Pumping heavy doses of chemotherapy drugs right into the abdomen boosted survival of women with advanced ovarian cancer by 16 months in what experts call the first big advance in more than a decade against one of the most lethal cancers in women.
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There's a high price, though: The treatment is so tough that nearly 6 in 10 women in a study could not endure it and switched to standard intravenous chemotherapy. Side effects included abdominal pain from bloating and problems with the catheter used to infuse the drugs.

Reuters, via Yahoo

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon, a dominant figure for decades in shaping the Middle East, was fighting for his life on Thursday after suffering a massive brain hemorrhage.

"It looks very bad. I don't know if he will recover," said a senior political source after Sharon, 77, was rushed in an ambulance from his ranch in southern
Israel to Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem late on Wednesday.

Sharon's death or incapacitation would cause political upheaval in Israel ahead of a March 28 general election he had been expected to win on a platform of ending conflict with the Palestinians. He has been prime minister since 2001.

Turkey has confirmed two human cases of bird flu, including a teenage boy who died after developing pneumonia-like symptoms, the health minister said tonight.

The 14-year-old boy's sister, who is hospitalised and in serious condition, also tested positive for bird flu, the Turkish health minister, Recep Akdag, said. A third sibling is also suspected of having bird flu.

Mr Akdag's statement contradicted a ministry statement earlier this week, which said the boy's death was not caused by bird flu.

David Cameron invoked the long hours he has spent at the hospital bedside of his severely disabled son, Ivan, as proof that the Tory party he leads will improve the NHS, rather than scrap it.

[...]

The proposed "patient's passport" - which would have allowed patients to claim money from the NHS towards the cost of private operations - has been dropped as Conservative policy, Mr Cameron confirmed.

Politics are arse-backwards in the UK, when the Tories have become the party of defending publis services while New Labour is talking about PPPs in health

George Bush insists that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. So why, six years ago, did the CIA give the Iranians blueprints to build a bomb?
In an extract from his explosive new book, New York Times reporter James Risen reveals the bungles and miscalculations that led to a spectacular intelligence fiasco

Republicans, Democrats and much of official Washington are scrambling to distance themselves from Jack Abramoff as the Justice Department vowed to "follow wherever it leads" the trail of corruption involving the disgraced former super lobbyist, who is now co-operating with investigators.

Yesterday, luminaries including the House speaker Dennis Hastert and the former House majority leader Tom DeLay, as well as top Democrats - the Senate minority leader Harry Reid among them - let it be known they were returning campaign contributions from Mr Abramoff, his associates and their clients.

At the same time, President Bush's re-election team announced it was returning $6,000 (£3,400) in direct contributions from the network of the lobbyist, who in all helped raise more than $100,000 for the victorious 2004 Bush/Cheney campaign.

But I'm sure there was no corruption going on there - none whatsoever.

The DNA profiles of nearly four in 10 black men in the UK are on the police's national database - compared with fewer than one in 10 white men, according to figures compiled by the Guardian.

Civil liberties groups and representatives of the black community said this offered evidence that the database reinforced racial biases in the criminal justice system. The Home Office denied this, saying most of the DNA came from people who had been charged and convicted of crimes. Only about 113,000 people who had been arrested but not charged were on the database, a spokeswoman said.

The figures, compiled using Home Office statistics and census data, show that 37% of black men have their DNA profile on the database compared with 13% of Asian men and 9% of white men.

But there's no racism in British policing, oh no...

NCAA Game Summary - Texas vs. Southern California

(Wednesday, January 4th)
Final Score: (2) Texas 41, (1) Southern California 38

Pasadena, CA (Sports Network) - Vince Young capped an unbelievable individual performance with an eight-yard touchdown run on fourth down with 19 seconds remaining, lifting second-ranked Texas to a 41-38 come-from-behind victory over top-ranked Southern California in a classic showdown for the BCS national championship at the Rose Bowl.

Young rushed for three touchdowns, two of which came in the final 4:03 of the game, to lead an improbable rally which propelled the Longhorns (13-0) to their first national title since 1970 and dealt the Trojans (12-1) their first defeat in 35 games.

The final score ended a 10-play, 56-yard drive which began after a controversial decision by USC head coach Pete Carroll that ended up backfiring.

Faced with a 4th-and-2 from the Texas 45, the Trojans' LenDale White was stuffed by the Longhorn defense and Texas took over with 2:09 to play and trailing 38-33.

USC then got into Texas territory one last time, but Matt Leinart threw a pass high and incomplete to end the game.

White rushed for three touchdowns and 2005 Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush added one on the ground for USC, which was attempting to become the first team ever to win three consecutive national titles.

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.  ~Anaïs Nin

Giuseppe Fava, playwriter, reporter, teacher, was brutally assassinated by the mafia in Catania on January 5, 1984.

A commemoration will be held this afternoon in Catania in front of the Verga Civic Theater.

By Vivien Schweitzer
04 Jan 2006

DNA samples may prove that a skull given to the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg over a century ago belonged to Mozart, reports the Associated Press.

Skull watchers will have to wait until January 8 to discover if the skull is Mozart's. Results of tests carried out last year by researchers at the Institute for Forensic Medicine in Innsbruck will be broadcast then on Austrian state television.

Forensic pathologist Dr. Walther Parson told Austrian broadcaster ORF that DNA comparisons with the remains of several of Mozart's relatives, exhumed from the family vault in Salzburg, "succeeded in getting a clear result." He said the results have been verified by a U.S. Army laboratory.

Mozart died in 1791 and was buried in a pauper's grave in Vienna. The skull eventually found its way to the Salzburg-based Mozarteum, a non profit organization dedicated to the composer, in 1902.

Alternet: The Greening of Goldman Sachs

Last year the investment bank Goldman Sachs acquired a portfolio of mortgages in default that involved a remarkable piece of land in Tierra del Fuego, Chile. The wild, starkly beautiful island on the far tip of South America is a haven of biodiversity, home to old-growth beech forests and a unique network of peat bogs. So when the bank donated all 680,000 acres of the property -- an area about a third the size of Yellowstone -- to the Wildlife Conservation Society in trust to the people of Chile, it was a boon to ecological preservation.
...
But there is reason to think that skeptics can relax their vigilance on this one and maybe even entertain some hope. In November Goldman Sachs, a financial sector leader worth $60 billion, rolled out a new environmental policy that goes further, and is smarter, than any comparable policy in the corporate world.$

The unveiling of the framework to address environmental degradation and climate change capped 18 months of consultations with environmental groups. Among them were Rainforest Action Network (RAN), Rainforest Alliance, World Resources Institute and Friends of the Earth.
...
According to the framework, Goldman Sachs will:
*    disclose the greenhouse gas emissions of all its operations;
*    make $1 billion available for investments in renewable energy;
*    set up a think tank to identify other lucrative green markets;
*    work on public policy measures relating to climate change;
*    conduct more rigorous assessments of its new projects' impacts on the environment and on indigenous people;
*    refuse to finance extractive projects in World Heritage sites or any projects that violate the environmental laws of the host country.

...
It's also averting risk. The policy says so in so many strangulated, jargoney words: "We believe that companies' management of environmental and related social risks and opportunities may affect corporate performance."

Translation: there are real financial costs to ignoring the environment and the people who depend on it for their survival, and we don't intend to get stuck paying them.

Department of Homeland Security officials are considering requiring European travelers to keep their fingerprints on file with the United States if they want to visit the country without a visa.

The proposal is one of a series of measures being developed by the department's policy office in response to a growing fear that terrorism may originate in Western Europe rather than the Middle East. Requiring Europeans to register their fingerprints would minimize the chances of passport fraud, which security specialists believe is a growing danger.

"We're moving to an area where international travelers' fingerprints are going to be part of their identifier," said Stewart Baker, assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security.

Baker, whose office develops long-term homeland security policies, said a decision is not imminent on the proposal to require Europeans to register their fingerprints. But he is considering it as a way to protect against terrorists with European backgrounds.

Currently, much of Europe is exempt from the rule that foreign visitors obtain a visa, which requires undergoing a background check, fingerprinting and a face-to-face interview. Originally designed to block illegal immigration, the U.S. visa system makes an exception for visitors from 27 affluent countries, mostly in Western Europe.

As security concerns have shifted to terrorism, however, the risk from Europe has grown because of its large and poorly integrated Muslim population. Last year, Islamist extremists born in England bombed the London Underground, a Belgian woman who converted to Islam committed a suicide bombing in Iraq, and angry Muslim youths rioted across France for weeks.

"Our visa waiver program was built on the assumption that the biggest worry we have about people who come here on tourist visa is that they may stay and take jobs, so the assumption was, for wealthy countries, we could afford to do without the visa process," Baker said. "The problem is, that's not the worst thing people can do now, and Al Qaeda has made no secret of its hope that it can recruit people who are Western."

Indeed, some critics argued that the United States should require all Europeans to obtain visas to screen out potential terrorists. Visa officials can reject applicants who arouse suspicions during an interview, even if their papers are in order.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel can look forward to the red-carpet treatment in Washington next week as US President George Bush -- who never got on with her predecessor Gerhard Schröder -- hopes to signal a fresh start. But a top German official warns that despite improving trans-Atlantic ties, America's reputation among the European public is waning.

...
Voigt told foreign journalists in Berlin that despite recent trans-Atlantic tensions over reports of secret CIA flights of terror suspects, Merkel can expect a genuinely warm welcome when she meets US President George Bush. He said she was being put up in Washington's historic Blair House, directly across from the White House - an honor bestowed on her predecessor Gerhard Schröder only once, on the last of his seven visits to Washington in June.

"It sends a signal that one has a positive, friendly attitude towards her," said Voigt. Merkel's support for the Iraq war when she was conservative opposition leader and the pro-American stance she gained growing up in communist eastern Germany meant Washington had high hopes about her after a difficult period in US-German relations, said Voigt.

In fact, expectations may be too high, he added. "If there's any prejudice regarding Frau Merkel in Washington it's positive prejudice," said Voigt. "Expectations are so high she may not be able to meet all of them."

AUSTRALIA is facing a further cost blowout on its purchase of next-generation fighters, with Britain threatening to pull out of the US-led joint strike fighter project over Washington's reluctance to share the secrets of stealth technology.

Canberra has not threatened to withdraw from the $256 billion project despite the escalating cost of the warplanes, but says it shares Britain's concerns.

The Defence Department is negotiating with the Bush administration to ensure Australian military and defence contractors have access to software codes and stealth technology to maintain and service the F-35s it is planning to take delivery of in 2014.

A bill introduced to the US Congress in 2003, which would have given Australia and Britain access to otherwise secret technology, has stalled and is unlikely to be revived.

A report in London's Sunday Times newspaper cited Ministry of Defence officials as saying Britain was developing a "PlanB" to purchase an alternative fighter - a modified Eurofighter - for its navy if it cannot overcome concerns over the project costs and technology transfer.

STOCKHOLM - On an overcast winter morning, traffic heading into Stockholm on the main route from the north is heavy, but it is moving - unlike the rush-hour gridlock typical in some metropolitan centres.

Yet the capital of Sweden, a country known for its vast, unspoiled natural vistas and clean air, will soon have the world's most extensive system of traffic congestion charges.

A test run costing 3.8 billion crowns ($720 million) started yesterday and will last until July. Stockholmers will vote in September on whether to make it permanent.

Cameras on gantries have sprung up to record the licence numbers of vehicles, whose owners have to pay when they enter and leave the zone.

Most Swedes take pride in their country's environmentalist credentials, but this time politicians may be out of touch with public opinion in their efforts to impose a tax on traffic.

The charge is part of a political deal to secure the support of the Green Party, the smallest group represented in Parliament, for Prime Minister Goran Persson's Social Democrat minority Government.

It is being launched despite the fact that Persson's fellow Social Democrats on Stockholm city council pledged not to introduce such a scheme when they fought and won local elections in 2002.

The Greens insist the charge is needed because of the growing volume of traffic. "The alternative is to sit in traffic jams for the next 10 years," said Claes Roxbergh, a Green Party MP and chairman of its traffic committee.

Social Democrat Mayor Annika Billstrom has also thrown her weight behind the scheme, hammering home the message that traffic jams cost society between 6 billion and 8 billion crowns a year.

Argentina has canceled its entire $14 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund - cutting itself free from the Washington-based lender after years of bitter clashes.

"This is the start of a new phase," a smiling Economy Minister Felisa Miceli told reporters after the transaction yesterday.

Argentine President Nestor Kirchner said on December 15 the Government would use nearly a third of its foreign reserves to wipe out the remaining IMF debt.

Argentine leaders say the early payback gives the Government more freedom to carry out economic policies that have not always met with the fund's approval.

Visiting India is always an experience, especially now that everyone talks about that country as a rising power. At least from my perspective, the real test of a rising power is how much that country has been able to improve the standard of living of its people, how much poverty has been reduced, whether there is discernible evidence of improvement in that country's infrastructure, and whether there is a noticeable improvement in environmental pollution, which has remained a sustained curse of all developing countries, including India and China - another rising power. An interesting aspect of a rising power is the way it utilizes its economic wealth for force modernization. For India, that has been a massive undertaking since its emergence as a declared nuclear power in May 1998.

I was also interested in looking at the nature of debate among Muslims over Islam in India. Even though India's majority is Hindu, Muslims form between 12% and 18% of the population. As such, India has the world's largest Muslim population of any non-Muslim country.

Buying into consumerism

In the realm of improved standard of living, India is definitely going through revolutionary changes. Clyde Prestowitz, in his excellent book Three Billion New Capitalists, presents a fascinating case of India's emergence as a world-class center for information technology. He states that, at one point in the past decade and a half or so, India became the focus of outsourcing for jobs that were cheaper to carry out in that country than in the United States. Now, it is increasingly becoming a country where multinational conglomerates are gathering for lucrative returns on their investments and a leading hub for highly sophisticated research and development. The statistics on foreign direct investment regularly portray India as a more attractive place for global entrepreneurs than even the US.

MONDAY, Jan. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Need proof that cosmetic surgery and men is now a mainstream marriage?

Check out these statistics: While women still make up 87 percent of all cosmetic surgery patients, 1.2 million procedures were performed on men in 2004. That's a 16 percent increase since 2000, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

"More men than ever before are getting plastic surgery," said Dr. Brent Moelleken, a Beverly Hills, Calif., plastic and reconstructive surgeon who says up to 20 percent of his practice includes men. "Ten years ago, it was just 5 to 10 percent."

Men choose to improve many of the same body parts as women. But they're different as cosmetic surgery patients in other ways, say the doctors who work on them.

The top five male cosmetic surgeries in 2004 were nose reshaping, hair transplantation, eyelid surgery, liposuction and breast reduction, according to the ASPS. Another organization that keeps statistics, the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS), has the same top five surgeries for men, although in a slightly different order.

US sees coalitions of the willing as best ally (FT)

Building on its experience in Iraq, the Bush administration says it wants to be able to form "coalitions of the willing" more efficiently for dealing with future conflicts rather than turning to existing but unreliable institutional alliances such as Nato.

"We 'ad hoc' our way through coalitions of the willing. That's the future," a senior State Department official said in a briefing this week that reflected Washington's search for alternatives to the post-second world war global architecture in the new era of its "war on terror".

Acknowledging that the coalition in Iraq had required the US to "scramble around capitals", he said the Bush administration sought ways of what he called regularising processes and standardising operating procedures and the generation of force requirements.

He did not elaborate and would not say whether such planning was being made with Iran in mind. "We are focused on the enduring dynamics of coalition warfare," the official, who asked not to be named, told reporters late on Tuesday.

Nato would remain a "bedrock alliance, a model and framework", the official said, but he questioned its reliability. He sharply criticised one European government for what he called undermining the alliance by "opting out" of Nato's expansion into possible combat operations in southern Afghanistan.

"Nato has got to look in the mirror as an alliance," he said, asking whether it remained an alliance of "one for all and all for one".

He declined to name the government but observers said he was clearly referring to the Netherlands, which also pulled out its troops from Iraq last year.

(...)

Cliff Kupchan, an analyst with the Eurasia Group consultancy, said the main lesson from Iraq was that the US as the world's only superpower was still not able to achieve its national interests on its own. "The second lesson is that we can't rely on the Europeans. We can only hope on a 50 per cent recovery of that rift," he commented. "So that leaves us with constructing issue-based coalitions of the willing as the key component of future US foreign policy."

Okay... NATO is unreliable. Europeans, not alliers anymore. The Netherlands, unreliable? Have they - Bushco - lost all sense of reality? (Silly question, I know)


In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

China pollution fine a 'legal landmark' (FT)

A Chinese water company has won Rmb2.3m ($285,000, €241,000, £166,000) in compensation from two companies and an irrigation bureau blamed for one of the worst incidents of pollution to blacken the water of the fabled Yellow River.

The compensation payment reflected efforts to use the legal system as well as bureaucratic controls to reduce pollution but it also highlighted the environmental pressures on the waterway considered the cradle of Chinese civilisation.

State media said the award, hammered out after three months of mediation by a regional high court, was the first time polluters had been successfully forced to pay damages for harming the Yellow River.

The mediation followed a verdict by a local court last year that held the two paper factories and irrigation bureau responsible for the 50km stinking slick of black pollution that disrupted water supplies to the Mongolian city of Baotou for more than four days in mid-2004.

Russia and Ukraine Reach Compromise on Natural Gas

KIEV, Ukraine, Jan. 4 - Ukraine and Russia settled their dispute over the price of natural gas Wednesday with a deal that allowed both countries to save face, although Ukraine walked away with cheaper prices than most of Russia's other gas customers.

(...)

Ukraine's gas bill will about double next year, and the solution entangles Kiev in a complicated deal that surrenders control over its natural gas imports to an offshore company with a shady history even by post-Soviet standards.

(...)

Former executives at Gazprom and Naftogaz have held interests in RosUkrEnergo, according to Jérôme Guillet, a Paris-based banker and authority on Gazprom's business practices. "The names change every year, but it's always been the same mechanism," he said in a telephone interview. "You have a huge trade with hundreds of millions of dollars being captured by a small number of people."

Ouch. I am not going to be much welcome in Moscow after that...

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

I remember seeing either here, dkos or the oil drum a post taking a survey of residents after construction of a wind farm, and a majority actually supported expansion of the wind farm if I remember correctly. Can anyone help me find this link?

Thanks and happy new year!

Pilgrim hostel collapses in Mecca
A four-storey building has collapsed in Mecca in Saudi Arabia, with reports of dozens of dead and injured. [BBC News]

Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen has dropped seven companies from the investments list of the State Pension Fund, severing ties between the Petroleum Fund and Boeing.

From Jan. 1 the State Pension Fund was established as a superstructure including the massive state petroleum fund and the social security fund. This new fund is divided into two parts, foreign investments previously made via the Petroleum Fund, and domestic investments previously called the Social Security Fund.
(snip)
The companies have been excluded because they either develop or contribute to the production of nuclear arms. The decision comes after advice from the Petroleum Fund's Advisory Council on Ethics.

"According to Norges Bank the Petroleum Fund previously invested a total of nearly NOK 3.3 billion (USD 492 million) in these companies, partly in shares and partly in obligations," the Finance Ministry said.

Related earlier links:
Dubious links for Petroleum Fund 30.08.2005 (related to companies involved in manufacture of landmines)
Petroleum fund second largest in the world (21.12.2005

An attempt by the Vatican to reduce the number of abortions in one of central Europe's most staunchly Roman Catholic countries is being challenged by the EU. A legal panel appointed by the European commission has attacked a draft treaty between Slovakia and the Vatican that would have restricted sensitive medical treatment such as abortions and IVF.

The group of lawyers warned that the treaty, known as a concordat, could place Slovakia in breach of its obligations as a member of the EU. Slovakia could find itself "violating its obligations", says the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights.

EU challenges Vatican's draft abortion treaty

· Pope proposes conscience opt-out for Slovakia
· Lawyers warn of breach of union's obligations

Nicholas Watt in Brussels
Thursday January 5, 2006
The Guardian

An attempt by the Vatican to reduce the number of abortions in one of central Europe's most staunchly Roman Catholic countries is being challenged by the EU. A legal panel appointed by the European commission has attacked a draft treaty between Slovakia and the Vatican that would have restricted sensitive medical treatment such as abortions and IVF.

The group of lawyers warned that the treaty, known as a concordat, could place Slovakia in breach of its obligations as a member of the EU. Slovakia could find itself "violating its obligations", says the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights.

Article continues
The panel's intervention came in a 41-page report on the draft treaty, which was drawn up in March 2003. The treaty would allow healthcare workers in hospitals founded by the Catholic church to refuse to perform abortions or carry out fertility treatment on "conscience" grounds if they believe such work conflicts with their faith.

Their concerns were backed by the EU group. It said "certain religious organisations" should have the right not to perform "certain activities where this would conflict with [their] ethos or belief". But it added: "It is important the exercise of this right does not conflict with the rights of others, including the right of all women to receive certain medical services or counselling without any discrimination."

The Vatican has signed similar agreements with Italy, Latvia and Portugal on "religious conscientious objection", but these have been more limited.

Interfax news snippet

My translation:

The Minister of Culture and Youth Affairs of Armenia, Ovik Oviyan, dissatisfied by the disconnection of electricity in his apartment building, physically accosted workers of the local electricity substation, announced several sources in Yerevan.

Armenian police confirmed to Interfax on Thursday that the event had taken place, however, they refused to announce any details, saying that the affair is still under investigation.

At the same time, unofficial sources are announcing that on Jan. 4th on Mashtotsa prospect, where the minister's apartment is located in one of the buildings, electricity was disconnected.  The minister arrived at the local dispatcher's substation drunk and armed with a pistol, and used foul language to express his dissatisfaction with the electricity disconnection.