Taliban kill 10 foreign climbers, Pakistani guide

Pakistani rescue workers unload the casket of a foreign tourist who was killed by Islamic militants from an ambulance to shift in a morgue of local hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, June 23, 2013. Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death foreign tourists and at least one Pakistani before dawn as they were visiting one of the world?s highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

Pakistani rescue workers unload the casket of a foreign tourist who was killed by Islamic militants from an ambulance to shift in a morgue of local hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, June 23, 2013. Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death foreign tourists and at least one Pakistani before dawn as they were visiting one of the world?s highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

FILE - In this May 4, 2004 file photo, Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain in the world, is seen from Karakorum Highway leading to neighboring China in Pakistan's northern area. Gunmen wearing police uniforms killed 11 foreign tourists and one Pakistani before dawn Sunday, June 23, 2013 as they were visiting one of the world?s highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan, officials said. (AP Photo/Musaf Zaman Kazmi, File)

Pakistani rescue workers unload the casket of a foreign tourist, who was killed by Islamic militants, from an ambulance to shift in a morgue of local hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, June 23, 2013. Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death nine foreign tourists and one Pakistani before dawn as they were visiting one of the world?s highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

Pakistani rescue workers unload the casket of a foreign tourist who was killed by Islamic militants, from an ambulance to shift in a morgue of local hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, June 23, 2013. Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death foreign tourists and at least one Pakistani before dawn as they were visiting one of the world?s highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

ISLAMABAD (AP) ? Islamic militants disguised as policemen killed 10 foreign climbers and a Pakistani guide in a brazen overnight raid against their campsite at the base of one of the world's tallest mountains in northern Pakistan, officials said.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed it carried out the attack at Nanga Parbat to avenge the death of their deputy leader in a U.S. drone strike last month.

The area has largely been peaceful, hundreds of kilometers (miles) from the Taliban's major sanctuaries along the Afghan border. But the militant group, which has been waging a bloody insurgency against the government for years, has shown it has the ability to strike almost anywhere in the country.

The Taliban began their attack by abducting two local guides to take them to the remote base camp in Gilgit-Baltisan, said Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. One guide was killed, and the other has been detained for questioning. The attackers disguised themselves by wearing uniforms used by the Gilgit Scounts, a paramilitary force that patrols the area, Khan said.

Around 15 gunmen attacked the camp at around 11 p.m. Saturday, said the Alpine Club of Pakistan, which spoke with the surviving guide, Sawal Faqir. They began by beating the mountaineers and taking away any mobile and satellite phones they could find, as well as everyone's money, said the club in a statement.

Some climbers and guides were able to run away, but those that weren't were shot dead, said the club. Faqir was able to hide a satellite phone and eventually used it to notify authorities of the attack.

Attaur Rehman, the home secretary in Gilgit-Baltistan, said 10 foreigners and one Pakistani were killed in the attack. The dead foreigners included three Ukrainians, two Slovakians, two Chinese, one Lithuanian, one Nepalese and one Chinese-American, according to Rehman and tour operators who were working with the climbers. Matt Boland, the acting spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, confirmed that an American citizen was among the dead, but could not say whether it was a dual Chinese national.

The shooting ? one of the worst attacks on foreigners in Pakistan in recent years ? occurred in a stunning part of the country that has seen little violence against tourists, although it has experienced attacks by radical Sunni Muslims on minority Shiites in recent years.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the attack, saying their Jundul Hafsa faction carried out the shooting as retaliation for the death of the Taliban's deputy leader, Waliur Rehman, in a U.S. drone attack on May 29.

"By killing foreigners, we wanted to give a message to the world to play their role in bringing an end to the drone attacks," Ahsan told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.

The U.S. insists the CIA strikes primarily kill al-Qaida and other militants who threaten the West as well as efforts to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan. In a recent speech, President Barack Obama outlined tighter restrictions on the highly secretive program.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who wants to pursue peace talks with militants threatening his country, has insisted the U.S. stop the drone strikes, saying they violate Pakistan's sovereignty and are counterproductive because they often kill innocent civilians and stoke anti-U.S. sentiment in this nation of 180 million people.

Sharif responded to the attack on the camp by vowing "such acts of cruelty and inhumanity would not be tolerated and every effort would be made to make Pakistan a safe place for tourists."

Officials expressed fear the attack would deal a serious blow to Pakistan's tourism industry, already struggling because of the high level of violence in the country.

The interior minister promised to take all measures to ensure the safety of tourists as he addressed the National Assembly, which passed a resolution condemning the attack.

"A lot of tourists come to this area in the summer, and our local people work to earn money from these people," said Syed Mehdi Shah, the chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan. "This will not only affect our area, but will adversely affect all of Pakistan."

He said the base camp was cordoned off by police and paramilitary soldiers after the attack, and a military helicopter searched the area.

Volodymyr Lakomov, the Ukrainian ambassador to Pakistan, also condemned the attack and said, "We hope Pakistani authorities will do their best to find the culprits of this crime."

Many foreign tourists stay away from Pakistan because of the country's reputation as being a dangerous place. But a relatively small number of intrepid foreigners visit Gilgit-Baltistan during the summer to marvel at the towering peaks in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, including K2, the second-highest mountain in the world.

A few try to climb them. The world's ninth-highest mountain, Nanga Parbat is 8,126 meters (26,660 feet) tall and is notoriously difficult to summit. It is known as the "killer mountain" because of numerous mountaineering deaths in the past.

Pakistan has very close ties with neighboring China and is sensitive to any issue that could harm the relationship. Pakistani officials have reached out to representatives from China and Ukraine to convey their sympathies, the Foreign Ministry said.

The government suspended the chief secretary and top police chief in Gilgit-Baltistan following the attack and ordered an inquiry into the incident, said Khan, the interior minister.

The shooting was one of the worst attacks on foreigners in Pakistan in the last decade. A suicide attack outside a hotel in the southern city of Karachi killed 11 French engineers in 2002. In 2009, gunmen attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team in the eastern city of Lahore, killing six Pakistani policemen, a driver and wounding several players.

___

Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar contributed to this report from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-06-23-Pakistan/id-f39f3ce044d34377b0e54e3ccd7183fc

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Lilly once-weekly diabetes drug proves superior in late-stage trials

By Bill Berkrot

(Reuters) - A once-weekly drug for type 2 diabetes developed by Eli Lilly and Co worked better at controlling blood sugar than three other widely used medicines, according to data from late- stage clinical trials.

The data, presented on Saturday at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) meeting in Chicago, also showed that the Lilly shot helped patients lose twice as much weight as those taking Merck & Co's $4 billion-a-year drug, Januvia.

The findings from the trio of late-stage studies suggest the treatment known as dulaglutide could be an important new weapon in the fight against type 2 diabetes, whose rapid growth globally has become a crisis affecting more than 300 million people.

"This is a very promising, safe and efficacious agent for the treatment of diabetes," Dr Guillermo Umpierrez, one of the lead investigators of the dulaglutide Phase III trial program, said in an interview.

Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce enough insulin to control levels of blood sugar. It can lead to many serious health complications including heart problems, kidney disease and vision loss.

The results of the new studies showed that an injection of dulaglutide led to sustained reductions in blood sugar and helped more patients reach recommended target levels than those taking generic metformin, Byetta, a drug from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, and Januvia, the studies showed. There were no reported cases of serious hypoglycemia, or dangerously low blood sugar.

Lilly plans to use data from the three trials as a major part of the application seeking U.S. approval for dulaglutide it expects to file later this year.

If approved, dulaglutide would become a direct rival of once-weekly Bydureon, sold by Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca Plc, and Victoza from Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk.

Like those medicines, dulaglutide belongs to a class of injected drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists that work by increasing the release of insulin after meals and by slowing absorption of food in the gastrointestinal tract.

Doctors are still likely to initially reach for oral drugs such as metformin for type 2 patients, but an injectable drug that needs to be taken only once a week could become an important treatment, researchers said, as diabetics often need two or three medicines to properly control blood glucose.

"I believe the use of GLP-1s will continue to increase and this new formulation of a once-a-week administration will be very attractive to patients and physicians," said Umpierrez, a professor of medicine at Emory University in Atlanta who presented data from one of the trials at the meeting.

SAFETY RISK?

While data from the three studies appears to show a comforting safety profile, dulaglutide will be under intense scrutiny from health regulators. The GLP-1 class, and the DPP-4 inhibitors to which Januvia belongs, have been associated with unconfirmed reports that they may cause serious inflammation of the pancreas and cell changes that can lead to cancer.

Two cases of pancreatic cancer reported among study participants were deemed highly unlikely to be connected to dulaglutide, the company and researchers said.

Lilly said there were similar rates of pancreatitis among patients taking comparator drugs or a placebo.

"There is no concern so far of pancreatitis or pancreatic tumors," Umpierrez said.

One of the studies dubbed Award-1, involving 978 patients over 52 weeks, tested dulaglutide against Byetta, a which is injected twice a day. Subjects in the study were already taking metformin and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co's Actos.

Adding dulaglutide to this mix helped 80 percent of patients reach target blood sugar levels - an A1c of 7 - compared with about 50 percent of those taking Byetta.

Dulaglutide and Byetta patients on average lost 3.3 pounds (1.5 kilograms), an attractive side benefit as obesity is a leading cause of type 2 diabetes.

In a separate 52-week study called Award-3, researchers tested dulaglutide against metformin - the most commonly used initial treatment for type 2 diabetes - in 807 patients earlier in their disease progression. They began the trial with an average A1c of 7.6 percent, above the ADA target of 7 percent.

People who took a 1.5 mg dose of the Lilly drug saw an average drop in their A1c of 0.8 percent, with 62 percent of patients getting to target blood sugar levels. That compared with a drop of 0.56 percent for metformin with 54 percent getting to goal.

Weight loss with dulaglutide was about 4.4 pounds (2 kg) and 3.3 pounds (1.5 kg) for metformin.

A third trial, dubbed Award-5, was a two-year study that tested dulaglutide against Januvia in more than 1,000 patients who were already taking metformin.

Patients who got dulaglutide had an average A1c reduction of 1.1 percent, with 60 percent of them achieving target levels, versus a reduction of 0.4 percent for Januvia with 30 percent getting to the ADA goal.

Average weight loss with the Lilly drug was 7 pounds (3.2 kg), while Januvia patients lost an average of 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg). The most common side effect reported in the three studies for dulaglutide was nausea, researchers said.

(Reporting by Bill Berkrot; editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Matthew Lewis)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lilly-once-weekly-diabetes-drug-proves-superior-stage-150601939.html

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94% Room 237

All Critics (119) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (112) | Rotten (7) | DVD (1)

A curious and entertaining documentary.

The human brain is a marvellously suggestible organ.

[A] strange, frustrating, occasionally fascinating doc ...

"Room 237" evolves from an ode to movie love at its most delirious to a wry examination of the crackpot mind at work.

There's enough real evidence supporting the theory that Kubrick was a genius, and that's pretty entertaining all by itself.

It's about the human need for stuff to make sense - especially overpowering emotional experiences - and the tendency for some people to take that sense-making to extremes.

An intellectual exercise, and an entertaining one, especially for those who don't want to label The Shining as just a ghost story.

It has the same entertainment value as listening to a late-night radio host indulge his listeners on Roswell, Area 51 and 9/11. Everything sounds completely crackers, until it all makes crazy sense.

What emerges from Room 237 is not a denigration of conspiracies, but a kind of celebration of our ability to create patterns where (perhaps) none exist.

"Room 237" could become an essential companion piece to "The Shining" from now on. For those who see both, it will be impossible to think about one without the other.

...all about the work of criticism - finding fresh avenues of delight.

Watching it makes you feel like you're attending a really entertaining film class where your classmates confidently let their freak flags fly.

It's an essay about the human need to reject the notion of a random universe and find order and meaning in existence. These people are developing their own creation myths, with Kubrick the mastermind responsible for the Intelligent Design.

Termitic film nerds could chow down for years on the wood chips.

You know when "Room 237? starts getting really scary? When the people in the film start making sense.

Kubrick fans and movie geeks will want to check this film out as soon as possible

Kubrick fans will take 'Shining' to 'Room 237.'

The credibility of these theories ranges from faintly plausible to frankly ridiculous, but Ascher isn't interested in judging them; his movie is more about the joys of deconstruction and the special kind of obsession that movies can inspire.

Some of the interpretations seem more of a stretch than others but all are entertainingly presented by director Rodney Ascher. (The movie) serves as a testament to Stanley Kubrick's cinematic mastery.

As fascinating as it is frustrating

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/room_237_2012/

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Light and nanoprobes detect early signs of infection

June 20, 2013 ? Duke University biomedical engineers and genome researchers have developed a proof-of-principle approach using light to detect infections before patients show symptoms.

The approach was demonstrated in human samples, and researchers are now developing the technique for placement on a chip, which could provide fast, simple and reliable information about a patient. A diagnostic device based on this chip also could be made portable.

The researchers developed a silver-based nanoparticle that homes in on a specific molecular marker that spills into the bloodstream at the first stages of an infection. When light is aimed at the sample, the nanoparticle attached to a molecular marker will reflect a distinct optical fingerprint.

"We have demonstrated for the first time that the use of these nanoprobes can detect specific genetic materials taken from human samples," said Tuan Vo-Dinh, the R. Eugene and Susie E. Goodson Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke' Pratt School of Engineering and director of The Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics at Duke. He is also a professor of chemistry.

The results of the Duke experiments appear online in the journal Analytica Chimica Acta. Hsin-Neng Wang, a post-doctoral fellow in Vo-Dinh's laboratory, was the first author of the paper.

In this interdisciplinary project, the Vo-Dinh team collaborated closely with scientists at Duke's Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (IGSP) who have developed a method of measuring the host's response to infection through RNA profiling.

The research is supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Defense Advanced Projects Agency, the Department of Defense and the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation.

In the Duke experiments, the nanoprobes are used in conjunction with a phenomenon first described in the 1970s known as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). When light, usually from a laser, is shined on a sample, the target molecule vibrates and scatters back in its own unique light, often referred to as the Raman scatter. However, this Raman response is extremely weak.

"When the target molecule is coupled with a metal nanoparticle or nanostructure, the Raman response is greatly enhanced by the SERS effect -- often by more than a million times," said Vo-Dinh, who has been studying the potential applications of SERS for decades.

"This important proof-of-concept study now paves the way for the development of devices that measure multiple genome-derived markers that will assist with more accurate and rapid diagnosis of infectious disease at the point of care," said Geoffrey Ginsburg, director of genomic medicine at the IGSP, executive director of the Center for Personalized Medicine at Duke Medicine, and a professor of medicine and pathology.

"This would guide care decisions that will lead to more effective treatment and improved outcomes of antimicrobial therapy," Ginsburg said. "Point-of-care diagnostics holds great promise to accelerate precision medicine and, more importantly, help patients in limited-resource settings gain access to molecular testing."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/bB4VZQVAqos/130620162846.htm

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WHO: Third of women suffer domestic violence

LONDON (AP) ? About a third of women worldwide have been physically or sexually assaulted by a former or current partner, according to the first major review of violence against women.

In a series of papers released on Thursday by the World Health Organization and others, experts estimated nearly 40 percent of women killed worldwide were slain by an intimate partner and that being assaulted by a partner was the most common kind of violence experienced by women.

"Violence against women is a global health problem of epidemic proportions," WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said in a statement.

WHO defined physical violence as being slapped, pushed, punched, choked or being attacked with a weapon. Sexual violence was defined as being physically forced to have sex, having sex because you were afraid of what your partner might do and being compelled to do something sexual that was humiliating or degrading.

The report also examined rates of sexual violence against women by someone other than a partner and found about 7 percent of women worldwide had previously been a victim.

In conjunction with the report, WHO issued guidelines for authorities to spot problems earlier and said all health workers should be trained to recognize when women may be at risk and how to respond appropriately.

Globally, the WHO review found 30 percent of women are affected by domestic or sexual violence by a partner. The report was based largely on studies from 1983 to 2010. According to the United Nations, more than 600 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not considered a crime.

The rate of domestic violence against women was highest in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, where 37 percent of women experienced physical or sexual violence from a partner at some point in their lifetime. The rate was 30 percent in Latin and South America and 23 percent in North America. In Europe and Asia, it was 25 percent.

Some experts said screening for domestic violence should be added to all levels of health care, such as obstetric clinics.

"It's unlikely that someone would walk into an ER and disclose they've been assaulted," said Sheila Sprague of McMaster University in Canada, who has researched domestic violence in women at orthopedic clinics. She was not connected to the WHO report.

"Over time, if women are coming into a fracture clinic or a pre-natal clinic, they may tell you they are suffering abuse if you ask," she said.

For domestic violence figures, scientists analyzed information from 86 countries focusing on women over the age of 15. They also assessed studies from 56 countries on sexual violence by someone other than a partner, though they had no data from the Middle East. WHO experts then used modeling techniques to fill in the gaps and to come up with global estimates for the percentage of women who are victims of violence.

In a related paper published online in the journal Lancet, researchers found more than 38 percent of slain women are killed by a former or current partner, six times higher than the rate of men killed by their partners. Heidi Stoeckl, one of the authors at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the figures were likely to be an underestimate. She and colleagues found that globally, a woman's highest risk of murder was from a current or ex-partner.

In countries like India, Stoeckl said things like "honor killings," where women are sometimes murdered over dowry disputes or perceived offenses like infidelity to protect the family's reputation, adds to the problem.

She also noted that women and men are often slain by their partners for different reasons.

"When a woman kills her male partner, it's usually out of self-defense because she has been abused," she said. "But when a woman is killed, it's often after she has left the relationship and the man is killing her out of jealousy or rage."

Stoeckl said criminal justice authorities should intervene at an earlier stage.

"When a woman is killed by a partner, she has often already had contact with the police," she said.

Stoeckl said more protective measures should be in place for women from their partners, particularly when he or she has a history of violence and owns a gun.

"There are enough signs that we should be watching out for that," she said. "We certainly should know if someone is potentially lethal and be able to do something about it."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/third-women-suffer-domestic-violence-131011699.html

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Source: http://www.tradefinancebank.com/finding-a-mortgage-broker-for-your-business-mortgage/

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Nonprofit launches campaign to reach uninsured

CHICAGO (AP) ? A nonprofit group helping to spread the word about President Barack Obama's health care overhaul launched a campaign Tuesday that will target states with high numbers of uninsured Americans and tackle their skepticism with straightforward messages.

The "Get Covered America" campaign will include door-to-door visits by volunteers, brochures handed out at farmers markets and churches and, possibly, partnerships with sports leagues and celebrities, said Anne Filipic, a former White House official who recently became president of Enroll America, the group sponsoring the campaign.

The group's research shows 78 percent of uninsured adults don't know about opportunities that will be available to them in 2014 under the Affordable Care Act, Filipic said Tuesday during a phone call with reporters. The campaign is expected to cost tens of millions of dollars, including a seven-figure media ad buy.

"If they don't know about it, then they won't enroll," Filipic said. "We've done our research. We know people want to know what the law means for them in a 'just the facts' sort of way."

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has drawn criticism from Republicans for making fundraising calls for Enroll America. Earlier this month, Sebelius told members of Congress she made five phone calls for Enroll America, two of which involved actual fundraising solicitations, to Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and H&R Block, entities not regulated by HHS.

She also called three health care companies to "suggest that the entities take a look at the organization (Enroll America)" but did not make a fundraising solicitation to those three. They were Johnson & Johnson, Ascension Health and Kaiser Permanente.

Sebelius said the HHS secretary has the legal authority to raise money for initiatives that support government health programs.

The federal government itself will spend millions on marketing and advertising about the health law, but the spending will vary greatly across the nation because some Republican-led states haven't sought federal dollars for ad campaigns.

Enroll America's campaign will start with 50 events in 18 states, Filipic said. The group has staff on the ground in eight states, including Texas and Florida and others where government officials have resisted key parts of Obama's health law such as the expansion of Medicaid.

"We know that most of the uninsured don't know about the new coverage options coming this fall, let alone whether or not their state is expanding Medicaid," Filipic said. "Many of the uninsured are eligible for Medicaid today but have not enrolled, and those who are not eligible for Medicaid may qualify for coverage through the marketplace."

Obama's national health law requires that nearly all Americans have health insurance beginning in 2014 or pay a penalty. New insurance marketplaces are scheduled to be operating in every state by Oct. 1. People who are uninsured will be able to comparison-shop for affordable health plans on these websites and many will qualify for tax credits to help them pay for coverage.

The organization is building a predictive model to determine where to target the uninsured and will track which of its tactics are most effective, Filipic said.

"We're going to be doing a lot of testing to see what works," she said. "What moves someone to attend an event or call a phone number? We'll be doing a lot of work to test and analyze that."

In a parallel effort, a group called Doctors for America plans to host training sessions for doctors and print posters and brochures for medical waiting rooms.

Skepticism about the law's benefits is widespread. Enroll America's January survey of 1,814 adults found that most people are skeptical they'll be able to find affordable health insurance that covers their needs. When presented with a specific premium amount they might pay, less than a third of respondents felt that the premium was in the affordable range.

"Survey results suggest using a specific premium amount may actually turn away just as many people as it might motivate," according to the survey report on Enroll America's website.

Broader statements ? such as "You might be able to get financial help to pay for a health insurance plan" and "If you have a pre-existing condition, insurance plans cannot deny you coverage" ? tested better with the survey group.

Enroll America has staff on ground in Texas, Florida, Ohio, Arizona, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. It soon will add staff in Illinois and Georgia.

Kicking off the campaign this week, the Get Covered America team and its community partners plan to host more than 50 events in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas.

___

Online:

http://www.getcoveredamerica.org/

___

AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/CarlaKJohnson

___

AP Writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report from Washington.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nonprofit-launches-campaign-reach-uninsured-183729406.html

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