Fire, explosions at Khartoum military factory

KHARTOUM (AFP) - Fire raged and explosions tore through the night sky early Wednesday at the Yarmouk military factory in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, witnesses and state-linked media said.

"The authorities are controlling a fire in the El Yarmouk military manufacturing facility," the Sudanese Media Centre, which is close to the security apparatus, said in a brief alert.

"It is a military factory," said one witness in the southern Khartoum neighbourhood who heard "big, big explosions."

Several kilometres from the scene an AFP reporter could see two or three fires flaring across a wide area, with heavy smoke and intermittent flashes of white light bursting above.

"I hear explosions, and now a fire truck has gone inside and soldiers are guarding the area," another area resident said.

Abdul Rahman Al-Khider, the governor of Khartoum state, told official media that an explosion occurred at midnight Tuesday, followed by a fire.

"Preliminary investigation says the explosion happened in a store room," he said, dismissing speculation that the blaze had been caused by "other reasons."

Khider said some people were hospitalised because of smoke inhalation but he gave no numbers.

The fires appeared to be extinguished by 0030 GMT, more than three hours after they began, an AFP reporter said.

A September report from the Small Arms Survey, a Swiss-based independent research project, said evidence from weapons packaging suggests that Chinese-origin weapons and ammunition are exported to the state-owned Yarmouk Industrial Complex.

From there they have subsequently moved into Sudan's far-west Darfur region which has been plagued by conflict for almost a decade, the report said.

Small Arms Survey said it was not clear whether Yarmouk served simply as a recipient "or whether they repackage or even assemble the Chinese-made weapons."

In 1998 Human Rights Watch said that a coalition of Sudanese opposition groups had alleged that Sudan stored chemical weapons for Iraq at the Yarmouk facility but government officials strenuously denied the charges.

Source: http://www.modernghana.com/news/425812/1/fire-explosions-at-khartoum-military-factory.html

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Privatization - Mexico - Conagua accepts human rights commission recommendation on Wirikuta mining concessions

By Rebecca Conan?/?Business News Americas

The Mexican national water commission, Conagua, has accepted a recommendation from the national commission of human rights, CNDH, to monitor claims of...

...

Including privatization information insight and forecasts for business opportunities in Mexico, Business News Americas focuses on major projects, active companies, such as Secretar?a de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales and Comisi?n Nacional del Agua; and business and sales contacts, providing networking opportunities with leading executives throughout Latin America.

Source: http://member.bnamericas.com/news/privatization/conagua-accepts-human-rights-commission-recommendation-on-wirikuta-mining-concessions

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Mass. gov.: Fungus seen at meningitis-linked firm

BOSTON (AP) ? State officials investigating a pharmacy linked to a deadly outbreak of meningitis said Tuesday they found shoddy sterilization practices and unclean conditions there, including debris-covered floor mats and standing water from a leaking boiler.

State officials also said the New England Compounding Center shipped steroids from the possibly contaminated batches suspected in the outbreak before it received its own test results confirming the drugs were sterile.

Gov. Deval Patrick said he's ordered state pharmacy regulators to conduct surprise inspections ? the first of which happened Tuesday ? at companies similar to the NECC and take other steps to tighten oversight. The state also has moved to revoke the company's operating license and the licenses of its top three pharmacists.

"Those whose laboratory practices caused this outbreak should never practice pharmacy or manufacture in Massachusetts again," Patrick said.

The outbreak of fungal meningitis, an inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord, has sickened 308 people, including 23 who have died, in 17 states. The outbreak has been linked to a steroid made by the NECC and taken mainly for back pain. Compounding pharmacies like NECC custom mix solutions in doses or forms generally not commercially available.

The federal government is conducting a criminal investigation.

The state said Tuesday that its preliminary investigation, which began last month after the company was first suspected in the growing outbreak, found large batches of drugs ready for general distribution but not labeled for specific patients.

Its state license permits the company to fill out only specific prescriptions for specific patients, and distributing drugs in bulk like a manufacturer would violate that, said Dr. Madeleine Biondolillo, director of the state Department of Public Health's Bureau of Healthcare Safety.

But company attorney Paul Cirel said it's "hard to imagine" state regulators weren't previously aware of the scale of its operations because they've worked so closely together. The state Board of Pharmacy has always had complete access to the facility, and board members were there as recently as last summer, he said.

"NECC's transparency in dealing with the board since inception in 1998 demonstrates its good-faith intention to operate in compliance with the requirements of its license," Cirel said.

Besides possible state license violations, Biondolillo said the inspections also revealed "several health and safety deficiencies" at the NECC facility in Framingham, just west of Boston.

Three lots of steroids produced by the company are suspected in the outbreak, and the company shipped orders from those lots 13 times before receiving the results of its own tests to confirm those lots were sterile, Biondolillo said. Some medication was shipped as many as 11 days before the company received test results, she said.

Biondolillo also detailed signs of flawed sterilization procedures, including black specks of fungus in sealed vials of the steroids, which were returned to the company during a recall.

Investigators found the company didn't sterilize its products long enough and didn't adequately test whether its sterilization equipment was working, she said.

In addition, mats on which people wiped their shoes to remove contamination before entering a sterile environment were "visibly dirty and soiled with assorted debris," she said. And a leaking boiler adjacent to a pharmacy clean room left an unsanitary pool of water around it and the adjacent walls, she said.

None of what's been found is enough to definitively determine what caused the contamination, and the investigation is ongoing, Biondolillo said.

Meanwhile, Patrick's moves to increase oversight at the state's 25 compounding pharmacies have already started.

The first of the unannounced inspections, to take place at least annually, was done on Tuesday, health department spokesman Alec Loftus said. He wouldn't give the inspected facility's name and said the results are being reviewed.

Patrick said compounding pharmacies will now be required to file annual compliance reports that could help regulators determine if they are acting as manufacturers.

____

Associated Press reporter Bob Salsberg contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mass-gov-fungus-seen-meningitis-linked-firm-205746973.html

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Obama, Romney national security surrogates spar ahead of Monday debate [VIDEO]

WASHINGTON ? Two senior national security surrogates for the presidential candidates traded barbs in a lively debate Thursday night.

Speaking on behalf of Republican nominee Mitt Romney, Dov Zakheim, the under secretary of defense in President George W. Bush?s administration, talked about spending more on defense in terms of the economy by growing the Gross Domestic Product.

?The governor underpins his notion of peace through strength,? Zakheim told a crowd gathered in Washington for the annual Military Reporters and Editors conference. ?If you want to have peace and stability, you need to be strong to dissuade people from doing things they might otherwise do.?

Candidate Romney has said that, if elected president, he would make it a goal to spend 4 percent of GDP on defense annually.

But Michele Flournoy, a foreign policy adviser to President Barack Obama?s campaign and a former top defense official in his administration, said Romney would give the Pentagon $2 trillion it isn?t even asking for, echoing Obama?s remarks at the second presidential debate.

Staking out positions likely to come up again on Monday in the third and final presidential debate, where the topic is foreign policy, budget constraints were clearly top of mind for the two senior advisers.

?Peace through strength is a great slogan, but it?s not a foreign policy,? said Flournoy, pushing back on the Romney campaign?s talking point. ?Taking defense spending back to 4 percent GDP, what?s the strategy behind that? And how in the world are you going to pay for it??

The Obama administration has plans to slash ground troop levels by 100,000 military personnel, bringing the number down to about where it was in 2001 before the surge from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Zakheim said that the kind of defense spending the Republican ticket advocates could be sustained without raising taxes or cutting major programs in a stronger and rebounding economy.

Additional cuts to defense would spread the American military too thin as the U.S. shifts focus from the Middle East to the Pacific, perhaps putting the nation at risk of losing its edge in military might, Zakheim said.

?To be credible to your allies, you need that strength. You need that spending,? he said.

Flourney took exception to the idea that Obama doesn?t embrace the notion of American exceptionalism, saying the president does regard America as the world leader but differs from Romney in how to play that role.

?We?re not leading from behind. We?re encouraging others to step up and be part of the solution,? she said.

Both sides seemed to agree on at least one issue ? fighting two wars has put enormous stress on U.S. troops and their families and they need to be cared for.

?Veterans and active-duty service members will not be touched if sequestration goes into effect,? Flournoy said.

?There?s nothing to argue about this,? Zakheim added.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-romney-national-security-surrogates-spar-ahead-monday-035009059.html

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Breast Cancer's Pink Ribbons: Are We ... - The Lingerie Addict

Today?s guest post is by Elisabeth Dale, one of my close friends as well as a breast expert and founder of The Breast Life, a website that?s all about breast health and well-being. Elisabeth is also the author of bOObs: A Guide to Your Girls, one of my favorite books because it talks about a woman?s breasts at every stage of her life. If you?re interested in keeping up with Elisabeth, you can find her on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Elisabeth Dale

I have mixed feelings about breast cancer awareness month. Some of my ambivalence has to do with my family?s medical history. My mother was diagnosed in the late 1960s, when women stayed silent about the disease and had no say in their treatment. So I understand the importance of talking about and sharing information on the subject.

But over the years, my concerns have shifted. I?m less anxious about finding breast cancer in my own body than I am about finding a cure. I know that one in 8 women are at risk during their lifetime, up from 1 in 11 back when pink ribbons first came on the scene. Despite advances in detection and treatment and millions of charitable dollars raised, it turns out that aren?t much closer to finding out what causes breast cancer.

Sure, we can talk about being aware, wear a ?save the boobies? bracelet or a ?cop a feel? t-shirt, but has all the focus on being aware of our breasts reduced our chances of getting the disease in the first place?

Not really. Medical experts now advise against teaching women to conduct formal monthly breast self-exams. Breast Self Exams don?t save lives or find breast cancers earlier than mammograms. I?ve been getting mammograms for some 25 years now. Turns out that all those visits to a breast-imaging center weren?t necessary. Such screenings are no longer recommended for women under age 40, with the latest guidelines suggesting women wait until age 50 (unless there is a specific family history or exposure to radiation). Still charitable breast cancer organizations continue to tout and even overstate the benefits of BSE?s and mammograms, while neglecting to mention the risks.

Younger and younger women are cautioned to be ?aware,? while the median age of breast cancer patients is 61 years old and over 50% of those diagnosed are older than 62. It?s more common to see pink promotions displaying perky, uplifted cleavage, rather than photos of mature, at-risk bosoms. Breast cancer may be deadlier in younger populations but it is still less common. Today?s Breast Cancer Awareness Month appears focused on saving an image of girlish breasts, not an aging woman?s life.

This over-emphasis on early detection once made me assume that if I were only diligent enough to find a lump in its earliest stages, I could count on being cured. But the truth is that scientists don?t know which of the many breast cancers are slower growing or more deadly. Researchers have only figured out a causal link in about 15% of all cases.

According to the National Breast Cancer Coalition, ?The incidence of women diagnosed with advanced breast cancer has not changed. Rates of diagnosis of truly lethal disease have remained stable since 1975.? I?m left with the knowledge that my two biggest risk factors of being female and aging aren?t ones I can change. I have learned to remind myself that it is heart disease, and not breast cancer, that takes more women?s lives each year in the US. I?ve learned to focus on what I can do to keep myself in the best of heart health, knowing that regular exercise and a reasonably nutritious diet will benefit the whole of me, including my boobs.

I?ve also found new ways to support breast cancer research, education, and advocacy programs. The following initiatives are all focused on measuring greater progress:

1. Before purchasing or participating in any Breast Cancer Awareness promotions, Think Before You Pink. Visit the Breast Cancer Action?s informative and consumer friendly website, where you?ll find a list of questions you can ask before buying pink products.
2. Consider joining Dr. Susan Love?s Health of Women Study. This important international on-line medical questionnaire provides researchers with information they need to learn more about the causes of breast cancer.
3. Check out the National Breast Cancer Coalition?s 2012 Breast Cancer Progress Report and read about their campaign to coordinate research efforts and private funding. Learn about the myths and truths surrounding Breast Cancer.

Women have always been the leaders and active participants in campaigns to raise ?awareness.? We are also the biggest consumers of pink merchandise. My fear is that if we keep wrapping the problem in the same pretty pink ribbons, we?ll continue to get the same results.

What do you think about the campaigns to raise awareness and pink ribbons? Let?s talk about it in the comments.

Source: http://www.thelingerieaddict.com/2012/10/breast-cancers-pink-ribbons-overselling-awareness.html

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Some student veterans fighting to stay on GI Bill

courtesy of Hayleigh Perez

Hayleigh Perez, a former Army sergeant who served in Iraq, argues that the University of North Carolina system has over-billed by her $4,600 that should have been covered, she contends, by the GI Bill. She is holding her daughter Caleigh.

By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

Some 250,000 student veterans are being forced to pay $10,000 for tuition each academic year because many colleges are misclassifying the residency status of those veterans ??often for the schools? own financial gain ??according to a student veterans organization.

The issue centers on a fundamental change to the GI Bill, enacted last year by Congress, which stripped tuition benefits for veterans who attend public schools and who are categorized as out-of-state students. In-state student veterans enrolled at public institutions remain eligible for full tuition coverage under federal law.?

But the financial fallout of the residency crunch is impacting student veterans in about 38 states, including Florida, North Carolina and California, reports the Student Veterans Advocacy Group?(SVAG). Many of those same student veterans are lifelong residents of the states in which they?re now enrolled ? even owning homes in those states???but their schools stamped them as out-of-state residents after they were temporarily transferred to other military bases, or deployed overseas.

?Many veterans are having to quit school because they can?t afford that $5,000 per semester they have to now pay out of pocket,? said Jason Thigpen, founder and president of SVAG, which is based in North Carolina. Thigpen, a student at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, is not personally affected by the classification problems. As a U.S. Army sergeant, he earned a Purple Heart medal for combat wounds he sustained in Iraq in 2009.

---

?This is the first time in the history of the GI Bill that we can?t get the education that we were promised,? Thigpen said. ?It?s a debt that?s owed to these services members. Our veterans are just asking what was promised to them ? no more, no less.?

Dozens of student veterans, who recently used SVAG to successfully appeal and overturn their out-of-state residency classifications at their colleges, used utility bills and mortgage papers to prove that they are???and have been???living in their home states, Thigpen said.

Despite a similar pile of residency proof, however, student veteran Hayleigh Perez, 26, has failed during several hearings to convince the University of North Carolina that she was fully eligible for GI Bill tuition benefits when she attended UNC Pembroke last spring.

Perez, who was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 2006, legally maintained her residence in Fayetteville, N.C., during a subsequent 15-month deployment to Iraq, she said. When she returned to North Carolina, she got married in that state. In 2008, Perez and her husband bought a home in Hoke County, N.C. and she registered as a voter. In 2009, the U.S. military relocated Perez and her husband to Texas, but the couple continued to pay property taxes on their North Carolina home, she said.

Perez received an honorable discharge from the Army in 2009. Last spring, after her husband was transferred back to North Carolina, Perez enrolled at UNC Pembroke. She was stunned, however, when the school billed her $4,600 for a semester of tuition because she?d been deemed an out-of-state resident ? and, thus, ineligible for the GI Bill.

?It is disgraceful,? Perez said. ?I was forced to borrow the money for my tuition from family members.?

She filed a grievance with UNC Pembroke, offering as evidence of her residency the property records, her marriage license and her North Carolina voter ID. The school denied her appeal, she said. She ultimately took her case to UNC leaders in Chapel Hill ? and met with UNC officials yet again last Tuesday with Thigpen at her side. Once more, she said, her claim was denied.

NBC News asked UNC to address Perez?s assertion that she should be classified by the school system as an in-state resident. Laura B. Fjeld, a UNC vice president and general counsel, e-mailed a response:??We are not at liberty to offer any details in connection with the case of Ms. Perez because of the privacy protections afforded her under FERPA (the U.S. Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act).?

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, there are about 5,000 additional student veterans like Perez who are wrongly classified by their colleges as out-of-state residents ? and many of those take classes within the UNC system, Thigpen contends. He has personally represented 32 of those students during their hearings to overturn their residency classifications, winning each case, he said.?

courtesy of Hayleigh Perez

Student veteran Hayleigh Perez now attends Methodist University in Fayetteville, N.C. Since spring, she's battled the University of North Carolina to reimburse her for $4,600 in tuition she argues she never should have paid under the GI Bill.

On that point, Fjeld responded: ?We believe that the (North Carolina) State Residency Manual which governs classification of residency for tuition purposes,?is consistent with state and federal law.?

?This isn?t just North Carolina, though,? Perez said. ?This has become an issue nationally. People are serving multiple deployments, and to face these kinds of hardships when they get home is crazy.?

Perez knows well the scope of the issue. She posted an online petition?at change.org, asking the ?UNC Board of Governors? to ?Stop Discriminating Against Student Veterans.? Within the petition, she also revealed her situation, point by point. As of Monday evening, more than 143,000 supporters had signed the petition???including people who said they are student veterans experiencing the same residency problems???and tuition bills???in Virginia, Florida and other states.

Why are some colleges such sticklers on the residency disputes filed by student veterans, forcing many to pay out-of-state tuition fees even though they reside in the same state?

If a public college agrees with a student?s assertion that he or she is an in-state resident and, consequently, allowed to attend school tuition-free on the GI bill, the federal government then directly sends the school that tuition payment???in North Carolina, that?s $5,000, on average, per academic year at public institutions, Thigpen said.

If the school holds fast to its ruling that a student veteran should be classified as an out-of-state enrollee, the student must pay the school out of pocket for tuition???in North Carolina, that?s $16,000, on average, per academic year at public colleges, Thigpen said.

?When you multiply that $11,000 difference over just say 5,000 to 10,000 student veterans who are affected by this,? Thigpen said, ?you?re talking about over $100 million a year.?

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Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/22/14565761-home-but-not-a-resident-some-student-veterans-fighting-to-stay-on-gi-bill?lite

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Squalid factories, foodborne diseases are rising again

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By Nicole Goodkind

Foodborne illnesses kill 3,000 Americans each year. Nearly 130,000 more are hospitalized. The aggregate cost of foodborne illnesses to the U.S. economy in 2011 was $77.7 billion.

These are staggering numbers, and they're on the rise. The FDA had 37 recalls of fruits and vegetables in 2011, up from just two in 2005. Between 2006 and 2010 the rate of foodborne salmonella rose 10%.

Why is food in the United States so riddled with disease that it's killing citizens?

Stephanie Armour, Food Safety and Public Health Reporter at Bloomberg, investigated this question for a special report in this month's issue of Bloomberg Markets. What she found was deeply disturbing.

The Food and Drug Administration has an annual budget of $1 billion to fulfill its duties. Annual food sales in the United States equal $1.2 trillion.

Because of these budget constraints, the FDA is able to inspect ust 6% of domestic food producers and 0.4% of importers.

"The FDA doesn't really have the funding to do the inspections," says Armour in an interview with The Daily Ticker. "I mean it's a negligible amount that they're actually able to get to and look at visually. Instead a lot of private companies have used these third-party auditors. They're basically private inspection firms that go in, do the inspection, make sure the food handling is safe and let the companies know and give them a grade."

Unfortunately, these third-party auditors are far from ideal inspectors. They are not required to follow any federal standards and do not have to make their reports public. Some are financially linked to the companies they are inspecting.

"In some cases you have companies that are on the board of the inspecting companies that are writing the rules for food safety," explains Armour.

Third-party auditors only inspect areas that companies ask them to look at. Sometimes they do not see a factory before giving it a passing grade. Food that is imported into the U.S. often goes uninspected altogether.

These improper inspections kill people, says Armour.

"People have died after these food safety inspection firms have gone in and said 'everything's great.' They've given them superior scores and weeks later or even at the same time people have started getting sick and dying."

What is found to be acceptable by these inspectors is appalling. Plants that receive superior scores are often later found by the FDA to be packed with mold, cockroaches, rats and pigeons.

Abroad, it is not an uncommon practice for workers to defecate in fields where fruit grows.

In Vietnam fish are packed in contaminated tap water for their trip to the U.S. Fish in China are fed a diet of pig and goose feces before they are sent for American consumption.

So what can we do to protect ourselves?

On a personal level, meat should always be cooked properly and fruits and vegetables should always be washed thoroughly, Armour says.

On a federal level, the FDA is hoping to receive more funding through the recently passed Food Modernization Act. Many food experts say these regulations are long overdue.

Armour, however, remains confident that the FDA can boost inspections.

"There have been some members of Congress who are trying to put some pressure on, to try to get there regulations out so that changes can start to be made," she says.

What do you make of food regulation in the U.S.? Have you changed the way you eat?

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Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/106-years-jungle-squalid-factories-foodborne-diseases-rising-144403719.html

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