Mrs.Banglore, Model Arrested in Prostitution Racket keral crime monitor

keralamonitor.com June 12, 2003
	Mrs.Banglore, Model Arrested in Prostitution Racket New Delhi/Bangalore, June 11: The Delhi police on Wednesday claimed to have unearthed a high-profile prostitution racket with the arrest of a 22-year-old model at a five-star hotel.Jyoti Reddy, alias Ritu Reddy, was arrested by Crime Branch personnel at a five-star hotel at Chanakyapuri late on Tuesday afternoon. The model claimed to be a former Miss Bangalore.However, the website of Dream Merchants, the event management company that has been running the pageant since it started in 1994, makes it clear that no Jyoti or Ritu Reddy was ever crowned Miss Bangalore. While the fashion fraternity in Bangalore is not certain about who Jyoti Reddy is, a prominent makeup artiste from the city recalls working with a "certain Jyoti Reddy" a couple of years ago.She says, "She used to do a few small shows and had taken part in some local beauty contests. I don’t know when or if at all she moved out of the city. But I haven’t worked with her in the recent past." After a tip-off, the Delhi police set up a decoy customer who called Reddy on her cellphone to fix a deal. They struck a deal for Rs 15,000, of which Rs 2,000 was paid to her as advance. ETHIOPIA: Women and children eating grass in flood-hit region - ICRC ADDIS ABABA, 11 June (IRIN) - Women and children have been forced to eat grass to survive in a remote, flood-hit area of southern Ethiopia, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday. The organisation said that victims of the flooding in the Somali Regional State, which has claimed dozens of lives, held up their dirty hands to show they had been living on grass in areas cut off by the deluge. ICRC officials said they initially took four to five days to reach the districts of East and West Imi, where many villages were inundated when the Wabe Shebele river burst its banks on 22 April. Beatriz Suso, an ICRC agronomist, said that when she arrived, families who had fled their homes and lost all their possessions stood in the pouring rain because they had no shelter. "A little girl was looking to us desperately," Suso said. "She was completely alone in the middle of the camp, frightened, soaked and trembling. Then I saw many women and children showing to me their dirty hands and mouths, they had just finished eating the only thing they could find - grass," she added. The flooding in the Somali region, which had been affected by severe drought, has claimed as many as 119 lives and forced some 110,000 from their homes, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said. According to the UN Emergencies Unit for Ethiopia (EUE), some 13 villages in East Imi were affected, including one which was swept away. In West Imi, nine of the 12 villages along the river were flooded and damaged. In Kelafo and Mustahil - two other areas now recovering from the rains - three schools and five health centres were destroyed. "In all affected areas local populations (and especially children) are running short of food," the EUE said in its monthly Focus on Ethiopia report. The ICRC said, however, that it was now targeting East and West Imi and that 385 mt of food and 10 mt of seeds had gone through. It added that areas which were cut off were gradually becoming accessible so that desperately needed aid could be transported. The ICRC said the rains - although catastrophic in the damage caused - were actually needed in the areas which depend on flood recession agriculture. "More territory was inundated than in the past, and after the water withdraws, more fertile land will be used for agriculture and more grazing areas will be available for cattle," it said. Turkey condemns attack on US consulate ANKARA, June 11The Turkish Foreign Ministry on Wednesday harshly condemned hand-grenade attack on the US consulatein southern Adana city and said it was a regretful incident."Turkey is against all kinds of terrorism whatever their motivesare. Turkey fulfills its responsibilities in international cooperation in fight against terrorism," said a statement issued bythe ministry. Describing it as an individual attack, the statement said that "necessary steps have been taken to provide security for all foreignrepresentations in Turkey. Security officials have launched an investigation into today's attack with a sensitive approach." The suspect, who threw two hand-grenades at the US consulate, said that he had staged the action as a retaliation for Israel's attack against the Palestinian Hamas organization. During the interrogation, the suspect, named Cumali Kizilkoca,confessed that he had stolen the grenades during his military service. Also today, Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Huseyin Dirioz said the explosion was a regretful incident. Speaking at the weekly news conference, Dirioz said both Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu had closely followed the incident. Turkish Foreign Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Baki Ilkin has called US Ambassador in Ankara Robert Pearson and told him that they were ready to take every necessary security measures. "It is a regretful incident," said Dirioz, noting that necessarymeasures would be taken not only for US embassy, but also for otherforeign missions. "This incident should not be exaggerated. It is not possible to give a political dimension to the incident at the time being," Dirioz said.He added that Turkish laws would be valid for the person who hadbeen caught, and suspension of the opening of the US consulate was out of question. An analysis of new census data showed that a considerable part of Asian American children in New York City are living in poverty, an Asian American public policy group said Tuesday. Releasing its latest findings of a census study, the Asian American Federation of New York (AAFNY) said Asian Americans, the fastest-growing population group in the city, are hardest hit by the aftermath of Sept. 11 terror attacks and by cuts of vital services following city budget reduction. Nearly one in four Asian American children in the city lives inpoverty, with 24 percent of them far below the poverty threshold of 17,063 dollars in annual income for a family of four. This is significantly higher than the rate for non-Hispanic white childrenin the city (16 percent), all US children (17 percent), and Asian American children nationwide (14 percent). "We are very concerned about the significant poverty rates among Asian American children in New York City, particularly in light of population and economic trends," said Cao K.O., executivedirector of the AAFNY. The group's analysis, based on the 2000 Census poverty and income information, also said that among some ethnic groups and insome boroughs of the city, poverty among Asian American children is much worse than the overall figure might indicate. For instance, 40 percent of the Vietnamese children are living in poverty, the highest among Asian Americans in the city, followed by the Bangladeshis with 39 percent and Pakistanis 34 percent. The Chinese and Indians, the two largest Asian American population groups, rank fourth and fifth in child poverty with 27 percent and 23 percent respectively. Asian American children living in Brooklyn have the highest poverty rate of 34 percent, followed by Manhattan with 30 percent and Bronx 29 percent. On a neighborhood level, Astoria in Queens has an Asian American child-poverty rate of 26 percent, while 40 percent of Chinese American children in Manhattan's Chinatown are poor. "Contrary to the 'Model Minority' myth that all Asian Americansare self-sufficient high achievers, New York City's predominantly-immigrant Asian American population needs programs to help children and parents overcome cultural and language barriers, to support employment and care for latchkey children," Cao K.O. said. The AAFNY is a nonprofit organization that provides public policy and community service to Asian Americans in the New York metropolitan area. In 2000, the US Census Bureau designated it as the only census information center focused on Asian American communities in the area. Fiber access gains traction as cost-effective alternative to offer trilogy of voice, video and data services from a single provider Paris, June 12, 2003 - Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA), the worldwide leader in broadband solutions, today announced that FCI Broadband, a division of Futureway Communications Inc., a Canadian competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC), will deploy the Alcatel 7340 Fiber-to-the-User (FTTU) solution to deliver a complete range of broadband services over its high-speed optical network. The Alcatel fiber solution enables FCI Broadband to deliver a "triple play" of services over a single strand of fiber that is virtually unlimited in capacity. Services include four active phone lines; Internet access at speeds hundreds of times greater than traditional dial-up modems; hundreds of television channels without the requirement for a set-top box; and, as they continue to emerge, the bandwidth- and speed-sensitive services such as: HDTV, online gaming, music downloads and video-on-demand. Multiple lines of toll-quality voice are delivered over a single connection via leading technology from General Bandwidth Inc. "Alcatel's success in the U.S. with its next-generation fiber access solution is further buoyed by this initial contract in Canada," said Michel Rahier, President of Alcatel's fixed network activities. "The Alcatel FTTU solution enables our customers to enhance their revenue potential with optical broadband - a cost-effective alternative for green-field networks and new home builds. Alcatel's fiber and DSL-based broadband solutions remain the favored access choices to deliver next generation broadband services today." "As a competitor in the telecommunications business, FCI Broadband has succeeded because it has been able to build a network optimized for customer satisfaction," said Nick Melatti, chief operating officer, FCI Broadband, a division of Futureway Communications Inc. "The decision to expand this network by delivering fiber directly to our customer base, using the leading Alcatel solution, means we can confidently evolve our offerings based on the right service mix, guaranteed reliability, and low maintenance costs - assuring continued customer loyalty."