SAO PAULO – The Southern Hemisphere has been mostly spared in the swine flu epidemic. That could change when winter starts in coming weeks with no vaccine in place, leaving half the planet out in the cold.
So far, the most affected nations have been in North America and Europe, which are heading into summer. But flu is spread more easily in the winter, and it’s already fall down south. Experts fear public health systems could be overwhelmed — especially if swine flu and regular flu collide in major urban populations.
“You have this risk of an additional virus that could essentially cause two outbreaks at once,” Dr. Jon Andrus said at the Pan American Health Organization’s headquarters in Washington.
There’s also a chance that the two flus could collide and mutate into a new strain that is more contagious and dangerous.
“We have a concern there might be some sort of reassortment and that’s something we’ll be paying special attention to,” World Health Organization spokesman Dick Thompson said.
Flu spreads more readily during the winter because people congregate indoors as the weather gets colder, increasing the opportunity for the virus to hop from person to person, said Raina MacIntyre, public health director at the University of New South Wales in Australia. Colder temperatures also may make it easier for the virus to infect people.
“The highest peaks of influenza activity occur in winter,” MacIntyre said. “For us in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s particularly concerning.”
And while New Zealand is the only southern nation with confirmed swine flu cases, “it’s almost inevitable that it will come to Australia,” she said. Health officials in Brazil also say it’s a near-certainty swine flu will hit Latin America’s largest nation, where there are 25 suspected cases but none confirmed so far.
Humans have only limited natural immunity to this new blend of bird, pig and human viruses, but the strain has killed relatively few people in its current form compared to traditional flu, which kills about 36,000 people each year in the U.S. and more than 250,000 worldwide.
The timing is particularly challenging for vaccine makers. A vaccine for swine flu is still months from being produced, and will likely be available just as flu season is ending in southern countries.
“The vaccine won’t come in time for South America,” said Dr. Gonzalo Vecina of Sao Paulo’s prominent Hospital Sirio-Libanes.
In addition, many companies may switch to making swine flu vaccine instead of seasonal flu vaccine, jeopardizing the southern countries’ regular flu vaccine stocks. That could mean fewer seasonal flu vaccines available for next year’s Southern Hemisphere winter.
“This is a concern we are working on,” Andrus said. “We want to prevent it from being a potential barrier to getting it to the people who need it most.”
Even in normal years, vaccine makers don’t have the capacity to make enough courses for more than a fraction of the world’s population.
Some experts think health officials in Southern Hemisphere countries should be more concerned with seasonal flu than with swine flu.
John Mackenzie, a flu expert at Curtin University in Australia, said countries should focus on regular flu vaccines for high risk populations, including the elderly and those with chronic illnesses, since this swine flu appears relatively mild so far.
“Governments have to step up their actions to protect their populations, especially in the absence of a (swine flu) vaccine,” Thompson said. “Latin American countries may have a somewhat stronger surveillance system than in Africa. Africa’s going to need some additional support and surveillance.”
In Africa, which has yet to confirm a swine flu case, an outbreak during traditional flu season will make diagnosing and treating the two viruses a challenge, said Barry Schoub, director of South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases.
Even in the absence of cases, officials are preparing. O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, the gateway to the region handling millions of travelers each year, has plans to get a thermal image detection system running to check passengers for fever. A supply of masks has been provided to that airport and others, as well.
Hospitals have been given guidelines on how to handle suspected cases. South Africa, the richest country in the region, is poised to assist its neighbors should they need help with testing or treatment.
South Africa has stockpiled about 100,000 courses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu, which appears to help people afflicted with swine flu, and has access to more if needed, Schoub said.
Other countries said they’re well-prepared, too. Australia has a stockpile of 8.7 million courses of Tamiflu and Relenza to treat its population of 22 million, MacIntyre said. Brazil says it is well-prepared but has Tamiflu for just 9 million people in a nation of more than 190 million.
Argentina, population 40 million, has 500,000 treatments with another 110,000 on order. Chile, with 16 million, has 300,000 treatments and has asked for 500,000 more. Venezuela has boasted of having plenty of Tamiflu but has not responded to repeated requests to say how much is available for the nation of 26 million.
And in Bolivia, one of the hemisphere’s poorest nations, top epidemiology official Eddy Martinez wouldn’t say how much Tamiflu it has in hand. If Bolivia needs more, it will go to the WHO, which is sending millions of courses of the drug to 72 developing nations.
The greatest risk to South American nations are its most vulnerable populations, who live in slums ringing big cities and often have little access to health care.
“You can’t talk about at-risk countries, but rather populations at risk, and that’s the families of eight people who live together in a single room,” said Dr. Mauricio Espinel, an epidemiologist at Ecuador’s University of San Francisco.
Associated Press writers Kristen Gelineau in Sydney, Maria Cheng in London, Donna Bryson in Johannesburg and Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, contributed to this report.
(This version CORRECTS spelling of ‘Gonzalo’ in 11th paragraph.)
Archive for May 4th, 2009
SAO PAULO – The Southern Hemisphere has been mostly spared in the swine flu epidemic. That could change when winter starts in coming weeks with no vaccine in place, leaving half the planet out in the cold.
LOS ANGELES – J.J. Abrams’ hugely anticipated summer extravaganza “Star Trek” boldly goes to the past within the distant future of the “Trek” universe, years ahead of the TV series and the myriad movies and spin-offs it spawned.
And in doing so, he and his longtime collaborators, writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, change everything you know — or obsess about, if you’re into this kind of thing — about the kitschy pop-culture phenomenon.
It’s a daring and exciting approach that’s sure to tickle and provoke purists, while at the same time probably cause neophytes to feel a bit lost.
A major plot twist pops up — which includes the arrival of Leonard Nimoy — about halfway through the film, a twist that doesn’t exactly work and from which the film never completely recovers.
Having said that, Abrams clearly aimed to appeal to the broadest possible audience with this dazzling visual spectacle while also leaving plenty of Easter eggs for the hardcore fans to find. If there’s any social or political subtext, as in the original series, it’s difficult to determine; this “Star Trek” seems solely made to entertain. It’s an absolutely gorgeous film with impeccable production design — the lighting is wondrous, almost heavenly — and lovely, tiny details frequently emerge from within the larger, grander images.
Abrams certainly puts on a good show — between television’s “Lost” and the 2006 “Mission: Impossible” sequel he directed, there’s no question the man knows how to stage an action sequence, and the opening gets things off to a thrilling start. He efficiently and satisfyingly presents the back stories of the men who will become Capt. James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and the half-Vulcan, half-human Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto) and puts them on a collision course with each other, which ups the excitement level early.
Kirk and Spock, you see, weren’t always pals — at least not in this revisionist history. This “Star Trek” pits them as opposites and adversaries until they must reluctantly learn to function side by side for the greater good. Kirk was a brilliant young hotshot causing trouble in rural Iowa, talented beyond his years but self-destructive nonetheless; Spock was a brilliant young math whiz whose mixed ethnic heritage made him the target of Vulcan bullies who were just as geeky as he was. Pine gets the womanizing and the ego of Kirk, but in a younger state there’s also a likable boyish enthusiasm about him; Quinto, meanwhile, plays Spock as a little more tentative and less Zen-like. But maybe that sense of inner peace comes in time.
All that informs their interaction once they join the Starfleet Academy and ultimately climb aboard the shiny U.S.S. Enterprise — which looks familiar but has been significantly updated from 40 years ago. Among them are the usual cast of supporting characters: Communications Officer Uhura (the graceful Zoe Saldana, who gets more to do than Nichelle Nicholls ever did on TV); over-the-top Medical Officer Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban, who gets to growl familiar lines like: “Dammit, man! I’m a doctor, not a physicist!”); Chief Engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (Simon Pegg in a lively bit of casting); reliable Helmsman Sulu (John Cho, showing he can do much more than comedy) and 17-year-old supergenius Chekov (Anton Yelchin, doing an intentionally cartoony Russian accent as an homage, even though he really is Russian).
Their shared enemy is the angry Romulan leader Nero (Eric Bana, borrowing Mike Tyson’s elaborate facial tattoos), whose sharp, spiky ship resembles a malevolent version of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. The source of his vendetta against Spock, and the entire Federation, is revealed as the film progresses, and it’s a crucial part of that distractingly perplexing twist we mentioned earlier.
Either you’ll go with it or you won’t. Regardless, based on Abrams’ ambition and scope in rejuvenating the franchise, it’s clear it still has plenty of room to live long and prosper.
“Star Trek,” a Paramount Pictures release, is rated PG-13 for sci-fi action and violence and brief sexual content. Running time: 127 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:
G — General audiences. All ages admitted.
PG — Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
PG-13 — Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.
R — Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
NC-17 — No one under 17 admitted.
Communism on rise in recession-hit Japan
By Roland Buerk
BBC News, Tokyo
The protesters gathered in a park in the shadow of corporate headquarter skyscrapers, a short walk from Ginza, Tokyo’s most upscale shopping district.
Hundreds strong, they included workers already laid off as the global downturn battered Japan’s economy, and those who feared they might be next.
The demonstrators set off on a march towards Japan’s Diet building – or parliament – carrying red flags.
“I support the Communist Party because it’s the one that thinks about workers first,” said one man.
“We’re demonstrating to get better rights for the temporary workers,” said another.
“The Communist Party is the only party that gets really serious about problems like this.”
Fists in the air
Lined up on a set of steps near the Diet, wearing suits, red sashes and beaming smiles were officials from the Japanese Communist Party.
They joined the protesters chanting and raising their fists in the air.
The Communist Party has always had a surprisingly large role in Japan, the world’s second biggest economy.
But while it had been fading towards irrelevance, now as the recession bites it is on the rise again.
The party already has more than 400,000 members and people are joining at the rate of 1,000 a month.
In comparison, the membership of the Liberal Democratic Party, the largest member of the governing coalition, is twice the size. But its numbers are declining.
“Many people are beginning to think: ‘Is Japanese capitalism OK as it is?’” said Akira Kasai, a Communist member of the Diet’s House of Representatives.
“Living standards are going down. The gap between rich and poor is growing.”
Communist ideology has been spread in Japan in unusual ways.
There was a book, Kanikosen – The Crab Factory Ship, which raced back up the bestsellers’ lists.
A classic tale of proletarian fishermen uniting to rise up against their bosses, it had been almost forgotten since it was written in 1929.
Publishers have also produced a manga, or comic, version of Das Kapital, Karl Marx’s treatise on how capitalism would collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.
One new Communist Party member we met in a restaurant found out about Marxism on the internet.
“I got interested in Karl Marx a few years ago,” she said.
“In capitalism now we are controlled by the capitalists, or capital. But I think in communism society we can think about whole of the society and decide our economic activities in democratic way.”
The woman, 34, did not want to be identified for fear her employers, whom she claimed disapproved of the Communists, would find out.
But she had told her family.
“My parents were very surprised that I joined the party,” she said. “They are not supporters of the Communist Party. They don’t understand correctly, I think.”
The woman said she was a member of a “lost generation” – people who came into the employment market during Japan’s long stagnation in the 1990s and could not find proper jobs.
As the economy picked up at the start of this century, employers picked graduates untainted by years of drifting.
Now Japan’s economy, which relies for growth on sales abroad of cars, electronics and machinery, is struggling again.
Exports have fallen by nearly half compared to a year ago, and industrial production has dived.
The traditional Japanese dream of a job for life has been further undermined by reforms of the labour market in 2004 that allowed manufacturers to take on temporary workers.
About a third of the workforce is now on short-term contracts and their jobs are the most threatened.
Communist members of parliament make much of their efforts to get workers a better deal by holding talks with company managers.
Unions are helping some to take their employers to court claiming wrongful dismissal.
Not even the Communists themselves expect to win power soon.
But they won nearly five million votes in the last election for the more powerful lower house of the Diet, and that was before the downturn.
They are hoping to do better when the Japanese next go to the polls later this year.
“Of course the final goal is a socialist, communist society in Japan, overcoming capitalism,” said Akira Kasai.
“But before that we are taking a step-by-step approach. The first stage is to solve problems of labour and living standards according to people’s demand.”
PORTLAND, Ore. – Authorities arrested seven people involved in a fight that broke out early Sunday during karaoke at a restaurant. Sheriff’s Sgt. David Thompson said the brawl ignited when a man became upset that his wife got slapped on the buttocks while singing a song.
Thompson said beer bottles and chairs were thrown during the melee while restaurant security used pepper spray on the fighters and upward of 100 people tried to exit.
Those arrested were charged with riot and disorderly conduct. Five were taken to the county jail and the others first went to the hospital.
LEESBURG, Va. – A two-story farmhouse on sale for a dollar in northern Virginia is drawing attention from prospective buyers as far as Alaska and Great Britain. There is a catch, however. The land is not for sale, and the buyer will have to pay to have the house carted away.
The 1880s farmhouse is more than 2,500 square feet. It needs to be moved to make room for an assisted living facility.
H.H. Hunt, the company that bought the property, said whoever moves the farmhouse needs permission from local officials and possibly the Virginia Department of Transportation.
The company initially received about 10 calls for the home after running newspaper ads. But a recent article that was linked on Yahoo.com received more than 1 million hits.
Information from: The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com
Los Angeles (E! Online) –
Christian Bale is still steamed at the Terminator Salvation crew. But now it's the sound guys, not the cinematography crew, who are the subject of his formidable ire.
Sure, the 35-year-old star admits to blowing his top on the infamous recording heard 'round the World Wide Web, saying he went “overboard” when he went off on the movie's director of photography for fiddling with the lights during an intense scene. But, Bale insists, the sound techs broke a sacred “trust” by leaking the recording of his rant and turning Bale into an Internet punch line.
“Hey listen, I did it, it's in the public space. I take the consequences for it. I'm not hiding from that. I went overboard,” Bale tells totalfilm.com.
“I'm not making any excuses, but there is an essential trust and it's not a tacit one, which is every sound guy says, 'We are not only not recording, we are not even listening.' So, well, there goes that.”
Mr. Method continues: “I do stress though, it's not in anyway a trust that's there to cover up bad behavior. It's not about that. It's an essential trust that's needed for creativity.”
Bale, who apologized to diatribe-targeting cinematographer Shane Hurlbut and fans after the tape became public, will see if his surliness scares away moviegoers. Terminator Salvation hits theaters on May 21 and then he'll star opposite Johnny Depp in the anticipated gangster flick Public Enemies, due out July 1.
Follow us on Twitter @eonline
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NEW YORK (Reuters) –
A stunt man filming a car chase in Times Square for a new Nicolas Cage movie crashed his Ferrari into a store front and two pedestrians suffered minor injuries, police and the film's producers said on Monday.
The crash, which happened early on Monday, was captured on amateur video that was posted on the New York Post website, www.nypost.com.
It showed two cars weaving in between other traffic before the front one skidded out of control, mounting the sidewalk and crashing into the window of an outlet of an Italian chain restaurant.
Normal traffic in Times Square had been shut down for the filming of “The Sorcerer's Apprentice,” and all the cars in the video were part of the movie shoot.
Police said a 23-year-old man was hit by a falling pole and complained of a head injury, and a 21-year-old woman suffered a foot injury. Both injuries were considered minor and the stunt man driving the car was uninjured.
“On site production medics responded immediately and two pedestrians were taken to the hospital for evaluation,” said a statement from the production of “The Sorcerer's Apprentice,” which is a Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films production.
“One person has been released and while we were told the second person was also released we have not been able to confirm that,” said the statement. “All safety regulations were followed and second unit filming will continue as planned.”
Due for release in mid-2010, “The Sorcerer's Apprentice” is the story of a college student reluctantly recruited to work for a sorcerer, played by Cage. Set in contemporary New York, it is based on the segment of the same name from the Disney animated film “Fantasia.”
(Reporting by Claudia Parsons)
ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey’s NTV television, citing authorities, says 41 people have been killed and three have been wounded in an attack on a wedding in the southeast.
NTV quotes Deputy Gov. Ferhat Ozen of Mardin province as saying the nighttime attack with grenades and automatic weapons occurred in Bilge village near Mardin. Other reports have said the attack occurred in Sultansehmuz village.
NTV says the motive for the attack was an feud between rival groups of pro-government village guards who fight alongside Turkish troops against Kurdish rebels.
UAE fines mother over baby death
A court in Dubai has found a woman who lost her unborn child in a traffic accident guilty of manslaughter in what is said to be an unprecedented ruling.
The Lebanese woman, who was nine months pregnant at the time, was also ordered to pay blood money. She said she had not caused the accident.
The judge based the ruling on Islamic law. The court said the rights of unborn babies needed to be protected.
Prosecutors had argued that the verdict should act as a deterrent.
The accident happened in October last year. The court found that she had failed to keep a safe distance from the car ahead of her.
Several cars were involved in the accident, English-language daily The National reports. The paper says the woman’s vehicle was hit by the car following hers when she braked suddenly.
The female foetus died after the umbilical cord was cut.
Dubai’s traffic court ordered the bereaved mother to pay US5,450 in blood money and fined her for “unintentional homicide”.
Salah Bu Farousha, head of traffic prosecution, said women in the third trimester of pregnancy should avoid driving altogether to protect their own and their foetuses’ lives.
WASHINGTON – Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Jewish elementary school students that the Bush administration did not use illegal interrogation tactics. Her remarks were in response to a question from Misha Lerner, a fourth-grader at the Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation’s Capital, The Washington Post reported Monday.
Rice spoke at the school Sunday before giving a lecture at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.
Lerner asked Rice what she thought about the Obama administration’s remarks on interrogation methods authorized by its predecessors.
Rice responded that she didn’t want to criticize President Barack Obama. But she also said that President George W. Bush assured his administration that “we would do nothing, nothing, that was against the law or against our obligations internationally.”
“I hope you understand that it was a very difficult time. We were all so terrified of another attack on the country,” she said. “Even under those most difficult circumstances, the president was not prepared to do something illegal, and I hope people understand that we were trying to protect the country.”
Last week the former secretary of state told Stanford University students that “we did not torture anyone.”
The swine flu outbreak this spring is just the latest in the
mountain of ailments that seem to beset humanity, from the incurable
common cold to each potentially deadly cancer diagnosed at the rate of
every 30 seconds in the United States.
So is our species sicker than it has ever been? Or is our current lot far better than it used to be?
It turns out the answer to both questions might be yes. While humans
as a whole do live longer than ever before, we now suffer certain
illnesses to a degree never seen in the past – including skyrocketing
rates of diabetes and obesity and, surprisingly, ailments such as hay fever.
Among the possible causes for our modern ills: super-hygiene, sedentary lifestyles, and a lack of worms in our stomachs.
Life expectancy shot up dramatically
on average across the world during the 20th century, increasing from
just age 30 or so in 1900 to roughly age 67 now. (It's not that many
people didn't live to ripe old ages back then. Rather, the shift was
due in large part to vast reductions in the number of infant deaths,
which brought the average way down.)
In 1900, there was just one country worldwide where under one in ten
children died before their first birthday, while now out of the 187
nations for which there is data, this holds true for 168. These
striking changes are due in large part to improvements in nutrition,
sanitation and medicine.
“As a world population, on average we are far healthier than
before,” said historian of medicine Naomi Rogers at Yale University.
Infectious diseases once were the main cause of death worldwide,
“but around 1950 or so, there was a moment called the epidemiological
transition, a long term that just means that in most Western nations,
chronic diseases became the major causes of disability and death
instead,” Rogers explained.
Although infectious diseases
seemed to Westerners to only be a “back then” or Third World problem
for decades, ever since HIV in the 1980s and 1990s, “I think that
element of hubris is gone,” Rogers added. “But the infrastructure of
public health facilities that responded to infectious disease and
epidemics that disappeared in the United States has only slowly been
rebuilt, and there's now that shock that comes with new epidemics.”
The modern era has brought a unique host of problems. The number of
American children with chronic illnesses has roughly quadrupled in the
past 50 years, including an almost fourfold increase in childhood obesity in the past three decades and twice the asthma rates since the 1980s.
“It's a combination of environment and lifestyle,” Rogers said.
People are more sedentary and less physically active than before, and
fast food is more available.
“A powerful way of thinking of metabolic problems such as obesity
and diabetes regards toxic environments,” she explained. “One study
showed that pregnant women living in areas that had large numbers of
fast food places gained very unhealthy levels of weight during
pregnancy compared with pregnant women who maybe lived a mile further
away. That's a toxic environment. So the society we live in has its own
Body fights itself
Unusually, the number of ailments involving malfunctions of the immune system has gone up as well.
Multiple sclerosis, a disease where the fatty insulation around the
nervous system comes under attack, appears to be on the rise, and type
I diabetes, “a childhood form of diabetes almost unheard of at the turn
of the 20th century, is up from one in 5,000 or 10,000 to one in 250 in
some regions,” said Joel Weinstock, chief of gastroenterology at Tufts
University Medical Center in Massachusetts.
Even hay fever, which plagues roughly 1 out of 4 people in the
United States, is something that may have largely emerged only in the
20th century, Weinstock said “What if I told you that there are some
countries that don't even know what hay fever is?” he asked.
The rise of these disorders might be due to the very improvements in
hygiene that have helped reduce infections in much of the world. The
body's immune system is regularly exposed to antigens, molecules that
it recognizes and reacts to, such as compounds from viruses or
“But the immune system needs to be controlled, needs to not act up
when exposed to things that aren't truly injuring you,” Weinstock
explained. “What we think is happening is the regulation mechanisms are
becoming less effective. As to why that is, is it possible that it's
due to lack of exposure to antigens? Do you need to be exposed
regularly to antigens for it to work properly?”
You need worms
For instance, many fewer people are infected with worms than before.
“If you look back at the human race in the 20th century, every child
and adult had worms in their gastrointestinal tracts,” Weinstock said.
“They were part of the ecosystem of the gut. As it turns out, worms are
very potent at controlling immune reactions, in order to live happily
ever after in the gut. Our theory is that when we started deworming the
population, that is one factor that led to the rise in immunological
As part of this “hygiene hypothesis,” Weinstock also notes that dirt
roads, horses and cattle used to be far more prevalent in life than
they are now.
“Our theory is that when we moved to this super-hygiene environment,
which only occurred in the last 50 to 100 years, this led to immune
disregulation,” he said. “We're not saying that sanitation is not a
good thing – we don't want people to jog up to river banks and get
indiscriminately contaminated. But we might want to better understand
what factors in hygiene are healthy and what are probably detrimental,
to establish a new balance and hopefully have the best of both worlds.”
10 Deadly Diseases That Hopped Across Species
Old Age More Miserable for Women
Flu News & Information
Original Story: Why Are Humans Always So Sick?
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Aston Villa 1-0 Hull
By Phil Dawkes
A first half goal from Norwegian striker John Carew was enough to earn Aston Villa a narrow but deserved victory over struggling Hull.
Carew found space in the box to divert in an Ashley Young left-wing cross with his instep to break the deadlock.
Boaz Myhill spared Hull from a heavier scoreline with a number of good saves including a superb point-blank parry from Gabriel Agbonlahor.
The closest Hull came to scoring was an easily-saved Daniel Cousin shot.
Both these sides have seen their form in 2009 put pay to their respective aspirations at the season’s halfway point.
Villa had realistic designs of Champions League qualification whilst Hull were basking in a mid-table spot earned through a series of unlikely but impressive victories.
Villa can take some solace from the fact that this win – their first in nine games – assures them a place in next season’s Europa League.
Hull though remain bottom of the Premier League form table and perilously close to the drop zone – saved only from such a fate by others’ poor results over the weekend.
It could have been very different had Ian Ashbee’s volley found the back of the net instead of flashing agonisingly wide.
In a high tempo opening, Villa came close to scoring themselves as Stilian Petrov’s right-wing cross was glanced across goal and just wide by Carew.
Villa spent the majority of the half in the ascendancy but did not create the chances their possession warranted and it was another 15 minutes before Myhill was called upon – palming a 25-yard James Milner free-kick over the bar.
From their next attack though Villa broke the deadlock as Petrov and Gareth Barry robbed Hull’s former Villa midfielder George Boateng and fed Young who’s cross was diverted in by Carew.
In the final action of the half, three minutes into injury time, Agbonlahor broke free from his marker but his shot was palmed past the post by Myhill.
Myhill continued to frustrate Villa in the second half as firstly Barry drew a good one-handed save from the keeper and then he denied Milner with a low parry.
He surpassed all previous saves though with fifteen minutes to go when he was on hand at point-blank range to push over a Agbonlahor header after Curtis Davies had nodded the ball back across goal.
Hull’s best move of the match came shortly after when a cross from the right found Cousin who hooked a shot on target that Nick Barmby just failed in an attempt to deflect before Brad Friedel saved relatively comfortably.
Soon after Andy Dawson floated a free-kick over and Kamil Zayatte got the tiniest of touches with his studs in a packed penalty area but Friedel again got down low to save with ease.
In a frantic five minutes of injury time Hull had a series of corners – the last of which Myhill came forward for – but could not capitalise on any of them.
Villa did Hull no favours tonight but they could still yet play a more positive part in the Tigers survival as they still have City’s relegation rivals Middlesbrough and Newcastle to play in the run-in.
Friedel, Luke Young, Davies, Knight, Shorey, Milner, Petrov (Reo-Coker 90), Barry, Ashley Young (Gardner 90), Carew (Heskey 86), Agbonlahor.
Subs Not Used: Guzan, Sidwell, Delfouneso, Clark.
Myhill, Ricketts, Turner, Zayatte, Dawson, Garcia, Boateng, Ashbee (Marney 9), Kilbane (Manucho 73), Geovanni (Barmby 46), Cousin.
Subs Not Used: Duke, Doyle, Halmosi, Featherstone.
Mike Dean (Wirral).
BBC Sport Player Rater man of the match:
Aston Villa’s John Carew 7.45 (on 90 minutes).
Please note that you can still give the players marks out of 10 on BBC Sport’s Player Rater after the match has finished.
Los Angeles (E! Online) –
Denise Richards wants you to know that there's a very good reason she sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” the other day at a Chicago Cubs game.
And, unlike other onscreen vixens like Leighton Meester, it certainly has nothing to do with her trying to impress people with her singing abilities.
The E! reality star knows she cannot carry a tune, but…
Richards was in the Windy City for a fundraiser for the Kidney Cancer Association (her mom died of the disease about a year ago). While she was there, Richards asked Cubs management if the group could set up an informational booth at Wrigley Field during Friday's game.
“In return, they said, 'Will you sing?' ” Richards explains to me. “So I said yes, because it's for a good cause and we want to raise awareness about kidney cancer.”
Unfortunately, the cancer message got lost along the way, because as soon as video of Richards' performance hit the Internet, the trashing began.
“I'm clearly not a singer,” she says. “I wasn't doing it to show off my pipes. Thank God I wasn't singing the national anthem. But I thought it would be fun…I had no idea the backlash I would get.”
As for her critics, Richards said they need not worry about her ever singing in public again.
“It took everything in me to get up there and do that,” she says. “My dad and my sister kept saying, 'Just remember you're doing this for Mom,' so that's how I got through it. It's just unfortunate that doing something good was turned into such a negative.”
Follow Marc on Twitter @marcmalkin
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SEATTLE – Can tomatoes be taught to make antiviral drugs for people who eat them? Would zapping your skin with a laser make your vaccination work better? Could malaria-carrying mosquitoes be given a teensy head cold that would prevent them from sniffing out a human snack bar?
These are among 81 projects awarded 100,000 grants Monday by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in a bid to support innovative, unconventional global health research.
The five-year health research grants are designed to encourage scientists to pursue bold ideas that could lead to breakthroughs, focusing on ways to prevent and treat infectious diseases, such as HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia and diarrheal diseases.
The foundation said grant recipient Eric Lam at Rutgers University in New Jersey is exploring tomatoes as a antiviral drug delivery system.
Researchers at the University of Exeter in Devon, England, will seek to build an inexpensive instrument to diagnose malaria by using magnets to detect the waste products of the malaria parasite in human blood.
Mei Wu at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School will be getting a grant to see if shooting a laser at a person’s skin before administering a vaccine can enhance immune response.
And Thomas Baker at Pennsylvania State University wants to see if malaria-carrying mosquitoes can be infected with a fungus that would act like a cold, suppressing the sense of smell that they use to find people as sources of blood.
The foundation also announced plans Monday to spend 73 million over the next five years to help small farmers in impoverished countries. That program was outlined by foundation CEO Jeff Raikes at a water conference held at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Raikes, a former Microsoft Corp. executive, said spending on agriculture in sub-Saharan African countries, where the foundation focuses much of its poverty-fighting efforts, accounts for less than 5 percent of their total government budgets. And from 1985 to 2005, spending as a percentage of government budgets decreased in donor countries, he said, including the U.S.
The agriculture grants include 40 million over five years to develop drought-tolerant corn, 13 million over four for more efficient irrigation, and 10 million over four years to help women develop education and training programs related to agriculture.
The largest philanthropic foundation in the world, the Gates Foundation gave out 2.8 billion last year. It has said payouts this year would grow by about 10 percent, less than previously planned, because of the troubled economy.
The foundation was started in 1994 by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife and has the international goals of overcoming hunger, poverty and disease. In this country, its focus is on education, which receives about a quarter of its grant dollars.
Associated Press writer Nate Jenkins in Lincoln, Neb., contributed to this report.
On the Net:
Gates Foundation: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/
Grand Challenges: http://www.gcgh.org/explorations
US seeks Pakistan nuclear pledge
The US’ national security adviser has told the BBC that Washington needs guarantees from Pakistan that its nuclear arsenal is safe from militants.
General James Jones said Pakistan’s army had repeatedly told him the stockpile was “under control”, but “this is very much an ongoing topic”.
The Pakistani government is fighting to stop Taleban militants expanding their power in the north-west of the country.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is due to meet Barack Obama this week.
In an interview with the BBC’s North America editor, Justin Webb, Gen Jones said that “things are moving in a more positive direction” in Pakistan, but that more assurances were needed about the safety of the country’s nuclear weapons.
“If Pakistan doesn’t continue in the direction that it presently is and we’re not successful there then, obviously, the nuclear question comes into view,”
“We have received many assurances from the military that this is something they have under control but this is very much an ongoing topic,” he added.
“The world would like to know that on this question, that there’s absolute security and transparency.”
The safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal has become more of a concern to the US government since Taleban fighters began expanding their influence in northern Pakistan beyond the Swat valley, which they already largely control.
The Pakistani military has been engaged in an offensive to remove Taleban insurgents from the Lower Dir and Buner regions, parts of which are just 100km (60 miles) from Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Taleban would be “the very very worst case scenario,” said Gen Jones.
“We’re going to do anything we can within the construct of our bilateral relations and multilateral relations to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
On the subject of Iran, Gen Jones warned that the US would not “wait forever” for Iran to respond positively to President Obama’s attempt to improve US relations with the country.
“We’re interested in getting this new relationship established, to the extent that there is going to be one, but it takes two – and we’re still waiting for the appropriate response from the Iranians,” he said.
(OPRAH.com)About a year ago, I bumped into a friend whose daughter, Amanda, used to drive me a little crazy when she was in high school. Not because she committed any of the typical teenage transgressions but because she was perfect.
You can make up a password to get off the emotional roller coaster that a bad boss can send you on, writer says.
She got great grades, made captain of two teams, played violin in the school orchestra, and was completely down-to-earth and cheerful to boot. So it was with trepidation, as the mother of mere mortals, that I asked after this girlby then a college graduate working at a well-known company. “Oh my God, she is terrible,” came the grief-stricken reply. “Her life is in ruins. She has a bad boss.” Instantly, my heart broke for Amanda. She had joined the ranks of humankind. “Well, it happens to all of us,” I told her mother sadly. “I knowI went through it,” she said with a sigh. “But I just quit and married Bill. Amanda doesn’t have a Bill. She has only herself.” Exactly. Some of the most successful careers I’ve seen have been born of women who overcame one of life’s scariest job situations, the very bad boss. The experience changes you, but it can also help you become more at homeand at peacewith yourself and your work. Oprah.com: Get the career you really want
Oprah.com: 6 signs you’re in the wrong job
Oprah.com: The rules for a really big career
Oprah.com: Can’t make up your mind? Ask these questions!
That may sound Pollyanna-ish. I know bad bosses can make each day feel like a little battle for your soul, but my research into women’s careers has convinced me that there is a viable road from office hell to happy ending. It’s not an easy processit requires focusing more time and attention on a very frustrating situation and, hardest of all, taking yourself out of the vortex of victimhood. Yes, victimhood. Because I would make the case that bad bosses are a choice. They can put your “life in ruins,” to quote Amanda’s mother, only if you let them. To prevent that, you can start by answering four questions. 1. Who’s the bad onereally? This question requires an unnatural act: a brutally candid conversation with yourself. Bad bosses obviously exist, but most managers are not critical, bullying, or withholding with people they like and respect. If your boss is being a jerk to you, the first thing you need to do is ask yourself if there is something about your performance or attitude that is engendering the behavior. Start with the monster in the middle of the roomyour results. If you’re not performing up to expectations, even if you believe something outside your control is to blame, know that your boss has had to explain your underperformance to his bosses, an unpleasant experience that can quickly turn to resentment toward you. Next you need to double-check your self-examination by tactfully extracting information about your performance from your boss. Prepare to be shocked. I once had a coworker with tremendous results who complained to our boss that she felt underappreciated. She emerged from the meeting reeling. “He said I lied to him three years ago,” she said, “about a little thing on my expense account. He never forgave me.” Oprah.com: 5 mistakes bad women bosses make On the other hand, you might come out of your review having been told that your performance is acceptable. He may even say he likes you, and be completely unaware that his disorganization or temper is a problem for you. Nevertheless, you’ve confirmed that your boss’s behavior is not about you. He or she is just a bad boss, and you must ask the following question… 2. What is the endgame for my bad boss? In other words, how much do you trust your company’s senior executives and human resource managers? If they’re any good, they know about your bad boss and are working on an exit strategy. All you need to do is keep your head down and wait patiently. Watch how to make right decisions for you » This process always takes longer than everyone wants, so you’ll have to fight the completely human urge to form a cabal with your coworkers to bitch about the situation. Complaining will only drain and distract you. Instead, focus on the work and keep a positive attitude. That will hold you in good stead with the higher-ups when your boss (finally) moves on. It’s a different situation entirely if your company appears to tolerate destructive behaviors. Too many companies turn a blind eye to difficult managers as long as they’re delivering the numbers. A friend of mine was an analyst at an investment firm where the manager of her 60-person department routinely screamed at people for “incompetence.” Even though his rages were widely known, the CEO of the company often singled him out for praise on his financial results. It was clear he wasn’t going anywhere but up. Oprah.com: How to deal with a dysfunctional workplace If that sounds familiar, it’s time for a serious career evaluation. 3. Do I want to work for a company that tolerates bad bosses? The simple answer is no. I don’t know anyone who likes the idea of giving half her waking hours, if not more, to an organization she doesn’t respect. Most people realize (sooner or later) that it’s time to start looking for a new job. This is hard to accept, and it’s tempting to consider the infamous end run: complaining to your boss’s boss. I don’t necessarily recommend that choice. Given the way most companies work, this option will fail 80 to 90 percent of the time, and will likely lead to your own demise, if only in slow motion. (If you’re determined to go over your boss’s head, have a job offer elsewhere ready.) Whether you leap or get pushed, leaving your company will be hard. But it can open up surprising opportunities, as it did for a single mother I met four years ago. She had supported herself and her son as a hairdresser for nearly a decade, until one day, pummeled into a depressed mess by an abusive boss, she quit. Broke and living in her former stepfather’s basement, she started a knitwear company that just earned its first million dollars. “My bad boss was the best thing that ever happened to me,” she said, “because he forced me to create a life for myself that makes me proud.” Too often, however, the answer to the question, “Do I want to work at my company?” is anything but simple: Your job may be the only game in town. Or it pays you too well to leave. Or it gives you the flexibility you need to take care of your kids. If so, there is one thing left to ask…. 4. What is my password? By the time most people hit 25, they’ve come up with a single password that gets them into everything from their bank account to their e-mail box. If you decide to stay with a bad boss, you need to come up with a password that lets you into an emotional place where you do not ride your bad boss experience like a roller coaster every single day. A friend who worked at an intensely political company once ended up working for a man who ardently wanted him to fail so his own guy would get ahead. After a few months of punching the dashboard of his car every morning, my friend’s password became “Deliver and this will pass.” For three years, during every grueling day, he stayed focused on building his own team’s morale and new product innovation, not his boss’s scrutiny. It worked: He was promoted to another division (and a good boss). I myself had one terrible boss, who was moody and secretive. My password became “You cannot have it all, all at once.” My job had enormous flexibility. I got through the rough weeks by reminding myself that by staying, I was able to be a better, more present mother. It didn’t make me like my boss, but it made me tolerate her, a much more sustainable emotional alternative. With a password, you may still have bad days, but you will have taken yourself out of the vortex of victimhood. This brings me back to Amanda, the young woman whose life had been thrown into disarray by a bad boss. She’s still at the same company, working for the same person. “But you’ll never believe it,” her mother told me recently, “things are really looking up.” I do believe it. Back in the days before Amanda bumped into messy reality (as we all eventually do), she had believed the future was hers for the making. No doubt there was now a dent in that youthful optimism, but Amanda’s perseverance could mean only one thing. She had made a choice: No one could take her happiness, or her success, away. Oprah.com: Stuck in a rut? How to get ahead at work From O, The Oprah Magazine 2009
NEW YORK – Peter Sarsgaard (SAHRZ’-gahrd) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (JIHL’-ihn-hahl) have made it official.
Amanda Silverman, Gyllenhaal’s publicist, says the couple were married Saturday. She didn’t provide any details.
Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard have a daughter, Ramona, who was born in October 2006. They announced their engagement earlier that year.
Gyllenhaal’s film roles include “The Dark Knight” and “World Trade Center.” Sarsgaard has appeared in the films “Jarhead,” “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Kinsey.”
The couple recently co-starred in an off-Broadway revival of the classic play “Uncle Vanya.”
NEWARK, N.J. – Mohammad Qatanani’s mosque was full of FBI agents the night before he was to find out if he would be deported.
But even though the federal government was trying to link Qatanani to foreign extremists, the agents weren’t there to keep an eye on him. They wanted to show their support for a Muslim leader they considered a valued ally for the relationships he helped forge between the FBI and Muslims in the wake of 9/11.
Across the nation, such grass-roots relationships between Muslims and the federal government are in jeopardy. A coalition of Muslim groups is calling for Muslims to stop cooperating with the FBI — not on national security or safety issues but on community outreach.
The coalition is upset over what it says is increasing government surveillance in mosques, new Justice Department guidelines that the groups say encourage profiling, and the FBI’s recent suspension of ties with the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
A petition that opposes FBI tactics is circulating in Muslim communities and has been gaining support, said coalition chairman Agha Saeed. The coalition, represented by the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, has requested a meeting with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss what it sees as the deteriorating relationship between the FBI and Muslim communities.
“We have to decide what we’re doing as a country. If it’s not a war on Islam, then these practices must be stopped,” Saeed said. “We’re not asking for special treatment, just equal treatment.”
A number of Muslim groups — including some of the nation’s most prominent — have declined to sign the petition. Other organizations say they agree with parts of the petition but also support ongoing dialogue with law enforcement.
FBI spokesman John Miller said the agency values its relationships with Muslims and has worked hard on outreach efforts that range from town hall meetings to diversity training for FBI agents.
“I think a lot of these inaccurate statements and claims have the potential to do damage to those relationships,” Miller said. “What we’ve suggested to the major (Muslim) groups is that we try to separate the real issues from the sound bites, and if we can identify those real issues, tackle them together.”
Supporters of the petition cite recent cases in California and Michigan where the FBI has been accused of using informants and coercive tactics to spy on mosques.
A federal judge in California ordered a review last week of FBI inquiries into several Muslim groups and activists who claim they have been unfairly spied on and questioned. A Muslim organization in Detroit asked Holder in mid-April to investigate complaints that the FBI asked mosque attendees to spy on Islamic leaders and worshippers.
Miller said there is no factual basis for claims the FBI infiltrates mosques or conducts blanket surveillance of Muslim leaders.
“Based on information of a threat of violence or a crime, we investigate individuals, and those investigations may take us to the places those individual go,” Miller said.
Miller questioned the timing of the petition, noting that it comes after the FBI suspended ties with CAIR, partly because it was named as an unindicted coconspirator in the case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development — a group charged with bankrolling schools and social welfare programs the U.S. government says are controlled by Hamas.
Afsheen Shamsi, a spokeswoman for CAIR’s New Jersey chapter, dismissed the idea that the petition is retaliation. She said it reflects the concerns of Muslims who have grown tired of being stopped at airports, constant questioning and relentless scrutiny eight years after the attacks of Sept. 11.
“I believe the Muslim community is questioning whether the mosque visits and the handshakes are just a big show by the FBI, while behind the scenes, they continue to engage in questionable practices,” she said.
The petition is gaining little traction in New Jersey, home to one of the nation’s largest concentrations of Muslims, and a place where relationships between Muslims and law enforcement were heavily tested in the aftermath of 9/11.
New Jersey lost 744 residents in the attacks; many Muslims were among the victims. Several of the 9/11 hijackers had lived in Paterson for a time, and many Muslims detained after the attacks were held in New Jersey jails.
But Muslim leaders say the FBI distinguished itself by reaching out to Muslims, Arab Americans and groups like Sikhs in the wake of 9/11. Relationships forged between the FBI and Muslim leaders in New Jersey have endured since.
At Qatanani’s mosque in Paterson after 9/11, the imam invited FBI agents to lecture congregants on how to recognize terrorists. Qatanani also helped train FBI agents on how to deal respectfully with Muslim detainees and community members.
When Qatanani became the subject of a high-profile deportation case last year, several high-ranking law enforcement officials took the stand on his behalf.
Aref Assaf, a mosque member and supporter of Qatanani who heads the Paterson-based American Arab Forum, say despite the imam’s immigration ordeal, he has urged his supporters not to sever ties with federal law enforcement. When the petition came up at a recent meeting of New Jersey Muslim leaders, Assaf said many declined to sign it.
“I’m a believer that law enforcement does not have a built-in anti-Muslim policy,” he said.
“I know from dealing with FBI leaders they have been very forceful in their expressions of solidarity with our faith and culture, but there is a line, where we have to accept that as part of our dealings with them, they have a job to do, to make sure there are no terrorists in our midst or anywhere else.”
Agha Saeed says relationships between the FBI and Muslims in other parts of the country have been more one-sided.
“There was a sense of mutuality at first. … These local connections people made, they wanted to see it as working with law enforcement and making the community better,” he said. “I am stupefied by the fact that they (the FBI) are burning down the bridges that they need.”
NEW YORK – Another big rally on Wall Street has erased the losses suffered by the Standard & Poor’s 500 index this year. The S&P 500, the market barometer preferred by professional investors, is now up 0.4 percent for 2009. Many investments like mutual funds either mirror or are measured against the index.
Gains in housing, financial and materials stocks pushed the S&P up 3.4 percent Monday. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 214 points but is still down 4 percent for the year.
Two new economic nuggets bolstered the case that the economy’s slide could be slowing and helped extend a two-month rally. Pending U.S. home sales increased more than expected to post their second straight monthly gain, while construction spending rose unexpectedly in March after five straight decreases.
David Kelly, chief market strategist at JPMorgan Funds, said each piece of better-than-expected economic news is easing worries that the recession would worsen.
“It’s like watching the market’s blood pressure come down,” he said. “Every day that goes by without something bad happening is reducing the risk of an economic rebound getting derailed.”
According to preliminary calculations, the S&P 500 index rose 29.72, or 3.4 percent, to 907.24, its first close above 900 since Jan. 8.
The Dow rose 214.33, or 2.6 percent, to 8,426.74. The blue chips hadn’t closed above the 8,400 level since Jan. 13.
The Nasdaq composite index rose 44.36, or 2.6 percent, to 1,753.56. It is up 11.8 percent in 2009.
The rally came after the National Association of Realtors said its index of pending sales for previously occupied homes rose 3.2 percent to 84.6. That was well ahead of the 82.1 economists had been expecting and the second month of gains after the index hit a record low in January.
Separately, the Commerce Department said construction spending rose 0.3 percent, the best showing since a similar increase last September. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected spending to drop 1.5 percent.
World Snooker Championship
18 April-4 May Venue:
Crucible Theatre, Sheffield
Live coverage each day on BBC Two, BBC Red Button and BBC Sport website (UK only), updates on BBC Radio 5 Live.
John Higgins had few problems on Monday in wrapping up a crushing 18-9 victory over Shaun Murphy to win his third world snooker title in dominant style.
The 33-year-old Scot added to his 1998 and 2007 crowns and joins a list of three-time winners with John Spencer and 2008 champion Ronnie O’Sullivan.
Murphy rarely threatened with Higgins doing much of the damage on Sunday which included two 128 breaks and a 91.
Leading 16-8, the ‘wizard of Wishaw’ took little time to secure his win.
More to follow.
SYDNEY, Australia – Southern hemisphere countries that have largely escaped swine flu infections could soon become more vulnerable, experts warn, as the approaching winter brings with it an elevated risk of the virus spreading and mutating.
So far, the worst affected nations — such as Mexico, the United States, Canada and countries in Europe — have been in the northern hemisphere, which is heading into summer. To the south of the equator, cooler weather is imminent.
“The highest peaks of influenza activity occur in winter,” said Raina MacIntyre, head of the University of New South Wales’ School of Public Health and Community Medicine. “For us in the southern hemisphere, it’s particularly concerning.”
It is already fall in Australia, and winter sets in by June.
Flu is spread more easily in winter largely because people tend to congregate indoors to avoid the colder weather, increasing the opportunity for the virus to hop from person to person, MacIntyre said. There is also some evidence that colder temperatures make it easier for the virus to infect people, she said.
Experts also warn that regular flu that typically spreads in winter may collide with swine flu and recombine to make it more transmissible or more dangerous.
WHO spokesman Dick Thompson, said the agency was concerned of a possible “reassortment” — or mixing of regular and swine flu viruses.
“Winter is coming in the southern hemisphere and governments have to step up their actions to protect their populations, especially in the absence of a (swine flu) vaccine,” he said. “We have a concern there might be some sort of reassortment and that’s something we’ll be paying special attention to.”
So far, Australia has reported no confirmed cases of swine flu.
A WHO spokesman said Monday the agency may raise its pandemic alert to the highest level — 6 — meaning a global outbreak of swine flu is under way.
However, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the World Health Organization “has no plan to raise the alert level to 6 at this moment.” WHO chief Margaret Chan also told the U.N. General Assembly by videolink from Geneva that “we are not there yet.”
If WHO does declare a pandemic, “it’s almost inevitable that it will come to Australia,” said MacIntyre. “If the WHO does not declare Level 6 there’s a possibility the virus will never reach Australian shores.”
The virus has already reached neighboring New Zealand, which reported its fifth and sixth laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu Monday along with 11 probable cases. The two new confirmed cases came 10 days after a group of high school students returned from Mexico with the first confirmed cases of the illness, sparking a nationwide alert.
Mexico has so far reported 727 cases of swine flu — out of more than 1,000 confirmed worldwide — and 26 deaths from the virus.
But even as Mexico began its first tentative steps toward normalcy after days of lockdown, the virus spread to Colombia in the first confirmed case in South America, where flu season was also about to begin.
“Latin American countries may have a somewhat stronger surveillance system than in Africa. Africa’s going to need some additional support and surveillance,” WHO’s Thompson said.
Experts also warn the timing of the outbreak may jeopardize southern countries’ regular flu vaccine stocks for next year. Usually, flu vaccines are made about a year in advance.
But since WHO will ask vaccine manufacturers in a few weeks to start making pandemic vaccine instead, that could mean problems for next year’s stocks of seasonal flu vaccine for southern hemisphere countries. Vaccine makers can only make one kind of vaccine at a time, and many companies may switch to making swine flu vaccine instead of seasonal flu vaccine for southern hemisphere countries.
Some experts think health officials in southern hemisphere countries should be more concerned with seasonal flu than with swine flu at the moment. “Seasonal flu is … potentially more serious than (swine flu),” said John Mackenzie, a flu expert at Curtin University in Australia.
He said countries like Australia should focus on having people at high risk of the flu, like the elderly and those with chronic illnesses, vaccinated against regular flu since the swine flu appeared to be relatively mild.
WHO is reporting no confirmed cases in Africa, but the region is bracing itself.
O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, a gateway to the region handling millions of travelers, has plans to get a thermal image detection system running to check passengers for fever. A supply of masks has been provided to that airport and others, and hospitals have been given guidelines on how to handle suspected cases.
South Africa, the richest country in the region, is also poised to assist its neighbors should they need help with testing or treatment.
“There’s certainly an enhanced preparedness,” said Barry Schoub, director of South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases.
Schoub said South Africa has about 100,000 Tamiflu doses stockpiled and access to more if needed. However, he said, if the country experiences a swine flu outbreak at the same time as the coming flu season, it will put pressure on both treatment and diagnosis.
Australia is well-prepared for an outbreak, MacIntyre said. It has spent years planning for a pandemic, and has a large stockpile of flu treatments and solid pandemic preparedness plans, she said.
The government says its stockpile is large enough to treat 8.7 million of its 22 million people with the flu medicines Tamiflu and Relenza.
So far, these prescription drugs have been given to about 100 people identified as at-risk of swine flu because they are have flu-like symptoms and recently traveled to high-risk areas.
Endocrinologist Nikolai Petrovsky, a professor of medicine at Flinders University in Adelaide, expressed worries about the coming winter, but said that at least Australia will have more time to analyze the data coming out of the U.S. and Mexico before the virus arrives on its shores.
“By the time it comes to Australia and the southern hemisphere, we’ll know more about it than it did when it arrived over there,” he said.
Associated Press writer Maria Cheng in London and Donna Bryson in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a federal appeals court to re-examine its ruling in favor of CBS Corp. in a legal fight over entertainer Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction. The high court on Monday directed the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to consider reinstating the 550,000 fine that the Federal Communications Commission imposed on CBS over Jackson’s breast-baring performance at the 2004 Super Bowl.
The order follows the high court ruling last week that narrowly upheld the FCC’s policy threatening fines against even one-time uses of curse words on live television.
In a statement, CBS said the Supreme Court’s decision was not a surprise given last week’s ruling and expressed confidence the court will again find the incident was not and could not have been anticipated by the network.
Last year, the appeals court threw out the fine against CBS, saying the FCC strayed from its long-held approach of applying identical standards to words and images when reviewing complaints of indecency.
The appellate court said the incident lasted nine-sixteenths of one second and should have been regarded as “fleeting.” The FCC previously deviated from its nearly 30-year practice of fining indecent broadcast programming only when it was so “pervasive as to amount to ‘shock treatment’ for the audience,” the court said.
The FCC appealed to the Supreme Court. The case had been put off while the justices dealt with a challenge led by Fox Television against the FCC’s policy on fleeting expletives.
The case is FCC v. CBS Corp., 08-653.
GIBSON, Ga. – The banner above FirstCity Bank still reads “Celebrating 100 Years of Service,” but the 690 residents of this rural community aren’t in the mood — not since government regulators locked the door, emptied the vault and closed the only bank within nearly 20 miles.
Georgia leads the nation in bank failures, with nine banks shut down in the past year. Still, few in tiny Glascock County suspected the financial meltdown driven by toxic real-estate loans would scuttle the place they deposited paychecks earned from sawmills and row-crop farming, their local lender for buying tractors and pickup trucks.
“We need a bank, definitely,” says 70-year-old Charles Usry, who fits cars with new brakes and tires at his small auto parts store across Main Street from the now-empty FirstCity. “If you don’t have a bank, eventually people are going to go somewhere else. The towns are going to die.”
Eleven Georgia banks, most surrounding Atlanta, have been shuttered by regulators, followed by nine in California and four in Florida. Experts predict more could be closed in Georgia in the future. But what propelled Georgia to No. 1 in bank failures is complicated.
Experts say it’s a combination of an antiquated state law that favored a plethora of smaller community banks over multi-branch giants; a population explosion in metro Atlanta that fueled massive suburban real estate development and a crush of new banks formed to cash in on the Atlanta boom shortly before the market tanked.
First, Georgia is home to a huge number of state and federally chartered banks. At the end of 2008, Georgia had 334 banks. That’s more than California, which has nearly four times Georgia’s population, or Florida, which has twice as many people. Only five states — Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas — have more banks than Georgia, according to the FDIC.
What these states had in common, until the mid-1990s, was some of the nation’s most restrictive laws on branch banking. Georgia, for example, prohibited banks from opening branches across county lines until 1996.
The law shielded local banks from worrying about competition from out-of-town rivals. It also guaranteed that Georgia, with a whopping 159 counties, would have a correspondingly large number of banks.
“It was really a belief that local banking was the best banking and you did not want to have the big city banks dictating the amount of credit available to small town and rural America,” said Steve Verdier, director of congressional relations for the Independent Community Bankers of America.
Even after interstate giants such as Bank of America, SunTrust and Wachovia could expand freely across Georgia, growth in Atlanta’s suburbs spurred the opening of new banks looking to profit from loans to real-estate developers.
Metro Atlanta had three of the nation’s 10 fastest growing counties of the 1990s. Because of that growth, about half the state’s banks ended up clustered around Atlanta, said Joe Brannen, president and CEO of the Georgia Bankers Association.
“Georgia is a tad unique in that we don’t have five or 10 big metropolitan areas. We’ve got one real big one,” Brannen said. “We haven’t enjoyed the statewide growth in population that Florida or California have.”
Georgia’s diversity of small banks was an asset when the economy was strong, with consumers benefiting from competitive rates and broader sources of credit, said James Verbrugge, a professor emeritus of finance at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business. It became a liability when the bottom fell out of the housing market and smaller banks had less capital to weather the crisis.
“If the development comes to a screeching halt and even half of your loan portfolio is concentrated in that one basket, then you’re in trouble,” Verbrugge said.
With the financial meltdown centered on Atlanta, nobody in Gibson expected to feel the fallout in tiny Glascock County, which has the third-smallest population of any in Georgia. But bad loans took a toll there, too, after the bank was sold to new owners who moved its headquarters to the Atlanta area.
The town’s bank was founded in 1905 as the Bank of Gibson. It survived two world wars and the Great Depression under the local ownership of Erasmus Eggleston Griffin Sr. and two succeeding generations — until family members with a controlling interest opted to sell the bank in 2000. Then, it was renamed FirstCity.
When FirstCity closed, residents felt it immediately. Customers’ ATM cards no longer worked. Outstanding checks were worthless. Until the FDIC issued checks the next week for the insured amount of residents accounts, people were left with nothing but the cash in their pockets.
Audra Mason, who styles hair at a salon two blocks from the bank, had several customers cancel haircut appointments because they didn’t have cash to pay her. Jennie Veazey, a cook at a local diner, got her boss to pay her in cash until she received checks and a new ATM card for her new account.
Hazel Bedingfield, 79, fretted over the 24-mile trip to claim her Social Security payment from Thomson, where the FDIC re-routed direct deposits for government checks to a new account at a SunTrust Bank in a nearby county.
“It does gall you,” Bedingfield said. “Just because we’re a little bitty county doesn’t mean we don’t need a bank. It wasn’t our fault.”
Faltering loans played a role in the demise of FirstCity, said Robert E. Maloney Jr., the bank’s attorney. The bank had 24.6 million in nonperforming loans in 2008, meaning no payments had been made for 90 days or more, and a loss of 8.3 million last year.
“Smaller banks make loans to people that can’t get loans at larger banks,” Maloney said. “Did we put our eggs too much in the real estate development market? Obviously we did.”
Anthony Griswell, chairman of the Glascock County Commission, said he’s confident another bank will move into Gibson. Residents, meanwhile, are moving money to banks outside the county. Judy McDonald, a retired county employee, said she and her husband opened two accounts — with different banks.
“We weren’t going to go through that mess again,” McDonald said.
DILLON, S.C. – Students who had grown resigned to old, “nasty” furnishings at their dilapidated middle school in rural South Carolina were elated Monday to find new furniture and a freshly painted cafeteria, thanks to a student’s plea, a president’s speech and a businessman’s response.
“I was amazed. They changed the whole thing,” said J.V. Martin Junior High eighth-grader Jessica Manning, 13. “It let me know somebody cares about us.”
Other students could be heard uttering the words “awesome” and “excellent” as they stared at the new furniture, custom made in black with varnished oak tops, that replaced creaky old desks coated in graffiti and chewing gum.
President Barack Obama brought national attention to the school Feb. 24 in his first address to Congress when he read a letter from eighth-grader Ty’Sheoma Bethea asking for help replacing her run-down school.
Bethea had addressed her letter to Congress, so her principal sent it to the White House and South Carolina’s congressional delegation.
Darryl Rosser, CEO of classroom furniture supplier Sagus International, called Principal Amanda Burnette the day after Obama read Bethea’s plea. After visiting the campus four weeks ago, Rosser said he knew he had to do what he could.
Over the weekend, Sagus sent nearly 2,000 pieces of furniture on four tractor-trailer loads. Volunteers worked throughout the weekend to put the surprise together, including a final coat of paint about 8 p.m. Sunday.
The furniture, plus setup and shipping by Sagus partners, was worth an estimated 250,000, Rosser said.
On Monday, Rosser said students’ reactions made it all worthwhile.
“It was heartwarming,” he said, smiling widely.
The cafeteria is newly painted in the school’s black and gold colors, with a three-dimensional Wildcats logo behind the stage.
Words of encouragement from leaders such as Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. adorn the walls. But the students chose as their favorite these words of President Obama: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
At a school assembly attended by state schools chief Jim Rex, U.S. Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., Rep. Jackie Hayes, D-Dillon, and Sen. Kent Williams, D-Marion, Rosser got a standing ovation.
Rex said Rosser, whose business is based in Chicago, demonstrated what South Carolinians should do more often, when it comes to public education. “I’m a little bit regretful that this is necessary, that we need this type of philanthropy,” he said. “For too long in South Carolina people have walked away. … We must instead learn to step up.”
At the assembly, examples of the old desks sat in a semi-circle, tagged with their age — circa 1940 to 1980.
They were “nasty,” said eighth-grader Johnarra Bethea. “All the other desks had writing on it and gum under them,” said the 13-year-old.
Her math teacher, Audrey Hunt, said the new desks have transformed her classroom, which formerly had mismatched desks, including a broken one students kept moving around, so they didn’t have to sit in it.
“It’s inviting,” she said. “It dresses the room up.”
Band teacher Kevin McLellan, a former J.V. Martin student, said he’s been asking for new seats for years. The new ergonomic chairs will improve students’ posture and sound, he said.
After three classes using the new furniture, eighth-grader Darby Hamer said her back felt better than usual, and the new desktops offered more room for books.
“And these don’t squeak,” said the 14-year-old.
The student who brought the attention to J.V. Martin said the correctly-sized furniture will help students focus.
“Even though our dream is not yet completed … We now have a better school. We now feel better about our school,” Ty’Sheoma Bethea said. “We are not quitters,” she added, mimicking the words in her letter, “and we are not through.”