Jeremy Page in Delhi  

Up to 60 million South Asians – or one percent of the world's population -- are destined to suffer heart disease because of a single genetic mutation, according to a scientific study published today.

An international team of scientists and doctors, writing in the Nature Genetics academic journal, said that the genetic mutation occurred almost exclusively among the 1.5 billion residents of the Indian subcontinent.

IANS  

COLOMBO: At least two civilians were hacked to death, three injured and four more remain missing after Tamil rebels carried out an attack in the southern part of the country yesterday (19^th January), a military spokesman said.  

The group of civilians had entered the woods as they tended their cattle in the Maligawila, Monragala, area, 360 kilometres south-east of the capital, Sunday when they were attacked, the Defence Ministry said.

By C. Bryson Hull

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan soldiers and Tamil Tiger rebels fought heavy battles during an army push to corner the separatist insurgents on the Indian Ocean island's northeast coast, the military said on Monday.

The fighting on Sunday took place at several locations around the shrinking wedge of jungle that is all the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) still control, with analysts saying the 25-year war is near its end.

Civilians who escaped the fighting are now at a government welfare  centre in Vavuniya District

COLOMBO (IRIN) - Concerns are rising over the safety of tens of thousands of civilians trapped in conflict-affected areas in northern Sri Lanka without safe passage out of the fighting.  

Officials from the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said more than 230,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Vanni remain precariously close to heavy fighting between government forces and cadres from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).