Top 10 Notorious Mexican Drug Lords

The arrest of a series of Mexican criminal kingpins, including Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez last month and Sergio "El Grande" Villarreal, offers small encouragement as Mexico tries to rein in the powerful drug cartels that have wreaked havoc across the country. TIME looks at 10 prominent gangsters who have so far evaded justice, despite rewards offered for their arrest on both sides of the border

AFP / Getty Images

Joaquín Guzmán

By Ioan Grillo Wednesday, Sep. 15, 2010

Alias: Chapo (Shorty)
Affiliation: Sinaloa cartel
Born: April 4, 1957, in La Tuna, Sinaloa
Bounty: $5 million (U.S.), 30 million pesos (Mexico)
What We Know: Guzmán stands just 5 ft. 6 in. tall. He escaped from a high-security prison in a laundry cart in 2001 and has since been blamed for starting bloody turf wars all over Mexico. He reportedly got married to an 18-year-old beauty queen in 2007; in 2008, his son was shot dead and Guzmán reportedly had 50,000 red roses sent to the funeral.

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Ismael Zambada

By Ioan Grillo

Aliases: El Mayo (named after a native Sinaloan tribe), El Rey (The King), The MZ
Affiliation: Sinaloa cartel
Born: Jan. 1, 1948, in Sinaloa
Bounty: $5 million (U.S.), 30 million pesos (Mexico)
What We Know: Zambada reportedly once worked as a furniture removal man before becoming a gangster. He's an old ally and friend of Joaquín Guzmán and appeared on the front cover of Mexico's top newsmagazine Proceso this year. He said in the interview he had one wife and five mistresses and claimed that the army had been close to catching him several times.

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Reuters / Corbis

Heriberto Lazcano

By Ioan Grillo

Aliases: The Executioner, El Lazca, Z-3
Affiliation: Los Zetas
Born: Dec. 25, 1974, in Veracruz
Bounty: $5 million (U.S.), 30 million pesos (Mexico)
What We Know: Lazcano served in the Mexican armed forces as part of the elite Airborne Special Forces Group. He reportedly received U.S. and Israeli military training, but defected in the late 1990s to work as an enforcer for the Gulf cartel. He has since broken off to head one of the most murderous gangs in the Mexican drug war, the Zetas — allegedly responsible for the recent massacre of 72 migrants.

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Vicente Carrillo Fuentes

By Ioan Grillo

Alias: The Viceroy
Affiliation: Juarez cartel
Born: Oct. 16, 1962, in Guamachilito, Sinaloa
Bounty: $5 million (U.S.), 30 million pesos (Mexico)
What We Know: Fuentes inherited the Juarez cartel from his brother, who was known as the Lord of the Skies because of a fleet of Boeing 727 jet airliners used to traffic cocaine. He allegedly formed a ruthless band of killers, including corrupt police officers, known as La Linea. His cartel is also said to work with a U.S. prison gang, the Barrio Azteca, to carry out murders.

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Jorge Eduardo Costilla

By Ioan Grillo

Alias: El Coss
Affiliation: Gulf cartel
Born: Aug. 1, 1971, in Matamoros
Bounty: $5 million (U.S.), 30 million pesos (Mexico)
What We Know: Costilla heads a cartel that supposedly first grew out of a gang of bootleggers back in the days of American prohibition. Costilla was indicted in the U.S. for being part of a group that threatened an FBI and DEA agent with Kalashnikov rifles. He used to work closely with the Zetas cartel, but now is at the forefront of a war to exterminate them.

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Héctor Beltrán Leyva

By Ioan Grillo

Alias: El H (The H)
Affiliation: Beltrán Leyva Organization
Born: Feb. 15, 1965, in Sinaloa
Bounty: $5 million (U.S.), 30 million pesos (Mexico)
What We Know: He was one of five brothers who trafficked tons of drugs to the U.S. The brothers used to work with other Sinaloan gangsters but took their leave in 2008 and have been in a violent turf war with Joaquín Guzmán's faction since. His brother Arturo was shot dead by marines in December 2009. Gunmen then massacred a marine's family in what appears to be an act of retribution. Leyva has been indicted in New York and the District of Colombia.

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Nazario Moreno González

By Ioan Grillo

Aliases: El Mas Loco (The Maddest One), El Chayo
Affiliation: La Familia Michoacana
Born: March 8, 1970, in Guanajuatillo, Michoacan
Bounty: $5 million (U.S.), 30 million pesos (Mexico)
What We Know: González specializes in trafficking crystal meth. He converted to evangelical Christianity while in the U.S. and has since written his own Bible, which is compulsory reading for his troops. He invokes principles of divine justice when setting out to defeat his enemies and is also a fan of the Godfather trilogy and the film Braveheart

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Juan José Esparragoza

By Ioan Grillo

Alias: El Azul (The Blue)
Affiliation: Sinaloa cartel
Born: Feb. 3, 1949, in Chuicopa, Sinaloa
Bounty: $5 million (U.S.), 30 million pesos (Mexico)
What We Know: Esparragoza is allied to Joaquín Guzmán and Ismael Zambada. His nickname is linked to the complexion of his skin, which is considered by some as dark enough to be blue. He is believed to have had plastic surgery and sources say he recently had a huge wedding-anniversary bash in central Mexico.

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Antonio Ezequiel Cárdenas

By Ioan Grillo

Alias: Tony Tormenta
Affiliation: Gulf cartel
Born: March 5, 1962, in Matamoros
Bounty: $5 million (U.S.), 30 million pesos (Mexico)
What We Know: He is the brother of Osiel "the Friend Killer" Cárdenas, who led the Gulf cartel until his arrest in 2003. He now runs the organization along with Jorge Eduardo Costilla. Ezequiel Cárdenas allegedly forged links with the Italian Mafia to move drugs through the U.S. and on to Europe.

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Luis Fernando Sánchez Arellano

By Ioan Grillo

Alias: El Ingeniero (The Engineer)
Affiliation: Tijuana cartel
Born: Circa 1980 in Tijuana
Bounty: $2 million (U.S.), 30 million pesos (Mexico)
What We Know: The heir of the Arellano Félix clan that has held sway over the border city of Tijuana since the 1980s. His uncles were portrayed in the movie Traffic as the Obregón brothers. Although weakened by the rise of other criminal outfits, the Tijuana cartel still controls a valuable piece of trafficking turf along the Mexican border.

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Source : http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2019221_2019202,00.html

'honour suicides'

sOURCE : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Now-honour-suicides-in-TN/articleshow/6588411.cms

CHENNAI: In Sivaganga district of south Tamil Nadu, an agrarian pocket made famous by its high-profile MP and home minister P Chidambaram, 39 women committed suicide from January 2008 to June 2010. In southern Tamil Nadu's Theni district, which holds Andipatti from where AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa contests for the assembly elections, 82 suicides by women were recorded by the police during the same period. In Virudhunagar district, 90 suicides were recorded and in Thoothukudi, 136.

The statistics may appear innocuous, though worrying, as all these districts are caste-sensitive. Activists in the region are waking up to a new possibility — that these suicides could well be driven by 'caste honour'. The figures are replies to RTI queries to district authorities by a Madurai-based NGO, Evidence.

''We are beginning to believe that many of these suicides are actually instigated and could even be murders, but registered by the police under IPC as suicides,'' says A Kathir of Evidence, an NGO campaigning for the cause of dalits. ''In the last three months alone, there have been six cases of honour killings in Tamil Nadu,'' Kathir says, pointing out that in almost all the cases, the alleged murders were a fallout of caste hatred. ''And in five of the six cases, it is the women who were either murdered or driven to suicide.''

As the Centre mulls an amendment to the Indian Evidence Act in the wake of a recent rash of 'honour' killings in the north, murders and instigated suicides to uphold ''honour'' continue in Tamil Nadu's caste-sensitive southern districts. The amendment seeks to put the onus on the caste councils to prove their innocence and make them equally culpable.

According to CPM state secretariat member P Sampath, half-hearted attempts by successive state governments to bridge the inter-caste divide — the state-sponsored social justice tea parties, 'samathuvapurams' (egalitarian colonies) and cash incentives for inter-caste marriages — are mere cosmetic efforts. There's a clear lack of political will and blatant attempts to nurture caste groups and stoke hatred.

''The government is neither keen on legislation nor do they have a proper social outlook. They see caste-related issues as a law and order problem,'' says Sampath.

Disfiguring cost life upset

Friday, Sep. 17, 2010

She is extremely upset and remorseful. This got much bigger than she expected.

• MARLA SCHUMAN,
• a police officer, on Bethany Storro, a woman who gained national sympathy when she claimed to be the victim of an acid attack but later admitted that she had disfigured herself

Courtesy : http://www.time.com/time/quotes

Mexico : Photojournalist killed in Ciudad Juarez

Photojournalist killed in Ciudad Juarez

Agents try to stop flow of drug money into Mexico

Stashing cash in spare tires, engine transmissions and truckloads of baby diapers, couriers for Mexican drug cartels are moving tens of billions of dollars south across the border each year. U.S. border and customs agents at crossings such as this one in Laredo, Tex., inspect vehicles for drug money in an effort to catch the bulk cash before it makes it into Mexico.

By William Booth

Friday, September 17, 2010

The dead photographer was Luis Carlos Santiago Orozco, 21. The two men had attended a workshop at the newspaper in the morning and were getting lunch when they were attacked, according to local journalists. The mall, just down the block from the newspaper, was crowded with shoppers and cars on Mexico's independence day.

Santiago is the second journalist with El Diario to be killed in the past two years. In November 2008, the paper's lead crime reporter, Armando "El Choco" Rodriguez, was killed in front of his house as he was getting his young daughter off to school. That slaying has not been solved.

Reporters in Ciudad Juarez, one of the most violent cities in the world, continue to chronicle the carnage that has left more than 2,150 people dead there this year.

Across Mexico, journalists have been kidnapped, their publishers have been threatened and at least 22 reporters have been killed since President Felipe Calderon began his U.S.-backed, military-led fight against the cartels in December 2006, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

India overhauls homeland security, U.S. firms vie for its business

By Rama Lakshmi

Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 18, 2010

NEW DELHI - At a sprawling exhibition hall in the capital, Indian military officers browsed displays of modern surveillance systems, sophisticated mine detectors, anti-hacking software and guns. They asked questions, took notes and scheduled meetings with company officials, setting in motion a major shopping spree.

In recent years, India has secured billion-dollar defense deals with U.S. companies to modernize its military. Now the country is overhauling its homeland security, and U.S. companies are again hoping to be first in line.

"As far as internal security goes, its strengthening and augmentation, there is going to be no dearth of money or resources," Ajay Maken, India's deputy home minister, said at the security conference this month.

After the terrorist attacks in Mumbai two years ago, authorities demanded better weapons and more sophisticated technology for police forces. Today, surveillance cameras, metal detectors, X-ray machines and bomb squads proliferate in airports, the Metro, malls, multiplexes and high-rises.

But analysts say the country's arsenal of domestic security weapons remains woefully inadequate in the battle against terrorism, separatist violence and Maoist guerrillas.

To upgrade its arsenal, India should turn to a "country which is strategically a friend of India," Maken said.

India and the United States have emerged as strong strategic allies since reaching a civilian nuclear accord that is likely to generate more than $100 billion worth of business. The two countries set up a counterterrorism cooperation initiative this year. Last month, Indian law enforcement and the FBI participated in a counterterrorism program that included sessions on improvised explosive devices and post-blast investigations.

"The two governments have outlined the 'what' of homeland security priority areas. The industry will now map the 'how,' said retired U.S. Adm. James Loy, a former deputy secretary of homeland security and commandant of the Coast Guard. "The American companies want to make a contribution in the areas of counterterrorism, police modernization, cyber-security and transport safety."

Business opportunities for security companies over the next few years will be worth nearly $1.7 trillion, said Loy, who led a U.S. delegation to the conference this month.

Maken said India is also setting up a national intelligence database and modern crime tracking systems that prioritize cyber-security. "The more we are technologically advanced, the more is the threat of infiltration in our networking systems," he said.

India's internal security department has also bought long-range acoustic warning systems, sound guns and other devices from American companies.

In recent weeks, the country's police and paramilitary forces have been widely criticized for firing at stone-throwing teenage protesters in the troubled Himalayan valley of Kashmir. About 85 protesters have been killed this summer.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has directed state police chiefs to find nonlethal means to control mobs. That opened up opportunities for companies such as Taser International, an Arizona-based firm that set up an office in India after the Mumbai attacks and attended the homeland security conference this month.

In August, paramilitary forces and the Kashmir police department decided to buy Tasers, and the state's police officers are now learning how to use them. India's national police training school and commando force have also bought Tasers this year for training.

"Earlier, our force had weapons that were meant to kill," said P.M. Nair, inspector general of the Central Reserve Police Force. "But now we have introduced nonlethal weapons to deal with volatile situations in Kashmir or other demonstrations elsewhere in the country."

Source : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/18/AR2010091803534.html

A question between conventional fish and genetically modified salmon

FDA rules won't require labeling of genetically modified salmon

By Lyndsey Layton

Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 18, 2010



As the Food and Drug Administration considers whether to approve genetically modified salmon, one thing seems certain: Shoppers staring at fillets in the seafood department will find it tough to pick out the conventional fish from the one created with genes from another species.

Despite a growing public demand for more information about how food is produced, that won't happen with the salmon because of idiosyncracies embedded in federal regulations.

The FDA says it cannot require a label on the genetically modified food once it determines that the altered fish is not "materially" different from other salmon - something agency scientists have said is true.

Perhaps more surprising, the agency won't let conventional food makers trumpet the fact that their products don't contain genetically modified ingredients.

The labeling question has emerged as the FDA determines whether to approve the fish, an Atlantic salmon known as AquAdvantage that grows twice as fast as its natural counterpart. The decision carries great weight because, while genetically modified agriculture has been permitted for years and engineered crops are widely used in processed foods, this would be the first modified animal allowed for human consumption in the United States.

The AquAdvantage salmon has been given a gene from the ocean pout, an eel-like fish, and a growth hormone from a Chinook salmon.

'The public wants to know'

Consumer advocates say they worry about labeling for genetically engineered beef, pork and other fish, which are lining up behind the salmon for federal approval.

"The public wants to know and the public has a right to know," said Marion Nestle, a professor in the Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health Department at New York University. "I think the agency has discretion, but it's under enormous political pressure to approve [the salmon] without labeling."

The debate will be taken up this week, with an advisory committee meeting Sunday and Monday on whether to allow the modified fish, and a separate panel meeting Tuesday on whether the fish should be labeled. The panels will offer recommendations to the FDA commissioner, who will decide both matters.

The biotechnology industry is opposed to mandatory labeling, saying it will only bewilder a public that is not well informed about genetic engineering.

"Extra labeling only confuses the consumer," said David Edwards, director of animal biotechnology at the Biotechnology Industry Organization. "It differentiates products that are not different. As we stick more labels on products that don't really tell us anything more, it makes it harder for consumers to make their choices."

The FDA defends its approach, saying it is simply following the law, which prohibits misleading labels on food.

And the fact that a food, in this case salmon, is produced through a different process, is not sufficient to require a label.

The controversy comes at a time when Americans seem to want to know more about their food - where it is grown, how it is produced and what it contains. Books criticizing industrial agriculture have become bestsellers, farmers markets are expanding and organic food is among the fastest-growing segments of the food industry.

The FDA itself is part of a new effort to improve nutrition information on processed foods.

In the European Union and Japan, it is nearly impossible to find genetically modified foods, largely because laws require labeling, said William K. Hallman, director of the Food Policy Institute at Rutgers University. "No one wants to carry products with such a label," he said. "The food companies figure that consumers won't buy it."

There is nothing to stop salmon producers or food makers in the United States from voluntarily labeling their products as genetically engineered - except a fear of rejection in the marketplace, Hallman said. "I don't know of a single company that does that," he said.

The FDA maintains it can only require labeling if a genetically engineered food is somehow different from the conventional version - if it has an unusual texture, taste, nutritional component or allergen, for example.

Although some consumer advocates maintain there are important differences, the agency's scientists have already said they see no "biologically relevant" variations between the AquAdvantage salmon and traditional salmon.

Consumers could be certain of getting the non-modified version if they bought salmon labeled as "wild," but most salmon consumed in this country is farmed.

Ever since the FDA approved the first genetically altered material for use in food in 1992, when Monsanto developed a synthetic hormone injected into cows to increase milk production, the agency has held that it cannot require food producers to label products as genetically engineered.

In the intervening years, the use of genetically engineered crops has skyrocketed; 93 percent of this year's soybean crop is genetically engineered, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Byproducts of those crops - soy lecithin, for example - are found in thousands of processed foods from chocolate bars to breakfast cereal; none is labeled as containing genetically modified ingredients.

No 'Hormone Free' either

The labeling matter is further complicated because the FDA has maintained a tough stance for food makers who don't use genetically engineered ingredients and want to promote their products as an alternative.

The agency warned the dairy industry in 1994 that it could not use "Hormone Free" labeling on milk from cows that are not given engineered hormones, because all milk contains some hormones.

It has sent a flurry of enforcement letters to food makers, including B&G Foods, which was told it could not use the phrase "GMO-free" on its Polaner All Fruit strawberry spread label because GMO refers to genetically modified organisms and strawberries are produce, not organisms.

It told the maker of Spectrum Canola Oil that it could not use a label that included a red circle with a line through it and the words "GMO," saying the symbol suggested that there was something wrong with genetically engineered food.

"This to me raises questions about whose interest the FDA is protecting," said Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), who has introduced legislation that would require labeling for genetically engineered food. "They are clearly protecting industry and not the public."

One state with a sizable salmon fishing industry - Alaska - passed a law in 2005 that requires labeling of any genetically engineered fish sold there.

"One side of the argument says let's give consumers sovereignty over their food choices," Hallman said. "The other says we've done the science on this and it's no different, so if we put a label on it, we're implying it's somehow risky and that's like government imposed false advertising."

Courtesy : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/18/AR2010091803520.html

Top 10 Famous Volcanoes

After 400 years of dormancy, Indonesia's Mount Sinabung has woken up from its slumber with an eruption that has already displaced 30,000 people. TIME takes a look at other well-known volcanoes and the destruction they caused
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Mount Vesuvius

By Claire Suddath Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2010

Christie's Images / CORBIS

Mt. Vesuvius, the active volcano that looms over the Bay of Naples in southern Italy, has erupted well over 30 times that we know of. And yet its most famous eruption took place all the way back in A.D. 79, when a multiday eruption of lava and ash covered the cities of Pompeii and Stabiae in ash. Pliny the Younger, author of the only surviving eyewitness account, described a sudden explosion followed by blankets of ash that fell on people as they tried to escape. The total number of Vesuvius' victims will most likely never be known, but archeologists are aware of at least 1,000.
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Krakatoa

By Ishaan Tharoor

Martin Rietze / Westend61 / Corbis

In 1883, the volcano on the Indonesian island of Krakatoa erupted with 13,000 times the power of an atomic bomb. The sound of the spewing smoke and rock was reportedly heard thousands of miles away, as far as islands off the eastern coast of Africa. Hundreds in a nearby Sumatran town died almost instantly when flaming ash incinerated their homes, and many more were washed away by subsequent megatsunamis. An estimated 36,000 or so perished in total. Krakatoa itself then slumped into the boiling depths of the ocean, but a new island at the site was spotted in 1927, and it still occasionally spits lava into the sky. It's been dubbed Anak Krakatoa, or Child of Krakatoa.
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Mount St. Helens

By Kayla Webley

Steve & Donna O'Meara / National Geographic Creative / Getty Images

Mount St. Helens was getting ready to burst for nearly two months before it exploded, not to mention the more than 120 years it lay dormant. While the eruption was anticipated, the manner in which it occurred was completely unprecedented. At 8:32 a.m. on May 18, 1980, a 5.1-magnitude earthquake triggered a sideways blast that swept the mountain's north face away into a cascading landslide that shot hot ash and stone out some 15 miles at speeds of at least 300 m.p.h. At the same time, a mushroom-shaped plume of ash shot 16 miles into the air, eventually covering three states. Complete darkness blanketed Spokane, Wash., a city about 250 miles northeast of the volcano. When the ash came down it fell in the form of black rain that literally coated the residents of Washington, Idaho and parts of Montana with a fine gray powder. Fifty-seven people and thousands of animals were killed, and some 200 square miles of trees were obliterated. In 1982, Congress and President Ronald Reagan designated the surrounding land as the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.
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Mount Tambora

By Alexandra Silver

Atli Mar Hafsteinsson / Nordicphotos / Corbis

The Volcanic Explosivity Index goes up to 8. On that scale, the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora rates a very destructive 7. The explosion took place on the island of Sumbawa (then in the Dutch East Indies, now in Indonesia) and plunged the region into darkness, but its effects were anything but isolated. Tens of thousands of people were killed by the apocalyptic eruption, subsequent tsunamis and ensuing starvation and disease. The largest volcanic eruption in recorded history changed the world's climate so much (even crops in Europe and North America failed) that 1816 became known as "the year without a summer." Tambora itself shrank several thousand feet and traded its peak for a massive crater at its summit.
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Mauna Loa

By Kayla Webley

Roger Ressmeyer / CORBIS

It's fitting that the state created out of a chain of volcanic islands would be home to the world's largest volcano. Mauna Loa is located on the Big Island of Hawaii and in addition to being the largest, with a summit nearly 13,700 feet high, it is also one of the world's most active. Since 1843, Mauna Loa has erupted 33 times, most recently in 1984. At 60 miles long and 30 miles wide, Mauna Loa, the name of which fittingly means "Long Mountain" in Hawaiian, takes up about half of the Big Island. Its mass also amounts to 85% of all the other Hawaiian Islands combined.
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Eyjafjallajokull

By Alexandra Silver

Arctic-Images / Corbis

It was like an overly contrived disaster flick: A mammoth cloud of ash from an Icelandic volcano creeps across the European continent, shutting down airports and stranding hundreds of thousands for days. Across the globe, people curse the volcano — or attempt to, since few can actually pronounce the name Eyjafjallajokull. And despite all our technological prowess, human ingenuity is shown to be futile in the face of an ash plume.

Eyjafjallajokull, whose name means "Island Mountain Glacier" in Icelandic, first erupted this year on March 20. But it was the eruption that began April 14 that wrought all the havoc, ultimately costing the airline industry more than $1 billion.

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Mount Pelée

By Frances Romero

Pete Turner / Stone Sub / Getty Images

Mount Pelée, standing more than 4,500 feet high on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, erupted violently in May 1902, killing nearly 30,000 people — effectively the entire port city of St. Pierre. The catastrophe was so devastating that the term pelean — to describe that particular kind of ash, gas and fiery cloud eruption — became part of volcanic vernacular. There had been warnings of steam, light earth shocks and raining ash, but they were ignored. After the town was wiped out, Pelée went dormant for some months, until geologists discovered a lava dome, dubbed the tower of Pelée, that rose to more than 1,000 feet above the crater floor before eventually crumbling in March 1903.
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Thera

By Ishaan Tharoor

World History Archive / Alamy

Some 3,500 years ago, an event of cataclysmic proportions rocked the Mediterranean. The volcano at Thera (later known as the Greek island of Santorini) exploded with what is estimated at four to five times the eruptive force of Krakatoa in 1883, blowing a hole into the Aegean isle and sending out shock waves that, according to historians, would reverberate for centuries to come. The great seafaring Minoan civilization, the dominant Greek culture of the time, potentially withered away after clouds of ash enveloped its cities and great tsunami waves smashed its fleets. Stories of a world-shaking eruption linger in legends across the Mediterranean. For years, adventure-seeking archaeologists have even pored through Thera's geological record in search of the fabled lost city of Atlantis. Ancient Egyptian stela from roughly the same era chronicle a volcanic storm that "caused darkness in the Western region" and "annihilated" towns and temples alike. And some biblical scholars have even suggested Thera's destructive effects underlie the Old Testament's tales of God-sent plagues and devastation.
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Nevado del Ruiz

By Josh Sanburn

Jonathan Utz / AFP / Getty Images

The eruption was small — in volcanic terms, that is — producing only about 3% of the ash ejected by Mount St. Helens in 1980. Instead, it was the mudflows that made Colombia's 1985 Nevado del Ruiz explosion the second deadliest in the 20th century and the fourth deadliest in recorded history. The volcano has been blowing its top since the Pleistocene era and has erupted three times in modern history, including in 1595 and 1845. But on Nov. 13, 1985, a relatively small explosion unleashed floods that swept away 1,500 people on one side of the mountain. On the other side was the town of Armero, the site of the worst destruction. 25-m.p.h. lahars (volcanic mudflows) obliterated the town and blanketed it in gray muck. When the landslides subsided, 23,000 people had died and damage was estimated at $1 billion — one-fifth of Colombia's GNP at the time.
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Mount Pinatubo

By Josh Sanburn

Roger Ressmeyer / CORBIS

When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, the amount of sulfuric ash it sent into the stratosphere cooled global ground temperatures by 1°F for the next two years. To be fair, it hadn't erupted for six centuries, so there was some catching up to do. A year before the eruption, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck about 60 miles northeast of Pinatubo, causing landslides and an increase in steam emissions from one of the volcano's geothermal areas, ultimately setting the stage for the 1991 explosion. While the eruption resulted in about 7,000 deaths, many scientists predicted the explosion, thus saving the lives of an estimated 5,000. Still, the eruption produced one of the most dramatic environmental scenes ever witnessed. With ash that rose 22 miles into the sky, it is considered the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.

COURTESY : http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2014572_2014574_2014626,00.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11318342

15 September 2010 Last updated at 17:59 GMT

India debates whether to continue receiving British aid

India has many of the poorest people in the world

The Indian government is debating whether it should still accept any development aid from Britain.

India is currently the biggest recipient of UK development aid, receiving more than £800m (about $1.25bn) over the three years to 2011.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao told the BBC no final decision had been made.

Britain's Department for International Development (DfID) says it is reviewing its spending, and close dialogue with the Indian government will continue.

The BBC's Chris Morris in Delhi says there are those who argue that a country like India, which has an economy growing at nearly 10% a year and a massive defence budget, simply does not need British development assistance.

On the other hand, nearly half a billion people in India are still desperately poor and efforts to reduce global poverty will make no significant progress if those figures do not improve, our correspondent says.

Leaked memo

An internal memo - written by Mrs Rao and leaked to a local newspaper - appeared to suggest that India had already decided it did not want any more development aid from Britain after April next year.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

No decision on future funding to India has been made and we are in close dialogue with the government of India ”

End Quote DfID spokesperson

But Mrs Rao says the quotes used have been taken out of context.

She admits that there is a debate within government about whether any development aid is still needed. But no decision has been taken, and there will be full consultation with London.

British officials say the tone of the leaked memo does not reflect what they are hearing from the rest of the Indian government.

When Prime Minister David Cameron met his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh in Delhi recently, it was agreed that no-one would make a decision about giving or receiving development aid without a proper consultation process.

Britain is already reviewing its development budget, and re-examining its priorities.

"All DfID's country programmes are currently under review to ensure our aid helps the poorest people in the poorest countries," a spokesperson in London said.

India's Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, told parliament recently that India would prefer to voluntarily surrender money if Britain made a decision to cut aid.

So as well as financial considerations in both countries, there is an element of national pride at stake, our correspondent says - if Britain decides to cut aid to India, Delhi may say it does not want the money anyway.

The nuke next door AND GREEN EARTH : How safe we are

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/green/index.html

The nuke next door: Small and powerful

Take a mental stroll through the streets of Anytown, U.S.A. City hall is on your left, the movie theater on your right. And in the distance, there's the gentle steam plume billowing from the cooling tower of the miniature nuclear reactor that powers the quaint little burg.




http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/13/AR2010091304026.html

Miniature nuclear reactors might be a safe, efficient source of power

By Brian Palmer

Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Correction: It was incorrectly reported that the US has depleted uranium sitting in Portsmouth, NH. It sits in Portsmouth, OH.

Take a mental stroll through the streets of Anytown, U.S.A. City hall is on your left, the movie theater on your right. Smell the delights from the bakery. And in the distance, there's the gentle steam plume billowing from the cooling tower of the miniature nuclear reactor that powers the quaint little burg.

Not your idea of Americana? Wait a decade or two. The government and its private partners are developing reactors that one day might power your home town.

Not long ago, siting a nuclear reactor anywhere near a population center would have been unthinkable. While the 1979 Three Mile Island reactor meltdown didn't cause any deaths or injuries, it soured Americans on nuclear energy. Construction of new reactors came to an abrupt halt. The dramatic Chernobyl meltdown in 1986, meanwhile, created widespread fear that another accident could be even more disastrous.

Then along came carbon dioxide. Writing in The Post in 2006, Patrick Moore, a founding member of Greenpeace who sailed on the group's first protest against nuclear weapons testing in 1971, noted: "More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36 percent of U.S. emissions -- or nearly 10 percent of global emissions -- of CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power."

Greenpeace considers Moore a turncoat, and he's not the only one to be tossed out of the environmental establishment for pro-nuclear heresy. Hugh Montefiore, an Anglican cleric who was a stalwart in the movement, was forced to resign from the board of Friends of the Earth in 2004 for advocating nuclear power as a tool to combat global warming.

Back in the mainstream

Today, supporting nuclear power as a green alternative is quite mainstream. In his 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama advocated "building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants." In February, the administration offered to guarantee a loan for construction of the first nuclear plant to be built in the United States since the 1970s. The same month, billionaire Bill Gates gave his backing to the nuclear power renaissance, investing $50 million in TerraPower, a nuclear power research company that is hoping to design a new generation of reactors.

The question for many has shifted from whether to build nuclear plants to where and how. And increasingly there's interest in the idea of mini reactors: power plants that provide energy for only a small area.

When nuclear scientists talk about the size of a reactor, they're talking about maximum electrical output, not square footage. The world's largest reactors generate 1,455 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 1.5 million households. A program being run by the Department of Energy is focusing on models that would produce about 300 megawatts, enough for Knoxville, Tenn., according to Dan Ingersoll of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. They may go even smaller, producing 50-megawatt reactors that could power small towns or even individual work sites, such as mines, that may be located far from the main energy grid.

Think locally

There are virtues to local reactors. If a reactor powers only one community, it can be built close to the end users. Between 4 and 10 percent of the electricity produced by U.S. power plants vanishes as it travels through power lines on its way to users. Building smaller plants and putting them closer to population centers could cut that figure significantly.

And doing so can save on construction costs as well. "It's getting very difficult and very expensive to lay new transmission lines," says Ingersoll. "This offers the possibility of providing isolated communities with power."

Believe it or not, living near a nuclear reactor may be safer than living near a coal-fired plant, which spews a host of dangerous chemicals into the air. The only visible emissions from a reactor is steam; the spent fuel is more of a byproduct. (More on that later.).

What about radiation, you ask? The ash coming from a typical coal plant carries plenty of radiation: According to some estimates, it carries 100 times more radiation into the surrounding area than a nuclear reactor producing the same amount of energy.

Smaller reactors might also be cheaper than their bigger siblings, according to Ingersoll. It costs a lot of money to build a gigawatt reactor (i.e., one that produces 1,000 megawatts), in part because it has to be put together on-site, one piece at a time, by expert welding crews. In today's larger reactors, all of which are being built outside the United States, the reactor vessel -- that's the cylindrical vault in which the fission takes place -- is about 90 feet in diameter, much too large to be shipped overland in one piece. Reactor vessels for mini plants would be as small as about 10 feet across and could be loaded onto a train or maybe even onto the bed of a trailer. Once the pieces get to the site, they can be bolted together with far less manpower and equipment.

Small reactors can also be daisy-chained together as a city grows. Consider this: Today's typical 1,000-megawatt reactor can power a city of about a million homes. What happens when the population grows by 20 percent? A second big reactor would be expensive and unnecessary. Smaller increments are more manageable.

A big 'but'

Not convinced? You're not alone. Opponents point out that small reactors don't begin to solve the most worrisome aspects of nuclear energy: dangerous waste and the potential that the fuel could be used to build a weapon.

When you remove used-up fuel from a reactor, it's incredibly hot and very radioactive. The spent rods are moved into a concrete-encased pool, where they spend years cooling off. Eventually, they should be moved to a long-term storage facility, but one doesn't exist yet. (No one wants nuclear waste stored in their state.) As a result, there are more than 50,000 tons of uranium soaking in pools next to U.S. reactors, waiting for a permanent home.

As for the risks of nuclear proliferation, it's hard to separate generating nuclear power from building nuclear weapons, because the first few steps of the process are nearly identical.

Uranium can take several forms, which differ based on the number of neutrons in the nucleus. When miners pull uranium from a mine, more than 99 percent of what they get is U-238, which isn't all that useful for either power or weapons.

Today's nuclear reactors want the slightly lighter U-235. So the uranium ore is hauled off to enrichment plants, which keep pulling U-238 out of the sample until 3 to 5 percent of what's left is U-235. At that point, the sample can power a reactor.

"But you can use the same enrichment plant and just keep putting the stuff through over and over again until you get into the 90 percent range," says nuclear scientist John Gilleland, who runs TerraPower. "At that level, you can pipe all that stuff together and make a bomb."

Since you use the same ingredients, equipment and processes to create reactor and bomb fuel, countries such as Iran, which is suspected of having nuclear-weapons ambitions, can plausibly tell the world they're enriching for power-generation purposes for a long time before their true intentions are undeniable.

Many also fear that a nuclear cooling tower might look like a bull's-eye to a terrorist. The towers on small reactors would be narrower and shorter than those at big plants, since most of the reactor can be buried. While there has never been an attack on a nuclear plant, it remains a concern.

If it works . . .

TerraPower, the venture that has received Gates's backing, is working to develop a system that will solve some of the problems with today's nuclear reactors. Its "traveling wave reactor" would be powered almost completely by fuel rods containing depleted uranium, the concentrated U-238 that enrichment plants throw away after extracting U-235. (TerraPower plans to start with a 500-megawatt reactor, but it could be scaled smaller or larger as needed.)

Here's how it would work: A tiny amount of U-235 is introduced and split open, releasing a whole bunch of neutrons. The depleted uranium in the fuel rod absorbs one of the neutrons. The resulting form of uranium soon decays into plutonium, a very potent fissile material. When more neutrons strike the plutonium, huge amounts of energy are released, as well as some more neutrons to keep the reaction going.

The "traveling wave" term is fitting because this process starts at one end of the fuel rod and creeps slowly forward, burning up the U-238 as it goes. The progression could take as many as 60 years, another major advantage of the new reactor. Traditional reactors have to be stopped, opened and refueled every 18 months or so.

If it works, a traveling wave reactor would probably be cheaper than a similarly sized plant running on enriched uranium, since its fuel would be so plentiful. The United States has about 775,000 tons of depleted uranium sitting in steel cylinders in Paducah, Ky., Portsmouth, OH, and Oak Ridge, Tenn. In the long run, countries would no longer be able to disguise their bomb factories as power plants, because running a reactor with enriched uranium wouldn't make economic sense. And the world could stop mining uranium, a process fraught with political and environmental hazards. According to Gilleland, there's already enough depleted uranium to satisfy the power needs of 10 billion Americans for 100 millennia.

So what are the chances a nuclear reactor will soon join the skyline of New Orleans, a city that's about the right size for TerraPower's envisioned 500 megawatt plant? It will probably all come down to economics, says Amory Lovins, chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental think tank focused on the future of energy.

Lovins thinks that proponents of nuclear power are missing the bigger picture: The issue isn't whether nuclear energy can be made safely, it's whether it is the best option among the many sources of energy available.

According to Lovins, small modular reactors, whether based on traditional or traveling wave technology, are doomed to fail simply because the other options are cheaper. He notes that only one-third of the cost of nuclear power has anything to do with the reactor core. The majority of the cost is the steam-turbine machinery needed to convert the heat into electricity.

Even if small modular reactors are cheaper to assemble and the depleted uranium is free, he argues, nuclear will never be able to compete with wind and solar power, which also rely on free fuel but require far less capital investment.

The race for America's energy future is coming to a town near you. Will it be windmills or cooling towers? It all depends on the dollars and cents.

Hyperion, a New Mexico-based manufacturer, has said it plans to start delivering 25-megawatt reactors, which are about the size of a garden shed and cost around $25 million, in 2013. The first units will probably be installed in Eastern Europe. A few other companies, including Toshiba, are applying to the federal government for the right to build small reactors. And Oak Ridge's Ingersoll targets 2020 as the earliest date a U.S. city might come online.

Palmer is a freelance writer based in New York and a regular columnist for the Health and Science section's How and Why column.

The nuclear options

A growing number of companies hope to make nuclear power available on a smaller scale, often without the huge, traditional cooling towers. Some of the smallest include:

SOURCES: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Energy Institude, NuScale Power, Hyperion Power, TerraPower, Toshiba America | The Washington Post - Sept. 14, 2010

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2010/09/13/GR2010091306872.html?sid=ST2010091304950

Recollection of wounds : terrorists attacks

The terrorists attacks. Terrorism is a social, political and religious disease. The whole world need to be united to eradicate its root. Honest citizen should come forward and destroy where it sprouts. Maintain and preach peace and harmony.

We pray peace and harmony among nation.

The other superpower

China's rise and the challenges it faces

China builds influence
via cash in Brazil

Call it "dollar diplomacy," Chinese-style. The asian tiger's investments in Brazil and elsewhere reflect a "going out" strategy, which seeks to guarantee natural resources for development purposes. (Photo by Getty Images)

Source : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/world/china_superpower/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/25/AR2010072502979.html

China invests heavily in Brazil, elsewhere in pursuit of political heft

By John Pomfret

Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, July 26, 2010
PORTO DO ACU, BRAZIL -- Here along the golden sands that grace the Atlantic coastline 175 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, China is forging a new economic reality.

Just past a port where workers are building a two-mile-long pier to accommodate huge vessels known as Chinamaxes that will transport iron ore for China's ravenous steel industry, past berths for tankers to lug oil to Beijing, a city of factories is sprouting on an island almost twice the size of Manhattan. Many of the structures will be built with Chinese investment: a steel mill, a shipyard, an automobile plant, a factory to manufacture oil and gas equipment.

The port project recalls the China of the past decade: a worldwide effort to extract resources for use in the country's vast manufacturing sector. But the factory city represents something new: an aggressive push to invest in industries overseas to bolster the country's image and political influence.

Call it "dollar diplomacy," Chinese-style.

The investments in Brazil reflect China's "going out" strategy, which seeks to guarantee natural resources for development purposes and to shield the country's state-owned enterprises from slower growth at home. Flush with more than $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, China has directed its state firms to scour the globe for opportunities.

As it does so, China is playing by its own rules, giving its firms an edge over U.S. and other multinational companies bound by internationally mandated restrictions intended to promote fair competition. In addition, Brazil and other developing countries, which once saw China as an ally, are now realizing that Chinese companies are competing on their own turf for resources and market share. And some analysts say the United States has been slow to perceive that China is using investment to build political heft.

In the first half of this year, China's investment in Brazil topped $20 billion, more than 10 times all of China's previous investment in the country. That puts China on track to be Brazil's No. 1 investor for 2010, compared with 29th in 2009. China's investments are also booming elsewhere -- from Peru, where one-third of the minerals sector is in Chinese hands, to Japan, where Chinese mergers and acquisitions quadrupled from 2008 to 2009.

"They do not want to be perceived as just natural-resource eaters," said Eike Batista, the Brazilian billionaire behind the port project and one of the world's richest men. "To them, it's common sense."

Li Jianqiang, who runs China Shipping's operations in South America, sees big opportunities. "Brazil used to look to the U.S. and Europe, but then one day they discovered us and they realized how far behind they were. Money talks, and we understand that. If you have money, people respect you, and then you will have political power."

Chinese firms have bought stakes in Brazil's electrical grid; they are building steel mills, car plants and a telecommunications infrastructure in that country. Chinese grain companies are negotiating to buy huge tracts -- some larger than 600,000 acres -- of Brazilian outback to plant soybeans. Chinese firms have the inside track on landing a huge high-speed-rail contract. They want to help realize Brazil's gargantuan plans -- estimated at more than $250 billion -- to tap its offshore oil reserves.

The China Development Bank has given Petrobras, Brazil's main oil producer, $10 billion as a down payment on future business. Starting last year, China became Brazil's biggest trading partner, replacing the United States.

China has even begun to adopt a gringo swagger that stands in contrast to its old role as the cheerleader for the Third World. For the past several months, it has refused to buy a drop of soy oil from Argentina after that country slapped tariffs on Chinese shoes -- although that tiff didn't stop Beijing from committing $8.5 billion this month to refurbish Argentina's creaky rail system as long as Argentina buys Chinese trains.

In March, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa compared China to the worst imperialist corporation after Beijing refused to bend on terms for financing a $1 billion hydroelectric dam. Then he caved in to China's demands.

" 'New colonialists' is how we refer to China now," said Roberto Giannetti da Fonseca, who represents manufacturers in Latin America's industrial heartland of Sao Paulo.

China's 'special tools'

Roberto Abdeneur was one of the Brazilians who built his country's relations with China. He was an ambassador to Beijing in the 1980s. But as the relationship deepened, Abdeneur began to see China as more of a challenge to Brazil than an opportunity. As Brazil's ambassador to the United States four years ago, Abdeneur noticed that the United States, too, was beginning to worry about China, but in a different way.

"In Washington, you are fixated on China's potential ideological penetration of Latin America or focus on whether China is training this army or that," Abdeneur said.

Indeed, U.S. analysts have written extensively on China's support of Venezuela's military, noted its bolstering of Cuba's air defense systems and speculated about whether Chinese analysts have replaced Russians at three signals intelligence sites in Cuba. U.S. officials have also expressed concern about Chinese-Brazilian cooperation in satellite and rocket technology.

"But that's a smoke screen," Abdeneur said. "The Chinese are playing on a different chessboard. The competition is commercial. You simply cannot compete because of the very special tools China has."

Among those tools is the way China cuts deals -- in Latin America and elsewhere. China is a master at low-ball financing, fashioning loans of billions of dollars at tiny interest rates that can stretch beyond 20 years. Financing, a seemingly arcane matter, can often account for 40 percent of the cost of a project.

This has become a headache for Western competitors, especially members of the 32-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which long ago agreed not to use financing as a competitive tool.

China's Wuhan Iron and Steel bought a 21 percent stake in one of Batista's companies for $400 million, using below-market-rate loans provided by China's state banks. The steel company is also planning a $5 billion investment to build a mill at the Acu port, with Chinese state financing at attractive rates. China's oil and gas companies are talking with Batista about selling oil rigs and platforms to service Batista's offshore drilling operation -- again with low-interest loans.

"Given the size of the Chinese banks, they have the muscles to support a major expansion of Chinese companies abroad," said Otávio Lazcano, chief executive of LLX, the firm running the $25 billion port project.

Although U.S. oil and gas technology may be more advanced, the financing terms that China can offer Brazil are almost unbeatable. In some cases, China has handed out billions of dollars at less than 1 percent interest; under OECD rules, the United States must lend at market rates.

"We believe in a level playing field, the marketplace and transparency," said Fred P. Hochberg, chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. "With China, there's an absence of the market and an absence of transparency."

In the early years of this century, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva embraced China as a brother developing country. China cultivated Brazil, hinting that it might support that country's dream of becoming a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and offering what Brazil took to be a counterweight to the United States

There was talk that Brazil would train Chinese pilots on its aircraft carrier. Pundits proclaimed a new Brasilia-Beijing axis. The pair formed half of the BRICs -- the four nations, including Russia and India, that were considered the new leaders of the global economy.

Lula's government even moved to silence critics of the newfound strategic union, yanking Abdeneur from his post as ambassador to the United States in late 2006 after he criticized what he called Brazil's "China fantasy" at a meeting of businessmen in Sao Paulo.

But these days, Abdeneur's warning -- that China is more competitor than partner -- is gaining traction.

On a recent trip to Africa, where Chinese companies have beaten out Brazilian firms across the continent, Lula tweaked China at almost every stop.

"I have nothing against my Chinese friends," Lula said in a speech July 8 in the Tanzanian seaport of Dar es Salaam, "but the truth is that sometimes they win a mine contract and they bring all these Chinese to work in a mine, and this doesn't generate opportunity for work in that country."

Responding to the challenge posed by China, Brazil has turned to the United States for help in starting its own export-import bank. It has launched dozens of anti-dumping investigations against Chinese firms. Its government is approving mergers faster than any time in the past to compete with Chinese companies. It has invested billions of dollars in government funds to resuscitate its shipbuilding industry, which hadn't built a big ship in 20 years. In the run-up to a Group of 20 meeting in Toronto in June, Brazil joined with the United States and India to call on China to allow the value of its currency, the yuan, to rise

"The Chinese were furious," said Marcel Fortuna Biato, Lula's foreign policy adviser.

"China is the microcosm for the future of Brazil, all the good and bad. And like the rest of the world, we are trying to fashion a response," Biato said.

A Chinese delegation visits the Acu port in Sao Joao da Barra, Brazil. China is on track to become Brazil's No. 1 investor in 2010, with Chinese investment in Brazil topping $20 billion in the first half of this year. (Getty)

India's market in generic drugs leads to counterfeiting

India's market in generic drugs also leads to counterfeiting

Suresh Sati is an anti-counterfeit drug detective who works for several global pharamaceutical companies and helps busts clandestine fake drug operations in India. Sati says that 25 percent of India's drugs are fake, counterfeit or substandard. (Rama Lakshmi - Washington Post)

Source : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/10/AR2010091003435.html

By Rama Lakshmi

Friday, September 10, 2010; 11:53 AM

IN NEW DELHI Private investigator Suresh Sati rattled off the popular brand names listed on the boxes of cough syrup, supplements, vitamins and painkillers sprawled across the desk and shelves in his basement office.

"They look real, but all these are fakes," said Sati, head of a New Delhi-based agency that helps police conduct raids against counterfeit-drug syndicates across the country. "A regular customer cannot make out if a drug is fake. . . . The biggest giveaway is when someone is selling medicines very cheap. It is almost always fake."

India, the world's largest manufacturer of generic drugs, has become a busy center for counterfeit and substandard medicine. Stuffed in slick packaging and often labeled with the names of such legitimate companies as GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Novartis, the fake drugs are passed off to Indian consumers and sold in developing nations around the world.

Experts say the global fake-drug industry, worth about $90 billion, causes the deaths of almost 1 million people a year and is contributing to a rise in drug resistance.

Estimates vary on the number of these drugs made in India. The Indian government says that 0.4 percent of the country's drugs are counterfeit and that substandard drugs account for about 8 percent. But independent estimates range from 12 to 25 percent.

Indian officials say the clandestine industry has hurt the image of India's booming pharmaceutical industry and its exports worth $8.5 billion a year, mostly to African and Latin American countries.

To clamp down on the illegal trade, the health ministry launched a reward program this year offering $55,000 to citizens who provide information about fake-drug syndicates.

Last year, the ministry also strengthened its drug law to speed up court trials. Suspects found guilty of manufacturing and selling fake drugs can be sentenced to life in prison.

The number of people arrested for manufacturing and selling fake drugs rose from 12 in 2006 to 147 last year, and drugs worth about $6.5 million were seized during this period.

"It is very difficult to dismantle the entire operation," Sati said. "When we bust one operation, two more spring up elsewhere. Convictions are rare."

The tricks of the trade include sticking fraudulent labels on expired products, filling vials with water, stuffing small amounts of real ingredients in packages of popular licensed brands and putting chalk power in medicine packets.

But more than the concern for public safety, officials here have been particularly alarmed about recent incidents that discredit India's image abroad.

In June, officials at Nigeria's Abuja airport caught a shipment of fake antibiotics, containing no active ingredients, with a "Made in India" label.

Nigerian investigators later said that a Chinese company had shipped the drugs via Frankfurt. In a similar incident last year, a shipment of fake anti-malaria drugs from China arrived in Nigeria with an Indian tag.

Last year, Sri Lanka banned imports from four Indian companies after officials discovered substandard medicine in shipments.

Over the years, drug companies have used holograms or embossed their logo on the packaging to protect their brands, but these have also been counterfeited in India.

One company, MSN Labs, is using a technology developed by a U.S.-based start-up called PharmaSecure that allows consumers to check the authenticity of medicines by sending in a text message of the code written on them.

But many Indian companies are "apprehensive of pursuing the cases for fear of bad publicity and possible loss of confidence among consumers," said Barun Mitra, director of the New Delhi-based think tank Liberty Institute.

Mitra co-wrote a recent survey reporting that 12 percent of sampled drugs from the capital's pharmacies were substandard. "We are behaving like ostriches with our heads in the sand and pretending that nothing is amiss even as the problem keeps growing and affecting Indian patients."

On a recent morning in the northern city of Varanasi, a young man named Ashish waited for a shipment of painkillers and postpartum pills to arrive by train.

He said his order of pills that controlled postpartum bleeding contained chalk powder but came with the brand name Methergine in a Novartis package.

The painkiller had insufficient ingredients and carried a Bidanzen Forte label inside a knockoff GlaxoSmithKline package.

"There is a lot of profit in this," said Ashish, 28, describing the extent of counterfeit drugs in Varanasi. He declined to give his surname because his operation is illegal.

"I do not think about right or wrong," he said. "I am not killing anybody. The worst is that these medicines will not show any result and the patient may have to check into a hospital."

USA : Embryonic stem cell research

Appeals court lifts ban on stem cell funding

September 9, 2010

An appeals court Thursday lifted a temporary injunction barring the federal government from funding research involving human embryonic stem cell research.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia granted a request from the Justice Department to stay an injunction issued Aug. 23 blocking the funding. In a major victory for supporters of the research, the court said the Obama administration could resume funding the research pending a full appeal of the case.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, ruling in a lawsuit filed by two researchers working on alternatives to the cells, said the funding violated a federal rule that prohibits federal tax money from being used for research that involves the destruction of human embryos.
Here's an excerpt from Thursday's order:
O R D E R
Upon consideration of the emergency motion for stay pending appeal and for
immediate administrative stay, it is
ORDERED that the district court's August 23, 2010 order be stayed pending
further order of the court. The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court
sufficient opportunity to consider the merits of the emergency motion for stay and
should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion. See D.C.
Circuit Handbook of Practice and Internal Procedures 33 (2010). It is
FURTHER ORDERED that appellees file a response to the emergency motion
by September 14, 2010, at 4:00 p.m. The appellants may file a reply by 4:00 p.m. on
September 20, 2010. The parties are directed to hand-deliver the paper copies of their
submissions to the court by the time and date due.
The original decision was hailed by opponents of the research, who argue it is immoral to destroy human embryos. But it was condemned by supporters and advocates for patients, who said it was a major setback for one of the most promising areas of biomedical research.
In response to the order, the National Institutes of Health announced it was suspending consideration of any new grants for such research. Any researchers who had already received funding could continue their work, but their grants would not be renewed when they come up for routine review, the NIH said. As a result, hundreds of scientists around the country are scrambling to try to figure out how they are going to continue their research.
The Justice Department asked that the injunction be lifted as it appeals the decision, arguing the halt to the funding was causing irreparable harm to researchers, the federal government and patients hoping for cures.
Thursday's decision was hailed by supporters of the research.
"We are very pleased that the Court of Appeals has stayed the preliminary injunction. It is crucial that federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research be restored permanently and this stay is a step in that direction," said Lisa Hughes, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, a coalition of patient advocacy groups, scientists and research organizations that has lobbied for the funding. "While this issue continues to be argued in the courts, we call on Congress to move swiftly to resolve this issue and secure the future of this important biomedical research."

By Rob Stein | September 9, 2010

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2010/09/appeals_courts_lifts_ban_on_st.html?wpisrc=nl_natlalert
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Federal judge denies motion to lift stem cell funding block

September 7, 2010

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2010/09/federal_judge_denies_motion_to.html
A federal judge Tuesday denied a motion to lift an injunction he issued two weeks ago barring the government from funding research involving human embryonic stem cells.
U.S. Chief District Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the District of Columbia rejected a request by the Obama administration to lift the temporary injunction he issued pending an appeal of the decision.
But Lamberth indicated that his injunction was less restrictive than had been originally interpreted by the Obama administration.
"Defendants are incorrect about much of their 'parade of horribles' that will supposedly result from this Court's preliminary injunction," Lamberth wrote. The ruling did not necessarily apply to research that had been funded under guidelines issued during the administration of President Bush or that had previously been "awarded and funded," Lamberth wrote. He also indicated he could make a final decision on the case soon.
Nevertheless, the decision marks a disappointment for supporters of the research, who had hoped the judge would grant the motion, allowing funding to continue under new, much less restrictive guidelines that the Obama administration had put in place until the case is finally decided.
Lamberth issued the injunction Aug. 23 in a case brought by two researchers who work on alternatives to the cells. Lamberth ruled the funding violated a federal law known as the Dickey-Wicker amendement, which bars federal tax money to be used for any research involving the destruction of human embryos.
"In this Court's view, a stay would flout the will of Congress, as this Court understands what Congress has enacted in the Dickey-Wicker Amendment," Lamberth wrote in Tuesday's ruling. "Congress has mandated that the public interest is served by preventing taxpayer funding of research that entails the destruction of human embryos."
The original decision was hailed by opponents of the research, who argue it is immoral to destroy human embryos. But it was condemned by supporters and advocates for patients, who said it was a major setback for one of the most promising areas of biomedical research.
In response to the order, the National Institutes of Health announced it was suspending consideration of any new grants for such research. Any researchers who had already received funding could continue their work, but their grants would not be renewed when they come up for routine review, the NIH said. As a result, hundreds of scientists around the country are scrambling to try to figure out how they are going to continue their research.
The Justice Department asked that the injunction be lifted as it appeals the decision, arguing the halt to the funding was causing irreparable harm to researchers, the federal government and patients hoping for cures.
Lisa Hughes, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, the group that has led lobbying efforts to for greater stem cell funding, issued the following statement:
"We are disappointed with today's Order to deny NIH's Emergency MotionTo Stay Preliminary Injunction Pending Appeal issued by Judge Lamberth. CAMR's primary goal is to permanently restore embryonic stem cell research freedom as it existed before August 23, 2010. We look forward to NIH's guidance on how best to interpret today's order."
The NIH referred questions to the Justice Department.The Justice Department is expected to appeal the decision, but a spokesman late Tuesday said the government was still reviewing it.

By Rob Stein |

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2010/09/federal_judge_denies_motion_to.html

NIH cannot fund embryonic stem cell research, judge rules

By Rob Stein and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
A federal judge on Monday blocked the Obama administration from funding human embryonic stem cell research, ruling that the support violates a federal law barring the use of taxpayer money for experiments that destroy human embryos
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth issued a preliminary injunction that prohibits the National Institutes of Health from funding the research under the administration's new guidelines, citing an appeals court's ruling that the researchers who had challenged the less-restrictive policy have the legal standing to pursue their lawsuit.
The decision, a setback for one of the administration's most high-profile scientific policies, was praised by opponents of the research.
"We are encouraged that the court has recognized the seriousness of the ethics and the funding of embryonic stem cell research," said David Prentice, senior fellow for life sciences at the Family Research Council.
The ruling stunned scientists and other advocates of the research, which has been hailed as one of the most important advances in medicine in decades because of its potential to cure many diseases but has been embroiled in controversy because the cells are obtained by destroying days-old embryos.
"This is devastating, absolutely devastating," said Amy Comstock Rick, immediate past president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, a group of patient organizations that has been lobbying for more federal funding.
"We were really looking forward to research finally moving forward with the full backing of the NIH. We were really looking forward to the next chapter when human embryonic stem cells could really be explored for their full potential. This really sets us back," Rick said. "Every day we lose is another day lost for patients waiting for cures."
Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman, did not discuss how the administration intends to respond to the ruling, saying only that "we're reviewing the decision." The NIH had no immediate comment.
Steven Aden, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund who filed the suit, said the court will need to clarify whether the injunction affects work using money already issued to researchers under the administration's new guidelines or blocks additional funding.
In his 15-page decision, Lamberth cited "unambiguous" legislation by Congress in 1996, called the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero."
In 1999, Harriet S. Rabb, a lawyer for the Department of Health and Human Services, concluded that the NIH's support of embryonic stem cell research did not violate the amendment if the funds were used only for experiments involving the cells -- not to procure them. The cells themselves are not embryos, she said.
Said Sean Tipton of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine: "NIH carefully designed polices to allow federally funded scientists to explore the potential of human embryonic stem cell research without violating Dickey-Wicker. The NIH policies on stem cell research make it clear that federal funds can be used to investigate cells and tissues created from human embryonic stem cells, but not to create them."
"The language of the statute reflects the unambiguous intent of Congress to enact a broad prohibition of funding research in which a human embryo is destroyed," he wrote. "This prohibition encompasses all 'research in which' an embryo is destroyed, not just the 'piece of research' in which the embryo is destroyed," as the Justice Department argued.
On Aug. 9, 2001, President George W. Bush limited federal funding to 21 colonies of existing human embryonic stem cells to prevent taxpayer money from funding the destruction of more embryos to obtain additional cells. Critics of the research praised Bush's move, saying that destroying embryos to advance academic study is immoral and that alternative approaches, such as using stem cells derived from adults, were equally if not more promising.
But many scientists condemned the restrictions, saying they were hindering research that could lead to cures for Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, paralysis and other ailments. Embryonic stem cells, which can morph into many different types of tissue, are able to do things that other cells cannot, proponents argued. No new therapies, however, have been developed.
Soon after taking office, President Obama announced that he was lifting his predecessor's restrictions and ordered the NIH to develop new guidelines addressing the ethical issues involved. Last summer, the NIH issued detailed guidelines and began authorizing new colonies of cells eligible for funding. Seventy-five colonies have been approved so far.
Monday's ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by James L. Sherley and Theresa Deisher, researchers who study other types of human stem cells. The pair argued that the new administration's guidelines would "result in increased competition for limited federal funding," hindering their plans to seek money for other research.
Lamberth initially threw out the case, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled June 25 that the researchers had legal standing to bring a suit. Several other plaintiffs were dropped, including the Christian Medical Association, Nightlight Christian Adoptions and two couples seeking to "adopt" unused embryos. The original suit also contended that the policy would limit the number of embryos available to people seeking them.
Lamberth's injunction does not prevent the government from taking the case to trial. However, the judge wrote that the claim was strong enough to bar federal authorities from "taking any action whatsoever" to implement funding guidelines pending trial.
"The Court finds that the likelihood of success on the merits, irreparable harm to plaintiffs, the balance of hardships, and public interest considerations each weigh in favor of a preliminary injunction," he wrote.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/23/AR2010082303448.html

Courtesy : Washington post