Indonesian plane with 16 people missing

JAKARTA: An Indonesian passenger plane carrying 16 people disappeared over eastern Indonesia on Sunday.The Twin Otter plane was on a commercial flight over the remote Papua region when it lost contact with ground officials, said Capt. Nikmatullah, the director of operations of airline Merpati Nusantara.No trace had been found of the plane more than four hours after it took off, said Nikmatullah, who goes by a single name. The aircraft was carrying enough fuel to keep it in the air for 3 hours, he told a TV channel.The plane was on a 50-minute journey from Sentani, a major airport in Papua, to the town of Oksibil, he said.Much of Papua is covered with impenetrable jungles and mountains.In the past, crashed planes have never been found.Indonesia, a nation of more than 18,000 islands, has seen several major air crashes in recent years that have killed more than 220.In 2007, the European Union banned all Indonesian carriers from landing in the bloc. It recently lifted the ban on four of them, including Garuda, the country's flag carrier, saying standards had improved.

2 killed, 11 wounded in Tel Aviv gay club shooting

TEL AVIV — A masked man opened fire on a crowd in front of a gay club in Tel Aviv, killing two people and wounding 11 others, Israeli emergency services said Sunday, amending an earlier toll.
A young man and a young woman were killed on the spot in the shooting late Saturday while three people suffered serious wounds. Hospital services had mistakenly said overnight that one of the wounded was dead.
The gunman, who was dressed in black, fired an automatic weapon at the young group of gays and lesbians at the entrance of the club, located in the heart of Tel Aviv, and then ran away, witnesses said.
Thousands of people gathered in the city centre overnight to denounce the attack.
"Our (gay) community won't let itself be frightened, it will stand up to those who threaten it with heads held high and with pride, we will respond to war with war," left-wing opposition Meretz party MP Nitzan Horowitz said.
Police meanwhile imposed a complete blackout on details of the inquiry.
Tel Aviv Police Chief Shahar Ayalon ordered the closure of a nearby gay bar and urged such establishments to remain vigilant.
"We are only at the first stage of the investigation, we continue our search and we are not sure of the motive of this attack since the centre has not received any threats recently," Ayalon said.
Representatives of the gay community believe it was a homophobic attack.
"It is not surprising that such a crime can be committed given the incitement of hatred against the homosexual community," the president of Tel Aviv's gay and lesbian community, Mai Pelem, told reporters.
Pelem was referring to verbal attacks against gays from the religious community.
In the past, swastikas had been painted at the entrance to the centre in an attempt to stigmatise homosexuals.
The head of Israel's gay and lesbian national association, Mike Hamel, told journalists: "In our worst nightmares we could not have imagined that the hatred against our community, which is hurting nobody, could go this far."
Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, also said he thought the attack had homophobic motives and promised the police would do everything possible to arrest the gunman, military radio reported.
If the motive is confirmed, it would be the worst homophobic attack against Israel's gay and lesbian community.
In 2005, an ultra-Orthodox Jew stabbed three participants of the gay pride parade. He was later sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Tel Aviv, unlike Jerusalem, is widely seen as being a very liberal city.
Despite the hostility that homosexuals, particularly men, encounter from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, which considers homosexuality an "abomination," Israel repealed a ban on consensual same-sex sexual acts in 1988 and certain rights of gay or lesbian couples have since been recognised by the courts.

Divorce 'health scars permanent'

Divorce has a lingering, detrimental impact on health that even remarriage cannot fully repair, a study suggests.

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A Chicago study involving 8,652 people aged 51 to 61 found divorced people have 20% more chronic illnesses such as cancer than those who never marry.
The figure only drops to 12% for those who remarry, researchers write in the Journal of Health and Social Behaviour.
They say we start adulthood with a "health stock" that is kept or eroded depending on our marital experience.
Only those who are continuously married can expect the same rate of chronic health problems as the never-wedded, the study suggests.

Although people who remarry after a divorce or being widowed do tend to be happier as a result - being no more depressed than those continuously married and less depressed than those who never married - they gain little in terms of chronic health conditions.
People who remarried had 12% more chronic health conditions than those continuously married, which was slightly less than the 20% for the divorced or widowed who did not remarry.
Researcher Dr Linda Waite, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, said divorce or widowhood undermines health because incomes drop and stress develops over issues such as shared child care.
Stresses and strains
Whereas marriage tends to bring an immediate health benefit, in that it improves health behaviours for men and financial well-being for women.
But remarriage does not heal all.
She said: "Some health situations, like depression, seem to respond both quickly and strongly to changes in current conditions.
"In contrast, conditions such as diabetes and heart disease develop slowly over a substantial period and show the impact of past experiences, which is why health is undermined by divorce or widowhood, even when a person remarries."
Anastasia de Waal, of the think tank Civitas, said: "This research highlights the fact that whilst divorce has become much more common, it can take not just a tremendous emotional and financial toll, but also a heavy health one."
Christine Northan, a counsellor for Relate, said: "I'm not surprised by the findings. It's another reason to work hard to make marriages last, unless it is a very destructive relationship.
"It's a good idea if you can use a messy divorce to understand both yourself better and why the relationship did not work.
"If you do that, you will be in a better place to go into a second successful marriage.
"But if you are drawn to people who are toxic for you, then you may be better off staying single."
She said a surprising number of people unconsciously look for someone like their first wife or husband and that the chance of a second marriage ending in divorce was two-fold.