Families in China's milk scandal denounce payout

By GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press Writer


BEIJING – Chinese families whose babies suffered painful kidney stones from drinking tainted infant formula said Tuesday that a planned payout by dairies is too low and their lawyers pledged to continue attempts to sue for more compensation.

The release of details of the 1.1 billion yuan ($160 million) compensation plan and the opening of trials for those blamed for the contamination signal that authorities hope to end what was widely seen as a national disgrace, highlighting widespread food safety problems and corporate and official malfeasance.

Contaminated milk powder has been blamed for the deaths of at least six children and the sickening of nearly 300,000 others.

On Wednesday, the chairwoman of Sanlu Group Co., the dairy at the center of the scandal, will be tried for making shoddy products, the latest in a string of court appearances for more than a dozen suspects on charges related to contaminating milk with melamine, an industrial chemical.

But the moves offered little consolation to some parents who feel the government breached their trust after their children died or were sickened from milk powder certified by authorities as safe.

"If they offered me compensation, I won't accept, because what do I need this money for since my son is gone," said Tian Xiaowei, an apple farmer and part-time truck driver, whose year-old child Tian Jin died in August, apparently from drinking melamine-tainted milk powder.

"These people are making profit by letting people die," Tian said in a telephone interview from his home in central Shaanxi province. "If the information was made public earlier, I would not have let my son drink Sanlu powder and he wouldn't have died."

Tian said, if possible, he would like to attend the trials himself. "I want to see what these people look like. I really hate them."

Tian could receive 200,000 yuan ($29,000) in compensation for the death of his child, according to details of the payout plan reported Tuesday by the China Daily, an official newspaper. It was not clear, however, if Tian would receive any money because authorities have yet to include his son's death in the official tally, even though tests on milk powder the boy was drinking showed high levels of melamine.

Children who suffered kidney stones would get 2,000 yuan ($290) while sicker children would be paid 30,000 yuan ($4,380), the paper said. The one-time cash payments total 900 million yuan ($131 million), while another 200 million yuan ($29 million) will go to a fund set up to cover bills for lingering health problems.

But parents who received copies of the agreement considered the offer of 2,000 yuan to be woefully inadequate, said Beijing attorney Xu Zhiyong, who is part of a legal team representing 63 families.

The amount represents about one half of the per capita annual income for rural residents.

"I advised them not to sign it for the time being, as we would demand trials of those 22 dairy companies," said Xu, whose attempts to sue the companies involved have so far been rejected by the courts. "The compensation is too low and no victims were involved in the decision-making process."

Wang Zhenping, a wheat farmer in Henan whose 14-month-old son suffered kidney stones and liver damage from tainted milk, said the compensation didn't even cover medical expenses.

"If they really want to compensate, then they should try to make the victims happy. If they can't, I'd rather that they did not compensate at all," Wang said.

The trial of Sanlu's chairwoman and general manager, Tian Wenhua, begins Wednesday. Seventeen others were in court over the past few days with at least four facing the death penalty, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Verdicts will be announced on an unspecified "selected date," Xinhua said.


source : news.yahoo.com

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Israel mulls truce offer on Day 4 of Gaza assault

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and AMY TEIBEL


GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israel is considering suspending its Gaza offensive to give Hamas militants an opening to halt their rocket fire, but the threat of a ground offensive remains if the truce does not hold, an Israeli defense official said Tuesday.

Israel's defense minister is to raise the proposal during a meeting of Israel's security Cabinet on Wednesday, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. Israel TV's Channel 10 also reported such a proposal.

At the same time, the security Cabinet will also be asked to consider various plans for a ground invasion, the defense official said.

The public rhetoric from Israeli officials has indicated they expect the operation to continue, and a Hamas spokesman said any truce was conditional on the opening of Gaza's borders.

Earlier Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the current, aerial phase of the operation was just "the first of several" that have been approved, an Olmert spokesman said.

But after four days of airstrikes against the symbols of Hamas power, there are few targets left beyond buildings evacuated days ago. On Tuesday, the biggest bomb load yet struck an empty Hamas government complex, as well as security installations and the home of a top militant commander.

Three Palestinians were reported killed Tuesday, compared to dozens in previous days. Since the offensive began Saturday, 368 Palestinians have been killed. More than 1,700 have been hurt, according to Gaza health officials.

Palestinian militants, meanwhile, kept up their rocket assaults on Israeli border communities, despite relentless Israeli air attacks against Gaza's Hamas rulers and unwelcome word from Egypt that it would not bail them out by ending its own blockade of Gaza crossings.

The question hanging over the Israeli operation is how it can halt rocket fire. Israel has never found a military solution to the barrage of missiles militants have fired into southern Israel.

Beyond delivering Hamas a deep blow and protecting border communities, the assault's broader objectives remained cloudy. Israeli President Shimon Peres acknowledged the challenge, saying the operation was unavoidable but more difficult than many people anticipated.

"War against terrorists is harder in some aspects than fighting armies," Peres said.

The Israeli air onslaught against Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers began Saturday, shortly after a rocky, six-month truce expired. Most were members of Hamas security forces but the number included at least 64 civilians, according to U.N. figures. Among those killed were two sisters, aged 4 and 11, who perished in an airstrike on a rocket squad in northern Gaza on Tuesday.

During brief lulls between airstrikes, Gazans tentatively ventured into the streets to buy goods and collect belongings from homes they had abandoned after Israel's aerial onslaught began Saturday.

Rasha Khaldeh, 22, from the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, said she dared go no further than down the block to look for food.

"We just don't know what they are going to shell next. It's not safe," Khaldeh said.

The campaign has brought a new reality to southern Israel, too, where one-tenth of the country's population of 7 million has suddenly found itself within rocket range. Militants have pressed on with their rocket and mortar assaults, killing three Israeli civilians and a soldier and bringing a widening circle of targets into their sights with an arsenal of more powerful weapons.

The military estimated that close to 700,000 Israelis are now within rocket range, with the battles shifting closer to Israel's heartland. Of the four Israelis killed since the operation began Saturday, all but one were in areas that had not suffered fatalities before. On Tuesday, a Bedouin Arab town became one of the new targets.

"It's very scary," said Yaacov Pardida, a 55-year-old resident of Ashdod, southern Israel's largest city, which was hit Monday. "I never imagined that this could happen, that they could reach us here."

By mid-afternoon, gunmen had launched about a dozen rockets and mortars, down from 80 a day earlier, the Israeli military said. But the number of firings have fluctuated sharply throughout the day, and that number could dramatically rise by day's end.

A Hamas spokesman, Mushir Masri, said Tuesday any end to Israeli airstrikes is not enough.

If Israel halts "the aggression and the blockade, then Hamas will study these suggestions," he said of the truce unexpectedly floated on Tuesday. It was unclear whether he was offering his opinion or speaking for Hamas.

In the 72 hours since the offensive began, militants have fired off more than 250 rockets and mortars all told, they added.

"Zionists, wait for more from the resistance," Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan wrote in a text message to reporters, referring to militants' armed struggle against Israel.

The offensive comes on top of an Israeli blockade of Gaza that has largely kept all but essential goods from entering the coastal territory since Hamas violently seized control June 2007 from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

At the United Nations on Monday, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon demanded an immediate cease-fire and urged Mideast and world leaders to do more to help end the Israeli-Hamas conflict and promote political dialogue.

He also urged urged Arab foreign ministers, who are holding an emergency meeting in Cairo on Wednesday, "to act swiftly and decisively to bring an early end to this impasse."

Egypt, which has been blockading Gaza from its southern end, has come under pressure from the rest of the Arab world to reopen its border with the territory because of the Israeli campaign. Egypt has pried open the border to let in some of Gaza's wounded and to allow some humanitarian supplies to enter the territory. But it quickly sealed the border when Gazans tried to push through forcefully.

In a televised speech Tuesday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak responded to critics, including the leader of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, who have accused him of collaborating with Israel.

"We tell anybody who seeks political profits on the account of the Palestinian people: The Palestinian blood is not cheap," he said, describing such comments as "exploiting the blood of the Palestinians."

Mubarak said his country would not throw open the border crossing unless Abbas regains control of the border post. Mubarak has been rattled by the presence of a neighboring Islamic ministate in Gaza, fearing it would fuel more Islamic dissidence in Egypt.

The initial wave of airstrikes took Gaza by surprise, targeting militants and Hamas security forces at key installations, often located in the midst of tiny Gaza's densely populated towns and cities.

But the government buildings targeted later were empty, as Gazans became fearful of venturing out into the streets. For Ziad Koraz, whose nearby home was damaged in the attack on the government compound Tuesday, that violence gratuitously put Gaza civilians at risk.

"More than 17 missiles were directed at an empty government compound, without regard for civilians who lived nearby," Koraz said. "If someone committed a crime, they should go after him, not after an entire nation."

Israel has allowed a trickle of aid through its cargo crossings with Gaza despite the military campaign, agreeing to allow 100 trucks in on Tuesday, defense officials said. Jordan, the Red Cross and the World Health Organization were also preparing to send medical supplies.

Israel's navy on Tuesday turned back a boat of pro-Palestinian protesters who had hoped to enter Gaza to demonstrate against the Israeli blockade.

The Israeli side of the border area was declared a closed military zone on Monday, obscuring operations in the area. But with thousands of ground troops, backed by tanks and artillery, massed on the border, and the air force knocking off target after target, the big question looming over the operation was whether it would expand to include a land invasion.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the operation would "expand as needed ... to restore tranquility to (Israel's) south and deliver a blow to Hamas so the rocket fire and other operations against the citizens and soldiers of Israel stop."

During the six-month truce that expired Dec. 19, gunmen fired 360 rockets and mortars, the vast majority in the agreement's waning weeks, the military said. In the year before it took hold, more than 4,300 projectiles were fired, it added.

Over the years, militants have improved the aim and range of the rockets. On Monday, a missile crashed into a bus stop in Ashdod, a city of 200,000 that is 23 miles (37 kilometers) from Gaza and only 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Israel's Tel Aviv heartland.

source : news.yahoo.com

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Aging Nation Faces Growing Hearing Loss

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

SAN FRANCISCO - An aging U.S. population faces a looming crisis in hearing loss, researchers said Saturday. Some research holds promise, but much is in the early stages.

By 2050, there could be as many as 50 million people in the United States with impaired hearing, Steven Greenberg of Silicon Speech in Santa Venetia, Calif., told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Hearing loss results in social and psychological isolation, "which makes their life hell," Greenberg said.

Thanks to loud music and a generally noisy environment, young people have a rate of impaired hearing 2 1/2 times that of their parents and grandparents, he said.

Stefan Heller of Stanford University said research in restoring damaged hearing cells "is very much at the beginning and it's still a long, long road."

Inner and outer hair cells in the ear pick up sound vibrations and send them to the brain. Damage to outer cells causes hearing impairment which can be helped by hearing aides, he said. Damage to the inner cells cannot be repaired and causes deafness.

Heller said ear stem cells have been isolated in laboratory work and grown into cells that resembled hair cells.

"They're not perfect," he said. When placed in the ear of chicken embryos, most of the cells died. A few survived and were implanted into the inner ear. The next step, he said, is to try the experiment in mice.

Gene therapy is being tested in an effort to produce more hair cells in the ear. The result so far has been a type of hybrid cells and researchers are unsure whether they can get these cells to survive.

Heller said scientists in Japan are experimenting with drugs that seem to help spur the growth of hearing cells in young mice. The results in older mice are far less promising.

There seems to be something not yet understood that prevents new cell development in the inner ear. This is an area where cancer is not known to occur, he said, and an indication that something prevents cell development.

---

On the net:

American Association for the Advancement of Science:

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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Aging Nation Faces Growing Hearing Loss

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

SAN FRANCISCO - An aging U.S. population faces a looming crisis in hearing loss, researchers said Saturday. Some research holds promise, but much is in the early stages.

By 2050, there could be as many as 50 million people in the United States with impaired hearing, Steven Greenberg of Silicon Speech in Santa Venetia, Calif., told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Hearing loss results in social and psychological isolation, "which makes their life hell," Greenberg said.

Thanks to loud music and a generally noisy environment, young people have a rate of impaired hearing 2 1/2 times that of their parents and grandparents, he said.

Stefan Heller of Stanford University said research in restoring damaged hearing cells "is very much at the beginning and it's still a long, long road."

Inner and outer hair cells in the ear pick up sound vibrations and send them to the brain. Damage to outer cells causes hearing impairment which can be helped by hearing aides, he said. Damage to the inner cells cannot be repaired and causes deafness.

Heller said ear stem cells have been isolated in laboratory work and grown into cells that resembled hair cells.

"They're not perfect," he said. When placed in the ear of chicken embryos, most of the cells died. A few survived and were implanted into the inner ear. The next step, he said, is to try the experiment in mice.

Gene therapy is being tested in an effort to produce more hair cells in the ear. The result so far has been a type of hybrid cells and researchers are unsure whether they can get these cells to survive.

Heller said scientists in Japan are experimenting with drugs that seem to help spur the growth of hearing cells in young mice. The results in older mice are far less promising.

There seems to be something not yet understood that prevents new cell development in the inner ear. This is an area where cancer is not known to occur, he said, and an indication that something prevents cell development.

---

On the net:

American Association for the Advancement of Science:

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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Brain Affects Hearing

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

New Year’s Eve is marked by constant celebration and time spent with friends, but if you find yourself straining to hear, it’s your brain - not your ears - that could be to blame.

Scientists are now learning why and how age affects the brain's dimmer switch for controlling the level of input from your ears.

Researchers say if you have trouble understanding conversation in a noisy room, you're experiencing what's sometimes called the cocktail party problem.

It’s just one of the first signs of an age-related hearing loss; it affects one-third of adults ages 65 to 75.

Scientists want to slow down or reverse hearing loss, and are trying to discover why our hearing goes downhill with age.

Researchers say they’re still trying to determine what else besides the dimmer switch contributes the cocktail party problem.

"I think it's a significant player," said Robert Frisina of the University of Rochester in New York, who is studying it.

Scientists understand that the brain can receive signals from the ears, and also talk back to them. So, when there's too much noise, the dimmer-switch brain circuitry tells the ears to reduce their flow of signals to the brain.

Frisina said since background noise at a party tends to be lower-pitched than speech sounds, the dimmer switch probably can block out that distracting noise more than it does the speech.

In 2002, Frisina and colleagues published evidence that the dimmer switch effectiveness declines with age.

They noted the same trends occur in mice, which meant they could study those animals to get clues to what's going on in people.

Frisina hopes to use genetically altered mice to focus his studies on particular parts of the dimmer switch circuitry. There is some evidence that shortcomings in this wiring harm the inner ear as well, he said.

While it is not yet clear how big a role the dimmer switch plays in the cocktail party problem, Frisina's work "makes a good case that it's got to be one of the important factors," said Charles Liberman, who directs a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.


Source: redorbit.com

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3 Leaders Meeting of Asia for the World Economy

Fukuoka, FRIDAY - The leaders of Japan, China and South Korea will discuss cooperation which includes the transfer of currency, territorial issues, and the global financial crisis in the meeting will be held Saturday (13/12) in the city of Fukuoka, southern Japan. Financial issues expected to dominate the agenda of the trilateral conference.

"The problem of the international economy will be a top priority," said the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan Kazuo Kodama. Kodama explained, a number of other problems that will be discussed in the conference is the effort to strip North Korea's nuclear weapons program leave and establish a combined effort in responding to a number of natural disasters, such as earthquake, hurricane, and climate change.

Prime Minister of Japan Taro Aso will attend the bilateral negotiations with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak before receiving Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. The third leader of this country and trilateral negotiations scheduled to follow the meal and dinner statesman.

"Third country leaders will spend time during the 4 hours in order to discuss a number of issues widely," said Kodama. The three leaders of East Asian countries is often the Sea conference on the sidelines of the international meeting in the wider scale. However, this will be the first time the three leaders of a country to follow the conference independently.

South Korea hopes that bilateral meetings will be attended by the leaders of this country can produce agreements with neighboring countries is to open greater access to their forex reserves. Seoul worried that the crisis can terlilit forex reserves due to lunge financial crisis.

To buttress currency, won, in the midst of the global financial crisis, the South Korean government wants to widen the agreement "transfer of the currency" with Tokyo and Beijing to 30 billion U.S. dollars for each country.

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European Crisis Worries Preps

Paris, FRIDAY - atrocities that occurred during the six days in Greece feared spread to a number of other countries in the European region. Political observer from the University of Florence, Roberto d'Alimonte, Friday (12/12), fear the unrest will easily occur in other countries if there are appropriate triggered.

The crisis in Greek begins shooting of a teenager by the police. Action to worsen because of protests triggered strong opposition protest action on the right wing government.

Concerns that has been proven with similar protests at the offices of the Greek Embassy in Italy, France and Spain. "If there is a trigger that, there will be protests and riots exactly as in Greek. We can not ignore the phenomenon tiru-mimic. Now young people in the middle of Italy also worry and frustration will be the future. Greek intensifying the crisis conditions that exist, "said D'Alimonte.

Today, from Spain, Lopez Andreu, asserts, economic and political conditions Greek more serious compared with other countries in Europe.


"The crisis is not Greek may occur in Spain. Youth in Spain have more opportunities. Assistance to them is also more than any other country, either in the form of scholarships or financial assistance to families, "said Lopez who had examined the world's youth in Spain.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy to request the government will be careful about the emergence of protest movements or even rebellion issues related economic crisis and high conditions of community life. When talking with the assistants and their supporters, Sarkozy believes, the economic crisis could trigger protests. "See what happens only in Greek," he said.

Former French PM from the Socialist Party, Laurent Fabius, also gave a similar warning. "When experiencing depression terbelit economic and social problems, need only a small lighter to ignite the fire everywhere," he told Radio Europe 1.

Issues related protests have occurred in the Greek Embassy in the Greek city of Bordeaux, France. Two cars burned. Previously, the office of the Greek Embassy in Moscow, Russia, and Rome, Italy, also dilempari with molotov bombs.

Around 11 demonstrators were arrested in Spain when the collision occurred in Madrid and Barcelona. Protests with violence is led groups that also left sympathetic to the Greek.

As in Greece, students in France, Spain, Italy and the action so angry protests. The government has been less attention to the universities. In the last month thousands of Italian youths protest high levels of youth unemployment, which reached more than 23 percent.

France also has the same problems. Protests among students is not that strange in France. The politicians concerned about protests from students and students to the middle class will trigger widespread unrest and immigrant youth from middle class to the bottom.

Issues protests spread

In Greek, clash between police and young people still occur, especially in the city of Athens. Around 4,000 students back down the road to engage collide with and threw molotov bombs and dibalas with tear gas.

The more serious protests triggered exasperation and frustration against the government related corruption scandals and economic crisis.

"The government is unable to start the problem. The government squeezed between the desire to take a hard or soft action. If hard acts, it computed the military junta has returned, "said Athens resident, Yannis Kalaitzakis (49).

Widespread protests in Greece to protest over the economic crisis and difficulties daily. Protester began to spread the demand more jobs and increase the minimum wage. The observer believes, if the crisis is not immediately addressed, will appear on social issues that egregious.

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Prepare for UN Resolution suppress piracy

New York, THURSDAY - the United States, Thursday (11/12), distribute a draft resolution on piracy off the coast of Somalia. Resolution is intended to give the green light to pursue pirate even to the land of Somalia.

Diplomatic sources said the first high-level officials was held Thursday. If the negotiations run smoothly, the draft resolution is expected to officially become a future resolution on Tuesday.

If accepted, it will be a resolution of the four rules of the UN Security Council since June related to piracy off the coast of Somalia.


In the text of the resolution is mentioned, countries that have been involved in the fight against piracy off the coast of Somalia are allowed to do various actions necessary to the Somali coast, including areas the air. It aims to prevent them using the territory of Somalia to plan, facilitate, or piracy or armed piracy at sea.

Resolution also calls on countries and international organizations to develop mechanisms for international cooperation to act. This is necessary as a foothold with the various related aspects in the fight against piracy off the coast of Somalia.

Coordination center

The resolution also encourages the formation of a central coordination of the regional information related to piracy in Somalia. At least 17 ships currently
hostage the Somali pirate.

When giving a speech at a conference in Nairobi, some time ago, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, the UN Special envoys to Somalia, proclaim the need for resolute action against the pirate and supporters and urged more international commitment to stabilize Somalia.

"The increasing piracy really outside estimates. This is threatening freedom and safety of world trade

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