UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.

U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.

Edwards said Friday that the camps have been hit by 6,017 cases of hepatitis E, which is spread through contaminated food and water.

He says the largest number of cases and suspected cases is in the Yusuf Batil camp in Upper Nile state, which houses 37,229 refugees fleeing fighting between rebels and the Sudanese government.

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G20 steps back from currency brink, heat off Japan

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Group of 20 nations declared on Saturday there would be no currency war and deferred plans to set new debt-cutting targets, underlining broad concern about the fragile state of the world economy.

Japan's expansive policies, which have driven down the yen, escaped direct criticism in a statement thrashed out in Moscow by policymakers from the G20, which spans developed and emerging markets and accounts for 90 percent of the world economy.

Analysts said the yen, which has dropped 20 percent as a result of aggressive monetary and fiscal policies to reflate the Japanese economy, may now continue to fall.

"The market will take the G20 statement as an approval for what it has been doing -- selling of the yen," said Neil Mellor, currency strategist at Bank of New York Mellon in London. "No censure of Japan means they will be off to the money printing presses."

After late-night talks, finance ministers and central bankers agreed on wording closer than expected to a joint statement issued last Tuesday by the Group of Seven rich nations backing market-determined exchange rates.

A draft communiqué on Friday had steered clear of the G7's call for economic policy not to be targeted at exchange rates. But the final version included a G20 commitment to refrain from competitive devaluations and stated monetary policy would be directed only at price stability and growth.

"The mood quite clearly early on was that we needed desperately to avoid protectionist measures ... that mood permeated quite quickly," Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told reporters, adding that the wording of the G20 statement had been hardened up by the ministers.

As a result, it reflected a substantial, but not complete, endorsement of Tuesday's proclamation by the G7 nations - the United States, Japan, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy.

As with the G7 intervention, Tokyo said it gave it a green light to pursue its policies unchecked.

"I have explained that (Prime Minister Shinzo) Abe's administration is doing its utmost to escape from deflation and we have gained a certain understanding," Finance Minister Taro Aso told reporters.

"We're confident that if Japan revives its own economy that would certainly affect the world economy as well. We gained understanding on this point."

Flaherty admitted it would be difficult to gauge if domestic policies were aimed at weakening currencies or not.

NO FISCAL TARGETS

The G20 also made a commitment to a credible medium-term fiscal strategy, but stopped short of setting specific goals as most delegations felt any economic recovery was too fragile.

The communiqué said risks to the world economy had receded but growth remained too weak and unemployment too high.

"A sustained effort is required to continue building a stronger economic and monetary union in the euro area and to resolve uncertainties related to the fiscal situation in the United States and Japan, as well as to boost domestic sources of growth in surplus economies," it said.

A debt-cutting pact struck in Toronto in 2010 will expire this year if leaders fail to agree to extend it at a G20 summit of leaders in St Petersburg in September.

The United States says it is on track to meet its Toronto pledge but argues that the pace of future fiscal consolidation must not snuff out demand. Germany and others are pressing for another round of binding debt targets.

"We had a broad consensus in the G20 that we will stick to the commitment to fulfill the Toronto goals," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said. "We do not have any interest in U.S.-bashing ... In St. Petersburg follow-up-goals will be decided."

The G20 put together a huge financial backstop to halt a market meltdown in 2009 but has failed to reach those heights since. At successive meetings, Germany has pressed the United States and others to do more to tackle their debts. Washington in turn has urged Berlin to do more to increase demand.

Backing in the communiqué for the use of domestic monetary policy to support economic recovery reflected the U.S. Federal Reserve's commitment to monetary stimulus through quantitative easing, or QE, to promote recovery and jobs.

QE entails large-scale bond buying -- $85 billion a month in the Fed's case -- that helps economic growth but has also unleashed destabilising capital flows into emerging markets.

A commitment to minimize such "negative spillovers" was an offsetting point in the text that China, fearful of asset bubbles and lost export competitiveness, highlighted.

"Major developed nations (should) pay attention to their monetary policy spillover," Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao was quoted by state news agency Xinhua as saying in Moscow.

Russia, this year's chair of the G20, admitted the group had failed to reach agreement on medium-term budget deficit levels and expressed concern about ultra-loose policies that it and other emerging economies say could store up trouble for later.

On currencies, the G20 text reiterated its commitment last November, "to move more rapidly toward mores market-determined exchange rate systems and exchange rate flexibility to reflect underlying fundamentals, and avoid persistent exchange rate misalignments".

It said disorderly exchange rate movements and excess volatility in financial flows could harm economic and financial stability.

(Additional reporting by Gernot Heller, Lesley Wroughton, Maya Dyakina, Tetsushi Kajimoto, Jan Strupczewski, Lidia Kelly, Katya Golubkova, Jason Bush, Anirban Nag and Michael Martina. Writing by Douglas Busvine. Editing by Timothy Heritage/Mike Peacock)

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Some Chinese Are Souring on Being North Korea’s Best Friend

Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press

A billboard showing Mao Zedong, right, and North Korea’s founding father, Kim Il-sung, near the China-North Korea border.

YANJI CITY, China — Beds shook and teacups clattered in this town bordering North Korea, less than 100 miles from the site where the North said it detonated a nuclear test that exploded midmorning in the midst of Chinese New Year festivities.

At home and abroad, China has long been regarded as North Korea’s best friend, but at home that sense of fraternity appears to be souring as ordinary people express anxiety about possible fallout from the test last Tuesday. The fact that North Korea detonated the device on a special Chinese holiday did not sit well, either.

Among Chinese officials, the mood toward the young North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has darkened. The Chinese government is reported by analysts to be wrestling with what to do about a man who, in power for a little more than a year, thumbed his nose at China by ignoring its appeals not to conduct the country’s third nuclear test, and who shows no gratitude for China’s largess as the main supplier of oil and food.

“The public does not want China to be the only friend of an evil regime, and we’re not even recognized by North Korea as a friend,” said Jin Qiangyi, director of the Center for North and South Korea Studies at Yanbian University in Yanji City. “For the first time the Chinese government has felt the pressure of public opinion not to be too friendly with North Korea.”

With its site near the border, Yanji City has long been a hub of North Korean affairs inside China, and people here have a relatively good understanding of their opaque and recalcitrant neighbor. This is often where desperate defectors from the impoverished police state first seek shelter, where legal and illegal cross-border trade thrives, and where much of the population has roots in North Korea.

That familiarity breeds mixed attitudes. There is tolerance among some toward the regime — mostly from those who profit financially. But there is also great anger among many ethnic Korean Chinese about the almost incalculable suffering of the people living under the Kim dynasty, which relies on gulags to deal with even the glimmers of dissent and where years of failed economic policies have left many people near the edge of starvation.

The test detonated at Punggye-ri in northeastern North Korea last week was considerably more powerful than its first nuclear test in 2006 and as large as, or larger than, one in 2009, according to Western and Chinese experts. It remained unclear whether the test was fueled by plutonium or uranium; a uranium test would exacerbate tensions, suggesting the North had a new and faster way of building its nuclear fuel stockpile.

But to some Chinese, the technicalities seem irrelevant.

In postings on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, people asked about the possible dangers of radioactive fallout from a nuclear test. Many said they were dissatisfied by assurances from the Ministry of Environmental Protection that it had checked for radiation at various border areas after the blast and announced that the levels were normal.

“I’m worried about radiation,” said a 26-year-old woman as she served customers in a bookstore here. “My family lives in the mountains close to the border. They felt the bed shake on the day of the test. I have no idea whether it is safe or not, though the government says it is.”

There are growing uncertainties among at least some of China’s foreign policy experts, too. In the aftermath of the test, a prominent Chinese political scientist with a penchant for provocative ideas, Shen Dingli at Fudan University in Shanghai, wrote on the Web site of Foreign Policy, based in Washington, that it was time for China “to cut its losses and cut North Korea loose.”

Other experts suggested the test could worsen relations between the North and China and urged China’s new leadership to consider taking a tougher stance to curb the North’s nuclear weapons program, which appears to be advancing after some early technical difficulties.

Such opinions, coupled with new worries among some ordinary Chinese people, pose a problem for the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, according to Mr. Jin, who often goes to Beijing to participate in policy discussions about North Korea.

.

If China decides to go along with the United States’ calls for much more stringent sanctions than exist now, there are fears among China’s policy makers that the North’s government would collapse, possibly setting the stage for mayhem on the border and a reunification of Korea as an American ally. But if China maintains the status quo, it could face mounting criticism among its own citizens.

If it decided to take a harder stance, China could punish North Korea by curtailing its oil shipments, by far the major source of fuel in the energy-starved North, Mr. Jin said.

Mia Li contributed research.

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Ahead of hearing, Einhorn reiterates case against Apple

NEW YORK (Reuters) – David Einhorn reiterated his arguments Friday that a judge should block a shareholder vote on Apple Inc‘s proposal to eliminate its ability to issue preferred shares without investor approval, days before a court hearing.

In court filings in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital attempted to rebut Apple’s arguments that the company’s proposal was “pro-shareholder.”

“Apple should not be allowed to substitute its judgment for its shareholders’ judgment, and should be enjoined” from letting the vote proceed, Greenlight said in a motion.

A hearing on Einhorn’s motion for an injunction against the February 27 vote on the proxy proposal is set for Tuesday. A spokesman for Apple declined comment.

Greenlight sued Apple last week as part of Einhorn’s larger effort to have the iPhone maker share more of its $ 137 billion in cash with investors.

As part of that goal, Einhorn has pushed for Apple to issue to its shareholders perpetual preferred stock with a 4 percent dividend.

Among the Apple proxy proposals up for a vote February 27 is Proposal No. 2, which would remove the company’s current system of issuing preferred stock at its discretion without a shareholder vote.

Greenlight’s lawsuit contends Apple violated U.S. Securities and Exchange rules by “bundling” three separate amendments to its charter into Proposal No. 2. While Greenlight supports two of the amendments, it does not back the one related to preferred stock.

Apple in a Wednesday filing argued the proposal was not bundled and that it had not forced shareholders into an unfair choice. It also noted Proposal No. 2 was supported by proxy advisory services Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass, Lewis & Co.

But Einhorn argued on Friday that ISS and Glass Lewis’s support is premised on the belief that eliminating so-called “blank check” preferred stock powers enables a company to defend itself against a takeover.

“In my view, Apple is not a realistic take-over candidate because of, among other things, its enormous market capitalization,” Einhorn wrote.

At Tuesday’s hearing, U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan will also hear a separate challenge by an Apple investor from Pennsylvania to block not just the Proposal No. 2 vote, but also an advisory “say-on-pay” vote on executives compensation.

The investor, Brian Gralnick, contends Apple has not disclose enough details about how it made its decisions in awarding restricted stock units to certain executives.

Apple responded that its disclosures were adequate and appropriate.

The case is Greenlight Capital LP, et al., v. Apple Inc., U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, 13-900.

(Reporting By Nate Raymond; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

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Stories You Loved: Mariska Hargitay Loves Her Curves from Motherhood

02/16/2013 at 02:30 PM EST

Mariska Hargitay

Courtesy Ladies Home Journal

In another week of tragedy, it was a breath of fresh air to read something lighthearted, like Mariska Hargitay's outlook on her body after baby.

Readers loved the reason why the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star, 49, embraces her curves.

"I love my curves because they scream, 'I'm a mama!' " the actress said. "I'm the girl who started wearing maternity pants about an hour after I found out I was pregnant because I was so excited about becoming a mom."

Curves aside, Hargitay acknowledges that she no longer has the body she had when she was younger, but she's just fine with it.

"Things are sagging a bit – I'm not going to lie," she says. "But am I going to be upset about the sag or am I going to look at my three gorgeous kids and my husband and count my lucky stars? I try to focus on who I am rather than who I'm not."

For the full story, click here.

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Study: Fish in drug-tainted water suffer reaction

BOSTON (AP) — What happens to fish that swim in waters tainted by traces of drugs that people take? When it's an anti-anxiety drug, they become hyper, anti-social and aggressive, a study found. They even get the munchies.

It may sound funny, but it could threaten the fish population and upset the delicate dynamics of the marine environment, scientists say.

The findings, published online Thursday in the journal Science, add to the mounting evidence that minuscule amounts of medicines in rivers and streams can alter the biology and behavior of fish and other marine animals.

"I think people are starting to understand that pharmaceuticals are environmental contaminants," said Dana Kolpin, a researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey who is familiar with the study.

Calling their results alarming, the Swedish researchers who did the study suspect the little drugged fish could become easier targets for bigger fish because they are more likely to venture alone into unfamiliar places.

"We know that in a predator-prey relation, increased boldness and activity combined with decreased sociality ... means you're going to be somebody's lunch quite soon," said Gregory Moller, a toxicologist at the University of Idaho and Washington State University. "It removes the natural balance."

Researchers around the world have been taking a close look at the effects of pharmaceuticals in extremely low concentrations, measured in parts per billion. Such drugs have turned up in waterways in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere over the past decade.

They come mostly from humans and farm animals; the drugs pass through their bodies in unmetabolized form. These drug traces are then piped to water treatment plants, which are not designed to remove them from the cleaned water that flows back into streams and rivers.

The Associated Press first reported in 2008 that the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans carries low concentrations of many common drugs. The findings were based on questionnaires sent to water utilities, which reported the presence of antibiotics, sedatives, sex hormones and other drugs.

The news reports led to congressional hearings and legislation, more water testing and more public disclosure. To this day, though, there are no mandatory U.S. limits on pharmaceuticals in waterways.

The research team at Sweden's Umea University used minute concentrations of 2 parts per billion of the anti-anxiety drug oxazepam, similar to concentrations found in real waters. The drug belongs to a widely used class of medicines known as benzodiazepines that includes Valium and Librium.

The team put young wild European perch into an aquarium, exposed them to these highly diluted drugs and then carefully measured feeding, schooling, movement and hiding behavior. They found that drug-exposed fish moved more, fed more aggressively, hid less and tended to school less than unexposed fish. On average, the drugged fish were more than twice as active as the others, researcher Micael Jonsson said. The effects were more pronounced at higher drug concentrations.

"Our first thought is, this is like a person diagnosed with ADHD," said Jonsson, referring to attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. "They become asocial and more active than they should be."

Tomas Brodin, another member of the research team, called the drug's environmental impact a global problem. "We find these concentrations or close to them all over the world, and it's quite possible or even probable that these behavioral effects are taking place as we speak," he said Thursday in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Most previous research on trace drugs and marine life has focused on biological changes, such as male fish that take on female characteristics. However, a 2009 study found that tiny concentrations of antidepressants made fathead minnows more vulnerable to predators.

It is not clear exactly how long-term drug exposure, beyond the seven days in this study, would affect real fish in real rivers and streams. The Swedish researchers argue that the drug-induced changes could jeopardize populations of this sport and commercial fish, which lives in both fresh and brackish water.

Water toxins specialist Anne McElroy of Stony Brook University in New York agreed: "These lower chronic exposures that may alter things like animals' mating behavior or its ability to catch food or its ability to avoid being eaten — over time, that could really affect a population."

Another possibility, the researchers said, is that more aggressive feeding by the perch on zooplankton could reduce the numbers of these tiny creatures. Since zooplankton feed on algae, a drop in their numbers could allow algae to grow unchecked. That, in turn, could choke other marine life.

The Swedish team said it is highly unlikely people would be harmed by eating such drug-exposed fish. Jonsson said a person would have to eat 4 tons of perch to consume the equivalent of a single pill.

Researchers said more work is needed to develop better ways of removing drugs from water at treatment plants. They also said unused drugs should be brought to take-back programs where they exist, instead of being flushed down the toilet. And they called on pharmaceutical companies to work on "greener" drugs that degrade more easily.

Sandoz, one of three companies approved to sell oxazepam in the U.S., "shares society's desire to protect the environment and takes steps to minimize the environmental impact of its products over their life cycle," spokeswoman Julie Masow said in an emailed statement. She provided no details.

___

Online:

Overview of the drug: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a682050.html

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Wall Street flat but on track for seventh straight weekly gain

Finola Hughes has called the upcoming 50th anniversary of "General Hospital" a "really sweet" moment."I think the fact that we, at 'GH,' are doing so well right now, and to enter into our 50th anniversary on such a high, it feels really sweet," the actress, who plays Port Charles Police Chief Anna Devane, told Access Hollywood, when asked about the daytime drama's impending anniversary.

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Indian Troops Kill Pakistani Soldier in Kashmir Border Clash

NEW DELHI — Indian troops have shot and killed another Pakistani soldier at the de facto border between the two countries in Kashmir, adding to an unusually tense period in the disputed region.

A statement released Friday by the Indian Army said that Indian soldiers saw an intruder at 3 p.m. on Thursday in the Nowshera sector of the so-called Line of Control separating the Indian- and Pakistani-held parts of Kashmir. The Indian soldiers challenged the intruder, who “opened indiscriminate fire,” wounding two soldiers, the statement said. The soldiers returned fire and later found a dead Pakistani soldier in uniform, it said.

On Friday at 10 a.m., Pakistani commanders called their Indian counterparts and asked for the body to be returned, according to the Indian statement.

“Acceding to this request,” the statement said, “the dead body was returned to Pakistan Army personnel in the same sector in the evening with military respects.”

A Pakistani military official sent a text message to reporters on Friday saying that the soldier had accidentally crossed the boundary, The Associated Press reported.

The A.P. report said the Pakistani military later issued a statement accusing the Indian troops of killing the soldier after he had explained his mistake.

“We condemn such an inhuman and brutal act of killing our soldier after he had identified himself and explained his position,” the statement said, according to The A. P.

Last month, three Pakistani soldiers and two Indian soldiers were killed at the border, and one of the Indian soldiers was beheaded. The killings heightened tensions between the two nuclear-armed countries to their worst since they agreed to a cease-fire in 2003. The two countries have been in conflict over Kashmir almost since their founding in 1947.

Border skirmishes are not the only immediate problem in Kashmir. Last weekend, Indian authorities executed Mohammed Afzal, known as Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri who was convicted of participating in a 2001 attack on India’s Parliament. Many in Kashmir believe that Mr. Afzal did not receive a fair trial, and have expressed outrage over the timing and circumstances of his execution.

Indian officials put a curfew in place following the execution. Nevertheless, as many as 25 protests have flared around the Indian-held parts of Kashmir, and there have been at least 110 arrests. The region is predominantly Muslim, and curfew was tightened Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, and many of the major mosques in Srinagar, the main city, were closed Friday.

The week before the execution, a Kashmiri girls’ rock band decided to disband after threats against the members were posted on social media sites and a top Muslim cleric asked that they stop performing.

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

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Lawyers lick their chops as new study links cell phones to lower brain cancer survival rates

For the past 10 years, a diverse group of epidemiologists has tried to nail down an association between mobile phone use and brain cancer. This has not panned out. Several recent, large-scale European studies have indicated there is no correlation. However, every now and then a research paper still tries to approach the topic from a new and unusual angle and manages to keep the issue alive for awhile longer.

[More from BGR: Verizon’s Galaxy S IV detailed in purported benchmarks]

The February issue of Neuroepidemiology has one of those clever exercises that gives American class action lawyers a glimmer of hope. Oncologists Hardell and Carlberg opted to analyze the survival rates of glioma patients after the diagnosis had been made. This is an interesting twist to the usual theme of simply trying to find a higher frequency of gliomas among heavy cell phone users.

[More from BGR: After using Microsoft’s Surface Pro, going back to the first Surface is agonizing]

The pool of patients was picked from 1997-2003, the period when mobile handset usage had become so prevalent in Sweden that a large percentage of patients used them regularly. In the highest tertile of cumulative wireless phone use, hazard ratio for glioblastoma was 1.2. This means that patients using wireless phones had 20% higher chance of dying.

Oddly, the study claims that mobile phones and cordless phones had a similar effect on survival rates. This is an interesting note because the radiation profiles of late ’90s GSM phones were not similar to cordless phones.

The study has some of the usual flaws that most papers claiming a link between mobile phones and brain cancer possess. The choice to pick the “highest tertile” of heavy wireless phone users for the key finding seems oddly arbitrary. Why not the highest quartile or highest quintile, both of which are far more commonly used in medical studies? Could it be that the statistical results for those slices are weaker?

Ironically, the study admitted there was a survivor benefit for heavy wireless phone users diagnosed with astrocytoma grade I-II. The scientists speculate that this could be due to “exposure-related tumour symptoms leading to earlier diagnosis,” which seems to mean that phone use saved some patients by causing the cancer to develop in a way that made early detection easier.

This is a fairly impressive feat of mental acrobatics.

Research papers trying to nail down the link between mobile phones and cancer keep popping up, mostly in journals with an impact factor under 0.5. Neuroepidemiology is a serious publication, possessing an impact factor of 2.3. This is still far below the heavy hitters like Science and Nature, which float  serenely at impact factor levels topping 30.

It is likely that unless a major study lands in one of these leading scientific journals, large class action lawsuits against major phone vendors will not be launched. The phone-glioma link remains the Holy Grail of the litigation industry though, because first small studies suggesting an association between mobile phone usage and cancer started popping up in late ’90s. If convincing statistical evidence is ever found, lawyers can claim that the phone industry has been aware of the issue for more than a decade and could have taken stronger measures to inform consumers.

It is possible that even if the link exists, the extra risk may be so small that teasing it out from statistical noise and other factors will always be impossible. What complicates the dark quest of class action wizards is that these days, practically everyone uses mobile phones and cancer incidence levels keep shifting due to other environmental and dietary factors.

For now, the $ 100 billion litigation frenzy remains a vague sketch on a legal notepad.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Vin Diesel Covers Rihanna's 'Stay' - and Wins the Internet for the Day

By Cara Lynn Shultz

02/15/2013 at 02:30 PM EST

This video could break the Internet, and there aren't even any cats in it.

On Feb. 14, Vin Diesel posted a video of his heartfelt cover of Rihanna's song "Stay" to his Facebook page – and in a matter of hours, the video was shared more than 26,000 times, because who doesn't want to watch the musclebound Fast & Furious star sing?

In the clip, a shadowed Diesel says, "Happy V day amore," before launching into a karaoke-style rendition of the ballad as the video (where a nude Rihanna sings in the bathtub) is projected on the wall next to him.

The actor, clad in jeans and a jacket, shows off his vocal range, switching from a deep bass to a falsetto.

Diesel, who was named the Sexiest Man Alive on Facebook in 2010 ends the clip by repeating "Happy V day amore" three times and blowing a kiss, presumably to his 39 million Facebook fans.

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