What Iran and Pakistan want from the Afghans: Water

Thursday 13 December 2012

Kabul, Dec 13 : With a vast, empty desert as a backdrop, the militants recorded the execution of Khan Wali on video. As someone held a camera, the others encircled the condemned man to read out his sentence.

“This is not brutality – this is justice,” declared one of the executioners who sported a black turban and a shaggy beard. “I swear to God that killing him with a 82 mm mortar is not enough. But the rest of our Mujahedin would not agree on my recommendation – to kill him in a way that all can take part in the act.”

And so it was decided to shoot Khan Wali with the 82 mm mortar. They forced him to kneel 40 yards away from the portable cannon, a type often used in small battles in the war-torn country. A militant positioned behind the weapon then set it off; a massive thumping sound was followed by celebratory cries of Allah u Akbar – God is Great. “Be careful, don’t get any blood on your clothes” said one voice as the other men, after jubilantly hugging each other, rushed to poke at Khan Wali’s flesh splattered on the ground. “I enjoyed this very much,” said one.

What was Khan Wali’s crime? He was protecting one of Afghanistan’s most important resources: water. Khan Wali led a 60-man semi official-militia tasked with defending the Machalgho dam in eastern Paktia province. Already two years behind schedule due to security concerns, the dam would irrigate about 40,000 acres of land and produce 800 KW of electricity once completed. The government had pledged that if Khan Wali held his ground for two months, he and his men would receive weapons and cash. But Khan Wali lasted only 20 days into the mission.

His remains were recovered eight days after his savage execution, his nephew Agha Jan told TIME. His upper body was completely in pieces. “We recognized him from the tattoo he had and the shoes he had been wearing – his name was tattooed on his hand since childhood.” The video of the brutal execution, which took place in mid-2011, was shared with journalists months later and uploaded to YouTube.

“With such bravery, he had tried to protect the dam – and they killed him so brutally,” says Rohullah Samoon, a senior aide and spokesman to the governor of Paktia.

Water is a critical issue in Afghanistan—and for countries like Iran and Pakistan that are dependent on four of the five river basins that flow out of Afghanistan to irrigate their territories. Meanwhile, though the Afghans currently have enough water for their own needs, any perception of abundance is illusory, experts say. Indeed, the availability of water per capita is expected to decline by 50% in the next three decades, according to a United Nations-funded report. Afghanistan’s extremely weak infrastructure and one of the lowest water storage capacities in the world means that large parts of the country cannot make use of their own water resources. Frequent droughts, localized and national, further affect the population, causing food shortages and migration. In 2008, for example, wheat production declined by 40% to 55% due to lack of precipitation.

Water is key to strengthening the foundations of Afghanistan’s mainly agricultural economy. But only about 5% of the massive international investment and aid in the past decade went to the water sector, according to the UN report. And, critics say, too much of that went to ad-hoc small dams and schemes that had no long-term vision.

The geopolitical factors are such that Afghans are paranoid that both Iran and Pakistan are sabotaging their efforts to build dams and control their hydro-resources—though the evidence is circumstantial and speculative at best. For example, there were broad hints that elements in Pakistan may have contributed to the death of Khan Wali. Says one local official in Paktia: “The price that our neighbors pay for a human life around here? It’s 50,000 Pakistani rupees [about $500].”

It is true, however, that Pakistan’s energy crisis has furthered its dependence on Afghan water. Iran, the only country that Afghanistan has a water treaty with, is now taking up to 70% more water than agreed to, according to officials, and has built infrastructure on the incoming water without Afghanistan’s consent. If Afghanistan tries to build major dams to hold more of its own water, both Pakistan and Iran are likely to object and to hold up the projects. Indeed, because diplomatic objections can create bureaucratic bottlenecks, major aid donors have increasingly shied away from funding water projects in Afghanistan.

An official at the Afghan ministry of energy and water claims that the World Bank called off funding for a major project after it learned that it required clearance from Iran. The World Bank would not comment, saying only that it did not have projects in Afghanistan’s water sector. “I think our neighbors have better relations with the major donors – such as the World Bank,” the official said accusingly. They lobby to get bigger loans for themselves, but create hurdles on the way of such projects in Afghanistan, he says.

“Out of fifty seven billion cubic meters of average annual rivers flow, only less than 30% is consumed in Afghanistan, the remaining part of water flows out into neighboring countries,” says Sayed Sharif Shobair, a water expert with several years of experience with national and internationalagencies in Afghanistan. “Attracting investment in the water sector from donor agencies may require us to resolve transboundary water issues first.”

“The Afghan government, every now and then, announces the building of 20 dams or so. But it remains only plans on paper because they can rarely gather the funding for it,” says Khwaga Kakar, an independent researcher who spent two years on the U.N.-funded report on Afghanistan’s water resources. “There is a disconnect between ‘we plan to do’ and ‘what the donors are giving us.’”

The anxieties about Iranian and Pakistan meddling are exemplified by the speculation around the long stalled Salma dam, being built by India in the province of Herat in western Afghanistan, which borders Iran. The dam has the potential to irrigate nearly 185,000 acres and produce 42 MW electricity. However, the project is already four years behind schedule. Its cost has doubled and is expected to rise by another 50%. Some Afghan officials are astonished that Indian engineers, who have built highways in Afghanistan in record time, are taking so long to complete the dam. They hypothesize that Iranian diplomatic meddling has caused the delays.

The Indians, however, deny it. “Afghans tell us that Iran has created issues, but we haven’t had to talk to Iran about it because we haven’t had evidence linking them to insecurity there,” says Gautam Mukhopadhaya, the Indian ambassador to Kabul, blaming the delay on cost escalation. “The Salma dam will be completed, no question about that.”

Lack of data is the biggest hurdle, says senior Afghan diplomat Enayatullah Nabiel who worked on the trans-boundary water issues for several years. And many Afghans look suspiciously upon the Iranian experts who moved in to fill the expertise gap by setting up the research center inside Afghanistan’s water ministry tasked with gathering information and data on the country’s water resources. The Iranian experts provide what other countries and companies no longer do because of the fragile security within Afghanistan. But the result is increased suspicion. Says Nabiel, “The fact that Iranians are involved in running the research center inside the ministry of water is very dangerous – they have loyalty to their own country.”

Some analysts say Afghanistan—given its already grave security issues—should seek non-confrontational methods of solving its cross-border water problems. “It might be good if Afghanistan could move in some specific cases from ‘water sharing’ to ‘river benefit sharing,’ says Shobair. “In Kunar river, for example, joint hydropower production could be one idea to look into. Afghanistan could convince Pakistan that is for their good as well.”

But that process requires protracted negotiations with the neighbors. Margaret Vick, who advised the ministry of water and energy on cross-border water laws, says the government has capable diplomats and negotiators but has to use them to deal with other crises. She adds that the ministry continues to have other deficiencies that have not been dealt with in decades. “Pre-Soviet invasion,” she explains, “the government had an engineering branch to work on water and other infrastructure issues of national importance.” Today however, she says, “it’s the depth of engineering capability that has not yet recovered.”


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Afghans begin new exodus, often at great cost

Kabul, Dec 13 : Convulsed by war and civil strife for decades, Afghanistan has experienced some of the largest ebbs and flows of migration anywhere in the world.

It began with the Soviet invasion in 1979, which sent millions of Afghans fleeing to Iran and Pakistan. When the Taliban were driven from power in 2001, many Afghans began returning home.

Now, the country has hit another milestone: For the first time since 2002 and the beginning of the current war in Afghanistan, the country has a negative migration rate — more Afghans are leaving than returning.

The uncertainty of what Afghanistan will look like after 2014, when the NATO forces leave, has many Afghans heading for the exits, or at least trying to, and some are paying huge sums of money to get out any way they can.

Aziz Momand is a 30-year-old taxi driver in Kabul. Sitting in his road-worn Toyota Corolla wagon in the center of the city, he explains his desire to leave.

"I have concerns that 2014 is arriving and people talking that maybe the situation get worse," he says. "Already business is down."

Momand says he's been thinking of leaving for the past year, ideally to a Scandinavian country where, he says, asylum policies are liberal. He says it's too difficult to get a visa, so he's been speaking with people about smuggling his family to Sweden.

"The first step is to go to Iran, then somebody smuggles us to Turkey, and then to Greece, and then to other parts of Europe," he says.

The only problem with this approach, Momand says, is that to get his whole family out, it will cost nearly $50,000 — a fortune for most Afghans.

"If I have that much money, I would have already been there," he says.

Even if he does get the money together, there's no guarantee his family will make it safely to Sweden or avoid deportation.

"The smugglers, they do their own propaganda. It's a business, and so they are saying, 'It's easy to get here; we'll make sure you have a great future,' " he says.


It's just the latest wave of emigration in Afghanistan's turbulent history. At the height of the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, the UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, estimates that there were more than 6 million Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan alone — and almost 1 million more in other parts of the world.

According to the UNHCR, Afghan refugees accounted for slightly less than half the world's total refugee population.

By the early 1990s — after the Soviet withdrawal — an estimated 2 million to 3 million Afghans had been repatriated, though the rise of the Taliban meant that at the same time, others were fleeing. The last major shift in the flow of migration occurred after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. In 2002 alone, about 2 million Afghans returned, according to the UNHCR.

Now, that flow has reversed once again.

Marco Boasso heads the International Organization for Migration office in Afghanistan. He says concrete data about the numbers of Afghans leaving today are hard to come by, especially given the criminal nature of trafficking.

"What we do know is that the arrivals in Europe are unprecedented," he says, noting that arrivals in Europe during the Soviet occupation and civil war were just 20 percent to 30 percent of today's numbers.

Boasso doesn't think the country will fall apart after NATO troops withdraw in 2014, and the IOM is pushing the government to create economic opportunities for people to stay in Afghanistan. Still, he says exodus will continue.

"We will see more movement of people ... in 2014 because anxiety is there; there is a lot of uncertainty," he says.

Embassies in Kabul are reluctant to discuss on the record whether more Afghans are applying for visas. Many European countries don't issue visas in Kabul, and Afghans have to travel to Iran or Pakistan to apply. Turkish officials did say they have made the application process more cumbersome to discourage all but serious travelers.

But there's another option for Afghans flush with cash: buying visas.

NPR's Afghan reporters visited several travel agents in Kabul, and were told that Turkish visas can be bought under the table for $4,100. Russian visas are $17,000. West European visas are most prized and cost at least $25,000.

These are real visas, the reporters were told, but none of the agents would explain how the visas are issued and who gets paid off along the way.

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Afghan politicians struggle to script 2014 transition

Kabul, Dec 13 : Late last month, Afghan President Hamid Karzai received the blueprints for a new home he hopes to occupy in 2014, vacating his official residence at the Arg — the royal citadel built in 1880 after British troops levelled the historic Bala Hisar Fort.

There appears to a blueprint for little else concerning the country’s looming political transition, though — least of all the critical question of who might move into the Arg once Mr. Karzai leaves.

Even as the first snow of the winter falls on the Hindu Kush mountains, Mr. Karzai’s opponents are huddled together in Kabul to shape the course of the 2014 presidential election, the last that will be held before western troops leave the country.

They are facing up to a bizarre reality: the next President may be picked to represent Afghans who don’t vote — not those who do.

“For all of us,” says key Opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah, “the challenge is to ensure the integrity of the political system and the legitimacy of government after 2014. That will be the key to Afghanistan’s future.”


Leading the race to represent Afghanistan’s southern Pashtun tribes in the Arg are two men who cut their political teeth trying to kill each other: Muhammad Umar Daudzai, now Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Pakistan, and Hanif Atmar, Mr. Karzai’s former Interior Minister.

Mr. Daudzai was a member of the Hizb-e Islami militia of Islamist warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, elements of which still battle the government. Mr. Atmar lost his leg fighting the Hizb-e Islami during the savage 1987 battle of Jalalabad when he was serving in Afghanistan’s communist-era intelligence service, the Khidmat-e Etelaat-e Dawlati.

For both men, their élite ethnic-Pashtun credentials are key. Even though an estimated 48 per cent of Afghanistan’s population now lives in its relatively secure cities, few are likely to vote in the insurgency-hit southern and eastern countryside. In 2009, voter turnout was independently estimated at just 30 per cent; this time around, it will almost certainly be lower.

Ensuring the new President enjoys nationwide legitimacy means picking a candidate who speaks for ethnic-Pashtun dominated southern and eastern Afghanistan.

The former Afghan Foreign Minister, Abdullah, who picked up 31.8 per cent of the vote to Mr. Karzai’s 47.48 in the 2009 elections, leads arguably the most powerful of these northern formations. Backed by key Opposition ideologue Yunus Qanuni, Mr. Abdullah represents the most visible political face of the pre-9/11 anti-Taliban resistance.

There are other influential contenders. Ahmad Zia Masood, brother of anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Masood, in alliance with the Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, has a powerful rival block. The cerebral former Afghan intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, constitutes a third pole.

Ethnic Hazaras, a traditionally underprivileged community who have leveraged post-9/11 aid to emerge as one of Afghanistan’s most dynamic and educated communities, will also play a key role. Hazara leaders like Muhammad Mohaqiq —whose predecessor Abdul Ali Mazari was stripped, mutilated and dropped to his death from a helicopter by the Taliban in 1995 — have been bitterly critical of Mr. Karzai’s efforts to seek peace with the Pakistan-based jihadist group.

Mr. Daudzai, Mr. Karzai’s former chief of staff, hopes his Hizb-e Islami connections will help him position himself as a buffer between the Taliban and the north. He has also, sources in the President’s staff say, received informal assurances from both Pakistan and Iran of their support for his candidacy. In 2010, The New York Times alleged that he was the manager of an Iran-funded slush fund for Mr. Karzai, which was used to bribe “Afghan lawmakers, tribal elders and even Taliban commanders to secure their loyalty.”

Mr. Atmar, who was Interior Minister until he was sacked by Mr. Karzai in 2010, also hopes his anti-Taliban credentials will make him acceptable to the powerful political groupings of the north.

Other hopefuls

A welter of second-string candidates hopes to cash in if these two heavyweights fail. The former United States Ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, and scholars Ashraf Ghani and Ali Jalali are exploring the possibility of securing opposition backing for a presidential bid. So is Mr. Karzai’s brother, Abdul Qayyum Karzai.

Last week, Mr. Karzai initiated meetings intended to hammer out the terms of the political transition. Mr. Abdullah Abdullah led a delegation of 21 parties — five of them in government — to seek guarantees of a fair election. Mr. Ahmad Zia Masood, held a similar dialogue.

“No one knows just where the pieces are going to fall,” a senior Afghan politician told The Hindu, “but for the first time since 9/11, a serious dialogue between political actors inside the country has begun. We can only hope all of us show the wisdom that is needed to go forward.”

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Netflix to get Disney films in TV distribution deal

New York, Dec 13  : Walt Disney gave a much needed boost to Netflix, becoming the first major Hollywood studio to use the video service to bypass premium channels like HBO that traditionally controlled the delivery of movies to TV subscribers.

News of the deal, which enables Netflix to stream Disney's first-run movies to its subscribers, boosted Netflix shares by 14 percent.

Liberty Media Corp, whose Starz group now distributes Disney movies on TV, fell almost 5 percent.

Investors saw the Netflix-Disney deal as an important endorsement of the DVD rental and streaming service, which has been struggling with slowing subscriber growth and higher costs for content distribution.

Disney movies will be available for streaming on Netflix starting in 2016, after its current deal with Liberty Media's pay-TV channel Starz expires. The deal is for both new Disney movies and library content such as "Dumbo" and "Alice in Wonderland."

"An exclusive deal with Disney differentiates the Netflix content from Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video," said Anthony DiClemente, an analyst with Barclays Capital.

But some analysts worried that Netflix paid too much to get Disney's movies. Tony Wible, an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott, estimated in a report that Netflix paid more than $350 million a year for Disney's movies and said "we would not be surprised if (Netflix) would need to raise capital".

By comparison, HBO agreed to pay an estimated $200 million annually in its so-called "output," or movie licensing deal, with 20th Century Fox earlier this year, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The deal gives Netflix streaming rights to movies from Disney's live-action and animation studios, including those from Pixar, Marvel, and the recently acquired Lucasfilm. On October 30, Disney announced a $4 billion deal to purchase the famed studio founded by George Lucas, which will now make new episodes in the blockbuster "Star Wars" series.

"This deal brings to our subscribers some of the highest quality, most imaginative family films being made today," Ted Sarandos, Netflix's chief content officer, said in a statement. "It's a leap forward for Internet television."

Movies from Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks Studios are not included in the deal, as that studio distributes its movies through CBS's Showtime on TV. Disney recently signed a deal to distribute DreamWorks' films theatrically after the studio's deal with Viacom's Paramount Pictures expired.

The deal allows Netflix to stream Disney movies beginning seven to nine months after they appear in theaters, as Starz does now under Disney's prior agreement. The deal does not cover DVD rentals of Disney movies.

Disney said in November that it would shut down its own video streaming service, Disney Movies Online, which had failed to catch on with users. A message on the 'Disney Movies Online' website said it would shut down on December 31.

Netflix, which started its streaming business with mostly older films, has been moving to add more original programming and produces TV shows such as "Lilyhammer," which stars "Sopranos" actor Steven Van Zandt as an American gangster who starts a new life in Norway. The company also struck a high-profile deal with actor Kevin Spacey for "House of Cards."

The Disney pact follows similar deals Netflix has inked for new films with smaller studios, including Relativity Media, The Weinstein company and DreamWorks Animation.

The agreements have saddled Netflix with nearly $5 billion in contractual commitments over the next three years for deals its made for streaming content, the company said in a recent quarterly earnings report.

Netflix's struggles over the last year, which have included missed subscriber guidance, an ill-fated attempt to split the DVD and streaming operations, and a swooning stock price, recently attracted the attention of billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn.

Icahn disclosed in regulatory filings on October 31 that he had amassed a nearly 10 percent stake in the video company and suggested it should pursue a sale. Netflix responded by adopting a poison pill defense.

Losing Disney's movies means Starz is left with only Sony Pictures for film content. The pay-TV channel cast the ending of its agreement with Disney as its decision, saying it preferred to use the money for original programming creation.

Liberty Media's shares will "rebound," said Vijay Jayant, an analyst with International Strategy and Investment Group.

"We believe it was Starz' decision to remain prudent and walk away from the bidding for Disney content," ISI said in a report, estimating that it might have cost Starz $400 million to keep the movies.

Without that expense, Starz can step up its production of original series such as "Spartacus" and "Magic City," which ISI said have become more valuable to cable operators anyway.

Netflix shares jumped $10.6491, or 14 percent, to $86.6491. Liberty Media shares fell $5.49, or almost 5 percent, to $105.56.

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Sen. Marco Rubio just finished paying off student loan debt

Washington, Dec 13 : Florida Sen. Marco Rubio announced that he had finally finished paying off his student loan debt this year using proceeds from sales of his autobiography.

Rubio was honored the Jack Kemp Foundation Awards dinner, where he made a case for broad policy reform, including changes to the nation's education system.

"We need to reform our federal college grant and loan programs. To me college affordability is an issue that is very personal. Because the only reason why I was able to go to college--the only reason--was because of federal grants and loans.  But when I graduated from law school, I had close to $150,000 in student debt," Rubio said after accepting the award. "That's a debt I just paid off just last year with the proceeds of my book 'An American Son,' the perfect holiday gift and available on Amazon for only $11.99."

As late as this summer, Rubio said he was one of the few members of Congress still paying off loans. The 41-year-old Republican senator graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Florida in 1993 and received his law degree from the University of Miami in 1996.

According to his latest income disclosure form filed in 2010, Rubio still had between $100,001 to $250,000 in debt when he was elected.


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LA police: 4 arrests in killings of 4 outside home

Los Angeles, Dec 13 : A man accused of gunning down four people outside an overcrowded, unlicensed boarding house in Los Angeles was arrested at a Las Vegas casino-hotel along with three alleged accomplices, police said.

The four suspects were found at the Silverton Hotel and Casino less than 24 hours after the slayings and were arrested without incident.

After a request for assistance from Los Angeles police and the FBI, Las Vegas police learned that the suspects were driving a black Audi with no license plates, located the car at the hotel, and watched the suspects through the night until arrest warrants were issued.

Ka Pasasouk, 31, was arrested for investigation of murder, while three others were accused of being accessories to murder, committing robbery, or both, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said at a news conference.

Police said the victims, whose identities have not been released, were visiting friends at a large house in Northridge when they were confronted and fatally shot shortly before 4:30 a.m.

Detectives were met with a "very grisly tableau" when they found the victims on a front lawn, Beck said. Three of the bodies were found face-down.

Those killed were two women in their mid-20s, a man in his mid-30s and another man in his late 40s, police said.

The suspects will be extradited to Los Angeles in the next couple of days, Beck said.

Glendale resident Howard Alcantara, 30, has been booked for investigation of robbery and aiding a felon. Donna Rabulan, 30, of Los Angeles was arrested for investigation of aiding a felon, and Christina Neal, 31, of Los Angeles was taken into custody for investigation of aiding a felon.

Beck declined to take questions at the conclusion of the news conference, or provide further details about a motive, the suspects or victims, saying the investigation remains active.

City Councilman Mitchell Englander, who represents the area, toured the house and said it was split into units for rent, including makeshift living spaces in the backyard.

He said it appeared to be operating as an unlicensed boarding house with at least a dozen and as many as 17 people living amid old food, trash, mattresses and animal waste. Englander called the living conditions deplorable.

"This is one of the worst and heinous crimes we've seen in our community," Englander said. "This is a community that once again will come together and never forget what happened at this location."

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Middle school wrestler lets boy with cerebral palsy win match

Washington, Dec 13 : Justin Kievit, a middle-school wrestler from Tennessee, showed off his sportsmanship when he matched up against Jared Stevens, who has cerebral palsy.

The match, which was taped and posted to Facebook by Kievit's father and to YouTube by Stevens' dad, begins with Stevens being gently laid down on the wrestling mat by a coach. Once the match begins, Kievit maneuvers around Stevens in a low crouch. Kievit then gets down on the mat and slides underneath Stevens so Stevens can pin him. The crowd went wild for Stevens' win and Kievit's heart.

According to Kievit's father, the act wasn't planned. The proud dad remarked to Franklin Home Page: "The first time he met Jared was when he shook hands with him before the match. So it really was spontaneous. They just picked this kid. If you watch the video, he just did an amazing job. There's not many adults comfortable putting hands on a disabled kid, much less another 13-year-old."


This was Jared's first wresting match. "I think a lot of people are scared to put kids like me on the mat, but they don't need to be," Jared told his local paper. Jared's father explained that while his son has roughly the physical capacity of a six-month-old, he is close to his age level intellectually.

"Jared just likes to do stuff like everybody else," his father told the Franklin Home Page. "There's a limit to what he can do, but something like wrestling, he can do that as much as he can do. He just enjoys being out there participating. He doesn't mind trying anything."

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John McAfee: I've escaped to Guatemala

New York, Dec 13 : John McAfee's bizarre run from authorities in Belize took another strange turn with the millionaire anti-virus software company founder now claiming he has escaped the country and is in Guatemala.

McAfee, 67, who is wanted for questioning in Belize about the shooting death of his neighbor, is now in Guatemala and "will be meeting with Guatemalan officials this morning," according to a blog post written under his name. McAfee made the announcement after an iPhone photo of McAfee uploaded to the U.S. magazine Vice had accidentally revealed his exact location inside Guatemala.

"I apologize for all of the misdirections over the past few days," the post reads. "It was not easy to exit Belize and required many supporters in many countries."

The update is the latest in a puzzling series of posts on the blog, which over the weekend claimed that he had been detained on the Belizean/Mexico border.

A follow-up post written said that the "John McAfee" taken into custody was actually a "double" who was carrying a North Korean passport with McAfee's name.

That post claimed that McAfee had already escaped Belize and was on the run with his 20-year-old girlfriend Samantha and two reporters from Vice Magazine.

McAfee did not reveal his location in that post, and a spokesperson for Belize's National Security Ministry, Raphael Martinez, told ABC News that no one by McAfee's name was ever detained at the border and that Belizean security officials believed McAfee was still in their country.

However, a photo posted by Vice Magazine with their article, "We Are With John McAfee Right Now, Suckers," apparently had been taken on an iPhone 4S and had location information embedded in it which revealed the exact coordinates where the photo was taken - in the Rio Dulce National Park in Guatemala – as reported by Wired.com.

The latest blog post on McAfee's site confirmed that the photo had mistakenly revealed his location, and said that was "chaotic due to the accidental release of my exact co-ordinates by an unseasoned technician at Vice headquarters."

"We made it to safety in spite of this handicap," the post reads. "I had to cancel numerous interviews with the press yesterday because of this and I apologize to all of those affected." An official at the Guatemalan Embassy in Washington, D.C. could not immediately confirm whether McAfee was in the Central American country.

McAfee, who founded his namesake anti-virus company, has been wanted for questioning since November 11, when his neighbor, Greg Faull, was found shot in the head. McAfee has not been formally charged, but claims he's innocent and is on the run because he will be killed if he is taken into custody. McAfee has managed to stay in the public eye while a fugitive, giving his first broadcast interview to ABC News last month. He has also spoken to other major media outlets and has declared that he never planned to leave Belize.

In the  post, he wrote that he just wants to find a safe place for Samantha before he returns. "My fight is in Belize," he wrote, "and I can do little in exile."

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Woman, 116, listed as 'world's oldest' dies in Ga.

Monroe, Dec 13 : The woman who was listed as the world's oldest person died in a Georgia nursing home at age 116.

Besse Cooper died peacefully in Monroe, according to her son Sidney Cooper. Monroe is about 45 miles east of Atlanta.

Cooper said his mother had been ill recently with a stomach virus, then felt better. He said she had her hair set and watched a Christmas video, but later had trouble breathing. She was put on oxygen in her room and died there about 2 p.m., Cooper said.

"With her hair fixed it looked like she was ready to go," he said.

Besse Cooper was declared the world's oldest person in January 2011. In May 2011, Guinness World Records learned that Maria Gomes Valentin of Brazil was 48 days older. Valentin died the next month.

"It's a sad day for me," said Robert Young, Guinness senior consultant for gerontology. He recalls meeting Cooper when she was 111 and took note of her mental agility.

"At that age she was doing really well, she was able to read books," he said.

Last year on Cooper's 115th birthday, she celebrated with friends and relatives, enjoyed two small slivers of birthday cake and was serenaded by a musician from Nashville who sang "Tennessee Waltz."

Sidney Cooper said his family will likely hold a funeral for his mother later this week.

Besse Cooper was the first Georgian to hold the world record. She was born in Tennessee and moved to Georgia during World War I to look for work as a teacher.

The title of world's oldest person now belongs to 115-year-old Dina Manfredini, of Johnston, Iowa, Young said. The oldest known person of all time was Jeanne Calment, a French woman who lived to be 122 years old and died in 1997.

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White house may overplay hand on tax increases: Valliere

New York, Dec 13: In many ways, the fiscal cliff negotiations are a bit like sudden death overtime, the winner-take-all solution to games that otherwise would end in a tie.

The stakes are heightened, the time frame is shortened, and the countdown clock is ticking. Because of this, the regular game of legislating takes on a whole new set of rules, as well as an increased degree of unpredictability, as lawmakers take their strategizing to a new level. And when the fiscal cliff talks turn to raising taxes, veteran Washington-watcher Greg Valliere says everything is on the table.

"We're in a new era. I think the White House feels emboldened, and they may be overplaying their hand," the chief political strategist at Potomac Research Group says in the attached video. "I think they feel emboldened to raise a wide range of taxes.

That would include the estate tax, he says. Right now, when a person dies, Uncle Sam is entitled to 35% of an estate after an exemption on the the first $5 million of assets. The president has proposed hiking the "death tax," as it is known, to 45% after the first $3.5 million. If no deal is reached, Valliere says, the cliff-prescribed estate tax rates will be 55% after the first $1 million.

"It could go up quite a bit," he says. "It's a real wildcard in these negotiations."

Like many of the tax talks, support and opposition often fall along party lines, while a few untouchable tax deductions (such as the one on mortgage interest) are basically off limits to everyone. What is interesting about the estate tax debate, however, is that during a time when "tax the rich" is the general rallying cry of the president and his party, Valliere points out that many Democrats are ''really leery'' and included in the list of opponents.

"The estate tax has a big impact, not on billionaires, but on farmers and ranchers and people from wealthier states like New York and California," he says.

While everything remains up in the air for now, Valliere's hunch is that the the final deal on capital gains and dividends will see those rates go up to 20% from 15% currently and that the estate tax rate will be maintained as is. We shall see.

One other issue to keep in mind is the law of unintended consequences: Tax policy, 10-year projections and political intentions often don't produce the expected results. As Valliere reminds us, the widely popular ''yacht tax" of the 1990's ended up costing blue-collar boat builders their jobs, rather than relieving wealthy sailors of their money.

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American Air passenger service agents vote on unionizing

New York, Dec 13 : American Airlines passenger service agents, the only major employee group at the carrier not unionized, began voting on whether to be represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union.

About 9,700 airport agents and reservations representatives are eligible to cast ballots in a vote being conducted by the National Mediation Board (NMB), said Chuck Porcari, a CWA spokesman. Voting ends January 15.

"All of the other work groups at American are unionized, and we're not," said Bridget Powell, a passenger service agent with American and union activist. "When it comes to negotiating with the company, we don't have that option."

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the vote last week when it denied American's request for a stay of an earlier ruling that upheld the election.

"We're encouraging all our eligible employees to vote," American Airlines spokesman Bruce Hicks said. "It's a very important election for them."

American says it sought to block the union vote because at least half of the eligible workers didn't show interest in joining a union, as required by a law that took effect this year.

The NMB said that the older, 35 percent standard should apply because the union had filed for an election before the law changed earlier this year, according to the CWA.

The CWA says a union is needed to protect American's agents, who perform tasks such as checking in passengers and taking customer service calls, as the company has been outsourcing agent jobs and cutting pay and benefits.

American parent AMR (AAMRQ.PK), which has about 80,000 non-management employees, is reorganizing under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in an effort to cut costs. Earlier this year it reached agreements with its unionized flight attendants and ground workers on contracts that it said cut costs by 17 percent.

American's pilots are due to wrap up voting on a tentative agreement that offers an initial 4 percent pay raise and a 13.5 percent equity stake in AMR after it exits bankruptcy.

American offered equity stakes of 4.8 percent and 3 percent, respectively, in contracts it reached this year with unionized ground workers and flight attendants.

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MF Global customer claims near resolution: Trustee

New York, Dec 13  : The trustee overseeing the liquidation of MF Global's failed futures brokerage said he expects the more than 28,000 customer claims that have been filed to be fully resolved within the next few months, according to a report filed in court.

However, further distributions to those customers will hinge largely on the outcome of pending claims against the failed brokerage by its parent company, MF Global Holdings Ltd (MFGLQ.PK), and its British affiliate, according to the progress report from trustee James Giddens.

"We are in a critical phase of negotiation and potential litigation right now," said Kent Jarrell, a spokesman for Giddens. "The result of this will determine when and how much in additional distributions we can send back to the former customers, and define the parameters and the size of the claims against the general estate."

In his report, Giddens said that of the more than 28,000 claims filed by the brokerage's commodities and securities customers, all but 200 have been fully resolved. Giddens said he expects the remaining claims to be resolved in the next few months.

A resolved claim means that the customer and trustee have reached an agreement regarding the amount to be paid.

According to the report, more than 27,000 claims were filed by commodities customers. Of those, 26,610 were allowed - meaning that they have been deemed valid by the trustee -representing a value of approximately $6.7 billion.

Of the more than 1,000 claims filed by securities customers, approximately 207 were allowed to proceed, with an estimated value of $276 million, the report stated.

So far, Giddens has returned approximately $4.7 billion to commodities customers hit by the brokerage's collapse.

MF Global's collapse exposed what Giddens estimated to be a $1.6 billion shortfall in customer funds. MF Global filed for bankruptcy in October 2011.

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Ex-Goldman director to stay free on bail: Court

New York, Dec 13: Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc board member Rajat Gupta can remain free on bail while he appeals his insider-trading conviction, an appeals court ruled.

Gupta had been scheduled to surrender January 8 to start a two-year prison sentence. But after hearing arguments from Gupta's lawyer and prosecutors, a two-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York granted Gupta's request to stay out of prison.

Gupta, 64, was convicted in June of leaking Goldman boardroom secrets to Raj Rajaratnam, the Galleon Group hedge-fund manager at the center of a U.S. government crackdown on insider trading over the past four years. Gupta, also a former head of management consultancy McKinsey & Co, has been free on $10 million bail.

The former Goldman director attended the hearing with his family. After the hearing, he hugged his lawyer, Seth Waxman, and patted him on the back.

Waxman declined to comment on the appeals court's ruling. A spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara declined to comment.

The U.S. Justice Department had argued that Gupta should not be able to delay going to prison while he awaits the outcome of his appeal, which is expected to be heard by the 2nd Circuit as early as April.

At the hearing, Waxman argued that Gupta's appeal would raise substantial questions that likely would result in his conviction being reversed.

The government hadn't proved its case, which relied on "classically inadmissible" or "entirely circumstantial" evidence, Waxman said. "It totally failed in that regard."

Waxman said the trial judge, Jed Rakoff, erred in admitting an October 24, 2008 wiretapped conversation between Rajaratnam and David Lau, a Singapore-based portfolio manager at Galleon.

On the call, Rajaratnam told Lau that he "heard yesterday from somebody who's on the board of Goldman Sachs, that they are gonna lose $2 per share." But Waxman said there was no evidence Lau traded on the tip, and the call had been focused on the general discussions of the global financial crisis.

Reed Brodsky, the prosecutor who argued before the 2nd Circuit, countered that the wiretaps show that Rajaratnam had provided information to Lau so he could also benefit from it.

"The government's evidence showed this was in furtherance of the conspiracy," he said.

The 2nd Circuit had earlier denied Rajaratnam's similar bid to remain free on bail pending his appeal, which was argued October 25. The fund manager is serving an 11-year prison sentence.

Gupta is facing a related civil proceeding brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In a court filing, his lawyers argued that he should not pay any civil penalty in connection with the SEC's claims. The SEC has asked the court to impose the maximum allowable penalty of $15.3 million.

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How Wal-Mart got a foot in the door of India's retail market

Mumbai, Dec 13: Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT) prepared its entry into India's supermarket sector in 2010 with a $100 million investment into a consultancy with no employees, no profits and a scant $14,000 in revenue.

The company, called Cedar Support Services, might have been a more obvious selection four months earlier: it began its corporate life as Bharti Retail Holdings Ltd, according to documents filed with India's Registrar of Companies.

The Cedar investment is now the focus of an investigation by India's financial crimes watchdog into whether Wal-Mart broke foreign direct investment rules by putting money into a retailer before the government threw open the sector to global players.

Wal-Mart said it was in compliance with India's FDI guidelines, and had followed all procedures. It said India's central government had sought "information and clarification", which Wal-Mart has provided.

However, several lawyers said the transaction appeared to violate at least the spirit of India's long-standing ban on foreign investment in supermarkets, which it only lifted in September 2012. When Wal-Mart made the investment in 2010, it was legal for foreigners to own consultants but not retailers, so the shift in Cedar's business description raised eyebrows.

"This is a complete camouflage," said Hitesh Jain, a senior partner at ALMT Legal in Mumbai who advises retailers but is not involved with Wal-Mart. "It can be looked at as a violation of FDI rules because Cedar also operates supermarkets, which was a restricted sector back then."

The law, however, is murky.

Others stressed that the way Wal-Mart structured the transaction might make it legal. According to the documents filed with India's registrar, the investment was in the form of debt that was convertible into equity. That clouds the issue of whether Wal-Mart took a stake in Cedar or provided financing.

Bharti and Wal-Mart both declined to provide additional details on how the transaction was structured.

Senior government officials that India's central bank had asked the Enforcement Directorate, which investigates financial crimes, to look into whether Wal-Mart violated the law by investing in a supermarket retailer before foreign investment rules were relaxed.

If Wal-Mart did break the law, it could face a penalty of up to three times its initial $100 million investment, they said.

That would not only be a setback for Wal-Mart, it would also weaken consensus-building efforts by India's minority government, led by the Congress party. The party is desperate for more support from across the political spectrum after its decision to let foreign players into India's retail market came under fire from the opposition and even some of its own allies.

Wal-Mart and other retailers lobbied for years to gain access to India's market, lured by the promise of a middle class that will one day rival China's. But local opposition has been fierce because of concern that Wal-Mart and its peers will knock millions of mom-and-pop stores out of business.


Media pieced together details of Wal-Mart's investment in Cedar by examining records from India's Registrar of Companies and through interviews with government officials involved with the matter, as well as several lawyers who work with retailers.

The documents reveal a web of companies set up under the Bharti umbrella, which runs India's largest telecom operator, Bharti Airtel (NSI:BHARTIARTL). The group, which also has retail interests, signed a joint venture with Wal-Mart to run wholesale stores in 2007, shortly after India allowed full foreign ownership of wholesale retail operations.

That same year, the Bharti group formed Bharti Retail Holdings Ltd, which in turn owned a subsidiary called Bharti Retail Ltd which operated supermarkets and hypermarkets.

In December 2009, Bharti Retail Holdings changed its business description to consulting services from retail, the documents filed with India's Registrar show. A month later, the company changed its name to Cedar.

The timing of the change in name and business is significant because when Wal-Mart invested in Cedar in March 2010, foreign companies could legally own 100 percent of an Indian consulting firm but not a supermarket retailer.

Cedar issued "compulsorily convertible debentures" to Wal-Mart Mauritius Holdings Co Ltd, which would be exchanged for 49 percent equity 18 months after the issue date. The conversion date has since been pushed back twice, to September 2013, which would be after India's relaxation of rules on retail investment.

Cedar's cash flow statement for 2010 shows that the funds raised from the debentures were used to finance activities and an attached schedule to the balance sheet shows a transfer of 1.75 billion rupees ($32 million) to its retail unit, raising questions over whether Wal-Mart's money went into the retail business.

M.P. Achuthan, a communist member of India's parliament, has accused Wal-Mart of breaking the foreign direct investment law and said he wanted the company to be penalized. Achuthan also wants India to scrap its foreign retail investment policy.

"I am surprised and shocked that the government didn't see this. This kind of an investment could not have happened without the government's knowledge," Achuthan said. "It is impossible."

Wal-Mart's Indian partner, Bharti Enterprises, said it had followed the rules but did not address specific questions emailed.

"We are in complete compliance of all regulations. All details have been shared with the relevant authorities," a Bharti Enterprises spokesman said.

Two senior government officials said there had been an initial round of communication between the Reserve Bank of India and the Enforcement Directorate. The RBI, India's central bank, asked the law enforcement agency to conduct the investigation.

"RBI believes there is a need to investigate," said a senior government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. He said both Wal-Mart and Bharti were being investigated because "Wal-Mart allegedly made the investment and Bharti allegedly received it".

Separately, Wal-Mart said last month it was looking into bribery allegations in several countries including India, Brazil and China. It conducted an earlier probe in Mexico.


Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is under intense pressure to roll back the decision to permit foreign retailers. Parliament ground to a halt on November 22 over opposition to the reforms until the government agreed to a vote.

A year ago, political pressure forced the government to make a U-turn after it first approved foreign investment into supermarkets, an abrupt shift that brought into question India's ability to build consensus behind long-awaited reforms.

When Wal-Mart made the investment in Cedar in 2010, Indian law permitted foreigners to own "cash-and-carry" wholesale stores, but they were barred from owning what India calls multi-brand retailers, or stores like Wal-Mart's namesake supermarkets that sell a wide array of products and brands.

Whether the investment in Cedar violated India's law depends on two issues, according to the lawyers: if Cedar was in fact a retailer rather than a consultancy, and how the investment was structured.

Cedar's articles of association filed with the Registrar show it called itself a consultancy, but a few pages later it describes a "competing business" as one involved in retail and operates supermarkets, hypermarkets and discount stores.

Even if investigators determine Cedar was a retailer, lawyers said Wal-Mart's investment may still be legal if the transaction is deemed to be debt. Wal-Mart could then argue that it did not acquire a stake but instead extended a loan.

But according to RBI guidelines set in 2007, compulsorily convertible debentures are considered equity. That would mean Wal-Mart jumped the gun, said Alok Dhir, managing partner Dhir & Dhir Associates.

Dhir said there may be one way around that problem. If Wal-Mart and Bharti included a "put" option on the debentures, it could be considered debt because Wal-Mart would no longer be required to convert the debt to equity.

It is not clear whether this transaction included such a clause, and Wal-Mart and Bharti declined to comment.


Under Indian law, Wal-Mart can be found in violation even if each step it took was within bounds. If the combination of those actions led to a result that circumvented the law, a court can consider the bigger picture, four lawyers said, citing a 1985 Supreme Court of India decision.

However, there are numerous grey areas.

For example, the RBI does not require Indian companies to declare what they do with money they receive from foreign investment.

"Even if the investigation is able to prove that funds were invested into the retail business, the companies can say they are not legally bound to declare it and present an argument," said Ravi Singhania, managing partner at law firm Singhania & Partners.

The fact that Wal-Mart's investment was capped at 49 percent and would not give it majority control of Cedar after the debt is converted could also help the companies build a case that the investment was legal.

The rules allow Indian-owned and controlled companies to use foreign capital to fund businesses which their subsidiaries operate. However, lawyers said there is no clarity on whether it is a breach if the unit of the Indian entity operates in a restricted sector, which supermarkets were until September.

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China economy may grow 8.2 percent in 2013: Top think-tank

Beijing, Dec 13 : China's economic growth may quicken to 8.2 percent in 2013 from an expected 7.7 percent this year in response to official growth-promoting polices, but downside risk remains from global uncertainties, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said.

The country's top think tank said in its "blue book" report on China's economy that Beijing should intensify proactive fiscal policy next year including "appropriately" expanding the fiscal deficit and cutting taxes that hinder economic efficiency.

China has not yet issued an official GDP forecast for 2013, but CASS's status as the premier state-backed centre for academic and policy research means its outlook to a certain extent reflects central government thinking.

"We are cautiously optimistic on the outlook for 2013. We should be alert to possible downside risk and be prepared with enough policies," said the think-tank.

CASS's recommendations are in line with the central leadership's plans to make its macro-economic policies more targeted next year, including allowing more market-determined pricing of resource products and expanding value-added tax reforms.

Authorities plan to maintain controls over the important real estate sector while allowing reform of state firms, the head of the ruling Communist Party Xi Jinping said. His remarks came ahead of the Central Work Committee meeting on economic policy, which is expected to convene early this month.

There are already signs of economic revival in the world's second-largest economy, with two purchasing managers' index (PMI) surveys earlier this week showing the pace of growth in the manufacturing sector has quickened.

"China could unveil further policies to stabilize economic growth when necessary as the government still has relatively extensive room for maneuver in fiscal and monetary policy," Li Xuesong, deputy director of CASS's Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics told reporters.

"China should increase the fiscal deficit appropriately next year and increase investment on infrastructure construction from central revenue," said Li, without offering a suggested deficit target.

CASS recommended extending value-added tax reforms to more regions and sectors while cutting VAT rates.

China has been working to revamp its outmoded tax regime and help reduce costs for business. It launched a trial tax reform in Shanghai a year ago to replace a business tax with a value-added tax for firms in the transportation and service industries. More cities and provinces have adopted the reform measure this year.

CASS said its 8.2 percent GDP growth forecast is contingent on the European debt crisis not worsening and the U.S. avoiding a "fiscal cliff".

China's annual economic growth dipped to 7.4 percent in the third quarter, slowing for seven quarters in a row and leaving the economy on course for its weakest showing since 1999.

The Chinese economy is expected to gather momentum in the fourth quarter after an uptick in key economic activity indicators in October, following encouraging signs in September, thanks to new pro-growth policies rolled out by the government over recent months.

The think-tank forecast China's inflation would rise to 3.0 percent next year, with export growth at 10 percent and imports up 13.7 percent during the coming year.

China's annual consumer inflation eased to 1.7 percent in October from a year earlier, giving policymakers scope to further loosen monetary policy if needed to support growth.

Meanwhile, China's exports climbed by 11.6 percent in October, the fastest pace since May, with imports growing 2.4 percent.

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Tiny protozoa may hold key to world water safety

Islamabad, Dec 13 : Right now, it looks a little like one of those plastic containers you might fill with gasoline when your car has run dry. But Scott Gallager is not headed to the nearest Mobil station.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) biologist has other, grander plans for his revolutionary Swimming Behavioral Spectrophotometer (SBS), which employs one-celled protozoa to detect toxins in water sources.

Not only is he working on streamlining the boxy-looking contraption -- eventually even evolving it into a computer chip -- but he sees it as a tool to potentially "monitor all the drinking water in the world. "It has a unique utility."

The SBS has been selected as a 2010 "Better World" technology by the Association of University Technology Managers, which was recently published in the association's Better World Report.

Not bad for a concept the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) once put on the back burner for a year and a half before finally funding Gallager's idea to detect toxins in water sources using the smallest of animals, the one-celled protozoa. Now, SBS may be on the cusp of providing unprecedented assessment of the world's water supplies.

The new technique works by introducing protozoa into small chambers with water samples taken from municipal, industrial, or military water sources and comparing them to control samples. Any alteration of the protozoa's swimming mechanics is a sign that water conditions have changed and chemical or biological contaminants -- pesticides, industrial chemicals, or biological warfare agents -- may be present.

A camera records the protozoa's swimming patterns, triggering software developed by Gallager and his colleagues that interprets the water's risk. The device then relays color-coded, traffic light-type signals to the user: green (safe); yellow (check the water further for safety); red (bad or deadly -- do not drink the water).

SBS's big advantage is that it provides virtually instantaneous feedback on the water supply's safety, Gallager says. "It's a very rapid approach to providing a continuous monitoring for the potential presence of toxins," he says.

Gallager hatched the plan along with former WHOI colleague Wade McGillis -- now a professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory -- while examining the possible effects of climate change on microscopic plankton. Their premise was that protozoa, with their unique methods of propelling themselves through water, might act as barometers of the health of their local underwater environment.

After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, McGillis told Gallager that the Defense Department was interested in techniques for monitoring water supplies. Gallager submitted his protozoa proposal to DOD in 2002; "I didn't hear back," he said. "I literally forgot about it."

The following year, he received an e-mail from the Defense Department. "It said, 'How do you want us to transfer the funds?' he recalled. "It was nearly a million dollars."

Today Gallager is working on his brainchild for both WHOI and Petrel Biosensors Inc., a private company that has licensed the technology for further development and commercialization. The company is attempting to raise about $2 million to further develop and fine-tune the SBS.

"Other, existing water tests with this spectrum of activity take from 24 to 72 hours to generate results and can cost anywhere from $50 to $250 per test," says Bob Curtis, Petrel's chief executive officer. "We estimate that the SBS will perform real-time biological testing and provide nearly instant feedback for just $1 or $2 per test."

Commercial applications for the technology include monitoring of industrial wastewater discharge, security and quality of drinking water supplies, and the potential testing of water sources associated with hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the oil and gas industry

Curtis says Petrel is developing a range of fully automated sensing instruments that include desktop, portable, and hand-held units. The company is finalizing a business plan and intends to raise $2 million in investment funding to develop initial SBS systems for commercial launch.

In his WHOI lab, Gallager works to refine and fine-tune the science responsible for those impressive statistics. He uses up to three types of protozoa depending on the project -- for example, one type may be good for fresh water and another for brackish water.

The digital camera records the creatures' movement at 30 frames a second. The software tracks the protozoa's course in two and three dimensions and evaluates about 50 features of their paths -- showing almost immediately if the organisms are spiraling out of control or careening erratically around the tank.

The results are compared to those of the control sample of distilled water, yielding a statistical analysis that "tells you if toxins are present," Gallager says, setting off the red, yellow, or green warning light. Further analyses of the swimming patterns, along with the water's acidity levels and other variables, can help scientists determine the presence of specific kinds of toxins, he says, including pesticides and heavy metals such as cadmium or mercury. The system includes controls to prevent the reporting of false-positive and false-negative results.

The tiny animals "replenish themselves" for long periods, Gallager says, so he needs to change the protozoa supply only about every two months.

"It's not a solved problem yet," Gallager says of the SBS system. "It needs a couple of more generations to size down." But ultimately -- after SBS has been streamlined and perfected--he envisions a worldwide, real-time monitoring network with "four or five units in every reservoir in the world." At any given time, he says, "Somebody at a central location could be monitoring all drinking water world wide."

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How natural drug, abscisic acid, fights inflammation

Islamabad, Dec 13 : Researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech have discovered how abscisic acid, a natural plant hormone with known beneficial properties for the treatment of disease, helps fight inflammation.

The results, which are published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, reveal important new drug targets for the development of treatments for inflammatory and immune-mediated diseases.

The scientists had reported some of the key molecular events in the immune system of mice that contribute to inflammation-related disease, including the involvement of a specific molecule found on the surface of immune cells involved in the body's fight against infection. They have now gone one step further and revealed the mechanism by which the natural drug abscisic acid interacts with this protein, known as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma, to block inflammation and the subsequent onset of disease.

"In previous work, our research group demonstrated that abscisic acid has beneficial effects on several conditions and diseases including obesity-related inflammation, diabetes, atherosclerosis, and inflammatory bowel disease," said Josep Bassaganya-Riera, associate professor of immunology at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, leader of the Nutritional Immunology and Molecular Medicine Group in the institute's CyberInfrastructure Division, and principal investigator of the study. "One idea for how abscisic acid reduces inflammation in these instances is that it binds to a special region of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma, a binding site known as the ligand-binding domain where the drug would be expected to latch on to and exert its effect. Our results show that this is not the case and, for the first time, we have demonstrated that abscisic acid works independently of this ligand-binding domain of the receptor."

"This information is significant because it suggests the existence of new therapeutic targets or alternative modes of action that account for the effects of abscisic acid in the immune system," added Bassaganya-Riera. "Drugs that bind to the ligand-binding domain of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma such as Avandia are associated with severe cardiovascular side effects. In contrast, the newly discovered alternative mechanism of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma activation by abscisic acid does not appear to be linked to any known adverse side effects, thereby representing a promising new therapeutic avenue."

"The outcomes of this research illustrate the synergism that can result from combining computational and experimental approaches to characterize therapeutic targets," said David Bevan, associate professor of biochemistry at Virginia Tech. "By using molecular modeling approaches we were able to identify a potential binding site for abscisic acid on the lanthionine synthetase C-like 2 protein, a protein required for the beneficial health effects of abscisic acid. We were also able, again using docking studies, to reveal reasons for the lack of direct association of abscisic acid with peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma, which was experimentally validated by ligand-binding assays."

"Lanthionine synthetase C-like 2 represents the first step in a pathway leading to activation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma in immune cells by abscisic acid," said Raquel Hontecillas, assistant professor of immunology at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute and one of the lead investigators of the study. "We have also shown that abscisic acid affects the expression of several genes involved in inflammation, metabolism and cell signaling, which provides further clues for possible intervention points in the treatment of inflammatory and immune-mediated diseases."

The researchers hope to more closely pinpoint some of the new drug targets in the molecular network of the immune response as they continue to dissect the way that the naturally occurring drug abscisic acid reduces damage due to inflammation. In addition, the novel understanding on how abscisic acid works will be used to develop new classes of drugs that target the same alternative pathway of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma activation, a potentially safer approach than the use of drugs that target direct binding to the receptor.

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