CALAIS, France (AFP) -- Freight services resumed through the Channel Tunnel and Eurostar passenger trains made a slow comeback Saturday, two days after a blaze shut down the busy link between Britain and mainland Europe.

The car shuttle service between Folkestone and Calais would resume partially on Sunday, Jacques Gounon, the boss of operators Eurotunnel, said, with priority for those who already held tickets.

Eurostar said it would run 12 trains each way between Paris and London on Saturday, and six trains each way between London and Brussels. The same number were expected for Sunday, but Gounon said precise timetables for all traffic would be settled by Monday morning at the latest.

POTI, Georgia, Sept 13 - Russian troops withdrew from the region around Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti on Saturday, within a September 15 deadline set for the first phase of a pullback brokered by France.

Georgia welcomed the move, and said it hoped Russian forces would keep to an October 10 deadline to withdraw completely from Georgian territory outside the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

A Reuters reporter saw troops in armoured personnel carriers and trucks pull out from positions on the outskirts of Poti after dawn. The reporter said Russian forces had also left another three positions on the way to nearby Senaki.

Russia's foreign ministry said later on Saturday that the withdrawal had been completed two days before the deadline set in the agreement brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and endorsed on September 8 by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

President Nicolas Sarkozy was accused on Friday of transgressing France's secular constitution after rolling out the red carpet for the Pope and calling for greater acceptance of religion.

As he welcomed Benedict XVI to France at the beginning of a four-day visit, Mr Sarkozy said: "Rejecting a dialogue with religion would be a cultural and intellectual error".

He also set out his concept of a "positive secularism that debates, respects and includes, not a secularism that rejects".

France has been a staunchly secular state since an anti-clerical government passed a law in 1905 disestablishing the Roman Catholic church and banning the use of public money for religious purposes.

"Secularism implies that religion is a private matter, in a state that respects freedom to worship," said Julien Dray, a Socialist party spokesman. "Those responsible for governing the republic, above all the president, must act as guardians of these principles."

The European Union's finance ministers piled pressure on banks and insurance companies to provide greater transparency in the wake of the global financial turmoil.

At an informal meeting in the French seaside city of Nice, ministers said "measures designed to restore confidence through transparency and the responsibility of the actors will be put in place without delay."

The EU's internal market commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, is due to unveil a set of proposals aimed at improving the transparency of financial market operators in October.

Though details are as yet unclear, the proposals are expected to include a set of requirements for credit rating agencies wishing to operate in the EU.

In Nice, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck said his government backed plans by France, the current holder of the EU presidency, to improve cooperation between national agencies which supervise banks and insurance companies.

French civil rights groups scored a rare victory this week when the government agreed to rethink a plan to allow security services to collect personal information on business leaders and almost anyone with a role in public life.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered his interior minister to "protect liberties" and consult critics on how to narrow the scope of a new security database known by its acronym, Edvige.

Mr Sarkozy's retreat follows a storm of protest about Edvige, initiated by civil liberties groups but joined by the media and even some ministers and senior members of the centre-right UMP party.

Deutsche Börse, the German stock exchange group, has sought to woo sovereign wealth funds as shareholders, in an attempt to fend off the recent attack on its strategy from hedge funds TCI and Atticus.

Under fire from the hedge funds, which want a break-up of the company, Deutsche Börse has approached Temasek, the Singapore government-owned investment group, with an invitation to invest.

Deutsche Börse is not planning to raise fresh money, so any shareholding would have to be purchased from existing investors. TCI and Atticus are the exchange's two largest shareholders, together owning more than 19 per cent of the voting rights.

TCI and Atticus, both of which have suffered poor performance recently, formally teamed up last week and privately demanded radical changes, including the sale, merger or spinning out of the group's main divisions and the resignation of Mr Viermetz.

MOSCOW (AFP) -- A Boeing-737 jet crashed near Russia's city of Perm in the central Ural mountains killing all 82 passengers and six crew on board, including 21 foreigners, the jet's owner Aeroflot said Sunday.

The cause of the accident was not immediately clear, though a source quoted by RIA Novosti suggested that an engine failure could have sparked flames on board and led to the crash.

Based on Emergency Situations passenger list, Gennady Troshev was on board.

Should the United States and Pakistan remain on a collision course, Washington would risk destabilizing a government it had helped get elected last February, without having any acceptable alternative to turn to.

It would also force moderate, progressive forces in Pakistan into retreat, and dramatically revive the fortunes of conservative religious parties who were trounced in the election.

"Pakistanis are very unhappy, it will lead to more anti-Americanism," said Najam Sethi, editor of the Daily Times and a respected political commentator.

"It will make life more difficult for the government and the army, create more tension in the coalition and give the media another stick with which to beat the government."

It would also risk tipping Pakistan's economy into full-blown crisis, with foreign currency already draining out of the central bank's coffers at an alarming rate.

It would extend the U.S. forces' theatre of operations, at a time when they are already stretched in Afghanistan.

Increased civilian casualties will inevitably lead to a backlash in ethnic-Pashtun lands straddling the border.

South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki has come under renewed pressure to resign after a High Court judgement.

It has been suggested he used his political influence to prosecute his rival Jacob Zuma.

Mr Zuma was fighting corruption charges in the High Court, but on Friday Judge Chris Nicholson dismissed the charges on technical grounds.

The court ruled that there was evidence that the investigation had been politically compromised.

Even within his own party, Thabo Mbeki is recognised as a lame duck president.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager on Saturday, hours after Jewish settlers clashed with Palestinian villagers in the occupied West Bank and an Israeli boy received stab wounds.

Palestinian security officials said the 18-year-old was shot by troops after he and a group of Palestinian youths hurled stones at an army patrol near the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

An Israeli army spokesman said troops arrived at an area near the village of T'koa after two American tourists were hurt by rocks thrown at their bus by Palestinians.

The spokesman said the troops used non-lethal means to disperse the Palestinians who rioted at the scene, but said they fired one live bullet. He said the army was investigating the incident.

Hours earlier, dozens of Israeli settlers clashed with residents of a Palestinian village near Nablus in the northern West Bank, where three Palestinians were shot and wounded by the settlers, medical officials said.

...and the Indians died

(But the country was young, with God on its side)

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Authorities were picking through mangled wreckage and freeing trapped bodies Saturday, a day after at least 18 people were killed and some 135 injured when a commuter train struck a freight train head-on in suburban Los Angeles.

A commuter rail car lies on its side after a collision Friday near Los Angeles, California.

At least three bodies were visible in the wreckage, officials told reporters, and more likely will be recovered as another car has yet to be searched.

"We believe the likelihood of anybody being alive in the wreckage at this point is very remote," said Mario Rueda, deputy chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

GALVESTON, Texas (CNN) -- Rescuers in Galveston, Texas, were going door-to-door Saturday to check on 20,000 people who failed to flee from Hurricane Ike -- which has slowed to tropical storm status.

Park benches are strewn about in downtown Houston Saturday during Hurricane Ike.

President Bush declared 29 Texas counties a major disaster area, making federal funds available for recovery from the storm.

Ike was downgraded Saturday to a tropical storm 11 hours after it crashed ashore as a Texas-sized hurricane that walloped southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana.

The storm's sustained winds dropped to 60 mph as it moved north across Texas, expending its power along the way.

In the coastal city of Galveston, CNN affiliate KPRC showed workers checking homes where people who had ignored warnings to evacuate had subsequently begged 911 operators for help.

Three deaths in Texas have been attributed to the storm.

Multiple bomb blasts ripped through some of Delhi's best known shopping areas Saturday night, creating chaos across India's capital.

Five blasts over a 45-minute period killed as many as 25 people, according to a local television network. Early reports estimated that 90 people were injured. Four other bombs failed to detonate and were defused.

The audacious terror attacks were claimed by the Indian Mujahideen, a little known militant group. They targeted some of Delhi's best known landmarks and markets, exposing the inadequacy of India's security forces.

Rumours have spread this week about the health of Kim Jong-il, the reclusive ruler of communist North Korea, who is variously reported to have suffered brain convulsions, had open heart surgery or been paralysed by a stroke.

US intelligence officials, backed by Lee Myung-bak, South Korean president, say their best guess is that Mr Kim has suffered a stroke, but that he is recovering and is not seriously ill.

The question remains whether any succession plan is in place in the bellicose nuclear-armed state that Mr Kim inherited from his father, Kim Il-sung, in 1994.

No one knows what would happen if Mr Kim were to die suddenly, and without an agreed succession. Alarming scenarios circulating in Seoul include the possibility of a civil war in the North or Chinese occupation. At the least, Mr Kim's death could precipitate a collapse of the North's political and economic infrastructure.

Wall Street firms would buy the $30bn-plus of property assets held in Lehman Brothers' "bad bank" in order to facilitate a rescue takeover for the embattled financial group, under one of the options being discussed by industry executives and regulators.

Financial chiefs have so far expressed reluctance to back the plan but remained locked in discussions with Treasury and Federal Reserve officials in New York Saturday in an effort to solve the crisis at Lehman before the markets open on Monday, according to people close to the discussions.

In addition to exploring these various ways to support a deal, the authorities and the private sector leaders are discussing how to deal with alternative scenarios in which there is no deal and Lehman could collapse.

A solution could come as early as Saturday night but it is more likely to come on Sunday, according to people familiar with the situation.

The international community needs to overhaul its approach to fragile states, Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, will say today.

In a speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Geneva, he will argue there is inadequate co-ordination between security and development objectives, and that economists rarely take account of political- constraints. He will add that policy is fragmented, with individual donors such as the US reluctant to pool resources and crucial issues such as fostering the rule of law left relatively neglected.

"The most fundamental prerequisite for sustainable development is an effective rule of law, including respect for property rights," he will say. "Yet the international security and development communities have let the task of building justice and law enforcement systems fall between the cracks."

Setting out a doctrine he terms "securing development", Mr Zoellick argues that the consequences of current shortcomings are grave, since failing states such as Afghanistan in 2001 have posed a threat not just to their own citizens and their regions but to the world as a whole.

"Only by securing development can we put down roots deep enough to break the cycle of fragility and violence," he says, emphasising the importance of a common approach that marries development, security and political concerns.

"Soldiers and aid workers need to co-operate to help the people in these countries shift from being victims to becoming the principal agents of recovery," he says. "Without this co-operation, efforts to save fragile states are likely to fail and we will all pay the consequences."

The World Bank chief calls for lessons to be learnt from the US experience in Iraq, where violence decreased and infrastructure work increased after Washington sent in more troops.

So this is the Bush doctrine on develoment policies...

"Ne te courbe que pour aimer..." René Char

Bolivia's government has appealed for calm after violent unrest prompted President Evo Morales to declare martial law in the region of Pando.

On Friday, Mr Morales ordered troops to re-take an airport in the northern province which had been seized by anti-government militants a week ago.

As many as 16 people, according to local media, have died in armed clashes in the region since Wednesday.

The president has said that martial law is not needed elsewhere in the country.

But in Pando province, a remote jungle region, firearms and meetings of more than three people have been banned, and a curfew has also been imposed.

Anti-government protesters have reportedly fought supporters of the president with clubs, machetes and guns.

The government's plea for calm was echoed by opposition governor Mario Cossio, who had travelled to Bolivia's capital La Paz for negotiations.

"We have agreed on the need for pacification of the country and an end to the violence," he told reporters after seven hours of talks with government officials.

Haiti's Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis has said that a series of storms may have left as many as one million Haitians without a home.

Ms Pierre-Louis, who has called on the international community to more assistance, said part of the city of Gonaives might have to be moved.

She said the whole country has been devastated by four storms which struck in just over three weeks.

The problem was too great for Haiti to deal with on its own, she added.

"We need major support and it is time for the world to understand that," she said.

"We've suffered too much in this country."

Strong winds and torrential rains over the past month have battered Haiti's already fragile infrastructure and left more than 550 people dead.

China's Ministry of Health announced a nationwide investigation Friday into the safety of all infant formulas as a team of investigators from six government agencies descended on the powdered milk factory that produced formula now linked to one baby's death and kidney problems in at least 50 more.

The producer of the suspect formula, the Sanlu Group, recalled 700 tons of its formula after determining on Thursday that it had been contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical, according to the official China Daily newspaper. The discovery of contaminated infant formula in China is a setback for the country's efforts to reassure its own citizenry and overseas buyers that the "made in China" label is trustworthy after a series of incidents involving items from toxic toy beads to poisonous cough syrup.

Despite almost a decade of intensified international efforts to improve the lives of the world's most disadvantaged, the number of those living in extreme poverty is on the rise in the poorest regions, the United Nations said in a report published on Thursday.

The report sets the framework for a summit of up to 100 heads of state and government who will gather in New York this month to discuss if it is still possible to meet a series of ambitious targets set in 2000 for improving living standards in the developing world.

The challenge comes as donor countries face their own economic downturns, coupled with higher energy and food prices - which pose an even greater threat to livelihoods and stability in poorer developing countries.

The UN figures indicated extreme poverty had fallen in percentage global terms and that the target of halving it by 2015 was still within reach. However, progress had been uneven. Most of the improvement came in Asia where Chinese economic expansion lifted 475m people above a poverty line of $1.25 a day between 1990 and 2005.

In most other developing regions, however, the number of poor was rising among expanding populations. In sub-Saharan Africa, those living below the poverty line increased by 100m in the same period. "The depth of poverty in this region is lower than anywhere else, with an average daily consumption of 70 cents per day," the report said.

Police in Malaysia are still holding an opposition politician and an online blogger after a wave of arrests to try to crack down on dissent.

Three people were detained on Friday under the country's stringent internal security act - which means they can be held indefinitely, without trial. A vigil has been held near Kuala Lumpur for the politician still being held. Supporters gathered in a quiet residential backstreet outside their party HQ to light candles and pray. Many of them were still shell-shocked.

They shouted "free Teresa" and "abolish the ISA". Teresa Kok is the member of parliament who was detained on suspicion of stoking racial tension, a very sensitive subject in multi-ethnic Malaysia. But her supporters believe she is a victim of the bigger picture.

The government here is struggling to stay in power and is using the draconian powers of the much-criticised internal security act to put critics in jail and send out a strong message. The opposition won historic levels of support in a general election earlier this year and since then it has been threatening to bring down the government by persuading parliamentarians to defect.

Lehman's Options Narrow,
With Forced Breakup Possible

The outlines of plans to determine the fate of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. emerged today even as it became increasingly clear that a clean sale of the entire firm to a big bank would be too difficult to execute.

A sense of optimism that a rescue could be arranged today dimmed as a growing sense of gloom descended on Wall Street. Executives from top banks in the U.S. and Europe huddled with federal regulators in an attempt to come up with plans to either buy pieces of Lehman or prepare for an orderly winding down of the firm in a manner that would minimize the collateral damage for the ailing global financial system.

Under one plan, either Barclays PLC or Bank of America Corp. would buy Lehman's "good assets", such as its equities business, people familiar with the matter say. Lehman's more toxic, real-estate assets would be ring-fenced into a "bad" bank that would contain about $85 billion in souring assets. Other Wall Street firms would try to inject some capital into the bad bank to keep it afloat for a period of time so that a flood of bad assets don't deluge the market, damaging the value of similar assets held by other banks and insurers. The banks are also looking for the government to somehow financially backstop the bad bank.

(...)

With it unclear whether the gap between the federal government and potential buyers can be bridged, a second group at the New York Fed is focusing on the possibility that there might be no alternative to liquidating Lehman and winding down its operations in an orderly fashion.

On Saturday afternoon, the credit-trading heads of major investment banks gathered at the meeting to discuss how to deal with their exposures to Lehman in the intertwined credit-default-swap market. The lack of a central clearinghouse in this market means that dealers, hedge funds and others are directly facing each other in insurance-like contracts that are tied to trillions of dollars in debt instruments.

Credit derivative traders at some firms were asked to come to work over the weekend to help quantify their exposures to Lehman and compile lists of outstanding contracts they have with the investment bank.

If Lehman fails, would you feel it?
Some see struggling investment bank as a test case for Wall Street and the economy.
Tom Petruno, Market Beat  LA Times, Sept 13,'08
September 13, 2008

Wall Street now knows that investment banking titan Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. could fail within days.

As frightening a thought as that is to financial market players, many also confess to having an intense curiosity about the potential outcomes: What would happen to the financial system? How bad would the fallout be?

There also is a sense that a spectacular failure may be the cathartic event that is needed to move the nation's credit crisis closer to its final chapter.

"You get to a point where the dike is going to go no matter what," said Jeffrey Gundlach, chief investment officer at $127-billion-asset TCW Group, the Los Angeles parent of Trust Co. of the West.

Since at least the 1970s, however, the public has come to assume that some financial institutions were simply too big to fail. That view was underpinned by government policy that has been evident in spades this year.

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Now the government has said, no more. The Treasury and the Fed are said to be refusing to provide aid to potential buyers of loss-ridden Lehman, whose stock plummeted 77% this week as investors fled.

If this weekend the 158-year-old firm can't find a way to survive on its own and can't find a buyer, its collapse could be imminent.

Many Americans' sentiment on this is evident in the comments that deluge almost any investment website: "Let it fail!"

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If Lehman can't make good on some portion of its hundreds of billions of dollars in commitments, there is a risk of a domino effect throughout the financial system. And all of us, one way or another, are dependent on that system.

For the last 20 years, the idea of protecting the biggest financial firms from failure has centered in large part on the boom in so-called derivative securities such as credit default swaps -- a way for banks and investors to bet on, or hedge against, financial market moves.

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Janet Tavakoli, a Chicago-based consultant on derivative securities, says it may finally be time to find out just how well the derivatives market can stand up to a serious financial failure.

"It would be good to have a test case," she said.

If the collapse of Lehman is about to destroy the modern financial system, the stock market isn't expecting it. Most major indexes rose for the week even as Lehman's troubles deepened. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 1.8% in the five days, to close at 11,421.99 on Friday.

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That could be devastating for other financial giants that the market perceives to be in weakened states, including Merrill Lynch & Co. and insurer American International Group.

But in a capitalist system, investors are supposed to be responsible for their own actions. That means they must have the right to fail as well as succeed -- no matter how indispensable they'd like us to think they are.

John McCain has decided to run as a former POW and a maverick, a maverick's maverick, rather than George W. Bush's best friend, and that's understandable, but how can he not address the $3-trillion that got burned up in Iraq so far? It's real money, it could've paid for a lot of windmills, a high-speed rail line in Ohio, some serious R&D. The Chinese, who have avoided foreign wars for 50 years, are taking enormous leaps forward, investing in their economy, and we are falling behind. We're wasting our chances. The Republican culture of corruption in Washington hasn't helped.

And a former mayor of a town of 7,000 who hired a lobbyist to get $26-million in federal earmarks is now running against the old-boy network in Washington who gave her that money to build the teen rec center and other good things so she could keep taxes low in Wasilla. Stunning. And if you question her qualifications to be the leader of the free world, you are an elitist. This is a beautiful maneuver. I wish I had thought of it back in school when I was forced to subject myself to a final exam in higher algebra. I could have told Miss Mortenson, "I am a Christian and when you gave me a D, you only showed your contempt for the Lord and for the godly hard-working people from whom I have sprung, you elitist battleaxe you."

In school, you couldn't get away with that garbage because the taxpayers know that if we don't uphold scholastic standards, we will wind up driving on badly designed bridges and go in for a tonsillectomy and come out missing our left lung, so we flunk the losers lest they gain power and hurt us, but in politics we bring forth phonies and love them to death.

NUEVA ECIJA, Sep 11 (IPS) - Sustainable agriculture was far from farmer Peter Desisto's mind when he went to an organic farming seminar organised by the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM) ten years ago. He and other farmers attended because they heard that PRRM was giving out loans.

Borrowing is a way of life for farmers who need to purchase expensive chemical pesticide and fertiliser before they can even plant rice in their fields. Such borrowings, usually from local money lenders who charge high interest, keep farmers perpetually in debt. The harvest gives them little surplus to avoid fresh loans in the next cropping season.

Desisto came out from the PRRM seminar loaded, not with borrowed money, but with new knowledge and a firm conviction that organic farming was the way forward. He gave up chemical-based inputs and instead bought cheaper chicken manure to fertilise the fields, raised ducks that eat the snails that were ruining his rice stalks, and used indigenous herbs to control pests.

Instead of solely relying on rice, Desisto diversified into hog and poultry raising and planting onions for extra income. "I spent more time applying chicken manure and planting other crops. The extra effort paid off," he said.

Now Desisto is not only free of debt but also able to provide adequately for his family. He is also content that the land he's renting remains productive, with an annual rice harvest at 90 sacks, which he attributes to the fact that his land is not bombarded with chemicals.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich isn't running for president this year, but due to a gusher of support for his campaign to promote opening up more offshore areas to oil drilling, he's chairing the election season's hottest conservative advocacy group.

The slogan "Drill here. Drill now. Pay less." is fueling Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future, a so-called 527 group not subject to federal campaign finance law and its limits on donations. So far this election cycle, it has raised $13.1 million; only two other 527 groups, both liberal, have collected more money, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

While the sum pales beside the cash amassed by the largest of the 527s that so dominated the political landscape during the 2004 presidential race, American Solutions has raised more funds than the best-known unregulated conservative political group raised at the same point four years ago: Swift Vets and POWs for Truth. The Swift Vets, which ultimately spent $19.3 million on TV advertising attacking Democratic nominee John Kerry's military record, had raised only $8.8 million by the end of September 2004.

Alitalia was struggling to keep in the air on Friday after a day of failed efforts to reach an agreement on job losses and new labour contracts between union leaders and a group of Italian investors offering to rescue the airline.

Italy's flag carrier, which sought bankruptcy protection last month, managed to keep operations going after dozens of cancellations on Thursday. About 100 flight attendants staged a noisy protest around check-in counters at Rome's Fiumicino airport.

Pope Benedict XVI, passing through hours earlier on a special Alitalia flight to France, responded gracefully to a request by Augusto Fantozzi, the airline's administrator, to pray for success.

A substance found in broccoli may limit the damage which leads to serious lung disease, research suggests.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is often caused by smoking and kills about 30,000 UK residents a year.

US scientists found that sulforapane increases the activity of the NRF2 gene in human lung cells which protects cells from damage caused by toxins.

The same broccoli compound was recently found to be protective against damage to blood vessels caused by diabetes.

Brassica vegetables such as broccoli have also been linked to a lower risk of heart attacks and strokes.

We should ask LEP to order broccoli for Friday's dinner...

"Ne te courbe que pour aimer..." René Char

The most senior judge in Saudi Arabia has said it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV channels which broadcast immoral programmes.

Sheikh Salih Ibn al-Luhaydan said some "evil" entertainment programmes aired by the channels promoted debauchery.

Dozens of satellite television channels broadcast across the Middle East, where they are watched by millions of Arabs every day.

The judge made the comments on a state radio programme.

He was speaking in response to a listener who asked his opinion on the airing of programmes featuring scantily-dressed women during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

"There is no doubt that these programmes are a great evil, and the owners of these channels are as guilty as those who watch them," said the sheikh.

"It is legitimate to kill those who call for corruption if their evil can not be stopped by other penalties."

Friday, September 12, 2008 Technology Review
A New MRSA Defense

Marijuana extracts kill antibiotic-resistant MRSA without a high.

By Nora Schultz

Substances harvested from cannabis plants could soon outshine conventional antibiotics in the escalating battle against drug-resistant bacteria. The compounds, called cannabinoids, appear to be unaffected by the mechanism that superbugs like MRSA use to evade existing antibiotics. Scientists from Italy and the United Kingdom, who published their research in the Journal of Natural Products last month, say that cannabis-based creams could also be developed to treat persistent skin infections.

Cannabis has long been known to have antibacterial properties and was studied in the 1950s as a treatment for tuberculosis and other diseases. But research into using cannabis as an antibiotic has been limited by poor knowledge of the plant's active ingredients and by the controversy surrounding its use as a recreational drug.

Now Giovanni Appendino of the Piemonte Orientale University, in Italy, and Simon Gibbons of the School of Pharmacy at the University of London, U.K., have revisited the antibiotic power of marijuana by systematically testing different cannabinoids' ability to kill MRSA.

MRSA, short for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is a bacterium that can cause difficult-to-treat infections since it does not respond to many antibiotics. Many healthy people carry S. aureus on their skin, but problems arise when multi-drug-resistant strains infect people with weak immune systems through an open wound. In the worst cases, the bug spreads throughout the body, causing a life-threatening infection.

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Conveniently, of the five cannabinoids tested by the researchers, the two most effective ones also happen to be nonpsychoactive....

But when Appendino, Gibbons, and their colleagues applied extracts from five major cannabinoids to bacterial cultures of six strains of MRSA, they discovered that the cannabinoids were as effective at killing the bugs as vancomycin and other antibiotics.

Mark Rogerson of GW Pharmaceuticals, a U.K.-based company that develops cannabinoid-based drugs to treat severe pain caused by multiple sclerosis and cancer, says that the discovery that cannabinoids kill MRSA "really underlines the potentially great diversity of medical applications that cannabis-based medicine can have. You can almost think of the cannabis plant as a mini pharma industry in its own right."

Cherubini: Requiem

Och nu den svenska kocken bakar en Alaskan älg jägare. Bonk! Bonk! Bonk!