Friday, November 27, 2009
Is Gene Therapy Finally Ready for Prime Time?
Is Gene Therapy Finally Ready for Prime Time?
At first it sounded like science fiction, curing genetic diseases by giving people new genes. Then it seemed like simple fiction: while theoretically possible, gene therapy appeared unlikely to become a true therapeutic option, the field having suffered years of complications and high-profile setbacks. But over the past year, a series of small but intriguing advances has suggested that the technique may hold real future potential.
In September, researchers at the University of Washington reported in the journal Nature that they had produced color vision in squirrel monkeys, which are normally born colorblind. Using a tiny syringe, researchers injected the single missing gene for color vision into the monkeys' eyes. The result was clear: monkeys that previously could not distinguish red, green and gray were easily able to pass a simian equivalent of a color-detection test. (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2008.)
Another study published in the Lancet in October found that gene therapy had restored partial vision to five children and seven adults with a congenital eye disease that causes blindness. And a paper published earlier this month in Science reported the successful treatment of two children with ALD, or adrenoleukodystrophy — a neurological disorder that leads to progressive brain damage and death in two to five years.
In the most recent study, published in November, researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, reported they had successfully gotten monkeys to grow bigger, stronger muscles within weeks — no anabolic steroids, exercise or genetic engineering required. Scientists injected genes directly into the right quadriceps of six healthy monkeys, and eight weeks later, the changes were plainly visible. The muscles in each monkey's right leg were larger and measurably more forceful than those in the left leg, and the effects remained for 15 months.
That study built on previous research by the Columbus-based team, which had successfully used gene therapy to treat rodents with the muscle-wasting disease muscular dystrophy. "We wanted to raise the bar and test a species closely related to humans," says neuroscientist Brian Kaspar, a co-leader of the study published in Science Translational Medicine. (Read "What Can Genetic Tests Tell You?")
The single gene injected into the monkeys was coded for the naturally occurring protein follistatin, which blocks the function of another protein called myostatin that hinders muscle growth. Past research in mice that were genetically engineered to have an extra copy of the follistatin-producing gene has shown that blocking myostatin, by increasing follistatin, causes muscles to bulk up fast. What Kaspar and his team found was that the same effect could be achieved simply by injecting genes — ferried aboard a small, non-disease-causing virus known as AAV, or adeno-associated virus — into the muscle. They further discovered that once the gene was delivered into the muscle-cell nucleus, muscles began producing their own constant supply of follistatin, and muscle fibers kept growing. Think of it as the body producing its own muscle-boosting drugs.
The findings got headlines, not least because they immediately raised the possibility of power-hungry athletes someday using gene doping to improve performance — a technique that would be much harder to detect than using performance-enhancing drugs. And while myostatin-blocking drugs are not yet available, the pharmaceutical companies Amgen and Wyeth are currently experimenting with myostatin inhibitors, with encouraging early results, and it's clearly something that antidoping agencies around the world are concerned about. The World Anti-Doping Agency has banned gene doping, and included "agents modifying myostatin function(s)" on its list of prohibited substances.
Scientists do not yet know whether myostatin-related gene therapy will even work in humans. Given the financial and regulatory hurdles to launching a first-phase trial, it could take years and several million dollars before researchers could replicate their animal findings in people. But advances like the muscle trial in monkeys help attract funds — largely from advocacy groups like the Muscular Dystrophy Association and charitable organizations founded by patient families, as well as drug companies and the federal government — to a field that has until now been somewhat better known for its failures. In 2003, for instance, two French children with a rare genetic immune disorder developed leukemia after they received gene-therapy injections containing retroviruses. The other 18 children in the trial were cured, but the setback reverberated through the field, dissuading researchers and funding. "A lot of financial interest has disappeared since it became clear that it's going to take a long time and it's not going to be easy [to develop gene-therapy drugs]," says Hank Greely of Stanford University's Center for Biomedical Ethics.
But despite gene therapy's public-image problem, scientists are optimistic. Many believe that over the next four to five years, they will be able to apply what they have learned from studying gene therapies for rare diseases to the treatment of more common ailments like epilepsy, arthritis and congestive heart failure. "[Gene therapy] still needs one killer app. One clear, unambiguous success," says Greely. "And then the money will flood in."
Read "A Gene to Cure Blindness."
The '00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade From Hell
The '00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade From Hell
Video by Finlay MacKay for Time from a Red One digital camera. Set design by Gille Mills, shot at Pier 59 Studios
At exactly two minutes after midnight on Jan. 1, 2000, an alarm sounded at a nuclear power plant in Onagawa, Japan. Government officials and computer scientists around the globe held their breath. Was this the beginning of a massive Y2K computer meltdown? Actually, no. It was an isolated event, one of a handful of glitches to occur (including the failure of 500 slot machines at two racetracks in Delaware) as the sun rose on the new decade. The dreaded millennial meltdown never happened.
Instead, it was the American Dream that was about to dim. Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post–World War II era. We're still weeks away from the end of '09, but it's not too early to pass judgment. Call it the Decade from Hell, or the Reckoning, or the Decade of Broken Dreams, or the Lost Decade. Call it whatever you want — just give thanks that it is nearly over. (See TIME's photo-essay "The 10 Worst Things About the Worst Decade Ever.")
Calling the 2000s "the worst" may seem an overwrought label in a decade in which we fought no major wars, in historical terms. It is a sadly appropriate term for the families of the thousands of 9/11 victims and soldiers and others killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the lack of a large-scale armed conflict makes these past 10 years stand out that much more. This decade was as awful as any peacetime decade in the nation's entire history. Between the West's ongoing struggle against radical Islam and our recent near-death economic experience — trends that have largely skirted much of the developing world — it's no wonder we feel as if we've been through a 10-year gauntlet. Americans may have the darkest view of recent history, since it's in the U.S. that the effects of those trends have been most acute. If you live in Brazil or China, you have had a pretty good decade economically. Once, we were the sunniest and most optimistic of nations. No longer. (See behind-the-scenes video of TIME's cover shoot.)
The U.S. has endured not one but two market crashes — one at each end of the decade. You might recall the first Wall Street crash, when swooning tech stocks tanked the market from 2000 to 2001, not long after the Nasdaq hit an all-time high of 5049 on March 10, 2000. (Recent levels: 2150-2200.) The economy went into a recession that now seems laughably mild. What followed wasn't funny at all: the most divisive and confusing presidential election in history, a discombobulated drama that we once thought could occur only in the Third World.
Then came the defining moment of the decade, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which redefined global politics for at least a generation and caused us to question the continental security we had until then rarely worried about. We waged war in Afghanistan that drags on and today is deadlier than ever. Then came our fiasco in Iraq. Don't forget the anthrax letters and later the Washington, D.C., snipers and the wave of Wall Street scandals highlighted by Enron and WorldCom. (See a photo-essay on Sept. 11 first responders.)
Sometimes it was as if the gods themselves were conspiring against this decade. On Aug. 29, 2005, near the center point in the decade, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana, killing more than 1,500 and causing $100 billion in damages. It was the largest natural disaster in our nation's history.
There is nothing natural about the economic meltdown we are still struggling with as the decade winds down. A housing bubble fueled by cheap money and excessive borrowing set ablaze by derivatives, so-called financial weapons of mass destruction, put the economy on the brink of collapse. We will be sorting through the damage for years. Meanwhile, the living, breathing symbol of this economic sordidness, prisoner No. 61727-054, a.k.a. Bernie Madoff, rots away in a Butner, N.C., jail cell, doing 150 years for orchestrating the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of humanity.
See TIME's photo-essay "The Demise of Bernard Madoff.
The Great Meltdown
Were we Americans alone in our troubles? Hardly. The Asian tsunami of 2004 killed more than 200,000 people. And our financial meltdown quickly spread around the developed world. Yet from our lofty perch overlooking the 20th century — the American Century, TIME's co-founder once labeled it — the fall has been precipitous. Who among us is unscathed? Not many. Even if none of your family members died in combat, you had no money with Madoff and you own your house free and clear, you most likely still took a hit. To paraphrase the question Ronald Reagan posed years ago, Are you better off today than you were at the beginning of the decade? For most of us, the answer is a resounding no. Let us count the ways. For one thing, the stock market is down 26% since 2000, making this the worst decade for stocks. (Inflation-adjusted, it's even worse.) I remember Warren Buffett telling me at the beginning of the decade that there was no way the go-go returns of the 1990s were going to continue and that we had better get used to meager returns going forward. Buffett saw it coming. (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)
For the average working stiff, it was a pretty lousy 10 years. The median household income in 2000 was $52,500. Last year (the most recent year available) it was $50,303. And given that the unemployment rate has climbed to 10.2%, income will almost certainly drop again this year. Low-income Americans fared even worse. In 2000, 11.3% of Americans were living below the poverty line. By 2008, that number had risen to 13.2%. Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans without health insurance increased from 13.7% to 15.4%.
Surprisingly, housing prices were not such a debacle — that is, if you bought early and stayed put. The median price of an existing home was $143,600 in 2000. Today the median is nearly $175,000. But remember, millions of Americans splurged for homes in the middle of the decade when prices were high: in July 2006 the median selling price peaked at $230,300. If you bought then — assuming you haven't lost your house to foreclosure — your home has lost some 25% of its value. Nothing to cheer about there.(Read "Facing Foreclosure in Tampa.")
Our national psyche has been damaged as much as our national economy by the record number of corporate bankruptcies, many of them household names: Kmart, United Airlines, Circuit City, Lehman Brothers, GM and Chrysler. The price of oil more than tripled this decade, settling at more than $70 a barrel, straining our economy.
Of course, the decade's bad news hasn't been confined to the financial pages. Was there actually more bad news than usual? The answer is an objective yes. For example, there were more mass shootings and school shootings, such as the murder of 32 students at Virginia Tech in 2007 and the recent slaughter at Fort Hood, than in any other decade. There were more large-scale terrorist bombings and attacks in countries like England, Spain, Pakistan, Indonesia, Russia, Jordan, the Philippines, Turkey, India and of course the U.S. The absolute number killed was not great, but the idea that terrorists can attack anytime and anywhere is new and profoundly unsettling.
Even many of our heroes turned out to be badly flawed, from doping by athletes in baseball, cycling and the Olympics to the endless political scandals and sex scandals. And yes, we couldn't get enough of them on the 24-hour cable news, blogs and reality TV that chronicle and reflect this unsavory maw. The rise of all manner of new media and the lack of barriers to criticism from the blogosphere seemed to intensify every scandal and left very few public figures unsullied. Sure, some amazingly great things happened this decade, from the stunning rise of China to Apple's dazzling array of new products to the feats of sprinter Usain Bolt to our nation rallying (at least temporarily) around its first African-American President. But all that seems more like counterpoint rather than the main act. (See pictures of Barack Obama's nation of hope.)
Perhaps we were lulled into complacency by the exuberance of the end of the Cold War. It was a deception brought on by an unusually positive historical continuum. First, America and the Allies won World War II; then, 45 years later, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, we defeated communism too. After that, maybe we believed the world would be forever free of conflict. Some thinkers called it the end of history. Well, history did not die. It came roaring back. The old conflicts did indeed wither, but new and virulent ones arose.
See 10 big recession surprises.
See TIME's Pictures of the Week.
What Went Wrong
So here's the big question: Why? Why did so much bad stuff happen in this decade? Was it just rotten luck or something more? Sure, some of it was simply randomness, but I think a strong case can be made that it was more than just chance that got things so bollixed up. (See TIME's special "Out of Work in America")
In large part, we have ourselves to blame. If you look at the underlying causes of some of the most troubling developments of the decade, you can see some striking common denominators. The raft of financial problems, our war with radical Islam, the collapse of GM and much of our domestic auto industry and even the devastation brought about by Katrina all came about at least in part or were greatly exacerbated by:
• Neglect. Our inward-looking culture didn't heed the warning signs from around the world — and from within our own country — that Islamic terrorism was heading for our shores.
• Greed. Our absolute faith in the markets, fed by Wall Street, combined with the declawing of our regulators to undermine our financial system. (See 10 ways your job will change.)
• Self-interest. The auto industry disintegrated while management and labor tangoed from one bad contract to the next, ignoring their customers and their competition, aided and abetted by their respective politicians.
• Deferral of responsibility. Our power grid needs an upgrade and our bridges are falling down because we have not mustered the political and popular willpower to fix them. New Orleans drowned because authorities failed to act before Katrina busted the inadequate levees. (See pictures of a New Orleans neighborhood.)
It was almost as if we as a nation said in previous decades, "Why do today what we can put off until the first decade of the 21st century?" But we didn't rise to those challenges. What we just lived through, then, was the chickens coming home to roost.
Take the vexing and costly war we are waging against al-Qaeda and its ilk. This is a conflict that was barely on the radar in the 1990s — which is exactly the problem. By most accounts, Osama bin Laden founded his organization sometime between 1988 and 1990. The U.S., in part, helped create this loathsome band itself by funding the mujahedin, who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and provided much of the training for bin Laden's foot soldiers. But our friendly freedom fighters turned into foes. In 1992 al-Qaeda bombed a hotel in Yemen, hoping to kill American Marines bound for Somalia. Then came the first World Trade Center bombing, in 1993. Three years later, the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia killed 19 U.S. Air Force personnel. In 1996 and 1998, bin Laden issued fatwas calling for Muslims to rise up and kill Americans. Making good on bin Laden's word, al-Qaeda blew up U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in synchronized attacks on Aug. 7, 1998, killing almost 300, including 12 Americans. In October 2000, terrorists struck again, bombing the destroyer U.S.S. Cole in Yemen and killing 17 service members. (See pictures of Osama bin Laden.)
After all that, should 9/11 have been a surprise? There were those who saw what was coming, most notably FBI agent John O'Neill, who perished during the attack on the World Trade Center and whose story is eloquently told in Lawrence Wright's masterly book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Time and time again O'Neill warned his superiors that al-Qaeda was readying a big strike, only to be marginalized, causing him to leave the bureau. Another prescient voice was that of Harvard professor Samuel Huntington, whose book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order suggested that culture and religion would be the sources of conflict in the post–Cold War world. Huntington didn't limit this to war between the West and Islam, though he did single out "Islamic civilization" as potentially having significant friction points with the West because of its population explosion and the rise of religious fundamentalism. (See pictures of a Jihadist's journey.)
Our economic narcissism was certainly the culprit in the devastation wrought by financial markets, which have subjected us to an increasingly frequent series of crashes, frauds and recessions. To a great degree, this was brought about by a lethal combination of irresponsible deregulation and accommodating monetary policies instituted by the Federal Reserve. Bankers and financial engineers had an unsupervised free-market free-for-all just as the increased complexity of financial products — e.g., derivatives — screamed out for greater regulation or at least supervision. Enron, for instance, was a bastard child of a deregulated utilities industry and a mind-bending financial alchemy.
See which businesses are bucking the recession.
See how Americans are spending now.
Historian H.W. Brands of the University of Texas points to the demise of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 as an unfortunate tipping point of deregulation. Glass-Steagall, passed in 1933, separated investment banking and plain-vanilla banking, which some experts argued made markets safer. (Certain restrictions of Glass-Steagall were repealed to allow the merger of Citicorp and Travelers. Let's just say that didn't end well.) "That was the single moment when the seeds for the bad stuff were planted," says Brands. "There was a belief that technology, the Internet and financial instruments had changed things, and the ones selling this idea and these instruments were making a lot of money."
Another proximate cause were new loosey-goosey borrowing rules (if they can be called that) that allowed the likes of Bear Stearns and Lehman to pile $30 of debt onto each $1 of capital. The chief executives of these firms argued vociferously for the right to greater leverage and vociferously against regulating derivatives because, they claimed, unfettered markets were more efficient. Yes, it was the unfettered use of leverage and derivatives that destroyed their companies and wreaked havoc on the rest of us.
Companies go belly-up all the time, but in this decade there were an inordinate number of bankruptcies. The creative destruction of the Internet had a part in this. While the Web opened up new worlds and created thousands of jobs at Amazon, Google and the like, it displaced workers at travel and government agencies, at newspapers and magazines and at stores like Circuit City and Tower Records — traditional distribution points for services, information and goods. Economists call that disintermediation. (See pictures of retailers which have gone out of business.)
But when we're talking about auto giants GM and Chrysler, both of which imploded after years of complicity and ineptitude by GM management and the United Auto Workers (UAW), it's more like disintegration. The UAW organized both GM and Chrysler in early 1937 — Henry Ford famously held out four more years. For decades, particularly under the leadership of Walter Reuther, who headed the union from 1946 until his death in 1970, it was able to win concessions from the automakers, bringing its members into the middle class. As long as demand for autos grew in the post–WW II halcyon days, relations between the unions and the automakers were basically quiescent.
And therein lies the problem. For years the UAW and the Big Three — now dwindled to the Detroit Three — operated an unholy alliance. Management would pile on wage hikes and perks, and in return (wink, wink) the union would keep the peace, i.e., rule out strikes, even though both sides must have realized that the amount being paid to workers was unsustainable, particularly if the industry hit any downdrafts — which happened with increasing frequency starting with the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. (See the 50 worst cars of all time.)
Just as embarrassing was the colossal ineptitude of the big car companies: Ugly, low-quality cars with shameful gas mileage. Layers of redundant management that relied on amateurish financial controls. Insular thinking reinforced by decades of outsize market share. It was as if Detroit had drawn a road map for Toyota and Honda. And the Japanese drove right in, decimating the U.S. companies. In 1979, GM's U.S. employment peaked at 618,365. Today it's at 75,000 and falling fast. GM's U.S. market share, once about 50%, has fallen to about 20%. True, the quality and efficiency of American cars have improved dramatically, but it may be too late.
And what about the Hurricane Katrina debacle? An act of God, right? Not really. When the storm raced toward New Orleans in late August 2005, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration feared the worst. For years they had been warning the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversaw the city's 350 miles of levees, that its system was inadequate. The scientists wanted the Corps to revise the Standard Project Hurricane, a model that determines how extensive the levees should be. For instance, the Corps did not consider the tendency of soil to sink over time, and it excluded the possibility of a highly powerful storm hitting the city because that was unlikely, which violates sophisticated principles of statistics and just plain common sense. On Nov. 18, a federal judge ruled that the Corps was directly responsible for flooding in St. Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward. "The Corps' lassitude and failure to fulfill its duties resulted in a catastrophic loss of human life and property in unprecedented proportions," the judge said. The government is expected to appeal. (See a video New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina)
Besides the Army Corps, mismanagement by the local levee boards contributed to substandard levees. Katrina wasn't even as bad a storm as had been feared, but the levees weren't as good as had been hoped. Some fact-based decision-making could have saved hundreds of lives and billions of dollars. Here, too, years of complacency were the rule, not the exception. The price was paid this decade.
See TIME's photo-essay "Broken City."
See more pictures of New Orleans.
Deteriorating infrastructure extends far beyond the Crescent City. At 6:05 p.m. on Aug. 1, 2007, the Minneapolis I-35W bridge spanning the Mississippi River collapsed, killing 13 and injuring 145. The National Transportation Safety Board later cited a design flaw as the cause, but the bridge had been classified as "structurally deficient" since 1991, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation Highway Accident Report. The bridge, which opened in 1967, was scheduled to be replaced in 2020. How many other bridges, roads and dams are death traps–in–waiting? No one knows, but you can't help wondering if squeezed maintenance budgets are making our country less safe. A 2005 report card on American infrastructure by the American Society of Civil Engineers (which gave mostly C's and D's) estimated that the U.S. needed to spend $1.6 trillion to bring our roads, highways, bridges and dams into good shape. Sure, the engineers are looking for work but know that the U.S. spends only 2.4% of its GDP on infrastructure, as opposed to 5% in Europe and 9% in China. Here again, why should a politician spend money today to fix something that won't collapse until tomorrow? Especially if he or she could get re-elected by cutting taxes instead.
Starting Over
If we are now watching the sun set on a Decade from Hell, does it naturally follow that the next decade will be all good and glory? Of course not. And yet there are some hopeful signs. We have seen the destructiveness of deferral and neglect on infrastructure, national and global politics, financial markets and corporate governance, and I think it's safe to say that the awareness of that danger is much higher now. Maybe that's why, for the first time, a national health care bill actually has a chance to become law. (Read "Understanding the Health-Care Debate: Your Indispensable Guide")
How do we fix Wall Street? By facing the music now. Toughen up borrowing requirements by banks. Increase oversight, especially when it comes to regulating derivatives. Perhaps enact a 21st century version of Glass-Steagall. And don't allow any institution to become too big to fail. Does that mean some countries may get ahead of us in terms of financial innovation? Sure, but so what? For much of this decade, both England and Iceland were considered friendlier to capital markets than the U.S. England is now threadbare; Iceland is bankrupt.
There's also a natural cycle to history. Unless you believe that this country is in the throes of a deep and permanent decline, there's no question that we will rebound. "Usually when you've had a really bad decade like this one, the next decade turns out to be much better for investors," says Richard Sylla, a professor of economics at the NYU Stern School of Business. "Probably 10 years from now, people who are investing today are going to have fairly nice returns." Over time, stocks have averaged a total return of about 9%. Remember, stocks were down 1.2% per year this decade, after being up 18.2% per year in the 1990s. Returns always revert to the mean. (See the worst business deals of 2008.)
And also recall that the stock market usually mirrors political and economic trends. When the future appears to be stable and certain, the market moves up. When unexpectedly positive events occur, like the Internet boom in the 1990s, stocks produce above-average returns. This decade, the surprises were mostly negative, which drove the market lower. At some point, unanticipated positive developments will again drive the market higher: perhaps a sustained easing of tensions between the West and radical Islam, breakthroughs in green technology (think energy sources) or something completely unimagined. If we were too positive heading into the 2000s, we are almost certainly too negative heading into the next decade. But that's not such a bad thing. It means we will be collectively reluctant to lard on massive debts. It means we will be wary when some mortgage man tries to sell us an exotic loan predicated on our house's doubling in value. It means we will see "financial innovation" for what it often is: an oxymoron. And most important, it means we will take more seriously our responsibility to address problems now rather than later. (See which businesses are bucking the recession.)
There is no guarantee that the next decade (get ready for the Teens!) will be any better than this one. It's likely that China will continue to grow faster than the U.S., and we may continue to see our global dominance erode. But very significantly, we still hold many of the world's trump cards. We still have the world's strongest military, which means we can and must lead in maintaining order and crafting peace. We are the leaders in technological innovation. And we are still the nation that most others emulate. If we remember those points and avoid the easy outs of deferral and neglect, then the next decade should be a helluva lot better than the last one.
— With reporting by Beth Kowitt / New York
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Commentary
If you've had any doubts about Time Magazine's reporting or strength, this article is just another example of reporting brilliance. Time.com should be the home of MANY people's in depth knowledge and coverage and we should walk away from the CNN's, MSNBC's, and the Fox's.
If you need commentary and insight on the news, Time.com is for you.
As for the article, these were worst ten years since the depression, world wars, and cold war.
Lets hope the next 10 years are filled with innovation, jobs, humility, morality, and mutual respect.
Iran rebuked over nuclear 'cover-up' by UN watchdog
Iran rebuked over nuclear 'cover-up' by UN watchdog
 Iran's second uranium enrichment facility came to light in September |
The UN nuclear watchdog's governing body has passed a resolution condemning Iran for developing a uranium enrichment site in secret.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also demanded that Iran freeze the project immediately.
The resolution, the first against Iran in nearly four years, was passed by a 25-3 margin with six abstentions.
Iran called the move "useless" but the US said it showed time was running out for Iran to address key issues.
Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful energy purposes, but the US says it is seeking nuclear weapons.
In September, it emerged that as well as its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, Iran had a second such facility near the town of Qom.
The revelation deepened Western fears about the country's nuclear ambitions.
'Clear signal'
The IAEA resolution was passed with rare Russian and Chinese backing. Only Cuba, Venezuela and Malaysia voted against it.
 |  I believe the next stage will have to be sanctions if Iran does not respond to what is a very clear vote  Gordon Brown  |
It called on Iran to reveal the purpose of the second plant and confirm that it is not building any other undeclared nuclear facilities.
After the resolution, the US said Iran needed to address "the growing international deficit of confidence in its intentions".
"Our patience and that of the international community is limited, and time is running out," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
"If Iran refuses to meet its obligations, then it will be responsible for its own growing isolation and the consequences."
Speaking at a Commonwealth summit in Trinidad and Tobago, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that sanctions were the next step if Iran did not respond to what was "a very clear vote".
Russia's Foreign Ministry urged Iran to react "with full seriousness" to the resolution.
| ANALYSIS  Jon Leyne, BBC Tehran correspondent This resolution is a sign of Iran's growing isolation. It is the first at the IAEA since 2006. Crucially it secured the support of Russia and China. That makes it more likely they will vote for new sanctions on Iran when debate is stepped up in the new year, though there are still some tough negotiations ahead. It seems that Iran's hesitation over a new fuel deal for its Tehran research reactor and its reluctance to engage in more constructive talks has infuriated even those countries which have protected it in the past. On Thursday IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei, who has always pressed for a compromise solution, expressed his frustration in dealing with Iran. In response, Iran has threatened to reduce its co-operation with the UN nuclear watchdog, but not to break off ties completely. The real trouble for Tehran is that the Iranian government now seems to be in too much internal turmoil to make clear decisions and follow them through. |
But Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast called the IAEA vote "a theatrical move aimed at pressuring Iran" that would be "useless", state news agency Irna reported.
And Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said it was a "hasty and undue" step that would jeopardise the chances of success in negotiations.
"The great nation of Iran will never bow to pressure and intimidation vis-a-vis its inalienable right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy," he said.
The resolution came a day after the outgoing head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, expressed frustration at Iran's refusal to accept an international proposal to end the dispute over its nuclear programme.
The plan envisages Iran's low-enriched uranium being shipped overseas for processing into fuel. This is seen as a way for Iran to get the fuel it wants, while giving guarantees to the West that it will not be used for nuclear weapons.
Addressing IAEA governors in Vienna on Thursday, Mr ElBaradei said his inspectors had made no progress in their attempts to verify the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme.
"It is now well over a year since the agency was last able to engage Iran in discussions about these outstanding issues," he said. "We have effectively reached a dead end, unless Iran engages fully with us."
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Commentary
It seems Iran is bumbling on the world stage and is unable to make hard and fast concrete decisions on it's future.
All I have to ask is, what's the deal? Just pick a position and run with it. Side steps, hiccups, and delays make you look weak.
You're one of the least democratic governments in the world and yet the heads of state can't even muster the power to make 1 strong decision and run with it? What's going on?
As for the nuclear issue; nuclear power is one of the worst sources of energy. If you need to sustain your populous, head for solar, hydroelectric, or wind. Ethanol is not a bad option either, but you guys have enough oil, so maybe not that route.
Video of Primary source speech by Head of IAEA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DivT7UK38RU
Multiple sclerosis 'blood blockage theory' tested
Multiple sclerosis 'blood blockage theory' tested
| By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News |
 The answer may lie with blood flow |
US scientists are testing a radical new theory that multiple sclerosis (MS) is caused by blockages in the veins that drain the brain.
The University of Buffalo team were intrigued by the work of Italian researcher Dr Paolo Zamboni who claims 90% of MS is caused by narrowed veins.
He says the restricted drainage, visible on scans, injures the brain leading to MS.
He has already widened the blockages in a handful of patients.
The US team want to replicate his earlier work before treating patients.
Experts welcomed the research saying it was important to confirm the basic science before evaluating any therapy.
MS is a long-term inflammatory condition of the central nervous system which affects the transfer of messages from the nervous system to the rest of the body.
| This is not something patients can expect as a treatment now. This is experimental work and is being tested A spokeswoman for the MS Society |
The Buffalo team, led by Dr Robert Zivadinov, plan to recruit 1,100 patients with MS and 600 other volunteers as controls who are either healthy or have neurological diseases other than MS.
Using Doppler ultrasound, they will scan the patients to see if they can find any blockages within the veins of the neck and brain.
If they can prove Dr Zamboni's theory of "chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency", they say it will change our understanding of MS.
Rewriting science
Margaret Paroski, who is chief medical officer at Kaleida Health, where the Buffalo researchers are based, said the work could overturn prevailing wisdom that the damage in MS is predominantly the result of abnormal immune responses.
"When I was in medical school, we thought peptic ulcer disease was due to stress. We now know that 80% of cases are due to a bacterial infection.
| I found the evidence of narrowing - narrowing of the veins just in MS patients Dr Zamboni |
"Dr Zivadinov's work may lead to a whole different way of thinking about MS."
Dr Zamboni, of the University of Ferrara, believes the blockages are the cause rather than the consequence of MS and that they allow iron from the blood to leak into the brain tissue, where it causes damage.
He has performed procedures similar to angioplasty to unblock the veins and get the blood flowing normally again.
He claims this "liberation procedure" can alleviate many of the symptoms of MS and is due to publish his findings in the Journal of Vascular Surgery.
In an interview with CTV News in Canada he said: "I found the evidence of narrowing - narrowing of the veins just in MS patients.
"I'm fully convinced that this is very, very important for people."
Early days
Kevin Lipp, an MS patient from the US, has been symptom-free since being treated by Dr Zamboni.
He said: "It's only been 10 months. If nothing happens in the next two to three years, we'll know it's working."
The BBC has heard anecdotally of other surgeons in Europe testing out the same treatment.
The MS Society said more research was needed to see if this was an avenue that should be explored further.
"This is not something patients can expect as a treatment now. This is experimental work and is being tested. We need to know more about its safety and effectiveness."
Helen Yates, of the MS Resource Centre, said: "There is no doubt that this area warrants a great deal more study.
"This could represent a completely novel approach to MS research which, if proven to be relevant, could be a "sea change" in the understanding of the mechanisms involved in the condition."
Thursday, November 26, 2009
The inconvenient truth about the Ice core Carbon Dioxide Temperature Correlations
Any laymen will understand from this statement that the ice-cores demonstrate a causal link, that higher amounts of CO2 give rise to higher temperatures. Of course, this could indeed be the case, and to some extent, it necessarily is. However, can this conclusion really be drawn from this graph? Can one actually say anything at all about how much CO2 affects the global temperature?
To the dismay of Al Gore, the answer is that this graph doesn't prove at all that CO2 has any effect on the global temperature. All it says is that there is some equilibrium between dissolved CO2 and atmospheric CO2, an equilibrium which depends on the temperature. Of course, the temperature itself can depend on a dozen different factors, including CO2, but just the CO2 / temperature correlation by itself doesn't tell you the strength of the CO2→ΔT link. It doesn't even tell you the sign.
Think for example on a closed coke bottle. It has coke with dissolved CO2 and it has air with gaseous CO2. Just like Earth, most of the CO2 is in the dissolved form. If you warm the coke bottle, the coke cannot hold as much CO2, so it releases a little amount and increases the partial pressure of the gaseous CO2, enough to force the rest of the dissolved CO2 to stay dissolved. Since there is much more dissolved CO2 than gaseous CO2, the amount released from the coke is relatively small.
Of course, the comparison can go only so far. The mechanisms governing CO2 in the oceans are much more complicated such that the equilibrium depends on the amount of biological activity, on the complicated chemical reactions in the oceans, and many more interactions I am probably not aware of. For example, a lower temperature can increase the amount of dust reaching the oceans. This will bring more fertilizing iron which will increase the biological activity (since large parts of the ocean's photosynthesis is nutrient limited) and with it affect the CO2 dissolution balance. The bottom line is that the equilibrium is quite complicated to calculate.
Nevertheless, the equilibrium can be empirically determined by simply reading it straight off the ice-core CO2/temperature graph. The global temperature variations between ice-ages and interglacials is about 4°C. The change in the amount of atmospheric CO2 is about 80 ppm. This gives 20 ppm of oceanic out-gassing per °C.
The main evidence proving that CO2 does not control the climate, but at most can play a second fiddle by just amplifying the variations already present, is that of lags. In all cases where there is a good enough resolution, one finds that the CO2 lags behind the temperature by typically several hundred to a thousand years. Namely, the basic climate driver which controls the temperature cannot be that of CO2. That driver, whatever it is, affects the climate equilibrium, and the temperature changes accordingly. Once the oceans adjust (on time scale of decades to centuries), the CO2 equilibrium changes as well. The changed CO2 can further affect the temperature, but the CO2 / temperature correlation cannot be used to say almost anything about the strength of this link. Note that I write "almost anything", because it turns out that the CO2 temperature correlation can be used to say at least one thing about the temperature sensitivity to CO2 variations, as can be seen in the box below.
It is interesting to note that the IPCC scientific report (e.g., the AR4) avoids this question of lag. Instead of pointing it out, they write that in some cases (e.g., when comparing Antarctic CO2 to temperature data) it is hard to say anything definitive since the data sets come from different cores. This is of course chaff to cover the fact that when CO2 and temperature are measured with the same cores, or when carefully comparing different cores, a lag of typically several hundred years is found to be present, if the quality and resolution permit. Such an example is found in the figure below. There are many examples of studies finding lags, a few examples include:
- Indermühle et al. (GRL, vol. 27, p. 735, 2000), who find that CO2 lags behind the temperature by 1200±700 years, using Antarctic ice-cores between 60 and 20 kyr before present (see figure).
- Fischer et al. (Science, vol 283, p. 1712, 1999) reported a time lag 600±400 yr during early de-glacial changes in the last 3 glacial–interglacial transitions.
- Siegenthaler et al. (Science, vol. 310, p. 1313, 2005) find a best lag of 1900 years in the Antarctic data.
- Monnin et al. (Science vol 291, 112, 2001) find that the start of the CO2 increase in the beginning of the last interglacial lagged the start of the temperature increase by 800 years.
The only temperature independent CO2 variations I know of are those of anthropogenic sources, i.e., the 20th century increase, and CO2 variations over geological time scales.
Since the increase of CO2 over the 20th is monotonic, and other climate drivers (e.g., the sun) increased as well, a correlation with temperature is mostly meaningless. This leaves the geological variations in CO2 as the only variations which could be used to empirically estimate the effect of the CO2→ΔT link.
The reason that over geological time scales, the variations do not depend on the temperature is because over these long durations, the total CO2 in the ecosystem varies from a net imbalance between volcanic out-gassing and sedimentation/subduction. This "random walk" in the amount of CO2 is the reason why there were periods with 3 or even 10 times as much CO2 than present, over the past billion years.
Unfortunately, there is no clear correlation between CO2 and temperature over geological time scales. This lack of correlation should have translated into an upper limit on the CO2→ΔT link. However, because the geochemical temperature data is actually biased by the amount of CO2, this lack of correlation result translates into a CO2 doubling sensitivity which is about ΔTx2 ~ 1.0±0.5°C. More about it in this paper.
The moral of this story is that when you are shown data such as the graph by Al Gore, ask yourself what does it really mean. You might be surprised from the answer.
Source
Germany's top soldier quits over Afghanistan raid
Germany's top soldier quits over Afghanistan raid
 Army chief Wolfgang Schneiderhan is to stand down from his post |
Germany's top soldier has resigned over a Nato air strike in Afghanistan in which civilians were killed, the defence minister said.
Wolfgang Schneiderhan stood down over the 4 September attack in Kunduz on fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban.
His decision followed reports that information about the strike - ordered by a German commander - was withheld, the defence minister said.
The strike is thought to have killed dozens of civilians collecting fuel.
Taliban fighters had seized the two tankers while they were being driven from Tajikistan to supply Nato forces in Kabul.
Reports said that villagers were taking fuel from the tankers when the strike happened.
It is not clear exactly how many civilians died.
The independent Afghanistan Rights Monitor group put the number of civilians deaths at 70. The Afghan government later said that at least 100 people died, of whom 30 were civilians.
Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told parliament that Gen Schneiderhan had failed to provide proper information about the incident.
Gen Schneiderhan had "released himself from his duties at his own request", the minister said.
State Secretary Peter Wichert would assume his responsibilities, he added.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Dollar falls to a 14-year low against the yen
Dollar falls to a 14-year low against the yen
 As the dollar falls, the price of gold is rising |
The US dollar has hit a 14-year low against the Japanese yen with low interest rates in the US making the greenback less attractive to investors.
The dollar slipped to 86.5 yen, its lowest level since July 1995.
The US has indicated it is unconcerned about the dollar's slide, and will not intervene to strengthen it.
Many traders are swapping dollar holdings for gold as a safer investment in the current uncertain economic climate.
The price of gold is currently at a record high of $1,194.5 an ounce.
"This yen strengthening is caused by dollar selling rather than yen buying, so this is not something Japan can handle itself," said Yutaka Miura at Mizuho Securities.
"This trend will continue unless the Japanese government takes action, in co-operation with the US."
In the short term at least, analysts said such intervention was unlikely.
The dollar has also fallen significantly against the pound and the euro this year.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary
Thanks to Al Jazeera I've actually been tracking the Yen for about a year now. I remember a long time ago how it was $1 buying 110 yen or higher.
Now it's 1-88 on average. That's a huge slide and it was definitely unexpected. Everyday I watched it fall and fall, month by month, no a steady trend down.
You couldn't say that about the Euro and the Pound which have been in this territory many times before and deserve it's higher numbers. Maybe this is a sign that the Japanese economy is finally recovering and getting out of the 90's stagnation that brought everything down there.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
German 'Robin Hood' banker gets suspended sentence
German 'Robin Hood' banker gets suspended sentence
 The woman used the money to cover up unauthorised overdrafts |
A German bank employee who secretly transferred money from rich to poor clients has been given a 22-month suspended prison term.
The 62-year-old woman, dubbed the 'Robin Hood Banker', moved more than $11m (£7m) in 117 transfers.
The court in Bonn was told that the employee, who has not been named, took no money for herself.
The bank made a loss of more than $1.5m (£1m) when poor customers were unable to pay back unauthorised overdrafts.
The employee was accused of allowing overdrafts for customers who would not normally qualify for them.
Small pension
She then used the money from richer customers to temporarily disguise the loans during the bank's monthly audit of overdrafts.
The woman has begun reimbursing the bank for the losses, reportedly from a small retirement pension.
She could have faced a four-year prison sentence, but the court decided on leniency as she had confessed immediately and did not profit personally.
The woman was also considered to have suffered enough, through the loss of her job and the requirement that she pay back the lost funds.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary
She didn't profit, she helped people in need, and only the bank was hurt with a loss of a measly million dollars and she is still punished?
So what's the message? Don't help people at the small price of hurting the bank. The bank deserves some pain after everything it put us through.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Russia 'is now a criminal state', says Bill Browder
Russia 'is now a criminal state', says Bill Browder
Investment specialist Bill Browder says Russia is "essentially a criminal state"
Russia has now turned into a "criminal state", according to the man who was once its leading foreign investor.
Bill Browder of Hermitage Capital was reacting to the news that his lawyer had died in prison in Russia after being held for a year without charge.
He told the BBC that his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, had effectively been "held hostage and they killed their hostage."
Through Hermitage Capital Bill Browder campaigned against corruption at some of Russia's largest companies.
Russian officials say they are investigating Mr Magnitsky's death.
| He was their hostage and they killed their hostage by denying him medical attention Bill Browder, Hermitage Capital |
In 2005 Mr Browder was banned from Russia as a threat to national security, after allegations that his firms evaded tax, but Mr Browder says his company was targeted by criminals trying to seize millions of pounds worth of his assets.
Mr Browder says he was punished for being a threat to corrupt politicians and bureaucrats.
Since then, a number of Mr Browder's associates in Russia - as well as lawyers acting for his company - have been detained, beaten or robbed.
Before the accusations of tax evasion were raised, for many years Mr Browder had been one of the most outspoken defenders of the Russian government and its then-president Vladimir Putin.
'False confession'
According to Mr Browder, Sergei Magnitsky developed stomach and pancreas problems in prison which were diagnosed by a prison physician. He claims Mr Magnitsky was then moved to a new prison and then deprived of medical treatment.
 Sergei Magnitsky died in prison |
"They basically said to him if you sign the following false confessions then we'll give you medical treatment - otherwise we wont," claims Mr Browder.
Mr Magnitsky apparently wrote numerous complaints to the court, prosecutors and the prison authorities requesting medical treatment. Mr Browder claims that Mr Magnistky's pleas were first ignored and then denied.
Mr Browder believes that Mr Magnitsky's death is a direct result of tax evasion allegations against him.
"They're trying to come up with any kind of charges they can against me and they were using him as their tool. He was their hostage and they killed their hostage by denying him medical attention, " he says.
Sergei Magnitsky was one of the lawyers hired by Mr Browder to investigate whether fraud had been committed against his firms.
Mr Browder claims that when the police raided his office they took away corporate documents which they then used to steal his companies.
| We're not going to let it rest until the people responsible for the death face justice Bill Browder, Hermitage Capital |
"Sergei Magnitsky was one of the lawyers who discovered the whole crime, figured out who was responsible and then testified against the police officers and after he testified against the police officers the very same police officers had him arrested on spurious charges."
The circumstances surrounding Mr Magnitsky's death has caused Bill Browder to question his attitude to Russia under Putin.
'Criminal state'
"When Putin first showed up and said he was going to tame the oligarchs I was the biggest fan of that particular concept. Then I realised that what he meant by taming the oligarchs was by sticking law enforcement people in their place," he says.
"Now you have a bunch of law enforcement people who are essentially organised criminals with unlimited power to ruin lives take property and do whatever they like and that's far worse than I have ever seen in Russia before. Russia is essentially a criminal state now."
 Vladimir Putin won the 2000 Russian presidential election |
Mr Browder says he is going to do all he can to get justice for Sergei Magnitsky.
"We're not going to let it rest until the people responsible for the death face justice," he said.
Responding to Mr Magnitsky's death, Russian Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov said he needed more evidence that the prisoner did not receive adequate medical care.
"I would be grateful to human rights activists for providing specific information. In every case where there are doubts that assistance was timely and of good quality, there has to be a probe".
The investigative committee for the Prosecutor's office said they were conducting a full investigation in the death.
"As of now, we don't see a justification for starting a criminal case," said Moscow Investigative Committee chief, Anatoly Bagmet.
Azerbaijan threatens Armenia over Nagorno Karabakh
Azerbaijan threatens Armenia over Nagorno Karabakh
 President Aliyev says Azerbaijan has the full right to use force |
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has warned he is ready to use force to wrest control of a disputed enclave from Armenia if last-ditch peace talks fail.
He said talks starting on Sunday in Munich were the final hope of settling the Nagorno Karabakh issue peacefully.
A fragile ceasefire has been in place in the region since it was the scene of a brutal war between the two countries in the 1990s.
Both nations lay claim to the enclave, currently under Armenian control.
In comments broadcast on Azeri TV on Saturday, President Aliyev said that if the Munich talks failed to reach agreement he would be "left with no other option".
"We have the full right to liberate our land by military means," he said.
Western diplomats attending the talks, the latest in a round of internationally mediated meetings on the dispute, have said they hope the situation will not reach that point.
 |
Some 30,000 people died in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, which erupted after the mountainous region declared independence in 1991.
The region and seven surrounding Azeri district have been under Armenian control since the Russian-brokered ceasefire in 1994.
Azerbaijan has never ruled out military action to take back the land and has spent billions on dollars on building up its military.
The BBC's Tom Esslemont, in the South Caucuses region, says Mr Aliyev is using stronger language than ever before because the talks come at a critical time.
The meeting will be the first since Armenia and Turkey - an ally of Azerbaijan - normalised diplomatic relations after a century of hostility.
That move has left Azerbaijan feeling isolated, says our correspondent.