U.S. Intel: Water a Cause for War in Coming Decades

By Matthew Lee

Washington D.C. - Drought, floods and a lack of fresh water may cause significant global instability and conflict in the coming decades, as developing countries scramble to meet demand from exploding populations while dealing with the effects of climate change, U.S. intelligence agencies said in a report released Thursday.

An assessment reflecting the joint judgment of federal intelligence agencies says the risk of water issues causing wars in the next 10 years is minimal even as they create tensions within and between states and threaten to disrupt national and global food markets. But beyond 2022, it says the use of water as a weapon of war or a tool of terrorism will become more likely, particularly in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

The report is based on a classified National Intelligence Estimate on water security, which was requested by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and completed last fall. It says floods, scarce and poor quality water, combined with poverty, social tension, poor leadership and weak governments will contribute to instability that could lead the failure of numerous states.

Those elements "will likely increase the risk of instability and state failure, exacerbate regional tensions, and distract countries from working with the United States on important policy objectives," said the report, which was released at a State Department event commemorating World Water Day.

Clinton, who unveiled a new U.S. Water Partnership that aims to share American water management expertise with the rest of the world, called the findings "sobering."

"These threats are real and they do raise serious security concerns," she said.

The report noted that countries have in the past tried to resolve water issues through negotiation but said that could change as water shortages become more severe.

"We judge that as water shortages become more acute beyond the next 10 years, water in shared basins will increasingly be used as leverage; the use of water as a weapon or to further terrorist objectives, also will become more likely beyond 10 years," it said.

The report predicts that upstream nations — more powerful than their downstream neighbors due to geography — will limit access to water for political reasons and that countries will regulate internal supplies to suppress separatist movements and dissident populations.

At the same time, terrorists and rogue states may target or threaten to target water-related infrastructure like dams and reservoirs more frequently. Even if attacks do not occur or are only partially successful, the report said "the fear of massive floods or loss of water resources would alarm the public and cause governments to take costly measures to protect the water infrastructure."

The unclassified summary of the intelligence estimate does not identify the specific countries most at risk. But it notes that the study focused on several specific rivers and water basins. Those included the Nile in Egypt, Sudan and nations further south, the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq and the greater Middle East, the Mekong in China and Southeast Asia, the Jordan that separates Israel from the Palestinian territories, the Indus and the Brahmaputra in India and South Asia as well as the Amu Darya in Central Asia.

U.S. TB Infections Drop to Record Low: CDC

By  Julie Steenhuysen

United States - U.S. cases of tuberculosis fell 6.4 percent in 2011 to an all-time low, but missed a national target of eliminating the disease as cases among foreign-born individuals persisted, health officials said on Thursday.

Unless factors change significantly, the United States will not be able to eliminate TB - meaning fewer than one case per one million people - until the year 2100, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Addressing the increasing difference between TB rates in foreign-born and U.S.-born persons is critical for TB elimination," the CDC said in its weekly report on death and disease, which was released ahead of World TB Day on March 24.

Overall, U.S. TB rates last year fell to 10,521 reported cases, or 3.4 cases per 100,000 people, the lowest level since national reporting began in 1953, the CDC said.

Despite these gains, the airborne infection is proving difficult to tame in some populations, especially among foreign-born individuals, blacks, Asians and people infected with HIV.

TB rates were 12 times higher among people born outside the United States. Of these infected individuals, more than half of the cases originated in just five countries: Mexico, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, and China, the CDC said.

Compared with whites, TB rates were seven times higher for Hispanics, eight times higher for blacks and 25 times higher for Asians last year.

Four states - California, Texas, New York and Florida - account for nearly half of all TB cases in the United States, according to the report.

TB is caused by the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria. It can be cured with antibiotics but they must be taken daily for months to be effective. Because people do not always take the drugs as directed, multiple drug-resistant strains have emerged.

Cases of TB that are resistant to at least two common treatments, known as multidrug-resistant TB, accounted for 109 of all U.S. TB cases in 2010, the most recent year for which there are data. Foreign-born individuals accounted for 90 of these cases.

There were 4 cases of extensively drug-resistant TB - an infection that resists the most highly effective drugs - reported in the United States in 2010, all among foreign-born people.

The World Health Organization estimates that a third of the world's population is infected with the bacteria that cause TB. Last year, TB made nearly 9 million people sick and killed some 1.45 million people, according to WHO.

Odd Stories: Kashmire Scientists Clone Rare Cashmere Goat

By Aijaz Hussain

Srinagar, India - Scientists said Thursday they have cloned a rare Himalayan goat in Indian-controlled Kashmir, hoping to help increase the number of animals famed for their silky soft undercoats used to make pashmina wool, or cashmere.

The March 9 birth of female kid "Noori," which means "light" in Arabic, could spark breeding programs across the region and mass production of the high-priced wool, said lead project scientist Dr. Riaz Ahmad Shah, a veterinarian in the animal biotechnology center of Sher-i-Kashmir University.

Cashmere wool, particularly made into shawls, is a major source of income for Kashmir, generating about $80 million a year for the Indian-controlled portion of the disputed mountain state. A shawl can cost $200 in Kashmir and much more when sold abroad — a boon given the average salary of $800 a year for Kashmir's 10.2 million people.

Cashmere goats — which take their name from the Kashmir region but include a number of breeds that produce the soft wool — are traditionally herded in small numbers across the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau in cold and remote mountain areas.

They must live in harsh, windy climates to generate the soft undercoat, for which demand has always exceeded supply. Kashmir's goats are found in small populations in remote areas of the northwest border region of Ladakh.

Experts say their numbers are dwindling. In recent years, Kashmir has started importing cashmere from neighboring China to keep up with orders for the region's hand-woven shawls.

Shah and six other scientists took two years to clone Noori, using the relatively new "handmade" cloning technique involving only a microscope and a steady hand.

"We've standardized the procedure. Now it will take us half a year to produce another," said Dr. Maajid Hassan, another veterinarian who worked on the project, which was partly funded by the World Bank.

The team already has started work on more clones among the university's herd of goats.

"This is the cheapest, easier and less time-consuming" method of cloning, compared with conventional methods that use high-tech machinery and sometimes chemicals, Shah said. Noori is the first cashmere goat cloned by this method, though Shah earlier cloned a buffalo.

They plan to spread the goat-cloning knowledge across the Indian Himalayas so others can grow their own goats.

Eventually, Shah hopes to clone threatened species such as the critically endangered Kashmir stag, or hangul, the only surviving species of Asian red deer.

Azerbaijan Arrests 22 of Their Own Citizens for Allegedly Being Iranian Spies

By Madison Ruppert

Azerbaijan - The Azerbaijani government has announced that they arrested 22 of their own citizens who they claim are Iranian spies.

The tensions between Iran and neighboring Azerbaijan have only increased over recent months and this latest announcement is, without a doubt, not going to make anything less heated.

Late last month, Iran complained of “creeping Zionist influence” in the Caucasus, a jab which was clearly aimed at Azerbaijan. This came after Azerbaijan signed a shockingly large $1.6 billion weapons deal with Israel.

The Associated Press reports that security services in Azerbaijan arrested the individuals who they claim were hired by Iran to carry out multiple terrorist attacks against both the American and Israeli embassies and other entities linked to the West.

Back in 2007, Azerbaijan convicted 15 individuals who were accused of being part of an alleged spy network linked to Iran which was supposedly transmitting intelligence on the Western and Israeli activities in the country.

Just last month, Azerbaijan announced that they arrested another alleged terrorist group who was supposedly working under Iranian security forces.

In January, an additional two people were arrested and accused of planning to murder two teachers at a Jewish school in the capital city of Azerbaijan, Baku.

The latest individuals who were arrested are accused of being trained in Iran directly by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The statement did not reveal when these 22 individuals were arrested, or how they were captured or discovered. As of now they have been charged with treason in addition to the purchase and possession of weapons and explosives.

Interestingly, this alleged plot brings both Russia and Syria into the mix.

Azerbaijan’s security ministry claimed in their official statement that an alleged operative of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps identified as Akper Pakravesh recruited individuals who he met with in the Russian capital of Moscow and the Syrian capital of Damascus, at which time they were given finances and equipment.

Azerbaijani officials claimed that they found espionage equipment grenades, automatic assault rifles, ammunition and other explosives when capturing the alleged terrorists.

Alleged targets included the offices of an unnamed Jewish organization, Western and Israeli diplomatic missions, the local headquarters of behemoth oil corporation BP as well as, oddly enough, an American-themed fast food restaurant.

Like the alleged plots in both Georgia and India, these targets do not make much sense when one attempts to assume the mindset of a terrorist.

The only targets that might actually make an impact would be diplomatic missions but even then, chances are that the only result would be a hellacious assault on Iranians.

It seems highly unlikely that the IRGC, a group which the Western establishment media loves to characterize as some superhuman crack squad of terrorist handlers, would choose targets like a fast food restaurant.

Obviously such an attack would only give more reasons for warmongers to cite when attempting to justify a war with Iran, while accomplishing absolutely nothing.

I’m not one to think that violence can accomplish anything truly meaningful, but blowing up cheeseburgers and milkshakes seems especially pointless, especially given the inevitable repercussions which would follow.
The Associated Press points to Iran’s constant denials of any links to the attacks which are blamed on them, however they write that Iran “accuses Israel of directing the slayings of Iranian scientists.”


It isn’t just Iran accusing Israel of directing the assassinations of Iranian scientists linked to their nuclear program, indeed anonymous American officials have confirmed that the Israeli Mossad is indeed training and running the assassinations.

The statement alleges that some of the individuals who were supposedly involved in the plot were recruited as early as 1999, while one of the brothers of the accused called the allegations, “unfounded and fabricated.”

It will be interesting to see if the likes of the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu and his warmonger cronies will jump on this as another questionable justification for a strike on Iran.

Drug Companies Still Outsourcing Dangerous Trials to Poor Nations

By Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky

Worldwide - Despite getting into trouble in Africa, U.S. drug manufacturers are still going overseas, with increasing frequency, to test new medicines and take advantage of poor economic conditions…and lax regulation legal responsibility should anything go wrong.

India is one popular destination for pharmaceutical companies wanting to avoid tougher regulatory guidelines for using test subjects in the U.S.

And getting volunteers is easy when so many Indians live in poverty.

In a nation where the average worker makes 50 cents a day, pharmaceutical corporations can offer $400 to participants in drug trials.

“Whether the studies are for birth control, diabetes, migraines or high blood pressure, money often draws volunteers into Indian drug trials,” reports NBC’s Dateline.

But paying locals what amounts to huge sums of cash is a violation of India’s Drugs and Cosmetics Act, said Dr. Chandra Gulhati, editor of the Monthly Index of Medical Specialties, an Indian medical journal. Payments are allowed, but, “It should never be so much that it works as an inducement,”

Indian government figures show that more than 1,500 people have died during clinical drug trials, but it is not known how many would have died anyway if untreated. Last year foreign drug companies paid an average of about $4,800 to relatives of 22 Indians who died during or after drug trials. This is a fraction of what payouts would have been had the deaths happened in the United States.

Older Nuclear Plants Pose Safety Challenge: IAEA

(Reuters) - Eighty percent of the world's nuclear power plants are more than 20 years old, raising safety concerns, a draft U.N. report says a year after Japan's Fukushima disaster.

Many operators have begun programs, or expressed their intention, to run reactors beyond their planned design lifetimes, said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) document which has not yet been made public.

"There are growing expectations that older nuclear reactors should meet enhanced safety objectives, closer to that of recent or future reactor designs," the Vienna-based U.N. agency's annual Nuclear Safety Review said.

"There is a concern about the ability of the ageing nuclear fleet to fulfill these expectations."
By Fredrik Dahl

Worldwide - The Fukushima tragedy was triggered on March 11, 2011, when an earthquake unleashed a tsunami that left 19,000 people dead or missing. It also smashed into the coastal power plant causing a series of catastrophic failures at the facility.

Images of the stricken plant shook public confidence in nuclear power and forced the nuclear industry to launch a campaign to defend its safety record.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano told Reuters last week that nuclear power is now safer than it was a year ago. The report said the "operational level of NPP (nuclear power plant) safety around the world remains high".

It cited steady improvements in terms of unplanned reactor shutdowns in recent years.

But the 56-page IAEA document also highlighted an ageing nuclear fleet, with eighty percent of the 435 facilities more than two decades old at the end of last year.

This "could impact safety and their ability to meet member states' energy requirements in an economical and efficient manner", said the report, which has been submitted to IAEA member states but not yet finalized.

Operators and regulators opting for so-called long term operation "must thoroughly analyze the safety aspects related to the ageing of 'irreplaceable' key components", it added.

LESSONS LEARNT?

About 70 percent of the world's 254 research reactors have been in operation for more than 30 years "with many of them exceeding their original design life," it said.

The document was debated by the IAEA's 35-nation governing board last week, almost exactly a year after the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

Last year's tsunami overwhelmed Fukushima on Japan's northeast coast, knocking out critical power supplies that resulted in a nuclear meltdown and the release of radiation.

The reactors were stabilized by December, but high radiation levels hamper a cleanup that is expected to take decades.

The crisis sparked a rethink about nuclear power and countries such as Germany, Italy and Switzerland have decided to phase out their reactors.

But other states, for example fast-growing China and India, continue to look to nuclear energy to meet their growing energy needs, the IAEA report said, adding that some "are even accelerating their nuclear energy programs".

France is building its first "advanced" reactor and Russia is seeking to double its nuclear energy output by 2020, it said.

"All countries that are using nuclear power are much more serious about nuclear safety," Amano said last week. But environmental group Greenpeace said no "real lessons" appeared to have been learnt from Fukushima.

India Marks One Year of Being Polio-Free

New Delhi - Today marks the one-year anniversary of the last known case of polio in India, officials proudly but cautiously announced. This leaves the countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria as the only ones with major cases of polio.

Health advocates, who hoped the disease would be destroyed by the year 2000, feel elated about the news, though they are still cautious. Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad warned that India needed to push forward with its vaccination campaign to ensure the elimination of any residual virus.

"We are excited and hopeful. At the same time, vigilant and alert," he said in a statement.

Through Nata Menabde, the head of India's World Health Organization, the organization stated "We are all subject to relaxing a bit when we have achieved some goal but we simply cannot allow that to happen with polio. The important point is that while India may have stopped transmission of wild polio virus, it does not prevent such a virus from being re-imported or in fact the virus could be around and it has just not been detected.”

Overall however the 2.4-billion dollar plan has proven to be a large success. In 2010 there were 42 cases throughout the country, down from 742 in 2009. In 2011 there was only one case of the disease, a two-year-old girl named Ruksana Khatun on January 13^th of last year.

Although it's been a year, India won't be declared certified as polio free for about three years due to the possibility it may be transferred through human waste.