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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: blazenzim who wrote (31758)	3/28/2008 6:00:31 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217576

shipment out of china is at all time high the rmb actually did not appreciate at all this year, on trade weighted basis, as it went up against usd and down against euro, and stayed more or less even vs the yen and, oh, speaking of poison and news, and not designed, spec-ed, manufactured, and sourced out of china ... online.wsj.com Possible Suicide Link Prompts FDA to Probe Merck Asthma Drug By JENNIFER CORBETT DOOREN March 28, 2008; Page B6 The Food and Drug Administration said it is investigating a possible association between the widely used asthma medication Singulair and behavioral changes, including suicide. Singulair, made by Merck & Co., is approved to treat asthma and allergy symptoms such as sneezing and stuffy noses, as well as to prevent exercise-induced asthma. The FDA said in a so-called early communication that it is reviewing postmarketing reports of behavior and mood changes, suicidal thoughts and actions, and actual suicides by patients who took Singulair. The regulator also asked Merck to look at its own database for signs of trouble. Early communications are a recently developed tool the FDA uses to tell consumers and health-care professionals that the agency is looking into a particular safety concern but that it hasn't reached any conclusions. Singulair, first approved in the U.S. in 1998, was Merck's top-selling product in 2007, with $4.3 billion in sales. The product is approved as an asthma treatment for use in people at least a year old. It is expected to take about nine months for the FDA to review whether Singulair is linked to suicidal thoughts and behavior. The agency said "posting this information does not mean that FDA has concluded there is a causal relationship between the drug product and the emerging safety issue." The FDA said Merck updated the prescribing information and patient information for Singulair four times in the past year to include reports of adverse events that include tremors, anxiousness, depression and suicidal thinking and behavior. Reports of suicidal thinking and behavior were added to Singulair's label in October, and the FDA said Merck recently started communicating the changes to doctors and patients. George Philip, Merck's head of product development for Singulair, said the company is in "discussion with the FDA on these issues," noting that postmarketing reports alone don't mean Singulair contributed to suicides. In a statement Thursday, Merck said it has received a "very limited number" of suicide-related postmarketing reports. Merck, of Whitehouse Station, N.J., said there weren't any reports of suicide in clinical studies involving 11,000 patients. The FDA said Singulair is effective and that patients shouldn't stop taking it without talking to their doctors. Write to Jennifer Corbett Dooren at jennifer.corbett-dooren@dowjones.com

To: blazenzim who wrote (31758)	3/28/2008 7:37:37 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 217576

<<Americans realize ... just the beginning.>> ... and the world realizes that american export is crap, toxic, poisonous and hazardous to their health. It's now on CBS. USD down and down again, and it is just the beginning. March 28, 2008 cbsnews.com Former Terror Detainee Recalls Captivity Tells 60 Minutes He Was Held Underwater, Shocked, And Suspended From the Ceiling March 28, 2008 cbsnews.com "Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo" by Murat Kurnaz (CBS) A German resident held by the U.S. for almost five years tells 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley that Americans tortured him in many ways - including hanging him from the ceiling for five days early in his captivity when he was in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Even after determining he was not a terrorist, Murat Kurnaz says the torture continued. Kurnaz tells his story for the first time on American television this Sunday, March 30, at 7 p.m. ET/PT. Kurnaz, an ethnic Turk born and raised in Germany, went to Pakistan in late 2001 at age 19 to study Islam and wound up in Pakistani police custody. It was three months after 9/11, and Kurnaz says the U.S. was offering bounties for suspicious foreigners. Kurnaz says he was "sold" to the Americans for $3,000 and brought to Kandahar as terrorist suspect. He claims American troops tortured him in Afghanistan by holding his head underwater, administering electric shocks to the soles of his feet, and hanging him suspended from the ceiling of an aircraft hangar and kept alive by doctors. "Every five or six hours they came and pulled me back down and the doctor came," he recalls. "He looked into my eyes. He checked my heart and when he said 'okay,' then they pulled me back up," he tells Pelley. The U.S. Pentagon responding by e-mail says, "We treat all detainees humanely… and all credible claims are investigated thoroughly…. The abuses Mr. Kurnaz alleges are not only unsubstantiated and implausible, they are simply outlandish." Kurnaz, who has told his story to European investigators, says "[It] doesn’t matter whatever they will say. The truth will not change… this is the truth." Kurnaz says he was questioned in Afghanistan about Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and the Taliban. He answered truthfully, he says, and told them repeatedly to call the German government and verify who he was. But they continued to torture him, he says. "They used to beat me when my head was underwater…they beat me into my stomach….I had to inhale the water," he tells Pelley. He says he was then brought to Guantanamo as one of the first "enemy combatants." His treatment there, he says, included repeated beatings at the hands of soldiers in riot gear, sleep-deprivation and solitary confinement. "It's dark inside, no lights and they can punish you in isolation… by coldness or…heat. They have special air conditioners. Very strong. They can turn it very cold or very hot." After a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2004, Kurnaz was visited by an American lawyer, who successfully sued the U.S. government to release his classified file. That file contained information from the FBI, German Intelligence and even the U.S. military pointing to his innocence. But after a series of Kafkaesque military tribunals and review boards, he remained in Guantanamo for another three-and-a-half years. Kurnaz' lawyer, Baher Azmy, says there may be many more cases like Kurnaz’s at the offshore prison. "In Guantanamo, no detainee has ever been able to genuinely present evidence before a neutral judge and so as absurd as Murat Kurnaz's case is, I assure you, there are many, many dozens just as tenuous," Azmy tells Pelley.