Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 announced, joins the Android tablet line-up with a 7-inch screen

If an 8-inch stylus-enabled Galaxy Tablet wasn't your cup of tea, perhaps Samsung's new seven-inch model will do the trick. The Galaxy Tab 3 has gone official and the third iteration of the company's first Android tablet arrives with a 1.2GHz processor, 8GB or 16GB of storage (with expansion up to 64GB), a 3- and 1.3-megapixel camera array and a substantial 3,000mAh battery. That 7-inch WSVGA (1,024 x 600) TFT display suggests it's likely to be a keenly-priced slate, although we're still waiting to hear on specifics. Samsung's loaded up the Galaxy Tab 3 with Android 4.1 and says that the WiFi version will launch "globally" in May, while an incoming 3G model (no LTE at this point) will follow in June.

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Britain's National Health Service (NHS): Eleven deaths from wrong ...

Britain?s National Health Service (NHS): Eleven deaths from wrong medications last year, poor management and communications?commonplace

In Britain? Eleven people died in the National Health Service (NHS) in England last year after being given the wrong medication, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said today.

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Mr Hunt said that gaps in information put patients at risk; Hopes to attain a health service ?more ambitious and enlightened? ?Photo: Leomn Neal/AFP

By Laura Donnelly and agencies

Speaking at a conference in London, Mr Hunt said that patients are too often put at risk because information is not properly passed around the healthcare system.

He said that most NHS users would be ?astonished? that their information does not regularly pass between GPs and hospitals and that patient safety could not be improved unless this situation changed.

Mr Hunt said that none of the big challenges facing the NHS can be resolved unless the health service becomes ?more ambitious and enlightened? about sharing information.

Speaking at the Delivering a Paperless NHS conference in London, Mr Hunt said: ?Most NHS users would be astonished that information doesn?t flow around the system. In many hospitals the IT systems aren?t even linked within a hospital, let alone between hospitals and other parts of the health economy. That?s I?m afraid a fairly normal situation across the country. Eleven people died last year in the NHS from being given the wrong medication.?

Mr Hunt said that gaps in information put patients at risk. Improving them was ?a really important part of the compassionate care agenda, the safety agenda, the integration agenda,? he said.

In the speech, he said: ?A few weeks ago I was in the A&E department at Watford and they admitted a lady there with late-stage dementia from a care home. I was completely shocked to see that they knew absolutely nothing about her. She was wasn?t able to speak and she had bruises all over her face but they didn?t know for example whether that was her normal state not to be able to speak or whether that was a result of her fall , they didn?t have her medication, medical history, anything like that.

Mr Hunt also announced that the Government has agreed that patients should be allowed to opt out of a national data base holding their information.

He told the conference that there must be ?proper? safeguards in place to protect patients? personal information.

Mr Hunt said: ?That?s why I have agreed that GPs will not share information about what?s on people?s GP records with the Health and Social Care Information Centre if people object. There will be some overrides but only in situations like a public health emergency or in life or death situations or child abuse.

?Essentially, people will have a veto on that information being shared in the wider system.?

?********************************************

The lack of communication across the NHS is ?completely shocking?, the Health Secretary said yesterday as he disclosed that 11 people died last year after being given the wrong medication.

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Mr Hunt wants to make the NHS ?paperless? within the next five years?Photo: REUTERS

Highlighting the benefits of sharing data across the health service, Jeremy Hunt said that most NHS users would be ?astonished? that their information does not regularly pass between GPs and hospitals.

Mr Hunt said that none of the big challenges facing the NHS can be resolved unless the health service becomes ?more ambitious and enlightened? about sharing information.

Speaking at the Delivering a Paperless NHS conference in London, Mr Hunt said: ?If you look at the big challenges facing the health service with an ageing society ? things like the A&E departments that I spoke of yesterday, the problem with joined up services, the issues of patient safety and compassionate care that came into the Francis review ? none of those issues are going to be resolved unless we take a much more ambitious and enlightened view as to the power of information.

?Most NHS users would be astonished that information doesn?t flow around the system.

?In many hospitals the IT systems aren?t even linked within a hospital, let alone between hospitals and other parts of the health economy. That?s I?m afraid a fairly normal situation across the country.

?Eleven people died last year in the NHS from being given the wrong medication.

?This is a really important part of the compassionate care agenda, the safety agenda, the integration agenda.?

He added: ?A few weeks ago I was in the A&E department at Watford and they admitted a lady there with late-stage dementia from a care home. I was completely shocked to see that they knew absolutely nothing about her. She was wasn?t able to speak and she had bruises all over her face but they didn?t know for example whether that was her normal state not to be able to speak or whether that was a result of her fall , they didn?t have her medication, medical history, anything like that.

?That simply cannot be in people?s interest to have those gaps in information.?

He added that there must be ?proper? safeguards in place to protect patients? personal information, adding: ?That?s why I have agreed that GPs will not share information about what?s on people?s GP records with the Health and Social Care Information Centre if people object. There will be some overrides but only in situations like a public health emergency or in life or death situations or child abuse.

?Essentially, people will have a veto on that information being shared in the wider system.?

Mr Hunt?s comments followed the publication of Dame Fiona Caldicott?s review into how NHS data is handled.

Dame Fiona highlighted a number of problems about the way information is handled within the health and social care system in England.

Her report says that people?s lack of access to their own records causes ?great frustration?.

She recommended that all letters, emails, and other communications that health and social care teams make regarding a patient?s care should be replicated for the patient.

The report also says that some NHS managers are ?unduly restrictive? with information for fear that their organisation will be fined for breaching data protection laws.

Mr Hunt has previously set out ambitions to make the NHS ?paperless? within the next five years.

He also said that GPs should make patient records available online by 2015.

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Boston suspect is moved; FBI searches landfill

BOSTON (AP) ? Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhohkar Tsarnaev was moved from a hospital to a federal prison medical center while FBI agents searched for evidence Friday in a landfill near the college he was attending.

Tsarnaev, 19, was taken from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he was recovering from a throat wound and other injuries suffered during an attempt to elude police last week, and was transferred to the Federal Medical Center Devens, about 40 miles from Boston, the U.S. Marshals Service said. The facility, at a former Army base, treats federal prisoners.

"It's where he should be; he doesn't need to be here anymore," said Beth Israel patient Linda Zamansky, who thought his absence could reduce stress on bombing victims who have been recovering at the hospital under tight security.

Also, FBI agents picked through a landfill near the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where Tsarnaev was a sophomore. FBI spokesman Jim Martin would not say what investigators were looking for.

An aerial photo in Friday's Boston Globe showed a line of more than 20 investigators, all dressed in white overalls and yellow boots, picking over the garbage with shovels or rakes.

U.S. officials, meanwhile, said that the bombing suspects' mother had been added to a federal terrorism database about 18 months before the deadly April 15 attack ? a disclosure that deepens the mystery around the Tsarnaev family and marks the first time American authorities have acknowledged that Zubeidat Tsarnaeva was under investigation before the tragedy.

The news is certain to fuel questions about whether President Barack Obama's administration missed opportunities to thwart the marathon bombing, which killed three people and wounded more than 260.

Tsarnaev is charged with joining with his older brother, now dead, in setting off the shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs. The brothers are ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States about a decade ago with their parents. Investigators have said it appears that the brothers were angry about the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Two government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, said the CIA had Zubeidat Tsarnaeva's name added to the terror database along with that of her son Tamerlan Tsarnaev after Russia contacted the agency in 2011 with concerns that the two were religious militants.

About six months earlier, the FBI investigated mother and son, also at Russia's request, one of the officials said. The FBI found no ties to terrorism. Previously U.S. officials had said only that the FBI investigated Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

In an interview from Russia, Tsarnaeva said Friday that she has never been linked to terrorism.

"It's all lies and hypocrisy," she said from Dagestan. "I'm sick and tired of all this nonsense that they make up about me and my children. People know me as a regular person, and I've never been mixed up in any criminal intentions, especially any linked to terrorism."

Tsarnaeva faces shoplifting charges in the U.S. over the theft of more than $1,624 worth of women's clothing from a Lord & Taylor department store in Natick in 2012.

Earlier this week, she said she has been assured by lawyers that she would not be arrested if she traveled to the U.S., but she said she was still deciding whether to go. The suspects' father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said that he would leave Russia soon for the United States to visit one son and lay the other to rest.

A team of investigators from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow has questioned both parents in Russia this week, spending many hours with the mother in particular over two days.

Meanwhile, New York's police commissioner said the FBI was too slow to inform the city that the Boston Marathon suspects had been planning to bomb Times Square days after the attack at the race.

Federal investigators learned about the short-lived scheme from a hospitalized Dzhokhar Tsarnaev during a bedside interrogation that began Sunday night and extended into Monday morning, officials said. The information didn't reach the New York Police Department until Wednesday night.

"We did express our concerns over the lag," said police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who with Mayor Michael Bloomberg had announced the findings on Thursday.

The FBI had no comment Friday.

___

Eileen Sullivan reported from Washington. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Rodrique Ngowi in Boston, Colleen Long in New York and Julie Pace in Washington.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boston-suspect-moved-fbi-searches-landfill-191408451.html

Chris Dorner

Baby food shortage in Europe due to China demand

BERLIN (AP) ? Yong-Hee Kim still can't believe that in a prosperous country like Germany, powdered baby formula would ever be rationed and that she would have to scour shops in the German capital to find the right brand for her 13-month-old son.

But that's what has happened since major retailers in Germany this year began limiting sales of leading brands of baby formula. Parents in Britain, the Netherlands and Hong Kong have faced similar restrictions.

The reason for the sudden shortage is a quirk of globalization ? one that illustrates the complexities of supply and demand in a wired world.

Parents thousands of miles away in China have been using the Internet or tapping friends and relatives in Europe to buy up stocks of high quality European-produced formula ? often paying much higher prices than they would here.

Chinese demand for foreign brands soared after drought in Australia and New Zealand cut supplies from China's major sources of imported baby formula. Chinese parents who have enough money have largely shunned local brands since a contaminated milk scandal in 2008 left six babies dead and another 300,000 sick.

With Chinese consumers turning to sources abroad, major retail outlets in Germany, Britain, the Netherlands and Hong Kong have limited sales of several leading brands of baby formula. In Europe, parents have been stockpiling the milk powder at home, further intensifying the shortage.

"They don't sell more than three boxes of formula per store anymore. So my husband and I are checking out all those stores, running from A to B, to make sure we can get the right baby milk powder for our son," Kim said as she watched her son at a playground in Berlin's leafy Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood.

"We even end up paying two, three or four euros more for a box," she sighed. "It's really annoying."

In Germany, the run on powdered milk started in February, according to dm, a major chain of drug stores, which are the main retail outlets for baby food in this country.

Sales clerks at stores in major tourist venues, including international airports and Berlin's Friedrichstrasse train station, noticed Chinese travelers piling shopping carts to the brim with boxes of one popular brand, Aptamil.

"We noticed that due to extremely high demand we weren't able to provide enough Aptamil baby food," said Christoph Werner, a spokesman for dm. "So we decided to limit the amount of Aptamil products temporarily."

Hong Kong also announced curbs in February on baby formula purchases by customers from mainland China. The multinational food company Danone in Britain said it had significantly increased the production of Aptamil, after leading supermarket chains Tesco and Sainsbury's said they had to limit formula sales. Stores elsewhere in Europe also limited sales of two other popular brands ? Milumil and Cow & Gate.

"We understand that the increased demand is a result of unofficial exports to China to satisfy the needs of Chinese parents who want international brands for their babies," Danone said in a statement.

In China, however, the perspective is different.

Ma Zhigao, who lives in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, turned to his brother-in-law in Germany for supplies of Aptamil to feed his 2-year-old son. He soon realized a lot of his fellow Chinese were anxious to get hold of foreign formula.

He set up a side business buying formula abroad, supplying his family and selling the surplus online. The sales restrictions in Germany are cutting into his business.

"Following the ban from Germany, my business suffered a sudden decline, and after our own consumption, I have almost nothing left," said Ma, who works in construction. "I even have to calculate carefully to save enough for my child. I'm seriously considering closing my online business now."

Even regular Chinese retailers are feeling the pinch.

The Shenzhen Jiulong Trading Company used to sell dozens of boxes of imported formula each day but is now worried about shrinking supplies.

"We sell Aptamil formula to Chinese parents who don't have much trust in domestic brands," said Huang Juan, a sales manager. "We used to import from New Zealand, but due to the sales ban from the New Zealand government, we have been suffering shortages."

Between eager Chinese buyers and worried Germans hoarding supplies, demand for Aptamil in this country went up by more than four percent in the past year and would have probably gone up higher if outlets hadn't restricted sales.

"We've already reacted and increased our production," said Heike Mueller, a spokesman for Milupa, which is owned by Danone and produces Milumil.

Mueller told The Associated Press that the company has hired more workers at its plant in Fulda in southwestern Germany and expanded its 24-hour telephone hotline, which parents can call if they can't find enough formula in their local stores.

In some cases, he said, the company has sent families extra boxes of formula to make sure the babies can get enough.

"We have also received requests from so-called companies in China asking if they could import our products directly, but we've rejected all those demands strictly," Mueller said. "Our priority is to deliver enough products to mothers and fathers in Germany."

___

Associated Press researcher Yu Bing contributed to this report from Beijing.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-04-26-Germany-Baby%20Formula%20Shortage/id-9af432a051f64eb091b05f422ca57e43

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Archeologists unearth new information on origins of Maya civilization

Apr. 25, 2013 ? The Maya civilization is well-known for its elaborate temples, sophisticated writing system, and mathematical and astronomical developments, yet the civilization's origins remain something of a mystery.

A new University of Arizona study to be published in the journal Science challenges the two prevailing theories on how the ancient civilization began, suggesting its origins are more complex than previously thought.

Anthropologists typically fall into one of two competing camps with regard to the origins of Maya civilization. The first camp believes that it developed almost entirely on its own in the jungles of what is now Guatemala and southern Mexico. The second believes that the Maya civilization developed as the result of direct influences from the older Olmec civilization and its center of La Venta.

It's likely that neither of those theories tells the full story, according to findings by a team of archaeologists led by UA husband-and-wife anthropologists Takeshi Inomata and Daniela Triadan.

"We really focused on the beginning of this civilization and how this remarkable civilization developed," said Inomata, UA professor of anthropology and the study's lead author.

In their excavations at Ceibal, an ancient Maya site in Guatemala, researchers found that Ceibal actually predates the growth of La Venta as a major center by as much as 200 years, suggesting that La Venta could not have been the prevailing influence over early Mayan development.

That does not make the Maya civilization older than the Olmec civilization -- since Olmec had another center prior to La Venta -- nor does it prove that the Maya civilization developed entirely independently, researchers say.

What it does indicate, they say, is that both Ceibal and La Venta probably participated in a broader cultural shift taking place in the period between 1,150-800 B.C.

"We're saying that the scenario of early Maya culture is really more complex than we thought," said UA anthropology graduate student Victor Castillo, who co-authored the paper with Inomata and Triadan.

"We have this idea of the origin of Maya civilization as an indigenous development, and we have this other idea that it was an external influence that triggered the social complexity of Maya civilization. We're now thinking it's not actually black and white," Castillo said.

There is no denying the striking similarities between Ceibal and La Venta, such as evidence of similar ritual practices and the presence of similar architecture -- namely the pyramids that would come to be the hallmark of Mesoamerican civilization but did not exist at the earlier Olmec center of San Lorenzo.

However, researchers don't think this is the case of simply one site mimicking the other. Rather, they suspect that both the Maya site of Ceibal and the Olmec site of La Venta were parts of a more geographically far-reaching cultural shift that occurred around 1,000 B.C., about the time when the Olmec center was transitioning from San Lorenzo to La Venta.

"Basically, there was a major social change happening from the southern Maya lowlands to possibly the coast of Chiapas and the southern Gulf Coast, and this site of Ceibal was a part of that broader social change," Inomata said. "The emergence of a new form of society -- with new architecture, with new rituals -- became really the important basis for all later Mesoamerican civilizations."

The Science paper, titled "Early Ceremonial Constructions at Ceibal, Guatemala, and the Origins of Lowland Maya Civilization," is based on seven years of excavations at Ceibal.

Additional authors of the paper include Japanese researchers Kazuo Aoyama of the University of Ibaraki, Mito and Hitoshi Yonenobu of the Naruto University of Education, Tokushima.

"We were looking at the emergence of specific cultural traits that were shared by many of those Mesoamerican centers, particularly the form of rituals and the construction of the pyramids," Inomata said. "This gives us a new idea about the beginning of Maya civilization, and it also tells us about how common traits shared by many different Mesoamerican civilizations emerged during that time."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Arizona. The original article was written by Alexis Blue.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. T. Inomata, D. Triadan, K. Aoyama, V. Castillo, H. Yonenobu. Early Ceremonial Constructions at Ceibal, Guatemala, and the Origins of Lowland Maya Civilization. Science, 2013; 340 (6131): 467 DOI: 10.1126/science.1234493

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/uVkWQnVLzNQ/130425142343.htm

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New push against polio and new vaccines in Somalia

Somali mothers wait in line to have their babies examined before receiving a five-in-one vaccine against several potentially fatal childhood diseases, at the Medina Maternal Child Health center in Mogadishu, Somalia Wednesday, April 24, 2013. On the eve of the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi and coinciding with World Immunization Week, the authorities in Somalia, which has one of the lowest immunization rates in the world, launched the new deployment of a pentavalent vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, and haemophilus influenzae type B the bacteria that causes meningitis and pneumonia. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Somali mothers wait in line to have their babies examined before receiving a five-in-one vaccine against several potentially fatal childhood diseases, at the Medina Maternal Child Health center in Mogadishu, Somalia Wednesday, April 24, 2013. On the eve of the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi and coinciding with World Immunization Week, the authorities in Somalia, which has one of the lowest immunization rates in the world, launched the new deployment of a pentavalent vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, and haemophilus influenzae type B the bacteria that causes meningitis and pneumonia. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

A Somali mother and her baby wait in line to receive a five-in-one vaccine against several potentially fatal childhood diseases, at the Medina Maternal Child Health center in Mogadishu, Somalia Wednesday, April 24, 2013. On the eve of the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi and coinciding with World Immunization Week, the authorities in Somalia, which has one of the lowest immunization rates in the world, launched the new deployment of a pentavalent vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, and haemophilus influenzae type B the bacteria that causes meningitis and pneumonia. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

A Somali mother and her baby wait in partial shade in a courtyard after her baby received a five-in-one vaccine against several potentially fatal childhood diseases, at the Medina Maternal Child Health center in Mogadishu, Somalia Wednesday, April 24, 2013. On the eve of the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi and coinciding with World Immunization Week, the authorities in Somalia, which has one of the lowest immunization rates in the world, launched the new deployment of a pentavalent vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, and haemophilus influenzae type B the bacteria that causes meningitis and pneumonia. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Somali mothers and their babies wait in line for the babies to receive a five-in-one vaccine against several potentially fatal childhood diseases, at the Medina Maternal Child Health center in Mogadishu, Somalia Wednesday, April 24, 2013. On the eve of the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi and coinciding with World Immunization Week, the authorities in Somalia, which has one of the lowest immunization rates in the world, launched the new deployment of a pentavalent vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, and haemophilus influenzae type B the bacteria that causes meningitis and pneumonia. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

A Somali baby receives a polio vaccine, at the Medina Maternal Child Health center in Mogadishu, Somalia Wednesday, April 24, 2013. On the eve of the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi and coinciding with World Immunization Week, the authorities in Somalia, which has one of the lowest immunization rates in the world, have launched a new push to vaccinate against several potentially fatal childhood diseases. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) ? Two dozen babies sat on the laps of their mothers, who dressed in a rainbow of headscarves at the Medina Maternal Child Health Center. They are among Somalia's luckiest ? the first to receive a new vaccine that protects against five dangerous diseases.

With more regions of Somalia, including the capital Mogadishu, at peace for the first time in 20 years, health care workers are expanding vaccination programs and can now access 40 percent of south-central Somalia, where the influence of hardline Islamic insurgents is highest. Three years ago, health workers could access only 15 to 20 percent of that territory.

With one in five Somali children dying before his or her fifth birthday, the international community is rolling out the new five-in-one child vaccine they say will save thousands of lives.

The roll-out of the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and an influenza known as Hib comes as health leaders on Thursday held the Global Vaccine Summit in the United Arab Emirates, where a six-year plan to eradicate polio was unveiled.

Violence and insecurity cost children dearly when it comes to preventable diseases. Polio remains endemic in only three countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. All three experience heavy violence. In February, gunmen believed to belong to a radical Islamic sect known as Boko Haram shot and killed at least nine women taking part in a polio vaccination drive in northern Nigeria.

In Somalia, efforts by African Union forces ? from Kenya, Uganda and Burundi primarily ? have beaten al-Shabab back from areas it once controlled. As evidence of the improved security, Britain's foreign secretary traveled to Mogadishu on Thursday to open the British Embassy, the first time Britain has had an embassy in Somalia since 1991, when violence forced an embassy evacuation.

When al-Shabab is forced out, health officials rush in and vaccinate children, said Marthe Everard, the World Health Organization country director for Somalia. After Kenyan forces took the coastal city of Kisumu last year from al-Shabab, health officials immediately vaccinated nearly 13,000 children, but districts around the city remain off-limits, she said.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, speaking at the new vaccine's launch in Mogadishu on Wednesday, said all Somali children deserve the good health that children from rich countries enjoy. He blamed much of the country's vaccination problem on al-Shabab, the al-Qaida-linked militant group that controls much of south-central Somalia and up until August 2011 controlled Mogadishu.

Al-Shabab, the president said, is killing people with attacks and explosions, but also by forbidding children access to vaccines. Maryan Qasim Ahmed, the country's health minister, said al-Shabab kills aid workers who try to better health in south-central Somalia, "so they are contributing to child and infant mortality."

"The state of child health in Somalia is one of the worst in the whole world," said Ahmed. "The children of Somalia are dying from diseases that don't exist in the rest of the world."

Al-Shabab distributes false propaganda against vaccines, Everard said, such as claims the vaccines will make girls infertile, or that the vaccines are made by Christian countries. The vaccines are actually made in Indonesia and Pakistan, Muslim countries.

Sikander Khan, the head of UNICEF in Somalia, said the health sector must take advantage of Somalia's improved security: "There's more confidence and there's more hope. I don't think we can afford to let go of this opportunity."

But the remote stretches of the arid Horn of Africa nation also hamper aid workers.

Saqa Farah is the mother of 12 children from a nomadic goat-herding family in Somalia's north, where al-Shabab is not prominent. Only her youngest child, Abdi, was vaccinated. But even Abdi didn't get a full cycle and he's now in a Mogadishu hospital with measles.

"There is no medicine," Farah said. "I'm a nomad. When one of us gets sick we either get medicine or we die."

Omar Mayuw Mahdi, the nurse in charge of the Medina Maternal Child Health Center, where the two dozen mothers waited on Wednesday, said Somali mothers know that prevention is better than cure, but in the country's Bay and Bakool regions, where al-Shabab still reigns, there are no vaccines. "The situation does not allow it."

Global health leaders face similar security problems in trying to stamp out the last few remaining patches of polio around the world. The crippling disease is at its lowest level ever. Nineteen children have been paralyzed by polio so far this year; 223 were paralyzed last year.

The new anti-polio push will cost $5.5 billion, three-quarters of which has already been pledged, including $1.8 billion from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

"After millennia battling polio, this plan puts us within sight of the endgame," said World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan.

The six-year plan to end polio addresses such challenges as insecurity and hard-to-reach populations.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-25-Somalia-Child%20Vaccines/id-037730fd199943c495912db4f77e0de3

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Marshall Monitor headphones available now for $200, we go ears-on

When you've got legitimate rock-sound credentials, why wouldn't you make headphones? Right? To that end, Marshall is back with a new pair -- called Monitor -- to sit at the top of its existing range. Players in the current market seem to have found the sweet spot between premium pricing and street credibility, and there's no change here. Priced at $200, Marshall is putting the Monitor directly up against these other sets that mix style-consciousness with claims of quality audio. It's not all about looks though, as the Monitor sports a proprietary "F.T.F" (Felt Treble Filter) system that lets you change the sound for a different high-end response. Under the hood is a 40MM driver, and the same gold, black and leather stylings we saw on the Major model. This time, however, Marshall opted for an over-ear fit, and threw in a few other goodies too. These include the increasingly popular 3.5mm pass-through jack (so friends can plug in and share your music), a collapsible design, a detachable part-coiled cable and in-line remote. The Monitor is available starting today for the aforementioned $200. But, if you want to know a little more, we got our hands on a set, so rock past the break for our impressions.

Gallery: Marshall Monitor hands-on

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Crossing a 'red line'? US says Syria used poison

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The White House declared Thursday that U.S. intelligence indicates Syrian President Bashar Assad has twice used deadly chemical weapons in his country's fierce civil war, a provocative action that would cross President Barack Obama's "red line" for a significant military response. But the administration said the revelation won't immediately change its stance on intervening.

The information, which has been known to the administration and some members of Congress for weeks, isn't solid enough to warrant quick U.S. involvement in the 2-year-old conflict, the White House said. Officials said the assessments were made with "varying degrees of confidence" given the difficulty of information gathering in Syria, though there appeared to be little question within the intelligence community.

As recently as Tuesday, when an Israeli general added to the growing chorus that Assad had used chemical weapons, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the administration was continuing to monitor and investigate but had "not come to the conclusion that there has been that use."

The Syrian civil war has persisted, with an estimated 70,000 dead. Obama has so far resisted pressure, both from Congress and from within his own administration, to arm the Syrian rebels or get involved militarily. He has, however, declared the use of chemical weapons a "game changer" that would have "enormous consequences."

The White House disclosed the new intelligence Thursday in letters to two senators, but had Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announce it to reporters traveling with him in the United Arab Emirates. The letters were sent in response to questions from senators of both parties who are pressing for more U.S. involvement, and it marked the first time the administration has publicly disclosed evidence of chemical weapons use.

"Our intelligence community does assess, with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically, the chemical agent sarin," the White House said in the letters, which were signed by Obama's legislative director, Miguel Rodriguez. He went on to write that "given the stakes involved," the U.S. was still seeking "credible and corroborated facts" before deciding how to proceed.

Two congressional officials said the administration has known for weeks ? and has briefed Congress ? that the CIA and other intelligence agencies have evidence of two incidents of sarin gas use.

A U.S. official said intelligence agencies have had indications of chemical weapons use since March and reached the conclusions made public Thursday about two weeks ago. The two incidents are believed to have occurred around March 19 in the Syrian city of Aleppo and suburbs of Damascus, the official said.

The officials commented only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly by name.

The White House described the attacks as "small scale," but the full extent of the chemical weapons use and resulting casualties was not immediately known.

Even as Assad has ratcheted up the attacks on his own people, Obama has limited U.S. assistance to non-lethal aid, including military-style equipment such as body armor and night vision goggles. However, he has repeatedly said that the use of chemical weapons, or the transfer of the stockpiles to a terrorist organization, would change things.

"That's a red line for us," he said in August. "There would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front, or the use of chemical weapons. That would change my calculations significantly."

A senior defense official said the White House letters were not an "automatic trigger" for policy decisions on the use of military force. The official alluded to past instances of policy decisions that were based on what turned out to be flawed intelligence, such as the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq after concluding that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.

Lawmakers from both parties sounded less than patient.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, a member of the Democratic leadership, was asked what should be done about Assad crossing the "red line." He said, "That's up to the commander in chief, but something has to be done."

And Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said, "I think it's pretty obvious that that red line has been crossed. Now I hope the administration will consider what we have been recommending now for over two years of this bloodletting and massacre and that is to provide a safe area for the opposition to operate, to establish a no-fly zone and provide weapons to people in the resistance who we trust."

Other lawmakers questioned whether a cautious U.S. response to the newly disclosed intelligence would only strengthen Assad's resolve to keep a grip on power.

"If Assad sees any equivocation on the red line, it will embolden his regime," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

The White House disclosure put the U.S. in line with Britain, France, Israel and Qatar, key allies who have cited evidence of chemical weapons use. The four countries have also been pressing for a more robust response to the conflict.

U.S. commanders have laid out a range of possible options for military involvement in Syria, including establishing a "no-fly zone" or secured area within Syria where citizens could be protected, launching airstrikes by drones and fighter jets or even sending in tens of thousands of ground forces to secure the chemical weapons caches. But the military has made it clear that any action would likely be either with NATO backing or with a coalition of nations similar to what was done in Libya in 2011.

Following the U.S. disclosure, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said, "There would doubtlessly be a very strong reaction from the international community if there were evidence that chemical weapons had been used."

Ahmad Ramadan, a member of the Syrian National Coalition opposition group's executive body, called the U.S. assertion an "important step," and he said that America had a "moral duty" to follow it with action.

The White House said the current intelligence assessments of sarin use are based in part on "physiological samples." U.S. officials said that could include human tissue, blood or other body materials, in addition to soil samples.

Sarin is an odorless nerve agent that can be used as a gas or a liquid, poisoning people when they breathe it, absorb it through their skin or eyes, or take it in through food or water. In large doses, sarin can cause convulsions, paralysis and death. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people usually recover from small doses, which may cause confusion, drooling, excessive sweating, nausea and vomiting.

The Aum Shinrikyo cult used sarin in attacks in the Tokyo subway system in 1995 that killed 12 people and sickened thousands.

The White House said it was still seeking to confirm the "chain of command" that led to the chemical weapons use. But officials said they were confident attacks were initiated by the Assad government, not rebels, given that they see no evidence of Assad losing control of the stockpiles.

The U.S. said the completion of a stalled U.N. investigation would be critical in confirming the use. But it's unclear whether U.N. inspectors will ever be able to conduct a full investigation in areas where there is the most evidence of chemical weapons use.

The Syrian government has so far refused to allow the U.N. experts to go anywhere but Khan al-Assal, where Assad's government maintains the rebels used the deadly agents.

Officials said the U.S. was consulting with allies and looking for other ways to confirm the intelligence assessments.

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AP National Security Writers Robert Burns in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and Lara Jakes in Washington, as well as AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier, and AP writers Lolita C. Baldor and Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/crossing-red-line-us-says-syria-used-poison-221631098--politics.html

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