begin at around 10:30 am (0930 GMT) and usually lasts around an hour with a mixture of prayers and religious instruction from the pope.

Benedict will be the first pope to step down since the Middle Ages -- a break with Catholic tradition that has worried conservatives but kindled the hopes of Catholics around the world who want a breath of new life in the Church.

Rome has been gripped by speculation over what prompted Benedict to resign and who the leading candidates might be to replace him.

Rumours and counter-rumours in the Italian media suggest cut-throat behind-the-scenes lobbying, prompting the Vatican to condemn what it has called "unacceptable pressure" to influence the papal election.

Campaign groups have also lobbied the Vatican to exclude two cardinals accused of covering up child sex abuse from the upcoming election conclave.

The Vatican has said Benedict will receive the title of "Roman pontiff emeritus" and can still be addressed as "Your Holiness" and wear the white papal cassock after he officially steps down at 1900 GMT on Thursday.

Just before that time, the Vatican said Benedict will be whisked off by helicopter to the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo near Rome where he will begin a life out of the public eye.

Benedict will wave from the residence's balcony one last time before retreating to a private chapel and, as he has said, a life "hidden from the world".

On the hour he formally loses his powers as sovereign pontiff, the liveried Swiss Guard that traditionally protects popes will leave the residence.

The shock of the resignation and its unprecedented nature in the Church's modern history has left the Vatican sometimes struggling to explain the implications and Benedict's future status -- from the banal to the theological.

Some Catholics find it hard to come to terms with the idea that someone who was elected in a supposedly divinely inspired vote could simply resign.

The Vatican has said Benedict will lose his power of divine infallibility -- a sort of supreme authority in doctrinal matters -- as soon as he steps down.

The Vatican has also explained that the personalised gold Fisherman's Ring traditionally used to seal papal documents -- a key symbol of the office -- will be destroyed by a special cardinal, as is customary in Catholic tradition.

Benedict has also chosen to swap his trademark red shoes for a brown pair given to him by artisans in Mexico during a trip last year.

Starting next week, cardinals from around the world will begin a series of meetings to decide what the priorities for the Catholic Church should be, set a start date for the conclave and consider possible candidates for pope.

The conclave -- a centuries-old tradition with an elaborate ritual -- is supposed to be held within 15 to 20 days of the death of the pope, but Benedict has given special dispensation for the cardinals to bring that date forward.

Cardinals have been flying in from around the world including US prelate Roger Mahony, a former archbishop of Los Angeles stripped of all church duties for mishandling and covering up sex abuse claims against dozens of priests.

A total of 115 "cardinal electors" are scheduled to take part after another voter, British cardinal Keith O'Brien said he would not be taking part after allegations emerged that he made unwanted advances towards priests in the 1980s.

- AFP/ck

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Rape victim attempts suicide in courtroom

AHMEDABAD: A rape victim attempted suicide in the courtroom of Gujarat high court on Tuesday by consuming pesticide. She was rushed to the Sola Civil Hospital, where her condition is said to be critical. This is the second such incident since January when a rape victim attempted suicide in a courtroom.

In this case, the 27-year old woman had moved Gujarat HC to appeal against a city sessions court's decision to grant anticipatory bail to the rape accused, Sandeep Panchal. On Tuesday, her lawyer could not attend court due to the demise of his grandmother and Justice Ashish Desai adjourned the hearing.

As soon as the woman heard about the adjournment, she rushed to the courtroom and consumed poison. She was accompanied by her three-year old son. Advocate B M Mangukiya, who was present in the courtroom, took her to the hospital.

He later said that the victim had audio clips in her mobile phone establishing that the accused was threatening that she would meet the same fate as the Delhi gang-rape victim, Nirbhaya. When Sola police later recorded the victim's statement, she handed over this evidence to them.

After the incident, Justice Desai scheduled hearing on the case on Wednesday.

HC's registrar general R P Dholeria said, "She has grievances against police and her family members, not against the court." In her petition at HC the victim has complained about "ill treatment" by city cops.

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Arias Liked Some Kinky Sex, She Admits

Though accused murderer Jodi Arias said she sometimes felt "like a prostitute" at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, she admitted today that she often enjoyed their sex life and even suggested sex acts they could try.

Prosecutor Juan Martinez, after a day of aggressive questioning and bickering with Arias, asked her about her own suggestions for her sex life with Alexander, including a phone conversation in which she suggested using sexual lubricant.

Arias, 32, is accused of killing Alexander, but claims it was in self-defense.
Timeline of the Jodi Arias Trial

"You introduced KY Jelly into the relationship to make it more sexually enjoyable, right? When we're talking about the level of experimentation, it looks like both of you were experimenting together sexually. So when we hear things like, 'I felt like a prostitute,' that's not exactly true, is it?" Martinez said.

"It was often mutual," Arias said. "I didn't feel like a prostitute during, just after."

Jodi Arias Admits to Killing Man, Lying to Police Watch Video

Jodi Arias Testimony: Prosecution's Cross-Examination Watch Video

Martinez showed the jury a text message Arias sent offering to perform oral sex on Alexander, comparing it to a statement she made on direct testimony saying that she once felt like a prostitute when Alexander tossed a piece of chocolate at her and walked away without a word after she performed oral sex.

"How is it you can say you 'felt like a prostitute' when you're moving the relationship ahead like this?" Martinez asked. "The act itself is the same thing, and here you're requesting it. The geography is different, but that aside, isn't it the same act? And you're requesting it?"

"When he (ejaculated) and left afterward I felt like a prostitute. When we mutually went through things together I didn't," she said.

Arias also admitted that she sent Alexander a topless photo of herself after he sent her photos of his penis, and that she only did it after she had her breasts enhanced surgically.

Catching Up on the Trial? Check Out ABC News' Jodi Arias Trial Coverage

The testimony came as Martinez continued his efforts to discredit Arias' testimony on the stand, including her statements that she often succumbed to Alexander's sexual fantasies so she wouldn't hurt his feelings. Martinez has focused on portraying Arias as a liar for much of his direct examination.

Arias is charged with murder for killing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander at his home in Mesa, Ariz., in June 2008. She claims she killed him in self defense and that he had been increasingly violent and sexually demanding in the months before the confrontation. She also claimed he was interested in young boys.

The prosecution claims she killed him in a jealous rage. She could face the death penalty if convicted of first degree murder.

Jodi Arias Trial See Tempers Flare

Earlier in the day,tempers flared between Arias and prosecutor Martinez as the prosecutor tried to detail Arias' history of spying on her boyfriends, but Arias complained that his aggressive style of questioning made her "brain scramble."

Arias and Martinez, who have sparred throughout two prior days of cross-examination, spent more than 10 minutes bickering over Martinez's word choices and his apparent "anger."

The morning's testimony, and Martinez's points about Arias' alleged spying, were largely interrupted by the spats.

"Are you having trouble understanding me?" Martinez yelled.

"Yes because sometimes cause you go in circles," Arias answered.

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Huge protest vote pushes Italy towards deadlock

ROME (Reuters) - A huge protest vote by Italians enraged by economic hardship and political corruption pushed the country towards deadlock after an election on Monday, with voting projections showing no coalition strong enough to form a government.

With more than two thirds of the vote counted, the projections suggested the center left could have a slim lead in the race for the lower house of parliament.

But no party or likely coalition appeared likely to be able to form a majority in the upper house or Senate, creating a deadlocked parliament - the opposite of the stable result that Italy desperately needs to tackle a deep recession, rising unemployment and a massive public debt.

Such an outcome has the potential to revive fears over the euro zone debt crisis, with prospects of a long period of uncertainty in the zone's third largest economy.

Italian financial markets took fright after rising earlier on hopes for a stable and strong center-left led government, probably backed by outgoing technocrat premier Mario Monti.

The projected result was a stunning success for Genoese comic Beppe Grillo, leader of the populist 5-Star Movement, who toured the country in his first national election campaign hurling obscenity-laced insults against a discredited political class.

With vague election promises and a team of almost totally unknown candidates, the shaggy haired comedian channeled pure public anger against what many see as a sclerotic and useless political system.

The likely result was also a humiliating slap in the face for colorless center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani, who appeared to have thrown away a 10-point opinion poll lead less than two months ago against Silvio Berlusconi's center right.

Berlusconi, 76, who staged an extraordinary comeback from sex and corruption scandals since diving into the campaign in December, appeared to be leading in the Senate race, but Grillo's projected bloc of Senators would leave him well short of a majority.

Projections gave Bersani's center-left alliance a lead of less than one percentage point in the lower house. If confirmed, that would be enough to control the chamber because of election laws that guarantee a 54 percent majority to the party with the largest share of the vote.

In the Senate the picture was different. The latest projection from RAI state television showed Berlusconi's bloc winning 112 Senate seats, the center-left 105 and Grillo 64, with Monti languishing on only 20 after a failed campaign which never took off. The Senate majority is 158.

Berlusconi, a master politician and communicator, wooed voters with a blitz of television appearances and promises to refund a hated housing tax despite accusations from opponents that this was an impossible vote buying trick.

Grillo has attacked all sides in the campaign and ruled out a formal alliance with any group although it was not immediately known how he would react to his stunning success or how his supporters would behave in parliament.

DANGER OF NEW ELECTION

A bitter campaign, fought largely over economic issues, made some investors fear a return of the kind of debt crisis that took the euro zone close to disaster and brought the technocrat Monti to office, replacing Berlusconi, in 2011.

The projected results showed more than half of Italians had voted for the anti-euro platforms of Berlusconi and Grillo.

Officials from both center and left warned that the looming deadlock could make Italy ungovernable and force new elections.

A center-left government either alone or ruling with Monti had been seen by investors as the best guarantee of measures to combat a deep recession and stagnant growth in Italy, which is pivotal to stability in the currency union.

The benchmark spread between Italian 10-year bonds and their German equivalent widened from below 260 basis points to above 300 and the Italian share index lost all its previous gains after projections of the Senate result.

"These projections suggest that we are heading for an ungovernable situation", said Mario Secchi, a candidate for Monti's centrist movement.

Stefano Fassina, chief economic official for Bersani's center-left, said: "The scenario from the projections we have seen so far suggests there will be no stable government and we would need to return to the polls."

If the results are confirmed the only possibility looks like a "grand coalition" combining right and left, like the one Monti led for a year. But politicians said before the vote this could not work for long and would struggle to work decisively.

Monti helped save Italy from a debt crisis when Rome's borrowing costs were spiraling out of control, but few Italians now see him as the savior of the country, in its longest recession for 20 years.

Grillo's movement rode a huge wave of voter anger about both the pain of Monti's austerity program and a string of political and corporate scandals. It had particular appeal for a frustrated younger generation shut out of full-time jobs.

"I'm sick of the scandals and the stealing," said Paolo Gentile, a 49-year-old Rome lawyer who voted for 5-Star.

"We need some young, new people in parliament, not the old parties that are totally discredited."

Berlusconi, a billionaire media tycoon, exploited anger against Monti's austerity program, accusing him of being a puppet of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but in many areas Grillo was a bigger beneficiary of public discontent.

Italy desperately needs a strong, reform-minded government to revive growth after two decades of stagnation and address problems ranging from record youth unemployment to a dysfunctional justice system and a bloated public sector.

Italians wrung their hands at prospects of an inconclusive result that will mean more delays to these reforms.

"It's a classic result. Typically Italian. It means the country is not united. It is an expression of a country that does not work. I knew this would happen," said 36-year-old Rome office worker Roberta Federica.

Another office worker, Elisabetta Carlotta, 46, shook her head in disbelief. "We can't go on like this," she said.

(Additional reporting by Stefano Bernabei, Steve Scherer, Gavin Jones, Naomi O'Leary and Giuseppe Fonte in Rome and Lisa Jucca in Milan; Writing by Barry Moody; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Motor Racing: Ecclestone wants Melbourne race for '50 years'

SYDNEY: Formula One ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone said Tuesday he would happily sign a contract for Melbourne to host the Grand Prix for 50 years, declaring "everybody loves Australia".

The sport has a contract with Melbourne until 2015 but beyond that it is up in the air, and other cities have expressed interest in snapping up the event which Ecclestone has previously said is the "least viable" on the F1 calendar.

Ecclestone said he hoped to travel to Melbourne for the season-opening 2013 race on March 17, in a year in which negotiations on a new contract are set to begin.

"Everybody loves Australia, loves Australian people and it's good to be there because it's the first race, it's nice, it's relaxed," he said in an official Australian Grand Prix podcast.

"We hope we're going to be in Melbourne forever, although I understand we do get a little bit of criticism and I don't know why.

"We're happy with Melbourne. I'd be happy to sign a 50-year contract. So we don't have a problem with Melbourne."

Ecclestone revealed that other Australian states had contacted him in attempts to poach the event from Victoria, but he indicated he was determined to keep the race in the southern state's capital.

"We get proposals from other parts, but we're happy in Melbourne," he said.

Ahead of the 2012 race Ecclestone floated the idea of a "divorce from our friends in Melbourne" and "walking away from Australia" when the contract expires.

"The race itself, from our point of view, is probably the least viable of all the races we have," he said then.

Ecclestone also said last year he was keen on a night race, which would fit better with European timezones, helping to sell TV rights there.

Such a move would likely be opposed by residents who live around Melbourne's Albert Park circuit, as well as costing the Victorian state government more to stage.

Last year's race cost taxpayers A$56.7 million (US$58.2 million) -- more than the revenue it generates -- with A$30 million of that reportedly going to Ecclestone for the right to host the race.

Ecclestone said the fee was "purely what the race cost" and included bringing six jumbo jets full of freight transportation to Australia.

Melbourne has hosted the Grand Prix since 1996.

- AFP/ck

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94% women feel unsafe travelling alone in India, survey finds

NEW DELHI: The Delhi gang-rape incident has not just bruised the image of the national Capital, but the country as well. A travel survey has found that 94% women feel unsafe traveling alone, while 84% voted for Delhi as the most unsafe metro. The findings come at a time when an increasing number of women admitted that they preferred to travel alone both for work and leisure.

TripAdvisor, a leading travel site, surveyed 500 women to find that 84% women claimed to have travelled alone for leisure, business or both. The respondents were a mix of working women, including a number of self employed, as well as homemakers.

The survey also brings to light the disturbing fact that 94% women worry about their safety — always or at least sometimes — when they travel alone within India. Among women who said they travel alone on work, 37% agreed that they don't mind travelling alone but worry about their safety.

Even more dismal is the fact that more women travelers have a better sense of safety overseas than in India. Around 24% respondents said they worry when they travel within India but not when they travel to international destinations, while only 6% suggested otherwise.

Despite the fear and worry, only 33% women said they carry any item for self defense when travelling to a new or unfamiliar city.

Due to the recent spate of crime against women, Delhi has gained notoriety with 84% women claiming it to be the most unsafe metro in the country. Mumbai came out on top as the city considered safest by 34% women. Ahmedabad and Bangalore were tied at a distant second with 12% each.

Among the states, Delhi NCR again topped the hall of shame with 60% women voting it as the most unsafe. At a distant second is Bihar (18%), followed by Uttar Pradesh (8%). A majority of 27% respondents said they considered Maharashtra to be the safest state, followed by Gujarat (15%) and Karnataka (10%).

According to TripAdvisor country manager Nikhil Ganju, "The rise in women travelling alone on business is understandable fallout of the increase in the number of working women. The real surprise is the significant number of Indian women who are choosing to travel solo on vacation. Another interesting insight that highlights a latent opportunity for the hospitality sector is that 78% respondents said they would prefer to stay in an all women's hotel or on a women exclusive floor in a hotel, when travelling alone."

In a break from tradition, Indian women enjoy traveling alone for leisure. Among women who travel alone, 41% respondents said they actually enjoyed travelling alone for work. In addition, 76% said they enjoy going solo on holidays.

And lack of company is definitely not a complaint. In fact, majority (58%) said their biggest incentive for solo vacations was that they could do all the things they want without having to worry about what someone else wants. Around 34% women indicated they loved travelling alone as it was adventurous and exciting. Another 32% claimed the thrill of managing everything by themselves was a motivator as well.

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