Saturday, January 10, 2009

Eeyore's news and view

Obama moves to counter China with Pentagon-NASA link
Demian McLean BLOOMBERG NEWS
Thursday, January 8, 2009
President-elect Barack Obama probably will tear down long-standing barriers between the U.S. civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a space race with China.
Mr. Obama's transition team is considering a collaboration between the Defense Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) because military rockets may be cheaper and ready sooner than the space agency's planned launch vehicle, which is not slated to fly until 2015, say people who have discussed the idea with the Obama team.
The Pentagon has increasing concerns about China's space ambitions because of what is perceived as an eventual threat to U.S. defense satellites, the lofty battlefield eyes of the military. China, which destroyed one of its aging satellites in a surprise missile test in 2007, is making strides in its spaceflight program. The military-run effort carried out a first spacewalk in September and aims to land a robotic rover on the moon in 2012, with a human mission several years later.
"If China puts a man on the moon, that in itself isn't necessarily a threat to the U.S.," said Dean Cheng, a senior Asia analyst with CNA Corp., an Alexandria-based national-security research firm. "But it would suggest that China had reached a level of proficiency in space comparable to that of the United States."
Mr. Obama has said the Pentagon's space program - which spent about $22 billion in fiscal 2008, almost a third more than NASA's budget - could be tapped to speed the civilian agency toward its goals as the recession pressures federal spending.
NASA faces a five-year gap between the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010 and the first launch of Orion, the six-passenger craft that will carry astronauts to the International Space Station and eventually the moon. Mr. Obama has said he would like to narrow that gap, during which the United States will pay Russia to ferry astronauts to the station.
The Obama team has asked NASA officials about the costs and savings of scrapping the agency's new Ares I rocket, which is being developed by Chicago-based Boeing Co. and Minneapolis-based Alliant Techsystems Inc.
NASA chief Michael Griffin opposes the idea and told Mr. Obama's transition team leader, Lori Garver, that her colleagues lack the engineering background to evaluate rocket options, agency spokesman Chris Shank said.
"The NASA review team is just asking questions; no decisions have been made," said Nick Shapiro, a transition spokesman for Mr. Obama. The team will pass its findings to presidential appointees, he said.
Mr. Obama may find support for his vision at the Pentagon. Although NASA hasn't recently approached the Pentagon about using its Delta IV and Atlas V rockets, building them for manned missions could allow for cost sharing, said Steven Huybrechts, the director of space programs and policy in the office of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who is staying on into the new administration.
The Delta IV and Atlas V are built by United Launch Alliance - a joint venture of Boeing and Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp. - and typically are used to carry satellites.
"No one really has a firm idea what NASA's cost savings might be, but the military's launch vehicles are basically developed," said John Logsdon, a policy specialist at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum who has conferred with Mr. Obama's transition advisers. "You don't have to build them from scratch."
Meanwhile, Chinese state-owned companies already are assembling heavy-lift rockets that could reach the moon, with a first launch scheduled for 2013. All that would be left to build for a manned mission is an Apollo-style lunar lander, said Mr. Griffin, who visited the Chinese space program in 2006.
Mr. Griffin said in July that he thinks China will be able to put people on the moon before the United States goes back in 2020. The last Apollo mission left the lunar surface in 1972.
"The moon landing is an extremely challenging and sophisticated task, and it is also a strategically important technological field," Wang Zhaoyao, a spokesman for China's space program, said in September, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
China plans to dock two spacecraft in orbit in 2010, a skill required for a lunar mission.
"An automated rendezvous does all sorts of things for your missile accuracy and anti-satellite programs," said John Sheldon, a visiting professor of advanced air and space studies at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. "The manned effort is about prestige, but it's also a good way of testing technologies that have defense applications."
China's State Council Information Office declined to comment on the nation's anti-satellite or manned programs.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/08/obama-moves-to-counter-china-with-pentagon-nasa-li/

World stocks drop as U.S. unemployment rate hits 7.2 percent
LONDON – Stock markets dropped Friday as investors fretted over the outlook for the U.S. economy after an unexpectedly large increase in the unemployment rate and confirmation that more jobs were lost in 2008 than in any year since World War Two.
An early relief rally following the news that payrolls in the world's largest economy declined by a smaller than anticipated 524,000 in December soon dissipated as investors focused on the rise in the unemployment rate to a 16-year high of 7.2 percent from 6.8 percent in the previous month. Analysts had expected unemployment to hit 7 percent in December.
Investors were also spooked by the news that for all of 2008, the U.S. economy shed 2.6 million jobs — the most since 1945 when nearly 2.8 million were lost — even though the number of jobs in the U.S. has more than tripled since then.
"In the end, the decline in non-farm payrolls last month wasn't quite as bad as some in the markets had begun to fear," said Paul Ashworth, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics.
"However, it was bad enough and, arguably more importantly, revisions to the declines in earlier months mean that the three-month average decline in payrolls still reached a 50-year record of more than 500,000," he added.
After briefly moving into positive territory following the release, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares closed down 56.83 points, or 1.3 percent, at 4,448.54, while Germany's DAX fell 96.02 points, or 2.0 percent, to 4,783.89. France's CAC-40 was 24.83, or 0.8 percent, lower at 3,299.50.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average was 109.75 points, or 1.3 percent, lower at 8,632.71, while the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index was down 15.59 points, or 1.7 percent, at 894.14.
Equity markets, which enjoyed a rally at the end of 2008 on hopes that fiscal and monetary stimulus measures would help the global economy recover later this year, have been on the retreat in the last few days amid fears about the scale of the recession in the U.S., where a raft of retailers reported dismal sales figures for December.
The markets' pricing behavior over the coming months will depend on when the green shoots of recovery emerge, analysts say.
"There's still a tug of war in the markets between those who think the economy will recover in the second half of the year and those who think 2009 is a right-off, and that will dominate price action in the months ahead," said ECU Group's chief economist Neil Mackinnon.
Given the apprehension ahead of the data, Asian markets had closed lower.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 stock average fluctuated through the session, eventually ending 39.62 points lower, or 0.5 percent, at 8,836.80 by the close. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index lost 38.47 points, or 0.3 percent, to 14,377.44, after rising earlier in the session amid what analysts said was speculation about central government aid for the power sector.
In South Korea, the Kospi shed 2.1 percent even as the country's central bank cut its key interest rate for the fifth time in three months to help shore up the country's sagging economy. Benchmarks in India, Taiwan and Singapore sank, but those in Shanghai and Australia advanced.
Oil prices fell moderately, with light, sweet crude for February delivery down $1.65 to $40.05 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract overnight fell 93 cents to settle at $41.70.
In currencies, the dollar fell 1.0 percent to 90.18 yen while the euro was down 1.5 percent at $1.3495.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090109/ap_ ... ld_markets

FTSE 100 down 28.63 at 4,476.74 January 9, 2009 - 7:28am
LONDON (AP) - Share prices on the London Stock Exchange were lower at midday Friday.
At midday, the FTSE 100-share index was down 28.63 points at 4,476.74.
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=104&sid=1568205

Bank of England cuts interest rates to lowest in more than 300 years The Bank of England has cut interest rates to the lowest level in its 315-year history as it desperately attempts to prevent the UK recession deepening into a slump
The bank rate has been reduced by 0.5 percentage points to 1.5pc after recent economic data suggested that the UK is in store for a deep recession this year as the house price slide, unemployment rises and spending slows.
Economists believe that because the UK is experiencing a significant downturn, with banks unwilling to lend and pass on interest rates cuts in full, the Bank will reduce rates close to zero to try and ease the impact.
"The 50 basis point cut at this juncture was appropriate. However, with survey data continuing to languish at record lows - manufacturing and services surveys in the past few days have confirmed that activity is falling sharply - we see no reason for the Bank to hold back in cutting interest rates to 1pc or below in the coming months," said Hetal Mehta, senior economist from the Ernst & Young ITEM Club.
The Bank's Monetary Policy Committee will have examined all the latest data on the economy before reaching its decision, including most recently a Nationwide survey this week which showed house prices fell 15.9pc in 2008.
In a statement accompanying the decision the MPC said that UK business activity fell sharply during the fourth quarter of 2008 and is likely to continue to do so during the first part of this year.
It reiterated that more action was needed to increase lending to businesses and consumers: "The outlook for business and residential investment has deteriorated. And the availability of credit to both households and businesses has tightened further, pointing to the need for further measures to increase the flow of lending to the non-financial sector," it said.
The Bank is now likely to consider other, less conventional attempts to boost the economy, including printing money, known as quantitative easing.
The MPC's decision to cut interest rates today may also have been influenced by the pound's modest gains against the euro this week after falling to close to parity at the end of 2008 with a low of €1.02 on December 30. It closed yesterday at €1.11.
The MPC has already admitted that it considered bigger rate cuts than it eventually opted for in November and December, partly over fears that it would trigger a run on the pound.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/4175063/Bank-of-England-cuts-interest-rates-to-lowest-in-more-than-300-years.html

Start-ups put farm debris to use as fuel

Start-ups put farm debris to use as fuel
By
Paul Davidson, USA TODAY
JENNINGS, La. — Want to see what you'll be pumping into your car in a few years?
Come visit a scruffy patch of land here in sugar-cane country, where 15-foot-high piles of what looks like hay stretch three blocks alongside a gleaming, silver-and-yellow jumble of pipes, tanks and girders.
The hay, actually crushed sugar-cane stalks, is feedstock for the first cellulosic ethanol demonstration plant in the USA. The biorefinery cranked up this week and, according to its backers, kicks off a new era of clean transportation fuels that won't compete with the food supply. Corn-based ethanol, by contrast, has been blamed for driving up food prices and doing little to reduce the global warming gases emitted by petroleum-fueled vehicles.
Cellulosic ethanol is made from plant waste — such as wood chips, corn cobs and stalks, wheat straw and sugar-cane bagasse (stems and leaves) — or municipal solid waste. Simply put, the nation will soon be running its cars, at least partly, on debris.
Cellulosic makers are quietly laying the foundation for a new industry even as some corn ethanol plants, facing supply shortages and low profit margins, shut down, and some oil giants put off production projects amid plummeting crude prices.
The plunge in crude "is a short-term correction and doesn't stop our quest to develop alternative energy," says Carlos Riva, CEO of Verenium, which owns the Jennings plant. "Cellulosic ethanol is right here and ready."
The plant will produce 1.4 million gallons of ethanol a year, a fraction of a typical 60 million-gallon-a-year corn ethanol plant but far more than the output of the handful of tiny cellulosic pilot plants in the U.S. About a dozen cellulosic demonstration plants and six larger commercial facilities are scheduled to start up by 2012, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.
Range Fuels expects to complete the first commercial plant in Soperton, Ga., late this year. The $120 million facility will churn out 10 million gallons of ethanol a year.
Renewed interest
That cellulosic ethanol is this close to commercial production marks a dramatic leap forward. Development in recent decades has been stymied by high costs and difficulty transferring technology that works well in the lab to mass production. Plus, every time oil prices tumbled, research funding evaporated.
"The old joke was that cellulosic ethanol was always just five years down the road," says Andy Aden, a senior chemical engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. "Now, there's steel going in the ground."
Driving the renewed interest is growing concern about global warming and a belief that Congress eventually will limit carbon dioxide emissions from petroleum-fueled vehicles. It didn't hurt that, in 2005, crude prices shot up to $60 a barrel and hit a high of $147 in 2008 before falling below $50 in recent months.
Venture-capital firms have poured $682 million into cellulosic start-ups since 2006, up from $20 million the previous two years, according to research firm New Energy Finance. And the Department of Energy has provided nearly $850 million for research and development.
"All of a sudden, this went from dog to darling," says Lee Lynd, a pioneer in cellulosic research who co-founded Mascoma, a cellulosic start-up that's still developing its technology.
Producers still face hurdles, including a credit crisis that's delaying several commercial plants. But in 2007, President Bush signed a bill mandating that biofuels make up 36 billion gallons, or 16%, of motor fuel by 2022, with 16 billion gallons coming from cellulosic ethanol. Corn ethanol consumption, which totaled 9 billion gallons, or 7% of the gasoline market, last year, is capped at 15 billion gallons.
A big advantage for cellulosic fuel is that refineries can be tailored to a region's leading crop, reducing delivery costs: wheat straw and corn residue in the Midwest; sugar cane in the South; and wood in the Pacific Northwest and Southeast. Corn ethanol refineries are largely confined to the Midwest.
Another selling point is that cellulosic ethanol can cut greenhouse gas emissions by 86% compared with gasoline, while grain ethanol trims emissions just 20%, DOE says. That's because diverting corn to fuel means razing forests or plowing grasslands to plant substitute corn crops, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. That releases CO2 into the air.
Special enzymes
But it's a lot harder to make ethanol from farm waste than corn. Corn has starches that enzymes can easily break down into sugars; yeast ferments the sugars to produce ethanol. By contrast, stalks and leaves contain carbohydrates that are tougher to unravel because they're tightly bound with other compounds that make plants firm so they can stand and resist wind.
Manufacturers must create special enzymes to unlock the carbohydrates. At about 10 cents a gallon of ethanol, they're twice as costly as those used for corn ethanol. They also must genetically engineer bacteria to ferment the sugars into ethanol.
Recent advances have resulted in more efficient enzymes that substantially cut costs, Aden says. Still, he says, cellulosic wholesale costs are $2 to $3 a gallon, vs. $1.56 for corn ethanol. But since feedstock costs about half as much, Aden says prices should drop to $1.33 by 2012.
There are other challenges. Producers must scavenge enough agricultural residue to supply a factory that will churn out as much as 100 million gallons of ethanol a year. They typically must round up the scraps within a 75-mile radius to avoid high transportation costs that can erase profits.
At its Jennings plant, Verenium gets its bagasse from a sugar mill that's supplied by area sugar-cane farms. To ensure a steady supply, it's also growing "energy cane," a crop that has too little sugar for mills but much thicker stalks.
Other companies plan to raise similar energy crops, such as switch grass, that theoretically can be grown on land degraded by farming. But environmental groups such as NRDC worry that if the crops are grown on regular soil, they'll pose the same food supply and CO{-2} concerns as corn.
Verenium is also experiencing some growing pains as it shifts a chemical process involving delicate microbes from a pristine lab to a bustling, three-story factory. In tests several months ago, a strainer did not remove all the rocks and clay from the sugar bagasse, jamming machines. Manager Mark Eichenseer purchased a $90,000 grinder to more finely chop the bagasse before feeding it to the conveyor.
Another machine that uses heat, pressure and acid to separate glucose and non-glucose sugars was not finishing the job. Eichenseer raised the temperature and acid dosage. Eichenseer is hiring a pump expert to improve the flow of the cellulose, which becomes a sticky mush and sometimes clogs equipment. He's also careful to keep tanks and pumps from getting infected with foreign bacteria, which can reduce ethanol yields. "That's the most difficult challenge," he says.
Fungi that produce enzymes are grown in three stages over eight days. Fermentation takes an additional two to three days. Ensuring continuous output can be tricky. In tests last month, most of the plant was abruptly shut down to prevent backups on the conveyor. Corn ethanol is processed in two to four days.
To make cellulose cost-competitive with corn, Eichenseer is working to scale back the nutrients he feeds the bacteria and the energy to run the refinery without sacrificing ethanol yields. The company also may chop and store energy cane at the farm to trim handling costs.
Different approaches
Some competitors are working on technology they say could slash costs further. Mascoma is developing a bug that does double-duty: It makes enzymes to produce sugars and ferments the sugars into ethanol. Costs should be under $1 a gallon, Lynd says.
Others are taking different approaches by tapping:
•Corn cobs. Poet, the world's largest ethanol producer, has tested two types of combines that allow both corn and cobs to be gathered at the same time to slash labor expenses. The company expects to produce 27% more ethanol per acre of corn.
Poet plans to expand a 50 million-gallon-a-year corn ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa, to produce 100 million gallons of corn ethanol and 25 million gallons of cellulosic fuel by 2011. "It's going to take both (grain and cellulosic ethanol) to replace oil from dangerous parts of the world," Poet CEO Jeff Broin said.
•Wood chips. Range Fuels plans to buy wood waste from paper mills and loggers for the plant it's building in Soperton, a heavily forested area. Instead of using enzymes, Range says it has a less-expensive process that employs heat and pressure to convert wood into a synthetic gas. It then runs the gas over a catalyst to make ethanol.
Range CEO David Aldous says the plant eventually will make 100 million gallons of ethanol a year, requiring a delivery of 12.5 dry tons of wood scraps every seven minutes. But a second phase of the facility that was to be done by early 2012 is delayed six months because financing isn't available.
•Municipal solid waste. BlueFire Ethanol will use trash to feed a 3 million-gallon-a-year demonstration plant it's planning in Lancaster, Calif. Its secret sauce: a low-cost acid that breaks a variety of materials into sugars, rather than an enzyme that's optimized for a certain type of plant. By taking tree remains, lawn clippings and construction debris from the city, BlueFire will gets its feedstock for free while Lancaster avoids paying landfill fees, says company Chief Financial Officer Christopher Scott. Because it doesn't have to use farm residue, BlueFire can build plants near big cities on the East or West coasts, avoiding high costs to truck ethanol long distances.
But construction of the $30 million Lancaster plant, scheduled to start last month, has been pushed back because the credit crisis has dried up funding.
The delays have raised uncertainty over whether the industry will meet the production mandates. The Bush administration is providing tax incentives of $1.01 a gallon for cellulosic ethanol as well as loan guarantees. Analyst Laurence Alexander of Jefferies & Co. says much more federal aid is required. At least some additional funding is likely, he says, citing President-elect Barack Obama's support for biofuels. And start-up Coskata raised $40 million in private equity in October despite the brutal climate.
Yet how much cellulosic ethanol will motorists actually use?
Most U.S. gas pumps now contain 10% ethanol blends, and the government is testing blends up to 20%. In two decades, more flex-fuel cars that can accept blends of up to 85% ethanol are expected to be on the road.
By then, cellulosic ethanol realistically could replace a quarter of the nation's gasoline — which would dramatically reduce both oil prices and global warming emissions, says David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists. DOE says there's enough feedstock to supplant 30% of gasoline consumption. Of course, electric cars and hybrids are also expected to play a big role.
There are skeptics. David Pimentel, an agricultural science professor at Cornell University, calls the DOE estimate "imaginary." Removing too much plant waste from fields will erode soil, he says, while growing energy crops will jeopardize the food supply.
Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures, the top backer of cellulosic start-ups, remains upbeat. By 2050, he says, "You should be able to replace most (gasoline)" with cellulosic ethanol.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2009-01-08-cellulosic-waste-ethanol_N.htm


Literacy study: 1 in 7 U.S. adults are unable to read this story
A long-awaited federal study finds that an estimated 32 million adults in the USA — about one in seven — are saddled with such low literacy skills that it would be tough for them to read anything more challenging than a children's picture book or to understand a medication's side effects listed on a pill bottle.
Though many communities are making strides to tackle the problem, it's worsening elsewhere — in some cases significantly.
Overall, the study finds, the nation hasn't made a dent in its adult-literacy problem: From 1992 to 2003, it shows, the USA added about 23 million adults to its population; in that period, an estimated 3.6 million more joined the ranks of adults with low literacy skills.
LOCATION: Seattle, Minneapolis most literate big cities
How low? It would be a challenge to read this newspaper article or deconstruct a fuel bill.
"They really cannot read … paragraphs (or) sentences that are connected," says Sheida White, a researcher at the U.S. Education Department.
The findings come from the department's National Assessment of Adult Literacy, a survey of more than 19,000 Americans ages 16 and older. The 2003 survey is a follow-up to a similar one in 1992 and for the first time lets the public see literacy rates as far down as county levels.
In many cases, states made sizable gains. In Mississippi, the percentage of adults with low skills dropped 9 percentage points, from 25% to 16%. In every one of its 82 counties, low-skill rates dropped — in a few cases by 20 percentage points or more.
By contrast, in several large states — California, New York, Florida and Nevada, for instance — the number of adults with low skills rose.
David Harvey, president and CEO of ProLiteracy, an adult-literacy organization, says Mississippi "invested more in education … and they have done innovative programming. We need much more of that."
U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings says efforts in adult literacy are inefficient and "scattered" across government agencies.
"We're not using research-based practices, broadly applied," she says.
Harvey cites undiagnosed learning disabilities, immigration and high school dropouts as reasons for the poor literacy numbers.
The findings are published online at
nces.ed.gov/naal/estimates/index.aspx.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/ ... racy_N.htm

New rules on toys could spell doom
By Lea Ann Overstreet Allen and Clay Carey, USA TODAY
Looming federal regulations that could force used-item retailers and thrift stores to trash many children's toys and clothing are getting a second look from the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The regulations, passed under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act in August and set to go into effect Feb. 10, are aimed at eliminating lead-tainted products designed for children 12 and younger. They require all such products — clothes, toys and shoes — be tested for lead and phthalates, the chemicals used to make plastics pliable.
The main issue for retailers is the costly testing, which can run from about $400 for a small item to thousands of dollars for larger toys with multiple pieces, according to Kathleen McHugh, president of the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association.
Products not tested would be deemed hazardous whether they contain lead or not, under the wording of the law.
Abby Whetstone, owner of Twice as Nice Kids in Denver, said consignment stores such as hers would not be able to afford expensive lead tests.
"It would affect every piece of inventory we have," Whetstone said. "We're a little terrified at this point."
The Consumer Product Safety Commission voted this week to work on exemptions to the regulations and evaluate the way they could impact sales from consignment shops, online retailers and even yard sales.
"We are working on a 30-day comment period where we will hear from consumers, manufacturers, retailers, anybody affected by the act," commission spokesman Scott Wolfson said. The review won't be finished by Feb. 10, but the law will still go into effect that day, he said.
Wolfson said there are some obvious holes in the act, which the commission will seek to fill.
Lara Lang, who has helped run consignment sales which raise between $25,000 and $30,000 a year for the Hermitage United Methodist Church preschool in Nashville, says the concept of protecting children is good, but she was critical of the act.
"How on earth are they going to enforce that? They can't. There are people who have yard sales. Are they going to police those?" she asked.
The changes would also affect toy wholesalers and distributors such as Challenge & Fun, a Massachusetts-based company that imports most of its products from Europe. Company co-owner Rob Wilson said he'd have to cut his 500-product line to 20 or 30 to meet the requirements. "Even there, if I have to spend $20,000 or $30,000 on testing, that's a big hit," he said.
Goodwill Industries International, among the charities that could be affected, is waiting for clarification before it starts changing the way it does business, spokeswoman Charlene Sarmiento said.
Carrie Weir, who owns Web-based Los Pollitos Dicen, a children's clothing line specializing in T-shirts, would be hit both as a clothing designer and a parent.
"We all want regulations to make sure our children our safe, but this law goes too far," Weir said.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-08-toys_N.htm

Flu in U.S. found resistant to main antiviral drug
Virtually all the flu in the United States this season is resistant to the leading antiviral drug Tamiflu, and scientists and health officials are trying to figure out why.
The problem is not yet a public health crisis because this has been a below-average flu season so far and the chief strain circulating is still susceptible to other drugs — but infectious disease specialists are worried nonetheless.
Last winter, about 11 percent of the throat swabs from patients with the most common type of flu that were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for genetic typing showed a Tamiflu-resistant strain. This season, 99 percent do.
"It's quite shocking," said Dr. Kent Sepkowitz, director of infection control at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. "We've never lost an antimicrobial this fast. It blew me away."
The single mutation that creates Tamiflu resistance appears to be spontaneous, and not a reaction to overuse of the drug. It may have occurred in Asia, and it was widespread in Europe last year.
Panel recommends Illinois governor be impeached
In response, the CDC issued new guidelines two weeks ago. They urged doctors to test suspected flu cases as quickly as possible to see if they are influenza A or influenza B, and if they are A, whether they are H1 or H3 viruses.
The only Tamiflu-resistant strain is an H1N1. Its resistance mutation could fade out, a CDC scientist said, or a different flu strain could overtake H1N1 in importance, but right now it causes almost all flu cases in the country, except in a few mountain states, where H3N2 is prevalent.
Complicating the problem, antiviral drugs work only if they are taken within the first 48 hours. A patient with severe flu could be given the wrong drug and die of pneumonia before test results come in. So the new guidelines suggest that doctors check with their state health departments to see which strains are most common locally and treat for them.
"We're a fancy hospital, and we can't even do the A versus B test in a timely fashion," Sepkowitz said. "I have no idea what a doctor in an unfancy office without that lab backup can do."
If a Tamiflu-resistant strain is suspected, the disease control agency suggests using a similar drug, Relenza. But Relenza is harder to take — it is a powder that must be inhaled and can cause lung spasms, and it is not recommended for children under 7.
Relenza, made by GlaxoSmithKline, is known generically as zanamivir. Tamiflu, made by Roche, is known generically as oseltamivir.
Alternatively, patients who have trouble inhaling Relenza can take a mixture of Tamiflu and rimantadine, an older generic drug that the agency stopped recommending two years ago because so many flu strains were resistant to it. By chance, the new Tamiflu-resistant H1N1 strain is not.
"The bottom line is that we should have more antiviral drugs," said Dr. Arnold Monto, a flu expert at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health. "And we should be looking into multidrug combinations."
New York City had tested only two flu samples as of Jan. 6, and both were Tamiflu-resistant, said Dr. Annie Fine, an epidemiologist at the city's health department. Flu cases in the city are only "here and there," she said, and there have been no outbreaks in nursing homes. Elderly patients, and those with the AIDS virus or on cancer therapy are most at risk.
But, she added, because of the resistance problem, the city is speeding up its laboratory procedures so it can do both crucial tests in one day.
"And we strongly suggest that people get a flu shot," she said. "There's plenty of time and plenty of vaccine." Exactly how the Tamiflu-resistant strain emerged is a mystery, several experts said.
Resistance appeared several years ago in Japan, which uses more Tamiflu than any other country, and experts feared it would spread.
But the Japanese strains were found only in patients already treated with Tamiflu, and they were "weak" — that is, they did not transmit to other people.
"This looks like a spontaneous development of resistance in the most unlikely places — possibly in Norway, which doesn't use antivirals at all," Monto said.
Dr. Henry Niman, a biochemist in Pittsburgh who runs recombinomics.com, a Web site that tracks the genetics of flu cases around the world, has been warning for months that Tamiflu resistance in H1N1 was spreading.
He argues that it started in China, where Tamiflu use is rare, was seen last year in Norway, France and Russia, then moved to South Africa (where winter is June to September), and back to the northern hemisphere in November.
The mutation conferring resistance to Tamiflu, known in the shorthand of genetics as H274Y on the N gene, was actually, he said "just a passenger, totally unrelated to Tamiflu usage, but hitchhiking on another change."
The other mutation, he said, known as A193T on the H gene, made the virus better at infecting people.
Furthermore, he blamed mismatched flu vaccines for helping the A193T mutation spread. Flu vaccines typically protect against three flu strains, but none have contained protections against the A193T mutation.
Dr. Joseph Bresee, the CDC's chief of flu prevention, said he thought Niman was "probably right" about the resistance having innocently piggy-backed on a mutation on the H gene — which creates the spike on the outside of the virus that lets it break into human cells. But he doubted that last year's flu vaccine was to blame, since the H1 strain in it protected "not perfectly, but relatively well" against H1N1 infection, he said.
Niman said he was worried about two aspects of the new resistance to Tamiflu. Preliminary data out of Norway, he said, suggested that the new strain was more likely to cause pneumonia.
The flu typically kills about 36,000 Americans a year, the CDC estimates, most of them the elderly or the very young, or people with problems like asthma or heart disease; pneumonia is usually the fatal complication.
And while seasonal flu is relatively mild, the Tamiflu resistance could transfer onto the H5N1 bird flu circulating in Asia and Egypt, which has killed millions of birds and about 250 people since 2003. Although H5N1 has not turned into a pandemic strain, as many experts recently feared it would, it still could — and Tamiflu resistance in that case would be a disaster.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/08/america/09flu.php



Friday, January 9, 2009

Eeyore's News and View

U.S. companies face $409 billion pension deficit: study
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Volatile markets have saddled U.S. companies with a $409 billion deficit on pension plans, reversing a $60 billion surplus a year earlier, and will cut into earnings in 2009, consulting firm Mercer said.
As of December 31, pension plans among members of the Standard & Poor's 1500 had $1.21 trillion of assets and $1.62 trillion of liabilities, Mercer said in a report released on Wednesday. At the end of 2007, pension plan assets totaled $1.66 trillion and liabilities totaled about $1.6 trillion, Mercer said.
The S&P 1500 is a broad portfolio representing large-cap, mid-cap and small-cap segments of the U.S. equity markets.
The shortfall suggests that more companies will have to pump cash into their pension plans to ensure they can meet their commitments to retirees.
Mercer estimated pension expenses will increase to about $70 billion this year from $10 billion in 2008, reducing overall profitability by about 8 percent.
"The decline in funded status will be capitalized and reflected in corporate balance sheets for many companies," Adrian Hartshorn, a member of Mercer's financial strategy group, said in a statement.
He said this will reduce balance sheet strength and could affect companies' ability to make capital expenses, meet loan covenants and preserve their credit ratings.
Mercer is a unit of New York-based Marsh & McLennan Cos Inc (NYSE:MMC - News), which also runs a large insurance brokerage.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-companies-face-409-billion-rb-13997269.html
other supporting stories
http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=AsiBRlxi2O7wq56arkywo8hQ5D0D/SIG=11u0k8sit/**http%
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/finance/external/reuters/SIG=1165jh9eu;_ylt=AhlWEMEayrBehuaFtGuhQQ1Q5D0D
Salmonella outbreak sickens 388 across U.S.: CDC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An outbreak of salmonella food poisoning has made 388 people sick across 42 states, sending 18 percent of them to the hospital, U.S. health officials said on Wednesday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is trying to trace the source of the outbreak, which began in September. The Department of Agriculture, state health officials and the Food and Drug Administration are also involved.
The CDC said poultry, cheese and eggs are the most common source of this particular strain, known as Salmonella typhimurium.
"It is often difficult to identify sources of foodborne outbreaks. People may not remember the foods they recently ate and may not be aware of all of the ingredients in food. That's what makes these types of investigations very difficult," said CDC spokesman David Daigle.
Daigle did not specify how many people were hospitalized, but the percentage he gave puts that figure at about 70.
"Because foods of animal origin may be contaminated with Salmonella, people should not eat raw or undercooked eggs, poultry, or meat. Persons also should not consume raw or unpasteurized milk or other dairy products. Produce should be thoroughly washed," he said.
Only Ohio state health officials have agreed to have their state named as one of those affected, with an estimated 50 cases.
Every year, approximately 40,000 people are reported ill with salmonella in the United States, the CDC says, but it said many more cases are never reported.
There have been several recent high-profile outbreaks of foodborne illness in the United States, including a strain of Salmonella carried by peppers from Mexico and that sickened 1,400 people from April to August of 2007 and an E. coli epidemic in 2006, traced to California spinach, that killed three.
Salmonella-contaminated dry pet food sickened at least 79 people, including many young children, in October and November.

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5066E420090107?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews

Don't get used to cheap oil, analysts say By JOHN PORRETTO
AP Energy Writer
Iraq's 08 oil revenues about $60 billion
Venezuela reduces oil production
Citgo extends free fuel after Chavez intervention
Falling crude prices squeeze Chavez oil diplomacy



HOUSTON (AP) -- All that money you're saving these days at the gas pump? You might want to put it in the bank.
The same cheap oil that's providing relief to drivers and businesses in an awful economy is setting the stage for another price spike, perhaps as soon as next year, that will bring back painful memories of last summer's $4-a-gallon gas.
The oil industry is scaling back on exploration and production because some projects don't make economic sense when energy prices are low. And crude is already harder to find because more nations that own oil companies are blocking outside access to their oil fields.
When the world emerges from the recession and starts to burn more fuel again, and higher demand meets lower supply, prices will almost certainly shoot higher.
Some analysts say oil could eventually eclipse $150 a barrel, maybe even on its way to $200. In such a scenario, gasoline would easily cost more than the record high of $4.11 a gallon set last summer. Oil trades at about $50 today.
No one knows for sure, but some analysts say the spike could happen as soon as next year, perhaps in 2011 or 2012.
"I think those supply limits will come back to bite with a vengeance," said Sean Brodrick, a natural resources analyst at Weiss Research Inc.
High prices at the pump last summer - more than $4 per gallon for gas on average - helped slash demand for oil. From November 2007 to October 2008, Americans drove 100 billion fewer miles than the year before, according to government figures. The nation's biggest automakers lurched toward bankruptcy as sales of sport utility vehicles and trucks plummeted.
"We wouldn't be bailing out the automobile industry today ... had we not had this crazy situation with oil prices," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm, and author of "The Prize," the Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the oil industry.
Oil giants like Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips have yet to announce their 2009 capital spending plans, but analysts say even the cash-rich companies are likely to shelve some projects.
Already, Royal Dutch Shell has postponed a near-doubling of production in Canada's oil sands - an operation that analysts say only makes economic sense when oil is about $20 a barrel more expensive than it is now. Marathon Oil says it expects to cut capital spending by 15 percent in 2009.
Brodrick said canceled or postponed oil and gas projects could contribute to a drop of 7 percent or more in global oil production this year.
Smaller oil producers could cut spending by 30 percent, said Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit. The majority of U.S. crude and natural gas is supplied by smaller, independent companies, not the Exxons and Chevrons, and smaller producers have been forced to pull back because of frozen credit markets.
All this comes as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which controls about 40 percent of world crude supplies, embarks on its biggest single production cut ever.
It adds up to another round of price shocks for consumers that's probably inevitable, said Bruce Vincent, president of Houston-based Swift Energy Co., an independent producer.
"Demand will start growing, supply will start coming down, and you'll have that intersect again where prices will take off dramatically," Vincent said. "(But) it's not healthy for the economy. It's not healthy for the industry."
Already, the futures markets are pricing in more expensive oil. While a barrel of light, sweet crude for February delivery costs about $50, the market for September oil is already over $60.
Big Western oil companies like Exxon and ConocoPhillips have also been cut off from crude reserves under the control of nationalized oil companies from Saudi Arabia to Venezuela.
Late last year, the International Energy Agency said it will take more than a trillion dollars in annual investments to find new fossil fuels over the next two decades in order to avoid shortages that could choke the global economy.
When the world economy recovers from the current malaise, "Are we going to get another one of these violent cycles where prices overshoot and you get back in the same spiral?" asked Yergin. "Some volatility is inevitable in global commodity markets, but this kind of extreme volatility is bad for everyone. It creates deep wounds."
Another part of the problem, said Judy Dugan, research director for the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog, is that oil companies didn't invest enough in new exploration over the past several years, as they raked in billions in profits.
"They're screaming, 'Drill, baby, drill,' but they didn't invest anywhere near where they should have been investing when prices were high," she said. "Now that prices have crashed, they say prices are too low, knowing full well prices are going to go back up."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OIL_PRICES_FUTURE_SHOCK?SITE=DCUSN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

New safety rules for children's clothes have stores in a fit
Barring a reprieve, regulations set to take effect next month could force thousands of clothing retailers and thrift stores to throw away trunkloads of children's clothing.The law, aimed at keeping lead-filled merchandise away from children, mandates that all products sold for those age 12 and younger -- including clothing -- be tested for lead and phthalates, which are chemicals used to make plastics more pliable. Those that haven't been tested will be considered hazardous, regardless of whether they actually contain lead.
Barring a reprieve, regulations set to take effect next month could force thousands of clothing retailers and thrift stores to throw away trunkloads of children's clothing.The law, aimed at keeping lead-filled merchandise away from children, mandates that all products sold for those age 12 and younger -- including clothing -- be tested for lead and phthalates, which are chemicals used to make plastics more pliable. Those that haven't been tested will be considered hazardous, regardless of whether they actually contain lead.
"They'll all have to go to the landfill," said Adele Meyer, executive director of the National Assn. of Resale and Thrift Shops.The new regulations take effect Feb. 10 under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which was passed by Congress last year in response to widespread recalls of products that posed a threat to children, including toys made with lead or lead-based paint.Supporters say the measure is sorely needed. One health advocacy group said it found high levels of lead in dozens of products purchased around the country, including children's jewelry, backpacks and ponchos.
Lead can also be found in buttons or charms on clothing and on appliques that have been added to fabric, said Charles Margulis, communications director for the Center for Environmental Health in Oakland. A child in Minnesota died a few years ago after swallowing a lead charm on his sneaker, he said.But others say the measure was written too broadly. Among the most vocal critics to emerge in recent weeks are U.S.-based makers of handcrafted toys and handmade clothes, as well as thrift and consignment shops that sell children's clothing."We will have to lock our doors and file for bankruptcy," said Shauna Sloan, founder of Salt Lake City-based franchise Kid to Kid, which sells used children's clothing in 75 stores across the country and had planned to open a store in Santa Clara, Calif., this year.There is the possibility of a partial reprieve. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is responsible for enforcing the law, on Monday will consider exempting clothing and toys made of natural materials such as wool or wood. The commission does not have the authority to change the law but can decide how to interpret it.But exempting natural materials does not go far enough, said Stephen Lamar, executive vice president of the American Apparel and Footwear Assn. Clothes made of cotton but with dyes or non-cotton yarn, for example, might still have to be tested, as would clothes that are cotton-polyester blends, he said."The law introduces an extraordinarily large number of testing requirements for products for which everyone knows there's no lead," he said.Clothing and thrift trade groups say the law is flawed because it went through Congress too quickly. By deeming that any product not tested for lead content by Feb. 10 be considered hazardous waste, they contend, stores will have to tell customers that clothing they were allowed to sell Feb. 9 became banned overnight.These groups say the law should be changed so that it applies to products made after Feb. 10, not sold after that date.That would take action by Congress, however, because the Consumer Product Safety Commission's general counsel has already determined that the law applies retroactively, said commission spokesman Scott Wolfson.The regulations also apply to new clothing. That won't be a problem for large manufacturers and retailers, industry experts say, but it will be a headache for small operators such as Molly Orr, owner of Molly O Designs in Las Vegas.Orr has already produced her spring line of children's clothes. She says she can't afford the $50,000 it would cost to have a private lab test her clothing line, so she's trying to sell her inventory at a steep discount before Feb. 10. After that, she is preparing to close her business."We have a son with autism, so we are all about cleaning up the toxins that our children are exposed to," she said. "But I think the law needs to be looked at more closely to see how it is affecting the economy in general."Thrift store owners say the law stings because children's garments often come in new or nearly new, because children typically outgrow clothing quickly.Carol Vaporis, owner of Duck Duck Goose Consignment in New Port Richey, Fla., said her store stocks barely used brand-name clothing from places such as Limited Too and Gymboree."We really provide a service to the community to help people get clothes for their children they otherwise couldn't afford," she said.Families have been bringing more clothes to consignment stores, where they get a chunk of the proceeds, to earn a little cash this winter, she said. She plans to contact her congressional representatives and senators to ask them to amend the law but says there's not enough awareness about the repercussions of the law to force anything to change.Many retailers and thrift stores appear to be unaware that the law is changing. Of half a dozen Southern California children's thrift stores contacted by The Times, only one had heard of the law. Organizations such as Goodwill say they're still investigating how the law will affect them because there is so much confusion about what will be banned.Cynthia Broockman, who owns two consignment stores and a thrift shop in Virginia, recently stopped accepting children's products for resale. That raised the ire of a man who was trying to sell his son's castoffs there and had not heard of the new rules."I think it's not understood by people how sweeping and far-reaching this is," she said. "The ripples that are going to go forth from this are just astonishing."
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-thrift2-2009jan02,0,02083247.story

Homeland Security rules on data collection rile businesses
WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security will collect millions of new electronic records about private planes, imported cargo, foreign visitors and federal contractors as part of an array of controversial last-minute security policies imposed by the Bush administration.Businesses say the policies are costly, and worry that sensitive information could be released if a database is lost or stolen. Some charge the Homeland Security Department with rushing to impose policies and ignoring business concerns."Industry keeps reaching out to (them), but our comments are continually dismissed," said Catherine Robinson, director of high-tech trade policy for the National Association of Manufacturers trade group, which represents 14,000 companies.Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said that by collecting information electronically, the department can run security checks more quickly than with paper forms, and could flag people or cargo that should be barred from the USA. Some changes have been in the works for more than a year.There has been a lot of opposition. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and four other groups have sued to block a policy requiring federal contractors to send information about employees electronically to the department to verify that they can work legally in the USA. The policy takes effect Jan. 15 and applies to employees working on a federal contract worth more than $100,000.Businesses worry that the department's online system, which some employers now use voluntarily, incorrectly lists legal citizens as ineligible to work, chamber Vice President Randel Johnson said. The chamber wanted more tests before 170,000 federal contractors were forced to use the system. But, Johnson said, "DHS simply has more faith in the system than a lot of our members." On Tuesday, Ed Bolen, CEO of the National Business Aviation Association, criticized as "overly broad" several proposed security rules for 15,000 private jets, such as barring dangerous items from the passenger cabin. The rules, which aren't final yet, would require private-jet passengers to be checked against terrorist watch lists.Companies fear that their business strategies could be compromised if their flight information leaks out, association Vice President Douglas Carr said. "I don't think there's a clear, demonstrated ability to secure this data," Carr said.Kudwa, the Homeland Security spokeswoman, said disputes are inevitable. She said, however, that the government routinely listens to business concerns about security. "We've approached regulations focusing on long-term security risks, which is not something the market necessarily does for itself," Kudwa said.The department has eased some proposals. Dozens of companies and associations protested a plan that would require them starting Jan. 26 to submit detailed information about imported cargo 24 hours before it is loaded on a ship in a foreign port. Robinson of the manufacturers association said the administration agreed to ease some of the data requirements and to reconsider the policy after June 1. "It's still onerous, but it's definitely better than where we started," Robinson said.The administration also eased a policy effective Jan. 12 that requires people flying to the USA from 27 friendly countries to register online three days before their flight, said Steve Lott of the International Air Transportation Association. Visitors who do not register will be allowed in the USA during a phase-in period likely to last months, Lott said."A lot of these programs were not coordinated," Lott said. "They were moving too fast."
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techp%20...%20rity_N.htm

Like Giant, Wegmans to offer free antibiotics January 7, 2009 - 8:55amBALTIMORE (AP) - One week after supermarket chain Giant Food LLC announced it would offer free antibiotic prescriptions to its customers, rival Wegmans Food Markets Inc. says it is doing the same.Wegmans' spokeswoman Jo Natale says the program has been in the works for weeks and called the timing of the announcements coincidental. She says the Wegmans program was not a direct reaction to Giant's program.Rochester, N.Y.-based Wegmans will fill prescriptions for nine types of drugs through March 31. The Giant program ends March 21.Wegmans has 72 stores, including five in Virginia and Maryland. Giant is the largest supermarket chain in the Washington, D.C., region with 182 stores and more than 160 in-store pharmacies.___Information from: The (Baltimore) Daily Record, http://www.mddailyrecord.com/

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Eeyore's News and View

Turkey holds suspicious Iran-Venezuela shipment
NKARA, Turkey – Turkey was holding a suspicious shipment bound for Venezuela from Iran because it contained lab equipment capable of producing explosives, a customs official said Tuesday.
Suleyman Tosun, a customs official at the Mediterranean port of Mersin, said military experts were asked to examine the material, which was seized last month, and decide whether to let the shipment to go to Venezuela.
Authorities detected the equipment during a search of 22 containers labeled "tractor parts," Tosun said. They were brought to Mersin by trucks from neighboring Iran, he said. Turkey's Interior Ministry said an investigation was under way.
"Experts from Turkey's Atomic Institute determined there were no traces of radioactive material, but said the equipment was enough to set up an explosives lab," Tosun said. "We have asked the military to send experts to determine whether to resume the shipment."
Some barrels, labeled with "danger" signs, contained chemicals. Tosun said details were still unclear.
An Iranian embassy official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the shipment contained "nothing important."
Iran and Venezuela operate various joint ventures in Venezuela, including plants to assemble tractors and cars. The two countries also have agreed to team up on petrochemical projects.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090106/ap_on_re_eu/eu_turkey_iran_venezuela

Terrorists could use 'insect-based' biological weapon
Terrorists would find it "relatively easy" to launch a devastating attack using swarms of insects to spread a deadly disease, an academic has warned.
Jeffrey Lockwood, professor of entomology at Wyoming University and author of Six-legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War, said such Rift Valley Fever or other diseases could be transported into a country by a terrorist with a suitcase.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think a small terrorist cell could very easily develop an insect-based weapon."
He said it would "probably be much easier" than developing a nuclear or chemical weapon, arguing: "The raw material is in the back yard."
He continued: "It would be a relatively easy and simple process.
"A few hundred dollars and a plane ticket and you could have a pretty good stab at it."
Governments, he advised, needed to have robust "pest management infrastructure that's able to absorb and respond to an introduction" of infected insects, he said.
Trying to stop everything coming in at the border would not work, he said.
Rift Valley Fever is an east African disease which "can cause severe disease in both animals and humans, leading to high rates of disease and death" according to the World Health Organisation.
However, WHO says that "the vast majority of human infections result from direct or indirect contact with the blood or organs of infected animals."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/4123782/Terrorists-could-use-insect-based-biological-weapon.html

China confirms woman died of bird flu in Beijing
BEIJING/HONGKONG (Reuters) - A 19-year-old woman has died of the H5N1 bird flu virus in Beijing after coming into contact with poultry, health authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong said on Tuesday.
This human H5N1 case would be China's first in almost a year. Experts said while the case was not unexpected as the virus is more active during the cooler months between October and March, it points to holes in surveillance of the virus in poultry.
With the world's biggest poultry population and hundreds of millions of farmers raising birds in their backyards, China is seen as crucial in the global fight against bird flu.
"The woman fell ill on December 24, was hospitalized on December 27 and died on Monday (at) 7.20 am," the Beijing Municipal Bureau said in a faxed statement.
Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection said the woman had had contact with poultry before falling ill.
China's official Xinhua News Agency earlier reported that the woman from eastern Fujian province had bought nine ducks at a market in Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, and then gutted the birds.
She gave three ducks to her father, uncle and a friend and kept the other six ducks, the agency reported.
It added that 116 people, including the patient's 14 family members and neighbor and 102 medical workers, had been in close contact with the patient.
"In many parts of the world, human H5N1 cases are due to contact with infected poultry. A human case would confirm that there is poultry infection somewhere in the vicinity," said a virologist in Hong Kong who declined to be identified.
"It means that there are some leaks in surveillance in the poultry side (in China)," he said.
"Of course, we are approaching Chinese New Year and there is an increase in production, movement in poultry. That's why there's an increase in poultry infection."
The H5N1 remains largely a disease among birds but experts fear it could change into a form that is easily transmitted from person to person, and spark a pandemic that can kill millions of people worldwide.
Beijing has reported the case to the World Health Organization and health authorities in Hong Kong and Macau, and convened an emergency meeting to handle the bird flu case.
The WHO in Beijing said it had offered technical assistance.
Since the H5N1 virus resurfaced in Asia in 2003, it has infected 391 people, killing 247 of them, according to WHO figures released in mid-December.
The last human H5N1 death in China was in February last year when a 44-year-old woman died in the southern Guangdong province.
At least 20 people have died of bird flu in China to date.
In neighboring Vietnam, a five-year-old has been infected with bird flu, the first human case reported in the country this year, Vietnam's state-run television said on Tuesday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNew ... 22&sp=true
and an update http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE50641D20090107?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews

Looming Collapse of Russia, China and more …by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D. 01-05-09
I hope you’ve had a great start to your New Year!
At the same time, however, I trust you are not counting on the latest holiday rally in the stock market — or the most recent incarnation of the Obama rescue package — to transform 2009 into a positive year for the economy.
The reasons: In addition to the massive wealth destruction I told you about two weeks ago and the continuing debt collapse I’ve been warning you about for many months now, the overseas engines of global growth are also collapsing.
This does not negate my long-term view that certain overseas economies offer great future opportunities. But it does represent a major short-term threat to U.S. investors, U.S. companies and the U.S. economy as a whole.
The undeniable reality: The debt crisis that first appeared in the U.S. subprime mortgage market … then precipitated a Wall Street meltdown … and has now driven the American economy into its sharpest decline since the Great Depression … has now spread to the entire world.
It is driving the economies of Western Europe and Japan into an unprecedented tailspin. It threatens the economic — and potentially political — stability of Russia, China and several emerging market nations. And it’s setting the stage for a global depression of epic dimensions.
Here are some of the most vulnerable major economies …
Russia Smashed by Oil Price Collapse
Never in modern history has the success or failure of a major emerging economy been so dependent on one single commodity! And never before has that commodity fallen so far and so fast as Russian crude oil!
Russia does have other resource and revenue sources. But in just the past six months, Urals crude, Russia’s primary export blend, has plunged from a high of nearly $141 per barrel to a low of a meager $32.34 — a 77% crash that’s pounded Russian stocks like a sledgehammer and sliced through the Russian economy like a serrated sickle.
The big dilemma: To balance its federal budget, Russia must get a minimum of $70 per barrel for its crude oil. But at $32 and change, it’s getting less than HALF that amount. The entire country is losing money hand over fist.
No wonder Russia’s stock market has plunged 72%, forcing 25 separate stock exchange shutdowns!
Transneft, the Russian oil transporter, is down from $2,025 in January 2008 to a recent low of $270. Gazprom, the natural gas monopoly, has lost more than two-thirds of its market capitalization since May. Meanwhile, Lukoil fell from a May peak of $113 to a recent low of $32.
Russia’s oil-driven real estate bubble is also collapsing. That’s why Russian construction and real estate giant Sistema-Hals lost more than 94% of its value last year alone … why PIK Group, another major construction giant, collapsed by 96% … and why the entire RCP Shares Index of Russian developers has sunk 92% since its record high in June 2007.
Ford, Renault and Volkswagen are halting production at Russian assembly lines. Unemployment is likely to surge to 10% and beyond. Massive amounts of foreign capital are fleeing the country.
In a desperate attempt to stem the tide, the Russian government has devalued the ruble 11 times since November, and thrown a quarter of its foreign currency reserves at the raging debt crisis. But it’s still not enough. Russia’s primary source of revenues — energy exports — is in shambles; and unless crude oil prices could somehow DOUBLE in a big hurry, Russia’s economic and financial decline cannot end.
Standard & Poor’s has cut Russia’s long-term debt rating for the first time in nine years, citing dangerous outflows and a “rapid depletion” of currency reserves. And more downgrades are in the offing. Even a major debt default is not unthinkable.
The biggest danger: Political upheaval and social unrest.
Even before this crisis, Russia’s middle class earned less than $500 per month. Now, with the devastating plunge in oil revenues already in place, those numbers are falling to even lower levels. For a nation with a cost of living that rivals that of the U.S., Western Europe and Japan, the last thing the Russian people needed was a depression. Yet that’s exactly what they’re getting.
I visited Russia last year before the collapse in oil prices. I spoke to a variety of professionals and people on the street. And I stayed with friends who work in government jobs.
From everything I had read, I had anticipated signs of greater prosperity. Instead, I was surprised to see how little average citizens had benefited from the recent years of rapid economic growth.
Yes, they have more access to a wider variety of goods that were scarce during the Soviet era. But most professionals — such as teachers, doctors, nurses and government employees — are still living on the edge of poverty.
Equally surprising is the popular disgust and disdain for the government. Public opinion surveys and press reports may indicate broad support for the Kremlin’s foreign policy, and they seem to be accurate. But support for domestic policies is another matter entirely.
My view: Any major disappointment with respect to pocketbook issues could lead to major political changes, the outcome of which is largely unpredictable.
China Far More Vulnerable Than Expected
China’s extraordinary expansion of the past decade fueled booms in global trade, commodities and emerging markets. It was a major growth engine that turbo-charged Australia, Brazil, Southeast Asia and even Japan.
Now, however, that engine is grinding to a screeching halt. Indeed, when historians look back to major pivot points of this global economic crisis, they will undoubtedly point to the abrupt end of China’s boom.
Many of us assumed that because China’s economy was growing so quickly — at a breakneck pace of 10% or more per year — it could easily afford to slow down by a few percentage points and still be in far better shape than most other economies.
But now I seriously question that theory. Indeed, more often than not, companies, industries and entire nations that enjoy the biggest booms are also vulnerable to some of the biggest busts. Instead of a mere slowdown, as many still seem to expect, China’s economy could suffer a wholesale collapse.
Exports, which still represent two-fifths of the Chinese economy, are already sinking fast. And the domestic economy, much of which depends directly or indirectly on the revenues flowing from exports, is also beginning to sink.
Warning signs are everywhere: Stocks, down 60% just in the last 12 months; imports, down 17.9% in November alone; foreign investments to China, off 36.5% last year.
In response, the government has slashed interest rates and pledged a $582 billion stimulus package. But that’s mere pocket change compared to China’s trillions in vulnerable exports. Moreover, it has done little to help millions of small- and medium-sized businesses which are already shutting down and laying off millions.
A big problem: 45% of the Chinese government bailout is earmarked for the cement and housing industry. Meanwhile, cash-flow problems are sweeping through the entire economy, downing airlines, manufacturers and property companies.
Airlines like China Southern and China Eastern, for example, have been losing money hand over fist. China’s auto sales are plunging. Its shipbuilding industry is in a tailspin. And its real estate market is collapsing.
Next, expect surging unemployment … mass reverse migrations from urban centers to the countryside … spreading popular unrest … and a major challenge to authority. Chinese leaders have already admitted that an economic downturn would test their ability to govern. Now, that downturn is here — and the ultimate test, on the near horizon.
Meanwhile …
India, also heavily dependent on foreign demand for its goods, is suffering its worst export slump in recent memory. Overseas shipments plunged 12.1% in October and another 9.9% in November, forcing companies like Tata Motors, India’s biggest truck maker, and Hyundai Motor to cut output, fire workers and shut down factories.
Brazil, which was growing at a record pace until the third quarter, has suddenly frozen in its tracks. Much of the foreign money it counted on has vanished, leaving acute capital shortages in its wake. Auto sales have gone dead, leaving biggest-ever inventories of unsold cars. Credit, abundantly available just a few months ago, is now gone.
Japan has been slammed by its worst recession since World War II … with stock prices plunging to new 18-year lows … industrial output suffering the largest monthly drop since records were kept … Toyota reporting its first loss in 70 years … layoff victims filling tent parks … and worse.
Everywhere from Argentina and Mexico to Australia, New Zealand and even the once-rich Middle East, the worldwide debt crisis, the bust in commodities and the sharp slowdown in global trade are transforming massive booms into instant recessions.
It’s happening fast and it’s accelerating. Government rescue programs aren’t nearly enough to turn the tide. And it’s another key reason you must approach 2009 with great caution.
Stick with safety. Don’t veer from the course I have laid out for avoiding the dangers. Wait for the truly big price declines ahead before reinvesting!
Good luck and God bless!
Martin
http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/looming-collapse-of-russia-china-and-more-29143

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Eeyore's News and View

Idle ports signal two 'bleak' years ahead in world trade
Loss of financing threatens sector that accounts for 25% of world economy
By Michael Janofsky and Mark Drajem, Bloomberg NewsJanuary 5, 2009
Chris Lytle, chief operating officer of the port of Long Beach, Calif., took in a panorama of the slumping world economy from his rooftop observation deck one day this month.
Shipping cranes stood still, truck traffic trickled and a cargo vessel sat idle, moored to a pier.
"You never see that," Lytle said. "It's quiet. Too quiet."
Port traffic is slowing around the world -- everywhere from North America to Asia -- as a recession erodes consumer demand and the credit crisis chokes off loans to export-dependent companies. International trade is set to fall by more than two per cent next year, the most since the World Bank began measuring it in 1971. Idle ports are showing how quickly a collapse in trade can spread, undermining growth in each country it reaches.
September and October are typically Long Beach's busiest months as U.S. retailers take deliveries for holiday sales. This year, September imports fell 15.8 per cent from a year earlier, October's dropped 9.5 per cent, and November's slid 13.6 per cent.
"Everybody expects 2009 to be a bleak year," said Jim McKenna, chief executive officer of the Pacific Maritime Association, a San Francisco-based group representing dock employers at U.S. West Coast ports. "Now, it looks like 2010 is going to be just as bleak."
At the Mozambique port of Maputo in Africa, coal is piling up. Exports from the port in Singapore, the world's busiest for containers, fell 1.5 per cent in November from a year earlier, its first decline in seven years. And at the port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest, shipments are likely to remain stagnant this year compared with 2007, said Jan Westerhoud, chief executive officer of Europe Container Terminals BV.
"The problem is that people can't get financing, no matter what their credit situation," said Ed Rice, president of the Coalition for Employment through Exports, which represents companies such as Boeing Co., Caterpillar Inc., United Parcel Service Inc. and BNP Paribas SA. "Banks are cancelling credit lines even for creditworthy customers."
The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of shipping costs for commodities, is down 93 per cent from a record in May, a sign that traders expect export volumes to stay depressed.
Slowing trade is both a cause and an effect of the first simultaneous contraction in the world's largest economies since the Second World War. Throughout this decade, trade grew by an average 12 per cent a year, reaching $13.6 trillion in 2007 and propelling growth in nations including Germany, China and Chile. Now the evaporation of financing and collapse in demand threaten an activity that accounts for a quarter of the $54-trillion global economy.
"We are having this dramatic reversal," said Michael Finger, a trade economist in Geneva since the early 1970s. "I'm a long time in this business, but this is unique."
Governments and international lenders are stepping in to fill the gap. China and the U.S. pledged $20 billion to aid their exporters. The World Bank tripled funding, to $3 billion, for banks that help emerging-market companies to sell abroad. South Korea pledged $16 billion for its exporters after banks there couldn't secure international credit lines for them.
In Germany, the world's top exporter, trade abroad slipped 0.5 per cent in October, the fourth drop in six months. The same month U.S. shipments fell 2.2 per cent to the lowest level in seven months. In China, the November decline of 2.2 per cent was the first decline in seven years, while in Japan, exports decreased a record 26.7 per cent that month.
Exporters worldwide are short $25 billion in trade financing that either isn't available or costs too much, according to Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organization.
Trade credit insurance, which protects sellers against losses and typically covers as much as 40 per cent of trade in Europe and five per cent in the U.S., is also harder to get.
Atradius NV, an Amsterdam-based insurer that covers about a third of global trade receivables, is raising prices by as much as 50 per cent and reducing coverage on thousands of companies. That includes 12,000 in the U.K. and all the suppliers to the biggest U.S. automakers -- General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.
One 57-hectare tract at Long Beach is filled with more than 25,000 new Toyotas that dealers can't sell.
Toyota, the world's second-largest automaker, recently forecast its first operating loss in 71 years on weak demand.
Nearby, scrap metal meant for export to Asia piled up behind a fence. From the observation deck, Lytle pointed to piles of empty containers stacked four high and numbering in the thousands.
Some of the dockside cranes "haven't turned a wheel in months," he said.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Idle%2Bports%2Bsignal%2Bbleak%2Byears%2Bahead%2Bworld%2Btrade/1142123/story.html

US asks Arab nations for $300 Billion to fund auto bailout
The US has had to go cap in hand to the Middle East asking for $300 Billion to fund the bail out for the auto industry. The US economy has long been shored up by the Gulf States and China. This time it is Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar who are being asked to foot the bill to save the US economy. It is not difficult to understand how mired the US is in Middle East politics and borrowed policy agendas, given the staggering dependency it has for both Arab oil and their money to keep it afloat. There is also a somewhat ironic twist that the US, funded as it is by the Arab nations, is so close a partner to Israel. The US again this week used its veto power to prevent a UN resolution calling for a end to the Gaza attacks. It must anger many Arab nations that the US, who some call ‘The Great Satan’, is saved from total economic meltdown, again, by members of its own brethren. The report comes from Saudi Arabia’s Arab News:
“According to reports published in Al-Seyassah, a Kuwaiti newspaper, and some other Gulf newspapers, the United States has asked four Gulf states for financial aid close to $300 billion to face the fallout of the financial crisis and help prevent its economy from sliding into a painful recession.
Washington is seeking $120 billion from Saudi Arabia, $70 billion from the United Arab Emirates, $60 billion from Qatar and $40 billion from Kuwait.
The Kingdom has dismissed these reports. There is enough evidence that the Federal Reserve is out of ammunition. The Fed can only control the supply of money, it cannot control the velocity of money or the rate of its turnover. The outcome of this crisis will be that the currency will be “devalued” as policy makers seek to weaken it, undermining its role as an international reserve currency.

The dollar is going to lose its status as the world’s reserve currency. The catalyst will be foreign creditors who are replacing dollar with gold. That will in turn lead to global recognition of the need for a vastly more disciplined financial system.

The Gulf’s vast investment funds are run by professionals who know that stocks go down as well as up. But they have lost heavily because of their forays into Western markets, particularly with their investments in banks, which are hit by the credit crisis.
Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, UBS and Barclays have all raised billions of dollars from the Middle East. The funds are now nursing heavy losses, such as those purchased by the Kuwait Investment Authority which invested in Citigroup whose shares have fallen by three quarters this year.
The impact on Gulf state funds is particularly acute given that largely declining oil revenues fund them. They are also likely under political pressure to invest more locally than in the past because companies in the Gulf are themselves fighting for liquidity now that the credit crunch has reached the Middle East. Investment funds from Kuwait, Dubai, Qatar and possibly Abu Dhabi are all shifting their focus.
Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, the automaker in most imminent danger of failure, gave lawmakers three reasons why Chapter 11 was not an option. First, the special financing that usually tides companies over through reorganization is so scarce that GM might not be able to get enough to keep functioning. Second, the stigma of bankruptcy would deter consumers from buying GM cars.
Third, GM is already in the midst of a dramatic reorganization that will pave the way to a profitable future. President George W. Bush preferred choice is Chapter 11 for the US auto industry. Saudi Arabia should create a sovereign wealth fund run separately and independently from other government agencies. They should report directly to the king to get the best and most secure business opportunities.
We should not discredit or underestimate the threat raised by Henry A. Kissinger and Martin Feldstein in an article they published in the Herald Tribune in September.
It is time for Gulf leaders to look at the interest of their own country first. Helping the US automobile industry is not a good option for now. Wages in the auto industry are very high compared to other industries, together with pension and health-care obligations and the lavish entitlement that the management receives.
Gulf states have been helping and protecting the US economy for many decades i.e. having their currencies pegged to the dollar, quoting oil prices in US dollars, putting their entire surplus in passive investment in the US economy (they have lost over 40 percent of their assets because of the declining value of the dollar) and purchasing expensive weapons.
Many voices would like to drag the Gulf states into a confrontation with Iran as they did in the early 1980s when they convinced Saddam Hussein to invade Iran. Everybody knows the disastrous results. What happened to Iraq and to the entire region? Iran is not nuclear, Israel is nuclear.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states do not need the protection of other nations. They should depend on themselves and should not trust anybody but themselves for their protection. How could Saudi Arabia help the US auto industry and not help its own stock market that dropped over 80 percent from its value in the last 2 years? Saudi Arabia should help its citizens. Over 50 percent of Saudi families do not own homes. They rent homes.
The monthly income of most Saudi families is below $1,500. To sum up, if there is good business opportunities in the US, let us invest in them but the decision must be based on business calculations rather than other considerations.”
http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/us-asks-arab-nations-300-billion-fund-auto-bailout

Police look to hack citizens' home PCs
'Very intrusive powers – as intrusive as someone busting down your door'
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Posted: January 04, 2009
8:56 pm Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Police and state intelligence agencies from several countries may soon be working together to secretly hack into private citizens' personal computers without their knowledge and without a warrant.
According to a London Times report, the police hacking process, called "remote searching," enables law enforcement to gather information from e-mails, instant messages and Web browsers, even while hundreds of miles away.
Furthermore, the Times reports, a new edict by the European Union's council of ministers in Brussels has paved the way for international law enforcement agencies to begin remote searching and sharing the information with each other. According to the Times, the United Kingdom's Home Office, the nation's lead government department for immigration, drugs and counter-terrorism enforcement, has already quietly adopted a plan that would enable French, German and other European Union police forces to request remote searching be done on UK citizens' computers.
Who might be watching you without you knowing it? Get "Spychips" and see how major corporations and government are planning to track your every move!
The Home Office's plan has drawn immediate protest.
"These are very intrusive powers – as intrusive as someone busting down your door and coming into your home," said Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, a British civil liberties and human rights group.
"The public will want this to be controlled by new legislation and judicial authorization," Chakrabarti told the Times. "Without those safeguards it's a devastating blow to any notion of personal privacy."
According to the report, a remote search can be granted if a senior police officer believes it is necessary to detect a serious crime, and unlike searching a suspect's home, a remote search does not require a warrant under Home Office policy.
Richard Clayton, a researcher at the University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory, told the Times that remote searches had been possible since 1994, but usually involved covertly breaking into a suspect's home to access the computer. By installing a key-logging device on the computer, police could track the suspect's every keystroke.
"It's just like putting a secret camera in someone's living room," Clayton said.
A spokesperson for the UK's Association of Chief Police Officers told the Times that hacking into private citizens' computers is sometimes necessary in investigating cybercrimes such as child pornography, identity theft and terrorism.
Further, the ACPO spokesperson said, the surveillance is directed under the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, a law passed in 2000 governing the interception and disclosure of communications.
To authorize remote searching, the ACPO spokesperson said, "The officer giving it must believe that when it is given it is necessary to prevent or detect serious crime and [the] action is proportionate to what it seeks to achieve."
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=85293

Satellite firm tracking pirates
A satellite firm with offices in Thornton can spot seized ships in the Gulf of Aden
By Andy Vuong
As pirate attacks continue on ships in the faraway Gulf of Aden, a satellite company with major operations in Thornton is helping in the effort to stop them.
The Ikonos satellite, which orbits 423 miles above Earth and is operated by GeoEye, snapped a high-resolution picture of oil supertanker MV Sirius Star in November, a few days after it was reported missing by the U.S. Navy, according to GeoEye spokesman Mark Brender.
"We were able to precisely locate the ship about 5 miles off the Somali coast," said Brender, who directed the satellite to snap images in the area after reading press reports about the ship's location.
The 1,090-foot-long vessel is owned by a Saudi oil company and remains hijacked. Somali pirates reportedly
A 1999 computer sketch of the satellite Ikonos. (Courtesy of Space Image)sought $15 million in ransom for the tanker, which was carrying $100 million of oil and 25 crew members.
Ikonos was launched in September 1999 by Space Imaging, a Thornton-based company that merged with Orbimage Holdings in 2006 to form GeoEye.
Dulles, Va.-based GeoEye employs 464, including about 130 in Thornton.
The company took the initiative to shoot the image to show "that commercial satellite imagery is a tool to monitor the maritime environment," Brender said.
Another pirate attack occurred in the Gulf of Aden on Friday, but the crew of a Greek oil tanker fired high pressure water jets to fight off heavily armed Somali pirates. It was the fourth pirate attack of the new year.
Pirates attacked 111 ships around the Gulf of Aden in 2008, hijacking 42 of them and earning tens of millions in ransom.
Commercial satellite imagery may also be a tool for treasure hunters.
A musician from Los Angeles claims that he used Google to spot a buried treasure in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of south Texas, according to a report last week by the Houston Chronicle. The treasure hunter has asked a federal court to allow him to pursue the find, which he says may be a 19th century boat and its cargo of gold and silver, according to the report.
Google Maps and Earth use satellite images from GeoEye and other firms. Brender said he's not sure whether the images the treasure hunter viewed were shot by GeoEye's satellites.
Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_11368375

French warship captures 19 Somali pirates 04 Jan 2009 19:31:23 GMT
Source: Reuters
PARIS, Jan 4 (Reuters) - A French warship captured 19 Somali pirates on Sunday when it came to the rescue of two cargo ships threatened in the Gulf of Aden, the office of President Nicolas Sarkozy said.
The French naval vessel "Jean de Vienne" was on patrol off the Somali coast as part of a European Union anti-piracy force when it came to the rescue of a Croatian cargo vessel and a Panamanian ship crossing the Gulf of Aden.
The 19 Somali pirates, armed and equipped with equipment to board the vessels, were captured and have been handed over to Somali authorities, the statement said.
The incident came three days after another French vessel captured eight Somali pirates who attacked a Panamanian registered vessel.
Piracy off Somalia, one of the world's busiest shipping areas, has soared over the past year, earning the pirates millions of dollars of ransom payments and pushing up maritime insurance rates.
The European Union set up an anti-piracy naval task force under British command last month involving warships and aircraft from several nations in the first such naval operation of its kind. (Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Sami Aboudi)
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L4679563.htm


Two articles about the fragility of the cell phones and what can happen to make them not work. It is eye opening or should be, if you plan on using them in emergencies.
Will your cell phone crash in emergencies?
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Posted: January 01, 2009
1:00 am Eastern
© 2009
Just how dependent are you on your wireless phone?
Just two days ago, the Chicago Tribune reported that a service outage affecting AT&T customers cut off wireless users across the Midwest all day Sunday. This outage in turn highlights a growing trend: According to the Tribune article, one out of every six U.S. households does not have a landline. That means just under 18 percent of U.S. households, up from 7 percent only three years ago, depend entirely on wireless technology for their communication needs.
When I was growing up, it was a fact of life that the family telephone would continue operating in a power outage. As time went on and we incorporated a cordless phone or two, we learned that those phones would not work in the event of a brownout. We turned instead to the older, more reliable landlines. Later, when my father's home business required the installation of a commercial intercom system integrated into phones throughout the house, none of the phones operated in a power outage – and we would have to drag out the single, scuffed Princess model we kept in the basement, plugging it in so we could make and receive calls during ice storms and other losses of power.
During the Northeast blackout of 2003, nearly 50 million people in the United States and Canada were affected by a power-grid problem, and the causes were debated fiercely in the days that followed. When the power went out that August afternoon, I was in the car running an errand. I was listening to AM talk radio, and it wasn't long before news reports revealed that the outage was far more than a local problem. A bit concerned, I dialed my wife on my wireless phone – only to discover I could not connect. The wireless network was down.
This was only two years after Sept. 11, 2001, and I was not the first person to wonder – with growing agitation as the power outage continued – if this wasn't some far-reaching act of terrorism affecting several portions of American infrastructure. As it turned out, the truth, as it so often is, was far less fraught with drama. When the power went out, everyone and his uncle started making calls, apparently. The subsequent load on the wireless network was what crashed it. Power was eventually restored, we spent at least part of a day blaming Canada for the failure of the grid, and the debate continued for some time after that. I remember thinking, even then, that my wireless phone was not as dependable as I had come to think of it.
As a society, we are becoming increasingly involved with our phones. Camera phones and phones that record digital video have turned every second person on the street into an amateur reporter. Very few events transpire that are not recorded for the news, or for YouTube, by some wireless phone-toting spectator. Our phones browse the Internet, keep us connected to our work e-mails while on the go and have turned the noun "text" into a verb meaning: "to send a written message to someone on your wireless phone." The pervasiveness of wireless phone technology has helped make us all more interconnected, to each other and to the network of networks that is the Internet, speeding up society, making data transfer more rapid and becoming critical infrastructure for millions of Americans. What we have to ask ourselves, then, is how we will cope when we are suddenly and unexpected cut off from these devices on which we now depend.
Techworld reported yesterday that a denial-of-service attack, spread by text message to Nokia phones, could cause those phones to stop receiving subsequent messages. This raises the ugly specter of computer virus-like malware affecting phones – and causing phones to require anti-virus protection – in the same way such programming affects home and laptop computers today. Some PDAs already run Windows, after a fashion, and the plethora of viruses makes the Windows Mobile pocket-PC user wonder if his phone and data assistant is as safe as it should be.
A few years ago, one of the late Gene Roddenberry's television programs made mention of this trend, among a few others. (The program correctly predicted, for example, that the Internet would become a sort of alternative broadcast medium for user-generated content, including television shows.) Characters on the show were equipped with devices they called "Globals" –combination telephone, television, data transfer and recording devices that were, in some ways, like the all-purpose "tricorders" of Roddenberry's "Star Trek." Any child who today is old enough to notice the similarity between a modern flip phone and a Star Trek communicator will take for granted that the Enterprise crew is simply talking on wireless phones. A decade or two from now, our youngsters may well take for granted that a phone is not merely a phone, but an all-purpose, multimedia data receiver and transmitter. One could argue that this is already the case.
These innovations are useful, convenient and even fun. I'm very dependent on my Blackberry, and I use it for everything from text messaging to playing Tetris and, yes, even to make the occasional phone call. When we take a piece of technology for granted, however, we must consider the unintended consequences of accepting that piece of infrastructure for what it has become. We must ask ourselves how we will cope if we are suddenly cut off from these devices, which are far more susceptible to denials of service than we might be tempted to think. Whether from power outages or malicious software, our phones are vulnerable to external threats. We must acknowledge this and plan for it if we are to have workable alternatives in the event of an emergency.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php? ... geId=85036

Crowds could overwhelm cell towers
December 9, 2008 - 6:19am
WASHINGTON - The record crowds expected for the inauguration could mean cell phone towers will be overwhelmed and broadband Internet service slowed down, business and government leaders warned Monday.
If 4 million to 5 million people show up as expected, the region could be in for a "logistical nightmare," says Greater Washington Board of Trade President Jim Dinegar.
At briefing organized by the board, officials said the employees for caterers, hotels and other service industries should expect to start their commutes much earlier than expected.
Restaurants expecting deliveries should prepare for delays in those deliveries.
The Secret Service is still mapping out security checkpoints.
The crowd expectation -- roughly 20 percent of the District's yearly visitor count -- has one expert suggesting people stay home.
Charlie Fisher with the Washington-based disaster preparedness and response firm, James Lee Witt Associates also says with so many people not staying in hotels grocery stores need to stock up so there are not shortages of basics, such as milk and bread.
http://wtop.com/?nid=780&sid=1542788