Haiti assist bid injured by delayed U.N. reply

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

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

World&&&&Natural Disasters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"CRIMINALS AND BANDITS"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"POOREST AND MOST VULNERABLE"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

World Natural Disasters

Trimeris increase from aborted sale

AIDS drug association Trimeris reported neatly higher increase in the fourth entertain due to a $12 million cost it perceived when a South Korean companys plan to buy the commercial operation collapsed.

The Durham association reported a distinction of $7.2 million in the fourth quarter, or 32 cents per share, up from $1.5 million a year ago, after the markets sealed today.

Excluding the stop cost it perceived from Arigene, a South Korean company, Trimeris" net income in the fourth entertain was $1.7 million. Arigene unsuccessful to acquire enough appropriation to finish the merger of Trimeris.

Royalty income from the sale of the AIDS drug Fuzeon totaled $1.8 million, down from $2.7 million a year earlier. Sales of Fuzeon,which is marketed by Swiss curative hulk Roche, have been harm by the sales cost -- $20,000 a year -- as well as the side goods and the key of newer AIDS medications.

Trimeris netted $8.7 million from the $12 million stop cost paid by Arigene after incompatible fees paid to attorneys and others who suggested the association on the deal.

For the full year 2009, Trimeris reported a distinction of $12.3 million, or 55 cents per share, contra $8 million a year earlier.

Earlier today, Trimeris shares sealed at $2.47, down 1 cent. Arigenes proposal suggest was for $3.60 a share.

Istanbul is buzzing: Buy currently and reap the rewards tomorrow

The European Capital of Culture 2010 is Istanbul, but devotees of this very old city would disagree that it"s been the collateral of enlightenment for scarcely dual millennia.

First, it was a Greek city, Byzantium. Then from AD330 to 395, the city that links Europe with Middle East Minor was the majestic collateral of the Roman Empire and was renamed Constaninople.

Emperor Justinian commissioned the turning point outrageous church Aya Sofya 1,500 years ago, that has miraculously survived majority wars and earthquakes.

River living: Restored homes unaware the Bosphorus at Yenikoy, Istanbul

For centuries it was a mosque - the mosaic icons intoxicated over and given suggested - and the minaretted idol is right away a smashing museum.

Topkapi Palace claims to residence the disguise and long knife of the soothsayer Muhammad; the Blue Mosque is the largest in Istanbul, dating to 1609; and the city"s Grand Bazaar, with some-more than 2,000 stalls, regards itself as the oldest mall in the world.

But the city of 12.5 million people (though a little contend fifteen million is a truer figure) is fast modernising. The iS.CAM and Istanbul Modern art galleries are each bit as select as any found in alternative vital European cities. And investment in a new metro - going underneath the Bosphorus - underlines the city"s mercantile upturn.

The irresolution is already being witnessed in the housing sector, where 250,000 new homes a year are compulsory up to 2015.

An under-supply - usually 70,000 homes were built last year - an opening up of debt financial to locals, and a Government charge to reinstate feeble built existent homes with some-more strong ones is pushing the marketplace forward.

"Property prices in Istanbul are undervalued," says David Richardson, of Tulip Turkuaz, a growth company. "There"s an event to have good income - up to 40 per cent distinction - in the subsequent dual years for a well-chosen off-plan investment.

"But for majority foreigners, I"d suggest a medium-term, five-year investment plan as collateral gains taxation is nonexistence after that period."

Sue Sitek, from St Albans, Herts, has paid for a one-bedroom apartment, labelled 68,100, at Tulip Turkuaz, with only such a plan in mind.

"I"m shopping for the long-term, with my grant in mind. This is quite an investment purchase," she says. "I"ve undertaken a lot of research, and I think Istanbul has good potential."

Tulip Turkuaz comprises 1,050 apartments for sale opposite eleven multi-storey towers in Bahcesehir, twenty-five minutes" expostulate from the city. A new metro stop is being built.

The plan has been written by Anglo-Malaysian designer Ken Yeang. This is a low-carbon, wateraware project, and immature spaces predominate.

Up to 65 per cent of the tract will be landscaped and roof tiles gardens are a Yeang immature signature. With a scheduled execution date at the finish of 2011, it is pronounced the apartments, that are underwritten by the Turkish government, will interest to Istanbul"s flourishing center class, majority of whom rent prior to buying.

Executives from circuitously Mercedes and logistics companies are additionally expected renters.

Prcies begin from 48,000 for a one-bedroom, 70 sq m apartment. A on trial net let produce of 6 per cent per annum for the initial five years of tenure is optional.

Allow 3 per cent to 7 per cent for squeeze fees and taxes. Those seeking for a pied a terre closer to the ancestral locale centre competence cruise Crystal Heights.

Experience International is offered a preference of one and dual room apartments and 3 room duplexes, with prices from 45,000.

Amenities embody a fitness club, sauna, steam room, Turkish bath and children"s day caring centre.

Tulip Turkuaz: 020 8349 4960, tulipturkuaz.co.uk; Experience International: 020 7321 5858, experience- international.com

lampshade for acne to phone help this mulls

Why is it dauntless to wish young kids and a career? Camilla Cavendish

Camilla Cavendish & ,}

So here I am, uninformed at the behind of from maternity leave but feeling about 102, gripped by a giddy fright that the third kid was a step as well far. I am station on a precipice corner noted lady who failed.

My baby is blessedly strong and easy, nonetheless I cant recollect the names of colleagues, have lost my security pass, and need a terminology to write. The roof tiles leaks and the boiler and the doorbell have been on the wink for months. My eight-year-old has pinned a pointer that says greatfully crash to the front door. My brain is on the blink. Or do I meant the brink? Please bang.

With the initial dual immature kids I managed to cover up for deficiencies by wearing mascara and cultivating an air of efficiency. I was propitious to find a pursuit in the stretchable universe of journalism. As I staggered by my early thirties I found that simply by sticking on to my career, I had won a Goldilocks ticket. Headhunters love competent people who have left the fresh twenties but not reached the cloyed fifties. They generally love women, who are in shorter supply. Yet majority operative mothers cannot take that non-executive directorship or bigger job. Our lives are so finely offset that any shift an additional child, a ill relative, a graduation can spell remarkable career death. What we unequivocally wish is to be means to do the big pursuit later. But that is far as well rare.

It is a infuriating aspect of complicated hold up that majority careers take off when we are in the thirties. Many of us strike a duration of remarkable probability and increase in speed at thirty usually when we were meditative about children. If you miss the moment, the roughly unfit to catch up. Ambitious complicated men of this age have their feet clamped on the accelerator, eyes checking the foe in the wing counterpart as they time up some-more and some-more impassioned hours. A lady who prises her man afar to be a entirely complicated father risks jeopardising his career. So the contingency are doubly built opposite her.

The early forties are budding time for men. Britains Labour Force Survey shows that men on normal consequence some-more in in between the ages of 40 and 44 than at any alternative period. David Cameron and Nick Clegg are 43, the age at that Tony Blair became Prime Minister. Charlie Mayfield, authority of the John Lewis Partnership, is 43 and Simon Wolfson, arch senior manager of Next, 42. Such men are enterprising and at the tip of their diversion when majority women of their era are waylaid by teething, phonics, lunch boxes, healing appointments and childcare.

While not unfit in themselves, these things appear to burden up the smarts easy entrance comment and pull alternative report the distance of the necessity or the headlines from Tehran in to a little kind of remote cognitive overdraft facility. Even hands-on fathers are improved means to compartmentalise than majority operative mothers, since we are the ones who get the call when the boots are lost or the kid is ill.

This shouldnt have a difference so much. In a operative hold up that competence camber 40 years, it seems ludicrous that a couple of center years can be have or break. Yet downsizing at the moment can have a harmful outcome on womanlike careers. In Britain womens gain tumble at the behind of men"s from the mid-thirties and there is a estimable opening from afterwards on. In the US, the bard and thinker Sylvia Ann Hewlett has found that women lose about a third of their earning energy if they take even 3 years out to caring for immature kids or relatives. Some dump in gain is inevitable. What is frightful is the permanent relegation of majority comparison women to the sidelines.

In her book Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success, Hewlett finds that 37 per cent of rarely competent American women willingly leave their careers at a little point (being advantageous sufficient to be means to means to do so). Another thirty per cent take what she calls the scenic route, operative part-time and/or from home. A whopping 93 per cent of those women try after to get at the behind of on to the career highway. But half destroy to find an on-ramp at the behind of to mainstream jobs. Some turn self-employed. Many finish up in jobs for that they are overqualified. This is an unusual rubbish of talent. There are couple of statistics, but the story is echoed roughly every day at my propagandize gate. One high-flying Cambridge connoisseur has taken a lifeless post at a derisory income to get at the behind of on the ladder. She is you do time, as if she were a criminal, perplexing to overcome the distrust that her employer feels since she put her immature kids first.

Another hugely means selling executive, who has taken 7 years out, unsuccessful to get a singular talk until she took her age 50 off her CV. Its grim, she says. Im both dangerous and over the hill. Yet what employers see as a opening in her resum has essentially been filled with guidance how to parent, come to terms with small undiscerning people, sojourn studious and rapt on roughly no nap certainly all profitable government skills.

The thought that you are in your career budding in in between 35 and 45 is a genuine barrier to the enrichment of women. It is additionally a myth. Marjorie Scardino was allocated to run Pearson when she was 50, and is still in the pursuit thirteen years on. Shirley Williams began a new career as a Harvard highbrow at 58 and is still besting her rvials on Question Time at 79. Patience Wheatcroft became Editor of The Sundayat 54 and has left on to edit the European Wall Street Journal. All 3 are mothers, not at all cloyed and full of vitality.

The late thirties or early forties is the age at that majority gifted operative mothers are offering promotions that they cannot change with immature children. They face possibly unwell or being created off. It is the age at that British women are majority expected to be held in the sandwich of seeking both after immature kids and aged relatives. It is usually over this age that majority women essentially reach their prime.

How brave, majority people contend when they listen to about my third child. What they meant is how foolish. Why should it be? In the presumably complicated society, women who select the backburner in their thirties and forties should be means to bake usually as brightly in their fifties and sixties as their masculine colleagues. If a little of the men have burnt out by then, they can repair the boiler and women can make use of do their potential. Its a prolonged highway to 70, after all there should be room for all of us.

CSKA Moscow 0 Inter Milan 1 Special smoothness for Jose Mourinho as Wesley Sneijder books mark in last 4

Inter Milan reached the last 4 of the Champions League for the initial time since 2003 as they eased to a 2-0 total feat in Moscow.

Dutch midfielder Wesley Sneijder grabbed the usually idea of the diversion in the sixth notation as his low free-kick found the approach by the CSKA wall and over goalkeeper Igor Akinfeev.

Things got worse for the hosts when they had surrogate Chidi Odiah sent off early in the second half and Inter were absolutely means to repel any vigour from their hosts and seashore in the last four.

Overhauling their first-leg necessity regularly looked similar to being a difficult charge for the home side, since the approach they were utterly outplayed at the San Siro last week and the deficiency of key midfielder Yevgeny Aldonin and Milos Krasic by suspension.

Special delivery: Jose Mourinho directed Inter in to the last four

With twenty mins to go Jose Mourinho"s side were winning possession, unconditional the round around at will, and Sneijder and Dejan Stankovic both forced Akinfeev in to movement with absolute efforts, and the screw did well to keep out Milito"s bid with the Argentina general by on goal.

The diversion rather petered out from that point, nonetheless Eto"o only unsuccessful to supplement a second as he shot over the club in the last minutes. More...Can Inter Milan and Jose Mourinho tame Barcelona"s Lionel Messi, the undiluted 10?Mourinho slams CSKA"s "plastic pitch" forward of break strife in RussiaMourinho on the warpath again after claiming Italian media turn his wordsInter Milan 1 CSKA Moscow 0: Jose Mourinho all smiles after Milito strike

Ships can cut CO2 by negligence down: investigate

LONDON Wed March 24, 2010 8:48am EDT

A organisation part of stands on rug of the Cambodian-flagged businessman sea boat "Brustel" that is at quayside in the pier of La Rochelle, horse opera France, on Sep 26, 2008.

Credit: Reuters/Regis Duvignau

LONDON (Reuters) - Merchant ships can cut their CO emissions by as majority as thirty percent over the subsequent 3 years by roving some-more slowly, a Brussels-based environmental organisation conspicuous on Wednesday.

Green Business

The shipping zone accounts for scarcely 3 percent of tellurian CO dioxide (CO2) emissions and vigour has grown for cuts.

A investigate commissioned by Seas at Risk found that by delayed steaming, vessels can revoke their fuel expenditure and cut CO2.

The study, conducted by Dutch consultancy organisation CE Delft, showed stream oversupply in the shipping industry supposing opportunities for ships to delayed down.

"From 2010 by 2012, glimmer reductions in the sequence of thirty percent are maximally practicable but the need for retrofitting slow-steaming equipment," the investigate said.

Seas at Risk conspicuous the investigate evaluated tankers, enclosure ships and bulk carriers.

"The glimmer reductions are majority conspicuous in the box of bulk carriers circa 40 percent," it said.

Seas at Risk conspicuous the zone has had to understanding with oversupply and a tellurian mercantile downturn, that has strike shipping hard.

"There are multiform ways in that the industry can understanding with the oversupply of ships. One is to diminution the volume of load carried per ship, an additional is to resting ships, and a third is to cruise at reduce speeds," it said.

"The latter choice has the value that fuel is saved and emissions are reduced."

The investigate was presented at a assembly this week of United Nations shipping group the International Maritime Organization (IMO), that will inspect measures directed at slicing CO2.

"The industry has to a little border already proposed delayed steaming, but the intensity for GHG (greenhouse gas) glimmer reductions is huge," John Maggs, process confidant with Seas At Risk, said.

"The growth of measures to inspire and promote the change should be a priority for the IMO."

(Reporting by Jonathan Saul; Editing by Amanda Cooper)

Green Business for acne doctors to help adolescents to treat their acne

Viamet teams up with Novartis

A small Morrisville drug association co-founded by UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp has sealed a growth understanding that could move in some-more than $200 million.

Viamet Pharmaceuticals voiced Monday an agreement with an investment account run by the Swiss drug hulk Novartis. The understanding calls for Viamet to rise a new diagnosis for an undisclosed ailment utilizing record written to stop a sort of chemical substance that contains metal, typically zinc or iron.

The understanding includes an upfront price and miracle payments that could be value some-more than $200 million if the drug proves successful. Thats a poignant volume for a Triangle association with eight employees and no proven products.

Viamet is additionally building antifungal and prostate cancer treatments utilizing the metalloenzyme technology, but those products are at slightest a year afar from human contrast and multiform years from winning regulatory approval. By shutting down that sort of enzyme, Viamets record is written to emanate safer and some-more in effect drugs.

The Novartis agreement "is validating Viamets approach, not only the companys products," pronounced Garheng Kong, a partner with Intersouth Partners, a Durham venture-capital organisation that was one of Viamets early investors.

"Frequently, biotech companies do deals with big curative companies," pronounced Kong, who additionally is Viamets chairman. "Here, the pharma association came to us and asked for help. Usually, they wish the explanation in the pudding. Here, they"re participating prior to we"ve done the pudding."

Financial sum of the understanding with the Novartis Option Fund were not disclosed. And the companies wouldnt exhibit what disease Viamet has proposed to investigate for Novartis.

Novartis and alternative big drugmakers are fervent to find earnest products and companies that can assistance equivalent negligence sales of comparison medicines.

The understanding originated in Jul when Viamet lifted $18 million in venture-capital financing. That appropriation was led by the Novartis fund, that additionally had an choice to sinecure Viamet to rise an initial drug.

"Since that time we"ve been operative with them to brand a aim and determine on investigate plans," pronounced Viamet CEO Robert Schotzinger.

Viamet expects to sinecure a small series of employees for the Novartis investigate but will go on to hoop most of the work with outward vendors to keep costs down, Schotzinger said.

Viamet was proposed in 2005 by Thorp, afterwards a biochemist at UNC, and Thomas O"Halloran, a chemistry highbrow at Northwestern University.

Thorp is no longer concerned with the companys operations, Schotzinger said. "Holdens impasse is regularly engaging to people, but we"re at a point where the record has taken on a hold up of the own."

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Study supports pick anti-seizure remedy following strident brain injury

This randomized study supports earlier indications that the anti-seizure medication levetiracetam, marketed as Keppra, was as effective at preventing seizures as the traditional medication, phenytoin, marketed as Dilantin, while producing fewer negative side effects. Patients treated with Keppra also had improved long-term outcomes, the researchers found.

The study will be published in the April 2010 issue of the journal,Neurocritical Care; it appeared online on Nov. 7, 2009.

The study of anti-seizure medications in the neuroscience intensive care unit (NSICU) at UC Health University Hospital is part of a focused, ongoing effort to harness scientific evidence to improve treatments and outcomes for patients. Seizures are common following severe brain injury, and minimizing or eliminating them is a primary objective of neurocritical care.

The study was led by Lori Shutter, MD, associate professor of neurosurgery and neurology and director of neurocritical care at UCNI. The published article was written by co-investigator Jerzy Szaflarski, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology.

We continue to make incremental, meaningful strides in the care of patients who are hospitalized in the NSICU following subarachnoid hemorrhage or traumatic brain injury, Shutter says. (A subarachnoid hemorrhage, a type of bleeding stroke, occurs when blood seeps into the subarachnoid space between the brain and the skull.)

Dilantin has traditionally been the standard of care in preventing seizures, which afflict 25 to 30 percent of patients who have suffered a traumatic brain injury or subarachnoid hemorrhage. Keppra is an established anti-seizure medication given to people with epilepsy (defined as having more than one seizure), but its effectiveness for preventing seizures in patients after a brain injury had not been proven. The study sought to establish the drugsafety and effectiveness in this group of patients.

Although the number of patients in the study was small (52), the results appear to be an indicator that Keppra might be an appropriate alternative to Dilantin for preventing seizures and improving outcomes of patients who have suffered a traumatic brain injury or subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Preventing seizures is a critical part of protecting a patientbrain from further injury following trauma or stroke, Szaflarski says. Seizures in the neurocritical care setting can result in aneurysm rupture, increased pressure on the brain, oxygen deprivation, physical injury and death. Seizures can be visible (overt), or undetectable to the human eye (covert).

Despite being the standard of care in the neurocritical care setting, Dilantin is linked to many serious and harmful side effects, including medication interactions, rash, fever, low blood pressure, heart arrhythmias, toxicity and organ abnormalities. Previously, the UCNI team, led by Szaflarski, had reported that patients in the NSICU who were treated with Keppra or whose medication was switched to Keppra had fewer complications and shorter hospital stays than those who continued treatment with Dilantin.

This experience led to the newly published study, which compared the safety of Keppra to that of Dilantin and compared the drugs" effect on seizure activity and long-term outcomes. Patients enrolled in the study underwent continuous EEG monitoring for up to 72 hours. EEG, which stands for electroencephalogram, produces a recording of electrical activity in the brain. Two-thirds of the patients were randomly assigned to receive Keppra, while one-third were randomly assigned to receive Dilantin. The physicians were blinded to which medication the patient received.

The results showed that while patients experienced the same outcomes relating to seizure activity and survival, those treated with Keppra suffered fewer side effects and had better long-term outcomes when examined at three- and six-month intervals following their hospital discharge.

Shutter notes that the study results had an immediate impact on research protocols for other studies in the NSICU that were not allowing use of Keppra. After this study, the protocols were modified to allow Kepprause.

Michael Privitera, MD, professor of neurology and director of the UC Epilepsy Center, points to the Keppra study as an example of UCNIexpansion of clinical and research projects associated with the continuous monitoring for seizures in the NSICU. In 2009 more than 200 critically ill patients were monitored in an effort to quantify overt and covert seizures, including life-threatening status epilepticus, a state of continuous brain seizure activity.

Rapid and accurate detection of seizure activity leads to treatment that can protect nerve cells from damage, especially in cases of subarachnoid hemorrhage or traumatic brain injury, Privitera says. All of the neurologists and neurointensivists have been trained to perform the initial interpretations of EEG tracings, and our epilepsy staff can verify and read the EEG remotely. University Hospital is the only hospital in the Tristate area with this capability.

Shutter and Szaflarski have received grant support from UCB Pharma, Inc., the manufacturer of Keppra. Szaflarski has served as a paid consultant and/or speaker for UCB, Inc.

Scientists Can Read Minds with Brain Scans

By scanning your brain, scientists can discuss it what mental stop youare recalling.

Scientists have done considerable gains not prolonged ago when it comesto celebration of the mass minds. For instance, by brain scans, researchers can discuss it what numbera chairman has only seen, figure out what letters a chairman wants to type, anddetermine where people were station inside of virtualreality environments.

To see if they could mind even some-more formidable informationduring mind-reading,scientists some-more not prolonged ago had 10 volunteers watch 3 films, eachseven-seconds prolonged and featuring a opposite singer in a sincerely similareveryday unfolding on a standard civic street. For instance, in one movie, awoman rifled by her purse to find an pouch she afterwards forsaken in to amailbox, whilst in another, an singer accomplished her crater of coffee, that shethen forsaken in to a trashcan. Participants watched the drive-in theatre fifteen times.

The researchers scanned the participants smarts usingfunctional captivating inflection imaging (fMRI) whilst the participants were askedto stop the films. The interpretation was run by a computer algorithm to identifybrain wake up patterns related with memories for each of the movies. Usingthese patterns, the researchers could fairly envision that movie volunteerswere recalling as they had their smarts scanned.

"The algorithm was means to envision rightly that ofthe 3 drive-in theatre the proffer was recalling significantly on top of what would beexpected by chance," explained researcher Martin Chadwick at UniversityCollege London. "This suggests that the memories are available in a regularpattern."

These kinds of memories are episodicmemories "the complex, bland memories that embody most moreinformation on where we are, what we are you do and how we feel," saidresearcher Eleanor Maguire, a cognitive neuroscientist at University CollegeLondon.

The signatures of each specific episodic mental stop they lookedat were really found in the brain area well known as the hippocampus, that iscritical for guidance and memory, as well as this areas evident neighbors.In particular, 3 areas of the hippocampus the behind right and the frontleft and front right areas seemed to be concerned consistently in all thevolunteers. Past investigate hinted the behind right area is where spatialinformation is recorded, but it stays misleading what purpose the front dual regionsplay.

In these experiments, the researchers unprotected volunteers tomovies rounded off an hour prior to scanning took place.

"It would be intensely engaging to cruise whatwould occur if we brought them behind the subsequent day or in a weeks time or in amonths time or even a years time," Maguire noted. "Does the memorytrace degrade, does it shift over time, do alternative brain areas assumeresponsibility for the memories?It additionally leads in to destiny investigate seeking at the outcome of maybe age ingeneral on memories and maybe how memories are influenced by brain damage anddisease."

The scientists minute their commentary online Mar eleven inthe biography Current Biology.

Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind Why Sleeping on It Helps Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena

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Documents: Anesthetic found in Jackson home

March 27, 2010, 4:24 AM EST

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Unsealed poke warrants in the Michael Jackson box exhibit large quantities of ubiquitous pain-killer and dozens of tubes of skin-whitening creams were between equipment found in the singer"s home after his death.

Investigators went to Jackson"s rented palace Jun twenty-nine following a extensive talk with his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, who told them he had placed a healing bag in a sideboard in a closet.

At the home, detectives found eleven containers of the absolute pain-killer propofol, a little of them empty, as well as a range of sedatives and assorted healing equipment together with a box of red blood vigour cuffs, according to the warrants, that were redacted and unblocked Friday after The Associated Press filed a authorised motion.

Jackson"s Jun twenty-five genocide at age 50 was ruled a carnage caused by an overdose of propofol and alternative sedatives. Murray has pleaded not guilty to contingent manslaughter.

During their search, detectives found nineteen tubes of hydroquinone and eighteen tubes of Benoquin, both of that are ordinarily used in the diagnosis of a skin condition Jackson had called vitiligo. The disease creates rags of de-pigmented skin, and creams can be used to abate skin that has defended the color to give a some-more even appearance.

The find of healing creams in Jackson"s home dovetails with an peculiar acknowledgement Murray reportedly done shortly after Jackson"s death.

According to military statements performed by the AP, Jackson"s personal assistant, Michael Amir Williams, told detectives that in the sanatorium where Jackson was conspicuous dead, Murray told him he longed for to lapse to Jackson"s chateau "so that he could pick up up a little thickk thickk cream that Mr. Jackson has so that the universe wouldn"t find out about it."

Alberto Alvarez, Jackson"s logistics director, who was summoned to the stricken star"s side as he was dying, told military Murray interrupted CPR on the cocktail star to pick up drug vials. He gave the vials and an IV line with a chalky piece imitative propofol to Alvarez, according to the matter Alvarez gave police, and told him to put them in bags that were identical in outline to those after found in the closet.

The skin thickk thickk cream was not listed as a cause in Jackson"s genocide nor was it rescued in a toxicology report. What killed Jackson, according to the post-mortem report, was an overdose of propofol, an pain-killer routinely used for surgery. Murray told military he gave it to Jackson to assistance him sleep, a make make use of of anesthesiology experts have pronounced is grossly improper.

Dr. Zeev Kain, anesthesiology dialect chair at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center, pronounced he was astounded by the volume of propofol detectives found. Among the eleven containers military pronounced they found were 3 100ml vials, that Kain pronounced could be used as ubiquitous anesthesia for multiform hours.

"A alloy should not make make use of of propofol at home to begin with," Kain said.

The warrants additionally show Murray shipped propofol and alternative medications to his partner Nicole Alvarez"s chateau in Santa Monica. It"s surprising to send propofol to a in isolation chateau but not illegal.

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AP Entertainment Writer Anthony McCartney contributed to this report.

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Old and new intersect in rising British Conservative

Estelle Shirbon STAINES, England Fri Mar 12, 2010 2:04pm EST Factbox Factbox: Has Britain"s Conservative Party changed?Fri, Mar 12 2010 Related News Online poll puts UK Conservatives on course for winFri, Mar 12 2010UK"s Cameron seeks to reassure France over EU tiesFri, Mar 12 2010

Yemen separatist shot passed southern tensions climb

Mohammed Mukhashaf ADEN, Yemen Thu Mar 4, 2010 11:35am EST Related News Yemen blast kills up to 19, levels apartment blockTue, Mar 2 2010Yemeni forces clash with suspected rebels in southMon, Mar 1 2010UPDATE 3-Yemeni forces clash with suspected rebels in southMon, Mar 1 2010Yemen arrests 21 in southSun, Feb 28 2010Yemen sappers enter Shi"ite rebel strongholdSat, Feb 27 2010

ADEN, Yemen (Reuters) - A separatist was shot dead by security forces in southern Yemen Thursday as he tried to remove a Yemeni flag from a state building and hoist that of the south, an official said, in a move that could fan hostilities.

World

Violence also flared in Yemen"s capital, where authorities arrested 11 suspected al Qaeda members in sweeps that sparked a gunfight which killed the father of a suspected militant.

In the south, where tensions have escalated in recent weeks, secessionist demonstrators forced their way into a government building in Lahej province, and one protester was killed when security forces tried to disperse them, a local official said.

"The protester was trying to take down the flag of Yemen and raise the flag of the south ... He was shot dead," he said, adding three others were hurt in the clashes in al-Habilayn.

Tensions between Yemeni security forces and southern secessionists protesting against the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh have been on the rise in recent weeks, accompanied by widespread arrests and deaths on both sides.

North and South Yemen formally united in 1990 but many in the south, where most of impoverished Yemen"s oil facilities are located, complain northerners have used unification to seize resources and discriminate against them.

Yemen became a major Western security concern after the Yemen-based regional arm of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane in December.

Western allies and neighboring oil exporter Saudi Arabia fear al Qaeda is exploiting Yemen"s instability to recruit and train militants for attacks in the region and beyond.

Analysts say the government is using the battle against al Qaeda to turn on its other opponents in the country.

SECESSIONIST BARRED FROM LEAVING HOME

Adding to the southern tension, the exiled former president of South Yemen, Ali Salem al-Beidh, said Thursday that a well-known tribal leader, currently allied with secessionists, had been barred from leaving his home in Zinjibar in the south.

"For three days a large contingent from the occupying forces has laid siege to the house of Tareq al-Fadhli ... to weaken him physically and to destroy the house around those inside it," Beidh, who lives in Germany, said in an emailed statement.

"I call on all sons of the south ... to come to the aid of Fadhli and go to Zinjibar and lift the siege," he said.

Zinjibar is also where at least four people were killed in a gunbattle with security forces last week, including Ali al-Yafie, a separatist the government said was suspected of links to al Qaeda. Al Jazeera TV said his wife had also died.

Two soldiers were killed when their vehicle overturned as they chased separatists with whom they had exchanged fire in the southern province of Shabwa, residents said.

Beidh was quoted as saying Wednesday that the unification of north and south Yemen had failed, and accused the government of using violence he said was provoking separatists.

In Sanaa, security forces arrested 11 suspected al Qaeda members in raids that sparked a gunfight which killed the father of a suspected militant, state media said.

As security forces raided a number of houses in the capital Wednesday, the father of one of the suspects opened fire, injuring one soldier, state media said.

The father died in a shootout that followed, the Defense Ministry"s online newspaper reported.

In addition to fighting al Qaeda, impoverished Yemen is also trying to bring an end to a northern Shi"ite insurgency.

Last month, the government declared a truce in a long-running conflict with the Shi"ite rebels, but analysts say it was only a matter of time before fighting starts again as the rebels" grievances have not been adequately addressed.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Ghobari and Mohamed Sudam in Sanaa, writing by Raissa Kasolowsky; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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Fabio Capellos captain predicament as Rio Ferdinand is ruled out of Englands accessible opposite Egypt

Captain Rio Ferdinand has been ruled out of England"s international against Egypt with a back injury.

The Manchester United defender will miss next Wednesday"s game at Wembley after feeling a twinge in his back before Tuesday"s Barclays Premier League match against West Ham.

That came just three games into his comeback from a long-standing back complaint which kept him out for more than three months.

Sidelined: Central defender Ferdinand will miss England"s crucial warm-up clash

United boss Sir Alex Ferguson immediately ruled Ferdinand out ofSunday"s Carling Cup final and the 31-year-old also misses out on thechance of leading his country into their first game since John Terrywas stripped of the captaincy.

"He won"t be fit for the England game," said Ferguson. "That is obvious."

Liverpool"s Steven Gerrard would appear to be next on the list for England boss Fabio Capello, who will be at Chelsea to watch their Premier League encounter with Manchester City - and the meeting between Terry and Wayne Bridge - on Saturday, with either Frank Lampard or Wayne Rooney acting as back-up.

Taking over: Liverpool skipper Gerrard

Not that Ferguson is overly interested in Three Lions affairs.

He is more upset at losing Ferdinand to a back injury that has plagued him for 18 months just as Nemanja Vidic was returning to his starting line-up.

"It is a blow for us because I was looking forward to having Ferdinand and Vidic back on Tuesday," reflected the Scot. "Unfortunately, it wasn"t to be.

"You never know with back injuries and we have been through this before, but we don"t think it is too serious.

"I don"t think he will be fit for the AC Milan game but I don"t think it will be long afterwards. We think he could be back in two weeks."

It has been suggested Ferdinand may come under pressure from his club boss to cut back on his international appearances in order to preserve his career.

Ryan Giggs took the same action with Wales and many observers feel the veteran wide-man"s international retirement has been a contributing factor to his outstanding form in recent times.

Ferguson though insists the same situation does not apply with Ferdinand.

"I don"t think we are at the stage where he should be concentrating on one part of his life in terms of international and domestic football," said Ferguson. "That has never been any issue.

"I have never discussed it with him and I don"t think he has ever thought about that himself."

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