Haiti assist bid injured by delayed U.N. reply

Tom Brown PORT-AU-PRINCE Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:13pm EST Related News Haiti preserve puncture as sleet turns camps to mudThu, Feb eighteen 2010U.N. assist arch chides agencies on Haiti reliefThu, Feb eighteen 2010Sarkozy visits Haiti, unveils vital assist packageWed, Feb seventeen 2010Tarps, toilets are priorities for quake-hit Haiti: U.N.Mon, Feb fifteen 2010One month after quake, Haitians stick on to weep deadFri, Feb twelve 2010 < 1 / 7 >

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Clutching involuntary attack rifles, truckloads of U.N. infantry patrolled the streets of Haiti"s cracked collateral on the day after the trembler strike last month, clearly preoccupied to the wretchedness around them.

World&&&&Natural Disasters

Cries for assistance from people digging for survivors in collapsed buildings were drowned out by the bark of heavy-duty engines as the infantry plowed by Port-au-Prince but interlude to stick on rescue efforts, majority less lead them.

A usual steer since they were deployed in 2004, the U.N. infantry huddled in the shade of their canopied vehicles.

There were about 9,000 uniformed U.N. peacekeepers stationed in Haiti when the upheaval struck on Jan twelve and they were the judicious "first responders" to the mess in the bankrupt Caribbean country, whose notoriously diseased executive supervision was impressed by the scale of the tragedy.

Initially, however, nothing of the peacekeepers appeared to be concerned in hands-on charitable service in what puncture healing experts report as the vicious initial 72 hours after a harmful trembler strikes.

Their reply to the abominable pang was singular to you do security and seeking for looters after the bulk 7.0 upheaval intended majority of the collateral and took what Haitian President Rene Preval says could be as majority as 300,000 lives.

There was looting in the capital, but it paled in some-more aged with the astringency of the charitable crisis.

Horribly-injured patients flooded overstretched hospitals, forcing healing staff to confirm that patients to yield and that were already as well far left to try saving.

"Doctors played God," pronounced Tyler Marshall, a maestro former Los Angeles Times match operative with an general assist organisation that helped out in a tent city erected at the tallness of the destruction on the drift of Port-au-Prince"s University Hospital, the country"s largest.

Scores of U.N. crew died in the quake, together with Hedi Annabi, head of the U.N. mission that was set up in 2004. That helps insist what majority have criticized as a glacially delayed kickoff of service operations after one of history"s misfortune healthy disasters.

But in the days and weeks that followed it mostly seemed that lessons from alternative disasters were abandoned in Haiti as fears of rioting or anarchy overshadowed concerns about removing assist out quickly.

The U.N."s tip charitable assist official, John Holmes, is between those who have chided service agencies, together with the United Nations itself, for you do as well small to assistance Haiti.

"We cannot ... wait for for for the subsequent puncture for these lessons to be learned," Holmes wrote in a trusted email initial published on the website of the biography Foreign Policy.

"There is an obligatory need to progress significantly genius on the ground, to urge coordination, vital formulation and sustenance of aid," pronounced Holmes.

Edmond Mulet, behaving head of the U.N. mission, concurred in an talk that it played a singular charitable purpose in the initial couple of days after the trembler since the operations were effectively decapitated.

"At the unequivocally commencement it was unequivocally formidable since all the domicile was utterly broken and all the care of the mission was killed," Mulet told Reuters.

"CRIMINALS AND BANDITS"

Mulet gained prominence for wielding an iron fist during a prior army as head of the U.N. mission when he led mostly Brazilian "blue helmet" infantry in a successful crackdown on Haiti"s heavily armed gangs.

And he has finished no tip about sophistry the competing needs of service operations with law enforcement, in his bid to lane down the some-more than 3,000 inmates who took value of the trembler to shun from the main prison.

"We are here additionally to yield security," he pronounced when asked about the mess of convoys of rifle-wielding U.N. infantry to poke for people trapped in the rubble of the busted capital.

"I still have to patrol, I still have to go after all these criminals and bandits that transient from the inhabitant penitentiary, the squad leaders, the criminals, the killers, the kidnappers. I cannot unequivocally confuse myself from you do that."

The service mission shifted in to higher rigging after U.S. infantry deployed in large numbers and set up a supply sequence to get food and disinfectant in to areas great out for aid.

But there were still majority bottlenecks and setbacks, mostly involving U.N.-linked food distributions hobbled by unsound organization, reserve and throng control.

Unfortunately, U.N. infantry in Haiti have over the years gained a repute for toughness and abuse some-more than for easing pang in the lowest nation in the Americas.

"The usually time I"ve seen one of these U.N. infantry burst out of the behind of a lorry was to kick up on somebody or take a shot at them," pronounced a piece of the U.S. Army"s 82nd Airborne Division, as he worked security during a new assist handout.

"These guys have since all of us in unvaried a bad repute here," he said, asking not to be identified.

Haiti"s wrecked infrastructure and bad ride links finished it formidable to get assist out and keep it flowing, but that frequency finished the incident opposite from that in alternative new disasters around the globe.

"POOREST AND MOST VULNERABLE"

"The lowest and the majority exposed people lend towards to live in the regions that are strike the majority by healthy disasters," pronounced Solomon Kuah, an puncture healing medicine formed in New York who outlayed 4 weeks in Port-au-Prince after the quake.

There are no arguable estimates for the series of survivors who died from injuries due to unsound healing supplies.

But Henriette Chamouillet, the World Health Organization"s deputy in Haiti, pronounced all from staff shortages to bureaucracy and a miss of make-up lists embroiled the smoothness of containers full of medicines from Port-au-Prince"s airfield to doctors on the ground.

Port-au-Prince sits usually 700 miles off the seashore of Miami, that is home to a large Haitian-American community, and it seemed ludicrous that so couple of the U.S. infantry rushed there spoke French or were accompanied by translators.

One retaining picture of pell-mell food distributions came when U.S. helicopters offloaded boxes of MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) at a site in the capital. Many Haitians non-stop them up usually to toss them afar in offend since no French or Creole-language instructions were enclosed with the assumingly invalid packets of dust, explaining that they indispensable to be churned with H2O as piece of their preparation.

Rajiv Shah, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, has touted the Haiti service mission as "the largest and majority successful general poke and rescue bid ever fabricated in history."

But some-more than 6 weeks after the upheaval hit, the mission is still mostly in an puncture reply mode. The U.N."s World Food Program is tying the food rations to 55-pound (25 kg) bags of rice and the Haitian supervision estimates that a million upheaval survivors are still vital in the streets in temporary encampments with no using H2O or toilets.

Doctors are roughly finished traffic with dire injuries but reconstruction for a little 40,000 amputees and rebuilding Haiti"s health infrastructure are between long-term challenges.

"This is unequivocally a mess of Biblical proportions," pronounced Lewis Lucke, who was the USAID executive in Iraq prior to entrance to Haiti as U.S. ambassador.

U.N. and alternative officials have pronounced the tellurian reply to Haiti"s upheaval was quicker and some-more in effect than in alternative new disasters, together with the Asian tsunami that killed 226,000 people in thirteen countries in Dec 2004.

But experts contend the United Nations has a lot to sense from smaller, some-more nimble healing groups similar to International Medical Corps, or IMC, and Paris-based Medicins Sans Frontieres, along with charities some-more experienced in distributing aid, such as CARE and Catholic Relief Services.

Kuah, who concurrent service efforts for IMC, a California-based organisation that had rarely learned doctors treating patients in Haiti twenty-three hours after the trembler struck, stressed the "need for speed" when it comes to saving lives.

"When you ask yourself if there were ways you could have prevented some-more mortalities or discontinued additional mortality, with earthquakes, in particular, it"s some-more timing than anything else," pronounced Kuah.

(Additional stating by Catherine Bremer, Jackie Frank, Patricia Zengerle, Mica Rosenberg and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Kieran Murray)

World Natural Disasters

New N.C. account is especially for creation income Under the Dome

The Swiss investment organisation Credit Suisse will hoop a new $230 million account inside of the state grant account that invests in North Carolina companies.

The account was primarily voiced by State Treasurer Janet Cowell in December. The Treasurers Office marked down the supports figure from $250 million to $230 million to sojourn inside of a extent on "alternative investments," according to mouthpiece Melissa Waller. Those investments typically lift some-more risk but can beget incomparable returns.

Credit Suisse already manages alternative supports for the grant complement and has 1,000 employees at the Research Triangle Park offices.

"North Carolina is a great investment," Cowell pronounced in a rebuilt statement. "As we see globally for opportunities to grasp a high rate of lapse for the pensioners, we need to be committed in seeking in to the possibilities that are in the own backyard." Equity supports are not typically determined with a idea of compelling mercantile development, even when that role is delegate to removing a great return. But Cowell determined the account to have income and, as a "collateral objective," to assistance emanate jobs in the state. Her ask for proposals from intensity managers pronounced the account was certified to dedicate to "investment opportunities with poignant operations in North Carolina."

A headlines recover Monday announcing Credit Suisse pronounced the account would "seek" to deposit in North Carolina companies.

Cowell drew doubtful observations in Dec about what is infrequently called "social investing." The State Employees Association of North Carolina pronounced the account should concentration on one goal: removing the most appropriate return.

Abrams speaks at Duke

A unfamiliar process consultant and former confidant to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush will plead "The Freedom Agenda and the Middle East," at Duke University today.

Elliott Abrams is a comparison associate of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was convicted in 1991of self-denial inform from Congress in the Iran-Contra Affair but was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush .

In 2002, Abrams was the comparison executive on the National Security Council for the Near East and North African affairs during Bushs initial term.

At the proceed of the younger Bushs second term, he was promoted to emissary inhabitant security confidant for tellurian democracy strategy, assisting allege democracy abroad and U.S. process in the Middle East.

In the Reagan administration, Abrams worked in the State Department, where he supervised U.S. appearance in the United Nations and process in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The debate at Duke is to proceed at 5:30 p.m. in the Rhodes Conference Room (Room 223) in the Sanford School of Public Policy.

The speak is free and open to the public.

Sea-level climb forecast

Sea levels on the North Carolina seashore will climb fifteen to 55 inches over the subsequent 90 years, a state scholarship row says.

In a inform delivered to a legislative commission Monday, the state Coastal Resources Commissions scholarship row on coastal hazards endorsed that planners and policymakers expect sea turn climb of 39 inches by 2100.

"All of the chronological waves sign annals over the last century and geological justification over the last multiform centuries suggest undisputable justification that sea turn has been usually rising in North Carolina," the inform said.

The scholarship row recommends installing new water-level gauges and reviewing the predictions at slightest each five years.

By staff writers Mark Johnson, Benjamin Niolet and Lynn Bonner

mjohnson@charlotteobserver.com or 919-829-4774

Giving up meridian covenant might unblock U.N. understanding

Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle - Analysis BONN, Germany Sat Apr 10, 2010 4:37pm EDT Related News U.N. meridian talks resume, meagre possibility of 2010 dealThu, Apr 8 2010Factbox: National goals for combating tellurian warmingThu, Apr 8 2010Washington to host vital economies assembly on climateThu, Apr 8 2010U.S. to host vital economies assembly on climateWed, Apr 7 2010Obama and Medvedev to pointer turning point arch arms pactFri, Apr 2 2010

A man offered brooms rides his bicycle past deserted buildings in front of a funnel billowing fume from a circuitously coal-burning energy hire in Beijing Mar 10, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/David Gray

BONN, Germany (Reuters) - The awaiting of a tellurian meridian covenant is vanishing as the world"s tip dual CO emitters, China and the United States, equivocate legally contracting action. Experts contend a change to a less desirous idea competence help.

China

Less concentration on a new covenant competence finalise a mixed of disputes over the authorised horizon and expostulate petrify action, for e.g. to safety rainforests or to assistance construction nations cope with droughts, heatwaves, floods or rising seas.

U.N. meridian talks to try to determine a tougher, wider inheritor to the benefaction Kyoto Protocol entered their third year at an Apr 9-11 assembly in Bonn, Germany, the initial given a querulous extent in Copenhagen in December.

Copenhagen was billed as the world"s most appropriate possibility to determine a new treaty. Failure to grasp a covenant or the not as big idea of contracting CO cuts for abounding nations has sapped movement and is forcing a poke for less desirous solutions.

"We can"t equates to usually to keep entrance behind year after year, we have to try alternative options," pronounced Annie Petsonk, general warn at the U.S.-based Environmental Defense Fund, adding that a covenant was still possible.

Annual U.N. meridian meetings have unsuccessful to grasp any vital new thing given signing the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The benefaction turn of that agreement expires in 2012.

Experts note a less grave deal, outward a authorised framework, might right away emerge, construction on the actions of sold nations.

More than 100 countries have corroborated a non-binding Copenhagen Accord to muster $30 billion in meridian assist from 2010-2012 to assistance bad nations face the impacts of meridian change, underscoring what could be concluded outward a authorised framework.

"It used to be pronounced that countries would usually movement if there was a treaty, but that"s not the case," pronounced Jake Schmidt, general meridian routine executive at Natural Resources Defense Council.

"A lot is function even though we don"t have an general agreement," he said, referring to the accord.

MEXICO

Mexico, that will host the subsequent annual talks after Copenhagen in Cancun in late 2010, pronounced that final for a legally contracting covenant should not get in the proceed of swell at that meeting.

"We do not wish to get ensnared in the authorised things so that we will be prevented from moving. What we wish is to grasp a essential tellurian mobilization," Mexico"s arch nominee Fernando Tudela said.

"If a legally contracting covenant is probable and helps, we are all for it. But it"s not a pre-condition for relocating in the right direction." One comparison construction nation nominee supposed secretly that the U.N. routine might never determine a authorised pact.

The worry of similar a contracting covenant centers on the United States and China, who "remain in a dance about this issue," pronounced Jennifer Morgan, from the World Resources Institute.

"There"s not a authorised covenant until you mangle this Gordian tangle of the U.S. and China in sold carrying really opposite views of what it equates to to be legally binding," pronounced Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

U.S. legislation to cut emissions is stalled in the U.S. Senate. And the United States will frustrate at contracting targets unless China creates the own actions under obligation in a little general way.

Another roadblock to any covenant is a order for concord in U.N. talks -- absent in Copenhagen and that remained fugitive in Bonn, as construction nations particularly Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela deserted any try to set up agreement in not as big groups.

One of the reasons since a covenant has been the goal, generally of construction countries, was since it allows for sanctions on abounding countries that miss their targets. Enforcing a non-binding understanding is far some-more difficult.

Petsonk advocated an proceed where abounding nations scored equally construction countries and each alternative to sure smallest movement prior to benefiting from a $125 billion CO market.

That would pull on a intentional World Trade Organization indication that has widened free traffic by charity the benefits of WTO membership.

The greatest customer of CO offsets, the European Union, has already laid plans to extent the financing of carbon-cutting projects in rising economies that do not accelerate meridian action. The United States, Japan and Australia plan top and traffic schemes that would scale up that CO financial carrot.

Without such an proceed the usually crutch to a non-binding understanding might be general criticism. "Naming and degrading might be what we finish up with," Meyer said.

(Editing by Alison Williams)

China

Protesters daring after lethal clashes in Bangkok

Richard Lloyd Parry and Sian Powell, Bangkok & ,}

Thailands anti-government Red Shirt transformation vowed that it would never compromise with Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Prime Minister, a day after twenty-one people died in travel battles together with demonstrators, soldiers and a Japanese journalist.

At slightest 870 people were harmed in the clashes on Saturday, when soldiers in armoured vehicles attempted to mangle up a entertainment of tens of thousands of Red Shirts, who are perfectionist evident parliamentary elections.

Sixteen protesters were killed, with a series pang gunshot wounds to the head. Hiro Muramoto, a Japanese cameraman with the Reuters headlines agency, additionally died of gunshot wounds. Four soldiers, together with a colonel, were killed in the clashes.

The Red Shirts supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra, the banished Prime Minister who was driven from energy 4 years ago in a infantry manoeuvre additionally caused material damage. Demonstrators seized 6 armoured crew carriers and four Humvees during the protests, with the stays of the vehicles deserted close to the citys Democracy Monument. There is no some-more negotiation, pronounced Jatuporn Prompan, a personality of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), as the Red Shirts are well known formally.

Related LinksFifteen die as infantry spin on protestersThai Government shuts down protesters" TV Redshirt protesters take up executive Bangkok

Speaking from a theatre close to the site of Saturdays deaths, he told a cheering crowd: Red Shirts will never come to terms with murderers. Although the highway is severe and full of obstacles, it is the avocation to honour the passed by bringing democracy to this country.

Sixteen red embellished boxes, symbolising the coffins of the demonstrators who died, were laid out on Democracy Monument yesterday afternoon.

Heroic friezes on the monument, that commemorates Thailand apropos a constitutional democracy after a manoeuvre in 1932, were pockmarked with bullet holes from the day before.

At a dozen spots around the stage of the assault Red Shirt sympathisers left incense, flowering plants and offerings of rice in front of pools of congealed blood, where the casualties are pronounced to have died.

How they were killed, and by whom, is still far from clear. Each side blames the other.

In a televised press discussion Mr Abhisits spokesman, Panitan Wattanayagorn, insisted that the soldiers used usually rubber bullets and blanks, with orders to glow live rounds usually in to the air and in self-defence.

However, photographs and videos posted on the internet show scenes in that at least one with unclothed hands immature Red Shirt had the tip of his head blown off, as if by a high-velocity bullet, during a detonate of shooting.

The soldiers starting sharpened machineguns at about 2pm or 3pm, Weng Tojirakarn, the UDD personality told The Times. They attempted to contend that may be the Red Shirts proposed it, and the soldiers were distinguished back. That is a lie.

Abhisit Vejjajiva has supposed they used genuine bullets but the Government tried to forgive it, observant it was simply insurance opposite threats. They are sharpened people who have usually unclothed hands.

The assault erupted at the heart of ancestral Bangkok and spilt in to the Khao San Road backpacker enclave.

Yesterday tourists described how the travel of poor guest houses and internet cafs was remade in to a bridgehead of security forces and protesters.

We listened a lot of gunfire, pronounced Tom Reynolds, 21, of Tring, Hertfordshire. For about 3 hours everyone was perplexing to get up here. There was a line of demonstration troops holding them behind afterwards the troops usually privileged out. It was a fight zone.

The protests, that began a month ago, have additionally hermetic off the heart of Bangkoks selling district and sealed down or disrupted a little of the majority expensive hotels and selling malls. Some unfamiliar governments have cautioned people to equivocate travelling to Bangkok.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office suggested British tourists to sojourn indoors and to guard the media in box of violence.

Mr Abhisit came to energy last year as the outcome of a bloc shaped after the infantry manoeuvre that deposed Thaksin in 2006.

Mr Abhisits Democrat Party has never won an choosing underneath his leadership. The Red Shirts are severe him to disintegrate council and face Thaksins supporters at the list box in early elections.

Under the constitution Mr Abhisit contingency call an choosing by the finish of subsequent year but he insists that he will go to the republic early usually if it will benefit the republic as a whole.

Yetis unicorns and even drifting kittens Inside the worlds zaniest zoo

From the outside, it"s an mediocre industrial warehouse, home to Duke"s Auction House. But the stink of turpentine outlines it out from the alternative buildings on the Grove Industrial Estate in Dorchester, Dorset. It"s the initial idea that inside lurks a breakwater of Victorian taxidermy.

Step in, and you"ll see a Bengali tiger on the rear legs, 8ft tall, lunging claws-first (and canines first) towards you. Behind him is a peacock, stately tail splayed at the back of it.

To the right are 3 zebras, a camel, baby rhinoceros and 7 lions, the lioness disfigured on the ground, falling her incisors in to a bloodied antelope. All in all, there are 250 animals, most of that are the treasures of an individualist 19th-century highbrow and explorer.

Toyoda slips in to China on repairs carry out mission

Michael Wei and Ben Blanchard BEIJING Mon Mar 1, 2010 12:41pm EST Related News Toyoda apologizes to Chinese consumers for recallsMon, Mar 1 2010 Related Video Toyota apologises to China Mon, Mar 1 2010 < 1 / 5 >

BEIJING (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp President Akio Toyoda sought to ease peculiarity concerns during a low-key revisit to China on Monday, uninformed from a exhausting conference in the U.S. Congress over his company"s greatest reserve crisis.

Toyoda flew without delay from the United States to China to encounter with supervision officials and internal reporters, according to media reports, underscoring the significance of an automobile marketplace that surpassed the United States last year to turn the world"s largest.

"He"s creation this outing since China has turn the greatest automobile market, in that Toyota underperformed last year, from low-end products to high-end ones, such as Lexus," pronounced IHS Global Insight researcher John Zeng.

"If Toyota loses China, the tellurian on all sides would be challenged."

Even as automobile sales engaged in majority vital tellurian markets last year during the recession, China"s car sales jumped 53 percent to 13.6 million units, as consumers purchased cars underneath a raft of supervision incentives as piece of Beijing"s 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) mercantile impulse package.

Toyota, that produces cars in China in tie-ups with FAW Group and Guangzhou Automobile, sole 709,000 cars in China last year, up twenty-one percent from the prior year. But that accounted for a comparatively medium 5 percent of the market.

Japanese automakers such as Toyota and Honda have been relations bit players in China to date, with U.S. and European giants together with General Motors, Volkswagen and Ford relocating majority some-more aggressively.

Toyoda was formulation to encounter with officials from China"s peculiarity carry out bureau, according to the reports, and was set to attend a lecture for internal and general media in Beijing at 6 p.m. (1000 GMT).

LOW KEY

A Toyota mouthpiece in Tokyo pronounced Toyoda was in China to plead peculiarity issues, but would not elaborate. She reliable that Akira Sasaki, arch military officer of China operations at Toyota Motor Corp, and Managing Officer Masahiro Kato were roving with Toyoda.

The low-key revisit to China, with small allege notice and singular open appearances, contrasted neatly with Toyoda"s high-profile display last week prior to the U.S. Congress.

Toyoda was grilled by U.S. lawmakers for a array of recalls that have tarnished the carmaker"s code and repute for quality, quite in the United States, the largest market.

Toyoda additionally met with U.S. reserve officials as well as workers and dealers whilst in Washington.

Toyota has removed some-more than 8.5 million cars globally for unintended increase in speed and braking problems, in a widening reserve predicament that pennyless about a month ago. The bulk of the recalls are in the United States.

By comparison, Toyota"s China woes have been comparatively singular so far, with the association recalling 75,552 RAV4 vehicles there due to inadequate accelerators.

Toyota pronounced in Nov it was aiming to sell 800,000 cars in China this year, up about thirteen percent or rounded off in line with gains of about 10 percent that majority analysts are awaiting for China this year. The company"s Jan car sales in China surged 53 percent to 72,000 units.

(Writing by Doug Young; Additional stating by Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo; Editing by Ken Wills and Lincoln Feast)

for acne doctors to help adolescents to treat their acne

GSK defends Avandia as critique increases

A sardonic Senate cabinet inform on the reserve of the diabetes drug Avandia contains errors, dubious conclusions and deficient information, GlaxoSmithKline wrote in the central response, that the association posted online this morning.

"GSK stands at the back of the reserve of Avandia," the drug builder wrote in the response. "The association rejects any allegations of concealing reserve inform or behaving inappropriately on interest of patients."

The Senate inform is only the ultimate storm from critics who contend the drug, that was authorized in 1999, can means heart attacks or alternative health problems. Some lawmakers and physicians are job for the Food and Drug Administration to hearing the reserve and lift it off the market.

GSK pronounced it welcomes a "fair hearing of the companys record" and the clinical interpretation that proves Avandia is protected and effective.

The drug has seen disappearing sales given 2007 when a little distinguished physicians began criticizing it. But the drug still brought GSK $1.2 billion in worldwide sales last year.

GSK is one of the Triangles largest employers, with about 5,000 workers at the North American domicile in Research Triangle Park and a bureau in Zebulon that packages drugs, together with Avandia.

Download GSKs 30-page reply to the Senate cabinet online here.

Key player found for a cancer standard in Down syndrome

The study findings, published in the March 1 issue of Genes and Development, may also help in understanding other forms of leukemia, the researchers say.

The gene regulator, miR-125b-2, belongs to a class of molecules known as microRNAs, which silence gene expression by halting the manufacturing of different proteins. While microRNAs are important to normal cell function, unusual amounts of them can lead to disease. DS-AMKL has a very strong genetic basis, says senior investigator Stuart Orkin, MD, of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Children"s. However, there aren"t that many cancers in which a particular microRNA can be pointed to as contributing.

Because children with Down syndrome have three copies of chromosome 21 rather than the usual two copies, the researchers focused on the five microRNAs produced by this chromosome, and zeroed in on miR-125b-2.

In human primary DS-AMKL cells, this microRNA is quite dramatically over-expressed, says Zhe Li, PhD, of ChildrenDivision of Hematology/Oncology and first author of the paper. We then went back and studied how over-expression or downregulation of this microRNA affects the phenotype of leukemia cells.

DS-AMKL is always associated with mutations in the gene GATA1, which helps make and regulate red blood cells and megakaryocytes (the cells that produce platelets). The increased incidence of this leukemia in children with Down syndrome convinced the researchers that a GATA1 mutation may be joining forces with some genetic factor on chromosome 21 -- specifically, miR-125b-2.

GATA1 is always mutated, while miR-125b-2 is always over-expressed in leukemic cells, Li says. Do they cooperate?

The researchers experimented on genetically engineered mice that specifically expressed the mutant version of GATA1. Cells were taken from the fetal livers of these mice and induced into becoming blood progenitor cells that either made both red blood cells and megakaryocytes (MEP) or only made megakaryocytes (MP). The researchers then used a virus to over-express miR-125b-2 in these cells and compared them to MEP and MP cells without a GATA1 mutation.

Although over-expression of miR-125b-2 caused increased growth and replication of MEP and MP cells with or without the GATA1 mutation, the growth was further enhanced in the presence of the GATA1 mutation. But once the researchers down-regulated this microRNA in DS-AMKL leukemic cells, which have both GATA1 mutation and miR-125b-2 over-expression, the aberrant growth stopped. These observations support the notion that GATA1 mutation and over-expression of miR-125b-2 are both needed for DS-AMKL to develop.

Further tests on these cells suggested that over-expression of miR-125b-2 spurs the leukemia by silencing two genes: one for tumor-suppression, and another for producing other regulatory microRNAs.

Genetic analyses of leukemia cells taken from DS-AMKL patients confirmed the results seen in the mouse models. The next step is for researchers to model DS-AMKL in vivo, using animal cells and, eventually, fetal cells.

Studying leukemia in Down syndrome patients may help scientists understand and treat other forms of the cancer, says Orkin. Past research has shown that other genes on chromosome 21 may be involved in other types of leukemia. Learning more about the genetics of leukemia will then lead to some thoughts about other ways to interfere with the growth of the cells, Orkin says.

This research was funded by grants from the German National Academic Foundation, the Madelein Schickedanz Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health. Orkin, who is also Chairman of Pediatric Oncology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and the David G. Nathan Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

For Basketball Brackets No Edge in Picking Upsets

When stuffing out their NCAA brackets, majority people try topredict that games will outcome in upsets a powerhouse group removing stompedby an loser to get forward in their pool. But this plan is no betterthan picking the better-seeded team, a new investigate shows.

March Madness kicks off currently with the play-in diversion betweenWinthrop and Arkansas-Pine Bluff. The leader of that diversion enters the margin of64 collegebasketball teams that will vie to have it to the Final Four, and ultimatelythe National Championship, to be played on Apr 5.

The 64 teams are widely separated in to 4 regions and seeded from 1to sixteen by a preference committee.

Before the contest gears up, millions of sports fans willbe stuffing out their brackets with their predictions of who will win each diversion tomove on to the subsequent round.

Many will hang by the tried-and-true plan of pickingthe higher-ranked (or lower-numberedseed) teams to win, but majority will additionally try to collect upsets where alower-ranked group wins to give them an corner over their some-more conservativebracket-picking colleagues.

"Picking the reduce seed is a great strategy, but peoplethink, I cant win by you do that since everybody else is you do this,"said Ed Hirt, a clergyman at Indiana University.

Hirt and his co-worker Sean McCrea, of the University ofWyoming, set out to see if people chose upsets formed on a materialisation calledprobability relating and either or not the proceed was some-more successful thansticking to the seeding.

Probability relating describes a unfolding in that individualspredict a specific outcome formed on an existent rate of occurrence. So forexample, in the initial turn of the NCAAtournament, sports experts mostly design there to be an dissapoint in a No. 5 andNo. twelve seed matchup, and joint bettors will try to collect that of the 4 matchupsbetween a 5 seed and a twelve seed will outcome in an upset.

"People feel similar to theyve only got to pickupsets," Hirt told LiveScience. (Hirt even admits that he falls forpicking the upsets himself when stuffing out his own bracket.)

For their study, Hirt and McCrea carefully thought about NCAA tournamentresults from 1985 to 2005 and the first-round predictions of some-more than 3million entries in an ESPN Tournament Challenge.

They found that picking upsets didnt outcome in any betterresults than adhering to the rankings.

"It seems that people who follow basketball are awareof the probability of upsets and dope themselves in to desiring that they canfigure out that upsets will happen," Hirt said. "The complaint is thatthe contest seedings promulgate majority of the utilitarian report one could use(win-loss record, strength of schedule, etc.), and so the upsets are most lesspredictable than one competence think."

The Science of Sports Bracketology Tip to Ignore Seedings After Sweet Sixteen Video - How To Throw a Split Finger Fastball

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Vienna Boys Choir admits probable passionate abuses

VIENNA Fri Mar 12, 2010 8:16am EST

VIENNA (Reuters) - The Vienna Boys" Choir said on Friday it was possible that members of the historic vocal ensemble were sexually abused by supervisors in the past.

World

The choir"s statement followed complaints in an Austrian newspaper by two now grown-up former members and appeared to widen a sexual misconduct scandal in Austria that also included child abuse by a Catholic priests.

The Vienna Boys" Choir is not affiliated with the church but is an Austrian cultural icon. Founded in 1498 its 100 choristers aged between 10 and 14 give about 300 international performances a year, living in dormitories while away from their families.

"The Boys" Choir cannot make concrete comments about allegations that go back decades," it said. "But even if we cannot deal in detail with this matter, we are aware that cases of abuses could have taken place in the past."

To help identify culprits, the choir appealed to former choristers, including the pair quoted anonymously in the Vienna newspaper Der Standard, to get in touch and provide names, dates and other relevant details.

The choir would then search archives for evidence to allow justice to be done.

The choir"s statement said it had taken steps to prevent abuse "decades ago." A spokeswoman declined to comment when asked whether this meant it had had evidence of abuse.

"We cannot undo these incidents. But we have already drawn the consequences decades ago. All educators tasked with taking care of the children must have appropriate pedagogical training," the statement said.

Der Standard quoted a 33-year-old ex-chorister who lives in Berlin as saying he and others were pressured to wash their genitals thoroughly in the shower while supervisors watched.

He was quoted as saying that an older chorister once forced him to perform oral sex.

The newspaper quoted another member, now a 51-year-old psychologist living in Munich, as saying that when he sang with the group between 1966 and 1970, a choirmaster kept his hand on his thigh for an hour during a bus tour.

There have been daily reports of child sexual abuse in Austrian Catholic institutions since the arch-abbot of Salzburg"s St Peter"s monastery quit Monday after admitting to sexually abusing a boy 40 years ago.

Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn has called for the Church openly to discuss taboo issues such as celibacy, priestly training and more liberal social attitudes to sex. Abuse scandals have recently emerged in several European countries.

(Reporting by Boris Groendahl and Alexandra Zawadil, writing by Mark Heinrich; editing by Robin Pomeroy)

World

Dollar extends gains rises 1 pct vs Swiss franc

Thu Mar 4, 2010 11:48am EST Related News Euro reverses losses vs US dollar, at session highThu, Feb 25 2010Euro extends losses vs dollar, trades below $1.35Tue, Feb 23 2010Dollar extends gains vs yen, touches session highsFri, Feb 19 2010Euro jumps versus Swiss franc, hits session highsThu, Feb 18 2010Dollar falls to session low vs yen after US dataThu, Feb 18 2010

NEW YORK, Mar 4 (Reuters) - The dollar extended gains inlate morning trading in New York on Thursday, rising more than1 percent versus the Swiss franc to a session high.

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The dollar rose as high as 1.0795 francs CHF=, afterearlier trading as low as 1.0670 francs. It was last at 1.0792francs, according to Reuters data.

The euro fell more than 1 percent to trade last at $1.3554EUR=, after touching a session low at $1.3552.

(Reporting by Vivianne Rodrigues; Editing by ChizuNomiyama)

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WRAPUP 3-China central rejects U.S. complaints on banking

Wed Mar 24, 2010 5:37pm EDT Stocks & &

* China official rejects currency complaints

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* Geithner says yuan appreciation important

* Key lawmaker talking to Treasury on yuan

* China"s "indigenous innovation" scheme raised (Adds Geithner quotes, details)

By Doug Palmer and Paul Eckert

WASHINGTON, March 24 (Reuters) - A Chinese official said onWednesday China would reform its currency policy gradually andkeep the exchange rate stable, rejecting mounting U.S. calls toallow the yuan to rise more quickly.

Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Zhong Shan, in Washingtonamid U.S.-China trade and political tensions, said changing theexchange rate was not the way to fix a huge bilateral trade gapand could upset the world economy.

"Revaluing the renminbi is not a good recipe for solvingproblems," he told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, according to atranscript obtained by Reuters.

"It is in nobody"s interest, China"s, the U.S." or othercountries", to see big ups in the renminbi or big downs in thedollar," Zhong said.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said it wascritical for China to allow its currency to rise. "We can"tforce them to make that change," he said in an interview withCNN.

"But it is very important that they let it start toappreciate again. And I think many of them understand that," hesaid, according to an advance transcript provided by CNN.

Many U.S. economists estimate China"s currency isundervalued by up to 40 percent. They say that gives China anunfair price advantage in international trade, takes jobs awayfrom other countries and adds to global financial distortions.

With the U.S. economy having shed 8.4 million jobs sinceDecember 2007, lawmakers have focused on China"s currency.Senators are crafting a law that would slap import duties onChinese goods to offset the low value of its currency.

Sponsors of the bill, Democratic Senator Charles Schumerand Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, also want the Obamaadministration to formally label China a currency manipulatorin a semi-annual Treasury Department report due on April 15.

"VIGOROUS DISCUSSIONS" WITH TREASURY

The administration twice rejected that route in 2009, asdid the Bush administration. Wary of straining U.S.-Chinarelations, Obama has instead pressed Beijing to move to a "moremarket-oriented exchange rate."

U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin,an influential Democratic Party lawmaker, kept up the chorus ofcriticism of Beijing"s currency policies on Wednesday.

"What seems undisputed ... is that China has a persistenteconomic strategy, a policy, key to which is the pegging of itscurrency to the dollar at an undervalued rate," he said.

Levin said he intended to hold "some vigorous discussionsthis week" with Treasury officials on the currency issue.

Declaring China a currency manipulator would requireGeithner to hold talks with China, bilaterally or at theInternational Monetary Fund. The IMF called the yuan"substantially undervalued" on March 1.

Niall Ferguson, a history and business professor at HarvardUniversity, told Levin"s hearing that failing to name China asa manipulator will make the United States "look like the wimpsof the Western world."

Many economists say a revaluation of the yuan would notbring back U.S. jobs because many of the labor-intensiveproducts Americans buy from China have not been made in theUnited States for decades.

Some warn against moves that would trigger a trade war withChina, which holds $889 billion of U.S. government bonds andwhose help is needed to tame the nuclear ambitions of Iran.

Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at Brusuelas Analytics,said in a research report that he saw "little questionregarding whether Beijing targets the level of its currency."But he argues against naming China a manipulator.

"Such a finding will exacerbate economic tensions betweenthe U.S.-China and could push the Obama administration to adopta counterproductive set of policies that would endanger thenascent global economic recovery," he wrote.

Ferguson urged naming China a manipulator but, citing theU.S. tariffs that helped trigger the 1930s Great Depression,added: "I do not think this is a good moment to threaten orimpose retaliatory tariffs against China."

"INDIGENOUS INNOVATION" CONCERNS

Zhong warned U.S. business leaders that a stronger yuanmight not be a solution to American economic problems.

"A dip in the value of dollar will undoubtedly bring greatrepercussions to the global financial system and the worldeconomy," he told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

"The right way to reach trade balance between China and theU.S. should be expanding exports from the U.S. to China, ratherthan limiting China"s exports to the U.S.," Zhong added.

U.S. exports to China hit about $70 billion in 2009,unchanged from 2008. In a global economic slowdown, China wasthe third-biggest market for U.S. exporters and it remains thefastest-growing one.

But U.S. business leaders increasingly complain they arehitting a protectionist wall in China as a result of governmentpolicies favoring domestic industries and that Beijing isincreasing state involvement in the economy.

"Regrettably, China is moving in a direction that isinconsistent with international best practice in developing aninnovative economy," said Myron Brilliant, senior vicepresident of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

China"s policies are undermining business leaders who havelong defended Beijing from U.S. protectionist pressures.

"The ongoing policy approaches by China are eroding thesupport of their long-standing advocates in the United States,diminishing the many good arguments we have used historicallyin support of this relationship," Brilliant said.

China and the United States have been at odds throughout2010 -- over issues such as Google"s (GOOG.O) decision to defyChinese Internet censorship, U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan,Tibet and sanctions against Iran"s nuclear program.

Zhong also visited the U.S. Treasury Department, CommerceDepartment and the Trade Representative"s office. It was notclear whether he would meet lawmakers during his two-dayvisit.

A Commerce Department official said U.S. officials whohosted Zhong discussed trade remedy issues, anti-dumpingand countervailing duties.

"We also took the opportunity to raise our broadertrade-related concerns, such as indigenous innovation," shesaid, referring to Beijing"s buy-Chinese directives that U.S.businesses in China cite as a major and growing trade barrier. (Writing by Paul Eckert; Editing by Andrew Hay and DanGrebler)

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