Colombo: Sri Lankan Premier Ratnasiri Wickremanayake has claimed that "certain super powers" were attempting to strengthen the LTTE branches abroad with the help of "local elements", who want to destabilise government and hamper the country's economic development.

Certain elements attempting to strengthen the LTTE were arrested in Germany while another LTTE activist working abroad was held in Dehiwala in Colombo suburbs recently, he told Parliament, which was convened for a day on Tuesday to extend the emergency law.

"There were anti-Sri Lankan schemes in progress with the support of certain super powers in the world as well as certain other organisations," the Prime Minister was quoted as saying by the state-run 'Daily News'.

"They are assisted by certain local elements that wish to destabilise the government and arrest the country's rapid economic development drive," he said

Wickremanayake regretted that there were groups in the country who were engaged in distorting facts to support cooked-up allegations put forward by anti-national forces, the newspaper said.

He said the government had never misused the provisions of emergency laws against the people to suppress the freedom of expression or the rights of trade unions. "But there are certain parties that distort facts to say that the government is abusing the emergency law," he said.

The Premier said the intelligence units have received information of the "sinister" moves against the country and government. "We have to act against these forces."

He also said the government facilitated people in the country's North and East to regain their rights by defeating terrorism. Within a short period they would have the chance to elect their own representatives, he said. (PTI)

New York/Washington: An American woman, operating online under the name Jihad Jane was indicted on Wednesday for plotting to recruit Jihadist fighters for executing terror attacks in South Asia and Europe. The middle-aged Pennsylvania resident Colleen R LaRose alias Fatima LaRose was arrested in October last year and charged with spending more than a year networking with would-be Jihadist around the world. She was charged on four counts -- conspiracy to provide support to terrorists, a count to kill in a foreign country, indulging in identity thefts and making false statements.

"The case demonstrates that terrorists are looking for Americans to join them in their cause and it shatters any lingering thoughts that one can spot a terrorist on a appearance," US Attorney Michael Levy said in the 11-page indictment unsealed in Philadelphia.

The charging of Jihadi Jane comes months after another Pakistani-American national David Coleman Headley was charged with plotting terrorists attacks in India and Denmark.

47-year-old Jihadi Jane and David Headley were both arrested from same place. (PTI)

In Jerusalem, an Israeli cabinet minister apologised for what he termed ''real embarrassment'' caused to Biden by the news yesterday that Israel would erect the housing units in an area of the West Bank it annexed to the holy city. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said President Mahmoud Abbas would ask Biden to press Israel to revoke the settlement decision. (UNI)

JAKARTA: A top-ranked Southeast Asian militant wanted for planning the deadliest terrorist attack in Indonesia's history has been killed in a shootout with police at an Internet cafe, the president confirmed on Wednesday.

Dulmatin, a 39-year-old Indonesian trained by al-Qaida in Afghanistan who goes by one name, was wanted for the suicide bombings that tore through two Bali nightclubs popular with Westerners in 2002, killing 202 people.(Agencies)

Zurich: The global insurance industry is likely to incur losses up to USD 7 billion due to the last month's earthquake in Chile that killed hundreds of people.

"With insured losses reaching an estimated USD 4 to 7 billion, the earthquake is also likely to become one of the most expensive ever for the global insurance industry," international reinsurance major Swiss Re has said.

The company in a statement noted that economic losses for Chile due to the earthquake could be over USD 15 billion.

The 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck the Latin American nation on February 27, killed hundreds of people and devastated vast swaths of commercial infrastructure and homes.

Swiss Re noted that total insurance payouts are anticipated to reach USD 4 to 7 billion.

Anti-seismic features installed in many properties seem to have prevented the collapse of many buildings, it added.

According to the company, with its history of earthquake events, Chile was prepared.

"While the Chilean quake was 500 times more forceful than the recent temblor that ravaged Haiti, its reported death toll ... (is) relatively low compared to 250,000 people killed on the Caribbean island," Swiss Re added. (PTI)

Now, for the first time, his original manuscript has gone on display in its entirety. In the manuscript, which helps explain everything from black holes to the Big Bang and contains the famous equation of E=MC², Einstein demonstrates an expanding universe and also shows how gravity can bend space and time. (UNI)

London: Does the brain process lyrics and melody separately or as one? Well scientists claim to have finally found an answer to the hotly debated question.

A team at Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany has found that the brain first deals with music and lyrics together and then, after passing through more complex processing, like understanding what lyrics mean, the two are treated separately, the 'New Scientist' reported.

In their research, the scientists worked out a way to determine when active regions were processing just music and when just lyrics, by studying a functional MRI brain scan of someone listening to songs.

The team knew that when neurons process the same stimulus repeatedly, their response to it decreases over time.

They reasoned that if they varied just the tune and kept the lyrics the same, areas showing a decline in activity must be processing lyrics. And if they varied just the lyrics, areas showing a decline must be processing the tune, while any regions declining when both the tune and lyrics are repeated must be processing both.

The team wrote four different sets of six songs and played these to 12 volunteers while scanning their brains. In one set, all songs had different melodies and lyrics.

In another, the melodies were different but the lyrics were the same, while in the third set, the opposite was true. The fourth set were identical to each other. From the fMRI scans the scientists worked out that one particular part of the brain -- the superior temporal sulcus -- was responding to the songs.

In the middle of the STS, the lyrics and tune were being processed as a single signal. But in anterior STS only the lyrics seemed to be processed. Her team couldn't find an area specific to processing tunes. "This may be because no individual, complex processing occurs for melody, though it might in professional musicians," lead scientist Daniela Sammler said.

She concluded: "The brain first deals with music and lyrics together. Then, after passing through the mid-STS more complex processing kicks in, such as understanding what lyrics mean, and the two are treated separately. The more they are processed, the more they are separated." The findings have been published in the 'Journal of Neuroscience'. (PTI)