News Blog

Taliban bombing kills 18, including 5 US troops

2010-05-18T16:57:00.003+07:00

BY AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan – A Taliban suicide car bomber struck a NATO convoy in Kabul Tuesday, killing six of its service members, five of them American, officials said. Twelve Afghan civilians also died — many of them in a public bus in rush hour traffic.

Forty-seven other people were wounded in the blast, the first major attack in the capital since February when suicide bombers struck two small hotels in the city center. That attack killed 16 people and led Afghan police to pledge that they would tighten security and surveillance.

Police have publicized a number of arrests of would-be bombers since then, but Tuesday's bombing was a reminder that the city's defenses can still be penetrated by determined attackers.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press in a phone call from an undisclosed location that the bomber was a man from Kabul and his car was packed with 1,650 pounds (750 kilograms) of explosive. The target of the attack was the foreign convoy, he said.
The area around the blast site was littered with debris as U.S. troops and Afghan police held a security cordon around wrecked cars, the bus and sports utility vehicles. There were no obviously military vehicles but NATO troops often travel in unmarked SUVs in the capital.
NATO said six of its service members were killed in the attack, and U.S. forces spokesman Col. Wayne Shanks confirmed that five of those were American. The nationality of the sixth was not immediately disclosed.

It was the deadliest attack for NATO in the capital since a September suicide bombing that killed six Italian soldiers. The attack comes as NATO readies a major offensive in the southern province of Kandahar, a major Taliban stronghold.

At least 12 Afghan civilians also died and 47 were wounded Tuesday — most of them in the packed city bus, the Interior Ministry said.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack.

"There were casualties among the NATO forces as well as among civilians — women, children and schoolchildren," Karzai told a news conference.

NATO said that five of its vehicles were damaged and more than a dozen civilian vehicles.

he Feb. 26 attack against two residential hotels killed six Indians, along with 10 Afghans. Afghan authorities blamed the attack on Lashkar-e-Taiba, the same Pakistan-based Islamist militia that India blames for the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks that killed 166 people.

From: Yahoo New!

Final Thai crackdown feared as guests evacuate

2010-05-17T14:27:00.002+07:00

By Damir Sagolj and Bill Tarrant

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Guests hurriedly evacuated a luxury hotel in central Bangkok on Monday after it came under attack, while anti-government demonstrators battled troops with a final crackdown on their protest encampment feared imminent.

Across the city, people were hoarding food and hotels were pleading for guests to leave. Schools have been closed and while Monday and Tuesday were declared public holidays, markets and banks remained open.

The government gave an estimated 5,000 people hunkered down in a sprawling protest encampment in central Bangkok until 3 p.m. (4 a.m. ET) to leave, or face criminal charges.

After their plea for a ceasefire and U.N. moderated talks was dismissed by the government on Sunday, the "red shirt" protest leaders on Monday offered talks as long as a neutral arbiter took part and troops withdrew.

Government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said in response that rioting and violence against troops must end first.

"The government is ready to go forward with negotiation when the situation is defused, when the protest ends, violence ends, attacks on authorities end."

That seemed to leave the talks at a dead end, with both sides demanding the other stops acting violently first.

Fighting near the protest encampment was intense overnight. A rocket hit the 14th floor of the Dusit Thani Hotel, a Reuters photographer said, triggering gunfire from "all around" in pitch blackness, since power had been cut to the area.

Guests at the Dusit were evacuated on Monday morning after spending much of the night cowering in the basement.

Fighting spread to two new areas of the city of 15 million people at the weekend as the army struggled -- so far without success -- to impose a security cordon around the encampment, occupying a 3 sq km (1.2 mile) area of the commercial district.

Also, a renegade Thai soldier seen as the de facto military adviser to the "red shirts" died, the director of the hospital where he was being treated after an assassination attempt said on Monday.

Maj-Gen Khattiya Sawasdipol, better known as Seh Daeng (Commander Red), was shot in the head on Thursday, fueling the latest eruption of violence in a five-year crisis pitting the rural and urban poor against what they call an "establishment elite" that has traditionally run the Kingdom of Thailand.

At least 37 people have been killed and 266 injured since then, according to government figures.

PLEA TO KING

Protest leader Jatuporn Prompan told supporters in the encampment, including women and children: "The king's glorious mercy is the country's only hope now. It's the only way out."

King Bhumibol Aduladej, 82, has stepped in to end past crises during his 63 years on the throne, but has been hospitalized for the past seven months and not publicly commented on the crisis.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva vowed "no retreat" against "armed terrorists" seeking to topple his government.

The "Red shirts," mostly loyal to former premier Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted in a 2006 coup, say Abhisit's army-backed government, which came to power 18 months ago in a controversial parliament vote, is illegitimate and they want him to call elections now.

At least 66 people have been killed and more than 1,600 wounded since the red shirts began their protest in mid-March.

"We can't see when the turmoil will end now and it seems the situation is just getting fiercer," said Kavee Chukitkasem research head at Kasikorn Securities. "Protesters are separating to many different spots and the government isn't retreating."

Thai stocks were off 2.7 percent at midday on Monday in line with regional markets and the baht was weaker on thin volume. Foreigners have been heavy sellers the past few weeks.

A state of emergency has spread to more than a quarter of the country after emergency decrees were declared in five more provinces on Sunday, bringing the total to 22, as violence erupted in the north and northeast, a Thaksin stronghold home to just over half of Thailand's 67 million people.

In Ubon Ratchathani province, protesters burned tires on several roads. One group tried to break into a military compound but were forced back by soldiers firing guns in the air.

Analysts and diplomats said the military had underestimated the resolve of "red shirt" protesters who have taken over a district of luxury hotels and shopping malls since April 3.

(Additional reporting by Jason Szep, Ploy Ten Kate, Khettiya Jittapong, Panarat Thepgumpanat and Martin Petty; Writing by Alan Raybould; Editing by David Fox)

source by: Reuters

Kevin Pietersen has England sitting on top of the world

2010-05-17T14:15:00.001+07:00

Richard Hobson, Deputy Cricket Correspondent in Bridgetown, Barbados

Kevin Pietersen ended the most memorable week of his life by being named player of the tournament as England won their first ICC one-day event.

Six days on from the birth of his baby boy and four days since returning to the squad, Pietersen hit 47 from 31 balls to help England to beat Australia by seven wickets to lift the World Twenty20.

They had lost their previous World Cup finals in 1979, 1987 and 1992 as well as the 2004 Champions Trophy climax, but easily overcame their oldest foe with three overs to spare.

Now they face a difficult wait to find out whether they will be able to fly home as intended this morning or if they will be grounded by the volcanic ash cloud.

Craig Kieswetter, who was born in Johannesburg but qualified to play for England only three months ago, was named man of the match for his 63 from 49 balls, while Pietersen was the tournament’s second-highest scorer with 248 runs.

“It is unbelievable,” Pietersen said. “Incredible. Things do not sink in for a few days and it will probably take some time to realise what has happened. To be able to hold my little boy and have this medal in my hand is very special.”

Pietersen praised his team-mates for helping him through difficult times since losing the captaincy at the beginning of 2009 in a power struggle with Peter Moores, the former coach, and after a serious Achilles injury that curtailed his Ashes series last summer.

“If it was not for the help of the players and coaching staff and management, I would not be here,” Pietersen said. “I remember all the nights in Bangladesh [in March], the dinners with people like Paul Collingwood who gave me the reassurance I needed.”

Collingwood, the captain, said that England deserved all the plaudits that are sure to come their way. “This is a very special moment,” he said. “We turned it on for the big occasion. Not having a World Cup was a monkey on our back and nobody can ever take away what we have achieved.

“I can go right through the team, everybody has contributed at some stage. I think belief has been a huge thing. You can see from the way the guys have gone out from the first ball, believing in themselves and taking it to the opposition and playing a brand of cricket that is unlike England in the past. We will savour this for a couple of days, but good teams kick on. The scary thing is that this team has so much potential.”

Michael Clarke, the Australia captain, acknowledged the brilliance of Pietersen as well as the improvement in England. “It is very good for the game of cricket overall to have Kevin back in form,” Clarke said. “The way England came at us, we were probably 50 runs short. They have a lot of talent. There are match-winners who can take a game on their own. I don’t see why they cannot go on from here. The country loves Twenty20 cricket and they play a lot of it. This is not the Ashes but it is still a big tournament.”

England have little time to rest before the start of a two-Test series against Bangladesh on Thursday week. The ECB will also hope that success in the Caribbean has a knock-on effect in generating interest in the revamped domestic Twenty20, which is due to begin on June 1.

From Times Online

Dramatic surge seen in kids hospitalized with MRSA

2010-05-17T14:07:00.000+07:00

By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner, Ap Medical Writer Mon May 17, 12:04 am ET

CHICAGO – The number of children hospitalized with dangerous drug-resistant staph infections surged 10-fold in recent years, a study found.

Disease incidence increased from 2 cases to 21 cases per 1,000 hospital admissions from 1999 to 2008. Most infections were caught in the community, not in the hospital.

The study involved methicillin-resistant staph infections, called MRSA. These used to occur mostly in hospitals and nursing homes but they are increasingly showing up in other settings in children and adults. Recent evidence suggests hospital-acquired MRSA cases may be declining while community-acquired cases are becoming more common.

The results are "a good example of how something that is not unexpected remains alarming," said Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. He was not involved in the study.

The study involved 25 children's hospitals; the 10-fold increase in hospitalizations likely occurred nationwide, said Dr. Jason Newland, the lead author and an infectious disease physician at Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics and the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Almost 30,000 children were hospitalized with MRSA infections at the hospitals studied during the 10-year period. Most had skin or muscle infections, and 374 youngsters with MRSA died. While Newland said it isn't clear if MRSA caused those deaths, it can be deadly and is blamed for more than 18,000 deaths in children and adults nationwide each year.

The study didn't examine whether deaths or the severity of infections increased.

The results were published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

MRSA often begins as a pimple or boil on the skin. It can also spread to other parts of the body, including the bones or lungs, where it can cause pneumonia.

The study also found a coinciding increase in use of clindamycin, an antibiotic that comes in easy-to-use pills and liquid, and smaller increases for two other antibiotics. Another drug effective against MRSA, vancomycin, is only available intravenously and its use decreased during the study.

Newland said the increasing use of clindamycin is concerning because in some regions MRSA is already becoming resistant to the drug. Doctors need to use the antibiotic judiciously, he said.

Dr. Kenneth Alexander, the University of Chicago's pediatric infectious disease chief, said he agrees.

"Staph are incredibly cagey, and will ultimately find their way around any antibiotic in use," he said.

Research is needed to find other drugs that will work against MRSA, he said.

___

Source by Yahoo News

On the Net:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

MRSA: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dhqp/ar_mrsa_data.html

Wounded rogue Thai general dies as chaos continues

2010-05-17T13:47:00.004+07:00

By DENIS D. GRAY, Associated Press Writer Denis D. Gray, Associated Press Writer 1 hr 8 mins ago

BANGKOK – A rogue Thai general who helped anti-government protesters and was shot by an unidentified sniper died Monday from his wounds, raising fears of new violence after five days of street battles that have killed 36 people in downtown Bangkok.

Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdiphol, a renegade army officer accused of creating a paramilitary force for the Red Shirt protesters, died Monday of gunshot wounds, the Vajira Hospital reported. The death came five days after he was shot in the head by a sniper in downtown Bangkok while talking to journalists inside the perimeter of the protest zone.

The attack on Khattiya, more popularly known as Seh Daeng, triggered widespread street fighting between anti-government protesters and the army in central Bangkok.

"Seh Daeng has accomplished his duty. All of us here have the duty to carry on the quest for justice," a Red Shirt leader, Jatuporn Prompan, said. He said that the only hope now to end the violence was intervention by Thailand's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

The 82-year-old monarch, hospitalized since September, has remained publicly silent on the crisis unlike decades past when he stepped in to stop bloodshed.

The Red Shirts have been protesting since mid-March demanding the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, the dissolution of Parliament and new elections.

Anti-government unrest that has boiled over in downtown Bangkok spread Sunday to other areas of the capital. The Thai military has defended its use of force, and the government flatly rejected protesters' demands that the United Nations intercede to end the chaos.

Rapid gunfire and explosions echoed before dawn Monday outside luxury hotels bordering the barricaded protest zone, where the military has attempted to seal in thousands of demonstrators camping in the downtown streets. Guests at the upscale Dusit Thani hotel were rushed to the basement for safety, and the management Monday morning asked all guests to check out by noon.

Reporters at the scene said the gunfire came both from government forces and protesters holed up inside the encampment who appear to have stockpiled a sizable arsenal of weapons.

Early Monday, several hundred army troops and heavily armed police were spotted in the Sukhumvit area, an upscale residential neighborhood popular with Bangkok expatriates. Roads were blocked to prevent traffic from traveling toward the protest zone, and many residents — unnerved by the uncommon sight of troops in Sukhumvit — were making plans to evacuate.

"People are either battening down the hatches and not moving out of the area, or they're getting out of town," said Debbie Oakes of Wellington, New Zealand, a four-year resident of Bangkok. She said she and her family were packing up to leave Bangkok and heading to the beach resort of Hua Hin, a three-hour drive away.

On Sunday, meanwhile, towering plumes of black smoke hung over city streets where protesters set fire to tires, fired homemade rockets and threw gasoline bombs at soldiers who used rubber bullets and live ammunition to pick off rioters who approached their lines. Army sharpshooters crouched behind sandbags carefully taking aim and firing to keep attackers at bay.

Leaders of the protesters, who have dubbed themselves Red Shirts, said they wanted talks mediated by the United Nations, provided the government agreed to an immediate cease-fire and pulled its troops back.

Government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn, however, said a pause was unnecessary since troops were "not using weapons to crack down on civilians." The government maintains it is targeting only armed "terrorists" among the demonstrators.

Authorities insisted they would continue the crackdown aimed at choking off the Red Shirts, who have occupied a 1-square-mile (3-square-kilometer) protest zone — barricaded by tires and bamboo spikes — in one of Bangkok's ritziest areas since early April.

The political conflict is Thailand's deadliest and most prolonged in decades, and each passing day of violence deepens divides in this nation of 65 million — a key U.S. ally and Southeast Asia's second-largest economy. Thailand has long been considered a democratic oasis in Southeast Asia, and the unrest has shaken faith in its ability to restore and maintain stability.

Soldiers have encircled the core protest site and cut off utilities to the area. Protest leaders told women and children with them to move to a Buddhist temple compound within the zone.

The areas between the site and the military's perimeter have become a no-man's land where gunshots and blasts can regularly be heard. But some of the worst clashes Sunday were behind the military cordon — an indication the unrest was not contained within the protest area and was spreading.

In one working-class neighborhood, several hundred demonstrators gathered under an expressway overpass and in small side streets, where they sheltered between clashes with nearby soldiers.

There were also reports of scattered unrest outside the capital, especially in northern and northeastern Thailand.

According to government figures, 65 people have died and more than 1,600 have been wounded since the Red Shirts began their protests in March. The toll includes 36 killed, most of them civilians, and 266 wounded since Thursday in fighting that has turned parts of central Bangkok into a battleground.

The government's casualty center said one of the dead included an air force officer, killed Sunday night or early Monday. Earlier, the center said an army officer had also been killed.

Army spokesman Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd held a nationally televised news conference late Sunday to defend the military's use of force, showing images that appeared to show protesters firing guns and grenades at soldiers, and in one case trying to light the diesel tank of a government truck. He said the sharpshooters were there only to provide cover for security forces on the ground and were not shooting arbitrarily.

About 5,000 people are believed camped in the protest area, down from about 10,000 before fighting started Thursday. The violence ignited after the army started forming a cordon around the protesters' encampment and a sniper shot and seriously wounded a Red Shirt leader, a former army general who was their military strategist.

The Red Shirts, many who hail from the impoverished north and northeast, say Abhisit's coalition government came to power through manipulation of the courts and the backing of the powerful military, and that it symbolizes a national elite indifferent to their plight.

Days of prolonged fighting and disruption to normal city life have taken their toll on Bangkok residents. Most shops, hotels and businesses near the protest area are shut and long lines formed at supermarkets outside the protest zone as people rushed to stock up on food. The city's two mass transit trains remained closed Monday.

The government announced a public holiday in Bangkok on Monday and Tuesday. Schools are already closed for a week.

___

Associated Press writers Thanyarat Doksone, Jocelyn Gecker, Vijay Joshi and Chris Blake contributed to this report. Additional research by Warangkana Tempati and Sinfah Tunsarawuth.

Source by Yahoo News

Save Yourself

2010-05-17T11:53:00.000+07:00

Health-care reform is only half the battle.

By Jonathan Finkelstein | NEWSWEEK

Published May 14, 2010

From the magazine issue dated May 31, 2010

We've recently heard a lot about improving our health-care system, but less about improving our health—as individuals and as a nation. Although we pay the most for our health care, the U.S. has higher rates of preventable deaths from heart disease, diabetes, and stroke than almost all other industrialized nations. We have a medical-care payment system that rewards disease treatment much more than prevention.

How could doctors do better? In spite of controversy over some preventive screening (like mammograms in some age groups), we need to be clear about the proven health benefits of others. We must also better use computerized medical-record systems to remind doctors and patients to do the right things. And we need to work as a true team with nurses and other professionals to reach prevention goals.

And when we do steer patients toward proven preventive strategies, they don't always do as we suggest. The illnesses and injuries we protect against are often uncommon. Before laws discouraged it, many people never wore seat belts—and also never died in an automobile accident. Yet there is no doubt a person is at a greatly increased risk without a seat beat. Likewise, many parents recall measles as a mild illness because they've had no personal experience with the severe or fatal cases. Balancing this against often exaggerated vaccine-safety risks, they may decide not to immunize their kids. People respond to personal experience (and stories) more than statistics—we need to use both to promote prevention.

But it is lifestyle change that is of most value in disease prevention—and hardest to achieve. Occasionally, the healthy lifestyle message is easy for the doctor to explain, and for the patient to put into practice. "Wear a seat belt every time" is a clear edict that is reinforced by school teachers, public-health officials, and laws in almost all states ("click it or ticket"). It's obviously a lot harder to change more complex behaviors, like smoking. The percentage of smokers in the population has been cut in half due to the combination of public-health approaches (like warning labels on cigarettes) and new pharmacological approaches like nicotine replacement and other medicines. As a result, there are many fewer smoking-related diseases and deaths.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is persuading patients to change their behavior when they don't face any imminent threat of disease. While nearly everyone knows that adopting a healthy diet and a regular exercise program would benefit their health, it is very hard for many of us to change. Yet doing these things can reduce a person's risk of type 2 diabetes by nearly 60 percent—something no medicine yet invented can do.

It turns out that simple exhortations, even by doctors, don't help very much. We help our patients most by determining what they would like to accomplish and supporting a specific action plan. As with seat-belt use, we also need simultaneous public-health approaches to improve our nutrition and physical activity. As doctors and patients, we can press our elected representatives for health-related policy changes, like calorie labeling on restaurant menus. When I hear these decried as infringements on personal freedoms, I recall some of the children I've treated: toddlers with lead poisoning, before its removal from house paint; babies with meningitis, before present-day vaccines; and children with severe motor-vehicle injuries, before modern car seats. We should embrace both medical-care and public-health approaches that allow individuals to have the best opportunity for a longer, healthier life, on which all other freedoms rest.

What can patients do? Be clear about what you would like to do to promote your health. And if your doctor asks, "What is bothering you today?" be sure you make it clear that you also expect him or her to help protect you from things that might bother you tomorrow.

Finkelstein is a pediatrician and associate professor of population medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute.

Find this article at http://www.newsweek.com/id/238015

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2010-05-17T11:36:00.001+07:00

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