Iraqi Christians criticism slayings Pope endangered

Jamal al-Badrani MOSUL, Iraq Sun Feb 28, 2010 12:47pm EST Related News Factbox: Iraq"s infancy successful peopleSun, Feb twenty-eight 2010Spate of Christian killings prior to Iraq Mar voteWed, Feb seventeen 2010Factbox: Security developments in Iraq, Feb 16Tue, Feb sixteen 2010String of Iraq explosve attacks aim check candidatesSun, Feb fourteen 2010String of Iraq explosve attacks aim check candidatesSat, Feb thirteen 2010 < 1 / 3 >

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - At slightest 1,000 minority Christians, infancy holding olive branches, marched in criticism nearby the excitable city of Mosul on Sunday to urge the Iraqi supervision to action decisively after a array of killings.

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At slightest eight Christians have been killed in the last dual weeks in the violent northern city, 390 km (250 miles) north of Baghdad, call Pope Benedict to interest on Sunday for Iraq"s Christians to be improved protected.

Two of those pounded had left missing, their bodies after found dumped in the travel with gunshot wounds. Others were shot passed in the street, nearby their homes, or at their place of work.

Some 683 Christian families, or 4,098 people, fled Mosul in between Feb twenty and twenty-seven following the attacks, a United Nations inform pronounced on Sunday.

The murders came only weeks prior to Iraq"s Mar 7 parliamentary election, that has the intensity to assistance concrete an finish to 7 years of fight or thrust a still-divided nation in to a new cycle of violence.

"I interest to the polite authorities to finish each bid to give security again to the population, and in particular, to the infancy exposed eremite minorities," the Pope pronounced in his weekly good fortune from Vatican City.

Priests in eremite habits led the criticism approach in the Christian locale of Hamdaniya, 40 km (25 miles) easterly of Mosul.

"The red blood of innocents screams for terrorism and assault to be stopped," review one banner.

Sunni Islamist insurgents such as al Qaeda have prolonged targeted Christians, Yazidis, Shabaks, and alternative Iraqi minorities, as well as infancy Shi"ites, whom they cruise heretics. Christians series an estimated 750,000 in Iraq, a small minority in a nation of twenty-eight million.

Al Qaeda has vowed to make use of "military means" to derail the inhabitant list subsequent month, that it sees as a imitation to safeguard Shi"ite mastery of Sunnis.

Targeting Christians is an in effect approach to prominence the shortcomings of Iraq"s security forces, since the media courtesy that attacks opposite Christians attract. Iraqi Muslims are killed in most incomparable numbers.

Making hold up generally formidable for minorities in Iraq"s north is their unsafe on all sides between the region"s incomparable Arab and Kurd communities, that are feuding over land and oil.

The brawl has left a security opening in a little areas that al Qaeda has exploited, even as the change has waned elsewhere in Iraq.

"We censure the sovereign and internal governments and the head of security operations in Nineveh (province) for the murdering of the Christian sons," pronounced Saad Qanyous, one of the Christian protesters.

(Additional stating by Deepa Babington in Rome, Writing by Mohammed Abbas: Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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Lenovo laying off 2% of the workers

Chinese Personal Computer builder Lenovo, that has a domicile in Morrisville, is slicing about 2 percent of the worldwide work force in a cost-cutting effort.

"We are not conducting a large-scale apparatus program," association orator Ray Gorman said. "This is a integrate of really specific, small-scale ... moves around the universe to expostulate potency and revoke the altogether costs."

A cutback of 2 percent would meant the rejecting of about 32 jobs in Morrisville, where the Personal Computer association employs about 1,600 workers.

Affected employees in Morrisville were told Tuesday. "There is no one sold area we"re sketch from," Gorman said.

In the ultimate quarter, Lenovo increased the worldwide marketplace share and reported a distinction of $53 million, some-more than stand in the distinction of a year ago, on income of $4.1 billion. Prior to that it had posted 3 money-losing quarters.

Last year the company, that employs some-more than 20,000 people, separated scarcely 3,000 jobs worldwide.

Notch-blocking drug kill brain cancer branch cells nonetheless mixed therapies might be needed

One focus of attack is a chemical pathway within stem cells known as Notch, which scientists have shown is important for cancer stem cell growth. A new study published in the January 28 issue of Stem Cells by Charles Eberhart, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of pathology, ophthalmology, and oncology at Johns Hopkins, now extends these findings to glioblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumor, and ultimately suggests other pathways and treatment with two or more drugs may need to be involved.

Eberhart based his conclusion on experiments in which he coaxed a glioblastoma cell line to form embryolike balls called neurospheres. Unlike most cells that will clump together in a culture dish, neurospheres -- more organized groups of neural cells -- can only form from stem cells. When Eberhart treated the neurospheres with a drug called GSI-18, which blocks the Notch pathway, the spheres were reduced by 70 percent or more. Eberhart also found that molecular markers typically found on the surface of brain cancer stem cells also plunged.

This told us that the Notch pathway is a good target for drug development, says Eberhart, but further experiments suggested this approach may not be thorough enough.

In a second set of experiments, Eberhart collected the neurospheres that remained after treatment with the Notch-blocking drug and injected them into the brains of mice. The neurosphere transplants eventually grew into tumors and reignited the Notch pathway.

This result suggested we didn"t get rid of all the stem cells, says Eberhart, so itlikely we may need to add more therapies or increase the dosage of Notch-blocking drugs.

The study by Eberhart identified additional molecular pathways, including Stat 3 and AKT, which are connected to Notch. He says that a combination of therapies blocking Notch and other pathways such as these could target brain cancer stem cells at several levels and possibly avoid drug resistance.

To test how a Notch-blocking drug worked in an animal model, Eberhart injected tumors into the brains of mice and let the cancer grow for two weeks. Then, at the tumor site, he implanted a polymer bead that was soaked in GSI-18. Five of six mice that received the drug-laden bead survived while all 12 that received a bead with no drug died.

Eberhart notes that Notch-targeting drugs can prove problematic in therapy because the Notch pathway is critically important for cells in the gut, helping cells there alternate between secreting mucus and absorbing nutrients. A dosing regimen that preserves gut function has been developed, and forthcoming studies in humans will test whether it can kill the cancer stem cells.

Funds for this research were provided by the Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure Project Award, the American Brain Tumor Association, Voices Against Brain Cancer Research, the National Institutes of Health, and the Brain Tumor Funders Collaborative.

Research participants include Xing Fan, Thant S. Zhu, Mary E. Soules, and Caroline E. Talsma from the University of Michigan; Leila Khaki, Naheed Gul, Cheryl Koh, and Jiangyang Zhang from Johns Hopkins; Yue-Ming Li from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Jarek Maciaczyck and Guido Nikkhah from the University of Freiberg; and Francesco DiMeco, Sara Piccirillo, and Angelo L. Vescovi from the University of Milan.

Will 4G Mobile Service Be Superfast?

Video on direct on your cell phone. High-fidelity voice peculiarity on a cell phone. Wireless Internet speeds for your laptop from the behind of a cab thats as great as what you get at the office. These are usually 3 of the advantages charity by the ultimate acronym to strike the cell phone world: 4G.

4Gstands for Fourth Generation. 1G was the strange brick-like cellular phones of the 1970s. 2G noted the change to digital record (which enclosed texting) in the early 1990s. 3G came a decade later, charity improved speeds.

4G should be rolling out in the subsequent year or so, but usually what you can design depends on who you speak to. Predictions range from moderatelybetter than 3G to screaming fast.

3.9 v. 4.0

"You wouldnt find a unanimous agreement over what 4G means," cautioned Fred Campbell, boss of the Wireless Communications Association International (WCAI) in Washington, DC. He points to a limit throughput of 100 megabits upstream (to the network) and 50 megabits downstream (to the user).

In the genuine universe you will usually get a fragment of that throughput, but you should still be significantly improved off than with 3G,he indicated. (Even 3 percent of 100 megabits would be sufficient to send astandard non-HD TV vigilance to your cellphone presumption you can mountain examination "Lost" that way.)

Begging to talk about is Robert Syputa, telecom industry researcher with Marvavedis Inc. in Seattle, WA.

The numbers cited by Campbell unequivocally consecrate 3.9G, and the loyal 4Gstandard is still being written, Syputa said. When available, 4G will suggest a mind-bending fanciful limit throughput of 1 gigabit for still units, and 300 megabits for those on the move, he said.

But theres no clarity removing excited, since the 3.9G rigging should beeasily upgradable to 4G when it appears, Syputa added.

Actual plans

The majority perceivable 4G contender in the U.S. is Clearwire Corp. of Kirkland, WA, pronounced Syputa. By the finish of 2009 they had what they called 4G accessible in about thirty cities, and they goal to cover about 100 million people by the finish of 2010. At last check, the Clearwire web siteboasted of coverage in 61 civil areas.

Sprintis a 51 percent owners of Clearwire, explained Syputa, and at last checkwas claiming 4G coverage in about thirty metro areas.

Next is Verizon, that had multiform hearing networks using at the begin of the year, according to Syputa. He expects the association to mountain amassive network-wide phenomenon rather than a light roll-out, probablylate this year.

AT&T will probably have something to show in 2011, as will T-Mobile, he added.

10 Profound Innovations Ahead 10 Cool Asian Cell Phone Features You Cant Have Yet WiFi Basics: All About Wireless Networking Technology

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Drugmakers determine on turning point vaccines understanding for bad

Kate Kelland and Ben Hirschler LONDON Thu Mar 11, 2010 6:19pm EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Several drug firms have agreed on a landmark deal to supply up to 200 million doses a year of cut-price pneumococcal vaccines to developing nations, according to the global immunization alliance that is overseeing the deal.

Health

Leading manufacturers of such vaccines include GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer.

The agreement is the first under a new scheme called an Advance Market Commitment (AMC), which provides a guaranteed market for vaccines supplied to poor nations but sets a maximum price that drugmakers can expect to receive.

It is likely to pave the way for future deals on recently introduced vaccines against rotavirus, which causes severe diarrhea, and an experimental one against malaria, which combined kill millions in poor countries each year.

The GAVI Alliance (Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunization) said details of the pneumococcal deal would be announced in the coming weeks.

"Decisions have been made and we are hoping for an announcement very shortly -- in the next couple of weeks," GAVI"s deputy chief executive officer Helen Evans told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

"It"s very exciting news because they are going to make long-term commitments."

Pneumococcal disease is one of the world"s biggest killers of children, claiming up to 1.6 million lives each year. Africa and Asia together account for 95 percent of all deaths from pneumococcal disease, which causes serious illnesses such as pneumonia and meningitis.

Glaxo"s pneumococcal vaccine, called Synflorix, protects against 10 strains of the streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria which cause the disease. It was approved late last year by the World Health Organization for use in developing countries.

Pfizer"s Prevnar 13 shot protects against 13 strains and won the approval of U.S. regulators earlier this month.

Under the terms of the AMC tender, drugmakers were required to make a 10-year commitment to supply a share of the total forecast demand of 200 million doses a year.

Evans said each manufacturer would have a minimum volume order guaranteed in return for a price of $7 per dose for the first 20 percent supplied, dropping to $3.50 dollars for the remaining 80 percent.

The higher price is only paid for the first tranche of doses so as to ensure the drug firm"s research and development costs are covered. Beyond that, $3.50 is the maximum price GAVI and countries will pay for the vaccine.

By comparison, Glaxo charges around 40 euros ($54) per shot for Synflorix in Europe.

The AMC scheme was devised to try to encourage drug companies to make and supply medicines and vaccines to boost health in poorer countries, which are generally unable to afford the high prices paid in Western markets. GAVI and its partners say they plan to introduce pneumococcal vaccines in 42 developing countries by 2015.

Officials at both Glaxo and Pfizer confirmed they had been working with GAVI on the supply agreement.

"We remain committed to participating in this initiative and hope to be one of the first companies to supply its vaccine," Glaxo spokeswoman Claire Brough said in an emailed statement.

The pneumococcal deal will be partly funded by Britain, Italy, Canada, Russia, Norway and the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation, who agreed in June last year to invest a total of $1.5 billion in the project.

If it proves successful, existing and new donors have said they would be interested in supporting more AMC schemes, including one for malaria.

Glaxo struck another long-term deal for its pneumococcal vaccine worth 1.5 billion euros with Brazil last September, guaranteeing sales for 10 years.

Health

UPDATE 1-Venezuela launches $50 mln down payment to column bolivar

Thu Mar 4, 2010 11:57am EST

(adds details, background)

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CARACAS, March 4 (Reuters) - Venezuela"s Central Bank onThursday launched a $50 million bond, the seventh such offeringaimed at propping up the bolivar on a freely floated,semi-legal market since a currency devaluation in January.

The zero coupon bond is priced at 112 percent and works asa foreign exchange instrument because it can be purchased at anofficial rate of 4.3 bolivars to the dollar but will be paid indollars after 90 days.

It can be traded on secondary markets within Venezuela.

President Hugo Chavez devalued the bolivar on Jan. 8,creating a two-tiered official system that sells dollars mostlyfor 4.3 bolivars, but allows some priority imports at 2.6.

The Central Bank issues are aimed at strengthening thebolivar on the separate freely-floated market. The currency hasweakened in that mechanism during recent weeks to trade ataround 6.6/6.8 on Thursday.

Thursday"s offer was open for one hour between 12.30 p.m.and 1.30 p.m. local time, a bank statement said.

(Reporting by Eyanir Chinea, Writing by Andrew Cawthorne;Editing by Andrew Hay)

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UPDATE 2-GoDaddy plans to stop China domain registrations

Wed Mar 24, 2010 5:24pm EDT Related News Google risks China"s ire with slap to censorshipTue, Mar 23 2010China warns Google as Internet row deal seen soonFri, Mar 12 2010 Stocks & &

* GoDaddy says it has repelled dozens of cyber attacks

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* Google sees some censorship of searches redirected to HK

* Lawmakers laud Google, GoDaddy actions (Adds Dorgan, Smith, Kaufman comments)

By John Poirier

WASHINGTON, March 24 (Reuters) - Internet domain companyGoDaddy.com said it planned to stop registering domain names inChina, joining Google Inc (GOOG.O) in protesting cyber attacksand censorship in that country.

"We believe that many of the current abuses of the Internetoriginating in China are due to a lack of enforcement againstcriminal activities by the Chinese government," ChristineJones, Go Daddy Group Inc general counsel, told a congressionalcommission hearing on Wednesday.

She said GoDaddy had repelled dozens of extremely seriousattacks that appear to have originated in China in the firstthree months of 2010.

Jones said GoDaddy, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, wouldcontinue to manage .cn domain names of existing customers.

"Our experience has been that China is focused on using theInternet to monitor and control the legitimate activities ofits citizens, rather than penalizing those who commitInternet-related crimes," Jones said.

Google said in January that it had sustained a hackingattack that it said originated in China. This week Google shutits Chinese portal over censorship and said it planned to phaseout deals to provide filtered search services to other onlineor mobile firms in China.

Google said visitors to its China search engine, google.cn,were being redirected to Hong Kong-based google.com.hk.

"I compliment Google and I compliment GoDaddy," saidDemocratic Senator Byron Dorgan, chairman of theCongressional-Executive Commission on China, which focuses onhuman rights in China.

Republican Representative Chris Smith said GoDaddy"s actionwas "a powerful sign that American IT companies want to do theright thing in repressive countries."

Google told the commission it was seeing intermittentcensorship of some Internet queries from mainland China thathad been rerouted to Hong Kong.

"We are well aware that the Chinese government can, at anytime, block access to our services," Alan Davidson, Google"sdirector of public policy, said in prepared testimony.

"Indeed we have already seen intermittent censorship ofcertain search queries on both google.com.hk and google.com."

Internet censorship has drawn increased attention from U.S.lawmakers since Google"s spat with China began and a policyinitiative by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton topromote global Internet freedom.

"This is a foreign policy priority of the United States,"said Democratic Senator Ted Kaufman, co-chair of the Senate"snewly formed Global Internet Freedom Caucus. (Reporting by John Poirier; additional reporting by DianeBartz; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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