Breakthrough! Now for 33 very careful rescues

As they say all over Chile: ‘Fuerza mineros!’ – strength to the miners. Guy Adams reports from Camp Hope at San José mine

Sunday, 10 October 2010

Punching the air, as bells and car horns rang out over the San José mine, and grinning from ear to ear, Roxanna Gomez rose from the chair where she’d spent yet another nervous night waiting by the campfire and hugged her family in celebration of a moment they scarcely dared to believe had actually arrived.

Shortly after dawn, 66 days after a rockfall trapped her father, Mario, and 32 of his colleagues half a mile beneath the surface of a remote Chilean mine, a team of rescue workers rushed into the tent city they’ve been calling Camp Hope to announce that a drill had finally broken through to the cavern where the men are trapped.

The Warlord Imam

The Kremlin’s poster boy for moderate Islam may be radicalizing the region.

Newsweek

The video shows a gun barrel jutting from the rear window of a shiny black Lada sedan as it cruises slowly down Putin Prospect, a new boulevard of designer shops in the Chechen capital, Grozny. Spotting a pair of young women in long skirts but without head-scarves, the vehicle’s occupants open fire. The two pedestrians scream, but they don’t fall. A blot of red paintball ink is spreading across one young woman’s blouse. As the vehicle pulls away, the camera shows the two women dashing for safety into the nearest shop.

USA

China Emerges as a Scapegoat in Campaign Ads

 

By DAVID W. CHEN

Published: October 9, 2010

With many Americans seized by anxiety about the country’s economic decline, candidates from both political parties have suddenly found a new villain to run against: China.

From the marquee battle between Senator Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina in California to the House contests in rural New York, Democrats and Republicans are blaming one another for allowing the export of jobs to its economic rival.

In the past week or so, at least 29 candidates have unveiled advertisements suggesting that their opponents have been too sympathetic to China and, as a result, Americans have suffered.

In Arizona, an illegal immigrant and her family face a stark choice

 

By Stephanie McCrummen

Washington Post Staff Writer    

It is a bright afternoon early in the month, a moment of anxiety at a sun-faded apartment complex in north Phoenix. Down a dusty breezeway, workers are painting white a recently vacated unit. A few doors away, the power company has posted a shut-off notice for a family that left rather suddenly, in the middle of one recent night. And across a barren courtyard, the blinds are drawn over the only window of another apartment, where a conversation is underway.

A week has passed since the state’s controversial new immigration law took partial effect, since its supporters began waving signs – “Adios, illegals!” – and since the woman inside the apartment decided the city has become so dangerous for her that it is best to keep hidden inside.

Europe

Toxic sludge reservoir damage could lead to repeat of Hungarian flood

Prime minister warns that wall is close to collapse, and describes situation as ‘dramatic’

Jamie Doward

The Observer, Sunday 10 October 2010

A wall in the Hungarian reservoir that burst last week triggering a flood of toxic sludge is close to collapse, the country’s prime minister warned yesterday.

Viktor Orban described the situation as dramatic and warned that a repeat of last week’s flood, in which seven people are known to have died, was highly likely. He said the town of Kolontar, which sits next to the reservoir and was badly damaged by last Monday’s flood, had been evacuated as a precaution.

“Cracks have appeared on the northern wall of the reservoir which makes it very likely that the whole wall will collapse,” Orban said.

The new route of human smuggling misery  

A series of trials in Belgium have revealed a new people smuggling route used to send thousands of illegal immigrants to Britain.

By Nick Meo in Brussels  

When Brussels detectives raided the flats at Halvemaanstraat 22 they were shocked at what they discovered.

The address looked ordinary enough for a backstreet in a poor district of Brussels, if shabby. But upstairs, inside a single one-bedroom flat, 24 illegal immigrants were waiting in squalour for the moment they would be taken on the final stage of their long journey to England.

The men, all from the Punjab region of India, were locked indoors and brought cheap supermarket food once a day. Some had been living there for months. If they complained about their conditions, they were beaten.

Middle East

How good news became bad for Gaza

Israel eased the trade embargo – but it’s bringing some Palestinian businesses to their knees

By Donald Macintyre in Beit Lahiya Sunday, 10 October 2010

Hasan Abu Dan still has at hand a single pair of trendy River Woman grey denim shorts, ending just above the knee and complete with Hebrew price label, to remind him of just what a traumatic year 2007 was for his family’s garment business. For when Hamas seized control of Gaza after the collapse of its short-lived coalition with Fatah, and Israel imposed a total embargo on the territory in response, the Abu Dan factory was holding 100,000 pairs of the shorts, hitherto a hot-selling item in Israeli fashion stores.

Iran ‘ready’ for nuclear talks

Iranian foreign minister says “late October or early November” will be appropriate time to talk with six major powers.

Last Modified: 10 Oct 2010  

Iran is ready to hold talks with six major powers over its nuclear programme “in late October or early November,” Manouchehr Mottaki, the country’s foreign minister has said.

“We think late October or early November will be an appropriate date for the talks by the representatives of Iran and 5+1 countries,” Mottaki told a news conference on Saturday.

He gave no details about the venue of the talks but Western officials say they could take place in Vienna or Geneva.

“If Iran is ready to hold talks, all they need to do is pick up the phone and set a date,” P J Crowley, a spokesman of the US state department, said.

Asia

North Korea’s charm offensive marks the handover to its new leader

Reporters have been invited to the secretive state to view a military parade in honour of the new great leader, Kim Jong-un

Tania Branigan

The Observer, Sunday 10 October 2010

New rare glimpses of life on the streets of Pyongyang are testament to an unprecedented charm offensive by North Korea, one of the world’s most insular and tightly controlled states.

The country has thrown open its doors to international media ahead of its massive military parade today – where analysts believe its newly anointed heir-apparent may make a landmark public appearance.

North Korean officials said that the parade through Kim Il-sung Plaza – named after the country’s founder, father of the current leader, Kim Jong-il – will be the largest in the country’s history. South Korean officials have predicted it will feature more than 16,000 troops marching alongside tanks, lorries carrying missiles and other weaponry

An end in sight: How attitudes towards cataracts are finally changing in India

Removing cataracts is a routine operation in the UK. Not so in the Indian state of Bihar, where circumstance has left more than a million people needlessly sightless. On the eve of World Sight Day, the photographer Sophie Gerrard tells Hugh Montgomery about her work in the area and the slowly changing situation

Sunday, 10 October 2010

The restoration of sight may once have been the stuff of miracles, but nowadays it’s the stuff of cold, hard global inequality. On one hand, in the UK, the lens-clouding condition of cataracts is routinely treated with a 20-minute operation; on the other, in the north-east Indian state of Bihar, they leave one million people needlessly without vision.

Working for the charities Second Sight and the Savitri Waney Charitable Trust, the photographer Sophie Gerrard visited Bihar to document the work being done to redress the balance.

Africa

 Mandela letters show jail heartbreak

Letters penned in jail by Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, reveal his anguish at being separated from his family, according to a British newspaper serialisation on Sunday.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM Oct 10 2010  

The anti-apartheid icon wrote that he felt “soaked in gall” by being powerless to help his then-wife Winnie and his children when he was in prison from 1962 to 1990, in the letters printed in the Sunday Times.

The writings gathered in the collection Conversations with Myself, which is being published in Britain on Tuesday, also tell of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s heartache at learning of the death of his son.

Latin America

Haiti: Living in limbo

Island enterprise

Fifth in a series of occasional articles

Story and photos by Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times  

Reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti – The shattered stores along Boulevard Jean-Jacques Dessalines may never reopen. But amid the colonial-style columns and wide, arched entries, one group of women won’t let a little dust get in the way of beauty.

They’ve set up a sidewalk salon, where patrons soak their feet in large metal bowls. The stylists work in teams, their clients seated on blocks of concrete or broken chairs, strands of faux hair in their laps.

“We just started doing hair at this corner,” Marie Eliz St. Floren says.

Ignoring Asia A Blog  

First of all they’re preening pits of political hackery dominated by Radical Racist Republicans and Moronic Teleprompter Readers none of whom have any idea what it is to be a “real” American because they’re privileged pampered  assholes.

And also we will have “insightful analysis” like this, helpfully telegraphed by Jon Walker at Firedog Lake–

I find this memo from Third Way (PDF) to be comically poorly timed. No surprise they mine any and all data points to claim the need for Democrats to move to the right, but they also claim the path to victory this November is not rallying the liberal base, but winning over the moderates-despite the fact that Democrats have already won over moderates:

…

The irony is that, right now, Democrats are facing massive losses this November and they are actually doing extremely well with self-described moderates. According to Tom Jensen at Public Policy Polling, Democrats are winning over moderates by a two-to-one margin:

…

Winning over moderates has not saved the Democratic party this year. Despite the false narrative that is almost assured to follow this election, the problem is not that the Democratic party has moved too far to the left. Voters who consider themselves moderates overwhelming prefer Democrats. The problem is that voters that support Republicans are extremely excited to vote while the Democratic party has not made the moderates and liberals that support them excited about keeping them in.

…

(O)n a policy front, the country is dramatically to the left of what dominates Washington, DC, thinking. A health insurance public option, prescription drug re-importation, ending “don’t ask, don’t tell,” closing the hedge fund managers’ tax loophole-and more-all have the support of huge majorities of the American people despite the idea that these are supposedly “too leftist” to get passed by the Democratic party in Washington. Hell, a plurality of the country actually wants a distribution of wealth resembling socialist Sweden.

Almost every economist will now admit that progressives were right when they said the stimulus was too small. With 9.6 percent unemployment and jobs being the top issue for almost all voters, there should be little doubt that Democrats would be better off politically if they had been more liberal and pursued a larger stimulus. Democrats are not being punished this election for ideology, they are being punished for incompetence in the face of a economic crisis.

This Third Way memo is just the first in what is sure to be a wave of advice from corporatists about how midterms prove Democrats suffered from liberal overreach, and so need to move to the right (i.e. more tax cuts for the rich). Just remember this: moderates actually prefer Democrats to Republicans. The problem this election year is that Democrats didn’t give their supporters, regardless of ideology, a strong reason vote for them.

Well, you see normally I’d have some pretty tables below the fold laying out the Starting Grid and Standings, but it’s not like that today.  Everything got washed out and for all I know it’s still raining and the crews are still sending paper boats floating down the gutters of pit lane (which is not nearly as original as the commentators are trying to make it appear since it’s happened at least twice this season already).

There was some talk about sending them off in numerical order which would be a big advantage for Hamilton, Button, and McLaren, but I doubt the rules are really that stupid and I expect that there’s some fallback based on Practice times (again, this is not the first race where Qualifying has been threatened by inclemency and you’d think people being paid for their purported “expertise” would be a trifle less ignorant and hide their Ferrari Fanboy worship just a little better).

I expect whatever the conditions and starting order that we’ll have some racing today because Formula One doesn’t have graceful Monday fallback plans like the PGA does (not that the plans are all that graceful, you lose most of your volunteers, audience, and TV time).  Indeed it’s even more unlikely that they’ll simply scrub it because the next race in Korea is problematic too.  They just laid down the track asphalt (or McAdam as they call it in Old Blighty) and 2 weeks is about the minimum curing time for a new surface unless you wish to court Daytona Debacles (remember the 2 hour Red Flag?).

All in all this is shaping up to be the Commonwealth Games period of the Formula One season and makes me wonder just a bit if they aren’t trying to expand their franchise a little too far, too fast.  Lack of testing time has definitely hurt the quality of the cars and hasn’t introduced any competitive balance at all.  Formula One Racing is the most boring racing to watch except for the Turn Left Bumper Cars that Inbred Brain Dead Bumpkin America calls Football.

Now with Starting Grid.

Not sure where these disappeared-

• F1 Official Site
• Speed Racecast

Starting Grid

So, how are our brackets working out?  The only team underperforming at this point is the Braves while the Rangers and Yankees are poised to close out.  Tonight’s Divisional Playoffs on TBS are Rays @ Rangers and Twins @ Yankees.

In broadcast College Throwball you have Florida State at Miami or USC at Stanford.

Starting at 11 pm Formula 1 Debrief, Japanese Grand Prix- Qualifying, Japanese Grand Prix (yup, the real live jive race- if they’re able to hold it.  mishima says it’s supposed to rain until noon.).

• AMC– Cujo, Sleepwalkers
• Bravo– House marathon
• Disney– Repeats of last night’s premiers
• Discovery– Mythbusters marathon
• ESPN– College Throwball, LSU @ Florida
• ESPN2– College Throwball, Auburn @ Kentucky
• Food– Chopped marathon
• History– Swamp People marathon
• Lifetime– Because I Said So
• Oxygen– The Wedding Planner x 2
• Sci Fi– Lake Placid 3, Monsterwolf
• Spike– Without a Paddle, Stripes
• Turner Classic– Strangers on a Train, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
• TNT– Men In Black, Squeekball- Mavericks @ Suns
• Toon– Shrek
• USA– NCIS marathon
• Vs.– College Throwball, Oregon State @ Arizona
• VH1– The Lost Boys

Later-

• AMC– Pet Sematary
• Lifetime– Project Runway (this week’s)
• Oxygen– The Perfect Man
• Sci Fi– Monster Ark
• TNT– The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
• USA– Burn Notice, 16 Blocks
• Vs.– Bull Riding (this week’s)

SNL- Jane Lynch and Bruno Mars.  GitS: SAC– Lost Heritage, Captivated (Episodes 18 and 19).

Aah, gold’s a devilish sort of thing, anyway. You start out, you tell yourself you’ll be satisfied with 25,000 handsome smackers worth of it. So help me, Lord, and cross my heart. Fine resolution. After months of sweatin’ yourself dizzy, and growin’ short on provisions, and findin’ nothin’, you finally come down to 15,000, then ten. Finally, you say, “Lord, let me just find $5,000 worth and I’ll never ask for anythin’ more the rest of my life.”

$5,000 is a lot of money.

Yeah, here in this joint it seems like a lot. But I tell you, if you was to make a real strike, you couldn’t be dragged away. Not even the threat of miserable death would keep you from trying to add 10,000 more. Ten, you’d want to get twenty-five; twenty-five you’d want to get fifty; fifty, a hundred. Like roulette. One more turn, you know. Always one more.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Hungary village evacuated as new toxic flood ‘likely’

by Janos Gal, AFP

1 hr 28 mins ago

2 Rescue shaft reaches trapped Chilean miners

by Maria Lorente, AFP

2 hrs 23 mins ago

3 British aid worker killed in botched Afghan rescue

by Jennie Matthew, AFP

Sat Oct 9, 11:54 am ET

4 NATO tankers torched in new Pakistan attack

by Maaz Khan, AFP

Sat Oct 9, 3:32 am ET

5 China and US blame each other in climate stand-off

by Karl Malakunas, AFP

Sat Oct 9, 7:47 am ET

6 China and US in stand-off at climate talks

by Karl Malakunas, AFP

Sat Oct 9, 3:06 am ET

7 IMF fails to find consensus to ease currency frictions

by Rob Lever, AFP

37 mins ago

8 Deal to ease currency tensions still elusive

by Rob Lever, AFP

Sat Oct 9, 11:42 am ET

9 Coutts’ five golds highlight Australia at Commonwealth Games

by Phil Hazlewood, AFP

Sat Oct 9, 1:23 pm ET

10 Kenya dominates as Botswana gets first gold

by Martin Parry, AFP

Fri Oct 8, 1:35 pm ET

11 Win for husband and wife, Games in race row

by Dave James, AFP

Sat Oct 9, 7:51 am ET

12 Weak US jobs report hangs over November elections

by Veronica Smith, AFP

Fri Oct 8, 4:37 pm ET

13 Chinese activists savour dissident’s Nobel win

by Robert Saiget, AFP

Sat Oct 9, 7:03 am ET

14 Top finance officials to focus on world economic woes

by Andrew Beatty, AFP

Sat Oct 9, 6:57 am ET

15 Hungary PM warns of new spill risk as village evacuated

By Krisztina Than and Gergely Szakacs, Reuters

Sat Oct 9, 2:00 pm ET

16 Cheers, tears as rescue shaft reaches Chile miners

By Cesar Illiano, Reuters

2 hrs 36 mins ago

17 World economies vow to act to bolster IMF’s role

By Lesley Wroughton and Emily Kaiser, Reuters

59 mins ago

18 Kyrgyz vote setback could spark violence: governor

By Dmitry Solovyov, Reuters

Sat Oct 9, 8:07 am ET

19 California budget approved 100 days late

By Jim Christie, Reuters

Fri Oct 8, 11:26 pm ET

20 Wary Afghans mull possible Taliban peace talks

By Patrick Markey, Reuters

Sat Oct 9, 7:54 am ET

21 Nobel euphoria fails to mask tough reality in China

By Ben Blanchard, Reuters

Sat Oct 9, 10:33 am ET

22 Climate talks marred by bickering, progress on finance

By Chris Buckley, Reuters

Sat Oct 9, 7:16 am ET

23 New Obama security adviser clashed with military

By Ross Colvin and Patricia Zengerle, Reuters

Fri Oct 8, 3:03 pm ET

24 BofA U.S.-wide foreclosure halt draws calls for more

By Joe Rauch, Reuters

Fri Oct 8, 5:46 pm ET

25 Transport Secretary aims to save Hudson tunnel

By Joan Gralla and Jon Hurdle, Reuters

Fri Oct 8, 6:06 pm ET

26 U.S. payrolls fall and investors bet on Fed move soon

By Lucia Mutikani, Reuters

Fri Oct 8, 4:56 pm ET

27 Hungary sludge reservoir at risk of collapse

By PABLO GORONDI AND BELA SZANDELSZKY, Associated Press Writers

2 hrs 39 mins ago

28 Pakistan to reopen border crossing used by NATO

By DAVID RISING, Associated Press Writer

Sat Oct 9, 12:10 pm ET

29 Chile’s trapped miners cheer as drill punches in

By MICHAEL WARREN, Associated Press Writer

34 mins ago

30 China remains uncompromising in response to Nobel

By CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press Writer

Sat Oct 9, 1:21 pm ET

31 US often weighed NKorea ‘nuke option’

By CHARLES J. HANLEY and RANDY HERSCHAFT, Associated Press Writers

1 hr 44 mins ago

32 With succession set, North Korea throws a party

By JEAN H. LEE, Associated Press Writer

Sat Oct 9, 1:08 pm ET

33 Space double: Astronaut twins to join up in orbit

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

Sat Oct 9, 11:38 am ET

34 O’Donnell still a mystery to voters despite fame

By BEN EVANS, Associated Press Writer

7 mins ago

35 British aid worker dies during rescue mission

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

Sat Oct 9, 1:38 pm ET

36 National security shuffle: Jones out, Donilon in

By BEN FELLER, AP White House Correspondent

Sat Oct 9, 2:20 am ET

37 Brown campaign apologizes for offensive comment

Associated Press

Sat Oct 9, 2:20 am ET

38 Bank of America stops US foreclosures for review

By ALAN ZIBEL, AP Real Estate Writer

Sat Oct 9, 2:19 am ET

39 Hoping to cut House losses, Dems try for firewall

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer

Fri Oct 8, 11:40 pm ET

40 NJ gov. agrees to rethink rail tunnel cancellation

By ANGELA DELLI SANTI, Associated Press Writer

Fri Oct 8, 11:29 pm ET

41 NYC officials visit site of anti-gay gang torture

By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press Writer

56 mins ago

42 Cop who made tapes accuses NYPD of false arrest

By COLLEEN LONG and TOM HAYS, Associated Press Writers

Sat Oct 9, 2:22 pm ET

43 Tarawa shows difficulties of finding war missing

By AUDREY McAVOY, Associated Press Writer

Sat Oct 9, 12:30 pm ET

44 Suicide surge: schools confront anti-gay bullying

By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer

Sat Oct 9, 12:15 pm ET

45 Feds touting National Guard mission in Arizona

By AMANDA LEE MYERS, Associated Press Writer

Fri Oct 8, 7:33 pm ET

46 Alaska moves toward legalized bear trapping

By MARY PEMBERTON, Associated Press Writer

Fri Oct 8, 6:39 pm ET

47 Pa. police accused of cover-up in beating case

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, Associated Press Writer

Fri Oct 8, 6:28 pm ET

48 Miss. gov’s frequent travels raise ire back home

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press Writer

Fri Oct 8, 5:36 pm ET

49 Chicago mayor’s race casts shadow over state races

By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer

Fri Oct 8, 5:30 pm ET

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

For Desserts Without Gluten, Crumbles Take the Cake

Quinoa-Oat Crumble Topping

Berry-Rose Crumble

Plum and Fig Crumble With Quinoa-Oat Topping

Peach or Nectarine and Blueberry Crumble With Quinoa-Oat Topping

Pear Ginger Crumble

Apple Crumble

Chest-Compression-Only CPR Saves More Lives

Researchers Say the Technique Has Advantages Over CPR That Includes Mouth-to-Mouth Resuscitation

Oct. 5, 2010 — Bystanders who perform chest-compression-only CPR instead of traditional CPR with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (rescue breathing) save more lives, a study shows.

Researchers found that adults who experienced cardiac arrest in a non-hospital setting, such as a restaurant or mall, were 60% more likely to survive if they received compression-only CPR than if they received traditional CPR or no CPR until an emergency medical services (EMS) crew arrived at the scene.

The findings are published in the Oct. 6 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Inhaled steroids don’t help asthma flare-ups

(Reuters Health) – Doubling the dose of inhaled steroids doesn’t appear to dampen asthma attacks, despite the practice being recommended by many doctors, Canadian researchers said Thursday.

More than seven percent of adult Americans, and even more kids, have asthma, causing millions of visits to emergency rooms and doctors’ offices every year.

Until recently, national guidelines advised people to double the dose of inhaled steroids when they felt the telltale signs of an asthma flare-up coming on, such as chest tightness and coughing.

Belly Fat Is Key to U.S. Diabetes Risk

Researchers Say Hefty Waist Sizes Explain Higher Diabetes Rate in U.S. Than in England

Oct. 7, 2010 — Middle-aged Americans tend to have more belly fat than their English counterparts, and the difference may explain the higher diabetes rate in the U.S. compared to England.

Investigators with the University College London and the nonprofit research group RAND Corporation first reported on health differences between older Americans and people in England in 2006, finding diabetes incidence in the U.S. to be twice as high as in England.

RAND Corporation senior economist James P. Smith, PhD, says even though more people in the U.S. are obese than in England, this did not fully explain the difference in diabetes prevalence.

“In fact, obesity and body mass index (BMI) explained very little of the difference,” Smith tells WebMD.

Arthritis on the Increase; Obesity Partly to Blame

Researchers Predict Arthritis Will Increase Significantly Over the Next 20 Years

Oct. 7, 2010 — Nearly 50 million Americans have doctor-diagnosed arthritis, and 21 million people say the disease limits their physical activities, the CDC says.

In its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report for Oct. 8, the CDC says arthritis is increasing, that it’s especially common among people who are obese, and that unless Americans learn to control their weight, the prevalence of the disease is sure to keep rising.

Vaccine May Help Treat Brain Cancer

Study Shows People With Glioblastoma Live Longer When Vaccine Is Added to Regular Treatment

Oct. 4, 2010 — A new vaccine for a deadly brain cancer known as glioblastoma doubled the survival time of patients, researchers from Duke University report.

Unlike other vaccines given to prevent disease, ”this vaccine is given when patients get the cancer,” says researcher John Sampson, MD, PhD, the Robert H. and Gloria Wilkins Professor of Neurosurgery at Duke University Medical Center. In the future, however, he says, “it’s conceivable a vaccine like this would be used to prevent [the cancer].”

The new vaccine, he says, “seems to be twice as good as the standard therapy alone.” The results of the study are published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Sleep Apnea Machine May Cause Facial Changes

Study Shows nCPAP Machine May Cause Temporary Changes in Facial Structure

Oct. 5, 2010 — Repeated use of nasal continuous positive airway pressure (nCPAP) machines to treat obstructive sleep apnea may have some side effects on facial structure, a study shows.

But researchers did not report any permanent damage to the face from the machines.

Researchers at Kyushu University Hospital in Fukuoka, Japan, and at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, studied 46 adults, 89% of them male, with obstructive sleep apnea.

Laptop Risk: ‘Toasted Skin Syndrome’

Researchers Report Case of a Boy With Skin Discoloration From Resting Laptop on Leg

Oct. 4, 2010 — People who spend prolonged periods of time studying, reading, or playing games on laptop computers resting on their upper legs could develop “toasted skin syndrome,” a case report shows.

The “syndrome” consists of a brownish discoloration of the skin caused by prolonged exposure to heat from the computer.

Researchers from Switzerland, reporting in the Nov. 5 issue of Pediatrics, focus on the case of a 12-year-old boy who developed a sponge-patterned discoloration on his left thigh after playing computer games with his laptop resting on his upper legs a few hours per day for several months.

“He recognized that the laptop got hot on the left side,” the researchers write. “However, regardless of that, he did not change its position.”

One in five Americans have arthritis, survey shows

(Reuters) – More than 22 percent of Americans have arthritis, with a million new cases being diagnosed every year, according to a new government estimate released on Thursday.

As the population ages, the problem will get worse and more expensive, too, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report said.

CDC: Binge Drinking ‘Huge U.S. Health Problem’

Binge Drinking Rates Highest in Wisconsin, Lowest in Tennessee

Oct. 5, 2010 — Binge drinking is a “huge public health problem” in the U.S., yet most of us don’t know it’s a problem, the CDC today announced.

Because 80% of binge drinkers are not alcoholics, it’s not recognized as a problem, CDC Director Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH, said today at a news teleconference.

And on the face of it, binge drinking doesn’t seem so terrible. A binge, as defined by the CDC, is having several drinks — four for women and five for men  — in a couple of hours. Anyone who’s done this even once in the last month is a binge drinker.

But binge drinking is worse than it sounds. The average binge drinker puts down eight drinks in those two hours, not just four or five. Younger drinkers slam down even more than eight drinks on average, says Robert Brewer MD, MPH, head of the CDC’s alcohol program.

Pfizer says recalled 191,000 Lipitor bottles

(Reuters) – Pfizer Inc said it recalled 191,000 bottles of its top-selling Lipitor cholesterol fighter following reports of a musty odor coming from some bottles of the medicine made by a third-party supplier.

The world’s largest drugmaker said the recall, which took place in mid-August, involved seven lots of 40 milligram Lipitor, as well as three other lots of the medicine supplied to a Canadian generic drugmaker. Five of the seven recalled lots of the branded medicine were in the United States, while two were recalled from Canada, Pfizer said.

ATVs more deadly than motorcycles

(Reuters Health) – If you think an all-terrain vehicle, or ATV, is safer than a motorcycle, think again. People are far more likely to die after ATV accidents than after motorcycle accidents, trauma surgeons and public health researchers said today at the annual meeting of the American College of Surgeons.

Why Some Will Get Flu Vaccine — and Why Some Won’t

65% of Moms Say Their Kids Will Get Flu Vaccine

Oct. 7, 2010 – This year, 95% of doctors but only 65% of mothers say they’ll get their children vaccinated against the flu.

The figures come from a series of surveys commissioned by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID), which strongly supports the CDC’s recommendation that everyone over age 6 months get the flu vaccine.

Dense Breasts Linked to Breast Cancer Return

Study Shows Dense Breast Tissue May Raise Risk for Cancer Recurrence in Other Breast

Oct. 7, 2010 — Women with an early form of breast cancer are at higher risk for recurrence if their breast tissue appears dense on mammograms, a study shows.

The study also shows the risk of recurrence is more pronounced in the opposing breast.

The new findings appear in the Oct. 7 issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

Pain, Hot Flashes Prevent Sleep in Menopause

Study Shows Both Symptoms Need to Be Treated in Order to Sleep Well at Night

Oct. 6, 2010 — Both pain and the hot flashes that occur with menopause can prevent older women from getting a good night’s sleep, a study shows.

“More than one thing contributes to sleep difficulties in middle-aged women and those going through menopause,” explains study researcher Howard M. Kravitz, DO, the Stanley G. Harris Family Professor of Psychiatry and a professor of preventive medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “Menopause symptoms and pain both act together and must be taken into account.”

The new findings, part of the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN) Sleep Study, are slated to be presented at the North American Menopause Society’s annual meeting in Chicago.

Light Drinking During Pregnancy: No Harm to Baby?

Study Shows No Behavioral Problems for Kids Born to Moms Who Drank Lightly in Pregnancy

Oct. 5, 2010 – Pregnant women who have up to two alcoholic drinks per week do not harm their children, a U.K. study shows.

More than 11,500 children and their mothers were included in the study. Mothers were first asked about their alcohol use when the kids were 9 months old. The children were last given a battery of behavioral and cognitive tests when they were 5 years of age.

Women were defined as light drinkers if they had no more than one or two drinks a week. A drink was defined as a very small glass of wine, a half pint of beer, or a small single measure of spirits, says study researcher Yvonne Kelly, PhD, of University College London.

“Our results suggest that children born to mothers who drank at low levels were not at any risk of social or emotional difficulties or any risk of emotional impairments compared to mothers who did not drink,” Kelly tells WebMD.

Low Vitamin D Linked to Breast Cancer

African-American Women With Low Vitamin D Have Greater Risk of Aggressive Breast Cancer

Oct. 4, 2010 — African-American woman have higher rates of vitamin D deficiency associated with aggressive breast cancer than white women, a new study finds.

Researchers at the University of South Carolina studied 107 women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer in the past five years, including 60 African-Americans. Sixty percent of African-American women studied had low vitamin D levels, compared to 15% of white women.

“We know that darker skin pigmentation acts somewhat as a block to producing vitamin D when exposed to sunlight, which is the primary source of vitamin D in most people,” study author Susan Steck, PhD, MPH, professor of epidemiology at the University of South Carolina, says in a news release.

Exercise Fights Breast Cancer

Study Shows Vigorous Exercise Reduces Risk of Breast Cancer in African-American Women

Oct. 4, 2010 — Postmenopausal African-American women who exercise vigorously for more than two hours a week can reduce their risk of developing breast cancer by 64% compared to women of the same race who are sedentary, according to new research.

Scientists identified 97 African-American breast cancer patients living in the Washington, D.C., area, matching them with 102 women of the same race who had not been diagnosed with the disease.

Participants filled out questionnaires about their exercise routines.

Researchers say postmenopausal women who exercised vigorously more than two hours a week in the past year had a 64% reduced risk of breast cancer, compared to women who didn’t exercise at all.

Fish-filled diet may cut prostate cancer mortality

(Reuters Health) – Eating lots of fish may not protect men from developing prostate cancer, but it could reduce their risk of dying from the disease, a new review of the medical literature suggests.

“In the United States, one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer over their lifetime,” Dr. Konrad M. Szymanski of McGill University Health Center in Montreal, one of the study’s authors, told Reuters Health. “One in six of these men will die of prostate cancer. Our study findings suggest that the number of men who die once diagnosed is lowered by more than 50 percent among men eating lots of fish.”

While fish is known to have many health benefits, including cutting the risk of heart disease and stroke, the question of whether it could protect against prostate cancer has been “a bit controversial,” Szymanski said.

To investigate further, he and his colleagues analyzed 31 studies including hundreds of thousands of patients, reporting their findings in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Prostate drug finasteride helps urinary problems

(Reuters Health) – Long-term use of the drug Proscar cuts the need for surgery in men with enlarged prostates, according to a new analysis that pooled the best available research on the medication.

About four in 10 men in their fifties have enlarged prostate glands, a non-cancerous condition that may cause urgency, leaking and other urinary problems, because the gland presses on the urethra.

Not all men are equally troubled by the growing gland, and common advice includes lifestyle changes such as cutting down on alcohol and coffee.

When that doesn’t work, several drugs and surgical treatments are available, but all of them have side effects.

Proscar, also called finasteride, is a common drug that reduces the size of the prostate. The new analysis is based on data from more than 21,000 men studied in 23 clinical trials, most of which were funded by companies that make drugs to treat the condition.

Teens Use Condoms More Often Than Adults

Survey on Sex Habits of Americans Also Reveals New Variety to Sexual Behavior in U.S.

Oct. 4, 2010 — A new survey on the sex habits of Americans shows that teenagers use condoms more often than adults.

The study by Indiana University researchers is the largest survey on U.S. sex habits in more than two decades.

A key finding was that nearly 80% of boys and 60% of girls under the age of 18 said that they had used condoms during sex. That’s nearly twice the rate at which young adults used condoms, and nearly four times that of adults over 40.

“Condom use has become a normative behavior among adolescents,” says Dennis Fortenberry, MD, a professor of pediatrics in the Indiana University School of Medicine and leader of the adolescent portion of the survey. “And we need to support continuing efforts to maintain these high levels of condom use.”

Older Americans, on the other hand, need to learn better habits. “There’s increasing concern about STIs among people over 50,” says Michael Reece, PhD, director of Indiana University’s Center for Sexual Health Promotion (CSHP) and a study leader

Parkinson’s: Later Diagnosis, Earlier Death

Study Explores Why Some Patients Die Sooner Than Others

Oct. 4, 2010 — Parkinson’s disease is not considered fatal, but people with Parkinson’s have a shorter life expectancy than the general population.

Now new research provides clues as to why some patients die sooner than others.

Researchers in Denmark closely followed the disease progression of more than 200 patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

They found that being diagnosed later in life, scoring poorly on movement tests, experiencing psychotic symptoms, and developing dementia were all associated with a shorter life expectancy.

And men with Parkinson’s were more likely to die early than women.

“There was a remarkable variability in time to death, ranging from 2 to 37 years after (motor symptoms began),” the researchers write in the October issue of the journal Neurology. “Our findings suggest that early prevention of motor progression, psychotic symptoms, and dementia might be the most promising strategies to increase life expectancy in Parkinson’s disease.”

Poor healthcare may shorten American lives: study

(Reuters) – Americans die sooner than citizens of a dozen other developed nations and the usual suspects — obesity, traffic accidents and a high murder rate — are not to blame, researchers reported on Thursday.

Instead, poor healthcare may be to blame, the team at Columbia University in New York reported.

Economy Driving Americans to Drink?

Recessions, Demographic Shifts May Play a Role in Increased Alcohol Consumption, Researchers Say

Oct. 5, 2010 — More Americans are drinking alcohol, and the increase is seen in three major ethnic groups — whites, blacks, and Hispanics, according to a new study.

“The reasons for the uptick vary and may involve complex socio-demographic changes in the population, but the findings are clear,” says study researcher Raul Caetano, MD, PhD, MPH, dean of the University of Texas Southwestern School of Health Professions. “More people are consuming alcohol now than in the early 1990s.”

ADHD May Be Linked to Depression, Suicide

Study Shows Girls With ADHD May Be at Higher Risk

Oct. 4, 2010 — Children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at ages 4-6 face greater risks for depression and suicide at ages 9-18, and this risk may be more pronounced among girls, a study shows.

“The importance of this study is simply that it confirms that ADHD in children is not something to take lightly,” says Benjamin B. Lahey, PhD, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Chicago in Illinois, in an email.

The study is published in the October issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry

Key to Happiness Lies in Choices You Make

Study Shows People Who Make Family a Priority Are Happier Than Those Seeking Material Success

Oct. 4, 2010 — A new study suggests the key to long-term happiness may lie not only in your genes, but also in the choices you make in life.

Researchers say the findings contradict the popular notion that life satisfaction is largely determined by a person’s genes, marital status, or personality.

Instead, researchers found choices relating to one’s partner, the balance between work and leisure time, participation in social activities, and healthy lifestyle are key factors in determining life satisfaction.

“Life goals and choices have as much or more impact on life satisfaction than variables routinely described as important in previous research, including extroversion and being married or partnered,” write researcher Bruce Headey of Melbourne University, in Australia, and colleagues in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Problem gamblers may recover without quitting

(Reuters Health) – Pathological gamblers may often be able to recover from their destructive habits without giving up gambling altogether, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that among nearly 4,800 Australian adults they surveyed, the 44 men and women who appeared to be recovering pathological gamblers had largely beat their problems without completely giving up the habit.

Ninety percent were still sometimes playing the lottery, hitting the casino or betting on sports — despite no longer screening positive for problem gambling.

Neuroticism expensive for society: study

(Reuters Health) – Neurotic people aren’t only making themselves miserable; they cost society billions of dollars in health care spending and lost productivity, according to new research from the Netherlands.

“We thought that economic costs would be a good way to assess the overall impact of neuroticism,” Dr. Pim Cuijpers of VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, one of the study’s authors, told Reuters Health in an email. “We were surprised that the impact was this large.”

Walnuts Reduce Stress

Researchers Say a Walnut-Rich Diet May Reduce Stress, Bad Cholesterol

Oct. 6, 2010 — Regularly eating a handful of walnuts can affect the blood pressure response to stress, according to a new study.

“People who show an exaggerated biological response to stress are at higher risk of heart disease,” study author Sheila G. West, PhD, of Pennsylvania State University, says in a news release. “We wanted to find out if omega 3-fatty acids from plant sources would blunt cardiovascular responses to stress.”

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Eugene Robinson: Needed: Competition for Black Votes

This has been such an unpredictable political year that it’s hard to have confidence in any of the forecasts for November. How unpredictable? Well, I’d like to meet the pundit or prognosticator who imagined that a major-party candidate for the U.S. Senate would begin a campaign ad by declaring, “I’m not a witch.”

Christine O’Donnell’s sorcery problem aside, there’s one thing I can say with confidence about next month’s midterm election: African-Americans will vote overwhelmingly for Democratic Party candidates at every level. This is perfectly rational political behavior-but in many ways it’s a shame.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m firmly convinced that the progressive agenda championed by the Democrats is much better for African-Americans, and for the nation as a whole, than the conservative agenda favored by Republicans. But I also believe that in politics, as in business, competition is good. Monopolies inevitably take their customers for granted.

David Sirota: Follow Wyoming on Fracking Regs

To review: Wyoming is as politically red and pro-fossil-fuel a place as exists in America. Nicknamed the “Cowboy State” for its hostility to authority, the square swath of rangeland most recently made headlines when its tax department temporarily suspended levies at gun shows for fear of inciting an armed insurrection. The derrick-scarred home of oilman Dick Cheney, the state emits more carbon emissions per capita than any other, and is as close as our country gets to an industry-owned energy colony.

So, to put it mildly, Wyoming is not known for its activist government or its embrace of green policies.

But that changed last month when Wyoming officials enacted first-in-the-nation regulations forcing energy companies to disclose the compounds they use in a drilling technique called “fracking.”

From an ecological standpoint, fracking is inherently risky. Looking to pulverize gas-trapping subterranean rock, drillers inject poisonous solvents into the ground-and often right near groundwater supplies. That raises the prospect of toxins leaking into drinking water-a frightening possibility that prompted Wyoming’s regulatory move. Indeed, state officials acted after learning that various local water sources were contaminated by carcinogens linked to fracking.

Bob Herbert Policy at Its Worst

We can go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and threaten to blow Iran off the face of the planet. We can conduct a nonstop campaign of drone and helicopter attacks in Pakistan and run a network of secret prisons around the world. We are the mightiest nation mankind has ever seen.

But we can’t seem to build a railroad tunnel to carry commuters between New Jersey and New York.

The United States is not just losing its capacity to do great things. It’s losing its soul. It’s speeding down an increasingly rubble-strewn path to a region where being second rate is good enough.

Charles M Blow: High Cost of Crime

Our approach to this crime problem for more than two decades has been the mass incarceration of millions of Americans and the industrializing of our criminal justice system. Over the last 25 years, the prison population has quadrupled. This is a race to the bottom and a waste of human capital. A prosperous country cannot remain so by following this path.

Many crimes could have been prevented if the offenders had had the benefit of a competent educational system and a more expansive, better-financed social service system. Sure, some criminals are just bad people, but more are people who took a wrong turn, got lost and ended up on the wrong path. Those we can save.

We have a choice to make: pay a little now or a lot later. Seems like a clear choice to me. But I’m not in Washington where they view clarity as an affliction of the weak.

Joe Conason: The Ideologies Behind the Ideologues

Let nobody accuse the tea party enthusiasts of lacking intellectual sophistication, no matter what their favorite candidates might say about evolution, civil rights, masturbation or alcohol prohibition.

According to The New York Times, the movement’s reading list includes works of political economy by such right-wing thinkers as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek and Frederic Bastiat. (And never mind that some of them are reading Glenn Beck’s favorite crank, the late Cleon Skousen, who doesn’t quite belong in the same category.)

What makes this news so bemusing is not that the far right is rediscovering anarcho-capitalism or ultra-libertarianism — an ideology whose potential consequences were observed the other day in Tennessee, where firefighters watched a family’s house burn down because they hadn’t paid a fee. Mises, Hayek and their successors have long influenced the American right, from William F. Buckley Jr. to Alan Greenspan.

Mike Ludwig: Broken Promises: Thousands of Veterans Denied Crucial Care

The Army tacked a five-month extension on Sgt. Ryan Christian Major’s term of military service in 2006, and that November, just five days after his original discharge date, Ryan was critically injured when an underground bomb exploded during a foot patrol in Ramadi, Iraq.

Ryan was evacuated from Iraq and brought to a hospital in Germany, where he underwent extensive surgery. His pelvis had been broken, and doctors amputated both of his legs above the knees. He suffered from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and would go on to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For two months after the explosion, Ryan’s family was unsure of he would survive. He did.

For many Americans, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is startling: more than $1 trillion has been spent on the conflicts. At least 5,670 service members have been killed, and 91,384 have been wounded in conflict or evacuated from the war zone for treatment of wounds or illnesses.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

October 9 is the 282nd day of the year (283rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 83 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1967, socialist revolutionary and guerilla leader Che Guevara, age 39, is killed by the Bolivian army. The U.S.-military-backed Bolivian forces captured Guevara on October 8 while battling his band of guerillas in Bolivia and assassinated him the following day. His hands were cut off as proof of death and his body was buried in an unmarked grave. In 1997, Guevara’s remains were found and sent back to Cuba, where they were reburied in a ceremony attended by President Fidel Castro and thousands of Cubans.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara (June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as El Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat, military theorist, and major figure of the Cuban Revolution. Since his death, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol and global insignia within popular culture.

As a medical student, Guevara traveled throughout Latin America and was transformed by the endemic poverty he witnessed. His experiences and observations during these trips led him to conclude that the region’s ingrained economic inequalities were an intrinsic result of capitalism, monopolism, neocolonialism, and imperialism, with the only remedy being world revolution. This belief prompted his involvement in Guatemala’s social reforms under President Jacobo Arbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow solidified Guevara’s radical ideology. Later, while living in Mexico City, he met Raul and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and travelled to Cuba aboard the yacht, Granma, with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the successful two year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.

Following the Cuban Revolution, Guevara performed a number of key roles in the new government. These included instituting agrarian reform as minister of industries, serving as both national bank president and instructional director for Cuba’s armed forces, reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the revolutionary tribunals, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism. Such positions allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion and bringing to Cuba the Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles which precipitated the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Additionally, he was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful motorcycle journey across South America. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and executed.

Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while an Alberto Korda photograph of him entitled “Guerrillero Heroico”, was declared “the most famous photograph in the world.”

 768 – Carloman I and Charlemagne are crowned Kings of The Franks.

1238 – James I of Aragon conquers Valencia and founds the Kingdom of Valencia.

1264 – The Kingdom of Castile conquers the city of Jerez that was under Muslim occupation since 711.

1446 – The hangul alphabet is published in Korea.

1514 – Marriage of Louis XII of France and Mary Tudor.

1558 – Merida is founded in Venezuela.

1582 – Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

1595 – The Spanish army captures Cambrai.

1604 – Supernova 1604, the most recent supernova to be observed in the Milky Way.

1635 – Founder of Rhode Island Roger Williams is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident after he speaks out against punishments for religious offenses and giving away Native American land.

1701 – The Collegiate School of Connecticut (later renamed Yale University) is chartered in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.

1760 – Seven Years’ War: Russian forces occupy Berlin.

1771 – The Dutch merchant ship Vrouw Maria sinks near the coast of Finland.

1776 – Father Francisco Palou founds Mission San Francisco de Asis in what is now San Francisco, California.

1804 – Hobart, capital of Tasmania, is founded.

1806 – Prussia declares war on France.

1812 – War of 1812: In a naval engagement on Lake Erie, American forces capture two British ships: HMS Detroit and HMS Caledonia.

1820 – Guayaquil declares independence from Spain.

1824 – Slavery is abolished in Costa Rica.

1835 – The Royal College, Colombo in Sri Lanka is established with the name Hillstreet Academy.

1837 – A meeting at the U.S. Naval Academy establishes the U.S. Naval Institute.

1845 – The eminent and controversial Anglican, John Henry Newman, is received into the Roman Catholic Church.

1854 – Crimean War: The siege of Sebastopol begins.

1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Santa Rosa Island – Union troops repel a Confederate attempt to capture Fort Pickens.

1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Tom’s Brook – Union cavalrymen in the Shenandoah Valley defeat Confederate forces at Tom’s Brook, Virginia.

1874 – General Postal Union is created as a result of the Treaty of Berne.

1888 – The Washington Monument officially opens to the general public.

1907 – Las Cruces, New Mexico is incorporated.

1911 – An accidental bomb explosion in Hankou, Wuhan, China leads to the ultimate fall of the Qing Empire

1913 – Steamship SS Volturno catches fire in the mid-Atlantic.

1914 – World War I: Siege of Antwerp – Antwerp, Belgium falls to German troops.

1919 – Black Sox scandal: The Cincinnati Reds win the World Series.

1934 – Regicide at Marseille: The assassination of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and Louis Barthou, Foreign Minister of France.

1936 – Generators at Boulder Dam (later renamed to Hoover Dam) begin to generate electricity from the Colorado River and transmit it 266 miles to Los Angeles, California.

1940 – World War II: Battle of Britain – During a night-time air raid by the German Luftwaffe, St. Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London, England is hit by a bomb.

1941 – A coup in Panama declares Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia Arango the new president.

1942 – Statute of Westminster 1931 formalises Australian autonomy.

1942 – The last day of the October Matanikau action on Guadalcanal as United States Marine Corps forces withdraw back across the Matanikau River after destroying most of the Imperial Japanese Army’s 4th Infantry Regiment.

1945 – Parade in NYC for Fleet Admiral Nimitz and 13 USN/USMC Medal of Honor recipients

1962 – Uganda becomes an independent Commonwealth realm.

1963 – In northeast Italy, over 2,000 people are killed when a large landslide behind the Vajont Dam causes a giant wave of water to overtop it.

1967 – A day after being captured, Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara is executed for attempting to incite a revolution in Bolivia.

1969 – In Chicago, the United States National Guard is called in for crowd control as demonstrations continue in connection with the trial of the “Chicago Eight” that began on September 24.

1970 – The Khmer Republic is proclaimed in Cambodia.

1981 – Abolition of capital punishment in France.

1983 – Rangoon bombing: attempted assassination of South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan during an official visit to Rangoon, Burma. Chun survives but the blast kills 17 of his entourage, including four cabinet ministers, and injures 17 others. Four Burmese officials also die in the blast.

1986 – The musical The Phantom of the Opera has its first performance at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London.

1989 – An official news agency in the Soviet Union reports the landing of a UFO in Voronezh.

1989 – In Leipzig, East Germany, 70,000 protesters demand the legalisation of opposition groups and democratic reforms.

1991 – Ecuador becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.

1992 – A 13 kilogram (est.) fragment of the Peekskill meteorite lands in the driveway of the Knapp residence in Peekskill, New York, destroying the family’s 1980 Chevrolet Malibu

1995 – An Amtrak Sunset Limited train is derailed by saboteurs near Palo Verde, Arizona.

1999 – The last flight of the SR-71.

2001 – Second mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, New Jersey in the 2001 anthrax attack.

2006 – North Korea allegedly tests its first nuclear device.

2009 – First lunar impact of the Centaur and LCROSS spacecrafts as part of NASA’s Lunar Precursor Robotic Program.

Gunmen in Pakistan torch nearly 30 NATO fuel tankers

 Attacks continue as Khyber Pass border crossing remains closed

By Gul Yusufzai

msnbc.com news services

QUETTA, Pakistan – Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan set fire to nearly 30 tankers carrying fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan on Saturday, an official said.

The attack came two days after the United States apologized to Pakistan for an air raid that killed two Pakistani soldiers and which led Pakistan to close the famous Khyber Pass border crossing.

South Africa Iron Age site ‘threatened’



By Catriona Davies, for CNN

A coal mine being developed close to a World Heritage Site in South Africa could “completely destroy” one of the country’s most cherished national parks, UNESCO has warned.

Environmental, wildlife and archaeological groups have objected to the South African government’s decision to allow the mine near the boundary of Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape in the extreme north of the country.

The area has evidence of the first complex society in southern Africa, dating back to the Iron Age about 1,000 years and rock art up to 10,000 years old. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003.

USA

Activism of Thomas’s Wife Could Raise Judicial Issues

 

By JACKIE CALMES

Published: October 8, 2010

RICHMOND, Va. – As one of the keynote speakers here Friday at a state convention billed as the largest Tea Party event ever, Virginia Thomas gave the throng of more than 2,000 activists a full-throated call to arms for conservative principles.

For three decades, Mrs. Thomas has been a familiar figure among conservative activists in Washington – since before she met her husband of 23 years, Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court. But this year she has emerged in her most politically prominent role yet: Mrs. Thomas is the founder and head of a new nonprofit group, Liberty Central, dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of President Obama and Democrats in Congress and to “protecting the core founding principles” of the nation..

Buyers anxiously await foreclosure deals to go through

 

 By Dina ElBoghdady

Washington Post Staff Writer

Since lenders began halting foreclosure sales elsewhere in the country, Peter Guarino has nervously been calling his real estate agent several times a week to ask what’s become of the Burtonsville condominium he snagged at an auction on the courthouse steps in August.

Guarino has ponied up $30,000 for a down payment to buy the foreclosed property. He’s signed a contract and now, before heading to settlement, he’s waiting for final court approval – unsure whether he will get his money back if the deal fails.

Europe

Barcelona takes a stand against its ‘living statues’



By Dale Fuchs in Madrid Saturday, 9 October 2010

They are known as “living statues” – street performers who cover themselves in body paint or flowing cloaks reminiscent of stone goddesses, kings and thinkers.

They strike eternal poses; they do not blink or scratch (unless you catch them off duty with a sandwich or cigarette). If a passer-by drops a coin, they might wink or offer a slight wave.

For many city dwellers, these immobile acts have already become invisible, part of the urban scenery. But for residents of Barcelona’s famed pedestrian walkway, The Rambla, they are all too visible – in fact, the glut of petrified mimes is causing traffic jams. To keep the crowds moving, the city council has decided to regulate the statues standing frozen on the thoroughfare at the heart of Barcelona’s medieval quarter that attracts 200,000 visitors a day, or 78 million people per year.

India trade deal with EU will allow thousands of immigrants into Britain  

Thousands of Indian workers will be allowed into Britain under a new European Union trade deal that threatens to overturn the Coalition’s pledge severely to limit immigration

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels  

A planned “free trade agreement” with India, to be signed this December, will give skilled Indian IT workers, engineers and managers easy passage into Europe in return for European companies gaining access to India’s huge domestic market.

The deal has split some of the most senior figures in the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, and William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, argue that the EU-India agreement must go ahead because it is worth hundreds of millions of pounds to business. But David Cameron, the Prime Minister, and Theresa May, the Home Secretary, are opposed. They, and other Conservatives, have insisted that the government uphold a high-profile pledge to bring down net immigration, which is currently at 176,000 entrants a year.

Middle East

Arab League urges US to call halt on Israeli settlements

Committee has backed the decision of Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to suspend peace talks with Israel

Ian Black, Middle East editor

The Guardian, Saturday 9 October 2010

Arab foreign ministers have given the US another month to persuade Israel to halt settlement activity in the occupied territories – backing the decision by Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to suspend peace talks.

Talks in Libya produced a statement by the Arab League last night urging the Obama administration to carry on working for an extension of Israel’s 10-month settlement freeze, which expired last month, so that the already faltering negotiations can continue.

Abbas had urged ministers of the 22-member league to back his call for more time before pronouncing the talks a failure, as many observers predict they eventually will be.

Egyptian fiction growing, challenging conservative norms

The Egyptian fiction industry, formerly overshadowed by Beirut and Baghdad, is booming and evolving to challenge norms and reflect a changing society.

By Sarah Topol, Correspondent / October 8, 2010

The age-old Middle Eastern adage that books are written in Cairo, published in Beirut, and read in Baghdad is getting a run for its money. Today, a new wave of Egyptian fiction has increased readership both inside and outside the country.

Many trace the new style of literature to a 2002 novel, “The Yacoubian Building” by Alaa Al Aswany, that moved themes of social stigma and societal pressure to the forefront of Egyptian literature. Since its publication, “The Yacoubian Building” has sold more than a million copies worldwide in 40 countries and has been translated into 30 languages.

Asia

Julia Lovell: Beijing values the Nobels. That’s why this hurts

Comment

Saturday, 9 October 2010

China has an unhappy relationship with Nobel Prizes.

After it re-entered the international community in the 1980s, the country developed a publicly acknowledged “Nobel Complex”. The Beijing government has seen the prize – like Olympic medals and entry to the World Trade Organisation – as an important source of international “face”, as the chance to win global recognition as a modern world power. Since it first emerged, however, China’s Nobel Complex has been mired in controversy.

Most years, Chinese scholars, politicians and journalists worry that a Nobel Prize has never been awarded to a Chinese person while resident in China. Ethnically Chinese scientists have won only for breakthroughs made outside their country of birth. The only literature prize given to a Chinese writer was given in 2000 to Gao Xingjian, who now lives in Paris, and whose novels openly denounce Communist policies.

Kyrgyzstan Has Become an Ungovernable Country

‘A Completely Lawless Place’

By Erich Follath and Christian Neef in Osh, Kyrgyzstan  

Editor’s note: This feature is the first of a series on Central Asia that will be running on SPIEGEL International in the coming weeks. You can read more about future installments in the series here.

The sun is high in the sky, directly above the Taht-I-Suleiman, a giant rock in the middle of the city where the Biblical King Solomon was once said to have preached. In fact, the sun is so unrelentingly bright that the snow-covered peaks of the Tian Shan have disappeared behind a curtain of flickering heat. Somewhere in the city a muezzin is calling the faithful to prayer.

On the surface, Osh seems almost idyllic.

Africa

Zimbabwe in crisis after Mugabe defies deal with PM



Brian Latham

October 9, 2010

DURBAN, South Africa: The Zimbabwean Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, has accused the President, Robert Mugabe, of breaking political promises and has said he is disgusted with his partner in the country’s power-sharing government.

Mr Tsvangirai said Mr Mugabe and his party, ZANU-PF, had broken agreements made last year, when ZANU-PF formed a government with Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Mr Tsvangirai said events in the past few months had left him ”disappointed in Mugabe, and [a] betrayal of the confidence that I and many Zimbabweans have personally invested in him”..

Ugandan police unravel World Cup bomb plot

If Ugandan police investigators are right, the size of the conspiracy behind the twin bombings during July’s World Cup finals could hardly have been bigger.

GODFREY OLUKYA | KAMPALA, UGANDA – Oct 09 2010  

Ugandan police — with help from the FBI and Kenyan police — have arrested 36 people from seven countries in the wake of blasts that rocked Uganda’s capital, killing 76 people.

The suspects hail from at least three countries with known terror links: Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan. At least one suspect said he was recruited and trained by al-Qaeda. The Somali militant group that claimed responsibility for the blast, al-Shabaab, has known links with the international terror group.

Latin America

Rescuers ‘hours away’ from reaching Chilean miners

Rescuers say they could be just hours away from completing an escape tunnel for 33 miners trapped in a mine in Chile

 

Engineers said earlier they had just 34m (112ft) to drill to reach the miners 700m underground.

But Mining Minister Laurence Golborne warned that the rescuers had to work carefully not to jam the drill.

He also said that it would be three to eight days before the rescue mission at the San Jose mine would begin.

The miners were trapped in a chamber when part of the mine collapsed on 5 August.

The miners have now been underground longer than any other group.

Sirens and car horns

“We are very close,” Mr Golborne said on Friday. “It would be very complicated if after all the work we have done… you lose the hole. We have to be very careful and do it ina controlled way”.

Ignoring Asia A Blog  

You know they’re guilty, your government said so–

Why, then, does the Obama administration seek to prosecute him in federal court? One answer might be that trials permit punishment, including the death penalty. But the Justice Department is not seeking the death penalty against Mr. Ghailani. Another answer is that trials “give vent to the outrage” over attacks on civilians, as Judge Kaplan has put it. This justification for the trial is diminished, however, by the passage of 12 years since the crimes were committed.

The final answer, and the one that largely motivates the Obama administration, is that trials are perceived to be more legitimate than detention, especially among civil libertarians and foreign allies.

…

But Mr. Ghailani and his fellow detainees at Guantánamo Bay are a different matter. The Ghailani case shows why the administration has been so hesitant to pursue criminal trials for them: the demanding standards of civilian justice make it very hard to convict when the defendant contests the charges and the government must rely on classified information and evidence produced by aggressive interrogations.

A further problem with high-stakes terrorism trials is that the government cannot afford to let the defendant go. Attorney General Eric Holder has made clear that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 9/11 plotter, would be held indefinitely in military detention even if acquitted at trial. Judge Kaplan said more or less the same about Mr. Ghailani this week. A conviction in a trial publicly guaranteed not to result in the defendant’s release will not be seen as a beacon of legitimacy.

The government’s reliance on detention as a backstop to trials shows that it is the foundation for incapacitating high-level terrorists in this war. The administration would save money and time, avoid political headaches and better preserve intelligence sources and methods if it simply dropped its attempts to prosecute high-level terrorists and relied exclusively on military detention instead.