JOHANNESBURG ? A South African pharmaceutical manufacturer is fighting moves toward banning a painkiller that has been removed from the shelves in the U.S. and Europe because of fears it could harm the heart.
South African authorities have moved to join their counterparts in the U.S. and Europe to halt sales of dextropropoxyphene after decades of use, but a major manufacturer in South Africa, Adcock Ingram, insists it's safe.
"We always maintained that the drug is safe, and still maintain the drug is safe," Dr. Abofele Khoele, Adcock Ingram's medical executive, said in an interview Thursday. "We've got studies to prove the drug is safe."
But he acknowledged that dextropropoxyphene, which is found in such Adcock Ingram painkillers Doxyfene and Synap Forte, has raised concerns elsewhere.
Adcock Ingram is appealing an April ruling by South Africa's Medicines Control Council against the drug. This week, the company lost a court bid to allow doctors to keep prescribing dextropropoxyphene products pending a ruling on the appeal.
Health Ministry spokesman Fidel Hadebe told The Associated Press the court ruling "is a major victory for the public. Government has a duty to protect the public from any possible medical harm."
Hadebe could not say when a Health Ministry appeal body would rule on Adcock Ingram's request for a review. Adcock Ingram has requested a quick decision.
Adcock Ingram's Khoele said his company's recipe for dextropropoxyphene products differed from those in the West, including in the way it is absorbed. He also said South Africa was stricter on dosages.
Late last year, shortly after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked companies to voluntarily stop selling dextropropoxyphene products, Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals agreed to withdraw Darvon and Darvocet, brand name versions of the drug, from the U.S. market.
The FDA had concluded that the pain medication "can cause serious toxicity to the heart" and "puts patients at risk of potentially serious or even fatal heart rhythm abnormalities."
In 2009, the European Medicines Agency recommended that all marketing authorizations for medicines containing dextropropoxyphene be withdrawn throughout the European Union.
The FDA first considered removing dextropropoxyphene from the market in 1978, but concluded then that its benefits outweighed its risks. Adcock Ingram's Khoele said the FDA's recent reversal, based on new evidence, was surprising.
"I think our regulators should take note of the goings on around the world," Khoele said.
But he said the South African regulator should have sought information from local manufacturers before making a decision.
Khoele said that the company would abide by the decision of the appeal board.
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NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao discussed the value of China's currency as well America's commercial interests in the South China Sea on Saturday, a White House official said.
"The principal focus of the meeting was on economics," Tom Donilon, Obama's top national security adviser, told reporters after the two leaders met on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit on the Indonesian island of Bali.
"It was a good engagement," Donilon said of the brief meeting. He said the United States wanted to endure freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce in the South China Sea and the peaceful resolution of disputes there.
Donilon described the U.S.-China diplomatic dynamic as "productive and constructive" and said Obama had been clear and direct about America's interests in his talks with Wen in Bali as well as Chinese President Hu Jintao last week in Honolulu.
"We have a very complicated and quite substantial relationship with China across the board," he said, describing the Obama administration's commitment to a "deep engagement strategy" with the Chinese on a range of issues as the United States increases its presence in the Asia-Pacific region.
"I think they understand our strategy," Donilon said. (Reporting by Laura MacInnis, Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)
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BERLIN (Reuters) ? The leaders of Germany and Britain sent out conflicting signals on Friday about how to solve the euro zone's debt crisis and admitted they had failed to narrow differences over the introduction of a financial transaction tax in Europe.
At a news conference in Berlin, British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to paper over divergent views on European policy that have sparked a war of words between politicians and media in both countries.
But they could not mask differences over how the single currency bloc's debt crisis should be handled, with Cameron calling for "decisive action" to stabilize the euro zone and Merkel making clear she favored a "step-by-step" approach.
"My German isn't that good, I think a bazooka is a Superwaffe, am I right?" Cameron said in response to a question about his call for euro zone policymakers to use a "big bazooka" approach to the crisis.
"The chancellor and I would agree that whatever you call this we need to take decisive action to help stabilize the euro zone," he said, citing the need for strong action on Greece, a rescue fund with "power and punch" and a recapitalization of European banks.
Merkel struck a more cautious note.
She is under increasing pressure to support bolder crisis-fighting steps from the European Central Bank (ECB), such as using it as a lender of last resort for the bloc or backstop for the euro zone's bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF).
So far she has resisted, backing the argument of the German Bundesbank that this would violate the ECB's inflation-focused policy mandate. Infringing on this awakes traumatic memories in Germany of the hyperinflation that followed the two world wars.
"The British demand that we use a large amount of firepower to win back credibility for the euro zone is right. But we have to take care that we don't pretend to have powers we don't have. Because the markets will figure out very quickly that this won't work," said the center-right chancellor.
Merkel is focusing on changes to the EU's Lisbon Treaty to force other euro members to adopt German budget discipline. She believes this would convince financial markets that Europe is serious about getting its debt and deficits under control.
One German source said the two leaders discussed a possible formulation for a deal on treaty change, where Cameron would go along with Berlin's wishes in exchange for more "opt-outs" from Europe to keep eurosceptics in his Conservative Party happy.
British officials were not immediately available to confirm the discussion.
SPEAKING GERMAN
Asked about Germany's push for the introduction of a financial transaction tax in Europe, Merkel admitted that she and Cameron "did not make any progress".
Britain is concerned that introducing the so-called "Tobin tax" in Europe alone would undermine the competitiveness of its financial industry in the City of London, which Cameron said would drive away business to countries without such a tax.
"Naturally there are differences. But Europe can only prevail if all the strong countries of the European continent are represented and if we have a bit of tolerance for the different views," Merkel said.
The two leaders tried their best to present a united front, calling each other by their first names, saying a few words in each other's language and stressing their common interest in a strong euro and a competitive European single market.
But aides say Merkel is running out of patience with what she sees as Cameron's constant sniping at the euro zone, which so exasperates her close ally Nicolas Sarkozy of France that he recently told Cameron at a summit he was "sick of" it.
At a meeting of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) earlier this week, her party's parliamentary leader accused Britain of "only defending its own interests" and announced triumphantly that "Europe is speaking German all of a sudden", a reference to widespread acceptance of German fiscal rigour in the bloc.
Her widely-respected finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, was quoted as saying it was inevitable that the whole of Europe would eventually join the single currency and "this may happen more quickly than some people in the British Isles believe".
Such comments have sparked a strong reaction in the British press, with the eurosceptic and conservative Daily Mail saying: "We no longer need to fear the jackboot but we have a great deal to fear from German bossy boots."
Germany's top-selling Bild newspaper retaliated, asking on the morning of Cameron's visit: "What is England still doing in the EU?"
(Additional reporting by Andreas Rinke; Writing by Noah Barkin and Stephen Brown; Editing by Jon Hemming)
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Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/11/15/hobbit-trailer-looms-gandalf-speaks-bilbo-rises/
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If you've been following my recent blog posts, you may be feeling inspired. You've thought about the things you could reinvent in your life and now you're wondering how on earth you move off square one.
This is one of the biggest dilemmas -- "I am ready to reinvent and I don't know what to do!" That lack of clarity is what paralyzes many people and they just can't take the step in the right direction.
You need to work on several aspects to get there:
Be flexible and allow the evolution to occur -- what seemed like a good idea may take on different lives as it grows and you get into it or you learn more. Don't be daunted by the challenges -- see them as learning experiences and go with them!
*FIND YOUR PASSION
1. Keep notes on:
- the things that make you smile in the course of your day
- the things that make your heart sing
- the places you like to go
- the smells and sounds you like
All of these are little signs of the things in life you want to surround yourself with
2. Get magazines of all sorts - flip through them and pull out anything that gets your attention - a headline, a chair, the color of a wall, a favorite shoe, a look, a font style, a profound statement...collect things that excite or interest you and start a file
- Do you see a pattern, similarities - anything that inspires a "maybe I could/should" thought?
- Do it again a few weeks later
- Go to a newsstand and look at all the titles - not just your usual favorites
3. Look in the classified ads - ideas, careers you've never even thought of
4. Create a budget of your life
- What you need - then write it down
- What you want - vacations, college savings, shopping, sushi one time a week
5. Establish the connection between need-want-attain through happiness
6. Believe it, project it, create it, visualize and then detail the process to get there
- The success, the challenges
- The ideas, the tactics
7. Design the exit strategy for your current situations (this is the most exciting feeling - it's liberating and scary all at the same time)
8. Start to envision your future - always have a vision of the future
PRIORITIZE YOURSELF!
Set up appointments - even 30 minutes - with yourself to focus on the tasks. Create a task list/agenda for each meeting so you have milestones that you'll reach in your short and long term plan.
Once you have a plan you can break out each section of this and get specific. You'll find that the more detailed you are, the more clarity you'll have to proceed with each piece and figure out how to bridge your entire vision together.
Perhaps you want to start a charity, sell your favorite sweaters that you knit, begin a new health regime, redecorate part of your home to create the optimal living environment.
All of these are reinventions - you're creating the greatest way to live and enhance your experience in all aspects that are important to you. The smallest changes will affect your core being, your level of happiness, your ability to smile on the inside, and thus the outside will SHINE. You have the ability to change and evolve any part of your life and have a tremendous impact.
There may be things you've been wanting to do for years, months...you keep putting them off but they're on your "Bucket List" - it may be to clean out the garage, get a new job, break up from a bad relationship, donate your time...these little things that nag at you are there for a reason but you're not giving them a voice or a place in your life.
Funnily, you do the things that everyone else asks you to do - the boss, your spouse, your kids, even your friends when they need you.
But here you are with your own things to do that YOU want, yet you aren't prioritizing it - right?
So dig deep and think about those things and make those lists. If you had that Sunday, that week, that month or even year of your life to do with it as you wish, as you dream, what would it be?
Make that list!
Just remember:
If we continue to do what we've always done, we'll continue to get what we've always gotten.
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathi-sharpeross/making-a-plan-reinventing_b_1094162.html
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LINCOLN, Neb (Reuters) ? The Nebraska legislature on Wednesday voted 45-0 to advance a proposed law that would reroute the $7 billion TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline, avoiding the SandHills and Ogallala aquifer that environmental groups and many residents fear could be polluted by a spill.
Under the bill, the state would pay for a new environmental study for a new route for the pipeline, which would carry crude oil from Canada's oilsands area to Texas refineries.
On Monday, Nebraska and TransCanada Corp agreed to find a new route for the stalled pipeline. Under pressure from green groups, the U.S. State Department last week ordered the company to find a new route for the line in a decision that set back the pipeline by more than a year.
(Reporting by Michael Avok; Editing by David Gregorio)
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Prairie Village wants to sell you some insurance.
Roeland Park does, too.
The two Johnson County cities have joined a growing number of municipalities across the country in touting peace of mind for homeowners for just a small monthly fee.
It?s not a scam. In fact, it?s backed by the National League of Cities, and similar services are on the way to much of the rest of the Kansas City area.
But it?s also a marketing strategy by a private company that uses a city?s logo on a letter, above the mayor?s name, to get its pitch before potential customers.
It works. More than 12 percent of 7,800 households in Prairie Village that received that letter recently have signed up, according to Dennis Enslinger, assistant city administrator.
City Hall, in return, gets a 10 percent cut of the premiums.
Technically, it?s not insurance but a warranty to protect homeowners from the cost of repairing sewer or water lines that may break between their house and the connection to the sewer main or water meter. Many property owners may not realize they are responsible for those sections, which can cost thousands of dollars to repair in an emergency. Homeowners? insurance policies typically do not cover such repairs.
But Service Line Warranties of America does. In return for an introductory price of $5.50 a month or $59 a year, the company will dispatch a local plumber immediately and pay up to $4,000 to repair a broken line. It?ll pay another $4,000 if the job requires cutting up the street.
The plan?s 24-hour hotline offers simplicity to ?a busy homeowner who has better things to do than search for contractors and negotiate a fair price,? according to the company?s website.
Kathleen Whitworth of Roeland Park didn?t know such insurance existed when her sewer connection collapsed last March, sending an awful mess up into her basement in the 5200 bock of Catalina Street. Of course, she called her plumber.
?I assumed I was responsible to the curb,? Whitworth said. ?The biggest shock to me was that I was responsible to the main. I?m on the opposite side of the street to the main.?
Whitworth?s sewer pipe was made of ceramic and was installed more than 50 years ago. She figures it simply collapsed from age. But sewer and water lines can also get clogged with tree roots or break from settling ground.
Whitworth was lucky that her damage was only under her yard and not the street. Still, she was out several thousand dollars for the repairs. She said the $4,000 offered by Service Line Warranties would have covered her job.
Whitworth became one of the nearly 9 percent of Roeland Park property owners to sign up for a warranty after the first round of letters went out in that city.
Roeland Park City Administrator Aaron Otto said the city isn?t trying to twist any arms.
?It was made clear in the first sentence that this was a voluntary program,? Otto said.
Prairie Village and Roeland Park fielded calls from some residents who wanted to know whether the letters were legitimate.
Similar letters in Buckhannon, W.Va., last year had phones ringing off the hook at City Hall. Mayor Kenny Davidson acknowledged the city had entered a contract with Service Line Warranties of West Virginia, but he complained that the letters sent out by the company were ?misleading and confusing,? according to The Record Delta newspaper. The company agreed to revise the letters.
?People need to know that they?re dealing with a private company and not the city,? the mayor said.
Utility Service Partners, the parent company, calls its arrangements with municipalities ?co-branded marketing services agreements.?
According to a National League of Cities fact sheet, the use of a city?s return address on the outside of the envelope ?drives a very high ?open rate? and the city seal and signature lend credibility to the offer, thus driving a much higher enrollment rate.?
The insurance company also notes that the city?s image is enhanced because the public sees the warranty program as a service offered by the city.
Brad Carmichael, vice president for business development for Utility Service Partners, said other vendors offer similar products but his company pioneered the city partnership model that so far includes 81 municipalities in 23 states. Overland Park and Kansas City decided to pass. The company does not have any partnerships in Missouri and it does not sell warranties to individuals who are not in partnership cities.
But another company that offers sewer and water line warranties last week announced its entry into the Kansas City area market. Nicor Services will provide sewer line and water line warranties for anyone in the area.
In Johnson County, WaterOne has agreed to partner with a different vendor, HomeServe USA, to offer warranties for water service-line repairs beginning after the first of the year, said utility spokeswoman Eileen Koutelas.
As for sewer service, Johnson County Wastewater has considered partnering with a warranty provider, but no decision has been made, said General Manager John O?Neil.
Prairie Village and Roeland Park officials said they agreed to enter partnerships with Service Line Warranties because it sounded like a good option to offer their citizens. Neither city expects a windfall from the revenue-sharing arrangement. Enslinger estimates Prairie Village has racked up maybe $5,000 from the deal so far.
?We would have done it without the sharing agreement,? he said.
Source: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/13/3264453/cities-join-insurance-pitch.html
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SPARTANBURG, S.C. ? As he has for most all of the previous eight Republican debates he?s been in, Mitt Romney emerged unscathed from the first joint candidate forum devoted to foreign policy.
None of the GOP frontrunner?s primary opponents attacked him by name here, choosing instead to level harsh attacks on President Barack Obama.
Continue ReadingNewt Gingrich, the candidate surging in the polls as Romney?s most formidable challenger even went so far as to flatly declare that he would not repeat a line of attack he?s used with increasing frequency against the former Massachusetts governor: that Romney was merely a ?manager? and incapable of changing Washington, D.C.
?No,? the former speaker told moderator Major Garrett of National Journal after Garrett asked him to apply the criticism to foreign policy.
Reminded that he had just attacked Romney along those lines in an interview, Gingrich, standing next to his GOP rival, suggested that he didn?t want to attack a fellow Republican during a debate.
?We?re here tonight to talk to the American people about why every single one of us is better than Barack Obama,? said the former speaker, drawing applause that suggested the GOP activists in the hall at Wofford College concurred.
With partisan Republican audiences at the debates, the GOP hopefuls appear to have made a calculation that, at the forums at least, there is more risk than reward in taking on their intra-party opponents. But while hammering Obama is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, it?s less clear how it helps those candidates lagging behind Romney make up ground.
Jon Huntsman, whose campaign is singularly focused on defeating Romney in New Hampshire, came the closest here to criticizing the frontrunner ? but only obliquely.
?I don?t know that this country needs a trade war with China,? Huntsman said after Romney offered some tough talk on Beijing.
Asked after the debate about the lack of Romney criticism, Huntsman repeated his disagreement with the former Massachusetts governor on China policy.
Romney campaign officials are, of course, just fine with the lack of incoming. They suggest candidates have become reluctant to aim their fire at their candidate because of what?s happened to those Romney rivals who tried and failed to do so in the past.
?Look what happened to [Tim] Pawlenty when he did that,? said Romney strategist Stuart Stevens, recalling the former GOP hopeful?s bungled ?Obamneycare? attack on the frontrunner at a debate earlier this year.
Rick Perry also seemed to gain little from his stinging attack at a debate in Las Vegas last month on Mitt Romney?s use of illegal immigrants for lawncare.
?I think one thing we?ve learned from the debates is that we?re not falling into the trap of circling the wagons and destroying each other,? said Katon Dawson, a former South Carolina GOP chair and Perry adviser. ?At the end of the day, the Republicans get tired of the nit-picking.?
And, Stevens noted, the format here at the CBS-National Journal foreign policy debate didn?t lend itself to throwing elbows.
?What are they going to attack him on in a debate like this?? asked the strategist.
The eight Republicans on stage did, however, were glad to go after the president.
?If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon,? Romney said. ?And if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.?
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WASHINGTON ? Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren is filling a void for liberal but disillusioned Democrats who flocked to President Barack Obama in 2008. She's attracting attention, money and help the liberal left isn't yet eager to give to Obama.
A longtime consumer advocate, the Harvard University professor has cast herself as a crusader against corporations and once said her work provided the "intellectual foundation" of the Occupy Wall Street movement ? a statement Warren later backed away from. She's drawing large crowds and flexing her fundraising muscle with help from national progressive groups as her candidacy has caught fire among the small army of activists who dominate the party in the traditionally liberal state.
"America's middle class has been hammered for a generation and we've got a Congress that just doesn't get it and that's what this race is about. That's what people want to talk about ... I'm not discovering something new. I'm just giving voice to something that they are living," Warren said on Sunday after meeting with about 1,000 supporters at an athletic facility in Boston.
Warren raised more than $3 million for the fundraising quarter that ended Sept. 30. That was roughly more than twice as much as incumbent Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who is using her lefty appeal as a rallying cry for the right. Nearly 70 percent of the money she raised came from outside Massachusetts, while just 37 percent of Brown's third-quarter money came from out of state.
Liberals have grown increasingly disenchanted as Obama wrestled with a divided government following the 2010 congressional elections when Republicans won the House. They cringed when he cut a deal with Republicans to extend Bush-era tax cuts, and they said he gave up too much in spending cuts during the debt-ceiling fight.
Early in the administration, liberals were frustrated that Obama ditched a proposed "public option" in the health care debate that would have allowed a government-run health insurance option.
A UMass Lowell-Boston Herald poll released Oct. 2 found that in Massachusetts, half the state's Democrats said Obama has compromised too much, while four in 10 Democrats said Obama had fallen short of their expectations. Nationally, about one in four Democrats said Obama had been cooperating too much with Republicans in trying to fix the economy, an Associated Press-GfK Poll in October showed.
"She's coming at just the right time," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., a leading House liberal. "There are a lot of progressives and liberals who feel let down that Obama is not fighting hard enough for some of the causes they care about. And so here comes Elizabeth Warren to kind of fill that void and to provide a way for people to fight again for what they believe in."
Warren was tapped by Obama last year to set up a new consumer protection agency, but congressional Republicans opposed her becoming the director and Obama last summer decided not to pick her to head the new agency.
Of course, Obama generated even more enthusiasm among liberals, new voters and independents in 2008, exciting millions of voters and packing stadiums during his presidential campaign of hope and change. But after four years of actual governance, many on the left are disappointed.
"At some point excitement meets reality," said Steve McMahon, a longtime Democratic strategist who was a senior aide on Howard Dean's 2004 presidential bid.
Warren has emerged as the leading Democratic challenger to Brown in what promises to be a marquee race in 2012. Recent polls show Warren, a 62-year-old grandmother who grew up in Oklahoma, running about even with Brown. Two of her primary opponents have already dropped out.
Brown's seat, held for nearly a half-century by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, has special resonance for Democrats. It's also considered their best shot at taking a seat from Republicans.
Yet Brown is a strong fundraiser and he appeals to independents who have strong sway in Massachusetts races.
The UMass-Herald poll showed Brown leading Warren among independents, 48 percent to 29 percent. Brown, too, has $10.5 million in his campaign account, more than three times Warren's cash holdings.
After claiming credit for the Occupy Wall Street protests, Warren said she meant to say that she had been protesting against Wall Street abuses for a long time. Republicans pounced, pointing to arrests of some protesters in Boston and Oakland, Calif.
Despite the gaffe, Democrats who feared the first-time candidate would be clumsy and too professorial have mostly been pleasantly surprised by Warren's folksy but forceful campaigning style.
"Without a doubt, Elizabeth Warren has captured the imagination of Democrats not just in Massachusetts, but across the country," said Setti Warren, the first-term mayor of the affluent Boston suburb of Newton and the state's first popularly elected black mayor. Setti Warren dropped out of the Senate race shortly after Elizabeth Warren got in. The two aren't related.
While other liberal candidates are drawing strong support, particularly Rep. Tammy Baldwin's Senate bid in Wisconsin, Warren has generated the most excitement among liberal activists across the country. The state's primary is set for September 2012.
A video clip of Warren calling for more taxes on the rich drew more than 775,000 views on YouTube.
Underscoring Warren's appeal, MoveOn.org said it raised more than $300,000 for Warren in less than 24 hours. EMILY'S List, which raises money for female Democratic candidates, helped collect $197,394 for Warren while the Progressive Change Campaign Committee helped collect $412,133.
Should she win in Massachusetts, Warren, too, would likely find it difficult in Congress to live up to her campaign rhetoric and match the expectations of her supporters.
"That's the downside to this phenomenon for anybody," said Scott Ferson, a veteran Democratic strategist and former spokesman for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, adding that it's a lot easier for politicians to sell things like hope and change than it is to deliver.
_____
Associated Press Polling Director Trevor Tompson contributed to this report from Washington; AP writer Steve LeBlanc contributed to this report from Boston.
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