Gandhi seller pulls out too late

Gandhi is widely revered in India

The man selling personal effects of Mahatma Gandhi has called off the controversial sale at the last moment.

James Otis had offered Gandhi's iconic round glasses, a pocket watch, leather sandals at auction in New York.

But his decision to withdraw the items came only after bidding had begun and the items sold for $1.8m.

The Antiquorum auction house says that it will not finalise the sale, which was condemned by the Indian government, for two weeks.

"In the last few hours, I have decided, in the light of the controversy, not to sell Gandhi's personal items," said Mr Otis.

However, by the time Mr Otis made his decision the sale was already under way.

The items were reportedly sold to an Indian businessman, but the auction house will delay the final sale for a fortnight to allow legal issues to be resolved.

Pressure

The auction had led to uproar in India, with one minister calling it a "gross commercialisation".

The Indian government had come under immense pressure to bring back the items.

"Gandhiji himself would not have agreed to these conditions," India's Junior Foreign Minister Anand Sharma said earlier.

"Gandhiji's memory and values should not be violated, the auction should not take place," he said.

'Very dear'

Gandhi's spectacles, which he once said gave him "the vision to free India", a pair of his sandals and his pocket watch were among the five items due to be sold. A plate and a bowl used by Gandhi were also among the lots.

His leather sandals are among five items to be auctioned

"The Zenith watch that will be sold was gifted to him by Indira [Gandhi], who became the prime minister of India later on, and it was very dear to Bapu [Gandhi]," Gandhi's great-grandson Tushar Gandhi, told the BBC.

"The plate and the bowl are the ones from which he took his last meal before he was murdered.

"The sandals he made with his own hands, and he gifted them to a British army officer who had taken photographs during his halt in Aden when he was on his way to London to attend the round table conference [to discuss India's independence]," Mr Gandhi explained.

Mahatma Gandhi is widely revered in India as the leader of the independence movement against British rule.

'New digger rampage' in Jerusalem

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Footage of the scene shortly after the incident took place

The driver of a construction vehicle in West Jerusalem has been shot dead by police after he rammed a police car.

Israeli police say they are treating it as a terrorist attack. It echoes two such incidents in July 2008 involving Palestinian construction workers.

Witnesses described the front-end loader speeding along a West Jerusalem road dragging the police car.

Tensions are currently very high between Israelis and Palestinians after Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

A taxi driver told Israeli radio: "I saw the police car fly into the air. He flipped it over twice, then continued dragging it toward a bus that was stuck in traffic."

He said he had fired four shots at the driver, "then a policeman came with his M-16 [automatic rifle] and finished him off".

The driver - who has not been identified - was taken to hospital by ambulance and was declared dead on arrival.

Enraged individuals

The incident happened in Malha on the main Begin Highway which connects north and south Jerusalem.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility and police said the man was not carrying identification.

In July last year, a Palestinian killed three Israelis and wounded 45 more when he rammed the front-end loader he was driving into buses and cars in Jaffa Street, before being shot dead.

Three weeks later 16 people were wounded in a similar incident, and the attacker also killed.

In September, a Palestinian driver rammed his car into a crowd of Israeli soldiers, wounding 19 people. He too was shot dead, although relatives denied it had been a deliberate attack.

Suicide bomb attacks in Jerusalem by militants from the West Bank have been greatly reduced after reaching a peak in the early 2000s.

Recent attacks appear to have been launched mostly by individuals from mainly-Arab East Jerusalem.

Earlier on Thursday Israeli warplanes bombed the Gaza Strip, killing two militants, bringing to four the number killed by Israel in less than 24 hours.

Palestinian health care 'ailing'

The report said death rates of children and expectant women had not declined

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza suffer from an "ailing landscape" of health services, a new study claims.

The Lancet medical journal report highlights how 10% of Palestinian children now have stunted growth.

The paper describes the healthcare system in the Palestinian territories as "fragmented and incoherent".

Experts from Birzeit University say death rates among children and expectant mothers have failed to decline in recent years.

The plateau is in spite of good ante-natal care and high rates of child immunisation.

The trend for stunting among children is increasing, and the concern is about the long-term effects Dr Hanan Abdul Rahim Birzeit University

Dr Hanan Abdul Rahim said: "There are gaps in care. There's a low level of post-natal care and often it's not given in a timely manner.

"Mortality rates among infants and under-fives haven't declined much. This is unusual when compared with other Arab countries that used to have similar rates but have managed to bring them down.

"The trend for stunting among children is increasing, and the concern is about the long-term effects. It is caused by chronic malnutrition, and affects cognitive development and physical health.

"There are pockets in northern Gaza where the level of stunted growth reaches 30%.

"It's very important that women and children have access to quality care."

Dr Rahim's paper mentions a previously published report from the UN, which says more than 60 Palestinian women have given birth at Israeli checkpoints and 36 of their babies have died as a result.

Another paper says the Palestinian health system fails to be effective and equitable.

'Heartbreaking'

The conditions of military occupation are blamed, but so is the political instability of the Palestinian Authority - which has appointed six health ministers in three years.

The lead author, Dr Awad Mataria, also from Birzeit University, said: "Political havoc is one of the reasons for the failure of the health system - but this has been exaggerated and perpetuated under occupation.

"Also, the policies of foreign aid donors can be fragmented and contradictory."

Dr Mataria's paper note that the Palestinian Authority has received $10bn in recent years - mostly donated by the European Union.

But he and his colleagues say health programmes have focused on relief and emergency, rather than on long-term development.

In an editorial accompanying the series, the Lancet's editor Richard Horton said: "Our series is not about Arab politics, the status of Israel, or existing conventional diplomatic efforts to broker peace."

He added: "The latest storm of violence to engulf Gaza has been heartbreaking to watch, especially for those who have seen first hand the predicaments faced by health professionals trying to maintain a rudimentary, but ultimately failing, health system there."

Broad angry at security failures

Former England batsman Chris Broad was match referee in Lahore

Chris Broad has angrily criticised security in Pakistan after witnessing Tuesday's terror attack in Lahore.

The former England batsman was match referee for the Pakistan-Sri Lanka third Test and was in a van with other officials when they came under fire.

Six policeman and a driver were killed and seven Sri Lanka players were hurt.

"I'm angry at Pakistan security forces. We were promised presidential-style security. That didn't happen. They left us to be sitting ducks," said Broad.

The driver of Broad's vehicle was killed in the attack and local umpire Ahshan Raza was seriously injured after being shot.

With everyone on the van floor to try to avoid bullets, Broad lay on top of his colleague to protect him.

606: DEBATE It shows that anywhere on the Indian sub-continent is a target for terrorists Insight8

Broad, speaking in Manchester after his flight home, said: "I'm not a hero. Ahsan Raza took a bullet to the stomach or chest - somewhere in the spleen and lung region.

"I was lying behind him on the floor of the van and there were bullets flying all around us.

"I only noticed he was injured when I saw a large pool of blood had spilled on to the floor and out of the partially opened van door.

"He's just an umpire who loves the game."

Indian village paves way to love

By Amarnath Tewary in western Bihar

The bachelor villagers are determined

More than 100 unmarried villagers in India's Bihar state are working flat out to build a 6km (3.7-mile) road to help their efforts to get married.

The village of Barwaan Kala, in the west of Bihar, is located high in the Kaimur hills and is known locally as the "village of unmarried people".

Some 121 villagers aged between 16 and 80 remain bachelors, they say, because of the remoteness of the village.

The last wedding in the village was reportedly 50 years ago.

"Even those who have managed to get married have done it surreptitiously by taking temporary shelter in the less remote villages of their relatives," Ram Chand Kharwar, a 50-year-old bachelor, told the BBC.

Apart from the inaccessibility of Barwaan Kala, outsiders are also fearful of Maoist militants who operate in the area.

Amenities are in short supply - of the six village hand water pumps none is working and a government school has no teacher.

The nearest police station and hospital are both 45km (28 miles) away.

Without development, many families refuse to agree to marry off their daughters to prospective bachelors from the area.

Broken 'promise'

"The biggest problem for us and for outsiders is the difficult hilly terrain to pass through," said 40-year-old bachelor Ram Lal Yadav ruefully.

Social workers such as Chandrama Singh Yadav say that the reason for the high number of bachelors is not because they lack eligibility but because there is no approach road to the village.

I tried my best to highlight the issue Ram Chandra Singh Yadav MLA(Photo: Paras Nath)

The unmarried villagers were given hope that their access to potential partners would be eased during the last state assembly elections when, for the first time since independence, a party candidate on the campaign trail visited them.

Ram Chandra Singh Yadav assured the village of 1,500 people that he too would not get married unless he could get a road for them.

Believing his words, the villagers backed Mr Yadav in his successful campaign to win election in 2005.

But, after winning, the new Member of the Legislative Assembly not only got married the next year but, in the villagers' eyes, added insult to injury by making the event a gala affair.

He is now the proud father of a two-year-old daughter.

When the villagers approached him to remind him of his promise to them, they say he asked them if they really believed that he too should remain a bachelor forever.

The young newly-elected MLA sought to explain his actions.

"I tried my best to highlight the issue; even in state assembly I raised the issue of the village six times in the last three years. Moreover, we cannot do it on our own as the area falls under a wildlife protected zone," Mr Yadav told the BBC.

What the villagers are doing is unlawful activity... we will take all necessary action Forest officer RK Ram

He also claimed to be a victim of a ploy to defame him by a rival political leader.

However, the villagers have now decided to take the law into their own hands.

Armed with shovels, chisels, hammers, spades and other tools, the bachelors of the Barwaan Kala village are getting on with the job of constructing the road by themselves.

In the past month-and-a-half, they have already laid a 3km (1.8 miles) stretch of road on the hilly terrain.

As one group of them shoves big boulders aside, another group hammers them into small stone chips to lay the road. Work is in progress around the clock.

Legal hurdle

Only 3km more remain to be laid to connect the village to the rest of the Bhabhua district.

"We'll make it very soon and then we can hope to get married one day like others," said a prospective bridegroom, Sheo Kharwar, 28.

'We will not rest until we construct the road'

That optimism is shared by Rohit Yadav, Ram Lal, Prachari Kharwar, Dev Nath, Rajgriha, Ram Ashish and other bachelors who are working on paving the new passage to the outside world.

Once the road is constructed, the current circuitous route of about 40km (25 miles) will be drastically reduced and at least 10,000 people from 10 surrounding villages in the sub-district will benefit, according to former village head Ram Dayal.

Unfortunately, there may still be a big legal hurdle in the way of the men's mission to increase the number of weddings in the village.

The area is within a wildlife protected zone, where road construction has to meet strict guidelines.

"What the villagers are doing is an unlawful activity under the Supreme Court directive. We will take all necessary action," said district forest officer RK Ram.

But the bachelor villagers are determined to complete their project.

"Come what may, we will not rest until we construct the entire 6km road," they said in unison, as they raised their construction tools up in the air.

Housing slump hits Shanghai owners

By Chris Hogg BBC News, Shanghai

In Britain and the United States the fall in house prices has been one of the main reasons many people are feeling poorer in the financial downturn.

Developers are continuing to turn out flats in the city of Shanghai

In China homeowners are feeling the pinch too. House prices have been falling here since last summer.

Some analysts warn that in big cities like Shanghai they could fall by 50% from their peak.

But for many Chinese homeowners this is the very first time they have ever experienced the pressures of negative equity and falling prices, so young is the market.

In a Shanghai suburb, young saleswoman Yu Bei shows visitors around a new apartment.

She has discarded her hard hat, and her shoes are wrapped in plastic bags. Inside the newly-decorated apartment it is immaculate, but outside it is a building site.

Eleven towers are under construction on this housing estate. Thirty-six have been finished already.

It appears to be a massive undertaking, but these flats are just some of the 30 million new apartments being built in China at the moment.

It is a mass market, but the prices are not affordable for the masses.

"The square metre price in most cities is about three times the monthly salary," says Andy Tsieh, a freelance economist. "It's too high by international standards. In Shanghai it's four times."

He argues that with such a high price it is impossible to have a mass market. The volume of supply is simply too great at the moment.

"Developers have to cut prices," he says, "and they don't have enough room to do that in the current economic climate."

Job offers

On one project, developers came up with an enterprising solution to try to get sales moving. For a month they promised anyone who bought one of their apartments a job.

Zhang Tao's company offered jobs along with their flats

Zhang Tao, the firm's deputy general manager, says it was a genuine offer.

"If you bought an apartment during that period, and you wanted a job we would offer you one," he explained.

"There were conditions of course, you had to be a suitable applicant. But we had all sorts of jobs, high-end and low-end. We offered the job to the person who bought the apartment, or to his friends and relatives, so that way the 'offer' could be guaranteed."

Zhang Tao insists that his company's unusual "buy a place and work for us" offer was a clever marketing ruse - not a reflection of how bad the market is right now. In truth it is hard to tell though.

The problem is, there are very few transactions taking place, especially in what is known as the secondary market, where people are selling homes they already own.

Wang Yi Qing bought her apartment as an investment property last October not far off the peak of the market.

Wang Yi Qing ha not been able to rent out her investment property

It is in an industrial area where lots of people have lost their jobs recently. That has made it hard to rent out, so it is empty. She would prefer to sell it but she would lose a lot of money.

"It's huge pressure for our generation," she complained. "I'm really feeling it."

She does not know what she is going to do next.

"It's hard to predict the future," she said. "When prices were high people thought they would go up and up, and now people think they will keep falling. The market's not at the bottom yet. It's really difficult to tell what's going to happen."

More pain

In mature markets people are used to the cycles of property prices. Here it is different.

The market is quite immature, so women like Miss Wang are dealing with these pressures for the first time. She is the first person in her family ever to own property.

Property prices rose dramatically in Shanghai in 2007 but are now falling

James McDonald from the real estate firm Savilles' Shanghai office says that lack of experience makes the current situation deeply unsettling for those trying to work out whether to get in to the market.

"Chinese citizens haven't seen anything like this before. In Shanghai we saw property prices rising 40-50% in 2007. We are looking at a correction for those times. People do not know where the true value of certain properties are so they just hold off buying properties at the moment."

They are still building new homes across this city, even as prices continue to fall.

Building new homes is labour intensive and so creates lots of jobs - more important now than ever as the economy slows here. But China does not need a bigger property market. It needs a healthier property market.

Incomes will have to rise here considerably, and prices will have to fall a long way before homes become more affordable, before the property market here starts to look more like that in other countries.

That suggests there will be more pain to come for developers, and for those families trying to find buyers for their homes in the months to come.

'Nine missing' in German collapse

Rescue workers were on the scene shortly after the buildings collapsed

Nine people are feared missing after a building collapsed in the German city of Cologne, officials have said.

The local historical archive building was open to the public when it toppled in the southern part of the city at about 1400 local time (1300 GMT).

Two other neighbouring buildings were partly brought down by the disturbance.

There is a large construction project for an underground railway nearby, but it is not yet clear what caused the buildings to collapse, officials said.

More than 200 rescue workers have been sent to the scene.

"It looks like an earthquake," one police officer said.

The police are using dogs to search the rubble for those thought to be missing.