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Cambodia Sun bears

2010-05-14T14:19:00.002+10:00

Police beating of university student John McKenna shocks the US

2010-04-15T20:09:00.001+10:00

AU.News.AU 15/04/2010

Ckick here for VIDEO fotage: Sports fan bashed by cops

FOOTAGE of police brutalising an innocent sports fan in Maryland and rendering him unconscious has shocked America today.

In scenes captured by CCTV cameras, University of Maryland student John McKenna is seen skipping down the street celebrating after watching his university basketball team defeat Duke.

Within seconds he is approached by police on horseback who stand over him before other cops in riot gear swoop and begin beating him with batons, The Sun reports.

Police reports allege it was Mr McKenna who had first been assaulting the cops and their horses causing "minor injuries" as they responded to reports of trouble after the game.

But he never strikes out on the footage - and even tries to back away when confronted.

The FBI are now investigating the incident which left the 21-year-old needing eight staples to repair a gaping wound in his head.

He was also allegedly told by officers in Maryland not to make a fuss about his injuries because they would have to fill out more paper work.

Americans are already drawing comparisons with the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991. The officers accused of that incident were acquitted sparking rioting across the city which left 53 people dead.

Mr McKenna was arrested and placed in the back of a police van before being taken to hospital.

Charges against Mr McKenna have since been dropped and police chief Roberto Hylton has suspended one officer.

He said: "I was outraged. I was very disappointed at the conduct that I saw on the part of my officers on the video tape."

Mr McKenna's family said in a statement: "Some of these characters ought to go to jail, some ought to be booted off the force, and the remainder should be properly trained to discover that force is not always necessary, and brutality is always wrong."

Microsoft accused of 52c-an-hour 'slaves'

2010-04-15T19:56:00.000+10:00

News.Com.Au 15/04/2010

MICROSOFT said it had opened an investigation following a report of harsh working conditions at a factory in China that makes products for the US software giant.

The Pittsburgh-based National Labor Committee, in a report released Tuesday, denounced conditions at a KYE Systems factory in the city of Dongguan in Guangdong province.

The NLC, a private group with a stated mission to "help defend the human rights of workers in the global economy," said KYE recruits hundreds of "work study students" aged 16 and 17 years old who work 15-hour shifts, six and seven days a week.

It showed photos released over the past three years purporting to have been smuggled out of the factory, showing "exhausted teenaged workers, toiling and slumping asleep on their assembly line during break time".

It said that in 2007 and 2008, before the recession, "workers were at the factory 97 hours a week while working 80-and-a-half hours".

"In 2009, workers report being at the factory 83 hours a week, while working 68 hours," the NLC said.

It said workers were paid 65c an hour, "which falls to a take-home wage of 52c after deductions for factory food."

"Workers are prohibited from talking, listening to music or using the bathroom during working hours," the NLC report said, adding that "as punishment, workers who make mistakes are made to clean the bathrooms.

They are required to turn out 2000 Microsoft mice each shift.

"We are like prisoners," one worker told NLC.

"It seems like we live only to work. We do not work to live. We do not live a life, only work."

The report claimed workers had no rights, and the factory violated "every single labor law in China".

"Microsoft's and other companies' codes of conduct have zero impact," it said.

Microsoft said it took the claims "seriously" and vowed to "take appropriate remedial measures in regard to any findings of vendor misconduct".

"Microsoft is committed to the fair treatment and safety of workers employed by our vendors," the Redmond, Washington-based company said.

"Microsoft has invested heavily in a vendor accountability program and robust independent third-party auditing program to ensure conformance to the Microsoft Vendor Code of Conduct."

The NLC report said the factory makes computer mice for Microsoft, as well as products for other companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Best Buy, Samsung, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech and Asus.

Aussie dies after Thailand street attack

2010-04-15T19:37:00.000+10:00

AU.Yahoo.Com 15/04/2010

An Australian tourist who died after being attacked in Thailand will be buried there on Friday, farewelled by his pregnant Thai wife and Adelaide family.

Andrew Oake, 28, had been holidaying in Prasat, near Surin in northeastern Thailand, for two months with his wife, Som, who is six months pregnant.

About four weeks ago the pair were travelling between villages when they were set upon by two men on motorbikes.

Som ran for help while Mr Oake was slashed in the arms and head with a machete in what might have been a failed robbery.

His father, Roy Oake, told AAP his son was first sent to a local hospital but the tendons in his arm were severed and he was sent to Bangkok for surgery.

Mr Oake said there was speculation Andrew could lose his arm but he was urged to leave hospital by his travel insurance company.

He returned to Prasat, nine hours away but later needed another operation in Bangkok and treatment for an infection that had developed in his arm.

At that point, Mr Oake says the insurance company ordered his son to return to Australia for treatment or it would end his policy.

He was making the trip back to Prasat to fetch his passport on Sunday when he died on the mini-bus.

Mr Oake, who arrived in Thailand with Andrew's brother and mother this week, said he hoped his son's insurance would provide for Som and the baby.

"I told them he was in no condition to travel anywhere," he said.

"He was fatigued, he was in pain, he wouldn't make it."

Som was last year married to Andrew by the local monks.

Their friend Travis Senne, an American living in Thailand, said he was concerned police had not made an arrest, weeks after the attack in the quiet town.

"Prasat is such a peaceful area, it's not a big city or anything," he said.

"Andrew was a very upstanding, honest person, a very responsible family man.

"He had a plan, a life plan, but it got cut short."

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokeswoman said staff had been in contact with the family and would provide all necessary consular assistance.

"The cause of death is a matter for Thai authorities to determine," she said.

Democrat Party to dissolve over 2 donations

2010-04-13T06:15:00.001+10:00

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2010/04/13/politics/Dissolve-Democrat-Party-EC-recommends-30127141.html

Thai Protesters Take to Streets to Express Wide-Ranging Grievances

2010-03-25T09:13:00.002+10:00

VOA News 24/03/2010

Thailand is again gripped by political unrest. But unlike some previous demonstrations, which were mainly seen as part of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's struggle against those who deposed him, political analysts say the new rallies have become a forum for people who feel marginalized and want broad political change.

Tens of thousands of Thais poured into Bangkok over the past week demanding fresh elections.

The red-shirted protesters are usually associated with former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a coup in 2006.

But many do not care about Mr. Thaksin. They want elections because they think the government does not serve the poor.

PROTESTER: "If we have election, and I have the government be mine, be ours, it's good, better than now."

After court cases forced out an elected government in 2008, parliament selected Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, under rules set up by the military government that ousted Mr. Thaksin.

Pan, a maid, is one of the thousands of people who cheered as the demonstrators paraded in Bangkok. She wants a new election because she thinks Mr. Abhisit is insensitive to the needs of the poor.

"He [says] to people he [will] do this and do this, but he [does] not do…. He lied to people, he lied to [the] people of Thailand," she said.

Chulalongkorn University political science professor Naruemon Thabchumpon says many people do not directly benefit from the government's economic programs.

"I think this is the big problem of the Abhisit government because his government still believes in trickle-down effect," she said. "Basically, his stimulus economic package only goes to formal sector of the economy."

But 62 percent of Thai workers are in the informal sector, such as contract workers, farmers, street hawkers, and motorcycle-taxi drivers. And she says they dominate the protesters.

Naruemon thinks the protesters carry diverse grievances that have found a common identity.

While Prime Minister Abhisit says he will not call elections under pressure, he acknowledges the grievances of many of the protesters. He says the government is working to solve issues such as the income gap and poor housing.

But without real progress, political analysts and voters say the government will find it difficult to convince people like Pan, who says she wants to vote for a leader who responds to her needs.

'Tangible Progress' Reported in Control of TB in SE Asia

2010-03-25T09:02:00.000+10:00

VOA News 24/03/2010

The World Health Organization has taken the occasion of World TB Day to document the progress and challenges in its fight against tuberculosis in its Southeast Asia region.

Picture: Tuberculosis patient Supachai Sengsum on his bed at Wat Prabat Nampu in Lopburi, Thailand (2009 File)

The United Nations health body warns it faces several challenges in its TB programs in the region. The World Health Organization says it main tasks are to sustain and expand services to countries struggling with poverty, rapid urbanization and large population displacements.

India accounts for 20 percent of all global tuberculosis cases. And while the overall death rate has been on the decline in the 11 countries in the WHO's Southeast Asia region, it is responsible for half a million deaths each year.

The region is composed of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Burma, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and East Timor.

WHO officials are particularly concerned by data showing more than a third of patients getting repeat treatments in Thailand have multi-drug resistant TB. India has the highest such number of cases globally. Multi-drug resistant TB is much harder to treat successfully.

WHO's regional director of communicable diseases, Dr. Jai Narain, says that countries with such trends need to ensure the use of rational TB drug regimens.

"The emergence of drug-resistant TB is also a reflection of the quality of TB control programs. MDR [multi-drug resistant] levels are indeed reversible once we have good quality TB control programs," he said. "This has been demonstrated in many major cities like New York City, London and elsewhere."

Public health officials are worried about even worse strains of the disease that do not respond to treatments for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. Known as extensively drug resistant TB, it has been detected in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Thailand.

WHO, in its report released Wednesday blames the misuse of some less-effective drugs for the problem and warns of a real threat for the emergence of this super TB strain.

World Tuberculosis Day is observed on March 24 to commemorate this day in 1882 when the German physician Robert Koch (pronounced 'coke') announced he had discovered the bacteria that cause tuberculosis. At that time, TB, which usually attacks the lungs, was the single biggest disease threat to humanity.

Australian scientists in TB drug breakthrough

2010-03-25T08:49:00.000+10:00

Bangkok Post 24/03/2010

Australian scientists said Wednesday they had discovered a drug which could cure tuberculosis at its non-infectious stage and could be the first major breakthrough on the disease in 50 years.

Bacteriologist Nick West said researchers at Sydney's Centenary Institute had developed a drug which could essentially combat the disease before it takes hold, potentially saving millions of lives around the world.

"We have investigated a protein that is essential for TB to survive and we have had some success in developing a drug that will inhibit this protein," said West.

"Our goal over the coming months is to find out the full extent of this drug's potential."

West said it would be the first time in history that dormant or asymptomatic, non-infectious TB would be able to be treated, potentially stemming a deadly tide of infection which claimed two million lives every year.

"Unfortunately, the antibiotics we use to fight TB aren't effective against latent TB and can only be used when the disease becomes active," he explained.

"This is a major problem as one out of 10 people who have latent TB will develop the active disease, becoming sick and contagious."

"If we can figure out a way to treat TB when it's in a latent stage, then we could save millions of lives throughout the world," West added.

If successful the drug would be the the first new treatment for TB since 1962, according to the institute which is affiliated with the University of Sydney.

One third of the world's population, or two billion people, are estimated to be infected with TB, with the disease growing fastest in South East Asia.

Lethal multidrug-resistant strains of the disease were becoming a serious threat to global health, infecting almost half a million people in 2008, of whom one-third died, the World Health Organisation warned last week.

Almost half the drug resistant cases were estimated to have occurred in India and China, the WHO said, with an extensively drug-resistant form, found in 58 countries, "virtually untreatable".

Heading for a stalemate that could last till Songkran

2010-03-25T08:32:00.000+10:00

Bangkok Post 25/03/2010

Picture: PM Abhisit Vejjajiva reacts during yesterday’s meeting in Parliament, which the opposition Puea Thai Party boycotted.

With both the red shirt protesters and government proclaiming they are going in the right direction, an extended stalemate that could last close to the Songkran holidays is becoming a likely scenario.

PM Abhisit Vejjajiva reacts during yesterday’s meeting in Parliament, which the opposition Puea Thai Party boycotted. With the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) keeping the protest peaceful and orderly, and the government holding its stance of not dissolving the House or cracking down forcefully on the demonstrators, the confrontation simply has to carry on.

Although the "Three Buddies" leaders of the red shirts may have wanted to wrap up the protest within a week as they initially declared, they had no choice but to keep the show going because the real commander of the red shirt movement, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, is still holding on to his dream. Thaksin remains as committed as ever to his aspiration of returning to power, claiming back all his interests and toppling the amataya who, as he tells the protesters every day, are the real liability of the country. For Thaksin, the bureaucratic elite are holding back Thailand from opening up to new things because that could affect its superior position which allows it to be above everyone and "suck everything" from ordinary citizens to enrich itself and its network.

This desire of Thaksin means the Three Buddies will have to keep coming up with catchy, new tactics rousing enough to hook their supporters - the blood campaign, the tour around Bangkok, or punchy new topics of assault by the opposite side - as well as maintain order among the crowd.

For now, the government is confident it still has a hold on the running of the country even if the protest drags on further. The pact between the Democrat Party, its coalition partners and the military remains trustworthy. Chiefly, all members of Parliament whether they are with the government or the opposition, do not want to lose their status. Even though they believe they have a chance to return in the next election, none would like to take the chance unless absolutely necessary.

This coming Saturday will be another big day for the red shirts. They promise that the tour of Bangkok to win over the support of city people will be bigger than last week's.

Chaiyan Chaiyaporn, a political scientist from Chulalongkorn University, said although he supports the People's Alliance for Democracy, he believes that both the red shirts and the government are correct in adhering to non-violence and exercising tolerance for the extended confrontation. He said that although democracy is a system in which legitimacy and efficiency are antithetical, if we want to increase efficiency, we will have to reduce the level of public participation and access to decision-making, both of which constitute legitimacy.

As the red shirts cannot force the government to meet their demand to dissolve the House, it has to bear the costs, both financial and labour, of prolonging the demonstration.

By resisting the demand of the red shirts, the government itself has to bear the cost of maintaining public law and order as well as the negative perception of its inability to govern.

After more than a week of camping out in the streets, the red shirts have at least succeeded in raising awareness about inequality, injustice and the practice of double standards which do exist in Thailand and are thus combustible topics, especially among the grassroots who have to contend with them in their everyday lives. It is undeniable, however, that the red shirts' legitimacy would increase by leaps and bounds if they could manifest clearly that they are not doing everything for Thaksin who, after all, fits the definition of the amataya more than that of the downtrodden.

The red shirts are likely to match some of the precedents set by the yellow shirts of the PAD, who set a record of protesting for 193 days. Although the yellow shirts did not succeed in forcing the Samak Sundaravej government to resign or dissolve the House, the movement did prevent that government from amending the Constitution.

Ironically, the only upper hand Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has at this moment is from Thaksin's own oversight. The former PM's ambiguous goal, which many believe is further than a House dissolution, his intention of toppling the "amat" or the "sacred supporting structure" which he himself claims to love, does not help clarify his final cause. To capitalise on this advantage, Mr Abhisit should seize the moment and show his full leadership capabilities. He should leave the military-controlled 11st Infantry Regiment and let everyone see that he does not need the army to prop him up. He must show that he can call on every unit and agency to come together for the administration of the country.

Nattaya Chetchotiros is Assistant News Editor, Bangkok Post and former President of the Thai Journalists Association.

How to Survive a Heart Attack

2010-03-24T18:37:00.001+10:00

VOA News 23/03/2010

When a heart attack occurs outside of a hospital, death is frequently the outcome, but a new study has shown that rapid intervention using two strategies can increase the chances for survival.

Emergency physician Arthur Kellermann, a senior principal researcher at the Rand Corporation, says the single most effective way to save a heart attack patient's life is for someone to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR.

"Bystander CPR is easy to learn, easy to remember and easy to perform. You can save lives with CPR by just pumping on the chest, you don't even have to do mouth-to-mouth breathing."

Electronic devices called Automated External Defibrillators, or AEDs, can also help save a heart attack victim's life.

"Automated External Defibrillators allow a citizen with little or no training to apply that counter shock to a patient and potentially restart their heart." Kellermann adds that the sooner the AED is used, the more likely the heart is to restart.

Lessons for successful emergency response

Although clinically AEDs have been shown to be effective, it was unclear whether having them publicly available in places like schools, workplaces and sports facilities would improve community survival rates following cardiac arrests.

The annual number of heart attack patients who survived more than tripled as the number of public access defibrillators increased in Japan.

A new study, from the Fire and Disaster Management Agency in Japan, has shown that they do. The annual number of heart attack patients who survived more than tripled as the number of public access AEDs increased.

The Japanese study also demonstrated that when CPR and AEDs were used together, a heart attack victim's chances for survival increased even more.

Kellermann says the study offers two lessons for emergency response. "One, bystander CPR works, and it works at the national level. And second, that strategic placement of defibrillators in very high risk settings where cardiac arrests are more likely to occur and someone can take that device and bring it to the patient is a smart strategy and complements community training in bystander CPR."

Kellermann says he hopes public health officials incorporate these findings as they develop community strategies to increase the survival of patients who have heart attacks outside of a hospital. This study was published in the "New England Journal of Medicine."

Vitamin D May Protect Against Heart Attack

2010-03-24T18:27:00.002+10:00

VOA News 23/03/2010

Vitamin D is an essential nutrient that we get through exposure to sunlight and through diet. Without enough Vitamin D, we are at risk for rickets, osteoporosis and bone fractures.

Now, researchers have found that Vitamin D deficiency is also associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease.

J. Brent Muhlestein, a cardiologist at the Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, looked at Vitamin D levels in 41,000 patients who visited the medical center for various health problems. He found that about two-thirds of them had low levels of Vitamin D.

"We found a significant association with future heart attacks and strokes and death in the patients who were low compared to ones who were not low in that blood test," says Muhlestein.

Over the next twelve months, one group took Vitamin D supplements to get up to normal levels. The other group did not. At the end of the year, Muhlestein tested both groups again.

"What we found is that although they all started out low, the ones who had Vitamin D that was normalized…were found to have significantly less cardiovascular events than the ones that were not normalized," says Muhlestein.

The numbers were striking. In the group of patients that took supplements to bring their Vitamin D up to normal levels, there was about a 30 percent decreased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Muhlestein says these data show that not getting enough Vitamin D affects more than just bone strength. "Now we have data that says that it's also associated with significant cardiovascular risk and that it appears that if you treat it you can significantly reduce your cardiovascular risk as well."

Although Muhlestein says a large scale randomized clinical trial is needed to confirm his results, he thinks physicians should start recommending Vitamin D supplements to patients with low levels of the vitamin. He expects that would lower their risk of cardiovascular disease.

He presented his findings at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Atlanta.

Religious Leaders to Fight HIV Stigma

2010-03-24T18:23:00.001+10:00

VOA News 23/03/2010

Spiritual leaders from around the world are meeting in The Netherlands to discuss their response to HIV/AIDS. Selah Hennessy spoke to African church leaders for VOA about how they can use their influence to fight the stigma surrounding the disease.

Reverend Patricia Sawo is a pastor at the Calvary Celebration Church in Kenya and the mother of 10 children.

Sawo found out she was HIV positive more than a decade ago. She says before then she had been misinformed about the disease.

"Before I was confronted with my own HIV status, I knew that HIV was a disease for the sinners, and that is how it was presented," she said.

When she learned she was HIV-positive she lost her position in the church. But she learned more about HIV/AIDS and has retaken charge of her church and says she aims to teach her congregation the facts.

"There were people already in the church who were actually having HIV and who were hopeless and did not have anywhere to turn to," she said. "So my coming back into the church with the good news in itself started an automatic support group within the church. That Sunday that I spoke in the Sunday service, in the evening there were eight people who came to confide in me and just to tell me that they were there and they were living with HIV and we needed to find more information," she explained.

Sawo is one of more than 40 religious leaders meeting this week in The Netherlands to discuss how faith groups can respond to the HIV pandemic. She says faith leaders must speak out and take action in order to wipe out the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS.

She says religious leaders must lead the way.

"The religious leader is the person that you will find in the most remote village. Where there is no doctor, you will find a religious leader. Where there is no police post, you will find a religious leader and you will find at least a church or a mosque," said Sawo.

Cape Town Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Reverend Thabo Makgoba, says faith groups have shown compassion for the sick and taken care of people living with HIV/AIDS.

"But there are others that in messaging have not been that positive and constructive, and we in some instances perpetuated stigma. But the good thing about now is that we are aware that stigma kills and we want to commit to really caring and working with those that are HIV positive," he said.

The religious response to HIV/AIDS has sometimes been hindered by issues such as HIV prevention methods, including the use of condoms, and attitudes towards people at increased risk of HIV infection, such as men who have sex with men.

Makgoba says the meeting in The Netherlands is about opening dialogue about HIV/AIDS and getting religious leaders to talk openly about the disease.

"We said we have a catastrophe in front of us that is ravaging our people. How do we collectively and as church leaders give leadership?" He asked.

The United Nations says 70 percent of the world's people identify themselves as a member of a faith community.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 40 percent of HIV related care in Lesotho and Zambia are provided by faith-based groups.

Agreement to Provide Pneumonia Vaccine to Poor Children Expected to Save Millions of Lives

2010-03-24T18:18:00.001+10:00

VOA News 23/03/2010

The GAVI Alliance and two leading pharmaceutical companies have signed an agreement to provide low-cost life-saving vaccines to millions of the world's poorest children. Each year, the World Health Organization reports an estimated two million children under age five die of pneumonia. This disease is responsible for about one-quarter of all child deaths.

GAVI Alliance CEO Julian Lob-Levyt says pneumonia kills more than AIDS, malaria and measles combined. "And more than 90 percent of those deaths occur in developing countries. So, today, I am very proud to announce that GAVI is signing a landmark agreement with GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) and Pfizer to provide long-term supplies of a revolutionary new vaccine against this major killer of children," she said.

The Geneva-based public-private alliance, and GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer say supplies of the new vaccine to Africa and other developing countries will start early this year at a fraction of the price charged in industrialized countries.

Lob-Levyt says cost is the major reason why the vaccine has been unavailable to children in the poorest countries.

He says the introduction of affordable vaccines against pneumococcal disease could save nearly one million lives by 2015 and up to seven million lives by 2030.

"Pfizer and GSK will sign 10-year legally binding agreements to begin supplying this vaccine, a total of seven million doses. Over the course of the next couple of years, they will scale up their production capacity to increase their annual supplies to 30 million doses each. These vaccines will be made available at a price of $3.50 per dose, approximately 90 percent less than the cost in most industrialized countries," he said.

Lob-Levyt says the dramatic drop in the price is not the only significant aspect of the agreement. He says children in developing countries will be receiving the new pneumococcal vaccine just one year after its introduction in Europe and at the same time as the United States.

Potent Jungle Vine Brew Has Potential to Treat Addiction

2010-03-24T18:15:00.001+10:00

VOA News 23/03/2010

New research suggests ayahuasca, a jungle vine found in the Peruvian rainforest, can have a powerful effect on the human central nervous system when brewed with other plants. Researchers say one of ayahuasca's most promising uses could be in treating drug and alcohol addiction.

According to the World Health Organization, medicines derived from plants play a major role in the health care of 80 percent of the world's population. Western medicine has synthesized many of these natural drugs, from the painkillers in willow bark to the anti-cancer compounds in the neem tree, and is constantly searching for more pharmaceuticals in the biodiversity of the world's forests.

Ayahuasca is one traditional plant-based medicine that has drawn the attention of investigators. In the South American jungles, it is used in religious ceremonies to induce visions and also as a remedy to cure ills.

At the Onanyan Shobo spiritual retreat center in the rainforest near Iquitos, Peru, shaman Alfredo Kayruna Canayo shows off a section of the twisting, leafy vine. "What ayahuasca means is vine of the dead," he explains through an interpreter. "Some people call it soul vine."

Ayahuasca is known as a master plant, a very powerful remedy that treats the whole person: body, mind, and soul. "The ayahuasca [can] cure anything you have," the shaman says. "Start with simple things. For example, it's very simple to cure or repel the bad energies from your insides. What is the bad energy? One of them could be the fears, then some wound or injury you have."

Whether the plant is being used for religious or medicinal purposes, ayahuasca is taken only in a ceremonial setting under the direction of an experienced shaman. To turn it into a drink, also called ayahuasca, pieces of the vine are pounded into a pulp and combined with several other plants, then brewed down for eight or more hours into a thick orange liquid.

That combination, shaman Alfredo says, is critical. "Only by itself, this plant doesn't work good, you have to add this with the other plant - the chacruna - which is the help to the ayahuasca. In Shipibo culture, they believe the chacruna is the wife of ayahuasca because they help and work together."

An international research team is investigating the pharmaceutical potential of ayahuasca, known scientifically as Banisteriopsis caapi. Principal investigator, Dr. Charles Grob, is a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine. His team has done a chemical analysis of the medicinal drink.

Pieces of the vine are pounded into a pulp and combined with several other plants, then brewed down for eight or more hours into a thick orange liquid.

While the shaman's characterization of the herbal interaction may be whimsical, Grob says science confirms that the ayahuasca brew is a potent medication. "It's a very sophisticated form of pharmacology, which somehow the native peoples of the Amazon region have figured out. Ayahuasca is generally a decoction of two plants. Each plant if taken separately has no effects on the human central nervous system, but when taken together there's a very powerful synergy."

The active ingredients in the brew are DMT, a naturally occurring brain chemical similar to serotonin, and a natural antidepressant. DMT is inactivated in the human gut, but when combined with the antidepressant, it can be absorbed by the body.

Grob says one of ayahuasca's most promising uses is in treating drug and alcohol addiction. "Number one, it does not appear to be addictive and the individuals do not develop a tolerance, they do not go through withdrawals, and generally speaking, it is very unusual for people to take it on consecutive days over an extended period of time."

The potion also has anti-parasitic properties, which can help prevent malaria. There is also some evidence that it diminishes the symptoms of Parkinson's disease.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration classifies the principal active ingredient in ayahuasca as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, which is not considered to have any legitimate medical use. As a result, the ayahuasca brew is illegal in the United States, and most of the pharmaceutical studies are being conducted in South America.

Grob says the studies are important. "There's great potential to learn about the range of ayahuasca and to explore its therapeutic value, but first steps first, and I think first we need to fully understand how it's utilized in South America and then do trials in the U.S. and Europe."

Retreats like Onanynan Shobo in the Peruvian jungle, have become popular destinations for the medical tourism industry.

Because many Shamans claim ayahuasca cures a variety of cancers, tumors, and other diseases, the Peruvian jungle has become a popular destination for the medical tourism industry.

Most of the visitors at Onanynan Shobo, where Shaman Alfredo practices, are European, with the remainder coming from the United States, Australia and Asia.

As long as its use in western medicine is illegal, anyone wishing to explore ayahuasca's medical benefits will have to come to the source in South America.

Grenades hit Health Ministry

2010-03-24T17:57:00.001+10:00

Bangkok Post 24/03/2010

Grenade blasts at the Public Health Ministry just half an hour after a cabinet meeting adjourned have sparked a war of words between the government and army on one side and the red shirts on the other.

The two grenade explosions yesterday afternoon prompted the army to add another 13,000 troops to the force securing the capital, with another 17,000 more put on standby.

Acting government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said the explosions in the parking lot of the ministry's Emergency Medical Institute were an attempt to expose lapses in the state's security measures.

The parking lot is 700 metres from a building where Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his cabinet were holding talks up until about 30 minutes before the explosions.

The army and police have deployed more than 34,500 officers to maintain law and order in Bangkok since March 12, when the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship launched its rally in support of calls for the government to dissolve the lower house and call new elections.

Sansern Kaewkamnerd, the spokesman for the army and the peace-keeping command, the Centre for the Administration of Peace and Order (CAPO), said the grenade attack was aimed at discrediting the government.

Two travellers study a map to navigate their way along Rama V Road near Government House. Barricades and barbed wire fences have been erected on roads leading to Government House to prevent red shirts from disrupting meetings of the lower house over the next two days. PATTANAPONG HIRUNARD

"The intention is to discredit the government ..." he said.

"The general public feels the pressure. Innocent people are held hostage. The CAPO condemns those who are behind the incident."

He denied the government itself was behind the attack.

"It is not an act by government officials to create a situation. The culprit did not fire during the cabinet meeting because we had deployed soldiers outside. But there was an opportunity when we withdrew the forces."

Red shirt leader Natthawut Saikua accused the government of launching the grenade attacks to try to smear the UDD. He wondered why the grenades were fired after the cabinet meeting if the attackers were opponents of the government.

There was also an attempted grenade attack in Chiang Mai yesterday, but it failed to detonate.

The attacks came the day the government approved the extension of the Internal Security Act until next Tuesday.

Maj Gen Khattiya Sawasdipol, a supporter of deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra widely known as Seh Daeng, denied he was behind the attacks at the ministry but warned of more attacks on government offices as they were the symbol of the amataya, or bureaucratic elite.

Hours after the attack at the ministry, the Internal Security Operations Command chaired by the prime minister held talks and agreed to boost the number of police and soldiers guarding Greater Bangkok to 47,000 during the extended period of ISA enforcement.

Soldiers have been entering Bangkok from Nakhon Ratchasima, Kanchanaburi and Prachin Buri, a source said. Isoc has also put 17,000 more soldiers and police on standby at their units.

The grenade blasts at the ministry damaged the windows and tyres of three cars along with the parking lot's roof. Police rushed to the scene to retrieve shrapnel and footage from closed circuit cameras along the nearby expressway for investigation.

A preliminary inquiry showed the grenades were fired from the expressway about 150 metres behind the ministry, said Pol Maj Gen Supakit Srichantranon, the Nonthaburi police chief.

Pol Col Somsakchai Amornsongcharoen, Muang district police commander, said police also examined a high-rise building overlooking the expressway on the same side of Ngam Wong Wan Road as the ministry was within possible firing range.

The attack was witnessed by Aueychai Moonsiri, 37, an official with the Emergency Medical Institute. He said he heard the first grenade go off and saw smoke from the second blast minutes later.

Sexual images now an inescapable part of children's lives, says psychiatrist

2010-03-17T19:40:00.001+10:00

News.com.au 17/03/2010

THE professional body for Australia's psychiatrists says the self-regulation of advertising and other media industries has failed to protect children from an onslaught of sexualised content.

Today's generation of kids faced the "widespread use of sexual images to sell anything from margarine to fashion", Professor Newman, the president of The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, said.

She said risque images were now an "inescapable" part of a child's environment and pointed to billboard and TV advertising, magazines and music videos and even the posters in department stores.

Prof Newman is calling for a new regime of restrictions to protect children from both targeted and inadvertent exposure to sexualised media content.

She said more Australian research was needed to gauge its effect, though the anecdotal evidence was troubling.

The exposure appeared to push typically teenage and adult concerns about body image, "sexiness" and of being a "worthwhile individual" well into a child's first years of life.

"I've seen four-year-olds and pre-schoolers who want to diet ... going on intermittent food refusal," she said.

Introducing sexualised themes to children could be overt, Prof Newman said, such as the move by a British retailer to sell a child's pole dancing kit or "tween" magazines that offer advice to girls on how to be more attractive to the opposite sex.

But in many cases it was inadvertent.

"If you go into a 7-Eleven, at child's eye-view will be Ralph magazine next to cartoons," she said.

"The child might be attracted to the cartoons but what they are bombarded with are all these really quite unusual women with breast implants.

"It is sending a message that this is sexual attraction, this is what gets you on the front of a magazine."

Prof Newman said it was natural for children to be inquisitive about bodies, and eventually about sex, though these matters should be discussed within a family at a developmentally appropriate time.

"They don't need to know about adult sexual themes, and that's the concern," she said.

Prof Newman will speak on the issue at the Australian Conference on Children and the Media, in Sydney on Friday.

Live Kidney Donation Safe For Donor

2010-03-17T19:33:00.002+10:00

VOA News 11/03/2010

Most of the studies on kidney donation focus on the recipients and how well they adjust to their new kidneys. A new study documents how well donors fare after the surgery.

Kidneys are the most sought after donor organs around the world, according to the World Health Organization. To address the shortage, some hospitals have created programs that pair prospective donors with recipients.

In 2006, the Johns Hopkins University Hospital held a news conference to announce a successful operation involving 10 people: five donors and five recipients.

Dr. Dorry Segev was one of the surgeons. He outlined the problem in an interview with VOA. "Every year we list more and more people for a kidney transplant and that's because more and more people are developing kidney failure, more people are becoming candidates for a transplant," he stated.

People often become donors because a loved one needs a kidney. Some do it for altruistic reasons. That was Judy Payne's motive. "It didn't seem to be that hard of a decision. I like to give to others. I like to share what I can of my blessings," she said.

Dr. Segev studied more than 80,000 live kidney donors from the time of surgery until three months afterwards. "What we found is that live donation is very safe, the risk of dying from donating a kidney is 3 in 10,000 which is much lower than the risk of almost any other operation that you can undergo."

Dr. Segev says the research snows that men and African-Americans have a slightly higher risk of dying after donation than other groups, but the risk is still small and that it has nothing to do with having only one kidney.

"If you match live donors to other healthy people in the population there is no increased risk of dying down the road attributable to having only one kidney instead of two," he said.

Research shows that the number of donors over the age of 50 has doubled. That's one reason doctors want to know the risk of all groups of people before heading into surgery.

The study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association

Fruit Flies Could Unlock Mystery of Alzheimer's

2010-03-17T19:26:00.001+10:00

VOA News 16/03/2010

At Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida, scientists are working to find clues about how the human brain processes memories. Their laboratory test animal is not a chimp or a dog or a rat — animals that we know can remember things — it is the common fruit fly.

"They're relatively simple," Ron Davis says, explaining why the fruit fly's brain has some ideal properties for human brain research. "The brain of the fruit fly has about 100,000 neurons. The brain of a human has about 100 billion neurons, and that's an enormous network of interconnected neurons in the human brain, if one thinks about it. We literally can't wrap our brains around the human brain yet."

Fruit fly training regimen

Davis chairs the Department of Neuroscience at Scripps Florida. He's designed an experiment in which fruit flies are trained to remember an odor associated with an unpleasant electrical shock.

Dr. Ron Davis says fruit flies have essentially the same genes as humans do, just fewer of them.

It involves a series of Plexiglas tubes which have an electrifiable copper grid on their surfaces. "One puts the fly in these tubes first, passes an odor through the tube," Davis says. "Odor A shocks the animal, mild electric shock." After fresh air has been blown through the tubes to remove any trace of the first odor, a second scent is pumped in.

"Odor B passes through the tube and the animals are not shocked. That's the training where we're hoping the animals will develop an association. They'll learn that one odor is bad because it's been punished in the presence of that odor. And the other odor is okay."

Then, the flies are tested to see how well they remember which odor is which. Davis says about 90 percent do, and avoid the electric shock. The ones that don't are isolated, so their genes can be studied.

The human-fruit fly connection

Researchers can remove a fly's brain and place it — still functioning — under a microscope. They can isolate neurons that have different functions and watch them fire -or send signals- to other neurons when stimulated.

A research associate at Davis' lab prepares the series of tubes for the flies' olfactory memory training.

Once they identify which neurons are firing differently in the normal flies that have learned to identify the difference, they examine the mutants that don't remember the shocking odor to see how genes control the firing process.

Fruit flies have essentially the same genes as we do, just fewer of them. Davis says that correlation is what makes his research so promising.

"If we find a gene in flies that's important for a process like memory formation, that sequence of that gene is generally conserved [across species]. We can use that gene to identify a similar gene in a mouse or in humans, because they have a very, very high sequence similarity. The bases that make up the gene are very similar." He explains that is how researchers are able to identify with a very high probability in humans the vast majority of genes that exist in fruit flies.

"We're actually quite similar to a fruit fly, believe it or not," he adds with a laugh.

Each vial in the storeroom can hold more than 150 flies.

Fruit flies have a very short lifespan compared to other laboratory animals like the mouse or rat. So, with the flies mating and reproducing every two weeks, many generations of flies can be studied in a year, allowing researchers to do genetic studies quickly. And since the flies are small, hundreds of thousands of them can be stored easily and inexpensively in plastic vials.

Davis shows off a small room at the Institute, filled with vials of fruit flies — all to be used in the search for answers to how our memories are made and stored.

"If one examines the vast majority of neurological diseases — Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and so forth, and psychiatric diseases — schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, ADHD, autism, all of these have a commonality in that they have learning disorders, in general, or memory formation seems to be an underlying feature of the vast majority of neurological and psychiatric diseases."

Davis and his team of researchers hope their work will lead to a drug that will help the brain fight learning- and memory-related diseases. He says gaining a fundamental understanding of how the learning process works could be the key to treating — and perhaps curing — them.

Suthep: We'll talk, if Thaksin okays it

2010-03-17T19:19:00.000+10:00

Bangkok Post 17/03/2010

The government is ready for talks with the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, particularly its core leader Veera Musikhapong, on the condition that he must first get the green light from former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said on Wednesday.

Mr Suthep made the offer as the UDD continued to mount pressure on the government for an early general election. The UDD's latest action was an attack on Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's house with what the leaders claimed was blood drawn from red-shirt donors.

"We are ready for talks, but, most important of all, Mr Thaksin must first show a clear stance. If Mr Thaksin orders it, we can talk with his men.

"We want to see peace and order in the country. With Mr Veera, for one, we would not need an interpreter. Whenever he is ready, he can call me on the phone.. or send a signal. I'm easy going," said Mr Suthep.

Mr Abhisit also mentioned earlier that he would be be happy to talk with Mr Veera.

He said Pracharaj Party leader Sanoh Thienthong's suggestion that a national government be set up would be difficult to implement. Thaksin's real objectives in his fight were to take back his assets and be exempted from legal action.

Moreover, a national government could not include UDD core leaders.

The deputy prime minister said one possible way of resolving the ongoing political conflict was for all parties to come to see one another, and joint;y agree on how to amend the constitution.

If the constitution was not acceptable to all concerned, then problems would again emerge when an election was held.

In addition to this, all parties must firmly agree they would no longer organise protests. They should enter a social contract that while an election is being held they must not obstruct or harm one another in any way, Mr Suthep said.

Mr Suthep, who is in charge of security affairs, said the government was concerned about reports of possible sabotage.

He could not say whether the saboteurs would take orders from Thaksin. All he could say was that there were still some people who wanted to stir up unrest and hurt the country.

Mr Suthep said the government would continue to take stringent measures until it was sure that there would not be any violence. The government would definitely not allow the seizure of important installations, including Suvarnabhumi airport, he added.

The deputy prime minister admitted he was unhappy with Thaksin. The former prime minister had continued to phone-in and further widen the division between the Thai people. He said this tactic of Thaksin was used by the communists 20 or 30 years ago and should be no longer used.

He felt pity seeing the red-shirts resort to their blood-spilling tactic, because this would only cause the world to believe that some Thai people were still superstitious and followers of black magic.

The blood ritual the red-shirts performed at the Democrat Party head office had hurt the feelings of the Democrats and Government House officials, Mr Suthep said.

He warned UDD leaders to adhere to peaceful means, because violence was not acceptable to the majority of the people.

On his reported remark during a press interview that intelligence units of foreign countries had warned the government of possible sabotage, after bugging Thaksin's telephone conversations, Mr Suthep said he had not named any countries.

He rejected Thaksin's call that he produce proof of the allegation, saying it would be unethical to reveal the sources.

PM's house splattered with blood

2010-03-17T19:13:00.000+10:00

Bangkok Post 17/03/2010

Red-shirts of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship poured blood in front of the gate of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's residence in Sukhumvit Soi 31 and threw bags of blood and other objects over the fence into the grounds on Wednesday.

The protesters managed to get to the house and perform their ritual in steady rain about noon, despite police efforts to keep them at least 5 metres from the fence.

Red-shirts gather around the prime minister's house before pouring blood. (Photo by Kitja Apichornrojarek)

After completing their mission, the red-shirts withdrew and their leaders said they would head for the United States embassy on Witthayu road.

They wanted clarification from the embassy of Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban's remark that the US and some other countries had warned the Thai government of possible sabotage after they tapped the telephone conversations of convicted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The red-shirts started moving from Phan Fa bridge shortly after 9am past Siam Paragon, Central World and Ratchaprasong intersection, causing heavy traffic congestion on the outbound lanes of Sukhumvit road.

On arriving at the mouth of Sukhumvit Soi 31, they were barred from entering the soi, where police lined up in cordons to prevent them from getting close to the fence of the prime minister's house.

Police officers are deployed around the prime minister's house. (Photo by Kitja Apichornrojarek)

Following negotations with Pol Maj-Gen Wichai Sangprapai, the Metropolitan Police Division 1 chief, UDD leaders Jatuporn Prompan and Arisman Pongruangrong and a number of red-shirts were allowed to get closer to the fence with bottles of blood.

They spilled the blood in front of the gate and splashed it into the house grounds. Some red shirts threw bags of blood and other objects across the fence onto the roof of the house, despite being warned not to do so by UDD leader Natthawut Saikua.

While the red-shirts were gathering near his house, Mr Abhisit was in Songkhla's Hat Yai district to attend the funeral of Pol Col Sompien Eksomya, the Bannang Sata district police chief who was killed in an ambush by separatist insurgents last week

2010-03-11T04:48:00.000+10:00

VOA News 10/03/2010

Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible loss of vision worldwide and now doctors believe the devastating disease begins in the brain and not in the eye as has long been thought.

Dr. David Calkins, director of research at the Vanderbilt Eye Institute in Tennessee, quotes estimates that by the year 2020, there will be 80 million cases of glaucoma worldwide.

Glaucoma is called the 'silent thief of sight,' since most people with the disease don't notice a change in their vision. It happens gradually, as increased fluid pressure inside the eye, known as ocular pressure, damages the optic nerve, which sends visual images to the brain. Damaged nerve cells cannot be replaced or repaired.

There is currently just one treatment for glaucoma, which is to reduce ocular pressure. Doctors test for glaucoma by measuring pressure inside the eye and checking peripheral vision.

But Calkins and his colleagues have discovered that the earliest signs of glaucoma are not in the eye, but in the brain.

A new understanding of the disease progression

"We don't really understand why it is that there is a loss of communication at the brain first," Calkins says, adding that it is now clear the degeneration of vision starts in the brain and works its way back to the retina, rather than the other way around.

The finding suggests that glaucoma may be reversible in the early stages, since the nerve structures between the brain and the optic nerve do not degenerate right away. "The structure that allows the communication remains in place for a very, very long time," Calkins says.

And that, he says, opens up new ways to treat glaucoma and puts it in an entirely new perspective.

"Instead of treating it just as a disease of the eye, we now understand that it is really a neurological disease that involves loss of communication between the optic nerve and the brain." And, by studying glaucoma as a neurological disease, Calkins says researchers may be able to learn more about other age-related neuro-degenerative disorders like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

The study appeared in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Australian, Indonesian Leaders Discuss Human Trafficking

2010-03-11T04:42:00.001+10:00

VOA News 10/03/2010

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (L) looks on as Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd speaks during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, 10 Mar 2010

The leaders of Indonesia and Australia have discussed plans to fight people smuggling and say the two nations will continue to cooperate in fighting the problem. The discussion came during Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's visit to Australia.

Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Tuesday told the Australian federal Parliament that his country will toughen laws against people smuggling.

Thousands of people, primarily from South Asia, have tried to sneak into Australia over the past several years, many of them paying people smugglers to take them by boat from Indonesia. Both countries have been working to combat the problem.

Mr. Yudhoyono, on a state visit to Australia, stressed the increasing close ties between the two countries in his speech to Parliament. The relationship, which was tense for decades, has improved dramatically in the past eight years as the two have cooperated in fighting violent Islamic militants responsible for a number of bombings in Indonesia that were aimed at Westerners.

The president, who is the first Indonesian leader to address a joint sitting of the Australian Parliament, says that adversity brought the two countries closer together.

"Our intense and fruitful cooperation to bring the Bali bombers to justice and Australia's outpouring of sympathy, and rescue and relief effort in the wake of the tsunami tragedy of 2004 was the emotional turning point of our bilateral relations," he said.

Mr. Yudhoyono confirmed Tuesday that Indonesian police had killed one of masterminds of a bombing attack on tourist night spots on Bali in 2002. Many of the 202 people killed in the attack were Australians.

The news drew praise from Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

"Our law enforcement agencies are working closely together on a daily basis to deal with the continuing threat of terrorism, and, Mr. President, today we congratulate the government of Indonesia in its further extraordinary success in fighting terrorism within its own country," he said.

The two governments have also engaged in talks about trade and climate change.

Former British Intelligence Chief Says US Hid Torture Details

2010-03-11T04:36:00.001+10:00

VOA News 10/03/2010

The former head of Britain's domestic intelligence service, MI5, has accused the United States of concealing its mistreatment of terror suspects.

Eliza Manningham-Buller said Tuesday that the U.S. deliberately held back details of harsh handling of some detainees, including the waterboarding of alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Manningham-Buller's comments come as the British intelligence service fights charges it collaborated with U.S. agencies in torturing terror suspects.

British appeals court judges ordered the government last month to release documents concerning the treatment of a Guantanamo inmate Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born man living in Britain.

U.S. forces arrested him in Pakistan in 2002 on suspicion of terrorism. U.S. documents show that Mohamed was shackled, beaten and subjected to genital mutilation and sleep deprivation while held in Morocco and later at Guantanamo.

The British government had said it wanted to keep the information secret, fearing it could hurt intelligence-sharing with the United States.

UN Human Rights Council Postpones Discussion of 'Secret Detentions' Report

2010-03-10T16:50:00.000+10:00

VOA.News 09/03/2010

U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak, is speaking out. He says government officials in the United States and elsewhere who ordered secret detentions of terror suspects should face prosecution
The U.N. Human Rights council has postponed discussion of a highly critical report on the secret detention of terror suspects in dozens of countries. One of the report's authors tells VOA that government officials in the United States and elsewhere who ordered secret detentions of terror suspects should face prosecution and imprisonment.

The 222-page report names dozens of countries involved in the practice of detaining people or taking advantage of their detention by other countries to elicit information from them. The suspects were held in secret, without access to lawyers or the International Red Cross, and were subjected to interrogation techniques that in many cases, the authors say, amount to torture.

The report's strong criticisms have angered many of the countries on the Geneva-based Human Rights Council who said they are untrue. Others, including the Muslim and African members, say the experts had no mandate to write the report and that it should not be considered by the HRC. Some Western countries, including the United States and Britain, disagree with the report's findings, but are willing for the discussion to go forward.

The council was supposed to hear the final report this week, but instead agreed to postpone it until June.

But one of the study's authors, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak, is speaking out. He says government officials in the United States and elsewhere who ordered secret detentions of terror suspects should face prosecution. "Every individual case of an enforced disappearance and torture should be a crime under domestic law, with proper sanctions. And proper sanctions doesn't mean a fine; it means imprisonment for similar to other major crimes like homicide," he said.

Nowak adds that people who have been secretly detained should be entitled to compensation. "For me, providing reparations to the victims is certainly as important as the criminal investigations and bringing the main perpetrators to justice," he said.

The study on the use of secret detention was written by Nowak and Martin Scheinin, who is the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism. They were joined by representatives of the U.N. Working Groups on Arbitrary Detention, and Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

In the study, the United States and the administration of former President George W. Bush received some of the harshest criticism for the use of secret detention after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The main focus [of the report] is on the United States of America, because they have developed a very sophisticated program of extraordinary rendition flights where persons have been kidnapped who were suspected of terrorism and flown around the world to different countries for the purpose of keeping them in secret places, for getting information about future terrorist attacks," Nowak said.

John Bolton was President Bush's Ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 through 2006. He said the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were an act of war on the United States and, therefore, Washington was entitled to respond in self-defense.

"People say [that] we are torturing these 'poor terrorists' we have picked up. It implies we are putting them on the rack, we are pulling out their fingernails, we are using cattle prods -- none of that is true. None of that has any basis in fact. This is all a question of whether we can out-psyche the terrorists, using techniques that were analyzed by highly-competent lawyers, and which were used in a very limited number of cases and which, by all accounts, did produce useful information," he said.

Shortly after taking office the Obama administration adopted measures intended to treat prisoners more humanely and transparently. The authors of the U.N. report have cautiously welcomed those commitments.

Human rights groups say the report will not lead to prosecutions, but that it will shine a light on illegal practices governments try to keep hidden. They say exposing that can lead to change.

White Campaign: Let you calls for pece be heard

2010-03-10T16:27:00.001+10:00

The Nation 10/03/2010

We invite our friends to send in your comments, photos or graphics - whatever represents your idea to promote peace ahead of the red-shirted rally.