South Africa makes progress in HIV, AIDS fight
Label: HealthJOHANNESBURG (AP) — In the early ’90s when South Africa‘s Themba Lethu clinic could only treat HIV/AIDS patients for opportunistic diseases, many would come in on wheelchairs and keep coming to the health center until they died.
Two decades later the clinic is the biggest anti-retroviral, or ARV, treatment center in the country and sees between 600 to 800 patients a day from all over southern Africa. Those who are brought in on wheelchairs, sometimes on the brink of death, get the crucial drugs and often become healthy and are walking within weeks.
“The ARVs are called the ‘Lazarus drug’ because people rise up and walk,” said Sue Roberts who has been a nurse at the clinic , run by Right to Care in Johannesburg’s Helen Joseph Hospital, since it opened its doors in 1992. She said they recently treated a woman who was pushed in a wheelchair for 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) to avoid a taxi fare and who was so sick it was touch and go. Two weeks later, the woman walked to the clinic, Roberts said.
Such stories of hope and progress are readily available on World AIDS Day 2012 in sub-Saharan Africa where deaths from AIDS-related causes have declined by 32 percent from 1.8 million in 2005 to 1.2 million in 2011, according to the latest UNAIDS report.
As people around the world celebrate a reduction in the rate of HIV infections, the growth of the clinic, which was one of only a few to open its doors 20 years ago, reflects how changes in treatment and attitude toward HIV and AIDS have moved South Africa forward. The nation, which has the most people living with HIV in the world at 5.6 million, still faces stigma and high rates of infection.
“You have no idea what a beautiful time we’re living in right now,” said Dr. Kay Mahomed, a doctor at the clinic who said treatment has improved drastically over the past several years.
President Jacob Zuma’s government decided to give the best care, including TB screening and care at the clinic, and not to look at the cost, she said. South Africa has increased the numbers treated for HIV by 75 percent in the last two years, UNAIDS said, and new HIV infections have fallen by more than 50,000 in those two years. South Africa has also increased its domestic expenditure on AIDS to $ 1.6 billion, the highest by any low-and middle-income country, the group said.
Themba Lethu clinic, with funding from the government, the United States Agency for International Development and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, is now among some 2,500 anit-retroviral therapy facilities in the country that treat approximately 1.9 million people.
“Now, you can’t not get better. It’s just one of these win-win situations. You test, you treat and you get better, end of story,” Mahomed said.
But it hasn’t always been that way.
In the 1990s South Africa’s problem was compounded by years of misinformation by President Thabo Mbeki, who questioned the link between HIV and AIDS, and his health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who promoted a “treatment” of beets and garlic.
Christinah Motsoahae first found out she was HIV positive in 1996, and said she felt nothing could be done about it.
“I didn’t understand it at that time because I was only 24, and I said, ‘What the hell is that?’” she said.
Sixteen years after her first diagnosis, she is now on anti-retroviral drugs and her life has turned around. She says the clinic has been instrumental.
“My status has changed my life, I have learned to accept people the way they are. I have learned not to be judgmental. And I have learned that it is God’s purpose that I have this,” the 40-year-old said.
She works with a support group of “positive ladies” in her hometown near Krugersdorp. She travels to the clinic as often as needed and her optimism shines through her gold eye shadow and wide smile. “I love the way I’m living now.”
Motsoahae credits Nelson Mandela’s family for inspiring her to face up to her status. The anti-apartheid icon galvanized the AIDS community in 2005 when he publicly acknowledged his son died of AIDS.
None of Motsoahae’s children was born with HIV. The number of children newly infected with HIV has declined significantly. In six countries in sub-Saharan Africa — South Africa, Burundi, Kenya, Namibia, Togo and Zambia —the number of children with HIV declined by 40 to 59 percent between 2009 and 2011, the UNAIDS report said.
But the situation remains dire for those over the age of 15, who make up the 5.3 million infected in South Africa. Fear and denial lend to the high prevalence of HIV for that age group in South Africa, said the clinic’s Kay Mahomed.
About 3.5 million South Africans still are not getting therapy, and many wait too long to come in to clinics or don’t stay on the drugs, said Dr. Dave Spencer, who works at the clinic .
“People are still afraid of a stigma related to HIV,” he said, adding that education and communication are key to controlling the disease.
Themba Lethu clinic reaches out to the younger generation with a teen program.
Tshepo Hoato, 21, who helps run the program found out he was HIV positive after his mother died in 2000. He said he has been helped by the program in which teens meet one day a month.
“What I’ve seen is a lot people around our ages, some commit suicide as soon as they find out they are HIV. That’s a very hard stage for them so we came up with this program to help one another,” he said. “We tell them our stories so they can understand and progress and see that no, man, it’s not the end of the world.”
Sexual Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News
South Korea November exports show fragile, uneven global recovery
Label: BusinessSEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean exports last month marked their first back-to-back growth of the year, but demand from the advanced economies was weak, data showed on Saturday, indicating any global recovery would be fragile at best.
November exports grew by 3.9 percent over a year earlier to $ 47.8 billion on top of a revised 1.1 percent rise in October, while imports last month rose by 0.7 percent to $ 43.3 billion, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy data showed.
The November data, released for the first time by a major exporting economy, and the robust survey findings in China disclosed earlier in the day offered fresh signs of the global economy regaining some momentum.
Shipments to China and the southeast Asian countries posted sharp gains over a year earlier, whereas demand from the United States and the European Union shrank, according to break-down figures for the November 1-20 period released later.
“Robust data from China and today’s Korean data increase the chances for Korean exports maintaining a modest recovery,” said Park Sang-hyun, chief economist at HI Investment & Securities.
RARE ANNUAL DROP IN EXPORTS
Data released earlier on Saturday showed China’s manufacturing sector activity was at a seven-month high in November, while South Korea’s October industrial output also expanded for the second straight month.
“But as Europe and the U.S. are not getting any stronger soon, any global recovery will be an uneven and fragile one for the time being,” Park added.
Analysts in a Reuters survey had forecast November exports would grow a median 2.6 percent over a year before on top of a revised 1.1 percent gain in October, when overseas sales posted their first growth in four months.
The ministry’s data showed South Korea ran a trade surplus of $ 4.48 billion for November, compared with a revised surplus of $ 3.73 billion in October. The country’s trade balance has been in black for all but two months since early 2009.
Meanwhile, exports for the January-November period were 0.8 percent less than the comparable period of 2011, making it highly likely the country will miss its export target of a 3.5 percent gain set for the whole of 2012.
Reuters calculations show South Korean exports this year would post an annual loss unless shipments in December grow 9 percent or more on a year-on-year basis. The country’s exports grew in all but three years for the past 50 years at least.
South Korea is home to some of the world’s largest suppliers of cars, smartphones and ships. It sends roughly a quarter of its total exports to China and about 10 percent each to the European Union and the United states.
(Editing by Ron Popeski)
Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Cargo plane crashes in Brazzaville, 3 dead
Label: WorldBRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo (AP) — A cargo plane owned by a private company crashed Friday near the airport in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, killing at least three people, officials said.
The Soviet-made Ilyushin-76 belonged to Trans Air Congo and appeared to be transporting merchandise, not people, said an aviation official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The plane was coming from Congo‘s second-largest city, Pointe Noire, and tried to land during heavy rain, he said.
Ambulances rushed to the scene in the Makazou neighborhood, located near the airport, but emergency workers were hampered by the lack of light in this capital, which like so many in Africa has a chronic shortage of electricity.
“At the moment, my team is having a hard time searching for survivors in order to find the victims of the crash because there is no light and also because of the rain,” Congolese Red Cross head Albert Mberi said.
He said that realistically, they will only be able to launch a proper search Saturday, when the sun comes up.
Reporters at the scene fought through a wall of smoke. Despite the darkness, they could make out the smoldering remains of the plane, including what looked like the left wing of the aircraft. A little bit further on, emergency workers identified the body of the plane’s Ukrainian pilot, and covered the corpse in a blanket.
Firefighters were trying to extinguish the blaze of a part of the plane that had fallen into a ravine. They were using their truck lights to try to illuminate the scene of the crash. Although the plane was carrying merchandise, emergency workers fear that there could be more people on board.
Because of the state of the road connecting Pointe Noire to Brazzaville, many traders prefer to fly the roughly 400 kilometers (250 miles).
Africa has some of the worst air safety records in the world. In June, a commercial jetliner crashed in Lagos, Nigeria, killing 153 people, just a few days after a cargo plane clipped a bus in neighboring Ghana, killing 10.
Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Cargo plane crashes in Brazzaville, 3 dead
Label: WorldBRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo (AP) — A cargo plane owned by a private company crashed Friday near the airport in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, killing at least three people, officials said.
The Soviet-made Ilyushin-76 belonged to Trans Air Congo and appeared to be transporting merchandise, not people, said an aviation official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The plane was coming from Congo‘s second-largest city, Pointe Noire, and tried to land during heavy rain, he said.
Ambulances rushed to the scene in the Makazou neighborhood, located near the airport, but emergency workers were hampered by the lack of light in this capital, which like so many in Africa has a chronic shortage of electricity.
“At the moment, my team is having a hard time searching for survivors in order to find the victims of the crash because there is no light and also because of the rain,” Congolese Red Cross head Albert Mberi said.
He said that realistically, they will only be able to launch a proper search Saturday, when the sun comes up.
Reporters at the scene fought through a wall of smoke. Despite the darkness, they could make out the smoldering remains of the plane, including what looked like the left wing of the aircraft. A little bit further on, emergency workers identified the body of the plane’s Ukrainian pilot, and covered the corpse in a blanket.
Firefighters were trying to extinguish the blaze of a part of the plane that had fallen into a ravine. They were using their truck lights to try to illuminate the scene of the crash. Although the plane was carrying merchandise, emergency workers fear that there could be more people on board.
Because of the state of the road connecting Pointe Noire to Brazzaville, many traders prefer to fly the roughly 400 kilometers (250 miles).
Africa has some of the worst air safety records in the world. In June, a commercial jetliner crashed in Lagos, Nigeria, killing 153 people, just a few days after a cargo plane clipped a bus in neighboring Ghana, killing 10.
Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News
The Xbox 720 Is Coming Sooner Than Anyone Anticipated
Label: TechnologyAfter almost three years without an update, and with Windows 8 sales flailing, Microsoft will release a new Xbox just in time for Christmas next year, sources told Bloomberg’s Dina Bass and Ian King. Last year Microsoft had said that it wouldn’t release a new version of the gaming system “anytime soon,” with other sources talking up a date sometime in 2013 “at the earliest.” This new Christmas launch makes perfect sense for the video-game nerd anticipated “Xbox 720,” as the rumorers refer to it. An Xbox is one of those it toys that gets people lining up at 3 a.m. during holiday shopping craziness. Even the aging 360 console has managed to double the sales of the new Nintendo Wii so far this holiday season, according to numbers from the NDP Group. Microsoft hasn’t put out an entirely new console since 2005, which led to riots during Black Friday of that year.
RELATED: Foxconn Is Still a Hard Place to Work
And Microsoft needs a super-anticipated something, since Windows 8 sales fell so flat this year. After whispers that the new operating system wasn’t selling well, NDP research group found that sales fell 21 percent for new computers running Windows. The research group doesn’t measure sales from Microsoft stores or online, but Microsoft has said most of its sales come from third-party retailers like Best Buy anyway. Windows 8 tablet sales were almost “nonexistent” said the report, making up just 1 percent of all Windows 8 sales. Yeesh. However, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said he is playing the long game on this one, claiming that people will get used to the new look and when they do fall in love with it. Maybe the people will line up for Windows 8 next year, too?
RELATED: Amazon’s New Cloud Music Player Is Great, But Is It Legal?
If not, though, the new Xbox sounds like an upgrade that will get gamers excited and buying. As for what exactly the gadget will look like, the rumorers say it will be cheaper and smaller than the 360, which retails starting at $ 300. In addition, it will have an udpated Kinect controller, a quad core processor, 8GB Ram, Blu-Ray, and augmented reality glasses, according to “leaked reports.”
Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Producer sues Pythons over ‘Spamalot’ royalties
Label: LifestyleLONDON (AP) — It’s no joking matter.
A producer of the film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” is suing the British comedy troupe over royalties from the hit stage musical “Spamalot.”
Producer Mark Forstater wants a bigger share of proceeds from the show, which is based on the Pythons’ 1975 movie spoof of the legend of King Arthur.
Lawyers for Monty Python are contesting Forstater’s claim and will present their arguments later. Python members Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Jones will give evidence during a five-day hearing that began Friday at London’s High Court.
Forstater is suing the trio and the two other surviving Python members, John Cleese and Terry Gilliam. The sixth member of the troupe, Graham Chapman, died in 1989.
Forstater’s lawyer, Tom Weisselberg, said that under an agreement made when the film was produced, “for financial purposes Mr. Forstater was to be treated as the seventh Python” and entitled to the same share of “Holy Grail” merchandising and spin-off income as the other members.
But the lawyer said Forstater had not received his fair share of royalties from the stage show, which has been a hit around the world. It ran on Broadway for almost four years to 2009 and is still playing in London’s West End.
Weisselberg said Forstater, who was declared bankrupt earlier this year, had been forced to go to court because of his “difficult financial circumstances.”
Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Ukraine fights spreading HIV epidemic
Label: HealthBUCHA, Ukraine (AP) — Andrei Mandrykin, an inmate at Prison No. 85 outside Kiev, has HIV. He looks ghostly and much older than his 35 years. But Mandrykin is better off than tens of thousands of his countrymen, because is he receiving treatment amid what the World Health Organization says is the worst AIDS epidemic in Europe.
Ahead of World AIDS Day on Saturday, international organizations have urged the Ukrainian government to increase funding for treatment and do more to prevent HIV from spreading from high-risk groups into the mainstream population, where it is even harder to manage and control.
An estimated 230,000 Ukrainians, or about 0.8 percent of people aged 15 to 49, are living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Some 120,000 are in urgent need of anti-retroviral therapy, which can greatly prolong and improve the quality of their lives. But due to a lack of funds, fewer than a quarter are receiving the drugs — one of the lowest levels in the world.
Ukraine’s AIDS epidemic is still concentrated among high-risk groups such as intravenous drug users, sex workers, homosexuals and prisoners. But nearly half of new cases registered last year were traced to unprotected heterosexual contact.
“Slowly but surely the epidemic is moving from the most-at-risk, vulnerable population to the general population,” said Nicolas Cantau of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, who manages work in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. “For the moment there is not enough treatment in Ukraine.”
Stigma is also a big problem for those with HIV in Ukraine. Liliya, a 65-year-old woman who would give only her first name, recently attended a class on how to tell her 9-year-old great-granddaughter that she has HIV. The girl, who contacted HIV at birth from her drug-abusing mother, has been denied a place in preschool because of her diagnosis.
“People are like wolves, they don’t understand,” said Liliya. “If any of the parents found out, they would eat the child alive.”
While the AIDS epidemic has plateaued elsewhere in the world, it is still progressing in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, according to Cantau. Nearly 21,200 new cases were reported in Ukraine in 2011, the highest number since the former Soviet republic registered its first case in 1987, and a 3 percent increase over 2010. As a result of limited and often delayed treatment, the number of AIDS-related deaths grew 17 percent last year to about 3,800.
Two years ago, Mandrykin, the prisoner, was on the verge of becoming part of that statistic, with his level of crucial CD4 immune cells — a way to measure the strength of the immune system — dropping to 11. In a healthy person, the CD4 count is usually over 600.
“I was lying in the hospital, I was dying,” said Mandrykin, who is serving seven years for robbery, his fourth stint in jail. “It’s a scary disease.”
After two years of treatment in a small prison clinic, his CD4 count has risen to 159 and he feels much better, although he looks exhausted and is still too weak to work in the workshop of the medium-security prison.
The Ukrainian government currently focuses on testing and treating standard cases among the general population. The anti-retroviral treatment of more than 1,000 inmates, as well as some 10,000 HIV patients across Ukraine who also require treatment for tuberculosis and other complications and all prevention and support activities, are paid for by foreign donors, mainly the Global Fund.
The Global Fund is committed to spending $ 640 million through 2016 to fight AIDS and tuberculosis in Ukraine and then hopes to hand over most of its programs to the Ukrainian government.
Advocacy groups charge that corruption and indifference by government officials help fuel the epidemic.
During the past two years, Ukrainian authorities have seized vital AIDS drugs at the border due to technicalities, sent prosecutors to investigate AIDS support groups sponsored by the Global Fund and harassed patients on methadone substitution therapy, prompting the Global Fund to threaten to freeze its prevention grant.
Most recently, Ukraine’s parliament gave initial approval to a bill that would impose jail terms of up to five years for any positive public depiction of homosexuality. Western organizations say it would make the work of AIDS prevention organizations that distribute condoms and teach safe homosexual sex illegal and further fuel the epidemic. It is unclear when the bill will come up for a final vote.
AIDS drug procurement is another headache, with Ukrainian health authorities greatly overpaying for AIDS drugs. Advocacy groups accuse health officials of embezzling funds by purchasing drugs at inflated prices and then pocketing kickbacks.
Officials deny those allegations, saying their tender procedures are transparent.
Much also remains to be done in Ukraine to educate people about AIDS.
Oksana Golubova, a 40-year-old former drug user, infected her daughter, now 8, with HIV and lost her first husband to AIDS. But she still has unprotected sex with her new husband, saying his health is in God’s hands.
“Those who are afraid get infected,” Golubova said.
Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Bulgaria offers citizenship to foreign investors
Label: BusinessSOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Here’s one way to boost an ailing economy: Bulgaria is offering citizenship to foreigners ready to invest at least half a million euros ($ 650,000).
Under a newly approved amendment, the candidates would have to invest in a Bulgarian company involved in a high-priority investment project in industry, infrastructure, transport or tourism. The investors are also required to have had residence status in the country for at least one year.
Bulgaria, which joined the 27-nation European Union in 2007 and is the bloc’s poorest member, is trying to reverse the severe drop in foreign direct investment from €6.55 billion ($ 8.5 billion) in 2008 to €1.75 billion ($ 2.3 billion) in 2011.
Bulgaria already is handing out passports to ethnic Bulgarians outside its borders, the main beneficiaries being citizens of Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine and Turkey — countries with living standards at a fraction of the EU average that are years away from possible membership.
The latest amendments have been criticized harshly by the opposition, and did not get unequivocal support from the presidency or the Justice Ministry, the two institutions that deal with the issue of granting citizenship. According to media reports, the Interior Ministry and the security services have also voiced concerns about potential risks to national security during a closed-door parliament committee meeting.
The political and economic instability in the Middle East following the Arab Spring revolutions could prompt wealthy citizens trying to escape the region’s troubles to qualify for the citizenship-by-investment program.
Other EU countries trying to cut public debt and attract foreign direct investment are also considering economic residency programs.
Spain is studying a plan to give residency to foreigners who buy a house or apartment worth €160,000 ($ 207,800) or more. The country has more than 700,000 unsold houses following the 2008 collapse of its real estate market .
Government officials, however, are cautious about the idea.
“It is not government policy. Nor is it likely to become so,” the spokeswoman for Spain’s Economy Ministry said on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss future policy discussions.
Spain’s residency idea for foreign home buyers would not give permanent residency or the privilege of working.
It still would beat other offers from bailed-out EU countries like Ireland and Portugal, where residency papers are offered to foreigners buying houses worth more than €400,000 ($ 519,400) and €500,000 ($ 649,300) respectively.
Even though these plans increase the number of people who have an EU passport, the EU says citizenship issues are the responsibility of national governments.
Latvia, a non-EU nation on the Baltic coast, offers a deal where property buyers are eligible to receive residency permits if they buy real estate in the capital Riga worth €140,000 ($ 181,800) or places worth €70,000 ($ 90,900) in the countryside.
___
Alan Clendenning and Harold Heckle contributed from Madrid.
Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News
African Union asks UN for immediate action on Mali
Label: WorldDAKAR, Senegal (AP) — In an open letter Thursday to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the president of the African Union urged the U.N. to take immediate military action in northern Mali, which was seized by al-Qaida-linked rebels earlier this year.
Yayi Boni, the president of Benin who is also head of the African Union, said any reticence on the part of the U.N. will be interpreted as a sign of weakness by the terrorists now operating in Mali. The AU is waiting for the U.N. to sign off on a military plan to take back the occupied territory, and the Security Council is expected to discuss it in coming days.
In a report to the Security Council late Wednesday, Ban said the AU plan “needs to be developed further” because fundamental questions on how the force will be led, trained and equipped. Ban acknowledged that with each day, al-Qaida-linked fighters were becoming further entrenched in northern Mali, but he cautioned that a botched military operation could result in human rights abuses.
The sprawling African nation of Mali, once an example of a stable democracy, fell apart in March following a coup by junior officers. In the uncertainty that ensued, rebels including at least three groups with ties to al-Qaida, grabbed control of the nation’s distant north. The Islamists now control an area the size of France or Texas, an enormous triangle of land that includes borders with Mauritania, Algeria and Niger.
Two weeks ago, the African Union asked the U.N. to endorse a military intervention to free northern Mali, calling for 3,300 African soldiers to be deployed for one year. A U.S.-based counterterrorism official who saw the military plan said it was “amateurish” and had “huge, gaping holes.” The official insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter.
Boni, in his letter, said Africa was counting on the U.N. to take decisive action.
“I need to tell you with how much impatience the African continent is awaiting a strong message from the international community regarding the resolution of the crisis in Mali. … What we need to avoid is the impression that we are lacking in resolve in the face of these determined terrorists,” he said.
The most feared group in northern Mali is al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, al-Qaida’s North African branch, which is holding at least seven French hostages, including a 61-year-old man kidnapped last week.
On Thursday, SITE Intelligence published a transcript of a recently released interview with AQIM leader, Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, in which he urges Malians to reject any foreign intervention in their country. He warned French President Francois Hollande that he was “digging the graves” of the French hostages by pushing for an intervention.
Also on Thursday, Islamists meted out the latest Shariah punishment in northern city of Timbuktu. Six young men and women were each given 100 lashes for having talked to each other on city streets, witnesses said.
___
Associated Press writer Virgile Ahissou in Cotonou, Benin and Baba Ahmed in Bamako, Mali contributed to this report.
Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News
African Union asks UN for immediate action on Mali
Label: WorldDAKAR, Senegal (AP) — In an open letter Thursday to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the president of the African Union urged the U.N. to take immediate military action in northern Mali, which was seized by al-Qaida-linked rebels earlier this year.
Yayi Boni, the president of Benin who is also head of the African Union, said any reticence on the part of the U.N. will be interpreted as a sign of weakness by the terrorists now operating in Mali. The AU is waiting for the U.N. to sign off on a military plan to take back the occupied territory, and the Security Council is expected to discuss it in coming days.
In a report to the Security Council late Wednesday, Ban said the AU plan “needs to be developed further” because fundamental questions on how the force will be led, trained and equipped. Ban acknowledged that with each day, al-Qaida-linked fighters were becoming further entrenched in northern Mali, but he cautioned that a botched military operation could result in human rights abuses.
The sprawling African nation of Mali, once an example of a stable democracy, fell apart in March following a coup by junior officers. In the uncertainty that ensued, rebels including at least three groups with ties to al-Qaida, grabbed control of the nation’s distant north. The Islamists now control an area the size of France or Texas, an enormous triangle of land that includes borders with Mauritania, Algeria and Niger.
Two weeks ago, the African Union asked the U.N. to endorse a military intervention to free northern Mali, calling for 3,300 African soldiers to be deployed for one year. A U.S.-based counterterrorism official who saw the military plan said it was “amateurish” and had “huge, gaping holes.” The official insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter.
Boni, in his letter, said Africa was counting on the U.N. to take decisive action.
“I need to tell you with how much impatience the African continent is awaiting a strong message from the international community regarding the resolution of the crisis in Mali. … What we need to avoid is the impression that we are lacking in resolve in the face of these determined terrorists,” he said.
The most feared group in northern Mali is al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, al-Qaida’s North African branch, which is holding at least seven French hostages, including a 61-year-old man kidnapped last week.
On Thursday, SITE Intelligence published a transcript of a recently released interview with AQIM leader, Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, in which he urges Malians to reject any foreign intervention in their country. He warned French President Francois Hollande that he was “digging the graves” of the French hostages by pushing for an intervention.
Also on Thursday, Islamists meted out the latest Shariah punishment in northern city of Timbuktu. Six young men and women were each given 100 lashes for having talked to each other on city streets, witnesses said.
___
Associated Press writer Virgile Ahissou in Cotonou, Benin and Baba Ahmed in Bamako, Mali contributed to this report.
Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Lindsay Lohan arrested on assault charge in NYC
Label: LifestyleNEW YORK (AP) — Actress Lindsay Lohan was arrested Thursday after police said she hit a woman during an argument at a New York City nightclub.
The “Mean Girls” and “Freaky Friday” star was arrested at 4 a.m. and charged with third-degree assault.
She left a police precinct nearly four hours later with a black jacket pulled over her head. She was wearing leggings, a green mini skirt and high-heels, and drove off in a black SUV with a driver and another man who was seen going in and out of the precinct.
She allegedly got into the spat with another woman at Club Avenue, in Manhattan‘s Chelsea section. She struck the woman in face with her hand, police said. The woman did not require medical attention.
Lohan’s publicist did not immediately return a call for comment.
The arrest is Lohan’s latest brush with law enforcement in New York City.
She was involved in a NYPD investigation in September after alleging a man had assaulted her in a New York hotel, but charges against the man were later dropped.
Also in September, the actress was accused of clipping a man with her car outside another Manhattan nightclub, but prosecutors chose not to move ahead with charges.
In October, police were called to her childhood home on Long Island after a report of fight between her and her mother. An investigation revealed “no criminality.”
The actress was also involved in a car accident in California this summer that sent her and an assistant to a hospital, but didn’t result in serious injuries for anyone. The accident remains under investigation.
In May, she was cleared of allegations that she struck a Hollywood nightclub manager with her car.
Lohan remains on informal probation for taking a necklace from a jewelry store without permission last year. That means she doesn’t have to check in with a judge or probation officer but could face a jail term if arrested again.
Her latest film, “Liz & Dick,” in which she portrays screen icon Elizabeth Taylor, premiered on Lifetime on Sunday.
Lohan also recently filmed “The Canyons,” an indie film written by “Less Than Zero” and “American Psycho” author Bret Easton Ellis.
Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Deaths more common on popular heart drug: study
Label: HealthNEW YORK (Reuters Health) – People with a common type of abnormal heart rhythm were more likely to die within several years if they had been prescribed digoxin, a drug used to help control abnormal heart rates, in a new analysis.
The research involved 4,060 people with atrial fibrillation, in which the heart’s upper chambers quiver chaotically instead of contracting normally. More than two-thirds of the participants were treated with digoxin at some point either shortly before or during the 3.5-year study.
Dr. Samy Claude Elayi, from the University of Kentucky in Lexington, said digoxin – which is widely available in generic form – may benefit some people who have heart failure in addition to a heart arrhythmia.
“But in patients that have no heart failure and (have) atrial fibrillation, I think there is no reason to use this drug as a first line,” added Elayi, who worked on the study.
Another cardiology researcher, however, said the new study isn’t robust enough to warrant changing treatment strategies, and that earlier studies have shown digoxin is safe.
Elayi and his colleagues re-analyzed data from a past trial of people with atrial fibrillation and a high risk of stroke that were treated with a variety of drug combinations, including beta blockers and calcium channel blockers.
Over the study period, 666 people died, according to results published in the European Heart Journal.
People who had taken digoxin in the previous six months, the study team found, were 41 percent more likely to die of any cause and 61 percent more likely to die from a heart rhythm problem, in particular.
That increased risk of death was seen in people with and without heart failure, and in both men and women.
DIZZINESS, FAINTING
Digoxin works by helping to stabilize the upper heart chambers affected by atrial fibrillation, Elayi said – but it can also cause problems by creating a bad rhythm in the heart’s lower chambers. That can lead to dizziness, fainting and heart palpitations.
The researchers noted that they didn’t have data on what dose of digoxin people were prescribed – or how closely they stuck to those prescriptions.
Because the trial wasn’t originally intended to measure the negative effects of digoxin, and people weren’t assigned randomly to one arm or the other, the analysis also can’t prove that digoxin caused the extra deaths.
Dr. Ali Ahmed, who has studied digoxin at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, called that a major limitation of the new study.
He said an earlier randomized controlled trial – considered the gold standard of medical research – did not find more deaths among people with heart failure taking digoxin. Other research, Ahmed added, has suggested that low doses of the drug can actually lower the risk of death among some patients.
An analysis like this one can’t fully account for the likelihood that sicker patients are prescribed certain drugs more often, he said.
“When you do non-randomized studies, you always wonder, was it really digoxin or was it the other confounders” such as patients’ chronic diseases, that led to more deaths.
“This should be taken with extreme caution, because of the potential for confounding and bias from a variety of sources,” Ahmed, who wasn’t involved in the new research, told Reuters Health.
“The fundamental thing is you cannot overrule the findings of a randomized controlled trial with non-randomized data.”
‘NOT A KILLER’
Digoxin can be bought for about $ 10 for a month’s supply. It’s been used worldwide for decades to help control heart rate, the researchers said.
Elayi said the findings don’t mean that people with heart failure and atrial fibrillation shouldn’t be taking the drug.
But based on his team’s study, he said he would recommend other heart medications before digoxin for people without heart failure. However, if an atrial fibrillation patient also has very low blood pressure – which makes drugs such as beta blockers and calcium blockers unsafe – digoxin might be a reasonable second choice, he added.
In that case, doctors should prescribe digoxin at low doses and keep a close watch on the amount of the drug in patients’ blood, Elayi told Reuters Health.
In addition, he said, “From the patient perspective, if doctors put them on the drug they should check their rationale for that.”
But according to Ahmed, patients and doctors shouldn’t worry about taking or prescribing the drug because of this study. Digoxin, he said, “is not a killer.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/99ohTH European Heart Journal, online November 27, 2012.
Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News
A Pet Food Store Fights to Survive Sandy
Label: BusinessWhen Robert Freed walked into Pet Foods Plus, his flooded store on Midland Avenue in Staten Island, two blocks from the Atlantic Ocean, he knew what he smelled immediately: the stench of rotten kibble and cat food, a few tons of it. During good times, that $ 250,000 worth of inventory was the equivalent of Freed’s bank. Now his windows had been broken, the walls had been pushed in by the storm surge, and his counters and the platform they rested on were gone, washed way up the avenue. His racks and shelves were knocked over, dog food was spread all over the floor, his cat toys and doggie chews soggy and covered in what looked like seaweed.
It was Oct. 31. Rob, 47, and his younger brother Matt, 37, had waited out the storm in New Jersey. Their homes were in the highest-risk, Zone A sections of Staten Island, as was their store. The first morning the Outerbridge Crossing, one of the bridges that connect New Jersey to Staten Island, reopened, they hopped in their cars to check on their store. Rob had gotten calls from friends and neighbors telling him it was on fire, the callers shouting over emergency sirens wailing in the background. He’d dismissed these as the hysterical bulletins of those who were still in a state of shock from the flood. But after crawling across Staten Island—traffic was backed up because the traffic lights were out—he realized that the MetroPCS location next door had indeed gone up in flames. The old, wooden clapboard house was now a charred mess spilling blackened shingles into the street.
Their store, a cinder-block structure built on a concrete slab, hadn’t burned. Instead, it had been flooded. The waterline, marked in kelp and mud on the walls, stood at nine feet.
“I went numb,” Rob says, “I’m standing there thinking this is my store but this isn’t my store. This, this is—it’s like being at a wake. You’re standing there, laughing about the person who died, but then it hits you.”
Matt was by his side, and as they headed inside, he bent to pick up a flat of Fancy Feast cat food that had broken open, then stopped and dropped it. What was the point? There was so much, spread and piled so high, mixed with sewage and sand.
Then they were surrounded. A dozen people had entered the store with them. They were stepping over the spilled dog food and scattered cans and were stuffing cat toys and leashes and dog bones into garbage bags. They were looting.
“They didn’t even know we were the owners,” says Matt, “They were pushing us out of the way to get in the store.”
They had seen a few cops on a boat going down the still-flooded Colony Avenue, but they were still in a search-and-rescue phase. They would find at least eight dead within five blocks of Pet Foods Plus. The police weren’t going to stop the crowd now making off with the store’s goods.
Rob turned to Matt and told him he was going to get the Chevy Tahoe, back it into the store through the broken doors, and then sleep in the car. “We gotta protect our business,” he said.
“We can’t protect it. They’re gonna kill us,” said his brother. The sun was going down soon, he pointed out. “They’ll stab us.”
The brothers agreed to leave. They walked down Midland Avenue toward the beach. They saw shoeless children using plastic bags and rubber bands to keep their feet dry, survivors hosing down the inside of their houses to wash the mud from their walls. Both men decided that while there was nothing they could do to save their store, they could at least help some of their neighbors—their customers—in the area.
Rob and Matt spent the rest of the afternoon, and the next four days, hauling soggy drywall, waterlogged furniture, and moldy carpet from the bungalows of Midland Beach, helping those who’d lost much more than a business.
“We were numb,” says Rob. “We were just doing the next thing. Lift this mattress. Strip that carpet. Whatever needed to be done, we just did it. We just kept going.”
Every once in a while, walking around, they would come upon cans of cat food or a piece of a point-of-sale display that looked familiar. Much of their inventory had been carried by the floodwaters and deposited around the neighborhood.
After a disaster, the immediate focus of government officials and ordinary citizens is saving lives and providing food and shelter to those who have lost everything. In the aftermath of Sandy, that’s what countless small businesspeople in New York City and New Jersey did—people like Rob and Matt Freed. With their business partner, Bernard Hilzenrath, the Freeds spent days in hard-hit areas, not just Midland Beach but also the Rockaways and Breezy Point in Queens, helping friends clear out flooded basements and first floors. Through it all, concern about their own livelihood was never far from mind. Lending their muscle to those less fortunate helped keep the fear at bay, but only for a little while.
For a community to return to normalcy after a catastrophe, small businesses also must come back. In New Orleans, the lag in the reopening of small businesses has made some low-lying communities into retail ghost towns more than seven years after Hurricane Katrina. “It won’t matter if you rebuild your residential areas,” says Mary Wong of the Office Depot Foundation, part of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Business Civic Leadership Center. “If you don’t rebuild your downtown, your small businesses, then you don’t have an engine.”
While individuals can get immediate help—and zero-interest loans—from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), there is no similar agency that’s prepared to work with small businesses. The Small Business Administration (SBA) is the only federal agency set up to provide assistance to small businesses—in the case of retailers that means those with annual revenue below $ 21 million—but it does not provide zero-interest disaster-related loans. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that after a natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina or Sandy, 52 percent of small businesses never reopen.
The Freed brothers are luckier than many of their peers. Their homes survived the storm with little damage, giving them more cushion than store owners who need to find housing before even considering whether to restart their business. Up and down Midland Avenue, numerous businesses have already decided to give up. Midland Pharmacy, a block from Pet Foods Plus and in business for 25 years, has shuttered, as has Krypton Comics on the corner of Midland and Baden. “I’m done,” says owner Arthur Palomba. “My stock was destroyed.”
The prospects for Pet Foods Plus are only slightly brighter. “We don’t have retirement plans, 401(k)s, IRAs, savings. Everything we have is in our inventory,” says Rob. It will take months, or even years, before businesses in Staten Island and other New York communities recover fully from Sandy’s devastation. The Freeds believe theirs will be one of them. But neither nature nor time is on their side.
Rob Freed, short, stocky, muscular, with graying hair at the temples, had bought fully into the idea that the supreme American achievement is to run your own business. The fourth of six children and the oldest son, he’d been a mediocre student—“my best subject: lunch”—at Brooklyn’s John Dewey High School. He never considered college, finding work in a delicatessen and as a car salesman after graduating. He settled into a decent-paying job as a wholesale meat salesman, selling sides of beef to restaurants and butchers, and occasionally taking home a few scraps for his dogs, a boxer named Hank and a Lhasa apso named Wally. He usually bought his dog food at a store on Kings Highway in Brooklyn, where an older man named Ira Licht sold him 40-pound bags of Eukanuba. “Pet food stores are like bars,” Rob says. “People come in to talk. They like to talk about their animals, so you get to know your customers.”
In 1997, when Ira, who’d started the store 15 years earlier, wanted to sell out, he asked Rob, then 32, if he was interested in taking the place over. The store was about 2,500 square feet, a long and skinny one-story retail building in Sheepshead Bay, one block from the F train. It was shabby, the racks sagging, some of the inventory expired, but Rob thought there was potential. Matt had just graduated from high school and Rob talked to him about going into business together. Matt liked the idea. Rob and Ira negotiated a price: $ 10,000 for the inventory, and Rob would take over the lease. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? Your own place,” Rob says. “Of course you have your doubts, you’re scared, but still, it’s a great feeling.”
The pet food business, like the people food business, is low-margin, low-markup. The profit on a bag of dog or cat food is about 10 percent. Cat and dog toys, leashes, catnip—those are the items with the big markups. Carpeted kitty castles are a relative gold mine.
Most days, though, you’re slinging dog food. Some customers come in every day to buy one can of cat food because they like to stop and talk. Rob and Matt are convinced that people who take care of animals are good people, making for a nicer clientele than you might have if you ran, say, a liquor store.
“We’re not making money on people’s vices,” says Matt.
“Not usually,” Rob says. “You do get those ladies who say they own 60 cats. And that’s what they admit to. The reality is probably 180.” Cat ladies are great for business.
Pet Foods Plus averaged about $ 300,000 to $ 400,000 a year in revenue, with the brothers each taking out about $ 20,000 a year in salary, putting everything else back into the store: in inventory, in improvements, in promotions. Managed carefully, the business, while no great moneymaker, supported their young families. Rob had married and already had a boy and a girl at home.
Their neighborhood, however, was changing. Working-class Italians and Jews—pet owners—had given way to more recent Syrian Jewish immigrants, who were not in the habit of keeping dogs or cats in the home.
The other problem, Rob had realized, was that pet stores do most of their volume in bulk—those 40- or 50-pound bags of dog food and cat food or 50-pound bags of kitty litter—but at a city store like theirs that lacked parking, customers could only buy what they could carry, which kept revenue at a trickle.
About eight years ago, they began looking for a second location. Rob knew that pet food salesmen who weren’t willing to cut much of a deal for one store’s business would be more inclined to do so if they could double their volume. Also, with two stores, it might not be necessary to carry as much inventory in each location if Rob could move product as needed. And if two stores worked and those savings were realized, then what about three, four?
Many of their former customers had moved to Staten Island. Rob and Matt had moved there as well, to a beachfront community they felt was improving. They found a new 2,500-square-foot building on a commercial strip, at the corner of Patterson and Midland, across the street from a deli and a dog groomer, up the block from a comic book store, a judo dojo, a Chinese restaurant, and a Mexican grocery. The ethnic makeup of the neighborhood was diverse, with Chinese families crammed in next to retired widowers, yuppies tearing down bungalows to put up two-story houses, plus a few city workers who enjoyed the fresh ocean breezes. They knew the neighborhood wasn’t great—there was a welfare hotel nearby where drug addicts overdosed at an alarming rate—but it seemed to be on the way up.
The brothers and their friend, Bernard, each put up $ 50,000 and made a deal on the location, paying about $ 6,000 a month in rent, with three months’ rent free that they’d use to build out the store. They did the work themselves, laying out the retail aisles with chalk on cardboard, erasing and redrawing until they were happy with the configuration. They wanted a raised platform and counter for the cash register, so one person working behind it could also take in the whole store. “And because I’m short,” jokes Rob. They put the dog food in the back and the higher-margin leashes, cat toys, and dog treats in colorful displays near the register. (Eventually, if you work in a pet food store, you will try the pet food, usually to win a bet or answer a dare. Rob recalls there was one brand, Rewards, that wasn’t bad. “They had turkey with gravy and the gravy was pretty good.”)
Their red-and-white logo, a cartoon illustration of a dog and cat, was stenciled on the window. After a few months of 16-hour days, they had a store that looked as spiffy and professional as a chain retailer. They could duplicate it in a third store, or a hundred stores, if they generated the capital to do so.
Opened in 2005, Pet Foods Plus’s Staten Island location wasn’t an overnight sensation—very few retail operations are—but the brothers didn’t expect that. What they found was that they had surveyed the neighborhood correctly. This was a pet-friendly community, and business was steady. After three years, Rob had paid off the line of credit he’d taken out for the store. They were in the black most months. “Every month was a little better,” says Rob. “You keep making a little more, you keep putting it back in the store, buying more inventory because of the volume discounts.”
The salesmen from the pet food companies were cutting them better deals, taking the brothers out to dinners to write up the orders. Rob and Matt never took more than $ 20,000 apiece per year out of the Staten Island location, but the business grew, surpassing $ 400,000 in revenue last year and climbing steadily as the brothers’ reputation spread in the neighborhood.
This year was on track to be their best yet, and the Christmas season was looking particularly promising. The three partners decided to put up $ 15,000 to buy cat and dog toys in bulk. “We figured that never goes bad, it’s like money in the bank,” says Matt. “That turned out to be the wrong decision.” They were going to go all out this year, with a fancy Christmas display they finished putting up just days before the order to evacuate.
One of the strangest after-effects of natural disasters is the impulse of Americans to collectively empty out their closets and donate everything that doesn’t fit or that they don’t want anymore. It’s a well-intentioned gesture, in most cases, but the result is that neighborhoods like Midland Beach very quickly resemble a giant, messy closet with abandoned clothes strewn everywhere.
Five days after the storm, several relief agencies have set up on the sidewalk and inside Pet Foods Plus, pulling out some of the retail racks to serve hot food and distribute some of the tons of used clothing that have poured into Midland Beach. There is a Salvation Army distribution center in the parking lot. Inside the store, garbage bags of donated clothes are now mixed in with the rotting dog food. “People are donating sandals and bikinis,” Rob says. “In November? What are they thinking?”
Girls hauling wagons walk by regularly and ask if anyone wants water or a snack. “Otherwise we gotta carry it all back,” they say.
Richard Aloi, the owner of a nearby building gutted by the flood, says he needs to get his place fixed up or he’ll lose his tenant. He has a generator going and several pumps to dry the place out. “This was my achievement in life,” Aloi says of his small retail building. “If I lose the tenant, I’m gone, I’m shot.” The Russian martial-arts instructor who runs a judo school in the building has promised to come back if Aloi can get the place cleared out.
He says he got through to the Small Business Administration, who told him he might qualify for a 3 percent loan. “How about zero percent?” Aloi says. “Look around this place. We’re shot. I can’t afford 3 percent.”
Rob shakes his head. “Even at zero percent, I’m not sure I could reopen. $ 100,000 over eight years, paying back $ 1,000 a month on top of my overhead. I don’t know if I could do it.”
His brother Matt adds, “And if we reopen, where will our business be? Twenty percent, 40 percent of before the storm?”
The most common complaint among Staten Island business owners is they can’t reach their insurance companies on the phone, or if they can get through, they’re told there’s a backlog of claims and the company can’t schedule an adjuster to come out. “Our company said they usually get about 7,000 claims a year,” says Rob. “They told us they have 30,000 pending right now.” (They were also told by their insurance company, Tower Insurance, that they do not have flood insurance.)
The Freeds’ landlord lost his home in Brooklyn and hasn’t even been able to make it out to Midland Beach to survey the damage. His insurance company is similarly backed up. “We don’t know anything,” says Rob. “How can we make a plan when we don’t have any numbers?”
The Office Depot Foundation’s Wong points out that it usually takes about eight weeks for the disaster response to transition from rescue to recovery. That’s when the business and political leadership of the community has to come together to make the long-term recovery plan that will presumably also include some support for local businesses. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has already asked for $ 42 billion in federal disaster relief, some of which will likely be distributed by local politicians or through local agencies. The Manhattan Chamber of Commerce has implemented a microloan program to help businesses reopen their doors after Sandy. But along Midland Avenue in Staten Island, Rob and Matt wonder if this flooded area should even be rebuilt.
The response of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to the devastating floods of 2008 provides a possible model for a post-Sandy recovery. The state initiated a comprehensive plan to rebuild outside the flood basin and help businesses recover. It set up a $ 3 million small business grant fund and earmarked an additional $ 7 million to clear debris. A similar program in New York and New Jersey, with many more zeros at the end of it, may jump-start small businesses and encourage them to stick it out.
“Where am I going to get the capital to start over?” Rob wonders. “I’m not borrowing the money. I’m not going into debt again.”
Rob, Matt, and Bernard are walking down Midland Avenue to Father Capodanno Boulevard, which runs alongside the Atlantic, now blocked from view by an eight-story-high pile of toxic rubbish on the beach. Garbage and dump trucks are idling on the highway, waiting to unload more of what used to be the interior walls, floors, and fixtures of people’s homes and is now labeled hazardous waste.
In better times, the men had strolled along this beach with their children, and each shared the same dream: that they could pass on the business to their kids. Now, with the beach closed, the three head up the boulevard, turn inland along Hunter Avenue, and then back to the store. On every block, in every other house, families are digging out, piling their ruined possessions in heaps along the sidewalk, waiting for sanitation trucks to take them to the beach.
“See, here’s the thing,” says Matt. “The people who own their own houses, they might stay. But if you were renting? Would you wait two months till the landlord made your house habitable?”
Bernard says, “Our customers may be gone.”
“If we were a big company,” says Matt, “if we had real money, we’d hire a team to go out and survey the neighborhood to see who’s staying and who’s going, who has pets.”
Rob recalls all the talk during the presidential campaign about small businesses being the backbone of America. “Sometimes,” he says, “I think what they mean by small business is actually big business.”
A woman with red hair comes out of her house and asks how Rob and the guys are doing. “I saw what happened to the store,” she says. “Terrible.”
“You got power?” Rob asks.
She shakes her head. “No power. We got water.”
“How’s your dog?” Rob asks.
“He died.”
Rob says he’s sorry.
As he’s walking away, he smiles and says, “I hope she gets another dog.”
Back at the store, the relief workers are long gone, and they’ve taken all the remaining undamaged retail racks with them, without asking. Steadily, Rob’s customers and neighbors come up and give him a hug. One customer who stuck it out through the storm, the water in his house rising up to his neck, somehow saved three of his five cats. “Thank God, thank God,” he says. Rob looks around the store for some unopened cat food. Another neighbor comes by and recommends drinking plenty of Irish whiskey.
Matt is inside the store, kicking at the ruins. “My son Gavin, he’s three, he heard about the damage and he said, ‘Daddy, I’ll fix it. I’ll bring my paintbrush and fix it all up.’”
Rob nods. “In my heart, I want to reopen. But my head is telling me it may not happen.”
As he speaks, an attractive blonde wearing gold-rimmed sunglasses parks her convertible Lexus and walks up to the store before noticing it’s not exactly open for business. She looks around, confused. “When did this happen?” she asks.
She gets back into her car and drives away.
Greenfeld is a Bloomberg Businessweek contributor.
Businessweek.com — Top News
Myanmar cracks down on mine protest; dozens hurt
Label: WorldMONYWA, Myanmar (AP) — Security forces used water cannons and other riot gear Thursday to clear protesters from a copper mine in in northwestern Myanmar, wounding villagers and Buddhist monks just hours before opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was to visit the area to hear their grievances.
The crackdown at the Letpadaung mine near the town of Monywa risks becoming a public relations and political fiasco for the reformist government of President Thein Sein, which has been touting its transition to democracy after almost five decades of repressive military rule.
The environmental and social damage allegedly produced by the mine has become a popular cause in activist circles, but was not yet a matter of broad public concern. However, hurting monks — as admired for their social activism as they are revered for their spiritual beliefs — is sure to antagonize many ordinary people, especially as Suu Kyi’s visit highlights the events.
“This is unacceptable,” said Ottama Thara, a 25-year-old monk who was at the protest. “This kind of violence should not happen under a government that says it is committed to democratic reforms.”
According to a nurse at a Monywa hospital, 27 monks and one other person were admitted with burns caused by some sort of projectile that released sparks or embers. Two of the monks with serious injuries were sent for treatment in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second biggest city, a 2 ½ hour drive away. Other evicted protesters gathered at a Buddhist temple about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the mine’s gates.
Lending further sympathy to the protesters’ cause is whom they are fighting against. The mining operation is a joint venture between a Chinese company and a holding company controlled by Myanmar’s military. Most people remain suspicious of the military, while China is widely seen as having propped up army rule for years, in addition to being an aggressive investor exploiting the country’s many natural resources.
Government officials had publicly stated that the protest risked scaring off foreign investment that is key to building the economy after decades of neglect.
State television had broadcast an announcement Tuesday night that ordered protesters to cease their occupation of the mine by midnight or face legal action. It said operations at the mine had been halted since Nov. 18, after protesters occupied the area.
Some villagers among a claimed 1,000 protesters left the six encampments they had at the mine after the order was issued. But others stayed through Wednesday, including about 100 monks.
Police moved in to disperse them early Thursday.
“Around 2:30 a.m. police announced they would give us five minutes to leave,” said protester Aung Myint Htway, a peanut farmer whose face and body were covered with black patches of burned skin. He said police fired water cannons first and then shot what he and others called flare guns.
“They fired black balls that exploded into fire sparks. They shot about six times. People ran away and they followed us,” he said, still writhing hours later from pain. “It’s very hot.”
Photos of the wounded monks showed they had sustained serious burns on parts of their bodies. It was unclear what sort of weapon caused them.
The protest is the latest major example of increased activism by citizens since the elected government took over last year. Political and economic liberalization under Thein Sein has won praise from Western governments, which have eased sanctions imposed on the previous military government because of its poor record on human and civil rights. However, the military still retains major influence over the government, and some critics fear that democratic gains could easily be rolled back.
In Myanmar’s main city of Yangon, six anti-mine activists who staged a small protest were detained Monday and Tuesday, said one of their colleagues, who asked not to be identified because he did not want to attract attention from the authorities.
Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Myanmar cracks down on mine protest; dozens hurt
Label: WorldMONYWA, Myanmar (AP) — Security forces used water cannons and other riot gear Thursday to clear protesters from a copper mine in in northwestern Myanmar, wounding villagers and Buddhist monks just hours before opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was to visit the area to hear their grievances.
The crackdown at the Letpadaung mine near the town of Monywa risks becoming a public relations and political fiasco for the reformist government of President Thein Sein, which has been touting its transition to democracy after almost five decades of repressive military rule.
The environmental and social damage allegedly produced by the mine has become a popular cause in activist circles, but was not yet a matter of broad public concern. However, hurting monks — as admired for their social activism as they are revered for their spiritual beliefs — is sure to antagonize many ordinary people, especially as Suu Kyi’s visit highlights the events.
“This is unacceptable,” said Ottama Thara, a 25-year-old monk who was at the protest. “This kind of violence should not happen under a government that says it is committed to democratic reforms.”
According to a nurse at a Monywa hospital, 27 monks and one other person were admitted with burns caused by some sort of projectile that released sparks or embers. Two of the monks with serious injuries were sent for treatment in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second biggest city, a 2 ½ hour drive away. Other evicted protesters gathered at a Buddhist temple about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the mine’s gates.
Lending further sympathy to the protesters’ cause is whom they are fighting against. The mining operation is a joint venture between a Chinese company and a holding company controlled by Myanmar’s military. Most people remain suspicious of the military, while China is widely seen as having propped up army rule for years, in addition to being an aggressive investor exploiting the country’s many natural resources.
Government officials had publicly stated that the protest risked scaring off foreign investment that is key to building the economy after decades of neglect.
State television had broadcast an announcement Tuesday night that ordered protesters to cease their occupation of the mine by midnight or face legal action. It said operations at the mine had been halted since Nov. 18, after protesters occupied the area.
Some villagers among a claimed 1,000 protesters left the six encampments they had at the mine after the order was issued. But others stayed through Wednesday, including about 100 monks.
Police moved in to disperse them early Thursday.
“Around 2:30 a.m. police announced they would give us five minutes to leave,” said protester Aung Myint Htway, a peanut farmer whose face and body were covered with black patches of burned skin. He said police fired water cannons first and then shot what he and others called flare guns.
“They fired black balls that exploded into fire sparks. They shot about six times. People ran away and they followed us,” he said, still writhing hours later from pain. “It’s very hot.”
Photos of the wounded monks showed they had sustained serious burns on parts of their bodies. It was unclear what sort of weapon caused them.
The protest is the latest major example of increased activism by citizens since the elected government took over last year. Political and economic liberalization under Thein Sein has won praise from Western governments, which have eased sanctions imposed on the previous military government because of its poor record on human and civil rights. However, the military still retains major influence over the government, and some critics fear that democratic gains could easily be rolled back.
In Myanmar’s main city of Yangon, six anti-mine activists who staged a small protest were detained Monday and Tuesday, said one of their colleagues, who asked not to be identified because he did not want to attract attention from the authorities.
Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Seattle police plan for helicopter drones hits severe turbulence
Label: TechnologySEATTLE (Reuters) – One of the latest crime-fighting gadgets to emerge on the wish lists of U.S. law enforcement agencies – drone aircraft – has run into heavy turbulence in Seattle over a plan by police to send miniature robot helicopters buzzing over the city.
A recent push for unmanned police aircraft in several cities is being driven largely by grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, including more than $ 80,000 the city of Seattle used to buy a pair of drone choppers in 2010.
But getting aerial drones off the ground has run into stiff opposition from civil libertarians and others who say the use of stealth airborne cameras by domestic law enforcement raises questions about privacy rights and the limits of police search powers.
The aircraft would never carry weapons, but the use of drones for even mundane tasks raises ire among some because of the association of pilotless crafts with covert U.S. missile strikes in places such as Pakistan and Yemen.
In Seattle last month, a community meeting where police officials presented plans to deploy their two remote-controlled helicopters erupted into yelling and angry chants of “No drones!”
“My question is simple: What’s the return policy for the drones?” said Steve Widmayer, 57, one of numerous citizens who spoke out against the unmanned aircraft. He predicted the City Council would commit “political suicide” if it backed the plan.
Seattle City Councilman Bruce Harrell said he hoped the council would set strict drone policies by January.
Police in Seattle, along with Florida’s Miami-Dade County and Houston, are among a handful of big-city law enforcement departments known to have acquired aerial drones. But those cities have not started operating the robot aircraft.
FEAR OF FLYING ROBOTS
In Oakland, California, this month, an Alameda County sheriff’s application for a federal grant to buy an aerial drone to help monitor unruly crowds and locate illegal marijuana farms drew opposition at a Board of Supervisors meeting.
“I do not want flying spy robots looking into my private property with infrared cameras,” Oakland resident Mary Madden said. “It’s an invasion of my privacy.”
County Board President Nate Miley said the issue would be taken up by the supervisors’ Public Protection Committee.
The two Draganflyer X6 remote-controlled miniature helicopters purchased by Seattle have so far been mostly grounded, restricted to training and demonstration flights.
Equipped to carry video, still and night-vision cameras, they can remain aloft for only 15 minutes at a time before their batteries run out, police said.
Assistant Police Chief Paul McDonagh said the aircraft would not be used in Seattle for surveillance or for monitoring street protests. Instead, his department’s plans to deploy drones to search for missing persons, pursue fleeing suspects, assist in criminal investigations and for unspecified “specific situations” subject to McDonagh’s approval.
Seattle City Councilman Bruce Harrell said he hoped the council would set strict drone policies by January.
Months ago in Texas, Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office raised eyebrows by saying he hoped to equip his department’s drones with rubber bullets and tear gas, though he told Reuters his thinking on armed aircraft has since evolved.
“From a law enforcement standpoint, that’s never going to happen,” he said. McDaniel said his office received Federal Aviation Administration clearance earlier this month to begin operational drone flights but has not yet had occasion to do so.
Actual U.S. domestic use of law-enforcement drone aircraft remains extremely limited.
The Mesa County Sheriff’s Department in Colorado has been operating two small drones, also bought with Homeland Security funds, since 2010.
It uses them largely to create three-dimensional images of crime scenes, said Benjamin Miller, director of the department’s drone program. They are not used for surveillance, he said.
In North Dakota, the Grand Forks police department last year called in a high-flying Predator drone operated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to monitor a tense standoff with a rancher over alleged stolen cattle.
The rancher, Rodney Brossart, and five family members are believed to be the first Americans nabbed by police with drone assistance – with the possible exception of operations along the southwest border with Mexico.
The use of drones there by the Customs and Border Protection agency – a part of Homeland Security – led to 7,500 arrests and the seizure of thousands of pounds of drugs up to the end of last year.
The nationality of those arrested in drone assisted operations in the borderlands is not clear, nor is if Customs and Border Protection partnered with local forces in any of those arrests.
(Editing by Steve Gorman and Jackie Frank)
Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News
In Israel, some rebel against circumcision
Label: HealthJERUSALEM (Reuters) – Circumcision is one of Judaism’s most important laws and for generations of faithful it has symbolized a Biblical covenant with God.
But in Israel, more and more Jewish parents are saying no to the blade.
“It’s such a taboo in Israel and in Judaism,” said Gali, nursing her six-week-old son, about the decision not to have him circumcised.
“It’s like coming out of the closet,” she said, asking to be identified by her first name only because she had not told her relatives yet.
Nearly all baby boys in Israel are circumcised. Be their parents ultra-Orthodox or totally secular Jews, it is by far the most common choice. Most Israeli-Arabs also keep with a practice that is widespread in the Muslim world.
Jewish circumcisions are done when the baby is eight days old. The majority are performed by a mohel, a religious man trained in the procedure carried out in a festive religious ceremony called a “brit”, Hebrew for covenant.
But an increasing minority fear it is a form of physical abuse.
“It’s the same as if someone would tell me ‘it’s our culture to cut off a finger when he is born’,” said Rakefet Kaufman, who also did not have her son circumcised.
“People should see it as abuse because it is done to a baby without asking him,” she said.
When Gali learnt she was carrying a baby boy it was obvious to her that he would be circumcised. But she started to think again after a conversation with a friend whose son was uncircumcised.
“She asked me what my reason was for doing it, was it religious? I said no. Was it for health reasons? No. Social? No. Then it began to sink in. I began to read more about it, enter Internet forums, I began to realize that I cannot do it.”
PHENOMENON GROWING
“The phenomenon is growing, I have no doubt,” said Ronit Tamir, who founded a support group for families who have chosen not to circumcise their sons.
“When we started the group 12 years ago we had to work hard to find 40 families … They were keeping it secret and we had to promise them we’d keep it secret,” she said. “Then, we’d get one or two phone calls a month. Nowadays I get dozens of emails and phone calls a month, hundreds a year.”
Tamir believes Jews in today’s Israel find it easier to break religious taboos.
“People are asking themselves what it means to be Jewish these days,” she said, and that leads some to question rules of all kinds, including circumcision.
In societies around the world who circumcise boys for non-religious reasons, out of habit or tradition or because of the perceived health benefits, the practice can be controversial.
Rates of circumcision in Europe are well under 20 percent, while in the United States, according to 2010 statistics cited by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), more than half of newborn boys continue to be circumcised.
The American Academy of Paediatrics said in August that the health benefits of infant circumcision – potentially avoiding infection, cancer and sexually-transmitted diseases – outweighed the risks, but said parents should make the final call.
But where the decision is ultimately a matter of personal choice for many families around the world, for Jews who question the tradition, it is more complicated.
“It is the covenant between us and God – a sign that one cannot deny and that Jews have kept even in times of persecution,” said one well-known mohel who has been performing circumcisions in Israel for more than 30 years. He asked not to be named to avoid being connected to any controversy.
He pointed to the Book of Genesis, where God said to Abraham: “And you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins; and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.”
It is this covenant that, the mohel said, that “keeps the people of Israel together”.
The Bible goes on: “And the uncircumcised male child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
Scholars have differed over the years what this means in practice.
BEING DIFFERENT
Tamir is unswayed by the ancient verses.
“This edict is painful, irreversible and maims,” she said. The Internet was helping to spread the word, she said, allowing parents to find information about circumcision and seek advice anonymously.
Some Jewish groups in the United States which oppose circumcision offer alternative religious brit ceremonies that do not include an actual circumcision.
“There is definitely a growing number of Jewish families in the U.S. who are choosing not to circumcise,” said Florida-based Rebecca Wald. In 2010 she started a website to connect parents who are unsure about what to do.
“Since then, in phone calls, emails, and on social networking sites I have connected with hundreds of Jewish people in the U.S. who question circumcision.” she said in an email interview. “Many of them have intact (uncircumcised) sons or plan to leave future sons intact.”
Wald’s son was not circumcised.
“I have a very strong sense of Jewish identity and, believe it or not, having an intact son has only deepened it,” she said.
In Israel, where the vast majority are circumcised, the dilemma may be particularly difficult.
Although she is confident of the choice she and her husband made, Gali still has one concern.
“The main issue which still troubles me a little is the social one, that one day he may come to me and say ‘Mom, why did you do that to me? They made fun of me today’,” Gali said.
The Health Ministry does not keep records on circumcisions but estimates about 60,000 to 70,000 are held in Israel every year, which roughly corresponds to the number of boys born in 2010, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.
The ministry said it treats about 70 cases a year of circumcisions gone wrong, mainly minor complications such as excessive bleeding.
Kaufman said “people were shocked” to learn that her son is not circumcised.
“In Israel everybody does it, like a herd,” she said. “They don’t stop and ask themselves about this specific procedure which has to do with damaging a baby.”
Watching her son rummage through a stack of toys, Kaufman said: “The way he was born is the way his body should be.”
(Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Sonya Hepinstall)
Sexual Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News
IMF says Spain’s financial reform on track, challenges ahead
Label: BusinessMADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s financial sector reform is on track and all deadlines have been met so far but difficult steps still lie ahead while risks for the economy and the country’s lenders remain high, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.
The report follows European Commission approval of the recapitalization plans of four nationalized Spanish banks, under a 100 billion euro European credit line agreed in June.
“The financial sector program is on track so far, with all deadlines met. However, the most challenging steps lie ahead, especially those related to implementing bank restructuring plans and making the asset management company effective,” the IMF said in its first progress report on the financial reform.
It added that bank liquidity remains a risk that is only mitigated by extensive support from the European Central Bank, while non-viable lenders should be quickly wound down and mergers that do not generate value should be avoided.
Economic risks remain high, with further headwinds expected from private-sector deleveraging, tight credit, falling house prices, fiscal consolidation, weak confidence and high uncertainty, it said.
(Reporting by Julien Toyer; Editing by Fiona Ortiz)
Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News
US rabbi says jailed American in good health
Label: WorldHAVANA (AP) — A prominent New York rabbi and physician visited an American subcontractor serving a long jail term in Cuba and said the man is in good health, despite his family’s concerns about a growth on his right shoulder.
Rabbi Elie Abadie, who is also a gastroenterologist, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview following Tuesday’s 2 1/2-hour visit at a military hospital in Havana that he personally examined Alan Gross and received a lengthy briefing from a team of Cuban physicians who have attended him.
He said the 1 1/2-inch growth on Gross’s shoulder appeared to be a non-cancerous hematoma that should clear up by itself.
“Alan Gross does not have any cancerous growth at this time, at least based on the studies I was shown and based on the examination, and I think he understands that also,” Abadie said.
Abadie said the hematoma, basically internal bleeding linked to the rupture of muscle fiber, was likely caused by exercise Gross does in jail. He said the growth ought to eventually disappear on its own.
Gross’s plight has put already chilly relations between Cuba and the United States in a deep freeze. The Maryland native was arrested in December 2009 while on a USAID-funded democracy building program and later sentenced to 15 years in jail for crimes against the state.
He claims he was only trying to help the island’s small Jewish community gain Internet access.
Gross’s health has been an ongoing issue during his incarceration. The 63-year-old, who was obese when arrested, has lost more than 100 pounds while in jail.
Abadie, a rabbi at New York’s Edmund J. Safra Synagogue, said Gross’s weight is appropriate for a man his age and height.
Photos that Abadie and a colleague provided to AP of Tuesday’s meeting with Gross showed him looking thin, but generally appearing to be in good spirits.
In one photo, Gross holds up a handwritten note that says “Hi Mom.”
“He definitely feels strong. He is in good spirits. He feels fit, to quote him, physically. But of course, like any other person who is incarcerated or in prison, he wants to be free. He wants to be able to go back home,” Abadie said.
Gross’s family has repeatedly appealed for his release on humanitarian grounds, noting his health problems and the fact that his adult daughter and elderly mother have both been battling cancer.
Jared Genser, counsel to Alan Gross, said late Tuesday that Rabbi Abadie is not Gross’s physician and he would like an oncologist of his choosing to evaluate him.
“While we are grateful Rabbi Abadie was able to see Alan, we have asked an oncologist to review the test results to determine if they are sufficient to rule out cancer. More importantly, if Alan is so healthy, we cannot understand why the Cuban government has repeatedly denied him an independent medical examination by a doctor of his choosing as is required by international law,” said Genser.
Gross and his wife recently filed a $ 60 million lawsuit against his former Maryland employer and the U.S. government, saying they didn’t adequately train him or disclose risks he was undertaking by doing development work on the Communist-run island.
They filed another lawsuit against an insurance company they say has reneged on commitments to pay compensation in case of his wrongful detention.
Separately, a lawyer for Gross has written the United Nations’ anti-torture expert, saying Cuban officials’ treatment of his client “will surely amount to torture” if he continues to be denied medical care.
Rumors have been swirling in U.S. media that Cuba might soon release Gross as a gesture of good will or in the hopes of winning concessions from the administration of President Barack Obama, but Abadie said that those reports appeared to be false.
“As far as I know there is no truth to it,” he said.
Abadie said he met with senior Cuban officials who expressed their desire to resolve the case “as quickly as possible,” but would not say specifically who he spoke with or what they offered.
“They claim that they are more than willing to sit at the table,” he said.
Cuban officials have strongly implied they hope to trade Gross for five Cuban agents sentenced to long jail terms in the United States, one of whom is already free on bail.
Abadie said Gross made clear that he does not want his case linked to that of the agents, known in Cuba as “The Five Heroes,” because he does not believe he is guilty of espionage.
But Abadie said Gross is hoping for a “constructive and productive” dialogue between U.S. and Cuban officials to resolve his case.
___
Follow Paul Haven on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/paulhaven.
Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News
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